h, according to his own confession,
little profit.[123] "Against his celebrated fifteenth and sixteenth
chapters," wrote Buckle, "all the devices of controversy have been
exhausted; but the only result has been, that while the fame of the
historian is untarnished, the attacks of his enemies are falling into
complete oblivion. The work of Gibbon remains; but who is there who
feels any interest in what was written against him?"[124] During the
last generation, however, criticism has taken another form and
scientific men now do not exactly share Buckle's gleeful opinion. Both
Bury and Cotter Morison state or imply that well-grounded exceptions may
be taken to Gibbon's treatment of the early Christian church. He ignored
some facts; his combination of others, his inferences, his opinions are
not fair and unprejudiced. A further grave objection may be made to the
tone of these two chapters: sarcasm pervades them and the Gibbon sneer
has become an apt characterization.

Francis Parkman admitted that he was a reverent agnostic, and if Gibbon
had been a reverent free-thinker these two chapters would have been far
different in tone. Lecky regarded the Christian church as a great
institution worthy of reverence and respect although he stated the
central thesis of Gibbon with emphasis just as great. Of the conversion
of the Roman Empire to Christianity, Lecky wrote, "it may be boldly
asserted that the assumption of a moral or intellectual miracle is
utterly gratuitous. Never before was a religious transformation so
manifestly inevitable."[125] Gibbon's sneering tone was a characteristic
of his time. There existed during the latter part of the eighteenth
century, wrote Sir James Mackintosh, "an unphilosophical and indeed
fanatical animosity against Christianity." But Gibbon's private defense
is entitled to consideration as placing him in a better light. "The
primitive church, which I have treated with some freedom," he wrote to
Lord Sheffield in 1791, "was itself at that time an innovation, and I
was attached to the old Pagan establishment."[126] "Had I believed," he
said in his Autobiography, "that the majority of English readers were so
fondly attached to the name and shadow of Christianity, had I foreseen
that the pious, the timid, and the prudent would feel, or affect to
feel, with such exquisite sensibility, I might perhaps have softened the
two invidious chapters."[127]

On the other hand Gibbon's treatment of Julian the Apos