ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the image of Julian that predominated until the sixteenth century, which was that of an apostate emperor who persecuted Christians. In their writings, both St Gregory of Nazianzus and St Cyril of Alexandria are scathing about Julian, and accuse him of persecutions that never took place. In the eighteenth century in Germany the pendulum swung halfway back, particularly with Johan Georg Hamann. He stressed Julian's leaning towards the irrational. Herder condemned him for having tried to 'paint the face of the corpse of paganism' and because of his absolutism. During the past two hundred years, the writers who have viewed Julian in a favourable light are generally those who emphasize his Hellenism and have an idealized conception of paganism in Antiquity. The most varied and contradictory ideologies have been projected on to Julian, but this also raises the question of whether several different Julians existed at the same time.
