“Why were you so ungrateful to our gods as to desert them for the Jews?”
—Julian, addressing the Christians
6 Replies on “Quotable quote”
Julian was the last European Roman Emperor.
Maybe they were ungrateful “to the gods” because the Roman Empire was built on slavery. Maybe the slaves got tired of being slaves. I don’t blame them.
But the slaves were non-whites. Christianity was an ethnic revolution in disguise.
Great quote. This is my favourite part of the speech:
And finally God sent unto them Jesus also, but unto us no prophet, no oil of anointing, no teacher, no herald to announce his love for man which should one day, though late, reach even unto us also. Nay he even looked on for myriads, or if you prefer, for thousands of years, while men in extreme ignorance served idols, as you call them, from where the sun rises to where he sets, yes and from North to South, save only that little tribe which less than two thousand years before had settled in one part of Palestine. For if he is the God of all of us alike, and the creator of all, why did he neglect us? Wherefore it is natural to think that the God of the Hebrews was not the begetter of the whole universe with lordship over the Avhole, but rather, as I said before, that he is confined within limits, and that since his empire has bounds we must conceive of him as only one of the crowd of other gods. Then are we to pay further heed to you because you or one of your stock imagined the God of the universe, though in any case you attained only to a bare conception of Him? Is not all this partiality? God, you say, is a jealous God. But why is he so jealous, even avenging the sins of the fathers on the children?26
This is a key question.
You are quoting from Julian’s Against the Galileans, right?
Julian was the last European Roman Emperor.
Maybe they were ungrateful “to the gods” because the Roman Empire was built on slavery. Maybe the slaves got tired of being slaves. I don’t blame them.
But the slaves were non-whites. Christianity was an ethnic revolution in disguise.
Great quote. This is my favourite part of the speech:
This is a key question.
You are quoting from Julian’s Against the Galileans, right?
Yes, do you need a link?