less of theological disputes, might adorn his work
with the specious and splendid miracle.

Chapter XXIII: Reign Of Julian.--Part IV.

The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected with the
ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to maintain the
freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing whether this
universal toleration proceeded from his justice or his clemency. He
affected to pity the unhappy Christians, who were mistaken in the most
important object of their lives; but his pity was degraded by contempt,
his contempt was embittered by hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were
expressed in a style of sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly
wound, whenever it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was
sensible that the Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer,
he countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable
appellation of Galilaeans. He declared, that by the folly of the
Galilaeans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics, contemptible to
men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been reduced to the brink of
destruction; and he insinuates in a public edict, that a frantic patient
might sometimes be cured by salutary violence. An ungenerous distinction
was admitted into the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to
the difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his subjects
deserved his favor and friendship, while the other was entitled only
to the common benefits that his justice could not refuse to an obedient
people. According to a principle, pregnant with mischief and oppression,
the emperor transferred to the pontiffs of his own religion the
management of the liberal allowances for the public revenue, which had
been granted to the church by the piety of Constantine and his sons.
The proud system of clerical honors and immunities, which had been
constructed with so much art and labor, was levelled to the ground; the
hopes of testamentary donations were intercepted by the rigor of the
laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were confounded with the
last and most ignominious class of the people. Such of these regulations
as appeared necessary to check the ambition and avarice of the
ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated by the wisdom of an
orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which policy has bestowed, or
superstition has lavished, on the sacerdotal order, must be confined to
those priests who profe