Julian The Apostate - in Fiction

In Fiction

• In 1847, the controversial German theologian David Friedrich Strauss published in Mannheim the pamphlet Der Romantiker auf dem Thron der Cäsaren ("A Romantic on the Throne of the Caesars"), in which Julian was satirised as "an unworldly dreamer, a man who turned nostalgia for the ancients into a way of life and whose eyes were closed to the pressing needs of the present". In fact, this was a veiled criticism of the contemporary King Frederick William IV of Prussia, known for his romantic dreams of restoring the supposed glories of feudal Medieval society.
• Julian's life inspired the play Emperor and Galilean by Henrik Ibsen.
• Julian's life and reign were the subject of the novel The Death of the Gods (Julian the Apostate) (1895) in the trilogy of historical novels entitled "Christ and Antichrist" (1895–1904) by the Russian Symbolist poet, novelist and literary theoretician Dmitrii S. Merezhkovskii.
• The opera Der Apostat (1924) by the composer and conductor Felix Weingartner is about Julian.
• In 1945 Nikos Kazantzakis authored the tragedy Julian the Apostate in which the emperor is depicted as an existentialist hero committed to a struggle which he knows will be in vain. It was first staged in Paris in 1948.
• Julian was the subject of a novel, Julian (1964), by Gore Vidal, describing his life and times. It is notable for, among other things, its scathing critique of Christianity.
• Julian appeared in Gods and Legions, by Michael Curtis Ford (2002). Julian's tale was told by his closest companion, the Christian saint Caesarius, and accounts for the transition from a Christian philosophy student in Athens to a pagan Roman Augustus of the old nature.
• Julian's letters are an important part of the symbolism of Michel Butor's novel La Modification.
• The fantasy alternate history The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford, while set in the time of the Wars of the Roses, uses the reign of Julian as its point of divergence. His reign not being cut short, he was successful in disestablishing Christianity and restoring a religiously eclectic societal order which survived the fall of Rome and into the Renaissance Characters in the novel refer to him as "Julian the Wise".
• Julian's rise and fall, as narrated by his physician Oribasius, are portrayed in Who Killed Apollo and Julian Augustus, a novel (2006) by Reynold Spector.
• Julian's life served as the basis for the novella Julian: A Christmas Story by Robert Charles Wilson, which was nominated for a Hugo Award in 2007.
• Julian appears in Warrior Nun Areala as supervillain Julian Salvius. There he is portrayed as having survived into modern times and as seeking revenge against the Church for having been cursed by the Christians.
• Julian's story is also told in Imperial Renegade a Catholic historical novel by Louis de Wohl.