Jesus is Caesar deified

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
andrewcriddle
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by andrewcriddle »

neilgodfrey wrote:
ghost wrote:Why does Saint Longinus Day fall on March 15?
To answer that we should try to find out when his feast day was introduced, where and by whom, the context, etc. (The Armenian church apparently marks his feast day on October 22.)
According to http://adottaunaguglia.duomomilano.it/e ... cb1e66339/
The number of dates, martyrologies, synaxaria, eastern calendars, codices, etc. in which he is remembered is incredible. He is remembered on various days of the months of March, October, November and others.
Andrew Criddle
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by neilgodfrey »

Stephan Huller wrote:
Awtill says Jesus was Titus, while Carotta says Jesus was Caesar
Can't we turn ghost into a ghost? There is no way to argue against stupidity like this. If someone won't answer the question of why his thesis better explains the phenomenon and simply goes back to irrational key messages it becomes little more than internet trolling.
This is a thread about "Jesus is Caesar deified" after all -- I myself am curious to see what the arguments actually are.

I also think it's important to engage with arguments and show why we and/or others might not agree with them.
Last edited by neilgodfrey on Tue Jun 03, 2014 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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ghost
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by ghost »

andrewcriddle wrote:
neilgodfrey wrote:
ghost wrote:Why does Saint Longinus Day fall on March 15?
To answer that we should try to find out when his feast day was introduced, where and by whom, the context, etc. (The Armenian church apparently marks his feast day on October 22.)
According to http://adottaunaguglia.duomomilano.it/e ... cb1e66339/
The number of dates, martyrologies, synaxaria, eastern calendars, codices, etc. in which he is remembered is incredible. He is remembered on various days of the months of March, October, November and others.
Andrew Criddle
Thanks. :thumbup:

It's true that it varies, but in the Catholic church it's 15 March.

Here's another weird coincidence, from that same article:
An ancient literary text, the first that mentions Longinus, i.e. Ep. 17, 15 of St. Gregory of Nyssa (died ca. 394) reports among other things that, already in the 4th century, Longinus was considered the evangelizer of Cappadocia, as were the other Apostles who were in other regions.
So he's said to be evangelizer of Cappadocia. But then, Casius Longinus also does something special in Cappadocia:

http://www.celtic-casimir.com/webtree/4/4390.htm
Ariobarzanes III Eusebes, King of Cappadocia (51-42BC) 453

General Notes:

killed by Gaius Cassius Longinus
http://www.livius.org/cao-caz/cappadoci ... ocia2.html
However, a new Roman civil war broke out after the assassination of Caesar in Rome. The assassins occupied the eastern provinces, and Gaius Cassius Longinus put an end to the rule of Ariobarzanes III, who was replaced by his brother Ariarathes IX Philadelphus.
:consternation:
ghost
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by ghost »

neilgodfrey wrote:
Stephan Huller wrote:
Awtill says Jesus was Titus, while Carotta says Jesus was Caesar
Can't we turn ghost into a ghost? There is no way to argue against stupidity like this. If someone won't answer the question of why his thesis better explains the phenomenon and simply goes back to irrational key messages it becomes little more than internet trolling.
This is a thread about "Jesus is Caesar deified" after all -- I myself am curious to see what the arguments actually are.

I also think it's important to engage with arguments and show why we and/or others might not agree with them.
OK, OK. Sorry. Did you see that coincidence between Saint Longinus and Cassius Longinus? Saint Longinus is said to be evangelizer of Cappadocia, but then Cassius Longinus kills the king of Cappadocia. Is that not impressive? How would you explain that, if not because Jesus was Caesar? Remember, this is the same Cassius Longinus involved in the Caesar assasination on 15 March 44 BC. That's right: 15 March. To me the explanation is that indeed Jesus is based on Caesar. It's a fact. It's not just a hypothesis.
Ulan
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by Ulan »

ghost wrote:OK, OK. Sorry. Did you see that coincidence between Saint Longinus and Cassius Longinus? Saint Longinus is said to be evangelizer of Cappadocia, but then Cassius Longinus kills the king of Cappadocia. Is that not impressive? How would you explain that, if not because Jesus was Caesar? Remember, this is the same Cassius Longinus involved in the Caesar assasination on 15 March 44 BC. That's right: 15 March. To me the explanation is that indeed Jesus is based on Caesar. It's a fact. It's not just a hypothesis.
Why would anyone want to explain that? The gospels don't mention any Longinus. If I get it right, the name came up in 4th century. Regarding the date of Caesar's assassination, I could as well ask why he was assassinated during Passover.

Which brings me back to my original question that none of the provided links answered: Why? For what purpose would anyone use the tanakh to make a Jewish story out of Caesar's death?
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neilgodfrey
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by neilgodfrey »

Ides of March was a day marking other religious festivals, moments, too, not only the death of Caesar. The tendency is for details to be added to popular stories over time, and the addition of a name and personality to an anonymous gospel figure is what we would expect of a later development. Longinus is not part of the founding myth but a later development of the myth.
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Robert Tulip
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by Robert Tulip »

ghost wrote:
steve43 wrote:Anyone citing the Talmud on ANYTHING gets my deaf ear and an automatic "fail."
Where was anything said about the talmud?
I think steve43 just misread Tanakh. Maybe he does not know the difference between Tanakh and Talmud?

Whatever, it is not a particularly helpful contribution to discussion to proclaim the merits of anti-Jewish prejudice. Even given the rather rich and varied content of the Talmud, such summary dismissal promotes polarisation rather than dialogue.
ghost
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by ghost »

Ulan wrote:Which brings me back to my original question that none of the provided links answered: Why? For what purpose would anyone use the tanakh to make a Jewish story out of Caesar's death?
I'm not sure why they did it. But they did it.
Jay
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by Jay »

[quote] Here's another weird coincidence, from that same article:

An ancient literary text, the first that mentions Longinus, i.e. Ep. 17, 15 of St. Gregory of Nyssa (died ca. 394) reports among other things that, already in the 4th century, Longinus was considered the [bgcolor=#FFFF00]evangelizer of Cappadocia[/bgcolor], as were the other Apostles who were in other regions.

So he's said to be evangelizer of Cappadocia. But then, Casius Longinus also does something special in Cappadocia:

http://www.celtic-casimir.com/webtree/4/4390.htm
Ariobarzanes III Eusebes, King of Cappadocia (51-42BC) 453

General Notes:

killed by Gaius Cassius Longinus

http://www.livius.org/cao-caz/cappadoci ... ocia2.html
[/quote]

Hi ghost, have to chime in. I'm actually an ardent proponent of the JuliusCaesar-Christ theory, but I haven't been in "propaganda mode" for a long time. ;) Needless to say, I've done my own research in the past, and the one important thing is to always look at the original sources. Gregorius does not mention him by name, i.e. he doesn't call him Longinus, but only calls him the centurion (ekatóntarchos), known from the gospel. And he isn't called an "evangelizer" in the epistle either. Modern scholars have inferred that this must have been his mission there, but that's not in the source.

Originally it was just the centurio, nameless, which is a scriptural tradition in the gospel that has nothing to do with Cassius Longinus historically. Cassius Longinus originally is the Longinus miles, the soldier who stabs Christ, with his fitting Christian feast day on 15 March. We know his name from the Acta Pilati (first Greek form) and ancient hagiographies, and can also infer it for the Gospel of John, where the lance (logchê) in 19:34 is probably the lectio facilior to logginos (Longinus). The name of this miles (soldier), namely "Longinus", was only later projected onto the centurio, e.g. in second Greek form of the Acta Pilati and by later Christian authors and commentators. You can read a bit about it e.g. in the Bollandist Acta Sanctorum, chapter on the Ides of March.

But the Cappadocia connection is definitely an interesting find, because Gregorius already connects the centurio with the historical "miles", i.e. with Cassius Longinus and his mission in Cappadocia, even if he doesn't mention the name Longinus (yet). Gregorius' epistle then might also work as a terminus a quo for the name "Longinus" being used for the centurio, and not only for the miles.
Robert Tulip
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Re: Jesus is Caesar deified

Post by Robert Tulip »

Here is a comment I just received. I am sharing it because it helpfully brings out some of the background ideas behind the Christ Caesar identity hypothesis.
Must you ALWAYS be so quick to judge the minds and motives of others? I don't know steve43 from a bar of soap but I immediately presumed he had some methodological grounds for not accepting much later literature as evidence for earlier times. Trust someone somewhere to jump to the obnoxious conclusion that antisemitism was at the core of this!

Maybe it was, but we don't know -- you are only once again gratuitously mind-reading. I do wish you'd stop it -- not only towards me but to everyone you seem to find disagreement with.
I must confess, yes I did read the statement "Anyone citing the Talmud on ANYTHING gets my deaf ear and an automatic fail" as a rather vicious and direct piece of anti-Semitism at a level I rarely see. I am sorry for anyone who fails to see why "deaf ear and automatic fail to the entire Talmud" might be construed as anti-Semitic. After all, the Talmud only contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of Jewish rabbis on law, ethics, philosophy, customs, history, lore and many other topics. And discussion of it was introduced rather gratuitously into this thread, with no reason or context, except to say we should ignore it (presumably because it is inconvenient for the Caesar idea?).

But I do get why someone who thought maybe Jesus was Caesar would be sympathetic to saying citation of the Talmud deserves a deaf ear. You probably do need to be quite anti-Semitic to entirely dismiss the whole body of Jewish lore in the way that is required for the Caesar idea.

Hmmm. Is it really "obnoxious" to ask if "turn a deaf ear to the Talmud" is anti-Semitic? That looks cut and dried to me.
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