THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY I 057
The Prince’s Secret Religion
4-8. The Prince’s Secret Religion
After six years in the gilded prison of Macellum the brothers were summoned to Constantinople — Gallus to be made Caesar or Vice-Emperor, to misgovern frightfully the province entrusted to his care, and in consequence to meet a not-undeserved death, though to his brother it was another crime to be charged against Constantius, a Christian and the murderer of kinsmen; Julian to meet soon the supreme moment of his religious life. He was set at first to pursue his studies in the capital city and the scholar appointed to take charge of him was Hecebolius, the fourth century Vicar of Bray, whose religion was always that of the reigning Emperor.
But too many admiring eyes followed the princely student, and Constantius ordered him to Nicomedia, the centre of the cultured paganism of the East and the home of its acknowledged leader, the great rhetorician Libanius. Julian had promised not to attend the lectures of Libanius; he kept his pledge in the letter and broke it in the spirit. He got notes written out for him and pored over them day and night. But more important than all lectures was the intercourse with men such as he had never met before. At Nicomedia, Julian first came in touch with those for whom the old gods were living, who had the gift of “seers” to whom prophecies and prodigies were matters of fact. He saw and conversed with men who “had easy access to the ears of the gods,” who could “command winds, waves, and earthquakes.” He knew Aedesius who was said to receive oracles from the deities by night, and whose wife Sosipatra had “lived from girlhood amid prodigies of all kinds.” He was told of the wonderful seances presided over by Maximus and of the marvels which occurred at them.
This Maximus was one of the most celebrated theurgies or mediums of fourth century Neoplatonism. His favourite occupation, he said, was to live in constant communion with the gods. He had long white hair, brilliant magnetic eyes, and his disciples boasted that his influence was irresistible over all those with whom he came in contact. Eusebius of Myndus, also a Neoplatonist, told Julian of his powers.
“He made a number of us descend into the temple of Hecate. There he saluted the goddess. Then he said: ‘Be seated, friends, see what happens, then judge whether I am not superior to most men.’ We all sat down. He burnt a grain of incense and chanted a whole hymn in a low voice. The statue began to smile, then to laugh. We were afraid at the sight. ‘Do not be alarmed,’ he said, ‘you will see that the lamps which the goddess holds in her hands will light of themselves.’ As he spoke the light streamed from the lamps.”
Julian eagerly begged to be introduced to the man who was so powerful with the gods, and Maximus was even more ready to gain one who stood so near the Imperial throne. No accounts survive of the spiritualistic stances at which he assisted; but their effect on the nervous, sensitive young man was irresistible. Maximus converted him heart and soul to the new paganism and was the confidential adviser of Julian from that time onwards.
The young man entered into a new life. The religion which Homer and Hesiod had sung, which Plato and Aristotle had speculated upon, which he had known as a student from books, became all at once living to him. His daydreams of the past vanished, or rather changed into an actual present. The passion for Greece which had gradually grown to be the ruling force in his character had now the support of every-day experience. The gods sung by the old Greek poets, and many a passionate Oriental deity unknown to them, could be seen and their presence felt. He could himself have communion with them through mysterious rites of divination. They had created the noblest thing on earth, Greek civilisation; they were even now moulding and controlling events; they could give courage and inspiration to their votaries. From his sojourn at Nicomedia onwards, Julian believed that all his actions were determined by divine voices which he heard and obeyed.
This natural religion was not the crude polytheism his Christian teachers had said. Hellenismhad made it a unity. A great First Cause, the Father and King of all men, had parcelled out the lands and peoples among the deities, His viceroys. They were the real rulers of provinces and cities and governed them according to their natural habits and dispositions. What was Christianity when compared with this ancient and universal worship, supported by the wealth of civilisation which had come down from the past? It was a cult of barbarian origin, born in an obscure province, ignorant of Hellenic culture, its very Scriptures written in a barbarous Greek offensive to the ears of educated men. Was Greece to abdicate in favour of Galilee? Perish the thought! So Julian believed, and longed to steep himself in Hellenism at its purest source — the Schools at Athens.
He gained his wish through the sisterly kindness of the Empress Eusebia. At Athens, as at all the schools of higher learning, the majority of the teachers were pagans, and Julian with more than his usual eagerness devoted himself to their lectures and to all the benefits of the place. “He was continually seen surrounded by crowds of youths, old men, philosophers, and rhetoricians.” Outwardly he was still a Christian, for his life depended on his conformity to the Imperial creed; but inwardly he had consecrated himself heart and soul to paganism, had already became conscious that he had a divine mission, and that he was a favourite of the gods. The double life he had to live, the knowledge that he was surrounded by spies ready to report anything compromising to his Imperial cousin, must have acted upon his naturally nervous and emotional temperament and betrayed itself in many outward ways.
His portrait drawn by a fellow-student, Gregory of Nazianzus, though the work of an enemy, needs only a little toning down — twitching shoulders, eyes glancing from side to side, something conceited in nostrils and face, feet that were never still, hasty laugh, sentences begun and never finished, irrelevant answers. Julian had more to do at Athens than study philosophy; he had to penetrate to the centre of Greek religion. He was secretly initiated into the ancient mysteries of Eleusis; and there are hints of other initiations either there or afterwards — of the worship of Mithras, of the purifying rite of the taurobolium.
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