Page "Henry Hart Milman" Paragraph 4

Turning to another field, Milman published in 1829 his History of the Jews, which is memorable as the first by an English clergyman which treated the Jews as an Oriental tribe, recognized sheikhs and amirs in the Old Testament, sifted and classified documentary evidence, and evaded or minimized the miraculous.

In consequence, the author was violently attacked and his inevitable preferment was delayed.

In 1835, however, Sir Robert Peel made him rector of St Margaret's, Westminster, and canon of Westminster, and in 1849 he became dean of St Paul's.

By this time he had achieved popularity and occupied a dignified and enviable position.

His History of Christianity to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire ( 1840 ) had been completely ignored ; but the continuation of his work, his great History of Latin Christianity ( 1855 ), which has passed through many editions, was well received.

In 1838 he had edited Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and in the following year published his Life of Gibbon.