Pontifex maximus

some were for death caesar however very earnestly opposed this plan recommending instead the confiscation of the estates of the conspirators and their imprisonment in some of the distant cities of italy the dispute grew very warm caesar urging his point with great perseverance and determination and with a degree of violence which threatened seriously to obstruct the proceedings when a body of armed men a sort of guard of honor stationed there gathered around him and threatened him with their swords quite a scene of disorder and terror ensued some of the senators arose hastily and fled from the vicinity of caesar's seat to avoid the danger others more courageous or more devoted in their attachment to him gathered around him to protect him as far as they could by interposing their bodies between his person and the weapons of his assailants caesar soon left the senate and for a long time would return to it no more Although Caesar was all this time, on the whole, rising in influence and power, there were still fluctuations in his fortune, and the tide sometimes, for a short period, went strongly against him.

He was at one time, when greatly involved in debt and embarrassed in all his affairs, a candidate for a very high office, that of Pontifex Maximus, or Sovereign Pontiff.

the office of pontifex was originally that of building and keeping custody of the bridges of the city the name being derived from the latin word pons which signifies bridge to this however had afterward been added the care of the temples and finally the regulation and control of the ceremonies of religion so that it came in the end to be an office of the highest dignity and honor Caesar made the most desperate efforts to secure his election, resorting to such measures, expending such sums, and involving himself in debt to such an extreme that if he failed he would be irretrievably ruined.

His mother, sympathizing with him in his anxiety, kissed him when he went away from the house on the morning of the election, and bade him farewell with tears.

And because of that, when he does attack the Pope, he attacks the Pope as an enemy.

And he will call the Pope Pontifex Maximus, Bishop of Bishops.

Around 8220, the rigorous, he had become rigorous.

Tertullian was furious.

Hey, man, we've got to be all about the mercy of our Lord.

He didn't like that at all.

And he wrote to the Pope saying, The Pontifex Maximus, he was really mad.

He was really mad.

Caesar isn't Caesar yet, not as we'll come to know him, though he's clearly destined for bigger things.

He has had some early military success, and he's just been appointed Pontifex Maximus, or High Priest, a post as important politically as it is religious.

Though there's a whiff of corruption about his election, as well as scurrilous rumours about the extent of his personal debts, such things will taint Caesar throughout his life.

As a child, Octavian will have little to do with his great-uncle, but the link will not be forgotten.

Around the edge in tight Latin letters, an inscription, Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus.

Turn it over and there's another title, Pontifex Maximus, greatest high priest.

So this coin, the one they use to buy bread and pay the temple workers and settle their debts, is a small piece of propaganda that calls a man the son of God and the chief priest of the world.

Now picture the scene in Mark's Gospel, chapter 12.

Being good polytheists, they still worshipped other gods, so they had no qualms about coming yearly to the emperor's temple to offer incense or to make a sacrifice and utter the confession, Caesar is Lord.

Even the coinage of the time often identified Caesar as Lord or the Pontifex Maximus, the high priest of the Roman religion.

Now to Christians...

Caesar was not Lord.