History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon, Esq.
With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman
Vol. 2
1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
Chapter XXIII: Reign of Julian. -- Part
IV.
The restoration of the Jewish temple was secretly connected
with the ruin of the Christian church. Julian still continued to
maintain the freedom of religious worship, without distinguishing
whether this universal toleration proceeded from his justice or
his clemency. He affected to pity the unhappy Christians, who
were mistaken in the most important object of their lives; but
his pity was degraded by contempt, his contempt was embittered by
hatred; and the sentiments of Julian were expressed in a style of
sarcastic wit, which inflicts a deep and deadly wound, whenever
it issues from the mouth of a sovereign. As he was sensible that
the Christians gloried in the name of their Redeemer, he
countenanced, and perhaps enjoined, the use of the less honorable
appellation of Galilaeans. He declared, that by the folly of
the Galilaeans, whom he describes as a sect of fanatics,
contemptible to men, and odious to the gods, the empire had been
reduced to the brink of destruction; and he insinuates in a
public edict, that a frantic patient might sometimes be cured by
salutary violence. An ungenerous distinction was admitted into
the mind and counsels of Julian, that, according to the
difference of their religious sentiments, one part of his
subjects deserved his favor and friendship, while the other was
entitled only to the common benefits that his justice could not
refuse to an obedient people. According to a principle, pregnant
with mischief and oppression, the emperor transferred to the
pontiffs of his own religion the management of the liberal
allowances for the public revenue, which had been granted to the
church by the piety of Constantine and his sons. The proud system
of clerical honors and immunities, which had been constructed
with so much art and labor, was levelled to the ground; the hopes
of testamentary donations were intercepted by the rigor of the
laws; and the priests of the Christian sect were confounded with
the last and most ignominious class of the people. Such of these
regulations as appeared necessary to check the ambition and
avarice of the ecclesiastics, were soon afterwards imitated by
the wisdom of an orthodox prince. The peculiar distinctions which
policy has bestowed, or superstition has lavished, on the
sacerdotal order, must be confined to those priests who profess
the religion of the state. But the will of the legislator was not
exempt from prejudice and passion; and it was the object of the
insidious policy of Julian, to deprive the Christians of all the
temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in
the eyes of the world.
A just and severe censure has been inflicted on the law which
prohibited the Christians from teaching the arts of grammar and
rhetoric. The motives alleged by the emperor to justify this
partial and oppressive measure, might command, during his
lifetime, the silence of slaves and the applause of flatterers.
Julian abuses the ambiguous meaning of a word which might be
indifferently applied to the language and the religion of the
Greeks: he contemptuously observes, that the men who exalt the
merit of implicit faith are unfit to claim or to enjoy the
advantages of science; and he vainly contends, that if they
refuse to adore the gods of Homer and Demosthenes, they ought to
content themselves with expounding Luke and Matthew in the church
of the Galilaeans. In all the cities of the Roman world, the
education of the youth was intrusted to masters of grammar and
rhetoric; who were elected by the magistrates, maintained at the
public expense, and distinguished by many lucrative and honorable
privileges. The edict of Julian appears to have included the
physicians, and professors of all the liberal arts; and the
emperor, who reserved to himself the approbation of the
candidates, was authorized by the laws to corrupt, or to punish,
the religious constancy of the most learned of the Christians. As
soon as the resignation of the more obstinate teachers had
established the unrivalled dominion of the Pagan sophists, Julian
invited the rising generation to resort with freedom to the
public schools, in a just confidence, that their tender minds
would receive the impressions of literature and idolatry. If the
greatest part of the Christian youth should be deterred by their
own scruples, or by those of their parents, from accepting this
dangerous mode of instruction, they must, at the same time,
relinquish the benefits of a liberal education. Julian had reason
to expect that, in the space of a few years, the church would
relapse into its primaeval simplicity, and that the
theologians, who possessed an adequate share of the learning and
eloquence of the age, would be succeeded by a generation of blind
and ignorant fanatics, incapable of defending the truth of their
own principles, or of exposing the various follies of
Polytheism.
It was undoubtedly the wish and design of Julian to deprive
the Christians of the advantages of wealth, of knowledge, and of
power; but the injustice of excluding them from all offices of
trust and profit seems to have been the result of his general
policy, rather than the immediate consequence of any positive
law. Superior merit might deserve and obtain, some extraordinary
exceptions; but the greater part of the Christian officers were
gradually removed from their employments in the state, the army,
and the provinces. The hopes of future candidates were
extinguished by the declared partiality of a prince, who
maliciously reminded them, that it was unlawful for a Christian
to use the sword, either of justice, or of war; and who
studiously guarded the camp and the tribunals with the ensigns of
idolatry. The powers of government were intrusted to the pagans,
who professed an ardent zeal for the religion of their ancestors;
and as the choice of the emperor was often directed by the rules
of divination, the favorites whom he preferred as the most
agreeable to the gods, did not always obtain the approbation of
mankind. Under the administration of their enemies, the
Christians had much to suffer, and more to apprehend. The temper
of Julian was averse to cruelty; and the care of his reputation,
which was exposed to the eyes of the universe, restrained the
philosophic monarch from violating the laws of justice and
toleration, which he himself had so recently established. But the
provincial ministers of his authority were placed in a less
conspicuous station. In the exercise of arbitrary power, they
consulted the wishes, rather than the commands, of their
sovereign; and ventured to exercise a secret and vexatious
tyranny against the sectaries, on whom they were not permitted to
confer the honors of martyrdom. The emperor, who dissembled as
long as possible his knowledge of the injustice that was
exercised in his name, expressed his real sense of the conduct of
his officers, by gentle reproofs and substantial rewards.
The most effectual instrument of oppression, with which they
were armed, was the law that obliged the Christians to make full
and ample satisfaction for the temples which they had destroyed
under the preceding reign. The zeal of the triumphant church had
not always expected the sanction of the public authority; and the
bishops, who were secure of impunity, had often marched at the
head of their congregation, to attack and demolish the fortresses
of the prince of darkness. The consecrated lands, which had
increased the patrimony of the sovereign or of the clergy, were
clearly defined, and easily restored. But on these lands, and on
the ruins of Pagan superstition, the Christians had frequently
erected their own religious edifices: and as it was necessary to
remove the church before the temple could be rebuilt, the justice
and piety of the emperor were applauded by one party, while the
other deplored and execrated his sacrilegious violence. After the
ground was cleared, the restitution of those stately structures
which had been levelled with the dust, and of the precious
ornaments which had been converted to Christian uses, swelled
into a very large account of damages and debt. The authors of the
injury had neither the ability nor the inclination to discharge
this accumulated demand: and the impartial wisdom of a legislator
would have been displayed in balancing the adverse claims and
complaints, by an equitable and temperate arbitration. But the
whole empire, and particularly the East, was thrown into
confusion by the rash edicts of Julian; and the Pagan
magistrates, inflamed by zeal and revenge, abused the rigorous
privilege of the Roman law, which substitutes, in the place of
his inadequate property, the person of the insolvent debtor.
Under the preceding reign, Mark, bishop of Arethusa, had labored
in the conversion of his people with arms more effectual than
those of persuasion. The magistrates required the full value of a
temple which had been destroyed by his intolerant zeal: but as
they were satisfied of his poverty, they desired only to bend his
inflexible spirit to the promise of the slightest compensation.
They apprehended the aged prelate, they inhumanly scourged him,
they tore his beard; and his naked body, anointed with honey, was
suspended, in a net, between heaven and earth, and exposed to the
stings of insects and the rays of a Syrian sun. From this lofty
station, Mark still persisted to glory in his crime, and to
insult the impotent rage of his persecutors. He was at length
rescued from their hands, and dismissed to enjoy the honor of his
divine triumph. The Arians celebrated the virtue of their pious
confessor; the Catholics ambitiously claimed his alliance; and
the Pagans, who might be susceptible of shame or remorse, were
deterred from the repetition of such unavailing cruelty. Julian
spared his life: but if the bishop of Arethusa had saved the
infancy of Julian, posterity will condemn the ingratitude,
instead of praising the clemency, of the emperor.
At the distance of five miles from Antioch, the Macedonian
kings of Syria had consecrated to Apollo one of the most elegant
places of devotion in the Pagan world. A magnificent temple rose
in honor of the god of light; and his colossal figure almost
filled the capacious sanctuary, which was enriched with gold and
gems, and adorned by the skill of the Grecian artists. The deity
was represented in a bending attitude, with a golden cup in his
hand, pouring out a libation on the earth; as if he supplicated
the venerable mother to give to his arms the cold and beauteous
Daphne: for the spot was ennobled by fiction; and the fancy of
the Syrian poets had transported the amorous tale from the banks
of the Peneus to those of the Orontes. The ancient rites of
Greece were imitated by the royal colony of Antioch. A stream of
prophecy, which rivalled the truth and reputation of the Delphic
oracle, flowed from the Castalian
fountain of Daphne. In the adjacent fields a stadium was built by
a special privilege, which had been purchased from Elis; the
Olympic games were celebrated at the expense of the city; and a
revenue of thirty thousand pounds sterling was annually applied
to the public pleasures. The perpetual resort of pilgrims and
spectators insensibly formed, in the neighborhood of the temple,
the stately and populous village of Daphne, which emulated the
splendor, without acquiring the title, of a provincial city. The
temple and the village were deeply bosomed in a thick grove of
laurels and cypresses, which reached as far as a circumference of
ten miles, and formed in the most sultry summers a cool and
impenetrable shade. A thousand streams of the purest water,
issuing from every hill, preserved the verdure of the earth, and
the temperature of the air; the senses were gratified with
harmonious sounds and aromatic odors; and the peaceful grove was
consecrated to health and joy, to luxury and love. The vigorous
youth pursued, like Apollo, the object of his desires; and the
blushing maid was warned, by the fate of Daphne, to shun the
folly of unseasonable coyness. The soldier and the philosopher
wisely avoided the temptation of this sensual paradise: where
pleasure, assuming the character of religion, imperceptibly
dissolved the firmness of manly virtue. But the groves of Daphne
continued for many ages to enjoy the veneration of natives and
strangers; the privileges of the holy ground were enlarged by the
munificence of succeeding emperors; and every generation added
new ornaments to the splendor of the temple.
When Julian, on the day of the annual festival, hastened to adore the Apollo of Daphne, his devotion was raised to the highest pitch of eagerness and impatience. His lively imagination anticipated the grateful pomp of victims, of libations and of incense; a long procession of youths and virgins, clothed in white robes, the symbol of their innocence; and the tumultuous concourse of an innumerable people. But the zeal of Antioch was diverted, since the reign of Christianity, into a different channel. Instead of hecatombs of fat oxen sacrificed by the tribes of a wealthy city to their tutelar deity the emperor complains that he found only a single goose, provided at the expense of a priest, the pale and solitary in habitant of this decayed temple. The altar was deserted, the oracle had been reduced to silence, and the holy ground was profaned by the introduction of Christian and funereal rites. After Babylas (a bishop of Antioch, who died in prison in the persecution of Decius) had rested near a century in his grave, his body, by the order of Caesar Gallus, was transported into the midst of the grove of Daphne. A magnificent church was erected over his remains; a portion of the sacred lands was usurped for the maintenance of the clergy, and for the burial of the Christians at Antioch, who were ambitious of lying at the feet of their bishop; and the priests of Apollo retired, with their affrighted and indignant votaries. As soon as another revolution seemed to restore the fortune of Paganism, the church of St. Babylas was demolished, and new buildings were added to the mouldering edifice which had been raised by the piety of Syrian kings. But the first and most serious care of Julian was to deliver his oppressed deity from the odious presence of the dead and living Christians, who had so effectually suppressed the voice of fraud or enthusiasm. The scene of infection was purified, according to the forms of ancient rituals; the bodies were decently removed; and the ministers of the church were permitted to convey the remains of St. Babylas to their former habitation within the walls of Antioch. The modest behavior which might have assuaged the jealousy of a hostile government was neglected, on this occasion, by the zeal of the Christians. The lofty car, that transported the relics of Babylas, was followed, and accompanied, and received, by an innumerable multitude; who chanted, with thundering acclamations, the Psalms of David the most expressive of their contempt for idols and idolaters. The return of the saint was a triumph; and the triumph was an insult on the religion of the emperor, who exerted his pride to dissemble his resentment. During the night which terminated this indiscreet procession, the temple of Daphne was in flames; the statue of Apollo was consumed; and the walls of the edifice were left a naked and awful monument of ruin. The Christians of Antioch asserted, with religious confidence, that the powerful intercession of St. Babylas had pointed the lightnings of heaven against the devoted roof: but as Julian was reduced to the alternative of believing either a crime or a miracle, he chose, without hesitation, without evidence, but with some color of probability, to impute the fire of Daphne to the revenge of the Galilaeans. Their offence, had it been sufficiently proved, might have justified the retaliation, which was immediately executed by the order of Julian, of shutting the doors, and confiscating the wealth, of the cathedral of Antioch. To discover the criminals who were guilty of the tumult, of the fire, or of secreting the riches of the church, several of the ecclesiastics were tortured; and a Presbyter, of the name of Theodoret, was beheaded by the sentence of the Count of the East. But this hasty act was blamed by the emperor; who lamented, with real or affected concern, that the imprudent zeal of his ministers would tarnish his reign with the disgrace of persecution.
