own desire, the place of their aged master. These philosophers seem to
have prepared and distributed their respective parts; and they artfully
contrived, by dark hints and affected disputes, to excite the impatient
hopes of the aspirant, till they delivered him into the hands of their
associate, Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the Theurgic
science. By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at Ephesus, in
the twentieth year of his age. His residence at Athens confirmed this
unnatural alliance of philosophy and superstition. He obtained the
privilege of a solemn initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis, which,
amidst the general decay of the Grecian worship, still retained some
vestiges of their primaeval sanctity; and such was the zeal of Julian,
that he afterwards invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court of Gaul,
for the sole purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and sacrifices,
the great work of his sanctification. As these ceremonies were performed
in the depth of caverns, and in the silence of the night, and as the
inviolable secret of the mysteries was preserved by the discretion of
the initiated, I shall not presume to describe the horrid sounds,
and fiery apparitions, which were presented to the senses, or the
imagination, of the credulous aspirant, till the visions of comfort and
knowledge broke upon him in a blaze of celestial light. In the caverns
of Ephesus and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere,
deep, and unalterable enthusiasm; though he might sometimes exhibit the
vicissitudes of pious fraud and hypocrisy, which may be observed, or at
least suspected, in the characters of the most conscientious fanatics.
From that moment he consecrated his life to the service of the gods;
and while the occupations of war, of government, and of study, seemed
to claim the whole measure of his time, a stated portion of the hours of
the night was invariably reserved for the exercise of private devotion.
The temperance which adorned the severe manners of the soldier and
the philosopher was connected with some strict and frivolous rules of
religious abstinence; and it was in honor of Pan or Mercury, of Hecate
or Isis, that Julian, on particular days, denied himself the use of some
particular food, which might have been offensive to his tutelar deities.
By these voluntary fasts, he prepared his senses and his understanding
for the frequent and familiar visits with which he was honored by