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WHEN the emperor had received this letter, his former knowledge of
and disposition to divine things was confirmed, and he issued a second
edict wherein he ordered the amount of corn which the great Constantine
had appropriated to the churches to be restored. For Julian, as was
to be expected of one who had gone to war with our Lord and Saviour,
had stopped even this maintenance, and since the famine which visited
the empire in consequence of Julian's iniquity prevented the
collection of the contribution of Constantine's enactment, Jovian
ordered a third part to be supplied for the present, and promised that
on the cessation of the famine he would give the whole.
After distinguishing the beginning of his reign by edicts of this
kind, Jovian set out from Antioch for the Bosphorus; but at
Dadastanae, a village lying on the confines of Bithynia and
Galatia, he died. He set out on his journey from this world with the
grandest and fairest support and stay, but all who had experienced the
clemency of his sway were left behind in pain. So, me thinks, the
Supreme Ruler, to convict us of our iniquity, both shews us good
things and again deprives us of them; so by the former means He
teaches us how easily He can give us what He will; by the latter He
convicts us of our unworthiness of it, and points us to the better
life.
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