Edward Gibbon

On this date in 1737, Edward Gibbon was born in England. The historian's most famous work is The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which appeared originally in six volumes from 1776 through 1788. Oxford-educated, Gibbon represented Lymington in Parliament for many years. Gibbon was a highly skeptical and unreligious Deist, who was particularly critical of the history of the Roman Catholic Church. The "melancholy duty" of the historian, he wrote in his treatise, is to discover "the inevitable mixture of error and corruption" of religion. Chapter XV of Decline and Fall contains Gibbon's famous explication of early Christianity. He observed, "it was not in this world that the primitive Christians were desirous of making themselves either agreeable or useful."

Gibbon believed that Christianity introduced a new and negative element into religion in damning those who would not accept Christian teachings. "These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and friendship were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of their future triumph." Gibbon wrote several other major histories. D. 1794.

“A state of scepticism and suspense may amuse a few inquisitive minds. But the practice of superstition is so congenial to the multitude that, if they are forcibly awakened, they still regret the loss of their pleasing vision. Their love of the marvellous and supernatural, their curiosity with regard to future events, and their strong propensity to extend their hopes and fears beyond the limits of the visible world, were the principal causes which favoured the establishment of Polytheism. So urgent on the vulgar is the necessity of believing, that the fall of any system of mythology will most probably be succeeded by the introduction of some other mode of superstition.”

—Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788)