Podcast episode
July 19, 2023
Episode 169: Strategies of the Esoteric in the Hellenism of the Emperor Julian: Exclusion and Pluralism in a Late-Antique Polytheism
In this episode we delve a bit further into aspects of Julian’s religio-philosophico-political project of ‘Hellenism’. We learn some more things about Julian’s extraordinary religious and political reform project, and take this as an opportunity to reflect on the weirdness which occurs when not just religion, but esoteric religion is promoted to the corridors of power.
Works Cited in this Episode:
Primary:
Ammianus Marcellinus: Julian’s edict of toleration: XXII.5.1. Julian’s distastefully excessive sacrifice: XXII.12, 6.
Gregory of Nazianzus on who owns Hellenism: Or. 4, 107.
John Chrysostom contra Hellenism: Adv. Oppugn. Vit. Mon. = PG 47 367.
Julian:
- Primacy of Iamblichus in Julian’s thought: Ep. 12, Hymn to the Sun (XI) 146a, 150d, 157d.
- Distinction between elite epistēmē and common doxa: Orat. IX.197a.
- Roman and Hellenic identities conflated, the Roman project seen as a fulfilment of Hellenic politics: Orat. XI.152d-153a.
- Each people is assigned an ethnic god: Ep. 89a, 453b; 89b, 292cd. This god is an emanation of the first cause: Contr. Gal. 115de. These gods occupy a Iamblichean hypostatic hierarchy: Contr. Gal. 143ab; XI.145c.
- Plato’s myths essential sources for his philosophy: Orat. VII.11.217a. Myths more generally are esoteric emblems of philosophical truths: Orat. V.169-170, and Orat. VII.206c. Myth of Babel: Contr. Gal. 134d-138a. Myth of Cybele and Attis: Hymn to the Mother of the Gods 8. The Chaldæan Oracles an inspired writing, which Julian learned to interpret from Iamblichus’ lost commentary: Ep. 12.
- King Numa founder of essentially Julianic solar religion: Contr. Gal.155a-156b.
- “The spirit that comes to mankind from the gods rarely, and to only a few, nor do all men share in it, nor at all times”, and the sacred arts granted by Zeus: Contr. Gal. 198bc.
- Asclepius a saving god who has cured the emperor himself: Contr. Gal. 200a, for long encomium, 235c for cures. Asclepius conflated with Helios/Mithras: Contr. Gal. 200ab; cf. Eusebius P.E. III 13.15-16; Macrobius Sat. I.20.1.
‘Hellenism’ in the books of Maccabees: 2 Macc. 4:13.
On the Gods and the World on postmortem punishment: 18.3; cf. 20.
Secondary:
Athanassiadi on On the Gods and the World as ‘pagan catechism’: Athanassiadi-Fowden 1981 [see below], p. 159.
E. R. Dodds. Proclus: The Elements of Theology. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, we cite p. xviii.
J. Walbridge. The Wisdom of the Mystic East: Suhrawardi and Platonic Orientalism. State University of New York Press, Albany, NY, 2001.
Wilmer Cave Wright, editor. The Works of the Emperor Julian. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1913.
Recommended Reading:
Polymnia Athanassiadi-Fowden. Julian and Hellenism. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1981.
Glenn Bowersock. Julian the Apostate. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1978.
Idem. Hellenism in Late Antiquity. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 1996.
Peter Brown. The World of Late Antiquity. Thames and Hudson, London, 1971.
M.P. Garcia Ruiz. Julian’s Self-Representation in Coins and Texts. In W. Burgersgijk, P. Ross, and A.J. Ross, editors, Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire, pages 204–33. Brill, Leiden, 2018.
David Neal Greenwood. Julian and Christianity: Revisiting the Constantinian Revolution. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY, 2021.
Rowland Smith. Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of Julian the Apostate. Routledge, London, 1995.
Edward J. Watts. City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria. University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA/London, 2006.
Themes
Cappadocian Fathers, Celsus, Chaldæan Oracles, Christianity, East Rome, Esoteric Hellenism, Esoteric Hermeneutics, Esoteric Imperialism, Gregory of Nazianzus, Iamblichus, Julian, Late Antiquity, Late Platonism, Maximus of Ephesus, Platonist Orientalism, Polytheism, Rome, Sallu(s)tius, Theurgy
James Butler
July 19, 2023
Tremendously interesting episode, Earl, thank you. So many interesting avenues of speculation here – not least on your suggestion that a surviving Julian religion might look a little like Tibetan Buddhism, at least structurally.
I think you’re right that nasty things can happen when esoteric religion meets political power, and I’m struck by a tension which seems to recur between universal claims (whether to theological truth about the real structure of religious dispensations, or to the possible heights to which human beings can attain) against the preferment of a small group. How broad is the category of souls who, through appropriate paideia, might come to grasp the theurgic ‘truth’?
Perhaps this question is less troubling to a Roman imperial absolutist than I think it becomes to European Masons (vel sim) around the start of the Enlightenment. And sometimes I hear this tension in the way contemporary practitioners talk about their worldview; I don’t think it’s gone away. I was about to say it seems very far from power, at least, but maybe the popularity of QAnon is a rather warped and benighted instance.
Looking forward to the Sallustius episode. Probably the greatest (and extremely interesting) mythographer of the 20th century, Roberto Calasso, draws the epigraph to his _Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony_ from the _Peri theon…_ – well worth your attention if you don’t know it.
Earl Fontainelle
July 20, 2023
James,
I think you’re right about QAnon, and its kind of magical influence on things actually happening in the White House (and the Capitol!). A much more well-organised, literate, and generally to-be-taken-seriously example with a lot more parallels with what Julian was doing might be imperial Japan in the 1930’s and 40’s, where deeply esoteric Buddhism (plus a bunch of other stuff) powered a whole empire-building, national renewal scenario of ridiculously vast scope. That was the esoteric in the halls of power!
Thomas Kiefer
July 23, 2023
First, the example of Buddhism in Imperial Japan aboveis an excellent one.
Second, about your podcast/ lecture (which was excellent and I listened to it twice) and the concluding counterfactual:
1) Would Julian’s politico-relgious program have been much like what had been going on in Egypt with the temple priests and their practice vis-a-vis the pharaoh and Egypt as a whole, just with A LOT more blood? (Would seemingly make sense thanks to the influence of Iamblichus/De Mysteriis.)
2) Like Tibetan Buddhism, it likely would have developed various schools/traditions based on certain gurus/teachers;
3) I’m guessing (like in Egypt) the practice of alchemy would have been incorporated into the program very quickly;
4) I could imagine at some point in the future there would have been a Pythagorian Reformation, with protests/revulsion against all the animal sacrifice and any temple excesses (“Back To Plato!!!” with Plotinus being the mediator/role of Augustine maybe?);
5) Would have run into problems like Christianity did with the Scientific Revolution, led by the Atomists (“um, Helios Invictus is a giant ball of super-hot gas….”)?
Earl Fontainelle
July 24, 2023
Thomas,
1) seems plausible, though it would doubtless have been at least somewhat pseudo-Egyptian, or at least distinctly Græco-Roman,
2) intriguing possibility, perhaps the theurgists would have fallen out just like the Christian factions!
3) sure, why not?
4) I could definitely see this. Here the Buddhist comparison works as well, as some Buddhists are as non-violent, vegetarian, karma-avoiding folk as you’ll find anywhere (the Plotty faction), while the Tibetans are, well, not that (the Iamblichean faction).
5) This one’s above my pay-grade; but the body of Helios being a giant fusion reactor wouldn’t have bothered Platonists; they knew it was just the body, and had to be made of something. I think you could have easily had a particle physics develop within an overarching Platonist orthodoxy (after all, as we shall see with Olympiodorus, you could have alchemist physics operating within Platonist metaphysics, so why not quantum theory?)
Steve Dempsey
September 14, 2023
Was Julian’s big problem with his religion that no one else apart from him actually believed it?
Earl Fontainelle
September 14, 2023
Steve,
Well, there were some folks who definitely believed it (at a minimum Sallustius and Maximus and the other intimate associates of the Emperor). But we could read the number as statistically insignificant.
That being said, we have a lot of evidence that the basic exoteric side of Julian’s reforms — back to the old ways, traditional religion is back, folks, so you can all calm down — this found a BIG audience among Græco-Romans. Metaphysics aside, many traditionally-religious folks I think saw Julian’s policy as a sort of announcement the the craziness was over, and people could go back the ways they’d been doing things for millennia.
Steve Dempsey
September 14, 2023
It smacks of Gidden’s Third Way politics, the radical centre, as adopted by Blair’s Labour Party but which no one really thought was a credible position, especially not those not in the middle.
Shalom Leaf
September 14, 2023
Listeners may be interested in New Books in Jewish Studies Podcast of 8/30/23, featuring a conversation with Ari Finkelstein, author of The Specter of the Jews: Emperor Julian and the Rhetoric of Ethnicity in Syrian Antioch. Interesting discussion of the role of Julian’s Jewish policy in his overall program for the revival of paganism and his anti-Christian policies.
Earl Fontainelle
September 14, 2023
Thanks for that! We didn’t have time to get to Julian and the Jews, but there’s some fascinating stuff there, like how he tried to rebuild the Temple, and then oogly-boogly stuff started to happen and the project was never completed!
Shalom Leaf
September 14, 2023
Yes, but for that earthquake, but for Julian’s death…. He’s one of the avatars of alternative history.
Lb Behrendt
January 31, 2024
Great episode!! I am loving all this Julian stuff!!
Re: the Qanon exchange above, I do think the similarities between Julian’s project and Qanon in terms of built-in pluralism are worth mentioning, even though Qanon is crass, populist, and anti-intellectual. A look at the “map of the great awakening” is a good way to orient yourself to the dizzying landscape of ideas the larger Qanon movement has embraced as it’s engulfed the pan-conspiracy American right. The demographics of the movement are also shockingly diverse compared to previous American right-wing conspiritorial movements. “Everyone’s invited, except one religion I think is gross and those damn materialist atheists,” is a terrific strategy for building a coalition around returning your heterogenous culture to an imagined golden age.
Obviously the ways they each handle the esoteric aren’t really comparable, and comparing present day events to those of any historical period, especially one as different as late antiquity, comes with a billion caveats. But the big tent thing seemed kind of unique and worth pointing out.
Earl Fontainelle
January 31, 2024
Indeed. There’s a lot to think about there. The canon-building thing is spot on: Julian’s list of approved wise barbarian nations and Hellenes (and the Hellenes can kind of include anyone who gets the nod, like the Romans, just like the American conspiracy folks will include anyone in a notional ‘western civilisation’ or term of choice, as long as they get the nod) is indeed very inclusive, but rejects, as you say, atheists (read ‘Epicureans and their allies’) and one religion which is gross (‘Nazarenes’ and their allies).
The imagined golden age thing is also there to the max.
There are two major differences which jump out at me, which by no means nullify these similarities, but just sort of flesh out the differences as well. One is race: the concept doesn’t exist in antiquity, but it seems to me that it’s absolutely central to the Qanon-et-sim. movements, and this is true even when they actively deny it (maybe especially when they actively deny it). And I mean race as social construct, with all the weird one minute it’s about genetics, the next minute it’s about spiritual missions, the next it’s about party loyalty sort of stuff.
The second difference I see is that Julian comes down very strongly on the world-affirming side of the ‘dualism spectrum’; yes, things are bad, but the world-order is fundamentally good, the gods are in control, the truth is available and we just need to follow it. There are no dark archons, per se. With the conspiracy stuff I see a lot more emphasis on deception, the ‘globalists’ (insert favourite demonised groups here, which could be the Democratic party, could be literal Christian demons, could of course be ‘the Jew’, or could oscillate confusingly between a number of options; what matters is they are nearly all-powerful and totally bent on deceiving everyone) controlling everything, only the truth-seekers know the truth, world of darkness kind of stuff. This is where Qanon lines up really well with aspects of ancient ‘Gnosticism’ or just heavily-Pauline Christianity.
Lb Behrendt
February 1, 2024
Absolutely re: race. Qanon trying to shake off the overt racism of their forebearers while also maintaining the American far-right political project is fascinating but very distinctly not Antique! I think the dogmatic pluralism is another way of addressing that.
The issue of dualism is an interesting one that I’ll have to chew on for a while!! If my track record on understanding American Christianity is any indication, I’ll have my thoughts formulated on this in about 20 years.