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Examines Julian's emergence as the sole survivor of a political dynasty soaked in blood and traces his journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his intiation into pagan cults.
- Sales Rank: #3231228 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Sutton Publishing
- Published on: 2004-01-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.48" h x 1.08" w x 6.30" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 288 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
“A thoroughly engaging book about one of the fourth century’s most interesting emperors.” (The Journal of Classics Teaching)
“Keenly paced and beautifully written . . . quite simply one of the best historical biographies of the year.” (Catholic Herald)
“Friendly to its controversial subject and an easy read.” (Church Times)
"Although this is a book written for the general reading public, and not particularly aimed at Pagan readership, it contains a wealth of information concerning Pagan/Christian relations. It also shows a number of concerns expressed by Julian that are still valid today. . . . This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it to everyone." (Michael Gleason, Witchgrove.com, May 08)
"An eye-opening alternate history uses over 700 pages of Julian's original writings to provide some eye-opening new revelations on his beliefs." (The Midwest Book Review, July 2008)
"Murdoch, a Roman historian, sees the short reign of Julian as the real end of ancient Rome. His biography of the young emperor is based on Julian's own words, the angry response of Christian writers, and the comments of other pagans." (Book News, Inc., Aug 2008)
"With the current end of the Twentieth Century we are also witnessing the death throes of the most influential religious movements of the last twenty centuries--Christianity and Islam. . . . This end of the Christian Era as some call it, is however, not without its own dangers and precedence. By looking back to the early centuries of the Christian Era, we can in fact, get a better understanding of its origins and what may be awaiting us in the future. . . " (Institute of Hermetic Studies, Aug 2008)
"British historian Adrian Murdoch's The Last Pagan (the phrase comes from the English poet Swinburne) is a thorough-going biography of Julian. In this book, we get a strong sense of the history of the fourth century, which is the age of the decline of the Roman empire made famous by English historian Edward Gibbon, who Murdoch asserts, made Julian the hero of his work." (Barbara Ardinger, reviewer, Aug 2009)
From the Back Cover
History / Biography
“A thoroughly engaging book about one of the fourth century’s most interesting emperors.”
--The Journal of Classics Teaching
“Keenly paced and beautifully written . . . quite simply one of the best historical biographies of the year.”
--Catholic Herald
“Friendly to its controversial subject and an easy read.”
--Church Times
The violent death of the emperor Julian (Flavius Claudius Julianus, AD 332-363) on a Persian battlefield has become synonymous with the death of paganism. Vilified throughout history as the “Apostate,” the young philosopher-warrior was the last and arguably the most potent threat to Christianity.
The Last Pagan examines Julian’s journey from an aristocratic Christian childhood to his initiation into pagan cults and his mission to establish paganism as the dominant faith of the Roman world. Julian’s death, only two years into his reign, initiated a culture-wide suppression by the Church of all things it chose to identify as pagan. Only in recent decades, with the weakening of the Church’s influence and the resurgence of paganism, have the effects of that suppression begun to wane. Drawing upon more than 700 pages of Julian’s original writings, Adrian Murdoch shows that had Julian lived longer our history and our present-day culture would likely be very different.
ADRIAN MURDOCH is a historian and journalist. He is the author of Rome’s Greatest Defeat: Massacre in the Teutoburg Forest and The Last Roman, a biography of Romulus Augustulus, the Western Roman Empire’s final emperor. He is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
About the Author
Adrian Murdoch is a journalist specialising in history, business and geopolitical issues. He has lived and worked in London, Berlin and Scotland and is currently based in Glasgow, where he is deputy editor and co-founder of Up Magaxine. An Oxford history graduate, he has edited a selection of classical history texts and is a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Contemporary German Culture.
Most helpful customer reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Julian the Apostate
By Amrit
This is a biography of the Emperor Julian, nephew of Constantine who ruled Rome for a short period from 361 to 363 ACE. Perhaps best know for his attempt to hold back Christianity and bring back to the centre the old religion of the Graeco-Roman world, there was, however, a lot more to Julian than just his religious policy. Murdoch's biography brings back to life Julian in his many facets through his easy to read and sometimes racy prose. Though not an academic text and perhaps not really adding substantially to the scholarship on Julian, this is nevertheless an enjoyable read.
Briefly, Julian was born into the family of Constantine and though brought up as a Christian, grew attached to the old religion though his study of the Greek and Roman classics. His entire family was murdered by Constantine's successor Constantius in a bid to eliminate rivals. Julian threw himself into scholarly pursuits perhaps to escape the attention of Constantius and to avoid being seen as a threat. He became an accomplished scholar but eventually was selected by Constantius to take up an administrative post in Gaul. Here he proved himself an able ruler, reforming the tax system. Though not having had military training, he showed that he was an effective military commander, defeating German invaders in 357ACE. Eventually, a revolt propelled him to challenge Constantius as Emperor but before the two could fight it out, Constantius died and Julian becomes Emperor. He attempts in the end unsuccessfully to restore to primacy the old religion. His reforms include the emulation of Christian organisational skills (where Christians excelled) and charitable giving, but in the end his attempt to hold back Christianity fails. He died on a disastrous (for the Romans) campaign against Persia.
Murdoch deals with his subject sympathetically. Julian was one of those rare rulers who though deeply immersed in scholarship, was able to turn his intellectual training into success in the practical affairs of government. Even in our own times, such leaders are rare. Apart from Churchill and Nehru, few twentieth century leaders (not counting Marxist theoreticians such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao) have joined to their political successes, scholarly or literary achievements.
Julian, as depicted by Murdoch, also stands out as an able ruler of Rome in very difficult times. It is indeed noteworthy that the era produced some of the most capable rulers of Rome, such as Constantine, Julian, Valentinian and Theodosius. By contrast, some of the rulers of Rome during the Golden Age of the First Century ACE were at best mediocre and in the case of Caligula, Nero and Domitian, plain crazy. Perhaps, sub par rulers can stay in power in good times and when the state is stable without doing much damage, but difficult times require able rulers.
Biography as a genre is easily criticised as placing too much emphasis on the works of individuals rather than the broader processes and trends that shape and change societies. Good biography however will be more than the story of an individual and will be a canvass on which to study the bigger things at play. In this, Murdoch's biography is not wanting, capturing the essence of Julian and his times. The big picture story was the rise of Christianity againt a backdrop of Roman decline. However, this not an academic book and some of the other reviews criticise the author's journalistic style. GW Bowersock's "Julian the Apostate" is an excellent academic biography for those who are interested - but taking a more traditional (and hostile) view of Julian. One may both admire the courage of an individual who swims against the tide - or condemn the same individual for lack of wisdom in doing so. Murdoch does the former if Bowerstock takes the latter position.
Christian writers not unnaturally are hostile to Julian. However, in their writings and condemnations, one can sometimes sense a secret admiration. Such feelings for an enemy such as Julian are perhaps not that suprising, given his undoubted intelligence and ability. Indeed, the legacy of Julian despite being an enemy of Christianity has come down to us through Christian monks over the centuries carefully preserving, copying and handing down the record, including many of Julian's own letters. This perhaps might be the the most telling tribute to Julian.
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
Solid Popular History
By Leon Napo
At first, I did not like the popular approach to this history of Julian the Apostate; however, by the time I finished, I realized that the popular style is really what the author brings to the discussion of Julian, especially in the last chapter. For example, we are given a modern travelogue to Julian's life and military campaigns. I can now retrace Julian's routes through Europe to Asia Minor (should I ever get the itch). The last chapter gives a short account of historical, artistic, and literary work on the subject of Julian, many of which I was not familiar with. However, he strangely omits recent historical accounts by G.W. Bowerstock, Athanassiadi Polymnia, or Roland Smith.
The author offers a balanced historical account of Julian's life, discussing his strengths and weaknesses; however, there is not much new in the way of analysis or historical facts. Regardless, I enjoyed the read, although some of the modern analogies were a bit stretched.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Great History, Great Writing
By Mike and Terri Aquilina
Though he ruled for less than three years, Julian looms colossal in memory and imagination. He was born in 331 (or 332) into a brutal family and a bloody business. His father was Emperor Constantine's half-brother. Murdoch notes that, after Diocletian's retirement in 305, "Julian's family spent a great deal of the next fifty years developing ingenious ways to kill each other." The motive was usually intrigue, plots for accession, or just the suspicion bred by such an atmosphere.
In 326, one year after the Council of Nicaea, Constantine ordered the execution of his wife and eldest son. The three remaining sons succeeded their father in 337 and rather quickly dispatched almost all their male relatives. Two young boys were spared, five-year-old Julian and his teenage brother Gallus. Julian was too young to be a threat and Gallus too sickly.
Though Julian continued to live the privileged life of the imperial family, he kept the memory of that purge, whose victims included his own father. The imperial family was officially Christian by this time, and the hypocrisy was not lost on Julian, who was himself raised a Christian, and was a schoolmate of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory Nazianzen. His cousin the emperor Constantius, the murderer of his family, professed the doctrine of Jesus Christ.
Julian learned to keep his thoughts to himself. Constantius was his patron, and alienation from him meant certain death. Julian studied philosophy and rhetoric at Athens and secretly investigated the "old religion," the pagan mysteries. Though he kept up his exterior practice of Christianity, his mind and heart belonged to the old gods.
Appointed to leadership in the military, he rose rapidly with some stunning campaigns in the western provinces and barbarian lands. He gained a reputation for toughness; for, unlike other generals, he shared the hardships of his troops and rewarded them handsomely. All this made for tenacious loyalty. Not surprisingly, in 360 they declared him emperor.
Julian began his march toward Byzantium to confront Constantius. But Constantius died in 361, before their forces could meet.
Then began the reign that gave Julian his place in history. Murdoch notes that Julian did some things extremely well--tax reform, for example, and military leadership. But no one remembers Julian as a tax reformer or even much as a general.
He is remembered as "the Apostate," and Murdoch gives a fascinating analysis of his religious ideas and practical reforms. He made vast sums available to restore temples that had fallen into disrepair over a generation of Christian hegemony. He promoted pagans to prominent positions in the capital and boosted the wages of the pagan priesthoods.
He tried, at least in the beginning, to include Christians in his dawning era of toleration, but the Church's big names were wary. Pagan restoration became the keynote of Julian's rule.
Yet, as Murdoch makes clear, Julian's paganism was not really the old religion. It was, rather, a mirror image of Christianity. It was an anti-Church, a reactionary project.
Julian himself recognized Christianity's influence on his ideas. You can take the emperor out of the Church, but you can't take the Church out of the emperor. Murdoch says: "Julian's attempts at creating a pagan doctrine betray his Christian upbringing. . . . By the very fact of his early education, he was already, as he would have put it, polluted."
Whereas the old religion had been a riot of gods, cults, and feasts, Julian strove, in a very Roman way, to impose unity and uniformity on worldwide polytheism. It was the religious equivalent of herding cats.
In Julian's schema, the emperor himself served as a sort of pope over a hierarchy that mirrored the Catholic structure of metropolitans, bishops, and priests. He set up pagan philanthropies in imitation of Catholic charities. He urged his clergy to lead lives of virtue and preach philosophy to the people. Julian himself had chosen to lead a celibate life after the death of his wife. As Murdoch puts it: "He wanted the pagans to out-Christian the Christians."
His pagan "coming out" climaxed during an extended stay in Syrian Antioch, a city of a half-million people situated en route to the battlegrounds where he would meet the Persians.
While in Antioch, he renewed the pagan practices, though he was hardly satisfied with the priests' performance and showed himself to be as prissy and uptight as the most over-educated diocesan liturgist. And if the pagans were tepid in their response to Julian, the Christians were downright contemptuous. Murdoch does not miss the irony of a pagan prig enraged by his encounter with a city full of Christian sensualists.
Julian's experience in Antioch led to harsher strictures on Christians. He banned believers from teaching grammar, rhetoric, and philosophy. This, says Murdoch, was Julian's "master stroke." Banished from the public square, Christianity could be minimized as a cultural force. He "had marginalised Christianity to the point where it could potentially have vanished within a generation or two, and without the need for physical coercion."
It was not to last, however. As Julian shook the dust of Antioch from his feet, he marched his troops to their devastating defeat at the hands of Shapur II of Persia. Murdoch is superb in his systematic yet suspenseful narrative of that miserable campaign.
On that battlefield at the Persian frontier, Julian fell, and with him the eastern empire began to crumble. Some (Christian) histories portray the emperor struck by a spear and crying out, "Thou hast won, O Galilean!"
Yet Julian the Apostate lives in our collective memory. For some, he is the archetype of the ideological dictator, the bloodless wonk whose ideas justify his bloodletting. For others, he is a romantic anti-hero--the rebel against the inevitable.
He survives in spite of his utter lack of the qualities that make Nero and Caligula--and even Constantine--perennial subjects of potboiler novels and gory flicks. In contrast to other emperors, Murdoch says, Julian's story usually bogs down with "an excess of philosophy and too little sex." To Murdoch's credit, the story never bogs down in his telling.
For Murdoch, Julian's death was a critical moment in the fall of the empire: "To all intents and purposes we can say that paganism died as a credible political and social force in the last days of June 363."
In ends such as these, Christians found their beginnings.
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