of the Christian Fathers; by Ambrose *, Chrysostom†, and Gregory Nazianzen ‡, the last of whom published his statement before the year expired; and by the historians Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret.

The author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, describes the history in which this relation is given as judicious and candid, and reluctantly admits the testimony to be unexceptionable; but he afterwards adds, with much inconsistency, that "a philosopher might still require the original evi“dence of impartial and intelligent specta

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tors §," and insinuates, that at the important crisis, any singular accident of nature would assume the appearance, and produce the effect, of a real prodigy, and that this glorious deliverance would be speedily improved and magnified by the pious arts of the clergy, and the active credulity of the Christian world; so that at the distance of twenty years, a Roman historian, careless of theological disputes, might adorn his work with a specious and splendid miracle.

Ambrose Epist. 40. tom. ii. p. 946. Edit. Bened. et Theodos.

+ Adver. Judæos, p. 574. Edit. Montfaucon.

Orat. 4. p. 110-113.

§ Decline and Fall, c. 23.

It is not easy to find, even in the history of Mr. Gibbon, a more striking instance of perverseness; and he who could imagine that the zealous and determined preparations of Julian, and the anxious wishes of the Jews, were to be defeated by a mere accident, and that no explanation to account for the relinquishment of the design, should have been offered, in opposition to the exultations of the Christians, need not affect to triumph over the credulity of those who believe in the miracle. The historian, though he refers to the work of Warburton, seems not to have attended to the remark of the learned prelate, that there must be many millions to one, against the probability of any natural eruption.

CHAP. LX.

Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius Macrobius.

MACROBIUS flourished in the time of Honorius and Theodosius the younger *. He was a man of consular dignity, enjoying high situations in the Imperial Court, and is not to be confounded with Macrobius, the Presbyter, mentioned by Cave+.

Macrobius has left two books of commentaries on the “Somnium Scipionis," described by Cicero ; and seven books "Saturnaliorum," being convivial dissertations on various subjects, much of which is taken from Aulus Gellius, and the 7th book is drawn principally from Plutarch. Erasmus represents him as clothing himself in borrowed plumes.

Some have imagined, without sufficient reason, that Macrobius had professed Chris

* Codex Theodos. lib. vi. tit. 8.

↑ Hist. Literar. A. D. 44.

tianity. There is not any thing in his works to confirm such a supposition. He adopted, as Cudworth and others have fully explained, a Platonic system of theology, in conjunction with some opinions derived from other sects. He considers all things as made by nature, and appears to have reverenced the sun, (with other deities +,) ascribing to it high titles of power and pre-eminence. He acknowledges, however, as probably the ancient Persians did §, above all mundane Gods, a first and original cause, of whom no image was made, who from the superabundant fecundity of his majesty, created mind, which as it looked upwards towards the Father, bore the resemblance of its author, but as it looked downward, produced soul; and this soul again as to its superior part, resembled that mind from which it was begotten, but working downward, produced this corporeal fabric. Under such figurative and mysterious language did the metaphysical philo

Barthius Adversaria, p. 2258. et Grot. ad Matt. ii. 16. See Spanheim Dub. Evan. tom. i. p. 533.

+ Saturn. lib. vii. c. 16.

Som. Scipion. lib. i. c. 14. Huet. Prop. iv. c. 10. p. 118. § Herod. lib. i. 131.

Intellectual System, b. i. ch. 4. p. 457.

sophers amuse their followers with some shadow of Truth.

There is an account stated by this writer, which represents Augustus, upon being informed that. Herod's son had been killed among the infants under two years of age, whom that king had ordered to be slain in Syria, jocosely to have observed, that “it was better to be Herod's hog than his son*." It has been remarked, with a view to invalidate the testimony deducible from a relation thus casually introduced by Macrobius, that as we have no account that a son of Herod was killed upon the occasion referred to, Macrobius must have been mistaken in ascribing this reflection to Augustus. There is no sufficient reason, however, to doubt that Augustus might have made the remark mentioned, upon the character of Herod, though it is probable that he alluded not to any cruelty shewn upon occasion of the massacre of the innocents, but to that which appeared in the instance of the punishment of Antipater, who was put to death, by his father, Herod, nearly at the same time that he executed the sanguinary dictates of his jealousy at Bethlehem ;

Y... Saturn. 1. ii. c. 4. and Chandler's Vind. vol. ii. ch. 2. § 2. p. 463. Baron. ad An. i. cap. 50.