508 JULIAN'S EARLY DOUBTS. [CH. XXIIL the eastern bishops, the incessant alterations of their creeds, and the profane motives which appeared to actuate their conduct, insensibly strengthened the prejudice of Julian, that they neither understood nor believed the religion for which they so fiercely contended. Instead of listening to the proofs of Christianity with that favourable attention which adds weight to the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of the prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the advocate of Paganism, under the specious excuse that, in the defence of the weaker cause, his learning and ingenuity might be more advantageously exercised and displayed. As soon as Gallus was invested with the honours of the purple, Julian was permitted to breathe the air of freedom, espe towered by the very side of the throne, offensively obtruding rival pretensions and asserting a divine right to the allegiance of subinissive believers. The dark colouring which this threw over his view of Christianity has not escaped the observation of some, who have studied his motives. Foremost among them, according to Eckhel (viii, 180), were his "ingestum odium episcoporum ejus ætatis," and "; "aliquorum non ferenda ambitio." Neander, too (Hist. iii, 82), says, Julian hated especially the bishops;" and (Emp. Jul. p. 132) marks the " cial distinction between Julian's conduct to the Christians in general and his behaviour to the bishops," admitting also that the latter "forgot the duties which they owed to the supreme magistrate." Even Warburton (Julian, p. 24) cannot deny, that "their turbulent and insolent manners deserved all the severity of his justice." Gibbon (c. 25) quotes from Ammianus (1. 27, c. 3) a description of their pomp and luxury, surpassing regal grandeur. To annihilate their power and humble their pride, was the chief object of Julian's proceedings. To weaken them, by affording more frequent opportunities for discord. he allowed those to return from banishment who had been expelled during the former predominance of an adverse sect; but he sent back into exile, Athanasius, who was ruling at Alexandria, with a sway more absolute than his own. Nor was it inconsistent with this, that in his epistle to the high-priest of the Galatians, he should recommend him and his colleagues, to "take a lesson from the Christian bishops and assert a dignity superior to all earthly rank." He saw daily befere him the power acquired by a regularly organized priesthood, and his project was, to establish a countervailing influence, of which be, as Pontifex Maximus, would be the recognized and directing head. This confirmed his pre-conceived dislike of a church that could produce CH. XXIII.] HIS LEANING TO PAGANISM. 509 of literature, and of Paganism. The crowd of sophists, who were attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had formed a strict alliance between the learning and the religion of Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses. The deities of Olympus, as they are painted by the immortal bard, imprint themselves on the minds which are the least addicted to superstitious credulity. Our familiar knowledge of their names and characters, their forms and attributes, seems to bestow on those airy beings a real and substantial existence; and the pleasing enchantment produces an imperfect and momentary assent of the imagination to those fables, which are the most repugnant to our reason and experience. In the age of Julian, every circumstance contributed to prolong and fortify the illusion; the magnificent temples of Greece and Asia; the works of those artists who had expressed, in painting or in sculpture, the divine conceptions of the poet; the pomp of festivals and sacrifices; the successful arts of divination; the popular traditions of oracles and prodigies; and the ancient practice of two thousand years. The weakness of polytheism was, in some measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with the most licentious scepticism.+ Instead of an indivisible and regular system, which occupies the whole extent of the believing mind, the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose and flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest dimensions; and, by a strange contradiction, he disdained the salutary yoke of the gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. One of the orations of Julian is consecrated to the honour such chiefs, and aggravated in his eyes the folly of their verbal distinctions, the fury of their disputatious strife, and the ferocity of their mutual persecutions.--ED.] * Libanius, Orat. Parentalis, c. 9, 10, p. 232, &c. Greg. Nazianzen, Orat. 3, p. 61. Eunap. Vit. Sophist. in Maximo, p. 68-70. edit. Commelin. A modern philosopher has ingeniously compared the different operations of theism and poly. theism, with regard to the doubt or conviction which they produce in 510 JULIANS INTERPRETATIONS [CH. XXIII. of Cybele, the mother of the gods, who required from her effeminate priests the bloody sacrifice so rashly performed by the madness of the Phrygian boy. The pious emperor condescends to relate, without a blush, and without a smile, the voyage of the goddess from the shores of Pergamus to the mouth of the Tiber; and the stupendous miracle, which convinced the senate and people of Rome that the lump of clay, which their ambassadors had transported over the seas, was endowed with life and sentiment and divine power. For the truth of this prodigy, he appeals to the public monuments of the city; and censures, with some acrimony, the sickly and affected taste of those men who impertinently derided the sacred traditions of their ancestors.t But the devout philosopher, who sincerely embraced, and warmly encouraged, the superstition of the people, reserved for himself the privilege of a liberal interpretation; and silently withdrew from the foot of the altars into the sanctuary of the temple. The extravagance of the Grecian mythology proclaimed with a clear and audible voice, that the pious inquirer, instead of being scandalized or satisfied with the literal sense, should diligently explore the occult wisdom, which had been disguised, by the prudence of antiquity, under the mask of folly and of fable. The philosophers of the Platonic school,§ Plotinus, Porphyry, and the divine Iamblicus, were admired as the most skilful the human mind. See Hume's Essays, vol. ii, p. 444-457, in 8vo edit. 1777. * The Idæan mother landed in Italy about the end of the second Punic war. The miracle of Claudia, either virgin or matron, who cleared her fame by disgracing the graver modesty of the Roman ladies, is attested by a cloud of witnesses. Their evidence is collected by Drakenborch; (ad Silium Italicum, 17. 33,) but we may observe that Livy (29. 14) slides over the transaction with discreet ambiguity. + See + I cannot refrain from transcribing the emphatical words of Julian. Ἐμοὶ δὲ δοκεῖ ταῖς πόλεσι πιστεύειν μᾶλλον τὰ τοιαῦτα, ἢ τουτοισὶ τοῖς κομψοῖς, ὧν τὸ ψυχάριον δριμὺ μὲν, υγιὲς δὲ οὐδὲ ἓν βλέπει. Orat. 5, p. 161. Julian likewise declares is £rm belief in the ancilia, the holy shields, which dropped from heaven on the Quirinal hill; and pities the strange blindness of the Christians who preferred the cross to these celestial trophies. Apud Cyril. 1. 6, p. 194. the principles of allegory, in Julian (Orat. 7, p. 216. 222). His reasoning is less absurd than that of some modern theologians, who assert that an extravagant or contradictory doctrine must be divine; since no man alive could have thought of inventing it. § Eunapius has made these sophists the subject of a partial and fanatical history; and the learned Brucker (Hist. Philosoph. tom. ii, p. 217-303) has em CH. XXIII.] OF HEATHEN MYTHOLOGY. 511 masters of this allegorical science, which laboured to soften and harmonize the deformed features of Paganism. Julian himself, who was directed in the mysterious pursuit by Edesius, the venerable successor of lamblicus, aspired to the possession of a treasure, which he esteemed, if we may credit his solemn asseverations, far above the empire of the world.* It was indeed a treasure, which derived its value only from opinion; and every artist, who flattered himself that he had extracted the precious ore from the surrounding dross, claimed an equal right of stamping the name and figure the most agreeable to his peculiar fancy. The fable of Atys and Cybele had been already explained by Porphyry; but his labours served only to animate the pious industry of Julian, who invented and published his own allegory of that ancient and mystic tale. This freedom of interpretation, which might gratify the pride of the Platonists, exposed the vanity of their art. Without a tedious detail, the modern reader could not form a just idea of the strange allusions, the forced etymologies, the solemn trifling, and the impenetrable obscurity of these sages, who professed to reveal the system of the universe. As the traditions of Pagan mythology were variously related, the sacred interpreters were at liberty to select the most convenient circumstances; and, as they translated an arbitrary cypher, they could extract from any fable any sense which was adapted to their favourite system of religion and philosophy. The lascivious form of a naked Venus was tortured into the discovery of some moral precept, or some physical truth; and the castration of Atys explained the revolution of the sun between the tropics, or the separation of the human soul from vice and error.t The theological system of Julian appears to have contained the sublime and important principles of natural religion. But as the faith, which is not founded on revela ployed much labour to illustrate their obscure lives and incomprehenBible doctrines. * Julian, Orat. 7, p. 222. He swears with the most fervent and enthusiastic devotion; and trembles lest he should betray too much of these holy mysteries, which the profane might deride with an impious Sardonic laugh. See the fifth oration of Julian. But all the allegories which ever issued from the Platonic school are not worth the short poem of Catullus on the same extraordinary subject. The transition of Atys, from the wildest enthu siasm to sober pathetic complaint, for his irretrievable loss, must inspire 512 CREED OF JULIAN. [CH. XXIIL tion, must remain destitute of any firm assurance, the disciple of Plato imprudently relapsed into the habits of vulgar superstition: and the popular and philosophic notion of the Deity seems to have been confounded in the practice, the writings, and even in the mind of Julian.* The pious emperor acknowledged and adored the Eternal Cause of the universe, to whom he ascribed all the perfections of an infinite nature, invisible to the eyes, and inaccessible to the understanding, of feeble mortals. The supreme God had created, or, rather, in the Platonic language, had generated, the gradual succession of dependent spirits, of gods, of demons, of heroes, and of men; and every being which derived its existence immediately from the First Cause, received the inherent gitt of immortality. That so precious an advantage might not be lavished upon unworthy objects, the Creator had intrusted to the skill and power of the inferior gods, the office of forming the human body, and of arranging the beautiful harmony of the animal, the vege table, and the mineral kingdoms. To the conduct of these divine ministers he delegated the temporal government of this lower world; but their imperfect administration is not exempt from discord or error. The earth and its inhabitants are divided among them, and the characters of Mars or Minerva, of Mercury or Venus, may be distinctly traced in the laws and manners of their peculiar votaries. As long as our immortal souls are confined in a mortal prison, it is our interest, as well as our duty, to solicit the favour, and to deprecate the wrath, of the powers of heaven; whose pride is gratified by the devotion of mankind; and whose grosser parts may be supposed to derive some nourishment from the fumes of sacrifice. The inferior gods might sometimes condescend to animate the statues, and to inhabit the temples, which were dedicated to their honour. They might occasionally visit the earth, but the heavens *The true religion of a man with pity, a eunuch with despair. Julian may be deduced from the Caesars, p. 308, with Spanheim's notes and illustrations; from the fragments in Cyril. 1. 2, p. 57, 58, and especially from the theological oration in Solem Regem. p. 130158, addressed, in the confidence of friendship, to the prefect Sallust. Julian adopts this gross conception, by ascribing it to his favourite Marcus Antoninus. (Cæsares, p. 333.) The Stoics and Platonista hesitated between the analogy of bodies and the purity of spirits; yet the gravest philosophers inclined to the whimsical fancy of Aristophane |