mportant secret of the apostasy of Julian was intrusted to the
fidelity of the initiated, with whom he was united by the sacred ties
of friendship and religion. [27] The pleasing rumor was cautiously
circulated among the adherents of the ancient worship; and his
future greatness became the object of the hopes, the prayers, and the
predictions of the Pagans, in every province of the empire. From the
zeal and virtues of their royal proselyte, they fondly expected the cure
of every evil, and the restoration of every blessing; and instead of
disapproving of the ardor of their pious wishes, Julian ingenuously
confessed, that he was ambitious to attain a situation in which he might
be useful to his country and to his religion. But this religion was
viewed with a hostile eye by the successor of Constantine, whose
capricious passions altercately saved and threatened the life of Julian.
The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited under a
despotic government, which condescended to fear them; and if the Pagans
were reluctantly indulged in the exercise of their superstition, the
rank of Julian would have excepted him from the general toleration. The
apostate soon became the presumptive heir of the monarchy, and his death
could alone have appeased the just apprehensions of the Christians. [28]
But the young prince, who aspired to the glory of a hero rather than of
a martyr, consulted his safety by dissembling his religion; and the easy
temper of polytheism permitted him to join in the public worship of a
sect which he inwardly despised. Libanius has considered the hypocrisy
of his friend as a subject, not of censure, but of praise. "As the
statues of the gods," says that orator, "which have been defiled with
filth, are again placed in a magnificent temple, so the beauty of truth
was seated in the mind of Julian, after it had been purified from the
errors and follies of his education. His sentiments were changed; but as
it would have been dangerous to have avowed his sentiments, his conduct
still continued the same. Very different from the ass in Aesop, who
disguised himself with a lion's hide, our lion was obliged to conceal
himself under the skin of an ass; and, while he embraced the dictates
of reason, to obey the laws of prudence and necessity." [29] The
dissimulation of Julian lasted about ten years, from his secret
initiation at Ephesus to the beginning of the civil war; when he
declared himself at once the implacab