Edward Gibbon Quotes
It was with the utmost difficulty that ancient Rome could support the institution of six vestals; but the primitive church was filled with a great number of persons of either sex who had devoted themselves to the profession of perpetual chastity.
Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776-1789.
His quotations are very important because he wrote many of the Islamic legal opinions that governed Muslim Spain and influenced the Arabs of North Africa. There are many in the modern world who tend to agree with this view of priestly celabicy especially in the light of the Roman Catholic Sex Scandals involving priests throughout the world of the beginning of the 21st century.
In the programs she is describing, young people make virginity pledges. However when research is done on these programs, it turns out that about half of the youngsters that take the virginity pledges engage in sex within the next 5 years—the same percentage of young people who do not take any pledges or participate in programs to delay premarital sex. However, taking a counterculture approach for what 50 years ago was the mainstream culture shows the extensive cultural change that America has made.
Despite the fact that there is no scientific data that even suggests that sex weakens men, the Armed Services promulgated this and other absurd and false information in order to try and minimize the amount of sex in which GIs would participate. The same myth was carried over into sports and athletics where many people still believe it.
Edward Gibbon FRS was an English historian, writer and Member of Parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 and is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources, and its polemical criticism of organised religion.
