‘Nature loves concealment; and the hidden substance of the gods cannot endure being cast into polluted ears in naked words.’ From which it is manifest that the emperor entertained this notion concerning the divine Scriptures, that they are mystical discourses, containing in them some abstruse meaning. He is also very indignant because all men do not form the same opinion of them; and inveighs against those Christians who understand the sacred oracles in a more literal sense. But it ill became him to rail so vehemently against the simplicity of the vulgar, and on their account to behave so arrogantly towards the sacred Scriptures: nor was he warranted in turning with aversion from those things which others rightly apprehended, because forsooth they understood them otherwise than he desired they should. But now as it seems a similar cause of disgust seems to have operated upon him to that which affected Porphyry, who having been beaten by some Christians at Cæsarea in Palestine and not being able to endure [such treatment], from the working of unrestrained rage renounced the Christian religion: and from hatred of those who had beaten him he took to write blasphemous works against Christians, as Eusebius Pamphilus has proved who at the same time refuted his writings. So the emperor having uttered disdainful expressions against the Christians in the presence of an unthinking multitude, through the same morbid condition of mind fell into Porphyry’s blasphemies. Since therefore they both willfully broke forth into impiety, they are punished by the consciousness of their guilt. But when Libanius the Sophist says