Two hundred fifty years ago, when the United States declared independence, Edward Gibbon across the ocean published the first volume of his magisterial series, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Drawing on Gibbon’s Christianity, we look at the historian’s paradoxical views on religion, his early conversions to both Catholicism and Protestantism, and how he used those experiences to chronicle the early church as a disciplined new republic that overcame decadent Roman polytheism much as how the Roman Republic conquered aged empires. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions.