years after Apollo's Pythoness had ascended the tripod for the last time, more than two hundred after the temples had fallen before the edict of Theodosius, a century after the schools of Athens had been closed by Justinian, contemporaneously even with the appearance of Mahomet, a Pagan conventicle, aiming at the restoration of the ancient religion, should have sat in conclave in Constantinople under the very nose of the Emperor Heraclius?

The history of the ascertainment of this circumstance is as remarkable as the circumstance itself, and evinces how widely criticism may go astray under the influence of preconceived ideas. All that can be learned respecting it must be deduced from a little dialogue, the 'Philopatris,' written in the manner of Lucian, and always included in his works, although the ancient scholiasts themselves perceived that it could not be his. The association of his name with it, however, long blinded even the commentators who rejected its authenticity to its real purpose. The fate of Lucian's reputation has been a most curious one. His mordant attacks upon Paganism seem to have done him no sort of harm with the professors of the ancient religion, but to have drawn upon him the bitter hostility of the followers of the new, whose cause he indirectly served, and whose creed he can hardly be said to have assailed in any of his writings. He is nevertheless denounced by ecclesiastics in the most abusive terms, and a legend was invented for his benefit to the effect that he had been torn in pieces by dogs. So obstinate was the prepossession thus created, that it was taken for granted that any allusion to Christianity in a work written by or even attributed to him must be hostile and disparaging; and hence, although scholars rightly discerned that the 'Philopatris' could not be from his pen, they were misled as to its design, and consequently as to its date. One point, indeed, was clear: the 'Philopatris,' as its name imports, is the composition of an indignant patriot. The objects of attack are a mysterious knot of people whose dissent from the established religion leads them to desire the subversion of the State; who at a time of public anxiety meet in clandestine assemblies to rejoice over the misfortunes of their country, and to proffer aid and comfort to its enemies, but who at the end of the piece are confounded by tidings of the triumph of the Roman arms. Whom could Lucian, or an imitator of Lucian, have intended, if not the Christians?

When, therefore, the erudite Gesner made the first critical attempt to determine the date of the dialogue, he sought for a period of national tribulation which the Christians might be supposed to have viewed with complacency. His choice was circumscribed by his discovery that the dialogue could not be earlier than the age of Constantine, mention being made in it of an office-that of ἐξισώτης, or adjuster of taxation-created by that Emperor. Other internal evidence concurred to prove the scene to be laid at Constantinople. It must, therefore, be later than the foundation of that city; but what room remained for Christian discontent at a period when Christianity was dominant throughout the Empire? One brief interval alone seemed possible-that of the Pagan reaction under the Emperor Julian, whose death in his perilous Persian expedition might well have been welcome to his Christian subjects. Gesner, therefore, firmly convinced that he was dealing with an anti-Christian pamphlet, placed the date of composition under Julian, and supposed the hopes of the malcontents and the exultation of the loyal to be accounted for by the succession of rumours unfavourable and favourable from the seat of war, during the vicissitudes of the Emperor's Persian campaign. In framing this ingenious hypothesis, however, he overlooked, or rather wilfully minimised, two indications of date supplied by the dialogue itself. Allusion is made to a massacre of virgins in Crete, and among the results expected from the Emperor's triumph over the enemy is enumerated the subjugation of Egypt. The dialogue, therefore, must have been written at a time when Egypt was separated from the Empire, which was not the case under Julian; nor is there mention of any tragic event having occurred in Crete during his reign. There is, moreover, a distinct quotation from a creed which did not take shape until the end of the fourth or the middle of the fifth century. Gesner's opinion nevertheless found general acceptance with scholars.

The discovery of the real purpose of the dialogue was all but made by one whose perspicacity has advanced the study of antiquity in more important matters-no less a person than Niebuhr. Coming to it with an open mind, Niebuhr perceived what its casual association with Lucian had hidden from all previous commentators-that its tendency is not anti-Christian. That he did not go even further, and discern that heathenism, not Christianity, was the object of the writer's derision, was owing to the perplexity occasioned by its mention of a massacre in Crete. He could find no record of such an event until the reconquest of the island from the Saracens by Nicephorus Phocas in the tenth century. Classical Paganism could not have endured until that age; hence Niebuhr was compelled to interpret the secret conventicles denounced in the dialogue as gatherings of a hostile clerical party-a view inconsistent with the atmosphere of the dialogue itself, as will be evident from a brief analysis of it. It is worth observing that, though universally known by its first title of 'Philopatris,' the patriot, it has a second title, ὁ ἐκδιδασκόμενος, the thoroughly instructed, denoting a more earnest purpose than the mere Spiegelfechterei, or fencing with shadows, attributed to it by some German critics.

The dialogue is supposed to originate in a casual encounter. Triephon meets Critias, and is amazed by his distraught appearance. His hands are pressed to his ears, and when he is persuaded to remove them he explains that he is guarding against a repetition of the direful speeches he has recently heard from execrable sophists. Triephon compares his discomposure to the perturbation of the Propontis in a squall-a testimony to the Constantinopolitan origin of the dialogue; and after Critias has obtained some relief, the friends adjourn to a grove of planes, where swallows are twittering and nightingales singing-a valuable indication of the time of year when the events about to be alluded to took place. There Critias is to make his report of what he has heard, but Triephon pretends to be apprehensive that so terrible a tale may work evil even at second hand. Critias offers to swear by Zeus that no harm shall happen; but Triephon will have nothing to do with adjurations of heathen divinities, and rejects them one after the other, finally admonishing Critias to invoke 'the high-ruling Deity, great, immortal, celestial; the Son of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, one in three and three in one.' As Triephon manifestly represents the author, it seems sufficiently clear that the author cannot have been a heathen, though doubts of his piety may well be aroused by an irreverent passage immediately succeeding, in which St. Paul seems to be ridiculed. It is also deserving of notice that the doctrine of the Procession of the Spirit from the Father is expressed in the very words of the Creed of the First Council of Constantinople (A.D. 381), which perhaps did not attain its present form until the middle of the fifth century. The dialogue must consequently be later than the age of Julian. After another exhortation from Triephon, who, it not a very decorous Christian, is so little of a heathen as to declare that the Olympian hierarchy has become a cottabus-as we might say, an Aunt Sally in the eyes of thinking men, Critias professes himself converted, and enters upon his story.

It

He had gone, he says, to the public market-place to make purchases, and there met an acquaintance, the 'adjuster of taxes' already mentioned, who must have been a formidable person indeed in those ages of fiscal rapacity. By him he is introduced to a pair of decrepit and shabby orators, who are endeavouring to stir up sedition by promises of the advent of some mysterious personage who is to redress prevailing grievances, mostly, as would appear, of a financial nature. It seems evident that these are recognisable portraits of persons well known in Constantinople. Critias expresses scepticism, and reminds the prophets that dreams go by contraries, but is assured that everything will be fulfilled by the month of Mesori (August). hardly seems probable that this Egyptian appellation for a month should have been current at Constantinople in the reign of Nicephorus Phocas, three centuries after the final loss of Egypt. He is then persuaded to accompany the malcontents to the upper storey of a mansion which, if his description of its iron gates. brazen corridors, and golden roof is to be taken literally, must be either a monastery or a palace. There he finds himself in the midst of a set of doleful personages, pallid and stooping, who ask eagerly if he bears the evil tidings they are craving to hear. His assertion that all is well with the State meets flat contradiction, to which his reply is substantially that of Mr. Gladstone to the House of Lords-that the inmates of the Upper Chamber are up in a balloon. They continue to predict tumults at home and disasters abroad, and assure Critias that their foresight is infallible. being derived from fasting all day and singing all night. In reply to his further remonstrances they pronounce the words of dread which reduce him to the state of collapse in which he was found by Triephon at the beginning of the dialogue. These he offers to impart, but Triephon, to our disappointment, will not suffer him, and recommends him to erase them from his memory by reciting the Lord's Prayer. At this point the dialogue is interrupted by the advent of a third interlocutor, Cleolaus, who appears running and leaping. Upon being hailed and questioned, it appears that his gambols are the effect of joy for the news of a

victory. Persian pride (literally the Persian eyebrow') is in the dust; the famous city of Susa is taken; Arabia-a detail probably to be explained by the Saracen invasion of Syria in 613-will shortly be reduced. The dialogue concludes with Triephon's aspiration that he may bequeath to his children the spectacle of Babylon in ruins, Egypt enslaved, the children of the Persians brought under the yoke, the incursions of the Scythians repressed, and the invaders cut to pieces; and with a double stroke against Paganism and disloyalty. But let us who have found and adored the Unknown God of Athens, uplifting our hands to heaven, thank Him that we have been deemed worthy to be the subjects of such an Empire as this, and leave others to their folly.'

،

It must be admitted that the 'execrable sophists,' pallid, bent double, and shut up fasting and singing at the top of a lofty edifice, might well be taken for monks; but they bear no less resemblance to heathen wizards convened to mutter spells at the instance of some wealthy and credulous aspirant to the Empire. The entire local colouring is discrepant with the ninth century ; if heathenism has not still adherents in Constantinople a large portion of the dialogue has no point or sense. The monastic character, therefore, seems out of keeping with the mysterious personages, and the age of Heraclius is the very latest in which a bona fide survival of heathen beliefs and heathen practices is conceivable. It is further to be noted that, while discontented monks must always be dangerous, no peril is apprehended from these ill-wishers-they may safely be left to their folly. An adherent of the victorious Heraclius may well have thought so; but, as we shall shortly see, it is more than the Emperor Nicephorus would have said himself. Our author manifestly writes of what he knows, and is quite in earnest with his religion and patriotism, notwithstanding the tone of persiflage which he has adopted from his model Lucian. He shines, indeed, rather as a patriot than as a satirist, and is happier in copying Lucian's Attic style, than in appropriating his Attic salt. It is, of course, evident that he could have no idea of perpetrating a literary supercherie. A pamphlet treating of contemporary affairs, and designed to influence the public opinion of its day, could not be attributed to an author who had been dead more than four centuries. The ascription of the tract to Lucian was solely due to the close imitation of his manner, and probably was not made for several centuries, since the dialogue is only found in manuscripts of