viii. 9. Comp. also Schrockh, vii, 45 sqq. and Werns- dorf : De Hypatia, philosopha Alex. diss. iv. Viteb. 1748. The " Hypatia" of Charles Kingsley is a historical didactic romance, with a polemical aim against the Puseyite overvaluation of patristic Christianity. 68 TIimD PERIOD. A,D. 311-590. year 435 Tlieodosius II. commanded the temples to be de- stroyed or turned into churches. There still appear some hea- thens in civil office and at court so late as the beginning of the reign of Justinian I. (527-56T). But this despotic emperor prohibited heathenism as a form of worship in the empire on pain of death, and in 529 abolished the last intellectual semi- nary of it, the philosophical school of Athens, which had stood nine hundred years. At that time just seven philosophers were teaching in that school,' the shades of the ancient seven sages of Greece, — a striking play of history, like the name of the last west-Homan emperor, Komulus Augustus, or, in con- temptuous diminutive, Augustulus, combining the names of the founder of the city and the founder of the empire. In the West, heathenism maintained itself until near the middle of the sixth centmy, and even later, partly as a private religious conviction among many cultivated and aristocratic families in Rome, partly even in the full form of worship in the remote provinces and on the mountains of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica," and partly in heathen customs and popular usages like the gladiatorial shows still extant in Rome in 404, and the wanton Lupercalia, a sort of heathen carnival, the feast of Lupercus, the god of herds, still celebrated with all its excesses in February, 495, But, in general, it may be said that the Graeco-Roman heathenism, as a system of worship, was buried under the ruins of the western empire, which sunk under the storms of the great migration. It is remarkable that the northern barbarians labored with the same zeal in the destruc- tion of idolatry as in the destruction of the empire, and really promoted the victory of the Christian religion. The Gothic king Alaric, on entering Rome, expressly ordered that the chm'ches of the apostles Peter and Paul should be spared, as inviolable sanctuaries; and he showed a humanity, which ' Damasciu3 of Syria, Simplicius of Cilicia (the most celebrated), Eulalius of Phrygia, Priscianus of Lydia, Isidore of Gaza, Hermias, and Diogenes. They had the courage to prefer exile to the renunciation of their convictions, and found with King Chosroes of Persia a welcome reception, but aflerwards returned into the Ro- man empire under promise of toleration. Comp. Schrockh, xvi. p. '74 sqq. ^ On these remains of heathenism in the West comp. the citations of Gieseler, i. § 79, not. 22 and 23 (i. 2. p. 38-40. Engl. ed. of N. York, i. p. 219 sq.). .m § 7. THE DOWNFALL OF HEATHENISM. 69 Augustin justly attributes to the influence of Christianity (even perverted Arian Christianity) on these barbarous people. The Christian