In this important contribution, Matthew R. Crawford and Aaron P. Johnson collaborate to produce the first-ever complete English translation of Cyril of Alexandria’s (c. 375–444) Against Julian, a significant but, to this point, largely understudied work. An extended response to the Emperor Julian’s (r. 361–363) anti-Christian treatise of the previous century (possibly entitled Against the Galileans), it provides a unique window into the rapidly evolving dynamics of the exchange between Christian and pagan intellectual currents in the decades following Christian political establishment in 380. The translators date Cyril’s treatise to the mid–420s, based on parallels with his festal letters from that period (5).
As an externally oriented apologia, the work reveals a different side of Cyril than emerges in standard accounts of early Christianity, where he normally features as a primary actor in the church’s internal theological controversies over christology from the late fourth century on. His argumentation on the apologetic front, if not often particularly original, nevertheless exhibits familiarity and consistency with the Christian tradition stretching back to the second century, in works such as Origen’s Against Celsus, its most influential precedent. However, the text has equal or perhaps even greater importance for what it preserves of Julian’s pagan polemic, which is meticulously quoted throughout. Julian is, of course, at Cyril’s mercy, in both the selection and arrangement of excerpted material and in the loose paraphrases and rhetorical reconstructions that provide the fodder for Cyril’s rhetorical cannon. But this still amounts to much more direct material than has been preserved for most of Christianity’s ancient interlocutors, particularly in the post-Nicene period, and so the text’s value is certainly not limited to students of early Christian theology alone.
Preceding the translation, Crawford and Johnson provide a robust introductory essay that situates the treatise within its fifth-century context, when Julian’s anti-Christian polemic evidently enjoyed a sufficient afterlife, even within a now-declining Roman paganism, to motivate Cyril’s forceful response. They highlight Cyril’s creative integration of earlier Christian material, particularly from his own Alexandria milieu (most prominently in his use of Clement and Eusebius, who was in some respects the intellectual successor of Origen), in addition to a plethora of classical philosophical, historical, and literary writers. Like the three aforementioned figures, Cyril is concerned above all to defend the intellectual respectability of Christianity against its philosophical critics, though now from a position of considerably increased cultural advantage—a new dynamic that is no doubt reflected in Cyril’s far less irenic rhetorical tone.
The present translation includes Books I–X of what were originally, presumably, 20 total books. The latter half of the work has not been preserved, though the translators do include 80 extant fragments from it, extracted from florilegia and various other later sources. As they note, what structure can be discerned is largely reflective of Julian’s own work, since Cyril frames his project as a sort of running dialogical commentary on his opponent’s text, quoting it verbatim and at length before responding. This gives Cyril’s own arguments a somewhat ad hoc character, though Crawford and Johnson present a useful orienting summary that shows how they advance from fundamental questions of ontology and cosmology, through issues of divine law, providence, and attributes, before culminating in Books XIII–X with the most distinctively Christian theological arguments for the divinity of Christ and the trinitarian nature of God (37–49). Fundamentally, then, Cyril approaches the debate as a contest over proper divine identification, with its far-ranging implications.
Book I does not yet directly engage with Julian’s text, but rather focuses on establishing a comparative chronology of Greek and Jewish history. Cyril’s purpose in this is to demonstrate the historical priority of Moses, in keeping with the well-known “dependence theme” of early Christian apologetics, in which the best insights of Greek learning are taken to derive from earlier biblical traditions (82–84). Cyril’s historical material here, as elsewhere, reflects his own substantial dependence on Eusebius’s Chronicon and other writings (81).
Book II then makes Julian’s general charge against the Christians explicit, in what the translators describe as an accusation of “double apostasy” from the established intellectual heritages of both Judaism and Hellenism (117). Here, as throughout the work, Cyril’s strategy is to respond by showing the agreement between biblical authors (especially Moses) and the philosophers whom Julian and his followers deem most authoritative, such as Plato and Porphyry, with the implication being that the latter have based their teachings on the divine revelation given in the former.
This is far from simple syncretism, however, for as Book III contends, Greek philosophy is also severely deficient, in Cyril’s estimation, in those areas where it departs from biblical teaching, such as the cosmology expressed in its creation accounts (161). In connection with this discussion of origins, Julian’s blistering attack on the goodness of a God who allows the fall of humanity into sin is rebutted with a free will defense and a theodicy highlighting the divine mercy displayed in the judgment of death (merciful release from a corrupted state) and redemption (185).
Book IV advances by introducing Cyril’s extended critique of Julian’s view of divine providence as mediated through the agency of “ethnarchs,” or lower-ranking “city-gods,” with limited jurisdictions of authority and power (218). Cyril wants to emphasize the fragmentation that results from such a scheme, in which the laws of individual societies, presumably received and reinforced through the worship of their respective gods, exhibit a variety and discordance that belie any ultimate unification in the Neoplatonic “One” avowed by Julian.
This argument is also a reaction, in part, to Julian’s own criticism of the Mosaic Decalogue as non-original, which Cyril endeavors to translate into a strength in Book V by insisting that its agreement with the best principles of Greek laws should encourage, rather than discourage, its acceptance (262–264). Moreover, the attributes applied to God in the Mosaic writings, such as jealousy, must be interpreted in keeping with a broader theological conception that emerges from the biblical canon as a whole, in which proper theological attributes such as impassibility and immutability rule out any literalistic interpretation, and instead demand an anthropomorphic or accommodated readings (288).
The apparently harsh characteristics of the Law of Moses and its God are further defended in Book VI through Cyril’s contrast with Socrates, Plato, and the other leading philosophers, whose preoccupations with physical pleasures are acknowledged (303–307). Moses and the biblical tradition, in Cyril’s view, thus reflect a more rigorous concern for cultivating the apatheia, or mastery of the passions, that is idealized in the classical tradition.
There is some slight moderation of Cyril’s sustained polemic in Book VII, as he acknowledges the ongoing legitimacy, and even utility, of studying Greek literature for Christians (366–368). Responding to Julian’s claim that Christians inconsistently “snack” on pagan writings even while decrying them (362), Cyril concedes that in some areas (military strategy, rhetorical eloquence) such learning does indeed prove valuable. But by the same stroke, he insists, exposure to it simply enhances the contrast with what is, in his view, the self-evidently superior instruction of Christian scripture for realizing “the habits of the truly good way of life” (377).
The major structural shift, as the translators note, occurs with Book VIII, as Cyril now labors to refute Julian’s charge that the Jewish scriptures themselves lack any clear reference to Christ (389). Drawing upon the then-standard arguments of Origen and other earlier Christian apologists, Cyril endeavors to demonstrate that the triune God of Christianity can (and in his view must) be exegetically indicated in the Pentateuch (plural divine language in Genesis 1; prediction of a “prophet like Moses” in Deuteronomy 18; etc., 392–397). Moreover, he contends, some such conception has also been philosophically explicated (though with differences) by Julian’s revered Neoplatonic thinkers, as in the Plotinian triad.
Book IX then sets forth Cyril’s hermeneutical principles for arriving at these conclusions in greater detail, suggesting that Julian’s incorrect theological assumptions and hostile approach to scriptural study prevent him from recognizing the mystery of Christ that can be discerned there by faith alone (456). This also explains Julian’s confusion regarding Christians’ non-observance of the Mosaic Law, which was never intended to govern the life of God’s people permanently, but only to foreshadow, in a preliminary and pedagogical manner, the greater spiritual realities connected with the arrival of Christ (490).
Finally, Book X previews what was, apparently, the more direct focus of the work’s second half on New Testament material, and especially the Gospels, as further evidence for Christ’s deity. Here Cyril argues against Julian’s position that the New Testament itself, at least apart from the Gospel of John, displays a low christology, incompatible with later Christian dogma (491–492). This is part of Julian’s broader contention that Christians of his own time engage in beliefs and practices that extend well beyond the original teachings of Jesus and the New Testament itself—as, for example, in the emerging cult of the martyrs (501). As in his earlier reply concerning the immoralities of Solomon, Cyril’s response is to argue that individual excesses and failures do not, in themselves, invalidate the ideals of which their proponents fall short (509).
As Crawford and Johnson observe, Cyril’s treatise is not as grandiose in its scale as Augustine’s City of God (59)—nor, I would add, is it as intellectually sophisticated as Clement’s Exhortation to the Greeks, or Origen’s Against Celsus. And like most polemical works of the ancient world, it often meanders, by modern standards, sometimes rambles, and occasionally offends with its unpalatable rhetoric. Nevertheless, the translators have performed a great service in making it available to an English-speaking audience for the first time. Their rendering of Cyril’s Greek is eminently readable, though at the unavoidable cost—as they readily admit—of some of its original grammatical and rhetorical complexity (60). In addition, their copious explanatory notes are exhaustive in providing not only the cross-references for Cyril’s innumerable biblical allusions and extensive citations from classical philosophical texts, but also a wealth of additional information, such as the underlying Greek vocabulary when especially relevant, justification for decisions on difficult textual issues, and an abundance of historical and contextual background to aid in interpretation of particular sections. In sum, this is an exemplary translation, which will certainly be the standard English version for academic use moving forward, but which is also accessible to more casual or intermediate-level readers who are interested in encountering this response to one of Christianity’s most prominent ancient antagonists.