Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/88

62 a much greater philosophical emperor, he was distressed at the call of duty that compelled him to plunge into practical affairs when he would so much have preferred the contemplative life. The difficulties of the empire having constrained Constantius to recall him from his studies and make a Cæsar of him, Julian is said to have exclaimed, "O Plato, what a task for a philosopher!" Yet he proved a capable general when in charge of the troops in Gaul, who forced him to become emperor in opposition to his cousin, and a bloody conflict would have been the result if Constantius had not died just in time to prevent it. At first he was welcomed by all classes—Christian and pagan; for the tyranny of Constantius had become odious and unbearable. Julian began his reign with a proclamation of complete religious liberty. "Blows and injuries," he said, "are not things to change a man's religion." The effect of this reversal of policy was twofold. In the first place, it led to the return of the orthodox Catholic bishops from exile. The death of Constantius had been the signal for the people of Alexandria to rise in riot and murder George of Cappadocia, who, like Gregory at an earlier period, had been forced upon them as patriarch in the interests of Arianism. Then once more Athanasius was able to come back to his flock.

In the second place, the oppression of the old pagan religions which Constans and Constantius had carried on was ended for the brief period of the pagan emperor's reign. His predecessors had ordered all "superstition" to cease in the temples, and even threatened persons privately sacrificing with death—for so we must understand the references to earlier legislation in the Theodosian code. The active persecution, however, had not gone beyond the confiscation of temple property and the stern punishment of magic. Now Julian not only granted freedom for the worship of the old gods again; he ordered the confiscated property to be restored without compensation, a hardship on the holders of it for the time being in sharp contrast with Constantine's arrange-