JULIAN THE APOSTATE
1090
JULIAN CESARINI
ent industry, and executive tact. The eighteen short months of his reign (Dec. 361-June, 363) comprehend the plans of a liic-long administration. He was the most gifted, the most learned, and most active, and yet the least successful of Roman emperors. • His reign was an utter failure, teaching the important lesson that it is useless to swim against the stream of history and to impede the onward march of Christianity. He proved, beyond the possibility of doubt, that paganism had out- lived itself, and that Christianity was the only living religion which had truly conquered the world, and car- ried all the hopes of humanity. He died in the midst of his plans in a campaign against Persia, characteristical- ly exclaiming (according to later tradition), " Galiloean, ■ thou hast conquered !"
Julian did not resort to open violence in his attempt to destroy Christianity in the empire. He affected the policy of philosophical toleration. He did not wish to give the Christians an additional glon,' of martyrdom. He hoped to attain his end more surely in an indirect wa.v. He endeavored to revive heathenism by his own personal zeal for the worship of the gods. But his zeal found no echo, and only made him ridicu- lous in the eyes of the cultivated heathen themselves. When he endeavored to restore the oracle of Apollo near Antioch, and ar- ranged for a magnificentdisplaj', only a solitary priest appeared in the temple and ominously offered — a goose. He also attempted to reform heathenism by incorpora- ting with it the morals and be- nevolent institutions of Chris- tianity. But this was like gal- vanizing a decaying corpse, or grafting fresh scions on a dead Flavius ClaiidiauusJu- trunk. As to the negative part lianus. of his assault upon Christianity,
Julian gave liberty to all the sects, in the hojie that they might devour each other, but, instead of that, he only gave new vigor to the cause he hated. He forbade the Christians to read the classical authors, and depiived them of tlie benefit of schools of their own, that they might either grow up in ignorance, or be forced to get an education from heathen teachers. He assisted the Jews in rebuilding the Temple of Jerusalem in order to falsify the prophecy of Christ, but the attempt, three times j-eiieatcd, signally failed, by an interposition of rroviikiiie ajiproaching to the character of a miracle, (hespectiug this question, see the judicious remarks in Lardner's Jewish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv.) Finally he wrote a book against Christianity, in which he united all tlie arguments of Porphyry, Celsus, Lucian, and other enemies before him, and infused into them Ilia own bitter and sarcastic spirit. But this attack called forth able refutations from Gregory of Nazianzum, Cyril of Ak'xaii(lri;i. and others, andconiains a number of incidental adnii^^sioiis wliich confirm the truth of most of the leading facts of the (uisjicl hi>.fniv. Dr. Lard- ner (in his learned book on the ( 'mil/,;/;/,'/ ,,fthe Gospel /listori/, iu the London edition ot liis works bv Kippis, vii, G38-C3!)) thus sums up the involuntary testimony of tliis ablest and bitterest of all the heathen opponents of Christianity :
" JuUan hasl)orne a valuable testimony to the history and to the books of the New Testament. He aHows that Jesus was bom in the reign of Augustus, at the time of the taxing made in Juda.<a by Cyrenius; that the Christian religion had its rise, and began to be prop- agated, in the times of the emperors Tiberius and Clau- dius. Ho bears witness to the genuineness and authen- ticity of the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and thu Acts of the Apostles; and he so quotes
them as to intimate that they were the only historical books received by Christians as of authority, and the only authentic memoirs of Jesus Christ and his apostles, and the doctrines preached by them. He allows their early date, and even argues for it. He also quotes, or plainly refers to, the Acts of the Apostles, to St. Paul's Epistles to the Romans, the Corinthians, and the Gala- tians. He does not deny the miracles of Jesus Christ, but allows him to have 'healed the blind, and the lame, and dasmoniacs;' and to have 'rebuked the winds, and walked upon the waves of the sea.' He endeavors, in- deed, to diminish these works, but in vain. The conse- quence is undeniable— such works are good proofs of a divine mission. He endeavors also to lessen the num- ber of the early believers in Jesus, and yet he acknowl- edges that there were ' multitudes of such men in Greece and Italy' Ijefore St. John wrote his Gospel. He like- wise affects to diminish the quality of the early believ- ers, and yet acknowledges that, besides * men-servants and maid-servants,' Cornelius, a Roman centurion at Ctesarea, and Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus, were converted to the faith of Jesus before the end of the reign of Claudius. And he often speaks with great in- diguation of Peter and Paul, those two great apostles of Jesus, and successful preachers of his Gospel : so that, upon the whole, he has undesignedly borne testimony to the truth of many things recorded in the books of the New Testament. He aimed to overthrow the Christian religion, but has confirmed it: his arguments against it are perfectly harmless, and insufficient to unsettle the weakest Christian. He justly excepts to some things introduced into the Christian profession by the late pro- fessors of it, in his own time or sooner, but has not made one objection of moment against the Christian religion as contained in the genuine and authentic books of the New Testament."