And Man Created God

Kings, Cults and Conquests at the Time of Jesus

Selina O'Grady

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780857898760
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia mondiale

At the time of Jesus's birth, the world was in ferment. Across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia - societies rife with gods and messiahs, priests and warriors - the old certainties of family, village and tribe were being overturned. Religion was becoming the source of order and stability.

And Man Created God takes the reader on a dazzling journey across the empires of the ancient world to reveal how emperors and kings manipulated religion to consolidate their power. In Rome, Augustus was deified by his brilliant spin doctors; in what is now Sudan, the warrior queen Amanirenas exploited her godlike status to inspire her armies to face, and defeat, Rome; while in China, the usurper Wang Mang won and lost the throne over his obsession with Confucianism.

In this riveting account of the interplay of faith and power, Selina O'Grady answers the most urgent question of all: how did the tiny Jesus cult triumph over more popular religions - the goddess Isis, the miracle worker Apollonius, even the cult of Augustus - to become the world's dominant faith?

Contents

Illustrations

Maps

Timeline

Introduction

1 The Rebranding of Rome

2 Augustus: God and First Citizen

3 Alexandria: Gods in the City

4 The African Goddess-Queen

5 The Mirage of Arabia: Rome’s Fiasco

6 How Herod and the Pharisees Radicalized the Jews

7 Galilee: Jesus and the Messiah-Bandits

8 Castrating Priests and Trading Gods in Palmyra

9 Political and Religious Chaos in Parthia

10 A ‘Pagan Christ’ in Babylon

11 India: Brahmins versus Monks

12 The Buddha in a Toga

13 Confucius’ Religion for Civil Servants

14 Wang Mang the Pious Usurper

15 The Dragon Who Flew Too High

16 Recalcitrant Spirits: The German Resistance

17 Rome: The Emperor Becomes God

18 The Death of Jesus

19 And Paul Created Christ

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

A Note on the Author

Illustrations

Frontispiece: Isis and Horus. Wellcome Library, London

1. Apollonius. ©2006 Alinari / TopFoto

2. Livia. Giovanni Dall’Orto / Wikimedia Commons

3. House in Marib. Prisma Bildagentur AG / Alamy

4. Maecenas. ©2006 Alinari / TopFoto

5. Agrippa. akg-images

6. Tiberius. akg-images

7. Josephus. akg-images

8. The Kiosk at Naqa. © Nigel Pavitt/JAI/Corbis

9. Suren. Aytakin / Wikimedia Commons

10. Banqueters, Palmyra. Lessing Photo Archive

11. Temple of Bel. De Agostini / Getty

12. Kushan prince. akg-images / RIA Novosti

13. King Juba. De Agostini / Getty

14. St Paul. Leemage / Getty

15. Coin of Varus. INTERFOTO / Sammlung Rauch / Mary Evans

16. Coin of Gondophares. World Imaging / Wikimedia Commons

17. Antonia fortress. deror avi / Wikimedia Commons

18. Augustus. Alinari via Getty Images

19. Seated Buddha. akg-images

20. Queen Mother of the West. The Granger Collection / TopFoto

Timeline

Note: Many of these dates are approximate

BC

1500–1000 Aryan (Indo-Iranian) tribesmen from the steppes of southern Russia move into the Indus Valley – in present-day Pakistan and north-west India – and begin to compile the hymns of the Rig Veda, the oldest sacred text of Hinduism

1200 The Aryan priest Zoroaster has a vision of the first supreme god Ahura Mazda and begins preaching in ancient Iran

1070 Egypt loses control of Meroe – present-day southern Egypt and Sudan – and it becomes an independent kingdom

1070–AD 350 EMPIRE OF MEROE

753 Legendary date for the founding of the city of Rome by Romulus and Remus

744–609 Assyrian (NEO-ASSYRIAN) EMPIRE

—Originally a kingdom of northern Mesopotamia – modern-day northern Iraq – Assyria acquires a vast territory and has its capital at Nineveh on the banks of the Tigris River

727 Meroite King Pye invades Egypt and founds the twenty-fifth dynasty of pharaohs which rules Egypt 727–653

727–653 Twenty-fifth dynasty of Egypt

722 Assyria conquers northern Israel and Jews are deported

700 Construction of Marib Dam in South Arabia

—Towards the end of the 7th century Rome becomes an organized city-state

626 The kingdom of Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia – part of modern Iraq – defeats Assyria

626–539 BABYLONIAN (NEO-BABYLONIAN) EMPIRE

587–537 Captivity of the Jews in the city of Babylon – near present-day Baghdad – under Nebuchadnezzar

586 Babylonia conquers southern Israel (the kingdom of Judah)

563–483 The life of Siddhãrtha Gautama, the Buddha

558–479 The life of Confucius

540 Babylonian (Neo-Babylonian) Empire falls to the Persian King Cyrus

540–331 PERSIAN (ACHAEMENID) EMPIRE

539 Cyrus allows the Jews to return home

510 The last king of Rome is expelled; Etruscan rule ends and the Republic is established at Rome

510–27 Roman Republic

497–425 Vardhamana Mahavira, the son of a chieftain in the Indian kingdom of Magadha, in north-east India, establishes the central tenets of Jainism

396 Rome begins its conquest of Italy

341–270 Life of Epicurus, founder of Epicureanism

335–263 Life of Zeno, founder of Stoicism

334–328 Alexander of Macedonia defeats Darius and conquers the Persian Empire

334–328 EMPIRE OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT

328 At Alexander’s death his general Seleucus ‘inherits’ the eastern part of the Persian Empire

312–204 SELEUCID EMPIRE

321 Chandragupta Maurya founds India’s first and greatest empire; his chief minister Kautilya writes the Arthashastra

321–185 BC MAURYAN EMPIRE

269–232 Reign of Ashoka Maurya, first Buddhist emperor of the Indian subcontinent

264 The first of the Punic Wars between Carthage – in present-day Tunisia – and Rome; Rome’s conquest of Sicily signals the beginning of its imperial expansion beyond the borders of peninsular Italy

250 Parni nomads from Central Asia settle in Parthia – in present-day Iran – and begin their conquest of the Seleucid Empire

250 BC–AD 224 PARTHIAN (ARSACID) EMPIRE

220 Qín Shi Huáng, king of the state of Qin in western China, defeats rival warring states and becomes the first emperor of a unified China; he extends the Great Wall, begun in the 4th century BC, to keep out invading nomads

220–AD 1912 CHINESE EMPIRE

218–202 The Carthaginian general Hannibal invades Italy but is eventually defeated by Scipio

206–AD 9 FORMER (WESTERN) HAN DYNASTY (CHINA)

146 Greece reduced to a Roman province

135–132 Slave revolt in Sicily led by Eunus, a Syrian slave inspired by the mystery cult of Atargatis

63 Pompey captures Jerusalem; Palestine becomes a client state of Rome

53 Parthians defeat the Romans at the Battle of Carrhae

50 Yuezhi/Kushan tribesmen from western China push into India

44 Julius Caesar is assassinated

37–4 Reign of Herod the Great

31 Octavian/Augustus, great-nephew of Julius Caesar, defeats Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium

27 The Senate bestow on Octavian the title of ‘Augustus’, the revered one

27–AD 14 Reign of Augustus, the first Roman emperor

27–AD 476/1453 ROMAN EMPIRE

The Western part of the empire collapses in AD 476 and the Eastern part – the Byzantine Empire – with the fall of Constantinople in AD 1453

26 Aelius Gallus leads disastrous Roman ‘expedition’ into South Arabia

25 Juba installed as King of Mauretania – part of present-day Algeria and Morocco

—Queen Amanirenas of Meroe leads her army against Roman-controlled Egypt

20 Peace treaty between Augustus and Queen Amanirenas settles the border disputes between Roman Egypt and Meroe – present-day southern Egypt and Sudan

4 Jewish students in Jerusalem smash the golden eagle erected by Herod the Great on one of the Temple gates

—Death of Herod the Great

—Most likely date for the birth of Jesus

4/2 Former slave-girl Musa murders her husband and becomes co-ruler of Parthia with her son/new husband Phraataces

3 Cult of the Queen Mother of the West sweeps through China

2 Augustus is proclaimed pater patriae (‘father of the fatherland’)

AD

2 Parthians and Romans celebrate their peace agreement on the banks of the Euphrates

6 Rome takes direct control of Judaea and orders a census so that the province can be assessed for tax; Judas the Galilean and Zadok call for a mass boycott – this marks the birth of the Zealots, the radical wing of Pharisaism

9 Battle of Teutoburg Forest; German tribesmen, led by Arminius, wipe out almost the whole Roman army of the Rhine

—China’s acting emperor Wang Mang seizes the throne and proclaims the Xin (‘new’) dynasty

9–23 Rule of Wang Mang

14 Augustus dies and is declared to be a god by the Senate

14–37 Tiberius, Augustus’ thirty-year-old stepson, becomes emperor

20–46 Gondophares rules over the kingdom of Gandhara – a vast region in present-day eastern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan and northern India – within the Parthian Empire; whether he rules as a loyal client king or has broken away from Parthia is unclear; his capital city is Taxila, near presentday Islamabad in Pakistan

23 Wang Mang, the usurper of the Han throne, is defeated and killed

24 Pontius Pilate is appointed procurator (governor) of Judaea

25 Emperor Guangwu restores the Chinese Han Dynasty

25-220 LATER (EASTERN) HAN DYNASTY

28/29 John the Baptist baptizes his cousin Jesus

—Jesus begins his mission

—John the Baptist is beheaded

—Many of John’s disciples become followers of Jesus

30–80 Kujula Kadphises, chief of the Yuezhi tribesmen from Central Asia, becomes the first Kushan emperor

First–Third centuries KUSHAN EMPIRE (present-day Central Asia and northern India)

—Kujula and his successors are patrons of a more populist form of Buddhism, Mahayana Buddhism, which they export to China

30 Rome takes control of Palmyra

31/33 Jesus is crucified

32 Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus

37 Death of Tiberius; his nephew Caligula becomes emperor

38 Pogrom inflicted on the Jewish community of Alexandria; the Roman prefect Aulus Avillius Flaccus forces Jews to live in one area – the world’s first ghetto

—Apollonius, the wandering holy man and miracle worker, visits the Parthian province of Mesopotamia, where the Parthian King Vardanes I is embroiled in a civil war

40 Paul begins his missionary work in the Near East (modern Turkey and the Middle East) and Gree

41 Caligula is assassinated; his uncle, Claudius, becomes emperor

43 Claudius conquers Britain

48 Paul and Barnabas set off on their first missionary journey

—Paul preaches his first recorded sermon at ‘Psidian Antioch’ (in modern Turkey)

49 Claudius imposes martial law on an increasingly violent Palestine, and expels the Jewish community from Rome

—Paul travels to Jerusalem for a conference to try to heal the differences between the ‘party of the circumcision’, led by Jesus’ brother James, and the ‘party of the uncircumcision’, led by Paul

54 Death of Claudius; his stepson Nero becomes emperor

58 Paul returns to Jerusalem, where he is arrested in the Temple; he demands to be tried as a Roman citizen under Roman law and is taken to Rome

60/61 Boudicca, queen of the Iceni, leads a rebellion in Britain against the Romans, but is defeated and commits suicide

64 Great fire of Rome; Nero blames the Christians who are rounded up to be crucified, torn apart by wild beasts, or burned alive; Paul and Peter may have been among the victims

65 Kujula Kadphises and his Central Asian nomadic army conquer Gondophares’ Indo-Parthian kingdom in Gandhara (today’s northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan)

66–73/4 First Jewish Revolt/War against the Romans

68 Nero commits suicide; his death marks the end of the Julio-Claudian dynasty; he is succeeded by Galba

70 The Temple and Jerusalem are razed to the ground by the victorious armies of the Emperor Vespasian’s son Titus

79 Eruption of Vesuvius overwhelms Pompeii

132–135 Second Jewish Revolt / War against the Romans. After the Jews’ defeat Hadrian expels them from Jerusalem and the rest of Judaea

—Jerusalem is renamed Aelia Capitolina

224 The last of the Parthian kings is killed in battle; the succeeding Sasanian dynasty imposes its authority over the empire, adopting Zoroastrianism as the state religion

312 Conversion of Constantine to Christianity

—Constantine defeats Maxentius, his rival as emperor, at the Milvian Bridge in Rome

335 Emperor Ezana of Aksum converts to Christianity, and makes Christianity the official state religion

391 Theodosius bans all non-Christian rites and orders the destruction of all temples, cult images and ancient festivals

—Christianity is established as the official religion of the Roman Empire

395 After th...