The Essays, vol 12 | Page 8

had
dissembled out of obedience to the laws, till he came to the empire. He
was in his own so superstitious, that he was laughed at for it by those of
his own time, of the same opinion, who jeeringly said, that had he got
the victory over the Parthians, he had destroyed the breed of oxen in the
world to supply his sacrifices. He was, moreover, besotted with the art
of divination, and gave authority to all sorts of predictions. He said,
amongst other things at his death, that he was obliged to the gods, and
thanked them, in that they would not cut him off by surprise, having
long before advertised him of the place and hour of his death, nor by a
mean and unmanly death, more becoming lazy and delicate people; nor
by a death that was languishing, long, and painful; and that they had
thought him worthy to die after that noble manner, in the progress of
his victories, in the flower of his glory. He had a vision like that of
Marcus Brutus, that first threatened him in Gaul, and afterward
appeared to him in Persia just before his death. These words that some
make him say when he felt himself wounded: "Thou hast overcome,
Nazarene"; or as others, "Content thyself, Nazarene"; would hardly
have been omitted, had they been believed, by my witnesses, who,
being present in the army, have set down to the least motions and
words of his end; no more than certain other miracles that are reported
about it.
And to return to my subject, he long nourished, says Marcellinus,
paganism in his heart; but all his army being Christians, he durst not
own it. But in the end, seeing himself strong enough to dare to discover
himself, he caused the temples of the gods to be thrown open, and did
his uttermost to set on foot and to encourage idolatry. Which the better
to effect, having at Constantinople found the people disunited, and also
the prelates of the church divided amongst themselves, having
convened them all before him, he earnestly admonished them to calm
those civil dissensions, and that every one might freely, and without

fear, follow his own religion. Which he the more sedulously solicited,
in hope that this licence would augment the schisms and factions of
their division, and hinder the people from reuniting, and consequently
fortifying themselves against him by their unanimous intelligence and
concord; having experienced by the cruelty of some Christians, that
there is no beast in the world so much to be feared by man as man;
these are very nearly his words.
Wherein this is very worthy of consideration, that the Emperor Julian
made use of the same receipt of liberty of conscience to inflame the
civil dissensions that our kings do to extinguish them. So that a man
may say on one side, that to give the people the reins to entertain every
man his own opinion, is to scatter and sow division, and, as it were, to
lend a hand to augment it, there being no legal impediment or restraint
to stop or hinder their career; but, on the other side, a man may also say,
that to give the people the reins to entertain every man his own opinion,
is to mollify and appease them by facility and toleration, and to dull the
point which is whetted and made sharper by singularity, novelty, and
difficulty: and I think it is better for the honour of the devotion of our
kings, that not having been able to do what they would, they have made
a show of being willing to do what they could.

CHAPTER XX
THAT WE TASTE NOTHING PURE
The feebleness of our condition is such that things cannot, in their
natural simplicity and purity, fall into our use; the elements that we
enjoy are changed, and so 'tis with metals; and gold must be debased
with some other matter to fit it for our service. Neither has virtue, so
simple as that which Aristo, Pyrrho, and also the Stoics, made the end
of life; nor the Cyrenaic and Aristippic pleasure, been without mixture
useful to it. Of the pleasure and goods that we enjoy, there is not one
exempt from some mixture of ill and inconvenience:
"Medio de fonte leporum, Surgit amari aliquid, quod in ipsis fioribus

angat."
["From the very fountain of our pleasure, something rises that is bitter,
which even in flowers destroys."--Lucretius, iv. 1130.]
Our extremest pleasure has some sort of groaning and complaining in it;
would you not say that it is dying of pain? Nay, when we frame the
image of it in its full excellence, we stuff it with sickly and painful
epithets and qualities, languor, softness, feebleness, faintness,
'morbidezza': a great