“I think that when the poor happened to be neglected and overlooked by the priests, the impious Galileans observed this and devoted themselves to benevolence…The impious Galileans support not only their poor but ours as well.”
Roman Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus Augustus (c. 331-363) is known as Julian the Apostate for his rejection of Christianity. This excerpt from letter to a priest, as recounted by Rodney Stark in The Rise of Christianity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) 84.