The excellent empire: The fall of Rome and the triumph of the church (The Rauschenbusch lectures)

Organized as a series of lectures that take on Gibbon's stance by using a variety of early Christian writers such as Augustine and Jerome, Pelikan proves amiable company, if not exactly diverting. You have to be immersed in some background regarding both Catholic and Orthodox church history and Rome's rise and fall to get the subtext of his arguments, though they are less pointed than observational in tone. Pelikan admires Gibbon but finds his mindset rather limited. Christ didn't kill Rome the way Rome killed Christ, though He may have provided it with a kind of Resurrection, in the form of Christianity's role in the post-Roman world.