Penguin on faith

Penguin Classics has a new series of little paperbacks called Penguin Great Ideas where they're presenting substantial extracts of 12 major works and packaging them (I think) attractively. In one they have Gibbon's chapters from his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire on Christianity. They've titled it The Christians and the Fall of Rome. What caught my attention was the copy on the back cover:

Gibbon's subversive and iconoclastic description of the rise of Christianity inspired outrage upon publication and remains one of the most eloquent and damning indictments of the delusory nature of faith.

No bias from the British publisher there, eh?

It goes without saying that reading Gibbon's monumental history is not one of the more empty things one can do in one's life. Even his take on religion is instructive, though perhaps in ways he didn't intend always, and in ways even the reader may not realize (especially pre-regeneration). I'm always brutally honest regarding what I've actually read, and I've only read complete the first 12 chapters of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (the first 12 chapters are often stated to contain a basic microcosm of what Gibbon has to offer, in a, again, basic way) and have only read the famous Christian chapters in extract via abridged editions. I know somebody who has mentioned that Gibbon changed his take on Christianity as he continued on in the writing, but I can't confirm. It doesn't matter. One doesn't read Gibbon for his understanding of the Faith. One reads Gibbon for his understanding of the nature of worldly power and the nature of human nature...