The Gospel of Caesar

Below is a video from a few years ago called "the Gospel of Caesar." Herein Francesco Carotta shows how the wax image of Julius Caesar was displayed on a cross, or tropaeum, at his funeral, March 17th or 20th, 44 BCE. He also lays out his hypotheses on how Christianity may be derived from the first Roman Imperial Cult of Divus Julius, and how the Gospel of Mark may be derived from a now-lost biography of Julius Caesar. Given the immense wealth of data he as dug up backing his hypotheses, I find the verity of them to be quite likely. 

More details to be found in the book: "Jesus was Caesar" by Francesco Carotta ( http://books.google.it/books/about/Je..., http://www.scribd.com/doc/4090002/Jes... ), and at the blog, Divvs Ivlivs.

EVIDENCE Showing Crosses Were Sacred to the Romans. Before Christianity.

"And the power of this form is shown by your own symbols on what are called "vexilla" [banners] and trophies, with which all your state possessions are made, using these as the insignia of your power and government, even though you do so unwittingly. And with this form you consecrate the images of your emperors when they die, and you name them gods by inscriptions."

Justin Martyr, I Apology 55. (could also read, "And on this form...")

"You place the Christians on crosses and stakes : what image does not take its first shape in plastic clay fixed on a cross and stake? It is on the gibbet that the body of your god is first consecrated."

Tertullian, Apology 12,3 (slightly modified to reflect the Latin)

"Crosses, moreover, we neither worship nor wish for. You, indeed, who consecrate gods of wood, adore wooden crosses perhaps as parts of your gods. For your very standards, as well as your banners; and flags of your camp, what else are they but crosses glided and adorned? Your victorious trophies not only imitate the appearance of a simple cross, but also that of a man affixed to it."

Minucius Felix, Octavius 29.



Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Minucius Felix all knew that crosses were sacred to the Romans. Ordinary crosses, of the type used in depictions of Jesus' crucifiction, were used for the display of enemy armor, and even for the display of the wax images of the deified Caesars at their funerals.  It is the latter sort of "victorious trophy" that most resembled a man affixed to a simple cross.

Now we have plenty of archaeological and historical evidence that crosses were sacred back then, and not just to Christians.  There are multitudes of Roman coins showing the tropaeum (victory cross) on their reverse images.  Here are a few coins depicting the usual manner of displaying the tropaeum at Roman triumphs (their victory parades).  Enemy prisoners were placed at the foot of the trophy and bound.

Coin of Julius Caesar with a tropaeum.

Coin with a tropaeum on the reverse side, Venus or Roma on the obverse



Another coin of Julius Caesar with a tropaeum.

Sometimes the winged deity Victoria was depicted decorating the tropaeum. Here are a few reliefs and sculptural examples:





Via Appia Marble Altar dedicated to Jupiter, the Sun, Serapis.
This side depicts the deity Victoria with a tropaeum.
http://www.vroma.org/images/raia_images/index5.html

Barbarian captive bound at and chained to a tropaeum, to the right.
Note the pile of enemy armor at the base.

And here is a relief of Augustus Caesar on the left, an eagle at his feet, with Victoria on the right.
She is decorating a tropaeum that is standing in the middle. At the base is a bound enemy prisoner. [1]

Miniature tropaeum on display at the Berlin Museum, Charlottenberg.

The above tropaeum is interesting.  The frame has a recognizably cruciform shape of the familiar crux immissa type, but it is wearing not enemy armor, but Roman armor, suitable for a Caesar.   And this calls our attention back to the period when the above church fathers were writing: mid-Second to early Third Centuries C.E., and what they were saying: they were dedicating the wax images of their deified Caesars on these things!  So the practice must go back to the funeral of the first Caesar.

And indeed scholarship is settled on this. The wax images of both Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus were displayed in the Forum at the Rostra, suspended above the bier that held the actual body of each at their respective funerals. [2][3] The most effective display would be with the use of a cross -- especially so in the case of Julius Caesar, so that the twenty-three stab wounds could be seen.  From his extensive research, Francesco Carotta "identifies the Christian cross as a Roman tropaeum [above]; a wooden cross displaying the armor of vanquished leaders --also used to display a wax copy of Caesar's corpse." [4]

And indeed there were "crosses" evident in the Caesar's temple -- specifically the door and the comet. A a Latin cross can clearly be seen in the brass boss pattern on the central door and the comet is formed  from two crosses (+ and X), as can be seen below (click to enlarge):

Reconstruction and Visualisation of Temple of Divus Iulius [Caesar]

(Leone M. Jennarelli, CGSociety.org)

The cross on the door can also be clearly seen, in the following coin images of the same temple, with the star or comet presented in a cruciform manner in the first image below:

The coin images (two known obverse, one known reverse) depict the temple to Caesar that the Senate decreed be built in gratitude to the mercy he showed them after taking Rome. It is possible that these coins were minted by Mark Antony in memory of Caesar shortly after his death.

So perhaps the real reason why Christians were loath to depict crosses or crucifixes in their illustrations, typically found in catacombs, prior to the Fourth Century C.E. is because the Romans were using the same sort of image and structure for the deification of their Caesars.

Notes:

[1] Mary Beard, SPQR. New York, W.W. Norton & Company (Liveright Publishing Corporation), 2015. p. 486, fig. 91.

[2] Ibid., p. 339, concerning the funeral of Julius Caesar: "A few days later, Anthony staged a startling funeral for Caesar, including a wax model suspended above the corpse, intended to make it easier for the audience to see all the wounds with the body being given an impromptu cremation in the Forum, the fuel partly provided by wooden benches from the nearby law courts, partly by the clothes that the musicians tore off themselves and threw into the flames, and partly by the jewels and their children's junior togas that women heaped on top."

[3] Ibid., p.384, the funeral of Caesar Augustus: "a wax model of Augustus, not the body itself, was propped up on the rosta while Tiberius delivered the funeral address. The procession featured images not only of Augustus' ancestors but also of the great Romans of the past, including Pompey and Romulus, as if Augustus had been the descendant of them all. After the cremation, Livia -- now called Augusta, because Augustus had formally adopted her in his will -- rewarded with the sum of a million sesterces the man who swore that he had seen Augustus soaring to heaven. Augustus was now a god."

[4] Alex Putney, "Jupiter and Roman Concrete," Resonance in Ancient Roman Temples & Amphitheaters, Human-Resonance.org, September 8, 2014, http://www.human-resonance.org/roman_concrete.html, accessed 11-15-2015. Cf. Franceso Carotta, Jesus Was Caesar, "Chapter III - Crux," http://www.carotta.de/subseite/texte/jwc_e/crux.html, accessed 11-17-2015. See also and compare The History Channel's "Masks of Death - Famous Dead People,"   https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DTVPhNoBBaw#t=2243), accessed 11-28-2015; and Gunnar Liestøl, "Sitsim Demo II," Situated Simulations (SitsimLab), Designing a Platform for Mobile Augmented Reality Genres, Oslo, Norway July 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=NliEGCnlSwM#t=154 and http://www.sitsim.no/, accessed 11-28-2015. In both of these videos, the wax image of Caesar is displayed with his arms bound and down to the sides as a common criminal being crucified.  This manner of exhibition would make some of Caesar's stab wounds rather difficult to be seen.

Well I said I would comment on Rob Whee's commentary.

You can view the video in my last post and read his commentary immediately below it, here.

Well here goes...

"The Tropaion cross symbol was sacred to the ancient Romans. Sport trophies today came from this symbol of victory. Notice the prisoners bound at the base for they are the losers captured in battle."

True enough. The lower part this Roman cameo, the Gemma Augustaea, shows a team of soldiers erecting one. And the prisoners are shown bound and on the ground beneath. Also, Early Christian writers like Minucius Felix (Octavius 29) and Justin Martyr (I Apology 55) noted that the Romans used crosses for their military standards, banners, tropaions and even used a cross to consecrate the wax images of the deified deceased Caesars on display during their funerals!

"After a victorious battle a triumph ceremony was held for tribute to Victoria. Victoria was a lady spirit with wings that grants victory in battle."

Rob definitely got this from Calpurnpiso. I don't know where he got the information from, but the Wikipedia article states that after a battle, the victors set up a tropaion and dedicated it to a god or goddess in thanksgiving for the victory.

"The tropaion [Greek: τρόπαιον, Latin: tropaeum], was a stick decorated with empty armor to mimic a warrior. The divine spirits (Latin spiritus: breath, air) would fill the armor."

Here the tropaion appears more like a cross to me. And again, it is Calpurnpiso who said the empty space was filled with spiritus (air).

"The enemy prisoners, and their armor, were placed at the base of the trophy. Wood was important for siege weapons than for execution."

The first sentence is true enough, but the second one I find to be unfounded. Josephus wrote in his Jewish War (5.446-451) that the soldiers nailed so many prisoners to crosses [execution poles] that there was not enough room for the crosses and not enough crosses for the bodies. Why would the soldiers nail the prisoners up to these poles, if they did not use wood for execution?

"The cross symbol represented the life giving rays of the sun, and was reserved for divinity. To put a prisoner on it would be a sacrilege."

It depends on how the cross was made. A crux commissa (usually refers to a T-shaped cross but could also mean a thrown-together [1] execution pole with crossarm), sure. But a crux immissa (inlaid cross [2])? Very unlikely, for that was the cross that Romans held sacred. One such cross was placed on top of the Temple of Divus Iulius (Divine Julius [Caesar]), according to some ancient Roman coins.

"The symbology in coins, statues, wall reliefs, etc., is very clear as to the purpose and sacredness of the cross to the superstitious Romans."

True. There are examples on wall reliefs, such as the exterior of Trajan's Column (image noted above), on the Triumphal Arches of Titus and Constantine where winged female figures hold aloft tropaea, crosses each dressed with a figure. And many Roman coins, such as most of the coins in Rob's video show, of course, victory crosses.

"The earliest symbology of crucifixion I can find is on the Colosseum, and that is most likely from the 6th century church that was built inside the stone-robbed structure. If you do the proper research for evidence of pre-Nicean Creed crucifixion you will come to the Dionysus, Bacchus, Caesar wax effigy controversy. Tropaion = sacred [cross]."

Actually the "symbology," or image, in the Colosseum appears that it might have been original to the construction, as viewed in the photo images, here. It shows three persons alrleady suspended, with executioners nailing a fourth. Below is a detail.

Depiction of a quadruple execution -- The Colosseum, Rome.

Now the Dionysus / Bacchus / Caesar wax effigy controversy is discussed here. Usually the Orpheos pendant is dismissed as an 18th Century forgery, but it appears to have been a genuine 3rd or 4th century artifact that was associated with a Bacchic cult and the imagery possibly derived from the exhibition of the funerary wax image of Julius Caesar. [3]

"Ask any nusmiatists [sic], or coin collector, and they will tell you that money is a historical document to the society that minted it. That is why I mainly used [ancient coins]."

No argument there.

"The head bust of the women that you see on the head side of the coin is the Goddess Venus with the life giving sun cross in her ear (sacred)."

True enough. But such images are not as frequent as Rob would like to believe, unfortunately. Out of several images made with an internet search I found two showing a T-cross dangling from Venus' ear.

Norbanus 83 BCE (ebay.com)

Cornelius Sulla Silver Denarius Rome 56BC Venus Three Trophies (ebay.com)

"The Goddess Venus was the celestial mother to Julius Caesar. Julius was an anointed with oil Christos (title) to Venus. Christos is Greek for annointed with oil (Christ). The Roman clergy spoke/wrote Greek while the commoners used Latin. Like the Greeks they personified everything."

Actually, Julius Caesar claimed descent from Iulius, son of Aeneas who was considered the son of Venus. It is not known whether Julius Caesar was actually anointed with oil. Francesco Carotta claims that as a title, Christos is abbreviated from Archieros Megistos  (Greek for Highest Priest, or the latin equivalent Pontifex Maximus, a title held by the Popes today) [4].  But Rob is correct on christos being Greek for "anointed with oil" and even for the oil itself, as well as a person anointed with oil (ex.: Anointed One, from the Hebrew, Messiah).

....

"The carrying of the Tropaion is a depiction of the Trojan war refugee Aeneas who founded Rome which is the Julio-Claudian dynasty."

Although Aeneas is usually depicted as carrying his aged father, there is an image from Pompeii of him carrying a tropaeum.

Aeneas with a tropaeum (Baxter Sheldon: Blog 6)

"Crucify replaced the homophones translation of Latin "cremo" cremate, Greek "kremo" to hang/impale. Romans would impale heads on a pike. The Romans were not shy with their symbology of sex/violence."

The term "Crucify" (Latin cruci figere) most certainly did not replace the two homophones, cremo and κρεμῶ, although the latter, a derivation of κρεμάννυμι "suspend, hang, impale" was certainly expansive enough at the time of Caesar's funeral to include the concept of crucifixion, as practiced in the day, not necessarily as we understand it. The nailing of a wax effigy on a cross, or tropaion, would certainly add to the confusion of the two and this is what Francesco Carotta works with. [5]

"Caesar was cremated (cremo), and a wax effigy was hanged/nailed (kremo) on a Tropaion. People rubbed ashes from the pyre on their foreheads, because they seen him as divine...."

I do not know of people rubbing their ashes on their foreheads, but they certainly saw him as divine; Suetonius (Divus Julius 85) notes there was a column erected in his honor, where people made sacrifices, made vows and settled disputes by swearing to Caesar.

"Does this scene look familiar? The evidence presented for crucifixion is a joke! Find bent nails detecting all the time. Only physical evidence for crucifixion is a single shim bone [sic!] with a nail in it. Near me in the 50's there was found under a boulder a pair of skeleton hands in rusted iron cuffs from the 1700's. This one surprise find does not make it common."

Not necessarily, but the bone (actually a heel bone) with the nail in it, belonging to one Yehohanan, does mean that there is evidence that Romans nailed convicted criminals' feet to poles. But of a Roman use of crosses (cruces immissae) for suspending those to be executed, on the other hand, there is simply no direct archaeological evidence. [6]

"The ancient Greeks would erect the Tropaion on the battle field. The Romans used it for public display, and humiliation in Rome for witness."

Used it for humiliation of whom? Certainly not the witnesses -- the victorious imperator(s) hosting the triumph (parade) commemorating their victory would be angling for the witnesses' votes, should he (they) run for public office. But it would be the prisoners bound at the base of the tropaion in the midst of the procession, along with other captured war enemies, who would be humiliated by this display.

"It was sacreligious to desecrate this sacred symbol. Nike was the Greek version of Victoria. Depictions of deities with wings goes back to Sumeria."

True. The cross was a scared symbol -- before Christianity, too. It's evident in the ancient Egyptian symbol of the Ankh, and in a depiction of the Sun from ancient Babylon, as can clearly be seen below. In this YouTube video is a certain Mr. Wayman's thoughts on pagan crosses.



Egyptian Tomb with numerous Ankhs (touregypt.net)

Babylonian Sun-god, 900 BCE. (Babylon Religion and Mythology)

"Gaul is where central Europe (France, Germany, etc.) is today. The ancient Romans looked upon these tribes as savages and uncivilized. The ancient Romans did not offer [their nobility] the same respect as other nobility."

Not all of Germany: Gaul included, as well as France, Southwest Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and southern Holland. Bascially everything southwest of the Rhine to the Pyrenees.

Transalpine Gaul (SynchroMiss.Wordpress.com)

"The Rebel Vercingetorix was responsible for 1000's of Roman Soldier deaths, and injuries. This man was a prime candidate for crucifixion.

"After 5 years in prison he was strangled after a triumph ceremony as custom. Do you still think crucifixion on a sacred symbol happened?"

Strangulation in prison after a Roman triumph ceremony was an ancient custom for disposing of commanders of conquered enemies. Not only Vercingetorix, but others, including the Jewish rebel Simon Bar-Giora was subjected to this sort of death.

"Imperial cult of Caesar deified Divus Iulius Christos. Julius's was effigy was nailed to a cross so crowd can observe stab wounds inflicted by senators. The daylight comet of 44 BCE during Julius's funeral games... [sentence peters out]. The Chinese document the comet of 44 BCE in their texts."

This moniker Divus Iulius Christos detracts from the rest of the paragraph which has essentially been proven by Mr. Carotta, although the History Channel and a tourist SitSim (iPhone app) developed under Gunnar Liestøl, professor at the University of Oslo show the effigy tied to a cross (stake with beam). The wax image would certainly have been displayed in a more dignified manner, much as suggested by Mr. Carotta below:

Suggested Display of Wax Image of Julius Caesar
(Carotta.de)

 And this miniature tropaeum found in the Berlin Museum at Charlottenberg indicates the armor of a Caesar surmounted on a crux immissa type cross, made from logs.

Minuature Tropaeum (Carotta.de)

"The Julian Star a.k.a. Caesar's Comet symbol was later used by Emperor Constantine with the early Christogram Chi Rho in guise of Greek letters X & P. Comet is Greek for Kometes (star with long hairs). Medieval art depicts... [sentence peters out].

True. The Comet of Julius Caesar appeared over the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris "Games of Caesar's Victory," a.k.a the funeral games for Julius Caesar on July 20th, 44 BCE and lasted for seven days. This was taken by the Romans as a sign of the apotheosis (deification) of Julius Caesar.

As far as Constantine adopting Caesar's Comet symbol and changing it to the familiar Chi-Rho (or chrismon), I have not found any verification thereof. But we do know for a fact that it was Constantine who adopted this newer symbol and the only narratives for why he adopted it are Christian narratives that tell of Constantine seeing a cross above the sun.

"I know the image of crucifixion has been ingrained in the minds of society for 1,000's of years. I had trouble myself unwrapping my head from this."

That's because the popular imagery of crucifixion is usually as shown below. Note the great care the Romans allegedly took in building these three inlaid crosses.

Andrea Del Castango -- Crucifixion.

Notes:

[1] From the Latin, committo, "To bring together, join, combine, put together, connect, unite;" derived from mitto, LSJ I. In Gen. "to cause to go, let go, send, send off, despatch," II. In partic., K. "To send, throw, hurl, cast, launch."
[2] Raymone E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, Vol. II p.948 "Another type of cross was formed if a notch was cut horizontally into the side of the standing pole at some distance from the top, and the crossbeam inserted into that, giving the shape of an elongated plus sign (... the crux immissa).
[3] Francesco Carrotta and Arne Eickenberg, "Orpheos Bakkikos / The Missing Cross." Originally published as: Carotta F with Eickenberg A. 2009. “Orfeo Báquico – La Cruz Desaparecida”, Isidorianum 18 (35), 179–217
[4] Francesco Carrotta, "Jesus was Caesar – Prima Vista /  Chapter I of the English edition." Originally published as: Francesco Carotta and Tommie Hendriks, Jesus Was Caesar: On the Julian Origin of Christianity: An Investigative Report. Soesterberg, The Netherlands, Uitgeverij Aspekt b.v., 2005.
[5] Ibid., Chapt. III -- "Crux", n. 195.
[6] Wikipedia, Jehohanan. Under the section titled "Reappraisal, Zias & Sekeles, 1985" it is admitted that "The findings of Zias and Sekeles do not indicate a horizontal patibulum cross-beam was attached to the victim's crucifixion device. Jehohanan may have very well extended his arms upward on a crux simplex (simple upright stake)."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jehohanan  Accessed 11-14-2015 4:06 PM CDT.

Crosses Were Sacred to the Romans (Part 2).

Here's another two videos showing crosses were sacred to the Romans.

Below is Rob Whee's commentary within this video so you can read it without frequently pausing the video (which obliterates half the commentary!). Except for skipping irrelevant (in my opinion) commentary, spelling and punctuation corrections and slight formatting, I will not be calling out all his mistakes. To do so would clutter it up with sic marks and whatnot. I'll do that next post, ugh. Formatting, links, photos and items in brackets mine.

The Tropaion cross symbol was sacred to the ancient Romans. Sport trophies today came from this symbol of victory. Notice the prisoners bound at the base for they are the losers captured in battle.

After a victorious battle a triumph ceremony was held for tribute to Victoria. Victoria was a lady spirit with wings that grants victory in battle.

The tropaion [Greek: τρόπαιον, Latin: tropaeum], was a stick decorated with empty armor to mimic a warrior. The divine spirits (Latin spiritus: breath, air) would fill the armor.

The enemy prisoners, and their armor, were placed at the base of the trophy. Wood was important for siege weapons than for execution.

The cross symbol represented the life giving rays of the sun, and was reserved for divinity. To put a prisoned on it would be a sacrilege.

The symbology in coins, statues, wall reliefs, etc., is very clear as to the purpose and sacredness of the cross to the superstitious Romans.

The earliest symbology of crucifixion I can find is on the Colosseum, and that is most likely from the 6th century church that was built inside the stone-robbed structure. If you do the proper research for evidence of pre-Nicean Creed crucifixion you will come to the Dionysus, Bacchus, Caesar wax effigy controversy. Tropaion = sacred [cross].

Ask any nusmiatists, or coin collector, and they will tell you that money is a historical document to the society that minted it. That is why I mainly used [ancient coins].

The head bust of the women that you see on the head side of the coin is the Goddess Venus with the life giving sun cross in her ear (sacred).

The Goddess Venus was the celestial mother to Julius Caesar. Julius was an anointed with oil Christos (title) to Venus. Christos is Greek for annointed with oil (Christ). THe Roman clergy spoke/wrote Greek while the commoners used Latin. Like the Greeks they personified everything.

The elites of the ancient Roman Empire claimed for themselves lineage to divinity, because the people would not know better, and believe it.

The carrying of the Tropaion is a depiction of the Trojan war refugee Aeneas who founded Rome which is the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

Crucify replaced the homophones translation of Latin "cremo" cremate, Greek "kremo" to hang/impale. Romans would impale heads on a pike. The Romans were not shy with their symbology of sex/violence.

Caesar was cremated (cremo), and a wax effigy was hanged/nailed (kremo) on a Tropaion. People rubbed ashes from the pyre on their foreheads, because they seen him as divine....

Does this scene look familiar? The evidence presented for crucifixion is a joke! Find bent nails detecting all the time. Only physical evidence for crucifixion is a single shim bone with a nail in it. Near me in the 50's there was found under a boulder a pair of skeleton hands in rusted iron cuffs from the 1700's. This one surprise find does not make it common.

The ancient Greeks would erect the Tropaion on the battle field. The Romans used it for public display, and humiliation in Rome for witness.

It was sacreligious to desecrate this sacred symbol. Nike was the Greek version of Victoria. Depictions of deities with wings goes back to Sumeria.

Gaul is where central Europe (France, Germany, etc.) is today. The ancient Romans looked upon these tribes as savages and uncivilized. The ancient Romans did not offer [their nobility] the same respect as other nobility.

The Rebel Vercingetorix was responsible for 1000's of Roman Soldier deaths, and injuries. This man was a prime candidate for crucifixion.

After 5 years in prison he was strangled after a triumph ceremony as custom. Do you still think crucifixion on a sacred symbol happened?....

Imperial cult of Caesar deified Divus Iulius Christos. Julius's was effigy was nailed to a cross so crowd can observe stab wounds inflicted by senators. The daylight comet of 44 BCE during Julius's funeral games... [sentence peters out]. The Chinese document the comet of 44 BCE in their texts.

The Julian Star a.k.a. Caesar's Comet symbol was later used by Emperor Constantine with the early Christogram Chi Rho in guise of Greek letters X & P. Comet is Greek for Kometes (star with long hairs). Medieval art depicts... [sentence peters out].

I know the image of crucifixion has been ingrained in the minds of society for 1,000's of years. I had trouble myself unwrapping my head from this.

This is because the image of crucifixion presented to us is a sculpture (crucifix) or a picture of Jesus being nailed to a cross (crux immissa, which, because it is an interwoven or inlaid cross, is a tropaion. The ancient epigraphs are perfectly clear about this!