Julius Caesar as Rome’s Supreme Pontiff

Seeing that it sort of ties in with my previous posts about Pergamos and the Seat of Satan (Pergamos-Babylon Connection, Pergamos-Rome Connection and More Facts concerning Pergamos) I thought I would provide some interesting facts taken from an old historic book about Julius Caesar when as Rome’s Pontifex Maximus he held supreme religious authority in Rome. Being also Rome’s emperor at the same time Julius Caesar was able to simultaneously wield supreme religious authority and supreme political authority just as the kings of the Babylonian empire (e.g. Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar) did centuries before when they were the supreme pontiffs of Babylon.

“Having renounced all hope of obtaining Egypt for his province, he (Julius Caesar) stood candidate for the OFFICE OF CHIEF PONTIFF, to secure which, he had recourse to the most profuse BRIBERY. Calculating, on this occasion, the enormous amount of the debts he had contracted, he is reported to have said to his mother, when she kissed him at his going out in the morning to the assembly of the people, “I will never return home unless I am elected pontiff.” In effect, he left so far behind him two most powerful competitors, who were much his superiors both in age and rank, that he had more votes in their own tribes, than they both had in all the tribes together.”

(Notice that Julius Caesar got himself elected supreme pontiff through bribery. In other words a form of simony.)

“He first inhabited a small house in the Suburra, but after his advancement to the PONTIFICATE, he occupied a PALACE belonging to the state in the Via Sacra. Many writers say that he liked his residence to be ELEGANT, and his entertainments sumptuous; and that he entirely took down a villa near the grove of Aricia, which he had built from the foundation and finished at a VAST EXPENSE, because it did not exactly suit his taste, although he had at that time but slender means, and was in debt; and that he carried about in his expeditions tesselated and marble slabs for the floor of his tent.”

(Notice that Julius Caesar as supreme pontiff built a very expensive and elegant residence.)

“During his quaestorship he pronounced funeral orations from the rostra, according to custom, in praise of his aunt Julia, and his wife Cornelia. In the panegyric on his aunt, he gives the following account of her own and his father’s genealogy, on both sides: “My aunt Julia derived her descent, by the mother, from a race of kings, and by her father, from the Immortal Gods. For the Marcii Reges, her mother’s family, deduce their pedigree from Ancus Marcius, and the Julii, her father’s, from Venus; of which stock we are a branch. WE THEREFORE UNITE IN OUR DESCENT THE SACRED MAJESTY OF KINGS, THE CHIEFEST AMONG MEN, AND THE DIVINE MAJESTY OF GODS, TO WHOM KINGS THEMSELVES ARE SUBJECT.”

“Instead of a funeral panegyric, the consul Antony ordered a herald to proclaim to the people the DECREE OF THE SENATE, in which they had bestowed upon him all HONOURS, DIVINE and human.”

“He died in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and was RANKED AMONGST THE GODS, not only by a formal decree, but in the belief of the vulgar. For during the first games which Augustus, his heir, consecrated to his memory, a comet blazed for seven days together, rising always about eleven o’clock; and it was supposed to be the soul of Caesar, now received into heaven: for which reason, likewise, he is represented on his statue with a star on his brow.”

“For he not only obtained excessive honours, such as the consulship every year, the dictatorship for life, and the censorship, but also the title of emperor, and the surname of FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, besides having his statue amongst the kings, and a lofty couch in the theatre. He even suffered some honours to be decreed to him, which were unbefitting the most exalted of mankind; such as a gilded chair of state in the senate-house and on his tribunal, a consecrated chariot, and banners in the Circensian procession, temples, altars, STATUES AMONG THE GODS, a bed of state in the temples, A PRIEST, and A COLLEGE OF PRIESTS DEDICATED TO HIMSELF, like those of Pan; and that one of the months should be called by his name. There were, indeed, no honours which he did not either assume himself, or grant to others, at his will and pleasure.”

(Notice that Julius Caesar was honored as a god on earth and had his own priests.)

“Turning afterwards his attention to the regulation of the commonwealth, HE CORRECTED THE CALENDAR, which had for some time become extremely confused, through the unwarrantable liberty which the pontiffs had taken in the article of intercalation. To such a height had this abuse proceeded, that neither the festivals designed for the harvest fell in summer, nor those for the vintage in autumn. He accommodated the year to the course of the sun, ordaining that in future it should consist of three hundred and sixty-five days without any intercalary month; and that every fourth year an intercalary day should be inserted. That the year might thenceforth commence regularly with the calends, or first of January, he inserted two months between November and December; so that the year in which this regulation was made consisted of fifteen months, including the month of intercalation, which, according to the division of time then in use, happened that year.”

(Notice that the correction of the calendar was under the authority of Rome’s supreme pontiff and the reformed calendar was named Julian in honor of the supreme pontiff Julius Caesar.)

The preceding excerpts were taken from the following book:

Title: The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Volume 1. Julius Caesar

Author: C. Suetonius Tranquillus

The text of that book can be downloaded for free at the following website address:

http://www.archive.org/details/thelivesofthetwe06386gut

The office of Pontifex Maximus after the death of Julius Caesar would later become the possession of Rome’s Caesars for centuries until near the end of the 4th century when the title and office of supreme pontiff was given to Pope Damasus I by the Emperor Gratian. Since that time the papacy has held the office of Rome’s supreme pontiff.

Here are some quotes from the Wikipedia article Pontifex Maximus :

“Thus, from the time of Augustus, the election of pontifices ended and membership into the sacred college was deemed a sign of imperial favour. With this attribution, the new office of Emperor was given a religious dignity and the responsibility for the entire Roman state cult.”

“From this point on, PONTIFEX MAXIMUS WAS ONE OF THE MANY TITLES OF THE EMPEROR, slowly losing its specific and historical powers and becoming simply a referent for the sacral aspect of imperial duties and powers.”

Getting back to the issue of the calendar reform, I thought I would quote the following facts from the Wikipedia articles Julian Calendar and Gregorian calendar :

“The Roman calendar was modified by JULIUS CAESAR when he occupied the office of PONTIFEX MAXIMUS and the Julian calendar was subsequently modified by GREGORY XIII, who, as POPE, also held the title PONTIFEX MAXIMUS.”

“The Gregorian calendar is the most widely used calendar in the world today. It is a reform of the Julian calendar, first proposed by the Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius, and decreed by Pope Gregory XIII, for whom it was named, on 24 February 1582 by papal bull Inter gravissimas.”

“The Julian calendar was a reform of the Roman calendar which was introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 BC and came into force in 45 BC (709 ab urbe condita).”

“The Julian calendar was in general use in Europe and Northern Africa from the times of the Roman Empire until 1582, when Pope Gregory XIII promulgated the Gregorian Calendar.”

“The Gregorian Calendar was soon adopted by most Catholic countries (e.g. Spain, Portugal, Poland, most of Italy). Protestant countries followed later, and the countries of Eastern Europe even later.”

To finish I would like to mention that it is interesting to note that the little Roman horn mentioned in Daniel chapter 7 who grows out of the last Roman Beast empire in its final divided form will “think to CHANGE TIMES and laws”. (Daniel 7:25) Could that prophecy be associated in some way with a Roman power altering the calendar in use? Possibly. John Gill commenting on that verse wrote : “to change the use of times and seasons, by setting apart days as holy for canonized saints; and appointing such days in a week, and such a season in the year, for abstinence from meats; and even to change the laws of God and man, by dispensing with both, and making new ones of his own.” Did not Nebuchadnezzar, the king and supreme pontiff of Babylon, decree the times of worship and also decree that “heretics” would be punished with death? “Then an herald cried aloud : To you it is COMMANDED; by the king’s authority: O people, nations, and languages; that at what TIME ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery and all kinds of music, ye fall down and WORSHIP the golden image that NEBUCHADNEZZAR the king hath set up.” (Daniel 3:4-5) “And whoso falleth not down and worshippeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning FIERY FURNACE.” (Daniel 3:6)

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