Written originally as the 15th and 16th chapters of his great work, "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-1788)", "On Christianity" joined the growing number of revisionist histories whose authors rejected the view that popular support of Christianity was miraculously preordained. Gibbon interprets the ascendancy of Christianity in terms of natural social causes, laying bare the paucity of evidence for the supernatural guidance of church actions.
