It was at the asclepeion on his native island of Cos that the famous healer Hippocrates (5th-4th centuries BCE) was probably trained in medicine, and the 2nd Century CE physician Galen was educated at the important asclepeion at Pergamon in the Roman province of Asia (modern-day Turkey), a facility that had been expanded by the Romans.
Pergamon was also the site of an important library, considered to be a rival to the famous library at Alexandria in Egypt, as well as a great temple of the Egyptian deities Isis and Serapis. According to Christian legend, St. Antipas, the first bishop of Pergamon, became such a rival to the priests of Serapis there that he was martyred during the reign of Domitian in around 92 CE by being burnt inside a brazen bull.
Eastern Orthodox Christians still pray to Antipas to relieve their toothaches. The entire “third region” of early imperial Rome, Regio tertia, was named Isis et Serapis because of the large temple to those deities there. Originally dedicated to Isis alone in the 1st Century BCE, during the Flavian era her worship there came to be associated with Serapis.
After it was destroyed by the fire of 80 CE, Domitian reconstructed and dedicated it to both gods.
The Flavian dynasty appears to have had a pre-existing relationship with the cults of Isis and Serapis, for it was with the aid of the priests of Isis at Rome that young Domitian, disguising himself as a devotee of her cult, was protected from Flavian rivals during the civil war of 69 CE. (Suetonius, Domitian, 1) Such a relationship, of course, could also help explain the early and enthusiastic assistance provided to Vespasian at the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria in the first year of his reign.
24. Tacitus, Histories, ante, Book IV, 81
25. Mark 3:1-6, Luke 6:6-11 and Matthew 12:9-14
26. Suetonius, Vespasian, 7. NOTE: Another person who was said to have performed healing miracles in the tradition of Aesclepius during the second half of the 1st Century is Apollonius of Tyana, who has been compared to Jesus Christ. Our principal source for the life of Apollonius is Lucius Flavius Philostratus, c. 170-250 CE.
27. Levick, ante, p. 69
28. Levick, ante, p. 43
29. Mark 8: 22-26; cf. Mark 7:33
30. John 9:6
31. Josephus, Wars, Book VI, chapter 5, sec. 4, emphasis added.
32. Suetonius, Vespasian, 4
33. Tacitus, Histories, ante, Book V, 13, emphasis added.
34. NOTE: For a good discussion of Johanan ben Zakkai’s messianic assertions about Vespasian, see Eisenman, James the Brother of Jesus, ante, pp. 24, 39, 45, 69, 255, 557, 897, 946.
35. 1 Corinthians 13:13
36. Hebrews 11:1
37. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, 2.8
38. Suetonius, Titus, 1
39. Ibid
40. Suetonius, Titus, 3
41. Suetonius, Titus, 7; NOTE: Before becoming emperor, Titus (like Henry V of England) had a reputation for wild partying. He was also known to have ruthlessly eliminated more than one of his or his father’s political foes. In the face of his famous benevolence as emperor, however, it seems that all of that was forgiven.
42. Suetonius, Titus, 8, emphasis added.
43. Suetonius, Titus, 8, emphasis added.
44. Ibid, emphasis added
45. Suetonius, Titus, 10
46. Suetonius, Titus, 11
47. Philostratus, The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, sec. 32, emphasis added. NOTE: The “fish” reported to have killed Titus was in fact a mollusk called the Sea Hare, but to most of the ancients almost all sea creatures were called “fish,” as was the dolphin.
48. Carotta, Francesco, Jesus Was Caesar, 2005, Aspekt, esp. pp. 47-48 and 282-283. NOTE: Carotta observes that Julius Caesar’s descent from Gaul in the north to a triumphant arrival in Rome where he becomes a martyr to his own compassion and mercy (clementia) parallels the descent of Jesus Christ from Galilee in the north to a triumphant arrival in Jerusalem. Both men are killed by a senate/Sanhedrin for claiming to be “kings.” Likewise, Atwill observes, Titus’s descent from Galilee to a triumphal entrance into Jerusalem is itself directly foreshadowed—and foretold—by Jesus. For Titus’s propagandistic purposes, Jesus provided the ideal bridge—a fusion that demonstrated that he was, in effect, the new Divine Julius. The deeds of both Christ and Caesar were rendered portents of Titus. Again, one need not accept all of Carotta’s ideas in order to appreciate the range of fascinating insights contained in his work.
Consider how long the pro-government, even pro-Caesar nature of Christian literature persisted. For example, in the first part of the devout Dante’s 14th Century epic poem, The Divine Comedy, we are led through hell itself and its several descending circles. In each of these circles a different category of sinner is punished. With each new level reached, of course, the sins and the torments punishing them are more hideous. At the very bottom, Satan himself is trapped in a frozen lake with his torso and head above the surface of the ice. He has three faces and in each of his mouths is a sinner—presumably, the three worst and greatest sinners in all of history, chewed eternally by the devil himself.
In Satan’s center mouth is the disciple Judas, who betrayed Jesus Christ. More surprising to modern Christian readers, in the others are the ancient Roman traitors Brutus and Cassius Longinus, the men who assassinated Julius Caesar, the pagan god and Roman dictator.
The three mouths chew these damned souls without ever killing them. (Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto XXXIV)
49. Levick, ante, p. 65.
III. Roman Messiahs
1. Mark 13 (emphasis added); cf. Luke 21:5-37 and Matthew 24, et seq. NOTE: Another issue with which scholars have long contended involves those occasions when Jesus appears to assert that the “Kingdom of God” (which has been variously translated as “Kingdom of Heaven” or “God’s Imperial Rule”) has already arrived (see, e.g., John 16:33, Matthew 12:28 and Luke 11:20), despite also predicting it as a future event, something a theory of Roman provenance also helps to explain since, according to the Gospels, Jesus himself lived under Roman rule although Flavian rule had yet to arrive.
2. Mark 15:29-30
3. Josephus, Antiquities, Book XX, chapter 5, sec. 1-4
4. Joshua 3:14-17
5. See, generally, Schafer, Peter, Jesus in the Talmud, 2009, Princeton University Press. NOTE: The pagan origins of the virgin birth claimed for Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-38) are clear. Lacking a mortal father and being miraculous in nature, his divine paternity is demonstrated by an Immaculate Conception. Divine paternity was common among pagan heroes who enjoyed an apotheosis, but is something that lacks any precedent among Jewish messiahs from the Hebrew Bible for obvious monotheistic reasons.
In addition, the Gospel of Matthew’s attempt to ground the idea of a virgin birth in Hebrew prophecy has long been understood by scholars to be artificial. The cited prophecy (Matthew 1:23 quotes Isaiah 7:14) has no direct connection to the coming of the Messiah at all and was a “sign” to be associated with a specific event reported from Isaiah’s own time.
Finally, the word used by Isaiah originally meant only “young woman” and only took on the added meaning of “virgin” when Isaiah was later translated into the Greek language in the Septuagint.