Julian Quietly Begins to Undermine Christianity and Revive Paganism

When Julian found himself sole master of the empire, he ordered that all the pagan temples throughout the East be reopened, that those that had been neglected be repaired, that those that had fallen into ruin be rebuilt, and that the altars be restored. He set aside a considerable sum of money for this purpose. In the cities he restored the customs of antiquity and the ancestral ceremonies, and the practice of offering sacrifice. [a] He himself poured out libations and sacrificed openly and in public. He gave honors to those who were zealous in performing these ceremonies. He restored the initiators and the priests, the hierophants and the attendants of the images, to their old privileges, and confirmed the laws of earlier emperors in their favor. He granted them exemption from public duties and other burdens, as had been their right before. He gave back to the temple keepers the allowances that had been abolished, and ordered them to keep themselves pure in what they ate, and to abstain from everything that, by the pagans’ rule, a man who has declared that he means to lead a pure life ought to abstain from. [b] He also ordered that the nilometer, the symbols, and the old ancestral tablets be kept in the temple of Serapis, instead of being deposited in the church, as Constantine’s regulation had laid down. He wrote often to the people of the cities where he knew paganism was flourishing, and urged them to ask for whatever gifts they wanted. Toward the Christians, on the other hand, he openly showed his dislike. He would not honor them with his presence, and would not receive the delegates they sent to report their grievances. [c]

When the people of Nisibis sent to beg his help against the Persians, who were on the point of invading Roman territory, he refused to help them because they were entirely Christian and would neither reopen their temples nor go to the sacred places. He threatened that he would not help them, nor receive their embassy, nor come near their city, until he heard that they had gone back to paganism. [d] He likewise accused the people of Constantia in Palestine of being attached to Christianity, and he made their city subject to Gaza. Constantia, as we said earlier, used to be called Maiuma, and served as the harbor for the ships of Gaza. But when Constantine heard that most of its inhabitants were Christians, he raised it to the rank of a city, gave it the name of his own son, and gave it a government of its own, for he thought it ought not to depend on Gaza, a city given over to pagan rites. When Julian came to the throne, the citizens of Gaza went to law against those of Constantia. The emperor sat as judge himself, decided in favor of Gaza, and ordered that Constantia be annexed to that city, although it lay about two and a half miles away. [e] He abolished its former name, and since then it has been called the seaside district of Gaza. The two now have the same city magistrates, the same military officers and the same public regulations. In church matters, however, they may still be regarded as two cities. Each has its own bishop and its own clergy. Each celebrates festivals in honor of its own martyrs and in memory of the priests who ruled it in turn, and the boundaries of the surrounding lands, which divide the altars belonging to the two bishops, are still kept.

Within our own memory, when the one who presided over the church at Maiuma died, the bishop of Gaza tried to join the clergy of that town to those under his own authority. The argument he put forward was that it was not lawful for two bishops to preside over one city. The people of Maiuma opposed the plan, and the council of the province took up the dispute and ordained another bishop. The council ruled that it was entirely right that those who had been judged worthy of the honors of a city because of their piety should not be deprived, by the decision of a pagan emperor who had acted on quite other grounds, of the privilege granted to the priesthood and rank of their churches. But these events took place later than the period now under review.