Michael Hanaghan: Christian Visions and Sozomen’s Julian

According to Sozomen (6.2), a friend of the emperor Julian lodged in a church as he traveled into Persia to join up with the emperor. On successive nights a dream vision appeared to him in which a group of apostles and prophets predicted Julian’s death. Soon afterwards Julian, mortally wounded by an unknown assailant in battle, threw his blood into the air. Sozomen provides competing explanations for this behavior, including that Julian hoped to besmear a vision of Christ which had just appeared to him.This paper argues that these stories respond to Julian’s criticism of Christianity in his Contra Galilaeos. At Contra Galilaeos339E-340A Julian criticizes Christians for soliciting dream visions and cites Isaiah 65.4 in support of his condemnation. For Julian solicited dream-visions (enupnia) are a form of trickery (magganeia). Sozomen’s inclusion of this story makes Julian’s friend the proxy target of Julian’s criticism for his conscious decision to spend another night in the church so that the revelatory dream could complete itself. In Contra Galilaeos358D-E Julian cites Genesis15 to show that the appearance of God to Abraham occurs after sacrifice and darkness. In Sozomen’s account darkness descends on the battle just before Julian’s sacrificial throwing of his own blood in reaction to his vision of Christ.Sozomen’s account justifies his claim that divine wrath caused Julian’s death, highlights Julian’s failure to predict it, and reveals that Christian criticism of Julian continued to develop in reaction to Contra Galilaeos.