Never was a completer failure. Crowds of course applauded Caesar, but only with the empty cheers they gave the jockeys or the preachers. Multitudes came to see an Emperors devotions, but they only quizzed his shaggy beard or tittered at the antiquated ceremonies. Sacrificial dinners kept the soldiers devout, and lavish bribery secured a good number of renegades--mostly waverers, who really had not much to change. Of the bishops, Pegasius of Ilium alone laid down his office for a priesthood; but he had always been a heathen at heart, and worshipped the gods even while he held his bishopric. The Christians upon the whole stood firm. Even the heathens were little moved. Julian's own teachers held cautiously aloof from his reforms; and if meaner men paused in their giddy round of pleasure, it was only to amuse themselves with the strange spectacle of imperial earnestness. Neither friends nor enemies seemed able to take him quite seriously. [Sidenote: Julian's policy against Christianity.] Passing over scattered cases of persecution encouraged or allowed by Julian, we may state generally that he aimed at degrading Christianity into a vulgar superstition, by breaking its connections with civilized government on one side, with liberal education on the other. One part of it was to deprive the 'Galileans' of state support and weed them out as far as might be from the public service, while still leaving them full freedom to quarrel amongst themselves; the other was to cut them off from literature by forbidding them to teach the classics. Homer and Hesiod were prophets of the gods, and must not be expounded by unbelievers. Matthew and Luke were good enough for barbarian ears like theirs. We need not pause to note the impolicy of an edict which Julian's own admirer Ammianus wishes 'buried in eternal silence.' Its effect on the Christians was very marked. Marius Victorinus, the favoured teacher of the Roman nobles, at once resigned his chair of rhetoric. The studies of his old age had brought him to confess his faith in Christ, and he would not now deny his Lord. Julian's own teacher Proaeresius gave up his chair at Athens, refusing the special exemption which was offered him. It was not all loss for the Christians to be reminded that the gospel is revelation, not philosophy--life and not discussion. But Greek literature was far too weak to bear the burden of a sinking world, and its guardians could not have devised a more fatal plan than this of setting it in direct antagonism to the living power of Christianity. In our regret for the feud between Hellenic culture and the mediaeval churches, we must not forget that it was Julian who drove in the wedge of separation. [Sidenote: Julian's toleration.]