Huh? Almost all historians view Western Civilization as beginning with Greece in antiquity. The beginnings of the Scientific Method, several branches of math, classical philosophy, the Western artistic tradition of sculpture, Western architecture, Western medicine, and more.
Then you had the Romans, who built great monuments, spread their empire around the entire Mediterranean. The Roman Civilization was not Christian for almost all of its existence.
Western History and the extent of our civilization also includes the Viking period, which changed the nature of Europe dramatically. So Western Civilization predates Christianity by at least 1000 years.
Christianity was still a tiny cult when Jesus died. It really only becomes central to Western Civilization with the Emperor Constantine. In 313 he signed the Edict of Milan that allowed Christians to practice their faith without fear in the Roman empire. So what ever was achieved till then in "the West" was certainly not based on Christianity, prior to the edict it was a underground and outlaw religion.
It took many years and lots of war and killing by Christian armies to complete the conquest of Europe and destroy the last vestiges of European paganism.
One could claim that these peoples were "not civilized" before the Christian killers came to inflict Christian civilization on them, but I'm pretty sure they would have disagreed.
The so-called "Northern Crusades" began in 1193, under the leadership of Pope Celestine III. The subjects of the forced religious conversion included (from Wikipedia):
The official starting point for the Northern Crusades was Pope Celestine III's call in 1193; but the Christian kingdoms of Scandinavia, Poland and the Holy Roman Empire had begun moving to subjugate their pagan neighbors even earlier.So, to sum up: Christianity was not the foundation of Western Civilization but a later arrival, an alien faith the grew up within Western civilizaiton, eventually becoming symbiotic with it's host, while continuing to expand itself by force of arms (much as Islam did in the same period) as well as it's primary means, the creation of powerful and self-replicating memes.The non-Christian people who were objects of the campaigns at various dates included:
- the Polabian Wends, Sorbs, and Obotrites between the Elbe and Oder rivers (by the Saxons, Danes, and Poles, beginning with the Wendish Crusade in 1147)
- the peoples of (present-day) Finland in 1154 (Southwest Finland; disputed), 1249? (Tavastia) and 1293 (Karelia)
- Livonians, Latgallians, Selonians, and Estonians (by the Germans and Danes, 11931227),
- Semigallians and Curonians (12191290),
- Old Prussians,
- Lithuanians and Samogitians (by the Germans, unsuccessfully, 12361316).
From 800 BC and classical antiquity until 30 AD there was no Christianity in the world. But there was Western Civilization. From 30 AD to 330 AD Christianity was a growing religious cult, but not central to the organization or growth of the Roman Empire or other Western societies. For the next 1000 years, from 330 to 1300 AD Christianity spread to eventually encompass all of Europe, a colonization that included both religious and military operations to establish the unity of Europe under the Cross. Many long established parts of Western Civilization were lost to the competing monntheistic-militaristic venture in this era, Islam. Most notably the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the city built by the first Christian emperor of Rome, Constantinople, fell to Islam in 1453.
The period when Christianity when from a cult to the major religion of all of Europe was the Middle Ages, from 5th through 15th century. It's called the Middle Ages now, though when I was a child the term "Dark Ages" was still used in history books. Either way, Christianity was not the harbinger of some greater more civilized Europe, it's rise was coincident with the fall of Rome and the loss of civilization, a period that took almost 1000 years to recover from.
Constantine's role was much bigger than that. For one thing, the Edict of Milan covered most or all religions -- not just Christianity. But Christianity flourished largely because Constantine himself adopted it as his own faith, and he ordered the Christian leadership to seat the Council of Nicaea to develop a unified doctrine regarding the Divinity of Christ.
“It really only becomes central to Western Civilization with the Emperor Constantine.”
Pls see my post #67.