166 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



forgery of the time of the Maccabees, and gave 

 reasons for it which have lost nothing of their 

 force to this day. He doubtless raised many ob- 

 jections that Christian theologians of the present 

 day would not be able to refute. But there is no 

 tradition that he passed a verdict on Christianity, 

 as a whole, so reproachful and adverse as Celsus did 

 in his day ; and, taking into account the attitude 

 generally assumed toward it by the neo-Platonist 

 school, it is not probable that he only regarded 

 the religion of the Greeks as a legal mode of 

 worship, and the Christian as a revolt against 

 that divine ordinance that every nation should 

 worship the gods according to its own traditions. 



This is not maintained even by Hierocles, who 

 was of the same school, although a chief share 

 is ascribed to him in the last attempt made by 

 the Roman state to suppress Christianity by 

 force for many years, by the severe persecution 

 under Diocletian, after a. d. 303. In a treatise 

 against the Christians, this neo-Platonist com- 

 pared the founder of Christianity with the fabu- 

 lous picture of the neo-Platonist saint, Apolio- 

 nius of Tyana, as it had been drawn by Philos- 

 tratus. He tried to show that the Christians 

 need not take their Jesus for a God on account 

 of the few miracles he had performed, and that 

 the heathen judged far more rightly of Apollo- 

 nius, Pythagoras, and others, far greater workers 

 of miracles than Christ, in regarding them as 

 men beloved by the gods. But he branded the 

 Apostles as impostors, because they had adorned 

 the deeds of their Master with silly stories, while 

 those of Apollonius were handed down by credi- 

 ble witnesses. Even this enemy of Christ does 

 not dispute his greatness as a man, nor even his 

 prophetic character ; it is only his divinity that 

 he assails. 



It is not until the second half of the fourth 

 century that we find heathen polemics recurring 

 to the tone against Christianity with which they 

 had begun. It had, in the mean time, been made 

 the religion of the state in the Roman Empire by 

 Constantine, and its adherents before long began 

 to suppress the worship of the ancient gods with 

 the same violence which had been employed to 

 put down Christianity. If heathen governments 

 had commanded the Christians, under pain of 

 death, to sacrifice to the gods, these sacrifices 

 were now forbidden by the same penalties ; if the 

 heathen mob had raged against the Christians, 

 the Christian rabble were now set on those who 

 would not part with their ancient deities ; if it 

 had formerly been necessary to renounce Chris- 

 tianity to be promoted at court and in the army, 



it was now necessary to adopt it for the same 

 reasons. But Christianity had possessed vitality 

 enough to resist all the allurements and terrors 

 of political power; heathenism, on the contrary, 

 proved so rotten under their altered relations, 

 that, fifty years after Constantine's first edict of 

 toleration, its adherents were in the minority, 

 their ranks thinned more and more, and they 

 were soon only to be found among the unedu- 

 cated populace in the country, among the upper 

 classes of Rome and Alexandria, and the learned 

 men and philosophers who could not separate 

 the worship of the ancient divinities from classic 

 culture. 



It was only natural that this triumph of a foe 

 whom they had never ceased to hate and despise, 

 that the severity with which the triumph was 

 turned to account, that the repulsive spectacle 

 of a nominal Christianity, spiritual ambition, and 

 fierce controversy, which the new imperial Church 

 at once offered, should deeply embitter the sub- 

 ject party. Under Julian's short reign (a. d. 

 361-3G3), there was a prospect of once more sub- 

 jecting the foe. But the restoration of heathen- 

 ism, projected by this emperor with all the fer- 

 vor of a neophyte but in utter misconception of 

 the age, could but have failed, even if his speedy 

 death had not put an end to it. Julian had be- 

 come acquainted with Christianity among his 

 predecessors and relations under its worst form. 

 He had personally suffered from their jealous des- 

 potism. Brought up a Christian, he had been 

 obliged to profess this religion when he had al- 

 ready adopted the neo-Platonist philosophy. It 

 was a cherished project with bim to restore the 

 worship of the ancient deities when he ascended 

 the thrcne. But he did not wish to effect it by 

 force ; this was forbidden by his principles, his 

 noble sentiments, his respect for justice, and, 

 finally, he could not conceal from himself that 

 the forces at his command were not equal to 

 the task. The severest measure which he took 

 against the Christians was to forbid them to 

 receive public instruction in ancient literature. 

 But this ruler, who prided himself on his philoso- 

 phy and learning, and wasf ond of hearing him- 

 self speak, could not refrain from writing against 

 them. In his seven books against the Christians, 

 which we know from Cyril's reply, and in his let- 

 ters, all the ill-humor and contempt which had 

 been accumulating in his mind for years find 

 expression ; and this was increased by the per- 

 tinacity with which the Christians resisted his 

 measures for converting them. The " Galileans," 

 as he contemptuously calls them in his edicts, are 



