Theoilogy of Emperor Julian against Christians

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

South Korea

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

26 July 2010

Julian became emperor after Constantine the Great. He started to reign in the year 361. He was 30 years old. Whereas Constantine the Great forced pagans to incorporate Christians in their scheme by making Sunday a day of Worship instead of the biblical Saturday-Seventh Day worship, Julian rebelled against any form of Christianity. Julian had a religious upbringing but a secular heart. The result? He wrote a book in 362 at the age of 31 against Christians and it is called: Against Galileans. He wish to call the Christians Galileans because Jesus was from Nazareth near Galilee. He also wish to say that their religion is just that of fisherman and that nothing good can be from it. He blamed the Christians that they claim their religion from the Old Testament and assert that the Old Testament says nothing of Christ.

Julian reacted against the Christian claim that Revelation of God gave truths and also that of Moses for the same. Julian insists that pagans acquire their knowledge of god from nature because there is a universal yearning for the divine.

For this reason, Julian feels that since everyone has this godly intuition in them, therefore no religion and no god is better than another. He argued that his concept of religion is better than that of Moses, since Moses is particularistic about his God. Moses set God against other gods and His religion against other religions. Julian feels that his concept of religion is superior than that of Moses since he (Julian and the pagans) are not polarizing religion nor gods against each other. They feel themselves better than Christians or Jews since they embrace everything, even the God of Moses but on equal grounds with other gods. Since all gods are on the same level, all religions are also, for Julian.

Julian was very ecumenical. With ecumenical eagerness to embrace all religions, he says: "“Ye are all brothers one of another. God is the common father of us all”.

Julian blames poverty on the streets and point to fellow humans that they do not give more for charity. He insisted on the human responsibility to share to poverty. Julian sounds very appealing to social gospel preachers and marxistic orientated readers, but there is a sting in it all. Julian is not operating from Theology and neither is his theology from the Scriptures (Old and New Testament). What Julian skillfully did is to take his Christian upbringing, deconstruct it and used the pieces he liked to reconstruct his own theology that is not theology but theoilogy. He does not believe in one God but in many, in fact all gods. It is a secular paganistic religion that encourages all to go to their temples, synagogues, churches, shrines. He even insisted that people should refrain from eating certain foods when they have festivals so that their minds is better prepared for the interaction with their gods. Pigs should never be eaten since they do not look up to heaven. Something strangled should not be eaten Preferably vegetarian diet is suggested. Porphyry the Inspiration of the Bible hater of the second century was also a strict vegetarian but so was Hitler.

Julian wrote his long disputes against the Christians during the Winters of 361-362 and Libanius, his admirer, was also with him. He uses the works of Porphyry.

The reaction of the church to this genre of anti-biblicism is interesting. Celsus, Porphyry, and emperor Julian are of the same feathers. Celsus were against Christians and so was Julian. Porphyry was against the inspiration and revelation of the Scriptures. Celsus wrote in the first century, Porphyry, the pagan philosopher in the second, and Julian in the 3rd century. Origen reacted against Celsus in 230, and Jerome reacted against Porphyry in 396 with his commentary on Daniel. Gregory of Nazianus reacted against Emperor Julian. Cyril of Alexandria in 429 and Theodoras of Mopsuestia as well as Philip of Sideta were against Emperor Julian.

In 431 the Church Council decided against the works of Porphyry and insisted that they should be burnt. Nothing was said about the works of Julian, of the same genre. In 448 the Law of Theodosius II condemned the books of Porphyry. Nothing was said about the works of Julian. In 529 Emperor Justinian, who increasingly evolved into a theologian, condemned books against Christians, and included Porphyry's books to be burned but said nothing of the works of Emperor Julian of the same genre.

Julian liked ceremonies and insisted that pagans who are going back to their shrines should be initiated with rites as Christians are with baptism. He focused on ceremonialism and revived his paganism and so-called pluralistic religious theoilogy with ceremonies.

The theoilogy of Julian was very interesting. It insisted on the piety of the partaker in religion. They should stay away from hermeneutics of skepticism about their religions. That was all religions. "For devotional training, besides private exercises of prayer and attendance at public worship, they were to commit to heart and meditate upon the Sacred Hymns, the direct revelations of the Gods."

Julian laid down rules for the ministries of priests, functionaries, pastors. They are to stay for 30 days within the building (temple, synagogue, church, shrine). They are to purify themselves by not leaving the building to the market or to their houses. They have to meditate upon the hymns and pray a lot. He also reserved the right to discharge a priest, preacher, pastor, functionary if they do not function and act out these strict rules.

Julian's rules were strict. "In order to this the priest will abstain rigidly from attendance at the theaters: he will eschew all public games, horse-races, and the like: he will never frequent the wine-taverns, nor engage in any kind of business that could bring contempt upon his profession. Nay more, not content with these negative protests against dissolute or careless living, he will be very choice as to the society he keeps. Actors, jockeys and dancers he will absolutely avoid; and while permitted to resort freely to the houses and entertainments of his friends, to enhance his priestly dignity he will but rarely frequent the market; and will moreover seldom visit or meet municipal dignitaries or officers, except in temples and places where his sacerdotal position gives him acknowledged precedence: as a general rule he will communicate with them by letter alone. Above all he will bring up his own family in sobriety and the fear of God: the women, children, and domestics of his household will attend regularly the public services: a priest failing in this deserves to be dismissed from his priestly office."

He structured every religion to have servants, deacons, elders. bishops and high priests. The high priest he appointed and they were his philosopher friends. They were all secular and trained in Platonism and Aristotelism.

Julian saw in the functionaries for the religions, that they were vicars of the gods.

Julian insisted that the pagan temples should have choirs and well dressed to attract the attention of the population so that the pagan temples look more glorious than the cheap worship places of the Christians. The focus was on aesthetics and what is pleasing and appealing to the eyes of a human.

Julian did his best to copy Christian worship styles in the pagan temples and to improve on them in order to divert the populations to the pagan places of worship.

He did not tolerate noise in the places of worship. He said "If I enter the theatre unexpectedly, cheer; but if the temple, then keep silence, giving cheer to the Gods alone nay, but the Gods have no need of cheers”.

Julian argued against Moses and the prohibition against idols of worship. He insisted that they are just demonstrations of man's limitness "material images of deities who themselves are immaterial". He felt that idols should be worshipped "A loyal subject will honor the statue of his sovereign for precisely the same reason. Just as the parent loves the likeness of his child, or the subject honors the statue of his prince, so will the worshipper revere the image of his God, and in its presence realize in trembling awe the unseen presence in whose gaze he at that moment stands."

Because purification was important in neo-Platonism, therefore Julian insisted on vegetarianism during festivals.

With regard to vegetables: "cabbages, sprouts and the like were permissible as food. Seeds and all roots such as turnips, were forbidden. As far as fruit was concerned, figs were preferred over apples, pomegranates or dates. Fish was prohibited, while birds of almost every kind were approved. Among four-footed beasts the swine is unclean. Seeds and roots and creeping plants are forbidden. They are too earthly and should be avoided according to Julian. What grows upward is heavenly and can be eaten.

Sanctification of the soul was the supreme task of religion.

Julian put the brakes on the practice of prophecy, superstition, exorcism, mystical dreams, experiences, witchcraft and all these activities although he liked it. He made it a science and demanded that only a trained person could do it.

Julian was pluralist, ecumenist and polytheist. His theoilogy said "Truth is one and philosophy is one; all philosophers had one single end, which they reached by different paths".

Relevance today

Pope Benedict and his predecessors fulfill the same template of Emperor Julian. Says pope Benedict "When experienced in solidarity, legitimate pluralism and diversity will lead not to division and competition, but to ever greater effectiveness" (Address of Pope Benedict to Members of the Joint International Commission sponsored by the Baptist World Alliance and the Pontifical Council for promoting Christian Unity, in the Hall of Popes on Thursday 6 December 2007).

The Vicar of Rome, also a Political-Religious figure (as Julian), has similar powers in his church as Julian, emphasize pluralism, ecumenism, anti-particularism, contra-secularism, piety stress, charity stress, also holding that all roads lead to heaven. It is interesting that Julian is called an apostate Emperor but the papacy who are since Vatican II stressing the same ideals as Emperor Julian 361-363, are not (Revelation 17:4).

Sources

1.http://www.third-millennium-library.com/MedievalHistory/Julian_the_Emperor/CHAPTER_V.html

2.http://www.archive.org/stream/workswithenglish03juliuoft/workswithenglish03juliuoft_djvu.txt

3.http://www.third-millennium-library.com/MedievalHistory/Julian_the_Emperor/CHAPTER_V.html

4.http://www.vatican.ve