Against the Galileans

Against the Galilaeans (Ancient Greek: Κατὰ Γαλιλαίων; Latin: Contra Galilaeos), meaning Christians, was a Greek polemical essay written by the Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus, commonly known as Julian the Apostate, during his short reign (361–363). Despite having been originally written in Greek, it is better known under its Latin name, probably due to its extensive reference in the polemical response Contra Julianum by Cyril of Alexandria.

As emperor, Julian had tried to stop the growing influence of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and had encouraged support for the original pagan imperial cults and ethnic religions of the Empire. In this essay Julian's described what he considered to be the mistakes and dangers of the Christian faith, and he attempted to throw an unflattering light on ongoing disputes inside the Christian Church. Julian portrayed Christians as apostates from Judaism, which the Emperor considered to be a very old and established religion that should be fully accepted. After Julian's death in battle in 363, the essay was anathematized, and even the text was lost. We only know of Julian's arguments second-hand, through texts written by Christian authors who sought to refute Julian.

Julian was the last pagan emperor to rule the Roman Empire. As he was a nephew of the emperor Constantine, he had been brought up as a Christian, though he studied with Neoplatonists while growing up, and secretly abandoned Christianity in 351. After he became the Roman Emperor, he tried to end the persecution of pagans that had ongoing over the previous decades, legalizing cult sacrifice, restoring many pagan temples, and financing cults. Though he did not persecute Christians or forbid Christianity, he ended subsidies to the Christian church and ended the punishments that had been given to heretical Christians. He also composed treatises that attacked those whose ideas he disagreed with, including two on those he called “false Cynics” and Against the Galileaens, which was written during his stay in Antioch in the winter of 362-363.

...
Wikipedia