Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/608

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once his fellow-student, and probably his confidant at Athens, who greeted him with a panegyric—a greeting more agreeable to Julian than the customary presents made to emperors in their progresses (Amm. xxii. 9, 13; Liban. Epit. p. 575, and Ep. 648). Julian shewed his high esteem for his encomiast by taking him up into his chariot and entering with him into Tarsus, a city which evidently pleased him by its welcome. Celsus accompanied him to the southern boundary of his province, a few leagues N. of Antioch. Here they were met by a large crowd, among whom was Libanius (Liban. de Vita Sua, p. 81; Ep. 648 ; see Sievers, Libanius, p. 91). He reached Antioch before July 28, the date of a law found in both the Codes, permitting provincial governors to appoint inferior judges or judices pedanei (Cod. Theod. i. 68 = Cod. Just. iii. 3, 5; cf. C. I. L. iii. 459).

§ 6. Julian's Residence at Antioch (July 362 to March 5, 363).—The eight months spent at Antioch left Julian yet more bitter against the church, and less careful to avoid injustice to its members, in fact countenancing persecution even to death, though in word still forbidding it and proclaiming toleration. (Libanius says that Julian spent nine months at Antioch, Epit. p. 578, 15, but it is hard to make more than eight.) The narrative of this period may be divided into an account of (a) his relations with the citizens of Antioch; (b) his relations to the church at large; (c) attempt to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem.

(a) Internal State of Antioch.—On his entrance into the city Libanius greeted him in a speech in which he congratulated him on bringing back at once the ancient rites of sacrifice and the honour to the profession of rhetoric (Prosphoneticus Juliano, ed. Reiske, i. p. 405). But other sounds saddened Julian with a presage of his coming doom. It was the festival of the lamentation for Adonis, and the air resounded with shrieks for the lover of Venus, cut down in his prime as the green corn fails before the heat of the summer sun. This ill-omened beginning was followed by other equally unpropitious circumstances, and the residence of Julian at Antioch was a disappointment to himself and disagreeable to almost all the inhabitants. He was impatient, or soon became so, to engage upon his Persian campaign; but the difficulty of making the necessary preparations in time determined him to pass the winter at the Syrian capital (Liban. Epit. p. 576 ; Amm. xxii. 10, 1). He had anticipated much more devotion on the part of the pagans and much less resistance on that of the Christians. He was disgusted to find that both parties regretted the previous reign—"Neither the Chi nor the Kappa" (i.e. neither Christ nor Constantius) "did our city any harm" became a common saying (Misopogon, p. 357 A). To the heathens themselves the enthusiastic form of religion to which Julian was devoted was little more than an unpleasant and somewhat vulgar anachronism. His cynic asceticism and dislike of the theatre and the circus was unpopular in a city particularly addicted to public spectacles. His superstition was equally unpalatable. The short, untidy, long-bearded man, marching pompously in procession on the tips of his toes, and swaying his shoulders from side to side, surrounded by a crowd of abandoned characters, such as formed the regular attendants upon many heathen festivals, appeared seriously to compromise the dignity of the empire. The blood of countless victims flowed everywhere, but seemed to serve merely to gorge his foreign soldiery, especially the semi-barbarous Gauls; and the streets of Antioch were disturbed by their revels (Amm. xxii. 12, 6). Secret rumours spread of horrid nocturnal sacrifices and of the pursuit of arts of necromancy from which the natural heathen conscience shrank only less than the Christian. The wonder is, not that Julian quarrelled with the Antiochenes, but that he left the city without a greater explosion than actually took place.

Not a little of the irritation between the emperor and the citizens was centred upon the suburb of the city, called Daphne, a delicious cool retreat in which, as it was fabled, the nymph beloved by Apollo had been transformed into a laurel. Here was a celebrated temple of the god, and a spring that bore the name of Castalian, in former days the favourite haunt of the gay, the luxurious, and the vicious. Gallus had counteracted the genius loci by transposing to it the relics of the martyr bp. Babylas, whose chapel was erected opposite the temple of Apollo. The worship of the latter had almost ceased, and Julian, going to Daphne in Aug. (Loüs), to keep the annual festival of the Sun-god, was surprised to find no gathering of worshippers. He himself had returned for the purpose from a visit to the temple of Zeus Casius, several leagues distant. To his disgust the city had provided no sacrifice, and only one poor priest appeared, offering a single goose at his own expense. Julian rated the town council soundly (Misop. pp. 361 D, seq.). He took care that in future sacrifices should not be wanting, and eagerly consulted the oracle and unstopped the Castalian spring. After a long silence he learnt that Apollo was disturbed by the presence of the "dead man," i.e. Babylas. "I am surrounded by corpses," said the voice, "and I cannot speak till they are removed" (Soz. v. 19 ; Chrys. de S. Bab. §15, p. 669; Liban. Monodia in Daphnen, vol. iii. p. 333)·All the corpses were cleared away, but especially that of the martyr (Amm. xxii. 12, 8; Misop. p. 361 B). A remnant of religious awe perhaps prevented Julian from destroying the relics of which his actions practically acknowledged the power, and they were eagerly seized by the Christians and borne in triumph to Antioch. The procession along the five miles from Daphne to the city chanted aloud Ps. xcvii.: "Confounded be all they that worship carved images and that delight in vain gods." Julian, incensed by this personality, forced the prefect Sallustius, much against his will, to inquire into it with severity and punish those concerned. One young man, Theodorus, was hung upon the rack (equuleus) and cruelly scourged with iron nails for a whole day, till he was supposed to be dying. Rufinus, the church historian, who met him in after-life, asked him how he bore the pain. Theodorus replied that he had felt but little, for a young man stood by him