A Source Book for Ancient Church HistoryAyer, Joseph Cullen
History
A Source Book for Ancient Church History
Ayer, Joseph Cullen
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600 -- Sources
Additional source material: Socrates, _Hist. Ec._, III: Ammianus
Marcellinus, _Roman History_, XVI-XXV, translated by C. D. Yonge
(Bohn’s Classical Library); _Select Works of Julian_, translated
by C. W. King (Bohn).
(_a_) Socrates. _Hist Ec._ III. 1. (MSG, 67:368.)
The Emperor Julian.
The account of the Emperor Julian as given by Socrates is probably
the best we have. It is, on the whole, a model of a fair
statement, such as is characteristic of the history of Socrates in
nearly all its parts. In spite of its length it is worthy of a
place in its entirety, as it explains the antecedents of a
character which the world has had difficulty in understanding.
Constantine, who gave Byzantium his own name, had two brothers born of the
same father but by a different mother, of these one was named Dalmatius,
the other Constantius. Dalmatius had a son of the same name as his own;
Constantius had two sons, Gallus and Julian. Now, as on the death of
Constantine, the founder of Constantinople, the soldiery had put the
younger brother Constantius to death, the lives of his two orphaned
children were also endangered; but a disease, apparently fatal, preserved
Gallus from the violence of his father’s murderers; and as to Julian, his
age—for he was only eight years old at the time—protected him. The
Emperor’s jealousy toward them having been subdued, Gallus attended
schools at Ephesus in Ionia, in which country considerable possessions had
been left them by their parents. Julian, however, when he was grown up
pursued his studies at Constantinople, going constantly to the palace,
where the schools then were, in simple attire and under the care of the
eunuch Mardonius. In grammar, Nicocles, the Lacedæmonian, was his
instructor; and Ecbolius, the sophist, who was at that time a Christian,
taught him rhetoric; for the Emperor Constantius had made provision that
he should have no pagan masters, lest he should be seduced to pagan
superstitions; for Julian was a Christian at the beginning. Since he made
great progress in literature, the report began to spread that he was
capable of ruling the Roman Empire; and this popular rumor becoming
generally spread abroad, greatly disquieted the Emperor. Therefore he
removed him from the great city to Nicomedia, forbidding him at the same
time to frequent the school of Libanius the Syrian sophist. For Libanius,
having been driven away by the teachers of Constantinople, had opened a
school at Nicomedia. Here he gave vent to his indignation against the
teachers in his treatise composed against them. Julian, however, was
interdicted from being his auditor, because Libanius was a pagan in
religion; nevertheless because he admired his orations, he procured them
and read them secretly and diligently. As he was becoming very expert in
the rhetorical art, Maximus the philosopher arrived in Nicomedia, not the
Byzantine, Euclid’s father, but the Ephesian whom the Emperor Valentinian
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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