Customer Reviews

Arguments of the Emperor Julian Against the Christians

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As usual, for those who have the sympathy and inclination, Taylor once more scores high marks for this wonderful translation of Julian's remarks contra the Christians. The memorable observation by the Roman Emperor Julian is that the Christians were often very good people but they were usually terribly ignorant: Theirs was not a virtue in the grand Pythagorean or Platonic-Neoplatonic style. They had amazingly simplistic and crude ideas. Yet despite that, many Christians faithfully and successfully adhered to extremely high standards of personal morality. (Attempt an intelligent discussion with the average modern Christian on the seeming inherent contradictions of Petrine Christianity or its roots in paganism and you will understand Julian's remark.) Again, the Christians often came from the absolute lowest and most disreputable strata of society, whereas in the pagan mysteries (according to Plutarch, Plato, and Julian) only those who were pure of heart and character were permitted to enter.

A good reference but - (curiously) - not a Taylor translation that holds interest on subsequent rereading.

It's not a bad book. The translation is okay, although I think it would have been even better to be less literal and more readable.

And yes, Julian's arguments aren't all that bad against Christianity. But what do you expect? Christianity was never designed to win an argument against anyone who happened to be rich, intelligent, or educated: it was a religion that excluded such people. Given all that, I'm surprised that what we're seeing from Julian wasn't more powerful.

Still, I think we ought to read this book, if only to see the opportunity Pagans now have to make large numbers of converts today. Christianity had no arguments against Paganism at the time of Julian, and we can see from this book that it still doesn't.