Late Antiquity was an era of remarkable change as beliefs were shaped and reshaped by the competing philosophies of traditional Greco-Roman religion, Middle and Neoplatonist philosophy, and the theology of the early Church.
Current narratives of both peaceful competition and violent struggle between Christianity and paganism are reductive. The research presented in this Variorum volume, originally published between 2013 and 2018 in the fields of history, divinity, and philosophy, demonstrates the complexity of the age and provides a more complete picture of major actors including the emperor Julian, Porphyry of Tyre, and Celsus. From the second to the fourth centuries, these were some of the major players in attempting to define the terrain in the conflict between their philosophies and the Christian religion. While the timeframe remains consistently within the late second to the mid-fourth centuries A.D., the sources range between inscriptions, literature, and historical accounts. The particular focus is the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, d. 363), a figure of perennial interest, as not only the last pagan emperor, but the last anti-Christian polemicist of real significance in antiquity.
This volume offers a new perspective on Julian, bringing together research from ancient history, Neoplatonist philosophy, and patristic theology, and will be useful to students and scholars alike.
Introduction: A Decade with the Emperor Julian
1. Pollution Wars: Consecration and Desecration from Constantine to Julian (Studia Patristica, 2013).
2. “A Cautionary Note on Julian’s Pagan Trinity,” Ancient Philosophy 33 (2013): 391-402.
3. “Crafting Divine Personae in Julian’s Oration 7,” Classical Philology 109 (2014): 140-149.
4. “A Pagan Emperor’s Appropriation of Matthew’s Gospel,” The Expository Times 125 (2014): 593-598.
5. “The Alethes Logos of Celsus and the Historicity of Christ,” Anglican Theological Review 96 (2014): 705-713.
6. “Five Latin Inscriptions from Julian’s Pagan Restoration,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 57 (2014): 101-119.
7. “Celsus, Origen, and Julian on Christian Miracle-Claims,” Heythrop Journal 57 (2016): 99-108.
8. “Christianizing Translations in the Loeb Editions of Julian and Libanius,” Translation and Literature 25 (2016): 222-227.
9. “Porphyry, Rome, and Support for Persecution,” Ancient Philosophy 36 (2016): 197-207.
10. “Plato’s Pilot in the Political Strategy of Julian and Libanius,” Classical Quarterly NS 67 (2017): 607-616.
12. “Celsus, Origen, and the Eucharist,” 187-194 in Studia Patristica, Vol. XCIV - Papers Presented at the Seventeenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2015, ed. Markus Vinzent. Leuven: Peeters Publishing, 2017.
13. “Julian’s Use of Asclepius against the Christians,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 109 (2017): 491-509.
14. “Porphyry’s Influence upon Julian: Apotheosis and Divinity,” Ancient Philosophy 38 (2018): 421-434.
15. “New Testament Christology, Athanasian Apologetic, and Pagan Polemic,” Journal of Theological Studies NS 69 (2018): 101-105.
Biography
David Neal Greenwood took his Ph.D. in Patristics and Classics from the University of Edinburgh, UK and is currently an honorary fellow on the Classics faculty of the University of St. Andrews, UK. He is the author of books and numerous articles in theology, philosophy, and history. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2021.
