6

in laud.

Basil.

Proæresius, still clung to the older faith of Hellas. But the language of Gregory implies that the feelings of fear and antipathy were strong in pious minds, for men, he says are more prone there to idol Greg. Naz. worship than in all the rest of Greece, and it is not easy to avoid being carried into error in the company of those who are its champions and panegyrists.' He is thankful that he did not suffer from these spiritual dangers, which were fatal, as he owns, to others; but his friend Basil found the spirit of the place so uncongenial, that he was not easily induced to stay where there was much that seemed to him so vain and worldly.

as

Yet before long Libanius complained that the Imperial Court looked with an evil eye upon the Schools, and that the malign influence was spreading fast. An enemy had taunted him with his failure a teacher, and asked how many of his scholars had risen in the world. In his reply the orator dilates upon the unfriendly bearing of the Christian rulers. Constantius never summoned them to Court, or said a kindly word, or heard them lecture; but allowed a wretched set of barbarous eunuchs to govern in his name, and they conspired to drive away the men of education, and promote the enemies of heaven and starveling upstarts to the posts of honour. The students naturally asked, what is the use of all our

The com-
plaints of
Libanius of
courage
ment felt by
students.
iii. 436.

the dis

Brighter times came in with Julian's accession to the throne.

Parents

reading if it will not raise us in the world.
preferred to put their sons to Law, and sent them
to the University of Berytus, as literary skill was
prized so little. Even after spending years among
the Schools of Athens, where philosophy and rhetoric
had engaged their thoughts, men were glad to take a
place as Emperor's messenger, or to wear the livery
of his household servants. If such discouragements
were felt at Athens, still more were they to be feared
in places near the Court, where all its sympathies
were fully known. He owns indeed that a transient
gleam of sunshine rested on the fortunes of the
Schools when they enjoyed a period of Royal favour.

Julian, the so-called Apostate, had wearied early of his pious exercises with the Christian priests, and pored by stealth over the lectures of Libanius. Allowed at length to come to Athens, he drank deeply at the sources of the old Hellenic culture, and long before he dropped the mask, had lost, if indeed he ever had, affection for the faith which was full to his mind of memories of controversial quibbles and of harsh constraint. One of his first acts when he claimed the sovereign power was to send his manifesto to the old seat of learning, to show that he was not a vulgar adventurer prompted by ambition, but a scholar who could do justice to the goodness of his cause, and deserve the sympathy of the world of letters.

440.

The Sages and the Sophists gladly welcomed the Lib. iii. young prince, whose sumpter mules were laden, not with costly furniture and viands, but with a precious freight of books. They hailed the dawn of a new era when philosophy had once more mounted on the throne, and another Antonine was ready with enlightened patronage of men of worth. The new ruler was not slow to do his part. Libanius, whom he so much admired in earlier years, was treated by him with a cordial respect; honours were showered on

who showed special favour to

the

the graver thinkers, the theologians of the philo- Sophists, sophic creed which he espoused; the greatest of them, whom Eunapius mentions, were invited to his Court, and kept ever in his company to while away the tedium of the Persian campaign.

Prompted or encouraged by their councils, he forgot his usual toleration, and denied the Christians leave to teach in the schools of rhetoric and liberal study, affecting to regard them as mere ignorant fanatics, sworn foes of all the older culture, iconoclasts in arts and letters. One only of the Athenian Professors, the celebrated Proæresius, was exempted from this penal clause, but he was too generous to stand alone, and though he probably bad little in him of the martyr's stuff, forbore to lecture when his friends were silenced.

For a few short months the schoolmen's pent-up

but denied

Christians

leave to

teach in the

schools.

The

triumph of the Sophists was shortlived,

Eunap.
Chrysan-

as the wiser

of them foresaw.

of Julian

was

followed by

edicts against

bitterness found vent, and they triumphed as if their rivals' downfall were complete. But wiser eyes had seen already that the adverse currents were too strong, and the reaction could not last. Thus Chrysanthius of Lydia, when sent for to the Court, whether warned by mysterious portents, as Eunapius believed, or possibly by natural insight, declined all the brilliant offers made by Julian, answering like Balaam, that his God refused him leave to come. 'Thereupon the Emperor wrote to him again, and sent letters not to himself only, but to his wife, that haply she might influence her husband. A second time Chrysanthius had recourse to divination, but again no favouring signs appeared. This happened several times, for still the Emperor was earnest in his wish to see him.' He read the future clearly, though he could not have foreseen that Julian's death was sadly near, and with it the funeral knell of the last hopes of Pagan Greece.

Athens found ere long that the privilege of ImThe death perial favour had been a source of weakness rather than of strength. It had made men feel how intensely anti-christian was the spirit of her schools, and how Paganism, great was the possible danger of a like revival. First came the legal prohibition, in the name of Valens, against any magic sacrifice or rites, and terms so vague and so elastic might be stretched to cover any

civil

and riotous

movements

of the forms of divination, any of the mysteries of theurgy, in which the later systems of philosophy abounded. Two of the favourites of Julian suffered Priscus Maximus. probably on this account, though Eunapius tells us only of their imprisonment and pains, and is silent as to the exact nature of the charges. Others withdrew themselves from public sight, and, in the words of their biographer, 'grieved themselves to early death.' They might save themselves from actual danger, but they could not screen from desecration all that they held dear. Bands of rioters broke loose, encouraged by their spiritual heads, while the power quietly stood by and made no sign. The temples were destroyed, the shrines defiled. How sorely the blow was felt by pious minds we may gather from the language of Eunapius, when he speaks of the governors of Egypt who levelled the great temple of Serapis to the ground, and carried all away save the foundations, which were too massive for them to remove. Thus these warlike and courageous cham- Eunap. pions, after causing general ruin, and stretching forth their hands, not stained with blood indeed, but befouled with avarice, boasted that they had overcome

6

the Gods, and taking credit for their impiety and

sacrilege, let loose against the holy places the socalled monks, who were men indeed in outward shape, but of swinish life and manners, who openly

against the temples.

Ædes.

The bitter

resentment

of Eunapius