Themistius Softens Valens

Meanwhile Valens, living at Antioch, was entirely undisturbed by foreign wars, for the barbarians on every side kept within their own borders. He himself, however, waged a most cruel war against those who held the homoousian doctrine, inflicting heavier punishments on them every day, until the philosopher Themistius somewhat moderated his severity with a speech he addressed to the emperor. In this speech he tells the emperor that he ought not to be surprised at the difference of judgment on religious questions among Christians, since that disagreement was trifling compared with the mass of conflicting opinions current among the pagans, which amount to more than three hundred. Dissension, he said, was indeed an unavoidable result of such disagreement; but God would be glorified all the more by a variety of opinion, and the greatness of his majesty revered all the more, because it is not easy to know him. After the philosopher had said these and similar things, the emperor became milder, but he did not give up his anger completely. Though he stopped putting clergy to death, he went on sending them into exile, until this fury of his too was checked by the following event. [a]