You have not given heed to this. The vine of the world has grown old, and yet you think that you can still offer the raw grapes to those who thirst for the new wine.
Julian.
Alas, my Maximus, who thirsts? Name me a single man, outside our brotherhood, who is moved by a spiritual craving.—Unhappy I, to be born into this iron age!
Maximus.
Do not reproach the age. Had the age been greater, you would have been less. The world-soul is like a rich man with innumerable sons. If he share his riches equally, all are well to do, but none rich. But if he disinherit all but one, and give everything to him, then that one stands as a rich man amid a circle of paupers.
Julian.
No similitude could be less apt than this.—Am I like your single heir? Is not that very thing divided among many which the ruler of the world should possess in fuller measure than all besides—nay, which he alone should possess? Oh how is not power divided? Has not Libanius the power of eloquence in such fulness that men call him the king of orators? Have not you, my Maximus, the power of mystic wisdom? Has not that madman Apollinaris of Antioch the power of ecstatic song in a measure I needs must envy him? And then Gregory the Cappadocian! Has he not the power of indomitable will in such excess, that many have applied to him the epithet, unbecoming for a subject, of “the Great”? And—what is stranger still—the same epithet has been applied to Gregory’s friend, Basil, the soft-natured man with girlish eyes. And yet he plays no active part in the world; he lives here, this Basil—here in this remote region, wearing the habit of an anchorite, and holding converse with none but his disciples, his sister Makrina, and other women, who are called pious and holy. What influence do they not exert, both he and his sister, through the epistles they send forth from time to time. Everything, even renunciation and seclusion, becomes a power to oppose my power. But the crucified Jew is still the worst of all.
Maximus.
Then make an end of all these scattered powers! But dream not that you can crush the rebels, by attacking them in the name of a monarch whom they do not know. In your own name you must act, Julian! Did Jesus of Nazareth come as the emissary of another? Did he not proclaim himself to be one with him that sent him? Truly in you is the time fulfilled, and you see it not. Do not all signs and omens point, with unerring finger, to you? Must I remind you of your mother’s dream——?
Julian.