Argument

Christians Destroyed Pagan Temples Objection Defeater

Intro

The objection goes like this: "Early Christians destroyed other people's idols, altars and temples, and they persecuted other religions. Christianity won by wrecking everything else."

The honest answer starts with yes. In the late 300s and 400s, after Christian emperors came to power, some Christians did smash temples and statues, and Roman law banned pagan sacrifice. A Christian crowd tore down the great temple of Serapis in Alexandria around 391. A bishop in Syria named Marcellus pulled down temples and was killed for it. A pagan teacher named Libanius begged the emperor to stop monks from wrecking country shrines. Those were real wrongs, and Christians should say so plainly.

But four things change the picture.

First, the timing. For about 280 years, Christians held no power at all. They were the ones being persecuted. In 303 the emperor Diocletian ordered churches torn down and Christian Scriptures burned. The faith grew to millions of people during those years, with nothing to force anyone. Temple-smashing came after the growth, not before it.

Second, the scale. Historians who study the ruins find that most temples were not knocked down. Many were closed, left empty, or turned into other buildings. The violence was real, but it happened in certain places at certain times.

Third, the teaching. Jesus rebuked two disciples who wanted to call fire down on a village that rejected Him. He told Peter to put away his sword. Paul walked through Athens, upset by its idols, and argued with people instead of breaking anything. Early Christian writers said that religion cannot be forced.

Fourth, the standard. The belief that it is wrong to force someone's religion, the very standard the objection uses, was argued by Christians long before it was common.

So the objection proves that some Christians disobeyed Christ. It does not prove that Christ was wrong, or that the faith spread by force.

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In full

Defeater for the objection in three forms. (A) The destruction form: "Christians destroyed the temples, idols and altars of other religions." (B) The persecution form: "Once in power, Christians persecuted pagans, Jews and other religions." (C) The causal form: "That is how Christianity won: it did not out-argue paganism, it demolished it."

The neighbors divide the labor. Christianity Spread Only by the Sword Objection Defeater answers the claim that force explains the spread, with the growth figures before 312. Hypatia Murder Objection Defeater takes the single most famous case of anti-pagan violence in Alexandria. Religion Causes Violence Objection Defeater answers the general charge against religion. This page takes the specific record of temples, altars and laws against pagan worship between 303 and the 400s.

The defeat structure has five steps. (1) Concession: the acts happened, are documented in Christian and pagan sources alike, and were wrong by Christ's own standard. (2) Timeline: for nearly three centuries the church had no state power and was the target of exactly this kind of destruction (Diocletian's first edict of 303 ordered churches razed and Scriptures burned); the anti-pagan laws come from 380 onward. (3) Scale: regional studies (Dijkstra on Egypt) and the archaeology of temples (Lavan and Mulryan's volume) treat violent destruction as local and case-specific, with abandonment, closure and reuse as the common fates. (4) Teaching versus conduct: the Gospels, the apostolic practice in Acts and the pre-Constantinian fathers all reject coercion in religion, and the Old Testament commands to destroy altars were given to Israel for the land of Canaan, not to the church. (5) Borrowed standard: the objection's own premise, that forcing religion is wrong, was argued by Tertullian and Lactantius against Rome before it became a general principle.

What the page does not claim. It does not deny that Christian emperors, bishops, monks and mobs destroyed temples or that Roman law under Christian emperors punished pagan worship. It does not claim the destruction was trivial for those who suffered it. It claims that these acts contradict the teaching they claimed to serve, came after the faith's great growth rather than causing it, and were narrower than the popular story.

Argument structure

Form

Defensive (a defeater). P1 is a concession stated in full, because a defense that minimizes documented violence loses the room. P2 is a timeline test that separates the faith's growth from the period of state power. P3 is a scale test from regional and archaeological scholarship. P4 is a teaching-versus-conduct test: does the act flow from the founder's teaching or against it? P5 is a borrowed-standard turn. Soundness is contemporary: it rests on dated legal texts and church histories, a pagan orator's own complaint, and current scholarship on late antique religious violence, which is an active debate.

Cheatsheet

The 30-second reply (read aloud). Yes, it happened, and it was wrong. After the emperors became Christian, some Christians smashed temples and statues, and Roman law banned pagan sacrifice. I won't defend that. But look at the dates. For almost three hundred years Christians had no power, and Rome was tearing down their churches and burning their Bibles. The church grew to millions in those years without breaking a single idol. Then look at what Jesus taught: when His disciples wanted to call down fire on a village, He rebuked them. And the people who first said "you can't force religion" were Christians, arguing against Rome. So when Christians later wrecked temples, they were disobeying Christ, not following Him. Which are you judging: the teaching, or the people who broke it?

The 5 fast facts:

1. 303, the other way round. Diocletian's first edict commanded "that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire" (Eusebius, Church History 8.2, NPNF).
2. 380 and 391-392. Nicene Christianity became the state religion by the edict Cunctos populos (27 February 380; Theodosian Code XVI.1.2). Laws of 391 and 8 November 392 banned sacrifice and temple worship (Theodosian Code XVI.10.10-12).
3. The Serapeum, about 391. The great temple of Serapis in Alexandria was destroyed under Bishop Theophilus. The sources disagree on whether he had an imperial order (Sozomen 7.15) or acted on his own (Theodoret 5.22).
4. The pagan voice. Libanius told Theodosius that monks "run to the temples, bringing with them wood, and stones, and iron," "even whilst your law is in force" (Oration 30, For the Temples), and that "the temples are the soul of the country."
5. Before power, Christians said no. Tertullian (about 212): "It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion" (To Scapula 2). Lactantius: "religion cannot be imposed by force," and it is to be defended "not by putting to death, but by dying" (Divine Institutes V.20).

The 3 strongest counter-moves:

• "Who was burning whose buildings in 303?" Ask which group's places of worship were being destroyed by imperial order before Constantine.
• "Did Jesus or Paul ever tell anyone to destroy a temple?" Then read Luke 9:54-55 and Acts 19:37.
• "Why do you think forcing religion is wrong?" Then point out who argued it first.

Reciprocal concessions (grant the small point, then collect a bigger one):

• Grant: Christian emperors outlawed pagan sacrifice and Christian crowds destroyed temples, the Serapeum among them. Now collect: then you agree the faith already had the numbers to elect, so to speak, an emperor. Those numbers came from three centuries of growth with no state, no army and no temple-smashing.
• Grant: Augustine came to defend state pressure against the Donatists, citing "compel them to come in" (Luke 14:23; Letter 93), and he admitted he had once opposed it. Now collect: then the earlier church taught the opposite, and Augustine's own reversal shows that coercion was a later development, not the founding doctrine.
• Grant: Ambrose of Milan pressed Theodosius to drop his order that a bishop rebuild the synagogue Christians burned at Callinicum (388; Ambrose, Letter 40). Now collect: then you are judging Ambrose by Jesus' command to love enemies (Matthew 5:44). That is a Christian standard, and it condemns him.
• Grant: the Law of Moses commanded Israel to break down Canaanite altars (Deuteronomy 7:5). Now collect: the command was for "the land which Jehovah... hath given thee to possess" (Deuteronomy 12:1), under the Mosaic covenant; no apostle applied it to Rome, Athens or Ephesus.

The closing line. The temple-smashers of the 390s had to ignore the Jesus who rebuked fire from heaven. The church that grew to millions before them never needed a hammer.

P1, It happened, and it was wrong

Affirmative case

1. The laws. Under Theodosius I, Valentinian II and Arcadius, Roman law moved from favoring Christianity to suppressing pagan cult. The edict Cunctos populos (27 February 380) declared the faith "delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter" the religion of the empire (Theodosian Code XVI.1.2). A law of 24 February 391 forbade blood sacrifice and entry into the temples (XVI.10.10); a further law of 391 closed the temples (XVI.10.11); a comprehensive law of 8 November 392 forbade sacrifice and even incense and garlands before images, for any person of any rank (XVI.10.12).
2. The Serapeum. The temple of Serapis at Alexandria was destroyed about 391 under Bishop Theophilus, after street fighting between pagans and Christians. Socrates Scholasticus (Church History 5.16) and Sozomen (7.15) report it as Christians; the pagan Eunapius describes it as a mob's assault. The exact date and whether an imperial order lay behind it are disputed.
3. Marcellus of Apamea. Sozomen reports that Bishop Marcellus ordered the temples of Apamea and its villages torn down, "under the supposition that it would not be easy otherwise for them to be converted," and that the pagans of the district eventually killed him (Church History 7.15). His death is traditionally dated about 389.
4. The monks. Libanius, the leading pagan orator of Antioch, wrote For the Temples (Oration 30, in the 380s, often dated 386) to Theodosius, complaining that monks attacked country shrines with "wood, and stones, and iron" even while the law forbade it.
5. Jews too. In 388 Christians burned the synagogue at Callinicum on the Euphrates. Theodosius ordered the bishop to rebuild it; Ambrose of Milan protested (Letter 40), and the order was dropped.
6. Hypatia. In 415 a Christian mob in Alexandria murdered the philosopher Hypatia. That case has its own page: Hypatia Murder Objection Defeater.

Anticipated objections

1. "You admit it. Then the objection wins."
2. "These weren't fringe people. They were emperors and bishops."

Rebuttals

1. It wins the point it proves. The objection proves that Christians did these things. It does not prove the further claims it usually carries: that this is how the faith spread, that it was the general pattern, or that it follows from Christ's teaching. P2 to P5 test those.
2. Granted, and that is why it matters. Rank does not make an act Christian. A bishop who tears down a temple and an emperor who outlaws a neighbor's worship are measured by the same Gospel as everyone else (P4). The church has long honored Marcellus as a martyr; a reader can grant his courage and still judge his method against Luke 9:55.

P2, For 280 years the sword pointed the other way

Affirmative case

1. The church had no power. From the crucifixion to 312, no Roman emperor was Christian. Christians had no army, no courts and no legal standing as a body.
2. It was the target of destruction. Diocletian's first edict, early in 303, commanded "that the churches be leveled to the ground and the Scriptures be destroyed by fire" (Eusebius, Church History 8.2, NPNF). Lactantius places the destruction of the church at Nicomedia on 23 February 303, the day before the edict was posted.
3. Toleration came only in 311 and 313. Galerius's edict of 311 and the agreement of Constantine and Licinius in 313 (Edict of Milan) gave Christians, and every other religion, freedom of worship. Establishment came in 380.
4. The growth came first. By the year 300 there were millions of Christians, about one in ten in the empire on Rodney Stark's estimate and 2 to 3 million on Bart Ehrman's lower one. The figures and sources are set out in Christianity Spread Only by the Sword Objection Defeater.

Anticipated objections

1. "Christians only behaved because they were too weak to do otherwise."
2. "Diocletian was provoked; Christians were disloyal."

Rebuttals

1. Their writers said the opposite, while weak. Tertullian and Lactantius did not say "wait until we have power." They argued that compulsion in religion is wrong in principle (P4). An objector can claim they were insincere, but must supply evidence beyond the later conduct of other people.
2. Then the objection has changed sides. If burning churches and Scriptures was justified by disloyalty, the same excuse is available to Theodosius. The objector cannot condemn 391 and excuse 303.

P3, The destruction was local, not a program

Affirmative case

1. Case by case. Jitse Dijkstra, a specialist in late antique Egypt, argues that religious violence "needs to be analysed on a case-by-case basis" in its local circumstances, examining Alexandria, Panopolis and Philae ("Religious violence in late antique Egypt reconsidered," in Mayer and de Wet, eds., Reconceiving Religious Conflict, 2018).
2. Philae. In Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion (2008), Dijkstra argues that the traditional story of a violent end at Philae is too simple: Christians and worshipers of Isis lived side by side on the island for a long time, and the temple was closed only under Justinian, about 535-537.
3. The archaeology of temples. Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan's volume The Archaeology of Late Antique 'Paganism' (Brill, 2011) surveys the material evidence across the empire for the abandonment, destruction, reuse and conversion of temples from the third to the seventh century. Lavan's introduction, "The End of the Temples: Towards a New Narrative," calls for revising the familiar story of religious conflict in light of that evidence.
4. The pagan complaint itself. Libanius protests that the monks act "even whilst your law is in force." His speech is evidence that the attacks he describes were local raids outside the law, not the law itself.

Anticipated objections

1. "Absence of archaeological evidence doesn't mean temples weren't destroyed."
2. "Closing temples by law is persecution even without demolition."

Rebuttals

1. True, and the claim here is modest. P3 does not deny destruction; it denies that destruction was the general fate of temples or the engine of conversion. Where the literary sources report destruction, this page accepts it (P1).
2. Agreed. Closing a people's places of worship by law is coercion, and this page does not call it anything else. The question P3 answers is whether Christianity's growth can be explained by demolition. Laws of the 390s cannot explain conversions of the 200s.

P4, The acts contradict the teaching

Affirmative case

1. Jesus rebuked the request for fire. When a Samaritan village refused Him, "his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we bid fire to come down from heaven, and consume them? But he turned, and rebuked them. And they went to another village" (Luke 9:54-56, ASV).
2. Jesus refused the sword. "Put up again thy sword into its place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword" (Matthew 26:52, ASV). "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight" (John 18:36, ASV).
3. Paul argued; he did not smash. At Athens "his spirit was provoked within him as he beheld the city full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and in the marketplace every day with them that met him" (Acts 17:16-17, ASV). He then used one of their altars as his starting point (Acts 17:23).
4. Even opponents said so. At Ephesus, during a riot over the goddess Artemis, the town clerk told the crowd that Paul's companions were "neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess" (Acts 19:37, ASV).
5. The weapons are not of the flesh. "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds" (2 Corinthians 10:4, ASV).
6. The fathers before Constantine. Tertullian, writing to a persecuting governor about 212: "It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion, to which free-will and not force should lead us" (To Scapula 2, ANF 3). Lactantius, writing during or just after the Great Persecution: "religion cannot be imposed by force," and it must be defended "not by putting to death, but by dying" (Divine Institutes V.20, ANF 7).

Anticipated objections

1. "The Bible itself commands smashing altars."
2. "That's a No True Scotsman: you just disown the bad Christians."

Rebuttals

1. To Israel, in Canaan, under Moses. Deuteronomy 7:5 tells Israel to "break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars," and Deuteronomy 12:1-3 repeats it, but 12:1 sets the scope: statutes to observe "in the land which Jehovah, the God of thy fathers, hath given thee to possess it." It was a command about Israel's own land under the Mosaic covenant (Canaanite Conquest Objection Defeater, Canaanite Conquest and Herem). The apostles, living among idols in Athens and Ephesus, never applied it, as Acts 17 and 19 show.
2. No; they are still Christians, and still wrong. The defense does not say the temple-wreckers were not Christians. It says their acts run against the teaching they professed, which is a claim that can be checked against texts. That is the difference between a fallacy and a test (No True Scotsman Fallacy).

P5, The objection borrows a Christian standard

Affirmative case

1. The objection assumes religion should not be forced. Its force depends on the premise that destroying a people's worship and compelling belief is wrong.
2. Christians argued that premise against Rome. Tertullian and Lactantius made the case for free, uncoerced religion while Rome was forcing Christians to sacrifice, before any emperor was Christian.
3. The critics of the temple-wreckers used Christ's standard. To condemn Marcellus or Theophilus by Luke 9:55 is to use the Gospel against them. Tom Holland's Dominion (2019) makes the wider case that modern Western moral instincts, including concern for the victim, descend from Christianity (Tom Holland).

Anticipated objections

1. "You don't need Christianity to believe in religious freedom."

Rebuttals

1. Agreed, today. The point is narrower: the objection cannot use the standard as a weapon against Christianity's teaching, because the teaching is one of its sources. It can use it against Christians who broke that teaching, and this page joins in.

Conclusion

Some Christians, chiefly after 380 and with imperial backing, destroyed temples and outlawed pagan worship. That is a stain, and it should be confessed. But the church grew to millions while it was itself being persecuted, the destruction was local rather than a single program, and the acts ran against the explicit teaching of Jesus, the practice of the apostles and the arguments of the early fathers. The objection convicts the disobedient, not the Lord they disobeyed.

Cross-examination

Four rounds, asked in order.

Round 1, Which period?

1. Question: "When do you think Christians started destroying temples?"
2. Expected answer: "From the beginning."
3. Follow-up: "Can you name a case before Constantine, before 312?"
4. Expected answer: "I'm not sure."
5. Follow-up: "The cases we know, the Serapeum, Marcellus, the monks Libanius wrote about, are from the 380s and 390s. What were Christians doing for the 280 years before that?"

Round 2, Who was burning whose buildings?

1. Question: "In 303, whose places of worship did the Roman government order torn down?"
2. Expected answer: "The Christians'."
3. Follow-up: "And whose scriptures were burned?"
4. Expected answer: "The Christians'."
5. Follow-up: "So the first state program of destroying a religion's buildings in this story was aimed at the church. Do you condemn that one too?"

Round 3, What did Jesus teach?

1. Question: "Can you point to a place where Jesus or an apostle told believers to destroy a temple or force a conversion?"
2. Expected answer: "The Old Testament says to break down altars."
3. Follow-up: "To Israel, in the land of Canaan, under the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 12:1). What did Paul do in Athens, a city full of idols?"
4. Expected answer: "Preached."
5. Follow-up: "And when James and John wanted fire from heaven on a village, what did Jesus do? So who were the temple-smashers following?"

Round 4, Whose standard?

1. Question: "Why is it wrong to force someone's religion?"
2. Expected answer: "Because belief should be free."
3. Follow-up: "Tertullian said that to a Roman governor around 212: it is no part of religion to compel religion. Lactantius said religion cannot be imposed by force. Are you agreeing with them?"

Dodge table

Live-cite kit

Scripture:

• Luke 9:54-56, Jesus rebukes the request for fire.
• Matthew 26:52 and John 18:36, no sword for the kingdom.
• Matthew 5:44, love your enemies.
• Acts 17:16-17 and Acts 17:23, Paul in a city full of idols.
• Acts 19:37, "neither robbers of temples."
• 2 Corinthians 10:4, weapons not of the flesh.
• Deuteronomy 7:5 with Deuteronomy 12:1-3, the Mosaic command and its stated scope.

Patristic:

• Tertullian, To Scapula 2: "It is assuredly no part of religion to compel religion."
• Lactantius, Divine Institutes V.20: "religion cannot be imposed by force"; "not by putting to death, but by dying."
• Eusebius, Church History 8.2: the edict of 303 against churches and Scriptures.

Primary sources on the destruction (the objection's own evidence):

• Theodosian Code XVI.1.2 (380) and XVI.10.10-12 (391-392).
• Sozomen, Church History 7.15 (Serapeum; Marcellus of Apamea). Socrates Scholasticus, Church History 5.16 (Serapeum).
• Libanius, Oration 30, For the Temples.
• Ambrose, Letter 40 (Callinicum, 388). Augustine, Letter 93 (coercion of the Donatists).

Scholarly: Jitse H. F. Dijkstra, "Religious violence in late antique Egypt reconsidered" (2018) and Philae and the End of Ancient Egyptian Religion (2008); Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan, eds., The Archaeology of Late Antique 'Paganism' (2011).

Aphorism: "The church grew for three hundred years without breaking an idol. The hammer came later, and it came from disobedience."

Connection to Scripture

• Luke 9:54-56, the fire Jesus refused to call down.
• Matthew 26:52, the sword put away.
• Acts 17:22-31, the Areopagus speech, persuasion at the foot of the idols.
• Acts 19:23-41, the Ephesian riot, where the threat came from the temple's defenders, not the apostles.
• 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, arguments, not arms, cast down strongholds.

Scholarship

Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record.

• Jitse H. F. Dijkstra, Philae and the end of ancient Egyptian religion (2008). Open Library
• Tom Holland, Dominion (2019). Open Library
• Luke Lavan and Michael Mulryan, The Archaeology of Late Antique 'Paganism' (Brill, 2011). doi:10.1163/ej.9789004192379.i-643
• Wendy Mayer and Chris L. de Wet, Reconceiving Religious Conflict (2018). Open Library

See also

• Christianity Spread Only by the Sword Objection Defeater, the growth figures before 312 and the colonial question.
• Hypatia Murder Objection Defeater and Hypatia, the most famous case of anti-pagan violence in Alexandria.
• Religion Causes Violence Objection Defeater and Religion Causes Violence Objection, the general charge.
• Edict of Milan and Constantine, toleration in 313 and what it did and did not do.
• Church at Alexandria and Cyril of Alexandria, the Alexandrian church of the period.
• Ambrose of Milan, the Callinicum affair.
• Augustine, who moved from opposing to defending state coercion of the Donatists.
• Tertullian and Eusebius of Caesarea, the pre-Constantinian voice and the historian of the Great Persecution.
• Canaanite Conquest Objection Defeater, the Mosaic command and its scope.
• Forced Conversion By Sword Objection Defeater, the parallel debate about Islam.
• Christians Behaving Badly Defeater, when believers fail their own faith.
• Historical Evidence for the Martyrs, the Christians who died rather than kill.
• Atheism, the master hub.