Julian the Theurg

According to an ancient tradition, Julian the Theurg was a miracle worker who was active in the second half of the 2nd century and, among other things, received and recorded the Chaldean oracles as divine revelations. The oracles actually come from this period; however, Julian is possibly a fictional character. In late antiquity , Julian was considered the founder of theurgy , the art of coming into direct contact with deities using certain methods.

Details of the Suda

The Suda , a 10th century Byzantine encyclopedia, contains an entry about an author named Julian the Theurg, who is referred to there as the son of Julian the Chaldean. Julian the Chaldean is featured as a philosopher and author of a work in four books On the Demons . Furthermore, the Suda informs about Julian the Theurgen that he lived under Emperor Mark Aurel and wrote writings on occult knowledge, including Theourgiká , Telestiká and Lógia di 'epōn ( sayings in verse ). The Proverbs are the famous Chaldean oracles ( lógia Chaldaiká ), which have only been handed down in fragments . The Suda also reports the following miracle of Julian the Theurge:

Once, when the Romans were dying of thirst, it is said to have conjured up dark storm clouds and generated heavy rain with successive thunderbolts and lightning. It is said that Julian did this through some knowledge. However, others claim that the Egyptian philosopher Arnouphis performed the miracle.

The representation in the Suda is probably based on information from a lost script by the late ancient Neo-Platonist Proclus .

The "rain miracle", which is also reported by the historian Cassius Dio and is attested on the Mark Aurel column in Rome, occurred during a campaign of the emperor Mark Aurel. The Romans were trapped by enemies in a place without water and were dying of thirst when a sudden thunderstorm brought their rescue. Views on who was responsible for this differed according to religious beliefs. According to the ancient pagan sources, the originator was the emperor himself or Arnouphis; Christian legend attributed salvation to the prayers of Christians among the soldiers. The church father Tertullian , who was a young man at the time of Mark Aurel's campaign, knew this Christian interpretation.

The Egyptian Arnouphis, mentioned in the Suda, is also a historical figure attested by inscriptions. Cassius Dio calls him Mark Aurel's companion and mentions that the rain miracle was attributed to him. Therefore, the research assumes that in the original version of the narrative Arnouphis was mentioned as the actual or at least possible author of the miracle and that his role was only transferred to Julian the Theurge much later - in the late third or early fourth century - either because Julian was better known at the time than Arnouphis or because it was intended to give him authority. This supports the assumption that Julian the Theurg and Julian the Chaldean are fictional characters. This presumption is also based on the fact that no evidence of the existence of the two can be found in the sources before the late third century. Polymnia Athanassiadi disagrees . She considers the attribution of the Chaldean oracles to Julian the Theurge to be credible and supports the hypothesis that he belonged to the priesthood of the Belos temple in Apamea in the Roman province of Syria .

Late antique and Byzantine legends

The Christian writers Sozomenos , Anastasios Sinaites and Michael Psellos tell further miracles of Julians the Theurge. In the 5th century, Sozomenos wrote in his church history that Julian was able to split a rock by hand through the power of his word. Anastasios Sinaites (7th century) transfers the miracle worker to the time of Emperor Domitian and reports on a competition between Julians and Apollonios of Tyana and Apuleius . It was about saving Rome from an epidemic that broke out at the time. Each of the three magicians should prove their skills in a third of the city. Julian won the competition because he had the most potent magic; he not only saved his third, but at the request of the emperor the whole city. Anastasios Sinaites considers this act to be historical and yet judges Julian negatively. He thinks Julian was the most powerful of the three because he was closest to the devil. Michael Psellos (11th century) also compares Julian with Apuleius and believes that the magic of Apuleius was "more material", that of Julian was "more spiritual". His information is based partly on the same late antique legend as those of the Suda; he, too, distinguishes between father and son in his Julian story. At one point he states that both lived under Marcus Aurelius; elsewhere he claims that a Julian who lived under Emperor Trajan , apparently his father, set forth the teachings called oracles in verse. Furthermore, Psellos passed on a late antique legend according to which the father of Julians the Theurge gave his son direct access to the soul of the philosopher Plato . This made it possible to question Plato, who is here regarded as a divine being. The Christian Psellos regards this as folly; in late antiquity, however, the intention was evidently to give Julian additional authority in Neoplatonic circles.

Julian as the founder of theurgy

Since the Chaldean oracles were attributed to Julian the Theurge and / or Julian the Chaldean, the two were considered the founders of theurgy , the art of connecting with divine beings by means of certain rites and practices and of obtaining help from them. It was assumed that these methods had been revealed to them by gods - primarily Apollo and Hecate . The late antique Neo-Platonists, who cited the Chaldean oracles, were given as authors “the Chaldeans” or “the theurges” or “one of the theurges”; It is unclear whether the distinction between father and son set out in the Suda was common at that time. The late antique Neo-Platonist Proclus mentions in his commentary on Plato's Timaeus that "Julian" wrote a work about the "zones" (planetary spheres). It is possibly part of the Theourgiká work mentioned in the Suda .

Comments

The Neoplatonist Porphyrios , who lived in the 3rd century, wrote, according to the Suda, a treatise "On the teachings of Julian the Chaldean" ( Eis ta Ioulinanoú tou Chaldaíou ). This work may be identical to his lost commentary on the Chaldean Oracle. Porphyrios' pupil (and philosophical opponent) Iamblichus of Chalkis also commented on the Chaldean oracles. In the fifties of the 4th century, Emperor Julian wrote to the philosopher Priskos, asking: "Get me everything that Iamblichos has written about my namesake"; by the namesake he evidently meant Julian the Theurgen.

literature

• Polymnia Athanassiadi: Julian the Theurgist: Man or Myth? In: Helmut Seng , Michel Tardieu (ed.): The Chaldean Oracle: Context - Interpretation - Reception . Winter, Heidelberg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8253-5862-4 , pp. 193-208
• Garth Fowden: Pagan Versions of the Rain Miracle of AD 172 . In: Historia 36, 1987, pp. 83-95
• Richard Goulet: Iulianus (Julien) le Théurge . In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Vol. 3, CNRS, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-271-05748-5 , pp. 978 f.
• Péter Kovács : Marcus Aurelius' Rain Miracle and the Marcomannic Wars. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2009, ISBN 978-90-04-16639-4 .

Remarks

1. ↑ Eric Robertson Dodds : The Greeks and the Irrational , Darmstadt 1970, p. 151.
2. ^ Ada Adler (Ed.): Suidae Lexicon , Vol. 2, Leipzig 1931, p. 642 (Adler No. I 434). Online: [1] .
3. ↑ See Garth Fowden: Pagan Versions of the Rain Miracle of AD 172 . In: Historia 36, 1987, pp. 83-95, here: 84-86.
4. ^ Henri-Dominique Saffrey: Les Néoplatoniciens et les Oracles Chaldaïques . In: Revue des Études Augustiniennes 27, 1981, pp. 209–225, here: 213 f .; Garth Fowden: Pagan Versions of the Rain Miracle of AD 172 . In: Historia 36, 1987, pp. 83-95, here: 87-94; Helmut Seng: Kosmagoi, azonoi, zonaioi , Heidelberg 2009, pp. 145–147.
5. ↑ Rowland Smith expresses skepticism about the historicity of father and son: Julian's Gods , London 1995, pp. 92–97; see. John Vanderspoel: Correspondence and Correspondents of Julius Julianus . In: Byzantion 69, 1999, pp. 396-478, here: 459-465. Vanderspoel assumes that the Chaldean oracles were created in the period 280–305.
6. ↑ Polymnia Athanassiadi: Julian the Theurgist: Man or Myth? In: Helmut Seng, Michel Tardieu (eds.): The Chaldean Oracle: Context - Interpretation - Reception , Heidelberg 2010, pp. 193–208, here: 196–203; Polymnia Athanassiadi: Apamea and the Chaldaean Oracles: A holy city and a holy book . In: Andrew Smith (ed.): The Philosopher and Society in Late Antiquity , Swansea 2005, pp. 117-143, here: 123-125, 129-133.
7. ^ Hans Lewy : Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy. Mysticism, Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire , 3rd edition, Paris 2011, p. 3 note 1; see. Henri-Dominique Saffrey: Les Néoplatoniciens et les Oracles Chaldaïques . In: Revue des Études Augustiniennes 27, 1981, pp. 209–225, here: 211 f. (with French translation of the Greek text).
8. ^ Hans Lewy: Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy. Mysticism, Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire , 3rd edition, Paris 2011, pp. 287 f. and note 109.
9. ^ Carine Van Liefferinge: La Théurgie. Des Oracles Chaldaïques à Proclus , Liège 1999, p. 16; Hans Lewy: Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy. Mysticism, Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire , 3rd edition, Paris 2011, p. 5 and note 3.
10. ^ Henri-Dominique Saffrey: Les Néoplatoniciens et les Oracles Chaldaïques . In: Revue des Études Augustiniennes 27, 1981, pp. 209–225, here: 218 f .; Hans Lewy: Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy. Mysticism, Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire , 3rd edition, Paris 2011, p. 229.
11. ↑ For the sources, see Willy Theiler : The Chaldean oracles and the hymns of Synesios , Halle (Saale) 1942, pp. 1–3; Hans Lewy: Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy. Mysticism, Magic and Platonism in the Later Roman Empire , 3rd edition, Paris 2011, pp. 3–8.
12. ^ Proclus: In Timaeum 4:27; see the notes by André-Jean Festugière : Proclus: Commentaire sur le Timée , vol. 4, Paris 1968, p. 45 note 1.
13. ↑ Eric Robertson Dodds: The Greeks and the Irrational , Darmstadt 1970, p. 151 f.
14. ↑ Julian: Letters , ed. by Bertold K. Weis, Munich 1973, pp. 38 and 258 (letter 18).