[Footnote 93: They had recourse to the expedient of composing books
for their own schools. Within a few months Apollinaris produced his
Christian imitations of Homer, (a sacred history in twenty-four books,)
Pindar, Euripides, and Menander; and Sozomen is satisfied, that they
equalled, or excelled, the originals. * Note: Socrates, however, implies
that, on the death of Julian, they were contemptuously thrown aside by
the Christians. Socr. Hist. iii.16.--M.]

It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive the
Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of power; but
the injustice of excluding them from all offices of trust and profit
seems to have been the result of his general policy, rather than the
immediate consequence of any positive law. [94] Superior merit might
deserve and obtain, some extraordinary exceptions; but the greater part
of the Christian officers were gradually removed from their employments
in the state, the army, and the provinces. The hopes of future
candidates were extinguished by the declared partiality of a prince, who
maliciously reminded them, that it was unlawful for a Christian to use
the sword, either of justice, or of war; and who studiously guarded
the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of idolatry. The powers of
government were intrusted to the pagans, who professed an ardent zeal
for the religion of their ancestors; and as the choice of the emperor
was often directed by the rules of divination, the favorites whom he
preferred as the most agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the
approbation of mankind. [95] Under the administration of their enemies,
the Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The temper of
Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation, which was
exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the philosophic monarch
from violating the laws of justice and toleration, which he himself had
so recently established. But the provincial ministers of his authority
were placed in a less conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary
power, they consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their
sovereign; and ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious tyranny
against the sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to confer the
honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled as long as possible his
knowledge of the injustice that was exercised in his name, expressed
his real sense of the conduct of his