Rome not only destroyed the texts, but those who b

The Roman Catholic Church, it must be remembered, only had authority over a relatively small portion of the once vast Roman Empire. Western Europe experienced a “Dark Ages” that the East never truly did. The Muslim Caliphs were mostly tolerant rulers, allowing Christians to practice their faith in peace, yet always ready to intervene should violence erupt over doctrinal differences. For this reason, Monophysites, Nestorians, Apollinarians, and Sabellians, etc., still survive today in the Middle East (though far less tolerated by present-day Arabic governments than they had been in the Golden Age of Islam). In fact, I have been in communication with a Monophysite Church in Cairo … Origen is still widely and lovingly read by Coptic Christians. My point here is that the political situation differed widely among the various portions of the old Roman Empire. Origen’s texts fared quite differently in Syria, for example, than they did in France. The East tends to have a longer memory than the West, which is why the ancient Gnostic sect of the Mandaeans still survives along the border of Iraq and Iran (or, I should say, let us hope they still survive, given the present madness in that part of the world).