Jesus Christ and "Gay" Caesar: Brothers from Another Mother

There’s something decidedly false about the dawn of the Roman empire, and the more you look for an unbreakable link to the past, the more everything falls apart. While the historical reality of Julius Caesar is typically taken for granted, the early historians do not name him as such, and in some cases his character is absent altogether. First he is just called “Caesar”, then “Gaius Caesar” (named, not coincidentally, after Caligula), then finally transformed into Julius. By this time he has become a strange twin of Jesus Christ, evolving from Mark’s usage of Christ as a symbol of Caesar. His evolution proves that like Jesus, Julius Caesar is an imaginary person.

According to pop history, Julius Caesar subdues the wild white peoples in Gaul (northern Europe) before returning to Rome triumphant. There, his prestige soon wins him the airs of a King, although like Jesus in the gospels, he does not directly claim the title or authority. Nevertheless, Caesar is betrayed and assassinated by his followers. The Roman republic hated kings and even awarded honors for tyrannicide. To this day some people think it is a Western value to kill the king.

Jesus Christ follows in Caesar’s footsteps. Jesus comes from Galilee, a region directly associated with Galatia, the place where Paul “sent” his first letter. Galatia is literally little Gaul, an island of white Celtic people who settled in ancient Anatolia. Jesus crosses the river Jordan and rides a donkey into Jerusalem to challenge the Sanhedrin, before being betrayed by one of his most trusted followers and murdered. Compare to Caesar, who crosses the river Rubicon and rides a horse into Rome to challenge the Senate, before being betrayed by one of his most trusted followers and murdered. Jesus is killed for the exact same reason as Caesar, accused of being a king. Both became known not only as kings, but as divine sons of God.

Perhaps the most jarring correspondence is that both characters die at the same time of year, and both are born near a solstice - Julius in July, and Jesus on Yule (aka Giuli). Their birthdays share the same name yet are on opposite sides of the calendar! We are obviously dealing with imitation (and thus flattery). My question was simple: who came first? According to history, Julius came first, assassinated some 75 years before the crucifiction. But surprisingly, Julius is hardly anywhere to be found.

“Gay” Caesar and the Confused Historians

The most authoritative source on the ancient Jewish world is Philo. He is perhaps the first credible source to use the word Caesar. Philo talks about Tiberius Caesar in “Flaccus”, along with his father, Augustus Caesar, and his son, Gaius Caesar. Philo lived during the supposed lifetime of Christ and was deeply interested in Jewish religion and Platonic philosophy, yet Philo says nothing about Jesus Christ, and his silence on the matter is a good reason to regard “the Messiah” as a myth. Not surprisingly, Philo tells us nothing about Julius Caesar either. The pertinent Caesar named by him is Gaius, known to popular history as Caligula. He also calls Augustus “our saviour and benefactor”, and waxes rhapsodic about his clan.

Yet Gaius also became the first name of “Julius” Caesar before he was ever called Julius! Gaius is a name from Etruscan or Oscan meaning “to rejoice”, or in other words, to be gay. Consider: in late Latin the word gaius was applied to jay birds. Etymonline says the English word jay, from Latin gaius, was “applied to humans in sense of ‘impertinent chatterer, loud, flashy dresser’ from 1520s. Jolly as a jay was a Middle English expression for ‘very happy, joyful’”. Gaius means gay as a jay.

Before proceeding, we must make a universal disclaimer when dealing with ancient literature and history. Such works were aggressively destroyed by iconoclastic Christians after their religion became the state religion of the Roman empire. Surviving manuscripts were gatekept by generations of monks and priests. Our oldest copies of ancient works postdate their alleged composition by centuries. Such literature is full of pseudo epigraphic text (imitating a known author), interpolation (inserting new text into an old author), and redaction (removing text from an old author). Therefore, any part of any ancient text could be an anachronism. Indeed, Philo’s letters about Tiberius Caesar and his son Gaius (Caligula) do not fit in well with the rest of his oeuvre, which is detailed exegesis of Jewish scripture.

Aside from “Flaccus”, Philo’s other mention of the Caesars comes in his “Embassy to Gaius”. This document provides the only information in the works of Philo that can be precisely dated (to 40 AD). It deals with the same tension between Caesar and the Jews later expounded by Josephus and Mark. Philo complains about Gaius Caesar’s (Caligula’s) plan to erect a statue of himself in the Jewish temple, saying “Gaius ought not to be likened to any god” (Gaius 16). He asks, “Are you making war upon us, because you anticipate that we will not endure such indignity, but that we will fight on behalf of our laws, and die in defense of our national customs?” (Gaius 31).

Philo heaps glowing praise on the first Caesar - not Julius, but Augustus:

Very nearly the whole race of mankind would have been destroyed by mutual slaughter and made utterly to disappear, if it had not been for one man and leader, Augustus, by whose means they were brought to a better state, and therefore we may justly call him the averter of evil. This is Caesar, who calmed the storms which were raging in every direction, who healed the common diseases which were afflicting both Greeks and barbarians […] This is he who did not only loosen but utterly abolish the bonds in which the whole of the habitable world was previously bound and weighed down. This is he who destroyed both the evident and the unseen wars which arose from the attacks of robbers. This is he who rendered the sea free from the vessels of pirates, and filled it with Merchantmen. This is he who gave freedom to every city, who brought disorder into order, who civilized and made obedient and harmonious, nations which before his time were unsociable, hostile, and brutal. This is he who increased Greece by many Greeces, and who Greecised the regions of the barbarians in their most important divisions: the guardian of peace, the distributor to every man of what was suited to him, the man who proffered to all the citizens favours with the most ungrudging liberality, who never once in his whole life concealed or reserved for himself any thing that was good or excellent.

-Philo, Embassy to Gaius (21)

Incredibly, Philo appears to be describing Alexander the Great when he talks about Augustus: “he who increased Greece by many Greeces, and who Greecised the regions of the barbarians” and “who proffered to all the citizens favours with the most ungrudging liberality”. Here’s another interesting tidbit: Philo transcribes a letter to the Ephesians (Gaius 40). Ephesos was the Anatolian city (near Galatia) where the primordial Temple of Artemis was built circa 800 BC. Paul’s Christian epistles also contain a pseudo epigraphic letter to the Ephesians.

Philo death is dated to 50 AD, just a few years after Paul’s first epistle to the Galatians. Paul was the first person in history to write about Jesus Christ. Paul describes himself as a reformed Jew who cajoles Hellenic peoples in the northern Mediterranean, including Rome, to send their money to Jerusalem. Paul’s original letters do not support a historical Christ, telling us nothing about the life of Jesus. But a generation later, the gospel of Mark blended Paul together with the history of Josephus, entangling Christ and Caesar for the first time. Mark is the origin of their resemblance. But Christianity doesn’t name Julius Caesar either:

While Paul mentions Rome in his letter to the Romans (as well as the pseudo epigraphic letter of 2 Timothy), no mention of Rome or Romans is made in the gospels of Mark, Matthew, or Marcion, despite these being the oldest narratives of Jesus’ ministry, and despite their references to Caesar. Meanwhile, Paul never mentions Caesar, and to him Rome is just another city of the gentiles. Nobody mentions “Julius”, and “Augustus” is only mentioned by Luke.

-Christianity Cannot Attest to the Early Roman Empire

Likewise:

Church father Origen does not mention any Caesar at all. He says Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus: “Moreover it is certain that Jesus was born in the reign of Augustus, who, so to speak, fused together into one monarchy the many populations of the earth” (Contra Celsus 2:30). Like Philo, Origen characterizes Augustus as Alexander the Great, and knows nothing about Julius Caesar!

Likewise Irenaeus says “our Lord was born about the forty-first year of the reign of Augustus” [which would be 14 AD] (Against Heresies 3.21.3). He also fails to mention Julius. Even as late as Eusebius, the church fathers know nothing about Julius Caesar! According to Eusebius, Julius was the son of Contantine, and was made Caesar on December 25 333 AD. He was made governor of Italy but then assassinated by one of his generals after becoming a little to friendly with the Gauls.

-Christianity Cannot Attest to the Early Roman Empire

Early Latin language sources are not any better. Livy mentions all kinds of people named Gaius and or Julius, but never Julius Caesar. He talks about the clan of Julus (Livy 1:3), and the month of July (Livy 2:42) and venerates Augustus Caesar. One time he talks about “Gaius Julius”, a magistrate of the old republic who was appointed to judge Sestius (Livy 3.33). Now hold up, Julius Caesar is also credited with pardoning Sestius. But the Gaius Julius in Livy is not a Caesar! Livy even names another Gaius Julius fifty books later, whom he credits with writing a history of Rome in Greek circa 140 BC (Livy 53). Julius Caesar is also credited as a historian.

Livy’s books on Caesar are actually “missing”. Livy’s main text ends after book 45, and the remaining books are tiny fragments, differing markedly from the earlier text. The first biographical details of the “great” Caesar show up another 50 fragments later in Livy 103, where he is called Gaius Caesar. Livy never names Julius, only calling him Gaius in fragments that are likely anachronisms. Josephus, the Jewish author who wrote a Greek history about the Roman conquest of Jerusalem in 70 AD, doesn’t mention “Julius” in his Wars of the Jews either:

As in Mark and Matthew, Wars only uses Caesar as a royal title, never connecting it to the “Julius” that supposedly gave it such great importance. Josephus first introduces Caesar as a title of Titus Flavius, then later describes the ascension and assassination of two Caesars without ever using the name Julius. The other Caesar is named Sextus Caesar, “a kinsman of the great Caesar”. These two were succeeded by the “younger Caesar”, who becomes of course, simply, Caesar. In Wars, Josephus names all the Emperors of the Julio Claudian dynasty: Augustus, Tiberius, Caius (i.e. Caligula), Claudius, and Nero. But he never names Julius.

-Why Did Josephus Name Every Caesar Except Julius?

Thus Josephus does not name "Julius” Caesar, and the only Caesar he calls Gaius is Tiberius’ son (Caligula). This exactly accords with the knowledge expressed in Philo, and shows that Josephus likely used Philo as a source, or else elements from Josephus were back dated into Philo. As in the fragments of Livy, Josephus talks about the biography of Caesar: “[Caesar] got Rome and the Empire under his power” before suffering a “treacherous slaughter” at the hands of Cassius and Brutus (Wars 1:9-11). Unlike Livy’s fragments, Josephus does not call him Gaius. Josephus’ “great” Caesar is actually the most primitive of all; Josephus appears to have invented him.

Philo, Wars, and the Gospels are not the only sources to completely omit the names Julius and Gaius in reference to Caesar. Plutarch’s Caesar does not name them. We are now running out of historical sources! Wait a second, you say, what about Cicero and Caesar himself? Cicero describes the same Gaius Julius as Livy: “I allude to Gaius Julius, who declared respecting the nobleman Lucius Sestius, in whose chamber a dead body had been exhumed under his own eyes…” (Tusculan Disputations 36). Cicero also names a Gaius Caesar, but its not clear whether he means Caligula or Julius (De Oficiis 1:26). There is only one explicit reference to Julius Caesar in Cicero’s Thirteenth Philippic. He also alludes to the renaming of July: “Is it really so? The 9th of July? Heaven confound them! But I could go on cursing all day. Could they have insulted Brutus worse than with their July?” (Letters to Atticus 16.1).

And Caesar himself, supposed to have written his own history of the Gallic wars? These “autobiographical” books only refer to Caesar in the 3rd person. They say “Julius Caesar, holding the election as dictator, was himself appointed consul with Publius Servilius” (De Bello Gallico 3.1). And that is the only mention of his name! Lesser Latin sources are no better. Sallust mentions Gaius Caesar in his “War with Catiline”. Pliny the Elder talks about Gaius Caesar, “the son of Augustus”, in other words, once again, Caligula (Natural History 6.32). He also mentions “the deified Julius Caesar” (Natural History 9.57). But like Josephus, Pliny was a friend of Vespasian, the guy who won his civil war against Rome and Jerusalem in 70 AD.

Thus we can easily count the ancient references to Julius Caesar: one in Cicero’s 13th Philippic, one in Caesar’s autobiography, one in Pliny the Elder, a few in Strabo’s Geography, and one passage in Josephus’ Antiquities, dated to 93 AD, about 20 years after Wars of the Jews. The reference in Antiquities stinks to high heaven. It says Julius Caesar made the same fawning promises to the Jews that Philo ascribes to Augustus. Rather than an enemy of Jerusalem, Caesar is presented as the Jews’ best friend:

I Julius Caesar, imperator the second time, and high priest, have made this decree, with the approbation of the senate. Whereas Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander the Jew, hath demonstrated his fidelity and diligence about our affairs, and this both now and in former times, both in peace and in war, as many of our generals have borne witness, and came to our assistance in the last Alexandrian war, with fifteen hundred soldiers; and when he was sent by me to Mithridates, showed himself superior in valor to all the rest of that army;—for these reasons I will that Hyrcanus, the son of Alexander, and his children, be ethnarchs of the Jews, and have the high priesthood of the Jews for ever, according to the customs of their forefathers, and that he and his sons be our confederates; and that besides this, everyone of them be reckoned among our particular friends. I also ordain that he and his children retain whatsoever privileges belong to the office of high priest, or whatsoever favors have been hitherto granted them; and if at any time hereafter there arise any questions about the Jewish customs, I will that he determine the same. And I think it not proper that they should be obliged to find us winter quarters, or that any money should be required of them.

-Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews (14.10.2)

Even as late as 165 CE, the Greek historian Appian does not name “Julius” Caesar in his Civil Wars, only calling him Gaius. Appian also names his supposed uncle Sextus Julius Caesar. The first source to write extensively about “Julius” Caesar is Suetonius, a Latin historian, whose biography of the “Twelve Caesars” dates to around 120 AD. But like Josephus, Pliny, and the bawdy satirist Juvenal (whose name we could rewrite as “Venal Jew”), Suetonius was closely associated with Vespasian and was probably tasked with rewriting history by the victors of the war against Rome and Jerusalem. Also, similar to Livy, the first chapters of Suetonius’ work on Caesar are “missing”.

Appian yields a delightful literary gem that demonstrates how he is adapting other sources into his history book. He writes, “As the armies came together a Gaul of huge size ran forward and challenged any Roman to single combat, but when a little Moor accepted the challenge and killed him, the Gauls were terrified and fled” (Civil Wars 1.50). This is an obvious rendition of David and Goliath, who has become Gaul-iath, suggesting an ethnic connection between Palestine and Galatia.

By the time of Cassius Dio’s Roman History (written in Greek circa 230 AD), the name Julius is firmly established as the name of the great Caesar. It only took a few centuries to get the story straight. And yet when Constantine rebooted the Roman empire circa 325 AD, his chronicler Eusebius does not mention Julius either, despite talking about Tiberius and Nero and using Caesar and Augustus as royal titles.

Christ Imitates Caesar; Caesar Imitates Christ

The key to understanding the relationship between Christ and Caesar, and thus the dawn of Roman imperial history, is the character of “Pontius” Pilate. In Josephus’ Wars, Pilate introduces images of the divine Caesar into Jerusalem, offending the pious Jews who refuse to worship his royal image. Although inclined to force the ensigns of Caesar upon the Jews, Pilate relents when the Jews willingly bare their necks to his swordsmen. He removes the images of Caesar from the city, and the Jews are happy. Philo tells a very similar story about Pilate in Jerusalem, along with his tale of Gaius Caesar (Caligula) introducing his idol to the Jewish temple.

Other early sources on Pilate are nonexistent. Again, it appears that Josephus relied on Philo as a source. Mark, in turn, relied on Josephus as a source. Not only does Mark transform the story of Pilate into a Christian allegory, he also has Jesus predict the destruction of Jerusalem by the Flavians in 70 AD.

The literary logic is not hard to follow; it proves that Mark’s gospel allegorizes the history contained in Josephus’ Wars of the Jews. Mark was the first gospel written, and since it is copied by Matthew and Luke, its scriptural authority is central. Mark says that the lessons of Heaven are taught in parables, suggesting that not only Jesus’ teachings, but also the gospel itself is an allegory. Jesus says “to those on the outside everything is expressed in parables”, meaning to everyone who is not one of his 12 followers (Mark 4:11). To take Mark literally is to miss its point entirely. Mark says that the very purpose of teaching in parables is so most people will not understand.

Paul never mentions Pilate; he speaks of Jesus being killed at the hands of “archons” (or rulers). Thus Mark is the first book to name Pilate as Jesus’ executioner. Mark’s tale of Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem dramatizes Josephus’ story of Pilate introducing the standards of Caesar. Both Jesus and Caesar are divine kings, idols who offend the iconoclastic Jews. The Jews reject Pilate’s ensigns of Caesar just as they reject Jesus and his redefinition of their laws. Pilate is persuaded to remove the ensigns of Caesar, just as he is persuaded to put Christ on a pole of his own. The gospel of Mark dramatizes the rejection of the “great” Caesar in Jerusalem. but if we follow this tale back to Philo, we learn that it is a rejection of Gaius Caesar, as in Caligula.

It is unsurprising that Pilate in Josephus provides the model for the parable of Mark, since Mark also relies on Josephus for Jesus’ prophecy about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Mark dates to 75 AD or later, because this is when Josephus published Wars of the Jews, describing the Jewish temple so thoroughly leveled with the ground that it was as if it had never been there at all. This same image is eloquently articulated by Jesus as “not one stone left upon another” (Mark 13:2). Jesus and Josephus even describe the same signs preceding Jewish doomsday, including earthquakes, famine, and families killing each other (Mark 13:12). Faithful Christians once widely believed that Titus Caesar fulfilled the prophecies of Jesus in 70 AD, a method of scriptural interpretation known as Preterism.

Not only was Vespasian’s historian a Jew (Josephus), so was Titus’ second in command at the siege and conquest of Jerusalem. His name? Tiberius Julius Alexander. Philo was his uncle. Just as they do not call any Caesar “Julius”, Philo and Wars do not call Pilate “Pontius”. Like Julius, Pontius is first mentioned in Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews some 20 years later than Wars. Utilizing Antiquities and the rest of Josephus’ corpus as a source, Luke was the first gospel to use the name “Pontius Pilate” circa 170 CE, thus making him a main character of a burgeoning fake history.

In Latin, unlike in the original Greek, both JC’s have the same initials. Really, their names mean the exact same thing: Divine Savior King. As the biography of “Julius” developed it borrowed elements back from the Christian gospels. Christ and Caesar are co dependent reflections of each other. Julius’ birthday landed exactly 100 years before Christ, just as the dawn of the Roman Empire landed exactly 100 years before the Flavians completed their conquest of the Jews that was “predicted” in Mark.

Philo’s description of Augustus is reminiscent of Alexander, while Philo’s treatment of Gaius Caesar (Caligula) apparently inspired the character of the “great” Caesar (who was also first known as Gaius, then Julius). Aside from Mark, Josephus offers the most primitive depiction of the “great” Caesar, describing him among several other Caesars without ever calling him Julius or Gaius.

It thus becomes unclear whether the Flavian conquest was actually a Roman civil war at all. The Flavians sacked the temples of Jupiter in Rome and Jehovah in Jerusalem within a year of each other - and it turns out that both of these temples may be literary projections of the original ancient temple in Ephesos, which was dedicated to the goddess Artemis. The Julio Claudian dynasty could be entirely fake, not to mention the older Roman republic and kingdom. It cannot escape our attention that classical Latin bears little resemblance to its “vulgar” basis, or that the mosaics of Pompeii show Alexander the Great and not Julius Caesar.

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