The Historians of Late Antiquity (44 page)

Eutropius presents a succinct judgement on Julian’s religious policy: “he persecuted the Christians excessively, but nevertheless he avoided bloodshed” (10.16.3). This is the same way in which the ecclesiastical historians tend to frame their accounts (Penella 1993; Barcellona 1995; Thélamon 1981: 281–309). Each presents a few examples of actual Christian martyrs under Julian’s reign. All stress as well that the lack of martyrs is evidence of the insidious cleverness of Julian, who tried through tricks and rewards rather than violence to turn Christians from the true faith.

Rufinus’ account of Julian’s religious program is short, but features many themes upon which later church historians elaborated. In particular, Rufinus’ Julian is a clever persecutor, who learned that Christians were strengthened by martyrdom and thus attacked them more subtly. These attacks, Rufinus is careful to point out, were nevertheless as dangerous and as malicious as those of earlier persecutors: “a persecutor more clever than others, he won over nearly a majority of the people as if he had struck them violently, not by force or tortures but by prizes, honors, flattery, and persuasion” (10.33). Rufinus provides a list of positions forbidden to Christians and then several examples of the brave behavior of Christians under pressure. He claims that Christians were excluded from major positions in the bureaucracy and the army, and that the study of literature was forbidden to Christians (10.33). This last misrepresentation of Julian’s school law, which actually forbade Christians to teach, but not to study, was repeated by most of his successor historians.

In his brief account of Julian’s visit to the Castalian spring, Rufinus claims that the priests blamed the martyr Babylas for his inability to receive a prophetic response. In a rage, Julian ordered
the remains removed, and a procession of psalm-singing Christians took them away (10.36). Rufinus claims that Julian, maddened with rage, ordered that Christians be arrested and tortured at random, and he reports one example of a victim of this supposed order. A young man named Theodore, with whom Rufinus himself spoke, was tortured for hours without breaking (10.37). Theodore later claimed that he was without pain and was able to calmly sing hymns because he felt that a boy was standing next to him, soothing his pain with cool water and a white cloth. Rufinus devotes particular attention to Julian’s attempt to rebuild the Jewish Temple (10.38). The reconstruction is framed as a showdown between Judeo-pagan arrogance and Christian truth, and when a series of disasters destroyed the building site Julian’s own coming downfall is proleptically announced.

Socrates’ account of Julian’s program is much fuller than that of Rufinus. He emphasizes Julian’s cleverness and his ability to manipulate different factions in society (3.1.43–8). He is also eager to show that, despite Julian’s claim to be a philosopher, the emperor did not in fact act in accordance with true philosophy during his reign. The recall of bishops, most of them orthodox, from exile, was a policy which would seem favorable to orthodox readers, and thus the historians are careful to emphasize Julian’s hidden purposes. Socrates says that the recall was ordered to make Constantius appear to have been cruel toward his subjects in comparison with his successor (3.1.48). Socrates later repeats the charge, arguing that although Julian had readily agreed to Christian requests when they reflected poorly on the policies of Constantius, his normal instinct was to be contemptuous toward them (3.11.1–2).

Socrates draws from Rufinus the contention that the new incentives which a pagan emperor provided quickly separated true Christians from nominal ones. As evidence, he provides the case of the sophist Hecebolius, who was a Christian under Constantius, a pagan under Julian, and then a Christian again after Julian’s death (3.13.5–6). Socrates presents a long digression inspired by Julian’s school law (3.12.7, 3.16). In response to the law, Socrates relates, two Christian rhetoricians, the younger and elder Apollinaris, created a wholly Christian curriculum. The elder Apollinaris translated the five books of Moses into epic verse and put some other books of the Hebrew Bible into the form of tragedies. His son rewrote the New Testament in the form of Platonic dialogues. This fascinating expedient was not necessary for long, of course, since Julian soon died and the law was rescinded. Socrates uses this
episode as an opportunity to discuss the broader issues of Christian education which it raised. He argues both that truth is to be found in the works of the ancients, even if it is not the full truth of Christianity, and, in a more instrumental way, he argues that Christians have need of the tools of rhetoric in order to effectively make their case against pagans. Julian’s reign must surely have inspired many similar reflections on the relationship between Christian and secular education, which clearly remained a matter for serious discussion in Socrates’ own day.

Socrates provides three examples of violent persecution during Julian’s reign. He takes from Rufinus the case of Theodore and the miraculous brow-wiper (3.19). He also presents the case of the Phrygians Macedonius, Theodulus, and Tatian, who, disgusted at the reopening of a temple by the governor Amachius, broke into the temple at night and demolished the idols (3.15). Given a chance to avoid punishment by sacrificing, they obstinately refused, and as a result were tortured and roasted to death on a grill. Socrates describes the killing of George at Alexandria in far greater detail than Ammianus had (3.2). In his version, Constantius had granted to George the right to build a church over a Mithraeum, a subterranean temple to the eastern god Mithras. In cleaning out the shrine, numerous human skulls were discovered, which were said to be the remains of persons of all ages who had been sacrificed for divinatory purposes. The Christians paraded these skulls through the streets of Alexandria, whereupon the insulted pagans launched an attack which resulted in casualties on both sides. In connection with these disturbances, Socrates claims, George was killed, having been tied to a camel, torn to pieces, and then burned (along with the camel). The method of execution seems to have pagan ritual overtones, and the burning was a way of preventing the preservation of George’s bones for later veneration. Socrates’ account agrees with that of Ammianus in the suggestion that George was widely disliked by people of all classes. Some had claimed that George, a homoiousian, was killed by supporters of Athanasius, but Socrates disagrees, and as proof that pagans were to blame he reprints the letter which Julian wrote to the citizens on the occasion (3.3). The emperor blames the attack on pagans, who, he says, should not have engaged in such violence, even though he feels that George probably deserved even worse.

Sozomen draws upon Socrates for much of his narrative of Julian’s religious policies, but he seems to have felt that Socrates was not critical enough of the emperor. Both through arrangement
of material and through the introduction of supplementary material, Sozomen leaves the impression of a more malevolent emperor and a more frightening reign. Unlike Socrates’ account, which proceeds through Julian’s life in chronological order, Sozomen begins with several accounts of the emperor’s paganism before sketching his childhood in flashback (5.1–2). This helps place Julian’s evil in the foreground. We are told that the emperor so openly apostatized, and so frequently bathed himself in the blood of sacrificed animals, that he underwent a kind of reverse baptism. Sozomen also evokes the state of mind of the Christians of the empire at Julian’s accession. He suggests that the fear Christians felt at the possibility of a true persecution was more painful than an actual persecution would have been (5.2.1). This is a recurrent theme in Sozomen, who, like other church historians, frequently reminds the reader that Julian’s abstention from full-blown persecution was merely a device to forward his aim of conversion. When Maris, the bishop of Chalcedon, rebuked Julian for his atheism, Julian mocked his blindness, saying that Jesus would never cure him. Maris responded that he was glad to be blind, so that he would not have to gaze upon an apostate face. Julian made no reply, according to Sozomen, because he thought the display of “forbearance and gentleness” toward Christians would be more beneficial for paganism (5.4.9). Even after narrating the emperor’s death, Sozomen returns to this idea, arguing that Julian’s lack of overt persecution was only strategic and that he had threatened to launch a full-scale assault on Christianity on his return from Persia (6.2.9).

Sozomen’s presentation of Julian’s subtle persecution may be divided into two sorts of material. First, the historian provides examples of laws and policies of the emperor which were prejudicial, even if not openly persecutory, toward Christians, and second, he provides examples of actions taken by Julian’s subordinates or by local officials which the emperor failed to prevent. Julian’s school law is an example of the first sort. Unlike Socrates, Sozomen is not at all convinced of the value of the classics, stating that the writings of Apollinaris would undoubtedly be considered as good as the classics if it were not for the extreme love for antiquity by which men are possessed (5.18.4). Sozomen also provides numerous details about how the emperor manipulated financial and urban policy to benefit pagans. For example, Caesarea, the metropolis of Cappadocia, was removed from the list of independent cities because it was so strongly Christian. He adds that the property of the church of Caesarea was looted and the clergy forced to serve in
the governor’s bodyguard (5.4.1–5). Julian’s removal of the exemptions and privileges which Constantine had granted to the clergy might not be self-evidently discriminatory, but Sozomen details the hardship that it caused (5.5.1–4). Churches were forced to pay back the funds they had raised from a tax which had been specially earmarked for them during the reign of Constantine. These backdated demands required church property to be sold, and Sozomen claims that money was even demanded from nuns who had taken vows of poverty. Clergy were also held responsible for rebuilding temples which had been destroyed, and failure to pay led to torture and imprisonment.

To the short list of martyrs which Socrates had provided, Sozomen adds many more stories, drawn often from Gregory Nazianzen or from his own personal experience. These stories bear much similarity to the story of George. In most cases, pagans, encouraged by the example of their emperor, took advantage of the new order to attack Christians or drive them away. The murders of Eusebius, Nestabus, and Zeno in Gaza may serve as examples of this sort of event (5.9). The inhabitants of Gaza beat and imprisoned the three, and then assembled in the theater, where they accused the Christians of committing sacrilege in the temple and generally demeaning the gods. The prisoners were then killed in a gruesome fashion. It was reported, says Sozomen, that the emperor was enraged about these events, but this was untrue and merely an expression of the guilty feelings of the perpetrators. In fact, Julian did not even bother to write a letter, as he did after George’s death, and when the governor of the province arrested some of the perpetrators, Sozomen claims, the emperor removed him from power and threatened him with death (5.9.11–13). Sozomen returns to the theme of the emperor’s failure to act repeatedly. After recounting more similar stories, he remarks that even if the emperor did not commit these acts, nevertheless there were many martyrs (5.11.12). Later Sozomen describes how his own grandfather was one of many Christians who were forced to flee for fear of mob violence, repeating his contention that blame ought to be fixed upon the emperor, who did not apply the law to perpetrators (5.15.13–14). Sozomen also accuses Julian of appointing subordinates who persecuted Christians in violation of the emperor’s explicit wishes. One such subordinate was Julian’s uncle, also named Julian, who served as prefect of the east. When Julian was looting the church of Antioch and torturing a priest, he mocked the sacred church vessels by performing lewd acts upon them. In the case of this Julian,
divine wrath functioned with appalling swiftness, as his genitals and rectum were immediately afflicted with an incurable worm infestation, which killed him (5.8).

Sozomen catalogues some of the means by which the emperor sought to stealthily induce his subjects to worship the gods (5.17). The emperor placed pictures of Zeus and Ares next to pictures of himself, in the hope, Sozomen suggests, of tricking Romans who were simply offering the respect due to an emperor into simultaneously worshipping pagan gods. The emperor also presented Roman soldiers who had come to receive their pay with incense and fire for a sacrifice. Many obeyed out of greed or habit, says Sozomen, although he does add a tale of several soldiers who realized too late what they had done, and then ran screaming through the streets in horror until they were able to return their pay to the emperor.

Sozomen relates, following Rufinus and Socrates, the stories of the temple of Apollo at Daphne and the Temple in Jerusalem. His account of the suburb of Daphne is particularly full, as he adds details about the discreditable and erotic nature of the place which he perhaps derived from his personal experience (5.19–20). Sozomen’s account of the rebuilding of the temple is expanded from that of Socrates with the addition of more colorful details and of his own reflective comments on the lessons to be drawn from the events (5.22). Despite his reliance on Socrates, Sozomen claims to have learned the story from eyewitnesses, and he directs disbelieving readers to go and track down witnesses themselves.

Theodoret provides less detail and more atmosphere than Socrates or Sozomen, as is his wont. Like Sozomen, he is most critical of Julian’s refusal to protect Christians under assault by their neighbors and by his entrusting of “civil and military offices to the most savage and impious men” (3.6.5). Theodoret provides quick sketches of martyrdoms and persecutions similar to those offered by Sozomen (3.7, 11, 15, 18). He expands on Sozomen’s story of the blasphemy and ensuing disease of Julian’s uncle Julian by adding that Felix and Elpidius, two other high government officials, were present as well (3.12–13). Shortly after Julian’s horrible death, Felix too died, although he is silent on Elpidius’ fate.