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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (50718)	6/13/2002 1:09:26 AM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

"But I confess that I have only dipped into Gibbon. Do you have a better handle on his theories?" I reccommend Durant's encyclopedia as well as Gibbon.. In both cases endeavors of devotion and love... None of what you said is "wrong". But it all fits into larger perspectives... "Notwithstanding the importance of these many contributing causes, Gibbon considers another two to be the most important and decisive: (1) the invasion of the barbarians, and (2) the growth of Christianity within the Empire. "I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion," he writes in the concluding chapter of his History. Every student of ancient Roman history would be familiar with the foreign enemies of the Roman Empire, most of whom were barbarians: the Goths, Lombards, Vandals, Alemannis, Huns, Persians, Turks, etc. As they had invaded Rome at one time or another, it is easy to appreciate their respective role in her fall. However, it is less easy to understand the role Christianity played as an accomplice. How was it possible that a religion whose humble founder preached love and peace and who later found himself gruesomely nailed to a cross contributed to Rome's collapse? Let us analyze this position of Gibbon in more detail. In Gibbon's view, Christianity made for the decline and fall of Rome by sapping the faith of the people in the official (pagan) religion, thereby undermining the state which that religion supported and blessed. To be sure, Gibbon is not blind to the fact that other cults and sects within the Empire were also competing with one another in their attempt to attract believers. As he admits, "Rome, the capital of a great monarchy, was incessantly filled with subjects and strangers from every part of the world, who all introduced and enjoyed the favourite superstitions of their native country" (Ibid., Ch. 2). However, Christianity was to be distinguished from the other flourishing sects in its claim to exclusivity, or in other words, in its claim that it alone held the key to "Truth" and to Heaven, and that all its competitors were vicious and damned. Moreover, as the early Christians believed in the imminent end of this world, they all put their thoughts in the "next" world. This other-worldly attitude proved most disastrous to the Empire during the barbarian invasions, since the Christians, instead of bearing arms to serve the state and the public good, diverted men from useful employments and encouraged them to concentrate on heavenly and private salvation. Needless to say, Gibbon's anti-Christian position aroused the fury of his Christian contemporaries. Reading Gibbon's chapters on the various aspects of Christianity -- its origin and growth; its institutions; its theology and theological discords; its heroes, heretics, and villains -- one cannot fail to be overwhelmed by his vast knowledge of the subject. This is all the more amazing if we note that despite being reconverted by Daniel Pavilliard to Protestantism, he actually lost faith in Christianity as he read more and more books on philosophy, foreign cultures, and religious controversies through the years. However, instead of showing indifference to a religion in which he no longer shared any enthusiasm, he went the opposite direction and read so many works of the theologians and church historians that his erudition could shame any Christian believer. As John Cardinal Newman confessed, "It is notorious that the English Church is destitute of an Ecclesiastical History; Gibbon is almost our sole authority for subjects as near the heart of a Christian as any can well be" ("Milman's View of Christianity," quoted in G. W. Bowersock et. al., eds. [1976], p. 203). On another occasion, Cardinal Newman wrote, "It is melancholy to say it, but the chief, perhaps the only English writer who has any claim to be considered an ecclesiastical historian, is the unbeliever Gibbon" (quoted in J. W. Swain [1966], p. 70)."