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Julian the Apostate at Antioch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Glanville Downey
Glanville Downey
Affiliation:
The Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, N. J.
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Extract

Few figures in the story of the rise and establishment of Christianity have drawn so much attention as Julian the Apostate. The emperor who attempted to overthrow the church and reestablish the ancient pagan faith has from his own day to this been bitterly attacked by some, and as stoutly defended by others, until he has become almost a legendary character. Whether monster or tragic hero, his brief career has inevitably called forth an enormous literature in which every shade of the Christian and the pagan points of view is represented. Professional scholars and men of letters, attracted by a number of different aspects of the emperor's life, find rich material in the problem of his curiously mixed personality and in the spectacle of this last concerted; attempt to revive dying paganism. The manner in which the pagans responded to the attempt, and the way in which the church combatted this attack upon it, are alike subjects which will seem to every student to offer valuable lessons. Scholars realize both the difficulty and the importance of a just appreciation of these problems, and the effort to assay them properly has produced studies of the highest value.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 1939 , pp. 303 - 315
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1939

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References

1 Bibliographies may be found in the Cambridge Medieval History, I (1911), 633–635, 638–641Google Scholar, in von Christ, W.'s Geschichte der griechischen Literatur, 6th ed., ed. by Schmid, W. and Stählin, O., II, 2 (Munich, 1924), 1014–1027Google Scholar, and in Leclercq, H., “Julien l'Apostat,”Google Scholar in Cabrol-Leclercq, , Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, VIII, 1 (1928), 397–399.Google Scholar Reference may also be made to the standard histories of the period. The present writer has found most profit in Geffcken, J., Kaiser Julianus (Leipzig, 1914)Google Scholar, Rostagni, A., Giuliano l'Apostata (Turin, 1920)Google Scholar, Ensslin, W., “Kaiser Julians Gesetzgebungswerk und Reichsver-waltung,” Klio, XVIII (1923), 104–199Google Scholar, and Bidez, J., La Vie de l'Empereur Julien (Paris, 1930).Google Scholar

2 On the date see Seeek, O., Regesten der Kaiser und Päpste (Stuttgart, 1919), 210.Google Scholar

3 Two of the best-known incidents of this time are Julian's order for the removal of the relics of St. Babylas from the martyrium near the temple of Appolo at Daphne, the suburb of Antioch, and the burning of the temple itself on October 22, 362—for which the Christians were blamed. These events are described in detail by the present writer in Antioch-on-the-Orontes, II: The Excavations, 1933–1936, ed. by Stillwell, R. (Princeton, 1938), 45–48.Google Scholar It is a point of special interest that in 1935 the excavations at Antioch disclosed the remains of a cruciform church, across the river from the city, which is almost certainly the martyrium in which the remains of Babylas were buried when they were removed from Daphne. See the description of the church by Lassus, J., who excavated it, in Antioch II, 5–44.Google Scholar

4 Julian's extant works are conveniently edited, with an English translation, by Wright, W. C. in the Loeb Classical Library.Google Scholar The quotations given here are taken from this version.

5 Estimates differ as to whether the population of Antioeh was predominantly Christian at this time, or whether there was a considerable admixture of pagans. Most scholars would agree, however, that in this case, at least, nominal adherence to the one faith or the other would not materially alter the more deeply seated characteristics upon which Julian would have counted.

6 Amm. Marc., XXII, 9, 14Google Scholar; Misop., 367 C.Google Scholar In the same passage Julian recalls that when the Antiochenes (like the people of other cities) sent an embassy to him on his accession, he remitted large sums of money, including parts of the tribute, which they owed to the government (see also 365 B).

7 The recognition of these important points is due to the insight of Bidez, who discusses them in his chapter “Revirements ou plan préconçu?”, op. cit. 310–314: cf. also 231, 261, 265, 271.Google Scholar

8 See Rostagni, , op. cit., 106.Google Scholar

9 The career of the Comes Orientis is described by O. Seeek in his article “Iulianos,” no. 39, in Pauly-Wissowa, , Real-Encyelopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft X, 1 (1917) 94–95Google Scholar; Seeek's account is corrected in certain details by Bidez, J. in the Melanges Paul Thomas (Bruges, 1930), 57–63.Google Scholar

10 An idea of the importance of the part which the Comes Orientis played in the affairs of Antioch may be gained from the account of the life of Ephraemius, patriarch of Antioeh (who was Count of the Bast before he became patriarch), which the writer has given in a preceding volume of this journal, VII, 4, (December 1938), 364–370.

11 It is noteworthy that when Julian solicited the aid in the revival of Hellenism of the various non-Christian groups he received promises of support from the Jewish community at Antioch. This community was a strong one, and it may be suggested that hope for assistance from the Jews there played some part in Julian's choice of Antioch as his headquarters. See Kraeling, C. H., “The Jewish Community at Antioeh,” Journal of Biblical Literature, LI (1932), 157–158.Google Scholar

12 III, 11, 5.

13 On the literary form and sources of the Misopogon see Geffeken, , op. cit. 116, 166Google Scholar, and Asmus, R., “Kaiser Julians Misopogon, und seine Quelle,” Philologue, LXXVI (1920), 266–292Google Scholar, LXXVII (1921), 109–141. Bostagni provides a translation of the satire, with an excellent commentary, op. cit. 237–292.Google Scholar

14 Rostagni, for example, recognizes that the Misopogon, like The Caesars, had a reformatory purpose (op. cit., 96–97)Google Scholar; but he thinks (104) that it was an occasional piece, hastily written in a few days on the spur of the moment.

15 E. g., 360 D—361 D, 364 B ff., 366 B—D.

16 365 B—D, 366 D, 368 A ff.

17 342 B ff.

18 349 D ff.

19 362 B ff.

20 By W. Sehmid, writing in von Christ, 's Gesch. d. griech. Lit. (cited above), 1017–1018.Google Scholar

21 The political significance of the letter is pointed out by Rostagni, , op. cit., 96–97Google Scholar, and by Bidez, , Mél. P. Thomas, 57Google Scholar; see also the same scholar's biography of the emperor, 198.

22 287 C.

23 An illuminating study of methods of political propaganda in the Roman Empire has been made by M. P. Charlesworth in his lecture before the British Academy in 1937, “The Virtues of a Roman Emperor: Propaganda and the Creation of Belief,” published in the Proceedings of the British Academy, XXIII.Google Scholar

24 Ed. 2, Heidelberg, 1920.

25 See a paper by the present writer, “Personifications of Abstract Ideas in the Antioch Mosaics,” Transactions of the American Philological Association, LXIX (1938), 349–363.Google Scholar

26 Op. cit., 246.Google Scholar