It’s ironic that the Roman emperor Julian (331 – 363 CE) would later be given the epithet “apostate” by the very group that he himself had leveled the charge against. Christians—branded even as “atheists,” by some—were said to have abandoned their cultural and religious inheritance twice over—first, in their turning away from the Greeks, and then, from the Jews. Not only did the Christians refuse to respect the gods of Greece and Rome, but they stole, twisted, and ultimately abandoned even the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. So said their critics, anyway. 

Christians were—for these reasons (and for sheer obstinacy)—violently persecuted, on occasion, by several Roman emperors, including Nero, Decius, Valerian, Diocletian, and Galerius. Julian the “apostate”—the last pagan emperor—however, was not one of them. 

It’s true that Julian did not love Christianity—any more so, probably, than any other pagan emperor. But he also considered the faith to be a kind of spiritual disease, whereby he felt, like a physician, more sympathy for the afflicted than anger or hatred. “It is by reason that we ought to persuade and instruct people,” wrote Julian, “not by blows or by insults or physical violence.” And so he would try to persuade the Christians—to talk them out of their spiritual delusions—by writing Against the Galileans (“Galileans,” in this case, meaning Christians). 

Julian’s reign was cut short (only 20 months) due to an untimely death on the battlefield, but during his reign, his treatment of Christians can only be described as overwhelmingly peaceful. “I have behaved to all the Galileans with such kindness and benevolence,” wrote Julian, “that none of them has suffered violence anywhere or been dragged into a temple or threatened into anything else of the sort against their own will.”

Julian set an early example of clemency (reopening temples and recalling exiled bishops from all Christian sects), religious toleration (albeit imperfectly; see his “school edict,” which effectively barred Christians from teaching), and civility that, had he not been killed at the age of 32, may have changed the course of Western history. 

He was also an early champion of unconditional charitable works. “We ought to share our money with all people,” Julian wrote, “but more generously with the good, and with the helpless and the poor so as to suffice for their need . . . it would be an act dear to the Gods to share our clothes and food even with the wicked.” As with emperor Marcus Aurelius before him, Julian advanced a virtue-driven approach to political morality—all without the rigid intolerance associated with the Judeo-Christian tradition. 

But it was not to be; after his death, the Christianization of the Western world would run unimpeded—with all the consequences, for better or worse (worse, we will argue), that this twist of fate would produce. 

Julian’s turn against Christianity

Julian was raised and educated as a Christian; unfortunately for the faith, he was also raised and educated in the classics of Greek antiquity—including the works of Plato—which he found, like Celsus and Porphyry before him, far more sophisticated and compelling. This ultimately led Julian to believe that Christianity was a sickness of the soul and a source of social and political dissolution; he therefore did his best to restore the values and traditions of ancient Rome. 

He meant to do this, as we’ve said, peacefully, which prompted him, as a philosopher and scholar, to write Against the Galileans. Needless to say—as with most ancient pagan literature—little of this work survives. 

As an aside, note that Julian never ordered copies of Christian literature to be burned; that kind of outright censorship seems to have always come from the Christians, in response to heathen literature, giving you some indication as to which works were thought to be harder to refute. And in fact, Julian wanted you to read scripture, so that you could see for yourself all the various contradictions that he pointed out. 

In any case, in 448, the Christian emperor Theodosius II decreed that any works “not in exact harmony with the orthodox faith be consigned to the fire.” Julian’s work, which surely qualified, was therefore cast into the flames; we have, as a result, only fragments and commentaries (probably around 15-20 percent of the original work) preserved mostly through quotations in the antagonistic work of Cyril of Alexandria. 

This is a shame, of course, but our purpose is not to cover everything Julian wrote; rather, we’re going to zero in on a particularly powerful argument that is well worth revisiting today: namely, the idea that Christianity—by simultaneously revering yet repudiating the laws of Moses—is logically incoherent.

Let’s see what Julian had to say about this.

The contradiction at the heart of the New Testament 

Jesus was, of course, Jewish, and so, for the practicing Christian, the immediate question is this: Did Jesus come to fulfill the law handed down to Moses, or did he mean to replace, supersede, or otherwise modify it? No question could be of greater importance; for it tells the Christian just how much they should pay attention to the Old Testament—particularly the Pentateuch, or the Five Books of Moses. 

Fortunately, Jesus tells us the answer. “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets;” Jesus said, “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt 5:17). And in case that wasn’t clear, Jesus reiterates: “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 5:19). 

And so we have our unequivocal answer. Jesus—who is otherwise known for speaking cryptically and in parables—is, for once, perfectly blunt. He even shows himself to be well-versed in the Torah itself, which states, in the clearest of terms, the eternal nature of the law. Here’s what Moses himself had to say (we’re ignoring, for now, the scholarly consensus that Moses did not, in fact, write the books of the Pentateuch):

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law (Deut. 29:29).

Julian believed it was ludicrous to think that Mosaic law could ever be overturned if you took the Old Testament seriously, which, remember, Jesus specifically instructed you to do. As Julian wrote:

I will clearly prove that this lying claim [that Jesus can change the law] is false, producing from Moses not only ten but ten thousand testimonies where he calls the law ‘eternal.’ Listen now to a passage from Exodus: ‘This day will be a day of remembrance for you. Celebrate it with a celebration for the Master throughout your generations. Celebrate it as an eternal custom. For seven days eat unleavened bread. From the first day remove leaven from your houses.’…I’ve omitted many such statements, proving that the Law of Moses is eternal. I refrain from listing them all since they are so many.

Julian is correct: Moses refers to the law as being “eternal” or “forever” in Exodus 12:14 (regarding Passover), Exodus 12:17 (regarding the Festival of Unleavened Bread), and Exodus 31:16-17 (on observing the Sabbath), among many other references. So far, then, Jesus and Moses are perfectly reconciled.  

But things get dicey, quickly. “Christ said that he came to fulfill the Law and that the one who dissolves the smallest commandment and teaches people to do likewise will be called the least (in the kingdom),” Julian wrote, “but Jesus himself dissolves the sabbath.” Julian is here referring to Mark 2:27-28:

Then he said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’

Jesus, who himself had confirmed the eternal nature of the laws of Moses, is stating his intention to rule over them, and in some cases, to explicitly overturn them. Consider Mark 7:18-19:

Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body. (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Jesus repeats these sentiments in Matthew (Matt 15:11, 17-20); namely, that nothing entering the body can defile you, and that, as a result, all foods are deemed clean and appropriate for consumption. This, of course, stands in sharp contrast to Leviticus 11:1-4:

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Say to the Israelites: ‘Of all the animals that live on land, these are the ones you may eat: You may eat any animal that has a divided hoof and that chews the cud. There are some that only chew the cud or only have a divided hoof, but you must not eat them.’”

Leviticus 11 proceeds, in detail, to describe the animals that are clean and unclean, and therefore which can and cannot be eaten. Pigs, for example, while having split hooves, do not “chew the cud,” and are therefore ritually unclean and forbidden from consumption. 

Leviticus also prohibits eating insects, with a few exceptions—locusts and grasshoppers among them—which even John the Baptist took seriously: “John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey” (Mark 1:6). But Jesus, and Jesus alone, decreed the law null and void, and did so after stating that you must observe the law in every small detail. 

Christian apologists may try to spin this, in various ways, as they are wont to do, but you need only remember that the idea that foods can defile you (Lev. 11) and the idea that they can’t defile you (Mark 7:18-19) cannot both be true at the same time. 

Jesus sought to overturn the law in other areas, as well. Moses, for example, explicitly allowed for the filing of divorce (only for the husband, of course):

If a man marries a woman who becomes displeasing to him because he finds something indecent about her . . . he writes her a certificate of divorce, gives it to her and sends her from his house (Deut. 24:1-2).

What does Jesus have to say about this? His answer is pretty clear: “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery, and the man who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Luke 16:18). Jesus explains the discrepancy:

‘Why then,’ they asked, ‘did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?’ Jesus replied, ‘Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning’ (Matt 19:7-8).

Let’s recap: Jesus is telling you he is here to fulfill the law, not to overturn it, and that, if you disobey even the smallest command, you will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. Later, Jesus tells you, in the plainest of terms, that you are perfectly free to break the law by eating unclean foods and, despite what Moses had said, are strictly prohibited from divorcing your wife. In the context of such blatant contradictions, you might well see how Christians (and Jews) have come to so vociferously disagree with one another. 

Jesus is overturning laws that Moses repeatedly called eternal and that Jesus himself had said to follow because he would not seek to overturn them (since, you know, they’re eternal). This is utterly incoherent, of course, and is precisely what you would expect from a book haphazardly strewn together based on hearsay and religious propaganda—and not, crucially, from divinely-inspired authors. That much, at least to Julian, was perfectly clear.  

Interlude on the Ten Commandments

Ok, so Julian was no fan of Christianity, but neither was he very impressed with Judaism, and, in particular, with its characterization of Yahweh himself. To think, for example, that the Ten Commandments represent some brilliant exposition on moral philosophy would require a near-total ignorance of ancient Greek philosophy—and surrounding traditions—which explored the complexities of moral behavior to a degree that the Torah could never touch. 

“What nation, by the Gods, doesn’t think it is necessary to keep these commands [the Ten Commandments],” Julian wrote, “apart from ‘you will not worship other Gods’ and ‘remember the sabbath day’?” It’s hard to imagine that any human group, at any point in history, could have survived in the absence of any prohibitions (or punishments) for murder, theft, and perjury. In fact, we can ask how the Jews themselves made it as far as they did—to Mount Sinai in the first place—if they had all previously thought it perfectly reasonable to senselessly steal from and murder each other.

The purpose of the Ten Commandments was, clearly—since it’s spelled out in the first two—to command obedience to one God and one religion; all the rest of the commandments—the morally obvious ones—were hastily thrown in for good measure, although, it should be said, much is lacking, like, for instance, prohibitions against child abuse, rape, torture, and slavery. God had the perfect opportunity to rectify this—perhaps adding something about the evils of human bondage—after Moses had smashed the first set of tablets. But God decided, instead—in his infinite wisdom—to use the tenth and final commandment in this new, second set of tablets to prohibit the cooking of “a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Exod. 34:26). Thank God for that. 

But back to the first two commandments:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments (Exod. 20:1-6).

Is there, anywhere in the annals of religion, a better example of anthropomorphic projection? Why does Moses make his God seem so needy and fragile? “So a person who is jealous and malignant appears worthy of blame,” Julian wrote, “but you deify a ‘God’ said to be jealous?” Likewise, a person who “punishes the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” is unquestionably blameworthy, and yet, we deify a God who does the same. How is it, Julian asked, that mere mortals have developed more just laws than the omniscient and all-loving creator of the universe, who is, oftentimes, willing to punish thousands of innocent people for the transgressions of the few?

Julian recounts the biblical story of Phinehas, who murdered two people involved in inappropriate sexual relations and the worship of foreign gods (Num. 25). Yahweh, being highly pleased with these murders (the sixth commandment notwithstanding), says, “Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest has put a stop to my rage against the sons of Israel in my extreme jealousy among them. And I did not wipe out the sons of Israel in my jealousy.” 

“Why does the Hebrew God so quickly change from rage to satisfaction by the bloody deed of Phinehas?” Julian asks. “This kind of emotional vacillation and change is unfitting for a universal God.” Julian is surely correct; if God is supposed to be the model of moral perfection that one strives, yet ultimately fails, to live up to, then Yahweh falls far short, as most people already operate on a higher moral plane. 

To “live like the gods,” said Epicurus, is to live in a perpetual state of undisturbed tranquility. “Yet what is the imitation of God hymned by the Hebrews?” Julian asked. “Rage, anger, and savage jealousy.” Yahweh is not a God worthy of moral adulation—like the gods of the philosophers—but of moral condemnation—as the violent, mercurial, fabricated deity he so clearly is. 

Julian’s final stand against Christian encroachment

Julian saw, more plainly than most, the societal dangers of Christianity. First, unlike the pagan religions, Christianity was uncompromisingly monotheistic, demanding total submission to their one true god and openly condemning all other gods and traditions—a position flagrantly antagonistic to the religious pluralism and toleration Julian was trying to restore.  

Second, and relatedly, Christianity, rather than encouraging critical debate, had a tendency to actively suppress and destroy pagan literature rather than engage with it. This is, of course, the antithesis of the “examined life” espoused by Socrates—where nothing is taken solely on the basis of authority—and had an intellectually stunting effect that Julian was desperately trying to avoid.

And finally, Julian foresaw conflicts within the cult of Christianity itself. Dogmatic systems of belief with rigid guidelines that contradict each other—and deliver conflicting messages—are ripe for splintering and vehement internal dissension, paving a path to bigotry and violence. When opposing systems of “faith” collide—and when nonviolent means of reconciliation are inevitably exhausted—violence and repression become the primary tools of persuasion. 

The Jew, for example, says Jesus can’t overturn eternal law, the Christian says otherwise, one eats pork, one refuses to, and neither can prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, which position is “correct.” So, they condemn each other, selectively cite scripture to suit their purpose, and, when they attain political power, impose their beliefs upon “nonbelievers” and “apostates” with the full force of the almighty God behind them. Hence the bloody history of Western monotheistic religion that Julian heroically tried, yet failed, to stop. 

Further reading

• Litwa, M. David. Julian Against the Apostates: A Translation and Reconstruction of Julian’s Against the Galileans. 
• Murdoch, Adrian. The Last Pagan: Julian the Apostate and the Death of the Ancient World.  

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