European Pagan Memory Day

The following article was published first on "Vox Carmentis" the Federazione Pagana's review, on special issue for WCER congress in 2005; an extended version of this article is available (only in Italian) on its author's website.

 

I think it’s appropriate to show to all people the reasons why I’m sure that the Galileans’ intrigue is a deception created by a human host. Though it has nothing divine, but exploiting that infantile and irrational part of soul which is disposed to fables, it made people believe that a monstrous tale was true.

This is how "Against Galileans" by Julian begins.

First of all: who is Julian?

Flavius Claudius Julian was born in 331 in Constantinople, Constantine the Greater’s grandson and younger son of Julius Constant and Basilina. In 337 he and his half-brother Constant Gaul escaped the massacre of his relatives, ordered by the Christian emperor Constant II. He was baptized and underwent, under close watch in Cappadocia, a Christian education, but he never hid his admiration towards ancient Deities. When he was twenty he got freedom of movement, when Constant II, who remained the only emperor, nominated Constant Gaul to his "Cesar". He went back to Constantinople and then went to Nicomedia, where he attended in secret Libanius’ lessons; he studied in Pergamo and then in Ephesus, where he abjured christianism (and for this reason Fozio called him "Apostate") and searched in Neoplatonism and ancient religions. The emperor Constant II made someone kill Constant Gaul, the only still living relative of Julian’s and relegated Julian in Milan. After some years Julian obtained the permission to go to Athens, where he was initiated in Eleusinian mysteries. In 355 he was nominated to "cesar" and married Helena, Constant’s sister. The emperor posted him to the Gaul that was threatened by Franks and Alemannics (maybe in order to get rid of him, because of the task’s difficulty and of Julian’s inexperience). Once again, Julian revealed an unsuspected talent: with the defence in Sens in 356 and with the great victory of Strasbourg in 357 secured Gaul borders and then improved the administration of Gaul with several reforms. In Paris, soldiers elected him "Augustus" by acclamation and when Constant II died in November 361, he became the only emperor. He immediately get rid of some parasitic functionaries who were inside the court, restored freedom of religion, protected those who wanted to rebuild ancient temples, allowed Jews to rebuild their temple in Jerusalem and allowed also confrontation between orthodox and arian christians as long as they didn’t interfere with empire’s politic. During his empire, Julian continued toward this direction: he restored temples, reorganized colleges of priests, reformed the state administration, took away privileges that christians (who he called "Galileans"), both arians and orthodoxies, obtained with emperors Constantine and Constant to the detriment of other religions and philosophies, for example property tax exemption and the permission to turn pagan temples into christian churches), ensured pagans the access to teaching or higher administrative offices without discrimination.

Before coming to a decision, Julian used to listen to a lot of people, even the littlest town’s councillors. I want to make an example about his care for cities by reporting a fact he tells in his "Misopogon" (369): in Antioch he imposed a ceiling price so that sellers couldn’t overcharge citizens and foreigners; and when in Antioch the wheat began to run out because of the famine due to preceding season dryness paid his own way the wheat in Egypt and brought it to Antioch, where citizens could buy it for a better price (two thirds of usual price).

What I want to underline is the feeling of justice Julian had: this is how his letter "to inhabitant of Bostra" starts:

I thought that the Galileans’ chiefs should be more grateful to me than to my predecessor in leading the Empire. In facts, under his rule, most of them were exiled, persecuted, jailed, many so-called heretic groups were slaughtered, like in Samosata, Cizico, Paphlagonia Bithynia and Galice, many other populations had their villages plundered and completely ruined; under my rule the opposite happened: people being exiled had the permission to come back, people being stripped of their possession got back all of them, thanks to our law.

"Heretic" christians were treated better by a pagan emperor than by a christian one, but despite this, they preferred a christian emperor even though they had been persecuted by him. This is why we can say that masochism is a christian prerogative, as in exaltation of martyrs. They preferred Constant rather than Julian, because the former gave martyrs to them, the latter didn’t (but their masochism is not an excuse to justify crimes by Constant or by his order).

Now let’s give a look to the religious aspect of Julian’s thought. It’s necessary to say that Julian’s point of view about Gods it’s very peculiar, but we must also consider the rationalism he had to face in his days; on the other side, he received a christian and neoplatonic education, which influenced his way of looking at the existing. It’s not correct to say that Julian’s religion was a "solar monotheism", even though his point of view about Gods was more philosophical than mythical. In his "Hymn to Helios the king" he separates two aspects of every single god: when he talks about the intellectual god he mean the visible aspect of the god, while the intelligible god is its invisible archetype (from 133 on). In this hymn he also says (132a):

For he who contemplates the visible god is difficult, I know, even to understand how great the invisible is; and maybe saying this by words id impossible, as if one contented himself with staying under the dignity of the matter. I know well that no one in the world could reach a worthy level

Julian is right: what we can see in an object, however wide this seeing is, is infinitely smaller than what we can’t see in that object; or, what we can perceive in an object, however wide is our perceiving, is infinitely smaller than what we could perceive of that object from the rest of existing and so infinitely smaller than the reality of that object. What I don’t like is that almost clear division between "visible" and "invisible" that appears in Julian’s reflections, as if the "invisible" god were something like a "visible" god’s double.In the same hymn he then writes (132c - 133a):

This divine and beautiful cosmos which, from the top of the heavenly vault to the extreme border of the earth, is kept together by the god’s indestructible providence, exists uncreated since the beginning of time and it’s eternal for remaining time, being preserved by nothing but the fifth element [the ether] - whose top is the "sun ray" -; then, at a higher level, so to speak, than the intelligible world and, in a more elevated meaning, to the King of the universe, in which all things have their centre. This indeed must be called "what is beyond intelligence", or the Idea of the Beings (and with this I mean the complete intelligible), or the One (because the One seems to be somehow prior to things), or the Good (like Plato did); this non-composed cause of all things, model of beauty, perfection, unity and irresistible power for all beings, thanks to the original creative essence which lasts in it, manifested from itself Helios, the greatest god, entirely similar to iself, as a mediator between that intellectual and demiurgic causes.

After that, Julian describes the other gods as features of the One and explains how each god expresses Helios, so Helios is equivalent to the One. All this makes Julian different from polytheistic pagans of past ages. What makes him similar to them? His feeling of Justice! In his "Against Galileans", he writes (161a):

What is more senseless if, when ten, fifteen or even one hundred - not one thousand, but let’s suppose that so many had violated one of those laws which God had made, was it necessary that six hundred thousand were destroyed for that thousand? I prefer saving an evil man together with one thousand honest men than killing those thousand together with that one.

Here, Julian refers to an episode in the Old Testament (Numbers, 25, 1-18):

When Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to commit sexual immorality with the daughters of Moab. These women invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods; then the people ate and bowed down to their gods. When Israel joined themselves to Baal-Peor, the anger of the Lord flared up against Israel. The Lord said to Moses: "Arrest all the leaders of the people and hang them up before the Lord in broad daylight, so that the fierce anger of the Lord may be turned away from Israel. So Moses said to the judges of Israel, "Each of you must execute those of his men who were joined to Baal-Peor" Just then one of the Israelites came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the plain view of Moses and of the whole community of the Israelites, while they were weeping at the entrance of the tent of the meeting. When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he got up from among the assembly, took a javelin in his hand and went after the Israelite man into the tent and thrust through the Israelite man and into the woman’s abdomen. So the plague was stopped from the Israelites. Those that died in the plague were 24000. The Lord spoke to Moses: "Phinehas, son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites, when he manifested such zeal for my sake among them, so that I did not consume the Israelites in my zeal. Therefore announce:’I am going to give to him my covenant of peace. So it will be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of a permanent priesthood, because he has been zealous for his God, and has made atonement fro the Israelites’." Now the name of the Israelite who was stabbed—the one who was stabbed with the Midianite woman—was Zimri son of Salu, a leader of a clan of the Simeonites. The name of the Midianite woman that was killed was Cozbi daughter of Zur. He was a leader over the people of a clan of Midian. Then the Lord spoke to Moses: "Bring trouble to the Midianites, and destroy them, because they bring trouble to you by their treachery with which they have deceived you in the matter of Peor and in the matter of Cozbi, the daughter of a prince of Midian, their sister, who was killed in the day of the plague for Peor’s sake".

How could we think that a god dealing with people like they were annoying mosquitoes to kill indiscriminately because one among them stung him, how could we think that he is on humans’ side? Apart from this, what have these men and women done so atrocious that they deserve death? Human beings have being killed only because they have behaved like human beings! There is no fiercer enemy of human kind than the biblical god. Julian, in "Against Galileans", understand what is, according to me, the central crux of the matter, the outline of the bible; in fact he says (89a-93e):

And what about the fact that God forbids men he created to distinguish good from evil, isn’t it the height of absurdity? What kind of being could be stupider than that incapable of distinguish good from evil? It’s clear that he won’t avoid one, I mean evil things, neither he will follow the others, I mean good things. So, god prevent man from tasting wisdom, that is the more precious thing for man. As a matter of fact, it’s very clear also to fools that distinguishing good from evil is a distinctive activity of wisdom, so the serpent was more a benefactor than a destroyer of mankind. This god must be called jealous. In fact, when he saw the man sharing wisdom, he cast him out from the orchard so that he couldn’t eat fruit from the tree of life, saying "Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever".

What is Julian talking about? (Genesis 2,9):

The Lord God made all kind of trees grow from the soil, every tree that was pleasing to look at and good for food. Now the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were in the middle of the orchard.

(Genesis 2, 16-17):

Then the Lord God commanded the man, "You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die"

(Genesis, 3, 1-24):

Now the serpent was more shrewd than any of the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Is it really true that God said, ‘you must not eat from any tree of the orchard’?" The woman said to the serpent:"We may eat of the fruit from the trees of the orchard; but concerning the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the orchard God said, ‘You must not eat from it, and you must not touch it, or else you will die’." The serpent said to the woman, "Surely you will not die, for God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will open and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil." When the woman saw that the tree produced fruit that was good for food, was attractive to the eye, and was desirable for making one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some of it to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them opened and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife herd the sound of the Lord God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the orchard. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him "Where are you?" The man replied "I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid" And the Lord God said "Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commended you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it" So the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have dome" And the woman replied, "the serpent tricked me and I ate" The Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the wild beasts and all the living creatures of the field! On your belly you will crawl and dust you will eat all the days of your life. And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; her offspring will attack your head and you will attack her offspring’s heel." To the woman he said "I will greatly increase your labor pains; with pain you will give birth to children. You will want to control your husband, but he will dominate you." But to Adam he said, "Because you obeyed your wife and ate from the tree about which I commended you ‘you must not eat from it’, cursed is the ground thanks to you; in painful toil you will eat all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, but you will eat the grain of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat food until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you will return." The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments from skin fro Adams and his wife, and clothed them. And the Lord God said, "Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever". So the Lord God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. When he drove the man out, he placed in the eastern side of the orchard in Eden cherubim who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

So in the bible, the creator god is described as human kind’s worst enemy. First he tries to deceive man by lying, telling him that if he had eaten fruit from the tree of knowledge he would have died, then, when man conquers knowledge (thanks to the serpent, that Julian defines "a benefactor more than a destroyer of human kind"), this god (who is terrified by man provided with knowledge) took man away from the tree of eternal life, so that men can’t become like him. Julian understood very well the absurdity of bible:

And what about the fact that God forbids men he created to distinguish good from evil, isn’t it the height of absurdity?

The absurdity is that monotheists side with a god who is a destroyer of mankind.

I just made some little observation about Julian’s works, there is still much to say, but I only showed what I was interested to underline of his thought.

I wish to conclude talking about Julian’s death, which happened in Ctesifons while fighting against Persians: the emperor, without a cuirass, entered the fray to fight and urge his soldiers; suddenly he was critically injured by a spear, but we don’t know who threw it; according to Libanius, the guilty was Tajen, a christian soldier of the roman army. Julian died in his tent because of the wound on 26th June 363. The rumour according to which Julian’s last words were "You won, Galilean" or "Galileus, you won", is just a christian invention and musn’t be considered, because nor Ammianus Marcellinus, nor other writers of Julian’s age mention it. When the last pagan emperor died, his project to take back to light ancient religions was interrupted and, for more than one thousand years, nobody knew Julian, until the fifteenth century, when some Arab versions of his autobiography and letters were discovered.

I don’t know how history could have evolved if Julian had lived longer; who tells he knows is a liar; I just know how history went on after that cursed spear hit him. That tragic accident led mankind to an abyss from which, little by little, we are drawing ourselves out, thanks to the bravest ones’ efforts.

William Masiero