Chapter XXXVII: Monks and Arians
Read it here or here.
1) Great lines
Gibbon, as a right-thinking agnostic Protestant gentleman of his time, really doesn't like monks, or monasticism. The first half of this chapter attacks them with all the righteous zeal of the ex-convert (he had a youthful fling with Catholicism, cured by his father sending him to Geneva). It is vitriolic, unfair, eloquent and funny, and I'd recommend the nineteen-page section for anyone who wants a taste of Gibbon in general. I wish I could cut and paste the lot here, but I'll have to be satisfied with a few of the better lines, of which the best is this footnote: 57 I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot: "My vow of poverty has given me an hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince." - I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.
There's more: Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by the Irish monks, diffused over the Northern regions a doubtful ray of science and superstition.
These unhappy exiles from social life were impelled by the dark and implacable genius of superstition.
...several saints, or madmen, have been immortalised in monastic story by their thoughtless and fearless obedience.
...the golden legend of their lives was embellished by the artful credulity of their interested brethren; and a believing age was easily persuaded that the slightest caprice of an Egyptian or a Syrian monk had been sufficient to interrupt the eternal laws of the universe. The favourites of Heaven were accustomed to cure inveterate diseases with a touch, a word, or a distant message; and to expel the most obstinate demons from the souls, or bodies, which they possessed. They familiarly accosted, or imperiously commanded, the lions and serpents of the desert; infused vegetation into a sapless trunk; suspended iron on the surface of the water; passed the Nile on the back of a crocodile, and refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace. These extravagant tales, which display the fiction, without the genius, of poetry, have seriously affected the reason, the faith, and the morals of the Christians. Their credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind; they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science. Every mode of religious worship which had been practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which they believed, was fortified by the sanction of divine revelation, and all the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
I shall reflect on Gibbon's opposition of science and superstition in this chapter. (The word 'science' probably does not mean quite the same to Gibbon as to us.)
He also has it in for St Jerome in footnote 17: The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the same author [St Jerome], are admirably told; and the only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense.
And footnote 28: Jerom’s devout ladies form a very considerable portion of his works: the particular treatise which he styles the Epitaph of Paula (tom. i. p. 169-192) is an elaborate and extravagant panegyric. The exordium is ridiculously turgid: “If all the members of my body were changed into tongues, and if all my limbs resounded with a human voice, yet should I be incapable,” &c.
2) Summary
It's a chapter in two halves, the first being Gibbon's account of the history of monasticism up to the fifth century, and the second about the conversion to Catholicism / Orthodoxy of the various Barbarian peoples who had previously practised Arianism, of which the most dramatic incidents take place in the Vandal kingdom of north Africa.
3) Points Arising
This has been so far the least exciting of the three volumes I've read, Gibbon somehow trudging through various inept rulers and barbarians, even the chapters describing the fall of Rome not exactly fizzing with energy. But now with the end in sight and with a thematic subject on which he is passionate, it somehow catches fire.
i) The Comma Johanneum
The King James Version of the first letter of St John, Chapter 5, verses 7-8, reads: 7. For there are three that beare record in heauen, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8. And there are three that beare witnesse in earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one.
This is one of the few passages in the Bible which offers explicit support to Trinitarianism; and it is now generally thought to have been a much later interpolation, though this was still a controversial opinion in the eighteenth century. Gibbon blames this passage on Vandals - more specifically, on state-sponsored theologians trying to extirpate heresy among the people of the Vandal kingdom in Northern Africa. He also blames them for the Athanasian Creed: ...the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school.114 Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text which asserts the unity of the THREE who bear witness in heaven115 is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts.116 It was first alleged by the catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage.117 An allegorical interpretation, in the form perhaps of a marginal note, invaded the text of the Latin Bibles which were renewed and corrected in a dark period of ten centuries.118 After the invention of printing,119 the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices, or those of the times;120 and the pious fraud, which was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been infinitely multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe.
The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious miracles by which the African catholics have defended the truth and justice of their cause may described, with more reason, to their own industry than to the visible protection of Heaven.
114 The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been favourably received. But the three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now universally acknowledged.
115 1 John, v. 7. [...]
116 Of all the MSS. now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1200 years old. The orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens, are become invisible; and the two MSS. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception.
117 Or, more properly, by the four bishops who composed and published the profession of faith in the name of their brethren. They style this text, luce clarius [crystal clear]. It is quoted soon afterwards by the African polemics, Vigilius and Fulgentius.
118 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicolas, a cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum orthodoxam fidem [according to orthodox belief]. Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin MSS., the oldest and the fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts.
119 The art which the Germans had invented was applied in Italy to the profane writers of Rome and Greece. The original Greek of the New Testament was published about the same time (1514, 1516, 1520) by the industry of Erasmus and the munificence of Cardinal Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot cost the cardinal 50,000 ducats.
120 The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens in the placing a crotchet; and the deliberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza.
It's a longish passage but I reproduce it (trimming the footnotes a bit) as an unusual case of Gibbon showing us his historiographical working, on what of course is the sensitive topic of scriptural accuracy, complete with his usual asides - Gennadius' line about the Arthanasian creed, and the assertion that age and beauty are "two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts".
ii) UlphilasUlphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths,74 acquired their love and reverence by his blameless life and indefatigable zeal; and they received, with implicit confidence, the doctrines of truth and virtue which he preached and practised. He executed the arduous task of translating the Scriptures into their native tongue, a dialect of the German or Teutonic language; but he prudently suppressed the four books of Kings, as they might tend to irritate the fierce and sanguinary spirit of the Barbarians. The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and shepherds, so ill-qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was improved and modulated by his genius; and Ulphilas, before he could frame his version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty-four letters; four of which he invented, to express the peculiar sounds that were unknown to the Greek, and Latin, pronunciation.75
74On the subject of Ulphilas, and the conversion of the Goths, see Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Socrates, l. iv. c. 33. Theodoret, l. iv. c. 37. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 5. The heresy of Philostorgius appears to have given him superior means of information.
74 A mutilated copy of the four gospels, in the Gothic version, was published 1665, and is esteemed the most ancient monument of the Teutonic language, though Wetstein attempts, by some frivolous conjectures, to deprive Ulphilas of the honour of the work. Two of the four additional letters express the W and our own Th. See Simon, Hist. Critique de Nouveau Testament, tom. ii. p. 219-223. Mill. Prolegom. p. 151, edit. Kuster. Wetstein, Prolegom. tom. i. p. 114.
I would like to know more about this. (There may not be much more to know.)
iii) proof that Christianity is right The different motives which influenced the reason, or the passions, of the Barbarian converts cannot easily be ascertained. They were often capricious and accidental; a dream, an omen, the report of a miracle, the example of some priest or hero, the charms of a believing wife, and, above all, the fortunate event of a prayer or vow which, in a moment of danger, they had addressed to the God of the Christians. The early prejudices of education were insensibly erased by the habits of frequent and familiar society; the moral precepts of the Gospel were protected by the extravagant virtues of the monks; and a spiritual theology was supported by the visible power of relics and the pomp of religious worship. But the rational and ingenious mode of persuasion which a Saxon bishop81 suggested to a popular saint might sometimes be employed by the missionaries who laboured for the conversion of infidels. “Admit,” says the sagacious disputant, “whatever they are pleased to assert of the fabulous, and carnal, genealogy of their gods and goddesses, who are propagated from each other. From this principle deduce their imperfect nature, and human infirmities, the assurance they were born, and the probability that they will die. At what time, by what means, from what cause, were the eldest of the gods or goddesses produced? Do they still continue, or have they ceased, to propagate? If they have ceased, summon your antagonists to declare the reason of this strange alteration. If they still continue, the number of the gods must become infinite; and shall we not risk, by the indiscreet worship of some impotent deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous superior? The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of the universe, which may be conceived by the mind, is it created or eternal? If created, how, or where, could the gods themselves exist before the creation? If eternal, how could they assume the empire of an independent and pre-existing world? Urge these arguments with temper and moderation; insinuate, at seasonable intervals, the truth, and beauty, of the Christian revelation; and endeavour to make the unbelievers ashamed, without making them angry.” This metaphysical reasoning, too refined perhaps for the Barbarians of Germany, was fortified by the grosser weight of authority and popular consent. The advantage of temporal prosperity had deserted the Pagan cause, and passed over to the service of Christianity. The Romans themselves, the most powerful and enlightened nation of the globe, had renounced their ancient superstition; and, if the ruin of their empire seemed to accuse the efficacy of the new faith, the disgrace was already retrieved by the conversion of the victorious Goths. The valiant and fortunate Barbarians, who subdued the provinces of the West, successively received, and reflected, the same edifying example. Before the age of Charlemagne, the Christian nations of Europe might exult in the exclusive possession of the temperate climates, of the fertile lands, which produced corn, wine, and oil, while the savage idolaters, and their helpless idols, were confined to the extremities of the earth, the dark and frozen regions of the North.82
81See an original and curious epistle from Daniel, the first bishop of Winchester (Beda, Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, l. v. c. 18, p. 203, edit. Smith), to St. Boniface, who preached the Gospel among the Savages of Hesse and Thuringia. Epistol. Boniface, lxvii. in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xiii. p. 93.
82 The sword of Charlemagne added weight to the argument; but, when Daniel wrote this epistle (723), the Mahometans, who reigned from India to Spain, might have retorted it against the Christians.
Two points struck me from this passage. First, that Daniel's argument is I think discernably related to St Anselm's proofs of the existence of God three centuries later. Second, that Gibbon nowhere offers his own proof of the truth of Christianity, and his silence is eloquent.
iv) the persecution of the Jews in Spain
I was unaware of this episode, and wonder if Gibbon is making more of it than is actually there: ...the intolerant spirit, which could find neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to the persecution of the Jews. That exiled nation had founded some synagogues in the cities of Gaul; but Spain, since the time of Hadrian, was filled with their numerous colonies. The wealth which they accumulated by trade, and the management of the finances, invited the pious avarice of their masters; and they might be oppressed without danger, as they had lost the use, and even the remembrance, of arms. Sisebut, a Gothic king, who reigned in the beginning of the seventh century, proceeded at once to the last extremes of persecution. Ninety thousand Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies were tortured; and it seems doubtful whether they were permitted to abandon their native country. The excessive zeal of the Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy of Spain, who solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: that the sacraments should not be forcibly imposed; but that the Jews who had been baptised should be constrained, for the honour of the church, to persevere in the external practice of a religion which they disbelieved and detested. Their frequent relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his dominions; and a council of Toledo published a decree that every Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the industrious slaves, over whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression. The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic kings and bishops at length discovered that injuries will produce hatred and that hatred will find the opportunity of revenge. A nation, the secret or professed enemies of Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress; and the intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian conquerors.
I find myself asking a) were there really proportionately more Jews in Spain than elsewhere? ii) was the persecution wrose than elsewhere, or just better chronicled? iii) is Gibbon perhaps reading back from the fifteenth century expulsion and straining to establish a common pattern of behaviour over a thousand years? iv) is there serious evidence that the Arab invasion on the seventh century was 'promoted' by Jewish 'intrigues'? (The wording makes me very suspicious, but I am willing to be enlightened; Gibbon's general thrust is sympathetic to the Jews of Spain and implies that the Christians had it coming to them.)
iv) poor editing
An unusual lapse for Gibbon: the line about 46 bishops being banished to Corsica, and 302 being dispersed, appears both in the main text of the paragraph headlined "A general view of the persecution in Africa" and in a footnote to the same paragraph a couple of pages later. Given the vast amount of material he is dealing with, it's surprising there's not more of this sort of thing.
1) Great lines
Gibbon, as a right-thinking agnostic Protestant gentleman of his time, really doesn't like monks, or monasticism. The first half of this chapter attacks them with all the righteous zeal of the ex-convert (he had a youthful fling with Catholicism, cured by his father sending him to Geneva). It is vitriolic, unfair, eloquent and funny, and I'd recommend the nineteen-page section for anyone who wants a taste of Gibbon in general. I wish I could cut and paste the lot here, but I'll have to be satisfied with a few of the better lines, of which the best is this footnote: 57 I have somewhere heard or read the frank confession of a Benedictine abbot: "My vow of poverty has given me an hundred thousand crowns a year; my vow of obedience has raised me to the rank of a sovereign prince." - I forget the consequences of his vow of chastity.
There's more: Iona, one of the Hebrides, which was planted by the Irish monks, diffused over the Northern regions a doubtful ray of science and superstition.
These unhappy exiles from social life were impelled by the dark and implacable genius of superstition.
...several saints, or madmen, have been immortalised in monastic story by their thoughtless and fearless obedience.
...the golden legend of their lives was embellished by the artful credulity of their interested brethren; and a believing age was easily persuaded that the slightest caprice of an Egyptian or a Syrian monk had been sufficient to interrupt the eternal laws of the universe. The favourites of Heaven were accustomed to cure inveterate diseases with a touch, a word, or a distant message; and to expel the most obstinate demons from the souls, or bodies, which they possessed. They familiarly accosted, or imperiously commanded, the lions and serpents of the desert; infused vegetation into a sapless trunk; suspended iron on the surface of the water; passed the Nile on the back of a crocodile, and refreshed themselves in a fiery furnace. These extravagant tales, which display the fiction, without the genius, of poetry, have seriously affected the reason, the faith, and the morals of the Christians. Their credulity debased and vitiated the faculties of the mind; they corrupted the evidence of history; and superstition gradually extinguished the hostile light of philosophy and science. Every mode of religious worship which had been practised by the saints, every mysterious doctrine which they believed, was fortified by the sanction of divine revelation, and all the manly virtues were oppressed by the servile and pusillanimous reign of the monks.
I shall reflect on Gibbon's opposition of science and superstition in this chapter. (The word 'science' probably does not mean quite the same to Gibbon as to us.)
He also has it in for St Jerome in footnote 17: The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by the same author [St Jerome], are admirably told; and the only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense.
And footnote 28: Jerom’s devout ladies form a very considerable portion of his works: the particular treatise which he styles the Epitaph of Paula (tom. i. p. 169-192) is an elaborate and extravagant panegyric. The exordium is ridiculously turgid: “If all the members of my body were changed into tongues, and if all my limbs resounded with a human voice, yet should I be incapable,” &c.
2) Summary
It's a chapter in two halves, the first being Gibbon's account of the history of monasticism up to the fifth century, and the second about the conversion to Catholicism / Orthodoxy of the various Barbarian peoples who had previously practised Arianism, of which the most dramatic incidents take place in the Vandal kingdom of north Africa.
3) Points Arising
This has been so far the least exciting of the three volumes I've read, Gibbon somehow trudging through various inept rulers and barbarians, even the chapters describing the fall of Rome not exactly fizzing with energy. But now with the end in sight and with a thematic subject on which he is passionate, it somehow catches fire.
i) The Comma Johanneum
The King James Version of the first letter of St John, Chapter 5, verses 7-8, reads: 7. For there are three that beare record in heauen, the Father, the Word, and the holy Ghost: and these three are one.
8. And there are three that beare witnesse in earth, the Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood, and these three agree in one.
This is one of the few passages in the Bible which offers explicit support to Trinitarianism; and it is now generally thought to have been a much later interpolation, though this was still a controversial opinion in the eighteenth century. Gibbon blames this passage on Vandals - more specifically, on state-sponsored theologians trying to extirpate heresy among the people of the Vandal kingdom in Northern Africa. He also blames them for the Athanasian Creed: ...the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability, from this African school.114 Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text which asserts the unity of the THREE who bear witness in heaven115 is condemned by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions, and authentic manuscripts.116 It was first alleged by the catholic bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage.117 An allegorical interpretation, in the form perhaps of a marginal note, invaded the text of the Latin Bibles which were renewed and corrected in a dark period of ten centuries.118 After the invention of printing,119 the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices, or those of the times;120 and the pious fraud, which was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been infinitely multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe.
The example of fraud must excite suspicion: and the specious miracles by which the African catholics have defended the truth and justice of their cause may described, with more reason, to their own industry than to the visible protection of Heaven.
114 The P. Quesnel started this opinion, which has been favourably received. But the three following truths, however surprising they may seem, are now universally acknowledged.
- St. Athanasius is not the author of the creed which is so frequently read in our churches.
- It does not appear to have existed, within a century after his death.
- It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and, consequently, in the Western provinces.
115 1 John, v. 7. [...]
116 Of all the MSS. now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1200 years old. The orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens, are become invisible; and the two MSS. of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception.
117 Or, more properly, by the four bishops who composed and published the profession of faith in the name of their brethren. They style this text, luce clarius [crystal clear]. It is quoted soon afterwards by the African polemics, Vigilius and Fulgentius.
118 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were corrected by Lanfranc, archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicolas, a cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum orthodoxam fidem [according to orthodox belief]. Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin MSS., the oldest and the fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts.
119 The art which the Germans had invented was applied in Italy to the profane writers of Rome and Greece. The original Greek of the New Testament was published about the same time (1514, 1516, 1520) by the industry of Erasmus and the munificence of Cardinal Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot cost the cardinal 50,000 ducats.
120 The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens in the placing a crotchet; and the deliberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza.
It's a longish passage but I reproduce it (trimming the footnotes a bit) as an unusual case of Gibbon showing us his historiographical working, on what of course is the sensitive topic of scriptural accuracy, complete with his usual asides - Gennadius' line about the Arthanasian creed, and the assertion that age and beauty are "two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts".
ii) UlphilasUlphilas, the bishop and apostle of the Goths,74 acquired their love and reverence by his blameless life and indefatigable zeal; and they received, with implicit confidence, the doctrines of truth and virtue which he preached and practised. He executed the arduous task of translating the Scriptures into their native tongue, a dialect of the German or Teutonic language; but he prudently suppressed the four books of Kings, as they might tend to irritate the fierce and sanguinary spirit of the Barbarians. The rude, imperfect idiom of soldiers and shepherds, so ill-qualified to communicate any spiritual ideas, was improved and modulated by his genius; and Ulphilas, before he could frame his version, was obliged to compose a new alphabet of twenty-four letters; four of which he invented, to express the peculiar sounds that were unknown to the Greek, and Latin, pronunciation.75
74On the subject of Ulphilas, and the conversion of the Goths, see Sozomen, l. vi. c. 37. Socrates, l. iv. c. 33. Theodoret, l. iv. c. 37. Philostorg. l. ii. c. 5. The heresy of Philostorgius appears to have given him superior means of information.
74 A mutilated copy of the four gospels, in the Gothic version, was published 1665, and is esteemed the most ancient monument of the Teutonic language, though Wetstein attempts, by some frivolous conjectures, to deprive Ulphilas of the honour of the work. Two of the four additional letters express the W and our own Th. See Simon, Hist. Critique de Nouveau Testament, tom. ii. p. 219-223. Mill. Prolegom. p. 151, edit. Kuster. Wetstein, Prolegom. tom. i. p. 114.
I would like to know more about this. (There may not be much more to know.)
iii) proof that Christianity is right The different motives which influenced the reason, or the passions, of the Barbarian converts cannot easily be ascertained. They were often capricious and accidental; a dream, an omen, the report of a miracle, the example of some priest or hero, the charms of a believing wife, and, above all, the fortunate event of a prayer or vow which, in a moment of danger, they had addressed to the God of the Christians. The early prejudices of education were insensibly erased by the habits of frequent and familiar society; the moral precepts of the Gospel were protected by the extravagant virtues of the monks; and a spiritual theology was supported by the visible power of relics and the pomp of religious worship. But the rational and ingenious mode of persuasion which a Saxon bishop81 suggested to a popular saint might sometimes be employed by the missionaries who laboured for the conversion of infidels. “Admit,” says the sagacious disputant, “whatever they are pleased to assert of the fabulous, and carnal, genealogy of their gods and goddesses, who are propagated from each other. From this principle deduce their imperfect nature, and human infirmities, the assurance they were born, and the probability that they will die. At what time, by what means, from what cause, were the eldest of the gods or goddesses produced? Do they still continue, or have they ceased, to propagate? If they have ceased, summon your antagonists to declare the reason of this strange alteration. If they still continue, the number of the gods must become infinite; and shall we not risk, by the indiscreet worship of some impotent deity, to excite the resentment of his jealous superior? The visible heavens and earth, the whole system of the universe, which may be conceived by the mind, is it created or eternal? If created, how, or where, could the gods themselves exist before the creation? If eternal, how could they assume the empire of an independent and pre-existing world? Urge these arguments with temper and moderation; insinuate, at seasonable intervals, the truth, and beauty, of the Christian revelation; and endeavour to make the unbelievers ashamed, without making them angry.” This metaphysical reasoning, too refined perhaps for the Barbarians of Germany, was fortified by the grosser weight of authority and popular consent. The advantage of temporal prosperity had deserted the Pagan cause, and passed over to the service of Christianity. The Romans themselves, the most powerful and enlightened nation of the globe, had renounced their ancient superstition; and, if the ruin of their empire seemed to accuse the efficacy of the new faith, the disgrace was already retrieved by the conversion of the victorious Goths. The valiant and fortunate Barbarians, who subdued the provinces of the West, successively received, and reflected, the same edifying example. Before the age of Charlemagne, the Christian nations of Europe might exult in the exclusive possession of the temperate climates, of the fertile lands, which produced corn, wine, and oil, while the savage idolaters, and their helpless idols, were confined to the extremities of the earth, the dark and frozen regions of the North.82
81See an original and curious epistle from Daniel, the first bishop of Winchester (Beda, Hist. Eccles. Anglorum, l. v. c. 18, p. 203, edit. Smith), to St. Boniface, who preached the Gospel among the Savages of Hesse and Thuringia. Epistol. Boniface, lxvii. in the Maxima Bibliotheca Patrum, tom. xiii. p. 93.
82 The sword of Charlemagne added weight to the argument; but, when Daniel wrote this epistle (723), the Mahometans, who reigned from India to Spain, might have retorted it against the Christians.
Two points struck me from this passage. First, that Daniel's argument is I think discernably related to St Anselm's proofs of the existence of God three centuries later. Second, that Gibbon nowhere offers his own proof of the truth of Christianity, and his silence is eloquent.
iv) the persecution of the Jews in Spain
I was unaware of this episode, and wonder if Gibbon is making more of it than is actually there: ...the intolerant spirit, which could find neither idolaters nor heretics, was reduced to the persecution of the Jews. That exiled nation had founded some synagogues in the cities of Gaul; but Spain, since the time of Hadrian, was filled with their numerous colonies. The wealth which they accumulated by trade, and the management of the finances, invited the pious avarice of their masters; and they might be oppressed without danger, as they had lost the use, and even the remembrance, of arms. Sisebut, a Gothic king, who reigned in the beginning of the seventh century, proceeded at once to the last extremes of persecution. Ninety thousand Jews were compelled to receive the sacrament of baptism; the fortunes of the obstinate infidels were confiscated, their bodies were tortured; and it seems doubtful whether they were permitted to abandon their native country. The excessive zeal of the Catholic king was moderated, even by the clergy of Spain, who solemnly pronounced an inconsistent sentence: that the sacraments should not be forcibly imposed; but that the Jews who had been baptised should be constrained, for the honour of the church, to persevere in the external practice of a religion which they disbelieved and detested. Their frequent relapses provoked one of the successors of Sisebut to banish the whole nation from his dominions; and a council of Toledo published a decree that every Gothic king should swear to maintain this salutary edict. But the tyrants were unwilling to dismiss the victims, whom they delighted to torture, or to deprive themselves of the industrious slaves, over whom they might exercise a lucrative oppression. The Jews still continued in Spain, under the weight of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, which in the same country have been faithfully transcribed in the Code of the Inquisition. The Gothic kings and bishops at length discovered that injuries will produce hatred and that hatred will find the opportunity of revenge. A nation, the secret or professed enemies of Christianity, still multiplied in servitude and distress; and the intrigues of the Jews promoted the rapid success of the Arabian conquerors.
I find myself asking a) were there really proportionately more Jews in Spain than elsewhere? ii) was the persecution wrose than elsewhere, or just better chronicled? iii) is Gibbon perhaps reading back from the fifteenth century expulsion and straining to establish a common pattern of behaviour over a thousand years? iv) is there serious evidence that the Arab invasion on the seventh century was 'promoted' by Jewish 'intrigues'? (The wording makes me very suspicious, but I am willing to be enlightened; Gibbon's general thrust is sympathetic to the Jews of Spain and implies that the Christians had it coming to them.)
iv) poor editing
An unusual lapse for Gibbon: the line about 46 bishops being banished to Corsica, and 302 being dispersed, appears both in the main text of the paragraph headlined "A general view of the persecution in Africa" and in a footnote to the same paragraph a couple of pages later. Given the vast amount of material he is dealing with, it's surprising there's not more of this sort of thing.