Late Antiquity’s Rival Religions:

Comparing the theologies of Gregory

Nazianzen and Emperor Julian
By Jason Conroy

Outline
● Introduction
● Summary of Julian and Gregory’s lives
● Summary of Julian’s Hymn to Magna Mater (Oration V)
● Summary of Julian’s Hymn to Kind Helios (Oration IV)
● Analysis of Julian’s works (the two mentioned above)
● Summary of Gregory Nazianzen’s Theological Orations 1 and 2 (Orations 27 and 28)
● Summary of Gregory of Nazianzen’s Theological Orations 3, 4 and 5 (29, 30, and 31)
● Analysis of Gregory’s works
● Comparison of works
● Summary and analysis of relevant literature
● Conclusion

Introduction

Links have already been drawn between Emperor Julian and Gregory of Nazianzus in
recent scholarship. Elm makes the case that the two may shed much light on each other when
brought into dialogue with one another.1 The two do have some historical connections: both
were students in Athens at the same time, during which time Julian befriended Basil the
Great, who was also a close lifelong friend of Gregory; Gregory in turn wrote multiple
invectives against Julian after the latter’s death. It is, however, the thematic parallels between

1
See: Susanna Elm, “Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory of Nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue.”
The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (3): 493-515.
the two that justify comparison of their respective theological writings. They were two of the
most prominent writers in the two most prominent socio-religious worldviews then-current in
the Empire: Graeco-Roman Polytheism and Christianity. Both wrote theology. Julian was the
last pagan emperor; Gregory was the founder of Byzantine culture2. Both were men of
Constantinople, with Julian choosing it as his “New Rome” and Gregory reigning briefly
there as bishop during the height of his influence; in a deeper way, both championed the
combination of traditional Hellenistic culture with a new Eastern religion which the city
symbolised - the “best of both worlds.”

This comparison of their works in no way purports to establish any factual historical
connections or influence between the works involved: rather, it is an exploration of how
different “paganism” and “Christianity” really were at this fateful turning-point in Roman
history, guided by two leaders in the two major rival religions of the Empire, both to some
extant representative of the worldview of their respective sociological groups, both trying to
win the soul of the Empire and the heritage of “Hellenism”. This exploration will be, so to
speak, “phenomenological” in nature; that is, we will be reading these works as
non-philosophers– indeed, just as the texts themselves were originally written for
non-philosophers. Having summarised the works as simply as possible, we will be looking
primarily at the basic ideas, language and imagery that form their way of thinking, trying to
understand in what kind of world Julian and Gregory lived in, and under what conception of
divinity they saw themselves as living under. Perhaps, then, this can give us some insight into
what it was like to live as a pagan or a Christian in Late Antiquity, and through what lenses
they each looked at the world. Any differences we find may help us to identify what were
truly idiosyncratic and conflicting between the two worldviews; what similarities we find
may help identify shared influences, such as the universal influence of Plato and Aristotle
which crossed all religious boundaries at the time.

2
“...[G]regory’s oeuvre, with its “marriage between Christianity and Classical culture,” became
fundamental for “Byzantine civilization.”” Susanna Elm, ‘Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory of Nazianzus
and Julian in Dialogue’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, Volume 33, Number 3, Fall 2003, p.
494, quoting from Alan Cameron, “The Empress and the Poet: Paganism and Politics at the Court of Theodosius
III,” in Later Greek Literature, ed. John J. Winkler and Gordon Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1982), 217–89, p. 239
 Summary of Lives

Julian was born to a family of close imperial connection, though in his early years this
did him no benefit: his family members were killed by the Christian emperor Constantius II,
who was also one of his cousins, and Julian himself lived in a state of quasi-imprisonment
under the emperor’s orders; nonetheless he was permitted to pursue studies in Athens. Having
been raised a Christian under the tutelage of an Arian bishop, he was increasingly fascinated
by Hellenistic and Classical literature. He also studied under various contemporary
Neoplatonist intellectuals and was influenced greatly by their thought. While still a student,
he definitively turned his back on Christianity, and instead pledged himself to the philosophy
of Iamblichus, under the tutelage of his mentor Maximus of Ephesus. This new worldview - a
mixture of Neoplatonic philosophy, popular pagan piety, and near-Eastern mysticism - was
influential among many non-Christian philosophers at the time. During his short time as
emperor, he wrote the two theological treatises which are the subject of this essay.

Gregory, on the other hand, was the son of a bishop, from a small town in
Cappadocia3. Like Julian, he was educated in Athens, and his primary strength was in oratory
and rhetoric. Upon returning to his hometown, he was pressed into becoming a priest by his
father, a role which Gregory took on only after a brief flight into the monastic life. Eventually
becoming bishop of Contantinople, he was involved in the endless ecclesiastical and
intellectual controversies of his time, and wrote several tremendously influential theological
works. His five theological orations, which we are analysing in the present work, were
written during his short time as bishop of Constantinople, and display both his partisan spirit
and his classical education.

Looking first at the theological orations of Julian, his Hymn to King Helios
and Hymn to Magna Mater, we find in them a sweeping summarisation of his world-view,
both religious and philosophical in nature. This world-view is systematic and
all-encompassing, centering around the role of invisible realities (the pagan gods and the
Platonic forms) at work in the visible world.

3
Modern-day Eastern Turkey.
 Hymn to Magna Mater

The Hymn to Magna Mater is a popular philosophical treatise. In it, Julian expounds a
Neoplatonic, allegorical interpretation of both the popular myth and the festive rituals
associated with Cybele (“the Mother of the Gods’) and Attis. Julian’s thesis here, following
Iamblichus, is that everything in the mythic story is in fact an analogy for some feature of the
Neoplatonic cosmos. This serves as vindication for these “pagan” religious practices:
according to Julian, these cultic practices are eternally legitimate, valid, and divine, precisely
because they are true allegories– that is, they are accurate reflections of Neoplatonic ideas
about the universe, inspired into the minds of humans by the Hellenic and Platonic gods. The
gods gave humanity these stories to teach them the truth about divine things: using this
knowledge, humanity can perform the proper ritual practices, thereby pleasing the gods and
receiving blessings from them.

The festival of Cybele and Attis was celebrated each year around the Spring equinox.
Its rituals recalled the events of the myth, in which Attis, the beloved of the Great Mother
Cybele, comes down to earth, sleeps with a nymph in a cave, becomes ashamed, and is
castrated, before finally returning to Cybele in the heavens. Julian takes this as a
representation of the metaphysical workings of the Neoplatonic “intelligible” gods -
specifically, in their relation to each other and their role in creating and forming the material
world. The Neoplatonic universe (or, at least, Julian’s version of it) has three levels or worlds:
the “intelligible”4 is first and highest; the “intellectual” is derived from the “intelligible”; and
finally, the physical, visible world in which we live is caused by the “intellectual”. The
“gods” of the first, intelligible realm are akin to Plato’s forms, and are all united together in
“the One”.5 It is in this second “intellectual” realm that Julian locates the traditional pagan

4
“Intelligible” here means something which is purely the object of thought, like a pure idea or a
mathematical concept. “Intellectual” on the other hand, means roughly the ability “to think”, that is, to receive
and contemplate these aforementioned ideas into oneself. To oversimplify: The intelligible gods are ideas, and
the intellectual gods are minds which think about these ideas.
5
Julian says that the forms are “united” together in The One. What it precisely means to say that this
multitude of gods/forms are “united in The One” is obscure. Originally, in the thought of Plotinus and
Iamblichus, “the One” is utterly transcendent and set apart from even the “intelligible” realm of Platonic forms.
Julian’s combination of “the One” with the “intelligible” realm is something characteristic of Julian in his
adaptation of a complex, convoluted Neoplatonic system into something more amenable to public consumption.
deities, including Helios and The Mother of the Gods. Julian identifies Cybele with the
central and governing “principle” of this “intellectual” realm, coordinating the actions of the
“intellectual” gods. She is basically, in Julian’s words, the “Providence” which directs the
affairs of the material world. Attis, on the other hand, is the tool through which Cybele causes
things in the material world to be generated, while the nymph symbolises matter; accordingly,
Attis’ sleeping with the nymph in the cave symbolises how the intellectual gods come down
and bestow form and shape on formless, shapeless matter, thus “creating” the material world.

Hymn to Helios

Julian’s Hymn to King Helios, like the Hymn to Magna Mater, is a popular treatise
expounding Julian’s vision of reality, based on a synthesis of ancient religious practice and
comparatively new Neoplatonic thought.

Julian starts by giving a brief overview of the Neoplatonic universe, which we have
already outlined: the intelligible, intellectual, and material worlds. Whereas in Hymn to
Magna Mater Julian spoke of the “intellectual” realm’s relationship with the material world,
In Hymn to Helios, Julian speaks somewhat more about the nature of “intelligible” and
“intellectual” worlds in themselves.

As was mentioned before, the “intelligible world” is the home of the abstract concepts
and ideals which Plato called “the forms”. This “intelligible” realm is the home of “The
One”6, which is the fundamental reality and origin of all existence, and from which
everything else in the Neoplatonic universe ultimately comes by a process called

See: John Dillon, ‘The theology of Julian’s Hymn to King Helios’, Quaderns Catalans de Cultura Clàssica
14-15, 103-115. pp. 111-113
6
In Plato’s thought, everything ultimately comes from “The Good”, the source of all being. Plotinus,
the founder of Neoplatonism, was the first to come up with the idea of “The One,” which he roughly identified
with Plato’s “The Good.” Andrew Smith notes how Julian’s work features a “telescoped”, or simplified, version
of “The One” in Baker-Brian and Tougher eds., Emperor and Author: the writings of Julian the Apostate
(Classical Press of Wales, 2012.)
“emenation”.7 In the second “intellectual” world, which emanates from the first “intelligible”
world and contains the “intellectual gods,” King Helios plays the central role. According to
Julian’s description, Helios mirrors the position of “The One” in the first world with respect
to the other intellectual gods of the second world: the gods of this second “intellectual”
world, having emanated from the first “intelligible” world, are governed by Helios and
receive all of their powers from The One through Helios. The intellectual gods, coordinated
by Helios, are in turn the causes of the third “visible” world in which we live, acting as a
halfway house or medium between the transcendent “intelligible” world of “The One” and
the merely material world. This role of Helios as “middle” or “mediator”, not only between
the intellectual gods and The One, but by extension between The One and the material world,
is a very important recurring motif in Julian’s thought. The majority of this Hymn is dedicated
to elaborating and detailing the specifics of this role as “mediator.” Most interestingly, the sun
of the material world is said to be an image or likeness of Helios, and to play the same role
with respect to the material world that Helios plays with respect to the “intellectual” world.
This association is so close that Julian calls the sun at one point “the visible Helios.” This
image of “the three suns” is one of the most vivid in Julian’s worldview: just as you have
three worlds, so also you have three “suns”: The One, Helios, and the visible sun itself.
Throughout the Hymn, Julian explains how most of the traditional gods of Greek and
Eastern religion are related to Helios. In most cases, such as with Zeus, Hades, Apollo,
Athena, and Horus, among others, we are told that these are simply different names or
personas of Helios. Other gods, such as Aphrodite, Hermes, Ares, and Dionysius, are taken to
be assistants or children of Helios, and seem therefore to have more of a distinct, independent
identity.

7
This term “emenation” is very characteristic of Neoplatonic theology. A helpful analogy can be found
in the image of a pyramid of wine glasses: as someone pours wine into the top glass, it overflows and cascades
down into the glasses in the next tier down, which in turn overflow into the next level of glasses, and so on.
Similarly a tiered fountain, in which water from the fountainhead fills up the top tier, which itself then overflows
and fills up the next tier, and so on. Accordingly, if we take the fountainhead or wine bottle to be “The One”,
and the wine or water to be existence, and the levelled tiers to be the “intelligible”, “intellectual” and “material”
worlds, we can see how existence “overflows” from The One and cascades outwards, giving rise to the different
worlds in their turn. The worlds higher up this “tiered” system are more perfect because they are closer to “The
One”, which is the source of all existence, goodness and perfection. The material world is considered to be at
the bottom of this system, since it, being imperfect and changeable, is the most dissimilar from The One, which
is unchanging and perfect. The goal of the human soul is to leave the material world behind and return to The
One from which it ultimately originated.
 Both the Hymn to Magna Mater and the Hymn to Helios reflect a clear personal piety,
and Julian ends both of these works with a prayer the god he has just been writing about.

Analysis of Julian’s Theology

Scholars have had difficulty finding a clear structure in Julian’s works, and his
thought is considered to be somewhat obscure.8 Julian is not entirely to blame for this: the
Late Antique Neoplatonism has a tendency to become quite complex, even convoluted, in its
“models” of the universe. To give a rough impression of the state of Neoplatonism in Julian’s
day, we will look at a few diagrams showing how the Neoplatonic blueprint or schema of the
universe became more and more complex. Looking first at Plotinus, the first Neoplatonist, we
find a simple enough structure similar to what has already been described above:

(Image source:
‘Philosophy in Late Antiquity:
235 AD to c. 600 AD’,

8
Smith, Rowland B E. 1995. Julian’s Gods: Religion and Philosophy in the Thought and Action of
Julian the Apostate. London: Routledge. p. 144
 https://friesian.com/hist-1.htm
Accessed 5th January 2024.)

The next major Neoplatonist after Plotinus was Porphyry, who in turn was followed
by Iamblichus - this was the philosopher who most informed Julian’s thought. The following
is a diagram, outlining his “schema”, offers an illustrative visual impression of the increasing
complexity that was found in later Neoplatonic thought. This is what Pauliina Remes
described as the “proliferation of metaphysical layers and entities” in Neoplatonism.9

(Image source: https://hellenicfaith.com/cosmology/ Accessed 5th January 2024.

As can be seen there are many more levels and entities in-between “The One” at the
top and the material “encosmic” realm at the bottom. We do not see this complexity come to

9
Pauliina Remes, Neoplatonism. Ancient Philosophies, (Stocksfield; Acumen 2008) pp. 7-8.
the surface in Julian’s accounts, since he adopts a simplified version in his works - however,
it may help explain some of the obscurity and complexity of his thought. In any event,
Julian’s hymns are marked by a sense of plurality - there are many gods, many names, many
functions of Helios and many levels to the cosmos.

Several key ideas of themes can be seen to direct Julian’s thought in this work: First
of all, he repeatedly appeals to the principle that we should take our cue from the visible
world of nature as being a mirror or analogy of the workings of the invisible world: “Nay, far
rather do I think it right from the visible to have faith about the invisible.” Nature looms large
in Julian’s world, serving as a sort of proxy or intermediary for the invisible, divine realm.
Julian invokes nature many times in his writings to reinforce his argument, mentioning for
example the arrangement of the celestial bodies or the shape of trees and vegetable-plants.

He similarly relies on the literature and religious traditions of the Graeco-Roman

world as authorities; or, rather, he is relying on Iamblichus’ appropriation of these myths and
rituals. Hence myths and rituals are taken as authorities conveying truths about the unseen
things corresponding to Neoplatonist ideas forms, and this is because ancient poets,
philosophers, and priests, were inspired with divine knowledge by the gods. Julian does not
follow these old traditions in a slavish or literalistic way, however; rather he is, along with
Iamblichus, the one who authoritatively gives these myths and rituals their true meaning. This
can be seen when Julian says things such as: “But let us leave the stories of the poets alone.
For along with what is inspired they contain much also that is merely human”, with
enlightened persons such as Julian and Iamblichus being the ones who are able to distinguish
the divine from the merely human in these stories.

Julian gives Helios-Mithras the central position in this world-picture; The sun’s
relationship to the visible world is taken as mirroring The One’s role in the intelligible world
and King Helios’ role in the intellectual world. Helios is placed as the leader and unifier of all
the gods, creator of the world and mediator of all good things from The One. It would be
clear to any reader that Helios-Mithras is the centre of attention in this religious system. This
is so much the case, that it is left ambiguous whether Julian’s world is really polytheistic or,
in practice, monotheistic. Most of the traditional gods are revealed to be actually King Helios,
and despite the sense of kaleidoscopic plurality and diversity in Julian’s cosmos, the motif of
one-ness and unity is constantly repeated too.
 Julian is also at pains to emphasise, in his works, the privileged role of the Greek and
Roman peoples in the Divine plan. This can be seen in various places, such as in the Hymn to
King Helios, where Julian assets that King Helios “has civilised the greater part of the world
by means of Greek colonies, and so made it easier for the world to be governed by the
Romans.”

Having summarised Julian’s two theological hymns and analysed some of the broad themes
found in them, we will turn to the theological orations of Gregory of Nazianzus.

Summary of Gregory Nazianzen’s Theological Orations 1 and 2

The Five Theological Orations of Gregory of Nazianzus10 were written in

Constantinople about thirty years after the death of Julian. In these orations Gregory is setting
out, systematically, his conception of God against that of the “Eunomians” and the “Arians”,
parties within the Christian Church who were opposed to Gregory’s own “Nicene” party on
the nature of the Christian Trinity. While the Eunomians and Arians held that only the
“Father” was truly God, the Nicene party held that not only the “Father,” but also the “Son”
and the “Holy Spirit” in the Christian Trinity were all equally one and the same God, even
though they were three distinct persons.

Gragory’s intended audience in these orations was fellow Christians, just as Julian’s
intended audience for his Hymns was fellow pagans. Though they contain the rhetorical
flourishes and partisan spirit of an inveterate controversialist, Gregory’s Theological Orations
are not mere invectives, unlike some of his previous works; rather, they are popular, didactic
treatises, aimed at teaching an audience of laypeople on certain points of Christian theology
which were at the time disputed by the Arians and Eunomians.

10
Also known as Orations 28 through 31, though this essay will only refer to them according to their
numbering within the Five Theological Orations, ie. as Orations 1 through 5.
 In the first of the five Theological Orations, Gregory accuses his Eunomian rivals of
having a morbid attachment to frivolous, pedantic controversies over holy matters - that is,
over matters of theology. Gregory then goes on to set out the proper limits which should be
observed when talking about God, asking the Eunomians to at least refrain from making a
public show of internecine theological feuds between Christians. Gregory finally exhorts his
opponents to put their love of endless philosophical debates to a better use– for example,
debunking non-Christian philosophies like platonism and aristotelianism.

The second oration sets out Gregory’s theory of “natural theology” - that is,
his idea of what human reason can learn about God outside of Christianity, without the help
of divine revelation or Holy Scripture. His main point here is that the true nature of God is
not reachable by human reason alone. We are used to thinking in terms of visible, limited,
material things, because these are all we know and have experience of. Since God is infinitely
transcendent and completely unlike any of the visible things we’re used to, humans find it
very difficult to think correctly about God. Nonetheless, Gregory pursues various lines of
argument and addresses various objections, all with the purpose of demonstrating that it is
still possible to know very partial and obscure truths about God, such as what He is not like.
For example, God is not finite, not corporeal, not “in” any place, and not circumscribed in
any way. Gregory’s position is that we can discover that God exists, but not what God is.

Gregory then addresses the different names given to God in Judeo-Christian scripture
and how they each, by a sort of distant similarity or analogy, throw light on some particular
aspect of God’s nature and personality. According to Gregory, human reason can also learn
something about the nature of God by observing the beauty and order of the universe– though
Gregory nonetheless denounces as idolaters those who worship the Sun itself, or any other
visible part of the cosmos. He ends with a long discourse going through the whole natural and
observable world, pointing out how marvellous it all is, and all the things we do not
understand or know the reason for: his point is that we can’t expect to comprehend God when
we hardly understand the visible, natural world we live in.
 Summary of Orations 3 and 4 on “The Son” and Oration 5 “On
the Holy Spirit”

Gregorys third and fourth Theological Orations contain his treatment of “the
Son” in his theology. He starts off Oration 3 by very briefly giving his own position: He
believes in a divine “monarchy”, as opposed to an “anarchy” or “polyarchy”11, in which there
is numerically only one divine being. However, this divine being is not “contained in one
single person.” Instead, there is “a plurality of persons” which “consists of an equality of
nature, a unanimity of will, and an identity of action, and which converges back into the One
from which they come- a thing unheard of among created natures” that is, among the familiar
objects of the visible, limited, material world. These three persons are respectively described
by Gregory as “the one who is unbegotten,” “the one who is begotten”, and “the one who
proceeds from the Father”. Gregory here clearly senses some similarity to the Neoplatonic
description of divinity, since he goes out of his way to explicitly mention, distinguish and
denounce the Neoplatonic idea of “overflowing goodness” or “an overflowing bowl” with
respect to the generation of these three divine persons in the Trinity; Gregory is at pains to
emphasise that this generation occurs “in a manner which cannot be expressed.” This
unknowability of God is a recurring motif throughout the Theological Orations.

Having set out his own position, Gregory deals one by one with the Eunomian
objections against the equal divinity of the begotten Son with the unbegotten Father. These
objections are mostly stated in the form of questions, such as “How could this generation of
the Son be without passion?”12 and “How did the Father beget the Son… was it willingly or
unwillingly?” Others are stated in the form of syllogisms; for example, “The Unbegotten and
the Begotten are not the same. If this is so, then [the Son is not] the same thing as the Father.”
In each case, Gregory dissects the reasoning behind the objection, and provides an
elaboration of his own position which nullifies the objection. The result is a comprehensive
exploration of the Nicene position outlined at the beginning by Gregory and its implications.

11
That is, he believes in monotheism as opposed to atheism or polytheism, the latter two of which he
conflates as being practically the same - either there is anarchy because there are no divine rulers, or there is
anarchy because there are many different and contrary divine rulers.
12
Passion is used here in the technical philosophical sense of “change”. God is supposed to be
unchanging, so if the Father’s generation of the Son implied a change in God, this would be incompatible with
God’s unchanging nature. The Eunomians wish to conclude that therefore the Father does not “beget”, but rather
creates, the Son, and that the Son is therefore not God.
Gregory repeats again and again that the manner of the Father’s “begetting” the Son is
ineffable– that is, unknowable by the finite human mind. Gregory closes Oration 3 with a
treatment of the biblical passages used by the Eunomias to argue against the divinity of the
Son - for example, “The Father is greater [than I]” and “He created me.” His explanation here
is that these passages refer to the son’s human nature (ie. the human being Jesus of
Nazareth),13 while the other passages which seem to imply divinity refer to his divine nature
(ie. the Son, second person of the Trinity) - for example, “In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He closes with a panegyric to the
Incarnation, juxtaposing in turn the contrasting features of the human and divine natures: “He
was born - but He had been begotten eternally… He was baptised as a human, but he took
away sins as God.”

In Oration 4, which is focussed on “the Son”, Gregory gives a fuller treatment of the
scriptural passages Eunomians cite as proof against the divinity of the Son, before ending
with an explanation of the different names and titles God is traditionally addressed by, some
of which are taken to be symbolic while others are more literal. Even though the main point
in dispute between Gregory and his opponents is over the equal divinity of the second person
of the Christian Trinity - and not necessarily the relationship between said second person of
the Trinity and the historical Jesus of Nazareth - Gregory nonetheless gives a substantial
treatment of “the Incarnation” in this segment, because many of the scriptural quotations he is
dealing with relate to Jesus of Nazareth. It is clearly a point of agreement between Gregory
and his Eunomian rivals that the second person of the Trinity and Jesus of Nazareth are one
and the same person; the disagreement is over the implications of this. Gregory’s position is
that the second person of the Trinity, “the Son”, has, simultaneously, both the nature of God
and the nature of a human being, but with these two natures staying distinct and separate. The
result is that, everything that can be said about God, and everything that can be said about the
human person Jesus of Nazareth, all apply to the second person of the Trinity, the begotten
Son; because the second person of the Trinity is God, therefore you can say that Jesus of
Nazareth is God, and similarly you can say that God died because Jesus of Nazareth died.
Finally, speaking on the various titles of “the Son”, Gregory makes a few noteworthy

13
Gregory takes it for granted that his audience is familiar with the Christian idea of the Incarnation–
that is, that God the Son is the same person as the human being Jesus of Nazareth. Gregory does not specifically
introduce this idea here (ie. the Incarnation), even though he had not particularly referred to it until this point.
He does subsequently give it a fuller treatment.
remarks: that the purpose of God becoming a human was to make God “accessible” for
humans, and that “the Son is a concise and easy demonstration of the Father’s nature.”

Whereas Orations 3 and 4 dealt with the second person of the Trinity, the Son, Oration
5 contains Gregory’s treatment of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Oration 5 is
quite similar to Orations 3 and 4: Gregory wishes: to prove the equal divinity of the Holy
Spirit with the Father and the Son, in the face of arguments to the contrary from the
Eunomian faction, and he does this by rebutting various philosophical arguments, except this
time he eschews the in-depth analysis of scriptural passages. Gregory here makes the
fascinating statement that the pre-Christian Greek philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle,
had already “formed some conception of” the Holy Spirit under the names of “Mind of the
universe” and “External Mind,” though these ideas were partial and incomplete. Soon
afterwards in the course of his argument Gregory utilises, and tacitly endorses, Aristotle’s
system of “categories”, found in the book of the same name - this is a clear sign of Gregory’s
Athenian education.

Analysis of Gregory’s Theological Orations

A running motif throughout Gregory’s theological orations is that of man becoming

God, or becoming divine. When arguing for the divinity of the Holy Spirit in Oration 5,
Gregory asks the rhetorical question, “If he [ie. the Holy Spirit] is in the same rank as I am,
how can he make me God or join me with the divine nature?” Once again, in another place in
the same Oration, he asks “For if the Spirit is not to be worshipped, how can He deify me by
baptism?” Similarly, in Oration 3, while speaking about the Incarnation of the Son, he says:
“Our humanity was joined to and made one with God… in order that I too might be made
God as truly as He is made human.” These statements are made almost in passing, but it is
clear that Gregory takes them as a given: one of the primary purposes and effects of the
Incarnation, and the goal of human life, is that humans become “God” or “divine.”

Gregory often appeals to philosophy or cites Plato, as well as other ancient Greek
figures, not uncritically or as an absolute authority, but more as an occasional back-up for his
arguments, where their opinion is considered to coincide with Christianity. Gregory is not
afraid to contradict Plato or any classical authority where he considers their beliefs to conflict
with Christianity. Gregory poses himself as an authoritative interpreter and arbiter of both the
Greek and Jewish traditions.

Comparison of the works

In both the theological writings of Julian and of Gregory, we seem to find veiled, and
sometimes plain, references to the rival belief system.

In the course of the Hymn to Magna Mater, Julian draws out several themes in a way
that resemble similar, parallel themes in the thought-system of Christianity. It is possible that
Julian did this with the competition between his own pagan religion and Christianity in mind.
For example, Attis is called the Logos and is conceived of by Julian as crossing the sea by
walking on the water. Attis also goes through a descent-ascent or death-birth cycle that
resembles the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Cybele is described as both a virgin, a
mother, and queen of the gods in a way reminiscent of the Virgin Mary. Having been brought
up in Christianity, it is likely that Julian was in some way influenced by Christianity, or was
even consciously responding to, or appropriating, certain Christian beliefs.

There are further parallels: Julian uses the term “Visible helios”, to refer to the sun, as
opposed to King Helios himself, or “intellectual” Helios. Gregory similarly refers to the
Son’s human nature, Jesus of Nazareth, as the “Visible Word”, with his divine nature being
the Invisible Word. We also find Gregory appealing to an image of “three suns” in his
attempts to describe the Christian Trinity in Oration 5: “To put the matter concisely, the
divine nature [is] undivided in those who are distinct: there is a unique fusion of Light, as if
three suns were joined to each other.” Though Gregory does not dwell on this image, and
elsewhere explicitly denounces the Neoplatonic images of divinity, it nonetheless bears
striking resemblance to Julian’s image of the three suns: The One, King Helios, and the
Earth’s Sun.
 In connection with this, we find another striking parallel between Julian and Gregory:
They both quote the exact same passage from Plato, in Hymn to Helios and Oration 2
respectively: “...[T]he offspring of the Good which the Good begat in his own likeness, and
that what the Good is in relation to pure reason and its objects in the intelligible world, such
is the sun in the visible world in relation to sight and its objects.” “The sun holds the same
position in the realm of the senses as God holds in the realm of Ideas”. These quotations from
Julian and Gregory are taken from Plato’s Republic line 508b and 508c respectively.

The religions proposed by Julian and Gregory also share some practical aspects: they
are both practically very close to monotheism, even though they posit some diversity in the
divinity: Julian in the gods that emanate from The One, and Gregory in the three persons who
are all the one God. Though these two conceptions are very different, they do bear some
thematic likeness. Furthermore, the goal of the human soul, and the purpose of religion, is in
both cases to achieve some kind of union with the divinity: For Julian, one must try to reach
The One through right rituals and theurgy, and for Gregory one tries to become united with
the divine nature through the Incarnation and the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, both are leaders
who act as authoritative interpreters of ancient religious, philosophical and literary traditions,
showing their followers what the true meaning and significance of these are.

There are also, of course, vivid differences between the two accounts. Whereas
Julian’s account, with its many levels, is marked by a profound sense of plurality, the picture
Gregory paints is much simpler: There is only God and creation, with very little mention of
anything in-between. Though the true nature of God is unknowable, and the possibility of one
God being three persons hard to understand, this is where the complication ends, for the most
part, in Gregory’s world.

We might characterise Julian’s religion as a natural religion, and Gregory’s religion as

a supernatural religion. Julian’s religion is very closely bound up in the seasons of the year,
and the natural world plays a large role in Julian’s account. For Julian, nature is the image of
divinity and our guide to knowledge of metaphysical truths. Gregory’s account, on the other
hand, constantly emphasises the unlikeness and dissimilarity of God from anything found in
nature: “It is very shameful - and not only shameful but also very foolish - to take from things
below a guess at things above, and to seek in changeable things the image of unchangeable
reality” … “I have been unable to discover anything on earth with which to compare the
divine nature.” As for how we are to visualise God, or think properly about divine things,
Julian and Gregory offer us two different images. Julian, on the one hand, points to the sun as
the exemplar of Helios, whereas Gregory says that it is only through the Incarnation - that is,
the human life of Jesus of Nazareth - that God is accessible to us, and that we should look to
him for our image of God, “The Father.”

Relevant scholarship

Several points have been raised by scholars of Julian on the possible influence of Christianity
on Julian, and similarly of Julian on Gregory.

Liebeschuetz characterises Neoplatonism and Christianity as having a certain

fundamental similarity in their conceptions of the world: “The underlying philosophical idea
[of Neoplatonism] is that thought, or mind, or spirit, precedes matter (as in the opening of
John’s Gospel: ‘In the beginning was the Word’), and that thought or mind gives rise to
matter, and shapes it into the myriad forms that make up the world.”14 He also agrees that
Julian’s theology is ultimately monotheistic,15 and points out the appropriation of Christian
themes in his writings.16 David Hunt, in turn, points out the influence of Christianity evident
in some of Julian’s other writings - for example, he concludes that Julian’s Contra Galilaeos
was heavily indebted to current Christological controversy and creed-making, with which
Julian was familiar17 - it was in the context of these same controversies that Gregory was
writing his theological orations.

Elm makes the case that Julian also had an influence on Gregory. She characterises
Gregory’s third invective against Julian18 as an attempt to establish one overall point: that
Christianity is more hellenistic and more philosophical than Julian’s paganism. Gregory
wished to claim what was best in Hellenism for the true God, to characterise Christianity as
the true philosophy, and to hold out his own lifestyle as the true philosophical lifestyle.19

These points made by scholars in the field back up the observations already made in
14
Baker-Brian & Tougher, eds., Emperor and Author: The Writings of Julian the Apostate (Classical
Press of Wales, 2012), p. 214.
15
Ibid, pp. 216, 223.
16
Ibid, pp. 222-4.
17
Ibid, p. 259.
18
Written soon after Julian’s death, long before the Theological Orations.
19
See: Susanna Elm, “Hellenism and Historiography: Gregory of Nazianzus and Julian in Dialogue.”
The Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33 (3): 493-515
the above comparison of Julian and Gregory; there are many reasons to suspect that the
parallels and similarities found between the two theologies are not merely coincidental.

Takeaways and Conclusion

There are undeniable parallels between the belief systems posed by Julian and
Gregory. It is highly likely that therefore, by extension, such parallels existed between the
beliefs of at least a large portion of late antique Pagans and Christians, in as much as any of
them held similar views to Julian or Gregory. The differences are harder to characterise: a
human person is the practical centre of religious attention in Christianity, while in Julian it is
a celestial body, or the seasons of the year. The case could be made that, as Liebeschutz says,
the Neoplatonic gods Julian worships are impersonal mental processes,20 and are more
impersonal than the God of the Christians.

20
Baker-Brian & Tougher, eds., Emperor and Author: The Writings of Julian the Apostate (Classical
Press of Wales, 2012), p. 215.
 Bibliography

Primary Sources:

All quotations of primary sources were taken from the following translations:

Gregory Nazianzen, Five Theological Orations, (trans. Stephen Reynolds) 2011,

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/36303/1/Gregory%20of%20Nazianzus%20T
heological%20Orations.pdf Accessed 5th Dec. 2023.

Julian. Orations 1-5. Translated by Wilmer C. Wright. Loeb Classical Library 13.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1913.

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