Punish me, sire; but spare my brother.
Julian.
You well know that you risk nothing, Gregory! Besides, I will grant you that Nevita acted too harshly.
Gregory.
Ay, that barbarian, who tries in vain to hide his origin under a Greek veneer——!
Julian.
Nevita is zealous in his duty, and I cannot myself be everywhere. For Ursulus I have mourned sincerely, and I deeply deplore that neither time nor circumstances allowed me to examine into his case myself. I should certainly have spared him, Gregory! I have thought, too, of restoring to his heirs any property he has left behind.
Gregory.
Great Emperor, you owe me no reckoning for your acts. I only wished to tell you that all these tidings fell like thunderbolts in Caesarea and Nazianzus, and the other Cappadocian cities. How shall I describe their effect! Our internal wranglings were silenced by the common danger. Many rotten branches of the Church fell away; but in many indifferent hearts the light of the Lord was kindled with a fervour before undreamt-of. Meanwhile oppression overtook God’s people. The heathen—I mean, my Emperor, those whom I call heathen—began to threaten, to injure, to persecute us——
Julian.