Tom Holland, *Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World* (Basic Books, 2019)
Secular humanism, human rights, and social justice are thoroughly biblical inventions
The Scandal of the Cross (σκάνδαλον, 1 Corinthians 1:23)
From Persian crucifixion to 21st-century secular humanism and social justice
Table of contents
- I. Scope: The Revolutionary Thesis of Dominion
- II. Chronological Spine of Holland's Argument
- III. The Scandal of the Cross (1 Corinthians 1:18–25)
- IV. Galatians 3:28: The Universal Fracture of Antiquity
- V. Gregory of Nyssa and the First Abolitionist Exegesis
- VI. The Myth of the Secular Enlightenment
- VII. Woke Culture, Human Rights, and the Biblical Reflex
- VIII. Primary Sources & Selected Bibliography
Related hub notes
I. Scope: The Revolutionary Thesis of Dominion
In his monumental 2019 monograph Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World, classical historian Tom Holland advanced a bold, counter-intuitive thesis: the modern Western mind—including its avowedly secular, agnostic, and anti-religious manifestations—remains utterly captive to the moral, psychological, and biblical revolution inaugurated by Christianity [1].
Holland demonstrates that values modern Westerners take as universal, self-evident human truths—such as innate human rights, the moral dignity of the individual, care for the weak, the critique of arbitrary power, and the separation of church and state—were completely alien to the Greco-Roman classical world. They are the direct fruit of the radical theological explosion centered upon the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and the letters of the Apostle Paul (see Section III: The Scandal of the Cross) [2].
II. Chronological Spine of Holland's Argument
| Epoch | Key Thinker / Event | Biblical & Moral Revolution |
|---|---|---|
| c. 55 AD | Paul writes Galatians & 1 Corinthians | Paul proclaims the 'scandal of the cross' (σκάνδαλον) and the absolute erasure of status hierarchy: 'Neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female' (Galatians 3:28). |
| c. 379 AD | Gregory of Nyssa’s Lent sermons in Cappadocia | Delivers the first known philosophical and biblical attack on the institution of slavery as an affront to Genesis 1:26 (man created in the divine image). |
| c. 1075 | Papal Revolution of Gregory VII | Separates 'secular' from 'sacred' spheres based on Christ's command to 'Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's' (Matthew 22:21). |
| 1789 | The French Enlightenment & Revolution | Voltaire and secular philosophes critique the institutional Church using moral standards of hypocrisy derived directly from the Christian Gospels. |
| 1963 | Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham | Mobilizes the American Civil Rights movement through Amos 5:24 ('Let justice roll down like waters') and the Pauline theology of redemptive suffering. |
| 21st Century | #MeToo & Modern Social Justice Movements | Modern progressive campaigns against sexual exploitation and inequality instinctively operate on Christian moral assumptions regarding the sacred sanctity of the victim. |
↑ Jump to: Scope | Scandal of the Cross | Galatians Equality | Bibliography
III. The Scandal of the Cross (1 Corinthians 1:18–25)
In the ancient Mediterranean world of Greece and Rome, crucifixion was not a religious symbol, but the most horrific, obscene, and degrading torture imaginable, reserved for rebellious slaves and foreign insurgents. The strong dominated the weak by natural right; mercy was viewed by Roman philosophers like Seneca not as a virtue, but as a shameful psychological weakness [1].
Christianity turned this cosmos upside down. When Paul proclaimed that the Almighty Creator God had suffered crucifixion and triumphed through humiliation, weakness, and self-sacrificing love (1 Corinthians 1:23: ἡμεῖς δὲ κηρύσσομεν Χριστὸν ἐσταυρωμένον, Ἰουδαίοις μὲν σκάνδαλον ἔθνεσιν δὲ μωρίαν), he placed the victim at the moral apex of the universe. For the first time in human history, the measure of a civilization became how it treated its weakest and most vulnerable members.
IV. Galatians 3:28: The Universal Fracture of Antiquity
In Galatians 3:28, Paul articulated the most socially explosive sentence of the ancient world [1]:
οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην, οὐκ ἔνι δοῦλος οὐδὲ ἐλεύθερος, οὐκ ἔνι ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ· πάντες γὰρ ὑμεῖς εἷς ἐστε ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ.
"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus."
In a world where Aristotle defined non-Greeks and slaves as 'natural instruments' and Roman law treated women and slaves as chattel property, Paul erased the foundational categorical divisions of antiquity, establishing a universal spiritual equality that would eventually undermine the entire institution of slavery.
V. Gregory of Nyssa and the First Abolitionist Exegesis
In 379 AD, in the Roman province of Cappadocia, Church Father Gregory of Nyssa preached a series of revolutionary Lent sermons on Ecclesiastes. Confronting Roman slaveholders, Gregory delivered the first uncompromising abolitionist critique in antiquity, founded upon Genesis 1:26–27 [3]:
"You condemn man to slavery, whose nature is free and autonomous... How much does reason reckon for the value of a slave? How many obols for the image of God? Who can purchase human nature, when God Himself said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness'?"
VI. The Myth of the Secular Enlightenment
Holland systematically dismantles the popular secular myth that the Enlightenment was an escape from Christian superstition that recovered classical Greco-Roman rationalism [1]:
There is no concept of universal individual human rights in Aristotle, Plato, or Cicero. Rights exist only because every human being bears the sacred image of God (Genesis 1:27).
The concept of the 'secular' (saeculum) was invented by Christian theologians (Augustine, Gregory VII) to distinguish the temporal age from the eternal City of God.
VII. Woke Culture, Human Rights, and the Biblical Reflex
In the concluding chapters of Dominion, Holland observes that modern culture wars and progressive social justice movements—even when fiercely anti-Christian in their public rhetoric—are profoundly Christian in their moral reflexes [1]:
"To be 'woke' is to be possessed of an intense conviction that the powerful must be brought low and the marginalized exalted... It is an instinct that is not Greek, not Roman, not Confucian, not Islamic. It is distinctively, indelibly Christian."
VIII. Primary Sources & Selected Bibliography
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