Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/599

 theology in many points, pp. 102, 103; cf. p. 32, n. 10.

§ 1. Early years of Julian as a Christian. ( 331–351). § 2. Conversion to heathenism 351–355. § 3. Julian as Caesar from Nov. 6, 355 to Nov. 3, 361. § 4. Residence at Constantinople as Augustus, Nov. 3, 361 to May, 362. § 5. Journey through Asia Minor, May to July, 362. § 6. Residence at Antioch, July, 362 to March 5, 363. § 7. Persian campaign and death, March 5 to June 27, 363.

§ 1. Early Years of Julian as a Christian ( 331–351).—Flavius Claudius Julianus was the youngest son of Julius Constantius, the half-brother of Constantine the Great. His mother, Basilina, was of the noble family of the Anicii, and daughter of Julianus the praetorian prefect, whose name was given to her son. Julian was born at Constantinople in the latter part of 331, the year after the dedication of the new capital.

Upon the death of Constantine in May 337, and the accession of his three sons, there was a general massacre of the male branches of the younger line of the Flavian family descended from Constantius Chlorus and his second wife Theodora. In this tragedy there perished the father and eldest brother of Julian, his paternal uncle, his cousins the Caesars Delmatius and Hanniballian, and four other members of the family. Julian and his elder half-brother Gallus, who was sick of an illness which was expected to be mortal, were alone preserved, by the compassion or the policy of Constantius (cf. Socr. H. E. iii. 1; Greg. Naz. Or. iii. p. 58  . Julian, ad S. P. Q. Athen. p. 270  , gives the list of those who perished, and ascribes their deaths to Constantius, who he says wished at first to slay both himself and Gallus). Julian is said to have owed his life to the interference of Mark, bp. of Arethusa, who gave him sanctuary in a church (Greg. Naz. Or. iii. p. 80  ). The boy was taken charge of by his mother's family, and his education conducted under the direction of the Arian Eusebius, bp. of Nicomedia, who was distantly related to him (Amm. xxii. 9. 4; Cf. Soz. v. 2). When Eusebius was translated in 388 to the see of Constantinople Julian probably went with him, and attended the schools of that city (cf. Libanius, ἐπιτάφιος, ed. Reiske, i. p. 525; Julian, Ep. 58; and Rode, Die Reaction Julians, p. 22, n. 10). His constant attendant and guardian was his mother's slave Mardonius, whose influence evidently had great power in moulding the character and tastes of his pupil, and who insisted strongly on a staid and perhaps rather pedantic demeanour (Liban. l.c.; Jul. Misopogon, pp. 351 seq.; Mücke, in his Julianus nach den Quellen, zweite Abtheilung, pp. 6. and 9, makes a curious blunder in supposing that Julian disliked Mardonius). Though educating him only for a private position, he set before him a high standard, and particularly held up to his imitation the names and characters of "Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Theophrastus" (Misop. p. 353 ). He kept him from the theatre and the circus, and taught him rather to love the Homeric descriptions of Phaeacia and Demodocus and Calypso's isle, and the cave of Circe (ib. 351 ). Such teaching doubtless fed the naturally dreamy temperament of his pupil. Julian tells us that from a child he had a strange desire of gazing at the sun, and that he loved to spend a clear night in looking fixedly at the moon and stars, so that he almost gained the character of an astrologer (Jul. Or. iv. ad regem Solem ad init.; cf. the fable, Or. vii. p. 229, in which he speaks of himself as entrusted by Zeus to the sun's guardianship).

These pleasant days of freedom were brought to an abrupt conclusion by the command of Constantius. The death of his relative Eusebius (in 342) deprived Julian of a powerful protector, when he was about 11 years old; and soon after (probably in 343 or 344) the emperor recalled Gallus from exile, and sent the two brothers to the distant palace of Macellum in Cappadocia. Here for six years they were kept under surveillance, with no lack of material comforts, but apart from young men of their own age and with only the society of their slaves (Greg. Naz. Or. iii. p. 58 ; Julian, ad Ath. p. 271 ). Their seclusion was only once broken by a visit from Constantius (Jul. ad Ath. p. 274, probably in 347, see laws of the Cod. Theod. in this year). Masters and teachers were not wanting, especially of that form of Arianism to which Constantius was devoted; and Julian now, if not before, made a considerable verbal acquaintance with the Bible, an acquaintance which frequently appears in his writings. He and Gallus were admitted to the office of Reader in the church—a proof that he had been baptized, though no mention of his baptism is recorded. They interested themselves zealously in the building of chapels over the relics of certain martyrs (Greg. Naz. Or. iii. p. 58; Soz. v. 2). The success of Gallus in this building and the ill-success of Julian was remarked at the time, and was (afterwards, at any rate) considered as an omen of his apostasy (Greg. Naz. l.c. p. 59).

In the spring of 351 Constantius felt himself forced by the burden of empire to take a colleague, and Gallus was appointed Caesar. Julian with difficulty was permitted to leave Macellum, and seems to have returned for a short time to Constantinople; there he studied grammar with Nicocles, and rhetoric with Hecebolius then a zealous Christian (Socr. H. E. iii. 1). Constantius, fearing lest his presence in the capital might lead to his becoming too popular, ordered him to remove to Nicomedia (Liban. Epitaph. p. 526, προσφωνητικός, p. 408). Hecebolius exacted a promise from his pupil that he would not attend the lectures of the famous heathen sophist Libanius; Julian kept his promise, perhaps fearing to excite suspicion by outward intercourse with a chief partisan of the old religion, but contented himself with a study of the written lectures of the master (Liban. l.c. 526 seq. Libanius does not name Hecebolius, but the description seems to point to him: Sievers, Libanius, p. 54, n. 5, supposes Nicocles to be meant). Others, however, in Nicomedia besides Libanius attracted the attention of the young prince. He here learnt to know some of the more mystical of the heathen party, to whom paganism was still a reality and the gods living beings, visions of whom