Herbert Drake takes issue with the historiography of Gibbon, arguing that while persecution certainly occurred for religious reasons, that the underlying motivation was consolidation of power in the Constantinian dynasty, which was offered in the form of promoting the cult of Christianity to the exclusion of others. He writes that "while there is obviously some truth in the proposition that intolerance follows from the rejection of other gods that lies at the core of monotheistic belief," this alone could neither explain why pagans had previously persecuted Christians, nor why there were "important voices for moderation in the early Christian community."[124] H.A. Drake writes: "Gibbon skirts a serious problem: for three centuries prior to Constantine, the tolerant pagans who people the Decline and Fall were the authors of several major persecutions, in which Christians were the victims."[125] Gibbon, however, implies that such an argument is in itself flawed, in that Christians later exaggerated the depth and magnitude of the persecutions against them. He argues that a diligent review of the earliest Christian source, Eusebius, reveals by his own accounting that less than one hundred Christians were executed in Palestine under Diocletian for refusing civic sacrifices as a test of their loyalty.[126]