Gregory Nazianzen, " Julian the Emperor" (1888). Oration 5: Second Invective Against Julian.
GREGORY NAZIANZEN'S SECOND INVECTIVE AGAINST JULIAN THE EMPEROR.
1. THUS, then, the first portion of my task has now been completed and brought to an end; for I have shown up the wickedness of that personage, both in what he did towards us, and in what he intended to do, perpetually contriving something yet more tyrannical than the last. Now, we shall aim at another mark, which perhaps no one has yet hit----one more sacred to God, more agreeable to ourselves, and perhaps more full of edification for those that come after us. I mean to subjoin to what has been already said, a narrative of the just dispensations (balances) of God, and by what equivalents He repays iniquity, which comes in for some of these payments at the moment, for others after a short postponement----in whatever way may seem best to the Word, the Creator, and the Dispenser of all things, Who knows how to temper calamity with mercy, and to chastise arrogance with disgrace and with plagues, according to the measure of correction that He appoints.
2. Diseases justly sent upon the impious, rendings that cannot be concealed, plagues and scourges of divers kinds, corresponding to the atrocities they have committed, deaths that follow not the common course of Nature, and |87 exclamations and vain repentances amidst their troubles, the warnings of dreams, and the apparitions in a true vision----who can rehearse all these in a manner worthy of the theme? and all that has come upon those who either have transgressed against religious houses, or have insulted the holy tables, or have acted like madmen to the mystical chalices, or have greedily gorged themselves with our flesh, or all the other crimes that they have dared to do----all the things that have fallen upon the perpetrators themselves are evident and public manifestations of God's anger at such doings. All these facts therefore I will willingly pass over, not that I disbelieve what I have seen and heard, nor refer these occurrences to natural causes or accident, after the fashion of those who vainly so interpret them, but that I may not be thought to be dwelling upon trifles, omitting greater and more remarkable facts. A miracle, therefore, that is in the mouth of everybody, and not disputed even by the heathen themselves, is the one I proceed to describe.
3. He [Julian] was daily growing more infuriated against us, as though raising up waves by other waves, he that went mad first against himself, that trampled upon things holy, and that did despite unto the Spirit of Grace: is it more proper to call him Jeroboam or Ahab, those most wicked of the Israelites; or Pharaoh the Egyptian, or Nebuchadnezzar the Assyrian; or combining all together shall we name him one and the same, since he shows himself to have united in himself the vices of them all----the apostasy of Jeroboam, the bloodthirstiness of Ahab, the hardness of heart of Pharaoh, the sacrilegious acts of Nebuchadnezzar, the impiety of all put together! For when he had exhausted every other resource, and despised every other form of tyranny in our regard as trifling and unworthy of him (since there never was a character so fertile in finding out and contriving mischief), at last he stirred |88 up against us the nation of the Jews, making his accomplice in his machinations their well-known credulity, as well as that hatred for us which has smouldered in them from the very beginning; prophesying to them out of their own books and mysteries that now was the appointed time come for them to return into their own land, and to rebuild the Temple, and restore the reign of their hereditary institutions ---- thus hiding his true purpose under the mark of benevolence.
4. And when he had formed this plan, and made them believe it (for whatever suits one's wishes is a ready engine for deceiving people), they began to debate about rebuilding the Temple, and in large number and with great zeal set about the work. For the partisans of the other side report that not only did their women strip off all their personal ornaments and contribute it towards the work and operations, but even carried away the rubbish in the laps of their gowns, sparing neither the so precious clothes nor yet the tenderness of their own limbs, for they believed they were doing a pious action, and regarded everything of less moment than the work in hand. But they being driven against one another, as though by a furious blast of wind, and sudden heaving of the earth, some rushed to one of the neighbouring sacred places to pray for mercy; others, as is wont to happen in such cases, made use of what came to hand to shelter themselves; others were carried away blindly by the panic, and struck against those who were running up to see what was the matter. There are some who say that neither did the sacred place ( to i9ero_n ) admit them, but that when they approached the folding doors that stood wide open, on coming up to them |89 they found them closed in their faces by an unseen and invisible power which works wonders of the sort for the confusion of the impious and the saving of the godly. But what all people nowadays report and believe is that when they were forcing their way and struggling about the entrance a flame issued forth from the sacred place [church] and stopped them, and some it burnt up and consumed so that a fate befell them similar to the disaster of the people of Sodom, or to the miracle about Nadab and Abiud, who offered incense and perished so strangely: whilst others it maimed in the principal parts of the body, and so left them for a living monument of God's threatening and wrath against sinners. Such then was this event; and let no one disbelieve, unless he doubts likewise the other mighty works of God! But what is yet more strange and more conspicuous, there stood in the heavens |90 a light circumscribing a Cross, and that which before on earth was contemned by the ungodly both in figure and in name is now exhibited in heaven, and is made by God a trophy of His victory over the impious, a trophy more lofty than any other!
5. What will those gentlemen say of these events----they who are wise, as this world goes, and make a fine show of their own cause, smoothing down their flowing beard and trailing before our eyes that elegant philosophic mantle! Eeply to me for thyself, thou writer of long discourses, that dost compose incredible stories and gapest up at the skies, telling lies about things celestial, and weaving out of the movements of the stars, people's nativities and predictions of the future! Tell me of those stars of thine, the Ariadne's Crown, the Berenice's Hair, the lascivious Swan, the violent Bull! or, if thou pleasest, tell me of thine Ophiuchus, or of thy Capricorn, or of thy Lion, or all the rest that thou hast discovered for a bad end and made them into gods in constellations! Where dost thou find this cycle in thy science, where the Star that of old moved towards Bethlehem out of the East, that leader and introducer of thy own Wise Men! I, too, have something to tell from the heavens: that Star declared the presence of Christ: this Crown is that of the victory of Christ!
6. Thus much is taken from things celestial and sympathizing with our fortunes, in accordance with the mighty harmony and disposition of the universe. What follows let the Psalm finish for me: "Because Thou hast cast down cities," namely, those ancient ones for the very same acts of impiety, in the middle of the very same offences against us; some thereof overwhelmed by the floods, others swallowed up by earthquake; so that one is pretty nearly able to apply the remainder: "The memorial of them hath perished with a sound and a destruction noised abroad." For such has been their fall, and such their ruin, also of those their neighbours who |91 took the most delight in their impiety, so that a very long time were necessary to them for their restoration, even if anyone should have the boldness to undertake it.
7. Was it then only earth and heaven, and did not air likewise give a sign on that occasion, and was hallowed with the badges of the Passion? Let those who were spectators and partakers of that prodigy exhibit their garments, which to the present time are stamped with the brandmarks of the Cross! For at the very moment that anyone, either of our own brethren or of the outsiders, was telling the event or hearing it told by others, he beheld the miracle happening in his own case or to his neighbour, being all spotted with stars, or beholding the other so marked upon his clothes in a manner more variegated than could be done by any artificial work of the loom or elaborate painting. What is the result of this? Such great consternation at the spectacle that nearly all, as by one signal and with one voice, invoked the God of the Christians, and propitiated Him with many praises and supplications: whilst many, without further delay, but at the moment of the occurrence, ran up to our priests, and besought them earnestly that they might be made members of the Church, being sanctified by the holy baptism, for they had been saved by means of their fright.
8. So passed that affair; but he, infatuated and urged on as he was by his furies in detail, advances to meet the finishing stroke of his crimes: for, as he supposed the matter of the Christians was going on according to his mind, and expected from what he had already accomplished that complete success (if he only willed it) would attend his enterprises; taking advantage of the tranquillity prevailing on the side of the Western barbarians, he plans the following scheme----a very sensible and very humane one, too! Having levied in these parts a double force, one military, the other of the demons who led him on (in which he placed the more confidence of the two), he marches against |92 the Persians, trusting rather to his inconsiderate rashness than to the warranty of his strength, not being able to discern, very wise as he was, that courage and rashness ( qa&rsoj, qrasoj ), however similar they may be in sound, are yet widely different from each other in reality as much as what we call manliness and unmanliness. For the being bold in military matters is a mark of courage, just as being dispirited is of cowardice: but where there is too much danger, to run headlong and thrust oneself into it and not check oneself, is a mark of rashness; whereas giving way shows caution, and it does not evince the same prudence to prefer keeping one's own, and to seek to obtain something of what is not one's own, for the former is our first duty, and to be held in honour by all sensible persons; the latter, if it can be done with facility, is to be admitted, but if it be injurious, must be given up; whilst he who risks everything he has for the sake of getting something of what he hopes for, is extremely foolish, and seems to me to be like an unskilful pugilist striking out before he fairly settles himself on his guard, or else like the captain of a ship that is going to pieces and no longer fit for sea, who sinks or attempts to sink an enemy's vessel. None of these things does he seem to have considered when he engaged without reflection in his schemes: and whilst his Romans were still convulsed and ill-disposed towards him on account of the persecution, to covet |93 a stranger's empire and to be a Salmoneus, making thunder out of a drum, having his eyes fixed upon the Trajans and Hadrians of former times, (persons whose caution was no less admirable than their bravery,) he did not think of the Carus, and the Valerian who paid the penalty of their inconsiderate rashness ("not to insult misfortune," as the tragedian says) in the territories of Persians, and were destroyed in the middle of their success.
9. But, as already said, such was his determination----and he was full of eagerness, bringing into one every jugglery of divination, of imposture, of mentionable and unmentionable sacrifices, in order that it might be all at once destroyed in a brief space. And his vow, how great and monstrous a thing, (O thou Christ, thou Word, thou Passion of the impassive, thou Mystery of all creation!) It was to subjugate the whole Christian family to obedience to his own demons, so soon as he had accomplished the business in hand! Now, the first steps in his enterprise, excessively audacious and much celebrated by those of his own party, were as follows. All the land of the Assyrians that the Euphrates flows through, and skirting Persia there unites itself with the Tigris; all this he took and ravaged, and captured some of the fortified towns, in the total absence of anyone to hinder him, whether that he had taken the Persians unaware by the rapidity of his advance, or whether he was out-generalled by them and drawn on by degrees further and further into the snare (for both stories are told); at any rate, advancing in this way, with his army marching along the river's bank and his flotilla upon the river supplying provisions and carrying the baggage, after a considerable interval he touches Ctesiphon, a place which, even to be near, was thought by him half the victory, by reason of his longing for it. |94
10. From this point, however, like sand slipping from beneath the feet, or a great wave bursting upon a ship, things began to go back with him; for Ctesiphon is a strong fortified town, hard to take, and very well secured by a wall of burnt brick, a deep ditch, and the swamps coming from the river. It is rendered yet more secure by another strong place, the name of which is Cochè, furnished with equal defences as far as regards garrison and artificial protection, so closely united with it that they appear one city, the river separating both, between them. For it was neither possible to take the place by general assault, nor to reduce it by siege, nor even to force a way through by means of the fleet principally, for he would run the risk of destruction; being exposed to missiles from higher ground on both sides, he leaves the place in his rear, and does so in this manner. Of the river Euphrates, which is a very large one, he cuts off no inconsiderable part and diverts it so as to be navigable for vessels, by means of a canal, of which ancient vestiges are said to be visible; and thus joining the Tigris a little in front of Ctesiphon, he saves his boats from one river by means of the other river, in all security; in this way he escapes the danger that menaced him from the two garrisons. But, as he advanced, a Persian army suddenly started up, and continually received fresh reinforcements, but did not think it advisable to stand in front and fight it out, without the greatest necessity (although it was in their power to conquer, from their superior numbers); but from the tops of the hills and narrow passes they shot arrows and threw darts, whenever opportunity served, and thus readily prevented his further progress. Hence he is reduced to great perplexity, and not knowing to what side to turn, he finds out an unlucky solution for the difficulty.
11. For a man, one of no little consideration amongst the Persians, following the example of. that Zopyrus employed by Cyrus in the case of Babylon, on the pretence that he had had some quarrel, or rather a very great one |95 and for a very great cause, with his king, and, on that account very hostile to the Persian cause, and well disposed towards the Romans, thus addresses the emperor: "Sire, what means all this, why do you take such rotten measures in so important a matter? Wherefore this provision-fleet, and this train of everything----a mere incentive to cowardice; for nothing is so unfit for fighting, and fond of laziness, as a full belly, and the having the means of saving oneself in one's own hands? But if you will listen to me, you will burn this flotilla: what a relief to this fine army will be the result! and yourself will take another route, better supplied and safer than this; along which I will be your guide (being acquainted with the country as well as any man living), and will cause you to enter into the heart of the enemy's country, where you can obtain whatever you please, and so make your way home; and me you shall then recompense, when you have actually made proof of my good will and good advice."
12. And when he had said this, and gained credence to his story (for rashness is credulous, especially when God drives it on), everything that was dreadful happened at once; the boats were the prey of the flames, there was no bread, the ridicule of the enemy came to fill up the measure, the fatal blow was inflicted by his own hand, even hope had well nigh vanished, the guide had disappeared along with his promises, round about him the enemy, swelling up round him the war, the getting at them not easy, provisions not procurable, the army in despair and discontented with their commander, of hope for good nothing was left, but one wish alone, as was natural under the circumstances, the ridding themselves of bad government and bad generalship.
13. Up to this point, such is the universal account; but thenceforward, one and the same story is not told by all, but different accounts are reported and made up by different people, both of those present at the battle, and those not present; for some say that he was hit by a dart |96 from the Persians, when engaged in a disorderly skirmish, as he was running hither and thither in his consternation; and the same fate befell him as it did to Cyrus, son of Parysatis, who went up with the Ten Thousand against his brother Artaxerxes, and by fighting inconsiderately threw away the victory through his rashness. Others, however, tell some such story as this respecting his end: that he had gone up upon a lofty hill to take a view of his army and ascertain how much was left him for carrying on the war; and that when he saw the number considerable and superior to his expectation, he exclaimed, "What a dreadful thing if we shall bring back all these fellows to the land of the Eomans!" as though he begrudged them a safe return. Whereupon one of his officers, being indignant and not able to repress his rage, ran him through the bowels, without caring for his own life. Others tell that the deed was done by a barbarian jester, such as follow the camp, "for the purpose of driving away ill humour and for amusing the men when they are drinking." This tale about the jester is borrowed from Lampridius, who gives it as one of the many current respecting the death of Alexander Severus. The "Historia Augusta," a recent compilation, was then in everybody's hands. At any rate, he receives a wound truly seasonable (or mortal) and salutary for the whole world, and by a single cut from his slaughterer he pays the penalty for the many entrails of victims to which he had trusted (to his own destruction); but what surprises me, is how the vain man that fancied he learnt the future from that means, knew nothing of the wound about to be inflicted on his own entrails! The concluding |97 reflection is for once very appropriate: the liver of the victim was the approved means for reading the Future, and it was precisely in that organ that the arch-diviner received the fatal thrust.
14. One action of this person deserves not to be passed over in silence, as it contains, to wind up many others, the strongest exemplification of his madness. He was lying upon the bank of the river, and in a very bad way from his wound, when, remembering that many of those before his time who had aimed at glory, in order that they might be thought something higher than mortals, had (through some contrivances of their own) disappeared from amongst men, and thereby got themselves accounted gods; so he, being filled with a craving for similar glory, and at the same time ashamed of the manner of his end (by reason of the disgrace arising from his temerity), what does he contrive and what do? for not even with life does wickedness become extinct. He endeavours to throw his body into the river, and for this purpose he was using the assistance of some of his confidants and accomplices in his secret doings! And had not one of the imperial eunuchs perceived what was going on, and telling it to the rest out of disgust at the extravagant notion, prevented his purpose from being effected----why, another new god born out of an accident, would have manifested himself to the stupid!" And he, having thus reigned, thus commanded his army, closed his life in this way.
15. When that man had received the imperial power immediately after him, who was elected for his successor in the very camp, and in the extremity of danger----that imperatively demanded a leader----a man illustrious in all other respects as well as for piety, and in personal |98 appearance truly fitted for sovereignty----he was utterly unable to come to blows with, or even to get near the Persians (although far from deficient either in courage or eagerness for battle), because his army had lost all force and all hope. He sought therefore for the means of retreating, and considered in what way he could effect this with safety, inasmuch as he had not been the inheritor of empire, but of defeat. Now, if the Persians had not made a moderate use of their victory (for it is a law with them to know how to measure out prosperity) or had not been fearful of something or other, as the report goes, and therefore had agreed to terms so unexpected and reasonable, nothing was there to prevent "not even a fire-carrier's" (as the saying is) "surviving out of the whole army," so completely had the Persians got them in their power, inasmuch as the latter were fighting in their own country, and were elated by the recent events; for the obtaining of some success is a sufficient foundation for hope of the future. In the present case, the one party had, as I have said, but one object in view----namely, how to save his army and preserve the sinews of the Roman power, for they were the sinews, and though they had failed, it was more through the imprudence of him that commanded than their own cowardice. So they agreed to these terms, so disgraceful, and so unworthy of the hand |99 of Romans, to sum up the whole in one word; of the blame of which convention if anyone acquits the late and charges the present emperor, he is, in my opinion, but an ignorant critic of what has happened, for the crop is not due to the reaper, but to its sower, nor the conflagration to him that is unable to extinguish it, but to the incendiary. And the remark of Herodotus about the tyranny at Samos may be appropriately quoted, "that Histiaeus stitched the shoe, but Aristagoras put it on," meaning him that had received the succession from the man who had first gotten it.
16. What then remained but for the corpse of the impious one to be carried home by the Romans, although he had closed his career in this manner? For we also have one dead of our own, in the prince that deceased before this one: so let us take a view, in this point also, of the difference between the two, whether this conduces to the felicity or to the misery of the departed. The one is followed to the tomb with public benedictions and processions, and, in fact, with all our solemnities, nocturnal chants, and torchlight folldwings, wherewith we Christians use to do honour to a pious departure from this world. The assembly meets, the carrying forth of the corpse takes place amidst the weeping of all; and, if one can believe the story, which is spread about by the reports of the vulgar, when the corpse was passing over Mount Taurus, on its way to his native city (that city of the same name with those princes and of illustrious name) a sound from the heights was heard by some of the train, as though of persons playing on musical instruments and |100 accompanying them----these being, I suppose, the angelic hosts, in honour to his piety and a funereal recompense of his virtue. For although he had seemed to shake the foundations of the true faith, this, nevertheless, must be laid to the charge of his subordinates' stupidity and unsoundness, who, getting hold of a soul that was unsuspicious and not firmly grounded in religion, nor able to see the pitfalls in its path, led it astray what way they pleased, and under the pretence of correctness of doctrine, converted his zeal into sin.
17. We, however, more commonly out of regard for his father (who had laid the foundation of the imperial power and the Christian religion) as well as for the inheritance of the Faith that had come to him by descent----we reverenced with good reason the earthly Tabernacle of him that had spent his life in reigning righteously, that had finished his course with a holy end, and had left the supremacy to our side. And when the corpse drew near to the great imperial city, what needs it to mention the cortège of the whole army and the escort under arms that attended as upon the living emperor, or the crowd that poured forth from the splendid city, the most splendid that was ever seen, or ever will be? Nay, even that audacious and bold person, decorated with the still new purple, and therefore, as was natural, full of pride, himself forms a part of the funereal honour paid his predecessor, paying and receiving the same obligation, partly out of constraint, partly (they say) of his own free will, for the whole army, even though they submitted to the existing authority, nevertheless paid more respect to the deceased, for the reason that, somehow or other, we are naturally inclined to sympathize more with recent misfortune, mingling regret with our love, and adding compassion to the two. For this reasou they could not endure |101 that the departed one should not be honoured and received like an emperor; so they persuade, nay, compel, the rebel to go to meet the corpse in befitting form, that is, stripping his brow of the diadem, and with head bent before his sovereign, as was right, thus to escort the corpse, in company with the bearers, to the tomb and to the famous Church of the Apostles, who received the holy race, and now guard their remains, which receive almost equal honours with their own! In this way our emperor was interred.
18. But as for the other, the circumstances attending his departure to the war were disgraceful (for he was pursued by mobs and townsfolk with vulgar and ribald cries, as most people yet remember), but still more inglorious was his return. What was his disgrace? Buffoons and mimes escorted him, the train moved along amidst foul jokes from the stage, with piping and dancing, whilst he was upbraided with his apostasy, his defeat, and his end, suffering every sort of insult, hearing every sort of thing in which such people indulge who make ribaldry their trade, until the city of Tarsus received him (why and wherefore condemned to this indignity I know not); where he has a consecrated ground without honour, a |102 tomb accursed, a temple abominable, and not even to be looked at by pious eyes!
19. And these things I have related as forming the greatest and most important of the charges against him, though I am not ignorant that to two or three of the parasites in the palace, his equals in irreligion (for the others I willingly pass over), there was given such mighty payment for their impiety that nothing would have prevented their plundering all that was subject to the Romans, both land and sea, if an end had not been put opportunely to the business, so greatly did they surpass in rapine and greediness those hundred-handed giants of old; for the governments of the provinces were not put into the hands of the most humane, but of the most cruel, and one road to office was apostasy, and to obtain preferment at his hands the taking the worst measures both for one's self and others.
20. What shall I say of his revisals and alterations of sentences, frequently changed and upset at midnight, like the tides? For my fine fellow thought proper to play the judge, making everything his own out of vanity. But perhaps by blaming him for very trifling things I shall be thought to disparage very important matters through others inconsiderable; nevertheless, it must be owned that such conduct is not deserving of the Elysian Fields, nor of the glory of a Rhadamanthus in the next world, a lot which those of the same fraternity and set claim for him. One thing in his conduct I have to admire. Many of his former companions and acquaintances, principally from the schools in Asia, he summoned to him with all haste, as though about to do wonderful things for them, as he excited them to hope when they remembered his fine promises. |103 But when they were arrived, 'twas the saying, "the deceits of counters and the illusions of dreams," for some he befooled in one way, some in another, for there were whom he entertained at table, and drank to, with much bawling out of "My friend," and after all sent them about their business disappointed, not knowing whom to blame the most----him for the deception, or themselves for their credulity.
21. That part, too, is certainly to be commended in the training of our philosopher, that he was so very free from anger, and superior to all the passions, after the model of the princes of any period that were neither to be bent nor to be shaken, nor would turn their faces round, whatever should happen, or betray any trace of feeling! so that when sitting in judgment he used to fill the whole palace with his cries and exclamations, as though it were he that was being ill-treated and punished, and not himself protecting those that suffered such things. This behaviour we shall not deem worth a single word, but there is one thing of which who in the world is ignorant----how that many persons of the vulgar sort that approached for the purpose of making such petitions as people do to their rulers, he used so badly, hitting them with his fist and kicking them with his foot, that they were very well content to escape without worse treatment.
22. But the puffings and blowings of the fire (in which this wonderful man, who reviles our rites, set an example to all old ladies) when he was kindling the sacrificial flame, in what part of our discourse shall we place them ? How fine a thing to behold the cheeks of the emperor of the Romans thus distorted, and occasioning laughter, not merely to the outside world, but to the very people whom he thought to please by acting thus! for he had never heard of Minerva, his own goddess, that cursed the pipes by which she had disfigured her face, when instead of mirror she used the pool; and the healths and loving-cups that he pledged in public to the |104 courtesans, and was pledged by them in return, whilst he cloaked the indecency under the show of a religious ceremony----a thing certainly well worthy of admiration!
23. This character of his was made known by experience to others, and by his coming to the throne which gave him free scope to display it. But it had previously been detected by some; ever since I lived with this person at Athens; for he too had gone thither, immediately after the catastrophe of his brother, having himself solicited this permission from the emperor. There was a double reason for this journey: the one more specious----the object of acquainting himself with Greece and the schools of that country; the other more secret, and communicated to but a few----that he might consult the sacrificers and cheats there upon the matters concerning himself; so far back did his paganism extend. At that time, therefore, I remember that I became no bad judge of his character, though far from being of much sagacity in that line; but what made me a true guesser was the inconsistency of his behaviour and his extreme excitability (that is, if he be the best diviner who knows how to guess shrewdly). A sign of no good seemed to me to be his neck unsteady, his shoulders always in motion and shrugging up and down like a pair of scales, his eye rolling and glancing from side to side with a certain insane expression, his feet unsteady and stumbling, his nostrils breathing insolence and disdain, the gestures of his face ridiculous and expressing the same feelings, his bursts of laughter unrestrained and |105 gusty, his nods of assent and dissent without any reason, his speech stopping short and interrupted by his taking breath, his questions without any order and unintelligent, his answers not a whit better than his questions, following one on top of the other, and not definite, nor returned in the regular order of instruction.