😀👇𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐫 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟑 𝐨𝐟 𝟑:

The attempts by Julian in reviving paganism in a sort of Paganism 2.0, was started through a multi-angled approach, in part by removing the religious persecutions of all kinds, opening previous marginalised forms of Christianity, having allowed them to come out of the shadows once more. He did this while he worked on promoting his newly restructured version of paganism. It seems, from my perspective, that he purposely released these varying forms of Christianity in order for them to compete among one another and for this confrontation among Christian groups would weaken their overall strength. He used various forms of tools at his disposal to try strengthen and unify paganism, while he diluted the potency of Christianity. The tools he used involved edicts and legislative enactments to help promote the interests of paganism and passively make people more likely to be choose a pathway that Christianity was no longer part of.

His vision for paganism became more inclusive and it took on the characteristics and good will of Christianity. The remodelling of paganism made those inherently responsible for the functioning of paganism to model themselves as the paganised version of their Christian counterparts. This was done, in my opinion, in order to prevent the Christian writers and advocates to attack Paganism 2.0 as a religion of persecution.

However, Julian did not have the time to make any lasting changes due to his brief reign and we will never ultimately know how effective he could have been. It must be said though, the entire empire did not switch, after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, to accepting Christianity. It was a long process and the adopting of Christianity was not irreversible. He certainly was a deeply interesting and unique Roman Emperor.