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barbarians, declined. He valued Leo the more, and afterwards arranged his election as archbishop of Thessalonica (c. A.D. 840).'

The interest of Mamun in science and learning is an undoubted fact. He founded a library and an observatory at Baghdad ;' and under him and his successors many muthematical, medical, and philosophical works of the ancient Greeks appeared in Arabic translations. The charge that the Arabic geometers were unable to comprehend the demonstrations of Euclid is the calumny of a jealous Greek, but making every allowance for the embellishments with which i story-teller would seek to enhance the interest of his tale, we may accept it as evidence for the stimulating influence of Baghdad upon Byzantium and emulation between these two sets of culture. And in this connexion it is not insignificant that two other distinguished luminaries of letrning in this age hiul relations with the Caliphate. We have seen how John the latriarch and Photius were sent on missions to the East. Constantino the Philosopher is said to have been selected to conduct a dispute with learned Mohammadans on the doctrine of the Trinity, which was held by the Caliph's request." The evidence for this dispute is unconvincing, yet the tradition embodies the truth that there wils in the ninth century a lively intellectual interest among the Christians and the Mohammadans in the comparative merits of their doctrines. It is not impossible that there were cases of proselytisin due not to inotives of experiency but to conviction. The controversial interest is strongly marked in the version of the Acts of the Amorian Martyrs composed by Euodios, I The date is inferred from the fact ticians (ib. 201).

but the great monument of the concern which the creed of Islam caused to the Greeks is the Refutation of Mohammad by Nicetas of Byzantium, a contemporary of Photius.? The fanaticism of the two creeds did not exclude mutual respect. We have an interesting instance in the friendship of Photius with an Emir of Crete. The l'utriarch, suys one of his pupils, writing to the Emir's son and successor, “know well that though difference in religion is it burrier, yet wisdom, kindness, ind the other qualities which adorn and diguify human nature attract the affection of those who love fair things; and therefore, notwithstanding the difference of crees, he loved your father, who was endowed with those qualities.

When Leo, it's an iconoclast, was deposed from his see, he resumed the profession of teaching, and during the regency of Theodora there were three eminent misters at Constantinoplo -Jeo, Photius, and Constantine. It was to Theoktistos that Constantine .owel the official chair of philosophy which he Was induced to accept; but Leo and Photius Lelonged to the circle of Bardas, who seems to have had a deeper and sincerer interest in intellectual things than either Theophilus or Theoktistos. To Bardas belongs the credit-and his cnemies freely acknowledge it—of lnving systematically undertaken the lask of establishing a school of learning. In fuct, he revived, on new lines and apparently on il sınaller scale, the university of Constantinople, which had been instituted by Theodosius II., and allowed to deany and disappear under the Heracliau and Isaurian dynasties. Leo was the head of this school of advanced studies, which was known as the School of Magmura," for rooms in the palace of Magnaura were assigned for the purpose. Ilis pupils Theodore, Theodegios, and Kometas became the professors of geometry, astronomy, and philology:S wonderful wllccess of Moslem armis, 3 Cont. Th. 183; he used often to Cp. sctu 4 mart. Amor. 102. The attend the demoustrations (ib. 192). disputations in l'ita Const. cc. 6 and From the passaye 181-183, one would 11 were probably intended for the inter that the school of Maynaura edification of Bulgarian ecclesiastics. was founded by the influence of

The intensity of this revival of profune studies, and the new prestige which they enjoyed, might be illustrated by the suspicious attitude of a monk like the Patriarch Ignatius towards secular learning. But the suspicion which prevailed in certain ecclesiastical or monastic circles is violently expressed in a venomous attack' upon Leo the Philosopher after his death ? by one Constantine, a former pupil, who had discovered the wickedness of Hellenic culture. The attack is couched in elegiacs, and he confesses that he owed his ability to write them to the instruction of Leo:

I, Constantine, there verse's wrought with skill,
Who drained the milk of thy (lear Musc's rill.
The secrets of thy mind I searched and learned,
And now, at last, their sinfulness discerned.

Ho ncenses his master of apostasy to Hellenism, of rejecting Christ, of worshipping the ancient gods of Greece:

The peer

Teacher of countless arts, in worldly lore

of all the proud wise men of yore,
Thy soul was lost, when in the hallowed sea
Thou drankiest of its salt impiety.
The shining glory of the Christian rite
With its fair lustrous waters, the awful might
Of the great sacritice, the saintly writ,-
Of all these wonders recking not one whit,
Into the vast and many-monster's deep
Of heathen Greece did thy fair spirit leap,
The prey of soul-devotiring beasts to be
Who would not pity and make moan for theu ?

Then a chorus of good Christians is invited to address the apostute who had made Zeus his divinity, in the following strain :

Go to the house of gloom, yea down to hell,
Laden with all thine impious lore, to dwell
Beside the stream of Pyriphlegethon,
In the fell plain of Tartarus, all undone.
There thy Chrysippus shalt thou haply spy,
And Socrates and Epicuru descry,
Plato and Aristotle, Euclid dear,
Proclus,' and Ptoleny the Astronomer,"
Aratus, Hesiol, and Homer too

Whore Muse is qucen, in sooth, of all that crew. The Butire wus circulated, and evoked severu criticism. The author was sharply attacked for impiety towards his master, and some alleged that he was instigated by Leo's enemies to calumniate the memory of the philosopher. Constantine replied to these reproaches in an iunibic effusion.' He does not retract or mitigate his harsh judgment on Leo, but complaceutly describes himself as “the parricide of an impious master-even if the pagans (Hellenes) should burst with spite."" His apology consists in appealing to Christ, us the sole fountain of truth, and imprecating curses on all heretics and unbelievers. The spirit of the verses directed against Hellenists may be rendered thus :

Foul fare they, who the guls adore
Worshippel lwy Grecian folk of yore!--
Amorous Huxls, to passions prone,
Gols as adulterer's well known,
Cicly who wore lame, and goals who felt
The wound that sulle mean mortal dealt;
And goaldesscos, a crowd olscene,
Among the many n harlot quean ;
Some wendiled clownish herus, 1 tron,

Some suinted hideously wow.
Among some epigrams ascribed to is an extraordinary error, which, so
Leo, one is in praise of Proclus and far as I know, has not been hitherto
the mathematician Theon.

1

The sentiment is quite in the vein of the early Fathers of the Church; but it would not have displeased Xenophanes or Plato, and the most enthusiastic Hellenist could afford to smile at it display of such blunt weapons.

The interest of the episodle lies in the illustration which it furnishes of the vitality of secular learning (ý Qúpadev copía) in the ninth century. Though the charges which the fanatic brings ayuinst Leo may be exaggerations, they establish the fact that he was entirely preoccupied by science and philosophy and unconcerned about Christian dogma. The appearance of a man of this type is in itself significant. If we consider that the study of the Creek classics was at permanent feature of the Byzantine world and was not generally held to clash with orthodox piety, the circumstance that in this period the apprehensions of fanatical or narrow-minded people were excited against the dangers of profane studies confirms in a striking way our other evidence that there was it genuine revival of higher education and a new birth of enthusiasm for secular knowledge. Would that it were possible to speak of any real danger, from science and learning, to the prevailing superstitions ! Danger there was none. Photius, not Leo, was the typical Byzantine savant, uniting arllent devotion to learning with no less ardent zeal for the orthodox faith.

Another sign of the revival of secular studies is the impression which some of their chief exponents made on the popular imagination--preserved in the stories that were told of Leo, of John the l'atriarch, and of Photius. It was said that when Leo' was archbishop of Thessalonica the crops failed and there was a distressing dearth. Leo told the people not to be discouraged. By making an astronomical calculation he discovered at what time benignaut and sympathetic intluences would descend from the sky to the earth, and directed the husbandmen to sow their seed accordingly. They were amazed and gratitied by the plenteousness of the ensuing barvest. If the chronicler, who tells the tale, perfunctorily observes that the result was due to prayer and not to the