THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
policy, to Antioch, where the excitable and vivacious populace received him with open scorn of his views and plans, and the Christian portion indulged in ominous demonstrations. On Mar. 4, 363, he started out for his campaign, pressing forward boldly to meet his Persian enemies, sharing all the fatigues and privations of his soldiers, and busily occupied at the same time with his studies and his great reform plans. After several successful skirmishes, he received a spear-wound in the battle of June 26, and died a few hours afterward. The famous narrative of Theodoret, according to which he cried out just before he died, " Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!" is apparently an outgrowth of the account written by Ephraem Syrus in the same year, which relates how " he turned aside, groaning, and thought of the threats which at his departure he had made by letter against the Church." It is significant that the Persians, according to Ammianus (XXV., vi. 6), on the following day mocked the Romans as traitors to their own emperor, since it was a Roman spear that had pierced his side. The rumor soon spread in the empire, and Libanius in his funeral oration put into words the suspicion that a Christian had been responsible for his death. Gregory Nazianzen, Rufinus, and Socrates treat the question as indifferent, and Sozomen shows that the Christians were capable of the deed by claiming it for one of them and lauding it. But Libanius did not offer the slightest evidence in support of his accusation, and several considerations may be urged against it. Similar rumors have often arisen in the case of a sudden death; Julian was a bold and reckless soldier, who had often exposed himself to great danger; he himself gave utterance to no suspicion — according to Ammianus he thanked the gods that he had fallen by "no clandestine ambush"; Eutropius says expressly that he was wounded by one of the enemy, and Ephraem knows nothing different; and Ammianus says that no offers of reward produced the Persian who had given the wound — he may have been dead — which gave rise to their reproach of the Romans, and thus to the growth of the legend. Julian was buried at Tarsus, leaving no heir; and his wife, Helena, the sister of Constantius, had died at Vienne in the winter of 360-361.
The restoration of Hellenism was the great aim of Julian's reign. On his arrival in Constantinople he made a clean sweep of the old court, and the Neoplatonic philosophers, with Maximus at their head, hastened to appear there in support of one who was an emperor after their own His heart. The worship of the ancient Policy and gods in its traditional form was de- Character, clared the privileged religion; the temples were ordered to be opened or rebuilt, and their property restored. Julian was especially anxious to restore the complete sacrificial system; and the way in which he went to work shows that the ideas underlying the old public worship were not his, but that he designed to bring about the restoration of the old paganism under the forms of certain mystic cults, and to unite all the older religions into a sort of pagan imperial church. It is from the mysteries that all
the determining lines of his policy are taken. If the whole of public life was to be ordered according to the piety prescribed in the mysteries, the plan would not have been a reaction but a reform in the highest sense. The return to the ancient gods is the only reactionary feature of it; the ascetic-pietistic and mystic-hierarchical ordering of the worship, with its organized associations and priesthood, would have been an unheard-of innovation. To change paganism into a State religion and thus to modify the whole relation between religion and the State as it had been understood in antiquity, was a thing which could be done only by force. The remnant of the pagan population showed itself indifferent or actually hostile to the plans which Julian promulgated in a series of edicts which combined, so to speak, imperial and papal characteristics. The reforming tendencies of his plans were displayed especially in his provisions for the ceremonial reception of converts to paganism, who were to be admitted to draw near to the gods only after spiritual and bodily purification, and for the creation of a definitely graduated and strictly organized hierarchy, with the emperor as pontifex maximus, and high priests (answering to metropolitans) for the provinces. In yet other particulars the imitation of the Church's discipline is obvious. It is most direct in regard to the care of the poor, as to which Julian made no secret of his admiration for the Christian model; other resemblances are indirect, coming through the influence which the mysteries had already exercised upon the Christian system.
In discussing the question of Julian's actual relations to the Christian Church, it is necessary to distinguish between what was in his mind and what he actually did, and even between the different parts of his short reign — since, though his policy did not essentially change, there are traces of increasing irritation in his mind, which influenced his edicts. In principle, however, he rejected the use of force as an aid to conversion. Christianity, which he regarded as a pitiable superstition of weak-minded people, a distorted form of worship suited to barbarians with no knowledge of history, an assemblage of discordant elements held together only by an ambitious clergy, was to be allowed to fall to decay of itself. In the army the cross was to be replaced by pagan emblems, and the pretorian guard was to be purged of Christians. Christian officials were to be removed from the government. All privileges were withdrawn from the clergy and the Church, including support from State funds and such rights of jurisdiction as had been conceded. The restoration of pagan temples at the cost of those who had destroyed them imposed this burden upon the Christians. All Christian factions were to be treated alike, including the Donatists, and this involved the recall of the banished orthodox bishops. The old idea that he did this with the purpose of fostering discord among his antagonists, while in view of the short-sightedness of his policy it is possible, is not probable, and the result was actually beneficial to the Church. His school law of June 17, 362, which required candidates for teachers' positions to obtain the