THE GOSPEL OF CAESAR

Discovering the historical Christ

To premiere on November-2-2007

The Gospel of Caesar, a documentary film by Dutch Public Broadcast

VARA-TELEVISION and director Jan van Friesland, makes its world
premiere at the Louis Hartlooper Complex in Utrecht, Holland, on
November 2nd 2007.
Following the tracks of two investigators on their quest for the his-
torical Jesus this enthralling documentary about the life, death and apo-
theosis of ‘the greatest of mortals’ unravels the hidden origin of Chris-
tianity.

Francesco Carotta, an Italian linguist, philosopher and engineer, discov-

ered that the story of Jesus Christ is based on the life of Caesar.
(Carotta, F. (1999) War Jesus Caesar? Munich.)
Carotta: ‘Everything in the story of Jesus can be found in the biography of Caesar.
The Gospel appears to be the history of the Roman Civil War, a ‘mis-telling’ of the
life of Caesar – from the Rubicon to his assassination – mutated into the narrative
of Jesus, from the Jordan to his crucifixion. Jesus is a true historical figure, he lived
as Gaius Julius Caesar, and resurrected as Divus Julius, later transformed into Jesus.’

Inspired by Carotta’s publication in order to verify this hypothesis, to-

gether with Pedro García González, a Spanish priest, they investigated
Roman traces of the passion in the Semana Santa, the Holy Week, and
compared it with the reconstruction of the funeral of Caesar, according
to the ancient sources, which lead to fragments of an earlier passion
about the betrayal, death and ‘crucifixion’ of Caesar.
García González: ‘The death and deification of Caesar is the essence and origin of
Christianity, which happened on the Forum Romanum in Rome.’

Scholars speak of a paradigm shift with respect to the history of Chris-

tianity:

‘This is a shift of paradigm in the history of religion.’

- Fotis A. Kavoukopoulos, Ph. D.

‘The author draws parallels between the founder of religion Jesus and Julius Caesar,
the Roman emperor, whose name was given to all succeeding emperors.’
- Erika Simon, Ph.D.
2 The Passion of Caesar – Discovering the historical Christ

‘This report is of the same order of importance as the scientific discoveries of Darwin
and Galileo… Carotta’s discovery will turn the entire history of civilization upside
down.’
- Paul Cliteur, Ph.D.

‘I try to explain this theory to my pupils at the gymnasium and give arguments for
its plausibility and they react very enthousiastic.’
- Gerard Janssen, MA

‘As a work hypothesis it is very important, especially because it fills a gap, what,
from the point of view of the investigation, heuristic, was never made.’
- Francisco Rodríguez Pascual, Ph.D.

For more than four years the documentary maker accompanied the two
investigators, the linguist and the priest, on their combined search for
traces of the historical Jesus in several locations in Europe, among oth-
ers Cyprus, Athens, Rome: Saint Peter and the Forum Romanum,
London: British Museum, Madrid: Escorial, Utrecht: Geldmuseum,
Rascrafría, Segovia en Bercianos de Aliste (Spain), Oberried and
Kirchzarten (Southern Germany), Colmar (France), Leeuwarden: Piter
Jelles Gymnasium.

Van Friesland filmed in churches and monasteries, at scientific congress-

es and in Holy Masses. He recorded a reconstruction of the historical
funeral of Caesar, which resembles the crucifixion story of Jesus, in a
Spanish village. Carotta, García González and residents from a Spanish
village performed on the basis of texts about Caesar’s death and funeral.

After the presentation of the documentary there will be a press confer-

ence in which some of the main persons of the film will answer ques-
tions:

• Francesco Carotta, author of ‘Jesus was Caesar. On the Julian

origin of Christianity’.
• Pedro García González, Spanish priest.
• Mr. Drs. Gerard Janssen, Plutarchus translator and classics scholar
at the Piter Jelles Gymnasium in Leeuwarden.

The film came about in collaboration with VARA and the Cobo-fonds.

Location: Louis Hartlooper Complex Tolsteegbrug 1 3511 ZN Utrecht

http://www.louishartloopercomplex.nl
Time: 10.30 a.m.
 To premiere on November-2-2007 3

Enclosure belonging to the press release on the documentary

‘The Gospel of Caesar’

Carotta’s theory on the origin of Christianity – the life of Caesar has

been transformed into the hagiography of Jesus – rests on several pil-
lars.
General similarities of the two lives
Both Caesar and Jesus start their rising careers in neighbouring states in
the north: Gallia and Galilee.
Both have to cross a fateful river: the Rubicon and the Jordan. Once
across the rivers, they both come across a patron/rival: Pompeius and
John the Baptist, and their first followers: Antonius and Curio on the
one hand and Peter and Andrew on the other.
Both are continually on the move, finally arriving at the capital,
Rome and Jerusalem, where they at first triumph, yet subsequently un-
dergo their passion.
Both have good relationships with women and have a special rela-
tionship with one particular woman, Caesar with Cleopatra and Jesus
with Magdalene.
Both have encounters at night, Caesar with Nicomedes, Jesus with
Nicodemus.
Both of them are great orators and of the highest nobility, descen-
dant of Aeneas and son of David, yet nevertheless both are self-made
men. Both struggle hard and ultimately triumph, hence each has a ‘tri-
umphal entry’: Caesar on horseback and Jesus on a donkey.
Both have an affinity to ordinary people—and both run afoul of the
highest authorities: Caesar with the Senate, Jesus with the Sanhedrin.
Both are contentious characters, but show praiseworthy clemency as
well: the clementia Caesaris and Jesus’ Love-thy-enemy.
Both are maligned as the friend of publicans and sinners.
Both have a traitor: Brutus and Judas. And an assassin who at first
gets away: the other Brutus and Barabbas. And one who washes his
hands of it: Lepidus and Pilate.
Both are accused of making themselves kings: King of the Romans
and King of the Jews. Both are dressed in red royal robes and wear a
crown on their heads: a laurel wreath and a crown of thorns.
Both get killed: Caesar is stabbed with daggers, Jesus is crucified, but
with a stab wound in his side.
4 The Passion of Caesar – Discovering the historical Christ

Both die on the same respective dates of the year: Caesar on the Ides
(15th) of March, Jesus on the 15th of Nisan.
Both are deified posthumously: as Divus Iulius and as Jesus Christ.
Both leave behind priests: Marcus Antonius and Peter. Both have a
posthumous heir: Gaius Octavianus adopted by Caesar’s Last Will and
Testament and John the disciple whom Jesus adopts while on the cross
(‘Woman, behold thy son!’).

Resemblances in names

The names of people and places in both stories hardly differentiate: Gal-
lia and Galilaea, Corfinium and Cafarnaum, Junius and Judas, Mària
and Marìa, Nicomedes of Bithynia and Nicodemus of Bethania, Pon-
tifex Lepidus and Pontius Pilatus, etc. In addition, other names, dissim-
ilar to each other, seemed to be translations: the Caecilii as the blind, the
Claudii as the lame, Metellus as mutilated, the man with a withered
hand. And those conquered by Caesar are found again, as those healed
by Jesus. And those besieged by Caesar are possessed in the Jesus story
– whereby it was noticed that ‘besieged’ and ‘possessed’ are both obses-
sus in Latin. Even the respective figures close to them correspond with
each other. For example, Caesar’s precursor and opponent, the great
Pompeius, was beheaded and his head presented in a dish, and the very
same thing happens to John the Baptist.
There are differences to be ascertained. Both were murdered; Caesar,
however, was stabbed while Jesus was crucified – but with a stab wound
in his side. A Cassius Longinus gave Caesar the deadly stab with a dag-
ger, while Jesus was stabbed with a lance on the cross – but also by a
Longinus! (This Longinus became a saint, and his feast day is on March
15 – the same date as the ides of March, on which Caesar was murdered
by the homonymous Longinus). Caesar’s corpse was burned unlike
Jesus’, but it was shown to the people as a wax figure hanging on a
cross-shaped tropaeum. And cremo in Latin means ‘to cremate’, but the
similar sounding Greek word kremô means ‘to hang’, ‘to crucify’.

Equivalency in titles and symbols

All the symbols of Christianity are anticipated in the cult of Divus Iu-
lius, the posthumously deified Caesar: the titles (God, Son of God, the
Almighty, the Merciful, the Savior or Redeemer, etc.); the Mother of
God; the cross in all its variations; the crucified one; the face on the Pi-
età; the crown of thorns; the long hair; the beard, the loincloth; the rod;
the halo; the star of Bethlehem; the resurrection; the ascension, etc.
 To premiere on November-2-2007 5
Analogous sayings
Famous citations of Caesar and Jesus are very much alike. Often verba-
tim:
Caesar: ‘Who is not on any side, is on my side.’ Jesus: ‘Who is not
against us, he is for us.’
Caesar: ‘I am not King, I am Caesar.’ About Jesus: ‘We have no king
but Caesar.’
Caesar: ‘The best death is a sudden death.’ Jesus: ‘What you will do
(i. e. lead me to death) do quickly.’
Caesar: ‘Oh, have I saved them, that they may destroy me?’ About
Jesus: ‘He saved others, himself he cannot save.’
Sometimes with a small, discreet shift of meaning:
Caesar: ‘Alea iacta esto—Cast the die.’ Jesus: ‘Cast out, fisher’
whereby the Greek word (h)aleeis, ‘fisher’, instead of the Latin word
alea, ‘die’, is used.
Caesar: ‘Veni vidi vici—I came, I saw, I conquered.’ And in the Jesus
story the blind man, who has been healed, says: ‘I came, washed and
saw,’ whereby enipsa, ‘I washed’, replaces enikisa, ‘I conquered’.
Important is also that in both stories these citations appear in the
same chronological order.

Explanatory power of the theory

Contradictions in the Gospels become understandable if they are traced
back to the Caesar sources.
One example: The Galilean ‘Sea’, which is made up of fresh water
and is thus not a ‘sea’, is named correctly however, because it is origi-
nally the ‘Gallic Sea’, a part of the Adriatic.

Christian traditions not described in the Gospels

In Spain (Semana Santa), Greece (Theofany) and other parts of the
Christian world, several holy traditions do not find their origin in the
Gospels, but are easily explained using the Caesar sources. A number of
them are shown in the documentary The Gospel of Caesar.

The earliest Christian iconography

The images on the oldest Christian sarcophagus, crucifixions and ivory
reliefs are much better explained by the Caesar sources than the Jesus
story. Some of them are treated in the documentary The Gospel of
Caesar.
6 The Passion of Caesar – Discovering the historical Christ