So it seems that even the sexual modesty and chastity preached in the New Testament does not conflict with the theory of its Roman provenance. Apparently, the Flavian dynasty as a whole frowned on the sexual extravagance of their dynastic predecessors, another coincidence of Flavian and Jewish morality that is preserved in Christianity.
Despite the remarkable overlap that we have been observing, the New Testament is not a perfect reflection of contemporary Roman ethics, of course. Most notably, the ancient Romans had rather liberal laws regarding divorce while the New Testament seems to forbid divorce entirely. And both Jesus and St. Paul appear to recommend (but not require) celibacy. (65)
However, the doctrines expressed by Paul and the Gospel writers were not aimed at a general Roman audience but at those (both Jew and Gentile) who had been—or were “at risk” of being—influenced by messianic Judaism. The Gospels were not written for a general Jewish audience, either, for the Mosaic Law itself permitted divorce. (66) Instead, the sexual morality in the New Testament seems to reflect the far stricter regulations and mores of the radical Jewish groups of the era, such as the Essenes. In other words, these ideas were a reflection of the preexisting sexual morality of the Jewish-Christian rebel groups to whom the Romans were appealing. Rather than attempt to sell them yet another massive alteration of their ethics, this aspect of their morality was simply carried straight into Christianity.
Asceticism and chastity were not unknown to the ancient Roman religion, either, as the very existence of Vestal Virgins shows, and both Platonic and Stoic thought increasingly emphasized the virtue of sexual discipline. But Christian monasticism, surely, traces its roots back to the celibate ways of the Jewish radicals.
Adding to their own parallels with the New Testament’s Jesus, and their unique departures from previous emperors, Vespasian and Titus took special pride in their humble origins—something that scholar Barbara Levick calls Vespasian’s “ostentatious modesty.”
In fact, the small, dingy bedroom where the Nativity of Titus took place was actually opened to the viewing public, and it continued to be a tourist destination throughout the reign of Trajan, if not much longer. (67) The Flavians did not hesitate to advertise their beginnings in relative poverty, just as the Gospels stress the humble origins of Christ.
Both the father and the son, Vespasian and Titus, were Jewish messiahs of modest origin, like the ghost who preceded and predicted them, Jesus. As well as being healer gods, like Serapis and Jesus, as Roman emperors both father and son were deified men, like Serapis and Jesus.
The benevolence of the first two Flavian emperors was legendary. Their “common touch,” fostering of peace, and the loving compassion of Titus through Rome’s tribulations, made them models for future emperors. In fact, nearly every Roman emperor who was Christian following Constantine the Great would adopt the name “Flavius” among his imperial appellations. Even though none of the 2nd or 3rd Century pagan emperors of Rome would use this name, from the family of the first Christian Emperor Constantine all the way to the dynasty of Justinian only two out of 38 emperors did not use the name “Flavius.” (And one of these did not need to, since his mother was already named “Flavia.” The other holdout, Avitus, himself a Christian bishop, ruled only 15 months before he was removed by a coup.)
No emperors subsequent to the Flavians were actual members of the Flavian family. And yet these later Christian emperors did not utilize the family names “Julius,” “Claudius,” or “Aurelius” with anything like the same consistency. The name almost all of them chose, indeed their common denominator, was “Flavius.” Whether these Christian emperors were aware of a foundational connection between the Flavian family and Christianity we do not know. But it is a fact that nearly all of them selected the Flavians as both a moral model and a namesake.
It is remarkable how many prominent early Christians also bear the names of Flavian family members, close associates, or servants: names like Titus, Epaphroditus, Tertulla/Tertullian, Stephanus, Domitilla, and Clemens or Clement. There is the St. Clement of Alexandria, whose full name is “Titus Flavius Clemens” and whose recommendations for Christian symbols include Titus’s dolphin and anchor symbols. No fewer than 14 popes and three antipopes are named “Clement.”
There is no doubt that Christians admired the emperors Vespasian and Titus. St. Augustine, the most important Christian philosopher before Thomas Aquinas, described Vespasian as “a most agreeable emperor” in his famous work City of God, while to many medievals such as the poet Dante, author of The Divine Comedy, they enjoyed a “high” reputation as “scourges of the Jews.” (68) The mercy and compassion of Titus is the subject of one of Mozart’s last composed operas, which was one of the first to reach London, La Clemenza di Tito (The Mercy of Titus).
We have still only begun to outline the many links that connect the Flavians to Christianity. As we will see in Part II, their political and familial relationships are stunningly intertwined. Remember, the coin was the last thing we found, which dropped perfectly into place after decades of research had left only that space curiously unfilled. In Part II we will look behind these symbols at the personal connections the Flavians forged with the very first Christians and other historical figures, some of whom appear in the New Testament itself.
Even before we get to that evidence, however, the strength of the connection between early Christianity and the imperial cult of the Flavians that we have already seen suggests that a relationship vital to understanding the history of Western Civilization has been lost along with its forgotten and forbidden historical context. In the case of the dolphin-and-anchor motif, that connection is now literally visible.
The discovery of that physical evidence alone reveals that, almost simultaneously with the Flavian dynasty, the earliest Christians in Rome were using a deified Flavian emperor’s symbol to represent their own deity and religion. This iconographic overlap occurred while this symbol was circulating on Roman coins across the Empire even as the Gospels were being written and well after the first Christians began marking their oldest burial sites with the same iconography. Even at a public works in Herculaneum buried by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius during the reign of Titus a mosaic at their imperial baths displays identical symbolism to that found in the first catacombs.
This legacy of shared symbols between Flavians and Christians would persist until Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire two centuries later, at which point Christians, around the time of Constantine the Great, replaced the Flavian-Christian symbol with the symbol of the Cross.
If we look at a Venn diagram of the worldviews of Flavian emperors and the earliest Christians, we see they substantially overlap in time and place and even in the specific symbols they used to identify themselves. The meaning of such symbols could not have been lost on these early Christians who nevertheless used them in the city of Rome itself. The ideology and symbology of the first Christians and contemporary Roman propaganda at this moment in time share too much to be mere coincidence. They are, indeed, two sides of the same coin. (69)
Coin of Emperor Titus (left and middle); and the symbol of Jesus Christ (right)
Meanwhile, a group of contemporary Jews connected to the imperial court and all of its vast resources were acknowledging Vespasian and Titus as the messiahs who had risen from Judea to fulfill Jewish prophecies and become “rulers of the world.”