JULIAN OF HALICARNASSUS

JULIAN OF HALICARNASSUS (?-ca. 527). This bishop of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor was a contemporary and ally of Severus of Antioch and Philoxenus of Mabboug, leaders in the campaign against the Council of Chalcedon (qq.v.) in the early 6th c. He was, however, condemned by Severus sometime after 520 for advocating the opinion that Christ’s body was incorruptible even before the Resurrection (q.v.), i.e., was unfallen and therefore not subject to death and decay. Hence the name of the “heresy” (q.v.) Julian is supposed to have invented, aphthartodocetism, a term combining his assertion of Christ’s incorruptibility (aphtharsia) with the accusation that he was reviving the ancient heresy of docetism, i.e., Christ’s humanity as a mere seeming (from dokeo, “to appear, seem”). The latter accusation was quite untrue. Julian sought rather to stress the voluntary character of Christ’s suffering, and the questions he raised, in spite of the insulting label, are still debated today among Orthodox theologians.