Chapter 2 expands on the alertness of Christian intellectuals to the question of cultural prestige by reading the orations composed by Julian as Caesar (355–60) in the context of the rhetorical and cultural discourse at the imperial court. Drawing on the current re-assessment of Constantius II as pursuing a reputation as a patron of culture and philosophy, the first section argues that Julian’s early panegyrics reinforce this self-image by celebrating the intellectual synergy between the Augustus and his (famously highly cultivated) new Caesar. I further show that Constantius’ imperial propaganda relied on the assumption that allegiance to Christianity was a key factor in establishing his intellectual authority. The second section considers the writings Julian composed during his Gallic campaign (Second Panegyric to Constantius; Consolation to Himself), when his relationship with Constantius was deteriorating. As Julian increasingly exploits philosophical rhetoric to challenge rather than celebrate the Augustus, the identification of Christianity with intellectual authority becomes a polemical target in his writings, marking Julian’s first expressed disagreements with the idea of Christianity as highest philosophy.

Chapter 1 draws on Julian’s earliest surviving oration – the Letter to Themistius – to illustrate the interaction between Julian’s early rhetoric and the political discourse developed at the court of Constantius II. The first section challenges scholarly readings of the Letter as voicing a rejection of the late antique ideal of the sovereign as ensouled law. It argues that Julian’s primary intent in this text lies rather in a desire to advertise his exegetical skills at the expense of his interlocutor, the famous philosopher Themistius. The second sectio contextualises Julian’s ambition in the context of third- and fourth-century debates on the relationship between leadership and culture. It shows that this theme was invested with particular significance by Christian authors – such as Lactantius and Eusebius – who used it in claiming Christianity’s intellectual dominance over pagan thinking. This testifies to the existence of a shared perception that cultural authority legitimised political authority but also signals the ambitions of Christian intellectuals to negotiate Christianity’s cultural prestige in conversation with the Roman elites.