Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Duvduv · 03-17-2013, 09:56 AM

You and I are not looking at this the same way. The letter to the Jews has no indication of a rebuilding of the Temple, but it does suggest the author acknowledged their God as the supreme being, with no reference to Greek gods, etc.
The content of the text you posted does not sound like something written by such a person who would surely have known that the Temple was only "overthrown" twice and was not ordered to be rebuilt. Nothing of this is even mentioned in any midrash or either the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds.
WHO then is the most High God recognized by Julian if not the God of the Jews?

To the Community of the Jews
In times past, by far the most burdensome thing in the yoke of your slavery has been the fact that you were subjected to unauthorized ordinances and had to contribute an untold amount of money to the accounts of the treasury. Of this I used to see many instances with my own eyes, and I have learned of more, by finding the records which are preserved against you. Moreover, when a tax was about to be levied on you again I prevented it, and compelled the impiety of such obloquy to cease here; and I threw into the fire the records against you that were stored in my desks; so that it is no longer possible for anyone to aim at you such a reproach of impiety…No one is any longer to have the power to oppress the masses of your people by such exactions; so that everywhere, during my reign, you may have security of mind, and in the enjoyment of peace may offer more fervid prayers for my reign to the Most High God, the Creator, who has deigned to crown me with his own immaculate right hand…When I have successfully concluded the war with Persia, I may rebuild by my own efforts the sacred city of Jerusalem, which for so many years you have longed to see inhabited, and may bring settlers there, and together with you, may glorify the Most High God therein.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Well, who knows which is truly authentic among these texts?
Temple overthrown THREE times and raised up again?
There is no evidence from the letter to the Jews that the author was authorizing construction of a Temple, so one should question whether this letter and the letter to the Jews were written by the same person.

The letter to the Jews attributed to Julian sounds very sympathetic to Jewish monotheism.

I am not arguing with you, nor am I denying that Julian may have been sympathetic to Jews.

I am trying to understand your OP. Julian was a good man and polytheist .He wanted to build a temple for the Jews to make them happy and this generous offer came straight out of the goodness of his polytheist heart.

His compassion for those very Jews who loathe the repugnant idolater and who would never have done for him and his people what he , as the Master of the Jews, was planning to do for them: to build a temple to glorify the Jewish idol Hashem,

Duvduv · 03-17-2013, 10:08 AM

By the way, it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that the church itself produced documents by its enemies as a back-handed way of "proving" the long-standing existence of Christianity. Inventing heretical teachings (even of a heretical emperor) does a good job toward enhancing the authenticity of Christianity, and even in the case of Marcion they succeeded by creating a bogeyman in the first century who just happened to have allegedly accepted the teachings though in a heretical fashion.

After all, Marcion was never described as having taught from the Gospel according to Gerald or the epistles of Stanley, was he? Only conveniently some version of an existing canonical gospel and existing canonical epistles.........So the alleged writings authored by Julian do the same thing. However, I maintain that the author of the letter to the Jews could not have been the same as the author of the more clearly pagan writings.

Iskander · 03-17-2013, 10:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

You and I are not looking at this the same way. The letter to the Jews has no indication of a rebuilding of the Temple, but it does suggest the author acknowledged their God as the supreme being, with no reference to Greek gods, etc.
The content of the text you posted does not sound like something written by such a person who would surely have known that the Temple was only "overthrown" twice and was not ordered to be rebuilt. Nothing of this is even mentioned in any midrash or either the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds.
WHO then is the most High God recognized by Julian if not the God of the Jews?

To the Community of the Jews
In times past, by far the most burdensome thing in the yoke of your slavery has been the fact that you were subjected to unauthorized ordinances and had to contribute an untold amount of money to the accounts of the treasury. Of this I used to see many instances with my own eyes, and I have learned of more, by finding the records which are preserved against you. Moreover, when a tax was about to be levied on you again I prevented it, and compelled the impiety of such obloquy to cease here; and I threw into the fire the records against you that were stored in my desks; so that it is no longer possible for anyone to aim at you such a reproach of impiety…No one is any longer to have the power to oppress the masses of your people by such exactions; so that everywhere, during my reign, you may have security of mind, and in the enjoyment of peace may offer more fervid prayers for my reign to the Most High God, the Creator, who has deigned to crown me with his own immaculate right hand…When I have successfully concluded the war with Persia, I may rebuild by my own efforts the sacred city of Jerusalem, which for so many years you have longed to see inhabited, and may bring settlers there, and together with you, may glorify the Most High God therein.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

I am not arguing with you, nor am I denying that Julian may have been sympathetic to Jews.

I am trying to understand your OP. Julian was a good man and polytheist .He wanted to build a temple for the Jews to make them happy and this generous offer came straight out of the goodness of his polytheist heart.

His compassion for those very Jews who loathe the repugnant idolater and who would never have done for him and his people what he , as the Master of the Jews, was planning to do for them: to build a temple to glorify the Jewish idol Hashem,

What the letter says does not mean that Julian is monotheist or half-Jewish.

He wrote to the Jews in a manner that the Jews could appreciate. Kings, emperors... did that all the time and he may have had a Jewish counsellor advising him on the best way to gain support from the Jews.

Julian was a regular polytheist man who was capable of feeling compassion for those who despised him as idolater and who would have destroyed his pagan temples and statues. As the Muslims and Christians did as instructed by the followers of the intolerant idol Hashem

Quote:

Therefore, when we look at the images of the gods, let us not indeed think they are stones or wood, but neither let us think they are the gods themselves; ; and indeed we do not say that the statues of the emperors are mere wood and stone and bronze, but still less do we say they are the emperors themselves.

He therefore who loves the emperor delights to see the emperor's statue, and he who loves his son delights to see his son's statue, and he who loves his father delights to see his father's statue.

It follows that he who loves the gods delights to gaze on the images of the gods, and their likenesses, and he feels reverence and shudders with awe of the gods who look at him from the unseen world

Iskander · 03-17-2013, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

By the way, it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that the church itself produced documents by its enemies as a back-handed way of "proving" the long-standing existence of Christianity. Inventing heretical teachings (even of a heretical emperor) does a good job toward enhancing the authenticity of Christianity, and even in the case of Marcion they succeeded by creating a bogeyman in the first century who just happened to have allegedly accepted the teachings though in a heretical fashion.

After all, Marcion was never described as having taught from the Gospel according to Gerald or the epistles of Stanley, was he? Only conveniently some version of an existing canonical gospel and existing canonical epistles.........So the alleged writings authored by Julian do the same thing. However, I maintain that the author of the letter to the Jews could not have been the same as the author of the more clearly pagan writings.

Trying to understand the OP

Julian respected the priests of other religions and their gods that is why he sounds monotheist to the intolerant followers of the one Moses, who had murdered 3000 of his brothers and sisters for making the golden calf.

Europe was infected with the curse of militant monotheism brought to them by the idol hashem

Quote:

It is our duty to adore not only the images of the gods, but also their temples and sacred precincts and altars.

And it is reasonable to honour the priests also as officials and servants of the gods; and because they minister to us what concerns the gods, and they lend strength to the gods' gift of good things to us; for they sacrifice and pray on behalf of all men. It therefore right that we should pay them all not less, if not indeed more, than the honours that we pay to the magistrates of the state.

The Achaeans, for instance, enjoined on their king to reverence the priest, though he was one of the enemy, whereas we do not even reverence the priests who are our friends, and who pray and sacrifice on our behalf.

The first thing we ought to preach is reverence towards the gods. For it is fitting that we should perform our service to the gods as though they were themselves present with us

Duvduv · 03-17-2013, 11:58 AM

Iskander, I KNOW what you believe, but you are not addressing the content and contextual issues related to the texts allegedly written by Julian within the 2 years or so that he was in power.
Gosh, for a guy who was emperor for less than 24 months he sure had the ability to produce alot of writings, didn't he?!

Iskander · 03-17-2013, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Iskander, I KNOW what you believe, but you are not addressing the content and contextual issues related to the texts allegedly written by Julian within the 2 years or so that he was in power.
Gosh, for a guy who was emperor for less than 24 months he sure had the ability to produce alot of writings, didn't he?!

You have written this

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

there is no reference to anything pagan in the letter allegedly written to the Jews. On the contrary, it sounds very monotheism-friendly. And it STILL is unclear what kind of "pagan" he was, or whether he was a philosopher who tended towards Jewish/Noahide monotheism

I have provided extracts from one single letter: letter to a priest.

I have also given the source of this information for you to check, it is freely available on the internet:

the loeb classical library
the works of the emperor julian
with an english translation by
wilmer cave wright, ph.d.
in three volumes
ii
fragment of a letter to a priest 297

He wrote to the Jews as he did because it was a political letter aiming to please the Jews and he would have had an advisor.

To say he may have been a Noahide is as rush as it is insulting to the ‘ideolater’ Greco-Roman culture

You say, “it is unclear what kind of pagan he was” and I am explaining to you what kind of pagan he was and why I say that .

Iskander · 03-17-2013, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Iskander, I KNOW what you believe, but you are not addressing the content and contextual issues related to the texts allegedly written by Julian within the 2 years or so that he was in power.
Gosh, for a guy who was emperor for less than 24 months he sure had the ability to produce alot of writings, didn't he?!

You said this

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Furthermore, despite conventional wisdom suggesting he wanted the Jews to rebuild the Temple, there is no evidence that this is true. It might be suggested that he wanted to rebuild a Jewish community in Jerusalem but nothing more. No ancient Jewish sources to my knowledge ever mentioned the plan by Julian to rebuild the Temple either.

In post #28 I dealt directely with the building of the temple. The letter to a priest is evidence of his intention to restore the temple.

He truly loved humanity for he planned to make happy those who had murdered the idolaters - their brothers and sisters- and they had also destroyed their idols.

The same monotheists would have destroyed him, his people and culture just as the Judaeo-Christian did on gaining power

mountainman · 03-17-2013, 01:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iskander

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

You might view him as a religious liberal, although this doesn't sound like a liberal:

My brother [cousin] Constantius of honored memory [in whose reign, 337-361, severe laws were enacted against the Jews] was not so much responsible for these wrongs of yours as were the men who used to frequent his table, barbarians in mind, godless in soul. These I seized with my own hands and put them to death by thrusting them into the pit, that not even any memory of their destruction might still linger amongst us.

Julian may have been referring to people in the court of Constantius like the despotic "Paulus the Chain" who was responsible for the torture and execution of "NUMBERS WITHOUT END" of (non-Christian) people. For details see Ammianus.

Ammianus Marcellinus, The Later Roman Empire: A.D. 354-378 (Penguin Classics)
Notes on persons, page 484

Paul “the chain”=Paulus “catena”

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Notary under Constantius, conducts bloody investigations of supporters of Magmentius (14.5),Gallus (15.3) and Silvanus (15.6), supervises Julian in Gaul, then sent East for inquiry (19.12) where he punishes opponents of Bishop George of Alexandria, condemned by the Chalcedon commission and burnt alive (22.3)

Paulus catena was a typical roman of the late Roman Empire ( from 3rd century AD) torturing and killing the enemies of his would be emperor.Pagan Rome replaced the defunct emperor by the method of civil war, torture, the killing of all people related to the previous emperor ...

Paul Catena was an exterminator of all the enemies of his boss.

Apodemius was another one of the many catenas then common in pagan and early Arian Christian Rome
1. Ammianus Marcellinus, xiv.11.19.
2. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, xiv.11.23.
3. ^ a b Ammianus Marcellinus, xv.1.2.
4. ^ a b Ammianus Marcellinus, xv.5.8—9.
5. ^ Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii.3.11.

Quote:

In 361 Constantius II died; his successor was Julian, half-brother of Constantius Gallus. The new emperor instituted the Chalcedon tribunal to bring to trial the officers of Constantius II, in particular their involvement in Gallus' fall and death. Apodemius, who by the time had already returned to private life, was found guilty of having plotted against Gallus and put to death.[5]

Contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who throughout his Roman History criticizes the courtiers of Constantius for their bad influence on the Emperor and for their numberless plots, has a bad opinion of Apodemius, of whom he says that "as long as he lived had been a fiery instigator of disturbances"[3] and that "was a persevering and bitter enemy to all good men".[4]

Google Apodemius

Thanks Iskander.

What a bunch of really nasty people worked for Constanine's son.
Julian's orders to execute such people appear just.

Quote:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Apodemius (died 361) was an officer of the Roman Empire, a courtier of Emperor Constantius II, involved in the deaths of Constantius Gallus and Claudius Silvanus.

Biography

Apodemius was an agens in rebus,[1][2] a sort of secret agent, who worked for emperor Constantius II (337–361).

In 350, Constantius ordered Apodemius and Barbatio to go to Poetovio, arrest his cousin and caesar of the East Constantius Gallus and bring him to Pula, where trial awaited him.[1] When Constantius ordered Gallus to be put to death for treason, Apodemius, Serenianus and the notarius Pentadius executed the sentence; immediately after, Apodemius grabbed Gallus' shoes, rode quickly from Pula to Mediolanum, where the imperial court was seated, entered the chamber where Constantius was having a meeting and threw the shoes at the feet of the Emperor to signify Gallus' death.[3]

When the magister militum Claudius Silvanus rebelled in Gaul, in 355, Apodemius was sent with letters to summon Silvanus to the presence of Constantius. Contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus tells:[4]

For by the counsels of Arbetio, Apodemius, who was a persevering and bitter enemy to all good men, was sent with letters to summon Silvanus to the presence. When he had arrived in Gaul, taking no heed of the commission with which he was charged, and caring but little for anything that might happen, he remained inactive, without either seeing Silvanus, or delivering the letters which commanded him to appear at court. And having taken the receiver of the province into his counsels, he began with arrogance and malevolence to harass the clients and servants of the master of the horse, as if that officer had been already condemned and was on the point of being executed.

In 361 Constantius II died; his successor was Julian, half-brother of Constantius Gallus. The new emperor instituted the Chalcedon tribunal to bring to trial the officers of Constantius II, in particular their involvement in Gallus' fall and death. Apodemius, who by the time had already returned to private life, was found guilty of having plotted against Gallus and put to death.[5]

Contemporary historian Ammianus Marcellinus, who throughout his Roman History criticizes the courtiers of Constantius for their bad influence on the Emperor and for their numberless plots, has a bad opinion of Apodemius, of whom he says that "as long as he lived had been a fiery instigator of disturbances"[3] and that "was a persevering and bitter enemy to all good men".

mountainman · 03-17-2013, 01:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Gosh, for a guy who was emperor for less than 24 months he sure had the ability to produce alot of writings, didn't he?!

YES. It would appear he produced a great deal. He was an emperor and he had been given a good education while he grew up under house arrest, after the Emperor Constantius executed his father. He did have people to assist in the preservation of his letters and his books and his speeches, etc.

However the major problem for those who investigate the figure of the Emperor Julian is that his surviving writings show a clear sign of being MUTILATED by Christian censors. His books on the Christians were burnt and all that remains is a treatment of them by the Bishop Cyril of Alexandria "Against Julian".

The term mutilated is applied to his letters by the translator Wright.

εὐδαιμονία | eudaimonia

Duvduv · 03-17-2013, 02:02 PM

That might explain why the letter to the Jews sounds so friendly and sympathetic. The censor specifically wanted to portray him this way which by definition meant that he was an enemy of the Christians.

But beyond that, what value is such writings in trying to know what was going on when the Church was forging and censoring all along? I kind of wonder why whoever had the manuscript that was attributed Justin Martyr (as poorly written and confused as the writings are) did not make it more clearly official Christian material instead of all that logos-memoirs of the apostles stuff when the Church claimed the gospels and epistles were in existence long before Justin.........

Quote:

Originally Posted by mountainman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Gosh, for a guy who was emperor for less than 24 months he sure had the ability to produce alot of writings, didn't he?!

YES. It would appear he produced a great deal. He was an emperor. He did have people to assist in the preservation of his letters and his books and his speeches, etc.

However another problem for those who investigate the figure of the Emperor Julian is that his surviving writings show a clear sign of being MUTILATED by Christian censors. His books on the Christians were burnt and all that remains is a treatment of them by the Bishop Cyril of Alexandria "Against Julian".

The term mutilated is applied to his letters by the translator Wright.

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03-17-2013, 10:08 AM	#32
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	By the way, it is not beyond the realm of possibilities that the church itself produced documents by its enemies as a back-handed way of "proving" the long-standing existence of Christianity. Inventing heretical teachings (even of a heretical emperor) does a good job toward enhancing the authenticity of Christianity, and even in the case of Marcion they succeeded by creating a bogeyman in the first century who just happened to have allegedly accepted the teachings though in a heretical fashion. After all, Marcion was never described as having taught from the Gospel according to Gerald or the epistles of Stanley, was he? Only conveniently some version of an existing canonical gospel and existing canonical epistles.........So the alleged writings authored by Julian do the same thing. However, I maintain that the author of the letter to the Jews could not have been the same as the author of the more clearly pagan writings.

03-17-2013, 11:58 AM	#35
Duvduv Veteran Member Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: USA Posts: 4,095	Iskander, I KNOW what you believe, but you are not addressing the content and contextual issues related to the texts allegedly written by Julian within the 2 years or so that he was in power. Gosh, for a guy who was emperor for less than 24 months he sure had the ability to produce alot of writings, didn't he?!

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