VI

Julian remembered the interminable conflicts between Orthodox and

Arians under Constantius at the council of Milan, and designing to

profit by that animosity, he decided to follow the example of his

Christian predecessors and convoke an oecumenical council.

On one occasion, in a private conversation, he had declared that,

instead of persecuting the Galileans, he wished to give them full

freedom of faith, and to call back from exile Donatists, Cæcilians,

Marcionists, Montanists, and other heretics banished by the councils

of Constantine and Constantius. He thought that there was no better

means of abolishing Christianity.

"You will see, my friends, when all the sectaries shall have returned,

such strife will be kindled between these brethren, that they will

begin to torture each other like birds of prey loosed from their cage

into the arena of the circus. They will bring shame upon their

Master's name more quickly and effectually than I could by any

persecutions and martyrdoms!"

And so Julian sent into all parts of the Empire edicts authorising the

banished to return. The wisest Galilean teachers were at the same time

invited to come to the palace at Constantinople for a religious

discussion; but the majority of those invited were unaware of the

subject to be discussed, the wording of the letters being skilfully

vague. Guessing some trick, many, pleading sickness, failed to present

themselves.

The blue morning sky seemed dark against the dazzling whiteness of the

double colonnade surrounding the court known as the Atrium of

Constantine. White pigeons were fluttering here and there in the sky,

with gleeful beating of wings. In the centre of the court stood the

statue of Venus Callipyge, in warm and beautiful marble. The monks,

passing by her, turned away, hiding their eyes, but the tender

temptress remained, for all that, in their midst. Not without purpose

had Julian chosen this situation for the Galilean council. The dark

robes of the religious appeared blacker still, their starvation-dulled

faces more meagre. Each strove to wear an air of indifference and

presumption, feigning not to see his enemy at his elbow, yet casting

stealthy glances of curiosity and contempt.

"Holy Mother of God, what is this? Whither are we fallen?" said the

old bishop Eustace, with profound emotion. "Let me pass out,

soldiers!"

"Gently, gently, my friend," answered the centurion of the

lance-bearers, the barbarian Dagalaïf, politely keeping him from the

door.

"I'm choking in this pit of heresy! let me pass!"

"By the will of Augustus, everybody here has come to the council,"

responded Dagalaïf, inflexibly keeping him back.

"But this is not a council, it is a den of thieves!"

Among the Galileans some more cheerful persons began to laugh at the

provincial manners and the strong Armenian accent of Eustace, who,

losing courage, quieted down, and slipped into a corner, muttering--

"Lord, Lord, how have I offended Thee?"

Evander of Nicomedia also quickly repented of having come and of

having led thither brother Juventinus, a disciple of Didimus, who had

but newly arrived at Constantinople.

Evander was one of the greatest dogmatists of his time; a man of

profound and lucid intellect. He had lost his health, and grown

prematurely old, over his books; he was almost blind, and his

short-sighted eyes worn out with fatigue. Innumerable heresies

besieged his brain, leaving him no sleep, or tormenting him in dreams,

ever tempting him by their dread subtleties. Evander used to collect

heresies, as one might collect jewels or scientific rarities, in an

immense manuscript entitled _Against Heresy_. He hunted for them

greedily, imagined those that might be in existence, and the better he

refuted the more he was attracted towards them.

Sometimes he would entreat God to grant him simple faith, and God

would refuse him simplicity.

In ordinary life he was timid, simple, and offenceless as a child. For

rascals to deceive Evander was as easy as breathing, and on this score

the mockers told a hundred stories against him. Plunged in doctrinal

dreams, the bishop continually found himself in awkward situations. In

one of these fits of abstraction he had come to this singular council,

without thinking why he went thither, but attracted by the hope of

lighting on a new heresy. Now his face was twitching with annoyance,

and he shaded his weak eyes against the too bright rays of the sun,

longing to be back amongst his books in his little twilight chamber.

Evander kept Juventinus at his side, and warned him against temptation

by criticising various heresies. In the centre of the hall a vigorous

old man was striding up and down. He had high cheek-bones and thick

grey hair. It was the septuagenarian bishop Purpuris, recalled from

exile by Julian. Neither Constantine nor Constantius had succeeded in

stifling the Donatist heresy. For fifty years past streams of blood

had flowed in Africa, by reason of the unjust deposition of a Donatist

in favour of a Cæcilian, or of a Cæcilian in favour of a Donatist. Nor

could any augury be made as to the final issue of this fratricidal

strife.

Juventinus noticed that the Cæcilian bishop who was passing in front

of Purpuris brushed the vestments of the Donatist with the corner of

his chasuble. The latter turned fiercely round, with a growl of

disgust, and, taking the stuff between two fingers, shook it several

times before the eyes of everybody.

Evander informed Juventinus in a low voice that when a Cæcilian

happened to enter a Donatist congregation he was hunted out and the

flags touched by his feet were washed with salt water.

Behind Purpuris, dogging him step by step, walked his faithful

bodyguard, an enormous half-savage African, brown-skinned, terrible,

flat-nosed, and thick-lipped, the deacon Leona. He was armed with a

cudgel, gripped tightly in his nervous hands. He was an Ethiopian

peasant, belonging to the self-mutilating sect called Circumcellions.

Weapon in hand, these sectaries would run along the high-roads

offering money to passers-by, in return for destruction, adding, "Kill

us, or we will kill you!" In the name of Christ the Circumcellions

mutilated themselves, burned themselves, drowned themselves, but never

would hang themselves, because Judas was hanged. They declared that

suicide for God's glory washed all sin from the soul, and the people

looked on them as martyrs. Before death, they abandoned themselves to

all pleasures; ate, drank, and offered violence to women. A great

number refrained from using swords, Christ having forbidden it, but on

the other hand they felled heretics and pagans with huge bludgeons,

"according to the Scriptures," and with consciences at ease. While

spilling blood they would cry "Glory be to God!"

And the peaceful inhabitants lived more in terror of this religious

cry than of war-trumpets or the roarings of a lion. The Donatists

considered the Circumcellions as their guardians, and these Ethiopian

peasants finding theological controversies hard to understand, the

Donatists would point out beforehand those whom they were to strike

according to the Scriptures.

Evander directed the attention of Juventinus on a handsome youth,

whose tender and ingenuous expression seemed almost that of a young

girl. He was a Caïnite.

"Blessed be our tameless brothers, Cain, Shem, the inhabitants of

Sodom and Gomorrah!" preached the Caïnites. "They are seeds of high

wisdom, of reason divine!... Come to us, all ye hunted, reprobate,

revolted! Blessed be Judas! he alone among the apostles was initiated

in the higher knowledge!... He betrayed Christ that He might die and

rise again, because he knew the death of Christ would save the world!

He who is initiated in our wisdom can transgress all limits, daring

all, despising matter, trampling all fear under foot; and giving

himself up to all sins and delight of the sense, attain that disgust

for matter which is the final purity of the soul!"

"Look, Juventinus, there is a man who believes himself above

archangels and seraphim," said Evander, waving his hand towards a

young and sprightly Egyptian, who held himself aloof from everyone, an

ironic smile on his lips, which were painted, like those of a

courtesan. He was dressed in the latest Byzantine vogue, his white

hands loaded with rings. His name was Cassiodorus, and he was a

Valentinian. "In the Christians," affirmed the arrogant Valentinians,

"there is a soul, as in animals; but there is no mind, as in us. We

alone are initiated into the mysteries of the Gnosis and of the divine

Plenum. It follows, therefore, that we alone are worthy to call

ourselves human. All others are, as it were, pigs and dogs."

Cassiodorus would say to his disciples: "You should know everyone, but

no one should understand you. Before the profane, deny the Gnosis, be

dumb, and despise evidences of the gospel. Despise professions of

faith and martyrdoms; love silence and mystery. Be for your enemy as

invisible, elusive, inviolable, as the immaterial forces. Ordinary

Christians need good actions for their salvation; but those who

possess the highest knowledge of God, the Gnosis, need not perform

these actions. We are the sons of light, they the sons of darkness. We

fear not sin, because we know that sin is needful to the material

body, and even to the immaterial soul. We are placed so high that, let

our faults be what they will, we cannot err. Our heart remains chaste

in the delights of matter, as pure gold keeps its brightness in the

mud."

Elsewhere Juventinus saw an old man, with a hang-dog expression and a

squint, the Adamite Prodick, explaining his teaching in a loud voice.

He believed in restoring the innocence of the first Adam. The Adamites

performed their mysteries in a church warmed like a bath and called

the "Eden." Like our first ancestors, they evinced no shame in the

absence of clothes, and assevered that among themselves all men and

women were noted for lofty modesty, although the innocence of these

paradisiac assemblies had sometimes been questioned.

At the elbow of the Adamite Prodick a woman--pale-faced, grey-haired,

and proud, her eyes half-shut with fatigue--was sitting on the ground.

She wore episcopal garb. She was the prophetess of the Montanists.

Yellow-skinned Copts were tending her devotedly, gazing on her with

solicitude, and calling her "Heavenly Dove." Consuming themselves for

years in ecstasies of impossible love, they preached the duty of

bringing humanity to an end, through the practice of continence.

Scattered in numerous bands on the burning hills of Phrygia, near the

ruins of Papusa, these pallid dreamers would remain sitting

motionless, day after day, their eyes fixed on the horizon, on which

the Saviour was to appear. On foggy evenings, above the grey plain, in

the clouds, in rays of melting gold they would catch visions of the

glory of God--the new Zion descending upon earth. Year after year they

would wait, dying at last in the hope that the celestial kingdom was

just about to descend upon the ruins of Papusa. Sometimes lifting her

wearied eyelids, and with troubled gaze fixed in the distance, the

prophetess was murmuring in Syriac--

"_Maran Atha_"--"The Lord is coming!"

And her Coptic servants bowed towards her, the better to hear.

Juventinus listened to the explanations of Evander. All this resembled

some wild and torturing dream. His heart shivered, under a bitter

flood of pity.

Silence was at last restored; all looks turned towards the same spot,

at the opposite extremity of the court, where Julian was standing. His

face was clear and firm, and he wore an air of assumed indifference

His garb was the simple white chlamys of the philosophers.

"Old men and masters," said Augustus, addressing the assembly, "we

have thought it well to give evidence of our indulgence and compassion

to all our subjects who profess the Galilean teaching. For those who

are gone astray it is better to feel compassion than hatred; better to

lead the obstinate to the truth by exhortation, and in no wise by

harryings, blows, or corporeal tortures. Wishing to restore peace to

the world, so long troubled by religious discord, I have called you, O

learnéd Galileans, together. We shall hope that under our protection

you will give an example of those lofty virtues which befit your

wisdom and your spiritual divinity."

So, with the easy gestures of a practised speaker, he began a speech

prepared beforehand. But the benevolent words were not lacking in

ironic allusion.

He made it clear he had not forgotten the stupid and coarse

altercations that had taken place under Constantius, at the council of

Milan. He mentioned, with an evil smile, those audacious persons who,

regretting that they were no longer allowed to persecute or martyrise

their brethren, had urged the ignorant populace into rebellion, poured

oil on fire, and attempted to fill the world with fratricidal madness.

These were the real enemies of humanity, and guilty of the greatest

evil of all, namely, anarchy.