14. THIKD TEKIOD. A.D. 311- 59 J.
martyrs and relics to reproduce aud even cxcccCa the ancieni worsliip of heroes.
Finally, even the victory of Christianity was branded as a reproach. It was held responsible by the latest heathen historians not only for the frequent public calamities, wliich had been already charged n])oii it under Marcus Aurelius and in the time of Tertulhan, but also for the decline and fall of the once so mighty Roman empire. But this objection, very pop ular at tlie time, is refuted by the simple fact, that the empire in the East, where Christianity earlier and more completely prevailed outlived l)y nearly ten centuries the western brancli. Tlie dissoluiion of the west-Iloman empire was due rather to its unwieldy extent, the incursion of barbarians, and the decay of morals, which was hastened by the introduction of all the vices of concpiered nations, and which had already begun under liugustus, yea, during the glorious period of the republic ; for the republic would have lasted much longer if the foundation? of public and private virtue had not been undermined.' Taken
' Gibbon, too, imputes the fall of the west-Uomau empire not, as unjustly charged by Dr, Kurtz (Handbuch der allg. Kirchengesch. i. 2, p. 15, 3d ed.), to Christianity, but almost solely to the pressure of its own weight. Comp. his General Observations on the Fall of the R. f]m[)ire in the West, at the close of ch. xxxviii., where he says: "The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay ; the causes of destruction nndtiplied with the extent of conquest ; aud as soon iis time or accident had removed the artilicial supports, the stupendous fabric yielded to the pressure of its own weight. Tlie story of its ruin is simple and obvious ; and instead of inquiring whij the Roman empire was destroyed, wc should rather be surprised that it had subsisted so long." Gibbon then mentions Christianity also, it is true, or more properly monasticism, which, he thinks, suppressed with its passive virtues the patriotic and martial sjjirit, and so far contributed to the catastrophe; but adds: " If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened [ — he says not : caused — ] by the converaion of Constantino, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors." This view is very dillerent from that of Eunapius and Zosimus, with whicii Kurt/, idontilies it. (Jibbon in general follows more closely Ammianus Marcellinus, whom, with all reason, he holds ad a historian far superior to the others. — Lord Byron truthfully expresses the law of decay tc vhick. Rome succumbed, in these words from Childe Harold : "There is the moral of all human tales; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the psist : First freedom, and then glory — when that fails. Wealth, vice, corruption, barbari.sm at lasL"
§ 9. Julian's attack upon Christianity. 75
from a higher point of view, the downfall of Ev me was u divine judgment upon the old essentially heathen world, as the destruction of Jerusalem was a judgment upon the Jewish nation for their unbelief. But it was at the same time the inevitable transition to a new creation which Christianity soon began to rear on the ruins of heathendom by the conversion of the barbarian conquerors, and the founding of a higher Christian civilization. This was the best refutation of the last charge of the heathen opponents of the religion of the cross.
§ 9. Julian's Attack upon Christianity.
For Literature comp. § 4 p. 39, 40.
The last direct and systematic attack upon the Christian religion proceeded from the emperor Julian. In his winter evenings at Antioch in 363, to account to the whole world for his apostasy, he WTote a work against the Christians, which survives, at least in fragments, in a refutation of it by Cyril of Alexandria, written about 432. In its three books, perhaps seven (Cyril mentions only three '), it shows no trace of the dispassionate philosophical or historical appreciation of so mighty a phenomenon as Christianity in any case is. Julian had no sense for the fundamental ideas of sin and redemption or the cardinal virtues of humility and love. He stood entu'ely in the sphere of naturalism, w^here the natural light of Ilelios outshines the mild radiance of the King of truth, and the admiration of worldly greatness leaves no room for the recognition of the spiritual glory of self-renunciation. He repeated the arguments of a Celsus and a Porphyry in moditied form ; expanded them by his larger acquaintance with the Bible, which lie had learned according to the letter in his clerical education ; and breathed into all the bitter hatred of an apostate, which agreed ill with his famous toleration and entirely blinded him to all that was good in his opponents. He calls the religion of " the
' In the preface to his refutation, Contra Jul. i. p. 3 : Tpi'a av-^y^-ypixi/i fiifi\ia Karii rj>v a.yiaii' euayye^lwu Kal Kara rtjs fvayoiis riv Xpunaviov Sprjcr/ceiat. But Jerome says, Epist. 83 (torn, iv, p. 665): " Julianus Augustus septem libros, in expeditione Parlhica [or rather before he left Antioch and started for Persia], advcrs'^s Christian©* Tomuii."