These thousands of deities
are all in their places representatives of the One Supreme Principle,
Who has sent them forth and on Whom they depend.
are all in their places representatives of the One Supreme Principle,
Who has sent them forth and on Whom they depend.
Cambridge Medieval History - v1 - Christian Roman Empire and Teutonic Kingdoms
I.
CH.
IV.
## p. 98 (#128) #############################################
98
Julian's Youth and Education
[332–344
а
the Roman world by his meteor-like career, and died from wounds
received in battle against the Persians at the age of thirty-two. Two
things about him filled the imagination of his contemporaries and have
drawn the attention of succeeding generations: that he a recluse, suddenly
snatched from his loved studies in poetry and philosophy, proved himself
all at once not merely an intrepid soldier but a skilful general, and a
born leader of men ; and that he, a baptised Christian, who had actually
been accustomed to read the lessons at public worship, threw off like a
mask the Christianity he had professed and spent the last years of his
short life in a feverish attempt to restore the old and expiring paganism.
It is this last fact that made him the object of undying hate and
unconquerable love to his contemporaries, and still excites the interest
of mankind.
His own writings which have survived make it plain that from his
earliest years he looked at Christianity and Christians through the
blood-red mist of the massacre of his relations—father, brother, uncles,
cousins. His education did little to remove the impression. The lonely
imaginative, lovable child had never known his mother's care, but he
inherited her fondness for Homer, Hesiod, and the masters of Greek
poetry. Mardonius, who had been his mother's tutor, was his also,
and the boy went through the same course of study. The tutor was
passionately fond of Greek literature and especially of Homer, and he
imbued mother and son with his own tastes. For the rest he was
something of a martinet. The young Julian had the strictest moral
training and never forgot those early lessons. He was taught to be
temperate and self-restrained; to look with dislike on pantomimes,
races, and the other more or less licentious amusements of the populace.
His tutor made him read in Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus and other
pagan moralists, and was unwearied in enforcing pure living after these
examples of antiquity. Julian was all his life a puritan pagan, and this
puritanism of his was perhaps his greatest obstacle in accomplishing the
task to which he subsequently dedicated himself. He never entered
a theatre save when he was commanded to do so by the Emperor, and
was seldom on a race-course in his life. He was naturally a dreamy,
sensitive child, full of yearning fancies, which he kept to himself. He
tells us that from early boyhood he felt a strange elevation of soul when
he watched the sun and saw it dispensing light and heat; that he
worshipped the stars and understood their whispered thoughts. He
was filled with enthusiasm for everything Greek and the very word
Hellas sent a thrill through him when he pronounced it. Seven years
were spent under the care of the kindly, stern preceptor, and the impress
they made was lasting.
In 344 Constantius suddenly sent Julian into obscurity. His
elder brother, Gallus, who had escaped the massacre of 337 because he
was so sickly that he was not expected to live, accompanied him. They
## p. 99 (#129) #############################################
344–355]
Julian's Youth and Education
99
were sent to Macellum, a palace in a remote part of Cappadocia,
splendid enough with its baths, its springs and its gardens, but which
Julian looked upon as a prison. There he was supplied with teachers
in abundance, Christian clergy who were supposed to teach the faith to
the young princes, and from whose instructions Julian doubtless acquired
that superficial knowledge of the Scriptures he afterwards shewed that
he possessed. Books were granted him, and he seems to have been
permitted to send to Alexandria for what Greek literature he desired.
He mentions specially volumes from the library of Bishop George
because, along with many treatises on Christianity for which he did
not care, they included the writings of philosophers and rhetoricians.
But he bitterly complained that neither he nor his brother were allowed
to see any suitable companions, and he believed that all their attendants
were imperial spies. The boy, reserved before, shrank further into
himself. Outwardly he was a pattern of devotion. He received
Christian instruction ; was taught the “evidences of Christianity” and
used the knowledge later to expose its weaknesses; was trained to give
alms, to observe fasts, to venerate the shrines of saints to the extent of
aiding to build them with his own hands; and occasionally to officiate
as reader at public worship. Privately he fed his mind on the lessons of
Mardonius and studied such books of philosophy and rhetoric as he could
command. Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew him well, says that from
his early years he felt attracted to the worship of the gods.
After six years in the gilded prison of Macellum the brothers were
summoned to ConstantinopleGallus to be made Caesar or Vice-
Emperor, to misgovern frightfully the province entrusted to his care,
and in consequence to meet a not undeserved death, though to his
brother it was another crime to be charged against Constantius, a
Christian and the murderer of kinsmen; Julian to meet soon the
supreme moment of his religious life. He was set at first to pursue his
studies in the capital city and the scholar appointed to take charge of
him was Hecebolius, the fourth century Vicar of Bray, whose religion
was always that of the reigning Emperor. But too many admiring
eyes followed the princely student, and Constantius ordered him to
Nicomedia, the centre of the cultured paganism of the East and the
home of its acknowledged leader, the great rhetorician Libanius. Julian
had promised not to attend the lectures of Libanius; he kept his pledge
in the letter and broke it in the spirit. He got notes written out for
him and pored over them day and night. But more important than all
lectures was the intercourse with men such as he had never met before.
At Nicomedia, Julian first came in touch with those for whom the old
gods were living, who had the gift of "seers," to whom prophecies and
prodigies were matters of fact. He saw and conversed with men who
easy access to the ears of the gods,” who could“
command
winds, waves and earthquakes. " He knew Aedesius who was said to
>
“ had
CH. .
7-2
## p. 100 (#130) ############################################
100
Julian's Youth and Education
[355
receive oracles from the deities by night, and whose wife Sosipatra had
“lived from girlhood amid prodigies of all kinds. " He was told
of the wonderful séances presided over by Maximus and of the marvels
which occurred at them. This Maximus was one of the most cele-
brated theurgics or “mediums” of fourth century Neoplatonism. His
favourite occupation, he said, was to live in constant communion with the
gods. He had long white hair, brilliant magnetic eyes, and his disciples
boasted that his influence was irresistible over all those with whom he
came in contact. Eusebius of Myndus, also a Neoplatonist, told Julian
of his powers. “He made a number of us descend into the temple of
Hecate. There he saluted the goddess. Then he said: "Be seated,
friends, see what happens, then judge whether I am not superior to
most men. ' We all sat down. He burnt a grain of incense and chanted
a whole hymn in a low voice. The statue began to smile, then to laugh.
We were afraid at the sight. "Do not be alarmed," he said, 'you will
see that the lamps which the goddess holds in her hands will light of
themselves. ' As he spoke the light streamed from the lamps. ” Julian
eagerly begged to be introduced to the man who was so powerful with
the gods, and Maximus was even more ready to gain one who stood so
near the Imperial throne. No accounts survive of the spiritualistic séances
at which he assisted ; but their effect on the nervous, sensitive young
man was irresistible. Maximus converted him heart and soul to the
new paganism and was the confidential adviser of Julian from that time
onwards. The young man entered into a new life. The religion which
Homer and Hesiod had sung, which Plato and Aristotle had speculated
upon, which he had known as a student from books, became all at once
living to him. His day-dreams of the past vanished, or rather changed
into an actual present. The passion for Greece which had gradually
grown to be the ruling force in his character had now the support of
every-day experience. The gods sung by the old Greek poets, and
many a passionate Oriental deity unknown to them, could be seen and
their presence felt. He could himself have communion with them
through mysterious rites of divination. They had created the noblest
thing on earth, Greek civilisation; they were even now moulding and
controlling events; they could give courage and inspiration to their
votaries. From his sojourn at Nicomedia onwards, Julian believed
that all his actions were determined by divine voices which he heard
and obeyed. This natural religion was not the crude polytheism his
Christian teachers had said. Hellenism had made it a unity. A great
First Cause, the Father and King of all men, had parcelled out the lands
and peoples among the deities, His viceroys. They were the real rulers
of provinces and cities and governed them according to their natural
habits and dispositions. What was Christianity when compared with
this ancient and universal worship, supported by the wealth of civilisa-
tio which had come down from the past ? It was a cult of barbarian
## p. 101 (#131) ############################################
355]
Julian made Caesar
101
origin, born in an obscure province, ignorant of Hellenic culture, its
very Scriptures written in a barbarous Greek offensive to the ears of
educated men. Was Greece to abdicate in favour of Galilee? Perish
the thought! So Julian believed, and longed to steep himself in
Hellenism at its purest source—the Schools at Athens.
He gained his wish through the sisterly kindness of the Empress
Eusebia. At Athens, as at all the schools of higher learning, the
majority of the teachers were pagans, and Julian with more than his
usual eagerness devoted himself to their lectures and to all the benefits
of the place. “He was continually seen surrounded by crowds of youths,
old men, philosophers and rhetoricians. ” Outwardly he was still a
Christian, for his life depended on his conformity to the Imperial creed;
but inwardly he had consecrated himself heart and soul to paganism, had
already become conscious that he had a divine mission, and that he was
a favourite of the gods. The double life he had to live, the knowledge
that he was surrounded by spies ready to report anything compromising
to his Imperial cousin, must have acted upon his naturally nervous and
emotional temperament and betrayed itself in many outward ways. His
portrait drawn by a fellow-student, Gregory of Nazianzus, though the
work of an enemy, needs only a little toning down-twitching shoulders,
eyes glancing from side to side, something conceited in nostrils and
face, feet that were never still, hasty laugh, sentences begun and never
finished, irrelevant answers. Julian had more to do at Athens than
study philosophy; he had to penetrate to the centre of Greek religion.
He was secretly initiated into the ancient mysteries of Eleusis; and
there are hints of other initiations either there or afterwards-of the
worship of Mithras, of the purifying rite of the taurobolium.
Constantius was childless—the punishment of the gods whose temples
he had despoiled, said the pagans ; a retribution for the slaughter of his
kinsmen, his own conscience sometimes whispered. The needs of the
Empire demanded assistance. It is hard to say whether the Emperor or
the student was the more unwilling, the one to summon and the other to
obey the call. Julian was ordered to Milan where the Court was. He
was made Caesar, was married to Helena, the Emperor's sister, and was
sent to Gaul to protect the province from invading Germans. The
recluse bookworm, the man whose emotional nature had succumbed
without suspicion to the suggestions of spiritualist séances, was suddenly
confronted with one of the hardest tasks that practical life could offer.
He had to restore a half-ruined province and to overcome an enemy
grown bold by success.
He was totally ignorant of the arts of war and
of administration. It need not cause surprise that he proved an intrepid
soldier. He was the last of a race of warriors, and the blood spoke. His
studies had taught him the need of concentration and thoroughness; he
set himself to learn and speedily mastered the elements of drill and
discipline. But what the world did wonder at was that, hampered as he
CH. .
## p. 102 (#132) ############################################
102
Julian declares himself a Pagan
[355–361
was by the assistants whom the jealousy of the Emperor had forced upon
him, he shewed himself a general who defeated his foes as much by
strategy as by fighting.
The Germans had been driven back; the administration of Gaul was
improved and its finances reformed, when the legions, irritated at com-
mands from the distant Emperor, mutinied and called upon their general
to assume the purple (Jan. 360). After long hesitation Julian consented.
It meant civil war. But the gods encouraged him, his mission called
him, the soldiers rallied round him, and he marched against Constantius.
There was no battle. Constantius died before the armies met, and
Julian became sole ruler over the Roman Empire.
During the whole of Julian's five years' stay in Gaul he publicly pro-
fessed the Christian religion which privately he had repudiated. He
allowed his name to be attached to the persecuting edicts of Constantius,
while in secret he began the day with a prayer to Hermes.
His
dissimulation went the length of joining with Constantius in threatening
anyone with torture who took part in the very ceremonies of divination
which he himself was all the while practising in private. The only
trace of his real feelings is that no Christian emblems appear on the
coins which he struck in Gaul. This double life did not cease when he
assumed the purple. He ostentatiously joined in the public devotions of
the people during the festival of Epiphany (361), while in private he was
practising all manner of secret incantations and divinations aided by an
adept in the mysteries of Eleusis. It may be that he waited until he was
sure of the sympathies of the army. He seems to have taken care that
most of the soldiers who followed him from Gaul were pagans; and
that the Christian troops were left behind to guard the province. At
all events it was not until he reached Sirmium on the lower Danube,
where the magistrates, citizens and soldiers received him with acclama-
tions, that he declared himself a pagan, and could write to Maximus:
“We worship the gods openly; most of the soldiers who follow me
reverence them! We have thanked the gods in the sight of men
with many hecatombs. ” He entered Constantinople a professed pagan,
believing himself commissioned by the gods to restore the ancient religion,
a Dionysos and a Hercules in one, the prophet and king of a pagan
revival.
In his treatment of Christianity he believed that he shewed
impartiality and refrained from persecution, and, if due allowance be
made for his private hatred of those whom he contemptuously called
Galilaeans, it is possible to believe that he was sincere in his pro-
fessions.
His first act was to issue an edict permitting all bishops, exiled by
Constantius for their attachment to the Nicene theology, to return and
resume possession of their confiscated property but not their sees. More
than once the leaders, clerical and laic, of the various parties into which
## p. 103 (#133) ############################################
361–363]
Julian's treatment of Christianity
103
a
were to cease.
Christianity was then divided, were summoned to his palace and told
that they were at liberty to follow and advocate any form of belief they
pleased. Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a pagan and a devoted admirer
of Julian, declares that the Emperor did this in the firm belief that the
Christians were so thoroughly divided that this liberty would end in their
destroying each other by their mutual quarrels. If so the intention
shews how little Julian understood the faith he despised. The bishops
who had thronged the antechambers of Constantius and used backstairs
intrigues against their rivals were very poor specimens of Christianity.
The freedom of discussion which Julian permitted, the absence of
Imperial interference, were the means of uniting not destroying the
Church.
The greater part of the Emperor's edicts against Christianity were
undoubtedly meant by him to make restitution to paganism and to the
State of property and privileges which had been wrongly bestowed. The
churches were commanded to restore the temple-sites and lands which had
been given them for ecclesiastical purposes. If churches had been erected
they were ordered to be demolished and the temples rebuilt at the
expense of the Christians.
The clergy and Christian poor had been
granted sums of money from municipal treasuries; and these grants
Constantine's legislation had given to the Christian
clergy privileges enjoyed by the heathen priesthood. To Julian's mind
paganism was the religion of the State and alone it carried privileges
with it. So the special laws guaranteeing to the Church rights of,
inheritance, and laws exempting the clergy from personal taxation and
freeing them from the obligation to serve on municipal councils, were
abrogated.
Ammianus Marcellinus probably expresses the popular
opinion when he declares that this legislation, however just in theory,
was harsh in practice from its cumulative weight and the haste with which
it was enforced.
No edict of Julian's excited the indignation of the Christians so
thoroughly as that upon education. It enacted that no Christian was to
be allowed to teach in schools where the literature of Greece and Rome
formed the basis of education; that all teachers must expound and insist
upon the religion of the authors studied; but that Christian children
might attend the schools. Perhaps the Emperor's reasons for his legisla-
tion increased their wrath; for pedantry is more irritating than force,
and Julian's pedantic nature is displayed in his reasonings. “Homer,
Hesiod, Demosthenes, Thucydides, Isocrates, Lysias, all founded their
learning on the gods. Did not some of them believe themselves to be
consecrated to Hermes and others to the muses ? It seems therefore
absurd to me that those who explain their works should not worship the
gods they reverenced. ” He did not like to remember that Mardonius,
his own honoured teacher, had been a Christian. His fixed idea was
that Christianity could have no connexion with Hellenic thought or
.
CH, IP.
## p. 104 (#134) ############################################
104
Julian's treatment of Christians
(361–363
civilisation, that its affectation of interest in ancient Greek literature was
hypocrisy, and that it was his duty as ruler to keep men from occasions
of practising such a vice. From one point of view the edict seemed to
affect the Christians but slightly. They had long been accustomed to
send their children to schools in which the most famous teachers were
pagans; but now they believed that the Emperor desired to use all the
public schools throughout the Empire for proselytising purposes. In
the end this edict did more good than harm to Christianity. It shewed
in a striking way both the stedfastness and the resources of the Christians.
The two most distinguished Christian teachers, Prohaeresius of Athens
and C. Marius Victorinus of Rome, at once resigned their appointments.
The former was the most esteemed teacher in the East, Libanius only
excepted. Julian did his utmost to win him over to paganism. When
he remained firm, the Emperor offered to make him an exception to
his rule; but the Christian refused to accept any concession which
was not to be shared by his humbler brethren. Christian teachers
all over the East assiduously devoted themselves to acquire the
elegancies of the Greek tongue and to write school-books in that
language which could serve as substitutes for the authors they were
forbidden to use.
The Emperor naturally abolished the Labarum, and changed all
other Christian into pagan emblems. He permitted, encouraged, the
worship of his statues ; he purged the Praetorian guard (not the whole
army) of Christians. He also dismissed from his service all Christian
attendants, and endeavoured to make the civil service completely
pagan.
At least one distinguished Christian had little cause to thank Julian
for his toleration, and his treatment of Athanasius almost suggests that
the Emperor felt that the great bishop was the opponent from whom his
plans had most to fear. On Julian's edict restoring to their homes and
properties Christian bishops who had been banished by Constantius,
Athanasius naturally returned to Alexandria and was warmly welcomed by
his people. Julian was indignant. He insisted that his edict had not
authorised the banished bishops to resume their ecclesiastical work, and
ordered Athanasius to be sent away from the city and then from
Egypt. “By all the gods,” he wrote to the governor of Egypt,
“nothing could give me more pleasure than that thou shouldst expel
from every corner of Egypt that criminal Athanasius, who has dared,
during my reign, to baptise Greek wives of illustrious citizens. He must
be persecuted. ”
Julian's efforts to restore and put new life into paganism are much
more interesting than his attempts to damage Christianity. He called
the religion he had so fervently adopted Hellenism, and his co-religionists
Hellenes : Christianity was a barbarian cult, its supporters Galilaeans.
But in reality the Christianity of the fourth century had absorbed much
## p. 105 (#135) ############################################
361-363]
Julian's Paganism
105
sources,
as
of what was best and most enduring in Hellenism; while the religion of
Julian drew more of its contents from Oriental than from Hellenist
One cult into which he had been initiated and which he greatly
esteemed, Mithraism, was the only one of those Oriental religions which
seems to have been entirely unaffected by Hellenist thought.
The religion which Julian attempted to force on the Empire was a
mosaic of decadent philosophy, bloody sacrifices, rituals old and new,
“spiritualism" and divinations of all sorts. Its piety came from the cult
of the Mysteries. It contained so much that was new that it was much
more an attempted reconstruction or reformation than a revival of
paganism.
Julian was quick to see that no religion could be universally accepted
which had not behind it some common stable truths, and that Christianity
had gained enormously from that compact system of doctrine which it
had laboriously built up during the three centuries of its existence. If
critics, like Celsus, had made capital out of the intellectual differences
within Christianity, paganism was in a worse case.
Heathenism had
no basis of intellectual certainty; it had no universally accepted or
acknowledged system of doctrine. If pagan philosophy were appealed
to, it was anything but an harmonious system-one teacher said one
thing only to be refuted by another. The Hermotimus of Lucian had
somewhat wickedly shewn that the opinions of philosophy were
various as the thinkers were numerous. But the philosophic thinking of
the age of Julian was eclectic, and Neoplatonism was supposed to reconcile
all sorts of opinions. By ignoring some and rounding off the sharp
corners of others it might be plausibly made out that all philosophies
really meant to say the same things if they were only rightly understood. ;
So Julian went to Neoplatonism for the intellectual basis or dogmatic
theology of his new catholic State Religion. His philosophical acumen)
was by no means equal to that of his masters and he modestly confessed
it. Iamblichus had taught him all that he knew, and that philosopher,
in the opinion of Julian, had so explored the heights and depths of
human and divine thought that nothing remained for any man save
to accept his conclusions. The Neoplatonic thought of a Trinity of
existence took the central place of the Christian in this new pagan
theology.
Three worlds exist. First and highest is the realm of
pure
where the Supreme Principle, the One, the Highest Good, the Great First
Cause, lives and reigns. Below it is the intellectual world over which
presides the same Supreme Principle, but now represented by an emanation
from Itself, wholly spiritual, the Logos of the Platonic philosophy. The
third is the world of sense existence, the universe of things seen and
handled, and there, as beseems its surroundings, the ruler, the emanation
from the Supreme Principle, assumes a visible form and can be seen while
adored.
pure ideas
05. I.
## p. 106 (#136) ############################################
106
Julian's Paganism
The “common man,” of course, could not be expected to understand
or care for such high matters; but pagan philosophy had never thought
much of the “common man” (which was its weakness), and he had always
the gods nearest him to worship in that instinctive way which was alone
possible for an intelligence such as his. Yet Julian, with more sympa-
thetic feeling for his needs than most pagan thinkers, made provision
that even he should be taught the underlying unity and catholicity of
his ancestral faith. Just as in Christianity, Jesus was the revealer of
the Father, and men were taught to see the One Supreme God in the
Son Incarnate, the Mediator, so Julian called on all men to see in the
great orb of day the visible manifestation of the Supreme Principle, the
First Cause, Who has begotten him and placed him in the heavens, the
medium through which He dispenses His benefits throughout the universe
of men and things. Even Christians, Julian thinks, might come to see
this if their minds were not so darkened. They believe in Jesus, whom
neither they nor their fathers have ever seen; but they do not believe
that the God Helios is the true revealer of God, Helios whom the whole
human race from the beginning of time has seen and has honoured as
their munificent and potent benefactor, Helios the living animated
beneficent image of the Supreme Father, Who is exalted above all the
powers of reason. Man has body as well as soul, he has senses as he has
capacities for intellectual thinking, therefore he needs visible gods to
represent the gods invisible whom the Supreme Principle has sent forth
from Himself and who suit the religious needs not merely of the different
nations and tribes of mankind but also of the various divisions of men such
as shopkeepers, tax-gatherers, dancers, etc.
These thousands of deities
are all in their places representatives of the One Supreme Principle,
Who has sent them forth and on Whom they depend. The sun among
the stars is an emblem of this divine unity in diversity.
Having thus demonstrated, as he believed, by exhortations and
treatises, the unity which underlay the surface diversity of polytheism,
Julian gave full scope to his desire to honour every manifestation of the
one Supreme Principle, and to make use of every means whereby man
could both shew his reverence for and seek communion with the divine.
His first care was to make it clear to all that the worship of the old
gods was to be the privileged cult. Bishops were banished from the ante-
chambers and audience halls of the palace and in their stead came pagan
priests and Neoplatonic philosophers—chief among them being Maximus
the “medium. ” The Emperor was unwearied in issuing decrees that all
the ancient temples were to be thrown open and that the ceremonies of
all the ancient cults were to be duly performed. It might be said that
he converted his palace into a temple--so determined was he that every
heathen festival should be observed and every detail of appropriate
rite and sacrifice duly attended to—and it was said that his knowledge of
the various rituals surpassed that of the priests themselves. His devotion
## p. 107 (#137) ############################################
2
Julian as Pontifex Maximus
107
to the whole sacrificial system of paganism has been recorded both by
enemies and friends. We are told of one solemn sacrifice at which the
victims included one hundred bulls, rams, sheep and goats, as well as
innumerable white birds from land and sea. He issued minute directions
about the number of the sacrifices which were to be offered by day and
by night in the reopened temples. He wished that all the old gods
should be invoked--Saturn, Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Pluto, Bacchus,
Silenus, Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux, Rhea, Juno, Minerva, Latona,
Venus, Hecate, the Muses, etc. etc. ; but personally, like the pagans of the
age he lived in, he was more devoted to the deities of Oriental origin-
to the Attis cult, to Mithras, and most of all to Isis and Serapis.
Dionysos, whose cult had many of the Oriental characteristics, seems to
have been his most favoured among the gods of Greece.
The office of Pontifex Maximus was an Imperial prerogative and the
one most prized by Julian. He was unwearied in the performance of
all the duties it required and he used it in his attempt to create that
Catholic Pagan State Church. The very conception is decisive proof that
Julian aimed, not at the revival but at a thorough reconstruction of
paganism. He had the thought of a great independent spiritual
community, wide as the Empire—a community so holy and separated
that men and women who abandoned Christianity could only be admitted
into it after the performance of prescribed purifying rites.
This
community was to be ruled over by a priesthood set apart for the service
and forming a graded hierarchy. At the head of all was the Pontifex
Maximus; next came pagan metropolitans or the high-priests of
provinces; under them were high-priests who had rule over the temples
and priests within the districts assigned to them. It is improbable
that Julian had completed the hierarchical organisation of the Empire
before his death, but large parts of the East had been put in order.
We have some briefs which he, as supreme pontiff, sent down to his
metropolitans in which he regulated many things from the dress and
morals of the clergy to the training of temple choirs—so minute was the
interference of the Pontifex Maximus. Now it is possible that one form
of paganism, the Imperial cult, had been strictly organised in the West
and its provincial priests may have had some jurisdiction over the
ministers of other cults ; Maximin Daza had attempted to do something
similar in the East; but the attempt to gather every cult of polytheism
into one organised communion was not merely new; it was a startling
novelty. Julian's conception of a pagan priesthood entirely devoted to
the service of religion was certainly not Hellenist; nor was it Roman;
it was Oriental; the cults of Egypt, of Syria and of Asia had separated
priesthoods. It was a new thing to be introduced into a universal State
Church whose religion called itself Hellenism.
Julian thought a great deal about this priesthood of his and recog-
nised its supreme importance for the reformation he dreamt of making.
0H. .
## p. 108 (#138) ############################################
108
Reorganisation of Paganism
As the priest, from the office he fills, ought to be an example to all men,
he should be selected with care-if possible a man of good family,
neither very rich, nor very poor; but the indispensable qualifications are
that he loves God and his neighbour. Love to God may be tested by
observing whether the members of his family attend the temple services
with regularity (Julian was very indignant when he discovered that the
wives and daughters of some pagan priests were actually Christians), and
love to one's neighbour by charity to the poor. Julian further insisted
that the priest must be careful about what he reads. He is to shun all
lascivious writings such as the old comedies or the contemporary erotic
novels. He is to be equally circumspect in his conduct. He must not
go to the theatre, nor to spectacles, and is not to frequent wine-shops.
He is not to consort with actors nor to admit them to his house, he is
even recommended not to accept too many invitations to dinner. On
the other hand he is to see that he is master within his temple. He is
to wear within it gorgeous vestments in honour of the gods whom he
serves; but outside the sanctuary, when he mingles with men, he is to
wear the ordinary dress. He is not to permit even the commander of
the forces or the governor of the province to enter the temple with
ostentation. He is to know the service thoroughly and to be able to
repeat all the divine hymns. Occasionally he is to deliver addresses on
philosophical subjects for the instruction of the multitude.
Julian also desired that the priests should organise schemes of
charitable relief, more especially for the poor who attend the temple
services. He thought that some such widely organised scheme might help
to counteract the popularity of the “Galilaeans. ” He seems also to have
contemplated the institution of religious communities of men and women
vowed to a life of chastity and meditation-another proof that his
so-called Hellenism was based much more on Oriental religions than on
those of Greece.
The Emperor in all this legislation or advice was at pains to declare
that he was acting, not as Emperor, but as “Pontifex Maximus of the
religion of my country. ”
One feature of Julian's attempt to make the worship of the gods the
universal and privileged religion of the Empire is too characteristic of
the age to be entirely passed over. In the opening pages of this
chapter, in which the living paganism of the third and fourth centuries
is briefly described, it is shewn that the old official worships of
Greece and Rome lingered as mere simulacra and that the real religious
life of the times was fed by Oriental faiths which had introduced such
thoughts as redemption, salvation, purification, the Way of Return, etc.
It is not too much to say that whatever of the old pagan piety remained
in the middle of the fourth century had attached itself to the worship of
the Mysteries ; and that pious men, if educated, looked on the different
initiations and rites of purification taught in the various cults to be
## p. 109 (#139) ############################################
The Mysteries and Pagan Piety
109
ways of attaining the same redemption, or finding the same way of
Return. Julian belonged to his age. He was a pure-hearted and
deeply pious man. His piety was in a real sense heart religion, and,
like that of his contemporaries, clothed itself in the cult of the
Mysteries ; while his nervous, sensitive character inclined him personally
to the theurgic or magical side of the cult, and especially to what re-
produced the old Dionysiac ecstasy. Hence the dominating thought in
Julian's mind was to reform the whole public worship of paganism by
impregnating it with the real piety and heart religion of the Mysteries
cult. The one thing really reactionary in the movement he con-
templated was the return to the worship of the old official deities, but
he proposed to attempt this in a way which can only be called revolu-
tionary. He endeavoured to put life into the old rituals by bringing to
their aid and quickening them with that sincere fervour which the
Mysteries cult demanded from its votaries. This is what makes Julian
such an interesting figure in the history of paganism; while it in part
accounts for his complete failure to do what he attempted. He tried to
unite two things which had utterly separate roots, whose ideals were
different, and which could not easily blend. For the religion of the
Mysteries was essentially a private cult, into which men and women
were received, one by one, by rites of initiation which each had to pass
through personally, and, when admitted, they became members of coteries,
large or small, of like-minded persons. They had entered because their
souls had craved something which they believed the initiations and
purifications would give. It was a common saying among them that as
sickness of the body needed medicine, so the sickness of the soul required
those rites to which they submitted. What had this to do with the
courteous recognition due to bright celestial beings which was the
central thought of the official religion of Greece, or the punctilious
performance of ceremonies which was believed to propitiate the sterner
deities of Rome? Mysteries and participation in their rites may exist
along with a belief in the necessity and religious value of the public
services of a state religion; but whenever the latter can only be
justified, even by its own votaries, on the ground of traditional and
patriotic propriety, Mystery worship may take its place but can never
quicken it. When the whole piety of paganism disappeared in the
Mysteries cult, it estranged itself from the national and official religion ;
and the Mysteries could never be used to recall the gods of Olympus for
whose banishment they had been largely responsible.
No edicts of an Emperor could change the bright deities of Olympus
into saviours, or transform their careless votaries into men who felt in
their hearts the need of redemption and a way of return. Yet that was
what Julian had to do when he proposed to impregnate the old official
worship with the fervour of the Mysteries cult. It was equally in vain
to think that the Mysteries cult, which owed its power to its spontaneity,
CH, Y.
## p. 110 (#140) ############################################
110
Julian's Failure
to its independence, to its individuality, could be drilled and organised
into the national religion of a great Empire. It was a true instinct that
a
led Julian to see that the real and living pagan piety of his generation
had taken refuge within the circles of the Mysteries, and that the hope
of paganism lay in the spread of the fervour which kindled their votaries;
his mistake lay in thinking that it could be used to requicken the official
worship. It would have been better for his designs had he acted as did
Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, the model of genuine pagan piety in the
Roman senatorial circle (princeps religiosorum, Macrobius calls him).
Praetextatus contented himself with a dignified and cool recognition of
the official deities of Rome but sought outlet for his piety elsewhere, in
initiations at Eleusis and other places and in the purifying rite of the
taurobolium. The sentimental side of Julian's nature led him astray.
He could not forget his early studies in Homer and Hesiod (he quotes
Homer as frequently and as fervently as a contemporary Christian does
the Holy Scriptures) and he had to introduce the gods of Olympus
somewhere. He tried to unite the passionate Oriental worships with
the dignified Greek and the grave Roman ceremonies where personal
faith was superfluous. The elements were too incongruous.
In spite of all the signs of a reaction against Christianity Julian
falied; and for himself the tragedy of his failure lay in the apathy of
his co-religionists. In spite of his elaborate treatise against Christianity
and his other writings; notwithstanding his public orations and his
private persuasions, Julian did not succeed in making many converts.
We hear of no Christians of mark . who embraced Hellenism, save the
rhetorician Hecebolius and Pegasius, a bishop with a questionable
past. The Emperor boasted that his Hellenism made some progress
in the army, but at his death the legions selected a Christian
successor.
It is almost pathetic to read Julian's accounts of his continual dis-
appointments. He could not find in “all Cappadocia a single man who
was a true Hellenist. ” They did not care to offer sacrifice, and those
who did so, did not know how. In Galatia, at Pessinus where stood a
famous temple erected to the Great Mother, he had to bribe and
threaten the inhabitants to do honour to the goddess. At Beroea he
harangued the municipal council on the duty of worshipping the gods.
“ They all warmly praised my discourse,” he says somewhat sadly, “but
none were convinced by it save the few who were convinced before
hearing. " So it was wherever he went. Even pagan admirers like
Ammianus Marcellinus were rather bored with the Emperor's Hellenism
and thought the whole thing a devout imagination not worth the trouble
he wasted on it. The senatorial circle at Rome had no sympathy
with Julian's Hellenic revival. No one shewed any enthusiasm but
the narrow circle of Neoplatonist sophists, and they had no influence
with the people.
## p. 111 (#141) ############################################
Julian's Failure
111
Yet Julian's attempt to stay the progress of Christianity and to
drive back the tide which was submerging the Empire, was, with all
its practical faults, by far the ablest yet conceived. It provided a sub-
stitute and presented an alternative. The substitute was pretentious
and artificial, but it was probably the best that the times could furnish.
Hellenism, Julian called it; but where in that golden past of Hellas
into which the Imperial dreamer peered, could be found a puritan
strictness of conduct, a prolonged and sustained religious fervour, and
a religion independent of the State ? The three strongest parts of his
scheme had no connexion with Hellenism. Religions may be used, but
cannot be created by statesmen, unless they happen to have the prophetic
fire and inspiration—and Julian was no prophet. He may be credited
with seizing and combining in one whole the strongest anti-Christian
forces of his generation—the passion of Oriental religion, the patriotic
desire to retain the old religion under which Greece and Rome had
grown great, the glory of the ancient literature, the superstition which
clung to magic and divinations, and a philosophy which, if it lacked
independence of thought, at least represented that eclecticism which was
the intellectual atınosphere which all men then breathed. He brought
them together to build an edifice which was to be the temple of his
Empire. But though the builder had many of the qualities which go to
make a religious reformer-pure in heart and life, full of sincere piety,
manly and with a strong sense of duty—the edifice he reared was quite
artificial, lacked the living principle of growth, and could not last.
Athanasius gave its history in four words when he said “It will soon
pass. ” The world had outgrown paganism.
Whatever faults the Christianity of the time exhibited, whatever ills
had come to it from Imperial patronage and conformity with the world,
it still retained within it the original simplicity and profundity of its
message. Nothing in its environment could take that from it. It
proclaimed a living God, who had made man and all things and for
Whom man was made. That God had manifested Himself in Jesus
Christ and the centre of the manifestation was the Passion of our
Lord—the Cross. Whatever special meanings attach themselves to the
intellectual apprehension of this manifestation, it contains two plain
thoughts which can be grasped as easily by the simplest as by the most
cultured intelligence, and was therefore universal as no previous religion
had ever been. It gave a new revelation of God-a personal Deity,
whose chiefest manifestation was a sympathy with all who were beneath
Him and a yearning to deliver them at all costs to Himself. It gave,
at the same time, a new revelation of man, made in the image of God
and therefore capable of a far-off imitation ; his life no longer ruled by
the precepts of a calculating utilitarianism nor curbed by a statutory
morality, freed from the chains of all taboos and rituals, inspired by the
one principle “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and this
CH, I,
## p. 112 (#142) ############################################
112
Julian's Failure
thought made vivid by the vision of a pure active Divine Life which
spent itself in the service of mankind.
Some of the Oriental religions, notably those of Mithras and Isis,
were groping after this idea of “brother man”; the Imperial world
was, in a vague way, advancing towards it; but the Cross of Christ
shewed its highest and clearest manifestation. Therefore Christianity
teaching that every follower of Christ, in so far as he was really a
disciple, should imitate the Master, could set the stamp of the Cross on
every portion of human life and on every social institution. It was the
religion of the Cross, the religion whose watchword was “ brother man. "
"
It was therefore universal and to it the future belonged.
If such things can be dated, the death of Julian marks the triumph
of Christianity in the Roman world, eastern and western. The ex-
clamation, “Galilaean, Thou hast conquered," is a fable which clothes a
fact. Yet it would be a grave mistake to say that paganism disappeared
suddenly either from the East or from the West.
In the East it never recovered its position as a state religion, but it
existed as a private cult practised by no inconsiderable proportion of the
people. It did not offer the strenuous resistance to Imperial anti-pagan
legislation which was to be seen in the West. The number of Christians
had always been much larger and it is more than probable that many of
the laws against pagans were supported by public opinion. Julian's
immediate successors practised a policy of toleration for all religions, and
contented themselves with professing and favouring Christianity. It
was the religion of the Imperial household and of the great majority of
the population-nothing more. Pagans lived on free to worship what
divinities they pleased. Even when Valens and emperors who came after
him renewed and enforced laws against pagan worship no traces are to
be found of anything like a general persecution. Accusations were
listened to and procedure taken against numbers of wealthy persons in
the hope of filling the Imperial treasury; but the mass of the people
remained untouched. Whole districts, which were notoriously poor,
were exempted from the operation of the laws. During the reign of
Valens a large number of temples fell into ruins, but probably it was not
the operation of the law which caused their destruction. The more
celebrated temples were often in possession of large yearly revenues
derived from lands and other endowments and in charge of the hereditary
priesthood who presided over the worship. As paganism decayed these
priesthoods frequently secularised the revenues, took possession of them
and were content to see the edifices fall into ruin. Still paganism
remained rooted in many of the old noble families of the East, and in
such aristocratic households the place of private chaplain was filled by a
Neoplatonic philosopher. As many of the members of this nobility
were called to occupy high places in the civil administration of the
Empire, they were able to protect their co-religionists and took care to
a
## p. 113 (#143) ############################################
394-484]
Survivals of Paganism in the East
113
see that the anti-pagan laws were not enforced within their jurisdic-
tions. Optatus, praefect of Constantinople in 404 was a pagan. In
A. D. 467 Isokasios, the quaestor of Antioch, was accused of paganism.
Phocas took poison to prevent himself being obliged to embrace
Christianity as late as the time of Justinian. Many of the more famous
literary men—Eunapius, Zosimus, perhaps Procopius—were strongly
anti-Christian. Pamprepius, a Neoplatonist, famed for his power of
divination, an avowed pagan, drew a salary from the public revenues
and, along with distinguished generals like Marsus and Leontius, aided
Hlus in his revolt against the Emperor Zeno in 484. But by the
end and indeed throughout the whole of the fifth century thoughtful
paganism had become a sort of Quietism and exercised no influence on
the public life of the population. When Theodosius the Great succeeded
in uniting the orthodox Church with the Imperial administration, when
the great bishops were placed in possession of powers almost equal to
those of the governors of provinces, the Church became the guardian of
the rights of the people and the interpreter of its wishes. The Church,
in that age of bureaucracy, had a popular constitution; its clergy came
from the people; the services were in the language of the district; its
bishops were the natural and sympathetic leaders of the people; and
the whole population gradually became included within the Christian
Church,
Athens and Achaia long remained the last stronghold of paganism
.
in the East. The Eleusinian and other mysteries, the great heathen
festivals celebrated in Athens and in other cities of Hellas, attracted crowds
of strangers from all parts of the Empire. Religious beliefs, patriotic
associations, thoughts of material prosperity combined to make the
people of the towns and districts resolute to maintain and defend them.
So strong were the popular feelings that it would have led to riots, probably
to attempted insurrection, to enforce the Imperial legislation against
temples, sacrifices and the celebration of pagan ceremonies by night.
The emperors found it necessary either to exempt Hellas from the
operation of these laws altogether or to suffer their non-enforcement.
The Eleusinian Mysteries continued until the famous temple was
destroyed by the Goths under Alaric. The Olympic Games were
celebrated until the reign of Theodosius I (394). The great and
venerated statue of Minerva remained to protect the city of Athens.
until about 480. The great temple of Olympia remained open until its
destruction—whether by the Goths or by command of Theodosius II is
unknown.
In the fourth and fifth centuries Athens remained the most distin-
guished intellectual centre of the time. The teachers in its schools, for
the most part Neoplatonists who resolutely refused to accept Christianity,
maintained the old pagan traditions. Their influence was recognised
and feared. Theodosius II forbade private teachers to give public
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. IV.
8
## p. 114 (#144) ############################################
114
Survivals of Paganism in the West
[375–383
lectures under pain of banishment. Justinian, determined to crush the
last remains of paganism, confiscated the funds which furnished the
salaries of the professors, seized on the endowments of the Academy
of Plato, and closed the schools. The persecuted philosophers fled to
Persia to avoid imprisonment or death and remained there until King
Chosroes obtained from the Emperor a promise that they would be
unmolested if they returned to their homes.
In the West paganism shewed itself much stronger. It displayed its
greatest tenacity in Rome itself, and there were many reasons why it
should do so.
The old paganism had been closely connected with the
State and when it ceased to be the privileged religion it had no common
centre round which to rally. In Rome it was otherwise. Its stronghold
was the Senate, and all the elements of opposition to Christianity could
group themselves round that venerable assembly. The Senate had lost
its powers but its prestige remained, and the Emperors were chary of
attacking its dignity. It represented the ancient grandeur of Rome and
was the heir and defender of old Roman traditions. The city was full
of monuments of Rome's past greatness. They were, for the most part,
temples built to commemorate signal victories, and were visible signs of
the old religion under which Rome had grown to greatness. The Senate
took pride in preserving these witnesses of the past splendours of the
Imperial city and in seeing that the old ceremonial rites were duly
performed in spite of anti-pagan legislation. During the second half of
the fourth century and into the fifth, the pagan senators of Rome
flaunted their religion in the face of the world. They were at pains to
record on their family tombstones and other private monuments that
they had been hierophants of Hecate, had been initiated at Eleusis,
had been priests of Hercules, Attis, Isis or Mithras. In spite of the
edicts and efforts of the sons of Constantine and of successors of
Julian paganism was the state religion of Rome down to 383. Its
worship was performed according to the old rites. The days consecrated
to the old gods, and others added in honour of the newer Oriental
deities, were the Roman holidays. Every year on 27 January the
Praefectus urbi went down to Ostia and presided over "games” in honour
of Castor and Pollux. All these costly ceremonies, sacrifices and shows
were provided for out of the Imperial treasury. They were part of the
state religion, and the Senate were determined that they should be so
regarded. The Emperor might be a Christian, but he was neverthe-
less Pontifex Maximus, the official head of the old pagan religion,
and they believed themselves justified in performing its rites in his
name.
The Emperor Gratian delivered the first effectual blow against this
state of matters. He refused to assume the office of Pontifex Maximus,
probably in 375. In 382 he ordered that the great pagan ceremonies
and sacrifices should no longer be defrayed out of the Imperial treasury,
## p. 115 (#145) ############################################
394]
Paganisin in Literature
115
new ones.
and saw that he was obeyed. He took from the ancient priesthoods
of Rome the emoluments and immunities which they had enjoyed for
centuries. He removed from the Senate House the statue of Victory
and its altar on which incense had been duly burnt since the days of
Octavius. The last great battle for the official recognition of paganism
raged over these decrees. It lasted about ten years. Symmachus and
Ambrose, both representatives of old Roman patrician families, were the
leaders on the pagan and on the Christian side. The pagan party in
the Senate fought every inch of ground against the advancing tide of
Christianity. Its leading members enrolled themselves in the ancient
priesthoods and assumed the dignities of the sacra peregrina. They
provided for the sacrifices and other sacred rites at their own expense.
They spent their means in restoring ancient temples and in building
They had high hopes of a pagan reaction under Maximus,
who had defeated and slain Gratian; under the short-lived Emperor
Eugenius, who promised on his leaving Milan to meet Theodosius in
battle that, on his return, he would stable his horses in Christian basilicas.
The victory of Theodosius (394) on the Frigidus ended these hopes.
## p. 98 (#128) #############################################
98
Julian's Youth and Education
[332–344
а
the Roman world by his meteor-like career, and died from wounds
received in battle against the Persians at the age of thirty-two. Two
things about him filled the imagination of his contemporaries and have
drawn the attention of succeeding generations: that he a recluse, suddenly
snatched from his loved studies in poetry and philosophy, proved himself
all at once not merely an intrepid soldier but a skilful general, and a
born leader of men ; and that he, a baptised Christian, who had actually
been accustomed to read the lessons at public worship, threw off like a
mask the Christianity he had professed and spent the last years of his
short life in a feverish attempt to restore the old and expiring paganism.
It is this last fact that made him the object of undying hate and
unconquerable love to his contemporaries, and still excites the interest
of mankind.
His own writings which have survived make it plain that from his
earliest years he looked at Christianity and Christians through the
blood-red mist of the massacre of his relations—father, brother, uncles,
cousins. His education did little to remove the impression. The lonely
imaginative, lovable child had never known his mother's care, but he
inherited her fondness for Homer, Hesiod, and the masters of Greek
poetry. Mardonius, who had been his mother's tutor, was his also,
and the boy went through the same course of study. The tutor was
passionately fond of Greek literature and especially of Homer, and he
imbued mother and son with his own tastes. For the rest he was
something of a martinet. The young Julian had the strictest moral
training and never forgot those early lessons. He was taught to be
temperate and self-restrained; to look with dislike on pantomimes,
races, and the other more or less licentious amusements of the populace.
His tutor made him read in Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus and other
pagan moralists, and was unwearied in enforcing pure living after these
examples of antiquity. Julian was all his life a puritan pagan, and this
puritanism of his was perhaps his greatest obstacle in accomplishing the
task to which he subsequently dedicated himself. He never entered
a theatre save when he was commanded to do so by the Emperor, and
was seldom on a race-course in his life. He was naturally a dreamy,
sensitive child, full of yearning fancies, which he kept to himself. He
tells us that from early boyhood he felt a strange elevation of soul when
he watched the sun and saw it dispensing light and heat; that he
worshipped the stars and understood their whispered thoughts. He
was filled with enthusiasm for everything Greek and the very word
Hellas sent a thrill through him when he pronounced it. Seven years
were spent under the care of the kindly, stern preceptor, and the impress
they made was lasting.
In 344 Constantius suddenly sent Julian into obscurity. His
elder brother, Gallus, who had escaped the massacre of 337 because he
was so sickly that he was not expected to live, accompanied him. They
## p. 99 (#129) #############################################
344–355]
Julian's Youth and Education
99
were sent to Macellum, a palace in a remote part of Cappadocia,
splendid enough with its baths, its springs and its gardens, but which
Julian looked upon as a prison. There he was supplied with teachers
in abundance, Christian clergy who were supposed to teach the faith to
the young princes, and from whose instructions Julian doubtless acquired
that superficial knowledge of the Scriptures he afterwards shewed that
he possessed. Books were granted him, and he seems to have been
permitted to send to Alexandria for what Greek literature he desired.
He mentions specially volumes from the library of Bishop George
because, along with many treatises on Christianity for which he did
not care, they included the writings of philosophers and rhetoricians.
But he bitterly complained that neither he nor his brother were allowed
to see any suitable companions, and he believed that all their attendants
were imperial spies. The boy, reserved before, shrank further into
himself. Outwardly he was a pattern of devotion. He received
Christian instruction ; was taught the “evidences of Christianity” and
used the knowledge later to expose its weaknesses; was trained to give
alms, to observe fasts, to venerate the shrines of saints to the extent of
aiding to build them with his own hands; and occasionally to officiate
as reader at public worship. Privately he fed his mind on the lessons of
Mardonius and studied such books of philosophy and rhetoric as he could
command. Ammianus Marcellinus, who knew him well, says that from
his early years he felt attracted to the worship of the gods.
After six years in the gilded prison of Macellum the brothers were
summoned to ConstantinopleGallus to be made Caesar or Vice-
Emperor, to misgovern frightfully the province entrusted to his care,
and in consequence to meet a not undeserved death, though to his
brother it was another crime to be charged against Constantius, a
Christian and the murderer of kinsmen; Julian to meet soon the
supreme moment of his religious life. He was set at first to pursue his
studies in the capital city and the scholar appointed to take charge of
him was Hecebolius, the fourth century Vicar of Bray, whose religion
was always that of the reigning Emperor. But too many admiring
eyes followed the princely student, and Constantius ordered him to
Nicomedia, the centre of the cultured paganism of the East and the
home of its acknowledged leader, the great rhetorician Libanius. Julian
had promised not to attend the lectures of Libanius; he kept his pledge
in the letter and broke it in the spirit. He got notes written out for
him and pored over them day and night. But more important than all
lectures was the intercourse with men such as he had never met before.
At Nicomedia, Julian first came in touch with those for whom the old
gods were living, who had the gift of "seers," to whom prophecies and
prodigies were matters of fact. He saw and conversed with men who
easy access to the ears of the gods,” who could“
command
winds, waves and earthquakes. " He knew Aedesius who was said to
>
“ had
CH. .
7-2
## p. 100 (#130) ############################################
100
Julian's Youth and Education
[355
receive oracles from the deities by night, and whose wife Sosipatra had
“lived from girlhood amid prodigies of all kinds. " He was told
of the wonderful séances presided over by Maximus and of the marvels
which occurred at them. This Maximus was one of the most cele-
brated theurgics or “mediums” of fourth century Neoplatonism. His
favourite occupation, he said, was to live in constant communion with the
gods. He had long white hair, brilliant magnetic eyes, and his disciples
boasted that his influence was irresistible over all those with whom he
came in contact. Eusebius of Myndus, also a Neoplatonist, told Julian
of his powers. “He made a number of us descend into the temple of
Hecate. There he saluted the goddess. Then he said: "Be seated,
friends, see what happens, then judge whether I am not superior to
most men. ' We all sat down. He burnt a grain of incense and chanted
a whole hymn in a low voice. The statue began to smile, then to laugh.
We were afraid at the sight. "Do not be alarmed," he said, 'you will
see that the lamps which the goddess holds in her hands will light of
themselves. ' As he spoke the light streamed from the lamps. ” Julian
eagerly begged to be introduced to the man who was so powerful with
the gods, and Maximus was even more ready to gain one who stood so
near the Imperial throne. No accounts survive of the spiritualistic séances
at which he assisted ; but their effect on the nervous, sensitive young
man was irresistible. Maximus converted him heart and soul to the
new paganism and was the confidential adviser of Julian from that time
onwards. The young man entered into a new life. The religion which
Homer and Hesiod had sung, which Plato and Aristotle had speculated
upon, which he had known as a student from books, became all at once
living to him. His day-dreams of the past vanished, or rather changed
into an actual present. The passion for Greece which had gradually
grown to be the ruling force in his character had now the support of
every-day experience. The gods sung by the old Greek poets, and
many a passionate Oriental deity unknown to them, could be seen and
their presence felt. He could himself have communion with them
through mysterious rites of divination. They had created the noblest
thing on earth, Greek civilisation; they were even now moulding and
controlling events; they could give courage and inspiration to their
votaries. From his sojourn at Nicomedia onwards, Julian believed
that all his actions were determined by divine voices which he heard
and obeyed. This natural religion was not the crude polytheism his
Christian teachers had said. Hellenism had made it a unity. A great
First Cause, the Father and King of all men, had parcelled out the lands
and peoples among the deities, His viceroys. They were the real rulers
of provinces and cities and governed them according to their natural
habits and dispositions. What was Christianity when compared with
this ancient and universal worship, supported by the wealth of civilisa-
tio which had come down from the past ? It was a cult of barbarian
## p. 101 (#131) ############################################
355]
Julian made Caesar
101
origin, born in an obscure province, ignorant of Hellenic culture, its
very Scriptures written in a barbarous Greek offensive to the ears of
educated men. Was Greece to abdicate in favour of Galilee? Perish
the thought! So Julian believed, and longed to steep himself in
Hellenism at its purest source—the Schools at Athens.
He gained his wish through the sisterly kindness of the Empress
Eusebia. At Athens, as at all the schools of higher learning, the
majority of the teachers were pagans, and Julian with more than his
usual eagerness devoted himself to their lectures and to all the benefits
of the place. “He was continually seen surrounded by crowds of youths,
old men, philosophers and rhetoricians. ” Outwardly he was still a
Christian, for his life depended on his conformity to the Imperial creed;
but inwardly he had consecrated himself heart and soul to paganism, had
already become conscious that he had a divine mission, and that he was
a favourite of the gods. The double life he had to live, the knowledge
that he was surrounded by spies ready to report anything compromising
to his Imperial cousin, must have acted upon his naturally nervous and
emotional temperament and betrayed itself in many outward ways. His
portrait drawn by a fellow-student, Gregory of Nazianzus, though the
work of an enemy, needs only a little toning down-twitching shoulders,
eyes glancing from side to side, something conceited in nostrils and
face, feet that were never still, hasty laugh, sentences begun and never
finished, irrelevant answers. Julian had more to do at Athens than
study philosophy; he had to penetrate to the centre of Greek religion.
He was secretly initiated into the ancient mysteries of Eleusis; and
there are hints of other initiations either there or afterwards-of the
worship of Mithras, of the purifying rite of the taurobolium.
Constantius was childless—the punishment of the gods whose temples
he had despoiled, said the pagans ; a retribution for the slaughter of his
kinsmen, his own conscience sometimes whispered. The needs of the
Empire demanded assistance. It is hard to say whether the Emperor or
the student was the more unwilling, the one to summon and the other to
obey the call. Julian was ordered to Milan where the Court was. He
was made Caesar, was married to Helena, the Emperor's sister, and was
sent to Gaul to protect the province from invading Germans. The
recluse bookworm, the man whose emotional nature had succumbed
without suspicion to the suggestions of spiritualist séances, was suddenly
confronted with one of the hardest tasks that practical life could offer.
He had to restore a half-ruined province and to overcome an enemy
grown bold by success.
He was totally ignorant of the arts of war and
of administration. It need not cause surprise that he proved an intrepid
soldier. He was the last of a race of warriors, and the blood spoke. His
studies had taught him the need of concentration and thoroughness; he
set himself to learn and speedily mastered the elements of drill and
discipline. But what the world did wonder at was that, hampered as he
CH. .
## p. 102 (#132) ############################################
102
Julian declares himself a Pagan
[355–361
was by the assistants whom the jealousy of the Emperor had forced upon
him, he shewed himself a general who defeated his foes as much by
strategy as by fighting.
The Germans had been driven back; the administration of Gaul was
improved and its finances reformed, when the legions, irritated at com-
mands from the distant Emperor, mutinied and called upon their general
to assume the purple (Jan. 360). After long hesitation Julian consented.
It meant civil war. But the gods encouraged him, his mission called
him, the soldiers rallied round him, and he marched against Constantius.
There was no battle. Constantius died before the armies met, and
Julian became sole ruler over the Roman Empire.
During the whole of Julian's five years' stay in Gaul he publicly pro-
fessed the Christian religion which privately he had repudiated. He
allowed his name to be attached to the persecuting edicts of Constantius,
while in secret he began the day with a prayer to Hermes.
His
dissimulation went the length of joining with Constantius in threatening
anyone with torture who took part in the very ceremonies of divination
which he himself was all the while practising in private. The only
trace of his real feelings is that no Christian emblems appear on the
coins which he struck in Gaul. This double life did not cease when he
assumed the purple. He ostentatiously joined in the public devotions of
the people during the festival of Epiphany (361), while in private he was
practising all manner of secret incantations and divinations aided by an
adept in the mysteries of Eleusis. It may be that he waited until he was
sure of the sympathies of the army. He seems to have taken care that
most of the soldiers who followed him from Gaul were pagans; and
that the Christian troops were left behind to guard the province. At
all events it was not until he reached Sirmium on the lower Danube,
where the magistrates, citizens and soldiers received him with acclama-
tions, that he declared himself a pagan, and could write to Maximus:
“We worship the gods openly; most of the soldiers who follow me
reverence them! We have thanked the gods in the sight of men
with many hecatombs. ” He entered Constantinople a professed pagan,
believing himself commissioned by the gods to restore the ancient religion,
a Dionysos and a Hercules in one, the prophet and king of a pagan
revival.
In his treatment of Christianity he believed that he shewed
impartiality and refrained from persecution, and, if due allowance be
made for his private hatred of those whom he contemptuously called
Galilaeans, it is possible to believe that he was sincere in his pro-
fessions.
His first act was to issue an edict permitting all bishops, exiled by
Constantius for their attachment to the Nicene theology, to return and
resume possession of their confiscated property but not their sees. More
than once the leaders, clerical and laic, of the various parties into which
## p. 103 (#133) ############################################
361–363]
Julian's treatment of Christianity
103
a
were to cease.
Christianity was then divided, were summoned to his palace and told
that they were at liberty to follow and advocate any form of belief they
pleased. Ammianus Marcellinus, himself a pagan and a devoted admirer
of Julian, declares that the Emperor did this in the firm belief that the
Christians were so thoroughly divided that this liberty would end in their
destroying each other by their mutual quarrels. If so the intention
shews how little Julian understood the faith he despised. The bishops
who had thronged the antechambers of Constantius and used backstairs
intrigues against their rivals were very poor specimens of Christianity.
The freedom of discussion which Julian permitted, the absence of
Imperial interference, were the means of uniting not destroying the
Church.
The greater part of the Emperor's edicts against Christianity were
undoubtedly meant by him to make restitution to paganism and to the
State of property and privileges which had been wrongly bestowed. The
churches were commanded to restore the temple-sites and lands which had
been given them for ecclesiastical purposes. If churches had been erected
they were ordered to be demolished and the temples rebuilt at the
expense of the Christians.
The clergy and Christian poor had been
granted sums of money from municipal treasuries; and these grants
Constantine's legislation had given to the Christian
clergy privileges enjoyed by the heathen priesthood. To Julian's mind
paganism was the religion of the State and alone it carried privileges
with it. So the special laws guaranteeing to the Church rights of,
inheritance, and laws exempting the clergy from personal taxation and
freeing them from the obligation to serve on municipal councils, were
abrogated.
Ammianus Marcellinus probably expresses the popular
opinion when he declares that this legislation, however just in theory,
was harsh in practice from its cumulative weight and the haste with which
it was enforced.
No edict of Julian's excited the indignation of the Christians so
thoroughly as that upon education. It enacted that no Christian was to
be allowed to teach in schools where the literature of Greece and Rome
formed the basis of education; that all teachers must expound and insist
upon the religion of the authors studied; but that Christian children
might attend the schools. Perhaps the Emperor's reasons for his legisla-
tion increased their wrath; for pedantry is more irritating than force,
and Julian's pedantic nature is displayed in his reasonings. “Homer,
Hesiod, Demosthenes, Thucydides, Isocrates, Lysias, all founded their
learning on the gods. Did not some of them believe themselves to be
consecrated to Hermes and others to the muses ? It seems therefore
absurd to me that those who explain their works should not worship the
gods they reverenced. ” He did not like to remember that Mardonius,
his own honoured teacher, had been a Christian. His fixed idea was
that Christianity could have no connexion with Hellenic thought or
.
CH, IP.
## p. 104 (#134) ############################################
104
Julian's treatment of Christians
(361–363
civilisation, that its affectation of interest in ancient Greek literature was
hypocrisy, and that it was his duty as ruler to keep men from occasions
of practising such a vice. From one point of view the edict seemed to
affect the Christians but slightly. They had long been accustomed to
send their children to schools in which the most famous teachers were
pagans; but now they believed that the Emperor desired to use all the
public schools throughout the Empire for proselytising purposes. In
the end this edict did more good than harm to Christianity. It shewed
in a striking way both the stedfastness and the resources of the Christians.
The two most distinguished Christian teachers, Prohaeresius of Athens
and C. Marius Victorinus of Rome, at once resigned their appointments.
The former was the most esteemed teacher in the East, Libanius only
excepted. Julian did his utmost to win him over to paganism. When
he remained firm, the Emperor offered to make him an exception to
his rule; but the Christian refused to accept any concession which
was not to be shared by his humbler brethren. Christian teachers
all over the East assiduously devoted themselves to acquire the
elegancies of the Greek tongue and to write school-books in that
language which could serve as substitutes for the authors they were
forbidden to use.
The Emperor naturally abolished the Labarum, and changed all
other Christian into pagan emblems. He permitted, encouraged, the
worship of his statues ; he purged the Praetorian guard (not the whole
army) of Christians. He also dismissed from his service all Christian
attendants, and endeavoured to make the civil service completely
pagan.
At least one distinguished Christian had little cause to thank Julian
for his toleration, and his treatment of Athanasius almost suggests that
the Emperor felt that the great bishop was the opponent from whom his
plans had most to fear. On Julian's edict restoring to their homes and
properties Christian bishops who had been banished by Constantius,
Athanasius naturally returned to Alexandria and was warmly welcomed by
his people. Julian was indignant. He insisted that his edict had not
authorised the banished bishops to resume their ecclesiastical work, and
ordered Athanasius to be sent away from the city and then from
Egypt. “By all the gods,” he wrote to the governor of Egypt,
“nothing could give me more pleasure than that thou shouldst expel
from every corner of Egypt that criminal Athanasius, who has dared,
during my reign, to baptise Greek wives of illustrious citizens. He must
be persecuted. ”
Julian's efforts to restore and put new life into paganism are much
more interesting than his attempts to damage Christianity. He called
the religion he had so fervently adopted Hellenism, and his co-religionists
Hellenes : Christianity was a barbarian cult, its supporters Galilaeans.
But in reality the Christianity of the fourth century had absorbed much
## p. 105 (#135) ############################################
361-363]
Julian's Paganism
105
sources,
as
of what was best and most enduring in Hellenism; while the religion of
Julian drew more of its contents from Oriental than from Hellenist
One cult into which he had been initiated and which he greatly
esteemed, Mithraism, was the only one of those Oriental religions which
seems to have been entirely unaffected by Hellenist thought.
The religion which Julian attempted to force on the Empire was a
mosaic of decadent philosophy, bloody sacrifices, rituals old and new,
“spiritualism" and divinations of all sorts. Its piety came from the cult
of the Mysteries. It contained so much that was new that it was much
more an attempted reconstruction or reformation than a revival of
paganism.
Julian was quick to see that no religion could be universally accepted
which had not behind it some common stable truths, and that Christianity
had gained enormously from that compact system of doctrine which it
had laboriously built up during the three centuries of its existence. If
critics, like Celsus, had made capital out of the intellectual differences
within Christianity, paganism was in a worse case.
Heathenism had
no basis of intellectual certainty; it had no universally accepted or
acknowledged system of doctrine. If pagan philosophy were appealed
to, it was anything but an harmonious system-one teacher said one
thing only to be refuted by another. The Hermotimus of Lucian had
somewhat wickedly shewn that the opinions of philosophy were
various as the thinkers were numerous. But the philosophic thinking of
the age of Julian was eclectic, and Neoplatonism was supposed to reconcile
all sorts of opinions. By ignoring some and rounding off the sharp
corners of others it might be plausibly made out that all philosophies
really meant to say the same things if they were only rightly understood. ;
So Julian went to Neoplatonism for the intellectual basis or dogmatic
theology of his new catholic State Religion. His philosophical acumen)
was by no means equal to that of his masters and he modestly confessed
it. Iamblichus had taught him all that he knew, and that philosopher,
in the opinion of Julian, had so explored the heights and depths of
human and divine thought that nothing remained for any man save
to accept his conclusions. The Neoplatonic thought of a Trinity of
existence took the central place of the Christian in this new pagan
theology.
Three worlds exist. First and highest is the realm of
pure
where the Supreme Principle, the One, the Highest Good, the Great First
Cause, lives and reigns. Below it is the intellectual world over which
presides the same Supreme Principle, but now represented by an emanation
from Itself, wholly spiritual, the Logos of the Platonic philosophy. The
third is the world of sense existence, the universe of things seen and
handled, and there, as beseems its surroundings, the ruler, the emanation
from the Supreme Principle, assumes a visible form and can be seen while
adored.
pure ideas
05. I.
## p. 106 (#136) ############################################
106
Julian's Paganism
The “common man,” of course, could not be expected to understand
or care for such high matters; but pagan philosophy had never thought
much of the “common man” (which was its weakness), and he had always
the gods nearest him to worship in that instinctive way which was alone
possible for an intelligence such as his. Yet Julian, with more sympa-
thetic feeling for his needs than most pagan thinkers, made provision
that even he should be taught the underlying unity and catholicity of
his ancestral faith. Just as in Christianity, Jesus was the revealer of
the Father, and men were taught to see the One Supreme God in the
Son Incarnate, the Mediator, so Julian called on all men to see in the
great orb of day the visible manifestation of the Supreme Principle, the
First Cause, Who has begotten him and placed him in the heavens, the
medium through which He dispenses His benefits throughout the universe
of men and things. Even Christians, Julian thinks, might come to see
this if their minds were not so darkened. They believe in Jesus, whom
neither they nor their fathers have ever seen; but they do not believe
that the God Helios is the true revealer of God, Helios whom the whole
human race from the beginning of time has seen and has honoured as
their munificent and potent benefactor, Helios the living animated
beneficent image of the Supreme Father, Who is exalted above all the
powers of reason. Man has body as well as soul, he has senses as he has
capacities for intellectual thinking, therefore he needs visible gods to
represent the gods invisible whom the Supreme Principle has sent forth
from Himself and who suit the religious needs not merely of the different
nations and tribes of mankind but also of the various divisions of men such
as shopkeepers, tax-gatherers, dancers, etc.
These thousands of deities
are all in their places representatives of the One Supreme Principle,
Who has sent them forth and on Whom they depend. The sun among
the stars is an emblem of this divine unity in diversity.
Having thus demonstrated, as he believed, by exhortations and
treatises, the unity which underlay the surface diversity of polytheism,
Julian gave full scope to his desire to honour every manifestation of the
one Supreme Principle, and to make use of every means whereby man
could both shew his reverence for and seek communion with the divine.
His first care was to make it clear to all that the worship of the old
gods was to be the privileged cult. Bishops were banished from the ante-
chambers and audience halls of the palace and in their stead came pagan
priests and Neoplatonic philosophers—chief among them being Maximus
the “medium. ” The Emperor was unwearied in issuing decrees that all
the ancient temples were to be thrown open and that the ceremonies of
all the ancient cults were to be duly performed. It might be said that
he converted his palace into a temple--so determined was he that every
heathen festival should be observed and every detail of appropriate
rite and sacrifice duly attended to—and it was said that his knowledge of
the various rituals surpassed that of the priests themselves. His devotion
## p. 107 (#137) ############################################
2
Julian as Pontifex Maximus
107
to the whole sacrificial system of paganism has been recorded both by
enemies and friends. We are told of one solemn sacrifice at which the
victims included one hundred bulls, rams, sheep and goats, as well as
innumerable white birds from land and sea. He issued minute directions
about the number of the sacrifices which were to be offered by day and
by night in the reopened temples. He wished that all the old gods
should be invoked--Saturn, Jupiter, Apollo, Mars, Pluto, Bacchus,
Silenus, Aesculapius, Castor and Pollux, Rhea, Juno, Minerva, Latona,
Venus, Hecate, the Muses, etc. etc. ; but personally, like the pagans of the
age he lived in, he was more devoted to the deities of Oriental origin-
to the Attis cult, to Mithras, and most of all to Isis and Serapis.
Dionysos, whose cult had many of the Oriental characteristics, seems to
have been his most favoured among the gods of Greece.
The office of Pontifex Maximus was an Imperial prerogative and the
one most prized by Julian. He was unwearied in the performance of
all the duties it required and he used it in his attempt to create that
Catholic Pagan State Church. The very conception is decisive proof that
Julian aimed, not at the revival but at a thorough reconstruction of
paganism. He had the thought of a great independent spiritual
community, wide as the Empire—a community so holy and separated
that men and women who abandoned Christianity could only be admitted
into it after the performance of prescribed purifying rites.
This
community was to be ruled over by a priesthood set apart for the service
and forming a graded hierarchy. At the head of all was the Pontifex
Maximus; next came pagan metropolitans or the high-priests of
provinces; under them were high-priests who had rule over the temples
and priests within the districts assigned to them. It is improbable
that Julian had completed the hierarchical organisation of the Empire
before his death, but large parts of the East had been put in order.
We have some briefs which he, as supreme pontiff, sent down to his
metropolitans in which he regulated many things from the dress and
morals of the clergy to the training of temple choirs—so minute was the
interference of the Pontifex Maximus. Now it is possible that one form
of paganism, the Imperial cult, had been strictly organised in the West
and its provincial priests may have had some jurisdiction over the
ministers of other cults ; Maximin Daza had attempted to do something
similar in the East; but the attempt to gather every cult of polytheism
into one organised communion was not merely new; it was a startling
novelty. Julian's conception of a pagan priesthood entirely devoted to
the service of religion was certainly not Hellenist; nor was it Roman;
it was Oriental; the cults of Egypt, of Syria and of Asia had separated
priesthoods. It was a new thing to be introduced into a universal State
Church whose religion called itself Hellenism.
Julian thought a great deal about this priesthood of his and recog-
nised its supreme importance for the reformation he dreamt of making.
0H. .
## p. 108 (#138) ############################################
108
Reorganisation of Paganism
As the priest, from the office he fills, ought to be an example to all men,
he should be selected with care-if possible a man of good family,
neither very rich, nor very poor; but the indispensable qualifications are
that he loves God and his neighbour. Love to God may be tested by
observing whether the members of his family attend the temple services
with regularity (Julian was very indignant when he discovered that the
wives and daughters of some pagan priests were actually Christians), and
love to one's neighbour by charity to the poor. Julian further insisted
that the priest must be careful about what he reads. He is to shun all
lascivious writings such as the old comedies or the contemporary erotic
novels. He is to be equally circumspect in his conduct. He must not
go to the theatre, nor to spectacles, and is not to frequent wine-shops.
He is not to consort with actors nor to admit them to his house, he is
even recommended not to accept too many invitations to dinner. On
the other hand he is to see that he is master within his temple. He is
to wear within it gorgeous vestments in honour of the gods whom he
serves; but outside the sanctuary, when he mingles with men, he is to
wear the ordinary dress. He is not to permit even the commander of
the forces or the governor of the province to enter the temple with
ostentation. He is to know the service thoroughly and to be able to
repeat all the divine hymns. Occasionally he is to deliver addresses on
philosophical subjects for the instruction of the multitude.
Julian also desired that the priests should organise schemes of
charitable relief, more especially for the poor who attend the temple
services. He thought that some such widely organised scheme might help
to counteract the popularity of the “Galilaeans. ” He seems also to have
contemplated the institution of religious communities of men and women
vowed to a life of chastity and meditation-another proof that his
so-called Hellenism was based much more on Oriental religions than on
those of Greece.
The Emperor in all this legislation or advice was at pains to declare
that he was acting, not as Emperor, but as “Pontifex Maximus of the
religion of my country. ”
One feature of Julian's attempt to make the worship of the gods the
universal and privileged religion of the Empire is too characteristic of
the age to be entirely passed over. In the opening pages of this
chapter, in which the living paganism of the third and fourth centuries
is briefly described, it is shewn that the old official worships of
Greece and Rome lingered as mere simulacra and that the real religious
life of the times was fed by Oriental faiths which had introduced such
thoughts as redemption, salvation, purification, the Way of Return, etc.
It is not too much to say that whatever of the old pagan piety remained
in the middle of the fourth century had attached itself to the worship of
the Mysteries ; and that pious men, if educated, looked on the different
initiations and rites of purification taught in the various cults to be
## p. 109 (#139) ############################################
The Mysteries and Pagan Piety
109
ways of attaining the same redemption, or finding the same way of
Return. Julian belonged to his age. He was a pure-hearted and
deeply pious man. His piety was in a real sense heart religion, and,
like that of his contemporaries, clothed itself in the cult of the
Mysteries ; while his nervous, sensitive character inclined him personally
to the theurgic or magical side of the cult, and especially to what re-
produced the old Dionysiac ecstasy. Hence the dominating thought in
Julian's mind was to reform the whole public worship of paganism by
impregnating it with the real piety and heart religion of the Mysteries
cult. The one thing really reactionary in the movement he con-
templated was the return to the worship of the old official deities, but
he proposed to attempt this in a way which can only be called revolu-
tionary. He endeavoured to put life into the old rituals by bringing to
their aid and quickening them with that sincere fervour which the
Mysteries cult demanded from its votaries. This is what makes Julian
such an interesting figure in the history of paganism; while it in part
accounts for his complete failure to do what he attempted. He tried to
unite two things which had utterly separate roots, whose ideals were
different, and which could not easily blend. For the religion of the
Mysteries was essentially a private cult, into which men and women
were received, one by one, by rites of initiation which each had to pass
through personally, and, when admitted, they became members of coteries,
large or small, of like-minded persons. They had entered because their
souls had craved something which they believed the initiations and
purifications would give. It was a common saying among them that as
sickness of the body needed medicine, so the sickness of the soul required
those rites to which they submitted. What had this to do with the
courteous recognition due to bright celestial beings which was the
central thought of the official religion of Greece, or the punctilious
performance of ceremonies which was believed to propitiate the sterner
deities of Rome? Mysteries and participation in their rites may exist
along with a belief in the necessity and religious value of the public
services of a state religion; but whenever the latter can only be
justified, even by its own votaries, on the ground of traditional and
patriotic propriety, Mystery worship may take its place but can never
quicken it. When the whole piety of paganism disappeared in the
Mysteries cult, it estranged itself from the national and official religion ;
and the Mysteries could never be used to recall the gods of Olympus for
whose banishment they had been largely responsible.
No edicts of an Emperor could change the bright deities of Olympus
into saviours, or transform their careless votaries into men who felt in
their hearts the need of redemption and a way of return. Yet that was
what Julian had to do when he proposed to impregnate the old official
worship with the fervour of the Mysteries cult. It was equally in vain
to think that the Mysteries cult, which owed its power to its spontaneity,
CH, Y.
## p. 110 (#140) ############################################
110
Julian's Failure
to its independence, to its individuality, could be drilled and organised
into the national religion of a great Empire. It was a true instinct that
a
led Julian to see that the real and living pagan piety of his generation
had taken refuge within the circles of the Mysteries, and that the hope
of paganism lay in the spread of the fervour which kindled their votaries;
his mistake lay in thinking that it could be used to requicken the official
worship. It would have been better for his designs had he acted as did
Vettius Agorius Praetextatus, the model of genuine pagan piety in the
Roman senatorial circle (princeps religiosorum, Macrobius calls him).
Praetextatus contented himself with a dignified and cool recognition of
the official deities of Rome but sought outlet for his piety elsewhere, in
initiations at Eleusis and other places and in the purifying rite of the
taurobolium. The sentimental side of Julian's nature led him astray.
He could not forget his early studies in Homer and Hesiod (he quotes
Homer as frequently and as fervently as a contemporary Christian does
the Holy Scriptures) and he had to introduce the gods of Olympus
somewhere. He tried to unite the passionate Oriental worships with
the dignified Greek and the grave Roman ceremonies where personal
faith was superfluous. The elements were too incongruous.
In spite of all the signs of a reaction against Christianity Julian
falied; and for himself the tragedy of his failure lay in the apathy of
his co-religionists. In spite of his elaborate treatise against Christianity
and his other writings; notwithstanding his public orations and his
private persuasions, Julian did not succeed in making many converts.
We hear of no Christians of mark . who embraced Hellenism, save the
rhetorician Hecebolius and Pegasius, a bishop with a questionable
past. The Emperor boasted that his Hellenism made some progress
in the army, but at his death the legions selected a Christian
successor.
It is almost pathetic to read Julian's accounts of his continual dis-
appointments. He could not find in “all Cappadocia a single man who
was a true Hellenist. ” They did not care to offer sacrifice, and those
who did so, did not know how. In Galatia, at Pessinus where stood a
famous temple erected to the Great Mother, he had to bribe and
threaten the inhabitants to do honour to the goddess. At Beroea he
harangued the municipal council on the duty of worshipping the gods.
“ They all warmly praised my discourse,” he says somewhat sadly, “but
none were convinced by it save the few who were convinced before
hearing. " So it was wherever he went. Even pagan admirers like
Ammianus Marcellinus were rather bored with the Emperor's Hellenism
and thought the whole thing a devout imagination not worth the trouble
he wasted on it. The senatorial circle at Rome had no sympathy
with Julian's Hellenic revival. No one shewed any enthusiasm but
the narrow circle of Neoplatonist sophists, and they had no influence
with the people.
## p. 111 (#141) ############################################
Julian's Failure
111
Yet Julian's attempt to stay the progress of Christianity and to
drive back the tide which was submerging the Empire, was, with all
its practical faults, by far the ablest yet conceived. It provided a sub-
stitute and presented an alternative. The substitute was pretentious
and artificial, but it was probably the best that the times could furnish.
Hellenism, Julian called it; but where in that golden past of Hellas
into which the Imperial dreamer peered, could be found a puritan
strictness of conduct, a prolonged and sustained religious fervour, and
a religion independent of the State ? The three strongest parts of his
scheme had no connexion with Hellenism. Religions may be used, but
cannot be created by statesmen, unless they happen to have the prophetic
fire and inspiration—and Julian was no prophet. He may be credited
with seizing and combining in one whole the strongest anti-Christian
forces of his generation—the passion of Oriental religion, the patriotic
desire to retain the old religion under which Greece and Rome had
grown great, the glory of the ancient literature, the superstition which
clung to magic and divinations, and a philosophy which, if it lacked
independence of thought, at least represented that eclecticism which was
the intellectual atınosphere which all men then breathed. He brought
them together to build an edifice which was to be the temple of his
Empire. But though the builder had many of the qualities which go to
make a religious reformer-pure in heart and life, full of sincere piety,
manly and with a strong sense of duty—the edifice he reared was quite
artificial, lacked the living principle of growth, and could not last.
Athanasius gave its history in four words when he said “It will soon
pass. ” The world had outgrown paganism.
Whatever faults the Christianity of the time exhibited, whatever ills
had come to it from Imperial patronage and conformity with the world,
it still retained within it the original simplicity and profundity of its
message. Nothing in its environment could take that from it. It
proclaimed a living God, who had made man and all things and for
Whom man was made. That God had manifested Himself in Jesus
Christ and the centre of the manifestation was the Passion of our
Lord—the Cross. Whatever special meanings attach themselves to the
intellectual apprehension of this manifestation, it contains two plain
thoughts which can be grasped as easily by the simplest as by the most
cultured intelligence, and was therefore universal as no previous religion
had ever been. It gave a new revelation of God-a personal Deity,
whose chiefest manifestation was a sympathy with all who were beneath
Him and a yearning to deliver them at all costs to Himself. It gave,
at the same time, a new revelation of man, made in the image of God
and therefore capable of a far-off imitation ; his life no longer ruled by
the precepts of a calculating utilitarianism nor curbed by a statutory
morality, freed from the chains of all taboos and rituals, inspired by the
one principle “ Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself,” and this
CH, I,
## p. 112 (#142) ############################################
112
Julian's Failure
thought made vivid by the vision of a pure active Divine Life which
spent itself in the service of mankind.
Some of the Oriental religions, notably those of Mithras and Isis,
were groping after this idea of “brother man”; the Imperial world
was, in a vague way, advancing towards it; but the Cross of Christ
shewed its highest and clearest manifestation. Therefore Christianity
teaching that every follower of Christ, in so far as he was really a
disciple, should imitate the Master, could set the stamp of the Cross on
every portion of human life and on every social institution. It was the
religion of the Cross, the religion whose watchword was “ brother man. "
"
It was therefore universal and to it the future belonged.
If such things can be dated, the death of Julian marks the triumph
of Christianity in the Roman world, eastern and western. The ex-
clamation, “Galilaean, Thou hast conquered," is a fable which clothes a
fact. Yet it would be a grave mistake to say that paganism disappeared
suddenly either from the East or from the West.
In the East it never recovered its position as a state religion, but it
existed as a private cult practised by no inconsiderable proportion of the
people. It did not offer the strenuous resistance to Imperial anti-pagan
legislation which was to be seen in the West. The number of Christians
had always been much larger and it is more than probable that many of
the laws against pagans were supported by public opinion. Julian's
immediate successors practised a policy of toleration for all religions, and
contented themselves with professing and favouring Christianity. It
was the religion of the Imperial household and of the great majority of
the population-nothing more. Pagans lived on free to worship what
divinities they pleased. Even when Valens and emperors who came after
him renewed and enforced laws against pagan worship no traces are to
be found of anything like a general persecution. Accusations were
listened to and procedure taken against numbers of wealthy persons in
the hope of filling the Imperial treasury; but the mass of the people
remained untouched. Whole districts, which were notoriously poor,
were exempted from the operation of the laws. During the reign of
Valens a large number of temples fell into ruins, but probably it was not
the operation of the law which caused their destruction. The more
celebrated temples were often in possession of large yearly revenues
derived from lands and other endowments and in charge of the hereditary
priesthood who presided over the worship. As paganism decayed these
priesthoods frequently secularised the revenues, took possession of them
and were content to see the edifices fall into ruin. Still paganism
remained rooted in many of the old noble families of the East, and in
such aristocratic households the place of private chaplain was filled by a
Neoplatonic philosopher. As many of the members of this nobility
were called to occupy high places in the civil administration of the
Empire, they were able to protect their co-religionists and took care to
a
## p. 113 (#143) ############################################
394-484]
Survivals of Paganism in the East
113
see that the anti-pagan laws were not enforced within their jurisdic-
tions. Optatus, praefect of Constantinople in 404 was a pagan. In
A. D. 467 Isokasios, the quaestor of Antioch, was accused of paganism.
Phocas took poison to prevent himself being obliged to embrace
Christianity as late as the time of Justinian. Many of the more famous
literary men—Eunapius, Zosimus, perhaps Procopius—were strongly
anti-Christian. Pamprepius, a Neoplatonist, famed for his power of
divination, an avowed pagan, drew a salary from the public revenues
and, along with distinguished generals like Marsus and Leontius, aided
Hlus in his revolt against the Emperor Zeno in 484. But by the
end and indeed throughout the whole of the fifth century thoughtful
paganism had become a sort of Quietism and exercised no influence on
the public life of the population. When Theodosius the Great succeeded
in uniting the orthodox Church with the Imperial administration, when
the great bishops were placed in possession of powers almost equal to
those of the governors of provinces, the Church became the guardian of
the rights of the people and the interpreter of its wishes. The Church,
in that age of bureaucracy, had a popular constitution; its clergy came
from the people; the services were in the language of the district; its
bishops were the natural and sympathetic leaders of the people; and
the whole population gradually became included within the Christian
Church,
Athens and Achaia long remained the last stronghold of paganism
.
in the East. The Eleusinian and other mysteries, the great heathen
festivals celebrated in Athens and in other cities of Hellas, attracted crowds
of strangers from all parts of the Empire. Religious beliefs, patriotic
associations, thoughts of material prosperity combined to make the
people of the towns and districts resolute to maintain and defend them.
So strong were the popular feelings that it would have led to riots, probably
to attempted insurrection, to enforce the Imperial legislation against
temples, sacrifices and the celebration of pagan ceremonies by night.
The emperors found it necessary either to exempt Hellas from the
operation of these laws altogether or to suffer their non-enforcement.
The Eleusinian Mysteries continued until the famous temple was
destroyed by the Goths under Alaric. The Olympic Games were
celebrated until the reign of Theodosius I (394). The great and
venerated statue of Minerva remained to protect the city of Athens.
until about 480. The great temple of Olympia remained open until its
destruction—whether by the Goths or by command of Theodosius II is
unknown.
In the fourth and fifth centuries Athens remained the most distin-
guished intellectual centre of the time. The teachers in its schools, for
the most part Neoplatonists who resolutely refused to accept Christianity,
maintained the old pagan traditions. Their influence was recognised
and feared. Theodosius II forbade private teachers to give public
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. IV.
8
## p. 114 (#144) ############################################
114
Survivals of Paganism in the West
[375–383
lectures under pain of banishment. Justinian, determined to crush the
last remains of paganism, confiscated the funds which furnished the
salaries of the professors, seized on the endowments of the Academy
of Plato, and closed the schools. The persecuted philosophers fled to
Persia to avoid imprisonment or death and remained there until King
Chosroes obtained from the Emperor a promise that they would be
unmolested if they returned to their homes.
In the West paganism shewed itself much stronger. It displayed its
greatest tenacity in Rome itself, and there were many reasons why it
should do so.
The old paganism had been closely connected with the
State and when it ceased to be the privileged religion it had no common
centre round which to rally. In Rome it was otherwise. Its stronghold
was the Senate, and all the elements of opposition to Christianity could
group themselves round that venerable assembly. The Senate had lost
its powers but its prestige remained, and the Emperors were chary of
attacking its dignity. It represented the ancient grandeur of Rome and
was the heir and defender of old Roman traditions. The city was full
of monuments of Rome's past greatness. They were, for the most part,
temples built to commemorate signal victories, and were visible signs of
the old religion under which Rome had grown to greatness. The Senate
took pride in preserving these witnesses of the past splendours of the
Imperial city and in seeing that the old ceremonial rites were duly
performed in spite of anti-pagan legislation. During the second half of
the fourth century and into the fifth, the pagan senators of Rome
flaunted their religion in the face of the world. They were at pains to
record on their family tombstones and other private monuments that
they had been hierophants of Hecate, had been initiated at Eleusis,
had been priests of Hercules, Attis, Isis or Mithras. In spite of the
edicts and efforts of the sons of Constantine and of successors of
Julian paganism was the state religion of Rome down to 383. Its
worship was performed according to the old rites. The days consecrated
to the old gods, and others added in honour of the newer Oriental
deities, were the Roman holidays. Every year on 27 January the
Praefectus urbi went down to Ostia and presided over "games” in honour
of Castor and Pollux. All these costly ceremonies, sacrifices and shows
were provided for out of the Imperial treasury. They were part of the
state religion, and the Senate were determined that they should be so
regarded. The Emperor might be a Christian, but he was neverthe-
less Pontifex Maximus, the official head of the old pagan religion,
and they believed themselves justified in performing its rites in his
name.
The Emperor Gratian delivered the first effectual blow against this
state of matters. He refused to assume the office of Pontifex Maximus,
probably in 375. In 382 he ordered that the great pagan ceremonies
and sacrifices should no longer be defrayed out of the Imperial treasury,
## p. 115 (#145) ############################################
394]
Paganisin in Literature
115
new ones.
and saw that he was obeyed. He took from the ancient priesthoods
of Rome the emoluments and immunities which they had enjoyed for
centuries. He removed from the Senate House the statue of Victory
and its altar on which incense had been duly burnt since the days of
Octavius. The last great battle for the official recognition of paganism
raged over these decrees. It lasted about ten years. Symmachus and
Ambrose, both representatives of old Roman patrician families, were the
leaders on the pagan and on the Christian side. The pagan party in
the Senate fought every inch of ground against the advancing tide of
Christianity. Its leading members enrolled themselves in the ancient
priesthoods and assumed the dignities of the sacra peregrina. They
provided for the sacrifices and other sacred rites at their own expense.
They spent their means in restoring ancient temples and in building
They had high hopes of a pagan reaction under Maximus,
who had defeated and slain Gratian; under the short-lived Emperor
Eugenius, who promised on his leaving Milan to meet Theodosius in
battle that, on his return, he would stable his horses in Christian basilicas.
The victory of Theodosius (394) on the Frigidus ended these hopes.
