not have chosen a more incisive weapon for his merciless criticism of
orthodox opinion than the irony which he wielded with superb ease.
Having pointed out that the victory of Christianity is obviously and
satisfactorily explained by the convincing evidence of the doctrine and
by the ruling providence of its great Author, he proceeds “with becoming
submission” to inquire into the secondary causes. He traces the history
of the faith up to the time of Constantine in such a way as clearly to
suggest that the hypothesis of divine interposition is superfluous and
that we have to do with a purely human development. He marshals, with
ironical protests, the obvious objections to the alleged evidence for
supernatural control. He does not himself criticize Moses and the
prophets, but he reproduces the objections which were made against their
authority by “the vain science of the gnostics.” He notes that the
doctrine of immortality is omitted in the law of Moses, but this
doubtless was a mysterious dispensation of Providence. We cannot
entirely remove “the imputation of ignorance and

[164] obscurity which has been so arrogantly cast on the first
proselytes of Christianity,” but we must “convert the occasion of
scandal into a subject of edification” and remember that “the lower we
depress the temporal condition of the first Christians, the more reason
we shall find to admire their merit and success.”

Gibbon’s treatment of miracles from the purely historical point of view
(he owed a great deal to Middleton, see above, p. 150) was particularly
disconcerting. In the early age of Christianity “the laws of nature were
frequently suspended for the benefit of the Church. But the sages of
Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the
ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any
alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the