I think the main reason is a lot simpler than this, he simply lasted 2 years, died unexpectedly in battle, and was succeeded by a christian. No time for any change to set in, a bad omen, and an heir to undo his work. That said I really appreciate this video, a lot of people in the neopagan sphere who dont know much about Julian think of him fondly as a "what if" (myself included until just now, since idk much about him) when in reality it seems like he wouldve brought about most of the same changes and problems these people have with catholicism and christianity broadly.
And what changes and problems would these be? Rome was largely a fascist dictatorship, so no loss there, but it's hard to argue that we wouldn't have reached the Enlightenment faster if the Roman institutions weren't utterly destroyed and replaced by the fascist theocracy that based their power on the the credulity of the poor and the weak.
His own actions were the cause of his own doom. Instead of taking some years to put pagans in positions of power and strenghted his faith, he decided immediately to start a pointless expedition in Persia just to LARP as Alexander .
@@TheUrobolos I don´t see how he is such a fool. As a young "nerd" he got thrust into a really difficult war yet distinguished himself against the Allemani after having to learn the military trade in the field. His Sassanid campaign may seem pointless to you, but he was by this point a proven skilled general and sought to eliminate a threat to the Roman Empire that would be bothering them for a long time to come. Maybe I am biased, but he is kinda cool.
@@maxschreck4095 I can understand his PoV, but still if his main goal was to save paganism not starting unnecessary military campaigns and instead focus on internal matters and promotion of the faith would had been wiser
@@Bluesruse Jesus Christ you just outed yourself by having no idea what fascism is and unironically subscribed to the fascist distain for the weak and poor. Mediaval Europe is already decentralized and by the time of papal hegemony in the west majority of the nations in Western Europe were a collective of differing forms of government and Culture under Feudalism putting modern concept in the middle ages ain't anything but assertion and ignorance
tl;dw: He tried to start a new "ecclesiastical" movement for Roman Paganism, attempting to convert it from a bunch of decentralized, locality-dependent traditions into a highly organized, highly disciplined "church" that could compete with Christianity itself, despite his reign ending up briefer than Gerald Ford's.
I'm a bit skeptical on the "made up" notion. He had an instructor and confident in his early years that taught him about paganism. He did make reforms based on his Christian upbringing that was meant to make it more competitive by instilling services. Julian was a capable ruler who died too soon to turn things around.
Not all monotheists reject the gods. And certainly not all Christians did, either. Justin Martyr is a great example here in his Apology, wherein he says (paraphrasing), that "we Christians are no different than you pagans in the worship and esteem of our Christ."
@@aymenboussouar1880 Old christianity worked very similarly though, they did believe in the Gods as demons, which were later seen as evil. This element is still present in many regiaons. Mixing beliefs in paganism and christianity is still very popular today, especially among african religions in the atlantic coast of Africa and the Americas
Julian's religion wasn't organic, it was a mishmash of Platonism and Second Temple Judaism. Constantine's conversion stuck because he adopted a religion which was ascendant already in the Eastern Empire. Julian's religion was imposed from the top down, not the bottom-up.
That's not true 2nd Temple Judaism nonsense he was respectful to Jews that doesn't mean he was second temple nonsense it was purely religionary not hebraic garbage.
@huwhitecavebeast1972 Judaism and all hebraism like Christianity and Islam with its Godless and more Godless Lies is Flat out No Match for Blessed Superiority of Neoplatonism which is Religionary(Pagan) Origins and goes renewed to us as well.
To begin with, I believe Akhenaten never created or tried to create an Egypt-wide alternative religion centered on Aten. He closed the old temples and focused on building a new capital centered on the worship of the "new" god, Aten. He certainly did that. But what then of the rank and file Egyptians? What were they to do? Were they expected to relocate to or make regular pilgrimages to el-Amarna? This was a ham-fisted effort to destroy the influence of the priesthoods and take their resources. But without an alternative religion to get the population in line, it was doomed. It might have been different had Akhenaten had a son to carry on after him. This is often so crucial to the success of radical change: time. Constantine had 3 surviving sons (not counting the one he murdered due to the lies his second wife told him) to keep the Christianization moving forward. Julian came too late and did not have a like-minded heir either.
It is noteworthy that his father, Amenhotep III, actually began the family veneration of the Aten. Akhenaten simply continued the religious legacy of his father. That needs to be said because far too many people seem to place all the blame on the son.
Interpretatio graeca, or the association of foreign gods with that of a Greco-Roman analogue made assimilation relatively easy compared to the wholesale imposition of new rites onto the conquered. The trade-off with Christianity is that it makes the ‘in-group’ much more unified than that of pagan communities. Jesus shares a personal relationship after all. So once Rome was Christianized, it could not be paganized. This was Julian’s folly.
This presupposes that the masses would’ve cultivated a relationship with Christ in all parts of the empire in the 50 years since Christianity became legal. That is ridiculous. Even with the full power of the catholic Church during the Renaissance , it took centuries to fully Christianize certain parts of the world during the age of colonization. In some places, it never happened. India is an example of this. The church of England tried very hard. In other places, the paganism remain as a substratum of the Christianity forming new syncretic religions like Santeria and Haitian voodoo. I therefore pause it that a once prescribed fledgling religion split into lots of different sects and without real power cannot possibly have made sufficient inroads into the population in a half century in order for it to be unlikely for somebody to undo the conversion. Julian died two years after he became emperor. That’s the real reason it didn’t take. If he had survived, if he had removed all the Christian officials from their places and repealed The laws prohibiting polytheistic worship, if he had egged on all the in fighting among the Christians of the time and allowed the religion to splinter into disunity, Christianity would’ve just faded into the backdrop of the mini religions of the empire. The old order would’ve just organically reasserted itself. Even as late as the mid sixth century, Justinian had a rough time rooting out pagan holdouts. People in the countryside kept on doing what they had been doing for centuries and ignored what the city people were up to. It took coercion and outright persecution to get rid of Roman polytheism.
not really true, Julian died. that was his folly. If you look at a country like India, hinduism could survive the onslaught of monotheists by having strong Polytheistic governments over many centuries. Christianity itself was a top down venture, and required many pagan edicts and state violence in order to stamp out the pagans; and that's the reality of all religions. See how quickly egypt and syria became muslim, religious adherence is a matter of how able the religious community is able to defend itself
@@mueezadam8438 not true and that's only a half Truth at all if not a quarter truth wholesome communities with very dumb by Pagans as well as christians if not better than christians.
@@mueezadam8438 there was no falling in Julian Julian knew the truth and if he wasn't assassinated by the coup he would have succeeded in and kept the light and restored it to the world.
I've been thinking about this for some time now. The old traditional religion was basically dead by the fourth century and there was no going back, there was bound to be some religious reforms or the replacement with something new, this must've been clear to a lot of the empire elites and intellectuals at the time. The (neo)platonists were making some very solid foundation for polytheism and spirituality in general for centuries by that point, their work was so good that even Christians and Gnostics took a lot from them by changing some bits, but even then their reform of paganism never actually became popular. The war for the Mediterranean spirituality (the winner of which would transform Europe and the rest of the world) was raged by Christianity, Gnosticism and Manichaeism. The Platonists were sadly shoved to the side. Maybe if they actually tried to spread their teachings to the masses, instead of secluding themselves in mystery cults reserved to a selected few, we would still have the worship of native gods alive in the modern age.
Paganism was still very strong. Particularly in the West. So what you've said is nonsense. He could have rid the empire of Christianity had he had a long reign.
@@Insectoid_ You are ignorant. I'm talking exclusively of roman and Greek paganism, but it also includes Egyptian, north African and the Levant. Western Europe would follow not long after.
Regardless of his flaws, Julian is a great writer. It is fascinating how he devoted as much time of his short life to literature as to affairs of state.
You might want to put that into context with all the other instances where ancient historians like Herodotus said that this or that non-Roman people "went into battle naked ". It's been said about the Celts, the Slavs and many others numerous times. In reality, it seems to be used as an insulting description of people who were simply not prepared for battle.
@@RobespierreThePoof It was apparently just one day when he was in a huge hurry, which not coincidentally was the same day he died, so I could believe it. Still it could also be a rumor created by anti-Pagan historians. That far in the past it becomes difficult to be certain of the truth
@@RobespierreThePoof there are more than a few accounts of Celtic warriors going into battle without armor or clothes. I don't think it was simply the defamation of their enemies.
@@RobespierreThePoof I would disagree with the assertion that this was a metaphor of sorts to show him as an unworthy commander, I think it is more a reflection of Julian's impulsiveness, his belief that he was a divine emissary and his idolization of Alexander the Great.
The polytheist tradition in the ancient world was explicitly transactional in nature and non-committal, i.e. people didn't have to "believe" in a creed or legends. It was the performance of a ritual practice that was important to be observed. One day you can make a gift to one god, while the next -- a sacrifice to another god, depending on some personal needs or desires and with the completion of the act, your relation to the deities is over as if you're checking out at the cash register in the local groceries store. This was in sharp contrast of the monotheist counterparts (Judaism, Christianity and later Islam), where the relation with the faith is like a marriage for lifetime and commands total submission, not only in practice but also firm belief, where the faith is internalized in your moral fabric, excluding any other religion... or god. In ancient Rome such exclusionary devotion was seen as an extremist superstition and frowned upon, probably the reason early Christians and messianic Jews were lumped together in the numerous persecutions.
The transactional argument is simply a polemical strategy used by monotheists to denigrate polytheists. There's no reason to believe that ancient polytheists differed much in their devotion to their gods as modern Hindus do in their polytheistic societies. Worship was primarily community-based and localized, but also became centred on individual or household worship.
But there r also sacrifices in the bible, in that sense polytheism and monotheism do not differ. In Curches during the medival time it was about performance and showing people why u need a priest, wich actually encouraged a lack of a direct conection to their concept of god. ( wich is why catholic curches were especially so affected by the printing press) Holidays were taken from other religions, cause people liked to celebrate. The only difference is that Monotheism nowerdays does not want to belive that there can be other deitys/gods. Polytheism just focused on the gods/ Spirits/ deitys that they r familiar with or want to have in their lifes. ( yes some popular deitys like Isis traveld accross countrys) At one point abrahemic religions started to asume that there is only one god, even tho from what I have heard that was never really excluded in the bible. The bible is also very biased and someone purposefully excluded storys, wich they did not like. I sometimes ask myself what Christianity and Judasm did originally look like for individualls of ancient times, bevor someone turned it into a medium to deny other believesystems a right to exist. The fall of the West Roman empire probably contributed a lot, to finalise the toxic christian mindset that some people even have today. Were they use every religious excuse to do the oposite of being a loving and forgiving Christian at heart.🤔
I’d recommend Esoterica, Dan MacClellan, and Religion For Breakfast if you’re looking for traces of Polytheism in the Bible. Especially Dan McClellan, as he’s a Biblical Scholar. The OT does actually mention other Gods- who worked alongside God, no less. Look up the Divine Council!
It's a good book, and poses interesting questions, but one of the goals of this video was to push back on the image of Julian that the novel helped advance and popularize. Vidal's Julian bears little resemblance to the actual man
We must remember that Julian as a youth was taken in by his uncle Eusebius, one of the great early fathers of the Christian movement. An Julian was a professing Christian for awhile....
@@daviddavenport9350 eusebius the apostate you mean like Jesus and Paul the Jewish apostates and sinners and same with all CULTianity are rebels and apostates and infidels.
Do an episode on the reforms he proposed and their likelihood. Like, I heard he wanted to return to city focused administration of the greeks, how could that mesh with his base of support being rural?.
I'll return to this later - it's best not to think of his support base here as the typical rural farmers but the large landlords who owned the majority of the arable land. Because their holdings were not always concentrated in one specific area, these wealthy landowners resided in the cities at least part of the time so were still somewhat urbanized.
@@tribunateSPQR oh, also how well do you think his reforms would deal with the issues the empire would come to face, I highly doubt a dejure confederacy of cities defacto under the empire city-provinces, during the empire's urban decline would work better than the dominus Constantine-Diocletian way the empire was organized. Would this mean the Empire falls more completely or does the Empire reform from that and would they keep the dejure image of being organized like that due to his prestige or completely do away with it?. Or do you think the reforms may actually work?. I still think the reforms would fail and how would that period and the earlier/worse collapse affect the Church especially the proto-Catholic-Orthodox.
@@tribunateSPQRI think it’s better to say Julian’s support came from the “senatorial class” not just “rural landowners” the Illyrian military families that gave rise to Constantine and the major Figures of the Christian Dominate were also “rural landowners” just not of the same caliber.
I think that paganism was in irreversible decline by this point, but if anything could have saved traditional religion then it was a long reign for an emperor like Julian. Had he founded a new pagan dynasty then European history would have certainly played out much differently
@@tribunateSPQRIt wasn’t in irreversible decline, Chrisitianity was still a minority religion, only being dominant in parts of the east. Without a continuous line of draconian emperors to push Christianity down everyone’s throats it wouldn’t have have spread like it did.
@@rhett5058 Because it was still the majority and there’s political disadvantages for future emperors to abandon all that, yes, dynasties come and go, but there would be no Christian domination.
@@scorpionfiresome3834no it wasn’t. In fact, by Julian’s time, a third of the population had already become Christian, and no other pagan religion was that large. Effectively, there was no stopping the inevitable complete takeover of Christianity by the time of Julian, and to say otherwise is nothing but naive wishful thinking.
Hypothetically speaking, even if Julian were successful against the Persians, he would have to face the Huns, who would appear in the West only a decade after the emperor's death.
@@gabrielethier2046theodosius the true apostate and Constantine the true apostate as well as Jesus and Paul the Apostates and Rebels and Sinners and Infidels.
@@gabrielethier2046 this Every false claim and view you have from your unholy bible comes from man. Never ever any god but Anti God, and that's Straight Heaven Given Fact. Christian Bible proves itself to be UNinspirable and IMMEASURABLY FALSE UPON FALSE. The hoax is Exposed and been so for 1800 years when it began since 2000 is too long, thus it's really under 1800 and farrr smaller. Hello, your entire hoax CULT is based on gaslighting, fraud, word twisting, mind control, and making stuff up on making stuff up. Don't forget fabricating and fudging stuff out, and down too; while not getting challenged for so long. Truly here that don't mean it's validable. It's NOT and can't even be thus. 2peter admits he's making it up from wicked Ungodly and Godless men and devils Secretly. And, never did or had and can't now even dream of having any sorta “holy spirit”? And, never could. Get over yourself now for good to save yourself, and True Saviors Real Christoses/Cristuses who destroy sin Save you too. And keep yourself safe cuz your not in trouble unless you put yourself in it. Unlike me and others you guys all you guys are nothing, but False upon False teachers and Deceivers the Worst from Hell and Darkness. That means your christian bible authors like paul who is one the worst and the johanine author too. Devils sent you all like wicked wicked men sent you. But, we give true holy and pious Teaching and Facts. And God Tells you it's us and Says so to All real texts wise and wisdom wise and revelation wise. Repent and get outta this Cult of darkness. Suck it up and Repent and open up and out the Real Divines. They Almighties Whom Dis Make you and I.
That which was not Christian was cut off from the imperial treasury. This would include the court, unless the bureaucracy would provide otherwise, but all government offices were held by canonical Christians since Constantine's purge of 326.
@tribunateSPQR I kept thinking, did I select the wrong video? But then I realized you were drawing a parallel historical circumstance. It was very creative and created a helpful contrast. It was a good pedagogical tool for understanding Julian's failure.
@tribunateSPQR Well, I stopped the video, started over, and also rechecked the title since I didn't believe someone would draw a long example from a different culture and time period to help us better understand Julian's failure. It's not common because you really have to think it through.
I feel like Julian's inevitable failure is best summed up in a simple poem by Constantine Cavafy, "Julian Seeing Contempt." If you search for it, it's online.
Because he was a Christian he just got repented of it and got out. So by that very definition it's apostasy but he just repented of this deception and came to light the true belief that is Christos and God-Given and Devil hating.
Tbh although I agree with much of this, the real biggest reason is just that he died so quickly after gaining power. He might still have failed after being in power for even a whole lifetime but we'll never know
Almost always, religious causes and alignments are cover-ups for political causes and alignments. Both Egypt and Rome, in the situations mentioned, are mostly that
Here are a few: How Rome Fell - Adrian Goldsworthy Rome: Empire of the Eagles - Neil Faulkner The Fate of Rome - Kyle Harper The Rise of Christianity - Rodney Stark Also relied on Gibbon and the surviving works of Julian himself. Happy reading!
@@purplesamurai5373 You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. According to the statistics, in 40 or 50 years, the USA will have more atheists than Christians.
Deception to the Blessed sacred cities to spread their deception and darkness and deceive as many as they can. But still doesn't matter religion areas we survived and we're preaching back into the cities and into the countryside to get our world back and bring new stuff as well.
I suggest another possible reason for the success of Tutankhamen while Julian failed is that Atenism may have been almost entirely the personal conviction of the Pharoah itself, with no roots in the lower classes. So when he died there were no grass roots to carry on his ideas. Compare and contrast with the constant war against "idolatry" in ancient Israel, which was a constant power between the urban elites in the temple versus the practice of the rural people. Because rural people would not leave their ancestral beliefs until the Babylonian captivity, their viewpoints would continue to percolate upwards and trouble the temple priesthood for centuries. Christianity, by contrast, had its roots in the urban poor, in slaves and in women. As a result, there was a foundational basis for the religion so it would not simply disappear when their Emperor-advocate died. Perhaps religion is more a bottom-up phenomenon than something which can be imposed from the top down.
The loss of the ancient polytheistic religions of Europe and the Near East is one of the greatest losses of intangible heritage in recorded history. It is only surpassed by the countries religions that Christian missionaries wiped out as agents of modern European empires.
Nobody misses human sacrifice and institutionalized child rape/ sex cults but degenerates. Antiquity is a horror to us precise of our Christian morality.
I never understood why you people simp so hard for paganism, like do you have some trauma with christianity? Its ALL fairytales. Like we would be any better believing in Zeus xd all religion is cringe, not only abrahamic ones.
The chrisrian population was probably less than 1% the Roman Empire at the time. Had Julian not been succeeded by a series of christian emperors, the christian Roman Empire 312-361 would've been an odd but interesting period of a solidly polytheistic Roman Empire.
Yes, but we know at this time that "1%" was already in high positions within the Roman aristocracy with access to the emperor and his retinue. That makes a huge difference with access to the levers of power.
No it was at least a third of the population by the Time of Julian if not larger especially in the east. Paganism was reduced to a religion of the Most rural backwaters of the empire and of the Senatorial elite classes. The Military, Bureaucracy, and urban-suburban populations of the empire were plurality of not outright majority Christian by the mid 300s
@@totalfreedom2408 the East especially Syria was certainly its strongest centers, its “base” of you will. It’s fair to assume by Julian’s time a majority of the population of Syria was Christian but the west still had large and powerful Christian minorities or pluralities especially in major military-political centers like mediolanum, Rome, Carthage, Illyria, and military colonies such as the ones Theodosius was from. Gaul and Britain certainly had the weakest Christian influence in the west and the empire is a whole and it’s no coincidence Gallic troops were Julian’s main military support base as opposed to the resoundingly Christian troops of the Eastern army
@@totalfreedom2408 no, actually, it was in fact already widespread in Gaul, Italy, Spain and even in Britain, there were many active Bishoprics in those regions and many important Christian authors such as Irenaeos of Lyon that attest to this fact. I have no idea where you get that it was "predominantly Syrian", sure it was probably the region with the highest concentration, along with Asia Minor actually, but it was far from being the only place where Christianity was significant at the time.
Since all leaders were playing the same script the final target were simple civilians and not former enemies. Paganism obviously still waited a few more years to have its chance.
Too many people get caught up in "great man" history Regardless of what Julian or any emperor did or didnt do, the Germanic Tribes were going to migrate in search of arable land, because the rugged uplands of Northern Europe would not be suitable for farming until the invention of the mouldboard plow in the 700s, which is not coincidentally when the migrations began to settle down And since the Roman population was decimated by plauge, and the migrations were inevitable So was the germanification of the west
What i read in my Byzantine history textbook is that he died young after a short reign and people took that as a sign of God's disapproval of what he was doing. Because people still believed such things at the time. Particularly coming after Constantine the Great's long and successful reign. Would it surprise anyone to know that the professor said that there is a second, *far* less dramatic and poetic explanation for Constantine's sudden conversion? This version holds that Constantine was feeling guilty after ordering his eldest son executed for plotting against him and converted to assuage his guilt.
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The main reason why Julian's ideas didn't take hold was because he wasn't around long enough to make them stick. Had he ruled Rome for 30 years like his more famous Uncle, things may have turned out different. Your video was a well researched but very negatively biased account of Julian. One of key things you failed to mention was Julian's main reason for rejecting Christianity, the deplorable behavior of those in his family who championed the new religion. Constantine the Not-so-Great, and his weirdly named sons, killed his father and brother and forced their religion on Julian and everybody else in the Roman Empire. The trauma from all of this made the young Julian hold a silent grudge against them until he was old and powerful enough to rebel against them. Nobody knows what would have happened had Julian not died in Persia but it is safe to say that his depiction in history would have probably been drastically different.
@@bobdollaz3391 Some were. Some weren't. For example, Antoninus acted a lot more "Christian" than Constantine ever did. My post is not a criticism of Christianity. It is a criticism of a line of Emperors who professed the faith but did not live it.
He wasn't quite the last, there was another Pagan Revival under Eugenius. I view the 4th Century as a history of Roman Paganism and Hellenic Christianity synthesizing rather then either prevailing over the other. (And Neo-Platonism is also part of the mixture).
I don't know if Julian's ideas were quite right, but I admire his willingness to follow his beliefs rather than just follow the religion he was expected to adhere to. As a modern Pagan who worships the Greek/Roman gods, I also admire his effort to save at least a version of that tradition as he saw it fading away in his time.
The Oracle of Delphi wasn't that important at the time. The fact that Oracle was taking bribes was practically public knowledge by the time of the second Persian invasion of greece (480 b.c.)
I think this video is not providing a plausible story. It isn't properly knowledgeable regarding the late development of neo-Platonism. Paganism at this time was monotheistic, with the One at the top, then the Demiurge (which was a good, although deficient Platonic reflection of the One). The Hellenic/Roman gods in this monotheistic system were simply manifestations of natural forces and indirectly of the will of the One via the Demiurge, and can be compared to an unruly flock of angels or later on: saints. Denigrating Julian because of a failure to understand what Paganism was at the time, does not make a good impression. I think you should remake this video, and this next time make it properly.
Julian's version of late-hellenistic paganism CAN be accurately described as polytheistic because: 1. it is Iamblican; Iamblicus were more heavily involved with ritualizing theurgy, and was also basing his model of the universe on still-alive religious traditions from mesopotamia and egypt, as well as the canaanite and syrian religious beliefs that were heavily syncretised into Hellenistic theology. Iamblicus also was more focused on the worship and invocation of earthly gods than the ineffable One. 2. The One also wasn't a god, in the monotheistic sense; it's the underlying principle of all things, and the cause as well as end of everything. Neopythagoreans identified the Platonic one and his Form of Goodness with thr Pythagorean Monad, that is to say, the One isn't a god in any sense, but literally the manifestation of Goodness, as well as the First Number One. As for the demiurge, many Neoplatonists did identify it with Zeus.
@@kehinde3803 no islam is, christianity is a fulfillment of the old testament with a divine structure jewish scholars say they have no actual ability to debunk
It is not overly complicated it was very beautiful and complex and its glory and blessedness but it's not fanfiction buddy your entire idea is fanfiction.
Julians restoration of good faith in truth was in fact right in glorious. It was a cool conspiracy that stopped him. That doesn't mean his ideas and his truth or really his ideals and teachings are still here and they are.
The problem is that the commoners already moved on, and the Gods of nobility and great heroes did not resonate with commoners, they probably never did. Commoners had minor practical gods, local gods and spirits. The higher pantheon was too far from them. Bei like the apostles, and simple Christian life was way more achievable than being born half a god or a king favored by gods. Even if Julian won, he would just have won some extra years. Christianity was already growing in Rome, and all around the empire, beyond his reach.
@@josepheridu3322 that is not true commoners had the same Gods as the Elites did. There's no class of change The Gods were and are for everyone. It did indeed jive with all. If Julian won indeed there would've been a change and class of restoration of Religionary Life soon. Christianity even after his time was still small. It had to forced on people to get the effect it has today and the Lies it is and was. U don't understand that.
@@DavidGreen-n1s no the Religionaries of them can politicians not because of the religious stuff but because of the political rule the Roman empire they didn't really care they should have known had foresight about this cult that was deceiving all into Darkness.
It's quite sad that Julian did not succeed with his plans. He was trying to bring in a more just and fair society and only a few rulers have ever been able to do that. Darrius the Great, Alexander the Great, ext. Learning about Julian in more depth has re-fueled my dislike for Christians.
Be honest: he tried to curry favor with the Jews and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem which Christ had predicted would happen 40 years before it happened. They learned what God destroys and does not want rebuilt does not get rebuilt. What do Christians have to do with Emperor Julian building a "fairer" society? Give us a break.
Except he didn't say that though. And actually many religionaries after him also said that The Gods would return and end of this deception of apostasy and falling into darkness and Rebellion. Lord Apollo Almighty was Prophesized to Return and Reestablish His Glory on The Earth again and guess what all Christianity is dying because The Almighties are ending this deception now.
Jesus the Antichristos illuminati puppet lost long ago in truth. Christian numbers are dropping fast missionaries are getting mission to now and facts and technology are stopping it it should have been destroyed centuries ago but still it's happening it should have been destroyed long ago but it's still going to happen.
@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 It's better to say 'paganisms,' plural. Rome had been adopting lots of 'pagan' traditions, foreign and domestic and Christianity was among the many other cults newly adapted.
Excerpt of on of his letters to the Alexandrians. Seems to be a reasonable man: "Now compare this letter of mine with the one[7] that I wrote to you a short time ago, and mark the difference well. What words of praise for you did I write then! But now, by the gods, though I wish to praise you, I cannot, because you have broken the law. Your citizens dare to tear a human being in pieces as dogs tear a wolf, and then are not ashamed to lift to the gods those hands still dripping with blood! But, you will say, George deserved to be treated in this fashion. Granted, and I might even admit that he deserved even worse and more cruel treatment. Yes, you will say, and on your account. To this I too agree; but if you say by your hands, I no longer agree. For you have laws which ought by all means to be honoured and cherished by you all, individually. Sometimes, no doubt, it happens that certain persons break one or other of these laws; but nevertheless the state as a whole ought to be well governed and you ought to obey the laws and not transgress those that from the beginning were wisely established. It is a fortunate thing for you, men of Alexandria, that this transgression of yours occurred in my reign, since by reason of my reverence for the god and out of regard for my uncle[8] and namesake, who governed the whole of Egypt and your city also, I preserve for you the affection of a brother. For power that would be respected and a really strict and unswerving government would never overlook an outrageous action of a people, but would rather purge it away by bitter medicine, like a serious disease. But, for the reasons I have just mentioned, I administer to you the very mildest remedy, namely admonition and arguments, by which I am very sure that you will be the more convinced if you really are, as I am told, originally Greeks, and even to this day there remains in your dispositions and habits a notable and honourable impress of that illustrious descent. Let this be publicly proclaimed to my citizens of Alexandria.
Also Julian failed because he did not know how to incorporate Bhakti in Neoplatonism love form the heart towards the deities that’s why in India the tradition surivived because of love and connection to the divinities from the heart
to answer your question: because Truth prevails and monotheism is the logical evolution of polytheism (even pre-Christian philosophers like Plato and Aristotle called out the superstitious primitive beliefs of polytheism). realizing that, on a cosmological level, there has to be a singular source of creation, but not humanized antropomorphic metaphors that constantly bicker and fight between each other, for the universe's unwritten laws to make sense, is a process of emotional and rational maturity.
@@crasnicul3371 anyways, mathematically speaking, "many Gods to one God to no God" is the logical progression. And I am drawing this conclusion from your logical argument only. So if my conclusion is false then it means your premise was false as well
@@swarupkumar2 you are brown so you don't understand either logic or mathematics. you cannot even understand abstract concepts or hypothetical questions. your calling in life is operating a street vendor.
Yes, there are many ideas from platonic philosophy that were later echoed in Christianity such as the immortality of the soul. However, the Platonism of late antiquity wasn't solely relevant to Christianity. It was an independent (and thoroughly pagan) school of thought and in turn influenced Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theology as well as the thought of other Pagans (like Julian). The connection is real but shouldn't be overemphasized IMO as Christianity existed and thrived for centuries before theologians like St. Augustine integrated some Neoplatonic ideas into Christian doctrine.
@@brentsrx7 if you really contemplate and research Christianity and its theology , it doesn’t make much sense at all , and almost like candy land when it comes to It’s over simplistic theology compared to the major leagues that is Plato , Aristotle , Pythagoras , Seneca etc and even famous Hindu philosophers and theological giants , like Ramanuja for example .
@AR-gu2no Once again. Super vague generalization. Naming lots of philosophers does not merit a viewpoint. All of the letters written by the early deciples that constitute the New Testament are cogent and are consistent with many manuscripts written before the Dead Sea scrolls. Jesus shared his gospel at the height of the Roman Empire, so a lot is known about his life and ministry. If there is an inconsistency, I would love to hear about it. Hindu is myered in mysticism and a pantheon of gods, like most extinct pagan religions.
I was expecting a more thorough video about his rise and fall. It's not like he inherited the position without any merit. He was an accomplished commander in the west. I also find the notion of his Helios being a new god, when he himself uses the moniker of Sol Invictus/Mithra to adress to him in the "Caesers"... Also, stating that unlike the christians his supporters were not there through merit, then mentioning those same christians convertinf to be in favor of the preceding emperors, and then saying that the priests of the temples of Julian needed to be in good behaviour in order to stay in their place... Bit contradictory... Christian scholars were also deeply influence by platonists and neoplatonists so, none of these came from a vaccum: The Heliaia, solis agon, was founded by the Emperor Aurelian at Rome in 274 a., d.; but the "unconquerable sun," sol invictus, had been worshipped there for fully a century before Aurelian's foundation; see Usener, Sol invictus, in Rheinisches Museum, 1905. Julian once again, Caesars 336 C calls Helios by his Persian name Mithras. The main reason for why Julian failed was him getting killed in Persia. There really was no huge advantage of Christianism by that time that could not be backtracked given time.
Christianity's triumph was a dark day for all the peoples of the world. The Christian Empires swept across the planet, and their savagery would please even old Rome.
@@lucius4753The overrated an enlightenment was crushed by Romanticism a century later. It never spread beyond a few Anglo-Frankish states. And as time goes on its values are noticeably being abandoned as we speak
Polytheism wasn't all that different from Christianity at least not Catholicism as you have all those various Saints, angel the Virgin Mary and whatnot in addition to God. They were more relevant to worshippers lives if anything, God is just kind of there in the background of the new pantheon.
@@ewkeenan wrong immediately Atenism was from Egyptian purely not Persian or Jewish. Having their own monotheism which came from the Babylonian captivity after. Monotheism for non hebraic beliefs was about as common as Polytheistic beleifs.
Vida's novel, Julian, gives probably the best account we are likely to have of the man...as for failing to restore paganism, Julian died in his early 30s...he had ruled for about a year and a half...what ruler attempting much of anything, and only reigning for about 18 months, achieved anything? So first and foremost, he failed because he died young and after a very brief reign. HIs refusal to turn to hardcore violence left him vulnerable to an array of critics who would probably have otherwise kept their mouths shut. He needed to break the link between Christian leaders/followers ties with the government...the military-industrial complex of its day.
Your premise is wrong. Roman paganism was not dying. It had to be slain. The persecution under Constantius and Theodosius and Justinian had a very hard time rooting it out. The population was very pagan in the western Empire. They had to make sure that Christians were appointed to high positions. They then had to make sure that people weren’t worshiping the gods in private. They had to make sure of a lot of things. Even in spite of all of that, Helenic paganism survived into the 10th century. Hardly the mark of a dying religion.
It was dead. Your examples are no better than saying that Native American religions are alive today because you still have shamans and old customs. Paganism was killed by Theodosius, after that it never had a shot in hell of returning. Even the fall of the empire didn’t matter as the invading Germans were Arian Christians
@@UncannyRicardo not true. I think your own Christian bias is showing. Only the Goths and perhaps some of the Vandals were Christian. Not even all of them were Christian, actually. There were still pagan Goths. The rest of the Germanic tribes were pagan. This is especially true of the western Germanic tribes. The franks that invaded Gaul come to mind. They didn’t convert to Christianity until after 496. That’s almost a century and a half after Julian‘s death. Same goes for the Saxons, Angles, Frisians and Jutes that invaded Britannia. On the island, missionaries had to be sent during the sixth century to try to get them to convert. On the continent, some of them did not become Christian until Charlemagne forced them to it in the ninth century some 500 years after Julian. Back to Rome, Constantine had only weighed Christianity the official state religion 50 years before Julian became emperor. That’s not enough time for an empire the size of Rome to really make that massive of a change. There was no mass media back then. Trends did not catch on as quickly as they do for us in modern times. Lastly, Julian only had two years as an emperor. He got himself killed in 363. You can’t do much in two years as emperor. Christian officials had to be fired. They then had to be replaced with confident pagan ones. Same goes for generals and bureaucrats. That takes time. If he had ruled for 20 years, he would’ve absolutely taken the Empire back to paganism. He should never have marched at the head of his armies so foolishly. He should’ve delegated that to actual generals and spent his time ruling the empire doing his job as emperor.
@@Hun_Uinaq Those pagan barbarians as you mentioned were on the desolate Franco-British lands, far removed from the center of the empire in the east and even Italy. The Vandals and Arian barbarians played a much more important role during the late Roman times than the others. Julian’s authority was stable but support mixed. Even with survival a failure in the east would have given the ammunition necessary for usurpers to immediately begin claiming his unworthiness and cause possible revolts. He wasn’t a populist or beloved autocrat, so how wide spread any of his policies would have been post a failed invasion are precarious. Actually trends can spread with the right environment. Justinians change of standardization of documentation and dating, for example, quickly spread beyond just government formalities and across the entire East within a few years. This was driven by willing officials, clergy and local writers wanting to gain favor. Julian didn’t have such appeal, while liked by his military he was seen as bemusing by the rest of officials
This was the position of Nietzsche, and it has its merits but I think it oversimplifies the distinctions between the two schools of thought. So while there are many ideas from platonic philosophy that were later echoed in Christianity (such as the immortality of the soul or the transcendent good) the connection shouldn't be overstated as Christianity initially existed and thrived for centuries before theologians like St. Augustine integrated some Neoplatonic ideas into core Christian doctrine. This was the height of neoplatonic influence on Christianity and I don't think its an accident that it occurred so close to the reign of Julian when neoplatonism was so dominant.
Simple explanation: Christ is King. His love and mercy brought the people to believe in the one true God. Once a person has that encounter with the love of God and his son Jesus Christ their life is changed forever.
I thought this was an evangelical channel and went in expecting underwhelming answers like "pRoviDenCE hAD ALreADy deCLarEd cHriStiaNiTy'S tRiuMpH". I'm pleased to say I was wrong. This is a great video.
@@faramund9865 divination is not just magic use it is like prayer and also sign seeker like sooth sayers. And astrology in the classic correct form. And other means as well.
1)Wowow! Christians half of the Empire total population"? No and FAR from that! Christianity was mainly first an urban religion and more than 3/4 of the population lived in countryside. 2) Read Ramsey Mc Mullen, a real specialist of that period and you'll find that paganism was not dying but was assassinated🧐 3)5.25: No christianity was NOT the "emperial religion" during 50 years at this time🙄....and were come that idea that Julian was "isolated"? Even christians during this period were sometimes "false" ones, ex: the son the great general Stillicon, Eucherius. Let's end such false "history" ans stop wasting time plz.😓
By the 350s ad Christianity was the dominant religion in the east, thus, the religion of half of the empire. Constantine converted to Christianity and Constantius II was also a Christian, thus, Christianity was already pretty much the empire's state religion in all but name. Though admittedly, Constantius and Constantine were pretty mellow as far as religion goes. Also in the video he said "under half" not half lol and he's right, it was likely around 30% or 40%
@@mezmero69 even then in the 300s to 400 he was still a small little cult they got prominence by Constantine. Even in the urban areas. It was no bigger than a local like fortune teller store back then in the 300s to 400s.
Well, it is more subtle than that. for it was not Christianity that triumphed, merely a fusion of Christian rhetoric covering pagan attitudes and ultimately pagan practice How so? when the church jumped into bed with the world at Constantine's real or imagined ( i am not sure which) conversion they compromised the gospel of Christ, forsaking it for the favour if the world. IOW i regard the conversion of Constantine as an unmitigated disaster for the church and having forsaken Christ ( a biblical term with biblical meaning) they had nothing left but paganism under a Christian gloss most people cannot tell the difference between Christian rhetoric and spiritual reality. this is a brief summary of what could be a book on the matter but the upshot is paganism merely changed its form even if few at the time, nominal Christian or overt pagan, understood this. of course some did notice this. but their response the desert monasticism of the so called desert fathers - to wit poor mad St Anthony et al - was itself rank heresy for they ignored what the bible said about severe treatment of the body being of no value against sin so what did the do? went out in to the desert to flog and starve themselves not into holiness but apostasy and insanity. So Julian need not have worried. paganism won, just not in the form he expected it to
@@faramund9865 All of hebraism("abrahamic/judeochristian" crap) is a DAMNED CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!! From it's start to its finish now as a long process of its Ending and Destruction. All of it yes All of it is Conspiracy and HOAX. Fraud upon Fraud. No apologies no jokes it's all Toooooo True. It's Direct WAR AGAINST God-s and Peoplekind and the universe via reality. AntiTheism, Devilry, Pride, hypocrisy, double standards, cheating, theft, lies upon lies upon lies, damnation anti salvation scapegoating of wicked wicked men as always unrepentant sexism etc etc etc.
![YoungBoy Never Broke Again - Sneaking [Official Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1ILUps2zDFU/mqdefault.jpg)
Why do you believe that Julian failed?
Probably getting fragged by some disgruntled soldier... "Dude forgot is armour and a will javelin appeared"... Yeah...sure.
Christians had a higher birth rate as well as a higher conversion rate.
@@usergiodmsilva1983PT it's pretty well documented that he was killed by a persian cavalryman
Not enough time
He died or was murdered too early. Had he lived another five, Rome may have been saved. A decade for sure.
Because he stopped being Julian
I think the main reason is a lot simpler than this, he simply lasted 2 years, died unexpectedly in battle, and was succeeded by a christian. No time for any change to set in, a bad omen, and an heir to undo his work.
That said I really appreciate this video, a lot of people in the neopagan sphere who dont know much about Julian think of him fondly as a "what if" (myself included until just now, since idk much about him) when in reality it seems like he wouldve brought about most of the same changes and problems these people have with catholicism and christianity broadly.
And what changes and problems would these be?
Rome was largely a fascist dictatorship, so no loss there, but it's hard to argue that we wouldn't have reached the Enlightenment faster if the Roman institutions weren't utterly destroyed and replaced by the fascist theocracy that based their power on the the credulity of the poor and the weak.
His own actions were the cause of his own doom. Instead of taking some years to put pagans in positions of power and strenghted his faith, he decided immediately to start a pointless expedition in Persia just to LARP as Alexander .
@@TheUrobolos I don´t see how he is such a fool. As a young "nerd" he got thrust into a really difficult war yet distinguished himself against the Allemani after having to learn the military trade in the field. His Sassanid campaign may seem pointless to you, but he was by this point a proven skilled general and sought to eliminate a threat to the Roman Empire that would be bothering them for a long time to come. Maybe I am biased, but he is kinda cool.
@@maxschreck4095 I can understand his PoV, but still if his main goal was to save paganism not starting unnecessary military campaigns and instead focus on internal matters and promotion of the faith would had been wiser
@@Bluesruse Jesus Christ you just outed yourself by having no idea what fascism is and unironically subscribed to the fascist distain for the weak and poor.
Mediaval Europe is already decentralized and by the time of papal hegemony in the west majority of the nations in Western Europe were a collective of differing forms of government and Culture under Feudalism putting modern concept in the middle ages ain't anything but assertion and ignorance
tl;dw: He tried to start a new "ecclesiastical" movement for Roman Paganism, attempting to convert it from a bunch of decentralized, locality-dependent traditions into a highly organized, highly disciplined "church" that could compete with Christianity itself, despite his reign ending up briefer than Gerald Ford's.
It was temples not churches and temple congregations.
@@Johnsmith99663 it was already central just now abominational with dictatorship and cult rebellion like CULTianity the new hoax.
I'm a bit skeptical on the "made up" notion. He had an instructor and confident in his early years that taught him about paganism. He did make reforms based on his Christian upbringing that was meant to make it more competitive by instilling services. Julian was a capable ruler who died too soon to turn things around.
Akhenaten only rejected certain gods, not all of them. He was more of a henotheist than a monotheist.
Thanks for the additional context!
Not all monotheists reject the gods. And certainly not all Christians did, either. Justin Martyr is a great example here in his Apology, wherein he says (paraphrasing), that "we Christians are no different than you pagans in the worship and esteem of our Christ."
He didn't even reject them he just saw them as inferior to atun the sundisc
@@aymenboussouar1880 Old christianity worked very similarly though, they did believe in the Gods as demons, which were later seen as evil. This element is still present in many regiaons. Mixing beliefs in paganism and christianity is still very popular today, especially among african religions in the atlantic coast of Africa and the Americas
@@HeitorS.-dh2wlhey you got to convert the pagans somebody
Julian's religion wasn't organic, it was a mishmash of Platonism and Second Temple Judaism. Constantine's conversion stuck because he adopted a religion which was ascendant already in the Eastern Empire. Julian's religion was imposed from the top down, not the bottom-up.
That's not true 2nd Temple Judaism nonsense he was respectful to Jews that doesn't mean he was second temple nonsense it was purely religionary not hebraic garbage.
It had nothing to do with Judaism.
@huwhitecavebeast1972 Judaism and all hebraism like Christianity and Islam with its Godless and more Godless Lies is Flat out No Match for Blessed Superiority of Neoplatonism which is Religionary(Pagan) Origins and goes renewed to us as well.
To begin with, I believe Akhenaten never created or tried to create an Egypt-wide alternative religion centered on Aten. He closed the old temples and focused on building a new capital centered on the worship of the "new" god, Aten. He certainly did that. But what then of the rank and file Egyptians? What were they to do? Were they expected to relocate to or make regular pilgrimages to el-Amarna? This was a ham-fisted effort to destroy the influence of the priesthoods and take their resources. But without an alternative religion to get the population in line, it was doomed. It might have been different had Akhenaten had a son to carry on after him. This is often so crucial to the success of radical change: time. Constantine had 3 surviving sons (not counting the one he murdered due to the lies his second wife told him) to keep the Christianization moving forward. Julian came too late and did not have a like-minded heir either.
It is noteworthy that his father, Amenhotep III, actually began the family veneration of the Aten. Akhenaten simply continued the religious legacy of his father. That needs to be said because far too many people seem to place all the blame on the son.
Interpretatio graeca, or the association of foreign gods with that of a Greco-Roman analogue made assimilation relatively easy compared to the wholesale imposition of new rites onto the conquered.
The trade-off with Christianity is that it makes the ‘in-group’ much more unified than that of pagan communities. Jesus shares a personal relationship after all.
So once Rome was Christianized, it could not be paganized.
This was Julian’s folly.
This presupposes that the masses would’ve cultivated a relationship with Christ in all parts of the empire in the 50 years since Christianity became legal. That is ridiculous. Even with the full power of the catholic Church during the Renaissance , it took centuries to fully Christianize certain parts of the world during the age of colonization. In some places, it never happened. India is an example of this. The church of England tried very hard. In other places, the paganism remain as a substratum of the Christianity forming new syncretic religions like Santeria and Haitian voodoo. I therefore pause it that a once prescribed fledgling religion split into lots of different sects and without real power cannot possibly have made sufficient inroads into the population in a half century in order for it to be unlikely for somebody to undo the conversion. Julian died two years after he became emperor. That’s the real reason it didn’t take. If he had survived, if he had removed all the Christian officials from their places and repealed The laws prohibiting polytheistic worship, if he had egged on all the in fighting among the Christians of the time and allowed the religion to splinter into disunity, Christianity would’ve just faded into the backdrop of the mini religions of the empire. The old order would’ve just organically reasserted itself. Even as late as the mid sixth century, Justinian had a rough time rooting out pagan holdouts. People in the countryside kept on doing what they had been doing for centuries and ignored what the city people were up to. It took coercion and outright persecution to get rid of Roman polytheism.
not really true, Julian died. that was his folly.
If you look at a country like India, hinduism could survive the onslaught of monotheists by having strong Polytheistic governments over many centuries.
Christianity itself was a top down venture, and required many pagan edicts and state violence in order to stamp out the pagans; and that's the reality of all religions.
See how quickly egypt and syria became muslim, religious adherence is a matter of how able the religious community is able to defend itself
@@totalfreedom2408sorry you aren't familiar with islamic history at all, Egypt become magority Muslim until 14th century and Levant in 12th
@@mueezadam8438 not true and that's only a half Truth at all if not a quarter truth wholesome communities with very dumb by Pagans as well as christians if not better than christians.
@@mueezadam8438 there was no falling in Julian Julian knew the truth and if he wasn't assassinated by the coup he would have succeeded in and kept the light and restored it to the world.
I've been thinking about this for some time now. The old traditional religion was basically dead by the fourth century and there was no going back, there was bound to be some religious reforms or the replacement with something new, this must've been clear to a lot of the empire elites and intellectuals at the time. The (neo)platonists were making some very solid foundation for polytheism and spirituality in general for centuries by that point, their work was so good that even Christians and Gnostics took a lot from them by changing some bits, but even then their reform of paganism never actually became popular. The war for the Mediterranean spirituality (the winner of which would transform Europe and the rest of the world) was raged by Christianity, Gnosticism and Manichaeism. The Platonists were sadly shoved to the side. Maybe if they actually tried to spread their teachings to the masses, instead of secluding themselves in mystery cults reserved to a selected few, we would still have the worship of native gods alive in the modern age.
Dead? I believe most of the empire still worshiped at pagan temples up until Justinian...
@@usergiodmsilva1983PT Yes, dead. It's hyperbolic speech, of course, but we all know that the old ways were dying fast by that point.
Paganism was still very strong. Particularly in the West. So what you've said is nonsense. He could have rid the empire of Christianity had he had a long reign.
@@Insectoid_ You are ignorant. I'm talking exclusively of roman and Greek paganism, but it also includes Egyptian, north African and the Levant. Western Europe would follow not long after.
@@Ζήνων-ζ1ι I'm not.
Julian's "new religion" sounds like a Temu version of Second Temple Judaism with basically everything that made Judaism succeed missing
Not really a lot of beliefs had that are contradicting. Judaism just got it from the Religionaries.
Love your videos. Keep up the great work!
Thank you! The encouragement means so much to us!
Regardless of his flaws, Julian is a great writer. It is fascinating how he devoted as much time of his short life to literature as to affairs of state.
What flaws he was perfect pretty much only conspiracy coup is what stopped him.
Jesus was wayyyyy imperfect and Sinful and fallen by comparison.
Julian was just one of those nerdy sigma male types that read the works of Marcus Aurelius once and thought, "He's literally me!!!"
haha yes this might not actually be that far off
He was a Neo-Planonist not a Stoic but yes.
Literally the ancient equivalent of a redditor
@@cartelconnection6699 I should have explicitly made this connection
Gore Vidal version is literally this except replace Marcus Aurelius with Alexander the Great 😂
Is it true that Julian ran into battle without armor? I'd have to consider that one of his larger mistakes.
That's a nice story... Probably was a disgruntle soldier that fragged him.
You might want to put that into context with all the other instances where ancient historians like Herodotus said that this or that non-Roman people "went into battle naked ". It's been said about the Celts, the Slavs and many others numerous times. In reality, it seems to be used as an insulting description of people who were simply not prepared for battle.
@@RobespierreThePoof It was apparently just one day when he was in a huge hurry, which not coincidentally was the same day he died, so I could believe it. Still it could also be a rumor created by anti-Pagan historians. That far in the past it becomes difficult to be certain of the truth
@@RobespierreThePoof there are more than a few accounts of Celtic warriors going into battle without armor or clothes. I don't think it was simply the defamation of their enemies.
@@RobespierreThePoof I would disagree with the assertion that this was a metaphor of sorts to show him as an unworthy commander, I think it is more a reflection of Julian's impulsiveness, his belief that he was a divine emissary and his idolization of Alexander the Great.
A very well reasoned take on this "watershed" moment in history.
Thank you, Gaius and Tribunate, for such an informative video!
The polytheist tradition in the ancient world was explicitly transactional in nature and non-committal, i.e. people didn't have to "believe" in a creed or legends. It was the performance of a ritual practice that was important to be observed. One day you can make a gift to one god, while the next -- a sacrifice to another god, depending on some personal needs or desires and with the completion of the act, your relation to the deities is over as if you're checking out at the cash register in the local groceries store. This was in sharp contrast of the monotheist counterparts (Judaism, Christianity and later Islam), where the relation with the faith is like a marriage for lifetime and commands total submission, not only in practice but also firm belief, where the faith is internalized in your moral fabric, excluding any other religion... or god. In ancient Rome such exclusionary devotion was seen as an extremist superstition and frowned upon, probably the reason early Christians and messianic Jews were lumped together in the numerous persecutions.
The transactional argument is simply a polemical strategy used by monotheists to denigrate polytheists. There's no reason to believe that ancient polytheists differed much in their devotion to their gods as modern Hindus do in their polytheistic societies. Worship was primarily community-based and localized, but also became centred on individual or household worship.
But there r also sacrifices in the bible, in that sense polytheism and monotheism do not differ.
In Curches during the medival time it was about performance and showing people why u need a priest, wich actually encouraged a lack of a direct conection to their concept of god. ( wich is why catholic curches were especially so affected by the printing press)
Holidays were taken from other religions, cause people liked to celebrate.
The only difference is that Monotheism nowerdays does not want to belive that there can be other deitys/gods. Polytheism just focused on the gods/ Spirits/ deitys that they r familiar with or want to have in their lifes. ( yes some popular deitys like Isis traveld accross countrys)
At one point abrahemic religions started to asume that there is only one god, even tho from what I have heard that was never really excluded in the bible. The bible is also very biased and someone purposefully excluded storys, wich they did not like. I sometimes ask myself what Christianity and Judasm did originally look like for individualls of ancient times, bevor someone turned it into a medium to deny other believesystems a right to exist. The fall of the West Roman empire probably contributed a lot, to finalise the toxic christian mindset that some people even have today. Were they use every religious excuse to do the oposite of being a loving and forgiving Christian at heart.🤔
I’d recommend Esoterica, Dan MacClellan, and Religion For Breakfast if you’re looking for traces of Polytheism in the Bible. Especially Dan McClellan, as he’s a Biblical Scholar.
The OT does actually mention other Gods- who worked alongside God, no less. Look up the Divine Council!
People could and did believe in it though not anything that Hebraics did like Godless Christians and Muslims do or any hebraics.
One of the best fictional works about Julian is the novel named after him by Gore Vidal.
It's a good book, and poses interesting questions, but one of the goals of this video was to push back on the image of Julian that the novel helped advance and popularize. Vidal's Julian bears little resemblance to the actual man
@tribunateSPQR Julian is a hero to people who dislike Christianity and Vidal certainly fit that category.
I read the book ages ago, but I don't think Vidal's Julian was mystical enough.
@@johnbolender5246 the sheer amount of hecatombs be did in the book makes me disegree.
We must remember that Julian as a youth was taken in by his uncle Eusebius, one of the great early fathers of the Christian movement. An Julian was a professing Christian for awhile....
But then he repented and went to light.
@@daviddavenport9350 eusebius the apostate you mean like Jesus and Paul the Jewish apostates and sinners and same with all CULTianity are rebels and apostates and infidels.
Julian tried to build the third temple, it fell
There's no third temple in truth after all Ezekiel crap is second temple only.
Do an episode on the reforms he proposed and their likelihood. Like, I heard he wanted to return to city focused administration of the greeks, how could that mesh with his base of support being rural?.
I'll return to this later - it's best not to think of his support base here as the typical rural farmers but the large landlords who owned the majority of the arable land. Because their holdings were not always concentrated in one specific area, these wealthy landowners resided in the cities at least part of the time so were still somewhat urbanized.
@@tribunateSPQR oh, also how well do you think his reforms would deal with the issues the empire would come to face, I highly doubt a dejure confederacy of cities defacto under the empire city-provinces, during the empire's urban decline would work better than the dominus Constantine-Diocletian way the empire was organized.
Would this mean the Empire falls more completely or does the Empire reform from that and would they keep the dejure image of being organized like that due to his prestige or completely do away with it?. Or do you think the reforms may actually work?.
I still think the reforms would fail and how would that period and the earlier/worse collapse affect the Church especially the proto-Catholic-Orthodox.
@@tribunateSPQRI think it’s better to say Julian’s support came from the “senatorial class” not just “rural landowners” the Illyrian military families that gave rise to Constantine and the major Figures of the Christian Dominate were also “rural landowners” just not of the same caliber.
Didn't Julian also declare a tax holiday for poor people while also more efficiently taxing the rich?
Because he wore no armour when he was struck with a javelin, had he lived long enough to sire children the world would be very different.
I think that paganism was in irreversible decline by this point, but if anything could have saved traditional religion then it was a long reign for an emperor like Julian.
Had he founded a new pagan dynasty then European history would have certainly played out much differently
@@tribunateSPQRIt wasn’t in irreversible decline, Chrisitianity was still a minority religion, only being dominant in parts of the east. Without a continuous line of draconian emperors to push Christianity down everyone’s throats it wouldn’t have have spread like it did.
Who’s to say his children would succeed him? Or that they would believe the same things as him.
@@rhett5058 Because it was still the majority and there’s political disadvantages for future emperors to abandon all that, yes, dynasties come and go, but there would be no Christian domination.
@@scorpionfiresome3834no it wasn’t. In fact, by Julian’s time, a third of the population had already become Christian, and no other pagan religion was that large. Effectively, there was no stopping the inevitable complete takeover of Christianity by the time of Julian, and to say otherwise is nothing but naive wishful thinking.
Hypothetically speaking, even if Julian were successful against the Persians, he would have to face the Huns, who would appear in the West only a decade after the emperor's death.
Yes, but they didn't start raiding the Roman empire until well after this time, around the time after the death of Theodosius.
@@gabrielethier2046theodosius the true apostate and Constantine the true apostate as well as Jesus and Paul the Apostates and Rebels and Sinners and Infidels.
@@charliejackson5492 what did I just read?
@@gabrielethier2046 this
Every false claim and view you have from your unholy bible comes from man. Never ever any god but Anti God, and that's Straight Heaven Given Fact. Christian Bible proves itself to be UNinspirable and IMMEASURABLY FALSE UPON FALSE. The hoax is Exposed and been so for 1800 years when it began since 2000 is too long, thus it's really under 1800 and farrr smaller. Hello, your entire hoax CULT is based on gaslighting, fraud, word twisting, mind control, and making stuff up on making stuff up. Don't forget fabricating and fudging stuff out, and down too; while not getting challenged for so long. Truly here that don't mean it's validable. It's NOT and can't even be thus. 2peter admits he's making it up from wicked Ungodly and Godless men and devils Secretly. And, never did or had and can't now even dream of having any sorta “holy spirit”? And, never could.
Get over yourself now for good to save yourself, and True Saviors Real Christoses/Cristuses who destroy sin Save you too. And keep yourself safe cuz your not in trouble unless you put yourself
in it.
Unlike me and others you guys all you guys are nothing, but False upon False teachers and Deceivers the Worst from Hell and Darkness. That means your christian bible authors like paul who is one the worst and the johanine author too. Devils sent you all like wicked wicked men
sent you.
But, we give true holy and pious Teaching and Facts. And God Tells you it's us and Says so to All real texts wise and wisdom wise and revelation wise. Repent and get outta this Cult of darkness.
Suck it up and Repent and open up and out the Real Divines. They Almighties Whom Dis Make you and I.
5:09 What are those caps they're wearing? With a disk and a small rod sticking up out of it... I only get the phrygian cap when I Google.
That which was not Christian was cut off from the imperial treasury. This would include the court, unless the bureaucracy would provide otherwise, but all government offices were held by canonical Christians since Constantine's purge of 326.
Great introduction with the Egyptian parallel example.
Thanks!
@tribunateSPQR I kept thinking, did I select the wrong video? But then I realized you were drawing a parallel historical circumstance. It was very creative and created a helpful contrast. It was a good pedagogical tool for understanding Julian's failure.
@@johnz8843 someone did actually leave a comment once that said “this video is about king tut”
@tribunateSPQR Well, I stopped the video, started over, and also rechecked the title since I didn't believe someone would draw a long example from a different culture and time period to help us better understand Julian's failure. It's not common because you really have to think it through.
I feel like Julian's inevitable failure is best summed up in a simple poem by Constantine Cavafy, "Julian Seeing Contempt." If you search for it, it's online.
Curious is that emperor Julian is called "the apostate" by historians!
But he couldn't possibly have apostatized as he never had been a christian
He actually wrote himself that he spent his first 20 years of life as a Christian, so he was indeed an apostate
Because he was a Christian he just got repented of it and got out. So by that very definition it's apostasy but he just repented of this deception and came to light the true belief that is Christos and God-Given and Devil hating.
It's an appeal to the Christian cult and secular people who are brainwashed under Christianity and its deception.
Tbh although I agree with much of this, the real biggest reason is just that he died so quickly after gaining power. He might still have failed after being in power for even a whole lifetime but we'll never know
Almost always, religious causes and alignments are cover-ups for political causes and alignments. Both Egypt and Rome, in the situations mentioned, are mostly that
I like Tribunate
What are the main sources for this video? Sounds like interesting reads.
Here are a few:
How Rome Fell - Adrian Goldsworthy
Rome: Empire of the Eagles - Neil Faulkner
The Fate of Rome - Kyle Harper
The Rise of Christianity - Rodney Stark
Also relied on Gibbon and the surviving works of Julian himself. Happy reading!
@@tribunateSPQR Thank you!
@@BernasLL of course! Always happy to recommend books
9:00 do keep in mind this was also based on the god Deus Sol Invictus, who has been a major roman god since Eligabalus
Oh King Julian!!!
@@gandhithegreat328 king and emperor Julian Lords-Ladies-Ledons Bless him and Bless us too.
what was the name of the painting with the Egyptian woman kneeling?
Religions seem to naturally run there course over time. Paganism inevitably faded after thousands of years, just as Christianity is fading now.
Christianity and Islam are on the rise, whereas Atheism will start declining in a few decades
@@purplesamurai5373 You keep telling yourself that if it makes you feel better. According to the statistics, in 40 or 50 years, the USA will have more atheists than Christians.
@@purplesamurai5373 Only in Africa
@@ajsouza3720 Which is most of the world's population and will only become more of the world's population.
Christianity is fading? Lol. Maybe the more traditional circles, like catholicism and orthodoxy.
Nice work, well done
splendid work as usual
Thank you, much appreciated!
Julian lost most of his family because of Constantine He also got into drugs as a youth
I think that spear in his side definitely helped. Imagine if he had ruled longer.
'Pagus' means countryside. Paganism is so called because the evangelists first went to the cities not the countryside
Deception to the Blessed sacred cities to spread their deception and darkness and deceive as many as they can. But still doesn't matter religion areas we survived and we're preaching back into the cities and into the countryside to get our world back and bring new stuff as well.
I suggest another possible reason for the success of Tutankhamen while Julian failed is that Atenism may have been almost entirely the personal conviction of the Pharoah itself, with no roots in the lower classes. So when he died there were no grass roots to carry on his ideas. Compare and contrast with the constant war against "idolatry" in ancient Israel, which was a constant power between the urban elites in the temple versus the practice of the rural people. Because rural people would not leave their ancestral beliefs until the Babylonian captivity, their viewpoints would continue to percolate upwards and trouble the temple priesthood for centuries.
Christianity, by contrast, had its roots in the urban poor, in slaves and in women. As a result, there was a foundational basis for the religion so it would not simply disappear when their Emperor-advocate died. Perhaps religion is more a bottom-up phenomenon than something which can be imposed from the top down.
Bottom up was not some accident. It was strategy.
The loss of the ancient polytheistic religions of Europe and the Near East is one of the greatest losses of intangible heritage in recorded history. It is only surpassed by the countries religions that Christian missionaries wiped out as agents of modern European empires.
Nobody misses human sacrifice and institutionalized child rape/ sex cults but degenerates.
Antiquity is a horror to us precise of our Christian morality.
It truly is a loss.
skill issue lol, cry more that your public human sacrifices and catamite slaves got banned
Le christianity bad upvotes to the left
I never understood why you people simp so hard for paganism, like do you have some trauma with christianity? Its ALL fairytales. Like we would be any better believing in Zeus xd all religion is cringe, not only abrahamic ones.
The chrisrian population was probably less than 1% the Roman Empire at the time. Had Julian not been succeeded by a series of christian emperors, the christian Roman Empire 312-361 would've been an odd but interesting period of a solidly polytheistic Roman Empire.
Yes, but we know at this time that "1%" was already in high positions within the Roman aristocracy with access to the emperor and his retinue. That makes a huge difference with access to the levers of power.
No it was at least a third of the population by the Time of Julian if not larger especially in the east. Paganism was reduced to a religion of the Most rural backwaters of the empire and of the Senatorial elite classes. The Military, Bureaucracy, and urban-suburban populations of the empire were plurality of not outright majority Christian by the mid 300s
@@americanaccolon1319 not in the west. Christianity was a predominantly Syrian religion at the time of Julian's ascendence
@@totalfreedom2408 the East especially Syria was certainly its strongest centers, its “base” of you will. It’s fair to assume by Julian’s time a majority of the population of Syria was Christian but the west still had large and powerful Christian minorities or pluralities especially in major military-political centers like mediolanum, Rome, Carthage, Illyria, and military colonies such as the ones Theodosius was from. Gaul and Britain certainly had the weakest Christian influence in the west and the empire is a whole and it’s no coincidence Gallic troops were Julian’s main military support base as opposed to the resoundingly Christian troops of the Eastern army
@@totalfreedom2408 no, actually, it was in fact already widespread in Gaul, Italy, Spain and even in Britain, there were many active Bishoprics in those regions and many important Christian authors such as Irenaeos of Lyon that attest to this fact. I have no idea where you get that it was "predominantly Syrian", sure it was probably the region with the highest concentration, along with Asia Minor actually, but it was far from being the only place where Christianity was significant at the time.
Just like Rome. It was greed.
Very interesting!
thank you!
Since all leaders were playing the same script the final target were simple civilians and not former enemies. Paganism obviously still waited a few more years to have its chance.
Too many people get caught up in "great man" history
Regardless of what Julian or any emperor did or didnt do, the Germanic Tribes were going to migrate in search of arable land, because the rugged uplands of Northern Europe would not be suitable for farming until the invention of the mouldboard plow in the 700s, which is not coincidentally when the migrations began to settle down
And since the Roman population was decimated by plauge, and the migrations were inevitable
So was the germanification of the west
The real reason he failed was because he died before he could bring his plans to fruition.
What i read in my Byzantine history textbook is that he died young after a short reign and people took that as a sign of God's disapproval of what he was doing. Because people still believed such things at the time. Particularly coming after Constantine the Great's long and successful reign.
Would it surprise anyone to know that the professor said that there is a second, *far* less dramatic and poetic explanation for Constantine's sudden conversion? This version holds that Constantine was feeling guilty after ordering his eldest son executed for plotting against him and converted to assuage his guilt.
trust me when I say this channel will blow up big time or else the internet is insane.
Thanks for the vote of confidence! We’re looking forward to sharing lots more exciting Rome-related content with the dedicated fans who have helped make this all possible
The main reason why Julian's ideas didn't take hold was because he wasn't around long enough to make them stick. Had he ruled Rome for 30 years like his more famous Uncle, things may have turned out different. Your video was a well researched but very negatively biased account of Julian. One of key things you failed to mention was Julian's main reason for rejecting Christianity, the deplorable behavior of those in his family who championed the new religion. Constantine the Not-so-Great, and his weirdly named sons, killed his father and brother and forced their religion on Julian and everybody else in the Roman Empire. The trauma from all of this made the young Julian hold a silent grudge against them until he was old and powerful enough to rebel against them. Nobody knows what would have happened had Julian not died in Persia but it is safe to say that his depiction in history would have probably been drastically different.
Were pagan emperors less barbaric?
@@bobdollaz3391 Some were. Some weren't. For example, Antoninus acted a lot more "Christian" than Constantine ever did. My post is not a criticism of Christianity. It is a criticism of a line of Emperors who professed the faith but did not live it.
What is points do now stick because they've been survived and they withstood CULTianity and all hebraic deception.
@@bobdollaz3391absolutely yes they were not Christian emperors were horribly bought back I mean look at theodosius just right after Julian
He wasn't quite the last, there was another Pagan Revival under Eugenius.
I view the 4th Century as a history of Roman Paganism and Hellenic Christianity synthesizing rather then either prevailing over the other. (And Neo-Platonism is also part of the mixture).
Why does he remind me of Jalaluddin Akbar, except that Jalaluddin was a ruler for longer.
Maybe if he actually wore his armor his reforms would have actually worked.
he failed because he died, and not really any other reason.
Had he survived he would have probably create a sort of western style hinduism
I don't know if Julian's ideas were quite right, but I admire his willingness to follow his beliefs rather than just follow the religion he was expected to adhere to. As a modern Pagan who worships the Greek/Roman gods, I also admire his effort to save at least a version of that tradition as he saw it fading away in his time.
I dont mean any offense, but 99% of people who claim to be neopagan are just atheist.
Are you a Neoplatonist? Julian wasn't an authentic pagan.
@@kornelszecsi6512I have seen you on twitter
May I ask what makes an Authentic Pagan?
@@kornelszecsi6512 I know your Twitter
Ave Divus Julianus!
Larp lol
@@cartelconnection6699If I'm a larper then so are you, friend.
He turned his back on a Christian, huge mistake.
This is the last man documented to speak to an oracle. I don’t think most people understand the importance of Julian
The Oracle of Delphi wasn't that important at the time. The fact that Oracle was taking bribes was practically public knowledge by the time of the second Persian invasion of greece (480 b.c.)
i clicked but it’s all about king tut
He failed because he took a spear to the liver.
He must have not had enough piety mana points or controlled 3 holy sites, so couldn’t reform the religion.
I think this video is not providing a plausible story. It isn't properly knowledgeable regarding the late development of neo-Platonism. Paganism at this time was monotheistic, with the One at the top, then the Demiurge (which was a good, although deficient Platonic reflection of the One). The Hellenic/Roman gods in this monotheistic system were simply manifestations of natural forces and indirectly of the will of the One via the Demiurge, and can be compared to an unruly flock of angels or later on: saints. Denigrating Julian because of a failure to understand what Paganism was at the time, does not make a good impression. I think you should remake this video, and this next time make it properly.
Julian's version of late-hellenistic paganism CAN be accurately described as polytheistic because:
1. it is Iamblican; Iamblicus were more heavily involved with ritualizing theurgy, and was also basing his model of the universe on still-alive religious traditions from mesopotamia and egypt, as well as the canaanite and syrian religious beliefs that were heavily syncretised into Hellenistic theology. Iamblicus also was more focused on the worship and invocation of earthly gods than the ineffable One.
2. The One also wasn't a god, in the monotheistic sense; it's the underlying principle of all things, and the cause as well as end of everything. Neopythagoreans identified the Platonic one and his Form of Goodness with thr Pythagorean Monad, that is to say, the One isn't a god in any sense, but literally the manifestation of Goodness, as well as the First Number One. As for the demiurge, many Neoplatonists did identify it with Zeus.
@@rursus8354 first off proper correct monotheism unlike hebraism with it's false monotheism going worse to straight anti theism
Julians vision of Paganism seems like overly complicated fan-fiction.
it literally was
Both Islam and Christianity is fan fiction of Judaism as well 😏
@@kehinde3803 no islam is, christianity is a fulfillment of the old testament with a divine structure jewish scholars say they have no actual ability to debunk
It is not overly complicated it was very beautiful and complex and its glory and blessedness but it's not fanfiction buddy your entire idea is fanfiction.
Julians restoration of good faith in truth was in fact right in glorious. It was a cool conspiracy that stopped him. That doesn't mean his ideas and his truth or really his ideals and teachings are still here and they are.
The problem is that the commoners already moved on, and the Gods of nobility and great heroes did not resonate with commoners, they probably never did. Commoners had minor practical gods, local gods and spirits. The higher pantheon was too far from them. Bei like the apostles, and simple Christian life was way more achievable than being born half a god or a king favored by gods. Even if Julian won, he would just have won some extra years. Christianity was already growing in Rome, and all around the empire, beyond his reach.
@@josepheridu3322 that is not true commoners had the same Gods as the Elites did. There's no class of change The Gods were and are for everyone.
It did indeed jive with all.
If Julian won indeed there would've been a change and class of restoration of Religionary Life soon. Christianity even after his time was still small. It had to forced on people to get the effect it has today and the Lies it is and was.
U don't understand that.
I look so much like Julian from the video image damn
great presentation of the actual perspective
Prejudiced propaganda
@@toonedin really? how?
The LAST PAGANS became "POLITICIANS" and now EVERYONE is SCREWED😂
@@DavidGreen-n1s no the Religionaries of them can politicians not because of the religious stuff but because of the political rule the Roman empire they didn't really care they should have known had foresight about this cult that was deceiving all into Darkness.
It's quite sad that Julian did not succeed with his plans. He was trying to bring in a more just and fair society and only a few rulers have ever been able to do that. Darrius the Great, Alexander the Great, ext. Learning about Julian in more depth has re-fueled my dislike for Christians.
He wasn't good enough against the Sassanids
Be honest: he tried to curry favor with the Jews and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem which Christ had predicted would happen 40 years before it happened. They learned what God destroys and does not want rebuilt does not get rebuilt. What do Christians have to do with Emperor Julian building a "fairer" society? Give us a break.
Be honest: he had a plant-based diet.
The Last wotds of Julian;
re-iterated at the conclusion of Omen III:
You have won, O Pale Galilean.
Except he didn't say that though. And actually many religionaries after him also said that The Gods would return and end of this deception of apostasy and falling into darkness and Rebellion.
Lord Apollo Almighty was Prophesized to Return and Reestablish His Glory on The Earth again and guess what all Christianity is dying because The Almighties are ending this deception now.
Jesus the Antichristos illuminati puppet lost long ago in truth. Christian numbers are dropping fast missionaries are getting mission to now and facts and technology are stopping it it should have been destroyed centuries ago but still it's happening it should have been destroyed long ago but it's still going to happen.
You know if this guy had succeed there could have been a weird Hindu esc religion in the west.
"New" faith? Christianity was about 300 years old when Constantine converted. It would have been decades older when Julian was emperor.
New relative to Greco-Roman paganism
@@thelittleredhairedgirlfrom6527 It's better to say 'paganisms,' plural. Rome had been adopting lots of 'pagan' traditions, foreign and domestic and Christianity was among the many other cults newly adapted.
yes that's very new for a religion
I mean, Sikhism is considered a new religion today despite having existed for nearly 600 years
@@hogndog2339 Who considers Sikhism to be new?
Excerpt of on of his letters to the Alexandrians. Seems to be a reasonable man: "Now compare this letter of mine with the one[7] that I wrote to you a short time ago, and mark the difference well. What words of praise for you did I write then! But now, by the gods, though I wish to praise you, I cannot, because you have broken the law. Your citizens dare to tear a human being in pieces as dogs tear a wolf, and then are not ashamed to lift to the gods those hands still dripping with blood! But, you will say, George deserved to be treated in this fashion. Granted, and I might even admit that he deserved even worse and more cruel treatment. Yes, you will say, and on your account. To this I too agree; but if you say by your hands, I no longer agree. For you have laws which ought by all means to be honoured and cherished by you all, individually. Sometimes, no doubt, it happens that certain persons break one or other of these laws; but nevertheless the state as a whole ought to be well governed and you ought to obey the laws and not transgress those that from the beginning were wisely established.
It is a fortunate thing for you, men of Alexandria, that this transgression of yours occurred in my reign, since by reason of my reverence for the god and out of regard for my uncle[8] and namesake, who governed the whole of Egypt and your city also, I preserve for you the affection of a brother. For power that would be respected and a really strict and unswerving government would never overlook an outrageous action of a people, but would rather purge it away by bitter medicine, like a serious disease. But, for the reasons I have just mentioned, I administer to you the very mildest remedy, namely admonition and arguments, by which I am very sure that you will be the more convinced if you really are, as I am told, originally Greeks, and even to this day there remains in your dispositions and habits a notable and honourable impress of that illustrious descent.
Let this be publicly proclaimed to my citizens of Alexandria.
Also Julian failed because he did not know how to incorporate Bhakti in Neoplatonism love form the heart towards the deities that’s why in India the tradition surivived because of love and connection to the divinities from the heart
What a vehicle of insidious Christian propaganda this video is ⁉️🙄😑
to answer your question:
because Truth prevails and monotheism is the logical evolution of polytheism (even pre-Christian philosophers like Plato and Aristotle called out the superstitious primitive beliefs of polytheism).
realizing that, on a cosmological level, there has to be a singular source of creation, but not humanized antropomorphic metaphors that constantly bicker and fight between each other, for the universe's unwritten laws to make sense, is a process of emotional and rational maturity.
And ultimately Atheism is the logical end to all the religious discussion as science progresses and proves the real truth about the universe.
@@swarupkumar2 its actually a very intellectually deficit and contradictory position but I dont expect a pajeet to understand.
@@crasnicul3371 lol.... here comes the insult. Thanks for accepting that you have no valid arguments left.
@@crasnicul3371 anyways, mathematically speaking, "many Gods to one God to no God" is the logical progression. And I am drawing this conclusion from your logical argument only. So if my conclusion is false then it means your premise was false as well
@@swarupkumar2 you are brown so you don't understand either logic or mathematics.
you cannot even understand abstract concepts or hypothetical questions. your calling in life is operating a street vendor.
Wasn’t Christianity also heavily neo-Platonic? That’s what Yaron Brook said anyway.
Yes, there are many ideas from platonic philosophy that were later echoed in Christianity such as the immortality of the soul. However, the Platonism of late antiquity wasn't solely relevant to Christianity. It was an independent (and thoroughly pagan) school of thought and in turn influenced Christian, Jewish, and Islamic theology as well as the thought of other Pagans (like Julian). The connection is real but shouldn't be overemphasized IMO as Christianity existed and thrived for centuries before theologians like St. Augustine integrated some Neoplatonic ideas into Christian doctrine.
"Failed prophet" - good thing he wasn't trying to be one, then
Christianity actually makes sense, and it has an overwhelming amount of archeological evidence to support it.
😂
Ehhhh
@@AR-gu2no Such point, much wow, so poignant.
@@brentsrx7 if you really contemplate and research Christianity and its theology , it doesn’t make much sense at all , and almost like candy land when it comes to It’s over simplistic theology compared to the major leagues that is Plato , Aristotle , Pythagoras , Seneca etc and even famous Hindu philosophers and theological giants , like Ramanuja for example .
@AR-gu2no Once again. Super vague generalization. Naming lots of philosophers does not merit a viewpoint. All of the letters written by the early deciples that constitute the New Testament are cogent and are consistent with many manuscripts written before the Dead Sea scrolls. Jesus shared his gospel at the height of the Roman Empire, so a lot is known about his life and ministry. If there is an inconsistency, I would love to hear about it. Hindu is myered in mysticism and a pantheon of gods, like most extinct pagan religions.
So he was the first neo pagan larper, reinventing Christianity but with pagan reskin? Ok geddit
I was expecting a more thorough video about his rise and fall. It's not like he inherited the position without any merit. He was an accomplished commander in the west. I also find the notion of his Helios being a new god, when he himself uses the moniker of Sol Invictus/Mithra to adress to him in the "Caesers"... Also, stating that unlike the christians his supporters were not there through merit, then mentioning those same christians convertinf to be in favor of the preceding emperors, and then saying that the priests of the temples of Julian needed to be in good behaviour in order to stay in their place... Bit contradictory... Christian scholars were also deeply influence by platonists and neoplatonists so, none of these came from a vaccum:
The Heliaia, solis agon, was founded by the Emperor Aurelian at Rome in 274 a., d.; but the "unconquerable sun," sol invictus, had been worshipped there for fully a century before Aurelian's foundation; see Usener, Sol invictus, in Rheinisches Museum, 1905. Julian once again, Caesars 336 C calls Helios by his Persian name Mithras.
The main reason for why Julian failed was him getting killed in Persia. There really was no huge advantage of Christianism by that time that could not be backtracked given time.
Good.
Christianity's triumph was a dark day for all the peoples of the world. The Christian Empires swept across the planet, and their savagery would please even old Rome.
@@DreamersOfReality Yes, a very dark day for pagans. Because judgement of their wickedness had arrived.
@@cartesian_doubt6230 christianity still brought wickedness though. That’s why it was defeated by the State, starting from the enlightenment period
@@lucius4753The overrated an enlightenment was crushed by Romanticism a century later. It never spread beyond a few Anglo-Frankish states. And as time goes on its values are noticeably being abandoned as we speak
Polytheism wasn't all that different from Christianity at least not Catholicism as you have all those various Saints, angel the Virgin Mary and whatnot in addition to God. They were more relevant to worshippers lives if anything, God is just kind of there in the background of the new pantheon.
@@Enzo012 wrong it's very different.
People instead of Gods as statue use is not really comparable at all.
@@Enzo012 u need to look again. We Religionaries hate Catholics and all Cultians as the evil and Devilry they are.
Nope. Atonism is Judaic and Persian in source. The Hittites were foreigner invaders.
@@ewkeenan wrong immediately Atenism was from Egyptian purely not Persian or Jewish. Having their own monotheism which came from the Babylonian captivity after.
Monotheism for non hebraic beliefs was about as common as Polytheistic beleifs.
Your preamble is way too long.
Vida's novel, Julian, gives probably the best account we are likely to have of the man...as for failing to restore paganism, Julian died in his early 30s...he had ruled for about a year and a half...what ruler attempting much of anything, and only reigning for about 18 months, achieved anything? So first and foremost, he failed because he died young and after a very brief reign. HIs refusal to turn to hardcore violence left him vulnerable to an array of critics who would probably have otherwise kept their mouths shut. He needed to break the link between Christian leaders/followers ties with the government...the military-industrial complex of its day.
Not convincing.
Your premise is wrong. Roman paganism was not dying. It had to be slain. The persecution under Constantius and Theodosius and Justinian had a very hard time rooting it out. The population was very pagan in the western Empire. They had to make sure that Christians were appointed to high positions. They then had to make sure that people weren’t worshiping the gods in private. They had to make sure of a lot of things. Even in spite of all of that, Helenic paganism survived into the 10th century. Hardly the mark of a dying religion.
It was dead. Your examples are no better than saying that Native American religions are alive today because you still have shamans and old customs.
Paganism was killed by Theodosius, after that it never had a shot in hell of returning. Even the fall of the empire didn’t matter as the invading Germans were Arian Christians
hail ishtar
@@UncannyRicardo not true. I think your own Christian bias is showing. Only the Goths and perhaps some of the Vandals were Christian. Not even all of them were Christian, actually. There were still pagan Goths. The rest of the Germanic tribes were pagan. This is especially true of the western Germanic tribes. The franks that invaded Gaul come to mind. They didn’t convert to Christianity until after 496. That’s almost a century and a half after Julian‘s death. Same goes for the Saxons, Angles, Frisians and Jutes that invaded Britannia. On the island, missionaries had to be sent during the sixth century to try to get them to convert. On the continent, some of them did not become Christian until Charlemagne forced them to it in the ninth century some 500 years after Julian. Back to Rome, Constantine had only weighed Christianity the official state religion 50 years before Julian became emperor. That’s not enough time for an empire the size of Rome to really make that massive of a change. There was no mass media back then. Trends did not catch on as quickly as they do for us in modern times. Lastly, Julian only had two years as an emperor. He got himself killed in 363. You can’t do much in two years as emperor. Christian officials had to be fired. They then had to be replaced with confident pagan ones. Same goes for generals and bureaucrats. That takes time. If he had ruled for 20 years, he would’ve absolutely taken the Empire back to paganism. He should never have marched at the head of his armies so foolishly. He should’ve delegated that to actual generals and spent his time ruling the empire doing his job as emperor.
@@Hun_Uinaq Those pagan barbarians as you mentioned were on the desolate Franco-British lands, far removed from the center of the empire in the east and even Italy. The Vandals and Arian barbarians played a much more important role during the late Roman times than the others.
Julian’s authority was stable but support mixed. Even with survival a failure in the east would have given the ammunition necessary for usurpers to immediately begin claiming his unworthiness and cause possible revolts. He wasn’t a populist or beloved autocrat, so how wide spread any of his policies would have been post a failed invasion are precarious.
Actually trends can spread with the right environment. Justinians change of standardization of documentation and dating, for example, quickly spread beyond just government formalities and across the entire East within a few years. This was driven by willing officials, clergy and local writers wanting to gain favor. Julian didn’t have such appeal, while liked by his military he was seen as bemusing by the rest of officials
There was little difference between Christianity and neoplatonism
This was the position of Nietzsche, and it has its merits but I think it oversimplifies the distinctions between the two schools of thought. So while there are many ideas from platonic philosophy that were later echoed in Christianity (such as the immortality of the soul or the transcendent good) the connection shouldn't be overstated as Christianity initially existed and thrived for centuries before theologians like St. Augustine integrated some Neoplatonic ideas into core Christian doctrine. This was the height of neoplatonic influence on Christianity and I don't think its an accident that it occurred so close to the reign of Julian when neoplatonism was so dominant.
I am ironically both an absolute Neoplatonist and a Catholic. I don't have to choose.
Simple explanation: Christ is King. His love and mercy brought the people to believe in the one true God. Once a person has that encounter with the love of God and his son Jesus Christ their life is changed forever.
your god is fake
hail ishtar
@@mechalincoln courage, don’t be afraid, your God is coming to save you!
@@LoafHigh_ your god is dead and I dance on his grave. hail ishtar.
Julian failed because his name was Julian. LOL
Julianes are always lame
I wish he'd just improved the defences. And concentrated on getting rid of Christianity lol
Cope.
@@pao5567 lol. Well I’m doing well since Christianity is dead in my country
@@Insectoid_ Neopaganism is cringe af, coming from an atheist.
@@Insectoid_ It will rise again in time.
@@battlerushiromiya651 no it won't , at any time
I thought this was an evangelical channel and went in expecting underwhelming answers like "pRoviDenCE hAD ALreADy deCLarEd cHriStiaNiTy'S tRiuMpH". I'm pleased to say I was wrong. This is a great video.
But it's a fact.
PROVIDENCE HAD ALREADY DECLARED CHRISTIANITY'S TRIUMPH.
Somebody's still seething over Julian's defeat
I don't think you understand what paganism ís. Divination ís paganism, that ís what the ancient Greeks practiced.
@@faramund9865 divination is not just magic use it is like prayer and also sign seeker like sooth sayers. And astrology in the classic correct form. And other means as well.
Christ is king and the old pagan idols are dead. Now we'll have to get rid of the modern idols. Ad maiorem Dei gloriam.
But it seems ultimately it will be science and atheism that will be the final victor.
@@swarupkumar2 the science of GOD yes
@@judasmaccabee3 thats a contradiction in itself
your god is fake
@@judasmaccabee3yahweh owes be money for being a chump
1)Wowow! Christians half of the Empire total population"? No and FAR from that! Christianity was mainly first an urban religion and more than 3/4 of the population lived in countryside.
2) Read Ramsey Mc Mullen, a real specialist of that period and you'll find that paganism was not dying but was assassinated🧐
3)5.25: No christianity was NOT the "emperial religion" during 50 years at this time🙄....and were come that idea that Julian was "isolated"? Even christians during this period were sometimes "false" ones, ex: the son the great general Stillicon, Eucherius.
Let's end such false "history" ans stop wasting time plz.😓
By the 350s ad Christianity was the dominant religion in the east, thus, the religion of half of the empire.
Constantine converted to Christianity and Constantius II was also a Christian, thus, Christianity was already pretty much the empire's state religion in all but name. Though admittedly, Constantius and Constantine were pretty mellow as far as religion goes.
Also in the video he said "under half" not half lol and he's right, it was likely around 30% or 40%
@@thiago292 no sorry, at that time christianity was mostly a urban religion in a World living mostly in countrysides 🧐
So?
@@mezmero69 even then in the 300s to 400 he was still a small little cult they got prominence by Constantine. Even in the urban areas. It was no bigger than a local like fortune teller store back then in the 300s to 400s.
@@thiago292 so that means your reply is false and thus not meant to even be used.
Well, it is more subtle than that.
for it was not Christianity that triumphed, merely a fusion of Christian rhetoric covering pagan attitudes and ultimately pagan practice
How so?
when the church jumped into bed with the world at Constantine's real or imagined ( i am not sure which) conversion they compromised the gospel of Christ, forsaking it for the favour if the world.
IOW i regard the conversion of Constantine as an unmitigated disaster for the church
and having forsaken Christ ( a biblical term with biblical meaning) they had nothing left but paganism under a Christian gloss
most people cannot tell the difference between Christian rhetoric and spiritual reality.
this is a brief summary of what could be a book on the matter
but the upshot is paganism merely changed its form even if few at the time, nominal Christian or overt pagan, understood this.
of course some did notice this. but their response the desert monasticism of the so called desert fathers - to wit poor mad St Anthony et al - was itself rank heresy for they ignored what the bible said about severe treatment of the body being of no value against sin
so what did the do? went out in to the desert to flog and starve themselves not into holiness but apostasy and insanity.
So Julian need not have worried.
paganism won, just not in the form he expected it to
Abrahamisms success isn't monotheism. It's deceit.
@@faramund9865 you can say that again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again.
@@faramund9865 All of hebraism("abrahamic/judeochristian" crap) is a DAMNED CONSPIRACY!!!!!!!! From it's start to its finish now as a long process of its Ending and Destruction. All of it yes All of it is Conspiracy and HOAX. Fraud upon Fraud. No apologies no jokes it's all Toooooo True. It's Direct WAR AGAINST God-s and Peoplekind and the universe via reality. AntiTheism, Devilry, Pride, hypocrisy, double standards, cheating, theft, lies upon lies upon lies, damnation anti salvation scapegoating of wicked wicked men as always unrepentant sexism etc etc etc.