§ 4. JULIAN THE APOSTATE. 43
of Cbristianitj. It sought to spiritualize and revi-e the old mythology by uniting with it oriental theosophemes and a few Christian ideas ; taught a higher, abstract unity above the multiplicity of the national gods, genii, heroes, and natural powers ; believed in immediate communications and revelations of the gods through dreams, visions, oracles, entrails of sacrifices, prodigies ; and stood in league with all kinds of magical and theurgic arts.' Julian himself, with all his philosophical intelligence, credited the most insipid legends of the gods, or gave them a deeper, mystic meaning by the most arbitrary allegorical interpretation. He was in intimate personal intercourse with Jupiter, Minerva, Apollo, Hercules, who paid their nocturnal visits to his heated fancy, and assured him of their special protection. And he practised the art of divination as a master.^ Among the various divinities he worshipped with peculiar devotion the great king Helios, or the god of the sun, whose servant he called himself, and whose ethereal light attracted him even in tender childhood with magic force. He regarded him as the centre of the universe, from which light, life, and salvation proceed upon all creatures.' In this view of a supreme divinity he made an approach to the Christian monotheism, but substituted an airy myth and pantheistic fancy for the only true and living God and the personal historical Christ.
His moral character corresponds with the preposterous nature of this system. With all his brilliant talents and stoical virtues, he wanted the genuine simplicity and naturalness, which are the foundation of all true greatness of mind and character. As his worship of Helios was a shadowy reflection of the Christian monotheism, and so far an involuntary tribute to the religion he opposed, so in his artificial and ostentatious asceticism we can only see a caricature of the eccle-
' Comp. vol. ii. § 34 (p. 95 sqq.).
' Libaaius saya of him, Epit. p. 582: . . fxavreaiv t« to?j aplarois xf"«'M«»">*( %{n6s T€ &v ouSa/xuii/ iy ry Te'xf^ Sivrepos, Ammianus Marcellinus calls him, xxv. 4, praesagiorum sciscitationi nimiae deditus, superatitiosua magia quam sacroruij legitimus observator. Comp. Sozom. v. 2.
' Comp. his fourth Oratio, which is devoted to the praise of Helios.
44 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311 -590.
Biastical monasticism of the age which he so deeply despised for its humility and spirituality. He was full of aifectation, vanity, sophistry, loquacity, and a master in the art of dissimulation. Everything he said or wrote was studied and calculated for effect. Instead of discerning the spirit of the age and putting himself at the head of the current of true progress, he identified himself with a party of no vigor nor promise, and thus fell into a false and untenable position, at variance with the mission of a ruler. Great minds, indeed, are always more or less at war with their age, as we may see in the reformers, in the apostles, nay, in Christ himself. But their antagonism proceeds from a clear knowledge of the real wants and a sincere devotion to tlie best interests of the age; it is all progressive and reformatory, and at last carries the deeper spirit of the age with itself, and raises it to a higher level. The antagonism of Julian, starting with a radical misconception of the tendency of history and animated by selfish ambition, was one of retrogression and reaction, and in addition, was devoted to a bad cause. He had all the faults, and therefore deserved the tragic fate, of a fanatical reactionist.
His apostasy from Christianity, to which he was probably never at heart committed, Julian himself dates as early as his twentieth year, a.d. 351. But while Constantius lived, he concealed his pagan sympathies Avith consummate hypocrisy, publicly observed Christian ceremonies, while secretly sacrificing to Jupiter and Helios, kept the feast of Epiphany in the church at Yienne so late as January, 361, and praised the emperor in the most extravagant style, though he thoroughly hated him, and after his death all the more bitterly mocked him.' For ten years he kept the mask. After December, 355, the student of books astonished the world with brilliant military and e:s3cutive powers as Caesar in Gaul, which was at that time hca'\-ily threatened by the German barbarians; he
' Comp. .Jul. Orat. i. in Constantii laudes ; Epist. ad Atheniensej, p. 270 ; Caesarcs, p. 335 s«,. Even heathen authors concede his dissimulation, as JVmniianui Marc. xii. 2, comp. xxii. 6, and Libanius, who excuses him with the pies of ref *r<J to hJa security, Opp p. 528, ed. Reiske.