The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World [Paperback]

Adrian Murdoch (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2008

A history of Julian, the grandson of Constantine, and his failed attempt to reverse the Christian tide that swept the Roman Empire

• Portrays the “Apostate” as a poet-philosopher, arguing that had he survived, Christianity would have been checked in its rise

• Details reforms enacted by Julian during his two-year reign that marginalized Christians, effectively limiting their role in the social and political life of the Empire

• Shows how after Julian’s death the Church used paganism to represent evil and opposition to God, a tactic whose traces still linger

The violent death of the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, AD 332-363) on a Persian battlefield has become synonymous with the death of paganism. Vilified throughout history as the “Apostate,” the young philosopher-warrior was the last and arguably the most potent threat to Christianity.

The Last Pagan examines Julian’s journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his initiation into pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world. Julian’s death, only two years into his reign, initiated a culture-wide suppression by the Church of all things it chose to identify as pagan. Only in recent decades, with the weakening of the Church’s influence and the resurgence of paganism, have the effects of that suppression begun to wane. Drawing upon more than 700 pages of Julian’s original writings, Adrian Murdoch shows that had Julian lived longer our history and our present-day culture would likely be very different.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A thoroughly engaging book about one of the fourth century’s most interesting emperors.”
(The Journal of Classics Teaching )

“Keenly paced and beautifully written . . . quite simply one of the best historical biographies of the year.”
(Catholic Herald )

“Friendly to its controversial subject and an easy read.”
(Church Times )

"Although this is a book written for the general reading public, and not particularly aimed at Pagan readership, it contains a wealth of information concerning Pagan/Christian relations. It also shows a number of concerns expressed by Julian that are still valid today. . . . This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it to everyone." (
Michael Gleason, Witchgrove.com, May 08 )

"An eye-opening alternate history uses over 700 pages of Julian's original writings to provide some eye-opening new revelations on his beliefs." (
The Midwest Book Review, July 2008 )

"Murdoch, a Roman historian, sees the short reign of Julian as the real end of ancient Rome. His biography of the young emperor is based on Julian's own words, the angry response of Christian writers, and the comments of other pagans." (
Book News, Inc., Aug 2008
)

"With the current end of the Twentieth Century we are also witnessing the death throes of the most influential religious movements of the last twenty centuries--Christianity and Islam. . . . This end of the Christian Era as some call it, is however, not without its own dangers and precedence. By looking back to the early centuries of the Christian Era, we can in fact, get a better understanding of its origins and what may be awaiting us in the future. . . " (
Institute of Hermetic Studies, Aug 2008 )

"British historian Adrian Murdoch's The Last Pagan (the phrase comes from the English poet Swinburne) is a thorough-going biography of Julian. In this book, we get a strong sense of the history of the fourth century, which is the age of the decline of the Roman empire made famous by English historian Edward Gibbon, who Murdoch asserts, made Julian the hero of his work." (
Barbara Ardinger, reviewer, Aug 2009 )

From the Back Cover

History / Biography

“A thoroughly engaging book about one of the fourth century’s most interesting emperors.”
--The Journal of Classics Teaching

“Keenly paced and beautifully written . . . quite simply one of the best historical biographies of the year.”
--Catholic Herald

“Friendly to its controversial subject and an easy read.”
--Church Times

The violent death of the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, AD 332-363) on a Persian battlefield has become synonymous with the death of paganism. Vilified throughout history as the “Apostate,” the young philosopher-warrior was the last and arguably the most potent threat to Christianity.

The Last Pagan examines Julian’s journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his initiation into pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world. Julian’s death, only two years into his reign, initiated a culture-wide suppression by the Church of all things it chose to identify as pagan. Only in recent decades, with the weakening of the Church’s influence and the resurgence of paganism, have the effects of that suppression begun to wane. Drawing upon more than 700 pages of Julian’s original writings, Adrian Murdoch shows that had Julian lived longer our history and our present-day culture would likely be very different.

ADRIAN MURDOCH is a historian and journalist. He is the author of Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest and The Last Roman, a biography of Romulus Augustulus, the Western Roman Empire’s final emperor. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Inner Traditions (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594772266
• ISBN-13: 978-1594772269
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #178,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #66 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Earth-Based Religions > Paganism

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An original and insightful account, January 20, 2005

By 

S. Atkinson (Bristol) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World (Hardcover)

As a "lettered academic", I would have to disagree with Mr Clarkson's review. I found this text to be readable and entertaining, as well as thoroughly and accurately researched. Adrian Murdoch has accepted the challenge to historians to do more than merely report history, but to offer some analysis and interpretation of events. I would recommend his study to those interested both in this specific historical period, and in the development of Western religious thought.

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very humane insight into this mysterious historical figure, September 24, 2004

By 

Guillo (Danville, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World (Hardcover)

An easy-to-read biography that presents Julian from a different perspective. Julian, the human being. A man trapped between 2 worlds. A man that dreams of bringing back the Old Roman glory and traditions. A man who perhaps would have succeeded if not for a twist of fate.
It is obvious that there was a substantial amount of research on the author's part. In my opinion, this book makes for great reading even if biographies or history are not the reader's cup of tea. "Talle lege!"

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars for the Subject ..., April 17, 2010

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World (Paperback)

... but only three for the writing craft. Either Adrian Murdoch had no editorial support at all, or else he's dismally inattentive to the basics of English syntax. There are several points in his narrative where an attentive reader will have to conclude that he has written precisely the opposite of what he intended to say. Nevertheless, the book is well worth plodding through if you have more than a passing interest in the man Julian or the history of the Roman Empire.

"The Last Pagan" is a straight-forward old-fashioned modestly footnoted biography of the emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus, CE 332-363, the grandson of Constantine and successor to Constantius, known for most of the last 1700 years as "Julian the Apostate". Few emperors of the Roman or any other empire have ever been as upright, decent, or well-intentioned as Julian -- at least as author Murdoch portrays him -- yet few have been so persistently execrated, particularly for such a brief and benign rule, just 18 months, scarcely long enough for news of his few edicts to spread from Syria at one edge of his empire to Britain at the other. The reforms in fiscal and administrative policies that Julian instituted in the few months of his reign, before his disastrous invasion of Persia, were of no lasting importance, though Murdoch evaluates their potential impact positively. What distinguished Julian from so many short-term emperors was his effort to disestablish the Christian religion and to revitalize the Greco-Roman 'state' religious cult usually labeled "paganism". Julian was not a persecutor of Christians;for many of them, he was something worse, a "philosopher" capable of dismissing their beliefs as vulgar superstitions.

The burning question, for Adrian Murdoch as well as for essayists from John Locke and Edward Gibbon to our times, is whether Julian's efforts to quell the spread of Christianity in favor of humanistic religious tolerance could possibly have succeeded but for his untimely death on the battlefield. In other words, could one man's will have changed history? I think it's obvious that a longer reign by Julian would indeed have changed matters in the short run, just as surely as American events would have differed, in the short run, if Kennedy had survived or Reagan perished from an assassin's bullet. Most historians over the ages have supposed that the spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire and later through northern Europe was inevitable, a rolling tide that Julian could no more have halted than King Canute could stop the waves. Certainly no Christian believer would disagree; history must be, after all, conformable to God's Plan. Murdoch argues otherwise, and that argument is probably the most interesting portion of his book. "Paganism" had a chance, he says. Roman and Hellenistic cults were still widely revered throughout the Empire, despite Constantine's conversion. Christianity was still largely a religion of women and slaves, and it was splintered into violently contesting parties -- heresies to each other -- that might well have been 'encouraged' toward mutual destruction. There's a point to his argument, if one is not committed to a millenarian or Hegelian view of history. The long run of human events is, Murdoch implies, nothing but a succession of short runs -- one damn thing after another, if you will -- each utterly contingent on what happened last.

Now, if I had a 'time machine' and could travel back to Persia in 363 CE, to deflect the spear that pierced Julian's ribs and liver .....