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| Of the heads discovered in the palace at Antioch and the public rejoicings there. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XXII.—Of the heads discovered in the palace at Antioch
and the public rejoicings there.
It is
said that at Antioch a number of chests were discovered at the palace
filled with human heads, and also many wells full of corpses. Such is
the teaching of the evil deities.
When Antioch heard of Julian’s death she gave herself up to
rejoicing and festivity; and not only was exultant joy exhibited in the
churches, and in the shrines of martyrs, but even in the theatres the
victory of the cross was proclaimed and Julian’s vaticination
held up to ridicule. And here I will record the admirable utterance of
the men at Antioch, that it may be preserved in the memory of
generations yet to come, for with one voice the shout was raised,
“Maximus, thou fool, where are thy oracles? for God has conquered
and his Christ.” This was said because there lived at that time a
man of the name of Maximus, a pretender to philosophy, but really a
worker of magic, and boasting himself to be able to foretell the
future. But the Antiochenes, who had received their divine teaching
from the glorious yokefellows Peter and Paul, and were full of warm
affection for the Master and Saviour of all, persisted in execrating
Julian to the end. Their sentiments were perfectly well known to the
object of them, and so he wrote a book against them and called it
“Misopogon.”664
664 “The residence of Julian at Antioch was a disappointment to
himself, and disagreeable to almost all the inhabitants.”
“He had anticipated much more devotion on the part of the pagans,
and much less force and resistance on that of the Christians than he
discovered in reality. He was disgusted at finding that both parties
regretted the previous reign. ‘Neither the Chi nor the
Kappa’ (that is neither Christ nor Constantius) ‘did our
city any harm’ became a common saying (Misopogon p. 357). To the
heathens themselves the enthusiastic form of religion to which Julian
was devoted was little more than an unpleasant and somewhat vulgar
anachronism. His cynic asceticism and dislike of the theatre and the
circus was unpopular in a city particularly addicted to public
spectacles. His superstition was equally unpalatable. The short,
untidy, long-bearded man, marching pompously in procession on the tips
of his toes, and swaying his shoulders from side to side, surrounded by
a crowd of abandoned characters, such as formed the regular attendants
upon many heathen festivals, appeared seriously to compromise the
dignity of the empire. (Ammianus xxii. 14. 3. His words ‘stipatus
mulierculis’ etc. go far to justify Gregory’s δημοσί&
139· ταίς
πορναίς
προὔπινε in Orat. v. 22. p. 161, and Chrysostom’s more highly
coloured description of the same sort of scene, for the accuracy of
which he appeals to an eye witness still living, de S. Babyla in
Julianum §14. p. 667. The blood of countless victims flowed
everywhere, but, to all appearance, served merely to gorge his foreign
soldiery, especially the semi-barbarous Gauls, and the streets of
Antioch were disturbed by their revels and by drunken parties carrying
one another home to their barracks. (Amm. xxii. 12. 6.)”
“More secret rumours were spread of horrid nocturnal sacrifices,
and of the pursuits of those arts of necromancy from which the natural
heathen conscience shrank only less than the Christians.”
“He discharged his spleen upon the general body of the citizens
of Antioch by writing one of the most remarkable satires that has ever
been published which he entitled the Misopogon. ‘He had
been insulted,’ says Gibbon, ‘by satire and libels; in his
turn he composed under the title of The Enemy of the Beard, an
ironical confession of his own faults, and a severe satire on the
licentious and effeminate manners of Antioch. The imperial reply was
publicly exposed before the gates of the palace, and the Misopogon
still remains a singular monument of the resentment, the wit, the
inhumanity, and the indiscretion of Julian. Gibbon, Chap. xxiv.’
It is of course Julian’s own philosophic beard that gives the
title to the pamphlet.” “This pamphlet was written in the
seventh month of his sojourn at Antioch, probably the latter half of
January.” (1. c. 364.) Bp. J. Wordsworth in Dict. Ch. Biog. iii.
507., 509. |
This rejoicing at the death of
the tyrant shall conclude this book of my history, for it were to my
mind indecent to connect with a righteous reign the impious sovereignty
of Julian. E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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