§ 5. FEOM JOVIAN 'Li. CHEODOSIUS. 59
Pharaoh, Ahab, and ISTebuchadnezzai * It has bee.i 'cserved for the more inipartial historiography of modern times to do justice to his nobler qualities, and to endeavor to excuse, or at least to account for his utterly false position toward Chris cianity, by his perverted education, the despotisui of his predecessor, and the imperfections of the church in his day.
With Julian himself fell also his artificial, galvanized heathenism, " like the baseless fabric of a vision, leaving nc raclv behind," save the great doctrine, that it is impossible to swim against the stream of history or to stop the progress of Christianity. The heathen philosophers and soothsayers, who had basked in his favor, fell back into obscurity. In the dispersion of their dream they found no comfort from their superstition. Libanius charges the guilt upon his own gods, who suftered Constantius to reign twenty years, and Julian hardly twenty months. But the Christians could learn from it, what Gregory I^azianzen had said in the beginning of this reign, that the church had far more to fear from enemies within, than from without.
^ 5. From Jovian to Theodosius. a.d. 363-392.
I. The Jieathen sources here, besides Ammianus Marcellinus (who unfortunately breaks off at the death of Valens), Zosinaus and Eunapias (who are very partial), are : LrBANitjs : 'Ynip rcbv lepSiv, or Oratio pro templis (first complete ed. by L. de Sinner, in Novus Patrum Graec. saec. iv. delectus. Par. 1842). Symmacuus : Epist. x. 61 (ed. Pareus, Frcf. 1642). On thQ Christian side : Ambrose: Epist. xvii. and xviii. ad Valentinian. II. Prudestius : Adv. Symmachum. Augustin : De civitate Dei, 1. v. c. 24-26 (on the emperors from Jovinian to Theodosius, especially the latter, whom he greatly glorifies). Soor. : 1. iii. c. 22 8qq. SozoM. : 1. vi. o. 3 sqq. Tiieodoe. : L iv. c. 1 S(|q. Ood. Theodos. : 1. ix.-xvi.
' The Cluiiifiaii poet, Prudentius, forms an exception, in his well known 'uat e* -ijDatC; a! .f aW^ (Apotheos. 450 sqq.), which Gibbon also cites :
" Ductor fortissimus armis ;
Conditor et legum celeberrimus ; ore manuque Consultor patriae ; sed non consultor habendae Religionis ; amans tercentum millia Divum. Perfidus ille Deo, sed non et perfidus orbL"
60 THIRD PEKTOD. A.D. 311-590.
II. De la Bleterie: Histoire Ge Tempereur Jovien. .Amsterd. 1740, 2 vols. Gibbon: cliap. xxv-xxviii. ScnEOCKn: vii. p. 213 sqq. Stuff- KEjf: De Tbeodosii M. in rem christianair iseritia. Lugd. Batav. 1828
From tills time heathenism approached, with slow but steady step, its inevitable dissolution, until it found an inglorious grave amid the storms of the great migration and the ruins of the empire of the Csesars, and in its death proclaimed the victory of Christianity. Emperors, bishops, and monks committed indeed manifold injustice in destroying temples and confiscating property ; but that injustice was nothing compared M-ith the bloody persecution of Christianity for three hundred years. The heathenism of ancient Greece and Rome died of internal decay, which no human power could prevent.
After Julian, the succession of Christian emperors continued unbroken. On the day of his death, which was also the extinction of the Constautinian family, the general JoviAJf, a Christian (3G3-364:), was chosen emperor by the army. He concluded with the Persians a disadvantageous but necessary peace, rejjlaced the cross in the labarum, and restored to the church her privileges, but, beyond this, declared universal toleration in the spirit of Constantino. ITnder the circumstances, this was plainly the wisest policy. Like Constantine, also, he abstained from all interference with the internal affairs of the church, though for himself holding the Nicene faith and warmly favorable to Athanasius. He died in the thirty-third year of his age, after a brief reign of eight months. Augustin says, God took him away sooner than Julian, that no emperor might become a Christian for the sake of Constantine's good fortune, but only for the sake of eternal life.
His successor, Yalextijtian I. (died 375), though generally mclined to despotic measures, declared likewise for the policy of religious freedom,' and, though personally an adherent of the !Nicene orthodoxy, kept aloof from the doctrinal controversies ; while his brother and co-emperor, Valens, Avho reigned
Cod. Theodos. 1. ix. tit. 16, 1. 9 (of the year 371): Testes sunt leges n me in exordio imperii mei datae, quibus unicuigue, quod animo imbibisxct. cohnd^ liber* fandtas tnbuta est. This is confirmed by Ammian. Marc. 1. xxx. c. 9,