The Chaldean Magi

Emperor Julian

Emperor Julian (331 – 363), a nephew of Constantine, was the Caesar of the West from 355 to 360 and Roman emperor from 361 to 363, as well as a notable philosopher and author in Greek. His rejection of Christianity, and his promotion of Neoplatonic Hellenism in its place, caused him to be remembered as Julian the Apostate in Christian tradition. He is sometimes referred to as Julian the Philosopher.

The only explicit reference to a celebration of Sol Invictus, a variation of Mithras, in late December, is made by Julian in his Hymn to King Helios, written immediately afterwards in early AD 363. In 361, Julian defied the Christianization begun by Constatine, and issued edicts that favored Roman cults and minimized the influence of Christianity, believing it necessary to restore the Empire’s ancient Roman values and traditions in order to save it from decline. In the Hymn to King Helios, which was inspired by the worship of Mithras, Julian tells Sallust to read the writings of Iamblichus, another descendant of the Priest-Kings of Emesa. Julian was also an ardent devotee of the Mithraic mysteries, to which he had been introduced by the philosopher Maximus of Ephesus. To Julian, Mithras was the Sun and one and the same with Apollo, Phaethon, Hyperion and Prometheus. To his god he dedicated his Hymn to Helios, and introduced the cult to Constantinople, when simultaneously, the first taurobolia were celebrated at Athens. Referring to the Chaldean Oracles, Julian mentions the following, in what is generally regarded as one of his few allusions to the doctrine of the Mithraic Mysteries, “And if I should also touch on the secret teachings of the Mysteries in which the Chaldean, divinely frenzied, celebrated the God of the Seven Rays, that god through whom he lifts up the souls of men, I should be saying what is unintelligible, yea wholly unintelligible to the common herd, but familiar to the happy theurgists.”

Julian’s support of Jews caused them to refer to him as “Julian the Hellene.” In 363, not long before he left Antioch to launch his campaign against Persia, in keeping with his effort to oppose Christianity, Julian allowed the Jews to rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. The point was to invalidate Jesus’ prophecy about its destruction in 70 AD, which Christians had cited as proof of the truth of Jesus’ mission. Temple would revive the cult of sacrifice that had long been part of the Roman world while pagans ruled. In what the Christians perceived as a miracle, a great fire and earthquake destroyed the Temple’s foundations, bringing the project to an end, and for centuries afterwards was believed to be proof of Jesus’ divinity.

See David Livingstone. Ordo ab Chao, Volume One, Chapter 4: The Book of Revelation.

Orationes

VI. 155 b:

Were I to tell you next of the reverence paid to Mithra and the quadrennial games in honour of the Sun I should be expounding a ritual of quite recent date. It would be better perhaps to set forth a cult of more ancient times.

Orationes

V. 172 d:

But to thee, Hermes declares to us, have I granted the knowledge of Mithra the father. Do thou therefore observe his commands, providing for thyself in this life a sure cable and anchorage, and with a joyous confidence assuring for thyself when thou departest hence the gracious guidance of the god.

Caesares aut Convivium

336 c:

Were I also to make reference to the secret initiatory rite which the Chaldean priests celebrates for the seven-rayed god, by whose aid he conducts the souls upwards, I should be telling of mysteries, mysteries at least to the vulgar, but within the knowledge of the fortunate hieorphants. On these matters therefore for the present I will be silent.

Orationes

IV. 156 c:

Immediately after the last month of Kronos and before the new moon we observe the renowned festival in honour of the Sun, celebrating the feast to the invincible Sun, after which none of the gloomy rites which the last month involves, necessary as they are, may be completed; but in the order of the cycle the festal days of the Sun succeed immediately upon the last days of Kronos. May mine be the good fortune often to celebrate and to confirm these by the favour of the royal gods, and above others of the Sun himself the king of the universe.

Himerius

Himerius was born in Prusa in Bithynia, and practiced rhetoric in Athens and Constantinople under emperors Constantius and Julian.

Orationes

VII. 60:

At the summons of the Emperor Julian he went to the Emperor's camp for the purpose of givien exhibitions of rhetoric in Constantinople. Prior to the exhibition he was initiated into the Mithraic mysteries, and delivered his oration before the city and the Emperor who had established the rite.

Panegyric

ch. IX. 60 c:

With heart enlightened by Mithras the Sun, and by divine grace admitted now to friendship with the king the friend of the gods, tell me what discourse in the stead of a lamp we should kindle for the king and the city. For the law of Athens bids the mystics carry a light and sheaves of corn to Eleusis, in token of a blameless life. But let our mystics present as teir thank-offering an oration, if indeed I am right that Apollo is the Sun and that discourses are the sons of Apollo.

Panegyric

ch. IX. 62 c:

He [Julian] by his virtue dispelled the darkness which forbade the uplifting of the hands to the Sun, and as though from the cheerless life of an underworld he gained a vision of the heavens, when he raised shrines to teh gods and established divine rites that were strange to the city, and consecrated therein the mysteries of the heavenly deities. And far and wide he bestowed no trifling grants of healing, as the sick in body are revived by human skill, but unlimited gifts of health. For with a nature aking to the Sun he could not fail to shine and illuminate the way to a better life.