Before Jerusalem Fell

Tb Role of Emperor Worship 269
[Greek, euangelia] which by his means went forth into the world took
its rise in the birthday of the God. . . . 38
It should not surprise us that “in the first century of the Christian
Era all the emperors claim this supreme achievement [i.e., divinity]
for themselves,” nor that “the emperors after Augustus especially
promoted the cult of the emperor.”3 9
As a matter of fact, “the practice
in its worst form, that is the worship of the living emperor, had been
known in Asia as early as the reign of Augustus.’ )w
Tibenus
In response to just this matter Christ’s remarks during the reign
of Tibenus regarding the tribute money must be understood (Matt.
22: 15-22; Mark 12: 13-17; Luke 20:20-26). Here Christ taught that
lovers of the true God should “render unto God” those things that
are God’s (i.e., worship), and only “render unto Caesar” those things
that are rightfully his (i.e., taxes). This clearly is a not-so-subtle
exposure of the error of emperor worship. Indeed, as Deissmann
notes, this is a tacit protest against emperor worship under Tiberius
(A.D. 14-37). 41
History records that at Tiberius’s death “eleven cities
of Asia struggled for the honour of erecting a temple to his memory.”42
The Senate finally awarded the temple to Smyrna,43 one of
the seven cities to which one of the Seven Letters in Revelation was
written.
Caligtda
What need we say of Caligula? Caligula was clearly a madman
possessed with the conviction of his own deity, for he “put the head
of his own statue upon one of the Olympian Jupiter, and had himself
saluted as Jupiter Latiaris, erecting a temple to himself, with special
priests and sacrifices.”~ Josephus records for posterity the deluded
pretensions of CaliWla:
38. Ibid.
39. Aland, Histo?y ~Chri.rtiantp 1:18, 19.
40. Arthur S. Peake, The Revekrtwn ofJohn (London: Joseph Johnson, 1919), p. 84.
41. Adolf Deissmann, LightJom the Amid East (New York 1922), p. 252.
42. Workman, Persecution, pp. 40K.
43. Selwyn, Christian ProptMs, p. 123.
44. Dusterdieck, Revelation, p. 51. See Suetonius, Caligula21.