"Must I repeat myself?" asked History.

There's this great book called A History of Knowledge written by Charles Van Doren (that dude who cheated on that Quiz Show). Despite its bashful title, the book is actually filled with fascinating analysis by Van Doren into historical knowledge trends, from the origins of the major religions, to the birth of scientific concepts, etc. In it, Van Doren posits that there have been two major knowledge explosions in the history of mankind:

1. The first came from the Greeks and gave us Pythagoras' and Aristotle's attempts to explain natural phenomena through science; Plato's brainstorming on new types of government; Euclid's geometry (much of which is still taught today); Cicero's ruminations on the balance between freedom and security; and a bunch of other assorted crap like that.
   
2. The second knowledge explosion is what we call the Renaissance, which started in Europe sometime around the 15th century and continues today. This one has given us Newtonian and Einsteinian physics; the emergence of the bourgeoisie; the modern Democratic experiment; the Age of Enlightenment; the calculus; the threat of global nuclear annihilation; and pop music.

The question is, why were there two knowledge explosions instead of one continous knowledge explosion? What brought an end to the first one? Or should I say, what interrupted mankind's advancement in knowledge?

During the first of the two knowledge explosions, the Greeks passed the baton to the Romans, who carried it until roughly the time when the Western Empire collapsed. After seeing their proud empire destroyed by external invaders, internal revolt, and other factors beyond their control, the Romans, in their hopelessness, turned to God. Emperor Constantine had already turned the Western Roman Empire into a Christian outfit, so the people looked to the Christian church for advice, which Saint Augustine provided in the form of a book called The City of God. Augustine's book provided a kind-of "sour grapes" excuse for the Romans. "What good is all that fancy book-learnin'," it asked, "when you're all gonna meet your maker soon anyhow?" (I'm paraphrasing). The book encouraged the best and brightest of the population to give up their earthly pursuits (such as math, science, art, etc.), and focus all their energy on humiliating themselves before their god. This approach to life and learning was so smashingly successful that we lovingly refer to the ensuing period as the Dark Ages.

So basically, a bunch of religious men (well-meaning or not), effectively killed mankind's cultural advancement for about a thousand years by subjugating man's aspirations to their religious will.

Will our second "knowledge explosion" be also interrupted? Sometimes it seems like there are people trying to move in that direction.