JULIAN the Apostate (Imp. Flavius Claudius Iulianus), ROMAN EMPEROR. — Born in Constantinople in 331, died at Ctesiphon on 27 June 363. Son of Julius Constantius, half-brother of Constantine the Great, and of Basilina, he was left an orphan by his mother at an early age. Because of his tender years he was spared in the massacres that followed Constantine’s death in 337. He was then entrusted, together with his half-brother Gallus, to the guardianship of the Arian bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, and placed under the tutelage of the aged eunuch Mardonius, who introduced him to the beauties of Hellenism by making him acquainted with and instilling in him a love for Homer and Hesiod. Later, still with his brother (341), he was relegated to the Villa of Macellum near Caesarea in Cappadocia, kept under close watch and pushed to the brink of despair by the henchmen of Constantius II, deprived of any companionship among his peers and forced to endure a sad and wretched childhood.
There he met George of Cappadocia, who was later appointed by the Arians as bishop of Alexandria, and who introduced him to ecclesiastical studies and allowed him to use his rich library. At that time G. followed religious practices with docility, was baptized, and was even enrolled among the clergy, serving as a lector in church services. Around 347, when Gallus was summoned to court to be named Caesar, G. too was allowed to go to Constantinople, where he studied grammar and rhetoric. Soon, however, he was sent back to Nicomedia by the suspicious Constantius, where he secretly attended the lessons of the rhetor Libanius, whose admirer and disciple he became, and began to study the doctrines of the Neoplatonists. Although educated by Christian teachers in Nicomedia, G., who already hated Christianity—both because it had been imposed on him by his uncle, the author of the tragic events of his childhood, and because he found it inferior to Hellenic culture, whose eloquence, mysticism, and bold speculations he admired—enthusiastically adhered to polytheism. In 351 he went to Pergamum, where he attended Edesius, Eusebius, and Chrysanthius; then to Ephesus, where he met Maximus, all Neoplatonic philosophers who professed a theoretical religious syncretism steeped in Chaldean theurgy. He was initiated at that time, in addition to this philosophy, into the mysteries of Mithras, consummating the apostasy from Christianity that he had begun in Nicomedia. This apostasy must be seen as the fruit of his philosophical and mystical aspirations, of his love for all that Hellenism signified and represented as a heritage to be defended and preserved both as culture and as a political idea, and finally as the consequence of his deep-seated aversion to Christianity. His defection became known at court, and upon his return to Nicomedia his brother Gallus placed the Arian Aetius beside him to bring him back to the Christian faith, but G. was able to dissimulate his feelings well and continued to frequent his pagan friends, among whom he gained great popularity.
After the death of his brother Gallus, who was put to death by Constantius II in 354, G. went through a difficult period; he was summoned to Milan and kept at court without ever being admitted into the Emperor’s presence. He was, however, protected by Empress Eusebia, who obtained for him permission to go to Athens to continue his studies. There he devoted himself to philosophy and attended the school of Priscus, and was also initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries. In October 355 he was again recalled to Milan and created Caesar; he married Helena, sister of Constantius, and in November was sent to Gaul, where the barbarians were showing signs of rebellion. In his new office G. proved himself a good statesman and warrior, implementing sound administration of justice and the treasury and achieving a series of brilliant victories culminating in the battle of Strasbourg (357). His successes, however, were viewed with disfavor by Constantius, who in 360 demanded a portion of the army to send to the East against the Persians. The soldiers mutinied and at Paris proclaimed G. Augustus, despite his reluctance. Civil war seemed inevitable. After failed negotiations for an agreement, in the spring of 361 G. marched against Constantius and occupied Sirmium and Naissus. As he drew nearer to Constantinople, Constantius came to meet him but died at Mopsucrene in Cilicia on 3 November 361: G. remained the sole master of the Empire.
On 11 December he entered the capital, welcomed with enthusiasm by the Senate and the people, and paid solemn honors to the corpse of Constantius, whom he also deified. In governing the entire Empire, G. expanded the wise administration he had already tested in Gaul. First of all, he purged the court of all the parasites that thrived there, reducing the household staff to the bare necessities. At the same time, he established a special tribunal to judge and punish—though not always impartially, it must be said—the informers and spies who had run rampant at the court of the late Emperor. He restored to the Senate its ancient privileges, granting it fiscal and judicial immunities. He appointed to various offices new men of honesty and probity, chosen with circumspection. He himself always and everywhere showed himself to be democratic, without the trappings of luxury that had already taken root in the Byzantine court. He sought to raise from the wretched state into which many cities of the Empire had fallen; he restored their finances and municipal authority, abolished exemption privileges that were not deserved, improved the public post by suppressing unnecessary permits, and reduced taxes by distributing them more fairly. He concerned himself with expediting the administration of justice, not disdaining to act as judge himself and always with equity. He restored discipline to the army by placing at its head trusted and experienced leaders.
Despite all these political and social merits, G. has passed into history with a grave note of infamy attached to him because of his religious policy. The greatest concern, almost the sole aim, of his government was to halt the advance of Christianity and restore Hellenism as the public religion and as a political force; and his political and social merits and achievements, one might say, were pursued with a view to and in service of this goal. To this end he undertook a relentless struggle, outwardly not departing from the principles of tolerance but in reality with passion and harshness, becoming irritated when he encountered difficulties, resorting to desperate, sometimes even cruel, measures, waging a covert war against Christians in which more than once he compromised his own dignity.
During the first months of his rule he showed himself reasonable and tolerant, hoping that everything would easily fall into place according to his plans. When he came to power, paganism was officially in decline: the laws of Constantius had accelerated its dissolution. Toward the end of 361, G. issued his first restoration edicts, reopening temples, rebuilding those that were crumbling or had been demolished, ordering the resumption of public sacrifices, and granting extensive privileges to all who worked to revive the worship of the gods. In February 362, it is true, he granted amnesty to all the bishops exiled by Constantius, but more out of reaction to his predecessor’s policy than from any sense of justice, and chiefly because he thought and hoped that the measure would foment internal strife between Catholics and Arians and thus hasten the disintegration of Christianity. Later, in fact, he did not hesitate to persecute and re-exile certain bishops, including St. Athanasius, who, far from unwittingly advancing G.’s designs, had instead succeeded in further stifling the resurgent paganism.
But the favor he openly showed to paganism provoked fierce reprisals from the populace, who felt secure in imperial protection. In many cities churches were sacked, priests killed, and consecrated virgins violated; disturbances broke out in several places, such as at Bosra and Alexandria, where even G.’s old friend George, the Arian bishop of the city, was massacred, without the emperor punishing the guilty parties, contenting himself with only a reproachful letter. Naturally, the Christians, unable to expect justice from the authorities, retaliated with injuries of their own, leading to individual and collective reprisals in places like Mero in Phrygia, Antioch, Gaza, Heliopolis, Arethusa, Edessa, Caesarea, and elsewhere.
The resistance G. encountered in carrying out his designs further irritated him, and little by little he became an autocrat in sectarian fashion. In the spring of 362 he summoned his former teachers, the theosophers Maximus and Priscus, to court, and with their advice launched a more open campaign. On June 27 he promulgated the law on teaching, judged unjust even by Ammianus Marcellinus himself, which forbade Christian teachers from instructing without prior approval from municipal councils, to be ratified by the emperor himself. The decision was based less on their competence than on their religious beliefs, since it could not be tolerated that the despised “Galileans” should teach or study classical literature steeped in mythology and paganism unless they believed in these things. Teachers were thus forced to choose between faith and their profession: many left their chairs, while others attempted to replace Greek and Latin classics with Christian compositions, as did the two Apollinares, father and son, versifying the Bible, writing tragedies, comedies, dialogues, and Christian lyrics.
Against the clergy, moreover, he issued a series of decrees stripping them of their ancient privileges, subjecting them to military obligations; he forced soldiers to venerate the gods depicted on their shields, from which he had had the cross removed; and he barred all those in public office or administration from receiving honors or dignities.
To combat Christians, he did not hesitate to solicit the support of the Jews, for whom he even attempted to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem with the perfidious, secret intention of disproving Christ’s prophecy (Mt 24:2; Lk 21:5–6). But the terrible earthquake tremors and flames that erupted from the ruins forced him to abandon the enterprise.
At the same time as these measures against Christianity, G. issued others to restore paganism, though plagiarizing Christian ideas and institutions and establishing a ridiculous theocracy. Beginning in June 362, posing as pontifex maximus, he wrote a series of so-called “pastoral” letters giving instructions to temple priests, obliging them under severe penalties to follow precise rituals in sacrifices, to instruct the faithful, to practice virtues, to perform works of mercy, and especially to exercise philanthropy.
In the summer of 362 he decided to break the power of the Persians, who threatened the empire. Preparations for the expedition were made in Antioch, from which he set out in March 363. The first months of fighting went well for him, but on June 27, during a battle, he was wounded and carried to his tent, where he died of loss of blood, attended by some friends. His body was taken to Tarsus and buried in a suburb of the city.
During his brief life G. found time to write extensively, though many of his works have been lost. Two panegyrics of Emperor Constantius and a eulogy of Empress Eusebia survive, written before he assumed imperial power. Lost are his commentaries on his campaigns in Gaul. He wrote a host of speeches on philosophical, religious, satirical, and polemical topics. In this genre, his masterpiece is the *Misopogon* (Μισόπογον), written in Antioch in 363, shortly before his Persian campaign, as a spiritual revenge against the Antiochenes’ mockery of his long beard. Of lesser value is the *Symposium* (Συμπόσιον), in which he reviews, in a kind of banquet held on Olympus, all his imperial predecessors; none escapes his biting criticism, particularly Constantine the Great, the protector of Christians, while all his praise is reserved for Marcus Aurelius. Also preserved are seventy-eight letters addressed to friends.
The work in which he gave full vent to his hatred of Christianity was the *Adversus Galileaeos* (Κατά Γαλιλαίων), written in Antioch between 362 and 363 in three books. The work is lost, but some fragments are known from the refutation written by St. Cyril of Alexandria in thirty books, of which only the first ten remain, aimed at countering the first book of G.’s work. G. knew the Holy Scriptures and the international organization of the Church well enough and subjected both to severe criticism, though the arguments he adduced were largely borrowed from Celsus and Porphyry.