Thank you to @LCbtPndD for submitting this translation to Amphora
Whether Emperor Julian1 was indeed an apostate, and whether he had ever truly been a Christian, is still debated among the learned.
He was not yet six years of age when Emperor Constantius, a man crueler even than Constantine, had his father, brother and seven of his first cousins murdered2. A slaughter that he, along with his brother Gallus, scarcely avoided. Even still, Constantius always treated him with great harshness3. For a long while, his life was under constant threat, and he soon lived to see his one remaining brother murdered on the tyrant’s orders4. I say this with regret, but even the most savage Turkish sultans have never outdone the family of Constantine in cruelty and underhandedness. From his earliest days, study was young Julian’s one consolation. He saw in secret the most illustrious philosophers of the day who still held to the old Roman religion5, and it is likely only to avoid being murdered himself that he went along with his uncle’s faith. Julian, much like Brutus under Tarquin, was obliged to conceal his true mind. His Christianity must have been all the less sincere because his uncle forced him to become a monk and perform the duties of a church reader. One rarely adopts the religion of one’s persecutor, especially when the persecutor seeks to dominate one’s conscience.
Likely also, nowhere does he write claiming to have once been a Christian. He never asks forgiveness of the pontiffs of the Old Religion. In his letters, he addresses them as if he had always adhered to the religion of the Senate. There is no evidence that he participated in the taurobolium, which may be regarded as a variety of pagan redemption rituals. Nor that he ever had any desire to wash away what he called “the stain of baptism” with bull’s blood. And even if he did, it was a pagan ritual that would prove nothing more than his association with the Mysteries of Ceres6. In a word, neither his friends nor his enemies report a single act, a single fragment of his speech, that proves that he ever believed in Christianity, and then, that he abandoned this sincere belief for one in the gods of the Empire.
If all that is so, then refraining from naming him “the apostate” is entirely justified.
Now that a spirit of healthy criticism has arrived at maturity, everyone acknowledges that Emperor Julian was a hero, a sage, and a Stoic in every way Marcus Aurelius’ equal. Yes, we condemn his errors, but we also agree on his virtues. Our present opinion of him is like Prudentius’7, a contemporary who wrote the hymn Salvates flores martyrum and said of Julian:
A most valiant leader in war,
Founder and famed lawgiver. With speech and hand alike
A counsellor to the fatherland, yet not so
In religion, a lover of three hundred thousand gods.
Faithless to God, but not faithless to the world.
Here is an example of the tone, often used when speaking of him, that features in a recent, often reprinted book:
After comparing Julian’s acts, the monuments he left and his writings with those of his enemies, one must admit that, though he had no love for Christianity, it is not beyond the bounds of forgiveness to hate a religion stained by the blood of all one’s family. One must further acknowledge that, although under the reign of the barbarian Constantius, he was persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, and threatened with death by the Galileans8, he never persecuted them in return. One must acknowledge that, on the contrary, he forgave the ten Christian soldiers who had been conspiring against his life. One reads his letters and is struck with admiration. “The Galileans,” he says, “suffered exile and imprisonment under my predecessor9. Christians labelled as heretics would be slain by their fellow believers at one time, who would promptly suffer the same fate at another. I recalled those who had been exiled, and I released their prisoners. To those who had been proscribed, I returned their property. I forced them to live in peace. But such is the restive fury of the Galileans that now they complain of being prevented in their mutual self-destruction.” What a letter! Philosophy hands down its judgment against fanaticism! Ten Christians discovered conspiring against his life, and he forgave them. What a man! Those who would seek to dishonor his memory are fanatics of the most cowardly sort!”
A discussion of the facts forces one to agree that Julian shared in all of Trajan’s qualities, although not in that predilection so long overlooked in the Greeks and Romans10. He had all of Cato’s virtues but none of his stubbornness and ill-temper. All that we admire in Caesar, he had, but none of his vices. He had Scipio’s abstemiousness and was in all regards that foremost of men, Marcus Aurelius’ peer.
Who now would dare repeat, as is reported by the slanderer Theoderet11, that Julian sacrificed a woman in the temple at Carrhae to win favour with the gods12? The rumour that, as he lay dying, he cast his blood into the sky, saying, “You win, Galilean,” has declining currency13. Is one really to believe that in his war on the Persians, he was in truth fighting Jesus Christ? That this philosopher, who died so resignedly, accepted Jesus? That he believed that Jesus was there, in the air, and that this air was Heaven itself? This kind of nonsense is repeated less and less.
His detractors are reduced to ridiculing him. But he was a much finer mind than those who mock him. One historian14, following in the tradition of St Gregory of Nazianzen15, reproaches him because his beard was too long. My friend, if nature endowed him in that way, why would you wish that he keep it short? His head was constantly twitching and shaking16. Mind your own head! He was always rushing to and fro. Bear in mind that when the king’s preacher, l’abbé d’Aubignac, was taunted by a whistling crowd, he turned to mocking the great Corneille about his gait and bearing. Furthermore, would you dare poke fun at the Maréchal de Luxembourg, simply because he walks difficultly and is slightly misshapen17? He marches well enough when it is towards the enemy. Let us leave the task of calling Emperor Julian an apostate to ex-Jesuits Patouillet and Nonotte and their ilk. Come now, his own successor, a Christian18, called him Julian the Divine!
Let us instead treat this emperor as he himself treated us [Christians]. He said, mistakenly, that “We [pagans] should not hate them but pity them. Their misfortune is already sufficient, erring as they do in the most important thing.” Let us show the same compassion, since we are sure that truth is on our side.
He scrupulously dispensed justice to his subjects; let us do the same for his memory. There were once some Alexandrians who lost their patience with a Christian bishop. He was a wicked man, it is true, and elected by a cabal of the city’s lowest. He was the son of a stone mason named George Biordos19. His habits were baser than his extraction. He combined the most cowardly perfidy with a most brute-like ferocity, and superstition with every vice. An avaricious, slanderous persecutor. A bloodthirsty, seditious parvenu. Hated by all sides, the Alexandrians ended up beating him to death with sticks. See now the letter that Emperor Julian wrote to the Alexandrians regarding this popular uprising. See how he speaks to them as both father and judge:
What is this I hear! Instead of informing me of the offenses done against you, you allowed your anger to get the better of you and indulged in the same excesses for which you reproach your enemies! George deserved as much, but it was not for you to be his executioners. You have laws and should have sought justice.
Some have besmirched Julian, the man who wanted to root out persecution and intolerance, as intolerant and a persecutor. Read his Letter 5220 and respect his memory. Is it not misfortune enough not to be Catholic, and so, burn in hell alongside the countless others who were not, without our insults and boldness to accuse him of intolerance?
On the balls of flame that are said to have erupted from the earth to prevent the rebuilding of the Temple at Jerusalem under Emperor Julian21
It is plausible that when Julian decided on war with Persia, he needed money, and that the Jewish people, in order to obtain permission to rebuild their temple, offered some to him. Their temple had been destroyed by Titus22, and all that remained were the foundations, part of the outer wall, and the Tower of Antonia. Is it plausible, however, that balls of flame rained down on the works and workers, causing the project to be abandoned? Do the historians’ words not contain obvious contradictions?
Firstly, how is it that the Jews, as we are told, began by destroying the foundations of the very temple that they wished and projected to rebuild on the same site23? The temple had to be on Mount Moriah, where Solomon originally erected it. It was there that, after first building a beautiful theatre in Jerusalem and a temple to Augustus in Caesarea, Herod rebuilt it far more solidly and magnificently. The foundations of this temple, as expanded by Herod, were as much as 20 feet long by Flavius Josephus’ account. Could the Jews of Julian’s time have been so out of their wits as to disturb these foundation stones, ready to receive the rest of the structure as they were and upon which the Mohammedans have since built their mosque? What man would be so demented, so foolish as to deprive himself at great cost and labour of the greatest advantage that he could have found at his disposal? Nothing is less credible.
Secondly, how did flames erupt from within these stones, as is reported? An earthquake may have occurred in the area, as they frequently do in Syria. But great stones spouting fiery whirlwinds? Should we not put this with antiquity’s other tall tales?
Thirdly, if this wonder, or decidedly un-miraculous earthquake, really had occurred, would Emperor Julian not have spoken about it in the letter where he mentions his previous intention to rebuild the temple? Would later writers not have taken this testimony and paraded it around triumphantly? Is it not, on the contrary, infinitely more likely that he changed his mind? Does this letter not contain his own words?
“[For as for those who make such profanation a reproach against us, I mean the prophets of the Jews,] What have they to say about their own temple, which was overthrown three times and even now is not being raised up again? This I mention not as a reproach against them, for I myself, after so great a lapse of time, intended to restore it [, in honour of the god whose name has been associated with it.] But in the present case, I have used this instance because I wish to prove [that nothing made by man can be indestructible, and] that those prophets who wrote such statements were uttering nonsense, due to their gossiping with silly old women.24”
Is it not obvious that the emperor, having investigated the Jewish prophecies that the temple would be rebuilt more beautiful than ever and that all nations would flock to worship there, thought it necessary to revoke his previous authorization to rebuild it? Going off the emperor’s own words, what is more likely historically is that he abhorred both the Jewish books and ours and ultimately wanted to make liars of the Jewish prophets.
How the temple at Jerusalem came to be destroyed three times quite escapes historian of Julian, the Abbé de La Bléterie. He says that Julian seems to have counted the catastrophe that occurred under his reign as the third destruction25. The disturbance of a few old foundation stones left in place is hardly what I would call destruction! How does this particular writer not see that a temple built by Solomon, rebuilt by Zerubbabel26, razed to the ground by Herod, rebuilt with such magnificence by the same Herod, and ultimately turned to rubble by Titus, is a temple that has been destroyed three times already? The accounting is sound, and there is no place to slander Julian.
The Abbé de La Bléterie already slanders him enough, saying that he only seemed to have virtue but that his vices were very real27. But Julian was neither a hypocrite, avaricious, underhanded, a liar, ungrateful, cowardly, drunken, debauched, lazy, nor vindictive. What were his vices then?
Fourthly, then, the fearsome weapon used to persuade us that balls of flame really did erupt from stones: that Ammianus Marcellinus28, a trustworthy pagan author, said as much. Granted, but then Ammianus also reported that when the emperor wished to sacrifice ten bulls to his gods in commemoration of his first victory against the Persians, nine of them died before their presentation at the altar. He tells of a hundred prophecies and as many miracles. Must we believe them too, and all the ridiculous miracles that Livy reports? And who says that Ammianus Marcellinus’ text was not falsified? Would it be the first time that such deception has been employed?
I wonder that you [the abbé de La Bléterie] did not mention the fiery little crosses that all the workers saw on their bodies upon going to bed29. It would have gone perfectly with your balls of flame.
The fact is that the Jewish temple was not rebuilt and, by all accounts, will not be any time soon. Let us not venture any further and seek out quite useless miracles. Balls of flame erupt from neither stones nor the earth. Ammianus and those who quote him are not natural scientists. If only the abbé de La Bléterie were to look at the bonfires on St John’s Day30, he would see that flames always rise, flickering, to a point and do not form spheres. This alone suffices to destroy the idiotic claim that he has made himself the uncritical, yet revoltingly haughty, defender.
Moreover, it is of little importance; nothing in this tale tells us anything about the fact of faith or the mores of men, and all we seek here is historical truth.
Julian I, known as the Apostate. Reigning AD 361 to 363, he was the last pagan emperor.
Constantius II, Julian’s uncle, along with his two brothers, Constantine II and Constans, and their half-cousin Dalmatius, succeeded Constantine I. Shortly after taking power, the three brothers had practically all the remaining descendants of their common ancestor, Constantius I Chlorus, killed, including Dalmatius and Julius, Julian’s father. “When, after the death of Constantine, the soldiers killed young Dalmatios, with their father taken from them, they [Gallus and Julian] were very nearly exposed to the same danger. But Gallus was very sick and on death’s door, and so escaped death. Julian’s age, he was eight, saved him.” Ecclesiastical History, Socrates of Constantinople.
The two brothers were sent off to an Imperial estate in Cappadocia. Julian had this to say, “How shall I describe the six years we spent there, in a property we did not know, like those who in Persia are locked away in fortresses. No outsider could see us, and our old friends were refused access to us.” Letter to the People of Athens.
Gallus, in reality, Julian’s half-brother, was raised to the rank of Caesar in the East by Constantius. He was later murdered after being lured away from his capital at Antioch to Milan.
Julian’s paganism was quite unlike the old Roman public religion. It was more influenced by the Neo-Platonism of Plotinus, Porphyry and Iamblichus. The intellectuals with whom he was in regular correspondence were Maximus of Ephesus, Priscus of Epirus, and Libanius of Antioch.
Julian was initiated into the Mysteries of Ceres, such as the Mysteries of Eleusis. The taurobolium, however, was associated with the cult of Cybele.
Born AD 348, died AD 405. A Christian born in Roman Iberia. He left a career in the Imperial civil service to become a poet.
Galileans, a name given by Julian to the Christians. His Against the Galileans begins, “I will first speak of the different Christian dogmas […].”
A reference to the Arian-Nicene controversy. Constantius was an Arian. Many Nicene bishops exiled under Constantius were recalled under Julian. “I thought that the leaders of the Galileans would be more grateful to me than to my predecessor in the administration of the Empire. For in his reign, it happened to the majority of them to be sent into exile, prosecuted, and cast into prison, and moreover, many whole communities of those who are called "heretics" were actually butchered […],” Julian’s letter to the Citizens of Bostra.
A reference to ancient homosexuality or pederasty. Julian is not recorded to have engaged in either.
Theodoret of Cyrus. Born AD 393, Died AD 460. A Christian writer from Antioch, Syria.
Carrhae, Syria, a cult centre of the Moon deity, Sin, and where, over 400 years previously, Crassus was defeated by the Parthians. Julian may have stayed there, over Edessa, because its inhabitants were still predominantly pagan. See Procopius’ The Persian War at the time of Justinian: “the citizens of Carrhae […] most of them are not Christians but are of the old faith.”
Julian was killed while fighting the Sassanid Persians near Ctesiphon. Later traditions ascribe his death to a Christian soldier, St Mercurius. “Some claim it was one of those invisible beings who struck the blow; others that it was one of those nomads named Ishmaelites; others still, a soldier who could no longer bear hunger and the desert. But whether it was man or angel, it is clear that they acted as an instrument in God’s design. […] “You win, Galilean!” Ecclesiastical History, Theodoret of Cyrus.
Jean-Phillipe-René de La Bléterie, author of A Life of Julian.
Born AD 329, died AD 390. A Christian bishop who knew Julian in his youth, when both studied in Athens, “I saw the man before his actions exactly what I afterwards found him in his actions; and were any present of those who were then with me and heard my words, they would without hesitation bear testimony to what I say; to whom I exclaimed as soon as I had observed these signs, ‘What an evil the Roman world is breeding!’”
“For it struck me as a sign of nothing good that his neck was unsteady, his shoulders shaking and shrugging, eyes darting this way and that with a frantic look, feet fidgeting and shifting in balance, nostrils breathing insolence and contempt, facial expressions ridiculous and repetitive, laughter bursting out uncontrolled, head nodding and shaking for no reason […],” Invectives, St Gregory of Nazianzen.
L’abbé d’Aubignac was a 17th-century French playwright known for formalising the rule of the three unities of Classical Tragedy and for his disputes with Corneille over his work. Voltaire is suggesting that men such as l’abbé d’Aubignac have no business criticising genii like Corneille. The Maréchal de Luxembourg was one of France’s greatest generals; he was also a hunchback.
Emperor Jovian
George of Cappadocia. “The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero; and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter,” or so wrote Edward Gibbon in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. A nice story, but the two St. Georges are, in fact, not the same individual.
Julian’s letter to the citizens of Bostra.
Julian permitted the Jews to rebuild their temple. In the Christian interpretation of events, Jesus, the Messiah, put an end to the old Jewish covenant along with its centre of worship, and created a new Israel (the Church), with himself as the new temple, in accordance with both Old and New Testament prophecy. To Christian polemicists, the fiery balls are evidence of God’s intervention to prevent Julian from tampering with the prophecies. See: “Amid insults from one side [the Jews] and panic from the other [the Christians], he [St. Cyril of Jerusalem] kept his faith in the prophecies of Daniel and Jesus Christ,” A Life of Julian, de La Bléterie.
“The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. […] he will put an end to sacrifice and offering.” Daniel 9:26.
“‘Do you see all these things?’ he asked. ‘Truly I tell you, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.’” Matthew 24:2.
The Romans under Titus are sometimes interpreted as the “people of the ruler” from Daniel.
“They worked day and night to clear the site of the old temple and demolish the old foundations.” A Life of Julian, de La Bléterie. “They started to dig and level the terrain.” Ecclesiastical History, Theodoret of Cyrus.
Julian the Apostate, Fragment of a Letter to a Priest, translated by Wilmer Cave Wright. Julian points out that Jews and Christians hold the fact that the gods allow their idols and temples to be defiled against paganism. Julian responds, firstly, that idols and temples are only man-made representations of the gods, and anything man-made can be destroyed. Secondly, do the Jews take it as evidence of the falseness of their own religion that their temple was destroyed and remains a ruin?
“In this matter [the truth of the fiery balls], the authority of Julian’s own words can be of use. Since he said that the Jewish temple was ruined three times, which is not easy to understand unless he counted the catastrophe that occurred under his own reign as a third destruction.” A Life of Julian, de La Bléterie. See also note 24.
The Achaemenid governor of Judea who led the Jews back from Babylon to Jerusalem and laid the foundations for the Second Temple. The First Temple was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar II, King of Babylon.
“The more I studied Julian, either in what he wrote himself or in other works from antiquity, the more he interested me. The contrast between his very real vices and his outward virtue, and the diversity of situations and adventures that he found himself in, makes for a piece of history where one finds that the most precise truths take on the magic of fiction.” A Life of Julian, de La Bléterie.
Born AD 330, died AD 395. A pagan, Hellenised Syrian who served as an officer under Julian. He left the army after Julian’s death to become one of the greatest historians of his day.
“Even the Jews’ clothes were covered in crosses. Not shining crosses, but crosses all in black.” Ecclesiastical History, Theodoret of Cyrus.
A tradition to light bonfires on the feast day of St John the Baptist.