y deride the diligence of a stranger, who cultivated their art
and neglected his own. "What can ye fear," said a bold conspirator to
his associates, "from your bigoted tyrant? Sleepless and unarmed, he
sits whole nights in his closet, debating with reverend graybeards, and
turning over the pages of ecclesiastical volumes." [82] The fruits of
these lucubrations were displayed in many a conference, where Justinian
might shine as the loudest and most subtile of the disputants; in many a
sermon, which, under the name of edicts and epistles, proclaimed to the
empire the theology of their master. While the Barbarians invaded the
provinces, while the victorious legion marched under the banners of
Belisarius and Narses, the successor of Trajan, unknown to the camp,
was content to vanquish at the head of a synod. Had he invited to these
synods a disinterested and rational spectator, Justinian might have
learned, "that religious controversy is the offspring of arrogance
and folly; that true piety is most laudably expressed by silence and
submission; that man, ignorant of his own nature, should not presume to
scrutinize the nature of his God; and that it is sufficient for us
to know, that power and benevolence are the perfect attributes of the
Deity." [83]

[Footnote 80: The strain of the Anecdotes of Procopius, (c. 11, 13, 18,
27, 28,) with the learned remarks of Alemannus, is confirmed, rather
than contradicted, by the Acts of the Councils, the fourth book of
Evagrius, and the complaints of the African Facundus, in his
xiith book--de tribus capitulis, "cum videri doctus appetit
importune...spontaneis quaestionibus ecclesiam turbat." See Procop. de
Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 35.]

[Footnote 81: Procop. de Edificiis, l. i. c. 6, 7, &c., passim.]

[Footnote 82: Procop. de Bell. Goth. l. iii. c. 32. In the life of St.
Eutychius (apud Aleman. ad Procop. Arcan. c. 18) the same character is
given with a design to praise Justinian.]

[Footnote 83: For these wise and moderate sentiments, Procopius (de
Bell. Goth. l. i. c. 3) is scourged in the preface of Alemannus, who
ranks him among the political Christians--sed longe verius haeresium
omnium sentinas, prorsusque Atheos--abominable Atheists, who preached
the imitation of God's mercy to man, (ad Hist. Arcan. c. 13.)]

Toleration was not the virtue of the times, and indulgence to rebels has
seldom been the virtue of princes. But when the prince descends to the
narrow and peevish characte