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| Of Maris Bishop of Chalcedon; Julian forbids Christians from entering Literary Pursuits.
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Chapter XII.—Of Maris
Bishop of Chalcedon; Julian forbids Christians from entering Literary
Pursuits.
About this time, Maris bishop
of Chalcedon in Bithynia being led by the hand into the emperor’s
presence,—for on account of extreme old age he had a disease in
his eyes termed ‘cataract,’—severely rebuked his
impiety, apostasy, and atheism. Julian answered his reproaches by
loading him with contumelious epithets: and he defended himself by
words calling him ‘blind.’ ‘You blind old
fool,’ said he, ‘this Galilæan God of yours will never
cure you.’ For he was accustomed to term Christ ‘the
Galilæan,’517
and Christians Galilæans. Maris with still greater boldness
replied, ‘I thank God for bereaving me of my sight, that I might
not behold the face of one who has fallen into such awful
impiety.’ The emperor suffered this to pass without farther
notice at that time; but he afterwards had his revenge. Observing that
those who suffered martyrdom under the reign of Diocletian were greatly
honored by the Christians, and knowing that many among them were
eagerly desirous of becoming martyrs, he determined to wreak his
vengeance upon them in some other way. Abstaining therefore from the
excessive cruelties which had been practiced under Diocletian; he did
not however altogether abstain from persecution (for any measures
adopted to disquiet and molest I regard as persecution). This then was
the plan he pursued: he enacted a law518
by which Christians were excluded from the cultivation of literature;
‘lest,’ said he, ‘when they have sharpened their
tongue, they should be able the more readily to meet the arguments of
the heathen.’
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