Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Vol. 3, The
Edward Gibbon
Number of quotes: 21
Book ID: 319 Page: 137
Section: 3D
The ruin of Paganism, in the age of Theodosius, is perhaps the only example of the total extirpation of any ancient and popular superstition, and may therefore deserve to be considered as a singular event in the history of the human mind.….
The laws of Moses and the examples of Jewish history {1} were hastily, perhaps erroneously, applied by the clergy to the mind and universal reign of Christianity.
Quote ID: 7703
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 319 Page: 140
Section: 3D
[The first paragraph is all I have used]The altar of Victory was again restored by Julian, tolerated by Valentinian, and once more banished from the senate by the zeal of Gratian.{3} But the emperor yet spared the statues of the gods which were exposed to the public veneration: four hundred and twenty-four temples, or chapels, still remained to satisfy the devotion of the people, and in every quarter of Rome the delicacy of the Christians was offended by the fumes of idolatrous sacrifice.{4}
….
4 The Notitia Urbis, more recent than Constantine, does not find one Christian church worthy to be named among the edifices of the city. Ambrose (tom.ii Epist. xvii. p. 825) deplores the public scandals of Rome, which continually offended the eyes , the ears, and the nostrils of the faithful.
Quote ID: 7704
Time Periods: 234
Book ID: 319 Page: 141
Section: 3A1B
The breast of Symmachus was animated by the warmest zeal for the cause of expiring Paganism; and his religious antagonists lamented the abuse of his genius and the inefficacy of his moral virtues.{2}….
Even skepticism is made to supply an apology for superstition. The great and incomprehensible secret of the universe eludes the inquiry of man. Where reason cannot instruct, custom may be permitted to guide; and every nation seems to consult the dictates of prudence, by a faithful attachment to those rites and opinions which have received the sanction of ages.
Pastor John’s note: This is the argument of Catholics now.
Quote ID: 7705
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 319 Page: 143/144
Section: 3A1,3A1B,3D
…the gods of antiquity were dragged in triumph at the chariot-wheels of Theodosius{2} In a full meeting of the senate the emperor proposed, according to the forms of the republic, the important question, whether the worship of Jupiter or that of Christ should be the religion of the Romans? The liberty of suffrages, which he affected to allow, was destroyed by the hopes and fears that his presence inspired; and the arbitrary exile of Symmachus was a recent admonition that it might be dangerous to oppose the wishes of the monarch.….
The hasty conversion of the senate must be attributed either to supernatural or to sordid motives; and many of these reluctant proselytes betrayed, on every favourable occasion, their secret disposition to throw aside the mask of odious dissimulation. But they were gradually fixed in the new religion, as the cause of the ancient became more hopeless; they yielded to the authority of the emperor, to the fashion of the times, and to the entreaties of their wives and children,{2} who were instigated and governed by the clergy of Rome and the monks of the East.
Quote ID: 7706
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 319 Page: 146
Section: 3D
…the same laws which had been originally published in the provinces of the East, were applied, after the defeat of Maximus, to the whole extent of the Western empire; and every victory of the orthodox Theodosius contributed to the triumph of the Christian and catholic faith.{1}
Quote ID: 7707
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 319 Page: 147
Section: 3D
In Gaul, the holy Martin, bishop of Tours,{3} marched at the head of his faithful monks to destroy the idols, the temples, and the consecrated trees of his extensive diocese; and, in the execution of this arduous task, the prudent reader will judge whether Martin was supported by the aid of miraculous powers or of carnal weapons.
Quote ID: 7708
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 319 Page: 149
Section: 3D
But in almost every province of the Roman world, an army of fanatics, without authority and without discipline, invaded the peaceful inhabitants; and the ruin of the fairest structures of antiquity still displays the ravages of those barbarians who alone had time and inclination to execute such laborious destruction.
Quote ID: 7709
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 319 Page: 150
Section: 5C
The old library of the Ptolemies was totally consumed in Cæsar’s Alexandrian war. Marc Antony gave the whole collection of Pergamus (200,000 volumes) to Cleopatra, as the foundation of the new library of Alexandria.
Quote ID: 7710
Time Periods: 0
Book ID: 319 Page: 151/152
Section: 3D
At that time{2} the archiepiscopal throne of Alexandria was filled by Theophilus, {3} the perpetual enemy of peace and virtue; a bold, bad man, whose hands were alternately polluted with gold and with blood.….
Theophilus proceeded to demolish the temple of Serapis, without any other difficulties than those which he found in the weight and solidity of the materials.
….
The valuable library of Alexandria was pillaged or destroyed; and near twenty years afterwards, the appearance of the empty shelves excited the regret and indignation of every spectator whose mind was not totally darkened by religious prejudice.{2}
Quote ID: 7711
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 319 Page: 154
Section: 2A4
The popular modes of religion, that propose any visible and material objects of worship, have the advantage of adapting and familiarizing themselves to the senses of mankind; but this advantage is counterbalanced by the various and inevitable accidents to which the faith of the idolater is exposed.
Quote ID: 7712
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 319 Page: 155
Section: 3D
The temples of the Roman empire were deserted or destroyed; but the ingenious superstition of the Pagans still attempted to elude the laws of Theodosius, by which all sacrifices had been severely prohibited. The inhabitants of the country, whose conduct was less exposed to the eye of malicious curiosity, disguised their religious under the appearance of convivial meetings.
Quote ID: 7713
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 319 Page: 156
Section: 3D
The act of sacrificing and the practice of divination by the entrails of the victim are declared (without any regard to the object of the inquiry) a crime of high treason against the state, which can be expiated only by the death of the guilty.….
The use of any of these profane and illegal ceremonies subjects the offender to the forfeiture of the house or estate where they have been performed; and if he has artfully chosen the property of another for the scene of his impiety, he is compelled to discharge, without delay, a heavy fine of twenty-five pounds of gold….
Quote ID: 7714
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 319 Page: 157/158
Section: 3D
In the cruel reigns of Decius and Diocletian Christianity had been proscribed, as a revolt from the ancient and hereditary religion of the empire; and the unjust suspicions….….
But the same excuses of fear and ignorance cannot be applied to the Christian emperors, who violated the precepts of humanity and of the Gospel.
….
Had the pagans been animated by the undaunted zeal which possessed the minds of the primitive believers, the triumph of the church must have been stained with blood; and the martyrs of Jupiter and Apollo might have embraced the glorious opportunity of devoting their lives and fortunes at the foot of their altars. But such obstinate zeal was not congenial to the loose and careless temper of Polytheism.
….
… the ready obedience of the Pagans protected them from the pains and penalties of the Theodosian Code. {2} Instead of asserting that authority of the gods was superior to that of the emperor, they desisted, with a plaintive murmur from the use of those sacred rites which their sovereign had condemned.
Quote ID: 7715
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 319 Page: 158/159
Section: 3D
A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of their master who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression. Theodosius might undoubtedly have proposed to his Pagan subjects the alternative of baptism or of death; and the eloquent Libanius has praised the moderation of a prince who never enacted, by any positive law, that all his subjects should immediately embrace and practice the religion of their sovereign.{1}
Quote ID: 7716
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 319 Page: 160/161
Section: 2A3
The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with darkness and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of night. They relate in solemn and pathetic strains that the temples were converted into sepulchers, and that the holy places, which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were basely polluted by the relics of Christians martyrs.
Quote ID: 7717
Time Periods: 45
Book ID: 319 Page: 162/163
Section: 2D3B
4 The presbyter Vigilantis, the protestant of his age, firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of monks, relics, saints, fasts, etc., for which Jerome compares him to the Hydra, Cerberus, the Centaurs, etc. and considers him only as the organ of the Dæmon (tom. ii. p. 120-126 tom. ii. p. 387-402, ed. Vallars.)
Quote ID: 7718
Time Periods: 25
Book ID: 319 Page: 162/163
Section: 2E1,2A3
…in the age of Ambrose and Jerom something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the faithful. In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect simplicity of the Christian model; and some symptoms of degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.
Quote ID: 7719
Time Periods: 457
Book ID: 319 Page: 163
Section: 2E1
Without much regard for truth or probability, they invented names for skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by religious fiction.….
A superstitious practice, which tended to increase the temptations of fraud and credulity, insensibly extinguished the light of history and of reason in the Christian world.
Quote ID: 7720
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 319 Page: 167
Section: 2E1
The sublime and simple theology of the primitive Christians was gradually corrupted: and the MONARCHY of heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded by the introduction of a popular mythology which tended to restore the reign of polytheseim.{2}
Quote ID: 7721
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 319 Page: 169
Section: 1A,3C
…the ministers of the catholic church imitated the profane model which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their vanquished rivals.{2}
Quote ID: 7722
Time Periods: 14
Book ID: 319 Page: 169
Section: 1A
The genius of Rome expired with Theodosius….PJ reference: XXIX
Quote ID: 7723
Time Periods: 14
End of quotes