Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Julian restores Liberty to the Christians, in order to execute Further Troubles in the Church. The Evil Treatment of Christians he devised.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Chapter V.—Julian
restores Liberty to the Christians, in order to execute Further
Troubles in the Church. The Evil Treatment of Christians he
devised.
It was from these motives that
Julian recalled from exile1373
| 1373Soc. iii. 11; Philost. vi. 7, vii. 4.
|
all Christians who, during the reign of Constantius, had been banished
on account of their religious sentiments, and restored to them their
property that had been confiscated by law. He charged the people not to
commit any act of injustice against the Christians, not to insult them,
and not to constrain them to offer sacrifice unwillingly. He commanded
that if they should of their own accord desire to draw near the altars,
they were first to appease the wrath of the demons, whom the pagans
regard as capable of averting evil, and to purify themselves by the
customary course of expiations. He deprived the clergy, however, of the
immunities, honors, and provisions which Constantine had conferred;1374
| 1374Eus. V. C. ii. 30–42.
|
repealed the laws which had been enacted in their favor, and reinforced
their statute liabilities. He even compelled the virgins and widows,
who, on account of their poverty, were reckoned among the clergy, to
refund the provision which had been assigned them from public sources.
For when Constantine adjusted the temporal concerns of the Church, he
devoted a sufficient portion of the taxes raised upon every city, to
the support of the clergy everywhere; and to ensure the stability of
this arrangement he enacted a law which has continued in force from the
death of Julian to the present day. They say these transactions were
very cruel and rigorous, as appears by the receipts given by the
receivers of the money to those from whom it had been extorted, and
which were designed to show that
the property received in accordance with the law of Constantine had
been refunded.
Nothing, however, could diminish the enmity of the ruler
against religion. In the intensity of his hatred against the faith, he
seized every opportunity to ruin the Church. He deprived it of its
property, votives, and sacred vessels, and condemned those who had
demolished temples during the reign of Constantine and Constantius, to
rebuild them, or to defray the expenses of their re-erection. On this
ground, since they were unable to pay the sums and also on account of
the inquisition for sacred money, many of the priests, clergy, and the
other Christians were cruelly tortured and cast into prison.
It may be concluded from what has been said, that if
Julian shed less blood than preceding persecutors of the Church, and
that if he devised fewer punishments for the torture of the body, yet
that he was severer in other respects; for he appears as inflicting
evil upon it in every way, except that he recalled the priests who had
been condemned to banishment by the Emperor Constantius; but it is said
he issued this order in their behalf, not out of mercy, but that
through contention among themselves, the churches might be involved in
fraternal strife, and might fail of her own rights, or because he
wanted to asperse Constantius; for he supposed that he could render the
dead monarch odious to almost all his subjects, by favoring the pagans
who were of the same sentiments as himself, and by showing compassion
to those who had suffered for Christ, as having been treated unjustly.
He expelled the eunuchs from the palaces, because the late emperor had
been well affected towards them. He condemned Eusebius, the governor of
the imperial court, to death, from a suspicion he entertained that it
was at his suggestion that Gallus his brother had been slain. He
recalled Aëtius, the leader of the Eunomian heresy,1375
| 1375Juliani Op. Ep. 31, a letter from him to
Aetius.
|
from the region whither Constantius had banished him, who had been
otherwise suspected on account of his intimacy with Gallus; and to him
Julian sent letters full of benignity, and furnished him with public
conveyances. For a similar reason he condemned 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 might be found which he
did from hatred to his predecessor, either himself effecting these or
permitting others to accomplish them.
E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
