than my conjecture of Herod's pulling it down; and, if I can contrive to reprint this leaf, I will take notice of it.

Ρ. 58. Κληθεντος επ' αυτῳ, who takes his style and title, &c. is finely observed, and shews indeed he was thinking here of a local God.

P. 59. Your interpretation of Ows μsya is wonderfully ingenious (and especially as the Persians, in their encampment, carried a vast light over the imperial tent). But I am afraid the chronology of the writing will not allow it. I think I have shewn that the discourse was composed during his expedition into Persia. But it is impossible to conceive it written at the time you mention, when he was so dreadfully harassed and distressed by the Persian. He had something else to do, without question, at that time. Besides, this happened late in the Expedition. He rejected all terms of Peace, and went triumphantly to the Invasion. His course was successful; he passed the Euphrates; took towns; and himself ravaged all the flat country of Assyria with fire and sword, for fifteen days together. After this, the first rencounter between Hormesdes and Surena was happy. He passes the second branch of the Euphrates; cuts in pieces all that opposed his passage; takes, after a vigorous resistance, the second town in the Empire. Hitherto his soldiers were in the highest spirits; but, a check they meet with soon after, by the carelessness of a party, being severely punished by Julian, the army grows out of humour. He harangues them into temper. He takes another town. He forces the passes of rivers, beats the Persians before him even to the gates of Ctesiphon. They lose six thousand men; the Romans about seventy. He lays siege to it. Ambassadors come to beg Peace. It is refused. He is betrayed by a false fugitive, and finds himself involved in distress all at once. He finds himself in the midst of an open country destroyed by the

enemy,

enemy, and incessantly harassed by flying bodies of horse. Now is it possible to conceive this was a time for writing Pastoral Letters? or even that which preceded it, when he rolled on from conquest to conquest. We must needs conclude he dropped his pen when he came to action; and that what he wrote, was wrote between his setting out of Antioch to his passing the Euphrates. Besides, had these papers been in his tent in his distress, it is certain we should never have seen them, when Jovian so soon became master of what he left. It seems to admit of no question but, as soon as he had written them, he put them into the safe hands of Priests or Sophists, to be transmitted into Syria. If this be so, there is no room to suppose the allusion you mention.-As for the rest, your general analysis of the reasoning is fine and just.

And

You see the liberty I take. But I thought I could not do too much, to shew you how greatly I think myself obliged to you for your favour. I thought it a higher mark of respect and acknowledgment, to explain the reasons in what I differ from you, than in only thanking you for what you have set me right in.

You do me pleasure in permitting me to send you some more of the sheets. Those six are all yet printed. I have a good deal more copy ready, which I shall put into the Printer's hands when I get to town, which will be about the 22d instant.

Apropos shall we see you in town this November. I shall be all that month there, the dismal month of November, when the lower wretches hang and drown themselves, and the higher give themselves to the C. and the Devil. You may be assured it would be a real pleasure if I could wait on you there. I do not mean to the C. and the Devil, but in Bedford-row.

I am, dear Sir, your faithful and affectionate humble servant, W. WARBURton.

LETTER

LETTER III.

To the Rev. Mr. FORSTER.

DEAR SIR, Prior Park, Oct. 15, 1749. I have your obliging favour of the 12th. Your reflection on the passage you quote from Julian is admirable. It must be owned he had much of the character you give him; and it appears from this passage that he was as much an Antiquary as the present Dean of Exeter *; as from others, that he was as much a Politician as his Brother, though not altogether with as high a respect for St. Paul. P. 44. And although.] Your criticism on this passage is perfectly just. It is as you say.

Your observations on two other passages of Julian are extremely judicious. I have read over those fragments of his more than once, preserved by Cyrill. And he appeared to me extremely inconstant in what he said of the Jews. But, I agree with you, what you quote here is no bad comment on aylar πολ: and δόξαν, &c. των κρειττονι.

This.

I have often wished for a hand capable of collecting. all the remaining fragments 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. would be a very noble work. I knew of none that has all the talents fit for it but yourself. What an opening this will give to all the treasures of sacred and prophane antiquity! And what an opportunity would this be of establishing a great character! The Author of the Dissertation on the passage of Josephus (which I think the best piece of criticism of this age) would shine

* Dr. Charles Lyttelton, afterwards President of the Society of Antiquaries, and Bishop of Exeter.

† Alluding to the excellent Treatise on the Conversion of St. Paul, by George Lyttelton, Esq. afterwards the first Lord Lyttelton.

here.

here.

Think of it.-You cannot do a more useful thing to Religion, or your own character. Controversies of the times are things that presently vanish. This will be always of the same importance.

P. 50.] I think the words of Nazianzen necessarily suppose that Julian spoke to them of a Prophecy which foretold, by some preceding marks, the restoration; and that they were to judge by the appearance of those marks of the time. The words ÈTIθειαζων τε δηθεν εκ τον παρ' αυτοις βιβλων και αποῤῥη Tay seem to imply this sense, that Julian explained or interpreted some prophecies to them from their sacred books and traditions in such a manner as to shew them, &c. And Tv is such an expression as one would use of Whiston, who is both Prophet and Interpreter.

I will allow that Julian, in continuing his journal, in imitation of Cæsar, in the midst of perils, acted up to his character of a military fop. Though I think 'Ouixan (though in general it signifies that obscurity in the heavens occasioned by watery vapours either high or low) particularly signifies a cloud as well as other things; yet I agree with you, that I should have translated it a mist; for then it is, and not in cloudy weather, that the sun appears like a globe of fire.

I agree with you, had Julian intended by ws Meya to express the name of the sun, he would have put the article. But, though he meant the Sun, he expressed only what appeared to the false judgment of the beholder a great light, not the great light.

I grant you I have made the application-so these stark blind-instead of and stark blind. And I did it to explain what I conceived to be Julian's meaning, who designedly, I supposed, obscured it by not making the application. But your hint has made me reflect this will not be thought fair. So I think to alter it.

But,

But, seriously, when as μsya and Qws xalagov are the same, and opposed to IIug, how can they mean any thing but the Sun?

Did ever a Platonist, or indeed any other antient Philosopher or Divine, apply xabagov to any other than a celestial splendour? The Ancients indeed held the element of fire to be pure; but, when this quality is opposed to an earthly fire, it must be the quality of a heavenly one. You will say, he says oi avôowTоI BRETOUTES e xabagus, &c.: it is true; but here he had an eye, in my opinion, to the theourgic purification of mind; his simile and his application being, according to my interpretation, twisted together. After all, to suppose him only to allude to what the Old Testament says of God's being a consuming fire, he uses a strange apparatus for nothing: but what more natural, if he referred to the Temple of Daphne and Jesus? And suppose his simile is taken from what you suppose, I should still think the application the same, and that the frighted soldiers were to represent the admiring Christians.

P. 155 of Julian. It is no wonder that Julian should treat as a superstitious dream a God who is a consuming fire, when the Christians at this time so much triumphed in him under that title. Had it not been for such considerations as these, he would have found enough in Paganism to have justified the character; and, as his enthusiasm was superinduced, and inoculated by his Platonists, on his native superstition, he had enough of that original gloom of mind to figure to himself a deity thus arrayed. I allow your reflection on εθεν δε οιμαι, &c. to be extremely just. And he was certainly as sensible of the corruptions of principle in the then state of Paganism, as he was of the corruptions in practice.

Basnage will have it (I suppose from these words. of Socrates, Κελεύει ταχος κτιζεσθαι τον Σολομωνος Ναον και αυτος επι Πέρσας ηλαυνε that when this