Granted. Rome and Constantinople needed a unifying characteristic for their collapsing empire. Enter the savior story of the jewish revolutionary ascetic that no one told for 300 years after his gruesome public execution.

Romans kept copious records of everyone they crucified. Why not this one? Especially considering that his horrifying death is instrumental to the church his executioners founded on top of his nongrave.

You’d think some Roman pope would have sneaked that into Roman records at some point to vouchsafe this Roman story.