came to be charged in various ways with ser- vile and fawning submission to the Christian rulers. Former- ly known as abhorring every kind of idolatry and all pomp in worship, they now appeared in their growing veneration for ' Comp. § 4 (p. 42), and voL i. § 61. 74 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. martyrs and relics to reproduce and even exceed the ancient "worship of heroes. Finally, even the victory of Christianity was branded as a reproach. It was hekl responsible by the latest heatlien histo- rians n(jt only for the frequent public calamities, which had been already charged upon it under Marcus Aurelius and in the time of TertulHan, but also for the decline and fall of the once so mighty Roman empire. But this objection, very pop- ular at tiie time, is refuted by the simple fact, that the empire in the East, where Christianity earlier and more completely prevailed, outlived by nearly ten centuries the western branch. The dissolution of the west-Roman empire was due rather to its unwieldy extent, the incursion of barbarians, and the decay of morals, which was hastened by the introduction of all the vices of conquered nations, and which had already begun under Augustus, yea, during the glorious period of the republic ; for the republic would have lasted much longer if the foundations of public and private virtue had not been undermined.' Taken ' Gibbon, too, imputes the fall of the west-Roman empire not, as unjustly charged by Dr. Kurtz (Handbuch der allg. Kircheugesch. i. 2, p. 15, 3d ed.), to Christianity, but almost solely to tlie pressure of its own weight. Comp. his Gen- eral Observations on the Fall of the R. Empire in the West, at the close of ch. xxxviii., where he says : " The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable eifect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay ; the causes of destruction multiplied with the extent of conquest ; and as soon as time or accident had removed the artificial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. The story of its ruin is simple and obvious ; and instead of inquir- ing why the Roman empire was destroyed, we should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long." Gibbon then mentions Christianity also, it is true, or more prop- erly monasticism, which, he thinks, suppressed with its passive virtues the patriotic and martial spirit, and so far contributed to the catastrophe ; but adds : "If the de- cline of the Roman empire was hastened [ — he says not : caused — ] by the conver- sion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and molli- fied the ferocious temper of the conquerors." This view is very different from that of Eunapius and Zosimus, with which Kurtz identifies it. Gibbon in general follows more closely Ammianus Marcellinus, whom, with all reason, he holds as a historian far superior