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| Emperor Julian, who called churches "charnel houses." |
Sorry. Busy night. I've run out of time to talk about something of greater length. So instead of business as usual, here is my Goodreads review of JULIAN by Gore Vidal.
Wow. Where to start? I guess I'll begin here. I'm an atheist, but gun to my head? I'd rather worship Mithras than the Christian God. Almost every single problem in the world can be traced back to Constantine's conversion to Christianity and his insistence on making it the official religion of the Roman Empire. And Vidal has a few theories about the history of Jesus Christ, especially after he was crucified, and how Christianity, in its efforts to control human behavior, has stolen from the various religions it sought to destroy. Case in point, very few Christians today wonder about that Christmas tree they put up every year. I wonder how many of them know it's because Christianity stole it from the Wiccans they plowed under with their powerful god machine.
Julian, Constantine's nephew, was the last non-Christian emperor of Rome, and he fought to keep the Christians (he called them Galileans, which I think I'm going to adopt in my speech) from destroying the gods he loved and cherished. I see a lot of comparisons to Marcus Aurelius in this book, which is good because I was thinking the same thing. While Julian might have been somewhat gullible (ie. his delight in the mentorship of Maximus), I think his heart was in the right place. He didn't outlaw Christ worship, but he did his best to discourage it. Like Genghis Khan after him, he allowed others the right to worship whatever god they wish. But he didn't want a state religion.
Nor did the Founding Fathers of America, but we can see how that worked out. Nothing ever really changes when it comes to the acquisition of power among politicians and oligarchs. There are a lot of things I could see in the book reflecting what is going on even now in today's world. Not just the era in which Vidal wrote this, but in Julian's world and our own right now. Because the garbage we're suffering now is not new. Even in Julian's time it was not new. It's been business as usual for about 2000 years. At least.
If only Julian had been successful! Even now there are scumbags bent on trying to eliminate the separation of church and state in my country. These are the same scumbags who declare how sacred the Second Amendment is in one breath and belittle the religious part of the First Amendment with the next. Money is not the coin of the realm. It is power, and the way to get power is to be so hypocritical that it challenges the very essence of the word. It's kind of like William Shatner. He's such a prolific sellout that he has transcended the very idea of selling out.
But Julian failed. He fell victim to the classics, hubris and greed. And as history teaches (and as such, I don't consider this a spoiler), Julian died under mysterious circumstances during a skirmish while heading back to Roman territory after an attempt to overthrow Persia. I did a little research after finishing this book, and no one seems to know who really killed Julian. Vidal has a theory, though, and this I do consider a spoiler. When the identity of the killer is revealed, it's actually pretty gut wrenching. The reasoning behind the killing is even more horrifying. And how the killer feels about his victim is even more astonishing.
Yeah, I know. This is more of a rant than a book review. If that's what you're looking for, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It's like it was tailor-made specifically for me. I highly recommend it.
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