Chrestians and the lost history of Classical Antiquity

To who or what do Chrest and Chrestian refer early in the first century of this era?

Archaeology is revealing a growing number of examples from a century before the composition of the canonical gospels that as well as being used by Nero to describe the arsonists of the Great Fire of Rome, some were using these terms for themselves and in their magical practices.

We now see that Chrest and Chrestian refer to members of an axis of power between Rome and Alexandria, whose two prime movers are Antonia Minor and Alexander Lysimachus (the Alabarch).

Marble inscription, originally from Rome.  (CIL VI 24944)

“Antonia” in this inscription has often been interpreted as referring to Antonia Minor (36 BCE -37 CE), the daughter of Mark Anthony the triumvir, and mother of the emperor Claudius. She was married to General Nero Claudius Drusus, from (18 or) 16 BCE until he died in 9 BCE. Faustus has been regarded as a freedman, servant or slave of Antonia. (Chrestians before Christians? An Old Inscription Revisited, by Erík Zara, Th.D.)

Right: So-called “Hera Ludovisi”, actually a portrait of Antonia Minor. (Casts in the Pushkin Museum)

In Christ Magus, we saw a bowl made probably in Pergamon, used for divination in Alexandria and inscribed in the first half of the first century of this era with ‘CHRSTOU’.

Perhaps this will assist in our understanding better the use of a similar term in the marble inscription, which Zara translates as follows:

“D.M.” is an abbreviation of “Diis Manibus”, “to the gods of the underworld”, and has been said to indicate that the grave was a pagan’s grave. The text, being difficult to interpret as it is missing “essential” words, could be interpreted as saying that M. (and) T., the father/fathers of Drusus, dedicated the tomb to his/their first born son, who lived for 42 years and seven days, and Faustus, the son/slave/freedman of Antonia, the daughter/wife of Drusus, bought (emit) the right for the urn (with cremation ashes) to be put in a certain columbarium or other burial place (jus oll.), from Iucundus, the Chrestian.

“Diis Manibus” is an indication of a pagan’s grave. (Münter 1825, p. 14)

If pateres is taken literary as “fathers”, one is the biological father and one the adoptive. (Orelli, p. 290)

Who could be this Iucundus?

Lucius Caecilius Jucundus (left) was a banker who lived in the Roman town of Pompeii around 20 – 69 CE. His house still stands and can be seen in the ruins of Pompeii. It was partially destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79. This house is known for its beauty, along with some material found about bank book-keeping and wax tablets, which were receipts.

He had at least two sons, Sextus Caecilius Iucundus Metellus (after his wife) and Quintus Caecilius Jucundus. However, these names suggest he had four previous sons (in Latin, quintus and sextus mean fifth and sixth respectively). Iucundus departed from the traditional naming system, giving each of his sons a name that implied a relationship with the illustrious family of the Caecilii Metelli.

The Caecilii Metelli were one of the most important and wealthiest families in the Roman Republic. They were nobles, although of plebeian, not of patrician stock. The Caecilii Metelli remained a political power within the state from 3rd century BCE to the end of the Republic, holding every office in the cursus honorum as well as several important military commands.

Right: Denarius of Metellus Scipio with elephant-skin headgear to represent African imperium.

Metellus Scipio (as one example of this family), Roman consul and military commander in the Late Republic, led troops against Caesar’s forces in the civil war. He is known to have been a member of the College of Pontiffs (see below).

Scipio put to death Alexander of Judaea, the eldest son of Aristobulus II, king of Judaea.

In January 49 BCE, Metellus Scipio persuaded the senate to issue the ultimatum to Caesar that made war inevitable. That same year, he became proconsul of the province of Syria. In Syria and in the province of Asia, where he took up winter quarters, he used often oppressive means to gather ships, troops, and money:

He put a per capita tax on slaves and children; he taxed columns, doors, grain, soldiers, weaponry, oarsmen, and machinery; if a name could be found for a thing, that was seen as sufficient for making money from it.
– Caesar, Bellum civile 3.32

It must be noted that the workmanship of this inscription (top) is poor. The ‘C’ in ‘PRIMICINIO’ almost certainly should be a ‘G’, for example and even then, the spelling is dubious, unless by this usage of ‘first-born’ a reference is being made to the question of who was actually the biological father, which has always been a matter of speculation for Drusus, husband of Antonia Minor.

Neither Zara, nor any other scholar seems to have addressed the question of age for the first-born son referred to in the inscription. I would welcome any suggestion on this.

General Nero Claudius Drusus, the husband of Antonia Minor, was born in 38 BCE as Decimus Claudius Drusus and is called commonly either called Drusus, or Nero Drusus. His elder brother became the Emperor Tiberius.

He was the youngest son of Roman Empress Livia Drusilla from her marriage to Tiberius Claudius Nero (praetor 42 BCE).

Livia divorced Tiberius Nero and married Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus, the first ruler of the Roman Empire, who became the step-father of Drusus. Before Augustus married Livia, Tiberius Claudius Nero was declared the biological father of Drusus.

He was raised in his father’s house with his brother, the future emperor Tiberius, until his father’s death.

Drusus and his brother Tiberius developed a famously close relationship in this environment that would last the rest of their lives. Tiberius named his eldest son after his brother (a departure from Roman naming convention), and Drusus did likewise.

Drusus gained a reputation of being completely faithful to his wife, Antonia Minor. Their children were Germanicus and Claudius, a daughter Livilla (Little Livia), and at least two others who did not survive infancy.

After Drusus’ death on 14 September 9 BCE, Antonia never remarried, though she outlived him by nearly five decades.

Augustus bestowed many honors on his stepsons and Drusus became an able and widely admired general.

He served as a general under Tiberius against the Rhaeti and Vindelici in 15 BCE, and from 13 until 10 BCE he was governor of the three Gallic provinces. In 9 BCE he held an army against the German peoples of the Elbe region, penetrating farther than previous Roman armies. He died on 14 September 9 BCE, after a fall from his horse.

Drusus and Antonia had three children, of whom the youngest, Claudius (10 BCE – 54 CE), became emperor in 41 CE and his daughter, Claudia Antonia (ca. 30–66), married Faustus Cornelius Sulla (22–62) in 47.

This Faustus was already related to Antonia Minor: his mother was Domitia Lepida, a great niece of Emperor Augustus and granddaughter of Octavia Minor and Mark Antony (the parents of Antonia Minor).

At this point, let us make a note for Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (15 December 37 – 9 June 68), the fifth and last Roman emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and adopted by his great uncle Claudius to become heir to the throne:

NERO (54-68) was but sixteen years old when he began to reign. For two or three years he was under the influence of his tutor, SENECA, the author, and BURRHUS, the Praefect of the Praetorian Guard, and his government was during this period the most respectable of any since the time of Augustus. His masters kept the young Emperor amused, and removed from the cares of state. But he soon became infatuated with an unscrupulous woman, POPPAEA SABÍNA, for whom he neglected and finally killed his wife, Octavia.
- Ancient Rome from the Earliest Times Down to 476 A.D., by Robert F. Pennell (A History of Rome)

In 56, two years after the accession of Nero, a freed man of Antonia Minor, Marcus Antonius Pallas (c. 1–63), and the Praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus were accused of conspiring to have Faustus declared emperor.

Pallas had become a chamberlain to the Emperors Claudius and Nero (right). His younger brother was Marcus Antonius Felix, procurator of Iudaea Province (52 – 58). According to Tacitus, Pallas and Felix descended from the Greek Kings of Arcadia.

Right: Bronze prutah minted by Antonius Felix. (Obverse: Greek letters NEP WNO C (Nero) in wreath. Reverse: Greek letters KAICAPOC (Caesar) and date LC (year 3 = 56/57 CE), palm branch.)

The conspirators were put on trial, but Faustus does not appear to have been implicated. Nero, however, began to watch his brother-in-law closely, afraid of his connection to the imperial family.

In 58, another imperial freedman accused Faustus of plotting to attack Nero and this time, Nero treated Faustus as proven guilty. Faustus was exiled in 59 and confined to Massilia (modern Marseille, France).

Finally, in 62, the palace guardsman Tigellinus sent assassins to murder Faustus. He was murdered at dinner, five days after Tigellinus gave his orders. Faustus’ head was transported to the palace. At times, it was said, Nero would tease Faustus’s head, due to his baldness and greyness to his hair.

Decades later and under the rule of the last Flavian, Domitian had executed Tiberius Claudius Epaphroditus for implication in the death of Nero. As a libellis he had drafted Nero’s replies to petitions, and he is mentioned by Josephus as his patron in the Jewish Antiquities, his Autobiography, and Against the Greeks.

Tiberius Claudius Nero is a Julio-Claudian dynastic name:

• Tiberius Nero, first husband to Livia and lieutenant of Julius Caesar;
• Tiberius (Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar), Roman emperor, son of Tiberius and Livia;
• Germanicus, general and son of Nero Claudius Drusus, father of Caligula;
• Claudius (Tiberius Claudius Nero Caesar Drusus), Roman emperor, nephew of Tiberius and grandson of Tiberius Nero and Livia; and
• Nero (Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), emperor, commonly referred to as Tiberius Claudius Nero.

Epaphroditus – as with other imperial freedmen such as Pallas and Felix – will not have been unknown to Antonia Minor.

During the Great Fire of Rome (in 64), Suetonius (The Life of Nero) offers the evidence of “several ex-consuls” who, he writes, caught Nero’s chamberlains actually with firebrands:

…several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his chamberlains although they caught them on their estates with tow and fire-brands, while some granaries near the Golden House, whose room he particularly desired, were demolished by engines of war and then set on fire, because their walls were of stone.

In 65, Epaphroditus reported to Nero that a senator named Gaius Calpurnius Piso and many others had organized a coup and the conspirators were arrested.

After the execution of the conspirators, Epaphroditus received military honors. He was now a wealthy man and owned large gardens on the Esquiline hill, east of the Domus Aurea (“golden house”), which Nero had started to construct after the Great Fire.

Who did Nero blame for this conflagration?

Left: Ultraviolet photo of a critical word from the earliest known extant manuscript of Tacitus (second Medicean, Laurentian library, Italy).

The photograph reveals that the word purportedly used by Tacitus in Annals 15.44, chrestianos has been overwritten as christianos. ( The Chrestianos Issue in Tacitus Reinvestigated by Erík Zara, Th.D.)

We have CHRESTIANI on the above inscription, CHRSTOU on the Greek magic bowl from Alexandria (right) and here we have Chresto as regards the fire – each in the first century and before the term has been used in the New Testament gospels.

Who is being described in this manner? We know it was not Christians as described in the canonical gospels:

• Hadrian’s parody
• Josephus as a primary source for the New Testament
• Flavian Midrash Sources of the New Testament
• Archaeology of the earliest canonical gospels

Perhaps we can look for an answer to Tiberius Claudius Epaphroditus, a Greek freedman working as an imperial chamberlain when it was such officials who were seen and reported to start the fire.

His name Epaphroditus is pagan, meaning loved by Aphrodite. The same name is found in Philippians 2:25, 4:18, and 4:23.

Epaphroditus was the delegate of the Christian community at Philippi, sent with their gift to Paul during his first Roman imprisonment. Paul of Tarsus calls him “my brother and fellow-worker and fellow-soldier.”

What has Paul to do with the imperial court in Rome?

This Paul (kinsman to Costobarus) is a Herodian, friend of Herodians and the Herodian court, as well as a Roman citizen.

Paul Chats Up Major Officials and the Royal Family

Paul is put on trial. Although Acts does not make very clear the charges, Felix, the governor, keeps him under house arrest (probably actually protective custody). Felix and his wife Drusilla (not identified as such but actually the sister of King Agrippa II) carry on conversations with Paul over the course of 2 years(!) about theological and perhaps other matters. At this point (60 C.E.) Festus succeeds Felix and is pressed by “the Jews” once again about Paul, whom Festus then gives a new trial. Again, the charges are not clear. Paul demands an appeal to the emperor Nero, a request that is granted.

Before he can depart, however, Festus introduces Paul to King Agrippa II and his sister/mistress Bernice, to whom Paul delivers a chapter-long speech recounting his own conversion. The king say “You almost persuade me to become a Christian”, (Acts 26:28) and says that Paul would have been set free immediately had he not appealed to Nero (Acts 26:32).

After many adventures that serve to showcase Paul’s prophetic and healing powers, during which he is given special treatment supervised by a centurion who is specifically assigned to him, Paul lands in Rome. Here, he is not treated at all as a prisoner but rather “dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things that concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.” (Acts 28:30-31). And there Acts ends, in 62 C.E., with no hint as to the fate of its hero, Paul. Other Christian sources say that Paul died in 66 C.E., a very significant date to which I return below. If correct, Acts is for some reason completely silent on the last 4 years of Paul’s life. The reason cannot be that Acts was written before Paul died, as it can be definitively dated as after 93 C.E. (see below). So it is pretty clear that Acts has something to hide. And, of course, Acts ends in 62 C.E. without mentioning the murder of James in the same year, certainly the most significant event in the early history of the Church.

- Essay Robert Eisenman’s “New Testament Code” by Dr. Andrew P. Gould, Ohio State U. Distinguished Professor of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

This is a small part of the argument Gould makes, using Eisenman’s scholarly works as his basis: Paul, in particular, was a political/intelligence operative for the Herodian kings, not only before his famous “conversion” on the road to Damascus, but after as well.

The “after” includes his being in Rome, from where Paul writes (Philippians 4:22) ca. 62: All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household.

Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.
For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.
For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful.
Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation:
Because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.
– Philippians 2:25-30

But I have all, and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God.
– Philippians 4:18

The timeline (from Gould) for this short period:

• 58 C.E. Paul/James final confrontation. Paul attacked by Jewish mobs for bringing foreigners into Temple, declares he is Roman citizen by birth (Acts).
• 58 – 60 C.E. Paul under house arrest for 2 years, chats up governor (Felix), his Princess/wife (Drusilla), King (Agrippa II) and his Princess/sister/mistress (Bernice) (Acts).
• 60 C.E. Temple Wall Affair blocking King’s view of services because he is foreigner, several key officials, priests etc. bound over for “appeal to Nero” (Josephus), Paul bound over for “appeal to Nero” (Acts).
• 60 – 62 C.E. Paul preaches unimpeded in Rome (Acts).
• 62 C.E. James tried in Kangaroo court. Executed. (Josephus). Dead Sea Scrolls’s leader “The Righteous Teacher” tried in Kangaroo court. Executed. (Habakkuk Pesher); Acts’s Paul/Saulos “deactivated”, i.e., Acts of the Apostles ends without saying what happened to Paul (or James, for that matter) (Acts), Josephus’s Saulos “activated”, organizes riotous attacks on lower priests (Josephus).
• 64 C.E. Rome burns, Nero blames “Christians”.
• 66 C.E. Jewish War erupts over foreign control/presence in Temple (Josephus); Saulos works unsuccessfully to bring Romans into city, sent to report to Nero in Corinth, never heard from again (Josephus), Paul executed (Christian sources).

As regards Paul in Rome and his relationship with both Herodian and Roman royalty, we should remind ourselves of the note earlier for Nero:

And when we came to Rome, the centurion delivered the prisoners to the captain of the guard: but Paul was suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him.
– Acts 28:16

Then he gave orders to the centurion for him to be kept in custody and yet have some freedom, and not to prevent any of his friends from ministering to him
– Acts 24:23

Sextus Afranius Burrus (1 – 62), Praetorian prefect, was advisor to Roman emperor Nero and, together with Seneca the Younger, very powerful in the early years of Nero’s reign (as we noted, above).

Agrippina the Younger chose him as Prefect in 51 to secure her son Nero’s place as emperor after the death of Claudius. For the first eight years of Nero’s rule of the Roman Empire he and Nero’s former tutor Seneca helped maintain a stable government.

The Roman cognomen “Burrus” is the Latin version of the name Pyrrhus, king of Epirus (region); he may, therefore, have a background similar to that of Felix and Pallas.

During the Roman imprisonment of Paul and up to the year 62, Burrus alone held this honour. Tacitus reports incidents at which Burrus used his guards as policemen, at times in opposition to Nero’s intentions (Tacitus, Ann. XIII. 48; XIV. 7-10; etc.). A prisoner could arouse the sympathy of the praetorian prefect. This, in fact, did occur between the oriental philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana, and the prefect, Aelanus (Philostratus, Life of Apoll. VII. 16-28).

Porcius Festus – is this the Festus of the inscription with which we began? – was procurator of Judea from about 58 to 62, succeeding Antonius Felix (Antonia’s freedmen, as noted). (Josephus, “Ant.” xx. 8, § 9; “B. J.” ii. 14, § 1)

Left: Porcius Festus, AE Prutah – Roman Procurator in Judaea under Nero, Year 5 (c. 58/59)

One issue bedeviled his administration, the controversy between Agrippa II and the priests in Jerusalem regarding the wall erected at the temple to break the view of the new wing of Agrippa’s palace.

According to Josephus, at this particular time the animosity between Jews and Gentiles was even worse in Caesarea than in Jerusalem. Greeks (according to Josephus, they were Syrians) and Jews threw stones at one another. Each party denied the other the right of citizenship. The street battles spread even to Jerusalem after a new high priest by the name of Ishmael ben Phabi had come to power (in 59). The two parties in Caesarea appealed to the emperor; and, as one would expect, Burrus and Nero (in 59) declared the Greeks to be lawful citizens in Caesarea (Josephus, Ant. XX. 173-84). Similar riots in the year 66 in Caesarea ignited the Jewish War (Josephus, Bell. I. 284-92).

The predecessor of Buhhrus as commander of the Praetorian Guard (under the Emperor Claudius) was Rufrius Crispinus. The satirist Juvenal described him as one the “dregs” of the “Nile”, indicating his Egyptian origin.  In 47, he suppressed a rebellion and was promoted by the senate to the rank of praetor and was given one and half a million sesterces.

In 51, the Empress Agrippina the Younger removed him from the commander position and replaced him with Sextus Afranius Burrus.

Crispinus married Poppaea Sabina, who would become Empress (also Nero’s second wife).

He later became a member of the Roman Senate, due to property qualifications and enjoyed senator status. Martial passingly mentions his purple cloak suiting his complexion. In 65, due to Nero’s hate for him, he was banished. One year later, Nero ordered his execution. His son would also die at Nero’s hand, by being drowned during a fishing trip.

Right: FROM “SHIMEON BAR KOSIBA, PEACE! To Yehonathan son of Be’aya.” This papyrus letter, found in the Cave of Letters in the Nahal Hever, was among several other letters stashed in a goat skin with many items belonging to a woman. (Photo: David Harris)

Crispinus is a name to which we must return, most especially in regards ‘Julia Crispina, Daughter of Berenicianus’ in the vastly-important Cave of Letters at Ein Gedi (for an introduction, see the earlier post Archaeology of Ein Gedi).

The first-born son of Drusus and Antonia Minor is Germanicus Julius Caesar (24 May 16  or 15 BCE – 10 October 19 CE), named at birth either Nero Claudius Drusus after his father, or Tiberius Claudius Nero after his uncle (left).

He received the agnomen Germanicus, by which he is principally known, in 9 BCE, when it was posthumously awarded to his father in honour of his victories in Germania.

Germanicus was sent to Asia, where in 18 he defeated the kingdoms of Cappadocia and Commagene, turning them into Roman provinces.

During a sightseeing trip to Egypt, he seems to have unwittingly usurped several imperial prerogatives.

The following year he found that the governor of Syria, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, had cancelled the provincial arrangements that he had made. Germanicus in turn ordered Piso’s recall to Rome, although this action was probably beyond his authority.

In the midst of this feud Germanicus died suddenly in Antioch. His death aroused much speculation, with several sources blaming Piso, under orders from Emperor Tiberius. This was never proven and Piso later died while facing trial (ostensibly by suicide, but Tacitus supposes Tiberius may have had him murdered before he could implicate the emperor in Germanicus’ death).

Antonia Minor as episkopos

Antonia was deified by her son Claudius when he became emperor.

Antonia Minor was the youngest daughter to Octavia the Younger and Mark Antony. As with her mother, she is celebrated for her virtue and beauty.

In A Virgin Blood Sacrifice, we saw that in 41 BCE, at Cleopatra’s instigation, Mark Antony ordered Arsinoe IV executed on the steps of the temple of Artemis in Ephesus.

The enormous respect, admiration even, gained by Antonia derives largely from her refusal to remarry after the death of Drusus, which Romans saw as a sign of fidelity and virtue.

This refusal had, though, a practical benefit:

In one respect, Antonia perhaps exceeded the expectations of Augustus for monogamous behavior, in that she refused to remarry after the death of Drusus I in 9 B.C., although she was still a young woman with many potential childbearing years ahead of her. Augustus’s social legislation, through the Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinbus, encouraged fertile widows to remarry. According to the same law, on the other hand, Antonia, having already produced three children, enjoyed the legal rights of freedom from tutela, or guardianship, and consequent control over her own property, that ius liberom conferred. She could thus perhaps exercise some independence in decisions about marriage that the princeps would ordinarily control. By choosing to remain faithful to her dead husband, Antonia enjoyed the status of a univira, wife of only one husband, that Roman society revered. Such women enjoyed special religious status in that only they were sufficiently pure to participate in some rites or to touch certain ritual objects. Although her decision not to remarry did not conform to Augustus’s policies, it later won Antonia praise from the Senate, in its decree recording the condemnation of Cn. Piso for the murder of Germanicus. The decree specifically mentions that Antonia has had only one marriage, and is worthy in the sanctity of her ways of her membership in the family of the deified Augustus.
– Imperial women: a study in public images, 40 B.C.-A.D. 68 by Susan E. Wood

In 31 CE, Antonia accused her daughter Livilla and Sejanus of plotting to remove the Emperor Tiberius, kill Caligula and to seize the throne for themselves. Sejanus was killed on Tiberius’s orders and Livilla was handed over to her mother.

There is no evidence to support the theory that Antonia and Sejanus were in any way allied before the events of 31.

Cassius Dio states that Antonia imprisoned Livilla in her room and starved her to death.

When Livia Drusilla died in 29 CE, Antonia took care of:

• Caligula
• Julia Agrippina
• Julia Drusilla
• Julia Livilla and later
• Claudia Antonia, her younger grandchildren.

Foreign Child Hostages

The holding of hostages is a common practice, especially by royalty, throughout Antiquity, in order to force compliance of either international diplomacy, or loyalty. Such children are often termed wards of court, or royal pages. Octavia the Younger preformed this service with these:

• The three children of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII:
  • Cleopatra Selene, made ruler of Cyrenaica and Libya during the Donations of Alexandria.
  • Alexander Helios- not seen again after entering the care of Octavia the Younger.
  • Ptolemy Philadelphus - not seen again after entering the care of Octavia the Younger.

Her daughter, Antonia Minor, then performed the same service with these hostages:

• Gaius Julius Antiochus IV Epiphanes, last king of Commagene.
• Julia Iotapa, daughter of Antiochus III of Commagene and Queen Iotapa of Commagene (full-blooded siblings).
• The four children of Cotys VIII of Thrace and Antonia Tryphaena:
  • Rhoemetalces II
  • Gepaepyris
  • Cotys IX
  • Pythodoris II
• Ptolemy of Mauretania
• The four children of Aristobulus IV and his cousin, Berenice, daughter of Costobarus and Salome. He was the son of Herod the Great and his second wife, Mariamne I, the last of the Hasmoneans:
  • Aristobulus Minor, grandson to Herod the Great and youngest son of prince Aristobulus IV and princess Berenice of Judea.
  • Herod of Chalcis, who became responsible for the Temple in Jerusalem and the appointment of the High Priest. He married (i) his cousin, Mariamne and after her death, (ii) his niece Berenice, with whom he had two sons, Berenicianus and Hyrcanus.
  • Herodias, who married (i) her uncle, Herod II, son of Herod the Great and Mariamne II, daughter of the high priest Simon Boethus; (ii) another uncle, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee and Peraea.
  • Mariamne III, who married Antipater III, her uncle and eldest son of Herod; after Antipater’s execution in 4 BCE, she may have been the first wife of another uncle, Herod Archelaus, ethnarch of Judea.
• Marcus Julius Agrippa I, King of the Jews.

Their histories become the fabric of the lost history for Classical Antiquity, for the added advantage to Rome of this system was the indoctrination of these provincial royalty into Roman customs, with Roman values and beliefs.

Their descendants also have important histories.

The Cilician prince, Gaius Julius Alexander Berenicianus, for example, served as a suffect consul or even as consul ordinarius in 116. Between 132-133, he was Proconsul of the Roman Province of Asia. He married Cassia Lepida (born ca 80), daughter of Cassius Lepidus (born ca 55), paternal granddaughter of Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo and wife Junia Lepida: through her mother and grandmother, Cassia was a direct descendant of Augustus Caesar.

Berenicianus and Cassia had a daughter named Julia Cassia Alexandria, born ca 105, who married Gaius Avidius Heliodorus, born ca 100, ab epistulis under Hadrian and praefectus Aegypti between 138 and 140, and had issue, such as the usurper Avidius Cassius, who briefly ruled Egypt and Syria in 175. In 175 he was proclaimed Roman Emperor.

Episkopos of infant Jesus

A daughter, Julia Crispina, is mentioned in the Babatha archive. (Ilan, Tal (1992). Julia Crispina, Daughter of Berenicianus, a Herodian Princess in the Babatha Archive: A Case Study in Historical Identification. The Jewish Quarterly Review, New Ser. (University of Pennsylvania Press) 82 (3/4): 361–381.)

The Cave of Letters. Surveyed by Dr. Phillip Reeder — July 1999

In these legal documents we are informed that the unnamed nephews of Babatha’s second husband, who are designated “the orphans” in the documents, were represented in court in their claims against Babatha by two guardians: one, Besas son of Jesus, a Jew from Ein Gedi, termed epitropos (guardian) (Documents 20, 23, 24, and 25), and the other a woman, Julia Crispina, the episkopos of the orphans of Jesus son of Khthousion.

The scholarly view of this legal dispute has ignored the most salient feature, which is the nature of the guardianship proposed to the court by Julia Crispina and in that regard, the relationship between these documents of the Cave of Letters with Simon ben Kosiba (132-135 CE), the only Jewish leader declared Messiah in the Jewish, primary sources:

Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai taught: ‘Aqiba, my master, used to interpret a star goes forth from Jacob as a Kozeba goes forth from Jacob.’ Rabbi Aqiba, when he saw Ben Kozeba, said: ‘This is the King Messiah.’ Rabbi Yohanan ben Torta said to him: ‘Aqiba! Grass will grow on your cheeks and still the Son of David does not come!’ (Palestinian Talmud, Ta`anit 4.5)

Left: During he revolt of 132-135 CE led by Simon ben Kosiba, who become known as “Bar Kochba” or “Son of a Star” (see Num 24:17), Jews began to mint their own coinage. On the obverse of this coin is represented the facade of sanctuary; the inscription written in ancient Hebrew letters is “Jerusalem.”

Aqiba ben Joseph was imprisoned by Hadrian’s general in Judea, Julius Severus (a forebear of the Severan dynasty) and flayed alive with circumstances of great cruelty.

To use these children effectively, when grown, this episkopos system needed a source of ready cash and in large quantities, so that as each returned to the provinces, they were able to effect Roman strategy. The source of these funds was Alexander Lysimachus, the financial partner of Antonia.

After the death of Antonia, the Lysimachus family used their pivotal power to promote their Flavian protegee.

The post Josephus as a primary source for the New Testament relates that Vespasian (right) was brought (and bought) to power by Alexander Lysimachus, the alabarch in Alexandria, who managed the estate of Antonia Minor, whose secretarial slave, Antonia Caenis, was mistress-wife of Vespasian. (Caenis is a warrior woman of Thessaly.)

HOW CLAUDIUS RESTORED TO AGRIPPA HIS GRANDFATHERS KINGDOMS AND AUGMENTED HIS DOMINIONS; AND HOW HE PUBLISHED AN EDICT IN BEHALF.
1. NOW when Claudius had taken out of the way all those soldiers whom he suspected, which he did immediately, he published an edict, and therein confirmed that kingdom to Agrippa which Caius had given him, and therein commended the king highly. He also made all addition to it of all that country over which Herod, who was his grandfather, had reigned, that is, Judea and Samaria; and this he restored to him as due to his family. But for Abila of Lysanias, and all that lay at Mount Libanus, he bestowed them upon him, as out of his own territories. He also made a league with this Agrippa, confirmed by oaths, in the middle of the forum, in the city of Rome: he also took away from Antiochus that kingdom which he was possessed of, but gave him a certain part of Cilicia and Commagena: he also set Alexander Lysimachus, the alabarch, at liberty, who had been his old friend, and steward to his mother Antonia, but had been imprisoned by Caius, whose son [Marcus] married Bernice, the daughter of Agrippa. But when Marcus, Alexander’s son, was dead, who had married her when she was a virgin, Agrippa gave her in marriage to his brother Herod, and begged for him of Claudius the kingdom of Chalcis.

2. Now about this time there was a sedition between the Jews and the Greeks, at the city of Alexandria; for when Caius was dead, the nation of the Jews, which had been very much mortified under the reign of Caius, and reduced to very great distress by the people of Alexandria, recovered itself, and immediately took up their arms to fight for themselves…
- Josephus, Ant. xix. 5

This Antonia made a fortune out of managing the business of Vespasian and after the death of his wife, became his unmarried partner. Unsurprisingly, she was treated with disrespect by Vespasian’s son Domitian (right), who had his own ideas towards ‘the Flavian project’.

The post The Lysimachus Dynasty describes how the descendants of the Diadochi continued the ambitions of two of the three (Lysimachus and Ptolemy).

Alabarch; brother of the philosopher Philo, and father of Julius Alexander and Tiberius Julius Alexander. He held office under the emperors Tiberius and Claudius. He was imprisoned by Caligula, but was released and restored to office by Claudius, for whose mother, Antonia, he had filled the post of procurator… Alexander Lysimachus once refused Herod Agrippa I (who was always in financial straits) a loan, but accorded it to Agrippa’s wife Cypros. The gates of the Sanctuary were decorated by him in gold and silver (Josephus, “B. J.” v. 5, § 3).
– ALEXANDER LYSIMACHUS by Samuel Krauss, Jewish Encyclopedia

After Nero was disposed of and Vespasian left Titus with a Lysimachus to prosecute the Siege of Jerusalem, he joined the Alabarch in Alexandia, who used the wheat destined for Rome as leverage in his support.

The fingerprints of this dynasty are found across the history the Levant, as has been noted here.  A few examples:

• Sisters of Agrippa II: Bernice (Berenice) – First married to Marcus, son of Julius Alexander Lysimachus, the Alabarch of the Alexandrian Jews. Upon his early death she was married to Herod of Chalcis, her father’s brother. Upon his death she remained unmarried under the protection of her brother, Agrippa II. She became Titus’ mistress, until they had to part to allow Titus to become emperor.

• Tiberius Julius Alexander, 20 CE – late 1st C. CE:  Son of Alexander Lysimachus, nephew of Philo, renounced Judaism for the Roman civil service, where he held Equestrian rank. He was governor of Judea 46-48, and later stood as Rome’s hostage for king Tiridates of Parthia in 63. He was the 2nd in command at the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in 69-70, (which incidentally destroyed the bronze gates that his father had donated). Alexander was the Prefect of Alexandria under Nero, Galba, Otho; and was the first Roman official to proclaim Vespasian Emperor. Made Governor of all Egypt by Vespasian, 71. (Flavian Midrash Sources of the New Testament)

• Josephus, in Book XV of The Antiquities of the Jews (Containing The Interval Of Eighteen Years — From The Death Of Antigonus To The Finishing Of The Temple By Herod), describes an attempt by Cleopatra to annex Idumea/Edom from Herod the Great, using his brother-in-law Costobarus: He was still sorely afflicted, both in mind and body, and made very uneasy, and readier than ever upon all occasions to inflict punishment upon those that fell under his hand. He also slew the most intimate of his friends, Costobarus, and Lysimachus, and Cadias, who was also called Antipater; as also Dositheus, and that upon the following occasion. (The Lysimachus Dynasty)

• An attack on Cestius and his men by the Jews at Jerusalem began the war with the Romans: “After this calamity had befallen Cestius, many of the most eminent of the Jews swam away from the city, as from a ship when it was going to sink; Costobarus, therefore, and Saul, who were brethren, together with Philip, the son of Jacimus, who was the commander of king Agrippa’s forces, ran away from the city, and went to Cestius. But then how Antipas, who had been besieged with them in the king’s palace, but would not fly away with them, was afterward slain by the seditious, we shall relate hereafter. However, Cestius sent Saul and his friends, at their own desire, to Achaia [Greece], to Nero, to inform him of the great distress they were in, and to lay the blame of their kindling the war upon Florus, …” (Wars 2.20.1) (Josephus as a primary source for the New Testament)

• If the Jesus myth can be draped across the shoulders of any historical figure, as the cloak of Paul of Tarsus is draped across the Saul of Josephus (“Costobarus, therefore, and Saul, who were brethren…”), then my choice is Yehoshua ben Damneus. whose (probable) uncle, Nakdimon ben Guryon, appears in the Gospel of John as Nicodemus. (Archaeology of the earliest canonical gospels)

The protagonists of this history for Chrest – the Chrestians – are familiar to us today as any other Mediterranean, familial mafia, with their arson, kidnappings, assassination, studied and bloody violence, secrecy and code of honour – they are of base material and common as muck. They were superstitious and placed their faith in nothing but their vaulting ambition.

The history of conspiracy and assassination in the first century – but beginning with that of Julius Caesar in the century before – is driven by the Rome-Alexandria axis.

Theology was but one tool in their armoury and without the resources of the Alexandrian Library to be mined by a brother of the Alabarch, these thugs would have stayed in the first century as a footnote.

Their exploits escaped that period like a plague, released by Hadrian and his Greek passions.

These examples of Chrestians we see here are clearly not yet and not quite the worshippers of Jesus Christ we see begin to appear in the second century. The only office to appear clearly in the first century is that of the Persian ‘King’s Eye’ – the episkopos.

The episkopos  appear at the start of Philippians: “Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi, together with the overseers and deacons…” and frequently in the New Testament (for example Acts 20:28; Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:7; 11 ; Peter 2:25).

The role of Antonia Minor, in raising the children of provincial royalty, is that of an episkopos, as we will see more clearly in texts from the Cave of Letters. This office develops in the second century into that of a bishop in the Christian Churches.

Another, pagan office already well-established in the first century is that of the Pontiff.

A pontiff (from Latin pontifex) was, in Roman antiquity, a member of the principal college of priests (Collegium Pontificum). (“Pontifex”. “Oxford English Dictionary”; William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, article Pontifex, pp. 939-942)

Left: Emperor Marcus Aurelius and members of the Imperial family offer sacrifice in gratitude for success against Germanic tribes. In the backgrounds stands the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitolium, the only extant portrayal of this roman temple. According to Livy in his “History of Rome”, an ancient instruction written in archaic letters commands: “Let him who is the Praetor Maximus fasten a nail on the Ides of September.” This notice was fastened up on the right side of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

There were four chief colleges of priests in ancient Rome, the most illustrious of which was that of the pontifices. (William Smith, A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, article Pontifex, pp. 939-942)

The others were those of the augures, the quindecimviri sacris faciundis, and the epulones. ( Encyclopaedia Britannica, article Roman religion)

Including the pontifex maximus, who was president of the college, there were originally three or five pontifices, but the number increased over the centuries, finally becoming 16 under Julius Caesar. By the third century BCE, the pontiffs had assumed control of the state religious system.

A proper history for this period must therefore describe how pagans created in the second century both the theology for Jesus Christ – out of the christology of Philo – and, out of the existing pagan, state structures, the organisation of the Christian Churches.

This history should also describe how letters of Saul were used, along with the other Flavian sources listed here, to create Paul of Tarsus and Luke/Acts. In doing so, we should discover more of both Simon Magus and Marcion of Sinope.

The history for this period of Classical Antiquity, in which the foundations of Western culture were put in place, must also describe how Levantine Churches (Coptic and Syriac) developed out of their own centres of power, rather than Rome.

In this, we will find the Lysimachus of Alexandria using Roman power to return to the kingdom of the Diadochi Lysimachus and using indoctrinated hostages of Antonia Minor to effect. This is when the axis of Rome-Alexandria separates, each of the two power bases going their own way.

This leads also to the division of the empire, first with Zenobia in the third century and ultimately, into the formation of the Byzantine Empire in 324.

On the way, we must examine more of Hadrian and his Greek friends, then the Severans.

Roman aureus depicting Elagabalus (right). The reverse commemorates the sun god Elagabal. The Severan dynasty was a Roman imperial dynasty ruling the Roman Empire between 193 and 235. Emesa was a pagan center of worship for the Sun god El-Gabal.

This is a history of dynastic ambition, in which pagan beliefs are transmuted in stages and for geopolitical reasons to become the Western Civilisation we inhabit today.

Related posts:

1. An army of divine men and the secret army of Mithras
2. Pliny correspondence with Trajan: Christians or Chrestians?
3. Archaeology of a first-century wizard
4. When evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world
5. Chrest Magus
6. Acts of the Chresmologoi: the Role of Oracles and Chronicles in the Creation of Divine Men
7. The Royal Library of Alexandria in the first century
8. Romans at Stonehenge: from standing stones to cosmic pillars
9. The Gospels According to Hadrian, Part III: The Aelian Canon and the Main Hand of God
10. The Gordion Knot of Classical Antiquity