THE DARK AGES (PART 1)

“Dark Ages” is name for a period of time in Western Civilization that is derived from Latin saeculum obscurum (dark age), a phrase first recorded in 1602. The label employs traditional light-versus-darkness imagery to contrast the “darkness” of the period with earlier and later periods of “light.”

The term characterizes the bulk of the Middle Ages (from the 5th to the 13th centuries) as a period of intellectual darkness between the extinguishing of the light of Ancient Greece and Rome, and the Renaissance or rebirth from the 14th century onwards.

The concept of a Dark Age originated in the 1330s with the Italian scholar Francesco Petrarca (July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374). He was known in English as Petrarch. He was a poet and one of the earliest humanists. He is often called the “Father of Humanism.” His sonnets were admired and imitated throughout Europe during the Renaissance and became a model for lyrical poetry. Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as “dark” compared to the light of classical antiquity.

But how did the Western Civilization go from the enlightenment of the Ancient Greek and Roman literature to blind faith indoctrinated and coerced by the leaders of the Christianity Church who had gained power and control over what people did, said, and read? The following statement by one of the most influential “Church Fathers” of all-time, known today as Saint Augustine (his name given to him at birth was Aurelius Augustinus):

“I desire to have knowledge of God and the soul. Of nothing else? Now, of nothing else whatever.”

Augustine wrote these words shortly after becoming a Christian in A.D. 387.

To our ears his words sound parochial, mystical, perhaps irrelevant, or just plain stupid. Yet they signal the emergence of a new conceptual framework in Western civilization. It is a framework that replaced the one fashioned by the Greeks and Romans; a framework that dominated Western civilization for a thousand years—a framework that transformed educational theory of the West.

It seems almost diabolical that a man who himself was very educated with much knowledge would uninspire the masses to learn so relatively little.


Ironically, however, even today he is called a saint.


Now, if your mind is out of darkness, you can see why Western Civilization—being dominated by Christian theology—suffered much ignorance during the dark ages.