to the Roman commonwealth-constantly torn by intestine dissensions, but constantly triumphant. APOSTATE. It is still a question among the learned, whether the Emperor Julian was really an apostate, and whether he was ever truly a Christian. He was not six years old when the Emperor Constantius, still more barbarous than Constantinę, had his father, his brother, and seven of his cousins murdered. He and his brother Gallus with difficulty escaped from this carnage; but he was always very harshly treated by Constantius. His life was for a long time threatened; and he soon beheld his only remaining brother assassinated by the tyrant's order. The most barbarous of the Turkish sultans have never, I am sorry to say it, surpassed in cruelty nor in villainy the Constantine family. From his tenderest years, study was Julian's only consolation. He communicated in secret with the most illustrious of the philosophers, who were of the ancient religion of Rome. It is very probable that he professed that of his uncle Constantius only to avoid assassination. Julian was obliged to conceal his mental powers, as Brutus had done under Tarquin. He was the less likely to be a Christian, as his uncle had forced him to be a monk, and to perform the office of reader in the church. A man is rarely of the religion of his persecutor, especially when the latter wishes to be the ruler of his conscience. Another circumstance which renders this probable is, that he does not say, in any of his works, that he had been a Christian. He never asks pardon for it of the pontiffs of the ancient religion. He addresses them in his letters, as if he had always been attached to the worship of the senate. It is not even proved that he practised the ceremonies of the Taurobolium, which might be regarded as a sort of expiation, and that he desired to wash out with bull's blood that which he so unfortunately called the stain of his baptism. However, this was a pagan form of devotion, which is no more a proof than the assembling at the mysteries of Ceres. In short, neither his friends nor his enemies relate any fact, any words, which can prove that he ever believed in Christianity, and that he passed from that sincere belief to the worship of the gods of the empire. If such be the case, they who do not speak of him as an apostate, appear very excusable. Sound criticism being brought to perfection, all the world now acknowledges that the Emperor Julian was a hero and a wise man—a stoic, equal to Marcus Aurelius. His errors are condemned, but his virtues are admitted. He is now regarded as he was by his contemporary Prudentius, author of the hymn Salvete, flores martyrum. He says of Julian Ductor fortissimus armis, Conditor et legum celeberrimus; ore manuque Though great in arms, in virtues, and in laws,- His detractors are reduced to the miserable expedient of striving to make him appear ridiculous. One historian, on the authority of St. Gregory Nazianzen, reproaches him with having worn too large a beard. But, my friend, if nature gave him a long beard, why should he wear it short? He used to shake his head. Carry thy own better. His step was hurried. Bear in mind that the Abbé D'Aubignac, the king's preacher, having been hissed at the play, laughs at the air and gait of the great Corneille, Couldst thou hope to turn Marshal De Luxembourg into ridicule, because he walked ill and his figure was singular? He could march well against the enemy. Let us leave it to the ex-jesuit Patouillet, the ex-jesuit Nonotte, &c. to call the Emperor Julian-the Apostate. Poor creatures! His Christian successor, Jovian, called him Divus Julianus. Let us treat this mistaken emperor as he himself very treated us.* He said, "We should pity and not hate them they are already sufficiently unfortunate in erring on the most important of questions." Let us have the same compassion for him, since we are sure that the truth is on our side. He rendered strict justice to his subjects; let us then render it to his memory. Some Alexandrians were incensed against a bishop, who, it is true, was a wicked man, chosen by a worthless cabal. His name was George Biordos, and he was the son of a mason.† His manners were lower than his birth. He united the basest perfidy with the most brutal ferocity, and superstition with every vice. A calumniator, a persecutor, and an impostor, avaricious, sanguinary, and seditious, he was detested by every party, and at last the people cudgelled him to death. The following is the letter which the Emperor Julian wrote to the Alexandrians, on the subject of this popular commotion. Mark, how he addresses them, like a father and a judge "What!" says he, " instead of reserving for me the knowledge of your wrongs, you have suffered yourselves to be transported with anger. You have been guilty of the same excesses with which you reproach your enemies! George deserved to be so treated, but it was not for you to be his executioners. You have laws; you should have demanded justice," &c. Some have dared to brand Julian with the epithets intolerant and persecuting the man who sought to extirpate persecution and intolerance! Peruse his fiftysecond letter, and respect his memory. Is he not sufficiently unfortunate in not having been a Catholic, and consequently in being burned in hell, together with the innumerable multitude of those who have not been * Letter lii. of the Emperor Julian. Biord, the sou of a mason, was bishop of Anneci in the eighteenth century. As he bore a great resemblance to George of Alexandria, Voltaire, who lived in his diocese, amused himself with joining to the bishop's name the surname of Biordos.-T. Catholics, without our insulting him so far as to accuse him of intolerance?* On the Globes of Fire said to have issued from the Earth to prevent the re-building of the Temple of Jerusalem under the Emperor Julian. It is very likely that, when Julian resolved to carry the war into Persia, he wanted money. It is also very likely that the Jews gave him some for permission to rebuild their temple, which Titus had partly destroyed, but of which there still remained the foundations, an entire wall, and the Antonine tower. But is it as likely that globes of fire burst upon the works and the workmen, and caused the undertaking to be relinquished? Is there not a palpable contradiction in what the historians relate? 1. How could it be that the Jews began by destroying (as they are said to have done) the foundations of the temple, which it was their wish and their duty to rebuild on the same spot? The temple was necessarily to be on Mount Moriah. There it was that Solo mon had built it. There it was that Herod had rebuilt it, with greater solidity and magnificence, having previously erected a fine theatre at Jerusalem, and a temple to Augustus at Cæsarea. The foundations of this temple, enlarged by Herod, were, according to Josephus, as much as twenty-five feet broad. Could the Jews, in Julian's time, possibly be mad enough to wish to disarrange these stones; which were so well prepared to receive the rest of the edifice, and upon which the Mahometans afterwards built their mosque?+ See the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in corroboration of the truths so pleasantly put forward by Voltaire.-T. + Omar, having taken Jerusalem, built a mosque on the very foundations of the temple of Herod and of Solomon, and this temple was dedicated to the same God whom Solomon had worshipped before he turned, idolater-the God of Abraham and Jacob, whom Jesus Christ had adored when at Jerusalem, and who is acknowledged by the Mussulmen. This temple is still existing; and was never entirely destroyed. VOL, I, R What man was ever foolish and stupid enough thus to deprive himself, at great cost and excessive labour, of the greatest advantage that could present itself to his hands and eyes? Nothing is more incredible. 2. How could eruptions of flame burst forth from the interior of these stones? There might be an earthquake in the neighbourhood, for they are frequent in Syria: but that great blocks of stone should have vomited clouds of fire! Is not this story entitled to just as much credit as all those of antiquity? 3. If this prodigy, or if an earthquake, which is not a prodigy, had really happened, would not the Emperor Julian have spoken of it in the letter in which he says, that he had intended to rebuild this temple? Would not his testimony have been triumphantly adduced? Is it not infinitely more probable that he changed his mind? Does not this letter contain these words?— "Quid de templo suo dicent, quod, quùm tertiò sit eversum, nondùm hodiernam usque diem instauratur? Hæc ego, non ut illis exprobarem, in medium adduxi, utpotè qui templum illud tanto intervallo à ruinis excitare voluerim; sed ideò commemoravi, ut ostenderem delirasse prophetas istos, quibus cum stolidis aniculis negotium erat." "What can the Jews say of their temple, which has been destroyed for the third time, and is not yet restored? I speak of this, not for the purpose of reproaching them, for I myself intended to have raised it once more from its ruins, but to show the extravagance of their prophets, who had none but old women to deal with." Is it not evident that the Emperor, having paid attention to the Jewish prophecies that the temple should be rebuilt more beautiful than ever, and that all the nations of the earth should come and worship in it, thought fit to revoke the permission to raise the edifice. The historical probability, then, from the Emperor's own words, is, that unfortunately holding the Jewish books, as well as our own, in abhorrence, he at length resolved to make the Jewish prophets lie. The Abbé de la Blétrie, the historian of the Emperor |