VI ll ALExANDRE Kotivz

The Emperor Julian and

His Art o{ Writing.

. . . For one must not speak of the ineffable.

When on the cage of an elephant you"bufralo," don't believe your eyes.

In a book on the art of writing which has been justlynoted because it is truly noteworthy, Leo strauss has reminded us ofwhat has tended to be too easily forgotten since the nineteenth century-that one ought not to take literally everything that the great authors ofearlier times wrote, nor to believe that they made explicit in their writingsall that they wanted to say in them.

In fact, the old art of writing rediscovered by Leo Strauss consistedin writing almost the opposite of what one thought, in order to camou-flage what one said. This literary camouflage had two clearly distinctends, which could, nouetheless, be combined. On the one hand, thoughtcould be camouflaged to escape persecution resulting from intolerance,which arises necessarily as much from knowledge that is rightly shieldedfrom doubt as from any opinion that is wrongly shieldeJ from doubt.on the other hand, literary camoufage could serve to form an elite;writing was supposed to be able to inform those exceptional men whowere capable of grasping the camouflaged doctrine which shocks preju-dice, at the same time conffrming average readers in their tradiiionalignorance, sometimes called learned and always supposed salutary. Thus* Translated by James H. Nichols, Jr.

Julian (2184)

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The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing ll 97

In the &scourse, To the Uneducated" Dogs (or Cynics), (in whichJulian attacks the monks, too, while feigning to criticize only the neo-Cynics of his time and, further, opposing them to Antisthenes andDiogenes, whom he admires), it is said in passing: 'As for me, withrespect to the gods, . . . I wish to say only the pious things" ( 187" ).Several months previously, the Emperor had spoken in great detail aboutmany pagan divinities in his discourse, On the Mother of the Goils(inspired in part by Lucian's Syrian Goddess). Several months later heavailed himself of another opportunity in the discourse, On Ki.ng Heli.os,which is an intentional parody of the writings of Iamblichus. It is clearthat Julian did not really believe what he had written about the gods inthese two discourses and that he kept sileut as to what he truly thoughtof the gods. Yet nothing, it seems, prevented him from developingtherein whatever theological conceptions he had, if any, concerningpagan theology. Moreover, nothing permits us to suppose that his reasonfor concealing what he thought of the pagan gods was that he hadremained a true Christian after his official apostasy. We are thus forcedto admit that, in indicating that he kept his true thoughts about anydivinities to himself, Julian wished to indicate that in his opinion therewere none. This radical, but silent or camoufage, atheism is also sug-gested by the fact that, in his two ostensibly religious and "mystic"discourses, the Emperor reproduces the themes of the pagan theologyof his time (assimilable, in his view, to those of Christian theology) onlyinsofar as those themes have in his opinion a particularly inept andridiculous character, which he takes pains to emphasize discreetly byaccentuating it.

After recoguizing that, on becoming Emperor, the philosopher Julianeeases to say all that he thiuks and even to think all that he says, onemust ask the reason for this camouflage. Now, in his discourse, fnResponse to the Cgnic Heracleios (Heracleios in fact designating notonly a neo-Cynic philosopher, but also a Christian bishop or theologian),the Emperor recalls that in every age orators and writers with philo-scphic leanings camoufaged their thoughts for fear of reprisal: "[Thepoet who uses a eertain kind of myth] wishes to exhort and instruct butin a concealed way. He does this in the case rfiere he is afraid to speakclearly because he is anxious about being hated by the audience. This ishow Hesiod too evidently wrote" (2A7*b), Perhaps-but of whom and ofwhat could a Roman Emperor be afraid? Ju1ian evidently could not fearpersecution by the dying paganism of his time. On the contrary, he couldsee that it was impossible in that age to dethrone the pagan gods with-out enthroning in their place the Christian divinity, whose adepts wouldhave persecuted the atheist Emperor more eflectively than pagans couldhave.2 In the ffnal analysis, then, it was for fear of the hatred of his

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The Emperor luli,an and His Art otWriting ll 99

and the mockings of the unbelieving or skeptical intellectual that he was.

No doubt, if Julian had wanted to be simply Emperor, he should andcould have given up completely those mockings and stopped his subtlejesting. Having remained a philosopher, however, he could not abandonphilosophic pedagogy; in addressing his writings only to a mature elite,he took care that the tradition of what was for him the (discursive)truth should not be interrupted. The camouflaged mocking which escapes

the vulgar permits the selection of strong minds who understand such

ironies without being shocked by them, and who thus reveal that theyare not so enslaved by prejudice as to be unapt to receive, perhaps withsome benefit, a philosophic instruction which will itself be given themonly between the lines for the same double reason of selection andsecrecy.

Now, this is exactly what Julian himself tells us on occasion. Thus, inthe discourse, On King Helio's (in which Helios is at the same time thepagan divinity which the author exalts as Emperor, but which he deridesas intellectual, and the symbol of the nous to which he appeals as phi-losopher), Julian speaks explicitly of his pedagogic vocation: "May thegreata Helios [reason] grant that I no lesss know about him and that Iteach everyone generally (xowff), but those worthy of learning particu-larly (;8is)" (fS7u;. Here, the appeal to the philosophic elite and theexclusion of the mass of the profane are only indicated. Elsewhere, how-ever, the author expresses himself in a more open fashion, as for examplein the discourse, ln Response to the Cgni,c Heracl.eios, where he says:"For not everything ought to be said; and even of those things which it islawful to say [to an elite], certain things, in my opinion, must be keptquiet before the many" (239-b). However, it must be done with art: thesame camouflage which seryes to hide from the vulgar the true meaningof what is said must attract the attention of the chosen few and provokephilosophic refection in them. This is precisely what ]ulian himself tellsus in his discourse, Onthe Mother of the Godst

The Ancients always looked for the causes of things; . , . and when theyhad found them, they protected them with paradoxical myths, so that bymeans of the paradox and incongruity the counterfeit character [of what issaid to us] would be detected and would turn us to the search for the truthlwhich is hidden from us or which is indicated only by hints]. I supposethat for the ordinary men there is sufficient benefft in the irrational storywhich is transmitted uniquely by [generally strange and contradictory]symbols, whereas for t-hose who are exceptional in intelligence, the huthabout the gods can be beneffcial only on the condition that they search for,ffnd, and grasp it [themselves] under the direction of the gods [that is tosay, here, of reason, truly of philosophy], reminded by the enigmatic allu-

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tr The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writi.ng ll 101

tradition. After the example o{ the great Plato, Julian the philosopherjested a great deal, particularly about things which the common run ofreaders someUmes take tragically and always endow with a seriousness

which they consider profound. But, like Plato himself, Julian made funof these things at the same time being careful not to shock the profane,and he, like Plato, did it so as to stir his chosen few to the intellectualefiort, which is philosophic precisely insofar as it is deemed able toliberate from the prejudices 'bf the theatey'' and "of the forum" those

who are capable of it, thus leading them to (discursive) wisdom-that is,

to full satisfaction, perfectly conscious of itself.T

Many examples of the art of writing practiced by Julian could be

given. For lack of spaee I shall content myself with a single example,

which seems particularly convincing to me. It is concerned with what

Julian thinks and says when he speaks, in his philosophic writings, ofmyths, both generally and particularly. julian speaks of myths in all his

pieces of a philosophic character. But his discourse, ln Responss to theCgni.c Heracleios, is devoted entirely to the problem'of myth in generaland of theological myths, pagan as well as Christian, in particular(cf. 205b"). The philosopher-Emperor explicitly formulates his own pointof view at the very outset of his analysis, which begins as follows: "Todiscover the point at which the invention of myths began, as well as theperson of him who ffrst tried to relate false stories in a believable formfor the profft or the diversion of his audience, is probably quite as

impossible as to ffnd the ffrst man who sneezed or spat" (205").Obviously, in deffning the myth as a false story told in a believable

fashion, ]ulian consciously opposes the traditional deffnition, implicitlyor explicitly admiued by all the theologians, including the Stoics. Forthese men, myths (or at least certain myths) are true stories which,however, present themselves in an unbelievable form, in the sense ofbeing unlikely, or at least incomprehensible. The task of the pagan orChristian theologian, on that premise, consists in interpreting a myth so

as to restate in likely and comprehensible (not to say reasonable orrational) speech the truth which the myth reveals (discursively). Thetruth of the myth is defined as a harmonizing of what the myth says

with what it speaks about. Thus the truth of the myth is supposed tobe the (discursive) revelation of a reality. More exactly, it is not themyth which reveals a reality. It is the reality, generally divine, whichreveals itself in and through the myth. Thus, the theological myth is theunbelievable discursive form of a divine revelation, which reveals whatis or really exists "outside of its discursive revelation and independentlyof the mythical, that is, unbelievable form of the myth. This is the sourceof the possibility of interpreting the myth by rationalizing its (dis-

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by its meaning that the theological myth contradicts itself. The mythicalexpression, which is also artistic, can at best camouflage this contradic-tion (at least in the eyes of the "many"; see 213d), by giving it an"exalted" and "coherent," that is, 'believable" appearance. More exactly,all myths have a contradictory meaning, because they contradict them-selves by deffnition: what is not seU-contradictory is not a myth, properlyso-called. But one and the same contradictory meaning can have twodifferent verbal expressions: the one makes the contradiction appearexplicitly while the other dissembles it without suppressing it, so thatit is only implicit. One must therefore distinguish myths which openlypresent themselves as having a contradictory meaning from those whichhide-or pretend to hide-their contradiction by expressing themselvesin apparently "exalted" and'toherent" discourse.

We shall shortly see that the telling of false stories without camou-flaging their contradictory character in order to pass them off as true iswhat distinguishes poetry. But we have just seen that, according toJulian, if one aims to edify, it is necessary to dissimulate by apparentlycoherent speech the implied contradiction in the meaning of poeticworks which treat divine things. We understand very well why this is so.In effect, the contradictory meaning cannot, by deffnition, correspondto any reality. To show by the very verbal expression that a story is con-tradictory is hence to present it openly as a ffction. And this is preciselywhat the poets do in telling their stories. On the other hand, the theolo-gians claim to speak of real divinities. They are therefore obliged to cam-ouflage verbally t}e contradictions inherent in the meaning of the storiesthey tell. Thus, it is the theologians who produce myths in the propersense of the word, namely, 'Talse stories [because contradictory] in abelievable form [because apparently coherent]" (205"). Now, the art offfnding an apparently coherent verbal form for a false meaning which isnot simple or unique (the contradictory meaning being precisely double)belongs to rhetoric. consequently, theology is a branch of rhetoric, whichtries to ffnd (apparently) coherent verbal expressions for the contra-dictory meanings of poetic works which have divine things for theirsubiect.

Whatever the relations between theology, poetry, and rhetoric may be,Julian tells us clearly that according to him all myths are false stories.And we now know that these stories are false because their meaning iscontradictory, in whatever verbal form they may happen to be croaked.

Now, by the curious comparison of men's invention of myths withsneezing and spitting, Julian gives us to understand that there havealways been and that there will always be myths on earth, as long ashuman beings live on it. Hence it can be asked why men invent falsestories everywhere and always, sometimes taking them for true. Julian

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faith in the myths is such that even his burlesque of them will preventalmost no one from taking them seriously and from believing that Julianhimself takes them seriously.

Now, if Julian realized that in &eological matters men ffrmly believein perfectly "unbelievable" things, he must have asked himself why theydid so. At ffrst glance, his rather in&rect respouse is hardly satisfying,although traditional in ancient philosophy. It is that people believe inmyths from 'haivet6," that is, from lack of intelligence or, more exactly,because they do not notice the "strange and contradictory" characterof what the myths tell.8 But a much more profound response-"Hegelian"before its time-is perhaps found in a curious passage of the Consolntion,where Julian speaks of Alexander as follows:

It is told that Alexander wished for a Homer, not to profft from his com-pany, but for the propagation of his glory. . . . However, that man lAlexan-der] never looked to the present: he was never satisffed with what wasaccorded to him in his time and he was not content with the things whichwere [actually] given to him. Even if a Homer had befallen him, he wouldperhaps have longed for the Apollonian lyre, to which Apollo sang thenuptials of Peleus. For Alexander took this story [relative to Apollo] not fora simple product of Homer's understanding, but for a true deed whichHomer had woven into the web of his poem (250d-251-).

Stated otherwise, a poet, in order to divert, invents a false story whichhe himself presents as a ffction; but in the eyes of another man, this samestory can seem "believable" to the point of being considered true, in &esense of conforming to reality, even if it has a "strange and contradictory''character. Since the man in question is Alexander, there can be no ques-tion of naivet6 or of lack of intelligence. Thus Julian indicates an entirelydifferent reason, namely, a desire for glory (or tecognition," in theHegelian sense of the word) which is not satisffed by the fame acquiredin one's lifetime. Now, since Julian speaks of Alexander and of Homer,he certainly wishes to tell us that the desire for glory, or for 'iecog-nition," that Ieads men to transform poetic ffctions into theological mythswhich people accept as true is such that it cannot be satisffed by anyaction performed on earth or by any eulogies earned there. Moreover,Julian carefully emphasizes that nothing occurring in the dimension oftime could satisfy Alexander. That is to say that men believe in the truthof theological myths because these allow human beings to expect aneternal glory, an afterlife, in and through "recognition" on the part ofimmortal or divine beings. In short, men believe in the gods becausethey themselves wish to be immortal.

Julian could have stopped there, if myths were told only by poets (whodevote themselves to ffctions in play and to divert) or by religious men

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The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing ll 107

ought to be composed, if, in a general way, philosophy somehow needs

the invention of myths too" (205r). To reply to this question, ]ulianbegins by asking what branch of philosophy might need myths-'Talsestories with a believable form." He says:

With regard to these difierent branches [of philosophy, namely, accord-

ing to the Stoic tripartition, logic, physics, and ethicsl, the invention ofmyths is appropriate neither to logic nor to mathematies, which is a part ofphysics; but if this invention is appropriate to any of these branches at all,

it is with practical philosophy [with ethics] that it is concerned, namely,

with that part of it which concerns the individual man [not the state as

suchl, as well as the part of theology which deals with initiations and

mysteries (216b).

On the page preceding this passage, Julian had adopted the Stoic

division of philosophy into only three parts. Stated otherwise, followingthe Stoics, he subsumes theology under physics. For him, though (as

perhaps for Plato and certainly for Kant, as well as for certain "Demo-

critbans," if not for Democritus himself ), physics can be true only insofaras it is mathematical, The nonmathematical remnant of physics is forhim, as for Plato in the Timaeus, only a bevy of "myths," that is to say,

false stories presented in a more or less "believabld' form. This is thecase especially when the stories claim to describe a 'transcendent" ordivine world. It is precisely because nothing true can be said of thisworld, for the simple reason that it does not exist at all, that one is obligedto have recourse to myths when one intends to speak of it. Now Juliangives us to understand, in the pages which follow the passage quoted,

that the use of myths by a philosopher can be justiffed only in ethics-and not ethics as a whole, but only that part which is addressed to indi-viduals. Stated otherwise, when a philosopher speaks as a theorist of thestate or of society, that is, of man in gerreral or man as such, he mustspeak seriously and try to say the truth, avoiding all kinds of myths. Aphilosopher can himself tell, or have others tell, 'Talse stories in a believ-able form," intending to make them pass as true, only when he wantsto act as a peda-gogue or as a dema-gogue, that is to say, when his goalis to educate individuals so that their life in common can take the formof a viable state truly worthy of the name, such as the Roman state was

before its decadence.This understood, the philosopher-Emperor believes it necessary and

possible to make his thought even more speciffq and to say directly thatin any event myths, even edifying ones, should be told only to thosewho are not capable of understanding or accepting the truth. "The onewho makes stories for the sake of the improvement of morals and intro-duces myths must not do this for men but for children, whether in age or

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Th.e Emperor Julian and His Art of Writing ll I0g

shelter themselves from persecution, but also to gratify their taste forplay and jest and in order that phirosophers courir""og.rir" each othermore surely.

In the light of historical experience, the Emperor Julian's art of writingappears most extraordinary. For although he permitted himself to tell usunmistakably that he himself did not believe in any of the theologicalmyths which were told with more or less success in his epoch, it is nota-s an atheistic philosoplrer_but as a self-procraimed "devoit pagan,, and"Neo-Platonic mystic" that history has trinsmitted him to ,s.

^ 'Telling of Juliant art of writing, I hope r have not behayed his secret-

1or, lor that matter, anyone's secret-by writing the prlceding pages.For these pages will say nothing of interest to those whlor. tt e i-pero,wanted to exclude from the small number of comprehending readers ofhis philosophic writings. They wilr indeed say riothing at"all. In thespirit of their author, these pages contain-nothing othlr, and nothingmore, than a modest sahrt addressed to the boi entend.eurs of phillosophy-over the oceans and through the centuries.

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- 1, The Works of the Emperor lulian, trans. W. C. Wright (S vols.; London;Heinemann, 1g1g), 24gd-249", All references to the writings'of lulian will beto this edition.

- 2. It is obviously the crosiers of the bishops and not the stafis of ..the

philosophers" that Julian really has in view in the followi.rg i.rr";iir" *hi"hhe pretends to address to the "Cynic" Heracleios:

Furthermore, -why do. you [the "Cy]ics,'].circrrlate everyr,vhere and plynot only the mules but also, as- r hear tell, thlir drivers, ,"t o ur" *o." frigii-ened before you,than before the soldiersi For, as I hear, yoo,rr" yo* rtrfi,even more cruellv than the soldiers do their swords. l[ i, trr"rlrore ffttingthat you also inspire th"; ;th;;f"* ('izq").3. As-Emperor, Julian often takes issue with the'pure" intelectuars who

isolate themselves from political action, and who nevirtheless p"rrnit th"*_selves to advise statesmen. He does this notably in his very iroi"ui rnttn, tothe Philosopher Themistius,

_in wlrich he paroiies the styie or "orrt"*porrry"sophists" and cruelly derides, although again in u cu*orfluged lorm, the

advice lavished on the new Emperor by his former tutor in phiro-sophy (whomEunapius does not mention in his Li,fe of the sophisfs, wheie he civers lrnianwith flowers). see more particularly 263b-267b. Letter 16 could also b1 quoted

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The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing II Iilintroduce the opinion of Epicurus"). This hypothetical interpretation wouldbecome absolutely certain if the author of the small treatise, OI the Cods and

of the World, were the same Sallust who was Julian's friend. For the credo of

that author (which is openly expressed in chapter XVII, the other chapters

being "ironicali') is clearly Democritean and atheistic. But it is possible that the"Sallust" in question is only one of the pseudonyms of Damscius (alias "Mari-

nus" as the supposed author of the so-called biography of Proclus, a pamphlet

as ironical as it is ferocious). It seems, moreover, that Damscius, himself a

"materialist" and a notorious atheist, knew the writings of Julian very well and

imitated him in his own vita lsidori (which is in fact only a persiflage of neo-

Platonism), and whose "diadochian Isidorus," moreover, never existed. As to

Julian s anti-christianity, it is universally known because it was publicly

avowed. But it has perhaps not been sufficiently emphasized that the Emperor-philosopher was "Nietzschean" or "Hegelian" before his time, insofar as he

reproached Judeo-christianity above all for being a 'ieligion of slaves" (cf.195"-196"; Lggdr 207d*208"; 213b; 238"-d). Cf. also fr. 5: "They [the Christian

soldiersl Inew only how to pray [but were unfft for combat]" (Works Vol. III,pp. 298 and 299).

7. With regard to the Platonic origin of Julian's "irony," the following('ironicali') passage from the discourse, In Resporwe to the Cynic Heracleios,

is particularly characteristic:

He [Plato n the Philebas and the Timaeus] insists that everything thepoets say of the gods be implicitlybelieved, and-that no proof for what tieyiay be demanded of them. But I have quoted here this passage fTimaeus,4$e-", which Julian obviously considers "ironical," although te must haveknown tlat this same passage was taken literally and seriously by the authorof. the Epinornis] solely so that you ["Heracleios," here the syrnbol of theChristian theologianl will not be able to pretend, as many Platonists do, thatSocrates' being naturally ironic is a ground for slighting the Platonic doc-trine. For these words are not uttered by Socrates, but by Timaeus, who isleast of all ironical. [This shows, incidentally, that Julian did not take at allseriously the myths of a pseudo-scientiffc cast that Plato jokingly put in themouth of Timaeus to make fun of him (aiming perhaps at Eudoxus, or theyoung Aristotle, who was impressed and influenced !V Eudo-xus to the pointof Urbati,rg with the philosophy of t}le Academy).1 For that matter, it isnot sound, instead of examining what is said, to ask who says it and to whomthe speeches are addressed. [An ironical passage, which shows tlat Julianknew full well that it is, on the contrary, only by posing these last two ques-

tions that the dialogues of Plato can be correctly interpreted.l Must I nowrefer you again to the omniscient Siren, the image of the messenger-godHermes and the friend of Apollo and the Muses [namely, Aristotle]P Hethinks that to those who ask if there are gods or who, in a general manner,undertake a [critical] study of this subject, one must not give an answer as

to human beings, but administer a punishment as to beasts (237b-d).

Evidently, Julian did not greatly appreciate people who take things too seri-

ously, particularly in matters of religion or science, but also of politics and

raisons diEtat. On several occasions he paid tribute to the philosophers of thepast who knew how to joke, putting Democritus at their head beside Plato'

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The Emperor lulian and His Art of Writing ll lI3

destiny (;rpopr"ivn); and to permit me tlereafter to rise toward him and toremain """r

hi*,'if that is fossible, forever lwhich Julian certainly does notbelievel; if however this must be [as Julian himse]f thinks it mustl a [re-ligious] desire which goes beyond my merits in this life, may it at the veryle*ast [Lut, of course, per impossibilel be for numerous and lengthy periods

of time (15Sr-";.Let us ffnally note that this last passage is found again almost word for word

in the last chapter (it is also both ironical and serious, although not at all tragic)

of the small work already mentioned which is traditionally attributed to a

certain "Sallust."

10. Cf. The Caesars 318b: "Gods ought to test and investigate the tuuth,

and not persuasiveness or seductiveness" (including the 'tweet spices" ofmyths of any type whatsoever) '

11. Cf. TheCaesars 314"-d:

You [the Emperor Probus] were too austere and always harsh, neveryielding. You have sufiered unjustly and yet fittingly. O_ne cannot govern

irorses,-cattle, mules, and still less men, without conceding something towhat gratiffes them. It is thus that doctors sometimes make small concessions

[sweeiening bitter medications] to the sick, in order to ffnd them obedienton great occasions. "What, Papa [Silenus]," says Dionysus,'Are you goingphilosophic on us?" "Why not, my boy! ' . ' Let us then mix some serious

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