Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/618

 xxv. 3, 22). But the doctrine of the ascent (sublimitas) of souls, on which he was conversing with Maximus and Priscus when that end came, was a very different thing from the Christian's hope. It was, in fact, the same in substance as the barren and deadening Oriental doctrine of transmigration; and it is remarkable that Julian, who felt himself so favoured by the heavenly powers, in one of his most ardent prayers to the sun, looks forward to a felicity which has no certainty of being eternal (Or. iv. p. 158 ; see some good remarks on the contrast between this and the Christian doctrine in Naville, pp. 59 ff.).

Julian's Polemic against Christianity.—How near measures against Christianity were to his heart may be seen in his prayer to the Mother of the Gods, where he speaks of "cleansing the empire from the stain of atheism" as the great wish of his life (Or. v. p.180 ). He preferred, however, the method of persuasion to that of constraint, and his books against the Christians are an evidence of this temper. He begins by saying that he wishes to give the reasons which have convinced him that the Galilean doctrine is a human invention (Cyr. ii. p. 39). He then goes on to attack the narratives of the Bible as fabulous. He allows that the Greeks have monstrous fables likewise (p. 44), but then they have philosophy, while Christians have nothing but the Bible, and are in fact barbarians. If Christians attack the idolatry of heathens, Julian retorts, "you worship the wood of the cross, and refuse to worship the ancile which came down from heaven" (Cyr. vi. p. 194). On the whole, he does not spend much time in such questions, but accepts the Bible as a generally true narrative, and rather attacks Christianity on grounds of supposed reason, and in connexion with and in contrast to Judaism.

We may follow Naville in considering the main body of his works under three heads: (1) his polemic against the monotheism of the O.T.; (2) his attack upon the novel and aggressive character of Christian doctrine; (3) especially against the adoration of Christ as God, and the worship of "dead men," such as the martyrs (cf. Naville, pp. 175 ff.).

(1) Against the Monotheism of the O.T.—Julian regarded. the gods of polytheism as links or intermediaries between the supreme God and the material world, and so as rendering the conception of creation easier and more philosophical. He contrasts Plato's doctrine of creation in the Timaeus with the abrupt statements of Moses, "God said," etc. (pp. 49–57). One might almost suppose (he urges) that Moses imagined God to have created nothing incorporeal, no intermediate spiritual or angelic beings, but to have Himself directly organized matter (p. 49). He proceeds to argue against the supposition that the supreme God made choice of the Hebrew nation as a peculiar people to the exclusion of others. "If He is the God of all of us, and our common creator, why has He abandoned us?" (p. 106). Both in acts and morals the Hebrews are inferior. They have been always in slavery, and have invented nothing. As for morality, the imitation of God amongst the Jews is the imitation of a "jealous God," as in the case of Phinehas (Cyr. v. pp. 160–171). The worst of our generals never treated subject nations so cruelly as Moses treated the Canaanites (vi. p. 184). The only precepts in the Decalogue not held in common by all nations are the commandments against idolatry and for the observance of the Sabbath. The true view, to his mind, was that the God of the Jews was a local, national god, like those of other peoples, far inferior to the supreme God (iv. pp. 115, 116, 141, 148, etc.). Sometimes he seems inclined to accept Jehovah as the creator of the visible world, while at other times he throws doubt upon this assumption; but in any case he considered Him a true object of worship (Ep. 25, Judaeis. But in Cyril. iv. p. 148 he blames Moses for confounding a partial and national god with the Creator). Further, the Jewish usages of temples, altars, sacrifices, purifications, circumcision, etc., were all observed to have a close resemblance to those of heathenism, and were a foundation for many reproaches against the Galileans, who had abandoned so much that was laudable and respectable (vi. p. 202; vii. p. 238; ix. pp. 298, 299, 305, etc.).

(2) Julian's Attack upon Christianity as a Novel and Revolutionary Religion.—In the same spirit he puts Christianity much below Judaism. "If you who have deserted us had attached yourself to the doctrines of the Hebrews, you would not have been in so thoroughly bad a condition, though worse than you were before when you were amongst us. For you would have worshipped one God instead of many gods, and not, as is now the case, a man, or rather a number of miserable men. You would have had a hard and stern law, with much that is barbarous in it, instead of our mild and gentle customs, and would have been so far the losers; but you would have been purer and more holy in religious rites. As it is, you are like the leeches, and suck all the worst blood out of Hebraism and leave the purer behind" (Cyr. vi. pp. 201, 202). It was thus natural that St. Paul should be the special object of his dislike. "He surpasses all the impostors and charlatans who have ever existed " (Cyr. iii. p. 100). Julian accuses the Jewish Christians of having deserted a law which Moses declared to be eternal (ix. p. 319). Even Jesus Himself said that He came to fulfil the law. Peter declared that he had a vision, in which God showed him that no animal was impure (p. 314), and Paul boldly says, "Christ is the end of the law"; but Moses says, "Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it" ; and "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things" (Cyr. ix. p. 320 =Deut. iv. 2, xxvii. 27; cf. x. pp. 343, 351, 354, 356, 358, where he attacks Christians for giving up sacrifice, circumcision, and the Sabbath, and asserts that Abraham used divination and practised astrology). He sneers at baptism, which cannot cure any bodily infirmity, but is said to remove all the transgressions of the soul—adulteries, thefts, etc.—so great is its penetrating power! (vii. p. 245). The argument against the Christian interpretation of prophecy is also remarkable. He comments textually on the blessing of Judah, Gen. xlix. 10;