At length, worn out with the toils of nearly fourscore years, the venerable man approaches his end. His spirit labours with his last poetic prayer. It is the last breathing of that sweet, melodious heart: "In age and feebleness extreme, Who shall a sinful worm redeem? Was ever such a dying song! ART. III.-JULIAN THE APOSTATE. WE design to present in this article such a sketch of the character and career of the Emperor Julian as may enable our readers to form a just estimate of that distinguished man, and of his influence generally upon the world, and particularly upon the interests of Christianity. The sources of information on the subject may be found in Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, Vol. I., Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Vol. II., Milman's History of Christianity, and in the Church Histories generally. There is also an able article on Julian in the New Edinburgh Encyclopædia; and his history is sketched with much fulness and acumen in Neander's Church History. Dr. Neander has also written a separate monograph on "Julian and his Times,” a translation of which has been announced in London. The writers named generally agree as to the chief facts of Julian's career, while they differ somewhat in minuter details, and more especially in their speculations upon the causes and motives of his course. Gibbon, who was as great an enemy to Christianity as Julian himself, and treated it with the like sneering contempt and sarcastic ridicule, has profusely praised Julian for excellences which he did not possess, and endeavoured to transmute vices into virtues, with a view to exalt the character of his hero, to pour contempt upon his adversaries, and to render Christianity ridiculous. It is but justice to observe, however, that he manifestly strives to state the facts in the history of Julian fairly and fully, without abatement or disguise, while his philosophy is most evidently at fault in endeavouring to account for their existence, and for the various motives of the conspicuous individuals who figured in the world at that time. Milman, too close an imitator of the lofty and gorgeous style of Gibbon, has, nevertheless, presented the character of Julian, in the variety of aspects it assumed, in its true light; though even he has brought the aid of human philosophy to help him out of difficulties too ponderous for the limited faculties of man to remove. The others above quoted are but short compendiums of the life of Julian, and yet they agree with Gibbon and Milman in all the main facts of the short, but eventful life of that distinguished personage. Believing that our readers will be both pleased and profited by a succinct review of the life and times of such a man, living in such an age of the world, we shall endeavour to present all the prominent events of his remarkable career. Christianity had existed for upwards of three centuries when Julian was born. Making its appearance in the land of Palestine, in the person of its adorable Author, as a system of religion breathing peace and good-will to man, Christianity slowly but steadily won its way, amidst the turbulence of human passions, subduing the corrupt heart of man to its mild and pacific sway, gradually commending itself to the approbation of men, until it finally achieved a conquest over thrones and dominions, converting the highest dignitaries of the earth to its divine authority. Constantine the Great was the first Emperor who paid homage to the Prince of Peace; but the equivocalness of his reputed. conversion may be inferred from the manner in which he administered the affairs of the empire, and more especially from his cruel treatment of the competitors for the throne of the Cæsars, and the lavish manner in which he enriched the bishops of the Church, and flattered their pride and ambition. During his eventful reign Christianity most assuredly lost much of its primitive purity and simplicity, and commended itself more to the imagination of men by its pompous ceremonial, than it did to the understanding and heart by the simplicity of its truths, the purity of its maxims, and the majesty by which its claims were urged in the name and by the authority of the God of the universe. And though its glory was not so fully tarnished as to hide all its peculiar excellences, when it was presented to the mind of Constantine for his reception, it very soon suffered much by passing through his imperial hands; for he endeavoured to mould it into a shape to suit his views of state policy, that it might be more perfectly fitted to subserve the purposes of court intrigue and worldly glory. Bishops became members of his cabinet, and were exalted to high honours throughout the empire; the churches were enriched by his beneficence, often with the spoils taken from heathen temples; and though Constantine appears to have been a sincere friend to Christianity, and to have laboured assiduously to build it up on the ruins of Paganism, yet it is most evident, 1849.] Julian the Apostate. 389 from his general conduct, that his heart felt but little of its transforming power, and that, consequently, he was incompetent to appreciate the excellence of its peculiar doctrines, or to estimate the value of its character as a spiritual religion, sent down from heaven to reform the heart and to regulate the life of mankind. Besides, in his day the Church was torn by factions. Violent collisions between rival bishops, originating more in unholy ambition than in conscientious scruples concerning doctrines and rites, were rending the Church asunder,-creating strife and hatred, instead of that love and good-will by which the primitive Christians were distinguished. These disputes were often brought before the Emperor for his arbitrament; but such was the obstinacy of those fiery combatants, particularly the Donatists and Circumcelliones, that they would submit to no restraints. Nay, each party carried their recklessness to such a pitch as to take up arms and shed blood, with a view to demolish the faith of their adversaries. This spirit and these acts of violence had but little in them to recommend Christianity, in its pure and peaceable principles, to the mind of the conquering warrior; and though he sincerely lamented these deplorable effects of fanatical zeal, and exerted himself to quell the turbulence of human passions, he found that neither persuasions nor threats would avail. Such were the unhappy consequences of a departure from the experience and practice of piety, as inculcated in the holy gospel, and the substituting in their place external rites and ceremonies, while its disciples indulged in the natural propensities of the human heart, and strove to aggrandize themselves at the expense of justice and the love of God. In addition to the disputes, the jealousies, the pride and ambition exhibited by the above-mentioned partisans, the Trinitarian controversy ran high, and exasperated the spirits of all who enlisted in that theological warfare. The presbyter Arius dared to question the orthodoxy of his bishop, Alexander, which so provoked the ire of the latter, that he fulminated against his presbyter the sentence of excommunication, and thus commenced a controversy which disturbed the peace of the Church for a long time, sometimes the one party and sometimes the other gaining the ascendency. The dispute rose to its height in the days of Constantine, and was brought to a close for the time by the decree of the Council of Nice, in the year 325. Constantine presided in this famous Council, and used all his authority to soften the asperities of rival disputants,. to moderate the claims of the dominant party, and soothe the spirits of such as were grieved for the interests of true religion. He certainly, on this occasion, exhibited the marks of an impartial president, and manifested much of the genuine spirit of Christianity, though he could not arrest the flood of intolerance which was sweeping over the Church. Neither the sentence of banishment, which was pronounced against Arius, nor the Nicene Creed, which was adopted by this Council, could restore peace to the agitated Church, nor stop the progress of the Arian heresy, which had infected the minds of so many, both of the clergy and laity. This was the general state of things when Constantine died, and left the empire to be divided between his surviving sons,—Constans, who adhered to Athanasius, the firm and inflexible Trinitarian bishop, and Constantius, who extended his protection to the Arian faction. Thus the empire was divided politically and religiously, and each party carried on a relentless warfare against the other, disgracing religion, and weakening the bonds of political union. The conflict ended in the establishment of the Eastern and Western Empires, and the Greek and Latin Churches, the former having its head at Constantinople, and the latter at Rome. It was amid these turbulent scenes, while Christianity was mixed up with the State,-its bishops contending with each other for supremacy like fierce tigers, and the civil rulers exhibiting all the bitterness of religious bigotry, and the angry passions of haughty rivals for political dominion, that Julian appeared upon the stage. He was the younger son of Constantius, the brother of Constantine the Great; and as it was the barbarous custom of those days for the reigning monarch to slay all who might be imagined to have any rival claims to the throne, and as the first act of Constantius was signalized by murdering the father of Julian, a supposed competitor to the government, Julian and his brother Gallus were with difficulty saved from sharing the same fate. Through the kind interference of Mark, bishop of Arethusa, they were rescued from this danger, and were afterwards spared, through the more humane policy of their uncle, Constantius, who had succeeded, by the force of arms, to the undisputed government of the empire. As soon as the growing years of these unhappy youths began again to excite the jealousy of the Emperor, their friends procured for them an asylum in the strong castle of Macellum, near Cæsarea, where they were educated by the most competent teachers, and treated with all the honours of youthful princes. Their religious education was superintended by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who was related to his pupils on their mother's side; and until Julian was twenty years of age, his studies were prosecuted more with a view to the life of an ecclesiastic than to that of an emperor. He was, indeed, actually admitted to the inferior offices of the priesthood, and appointed to read the sacred Scriptures in the church of Nicomedia, which was under the care of his teacher, Eusebius. But he gave early indications of predilection for the peculiarities of Paganism. And certainly, so far as the moral influence of the two systems of religion was concerned, as exhibited in the actions of their public defenders, he had but slight motives for a choice between the two. Though we may presume that in the lower walks of life, among the humble peasants, and the inferior clergy, genuine piety was still measurably felt, yet it is manifest, from the historical records of those days, that neither the Emperors who reigned over the people, nor the higher dignitaries of the Church, with few exceptions, exemplified in life the virtues of Christianity. Julian could not but remember with abhorrence that Constantius, the reigning emperor, had imbrued his hands in the blood of his father, and many of his near relatives; and that this emperor professed the Christian religion. He saw, also, that the court was filled with Christian bishops surrounded with the trappings of worldly pomp and glory, whose counsels doubtless gave a direction to the mind, and sanctioned the acts, of their sovereign. Nor could he be ignorant of the strifes springing up between the rival sects, the animosities engendered by their metaphysical disputes, the deadly-hatred manifested by their deeds of violence, by which the peace and unity of the Church were gradually undermined. All these things must have been present to the mind of Julian, and would naturally conduce to raise in him a suspicion of the truth, and certainly much to lower the excellence, of Christianity. "If these are the fruits of Christianity," he might plausibly argue, "can it be the religion of the God of love and peace?" Moreover, his preceptor was a man most likely to instil into his youthful mind such principles of religion as would give birth to a lax morality, while they tended, at the same time, to fill his mind with gloomy thoughts of the Deity. The courtly bishop Eusebius, the intimate friend and counsellor of Constantine, but now in partial disgrace for his non-adherence to strict orthodoxy, has left no evidence behind him that he understood the pure principles of Christianity, or that he exemplified them in experimental and practical life. It seems that he adapted his mode of education to the ecclesiastical instead of the civil affairs of life, that he designed to fit his pupil more for a priest than an emperor. This mode of education, without reaching the heart, and producing a radical change of nature, and thus leading his disciple to appreciate the loveliness of Christianity, from its bringing the soul into communion with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, did but impose external restraints upon passions |