Unfortunately, Tiberius did not fulfill these hopes. He succeeded in the sense of continuing the office and the practices of Augustus, but accomplished little on his own initiative. Suetonius describes him as a reluctant ruler who began by making sincere attempts to appease all his constituencies. But gradually, he succumbed to the pressures of governing such a vast empire. By the end of his reign, Tiberius was so obsessed with himself and his power that he reportedly engaged in all manner of immoral and depraved activities. At the same time, like Herod in Judea, he suffered from a destructive paranoia and ordered that all potential successors be put to death, including members of his own family. Eventually, Tiberius retreated permanently to the island of Capri.
Tiberius is also remembered for his cruelty toward religions outside the Roman mainstream. According to Suetonius, he went to great lengths to suppress Judaism and the Egyptian mystery rites, “ordering any who held such superstitious beliefs to burn all their religious vestments and instruments” (Tiberius 36). This opposition reflects a long-standing Roman suspicion of unusual religious activity, especially toward groups whose religious views tempered their enthusiasm toward the various expressions of piety that made up Roman religion. In this case, Egyptian cults eventually became a widely accepted part of the diverse religious practice in the empire, but the monotheistic Jews continued to be suspect.
The movement of Jesus followers that grew out of Judaism was in its infancy during Tiberius’s later years. Tiberius and his representatives would have had neither the ability nor the desire to distinguish between Jews who believed in Jesus as Messiah and the vast majority of Jews who did not. Any suppression of Judaism would have been felt equally by Jewish believers in Jesus, unless they had withdrawn from all of their traditional practices, which is unlikely at this early stage in the movement.
On the other hand, later Jesus followers were anxious to place their accounts of the early movement within the historical and chronological context of the Roman Empire. The Gospel of Luke was probably written around 90 CE, but the author was careful to detail the Roman power structure of an earlier age: Augustus as emperor and Quirinius as governor of Syria at the time of Jesus’ birth, and Tiberius ruling when John the Baptist began his ministry (Luke 2.1–2; 3.1).
Whether Tiberius was as harsh with the Jews as Suetonius indicates, he and his advisers no doubt deliberately selected Pontius Pilate as governor in Judea. A governor’s main duty was to oversee the emperor’s interests in the territory, which included maintaining order and dealing with potential sources of sedition. Whatever else Jesus might have been saying and doing in Pilate’s domain, his ability to keep a regular group of followers and to attract large crowds warranted close scrutiny. Although the New Testament condemns the Jewish authorities as responsible for Jesus’ death, Pilate as the local voice of Roman authority would have needed little encouragement to eliminate any source of potential insurrection. Pilate’s role in the execution of Jesus is recounted in vivid detail by the Gospel writers, but it is unlikely that a Roman governor would have become so directly involved in the execution of a criminal. Possibly, Pilate’s deputies dealt with Jesus and notified their superior. In any case Pilate would have noted the elimination of a potential revolutionary and included Jesus’ death in a regular report on activity in Judea. Tiberius, for his part, might have noted with satisfaction that the governor in Judea was doing his job.
Immediately after the death of Jesus, his followers must have been in a state of confusion and shock. Although the expectations for his mission differed, none could have anticipated the failure and death of their leader. Luke’s portrayal of two disciples on the road to Emmaus captures this mood of disappointment. For Luke this disappointment is ironic, since the disciples are discussing their uncertainties in the light of Jesus’ death, all the while talking with the resurrected Christ but not recognizing him (Luke 24.13–35). The belief that Jesus had risen served as the catalyst for the disciples to recover from their grief and begin spreading the good news throughout the Mediterranean world.
Luke also provides the only known record of this early mission in his second volume, Acts of the Apostles. Like the Gospels, Acts was written at least forty years after the death of Jesus, and decades of development within the movement influenced its account. It is impossible to know exactly what took place in those first years after the death of Jesus. Luke himself admits that he was not reporting as an eyewitness, but conveying oral tradition (Luke 1.1—2). What is clear is that the spreading of the message about Jesus was immensely successful. The combination of intentional proselytizing by individuals like Paul and the natural movement of believers meant that by the middle of the first century churches had been established in most of the major cities of the empire, including Rome.
Runaway Power: The Reign of Gaius
If the Roman legions had had their way, Germanicus rather than Tiberius would have succeeded Augustus. Germanicus died in 19 CE, but his son Gaius Julius Caesar inherited his position as heir to the empire. Nicknamed “Caligula,” the term for the small military boots he wore as a child, Gaius had inherited his father’s popularity with the armies and the people. According to later records, however, his tendency toward cruelty was apparent even before he came to power. Tiberius himself felt that allowing Gaius to live would prove the ruin of himself and of all people. Because of his immense popularity, however, Gaius was the unanimous choice of the senate as emperor when Tiberius died in 37 CE. Suetonius reports that he was welcomed by 160,000 sacrifices during the first three months of his reign (Gaius Caligula 11, 14).
Gaius came to power at the age of twenty-five, and although he is credited with extensive achievements, his attitude and actions proved to be a disappointment to the troops and others who had supported him. Caligula quickly embraced a more absolute sense of his authority and severely punished anyone who challenged it. The image of the princeps as a first among equals gave way to a sense of the emperor as monarch. There was probably little difference between Gaius’s power and that wielded by his predecessors, but Gaius was unwilling to feign humility.
Gaius claimed that being emperor made him equal with the gods and deserving of divine worship. Suetonius mentions that Gaius imported famous statues of the gods and ordered that likenesses of his head be substituted for the divinity’s. Gaius also set up a temple to his own divine spirit, complete with priests and exotic sacrificial victims (Gaius Caligula 22). The claim to divine honors outraged some Romans, so most emperors attempted to maintain a balance between modesty and offending those who wanted to pay homage to them. Gaius, however, had no such inclination to moderation.
Demanding and receiving divine honors, Gaius raged against anyone who refused to offer them. Thus the Jews, who would not worship any god but their own, were frequently the targets of the emperor’s wrath. The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria details what transpired when Gaius proposed to force the Jews to worship him by installing his statue in the Temple in Jerusalem (Legatio ad Gaium 30–42; a shorter and slightly different account of the same story is found in Josephus, Jewish War 2.10). Philo uses this account to illustrate the mental instability of Gaius, who had suffered a life-threatening illness in the eighth month of his reign. In Philo’s view, this illness caused a “turning to wildness, or rather bringing to light the savagery that he had hidden under the actor’s mask” (Legatio ad Gaium 22).
In trying to convince Gaius to abandon his plan to desecrate the Temple, Philo cites the example of the moderation of the deified Augustus in dealing with the Jews: “So highly did he regard our concerns that he and almost his whole family furnished our sanctuary with the richness of his offerings, commanding that perpetual burnt offerings should be made each day at his own expense as a tribute to the most high God” (Legatio ad Gaium 157). Although this description of respect for the Jews might be hyperbole, Philo wrote it only twenty-five years after the death of Augustus, so it could reflect a genuine level of tolerance. Philo cites examples from Tiberius
as well, and records that Gaius was eventually persuaded to abandon his plan to install his statue in the Temple, without changing his fundamentally negative disposition toward the Jews.
Philo concludes his discussion of Gaius with a description of an audience that he and other Jewish leaders from Alexandria had with the emperor. This embassy meets with Gaius in hope of defending their right to live peacefully in the city. Instead, Gaius becomes the accuser of the Jews in general: “Are you the god-haters who do not know me as a god, a god acknowledged by all others, but not named by you?” The Jewish delegation responds that they show their loyalty by offering regular sacrifice on behalf of the emperor, but Gaius is unmoved: “You have made offerings, but to another, even if it was for me. What good is it then, for you have not sacrificed to me.” Eventually, Gaius dismisses the Jewish embassy with an uncharacteristically mild rebuke, saying that they seemed “to be unlucky rather than evil, and to be foolish in not believing that I have been allotted the nature of a god” (Legatio ad Gaium 353, 357, 367).
Jewish followers of Jesus would have received the same harsh treatment. At this time the development of a mission to “the nations” began to bring non-Jews into the Jesus movement. This inclusion of Gentiles led to internal debates about whether one needed to be a Jew before being a follower of Jesus (Acts 10–11; 15; Gal. 1–5). The participation of non-Jews must also have raised the profile of the movement considerably. Paul makes it clear that he suffered persecution both from Jewish authorities and because of his efforts to bring Gentiles into the church (2 Cor. 11.24–26). When people who all their lives had worshiped the Greco-Roman gods and given due homage to the emperor suddenly refused to do so, social unrest arose. This no emperor could tolerate, and Gaius responded with brutality.
While the Jews and the Jesus followers lay at the mercy of the divine emperor’s moods, Gaius’s pretensions were also infuriating to more powerful members of society. After less than four years as emperor, Gaius Caligula was assassinated by soldiers of the Praetorian Guard assigned to protect him.
To Be or Not to Be a God: The Reign of Claudius
When Gaius Caligula died in 41 CE, some in the Roman senate sought to restore the republic. The military, on the other hand, saw an advantage in having only one ruler if he could be easily influenced. Having eliminated the uncontrollable Gaius, the Praetorian Guard felt that they had found a potential puppet in his fifty-year-old uncle, Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus. The troops took Claudius to their camp and declared him to be emperor. Eventually the senators capitulated and voted power to Claudius, who began a thirteen-year reign that would be more productive than either the senate or the army had anticipated.
After voting appropriate honors and titles to the new emperor, the senate attempted to dishonor Gaius Caligula officially. Claudius blocked this legislation, but on his own removed the name and image of his predecessor from all civic records. Remembering the reasons for Gaius’s downfall, the new emperor was especially careful about accepting honors that could be construed as excessive. In a letter to the citizens of Alexandria in Egypt, Claudius responded to the offer of honors by accepting some, such as a formal celebration of his birthday and statues erected to his family and to the peace secured by his reign (Pax Claudiana), but rejecting others. He adamantly refused the dedication to him of temples and priesthoods, saying that these were to be reserved for the gods. Claudius thus showed both an awareness of his own humanity and a respect for the consequences of claiming excessive honors.
This letter (Corpus papyrorum Judaicarum II153) illustrates the carefully balanced power relationships that held together the empire. When Claudius came to power, governing bodies in provincial cities like Alexandria rushed to show loyalty to the new emperor. After passing various honorific decrees, leaders in each city would send representatives to pay tribute and pledge support. It remained for the emperor to endorse these gestures, thereby ratifying the local actions. Through this reciprocal action, the emperor established a reliable contingent of powerful persons in the main cities, which in turn hoped to ensure future benefactions from the emperor.
This relationship made the cities dependent on the emperor’s approval for many of their actions. In his letter, Claudius responds to other questions that the Alexandrians raised about the local political and social structure. One concerns the institution of a lottery system for selecting priests for the temple of the deified Augustus. Ever since Augustus’s postmortem deification, cities had set up sacred structures and instituted religious rituals to honor the divine Augustus. At the same time, various religious rites involving the emperor were an important means of articulating the mutual relationships that held the empire together.
The structures, statuary, and other images associated with the emperor tangibly represented Roman power, even in distant provincial cities. At the same time, the rituals associated with the emperor allowed people to demonstrate their loyalty and pay honor to the power of Rome as manifested through the emperor. Priests of the divine Augustus stood at the intersection of this relationship, mediating the bonds of loyalty and patronage. As such, the Augustan priesthood was a highly significant and coveted position in the city. Citing earlier practice, Claudius stipulated that the priest should be chosen by lot, eliminating the possibility of divisive competition or the monopolization of the office by powerful families or groups.
The letter from Claudius to the Alexandrians also sheds light on a long-standing social conflict involving the Jewish population in the city. Representatives of both parties had defended their actions before the emperor, but Claudius was upset with everyone involved, and he used harsh language to express his anger. Claudius affirmed the rights of the Jews, who had lived in the city for many years, and, citing precedent from Augustus, insisted that they be allowed to follow their traditional religious customs. On the other hand, he reminded the Jews that they were aliens in the city, and warned them against trying to participate in civic functions where they were not welcome.
Apparently, some Jews were attempting to improve their status by joining in games and other activities. This intrusion prompted some Alexandrians to attack the Jewish community, at times violently. Claudius threatened to punish both sides if the dispute was not resolved, but he imposed extra restrictions on the Jews. Most notably, in order to relieve the xenophobic fears of the Alexandrians, the emperor prohibited further Jewish immigration into the city. These actions illustrated the Roman desire to maintain order, whatever the cost. Unlike Gaius Caligula, Claudius displayed no animosity toward the Jews or their religion, but he would not tolerate any activity that might upset the social order in this important provincial city. The same lack of tolerance is demonstrated in an incident involving Claudius and Jewish residents of Rome.
The second-century historian Suetonius notes in passing that Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because of a continuous disturbance caused by Chrestus (Claudius 25). It is possible that this refers to conflict within the Jewish community over the claims that Jesus fulfilled expectations for the anointed one, the Messiah, or Christos in Greek. If so, then by the mid-40s CE the Jewish population of Rome included some followers of Jesus. Exactly how the message of Jesus reached Rome is not clear. It may have been brought by missionaries, or by Jewish members of the movement who traveled or relocated to Rome. Apparently, these Jesus followers were willing to argue for their belief, creating a disturbance in the Jewish community and in the capital city. Moreover, if Chrestus does refer to Christ, this is the earliest reference to the activity of the Jesus movement outside Christian literature. The report is sketchy, but Suetonius seems to be describing a dispute involving the Jewish community, with no mention of the problems associated with Gentiles joining the churches.
For most Jews, Jesus had simply not lived up to what Jewish scriptures predicted for the coming Messiah. Jewish followers of Jesus, however, read many biblical passages as prophecies that Jesus had fulfilled. Those who did not see Jesus as the Christ were not persuaded by
such interpretations. They remained unconvinced by promises that Jesus would return to earth to complete the messianic work of setting up God’s kingdom. This disagreement about Jesus as Christ was the fundamental difference that eventually isolated the Jesus followers from Judaism, and caused the creation of a separate religion known as Christianity. During the reign of Claudius (41–54 CE), however, this complete separation still lay in the future. Claudius did not care at all about the details of the dispute over Chrestus, but once it led to social disorder, he acted swiftly and decisively to end it. The report by Suetonius may be exaggerated, but the expulsion order it describes was well within character for a Roman emperor.
The Eastern Mediterranean during the Roman Empire
After a reign that included many effective and harsh efforts to maintain order, Claudius died from other than natural causes. Agrippina, the wife of Claudius and mother of Nero, was the prime suspect, accused by Roman historians of assassinating her husband with poisoned mushrooms. Nero came to power and shortly thereafter eliminated his one rival, Britannicus, Claudius’s fourteen-year-old son.
Neither Tiberius nor Gaius had been deified after death, but the senate recognized Claudius as a god despite opposition. After the senate’s action, someone—probably Seneca, the philosopher and teacher of Nero—wrote a satirical account of Claudius’s deification. Known as the Apocalocyntosis (“pumpkinification”), this imaginative piece recorded a controversy among the gods as to whether the newest god, Claudius, should be admitted to the heavenly court. After rancorous debate, the divine Augustus himself spoke against Claudius because of his murderous cruelty, and the gods dispatched Claudius to Hades to stand trial for his crimes.
The Oxford History of the Biblical World Page 68