Hello. The rain miracle was a story told differently
by two religions, one of Christianity, and one of the old gods of Rome, Greece
and Egypt, and the story goes like this...
That in 172 AD the roman emperor Marcus Aurelius,
the chap who was played by Richard Harris in the film the Gladiator
he was in the middle of a campaign with much of Europe and was fighting the
Quodi in Slovakia which is near the Danube
river and to say he was in a spot of bother is
an understatement. So his troops were out of food out of
water it was the middle of summer and the heat wasn't making things
bearable. His troops were dying and surrounded him was his enemy, able to
attack at any moment, and Aurelius actually considered
surrendering, a really unusual step for a roman legion, certainly at these
times and in a final bid for help when all
hope was lost his legion prayed and then out of nowhere a miracle
occurred rain clouds gathered and it poured down
with hail with lightning so much rain and so hard
it killed the enemy and whilst the enemy died the
romans looked to the sky and used their shields to funnel water
into their mouths and use their helmets to collect water for their horses
and so against all odds Aurelius won the battle and it was such a miracle and
such a campaign that the story was documented by pagans
and Christians alike but each with their own view of what happened
and in this video we're going to look at those two stories
to understand who had the most accurate view of history
and who thought delivered this miracle and what that tells us about religions?
well we'll find out as they are very different accounts of how the miracle
occurred so welcome to the rain miracle and
welcome to Cregcanford
Aurelius returned to Rome in 176 AD after defeating the Macromani, the Quadi
and the Sarmatians and he decided to build himself a victory column
that's a column covered in reliefs pictures of major events in his campaign
and this was completed in 180 AD and once this column was being built he
also had a coin struck and they celebrated these victories and
we know this as we have evidence of the coins of
the columns still stands in rome so how do we know
what happened well one of the pictures on the victory column which i'll show
now and here we see a divine being at the back with wings
suggesting they came down from the sky or from the heavens
and his arms and his body look as though they're made of rain to the right the
enemy and the horses are laying dead and the way to the left we can see
legionnaires holding up their shield to help drink
the rainwater now this column would have originally been painted and the relief
would have looked more like this which may allow you to
pick out more details of what is going on but this is
our first piece of evidence that there was a rain miracle
and this was made less than 10 years after the battle
people who were at the battle were alive to see this and describe this
but we also know of three versions of destroying miracle story
two by christian apologists, a branch of Christianity that defends Christianity
against objections, and won by pagan sources the christian
versions were written in 180 AD by Apollonias and one written 197 AD by
Tertullian the pagan source was written by Cassius
Dio who wrote it in about 220 AD, however
the original version has been lost, but luckily it was partially transcribed
before it was lost by a Byzantine author
Xephilinus. If we take a closer look at the dates
these were written the christian versions were written within 10
and 25 years of the event so easily within the lifetime of people
actually at the battle the pay good version was written about 50 years after
the event so a generation after the battle and as we
know from earlier videos we've made people can create stories of aliens and
new religions in those time spans so yeah we would expect some creativity to
creep into these stories as time passes so let's now go over summaries of the
christian and pagan versions of the story and you can see how they differ
and changed so the christian version of story goes
something like this the aurelius had a whole legion of christian soldiers
and that their prayers were answered by Jesus Christ
and Christ alone and it was he who saved them
and Aurelius then honoured the christian legion by renaming them
the thundering legion it's a simple version of the story and not much could
be exaggerated in it at first glance now the pagan
version of the story goes that Aurelius had an Egyptian sorcerer
with him named Harnuphis and it was hardness his
spell that summoned the gods Hermes and Hermes is the messenger of Zeus and
Hermes bought the miracle and he doesn't mention Christ
or Christians in this version at all
so on first glance it looks like the christian version sounds more plausible
than a roman having an Egyptian sorcerer summoning a Greek gods messenger
but we'll dig a bit deeper and see what's really going on
so first off let's look at the likelihood of a whole legion being
christian or indeed just one soldier so
Marcus Aurelius considered Christians to be disloyal to the empire
as they wouldn't pledge their allegiance to his guardian spirit
that protected the emperor they also would make a sacrifice to jupiter before
battles due to their faith like did the legions
and and Christians wouldn't do that and Marcus
Aurelius couldn't have a legion full of Christians as he would consider them
traitors to the emperor and the empire as he he can trust them
so this must no doubt on the christian version
but just because it doesn't support the
christian version doesn't mean it does support the pagan version
so let's have a look at what's been found to support all
this. Well at Aquilia, the site of a military base belonging to Aurelius in
northern Italy, an inscription was found and that
inscription reads "Hanoufus sacred scribe from Egypt
and Torrentius Precuts dedicate this to the appearing goddess
Isis". so here we have Hanoufus as a sacred scribe a man with magical attributes
in effect a sorcerer located in name and being called out as an Egyptian at a
base belonging to Aurelius it could be coincidental but i think
it's unlikely that it is the case and next there is uh the discovery of a
temple dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus and that was in the
region of the Danube where the battle took place
and it was built at the same time as the battle thereabouts
and here the statue of Jupiter shows him in the form of a
thunder god throwing thunder and lightning and again this may be
coincidental but certainly there is a probability that this was
associated with aurelius and battle and one thing to remember as
previously mentioned in other videos gods from different regions
and religions were often considered equivalents
just with different names and imagery with this in mind if we take the god
Hermes who was summoned Hermes is the equivalent of mercury and
the aligns to the Egyptian god Thoth-Shu a god,
*magpie noises* a god who controlled the weather, the god of meteorology
and Zeus was the equivalent of the Egyptian god
and therefore the equivalent of the roman god Jupiter Optimus Maximus,
the best and greatest, so at this point whilst the christian story seems to have
no accuracy the pagan version of saw is looking like
there is actually a number of pieces of tangible evidence to support this
but let's go back to rome and really assist return
because not only do we have the victory column which was mentioned
but actually has no mention of christians on it but we have the coin
which was struck and this coin shows already us on one side is bust
and on the other side we have a representation of hermes
standing in front of an Egyptian temple and this coin was struck after the
battle that was stopped when the column was completed
and again this seems far more than coincidental
and perhaps the last piece of the puzzle is the naming of the legion the
Thundering legion now we know that the
legion was referred to by this name after the battle that isn't in dispute
do we know whether it's called the thundering legion before this
was the name changed to honour Jesus Christ
as written by the christian apologists so in Egypt an inscription was found and
I've put a reconstruction of it up and it says that it was created by
officers in the 12th legion and this legion was called the thunder
religion and was dated in the 11th year of Nero
the eleventh year of Nero was 64 AD, over a hundred years
before the christian version of the battle said they had
named the legion this, so the legion was called the Thundering legion
long before the battle. In conclusion we have lots of evidence supporting a pagan
version of the story written over 50 years after the event
but we have no evidence at all support in the christian version written just 10
years after the event and that is less time than between when
Jesus was said to have died and the gospels were said to have been
written and yet Christians were making up stories to sell Christianity
in that short time. It may even make you question
even if Jesus was a real story at all, or completely made up
and so in recognition of the pagan version
which is more historically accurate i'll read Dio's the rain miracle
it's less than a minute long, so here you go
for when the Romans were in peril in the course of the battle the divine power
saved them in a most unexpected manner the Quadi had
surrounded them at spots favourable for their purpose and
the Romans were fighting valiantly with their shields locked together
then the barbarians ceased fighting expecting to capture them easily as a
result of the heat and their thirst so they post guards all about and hem
them in to prevent their getting water anywhere
for the barbarians were far superior in numbers the romans accordingly were in a
terrible plight from fatigue wounds the heat of the sun and thirst
and so could neither fight nor retreat but was standing at the line
and at their several posts scorched by the heat
when suddenly many clouds gathered and a mighty rain
not without divine interposition burst upon them
indeed there is a story to the effect that Harnuphis an Egyptian magician who
was a companion of marcus had invoked by means of enchantments
various deities and in particular mercury the god of the
air and by this means attracted the rain so in summary the
rain miracle was probably just a fortunate event
and almost certainly celebrated after as a miracle
brought about by prayer but also we can see that christian versions of history
contain embellishments and and even complete falsehoods
just to sell Christianity and these were made early on in the faith's creation
which would affect future understanding about the religion
and there are many more examples of this yeah and this happens to not just in
Christianity but in other religions and i'll do videos
talking about that in the future so if you'd like to see this just let me know
put comments below and like the video that's it for now really um i hope you
enjoyed that story it will hopefully allow you to
understand where some people believe things are
literally true they're absolutely not and often change
certainly in history and especially the story of Christianity
and I'll do a few videos on that definitely definitely so
yes enjoyed that like subscribe to the video
and um this was Crecganford, stay safe, stay well,
take care, thank you