Part One (b):
Romulus, Remus and Old Testament
“The modern [sic] connection of Romulus and Remus would be the story of Cain and Abel. Remus is like Cain because they are the jealous brothers, and Abel is like Romulus because they are the good brothers. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain killed [Abel] because he was jealous that God favored Abel’s offering more than Cain’s. But with Romulus and Remus, Remus was jealous of Romulus’s wall around the hill, so they argued and Romulus killed Remus. Both stories have a sibling rivalry and in the end, both stories have one brother killing the other. Also in both stories, jealousy is involved, but both for different reasons”.
Introduction
Like so many of the Greco-Roman myths - even the so-called history of ancient philosophy - the well-known characters were distorted, garbled versions of originally Egyptian, Hebrew and Near Eastern persons. These being cultures and civilisations far older than those of the Greeks and the Romans. Thus, for instance, in typical Greek fashion, a Hebrew prophet will be re-presented as a philosopher. See e.g. my:
'Socrates' as a Prophet
We saw in Part One of this present series that the absolutely unique accounts in the Gospels of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ were picked up (albeit messily) in the writings of the approximately contemporary Greek biographer and essayist, Plutarch, and applied to the legendary first king of Rome, Romulus.
In Part Three of ‘Socrates’ above, the renowned, so-called Greek philosopher, it is argued, had no actual historical reality qua Socrates, but, rather, was a biblical composite. To consider just one of his biblical ‘manifestations’, Socrates, who is so often likened to Jesus Christ, will be found in Plato’s Meno doing what Jesus in fact did: writing on the ground (John 8:6, 8).
But what will Socrates write? Not something ethical.
In typically Greek fashion he will draw geometric figures in the ground.
The mythological Romulus and Remus, too, are biblical composites. They are commonly compared with Cain and Abel, and also with Moses. And one could no doubt find other biblical manifestations of them as well (see e.g. previous comparisons with Jesus Christ and Romulus).
Like Cain and Abel
Romulus and Remus were twin brothers and their mother was princess Rhea Silvia.
So, apparently, were Eve’s sons, Cain and Abel, twins.
Their Births
It is a well-known fact that Jacob and Esau were twins, but what is not commonly known is that Cain and Abel were also twins. In the normal Hebraic accounting of multiple births the conception then birth of each child is mentioned such as we can see in Genesis 29:32-33 where it states that Leah conceived and bore a son, and then she conceived again and bore a son. Note that there are two conceptions and two births. But notice how it is worded in Genesis 4:1-2.
Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain; And again, she bore his brother Abel. (RSV)
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Notice that there is only one conception, but two births. The Hebrew word for "again" is asaph, meaning to add something, in this case the birthing of Abel was added to the birthing of Cain. Cain and Abel were twins.
The modern [sic] connection of Romulus and Remus would be the story of Cain and Abel. Remus is like Cain because they are the jealous brothers, and Abel is like Romulus because they are the good brothers. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain killed [Abel] because he was jealous that God favored Abel’s offering more than Cain’s. But with Romulus and Remus, Remus was jealous of Romulus’s wall around the hill, so they argued and Romulus killed Remus. Both stories have a sibling rivalry and in the end, both stories have one brother killing the other. Also in both stories, jealousy is involved, but both for different reasons. Both stories are involved with marks. Cain is marked so everyone knows he killed his brother, Abel. But in the Roman myth, Romulus marks Rome by naming it after himself.
The tradition of twins as the progenitors of tribal units or city builders is very well documented in Semitic and Indo-European cultures. When birth order is specified, the younger twin always receives the blessing over the first born brother. In the account of the sons of Adam, the first born twin is envious of the second and commits fratricide. There are many variations on this theme in other twin genesis accounts. Jacob is fearful that Esau will kill him, Romulus killed Remus and Gwyn and Gwythurin in Celtic tradition duel every May.
The Gemini twins, Castor and Pollux, shared a mortal and an immortal existence. Castor was killed on a cattle raid but Pollux persuaded Zeus to allow the brothers to switch places periodically. The word Gemini comes from the PIE root *ym which means 'to pair'. This word is very similar to the Hebrew im mimation suffix but, of course, linguists say they are unrelated (sigh). ….
Romulus and Remus, abandoned on the bank of the Tiber river, were famously suckled by a she-wolf.
From whence did this pagan myth arise?
We well know the Exodus (2:1-10) account of the birth of Moses and the forced abandonment of him due to the decree of the cruel Pharaoh – how the baby Moses was placed in a papyrus basket and set adrift on the river Nile (which the Romans inevitably replaced with their Tiber). Long before the Romans, I suggest, the ancient Egyptians had corrupted the legend of the baby Moses in the bulrushes so that now it became the goddess Isis who drew the baby Horus from the Nile and had him suckled by Hathor (the goddess in the form of a cow – the Egyptian personification of wisdom).
In the original story, of course, baby Moses was drawn from the water by an Egyptian princess, not a goddess, and was weaned by Moses’s own mother (Exodus 2:5-9).
Anyway, Moses became for the Egyptians Hor-mes, meaning ‘son of Hathor’, which legendary person the Greeks eventually absorbed into their own pantheon as Hermes, the winged messenger god. [The Roman version of Hermes is Mercury].
Thus the story evolved from the original Hebrew account, suckled by the mother, to the Egyptian version, suckled by the goddess in the form of a cow, to an entirely bestial suckler in the Roman account, a she-wolf.
In the name Remus (also Cadmus), the mus element is suspiciously Moses like.
Part Two:
Apollonius of Tyana
“Presenting further evidence that Philostratus's biography of Apollonius is in many ways a replica of the life of Jesus, Cardinal Newman writes: The favour in which Apollonius from a child was held by gods and men; his conversations when a youth in the Temple of Aesculapius; his determination, in spite of danger to go up to Rome; the cowardice of his disciples in deserting him …”.
Introduction
The supposed C1st AD character, Apollonius of Tyana, is such a Jesus-like figure in many ways that some commentators would insist that the Gospels were based on the life of this Apollonius. Whereas, as I am arguing in this series, the precedence ought to be given to the Gospel version over the pagan one. And there are very good reasons, again, for claiming this to be correct, given the vagueness surrounding the author of the “Life of Apollonius”, the Greek sophist Philostratus, and that he wrote about Apollonius much later than the Gospels, in the C3rd AD. I favour Fr. Jean Carmignac’s compelling argument, as set out in his Birth of the Synoptics (1987), that the Synoptic Gospels were written by eyewitnesses at a very early date.
Philostratus
As I have often remarked, one of the most common phrases used by the conventional historians of ancient history is this one, “… little is known about …”. And that fully applies to Philostratus, who himself, I suspect, may not have been an actual historical character, but a ‘ghost’ based upon some previous person - perhaps upon one of the Evangelists. Thus we read of Philostratus
Very little is known of his career. Even his name is doubtful. The Lives of the Sophists gives the praenomen Flavius, which, however, is found elsewhere only in Tzetzes. Eunapius and Synesius call him a Lemnian; Photius a Tyrian; his letters refer to him as an Athenian. It is probable that he was born in Lemnos, studied and taught at Athens, and then settled in Rome ….
I rest my case.
But furthermore:
The Lives are not in the true sense biographical, but rather picturesque impressions of leading representatives of an attitude of mind full of curiosity, alert and versatile, but lacking scientific method, preferring the external excellence of style and manner to the solid achievements of serious writing. The philosopher, as he says, investigates truth; the sophist embellishes it, and takes it for granted. ….
That appears to be a very shaky historical foundation, indeed, upon which to raise a life story of one who is considered by some to have been the exemplar for Jesus Christ himself.
Apollonius of Tyana
Most commentators simply presume the historicity of Philostratus when considering the Apollonius of Tyana of whom he wrote.
Even as late as 1832, [F.] Bauer attempted to show that not only were there resemblances between the "Life of Apollonius of Tyana" and the Gospels, but that Philostratus deliberately modeled his hero on the type set forth by the Evangelists. He was followed in this view by Zeller, the celebrated Greek historian.
Typical of latter nineteenth century views on the subject is that of Cardinal Newman, a Catholic apologist, who, admitting the identity of Apollonius and the Gospel messiah, considers the former an imitation of the latter, in spite of the fact that he preceded him by three centuries (For the Jesus of the Gospels was evidently born in the year 325 A.D., at the Council of Nicea, rather than when the star appeared over Bethlehem).
To support his view, Newman mentions certain typical examples, such as Apollonius's bringing to life a dead girl in Rome, which he considers as "an attempt, and an elaborate, pretentious attempt, to outdo certain narratives in the Gospels (Mark v. 29, Luke vii. John xi: 41-43, Acts iii: 4-6). This incident, is described by Philostratus.
Presenting further evidence that Philostratus's biography of Apollonius is in many ways a replica of the life of Jesus, Cardinal Newman writes: The favour in which Apollonius from a child was held by gods and men; his conversations when a youth in the Temple of Aesculapius; his determination, in spite of danger to go up to Rome; the cowardice of his disciples in deserting him; the charge brought against him of disaffection to Caesar; the Minister's acknowledging, on his private examination, that he was more than man; the ignominious treatment of him by Domitian on his second appearance at Rome; his imprisonment with criminals; his vanishing from Court and sudden reappearance to his mourning disciples at Puteoli--these, with other particulars of a similar cast, evidence a history modelled after the narrative of the Evangelists. Expressions, moreover, and descriptions occur, clearly imitated "from the sacred volume."
Reville, another Catholic apologist, thinks as does Newman that "the biography of Apollonius is in great measure an imitation of the Gospel narrative.'* (*Reville bases his argument on the similarity of the characters of Apollonius and Pythagoras (which is natural in view of Apollonius following Pythagoras as his example); and he seeks to prove that Apollonius, rather than Jesus, is a fictitious creation, rather than an historical character. Reville writes: "It is hard to say whether the Pythagoras of the Alexandrians is not an Apollonius of an earlier date by some centuries, or whether the Apollonius of Julia Domna, besides his resemblance to Christ, is not a Pythagoras endowed with a second youth. The real truth of the matter will probably be found to lie between the two suggestions."
[End of quotes]
For my view that Pythagoras was, for his part, based upon an ancient Hebrew sage, see e.g.:
Joseph of Egypt and Pythagoras
Philostratus’s account of the life of Apollonius of Tyana is thought to have been written as late as the 220’s/230’s AD, which is obviously later than the Gospels.
Wikipedia gives these:
Similarities shared by the stories about Apollonius and the life of Jesus [23]
Birth miraculously announced by God
Religiously precocious as a child
Asserted to be a native speaker of Aramaic
Influenced by Plato/ reflected Platonism (Jesus)
[Renounced/ denounced (Jesus)] wealth
Followed abstinence and asceticism
Wore long hair and robes
Was unmarried and childless
Was anointed with oil
Went to Jerusalem
Spoke in [metaphors/ parables] (Jesus)
Saw and predicted the future
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Healed the sick
Cast out evil spirits/ Drove out demons (Jesus)
Raised the daughter of a [Roman official/ Jewish official (Jesus)] from the dead
Spoke as a "law-giver"
Was on a mission to bring [Greek culture/ Jewish culture (Jesus)] to [the "barbarians"/ the " nations" (Jesus)]
Believed to be "saviors" from heaven
Were accused of being a magician
Were accused of killing a boy
Condemned [by Roman emperor/ by Roman authorities (Jesus)]
Imprisoned [at Rome/ at Jerusalem (Jesus)]
Was assumed into heaven/ Ascended into heaven (Jesus)
Appeared posthumously to a detractor as a brilliant light
Had his image revered [in temples/ in churches (Jesus)]
Pope Francis addresses the crowd from the window of the apostolic palace overlooking St Peter's square during the Sunday Angelus prayer, on March 12, 2017 - AFP
