In the Name of Heaven

by ENGH, MARY JANE

• ISBN13: 9781591024545
• ISBN10: 1591024544
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-11-01
• Publisher: Prometheus Books

Summary

Religion -- the source of inspiration, hope, and basic values for most of humanity throughout history -- has also been the motive for atrocious persecutions from antiquity to the present. In the Name of Heaven is a wide-ranging historical survey of religious persecution encompassing three millennia and a great diversity of cultures world-wide. Defining religious persecution as "repressive actions initiated or condoned by authorities against their own people on religious grounds", author Mary Jane Engh begins with ancient Egypt, followed by the biblical history of Israel with its accounts of divinely ordered genocides and capital punishment for worshipers of other deities. Chapters are devoted to ancient Greece (Socrates, Alcibiades, and Aristotle, among others, clashed with the religious establishment); the Roman Empire (persecutions of Jews, Christians, and Manichaeans, and the later persecution of pagans and heretics by a Christianised Rome); the Islamic Empire (persecutions of polytheists and dissident Muslims); and medieval and Reformation Europe (where Protestants and Catholics persecuted each other and both persecuted heretics). The twenty-two chapters also cover Asia, Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific area. In an epilogue Engh reviews the new forms of religious persecution from the 20th century to the present -- from major genocides and militant forms of polytheism to persecution of all religion by atheistic governments. Complete with references to further reading, this sobering but factually indisputable survey of religion's dark side enlightens while serving as a warning for the future.

Table of Contents

Introduction	7	(2)
Egypt, Fourteenth Century BCE	9	(10)
Judah and Israel, Seventh Century BCE	19	(10)
Greece, Fifth and Fourth Centuries BCE	29	(10)
Rome, Second and First Centuries BCE	39	(8)
Judea, Second Century BCE	47	(13)
Roman Empire, First and Second Centuries CE	60	(10)
Roman Empire, Third and Fourth Centuries	70	(9)
Persia, Second through Sixth Centuries	79	(10)
Roman Empire, Fourth and Fifth Centuries	89	(11)
The Germanic Kingdoms, Fifth through Eighth Centuries	100	(9)
Byzantine Empire, Sixth through Tenth Centuries	109	(10)
Islamic Empire, Seventh through Fifteenth Centuries	119	(10)
Europe, Eleventh through Fifteenth Centuries	129	(12)
Asia, Fifth through Seventeenth Centuries	141	(9)
Africa, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries	150	(11)
Europe, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries	161	(19)
North and South America, Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries	180	(14)
France, Eighteenth Century	194	(10)
Oceania and Australia, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries	204	(10)
East Asia, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries	214	(12)
Europe, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries	226	(11)
North and South America, Nineteenth Century	237	(14)
Epilogue The Twentieth Century and After	251	(4)
Index	255