schism of the Luciferians, which lasted forty years.* But notwithstanding the efforts of the church and the devices of the ungodly, the Emperor was deeply mortified at finding that all his endeavours to secure the predominance of Paganism were ineffectual; for, although the gates of the temples were kept perpetually open, sacrifices were daily presented, and the observance of ancient festivals restored in all the cities, Julian was far from being satisfied, inasmuch as he foresaw, that on the withdrawal of his influence, a change in the aspect of affairs would speedily take place. He was deeply chagrined on discovering that the wives, children, and servants of many of the Priests of Paganism had been converted to Christianity. On considering that one main support of the Christian religion was the virtuous lives of its professors, he determined to introduce into the pagan temples the order and discipline of Christianity, to institute various orders and degrees of ministry, to appoint readers and teachers to give instruction in pagan doctrines, and to command that prayers should be offered on certain days at stated hours. He moreover resolved to found monasteries for the accommodation of men and women who desired to live in philosophical retirement; and likewise hospitals for the relief of strangers and of the poor, and for other philanthropical purposes. He wished to introduce among the Pagans the system of penance for voluntary and involuntary transgressions; but the point of ecclesiastical discipline which he chiefly admired, and desired to establish, was the custom of the Bishops to give letters of recommendation to those who travelled to foreign lands, wherein they commended them to the hospitality and kindness of other Bishops, in all places and under all contingencies. Thus did Julian strive to engraft the customs of Christianity upon Paganism;† but a more futile and insignificant attempt was never made.

The historian Sozomen relates, that the degrading profanity of the Emperor kept pace with his other acts of impiety and wickedness: he treated with great ignominy and contempt a certain statue of the Saviour; yet Eusebius informs us, that at the base of this statue grew a herb which was unknown to the physicians and empirics, but which was efficacious in the cure of all disorders. does not appear a matter of astonishment to me," says Sozomen, "that, after God has vouchsafed to dwell with men, he should condescend to bestow benefits upon them." Legendary stories of a similar nature were numerous, and received with

* Landon, Manual of Councils, p. 22; Labbe, Concilia, tom. ii., col. 97, 808. † Sozomen, Hist. Eccles., lib. v., cap. 16.

"It

"There is a city now called Nicopolis, in Palestine, which was formerly only a village, and which was mentioned by the holy Evangelists under the name of Emmaus. The name of Nicopolis was given to this place by the Romans, in consequence of the conquest of Jerusalem, and the victory over the Jews. Just beyond the city, where three roads meet, is the spot where Christ, after his resurrection, said farewell to Cleophas and his companions, as if he were going to another village; and here is the fountain in which the Saviour washed his feet, and which has ever since possessed the property of removing every species of disease from man as well as animals! At Ermopolis, in Thebais, is a tree called Persea, of which the branches, the leaves, and the least portion of the bark, are said to heal diseases when touched by the sick; for it is related by the Egyptians, that when Joseph fled with Christ and Mary, the holy mother,

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unbounded credulity at this period. Julian had to struggle with almost insurmountable difficulties; all his most important schemes were blighted in the bud; and after his immense army had been brought to the very verge of starvation, he was compelled to sound an ignominious retreat in the presence of an active and exulting foe. The silent hours of the night were yet devoted to study and contemplation; but whenever the Emperor closed his eyes in short and interrupted slumber, his mind was agitated with painful anxiety; in the restless rest which he suffered, the genius of the empire was painted on his imagination, as covering with a funeral veil his head, and then slowly retiring from the imperial tent. The Monarch started from his couch, and, stepping forth to refresh his wearied spirits with the coolness of the midnight air, he beheld a fiery meteor, which shot athwart the sky and suddenly vanished. Julian was convinced that he had seen the menacing countenance of the god of war, and the council which he immediately summoned advised him to abstain from action: this could not be, and the combatants were summoned at break of day. The army marched through a hilly country, and the hills had been secretly occupied by the Persians. The guards of the Emperor reminded him that he was without armour, and conjured him to decline the ruin which evidently awaited him. In a moment he fell mortally wounded,* and was conveyed out of the tumult of the battle to a neighbouring

tent.

The pagan historian, Ammianus Marcellinus, who was present, does not relate the circumstance which is mentioned by Sozomen and Theodoret, that the Emperor, finding himself wounded, took of the blood which broke forth from his side, and throwing the warm gore into the air, cried out, "Galilean! thou hast conquered!" It is possible that the conscience of the wounded man, observes Mr. Townsend, at the moment, might have recalled the inward remembrances of his early life; and that although Ammianus might not have heard the words, others of the soldiers might have done so, and have recorded them for the chronicles of a subsequent age. The thoughts of the dying rest on the subject nearest to the soul; and that subject is more certainly developed by an accidental expression in the moment of from the wrath of Herod, they went to Ermopolis, and, as they were entering the city, this tree bent down and worshipped Christ. I relate precisely what have heard from many sources concerning this tree. I think that this phenomenon was a sign of the presence of God in the city; or, perhaps, as seems most probable, it may have arisen from the fear of the demon, who had been worshipped in this large and beautiful tree by the people of the country; for at the presence of Christ, the idols of Egypt were shaken, even as Isaiah the Prophet had foretold. On the expulsion of the demon, the tree was permitted to remain as a monument of what had occurred, and was endued with the property of healing those who believed. The inhabitants of Egypt and of Palestine testify to the truth of these events which took place among themselves." (Sozomen, History.)

"No one knows even to this day, by whom this mortal blow, which he had so justly deserved, was inflicted. Some say that it was by one of the invisible order of beings; others, that it was by the hand of an individual belonging to one of the nomadic tribes, generally called Ishmaelites; others say that he was killed by a soldier reduced to despair by hunger, and by wandering in the desert. But whether the sword were that of an angel or of a man, certain it is, that whoever committed the deed, was but the instrument of the divine will." (Theodoret., Hist. Eccles.)

danger or excitement, than in the deliberate and collected farewell. The historian Gibbon informs us, with reference to these traditions, that the legends of more recent saints may be silently despised.* It is possible it may be a legend; but if it be so, it is much less absurd than Julian's dying assurance, that he was about to be united with the stars. The immortality of the Gospel is the continuance of the personal identity of the soul in the society of other spirits who were disembodied before the believer himself. The immortality of Heathenism was an absorption of the consciousness of identity in the substance of the universe. The first is true philosophy; the second is nonsense. The first is the blessing of the Christian, whether he be Prince or peasant; the last was the curse of the dying Julian, of the Heathen, of the Deist, and of the fool. In his last moments, says his great eulogist Gibbon, he displayed, perhaps with some ostentation, the love of virtue and of fame, which had been the ruling passion of his life. He displayed these excellences by summoning to his bed-side his attendants and friends, and addressing them in a specch, in which he dared to utter these words, "I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt. I am pleased to reflect on the innocence of my past life." Much self-eulogy followed, and some metaphysical discussion with two pagan speculatists, or philosophers. He called for some cold water, and drank, and died. May God grant to me at that hour to hold other language, and to have other hopes! Let me die the death of the righteous, humble Christian, and not the death of the presumptuous and absurd philosopher. So he died; and believing, as both reason and true philosophy and well-evidenced revelation compel me to believe, in the Providence which governs the world He created, I cannot but see in the example of Julian a memorable proof of that continued government. The last pagan enemy of Christianity was permitted to rule over the empire of Rome at the time when the sun of Christianity was brightening the horizon of the heathen world, that the truth of that faith might be confirmed to the utmost. By re-establishing the oracles, he so demonstrated their folly, that they have never recovered their influence. By endeavouring to refute a prophecy, and fairly challenging the truth of Christianity in the matter of the rebuilding of the temple, he was the cause of a series of events, which compel the boldest infidel to pause before he pronounces the defeat of his attempts to be merely of human origin. By his whole life he showed the weakness of the once all-powerful Paganism. By his death he proved how miserable is the consolation which false philosophy can give, when it calls annihilation immortality, and destroys at once the accountableness, the happiness, and the identity of the soul of man, under the sounding brass and tinkling cymbals of the silly language of that affected wisdom which is based on no evidence, speaks no certain truth, and affords no real happiness, either in life or death; and which, in all these respects, is the contrast to Christianity, and the very antipodes of revelation. Thanks be unto God for the unspeakable gift of a revelation which is proved to be true * Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xxiv., vol. iv., p. 191.

↑ Sozomen, Hist. Eccles., lib. vi., cap. 2.

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by every moral demonstration which can be required to satisfy the reason; which gives us gratitude to Christ as our motive, the will of God for our guide, and a better consolation in life and death than the remembrance of our own virtues, or the hope of being absorbed in the soul of the universe.*

In his peculiar way Julian stood forward, as the imperial antagonist of Christianity, as an author. He was ambitious, as a writer, of confuting its doctrines, and impeaching its veracity: he passed in his closet the long nights of the winter, and continued, even during his Persian campaign, his elaborate work against the faith of Christ. He seemed, as it were, possessed with an equal hatred of those whom he considered the two most dangerous enemies of the Roman empire, the Persians and the Christians. While oppressed by all the serious cares of organizing and moving such an army as might bring back the glorious days of Germanicus, or of Trajan; while his ambition contemplated nothing less than the permanent humiliation of the great eastern rival of the empire; his literary vanity found time for its exercise, and in all his visions of military glory and conquest, Julian never lost sight of his fame as an author. It appears to have been composed in a purely polemic spirit, with no comprehensive views of the nature of Christianity, and with no consciousness of the utter inefficiency of the cold and incoherent pagan mysticism, which he endeavoured to substitute for the Gospel. But, at least, this was a grave and a serious employment. Whatever might be thought of his success as a religious disputant, there was no loss of dignity in the Emperor condescending to enlighten his subjects on such momentous questions. But when he stooped to be the satirist of the inhabitants of a city which had ridiculed his philosophy, and rejected his religion, the finest and most elegant irony, the keenest and most delicate wit, would scarcely have justified this compromise of the imperial majesty. One of his principal works† was entitled, "The Misopogon, or BeardHater," which seems to have been composed in consequence of certain scurrilous writings which had appeared in Antioch, reflecting severely upon his personal rusticity. There is doubtless much felicity of sarcasm and justice in his animadversions on the dissolute manners, the ingratitude for his liberality, the dislike of his severe justice, the insolence of their contempt for his ruder manners, throughout the "Misopogon;" but it lowers Julian from a follower of Plato to a coarse imitator of Diogenes; it exhibits him as borrowing the worst part of the Christian-Monkish character, the disregard of the decencies and civilities of life, without the high and visionary enthusiasm, or the straining after superiority to the low cares and pursuits of the world. It was singular to hear a Grecian sophist (for such was undoubtedly the character of Julian's writings) extolling the

*Townsend, Civil and Ecclesiastical History, vol. i., p. 419.

Julian wrote the "Lives of the Emperors," his predecessors, in which we find many pointed remarks and illustrations of their several characters, and especially of their defects: possessing neither the fulness nor impartiality of history, it must nevertheless be considered his most important work. The next in celebrity bore the singular name of "Misopogon." Besides these two works, several epistles and rescripts are extant, which are of greater historical importance.

barbarians, the Celts and Germans, above the polished inhabitants of Greece and Syria. Milner observes, that "a tear of compassion is due to this extraordinary man. He had seen a poor sample of the Gospel in the lives and manners of the family of Constantine, and had suffered deep and cruel injuries from them. Philosophers cautiously watched him when very young, and infused their poison with dexterity. Useful lessons may be learned from history by young persons who, among ourselves, having been educated by Christians of mere formal orthodoxy, are ever prone to be seduced by heretical philosophers; while those who profess the Gospel, are loudly called upon to take care that they express their religious zeal by something more substantial than words and forms. Young minds who are under the influence of unfruitful professors, are seriously warned by the apostacy of Julian to perform with diligence what he neglected; namely, to search the Scriptures for themselves with prayer. Had Julian been as studious of the Greek Testament as he was of Plato, and prayed as earnestly to God through Christ as he did, or seemed to do, to Jupiter and Apollo, he might have escaped the snare of Satan. But men confirm themselves in apostacy and infidelity by hearkening to everything that tends to produce these evils; and they avoid the force of divine truth by contemptuous neglect and indifference."*

CHAPTER III.

Accession of Jovian-General Exultation-His Character-Favours the Interests of the Church-Paganism is at a Discount-Proceedings of the Arians, Donatists, and Novatians-General Toleration-The Standard of the Cross is replaced-Intolerant Proceeding of Magnus rebuked and punished-Athanasius re-appears in Alexandria-Is addressed in an Epistle by Jovian—Who invites him to resume the See of Alexandria-Which is offensive to the Arians-A Deputation wait upon Jovian-Who remains firm-Death of Jovian-Is succeeded by ValentinianWho associates Valens with him in the Empire-Character of both-Valens ranks among the Orthodox-But is led by Eudoxius, Bishop of Constantinople, to the Side of Arianism—Valentinian is tolerant-Ammianus Marcellinus—Paganism is tolerated-Valens is zealous for Arianism—And persecutes the Orthodox-Prelates are exiled-Barbarities at Antioch-Murder of eighty Ministers-Modestus a Tool of Valens-Rev. H. H. Milman-Savage Ferocity of Valentinian-His Death-Valens again expels the orthodox Prelates from the Churches-Athanasius again flees-The See is filled by Lucius, a Usurper-Death of Procopius— Heroism of numerous Martyrs-Death of Athanasius—Nominates his Successor —Prepares the way for further Persecution—Peter, the orthodox Successor of Athanasius, is imprisoned—And exiled-Euzoius—Tumult in Alexandria-Lucius attacks the Monasteries-Pantonius-Heraclides-Persecution of the Monks— Mucarius-Lucius installed by the Help of the Sword-Cruelty of Magnus-And of Palladius-Numerous Monks sent to the Mines—The Goths—Athanaric— Fritigern-Sufferings of Sabus-His Character—Intolerant Proceedings of Athanaric-Unflinching Integrity of Sabas-Persecution increases-Sansala, a FellowSufferer-Atharides-Sabus is tortured—And relieved by a pagan Woman-Martyrdom of Sabas-Idolatry and Superstition of the Goths-Nicetas-Bitter Hatred

* Milner, Hist. of the Church, cent. iv., chap. 4, vol. i., p. 595.