Julian (emperor) - Gods Quotes

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I feel awe of the gods, I love, I revere, I venerate them, and in short have precisely the same feelings towards them as one would have towards kind masters or teachers or fathers or guardians or any beings of that sort.

Julian
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
I had imagined that the prelates of the Galilaeans were under greater obligations to me than to my predecessor. For in his reign many of them were banished, persecuted, and imprisoned, and many of the so-called heretics were executed … all of this has been reversed in my reign; the banished are allowed to return, and confiscated goods have been returned to the owners. But such is their folly and madness that, just because they can no longer be despots, … or carry out their designs first against their brethren, and then against us, the worshippers of the gods, they are inflamed with fury and stop at nothing in their unprincipled attempts to alarm and enrage the people.

Julian
But let us now dismiss these poetical fictions; because with what is divine they have mingled much of human alloy; and let us now consider what the deity has declared concerning himself and the other gods.
The region surrounding the Earth has its existence in virtue of birth. From whom then does it receive its eternity and imperishability, if not from him who holds all things together within defined limits, for it is impossible that the nature of bodies (material) should be without a limit, inasmuch as they cannot dispense with a Final Cause, nor exist through themselves.

Julian
My own belief is, if philosophers be entitled to any credit, that the Sun is the common parent of all men, to use a comprehensive term. It is a true proverb, "Man begets man, and so does the Sun:" but souls that luminary showers down upon earth, both out of himself, and out of the other gods: which souls show to what end they were propagated by the kind of life that they pursue. But well is it for that man who, from the third generation backwards, and a long succession of years, has been dedicated to the service of this god; yet neither is that person's condition to be despised who, feeling in his own nature that he is a servant of this deity, alone, or with few on his side, shall have devoted himself to his worship.

Julian
As a general rule, all that has been hitherto advanced respecting the nature of this deity, must be understood to refer to his properties: for the nature of the god is not one thing, and his influence another: and truly, besides these two, his energy a third thing: seeing that all things which he wills, these he is, he can, and he works. For neither doth he will that which he is not; nor is he without strength to do that which he wills; nor doth he will that which he cannot effect. Now this is very different in the case of men, for theirs is a double nature mixed up in one, that of soul and body; the former divine, the latter full of darkness and obscurity: hence naturally arise warfare and discord between the two.

Julian
Know all ye mortals who have entered this contest,
that according to our laws and decrees the victor is
allowed to exult but the vanquished must not complain.
Depart then wherever you please, and in future live
every one of you under the guidance of the gods.
Let every man choose his own guardian and guide.

Julian
"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."

Julian
By the gods I do not want the Galileans to be killed or beaten unjustly nor to suffer any other ill. I do, however, state that the god-fearing (theosebeis) should be preferred to them … honour should go to the gods and to the men and cities that worship them.

Julian
Who then is the Mother of the Gods? She is the Source of the Intelligible and Creative Powers, which direct the visible ones; she that gave birth to and copulated with the mighty Jupiter: she that exists as a great goddess next to the Great One, and in union with the Great Creator; she that is dispenser of all life; cause of all birth; most easily accomplishing all that is made; generating without passion; creating all that exists in concert with the Father; herself a virgin, without mother, sharing the throne of Jupiter, the mother in very truth of all the gods; for by receiving within herself the causes of all the intelligible deities that be above the world, she became the source to things the objects of intellect.

Julian
As for the beauty of the gods, not even Hermes tried to describe it in his tale; he said that it transcended description, and must be comprehended by the eye of the mind; for in words it was hard to portray and impossible to convey to mortal ears. Never indeed will there be or appear an orator so gifted that he could describe such surpassing beauty as shines forth on the countenance of the gods.

Julian
Men's works also are naturally perishable and mutable and subject to every kind of alteration. But since God is eternal, it follows that of such sort are his ordinances also. And since they are such, they are either the natures of things or are accordant with the nature of things. For how could nature be at variance with the ordinance of God? How could it fall out of harmony therewith?

Julian
Are you not aware that all offerings whether great or small that are brought to the gods with piety have equal value, whereas without piety, I will not say hecatombs, but, by the gods, even the Olympian sacrifice of a thousand oxen is merely empty expenditure and nothing else?

Julian
The entire heaven, making its parts everywhere harmonize with him, is filled with spirits emanating out of the Sun. For this god is ruler of five orbits in the heavens, and whilst traversing three out of these orbits, he produces in three the Graces, themselves three in number, the remaining circles form the Scales to the Balance of supreme Necessity.

Julian
I consider myself especially indebted to all the gods together, and more than all to the Great Mother in this particular instance (as in all others) that she did not suffer me to wander about, as it were in the dark, but firstly commanded me to cut away, not as regards my body, but as regards the irrational appetites and motions of the soul, all that was superfluous and empty, by the aid of the Cause, the object of intellect, and which presides over souls, whilst she herself enabled me to conceive certain notions perhaps not discordant with a true, and at the same time, reverential understanding of divine matters.

Julian
In the same manner therefore as we have laid it down that the Sun holds the supremacy in the Intelligible world, having round about his own being, in one species, a vast multitude of gods (supposing him to have the same in the Sensible world), all of which move along their everlasting and most felicitous course in a circle, so do we prove him to be Leader and Lord, imparting to and filling the whole heaven, as he does, with his own splendour, likewise with infinite other blessings that be invisible to us: whilst the benefits commenced by the other deities are brought to perfection by him; nay, more, before this, these gods themselves were rendered perfect through his spontaneous and divine operation.

Julian
But why do you not cease to call Mary the mother of God, if Isaiah nowhere says that he that is born of the virgin is the "only begotten Son of God" and "the firstborn of all creation"?

Julian
It is not sufficient to say, "God spake and it was so." For the natures of things that are created ought to harmonise with the commands of God. I will say more clearly what I mean. Did God ordain that fire should mount upwards by chance and earth sink down? Was it not necessary, in order that the ordinance of God should be fulfilled, for the former to be light and the latter to weigh heavy? And in the case of other things also this is equally true.

Julian
But how many are the final causes of union, the most beautiful, which this deity contains within himself? The Sun, that is, Apollo, is "Leader of the Muses;" and inasmuch as he completes our life with good order, he produces in the world Æsculapius; for even before the world was, he had the latter by his side.
But were one to discuss the numerous other qualities belonging to this god, he would never arrive to the end of them.

Julian