Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus:Flavian Signature Edition

by Atwill, Joseph

  LOCATION: Rome

  1. Eleazar

  2. Magic Root

  3. Demons cannot pass through water

  … for I have seen a certain man of my own country, whose name was Eleazar, releasing people that were demoniacal in the presence of Vespasian, and his sons, and his captains, and the whole multitude of his soldiers. The manner of the cure was this:

  He put a ring that had a root of one of those sorts mentioned by Solomon to the nostrils of the demoniac, after which he drew out the demon through his nostrils …

  And when Eleazar would persuade and demonstrate to the spectators that he had such a power, he set a little way off a cup or basin full of water, and commanded the demon, as he went out of the man, to overturn it, and thereby to let the spectators know that he had left the man … 127

  To begin the interpretation of the root and branch satire, I would note that all the passages above involve a character named “Eleazar.” In the passages that occur at Herodian, Macherus, Masada, and Rome, Josephus names the character overtly. In the case of the “young man” who was “carried away” at the Mount of Olives, I have already shown the puzzle that leads to this conclusion. The crucified man who survived at Thecoa and the “magical root” of Baaras are also part of the satirical system regarding Eleazar. This is an example of the same motif that I discussed previously regarding the various Marys and Simons. In other words, all the Eleazars are part of a single satirical element.

  The passages work together to create a story describing the Roman capture of the messianic root of the Jews—Eleazar—and then their “pruning” of him and transforming him into Jesus, the demon-dispelling, pro-Roman Messiah.

  The parallel that indicates that Eleazar is the “root” is quite overt. The reader must recall the method by which Josephus states someone may capture the magic root baaras—that is, the “Son”—without killing himself: “ … it is certain death to those that touch it, unless any one take and hang the root itself down from his hand, and so carry it away.”

  This is the precise, and implausible, method used by Pedanius to procure Eleazar on the Mount of Olives:

  … so low did Pedanius bend himself downward from his horse … and so great was the strength of his right hand … So this man seized upon that his prey, as upon a precious treasure, and carried him as his captive to Caesar.

  Notice the parallel language “down,” “hand,” and “carried away.”

  As his depiction of the “magic root” does, Josephus’ preposterous description of Pedanius’ capture of the “certain young man” on the Mount of Olives stretches credulity. This literary device alerts the reader that the tales are not literal history and that, therefore, he or she should look for another type of meaning. In this instance, the parallel methods by which they are captured identifies, metaphorically, that Eleazar is, like baaras, a dangerous “root.” This identification is also facilitated by the name of the root—baaras—which means “son.” Further, the satirical capture by Pedanius of the Jewish Messiah, who is the “root” to the messianic rebels, contributes to the overall satirical theme and the wit. Because Pedanius was the Romans’ most renowned root specialist, he would have been, of course, the one chosen to handle such a dangerous one.

  The meaning of the tale of the “magic root” of baaras within the root and branch satire is also easy to understand. It documents the existence of a metaphorical “root” that had the power to remove demons—obviously the Jesus of the New Testament, the only individual in history with such power. The Romans would graft this demon-dispelling “root” onto Eleazar once they had “pruned” him, thereby transforming the “root” that had infected so many with a demonic spirit into one that had the power to remove demons.

  Parallels also indicate that the individual who survived his crucifixion at Thecoa was the Messiah. This individual would have been a “Christ” because, like his “type” in the New Testament, he was the sole survivor among three crucified men. The two must be among the few individuals in history to have survived a crucifixion.

  Further, a “Joseph of Arimathea” arranged for both survivors to be taken down from the cross. This is to say that the last names of the two Josephs—“Josephus Bar Matthias” and “Joseph of Arimathea”—are homophonically similar. “Arimathea” is an obvious play on Josephus’ last name, “Bar Matthias,” which is quite similar to the “Iscariot/Sicarii” pun noted above. The Gospel of Barnabas, a noncanonical Gospel from the middle ages, does not even bother with this word play and states that the name of the individual who took Jesus down from the cross was “Joseph of Barimathea.” “Joseph of Arimathea” is also identified as the “type” of Josephus bar Matthias by his job description—counsellor. (Luke 23:50)

  The individual who survived his crucifixion at Thecoa is also linked to the Eleazar captured on the Mount of Olives by the physician Pedanius, in that Josephus states that it was a physician who restored him to life. Pedanius was the physician who accompanied Titus to Judea and therefore would have been the physician at Thecoa. Finally, the Eleazar who committed suicide at the fortress Herodian, had pitched camp at Thecoe previously, and had thus answered the question Josephus asked about whether Thecoe was a “fit place to camp.”

  The name of the place where the crucifixion occurred—Thecoa—is also part of the satirical system. Thecoa, or Theo Coeus, is the name of the Roman god of the questioning intellect. The point being made here is that the irrational Jewish Messiah was taken to the place of a discerning or questioning intellect. There he was, as Titus ordered, “pruned” and, as Paul described, “grafted onto” with a new “root,” and was thus transformed into a Messiah deemed rational by the Romans.

  Knowing that the “magic root” was named Eleazar, as was the man who survived his crucifixion at Thecoa, and knowing the time sequence in which these events took place, enables the reader to perceive the satire that all the passages work together to create.

  The Eleazar captured by Pedanius on the Mount of Olives is taken to Thecoa, where he is “hung on a tree”—that is crucified—and, as Titus has ordered, “pruned.” The botanist and physician Pedanius then grafts the magic root of baaras or “son” onto him. This process transforms Eleazar from a “root” that causes the Jews to be possessed by a demonic spirit into the “root” that dispels demons. Eleazar has become Jesus.

  Once this Eleazar has been satirically pruned and grafted onto at Thecoa, he is “given back” to the Jews at Macherus. In this way the Romans introduce a “tame,” or domesticated, plant into a field of wild ones to decrease the wildness of later generations. Of note is the fact that, at this point, the satire takes the story of Jesus beyond the story line of the Gospels and begins to describe the implementation of Christianity by the Romans. This satirical introduction of the domesticated “Jesus” takes place in the passage that immediately follows the description of the “magic root.” In that passage the Roman general Bassus seeks to make the Jews inside the Herodian fortress Macherus surrender by threatening to crucify Eleazar in front of them. Those Jews who “accept these terms” are permitted to survive and Bassus then restores “Eleazar”—obviously, the Eleazar “carried away” at the Mount of Olives and treated by the physician at Thecoa—to them and they go on their way. In other words, those Jews who accept the tamed Messiah and his pro-Roman doctrines are allowed to live.

  At Masada, however, another Eleazar, a parallel to the Eleazar at Herodian, refuses to surrender and commits suicide. The point is that refusal to surrender and accept the new Judaism is tantamount to suicide. With this Eleazar’s death, Josephus is also terminating the “root” and “branch” of the Maccabean lineage so that it will not compete against the “domesticated” messianic lineage newly established by Rome.

  Josephus concludes the “root and branch” satire with the description of yet another Eleazar, one who performs exorcisms at Rome. This Eleazar uses the “magic root” to pull demons out of captives, clearly indicating captured messianic Jews. T
his image represents a complete victory for the Roman “homeopathic” approach over the problem of the messianic “root” that caused Jews to be possessed by “demons.”

  The “root” that caused the Jewish rebels to be infected has been domesticated by Pedanius and can therefore now be used to cure them of the disease it brought about. This image is both the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi—which foresees that the wicked will be left with no “branch” or “root”—and the conclusion of the satire that began in the New Testament concerning the “root.”

  Further, the passage concludes the black comedy theme regarding the inability of demons to pass through water, which began in the demons of Gadara passage above and ends here with the demonic spirit knocking over the basin full of water as it leaves the prisoners. These prisoners were the 2,000 rebels who were captured at Gadara. Being demonically possessed, they could not pass through water and therefore did not drown. As the demon leaves them, it concludes the wry joke by knocking over the water basin.

  The passage is also Josephus’ last depiction of the “domesticated” Christ that the Romans created and it provides us with their vision of his future. He is at Rome, working for the imperial family by calming the rebellious, just as he has been for the last 2,000 years.

  CHAPTER 9

  Until All Is Fulfilled

  I have shown that elements of Jesus’ ministry, when viewed as a whole, can be seen as a prophetic outline of Titus’ military campaign through Judea. In fact, the New Testament and Wars of the Jews create a number of other “ prophecies and fulfillments” that can be seen as part of this satiric system. Many of Jesus’ eschatological, or doomsday, prophecies are presented in Matthew 21 through 25.

  I will begin the analysis of the relationship between the New Testament doomsday prophecies and Titus’ campaign by first citing a passage from Wars of the Jews. The passage contains a number of parallels with the New Testament that are historically famous, as well as one of the two lampoons of the New Testament’s Jesus that are arranged like bookends around Josephus’ description of the destruction of the temple. The other of these two “bookend” lampoons is the passage describing the son of Mary whose flesh was eaten, which I have discussed previously. Because Jesus used the “temple” as a self-designation, and compared his destruction to the destruction of a temple, juxtaposing these two lampoons with the destruction of the temple is audacious.

  The two lampoons of Jesus literally “touch” the chapter that describes the temple’s destruction. In the Whiston translation of Wars of the Jews, which I cite throughout this work, there are only eleven pages of text between the “Son of Mary whose flesh was eaten” passage and the passage that contains the character that I refer to below as the “woe-saying Jesus.” This woe-saying Jesus, who is a clear lampoon of the New Testament’s Jesus, was himself recorded by Josephus as one of the “signs” that preceded the destruction of the temple.

  The signs recorded by Josephus as having preceded the destruction of Jerusalem caused many early church scholars to believe that the signs Jesus foresaw in Matthew 23 and 24 had come to pass. The parallels that exist between Jesus’ and Josephus’ lists of signs have been known since the beginning of Christianity. As Hippolytus wrote (circa 200 C.E.),

  What then? Are not these things come to pass? Are not the things announced by thee fulfilled? Is not their country, Judea, desolate? Is not the holy place burned with fire? Are not their walls cast down? Are not their cities destroyed? Their land, do not strangers devour it? Do not the Romans rule the country?

  The parallels between the two lists of signs do seem too exact to have occurred by chance. I disagree, however, with Hippolytus’ belief that they were the result of supernatural causes. I would point out that whenever two documents have similarities too exact to have been caused by chance, parsimony requires that the first theory to explore be that the two works have emanated from the same source. This is the simplest theory and should be maintained until another explanation is shown to be more plausible. In any event, the following passages from Wars of the Jews and the New Testament are the example, par excellence, of the relationship that so many church scholars have noted between these two works. What Jesus predicts, Josephus records as having come to pass.

  BOOK 6, CHAPTER 5 – THE GREAT DISTRESS THE JEWS WERE IN UPON THE CONFLAGRATION OF THE HOLY HOUSE. CONCERNING A FALSE PROPHET, AND THE SIGNS THAT PRECEDED THIS DESTRUCTION.

  While the holy house was on fire, every thing was plundered that came to hand, and ten thousand of those that were caught were slain; nor was there a commiseration of any age, or any reverence of gravity, but children, and old men, and profane persons, and priests were all slain in the same manner; so that this war went round all sorts of men, and brought them to destruction, and as well those that made supplication for their lives, as those that defended themselves by fighting.

  The flame was also carried a long way, and made an echo, together with the groans of those that were slain; and because this hill was high, and the works at the temple were very great, one would have thought the whole city had been on fire. Nor can one imagine any thing either greater or more terrible than this noise;

  for there was at once a shout of the Roman legions, who were marching all together, and a sad clamor of the seditious, who were now surrounded with fire and sword. The people also that were left above were beaten back upon the enemy, and under a great consternation, and made sad moans at the calamity they were under;

  the multitude also that was in the city joined in this outcry with those that were upon the hill. And besides, many of those that were worn away by the famine, and their mouths almost closed, when they saw the fire of the holy house, they exerted their utmost strength, and brake out into groans and outcries again: Perea (17) did also return the echo, as well as the mountains round about [the city,] and augmented the force of the entire noise.

  Yet was the misery itself more terrible than this disorder; for one would have thought that the hill itself, on which the temple stood, was seething hot, as full of fire on every part of it, that the blood was larger in quantity than the fire, and those that were slain more in number than those that slew them;

  for the ground did nowhere appear visible, for the dead bodies that lay on it; but the soldiers went over heaps of those bodies, as they ran upon such as fled from them.

  And now it was that the multitude of the robbers were thrust out [of the inner court of the temple by the Romans,] and had much ado to get into the outward court, and from thence into the city, while the remainder of the populace fled into the cloister of that outer court.

  As for the priests, some of them plucked up from the holy house the spikes (18) that were upon it, with their bases, which were made of lead, and shot them at the Romans instead of darts.

  But then as they gained nothing by so doing, and as the fire burst out upon them, they retired to the wall that was eight cubits broad, and there they tarried;

  yet did two of these of eminence among them, who might have saved themselves by going over to the Romans, or have borne up with courage, and taken their fortune with the others, throw themselves into the fire, and were burnt together with the holy house; their names were Meirus the son of Belgas, and Joseph the son of Daleus.

  And now the Romans, judging that it was in vain to spare what was round about the holy house, burnt all those places, as also the remains of the cloisters and the gates, two excepted; the one on the east side, and the other on the south; both which, however, they burnt afterward.

  They also burnt down the treasury chambers, in which was an immense quantity of money, and an immense number of garments, and other precious goods there reposited; and, to speak all in a few words, there it was that the entire riches of the Jews were heaped up together, while the rich people had there built themselves chambers [to contain such furniture].

  The soldiers also came to the rest of the cloisters that were in the outer [court of the] temple, whither the women and children a
nd a great mixed multitude of the people fled, in number about six thousand.

  But before Caesar had determined anything about these people, or given the commanders any orders relating to them, the soldiers were in such a rage, that they set that cloister on fire; by which means it came to pass that some of these were destroyed by throwing themselves down headlong, and some were burnt in the cloisters themselves. Nor did any one of them escape with his life.

  A false prophet was the occasion of these people’s destruction, who had made a public proclamation in the city that very day, that God commanded them to get upon the temple, and that there they should receive miraculous signs of their deliverance.

  Now there was then a great number of false prophets suborned by the tyrants to impose on the people, who denounced this to them, that they should wait for deliverance from God; and this was in order to keep them from deserting, and that they might be buoyed up above fear and care by such hopes.

  Now a man that is in adversity does easily comply with such promises; for when such a seducer makes him believe that he shall be delivered from those miseries which oppress him, then it is that the patient is full of hopes of such his deliverance.

  Thus were the miserable people persuaded by these deceivers, and such as belied God himself; while they did not attend nor give credit to the signs that were so evident, and did so plainly foretell their future desolation, but, like men infatuated, without either eyes to see or minds to consider, did not regard the denunciations that God made to them.