ABSTRACT
Luke’s Gospel emphasizes that Jerusalem rejected Jesus Christ as her king. As Margaret Morris’ “Jesus-Augustus: from Emperor Cult to Christianity” shows in depth, belief in the apotheosis of rulers was widespread in antiquity, going far back into Egyptian history. John Dominic Crossan persists in asking how the Church turned Jesus into an Augustus-like figure concerned with accumulating power on earth. To arrive at Jesus’ identity, one must recognize that, like other sacred texts of antiquity, the Gospels carry the ancient motif of divine kingship. In her work on Jesus, Morris conveys that the Gospels typify the sacred literature genre designed to portray sovereigns as Savior-Gods coming to earth to walk among the people and to live and die for mankind’s benefit. Morris believes even the name Jesus might have been taken into the sacred orbit of Augustus Caesar. Morris suggests that the story of Jesus’ Jerusalem advent (adventus) reflects the Roman emperor’s adventus.
