I should note, by the way, that the idea of a Messiah was not unique to the Jews at the time. Even the Romans got in on the action. For instance, the Roman poet Virgil wrote of a boy who, "...shall free the earth from never-ceasing fear, he shall receive the life of gods, and see heroes with gods commingling." Sound familiar? But Virgil was writing about Emperor Augustus in that poem, not Jesus, which points again to the similarities between the two. Both called sons of God, both sent to free the earth from never-ceasing fear, but one ruled the largest empire in the world, and the other believed that empire and the world needed to change dramatically. So why did the less wealthy and famous son of God become by far the more influential?