Flavius Claudius Iulianus (331–June 26, 363), was a Roman Emperor (361–363) of the
Constantinian dynasty. He was the last pagan Roman Emperor, and tried to promote the Roman
religious traditions of earlier centuries as a means of slowing the spread of Christianity.
His philosophical studies earned him the attribute the Philosopher during the period of his life and of those of his
successors. Christian sources commonly refer to him as Julian the Apostate, because of his rejection of Christianity, conversion to
Theurgy (a late form of Neoplatonism), and attempt
to rid the empire of Christianity while bringing back ancient Roman
religion.[1] He is also sometimes
referred to as Julian II, to distinguish him from Didius Julianus.
Life
The early years
Julian solidus,
c. 361. The reverse depicts an armed Roman soldier bearing a military standard in one hand and subduing a
captive with the other, a reference to the military strength of the Roman Empire
Julian, born in 331 in Constantinople, was the son of Julius Constantius, half brother of Emperor Constantine I, and his second wife, Basilina. His paternal grandparents were Western Roman Emperor Constantius Chlorus and his
second wife, Flavia Maximiana Theodora. His maternal grandfather was Caeionius
Iulianus Camenius.
In the turmoil after the death of Constantine in 337, in order to establish himself as sole
emperor, Julian's zealous Arian Christian cousin Constantius II led a massacre of Julian's
family. Constantius ordered the murders of many descendants from the second marriage of Constantius Chlorus and Theodora, leaving
only Constantius and his brothers Constantine II and Constans, and their
cousins Julian and Gallus, Julian's half brother, as surviving males related to
Emperor Constantine. Constantius II, Constans, and Constantine II were proclaimed joint emperors, each ruling a portion of Roman
territory. Constantius II then saw to a strict Arian Christian education of the surviving Julian and his brother Gallus.
In traditional accounts of his life, considerable weight is given to Julian’s early psychological development and education.
Initially growing up in Bithynia, raised by his maternal grandmother, at the age of seven he was tutored by Eusebius, the Arian Christian Bishop of Nicomedia, and Mardonius, a Gothic eunuch. However, in 342, both Julian and his
half-brother Gallus were exiled to the imperial estate of Macellum in Cappadocia. Here he met
the Christian bishop George. At the age of 18, the exile was lifted and he dwelt briefly in Constantinople and Nicomedia.
In 351, Julian returned to Asia Minor to study Neoplatonism under Aedesius, and later to study the Iamblichan Neoplatonism from Maximus of Ephesus. During his studies in
Athens, Julian met Gregory Nazianzus and
Basil of Caesarea, two Christian saints.
The later emperor’s study of Iamblichus of Chalcis and theurgy are a source of
criticism from his primary chronicler, Ammianus Marcellinus.
Rise to power
Julian in military dress. Despite having received no military education, Julian proved to be a good military commander, obtaining
an
important victory in
Gaul and leading a Roman army
under the walls of the
Sassanid Empire capital
Constantine II died in 340 when he attacked his brother Constans. Constans in turn fell in 350 in the war against the
usurper Magnentius. This left Constantius II as the
sole remaining emperor. In need of support, he made Julian's brother, Constantius Gallus, Caesar of the East in 351, while Constantius II himself turned his attention westward to Magnentius, whom
he defeated decisively in 351. Shortly afterwards Gallus, who had imposed a rule of terror during his brief reign, was executed
(354), and Julian himself briefly imprisoned. However Constantius still had to deal with the Sassanid threat in the East, and so
he turned to his last remaining male relative, Julian. He was summoned to the emperor in Mediolanum (Milan) and, on 6 November
355, made Caesar of the West and married to Constantius' sister Helena.
In the years afterwards Julian fought the Germanic tribes that tried to intrude upon
the Roman Empire. He won back Colonia Agrippina (Cologne) in 356, during his first campaign in
Gaul. The following summer he along with an army of 13,000 men[2] defeated the Alamanni at the Battle of Strasbourg, a major Roman victory. In 358, Julian gained victories over the Salian Franks
on the Lower Rhine, settling them in Toxandria, near the
city of Xanten, and over the Chamavi. During his residence in Gaul, Julian also attended to non-military matters. He prevented a
tax increase by the Gallic praetorian prefect Florentius and personally administered the province
of Belgica Secunda.
In the fourth year of his campaign in Gaul, the Sassanid Emperor Shapur II invaded
Mesopotamia and took the city of Amida after a 73 day siege. In February 360, Constantius
ordered Julian to send Gallic troops to his eastern army. This provoked an insurrection by troops of the Petulantes, who proclaimed Julian emperor in Paris, and led to a very swift military campaign to secure or
win the allegiance of others. From June to August of that year, Julian led a successful campaign against the Attuarian
Franks.
That same June, forces loyal to Constantius II captured the city of Aquileia on the north
Adriatic coast, and was subsequently besieged by 23,000 men[3] loyal to Julian. Civil war was avoided only by the death of Constantius II, who, in his last will,
recognized Julian as his rightful successor.
Among his first actions, Julian reduced the expenses of the imperial court, removing all the eunuchs from the offices. He reduced the luxury of the court established with Constantius, reducing at the same
time the number of servants and of the guard. He also started the Chalcedon tribunal
where some followers of Constantius were tortured and killed under supervision of magister
militum Arbitio.
Julian's religious beliefs and antipathy toward Christianity
Julian is called by Christians "the Apostate" because he converted from Christianity to
Theurgy. As attested in private letters between him and the rhetorician Libanius, Julian had Christianity forced on him as a child by his cousin Constantius II, who was a zealous
Arian Christian and would have not tolerated a pagan relative.[citation needed] "Reacting violently against the Christian teaching that he had received in
a lonely and miserable childhood," A.H.M. Jones observes, "he had developed a
passionate interest in the art, literature and mythology of Greece and had grown to detest the new religion which condemned all
he loved as pernicious vanity. He was of a strongly religious temperament, and found solace in the pantheistic mysticism which
contemporary Neoplatonist philosophers taught."[4] After his conversion to Hellenism he devoted his life to protecting and restoring the fame and security of this
tradition.
After gaining the purple, Julian started a religious reformation of the state, which was intended to restore the lost strength
of the Roman State. He also forced the Christian church to return the riches, or fines equalling them, looted from the pagan
temples[citation needed] after the Christian religion
was made legitimate by Constantine. He supported the restoration of the old Roman faith, based on polytheism. His laws tended to
target wealthy and educated Christians, and his aim was not to destroy Christianity but to drive the religion out of "the
governing classes of the empire — much as Buddhism was driven back into the lower classes by a
revived Confucian mandarinate in thirteenth-century China."[5]
Julian reduced the influence of Christian bishops in public offices. The lands taken by the Church were to be returned to
their original owners, and the bishops lost the privilege to travel for free, at expenses of the State.
Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians, by
Edward Armitage,
1875
On 4 February 362, Julian promulgated an edict to guarantee
freedom of religion. This edict proclaimed that all the religions were equal in front of the Law, and that the Roman Empire had
to return to its original religious eclecticism, according to which the Roman State did not impose any religion on its
provinces.
During his earlier years, while studying at Athens, Julian became acquainted with two men who later became both bishops and
saints: Gregory Nazianzus and Basil the Great; in the same period, Julian was also
initiated to the Eleusinian Mysteries, which he would later try to restore.
Constantine and his immediate successors had forbidden the upkeep of pagan temples, and many temples were destroyed and pagan
worshippers of the old religions killed during the reign of Constantine and his successors.[citation needed] The extent to which the emperors
approved or commanded these destructions and killings is disputed, but it is certain they did not prevent them.[citation needed]
Coptic icon showing
Saint Mercurius killing Julian. According to a tradition,
Saint
Basil (an old school-mate of Julian) had been imprisoned at the start of Julian's Sassanid campaign. Basil prayed to
Mercurius to help him, and the saint appeared in a vision to Basil, claiming to have speared Julian to death.
Julian's religious status is a matter of considerable dispute. According to one theory (that of G.W. Bowersock in particular),
Julian's Paganism was highly eccentric and atypical because it was heavily influenced by an esoteric approach to Platonic
philosophy sometimes identified as theurgy and also
neoplatonism. Others (Rowland Smith, in particular) have argued that Julian's
philosophical perspective was nothing unusual for a "cultured" Pagan of his time, and, at any rate, that Julian's Paganism was
not limited to philosophy alone, and that he was deeply devoted to the same Gods and Goddesses as other Pagans of his day.
According to Christian historian Socrates Scholasticus (iii, 21), Julian
believed himself to be Alexander the Great in another body via transmigration of souls, as taught by Plato
and Pythagoras.
Since the persecution of Christians by past Roman Emperors had seemingly only strengthened Christianity, many of Julian's
actions were designed to harass and undermine the ability of Christians to organize in resistance to the re-establishment of
pagan acceptance in the empire.[6]
Julian's preference for a non-Christian and non-philosophical view of Iamblichus' theurgy seems to have convinced him that it was
right to outlaw the practise of the Christian view of theurgy and demand that suppression of the Christian set of
Mysteries.[7] The Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches retell a story concerning
two of his bodyguards who were Christian. When Julian came to Antioch, he prohibited the
veneration of the relics. The two bodyguards opposed the edict, and were executed at Julian's command. The Orthodox Church
remembers them as saints Juventinus and Maximos.
In his School Edict Julian forbids Christian teachers from using the pagan scripts (such as the Iliad) that formed the core of Roman education: "If they want to learn literature, they have Luke and Mark: Let them go back to their churches and expound on
them", the edict says.[5] This was an attempt to
remove some of the power of Christian schools which at that time and later have used at large ancient Greek literature in their
teachings in their effort to present Christian religion superior to the previous. The edict was also a severe financial blow, as
it deprived Christian scholars, tutors and teachers of many students.
In his Tolerance Edict of 362, Julian decreed the reopening of pagan temples, the restitution of alienated temple
properties, and called back Christian bishops that were exiled by church edicts. The latter was an instance of tolerance of
different religious views, but may also have been seen as an attempt by Julian to widen a schism between different Christian
sects, further weakening the Christian movement as a whole.[8]
Because Christian charities were beneficial to all, including pagans, it put
this aspect of the Roman citizens' life out of the control of the imperial authority and under that of the church.[9] Thus Julian envisioned the institution of a Roman philanthropic
system, and cared for the behaviour and the morality of the pagan priests, in the hope that it would mitigate the reliance of
pagans on Christian charity:
Julian's Column in
Ankara, built in occasion of the emperor's visit to the city in 362
"These impious Galileans not only feed their own poor, but ours also; welcoming them into their agapae, they attract them, as children are attracted, with cakes.[10]
"Whilst the pagan priests neglect the poor, the hated Galileans devote themselves to works of charity, and by a display of false
compassion have established and given effect to their pernicious errors. See their love-feasts, and their tables spread for the
indigent. Such practice is common among them, and causes a contempt for our gods."[11]
His care in the institution of a pagan hierarchy in opposition to the Christian one was due to his wish to create a society in
which every aspect of the life of the citizens was to be connected, through layers of intermediate levels, to the consolidated
figure of the Emperor - the final provider for all the needs of his people. Within this project, there was no place for a
parallel institution, such as the Christian hierarchy or the Christian charity.[12]
After his arrival in Antiochia in preparation for the Persian war, the temple of Apollo burned
down. Since Julian believed Christians to be responsible, their main church was closed.
Julian's attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple
In 363, Julian, on his way to engage Persia, stopped at the ruins of the
Second Temple in Jerusalem. In keeping
with his effort to foster religions other than Christianity, Julian ordered the Temple rebuilt. A personal friend of his,
Ammianus Marcellinus, wrote this about the effort:
"Julian thought to rebuild at an extravagant expense the proud Temple once at Jerusalem, and committed this task to
Alypius of Antioch. Alypius set vigorously to work, and was seconded by the
governor of the province; when fearful balls of fire, breaking out near the foundations,
continued their attacks, till the workmen, after repeated scorchings, could approach no more: and he gave up the attempt."
The failure to rebuild the Temple has been ascribed to an earthquake, common in the region, and to the Jews' ambivalence about the project. Sabotage is a possibility, as is an accidental fire. Divine intervention was
the common view among Christian historians of the time.[13]
Death
Illustration from the "The Fall of Princes" by
Giovanni Boccaccio, depicting the skin
of Julianus
In March 363, Julian started his campaign against the Sassanid Empire, with the goal of taking back the Roman cities conquered
by the Sassanids under the rule of Constantius II which his cousin had failed to take back.
Receiving encouragement from an oracle in the old Sibylline Books posted from Rome, and moving forward from Antioch with about 90,000 men, Julian entered Sassanid territory. An army
of 30,000 was sent, under the command of Procopius, to Armenia, whence, having received reinforcements from the King of Armenia, it was to attack the Sassanid capital
from the north. Julian victoriously led the Roman army into enemy territory, conquering several cities and defeating the Sassanid
troops. He arrived under the walls of the Sassanid capital, Ctesiphon, but even after
defeating a superior Sassanid army in front of the city (Battle of Ctesiphon),
he could not take the Persian capital. Also Procopius did not return with his troops, so Julian decided to lead his army back to
the safety of the Roman borders.
During this retreat, on 26 June 363, Julian died near Maranga, during a victorious battle
against the Sassanid army. While pursuing the retreating enemy with few men, and not wearing armor, he received a wound from a
spear that reportedly pierced the lower lobe of his liver, the peritoneum and intestines. The wound was not immediately deadly.
Julian was treated by his personal physician, Oribasius of Pergamum, who seems to have made
every attempt to treat the wound. This probably included the irrigation of the wound with a dark
wine, and a procedure known as gastrorrhaphy, in which an attempt is made to suture the damaged intestine.
Libanius states that Julian was assassinated by a Christian who was one of his own soldiers; this charge is not corroborated
by Ammianus Marcellinus or other contemporary historians. Julian was succeeded by the short-lived Emperor Jovian.[citation needed]
Libanius says in his epitaph of the deceased emperor (18.304) that "I have mentioned representations (of Julian); many cities
have set him beside the images of the gods and honour him as they do the gods. Already a blessing has been besought of him in
prayer, and it was not in vain. To such an extent has he literally ascended to the gods and received a share of their power from
him themselves." However, no similar action was taken by the Roman central government, which would be more and more dominated by
Christians in the ensuing decades.[citation needed]
Considered apocryphal is the report that his dying words were Vicisti, Galilaee ("You have won, Galilean"), supposedly expressing his recognition that, with his death, Christianity would become the Empire's
state religion. The phrase introduces the 1866 poem Hymn to Proserpine, which
was Algernon Swinburne's elaboration of what Julian might have felt at the
triumph of Christianity.
Julian as a writer
Julian wrote several works in Greek, some of which have come down to us.
- Hymn to King Helios
- Hymn to the Mother of the Gods
- Two panegyrics to Constantius
The above are hard for the modern reader to digest.[citation needed] The religious works contain involved philosophical speculations, and the
panegyrics to Constantius are formulaic and elaborate in style.
The following works, on the other hand, are quite accessible and readable.[citation needed]
- Misopogon or "Beard Hater" - a light-hearted account of his clash with the
inhabitants of Antioch after he was mocked for his beard and generally scruffy appearance for an emperor
- The Caesars - a humorous tale of a contest between some of the most notable Roman emperors.
This was a satiric attack upon the recent Constantine, whose worth, both as a Christian and as the leader of the Roman Empire,
Julian severely questions
- Against the Galilaeans - a critique of Christianity, only partially preserved, thanks to Cyril of Alexandria's rebuttal Against Julian
The works of Julian were edited and translated by Wilmer Cave Wright as The Works of the
Emperor Julian (3 vols.). London, 1923.
Julian in fiction
Julian's life inspired the play Emperor and Galilean by Henrik Ibsen.
Julian's life and reign were the subject of the novel "The Death of the Gods (Julian the
Apostate)" (1895) in the trilogy of historical novels entitled "Christ and Antichrist" (1895-1904) by the Russian Symbolist poet, novelist and literary theoretician Dmitrii S. Merezhkovskii.
The opera Der Apostat (1924) by the composer and conductor Felix Weingartner
is about Julian.
Julian was the subject of a detailed, carefully researched novel, Julian (1964), by Gore Vidal, describing his life
and times. It is notable for, among other things, its scathing critique of Christianity.
Also, Julian appeared in "Gods and Legions", by Michael Curtis Ford (2002).
Julian's tale was told by his closest companion, the Christian saint, Caesarius
and accounts for the transition from a Christian philosophy student in Athens to a pagan Roman Augustus of the old nature.
Julian's letters are an important part of the symbolism of Michel Butor's novel
La Modification.
The fantasy alternate history The Dragon
Waiting by John M. Ford, while set in the time of the War of the Roses, uses the reign of Julian as its point of divergence. His reign not being cut short, he was successful in disestablishing
Christianity and restoring a religiously eclectic societal order which survived the fall of Rome and into the Renaissance.
Julian's life served as the basis for the novella by
Robert Charles Wilson, which was nominated for a Hugo
Award in 2007.
Notes
- ^ Modern Neo-Pagans
(particularly reconstructionists) sometimes refer to him as "Julian the
Faithful", in direct opposition to the pejorative implications of the common epithet "the Apostate".
- ^ J. Norwich, Byzantium: The Early Centuries, 86
- ^ J. Norwich, Byzantium: The Early Centuries, 89
- ^ Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire, 284-602: A
Social, Economic and Administrative Survey, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1986, p. 120.
- ^ a b Brown, Peter, The World of Late Antiquity, W. W. Norton, New York, 1971,
p. 93.
- ^ Julian, Epistulae, 52.436A ff.
- ^ See Theourgia-Demiourgia
John P Anton.
- ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, Res Gestae Libri XXXI, 22.5.4.
- ^ Many historians agree that prior to the advent of Christianity, there was a
distinct lack of love-motivated charity in the ancient world, and indeed in the Roman
Empire. That is not to say that there was no philanthropy in the history of the Empire -
patricians long before Julian's time had been expected to finance the baths and public
buildings, for example. However, this was "dictated much more by policy than by benevolence" (WEH Lecky); because love was rare in the pagan philanthropic environment, it was "alien to
human nature", and part of the reason Julian's project failed was because of the inspiration of Christian agape in charity: Julian himself ultimately "conceded that the Christians outshone the pagans
in their devotion to charitable work." (Thomas Woods). Sources:
- Gerhard Uhlhorn, Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1883), 2-44
- Thomas Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, (Washington, DC: Regenery, 2005), ISBN
0-89526-038-7
- WEH Lecky, History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne
- ^ Alvin J. Schmidt, Social Results of Early Christianity, 328
- ^ Baluffi, 16
- ^ Roberts and DiMaio.
- ^ See "Julian and the Jews 361-363
CE" and "Julian the
Apostate and the Holy Temple".
References
Primary sources
Works by Julian
Works about Julian
Secondary sources
- Roberts, Walter E., and Michael
DiMaio, "Julian the Apostate (360-363 A.D.)", De Imperatoribus Romanis (2002)
- Athanassiadi, Polymnia. Julian. An Intellectual Biography Routledge, London, 1992, ISBN 0-415-07763-X
- Bowersock, Glen Warren. Julian the Apostate. London, 1978
- Lascaratos, John and Dionysios Voros. 2000 Fatal Wounding of the Byzantine Emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363 A.D.):
Approach to the Contribution of Ancient Surgery. World J. Surg 24: 615-619
- Lenski, Noel Emmanuel Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century AD UC Press: London,
2003
- Lieu, Samuel N. From Constantine to Julian: A Source History Routledge: New York, 1996
- Murdoch, Adrian. The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World, Stroud, 2005, ISBN
0-7509-4048-4
- Rohrbacher, David. Historians of Late Antiquity. Routledge: New York, 2002
- Smith, Rowland. Julian's gods: religion and philosophy in the thought and action of Julian the Apostate, London, 1995,
ISBN 0-415-03487-6
See also
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