[87] Cf. Ovid’s Metam., xv.; Plutarch’s Essay on Flesh-Eating; Thomson’s Seasons.
[88] Περὶ Ἐποχῆς κ. τ. λ. In the number of the traditionary reformers and civilisers of the earlier nations, the name of Orpheus has always held a foremost place. In early Christian times Orpheus and the literature with which his name is connected occupy a very prominent and important position, and some celebrated forged prophecies passed current as the utterances of that half-legendary hero. Horace adopts the popular belief as to his radical dietetic reform in the following verses:—
Silvestres homines sacer, interpresque Deorum,
Cædibus et fœdo victu deterruit Orpheus.
—Ars Poetica.
Virgil assigns him a place in the first rank of the Just in the Elysian paradise.—Æn. vi.
[89] In his witty satire, the Misopogon or Beard-Hater—“a sort of inoffensive retaliation, which it would be in the power of few princes to employ”—directed against the luxurious people of Antioch, who had ridiculed his frugal meals and simple mode of living, “he himself mentions his vegetable diet, and upbraids the gross and sensual appetite” of that orthodox but corrupt Christian city. When they complained of the high prices of flesh-meats, “Julian publicly declared that a frugal city ought to be satisfied with a regular supply of wine, oil, and bread.”—Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxiv.
[90] Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xxii. The philosophical fable of Julian—The Cæsars—has been pronounced by the same historian to be “one of the most agreeable and instructive productions of ancient wit.” Its purpose is to estimate the merits or demerits of the various Emperors from Augustus to Constantine. As for the Enemy of the Beard, it may be ranked, for sarcastic wit, almost with the Jupiter in Tragedy of Lucian.
[91] Article, “Chrysostom,” in the Penny Cyclopædia.
[92] Baur’s Life and Work of St. Paul. Part ii., chap. 3.