Surely the Father of Latin Christianity Has Something to Say About Julius Caesar?

The first Christian to ever write in Latin has much to say about Augustus, Tiberius, Nero, Domitian—and even Vespasian—but for some reason he never explicitly mentions Julius Caesar. When Tertullian does allude to the assassination of Caesar by Cassius, he doesn’t specify which Caesar he’s talking about! And this is a delightful problem, because a Cassius was both the ringleader of Caligula’s murder and Brutus’ chief conspirator in the murder of Julius Caesar.

Tertullian describes a time when many Romans were converting to Christianity and Christians were persecuted by the Roman state, circa 200 AD. In his Apology, Tertullian contrasts the role and nature of the Caesars with the nature of Christianity. He writes, “Yes, and the Caesars too would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars.” He says that the very worldly authority of the Caesars makes them unfit to be Christians. But he also says Christians are unable to worship Caesar. Their mutual exclusion is clear: “Who, then, are greater enemies and persecutors of Christians, than the very parties with treason against whom we are charged?”

In his discussion of the difference between Christians and Romans, Tertullian alludes to the assassination of a Caesar by a Cassius: “Whence, then, came a Cassius, a Niger, an Albinus? Whence they who beset the Caesar between the two laurel groves? Whence they who practised wrestling, that they might acquire skill to strangle him?” In the same paragraph, Tertullian writes of the traitors to Caesar, “no doubt they were in the habit of calling Christians enemies of the state.” This precludes possibility that Tertullian is talking about Julius Caesar, since he officially died in the century before Christ. Yet Caligula was known as an enemy of the Jews, not Christians.

Both Caesars were actually named Gaius Julius Caesar, both were despised by the Senate, both assassinated, and both are twins with Jesus Christ as well as each other. Another man who took Julius Caesar’s name was Augustus, the first Roman emperor. Tertullian writes, “Augustus, the founder of the empire, would not even have the title Lord; for that, too, is a name of Deity.” But this is a funny thing to say about a man who took the title of “Divi Filius” or “Son of the Deified One”, in reference to Julius Caesar, who was supposedly deified by the Senate in 42 BC. Augustus was even worshipped as a god during his lifetime at Pergamon, the old Olympian home base.

Discussing the religious differences between Christianity and the Roman religion, Tertullian writes: “you are really guilty of the crime you charge on us, not merely by refusing the true religion of the true God, but by going the further length of persecuting it.” Tertullian sounds very old testament here with his shtick about the “true god”. He acknowledges that the Roman Jupiter is basically equivalent to a supreme God surrounded by angels, but still he insists on the iconoclastic dogmatism of YHWH. This is Christianity as a Trojan horse for Yahwism. We know that after the Christians gained control of the Roman state, they destroyed the old gods.

Tertullian sums up his theology regarding the Caesars:

I place him in subjection to one I regard as more glorious than himself. Never will I call the emperor God, and that either because it is not in me to be guilty of falsehood; or that I dare not turn him into ridicule; or that not even himself will desire to have that high name applied to him. If he is but a man, it is his interest as man to give God His higher place. Let him think it enough to bear the name of emperor. That, too, is a great name of God's giving. To call him God, is to rob him of his title. If he is not a man, emperor he cannot be. -Tertullian, Apology XXXIII

Note: “if he is but a man, it is his interest as man to give God His higher place”. One could say the same thing about Jesus Christ. Tertullian later writes, “If such adulation is not ashamed of its lie, in addressing a man as divine, let it have some dread at least of the evil omen which it bears. It is the invocation of a curse, to give Caesar the name of god before his apotheosis.” Does not the same logic apply to Jesus Christ?

It is strange indeed that none of the early Christians mention either Julius Caesar or Caligula, since one was famous for becoming the first deified Roman after his death, and one was famous for demanding to be worshipped as a god during his life. The two Caesars most relevant to Tertullian’s argument are absent from his text; he mentions the name of Cassius, and the mysterious bit about Caesar being beset between two laurel groves, but that’s it. Who exactly was beset between two laurel groves?

The first Christian to mention “Gaius” is Julius Africanus, writing about the same time as Tertullian, although this snippet only comes to us in a scarce fragment from a medieval monk. It would not be until Eusebius’ Chronicon, circa 325 AD, that Julius Caesar would be explicitly addressed by a Christian writer.

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