20. The temerity of Gallus in power was so far beyond all calculation as to exonerate Constantius from the charge of temerity in raising him to that power.
21. Alluding to the advice of Constantius' prime minister Eutropius, to put Julian to death along with his brother----a piece of useless cruelty overruled by the empress, whose influence Gregory here deprecates.
22. Vetranio, whose troops Constantius gained over by bribery, whilst spinning out fictitious negotiations with him: Sylvanus, whom he caused to be assassinated; and Magnentius in pitched battle.
23. A mild, very mild allusion, to his persecution of the Catholic sect, at the instigation of his Arian advisers.
24. Constantius had in reality been so alarmed by the rebellion of Sylvanus upon the Rhine, that he felt the necessity of a colleague in the West, and Julian was the sole survivor of his own family, to whom he could have recourse. By marrying him to his sister, Helena, he made the bond doubly sure, and but for his own stupid jealousy, the measure would have proved the best possible for his own interest----that of the empire was of but small account to him.
25. Maximus the philosopher, accused of having drawn large sums of money out of Julian; on which charge he was imprisoned and put to the torture under Jovian.
26. The Platonic Powers of Nature, the actual agents of the One Supreme.
27. Julian certainly condoned the death of Gallus, as merited by his cruelty and treasonable designs; he only complains of his execution without form of trial. And this in his "Epistle to the Athenians," in which he puts all his charges against Constantius in the strongest light.
28. "Impiety" is regularly used for Paganism, as is "Atheism" for Christianity, by writers on the two sides.
29. Of the palace. Gregory wishes his hearers to believe a lie which he was too acute to believe himself, that Julian had suborned one of the palace eunuchs to poison Constantius at a fixed time.
30. In not having murdered Julian when a child----a pious frame of mind quite consistent with Gregory's way of thinking. But in reality the dying emperor, caring for nothing but his infant daughter and wife, publicly declared Julian his heir and successor, assured of their safety under his protection.
31. This "sympathy" is the assurance of the everlasting torments to which Julian has just been consigned by the compassionate preacher.
32. Supposed by La Bléterie to mean that Julian un baptized himself by going through the baptism of blood in the Taurobolia: the context, however, shows that Gregory refers only to the revival of pagan sacrifices in the Palace.
33. A play upon deisidaimoni/a and dusdaimoni/a , which shows the identity of the preacher's pronunciation of the two words.
34. The preacher wishes his congregation to believe the story, but endeavours to save his own credit with sensible people by declaring himself not altogether convinced of its accuracy or details.
35. Probably a Mithraic cave.
36. The Sign of the Cross; regularly termed by Eusebius swth&rion shmei=on.
37. How did this scene become public? The sole operators, Julian and Maximus, were not likely to have divulged it, on their reascension from the cave.
38. An admission quite sufficient to disprove the existence of any persecution for religion's sake. Julian's grand offence in the preacher's eyes was the depriving the Christians of the power of persecuting others of different views, of which they had fully availed themselves during the twenty-four years of the reign of Constantius.
39. Martyrdom, which he refused the Christians, grudging them the honour it would bring them.
40. The true "head and front of his offending" was Julian's refraining from persecution---- argument, the preacher felt, was an infinitely more dangerous weapon.
41. The wretch Eusebius, the mortal enemy of Gallus and himself, and a very small number of Constantius' ministers, who, be it remembered, were condemned, not by Julian, but by a military tribunal, composed of Gallic officers, many of whom must have been Christians, in consequence of the preponderance of that religion in the West.
42. The state of England under Mary is an exact parallel to that of the Empire under Julian. The new religion in each case was held by a small minority, but well organized and extremely noisy; the rest of the population, except in certain districts where local causes kept up zeal for the ancient religion, were entirely indifferent to principles, but eager for the plunder of the temple lands and treasures, as of those of the abbeys and cathedrals. This state of things clearly appears from Julian's complaints in the Misopogon.
43. An admission that such persons did not lose their places on the score of their religion, for Gregory allows that they were permitted to remain in office, upon the chance of their ultimately coming over to Julian's views.
44. The Monogram of Christ, revealed to Constantine in a vision, and painted on the soldiers' shields on the eve of his battle with Maxentius. ---- See account in Lactantius.