politics; it was the hope of
every bishop in the empire to make politics a branch of theology.
Already, however, it was apparent that the ecclesiastical party would,
in the end, get the upper hand, and that the reluctance of some of the
emperors to obey its behests was merely the revolt of individual minds,
and therefore ephemeral in its nature, and that the popular wishes would
be abundantly gratified as soon as emperors arose who not merely, like
Constantine, availed themselves of Christianity, but absolutely and
sincerely adopted it.

[Sidenote: The Emperor Julian.]

[Sidenote: Persecutions of his successors.]

Julian, by his brief but ineffectual attempt to restore paganism,
scarcely restrained for a moment the course of the new doctrines now
strengthening themselves continually in public estimation by
incorporating ideas borrowed from paganism. Through the reign of
Valentinian, who was a Nicenist, and of Valens, who was an Arian, things
went on almost as if the episode of Julian had never occurred. The
ancient gods, whose existence no one seems ever to have denied, were now
thoroughly identified with daemons; their worship was stigmatized as the
practice of magic. Against this crime, regarded by the laws as equal to
treason, a violent persecution arose. Persons resorting to Rome for the
purposes of study were forbidden to remain there after they were
twenty-one years of age. The force of this persecution fell practically
upon the old religion, though nominally directed against the black art,
for the primary function of paganism was to foretell future events in
this world, and hence its connexion with divination and its punishment
as magic.

[Sidenote: Necessity of learning to the bishops.]

[Sidenote: Growth of bigotry and superstition.]

But the persecution, though directed at paganism, struck also at what
remained of philosophy. A great party had attained to power under
circumstances which compelled it to enforce the principle on which it
was originally founded. That principle was the exaction of unhesitating
belief, which, though it will answer very well for the humbler and more
numerous class of men, is unsuited for those of a higher intellectual
grade. The policy of Constantine had opened a career in the state,
through the Church, for men of the lowest rank. Many of such had already
attained to the highest dignities. A burning zeal rather than the
possession of profound learning animated them. But emin