A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 07. Voltaire
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the present day – after having compared facts, memorials and records, the writings of Julian and those of his enemies – we are compelled to acknowledge that, if he was not partial to Christianity, he was somewhat excusable in hating a sect stained with the blood of all his family; and that although he had been persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, and threatened with death by the Galileans, under the reign of the cruel and sanguinary Constantius, he never persecuted them, but on the contrary even pardoned ten Christian soldiers who had conspired against his life. His letters are read and admired: "The Galileans," says he, "under my predecessor, suffered exile and imprisonment; and those who, according to the change of circumstances, were called heretics, were reciprocally massacred in their turn. I have called home their exiles, I have liberated their prisoners, I have restored their property to those who were proscribed, and have compelled them to live in peace; but such is the restless rage of these Galileans that they deplore their inability any longer to devour one another." What a letter! What a sentence, dictated by philosophy, against persecuting fanaticism. Ten Christians conspiring against his life, he detects and he pardons them. How extraordinary a man! What dastardly fanatics must those be who attempt to throw disgrace on his memory!
In short, on investigating facts with impartiality, we are obliged to admit that Julian possessed all the qualities of Trajan, with the exception of that depraved taste too long pardoned to the Greeks and Romans; all the virtues of Cato, without either his obstinacy or ill-humor; everything that deserves admiration in Julius Cæsar, and none of his vices. He possessed the continence of Scipio. Finally, he was in all respects equal to Marcus Aurelius, who was reputed the first of men.
There are none who will now venture to repeat, after that slanderer Theodoret, that, in order to propitiate the gods, he sacrificed a woman in the temple of Carres; none who will repeat any longer the story of the death scene in which he is represented as throwing drops of blood from his hand towards heaven, calling out to Jesus Christ: "Galilean, thou hast conquered"; as if he had fought against Jesus in making war upon the Persians; as if this philosopher, who died with such perfect resignation, had with alarm and despair recognized Jesus; as if he had believed that Jesus was in the air, and that the air was heaven! These ridiculous absurdities of men, denominated fathers of the Church, are happily no longer current and respected.
Still, however, the effect of ridicule was, it seems, to be tried against him, as it was by the light and giddy citizens of Antioch. He is reproached for his ill-combed beard and the manner of his walk. But you, Mr. Abbé de la Bletterie, never saw him walk; you have, however, read his letters and his laws, the monuments of his virtues. Of what consequence was it, comparatively, that he had a slovenly beard and an abrupt, headlong walk, while his heart was full of magnanimity and all his steps tended to virtue!
One important fact remains to be examined at the present day. Julian is reproached with attempting to falsify the prophecy of Jesus Christ, by rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem. Fires, it is asserted, came out of the earth and prevented the continuance of the work. It is said that this was a miracle, and that this miracle did not convert Julian, nor Alypius, the superintendent of the enterprise, nor any individual of the imperial court; and upon this subject the Abbé de la Bletterie thus expresses himself: "The emperor and the philosophers of his court undoubtedly employed all their knowledge of natural philosophy to deprive the Deity of the honor of so striking and impressive a prodigy. Nature was always the favorite resource of unbelievers; but she serves the cause of religion so very seasonably, that they might surely suspect some collusion between them."
1. It is not true that it is said in the Gospel, that the Jewish temple should not be rebuilt. The gospel of Matthew, which was evidently written after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, prophesies, certainly, that not one stone should remain upon another of the temple of the Idumæan Herod; but no evangelist says that it shall never be rebuilt. It is perfectly false that not one stone remained upon another when Titus demolished it. All its foundations remained together, with one entire wall and the tower Antonia.
2. Of what consequence could it be to the Supreme Being whether there was a Jewish temple, a magazine, or a mosque, on the spot where the Jews were in the habit of slaughtering bullocks and cows?
3. It is not ascertained whether it was from within the circuit of the walls of the city, or from within that of the temple, that those fires proceeded which burned the workmen. But it is not very obvious why the Jews should burn the workmen of the emperor Julian, and not those of the caliph Omar, who long afterwards built a mosque upon the ruins of the temple; or those of the great Saladin who rebuilt the same mosque. Had Jesus any particular predilection for the mosques of the Mussulmans?
4. Jesus, notwithstanding his having predicted that there would not remain one stone upon another in Jerusalem, did not prevent the rebuilding of that city.
5. Jesus predicted many things which God permitted never to come to pass. He predicted the end of the world, and his coming in the clouds with great power and majesty, before or about the end of the then existing generation. The world, however, has lasted to the present moment, and in all probability will last much longer.
6. If Julian had written an account of this miracle, I should say that he had been imposed upon by a false and ridiculous report; I should think that the Christians, his enemies, employed every artifice to oppose his enterprise, that they themselves killed the workmen, and excited and promoted the belief of their being destroyed by a miracle; but Julian does not say a single word on the subject. The war against the Persians at that time fully occupied his attention; he put off the rebuilding of the temple to some other time, and he died before he was able to commence the building.
7. This prodigy is related by Ammianus Marcellinus, who was a Pagan. It is very possible that it may have been an interpolation of the Christians. They have been charged with committing numberless others which have been clearly proved.
But it is not the less probable that at a time when nothing was spoken of but prodigies and stories of witchcraft, Ammianus Marcellinus may have reported this fable on the faith of some credulous narrator. From Titus Livius to de Thou, inclusively, all historians have been infected with prodigies.
8. Contemporary authors relate that at the same period there was in Syria a great convulsion of the earth, which in many places broke out in conflagrations and swallowed up many cities. There was therefore more miracle.
9. If Jesus performed miracles, would it be in order to prevent the rebuilding of a temple in which he had himself sacrificed, and in which he was circumcised? Or would he not rather perform miracles to convert to Christianity the various nations who at present ridicule it? Or rather still, to render more humane, more kind, Christians themselves, who, from Arius and Athanasius down to Roland and the Paladins of the Cévennes, have shed torrents of human blood, and conducted themselves nearly as might be expected from cannibals?
Hence I conclude that "nature" is not in "collusion", as La Bletterie expresses it, with Christianity, but that La Bletterie is in collusion with some old women's stories, one of those persons, as Julian phrases it, "quibus cum stolidis aniculis negotium erat."
La Bletterie, after having done justice to some of Julian's virtues, yet concludes the history of that great man by observing, that his death was the effect of "divine vengeance". If that be the case, all the heroes who have died young, from Alexander to Gustavus Adolphus, have, we must infer, been punished by God. Julian died the noblest of deaths, in the pursuit of his enemies, after many victories. Jovian, who succeeded him, reigned a much shorter time than he did, and reigned in disgrace. I see no divine vengeance in the matter; and I see in La Bletterie himself nothing more than a disingenuous, dishonest declaimer. But where are the men to be found who will dare to speak out?
Libanius the Stoic was one of these extraordinary men. He celebrated the brave and clement Julian in the presence of Theodosius, the wholesale murderer of the Thessalonians; but Le Beau and La Bletterie fear to praise him in the hearing of their own puny parish officers.
Let any one suppose for a moment that Julian had abandoned false gods for Christianity; then examine him as a man, a philosopher, and an emperor; and let the examiner then point out the man whom he will venture to prefer to him. If he had lived only ten years longer, there is great probability that he would have given a different form to Europe from that which it bears