"And on this Rock I Will Build My Church".Vol.2

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CHAPTER II THE LITERARY TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY OVER GREEK AND ROMANHEATHENISM:
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9). Julian's Attack upon Christianity:
For Literature comp. 4 p. 39, 40.
The last direct and systematic attack upon the Christian religion proceeded from the emperor Julian. In his winter evenings at Antioch in 363, to account to the whole world for his apostasy, he wrote a work against the Christians, which survives, at least in fragments, in a refutation of it by Cyril of Alexandria, written ab-out 432. In its three books, perhaps seven (Cyril mentions only three{In the preface to his refutation, Contra Jul. i. p. 3: But Jerome says, Epist. 83 (tom. iv. p. 655): Julianus Augustus septem libros, in expeditione Part-hica [or rather before he left Antioch and started for Persia], adversus Christianos vomuit.}), it shows no trace of the dispassionate philosophical or historical appreciation of so mighty a phenomenon as Christianity in any case is. Julian had no sense for the fundamental ideas of sin and redemption or the cardinal virtues of humility and love. He stood entirely in the sphere of naturalism, where the natural light of Helios outshines the mild radiance of the King of truth, and the admiration of worldly greatness leaves no room for the recognition of the spiritual glory of self-renunciation. He repeated the arguments of a Celsus and a Porphyry in modified form; expanded them by his larger acquaintance with the Bible, which he had learned according to the letter in his clerical education; and breathed into all the bitter hatred of an Apostate, which agreed ill with his famous toleration and entirely blinded him to all that was good in his opponents. He calls the religion of the Galilean an impious human invention and a conglomeration of the worst elements of Judaism and heathenism without the good of either; that is, without the wholesome though somewhat harsh discipline of the former, or the pious belief in the gods, which belongs to the latter. Hence

Dr Muhammad Schmidt, of German descent and born in 1950, is a retired bishop consecrated in the Anglican rite. During his active life, he has served Anglican churches in different developing nations after completing his career as university professor for Linguistics in Far East Asia and other nations. Schmidt, although retired now, is still active in publishing books and occasionally delivering lectures upon invitation.