E Finch

  There is a lofty incredulity 2 Julian's attitude. How can a religion based among the poorer castes of society and without a true civilisation behind it, have come to conquer the GraecoRoman world—declining as it was—in such a short time, and with such a deleterious effect? Especially when the laws of government, the form of tribunals, the economy and beauty pertaining to cities, the increase of disciplines and the exercise of the liberal arts, were only evident among the Hebrews in a miserable and primutive state? Part of the answer was just that: Judaeo-Christianity was not a civilisation with a religion, but an oppressive religion with little of a civilisation to back it up. Juban underestimated how this might be one of Christianity’s unique selling points. “Civilisation” could come later, if at all; their religion was their civilisation. It was freestanding, therefore absolutist and—inevitably—monopolistic. 

It was obvious to Julian that the adherents of such a religion shouldn’t be allowed to teach Hellenistic philosophy. “If a man thinks one thing, and teaches another contrary to what he thinks, in what respect does this differ from the conduct of those mean-spirited, dishonest and abandoned traders, who generally affirm what they know to be false, in order to deceive and inveigle customers?” Further, those parvenu Galileans displayed a hysterical nature, as shown in their taste for martyrdom, which, as Julian puts it, “make[s] them think death desirable, that they may fly up to heaven, after having forcibly dislodged their souls.” 

Finally, the Apostate is baffled by Christianity’s sheer lack of sophistication, its refusal to acknowledge experts, its preterence for lauding the fool and the simpleton over the scribe and the wise man. Thomas Taylor, Julian’s English translator of 1809 and himself a “philosophic polytheist,” expatiated enthusiastically on this: 

[Jesus] also seems chiefly delighted with little children, women, and fishermen; carefully recommended folly to his apostles, but cautioned them against wisdom; and drew them together by the example of little children, lilies, mustard seed, and sparrows, things senseless and inconsiderable, living only by the dictates of nature, and without either craft or care ... In scripture there is frequent mention of harts, hinds, and lambs, than which creature there is not anything more foolish, if we may believe that proverb of Aristotle, sheepish manners, which is taken from the foolishness of that creature, and is usually applied to dull-headed people, and lack-wits. And yet Christ himself professes to be the shepherd of his flock, and is himself delighted with the name of a Lamb! 

It’s worth pointing out that recent scientific studies have demonstrated that, contrary to age-old received opinion, sheep are in fact highly intelligent and emotionally complex animals, with good memories, the ability to form friendships and to feel sadness when their companions are sent to slaughter. 

Publicly, Julian was opposed to violent measures. “I have resolved,” he wrote, “to employ gentleness and humanity towards the Galileans; I forbid any recourse to violence ... It is by reason that one must convince and instruct men, not by blows, insults and torture.” Further, “One should feel pity more than hatred for people so unfortunate as to be mistaken in matters so important.” 

This was principle, but also pragmatism. Miracles and martyrdom were the two great selling points of early Christianity. You died for your religion and gained eternal life: the notion still inspires some today. But Julian declined to persecute them. 

Q. What happens (in the minds of men and women) when a god is no longer worshipped? Does he cease to exist? Or does he continue to circle the earth like another piece of space junk, beeping hopefully on a dead wavelength? 

What was left, apart from the example of his life, was his famous last stand against Christianity—the more famous because, for Gibbon, it was always doomed: 

The genius and power of Julian were unequal to the enterprise of restoring a religion which was destitute of theological principles, of moral precepts, and of ecclesiastical discipline; which rapidly hastened to decay and dissolution, and was not susceptible of any solid or consistent reformation. Julian had dismissed the corrupt and venal court eunuchs when he came to power, just as he had dismissed the preposterous number of barbers. He might himself have given an example of austerity and simplicity, but that example wasn't followed by even those closest to him. 

But these deaths are just precursors to Sebastian’s own. Like the best martyrs, he first escapes several attempts to kill him. The most famous of these pre-death deaths is when the emperor Diocletian orders him to be tied to a tree and used for archery practice: “They hit him with so many arrows that he looked like a hedgehog” (aha, I thought, remembering EF’s notebook—and here is a confirmatory tick in the margin) “and they left him there for dead.’ The scene is familiar from many art galleries, and I have always assumed—as did Diocletian’s archers—that their arrows were the actual cause of death. In fact, St. Sebastian survived this hedgehoggery, and his gateway to martyrdom consisted instead of being beaten to death with clubs and thrown into a sewer.