Table
of Contents 
Introduction; Problems with Passion Week; The Traitor: To kill a King; Son of the gods - Betrayed; The Passion as Theatre; The Enigma of Paul; The Ghost of Galilee, When in Rome; Ramifications.
Et tu Judas? Then Fall Jesus! by Gary Courtney
New edition available now through Barnes & Noble and Amazon
Read about how the famous Saviour of Christianity rode to glory on the coat-tails of the murder of Julius Caesar, "Chief Priest, God made manifest and common Saviour of Mankind"
The Julian star gleams amid all others like the moon amid lesser lights - Horace
Even the lions of Carthage roared their grief at your extinction! - Virgil
Table
of Contents
Introduction; Problems with Passion Week; The Traitor: To kill a King; Son of the gods - Betrayed; The Passion as Theatre; The Enigma of Paul; The Ghost of Galilee, When in Rome; Ramifications.
"About a century ago, Oscar Wilde posed the question of whether art reflected life or whether life reflected art. Much the same question could be asked about religion – do the gods reflect man or does man reflect the gods? Et Tu, Judas? – Then Fall Jesus! propounds that there is a solid historical reason why Jesus conquered the old gods and secured an exclusive franchise on the Western heavens. But things are not always what they seem, and it will be argued that the origin of Christianity has nothing to do with the qualities, attributes or fortunes of a man called Jesus of Nazareth. Moreover, the explanation for its success is to be found in an entirely different, and much larger, arena than is commonly supposed."
From Cicero's praise of Caesar's clemency:
"I cannot by any means pass over in silence such great humanity, such unprecedented and unheard-of clemency, such moderation in the exercise of supreme and universal power, such incredible and almost godlike wisdom…But in this glory, O Caius Caesar, which you have just earned, you have no partner…Nay, even that very mistress of all human affairs, Fortune herself, cannot thrust herself into any participation in that glory; she yields to you; she confesses that it is all your own, your peculiar private desert...to subdue one's inclinations, to master one's angry feelings, to be moderate in the hour of victory, to not merely raise from the ground a prostrate adversary, eminent for noble birth, for genius, and for virtue, but even to increase his previous dignity – they are actions of such a nature, that the man who does them, I do not compare to the most illustrious of men, but I consider equal to God."
On the murder of Caesar:
"The Senate rose to its feet as Caesar, wearing the purple robe and adorned with the crown of laurel, entered the theatre and sat down on his golden throne. The conspirators approached the bedecked but affable man, ostensibly with petitions, but in fact they were forming a ring around him to conceal what was about to happen from the rest of the House. A man named Tillius Cimber, kneeling, importuned him for a favour on behalf of his brother. When Caesar told him he would defer his decision on the matter, Cimber signalled his co-conspirators to attack by wrenching Caesar’s purple robe down from his shoulder – stripping him of his emperorship. Casca first from behind, faltering with a glancing blow just below Caesar’s neck. The heretofore-unsuspecting Caesar instantly leapt to his feet, spun around and thrust the assailant away with great force. But Casca cried out for assistance, and within moments Caesar – “invincible in battle-shock” – was being assailed from all sides with only his bare hands to defend himself against the furious onslaught. But the tradition runs deep that what brought him to a halt was seeing Marcus Brutus advancing on him with dagger. In disbelief he uttered his last words “You too, my son?” and, ceasing all resistance, he wrapped himself in his robe and collapsed under a welter of blows. The senatorial onlookers, momentarily transfixed by the horrific spectacle in front of them, fled from the chamber, shortly to be followed by the murderers as well, who ran through the streets with their bloodied daggers proclaiming liberty. The forlorn and mangled body of Gaius Julius Caesar, Father of the Nation, Pontifex Maximus and universal Saviour of Mankind, lay slumped at the foot of the statue of Pompey."
From Mark Antony's eulogy to the slain Caesar:
"This alone was enough to prove his goodness, for he was so truly a son of the gods, that he understood but one thing, to save those who could be saved. Yet this father, this high priest, this inviolable being, this hero and god, is dead. Alas, not by the violence of some disease, nor wasted by old age, nor wounded abroad in some war, nor caught up inexplicably by some supernatural force, but murdered right here within the walls as the result of a plot…murdered in the Senate house…unarmed – the brave warrior, defenceless – the promoter of peace, the judge – beside the court of justice, slain by the hands of his comrades – he who had so often shown mercy to them!"
On the rites of Attis:
"The Attis festival began on the 15th of March with performances by a special class of reed-blowers to lament the hapless deity, who had sacrificed himself via castration and bled to death slumped backwards against a pine tree. As this was the first day of the commemoration, it was presumably believed that this was the day that Attis had actually died. But this day was also the hallowed Day of Parricide, and had been since 44 BC, giving the common people plenty of time to come to interpret the mourning reed-blowers as lamenting the loss of Caesar. This would seem to be of particular relevance to the Roman Jews, as they would no doubt identify the Ides of March with their own solemn festival of Passover, which falls on the 15th of their overlapping month of Nisan, and often would have fallen within the spring religious festival. Here we can see precisely how Julius Caesar’s death could have been religiously entwined with a ritualistic burial of the deity followed by the celebration of his resurrection. Indeed it would be a remarkable thing if the three commemorative rituals had not been confused. The first century of our era is renowned as the great age of syncretism."
On the authenticity of the Sanhedrin treatment of Jesus:
"The chief priests had risked a major insurrection totally unnecessarily. If they really had wanted to get Jesus out of the way after they had arrested him that night, would it not have been easier to just let him “fall down the stairs”? Or, if they still wanted to have him tried, why didn’t they just get Pilate to hold him over for a while, at least until the Passover week had finished and the country pilgrims – the principle beneficiaries of his miracles and teachings – had left the city and returned to their farms and flocks? Mark and the other three gospel writers portray the chief priests as incorrigibly evil, but we also have to believe them rather stupid as well. If we accept that they were hell-bent on killing Jesus, then they took a major risk in bringing him to Pilate – especially if they were familiar with his practice of releasing a prisoner on Passover, as they would have been if the custom existed. They could have lost their opportunity to dispose of him. Had Jesus been merely found slumped in a back lane, an itinerant beggar or a hoodlum could easily have been blamed or framed for the crime. But if Jesus were found the victim of foul play after an unsuccessful bid by the chief priests to have him executed, obviously they would be the prime suspects."
On the aftermath of Jesus' crucifixion:
"Whatever became of the momentous political drama the gospels describe of his death? No one seems to have attached any significance to the fact that Paul had no problems finding the Jerusalem apostles. There is no indication that he had to sneak into the city and furtively enquire as to the whereabouts of the friends and supporters of the man who had only recently been crucified as a felon. In the gospels the Jewish authorities go to incredible lengths to ensure that they eliminate Jesus – procuring false witnesses, hiring a betrayer, hurriedly convening a nocturnal kangaroo court, stirring up unseemly elements in a mob to crucify Jesus merely for his claiming to be the son of God – a claim they could have dismissed as the delusions of a madman. Yet apparently within no time at all, the proto-Christian church is snugly ensconced in Jerusalem and no early writers remark on the irony."
On the dispute between Peter and Paul:
"It is clear that Paul does not refute Peter by reminding him of any teaching of Jesus, and vice versa, but neither of the two seem to have called upon Jesus as an exemplar either. This is the only other way that Jesus could have taught – by example, like Gandhi. In fact he should have been the exemplar par excellence. Consider the gospel stories of Jesus associating with publicans (the hated tax collectors) and sinners, and his defending himself against the Pharisees for doing so (e.g. Mk 2:15-17). This behaviour on the part of Jesus is akin to Paul dining with the uncircumcised, an act that offended Peter when the Mosaic traditionalists were present. Was Peter aware of Jesus’ downgrading of the need to observe strict Mosaic customs when he – pointedly right in front of the religious authorities – picked corn on the Sabbath (Mk 2:23-27), healed on the Sabbath (see Mk 3:1-6) etc? In fact, Mark portrays these liberal views of, or abrogation of, the Mosaic Law by Jesus as the very reason why the Pharisees first sought to kill him (v 6)! These radically progressive actions of Jesus offended their unreconstructed conservatism. Were the reasons for why Jesus was ultimately executed so unimportant to Paul and Peter? Peter, in the gospels, is present for all these above occasions wherein Jesus repudiates a strict interpretation of the Mosaic Law – and Paul has to go to so much effort to persuade him that he thinks the Mosaic Law is impractical? Something here does not add up.
Paul appears to have successfully won his debate with Peter, and I suggest that the reason for this is very simple. Peter, and the other apostles in Jerusalem, could not tell Paul any of these stories about Jesus because their preaching and beliefs were not based on knowing any such person, and the earthly biography of “Jesus Christ” that we today are familiar with had not been written yet. So the whole notion that Jesus was put to death by political and social reactionaries must be a fiction, otherwise he could hardly be the founder of such a conservative and traditional sect as the Jerusalem branch appears to have been."
On Paul's ignorance of Jesus' life:
"Paul actually only refers to the Jerusalem leaders as "those who were apostles before me, and never mentions them as having been disciples of Jesus...Paul’s Galatian reference to his own and Peter’s commissioning by God makes them sound as if they were of the same nature and status (see Gal 2:8 – the Greek uses a different form of the same verb to describe both), which means that it must have been generally understood that Peter “knew” Jesus in the same way that Paul did – by direct celestial revelation. He was a man with a message from God, an apostle. Peter and Paul “knew” Jesus in the same fashion that Glen Campbell “knew” Jesus before he was a Superstar."
On the Jesus play:
"As Caesar had been murdered as a result of a conspiracy of Senators and high officials, the Jesus play would eventually come to include such things as the bogus trial of Jesus by the Sanhedrin – the Judean institution that most closely approximated the Roman Senate. Like the plot to kill Caesar and the immediate aftermath of nocturnal political manoeuvrings, the Sanhedrin trial smacks of conspiracy as it is hurriedly convened and held at night, with agents rushing out to search for (false) witnesses in the dark. In Mark’s gospel, no names of the Jewish high priests are given – a further clue that the trial is thematic and theatrical rather than historical. It is only the later gospels that provide the names of Caiaphas and Annas as high priests in Jerusalem. More historical grist is demanded of the cult as time goes by. But it is still all centred around his death, not his life – as should be expected of something developing from a commemoration."
On Christ's debt to Caesar:
"In the celestial Christ’s battle to conquer Caesar it was inevitable that he – in his human incarnation – would have to take on more and more of his attributes. For Christ to step into the shoes of Caesar, he had to mirror his fate. The reader will recall that in all the authentic pre-gospel Christian writings, from Paul through to Clement, Christ is never referred to as a “king” or the “King of the Jews” (1 Timothy is pseudo-Pauline). For over sixty years the Christian writers, in all their voluminous correspondence, never mention it. Nor is there ever any suggestion in their writings that Jesus thought he was the King of the Jews, or claimed to be such, or was thought to be such, or was falsely accused of trying to usurp such a position. There is no trace in their early letters of any attempt to reconcile this issue (viz – did he claim to be the king, or not?). We find no “if only’s” nor “what ifs”, no rationalisations, no disclaimers – yet this very theme is central to the gospels' Passion drama, wherein Jesus' royal pretensions are the basis for Pilate ordering his execution. The cry of the crowd “We have no king but Caesar!” could not be more explicit, nor ironic – and all the gospels have this very "accusation" superscribed on Christ's cross – "The King of the Jews" (Mk 15:26; Mt 27:37; Lk 23:38; Jn 19:19). This has been directly borrowed from the deicide of Caesar, and I have presented evidence that, not only were the early Christians oblivious to all this, their writings and quietistic admonitions positively exclude its authenticity. This political drama of the death of Christ appears to have been have been concocted somewhere between 100 to 140 AD. Christian apocryphal tradition even ascribes all manner of ghastly fates to those connected with the murder of Christ – Pilate, Caiaphas, the various Herods, etc – justly echoing what was said of the assassins of Caesar."
On historical echoes:
"The image of the man who would be King being brought down by jealous adversaries symbolised by an aspiring Brutus is so deeply embedded in Western culture that we fail to see how it shaped our religion. It famously appears in the form of knives and togas in political cartoons every time there is a whiff of a palace revolution anywhere. It has echoed down through the ages since the fateful Ides of March – the Day of Parricide – and uncannily manifested in Washington D.C. on that other Good Friday of April 14 1865 in the balcony of the Ford theatre, when the unsuspecting audience imagined they heard the assassin of Abraham Lincoln cry sic semper tyrannis as he crashed to the stage floor. Both the father and brother of John Wilkes Booth bore the name of Junius Brutus!"
On the faulted nature of Jesus:
"A friendly and high-minded gospel Jesus can only be gleaned by ignoring many of his reputed sayings and actions. Free of preconceptions, only a confused, contradictory and generally unedifying character can be construed from the scriptures. This stands to reason, as it is a difficult task to write the vita of a deity without affronting normal human sentiments. What are we to make of Jesus’ saying to his mother, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?' (Jn 2:4); or his abusing of the Pharisee, at whose dinner table he was a guest, for not anointing his head and feet on entrance (Lk 7:36-46)? Where does this leave his much-vaunted egalitarian disposition? His opinion of the efficacy of prayer as espoused at Luke 18:1-7, wherein he likens God to a corrupt magistrate, is little short of abhorrent. It must be remembered that much of the acrimony that suffuses the pronouncements of the gospel Jesus, in particular Matthew’s character, is reflective of controversies and hostilities that raged within the 2nd century church when the gospels were being written. Hence the idealised 'meta-Jesus' of Christianity is a far greater soul than the gospel one. This is hardly a controversial opinion; it is the basis for why the German theologian Rudolf Bultmann considered it imperative to divorce the 'Christ of faith' from the 'Jesus of history'.
In the meantime the deity Jesus Christ, just like his formulaic predecessor Attis, continues to die and resurrect every year. But a creed that grew to be as great as did Christianity could not have come into being had there not been a truly remarkable man hailed as a god treacherously betrayed and murdered right here on earth – an event so momentous as to shake the ground, wake the dead and dim the sun.
That man was Julius
Caesar."
Bibliography:
APPIAN, Historiae Romanae, Bynneman's Ed., 1956 . BAILEY, Cyril, Religion in Virgil, Clarendon Press, 1935., BARROW, R.H., The Romans, Penguin, 1968. CANNADINE & PRICE, Rituals of Royalty, Cambridge Uni. Press, 1987. COHN, Haim, The Trial and Death of Jesus, London, 1972. DIMONT, Max I., Jews, God, and History, New American Library, 1962. DION, Cassius, Roman History Loeb Classical Lib., trans. E. Gary, 1914. EPSTEIN, Isadore, Judaism, Penguin, 1959. FRAZER, J.G., The Golden Bough, MacMillan & Co., 1967. GARDNER, Martin, Fads & Fallacies, Dover Publications, 1952. GRANT, F.C., The Gospels: their Origin and their Growth, London, 1959. GRANT, Michael, Julius Caesar, Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1969. JAMES, M.R., Apocryphal New Testament, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1926. JEWETT, Robert, Dating Paul's Life, S.C.M. Press, 1979. JOSEPHUS, Flavius, Antiquities of the Jews, Loeb Classical Library. JOSEPHUS, Flavius, The Jewish War, Penguin, 1981. LEVINE, Lee I., Caesarea under Roman Rule, Brill, 1975. MACCOBY, Hyam, Revolution in Judaea, Ocean Books, London, 1973. MORGENSON, Greg, God is a Trauma, Spring Publications, Dallas, 1989. PHILOSTRATUS, Life of Apollonius of Tyana, Loeb Classical Library.Brill. PLUTARCH, Lives of Great Men, Loeb Classical Library. ROBERTSON, J.M., Pagan Christs, Dorset Press, N.Y., reprint 1966. SCHONFIELD, Hugh, The Passover Plot, Element Books, reprint 1985. SEVENSTER, J.N., Paul and Seneca, Brill, 1961. SHAKESPEARE, W., The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Penguin.SUETONIUS, The Twelve Caesars, Penguin, 1983. WEINSTOCK, S., Divus Iulius, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971. WELLS, G.A., The Jesus of the Early Christians, London 1971. WINTER, Paul, On the Trial of Jesus, Berlin, 1961.
First printed 1992 - ISBN 0 646 08733 9
Reprint 2004 ISBN: 0-595-32868-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 0-595-77790-2 (Hardcover)