Edward Gibbon, an English historian, published The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes between 1776 and 1788. This is Chapter 37 of that work. He follows Rome from the prosperous age of Trajan and the Antonines, around the year 100, through the fall of the West and on to the Ottoman capture of Constantinople in 1453.

Chapter 37 takes up origin, progress, and effects of the monastic life—Conversion of the Barbarians to Christianity and Arianism—Persecution of the Vandals in Africa—Extinction of Arianism among the Barbarians. The footnotes are not in this reading; what you have is the narrative.