"Julian's View of Himself As the Defender Of Hellenism", Michael
McKenny, Nov. 1986, Feb, 1987.

For a modern admirer of the ancient Greeks the phrase defender of
Hellenism conjures up the vision of the protection and the
advancement of Greek culture and civilization focused perhaps most
keenly on Greek arts and literature and the city state.

Flavius Claudius Iulianus, who was created Caesar in 355 and
acclaimed Augustus in 360, did indeed take a number of steps
conforming to this conception. However, he had a significantly wider
understanding of the phrase, more in keeping with the mind of the
Late Empire.

Few emperors had come to the Roman throne more learned and more
literate. Julian in no idle boast but simply a statement of fact
declared that no one his age had read more than he had.(1) And when
he was cut off at an earlier age than the founder of the Galilaeans,
he bequeathed a heritage exceeding in volume and literary worth what
remains of the Christians from their entire first century. His
panegyric, his letters, his treatises, his satire are said to have
been a model of Greek prose into Byzantine times,(2) which perhaps
explains the amount that survives of the works of this man, whose
views the copyists of a Christian empire were not keen to preserve.

During his rule in Gaul and his brief command of the Roman empire,
Julian took a number of actions, which indicate his interest in the
civilizing aspects of Hellenism.

Julian's personal physician was encouraged by his imperial patient
to produce an encyclopedia of medicine and the voluminous result,
about half of which survives, has earned Oribasius the description,
"Next to Galen the most important medical writer of the Graeco-Roman
period."(3)

On the death of the Bishop of Alexandria, the Emperor ordered the
deceased's extensive library brought to Antioch, where it was
installed as a public library in a temple originally built at the
time of Hadrian.(4) Constantinople was given a public library,
which included many of Julian's personal books and in which legal
texts were well represented.(5)

Julian's letters include one encouraging the teaching of music at
Alexandria(6) and another prompting a teacher of medicine to move to
the same city.(7)

He initiated public works in several Balkan cities including Athens,
repairing or rebuilding failing structures, installing new aqueducts
etc.(8) He made arrangements to add an obelisk to Constantinople (9)
and had work begun on a new harbour for that city.(10)

It is no accident that the above examples deal largely with cities.
In contrast to the centralizing tendencies of his immediate
predecessors, Julian's classical Hellenistic view saw the imperial
power responsible for providing that security and prosperity, which
would permit the flourishing of the cities and allow these primary
institutions and organs of the oikoumene to foster vigorously a
healthy culture and society.

Julian did not hesitate to act accordingly. Already in Gaul his
determined and courageous efforts to restore the Rhine frontier, to
see the rebuilding of cities and to reduce an onerous taxation had
been the realization of such a policy.

As sole emperor he promptly reduced the bloated bureaucracy and
imperial household, having disdainfully encountered the extravagance
of the cook and the barber and the now superfluous eunuchs. It is
said that thousands were dismissed.(11)

He also devoted his attention to rectifying the overburdened
imperial transport system, revoking the previous privileges of
bishops in this regard, issuing a specific number of permits to
senior officials such as praetorian praefects and prohibiting
without his personal permission the issuing of any supplementary
permit.(12)

In March of 362 he issued a number of considered decrees aimed at
the revitilization of cities:

   city land taken over by the imperial government was to be
   returned to the cities, so that the rent it brought might swell
   their revenues; no fresh taxes or corvees were to be imposed
   without his authority; members of city councils who had been
   excused on various grounds were to be recalled to their civic
   duties; the immunity from taxation which lessees of imperial
   estates had enjoyed were revoked."(13)

Also, the originally voluntary nature of the aurum coronarium was
restored and, "there was a general cancellation of arrears of the
land-tax."(14)

The young Julian's extensive reading and personal inclination
included other areas which he, more so than we, perceived as
integral parts of Hellenism. A pursuit of philosophy led him into
the Late Empire's neo-Platonism with its mysticism and theurgy, a
term perhaps more clearly expressed by the words magic and
charlatanism.

The example of the eminent practitioners of the religion of his
birth (among whom may be included the emperor, who at the least
allowed the murders of a number of Julian's near relatives, and
Bishop George of Cappadocia, whose own murder in Alexandria Julian
concedes as merrited)(15) helped deter him from an emulation of
their faith.

The enthusiasm of Mardonios, his tutor, and his own disposition and
seclusion fashioned an attachment to the ideal form of the old
religion. The ancient ritual and neo-Platonic thought, secret
ceremonies and metaphysical beliefs became for him a central aspect
of Hellenism, which term Julian often uses where we would use the
word paganism.

Julian maintained the public appearance of Christian belief until
the death of Constantius. He had attended Epiphany mass at Vienne in
361, after his acclamation as Augustus.(16) It was only when as sole
emperor he approached Constantinople he could first declare, "We
worship the gods openly...I myself sacrifice oxen in public."(17)

He very soon issued a decree permitting freedom of religious
observances.(18) However, Julian's concept of his role as the
defender of Hellenism was not limited to a restoration of the
freedom of pagan worship. In his short time as sole Augustus he
initiated and acquiesced in a number of actions aggressively
designed to turn back the tide of triumphant Christianity. These may
be divided broadly into three main categories: imperial polemic,
imperial persecution of a somewhat subtle nature and blatant
persecution.

Julian wrote during the winter of 362-3 at Antioch a work of three
books titled AGAINST THE GALILAEANS. Much of that part of it which
survives we owe to the extensive quotations of the fifth century
bishop Cyril of Alexandria, who,

   regarded the treatise as particularly dangerous, and said that it
   had shaken many believers.(19)

and who thus wrote a refutation.

   Of which half survives.(19)

Due to the incomplete nature of what remains and Cyril's statement
that "Matter as might contaminate the minds of Christians."(19) was
not reproduced, a modern corroboration of his views as to its
efficacy is not totally possible.

However, while, in what survives, the literary emperor, humorously
and otherwise, may seem to expose apparent inconsistencies and the
illogicality of some Christian beliefs, scriptural passages and
religious observances or rather non-observances (e.g. the trinity,
(20) the different accounts of the genealogy of the son of God
offered by Matthew and Luke(21) and a Christian diet permitting the
following: "Now if after the vision of Peter, the pig has now taken
to chewing the cud..."(22), it still remains to be demonstrated that
in such matters more than a small minority of individuals have ever
been swayed by logical argument.

In addition, what we do possess of the work is sufficient to call
into question the emperor's concern or ability to win the support of
the Jews against the Christians.

For while he asserts his reverence for the god of Abraham(23) and
some similarity of Judaism and his own religion(24), yet his
designation of the god of the Jews as, "Only one of the crowd of
other gods,"(25) his belittling the jealousy attributed by Moses to
the deity of the Torah ("These words and others like them about God
Moses is frequently made to utter in the Scriptures")(26) and his
scorn of Jewish achievement in the sciences,(27) in philosophy,(28)
crafts,(29) government,(30) military affairs,(31) medicine,(32)
education(33) and literature(34) seem poorly designed to generate
any positive response on the part of a Jewish reader.

Yet among the more subtle measures designed to check the success of
Christianity, is suggested his support of the Jews. Special taxes
against them were revoked(35) and when Julian was informed on his
encouraging of Jewish sacrifice that this could take place only in
the temple in Jerusalem, he ordered it rebuilt, placing in charge of
the project a former vicarius of Britain.(36)

Julian's effort to oppose apparent Christian prophecy that this
temple would not be rebuilt backfired due to the inability of the
workers, allegedly prevented by celestial balls of fire, to carry
out their imperially imposed task.(36)

Another subtle measure was Julian's extension of religious freedom
to non-Arian sects of Christianity (the Arians had been the sole
favorites of the preceeding reign) as well, hoping thus to foster
the notorious Christian penchant for internal discord. However, when
Athanasius, the Orthodox bishop of Alexandria, seemed to be proving
a unifying force after being allowed back into that city, the
emperor had him expelled.(37)

Then there were actions which discriminated against Christians, but
permitted the justification such discrimination was incidental. For
example, a law prohibiting day time funerals, which were considered
ill omened and spiritually unclean by pagans, in practise opposed
Christian funeral custom.(38) Julian had an excuse not to appoint
Christian governors in that their religion forbade killing (i.e.
executions).(39) The ritual purification of the oracle of Apollo at
Daphne near Antioch necessitated the removal of the buried Christian
martyr, St. Babylas. This provided the Christians with a delightful
testimony to the apparent relative power of their saint and the
pagan god silenced by the martyr's bones.(40)

The co-incidence, deliberate or otherwise, of the burning of the
temple of Apollo at this time led to the emperor's closure of the
main church in Antioch.(41)

One of the brilliant foundations of Julian's support of paganism was
the apparently innocuous legislation regarding the morality of
teachers. Teachers of the classical works of Hellenism, it was
clarified, who did not believe the religious framework of what they
taught, were simply hypocrites and as hypocrites are not moral, they
are not eligible to teach these pagan standards of Hellenism. That
Christian children could continue to attend the classes of pagan
teachers (whom the emperor hoped would convert them) and that
Christian teachers could still teach what they professed (irrelevant
to the curriculum and common culture of Hellenism for the past
thousand years) only adds to the brilliant and insidious nature of a
measure designed to paganize the upper classes in a generation.(42)

There is evidence of a similar law concerning members of the legal
profession at Rome.(43)

Measures such as these were designed to take account of the evident
thriving and expansion of Christianity under outright persecution.
Yet, blatant and violent opposition to the Galilaeans did occur
during the reign of Julian.

There are reports of anti-Christian riots at Gaza and Emesa. The
Arian bishop George of Cappadocia was killed at Alexandria and
Julian's subsequent letter to the people of that city was very mild.
(15) He also wrote to the people of Bostra in Arabia promising
religious freedom for the Christians there, but encouraging them to
expel their bishop.(45)

The largely Christian port of mainly pagan Gaza was annexed to the
larger city.(46) On the destruction of the only temple in Caesarea
in Cappadocia Julian,

   Reproached the pagan minority with being unwilling to fight for
   their rights, fined the city 300 pounds of gold, enrolled all the
   clergy in the provincial civil service, and demoted the city --
   which had the effect of making the citizens pay more taxes."(47)

The city also lost its exalted name reverting to the previous
appellation of Mazaka. When Nisibis complained about inadequate
protection from the Persians Julian is said to have retorted that as
long as they were Christian they should not expect military
protection.(48)

Bowersock writes,

   Citing with bitter irony the Christian view that the poor would
   pass more easily to the Kingdom of Heaven than the rich, Julian
   summarily confiscated all the money and land of the Christian
   community of Edessa.(49)

However Julian's actual letter which is the source for this quote
states that this is a punishment of the Arians for factional
fighting with other Christians, that the Arians had, "committed in
Edessa such rash acts as could never occur in a well-ordered city."
and that it was the church funds and land which were affected.(50)

Browning adds to his account of the incidents cited above this
cautionary note, "The facts of each of these cases may not be
exactly as they are recounted by ecclesiastical historians." He goes
on to add, "But the impression that Julian was abandoning his
earlier policy of toleration of Christianity is hard to resist."(51)

As Julian proceeded, against the advice of his soothsayers, to
invade the domains of Shapur and there met a violent death at an
early age, the further development of this brief persecution, the
emperor's willingness and ability to limit its more violent aspects
and the ultimate harm that would have been inflicted on the Church
(or Churches) of Christ fall outside the scope of factual history.

In conclusion, Julian's concept of himself as a defender of
Hellenism varies from a casual modern understanding of the term to
the extent that he (not unlike others of his background and
generation) added to the linguistic, literary, cultural and
civilizing aspects of the word "Hellenism" a fourth century interest
in philosophy or rather the supernatural, magic and religion.


Solarguard Pagan



Solarguard Homepage