Furthermore, the early years of Christianity may have had theological disputes, but not bloody ones.
you serious?
* As soon as Christianity became legal in the Roman Empire by imperial edict
(315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan
priests were killed.
* Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
* Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegean, the
Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, and the Heliopolis.
* Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous
as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
* Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
* Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because
they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian
teachings..."
* In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
* In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand
of Christian authorities. [DA466]
* The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces
with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister
named Peter, in a church, in 415.
* Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to
Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
* Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes:
between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near
Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
* 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights
of the Order. Number of victims unknown.
Crusades (1095-1291)
* First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
* Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96
thousands. [WW23]
* 9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then Turkish), thousands respectively.
[WW25-27]
* Until January 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered
(number of slain unknown) [WW30]
* After 6/3/98 Antioch (then Turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000
slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women and children) killed. [WW32-35]
Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's]
tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian
chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
* Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the
subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the
Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
* Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (Jewish, Muslim,
men, women, and children). [WW37-40]
In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a
carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after
that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Savior’s tomb, to honor
it and to pay off our debt of gratitude."
* The Archbishop of Tire, eyewitness wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the
vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human
bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not
alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions
that roused the horror of all that looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to
gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an
ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within
the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
* Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer
in all of Palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million
victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
* Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of
Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
* Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims
unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
* Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akron 1291 probably 20 million
victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224]
Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.
Heretics and Atheists
* Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six
followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
* Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth
control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in
huge campaigns all over the Roman Empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E.
Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
* Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
The Albigensians (Cathars) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would
not accept Roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (the greatest single mass
murderer prior to the Nazi era) in 1209. Beziérs (today France) 7/22/1209
destroyed all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Number of victims (including
Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbors and friends) estimated
between 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
* Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
* Subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the
population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
* After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and
destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
* Estimated one million victims (Cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
* Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many
others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today,
yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred
thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the
New World).
* Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada, a former Dominican friar, allegedly was
responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
* John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the
stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
* Michael Sattler, leader of a Baptist community, was burned at the stake in
Rottenburg, Germany, May 20, 1527. Several days later his wife and other
followers were also executed. [KM]
* University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
* Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven
years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on
2/17/1600.
* Thomas Aikenhead, a twenty-year-old Scottish student of Edinburgh
University, was hanged for atheism and blasphemy.
Witches
* From the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several
thousand.
* In the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several
hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
* Incomplete list of documented cases:
The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times
* 15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
* 1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English
as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
* 1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in
(then Spanish) Netherlands. [DO31]
Between 5000 and 6000 Protestants were drowned by Spanish Catholic Troops,
"a disaster the burghers of Emden first realized when several thousand broadbrimmed
Dutch hats floated by." [SH216]
* 1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope
Pious V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
* 17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After
murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his
hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then,
deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again
[... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and
carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
* 17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000
Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded,"
reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their
lifeless mothers." [SH191]
* 17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of
population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]
Jews
* Already in the 4th and 5th centuries Christians burned synagogues. Number of
Jews slain unknown.
* In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on
command of Bishop Innocent of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue
known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrates, on command of
the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
* 694 17. Council of Toledo: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated,
and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
* 1010 The Bishop of Limoges (France) had the cities' Jews, who would not
convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
* 1096 First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered, maybe 12.000 total.
Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss,
Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz,
Regensburg, Prague and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prague/
Czech) [EJ]
* 1147 Second Crusade: Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully,
Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
* 1189/90 Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked. [DO40]
* 1235, Fulda/Germany: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
* 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton,
Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
* 1290 Bohemia (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
* 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in
Bavarian, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
* 1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand)
burned. [DO41]
* 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned
alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient
Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
* 1389 In Prague 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
* 1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain,
25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly
colored "badges of shame" that all Jews above the age of ten had been forced to
wear.
* 1492 In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than
150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492.
[MM470-476]
* 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain.
[DO43]
(I feel sick...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of
Auschwitz.
Native Peoples
* Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader)
the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to
propagate Christianity.
* Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the
Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought
to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to
me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
While Columbus described the Indians as "idolaters" and "slaves, as many as
[the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to
the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love
"openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
* On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the
declarations that are required" - the requirement - to claim the ownership for his
Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed
their acceptance (or understanding), the requirement continued:
"I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your
country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and
obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals
who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict
him." [SH66]
* Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay
Colony: "justifying the undertakers of the intended Plantation in New England ... to
carry the Gospel into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against
the Kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
* In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported
smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness
and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead
of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we
possess." [SH109,238]
* On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a
rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural
resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
* The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and Spanish
raids.
* As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be
counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was
very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
* The Indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned
alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take
Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into
hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather
go to hell." [SH70]
* An eyewitness described what happened to his people:
"The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They
built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent
strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Savior
and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and
they were burned alive." [SH72]
Or, on another occasion:
"The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from
some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for
market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute
beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by
dogs." [SH83]
* The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of
Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year
1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the
Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other Caribbean islands, who soon
suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were]
thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less
than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of
people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been
exterminated." [SH75]
* "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and
Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitlán
[Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
* Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other Spanish conquistadors likewise
sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also
sacked Florida).
* "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the
Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were
dead." [SH95]
not all catholic, but enough.
