Chapter IV.—Of the laws made by Julian against the Christians.

Countless other deeds were dared at that time by land and by sea, all over the world, by the wicked against the just, for now without disguise the enemy of God began to lay down laws against true religion. First of all he prohibited the sons of the Galileans, for so he tried to name the worshippers of the Saviour, from taking part in the study of poetry, rhetoric, and philosophy, for said he, in the words of the proverb “we are shot with shafts feathered from our own wing,”⁶¹⁷⁶¹⁷    cf. Aristophanes (Aves 808) “ταδ᾽ οὐχ ὑπ᾽ ἄλλων αλλὰ τοις αὑτῶν πτεροῖς.” for from our own books they take arms and wage war against us.

After this he made another edict ordering the Galileans to be expelled from the army.