Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (10 page)

Though the strange fact that Jesus’ flesh was the basis for the sacrament is not often noted today, this may not have been the case during Christianity’s first centuries. Eusebius recorded that early Christians had to defend themselves against charges of infanticide and cannibalism.
⁵⁶

Therefore, members of the Flavian court
could
have understood the passage from Josephus as black comedy because such individuals
would
have seen irony in Jesus telling his followers, particularly at
Jerusalem
, where Jews resorted to cannibalism, that “the bread that I give is my flesh.” From the Flavian perspective, the satire is self-evident.

However, once I became suspicious that Josephus’ passage about “a myth for the world” was a mockery of the Gospels’ human Passover lamb, I began studying it in its original Greek. While doing so, I discovered something that confirmed the passage’s connection to the Gospels. There is a confession by the Flavians in the story that is more clearly visible in the original language. It is a confession that they invented both Christianity and its anti-Semitism.

To construct the confession, the author used a series of puns linked to the word “mythos” or myth. As noted above, in the passage Josephus described Mary’s son as a “mythos” or “myth for the world” (BJ 6. 207). He goes on to state that the killing of the myth for the world will be seen as a “mysos” (BJ 6, 212) or “atrocity”, that will be responded to by the Romans with “misos” (BJ 6.214) or “bitter hatred”.

Other scholars have recognized that the puns were designed to work together to tell a story. The story the puns create should be analyzed to determine if it has some connection to the creation of Christianity – this is simply good analytic technique. There is, of course, only one individual who can be seen as a “myth for the world”, who was a son of Mary and a human Passover lamb, and whose killing was an “atrocity” that created “bitter hatred” of the Jews. Notice that the story told by the linked puns is not only a description of the invention of Christianity, but a proud declaration of the invention of its accompanying anti-Semitism.

Scholars as far back as Melito in the second century have understood that the child in Josephus’ passage was a symbolic Passover Lamb. In fact the child is the only human Passover Lamb, other than Jesus, in literature. It is self-evident that something as rare as a coherent description of the invention of Christianity did not occur accidentally in the passage describing literature’s only other human Passover lamb. The “mythos puns” are a bold-faced confession of the invention of Christianity and its anti-Semitism by the Romans.

Though the acts revealed by the declaration are perhaps the most evil in history, it is hard not to give the devil his due. The authors of the subtly shifting “mythos” wordplay possessed a literary skill only surpassed by their wickedness. They not only punished the Jews for their rebellion by poisoning their future, but were able to notify posterity that they had done so using only erudite puns.

Finally, the short chapter in
Wars of the Jews
that contains the “son of Mary” passage concludes with Titus, having been told the story of the mother who ate her son’s flesh, delivering a sermon on the meaning of the sordid affair.

But for Caesar, he excused himself before God as to this matter, and said that he had proposed peace and liberty to the Jews, as well as an oblivion of all their former insolent practices; but that they, instead of concord, had chosen sedition; instead of peace, war; and before satiety and abundance, a famine.

That they had begun with their own hands to burn down that temple which we have preserved hitherto; and that therefore they deserved to eat such food as this was.

That, however, this horrid action of eating an own child ought to be covered with the overthrow of their very country itself, and men ought not to leave such a city upon the habitable earth to be seen by the sun, wherein mothers are thus fed,

although such food be fitter for the fathers than for the mothers to eat of, since it is they that continue still in a state of war against us, after they have undergone such miseries as these.

And at the same time that he said this, he reflected on the desperate condition these men must be in; nor could he expect that such men could be recovered to sobriety of mind, after they had endured those very sufferings, for the avoiding whereof it only was probable they might have repented.
⁵⁷

Titus’ use of the word “repent” in the passage has an implication for the ministry of Jesus. “Repent” is, of course, one of the key words of Jesus’ ministry and Caesar’s usage of it brings the parallels between the passage and the Gospels even tighter. Jesus states repeatedly, “Repent, the Kingdom of God is at hand,” but exactly what sin does he wish the Jews to repent of? Jesus never gives an answer to this question. However, when the passage is read as a satire of Christianity, the answer is clear—the sin that Jesus wished the Jews to “repent” was their rebellion against Rome.

CHAPTER 4
 
The Demons of Gadara
 

When I first came across the passage from
Wars of the Jews
describing a son of Mary whose flesh was eaten, and recognized its linkage to Christianity, I was perplexed. The more I studied the passage, the more I was convinced that it had been deliberately created as a lampoon—but as more than just a lampoon of Jesus. It appeared to be a disclosure of a different origin of Christianity than the one that had been passed down to the modern era. That is, that Christianity had been created to be a “calamity” upon the Jews. I began to analyze
Wars of the Jews
to determine if it contained other passages that could be seen as satirical disclosures regarding this different version of Christianity’s origin.

That was when it became clear to me that there were numerous parallels between the story line of Jesus’ ministry and Titus’ campaign through Judea, and that among them was their similar experience near the town of Gadara.

Each of the Synoptic Gospels tells a story of Jesus coming to Gadara where he meets a man who is possessed by demons (in Matthew, Jesus meets
two
demon-possessed men, a point I shall return to). In the versions of the story found in Mark and Luke, when Jesus asks the demon his name, the demon replies:

“My name is Legion: for we are many.”

Mark 5:9

I found it interesting that the demon would choose to describe himself and his cohort as a component of an army. Remembering that the location where Jesus asked his disciples to become “fishers of men” was used to create a parodic linkage to an event that occurred at the same location in
Wars of the Jews,
I wondered whether the use of the word “legion” by the demon might be satirically related to an event in
Wars of the Jews
that occurred near Gadara. The passage in Mark describing the demoniac of Gadara tells of Jesus’ encounter with a man possessed by numerous demons. These demons leave the man at Jesus’ bidding and then enter into a herd of swine. Once the swine are possessed by the demons, they rush wildly into the sea and drown. The passage does not reveal what happened to the demons after the swine drown. Note that in the New Testament, “unclean spirits” are synonymous with devils and demons.

And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.

And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,

Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:

Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.

And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.

But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshiped him,

And cried with a loud voice, and said, “What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not.”

For he said unto him, “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.”

And he asked him, “What is thy name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion: for we are many.”

And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.

And all the devils besought him, saying, “Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.”

And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine; and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea (they were about two thousand), and were choked in the sea.

And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done.

And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid …

… And he departed, and began to publish in Decapolis how great things Jesus had done for him: and all men did marvel.
⁵⁸

In
Wars of the Jews,
4, 7, there is a short chapter that describes the battle at Gadara. The chapter begins with a description of how “John” rose to power as a leader of the rebellion.

By this time John was beginning to tyrannize …

… Now some submitted to him out of their fear of him, and others out of their good will to him; for he was a shrewd man to entice men to him, both by deluding them and putting cheats upon them. Nay, many there were that thought they should be safer themselves, if the causes of their past insolent actions should now be reduced to one head, and not to a great many.

Thus, Josephus described John as a “tyrant” into whose “one head” the “insolent actions” of many had been “reduced.” Josephus next describes the Sicarii, the most militant faction of the Jewish rebellion who, he states, were able to undertake “greater matters” because of the “sedition and tyranny” that John had created.

There was a fortress of very great strength not far from Jerusalem … called Masada.

Those that were called Sicarii had taken possession of it formerly, but at this time they overran the neighboring countries, aiming only to procure to themselves necessaries; for the fear they were then in prevented their further ravages.

But when once they were informed that the Roman army lay still, and that the Jews were divided between sedition and tyranny, they boldly undertook greater matters …

… Now as it is in a human body, if the principal part be inflamed, all the members are subject to the same distemper;

so, by means of the sedition and disorder that was in the metropolis … had the wicked men that were in the country opportunity to ravage the same. Accordingly, when every one of them had plundered their own villages, they then retired into the desert;

yet were these men that now got together, and joined in the conspiracy by parties, too small for an army, and too many for a gang of thieves …

Josephus then describes the beginning of Vespasian’s pacification of the Judean countryside. His first assault was on Gadara, a city held by the rebels.

These things were told Vespasian by deserters …

… Accordingly, he marched against Gadara, the metropolis of Perea, which was a place of strength, and entered that city on the fourth day of the month Dystrus [Adar];

for the men of power had sent an embassage to him, without the knowledge of the seditious, to treat about a surrender; which they did out of the desire they had of peace, and for saving their effects, because many of the citizens of Gadara were rich men.

This embassy the opposite party knew nothing of, but discovered it as Vespasian was approaching near the city. However, they despaired of keeping possession of the city, as being inferior in number to their enemies who were within the city, and seeing the Romans very near to the city; so they resolved to fly.

Josephus then states that after being driven from Gadara, the rebels fled to another town where they conscripted a group of young men into their ranks. This combined group then ran “like the wildest of beasts” attempting to escape. Eventually many were forced to “leap” into the river Jordan, where they drowned. So many dying in the river that, it “could not be passed over, by reason of the dead bodies that were in.”