lover of his country, and that he deserved the CHAP. empire of the world *. XXII Ductor fortissimus armis; CHAP. Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manûque Prudent. Apotheosis, 450, &c. The consciousness of a generous sentiment seems to have rai sed the Christian poet above his usual mediocrity. 1 CHAP. Religion of СНАР. ХХІІІ. The Religion of Julian.-Universal Toleration.- He attempts to restore and reform the Pagan Worship -to rebuild the Temple of Jerusalem.-His artful Persecution of the Christians.-Mutual Zeal and Injustice. THE HE character of Apostate has injured the reputation of Julian; and the enthusiasm which clouded his virtues, has exaggerated the real and apparent magnitude of his faults. Our partial ignorance may represent him as a philosophic monarch, who studied to protect, with an equal hand, the religious factions of the empire; and to allay the theological fever which had inflamed the minds of the people, from the edicts of Diocletian to the exile of Athanasius. A more accurate view of the character and conduct of Julian, will remove this favourable prepossession for a prince who did not escape the general contagion of the times. We enjoy the singular advantage of comparing the pictures which have been delineated by his fondest admirers, and his implacable enemies. The actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious and candid historian, the impartial spectator of his life and death. The unanimous evidence of his contemporaries is confirmed by the public and private declarations of the emperor himself; and his various XXIII. various writings express the uniform tenor of his CHA P. religious sentiments, which policy would have prompted him to dissemble rather than to affect. A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome, constituted the ruling passion of Julian; the powers of an enlightened understanding were betrayed and corrupted by the influence of superstitious prejudice; and the phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor, had a real and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised the worship, and overturned the altars, of those fabulous deities, engaged their votary in a state of irreconcileable hostility with a very numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes tempted, by the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice. "The triumph of the party, which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain of infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the signal was given by the sonorous trumpet of Gregory Nazianzen . The interesting * I shall transcribe some of his own expressions from a short religious discourse which the imperial pontiff composed to censure the bold impiety of a Cynic: Αλλ' όμως ετω δη τι τις θεως πεφρίκα, και φιλώ, και σεβω, και αξιειαι, και πανθ' απλώς τα τοιαύτα πασχω, οσπες αν τις και σια προς αγαθός δεσποτας, προς διδασκαλες, προς πατέρας, προς κηδεμόνας. Orat. vii. P. 212. The variety and copiousness of the Greek tongue seems inadequate to the fervour of his devotion. The orator, with some cloquence, much enthusiasm, and more vanity, addresses his discourse to heaven and earth, to men XXIII. CHAP. resting nature of the events which were crowded into the short reign of this active emperor, deserve just and circumstantial narrative. His motives, his counsels, and his actions, as far as they are connected with the history of religion, will be the subject of the present chapter. His education and apostacy. The cause of his strange and fatal apostacy, may be derived from the early period of his life, when he was left an orphan in the hands of the murderers of his family. The names of Christ and of Constantius, the ideas of slavery and of religion, were soon associated in a youthful imagination, which was susceptible of the most lively impressions. The care of his infancy was intrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia *, who was related to him on the side of his mother; and till Julian reached the twentieth year of his age, he received from his Christian preceptors the men and angels, to the living and the dead; and, above all, to the great Constantius (as, an odd Pagan, expres sion). He concludes with a bold assurance, that he has erected a monument not less durable, and much more portable, than the columns of Hercules. See Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. iii. p. 50. iv. p. 134. See this long invective, which has been injudiciously divided into two orations in Gregory's Works, tom. i. p. 49134. Paris, 1630. It was published by Gregory and his friend Basil (iv. p. 133.), about six months after the death of Julian, when his remains had been carried to Tarsus (iv.. p. 120.); but while Jovian was still on the throne (iii. p. 54. iv. p. 117.). I have derived much assistance from a French version and remarks, printed at Lyons 1735. * Nicomediæ ab Eusebio educatus Episcopo, quem genere longius contingebat. (Ammian. xxii. 9.) Julian never expresses any gratitude towards that Arian prelate; but he celebrates his preceptor, the eunuch Mardonius, and describes his mode of education, which inspired his pupil with a passionate admiration for the genius, and perhaps the religion, of Homer. Misopogon, p. 351, 352, XXIII. the education not of a hero, but of a saint. The CHAP. order; and Julian publicly read the Holy Scrip- F ships Greg. Naz. iii. p. 70. He laboured to efface that holy mark in the blood, perhaps of a Taurobolium. Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 361. No. 3, 4. Julian himself (Epist. li. p. 454.) assures the Alexan drians that he had been a Christian (he must mean a sincere one) till the twentieth year of his age: See his Christian, and even ecclesiastical education, in Gregory (iii. p. 58.), Socrates (1. iii. c. 1.), and Sozomen, (1. v. c. 2.). He escaped very narrowly from being a bishop, and perhaps a saint. The share of the work which had been allotted to Gallus, was prosecuted with vigour and success; but the earth obstnately rejected and subverted the structures which were imposed by the sacrilegious hand of Julian. Greg. iii. p. 59-61. Such a partial earthquake, attested by many living spectators, would form one of the clearest miracles in ecclesiastical story. |