Campaigns against Germanic kingdoms In
356 during his first campaign he led an army to the Rhine, engaged the
inhabitants there and won back several towns that had fallen into
Frankish hands, including Colonia Agrippina (Cologne). With success
under his belt he withdrew for the winter to Gaul, distributing his
forces to protect various towns, and choosing the small town of Senon
near Verdun to await the spring. This turned out to be a tactical error,
for he was left with insufficient forces to defend himself when a large
contingent of Franks besieged the town and Julian was virtually held
captive there for several months, until his general Marcellus deigned to
lift the siege. Relations between Julian and Marcellus seem to have
been poor. Constantius accepted Julian's report of events and Marcellus
was replaced as magister equitum by Severus.
The following
year saw a combined operation planned by Constantius to regain control
of the Rhine from the Germanic peoples who had spilt across the river
onto the west bank. From the south his magister peditum Barbatio
was to come from Milan and amass forces at Augst (near the Rhine bend),
then set off north with 25,000 soldiers; Julian with 13,000 troops would
move east from Durocortorum (Rheims). However, while Julian was in
transit, a group of Laeti attacked Lugdunum (Lyon) and Julian was
delayed in order to deal with them. This left Barbatio unsupported and
deep in Alamanni territory, so he felt obliged to withdraw, retracing
his steps. Thus ended the coordinated operation against the Germanic
peoples.
With Barbatio safely out of the picture, King
Chnodomarius led a confederation of Alamanni forces against Julian and
Severus at the Battle of Argentoratum. The Romans were heavily
outnumbered and during the heat of battle a group of 600 horsemen on the
right wing deserted, yet, taking full advantage of the limitations of
the terrain, the Romans were overwhelmingly victorious. The enemy was
routed and driven into the river. King Chnodomarius was captured and
later sent to Constantius in Milan. Ammianus, who was a participant in
the battle, portrays Julian in charge of events on the battlefield and
describes how the soldiers, because of this success, acclaimed Julian
attempting to make him Augustus, an acclamation he rejected, rebuking
them. He later rewarded them for their valor.
Rather than chase
the routed enemy across the Rhine, Julian now proceeded to follow the
Rhine north, the route he followed the previous year on his way back to
Gaul. At Moguntiacum (Mainz), however, he crossed the Rhine in an
expedition that penetrated deep into what is today Germany, and forced
three local kingdoms to submit. This action showed the Alamanni that
Rome was once again present and active in the area. On his way back to
winter quarters in Paris he dealt with a band of Franks who had taken
control of some abandoned forts along the Meuse River.
In 358,
Julian gained victories over the Salian Franks on the Lower Rhine,
settling them in Toxandria in the Roman Empire, north of today's city of
Tongeren, and over the Chamavi, who were expelled back to Hamaland.
Taxation and administration At
the end of 357 Julian, with the prestige of his victory over the
Alamanni to give him confidence, prevented a tax increase by the Gallic
praetorian prefect Florentius and personally took charge of the province
of Belgica Secunda. This was Julian's first experience with
civil administration, where his views were influenced by his liberal
education in Greece. Properly it was a role that belonged to the
praetorian prefect. However, Florentius and Julian often clashed over
the administration of Gaul. Julian's first priority, as Caesar and
nominal ranking commander in Gaul, was to drive out the barbarians who
had breached the Rhine frontier. However, he sought to win over the
support of the civil population, which was necessary for his operations
in Gaul and also to show his largely Germanic army the benefits of
Imperial rule. He therefore felt it was necessary to rebuild stable and
peaceful conditions in the devastated cities and countryside. For this
reason, Julian clashed with Florentius over the latter's support of tax
increases, as mentioned above, and Florentius's own corruption in the
bureaucracy.
Constantius attempted to maintain some modicum of
control over his Caesar, which explains his removal of Julian's close
adviser Saturninius Secundus Salutius from Gaul. His departure
stimulated the writing of Julian's oration, "Consolation Upon the
Departure of Salutius".
Rebellion in Paris
19th
century depiction of Julian being proclaimed Emperor in Paris at the
Thermes de Cluny, standing on a shield in the Frankish manner, in
February 360.
In the fourth year of Julian's stay in Gaul, the
Sassanid Emperor, Shapur II, invaded Mesopotamia and took the city of
Amida after a 73-day siege. In February 360, Constantius II ordered more
than half of Julian's Gallic troops to join his eastern army, the order
by-passing Julian and going directly to the military commanders.
Although Julian at first attempted to expedite the order, it provoked an
insurrection by troops of the Petulantes, who had no desire to
leave Gaul. According to the historian Zosimus, the army officers were
those responsible for distributing an anonymous tract expressing
complaints against Constantius as well as fearing for Julian's ultimate
fate. Notably absent at the time was the prefect Florentius, who was
seldom far from Julian's side, though now he was kept busy organizing
supplies in Vienne and away from any strife that the order could cause.
Julian would later blame him for the arrival of the order from
Constantius. Ammianus Marcellinus even suggested that the fear of Julian
gaining more popularity than himself caused Constantius to send the
order on the urging of Florentius.
The troops proclaimed Julian Augustus
in Paris, and this in turn led to a very swift military effort to
secure or win the allegiance of others. Although the full details are
unclear, there is evidence to suggest that Julian may have at least
partially stimulated the insurrection. If so, he went back to business
as usual in Gaul, for, from June to August of that year, Julian led a
successful campaign against the Attuarian Franks. In November, Julian
began openly using the title Augustus, even issuing coins with
the title, sometimes with Constantius, sometimes without. He celebrated
his fifth year in Gaul with a big show of games.
In the spring of
361, Julian led his army into the territory of the Alamanni, where he
captured their king, Vadomarius. Julian claimed that Vadomarius had been
in league with Constantius, encouraging him to raid the borders of
Raetia. Julian then divided his forces, sending one column to Raetia,
one to northern Italy and the third he led down the Danube on boats. His
forces claimed control of Illyricum and his general, Nevitta, secured
the pass of Succi into Thrace. He was now well out of his comfort zone
and on the road to civil war. (Julian would state in late November that
he set off down this road "because, having been declared a public enemy,
I meant to frighten him [Constantius] merely, and that our quarrel
should result in intercourse on more friendly terms...")
However,
in June, forces loyal to Constantius captured the city of Aquileia on
the north Adriatic coast, an event that threatened to cut Julian off
from the rest of his forces, while Constantius's troops marched towards
him from the east. Aquileia was subsequently besieged by 23,000 men
loyal to Julian. All Julian could do was sit it out in Naissus, the city
of Constantine's birth, waiting for news and writing letters to various
cities in Greece justifying his actions (of which only the letter to
the Athenians has survived in its entirety). Civil war was avoided only
by the death on November 3 of Constantius, who, in his last will, is
alleged by some sources to have recognized Julian as his rightful
successor.
Empire and administration
The Church of the Holy Apostles, where Julian brought Constantius II to be buried.
On
December 11, 361, Julian entered Constantinople as sole emperor and,
despite his rejection of Christianity, his first political act was to
preside over Constantius' Christian burial, escorting the body to the
Church of the Apostles, where it was placed alongside that of
Constantine. This act was a demonstration of his lawful right to the
throne. He is also now thought to have been responsible for the building
of Santa Costanza on a Christian site just outside Rome as a mausoleum
for his wife Helena and sister-in-law Constantina.
The new Emperor
rejected the style of administration of his immediate predecessors. He
blamed Constantine for the state of the administration and for having
abandoned the traditions of the past. He made no attempt to restore the
tetrarchal system begun under Diocletian. Nor did he seek to rule as an
absolute autocrat. His own philosophic notions led him to idealize the
reigns of Hadrian and Marcus Aurelius. In his first panegyric to
Constantius, Julian described the ideal ruler as being essentially primus inter pares
("first among equals"), operating under the same laws as his subjects.
While in Constantinople therefore it was not strange to see Julian
frequently active in the Senate, participating in debates and making
speeches, placing himself at the level of the other members of the
Senate.
He viewed the royal court of his predecessors as
inefficient, corrupt, and expensive. Thousands of servants, eunuchs, and
superfluous officials were therefore summarily dismissed. He set up the
Chalcedon tribunal to deal with the corruption of the previous
administration under the supervision of magister militum Arbitio.
Several high-ranking officials under Constantius including the
chamberlain Eusebius were found guilty and executed. (Julian was
conspicuously absent from the proceedings, perhaps signaling his
displeasure at their necessity.) He continually sought to reduce what he
saw as a burdensome and corrupt bureaucracy within the Imperial
administration whether it involved civic officials, the secret agents,
or the imperial post service.
Another effect of Julian's political
philosophy was that the authority of the cities was expanded at the
expense of the imperial bureaucracy as Julian sought to reduce direct
imperial involvement in urban affairs. For example, city land owned by
the imperial government was returned to the cities, city council members
were compelled to resume civic authority, often against their will, and
the tribute in gold by the cities called the aurum coronarium
was made voluntary rather than a compulsory tax. Additionally, arrears
of land taxes were cancelled. This was a key reform reducing the power
of corrupt imperial officials, as the unpaid taxes on land were often
hard to calculate or higher than the value of the land itself. Forgiving
back taxes both made Julian more popular and allowed him to increase
collections of current taxes.
While he ceded much of the authority
of the imperial government to the cities, Julian also took more direct
control himself. For example, new taxes and corvées had to be approved
by him directly rather than left to the judgement of the bureaucratic
apparatus. Julian certainly had a clear idea of what he wanted Roman
society to be, both in political as well as religious terms. The
terrible and violent dislocation of the 3rd century meant that the
Eastern Mediterranean had become the economic locus of the Empire. If
the cities were treated as relatively autonomous local administrative
areas, it would simplify the problems of imperial administration, which
as far as Julian was concerned, should be focused on the administration
of the law and defense of the empire's vast frontiers.
In
replacing Constantius's political and civil appointees, Julian drew
heavily from the intellectual and professional classes, or kept reliable
holdovers, such as the rhetorician Themistius. His choice of consuls
for the year 362 was more controversial. One was the very acceptable
Claudius Mamertinus, previously the Praetorian prefect of Illyricum. The
other, more surprising choice was Nevitta, Julian's trusted Frankish
general. This latter appointment made overt the fact that an emperor's
authority depended on the power of the army. Julian's choice of Nevitta
appears to have been aimed at maintaining the support of the Western
army which had acclaimed him.
Clash with the Antiochenes
After
five months of dealings at the capital, Julian left Constantinople in
May and moved to Antioch, arriving in mid-July and staying there for
nine months before launching his fateful campaign against Persia in
March 363. Antioch was a city favored by splendid temples along with a
famous oracle of Apollo in nearby Daphne, which may have been one reason
for his choosing to reside there. It had also been used in the past as a
staging place for amassing troops, a purpose which Julian intended to
follow.[46]
His arrival on 18 July was well received by the Antiochenes, though it coincided with the celebration of the Adonia, a festival which marked the death of Adonis, so there was wailing and moaning in the streets-not a good omen for an arrival.[47][48]
Julian
soon discovered that wealthy merchants were causing food problems,
apparently by hoarding food and selling it at high prices. He hoped that
the curia would deal with the issue for the situation was headed for a
famine. When the curia did nothing, he spoke to the city's leading
citizens, trying to persuade them to take action. Thinking that they
would do the job, he turned his attention to religious matters.
He
tried to resurrect the ancient oracular spring of Castalia at the
temple of Apollo at Daphne. After being advised that the bones of
3rd-century bishop Babylas were suppressing the god, he made a
public-relations mistake in ordering the removal of the bones from the
vicinity of the temple. The result was a massive Christian procession.
Shortly after that, when the temple was destroyed by fire, Julian
suspected the Christians and ordered stricter investigations than usual.
He also shut up the chief Christian church of the city, before the
investigations proved that the fire was the result of an accident.
When
the curia still took no substantial action in regards to the food
shortage, Julian intervened, fixing the prices for grain and importing
more from Egypt. Then landholders refused to sell theirs, claiming that
the harvest was so bad that they had to be compensated with fair prices.
Julian accused them of price gouging and forced them to sell. Various
parts of Libanius' orations may suggest that both sides were justified
to some extent while Ammianus blames Julian for "a mere thirst for
popularity".
Julian's ascetic lifestyle was not popular either,
since his subjects were accustomed to the idea of an all-powerful
Emperor who placed himself well above them. Nor did he improve his
dignity with his own participation in the ceremonial of bloody
sacrifices. As David S. Potter says:
They expected a
man who was both removed from them by the awesome spectacle of imperial
power, and would validate their interests and desires by sharing them
from his Olympian height (...) He was supposed to be interested in what
interested his people, and he was supposed to be dignified. He was not
supposed to leap up and show his appreciation for a panegyric that it
was delivered, as Julian had done on January 3, when Libanius was
speaking, and ignore the chariot races.
He then tried
to address public criticism and mocking of him by issuing a satire
ostensibly on himself, called Misopogon or "Beard Hater". There he
blames the people of Antioch for preferring that their ruler have his
virtues in the face rather than in the soul.
Even Julian's
intellectual friends and fellow pagans were of a divided mind about this
habit of talking to his subjects on an equal footing: Ammianus
Marcellinus saw in that only the foolish vanity of someone "excessively
anxious for empty distinction", whose "desire for popularity often led
him to converse with unworthy persons".
On leaving Antioch he
appointed Alexander of Heliopolis as governor, a violent and cruel man
whom the Antiochene Libanius, a friend of the emperor, admits on first
thought was a "dishonourable" appointment. Julian himself described the
man as "undeserving" of the position, but appropriate "for the
avaricious and rebellious people of Antioch".
Persian campaign
Julian's
rise to Augustus was the result of military insurrection eased by
Constantius's sudden death. This meant that, while he could count on the
wholehearted support of the Western army which had aided his rise, the
Eastern army was an unknown quantity originally loyal to the Emperor he
had risen against, and he had tried to woo it through the Chalcedon
tribunal. However, to solidify his position in the eyes of the eastern
army, he needed to lead its soldiers to victory and a campaign against
the Sassanid Persians offered such an opportunity.
An audacious
plan was formulated whose goal was to lay siege on the Sassanid capital
city of Ctesiphon and definitively secure the eastern border. Yet the
full motivation for this ambitious operation is, at best, unclear. There
was no direct necessity for an invasion, as the Sassanids sent envoys
in the hope of settling matters peacefully. Julian rejected this offer.
Ammianus states that Julian longed for revenge on the Persians and that a
certain desire for combat and glory also played a role in his decision
to go to war.
On 5 March 363, despite a series of omens against
the campaign, Julian departed from Antioch with about 65,000-83,000, or
80,000-90,000 men, and headed north toward the Euphrates. En route he
was met by embassies from various small powers offering assistance, none
of which he accepted. He did order the Armenian king Arsaces to muster
an army and await instructions. He crossed the Euphrates near Hierapolis
and moved eastward to Carrhae, giving the impression that his chosen
route into Persian territory was down the Tigris. For this reason it
seems he sent a force of 30,000 soldiers under Procopius and Sebastianus
further eastward to devastate Media in conjunction with Armenian
forces. This was where two earlier Roman campaigns had concentrated and
where the main Persian forces were soon directed. Julian's strategy lay
elsewhere, however. He had had a fleet built of over 1,000 ships at
Samosata in order to supply his army for a march down the Euphrates and
of 50 pontoon ships to facilitate river crossings. Procopius and the
Armenians would march down the Tigris to meet Julian near Ctesiphon.
Julian's ultimate aim seems to have been "regime change" by replacing
king Shapur II with his brother Hormisdas.
After feigning a march
further eastward, Julian's army turned south to Circesium at the
confluence of the Abora (Khabur) and the Euphrates arriving at the
beginning of April. Passing Dura on April 6, the army made good
progress, bypassing towns after negotiations or besieging those which
chose to oppose him. At the end of April the Romans captured the
fortress of Pirisabora, which guarded the canal approach from the
Euphrates to Ctesiphon on the Tigris. As the army marched toward the
Persian capital, the Sassanids broke the dikes which crossed the land,
turning it into marshland, slowing the progress of the Roman army.
Ctesiphon
By
mid-May, the army had reached the vicinity of the heavily fortified
Persian capital, Ctesiphon, where Julian partially unloaded some of the
fleet and had his troops ferried across the Tigris by night. The Romans
gained a tactical victory over the Persians before the gates of the
city, driving them back into the city. However, the Persian capital was
not taken, the main Persian army was still at large and approaching,
while the Romans lacked a clear strategic objective. In the council of
war which followed, Julian's generals persuaded him not to mount a siege
against the city, given the impregnability of its defenses and the fact
that Shapur would soon arrive with a large force. Julian not wanting to
give up what he had gained and probably still hoping for the arrival of
the column under Procopius and Sebastianus, set off east into the
Persian interior, ordering the destruction of the fleet. This proved to
be a hasty decision, for they were on the wrong side of the Tigris with
no clear means of retreat and the Persians had begun to harass them from
a distance, burning any food in the Romans' path. A second council of
war on 16 June 363 decided that the best course of action was to lead
the army back to the safety of Roman borders, not through Mesopotamia,
but northward to Corduene.
Death
During the withdrawal,
Julian's forces suffered several attacks from Sassanid forces. In one
such engagement on 26 June 363, the indecisive Battle of Samarra near
Maranga, Julian was wounded when the Sassanid army raided his column. In
the haste of pursuing the retreating enemy, Julian chose speed rather
than caution, taking only his sword and leaving his coat of mail. 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, the suturing of the damaged
intestine. On the third day a major hemorrhage occurred and the emperor
died during the night. As Julian wished, his body was buried outside
Tarsus, though it was later removed to Constantinople.
In 364,
Libanius stated 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. John Malalas reports that
the supposed assassination was commanded by Basil of Caesarea. Fourteen
years later, Libanius said that Julian was killed by a Saracen (Lakhmid)
and this may have been confirmed by Julian's doctor Oribasius who,
having examined the wound, said that it was from a spear used by a group
of Lakhmid auxiliaries in Persian service. Later Christian historians
propagated the tradition that Julian was killed by Saint Mercurius.
Julian was succeeded by the short-lived Emperor Jovian who reestablished
Christianity's privileged position throughout the Empire.
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.
Considered apocryphal is the report that his dying words were νενίκηκάς με, Γαλιλαῖε, or 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 Charles Swinburne's elaboration of what a philosophic pagan
might have felt at the triumph of Christianity. It also ends the Polish
Romantic play The Undivine comedy written in 1833 by Zygmunt Krasiński.
Tomb
Porphyry sarcophagi outside the Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Julian's is the left-hand one.
As
he had requested, Julian's body was buried in Tarsus. It lay in a tomb
outside the city, across a road from that of Maximinus Daia.
However,
chronicler Zonaras says that at some "later" date his body was exhumed
and reburied in or near the Church of the Holy Apostles in
Constantinople, where Constantine and the rest of his family lay. His
sarcophagus is listed as standing in a "stoa" there by Constantine
Porphyrogenitus. The church was demolished by the Ottoman Turks after
the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Today a sarcophagus of porphyry,
identified as Julian's, stands in the grounds of the Archaeological
Museum in Istanbul.
Religious issues
Beliefs
Julian's
personal religion was both pagan and philosophical; he viewed the
traditional myths as allegories, in which the ancient gods were aspects
of a philosophical divinity. The chief surviving sources are his works To King Helios and To the Mother of the Gods, which were written as panegyrics, not theological treatises.
While
there are clear resemblances to other forms of Late Antique religion,
it is controversial as to which variety it is most similar. He learned
theurgy from Maximus of Ephesus, a student of Iamblichus; his system
bears some resemblance to the Neoplatonism of Plotinus; Polymnia
Athanassiadi has brought new attention to his relations with Mithraism,
although whether he was initiated into it remains debatable; and certain
aspects of his thought (such as his reorganization of paganism under
High Priests, and his fundamental monotheism) may show Christian
influence. Some of these potential sources have not come down to us, and
all of them influenced each other, which adds to the difficulties.
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.
Because of his Neoplatonist background Julian accepted the creation of humanity as described in Plato's Timaeus.
Julian writes, "when Zeus was setting all things in order there fell
from him drops of sacred blood, and from them, as they say, arose the
race of men." Further he writes, "they who had the power to create one
man and one woman only, were able to create many men and women at
once..." His view contrasts with the Christian belief that humanity is
derived from the one pair, Adam and Eve. Elsewhere he argues against the
single pair origin, indicating his disbelief, noting for example, "how
very different in their bodies are the Germans and Scythians from the
Libyans and Ethiopians."
The Christian historian Socrates
Scholasticus was of the opinion that Julian believed himself to be
Alexander the Great "in another body" via transmigration of souls, "in
accordance with the teachings of Pythagoras and Plato".
The diet of Julian is said to have been predominantly vegetable-based.
Restoration of Paganism as state religion
Julian the Apostate presiding at a conference of sectarians, by Edward Armitage, 1875 See also: henosis and henotheism
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 supported the restoration of Hellenistic polytheism as the
state religion. 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 13th century China."
He restored pagan temples
which had been confiscated since Constantine's time, or simply
appropriated by wealthy citizens; he repealed the stipends that
Constantine had awarded to Christian bishops, and removed their other
privileges, including a right to be consulted on appointments and to act
as private courts. He also reversed some favors that had previously
been given to Christians. For example, he reversed Constantine's
declaration that Majuma, the port of Gaza, was a separate city. Majuma
had a large Christian congregation while Gaza was still predominantly
pagan.
On 4 February 362, Julian promulgated an edict to guarantee
freedom of religion. This edict proclaimed that all the religions were
equal before 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.
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.
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 resistance to the
re-establishment of paganism in the empire. 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 practice of the
Christian view of theurgy and demand the suppression of the Christian
set of Mysteries.
In his School Edict Julian required that
all public teachers be approved by the Emperor; the state paid or
supplemented much of their salaries. Ammianus Marcellinus explains this
as intending to prevent Christian teachers from using pagan texts (such
as the Iliad, which was widely regarded as divinely inspired)
that formed the core of classical 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. This was an attempt to remove some
of the power of the Christian schools which at that time and later used
ancient Greek literature in their teachings in their effort to present
the Christian religion as being superior to paganism.[citation needed] The edict was also a severe financial blow, because 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 confiscated temple properties, and the return from exile of dissident
Christian bishops. The latter was an instance of tolerance of different
religious views, but it may also have been seen as an attempt by Julian
to foster schisms and divisions between different Christian sects,
since conflict between rival Christian sects was quite fierce.
His
care in the institution of a pagan hierarchy in opposition to that of
the Christians 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 Christian charity.
Paganism's shift under Julian Julian's
popularity among the people and the army during his brief reign suggest
that he might have brought paganism back to the fore of Roman public
and private life. In fact, during his lifetime, neither pagan nor
Christian ideology reigned supreme, and the greatest thinkers of the day
argued about the merits and rationality of each religion. Most
importantly for the pagan cause, though, Rome was still a predominantly
pagan empire that had not wholly accepted Christianity.
Even so,
Julian's short reign did not stem the tide of Christianity. The
emperor's ultimate failure can arguably be attributed to the manifold
religious traditions and deities that paganism promulgated. Most pagans
sought religious affiliations that were unique to their culture and
people, and they had internal divisions that prevented them from
creating any one 'pagan religion.' Indeed, the term pagan was simply a
convenient appellation for Christians to lump together the believers of a
system they opposed. In truth, there was no Roman religion, as modern
observers would recognize it. Instead, paganism came from a system of
observances that one historian has characterized as "no more than a
spongy mass of tolerance and tradition."
This system of tradition
had already shifted dramatically by the time Julian came to power; gone
were the days of massive sacrifices honoring the gods. The communal
festivals that involved sacrifice and feasting, which once united
communities, now tore them apart-Christian against pagan. Civic leaders
did not even have the funds, much less the support, to hold religious
festivals. Julian found the financial base that had supported these
ventures (sacred temple funds) had been seized by his uncle Constantine
to support the Christian Church. In all, Julian's short reign simply
could not shift the feeling of inertia that had swept across the Empire.
Christians had denounced sacrifice, stripped temples of their funds,
and cut priests and magistrates off from the social prestige and
financial benefits accompanying leading pagan positions in the past.
Leading politicians and civic leaders had little motivation to rock the
boat by reviving pagan festivals. Instead, they chose to adopt the
middle ground by having ceremonies and mass entertainment that were
religiously neutral.
After witnessing the reign of two emperors
bent on supporting the Church and stamping out paganism, it is
understandable that pagans simply did not embrace Julian's idea of
proclaiming their devotion to polytheism and their rejection of
Christianity. Many chose to adopt a practical approach and not support
Julian's public reforms actively for fear of a Christian revival.
However, this apathetic attitude forced the emperor to shift central
aspects of pagan worship. Julian's attempts to reinvigorate the people
shifted the focus of paganism from a system of tradition to a religion
with some of the same characteristics that he opposed in Christianity.
For example, Julian attempted to introduce a tighter organization for
the priesthood, with greater qualifications of character and service.
Classical paganism simply did not accept this idea of priests as model
citizens. Priests were elites with social prestige and financial power
who organized festivals and helped pay for them. Yet Julian's attempt to
impose moral strictness on the civic position of priesthood only made
paganism more in tune with Christian morality, drawing it further from
paganism's system of tradition.
Indeed, this development of a
pagan order created the foundations of a bridge of reconciliation over
which paganism and Christianity could meet. Likewise, Julian's
persecution of Christians, who by pagan standards were simply part of a
different cult, was quite an un-pagan attitude that transformed paganism
into a religion that accepted only one form of religious experience
while excluding all others-such as Christianity. In trying to compete
with Christianity in this manner, Julian fundamentally changed the
nature of pagan worship. That is, he made paganism a religion, whereas
it once had been only a system of tradition.
Juventinus and Maximus Despite
the emperor's attempts to reconcile Christianity and paganism, many of
the Church fathers viewed him with hostility, and told stories of his
supposed wickedness after his death. A sermon by Saint John Chrysostom,
entitled On Saints Juventinus and Maximinus, tells the story of
two of Julian's soldiers at Antioch, who were overheard at a drinking
party, criticizing the emperor's religious policies, and taken into
custody. According to John, the emperor had made a deliberate effort to
avoid creating martyrs of those who disagreed with his reforms; but
Juventinus and Maximinus admitted to being Christians, and refused to
moderate their stance. John asserts that the emperor forbade anyone from
having contact with the men, but that nobody obeyed his orders; so he
had the two men executed in the middle of the night. John urges his
audience to visit the tomb of these martyrs.
Charity
The
fact that Christian charities were open to all, including pagans, put
this aspect of Roman citizens' lives out of the control of Imperial
authority and under that of the Church. 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, saying: "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."
Attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple
In
363, not long before Julian left Antioch to launch his campaign against
Persia, in keeping with his effort to foster religions other than
Christianity, he 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 the Galilee
earthquake of 363, and to the Jews' ambivalence about the project.
Sabotage by Christians is a possibility, as is an accidental fire.
Divine intervention was the common view among Christian historians of
the time. Julian's support of Jews caused Jews to call him "Julian the
Hellene".