Julian Becomes Emperor and Abandons the Faith

Constantius, as I have told, departed this life groaning and grieving that he had been turned away from his father’s faith. Julian heard the news of his death while he was crossing from Europe into Asia, and he took the throne, delighted that he now had no rival. [a]

In his earlier days, while he was still a boy, Julian, like his brother Gallus, had absorbed pure and godly teaching. [b] Through his youth and early manhood he went on taking in the same teaching. Constantius, afraid that his relatives might reach for the imperial power, had them killed; and Julian, out of fear of his cousin, was enrolled in the order of readers, and used to read the sacred books aloud to the people in the assemblies of the church. [c] He also built a shrine for a martyr. But when the martyrs saw his apostasy, they refused to accept the offering. For its foundations, like the mind of its founder, were unstable, and the building fell down before it was consecrated. Such were Julian’s boyhood and youth. [e]

But when Constantius set out for the West, drawn there by the war against Magnentius, he made Gallus Caesar of the East, a man gifted with a piety he kept to the end. Now Julian threw off the fears that had served him well until then. Moved by a wicked confidence, he set his heart on seizing the scepter of the empire. So, on his way through Greece, he sought out seers and soothsayers, wanting to learn whether he would get what his soul longed for. He found a man who promised to foretell these things. The man led him into one of the idol temples, brought him inside the shrine, and called up the demons of deceit. When they appeared in their usual form, terror drove Julian to make the sign of the cross on his forehead. The moment they saw the sign of the Lord’s victory, they were reminded of their own defeat, and at once they fled. When the magician learned why they had fled, he scolded Julian. But Julian admitted his terror, and said that he marveled at the power of the cross, since the demons could not bear to see its sign and ran away. “Do not think anything of the kind, my good sir,” said the magician. “They were not afraid, as you make out. They went away because they loathed what you did.” So he tricked the wretched man, initiated him into the mysteries, and filled him with their abominations.

So the lust for empire stripped the wretch of all true religion. Even so, after he had gained the supreme power, he kept his ungodliness hidden for a long time. He was especially uneasy about the troops. They had been taught the principles of true religion, first by the illustrious Constantine, who freed them from their former error and trained them in the ways of truth, and afterward by his sons, who confirmed the teaching their father had given. For even if Constantius, led astray by the men under whose influence he lived, did not accept the term “of one substance,” at any rate he sincerely accepted the meaning behind it. He called God the Word the true Son, begotten of his Father before the ages. He openly rejected those who dared to call him a creature, and he absolutely forbade the worship of idols. [g] I will also tell of another of Constantius’s noble deeds, as good proof of his zeal for the things of God. In his campaign against Magnentius he once assembled his whole army and urged them to take part all together in the divine mysteries. “For,” he said, “the end of life is always uncertain, and not least in war, when countless missiles are hurled from both sides, and swords and battle-axes and other weapons attack men and bring about a violent death. So each man ought to wear that precious robe which we need most of all in the life to come. If there is anyone here who will not put on this garment now, let him leave and go home. I will not put up with fighting beside men in my army who have no part or share in our holy rites.” [h]