Before we take a closer look at this astonishing coincidence, a little context is necessary.
On his way back to Rome from Judea as his son Titus continued to prosecute the Judean campaign, Vespasian visited the Egyptian city of Alexandria, where he would perform these miracles.
In the three centuries prior to the arrival of the Romans, Egypt had been ruled from that city by a dynasty of Macedonian Greek rulers descended from Ptolemy I, who, like Seleucus, had been one of Alexander the Great’s generals. As Egypt’s new rulers, Ptolemy and his successors tried to create a new fusion of Greek and Egyptian culture and religion in order to legitimize their own rule and unify their conquered subjects.
Ptolemy I, the Savior
In this process of religious fusion, which is known as syncretism, Ptolemy actually created a new god for the city of Alexandria called “Serapis” out of elements of previous deities taken from the cultures of both the conqueror and the conquered. On their own coins, Flavian emperors would subsequently affiliate themselves with this deliberately invented god, who resembles Jesus Christ in many striking ways. Vespasian himself performed his miracles at the Serapian temple in Alexandria, the Serapian equivalent of the Vatican.
One of our best sources for Ptolemy creating Serapis is the Roman historian Tacitus himself:
The origin of this God Serapis has not hitherto been made generally known by our writers. The Egyptian priests give this account: While Ptolemy, the first Macedonian king who consolidated the power of Egypt, was setting up in the newly-built city of Alexandria fortifications, temples, and rites of worship, there appeared to him in his sleep a youth of singular beauty and more than human stature, who counseled the monarch to send his most trusty friends to Pontus, and fetch his effigy from that country. This, he said, would bring prosperity to the realm, and great and illustrious would be the city which gave it a reception. At the same moment he saw the youth ascend to heaven in a blaze of fire. Roused by so significant and strange an appearance, Ptolemy disclosed the vision of the night to the Egyptian priests, whose business it is to understand such matters. As they knew but little of Pontus or of foreign countries, he enquired of Timotheus, an Athenian, one of the family of the Eumolpids, whom he had invited from Eleusis to preside over the sacred rites, what this worship was, and who was the deity. Timotheus, questioning persons who had found their way to Pontus, learnt that there was there a city Sinope, and near it a temple, which, according to an old tradition of the neighborhood, was sacred to the infernal Jupiter, for there also stood close at hand a female figure, to which many gave the name of Proserpine. Ptolemy, however, with the true disposition of a despot, though prone to alarm, was, when the feeling of security returned, more intent on pleasures than on religious matters; and he began by degrees to neglect the affair, and to turn his thoughts to other concerns, till at length the same apparition, but now more terrible and peremptory, denounced ruin against the king and his realm, unless his bidding were performed. Ptolemy then gave directions that an embassy should be dispatched with presents to king Scydrothemis, who at that time ruled the people of Sinope, and instructed them, when they were on the point of sailing, to consult the Pythian Apollo [i.e., the Oracle at Delphi]. Their voyage was prosperous, and the response of the oracle was clear. The God bade them go and carry back with them the image of his father, but leave that of his sister behind.
On their arrival at Sinope, they delivered to Scydrothemis the presents from their king, with his request and message. He wavered in purpose, dreading at one moment the anger of the God, terrified at another by the threats and opposition of the people. Often he was wrought upon by the gifts and promises of the ambassadors. And so three years passed away, while Ptolemy did not cease to urge his zealous solicitations. He continued to increase the dignity of his embassies, the number of his ships, and the weight of his gold. A terrible vision then appeared to Scydrothemis, warning him to thwart no longer the purposes of the God. As he yet hesitated, various disasters, pestilence, and the unmistakable anger of heaven, which grew heavier from day to day, continued to harass him. He summoned an assembly, and explained to them the bidding of the God, the visions of Ptolemy and himself, and the miseries that were gathering about them. The people turned away angrily from their king, were jealous of Egypt, and, fearing for themselves, thronged around the temple. The story becomes at this point more marvelous, and relates that the God of his own will conveyed himself on board the fleet, which had been brought close to shore, and, wonderful to say, vast as was the extent of sea that they traversed, they arrived at Alexandria on the third day. A temple, proportioned to the grandeur of the city, was erected in a place called Rhacotis, where there had stood a chapel consecrated in old times to Serapis and Isis. Such is the most popular account of the origin and introduction of the God Serapis. I am aware indeed that there are some who say that he was brought from Seleucia, a city of Syria, in the reign of Ptolemy III, while others assert that it was the act of the same king, but that the place from which he was brought was Memphis, once a famous city and the strength of ancient Egypt. The God himself, because he heals the sick, many identified with Æsculapius; others with Osiris, the deity of the highest antiquity among these nations; not a few with Jupiter, as being supreme ruler of all things; but most people with Pluto, arguing from the emblems which may be seen on his statues, or from conjectures of their own. (Emphasis added.) (21)
Thus, according to Tacitus, Ptolemy’s newly-minted god “Serapis” was appointed the patron deity of Alexandria, the cosmopolitan city founded by the Greeks at the Nile’s delta after conquering Egypt. Serapis was a deity concerned with the afterlife, as is made clear through a number of allusions: he is to be associated with the “Infernal Jupiter” (i.e., Zeus of the Netherworld) and the Queen of Hades, Proserpine (Persephone), as well as Pluto, the Lord of the Dead himself, and Osiris, whom the Egyptians regarded as the Lord of the Dead.
Linked to this same aspect of the afterlife, Serapis was also a fertility and regenerative god. The annual death and re-birth of nature as reflected in the seasons is a major theme in the religions of the ancients, for example in the famous story of Proserpine (or Persephone, as she is also called) who, along with her mother, the Harvest Goddess Demeter (or Ceres), was worshiped at Eleusis. She had been kidnapped and taken to the Underworld by Hades, who wanted her for his bride. The girl’s grief-stricken mother no longer made things grow, and a desolate winter fell upon the earth. Jupiter/Zeus commanded a resolution to the matter, and a compromise was reached. Having eaten a certain number of pomegranate seeds there, Proserpine/Persephone was required to spend a period of time in Hades each year before returning to the World of the Living, where she was reunited with her mother. Religion was the science of the ancient world, and thus did the ancient Greeks explain the seasons and the renewal of life each spring.
Greeks worshiped Demeter/Ceres and her daughter, Proserpine/Persephone, near Athens, with their most important religious festival, the celebration of the “Mysteries” at Eleusis. To the cult’s initiates, secret knowledge is there revealed, assuring them of a happier afterlife, for Persephone was both the Renewer of Life and the Queen of the Underworld. (22) Notably, Ptolemy consulted a religious authority from the family of priests at Eleusis, according to Tacitus, when he was establishing his new “Serapian” cult of the afterlife in Alexandria.