The Old Testament covers the beginning of the world, and of humanity, up to about 400 BC.

The New Testament runs from the start of Anno Domini - or probably from about 2 BC - up to 60 or 65 AD. The dates aren’t specific, but if it covered history beyond that point it would definitely contain the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which was just a terrible, awful and horrible time.

There’s an interesting gap of about 400 years between the Testaments - the same gap between now and Shakespeare, or between now and the first American thanksgiving. The gap between testaments is called by some ‘the 400 years of silence’, because in that time, God raised no new prophets between Malachi, who predicted the return of Elijah, and John the Baptist, who by some measures fulfilled that prophecy.

But I actually think the most quoted piece of prophecy from the ancient world comes from that hole, and from 44 BC in particular: ‘Beware the Ides of March’. A soothsayer seems to have warned Julius Caesar. Caesar’s wife had a prophetic dream, we’re told, and warned him as well!

Julius Caesar isn’t in the Bible, but I find it easy to forget this. The period is fairly close to the New Testament, the setting is the Roman Empire, and thanks to Shakespeare often quoted in English in a version from the very early 17th Century, with plenty of thees and thous. Also, one major player is initialled JC, whose death is prophesied and changes the world.

Julius Caesar is my favourite Shakespeare tragedy, and I’ll remind you of the general rumpus. Julius Caesar is a beloved, elected leader, who is offered the chance to become king for life, effectively ending the republic system and bringing in the risk of monotheism and tyrrany. Brutus is one of his best friends, but is recruited by a group of conspirators who want Caesar dead. The others may be full of hatred, but Brutus does what he doesn’t want to do, and kills his friend Caesar, in order to protect Rome and kind-of protect democracy. “Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.” It was a decent plan, but led to civil war, and Brutus slew himself just like King Saul. The age of the republic was over, and emperors of variably good and terrible character reigned Rome for hundreds of years.

So, purely for the satisfaction of pattern-spotting - one of my favourite hobbies, though it can be quite contrived and tenuous - who would be the Biblical Brutus? A lot of people will shout out ‘Judas’, but the text of the Bible really doesn’t bear that out. The Judas of Jesus Christ Superstar is modelled on Brutus, and is doing what he does to stop what he sees as a friend’s dangerous madness. The Judas of the Bible is a man of crime and evil spirit, and does it for the money

The real Brutus of the gospels would be someone who is not against Jesus, and whose heart is full of love, but knows that Jesus must die for the sake of the people and the future. Who hates and fears this, but causes it because it is right. The person in the Gospel who fits that bill, of being Brutus and ensuring Jesus’ death - is actually Jesus himself. Jesus is his own Brutus. While others sought Jesus’ death with hatred and ire, he occasioned his own death, of necessity, willing, despite fear and sorrow. And so he died, but in this case the people were saved. There was then a lot of war, but its ending had already been set in place.

A happier ending than Julius Caesar, but as a whole, it’s just as quotable. As Marc Antony might have said, ‘this was the noblest human of them all.’