But this does not account for the stress he lays on the _ascription_ of miracles.

He seems to think that the claim of supernatural gifts somehow had the same efficacy as the gifts themselves would have had, if they had existed.
The fourth cause is the virtues of the primitive Christians.

The paragraphs upon it, Dean Milman considers the most uncandid in all the history, and they certainly do Gibbon no credit.

With a strange ignorance of the human heart, he attributes the austere morals of the early Christians to their care for their reputation.

The ascetic temper, one of the most widely manifested in history, was beyond his comprehension.
The fifth cause was the union and discipline of the Christian republic.