by
Damien F. Mackey
Finally, the
‘Julius Caesar’ that has come down to us is also found to have similarities
remarkably akin to those of that historically verifiable Julius Caesar, Octavianus Augustus.
The Lord of History and
the Emperor of Rome
Jesus Christ, whose birth occurred during the reign of emperor (Julius
Caesar) Augustus, is the absolute Fulcrum of history. He
is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.
Professor P. Kreeft, writing of Jesus as the philosopher par excellence, has reminded us that,
owing to Jesus, history is now divided between what came before his birth and
whatever is subsequent to it (The
Philosophy of Jesus):
Amazingly, no one ever seems to have looked at Jesus as a philosopher,
or his teaching as philosophy. Yet no one in history has ever had a more
radically new philosophy, or made more of a difference to philosophy, than
Jesus. He divided all human history into two, into "B.C." and
"A.D."; and the history of philosophy is crucial to human history,
since philosophy is crucial to man; so how could He not also divide philosophy?
He, as Paul tells us (Philippians 2:6-7):
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance ….
And He ‘found that human appearance’, as a helpless baby, during the reign
of the aforesaid emperor Augustus (Luke 2:1-7. NIV):
The Birth of Jesus
In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should
be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first
census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to their own town to register.
So Joseph
also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the
town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married
to him and was expecting a child. While they were
there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she
gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in
a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. ….
Fortunately, in the last few years, the vexed
problem of the “census” in Luke’s Gospel - and the true date for the Birth of
Christ - has been sorted out by D. Graham in:
Ancient History, Archaeology and the Birth of Jesus
Christ
Ancient
History, archaeology, and the Birth of Jesus Christ
The date is 8 BC. The Lord of History apparently
stands on the side of historical revisionism, correcting the conventional BC
history by some 8 years.
In fact, He whose kingdom is Truth, came to
correct every manner of human falsehood. Replying to the Roman governor,
Pontius Pilate, Jesus proclaimed (John 18:37): ‘You say that I am a
king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to
the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me’.
The Lord of the Cosmos and the Alpha and Omega of
Creation, will even defer, in part, to the lord of empire and kingdoms (Mark
12:17): “Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are
Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s’. And they marvelled at him”.
Paul
instructs us that God made our existence take its origin in Christ Jesus as our
Alpha; that God created all things in and through the First Born, the Incarnate
Christ; through that same Christ who is now fully in charge of this universe;
who, when He will finalize His work of submitting the Cosmos to Himself, will
deliver it back to God: "When everything is subjected to him, then the Son
himself will [also] be subjected to the One who subjected everything to him, so
that God may be all in all" (1 Cor 14:28).
Exploring Comparisons:
‘Julius Caesar’ and Octavianus
Some of the ‘Julius Caesar’, ostensibly the ‘perfect man’, that has come
down to us may have picked up elements from the Divine Jesus (Ecce Homo), the God-Man; and from the
Hellenistic king worship; the undefeatable Alexander the Great, the military
genius.
But even if that were so, does it mean that there was not an actual Julius
Caesar apart from all of this?
In the case of my recent studies of the Prophet Mohammed, I eventually came
to the firm conclusion that ‘he’, a composite biblical character, did not exist in reality as a C7th AD
person, and that ‘his’ biography actually plays havoc with real history:
Biography of the Prophet Mohammed
(Muhammad) Seriously Mangles History
And that the ‘Mohammed’ that has come down to us was based largely - at
least up until the time of ‘his’ marriage - upon Tobias (my Job), the son of
Tobit:
Biography of the Prophet Mohammed (Muhammad) Seriously
Mangles History. Part Two: From Birth to Marriage
Is the same type of conclusion to be reached about ‘Julius Caesar’, that he
was a non-real composite, from whose biography a significant piece of presumed
Roman history may need to be rescued?
Military
Campaigns
These took ‘Julius Caesar’ to the same places wherein Octavianus would
campaign: namely, Gaul; Britain; Greece; Spain; Africa (Egypt), with a famous
civil war also involved.
Julius Caesar
The military
campaigns of Julius Caesar constituted both the Gallic War (58 BC-51 BC) and Caesar's civil war (50 BC-45 BC). They followed Caesar's consulship (chief
magistracy) in 59 BC, which had been highly controversial. The Gallic War
mainly took place in what is now France. In 55 and 54 BC, he invaded Britain,
although he made little headway. The Gallic War ended with complete Roman
victory at the Battle of Alesia. This was followed by the civil war, during which time
Caesar chased his rivals to Greece, decisively defeating them there. He then
went to Egypt, where he defeated the Egyptian pharaoh and put Cleopatra on the throne. He then
finished off his Roman opponents in Africa and Spain. Once his campaigns were
over, he served as Roman Dictator until his assassination on March 15, 44 BC. These wars were
critically important in the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.
Julius Caesar elaborated plans for a campaign against Parthia, but his assassination
averted the war.
Octavianus
· 46 BCE: Octavius
accompanied Julius Caesar in the public precession celebrating the victory of
Caesar over his opponents in Africa.
· 45 BCE: Octavius
accompanied Caesar on his military expedition to Spain to defeat and destroy
the sons of Pompey, his defeated rival, who were trying to perpetuate their
father's opposition to Caesar.
·
44 BCE: …. The troops of Octavius joined with
troops which the Senate has at its command. The combined forces drove Antony
out of Italy into Gaul. In the battle with Anthony's forces the two elected
Consuls of Rome were killed. Octavius's troops demanded that the Senate confer
the title of Consul on Octavius. Octavius was officially recognized as the son
of Julius Caesar. He then took the name Gaius Julius Caesar (Octavianus). He
was more generally known as Octavian during this period.
·
42 BCE: The Senate deemed Julius Caesar as having
been a god. This enhanced Octavian's status still further. Antony and Octavian
undertook a military expedition to the East to defeat Brutus and Cassius. In
two battles at Philippi the troops of Brutus and Cassius were defeated and
Brutus and Cassius killed themselves. The Triumvirate then divided up the
Empire. Anthony got the East and Gaul. Lepidus got Africa and Octavian got the
West except for Italy which was to be under common control of all three.
·
31
BCE: Antony decided to bring his forces to the western side of Greece.
Cleopatra accompanied him. Octavian sent a military expedition under the
command of Agrippa to challenge Antony's control of Greece. Octavian later
joined Agrippa and their fleet bottled up Antony and Cleopatra's fleet in the
Gulf of Ambracia. A naval battle ensued at Actium in which Cleopatra, for fear
of being captured, pulled her ships out of the battle and headed back to Egypt
thus ensuring the defeat of Anthony's forces. Anthony and some of his ships
escaped from the battle and followed Cleopatra.
·
30
BCE: Octavian invaded Egypt; Anthony commits suicide and Cleopatra follows suit
in a tragic sequence of events. ….Octavian annexed Egypt into the Roman Empire
and put it under his direct control.
·
20
BCE: The empires of Rome and Parthia reached a peace agreement in which Parthia
accepted Armenia as being within the Roman sphere of influence.
Augustus prepared invasions [of
Britain] in 34 BC, 27 BC and 25 BC. The first and third were called off due to
revolts elsewhere in the empire, the second because the Britons seemed ready to
come to terms.[1] According to Augustus's Res Gestae, two British kings, Dubnovellaunus and Tincomarus, fled to Rome as
supplicants during his reign,[2] and Strabo's Geography, written
during this period, says that Britain paid more in customs and duties than
could be raised by taxation if the island were conquered.[3]
Crossing the
Rubicon
This is a defining moment in the ambitious progress of Julius Caesar. N.
Fields tells of it in Warlords of Republican Rome. Caesar versus Pompey (2008, pp. 145-146):
… on the night of 10 January Caesar
crossed the Rubicon into Italy accompanied by a single legion, legio XIII, apparently repeating, in
Greek, a proverb of the time, ‘let the die be cast’. ….
On one side [of the Rubicon] Caesar
still held imperium pro consule and
had the right to command troops, on the other he was a mere privatus, a private citizen. It was
frank initiation of a civil war. ….
Moreover, just as Julius was then faced
with the situation of “the fugitives Antonius and Cassius” (p. 146), so was
Octavianus - as we shall shortly learn - when he crossed the Rubicon. In fact,
he would cross it twice. Fields (p. 204):
For the second time in ten months
Octavianus set out to march on Rome. Crossing the Rubicon at the head of his
eight legions, he then pushed on to Rome with the celerity of Caesar …. On 19
August Octavianus took over one of the vacant consulships. Cicero’s protégé,
the ‘divine youth whom heaven had sent to save the state … was not quite 20
years old.
…. Antonius entered Gallia Transalpina
unopposed ….
(P. 207): Their next chief task was to
eliminate Brutus and Cassius ….
Triumvirate
Again an item common to Julius Caesar
and Octavianus.
The First Triumvirate was a political
alliance between three prominent Roman politicians (triumvirs) which included Gaius
Julius Caesar, Gnaeus
Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great) and Marcus
Licinius Crassus.
"Pompey and Caesar now formed a pact, jointly swearing to oppose all
legislation of which any one of them might disapprove. It lasted from
approximately 59 BCE to Crassus' defeat by the Parthians in 53 BCE.[1] The alliance was "not at heart a
union of those with the same political ideals and ambitions", but one
where "all [were] seeking personal advantage."[2]
The Second Triumvirate is the name historians have
given to the official political alliance of Gaius Octavius (Octavian,
Caesar Augustus), Marcus Antonius (Mark Antony), and Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, formed on 26 November 43 BCE with the enactment of the Lex Titia, the adoption of which is viewed as marking the end of
the Roman Republic. The Triumvirate existed for
two five-year terms, covering the period 43 BCE to 33 BCE. Unlike the earlier First Triumvirate,[2][3] the Second Triumvirate
was an official, legally established institution, whose overwhelming power in
the Roman state was given full legal sanction and whose imperium maius outranked that of all other magistrates, including the consuls.
Conclusion
Whether or not Julius Caesar really
existed as an entity distinct from, for example, Octavianus, by the time that all
of the accretions that have been added to that presumed historical person have
been removed from him, and from his history, the original model will have
thinned out about as radically as Julius Caesar’s famous receding hairline.
13th
August 2015
