This makes sense to me. Excellent article. Gibbon was blinded by Enlightenment rationalism and anti-Christian animus. What's obvious on the largest scale is that Rome fell and Christian Europe rose in its place. The displacement to the north was due to the rise Muhammed and the spread of Islam through North Africa and Asia.
What gave Europe its fundamental identity and held it together was the Church, as Christopher Dawson has argued so well.
This makes sense to me. Excellent article. Gibbon was blinded by Enlightenment rationalism and anti-Christian animus....While I agree with your statement
en toto I question the use of the word "blinded". Gibbson was not blinded by the Enlightenment so much as he was a product of it. Which, in turn, accounts for the anti-Christian undertoe found in his writings.
What's obvious on the largest scale is that Rome fell and Christian Europe rose in its place...
Yet, IMHO, it was not a case of The Church waiting eagerly in the wings. The Church and the Empire were like compensating buckets in a well. The Empire represented and maintained organization. The further it weakened, the more The Church, already (and the only one) possessing a well structured, well organization administration was obligued-- either by force of circumstance or opportunity-- to replace that of the politically leperous Empire.