Julian’s Against the Galileans
R. Joseph Hoffmann
Number of quotes: 28
Book ID: 123 Page: 31
Section: 3C2
The Christian testimonies concerning Julian’s early religious beliefs might be worthless were it not that his apologist Libanius, whose positive assessment of Julian’s reign the Christian writers deplored, sees Julian as a convert to Hellenism, a man who was moved by the gods to slough off superstition and embrace the light of day. {68}
Quote ID: 2826
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 31
Section: 3C2
In his letter to the Alexandrians written in 363, he states that he had given up the Christian faith when he was twenty years old and had been an adherent of the ancestral rites for a dozen years prior to writing the letter. {70} This corresponds to Ammianus’s “official” view that Julian did not openly profess paganism until the threat of reprisal was removed in his thirty-first year.
Quote ID: 2827
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 32
Section: 3C2
Experience had taught him “that no wild beasts are as dangerous to man as the Christians are to one another.” {73}
Quote ID: 2828
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 34
Section: 3C2
Julian’s solution, however, suggests his desperation; his tactic is to outdo the Christians in displays of generosity. He orders hostels established in Galatia for the benefit of strangers and the poor, who are also to have an allocation of corn and wine. “It is disgraceful,” Julian complains, “that no Jew ever has to beg and the wretched Galileans take better care of our poor, as well as their own, than we do.” {82}
Quote ID: 2829
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 35
Section: 3C2
….his real concern is that Christians were looking more and more to the church for their protection and security and less to the emperor. What Christians privately encourage with their benevolence, he suggests, is apostasy from the state, though their practices are not a typical form of sedition. The view that Christianity was a subtle form of rebellion against the legitimate rule of the emperor is something Porphyry had also cited in his books against the Christian sect. {83}
Quote ID: 2830
Time Periods: 34
Book ID: 123 Page: 35
Section: 3C2
A key goal of Julian’s reforms was to create a series of social institutions that reinforced his role as supreme patron of citizens and clients.
Quote ID: 2831
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 35
Section: 3C2
In a letter to an unnamed official Julian reminds a negligent public servant, who had let an assault on a priest go unpunished, that priests must be respected as much as sacred objects, things set aside for sacred use.
Quote ID: 2832
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 36
Section: 3C2
A man “who strikes a priest is guilty of sacrilege,” because he offends at once the priest, the temple, the emperor, and the gods,{87} and an officer of the peace who does not punish the sacrilege is guilty of complicity in the crime.
Quote ID: 2833
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 54
Section: 2E3
Plotinus himself had been contemptuous of religious externals and rituals (“It is for the tokens to come to me, not for me to go to them,” he is reported to have said about religious ceremony){143} and therefore contemptuous equally of the accoutrements of pagan, Jewish, and Christian liturgies.{144}
Quote ID: 2834
Time Periods: 3
Book ID: 123 Page: 59
Section: 4A
I put this down as "2C" because of the title of the work.Porphyry’s Questions: (Section 6) How is it that some (planetary) gods are givers of good things, but others of evil?
Iamblichus’s Replies: These things arise from a misunderstanding of astrology, which talks of benefits and malefics. All the gods are good, but material conditions may distort that which emanated from the divine in a state of harmony and lead to conflict (53-57). (1-18)
Porphyry’s Questions: (Section 8) What is the difference between gods and daemons?
Iamblichus’s Replies: The governance of the gods is all-embracing and unrestricted. That of the daemons limited in time and place; daemons do not completely transcend that which they rule (63-64). (1, 20)
Quote ID: 2835
Time Periods: 2
Book ID: 123 Page: 87
Section: 3A1,4A
The Council of Ephesus meeting in 431 does not mention Julian’s work but condemns Porphyry’s to be burned, …
Quote ID: 2836
Time Periods: 5
Book ID: 123 Page: 87/88
Section: 3A2B
An edict of Justinian in 559 envisages a more comprehensive destruction of anti-Christian books, but here again only Porphyry is named.. . . .
We would doubtless have a fuller vision of Julian’s view of Christianity if certain letters had not been suppressed by their owners, as being too dangerous for circulation in the religious environment of the fifth century.
Quote ID: 2837
Time Periods: 6
Book ID: 123 Page: 91
Section: 4A
I propose therefore to deal with what they consider their primary teachings. And I should say at the start that if my readers wish to refute me, the way to do so is to proceed as though this were a case at law.
Quote ID: 2838
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 93
Section: 4A
It is not by teaching{273} but by nature that humanity possesses its knowledge of God, as can be shown by the common yearning for the divine that exists in everyone, everywhere—individuals, communities, and nations.{274} Without having it taught to us, all of us have come to believe in some sort of divinity, even though it is difficult for all to know what divinity truly is and far from easy for those who do know to explain it to the rest.Pastor John’s note: Father
Quote ID: 2839
Time Periods: 24
Book ID: 123 Page: 94
Section: 4A
44A: Of course, the Greeks concocted their stories about the gods, those incredible and terrible fables.
Quote ID: 2840
Time Periods: 24
Book ID: 123 Page: 102
Section: 2E5
115D: But regard now what we teach in opposition to your doctrine. Our authorities maintain that the fashioneris both the common father and lord of all that exists, while the gods of nations and the gods who protect cities have been delegated specific responsibilities by him. Each has been given a role to play in strict accordance with his character. 115E: So it is that in the father all things are complete and the all is unified, while in the distribution of gods one trait or another dominant: so Ares rules contentious nations; Athena those who are wise as much as warlike; Hermes those that are more cunning than daring; and, to be brief, each nation ruled by a god exhibits the character of its own god.
Quote ID: 2841
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 114
Section: 2E6
You whoadore the wood of the cross, trace its figure on your foreheads, draw it on your house-fronts?
Quote ID: 2842
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 115
Section: 2D3B
198B: Now the spirit that comes to men from the gods is attested, but it is given rarely and to few, and it is not at all easy for everyone to share in it all at once or every time.{353} We are not surprised, then, that the prophetic spirit has ceased to move among the Hebrews, and is no longer known to the Egyptians. So too, we see that the ancient oracles of Greece have fallen silent {354} over the span of time.
Quote ID: 2843
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 117
Section: 3A2
You yourselves behave like the Jews who vent their rage and petulance by razing altars and destroying temples. And you slaughter us as well: not only those of us who remain true to the teachings of our ancestors, but even your own…. . . .
These are your own deeds: Nowhere did Jesus or Paul pass on rules for such actions. And why? Because never could they have imagined would have such power as they have now.
Quote ID: 2844
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 123
Section: 5D
This is nothing new, since the Galileans of our own day are like the first to receive the teaching from Paul, who says himself that those of the earliest days were people of the vilest sort in one of his letters.{384}
Quote ID: 2845
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 123 Page: 135/136
Section: 2A3
You have filled the whole world with tombs and sepulchres, yet where in your holy books does it tell you to prostrate yourself at the tombs and pay honors to the dead?{440} But you have so far departed from the truth in this that you will not heed even the words of Jesus of Nazareth. Listen—what does he say about the gravesites? “Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! For you are like whited sepulchres. On the outside of the tomb appears beautiful, but within it is filled with bones of dead men and all impurity.”{441} So then, if even Jesus declared that the tombs are full of uncleanness, how can you say that God can be worshipped there?
Quote ID: 2847
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 144
Section: 5D
{??Father & Son chpt 7} Furthermore, Jesus—a ‘god’—requires the comfort of an angel as he prays, using language that would be humiliating even for a beggar who bemoans his adversity.
Quote ID: 2848
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 123 Page: 149
Section: 4B
Now while I find this position risible, I am not suggesting that the teachers should change their views before being allowed to teach; rather I offer them a choice: either not to teach what they do not find worthy of belief, or, if they still wish to teach, require them to convince their charges that none of the writers whose works they study—Homer, Hesiod, and the rest—should be counted guilty of impiety or naivete or error with respect to the gods, as they have said.After all, since it is by the work of these writers that they are able to make a living and receive pay, is it not the most crass admission of greed that they would sell their souls for a few drachmas?
. . . .
…there is no reason for men to teach what they do not believe to be true.
Quote ID: 2849
Time Periods: ?
Book ID: 123 Page: 150
Section: 3C
But as we grant pardon for people afflicted with the disease of insanity, we might agree that the best way to cure the insanity of Christianity is to teach rather than to punish the afflicted.
Quote ID: 2850
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 159
Section: 3C
...since in his day vast numbers of them were cast into exile, tried in the courts, thrown into prison—not to mention the congregations of those called “heretics” who were simply slaughtered—as in Samosata, Cyzicus, Paphlagonia, Bithynia, Galatia, and the villages where tribes were looted and dispersed. In my reign, none of this has happened: the ones in exile have been called home. Those whose property had been confiscated have by my own law had it restored. But are so inflamed with madness and steeped in stupidity that they fault me for refusing to let them act like tyrants, their conduct toward one another, ….
Quote ID: 2851
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 161
Section: 2A3
And those who have turned away from the gods in favor of corpses and relics must pay a price.{500}[Footnote 500] Julian regards the cult of Christ and the martyrs as a form of perversion; cf. CG 335B; Misopogon 361B.
Quote ID: 2852
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 165
Section: 3C1
Valens was the last official patron of the dying Arian cause, ….
Quote ID: 2853
Time Periods: 4
Book ID: 123 Page: 166
Section: 3A2B
…culminating in such ruses as the eighth-century forgery known as the Donation of Constantine, which alleged a perpetual grant of sovereignty to the bishop of Rome over all the churches of the East as well as those of the west.
Quote ID: 2854
Time Periods: 7
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