Jesus, Julian and Solomon’s Temple

Part 2 - Julian and Edward Gibbon

After the defeat of France, and the conquest of Canada in the infamous year of 1763, the British/Dutch oligarchy launched a project to make the City of London the centre of a new Roman Empire, that resulted in a decade’s long study and that would produce ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’, by Adam Smith (1776), and ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, by Edward Gibbon (1776).

Note: Coincidentally, the year of the publication of these two tomes was the same year as the start of the American Revolution. But I’ve been told that there are no coincidences in history.

So then, I read a story about Julian, that I found in ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’, by Edward Gibbon.

And in chapter XXIII, Gibbons wrote about Julian’s early life, that:

“A devout and sincere attachment for the gods of Athens and Rome, constituted the ruling passion of Julian …

The vehement zeal of the Christians, who despised their worship, and overturned the altars, of those fabulous deities, engaged their votary in a state of irreconcilable hostility with a various numerous party of his subjects; and he was sometimes tempted, by the desire of victory, or the shame of a repulse, to violate the laws of prudence, and even of justice …

The care of his infancy was entrusted to Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia [‘that Arian prelate’] … He was educated in the Lesser Asia, amidst the scandals of the Arian controversy … Instead of listening to the proofs of Christianity with the favorable attention which adds weight to the most respectable evidence, he heard with suspicion, and disputed with obstinacy and acuteness, the doctrines for which he already entertained an invincible aversion. Whenever the young princes were directed to compose declamations on the subject of the prevailing controversies, Julian always declared himself the advocate of Paganism …

The crowd of sophists, who were attracted by the taste and liberality of their royal pupil, had formed a strict alliance between the learning and religion of Greece; and the poems of Homer, instead of being admired as the original productions of human genius, were seriously ascribed to the heavenly inspiration of Apollo and the muses …”

Further on, Gibbon writes about Julian’s study of the neo-platonists, that:

“The philosophers of the Platonic [i.e. the neo-platonic] school - Plotinus, Porphyry, and the divine Iamblichus, were admired as the most skilful masters of this allegorical science, which labored to soften and harmonize the deformed features of paganism ... Julian imbibed the first rudiments of Platonic [i.e. neo-platonic] doctrines from the mouth of Aedesius … [and] two of his most learned disciples, Chrysanthes and Eusebius … til they delivered him into the hands of their associate Maximus, the boldest and most skilful master of the Theurgic science.

By his hands, Julian was secretly initiated at Ephesus, in the twentieth year of his age ... He obtained the privilege of a solemn initiation into the mysteries of Eleusis, which, amidst the general decay of the Grecian worship, still retained some vestiges of their primaeval sanctity; and such was the zeal of Julian, that he afterwards invited the Eleusinian pontiff to the court of Gaul, for the sole purpose of consummating, by mystic rites and sacrifices, the great work of his sanctification … In the caverns of Ephesus and Eleusis, the mind of Julian was penetrated with sincere, deep, and unalterable enthusiasm … From that moment he consecrated his life to the service of the gods … The important secret of the apostacy of Julian was entrusted to the fidelity of the initiated, with whom he was united by the sacred ties of friendship and religion ...”

And later, Gibbon writes of Julian’s policy against Christianity, that:

Religious obstinacy is hardened and exasperated by oppression; and, as soon as the persecution subsides, those who have yielded, are restored as penitents, and those who have resisted, are honoured as saints and martyrs. If Julian adopted the unsuccessful cruelty of Diocletian and his colleagues, he was sensible that he should stain his memory with the name of tyrant, and add new glories to the Catholic church, which had derived strength and encrease from the severity of the pagan magistrates.

Actuated by these motives, and apprehensive of disturbing the repose of an unsettle reign, Julian surprised the world by an edict, which was not unworthy of a statesman, or a philosopher. He extended to all inhabitants of the Roman world, the benefits of a free and equal toleration; and the only hardship which he inflicted on the Christians, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatised with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics. The Pagans received a gracious permission, or rather an express order, to open ALL their temples; and they were at once delivered from the oppressive laws, and arbitrary vexations, which they had sustained under the reign of Constantine, and of his sons.

At the same time, the bishops and clergy, who had been banished by the Arian monarch [i.e. Constantine], were recalled from exile, and restored to their respective churches; the Donatists, the Novatians, the Macedonians, the Eunomians, and those who, with a more prosperous fortune, adhered to the doctrine of the council of Nice.

Julian, who understood and derided their theological disputes, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects, that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious encounters … The impartial Ammianus has ascribed this affected clemency to the desire of fomenting the intestine divisions of the church; and the insidious design of undermining the foundations of Christianity, was inseparably connected with the zeal, which Julian professed, to restore the ancient religion of the empire.”

All this seems to remind me of the neo-liberal policy of today, to ‘flood the zone’ with any and all nonsensical theories, and how it is being used to undermine the cultural confidence of those subject nations of the North Atlanteans, especially to undermine the United States.

[next - part 3 - Julian and the Jews]