Book Description

Excerpt from Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden Maonachi Cestrensis, Vol. 5: Together With the English Translations of John Trevisa and of an Unknown Writer of the Fifteenth Century As might be expected, Higden repeats much of the false charges made by early Christian writers against the next emperor Julian, known as the Apostate. He is said to have been a monk, and his conduct is described as very little befitting that character. He was also versed in magic arts, and had familiar spirits at his command, having sold himself to them for the possession of the' emp1re. His abandonment of Christianity is represented as the more gross, inasmuch as several miracles were wrought which should have demonstrated to him the sanctity of the sign Of the Cross. Many insults to Christianity and Christians are ascribed to him, and his permission given to the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem, as one more of these insults, is dwelt upon, and so are the miraculous hindrances thereto, by the demolition at night of all that had been erected by day.1 It is not denied that he was temperate, studious, and learned; but as all heathen writers have extolled this emperor's conduct too highly, so all Christians have degraded him too low. The contests to which he was a witness between the Arians and the orthodox had much to do, we cannot doubt, with his rejection of the Chris tian faith, and his writings bespeak a man who desired to leave the world better than he found it. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.