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MEDIEVAL HISTORY LIBRARY |
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THE EMPEROR JULIAN THE APOSTATECHAPTER VJULIAN’S IDEA OF RELIGION.
In his religious teaching Julian does not commence with evidences of the
existence of God. God with him was a primary assumption; the knowledge of God
is intuitive in man. “By our souls”, he writes, “we are all intuitively
persuaded of the existence of a Deity”. Thus assuming the religious sense, he
deduces from it the true relations of man to God, and to his fellow creatures.
Julian's idea of personal religion is undeniably lofty: its elevation of
tone again and again betrays the Christian sources from which it was in large measure—and not seldom
confessedly—drawn. If Christian shortcomings inevitably paved the way for a Pagan reaction, at least
Christian virtues determined the cast which that reaction must take. Soaring
beyond a utilitarian morality it recognized a duty to God as well as a duty to
man.
Religion is the highest concern of man, the most essential factor of
happiness. Knowledge of the Gods is more desirable than the Empire of Rome;
likeness to the Gods the crown of philosophy; devoutness and diligence in the
service of the Gods are the primary requisites for due discharge of duty. Our
souls—it is a noble Neo-Platonic thought—are not our own, but rather lent by God for a season. They are given to
each man as genii or spiritual powers, located as it were on the highest
surface of the body, so as to raise men from earth to the proper kinship that
belongs to them in heaven.
The soul is “the God within us”; it is of heavenly birth, a colonist for
a little space upon earth, imprisoned in the human body as a sanctifying and
elevating power. And with this godlike element, waging unintermitting warfare with the dark and murky
powers of the flesh, we must make it our endeavor to attain to absolute
devotion of heart to God. “When the soul surrenders itself entire unto, the
Gods, committing itself and all it hath to them that are greater than itself;
then if purification follows under the guidance of the ordinances of the Gods,
so that there is thenceforth nought to let or hinder—for all things are in the Gods, around them do all things
consist, and of the Gods all things are full—forthwith there shineth in such souls the divine light; instinct with God
they brace and enable the kindred spirit, which thereby steeled as it were by
them and waxing strong is made salvation unto the whole body”. This knowledge
or spiritual recognition of God is not merely worthy of a monarch or general, but lifts man almost to the level
of divinity itself. Imitation of the Gods, as evinced by the suppression of
human wants and weaknesses, and by constant enlargement of virtuous activity
must be the aim of the believer. True holiness is to live ever in the practice
of the presence of God. Unseen though they be, the Gods are ever near, watching
our every action: so that in the words of the inspired oracle
Everywhere
the ray of Phoebus darts its all-pervading light; But in godly souls unto virtue given
I have joy that passeth the joys of heaven.
Thus God himself of his great kindness declares that he takes delight in
the thoughts of the holy, which are dear to him as heaven's self. This holiness
or godly reverence must declare itself in all our actions. Zeal in the small
duties of life, in whatsoever is given us to do, is the surest test of true
holiness. Among other parts of men's duty to God are enjoined piety, chastity,
solemn meditation on divine things, and honor paid to God by holy worship.
Prayer too is the duty of every believer, and no less his privilege, for so ready
is the divine ear that “the Gods prevent our prayers”. No precise rule for
laymen is laid down, beyond that prayer should be conducted reverently and in
silence; by his own example Julian would bid them pray at least in all great
emergencies and crises of life; but priests are expressly bidden to pray often,
both in private and in public, certainly thrice a day, or at least twice, at
daybreak and at nightfall, for it is not seemly that any priest should spend
day or night without a sacrifice.
In his conception of duty to man, Julian takes no less high a tone. “Ye
are all”, he says, “brothers one of another. God is the common father of us
all”. From this fundamental truth of the universal brotherhood of man follows
by logical deduction the obligation of charity to all. “I maintain”, writes
Julian, “though I speak a paradox, that it is a sacred duty to impart raiment
and food even to our enemies; for the bond of humanity, not the disposition of
individuals, regulates our giving”. The duty of kindness, of almsgiving in the
widest sense, he emphasizes again and again. It is the homily put in the mouth
of every priest to every Gentile; the good customs of first-fruits and
contributions to the service of the sanctuaries had fallen into a shameful
desuetude: Believers had forgotten the undying precept of Homer, that
Zeus unfolds our
hospitable door,
'Tis Zeus that sends
the stranger and the poor.
Each beggar that goes about the street is, says Julian, an insult upon
the Gods. It is our greed, not the unkindness of the Gods, that leaves him in
such a plight; and in passing him by unaided we make ourselves the authors of
untrue conceptions and unjust reproaches against the Deity. “No man”, he
continues, “ever became poor from giving alms to his neighbors. Often have I
given to the needy and received back mine own from them a hundredfold, and
never do I repent of having given aught”.
We must give according to the measure of our means, for the virtue lies
in the disposition of the giver rather than in the amount of the gift. As
Julian borrowing almost the language of the New Testament again and again bids
the believer “above all things practice charity, for in its train come many
other goods”, there rings in the reader's ears the familiar “the greatest of these
is charity”.
Personal chastity is another moral obligation on which he strongly
insists. All criminal or even unseemly self-indulgence is prohibited to the
moral man, who will abstain from the exciting and often licentious spectacles
to be witnessed at the theatres or other places of public resort. To be in
bondage to the grosser appetites or passions is to create for ourselves a very
hell upon earth. Sins of temper, hatred, passion, abusiveness, are to be guarded against; patience, forbearance and gentleness
to be practiced. Another remarkable characteristic of Julian's religious code
is the very close connection into which he brings observance of law with
religion. “The law is the daughter of justice, a hallowed and divinely
consecrated treasure of the most high God, which no sensible man will
undervalue or dishonor”. It is distinctly a part of a man's duty to his
neighbor to be submissive respectful to the authorities, observant of law. “The
true prince must be a prophet and minister of the king of the Gods, for “the
laws are holy unto the Gods”: “the guardians of the laws are in a manner
priests unto the Gods”. Service of the
Gods and the laws are coupled together as equally essential to true morality.
Such then were Julian's ideas regarding religion as an inward moral
power, and such the rules of conduct he laid down. By way of sanction and
confirmation these were to be supplemented by ceremonial observances.
The Pagan convert was to be admitted—or readmitted—into his new Religion
by rites of purification analogous to baptism, and by prayer to the averting
Deities. Julian himself was duly initiated into the Eleusinian rites at Athens,
and then or on some other occasion washed off the taint of Christian baptism
with the blood of slain sacrifices; as the Christian father puts it, “he purged
off the laver with unholy blood, matching our initiation with the initiation of
defilement”. He declined to admit to Pagan worship any Christian, who had not
first been purged in soul by solemn litanies, and in body by set lustral rites. From thenceforth he was to become a regular
attendant at divine service, to revere the temples, groves and images of the
Gods, to the maintenance of which, as a pious believer, he would naturally
contribute. Indeed he was in all respects to invest with its proper dignity and
use that elaborate ceremonialism and public ritual which Julian labored so
energetically to restore.
For Julian, here palpably and confessedly plagiarizing from
Christianity, endeavored to fortify his religious revival by a restored and
purified ceremonialism. He came forward with a carefully prepared system of sacerdotalism. The priesthood was no longer to be a kind of
hereditary property, transmitted as a social prerogative from father to son,
irrespective of the qualifications of the possessor. It was no more to be
confined to favored families. Distinctions of p0verty or wealth, high birth or
low, were obliterated. The qualifications required were henceforth to be moral
not social: the sole tests of fitness love of God and love of man: love of God
first, as displayed in the religion and godly bringing up of a man's own
household; love of man second, as tested by a ready and liberal charity in
proportion to the means at command. The most religious and best of the citizens
being thus selected, were to be carefully trained in a manner suitable to their
high calling.
A guard was to be set on their thoughts, no less than upon their
tongues. For their intellectual training, they were to avoid scrupulously not
only indecent and lascivious writings, the sarcasms of Archilochus and the snarls of Hipponax,
not only profane and skeptical philosophies, but also all that was trivial and
frivolous, such as the Old Comedy, or love-tales, or works of fiction. They
should study history, and for their philosophical training be reared on the
pure milk of Pythagoras and Plato, and on the sound meat of Aristotle, to which
should be added judicious. selections from the religious teaching of Chrysippus and Zeno. But no word of Epicurus or of Pyrrho must enter their ears. For
devotional training, besides private exercises of prayer and attendance at
public worship, they were to commit to heart and meditate upon the Sacred
Hymns, the direct revelations of the Gods. When thus duly trained they were
doubtless consecrated for their high functions by a solemn ordination service.
No positive directions have chanced to survive, for Julian composed no formal
Priest's Manual, but left only a variety of pastoral letters, called out by
special occasions, and treating therefore of special points, from which his
complete system may be fairly gleaned. But taking into account the common
practice of Pagans and Christians alike, together with the analogy of the lustral rites of admission to the Church, it may fairly be
assumed that provisions for priestly consecration were not omitted in the code
of ritual elaborated by Julian.
The duties of the priest are carefully prescribed. To take first his
distinctly religious duties. Twice or thrice a day must he sacrifice, not
without prayer: when his turn for duty in the public celebration of
temple-worship arrives, he must purify himself night and day: he must
continually be at his post within the temple for his term of office, which
according to the Roman custom at least extends over thirty days: during that
space he should neither visit the market nor go to his own dwelling, but occupy
himself wholly with divine worship and philosophic meditations. For his private
bearing similarly strict injunctions are laid down.
Among the first duties of a
priest is that charity, on which Julian so strenuously insists: it is an attribute
of the Deity, and therefore precious in his eyes: it will exercise itself in
liberal almsgiving and ready hospitality. For active practical virtue is the
highest religion, and holiness the child of righteous dealing. Habitual
chastity, not only of person but in thought and word, holiness, which is to say
the constant realized sense of God's presence, modesty, forbearance and
gentleness of demeanour,
and what is more vaguely termed goodness, are among the duties specially
inculcated.
Further, there must be always that gravity of demeanour, that sanctity, the habitual assumption of
which by the Christian priests has tended so effectively to promote their
religion. In order to this the priest will abstain rigidly from attendance at
the theaters: he will eschew all public games, horse-races, and the like: he will never frequent the
wine-taverns, nor engage in any kind of business that could bring contempt upon
his profession. Nay more, not content with these
negative protests against dissolute or careless living, he will be very choice
as to the society he keeps. Actors, jockeys and dancers he will absolutely
avoid; and while permitted to resort freely to the houses and entertainments of
his friends, to enhance his priestly dignity he will but rarely frequent the
market; and will moreover seldom visit or meet municipal dignitaries or
officers, except in temples and places where his sacerdotal position gives him
acknowledged precedence: as a general rule he will communicate with them by
letter alone. Above all he will bring up his own family in sobriety and the
fear 0f God: the women, children, and domestics of his household will attend
regularly the public services: a priest failing in this deserves to be
dismissed from his priestly office.
Among the priests there is to be a regular discipline and various
orders. Below the priest came the inferior orders of clergy, acolytes, and the
like, who will be drawn from the poorer classes, and as paid subordinates of
the priests will serve at the celebrations of temple-worship. While above the
priests, administering set districts or dioceses as overseers, will be the
“high priests” or “bishops”. These Julian frequently chose from among the philosophers, who were his personal friends and guides. Chrysanthius, for instance, was named high priest of Lydia.
It was their duty to conduct regular visitations of their dioceses, to promote
meritorious priests; and, on the other hand, to exhort, rebuke, chastise, or
even dismiss the unworthy: at the same time he was bound rigorously to abstain
from personal violence; a bishop must be no striker. Moderation and
appreciative kindness are the primary requisites. In one of his pastoral
letters Julian promotes the high priest Theodorus to such a position in Asia: another he addresses to Arsakius, who holds a similar place in the district
of Galatia; while in a third, he himself, in virtue of his high priestly
authority, suspends an unworthy priest for a term of three calendar months. In
this instance, as habitually in sacrifice and temple-worship, Julian asserts
very plainly his own sacerdotal prerogative: is as sovereign pontiff of the
national Church, and as mouthpiece of the Didymaean oracle that he pronounces sentence.
His treatment of this question of unworthy priests is full of interest,
and shows how strongly he was impressed with the need and value of that
ecclesiastical discipline which was theoretically maintained in the Christian
Church, though among his own contemporaries it so often fell into abeyance
before the consuming blight of heresy and its attendant spirit of faction. In
his surviving Pontifical Charge he dwells upon it at length. The unworthiness of a priest or a prophet
cannot indeed cast any reflection upon the perfectness of the God he unworthily
serves, nor can any personal demerit degrade the majesty of his office. So long
as he bears the name of priest and ministers before the altar, he must be
regarded with a submissive and reverential piety as the authorized representative of God, to strike
or insult whom is sacrilege.
He is no less consecrate to God than the inanimate stones of which the
image or altar is fashioned, and like them is to be reverenced for his
consecration's sake. But if he is a notorious or open sinner, then the high
priest should first openly admonish and rebuke him, and if he still persist,
should chastise him heavily, and at the last strip him of his priesthood as a
reprobate. For the solemn anathema with which the ancients accompanied such
degradation Julian finds no divine, or as we may say Scriptural,
authority. Thus it is in our power to
gather very fully Julian's conception of the priestly office.
It is a calling more exalted than that of any citizen, for the lustre of the divine dignity is
reflected upon it. As the immediate servants and ministers of the Gods, priests
are in the truest sense their vicars or representatives. They pray, they sacrifice, on behalf of the
congregation and in its stead. And no personal unworthiness can derogate from
their high office. It follows immediately that corresponding honor must be paid
them. In the temple they are supreme,
and take rank before all earthly potentates: the highest officer of state is
but a private individual, and lower than the priest so soon as he passes the
threshold of the shrine. This inalienable dignity it is the bounden duty of the
priest on all occasions to assert; no pious believer will contest it, be he an
officer of army, of city, or of State, unless he is puffed up with self-conceit
and vainglory.
It will be sufficient merely to mention the fact that priestesses as
well as priests found a place, as always, in the ranks of the Pagan ministry. A
brief but interesting letter survives from Julian to the priestess Callixene; “all men”, he writes,
“sing the praises of Penelope for the constancy of her love to Ulysses. Not
less praise could be due to Callixene for her love to God; and the constancy of her devotion had stood the test of
not ten but twenty years”. As a fitting acknowledgment of merit, Julian
nominates her priestess of Cybele at the famous shrine of Pessinus,
in addition to the previous dignity she held as priestess of Demeter—a proof
by the way that pluralists were tolerated in the Pagan Church.
Temple restoration.
With a sound polytheistic basis thus firmly laid, a moral law annexed,
depending for vitality on its purity and elevation, and an elaborate sacerdotal
structure superadded, Julian attempted to reanimate the decaying reverence for
the temples, to revive the beauties of neglected precincts and the splendor of
the ancient festivals, to attract and awe the public imagination by a more
gorgeous ritual, to which the genius of Hellenism so freely lent itself.
The prophecy of the blind hag who met him on his entry to Vienne, and
hearing that it was Julian Caesar passing by, cried out that he should be the
restorer of the temples of the Gods, found a very literal fulfillment. He did
the work in part directly, in part indirectly. In some cases he gave state
subsidies, or set apart local imposts, or contributed from the fiscal purse to
promote these objects, while at other places he encouraged the people to
restore the fallen fabric, or duly celebrate the time-honored festivals, by
promises of his favor and patronage, which not seldom took, as at Pessinus, the very substantial form of remission of
taxation, if they satisfied his wishes in this respect.
Among the most famous of these attempts at Church restoration was the
proposed rebuilding of the Jewish Temple. Partly from a desire to signalize his
reign by lasting architectural memorials, partly from his habitual partiality
to the Jews, partly perhaps in the hope of giving prophecy the lie, he took in
hand the enterprise in compliance with the petition of the Jews. The strange
issue of the undertaking, and the controversies that have raged around it, have
imparted a fictitious importance to this particular attempt. In itself it was but one item in a long
list, and one too to which Julian himself has left but one or two passing
allusions.
Everywhere throughout the realm, at Heliopolis, at Pessinus,
at Alexandria, at Antioch, at Cyzicus, he stimulated
like efforts. Besides rebuilding the temples, Julian tried everywhere to
restore to something of their ancient splendor the solemn festivals, that had
everywhere fallen into disrepute. To forward this object he not only expressed
special delight, when such celebrations formed part of the programme of his reception, but used himself to contribute largely to the maintenance of
their becoming magnificence.
At Batnae, a small
Pagan town east of the Euphrates, not very far from Carrhae in Mesopotamia, he was overjoyed at the
excellent preservation in which he found
the temples and groves, and with unfeigned satisfaction contrasted their
well-to-do appearance with the simple structure of mud and wood that served him
there for a palace. As Emperor, careless of the offence he might give to a
giddy population like that of Antioch, he declined to give any of those
frivolous or immodest exhibitions that
most gratified the popular taste, and confined his bounty to religious
celebrations of various kinds, the magnificence of which entailed a lavish
outlay. The Apostle of Paganism employed the imperial prerogative to preach as
well as practice.
He made bold to go down in person to the Council of Antioch, and deliver
an indignant remonstrance at the scandalous neglect shown in the conduct of the
yearly festivals. In their dinners and banquets, he bitterly said, there was no
stint of lavish expenditure: while the poverty and meanness of their temple
ceremonial would have disgraced the remotest hamlet in Pontus. Nor was it only
to the conduct of special festivals that he devoted himself. The ordinary
temple-service was to be rendered at once more attractive and more imposing by
an improved ritual.
His taste for music, and that general aesthetic susceptibility which
characterized him as a true Hellene, made him specially alive to the advantage
of such accessories to worship. In the great towns choir-boys were to be
selected and carefully trained in sacred music, their maintenance being
provided for at the public cost. These Ephebi, or
choristers, were to be habited in white, richly set off by ornamental
appendages. Thus the charm of surplices, the steam of incense, the lines of
initiated hierophants and bearers of the sacred basket would match or outvie the nascent pomp of Christian ritual; nor in
allurements for the aesthetic were the tastes of the religious overlooked.
However undevotional was
the spirit of fourth century Paganism, Julian hoped it might become less so.
Pulpits, with all the charm of novelty, swelled the furniture of the sanctuary;
lectures were held and addresses delivered by trained expositors of Hellenic
dogma. The officiating priest was to be robed very sumptuously, though when not
acting officially he was to wear the modest garments that befitted his
humility, imitating the retiring modesty of Amphiaraus, who when he went to the battle bore no
crest or blazon upon his shield. The holy vestment were not to be made a public
spectacle or gazing stock about the streets: to do so were dishonor to the
symbolized majesty of the Gods: they must be seen and worn only in the holy place,
where none but the pure in heart drew nigh.
By example and precept alike Julian did his utmost to encourage, at
times almost to enforce, regular attendance at religious services. Worship he
looked upon not as necessary to the Gods, as though in any carnal sense they
fed on the smoke and reek of sacrifice: nor again as positively necessary to
man, for indeed the highest natures might rise above it; but rather as the
natural outward correlative of inward reverence and virtue, a due to the Gods,
and not less a benefit and delight to god fearing men. Their abandonment of
sacrificial practices is one of the allegations brought against the Christians;
while the Jews are praised aloud for adherence to the old rites. Accordingly
fixed days and hours were set apart for public sacrifice and prayer.
No less important in his eyes than regularity was reverential demeanour on the part of those
present: he longed, to see the service conducted with decency and quiet
gravity: it was real pain to him to find a disorderly crowd rushing to the
temples to catch a good sight of the Emperor, and receiving him it may be with vivas and plaudits that
honored the sovereign to the dishonor of the sovereign's God. He went so far as
to deliver a public harangue against such desecration. The shortest and
pithiest of his surviving letters is the order addressed to the populace who
cheered in the temple of Fortune: '”If I enter the theatre unexpectedly, cheer;
but if the temple, then keep silence, giving cheer to the Gods alone—nay, but
the Gods have no need of cheers”.
The whole rationale of reverence paid to temples, altars and images, he
expounds very clearly. Between his view of the case and that of an enlightened
Romanist at the present day, there is little sensible difference. He scornfully
and indignantly rejects the supposition that the worshippers confound the
sticks or stones they reverence with the God whom these symbolize. Such a notion could emanate only from the
addled prejudice of a Christian.
Jewish denunciations of idols arise from pure misconception. Their prophets are in reality like men
who gaze through a cloud of mist upon a light perfectly serene and pure: then
in their short-sightedness not
discerning the purity of the light beyond, but beholding only the illuminated
mist, they mistake the mist itself for fire, and screaming out Fire! Murder!
Sudden Death! and such alarmist cries, set to work to extinguish what they suppose to be the devouring element. The true and
reasonable use of images is very different. They are human handiwork; they are
not the Gods themselves, but symbolic representations of the Gods: material
images of deities who themselves are immaterial. Nay, they are acknowledged to
be an accommodation to man's creature limitations; it is man's bodily nature
alone that makes them useful adjuncts of worship. Of the highest supreme Being
no physical representation has ever been attempted.
Even in the case of the second grade of deities emanating immediately
from the first, all corporeal embodiment and service proved impossible; for
they are by nature unindigent of such, and can be approached only by more exalted spiritual communion. It is
the third order of Gods alone that the service of images can propitiate, and
thus in this third grade of worship only do they become effectual. But in their
proper sphere they are to be commended and to receive due honor: they become
evidences of alacrity in worship: like other rites they have the sanction of
antiquity: our fathers delighted thus to do honor to the Gods, in precisely the
same way as we delight to do honor to kings or princes by rearing statues or
images to represent them. Thus images care not to be regarded as mere bits of
wood or stone, any more than they are to be confounded with the Gods. What they
really are is simply what they set up to be, wood or stones representing,
symbolizing the Gods. As such they are entitled to reverence. A fond parent
will take delight in the likeness of his child; why? because it is stone? or
because it is bronze? or because it is his child? No, but because it is stone
or bronze representing and recalling the likeness of his child. A loyal subject
will honor the statue of his sovereign for precisely the same reason. Just as
the parent loves the likeness of his child, or the subject honors the statue of
his prince, so will the worshipper revere the image of his God, and in its
presence realize in trembling awe the unseen presence in whose gaze he at that
moment stands. True of course the Gods have no need of images; neither have
they need of prayers. The need lies with the worshipper. It would be as
reasonable to deny the Gods the service of the lips, that is prayer, as that
service of the hands which comes to us with the sanction of thrice a thousand
years and the consent of all known races. It is needless Julian thinks to
refute the sorry argument of those who
would discredit images by acts of wanton insult or destruction. It is they, not
the image-worshippers, who are discredited by such exhibitions of folly and
crime. A wicked brutal man can easily enough destroy the handiwork of a wise
good man: that is all that is done. Even then there remain the living uneffaceable images of the unseen
essence of the Gods, even the imperishable stars which from everlasting to
everlasting run their courses in the heavens.
This survey of Julian's position with regard to the external expression
of the religious sense would be incomplete selection without a reference to his
leaning towards observances which are apt to be regarded as even more formal
ceremonialism than any yet alluded to. He approved and justified ceremonial
abstinence at stated seasons from certain, kinds of food. This was a genuine
part of his Neo-Platonic creed, in more than one branch of which Orphic
influences are clearly traceable. Plotinus had abstained almost entirely from
meat, and seldom touched even bread: subsisted indeed on the scantiest diet
that sufficed to support life, and recommended similar denial to his disciples.
One explanation of the name applied to Porphyry is that he was a vegetarian.
Following in the same track, Julian, not content with himself adopting
sparse, if not vegetarian fare and fasting at appointed religious seasons,
recommends to others the observance of traditional rules about diet, and sees
in them a genuine and permanent symbolical significance. He takes devout pride
in the insight vouchsafed to him in these matters: but does not press his
theories intolerantly. The rules are for set times and certain persons, where
the means, the physical condition, and the individual's will are favorably
disposed. The benefit to be derived is primarily moral, and only indirectly
physical. 'Purification' was a catch-word of Neo-Platonic Ethics: and soul
being in itself perfectly pure and every contamination derived from man's
corporeal part, mortification, asceticism and fasting availed naturally for
personal holiness.
In his Oration to the Mother of the Gods Julian vents his opinions at
length, prescribing minute dietary rules for the religious observance of the Cybelean ceremonial. With regard
to vegetables, while cabbages, sprouts and the like were permissible articles
of food, seeds and all roots such as turnips, were forbidden; while in the case
of fruit, figs received the preference over apples, pomegranates or dates. Fish
was prohibited, while birds of almost every kind were approved. Among
four-footed beasts the swine attained am enviable monopoly of uncleanness.
Julian proceeds to point out the underlying significance of these at first
sight arbitrary restrictions. Seeds (except indeed the pods of leguminous
plants whose manner of growth secured them exemption) and roots, no less than
creeping plants, are forbidden as symbolizing a groveling earthward tendency,
while vegetable shoots typify the opposite heavenward desire, always looking
upward to the pure aether.
The apple or rather probably the orange is too holy for consumption; it recalls
the golden Apples of the Hesperides, and has served
as the guerdon and symbol of mystic quests and triumphs. The pomegranate is
interdicted as a ground plant; the sanctity of the date is perhaps a survival
from Phrygia, birthplace of the Phrygian Mother's rites, where the palm grows
not.
But Julian rather descries in it the fruit sacred to the sun, and which
never grows old. Fish are spared, first, in compliance with the general rule
that that which is not sacrificed to the Gods is not to be eaten of men; and
secondly, because they too diving down into the depths signify those lower
groveling desires which have been already attributed to the root-plants. Birds,
on the contrary, who constantly soar, seeking the mountain-tops or the expanse
of heaven, are fit food (except such as be sacrosanct to the Gods) for the soul
that would aspire upwards. No wonder that the leprous pig is tabooed. He is
pursy of habit, fleshly, gross: he cannot, if he would, turn his eyes
heavenwards: he is fit only to be the victim offered to the nether Gods. The
seriousness and manifest earnestness of the writer in tracing these rather
droll symbolisms remind the reader of works like the Epistle of Barnabas, or
later writers of the allegorical school with whom Julian had little enough of
common ground. Quite consistently with this expression of his views, he lauds
the rigidity of Jewish abstinence in the matter of meats clean or unclean, and
denounces Christian laxity in this respect. It is to this apparently as much as
to anything that he refers, when he charges the Christians with having
abandoned the purer portion of the law, and retained all that was less
edifying. Elsewhere drawing a nobler contrast, he says that Pagan coldness and
unbelief is put to shame by those who display the burning zeal that would
choose death rather than violate the law of holiness, and that would suffer
hunger and starvation rather than eat of the flesh of swine, or of meat that
had been choked or strangled.
Yet while thus insisting on the consistent and prominent recognition of
the value of externals in religion, Julian taught that these were after all
secondary to that inner life and spirit of which they were but the outward
expression. Without holiness, he says, the hecatomb, aye and chiliomb as well, are waste only
and nothing else.
Sanctification of the soul was the first supreme necessity, the alpha
and omega of true philosophy. So completely did he recognize this, that he
explains and defends the avowed contempt expressed by Diogenes the Cynic for
the outward paraphernalia of worship. “If any detect atheism in his not drawing
near nor ministering to temples or statues or altars, they are mistaken; none
such did he use, neither frankincense, nor libation, nor silver wherewith to
buy them. But if his heart was right toward the Gods, that and that only
sufficed; for with his true and very soul he worshipped, giving them I ween the most precious of all things he had, the
sanctification of his own soul by the thoughts of his heart”. Thus he obeyed
the voice of the oracle within and wisdom was justified of her child.
The mysteries as then conducted were one of those shams of custom
against which his whole life was a protest. It was his very reverence for the universal Gods and his desire for
communion with them, that made him revolt against that narrow exclusive
ritualistic temper, that religious quackery which limited participation in the
mysteries to citizens of Athens. This is a spirit so free and noble that only a
chosen few can attain to it: for the mass it is safer and more laudable to
follow obediently on the lines of religion laid down for them.
Neo-Platonism sought also to catch converts by more questionable
attractions, stored in the theurgic or supernatural
department. These were more effective than unintelligible mysticism, doomed to
elicit from the masses nothing but impatience or blank bewilderment. On
Julian's own mind they laid fast hold. Not only was belief in oracles, dreams, prophecies,
augury and divination a constituent part of his faith, but the sorceries of the
necromancer or spiritualist enchained him with their spell. But he never
thrusts these forward as evidences of Paganism, nor in any single passage of
his works adduces them either as corroborative of the existence of the Gods, or
as inducements to convert the believer. He appears to have felt the dangers of
popular superstitions in these respects, to have endeavored to extirpate
quackery in divination, and reduced the practice of it to a science, governed
by revealed and rigid laws, and administered only by trained exponents.
His dogmas and rules of conduct were further enforced by a doctrine of
future retribution, not however very loudly or prominently put forward. Holding
fast in person the mope of immortality, allowing that hope as a motive to
effort, and confronting with a resolute denial those who believed that the
soul's life was as frail or frailer than that of the body, he acknowledges that
the life to come is veiled in mystery, known to the Gods but unrevealed to man:
“men do well to conjecture, the Gods must know”.
The retributive punishment of vice commences in this life; for if not
all, at any rate most, and those the most virulent, diseases are the result of
spiritual aberrations or delinquencies. The childlessness of Constantius Julian
regards as a distinct dispensation of Divine displeasure. After death sinful
souls will be imprisoned in the darkness of Tartarus;
“but the pit itself does not lie outside the omnipotence of God, for God knoweth even them that are fast
shut up in Tartarus, and them that draw nigh to him
with godliness he will deliver”. But Julian loves far more to dwell upon the
brighter side, to hail death as the entering into rest, and the cessation of
the long conflict, as the separation of body from spirit, which will then be
remitted to the Gods from whom it came, and fare trustfully forth under
guidance of its tutelar deity; or he will picture the
heaven which is reserved for the souls of the righteous, or tell of Hades the
gentle beneficent God, who sets souls free for the communion for which they
pine.
When the conflict is all ended, he writes impressively, and the immortal
soul set free, when the dead body is turned to dust, then will the Gods be
potent to make good all their promises to men; and we know of a surety, that
great are the rewards which the Gods give unto their priests for a possession.
The immortality to which he taught men to aspire was not continuance, but
rather an entire change of being to a new and more perfect state which can at
present be only spiritually imagined. Indeed, notwithstanding fugitive
expressions of an opposite character, Julian did not believe in personal
immortality. He rejected the Christian doctrine, in favor of the Neo-Platonic
supposition of pre-existent emanation before life, and subsequent re-absorption
into the ocean of divinity. He held no doctrine of the resurrection of the
body, an idea absolutely alien to the Neo-Platonist. His conviction of life
after death was resolute; but the individual life was merged in a higher life,
assimilated by kindred and, divine essence: the emanative soul was once more absorbed in the spiritual order
determined by its own choice and bias in mundane life; unless it passed by
self-determination into other congenial phases of material connection. The one Tartarus of physical suffering on which Julian dwells is of
this earth: the horrors of alarmist myths are flatly discarded: when the souls
of the righteous are translated to the presence of Serapis the unseen, Hades the mild and placable absolves them absolutely from the bonds of created being, and at their
enfranchisement does not fasten them to other material forms, as vehicles for
chastisement and retribution, but conducts and elevates them to the sphere from
which they were derived. There the separated soul is affiliated to the inseparate essence with which it
is most homogeneous.
Towards alien philosophies Julian
adopted the normal attitude of the Neo-Platonist. First of all with some
characteristic inexactness of thought he strove to identify them all, all at
least which he approved. Herein later Neo-Platonism followed the same bent
which it displayed in identifying all the shifting forms of Paganism, and evolving
theoretic monotheism from a ferment of active Polytheism. Here is Julian's
superficial generalization: “Truth is
one and philosophy is one; all philosophers had one single end, which they
reached by different paths: the tasks of Plato and Diogenes were not different,
but one and the same; why should we erect partition walls, and separate men
conjoined by love of truth, disdain for popular prejudice, and aspiration after
virtue?” By this route Stoicism is but a form of Cynicism, and both of Platonism.
At the same time minuter differences were partially recognized, and two philosophies at least were
denied a place in the goodly company. The Neo-Platonist estimate of
philosophies corresponds very closely to the appreciativeness displayed by them
towards current religion. Epicureanism was the most open and bitter foe of
Paganism, Skepticism a less violent but as insidious an opponent, Stoicism a
friendly neutral, Platonism and Pythagoreanism bold
and ardent supporters. To Epicureanism accordingly Julian never gives one kind
word. To refer the creation or generation of the material world to the impulse
of blind uncaused forces in accordance with the Epicurean theory, he accounts
the reductio ad absurdum of a philosophic system.
Epicurean morality likewise with its scientific selfishness and apathetic
indifference he condemns most strongly; while as for the dogmatic teaching of
Epicureanism and Pyrrhonism alike, he thanks God that
nearly all the treatises of these schools have perished.
Stoics on the contrary he treats with modified approval. While
criticizing their doctrine of happiness, he admires their stern self-control
and self-denying virtue; this he could to the full appreciate, and regarded
with no less admiration the deeply religious sentiment which pervades their greatest masters' teaching on the Gods.
He even recommends extracts from Zeno
and Chrysippus as useful devotional manuals for
priests, notwithstanding that some of their professed opinions were dangerously
heterodox or immoral. In the satirical Caesars Zeno finds admission and
patronage in heaven, where no Epicurus
or Pyrrho may enter.
Octavian there makes his appearance, his color changeful as the chameleon's,
now pale, now red, now black and dark and lowering. Silenus jocosely suspects that there is mischief in the beast, but Apollo rebukes him
with these words, “Hush! nonsense, Silenus! I will
consign him to Zeno's charge and will forthwith make of him pure gold. Come,
Zeno”, said the God, “take my child in charge”. Then Zeno hearkened to his
bidding, and sang over him catches from the dogmas, like the incantations
of Zamolxis, and made him a wise good man.
Much that attracted Julian in Stoicism was present also in Cynicism. The
sixth and seventh Orations are a full exposition of Julian's views on Cynicism
true and Cynicism false. As a rebound from the utilitarianism and insincerity
of those about him, its self-abnegation and reality laid hold of him pith
peculiar force. With all its defects and one-sidedness, its mistakes as to the
true nature of happiness, and its failure to acknowledge the real claims and
needs of soul as opposed to body, it yet remained a worthy monument of genuine
philosophic zeal.
For the poor self-deceptions and the low worldliness of his own day, no
better physic could be prescribed than the old Cynic maxims of self-knowledge
and war against all shams. —Know thyself—Down with convention—let men guide
their lives by that twin rule, and brighter days would dawn for all. In true
Cynicism, though least of all in that base counterfeit of the original which
did but ape the outward ugliness of the Silenus mask
and contained no God, Julian recognized a stalwart protest for the truth, more
articulate than speech. Such Cynicism was an acted creed, a sermon written in
the life. Julian reaches the very bounds of praise when he declares the genuine
Cynic to be a kind of incarnate Platonism. Indeed Julian was himself, if the
term may pass, a rationalizing Cynic; latitudinarian enough to reject its eccentricities and indecencies,
though viewing them not without tenderness, but faithfully following the
principles of the school as adapted to his own times and position, and
repudiating the extravagance which
disparaged all book-learning as compared with the practice of virtue.
The Peripatetic philosophy is rated higher than any of the preceding. On
the moral side Julian considers that it has hardly received full justice as
compared with Stoicism. In one of his letters, after quoting an Aristotelian
adage, “Better a brief span of right, than a life-time of wrong” he adds,
“Whatever people may say the Peripatetic teaching is as high-souled as the Stoic. The only difference is that Peripateticism is less habitually
cool and prudential, while stoicism commends itself permanently to the
intelligence of its disciples”. But intellectually, if not morally or
theologically, Aristotle stands side by side with Plato; in a brief note to two
fellow-students Julian urges them to concentrate their efforts on the doctrines
of Aristotle and Plato, to make them the base, the foundation, the walls and
the roof of all knowledge. But with all this exalted respect for Aristotle he
dares criticize and at times reject Peripatetic teaching, as well as compare it
eclectically with other systems. For Plato such criticism or comparison, even
by way of commendation, were an insult: far better strain an interpretation or
distort an argument, than correct an error, or acknowledge a defect. Plato is
an infallible guide. He is quoted, lauded, imitated in almost every treatise
Julian wrote. His ipse dixit is
absolute. He is the perfect seer, standing on the pinnacle of truth, the sure
guide for this world and the next. Iamblichus himself cannot soar higher than
to be an alter Plato.
VI.JULIAN'S PERSONAL RELIGION
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