God Against the Gods (38 page)

CHAPTER TEN: “Behold, the Rivers Are Running Backwards”

1
Quoted in (and adapted from) Robert Browning,
The Emperor Julian
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 107, and Edward Gibbon,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, (New York: Heritage, 1946), 1: 647.

2
“It was probably on this occasion that he issued his first edict of toleration. Its precise terms are unknown, but it seems to have accorded freedom of public worship to adherents of pagan cults. . . .” Browning, 108-9.

3
Julian,
Letter to the Athenians
, in Wilmer Cave Wright, Mass. trans.,
The Works of the Emperor Julian
, (1913; reprint Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980) 2: 249 (adapted). We do not know the name of the “eldest brother” whom Julian includes in the list of victims of Constantius II’s purge.

4
Julian,
Letter to the Athenians
, in ibid. 2: 251, 253.

5
Julian,
Letter to the Athenians
, in ibid. 2: 261.

6
Ibid.

7
Quoted in Samuel N. C. Lieu, ed.,
The Emperor Julian: Panegyric and Polemic
, 2d ed. (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1989), 3 (adapted).

8
Quoted in Browning, 135.

9
Quoted in Giuseppe Ricciotti,
Julian the Apostate, Roman Emperor, 361-363
, trans. M. Joseph Costelloe, S. J. (1960; reprint, Rockford, Ill.: Tan Books, 1999), 179.

10
Quoted in Lieu, 59.

11
Julian,
To the Uneducated Cynics
, in Wright, 2: 5 (adapted) and fn. 1.

12
Quoted in Browning, 134.

13
Gibbon, 1:636.

14
Julian,
The Caesars
, quoted in Ricciotti, 170.

15
Quoted in Lieu, 60 (adapted).

16
Quoted in Gibbon, 1:656.

17
Ibid., 1:655.

18
Julian,
Misopogon
, in Wright, 2:429.

19
Gibbon, 1:655 (adapted).

20
Gibbon, 1:660.

21
Ibid., 1:661.

22
Julian,
To Artabius
, quoted in Ricciotti, 202.

23
Quoted in Augustus Neander,
The Emperor Julian and His Generation
trans. C. V. Cox, (1812; reprint, Eugene, Ore.: Wipf and Stock, 2001), xiii.

24
Quoted in John Holland Smith,
The Death of Classical Paganism
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 106 (adapted).

25
Ps. 97:7.

26
The
Artemio Passio
, quoted in Samuel N. C. Lieu and Dominic Montserrat, eds.,
From Constantine to Julian: Pagan and Byzantine Views, A Source History
(London: Routledge, 1996), 249, 250, 251 (adapted from various passages).

27
Quoted in Smith,
Death of Classical Paganism
, 117.

28
Quoted in Pierre Chuvin,
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
trans. B. A. Archer, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 47.

29
Julian,
Mispogon,
quoted in Smith, 1976, 108.

30
Quoted in Chuvin, 46.

31
Quoted in Ricciotti, 199 (adapted).

32
Quoted in Edward J. Martin,
The Emperor Julian: An Essay on His Relations with the Christian Religion
. (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 46 (adapted).

33
Julian,
Against the Galileans
, quoted in Smith,
Death of Classical Paganism
, 109.

34
Julian,
Against the Galileans
, quoted in Martin, 31.

35
Julian,
The Caesars
, in Wright, 2:411, 413 (adapted.)

36
Quoted in Diana Bowder,
The Age of Constantine and Julian
(New York: Barnes & Noble, 1978), 120.

37
Ibid. (adapted).

38
Quoted in Ricciotti, 188.

39
Browning, 175-76.

40
Quoted in Ricciotti, 189.

41
Ricciotti, 190, paraphrasing Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom.

42
Julian,
Hymn to King Helios
, in Wright, 1:357 (adapted).

43
Julian,
Hymn to the Mother of the Gods
, in ibid., 1:449 (adapted).

44
Quoted in Robin Lane Fox,
Pagans and Christians
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987), 149.

45
Browning, 139.

46
The pagan emperor Maximinus Daia (c. 270-313) had tried but failed to establish a unified pagan church about a half century earlier.

47
Browning, 139.

48
Julian,
Against the Galileans
, in Wright, 3:323.

49
Ricciotti, 184.

50
Quoted in Chuvin, 43.

51
Julian,
To Ecdicius
, quoted in (and adapted from) Ricciotti, 17.

52
Julian,
To the People of Alexandria
, in Wright, 3:63, 67 (adapted).

53
Ricciotti, 184.

54
Ibid., 185.

55
Julian,
To the Community of the Jews
, in Wright, 3:179.

56
Julian,
Against the Galileans
, quoted in (and slightly adapted from) Ricciotti, 223.

57
Matt. 24: 1-2 (adapted).

58
John 2:21.

59
Ricciotti, 224.

60
Hershel Shanks,
Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography
(New York: Random House, 1995). The inscription, which is only partially quoted here, is from Isa. 66:14.

61
Quoted in Ricciotti, 225.

62
S. Safrai, “The Era of the Mishnah and Talmud (70-640),” in H. H. Ben-Sasson, ed.
A History of the Jewish People
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976), 353-54.

63
Julian,
To the Community of the Jews
, in Wright, 3:181.

64
Julian,
Misopogon
, in ibid., 2:423.

65
Quoted in Browning, 198.

66
Ricciotti, 245, paraphrasing Ammianus.

67
Browning, 207.

68
Quoted in Smith, 1976, 119, fn. 28.

69
Chuvin, 48.

70
Quoted in Ricciotti, 254, citing Theodoret and Sozomen.

EPILOGUE: The Handless Scribe

1
Ramsay MacMullen,
Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 128.

2
Quoted in John Holland Smith,
The Death of Classical Paganism
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 95, 96.

3
Edward Gibbon,
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
(1776; reprint, New York: Heritage, 1946), 1:655.

4
Edward J. Martin,
The Emperor Julian: An Essay on His Relations with the Christian Religion
. (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 7.

5
Paraphrased in Robert Browning,
The Emperor Julian
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), 219.

6
Quoted in Gerald Henry Rendall,
The Emperor Julian: Paganism and Christianity
(Cambridge: Deighton, Bell and Co., and London: George Bell and Sons, 1879), 274.

7
Quoted in Browning, 217.

8
Quoted in Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick,
A History of Pagan Europe
(London: Routledge, 1995), 72.

9
Quoted in Pierre Chuvin, trans.
A Chronicle of the Last Pagans
B. A. Archer, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 76.

10
J. N. Hillgarth, ed.,
Christianity and Paganism, 350-750: The Conversion of Western Europe
, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986), 5, quoting Gilbert Murray.

11
Jacob Burckhardt,
The Age of Constantine the Great
, trans. Moses Hadas (1852; reprint Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1949), quoting Jacques Callot (adapted).

12
Quoted in Smith,
Death of Classical Paganism,
166.

13
Ibid., 162.

14
Samuel Dill,
Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire
, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Meridian, 1958) 26.

15
Jacob Neusner,
Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine: History, Messiah, Israel and the Initial Confrontation
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 16 (adapted).

16
Quoted in James Carroll,
Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews
(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 206.

17
Quoted in Hillgarth, 47 (adapted).

18
Quoted in A. R. Whitham,
The History of the Christian Church to the Separation of East and West
, 4th ed. (London: Rivingtons, 1954), 256.

19
Quoted in Dill, 28.

20
Richard E. Rubenstein,
When Jesus Became God: The Struggle to Define Christianity During the Last Days of Rome
(San Diego: Harcourt, 1999), 224.

21
Edward Alexander Parsons,
The Alexandrian Library: Glory of the Hellenic World
(London: Cleaver-Hume, 1952), 344 (adapted).

22
Chuvin, 67.

23
Quoted in Parsons, 354.

24
Chuvin, 66.

25
Quoted in Smith,
Death of Classical Paganism
, 169-70.

26
Quoted in Chuvin, 86.

27
Quoted in Parsons, 356.

28
E. M. Forster,
Alexandria: A History and a Guide
(Alexandria: Whitehead Morris, 1938), 46.

29
Hillgarth, 2.

30
Ibid., 4 (adapted).

31
MacMullen, 4.

32
Browning, 175.

33
James George Frazer,
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
, abridged ed. (1922; reprint, New York: Macmillan, 1979), 445.

34
Quoted in MacMullen, 124.

35
Jones and Pennick, 2.

36
Quoted in Caesar E. Farah,
Islam: Beliefs and Observances
(Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron’s, 1970).

37
Karen Armstrong,
Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World
(New York: Anchor, 2001).

38
Hermann Dorries,
Constantine the Great
, trans. Roland H. Bainton (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), 199.

39
Franz Cumont,
Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism
(1911; reprint, New York: Dover, 1956), 197.

40
Ibid.

Bibliography

Note on Adaptation and Bible Usage:

Where I have altered punctuation and capitalization or omitted words and phrases from quoted material without changing the meaning of the text, I have taken the liberty of generally omitting brackets and ellipses to indicate the alterations and omissions. Whenever I have done so, the note identifies the quotation as “adapted.”

As one example, I have not followed the tradition of capitalizing the personal pronouns that refer to God. As a more substantive matter, I have sometimes used “Yahweh,” the personal name of God, in place of “Lord,” its customary English translation.

Where no specific source is given in the text or the endnotes, quotations from the Hebrew Bible are taken (and, in some cases, adapted) from the 1961 edition of the Jewish Publication Society’s
The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text
(JPS), and quotations from the Christian Bible are taken from the 1909 Oxford University Press edition of the
King James Version
(KJV). All other quotations from various English translations of the Bible are cited in the text or the notes using the following abbreviations to identify the source:

NEB
The New English Bible with the Apocrypha
. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1970.

New JPS
Tanakh, The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text
. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985.

Another Bible that I have consulted is:

Speiser, E. A., trans., intro., and notes.
Genesis
.
The Anchor Bible
. Vol. 1. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1987.

Reference Works

Freedman, David Noel, ed.
The Anchor Bible Dictionary
. 6 vols. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1992.

Encyclopedia Judaica
. Corrected ed. 17 vols. Jerusalem: Keter, n.d.