by
Damien F. Mackey
“… it is … worth looking at Julian’s political
platform, as it is fundamentally intertwined with his program of religious
reform. Susanna Elm (2012) summarizes his efforts into three primary
categories: “logoi, hiera, and the polis—Greek language and culture, its
gods and all things sacred, and the city as the physical locus of Greek
culture, government and religion”— and each would be amended by refocusing
Roman culture around classical paideia
…”.
Adrian
Scaife
Some comparisons
follow between Hadrian, his reign conventionally dated to c. 117-138 AD - but I have re-dated him to the Maccabean era
- and Julian ‘the Apostate’, his reign conventionally dated to c. 361-363 AD.
From Emperor and Author: The Writings
of Julian 'the Apostate', p. 307 (edited by Nicholas
J. Baker-Brian, Shaun Tougher):
What [Jean-Philippe-Rene de] La Bletterie says
of Julian as Caesars' author differs markedly from his earlier characterization of him as emperor at the start of his 1735 biography; there, he represents Julian as as a ruler driven by 'an uncontrolled passion
for glory' – one who pursued his policies with 'a kind
of fanaticism', and who was not free of 'the faults
which [his] amour propre perceive[d] only in
others'. ….
Just what La
Bletterie was thinking of, on that last count, can be inferred from his note on the passage in Caesars
in which
Hadrian is teased as a star-gazer who was forever prying into ineffable mysteries (311d). La Bletterie was prompted to remark that much
the same could be said of Julian: he and Hadrian were both 'full of zeal for idolatry', 'superstitious
[…] astrologers
wanting to know everything, so constantly
inquisitive as to be accused of magic'. And
the likeness
did not end there: Julian, assuredly, 'did not have the infamous [homosexual] vices of Hadrian […], but he had almost all his [other] faults and
absurdities'; both of them were ‘fickle, obstinate, and vain of soul’….
Moreover, at one point in his comparison of Julian with Hadrian, La
Bletterie entertains a possibility which would imply a very hostile view indeed of Julian: 'they both passed very wise laws and performed many merciful actions; but Hadrian seemed cruel sometimes, and some say that [“l'on dit
que”] Julian was only humane out of vanity'. ….
“Julian is often compared in character to Marcus Aurelius and Hadrian,
indeed he is very much a blend of the two. He combines Hadrian's philhellenism
with Marcus Aurelius' Stoicism, scholasticism, and militaristic determination”.
From Ammianus Marcellinus, p. 309, by Gavin Kelly:
“Ammianus …. rejects the comparison chosen by Valentinian's partisans to Aurelian .... He compares him to Hadrian in his depreciation of the well-dressed, the
learned, the wealthy, the noble, the brave, 'so that he
alone should appear to excel in fine abilities' (ut solus uideretur bonis artibus eminere,
30.8.10); Julian
too had been compared to Hadrian in one of his faults .... His tendency towards timorousness is described …”.
From Emperors and Historiography: Collected Essays
on the Literature of the Roman ..., p. 315, by Daniel
den Hengst:
“… divination was practiced in an uncontrolled and lawless way affectata varietate, that is to say with overzealous
efforts to practice all forms of divinatio.
In the necrology
Ammianus compares Julian to Hadrian in this
respect. By doing so he harks back again to his description of Julian in Antioch, where Julian is characterized in this context as multorum curiosior. ….
In this case, Julian may have been plagued by curiositas, but he shared this vice with
a great predecessor. ….
Like Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’
“Antiochus Epiphanes thought nothing was
more certain than that he would annihilate the Jewish nation. Julian the
Apostate convinced himself that it was already in his power to uproot the
Christian religion”.
Herman J. Selderhuis (ed.)
This is a quote
from the book, Psalms 1-72 (p. 14).
If Julian ‘the
Apostate’ bears comparison, at least to some extent, with the emperor Hadrian:
Hadrian and Julian the Apostate
“… Julian … and Hadrian were both 'full of zeal for idolatry', 'superstitious
[…] astrologers wanting to
know everything, so constantly inquisitive as to be accused of magic'.”
then I might
expect, also, some useful comparisons of Julian with Hadrian’s alter ego, king Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes,
as according to my:
Antiochus 'Epiphanes' and Emperor Hadrian. Part Two:
"Hadrian … a second Antiochus"
Collin Garbarino
talks about “an appropriation of the past” - {appropriation being a word I have been much inclined to use for
when I consider pagans to have borrowed from the Hebrew scriptures but claimed
the material as their own} - by Christian writers of the Maccabean period (“Resurrecting the martyrs: the role
of the Cult of the Saints, A.D. 370-430”, 2010). Though, according to my
radical revision of the Maccabees in relation to the Herodian era:
A New
Timetable for the Nativity of Jesus Christ
the Maccabean
martyrs at the time of Antiochus IV ‘Epiphanes’ fall right into the period of
the Infancy of Jesus Christ.
Garbarino writes
(emphasis added):
This
appropriation of the past could even reach back farther than the time of Christ
[sic]. During this expansion of the cult of martyrs in the fourth century,
bishops began venerating the Maccabeans who died in the Seleucid persecutions
of the 160s BC. The various books of Maccabees describe the deaths of faithful
Jews at the hands of Seleucid oppressors because of their refusal to abandon
the Torah. These stories contain many of
the same elements that later characterized Christian martyrologies: trials
designed to cause apostasy, tortures and promises given by the magistrate, and
a confession of continued faith in God. In
light of these commonalities, it is surprising that Christian communities
did not adopt these Jewish saints earlier. The earliest extant evidence of
Christians honoring the Maccabean martyrs is Gregory of Nazianzus’s Homily 15, On the Maccabees. …. Gregory
probably preached this sermon in 362, during the reign of Julian the Apostate.
….
He used
the Maccabean situation to criticize in a veiled manner the anti-Christian
policies of the emperor. In the sermon, he explicitly says that very few Christian
communities honor these martyrs because their deaths predated Christ. …. Gregory, however, found their cult useful
for promoting Christianization, and this sermon acts as a turning point for
the Maccabees. Martha Vinson writes, “Before this sermon, the Maccabees are
merely faces in a crowd of Old Testament exempla ... while after it, as the
homiletic literature from the last decades from the fourth century attests,
they have been singled out from the pack as the sole beneficiaries not only of
encomia but of a well-established cult.” …. By the year 400, the Maccabees were being honored as
Christian martyrs by preachers around the Mediterranean.
[End
of quote]
Barry
Phillips will write in a footnote (p. 129, n. 19) to his article “Antiochus IV, Epiphanes” (Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 29,
No. 2, 1910):
Dan. 11 st: " And
arms shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength,
and shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination
that maketh desolate." Cf. 8 12 9 27 12 11, 1 Macc. 1 54, 2 Macc. 6 2.
Hoffman, Antiochus Epiphanes, p. 80, essays to compare Antiochus and Julian. In
so far as the ideas of both were out of harmony with the spirit of the times,
there is an apparent similarity between the persecutions of Antiochus and of
Julian, far less, however, than the dissimilarity, owing to the fact that
whereas Julian sought the extinction of Christianity as an end, Antiochus
sought the extinction of Judaism but as a means to an end.
Antiochus ‘Epiphanes’ and Julian ‘the
Apostate’ are similarly likened to the Antichrist.
For instance, Stephen J. Vicchio tells of
Cardinal Newman’s view in Vicchio’s The Legend of the
Anti-Christ: A History, p. 314): “Newman goes on in the first advent sermon on the
Anti-Christ to argue that some of these historical figures have been Antiochus
IV Epiphanes and Julian, “who attempted to overthrow the Church by craft and
introduce paganism back again …”.
We shall conclude,
still on an antichrist type, the “666” of Revelation, with Reginald Rabett’s
comment (in GLateinos@; Lateino, p. 138):
For example — If we were to speak of the Emperor Julian
who is proverbially and emphatically styled The
Apostate, yet it would be necessary to use the Name - Julian - because it is the Proper Name of this Man; for
were we to omit his Name, no one
would of a certainty
conclude that Julian the Apostate
was meant; but probably Antiochus Epiphanès might
be intended ....
Like Herod ‘the Great’
“Julian is also compared
with Herod, as wise men whose behaviour is not particularly wise: "Yet is
it not all kinde of learning or wisedome which is availeable for the true happinesse
of a King or Kingdome (as may appeare in the miserable ends of Herod, and Iulian the Apostate, both in their kindes wise and learned) but
wise behavior in a perfect way, that is, Wisdom mixed with Piety, guided by
Religion, and sanctified with Grace".”
Hakewill 50
If Julian ‘the
Apostate’ bears comparison, at least to some extent, with the emperor Hadrian:
Hadrian and Julian the Apostate
then I might
expect, also, some useful comparisons of Julian with Hadrian’s other alter egos, (i) king Antiochus IV
‘Epiphanes, as according to my:
Antiochus IV 'Epiphanes' and Julian 'the Apostate'
and now, in this
article, with (ii) king Herod ‘the Great’, as according to my:
Herod and
Hadrian
On some certain likenesses between
Julian and Herod, Manolis Papoutsakis has written (Vicarious
Kingship: A Theme in Syriac Political Theology in Late Antiquity):
Accordingly, Julian
is identified with Herod the Great
a “foreigner” and, by implication (cf. Deut 17:15), a “usurper” of the Judahite
throne:
Herod's disruption of the legitimate line of kings resulted in the adventus of Christ,
who came in order to reclaim His Judahite inheritance,
that is, the Royal Office (malkutá).
In his verses
against Julian, Ephrem elaborates upon the Julian/Herod comparison by forcefully reading 2
Thess 2:3 into the cluster consisting of Gen 49:10 a-b and Matthew 2. As a result, Julian, a “Herodian” king who disrupted the dynasty of Constantine, the new David”, is appositely presented as a θεομάχος and
is implicitly identified with the Antichrist-figure
par excellence, namely, the Apostate at 2 Thess 2:3 ….
In
GREGORY NAZIANZEN'S FIRST INVECTIVE AGAINST JULIAN THE EMPEROR, we read: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_nazianzen_2_oration4.htm
“Thou
persecutor next |39 to Herod, thou traitor next to Judas, except so far as not
ending thy life with, a halter, as he did;47 thou murderer of Christ next to
Pilate; thou hater of God next to the Jews!”
In Jacobus de Voragine’s The
Golden Legend: Lives of the Saints, we read this comment regarding Julian and
a Herod (this time, though, Herod Antipas):
“Then Julian the
apostate commanded that [John the Baptist’s] bones should be burnt. …. And like
as Herod which beheaded him was punished for his trespass, so Julian the
apostate was smitten with divine vengeance of God …”.
Julian has been likened,
in his death, to “Herod”, “Antiochus”:
Robert Albott reports that "Iulian the
Apostate, at his death cast vp his blood into the ayre, crying Vicisti
Galilaee" (3) …. This reluctant acknowledgement that Christianity was
to become the dominant religion of the Roman empire is a point frequently
related in references to Julian. Henry Burton notes: "And as Iulian
the Apostate, pulling the mortall dart out of his bowels, though therein he saw
and felt the hand of Divine revenge, yet he vttered his confession thereof with
the voyce of blasphemy, Vicisti Galilaee: and so breathed out his
blasphemous spirit in a desperat impenitency" (74). Stephen Jerome
similarly observes how "as you haue heard the godly praying, or praysing
and blessing GOD, speaking graciously, sending out their spirits ioyfully, and
dying comfortably: so prophane men dye eyther carelesly and blockishly,"
and relates that Julian the Apostate "in his last act of life, from his
infected lungs sent out venome against Christ, calling him in dirision,
victorious Galilean" (67-68). He also provides some early modern context
for how Julian was perceived, citing "the examples of … Herod … Antiochus ….
Adrian Scaife
writes (“Julian the Apostle: The Emperor who “Brought Piety
as it Were Back from Exile”.”, pp. 113, 118-119):
…. it is still worth
looking at Julian’s political platform, as it is fundamentally intertwined with
his program of religious reform. Susanna Elm (2012) summarizes his efforts into
three primary categories: “logoi, hiera, and the polis—Greek
language and culture, its gods and all things sacred, and the city as the
physical locus of Greek culture, government and religion”— and each would be
amended by refocusing Roman culture around classical paideia (5).
….
The allegories also
contributed to a growing theurgical framework in Julian’s new paganism whereby
the adherent could create a spiritual connection with the divine (a process
that began in To the Cynic Heracleius), imitating the most humanistic
aspect of the Christian faith (Athanassiadi 2015, 136). Once again the shadow
of Christianity looms: Julian drew from the established practices of a Greek
philosophical movement to produce a religious handbook of sorts that offered
spiritual advice by way of allegories—a result openly reminiscent of Christian
scripture/scriptural interpretation. Meanwhile, the Hymn to King Helios pulled
explicitly from Mithraism in anointing the sun-god as the central divine force.
But Julian managed to incorporate the traditional pantheon of gods, too, by
assigning each of the Hellenic gods an aspect of the larger Mithraic
figurehead. In one typical fusion, Julian writes, “Among the intellectual gods,
Helios and Zeus have a joint or rather a single sovereignty” (Hymn to King
Helios, 136A-B). He continues through the pantheon one-by-one, drawing from
the inspiration of Plato, Homer, Hesiod, and others to assign the various parts
of the whole that is Helios: Aphrodite accounts for Helios’ creative function;
Athena embodies pure intellect; and so on (Hymn to King Helios, 138A
ff). The unity of the various traditional gods into the “One” can be seen as a
reflection of the Christian model Julian’s uncle first established, but it also
embodies the central tenet of Neoplatonism (Athanassiadi 2015, 160). In that
sense, Julian simultaneously achieved a complex synthesis of a theurgical Mithraism,
the Platonic form, and traditional Hellenic mythology. The emperor’s religious
program, responding to unique obstacles of Late Antiquity, accounted for the
diverse local mythical legacies that were so important to civic identity and
established a divinity embodying the shared Romanitas of a united
Hellenic empire. ….
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