Titus’ attempt to end the plague of 80 seems to presuppose the son’s awareness of the father’s miraculous exploits. Unfortunately, we know little about that event. Suetonius writes that Titus used all means to end the plague at his disposal,which could mean that, among other methods employed, he took up his father’s mantle as the New Serapis and attempted to cure by touch.
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A HEALING TOUCH FOR EMPIRE: VESPASIAN’S WONDERS IN DOMITIANIC ROME
By
TREVOR S. LUKE
Before Vespasian returned to Rome to take up the reins of imperial government, he reportedly had a vision in the Serapeum of Alexandria and, as the New Serapis, healed two men.
significance: the historical development of the conception of the emperor’s divinity.
Steefen posutulates
healing by touch connected to divinity / Jesus’ healing by touch connected to divinity
healing by touch lifted from Vespasian and put in Jesus’ biography
Jesus dies and rises 1) with Osiris/Serapis, Lord of the Resurrection tie-in
biblical Jesus’ talk of eating body and drinking blood is nothing but Egyptian Book of the Dead where the deceased cannibalize mortal gods in the process of the deceased’s resurrection
Jesus dies and rises 2) in the New Kingdom of Rome which replaced the Julio-Claudian kingdom which was over Jerusalem AS VESPASIAN, taking on Vespasian’s act of healing by touch
81 1 During the months while Vespasian was waiting at Alexandria for the regular season of the summer winds and a settled sea,4 many marvels continued to mark the favour of heaven and a certain partiality of the gods toward him. One of the common people of Alexandria, well known for his loss of sight, threw himself before Vespasian’s knees, praying him with groans to cure his blindness, being so directed by the god Serapis, whom this most superstitious of nations worships before all others; and he besought the emperor to deign to moisten his cheeks and eyes with his spittle. Another, whose hand was useless, prompted by the same god, begged Caesar to step and trample on it. Vespasian at first ridiculed these appeals and treated them with p161scorn; then, when the men persisted, he began at one moment to fear the discredit of failure, at another to be inspired with hopes of success by the appeals of the suppliants and the flattery of his courtiers: finally, he directed the physicians to give their opinion as to whether such blindness and infirmity could be overcome by human aid. Their reply treated the two cases differently: they said that in the first the power of sight had not been completely eaten away and it would return if the obstacles were removed; in the other, the joints had slipped and become displaced, but they could be restored if a healing pressure were applied to them. Such perhaps was the wish of the gods, and it might be that the emperor had been chosen for this divine service; in any case, if a cure were obtained, the glory would be Caesar’s, but in the event of failure, ridicule would fall only on the poor suppliants. So Vespasian, believing that his good fortune was capable of anything and that nothing was any longer incredible, with a smiling countenance, and amid intense excitement on the part of the bystanders, did as he was asked to do. The hand was instantly restored to use, and the day again shone for the blind man. Both facts are told by eye-witnesses even now when falsehood brings no reward.
82 1 These events gave Vespasian a deeper desire to visit the sanctuary of the god to consult him with regard to his imperial fortune: he ordered all to be excluded from the temple. Then after he had entered the temple and was absorbed in contemplation of the god, he saw behind him one of the leading men of Egypt, named Basilides,5 who he knew was detained by sickness in a place many p163days’ journey distant from Alexandria. He asked the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple on that day; he questioned the passers-by whether he had been seen in the city; finally, he sent some cavalry and found that at that moment he had been eighty miles away: then he concluded that this was a supernatural vision and drew a prophecy from the name Basilides.
83 1 The origin of this god has not yet been generally treated by our authors: the Egyptian priests tell the following story, that when King Ptolemy,6 the first of the Macedonians to put the power of Egypt on a firm foundation, was giving the new city of Alexandria walls, temples, and religious rites, there appeared to him in his sleep a vision of a young man of extraordinary beauty and of more than human stature, who warned him to send his most faithful friends to Pontus and bring his statue hither; the vision said that this act would be a happy thing for the kingdom and that the city that received the god would be great and famous: after these words the youth seemed to be carried to heaven in a blaze of fire.
TACITUS
HISTORIES
Book IV (end)
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Osiris/Resurrection Religion spreads from Egypt to the Greek World with Ptolemy I via the created international God Serapis.
Osiris /Resurrection Religion headquarters moves from Memphis to Alexander the Great’s city Alexandria.
Rome disseminates the worship of Serapis through its empire.
Vespasian gets Serapis’ favor.
A Jewish version of Osiris/Serapis/Resurrection Religion is created.
From Egypt to Greece to Rome to Jerusalem, Osiris/Serapis, Lord of the Resurrection goes.
The first Flavian emperor felt favored by Serapis.
The cult of Serapis then had imperial favor which probably meant its dissemination throughout the Empire by way of the imperial cult or even the creation of a Jewish version of the cults.
= = =
Beginning in the Flavian period (69–96 CE), the god Serapis
was closely associated with the Roman imperial cult, as he had
been earlier in the development of the Ptolemaic ruler cult. As
a guarantor of power, he was one of the few deities who might
appear together with the image of the ruling emperor on widely
distributed imperial coinage (fig. 10.4).*
From:
The Fate of Serapis: A Paradigm for Transformations
in the Culture and Art of Late Roman Egypt, p. 154
Ann M. Nicgorski
* Tinh, Sérapis debout, 98–99; Clerc and Leclant, “Sarapis,” 686–87, 692
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Might be worthwile to check this out:
Sarolta A. Takács, Isis and Sarapis in the Roman World (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 94–98; Barbara
Levick, Vespasian (New York: Routledge, 2005), 68–69
In Jesus’ ministry, followers at first saw the Kingdom of God/Righteousness/Heaven on Earth.
When Jesus gets to Pilate, it was not a Moses vs Pharaoh scenario where God and Moses did not defer to Egypt; but God and Jesus deferred to Rome: “My kingdom is not of this world.” To make this worse, God and Jesus were not even before the head of an empire, as with God and Moses before pharaoh, he was before a regional governor.
With Jesus’ kingdom now, not for the living, it must be for the dead; and, this puts us in the territory of Christianity plagiraizing the religion of Serapis.
Serapis is Osiris and Apis. Apis is also known as Seker, God of Death. There is a kingdom of Seker in the Egyptian afterlife.
“Remember me, O Lord, when you come into your kingdom.”
Remember me, O Lord, Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, in the afterlife.
Remember me in the Kingdom of Seker.
In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the deceased must find his way through Rastau, a part of the Kingdom of Seker.
Restau means the place of tomb entrances or openings.
Then, after Jesus’ death, Restau, Jesus’ tomb entrance has its stone rolled away and his tomb is opened.
Christianity sufficiently references its rival resurrection religion, the cult of Serapis.
Rich Griese said
Steefen,If the gospel stories are written later than we think, is it possible that these Vespasian stories could be sources from which the gospel stories evolved?
Cheers!
Rich Griese said
Steefen,If the gospel stories are written later than we think, is it possible that these Vespasian stories could be sources from which the gospel stories evolved?
Cheers!
They do not have to be written much later than we think. We think they were first written at the outbreak of the Jewish Revolt with Mark dating around 67 C.E. Remember the marker: Year 69, the year of Four Emperors. We have Vespasian in Alexandria healing until the dust clears with the four emperors after Nero.
Second, portions of the gospel stories, then, would have * happened * later than we think or got the Roman imperial gloss/finishing touches/overlay later.
Cheers!
Steefen said
In Jesus’ ministry, followers at first saw the Kingdom of God/Righteousness/Heaven on Earth.
When Jesus gets to Pilate, it was not a Moses vs Pharaoh scenario where God and Moses did not defer to Egypt; but God and Jesus deferred to Rome: “My kingdom is not of this world.” To make this worse, God and Jesus were not even before the head of an empire, as with God and Moses before pharaoh, he was before a regional governor.With Jesus’ kingdom now, not for the living, it must be for the dead; and, this puts us in the territory of Christianity plagiraizing the religion of Serapis.
Serapis is Osiris and Apis. Apis is also known as Seker, God of Death. There is a kingdom of Seker in the Egyptian afterlife.
“Remember me, O Lord, when you come into your kingdom.”
Remember me, O Lord, Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, in the afterlife.
Remember me in the Kingdom of Seker.
In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the deceased must find his way through Rastau, a part of the Kingdom of Seker.
Restau means the place of tomb entrances or openings.
Then, after Jesus’ death, Restau, Jesus’ tomb entrance has its stone rolled away and his tomb is opened.
Christianity sufficiently references its rival resurrection religion, the cult of Serapis.
Restau: a name given to the passages in the tomb which lead from this world to the other world; originally, it designated the cemetery of Abydos only, and its god was Osiris.
Chapter CXVII
Chapter whereby one taketh the blissful path at Restau. (1)
O paths which are high above me at Restau: I am the Girdled (2) and the Mighty one, coming forth triumphantly. (3)
I am come: I am come that I may firmly secure my suit in Abydos, (4) and that the path may be open to me at Restau.
Let my suit be made pleasant for me by Osiris.
I am he who produceth the water which balanceth his throne, and who maketh his way from the Great Valley. (5)
Let the path be made for me; for behold I am N the triumphant. (6)
[Osiris is made triumphant over his adversaries, and the Osiris N is made triumphant over his adversaries, and is as one of you, his patron (7) is the Lord of Eternity: he walketh even as ye walk, he standeth as ye stand, he speaketh as ye speak, before the great god, the Lord of Amenta.]
Chapter CXVIII
Chapter whereby one arriveth at Restau.
I am he who is born in Restau.
Glory is given to me by those who are in their mummied forms in Pu, at the sanctuary of Osiris, whom the guards (1) receive at Restau when they conduct Osiris through the demesnes of Osiris.
Chapter CXIX
Chapter whereby one entereth or goeth forth from Restau.
I am the Mighty one, who createth his own light.
I come to thee, Osiris, and I worship thee.
Pure are thine effluxes, (1) which flow from thee, (2) and which make thy name in Restau, when it hath passed there.
Hail to thee, Osiris, in thy power and thy might, who hast possession of Restau.
Osiris raiseth thee up in thy power and in thy might. Osiris raiseth thee up in thy power in Restau, and in thy might in Abydos, that thou mayest go round heaven with Ra, and survey the human race.*
One art thou and triumphant.
* The Rechit, mankind actually living, as distinguished from the dead.
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