Julian the Apostate on the Jews

As I have discussed in a previous article: the Emperor Julian's policy regarding the jews has long been claimed to have been philo-Semitic and proto-Zionist by popular authors, which I have pointed out with reference to classical scholars is quite incorrect. (1) To complete the case against Julian being a sort of ancient predecessor of Theodore Herzl I will delve into all of Julian's comments on the jews that he makes in his various literary works. I take all my quotations from the Loeb series whose edition of Julian was translated by Wilmer Wright in the early twentieth century. (2)

The first we find in Julian’s ‘Letter to a Priest’ and relates as follows:

'Therefore let no man deceive us with his sayings or trouble our faith in a divine providence. For as for those who make such profanation a reproach against us, I mean the prophets of the Jews, what have the to say about their own temple, which was overthrown three times and even now is not being raised up again? This I mention not as a reproach against them, for I myself, after so great a lapse of time, intended to restore it, in honour of the god whose name has been associated with it. But in the present case I have used this instance because I wish to prove that nothing made by man can be indestructible, and that those prophets who wrote such statements were uttering nonsense, due to their gossiping with silly old women. In my opinion there is no reason why their god should not be a mighty god, even though he does not happen to have wise prophets or interpreters. But the real reason they are not wise is that they have not submitted their souls to be cleansed by the regular course of study, nor have they allowed those studies to open their tightly closed eyes, and to clear away the mist that hangs over them. But since these men see as it were a great light through a fog, not plainly or clearly, and since they think that what they see is not a pure light but a fire, and they fail to discern all that surrounds it, they cry with a loud voice: “Tremble, be afraid, fire, flame, death, a dagger, a broad-sword!” thus describing under many names the harmful might of fire. But on this subject it will be better to demonstrate separately how much inferior to our own poets are these teachers of tales about the gods.' (3)

This is then clarified by the following comment in the same work:

'For we ought not to give heed to them all nor to the doctrines of all, but only to those philosophers and those of their doctrines that make men god-fearing, and teach concerning the gods, first that they exist, secondly that they concern themselves with the things of this world, and further that they do no injury at all either to mankind or to one another, out of jealousy or envy or enmity. I mean the sort of thing our poets in the first place have brought themselves into disrepute by writing, and in the second place such tales as the prophets of the Jews take pains to invent, and are admired for so doing by those miserable men who have attached themselves to the Galileans.' (4)

We can see from the foregoing quotes that Julian is very easy to take out of context here and to use his sentence: ‘This I mention not as a reproach against them, for I myself, after so great a lapse of time, intended to restore it, in honour of the god whose name has been associated with it.’ To mean that he was a form of proto-Zionist with extremely pro-jewish opinions, but in doing so we note that the second mention of the jews in the work is left out. It is clear that Julian is not in any way pro-jewish, but rather he believed that it was necessary to attack Christianity by proving that Jesus was a man not a divine being by raising up the Temple of Solomon once again as Murdoch observes. (5)

We can see the truth of this analysis in the second quotation from Julian when he talks of the tall tales that the ‘prophets of the Jews take pains to invent’, which informs us that Julian does not in fact credit Judaism as being admirable or even based on reality. He is telling us that he believes that the jewish prophets - he means here the Old Testament en toto - in his opinion simply made up their religion from their diseased imaginations and as such this undercuts the whole of the Christian religion, which he goes further on to state only attracts the lowest of the low (i.e., ‘those miserable men’) or put another way: the scum of society.

If Julian was as pro-jewish as some have asserted then he truly had a strange way of showing it as he states early on and absolutely that the jews have in his opinion an absurd belief system that they had no divine inspiration for and as such are an untruthful and unfaithful people. In essence he is prefiguring later intellectuals who have called the jews the masters of the lie.

We see this attitude once again forcefully expressed in Julian’s next mention of the jews in his ‘Letter to the High-Priest Theodorus’.

To wit:

'Therefore, when I saw that there is among us great indifference about the gods and that all reverence for the heavenly powers has been driven out by impure and vulgar luxury, I always secretly lamented this state of things. For I saw that those whose minds were turned to the doctrines of the Jewish religion are so ardent in their belief that they would choose to die for it, and to endure utter want and starvation rather than taste pork or any animal that has been strangled or had the life squeezed out of it; whereas we are in such a state of apathy about religious matters that we have forgotten the customs of our forefathers, and therefore we actually do not know whether any such rule has ever been prescribed. But these Jews are in part god-fearing, seeing that they revere a god who is truly most powerful and most good and governs this world of sense, and, as I well know, is worshipped by us also under other names. They act as is right and seemly, in my opinion, if they do not transgress the laws; but in this one thing they err in that, while reserving their deepest devotion for their own god, they do not conciliate the other gods also; but the other gods they think have been allotted to us Gentiles only, to such a pitch of folly have they been brought by their barbaric conceit. But those who belong to the impious sect of the Galileans, as if some disease.' (6)

Once again here a superficial reading of this passage seems to suggest a form of philo-Semitism on Julian’s part in that he is here using the jews as an example of how his new pagan faithful should behave.

However, if we read Julian’s words closely when he states:

‘But these Jews are in part god-fearing, seeing that they revere a god who is truly most powerful and most good and governs this world of sense, and, as I well know, is worshipped by us also under other names.’

Then we notice that there is something rather odd in Julian’s assertion in that he seems to be on the face of it suggesting that Yahweh is the one true god, which would directly contradict his own professed and extremely pious belief system in the Greek and Roman gods. This contradiction is made sense of when we understand that Julian clarifies his beliefs afterwards in so far as he is saying that while he admits that the jews may worship a real god that god is in reality one of the Graeco-Roman gods and is only one of many such deities.

This is not inconsistent with Julian’s earlier assertion that the prophets of the jews were hoary old liars: precisely because he isn't suggesting the jews are not pious in regards to their own beliefs, but rather that their beliefs are a bunch of proverbial claptrap dreamed up by their delusional prophets.

Julian locates his particular opposition to the jewish religion in their worship of only one god and the allocation of all other gods to the gentiles alone, which to Julian’s mind was rather like trying to have your cake and eat it. As by constantly placating only one god while paying no heed and indeed denigrating the rest then the jews would inevitably invoke the wrath of the many other gods and not even a powerful god - as he suggests Yahweh is - could prevent the wrath of the rest of heaven descending upon the ‘chosen people’.

The unstated element to Julian’s argument however is that this lack of veneration of the other gods is the reason that the jews were moved to constantly rebel against the Romans, which lead to the gods moving the Romans to wipe out large numbers of jews and suppress Judaism as a politically subversive religious sect.

Further to this we can see that while Julian is using the jews as an example as the kind of behaviour that his new pagans should affect: he also uses the Christians as well to demonstrate his point. This is particularly evident in his ‘Letter to Arsacius, High-Priest of Galatia’, which includes the statement:

'I order that one-fifth of this be used for the poor who serve the priests, and the remainder be distributed by us to strangers and beggars. For it is disgraceful that, when no Jew ever had to beg, and the impious Galileans not only their own poor but ours as well, all men see that our people lack aid from us.' (7)

We can see from this that Julian is using both jews and Christians as examples for how his new pagans were to behave - particularly in regards to their conduct in the giving of alms to the deserving poor - and while some have attempted to argue that Julian was pro-jewish: nobody has ever to my knowledge attempted to argue that Julian was pro-Christian (although he was prepared to allow some well-educated and less sectarian Christians into governmental positions). (8)

Therefore, we may reasonably point out that Julian’s use of the jews as an example is not meant to express support for or flatter the jews: precisely because he uses his proverbial arch-enemies - the Christians - to make the same point and indeed after this supposed compliment goes on to call the jews foolish barbarians.

Hardly the language of a friend of the jews: is it?

There is however one letter written late in his short reign during his troubled stay in the predominantly Christian city of Antioch, which is almost always cited to ‘prove’ Julian’s pro-jewish attitude. I quote it in its entirety for the sake of balance:

‘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 unauthorised 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 fore the records against you that were stored in my desks; so that is no longer possible for anyone to aim at you such a reproach of impiety. My brother Constantius of honoured memory 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 wickedness might linger amongst us. And since I wish that you should still prosper yet more, I have admonished my brother Iulus, your most venerable patriarch, that the levy which is said to exist among you should be prohibited, and that 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 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. For it is natural that men who are distracted by any anxiety should be hampered in spirit, and should not have so much confidence in raising their hand to pray; but that those who are in all respects free from care should rejoice with their whole hearts and offer their suppliant prayers on behalf of my imperial office to Mighty God, even to him who is able to direct my reign to the noblest ends, according to my purpose. This you ought to do, in order that, 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.’ (9)

This taken by itself would suggest that Julian’s attitude to the jews was rather positive, but for the addition of some vital context.

Firstly, we should understand - as before stated - that Julian was at this time in the Christian city of Antioch and was mired in deep conflict with that city. The only non-pagan minority he could call on to help him out of his predicament in dealing with the Christians of Antioch was the jews of the city: who had long been in conflict with the Christians.

Secondly, we need to further understand that the jews had a long history of cooperating with the Persian and Parthian Empires against Rome (10) and that Julian was to invade the province of Mesopotamia, (11) which contained many jews who were such a security risk to the success of a military campaign that Trajan killed any he could get his hands on as a preventative measure. (12)

Thirdly the fact that by supporting the jews and seeking to rebuild their temple: Julian could then also have the personal and intellectual satisfaction of having proved the Christians wrong as well having a very good propaganda weapon to be exploited in favour of his new paganism upon his expected victorious return from Mesopotamia.

It is worth also noting in passing that even proponents of a philo-Semitic picture of Julian do not credit this letter to the jews to be anything more than real politick in action. (13)

We can see the essential truth of this letter being the act of an increasing desperate Julian in so far as he needed allies and sought to gain them through essentially bribing the jews with promises to rebuild their temple and forgetting about all the wrongs that they had done to the empire in the past.

This is stated in Julian’s point about the ‘burning of documents’ in so far as he is telling the jews that if they will cooperate with and support him in his Persian campaign then he will ensure their prosperity probably by re-instituting the privileges given to the jews by Augustus and make sure that the special jewish taxes would be forever abolished.

We should further note that Julian is obviously trying to blame Christians for all the ‘oppression’ of the jews when he talks about Constantius and that it was through bad (read: Christian) counsel that he made enemies of the jews and that he Julian has removed the Christians from power, which will mean the jews will not be ‘persecuted’ by them anymore. So therefore, Julian is saying to jews: I will be your friend if you will help and cooperate with me.

In effect then we can see that Julian is at this point in time politically desperate and to ensure the success of his Persian campaign and the providing an additional counterweight to growing Christian influence and militancy in the Empire: he was willing to strike a bargain with the jews who he perceived to be less of a threat - if no less intellectually objectionable - than the Christians.

Thus, Julian’s letter to the jews should not be seen as some kind of profession of philo-Semitism - as some claim it to be - but rather as the last ditch attempt by an increasing desperate Emperor to garner the support necessary to take on an increasing vocal Christian minority that was beginning to oppose him at every turn.

Julian’s fundamental opposition to the jews - in terms of their Judaism - is well demonstrated in his best known work: ‘Against the Galileans’. In it we find numerous references to the jews in the context of Julian’s intellectual critique of Christianity and which I would argue demonstrates Julian fundamental hostility to the jews as a religious and national group. This provides valuable context for dealing with the common claim that Julian was a friend of the jews and one is forced to wonder that if Julian was so much of a friend: why did he burn down jewish settlements in his Mesopotamian campaign? (14)

We may further add that Julian’s critique of Christianity is heavily borrowed from the works of Celsus the Epicurean and Porphyry of Tyre: who were both liberally used by Julian in his ‘Against the Galileans’ (15) and both of whom were also strongly anti-jewish. (16)

At this juncture some might try to argue that Julian merely borrowed this anti-jewish hostility from Celsus and Porphyry - who were after all the teachers of his teachers - but this is not admissible for the simple reason that Julian did not borrow all he wrote from these authors and could have easily removed his attacks on the jews from ‘Against the Galileans’ without disrupting the thrust of his argument over much. Thus, Julian must have had some personal dislike of either (or both) Judaism and/or the jews as a people to leave his attacks in the text, while then seeking to (unsuccessfully) woo the jews of Antioch to his side.

This opposition is distinctly evident when Julian states:

'It is worthwhile to recall in a few words whence and how we first arrived at a conception of God; next to compare what is said about the divine among the Hellenes and Hebrews; and finally to enquire of those who are neither Hellenes nor Jews, but belong to the sect of the Galileans, why they preferred the beliefs of the Jews to ours; and what, further, can be the reason why they do not even adhere to the Jewish beliefs but have abandoned them also and followed a way of their own. For they have not accepted a single admirable or important doctrine of those that are held either by us Hellenes or by the Hebrews who derived them from Moses; but from both religions they have gathered what has been engrafted like powers of evil, as it were, on these nations – atheism from the Jewish levity, and a sordid and slovenly way of living from our indolence and vulgarity; and they desire that this should be called the noblest worship of the gods.' (17)

These first few comments made by Julian clearly indicate the major theme of his argument against Christians in that they derive their beliefs - he argues - from a foreign nation - the jews - and even then they corrupted those original beliefs in a new and very negative way. We should here note Julian’s precise words in that he asks rhetorically why the (non-jewish) Christians should adhere to the beliefs of the alien jewish people and not their own kind: the Hellenes.

He also clearly indicates - as before noted - that he considers Judaism to be a vastly inferior and outright absurd religion when compared to Greek and Roman paganism when he states the Christians cannot ‘even adhere to the Jewish beliefs’: thereby necessarily implying that jewish religion is any easy and highly superstitious religious system to follow (in line with his previous comments about the general gullibility of the jewish people writ large).

Indeed, one can see this barely disguised contempt in his phrase ‘atheism from the Jewish levity’, which might at first glance be taken as indicating an amiable jewish nature until we realise that a better translation would read: ‘atheism from the Jewish impiety’. Put another way Julian is saying that while the jews worship one god to the exclusion of all others who is at least - to Julian’s mind - discernible in the Graeco-Roman pantheon: the Christians don’t worship any god at all and are thus atheists.

The sharp-eyed reader may have already realised it, but Julian is here simply repeating the sentiments he had earlier expressed in his ‘Letter to the High-Priest Theodorus’.

Indeed, we can see that Julian is actually being somewhat more charitable - in line with his heavy intellectual and practical focus on this virtue - to the jews as many Romans and Greeks writers had previously suggested before the rise of Christianity that the jews were in fact atheists. This shift of the charge of atheism from the jews to the Christians is probably a function of Julian’s practical need to try and placate the jews as a powerful minority who had enough power to help in a battle to suppress Christianity in the Empire and the means by which Julian could deal a potentially fatal blow to the perceived divinity of Jesus in the form of contradicting him by rebuilding the Temple of Solomon.

However, proof of Julian’s very strong feelings against the jews as a people is found in one of the fragments of his work, which states:

‘The words that were written concerning Israel, Matthew the Evangelist transferred to Christ that he might mock the simplicity of those Gentiles who believed.’ (18)

What is often not understood in statements such as the above is what the term ‘Israel’ means in so far as it does not refer to a country per se, but rather it refers to those who have been born to jewish parents and are as such the ‘children of Israel’: explicitly excluded from such a community are those who are not born jewish as they are not descended from those explicitly chosen by Yahweh to be his priests on earth.

Once we understand this then the meaning of Julian’s above statement becomes readily apparent in that he is openly suggesting that Judaism is a religion that defines its following biologically and that converts to - what the Romans frequently called - jewish ways were not regarded as jews but rather as gentiles who tried to be like jews.

This Julian claims was changed by Matthew - although Paul is probably more accurate - to seem to be universal but in reality was not and instead was intended to make fun of the alleged ‘lower nature’ of born non-jews (a claim frequently found in Judaism today vis-à-vis comments about the ‘proclivity of gentiles towards and their inability to resist the evil inclination’).

Thus, we can begin to see clearly that Julian’s ideas on the jews were - although tempered by his practical needs and goals - quite strong opposed to them on an intellectual level. This is further shown when Julian calls the legend of Genesis ‘wholly fabulous’ (19) and a piece of jewish make believe. (20) Indeed, Julian goes as far as to assert that the stories of the jews were made to hide ‘secret interpretations’ which were designed to blaspheme the gods writ large and were not to be understood by gentiles. (21)

Ironically there is just such a practice among the jews that we have evidence of at about this time in what has come to be known as Leshon Hakmah - ‘The Language of the Wise’ - among the jews, which involves sub-meanings in conversations and myths which then convey an unseen message or discussion and was used to fight against the Romans. (22) This suggests that in spite of the claim that Julian’s meaning is his simple pagan belief in mythical interpretation through allegory: there is the strong possibility he actually intended his statement to be read both as a confirmation of his general interpretation and also as the possibility that the jews (or Christians) encoded their myths with secret interpretations/messages, which told their followers to hate the Romans and - thus through the Imperial cult - the Roman state in the person of the deified Emperor.

Julian’s willingness to use the jews as a conduit to attack Christianity is demonstrated in his comparison of Plato’s doctrine on creation and that outlined by Moses.

To wit Julian states as follows:

‘Next to consider the views that are correctly held by the Jews, and also those that our fathers handed down to us from the beginning. Our account has in it the immediate creator of this universe, as the following shows

[…]

Moses indeed has said nothing whatsoever about the gods who are superior to this creator, nay, he has not even ventured to say anything about the nature of angels. But that they serve God he has asserted in many ways and often; but whether they were generated or ungenerated, or whether they were generated by one god and appointed to serve another, or in some other way, he has nowhere said definitely. But he describes fully in what manner the heavens and the earth and all that therein is were set in order. In part, he says, God ordered them to be, such as light and the firmament, and in part he says, God made them, such as the heavens and the earth, the sun and moon, and all the things that already existed but were hidden away for the time being, he separated, such as water, I mean, and dry land. But apart from these he did not venture to say a word about the generation or the making of the Spirit, but only this, “And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” But whether that spirit was ungenerated or had been generated he does not at all make clear.’ (23)

We can see from the above that Julian is trying to make the argument that Christianity is illogical, because it corrupts the two intellectual doctrines it springs from - Greek pagan philosophy and Judaism - and is thus atheistic because the two doctrines agree fundamentally about the origin of the world (and by rejecting them Christianity rejects its own origins and own gods thus meaning it worships nothing). We can also see that although Julian is trying to make this argument: he is struggling to do, because Moses was not a neo-Platonist and as such didn't outline his doctrine in a manner consistent with their view of orders of gods and spirits divided - in essence - by their power and their role into a hierarchy of sorts.

We may also reasonably suggest that Julian is here also trying to convince himself that Judaism could potentially be reconciled with Greek paganism if the jews would only stop neglecting to worship all the other gods rather than just one. That he was having doubts about this is evidenced by fragment 7 (one of the strongest anti-jewish comments he makes and reproduced above) and that the jews were not supportive of him in spite of his desperate attempts to bring them to his side. (24)

Indeed, one of the problems that we have with Julian’s comments is their erratic nature, which reflects a wider issue with interpreting Julian as he was prone to do and argue things contrary to his own ideas at times only then to quickly abandon these changes soon after. (25) This nature also quite probably led to the various plots - usually attributed to Christians - to assassinate him. (26)

One thing we can be relatively sure of however was that Julian as a devout neo-Platonist and fervent mystic was - in the words of one recent-ish biographer - trying to create a ‘unified set of beliefs’ for himself and his new pagans. (27) This explains his somewhat erratic nature and comments in regards to the jews as he seems to have regarded them as likely enemies of Rome - per his attempt to rally them to his standard before the Persian campaign and when they refused to come simply killed them as he went instead - but being a man of learning and intellect Julian also believed he could persuade the jews to be ‘good Romans’ by the use of reason and rational argument.

In a sense then Julian should be understood as having a parallel journey to Martin Luther in that he had started out his intellectual life with some received negative intellectual views about the jews and when he broke with the established tradition: tried to and was unsuccessful in rallying them to his cause by the use of reason and rational argument. Causing both Julian and Luther to turn on the jews viciously over the course of years: indeed the only major difference between the two figures on the jews could be argued to be the fact that Luther had rather longer to reason out his own views on this subject, but which like Julian grew more paternalistic and stern as time went on and the jews remained intransigent and - to both their minds - ungrateful for the help both of them freely gave to them. (28)

That Julian is only using the jews in any positive sense as a foil for attacking Christians - and not because of any real positive sentiments for them - is demonstrated when he removes the intellectual veil so to speak and forthrightly assails the jewish belief in their ‘chosen status’ with little but the a token mention of the Christians he is writing against.

To wit:

‘Moses says that the creator of the universe chose out the Hebrew nation, that to that nation alone did he pay heed and cared for it, and he gives him charge of it alone. But how and by what sort of gods the other nations are governed he has not a word, unless indeed one should concede that he did assign to them the sun and moon. However of this I shall speak a little later. Now I will only point out that Moses himself and the prophets who came after him and Jesus the Nazarene, yes and Paul also, who surpassed all the magicians and charlatans of every place and every time, assert that he is the God of Israel alone and of Judea, and that the Jews are his chosen people.’ (29)

‘But that from the beginning God cared only for the Jews and that he chose them out as his portion, has been clearly asserted not only by Moses and Jesus but by Paul as well; though in Paul’s case this is strange. For according to circumstances he keeps changing his views about God, as the polypus changes its colours to match the rocks, and now he insists that the Jews alone are God’s portion, and then again, when he is trying to persuade the Hellenes to take sides with him, he says: “Do not think that he is the God of Jews only, but also of Gentiles: yea of Gentiles also.” Therefore it is fair to ask of Paul why God, if he was not the God of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles, sent the blessed gift of prophecy to the Jews in abundance and gave them Moses and the oil of anointing, and the prophets and the law and the incredible and monstrous elements in their myths? For you hear them crying aloud: “Man did eat angels’ food.”’ (30)

Now it is remarkably clearly from the above quotes - in which I have largely omitted the Biblical quotations Julian uses to evidence his arguments - that Julian is no intellectual friend of the jews as he points out the sheer absurdity of the core jewish belief of having been especially ‘chosen’ by the creator of the universe.

Julian anticipates later rhetorically and intellectually vicious critics of both Christianity and Judaism like Voltaire and Feuerbach when he attacks the idea that jews were chosen by the ‘creator of the universe’ and suggests instead that the jewish leaders simply made up their legends and used a few conjuring tricks (ergo the comment about the prophets of the jews being magicians and conmen) (31) to make their simple fellow tribesmen think they were in fact in the presence of a powerful deity and follow them.

Julian latches onto one of the most strident weaknesses that Saint Paul presents to Christianity’s intellectual corpus by pointing out that the transition between Yahweh being the ‘god of the jews’ of Moses and the ‘god of the gentiles’ of Paul is problematic precisely because it means that the omnipresent and omnipotent creator of the universe got it wrong: so how can one regard him as omnipresent and omnipotent (to paraphrase Julian’s later question)? (32)

Julian instead proposes that Yahweh is nothing more than a tribal god of the jews (33) and as such the idea of the ‘chosen’ nature of the jews becomes rather less universal and acts as a proverbial pin in Judaism’s religious ego.

We should also point out that Julian is clearly differentiating between Judaism and the jews seeing Yahweh as the god of the ‘Hebrew nation’ who live in two different countries (Israel and Judah [the use of Israel should not be confused with the different meaning used in fragment 7]) but who also live in different places across the Roman empire as well as beyond its borders.

This means that to Julian a jew is very much the ‘International Jew’ of Henry Ford and as such represents a complete problem that he needed to resolve but was not able to partially as the result of his battle against Christianity within the Roman Empire and also his war against the Persians in which he was ultimately killed as the result of a wound received at the Battle of Samara.

However one thing is certain: Julian the Apostate was not only not a friend of the jews but rather stridently opposed to the jews and their influence in the classical world.

References

(1) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-emperor-julians-attitude-to-the

(2) For reference these are volumes 13, 29 and 157 of the Loeb series.

(3) Julian 295C-296B

(4) Ibid. 300D-301B

(5) Adrian Murdoch, 2008, ‘The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World’, 3rd Edition, Inner Traditions: Rochester, p. 142

(6) Julian 453C-454B

(7) Ibid. 432D

(8) Glen Bowersock, 1978, ‘Julian the Apostate’, 1st Edition, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, p. 64

(9) Julian 396D-398

(10) Cf. Cassius Dio 65:4

(11) Beate Dignas, Engelbert Winter, 2007, ‘Rome and Persia in Late Antiquity: Neighbours and Rivals’, 1st Edition, Cambridge University Press: New York, p. 92

(12) Eusb. Pamp. Ecc. Hist. 4:2.5

(13) Martin Goodman, 2008, ‘Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizations’, 1st Edition, Penguin: New York, p. 576

(14) Bowersock, Op. Cit., p. 112

(15) Ibid, p. 28; Murdoch, Op. Cit., p. 133

(16) See my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/the-jew-as-untermensch-celsus-the

(17) Julian Cont. Gali. 42E-43B

(18) Ibid. Frag. 7

(19) Ibid. Cont. Gali. 86A; also Ibid. 134D

(20) Ibid. 75A; in the context of Julian 301B

(21) Ibid. Cont. Gali. 94A

(22) Judah David Eisenstein, 1937, ‘The Tales of Rabbah-bar-bar-Hannah: The Aramaic Text with Hebrew Translation’, 1st Edition, Behrman’s Jewish Book House: New York, pp. 5-7

(23) Julian Cont. Gali. 96C-96E; also see Ibid. 49D-49E; 148B-148C

(24) Bowersock, Op. Cit., p. 90

(25) Murdoch, Op. Cit., p. 177

(26) Ibid, pp. 161-162

(27) Ibid, p. 144

(28) For a good introduction to the origin and development of Luther’s anti-jewish views see Michael Mullett, 2004, ‘Martin Luther’, 1st Edition, Routledge: New York especially pp. 52-55; 240-250

(29) Julian Cont. Gali. 99E-100A

(30) Ibid. 106A-106C

(31) Also see Julian 301B

(32) Ibid. Cont. Gali. 100C; 106D-106E

(33) Ibid. 106D; 143A