Chapter XX: The conversion of Constantine and the establishment of Christianity

[nwhyte]

Read it here or here.

1) Great Quotes

Taking them backwards for a change.

Monks are like insects: ...the swarms of monks, who arose from the Nile, overspread and darkened the face of the Christian world.
The problem with the Histoire Politique et Philosophique des deux Indes is that we don't know why the author gets it wrong: I am ignorant by

Comments

[strange_complex]

I didn't enjoy this chapter as much as the previous one, though I can certainly see that it was necessary to the development of Gibbon's argument. nwhyte raises the issue above of the relationship between church and state which bubbles under the service in this chapter, and I was struck in particular by Gibbon's quite forceful comments about the emergence of the divine right to rule:
"The reigning emperor, though he had usurped the sceptre by treason and murder, immediately assumed the sacred character of vicegerent of the Deity. To the Deity alone he was accountable for the abuse of his power; and his subjects were indissolubly bound, by their oath of fidelity, to a tyrant who had violated every law of nature and society."

I assume that these sentences are as much about his contemporary political views as his judgement of the fourth-century Roman empire, perhaps with particular reference to France in this period.