Five reasons why early Christianity was a success. Edward Gibbon's thoughts in Decline and Fall.

Edward Gibbon the historian and author of 'Decline and fall of the Roman Empire' laid out his five main reasons for the success and spread of Christianity and the fall of paganism in Chapter 15 of his book. Well thought out and written, Gibbon gets to the heart of the problem on why the new religion gradually destroyed the Greco-Roman culture and belief and changed Europe entirely.

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CHAPTERS
01:17 Reason 1 - Intolerant Zeal
05:08 Reason 2 - A hankering for an eternal life after death
09:10 Reason 3 - A Belief in miracles
11:43 Reason 4 - Seizing the moral high ground
13:02 Reason 5 - The cohesion of the community
16:04 Summing up

IMAGES USED
Image of Edward Gibbon
Henry Walton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Image of book
See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Image extracted from page 001 of volume 1 of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ... , in Twelfe Volumes . A new edition, by GIBBON, Edward. Original held and digitised by the British Library.

[sarahsarah]

"Pride under the guise of devotion"
Gibbon nailed it.

[Gorboduc]

People who want to read Gibbon without the eye strain will be glad to know that the whole book is on audio for free thanks to our good friends at Librivox.

[mns]

Christianity built on the pagan model of worship, the Roman official language ( latin) and used the Jewish "bible" as its intellectual basis. It's a very clever scheme .

[Moribus_Artibus]

"That old saying by Cato is quite well known; he said he was surprised that one haruspex did not burst out laughing when he saw another one."
- Cicero (De Divinatione)

[gphilipvirgil]

Thank you for this. Greatly enjoying your videos.

[nodruj]

You say our modern morals are complex which is rather laughable, however our estrangement with deep philosophical dialogue because of christianity is truly shameful.

[gustavolebrech]

Gibbon ya fue superado, usar un historiador del siglo XVIII.

[Kant]

“Unsocial” - That’s a terrible characterization of Hellenistic Judaism. The ethic of Jesus is the ethic of Jewish people and Judaism had many converts and was a major competing culture to Hellenism in the ancient world. Benzion Netanyahu does a great job outlining the real character of late Judean culture in the wider context of the ancient world. Far more nuanced than Gibbons’ crusty cliched understanding of ancient Jewish culture and religion.

[edwardd.]

If Christianity was the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire how did the Eastern Roman Empire last over 1000s years after Constantine moved the capitol? There was something else, the most likely guess is why Constantine moved the capitol in the first place, economic geography.

[Katherine-jley]

NO, TACITUS WAS THE MOST FAMOUS AUTHORITY

[NumberHater]

My man Mommsen is a pretty good roman history source as well