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, Julianwas 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.