The character of the emperor Julian. condemn all the actions of those who were our adversaries, as is evidently manifest in the emperor Julian, surnamed the apostate. This was, in truth, a very great and rare man; a man in whose soul philosophy was imprinted in the best characters, by which he professed to govern all his actions; and, in truth, there is no sort of virtue of which he has not left behind him very notable examples; in chastity (of which the whole course of his life has given manifest proof), we read the same of him that was said of Alexander and Scipio, that being in the flower of his age, for he was slain by the Parthians at one and thirty, of a great many very beautiful captives, he would not so much as look upon one. As to his justice, he took himself the pains to hear the parties, and although he would, out of curiosity, inquire what religion they were of, nevertheless the hatred he had to ours never gave any counterpoise to the balance. He himself made several good laws, and cut off a great part of the subsidies and taxes imposed and levied by his predecessors.2 We have two good historians who were eye-witnesses of his actions; one of whom, Marcellinus, in several places of his history, sharply reproves an edict of his, whereby he interdicted all Christian rhetoricians and grammarians to keep school or to teach; and says he could wish that act of his had been buried in silence. It is likely that had he done any more severe things against us, he, so affectionate as he was to our party, would not have omitted it. He was, indeed, sharp against us, but yet no cruel enemy; for our own people tell this story of him, that one day, walking about the city of Chalcedon, Maris, bishop of that place, was so bold as to tell him that he was impious, and an enemy to Christ; at which, say they, therein affecting a philosophical patience, he 1 What follows about the Emperor Julian was blamed, during our author's stay at Rome, in 1581, by the "Maître du Sacre Palais (says Montaigne, in his Journey); but the censor left it to my conscience to modify what I should think in bad taste." Our essayist accordingly was no farther moved than to reply: "Go, poor wretch, and lament the loss of thy eyes;" to which the Bishop replied again, "I thank Jesus Christ for taking away my sight, that I may not see thy impudent face." Assuredly, this action of his savours nothing of the cruelty he is said to have exercised towards us. He was, says Eutropius,1 my other witness, an enemy to Christianity, but without shedding blood." And, to return to his justice, there is nothing in that whereof he can be accused, the severity excepted he practised in the beginning of his reign against those who had followed the party of Constantius, his predecessor.2 As to his sobriety, he lived always a soldier's kind of life; and kept a table in the most profound peace, like one that prepared and inured himself to the austerities of war. His vigilance was such that he divided the night into three or four parts, of which the least was dedicated to sleep; the rest was spent either in visiting the condition of his army and guards in person, or in study; for, amongst his other rare qualities, he was very excellent in all sorts of learning. 'Tis said of Alexander the Great that when abed, for fear lest sleep should divert him from his thoughts and studies, he had always a basin set by his bedside, and held one of his hands out with a ball of copper in it, to the end that, beginning to fall asleep, and his fingers leaving their hold, the ball by falling into the basin might awake him; but the other had his mind so bent upon what he had a mind to do, and so little disturbed with fumes, by reason of his singular abstinence, that he had no need of any such invention. As to his military experience, he was excellent in all the qualities of a great captain; as it was likely he should, being almost all his life in a continual exercise of war; and most of that time with us, in France, against the Germans and Franks; we hardly read of any man that ever saw more dangers, or that gave more frequent proofs of his personal valour. 1 Ammianus Marcellinus, x. 8. 2 Id. xxii. 2, 10; xxv. 5, 6; from whom, also, the following illustrations of Julian's character are taken. His death has something in it parallel with that of Epaminondas, for he was wounded with an arrow, and tried to pull it out, and had done it, but that being edged it cut and disabled his hand. He incessantly called out that they should carry him again in this condition into the heat of the battle, to encourage his soldiers, who very bravely disputed the battle without him till night parted the armies. He stood obliged to his philosophy for the singular contempt he had for his life and all human things. He had a firm belief of the immortality of the soul. In matter of religion he was wrong throughout; he was surnamed the Apostate, for having relinquished ours; though, methinks, 'tis more likely that he had never thoroughly embraced it, but had dissembled, out of obedience to the laws, till he came to the empire. He was in his own so superstitious that he was laughed at for it by those of the same opinion, of his own time, who jeeringly said that had he got the victory over the Parthians, he had destroyed the breed of oxen in the world, to supply his sacrifices. He was, moreover, besotted with the art of divination, and gave authority to all sorts of prognostics. He said, amongst other things at his death, that he was obliged to the gods, and thanked them in that they had not cut him off by surprise, having long before advertised him of the place and hour of his death; nor by a mean and unmanly death, more becoming lazy and delicate people; nor by a death that was languishing, long, and painful; and that they had thought him worthy to die after that noble manner, in the progress of his victories, and in the height of his glory. He had had a vision like that of Marcus Brutus, that first threatened him in Gaul, and afterwards appeared to him in Persia, just before his death. These words, that 1 make him say when he felt himself wounded, "Thou hast conquered, Nazarene ; " or, as others, "Content thyself, Nazarene," would hardly have been omitted, had they been His remarkable death. some 1 Theodoret. Hist. Eccles. iii. 20. believed by my witnesses, who, being present in the army, have set down to the least motions and words of his end; and the same with certain other miracles that are recorded of him. And, to return to my subject, he long nourished, says Marcellinus, paganism in his heart; but, all his army being Christians, he durst not own it. But in the end, seeing himself strong enough to dare to discover himself, he caused the temples of the gods to be thrown open, and did his utmost to set on foot and to encourage idolatry. Which the better to effect, having at Constantinople found the people disunited, and also the prelates of the church divided amongst themselves, having convened them all before him, he gravely and earnestly admonished them to calm those civil dissensions, and that every one should freely, and without fear, follow his own religion; which he did the more sedulously solicit in hope that this license would augment the schisms and faction of their division, and hinder the people from reuniting, and consequently fortifying themselves against him by their unanimous intelligence and concord; having experienced, by the cruelty of some Christians, "that there is no beast in the world so much to be feared by man, as man.' These are very nearly his own words. The liberty of ed, in Montaigne's Wherein this is very worthy of consideration, that the Emperor Julian made use of the same recipe of liberty of conscience to inflame the civil dissensions, that our kings do to extinguish them. A man may say, on one side, that to give the people the reins to entertain every man his own opinion, is to scatter and sow division, and, conscience grantas it were, to lend a hand to augment it, there time, to the Protbeing no sense nor correction of law to stop and hinder their career; but, on the other side, a man may also say that, to give the people the reins to entertain every man his own opinion, is to mollify and appease them by facility and toleration, and dull the point which is whetted and made sharper by rarity, novelty, and difficulty. And I estants. think it is better for the honour and the devotion of our kings, that not having been able to do what they would, they have made a show of being willing to do what they could. CHAPTER XX. THAT WE TASTE NOTHING PURE. THE imbecility of our condition is such that things cannot, in their natural simplicity and purity, fall to our use; the elements that we enjoy are changed, even metals themselves; and gold must in some sort be debased with the alloy of some other matter to fit it for our service; neither has virtue, so simple as that which Aristo, Pyrrho, and also the Stoics have made, "the principal end of life," nor the Cyrenaick and Aristippean pleasure, been without mixture useful to it. Of the pleasure and goods that we enjoy, there is not one exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience : Medio de fonte leporum Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis floribus angat.1 "Something that's bitter will arise, Even amidst our jollities." Our extremest pleasure has some air of groaning and complaining in it; would you not say that it is dying of pain? Nay, when we forge the image of it, in its excellence, we stuff it with sickly and painful epithets, langour, softness, feebleness, faintness, morbidezza; a great testimony of their consanguinity and consubstantiality. The most profound joy has more of gravity than gayety in it; the most extreme and most full contentment, more of the temperate than of the wanton Ipsa felicitas se nisi temperat, premit: 2 "Even 1 Lucret. iv. 1130. 2 Seneca, Epist. 74. |