The ‘Supposed Infidelity’ of Edward Gibbon
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8959196 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter Turnbull (0000-0002-7101-1538, Macquarie University, corresponding author), Paul Turnbull |
| Year | 1982 |
| Volume | 25 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 23-41 |
| Publication date | 1982-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Historical Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0018246x00009845 |
| OpenAlex | W2052432923 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 9 |
For the last two centuries Edward Gibbon has been regarded—either favourably or disparagingly - as the Enlightenment's greatest celebrant of the ‘triumph of human reason’. He has been almost invariably portrayed as an essentially optimistic believer in rational man's potential for social progress and moral advancement. Much of Gibbon's modern reputation as the Enlightenment's historian par excellence is due to early and widespread acceptance of certain assumptions about his religious sentiments. There has been a strong tendency to assume that Gibbon stood in the vanguard of what Peter Gay has called ‘modern paganism’: ‘The French philosophes and British infidels like Hume or Gibbon rejected revealed religion so vehemently and so completely that the Christian contribution to their ideas was modest and subterranean; they were usually unaware of it’. Gibbon has been traditionally seen as a vocal deist, while the account of the rise and consolidation of the Christian church contained within The history of the decline and fall of the Roman empire (1776–88) has often been thought intrinsically anti-christian
Ancient history · Christianity · Enlightenment · Paganism · Political science · Politics · Scots · Social thought · Theology · Vanguard · Classics · History · Law · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 1984 - 2011 (28) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |