Roger Pearse

I can try, but I'm by no means an authority.

Incidentally always remember that this book did not survive in direct transmission. What we have of it consists of a set of lengthy quotations embedded in Cyril of Alexandria's Against Julian, where each chunk by Julian is prefixed with "JULIAN" and Cyril's reply then prefixed with "CYRIL". In addition Cyril tells us that he rearranged Julian's material in order to present it in a logical sequence. Finally I am not quite sure that W. C. Wright's translation is quite what it should be.

Wouldn't the latter be a bit strange point of view? -- an emperor writing a book against a group of people whom he believes do not exist? I can't see that. Julian's animosity to the Christians is recorded all over 4th century literature; the Christians exist in archaeology by this point; so it's not that easy to see where this idea could come from.

No, I think that here the emperor is simply attacking the beliefs of the Christians, which he is calling a fabrication. It was made up by some dreadfully lower-class people, you know, as I think he says.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

arnoldo

Yeah, I get it that Julian believed the story was fictitious . . . in a broader context my question was whether;

A. Julian was arguing in his writings that the story was backdated fiction (i.e., the Galileans in the story were fictional)

B. Julian was arguing in his writings that Galileans invented a fictional story.

Toto

From the entire context of this passage and other writings, it seems clear that Julian believed that the Christian story was fictional, not that Christians were fictional.

(Galileans = Christians in Julian's writing.)

aa5874

The fact that Julian is claiming that the Jesus story is a MONSTROUS tale that is NOT truthful MUST IMPLY that the characters in the Jesus stories may also be fictitious.

Julian challenges those he argued against to provide WELL-KNOWN writes who mentioned Jesus and Paul.

"Against the Galileans" seems to suggest that Julian did NOT know of "Antiquities of the Jews" 18.3.3, and 20.9.1 or any writings from Eusebius, and Origen that made references to Josephus who supposedly wrote about Jesus since 93 CE.

Toto

As with the later argument by Remsberg, Julian's claim is that Jesus and Paul were obscure nobodies, and not the glorious heroes that Christian myths make them out to be. This was enough in his eyes to make Christianity a fiction.

aa5874

What Julian thought does NOT ELIMINATE Jesus and Paul from being fictitious characters.

This is basic.

People can believe whatever they want however what they believe may NOT be true and is unsubstantiated.

Julian may have BELIEVED Romulus and Remus, Zeus, Dionysius, Jupiter, Apollo, and ALL Greek/Roman MYTHS did exist.

Now, once there is NO credible historical evidence for Jesus and Paul then a theory can be developed that they NEVER did exist.

Once there is NO evidence that a person committed a crime a THEORY can be developed that they did NOT.

The Christian Slaughtered the Heretics and those who followed the teachings of the Jews as stated by Julian, also Paul and Jesus did NOT exist as stated in the NT.

aeebee50

Can't we all get along.

aa5874

Once we all start using EVIDENCE, written statements from antiquity and NOT Chinese Whispers then we will all get along.

In "Against Julian" attributed to Julian it is claimed Christians or Believers SLAUGHTERED those who followed the teachings of the Jews and those who are called Heretics.

Why can't we get along with the evidence from antiquity?

J-D

Do you believe that claim to be true? Why or why not?

mountainman

Evidence item (1) in support:

Extracts from the Codex Theodosianus such as: