of the history of the Roman em- pire from the time of Constantino, and by tracing its decline to the Christian religion ; while, on the contrary, Amiviianus Marcellinus (died about 390) presents with honorable im- ' Dr. Nathaniel Lardner's Works, ed. by Dr. Kippis in ten vols. VoL vii. pp. 638 and 639. As against the mythical theory of Strauss and Renan the extract from Lardner has considerable force, as well as his whole work on the Credibility of . the Gospel History. According to Niebuhr's view it must have been composed under the emperor Phoeas, 968 or 969. Moyle places it in the year 302, Dodwell in the year 261, others in the year 272. 80 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. partiality both the dark and the bright sides of the Chri&tiau emperors and of the apostate Julian.' § 10. The Heathen Ajpologetic Literature. After the death of Julian most of the heathen writers, es- pecially the ablest and most estinaable, confined themselves to the defence of their religion, and thus became, by reaion of their position, advocates of toleration ; and, of course, of tolera- tion for the religious syncretism, which in its cooler form de- generates into philosophical indifFerentism. Among these were Themistius, teacher of rhetoric, senator, and prefect of Constantinople, and afterwards preceptor of the young emperor Arcadius ; Aueelius Stmmachus, rhetorician, senator, and prefect of Eome under Gratian and Yalentinian II., the eloquent pleader for the altar of Victoria ; and above aU, the rhetorician Libakius, friend and admirer of Julian, alternately teaching in Constantinople, Mcomedia, and Anti- och. These all belong to the second half of the fourth century, and represent at once the last bloom and the decline of the classic eloquence. They were all more or less devoted to the Keo-Platonic syncretism. They held, that the Deity had im- planted in all men a religious nature and want, but had left the particular form of worshiping God to the free will of the several nations and individuals; that all outward constraint, therefore, was contrary to the nature of religion and could only beget hypocrisy. Themistius vindicated this variety of the forms of religion as favorable to religion itself, as many Prot- estants justify the system of sects. " The rivalry of different religions," says he in his oration on Jovian, " serves to stimu- late zeal for the worship of God. There are different paths, some hard, others easy, some rough, others smooth, leading to the same goal. Leave only one way, and shut up the rest, and you destroy emulation. God would have no such uni- ' The more is it to be regretted, that the first thirteen books of his history of the Roman emperors from Nerva to 353 are lost. The remaining eighteen books reach from 353 to 378. § 11. CHKISTIAIT APOLOGISTS AND POLEMICS. 81 formity among men. . . . The Lord of the universe delights in manifoldness. It is his will, that Syrians, Greeks, Egyp- tians