Perhaps (I’m speculating) inspired by Julian the apostate. Emperor Julian, about 300 years after Jesus, worked to infuse the old paganism into Christianity. He didn’t outright ban Christianity. But he worked a lot to undermine it, often from within. Much like the leftists today infiltrating churches and pushing modern hedonism.
Julian the Apostate was around 360 AD.
worked to infuse the old paganism into Christianity -- this is incorrect, very very incorrect -- Julian 361–363 CE) sought to eliminate Christianity completely. Raised a Christian, he converted to Hellenic paganism
the ironic thing is that he saw that Christianity had charities, hospitals etc. while the pagans didn't have it, so he tried to borrow the church hierarchy - he tried to institute a structured, top-down hierarchy for paganism, modeling the role of a pagan high priest after Christian bishops and Church administration AND on observing that early Christians effectively grew their faith through philanthropy (feeding the poor, hosting love feasts, offering hospitality), Julian established similar welfare programs and hospices funded through pagan temples. He demanded high moral and philanthropic standards for pagan priests, threatening removal for bad behavior in an effort to rival the perceived righteousness of the Christian clergy
you can read about this in detail in Tom Holland's book "Dominion: the Making of the western Mind" -- basically all these ideas of charity, equality of man, high morality for clergy, etc is ALIEN to non-Christian religions (even to pre-Christian Judaism, leave alone Islam, Hinduism etc.) - and he tried to make paganism to copy Christianity, but failed as it could not take on the core of Christianity without utterly changing itsefl)
This is also incorrect, very very incorrect -- Julian 361–363 CE) sought to eliminate Christianity completely.
Julian’s most devastating measure was the School Edict of 362 CE, which prohibited Christians from teaching classical Greek literature, rhetoric, and philosophy
This was a massive blow because ever since the days of Justin Martyr, Christian scholars knew BOTH the classics and the Judaic/Christian texts -->btw, tell-it-right, have you read justin Martyr's works? If not, I highly recommend them -- I highly recommend reading his Apologies and his Dialogue with Trypho -- you can find them at -- https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/
anyhoo - so julian argued that because classical texts (like Homer or Virgil) were inherently tied to pagan gods, Christian teachers who ridiculed those gods were hypocrites and lacked integrity. This law effectively forced Christian intellectuals out of the education system. Since mastery of classical texts was required to hold high office or participate in elite Roman society, the law aimed to render future generations of Christians uneducated and unfit for government
He tried to weaponize theological differences to make the Church destroy itself from within.
Julian wrote against the Galileans -- he refused to call them "Christians," choosing the regional term "Galileans" to strip the movement of its universal claims and reduce it to a provincial cult. He routinely mocked Christian scripture as unphilosophical and unrefined.
Julian funded a massive project to rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, which had been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD
He did this specifically to invalidate Jesus's prophecy in the Gospels that "not one stone here will be left on another."
Julian calculated that if the third temple were successfully rebuilt, it would deal a fatal ideological blow to Christian theology. (The project eventually failed due to a sudden, catastrophic earthquake)