Bit of a change here, though classically underpinned.
Idea inspired by Julian Barnes’s latest (at the time of writing) novel Elizabeth Finch (2022). The middle part is devoted to Julian the Apostate, last pagan emperor of Rome. Near the end, the narrator quotes these two passages from Hitler’s Table Talk (21+25 Oct 1941):
“I didn’t know that Julian the Apostate had passed judgement with such clear-sightedness on Christianity and Christians”.
“The book that contains the reflections of the Emperor Julian should be circulated in millions. What wonderful intelligence, what discernment, all the wisdom of antiquity. It is extraordinary.”
Tirades against Christianity were a constant in Hitler’s disquisitions. One sometimes feels as though one were reading Edward Gibbon, especially such pronouncements as “In the ancient world the relation between men and gods was founded on an instinctive respect. It was a world
