es in wealth. They
had gold and silver plate and jewels more than any man could count or
describe; they owned many mansions and villages, and large estates
everywhere, and everything else which is reckoned and called wealth
among men.

As none of the previous Emperors had interfered with them, many
people, even of the orthodox faith, procured, through this wealth,
work and the means of livelihood. But the Emperor Justinian first of
all sequestrated all the property of these churches, and suddenly took
away all that they possessed, by which many people lost the means of
subsistence. Many agents were straightway sent out to all parts of the
Empire to force whomsoever they met to change the faith of his
forefathers. These homely people, considering this an act of impiety,
decided to oppose the Emperor's agents. Hereupon many were put to
death by the persecuting faction, and many made an end of themselves,
thinking, in their superstitious folly, that this course best
satisfied the claims of religion; but the greater part of them
voluntarily quitted the land of their forefathers, and went into
exile. The Montanists, who were settled in Phrygia, shut themselves up
in their churches, set them on fire, and perished in the flames; and,
from this time forth, nothing was to be seen in the Roman Empire
except massacres and flight.

Justinian straightway passed a similar law with regard to the
Samaritans, which produced a riot in Palestine. In my own city of
Caesarea and other cities, the people, thinking that it was a foolish
thing to suffer for a mere senseless dogma, adopted, in place of the
name which they had hitherto borne, the appellation of "Christians,"
and so avoided the danger with which they were threatened by this law.
Such of them as had any claims to reason and who belonged to the
better class, thought it their duty to remain stedfast to their new
faith; but the greater part, as though out of pique at having been
forced against their will by the law to abandon the faith of their
fathers, adopted the belief of the Manicheans, or what is known as
Polytheism.

But all the country people met together in a body and determined to
take up arms against the Emperor. They chose a leader of their own,
named Julian, the son of Sabarus, and for some time held their own in
the struggle with the Imperial troops, but were at last defeated and
cut to pieces, together with their leader. It is said that one hundred
thousand men fel