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The emperor, on being informed that Athanasius held meetings in the
church of Alexandria, and taught the people boldly, and convened many
pagans to Christianity, commanded him, under the severest penalties,
to depart from Alexandria. The pretext made use of for enforcing this
edict, was that Athanasius, after having been banished by
Constantius, had reassumed his episcopal see without the sanction of
the reigning emperor; for Julian declared that he had never
contemplated restoring the bishops who had been exiled by Constantius
to their ecclesiastical functions, but only to their native land. On
the announcement of the command enjoining his immediate departure,
Athanasius said to the Christian multitudes who stood weeping around
him, "Be of good courage; it is but a cloud which will speedily be
dispersed." After these words he bade farewell; he then committed
the care of the church to the most zealous of his friends and quitted
Alexandria.
About the same period, the inhabitants of Cyzicus sent an embassy to
the emperor to lay before him some of their private affairs, and
particularly to entreat the restoration of the pagan temples. He
applauded their forethought, and promised to grant all their requests.
He expelled Eleusius, the bishop of their city, because he had
destroyed some temples, and desecrated the sacred areas with
contumely, provided houses for the support of widows, erected
buildings for holy virgins, and induced pagans to abandon their
ancestral rites.
The emperor prohibited some foreign Christians, who had accompanied
him, from entering the city of Cyzicus, from the apprehension, it
appears, that they would, in conjunction with the Christians within
the city, excite a sedition on account of religion. There were many
persons gathered with them who also held like religious views with the
Christians of the city, and who were engaged in woolen manufactures
for the state, and were coiners of money. They were numerous, and
were divided into two populous classes; they had received permission
from preceding emperors to dwell, with their wives and possessions, in
Cyzicus, provided that they annually handed over to the public
treasury a supply of clothes for the soldiery and of newly coined
money.
Although Julian was anxious to advance paganism by every means, yet
he deemed it the height of imprudence to employ force or vengeance
against those who refused to sacrifice. Besides, there were so many
Christians in every city that it would have been no easy task for the
rulers even to number them. He did not even forbid them to assemble
together for worship, as he was aware that when freedom of the will is
called into question, constraint is utterly useless. He expelled the
clergy and presidents of the churches from all the cities, in order to
put an end to these assemblies, saying truly that by their absence the
gatherings of the people would be effectually dissolved, if indeed
there were none to convene the churches, and none to teach or to
dispense the mysteries, religion itself would, in the course of time,
fall into oblivion. The pretext which he advanced for these
proceedings was, that the clergy were the leaders of sedition among the
people. Under this plea, he expelled Eleusius and his friends from
Cyzicus, although there was not even a symptom nor expectation of
sedition in that city. He also publicly called upon the citizens of
Bostra to expel Titus, their bishop. It appears that the emperor
had threatened to impeach Titus and the other clergy as the authors of
any sedition that might arise among the people, and that Titus had
thereupon written stating to him that although the Christians were near
the pagans in number, yet that, in accordance with his exhortations,
they were disposed to remain quiet, and were not likely to rise up in
sedition. Julian, with the view of not exciting the enmity of the
inhabitants of Bostra against Titus, represented, in a letter which
he addressed to them, that their bishop had advanced a calumny against
them, by stating that it was in accordance with his exhortations rather
than with their own inclination that they refrained from sedition; and
Julian exhorted them to expel him from their city as a public enemy.
It appears that the Christians were subjected to similar injustice in
other places; sometimes by the command of the emperor, and sometimes
by the wrath and impetuosity of the populace. The blame of these
transactions may be justly imputed to the ruler; for he did not bring
under the force of law the transgressors of law, but out of his hatred
to the Christian religion, he only visited the perpetrators of such
deeds with verbal rebukes, while, by his actions, he urged them on in
the same course. Hence although not absolutely persecuted by the
emperor, the Christians were obliged to flee from city to city and
village to village. My grandfather and many of my ancestors were
compelled to flee in this manner. My grandfather was of pagan
parentage; and, with his own family and that of Alaphion, had been
the first to embrace Christianity in Bethelia, a populous town near
Gaza, in which there are temples highly reverenced by the people of
the country, on account of their antiquity and structural excellence.
The most celebrated of these temples is the Pantheon, built on an
artificial eminence commanding a view of the whole town. The
conjecture is that the place received its name from the temple, that
the original name given to this temple was in the Syriac language, and
that this name was afterwards rendered into Greek and expressed by a
word which signifies that the temple is the residence of all the gods.
It is said that the above mentioned families were converted through the
instrumentality of the monk Hilarion. Alaphion, it appears, was
possessed of a devil; and neither the pagans nor the Jews could, by
any incantations and enchantments, deliver him from this affliction;
but Hilarion, by simply calling on the name of Christ, expelled the
demon, and Alaphion, with his whole family, immediately embraced
Christianity.
My grandfather was endowed with great natural ability, which he
applied with success to the explanation of the Sacred Scriptures; he
had made some attainments in general knowledge, and was not ignorant of
arithmetic. He was much beloved by the Christians of Ascalon, of
Gaza, and of the surrounding country; and was regarded as necessary
to religion, on account of his gift in expounding the doubtful points
of Scripture. No one can speak in adequate terms of the virtues of
the other family. The first churches and monasteries erected in that
country were founded by members of this family and supported by their
power and beneficence towards strangers and the needy. Some good men
belonging to this family have flourished even in our own days; and in
thy youth I saw some of them, but they were then very aged. I shall
have occasion to say more concerning them in the course of my history.
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