the grace that had delivered them from it."

The Marquis d'Argens further observes: "It were to be wished, that Father Petau, having so judiciously considered the works of Julian, had formed an equally correct idea of the person of that Emperor. I cannot discover through what caprice he takes it amiss, that a certain learned Professor** has praised the civil virtues of Julian, and condemned the evidently false calumnies that almost all the ecclesiastical authors have lavished upon him; and amongst the rest Gregory and Cyril, who to the good arguments they have adduced against the false reasoning of Julian, have added insults which ought never to have been used by any defender of truth. They have cruelly

calumniated this Emperor to favour their good cause, and confounded the just, wise, clement, and most courageous prince, with the Pagan philosopher and theologian; when they ought simply to have refuted him with argument, in no case with insult, and still less with calumnies so evidently false, that during fourteen centuries, in which they have been so often repeated, they have never been accredited, nor enabled to assume even an air of truth."

A wise Christian philosopher, La Mothe, Le Vayer, in reflecting on the great virtues with which Julian was endowed, on the contempt he manifested for death, on the firmness with which he consoled those who wept around him, and on his last conversation with Maximus and Priscus on the immortality of the soul, says, "that after such testimonies of a virtue, to which nothing appears to be wanting but the faith to give its professor a place amongst the blessed*, we have cause to wonder that

Heathens that lived posterior, but those also who lived anterior to the promulgation of the Christian religion, will have no place hereafter among the blessed.

Cyril should have tried to make us believe, that Julian was a mean and cowardly prince*. Those who judge of men that lived in former ages by those who have lived in more recent times, may feel little surprise at the proceedings of Cyril. It has rarely happened that long animosity and abuse have not been introduced into religious controversies."

After what has been above said of Julian, I deem it necessary to observe, that Father Petau is egregiously mistaken in supposing that Cyril has preserved the whole of that Emperor's arguments against the Christians: and the Marquis D'Argêns is also mistaken when he says, that "the passages of Julian's text which are

abridged or omitted, aire very few." For Hieronymus in Epist. 83. Ad Magnum Oratorem Romanum, testifies that this work consisted of seven books; three of which only Cyril attempted to confute, as is evident from his own words, [—Greek—] "Julian wrote three books against the holy Evangelists." But as Fabricius observes, (in Biblioth. Græc. tom. vii. p. 89.) in the other four books, he appears to have attacked the remaining books of the Scriptures, i. e. the books of the Old Testament.

With respect, however, to the three books which Cyril has endeavoured to confute, it appears to me, that he has only selected such parts of these books as he thought he could most easily answer. For that he has not given even the substance of these three books, is evident from the words of Julian himself, as recorded by Cyril. For Julian, after certain invectives both against Christ and John, says, "These things, therefore, we shall shortly discuss, when we come particularly to consider

the monstrous deeds and fraudulent machinations of the Evangelists*." There is no particular discussion however of these in any part of the extracts preserved by Cyril.

That the work, indeed, of Julian against the Christians was of considerable extent, is evident from the testimony of his contemporary, Libanius; who, in his admirable funeral oration on this most extraordinary man, has the following remarkable passage: "But when the winter had extended the nights, Julian, besides many other beautiful works, attacked the books which make a man of Palestine to be a God, and the son of God; and in a long contest, and with strenuous arguments, evinced that what is said in these writings is ridiculous and nugatory. And in the execution of this work he appears to have excelled in wisdom the Tyrian old man.**

In asserting this however, may the Tyrian be propitious to me, and benevolently receive what I have said, he having been vanquished by his son*."

With respect to Celsus, the author of the following Fragments, he lived in the time of the Emperor Adrian. and was, if Origen may be credited, an Epicurean philosopher. That he might indeed, at some former period of his life, have been an Epicurean maybe admitted; but it would be highly absurd to suppose that he was so when he wrote this invective against the Christians; for the arguments which he mostly employs show that he was well skilled m the philosophy of Plato: and to suppose, as Origen does, that he availed himself of arguments in

which he did not believe, and consequently conceived to be erroneous, in order to confute doctrines which he was persuaded are false, would be to make him, instead of a philosopher, a fool. As to Origen, though he abandoned philosophy for Christianity, he was considered as heterodox by many of the Christian sect. Hence, with some of the Catholics, his future salvation became a matter of doubt*; and this induced the celebrated Johannes Picus Mirandulanus, in the last of his Theological conclusions according to his own opinion, to say: "Rationabilius est credere Uriginem esse salvum, quam credere ipsum esse damnatum," i. e. It is more reasonable to believe that Origen is saved, than that he is damned.

I shall conclude this Introduction with the following extract.