... of the age in which they lived, it is natural that they should find the existence of religion in the world, and in particular the existence of Christianity, a perplexing and rather unaccountable phenomenon. The whole of that side of life seemed to them a kind of craziness in the human make-up. Gibbon's great history is essentially an attack upon Christianity as the operating cause of the decline and fall. He idealized the crude and gross plutocracy of Rome into a world of fine gentlemen upon the ... impatient to ravish the fruits of industry. The Barbarian world was agitated by the rapi...

• Word Count: 2009
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Graduate