Elizabeth Finch: A novel

by Julian Barnes

Even more provocative was Julian’s plan to rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem. Jesus had told his disciples that the Temple would not be rebuilt until his second coming—which would signify the glorious end of the world. The Apostate’s cunning plan to give the lie to Christ’s prophecy did not work out during his short reign; but such an approach was far more dangerous to the religion than the mere opposition of military might. So Julian fell upon the Galileans with “gentleness,” with mildness, with clemency, with a refusal to butcher—Christian virtues, you might think, all of them. But not Christian virtues which appealed to the Christians of the time, or later. Gregory of Nazianzus (c.329–90) was an early Church Father who had known Julian when they were both studying in Athens. In his writings he tries to portray Julian as a monster, while explicitly and consistently complaining how tyrannical the emperor had been in denying Christians the crown of martyrdom. A little later, St. Jerome (c.347–420) rails against Julian’s blanda persecutio—persecution by methods of mildness.