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Emperor Nero ruled from AD 54 to 68. Nero was the adopted son of Emperor Claudius who came to power when Nero's mother, Claudius' niece Agrippina who was also Claudius' fourth wife, had her husband murdered. Nero's early reign was a successful time when the Empire enjoyed stability due to the talents of Nero's lieutenants. Toward the end of his reign Nero began to take a more direct but incompetent role in the administration and was faced by rebellion on the part of the army. Nero preferred to bask in the lime light of the popular acclaim Emperors always enjoy. However, his generally mediocre accomplishments apart from the fact that he was the Emperor seldom generated any spontaneous popular enthusiasm. This explains why he visited over a thousand chariot races in the Greek provinces where he was always given the winner's trophy just for being there and being the Emperor.
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During this time the problems in Judea and surrounding territory came to a head. Annexing Perea and parts of Galilee between 57 and 61 enlarged the client kingdom of Marcus Julius Agrippa II. Judea's situation grew more turbulent. As the intensity of zealotism incrased in Judea and Jerusalem some Hellenistic Jewish families whether Christian or non-Christian probabaly chose to emigrate to more Hellenized regions such as the Decapolis, Jamnia, Egypt, Caesarea Maritima, or Sebaste. The Jews and Syrians living in seaport city of Caesarea Maritima got to fighting over the city. This was the Roman administrative seat of the Province of Judea but it was technically not a part of Judea. Felix the Judean Procurator attacked the Jews in Caesarea and plundered some of their houses. The feud continued until Burrus, Nero's chief administrator, was bribed by the Syrians to have Nero expel the Jews from Caesarea. Nero's involvement with the Jewish population in the city of Rome was the context of the most widely known aspect of his reign, the persecution of Christians.
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Paul was in Greece on his third missionary journey when Emperor Claudius died in the Fall of 54 AD. Most likely Paul planned to leave Greece in the Spring of AD 55. His plan to sail to Syria was thwarted by the knowledge of a Jewish plot doubtless to to ambush and eliminate him (Acts 20:2-5). Instead of taking ship directly from Greece, he and his seven companions (perhaps bodyguards; for Paul may well have been transporting an offering destined for the poor in Jerusalem.) returned overland to Macedonia. Paul tarried in Philippi while the rest of the group went on ahead to Troas. It is noteworthy that Luke appears to have joined the group at Philippi. They (Paul and Luke) left Philippi in March/April ("after the days of unleavened bread", i.e. the Passover, Acts 20:6), and with several stops and delays eventually reached Caesarea Maritima where the party was guest of Philip the Evangelist for a few days before going on to Jerusalem. Paul's plans were to arrive in Jerusalem by Pentecost (Acts 20:16). That means fifty days after the feast of Passover, consequently sometime in May/June, AD 55.
Just as in the earlier case when Paul and Barnabas brought an offering to Jerusalem in AD 48 and now, seven years later, Paul arrives in Jerusalem before Pentecost. This seven year coincidence together with occasion of the election of the Hellenistic ministers 21 years before suggests that these events may perhaps correspond with the occurrance of Jewish sabbatical years, times when the food supplies and resources in Judea were the lowest and the hunger most keenly felt especially among the urban poor. Luke's account does not mention an offering at this time.
In the early summer of 55, Paul was arrested in the Temple at Jerusalem due to the agitation of zealots. Jewish zealotism both inside and outside of the church was enraged because Paul allegedly taught "all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children neither to walk after the customs." (Acts 21:21). Paul had been warned by the Christians at Tyre (Acts 21:4), and Agabus had come to meet him at Caesarea (Acts 21:10-11) to warn him of the nasty mood in Jerusalem. James and the elders of the Jerusalem Church likewise warned Paul about the growth of zealotism in the Church there (Acts 21:20). Paul sought to make his appearance in Jerusalem as inoffensive as possible by publicly participating in the ancient Jewish customs in the Temple. Nevertheless, because Paul's party included some gentiles, namely Trophimus from Ephesus, the zealots assumed he had brought the gentiles into the Temple.
When the mob drug Paul from the Temple and proceeded to beat him with deadly intent, Lysias, the Roman commander of Antonio fortress beside the Temple, intervened and chained Paul. The mob of worshipers in the Temple courtyard was quiet and listened to Paul's defense until he mentioned his mission to the gentiles, which set them off again. The commander had Paul drug up the steps over the wall into the fortress intending to examine him under torture. When he learned that Paul was a Roman citizen they quickly unchained him since torture was not an option for a Roman citizen (Acts 21:30-22:29).
Paul was brought before the Council of Sadducees and Pharisees presided over by High Priest Ananias the son of Nedebaeus. When the Pharisees and Sadducees began arguing among themselves Lysias again rescued Paul (Acts 22:30-23:10). The zeal of the group opposed to Paul's alleged mistreatment of the Law is expressed clearly in their conspiracy to murder Paul (Acts 23:12-15). Because of the assassination plot against him, Felix ordered Paul and the proceedings moved to Caesarea. The accusation against Paul declared him guilty of inciting insurrection among the Jews of the dispersion, being a ringleader (prőtostaté) of the Nazarene (Nazőraios) sect, and attempting to profane the Temple. Paul pointed out there was no one present from the dispersion to testify to the first charge and no evidence to support the other charges.
Paul's transfer to Caesarea Maritima to the court of Felix obviously took place only a few days after his arrival in Jerusalem. At the first hearing in Caesarea before Felix Paul noted that it was only a week and a half since he arrived in Jerusalem. (The Jews counted a week inclusively from Sabbath to Sabbath as 8 days; hence 12 days = 1 1/2 weeks.) Luke explained that Felix was already somewhat knowledgeable about "the Way". Perhaps he is implying that Felix understood the real reason behind the Jewish charges even though they were not made evident in the hearing. Since the Jerusalem Commander Lysias had already reported in writing, Felix's excuse to delay was just that. Felix's real motives seem to have been a curiosity about "the Way" and the expectation that Paul, like other prisoners, would eventually offer a bribe.
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Porcius Festus replaced Felix as governor and ruled from about 56 to 62. Two High Priests ruled during his governorship; Ishmael the son of Phabi, served from 57-61, and Joseph Kabi, son of Simon Cantheras, began his administration in AD 61. Meanwhile, Marcus Julius Agrippa II, King of Chalkis, built a penthouse apartment on top of the old Hasmonaean palace in Jerusalem directly west of the Temple. This structure provided a direct view of the main altar in the Temple. The priests serving at the altar were distracted by the impious revelry they could likewise observe taking place on the spacious porches of the penthouse. The priests built a wall on top of the west end of the Temple itself to obstruct their view. Naturally, the wall also blocked the view from the roof of the west porch of the Temple Courtyard where Roman soldiers were regularly stationed during the feasts. Festus demanded that the wall be demolished. The High Priest, Ishmael the son of Phabi, and Helcias, the Temple treasurer, among other ruling priests, went to Rome in c. 60 AD to petition Nero. The High Priest and Helcias were kept in Rome as hostages, but Nero allowed the wall to stand because of the intercession of Nero's wife, Poppaea.
While Festus made headway suppressing the robbers and insurgents during his tenure (56-62), he did nothing to reduce their numbers. One popular leader gathered a following to leave Judea and make a new state for them in the wilderness. Festus quickly marched against them and destroyed them. Josephus emphasized the growing numbers of insurgents called sicarii at this time. To add to the turbulence an ongoing name calling, mud slinging and actual rock throwing contest developed between the High Priest Ishmael the son of Phabi and certain of the leaders of Jerusalem. The year 62 was a bad one. Festus died in Judea. In Rome the man who had kept Nero's administration from collapsing, the Praetorian Praefect Burrus, died and was replaced by the crude and belligerent Tigellinus.
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Luke's statement that the transition from Felix to Festus took place "after two years were fulfilled" (Acts 24:27), poses a slight problem. The historian Eusebius dates Festus' appointment in Nero's second year, the Roman year equivalent to AD 56. Jack Finegan has recently published numismatic evidence also indicating that Festus began his tenure in 56. It is important to remember that either of the Roman years 56 or 57 might be correctly equated with events in a single Jewish year from March/April 56 through March/April 57 or in a single Syrian year from October 1, 56 through September 30, 57. Hence if Festus was appointed in Rome late in AD 56 and arrived in Caesarea Maritima in May/June of AD 57, then Luke and the outside evidence can be harmonized.
In any case Festus replaced Felix as procurator of Judea while Paul was imprisoned at Caesarea. When Festus talked of sending Paul back to Jerusalem to stand trial, Paul appealed to Caesar. His departure from Caesarea for Rome occurred after King Marcus Julius Agrippa II visited Judea, appointed Ismael the son of Phabi as new high priest at Jerusalem, and heard Paul's case. This appears to have been late summer. The journey was slow and by the time they reached Crete it would have been October for "the fast" (Acts 27:9) in AD 57 would have occurred on September 29. The shipwreck occupied the winter of 57-58. Arriving in Rome in the spring of 58 Paul's first imprisonment probably ended in the Spring of 60 (Acts 28:30).
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Peter, Mark and Silas departed from Judea c. 57/58 on a missionary journey through Asia Minor, Macedonia and Achaea. Many assume that Peter reached Rome by c. 61; indeed, Luke's failure to mention his presence during Paul's imprisonment suggests that he labored elsewhere until after Paul's release in 60.
Paul's ministry in the "West" is referred to by Clement, one of the leaders of the Christian congregation at Rome, in a letter to the Corinthians written c. 96 AD "He taught righteousness to the whole world, and went to the western limit of the earth." If Clement is not merely assuming that Paul had carried out his intentions expressed in Romans 15:24, this journey took place between 60 and late in 64 AD, i.e. before the persecution in Rome.
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James, the son of Joseph of Nazareth, the Lord's brother, was, according to Clement of Alexandria as cited by Eusebuis (Ecclesiastical History, I.1), advanced by the Apostles to a position Clement's source (possibly Hegesippus) regarded as that of Bishop of Jerusalem. There is nothing in the Gospels to indicate that James was considered a disciple, yet Clement reports that James, along with John and Peter received special instruction from Jesus as teachers of the other disciples during the period between His resurrection and ascension. To distinguish this James from his contemporary, the Apostle James, the son of Zebedee, who was executed by Agrippa I (Herod) in c. 42 AD, the early Christians called the Lord's brother, James the Righteous.
It is understood that this James is the author of the New Testament book addressed to the Jewish believers found in the dispersion. Since the book was not widely circulated beyond the Jewish Christian congregations in the Jewish dispersion it was not well known to Non-Jewish congregations until after the second century AD. It remained somewhat suspect until fourth century. Some modern scholars including even Martin Luther have criticized the Book of James because it's teachings can easily be misunderstood to contradict the teachings of Paul. Yet we must remember that James and Paul met at the Jerusalem council and found themselves to be in agreement. We do not have a clue as to the date of this work, but it may well have been among the earliest of the New Testament writings.
Eusebius' account includes a quotation (Ecclesiastical History, II,23) from the second century Christian author, Hegesippus, as to James' very different way of life. James is described as a Nazirite who spent much time in prayer in that part of the Temple normally reserved for priests. As the acknowledged leader of the Jerusalem believers, James' wide reputation among the (non-believing) Jews of Jerusalem was an affront to the ruling oligarchy, especially in the light of the message he launched.
After Paul had escaped Jerusalem and eventually appealed to Caesar in c. 57 AD, the Jewish oligarchy lead by the ruing priests, turned their full attention toward James. Their efforts seem to have been thwarted until the death of the Governor, Festus in AD 62. Marcus Julius Agrippa II, whom the Romans designated to watch over the succession to the high priest's office, named Annas II, son of Annas, as high priest about the time Festus died.
There seems to have been a short interim between the death of Festus and the arrival of the new governor, Lucceius Albinus. During his three month tenure Annas II took advantage of the absence of a Roman governor, and probably overstepped his authority. He organized a large council, arrested, tried, convicted and executed James, Jesus' brother (Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1). Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, II.23) also reports on this event by quoting from Hegesippus and Clement of Alexandria. James had been proclaiming "the door of Jesus", by which he apparently meant to identify Jesus as the Savior. Many of his hearers were convinced, but not all shared the same understanding of his message. The ruling priests brought James before the council and the assembled population giving him a place to stand on top of some part of the Temple courtyard structure where he could be seen and heard by the assembled population. The ruling priests then demanded that he repudiate the misunderstanding among his followers; namely, that Jesus was about to return as Liberator of Judea and overthrow the Roman regime.
They were obviously attempting to set James up as a spokesman for political insurrection. When James' loud and clear response reportedly contained many of the same elements as Stephen's testimony some 30 years earlier some of the bystanders began shouting "Hosanna to the Son of David!" The authorities then threw James down off his precarious perch and began to stone him. As he survived the blows he loudly prayed for them; but was eventually dispatched with a direct blow to the head by a bystander wielding a fuller's mallet. It is interesting that although Hegesippus' chronology is in question he was at least aware of a connection between the negative impact of Annus's illegal assembly in AD 62 on Judea's relations with Rome, and the beginning of Rome's military solution some 4 years later. When word reached the new governor ahead of his arrival in Judea Albinus sent word back that he was going to look into what Annus had done. Consequently, despite the rising popularity of Annus II in Judea, Marcus Julius Agrippa II removed him after serving only about 3 months as High Priest, and named Jesus, son of Damneus, to that office.
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Lucceius Albinus was procurator beginning in 62 for about two years. Albinus was probably instrumental in persuading Marcus Julius Agrippa II to replace the High Priest Annas II with Jeshua/Jesus, the son of Damnaeus. However, later in c. 63 Agrippa II appointed Jeshua/Jesus son of Gamaliel as High Priest. Meanwhile, Albinus made common cause with the lawless in robbing and pillaging in the helpless villagers. He encouraged those robbers who had been imprisoned by Festus to purchase their freedom. His policies had the effect of virtually licensing the major corporations of thieves to operate freely. Yet Rome was pleased with him; he was subsequently appointed governor of Mauritania (Josephus, Antiquities 20.9.1; War 2.14.1. Tacitus Histories 2.58.).
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Gessius Florus succeeded Albinus as Judean procurator. The High Priest during most of his reign was Matthias son of Theophilus, the grandson of Annus I. Florus was so much more openly corrupt than his predecessor had been that Josephus makes the case against him (Antiquities 20.9.5; 20.11.1; War, 2.14.3,6,9; 2.15.1ff; 16.1) that he was trying to make the Jews rebel in order to escape the charges which would surely be made against him otherwise. Josephus' long account of his tyranny, his cruelty, his violence and his unbridled greed is disgustingly convincing.
The causes of the Judean War certainly include the poor administration of justice and the breakdown of security for all classes and interests in the province over a span of twenty years before the final outbreak of hostilities in AD 66. There was increasing economic oppression of the poor by the rich and the government. The high-handed tyranny of Gessius Florus caused the Jews to unite in opposition to him personally. Violence broke out in Caesarea and Jerusalem in the Spring of 66 AD beginning with rioting in the streets.
An independent group of common priests lead by Eleazar, the Captain of the Temple and son of High Priest Annas II, blocked the regular twice-daily temple sacrifices on behalf of Rome in June of 66. This legally released Rome and effectively declared Judean independence. The High Priest at this time was again Annas II son of Annas, for the second time, until 68 when he was succeeded by Phinaes son of Samuel, the last of the High Priests. Civil war developed in Jerusalem between the rich aristocracy led by the High Priest, the Sadducees and leading Pharisees, and the poor led by the common priests' faction, the revolutionary sicarii, and a messianic maniac named Manehem. It resulted in the massacre of the Roman garrison in August, 66 AD (Josephus, War 2.17.1-10.).
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Eusebius reports (Ecclesiastical History, 3.11.1) that following the arrest and execution of James, Jesus' brother, the church selected Symeon the son of Clopas (Cf. John 19:25), Jesus' cousin, as new leader of the Judean Church. Eusebius also reports (Ecclesiastical History 3.5.3) that the Christian believers in Jerusalem abandoned the city and Judea and moved across the Jordan to the village of Pella. Pella is either an unknown place in Perea, a part of the realm of King Agrippa II, or the well known city further north in the Syrian region of Decapolis. The primary reason for this move was the increasing zealotism of the Judean population, that is, their increasing intolerance with any group or institution that fostered open communication and fellowship with the gentiles or otherwise appeared to challenge the Mosaic law.
Since no details have been preserved we are left to speculate on the size and composition of the departing group. Neither is their any hint as to an actual date of this departure. Some think c. 64 was the time; others assume closer to c. 66. Surely it was a gradual, even disorganized movement or it would have incited zealot reprisals. There are reasons to believe that many of the Jerusalem Christians with ties in the Diaspora would be more likely to abandon Judea and Jerusalem for a place outside of Judea. On the other hand Jewish believers with Judean roots would certainly be more vulnerable to zealot propaganda and more easily convinced to stay and defend their homeland. Unless the group leaving Judea was very small it does seem unlikely that they settled in a single place.
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The nine-day fire in Rome that broke out on 19 July, AD 64, was followed by Nero's persecution of the local Christians. The persecution in Rome under Emperor Nero was reported both by Suetonius (Life of Nero, 16.2) and Tacitus (Annals, 15.44.2-8), and several later Christian authors. Nero's assessment of Christianity was based in part, no doubt, on the inflammatory, self-serving reports of anti-Christian Jews, and in part on the clear and continuous reports of anti-social, anti-Roman, terrorist-like zealot behavior emanating from Judea. I believe he might have considered the Christians of no real threat or significance. However, because the anti-Christian Jewish zealots had spread so much suspicion and corrupt rumor about them in the minds of the Roman populace and doubtless at the imperial court, he felt the masses would be entertained by seeing this allegedly subversive group suffer.
Nero probably did not premeditate the extensive and very destructive fire, but even so the masses accused him in spite of all his efforts to clear himself of blame. To shift the anger and blame from himself, Nero attempted to charge certain Christians with arson. Certainly we may understand why some Christians probably celebrated in joy while Rome was burning--an extremely suspicious behavior--as we realize how firmly such an idea was related to their eschatological hope as recorded somewhat later in Revelation 18:8-10; 19:3.
The charge of arson apparently failed to be sufficient --one manuscript says they were indicted on a double charge--the Christians were also charged with general subversion, odium humani generis, i.e. "hatred of the human race"--a rather vague charge known to be used against magicians! No specific Roman law was involved here since those arrested were most likely not Roman citizens. The penalty for such subversion was entirely up to the judge and his assessment of the situation. Although the typical penalty against non-citizen magicians was death by burning, it might range from a flogging together with a heavy fine all the way to exile, slavery, or death with the confiscation of property.
Because Nero wanted to create the most awesome and shocking spectacle in order to sway the sentiment of the masses, he decided to require the Christians to suffer death in a number of unusual and horrible ways. Clement of Rome (c. 96) suggests that some women were used to enact the myth of Circe where a woman was torn limb from limb by two bulls. Tacitus mentions only three: crucifixion, being eaten alive by starved wild dogs as entertainment between the chariot races at the circus, and being used as human torches to illuminate the field where the Romans made homeless by the fire were being served a free evening meal. It was so atrocious that the otherwise bloodthirsty masses of the City were moved to pity for the Christians.
While the persecution was localized at Rome, tradition indicates that Christian leaders from elsewhere came to the city to give their Christian brethren encouragement. If Peter was not already there, he came shortly, as did Paul; both were executed. Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History 2.25) cites the evidence of Peter's crucifixion at Rome. Compare also John 21:18-23. Peter's mention of Babylon (I Peter 5:13) is taken by some to prove that Peter had arrived in Rome before the fire.
While Sulpicius Severus, a Christian author writing in Gaul at the beginning of the fifth century believes that Nero issued edicts evidently applying to the whole Empire that outlawed Christianity. It was on the basis of these alleged imperial edicts that Peter and Paul were sentenced to death. Other sources closer to the first century both Christian and non-Christian writers do not support or confirm Sulpicius Severus' assertion. Early Christian tradition does not flatly contradict Sulpicius' allegation, but neither does it strongly support it. The rescript of the early second century Emperor Trajan concerning the Christian prosecutions in Bithynia that we will note in another connection does not confirm Sulpicius's assertion. In the late second century Tertullian reports how existing general procedures were aggressively and deliberately being employed against Christians in his day, but he knows nothing of laws specifically outlawing Christianity. He was quite aware of Nero's action against certain Christians in the Roman capitol, but he seems not to see it as having enduring application either in Rome or across the Empire.
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When Nero committed suicide in 68 the Julio-Claudian family was extinct. In the uncertainty of the situation the oldest part of the Italian aristocracy put forward one of their own as a successor. The seventy-two-year-old Italian aristocrat, Servius Sulpicius Galba, was acclaimed Emperor by the Praetorian Guard and by the Roman Senate. He ruled between June 68 and January 69 AD. More to the point however was the support of the armies of the provinces of Spain where Galba was serving and where he had already launched a rebellion against Nero before the latter's death. By the time Galba reached Rome, probably in late September, he had already by his appointments and decrees created great uncertainty among his most avid supporters. Open rebellion against Galba began first among the legions on the Rhine in the early days of January, AD 69. Galba adopted an heir and successor who was unacceptable to his supporters, the most prominent of which was Marcus Salvius Otho.
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On 15 January Otho was proclaimed Emperor by the Praetorian Guard and other resident troops. Galba was assassinated by soldiers in the Forum and the coup d'etat was successful. However, along the Rhine in the previous 15 days the troops had rebelled against Galba and acclaimed Aulus Vitellius as emperor. Nevertheless, Otho held out until the middle of April AD 69.
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As Vitellius marched toward Rome to set Otho aside, the legions of the East who had been sworn to Otho began to seriously consider their options. This included the three legions of Licinius Mucianus, Governor of Syria, and the legions of Flavius Vespasianus (known as Vespasian) who were currently in the midst of the blockade of Jerusalem. Although both Mucianus and Vespasian at first swore their allegiance to Vitellius, their troops and junior commanders had other ideas. Even the troops along the Danube encouraged the east to act independently. Tiberius Julius Alexander, former governor of Judea, and now prefect of Egypt, was the first to lead his troops to acclaim Vespasian as Emperor on July 1. Shortly thereafter the legions of Jerusalem and Antioch followed suit. The Danube legions were soon enrolled under the leadership of one of their generals, Antonius Primus.
Meanwhile Vitellius finally entered Rome on 17 July and learned of the defection of the Eastern legions before the end of the month. Vitellius' efforts to marshal his own defense were ineffective. Licinius Mucianus led the Syrian legions across Asia Minor while Vespasian left Titus in charge at Jerusalem and made Egypt his headquarters. Antonius Primus lead the Danubian legions into the Poe River valley, defeated Vitellian armies deployed there and marched south toward Rome.
In Rome, meanwhile, Sabinus, Vespasian's brother, and Domitian, Vespasian's youngest son, attempted to force the issue. Vitellius' supporters defeated them and killed Sabinus, but Domitian and many others escaped. After about a month's hesitation Antonius Primus and his legions invaded the city on December 20. Vitellius was assassinated. In the exuberance of the victory Primus' troops hailed the teen-aged Domitian as Caesar. Within a few days the Senate conferred the honor of Praetor and consular rank on Domitian. Licinius Mucianus, Vespasian's successor as governor of Syria, escorted by the troops from Antioch, soon arrived in Rome as Vespasian's legate. Yet Mucianus found it necessary to allow Caesar Domitian's name to appear first on all imperial decrees.
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Cestius Gallus, governor of Syria, marched on Jerusalem in November, 66, but withdrew. The new governor, Vespasian, took charge in December and declared Judea an imperial province under his rule early in 67. This was to give the Jews the opportunity to surrender. When they did not he launched a full-scale attack conquering Galilee before the end of the year. Vespasian conquered Perea and western Judea in the spring of 68, but did not approach Jerusalem until the spring of 69. There was a lull in the campaign due to uncertainty at Rome. Vespasian was acclaimed as Emperor by the army legions beginning on July 1, 69, even though Vespasian was still in command in Judea. He promptly departed for Egypt leaving his older son, Titus, as governor in charge of the campaign. Titus put Jerusalem under heavy siege beginning in April, 70 AD. The city fell on September 7, 70 AD.
It was estimated that 1,100,000 lives were lost in Jerusalem. The Romans sold 90,000 of the survivors under seventeen years of age into slavery as personal slaves. Survivors over seventeen were sold as slaves to work in mines and construction activities. Those who were identified as "war criminals" were sent to gladiatorial training in Italy. The Jerusalem Temple and surrounding buildings were totally demolished. The city was sacked and left in total ruins. The priesthood was abolished and the council of priests that had administered the state was eliminated.
The rebels who escaped the destruction of Jerusalem fled to Herod the Great's mountain fortress of Masada beside the Dead Sea and withstood the Roman siege until 73.
In talking about lives lost and slaves sold there is no way to know how many of those might today be labeled zealot Jewish Christians. From the standpoint of ethnic composition 100% of them were Jews. From the point of view of emerging body of believers we need somehow to distinguish between believing Jews and non believing Jews. Both groups had their numbers decimated and their assumptions tested.
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There is equally as much early evidence that John also came to Rome at that time after the fire to minister to the persecuted believers there. Tertullian reports that John was arrested there and condemned to death by being plunged into boiling oil. Because of the mechanical or structural failure of the execution device John survived without serious injury even though the executioners and some of the crowd of bystanders lost their lives. Because of his miraculous survival John was banished from Rome to Patmos.
Indeed, the majority of the earliest sources place the Patmos exile of John under Nero. A text of the book of Revelation in Old Syriac (third century ?) named the Emperor who exiled John to Patmos as Nero. Origen, a third century scholar, noted that John did not explain how he came to be on Patmos Island. Origen says only that it was the Emperor of the Romans whom he does not name who exiled him to Patmos. Eusebius reports John's return to Ephesus after his exile(Ecclesiastical History, III.20,7). Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, III.23) also quotes Clement of Alexandria who reports that after the "tyrant" died John returned to Ephesus and continued to make journeys to other churches. One anecdotal account reveals how strong and athletic John still was at that time. The fourth century Cypriot Christian author, Epiphanius, says the emperor who exiled John was Claudius Caesar. While this appears contradictory evidence on the surface it must be noted that Nero's official name as it appears on the Consular lists for 55 AD was "Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus." The fourth century Christian scholar Jerome interpreted Tertullian to mean that Peter, Paul and John suffered under Nero. However, apocalyptic evidence in the Book of Revelation (chap. 17) is taken by some to indicate that John wrote chapter 17, at least, during the reign of Nero's successor, the sixth (vs 10) in the line of Roman Emperors, Severus Sulpicius Galba. Galba's short reign falls between June of 68 and January of 69 AD.
The opposing evidence that dates the Patmos exile to the last year of Domitian, a quarter of a century later, will be discussed in a following section.
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Titus Flavius Vespasianus was Emperor from AD 69 to 79. He was the second son of a minor Roman official, Titus Flavius Sabinus, and was named after his maternal grandfather Vespasius Polla. He chose to rule under the title Imperator Caesar Vespasianus Augustus which did emphasize a kind of continuity with the Julio-Claudians. Vespasian remained in Egypt probably until August of AD 70 before sailing for Italy.
In AD 71 Vespasian and his son Titus celebrated a triumph at Rome during which all the spoils of Jerusalem were paraded through the streets and deposited on Capital hill. Titus shared the Tribunician powers with Vespasian, and served as his private secretary. Meanwhile Titus was employed as commander of the Praetorian Guard. Having divorced his second wife before the Jewish campaign, Titus fell under the spell of Berenice the sister of his Jewish friend, Marcus Julius Agrippa II, the king of Chalchis. Berenice, ten years his senior, became Titus' mistress in residence in Judea. Later in 75 she came to Rome and moved into Titus' house. Titus eventually sent her away in deference to the prejudices of the Roman population against "another Cleopatra".
While Vespasian tolerated some personal worship of himself by pagans in the eastern part of the Empire where he also personally patronized the Egyptian cults of Isis and Serapis, he was careful to avoid any pretense of divinity in Italy and Rome. He expelled some moralistic philosophers from the city of Rome along with astrologers and magi (wise men). Vespasian gave special attention to the worship rituals of Jupiter, divus Augustus and divus Claudius, seeing to it that even smaller provinces had a provincial high priest to preside over these cults together with the popular cult of Roma, the tyché or fortuna of the city of Rome.
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Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, Vespasian's elder son, ruled briefly from AD 79 to 81. He chose to designate himself as Imperator Titus Caesar Vespasianus Augustus. He presided over the deification of his father and the creation of the family cult of the divus Vespasianus. He referred to himself as divus Vespasiani filii, "son of the divine Vespasian", but otherwise maintained many of the sensible policies of his father. However, had he lived longer his lavish benefactions would have bankrupted even his own vast resources. He did complete the Colosseum which now encroached on the popular circus (i.e.race track) as the place for public entertainment provided by imperial largesse. This stone structure held 45,000 spectators and was designed to stage gladiatorial combats, wild beast hunts, and navel battles! Mt. Vesuvius erupted and covered Pompeii, Herculaneum, Stabiae and Oplontis during his second month in power. Then a 72 hour fire in AD 80 that did enormous damage in Rome including the demolition of the temples and shrines on the Capitol, the symbolic center of Roman power. Approximately at that same time the city was being decimated by the worst outbreak of plague that anybody could remember.
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Titus Flavius Domitianus, Vespasian's younger son who was named after his maternal grandfather, Flavius Domitius, ruled from AD 81 to 96. We call him Domitian. He was an idealistic and impressionable teenager when his father became Emperor. His warped sense of self-righteousness and self-importance only slightly tempered by his sense of power and responsibility was already apparent at that time. His attitude was typically arrogant, blunt and tactless--he was a frowning, "no nonsense" disciplinarian. Already in 69 AD the forces loyal to his father had acclaimed him "Caesar Domitianus", and their commander, Licinius Mucianus, deferred to the lad, putting Domitian's name first before his own on all public decrees issued before Vespasian's arrival at Rome in October of 70 AD. Eleven years later when Domitian became Emperor his character had changed little.
Having deified his two deceased wives together with Titus, Domitian made his own house a shrine for the cults of the divi Flaviae, the divus Claudius and the divus Augustus (perhaps because their original shrines had burned in AD 80.). Domitian also established a syncretic connection between the Flavian cult and that of Jupiter. In addition to Jupiter, he patronized the cults of several traditional Roman gods, especially Minerva, as well as the Egyptian cults of Isis and Serapis that his father had favored. He openly sought to be recognized and worshiped as a deus, god--not merely a divus; he demanded to be addressed in court as "my lord and god". The similarities between the character and policies of Domitian and Nero prompted one contemporary Roman to describe Domitian as "the bald-headed Nero", and thus to fan the superstitious notion that Nero had somehow returned from the dead.
Domitian's rule was so intolerable to the Senate that when he was assassinated they attempted to erase his memorials everywhere. Circumstances were such that they were able to discuss whether to restore the Republic or continue to have an emperor. They decided on the latter course and selected an aged Senator to serve.
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Even though he was executing the Roman campaign against the rebellious Judean Jews at the time he became Emperor, Vespasian reaffirmed the basic religious freedom of Jews everywhere in the Empire. However the special concessions relative to Judea were no longer to be honored. Jewish religious freedom, however, was made contingent on payment of the one-half shekel (i.e. = a didrachma or two drachmae) Temple tax. Josephus reports in War 7.2.2, that Caesar Titus issued this decree before leaving Syria. The tax, the capitularia Judaica, was to be delivered to Rome to the Capitol where it was likely used to replenish the Roman war fund to pay for the Judean campaigns. After a few years many Jews began to neglect paying the tax.
The surviving Jewish elders and scholars gathered in imperial territory just outside the Judean border at Jamnia where they organized a council or Sanhedrin. They selected Johanan son of Zaccai as their president or Rabban (usually translated patriarch). Most Jews recognized this council at Jamnia under the presidency of Johanan and his successors as the supreme religious court. While there is no contemporary evidence to confirm this, Jewish traditions later report that this council at Jamnia sent letters to all synagogues condemning the "Nazoreans" as having been traitors during the Judean War. Also a set prayer is thought to have been introduced into the synagogue service condemning the "Nazoreans" at this time. This action is thought to have resulted immediately in Christian Jews being expelled from Jewish communities and synagogues throughout the Roman world and beyond. Independent evidence of this result is very scarce and it has recently been argued that the separation of Christians and non-Christians among the Jews was not complete for over a half to three-quarters of a century later.
Christians after the fourth century generally came to believe that Nero had issued laws forbidding anyone to profess Christianity. However, if there was an imperial decree in this period specifically making it illegal to be a Christian, no convincing contemporary evidence of its existence or its specific content has survived.
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[Before proceeding with the discussion below you may wish to review Unit One: Lecture/Essay Four which discusses this same issue of persecution.]
It is not untypical for modern scholars to conclude that there is no evidence of any established government policy calling for the persecution of the Christians (*) during Domitian's reign. However, my observation is that we are frequently guilty of distinguishing sharply between Christians and Jews--far more sharply that the actual evidence allows. For example, the sources do not support the typical conclusion that before Domitian's day Christians had completely left off keeping the Sabbath in a Jewish fashion. In later centuries both Jews and Christians have wanted to "read into" first century sources a degree of separation between Jews and Christians that the existing sources themselves do not attest.
One of Domitian's accomplishments was the rebuilding of the ruined Capitol architecture. He seems to involved himself directly in the collection of the capitularia Judaica, and probably assigned the income to the reconstruction of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and other shrines on the Capitol. The Jews who had become very lax about paying the diverted Temple Tax now attempted to avoid paying this sacrilegious tax altogether. Domitian then began enforcing the letter of the law, that any Jew failing to pay the capitularia would forfeit his religious freedom, both to exercise Judaism and to abstain from the worship of Rome's gods.
We know next to nothing specific about how Roman tax collection was administered under the earlier Flavians. We are told that some revenues were directed to the Capitol at Rome where imperial funds and treasures were maintained and administered in the temples and other structures there. We are probably correct in assuming that the Jewish tax was added to the responsibilities of those tax-collecting officials already in place across the empire. Roman administration in the first century is notably inefficient. While tax collectors were admonished, there is little evidence one way or the other that large numbers of these officials were proactive. Some may have launched something like a brief local investigation while others were more reactive. There was no reason to conduct an investigation unless you could be reasonably confident it would pay for itself.
We can be reasonably sure that Domitian's instruction to provincial tax collectors did not mention the Christians as a distinct group, but that does not mean that thousands of Christian Jews were not impacted by the Emperor's directives (Suetonius, Domitian, 12). Suetonius was eye-witness to some of the extraordinary procedures employed by tax collectors. The more aggressive local officials may well have employed extraordinary means to hunt out and identify the Jews in many provinces and cities so they could be forced to pay the tax. Anyone who held back from the worship of Rome's gods, who studied the Jewish Holy Book, worshipped in an organized congregation, prayed to the Jewish God or otherwise appeared to be observing Jewish customs was suspected of being a Jew and liable to invasive scrutiny. Since the tax was to be paid by adult Jewish males, the scars of circumcision were sufficient evidence to prove liability. Nevertheless, it is logical to speculate that no public investigation would be launched unless somebody in region voluntarily paid the tax. Where there was one Jewish family there were likely more to be found. So some Jewish Christians must certainly have been forced to pay the tax. There is some evidence from Rome that a "persecution" did take place there. In the letter of Clement, one of the leaders of the Christian congregation at Rome, to the Corinthians, written in the first half of the decade of the nineties, he alludes to a recent outbreak of persecution in Rome that delayed his writing (Clement, Epistle to the Corinthians, 1:1).
The uncircumcised Roman subjects who were found guilty of observing Jewish customs and who refused to pay the tax were subject to charges of sacrilegium or inpietas (sacrilege or impiety) or atheotęs (atheism) for which the typical (put probably not uniform) penalty was confiscation of property (enhancing imperial income) and banishment (read "confinement" or forced segregation away from family and friends who were loyal subjects). For Roman citizens, on the other hand, who were still a minority in the imperial population, the penalty for those found believing and behaving like Jews was confiscation of property and death. Rabban Gamaliel traveled from Jamnia to Rome, c. AD 95, to help Roman authorities understand the difference between true Jewish proselytes--which were apparently fairly numerous--and those who merely claimed to be Jews or who appeared to have adopted some Jewish customs (e.g. both "God-fearers" and Gentile Christians).
This confusion would have been a particularly widespread phenomenon in those parts of the Empire where many Christian congregations contained families of the Jewish race whose father had been circumcised from birth or as gentile proselytes had been circumcised when they accepted Judaism. Another issue to be remembered here are those Christians of mixed racial origin such as Timothy whose mother was a Jew and whose father was a Greek. In those earlier days Paul had decided Timothy should be circumcised. If Paul's precedent was followed for those believers with Jewish/Gentile parentage and their descendants continued to circumcise their male offspring that group of Christians would certainly be in jeopardy. The question we cannot answer is how many of the Jewish believers before Domitian's crackdown had decided not to circumcise their male children abandoning identification with their Jewish roots. We believe such a radical decision was much more likely for children born after AD 95.
Remember that in this period almost all churches were situated in urban settings. In the Hellenistic cities in the provinces of the Aegean, Asia Minor, Cyrenaica and the island of Cyprus as well as in Italy--even Rome itself-- there were large numbers of Greek speaking Jews at the beginning of this period. Between c. AD 66 and 96 Christianity among these Greek-speaking Jews continued to be heavily and negatively impacted by the work of zealot Judaizers such as Kerinthos and Kerdon. Such Judaizers intensified the pressure on gentile Christians to adopt and preserve the unadulterated Jewish heritage. Gentile Christians who had, under such pressure, opted for circumcision, even if they had returned to the Gospel of Grace, now needed to pay the tax as a price for their freedom to be Christians. Doubtless however, an occasional gentile Christian who was part of a congregation of Christian Jews was forced to demonstrate to the tax collector that he was not a Jew.
It seems likely that Domitian's persecution of the Jews, particularly the charge of atheism, was part of the cause of the later notion that there had been a decree forbidding the profession of Christianity. Remember gentiles have religious freedom and don't have to pay a tax to get it.
As a result of this persecution many Gentile Christians began deliberately refraining from actions that would appear to be Jewish in the effort to avoid both the tax and charges of impiety. Even a few poor Jewish Christians insolated in communities of Gentile Christians may have favored a similar strategy hoping to avoid detection as Jews, and hence the tax.
There is yet another telling piece of evidence to be put in place here relating to the development in AD 112-113 in Bithynia-Pontus. Here we have documented that a group of individuals admitted in court that they had been Christians up until they publicly renounced their faith 20 years before. (Pliny, Epistles, 10.96) Pliny makes no comment whether these individuals were Jews or Gentiles for such a distinction was immaterial to him, but they complied with his order to sacrifice to Caesar. That fact alone makes a strong argument against their being Jews. This province was located in what is now northwest Turkey not far from the churches of Asia addressed by John. See the discussion of this incident in Bithynia-Pontus below.
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The earliest source that assigned John's exile to Domitian's reign was Bishop Irenaeus of Lyons in Gaul. Irenaeus was born at Smyrna (c. 115) and converted under the ministry of Polycarp of Smyrna. He studied and taught at Rome before settling at Lyons as their bishop (c. 175-c. 200). Irenaeus reported that The Revelation to John occurred "almost in our day, at the end of Domitian's reign." (Irenaeus, Heresies, 5.30.3.) "Almost" is, at best, around 75 or 80 years if "our day" indicated the last quarter of the second century! Clearly, the persecution which did occur in the last years of Domitian must surely have generated a great deal of interest in the Apocalypse of John, but it does not follow that John necessarily experienced and recorded the visions at that time as Irenaeus apparently believes. Yet, this has apparently convinced the majority to date John's Patmos exile to the time of Domitian, ignoring the contrary evidence.
Adding his singular voice to this tradition, Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, III.18) writing perhaps as early as about AD 300 quotes Irenaeus. He also refers anonymously to pagan authors who report and date the persecution of Domitian in his fourteenth or last year, that is, AD 96. However, Eusebius also wrote a Chronicle summarizing world history in which he dates the persecution of Christians and the exile of John to Patmos in AD 94. The surviving notices by pagan historians do report the indictment of certain high ranking Senatorial aristocrats resulting in executions during that year. There is no surviving pagan testimony, however, that specifically identifies the charges with Christianity, although in one case the charge was atheotés, refusing to recognize, or other acts of impiety, toward the official gods (Suetonius, Domitian, 15).
The conventional (late) date depends almost entirely on the assumptions of Irenaeus and the agreement and support of Eusebius. Sometimes other evidence is interpreted to support this position. For example the mid-fourth century Christian author, Victorinus.
Victorinus says John was condemned to work the mines on Patmos by "Domitian Caesar" (Commentary on the Apocalypse, 10.11.). While this appears, perhaps, to confirm Eusebius' interpretation of Irenaeus, Victorinus' statement is more ambiguous than it appears to be. It must first be noted that Emperor Nero was the natural son of Gaius Domitius Ahenobarbus and was known as Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus until his adoption by Emperor Claudius. It is true that by Roman custom after he was adopted Nero could be properly addressed as "Nero Claudius Caesar Domitianus." So Victorinus can be understood as confirming Nero as the Emperor who sent John to Patmos instead of Emperor Domitian. Yet, we must remember that Emperor Domitian had received the popular acclaim as "Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus" when he became Emperor. However, if the Consular lists indicate this Emperor's official preference he chose rather to call himself "Imperator Domitianus". Moreover, there are still other potentially important but confusing facts to consider.
This youngest of Emperor Vespasian's sons had first been acclaimed as "Caesar Domitianus" in December of AD 69 by the victorious troops at Rome supporting Vespasian's claim to the imperial office. In the ten months before his father arrived in Italy this teenage Caesar Domitianus' public actions evidently caused Vespasian and his legate at Rome, C. Licinius Mucianus, considerable trouble and concern. In deference to the headstrong lad, his name and assumed title "Caesar Domitianus" was listed first, before Mucianus', on all official decrees before October of AD 70, when Vespasian finally arrived in Rome. This means that during a ten month window in early AD 70 this teenager's name may have been prominent on any documentation reaffirming penal dispositions ordered by Nero but not executed prior to his suicide in the Summer of AD 68.
Other evidence previously mentioned puts John back at Ephesus possibly by the summer of AD 70 prior to the demolition of the Temple in Jerusalem in September. Of course, there are plenty of references to visions of a New Jerusalem in John's account, but there is little imagery that can be easily read as elaborating on an already destroyed or no longer inhabited "old" Jerusalem as it would have been during Domitian's reign. The ashes of the ruins of Jerusalem had been cold for more than ten years when Domitian became Emperor.
We find the weight of testimony for the earlier (unconventional) Neronic date (introduced above) for John's exile and the writing of the Book of Revelation very persuasive when compared to the fuzzy assumptions made by Irenaeus and adopted by Eusebius. In the light of the prevailing conventional dating of the Patmos imprisonment of John, we can only urge that students examine all the available, albeit somewhat confusing, testimony before they decide on the most likely date of this event in John's life.
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Geographically, during this period the Empire reached its maximum size for a brief time under Trajan as a result of his short-term success in the conquest of the region of Iraq. Hadrian maintained an aggressive posture along the frontiers, but beginning in the 140's the attacks along the imperial boundaries increased in frequency and intensity. Marcus Aurelius was killed in battle against the barbarians near Vienna.
Trajan apparently maintained an army of thirty legions although we do hear of two legions being destroyed. If Trajan replaced the two that were lost, we learn that Marcus Aurelius also had to recruit two new legions in 165 in order to maintain thirty.
Already by Hadrian's time legions and auxiliaries both contained citizens and non-citizens. By the end of the century every recruit received his citizenship. Permanent legion camps were being built in strategic regional locations back from the frontiers. Auxiliaries were stationed along frontiers. Legions were becoming less and less mobile. Whole legions were almost never relocated after Trajan's day, but detachments were sometimes deployed in distant locations. Response time for the legions seems to have been increasing significantly. Recruits to maintain both legions and auxiliaries were by the second century being enlisted from the provinces in which they served, which tended to produce the result that many new recruits were sons of former solders. The great majority of the volunteers and recruits came from the lower and less well-to-do ranks of rural agricultural society. Shortage of military manpower begins to be a major problem by the days of Marcus Aurelius who found it necessary to recruit gladiators, slaves and brigands in order to carry out his campaigns against the barbarians in 171-174.
One noteworthy function of the legions became increasing prominent during the second century. In the early days of the Principate (under the Julio-Claudian Emperors), the Roman citizens in Rome had periodically organized a gathering utilizing the customs of the old Republican era citizen assembly, namely the comitia centuriata, to acclaim the current emperor. This comitia or assembly, was organized on old Republican military lines. It had been the oldest legislative assembly originating in the regal period. The very last we hear of such an assembly meeting in Rome was following the death of Domitian. During most of the second century the isolated legions in the field periodically voted an acclamation for the current emperor. Trajan and Hadrian traveled with legions far more than their predecessors or successors did. During the civil war among the legions that followed Nero's suicide, the troops had a glimpse of how important their role might be in selecting a new emperor. The aftermath of Commodus' assassination at the end of the second century reiterated that lesson.
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At the provincial level Emperors' Nerva and Trajan were probably unhappy with the effectiveness of the Proconsular administration in the Senatorial provinces. Trials held before the Senate in Trajan's day show us that some governors had relapsed into the tyrannous habits of the late Republican period. In 109 Trajan sent an imperial commissioner to the province of Achaea (southern Greece) to straighten out the financial problems in local cities. A little later he sent another commissioner to the province of Bithynia-Pontus (northwestern Turkey) with the same agenda. This latter position was filled by Pliny the Younger, one of the most highly literate men of his age whose correspondence file was preserved as a copybook for students to learn how to write letters. Incidently, those preserved letters provide us an abundance of detailed information about conditions and actions in Bithynia--including a persecution of Christians.
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Governmentally, the power of the Emperor was enlarged at the expense of the hodgepodge of older political units that had served to govern the Empire in the early first century AD. The Emperors of this period had a very powerful and well organized administrative bureaucracy centered at Rome but blanketing the entire Empire. The foundations for this bureaucracy were laid by Emperor Claudius. This huge civil service was recruited from all over the Empire from among the Roman citizens. They were paid wages and provided with clothing and supplies. More significantly, they paid no taxes.
Emperor Claudius had used talented freedmen to head the several divisions of the service. During the early part of the second century one hundred and seven of the head offices began to be given to men of the highest ranking honor beneath that of the Senatorial Order, namely, the Equestrian Order. Soon they were appointing Equestrian-ranked individuals who had not previously served, as typical, in military service. This was a clear signal that government service was as valuable as military service. Many of these Equestrians began to receive titles of social rank somewhat comparable to those they had traditionally received from serving in the military. The social rank of vir egregius, "outstanding man", generally came with the appointment. Later one might be advanced to vir perfectissimus, "most perfect man", or ultimately he might earn a vir eminentissimus, "most prominent man" rank. A step or two beyond that rank would bring him senatorial status and open new opportunities.
By the end of the second century the standard path of advancement in Roman society (called the cursus honorum) still typically began with military service. With a prominent background and some display of energy one might acquire the rank of centurion which brought with it the Equestrian honors automatically. Further advancement involved a choice of routes. One might continue to serve in the military as a professional or, leave the military to take the civil service route. The professional ranks in the military not only included advancing in the command structure but was also likely to involve a transfer of duty to the Praetorian Guard units. This corps contained the most highly honored Roman troops and while they often served as escorts of the Emperor himself, it had become a kind of officer training school. Both future legion commanders and military attachés to the imperial court were generally chosen from the Praetorian Guard.
Senatorial ranked individuals were frequently appointed to the most prestigeous civil positions across the Empire, far from Rome. The Senator was expected to support himself financially in this position as a service to the state. The Senators typically held vast rural estates which by right of his senatorial status were not subject to provincial taxation. The formal Senate at Rome had been powerless at least since the days of Hadrian, if not before. The Roman Senate made up of Senators awaiting appointment did meet periodically at the Emperor's request to hear a reading of the Emperor's latest decrees, a ceremony that symbolized promulgating the decrees into law. Although the Senate after the Domitian's death was strong enough to select Nerva, thereafter they only formally recognized each new emperor after the fact.
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Imperial law was also developing at the expense of local or provincial law. It paralleled the steady growth in the number of Roman citizens in the Imperial population. Scholars have speculated that the percentage of citizens by birth to the total population was ranging up toward eighty percent by the last decades of the second century.
Roman civil and criminal law had traditionally been subject to annual review and adjustment over the centuries as the annually published Praetor's Edict could be re-written from scratch by each newly elected praetor. In 131 AD the current Praetor, Salvius Julianus, codified the Edict putting to an end the annual re-publication of the Edict.
Edicts issued by the Emperor by this time need no ratification by any other government body to have the full force of law throughout the Empire, even in the Senatorial provinces. Early in the century it was still possible for a "senatus consultum", an "opinion of the Senate" could become binding law without the Emperor's ratification, specifically in those Senatorial provinces where the proconsuls (i.e. governors) ratified it. This practice was disappearing, however, both because there were fewer initiatives undertaken by the Senate and because the Emperor more frequently ratified the Senatorial consultum
Adjudicated decrees (responsa) arising from judicial consideration of specific cases became important precedents. It became customary that if the recorded responsae of the various judges were in unanimous agreement a current judge was not free to rule differently in the similar case before him. If, on the other hand, the responsae were not unanimously in agreement the judge was free to differ from any or all of them.
The Emperor's written replies (rescriptae to questions or petitions addressed to him were coming to be considered as a binding rule of law. Imperial rescripts often elaborate on or clarify existing law. In the area of administrative directives (mandata) the Princeps frequently issued instructions to officials and government agents. These were binding at least as long as the current emperor lived and did not issue contradicting orders.
The Emperors in this period gathered to themselves the best legal minds available, enrolling them in their "Emperor's council" and employing their expertise in preparing responsae, mandata, and rescriptae. In the Emperor Hadrians' concilium principis, there were a number of prominent jurists including Juventius Celsus, Salvius Julianus and Neratius Priscus. Similar panels of notable jurists assisted Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. The most important jurist under Marcus Aurelius was Gaius the Just, the author of the collection of Roman laws called the Institutes.
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Imperial power was not only more centralized it was also becoming more a fact of life at the grass-roots level across the Empire. By 200 imperial administrators supervised all levels of government. The political unit farthest from the Emperor was the local city (civitas). Cities ranged from those in rural districts that were scarcely populated, up to those urbanized metropolises like Alexandria, Antioch, Ephesus, or Nicomedia. Trajan mandated a standard constitution for all cities and subsequent Emperors gradually fine tuned it to meet the needs of various sized city-ships.
In even the most urbanized city region the land owners whose produce was essential to the cities existence were still among the most wealthy, and hence the most vulnerable to governmental demands. Merchants, of course, were sometimes, for brief periods, wealthier, but also vulnerable. Imperial taxes were now collected at the city-level. The wealthy land-owning class annually picked an individual from their local constituents whose responsibility it was to pay the imperial tax. Of course he could certainly attempt to recoup his losses by collecting from other land-owners. The wealthier land-owners as a group, however, passed the taxation through to the actual farmers, the poorest of whom frequently lost ownership of their lands to their rich neighbors in order to pay their assessed tax, especially in years when productivity was short. The weight of imperial taxation was rapidly and progressively reducing the numbers of prosperous independent land-owning farmers by reducing the poor to bankruptcy and eventually landlessness with the assistance of the rich. This process seems to have accellerated in the last sixty years of the second century AD.
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Senator Marcus Cocceius Nerva was chosen Emperor by his colleagues in the Roman Senate. He was the oldest living Senator at the time and he ruled only about 17 months. While Nerva was no relation to the Flavian rulers who preceded him, he presented himself as their legitimate successor by adoption. The most important action Merva took was to adopt the mature Spanish-born career military man, Marcus Ulpius Traianas [Trajan] as his son and heir.
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Marcus Ulpius Traianus (known as Trajan), Nerva's adopted son, ruled from AD 98 to 117. He was the son of professional Roman military stock born in Spain and serving as a career military man. While Emperor he spent much of his time campaigning with the army and coming to Rome only occasionally and briefly. Trajan persuaded the Senate to deify Nerva together with Trajan's natural father and sister, all as part of the divi imperatores Flaviae. Trajan patronized a number of Roman gods, but chose the cult of Jupiter Optimus for special attention, taking the title Optimus for himself and claiming to be Jupiter's agent (an angel?). He also patronized the practitioners of astrology, magic, divination, theurgy and exorcism both in Syria and Egypt. In the provinces by this time all the cults of the deified emperors were being combined syncretistically with the cult of goddess Roma. Together they provided a convenient channel for most of the spontaneous worship of the living emperor as well.
As a warrior, Trajan's conquests substantially stretched the Empire's frontiers. In one instance he encountered a rebellion of the Jewish population in the eastern part of the Empire. He had continued the irritating policy (persecution) of requiring Jews who wished to worship in their customary manner to pay the capitularia Judaica or be denied that freedom. The occasion of the rebellion was the Emperor's conquest of a large territory from the Parthians stretching from the Syrian frontier to the Persian Gulf, a territory where thousands of Jews lived. Realizing he would certainly collect the capitularia Judaica in these newly conquered lands the Jews resident there resisted valiantly and stirred their fellow Jews in Cyprus, Cyrene and other regions in the eastern part of the Roman Empire into violent uprising. The Roman historian Cassius Dio who grew up in Cilicia where his father was governor in the middle of the second century, describes almost unbelievable atrocities perpetrated by the Jews against their non-Jewish neighbors [Roman History, Book LXVIII, Loeb Classical Library edition, Vol. VIII. pp 422-423]. The Parthian territory was lost and Trajan ordered, but did not live to completely implement bloody reprisals against the Jews in Cyprus and Cyrene. His successor Hadrian carried out his directives. The surviving Jewish communities on Cyprus were totally eliminated as a result. There were also Jewish disturbances in Alexandria and other eastern cities where very harsh measures were also taken.
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Publius Aelius Hadrianus, Trajan's paternal cousin and adopted son, was emperor from AD 117 to 138. He was also the husband of Trajan's sister's granddaughter. Hadrian's religious patronage was confined to the "family" of Roman gods headed by Jupiter, their Greek-named counterparts and the deified emperor's cults. Among many shrines and temples he built all across the Empire, the Pantheon, honoring all the Roman gods, was built in Rome itself. One concession to the more popular religions was his erection of the first temple to Roma in the city of Rome.
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Titus Aurelius Fulvus Boionius Arrius Antoninus, was adopted by Hadrian as Titus Aelius Hadrianus Antoninus and succeeded to the throne, AD 138-161. Our ancient authorities are very uncertain how to explain Antoninus' widely used named Pius; perhaps it was a distant family name he claimed for himself. Antoninus Pius was not only a stickler for many of the customary rites of Roman religion, evidences from his reign point to the general revival of regional and ethnic cults all across the Empire. The Emperor himself was involved in patronizing a number of ancient western cults that had previously died out, especially those in Italy. There was also some official patronage of astrology and use of astral symbolism. In particular he patronized the cult of the Syrian sun god at Baalbec/Heliopolis.
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Joint emperors, Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius, ruled between AD 161 and 169. Marcus Aurelius was the son of Marcus Annius Verus (Antoninus Pius' brother-in-law) who was named in honor of his maternal grandmother (Domitia Lucilla) and his mothers' step grandfather (L. Catilius Severus Julianus Claudius Reginus), Marcus Annius Verus Domitius Catilius Severus. He became Antoninus Pius' son-in-law in AD 145. He was then adopted by Antoninus Pius in 138 under the name Marcus Aelius Aurelius Verus Antoninus, and given the title Caesar. Lucius Ceionius Commodus was the son of Hadrian's adopted successor who predeceased him. Antoninus Pius adopted him under the name Lucius Ceionius Aelius Aurelius Commodus. Later, when Antoninus Pius died he became known as Lucius Aelius Aurelius Verus Commodus Antoninus. In 169 Lucius died of the plague contracted by his troops during a campaign against the Parthians, but Marcus continued to rule alone until AD 180 when he died of battle wounds while campaigning against the barbarians near modern Vienna.
Marcus Aurelius is remembered as a Stoic philosopher. As a Roman emperor he wrote a Stoic exercise in Greek titled (in translation) Meditations. However his Stoicism did not make him any the less "religious". Like his predecessors he gave attention to the official Roman gods, but unlike them, he patronized a number of ethnic cults across the Empire, which were experiencing a resurgence at the time. While curtailing the public activities of certain famous demonologists, he seems to have given them pensions and sought their advice and assistance personally.
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Commodus who ruled from AD 181 to 192 was the first since Domitian to be the natural son of a preceding emperor. Like Gaius, Nero and Domitian before, Commodus spent his adolescent years dreaming about what he would do when he became emperor. His religious behavior was more flagrant and calculated than theirs had been, and it was also more "world wide" in its syncretism. Commodus not only emphasized that he was born of divine parents (Marcus Aurelius was of course deified) he arbitrarily attached several titles commonly attributed to gods to the Emperor's title (e.g. felix, invictus, etc.).
Like his father he patronized many cults, but he gave special emphasis to two regional cults syncretistically linked with Jupiter. The Spanish cult of Hercules was appropriated from the west. Commodus forced the Senate to affirm that he was Hercules incarnate. He officially changed his name to Hercules Romanus and wore the regalia of Hercules (He wore an animal skin and carried a gnarly warclub) at public functions. A priesthood was organized in Rome to worship him. Mythologically, Hercules was the son of Jupiter by a mortal woman. In his identification with Hercules, Commodus claimed the title Jupiter exsuperantorius, the lesser (by comparison) Jupiter.
From the other end of the Roman world Commodus identified himself with the god of an obscure Syrian cult called only "the highest". This otherwise unidentified Semitic deity was syncretized with Jupiter and given the Latin name, Jupiter exsuperantissimus, the highest, the superlative, the supreme Jupiter. It is noteworthy that we do find the Psalmist using the term "Highest", vocalized in Hebrew as elyon, as an alternate name for the Jewish God in a couple of cases in parallel poetic formations (See Psalms 18:13 and 87:5).
In the civil war that broke out among the legions after the assassination of Commodus in 192, it was the commander, Septimius Severus, who emerged to claim the imperial title by AD 193. More about Septimius Severus below.
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Although largely undocumented, we can understand that the Jews who were Christians during this period between c. AD 96 and 117 could scarcely have escaped the tragic circumstances of the continued Jewish persecution. However, Nerva reportedly curtailed certain abuses associated with the collection of the capitularia Judaica, specifically eliminating the charges of atheism. He also restored the property and freedom of those who had been banished by Domitian at least some of which possibly were banished on the basis of charges stemming from the capitularia Judiaca. This probably indicated that Roman authorities were trying to distinguish between true Jews and proselytes on one hand and pseudo-Jews, i.e. gentile Christians and God-fearers, on the other.
Certainly gentile Christians seem to have been excluded from the tax by Nerva's actions. This served as an additional impetus for the gentile Christians to segregate themselves from the Jewish Christians.
However, although it might seem unnecessary for a gentile Christian to continue paying the Jewish tax in order to be identified as a Jew since both gentiles and tax-paying Jews had essentially the same freedom to abstain from the popular polytheistic worship for whatever reason whenever they wished. There was but one crucial exception to that general rule, namely, if one appeared in a Roman court. In that circumstance, only a Christian (Jew or gentile) paying the Jewish tax could safely ignore the customary but not uniformly observed practice of voluntarily worshiping Rome's gods. So non-tax-paying gentile Christians who appeared in Roman courts were more vulnerable.
While it remains undocumented whether or not circumcised Jewish Christians still had to pay the Jewish head-tax, it certainly seems highly unlikely. At least the Jewish religious leaders probably no longer considered them truly Jewish. Nonetheless, if they found themselves in a Roman court, they too would be in jeopardy unless they worshiped Rome's gods at the appropriate moment.
Speculations like these illuminate the difficulty modern observers have in understanding the status of Christians in the early second century. So much is left to the imagination that we are tempted to exaggerate what can be suggested from those few clues that have survived.
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Even without any concrete evidence of an imperial law outlawing the Christian religion, there were several valid and effective reasons why owning the name of Christian was arguably a punishable offense. Christians were known to be the fanatic followers of a superstition based on the teachings and actions of a leader who was tried and found guilty of endangering society and executed; his avowed followers should share in his sentence and deserve similar punishment. Later on in the second century secular writers describe the Christian beliefs as a superstition, empty, inane, vicious, excessive, perverse and fatal. The character of Christians was popularly described as secretive and deceptive. As a people they allegedly preferred the cover of darkness, for they were full of bitter hate on account of their shame and disgrace.
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In the second century the status of the Christian organizations had to be reinterpreted since after Domitian the Christians (both Jewish and gentile) no longer seemed to have the legitimacy associated with Jewish status. We should be aware of the wide variety of types of social institutions and associations that existed in every part of the Empire. While many of them were considered harmless so far as the Roman government was concerned, even those that appeared harmless were sometimes sources of subversion and insurrection. Emperors on several occasions had acted to restrict such organizations in certain areas at certain times. For example, Emperor Trajan, when seeking to get more efficiency in certain provincial governments, outlawed all types of organized associations in those targeted provinces. There is no indication that Trajan's restrictions applied to every Senatorial province and certainly not throughout the whole empire. For, many such organized associations evidently continued to flourish unmolested in many provinces. The Christian church was simply another such local association. However, the potentially subversive character of the Christian's association was underlined by their secretiveness, their sacred meal and their reported oaths (sacramentus)--invariably a feature of the most dangerous conspiratorial associations known to Roman authorities.
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It is difficult to asses the Christian response to this situation, but there are some indications of a very antagonistic viewpoint that saw Christians engaged in a very literal war against the worldly agents of evil (the Roman state and society). These Christians apparently understood John's Apocalypse as predicting the immanent catastrophic destruction of the worldly forces of evil, but not before the faithful had been severely persecuted. Many of these Christians apparently expected to die as martyrs in the inevitable struggle. Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, Syria, was escorted to Rome in chains c. AD 108. He sincerely hoped to be martyred there. He urged other Christians to do nothing that might prevent it. (Epistle to the Romans, 5; Epistle to the Ephesians, 1.2).
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Before allowing our imagination to run rampant with bloody visions of extensive persecution of Christians there are some facts to remember. Early in the period Christians were widely scattered in small groups and still almost unnoticeable within the urban masses. They gradually became more visible as they grew in numbers later in the century. The only court in any province with authority to issue a death penalty was that of the governor. There was neither public prosecutor nor a police force; charges had to be made by private individuals. If regular military troops were employed it was generally against large rebellious crowds, not individuals. An ignored summons to appear before the governor could result in coercion by the members of the governor's staff who acted as guards. In Roman justice, the accuser must appear at the same hearing and make his accusation in the presence of the accused. He need offer no evidence or proof of guilt if the accused person confessed to the charge made against him.
What then was the charge that would move Roman authorities to act? All surviving evidences indicate that Christians who were denounced to Roman authorities in this period were, indeed, in grave jeopardy. It is not, however, until the last quarter of the second century that evidence for the charges of treason and/or sacrilege comes to light. While those later charges will trigger uniform procedures set by Roman law for accused Roman citizens, there was little consistency evidenced at any time during the second century. The punishment for similar crimes varied from case to case and from province to province at the discretion of the governors. Cases involving Roman citizens were the only ones required to follow Roman legal procedures, and they were frequently transferred to Rome.
Bishop Symeon son of Cleopas and the nephew and successor to James, Jesus' brother, was indicted for being a Christian and a descendant of David (i.e. a potential political threat). He was brought before Atticus the Roman governor of Judea c. AD 107 by a member of a rival Christian (i.e., heretical) group, possibly the Ebionites. Although Symeon appears not to have been a Roman citizen he was obviously a man of wide influence. He was tortured and eventually executed. Another Jewish individual, Rabbi Eliezer of Lydda, who was similarly charged as a Christian before the governor, was only reprimanded and then released.
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One of the occasions when Trajan sent a special governor to overhaul the government of a province from scratch is surprisingly well documented and includes valuable references to Christians. The Governor's commission addressed a number of administrative problems and included orders to disband and prohibit all types of associations or organizations in his province as a preliminary step. When a body of Christians continued to assemble as usual after the orders were given, they were immediately denounced to the governor by their neighbors. Several Christians were accused before Pliny, the governor of Bithynia-Pontus at Amastris, c. AD 112. Their disregard of a governor's order was made all the more serious when the additional charge of their being Christians was lodged. Among those accused of being Christians Pliny discovered an inconsistency. Some who confessed repeatedly to the accusation of being Christians were promptly executed or, if they were citizens, sent to Rome. Others, however, insisted that while they had once been associated with Christians they no longer were. Pliny tested the truthfulness of these accused by ordering them to worship the Roman gods. When they promptly obeyed he released them. On the other hand, if they obstinately refused to obey, he had them executed. In the course of time a list of names came into Pliny's possession. He arrested all those listed and applied the test of ordering them to worship the Roman gods. Those who did not obey he sentenced as before, but released those who worshipped. He subjected some of them--two deaconesses--to torture before executing them to determine the nature of their crimes. To his surprise he could not uncover any real crimes. He wrote to Trajan expressing his uncertainty about the whole affair (Pliny, Epistles 10.96). Trajan's reply (Pliny, Epistles 10.97) sets forth four principles which, to us, seem self-contradictory. Note that Pliny had apparently overstepped the Emperor's third and fourth guidelines, but there was no reprimand.
There are reasons to suspect that Hadrian may have increased the capitularia Judaica as a result of the recent Jewish uprisings under Trajan. At any rate, the Jewish tradition is unanimous in naming Hadrian as the one emperor who persecuted them most severely. Allegedly, Hadrian prohibited several Jewish customs such as keeping the Sabbath, circumcision, reading the Scripture in worship, etc. Enforcing the capitularia Judaica more strictly may have had the effect of prohibiting religious freedom for those poor Jews who found the tax intolerably high, but increasing the rate of the tax would certainly have produced that result. Furthermore, when Hadrian announced his intentions of rebuilding the site of Jerusalem as a Roman colony in honor of Jupiter Capitolinus, the Judean Jews rebelled, occupied the territory of Jerusalem by force, and began themselves to rebuild their Temple. The Romans viciously repressed the rebellion that prevailed from AD 131 to 135. The colonial city was founded and a temple to the Capitoline Jupiter was erected where once the Jewish Temple stood. The city was named Aelia Capitoline. Jews were forbidden to set foot in Aelia Capitoline, but a Gentile Christian congregation was soon found there. The province of Judea was renamed Syria Palestina. The council of Jewish leaders was driven from Jamnia. Some of these elders took refuge in a village in Galilee called Usha.
Antoninus is generally remembered by the Jews in a much more benevolent light than Hadrian. Although he carefully outlawed proselytizing, he pacified the Jews by restoring their religious freedoms and permitting the remnants of the Sanhedrin under Rabban Simeon the son of Gamaliel to organize in Usha, in Galilee.
[To continue the account of Jewish Christianity during the second century please see pertinent sections of Lecture/Essay 06.]
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The Christian martyr traditions preserve the names of only a few martyrs from Hadrian's reign. Modern scholars feel the evidence is good for five or six at Rome and nine in another Italian city. On the other hand, Hadrian's message to the governor of Asia in AD 125 was understood both by Justin Martyr (Apology, I.68) and the Bishop Melito of Sardis (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV.26.5-11) as effectively protecting the Christians from persecution in the courts. The people of Asia had petitioned their governor to take action against the Christians; Hadrian's reply indicated that the governor should ignore such accusations. If they want action against the Christians they must prepare an accusation and present it in the court in person. Hadrian emphasized that accusations against the Christians that are made for libelous purposes should result in the accuser being punished for libel. Hadrian also stressed that accusers must be prepared to prove the accusations made in court. The governor's original letter to Hadrian, which is lost, might have indicated specific kinds of accusations that had been lodged against the Christians without evidence. We should note that some modern scholars have been unable to accept the authenticity of Hadrian's rescript as reported by Eusebius because it is allegedly too favorable to Christianity.
Under Antoninus Pius the martyr traditions give evidence for seven or eight martyrs, but there are indications of others whose names were not preserved. Bishops Mark of Jerusalem, Hyginas and Pius I of Rome were the most important. Bishop Melito of Sardis writing c. 176 (Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History IV.26.5-11) indicated that Antoninus Pius had specifically instructed the Greeks, especially those of Thessalonika, Athens and Larissa not to raise disturbances about Christians. Eusebius included a document in his Ecclesiastical History (IV.13) which he attributed to Antoninus. The surviving text of the document is considered either very corrupt or a complete forgery by some modern scholars because it commends an implausible judicial procedure and gently reprimands the Council by comparing unfavorably their behavior during the recent earthquakes with that of the Christians. It is a response by the Emperor to a petition from the Council of Asia (the provincial cheerleaders for Roman patriotism) denouncing Christians as atheists. After charging the Council with provoking the Christians to heroic levels of obstinacy the rescript requires that individuals who bring charges against Christians are themselves to be charged with libel. Moreover the accused Christian is to be dismissed even if the charges can be proved.
One uncontested point in evidence from the above document that fits the larger picture is the popular agitation against the Christians in Asia following the earthquakes (c. 152). In the popular explanation, earthquakes were an outburst of the gods' dissatisfaction and irritation with the Christians' rejection of them. The war cry of this pagan upsurge beginning about 150 was the charges of atheism and sacrilege. Justin Martyr specifically mentions (c. 150) Christians being denounced as atheists. The dramatic account of the martyrdom of Bishop Polycarp of Smyrna, which occurred sometime between c. 156 and 168, puts the charge of atheism on the lips of the roaring crowd at Smyrna. For the last half of the second century sacrilege and atheism will be the charges to which Christians must respond most often.
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We have reports of martyrs at Rome (e.g. Justin Martyr, 165) and in various cities in the Province of Asia between AD 163 and 176. In addition, reports of harassment and popular agitation against Christians come to us also from other areas. Melito of Sardis indicated that Marcus Aurelius apparently issued new decrees, c. AD 176 that allowed a dramatic increase in the persecution of Christians in Asia. Modern scholars speculate that Christians in the province may have supported a political usurper whose attempted coup had failed. A number of church leaders were martyred in Asia between AD 176 and 180. Over 45 Christians from congregations at Lyons and Vienne in Gaul suffered martyrdom in AD 177. A vivid eyewitness description of their ordeals has survived in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History V.1.3-63.
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Under Commodus the persecution seems to have tapered off. The governor of Cappadocia persecuted Christians because his wife had been converted, and the governor of Asia continued a very harsh policy, a carryover from earlier troubles. At Rome, Commodus' mistress, who was a Christian, secured imperial pardons for several Christians who had been banished by Marcus Aurelius to the Sardinian mines. Yet there was a new and more serious charge against Christians making its appearance in Africa during these years. The charge of treason would be the tool increasingly used against key Christians over the next three-quarters of a century.
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Return to the Lecture/Essay Table of Contents for Part I.
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Most recently edited 3 April 2008.