How Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great Fit Into Biblical History | Documentary

What if every great figure, battle, and event in human history, from Alexander the Great to the fall of Rome, was planned, not random, but guided? According to Christians, world history is the unravelling of God's divine plan, a single purposeful story known as salvation history. The Bible describes this unfolding, but it doesn't tell you everything. History is littered with signs that God has always been guiding humanity toward him. So what are the clues? And how do events not even in the Bible fit into this ultimate plot? We're all familiar with the classic biblical tales, Noah, the Exodus, Christ's miracles, but it's not always obvious how the entire story fits together. This is where salvation history comes in. Salvation history is the attempt to put the Bible into a neat, overarching narrative, the theological concept that God has worked throughout history to save humanity from sin, culminating in Jesus Christ and the church. To put it simply, salvation history is the plot of the Bible. It's a way to view the stories of the Bible, and indeed all of human history, through God's eyes. Using this lens, we can see how God uses each person and event to fulfill his plan of bringing salvation to mankind. Much of salvation history involves understanding how Old Testament events prepared the way for Christ. Notably St. Paul often showed how the Hebrew scriptures prefigured Christ's life and work, such as how Adam's disobedience brought death to all humanity, while Christ's obedience and resurrection in turn brought life. Both figures were archetypal figures whose actions had far-reaching consequences. Adam's failure led to sin and death, but Christ, as the last Adam, reversed these effects through his righteousness and sacrifice, offering justification and eternal life. However, even in pre-Christian times, the Jewish people utilized the concept of salvation history to explain how Yahweh was bringing about the salvation of the Jewish people. In the 2nd century BC book of Maccabees, for example, Alexander the Great's conquest paved the way for the Jewish people to reclaim their homeland after the Babylonian exile and subsequent servitude under the Seleucid Empire. Here we can see how monumental historical events were viewed through a religious lens to explain how God was constantly working through history to fulfill his divine plan. To understand this framing further, though, let's do a rundown of the basics of salvation history, from the first man Adam up until the establishment of Christ's church in the New Testament. We'll piece together the plot of the Bible, and we might just uncover how the plot continues long after the events of the New Testament end and into the present day. In salvation history, one of the central ideas is that of the covenant, which simply put, is an agreement enacted between two parties. Throughout the Bible, God makes a series of covenants with mankind. He starts small, but gradually expands his covenants to include more and more people, eventually encompassing all of mankind. The overall outline is that God starts with a family, then a tribe, then a nation, a kingdom, and finally his church, which aims to spread to all of humanity. It's a gradual revelation of himself to a larger and larger audience. He first extends a covenant to Adam and Eve, the first couple. God promises Adam and Eve eternal life and blessing in exchange for obedience, specifically the command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here, God and man are in perfect harmony and are depicted as being immediately present with God. They hear the sound of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of day. It's an environment of perfect peace and security. But we all know what happens next, and through the trickery of the serpent, Adam and Eve sin, breaking the covenant, which severs man's connection with God. Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden and now must suffer natural death and the consequences of a fallen world. Salvation history, then, becomes a story of God mending this original sin to restore man's fallen state to one of union with God. God soon expands the scope of his covenant after a few generations. During the cataclysmic story of the great flood, we meet Noah, his three sons, and their wives, a holy family with Noah as the head and mediator of the household. In Genesis 9, God makes a covenant with Noah, but it extends beyond Noah to his entire family and posterity. God says that this covenant is with you and with your descendants after you. God commands Noah to be fruitful and multiply and live according to certain laws. After the earth is repopulated with Noah's descendants, we find the number of people included in the covenant expanding once again. Now instead of a single family, a covenant extends to a whole tribe with Abraham as the head. God promises Abraham land, a future royal lineage, and a worldwide blessing hinting at the inclusion of all people under God's covenant at some future point. Though Abraham's descendants are soon enslaved by the Egyptians for 400 years, they continually look to Abraham's covenant for hope. It is in this bondage that God raises up Moses to increase the scope of his covenant to the nation of Israel, eventually giving them the promised land after delivering them from slavery. And this nation develops into a full-fledged kingdom ruled by God's anointed, King David. God promises David a royal lineage that will last forever. In 2 Samuel, God says, When the Jews are exiled in Babylon in the 6th century BC, they echo the hope of their ancestors who were enslaved in Egypt. They long for a coming Messiah who will bring salvation for the Jewish people. And Christ is eventually born to David's lineage. His life and work serve as the climax of salvation history. All the past events mentioned up until now eventually lead to him. Christ expands God's covenant to all people, saving them from the original sin of Adam and promising life everlasting for those that follow him, the eternal kingdom mentioned in 2 Samuel. The subsequent books of the Bible then tell of the growing church that Christ established, how to live as a Christian, and also looks forward to the eternal kingdom. Sounds all nice and neat, and it's a beautiful story, but how does salvation history interact with quote-unquote real history? Or perhaps I should rephrase, can we view extra-biblical history through the same lens as salvation history? In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the following line is informative. The history of salvation is being accomplished in the midst of the history of the world. This means that in the Christian framework, there can be no hard delineation between biblical history and secular history. All history is the playing out of God's plan. So in this view, the history of the world, including events not mentioned in the Bible, also point toward the unfolding of the biblical narrative. So what other events can be viewed as steps in the unfolding of divine providence? Since history gets really murky the further we go back, the best place to start is close to Christ's time. The events happening in the world directly after his life and death can actually be interpreted as divinely guided, and have been for centuries by Christians. In fact, Christ lived under a unique period in history that was seemingly fine-tuned to spread the gospel. Ironically, the Roman Empire was the perfect vehicle to propel Christianity from a small sect to a worldwide religion. Its unique role in salvation history points to how God can use something seemingly opposed to him for his own will, and is a great example of how world history overlaps with salvation history. So what was Rome's role in salvation history? First we need to understand the time period in which Christ was born. This period is often called the Pax Romana. The Pax Romana is the period of Roman history spanning roughly 200 years. From the accession of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius, last of the five good emperors in 180 AD, it's the golden age of Roman imperialism. And this triumph of Roman imperialism coincided, surprisingly, with an incredible growth in Christianity. Over 40 churches were established by the year 100, a few decades after Christ's death. By 300, Christians accounted for approximately 10% of the entire Roman population, and within about 50 years, they'd be the majority religion in the empire. So how did Roman imperial dominance facilitate the spread of Christianity? It has to do with the peace and security provided by the Pax Romana. When one power stabilizes an entire region, travel becomes easier, including for missionaries. With the entirety of the Mediterranean region under a single jurisdiction, travel that would have been previously impossible became accessible to Roman citizens and subjects without fear of violence or banditry. This greatly benefited merchant trade, but it also helped ideas spread further and faster than ever before. Roman roads carried not just resources and soldiers, but philosophies and religions, including the gospel. One need only look at St. Paul's Odyssey across various Mediterranean cities to understand how Rome's grip on the region benefited early Christian missionary work. The fact that he never needed to cross national boundaries simplified his travels and ensured relative safety. Paul's journey also highlights a second factor that allowed Christianity to flourish, the incredible infrastructure of Rome at the time. In particular, Rome's road system was the most advanced in the ancient world and made traveling efficient. It's estimated there were over 50,000 miles of paved roads throughout the empire at its peak. These arteries provided efficient means of travel for Rome's armies, officials, resources, and missionaries like St. Paul. Another factor that helped Christianity spread within the empire was intrinsic to Roman culture itself, the Roman family structure. A hierarchical system, the Roman family revolved around the decisions of the pater familiis, which is Latin for the father of the family. The oldest male relative occupied this position and had legal authority to exercise complete control over anyone in his household, including his wife and children, adopted relatives, clients, and slaves. This meant that when one person converted, it often meant converting the whole household. If the head of the household was converted, he decided the religion of his wife, children, and slaves. This made Christianity spread quite rapidly among families. Another major factor that allowed Christianity to spread throughout Rome was the general Roman attitude toward competing religions. Unlike today, Romans did not view faith as exclusive and took a laissez-faire approach to new religions. During the Pax Romana, the Mediterranean world was a cornucopia of exotic foreign cults that existed alongside the traditional pantheon of Roman gods. As the empire grew, it simply welcomed new gods and goddesses into the fold. This religious syncretism allowed Christianity to go somewhat undetected initially, as Romans didn't necessarily see it as a threat to their beliefs. Rather, the Christian god was just one of many those citizens could choose from. But antithetical to paganism, Christianity did impose exclusivity on its followers. Any Romans that joined it had to give up their old gods, which meant that in the long run, Christianity grew as paganism declined. Every Christian converted was a loss for paganism, accelerating its growth relative to other religions. These factors, Rome's peace and security, its infrastructure, its patriarchal family structure, and its religious indifference, made the Roman Empire uniquely suited to spread Christianity. It might be a stretch, but it's possible the faith would have never survived at all in a different time and place. Roman history can thus fit into the larger framework of salvation history. This approach might seem like it's forcing world history to conform to the Christian narrative, but it's not a novel approach at all. Christians since the very earliest church fathers understood history this way. Saint Augustine, for example, broke history into six ages spanning from Genesis to Revelation, each correlating to a different stage of salvation history. The six ages are from Adam to Noah, from Noah to Abraham, from Abraham to David, from David to the Jewish captivity in Babylon, from this captivity to Christ, and from Christ to the present day. In this final stage rages a battle that continues the history of God's work on earth. On one side the city of God fights for Christ's kingdom, while on the other side the inhabitants of the city of man pursue worldly goods and advance Satan's hold on the world. The twists and turns of history then are the charges, regroupings, and individual efforts that the battle comprises. Even in Augustine's own time, the idea that the Roman Empire, despite its pagan origins, had been divinely planned from the start was widely held by Christians. Although the religion had been widely persecuted in the beginning, Christianity was now legally protected and pagan beliefs were oppressed. It was a clear triumph of Christianity. Another prominent thinker who viewed history through the lens of salvation history was medieval monk Joachim of Fiore. He became famous for his theory of the three ages, which broke all of human history into the age of the Father, the age of the Son, and the age of the Holy Spirit. The age of the Father corresponds to the Old Testament. This age saw earthly fathers, heads of families, tribes, and kingdoms wielding power on earth. It was a time of patriarchy and law, but also a time when the worldly life of the flesh prevailed. The age of the Son corresponds to the New Testament, marked by Christ's birth and the period afterward. This age saw religious institutions, namely the church, rise to power and is characterized by faith and Christian brotherhood. The final age, which was still yet to come, was the age of the Holy Spirit. This era would be a contemplative paradise where the gospel is preached by a new order of monastics called the Order of the Just. Christianity would unify and peace would flourish on the earth. To Joachim, salvation history was constantly playing out in the development of human civilization and he believed humanity had a vital role in the unfolding of providence. Human progress, in fact, was integral to God's ultimate plan. Much of the medieval conception of history in general was focused on making sense of how past events played a role in God's plan, how both biblical and non-biblical history was tied to the Christian story. This is perhaps best encapsulated in the conception of the Nine Worthies. The Nine Worthies were essentially medieval superheroes, a group of mythical and historical men who embodied knightly virtue. But they were wrapped in religious significance and represented a unified Christian narrative stretching all the way back to the mythical Trojan War. These characters proved to the medieval mind that world history was the unraveling of a grand Christian tale. The Nine Worthies are divided into three triads of three, a trinity of trinities, with each trinity representing a different aspect of salvation history. There are three Jews, three pagans, and three Christians. The first triad consists of Old Testament figures, Joshua, leader of the conquest of the Holy Land, David, greatest king of the Hebrews, and Judas Maccabeus, who solidified the Hebrews' hold in the Holy Land. The second triad consists of warrior pagans from classical antiquity, Hector, defender of Troy, Alexander, conqueror and spreader of Hellenism, and Julius Caesar, Roman general and statesman. And finally, the third triad is made up of figures from Catholic civilization, Arthur, legendary king of Camelot, Charlemagne, founder of the Holy Roman Empire, and Godfrey de Bouillon, a leader of the First Crusade and conqueror of Jerusalem. But what ties all these figures together? Well, they all contributed to the unfolding of salvation history. The three Jewish champions remind us that it was the Hebrews who were God's chosen people to birth the Messiah. Joshua secured the Holy Land as the place of refuge for the Jews, David's lineage was where Christ would descend from, and Judas Maccabeus purified the temple and secured the Jewish people's place in the Holy Land. Christ's mission wasn't for Jews alone though, and Gentiles had a part to play in the unraveling of God's plan too. Christ came at an opportune time and place thanks to the peace and security provided by the Pax Romana. It is this thread of history that ties Hector, Alexander, and Caesar to Christendom. Eventually the pagan Roman Empire transformed into a Christian one, transitioning to the next stage of world history, that of Christian civilization and the New Covenant. The three Christian warriors represent the new chosen people whom God has sent to establish and spread Christendom. Arthur set the template for Christian kingship, Charlemagne established the new Christian Empire, and Godfrey proved that the work was not yet over. Godfrey was instrumental in taking Jerusalem, but later losses in the Holy Land proved the fight was not yet won. The spiritual struggle that Augustine described in his City of God was ongoing. Souls still needed to be converted, new lands acquired, and peace established. The Christian heroes, and Godfrey in particular, reminded medievals that it was the duty of Christians to take up the good fight, both metaphorically and literally. The future of Christendom depended on it. The Nine Worthies served as inspiration for future generations of warriors, knights, and kings, and tied their struggle to an ancient lineage of heroes who participated in a divine battle for Christianity. The idea that God has been unraveling his divine plan throughout history isn't just an ancient concept. It was widely accepted up until recently, and even influenced American history. For example, in the 19th century, America believed it was given a divine mission to expand westward to the Pacific Ocean. This became known as Manifest Destiny. John O'Sullivan, who coined the term, believed it was America's destiny to control North America and further the cause of liberty. He writes, And that claim is by the right of our Manifest Destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty. It's probably advisable to avoid claiming matters as divinely ordained as they are still unfolding, as in the case of Manifest Destiny, but it's important to remember that ultimately all acts and events are the result of God's providence according to salvation history. Even the evil or bad twists of history are used by God to bring about salvation for all. The early Christian martyrs of Rome are a perfect example of this. Their suffering, perceived as a great evil at the time, was actually instrumental in spreading Christianity and eventually forging western civilization. God used the evil perpetuated by Rome to fulfill his plan. And this is ultimately what the biblical stories all point toward and reveal about God. It is in the darkest moments where God is at work the most. With the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, with Jonah in the whale, Christ's death on the cross, and with the earliest Christians as they were persecuted. Salvation history is an attempt to understand how God works in these moments, taking a wide view of humanity's development. And history becomes deeply imbued with meaning when taking this approach. Perhaps the book of Isaiah sums it up best, as God himself declares, Remember this and stand firm, for I am God, and there is no other. Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.