{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/203/2030099.htm","path":"chr/ecf/203/2030099.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/203/2030099.htm","text":"p. 104 Chapter XVI.\u2014Of the expedition against the Persians.\nNo sooner had the Persians heard of the death of Constantius, than they took heart, proclaimed war, and marched over the frontier of the Roman empire. Julian therefore determined to muster his forces, though they were a host without a God to guard them. First he sent to Delphi, to Delos and to Dodona, and to the other oracles 649 and enquired of the seers if he should march. They bade him march and promised him victory. One of these oracles I subjoin in proof of their falsehood. It was as follows. \u201cNow we gods all started to get trophies of victory by the river beast and of them I Ares, bold raiser of the din of war, will be leader.\u201d 650 Let them that style the Pythian a God wise in word and prince of the muses ridicule the absurdity of the utterance. I who have found out its falsehood will rather pity him who was cheated by it. The oracle called the Tigris \u201cbeast\u201d because the river and the animal bear the same name. Rising in the mountains of Armenia, and flowing through Assyria it discharges itself into the Persian gulf. Beguiled by these oracles the unhappy man indulged in dreams of victory, and after fighting with the Persians had visions of a campaign against the Galileans, for so he called the Christians, thinking thus to bring discredit on them. But, man of education as he was, he ought to have bethought him that no mischief is done to reputation by change of name, for even had Socrates been called Critias and Pythagoras Phalaris they would have incurred no disgrace from the change of name\u2014nor yet would Nireus if he had been named Thersites 651 have lost the comeliness with which nature had gifted him. Julian had learned about these things, but laid none of them to heart, and supposed that he could wrong us by using an inappropriate title. He believed the lies of the oracles and threatened to set up in our churches the statue of the goddess of lust.\nThis is probably the last occasion on which the moribund oracles were consulted by any one of importance. Of Delphi, the \u201cnavel of the earth\u201d (Strabo ix. 505) in Phocis, Cicero had written some four centuries earlier \u201cCur isto modo jam oracula Delphi non eduntur, non modo nostra \u00e6tate, sed jam diu, ut nihil possit esse contemptius:\u201d Div. ii. 57. Plutarch, who died about a.d. 120, wrote already \u201cde defectu oraculorum.\u201d\nThe oracle of Apollo at Delos was consulted only in the summer months, as in the winter the god was supposed to be at Patara: so Virgil (iv. 143) writes\n\u201cQualis ubi hibernam Lyciam Xanthique fluenta\nDeserit, ac Delum maternam invisit Apollo.\u201d\nDodona in Epirus was the most ancient of the oracular shrines, where the suppliant went\n\u1f10\u03ba \u03b4\u03c1\u03c5\u1f78\u03c2 \u1f51\u03c8\u03b9\u03ba\u03cc\u03bc\u03bf\u03b9\u03bf \u0394\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u1f74\u03bd \u1f10\u03c0\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03cd\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9.\u201d\n\u201cThe oracles\u201d were potentially \u201cdumb,\u201d \u201cApollo\u2026with hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving,\u201d as Milton sings, at the Nativity, but it was not till the reign of Theodosius that they were finally silenced.\n104:650\n\u03bd\u1fe6\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03c2 \u1f61\u03c1\u03bc\u03ae\u03b8\u03b7\u03bc\u03b5\u03bd \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fd6 \u03bd\u03af\u03ba\u03b7\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c1\u03cc\u03c0\u03b1\u03b9\u03b1 \u03ba\u03bf\u03bc\u03af\u03c3\u03b1\u03c3\u03b8\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u1f70 \u03b8\u03b7\u03c1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03bf\u03c4\u03b1\u03bc\u1ff7 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03b4\u1fbd \u1f10\u03b3\u1f7c \u1f21\u03b3\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03c3\u03c9 \u03b8\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c1\u03bf\u03c2 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03b5\u03bc\u03cc\u03ba\u03bb\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u1fce\u0391\u03c1\u03b7\u03c2\n104:651\nThese four illustrations, occurring in a single sentence indicate a certain breadth of reading on the part of the writer, and bear out his character for learning. (cf. Gibbon and Jortin, remarks on Eccl. Hist. ii. 113.) Socrates, the best of the philosophers, is set against Critias, one of the worst of the politicians of Hellas; Pythagoras, the Samian sage of Magna Gr\u00e6cia, against Phalaris, the Sicilian tyrant who\n\u201ctauro violenti membra Perilli\nTorruit;\u201d (Ovid. A. A. 1. 653)\nbut did not write the Epistles once ascribed to him. Theodoretus probably remembered his Homer when he cited Thersites as the ugliest man of the old world;\u2014\n\u201cHe was squint-eyed, and lame of either foot;\nSo crook-back\u2019d that he had no breast; sharp-headed, where did shoot\nHere and there spersed, thin mossy hair.\nAnd the juxtaposition of Pythagoras and Nireus suggests that it may possibly have been Horace who suggested Nireus as the type of beauty:\u2014\n\u201cNec te Pythagor\u00e6 fallant arcana renati,\nFormaque vincas Nirea,\u201d (Hor. Epod. xv.)\nthough Nireus appears as \u03ba\u03ac\u03bb\u03bb\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 \u1f00\u03bd\u03ae\u03c1 in the same book of the Iliad as that in which Thersites is derided, and Theodoret is said to have known no Latin.","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. III: The Ecclesiastical History, Dialogues, and Letters of Theodoret.: Of the expedition against the Persians.","type":"page"}