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The Death of Julian the Apostate in a Christian Legend

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2012

Norman H. Baynes
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Extract

The Emperor Julian stood to the Roman world of the fourth century as the personification of the older faith, and with him died the hopes of a pagan restoration. His death came at a critical moment, and both pagan and Christian felt that it could have been no human hand which dealt the fatal blow. To Kallistos Julian was the victim of a demon : Κάλλιστος δέ, writes Socrates, ὁ ἐν τοῖς οἰϰείοις τοῦ βασιλέως στρατευόμενος (i.e. as one of the imperial domestici), ἱστορήσας τὰ ϰατ᾿ αὐτὸν ἐν ἡρωιϰῷ μέτρῳ, τὸν τότε πόλεμον διηγούμενος ὑπὸ δαίμονος βληθέντα τελευτῆσαι ϕηαίν. The comment of the Christian historian is interesting : ὅπερ τυχὸν μὲν ὡς ποιητὴς ἔπλασε, τυχὸν δὲ ϰαί οὕτως ἔχει· πολλοὺσς γὰρ ἐριννύες μετῆλθον. Libanius pictures the blessings which men anticipated under Julian's rule and adds ταῦτα ϰαὶ ἔτι πλείω προσδοϰώμενα χορὸς φθονερῶν ἀφείλετο δαιμόνων. To the Christian similarly it was the saints who had fulfilled the will of Heaven in removing the Apostate persecutor of the Church, though a human assassin could hardly have been condemned—σχολῇ γε ἄν τις ϰαὶ αὐτῷ μέμψαιτο διὰ Θεόν ϰαὶ θρησϰείαν ἣν ἐπῄνεσεν ἀνδρείῳ γενομένῳ.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Roman Studies , Volume 27 , Issue 1: Papers Presented to Sir Henry Stuart Jones , 1937 , pp. 22 - 29
Copyright
Copyright ©Norman H. Baynes 1937. Exclusive Licence to Publish: The Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies

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References

1 Cf. De Buck in AASS, October x, pp. 572–3; Reinhardt, G., Der Tod des Kaisers Julian nach den Quellen dargestellt (Cöthen, 1891Google Scholar); Büttner-Wobst, Th., ‘Der Tod des Kaisers Julian. Eine Quellenstudie’ Philologus li (1892), 561–580Google Scholar; Nostitz-Rieneck, Robert Graf, ‘Vom Tode des Kaisers Julian’ xvi Jahresbericht des öffentlichen Privatgymnasiums an der Stella Matutina zu Feldkirch 1906–1907, 1–35Google Scholar (see H. D. in Anal. Boll. xxvii (1928), 98 f.); Halliday, W. R., ‘St. Basil and Julian the Apostate : A fragment of legendary history,’ Annals of Archaeology and Anthropology vii (1914–16), 89–106Google Scholar; Peeters, P., ‘Un miracle des SS. Serge et Théodore et la vie de S. Basile dans Fauste de Byzance,’ Anal. Boll. xxxix (1921) 65–88Google Scholar.

2 Socrates, HE iii, 21Google Scholar; cf. Anal. Boll. xxxix, 82 for quotation from Michael the Syrian.

3 Libanius, ed. Förster, ii, 360 (=R. 618).

4 Sozomen, HE vi, 2Google Scholar. The reference to Greek views on the justification of tyrannicide is interesting.

5 ‘A fate that may well befall the modern traveller in the Levant’: Halliday, op. cit., 101.

6 Sozomen, HE vi, 2Google Scholar.

7 Lauer, M., Des Faustus von Byzanz Geschichte Armeniens (Köln, 1879)Google Scholar. For a Latin version, cf. Peeters, P., Anal. Boll. xxxix (1921), 70–73Google Scholar.

8 Cf. Baynes, N. H., ‘Rome and Armenia in the Fourth Century’ : EHR xxv (1910), 625–643CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 By Peeters (see supra, p. 22, note 1).

10 ‘Julianum Augustum vii libros in expeditione Parthica adversum Christum evomuisse.’ Ep. 70 to Magnus (i, 425 E, Vall.).

11 For a full discussion of the evidence for the date of composition of the work cf. Neumann, C. J., Juliani Imperatoris librorum contra Christianos quae supersunt (Leipzig, 1880), 5–8Google Scholar.

12 In this form of the story Libanius is in Persia with Julian, acting as quaestor : ἰσοδύναμον δὲ ὄναρ ὲθεώρει τῇ νυκτὶ καὶ Λιβάνιος ὁ σοϕιστὴς συνὼν τῷ Ἰουλιανῷ ἐν Περσίδι καὶ τὴν τοῦ κοιαίστωρος ἀξίαν διακοσμῶν. Combefis, F., SS. Patrum Amphilochii Iconiensis Methodii Patarensis et Andreae Cretensis operaomnia quae reperiri potuerunt (Paris, 1644), 182Google Scholar. There is no reason, now that the legendary character of the Pseudo-Amphilochian life is recognised, to assume the existence of a Libanius other than the famous sophist of Antioch (so Combefis, op. cit. p. 269 f., n. 83), though it is surprising to find this consistent champion of the ancient faith converted to Christianity as is related in the Vita, 169 ff.

13 I owe these citations to the ‘Monitum ad Homiliam de Sancta Thecla,’ Chrysostom's works (ed. De Montfaucon, , Paris, 1837), ii, 896Google Scholar.

14 Schultze, V., Altchristliche Städte und Landschaften iii (Gütersloh, 1930), 320Google Scholar.

15 Cbrysostom (ed. De Montfaucon, ), ii, 896–899Google Scholar.

16 Berichte über die Verhandlungen der kön. sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig (Phil.-hist. Klasse) xlvii, 1895, 109–174Google Scholar.

17 On this connection with S. Basil cf. P. Peeters, op. cit. (supra, p. 22, note 1), 65–70.

18 Cf. Nilles, N., Kalendarium manuale utriusque ecclesiae orientalis et occidentalis (Innsbrück, 1897) ii, 572Google Scholar.

19 For Theodore, S.cf. Delehaye, H., Les légendes grecques des saints militaires (Paris, 1909), 11–43, 127–201Google Scholar.

20 I summarise the conclusions of K. A. H. Kellner, Heortologie, 3rd edn., 1911. For the ‘partikuläre Verehrung’ of the martyrs cf. pp. 161 ff.: for St. John the Baptist and Stephen, pp. 165 ff.

21 For the Syriac text of the romance cf. Hoffmann, G., Julianos der Abtrünnige. Syrische Erzählungen (Kiel, 1887)Google Scholar; for dating, Nöldeke, Th., ‘Überden syrischen Roman von Kaiser Julian,’ Zeitschr. d. deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft xxviii (1874), 263–292Google Scholar. Translation: Gollancz, H., Julian the Apostate now translated for the first time from the Syriac original, etc. (London, 1928)Google Scholar; for the visions of Marcur cf. pp. 153–155, 190–192. Latin translation of the visions, Peeters, P. in Anal. Boll. xxxix (1921), 79 ffGoogle Scholar. See also Förster, R., ‘Kaiser Julian in der Dichtung alter und neuer Zeit,’ Studien zur vergleichenden Literaturgeschichte v (1905), 1–120Google Scholar at pp. 9 ff. For the Mercurius legend see in particular H. Delehaye, Légendes grecques des saints militaires, 92–101 (with references to the sources which are not repeated here), Nostitz-Rieneck (supra p. 22, note 1) and for modern versions of the legend Halliday (ibid.). For a representation of the death of Julian in a Byzantine miniature of the ninth century, cf. Büttner-Wobst (ibid.), 577–578. For an acute Byzantine criticism of the legend cf. Glycas (Bonn ed.) 471.

22 Patrologia Orientalis i (1907), 419–420Google Scholar. For Julian's vision in another form cf. Malalas, 332; Chron. Pasch. 550–551.

23 For different versions of Julian's last words cf. Büttner-Wobst (supra, p. 22, note 1), 572–579.

24 HE x, 35: Migne, , PG cxlvi, 552Google Scholar.

25 Cf. Delehaye, H., Les légendes grecques des saints militaires, 97Google Scholar.

26 Peeters, P., Anal. Boll. xxxix, 74–75Google Scholar.

27 Cf. the ‘Altes Martyrium’ in Philostorgius (ed. Bidez), 175.

28 Ibid. 174–5.

29 Migne, PG cxv, col. 1212Google Scholar.

30 On Eusebia cf. H. Delehaye, Les légendes grecques, 135, 146, 188 ff. and the comment at p. 41. Note that Ariste becomes the deacon Aristos in the texts of the Armenian synaxaria translated by P. Peeters in Philostorgius (ed. Bidez), p. xlviii.

31 By Delehaye, H. in Anal Boll. xxxi (1912), 239Google Scholar.

32 Patria Cp. ed. Preger, fasc. 2, p. 23521. For the Oxeia cf. the documents published by A. Papadopoulo-Keramevs on the miracles of Artemius, St., Sbornik grecheskikh neizdannuikh bogoslovskikh Tekstov iv-xv vyekov (St. Peterburg, 1909)Google Scholar, pp. 53, 65, 819, 133, 2619, 4228, 4615, 6130, 6610 7611-13.

33 Printed in Mai, A., Spicilegium Romanum, iv, 340 ff.Google Scholar; AASS, October viii, pp. 856 ff.; Migne, PG xcvi, coll. 1252 ffGoogle Scholar. and see the better text of the beginning of the Passio in Philostorgius (ed. Bidez), 151 ff. On the Passio and its sources ibid., pp. xliv-xviii.

34 As in Migne, PG xcviGoogle Scholar.

35 Cf. Th. Büttner-Wobst (supra, p. 22, note 1), 576, n. 40

36 Cf. Papadopoulo-Keramevs, op. cit., pp. i-ii.

37 Anal. Boll. xxxix, 74.