R&I ~ Løki
Hi
Was Emperor Julian killed on the Orders of The Christian Hierarchy?
Emperor Julian (The Apostate) was the make or break of the Christian religion and for Christianity to survive as we know it today. Then drastic action in the early 360s CE by Christians was needed for its survival! There is no doubt about it, Julian was a marked man!
When Emperor Julian took the purple, it shocked the very foundations of Christianity and its hierarchy. With such dread that it was going to send their religion back to its Gentile roots—back to the time when Paul was the prosecutor. One can say If Julian had survived his injuries, I am sure the emperors that followed him would have maintained the Roman Pagan religion. Probably today what we perceive as Christians would-be followers of Sol Invictus!
Julian was no ordinary Emperor, he was a scholar, author, orator and a philosopher. He was probably the only academic emperor and he challenged Christians to prove their religion in a debate! Julian wrote: It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind the reasons by which I was convinced that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness. Though it has in it nothing divine, by making full use of that part of the soul which loves fable and is childish and foolish, it has induced men to believe that the monstrous tale is [the] truth. Now since I intend to treat of all their first dogmas, as they call them, I wish to say in the first place that if my readers desire to try to refute me they must proceed as if they were in a court of law and not drag in irrelevant matter, or, as the saying is, bring counter-charges until they have defended their own views.[Julian the Apostate, Against the Galileans: remains of the 3 books, excerpted from Cyril of Alexandria, Contra Julianum (1923) pp.319-433] Bkt [ ] are mine!
The great orator Libanius (314-394), a contemporary of Julian, wrote that it was a Christian that killed Emperor Julian. The historian of the Christian Church, Sozomen (400-450 CE), accepts the charge that the murderer of Julian was a Christian soldier, whom he both praises and defends, saying that he acted:
like the ancient slayers of tyrants, who exposed themselves to
death in the cause of liberty, and fought in defence of their country,
their families and their friends, and whose names are
held in universal admiration.
Here Sozomen justifies the killing of Julian by referencing the heroic “tyrant-slayers” of the past, conjuring perhaps the images of those famous Athenians of the sixth century BCE, Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who murdered the tyrant Hipparchus. In killing the emperor, the Christian soldier had, in fact, performed an equally glorious deed, “delivering” the Roman people from tyranny and restoring their freedom!
However, 50 years later Christian writers dismissed the claim that Christianity was behind the killing of Emperor Julian!
Although Julian ruled for less than two years, his reign and death were the centres of debate for centuries. Ancient writers composed different death narratives for the last “pagan” emperor, elaborating upon certain details in the narratives and adding portions, probably fictionalized, of the story where they thought necessary…Following the rebellion, Valens invited informants to come forward to incriminate any disloyal persons. One such person was Libanius, but he, fortunately, was not brought to book on the charge. Others, however, were less fortunate. According to Ammianus, those whose names were brought to Valens were met with a number of tortures that were far worse than any death. Ammianus depicts Valens as a tyrant, establishing open tribunals, a depiction corroborated in Libanius’s Funeral Oration. Libanius relates:
What further tribulations have followed upon the murder of
our emperor! Rabble-rousers who prate against the gods give
themselves airs, while our priests are subjected to illegal
inquisitions…Philosophers are visited with physical violence.
Ammianus and Libanius present Valens’s reign as one of terror and tyranny unlike the enlightened rule of emperor Julian, who had not instilled terror on his subjects, nor held open
inquisitions in order to halt those who opposed his views. [Thesis: Killing Julian: The Death of an Emperor and The Religious History of The Later Roman Empire by Benjamin Rogaczewski]
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Cofion
Jero Jones
Article URL : https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/discuss/