Upon The Mother Of The Gods (c. 362-363)
Contexto: !-- Who is so thick-headed as not to understand that through Hermes and Aphrodite are invoked all things in all places that contain the cause of the universality and various forms of generation, which is the proper subject of my argument? Is not this the Attis, who at first is called insane, and then sane, in consequence of his castration? Insane because he chose for himself the realm of Matter, and superintends the work of generation; but sane because he hath modelled this refuse into Beauty, and hath wrought therein so great a transformation, that no skill or craft of man can imitate the same. But what shall be the conclusion of my theme? Verily a Hymn of praise unto the goddess. --> O Mother of gods and men, assister and colleague of mighty Jove! O source of the Intelligible Powers! Thou that keepest thy course in unison with the simple essences of things intelligible; thou that hast received out of all the universal Cause, and impartest it to the Intelligible world! Goddess, giver of life, Mother, Providence, and Maker of our souls! Thou that lovest the mighty Bacchus; who didst preserve Attis when he was cast forth, and didst recall him to thyself after he had sunk down into the cave of the earth; thou that art the beginning of all Good unto the Intelligible Powers, and that fillest the world with all the objects of Sense, and grantest all good things, in all places, unto mankind! Grant unto all men happiness, of which the sum and substance is the knowledge of the gods; and to the Roman people universally, first and foremost to wash away from themselves the stain of atheism, and in addition to this, grant them propitious Fortune, that shall assist them in governing the empire for many thousands of years to come! To myself grant for the fruit of my devotion to thee — Truth in belief concerning the gods, the attainment of perfection in religious rites, and in all the undertakings which we attempt as regards warlike or military measures, valour coupled with good luck, and the termination of my life to be without pain, and happy in the good hope of a departure for your abodes!
Juliano, o Apóstata: Frases em inglês
“It is the season of the Kronia, during which the god allows us to make merry.”
The Caesars (c. 361)
Contexto: "It is the season of the Kronia, during which the god allows us to make merry. But, my dear friend, as I have no talent for amusing or entertaining I must methinks take pains not to talk mere nonsense."
"But, Caesar, can there be anyone so dull and stupid as to take pains over jesting? I always thought that such pleasantries were a relaxation of the mind and a relief from pains and cares."
"Yes, and no doubt your view is correct, but that is not how the matter strikes me. For by nature I have no turn for raillery, or parody, or raising a laugh."
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Contexto: I pray the Sovereign Sun himself to grant me ability to explain the nature of the station that he holds amongst those in whose middle he is placed! By the term "middle" we are to understand not what is so defined in the case of things contrary to each other, as "equi-distant from the extremes," as orange and dark brown in the case of colours; lukewarm, in that of hot and cold, and other things of the sort; but the power that collects and unites into one things dispersed, like the "Harmony" of Empedocles, from which he completely excludes all discord and contention.
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Contexto: To explain, however, everything relating to the nature of this deity, is beyond the power of man, even though the god himself should grant him the ability to understand it: in a case where it seems, to me at least, impossible even mentally to conceive all its extent. And now that we have discussed so much, we must put as it were a seal upon this subject; and to stay a while and pass on to other points no less requiring examination. What then is this seal; and what comprises everything, as it were in a summary of the conception concerning the nature of the god? May He Himself inspire our understanding when we attempt briefly to explain the source out of which he proceeded; and what he is himself; and with what effects he fills the visible world. It must therefore be laid down that the sovereign Sun proceeded from the One God, — One out of the one Intelligible world; he is stationed in the middle of the Intelligible Powers, according to the strictest sense of "middle position;" bringing the last with the first into a union both harmonious and loving, and which fastens together the things that were divided: containing within himself the means of perfecting, of cementing together, of generative life, and of the uniform existence, and to the world of Sense, the author of all kinds of good; not merely adorning and cheering it with the radiance wherewith he himself illumines the same, but also by making subordinate to himself the existence of the Solar Angels; and containing within himself the unbegotten Cause of things begotten; and moreover, prior to this, the unfading, unchanging source of things eternal.
All, therefore, that was fitting to be said touching the nature of this deity (although very much has been passed over in silence) has now been stated at some length.
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Contexto: Wherefore should I mention to you Horus, and the other names of gods, all of them belonging in reality to the Sun? For we men have gained our notion of the god from the works which the same god actually works — he that hath made the universal heaven perfect through his Intelligible blessings, and given to the same a share of his Intelligible beauty. And beginning from that point, himself wholly and partially by the giving of good men … for they superintend every motion as far as the extremest limits of the universe. And Nature and Soul, and all that at any time exists, all these, and in all places, does he bring to perfection; and after having marshalled so vast a host of deities into one governing unity, he has given to them Athene, or Providence; who, mythology says, sprung forth out of the head of Jupiter; but whom we assert to have been projected entire out of the entire Sovereign Sun, for she was contained within him, in this particular dissenting from the legend, in that we do not hold her to have sprung out of the topmost part, but all entire, and out of the entire god.
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Contexto: On the same subject you will obtain more complete and more abstruse information by consulting the works upon it composed by the divine Iamblichus: you will find there the extreme limit of human wisdom attained. May the mighty Sun grant me to attain to no less knowledge of himself, and to teach it publicly to all, and privately to such as are worthy to receive it: and as long as the god grants this to us, let us consult in common his well-beloved Iamblichus; out of whose abundance a few things, that have come into my mind, I have here set down. That no other person will treat of this subject more perfectly than he has done, I am well aware; not even though he should expend much additional labour in making new discoveries in the research; for in all probability he will go astray from the most correct conception of the nature of the god.
As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 47
General sources
Contexto: So long as you are a slave to the opinions of the many you have not yet approached freedom or tasted its nectar… But I do not mean by this that we ought to be shameless before all men and to do what we ought not; but all that we refrain from and all that we do, let us not do or refrain from merely because it seems to the multitude somehow honorable or base, but because it is forbidden by reason and the god within us.
Julian, on the songs of the early Germans. As quoted in his Mispogon.
General sources
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 91
General sources
Upon The Mother Of The Gods (c. 362-363)
“Thou hast conquered, Galilean!”
This exclamation has often been attributed to Julian, as his last words, but it actually originates much later with the derisive account of his death by Theodoret in Ecclesiastical History, Book III, Ch. 20 (c. 429), as an exclamation he made upon being fatally wounded; no prior account of such an declaration exists, even among those writers most hostile to Julian and his policies.
Variant translations:
Thou hast won, O Galilean!
You have conquered, Galilean!
You have won, Galilean.
Misattributed
“Can anyone be proved innocent, if it be enough to have accused him?”
Julian, at the trial of Numerius, governor of Gallia Narbonensis, who was accused of embezzlement. Numerius had successfully defended himself against the prosecutor Delphidius, who in his exasperation, declared whether anyone could be found guilty if they only denied the charges, which provoked Julian's response. As quoted in Book XVIII of Ammianus's History.
General sources
As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 39; also in The Missing Jesus: Rabbinic Judaism and the New Testament (2003) by Craig Alan Evans, Carl A. Elliott, Bruce Chilton, Jacob Neusner
General sources
"To the Cynic Heracleios" in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1913) edited by W. Heinemann, Vol II, p. 93
General sources
"Oration VII": "To the Cynic Heracleios", as quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 105; also in Hidden Wisdom: Esoteric Traditions and the Roots of Christian Mysticism (2005) by Gedaliahu A. G. Stroumsa, p. 25
General sources
The Caesars (c. 361)
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
“By purple death I'm seized and fate supreme.”
Fonte: General sources, Lines from Homer's Iliad which Julian recited upon his elevation to Caesar by Constantius II, as recorded by Ammianus Marcellinus in book XV of his history; such elevations had often proven fatal to others.
“Zeal to do all that is in one's power is, in truth, a proof of piety.”
As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 311; also in The Paganism Reader (2004) edited by Chas S. Clifton, Graham Harvey, p. 26
General sources
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
"To the Cynic Heracleios" in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1913) edited by W. Heinemann, Vol. II, p. 93
General sources
As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 41
General sources
Upon the Sovereign Sun (362)
“No wild beasts are so dangerous to men as Christians are to one another.”
As quoted by Ammianus Marcellinus, as translated in Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History (2006) by Terry Jones, p. 205 ISBN 9780563539162
General sources
Against the Galileans (c. 361) as translated in The Works of the Emperor Julian, http://books.google.com/books?id=ZGliAAAAMAAJ&q=%22But+why+do+you+not+cease+to+call+Mary+the+mother+of+God%22&dq=%22But+why+do+you+not+cease+to+call+Mary+the+mother+of+God%22&lr=&pgis=1 edited by Wilmer Cave Wright, London, W. Heinemann; New York, The Macmillan co., (1913 - 1923), volume 3, p. 399, ISBN 0674990145 ISBN 9780674990142 .
General sources
Upon The Mother Of The Gods (c. 362-363)