Description
Book SynopsisThis volume in Pocock's acclaimed sequence on Barbarism and Religion examines the controversy caused by Gibbon's treatment of the early Christian church. Pocock challenges the assumption that Decline and Fall was intended as an attack on belief in the Christian revelation, and questions our understanding of the character of 'enlightenment'.
Table of ContentsIntroduction; Part I. Gibbon's Orthodox Sources: 1. The Christian ancients: Eusebius and the fathers; 2. The Catholic moderns: history and authority; Part II. The Sources of Protestant Enlightenment: 3. Jean Le Clerc and the history of language; 4. The Historia Ecclesiastica and the impact of Le Clerc; 5. Isaac de Beausobre: heresy, philosophy, history; 6. Johann Lorenz von Mosheim: modern ecclesiastical historian; Part III. The Two Chapters Explored: 7. The English setting; 8. Gibbon's fifteenth chapter: the spread of Christianity and the rise of the clergy; 9. The sixteenth chapter: intolerance, persecution and philosophy; Part IV. Controversy and Continuation: 10. The reception of the two chapters and the invention of the author; 11. Epilogue and prologue.
