There are extant the following works of Julian: his correspondence with Severus, in the Syriac translation of Bishop Paul of Callinicus; ten anathemas; and a commentary on Job printed among Origen's works, and only lately recognized by Usener as a work of Julian's.
The expressions "incorruptible," "corruptible," or "imperishable," "perishable," do not correctly reproduce the debated meaning of aphthartos, phthartos, as understood by Julian and Severus. The controversy hinges not upon phthora, as indicating total dissolution of the body into so many atoms, but on the phthora existing in the natural infirmities of the body; such as hunger, thirst, weariness, sweat, tears, bleeding, etc. So, as Julian conceived it, the body of Christ was not subject to this manner of "corruption," which is a characteristic of human nature in consequence of Adam's sin. When Christ hungered and thirsted, he did so because he willed it, not of necessity; and he willed so, because only in that way could he free us from corruption. But Julian did not admit that, in order to redeem us, Christ must have possessed a body subjected to corruption through-out. He could not believe that one and the same being was both "corruptible" and "incorruptible." With singular inconsistency, however, he did not believe himself compelled to deny the doctrine of the like nature of Christ's body to that of ours; on the contrary, he expressly rejected the opposite doctrine, that of Eutyches. The Julian party reproached their opponents for being "corruption worshipers"; whereas these retorted with the reproach of docetism, insomuch that the epithets "aphthartodocetics" and "phantasiasts," or illusionists, ever afterward stayed attached to the Julianists. In this matter, the orthodox and the Severians made common cause, although there were some "aphthartodocetics" among the orthodox themselves. For the fact that Emperor Justinian himself was open to this line of argument see JUSTINIAN; and for the significance of the controverted question generally, as a phase of Monophysitism, see MONOPHYSITES.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: C. W. F. Walch, Historie der Ketzereiein, viii. 550 sqq., 886 sqq., Leipsic, 1778; J. C. L. Gieseler: Commentatio, qua Monophysitarum . . . variae de Christi persona opiniones . . . illustrantur, 2 parts, Göttingen, 1835; J. P. N. Land, Anecdota Syriaca, iii. 263-271, Leyden, 1870; H. Usener, in H. Lietzmann, Catenen, pp. 28-34, Freiburg, 1897; idem, in Rheinisches Museum, Iv (1900), 321-340; E. Ter-Minasaiantz, in TU, xxvi. 4 (1904), passim; Krumbacher, Geschichte, pp. 52-53; Ceillier, Auteurs sacrés, viii. 364, xi. 109, 344; DCB, iii. 475-476.
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