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But the youth answered, “I cannot be patient.”

Then Eusebius said, “The deliverance comes, but not in our time. A thousand years are as a day before the Lord God! Wait five days, then you will see.”

“I will not wait,” exclaimed the youth angrily.

“So say the damned souls also. But look you, impatience is one of the torments of hell, and you make a hell for yourself with your impatience.”

Julian became a hater of Christ, without exactly knowing why. The philosophers did not teach it him, for they adapted Christianity to their philosophy. Celsus’ feeble attack on Christianity had not misled Julian’s ripe and cultured intelligence. Eusebius explained his pupil’s hatred of Christ in the following way: “He has heathen blood in him, for he comes of Illyrian stock; he does not belong to this sheepfold. Or is his pride so boundless, his envy so great, that he cannot tolerate any Autocrat in the realm of the spirit? He lives himself like a Christian, and teaches the same as Christ, but at the same time is a Christ-hater.”

* * * * *

Meanwhile Julian, in order to hide his anger, had approached the little Temple of Mars on the hill. The building was in ruins, the doors had been carried away, and the columns were broken. As he entered it, he saw the statue of Mars, modelled after a good Greek one of Ares, standing in the apse, but the nose was broken off, the fingers were lacking, and the whole statue was streaked with dirt.

“This is the work of the Galilaeans,” said Julian, “but they shall pay for it.”

“They have already paid with their lives,” answered Maximus.

“Dionysius [Footnote: St. Denis] was beheaded on the hill, and his chapel stands there on the slope.”

“Are you also a Galilaean?”

“No; but I love justice.”

“Justice and its guardian-goddess Astrasa left the earth when the Iron Age began; now she is a star in heaven.”

“In the Zodiac,” interrupted Priscus; “I believe also, we all live in Zodiacs, and there justice has no place.”

A sudden murmur of voices was heard from the camp. Julian mounted a heap of stones to see what was the matter. The whole of the north-east side of Mars’ Hill was covered with soldiers, and below in the valley were to be seen tents and camp-fires. These thousands belonged to all the nations of the world. They comprised Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, Negroes, Hebrews, Persians, Afghans, Scythians, Germans, Britons, and Gauls. But now they were in movement and swarming, as gnats do when they dance.

“What is the excitement about?” asked Julian.

A little bell from the chapel of St. Denis sounded the Angelus, and the Christians fell on their knees, while the heathen remained standing or continued their occupations. The Christians considered themselves disturbed, and so did the heathen.

“This religion,” said Julian, “which should unite all, only divides them. If the Church Councils, instead of formulating new creeds, had done away with all forms, and proclaimed free worship with praise and adoration of the Highest, all peoples would have bent the knee before the Nameless, but look at the Christians! Since the law is on their side, they have the upper hand, and therefore compel the heathen to adore their Galilaean! But I will not help them. I can hold nations together, but not professors of creeds. Let us go into the town. I will not mix in the matter.”

Some Christian tribunes approached Julian, with the evident purpose of complaining, but he waved them off.

* * * * *

Julian had entered Lutetia on foot, accompanied by his philosophers. He had not allowed himself to be escorted by generals or other officers, because he did not trust them.

He found the new town to be a miniature of the Rome of the Caesars. It is true that huts with straw roofs formed the nucleus of it, but there were also several temples and chapels, a prefecture, a forum, and an amphitheatre. The forum or market-place was surrounded by colonnades, in which tradesmen and money-changers’ had opened their shops. One side–the shortest–of it was occupied by the prefecture, in which the Aedile and Quaestor lived.