made an essential qualification for
the enjoyment of the civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar
hardships imposed on the sectaries, who credulously received the fables
of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the Gospel. The
palace, the schools, the army, and the senate, were filled with declared
and devout Pagans; they obtained, without distinction, the civil and
military honors of the empire. Theodosius distinguished his liberal
regard for virtue and genius by the consular dignity, which he bestowed
on Symmachus; and by the personal friendship which he expressed to
Libanius; and the two eloquent apologists of Paganism were never
required either to change or to dissemble their religious opinions.
The Pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and
writing; the historical and philosophic remains of Eunapius, Zosimus,
and the fanatic teachers of the school of Plato, betray the most furious
animosity, and contain the sharpest invectives, against the sentiments
and conduct of their victorious adversaries. If these audacious libels
were publicly known, we must applaud the good sense of the Christian
princes, who viewed, with a smile of contempt, the last struggles of
superstition and despair. But the Imperial laws, which prohibited the
sacrifices and ceremonies of Paganism, were rigidly executed; and every
hour contributed to destroy the influence of a religion, which was
supported by custom, rather than by argument. The devotion or the poet,
or the philosopher, may be secretly nourished by prayer, meditation, and
study; but the exercise of public worship appears to be the only solid
foundation of the religious sentiments of the people, which derive their
force from imitation and habit. The interruption of that public exercise
may consummate, in the period of a few years, the important work of a
national revolution. The memory of theological opinions cannot long be
preserved, without the artificial helps of priests, of temples, and of
books. The ignorant vulgar, whose minds are still agitated by the blind
hopes and terrors of superstition, will be soon persuaded by their
superiors to direct their vows to the reigning deities of the age; and
will insensibly imbibe an ardent zeal for the support and propagation
of the new doctrine, which spiritual hunger at first compelled them to
accept. The generation that arose in the world after the promulgation of
the Imperial laws, was attracted within