XXVII

But it is not possible to behold the truth from speech alone.

XXVI

However this evil doctrine did originate with John; but who could detest as they deserve all those doctrines that you have invented as a sequel, while you keep adding many corpses newly dead to the corpse of long ago? You have filled the whole world with tombs and sepulchres, and yet in your scriptures it is nowhere said that you must grovel among tombs and pay them honour. But you have gone so far in iniquity that you think you need not listen even to the words of Jesus of Nazareth on this matter.

XXV

At any rate neither Paul nor Matthew nor Luke nor Mark ventured to call Jesus God.

XXIV

But you have thought it a slight thing to diminish and to add to the things which were written in the law; and to transgress it completely you have thought to be in every way more manly and more high-spirited, because you do not look to the truth but to that which will persuade all men.

XXIII

Now granted that this is said about a god, though it is by no means so stated; for a married woman who before her conception had lain with her husband was no virgin,—but let us admit that it is said about her,—does Isaiah anywhere say that a god will be born of the virgin?

XXII

And even though, to please you, one should concede that they were said of him, Moses says that the prophet will be like him and not like God, a prophet like himself and born of men, not of a god. — But it is very clear that not one of these sayings relates to Jesus; for he is not even from Judah. How could he be when according to you he was not born of Joseph but of the Holy Spirit? For though in your genealogies you trace Joseph back to Judah, you could not invent even this plausibly.

⋅ Nota Bene ⋅

(In case of confusion, Julian refers to Jesus’ so-called godly status.)

XXI

But the following are the very words that Paul wrote concerning those who had heard his teaching, and were addressed to the men themselves: ”Be not deceived: neither idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, not extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And of this ye are not ignorant, brethren, that such were you also; but ye washed yourselves, but ye were sanctified in the name of Jesus Christ.” Do you see that he says that these men too had been of such sort, but that they ”had been sanctified” and ”had been washed,” water being able to cleanse and winning power to purify when it shall go down into the soul? And baptism does not take away his leprosy from the leper, of scabs, or pimples, or warts, or gout, or dysentery, or dropsy, or a whitlow, in fact no disorder of the body, great or small, then shall it do away with adultery and theft and in short all the transgressions of the soul?

⋅ Nota Bene ⋅

(You know, I have a feeling I would have really liked Julian. He sounds so dryly sarcastic in a lot of instances. Too bad christians destroyed his works.)

XX

And why is it that you do not abide even by the traditions of the Hebrews or accept the law which God has given to them? Nay, you have forsaken their teaching even more than ours, abandoning the religion of your forefathers and giving yourselves over to the predictions of the prophets? For if any man should wish to examine into the truth concerning you, he will find that your impiety is compounded of the rashness of the Jews and the indifference and vulgarity of the Gentiles. For from both sides you have drawn what is by no means their best but their inferior teaching, and so have made for yourselves a border of wickedness. — This, in fact, is the only thing that you have drawn from this source; for in all other respects you and the Jews have nothing in common. Nay, it is from the new-fangled teaching of the Hebrews that you have seized upon this blasphemy of the gods who are honoured among us; but the reverence for every higher nature, characteristic of our religious worship, combined with the love of the traditions of our forefathers, you have cast off, and have acquired only the habit of eating all things, ”even as the green herb.” But to tell the truth, you have taken pride in outdoing our vulgarity, (this, I think is a thing that happens to all nations, and very naturally) and you thought that you must adapt your ways to the lives of the baser sort, shopkeepers, tax-gatherers, dancers and libertines.

XIX

Yet you are so misguided and foolish that you regard those chronicles of yours divinely inspired, though by their help no man could ever become wiser or braver or better than he was before; while, on the other hand, writings by whose aid men can acquire courage, wisdom and justice, these you ascribe to Satan and to those who serve Satan!

XVIII

If the reading of your own scriptures is sufficient for you, why do you nibble at the learning of the Hellenes? — Accordingly everyone who possessed even a small fraction of innate virtue has speedily abandoned your impiety. It were therefore better for you to keep men from learning rather than from sacrifical meats. But you yourselves know, it seems to me, the very different effect on the intelligence of your writings as compared with ours; and that from studying yours no man could attain to excellence or even to ordinary goodness, whereas from studying ours every man would become better than before, even though he were altogether without natural fitness. But when a man is naturally well endowed, and moreover receives the education of our literature, he becomes actually a gift of the gods to mankind, either by kindling the light of knowledge, or by founding some kind of political constitution, or by routing numbers of his country’s foes, or even by travelling far over the earth and far by sea, and thus proving himself a man of heroic mould.

XVII

For envy and jealousy do not come even near the most virtuous men, much more are they remote from angels and gods.

XVI

He could not rise superior to pleasure, and the arguments of a woman led him astray! Then if he was deluded by a woman, do not call this man wise.

⋅ Nota Bene ⋅

(Julian refers to Solomon.)

XV

Is it better to be free continuously and during two thousand whole years to rule over the greater part of the earth and the sea, or to be enslaved and to live in obedience to the will of others? No man is so lacking in self-respect as to choose the latter by preference. Again, will anyone think that victory in war is less desirable than defeat?

XVI

Why were you so ungrateful to our gods as to desert them for the Jews?

XV

But what great gift of this sort do the Hebrews boast of as bestowed on them by God, the Hebrews who have persuaded you to desert them? — Yet Jesus, who won over the least worthy of you, has been known by name for but little more than three hundred years: and during his lifetime he accomplished nothing worth hearing of, unless anyone thinks that to heal crooked and blind men and to exorcise those who were possessed by evil demons in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany can be classed as a mighty achievement. As for purity of life you do not know whether he so much as mentioned it; but you emulate the rages and the bitterness of the Jews, overturning temples and altars, and you slaughtered not only those of us who remained true to the teachings of their fathers, but also men who were as much astray as yourselves, heretics, because they did not wail over the corpse in the same fashion as yourselves. But these are rather your own doings; for nowhere did either Jesus or Paul hand down to you such commands. The reason for this is that they never even hoped that you would one day attain to such power as you have; for they were content if they could delude maidservants and slaves, and through them the women, and men like Cornelius and Sergius.

XIV

Would not any man be justified in detesting the more intelligent among you, or pitying the more foolish, who, by following you, have sunk to such depths of ruin that they have abandoned the ever-living gods and have gone over to the corpse of the Jew.

XIII

For it will be found that even the most wicked and most brutal of the generals have behaved more mildly to the greatest offenders than Moses did to those who had done no wrong.

XII

The philosophers bid us imitate the gods so far as we can, and they teach us that this imitation consists in the contemplation of realities. — But what sort of imitation of God is praised among the Hebrews? Anger and wrath and fierce jealousy.

XI

For my part I think it would be better in every way to preserve one bad man along with a thousand virtuous men than to destroy the thousand together with that one.

⋅ Nota Bene ⋅

(In here Julian refers to the story of Phinehas in the Book of Numbers.)

X

Then if a man is jealous and envious you think him blameworthy, whereas if God is called jealous you think it a divine quality? And yet how is it reasonable to speak falsely of God in a matter that is so evident? For if he is indeed jealous, then against his will are all other gods worshipped, and against his will do all the remaining nations worship their gods. Then how is it that he did not himself restrain them, if he is so jealous and does not wish that the others should be worshipped but himself? Can it be that he was not able to do so, or did he not wish even from the beginning to prevent the other gods also from being worshipped? However, the first explanation is impious, to say, I mean, that he was unable; and the second is in accordance with what we do ourselves. Lay aside this nonsense and do not draw down on yourself such terrible blasphemy.