The Church Fathers · c. 386
For the Temples
Oration XXX
Libanius · c. 314 – c. 393
What it is
An appeal to Theodosius against the monks pulling down temples in the countryside — men in black, he says, who eat more than elephants and claim to be at war with stones. The temples are imperial property, the farmers have nothing else, and no law has authorised any of it.
Why it lasted
The destruction of the temples described from the losing side by the greatest rhetorician of the age, who taught Chrysostom and stayed friends with Christians all his life. It documents violence the Christian sources record as triumph.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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