Jesus was Caesar

Jesus was Caesar:

The Julian Origin of Christianity

by Francesco Carotta
Paperback: 512 pages
Publisher: Aspekt B V Uitgeverij (January 1, 2005)
ISBN: 9059113969

Not impossible.
Is there a link between Julius Caesar and Jesus Christ? Could one be the basis of
the other? It may sound impossible, but it's not!

Yes, from what we have been told, they are very different. We know Caesar as the
quintessential ambitious Roman who waged war and defeated foes like Vercingetorix
in Gaul, or Caesar's former friend, son-in-law and fellow Roman Pompey the Great.
Caesar traveled extensively and led conquering armies from the Nile in Egypt to
the Thames of Britannica. He is associated with pomp, pageantry and military
prowess like no other person before or since. How different is the story of Jesus
Christ! Here we have a figure of religious focus exclusively, and a mysterious
lack of any mention by the historians of his time. His career was brief and his
travels limited to wandering within a small area of Palestine. Far from being a
man of war, he is known to us most for preaching love, peace, and forgiveness. So
any suggestion of a link between these two men sounds absurd to us, or even
impossible. This is reaction is common to us all. But everything will begin to
change if we have the courage to look more closely.

In Jesus was Caesar, the author Francesco Carotta looks more closely than anyone
else ever thought to, and he provides an astonishing amount of evidence that a
link is not only possible, but very likely. The truth turns out to be, like the
old saying goes: stranger than fiction.

How could this be: How could such simple facts become so drastically confused?
The reasons are many and complex, and we will never know all the details. But we
can say for certain that political expediency began the process. The Roman world
was in chaos after Caesar's death in 44BC. A Roman civil war erupted, this one
even more bloody and ruthless than the previous. A long period of underground
struggle ensued between two sometimes allied, but always competing factions for
control of the empire: Octavian in the West claimed control as the adopted son of
Julius Caesar, while Mark Antony was in the East supporting the claim of Caesar's
biological son by Cleopatra. These two men out of necessity created competing
versions of the extremely popular and ubiquitous cult of the deified Julius
Caesar, Divus Iulius. The political division of the empire into two spheres of
influence (Octavian in Rome, and Antony in Alexandria) was reflected in two
conflicting religious worldviews, and this created the great fissure upon which
was built the great theological division of earliest Christianity—the one between
Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. When Octavian defeated Antony and
Cleopatra, he consolidated his control over the east by persecuting all forms of
the Divus Iulius cult that had been created and promoted by Antony and Cleopatra.
This is probably the source of the traditional stories of early Christianity
persecutions, and also the long-lasting propensity of the Church to hunt-down and
destroy ideas considered it considers 'heretical'.

The cult was localized, or adapted to the varying conditions of many locales all
across the empire, and one of these areas was Palestine. Under the long reign of
King Herod the Palestinian localized version of the cult was subjected to various
alterations, and they had added weight and carrying power because Herod was an
adopted son of Caesar himself, and was considered to be a Julian family member.
Even further, he had at his disposal Roman veteran soldiers who had been planted
there in colonies, and their descendants inherited the prestige of their fathers,
and their misconceptions of history and the cult probably lived on and had a great
effect.

But the most drastic alterations occurred during to the time of Vespasian and his
Jewish quasi-historian named Josephus was primarily responsible. This Emperor
(Vespasian) had a unique concern: he needed to legitimate his claim to the throne
because he had no claim of blood descent from the Iulian family. One solution was
to take advantage of prophecies in the east that foretold that arrival of a new
ruler of the world who would come from Palestine. With the creative assistance of
Josephus, Vespasian sought to prove that he was this prophesied ruler. And with
this as the goal, the cult of Divus Iulius and its traditions would undergo
massive emergency plastic surgery. The historical accounts of Julius Caesar were
re-interpreted to reflect an eastern origin.

In Jesus was Caesar, the author actually uncovers many other possible sources of
confusion that would have led to the grand scale of the misunderstanding. Surely a
mistake of this grand a scale needed many misunderstandings as well as a
widespread ignorance in the populace, and also political reasons for the powerful
to either permit all of it to fester, or even actively assist the spread.

Now, if this is really true, then why has no one discovered it until now?
When thinking of the average person the answer is easy: Because the vast majority
takes for granted that they already know who Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar were,
when in fact they know very few pertinent facts about either one, and what little
they do 'know' is inaccurate, incomplete, or outright balderdash. And as for the
case of the well-educated, nearly all of them are completely ignorant of the most
essential facts about Gaius Julius Caesar. How few know that Gaius Julius Caesar
was the Pontifex Maximus of Rome, and that his successful political career hinged
upon his being the High Priest of Rome. How little discussion or thought is made
of the implication that being the Pontifex Maximus, Gaius Julius Caesar would have
been leading armies who considered him to be their religious leader first and
foremost. As Pontifex Maximus Caesar's every move, word, and gesture would have
carried a religious meaning to his soldiers. How little attention is given to the
absolute certainty that in the eyes of the populace of Rome, monumental religious
consequences must occur because of the murder of Gaius Julius Caesar: he was the
High Priest of their city; He was the High Priest who had conquered the entire
world; who had conquered in the name of saving them from certain slavery to an
exploitive Roman nobility; and who had in fact been already recognized as a god
while still living!

The author's (Francesco Carotta's) website: http://carotta.de/