<P> Gibbon challenged Church history by estimating far smaller numbers of Christian martyrs than had been traditionally accepted . The Church's version of its early history had rarely been questioned before . Gibbon, however, knew that modern Church writings were secondary sources, and he shunned them in favor of primary sources . </P> <P> Historian S.P. Foster says that Gibbon: </P> <Dl> <Dd> blamed the otherworldly preoccupations of Christianity for the decline of the Roman empire, heaped scorn and abuse on the church, and sneered at the entirety of monasticism as a dreary, superstition - ridden enterprise . The Decline and Fall compares Christianity invidiously with both the pagan religions of Rome and the religion of Islam . </Dd> </Dl> <Dd> blamed the otherworldly preoccupations of Christianity for the decline of the Roman empire, heaped scorn and abuse on the church, and sneered at the entirety of monasticism as a dreary, superstition - ridden enterprise . The Decline and Fall compares Christianity invidiously with both the pagan religions of Rome and the religion of Islam . </Dd>

The history of the decline and fall of the roman empire pages