Consider in what light Christianity must have appeared to the boy Julian. It was the religion of the man who had murdered his father and every member of his family except one brother, and that merely in accordance with the Oriental monarch's drastic policy of clearing off dangerous rivals. Then Julian never knew true Christianity. The form in which it had been forced on him in his boyhood was Arianism; but that was by no means the worst feature of the case—the great apostle of the Goths was an Arian; Arianism could present an attractive aspect. But the young prince had been drilled in hard monkish ways. When he was out walking he had to keep his eyes fixed on the pavement in order to avoid the sight of vanity. He was allowed no companions of his own age. The specimens of Christian profession he witnessed in the circle of his acquaintance had little of the savour of godliness. They were court chaplains—adroit in political intrigue, fierce partisans of polemical theology, jealous ecclesiastics. Nothing was done to awaken in Julian an appreciation of the genuine graces of the gospel. But he was compelled to attend the heartless services that he inwardly loathed. Who can wonder that his young, ardent nature revolted, that his eager soul was full of bitterness? On the other hand, forbidden to attend the lectures of the Neo-Platonist Libanius, who was the greatest teacher of the day, he obtained copies of them, read them with the more avidity since "stolen waters are sweet," and at length allowed himself to be secretly initiated at the temple of Artemis. When Julian was permitted to go up to the university of Athens, he threw himself with hot enthusiasm into the intellectual life of this centre of pagan learning. He revelled in the classics, charmed with Hellenic culture, both its mythology and its philosophy. Intercourse with the liberalising pagan society at Athens made him look back with disgust on the old prison days, in which his tutors had been his jailers. Here he felt the pulse of a larger life, free and vivacious, sunny and natural.
Julian had no political ambition. Like Marcus Aurelius,
