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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Gavin Richardson, post: 2774032, member: 83956&quot;][ATTACH=full]640316[/ATTACH] </p><p><br /></p><p>Some good reading on this guy. (Pic is upside down for some reason. <img src="styles/default/xenforo/clear.png" class="mceSmilieSprite mceSmilie27" alt=":bored:" unselectable="on" unselectable="on" />) The Bowersock bio is thin and scholarly, yet very accessible. And of course the Gore Vidal fiction &quot;biography&quot; is justly famous and may get at Julian&#039;s Life and Times more accurately in some ways than nonfiction books. Julian&#039;s own writing--of which there is plenty--can be slow going. But his &quot;Letter to a Priest&quot; is a good place to start, demonstrating just how much Christianity influenced Julian&#039;s revival of paganism. In short, Julian wanted the philosophical sophistication of paganism to be imbued with the philanthropic tendencies of the best of Christianity, hence this letter detailing the responsibilities of the pagan priesthood. It can be read online here: <a href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_letter_to_a_priest.htm" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_letter_to_a_priest.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/julian_apostate_letter_to_a_priest.htm</a></p><p><br /></p><p>I assign this letter in some of my world lit classes after we read Augustine&#039;s Confessions. My intro to the letter is below.</p><p><br /></p><p><i>Julian was born in Constantinople and grew up in the Christian court of Constantine. Perhaps due to the Christian hypocrisy witnessed in that very secular setting (e.g., the familial bloodbath following the death of Constantine in 337), Julian gradually abandoned Christianity. In 337 Julian was spared Constantius II’s purge of family rivals due to his youth, and he was brought up in the Greek East, studying under Neo-Platonic philosophers–an education which contributed to his interest in pagan intellectual life. Once he rose to the status of Augustus, Julian proved quite intolerant of Christianity and strove to resurrect the great pagan religious traditions which had atrophied under Constantine and his immediate successors. His tract “Against the Galileans” is one of the most vigorous denunciations of Christianity remaining from Antiquity. (Julian repeatedly calls Christians “Galileans” to imply that this religion came from some backwater region of the Empire.) To Christians, he is called “Julian the Apostate” because he renounced his early Christian faith; for others he is called “Julian the Philosopher” because of his scholarly inclination and writings.</i></p><p><i>In the attached selection, Julian writes to a pagan priest on his sacred responsibilities. Though fragmentary, the letter offers a strong sense of how Julian wanted to shape pagan practice and belief as paganism competed with Christianity for the soul of the Empire.</i>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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