_THE REIGN OF JULIAN._
[Sidenote: Earlier life of Julian.]
Flavius Claudius Julianus was the son of Constantine's half-brother,
Julius Constantius, by his second wife, Basilina, a lady of the great
Anician family. He was born in 331, and lost his mother a few months
later, while his father and other relations perished in the massacre
which followed Constantine's death. Julian and his half-brother Gallus
escaped the slaughter to be kept almost as prisoners of state,
surrounded through their youth with spies and taught by hypocrites a
repulsive Christianity. Julian, however, had a literary education from
his mother's old teacher, the eunuch Mardonius; and this was his
happiness till he was old enough to attend the rhetoricians at Nicomedia
and elsewhere. Gallus was for a while Cæsar in Syria (351-354), and
after his execution, Julian's own life was only saved by the Empress
Eusebia, who got permission for him to retire to the schools of Athens.
In 355 he was made Cæsar in Gaul, and with much labour freed the
province from the Germans. Early in 360 the soldiers mutinied at Paris
and proclaimed Julian Augustus. Negotiations followed, and it was not
till the summer of 361 that Julian pushed down the Danube. By the time
he halted at Naissus, he was master of three-quarters of the Empire.
There seemed no escape from civil war now that the main army of
Constantius was coming up from Syria. But one day two barbarian counts
rode into Julian's camp with the news that Constantius was dead. A
sudden fever had carried him off in Cilicia (Nov. 3, 361), and the
Eastern army presented its allegiance to Julian Augustus.
[Sidenote: Julian's heathenism.]
Before we can understand Julian's influence on the Arian controversy, we
shall have to take a wider view of the Emperor himself and of his policy
towards the Christians generally. The life of Julian is one of the
noblest wrecks in history. The years of painful self-repression and
forced dissimulation which turned his bright youth to bitterness and
filled his mind with angry prejudice, had only consolidated his
self-reliant pride and firm determination to walk worthily before the
gods. In four years his splendid energy and unaffected kindliness had
won all hearts in Gaul; and Julian related nothing of his sense of duty
to the Empire when he found himself master of the world at the age of
thirty.
But here came in that fatal heathen prejudice, which put him in a false
relation to all the living powers of his time, and led directly even to
his military disaster in Assyria. Heathen pride came to him with
Basilina's Roman blood, and the dream-world of his lonely youth was a
world of heathen literature. Christianity was nothing to him but 'the
slavery of a Persian prison.' Fine preachers of the kingdom of heaven
were those fawning eunuchs and episcopal sycophants, with Constantius
behind them, the murderer of all his family! Every force about him
worked for heathenism. The teaching of Mardonius was practically
heathen, and the rest were as heathen as utter worldliness could make
them. He could see through men like George the pork-contractor or the
shameless renegade Hecebolius. Full of thoughts like these, which
corroded his mind the more for the danger of expressing them, Julian was
easily won to heathenism by the fatherly welcome of the philosophers at
Nicomedia (351). Like a voice of love from heaven came their teaching,
and Julian gave himself heart and soul to the mysterious fascination of
their lying theurgy. Henceforth King Sun was his guardian deity, and
Greece his Holy Land, and the philosopher's mantle dearer to him than
the diadem of empire. For ten more years of painful dissimulation Julian
'walked with the gods' in secret, before the young lion of heathenism
could openly throw off the 'donkey's skin' of Christianity.
[Sidenote: Julian's reorganisation of heathenism.]
Once master of the world, Julian could see its needs without using the
eyes of the Asiatic camarilla. First of all, Christian domination must
be put down. Not that he wanted to raise a savage persecution. Cruelty
had been well tried before, and it would be a poor success to stamp out
the 'Galilean' imposture without putting something better in its place.
As the Christians 'had filled the world with their tombs' (Julian's word
for churches), so must it be filled with the knowledge of the living
gods. Sacrifices were encouraged and a pagan hierarchy set up to oppose
the Christian. Heathen schools were to confront the Christian, and
heathen almshouses were to grow up round them. Above all, the priests
were to cultivate temperance and hospitality, and to devote themselves
to grave and pious studies. Julian himself was a model of heathen
purity, and spared no pains to infect his wondering subjects with his
own enthusiasm for the cause of the immortal gods. Not a temple missed
its visit, not a high place near his line of march was left unclimbed.
As for his sacrifices, they were by the hecatomb. The very abjects
called him Slaughterer.
[Sidenote: His failure.]
Never was a completer failure. Crowds of course applauded Cæsar, but
only with the empty cheers they gave the jockeys or the preachers.
Multitudes came to see an Emperors devotions, but they only quizzed his
shaggy beard or tittered at the antiquated ceremonies. Sacrificial
dinners kept the soldiers devout, and lavish bribery secured a good
number of renegades--mostly waverers, who really had not much to change.
Of the bishops, Pegasius of Ilium alone laid down his office for a
priesthood; but he had always been a heathen at heart, and worshipped
the gods even while he held his bishopric. The Christians upon the whole
stood firm. Even the heathens were little moved. Julian's own teachers
held cautiously aloof from his reforms; and if meaner men paused in
their giddy round of pleasure, it was only to amuse themselves with the
strange spectacle of imperial earnestness. Neither friends nor enemies
seemed able to take him quite seriously.
[Sidenote: Julian's policy against Christianity.]
Passing over scattered cases of persecution encouraged or allowed by
Julian, we may state generally that he aimed at degrading Christianity
into a vulgar superstition, by breaking its connections with civilized
government on one side, with liberal education on the other. One part of
it was to deprive the 'Galileans' of state support and weed them out as
far as might be from the public service, while still leaving them full
freedom to quarrel amongst themselves; the other was to cut them off
from literature by forbidding them to teach the classics. Homer and
Hesiod were prophets of the gods, and must not be expounded by
unbelievers. Matthew and Luke were good enough for barbarian ears like
theirs. We need not pause to note the impolicy of an edict which
Julian's own admirer Ammianus wishes 'buried in eternal silence.' Its
effect on the Christians was very marked. Marius Victorinus, the
favoured teacher of the Roman nobles, at once resigned his chair of
rhetoric. The studies of his old age had brought him to confess his
faith in Christ, and he would not now deny his Lord. Julian's own
teacher Proæresius gave up his chair at Athens, refusing the special
exemption which was offered him. It was not all loss for the Christians
to be reminded that the gospel is revelation, not philosophy--life and
not discussion. But Greek literature was far too weak to bear the burden
of a sinking world, and its guardians could not have devised a more
fatal plan than this of setting it in direct antagonism to the living
power of Christianity. In our regret for the feud between Hellenic
culture and the mediæval churches, we must not forget that it was Julian
who drove in the wedge of separation.
[Sidenote: Julian's toleration.]
We can now sum up in a sentence. Every blow struck at Christianity by
Julian fell first on the Arianizers whom Constantius had left in power,
and the reaction he provoked against heathen learning directly
threatened the philosophical postulates of Arianism within the church.
In both ways he powerfully helped the Nicene cause. The Homoeans could
not stand without court support, and the Anomoeans threw away their
rhetoric on men who were beginning to see how little ground is really
common to the gospel and philosophy. Yet he cared little for the party
quarrels of the Christians. Instead of condescending to take a side, he
told them contemptuously to keep the peace. His first step was to
proclaim full toleration for all sorts and sects of men. It was only too
easy to strike at the church by doing common justice to the sects. A few
days later came an edict recalling the exiled bishops. Their property
was restored, but they were not replaced in their churches. Others were
commonly in possession, and it was no business of Julian's to turn them
out. The Galileans might look after their own squabbles. This sounds
fairly well, and suits his professions of toleration; but Julian had a
malicious hope of still further embroiling the ecclesiastical confusion.
If the Christians were only left to themselves, they might be trusted
'to quarrel like beasts.'
[Sidenote: Its results.]
Julian was gratified with a few unseemly wrangles, but the general
result of his policy was unexpected. It took the Christians by surprise,
and fairly shamed them into a sort of truce. The very divisions of
churches are in some sense a sign of life, for men who do not care about
religion will usually find something else to quarrel over. If nations
redeem each other, so do parties; and the dignified slumber of a
catholic uniformity may be more fatal to spiritual life than the vulgar
wranglings of a thousand sects. The Christians closed their ranks before
the common enemy. Nicenes and Arians forgot their enmity in the pleasant
task of reviling the gods and cursing Julian. A yell of execration ran
all along the Christian line, from the extreme Apollinarian right to the
furthest Anomoean left. Basil of Cæsarea renounced the apostate's
friendship; the rabble of Antioch assailed him with scurrilous lampoons
and anti-pagan riots. Nor were the Arians behind in hate. Blind old
Maris of Chalcedon came and cursed him to his face. The heathens
laughed, the Christians cursed, and Israel alone remembered Julian for
good. 'Treasured in the house of Julianus Cæsar,' the vessels of the
temple still await the day when Messiah-ben-Ephraim shall take them
thence.
[Sidenote: Return of Athanasius, Feb. 362.]
Back to their dioceses came the survivors of the exiled bishops, no
longer travelling in pomp and circumstance to their noisy councils, but
bound on the nobler errand of seeking out their lost or scattered
flocks. Eusebius of Vercellæ and Lucifer left Upper Egypt, Marcellus and
Basil returned to Ancyra, while Athanasius reappeared at Alexandria. The
unfortunate George had led a wandering life since his expulsion in 358,
and did not venture to leave the shelter of the court till late in 361.
It was a rash move, for his flock had not forgotten him. Three days he
spent in safety, but on the fourth came news that Constantius was dead
and Julian master of the Empire. The heathen populace was wild with
delight, and threw George straight into prison. Three weeks later they
dragged him out and lynched him. Thus when Julian's edict came for the
return of the exiles, Athanasius was doubly prepared to take advantage
of it.
[Sidenote: Council of Alexandria discusses:]
It was time to resume the interrupted work of the council of Seleucia.
Semiarian violence frustrated Hilary's efforts, but Athanasius had
things more in his favour, now that Julian had sobered Christian
partizanship. If he wished the Galileans to quarrel, he also left them
free to combine. So twenty-one bishops, mostly exiles, met at Alexandria
in the summer of 362. Eusebius of Vercellæ was with Athanasius, but
Lucifer had gone to Antioch, and only sent a couple of deacons to the
meeting.
[Sidenote: (1.) Returning Arians.]
Four subjects claimed the council's attention. The first was the
reception of Arians who came over to the Nicene side. The stricter party
was for treating all opponents without distinction as apostates.
Athanasius, however, urged a milder course. It was agreed that all
comers were to be gladly received on the single condition of accepting
the Nicene faith. None but the chiefs and active defenders of Arianism
were even to be deprived of any ecclesiastical rank which they might be
holding.
[Sidenote: (2.) The Lord's human nature.]
A second subject of debate was the Arian doctrine of the Lord's
humanity, which limited it to a human body. In opposition to this, the
council declared that the Lord assumed also a human soul. In this they
may have had in view, besides Arianism, the new theory of Apollinarius
of Laodicea, which we shall have to explain presently.
[Sidenote: (3.) The words _person_ and _essence_.]
The third subject before the council was an old misunderstanding about
the term _hypostasis_. It had been used in the Nicene anathemas as
equivalent to _ousia_ or _essence_; and so Athanasius used it still, to
denote the common deity of all the persons of the Trinity. So also the
Latins understood it, as the etymological representative of
_substantia_, which was their translation (a very bad one by the way) of
_ousia_ (_essence_). Thus Athanasius and the Latins spoke of one
_hypostasis_ (_essence_) only. Meantime the Easterns in general had
adopted Origen's limitation of it to the deity of the several _persons_
of the Trinity in contrast with each other. Thus they meant by it what
the Latins called _persona_,[14] and rightly spoke of three _hypostases_
(_persons_). In this way East and West were at cross-purposes. The
Latins, who spoke of one _hypostasis_ (_essence_), regarded the Eastern
three _hypostases_ as tritheist; while the Greeks, who confessed three
_hypostases_ (_persons_), looked on the Western one _hypostasis_ as
Sabellian. As Athanasius had connections with both parties, he was a
natural mediator. As soon as both views were stated before the council,
both were seen to be orthodox. 'One _hypostasis_' (_essence_) was not
Sabellian, neither was 'three _hypostases_' (_persons_) Arian. The
decision was that each party might keep its own usage.
[Footnote 14: _Persona_, again, was a legal term, not exactly
corresponding to its Greek representative.]
[Sidenote: (4.) The schism at Antioch.]
Affairs at Antioch remained for discussion. Now that Meletius was free
to return, some decision had to be made. The Eustathians had been
faithful through thirty years of trouble, and Athanasius was specially
bound to his old friends; yet, on the other hand, some recognition was
due to the honourable confession of Meletius. As the Eustathians had no
bishop, the simplest course was for them to accept Meletius. This was
the desire of the council, and it might have been carried out if Lucifer
had not taken advantage of his stay at Antioch to denounce Meletius as
an associate of Arians. By way of making the division permanent, he
consecrated the presbyter Paulinus as bishop for the Eustathians. When
the mischief was done it could not be undone. Paulinus added his
signature to the decisions of Alexandria, but Meletius was thrown back
on his old connection with Acacius. Henceforth the rising Nicene party
of Pontus and Asia was divided from the older Nicenes of Egypt and Rome
by this unfortunate personal question.
[Sidenote: Fourth exile of Athanasius.]
Julian could not but see that Athanasius was master in Egypt. He may not
have cared about the council, but the baptism of some heathen ladies at
Alexandria roused his fiercest anger. He broke his rule of contemptuous
toleration, and 'the detestable Athanasius' was an exile again before
the summer was over. But his work remained. The leniency of the council
was a great success, notwithstanding the calamity at Antioch. It gave
offence, indeed, to zealots like Lucifer, and may have admitted more
than one unworthy Arianizer. Yet its wisdom is evident. First one
bishop, then another accepted the Nicene faith. Friendly Semiarians came
in like Cyril of Jerusalem, old conservatives followed like Dianius of
the Cappadocian Cæsarea, and at last the arch-heretic Acacius himself
gave in his signature. Even the creeds of the churches were remodelled
in a Nicene interest, as at Jerusalem and Antioch, in Cappadocia and
Mesopotamia.
[Sidenote: The Arians under Julian.]
Nor were the other parties idle. The Homoean coalition was even more
unstable than the Eusebian. Already before the death of Constantius
there had been quarrels over the appointment of Meletius by one section
of the party, of Eunomius by another. The deposition of Aetius was
another bone of contention. Hence the coalition broke up of itself as
soon as men were free to act. Acacius and his friends drew nearer to
Meletius, while Eudoxius and Euzoius talked of annulling the
condemnation of the Anomoean bishops at Constantinople. The Semiarians
were busy too. Guided by Macedonius and Eleusius, the ejected bishops of
Constantinople and Cyzicus, they gradually took up a middle position
between Nicenes and Anomoeans, confessing the Lord's deity with the
one, and denying that of the Holy Spirit with the other. Like true
Legitimists, who had learned nothing and forgotten nothing, they were
satisfied to confirm the Seleucian decisions and re-issue their old
Lucianic creed. Had they ceased to care for the Nicene alliance, or did
they fancy the world had stood still since the Council of the
Dedication?
[Sidenote: Julian's campaign in Persia (Mar. 5 to June 26, 363).]
Meanwhile the Persian war demanded Julian's attention. An emperor so
full of heathen enthusiasm was not likely to forego the dreams of
conquest which had brought so many of his predecessors on the path of
glory in the East. His own part of the campaign was a splendid success.
But when he had fought his way through the desert to the Tigris, he
looked in vain for succours from the north. The Christians of Armenia
would not fight for the apostate Emperor. Julian was obliged to retreat
on Nisibis through a wasted country, and with the Persian cavalry
hovering round. The campaign would have been at best a brilliant
failure, but it was only converted into absolute disaster by the chance
arrow (June 26, 363) which cut short his busy life. After all, he was
only in his thirty-second year.
[Sidenote: Julian's character.]
Christian charity will not delight in counting up the outbreaks of petty
spite and childish vanity which disfigure a noble character of purity
and self-devotion. Still less need we presume to speculate what Julian
would have done if he had returned in triumph from the Persian war. His
bitterness might have hardened into a renegade's malice, or it might
have melted at our Master's touch. But apart from what he might have
done, there is matter for the gravest blame in what he did. The scorner
must not pass unchallenged to the banquet of the just. Yet when all is
said against him, the clear fact remains that Julian lived a hero's
life. Often as he was blinded by his impatience or hurried into
injustice by his heathen prejudice, we cannot mistake a spirit of
self-sacrifice and earnest piety as strange to worldling bishops as to
the pleasure-loving heathen populace. Mysterious and full of tragic
pathos is the irony of God in history, which allowed one of the very
noblest of the emperors to act the part of Jeroboam, and brought the old
intriguer Maris of Chalcedon to cry against the altar like the man of
God from Judah. But Maris was right, for Julian was the blinder of the
two.