certain judge at Antioch, and he too a Gentile, watching all night at the Prætorium, saw an unusual constellation in the heavens, the stars forming themselves into these words, Σήμερον ἐν Περσίδι Ιελιανὸς ἀναιρειται, ‘This day is Julian slain in Persia.' Which accordingly proved true, and became the means of the man's conversion to the Christian faith.' He died June 26, ann. 363, in the thirty-second year of his age, when he had reigned not full two years. He was a prince truly of great virtues, prudent, considerative, impartial, strictly just, chaste, and temperate, patient of hardship, unwearied in his labours, valorous in his attempts, even to rashness and precipitancy. He had a quick wit, but too much inclined to satirism, a nimble apprehension, and learning beyond most princes; but withal, was a passionate affecter of praise and popularity, one that loved to talk much, and not seldom vain-gloriously enough, in his own commendation. He was, even in the character of his own writers, superstitious rather than religious, an immoderate lover of the rites, ceremonies, and usages of paganism, which he revived, and defended both with his sword and pen, and in the exercise whereof he spent no inconsiderable portions of his time, and professed himself an hearty enemy to all that opposed them. In short, to give him his due, had not his memory been stained with an apostacy from the best religion that ever was, and so bitter and incurable a spleen against the Christians, he might have passed for one of the best princes that ever managed the Roman empire.

But his death happened opportunely to the poor

1 Annal. tom. iii. p. 24.

Christians. It was many rapia övTws, Hy Tayri Ta xbouy owth peos, “ a truly seasonable wound," says κόσμῳ σωτήριος, Nazianzen, "that restored health and safety to the Christian world," who otherwise were sure to have felt (and it was but what he had threatened) the utmost effects of his severity and displeasure, had he returned victorious from the Persian expedition.' The truth is, had his reign been extended any great number of years, he would have mightily distressed Christianity, and have reduced it perhaps to a lower ebb, than ever it had been at in the times of any of his most fierce and violent predecessors. Nobody therefore can blame them, if they entertained the news of his death with joy and triumph. The churches were filled with hymns and thanksgivings, their houses with feasts and merriments, and the very theatres chanted out the glories of the cross, and derided the vanity of the heathen oracles. I conclude this short, but famous period, with the words of Nazianzen, in his second invective again Julian, published not long after his death. "Where are now," says he, "your sacrifices, your rites and mysteries? where are your public and your secret victims? where are your arts of inspecting entrails, so much talked of your prognostic divinations, and spirits that gave answers out of the belly? what is become of the great Babylon you spake so much of, and the whole world, which by the promise of a few execrable sacrificial divinations, you had devoured and conquered? where are the Persians and the Medes, which you had already in your hands? where are those gods that led you on, and yet were forced to be carried before you, that fought both before, and together with you? where are the oracles, that 2 Theod. ibid. c. 28, p. 147.

Loc. supra laudat.

denounced such heavy things against the Christians, and fixed the time of our utter destruction, even to the rooting our very name out of the world? They are all vanished, and are proved to be lies and falsehoods; and the boasts and vauntings of the ungodly are fled, and have disappeared like the shadow of a dream." 991

SECTION IV.

In what case Gentilism stood under the reigns of Jovian, Valentinian, and Valens.

UPON Julian's death, Jovian (or, as some call him, Jovinian) was by the suffrage of the army saluted emperor. He was a firm and resolved Christian, insomuch that, when Julian published an edict that the army should either sacrifice or disband, he presently offered to lay down his arms; but the emperor knew him to be too considerable a person, to be easily parted with, and therefore continued him in his command. Upon the shouts and acclamations of the soldiers he bluntly told them, that he for his part was a Christian, and could not take upon him the command of those men, or the conduct of that army, that had been trained up in the impious principles of the deceased emperor; nor could he expect any success from their arms, who being destitute of the divine blessing and protection, must needs become a prey and derision to their enemies. To this they

1 Theod. p. 122.

almost unanimously replied, "Make no scruple, sire, to venture upon the empire, nor let the impiety of our principles be an argument with you to decline it for you will reign over Christians, men instructed in the laws of piety. Those of us that are eldest, were brought up under the institution and discipline of Constantine; those that are next, under the instructions of Constantius; and for the late emperor, his reign was so short, that it was not capable of making any deep impression upon the minds of men." Upon this assurance, he took the government upon him, and made peace with the Persians upon the best terms that those evil circumstances they were under could admit.' The trouble which the Gentiles conceived for the death of Julian was doubled upon them by the election of Jovian, whose zeal for Christianity they were too well assured of; and therefore in all places they traduced and exposed him by lampoons and pasquils, especially at Antioch, where they scattered libels in the streets, and affixed them at every corner. The very old women broke scurrilous jests upon him; and the rather perhaps to cry quits with the Christians, who had not long before dealt so by Julian; as indeed petulancy and a sarcastic wit were the peculiar humour of that place.2

He began his reign, as became a wise and good prince, with the care of religion. Warned with the unhappy fate of his predecessor, he wrote immediately to the governors of provinces to open the churches, and diligently attend the solemnities of

Socr. lib. iii. c. 22, p. 195; Soz. lib. vi. c. 3, p. 639; Theod. lib. iv. c. 1, p. 151.

2 Suid. in V. 'Ioßtavós, ubi plura exempla dantur.

divine worship, and let the subjects know, that the Christian religion was the only true way of worship. He restored to the several churches the gifts and revenues, and to the clergy, and those who lived within the verge of it, the privileges and immunities which Julian had taken from them: particularly he restored the corn-canon, (as they called it,) the yearly allowance of corn, which Constantine the Great had settled upon the church, and which the late emperor had abolished. But because a great dearth raged at that time, he was forced for the present to cut off two-thirds of that tribute, promising to restore it entire as soon as the famine was over; and would no doubt have made good his word, had God spared his life. He also recalled all those, both ecclesiastic and secular persons, that in the late times had been banished for their religion. The pagan temples he commanded to be shut up, and the public sacrifices to be taken away; whereupon the priests crept into corners, and the very philosophers were so frighted that they laid aside the pallium, and habited themselves according to the common garb.' But this I conceive they did more out of fear of the Christians upon this great turn of affairs, than any positive constitution of the emperor to that purpose. For wherever he came, he kindly received, and honourably entertained the philosophers, and by an edict gave every man leave to serve God in his own way, which I understand not of the public but private exercise of religion. By this time he was entered upon his consulship, and being arrived at Ancyra in Galatia, was met by Themistius the philosopher, with some

Soz. ib. Theod. ib. c. 4; Philost. lib. viii. c. 5, p. 512. 2 Vid. Themist. Orat. xii. p. 278.