He was bred up in the Christian religion from his infancy and was obliged to profess it (or at least to * disguise his passion for Paganism) to the time he assumed the purple. His aversion to his uncle Constantine, and his cousin Constantius, for the cruelties exercised on his family, had prejudiced him against the Christian religion: and his attachment to some Platonic sophists, who had been employed in his education, gave him as violent a bias towards Paganism. He was ambitious; and Paganism, in some of its Thëurgic rites, had flattered and encouraged his views of the diadem: He was vain, which made him aspire to the glory of re-establishing the ancient rites: he was extremely knowing, and fond of Grecian literature; the very soul of which, in his opinion †, was the old Theology: But above all, notwithstanding a considerable mixture of enthusiasm, his superstition was excessive, and what nothing but the blood of hecatombs could appease. With these dispositions he came to the empire; and, consequently, with a determined purpose of subverting the Christian, and restoring the Pagan worship. His predecessors had left him the repeated experience of the inefficacy of downright force. The virtue of the first Christians then rendered this effort fruitless; the numbers of the present would have now made it dangerous. He found it necessary therefore to change his ground: his knowledge of human nature furnished him with arms; and his knowledge of the faith he had * A rudimentis pueritiæ primis inclinatior erat erga numinum cultum, paullatimque adulescens desiderio rei flagrabat. Am. Marc. I. xxii. c. 5. +Vid. Ep. Jul. xlii. † Οὗτος [Ιυλιανὸς] ὁ ἐν τελεαῖς μυρίαις ὁμιλήσας Δαίμοσιν.-Libani Or. de ulc. Juliani nece. abandoned, abandoned, enabled him to direct those arms to most advantage. He began with re-establishing Paganism by law*, and granting a full liberty of conscience to the Christians. On this principle, he restored those to their civil rights, of what party soever, who had been banished on account of religion; and even affected to reconcile, to a mutual forbearance, the various sects of Christianity. Yet notwithstanding, his own historian assures us, he put on this mask of moderation and equity, for no other purpose than to inflame the dissensions in the church . And his subsequent conduct fully justifies the historian's observation. He then fined and banished ‡ such of the more popular clergy as had abused their power, either in exciting the people to burn and destroy pagan temples, or to commit violence on an opposite sect. And it cannot be denied but that their turbulent and insolent manners deserved all the severity of his justice. He proceeded to revoke and take away those immunities, honours, and revenues §, which his uncle and cousin had granted to the clergy, Neither was his pretence for this altogether unreasonable. He judged the grants to be exorbitant; and besides, as they were attendant on a national religion, when the establishment came to be transferred from Christianity to Paganism, *Planis absolutisque decretis aperiri templa, arisque hostias admoveri ad deorum statuit cultum. Am. Mar. 1. xxii. c. 5. +Utque dispositorum roboraret effectum, dissidentes Christianorum antistites cum plebe discissa in palatium intronissos monebat, ut, civilibus discordiis consopitis, quisque, nullo vetante, religioni suæ serviret intrepidus. Quod agebat ideo obstinate, ut dissensiones, augente licentia, non timeret unanimantem postea plebem. Idem ib. Nazian. Orat. i. cont. Jul. § Κληρικὸς μένοι, πᾶσαν ἀτέλειαν καὶ τιμὴν καὶ τὰ σληρέσια ἀφείλετα Karsailis [Kwasaline Val.] Soz. 1. v. c. 5. he concluded they must follow the religion of the state. But there was one immunity he took away, which no good policy, even under an establishment, should have granted them; which was an exemption from the civil tribunals. * The Apostate went still further; he disqualified the Christian laity for bearing office in the state: and even this, the security of the established religion may often require. But his most illiberal treatment of the Christians, was his forbidding the professors, who were of that religion, to teach humanity and the sciences, in the public schools. His more immediate design, in this, was to hinder the youth from taking impressions to the disadvantage of Paganism: His remoter view, to deprive Christianity of the support of human literature †. Not * Τοῖς βελευτηρίοις ἀπεδώκει. Soz. l. v. c. 5. + This edict is to be found amongst the works of Julian; and goes under the name of his xliid epistle. It forbids the Christian Professors to teach human literature. But because the ancients, such as Gregory Naz. Socrates, Sozomene, Theodoret, and Rufinus, expressly say, that he forbad Christians to learn it; some modern critics have embarrassed themselves in according this imaginary difference. Baronius and Valesius, who could not find it was forbidden, by this edict, to learn, concluded there was no such prohibition. Tillemont and Fleuri will not allow the fathers to be mistaken; and therefore imagine there was another edict, which extended the prohibition to the case in question. Tillemont supposes this the more readily, because he thinks the xliid letter is indefinite and obscure. It appears to me very clear and precise; and it seems strange none of these critics saw, that, as this prohibition is circumstanced in the edict, the not being allowed to learn was the necessary consequence of being forbid to teach. For the Professors are not only disallowed to explain Pagan authors to Pagan auditories, but to Christian likewise; as appears from the following words, But if they [The Christian professors] think these authors give a false and unworthy account of the tremendous majesty of the immortals, let them go and explain Matthew and Luke Not content with this, he endeavoured even to destroy what was already written in defence of Christianity. With this view he wrote to Ecdicius the governor of Egypt, and to Porphyry the treasurer-general, to collect up, and send to him the library * of George bishop of Alexandria, who for his cruelty and tyranny had been torn in pieces by the people.Nay, in the churches of the Galileans. εἰ δὲ εἰς τὰς τιμιωλάτες ὑπολαμβάνεσι πεπλανῆσθαι, βαδιζόνων εἰς τὰς τῶν Γαλιλαίων ἐκκλησίας, ἐξηγησόμενος Ματθαῖον καὶ Λεκᾶν. But why was this said, if they were at liberty to teach the Christian youth the sciences? If they were not, Where could they go for instruction but to the schools of the Pagan Professors? Hither, indeed, they are invited by the edict itself. Those of the [Christian] youth (says Julian) who are desirous of frequenting [the schools of the Pagan professors] are by no means to be excluded. Ὁ βελόμενος τῶν νέων φοιᾷν, ἐκ ἀποκέκλεισαι. This was kind: but would by no means be accepted. Here the bait was half off the hook; and discovered, that to draw them thither was one end of the edict: which he imagined would necessarily reduce things to this state, either to dispose the Galileans, during their youth, in favour of Paganism; or to disable them, in their adult age, to defend Christianity. So that it appears, from hence, his forbidding Christian professors to explain Pagan writers to any audience whatsoever, fully amounted to a prohibition of learning them. The Fathers, we see, did not scruple directly to affirm it. And that they believed it, appears from their finding no other way of avoiding the dilemma of corruption, or ignorance, than by composing Epic poems, tragedies, and other classic compositions upon a Christian plan, and on subjects taken from sacred story. This circumstance (had Baronius and Valesius attended to it) was alone sufficient to shew them, that the Fathers have told us no more than what they saw and felt, when they said, that Julian forbad them to learn human literature, as well as to teach it. Let me add, that nothing but this interpretation of his edict can account for the severe censure which his own historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, passes upon it, in the following words; "illud autem erat "inclemens, obruendum perenni silentio, quod arcebat docere ma"gistros rhetoricos et grammaticos, ritus Christiani cultores." Lib. xxii. c. 10. * Ep. ix. and xxxvi.—πολλὰ μὲν γὰρ ἦν φιλόσοφα παρ' αὐτῷ, πολλὰ δὲ ῥητορικά, πολλὰ δὲ ἦν καὶ τῆς τῶν δυσσεβῶν Γαλιλαίων δε δασκαλίας, ἃ βελοίμην μὲν ἠφανίσθαι πάλη. Εp. ix. Nay, to such a length did his aversion to the name of CHRIST carry him, as to decree, by a public edict, that his followers should be no longer called Christians, but Galileans*. Not but there might be a mixture of policy in it too, as knowing the efficacy of a nick-name to render a profession ridiculous. However, it is more than probable, superstition had its share in this unprincely edict. The fanatic Platonists, to whom Julian had entirely given himself up, were much besotted with the mysterious power of names. These having been struck with the wonders performed by the name of Christ, and finding so many difficulties oppose themselves to their master's exterminating scheme, might well fancy there was a certain charm in the word Christian, which rendered the religion, so denominated, invincible. And this seems to be the ground Gregory Naz. went upon (if he had any) for saying, that the reason of this extraordinary law might be, that Julian trembled at the name of Christ, just as the Demons did, who suffered torments as often as they heard it pronounced t. A man so transported by a train of the most ungoverned passions, we may well suppose, would stop at no means, how low and vile soever, to carry on his project. His letters afford us an instance of one so dishonourable, that no testimony but his own could make it credible. Titus, bishop of Bostra, and his clergy, in an address presented to Julian, acquaint him * Γαλιλαίος ἀντὶ Χρισιανῶν ὀνομάσας τε καὶ καλεῖσθαι νομοθετήσας. Greg. Naz. Orat. ii. cont. Jul. † ή φοβέμενός γε τὴν δύναμιν τῆς προσηγορίας, ὥσπερ οἱ δαίμονες. καὶ διὰ τῦτο μεταβαίνων ἐφ ̓ ἕτερο, ὄνομα τῶν ἐκ εἰωθότων, ἐδὲ γνωρίμων. Orat. iii. Καὶ οἱ μὲν δαίμονες φρίτασιν εἰς ἔτι καὶ νῦν Χρισᾶ καλεμένα, καὶ ἐδὲ ὑπὸ τῆς κακίας ἡμῶν ἐξίτηλος γέγονεν ὁ τῷ ὀνόματος τότε δύναμις Orat. i, |