HOSPITALS, INFIRMARIES , &C. 305

its priests to erect for the unfortunate, inns, called Xeno-dochia, into which they could be received; and he assignedto them funds answerable to that purpose. Into those wereadmitted not only persons of his own persuasion, but ofevery other, Christians as well as Pagans . How much theEmperor interested himself to weaken this mean, by whichChristians , then in the Pagan world called Galilaans, pro-cured respect, love, and attachment, may be seen by an oration,wherein he attempted to inculcate the Christian principlesas his own. 1 . This imitation of the Christian religion con-tributed, it has been conceived, more to recommend it,than bring it into discredit; although it has been ridiculedby Gregory Nazianzenus, in his third oration.

The care of providing necessary sustenance and supportfor those travellers who met with sickness or accidents upontheir journeys, previous to the establishment of generalaccommodations for that purpose, should certainly be seenas belonging to the police establishment of kingdoms; inall forms of government the rulers should have consideredthis as a portion of public establishments in providing forthe internal regulation of their dominions; but that loveof power, which in the earlier as well as in latter periodsthey cherished, and to preserve it after it was obtained,was found to occupy too much of their attention, in thoseturbulent times, to attend to those necessary regulations.

Thus, the neglect on the part of the sovereign, shouldhave been regulated by the clergy, as we discover to havebeen the case; when Medea came to Corinth in search ofJason, she sought entertainment in the temple of Juno,the hospitable deity, in which the Priestess Theano officiated:upon which account, ~we find, since Christianity has beenestablished, among the decrees of various councils, a greatnumber of regulations which illustrate this portion of thepolitical history of states.

The establishment of the first houses for the sick, appearsamong the services which the clergy have rendered tohumanity. The first of these we find upon record, wasthat built in Rome by the Roman lady Fabiola, a par-ticular friend of St. Jerome , in the fifth century; themention of it is found in Hieron. ep. 39. i. e. “ Primo“ omnium nosocomium, id est languentium villam instituit,

1 This imperial decree is preserved by Sozomenus , in his Ecclesiastical History,v. 16. edit. Valesii, Amstelod. 1695, fol. p. 619, where is abundant information.Vide Juliani Opera, edit. Spanhemii, Lipsite, 1696, fol. p. 430, and Julian’tOration, p. 305.

VOL. II.

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