Libanius, For the Temples, 30, 8-9.

Libanius' work is extensive and constitutes an important source for the history of the 4th century. Libanius was assuredly pagan and hostile towards Christianity, but he seems to have been rather moderate. Nevertheless, he denounced acts perpetrated by Christians, particularly the violence they committed against pagans and their temples. It was following an attack against temples in Syria in 385 that Libanius wrote For the Temples (386), an oration addressed to Theodosius. He described how monks had spread a reign of terror in the countryside and seized lands belonging to temples or pagans. Monks were a privileged target for Libanius: he considered them as hypocrites who used religion for their own interests, which led to injustice.

“8. You then have neither ordered the closure of temples nor banned entrance to them. From the temples and altars you have banished neither fire nor incense nor the offerings of other perfumes. But this black-robed tribe, who eat more than elephants and, by the quantities of drink they consume, weary those that accompany their drinking with the singing of hymns, who hide these excesses under an artificially contrived pallor - these people, Sir, While the law yet remains in force, hasten to attack the temples with sticks and stones and bars of iron, and in some cases, disdaining these, with hands and feet. Then utter desolation follows, with the stripping of roofs, demolition of walls, the tearing down of statues and the overthrow of altars, and the priests must either keep quiet or die. After demolishing one, they scurry to another, and to a third, and trophy is piled on trophy, in contravention of the law. 9. Such outrages occur even in the cities, but they are most common in the countryside. Many are the foes who perpetrate the separate attacks, but after their countless crimes this scattered rabble congregates and calls for a tally of their activities, and they are in disgrace unless they have committed the foulest outrage. So they sweep across the countryside like rivers in spate, and by ravaging the temples, they ravage the estates, for wherever they tear out a temple from an estate, that estate is blinded and lies murdered. Temples, Sire, are the soul of the countryside : they mark the beginning of its settlement, and have been passed down through many generations to the men of today.”

Libanius, For the Temples, 30, 8-9. Trans. A. D. Lee, Pagans and Christians in Late Antiquity, New York, 2000.

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book VIII, chap. VIII.19-XII.30.

Augustine is a Christian theologian whose life is widely known from his autobiography, Confessions, which he wrote between 397 and 401. He was born in 354 in Thagaste (a Numidian city, on whose ruins stands the present-day Souk Ahras, Algeria) and was schooled in the way of upper class Romans in the letters. His mother was a devout Christian, but he left his Christian upbringing to devote himself to philosophy before adhering to Manichaeism, a doctrine and a religious movement founded by Mani in the late 3rd century. He nevertheless began to have doubts about Manichaeism in the years 382-383. His skepticism increased when he arrived in Rome in the summer of 383, and especially in Milan, where he came into contact with Ambrose. He was particularly influenced by the latter’s preaching. In August 386, the garden scene described in his Confessions took place, which is depicted in the document. He converted to Christianity: he was baptized in April 387, and in 388 he left for Africa, where he was ordained as a priest in Hippo in 391, rising to Bishop in 395. He remained in Hippo until his death in 430.
His work is considerable, exegetical, theological and polemical. One of his most important is The City of God, which constituted the foundation of the medieval worldview. His Confessions are a true masterpiece, wherein he examines himself and his past, and addresses the issue of conversion, together with free will and human freedom. Augustine is a figure who made a lasting imprint on Christianity to come.

“VIII.19 Then, as this vehement quarrel, which I waged with my soul in the chamber of my heart [= become a Christian or remain a Manichean], was raging inside my inner dwelling, agitated both in mind and countenance […]. There was a little garden belonging to our lodging […] The tempest in my breast hurried me out into this garden, where no one might interrupt the fiery struggle in which I was engaged with myself, until it came to the outcome that thou knewest though I did not […]. 20. Finally, in the very fever of my indecision, I made many motions with my body; like men do when they will to act but cannot, either because they do not have the limbs or because their limbs are bound or weakened by disease, or incapacitated in some other way. Thus if I tore my hair, struck my forehead, or, entwining my fingers, clasped my knee, these I did because I willed it […]. XII. 28. […] I flung myself down under a fig tree--how I know not--and gave free course to my tears. The streams of my eyes gushed out an acceptable sacrifice to thee. […] I cried to thee: “And thou, O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord? Wilt thou be angry forever? Oh, remember not against us our former iniquities.” For I felt that I was still enthralled by them. I sent up these sorrowful cries: “How long, how long? Tomorrow and tomorrow? Why not now? Why not this very hour make an end to my uncleanness?” 29. I was saying these things and weeping in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when suddenly I heard the voice […] “Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it.” […] I snatched it [= the book of the Apostle which was in the garden] up, opened it, and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes first fell: “Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof.” I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away. [Augustine’s mother is delighted by the news] For thou didst so convert me to thee that I sought neither a wife nor any other of this world’s hopes, but set my feet on that rule of faith which so many years before thou hadst showed her in her dream about me. And so thou didst turn her grief into gladness more plentiful than she had ventured to desire.”

Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, Book VIII, chap. VIII.19-XII.30. trans. Albert C. Outler.