CHAPTER XXIV

ANXIETY OF THE BISHOPS TO INDUCE JOVIAN TO FAVOUR THEIR OWN CREED

AFTER Jovian’s return from Persia, ecclesiastical commotions were again renewed: for those who presided over the churches endeavoured to anticipate each other, in the hope of influencing the emperor to favour their own tenets. He however had from the beginning adhered to the Homoousian faith, and openly declared that he preferred this to all others. He wrote also by way of encouragement to Athanasius, who immediately after Julian’s death had recovered the Alexandrine church; and recalled from exile all those prelates whom Constantius had banished, and who had not been re-established by Julian. Moreover the Pagan temples were again shut up, and their priests secreted themselves wherever they were able. The philosophers also laid aside their palliums, and clothed themselves in ordinary attire. That public pollution by the blood of victims, which had been profusely lavished even to disgust in the preceding reign, was now likewise taken away.