3. Who, then, has answered your Clemency contumaciously? He who desires that you should be like your father, or he that wishes you to be unlike him? Unless, perhaps, the judgment of so great an Emperor seems to any persons of small account, whose faith has been proved by the constancy of his profession, Allusion is here made to a celebrated act of Valentinian, when attending on the Emperor Julian at the temple of Fortune. One of the attendants sprinkled him with lustral water, and Valentinian struck him with his fist, saying that this water defiled rather than purified those whom it touched. Comp. Sozomen, Hist. Eccl. VI. 6. and his wisdom declared by the continual improvement of the State.