Against the Galileans (where "Galileans" meant the followers of the man from Galilee, or Christians) was written by the last pagan Emperor of Rome, Flavius Claudius Julianus, who lived from 331-363 AD, as part of his attempts to reverse the Empire's conversion to Christianity started by Emperor Constantine in 313 AD. This work was acknowledged by one of Julian's greatest critics, Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexandria, as one of the most powerful books of its sort ever written. Even though Cyril was Patriarch nearly 90 years after Julian's death, he was motivated to write a refutation titled Contra Iulianum ("Against Julian"). For more than 200 years, Julian's book remained the standard criticism of Christianity. Finally, in an attempt to suppress the work, the Emperor Justinian I (527-565) ordered all copies of the book destroyed. As a result, the only record of Julian's book remained in the parts quoted from in it in Cyril's criticism. It was only more than 1,200 years later that the English classical scholar Thomas Taylor (1758-1835) first translated Cyril's work into English-and from that, attempted a reconstruction of Julian's book based on Julian's quotes from Cyril's work. Taylor titled this manuscript "The Arguments of the Emperor Julian against the Christians, translated from the Greek fragments preserved from the Greek fragments preserved by Cyril Bishop of Alexandria, to which are added, Extracts from the other works of Julian relative to the Christians" and privately published his reconstruction in 1809 for a very limited circle of friends. Taylor's reconstruction was finally published for a larger audience by William Nevis in 1873. This new edition contains the full Taylor reconstruction, along with his original appendices. From 1913 to 1923, British-American classical philologist and Professor of Greek at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylvania, Wilmer Cave Wright, retranslated all of Julian's works. Wright included a new translation of the exact quotes only from Julian, as reproduced by Cyril, and some other remaining fragments. Wright's original manuscript is also included in this new edition, making it to be the most complete reconstruction of Julian's book ever printed.

In Against Julian Augustine stresses in the first two books the traditional teachings of the Church found in the Fathers and contrasts their teaching with the rationalism of the Pelagians

Against the Galileans (Latin: Contra Galilaeos), meaning Christians, was a Greek polemical essay written by the Roman emperor Julian, commonly known as Julian the Apostate, during his short reign (361–363). In this essay, Julian describes what he considered to be the mistakes and dangers of the Christian faith and attempts to throw an unflattering light on ongoing disputes inside the Christian Church.

This volume offers the first comprehensive analysis in English of all the writings of Julian (r. AD 361-363), the last pagan emperor of Rome, noted for his frontal and self-conscious challenge to Christianity. The book also contains treatments of Julian's laws, inscriptions, coinage, as well as his artistic programme. Across nineteen papers, international specialists in the field of Late Antique Studies offer original interpretations of an extraordinary figure: emperor and philosopher, soldier and accomplished writer. Julian, his life and writings, are here considered as parts of the tumult in politics, culture and religion during the Fourth Century AD. New light is shed on Julian's distinctive literary style and imperial agenda. The volume also includes an up-to-date, consolidated bibliography.

Flavius Claudius Julianus was the last pagan to sit on the Roman imperial throne (361-363). Born in Constantinople in 331 or 332, Julian was raised as a Christian, but apostatized, and during his short reign tried to revive paganism, which, after the conversion to Christianity of his uncle Constantine the Great early in the fourth century, began losing ground at an accelerating pace. Having become an orphan when he was still very young, Julian was taken care of by his cousin Constantius II, one of Constantine's sons, who permitted him to study rhetoric and philosophy and even made him co-emperor in 355. But the relations between Julian and Constantius were strained from the beginning, and it was only Constantius' sudden death in 361 which prevented an impending civil war. As sole emperor, Julian restored the worship of the traditional gods. He opened pagan temples again, reintroduced animal sacrifices, and propagated paganism through both the spoken and the written word. In his treatise Against the Galilaeans he sharply criticised the religion of the followers of Jesus whom he disparagingly called 'Galilaeans'. He put his words into action, and issued laws which were displeasing to Christians--the most notorious being his School Edict. This provoked the anger of the Christians, who reacted fiercely, and accused Julian of being a persecutor like his predecessors Nero, Decius, and Diocletian. Violent conflicts between pagans and Christians made themselves felt all over the empire. It is disputed whether or not Julian himself was behind such outbursts. Accusations against the Apostate continued to be uttered even after the emperor's early death. In this book, the feasibility of such charges is examined.

Combining New Testament study with the terseness of thriller writing, Theissen conveys the Gospel story in the imaginative prose of a novel. This is a story of our times, or how the gospels might have turned out if they were written by John Le Carre: racy, readable and full of incident.

First published in 363 AD., this is possibly the most censored book in history. Christian Church Father Cyril of Alexandria called it the most dangerous book ever written and it was burned by official edict of the Christian emperor Justinian in 592 AD. Its author, Julian, was himself an emperor of Rome (361-363 AD). Upon taking the throne, reversed the laws making Christianity the Empire's official religion and produced this work refuting the major principles of that religion. Using logic and satire, Julian pointed out the Hebrew origins of the religion, its inherent contradictions and its inversion of classical Hellenic and Roman thought patterns. As a result, he was given the title "Apostate" (from the Greek apostasia, the formal renunciation of a religion) by Christian historians. The book was suppressed after Julian's death in battle the same year it was published, and the last copies were burned by order of Justinian two hundred years later. What remains of Julian's work-captured in these pages-has been reconstructed out of Churchmen's attempts to refute the last pagan emperor of Rome. It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind the reasons by which I was convinced that the fabrication of the Galilaeans is a fiction of men composed by wickedness. - Flavius Claudius Julianus Augustus, Emperor of Rome 361-363 A.D. Contents Julianus Apostata: Emperor of Rome (361-363 AD) Biographical Sketch Book I Man Possesses Knowledge of God by Nature; Hellenic Myths; Jewish Myths Compared with Pagan Ideas; Christianity Denies Humans the Ability to Distinguish Right from Wrong; Plato versus Moses; Bible Does Not Say God Created Earth; Hebrew God Only for Jews; Paul's Contradictions about Jews' Chosen Status; Jesus Sent Only to the Jews, not the Gentiles; Paganism's Concept of the Creator; Why are Races Different?; Homer, Moses, and the Confounding of Men's Languages; Differences in Culture between Nations; Moses Claims Hebrew God is Wiser than all Other Gods; Nature at Variance with Christian God; The Ten Commandments Analyzed; Hebrew God says He is Jealous-But Condemns Men for Being Jealous; Hebrew Concept of Revenge Different from Non-Jews; Hebrews Contributed Nothing of Value to Culture, even Though they Claim to be Chosen by their God; The Most Wicked Pagans are not as Bad as the Hebrew God's Vengeance; The Foolish Cult of Worship of the "Corpse of the Jew"; Emptiness of Hebrew Religious Heritage-Except for Savage Barbarity; Christians Emulate "Rages and Bitterness of the Jews"; Why Desert our Gods for the Jews?; No Alexanders or Caesars among the Hebrews; No Hebrew Culture or Arts; The Downgrading Effect of Hebrew Philosophy versus the Uplifting Effect of Hellenic and Roman Writing; Hebrew Writings not Divine; Non-Christians Have Superior Science, Art and Culture; Christianity "Compounds Rashness of the Jews and the Vulgarity of the Gentiles"; Implausibility of Jesus' Divinity; One God or Many?; Further Contradictions of Moses; Bible says Israel, not Jesus, is "God's Firstborn Son"; Bible Demands Burnt Sacrifices But Christians Refuse to Obey; Christians also Disobey Biblical Dietary Laws; Hebrew Laws Change at Will; John was the First to Call Jesus God, not the Bible; Why do Christians Grovel at Tombs?; Christian God Disapproves of the Division of the Sacrifice; Circumcision is Part of the Hebrew Heritage, Not of Others; Shooting Stars and Birds: The Necromancy of Moses; Book II: Fragments "End Times Signs" Always Here; Moses and Jesus; Jesus in the Wilderness and in the City; No-one Else Saw Jesus and the Angel; Ridiculous and Impossible Advice to "Sell All You Have"; Jesus was Supposed to Take Away Sin, but Sin has Increased; Simplicity of Believing Gentiles Mocked by Matthew.