The 4th Century AD in the West was bracketed by the conversion of Constantine and the Capture of Rome by Alaric's Visigoths in 410. The Conversion of the Emperor led to the recognition of Christianity as the first among the many religions in the Mediterranean world (Edict of Milan 313) and Alaric ended once and for all Rome's aura of invincibility. Between those years, the power of Rome waned and Byzantine (newly named Constantinople in 330) rose. Christianity gradually began to assume the power of theocracy, controlling people's lives in a way that the Paganism that it replaced never did. As the church's power grew, the many variants of Christianity and the dogmas of those variants assumed a greater importance. Three of those, Arianism, Monophysitism and Dyophysitism were all different ideas as to the nature of, and the relationship between, God and Jesus. The different views of the nature of God and Jesus became rallying cry's for vicious mob violence and the military conflicts between various Christian sects of that epic. In a way that is hard to fathom today, arguments about whether Christ was the son of God or the same as God and whether he was a real physical presence on earth or part physical and part spiritual were the background of deadly struggles, all completing for allegiance of the as yet extremely civilized and culturally united Mediterranean world. Constantine settled it with a Solomon stroke that incorporated bits of each of the many ideas of God and wrapped it in a Platonic structure (the Theory of Forms)which became the Trinity, the Nicean Creed, the incomprehensible 'God the Father, Son, Holy Ghost'.
These incorporeal ideas meant a great deal to Christians of that time, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean. Therefore, when Constantine's nephew assumed the the Purple in the Middle of this convulsive century, the two year reign of Julian 'The Apostate' began, and gave Julian a chance to try and fix what he saw was the new state religion's creeping toward control of the rest of society. Gore sees Julian as the original 'separation of Church and State' politician and this is the motif of this biographical novel of the little known Emperor.
I say little known, because his appellate 'the Apostate' put him outside of traditional biography. Christian orthodoxy demanded he be demonized by the church fathers forever after. After Julian's death the Christians returned to power and they never again lost it. The final Fall of Rome led to the rise of the Ultra-Christian 'Dark Ages' and Middle Ages, which of course has shaped the course of Western Civilization and our view of the past for better or worse.
Vidal clearly posits that it was for the worse. As anyone who has read Vidal, they know he takes a very personal, 'cui bono' view of history. His heroes are often history's villains. For example his Novel 'Burr' looks closely and sympathetically at the man who shot Alexander Hamilton and lent his name to a moribund rebellion against the young United States and was the indirect subject of the story that every school child of the early baby boom and before read in elementary school, "The man Without a Country". Vidal loved to give the finger to popularly accepted opinion.
The facts about Julian are well known, but the context that Gore gives those facts is startling. Julian was one of the greatest military generals in history. Vidal takes us through his campaigns and explains that genius in a very clear manner. Julian, a 'conservative' Epicurean Pagan, was also a writer on par with the other literary Emperor, Marcus Aurelius. He was a philosopher and a humanist of immense liberality, wishing, cajoling and legislating to to protect religious liberty in an increasingly intolerant Christian world.
Vidal tells the story through letters between Julian and his friends from youth, as well as letters among those friends talking about Julian, in frank and not always flattering terms. As in all of Vidal's historical novels he gives flesh and blood depiction and voice to some of the world's most influential figures, such as the emperors who preceded and succeeded Julian.
The novel is regarded by some as Vidal's greatest work. That might be - to me it is the most thought provoking of the works of Gore that I have read. The 4th Century was the caldron that formed much of what the modern western world would become. Julian was a champion of a road not taken, a road that to me held out the promise of a more tolerant and hopeful world. If the Roman Empire had chosen religious tolerance who knows what the result would have been? Islam (or something like it) might have arose with a much less belligerent character. The Mediterranean might not have split and Serbs and Croats might not have hated each other. Persians would still be Zoroastrians.
'What If History' is a fun game to play but ultimately not useful because as far as I know we can't go back or sideways in time.. But it is important that we see history as clearly as possible if we are to successful plot the future which is what we do with every action we take in life.. Because history is the only real guide that we have to what we are and what we will become.
Julian is a wonderful book and gave me a deeper appreciation of Gore Vidal's literary talent
(1-8-24) see interesting link on 4th Century religious life. https://m.jpost.com/archaeology/article-780980
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