8/14/2019 Afterword by Erika Simon

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Afterword to Jesus was Caesar

The territory in which the new Christian religion spread two thousand years agocan be defined as the Imperium Romanum. This process met with success becauseafter three centuries the late Roman emperor Constantine the Great madeChristianity the official cult of the state. Historical research has alwaysemphasized the tight interconnection between this religion and the Roman worldempire. The book at hand ties in with this fact but goes further and reveals new

connections which have never been seen that way.The author draws parallels between the founder of religion Jesus and JuliusCaesar, the Roman, whose name was given to all succeeding emperors. AlthoughCaesar who was assassinated in 44 B.C. was one hundred years older than Jesus,Carotta detects amazing accordances in the reports which circulated about the oneand the other in antiquity. The metamorphosis of names in vernacular language e.g. Gallia could become Galilee plays an important role in it. Strictetymologists may shake their heads here, but their objections are astray: thecircles in which Christianity spread, of course had not studied the subject oflinguistics which emerged in the 19th century. The circumstance that the authorhimself grew up in a milieu with several languages helped him in his analyses.Contrary to Jesus, Caesar was an army commander but the early propagation ofChristian religion occurred to a considerable extent amongst Roman soldiers. Think

of the many holy legionaries in the orthodox as well as the catholic church:Theodoros, Mauritius, Valentine and so on. A different question is whether thesimilarities demonstrated here between Caesar and Jesus can be used to deny thehistoricity of the latter something Carotta actually does not do, because hethinks Jesus did exist, just elsewhere and dressed in different clothes than oneusually imagines. The problem touches the cancellation of allegedly unhistoricalsaints like e. g. the Knight George by the catholic church. As if the venerationof a Saint which was practiced over a length of time were not part of history!Moreover, to remain with the Roman church: Although the donation of Constantineturned out to be a forgery, the Papal State based on it has been historicalreality through many centuries.Religion is something deeply historical as well as human. Fundamentalism can onlycause damage there. May the book of Francesco Carotta contribute that we remain

open to questions concerning early Christianity.

Erika Simon