“The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing
Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native
purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He
must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption
which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak
and degenerate race of beings.”
– Edward Gibbon, “The History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire”