It is usual to see good intentions, if carried on without moderation, push men on to very vicious effects. In the dispute that has engaged France in a civil war, the better and sounder cause, Montaigne says, is that which maintains the ancient religion and government of the kingdom. He sets aside those who only make a pretence of it to execute particular revenges, gratify avarice, or conciliate the favour of princes. He speaks of those who engage out of true zeal to religion and a holy desire to maintain the peace of their country. Of these, passion transports many beyond the bounds of reason, and sometimes inspires unjust, violent, and rash counsel. When the new religion first gained authority with the laws, zeal armed many against all sorts of pagan books, by which the learned suffered an exceeding great loss, a disorder Montaigne conceives to have done more prejudice to letters than all the flames of the barbarians. Cornelius Tacitus is a testimony: though the Emperor Tacitus, his kinsman, had by express order furnished all the libraries in the world with his history, one entire copy could not escape those who desired to abolish it for only five or six idle clauses contrary to our belief. They had also the trick easily to lend undue praises to all the emperors who made for us, and universally to condemn all the actions of those who were adversaries, as is evidently manifest in the Emperor Julian, surnamed the Apostate.
Julian was, in truth, a very great and rare man, a man in whose soul philosophy was imprinted in the best characters, and there is no sort of virtue of which he has not left notable examples. In chastity, slain by the Parthians at one-and-thirty, he would not so much as look upon one of a great many beautiful captives, the same that was said of Alexander and Scipio. In justice he took himself the pains to hear the parties, and the antipathy he had to Christianity never gave any counterpoise to the balance. He made several good laws and repealed a great part of the subsidies levied by his predecessors. Marcellinus, an eyewitness affectionate to the Christian party, sharply reproves an edict whereby Julian interdicted Christian rhetoricians and grammarians to keep school, and wishes that act buried in silence. Had Julian done any more severe thing against them, Montaigne thinks this witness would not have passed it over. He was sharp against Christians, but no cruel enemy. One day at Chalcedon, Maris, bishop of the place, was so bold as to tell him he was impious and an enemy to Christ. Julian was no further moved than to tell the bishop to go, poor wretch, and lament the loss of his eyes, to which the bishop answered that he thanked Jesus Christ for taking away his sight, that he might not see that impudent visage. Eutropius, the other witness, says he was an enemy to Christianity, but without putting his hand to blood. His death has something parallel with that of Epaminondas: wounded with an arrow, he tried to pull it out, cut and disabled his hand, and incessantly called out that they should carry him again into the heat of the battle. In matter of religion he was wrong throughout. Montaigne thinks it more probable he had never thoroughly embraced Christianity, but had dissembled out of obedience to the laws till he came to the empire. He was in his own so superstitious that those of his own opinion laughed at him, saying that had he got the victory over the Parthians he had destroyed the breed of oxen in the world to supply his sacrifices. At Constantinople, finding the people and the prelates divided, he convened them and earnestly admonished them that every one might freely, and without fear, follow his own religion, in hope that this licence would augment the schisms and hinder the people from reuniting against him. He had experienced by the cruelty of some Christians that there is no beast in the world so much to be feared by man as man.
Wherein this is very worthy of consideration: 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. On one side, to give the people the reins to entertain every man his own opinion is to scatter and sow division, there being no legal impediment to stop their career. On the other side, to give those reins 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. Montaigne thinks it 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.
