How did Edward Gibbon explain the decline and fall of the Roman Empire?

In his monumental work, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon presented the Roman Empire as a single entity in a state of undeviating decline from the ideals of political and intellectual freedom found in classical literature.12

Gibbon argued that the material decay of the empire was both an effect and a symbol of moral decadence. He famously summarized the causes of this collapse as the "triumph of barbarism and religion," viewing the rise of Christianity and the subsequent development of theology and ecclesiasticism as significant factors in the disintegration of the Greco-Roman world.12

Writing as a mid-18th-century philosopher, Gibbon treated religion as a phenomenon of human experience rather than a divine revelation, often using irony to critique its influence. While his work is celebrated for its rigorous scholarship and literary style, modern historians note that his lack of sympathy for Byzantine civilization and limited access to non-Latin sources led to significant omissions regarding the Eastern Empire, which he incorrectly characterized as being in continuous decay despite its long survival.2