RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Julian
license of the local authorities or of the emperor, while apparently not affecting religious questions, really excluded the Christians from such positions. The assertion that he forbade them to attend the schools is apparently based on a misunderstanding. Another weapon in bis religious campaign was his treatise " Against the Christians," which he circulated not long before his death. The whole first book is extant, some fragments of the second, and scarcely any of the third. For knowledge and acuteness it is not to be compared with the works of Celsus and Porphyry. It tells much of the religious and historical attitude of Julian and his partizans, but little of his relations with the Church, whose real weak points are seldom touched upon. If it were possible positively to decide as to the truth of the statements that he threatened severe repressive measures against his return from the Persian campaign, it would be easier to arrive at a final judgment of the man; but sober history will at least regard him most truly as a belated son of a great bygone age, deceived in his ideals but noble in nature, and deserving of honor as a man who attempted to do justice to his fellows at a time when this was a rare virtue. (A. Haenack.)
Bibliography: The best edition of the works of Julian in the original Greek is by F. C. Hertlein, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1875-76; the fragments of his Books against the Christians were edited by K. J. Neumann (ib. 1880), who also translated them into German, Kaiser Julians Bucher gegen die Christen, ib. 1880. In English translation are Gregory Nazianzen's two invectives against, and Libanius' funeral oration upon Julian; and Julian's essays "Upon the Sovereign Sun," and " Upon the Mother of the Gods " (transl. by C. W. King, Julian the Emperor, London, 1888). In French there is a complete translation of Julian's works and letters, by Eugene Talbot, (Euvres completes de I'empereur Julien, Paris, 1863. The most elaborate biography of Julian is by Gsetano Negri transl. from the 2d ed. of the original Italian, 2 vols. London and New York, 1905; other noteworthy biographies are by Neander, Eng. transl., London, 1850 F. J. Holgwarth, Freiburg, 1874; A. Naville, Neuchatel 1877; G. H. Rendall, Cambridge, 1877; Alice Gardner, London and New York, 1895; W Koch, Leipsic, 1899; E. Miiller, Hanover, 1901; P. Allard, 3 vols., Paris, 1902. Special treatises are: F. Rode, Geschichte der Reaction Kaiser Julians gegen die christliche Kirche, Jena, 1877 E. J. Chinnock, A Few Notes on Julian and a Translation of his Public Letters, London, 1901. Consult also Tillemont, Memoires, vi.; Ceillier, Auteurs sacres, iii. 398-412; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chaps, xxii.-xxiv.; Schaff, Christian Church, iii. 41-59; DCB, iii. 484-525.
JULIAN CESARINI, CARDINAL. See Cesarini, Gitjliano.
JULIAN OF ECLANUM: The most gifted and consistent champion of Pelagianism; b. in Apulia between 380 and 390; d., according to Gennadius, under Valentinian III . (425-455) . Well educated in classical literature, he learned from Aristotle the art of dialectics which he used so cleverly in later times. While still a youth, he became bishop of Eclanum near Beneventum and seems to have been greatly respected. It is not known how he was won over to Pelagianism, but this doctrine corresponded to his whole disposition, which was not religious, but intellectual. By an edict of the Emperor Honorius and the Epistola tractatoria of the Roman Bishop Zosimus (see Pelagixjs), Julian with seventeen other bishops was crowded out of his episcopal position in 418 and expelled from his |
native country. Entrusted with the defense of his associates, he assumed the leadership in the struggle against Augustinianism, and attacked it first in a letter to Bishop Rufus of Thessalonica, wherein he laid down his views concerning the divine creation of each individual man, concerning marriage, law, the freedom of the will, and baptism against Augustine and his adherents, whom he regarded as Manicheans. In connection with this letter there was issued a circular letter to the adherents of Pelagius in Italy, which, however, was probably not written by Julian himself. Against Augustine's De nuptiis et concwpiscentia he directed the four books of his work Ad Turbantium (419); its main thought is the natural goodness of man vouchsafed by God's creation. Augustine wrote a second treatise De nuptiis et concwpiscentia and Julian answered by addressing eight books to Florus (Libri viii ad Florum contra Augustine librum secundum de nuptiis). This is Julian's most important writing, full of personal, passionate, and spiteful polemics against Augustine, but also fraught with dialectical acuteness and logical sequence of thoughts; it forms the proper source for the knowledge of Julian's theology. The efforts of himself and his associates at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II. (d. 450) to be restored to their positions were without success, and Marius Mercator especially caused his expulsion from Constantinople. At the Council of Ephesus in 431 he was expressly condemned.
The fundamental presupposition of Julian's doctrines is that sin is a matter of the will and not of nature. Will again presupposes the freedom of choice, and this consists in the possibility of admitting or rejecting sin. In virtue of this liberty of will man bears the image of God within himself and is akin to him just as according to his sensual nature he is related to the animal. In free will man possesses such a perpetual possibility of willing and not willing that Julian denies even the force of motives. From this conception of free will it follows that it is a possession which can not be lost and can not be restrained or limited by sin. The conception of sin as a work of the will implies that it can arise only under an entirely free choice. Therefore Julian found himself in entire opposition to Augustine's doctrine of hereditary sin. It is a contradictio in adjecto since sin and guilt can exist only where there is freedom of decision. Children can not sin because they have no will. It is perfect nonsense to deny the virtue of pagans. Augustine's doctrine is altogether Manichean since only the devil can be the creator and lord of an evil nature. Augustine is even worse than Mani, since he makes God the author and multiplier of sin. Since God creates the nature of each individual man, it must be good. If man were evil by nature he would not be capable of redemption; disgrace of nature would therefore imply the denial of grace. The doctrine of original sin contradicts also the justice of God, since according to it he recompenses and punishes that which is not a matter of liberty and not due to one's own fault. Justice, however, is a generally acknowledged and fundamental law, and a contradiction to this law suffices
Julian Julius