...his politics, I adore his chivalry, and I can almost excuse his reverence for church establishments. I have sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of...superstition to the contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude."1 1) Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life, hrsg. v. B. Radice, Harmondswords 1984, Seite 187...

...philosophy, and, characteristically enough, sought to blame others for what he too had been responsible for. "I have sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of...superstition to the contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude."1 Gibbon, it is true, had never addressed the multitude, but his notorious chap9 Ibid.,...

...in life, he thought of writing a dialogue in which he would have had Lucian, Krasmus, and Voltaire mutually acknowledge "the danger of exposing an old...the contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude.""" Krasmus, might well have agreed to that, but he would almost certainly have had more serious doubts...

...civil society. In the Memoirs he also warns of the danger of attacking what he calls old superstition. "I have sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of...superstition to the contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude."182 In Gibbon's view the old superstition of Western Christianity was part of the fabric...

...and Lucian. Gibbon, continuing the fiction more primly - I don't think he is being ironic - wrote, 'I have sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of...old superstition to the contempt of the blind and fantastic multitude."3" That danger was indeed already willingly acknowledged by Erasmus (who publicly...

...his politics, I adore his Chivalry, and I can almost excuse his reverence for Church establishments. I have sometimes thought of writing a dialogue of...contempt of the blind and fanatic multitude. " The revenue of Bern (I except some small duties) is derived from Church lands, tythes, feudal rights, and...