heathen side. The Arian pseudo-Christianity of Constantius produced the heathen anti- Christianity of Julian ; and ■ the latter was a well-deserved punishment of the former. With enthusiasm and with un- tiring diligence the young prince studied Homer, Plato, Aristotle, and the Neo-Platonists. The partial prohibition of such reading gave it double zest. He secretly obtained the lectures of the celebrated rhetorician Libanius, afterwards his eulogist, wliose productions, however, represent the degeneracy of the heathen literature in that day, covering emptiness with a pomjDOus and tawdry style, attractive only to a vitiated taste. He became acquainted by degrees with the most eminent representatives of heathenism, particularly the Neo-Platouic philosophers, rhetoricians, and priests, like Libanius, ^Edesius, Maximus, and Chrysanthius. These confirmed him in his superstitions by sophistries and sorceries of every kind. He gradually became the secret head of the heathen party. Through the favor and mediation of the empress Eusebia he visited for some months the schools of Athens (a.d. 355), where he was initiated in the Eleusinian mysteries, and thus com- pleted his transition to the Grecian idolatry. This heathenism, however, was not a simple, spontaneous growth ; it was all an artificial and morbid production. It was the heathenism of the Neo-Platonic, pantheistic eclecti- cism, a strange mixture of philosophy, poesy, and superstition, and, in Julian at least, in great part an imitation or caricature 1 Jul. ad Athen. p. 271 ; Socr. iii. 1 ; Sozom. v, 2 ; Theod. iii. 2. ^ § 4. JULIAJ!^ THE APOSTATE. 43 of Christianity. It sought to spiritualize and revive the old mythology by uniting with it oriental theosophemes and a few Christian ideas ; taught a higher, abstract unity above the multiplicity of the national gods, genii, heroes, and natural powers ; believed in immediate communications and reve- lations of the gods through dreams, visions, oracles, entrails of sacrifices, prodigies ; and stood in league with all kinds of magical and theurgic arts.' Julian himself, with all his philo- sophical intelligence, credited the most insipid legends of the gods, or gave them a deeper, mystic meaning by the most arbitrary allegorical interpretation. He was in intimate per- sonal intercourse with Jupiter, Minerva, Apollo, Hercules, who paid their nocturnal visits to his heated fancy, and assured him of their special protection. And he practised the art of divination as a master.^ Among the various divinities he worshipped with peculiar devotion the great king Helios, or the god of the sun, whose servant he called himself, and whose ethereal light attracted him even in tender childhood with magic force. He regarded him as the centre of the universe, from which light, life, and salvation proceed upon all crea- tures.' In this view of a supreme divinity he made an ap- proach to the Christian monotheism, but substituted an airy myth and pantheistic fancy for the only true and living God and the personal historical Christ. His moral character corresponds with the preposterous nature of this system. AVith all his brilliant talents