and stoical virtues, he wanted the genuine simplicity and natural- ness, which are the foundation of all true greatness of mind and character. As his worship of Helios was a shadowy re- flection of the Christian monotheism, and so far an involuntary tribute to the religion he opposed, so in his artificial and osten- tatious asceticism we can only see a caricature of the eccle- » Comp, vol. i, §,&L ^M J ■ ^ '■' Libauius says of him, Epit. p. 582 : . . fiavTeaiv re toTs aplffrois xpt^Wfos, ouTo's re wv ovSauup iv TJ) rexvy SeuTepoT. Ammianus Marcellinus calls him, xxv. 4, praesacjiorum sciscitationi nimiae deditus, superstitiosus magis quam sacrorum legitimus observator. Comp. Sozom. v. 2. ' Comp. his fourth Oratio, which is devoted to the praise of Helios. 44 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. siastical monasticism of the age wliicli he so deeply despised for its humility and spirituality. He was full of affectation, vanity, sophistry, loquacity, and a master in the art of dissim- ulation. Everything he said or wrote was studied and calcu- lated for effect. Instead of discerning the spirit of the age and putting himself at the head of the current of true progress, he identified himself with a party of no vigor nor promise, and thus fell into a false and untenable position, at variance with the mission of a ruler. Great minds, indeed, are always more or less at war with their age, as we may see in the reformers, in the apostles, nay, in Christ himself. But their antagonism proceeds from a clear knowledge of the real wants and a sincere devotion to the best interests of the age ; it is all pro- gressive and reformatory, and at last carries the deeper spirit of the age with itself, and raises it to a higher level. The antagonism of Julian, starting with a radical misconception of the tendency of history and animated by selfish ambition, was one of retrogression and reaction, and in addition, was devoted to a bad cause. He had all the faults, and therefore deserved the tragic fate, of a fanatical reactionist. His apostasy from Christianity, to which he was probably never at heart committed, Julian himself dates as early as his twentieth year, a.d. 351. But while Constantius lived, he concealed his pagan sympathies with consummate hypocrisy, publicly observed Christian ceremonies, while secretly sacrifi- cing to Jupiter and Helios, kept the feast of Epiphany in the church at Yienne so late as January, 361, and praised the emperor in the most extravagant style, though he thoroughly hated him, and after his death all the more bitterly mocked him.* For ten years he kept the mask. After December, 355, the student of books astonished the world with brilliant military and executive powers as Caesar in Gaul, which was at that time heavily threatened by the German barbarians ; he ^ Comp. Jul. Orat. i. in Constantii laudes ; Epist. ad Athenieases, p. 270 ; Caesares, p. 335 sq.