The PoD is that Julian lives longer and his reforms are successful. But first, there are many misconceptions about him that I think should be addressed:>His theology wasn’t a new innovation of his nor was it actually unpopular with contemporary pagans. He was a Neoplatonist, which was effectively the standard view among educated pagans in the Roman Empire. The only thing that was odd about Julian was his weird obsession with animal sacrifices since pagans had already stopped widely practicing it a century prior and preferred purely “bloodless” sacrifices like incense, libations, or prayers. Julian was reportedly upset that active pagan cults were no longer practicing animal sacrifice and was so obsessed with bringing it back that even those supportive of his cause often joked that the empire would eventually run out of cattle. >He wasn’t trying to create a new artificial pagan “church.” What Julian actually did was restore patronage to the imperial cult which had already existed for centuries; his reforms were intended to make an already-existing system more centralized, not create a new system. While he did try to merge other pagan priesthoods like that of the Egyptians with it under the belief that all religions were different shades of the truth rather than standing on their own, I wouldn’t say this belief was controversial among contemporary pagans or a new innovation he came up with since Platonists have always held this view towards divinity. The only thing Julian took from Christianity was charity and support for the poor since he argued that it was the only reason Christianity ever took off to begin with.(cont)
>>18348260(cont) Julian failed because he was only emperor for 2 years and died unexpectedly at the end, that’s not enough time to make long-lasting reforms and he had secular duties to attend to as well. If Julian lived longer, I do think his reforms could have actually been successful. However, I only think they would have been successful in the European territories of the empire since the east was firmly Christian at this point. This would result in a different division between west and east as rather than the Roman Empire being divided between a Catholic west and Orthodox east, we would instead see a division between a Hellenist west and a Christian east. That alone has interesting implications.To clarify, I’m calling it Hellenism here because considering that Julian himself referred to Greco-Roman paganism as “Hellenism” (Ἑλληνισμός) in his letters, it would have likely eventually become the widespread name for Greco-Roman paganism.I think the Western Roman Empire would have still fallen to Germanic invasions anyways. But rather than converting to Christianity, the Germanic invaders would integrate into Hellenism and potentially syncretize Germanic paganism with it. Given its flexible nature and emphasis on hierarchy and heroism, it’s possible that Neoplatonist Hellenism would actually resonate with the Germanic conquerors far better than Christianity.
Bump
Honestly Julian should have wonHe was more righteous than the self warring divided backstabbing christians.
