to the others. — Lord Byron truthfully expresses the law of decay to which Rome succumbed, in these words from Childe Harold : " There is the moral of all human tales ; 'Tis but the same rehearsal of the past : First freedom, and then glory — when that fails, Wealth, vice, corruption, barbarism at last." § 9, Julian's attack upon Christianity. 75 fi'om a higher point of view, the downfall of Home was a di- vine judgment upon the old essentially heathen world, as the destruction of Jerusalem was a judgment upon the Jewish na- tion for their unbelief. But it was at the same time the in- evitable transition to a new creation which Christianity soon be<ian to rear on the ruins of heathendom by the conversion of the barbarian conquerors, and the founding of a higher Chris- tian civilization. This was the best refutation of the last charge of the heathen opponents of the religion of the cross. § 9. Julian'' s Attach itpon Christiam,ity. For Literature comp. § 4 p. 39, 40. The last direct and systematic attack upon the Christian religion proceeded from the emperor Julian, In his winter evenings at Antioch in 363, to account to the whole world for his apostasy, he wrote a work against the Christians, which survives, at least in fragments, in a refutation of it by Cyril of Alexandria, written about 432. In its three books, perhaps seven (Cyril mentions only three '), it shows no trace of the dispassionate philosophical or historical appreciation of so mighty a phenomenon as Christianity in any case is. Julian had no sense for the fundamental ideas of sin and redemption or the cardinal virtues of humility and love. He stood entirely in the sphere of naturalism, where the natural light of Helios outshines the mild radiance of the King of truth, and the ad- miration of worldly greatness leaves no room for the recognition of the spiritual glory of self-renunciation. He repeated the arguments of a Celsus and a Poi'phyry in modiiied form ; ex- panded them by his larger acquaintance with the Bible, which he had learned according to the letter in his clerical education ; and breathed into all the bitter hatred of an apostate, which agreed ill with his famous toleration and entirely blinded him to all that was good in his opponents. He calls the religion of " the ' In the preface to his refutation, Contra Jul. i. p. 3 : Tpi'a avyyeypa^e jSijSAia Kara rSiv ayiQiv euayyeXiuv koi Kara, rijs evayovs roov 'KpuTiapuii' ^prjCTKiiaT. But Jerome says, Epist. 83 (torn. iv. p. 655): " JuUanus Augustus septem Hbros, in expeditione Parlhica [or rather before he left Antioch and started for Persia], adversus Christianos vomuit." 76 THEBD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. .Galilean " an impious human invention and a conglomeration of the worst elements of Judaism and heathenism without the good of either ; that is, without the wholesome though some- what harsh discipline of the former,