JULIAN THE APOSTATE.
The Devotion of Constantine to Christianity.――Constantius and
the Barbarians.――Conspiracy of Magnentius.――The Decisive
Battle.――Decay of Rome.――Fearful Retribution.――Noble Sentiments
of the Bishop of Alexandria.――Death of Constantius.――Gallus
and Julian.――Julian enthroned.――His Apostasy.――His Warfare
against Christianity.――Unavailing Attempt to rebuild Jerusalem.
――Persecution.――His Expedition to the East, and Painful Death.
THE Christian Emperor Constantine, during his reign, issued many
earnest appeals to his subjects, entreating them to abandon paganism,
and embrace Christianity. Heliopolis, in Phœnicia, was a heathen city,
which had surrendered itself to the most degrading and abominable
rites of idolatry. There was not a single known Christian in the city.
The emperor sent workmen to the place, and, at his own expense, erected
a very beautiful church edifice. He then selected several clergymen of
marked ability, and commissioned them to preach the gospel there. At
the same time he placed in the hands of the pastors a large sum of
money for the relief of the poor, saying,――
“I hope that the conversion of the souls of the pagans may be promoted
by doing good to their bodies.”
The most convincing evidence which the community in general can have
of the reality of the Christian religion is to be found in the lives of
its professors. When we compare the Christian Constantine with most of
the pagan emperors who had gone before him, all must be impressed with
the greatness of the change.
The palace is a dangerous place for the education and the training of
children. Constantine had three sons, who bore severally the names of
Constantine, Constantius, and Constans: they were all dissipated. Upon
the death of their father, the empire was divided between them. The
eldest son, Constantine, who was twenty-one years of age, had assigned
to him Spain, Gaul (now France), and all the territory west of the
Alps. Constantius, who was but twenty years old, took Asia and Egypt.
Constans, who had attained but seventeen years, received, as his share,
Italy and Africa.[183]
Constantine the father, with his vigorous arm, had held the barbarians
in check. God had apparently heard his prayers, and had given him the
victory over his enemies. His death was the signal for a general war.
Constantius, in the East, was soon struggling against an inundation
of Tartar tribes. The usual scenes of blood and misery ensued, as the
hostile armies, now in surging waves of victory, now in the refluent
billows of defeat, swept the doomed land.
While Constantius was thus engaged struggling against the barbarians on
the plains of Asia, Constantine was plotting an expedition against his
brother Constans, who was a mere boy, proud, conceited, and incompetent.
But the race is not always to the swift. Constantine, with a large
army, crossed the Julian Alps, and invaded Italy to wrest that kingdom
from his brother. But Constans, whom Constantine had despised, had
able generals. They lured Constantine into an ambush, routed his army,
killed him, and annexed all his realms to the Western empire.
Soon after this, a sturdy general, Magnentius, formed a conspiracy
in the army, killed young Constans, and was proclaimed emperor by the
soldiers. All the Western and Central realms acknowledged him.
Constantius, from the East, put his veteran army in motion, and
advanced from the plains of Mesopotamia to make war upon Magnentius
and to avenge his brother’s death. The whole then known world was
thrown into commotion by this strife, which was to decide who should be
master of this world. War and woe held high carnival. There were famine,
pestilence, and death, smouldering towns, blood-stained fields covered
with the slain, and despairing shrieks of widows and orphans.
The hostile armies met in vast numbers on the River Drave, not far
from its entrance into the Danube. It was one of those battles which
was to decide the fate of the world. Constantius, aware of the military
ability of his antagonist, wisely, but not heroically, retired to
the tower of a church where he could overlook the field. He left the
conduct of the day to one of his veteran generals.
A fiercer battle than that which ensued was perhaps never fought. Roman
and barbarian legions were intermingled, blending in the fight. The
air was darkened with stones, arrows, and javelins. Clouds of horsemen,
glittering in their polished armor, swept the field like moving statues
of steel, trampling the dead and wounded beneath iron hoofs. Night
terminated the conflict.
The army of Magnentius, overpowered by numbers, was almost annihilated.
Fifty-four thousand were left dead upon the field. They sold their
lives dearly. A still greater number of the troops of Constantius lay
drenched in blood by their side. Over a hundred and twenty thousand
perished in this one battle. Thus did Rome, in civil strife, devour her
own children. Thus was the way opened for the irruption and triumph of
the barbarians.
In the darkness of night, Magnentius, throwing aside his imperial
mantle, mounted a fleet horse, and, accompanied by a few friends,
attempted to escape through the Julian Alps. He reached the city of
Aquileia, at the head of the Adriatic Sea, not far from the present
city of Trieste. Here, amidst the pathless defiles of the mountains,
he rallied his surviving troops around him, and made another stand.
But city after city abandoned his cause, and raised the banner of the
victorious Constantius. He then fled to Gaul. Constantius vigorously
pursued him. At length, hedged in on every side, the wretched
Magnentius, in despair, terminated his life by falling upon his own
sword. He thus obtained an easier death than he could have hoped for
from his foe.
Thus was the whole Roman world again brought under the sway of a
single sovereign. Constantius, the son of Constantine the Great,
reigned without a rival, from the western shores of Britain to the
River Tigris, and from the unexplored realms of Central Germany to
the interior of Africa. But over these wide realms there was nowhere
happiness or peace. The benevolence of God seemed to be thwarted by the
wickedness of mankind.
The Goths, in merciless bands, were sweeping over Gaul, leaving the
path behind them crimsoned with blood, and blackened with smouldering
ruins. Germanic tribes, pitiless as wolves, were flocking across the
Danube, darkening the air with the smoke of burning villages, and
rending the skies with the shrieks of their victims. From the vast
plains of Tartary, bands of shaggy monsters, fierce as the beasts which
roamed their wilds, came rushing across the eastern frontier into the
war-scathed empire. There was peace nowhere. Every day brought its
battles and its woes.
The ancient city of Rome, no longer the capital of the empire, was now
crumbling to decay. Constantius, from curiosity, visited it. He found
the population still immense, and was received by the inhabitants with
great enthusiasm. The imperial palace which he occupied had entertained
no royal guest for thirty-two years. After spending a month in the city,
admiring the monuments of genius and art which were spread over the
seven hills, he was suddenly recalled to meet an appalling irruption
of the barbarians from the Danube. They were ravaging that wide and
beautiful valley with every conceivable atrocity, and had already
captured many thousand Romans,――men, women, and children,――whom they
were carrying as slaves into their inaccessible wilds. Among these
prisoners were men of the highest rank, and ladies of refinement and
beauty.
Constantius placed himself at the head of a veteran army, and pursued
the barbarians with such vigor as to compel them to drop many of their
captives and much of their plunder, and to retreat in confusion to
their forest-glades. He then turned his legions towards the east, and
hurried along by forced marches towards the River Euphrates. Here a
barbarian chieftain, called Sapor, was ravaging Mesopotamia with an
army of a hundred thousand savage men from the wilds of Tartary.
The Roman emperor was prosecuting with great vigor this arduous
campaign, when he heard the tidings of a revolt in Gaul, and that
the army there had proclaimed its general as emperor. Burning with
rage, he commenced a rapid march with his legions towards the west,
when he was seized with violent sickness which arrested his steps.
While languishing on a bed of pain, with the sceptre of imperial power
crumbling in his hands, and death staring him in the face, the sins of
his life rose appallingly before him. It soon became manifest that his
earthly career was drawing to a close.
Constantius had been politically in favor of Christianity as the
religion of the State. He regarded the pagan party as his political
enemy. Destitute himself of the spirit of Christianity, he commenced
the unrelenting persecution of his pagan adversaries, confiscating
their property, and sending them to the rack, the dungeon, and the
stake.
It is remarkable all through history, how, under the government of
God, there seems to be developed a system of retribution. We ever meet
that principle in the biography of individuals, and in the vicissitudes
of nations. The pagans had persecuted the Christians with cruelty
which demons could not have surpassed; and now God allowed a bad
man, a Christian in name only, to torture the pagans with the same
weapons which they had so pitilessly wielded. It is a fact, which every
Christian will read with pleasure, that the true disciples of Jesus
remonstrated against this retaliation. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria,
earnestly expostulating, wrote,――
“When men resort to persecution, it is evident that they want
confidence in their own faith. Satan, because there is no truth in him,
pays away with hatchet and sword. The Saviour is so gentle, that he
only says, ‘Whosoever will, let him be my disciple.’ He forces none. He
knocks at the door of the soul, and says, ‘Open to me, my sister.’ If
the door is opened, he goes in. It is the character of true piety not
to force, but to convince.”
The emperor was influenced by political considerations only. He
regarded the pagan party simply as his antagonists, who sought his
overthrow that they might grasp the reins of power. In co-operation
with his court, he ordered the demolition of their temples, and
directed all the energies of fire and sword to the demolition of the
idolaters. Thus the flames of persecution, which once consumed the
Christians, now blazed almost as fiercely in wrapping the pagans in
their fiery folds.
Such was the condition of the world towards the close of the fourth
century. Christianity had undermined all the temples of idolatry,
and was enthroned as the established religion of the Roman empire.
Ambitious men rallied about it as a great political power. Wicked men
nominally embraced it as an essential step to worldly advancement.
Christianity had thus, perhaps, more to fear from favoritism than from
persecution. Unprincipled men, grasping at wealth and power, embraced
Christianity merely as an instrument for the promotion of their own
temporal aggrandizement. They hated its spiritual teachings, and
endeavored to make it a religion of dead doctrines and of pompous
ceremonies, rather than a rule to govern heart and life. They crucified
Christianity while crowning it.
Lured by hopes of court favor and preferment, many who were still in
heart pagans had hypocritically professed Christianity. Corruption thus
crept into the Church. To conciliate the ignorant idolatrous populace,
and to lure them into the Christian churches, the pomp and pageantry of
pagan rites were introduced to supplant the unostentatious and simple
ordinances of the gospel. Hence the origin of those theatric shows
which are still the prominent features in the worship of the Church
at Rome.
The death-bed of Constantius was that of an awakened and despairing
sinner. He had been a wicked man. He had known his duty; for he had
enjoyed the teachings of a Christian father. He had also heard the
faithful preaching of the gospel.
Death brings all to the same level: the emperor and his humblest slave
are upon an equality in that dread hour. As one reads the record of the
remorse of the dying Constantius, he may say,――
“By many a death-bed I have been,
By many a sinner’s parting scene,
But never aught like this.”
As the moment drew near when his spirit, leaving the body, was to
be transported to God’s bar, he trembled, and cried aloud for mercy.
He gathered the most devout of the clergy around his bedside, and
entreated them to pray for him.
Professing heart-felt repentance, the dying monarch implored that the
rite of baptism and that of the Lord’s Supper might be administered to
him. He received both of these ordinances, and still found but little
peace. There are doubtless death-bed repentances; but they are very
rare. It is only by living the life of the righteous that one can
expect to know by blessed experience what it is “sweetly to fall asleep
in Jesus.” Trembling, hoping, despairing, the imperial sinner passed
away into the vast unknown.
How deep is the shade of melancholy which lingers around these sad
recitals! Where now are those monarchs who once ruled the world?
Where now are the soldiers of those thronging armies, which, fourteen
centuries ago, swept the nations with billows of flame and blood?
And where shall we all be when a few more of these fleeting years shall
have passed away? Is it wise to live for this world alone, when life
is such a vapor, and when we are so soon to be ushered into the dread
scenes of eternity? There is a voice, solemn as the grave, coming up to
us from all these past ages, saying, “Prepare to meet thy God.”
“The sun is but a spark of fire,
A transient meteor in the sky:
The soul, immortal as its Sire,
Shall never die.”
The three sons of Constantine the Great were now dead. Neither of
them left a male heir. Constantius had two cousins, of whom, during
his whole life, he had always stood in great dread, lest they should
aspire to the crown. He had caused them both to be arrested and
imprisoned. Though thus held as captives, they were bound, as it were,
with golden chains. A magnificent palace was assigned them, where they
were provided with every luxury. They were, however, closely guarded,
not being allowed to leave the spacious grounds of the palace. They
were permitted to see such company only as the emperor would admit to
their presence.
At length, Constantius had appointed Gallus, the elder of these
brothers, viceroy of the Eastern empire. Gallus took up his residence
at Antioch, and immediately released his brother Julian, and received
him at his court. Constantius, in a fit of jealousy and rage, caused
Gallus to be assassinated. He also re-arrested Julian, and confined
him for seven months in a castle at Milan, where the imprisoned
prince daily expected to meet the doom of his brother. Through the
intercession of Eusebia, the wife of Constantius, the life of Julian
was spared. He was sent into honorable exile to the city of Athens.
Julian had from childhood developed unusual scholarly and philosophic
tastes. In the groves of the Academy at Athens he had devoted himself
assiduously to the cultivation of Greek literature. When Constantius
set out on his military expedition to the Euphrates, he named Julian
as his heir to the throne, and also directed him to take charge of
an army to beat back the barbarians who were ravaging the Valley of
the Danube and the Rhine. As Julian, the man of books, the bashful,
retiring scholar, received this appointment, he exclaimed, “O Plato,
Plato! what a task for a philosopher!”
Julian, enamoured of the classic literature of Greece and Rome, had
become an actual worshipper at the idolatrous shrines of the pagans.
He loved poetic dreamings, and revelled in the wild mythology of his
ancestors. He was just one of those men whom we now politely call
_conservative men_, or, more irreverently, _old fogies_. He clung to
ancient superstitions and rotten abuses, and was quite opposed to the
innovations and reforms which Christianity would introduce.
But suddenly he developed traits of character which surprised every one.
He entered the camp, shared the coarse food and the hardships of the
meanest soldiers, and developed military ability of the highest order.
At Strasburg on the Rhine, in command of but thirteen thousand men,
he assailed, and after a terrific battle put to flight, thirty-five
thousand of the fiercest barbarians of the North. In the heat of this
hard-fought battle, six hundred Roman cuirassiers, overpowered by
the enemy, in a panic fled. Julian punished them by dressing them in
women’s robes, and marching them along his lines amidst the derision
of the whole army.
He crossed the Danube with his heroic troops, and advanced boldly into
the almost unknown regions of the north, cutting down the German tribes
mercilessly before him. He liberated, and restored to their homes,
twenty thousand Roman captives who had been carried off as slaves into
these wilds.
Julian, on his return from this successful expedition, repaired to
Paris for his winter quarters. Three centuries before this time, Julius
Cæsar had found this now-renowned city a mere collection of fishermen’s
huts on a small island in the Seine. It was called Lutetia, which
signified _The Place of Mire_. Since then the wretched little village
had gradually increased. The small, marshy island had become entirely
covered with houses. Two wooden bridges connected it with the shore.
Julian was much pleased with the place, and built him a palace there.
Constantius was at this time in the Valley of the Euphrates,
contending, as we have mentioned, against Sapor. He became jealous
of the renown which Julian was acquiring. To weaken him, and thus to
prevent his gaining any more victories, he ordered a large portion of
his army to be withdrawn from Gaul, and sent to the Euphrates. Julian
easily induced his soldiers to refuse to go. Clashing their weapons,
they rallied around their commander, and, with loud huzzas, declared
him to be their emperor.
Constantius, foaming with rage, put his army in motion to march to Gaul
for the destruction of his rival. He had but reached Tarsus in Cilicia,
the birthplace of the apostle Paul, when he died.
Such was the history of Julian before his assumption of the imperial
diadem. He was at the head of his army, just entering the defiles of
the Alps, hurrying to meet Constantius in battle, when he heard the
welcome tidings of his death. Julian was then thirty-two years of age.
With great eagerness he pressed on to Constantinople, where he was
crowned emperor on the 11th of December, 361.
This extraordinary man now resolved to restore paganism, and to
abolish and utterly annihilate Christianity. Publicly, and with
imposing ceremonies, he made a renunciation of the Christian religion,
and committed himself to the care of the pagan gods. As the conversion
of the Emperor Constantine was one of the most signal events in the
history of the Church, so was the apostasy of the Emperor Julian one
of the memorable events in the history of mankind. A bolder act of
infidelity and atheism has perhaps never been recorded in the annals
of our race.
Even the infidel Gibbon, in allusion to it, and to the inveterate zeal
with which Julian persecuted the Christians, quotes the soul-stirring
words of Milton in reference to the apostate angel Satan, as from
hell’s dark domains he winged his flight for the seduction and ruin of
our race:――
“So eagerly the Fiend
O’er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”
Thus Julian pressed on inexorably till death, endeavoring to crush
the religion of Jesus, and to reinstate the gorgeous but senseless
mummeries of paganism. Intellectually, Julian was a remarkable man
both in native vigor of mind and in rich mental culture. Those portions
of his works which have descended to us prove that he possessed talent,
wit, and rhetorical ease and fluency. It seems as though God allowed
such men to assail Christianity, that it might be seen that the
religion of Jesus could triumph over the highest intelligence combined
with unlimited despotic power.
It is recorded that Julian possessed among other mental marvels such
flexibility of thought and abstract power of attention, that he could
employ his hand to write, his ear to listen, and his voice to dictate,
at one and the same time. During the long winter evenings, he devoted
himself with tireless malignity to writing a book against Christianity.
This treatise left but little which modern unbelief could add.
To prove that paganism could make as good men as Christianity could
make, Julian adopted the most austere morals, rigidly abstaining from
those vices which characterized the times. He despised the pomp of
royalty, discarded all luxuries, slept on the ground, and partook
only of the most frugal fare. Indeed, he went so far in the spirit
of eccentricity, fanaticism, and superstition, as to renounce the
decencies of dress and the laws of cleanliness. He deemed it an act of
piety to be filthy in person, and to allow vermin to devour him. In one
of his letters, boasting of his superior piety, he descants with pride
upon the length of his finger-nails, the dirtiness of his unwashed
hands, and the shagginess and _populousness_ of his beard.
Julian repaired and garnished the idol temples, and reinstated pagan
worship in the palace with all conceivable splendor. Every effort was
made to render idolatry fashionable and popular by gorgeous parades and
court patronage. The emperor himself often officiated as a priest at
these polluted shrines. The churches were robbed of their property.
Christians were ejected from all lucrative and honorable offices, and
their places supplied by pagans. The Christian schools were broken up,
and the children of Christians denied all education save in the schools
of the idolaters.
Jesus had predicted that the temple at Jerusalem should be destroyed,
and should never again be rebuilt. Julian resolved to rebuild the
temple, and thus prove Christ to be a false prophet. He endeavored to
arouse the enthusiasm of the Jews in the undertaking, and called upon
the pagan and Christian world to witness the accomplishment of the
enterprise. Under these circumstances, he put forth all the energies
which imperial power placed in his hands, and utterly, utterly failed.
The fact stands forth as one of the most remarkable in history,
avowed by Christians, and admitted by pagans, that the Roman emperor
Julian could not rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. It is stated by
authority which no one has been able to controvert, that the workmen
were terrified and driven away by phenomena which they certainly
regarded as supernatural. Even infidelity cannot subvert the testimony
which sustains this narrative. The fact is recorded by Ambrose, Bishop
of Milan, by the eloquent Chrysostom of Antioch, by the renowned
Gregory Nazianzen, and by the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus,
who declares that no one disputed the fact. He writes,――
“While Alphius, assisted by the governor of the province, urged with
vigor and diligence the execution of the work, horrible balls of fire
breaking out near the foundations, with frequent and reiterated attacks,
rendered the place from time to time inaccessible to the scorched and
blasted workmen; and the victorious element continuing in this manner,
absolutely and resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance,
the work was abandoned.”
The statement is confirmed by many witnesses without contradiction. The
fiercest storms beat upon the workmen. Bolts of lightning descended,
destroying the works. Earthquakes shook the foundations, and volcanic
flames burst up through the yawning crevices. The enterprise thus
commenced in an impious spirit Julian was compelled to abandon. A
well-read scholar, he knew that open persecution, imprisonment, torture,
and death had utterly failed in arresting the progress of Christianity.
He resolved to try the influence of insult and contempt. He hoped, by
dooming the disciples of Jesus to ignorance and poverty, to paralyze
their energies.
The rich and powerful pagans, as well as the low and vulgar, thus
encouraged by the example of the king and the court, began to assail
the Christians with new malignity. The disciples were everywhere
insulted, persecuted, mobbed. To call one a Christian became the
severest term of reproach.
Then, as now, there were vast multitudes who had no independent
faith of their own. These unthinking ones drifted along with the
popular current. Julian condescended himself to write lampoons against
Christianity. In one of these, ridiculing the Christian doctrine, that
any man who repents of sin and trusts in the Saviour may be forgiven,
he represents, in a satire entitled “The Cæsars,” his Christian uncle,
the Emperor Constantine, going on a mission to the shades of the
infernals. There the emperor gathers around him all the foul fiends
of the pit, and, addressing them, says,――
“Whoever is a profligate, a murderer, a guilty man of any kind, let
him come boldly to me: I will wash him in the water of baptism, and
make him instantly pure. And should you fall into the same crime again,
and only beat your breast, and say, ‘I am sorry,’ you shall again be
perfectly holy.”
It would be difficult anywhere to find a more interesting illustration
of the fact, that there is often but a hair’s breadth between the most
debasing error and the most ennobling truth. The Christian doctrine
of forgiveness through repentance, and trust in the atonement, which
our Saviour has made, very nearly resembles this burlesque of the
doctrine as uttered by Julian; and yet one is true, and the other
false. Salvation through faith in the sufferings and death of Jesus
is described by the pen of inspiration as “the mighty power of God”
for the redemption of a lost world. What is the Christian doctrine of
forgiveness through faith in Jesus? It is this:――
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, has made atonement for all sin upon the
cross of Calvary. Whoever now will abandon sin, trust in this Saviour,
and earnestly and prayerfully commence the Christlike life, persevering
to the end, shall be forgiven.
Now, how small is the _verbal_ difference between this Christian
doctrine of salvation through faith in an atoning Saviour and Julian’s
gross perversion of that only truth by which a sinner may be saved!
Some may wonder how it was possible for such a man as Julian, highly
educated, and endowed by nature with great intellectual abilities,
to advocate idol worship. The following extracts from a treatise of
instructions which he drew up for the use of the pagan priests will
show with how much plausibility such a man could argue in support of a
bad cause:――
“Let no one accuse us,” he says, “of holding the gods to be wood, stone,
brass. When we look at the images of the gods, we ought not to see in
them stone and wood, neither ought we to see the gods themselves.
“Whoever loves the emperor is pleased with beholding his image; whoever
loves his child delights in the picture of his child. So whoever loves
the gods looks with pleasure on their images, penetrated with awe
towards those invisible beings who look down upon him.”
This was the subtle philosophy of paganism. It was a philosophy which
the unlettered populace did not attempt to comprehend. The masses
of the people saw in their gods but wood, stone, and brass. In the
worship of these idols, they had a religion which exerted no beneficial
influence upon the morals or the heart. And here reflect for a moment
upon a fact which no intelligent man will call in question.
In the whole history of the world, not an individual can be found who
ever renounced infidelity, and sincerely embraced Christianity, who has
not been made a better man by the change; and, on the other hand, not a
single instance can be found of one who has renounced Christianity, and
embraced infidelity, who has not been made a worse man by the change.
The Bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, was one of the most illustrious
men of his age. He was profoundly learned, a zealous Christian, an
eloquent preacher, and one whose unblemished virtues commanded the
respect of all. His success as a preacher exasperated Julian to the
highest degree. Moreover, he was so beloved in Alexandria by his flock,
and by the whole community, that it was not easy to strike him with the
weapons of persecution. Even the governor of Alexandria hesitated to
obey the decree of the infuriated emperor, and to drive Athanasius from
a people by whom he was so highly respected and ardently beloved. At
length, the emperor, receiving the tidings of some new conversions to
Christianity through the eloquence of Athanasius, in his wrath wrote to
the governor as follows:――
“I swear by the great Serapis, that, unless Athanasius is driven from
Alexandria before December, you shall be severely punished. You know
my temper. The contempt which is shown for the gods in Alexandria fills
me with indignation. There is nothing I desire more than the banishment
of Athanasius. The abominable wretch! Through his preaching several
Grecian ladies of high rank have become Christians, and have been
baptized.”
Athanasius was banished. After the death of Julian, he returned. This
good old man, having attained the age of eighty years, died in the year
393. His life was one of the most eventful in the history of the Church.
Nobly he fought the battle, and passed from the stern conflict to the
victor’s crown.
“Athanasius is one of the greatest men of whom the Church can boast.
His deep mind, his noble heart, his invincible courage, his living
faith, his unbounded benevolence, sincere humility, lofty eloquence,
and strictly virtuous life, gained the honor and love of all.”[184]
Julian had been thoroughly instructed in Christianity. He had been
nominally a Christian. He had deliberately apostatized from the faith,
with the determination to reinstate paganism. He consecrated all the
resources of his brilliant mind to invest paganism with some of the
intellectual grace and dignity of Christianity. To rescue paganism from
the contempt into which it had fallen, he endeavored to introduce into
the idol worship some of the moral elements which he had purloined from
the teachings of Jesus. In one of the attacks of this envenomed foe
upon Christianity, he unwittingly uttered the noblest eulogy upon the
early Christians.
“As children,” he wrote, “are coaxed with cake, so have these
Christians enticed the poor to join them by kindness. Strangers they
have secured by hospitality. By affecting brotherly love, great moral
purity, and honoring their dead, they have won the multitude.”
This is a beautiful tribute to the character of the early disciples of
our Saviour from the pen of a foe. Julian gave the idolatrous priests
the excellent advice, to endeavor to win the people back to the pagan
shrines by the same measures. He distributed large sums of money among
the priests to aid them in their work. In his earnest appeal to them,
he says that the pagan poor obtained no assistance from their own
people; while the Christians support all of their own poor, and assist
also many of those who worship the gods.
The idols were reinstated, with great ceremonial pomp, in temples from
which they had disappeared. The unstable populace, ever swinging to and
fro, and naturally inclined to a religion which demanded no holiness
either of heart or life, drifted over in large numbers to the pagan
party. In one of Julian’s appeals in behalf of the gods, he wrote,――
“I am a worshipper of the God of Abraham, who is _a_ great and mighty
God. You Christians do not follow Abraham: you erect no altars to his
God, neither do you worship him as Abraham did with sacrifices.”
Julian was perfectly willing to place the statue of Jehovah, as one of
the gods, by the side of Jupiter and Bacchus and Diana and Venus. In
his zeal against Christianity, he endeavored to revive ancient Judaism.
He had invited the Jews to co-operate with him in his unavailing
attempt to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem. He even stooped to ignoble
trickery, that he might put a moral compulsion upon the Christians to
do homage to the idols.
The emperor’s statue stood in all public places. It was customary for
every one, in passing, to bow to it as to the emperor. Julian placed
by the side of his statue, in closest proximity, several statues of the
gods. Thus no one could respectfully bow the head to the image of the
emperor without apparently doing homage to the idols. Not to bow to the
statue of the emperor was a penal offence. Thus, and in many other ways
too numerous to mention, Julian the apostate endeavored to reinstate
paganism.
But all the artifice and imperial power of Julian could not restore
a religion which had no elevated doctrines of theology, no ennobling
principles of morality, which presented no lofty motives of action, and
which unfolded no realms of a glorious immortality beyond the grave.
It is a necessity of man’s nature that Christianity should finally
triumph; for the religion of Jesus alone meets and satisfies the
deepest yearnings of the human soul: it inspires to purity of life and
to noble deeds as nothing else conceivable can inspire; it irradiates
the realms beyond the grave with light and love and eternal joy; it is
indeed good news,――glad tidings to all people.
Many attempts have been made to build up Christian virtues without
Christian principles. All such efforts have failed. Human passion is
so strong in its bias to sin, that it can be restrained by no power
less potent than the gospel of Jesus Christ. The doctrine of the cross,
though to the Jew a stumbling-block and to the Greek foolishness, is,
to them that are saved, the wisdom of God and the power of God.
Every year, Julian grew more inveterate and malignant in his
hostility to Christianity. The city of Antioch, in Syria, was the
capital of Asia Minor. Paul had long and successfully preached the
gospel in that city; and, under the Emperor Constantine, every vestige
of paganism had disappeared from its temples and its streets. Julian
made strenuous efforts to re-establish pagan rites in Antioch. He
reared an idol temple in the vicinity of a Christian burying-ground,
and then ordered the bodies of the Christians to be removed from their
graves, as polluting the soil which the idol temple rendered sacred to
the pagan gods.
The Christians met to transfer, in solemn procession, the remains of
their honored dead to another burial-place. With united voice they
chanted the ninety-seventh Psalm, which calls upon the heathen deities
to prostrate themselves before the majesty of Jehovah:――
“The Lord reigneth: let the earth rejoice;
Let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof.
Confounded be all they that serve graven images,
That boast themselves of idols.
Worship him, all ye gods.”
Julian, in his exasperation, caused the arrest of several of the most
prominent of these Christians, and sentenced them to the severest
punishments. One young man, Theodosius, was subjected to the utmost
extremity of torture. He bore the agony with such fortitude as to
excite the admiration of the pagans.
While Julian was thus breathing threatenings and slaughter against the
Church, he was summoned to the frontiers of Persia, where a terrible
invasion was menacing the empire. Persia had gradually risen into a
military power which threatened to assume independence.
The country between the Euphrates and the Tigris, called Mesopotamia,
or _between the rivers_, consisted of a region about five hundred
miles long and fifty wide. It was an exceedingly fertile plain. The
inhabitants called themselves Assyrians. Being wealthy and numerous,
and far distant from the central power of Rome, they had not only
raised the banner of revolt against the empire, but had sent large
armies across the Euphrates, which ravaged the adjacent provinces, and
returned enriched with plunder and slaves.
To bring these Assyrians again into subjection to the Roman power,
Julian commenced a campaign against them. He took with him sixty-five
thousand veteran Roman soldiers and a vast body of Scythian auxiliaries
and roving Arabs. Eleven hundred barges crowded the Euphrates, to float
down the stream the emperor’s ponderous engines of war and his military
supplies.
These boats, flat-bottomed, were easily converted into pontoon-bridges.
As this immense army crossed the Euphrates, and entered Assyria, Julian
gathered the whole body around him, and, with the most imposing rites
of pagan religion, offered sacrifices to the pagan gods, appealing
to them for aid in his enterprise. The appeal, for a time, seemed not
to be in vain. Signal success accompanied his arms. City after city
fell before the terrible power of the Roman legions. The trail of the
victorious army was marked by smouldering ruins and blood.
Maogamalcha was one of the most important cities of this Assyrian realm.
The wolfish Roman legions burst through the gates. Every conceivable
outrage was inflicted upon the wretched inhabitants, and then they were
consigned to indiscriminate massacre. The governor of the city was
burned alive. There were in the suburbs three palaces, enriched with
every thing which could minister to the pride of an Eastern monarch.
Palaces, gardens, parks, statuary, paintings,――all were reduced to
utter ruin.
The devastation of a palace creates much emotion; but it is the burning
of the cottage, of which history takes such little notice, which fills
the world with weeping and woe. Julian became such a terror to this
whole region, that the painters of the nation represented him as a
lion vomiting fire. And yet this same man seemed to have his appetites
and passions under perfect control: he was quite free from many of
those vices which degrade humanity; he shared all the hardships of the
soldiers, often traversing with them, on foot, the burning plains.
But ere long the heathen gods, whose aid he had implored, and upon
whom he had relied, seemed to abandon him. He was led to adopt the most
insane measures, which could only result in his ruin. Troubles gathered
thickly around him. He became so harassed with anxiety, that he could
not sleep. One night, in troubled dreams, or in a revery, an angel
appeared before him weeping, and covered with a funereal veil.
The superstitious monarch, affrighted, rushed from his tent. It was
midnight. The camp was silent. The stars of Mesopotamia shone down
sadly upon the apostate. Suddenly a brilliant meteor shot athwart the
sky. To the superstitious pagan it was a menace from the god of war,
indicating defeat.
At break of day the trumpets suddenly sounded, summoning the soldiers
to repel an attack from the foe springing by surprise upon them.
It was a sultry summer’s morning: not a breath of air mitigated the
overpowering heat. Julian, as he rushed to the field, laid aside his
cuirass. A cloud of arrows and javelins fell upon him. A barbed javelin,
lined with sharp inlaid blades of steel, grazed his arm, pierced his
ribs, and, with its keen point, penetrated deeply the liver of the
monarch. Frantic with pain, Julian seized the weapon, and endeavored to
wrench it out. In the attempt, his hands were severely lacerated by the
blades. Bleeding, fainting, he fell senseless to the ground.
His guards bore his inanimate body from the tumult of the battle to a
neighboring tent. It was some time before he awoke to consciousness.
The blood was gushing from the wound. It was evident to Julian, and to
all others, that he must soon die. Grasping a handful of the crimson
gore, he flung it madly toward the heavens, as if conscious that Jesus
was reigning there, and exclaimed, “O Galilean! thou hast conquered.”
The current of life was now fast ebbing, and death was manifestly
near at hand. The wretched Julian made a faint attempt to rally to his
support his pagan philosophy.
“I have lived,” he said, “without any sin. I am not afraid to die. My
soul is now to be absorbed into the ethereal substance of the universe.”
Thus he died. At midnight, the spirit of Julian the apostate ascended
to the judgment-seat of Christ. This sad record suggests a few obvious
thoughts, to which we cannot refrain from directing the attention of
our readers:――
1. The experience of eighteen centuries seems to prove that the
final triumph of Christianity is certain. Every weapon raised against
Christianity has failed. Argument has exhausted its most profound
efforts. Persecution has in vain expended all its energies of torture,
dungeons, flames, and death. Though there are men now who hate the
religion of Jesus, who oppose it in every possible way,――some by direct
hostility, and some by neglect,――still Christianity was never before so
potent as now. Never before has it exerted so controlling an influence
over the hearts and lives of men. Its power has steadily increased with
the lapsing centuries.
2. It is obvious that the triumph of Christianity will not be a triumph
in which all the enemies of Christianity will become its friends: its
persistent enemies will perish. Satan may never be converted; but he
will be held in chains. Julian died hurling defiance at Jesus Christ:
he may forever remain thus obdurate; but he will never again have it
in his power to persecute the Christians. Julian is immortal: he is as
free now to love or hate as he was fourteen centuries ago. God never
robs his intelligent creatures of the freedom of the will. But those
who remain unrelenting can never be permitted to mar, by their malice,
the joys of heaven.
3. There are in this world, probably in the wide universe of God, but
two parties,――those who are the friends of Christ, and those who are
not his friends. To this solemn truth we must ever come. “He that is
not with me is against me,”[185] says Christ. One’s love for Christ may
not be fully developed; one’s rejection of Christ may exist in a latent
state: but the germs of love or rejection are in every soul; every one
is in heart either with Constantine or Julian.
4. Death is to all alike the same sublime event. There is something
awful in the death of Julian. The tumult and the uproar of the battle
rage around him; the blood gushes from his lacerated veins. But death
itself is an event so sublime, that all its surroundings are of but
little moment. It is the one thing, the one only thing, of which every
person is sure. No matter when, where, or how, death comes: to leave
this world forever; to go to the judgment-seat of Christ; to hear the
sentence, “Welcome, ye blessed!” or “Depart, ye cursed!” and then to
enter upon eternity, a happy spirit in heaven, or a lost spirit in
hell,――this is an event so transcendently sublime, that its accidental
accompaniments are scarcely worthy of a thought.