Epistolary tactics of appropriation in Julian's 'new paganism'

Throughout his brief career as an emperor, Julian appropriated aspects of Christian letter writing in his attempt to revive what he called ‘Hellenic religion’, and especially the defunct cult of the Great Mother Cybele. Michel de Certeau’s theory of appropriation can help us understand Julian’s religious and cultural agenda of reshaping traditional Hellenism and religious identity for a post-Constantinian age. As well as issuing several edicts on the subject of religion, Julian wrote friendship letters to priests, priestesses, governors, Christians and Jews. Julian’s letters reveal that in his attempts to (re)form religious identity he also employed tactics by which he appropriated elements of the very dominant culture, Christianity, that he sought to undermine.