SAPERE XL: Sun, Cosmos, Rome

Edited by Michael Schramm. Introduced, translated, and provided with interpretive essays by Franco Ferrari, Martin Hose, Stefan Rebenich, Adolf Martin Ritter, Michael Schramm, and Ilinca Tanaseanu-Döbler.

Julian (331/32-363) was the only Roman emperor to turn from Christianity back to the old religion and tried to reverse the Constantinian turn. To do this, he also relied more heavily on the imperial Roman tradition of sun worship. The Hymn to King Helios unfolds in a philosophical manner the cosmic, but also the political dimension of Helios and thus offers the theoretical-ideological justification of Julian's anti-Christian political-administrative measures, which he had taken since his accession as autocrat in 361. The new bilingual and annotated edition presented here explains the philosophical context and content of Julian's solar theology and illuminates the text from various professional perspectives philosophically, religious studies, theology, history, and literary studies.