History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3Gibbon, Edward
History
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire — Volume 3
Gibbon, Edward
Byzantine Empire -- History -- To 527; Rome -- History -- Empire, 30 B.C.-476 A.D.
63 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 32) is proud that
Theodosius should thus distinguish a man, who even in his
presence would swear by Jupiter. Yet this presence seems to be no
more than a figure of rhetoric.]
64 (return) [ Zosimus, who styles himself Count and Ex-advocate
of the Treasury, reviles, with partial and indecent bigotry, the
Christian princes, and even the father of his sovereign. His work
must have been privately circulated, since it escaped the
invectives of the ecclesiastical historians prior to Evagrius,
(l. iii. c. 40-42,) who lived towards the end of the sixth
century. * Note: Heyne in his Disquisitio in Zosimum Ejusque
Fidem. places Zosimum towards the close of the fifth century.
Zosim. Heynii, p. xvii.—M.]
65 (return) [ Yet the Pagans of Africa complained, that the times
would not allow them to answer with freedom the City of God; nor
does St. Augustin (v. 26) deny the charge.]
66 (return) [ The Moors of Spain, who secretly preserved the
Mahometan religion above a century, under the tyranny of the
Inquisition, possessed the Koran, with the peculiar use of the
Arabic tongue. See the curious and honest story of their
expulsion in Geddes, (Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 1-198.)]
67 (return) [ Paganos qui supersunt, quanquam jam nullos esse
credamus, &c. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 22, A.D. 423.
The younger Theodosius was afterwards satisfied, that his
judgment had been somewhat premature. Note: The statement of
Gibbon is much too strongly worded. M. Beugnot has traced the
vestiges of Paganism in the West, after this period, in monuments
and inscriptions with curious industry. Compare likewise note, p.
112, on the more tardy progress of Christianity in the rural
districts.—M.]
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