Maria Janna, Criticism of Seamus Breathnach, “The Jesus Joke”, 2008,

online, “On Faith”, Newsweek & Washington Post, article: Susan Jacoby,
“Anti-Catholicism: A Phony Issue”

Original article: Seamus Breathnach, The Jesus Joke – or: Farewell to the

Mediterranean Myth, Irish Criminology, 2007, online, passim, e.g.: “On
Faith”, Newsweek & Washington Post)
available e.g. on scribd:
“Seamus Breathnach on Francesco Carotta”

Seamus Breathnach, an ‘Angry New Atheist’ from Ireland, has published

his Anti-Christian rant The Jesus Joke on several internet blogs, forums
and websites. I couldn’t care less about the babble of those ‘new atheists’,
since it’s never really challenging, but in this case I had to write a
comment, because Breathnach misuses Francesco Carotta’s book Jesus
was Caesar (2005) for his anti-Christian, atheist cause, which is not and
has never been the intention of Carotta and his research group.
Furthermore, Breathnach displays a lack of scientific reason by jumbling
Carotta’s findings with the Christian conspiracy theories brought forth
by the pseudoscientific fractions dealing with the Pisonian authorship of
the New Testament and Atwill’s Flavian hypothesis. By the latter he
probably felt inspired to choose “The Jesus Joke” as the title for his
article, because Atwill is basically saying with his conspiracy theory that
the Flavian emperors of Rome invented the gospels as a covert retelling
of Titus’ Palestine campaign, as an inside joke and a religious satire.
These two fractions are as far from Carotta’s conclusions as can be.

Original Review, Criticism and Rebuttal by Maria Janna

(with minor edits; in part based on facts taken from and in defense of:
Francesco Carotta, Jesus was Caesar – On the Julian Origin of
Christianity. Kirchzarten, 1988-1999 / München, 1999 / Soesterberg,
2005)

I have to state a few remarks concerning your article. There’s a

difference between religion (incl. faith) and history of religion.
Unearthing the origins of a religion or a cult, in this case Christianity’s
solidly proven origin from the cult of Divus Iulius, doesn’t diminish the
religion itself or the faith of people. You have been asking a few
questions, and they need to be put into perspective, because you’re
obviously giving the wrong answer (v.i.; Conclusion). Will Christians now
and in the future believe in:

(a) the Resurrection? Not only the Ascension, but especially the
Resurrection of Caesar (both of them important elements predating his
official apotheosis in 42 BC) is a proven fact: It’s e.g. shown on a Roman
denarius by Caesar’s moneyer L. Aemilius Buca from 44 BC, where
Caesar reawakens as God during his funeral, where he was cremated.
There is a source by St. Augustine, which unquestionably states the
Christ’s Resurrection by fire is a condicio sine qua non for becoming a
divine entity, and there is at least one early Christian source, which
proves that the ancient Romans actually and specifically did believe in
the resurrection of Caesar. (And generally speaking, the sources and
evidences concerning Caesar as God, i.e. Divus Iulius, are abundant.) If
the Resurrection of the Lord Caesar is a historical fact, then why should
one not believe in the Christian Lord’s Resurrection… and Ascension,
and Apotheosis, and divinity?

(b) the immaculate conception? The immaculate conception is based on

the ancient lore about the conception of Caesar’s divine son, Divi filius,
Son of God Augustus. His coming was heralded as the coming of a new
king, ruler and benefactor for the whole world. He was conceived by the
god Apollo (virgin birth), he was literally born at the “heads of the oxen”,
which is a place in Rome. Born into a meagre life at first, he shortly
afterwards lived in a small and paltry storeroom in Velitrae (the
manger), and the Romans even planned to kill all newborn children,
because the Senators feared that they would lose their power to the new
“king”, who had been heralded before his birth. (The greedy women of
Rome intervened, because they themselves were looking for power as the
possible mother of the new ruler, but in any case the story obviously lives
on, namely as part of the Christmas legend, which is in fact everything
but a ‘Christian legend’.)
The immaculate conception of the Marian Atia, mother of Augustus,
who was also identified with the ancient goddess Maia, was originally a
maculate one, because she carried a mark, a stain from the conception
onwards. What this stain (and the conception) originally was, is
unknown: The conception could have been just infidelity or a rape, and
the stain a wound or later scar from a forceful assailant. But the true
reason is irrelevant, because the legend of Divi filius having been
conceived by the gods themselves overlayed any Anti-Augustan
propaganda, and (probably for reasons of decency) the divine aspect of
the conception was used to turn the maculate into an immaculate
conception. This the Roman people also believed. Why then should one
not believe in the immaculate conception today?

(c) the Last Supper? Caesar’s Last Supper was at the house of Lepidus, his
magister equitum, who would later be his successor as pontifex maximus
in Rome. Not only during the Last Supper in the Gospel, we hear Him
ominously speaking about his imminent death: Christ is not the only one
who said during a last supper that he would prefer to die a quick death.
No, also Caesar in the historical sources during His Last Supper spoke
about his death and that he would prefer it to be a sudden one! So the
Last Supper with all the ingredients, properties and theological
implications was a historical fact. Why then should one not believe in the
Last Supper?

(d) the changing of water into wine? Caesar had not prohibited his
people the drinking of wine, but he himself—although he liked to attend
festivities (like Jesus by the way)—abstained from any sort of alcohol
(apart from being a vegetarian), because he hoped to keep the effects of
his epilepsy at bay. (Epilepsy = Jesus falling on the Via Crucis !) But those
of his followers, who wanted to be pure believers, also followed this
example, e.g. the Marcionites, who also did not prohibit the
consumption of alcohol, but used only water during the Eucharist.
Others had a different approach, especially the Dionysian fraction of the
early Christians. (Caesar had been equated with Liber Pater, Bacchus,
Dionysos etc., and also Christ has been identified as a god of spring and
fertility.)
The changing of water into wine (Wedding at Kana) is based on the
historic feeding of the multitude by Caesar, the feast in the camp of the
defeated Pompeius Magnus. You have written yourself that the victorious
miracles of the Christ are based on the miraculous victories of Caesar—
every single one of them, one has to add! In this specific case he had
conquered Pompey’s camp, and after a long period of hardship,
relinquishing, hunger and drinking only water, Caesar’s soldiers were
suddenly rewarded with all the luxury, food and especially wine, all
because of Caesar’s miracle of defeating Pompey. The ancient sources
clearly state that water jars were emptied and filled with wine.
Furthermore the Caesar sources show the same elements and attributes,
which we also find in the gospels: the silver, or the money (two hundred
pieces of silver); the meal outside in the open and in groups and on green
grass; the abundance after hunger; the food baskets with the leftover
pieces; the bread; the wine; the complaint that it was not enough (cf.
Carotta, 2005).
The Wedding at Kana is however only mentioned in John, and while
many properties are extracts from other feasts (v.s.), the origin behind
this specific episode was also the feast in honor of Julia in Rome. John
obviously had a different (most notably a Greek) manuscript of the
original sources here, which can explain, why the Synoptics don’t
mention Kana, because they were based on Latin manuscripts and Latin-
Greek intermediates (philologically explained in detail by Carotta).
But in any case, since the changing of water into wine is explicitly a
historical fact, why then should one not believe in the changing of water
into wine, also in the context of liturgy?

(e) the walking on water? It has to be noted that when the Biblical
character called ‘Jesus’ walked on troubled waters, his men were afraid,
and they saw him as a ghostly appearance, a spirit. But Jesus assured
them not to be afraid. In the original sources Caesar and his men were
facing rough seas, they became afraid, but Caesar assured them not to be
afraid, because Caesar’s spirit, his luck, would sail with them. So in
essence, the Christ’s spirit walked across the water, and Caesar’s spirit
floated across the sea. Same episode, same story, with only marginal
changes. There have been numerous scholarly publications on Caesar’s
spirits, which were holy spirits, his Clementia, his Genius, but also his
luck (Fortuna). The sources and archaeological evidences are abundant.
So if Caesar’s divine spirit actually and demonstrably ‘walked’ over
water, why then should one not believe in the walking on water in the
Biblical context?

Conclusion
Why not believe in all of that? You say that, after reading Carotta—or
even after reading the writings of those Piso- and Atwill-freaks, who,
unlike Carotta, are nothing but pseudoscientist crackpots and modern
conspiracy theorists—and finally one day settling for the scientific truth
about the origins of Christianity from the cult of Divus Iulius, Christians
cannot but stop believing in all of these things. This is a false
assumption, because not only did everything in the New Testament
actually happen—as historical fact (which Carotta clearly proves), albeit
regionally and culturally transposed, transformed and mutated—, but
also because you misrepresent Carotta’s research and misuse him for
your atheist purposes.
But Carotta is not about atheism, not about destroying or banishing
today’s gods, let alone the historical Christ. It is not Carotta, who says
that Jesus never existed. A large number of New Testament text critics
since the 19th century came to the conclusion that the Biblical Christ
cannot have existed. This ‘unhistorical Jesus’ has been floating around
the scientific community since the Enlightenment. Carotta on the other
hand counters this false conclusion and restores the historical Christ to
full glory, simply by showing with a synoptical comparison that the story
is true, but that it happened elsewhere and was rewritten, adapted and
newly interpreted in the process of a diegetic transposition. His book is—
if anything—a piece of elaborate Christian apologetics, not something to
utilize for the atheist cause, a cause which is bound to fail anyway,
because the gods (including the concept of God) are beyond doubt a
historical fact. Just go to a museum or a church, and there’s proof that
they exist and existed. And yes, it’s as simple as that! God exists because
people believe in him. Whether he was originally Divus Iulius and
historically Julius Caesar, is irrelevant for the faith. But it helps us
understand and strengthen our religion.
So it’s actually a nice thing that you’re propagating Carotta’s research
among believers, but your intentions are completely wrong and
misleading. The conclusion you base on Carotta’s book is wrong. There
was an actual historical person behind the Biblical Christ! That’s what
this book is about.

PS: Did the papacy know that Jesus is Divus Iulius incognito and that the
“historical Jesus” was actually Julius Caesar? That would be a bit of a
stretch, because it would mean that the Church is willfully misleading
believers worldwide. This is not some Holy Blood Holy Grail thing with a
conspiracy going on behind those big Vatican walls. But yes, there are
subliminal as well as obvious references to the Roman god Divus Iulius
and His cult in all of Christian art and aesthetics, liturgy, tradition,
scripture, belief system etc. pp.—throughout the ages. It has only been
reinterpreted and redefined as Christian. Nobody had bothered to ask
the ‘Roman question’. And for a long long time it wasn’t even necessary
(or even possible), because it was there all the time! Only in the wake of
secularist, modern and scientific tendencies did people start to ask
questions, but these were the wrong questions, as we now know. The
problem in your case however is also that you’re giving the wrong
answers. Christus as Divus Iulius incognito does not diminish the
Christian religion in any way. On the contrary: It will re-introduce the
historical fundament needed for a sustainable religion that can
withstand this completely silly atheist trend of the past few years.
The “historical Jesus” of the modern day has at times and by some been
reduced to merely a joke, but the Christ in general, the Christ as God and
divine ruler is no joke, not by a long shot. He never was a joke. And with
Divus Iulius finally entering the equation again, the Christ cannot be a
joke either, now even less than ever. And on the other hand it’s also not
about saying “farewell to the Mediterranean myth”. It’s about embracing
that myth again, a myth that has been part of Christianity all along.
Carotta’s research finally realigns this religion with the cultural and
political history of Europe, recreating the integrity, which had always
been felt subconsciously, but which had never really been understood. As
a Roman Catholic I can only thank Carotta for his magnificent book!

First Reply by Seamus Breathnach

Hi Maria, thank you for your reply. Sorry for not visiting this site sooner. I have just
come back to this site on the 30th June.
I have to say that I find some of your language less than clear. You appear to accept
the findings of Francesco Carotta and in the end you say, ‘As a Roman Catholic I can
only thank Carotta for his magnificent book!’. Well, thank heavens for that!
If you accept his findings then you understand that the New Testament is a total
fabrication of the Imperialist Roman State, that there never was a person called Jesus
(or Paul) and that there is now no need to explain why there never was a reference
for the better part of the first century to this person Jesus Christus or to any Jesus as
leader of a cult of Christians. It is a relief that you accept that there simply was no
Jesus!
If you accept that, then we can agree further. We can agree that all these myriads of
people who keep claiming from every pulpit and television and iPod that they know
‘what Jesus said’, is farcical. So, we can agree , perhaps, that they should forthwith
stop the endless biblical cliches about ‘Jesus said…’, ‘The Bible declares’, etc. etc.. Such
a wonderful development is surely devoutly desired by all of us who prefer fact to
fiction, and truth to faith, especially when it is based on false premises or false
reasoning.
The Resurrection
We might also agree that if there was no Jesus, then there was no ‘born-in-a-stable’-
story either. There was no crown of thorns (crown of grass and laurels for Caesar
sure) but no crucifixion and no stations of the cross, or any of those elaborate
schemas and cheap chalk adornments endlessly embellishing the sermons proceeding
from the Vatican. We can also agree that whatever else the Turin Shroud represents,
it does not represent the image of Jesus. Now that is a lot to acknowledge and agree
upon, isn’t it?
And if there was no Jesus, how could there be the Resurrection of Jesus?
Put your hand on your heart and tell me that the notion of ‘the Resurrection of Julius
Caesar’, however conceived, is exactly what is meant by the Roman Church when it
disseminates the notion of ‘the Resurrection of Jesus Christ’. I believe you know these
concepts to be entirely apposite each other, and that while the former may have some
root in time and place, the latter has no validity , especially when harnessed to the
same time and place.
And since we agree with Carotta that there was no Jesus , can we not go further and
acknowledge that if there was no Jesus, then there could hardly have been a
conception, immaculate or otherwise? You seem to have difficulty with this one. You
feel that if it has any anthropological parallel in the beliefs of the people wheresoever,
then—what way did you put it?
‘This the people also believed. Why then should one not believe in the immaculate
conception today?’
Of course, why we do not belive that women do not have immaculate conceptions
today, is for much the same reasons that we believe—some of us—that they do not fly
on brooms. It is agasint our reason and our historical experience. I know absolutely
no one who has had an immaculate coneption. I know no one who knows someone
who has had an immaculate conception. I admit I am not as supertitious as the
Mediteranean Tribes some two thousand years ago, that I have had the benefits of
evolutionary thinking, and that I find such things very hard to believe. But that
doesn’t make me wrong, does it?

The Immaculate Conception

But you, like me, have also benefitted from the same evolution, yet you think that we
should believe in the Immaculate Conception of a person who, we agree with Carotta,
never existed? And you want others to believe the same thing, on the rather flimsy
notion that because someone believed it so long ago, we should deny our history and
perpetuate their ignorance by adapting such notions. I do hope you are not
contemplating a return of Witchcraft! If you were, you would surely use the same
arguments, I feel.
In this specific instance, might I mention a case to you. It happened in Ireland, where
a teenage girl was found dead at a chalk statue dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. The
girl was receiving a Catholic education in an environment where not even
criminologists could question the prevailing received wisdoms. In any event, she
became pregnant. It cannot be proved, of course, but it is suspected that the girl
sought the aid of the Blessed Virgin in her hour of need—and died in waiting. Do you
still recommend to young minds the notion that we should believe in an Immaculate
Conception? Can you not see what enormous damage this fabrication, like all such
fabrications, does to people in general and to young people in particular?

The Last Supper

In a similar vein, you feel that because Caesar ate at the house of Lepidus before he
ventured to the Senate, we should nevertheless believe in the Last Supper which the
non-existent Jesus had with his non-existent apostles. How do you put it?
‘So the Last Supper (with all the ingredients, properties and theological implications)
was a historical fact. Why then should one not believe in the Last Supper?’
One should not believe in the Last Supper as outlined by the Christian Churches,
becasue it is a lie. It never happened in any social time or space. The Last Supper
that Caesar had, however, like the last supper my great-grandfather had and the last
supper his great-grandfather had, were on a diet of spuds and poteen. How do I know
this? I don’t know it; I am, like the Christian Church, making it up as I go along. My
great-grandfather might well have had Norman Boef and French wine with his last
supper. ‘God only knows!’ I certainly don’t, and neither does the Christian Church—
and these are all the good reasons why we should not believe in the Last Supper.

Changing Water Into Wine

As for the trick of changing water into wine, you say:
‘The changing of water into wine (Wedding at Kana) is based on the historic feeding
of the multitude by Caesar, the feast in the camp of Pompey. ‘
What a relief it is to be back on the same page again. We are agreed, therefore, that
there was no ‘wedding feast at Kana’ à la the Christian story-tellers. So, how could a
non-existing water be changed miraculously by a non-existing Jesus into a non-
existing wine? It surely must have tasted sweet. Here, again, you want to believe that
this is worthy of the world’s attention. Even the scripts that attempt to convey this
story is cleared up by Carotta, but it doesn’t really matter, no matter who was
drinking wine back along the Med. 2000 years ago. As you put it:
‘But in any case… since the changing of water into wine is explicitly a historical fact,
why then should one not believe in the changing of water into wine, also in the
context of liturgy?’
It is apparent that we are going to differ big time, not just on the minutiae which, to
my mind you irratingly wish to salvage at any expense to truth. And I shall spare
you the horrific vista which the lies and deceits of the Christian Churches have
perpetrated on the world in my view. I shall spare you the endless bloodshed mounted
upon the most calculated of hatreds against women, Jews, Pagans, Atheists,
Protestants, Muslims etc.…
Perhaps it is at this juncture, between the ravages of a fanatic and messianic faith (on
the part of Christianity) and what I would like to think is an open liberal and
infomed mentality (on the part of scholars, Francesco Carotta, Atwill and the Pisos)
that we really differ.
I do not think it helps your case to call Joseph Atwill and the Piso Family, who are as
devout in trying to inform the world as ever the Christian Chruch was, as ‘freaks’.
It is my belief that these revelations of Francesco Carotta have hurt you to the quick,
as they will hurt all Christians. I am not unsympathetic to that hurt, but truth is too
precious to forfeit to prejudice. In this I am reminded of the two faces that are
familiar to me, that of Bishop Fulton Sheen and the late George Carlin (both are
available on You Tube). Carlin I could live with, but Sheen I frankly abhor. And yet
they both capture something of what the Catholic and Christian Church has by its
pretensions and deceits created in the world.
Finally, when you write: ‘So it’s actually a nice thing that you’re propagating
Carotta's research among believers, but your intentions are completely wrong… the
conclusion you base on Carotta’s book is wrong. There was a historical Christ! That’s
what this book is about’, I believe you are in denial, and that these words are
hypocritical!

Second Criticism by Maria Janna

I think that you are mistaken in the way you apply Carotta’s
unquestionable findings and conclusions. You occupy one of the polar
positions, which have been outlined in the introduction to Carotta's book
and on his website. It’s the view of the ‘angry new atheist’, who after
reading Carotta now feels impelled to proclaim: ‘See? I told you! Jesus
never existed!’ But this is only applicable for the literary figure
commonly interpreted as the Jewish itinerant preacher from Galilee, the
character the world at the moment assigns the name “Jesus of Nazareth”
or even the completely unfounded ‘Yeshua’, the character everyone has
been searching for in vain for more than two centuries, the character
that Pope Benedict XVI has written a largely insignificant book about.
Until now this character from the Gospel has not been proven to have
had a historical existence, and even without Carotta we can safely say
that there’s a 99 percent chance that Jesus/Yeshua of Nazareth never
existed.
But in the age AC (‘after Carotta’) everyone, including atheists, scholars
and believers, needs to make the paradigm shift toward
romanocentrism, away from Palestine. And there are no buts about it:
Carotta clearly shows that there was a historical person behind the
Gospel character called “Jesus”, namely Julius Caesar. Carotta clearly
shows that the god we know as “Jesus Christ” is a transformation of the
Divus Iulius, similar to what happened with the Iranian world colossus,
who influenced Mithras, who in turn had an effect on Roman religion to
define a new god called Sol Invictus. Carotta furthermore clearly shows
that every single bit and piece in the Gospel is based on historical fact,
with the qualification that it can only have happened elsewhere at a
different time in history. We are dealing with a diegetic transposition.
Sure, Joyce’s Ulysses is a work of fiction—like ‘Jesus’ his main character
never existed!—, but his novel is a diegetic transposition of an ancient
source on the life of Odysseus, who was a historical person, although his
life was probably a bit different from what we read in Homer’s Odyssee.
It’s very similar here, with the difference that it was not thousands of
years, but only a few generations, which lie between the writing of the
Ur-Gospel, the Historiae by Asinius Pollio, finished ca. in 32 BC at Rome,
and the formation of the first received Gospel under Flavian rule.
So if everything in the Gospel happened as historical fact, albeit at a
different place and time, why should this harm Christianity in any way?
It may change Christianity—even fundamentally so, because after all
Carotta has for the first time revealed the historical fundament of this
religion—, and many Christians could be alienated, but in the long run
this newly found basis can only mean a strengthening of the religion. The
house built on sand is now gone. So I do not accept your notion that
‘Jesus’ never existed. He did, and His name was Gaius Iulius Caesar.
The people baaing ‘Jesus said…’ from the pulpit are not farcical, because
they are talking about the things Caesar said. There are problems
however: Since the New Testament is a diegetic transposition, some
words are completely corrupted, some words of Caesar are now spoken
by others (like the “blind man” < caecus < Caesar), and some words
uttered by Christ do not even originate with Caesar, but with other
people close to him, even his enemies like Pompeius. An example is
“Who is not on any side is on my side”, which is 100 percent Caesar and
therefore 100 percent Christ. A different account in the Bible text (but
not in every gospel) has Christ saying “Who is not with me, is against me
[i.e. is my enemy]”, which is contradictory to the former saying, but
completely explicable, because we can trace it back to Caesar’s enemy
Pompeius and to an obvious a transpositional error. By tracing events
and sayings in the Gospel back to their original sources, Christians can
now ascertain, which is the correct ‘Christian’ utterance, the real-life
event behind certain passages. So it’s not the time to say good-bye to
Christianity, but to engage in a new, historically correct exegesis on a
road to a better understanding. But you are right: We have to put truth
over faith, history over belief, reason over religion, historical sources
over hagiography. But since the hagiography of Jesus is the basis of
Christian faith, and will in all probability remain so, it must either be
rewritten and corrected, stripped down, which would all be wrong in my
honest opinion, or at least be interpreted according to the original
Caesar sources. Or the Gospel needs a synoptical arrangement vis-a-vis
of the original sources, including a substantiated commentary. This
should be the basis for those sermons from the pulpit. It would be a
wonderful thing: the Enlightenment finally entering the churches! One
has to see it as the beginning of an evolutionary process, not as an
annihilation.
In terms of your examples that I’ve answered (Resurrection, Last Supper,
Walking on water etc.) I stand with what I wrote: They are all anchored in
history, the history of Caesar that is. The only thing necessary is to make
the connection. If Christians don’t do that, they are lost and remain
without fundament, left in their slim existence with faith alone. So
naturally I must stand with what I wrote, because it’s a logical
consequence of realizing that the historical Jesus was Julius Caesar.
There is one little exception however, and that’s the immaculate
conception. You have noticed that the argument there was a bit shaky,
and I can tell you why: The immaculate conception is (a) originally not
Caesarian, but Augustan, (b) originally a maculate conception which was
only reinterpreted as immaculate, and (c) although there was a historical
incident where it was all said to have happened, the concept of
“immaculate conception” and virgin birth from divine conception was
from the very beginning a concept of faith and belief, the ancient Roman
faith, a legend told about the supernatural birth of the Son of God and
God from God Augustus.
If anyone in the age AC will still care about Christ—which is highly
probable—, a Christian hardliner would then have to separate the wheat
from the chaff. It would mean that the virgin birth has got to go, the
immaculate conception has got to go, the Trinity with Father and Son
has got to go (in favor of the currently inofficial mother/son/spirit-
trinity), the Nativity has got to go (but not necessarily Christmas) etc.
pp.. That would be the most radical approach, and although I’m anything
but a fan of Augustus, I would oppose such actions, because the problem
is that Christianity only exists, because the cult of Divus Iulius didn’t
perish in the new conflicts following Caesar’s death. It’s Augustus’
victory and theopolitics that anchored the cult as the blueprint for the
imperial cult and later Christianity. It’s Augustus who has to be given
the credit in this respect, even if it meant changing the Caesarian guise
of the new religion to correspond with his new vision of Roma resurgens
and the “catholic” Augustan principate. Christians have got to bite the
bullet that there’s a brutal and ruthless tyrant and murderer called
Augustus at the heart of Christianity’s origin. Without him there would
be no Christianity, at least not the religion we know today. Due to his
importance it would be wrong to delete the Augustan sequences from the
Christian canon. But we should at least aim at a better knowledge, which
sequences are original and which ones came later.
But in any case I’m with you on the quest for historical truth and
propagation of an “open liberal and informed mentality”. This is the
most important thing of all, but you have to realize that religious belief
and faith alone usually clouds every spark of scientific pursuits. Since
you’re an atheist this should be no news for you. But when people only
make these pursuits in order to destroy the religions and send the gods
into oblivion, they have to expect all the wrath I can possibly muster,
because science and knowledge must result in changing and modernizing
religions, not in their destruction. We have to realize who the gods are,
who they were as humans, as political rulers, ancient heroes, gods in the
flesh, and what religions actually mean. If religions will vanish one day,
they must do so on their own. First priority should be to try to save and
improve them, because they are part of everyone’s heritage, even if one’s
an atheist.
In closing I can only say that Carotta’s book has not hurt me at all. It has
had a profound effect to the contrary. I’m strictly against any
metaphysical conjectures, and I see religion primarily as a form of social
obligation, of loyalty by oath and of ritual and traditions. So it’s not
about faith, but about fides and deeper knowledge, including knowledge
about the faith and its origins, including an acquisition of a much deeper
respect for religion, because after all, none of them are based on lies but
on historical truth, even if it means that Jesus is actually Divus Julius,
even if it means that all religions originate from and also define
themselves through conflict, war and violence. Saying it’s all only a lie, is
wrong, because religions always evolve over time. Even the gods evolve
and have a half-life. Divus Iulius ‘decayed’ in the times after Constantine,
i.e. he transformed into Christus, who is like his ‘religious daughter
nuclide’. The ‘religious radiation’ emitted in this long process at certain
times triggered new decay- and transformation-processes, e.g. the
imperial cult, Marcion, heretic Christians, Gnostic churches, Islam, later
the Reformation etc.. But that doesn’t mean that Christianity or any of
these religions is a lie. It’s actually the result of and origin of the nature
of things. Alpha and Omega.
[N.B.: You write the following about the Church: “endless bloodshed
mounted upon the most calculated of hatreds against women, Jews,
Pagans, Atheists, Protestants, Muslims etc.” It is very interesting that
angry new atheists like you always conjure the same invalid argument, at
first ignoring the close ties between the political and the religious
spheres until the Age of Enlightenment, and then also ignoring the fact
that after the rise of secularist thought and the beginning separation of
Church and state, the secular, atheist, Anti-Christian or anti-religious
forces of society were the ones who began committing the “endless
bloodshed mounted upon the most calculated of hatreds”, based e.g. on
dimwit bastardizations of scientific revolutions like Darwinism, which
spawned the ideas of master race and culminated in the Holocaust,
bloodshed like said Holocaust, like the crimes committed by the Stalin
regime, like the massacres of the French revolution, like all varieties of
fascism and even some forms of capitalism—especially in its
predominantly anti-women orientation. The crimes of the various
churches throughout the centuries are nothing, absolutely nothing
compared to the injustice, crimes, war atrocities and modern genocides,
which were and are all committed by atheist and secular political forces
and movements. This gives us a glimpse of what horrible place a purely
secular and/or atheist world would be—without religions, which have
always also functioned as systems of peace, love, hope and charity. You
are simply repeating the same derisive, arrogant, false and invalid
arguments of the new atheists. Not very challenging.]

Second Reply by Seamus Breathnach

I have made a reply to your letter but it has simply developed into a long epistle—too
long and unwieldy in fact to deal with the essential mistakes I feel you make in your
reasoning.
You have an elephant in your room—a Roman Elephqant—and you do not see him.
Suffice it, therefore, to refer to a reply on You Tube I received. It is a short reply and it
goes as follows:
SusieArviso has replied to your comment on “Jesus saves Dini, an indonesian muslim
(part4)”
“The Catholic world religion does not represent genuine Christianity. It was started by
a sect of early Christians and is full of unscriptural doctrines. Who cares where the
“Pope” is? Death and persecution is a small price to pay for what Jesus affords us, and
you are speaking in human terms—and not knowing the fulfillment & joy of
knowing Jesus personally.”
SusieArviso is, to my mind, a typical victim of the RCChurch. The words which this
lady speaks are the fundamental problem in East Timore and elsewhere elese in the
world, where the Jesuits have laid their Cuckoo eggs and vanished. They have
prepared this lady and thousands of others for martyrdom, if they do not get their
way in transforming their culture into a satellite of the Vatican.
What about the Pope? Do you imagine he gives a cabaiste about the dreadful life he
has prepared for these people? I ask you: Is this done in Caesar's name? The same
Caesar who bullied his way around the Mediteranean two thousand years ago? And
what in heaven’s name have the Holy Romans to offer East Timore as a lifestyle?
If we count the number of subversive colleges of the Jesuits alone in the US, India and
elsewhere, we get an idea of the advancing subversion of the Black Pope, while the
White Pope blows bubbles infallibly for the world to see. Make no mistake about it,
even after Carotta’s work, the children will stilll be terroristed by Catholic Nuns and
Priests by means of religious lore, explicit stations of (Caesar’s) Cross, the
cannibalism of the Mass and many other little brain-washing items.
For me, there is no comparison between the Roman lies about their origin in Caesar
and their conduct throughout the world. And whether you tell the factual truth on
Walsh’s Mountain (Kilkenny) or John Boy Walton's Mountain (Kentucky, or wherever?)
or to SusieArviso, I do not believe that it would lead to the same dreadful
consequences as the life of Jesus according to the Roman Catholic Church.
If this young woman had been couched in the findings of Francesco Carotta and
Joseph Atwill or, indeed, was exposed to sceptics like myself or other more balanced
Western people—anyone other than Jesuits, who are trained in brainwashing simple
and unexposed people—, then she could be saved from a life of romantic nonsense!
Caesar was a man and would therefore never have made such stupid prosleytising—
even two thousand years ago!

Third Criticism (Short-hand) by Maria Janna

Seamus Breathnach wrote: You have an elephant in your room—a

Roman Elephant—and you do not see him.
Maria Janna writes: I do see him: I’ve dedicated the last five years to
this elephant called Julius Caesar, and I’m actually really glad he exists.
He’s a weapon to fight both believers and atheists. Wonderful!
(Especially those angry new atheists have to be fought again and again.
Many of them are like a cancer to society.)
Furthermore: SusieArviso, who sounds rather like a Protestant, is
talking nonsense. Early Christianity was a sect? Where’s the proof? The
only proof we have is that Christianity was everywhere all of a sudden !
The biggest religious hype of antiquity one could ever imagine! So…
Christianity a sect ? Lots of laughter! In any case: You can be enlightened
and progressive and be a Christian.
SB: Do you imagine he gives a cabaiste about the dreadful life he has
prepared for these people?
MJ: The Pope didn’t “prepare” anything. He’s just spreading and
defending the faith. In the end he’s just a poor human, who doesn’t know
any better. So it’s impossible for him to see the inflicted dread. If he were
able to see, he would start to care. But the problem is not the current
Pope. The problem is that there are a lot of those who don’t know any
better.

SB: Is this done in Caesar’s name?

MJ: A lot today is done in Caesar’s name. He’s only called ‘Jesus’. It may
be in his name (i.e. his current name ‘Jesus Christ’), but very often it’s
not in accordance with what Caesar (i.e. the original Jesus) stood for.

SB: If we count the number of subversive colleges of the Jesuits alone in

the US […]
MJ: The Jesuits are special bunch of people, yes, but they were the first
religious group to endorse Carotta’s theory (at least in Germany,
according to the information available online).

SB: […] the cannibalism of the Mass […]

MJ: Cannibalism? That’s bullshit—pardon my French—extracted from
Joseph Atwill’s sorry effort, projected onto Carotta’s findings, which
point in a totally different direction. You may be good with words, but
not good with science. It seems to me that you have not read or
understood Carotta’s book. There is no cannibalism in the Mass/
Eucharist. Either you’ve been brainwashed by Atwill and his gnomes, or
you’re clinically Anti-Roman and Anti-Christian. Read Carotta… again, if
necessary.

SB: […] there is no comparison between the Roman lies about their
origin in Caesar and their conduct throughout the world.
MJ: The Romans never “lied” about their origins. They all knew,
especially the ruling classes. And the first two Caesars remained
important until the fall of the empire, even way beyond. And why would
the Roman empire not have originated in Caesar (and Augustus)?
Historically it did. Nobody has ever argued against it.

SB: Caesar was a man and would therefore never have made such stupid
prosleytising—even two thousand years ago!
MJ: Absolutely wrong! Caesar had been flamen Dialis destinatus and
pontifex maximus before he went to Gaul. After crossing the Rubicon he
was God for many Romans. His first consecration happened in 48 BC in
Alexandria. After his death he became God for all Romans, eternal,
backward and forward: a true Divus. So he may have been a man, but he
was first and foremost a god, the God. And he was already God during
his lifetime. And as man and God he proselytized: During his time and
under Augustus they called it recruitments! It was the civil war! You don't
seem to understand a thing.