This is a translation and expansion of a book originally published in Dutch in 2009. Since Teitler is also one of the commentators on the Res Gestae of Ammianus Marcellinus, a key source for the reign of Julian, few are as qualified as he to write a book such as this. However, the book is quite small and the end-notes, bibliography and indices occupy almost half the pages. The result is that the actual text is relatively short, and the breezy tone adopted throughout the work as a whole confirms that this book is intended for the lay public or advanced undergraduates. Anyone hoping for a detailed and authoritative analysis of the relationship between the emperor Julian (a.d. 361–363) and the Christian community will have to look elsewhere. In fact, the book does a lot less than the title might suggest. The main focus is on trying to disprove any claim that Julian persecuted the Christian church, and the book reflects the spirit of much recent scholarship in systematically seeking to minimise the suffering of the ancient Christian community.

The main text is divided into eighteen chapters, often very short, proceeding in a broad chronological sequence from Julian's pre-imperial career and apostasy (ch. 1), through various chapters describing key incidents in his relations with the Christian community, such as the murder of Bishop George of Alexandria in December 361 (ch. 4), the infamous school edict of June 362 (ch. 8), the death of the comes Orientis Julian in December 362 (ch. 11) and the execution of the soldiers Iuventinus and Maximinus in January 363 (ch. 15), to a chapter discussing the reaction of various groups to Julian's death in June 363 and the fanciful stories that grew up about the same (ch. 16). The most surprising, and disappointing, feature of this book is the amount of attention paid to very late and clearly fictitious accounts of various alleged martyrdoms under Julian when so much earlier, more relevant and authoritative material is treated so superficially or even ignored. If it is difficult to understand why the alleged trial at Antioch in Syria of the two priests Eugenius and Macarius receives the attention that it does (ch. 13), it is frankly impossible to understand why the passions of either Pimenius of Rome or Elophius of Grand (ch. 17) were thought to merit any mention at all. Perhaps the descriptions of the latter passions were included to add colour and humour to the book, but it does not lack either without them, and their inclusion may unfortunately serve to prejudice the reader against earlier and more valuable hagiographical texts.

Anyone hoping for some investigation of the relatively early but often contradictory and confusing accounts of how the future emperor Valentinian I (364–375) was treated under Julian as Augustus, when, to where or why he was exiled under him (if indeed he was exiled under him), will be sorely disappointed. For some reason, his alleged treatment under Julian barely merits one dismissive sentence in a short catalogue of ‘dubious stories of confessores and martyrs who are said to have been persecuted in and outside Rome during Julian's short reign’ (132). In order to prove his thesis that Julian was not a persecutor of Christians, the author sets an artificially high burden of proof upon those who would suggest otherwise. First, persecution has to involve the actual killing of Christians: systematic harassment of and discrimination against them will not suffice. Second, the Christians have to be killed because of their Christian faith. Finally, there has to be clear evidence that Julian personally ordered the killing. He does not actually spell this out in so many words, but this is what emerges as his survey of the evidence progresses. However, the requirement of this level of proof ignores the fact that Julian was too clever to provide the Christian community with clear and unambiguous martyrs in the narrow traditional sense. So the state did not actually kill Christians for their faith, but the emperor was not greatly disturbed if local mobs took the law into their own hands in order to avenge themselves upon their Christian neighbours for previous alleged offences. Similarly, the emperor did not have to tell governors to act harshly against Christians who refused to accommodate themselves to the new religious regime, or even dared to act against it, because they could easily recognise which way the wind was blowing on that score. So Julian probably did not personally order the death of Eupsychius of Caesarea (93), but he created the circumstances where such deaths were inevitable and was intelligent enough to know that this was exactly what would happen.

In conclusion, this is a highly enjoyable book, beautifully written and very easy to read, but I do not find its main argument at all persuasive. Certainly, later generations of Christians invented a lot of nonsense about Julian as the centuries passed, but if some government today were to treat any religious or ethnic group in the same way that Julian treated the Christians, most reasonable people would recognise this as persecution, even if not yet of Diocletianic or Hitlerian proportions.