Before Jerusalem Fell

The Idh.tip of the Sixth King 155
the title Zmperator. Suetonius clearly records his claim to the “praenomen
ImPeratoris. “2 9
This puts him in line with Augustus 30
and the following
emperors who naturally claimed the same. Indeed, the following
emperors even called themselves by his name, “Caesar.”
But more compelling than this are the several contemporary and
nearly contemporary lists that include Julius in the line of the Caesars,
and as the first of the line. In his Lives of the Twelve Caesars,
Roman historian Suetonius (c. A.D. 70-160) begins his numbering
of the Caesars with Julius. His first book. in his Lives of the Twelve
Cazzsars is entitled The Divim Julius. Likewise another Roman Historian,
Dio Cassius (c. A.D. 150-235), numbers Julius as the first of the
emperors.3 ]
For our purposes perhaps the most decisive representative of
those who reckon the emperors from Julius is the Jewish writer
Flavius Josephus. Not only do his dates (A.D. 37-101) overlap the
very period ofJohn and the New Testament, but he is also a Jew from
Palestine, and his works were written for both the Remans and the
Jews. Surely his reckoning would reflect contemporary opinion among
the Jews and the Remans. In his Antiquities he calls Augustus the
“second” and Tibenus the “third” emperor. 32
Later Gaius is called
the “fourth.”3 3
In a later chapter he calls Julius the “first who
transferred the power of the people to himself.”34 In addition, we
should understand that the Jewish people were particularly fond of
Julius. He granted them a legal status and many special privileges.
Suetonius records the great lamentation of the Jews for Julius when
he died. 35
A Jew, such as Josephus and John, would naturally have
conceived of Julius as the first of the Caesars.
Further evidence for a common Jewish reckoning of Julius as the
first emperor appears in 4 Ezra (a composite work with Christian
additions,3G sometimes called 2 Esdras). This work was written and
29. Suetonius, Juliur 76.
30. See for example, Aurelius Victor, E@”tQrm 1:1.
31. Dio Cassius, Roman HistoU 5.
32. Antiquities 18:2:2.
33. Antiquities 18:6:10.
34. Antiquities 19:1:11.
35. Juliw 84
36. Bruce M. Metzger, “The Fourth Book of Ezra,” in James H. Charlesworth, cd.,
Old 7kmmt Pwudepigrapha, 2 VOIS (Garden City, NY Doubleday, 1983) 1:517.