Question Question 1: Could you please tell me if there is any truth to the manner in which the Romans used the word 'gospel' and 'apostle' in the following quotes?
Question 2: Is there such a thing as the gospel of Caesar or the gospel of Augustus? Where could I find them if they exist?
Please include references if you have them available. I have been studying Roman history since visiting Italy and have not found any references to this usage of these words.
Thank you for having the knowledge that I do not yet have and thank you for being willing to share.
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Quote 1:"Because, what a gospel was, is a documentation of the pros and cons of the privileges and responsibilities of becoming a citizen of an advancing kingdom. The Romans really perfected the whole gospel thing and you can still find, uh copies, uh of the gospel of Julius Caesar. The gospel of Caesar Augustus."
Quote 2:"What was the gospel? The gospel was a manifesto, that they would take into foreign territory; and before there was a gospel of Jesus Christ, there was a gospel of Caesar. Did you know that? Or gospels of the Roman emperors. And, and it meant ‘the good news of what’s available in their kingdom.’"
Quote 3:"…they sent an apostle. Apostle literally means ‘the sent one’, but an apostle came as th, the person who represented the government of Rome, to, to govern this new colony."
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Answer Hello,
First of all the Latin terms “euangelium” or “evangelium”(“gospel”) and “apostolus” (“apostle”) do not belong to classical Latin, but to late Latin as they began to be used after Christ's death, i.e. in the 1st.century AD.
They both derive from Greek and mean literally "good news”(Greek, “euangelion”) and “messenger”/ “the sent one”(Greek, “apostolos”).
Therefore in the previous centuries from the foundation of Rome in 753 BC to the early 1st.century AD the Romans do not used such nouns which would have had no sense at all.
The only one time in fact when we find the term “euangelia” (plural of “euangelium”) in a Latin text is in Cicero’s Epistles to Atticus, 2,3,1 where Cicero writes “Primum, ut opinor, euangelia” meaning “First, I have good news for you, as I think”, and then, as you can see, he uses such a term in the meaning of “good news” which has nothing to do with the ecclesiastical gospel, as we use it in the meaning of “a written account of the life of Jesus”( See the authors of the four canonical Christian gospels just known as the four evangelists).
As for “apostolus”(apostle), this word too does not appear in Latin before the 1st.century AD, when it is used to indicate one of the 12 disciples chosen by Jesus to preach the gospel.
To conclude:
1) there is no truth to the manner in which the Romans used the word 'gospel' and 'apostle' in the quotes you mention.
2)there is no 'gospel' of Caesar or of Augustus who both lived before the death of Christ, since Julius Caesar died in 44 BC and Augustus in 14 AD, while Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilatus, procurator of Judaea, in the times of the emperor Tiberius, successor to Augustus.
The only one explanation I can find to justify (but not too much) the use of the term “gospel” and “apostle” in the quotes you mention is the following:
1-“Gospel” has been used in the sense of “doctrine” as a ”list of regulations and laws” in force in the times of Julius Caesar or Octavianus Augustus.
2-“Apostle” has been used in the meaning of the person who has been sent to represent the government of Rome.
Anyway I believe that either “gospel” or “apostle” should not have used in the quotes you mention as they would not have been used at all by the Romans until the 1st century AD when however such terms were used only in a religious sense related to the Christian faith.
Hope this is clear enough. Feel free however to ask me again.
Best regards,
Maria
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PS. Just out for curiosity, where have you found the above quotes?
