Letters of Julian/Letter 20

by Julian

20. To the High-priest Theodorus^[1]

[362, before May 12, Constantinople]

I have written you a more familiar sort of letter than to the others, because you, I believe, have more friendly feelings than others towards me. For it means much that we had the same guide,^[2] and I am sure you remember him. A long time ago, when I was still living in the west,^[3] I learned that he had the highest regard for you, and for that reason I counted you my friend, and yet because of their excessive caution, I have usually thought these words well said,

"For I never met or saw him";^[4]

and well said is "Before we love we must know, and before we can know we must test by experience." But it seems that after all a certain other saying has most weight with me, namely, "The Master has spoken."^[5] That is why I thought even then that I ought to count you among my friends, and now I entrust to you a task that is dear to my heart, while to all men everywhere it is of the greatest benefit. And if, as I have the right to expect, you administer the office well, be assured that you will rejoice me greatly now and give me still greater good hope for the future life. For I certainly am not one of those who believe that the soul perishes before the body or along with it, nor do I believe any human being but only the gods; since it is likely that they alone have the most perfect knowledge of these matters, if indeed we ought to use the word "likely" of what is inevitably true; since it is fitting for men to conjecture about such matters, but the gods must have complete knowledge.

What then is this office which I say I now entrust to you? It is the government of all the temples in Asia, with power to appoint the priests in every city and to assign to each what is fitting. Now the qualities that befit one in this high office are, in the first place, fairness, and next, goodness and benevolence towards those who deserve to be treated thus. For any priest who behaves unjustly to his fellow men and impiously towards the gods, or is overbearing to all, must either be admonished with plain speaking or chastised with great severity. As for the regulations which I must make more complete for the guidance of priests in general, you as well as the others will soon learn them from me, but meanwhile I wish to make a few suggestions to you. You have good reason to obey me in such matters. Indeed in such a case I very seldom act offhand, as all the gods know, and no one could be more circumspect; and I avoid innovations in all things, so to speak, but more peculiarly in what concerns the gods. For I hold that we ought to observe the laws that we have inherited from our forefathers, since it is evident that the gods gave them to us. For they would not be as perfect as they are if they had been derived from mere men. Now since it has come to pass that they have been neglected and corrupted, and wealth and luxury have become supreme, I think that I ought to consider them carefully as though from their cradle.^[6] Therefore, when I saw that there is among us great indifference about the gods and that all reverence for the heavenly powers has been driven out by impure and vulgar luxury, I always secretly lamented this state of things. For I saw that those whose minds were turned to the doctrines of the Jewish religion^[7] are so ardent in their belief that they would choose to die for it, and to endure utter want and starvation rather than taste pork or any animal that has been strangled^[8] or had the life squeezed out of it; whereas we are in such a state of apathy about religious matters that we have forgotten the customs of our forefathers, and therefore we actually do not know whether any such rule has ever been prescribed. But these Jews are in part god-fearing, seeing that they revere a god who is truly most powerful and most good and governs this world of sense, and, as I well know, is worshipped by us also under other names.^[9] They act as is right and seemly, in my opinion, if they do not transgress the laws; but in this one thing they err in that, while reserving their deepest devotion for their own god, they do not conciliate the other gods also; but the other gods they think have been allotted to us Gentiles only, to such a pitch of folly have they been brought by their barbaric conceit. But those who belong to the impious sect of the Galilaeans, as if some disease . . .^[10]

Footnotes

1. See Introduction. Those who date this letter early in 363, following Reiske, regard it as part of the Letter to a Priest , Vol. 2, written after the burning of the temple of Apollo at Daphne in October 362. It seems more likely that that fragment contains the general instructions for priests promised by Julian in this letter.
2. Maximus of Ephesus, who had initiated Julian and perhaps Theodorus also into the Mysteries of Mithras.
3. i.e. in Gaul.
4. Iliad 4. 374; Odyssey 4, 200.
5. This Pythagorean phrase is the original of Ipse dixit.
6. Literally "from the hearth," i.e. from their origin, a proverb.
7. For Julian's tolerant attitude to the Jewish religion, cf. To the Jews, p. 177.
8. This is not directly prohibited in the Old Testament, but cf. Deuteronomy 12. 23, where it is implied; and, for the New Testament, Acts 15. 29 "That ye abstain from things strangled."
9. Cf. Against the Galilaeans 354b, where Julian says that he always worships the God of Abraham, who is gracious to those that do him reverence, "for he is very great and powerful."
10. The conclusion of the sentence is lost, and was probably deleted by a Christian because of some disrespectful reference to Christ.