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[Shrinking back.] I!—God preserve me from such a sin. Should any rumours come to your ears, believe them not. 'Tis not true that I have sought out Libanius by night, in disguise. All contact with him would be a horror to me. Besides, the Emperor has forbidden it, and Hekebolius still more strictly.—All believers who approach that subtle man fall away and turn to scoffers. And not they alone. His words are borne from mouth to mouth, even into the Emperor's palace. His airy mockery, his incontrovertible arguments, his very lampoons seem to blend with my prayers;—they are to me like those monsters in the shape of birds who befouled all the food of a pious wandering hero of yore. I sometimes feel with horror that my gorge rises at the true meat of the Word[''With an irrepressible outburst.''] Were the empire mine, I would send you the head of Libanius on a charger!

But how can the Emperor tolerate this? How can our pious, Christian Emperor?

The Emperor? Praised be the Emperor's faith and piety! But the Emperor has no thoughts for anything but this luckless Persian war. All minds are full of it. No one heeds the war that is being waged here, against the Prince of Golgotha. Ah, my Agathon, it is not now as it was two years ago. Then the two brothers of the Mystic Maximus had to pay for their heresies with their lives. You do not know what mighty allies