he ground; the hopes of testamentary donations were
intercepted by the rigor of the laws; and the priests of the Christian
sect were confounded with the last and most ignominious class of the
people. Such of these regulations as appeared necessary to check the
ambition and avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated
by the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which
policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished, on the sacerdotal
order, must be confined to those priests who profess the religion of the
state. But the will of the legislator was not exempt from prejudice and
passion; and it was the object of the insidious policy of Julian, to
deprive the Christians of all the temporal honors and advantages which
rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world. [88]

[Footnote 85: Greg. Naz. Orat. iii. p. 81. And this law was confirmed by
the invariable practice of Julian himself. Warburton has justly observed
(p. 35,) that the Platonists believed in the mysterious virtue of
words and Julian's dislike for the name of Christ might proceed from
superstition, as well as from contempt.]

[Footnote 86: Fragment. Julian. p. 288. He derides the (Epist. vii.,)
and so far loses sight of the principles of toleration, as to wish
(Epist. xlii.).]

[Footnote 88: These laws, which affected the clergy, may be found in the
slight hints of Julian himself, (Epist. lii.) in the vague declamations
of Gregory, (Orat. iii. p. 86, 87,) and in the positive assertions of
Sozomen, (l. v. c. 5.)]

A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which prohibited
the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and rhetoric. [89] The
motives alleged by the emperor to justify this partial and oppressive
measure, might command, during his lifetime, the silence of slaves and
the applause of Gatterers. Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word
which might be indifferently applied to the language and the religion of
the Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the
merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the advantages of
science; and he vainly contends, that if they refuse to adore the
gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to content themselves with
expounding Luke and Matthew in the church of the Galilaeans. [90] In all
the cities of the Roman world, the education of the youth was intrusted
to masters of grammar and rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates,
m