The ancient Roman world (src: Ryan Reeves)

Video

• Link to recording segments on Dropbox

Summary

At the time the gospel spread throughout the Mediterranean in the first century AD, it mostly traveled through parts of the world under Roman control. For this reason, it is beneficial to examine Roman society and culture to help us get a better understanding of this world of the Early Church. Roman society influenced both Jewish and Christian communities and religious expression, and while the New Testament may have ended up written in Greek not Latin, the influence of Roman society and culture can nonetheless be felt all throughout, once you know to look for it.

Content

Video intro: the Roman world

Video clip from Ryan Reeves

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• There is symbolism in the fresco on top of the Sistine chapel in Rome, with the fresco of the Creation of Adam. Here, we look at this piece of art more as an interesting tangent, but some scholars spend their lives studying the meaning behind historical art.
• This work was painted by Michelangelo in the early 1500s, during the Italian Renaissance.
• Why do we care about this painting in the context of the Ancient Roman world?
  • Pope Julius II was responsible for funding large chunks of the Italian Renaissance.
  • A good chunk of the Italian Renaissance was authors, artists, and scholars reaching back towards the glories of Ancient Rome in their works.
  • Pope Julius II takes on the name “Julius” in part as a nod to Julius Caesar, styling himself as a Christian version of the man who established the glories of the Roman Empire.
• And that brings us to the main point: what exactly was Ancient Rome?
  • What was it like? What was the Roman Empire? What did it mean to be Roman?

Follow-on topics:

• When we examine art, particularly that of a fundamentally religious nature, I am always a bit squeamish from a theological perspective. Art may be beautiful and well-done from a technical point of view, but what about the theology?! (When’s the last time you heard that in an art history lecture: “Now sirs, you see our boy Michelangelo had some fundamental misapprehensions about the Creation of Adam…”).
  • I’m only half kidding here.
  • For example, consider that in The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo has God pointing at Adam (as if that was what created him), but we have from scripture that God “breathed into” Adam (Genesis 2:7), and that is when Adam became alive. The “breath of life” (Hebrew: רוּחַ, ruach; Greek: πνεῦμα, pneuma) is an important theological concept, and its omission is in no way forgivable here. One might argue that it is difficult to depict artistically (unlike pointing), but that is exactly why these sorts of artistic representations are dangerous. What does “easy to represent artistically” have to do with “good Bible teaching”? The answer should be “nothing whatsoever”. In practice, people seem a bit blind to the risks here.
  • As another glaring example, consider that the movie The Passion of the Christ spends a great deal of its runtime attempting to demonstrate Jesus’ brutal physical suffering during the Passion. However, it fails, in my opinion, to adequately point out that the physical suffering is a metaphor for the spiritual suffering of Christ for our sins, and that is what truly matters. Far be it from me to minimize the physical suffering Jesus experienced, but the point is that if you put the emphasis there (as opposed to the spiritual suffering for our sins), the theology is all wrong, when it comes to atonement theories and the like.<!– — –>
• Anyway, back on topic: what art may lack in theology, it certainly does not lack in utility to us as historians. Art is of enormous importance in helping us understand what people throughout history thought—what they valued or strove for, their ideals and goals, and how they saw themselves.
  • And few connections in art history are as strong as the borrowing the Italian Renaissance made of Ancient Roman culture.
  • (Sidenote: A few centuries later, the Fascists did the same thing under Mussolini, but that’s a discussion for a different time…)
  • If there is one thing you should get from all this, it should be that the impact of Roman culture on Western Society should not be underestimated in the least. The importance for us as Christians is even more pronounced, since there is plenty in the Bible that requires an understanding of Roman culture to interpret properly.
• If you are interested in these matters (i.e., the relationship between the ancient and not-so-ancient with respect to the history of Rome under the Roman Republic and eventually Empire, and then Renaissance and Fascist re-interpretations), the notes I took from my study abroad trip to Rome in college are chock-full of this sort of thing, since our main lecturing professor was an art historian. It’s fascinating stuff.

Further discussion

Rome and conquest

Video clip from Ryan Reeves

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• Roman armies conquered many lands over the span of several hundred years.
• All said an done, Rome eventually controlled more than one million square miles. Consider the sheer magnitude of that in a pre-industrial age.
• Two important parts of conquest:
  • Syncretism of pagan worship
  • Oppression of other nations
• After conquering people, how do you ensure they will not continuously rebel?
  • One way: when not fighting, turn your soldiers into a powerful civil engineering corps—building aqueducts, roads, and more. Conquered peoples come to benefit from these engineering feats, improving quality of life.
  • But that only works close to the core. Out on the margins of the Empire, Rome always had to worry about uprisings.
• Conquered Judea was out on the borders.

Follow-on topics:

• Rome’s fear of kings and uprisings on the borders is plenty present in scripture. Consider how the Pharisees and Sadducees attempted to tar and feather Jesus with the title of “King” to bring down Rome’s wrath upon him. Does it now perhaps make more sense why that strategy was so immediately effective, and sort of tied Pilate’s hands even though he knew Jesus was innocent?
  • If he had even the appearance of loss of control at the borders, his superiors would be merciless. This is how the Empire functioned.

Further discussion

The formation of the Empire

Video clip from Ryan Reeves

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• Circa 509 BC: foundation of the Roman Republic
  • Sometimes people start only with Caesar, but you have to remember Rome was a dominant empire for hundreds of years as a Republic, before it ever had an emperor.
• Republic:
  • No single ruler: no tyrants or dictators
  • Senate is the voice of the people.
    • Dr. Reeves’s video doesn’t mention it (presumably due to space considerations), but there was also a complicated system of governance in the Republic consisting of both Consuls and Tribunes of Plebs. There were checks and balances.<!– — –>
• All this changes with Julius Caesar
  • Very successful Roman general
  • Had rivals, eventually escalating into civil war
  • Caesar crosses the Rubicon (a taboo for generals with standing armies) into the heart of the Roman Peninsula, to come after a political opponent.
  • Eventually, he wins. Senate grants him title of imperator. At first, was a word for a victorious military commander more than an emperor proper. Caesar attempts to mask what he is doing, even though by all accounts, he as a single individual does holds the reins of power.
• Caesar assassinated 15 March 44 BC - “The Ides of March”.
  • Caesar was popular. He was a dictator, but he had the will of the people.<!– — –>
• Caesar’s heir: Octavian. Only takes title “Augustus” (loosely meaning “Great One” or “The August Person”) later. Only 18 when he is named heir.
• He has complicated relationship to Mark Antony, who had sort of been Julius Caesar’s right hand man.
• In battle of Actium (31 BC), Octavian defeats Mark Antony in a great sea battle, and becomes the sole ruler of Rome.
• Octavian’s rule
  • Does not press authority like Caesar
  • The Principate (princeps): Octavian presents himself as “first among equals”, which was more palatable to the egos of the Roman Senators.

Follow-on topics:

• I want us to compare and contrast Julius Caesar and the Roman people’s love for him to when the people of Israel ask for a king in 1 Samuel 8.
  • History makes much of “the right of Kingship”, but I would argue a cynical definition of the “the right of Kingship” is that the citizenry likes you enough that they don’t immediately assassinate you.
  • The point is, kings are typically by the will of the people. But what people want isn’t always good for them. When the Israelites asked for a king, the got Saul, and all that went along with that. Of course, God worked it for good and eventually established the Davidic kingdom in Israel, but David is only a “type” of Christ, who is our true King, although His Kingdom is not of this world.
  • Typology in biblical interpretation: some people/events/events/etc. prefigure or foreshadow other people/events/etc. and thereby “represent” them, even though they are not them. Very, very common in biblical prophecy, and is a fundamental bedrock of proper interpretation in theology.
• Compare also the Greeks’ distaste for kings, like we talked about last week. This is one place where the ideals of the Romans come to diverge from the Greeks.

Further discussion

The Roman golden age

Video clip from Ryan Reeves

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• The age that establishes Rome in the eyes of all the centuries of people that come after.
• Even after Octavian wins and brings peace, there are still two perennial issues facing the Empire:
  • Role and cost of the army
  • Lack of clear succession
• For systems of rule founded upon might and military success, there is always a threat of civil war, and the possibility for another powerful man to be like “well if he’s Emperor and obtained that position through military victory, why can’t I go and do likewise?”

Follow-on topics:

• The line of Caesars (i.e., the Julio-Claudian emperors) actually shows up in biblical prophecy dealing with the end times, in Revelation 17:11, where the Antichrist is said to be the “seventh king in the line of Caesars”. This point is often not understood properly by interpreters, but is an important point in terms of understanding how Antichrist will relate to so-called “Revived Rome” during the end times. My mentor has writing on his site that explains all this: email response, section of a study.
• I should point out here that the fact that the Antichrist is linked to the Julio-Claudian line of Emperors makes it powerfully ironic that leaders in the Catholic Church for centuries adopted cultural associations with the Caesars as a form of propaganda. Like our boy Julius II who we talked about at the beginning of our lesson today, who adopted his name in part to create associations to the powerful pull of the name of Julius Caesar.
  • But is this really a line you want to be associated with? A proper understanding of scripture would suggest not!
  • Of course, Julius Caesar and Augustus are not so obviously problematic as Caligula and Nero, but you get the idea.

Further discussion

The Roman army (at a high level, at the time of the Empire)

Video clip from Ryan Reeves

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• I would be remiss as a historian if I did not point out that most of what we say here are generalities and high-level points only. The Roman army was complicated and changed much of the course of the Empire (not to mention that it also existed for hundreds of years before that during the time of the Republic).
• The Roman army is the driving force behind the expansion and stability of the Roman empire.
• I don’t quite agree with Dr. Reeves characterization of members of the army providing their own equipment at the time of the Empire. The army by this time had become more professional, as I understand it, which would mean that some resources were provided for the soldiers by the state.
• Same deal with some of the formal ranks in the army (hastati/princeps/triarii): I think many of these were more of a thing in the Republic. Of course, even then at that time, battles are seldom clean precise affairs so…
  • See what I mean about generalizations and high-level?
• Roman army had strict discipline:
  • At the individual level, punishment for cowardice: fustiarium. Get beaten to death.
  • At the level of a maniple/unit: decimation. Every tenth man would be put to death.
  • As you can imagine, these things incentivized order and not abandoning one’s station.
• Despite what you might think from the above, people generally wanted to be part of the Roman army.
  • Not only for glory, but was a path for non-citizens to gain Roman citizenship, if you got honorably discharged.

Follow-on topics:

• There are several Roman centurions who show up in the biblical narrative, and honestly, they come off looking pretty good.
  • I especially like the case where Jesus marvels at the faith of the centurion who explains to Jesus that if Jesus just says the word, his servant would be healed, because as one under authority, he knows how authority works. (This is Matthew 8:5-13).
  • If you’ve ever wondered why Jesus expressed such amazement at this man’s faith, it is because this statement is showing that the centurion properly recognizes that Jesus has the authority to, from a distance, command that his servant would be healed, and that it would happen. He recognizes Jesus’s inherent right to command Creation.
• Where would his understanding of authority come from? From the organization of the Roman army!

Further discussion

Roman culture

Video clip from Ryan Reeves

Summary points and follow-on topics

Summary points:

• Romanitas - The Roman character they wanted to establish in of their empire, including conquered territories.
• Romans did have class distinctions, but by far the most important thing for the Roman culture was the legal status of being a Roman citizen.
  • Being a citizen was the quintessential part of Romanitas.
• The Apostle Paul very effectively made use of his Roman citizenship during his missionary journeys.
• Virtues associated with Romanitas:
  • Self-control: austere, not enslaved to their baser desires.
  • Virtuous: oaths, vows to be taken seriously. To do everything aboveboard, with honor.
    • Honesty
  • Conservative: mos maiorum - “the custom of our ancestors”. Living in accordance with inherited values was an important part of Romans’ self-definition.<!– — –>
• Augustine, City of God: points out that Romans very often failed to live up to these supposed values. Cf. the slave trade active during the time of the Empire.
  • By 50 BC, have what is estimated to be more than 6 million slaves. As much as 1/3 of the Roman populace is part of the slave establishment.
  • Roman desire for slave labor is part of what fueled their expansion. Conquered people become slaves.
• Contradictions of Roman culture
  • Sweeping romanticism of the Roman ideal, of austerity and virtue and excellence
  • But if you were a woman, a child, a slave, you were on the margins of slavery. Rome also had oppression. Ineligible to receive the full benefits of Roman citizenship.
• Christian world cut across the grain of this Romanitas.
  • Christians reached out to slaves, to women.
  • Flat hierarchy, equality. (Well, until the power centralization of the Catholic Church…)
  • Virtue is not personal excellence on one’s ow strength and power, but admitting one’s insufficiency, and leaning on Christ.

Follow-on topics

• Slavery is an important theme that recurs throughout scripture. Understanding the institution of Roman slavery can thus help us better understand and interpret some parts of scripture.
• Christianity is fundamentally subversive:
  • Equality for women; no distinctions to divide us (like Roman citizenship!), but unity in Christ.
  • Not personal achievements that determine virtue, but trusting in God’s strength through the redemptive power of the cross.

Further discussion

Review Questions

Coming soon!