3-18. The Failure of Retro-Paganism

But already Julian was burning to undertake his great expedition against Persia, and refused to listen to counsellors who suggested the folly of aggression now that Sapor was no longer pressing the attack. The Emperor's preparations could best be made in Antioch and here he arrived probably in late July 363. On the way he had made a detour to visit Pessinus and Ancyra; the lukewarm devotion of Galatia had discouraged him, but in Antioch where lay the sanctuary of Daphne he looked for earnest support in his crusade for the moral regeneration of Paganism. The Crown of the East (as Ammianus styles his native city) welcomed the Emperor with open arms, but the enthusiasm was shortlived. The populace gay, factious, pleasure-loving, looked for spectacles and the pomp of a Court; Julian's heart was set on a civil and religious reformation. He longed for amendment in law and administration, above all for a remodelling of the old cult and the winning of converts to the cause of the gods.

He himself was to be the head of the new state church of Paganism; the hierarchy of the Christians was to be adopted — the country priests subordinated to the high priest of the province, the high priest to be responsible to the Emperor, the pontifex maximus. A new spirit was to inspire the Pagan clergy; the priest himself was to be no longer a mere performer of public rites, let him take up the work of preacher, expound the deeper sense which underlay the old mythology and be at once shepherd of souls and an ensample to his flock in holy living. What Maximin Daza had attempted to achieve in ruder fashion by forged acts of Pilate, Julian's writings against the Galilaeans should effect: as Maximin had bidden cities ask what they would of his royal bounty, did they but petition that the Christians might be removed from their midst, so Julian was ready to assist and favour towns which were loyal to the old faith. Maximin had created a new priesthood recruited from men who had won distinction in public careers, his dream had been to fashion an organisation which might successfully withstand the Christian clergy; here too Julian was his disciple.

When pest and famine had desolated the Roman East in Maximin's days, the helpfulness and liberality of Christians towards the starving and the plague-stricken had forced men to confess that true piety and religion had made their home with the persecuted heretics: it was Julian's will that Paganism should boast its public charity and that an all-embracing service of humanity should be reasserted as a vital part of the ancient creed. If only the worshippers of the gods of Hellas were once quickened with a spiritual enthusiasm, the lost ground would be recovered. It was indeed to this call that Paganism could not respond. There were men who clung to the old belief, but theirs was no longer a victorious faith, for the fire had died upon the altar. Resignation to Christian intolerance was bitter, but the passion which inspires martyrs was nowhere to be found. Julian made converts — the Christian writers mournfully testify to their numbers — but he made them by imperial gold, by promises of advancement or fear of dismissal. They were not the stuff of which missionaries could be fashoned.

The citizens were disappointed of their pageants, while the royal enthusiast found his hopes to be illusions. Mutual embitterment was the natural result. Julian was never a persecutor in the accepted meaning of that word: it was the most constant complaint of the Christians that the Emperor denied them the glory of martyrdom, but Pagan mobs knew that the Emperor would not be quick to punish violence inflicted on the Galilaeans: when the Alexandrians brutally murdered their tyrannous bishop, George of Cappadocia, they escaped with an admonition; when Julian wrote to his subjects of Bostra, it was to suggest that their bishop might be hunted from the town. If Pessinus was to receive a boon from the Emperor, his counsel was that all her inhabitants should become worshippers of the Great Mother; if Nisibis needed protection from Persia, it would only be granted on condition that she changed her faith.

In the schools throughout the Empire Christians were expounding the works of the great Greek masters; from their earliest years children were taught to scorn the legends which to Julian were rich with spiritual meaning. He that would teach the scriptures must believe in them, and given the Emperor's zealous faith, it was but reasonable that he should prohibit Christians from teaching the classic literature which was his Bible. If Ammianus criticised the edict severely, it was because he did not share the Emperor's belief; the historian was a tolerant monotheist, Julian an ardent worshipper of the gods. The Emperor's conservatism and love of sacrifice alike were stirred by the records of the Jews. A people who in the midst of adversity had clung with a passionate devotion to the adoration of the God of their fathers deserved well at his hands. Christian renegades should see the glories of a restored temple which might stand as an enduring monument of his reign. The architect Alypius planned the work, but it was never completed. The earth at this time was troubled by strange upheavals, earthquakes, and ocean waves, and by some such phenomenon Jerusalem would seem to have been visited; perhaps during the excavations a well of naphtha was ignited. We only know that Christians, who saw in Julian's plan a defiance of prophecy, proclaimed a miracle, and that the Emperor did not live to prove them mistaken.

Thus in Antioch the relations between the sovereign and his people were growing woefully strained. Julian removed the bones of Saint Babylas from the precinct of Daphne and soon after the temple was burned to the ground. Suspicion fell upon the Christians and their great church was closed. A scarcity of provisions made itself felt in the city and Julian fixed a maximum price and brought corn from Hierapolis and elsewhere, and sold it at reduced rates. It was bought up by the merchants, and the efforts to coerce the senate failed. The populace ridiculed an Emperor whose aims and character they did not understand. The philosopher would not stoop to violence but the man in Julian could not hold his peace. The Emperor descended from the awful isolation which Diocletian had imposed on his successors; he challenged the satirists to a duel of wits and published the Misopogon. It was to sacrifice his vantage-ground. The chosen of Heaven had become the jest of the mob, and Julian's pride could have drained no bitterer cup. When he left the city for Persia, he had determined to fix his court, upon his return, at Tarsus, and neither the entreaties of Libanius nor the tardy repentance of Antioch availed to move him from his purpose

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