"As the founder of your city was Alexander, and your ruler and tutelar
deity King Serapis, together with the virgin his associate, and the
queen of all Egypt, Isis, * * *, you do not emulate a healthy city, but
the diseased part dares to arrogate to itself the name of [the whole]
city. By the gods, Men of Alexandria, I should be very much ashamed, if,
in short, any Alexandrian should acknowledge himself to be a Galilaean.
"The ancestors of the Hebrews were formerly slaves to the Egyptians.
But now, Men of Alexandria, you, the conquerors of Egypt (for Egypt
was conquered by your founder), sustain a voluntary servitude to the
despisers of your national dogmas, in opposition to your ancient sacred
institutions. And you do not recollect your former
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felicity, when all Egypt had communion with the gods, and we enjoyed an
abundance of good. But, tell me, what advantage has accrued to your city
from those who now introduce among you a new religion? Your founder was
that pious man Alexander of Macedon, who did not, by Jupiter! resemble
any one of these, or any of the Hebrews, who far excelled them. Even
Ptolemy, the son of Lagus, was also superior to them. As to Alexander,
if he had encountered, he would have endangered even the Romans. What
then did the Ptolemies, who succeeded your founder? Educating your city,
like their own daughter, from her infancy, they did not bring her to
maturity by the discourses of Jesus, nor did they construct the form
of government, through which she is now happy, by the doctrine of the
odious Galilaeans.
"Thirdly: After the Romans became its masters, taking it from the
bad government of the Ptolemies, Augustus visited your city, and thus
addressed the citizens: 'Men of Alexandria, I acquit your city of all
blame, out of regard to the great god Serapis,
and also for the sake of the people, and the grandeur of the city. A
third cause of my kindness to you is my friend Areus.' This Areus,
the companion of Augustus Caesar, and a philosopher, was your
fellow-citizen.
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"The particular favours conferred on your city by the Olympic gods
were, in short, such as these. Many more, not to be prolix, I omit. But
those blessings which the apparent gods bestow in common every day, not
on one family, nor on a single city, but on the whole world, why do you
not acknowledge? Are you alone insensible of the splendour that flows
from the sun? Are you alone ignorant that summer and winter are produced
by him, and that all things are alone vivified and alone germinate from
him? Do you not, also, perceive the great advantages that accrue to your
city from the moon, from him and by him the fabricator of all things?
Yet you dare not worship either of these deities; but this Jesus, whom
neither you nor your fathers have seen, you think must necessarily be
God the word, while him, whom from eternity every generation of mankind
has seen, and sees and venerates, and by venerating lives happily, I
mean the mighty sun, a living, animated, intellectual, and beneficent
image of the intelligible Father, you despise. If, however, you listen
to my admonitions, you will by degrees return to truth. You will not
wander from the right path, if you will be guided by him, who to the
twentieth year of his age pursued that road, but has now worshiped the
gods for near twelve years."
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EXTRACTS FROM THE FRAGMENT OF AN ORATION OR EPISTLE ON THE DUTIES OF A
PRIEST.
"If any are detected behaving disorderly to their prince, they are
immediately punished; but those who refuse to approach the gods, are
possessed by a tribe of evil daemons, who driving many of the atheists
[i. e. of the Christians] to distraction, make them think death
desirable, that they may fly up into heaven, after having forcibly
dislodged their souls. Some of them prefer deserts to towns; but man,
being by nature a gentle and social animal, they also are abandoned to
evil daemons, who urge them to this misanthropy; and many of them*
have had recourse to chains and collars. Thus, on all sides, they are
impelled by an evil daemons, to whom they have voluntarily surrendered
themselves, by forsaking the eternal and saviour gods.
"Statues and altars, and the preservation of the unextinguished fire,
and in short all such particulars, have been established by our fathers,
as symbols of the presence of the gods; not that we should believe that
these symbols are gods, but that through these we should worship the
gods. For since we are connected with body, it is also
* i. e. The Cappadocian monks and hermits.
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necessary that our worship of the gods should be performed in a
corporeal manner; but they are incorporeal. And they, indeed, have
exhibited to us as the first of statues, that which ranks as the second
genus of gods from the first, and which circularly revolves round the
whole of heaven*. Since, however, a corporeal worship cannot even be
paid to these, because they are naturally unindigent, a third kind of
statues was devised in the earth, by the worship of which we render the
gods propitious to us. For as those who reverence the images of kings,
who are not in want of any such reverence, at the same time attract to
themselves their benevolence; thus, also, those who venerate the statues
of the gods, who are not in want of any thing, persuade the gods by
this veneration to assist and be favourable to them. For alacrity in the
performance of things in our power is a document of true sanctity;
and it is very evident that he who accomplishes the former, will in a
greater degree possess the latter. But he who despises things in his
power, and afterwards pretends to desire impossibilities, evidently does
not pursue the
* Meaning those divine bodies the celestial orbs, which in
consequence of participating a divine life from the
incorporeal powers from which they are suspended, may be
very properly called secondary gods.
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latter, but overlooks the former. For though divinity is not in want
of any thing, it does not follow that on this account nothing is to be
offered to him. For neither is he in want of celebration through the
ministry of _words_. What then? Is it, therefore, reasonable that he
should also be deprived of this? By no means. Neither, therefore, is he
to be deprived of the honour which is paid him through _works_; which
honour has been legally established, not for three or for three thousand
years, but in all preceding ages, among all nations of the earth.
"But [the Galilaeans will say], O! you who have admitted into your
soul every multitude of daemons, whom, though according to you they are
formless and unfigured, you have fashioned in a corporeal resemblance,
it is not fit that honour should be paid to divinity through such works.
How, then, do we not consider as wood and stones those statues which
are fashioned by the hands of men? O more stupid than even stones
themselves! Do you fancy that all men are to be drawn by the nose as
you are drawn by execrable daemonss, so as to think that the artificial
resemblances of the gods are the gods themselves? Looking, therefore, to
the resemblances of the gods, we do not think them to be either stones
or wood; for neither do we
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think that the gods are these resemblances; since neither do we say that
royal images are wood, or stone, or brass, nor that they are the kings
therefore, but the images of kings. Whoever, therefore, loves his king,
beholds with pleasure the image of his king; whoever loves his child is
delighted with his image; and whoever loves his father surveys his image
with delight. Hence, also, he who is a lover of divinity gladly surveys
the statues and images of the gods; at the same time venerating and
fearing with a holy dread the gods who invisibly behold him*. If,
therefore, some
* The Catholics have employed similar arguments in defence
of the reverence which they pay to the images of the men
whom they call saints. But the intelligent reader need not
be told, that it is one thing to venerate the images of
those divine powers which proceed from the great first Cause
of all things, and eternally subsist concentrated and rooted
in him, and another to reverence the images of men, who when
living were the disgrace of human nature. In addition to
what is said by Julian on this subject, the following
extract from the treatise of Sallust, on the Gods, and the
World, is well worthy the attentive perusal of the reader:
"A divine nature is not indigent of any thing; but the
honours which we pay to the gods are performed for the sake
of our advantage. And since the providence of the gods is
everywhere extended, a certain habitude or fitness is all
that is requisite, in order to receive their beneficent
communications. But all habitude is produced through
imitation and similitude. Hence temples imitate the
heavens, but altars,...
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one should fancy that these ought never to be corrupted, because they
were once called the images of the gods, such a one appears to me to
be perfectly void of intellect. For if this were admitted, it is also
requisite that they should not be made by men. That, however, which
is produced by a wise and good man may be corrupted by a depraved and
ignorant man. But the gods which circularly revolve about the heavens,
and which are living statues, fashioned by the gods themselves as
resemblances of their unapparent essence,--these remain for ever. No
one, therefore, should disbelieve in the gods, in consequence of seeing
and hearing that some persons have behaved insolently towards statues
and temples. For have there not been many who have destroyed good men,
such as Socrates and Dion, and the great Empedotimus? And who, I well
know, have, more than statues or temples, been taken care of by the
gods. See, however, that the gods, knowing the body of these to
...the earth; statues resemble life, and on this account
they are similar to animals. Prayers imitate that which is
intellectual; but characters, superior ineffable powers.
Herbs and stones resemble matter; and animals which are
sacrificed, the irrational life of our souls. But, from all
these, nothing happens to the gods beyond what they already
possess; for what accession can be made to a divine nature?
But a conjunction with our souls and the gods is by these
means produced.
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be corruptible, have granted that it should yield and be subservient
to nature, but afterwards have punished those by whom it was destroyed;
which clearly happened to be the case with all the sacrilegious of our
time.
"Let no one, therefore, deceive us by words, nor disturb us with
respect to providential interference. For as to the prophets of the
Jews, who reproach us with things of this kind, what will they say of
their own temple, which has been thrice destroyed, but has not been
since, even to the present time, rebuilt? I do not, however, say this as
reproaching them; for I have thought of rebuilding it, after so long
a period, in honour of the divinity who is invoked in it. But I have
mentioned this, being willing to show, that it is not possible for any
thing human to be incorruptible; and that the prophets who wrote things
of this kind were delirious, and the associates of stupid old women.
Nothing, however, hinders, I think, but that God may be great, and yet
he may not have worthy interpreters [of his will]. But this is because
they have not delivered their soul to be purified by the liberal
disciplines; nor their eyes, which are profoundly closed, to be opened;
nor the darkness which oppresses them to be purged away. Hence, like men
who survey a great light through thick darkness,
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neither see purely nor genuinely, and in consequence of this do not
conceive it to be a pure light, but a fire, and likewise perceiving
nothing of all that surrounds it, they loudly exclaim, _Be seized with
horror, be afraid, fire, flame, death, a knife, a two-edged sword_;
expressing by many names the one noxious power of fire. Of these men,
however, it is better peculiarly to observe how much inferior their
teachers of the words of God are to our poets."
AN EDICT, FORBIDDING THE CHRISTIANS TO TEACH THE LIFE-RATURE OF THE
HEATHENS.
"We are of opinion that proper erudition consists not in words, nor
in elegant and magnificent language, but in the sane disposition of an
intelligent soul, and in true opinions of good and evil, and of what is
beautiful and base. Whoever, therefore, thinks one thing, and teaches
another to his followers, appears to be no less destitute of erudition
than he is of virtue. Even in trifles, if the mind and tongue be
at variance, there is some kind of improbity. But in affairs of the
greatest consequence, if a man thinks one thing, and teaches another
contrary to what he thinks, in what respect does this differ from the
conduct of those mean-spirited, dishonest, and abandoned traders, who
generally affirm what they know to be false, in order to deceive and
inveigle customers?
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"All, therefore, who profess to teach, ought to possess worthy manners,
and should never entertain opinions opposite to those of the public;
but such especially, I think, ought to be those who instruct youth, and
explain to them the works of the ancients, whether they are orators
or grammarians; but particularly if they are sophists. For these last
affect to be the teachers, not only of words, but of manners, and
assert that political philosophy is their peculiar province. Whether,
therefore, this be true or not, I shall not at present consider. I
commend those who make such specious promises, and should commend
them much more, if they did not falsify and contradict themselves, by
thinking one thing, and teaching their scholars another. What then? Were
not Homer, Hesiod, Demosthenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, and
Lysias, the leaders of all erudition? And did not some of them
consider themselves sacred to Mercury, but others to the Muses? I think,
therefore, it is absurd for those who explain their works to despise the
gods whom they honoured.
"I do not mean (for I think it would be absurd) that they should change
their opinions for the sake of instructing youth; but I give them their
option, either not to teach what they do not approve, or, if they choose
to teach, first to persuade their
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scholars that neither Homer, nor Hesiod, nor any of those whom they
expound and charge with impiety, madness, and error concerning the gods,
are really such as they represent them to be. For as they receive a
stipend, and are maintained by their works, if they can act with such
duplicity for a few drachms, they confess themselves guilty of the most
sordid avarice.
"Hitherto, indeed, many causes have prevented their resorting to the
temples; and the dangers that everywhere impended, were a plea for
concealing the most true opinions of the gods. But now, since the gods
have granted us liberty, it seems to me absurd for any to teach those
things to men which they do not approve. And if they think that those
writers whom they expound, and of whom they sit as interpreters, are
wise, let them first zealously imitate their piety towards the gods.
But if they think they have erred in their conceptions of the most
honourable natures [the gods], let them go into the churches of the
Galilaeans, and there expound Matthew and Luke, by whom being persuaded
you forbid sacrifices. I wish that your ears and your tongues were (as
you express it) regenerated in those things of which I wish that myself,
and all who in thought and deed are my friends, may always be partakers.
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"To masters and teachers let this be a common law. But let no youths be
prevented from resorting to whatever schools they please. It would be
as unreasonable to exclude children, who know not yet what road to
take, from the right path, as it would be to lead them by fear and with
reluctance to the religious rites of their country. And though it would
be just to cure such reluctance, like madness, even by force, yet
let all be indulged with that disease. For I think it is requisite to
instruct, and not to punish the ignorant."
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