mountainman

JULIAN’s ARRAIGNMENT:
FICTION and FRAUD 362 CE

The emperor Julian wrote at a very unique time of ancient political history. It was time immediately after a successive almost 40 year term (from Nicaea, 50 years from Rome) in which a new and strange Christianity as defined by Constantine had received imperial favour. It is worthwhile noting we have no other writings of ancient historians from this period, other than “Ecclesiastical historians” and Julian’s was the first voice in a position to be able to speak about “Christianity” in any form of independent fashion. The words of an emperor carried more weight, that your average author, for a certain length of time, and particularly such a scholarly author.

Julian writes that Constantine could not discover among the gods the model of his own career, but had found Jesus out of a life of pleasure and incontinence. Into the mouth of Jesus, Julian puts these words: "He that is a seducer, he that is a murderer,
he that is sacrilegious and infamous, let him approach without fear! For with this water will I wash him and will straightway make him clean. And though he should be guilty of those same sins a second time, let him but smite his breast and beat his head
and I will make him clean again." [8]

In addition to this, and other works and letters which survive, “Julian composed three books against the holy gospels and against the very pure Christian religion” which do not survive. Rest assured they would have made good reading. On good authority we might say that the original three books of Julian’s contained the following opening address, followed by a formal legal disclaimer about alteration of his words:

“It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind
the reasons by which I was convinced
that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men
composed by wickedness.”

Though it has in it nothing divine,
by making full use of that part of the soul
which loves fable and is childish and foolish,
it has induced men to believe that
the monstrous tale is truth.”

There is a rather remarkable integrity then, between the first independent written academic and political assessment of Christianity – that it was “a fiction of men composed by wickedness” – and the thesis that Constantine invented the New Testament literature and Christianity.

Julian’s charges directly relate to the fraudulent misrepresentation of ancient history. Constantine had fabricated the new testament, and forcefully implemented, assisted by his rightful role as Pontifex Maximus, the new religious order of a new and “chrestus” (χρηστός in the Greek; “good”) god.

However, Julian did not last long. The Nicene Oath was rich and prosperous, and had the imperially granted power to remain that way. Christianity was by then too new and too dominant to be bothered about technical details, or to be tolerant of academic opinion. Even in his brief rule, Jovian ordered the burning of the Library of Antioch , the death penalty for all those that worship their ancestral gods or practice divination, the confiscation of all properties of the pagan temples, and the death penalty for participation in pagan rituals, even private ones [9].



CHRISTIAN SUPREMACY and the role of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS 365 CE


The role of Pontifex Maximus had been held for well over a thousand years by the ruler of Rome. It had represented a religious tolerance even when Julius Caesar had bribed his way to this position in the first century BCE. The position was chief of all pontiffs of all the religions in Rome, which were many. Constantine had naturally assumed the role, and had used it to his best advantage. However with effect from c.365 and Pope Damasius, who had been active in restoring the catacombs of Rome, including those of St. Callixtus, the role was occupied by a Christian bishop.

The persecution and intolerance directed against non-Christians was invented by Constantine and perpetuated by Constantius before a brief and momentary reprieve under Julian. The Christian emperors Valentinian, Valens and Theodosius increase the levels of persecution and intolerance of non-Christians and the destruction of the ancient ways and traditions. In this period alone, one recent study [9] cites no less than 20 instances of such imperial edicts. The burning and destruction of the patristic literature by this newly emergent and imperially inspired religion occurred for a number of reasons yet to be completely researched. English translations of Book 16 of Codex Theodosius are not as ubiquitous as they should perhaps be.


The Fly in the Anointment - Early 5th Century


There was at the close of the fourth century only one fly in the recently invented and supremely ensconced new state anointment of the Roman Empire. It had what might be called a small problem of credibility and authenticity with respect to a remnant of “unconverted” (mainly) Greek academics in that it was considered (quite appropriately) a “fiction” by the extant writings of the emperor Julian.

Logically it was decided to censor Julian’s writings by the writing of a comprehensive refutation, and then burning the original three books of Julian. The refutations of Theodorus of Mopsuestia and Philip Sideta have been lost. An earlier invective against Julian’s writings, written Gregory Nazianzen, contained no formal refutation of Julian's arguments. The job was a nasty one. It called for the right man.


Political CENSORSHIP of the Charge of FRAUD


Cyril also wrote at another unique time of political history. It was a time when Christianity had recently obtained political supremacy as the state religion, and all non-Christians were being persecuted and suppressed. The laws enacted against the persecuted Greco-Roman people were atrocious. The library of Alexandria had been burnt down (although Sagan theorises Cyril himself torched it) and a savage Christian mob of black-robed terrorists known to do the bidding of the Bishop Cyril, had brutally murdered the respected mathematician and philosopher Hypatia.

The tax exempt Bishop Cyril was a political censor and a hit man. He fraudulently covered up the fact that Julian’s invectives were based on the common knowledge of the epoch - that Constantine and “the wretched Eusebius” had fabricated the new Roman religion, to which the Nicene Oath had been pledged under duress, by the first eastern Christian bishops, personally appointed by Constantine. He wrote a ten or thirty book refutation of the contents of the three books of Julian, and it is only this refutation by Cyril which has survived. Neumann extracted and strung together Cyril's quotations of Julian based on Spanheim's (1696) edition of Cyril's polemic Pro Christiana Religione to reconstruct what Cyril would have Julian say.

Cyril wrote that Julian had damaged the prestige of the Empire by refusing to recognize Christ, as the dispenser of royalty and power [10]. Cyril acknowledges that Julian composed three books against the holy gospels and against the very pure Christian religion, and that he used them to shake many spirits and to cause them uncommon wrongs. Cyril claimed that Julian spread every kind of calumny against Christ, and pours against him ill-sounding remarks. People relied on the works of Julian, said Cyril, to attack us, which they proclaim to be of an incomparable effectiveness, by adding that there never was a learned man on our side able to refute them, or even show them at fault.

Cyril then states that the reason that he will reproduce Julian’s text word for word, and will oppose his own arguments to Julian’s lies in the appropriate order, was that because Cyril realized that it was necessary to firmly neutralize them. [The “lies” of Julian]. However although Cyril states that he will reproduce Julian’s text word for word, in the next breath, he selects an alternative modus operandi, and groups Julian’s work by categories. Cyril writes that it was well known Julian did not cease turning and turning over the same arguments in every direction; some developments which are found at the beginning of his work, he also advances in the body of the book and at the end.

It is the opinion of the author that Cyril was faced with three books by Julian which continuously reiterated the invention of the Christian religion by Constantine. The resolution of Julian’s ceaseless turning over of arguments resolve not to a baseless invective, but an honest and justifiable conviction related to the political history of fourth century events, and the use of fraudulent misrepresentation.

In order to ameliorate and censor these constant assertions of fiction and fraud, Cyril claimed that Julian had revealed “a kind of disorder in the articulation of his discussion”, and, fatally, those who wanted to argue against him seemed constantly to be repeating themselves instead of finishing them once and for all. Therefore, Cyril selected to create appropriate divisions and classification, and he gathered Julian’s ideas by categories and faced each one of these categories not on several occasions, but only once. Cyril then goes on to write, thus, at the beginning of his book against us, Julian says: “It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind the reasons by which I was convinced that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.”

The translator Wilmer Cave Wright (1925) noted that Cyril says that he omitted invectives against Christ and such matter as might contaminate the minds of Christians. Such matters, it is argued in this thesis, would have included Julian’s conviction that Christianity was a Constantinian inspired invention. Wright also notes that a mutilation of Julian’s extant letters also occurred. Julian was censored according to this thesis for his written convictions about the fabrication of the New Testament by Constantine.

Cyril had no option but to quote Julian’s opening arraignment, seeing the writings were at one stage extant. The question is how does Cyril respond to Julian’s conviction of fiction? Cyril avoids the question. He plays the dissembling dumb card.

Cyril refutes the charge of fiction and fraud levelled by the academic emperor Julian with an opening disclaimer “By 'Galilaeans', he means the Holy Apostles, I think,” says Cyril, “and by a 'fantastic account' the writings of Moses, the predictions of the holy saints and their declarations inspired by God.”

Cyril states that Julian thinks and affirms that Christianity is not worth anything, that this is pure drivel in Julian, and that Julian just amuses himself to attack Christianity alone! Yet Cyril then says that “it can't be doubted for one moment that the direction of the expressions employed by Julian agrees with the nonsense of the Greeks.” … “If there is a plot, it is a plot of the Greeks: It is they who gathered ... this hateful 'fiction', which set up this 'deception', like some trap aimed at simple souls.”

In summary, Cyril’s refutation is initially very vague about whether Julian is writing about the Holy Apostles and offers a line-up of different 'Galilaeans'. One point is evident. The refutation of Julian’s charges of fraud and fiction omits all reference to and mention of the literature of the New Testament; the writings of the Apostles.
Cyril concludes “[The Greeks] have in effect mislaid the whole earth by pretending that the sky and the elements in general were God”, quoting Paul as an authority. It was all over.

The Emperor Julian in a very strict legal sense had written an arraignment of the invention of Christianity by Constantine and “the wretched Eusebius,” and the charge brought to bear was the ‘fraudulent misrepresentation of history’. Cyril neither addressed nor refuted the charge, and although he thinks that the charge may have related to the Holy Apostles and/or the Hebrew sages, he does not once mention the New Testament writings of these Holy Apostles, of which Constantine declared himself the thirteenth.

Cyril wrote as a censor of Julian’s charges of the fraudulent misrepresentation of history by Constantine. There was indeed a time, before Constantine, when the new god of Constantine was not.

The Arian controversy, named after the words of Arius, was well and truly over. The opposition had been suppressed in the fields of the empire and its cities, and in the fields of literature.

The history of the invention of the new and strange Roman god by Constantine had been censored and the censorship had been securely sealed. The term “The Seal of the Fathers” is a term that belongs to the tax-exempt Bishop Cyril. Before Cyril, the Christian authors writing during the fourth century referred to the “Nicene Fathers” as the fathers of the church. The “Nicene Fathers” were the attendees summoned into the presence of Constantine and coerced to sight an Oath against Arius of allegiance to “The Bishop of Bishops”. It was Cyril who set the precedent of referring to the fathers of the church as the “Pre-Nicene Fathers” – the purported authors of antiquity whom Eusebius meets on his journey down that lonely and untrodden pseudo-history, Historia Ecclesiastica.


Best wishes,



Pete Brown

J-D

Julian is not recorded to have said that Constantine had fabricated the New Testament (or ordered it fabricated). So Julian's recorded words provide no evidence for that hypothesis.

mountainman

But that is not the subject.

I'd like to know whether people believe that the Emperor Julian lied
when he wrote these words:

It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind
the reasons by which I was convinced that
the fabrication of the Galilaeans
is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.

He was a young man of perhaps 30, to whom the power
of the emperor of the Roman empire came. He was very
well read, and perhaps of all the Roman emperors, one of
the better educated.

He first writes:
It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind

That is, the message was timely and broadly political.

the reasons by which I was convinced that

He had obviously thought about what he was about to write.


I'd like to know whether people believe that the Emperor Julian lied
when he wrote these words, or whether he was simply telling
the truth of things as they appeared to him c.362 CE.

ie:

the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.


Personally, I think Julian was telling the truth. However, for example,
In the opinion of the tax-exempt bishop and hit man Cyril of Alexandria,
Julian wrote lies against the "Holy religion".

What do you think?
Was Julian lying?



Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Toto

Julian said that the Galileans fabricated a story. He didn't say when this was done. He didn't say that Constantine fabricated a story.

mountainman

The "fabrication of the Galileans" is referred to in his opening address.
Whatever that was, he was convinced it was a fiction.
Do you think he was lying or telling the truth?

GakuseiDon

If Julian wrote that he was convinced that the NT was a fiction, then he was lying. Julian writes here:
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/ju...ans_1_text.htm

But these are rather your own doings; for nowhere did either Jesus or Paul hand down to you such commands. The reason for this is that they never even hoped that you would one day attain to such power as you have...

But that not only the Galilaeans of our day but also those of the earliest time, those who were the first to receive the teaching from Paul, were men of this sort, is evident from the testimony of Paul himself in a letter addressed to them...

But the following are the very words that Paul wrote concerning those who had heard his teaching, and were addressed to the men themselves : "Be not deceived : neither idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And of this ye are not ignorant, brethren, that such were you also; but ye washed yourselves, but ye were sanctified in the name of Jesus Christ."

So Julian seems convinced that Paul, at least, wrote some of the NT. Is it possible that Julian thought that the Galileans of Paul's time were wicked, and so the Galileans of Paul's time made up the story of Jesus Christ?

mountainman

GakuseiDon,

The better source for this is also on Rogers expanding site;
Cyril of Alexandria, Against Julian. Book 2 (beginning)

My contention is that Cyril acted as a censor.
We do not have the writings of Julian.

IMO Cyril could not, and did not alter the words of Julian's
opening address paragraph, but freely censored the rest
of Julian's three books.

Why do you think Julian lied in his opening address?
Simply because he apparently elsewhere reveals commentary
revealing an implicit statement of historicity?

Best wishes,


Pete Brown

Toto

The word LIE is not helpful here. Julian might have truthfully written his opinion that the Galileans composed fiction, by which he meant that they told a story about a man rising from the dead. He could have accepted the existence of Jesus, Paul, the disciples, and a lot else, and still said this.

But if mountainman does not think that we can trust anything that Julian is reputed to have said, the whole question is not knowable, and we can just close this thread.

mountainman

It may not be helpful Toto, but are you
about to argue that it is not central?

We are dealing with the veracity of Julians
opening statement. Cyril also claims that
"it is necessary to neutralise Julian's lies".

The word is out in the opening.
Someone is lying, but who?


That is one plausible account.

On the contrary Toto, I think that we can be reasonably
sure that the opening paragraph through to the disclaimer
can be trusted to have been derived from Julian.

Again the reason I think this is because the written word
needed to be preserved, and because many works were
known by the opening addresses.

The opening address of Julian was apparently well supported
by the non-christian greek community from the period when
Julian wrote to the time of Cyril's "refutation".

I think we can trust the opening address.
But nothing else.

So given this question hinges on this opening statement,
the question remains, is Julian capable of publishing "lies"
as is the claim of his censor Cyril?


Best wishes,


Pete Brown

GakuseiDon

I'll bow out now, I think. From experience I know that this will go nowhere, unless you can present good reasons to believe that Julian's words were not original to Julian other than to prop up your theory.