Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition (5 page)

Among Christianity’s oldest surviving records is the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, dated to 96 C.E. The letter was purportedly written by (Pope) Clement I to a congregation of Christians who had apparently rebelled against the church’s authority. It shows that even at the onset of the religion the bishop of Rome was able to give orders to the church of Corinth, and that the church of Rome used the Roman army as an example of the kind of discipline and obedience that it expected from other churches and their members.

The Church of God which sojourneth in Rome to the Church of God which sojourneth in Corinth,
¹⁵

Let us mark the soldiers that are enlisted under our rulers, how exactly, how readily, how submissively, they execute the orders given them.

All are not prefects, nor rulers of thousands, nor rulers of hundreds, nor rulers of fifties, and so forth; but each man in his own rank executeth the orders given by the king and the governors.

1Clem 37:2-3

But how did the church’s authority structure come into existence resembling the Roman military?  Who established it and who gave the bishops such absolute control?  Cyprian wrote:

…
“
The bishop is in the Church and the Church is in the bishop … and if anyone is not with the bishop, that person is not in the Church.”
¹⁶

And why was Rome, supposedly the center of Christian persecution, chosen as the church’s headquarters?

A Roman origin would explain why the bishop of Rome was later made the supreme pontiff of the church. And why Rome became its headquarters. It would explain how a Judean cult eventually became the state religion of the Roman Empire. A Roman origin would also explain why so many members of a Roman imperial family, the Flavians, were recorded as being among the first Christians. The Flavians would have been among the first Christians because, having invented the religion, they were, in fact, the first Christians.

When considering a Flavian invention of Christianity, one should bear in mind that the Flavian emperors were considered to be divine and often created religions. The oath that they swore when being ordained emperor began with the instruction that they would do “all things divine … in the interests of the empire.” The Arch of Titus, which commemorates Titus’ destruction of Jerusalem, is inscribed with the following statement:

SENATUS POPULUS QUE ROMANUS  DIVO  TITO  DIVI  VESPASIANI.  F VESPASIANO AUGUST

[The Senate and People of Rome, to the divine Titus, son of the divine Vespasian]

Fragments of the written pronouncement, given in 69 C.E. by the prefect of Egypt Tiberius Alexander, in which he recognized Vespasian as the new emperor, are still in existence. Vespasian is referred to in them as “the divine Caesar” and “Lord.”

Josephus also believed that Vespasian was a divine person. He claimed that Judaism’s messianic prophecies foretold that Vespasian would become the lord of all mankind. This indicates that in the eyes of Josephus, Vespasian was not only the “Jesus,” or savior of Judea, but that he was also the “Christ,” the Greek word for the Messiah that was foreseen in the prophecies of a Judaic world-leader.

Thou, O Vespasian, thinkest no more than that thou hast taken Josephus himself captive; but I come to thee as a messenger of greater tidings; for had not I been sent by God to thee …

Thou, O Vespasian, art Caesar and emperor, thou, and this thy son.

Bind me now still faster, and keep me for thyself, for thou, O Caesar, are not only lord over me, but over the land and the sea, and all mankind.
¹⁷

Josephus, in proclaiming himself God’s minister, also described an ending of God’s “contract” with Judaism that was quite similar to the position that the New Testament takes concerning Christianity—the only difference being that Josephus believed that God’s good fortune had gone over not to Christianity but to Rome and its imperial family, the Flavians.

Since it pleaseth thee, who hast created the Jewish nation, to depress the same, and since all their good fortune is gone over to the Romans, and since thou hast made choice of this soul of mine to foretell what is to come to pass hereafter, I willingly give them my hands, and am content to live. And I protest openly that I do not go over to the Romans as a deserter of the Jews, but as a minister from thee.
¹⁸

Scholars have dismissed Josephus’ application of Judaism’s messianic prophecies to Caesar as simple flattery. I disagree, and shall show that not only did Josephus “believe” Vespasian to be “god,” and Titus therefore the “son of god,” but that his histories were entirely constructed to demonstrate that very fact.

There was nothing unusual in Josephus’ recognition of Vespasian as a god. The Flavians merely continued the tradition of establishing emperors as gods, that the Julio-Claudian line of Roman emperors had begun. Julius Caesar, the first
diuus
(divine)
of that line, claimed to have been descended from Venus. The Roman Senate is said to have decreed that he was a god because a comet appeared shortly after his death, thus demonstrating his divinity.

In 80 C.E., Titus established an imperial cult for his father, who had passed away during the previous year. The cult was politically important to Titus because Vespasian’s deification would break the Julio-Claudian line of divine succession and thereby secure the throne for the Flavians.

Because only the Roman Senate could bestow the title
of
diuus
, Titus first needed to convince them that Vespasian had been a god. There was evidently some difficulty in arranging this, however; Vespasian’s
consecratio
did not occur until six months after his death, an unusually long interval.
¹⁹
Titus also created a priesthood, the
flamines,
to administer the cult. The cult of Vespasian was not isolated to Rome, and appointments were made throughout the provinces. In the areas surrounding Judea, a Roman bureaucracy called the Commune Asiae oversaw the cult
.
Notably, all seven of the Christian “churches of Asia” mentioned in
Revelation
1:11 had agencies of the Commune
located within them.

Upon her death, Titus also secured the deification of his sister, Domitilla. In going through the process of deifying his father and sister and establishing their cults, Titus received an education in a skill few humans have ever possessed. He learned how to create a religion.

Titus not only created and administered religions, he was a prophet. While emperor, he received the title of Pontifex Maximus, which made him
the high priest of the Roman religion and the official head of the Roman college of priests—the same title and office that, once Christianity had become the Roman state religion, its popes would assume. As Pontifex Maximus, Titus was responsible for a large collection of prophecies (
annales maximi
) every year, and officially recorded celestial and other signs, as well as the events that had followed these omens, so that future generations would be able to better understand the divine will.

Titus was unusually literate. He claimed to take shorthand faster than any secretary and to be able to “forge any man’s signature” and stated that under different circumstances he could have become “the greatest forger in history.”
²⁰
Suetonius records that Titus possessed “conspicuous mental gifts,” and “made speeches and wrote verses in Latin and Greek” and that his “memory was extraordinary.”
²¹

Titus’ brother Domitian, who succeeded him as emperor, also used religion to his advantage. In addition to deifying his brother, Domitian attempted to link himself to Jupiter, the supreme god of the Roman Empire, by having the Senate decree that the god had mandated his rule.

Not only did the Flavians create religions, they performed miracles. In the following passage from Tacitus, Vespasian is recorded as curing one man’s blindness and another’s withered limb, miracles also performed by Jesus:

One of the common people of Alexandria, well known for his blindness … begged Vespasian that he would deign to moisten his cheeks and eyeballs with his spittle. Another with a diseased hand prayed that the limb might feet the print of a Caesar’s foot.  And so Vespasian … accomplished what was required. The hand was instantly restored to its use, and the light of day again shone upon the blind.
²²

The Gospels record that Jesus also used this method of curing blindness, that is by placing spittle on a blind man’s eyelids.

After thus speaking, He spat on the ground, and then, kneading the dust and spittle into clay, He smeared the clay over the man’s eyes and said to him,

“Go and wash in the pool of Siloam”—the name means “sent.” So he went and washed his eyes, and returned able to see.

John 9:6-7

Other stories were circulated about Vespasian that suggested his divinity. One involved a stray dog dropping a human hand at Vespasian’s feet. The hand was a symbol of power to first-century Romans. Another tale described an ox coming into Vespasian’s dining room and literally falling at the emperor’s feet and lowering his neck, as if recognizing to whom its sacrifice was due.

Circulating tales that suggested they were gods was no doubt thought by the Flavians to be a good tonic for hoi polloi. The more an emperor was seen by his subjects to be divine, the easier it was for him to maintain his control over them. The Flavians certainly focused on manipulating the masses. To promote the policy of “bread and circuses” they built the Coliseum, where they staged shows with gladiators and wild beasts that involved mass slaughter.

Imperial cults that portrayed Roman emperors as gods and workers of miracles appear to have been created solely because they were politically useful. The cults seem to have evoked no religious emotion. No evidence of any spontaneous offerings attesting to the sincerity of the worshipers has ever been discovered.

The advantage of converting one’s family into a succession of gods appealed to many Roman emperors: 36 of the 60 emperors from Augustus to Constantine and 27 members of their families were apotheosized and received the title
diuus
.

Of course, inventors of fictitious religions must have a certain cynicism in regard to the sacred. Vespasian was quoted on his deathbed as saying:

“Oh my, I must be turning into a god!”
²³

Pliny commented on the cynicism that the Flavians felt toward the religions they had created. Notice in the following quote Pliny’s understanding that Titus had made himself a “son of a god.”

Titus deified Vespasian and Domitian Titus, but only so that one would be the son of a god and the other a brother of a god.
²⁴

The cynicism that the patrician class felt toward religion was a subject of the satires of the Roman poet Juvenal. While the exact dates of Juvenal’s birth and death are unknown, it is believed that he lived during the era of the Flavians. One of his satires concerns Agrippa and Bernice, the mistress of Titus.
²⁵
Tradition has it that Juvenal was banished from Rome by Domitian.

Sophisticated Romans, like those Juvenal wrote about, did not believe in the gods but rather in fortune and fate. The prevailing ethos of the patrician class was that the world was either ruled by blind chance or immutable destiny:

Fortune has no divinity, could we but see it: it’s we, we ourselves, who make her a goddess, and set her in the heavens.
²⁶

Judging from the works of Juvenal, many Romans saw all religious belief, including their own, as ridiculous.

Just hark at those loud denials, observe the assurance of the lying face

He’ll swear by the Sun’s rays, by Jupiter’s thunderbolts,

by the lance of Mars, by the arrows of Delphic Apollo,

by the quiver and shafts of Diana, the virgin huntress,

by the trident of Neptune, Our Father of the Aegean:

he’ll throw in Hercules’ bows and the spear of Minerva,

the armories of Olympus down til their very last item:

and if he’s a father, he’ll cry; “May I eat my own son’s noodle—poor child!

—well boiled and soused in a vinaigrette dressing!”
²⁷

Juvenal was also cynical toward Judaism. His attitude regarding the religion suggests that many within the patrician class saw the religion and, no doubt, its offspring Christianity, as barbaric cults.

…
A palsied Jewess, parking her haybox outside, comes begging in a breathy whisper. She interprets Jerusalem’s laws; she’s the tree’s high priestess … She likewise fills her palm but more sparingly: Jews will sell you whatever dreams you like for a few coppers.
²⁸