History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3

Edward Gibbon · 1782 (written); 1845 (revised)

passage 395 of 469 · Chapter XXVII: Civil Wars, Reign Of Theodosius.—Part I. > Chapter XXXVII: Conversion Of The Barbarians To (6/9)

in brief

After noting that Catholic accounts are partisan, Gibbon organizes the Vandal persecution into major “heads,” starting with Hunneric’s claim to transcribe imperial anti-heresy edicts and the Catholics’ refusal to accept toleration.

quotes this Epistle, (l. ii. c. 25, in tom. ii. p. 174,) extorts an unwarrantable assertion, that of the nine vacancies in Aquitain, some had been produced by episcopal martyrdoms]

90 (return) [ The original monuments of the Vandal persecution are preserved in the five books of the history of Victor Vitensis, (de Persecutione Vandalica,) a bishop who was exiled by Hunneric; in the life of St. Fulgentius, who was distinguished in the persecution of Thrasimund (in Biblioth. Max. Patrum, tom. ix. p. 4-16;) and in the first book of the Vandalic War, by the impartial Procopius, (c. 7, 8, p. 196, 197, 198, 199.) Dom Ruinart, the last editor of Victor, has illustrated the whole subject with a copious and learned apparatus of notes and supplement (Paris, 1694.)]

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topics: crime and punishment · justice as a virtue · religious persecution and toleration

History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3 · Edward Gibbon · 1782–1845