Rome and the Jews

 

Introduction

The edict of Cyrus in 538 BC. gave permission for the exiles to return to their homeland, to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, and live according to the statutes of Nehemiah and Ezra. It was the less well to do of the exiles, the “poor” and the fanatics, who took on Cyrus on his offer and went home. This did not entail political independence, neither from the Persian overlord nor his Seleucid successors. It did not even entail statehood, and there were renewed deportations under Artaxerxes Ochus (359-338 BC.).

“The small community of exiles, driven out by foreign rule, and brought back again by a change in the hands wielding that rule, began their new establishment by abruptly repelling the remnants of their kinsmen left behind to work the land for the invaders, and so laid the foundation for the irreconcilable feud between Jews and Samaritans. The ideal of national exclusiveness and priestly control holding the mind in chains had long before the Roman period developed under the government of the Seleucids the so called Mosaic theocracy, a clerical corporation with the high-priest at its head, which, acquiescing in foreign rule and renouncing the formation of a state guarded the distinctiveness of its adherents, and dominated them under the aegis of the protective power. This retention of the national character in religious forms, while ignoring the state, was the distinctive mark of later Judaism” (Mommsen).

However the Jewish population in Palestine was only a fraction of the Jewish communities in Babylonia, Syria, Anatolia, Egypt, and the Cyrenaica. (Cicero, Pro Flacco, 28:68; Strabo, frag. 6, Josephus, Antiquities, XIV, 7:2; Wars II, 16:4, VII, 3:3; Philo, In Flaccum, 7; Seneca, frag. 41-43; Augustine, City of God 6:10; Acts 2:9-11). To some extent they were creations by Alexander’s, the Seleucids’ and the Ptolemys’ colonial policies. (Josephus Contra Apion, II:4, Antiquities XII:1; Appian Syr. 50).

Alexandria was as much a city of the Jews, as of the Greeks. Augustus’ census reckoned that there were one million Jews living in Egypt. In the Ionian cities of Greece, Augustus attempted to rewrite the charters of civil privileges and confronted the Jewish quarters (or ‘collegia’) with the alternative, either to withdraw from their faith, or to assume full responsibility as active participants in the municipal administration. His colleague in office, Agrippa, however decided in favor of the status quo and confirmed the exemption from military service for Jews, and their Sabbath as legal privileges. Previously this could be conceded only by individual governors or the communities of the Greek provinces (Josephus, Antiquities XII, 3:2; XVI, 2:3-5).

“Augustus further directed the governors of Asia not to apply the rigorous imperial laws respecting unions and assemblies against the Jews” (Mommsen).

This was a sensitive issue. Even a confident emperor, such as Trajan (98-117 AD.), expressed concerns over security, when a provincial governor asked for permission to set up a professional fire brigade in Nicomedia (Pliny the younger, Letters X:24), a quiet place not exactly known for political upheavals. The Roman government was aware that legislative privileges for Jews could carry the seed of race hate and civil war into the local townships.

All over the East and on equal footing with Greek communities, the Jews had been granted political charters with their own courts and civil jurisdiction. All that was required from them, was use of the Greek language. This extended well into Palestine, where Aramaic had replaced Hebrew. The process of Hellenizing had been well under way long before Judas Maccabeus. If for nothing else, this is born out by the Greek names of the last high priests before the Maccabees and by most of the names of the Hasmoneans themselves, such as Onias III., Jason, Menelaus, and Alcimus (Josephus Antiquities XII, 5:1, 9:7).

So Jerusalem was already a Hellenistic city, even before the Seleucids intervened. In Egypt, Ptolemy II, Philadelphus (309-246 BC.) ordered the sacred scriptures of the Jews to be translated into Greek. During this period the knowledge of Hebrew among the Jews in Alexandria was just as rare, as among Christian readers is the knowledge of the original Greek of the New Testament. The affluent Judaism of the Hellenistic Diaspora was anything but exclusive. The gospels tell of rabbis who traveled land and sea to make a proselyte. Gentile “friends of the faith” could expect to be admitted without being circumcised. Still: “Owing to the barrier which their deeply rooted religious observances formed around them, the Jews never became absorbed in the surrounding populations” (Richard Gottheil).

All the same, for the Gentile tax payer Judaism was an attractive proposition. The civil privileges conferred on Jews by the Lagids and Seleucids induced a great number of non-Jewish Orientals to attach themselves to this privileged category of denizens in the eastern townships. Women in particular felt drawn to the Jewish faith.

Poppaea Sabina, Nero’s wife, a woman with an impeccable Roman pedigree, was known for her pious Jewish faith and her zealous patronage of Jews. Even royal houses, such as King Izates from Adiabene and his entire family, converted to Judaism (Josephus Antiquities XX, 7:1,3). However the Jews’ undisguised contempt for the Hellenic cults, pageants, and gymnastic displays, and their uncompromising religious propaganda, didn’t make them the most popular people on Earth, especially not among the Greeks.

In Parium and Tralles, the exercise of Jewish religion was prohibited by law (Josephus Antiquities XIV, 10:8). At Seleucia in Iraq, Greeks and Syrians killed more than 50,000 Jews in a pogrom (Josephus Antiquities XVIII, 9:9). How little has changed. During the Jewish War, Jews in Syria suffered from daily assaults and the city council of Antioch demanded their deportation. But when the Romans decreed protection, they meant it. In Halicarnassus any attempt, private or municipal, to obstruct Jewish observances was subject to fines (Josephus Antiquity XIV, 10:23). For a similar offence in Rome the future pope Calixtus did time in the Sardinian mines (Hippolytus, Philosophumena, 9:12). We notice an other act of deliberate anti-Semitism by the Christian clerical establishment even in its early days but the intellectuals of the period, Gentile and Jewish, used to treat each other with respect.

Nicolaus of Damascus, himself a Gentile and noted peripatetic philosopher, carried diplomatic missions to Augustus and Agrippa on behalf of his Jewish client, Herod the Great. Jews held senior positions in the Empire’s administration.

Tiberius Alexander was first governor in Judea and later chief of staff under Nero’s general in Syria, Corbulo. He was also responsible for preparing the campaign against Judea that eventually would lead to the fall of Jerusalem. Philo of Alexandria (BC. 20-50 AD.) attempted to be the intermediary between Judaism and Platonism. Pseudo Longinus’ brilliant essay On the Sublime might be the work by a Jew. As long as the Temple in Jerusalem remained in operation, it functioned as the spiritual center of Judaism everywhere in the world, not unlike the Vatican or the Kaaba. Every member of a Jewish community was obliged to pay annually a “didrachmon” as tribute to the Temple in the homeland, which came in more regularly than the taxes to the state. Everybody was expected, at least once in his life, to pay Zion a visit and to sacrifice on Jehovah’s own real estate.

With Rome in charge the Temple fell under the jurisdiction of the pontifex maximus, the chairman of the board for all legally acknowledged cults in the realm, an office often held by the incumbent emperor. An imperial stipend provided funds for a daily sacrifice on the emperor’s behalf. An incident like Jesus’ alleged standoff on the Temple’s precinct much more offended the Roman authorities as it would have challenged the Sanhedrin. Rome had conceded to the spiritual chiefs of the Jews sufficient autonomy to raise their own taxes beyond the borders of Palestine and even beyond the borders of the Empire. This was an unique and ill advised privilege.

It invited financial interventions from the powers abroad, and especially the Persian regime did use this influence to stir up trouble and support one or the other faction or terrorist group in Palestine. It also created an internal dualism in the civil administration, since it permitted the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem to hold authority and civil jurisdiction over all the Jews everywhere in the Empire. When the Sanhedrin allegedly authorized Paul to round up Jewish heretics in Damascus, he would have acted within the Sanhedrin’s rights and could have counted on Roman cooperation.

The regime in Rome became aware of the implications. So the Romans were careful that the autonomous bodies of Jews in the East never became a model for the Western part of the Empire. There was toleration of their faith and Emperor Augustus favored a Jewish colony in the Roman suburbs. He even supplemented his largess for those who on account of the Sabbath had missed the payout (Philo, de legatione). Yet personally the emperor avoided all contact with Jewish worship.

In fact the Jews may have been privileged "peregrini," but legally they remained foreigners and were deprived of all the rights and honors to which a citizen in the cities of Greece and in the Roman state was entitled. Which meant the Jews were subjected to taxes, from which the citizens were exempt. In the Greek cities they were required, as a matter of principle, to pay a municipal poll tax imposed upon foreign residents. The way out was to obtain the privilege of citizenship, which alone could assure full equality. This was bound to create difficulties for every Jew loyal to his faith: the right of citizenship made it difficult to maintain the privilege of fiscal and judicial autonomy and of exemption from military service.

The corporate charter of a city in those days required the worship of deities common to all the inhabitants which effectively excluded the Jews. The geographer Strabo (63-3 BC.), in his census of the four classes of inhabitants in Libya, made a distinction between Jews and citizens (Josephus, Antiquities XIV, 7:2). Philo declared that the Jews consider as their "real homeland" the country they inhabit (Philo In Flaccum, 7) and we hear that rights of citizenship were indeed accorded to individual Jews: in Acts, Paul is depicted calling himself a citizen of Tarsus (Acts 21:39) and even claims the privilege of Roman citizenship (Acts 16:37-39). Somebody here was desperate to provide his protagonist with the right credentials - rabbinic education and Gentile legal status.

Roman citizenship was a way to avoid all problems with local jurisdiction; it carried advantages even in Greek cities. Since the time of Cicero there had been an electorate of Jewish citizens in Rome. (Philo, de legatione 23; Cicero, Pro Flacco, 28; Acts 6:9). In Ephesus, Sardis, and Anatolia, a considerable number of Jews possessed Roman citizenship (Josephus Antiquity, XIV, 10:13, 14, 16-19). In Jerusalem, in 66 AD., we hear of Jews who were Roman knights (Josephus, Wars II, 14:9).

However a Jew who had Roman citizenship did not possess the "jus honorum," unless he abjured, like Tiberius Alexander, his national customs. The same thing was true of a Roman who embraced the Jewish faith. Gradually a new identity, somewhat corresponding to a citizenship of the empire (Ulpian, L, 3; Digesta, L, 2:3) replaced the old system of regional citizenships. In 212 AD., Caracalla's Constitutio Antoniniana conferred Roman citizenship on every free man in the Empire. An empire of the nations, became a Roman nation state. (Digesta, I. 5). Jews now became eligible for the "jus honorum," and the exercise of all civil rights, "connubium, commercium, testamenti factio," and could even hold guardianship over non-Jews (Modestin, L, 15:6, Digesta XXVII, 1). They now had all the rights of citizens, but continued to exercise only those which did not contravene their religion.

The pious Jew would neither dine at the table of a Gentile nor receive him at his own table. He would not go to the theaters, the circuses, the gymnasia, nor even read a secular book, "unless it be at twilight." Mixed marriages were something unheard of. And yet Josephus, Philo, and even Seneca, presented the entire world as rushing toward Jewish observances (Josephus, Contra Apion II, 39; Seneca, Augustinus Civis Dei, VI:11; Philo, De Vita Moysis, 2). Other authors of the period made it a point to distinguish the Jews by race from the Jews by adoption "gentis eiusdem vel simila sectantes" (Suetonius, Tiberius 36; Dio Cassius, XXXVII, 17).

 

 

Chronology

 

196 BC.

The Roman Senate abolishes all tax exemptions for clerics of any denomination.

 

186 BC.

The accusations by a prostitute lead to the prosecution and death sentence of 7000 members of a new cult, the Bacchanalia, which had made its first appearance in Etruria (Livy, Histories 39:8-19).

 

180 BC.

The prosecutions drag on and the prosecuting official complains that he has to press charges against another three thousand people. The incident is of importance because it did set a legal precedent which affected the legislation and policies towards foreign cults, such as Christians and Jews, in the future.

 

168 BC.

Antiochus Epiphanes IV (175-164 BC.) of Syria sets out on a campaign against Egypt. On the march he receives an ultimatum by the Roman Senate. The king doesn’t dare to ignore it and in his anger turns on the population in Judea and their national and religious institutions (1 Macc. 1:30-67, 2 Macc. 5:24 to 7:41).

 

167/6 BC.

This triggers Judas Maccabee’s uprising against the Seleucid dominance. From the numbers given in the book one can gather how small Judas’s band of guerilla fighters must have been (1 Macc. 3:1-26, 3:27-4:25; 2 Macc. 8).

 

161 BC.

Judas Maccabee sues for support in the Roman Senate (I Macc. 25:16-24). Soon after he dies in battle (1 Macc. 9:21). The last high priest of the old theocracy, Onias IV, goes to Egypt into exile and with Ptolemy IV Philometor’s permission is errecting a new Temple in Leontopolis in Lower Egypt, the only other place apart from Jerusalem where Jews of the post-exilic era have performed sacrifices. It is meant to become the new center of Judaism and to replace the desecrated shrine in Jerusalem (Josephus, Wars VII, 10:3).

 

161-143 BC.

Jonathan Maccabee slowly consolidates the Jewish possessions in Palestine and from the Seleucids in Syria receives the insignia of the high-priest, together with additional territory in Samaria, and with assurances for his military and civil authority over Judea (1 Macc. 9-10, 10:67-89).

 

142 BC.

The Hasmonean regime negotiates a permanent treaty with the Seleucids and establishes political autonomy, the first Jewish state after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. Jonathan is crowned King of Judea. But the rationale of the Zionists under Nehemiah and Ezra had been that there should be no monarchy, not of the house of David nor by anybody else. This is still remembered and it creates a rift between the factions in the camp of the Hasmonens own supporters. In fact it remains part of the controversy between Sadducees and Pharisees well to the fall of Jerusalem in 71 AD. and beyond, the Pharisaic position being that, although statehood is desirable, it is a good thing only, if under theocratic rule. Naturally the man sitting on the throne begs to differ.

 

139 BC.

The first Jewish enclave in Rome. The Roman Senate has a dim view of their proselytizing and the praetor Hispalus, issues a deportation order for Jews to leave the city on ten days notice (Valerius Maximus I: 32).

 

135 BC.

John Hyrcanus succeeds to the throne and annexes the whole of Samaria and Idumea. The population in Idumea is given the choice of either circumcision or exile. The internecine controversy with the Pharisees intensifies (Josephus, Ant. XIII, 10:5, 6; the Talmud even accuses Hyrcanus of murdering prominent figures in the movement, Talmud, Kidd 66a).

 

103 - 76 BC.

Jannaeus Alexander, King of Judea. His entire reign is a story of bitter strife with the Pharisees. (Josephus Antiquities XIII, 5:9).

 

93 BC.

At the feast of Tabernacles, King Jannaeus officiates as his own high-priest and publicly makes a mockery of the ceremony. A common occurrence among the Hellenized elite of the period. In Rome round about this time it is said, a priest officiating at the Haruspices suddenly looked at his colleague and asked him how he could keep a straight face. In front of the populace, both priests doubled with laughter. In Jerusalem the Pharisees in the crowd are outraged. The king calls in his guards and in the ensuing massacre it is alleged that some 6,000 people died. The Pharisees appeal to Syrians for aid. King Jannaeus repels the invading army of the Syrians and nails 800 Pharisees to the cross (sic!) (Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 13,5).

 

75 BC.

Alexander’s wife Salome succeeds as the new queen. She draws on support from the Pharisees, who now are beginning to call for a theocracy even if that should mean the loss of political independence. Queen Salome recalls the exiles, and for the first time the legend on the coinage uses the term “Sanhedrin.”

“Although Salome held the title, the Pharisees held the real rule of the country, and they administered it with the harshness, insolence, and recklessness of a fanatical religious party which suddenly obtains unlimited power. All who were suspected of Sadducean leanings were removed by intrigue or violence from the Sanhedrin. Previous ordinances differing from Pharisaical views were abrogated, and others breathing the new spirit substituted. So sweeping and thorough was the change, that the Sadducees never recovered their former status, and those in office were obligated in all time coming to conform to Pharisaic practice” (Josephus, Antiquities XIII, 1:4; 16:2).

 

67 BC.

King John Hyrcanus II accedes to the throne. It leads to civil war with his brother Aristobulus II who deposes John and drives him into exile. Sadducees and Pharisees are in open civil war. The Pharisees of the period can be best described as a fundamentalist movement with strong support in the peasantry. Sadducees represented a more urban, even cosmopolitan class of hellenized merchants and aristocrats. The conflict is fought with all the mindless brutality of a religious war.

 

63 BC.

The senate bestows on Pompeus extraordinary executive powers to conduct a campaign in the East. He sends Gabienus and Scaurus as ambassadors to broker an agreement between the Jewish factions. The attempt fails, partly because of high handed interventions by Gabienus who strips off the Jewish possessions along the sea board, divides the state into five independent administrative districts, reduces the country to a state of single city-domains and petty principalities, and takes away Hyrcanus’ secular privileges. A delegation of 200 Pharisees appeals to Pompeius directly to intervene and reinstate John Hyrcanus II as the high-priest.

Pompeius obliges, but in order to do so is compelled to lay siege to Jerusalem and take Aristobulus prisoner. He then repeals most of Gabienus’ measures. He leaves the temple’s treasure untouched and makes provisions for the continuance of the service, but not without entering the holiest of holiest in the temple, and see for himself, what all the fuss is about. (Orosius 6:6; Dio 37:15; Plutarch Pompeius 41:42; Florus 1:39; Josephus, Antiquities XIV, 3:3,4). He is not impressed and leaves the premises with a shrug.

 

61 BC.

The Roman Senate endorses only some of Pompeius’ dispositions and confirms Hyrcanus II as “Ethnarch” in Judea. But the newly established autonomy of the Greek cities along the seaboard is left untouched, the Judean supremacy over Samaria lifted, and the Decapolis released into self-government (Josephus, Antiquities XIV, 10).

 

59 BC.

The Senate is alarmed by the annual drain of bullion in Italy, most of which is collected and exported as temple-tax to Judea. In Anatolia the propraetor Flaccus confiscates the Jewish temple-tax collected in Asia Minor. Jewish clients through their patron in Rome press charges. Flaccus’ defense attorney is non other than Cicero (Cicero, Pro Flacco, 28). The principal tax for the Temple in Jerusalem was the didrachma, an annual poll-tax raised by the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem from each Jewish adult at home and abroad (Philo, De Legatione 23). This always had provoced vigorous opposition from the Greek municipalities.

 

55 BC.

Crassus, the triumvir, plunders the Temple and repeals the tax privilege of the Sanhedrin. Which of course gives cause to a heady anti-Roman sentiment not just with the fanatics in the hills but in the urban districts and in the diaspora as well. Cicero publishes Lucretius Carus’s atheistic poem De Rerum Natura. Lucretius’s objective was to free man's mind of superstition (meaning religion) and the fear of death. His poem became a landmark in Latin prosody and, despite clerical opposition, it’s survival stimulated the humanitarian rationalism of a much later age.

 

47 BC.

For his services to Caesar the Dictator in Alexandria the Romans award Antipater with full Roman citizenship and the title “epitropos” (regent) of Judea (Caesar Bellum Civile, Plutarch Caesar. Appian, Civil War). The Jewish kingdom is granted complete freedom from dues, occupation and levy. Antipater appoints his sixteen year old son, Herod, as governor of Galilee. The young man launches a full scale campaign against the “bandits” (Josephus’ favorite term) in the hills of Galilee and executes their leader Ezekias. Herod gains popularity with the people and esteem with the Roman governor of Syria, but not with the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem (Josephus Antiquities XIV, 8:3,5, 10:5-6, Wars I, 9:5, II, 18:6). In Rome Julius Caesar reinstates the tax privilege of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

 

44 BC.

Caesar is assassinated. The triumvirs order an empire wide subscription. Judea is to supply five hundred eighty talents of silver bullion (15,000 kg.). The money is provided but it causes an uprising in which Antipater loses his life. With Roman assistance, Herod apprehends and executes the assassins (Appian Civil War V:75). The subscription was an exceptional payment. But the only actual payment by Herod still on record is for the lease of territories from Cleopatra.

 

43 BC.

Hyrcanus’ nephew Antigonus makes his first bid for the throne. Herod drives him into exile, and marries Hyrcanus’ daughter Mariamne. The consul Lentulus raises two legions of Roman citizens in Asia. At the request of Jews with Roman citizenship, Dolabella, proconsul of Asia, grants their exemption from the draft (Josephus Antiquities XIV, 10:13). It is setting a precedent.

 

40 BC.

Aided by Parthia, Antigonus again invades Judea. Hyrcanus is deposed and mutilated, Antigonus styles himself “King Antigonus.”

 

37 BC.

Herod the Great pleads his case before the Roman Senate. With the assistance of two Roman legions he captures and executes Antigonus. The Parthian contingents take Hyrcanus II hostage and withdraw (Josephus Antiquities XIV, 9:5 – 11:4, Wars I, 10:8). Herod then consolidates his power largely based on the Samaritan and Idumaean contingents in his military.

 

33 BC.

On Herod’s demand Hyrcanus II is extradited to Judea.

 

30 BC.

The eighty year old Hyrcanus II is executed on the charge of treason. (Pharisean and Jewish tradition has remained hostile to the memories of the Maccabees ever since.)

 

29 BC.

Herod executes the last surviving Hasmonean: his own wife Mariamne (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 7; Wars I, 22).

 

22 BC.

Herod is beginning the reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 11:1). In the gospel according to John this date is suggested to be the year of birth for Jesus.

 

14 BC.

Augustus, again confirms the Sanhedrin’s tax privilege. It causes an outcry in the Greek cities of Greece, Anatolia and North Africa. Agrippa intervenes in favor of the Jews and with a series of edicts breaks the resistance in the Greek population (Josephus, Antiquities XIV: 6:2-7; Philo, De Legatione 40).

 

9 BC.

Herod constructs the new harbor and city of Caesarea and dedicates it to Augustus as a personal gift. A new Samaria is built and called Sebaste, from the Greek name for Augustus. Herod is building theatres, amphitheatres, and hippodromes for games, even at Jerusalem (Josephus, Antiquities XV, 8:1, XVI, 5:1; Wars I, 21:1, 5). It doesn’t exactly endear him to the religious establishment.

 

4 BC.

After 34 years of rule and after ten marriages, Herod the Great dies, one of the great benefactors of Hellenic culture in Greece, but hated at home, and in his political activities a jewel of cruelty. “The Jews, being delivered from Herod’s tyrannical rule, petitioned Augustus to put them under the jurisdiction of the legate of Syria. He, however, not willing to set aside Herod's will, gave to Archelaus the half of his father's kingdom, with the title of ethnarch, the royal title” (Josephus, Antiquities XVII, 8:2, 9:2). Archelaus’ territory included Judea, Samaria, and Idumaea with the cities of Jerusalem, Caesarea, Sebaste, and Joppa (Josephus, Antiquities XVII, 11:2, 4-5).

 

6 AD.

Archelaus arouses opposition by marrying his brother's wife and is accused of cruelty by his subjects. "Not able to bear his barbarous and tyrannical usage of them", Augustus banishes him to Vienne, in France (Josephus, Antiquities XVII, 9, 13:1-2). Augustus has no longer any choice and places the administration of Archelaus’ territories under the jurisdiction of the legate of Syria, with a governor for Judea residing in Caesarea (Josephus, Antiquities XVII, XVIII, 1:1).

Judah of Galilee (sic!) becomes the leader of a rebellion. Josephus describes him as a scholar and assassin. Judah declares paying tribute to Rome as a violation of Jewish religious law. Israel, he says, should have no king but God. Judah is apprehended and killed and his followers form a new terrorist organization, the Sicarii (Acts 5:37; Josephus, Wars 2:117-8, Antiquities 18.1-8). If going by the birthday given in John, Jesus would have been about 26 or 28 at the time and would not only have lived in Judah’s immediate neighborhood, but could even have participated in the events. That’s why Judas Iscariot is a character in the story as well. This is of course pure speculation, but it could explain why a knowledgeable writer like Luke, who knew his Josephus well, would place Jesus’ date of birth into the year 6 AD. It would exonerate Jesus from unsavory political affiliations. However it is rather telling that in the end even Luke has his Jesus advise the companions to sell their garments for swords.

 

19 AD.

After a scandal in the capital, a “senatus consultum” orders all Jews and the worshippers of Isis to evacuate Italy within a given period of time, or to cease practicing their rites. As a penal measure Emperor Tiberius orders the drafting of 4,000 Jews into the army and their deportation to Sardinia (Philo, de legatione 24, ad Gaium 36, Flaccus 1; Tacitus, Annales, 2:85 (the authenticity of the Annales  is not beyond reproach); Suetonius, Tiberius, 36).

 

26 AD.

The first year of Pilate’s tenure as “praefectus iudaeae” (indicated by Jn. 18:12) which is not a “procurator” as the Synoptics would have it. Pilate has repeated standoffs with the natives: "He provoked a fresh uproar by expending the temple treasure upon the construction of an aqueduct. The populace formed a ring round the tribunal of Pilate, and besieged him with angry clamor. He, foresaw the tumult and a troop of his soldiers in plain clothes and armed with batons mixed with the crowds. From his tribunal he gave the signal and in the stampede many Jews perished from the blows or trodden to death by the fleeing crowd" (Josephus Wars II.175-177, Antiquities XVIII, 60-62).

 

29 AD.

A native from Galilee, in his late forties or early fifties, according to John, has been allegedly executed. If we accept the story as it is told, the defendant’s conduct according to the gospels’ own testimonies (Mt. 8:21-22, 10:35, 19:29, 12:48-49, 27:11, 27:37; Mk. 15:2, 15:26; Lk.8:19-21, 9:59-60, 12:53, 14:26, 23:3, 23:38; Jn. 2:14, 6:15, 18:33, 19:7-8, 19:19) had made him liable to charges under the "Lex Julia Maiestatis," the 5^th commandment, and to charges of blasphemy. All of which was punishable by death.

The gospels give us the story of a man who had earned notoriety as a wandering exorcist (Mk. 1:39) and ferocious prophet of imminent doom (Mk. 1:15, 6:7, 6:11, 9:1(!), 13:26; Mt. 10:5; Lk. 9:62, 10:1; ). Mark has Jesus sending herds of possessed pigs over a non-existing precipice into a “nearby” lake some thirty miles away (Mk. 5:13). The real miracle here is the pigs. What had they been doing in a nice Jewish orthodox neighborhood? The absence of pig bones in ancient garbage dumps is how archeologists identify a Jewish settlement. Or did Jesus tour the villages with a herd of porkers in order to rough up the animals as a sign for his miraculous powers? I heard they still do this sort of thing in India.

Anyway, in a culture obsessed with demons, Jesus is presented as a typical cult leader, a conman who constantly refers to his melodramatic powers as an exorcist as the credential that would confirm his messages (Lk. 11:20). The authorities on the other hand saw no reason to think of Jesus as a man of learning, in the verbal exchanges they used “rabbi” as an ironic taunt. Even the common people marveled “how does this man know letters, having never learned?” (Jn. 7:15). But unlike the unlearned peasant only a genuine rabbi would have been in a position to catch Jesus fibbing when he pronounced: “Have ye not read in the law, how on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?” (Mt. 12:5). There is no such law.

So, with this in mind, John’s background story does check out. After years of a cat and mouse game with the authorities Jesus could no longer risk showing his face in Jerusalem. On the festivals the leader stays behind with a lame excuse: “You go up: I will not, for my time is not yet come.” Only after he'd received an ‘all clear,’ Jesus goes there too, “not openly, but as it were in secret” (Jn. 7:10). In the end even Luke, after he had so painfully contorted his genealogy in order to dissociate his Jesus from all possible connections with the notorious Sicarii (see above 6 AD.) suddenly is left with nothing better than make his hero instruct the companions to sell their garments for swords.

The gospels make Jesus face two different trials in the brief span of 24 hours: one before the Jewish High Priest and one before the Roman Governor.

Contrary to the anachronistic protestations in John’s gospel (18:31) before the fall of Jerusalem the Jewish authorities did have the authority to pass capital punishment by means of stoning, burning, or slaying, even extended their jurisdiction outside of Jerusalem as the evangelist himself is very well aware of (see Acts 6:12; 7:59 and 9:2). A session of the Sanhedrin at night, especially on the night to Passover, was of course strictly against the law, but the gospels are explicitly designed to besmirch the Jews. Only Luke couldn’t resist to show off with his knowledge and squeeze the session into the early morning, thus digging himself a hole with his timing. In his version people rush around in the jerky quickstep of silent motion pictures and after being brought before Pilate, Luke drags the defendant twice across town, from Pilate’s chambers to the tetrarch’s palace and back, with interrogations on both ends, all within thirty minutes. It would take more time to buy a sheep on the market. Also Deuteronomy (17:6 and 19:15) decrees that no person may be convicted on one testimony alone, which has been interpreted to exclude even a verdict on the strength of one’s own confession, which if true would make this provision the first habeas corpus to deter from interrogations under torture. So what is the meaning here when the Sanhedrin dismisses witnesses as untrustworthy (Mk. 14:59; Mt. 26:59-60) and passes a "verdict" based entirely on Jesus' own confession (Mk. 14:62-64; Mt. 26:65-66)? And would it not have been as simple as it was expedient to keep the prisoner in custody until after the festival, as Mark (14:2) has suggested? Why this rush?

There is only one possible explanation: Pilate was already waiting because he himself had issued the warrant for Jesus' arrest. John was aware of this possibility so he has the arrest carried out under the supervision of a Roman centurion (Jn. 18:12). His presence would be inexplicable without orders by his superior (Wellhausen). But the course of events is far from clear.

To begin with, we are supposed to believe that at Jesus’ arrest an act of armed resistance did not lead to additional arrests. John even named Peter as the man who unsheathed the sword. Then why was he allowed to go free? Peter was even left unmolested when he “followed afar off” and allegedly sat with Jesus’ captors at the same fire. Matthew alleges that at the arrest “all the companions forsook Jesus, and fled.” Everybody hurtled to Galilee into hiding, a good fifty kilometers on the trot. As it is, all the evangelists carefully avoid to explain by what authority Peter possibly could have witnessed proceedings which, according to custom and law, in both trials mostly happened behind closed doors.

The Romans were not only sticklers to protocol and procedure, they’ve written the book. But when Jesus is brought before Pilate we are treated to the grotesque caricature of a Roman judge who is hopping up and down from his high seat like a yo-yo and is going out of his way - and out of his chambers - to solicit a verdict with the mob in plain view. view. In those days the legal system was lacking a public prosecutor, but Roman law is also a stickler to the principle that there cannot be collective accusations: “The vain voice of the people is not to be listened to" (Codex  Justinianus  IX:47, 12). The prosecuting party therefore was required to hire an attorney to properly frame and present the charges and the Jewish council knew it. In Acts (24:1) we see the Sanhedrin appoint a prosecutor. In the gospels however the charges are not brought before Pilate at the beginning of the trial, nor placed before the defendant - so that he may frame his plea - but only bit by bit in the course of the proceedings (Jn. 19:7-8) by way of threats, blackmail, innuendo, and warnings shouted at the governor (Jn. 19:12 etc.). How Pilate could possibly find “no guilt” when the defendant was pleading guilty on all charges is never explained. Only a Jewish judge under the directive from Deuteronomy would have continued proceedings, because in a Jewish court a confession was not admissible and lese-majeste not a crime.

But why should a Roman judge observe Jewish law, especially this Roman judge who at the end of his tenure was going to be called to account for "briberies, insults, robberies, outrages and indecent assaults, constantly repeated executions without trial (sic!), ceaseless and supremely grievous cruelty" (Philo, De Legatione 301-3)?

To top it all, Pilate then is said to have offered the release of Barnabas, an already convicted criminal. The governor, too, was answerable to his superiors. It was exclusively the Emperor's prerogative to pardon a convicted man. Any violation of the imperial prerogative was a treasonable assumption of excessive powers and punishable under the Lex Julia. (Digesta 48,8,4 and Mommsen; also reflected in the right of appeal - see Acts 26:32). So what could possibly have compelled Pilate to open himself to legal actions and indictments on such from his perspective comparably insignificant matter?

Luke (23:4) makes it look, as if Pilate tried to move on the buck to Herod the Tetrarch. But there was no provision in the law for Pilate to delegate the governor's powers inherent in the Ius Gladii to a tetrarch or any other individual, (Digesta 1, 6, 6; 1, 21, 1; 50, 17, 70). Herod himself had full criminal jurisdiction in Galilee. He could follow up on an acquittal by Pilate with an investigation of his own and even pass capital punishment. It would have been a smooth move by the governor - deliver death, without being personally responsible - but that is not the story the gospels are telling us. Pilate did not acquit Jesus. But had he handed over a case of lese-majeste to the tetrarch without such acquittal, Pilate would have made himself answerable to charges and thus invite political blackmail, and this by the tetrarch, of all people, who was the Emperor's good friend, and up to this point in time Pilate's personal enemy (Lk. 23:7-12). Herod was not at all such insignificant figure as some analysts like to depict him. He held a seat in the Roman Senate and during stays in Rome his seniority gave him the position of Speaker of the House.

However Peter’s own words in this absurd charade betray that he hadn’t witnessed anything. In Acts he refers to Jesus as the one “whom they slew and hanged on a tree” (Acts 10:39).

Obviously in his Galilean hideout he had no way of knowing any better and the liturgical formula of the “Christ crucified” still waited to be invented. If Luke is to be trusted, the “resurrection” was proclaimed the first time in a place fifty kilometers away from Jerusalem and always by the same person who is asking us to take his word for it. “God raised up Jesus of Nazareth on the third day, and showed him openly,” Peter says, and now listen to this, “not to all the people, but unto chosen witnesses” (Acts 10:41). Here it is; the man says so himself. The oldest con in the world.

The uninvolved bystander sees absolutely nothing, no visions, no Je