Julian gave yet another token of his folly and levity. For when at Daphne, in the suburb of Antioch, beside the Castalian spring, he was sacrificing to Apollo, and received none of the responses which he sought, and inquired of the priests of the demon the causes of the silence, they said that the tomb of the martyr Babylas stood near at hand, and that for this reason the responses were not given. Then he ordered that the Galileans (for by this name he was wont to call our people) should come and remove the tomb of the martyr. Therefore the whole Church, gathering together—mothers and men, virgins and youths, girded with immense exultation—drew in a long procession the casket of the Martyr, chanting with the loudest cries, and with exultation saying:
'Let all who worship graven images be confounded, and those who put their trust in their idols' (Psalm 96:7). These words the whole Church chanted for six miles in the hearing of the profane Emperor with such great exultation that heaven echoed back their cries. Whereupon he too was driven into such a fury of wrath that on the following day he ordered Christians everywhere to be seized and thrust into prison, and to be afflicted with punishments and tortures.