Edward Gibbon and Byzantine Ecclesiastical History

Abstract

It is generally acknowledged that Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ranks as one of the supreme masterpieces of historical writing. Yet surprisingly enough, more than a third of his entire narrative, that portion dealing with the later Roman or Byzantine Empire, has been badly neglected by historiographers. Now Gibbon as a Byzantinist must needs be an ecclesiastical historian as well, given the nature of Byzantine civilization with its close identification of the religious and the political. But here again, though sharp controversy has for long raged over Gibbon's judgment of early Christianity, especially its responsibility for the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, his treatment of medieval Greek Christianity has been almost ignored by critics, except for sporadic, general remarks by Bury, Dawson, Giarrizzo—remarks which have added little to the traditionally accepted view that Gibbon was contemptuous of Byzantine civilization.