f comparing the pictures which have been
delineated by his fondest admirers and his implacable enemies. The
actions of Julian are faithfully related by a judicious and candid
historian, the impartial spectator of his life and death. The unanimous
evidence of his contemporaries is confirmed by the public and private
declarations of the emperor himself; and his various writings express
the uniform tenor of his religious sentiments, which policy would have
prompted him to dissemble rather than to affect. A devout and sincere
attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome constituted the ruling
passion of Julian; [1] the powers of an enlightened understanding were
betrayed and corrupted by the influence of superstitious prejudice; and
the phantoms which existed only in the mind of the emperor had a real
and pernicious effect on the government of the empire. The vehement zeal
of the Christians, who despised the worship, and overturned the
altars of those fabulous deities, engaged their votary in a state of
irreconcilable hostility with a very numerous party of his subjects;
and he was sometimes tempted by the desire of victory, or the shame of
a repulse, to violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice. The
triumph of the party, which he deserted and opposed, has fixed a stain
of infamy on the name of Julian; and the unsuccessful apostate has been
overwhelmed with a torrent of pious invectives, of which the signal
was given by the sonorous trumpet [2] of Gregory Nazianzen. [3] The
interesting nature of the events which were crowded into the short reign
of this active emperor, deserve a just and circumstantial narrative.
His motives, his counsels, and his actions, as far as they are connected
with the history of religion, will be the subject of the present
chapter.

[Footnote 1: I shall transcribe some of his own expressions from a short
religious discourse which the Imperial pontiff composed to censure the
bold impiety of a Cynic. Orat. vii. p. 212. The variety and copiousness
of the Greek tongue seem inadequate to the fervor of his devotion.]

[Footnote 2: The orator, with some eloquence, much enthusiasm, and more
vanity, addresses his discourse to heaven and earth, to men and angels,
to the living and the dead; and above all, to the great Constantius, an
odd Pagan expression. He concludes with a bold assurance, that he has
erected a monument not less durable, and much more portable, than the
columns of Hercules. See Greg.