E. GIBBON AND THE PROBLEM OF CHRISTIANITY AS A SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL PHENOMENON
Background . Great historian E. Gibbon perceived society as a complex, non-equilibrium system within the framework of his “Roman world” concept. Within this framework, he outlined his vision of the spiritual evolution of the early Christian religious community. Comprehension of his scientific heritage from this point of view has not yet been carried out in the framework of historiographic analysis. The purpose of the work is to identify the specificity of Christianity as a religious-psychological phenomenon in the interpretation of E. Gibbon on the basis of new developers in the socio-psychological aspect of the study of history. Materials and methods . The implementation of the research facility was achieved on the basis of E. Gibbon’s multivolume research published in Russian. The modern general theoretical and concrete historical literature was involved, connected with the comprehension of societies as complex systems and the historical psychology subject. The research methodology assumed basic historical methods related to the comparison of information within the framework of the modern epistemological turn in historical science. Results . The phenomenon of Christianity as a monotheistic religion in the perception of E. Gibbon, its concept of the formation, development and further crisis of the early Christian religious community, the problem of mystical practices in the context of Gnosticism and the “uncontrollable” suggestion of the Christianity emergence as a world religion are investigated. Conclusions . Comprehension of a number of theoretical installations of E. Gibbon, associated with the spiritual history of human society, allows us to analyze the problem of the internal stability of complex, non-equilibrium systems, in which the self-organization processes are underway, associated with socio-psychological evolution.