Julian Frees the Christians in Order to Trouble the Church

It was for these reasons that Julian recalled from exile all the Christians who had been banished for their religious convictions in the reign of Constantius, and gave them back the property that had been confiscated from them by law. He told the people not to do the Christians any injustice, not to insult them, and not to force them to offer sacrifice against their will. He ordered that if they wished of their own accord to approach the altars, they must first appease the anger of the demons, whom the pagans regard as able to turn away evil, and purify themselves by the customary round of purifications. He took away from the clergy, however, the exemptions, honors and allowances that Constantine had granted them. He repealed the laws passed in their favor and imposed on them again the duties the law laid on others. He even forced the virgins and widows who, because of their poverty, were counted among the clergy, to pay back the allowance that had been granted them from public funds. For when Constantine set in order the worldly affairs of the church, he assigned a sufficient share of the taxes raised in every city to the support of the clergy everywhere, and to make this arrangement secure he passed a law that has remained in force from the death of Julian to the present day. They say that this repayment was exacted with great cruelty and harshness, as the receipts show which the collectors gave to those from whom the money had been extorted, and which were meant to prove that what they had received under Constantine’s law had been paid back. [a]

Nothing, however, could lessen the ruler’s hostility to religion. In the intensity of his hatred for the faith he seized every opportunity to ruin the church. He took from it its property, its dedicated offerings and its sacred vessels. He sentenced those who had demolished temples in the reigns of Constantine and Constantius to rebuild them or to pay the cost of putting them up again. On this ground, because they could not pay the sums, and also because of the search for sacred money, many of the priests and clergy and other Christians were cruelly tortured and thrown into prison. One may conclude from what has been said that, although Julian shed less blood than earlier persecutors of the church and devised fewer punishments to torture the body, he was harsher in other respects. He appears to have done the church harm in every way, except that he recalled the priests whom the emperor Constantius had condemned to exile. But it is said that he gave this order on their behalf not out of mercy, but so that the churches, through quarrels among themselves, might be caught up in strife between brothers and might lose their own rights; or else because he wanted to blacken the name of Constantius. For he thought he could make the dead emperor hateful to almost all his subjects by favoring the pagans, who shared his own convictions, and by showing compassion to those who had suffered for Christ, as people who had been treated unjustly. He drove the eunuchs out of the palaces, because the late emperor had been well disposed toward them. He condemned Eusebius, who had charge of the imperial household, to death, on the suspicion that it was at his urging that Gallus, Julian’s brother, had been killed. He recalled Aetius, the leader of the Eunomian heresy, from the place to which Constantius had banished him, for Aetius had also been under suspicion because of his close friendship with Gallus. Julian sent him letters full of kindness and gave him the use of the public transport. For a similar reason he sentenced Eleusius, bishop of Cyzicus, under the heaviest penalty, to rebuild within two months and at his own expense a church belonging to the Novatians which he had destroyed under Constantius. Many other things could be found that he did out of hatred for his predecessor, either doing them himself or allowing others to do them. [c]