GET THOSE TIRESOME CHRISTIANS OUT OF MY COURT

Roman rulers and Christians in the New Testament

As a (near) lifelong bureaucrat, I always have an interest in, and a certain fellow feeling with, past colleagues facing challenges. And being a Roman military or civil leader confronted with Jesus or his disciples must have been an exasperating experience, given an added edge by the constant looming fear of public disorder.

Whether you have any faith or not, the New Testament writings are a fascinating historical source, and were written in many cases by authors who claimed to have been eye witnesses (eg John), or those who claimed a combination of personal experience and significant research among eye witnesses (eg Luke, Acts). So the stories of the early Christians confronting Roman rulers of various descriptions give a unique insight into the Roman empire at the next level down from the Imperial court which is the main focus of ancient historians. It is all the more interesting to see how the NT accounts tally with other information we have on the people concerned, and the hints the NT furnishes about the preoccupations of the Roman ruling class in what they generally saw as a troublesome part of the Empire.

Starting at the lowest rank, there are five stories of interactions with Roman centurions. This means that the New Testament provides a clearer picture of actual individuals of this rank than any other historical source (of which there is very little except epitaphs and a few fleeting references in historical writers).

As the name suggests, a centurion typically commanded about 100 men. It was the highest rank that an ordinary soldier might hope to reach, and the lowest rank that a noble would start in the Roman army. So in modern British army terms it might be seen as something like a combination between a Regimental Sergeant Major and a captain. It feels to me that most of those referred to in the gospels probably fall into the former category, with the probable exception of Julius the centurion who accompanied Paul to Rome and seems to have been working as a courier for important messages.

Centurions in the New Testament come across surprisingly well. We have two cases of centurions who were in the ‘god fearing’ category – non Jews who were clearly committed to the Jewish faith and following its precepts without fully joining (apparently quite a sizeable group at the time). One send word to Jesus to heal a sick slave via Jewish elders who assure Jesus ‘he is worthy of having you do this for him, for he loves our people and it is he who built our synagogue for us’[1].

Similarly in Acts, Peter while travelling through Caesarea receives a message that ‘Cornelius, a centurion, an upright and god fearing man who is well spoken of by the whole Jewish nation, was directed by a holy angel to send to you to come to his house’[2].

We don’t know the name or anything else about the centurion who oversaw Christ’s crucifixion, just that Luke records him seeing the three hours of darkness across the land and witnessing Christ’s last words at which he ‘praised God and said “surely this was a righteous man[3]”’.

Centurions are called upon reasonably frequently in Acts given the turmoil that often surrounds the apostles’ preaching. One rescues Paul from being scourged when told Paul is in fact a Roman citizen[4]. Another, Julius, is tasked to guard Paul on the way to Rome, and ‘treats Paul kindly’. Not surprisingly, perhaps, he ignores Paul’s prophesy of doom if the voyage proceeds, but once the ship is indeed hit by a storm, Paul comforts the passengers and crew again prophesying no loss of life. When the sailors nonetheless seek to abandon the ship, Paul advises Julius to prevent them leaving. When the ship is finally wrecked at Malta, Julius prevents the soldiers killing the prisoners to ensure they do not escape ‘wishing to save Paul’[5].

Throughout, you cannot failed to be impressed by the sense of presence and natural authority these men exercise. Julius’ control over panic stricken soldiers fearing their own death if prisoners escape is one example. The attitude is strikingly demonstrated in the words the unnamed centurion sends to Jesus who is on his way to the centurion’s house to heal his slave (and at risk of making himself impure by the act of entering)

“only speak the word and let my servant be healed. For I also am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me, and I say to one ‘go’ and he goes and to another ‘come’ and he comes, and to my slave ‘do this’ and the slave does it’[6].

If the centurions speak to the natural authority and the professional esprit of an army at its peak, the more senior Roman officials are a decidedly more mixed bag. They have higher status and rewards, but also face great risks. Being a provincial proconsul (in provinces allocated by the Senate) or legate/procurator (if appointed by the Emperor) was no longer as lucrative now emperors were seeking to curb corruption. Recall in disgrace was an ever present danger, and public disorder probably what was feared most.

It is important to remember how thinly policed the Roman empire was. For all the complaints about the hollowing out of the UK armed forces, the total 150,000 full time servicemen now is not that far from the 250-300,000 the Romans had to police the entire empire – nearly all of Europe, much of the Middle East and the entire Mediterranean basin. For all the quality of Roman roads, moving legions to flashpoints was a lengthy process, and the borders had the absolute priority for troops. So having to move troops to supposedly pacified areas to quell trouble would be hugely unwelcome.

This meant managing crowds and avoiding rioting or revolt would have been one of the main duties of a ruler - as shown in Acts not only by the various Roman officials but the alarmed local magistrates in Ephesus and Philippi as trouble spreads[7]. This might also be why procurators were often kept in place for a considerable time to get to know their provinces, as both Pilate and Felix seem to have been.

When Paul is attacked at the Temple, he is rescued by the ‘tribune’ in charge of the ca 600 troops stationed in Jerusalem, Claudius Lysias. Lysias is surprised Paul can speak Greek, and immediately wonders if he is the subversive who led recent unrest. On being reassured, he agrees to let Paul address the crowd. Paul’s speech is highly provocative, and leads to more unrest. Lysias is enraged by this, and orders Paul to be scourged – only at that point does Paul reveal he is a Roman citizen and therefore should not even have been bound still less subjected to a scourging[8]. This is where Lysias’ own intermediate status becomes clear – he is amazed that Paul is a Roman citizen (who represented maybe 1-3% of the population in the East) and was born a citizen, while Lysias had purchased his own citizenship.

Given the temple incident, the disturbance at the Sanhedrin meeting and the 40 men swearing an oath to assassinate Paul[9], Lysias clearly cannot wait to get rid of Paul, sending him to his boss the procurator Felix who was based at Caesarea. Lysias has to devote more than a third of the Jerusalem garrison travelling through the night to accomplish this. Lysias’ accompanying letter always amuses me as an example of bureaucratic back covering. He describes the Temple incident in a classic ‘true without being the whole truth’ way.

‘Claudius Lysias to his Excellency the governor Felix, greetings. This man was seized by the Jews and was about to be killed by them, but when I had learned that he was a Roman citizen, I came with the guard and rescued him’.

Felix was the brother of Pallas, the freedman (freed slave) who rose to be one of the emperor Claudius’ top bureaucrats, and retained this role under Nero. Tacitus, who particularly despised freedmen, said Festus ‘wielded the power of a tyrant with the temperament of a slave’. Josephus, the Jewish historian, claimed Felix had ordered the assassination of a previous high priest who had criticised his rule.

As soon as Paul arrives, Felix clearly hopes he can get rid of him, asking which province he comes from. Unfortunately Cilicia was perhaps too far to send him off to be judged there. Felix is almost immediately confronted with a delegation from the current high priest calling for Paul to be condemned. He listens to both sides (though Acts says he is already familiar with ‘the way’, (Christian teaching). There is a striking contrast between the flattery of the high priest’s delegation ‘because of you we have long enjoyed peace, and reforms have been made for this people because of your foresight’ and the reserve of Paul ‘I cheerfully make my defence knowing that for many years you have been a judge over this nation’. Felix is clearly in no hurry to make a decision one way or another. First he puts it off until Lysias has arrived – but ends up spinning out the whole process for the remaining two years of his term.

Acts suggests he is looking for a bribe, The text also suggests he is impressed by Paul, keen to hear his teaching but alarmed by the talk of ‘justice, self control and the coming judgement’ to which he replies ‘go away for the present, when I have the opportunity I will send for you’. Passages like this make me wonder if the author of Acts has a, somewhat dark, sense of humour.

Felix’s successor Porcius Festus had a much better contemporary reputation. He held another hearing between Paul’s Jewish accusers and Paul to much the same end. You can almost hear his relief when Paul claims his right to appeal to Caesar ‘You have appealed to the emperor, to the emperor you will go’

Festus soon becomes aware, however, of a faintly ridiculous situation he has got himself into. Festus discusses the case with Agrippa and you can hear the puzzlement in his voice ‘they had certain points of disagreement with him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus who had died, but whom Paul asserted to be alive. Since I was at a loss how to investigate these questions…’ In Paul’s presence, before Agrippa, Festus notes ‘I have nothing definite to write to our sovereign about him…for it seems unreasonable to send a prisoner without indicating the charges against him”.

In listening to Paul’s explanation of his conversion, Festus exclaims ‘you are out of your mind, Paul! Too much learning is driving you insane!” One wonders what he finally wrote – given the length of stay Paul had in Rome, his case clearly wasn’t seen as any priority there either (and as Paul seems to have been paying for his own upkeep during a prolonged period of house arrest, there was no fiscal reason for the authorities to hurry up either).

There is quite a contrast between the behaviour of Roman officials in Judaea facing unrest among the Jews and some of the other proconsuls in more peaceable areas who came across Paul and the Christians. Acts claims that Sergius Paulus, proconsul of Cyprus ‘an intelligent man.. wanted to hear the word of God’. He witnesses Paul temporarily blinding the sorcerer Elymas, and ‘when the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was astonished at the teaching about the Lord’[10].

In stark contrast is Gallio, proconsul of Achaia. Achaia (Greece) was a sophisticated place – Athens playing the part of a finishing school for aristocratic Romans and people throughout the Greek world. Gallio was the most high born of any of the Romans we meet in the New Testament. He was the older brother of the philosopher Seneca, the future emperor’s tutor at this point. Gallio at Corinth also witnesses an argument between Jews and Christians culminating in him sending them all packing ‘since it is a matter of questions about words and names and your own law, see to it yourselves. I do not wish to be a judge of these matters’. Even after the official of the synagogue was beaten up, ‘Gallio cared for none of these things’[11]

Finally there is Pontius Pilate – in some ways a trickier case. For me at least there is an incongruity between the readings some have of the NT texts and what we know about Pilate’s character. Not many go as far as the Egyptian and Ethiopian Copts for whom Pilate is a saint – admittedly this is on the basis of legends of a subsequent conversion.

But others stress the degree to which Pilate is clear that Jesus is innocent, does not want to have him crucified, and debates the nature of truth at Jesus’ trial –‘what is truth?’. He is condemned for weakness more than malice. But this is in stark contrast to Pilate’s general reputation for brutality – the Galileans ‘whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices’[12] in Jesus’ words, and a series of other violent incidents recorded by Jewish historians like Josephus and Philo.

All the indications are that Pilate was a hard and wily operator, who had succeeded in forging a strong relationship with the Temple priests that had made his ten year prefecture of a troublesome province relatively successful so far. The unrest sparked by Jesus’ teachings threatened this order, and potentially his tenure. At the same time, Pilate was undoubtedly aware of the spurious nature of the charges being levied – typically when Christians were being denounced to the Romans, the focus was on their status as potential rebels, while before Jewish courts the emphasis was on blasphemy.

Pilate no doubt understood Jesus’ characterisation as a rebel against Caesar was ridiculous. He obviously markedly disliked being asked to do others’ dirty work for them. He probably cared as little as Gallio for the names and doctrines, ‘what is truth’ has the ring of a cynical bureaucrat about it. He had Jesus scourged as a compromise, and when that failed, was forced to relent and agree to crucifixion. The ‘Titulus’ on the cross ‘Jesus Christ King of the Jews’ was probably Pilate’s spiteful response to those who had demanded the sentence and manipulated him into executing it. When they protested ‘it should say he claimed to be King of the Jews’, you can almost hear the sneer in Pilate’s voice ‘what I have written, I have written’[13].

Pilate had got away with it for now, though was shortly afterwards recalled to Rome and dismissed after another brutal suppression of an armed group of Samaritans at Mount Gerizim; though Tiberius died before Pilate’s case could be heard, and he probably went into quiet retirement. He might have looked back and felt his treatment was rather unfair – certainly from the Roman point of view he was as effective a governor as many, certainly better than Felix.

The early Church emphasised the scale of the persecution they suffered – because ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’. Certainly at this early stage, all the indications are that Christians were just another nuisance facing magistrates, many of whom would probably rather be at home.

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[1] Luke 7,4. See also Matthew 8:9

[2] Acts 10:22

[3] Luke 23:45

[4] Acts 25:26

[5] Acts 27:1-44

[6] Matthew 8:8-9

[7] Acts 19 and 16 respectively

[8] The riot at Jerusalem and Paul before Felix and Festus is covered in Acts 21-25

[9] Given they clearly didn’t succeed, I have always wondered if they starved to death, or if someone released them from their vow.

[10] Acts 13:12

[11] Act 18:14-17. Other translations from the NIV except the final comment about Gallio, where I just like the King James version

[12] Luke 13:1

[13] Mostly from John 18-19