TOWARDS A NEW EDITION OF JULIAN'S CONTRA GALILAEOS: ASSESSING THE MATERIAL FROM THE SYRIAC TRANSMISSION OF CYRIL'S CONTRA IVLIANVM

Abstract Emperor Julian's three-book treatise Contra Galilaeos survives solely in those Christian sources that quoted it in order to respond to its forceful attack on Christianity. The bulk of these survivals comes from Cyril of Alexandria's twenty-book Contra Iulianum. The recent publication of the first modern critical edition of Cyril's work creates the occasion for a fresh study of the remnants of Julian's text that can be recovered from it. This is especially true for Books 11–20 of Cyril's treatise that are themselves lost and survive only in quotations in later Greek and Syriac sources. The present article undertakes a reassessment of the Julianic material preserved via the Syriac transmission of Contra Iulianum, including several passages hitherto unknown or ignored in earlier studies of Julian's treatise. It provides the Syriac text and English translation of eight passages and contextualizes them in the wider argumentative aim of Contra Galilaeos.

new testimonia and a new fragment of Julian's lost work that are found in quotations of Cyril's CI preserved in a later Chalcedonian florilegium. 7 In 2006 Bianchi identified three testimonia to Julian's CG preserved in homilies of the twelfth-century Italo-Greek monk Philagathos of Cerami. Two are new; one reports a Julianic criticism previously published as CG fr. 100 Mas. 8 Following this discovery, Trovato published in 2012 what he regarded as another new fragment from Julian's treatise, this one coming from the Enarratio in Evangelium Marci by Theophylact of Ohrid, 9 although Riedweg has suggested that this passage is merely a testimonium to one of the same passages preserved by Philagathos. 10 In 2018 Giavatto and Muller released a Greek-French edition of Julian's CG, based on Masaracchia's edition and adding some of the new passages that have come to light since 1990. 11 Next, in 2020 Guida identified yet another unexpected testimonium to CG, this one in an early sixteenth-century work by Gian Francesco Pico della Mirandola. 12 A final text containing remnants of Julian's treatise has been identified but has yet to be properly published: an extended version of Ps.-Justin Martyr's Quaestiones et responsiones ad Graecos, recently discovered by Toth, contains a section of text that seems to draw heavily upon the second decade of Cyril's CI, containing two further fragments of Julian's treatise that have not survived elsewhere. 13 A new edition of CG is needed for at least two reasons. First, scholarship on the text has advanced remarkably over the past three decades, with new fragments and testimonia appearing subsequent to Masaracchia's 1990 edition. As a result, accessing the text as is it known today requires knowing where to find all the recently discovered Julianic material. Second, the years 2016-17 witnessed the publication of the first modern critical edition of Cyril's CI, 14 which has brought to light still more new Julianic material, of two different types. First, the first ten books of Cyril's treatise may contain testimonia that have 7 A. Guida, 'Altre testimonianze e un nuovo frammento del "Contro i Galilei" di Giuliano Imperatore', in M. Serena Funghi (ed.), ΟΔΟΙ ΔΙΖΗΣΙΟΣ -Le vie della ricerca: studi in onore di Francesco Adorno (Florence, 1996), 241-52. These passages are now Cyril, CI frr. 8, 15, 21, 24, 25, 26 Kinzig/Brüggemann (henceforth, Kin./Brü.). 8 N. Bianchi, 'Nuovi frammenti del Contra Galilaeos di Giuliano (dalle omelie di Filagato da Cerami)', BollClass 27 (2006), 89-104. C. Riedweg, 'A German Renaissance humanist as predecessor & some further surprises: on the direct and indirect tradition of Cyril's Contra Iulianum', in G. Huber-Rebenich and S. Rebenich (edd.), Interreligiöse Konflikte im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert: Julian 'Contra Galilaeos' -Kyrill 'Contra Iulianum' (Berlin, 2020), 257-85, at 262 has proposed that the two new fragments be numbered CG frr. 100a and 100b. On the hypothesis that Cyril served as Philagathos' unnamed source for this Julianic material, these passages were published as Cyril, CI frr. 72, 73, 74 Kin./Brü. 9 S. Trovato, 'Un nuovo frammento e nuove testimonianze del "Contra Galilaeos" di Giuliano l'Apostata', Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 62 (2012), 265-79, at 265-7. 10 Riedweg (n. 8), 248 n. 16. 11 A. Giavatto and R. Muller, Julien l'Empereur: Contre les Galiléens (Paris, 2018). 12 A. Guida, 'La trasmissione del testo del Contra Galilaeos di Giuliano e un nuovo misterioso frammento', in G. Huber-Rebenich and S. Rebenich (edd.), Interreligiöse Konflikte im 4. und 5. Jahrhundert: Julian 'Contra Galilaeos' -Kyrill 'Contra Iulianum' (Berlin, 2020), 91-109. 13 A.M. Ritter and P. Toth, 'Sechs ps.-justinische Traktate', in C. Riedweg, C. Horn and D. Wyrwa (edd.), Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie: Vol. 5. Philosophie der Kaiserzeit und der Spätantike (Basel, 2018), 2256-8. Cf. Riedweg (n. 8), 260, who proposes that these fragments be called CG frr. 91c and 95b. Fuller discussion, including the Greek text, in W. Kinzig  long lain in plain sight. For example, Cyril's response to CG fr. 47 Mas. (quoted at CI 6.25.4-15) indicates that the dominical saying at Matthew 10:28 is an example of the kind of 'harsh law' that Christians have taken from Judaism (CI 6.27.11-15), alluded to but otherwise not specified in the quoted extract. A careful study of CI, taking into account a more sophisticated understanding of Cyril's method of handling his source material, is needed to determine if more Julianic material can be recovered. 15 A second tranche of Julianic material from the new edition of Cyril's CI is fortunately more readily accessible. The editors have uncovered new Greek and Syriac fragments from the second decade of CI, several of which contain further testimonia to lost portions of Julian's CG. The present article sets forth these new remnants surviving in Syriac sources and contextualizes them within the wider argumentative scope of Julian's CG in so far as that can be determined. 16 For the prolegomenon to Neumann's 1880 edition of CG, Nestle edited and translated into Latin twenty-seven Syriac fragments from Cyril's CI, of which fourteen derived from the lost Books 11-20. However, Neumann included only a few extracts from these fragments of CI in his edition of CG (specifically CG frr. 2, 8, 9, 10, 13 Neu.), even though several others that he excluded illuminate lost portions of Julian's text. Masaracchia included even less Syriac material in her edition and printed merely a Latin translation, omitting the Syriac text altogether (CG frr. 91, 96, 97, 98 Mas.). In contrast, for the new GCS edition of Cyril's CI, Hubert Kaufhold has edited fifty-five Syriac fragments, of which twenty-three come from the lost second decade. 17 This recent reassessment and enlargement of our knowledge of the Syriac transmission of Cyril's CI has laid the foundation for a fresh study of the traces of Julian's CG preserved there, which the present article aims to provide. 18 I propose that within these twenty-three fragments from CI Books 11-20 we can identify seven new testimonia to be added to Masaracchia's edition and one expanded version of a fragment she already included. 15 18 Riedweg (n. 8), 259-60 has already begun this process with respect to one passage from Cyril's eighth book that survives in both Greek and Syriac. Although the Greek manuscript tradition unanimously reads φασι at CI 8.48.24, seeming to report an objection from unnamed pagan opponents, the quotation of this passage in the Syriac translation of Severus of Antioch's Contra impium Grammaticum has the singular participle ('he says'), explicitly attributing this objection to Julian in the opening editorial comment to the passage (page 868.6 Kaufhold). As a result, Riedweg proposes that the plural φασι be emended to the singular φησι and that the passage be added to the new fragments of Julian's CG with the designation fr. 65a. This, however, seems too hasty a decision since there are other indications from the wider context that Cyril has in mind not just a single opponent in this section but a larger group of unnamed contemporary Hellenes (plural references at CI 8.46.1 οἱ δι᾽ ἐναντίας, 8.50.2-3 παρὰ τοῖς Ἑλλήνων παισί).
The question of how best to refer to these fragments of CG is complex. Masaracchia's edition enumerated the fragments beginning with the first one cited by Cyril in CI and continuing to the last one cited in Book 10. Riedweg has proposed that the new fragments from Cyril's second decade be numbered according to where they likely occurred in the course of Julian's CG, 'using mainly the narrative sequence of the gospels as an aid to orientation', 19 since the gospels seem to have been Julian's main focus in his second book from which these passages presumably come. 20 This, however, makes the current numbering system more complex, since it keeps Masaracchia's existing enumeration but uses the addition of letters after the numbers to indicate the proposed location of new fragments (for example, designating one such passage CG fr. 91c since it presumably should have originally come after fr. 91b). To simplify matters, I number these new passages starting where Masaracchia left off, at 108, with the exception of the passage that is an expanded version of an already numbered fragment and a new fragment clearly related to it. When a full edition of the text is finally produced, its editors may decide to renumber these fragments according to their own scholarly judgements about the original sequence of CG and about how to manage the unwieldy and complex state in which it has reached us.
NEW FRAGMENTS CG fr. 91 apud CI fr. 3a (page 878.2-7, 22-6 Kaufhold): And, O friend of ours, what is so novel about the fact that in keeping with God's will a star arose contrary to its normal pattern at that time when God the Word took on a body and it went ahead as a herald? Is it not the case that, owing to the occurrence of great events all throughout the world, there have often appeared those stars that are also called 'comets' or 'in the form of beards', though others also give them the name 'meteors'? 21 And this star was not one of those known stars, nor was it, as [Julian] claims, the daystar.
… So then, this is how the marvel should be understood and it is worthy of being believed, even if that star did not remain until now. Moreover, it was not one of the stars that are known-not the daystar or Pleiades or Aldebaran. And even if it was standing over Bethlehem and over the house and over the place where the child was lying, one should not doubt the story. 22 19 Riedweg (n. 8), 260 n. 17. 20 Cf. Riedweg and Kinzig (n. 14), XCII, CV-CVIII. See also Julian's allusions to topics he intends to treat later in CG, all of which pertain to Jesus and the gospels: CG fr. 50.3-4 Mas. (apud CI 6.42.7-8), fr. 51.3-5 Mas. (apud CI 7.1.14-15) and fr. 64.5-7 Mas. (apud CI 8.15.9-10), with the last passage referring explicitly to the δεύτερον σύγγραμμα of CG. 21 In his German translation, Kaufhold transliterates as 'qdys, seemingly reading initial as a preposition, and adds in brackets that perhaps this is meant to be ἀκοντισμός or 'Sternschnuppen' ('shooting stars'). However, if is read as a part of the word rather than as a preposition, then the Syriac is simply a transliteration of δοκίδες, as also recognized by Nestle . . The first new fragment is an expanded version of a fragment published in Latin translation as fr. 91 Mas. This passage comes from a lengthy extract from Book 11 of Cyril's CI included in a Syriac biblical catena surviving solely in the seventh-century lacunose MS British Library Add. 17214, which contains three extracts from Cyril's treatise, alongside passages from mostly Greek patristic authors in addition to the Syriac writers Ephrem and Philoxenus. 23 The passage above is found on fols. 38r-39r. In the prolegomenon to Neumann's edition of CG, Nestle designated the Syriac text of this passage as CI fr. 15 and the corresponding Latin translation as CI fr. 3. Neumann extracted one sentence from the Latin translation of the Cyril passage and published it as Julian, CG fr. 2 stella autem illa non ex numero harum ordinariarum erat neque ἑωσφόρος, ut iste [sc. Iulianus] eam dicit. 24 Masaracchia kept the sentence highlighted by Neumann and added the preceding sentence to it to create her slightly lengthier CG fr. 91, in bold text above. I propose that the fragment, or rather testimonium, be expanding still further to include yet more of Cyril's rebuttal that further illuminates Julian's argument. 25 This passage focusses on the star of the magi and no doubt derives from Julian's treatment of the birth narratives in the gospels early in his second book. Neumann probably isolated the sentence which he included as his fr. 2 because it seems to report Julian's actual words (ut iste eam dicit = ), specifically the claim that the magi's star is to be identified with the daystar or Venus. Masaracchia's additional sentence highlights the main point of Cyril's response, namely that the star should be understood as some sort of more unusual or irregular celestial phenomenon such as a meteor or comet. However, if one takes into account the prior sentence, which was excluded by Masaracchia but is the first sentence of the testimonium offered here, we gain a further glimpse into Julian's argument. The direct address with which the passage opens, characteristic of Cyril's style, 26 implies that Julian objected to the story of the magi's star on grounds that it was somehow 'novel' ( ). This emphasis on novelty is further elucidated in the latter portion of the extract printed above. Cyril's defence of the account as plausible despite the star's disappearance suggests that Julian had raised this point too, probably because an appearing and disappearing star would be a novel heavenly phenomenon that did not obey the normal laws of celestial motion. Finally, in the latter portion of the extract Cyril again opposes the view that the star was the daystar, Pleiades, or Aldebaran, all of these being known heavenly bodies which, as such, are not novel. Thus from Cyril's rebuttal we surmise not only that Julian sought to identify the magi's star with the daystar (as Neumann and Masaracchia recognized) but also that he seemingly thought it was implausible that the star in question was a novel phenomenon previously unknown to astronomers which moved in a strange manner and disappeared once its mission was complete.
This fuller understanding of Julian's argument is significant because he is apparently arguing against an interpretation of the star put forward by at least two earlier Christians. In his Contra Celsum, Origen proposed that the star was 'a new star and not like any of the ordinary ones' (καινὸν … καὶ μηδενὶ τῶν συνήθων παραπλήσιον), and that it is 'to be classed with the comets which occasionally occur, or meteors, or bearded or jar-shaped stars' (κομῆται ἢ δοκίδες ἢ πωγωνίαι ἢ πίθοι). 27 Origen then made precisely the same point as Cyril, namely that such phenomena often appeared at great moments of history, so it should not be surprising to find this occurring at the birth of Jesus. 28 Eusebius, that fourth-century enthusiastic disciple of Origen, followed his predecessor on this question, asserting in his Demonstratio evangelica that the magi's star was a 'strange' (ξένος) and 'new' (καινός) star akin to the 'so-called comets or meteors or beard-shaped stars' (κομητῶν, ἢ δοκίδων, ἢ πωγωνιῶν) that have often appeared at the occurrence of unusual events. 29 Thus the two most famous apologists for Christianity before Julian had argued that the star was a novel phenomenon that appeared for a specific time and then disappeared once its mission was complete, the very same position that Julian seems to have set himself against. In one of the other surviving verbatim fragments of his CG Julian, in fact, refers to Eusebius by name 26  Origen noted that Celsus cited the passage about the Bethlehem star in Matthew but did not say how he interpreted it, so it is unclear whether his comments on this issue in this later passage respond to lost criticisms from his opponent. A precedent for Origen's view is found in Clement of Alexandria's report that the Valentinian Theodotus described the star as being 'strange and new' (ξένος ἀστὴρ καὶ καινός) and as having 'destroyed the ancient order of the stars' (καταλύων τὴν παλαιὰν ἀστροθεσίαν) (exc. Thdot. 4. 74 and alludes to a passage from his Praeparatio evangelica. 30 It is, therefore, plausible that Julian learned of this interpretation of the magi's star from his reading of Eusebius, and focussed his treatment of this gospel passage around critiquing the view of that earlier defender of Christianity, a pattern repeated below in CG fr. 111, though it cannot be excluded that he was responding to Origen instead of, or in addition to, Eusebius in light of the parallels between CG and Contra Celsum recently brought to light. 31 Julian thus apparently opposed the idea that the magi's star was a novel or irregular astrological phenomenon, as Origen and Eusebius had maintained, which is why Cyril felt the need to defend its plausibility, indeed normality, despite the fact that it moved in a strange fashion and did not remain in the sky. 32 This insight comports with the sentence originally singled out by Neumann in which Cyril claims Julian said that the magi's star was the daystar or Venus: Julian objected to the star as something novel or unusual, and identified it with, or at least compared it to, a known heavenly body. But why would Julian have referred specifically to the daystar in his criticism of Origen's and Eusebius' position? Answering this question moves into more speculative terrain but a conjecture can be offered. The fifth-century grammarian Servius reported that Varro claimed 'the morning-star, which is said to belong to Venus, was continually seen by Aeneas until he should reach Laurentian territory and ceased to be visible after he arrived: from which fact he recognized that he had in fact arrived' (Varro enim ait hanc stellam Luciferi, quae Veneris dicitur, ab Aenea, donec ad Laurentem agrum ueniret, semper uisam, et postquam peruenit, uideri desiisse: unde et peruenisse se agnouit). 33 The parallels between this tradition and the story of the magi following the star westwards to Bethlehem have long been recognized, 34 and it could be that Julian himself deployed this similarity in his critique of the biblical account, which would be in keeping with other passages in the treatise that highlight traditions related to Rome's founding and greatness (cf. CG frr. 42, 43, 44, 49 Mas.).
A further testimonium from Varro yields more material relevant for reconstructing Julian's argument. In the De ciuitate Dei, Augustine quotes a passage from Varro's De gente populi Romani in which Varro passes on a report about Venus from the chronicler Castor who in turn was seemingly drawing upon the mathematicians Adrastus of Cyzicus and Dion of Neapolis. According to these sources, during the reign of King Ogyges, Venus 'changed its colour, size, shape and course' (mutaret colorem, magnitudinem, figuram, cursum). Moreover, this is said to have been 'something that has never happened before or since' (quod factum ita neque antea nec postea sit). 35 Here we have a tradition about a known star changing its course which is said to be such an unusual event that it has never occurred subsequently. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence that the star in question is the daystar and that the same heavenly body somehow figured into Julian's criticism of the supposed novel behaviour of the magi's star. Perhaps his argument went something like this: 'The only star known to have ever changed its course was, according to Castor, the daystar, so the story of the magi's star in the gospels must have been fabricated in imitation of it.' Even if somewhat speculative, this reconstruction of Julian's argument would explain why Cyril in response would argue that the magi's star should not be identified with any of the heavenly bodies known to astronomers.
Before leaving this fragment, we must comment on its relation to the fragment of CG published by Guida in 2020, found in Gian Francesco Pico della Mirandola's treatise De rerum praenotione and numbered CG fr. 91a by Riedweg. 36 Here Pico claims that Julian identified the magi's guide with a star bearing the Egyptian name Asaph which appeared every four-hundred years. 37 In other words, according to this testimonium, Julian said that the star was what we now today call a comet. As a precursor for this view, Guida points to the aforementioned passage from Origen's Contra Celsum in which the Bethlehem star is said to be a 'comet' or 'meteor'. 38 It seems more likely that, as argued above, Julian's argument was framed in opposition to the position of Origen and Eusebius. That is, even though Julian in this fragment seemingly agrees with Origen and Eusebius that the star was what we could call a 'comet', he rejected their claim that the object was a novelty and instead sought to identify it with a named astronomical phenomenon. The rejection of novelty is indeed the main point of continuity between CG fr. 91 and Guida's new mysterious fragment. It could be that Julian mentioned several well-known heavenly bodies by name, not just the daystar, but perhaps also Pleiades and Aldebaran (also noted by Cyril in CI fr. 3a), as well as an otherwise unknown object called Asaph. There was debate in antiquity over whether comets were recurring heavenly phenomena or random unpredictable events; according to Pico's testimonium, Julian took the view that they regularly appeared at set intervals, a position said to have originated amongst Pythagoras' followers. 39 If so, then even a rare event such as the appearance of a comet is something ordered and indeed eternal, 35  in contrast to the strange, new star proposed by Origen and Eusebius. 40 Moreover, the four-hundred-year period mentioned in Guida's new fragment fits nicely with Cyril's defence of the disappearance of the star. One could imagine Julian saying that the account of the star of Bethlehem is unbelievable since the magi's star did not remain in the sky, unless one were to suppose that it was the star Asaph which is only seen every four hundred years and so had not yet reappeared when Julian was writing CG in 362/3. Unfortunately, no one has discovered the source of Pico's testimonium; it could be a complete fabrication, though this seems unlikely given how closely related it is to the nexus of themes evident in CG fr. 91. Given his earlier naming of Cyril's CI, we can be confident that George's mention of Julian in this sentence depends upon that same source. Substantiating evidence is that, in his rebuttal of Julian, George repeats verbatim a sentence of Cyril's own refutation in CI fr. 3a. 42 Thus, George had no independent access to Julian's text and was entirely reliant upon Cyril. What is more, there is good reason to think that George was drawing upon the same lacunose seventh-century biblical catena found in MS British Library Add. 17214 from which comes CI fr. 3a. In the catena, CI fr. 3a is sandwiched between an extract from the sixth of Chrysostom's Homilies on Matthew (fol. 37r) and an extract from On the Nativity by Theodotus of Ancyra (fol. 39r), the same two texts also 40 Cf. Julian's description of the eternal and unchanging heavenly bodies in CG fr. 11 apud CI 2.50. 41 On this passage, see Kinzig  mentioned by George when he discusses the nature of the star. 43 The occurrence of these same sources in both the catena and George cannot be a coincidence; the most likely explanation is that George was using this catena, or one related to it, when composing his Commentary on Matthew, which would mean that George possibly had before him no more of the text of CI than we ourselves have in CI fr. 3a. 44 The attribution of this objection to Julian appears in at least one later Syriac text. The twelfth-century bishop Dionysius bar Salibi, in his Commentary on the Gospels, also mentioned this Julianic argument, almost certainly drawing upon George's earlier exposition since he repeats, at times verbatim, all three testimonia to Julian's CG found in that earlier text. 45 George's fragment does not repeat verbatim the criticism of Julian observed in the last passage but it does resonate with it. Although Cyril did not mention 'astrologers' as does George here, he did claim that the star was not a 'known' star; one could reasonably deduce that Julian objected to the notion that the star was unknown specifically to such experts. If so, then even though George's reference to Julian's speech is marked by the particle which might indicate a quotation, his testimonium would be entirely dependent upon the previous, being merely George's own rephrasing of Cyril's description of Julian's position. 46 It could be that George both drew upon this catena and had access to Cyril's CI directly, so we must leave open the possibility that his statement does reflect Julian's actual words cited by Cyril in an otherwise lost passage. Whatever the case, the position attributed to Julian by George coincides with the interpretation offered above for the previous fragment, namely that Julian objected to the view that the magi's star was not one of the known heavenly bodies. This brief testimonium appears in the middle of a longer extract from Book 16 of Cyril's CI that is preserved in a miaphysite florilegium titled 'Proofs concerning the holy mysteries of the body and blood of our Saviour', which survives in three British Library MSS: Add. 12155, fol. 81r; Add. 14532, fols. 79v-80r; and Add. 14538, fol. 115v. 47 The first two manuscripts were used by Nestle in Neumann's 1880 edition of 43 Cf. Wright (n. 23), 2.916-17; John Chrysostom, Hom. in Mt. 6.2 (PG 57.64); Theodotus of Ancyra, Hom. 1 (ACO 1.1.2, pages 87.33-88.3). I have consulted images of the manuscript to confirm Wright's description. 44 The other main idea George attributes to Cyril, that the magi arrived no more than eight days after Jesus' birth (CI fr. 3b [page 879.3-4 Kaufhold]), is also found in CI fr. 3a (page 878.20 Kaufhold). 45 46 Cf. Guida (n. 12), 101-2 n. 52 who says that George depends upon Cyril and 'unduly simplifies' ('semplifica indebitamente') Julian's position. 47 Cf. Kinzig  the passage is treated as a problematic text requiring resolution in Macarius Magnes' apologetic treatise, which must have been written close to the time of Julian. 53 We can surmise that Julian treated the passage in a dismissive or even mocking manner, probably pointing to the absurdity of a camel going through the eye of the needle, since this is the difficulty resolved in Cyril's indignant reply. Such dismissive mockery is also what we find in Julian, CG fr. 1 Bianchi (apud CI fr. 72 Kin./Brü.), which points out that, because fishermen typically kill their prey, Jesus' description of his disciples as 'fishers of people' (Luke 5:10 / Matthew 4:19) suggests that their ministry led to the destruction rather than the salvation of the people they caught. The two other passages Bianchi has highlighted from Philagathos are even more to the point, since they also attack Jesus' impossibly high ethical standard, specifically the call to abandon wives for the sake of following Christ (CG fr. 2 Bianchi apud CI fr. 73 Kin./Brü., commenting upon Matthew 19:29 / Mark 10:29 / Luke 18:29-30) and the command to sell all one's possessions, which, Julian points out, would be impossible to fulfil if everyone obeyed it (CG fr. 3 Bianchi apud CI fr. 74 Kin./Brü., commenting upon Matthew 19:21 / Mark 10:21 / Luke 18:22). 54 Indeed, the saying about a camel passing through the eye of a needle comes from the same episode in the synoptics as these other passages, namely the story of the rich young ruler, so all of these fragments probably derive from the same section of the second book of CG. 55 CG fr. 110 apud CI fr. 64b (page 890.16-17 Kaufhold): From the eighteenth book by the same author. When Julian ridiculed Christians who honour the martyrs, [Cyril] opposed him as follows: This brief testimonium survives in the aforementioned miaphysite florilegium, in a single manuscript. British Library Add. 12155, fols. 87r-104r contains a unique section of fourteen numbered extracts that the scribe added to his Vorlage, and within it appear four unique citations from Books 16 and 18 of Cyril's CI. 56 The testimonium above is the heading added by the compiler for one of these passages which is found on fol. 101v. Neumann included the passage as CG fr. 13, though Masaracchia omitted it from her edition. 57  Although George does not name Cyril as his source for this Julianic objection, the fact that he elsewhere explicitly cites from Cyril's CI suggests that he was probably drawing upon it here too. 59 Given the lacunose state of MS British Library Add. 17214, from which George probably drew CG fr. 91b, this testimonium may likewise derive from a fragment of Cyril's CI included among the lost pages of that manuscript. At least three other Syriac authors also report this Julianic objection. Coming from the Church of the East, George's contemporary Theodore bar Koni and the later commentator Isho'dad of Merv mention it, both of them probably reliant upon Theodore of Mopsuestia as their source. 60 The passages from Theodore bar Koni and Isho'dad were published by Guida in the Appendix to his 1994 edition of Theodore of Mopsuestia's Against Julian as Theodore of Mopsuestia, De Iul. test. 1. 61 As mentioned above, Dionysius bar Salibi also repeats the objection, probably drawing upon George. 62 In addition to these Syriac authors, Jerome also passed down a much simplified version of it, amounting to little more than asserting that Julian claimed the genealogies in Matthew and Luke contradicted one another (CG fr. 90 Mas. apud Jer. Comm. in Mt. 1.16). In response, Jerome pointed out that Eusebius and Africanus had already answered this problem. 63 The Syriac tradition, however, represented by the above passage from George, preserves a fuller version of Julian's critique that shows Jerome's reply to be insufficient since Julian's objection was already formulated as a response to the explanation offered by Africanus and Eusebius.
In both his well-known Ecclesiastical History and his less well-known but highly influential Quaestiones evangelicae, Eusebius solved the contradiction between the two genealogies of Jesus by endorsing the solution of Julius Africanus, who proposed that Matthew was recording Joseph's biological lineage, Luke his legal lineage. On this line of reasoning, the two lines of descent diverged thanks to the ancient Israelite custom of Levirate marriage which obliged a man to marry a widow of a deceased relative and raise up descendants for the dead husband. 64 Julian's objection in the passage above only makes sense as a response to this explanation from Eusebius and Africanus. His corresponding objection would seem to be: 'If Luke was recording the legal genealogy of Joseph, as Eusebius claims, why then did he not do so when he came to Obed's father? For, while Boaz was Obed's biological father, Mahlon was in fact his legal father in light of the fact that Boaz's marriage to Ruth was an instance of Levirate marriage. Eusebius' proposed solution is, therefore, false because Luke was in fact not recording legal descent, as demonstrated by his naming of Boaz as Obed's father. ' Scholars have thus far seemingly not noticed that in this criticism Julian must have been responding to Eusebius, and recently Cook has argued that it is 'unlikely' that Julian would even have been aware of Eusebius' 'somewhat obscure text' Quaestiones evangelicae. 65 Cook proposes instead that Julian's objections to the resurrection accounts, despite appearing similar to the problems Eusebius addressed in his Quaestiones evangelicae, were instead 'probably inspired by one of Porphyry's arguments'. 66 I propose, on the contrary, that the above fragment all but proves that Julian must have been aware of either Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History or his Quaestiones evangelicae, and that the latter is more likely to have been his source, in light of the similarities already identified by Cook between his criticisms of the resurrection accounts and the problems dealt with by Eusebius in that text. 67 The present fragment is thus further evidence that Julian constructed his polemic against Christianity using Eusebius as his foil. Moreover, we should not miss the sophistication of Julian's critique, which requires not merely understanding the complex solution proposed by Africanus and Eusebius but also knowing the obscure book of Ruth well enough to realize the problem it posed to their explanation.
Like CG frr. 91b and 111, this passage comes from George of B'eltan's unpublished Commentary on Matthew. Because it alludes to the offering of frankincense to the infant Jesus, this criticism presumably derives from Julian's treatment of the canonical infancy narratives. 69 As with fr. 111, we can plausibly conjecture that Cyril's CI was George's unnamed source for this Julianic testimonium and that the passage of Cyril's treatise upon which he drew may have been found among the lost portion of the catena in MS British Library Add. 17214. 70 As noted above, Dionysius bar Salibi later repeats this Julianic objection, probably drawing upon George. 71 This new passage is noteworthy for at least two reasons. First, while it is clear that Julian's primary aim in CG was to undermine the sacred texts that served as the foundation for Christian belief, he also on occasion commented on Christian ritual practice, including denouncing the inefficacy of making the sign of the cross (CG fr. 43.11-13 Mas. apud CI 6.15.13-15), pointing out the inability of baptism to change a person's moral state (CG fr. 59.16-23 Mas. apud CI 7.38.18-25), and claiming that devotion to the tombs of the martyrs involved defilement (CG fr. 81.3-14 apud CI 10.11.5-17). The present passage extends this motif by showing that Julian, rather surprisingly, also addressed the kind of incense used in the liturgy.
This leads to the second noteworthy aspect of this passage. Julian's comment seemingly assumes that Christian rituals should be patterned after what one finds in the New Testament, specifically the offering of frankincense to Jesus by the magi. This could imply that, if Christians simply burned frankincense in their worship rather than the mixed compound that they currently use, their worship would be legitimate, or at least in harmony with ritual practice among other religious groups. It is difficult to discern how best to contextualize this seemingly positive remark given that elsewhere in CG Julian finds nothing about Christian ritual practice to endorse, consistently portraying them as having departed from the legitimate cultic practices of the Greeks, Romans and Jews. It could be that the comment was intended to contrast the practice of Jesus' earliest followers in the New Testament with the corruptions that occurred later, as Julian elsewhere asserts (cf. CG fr. 79.5-8 Mas. apud CI 10.1.14-16). The passage might also be relying on an assumed deprecation of an incense compound concocted artificially by humans, perhaps seen as a debauched luxury, in contrast to the natural simplicity of frankincense as a material used for honouring the divine. 72 Whatever the case, this passage from Julian is noteworthy as one of our earliest references to the burning of incense in Christian worship. 73 CG fr. 113 apud CI fr. 77 (page 892.9-12 Kaufhold): But the reprobate Julian, along with others, severely criticizes John at this point 74 for having uttered an obvious falsehood with these words, since the world could record CONCLUSION The harvest of new knowledge from these fragments enriches our understanding of Julian's Contra Galilaeos in several respects. First, it provides further evidence that Julian's critique of Christianity engaged with the prior tradition of pagan polemic and Christian apologetic. In the most thorough study of Julian's sources yet undertaken, Bouffartigue concluded that Julian knew Eusebius' Praeparatio evangelica and at least Book 1 of his Demonstratio evangelica. 78 More recently, Boulnois has raised the possibility that Julian was responding to Origen's Contra Celsum. 79 The above analysis of CG fr. 91 suggests that Julian was aware either of Origen's treatment of the magi's star in that text or of Eusebius' similar discussion in Demonstratio evangelica Book 9. Moreover, CG fr. 111 proves that he was interacting with other texts in Eusebius' corpus, most likely his Quaestiones evangelicae.
This leads to the second observation. Elm has recently described Julian's treatise as 'sophisticated', 80 and this is nowhere more apparent than in CG fr. 111, in which he identifies a significant problem in what was at the time the most widespread explanation for Jesus' discordant genealogies and displays an impressive knowledge of obscure biblical texts. Nevertheless, this is but one aspect of Julian's critique of the gospels. For alongside such incisive criticisms we also find comparatively simplistic objections in CG frr. 109 and 113, as well as CG fr. 1 Bianchi. Julian's attack on the gospels seemingly was a mixture of both kinds of arguments. When combatting the interpretation of the gospels offered by a learned bishop such as Eusebius, Julian shows himself to be an equally sophisticated exegete. However, when addressing the stories in the gospels directly, he apparently thought mocking derision was the best way to show the falsity of what he regarded as trivial fairy tales.
Third, the preceding study answers questions about how Julian's CG was received by the medieval Syriac tradition. These later authors were, at best, relying upon the refutations of Theodore of Mopsuestia and Cyril. However, it seems that often the chain of dependence was more complex. For example, Dionysius bar Salibi was perhaps drawing upon George of B'eltan when he reported three Julianic objections; and George himself was probably reliant, at least in part and maybe entirely, upon the anonymous florilegium of extracts in MS BL Add. 17214. Julian's CG had a longer afterlife in the Syriac world than is often recognized, but there were multiple layers of mediation at work.
Finally, this study has highlighted the need for a new edition of Julian's Contra Galilaeos. Knowledge of the text has grown considerably since Masaracchia's 1990 edition and a comprehensive reassessment of our single most important source is now in order in light of the new GCS edition of Cyril's CI. Once that has been completed, the new edition of Julian's CG can join Becker's 2016 edition of Porphyry's Contra Christianos, and we will be positioned to undertake a fresh study of the development of anti-Christian polemic and Christian apologetic response over the course of Late Antiquity.