"It is a great sin! And with whom were you guilty, my daughter?" "With Hekobolis, father!" The priestly visage cleared up. "With Hekobolis; ah, really! Well, well, the holy man is devoted to the Church! Repent, my daughter; the Lord will forgive!"
Such anedoctes were mere tittle-tattle. But his thick red lips were a trifle too prominent in the respectable shorn visage of the dignitary, although he usually kept them tightly closed, with an expression of monastic humility. Women were fond of his company.
Sometimes Hekobolis used to disappear for several days. No one fathomed the mystery, for he kept his own counsel. Neither servant nor slave accompanied him on these enigmatic journeys, from which he would return calmed and refreshed.
Under the Emperor Constantius, he received the appointment of Court rhetorician, with a superb salary, the senatorial laticlave, and the blue shoulder-ribbon, a distinction of the highest dignitaries. Nor was his ambition satisfied.
But at the moment when Hekobolis was preparing to mount a step higher, Constantius unexpectedly died. Julian, the Church's enemy, ascended the throne. Hekobolis lost no whit of his presence of mind. He merely did what many others were doing, but did it neither too soon nor too late.
Julian, in the first days of his reign, organised a theological controversy in his palace. A young doctor of philosophy, esteemed by everybody for his uprightness and noble nature, Cæsar of Cappadocia,--brother of the famous theologian, Basil the Great,--undertook the defence of the Christian faith against the Emperor himself.
In such tournaments of learning Julian authorised an entire independence of language, and even liked to be answered with passion and complete disregard of rank.
Discussion was of the keenest kind, and considerable numbers of sophists, priests, and men of science were present. Usually the opponent little by little gave way, yielding, not to the logic of the Greek philosopher, but to the majesty of the Roman Emperor.
But on this occasion it was not so. Cæsar of Cappadocia did not yield. He was a young man, almost feminine in the grace of his movements, and with a steady clearness in his frank eyes. He denominated the Platonic philosophy "the tortuous wisdom of the serpent," contrasting it with the heavenly wisdom of the Gospel. Julian frowned, bit his lips, bridling his anger with difficulty. The argument, like all sincere discussions, ended without results, and the Emperor, recovering his self-possession, quitted the hall with a philosophic jest, and a face of smilingly regretful magnanimity; in reality, pierced to the heart.