Julian’s pagan restoration, AD 361

Res Gestae XXII.5.3–4; XXII.10.7; XXIII.1.2–3

**XXII.10.7:** *“Illud autem erat inclemens, obruendum perenni silentio, quod arcebat docere magistros rhetoricos et grammaticos, ritus Christiani cultores.”* [“This, however, was without mercy, and deserves to be buried in eternal silence: that he forbade teachers of rhetoric and grammar to teach if they were observers of the Christian rites.”] **XXII.5.3–4:** [Julian calls the bishops of the contending parties and the divided people to the palace and tells them to hold their own beliefs without hindrance — and Ammianus states the motive: that the licence would deepen the division, *nullas infestas hominibus bestias, ut sunt sibi ferales plerique Christianorum*, “no wild beasts being such enemies to men as most Christians are to one another.”] **XXIII.1.2–3:** [The Jerusalem temple works: fearful balls of flame burst out near the foundations, repeatedly, until the attempt was given up. ⚠ **The condemnation of the school law comes from an admirer**, which is what gives it weight.]

*Res Gestae* — held in this library. Latin; public-domain English: C. D. Yonge (1862). The Loeb of J. C. Rolfe (1935–40) is later and is not quoted. ⚠ The Latin is given inline and the English beside it is the archive’s working rendering.

Letter 36 (Wright) = 61c (Bidez); cf. Codex Theodosianus 13.3.5

“If they are real interpreters of the ancient classics, let them first imitate the ancients’ piety toward the gods… but if they think the writers erred concerning the most honoured gods, **let them betake themselves to the churches of the Galilaeans to expound Matthew and Luke.**” [The instrument and the reasoning are two separate documents, and the archive keeps them apart: **the law** of 17 June 362 requires teachers to excel in character and be approved before teaching; **the rescript** explains that a man who disbelieves Homer’s gods cannot honestly teach Homer. The measure barred Christians from a profession without naming Christianity as the offence — which is exactly why Ammianus, a pagan, thought it disgraceful.]

*The Letters of Julian* — held in this library. English: W. C. Wright, *The Works of the Emperor Julian*, 3 vols, Loeb (1913–23), public domain; the rescript is Wright’s Ep. 36, Bidez’s 61c. The law itself is in the Theodosian Code; C. Pharr’s English (1952) is in copyright and is not quoted here.

Ecclesiastical History V.16

“Ought we not rather to consider that the progress of Atheism has been principally owing to the humanity evinced by Christians towards strangers, to the reverence they have manifested towards the dead, and to the delusive gravity which they have assumed in their life?… **For, while there are no persons in need among the Jews, and while even the impious Galileans provide not only for those of their own party who are in want, but also for those who hold with us, it would indeed be disgraceful if we were to allow our own people to suffer from poverty.**” [Sozomen adds the programme: hostels for strangers, letters of recommendation between priests, a penitential discipline — **the church’s institutions copied deliberately**, and the historian says he produces the letter because he expects not to be believed.]

Sozomen, *Ecclesiastical History* — held in this library. English: C. D. Hartranft, NPNF 2nd ser. 2 (1890), public domain. ⚠ Authenticity disputed: the letter is Bidez’s Ep. 84, and Van Nuffelen has argued it a forgery on the strength of its phrase for paganism; others hold it consistent with Julian’s undoubted letters (e.g. Ep. 10, to Eutherius). The archive records the dispute and quotes the text Sozomen printed.

Ecclesiastical History V.4 (cf. Socrates III.12)

[Maris of Chalcedon, blind and led by a child, confronts Julian sacrificing in the temple of Fortune at Constantinople and calls him an atheist and an apostate. Julian can find nothing to reproach him with but his blindness:] “The Galilean, thy God, will not cure thee.” [Maris:] “I thank God for my blindness, since it prevents me from beholding one who has fallen away from our religion.” [Sozomen: Julian passed on without reply, judging that forbearance served paganism better than punishment. **Two things the archive notes.** The man who rebuked him was an **Arian** bishop, and it is the Nicene historian who preserves the rebuke. And the emperor’s restraint is the policy in miniature: mockery answered by mockery, not by a magistrate.]

Sozomen, *Ecclesiastical History* — held in this library. English: C. D. Hartranft, NPNF 2nd ser. 2 (1890), public domain. The same story is in Socrates III.12, also held.

Orations 4 and 5

[Gregory’s two invectives are the longest Christian account of the reign and the source of much of the tradition about it — including the ordeal of **Mark of Arethusa** at Or. 4.88–91, hung in a basket and smeared with honey for the wasps because he would not pay toward the temple he had demolished. **The archive holds Mark as a figure on this evidence and states its character**: composed after the emperor was dead, by a man whose brother had served him, for an audience that had won.]

*The Orations* — held in this library. ⚠ The NPNF selection does not include Orations 4–5; the public-domain English is C. W. King, *Julian the Emperor: containing Gregory Nazianzen’s Two Invectives and Libanius’ Monody* (Bohn, 1888). ⚠ Written after Julian’s death; polemic, and used as such.