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AFTER the decease of Julian, the government of the empire was,
by the unanimous consent of the troops, tendered to Jovian. When the
army was about to proclaim him emperor, he announced himself to be a
Christian and refused the sovereignty, nor would he receive the
symbols of empire; but when the soldiers discovered the cause of his
refusal, they loudly proclaimed that they were themselves Christians.
The dangerous and disturbed condition in which affairs had been left by
Julian's strategy, and the sufferings of the army from famine in an
enemy's country, compelled Jovian to conclude a peace with the
Persians, and to cede to them some territories which had been formerly
tributary to the Romans. Having learned from experience that the
impiety of his predecessor had excited the wrath of God, and given
rise to public calamities, he wrote without delay to the governors of
the provinces, directing that the people should assemble together
without fear in the churches, that they should serve God with
reverence, and that they should receive the Christian faith as the
only true religion. He restored to the churches and the clergy, to
the widows and the virgins, the same immunities and every former
dotation for the advantage and honor of religion, which had been
granted by Constantine and his sons, and afterwards withdrawn by
Julian. He commanded Secundus, who was then a praetorian prefect,
to constitute it a capital crime to marry any of the holy virgins, or
even to regard them with unchaste desires and to carry them off.
He enacted this law on account of the wickedness which had prevailed
during the reign of Julian; for many had taken wives from among the
holy virgins, and, either by force or guile, had completely corrupted
them; and thence had proceeded that indulgence of disgraceful lusts
with impunity, which always occur when religion is abused.
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