Are you not aware that all offerings whether great or small that are brought to the gods with piety have equal value, whereas without piety, I will not say hecatombs, but, by the gods, even the Olympian sacrifice of a thousand oxen is merely empty expenditure and nothing else?
Julian II (AD 331-363), Emperor of Rome (355-363) [Flavius Claudius Julianus; Julian the Apostate; Julian the Philosopher]
“To the Cynic Heracleios” [The Works of the Emperor Julian, Vol. 2, ed. W. Heinemann (1913)]
Quotations by:
Julian II (Emperor)
No wild beasts are so dangerous to men as Christians are to one another.
Julian II (AD 331-363), Emperor of Rome (355-363) [Flavius Claudius Julianus; Julian the Apostate; Julian the Philosopher]
(Attributed)
Quoted in Ammianus Marcellinus, History (4th Century AD)
All of us, without being taught, have attained to a belief in some sort of divinity, though it is not easy for all men to know the precise truth about it, nor is it possible for those who do know it to tell it to all men.
Julian II (AD 331-363), Emperor of Rome (355-363) [Flavius Claudius Julianus; Julian the Apostate; Julian the Philosopher]
Against the Galilaeans (c. 362) [tr. Wright (1923)]
(Source)
I had imagined that the prelates of the Galilaeans were under greater obligations to me than to my predecessor. For in his reign many of them were banished, persecuted, and imprisoned, and many of the so-called heretics were executed … all of this has been reversed in my reign; the banished are allowed to return, and confiscated goods have been returned to the owners. But such is their folly and madness that, just because they can no longer be despots, … or carry out their designs first against their brethren, and then against us, the worshippers of the gods, they are inflamed with fury and stop at nothing in their unprincipled attempts to alarm and enrage the people.
Julian II (AD 331-363), Emperor of Rome (355-363) [Flavius Claudius Julianus; Julian the Apostate; Julian the Philosopher]
Edict to the people of Bostra
Men should be taught and won over by reason, not by blows, insults, and corporal punishments. I therefore most earnestly admonish the adherents of the true religion not to injure or insult the Galilaeans in any way … Those who are in the wrong in matters of supreme importance are objects of pity rather than of hate ….
Julian II (AD 331-363), Emperor of Rome (355-363) [Flavius Claudius Julianus; Julian the Apostate; Julian the Philosopher]
Edict to the People of Bostra
Can anyone be proved innocent, if it be enough to have accused him?
Julian II (AD 331-363), Emperor of Rome (355-363) [Flavius Claudius Julianus; Julian the Apostate; Julian the Philosopher]
In Ammianus Marcellinus, History, Book 18
At the embezzlement trial of Numerius, governor of Gallia Narbonensis. Response to the prosecutor, Delphidius, who asked if anyone could be found guilty if they only needed to deny the charges.
So long as you are a slave to the opinions of the many you have not yet approached freedom or tasted its nectar … But I do not mean by this that we ought to be shameless before all men and to do what we ought not; but all that we refrain from and all that we do, let us not do or refrain from merely because it seems to the multitude somehow honorable or base, but because it is forbidden by reason and the god within us.
Julian II (AD 331-363), Emperor of Rome (355-363) [Flavius Claudius Julianus; Julian the Apostate; Julian the Philosopher]
Oration VI, “To the Uneducated Cynics” (AD 362)
(Source)Sometimes attributed to Marcus Aurelius.