A philosophical merging of Judaism with Platonism and Stoicism is readily understandable as a natural outgrowth of Judaism, and was a project that was already under way by such philosophers as Philo, as we will see. The sweeping scope of such sudden changes to Judaism in the earliest Christian tradition, however, is something far harder to account for. In addition, we should expect to find this ideological blending within the more moderate or overtly pro-Roman elements of Judaism rather than among orthodox messianics or strict adherents of the Torah. If indeed emperor worship itself was one of their chief grievances with Rome, then any group of contemporary messianic Jews embracing man-god worship is inexplicable.
Apart from the emerging picture of an imperial Roman origin for Christianity, the simultaneous introduction of all of these radical Rome-centric innovations requires a much better explanation than has ever been offered.
Much can be learned about the values promoted by the Roman Empire under the Flavians by their coins.
The coins of Domitian, Titus’s younger brother, who did not participate in the glorious triumph over Judea with his father and brother, also depict Serapian temples and Serapis, such as on this coin:
Domitian and a Serapeum
It is understandable why Serapis, so closely associated with Isis, would be venerated by Domitian. He had hidden inside the Temple of Isis and escaped, disguised as an Egyptian priest, when Vitellius’s war for the imperial seat with the Flavians raged in Rome itself. Domitian was forever grateful, therefore, to Isis, and on one of his monuments he is even depicted wearing Egyptian garb. Serapis, being associated with Osiris, the husband of Isis, often shares a temple with her. Domitian also associated the mother goddess Isis with the Roman goddess Minerva, the virgin, as we can see from three adjoining temples that he built to both goddesses and to Serapis.
Noticeably, Domitian’s coins change the subject from the gods and symbols advertised on his father’s and brother’s coins. To an extent still argued about among scholars, Domitian seems to have favored more traditional Roman gods like Minerva and Jupiter, instead, at least more than did his immediate predecessors, Vespasian and Titus. Domitian even depicts himself hurling Jovian thunderbolts at his enemies on his coins and architecture, a striking departure from the iconography of his father and brother.
Titus and Vespasian wanted to be seen as “healing” the Roman world both through their victory in Judea and through Vespasian’s ending of the civil wars of succession after Nero’s death. (Domitian played no part in those triumphs.) So Vespasian’s identification with both Apollo and Serapis, like Titus’s, served this political purpose. Vespasian’s own propaganda presented him as “the New Serapis,” and other coin issues struck during Vespasian’s reign celebrate this identification, as we can see from this coin featuring Vespasian and Serapis:
Vespasian and Serapis
Vespasian’s identification with Serapis suggests that his cult’s devotees prayed to him for health or the health of loved ones. Also, because of Serapis’s connections to the gods of the afterlife, they would have probably prayed to Vespasian for a happy afterlife, as well.
When a deadly plague broke out during the reign of Vespasian’s eldest son, Titus, the new emperor issued coins that honored both Apollo and Serapis to supplicate the gods for relief and healing.
“Salus,” meaning safety or health (and the Latin root for the English word “salvation”), was herself a divine daughter of Aesclepius. At one time Salus was worshiped in her own temple on Rome’s Quirinal Hill, and, according to Pliny the Elder, with a statue in the Temple of Concordia (the goddess of “Harmony”). Salus, who came to be associated with the health, safety, and welfare of the people, was celebrated on Roman coins, like this Titus issue:
Titus and Health
The salutary benefits brought by the Caesars had been celebrated on coins at least as early as Tiberius’s “Salus Augusta” coins. “Harmony” herself was also a regular on Roman coins, as in this Titus issue:
Titus and Harmony
“Faith, hope and charity,” in Latin, “Fides, Spes et Caritas,” are regarded as three primary virtues of Christianity. This is based on the famous passage from St. Paul in 1 Corinthians: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (35) (Love is usually understood in the sense of giving in this context; the word “charity” is sometimes substituted for the word “love,” as in the King James Bible translation.)
Each of these cardinal virtues is celebrated in Flavian currency, as well. For example, the New Testament famously defines faith: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (36) The goddess “Spes,” or Hope, commonly appears on Roman coins. In the following she is on the reverse of a Titus issue:
Titus and Hope
Some Christians may believe that compassion, including Christian altruism and charity, were articulated for the first time by Jesus Christ against a backdrop of Roman brutality. However, this is clearly not the case. For evidence of this, we may look to Pliny the Elder, who was an intimate friend of both Vespasian and Titus.
Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as “Pliny the Elder,” was a highly educated Roman general and statesman who had served with and befriended Titus in the Roman army stationed in Germania during Nero’s reign. He was also uncle and adopted father to Pliny the Younger, who would later write the famous letter to Trajan asking clarification on the policy regarding Christians, which we examined earlier.
In fact, the Emperor Trajan himself, on the other side of that historic correspondence, was the son of one of Vespasian’s generals in Judea. (These relationships may help explain the tolerance and delicacy with which both Trajan and Pliny the Younger handled the Christian question some 20 years after the religion’s popularity had declined.)
Pliny the Elder later dedicated his monumental collection of ancient science, The Natural History, to Titus. While Pliny the Elder did not live to see Titus’s full reign, since he died tragically during the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE exactly two months after Titus assumed imperial office, his adulation of the Flavian dynasty, including his arguments for its divine status, had already been recorded in his compendium of ancient science published during the reign of Vespasian. According to Pliny:
For mortal to help mortal, that is God, and this is the way to everlasting glory. This is the road that Roman leaders have taken, and it is this road that the greatest ruler of all time is treading, at a pace favored by heaven, along with his offspring, as he brings relief to an exhausted world. This was the ancient way of rewarding those who deserved it, to regard them as Gods. (37)
Pliny the Elder thus credits the Flavians with a fair expression of Christian love in the context of “charity,” the idea that true glory and Godliness comes from helping others. God is love, he argues. Pliny is also directly associating such compassion with both the Roman Empire itself and the Emperor Vespasian personally. Although none of the Flavian emperors had yet died when Pliny wrote this, Pliny is already associating their compassion with their divinity.