Bede

Which century? Are you saying that the entire corpus of literature was sorted and only what conformed to Christianity was preserved? How do you explain the preservation of Aristotle, Lucretius, the letters of Libanius, the works of Julian the Apostate, Eunapius, Cicero's On the Gods, much of Plato, Apuleus and heretics like Origin?

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Johann_Kaspar

Sorry, read millenium instead of century.
I would rather think about all the literature that was destroyed by xians. The list would be quite longer... Especially with all those historians whose writings about key periods of the 8th and 9th centuries ab urbe condita just "vanished" into thin air...

Bede

Johann,

You might find this article helps clarify your thinking about the loss and preservation of ancient literature:

Christianity and Pagan Literature

I fear the case is not as simplistic as you declare. BTW this comment:

Who are you talking about exactly. The 8th and 9th centuries (50BC to 150AD by our reckoning) are among the best represented by surviving pagan Roman and Greek historians, not to mention a good deal of primary evidence from the period.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Bede

Bumped for Johann, now he is back.