Julian the Apostate: The Roman emperor who tried to Erase Christianity (and failed)

Born in AD 331 or 332 in Constantinople, Flavius Claudius Julianus entered a world already shifting during a time of major religious change.

By the time of his birth, Christianity had moved from persecuted sect to imperial faith.

His uncle, Constantine the Great, had legalised it through the Edict of Milan in AD 313 and promoted it across the empire.

Raised under the shadow of this new Christian order, Julian held different beliefs that would influence one of the most dramatic religious confrontations of the late Roman Empire. 

After surviving the massacre of several family members during the killing that followed Constantine’s death in AD 337, Julian spent much of his youth under close surveillance.

While officials kept him distant from political power, he was taught by well-known pagan philosophers and teachers, including Libanius and Maximus of Ephesus.

He even studied in cities such as Nicomedia, Ephesus, Athens, and perhaps Pergamum as well.

Over time, he developed a strong devotion to Neoplatonism and the old Greco-Roman gods.

He was secretly initiated into various mystery cults and he grew to despise Christianity’s growing influence and what he viewed as its intolerant doctrines and hierarchical practices that rejected traditional Roman values. 

Julian’s path to power began under Emperor Constantius II, his cousin and a staunch Christian.

In November AD 355, Constantius appointed Julian as Caesar and sent him to govern Gaul, where he surprised many by winning the loyalty of his troops and scoring important victories against Germanic tribes, especially the Alamanni.

His success in the West earned him widespread admiration. When civil war loomed in February AD 360 due to tensions between the two cousins, fate intervened.

Constantius died of illness on 3 November AD 361 while marching east, leaving Julian as the sole ruler of the Roman world. 

When he assumed the imperial title, Julian wasted no time revealing his true religious agenda.

He declared himself a follower of the old gods and openly renounced Christianity.

Ancient historians such as Ammianus Marcellinus, a contemporary and sympathetic chronicler, recorded how Julian ordered pagan temples reopened, restored public sacrifices, and provided funds to revive the ancient priesthoods.

He hoped to revive traditional Roman religion as a central force in public life instead of remaining a cultural relic.

His project ultimately sought to undermine Christianity by elevating pagan institutions and eroding Christian privilege.

In one notable gesture, he attempted to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed centuries earlier.

Ammianus claimed that bursts of fire and an earthquake halted the project, but the true cause remains unclear. 

Julian implemented several measures to weaken the Church’s power. He issued his Edict on Teachers in AD 362, which stated that Christians who denied the divine nature of Homer or Plato should not teach their works.

While the edict did not legally ban Christian teachers, it strongly pressured them to abandon such positions.

He also repealed many of Constantine’s laws that had favoured the Church, removed imperial subsidies, and sought to restore confiscated temple properties.

Rather than martyrdom, Christians faced exclusion and public ridicule combined with concerted measures to sideline them from public life. 

Yet Julian’s strategy failed to achieve lasting results. His attempt to re-establish polytheism as Rome’s spiritual centre lacked unity and appeal.

The old religions, based on local cults and ritual rather than dogma or community, could not match the structured and socially active Christian Church, which had already begun formalising its doctrines during the Council of Nicaea in AD 325.

Pagan priests could not rally the same collective moral force or institutional loyalty.

Meanwhile, Christian communities, though marginalised, continued to grow. 

Julian’s campaign ended as suddenly as it began. In AD 363, he led a major military expedition against the Persian Sassanids with an army of approximately 65,000 men.

Although it was initially quite successful, the campaign faltered deep in enemy territory after reaching the outskirts of Ctesiphon.

During a skirmish near Maranga, a spear struck Julian under mysterious circumstances.

He died on 26 June AD 363, only two years after becoming Augustus. Rumours circulated among Christians that he had cried out, “You have won, Galilean,” a reference to Jesus.

Although this story appears more rhetorical than factual. Pagan accounts speculated that he had been assassinated by a Christian soldier within his own ranks. 

Following his death, Christian officials gradually regained their former privileges.

Jovian and later Valentinian I reinstated Christianity’s favoured status, and Julian’s religious reforms quickly collapsed.

His writings, including Against the Galileans, survived primarily in fragments preserved by Christian apologists who used them to defend their faith.

Other works, such as his letters and philosophical treatises, survive in fuller form.

In Against the Galileans, Julian ridiculed Christians for worshipping "a dead Jew" and condemned their abandonment of the gods who, in his eyes, had made Rome great.

Far from extinguishing Christianity, Julian had unintentionally strengthened its cohesion by forcing believers to unify under pressure. 

Through a blend of philosophical conviction and imperial authority, Julian had launched the last organised pagan revival in Roman history.

Yet his failure confirmed the Christian Church’s endurance. His short reign was a turning point that showed Christianity’s irreversible hold over the Roman world.

Though his enemies labelled him Julian the Apostate, his life revealed the complexity of how faith influenced identity and informed power in a crumbling pagan empire.