"For if indeed Julian had caused all those that were under his dominion to be richer than Midas, and each of the cities greater than Babylon once was, and had also surrounded each of them with a golden wall, but had corrected none of the existing errors respecting divinity, he would have acted in a manner similar to a physician, who receiving a body full of evils in each of its parts, should cure all of them except the eyes."—Liban. Parental, in Julian, p. 285. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION. THE ARGUMEN

"I HAVE often wished," says Warburton in a letter to Dr. Forster, October 15, 1749, "for a hand capable of collecting all the fragments remaining of Porphyry, Celsus, Hierocles, and Julian, and giving them to us with a just, critical and theological comment, as a defy to infidelity. It is certain we want something more than what their ancient answerers have given us. This would be a very noble work*." The author of the following Collectanea has partially effected what Dr. Warburton wished to see

"THE Christians are accustomed to have private assemblies, which are forbidden by the law. For of assemblies some are public, and these are conformable to the law of the land; but others are secret, and these are such as are hostile to the laws; among which are the Love Feasts of the Christians *. "Men who irrationally assent to anything, resemble those who are delighted with jugglers and enchanters, &c. For as most of these are depraved characters, who deceive the vulgar, and persuade t

AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS This work of Porphyry consisted of Fifteen Books, and is unfortunately lost. It is frequently mentioned by the Fathers of the Church, from whose writings the following particulars are collected. The First Book appears to have contained a development of the contrariety of the Scriptures, and proofs that they did not proceed from Divinity, but from men. To this end Porphyry especially adduces what Paul writes to the Galatians, chap. ii. viz. that "when Peter came to Antioch,

"King Antiochus besieged Jerusalem; but the Jews resisted him for some time. When, however, all their provision was spent, they were forced to send ambassadors to him to treat on terms. Many of his friends persuaded him to storm the city, and to root out the whole nation of the Jews; because they only, of all people, hated to converse with any of another nation, and treated all of them as enemies. They likewise suggested to him, that the ancestors of the Jews were driven out of Egypt as impious

"While such was the state of things in Ethiopia, the people of Jerusalem, having come down with the defiled of the Egyptians, treated the inhabitants in such an unholy manner, that those who witnessed their impieties, believed that their joint sway was more execrable than that which the shepherds had formerly exercised. For they not only set fire to the cities and villages, but committed every kind of sacrilege, and destroyed the images of the gods, and roasted and fed upon those sacred animals

TRANSLATED BY MURPHY. "Being now to relate the progress of a siege that terminated in the destruction of that once celebrated city [Jerusalem], it may be proper to go back to its first foundation, and to trace the origin of the people. The Jews we are told were natives of the Isle of Crete. At the time when Saturn was driven from his throne by the violence of Jupiter, they abandoned their habitations, and gained a settlement at the extremity of Libya. In support of this tradition, the etymology

CHRISTIANS. EXTRACT FROM EPISTLE LI. TO THE ALEXANDRIANS. "As the founder of your city was Alexander, and your ruler and tutelar deity King Serapis, together with the virgin his associate, and the queen of all Egypt, Isis, * * *, you do not emulate a healthy city, but the diseased part dares to arrogate to itself the name of [the whole] city. By the gods, Men of Alexandria, I should be very much ashamed, if, in short, any Alexandrian should acknowledge himself to be a Galilæan. "The ancestors of

LIBANIUS'S ORATION FOR THE TEMPLES*. [The occasion of the oration was this. In the reign of Theodosius several heathen temples, some of them very magnificent, were pulled down and destroyed in the cities, and especially in country-places, by the monks, with the consent and connivance, as Libanius intimates, of the bishops, and without express order of the Emperor to that purpose. Of this Libanius complains, and implores the Emperor's protection, that the temples may be preserved.] "Having alread

OF THE NAMES OF REPROACH WHICH THE JEWS, INFIDELS, AND HERETICS CAST UPON THE CHRISTIANS. "Besides the names already spoken of, there were some other reproachful names cast upon them by their adversaries, which it will not be improper here to mention. The first of these was Nazarens, a name of reproach given them first by the Jews, by whom they are styled the sect of the Nazarens, Acts xxiv. 5. There was indeed a particular heresy, who called themselves [—Greek—]: and Epiphanius* thinks the Jews