AD 33 E-Book

Colin Duriez

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 420

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008

Beschreibung

This is a portrait of one of the great years in world history. AD 33 was the year when an obscure religious teacher died a criminal's death in an outpost of the Roman Empire, an event which had world-changing consequences in the form of the beginnings of Christianity. What was the world like in that momentous year? In this breathtaking book, we find out about events in the Roman Empire and beyond in order to obtain a picture of the historical setting of the year of Christ's death.

Leseprobe

AD 33

COLIN DURIEZ is a writer and lecturer whose books include J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Story of a Friendship, A Guide to Middle Earth: Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, A Field Guide to Narnia and The Unauthorised Harry Potter Companion. He lives in Derwent Water in Cumbria.

AD 33

THE YEAR THAT

CHANGED THE WORLD

COLIN DURIEZ

To Cindy

First published in 2006 by Sutton Publishing Limited

This paperback edition first published in 2008 by The History Press The Mill, Brimscombe Port Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QGwww.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Colin Duriez, 2008, 2013

The right of Colin Duriez to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 9559 0

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Maps and Plans

Prologue

Two Kings, Two Kingdoms

One

Papyri and Puzzles

THE EAST

Two

Tiberius and the Eastern Empire

NEAR JERUSALEM

Three

The Road of Courage: Jesus of Nazareth, Early Spring AD 33

ROME

Four

Tiberius and the Shadow of Sejanus

JERUSALEM

Five

Darkness at Noon (28 March–3 April)

Six

The Glory of the Temple

Seven

Fifty Days: Prelude to Changing the World (5 April–23 May)

THE WIDER WORLD

Eight

The Western Empire

Nine

Past the Boundaries of Empire

Ten

Beyond the Ends of the Earth

JERUSALEM

Eleven

Simon Peter: The Birth of the Church (Pentecost, 24 May)

ROME

Twelve

Agrippina, Sunday, 18 October

JERUSALEM

Thirteen

New Conflict in Jerusalem: Stephen and Saul

A WORLD IN THE MAKING

Fourteen

What Happened Next?

CHRONOLOGY

Dating ad

Chronology of the Period (44 bc to ad 70)

Chronology of ad 33

Notes and Sources

Bibliography

Preface

AD 33 was a remarkable year by all accounts, dominated, so far as the hindsight of world history is concerned, by two people, a Roman and a Jew. The emperor in this year is in the final chapter of his principate, trying to end the mischief caused by his deputy, Sejanus, while at the same time keeping a tight rein on the administration of the empire, in all its diversity. There existed no script for his endeavour. The other man, Jesus, was put to death by one of Tiberius’ minor governors, Pontius Pilate. Belief in his resurrection from the dead three days later invigorated his demoralised followers, leading within a few weeks to the birth of the Christian movement, which was ultimately to take over the mighty empire without force and to change the world irrevocably. While momentous events unfolded in the lives of the two kings, Tiberius and Jesus, one temporal and one spiritual, millions of people carried on their daily routines, rising at dawn and going to their rest in the evening.

I have tried to portray some of the people – both humble and powerful – who were of historical importance during this year, and to give a glimpse of the world as it existed at that time. As for all historical periods, much of what has come down to us has survived by accident, and much that is important for understanding the era has been lost. The ancient documents that have survived have done so because of the labours of many unknown individuals who copied and preserved them. In particular, surviving writings that record or touch on the events of AD 33 I have tried to use with respect and to understand through the minds of the time, so far as their beliefs and perceptions can be reconstructed.

In writing this book I have attempted to step back into a far-off world. It is a world that is not only distant in time, but also in the very way that people saw the skies, buildings and landscapes around them. It had an utterly different consciousness from ours, one that had a greater integration, to all appearances, than we have of the spiritual and the natural. I have tried to enter into it sympathetically, listening to its voices and observing its events. My aim has been to open up that world for readers of today.

My task has been finished with a profound sense that there is far more to say about this remarkable and yet elusive year, a year that has captured my imagination and attention for a considerable period. I offer my book in the hope that it will at least be an introduction to a year that provides a master key to so much that has happened since, a year that still has a remarkable influence in the early twenty-first century on culture, politics, literature and the very way that we see the world. We owe to it those who lived then, and who touch our lives now, to take account of the world as they saw it.

Colin Duriez

Keswick

Acknowledgements

In researching and writing this book I have drawn upon the work of historical, classical and biblical scholars past and present and from many countries. This is an immensely rich, diverse and staggeringly extensive body of work – I feel as if I have only paddled in a great sea.

In particular, I must express my gratitude to Dr Bruce Winter of Tyndale House, Cambridge, and for the use of the college library. He exemplifies all that the college stands for, and gave me some important orientation in exploring this vast subject. By the nature of my self-imposed task, I have had to find my own way to a great extent, and must take responsibility for any errors of fact or interpretation.

My editor at Sutton Publishing, Christopher Feeney, has been of huge importance to me with his judicious comments on the various stages of the work. He and the talented team at Sutton Publishing – Jane Hutchings, Victoria Carvey, Wampe de Veer, Bow Watkinson, Jane Entrican and others – have been a pleasure to work with.

The meticulous mapping of nineteenth-century cartographers of the Palestine Exploration Fund helped me to get a feel for the landscapes of some of the most momentous events in ad 33 – such detail has been lost in subsequent urbanisation.

Throughout, the encouragement of the Leicester Writers’ Club, Rod, Chris, Gwyneth, Liz, Terri and many others, as well as that of Cindy Zudys, Sarah Manning and Christopher Catherwood, has been an important sustenance.

Scriptural quotations in the book are taken from the English Standard Version, which is a revision of the Revised Standard Version. The ESV is copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers; used by permission, all rights reserved. Its publisher, my friend Dr Lane Dennis, put many years of his life into the production of this beautiful translation. The predictions of first-century lunar eclipses are by Fred Espenak, at NASA’s GSFC.

The world in AD 33.

The Silk Road from China to the Roman Empire in the first century AD.

The empire of Tiberius, AD 33.

Location of Tiberius’ Villa Jovis on the island of Capreae, AD 33.

Site of Villa Jovis on modern Capri.

Layout of Villa Jovis.

Caesarea Maritima in Roman times.

Ruins of Caesarea Maritima in the nineteenth century.

Tiberias in the nineteenth century.

Jerusalem and Bethany in the nineteenth century.

Map of Jerusalem taken from the nineteenth-century map by the Palestine Exploration Fund (overleaf).

Jerusalem in the nineteenth century, before subsequent urbanisation obscured features of the landscape that would have been recognisable in AD 33. Bethany lies south-east of the Mount of Olives, just off the map to the right. The Roman road to Jericho runs north-east from St Stephen’s Gate. (Palestine Exploration Fund)

Plan of Alexandria in the first century AD.

China in AD 33.

PROLOGUE

Two Kings, Two Kingdoms

DECEMBER AD 32: CAPREAE

An elderly but upright figure walks weightily along the wide balcony, looking to his left as usual at the high Monte Solaro, catching the early sun across the dip in the island. Then Tiberius’ eyes take in the dark blue sea far below as he moves on. In a couple of minutes he reaches the end of the balcony. Here the emperor can see the whole of the Gulf of Neapolis, from the islands of Aenaria and Prochyta close by the imperial base of Misenum, along the villa-dotted bay and Vesuvius’ high pyramid, right around to the point of Campania, separated from Capreae by a narrow channel. His eyes sweep back to the northernmost point of vision, the cool horizon mist beyond the distant islands. There, somewhere solitary in the deep ocean, is the tiny island of Pandateria. It gives him satisfaction to know that Agrippina, grand-daughter of the former Augustus himself, is tormented there by her exile – queen of the only territory he allows her. Maybe she is looking this way at the moment, in hatred of him. He smiles at the thought. If she is, it would only be through one eye, thanks to the beating he caused her.

Even this early, of course, Tiberius is not alone; there are the inevitable background slaves, keeping a distance, awaiting any order he might utter. The emperor is a man of few words; missing them may incur his dangerous anger. There are other fears, too. Those who are young – whether female, or boys – are in terror of stories of his obscene, scrabbling hands, and of what may follow in private, away from eyes that may judge. Yesterday, a slave had carelessly spilt wine over the emperor’s toga. It looked like blood – there was panic for a second in the superstitious Tiberius’ face. After torture – ‘exquisite torture’ is how the emperor likes to put it – he had the trembling slave thrown over the precipice upon which the villa stands. The slaves knew he enjoyed watching how far his victims could fall in a clean drop before scraping the cliff face and bouncing off. Such an interruption in the fall usually silenced the screams. If it didn’t, he was delighted.

Tiberius liked to have as much of the first hour as he could here on the roofed promenade, even though the air was still sharp this winter morning. Away from the thrall of Rome he could enjoy the idea of it. The city, with its order and its humane law, extended throughout the world. This broad sea before him was the road to all his kingdoms. It was his – only one almost like a god could have so much. In this stillness before the day he would think around the provinces, from Hispania and Gaul in the west to Judaea and Syria in the east, from wooded Germania in the north – so familiar to him as a soldier – to the hot lands of Africa in the south. He could usually see the daily naval ship from the mainland passing below, its oars flashing or sail swelling and its wake widening, as it made its way to Capreae’s modest harbour. Today was no exception. The vessel was moving swiftly in the breeze. There might be a dispatch from his friend Avilius Flaccus, enthusiastic in his new governorship of Egypt. In his last dispatch he had mentioned speculation about a possible reappearance of the phoenix, the fabled bird of the sun which stood for undying life. Tiberius is not yet expecting an answer from Pontius Pilate, in Caesarea Maritima. His order to remove the offensive votive shields from Jerusalem would barely have reached him, given the winter travel conditions – a long, hard journey overland for the courier. What offence that man had already caused to the stubborn Jews, before this! It is just as well that he is kept informed of his governor’s occasional misjudgements.

His thoughts are interrupted by a greeting from Thrasullus, his personal astrologer. Tiberius, a keen amateur himself, is always anxious to hear his prognostications. Thrasullus clutches a parchment in his hands. The two sit down on a bench while Thrasullus unfurls the document. It is inscribed with intricate patterns relating to movements in the heavens. ‘There was a good omen, last night,’ he begins. ‘I was walking as usual down to the Specularium. On the path in front of me I saw a snake. The serpent followed the path before me a while, as if leading me, before disappearing. The omen confirms what I saw in the skies last night. My chart shows a good year ahead for the world. Soon you will appoint an heir, and he will be a serpent to Rome.’

‘Excellent!’ Tiberius says. ‘I think the shadow of Sejanus will be gone before long – after I make more of those who were his friends take their journey across the Styx. I dreamed of him last night, and your words have eased the disquiet this gave me.’

‘What was your dream?’ asks Thrasullus on cue.

‘I dreamed of having all the kingdoms of the earth, beyond the empire to Britannia, Parthia, Bactria, and further east. But a dark figure who looked like Sejanus mockingly said he had given them to me. Sejanus – if it was he – took me to the cliff-drop beside the villa and said that I was a god. If I threw myself off the angeli would carry me down unharmed. He then took up a large stone from the ground and began to eat it like a starving man.’

‘The weight of Sejanus is indeed heavy. But he is gone, and deceives as usual. He starves for your soul. Laugh at him in torment in hell. Better times are ahead.’1

The unpleasant Tiberius just pictured may partly be created by the second-century histories of Tacitus and Suetonius. Dio Cassius similarly creates a negative picture of the emperor’s life in Capreae, perhaps influenced by those earlier historians. It may be that they did not realise the extent to which Tiberius kept his private and public life in separate compartments. A contemporary, Philo of Alexandria, portrays Tiberius in a much more favourable light, perhaps in contrast to Gaius Caligula’s wickedness when he succeeded Tiberius as emperor. Philo may, however, have had limited access to official documents. Certainly Tiberius, following the example of Augustus, tended to restrain injustices in the provinces, typically enjoining one of his governors (a previous prefect of Egypt, Aemilius Rectus): ‘I want my sheep shorn, not flayed.’ He may have liked to see himself as a Shepherd Prince. As part of this shepherding he protected the Jewish populations in the empire, both in Palestine and in the Diaspora. It is unlikely that he was aware of the strong anti-Jewish tendencies of his deputy Sejanus, who in effect administered Rome for many years until Tiberius realised his treachery and swiftly acted to remove him in ad 31.

Tiberius had forsaken Rome and had lived in Capreae since ad 27. Astrologers had predicted that he would not set foot in Rome again, so he never did, in case it would mean his death. He was prone to voluntary exile. Before he was prince of the empire, in the days of Augustus, he had gone to Rhodes for many years. There he had met Thrasullus, who had taught him his Chaldean brand of astrology. Tiberius was no mean amateur – according to Roman historians he would predict the brief reign of Galba in ad 69, the ‘year of four emperors’.

His magnificent Villa Jovis in Capreae, named after the main Roman deity, Jupiter, was in effect a palace, with its court. Along with thousands of slaves, Tiberius surrounded himself with Greek scholars (a custom he had long followed), as well as his personal astrologer (who was a restraining influence on his excesses). One such scholar was Seleucis the grammarian.2 It was Tiberius’ practice at supper to raise questions, based upon what he had been reading during the day. Seleucis had the bright idea of enquiring of his attendants which authors he was currently reading. This allowed him to come prepared for Tiberius’ questions. When the strongly built Tiberius discovered this, he was furious, laying into Seleucis and throwing him out of his household. As well as reading widely, the emperor had an absorbing interest in rhetoric and philosophy.

It is plausible that his excesses increased as he became elderly and his sexual powers decreased. Despite his indulgent, predatory sexual life (if the accounts have a core of truth, which is likely) he tried to be plain living, and kept a grip on the worldwide affairs of the empire through his provincial governors, whom he encouraged to stay long term, and to whom he allowed initiative and discretion in their administration. He particularly followed the work of the imperial appointees – those governing frontier provinces like Judaea and Syria. They would be either legati or lesser procuratores, depending on the perceived importance of the province. Both kinds had extensive discretionary powers in enforcing Roman rule and law. The legati, however, had a much more formidable military backing. By ill-judgement Judaea had been assigned a prefect rather than a high-ranking ambassador. Pontius Pilate was appointed back in ad 26, almost certainly chosen by Sejanus, Tiberius’ former deputy, on the emperor’s behalf. Any former friend of Sejanus feared the emperor now. The ruthless slaughter of his associates by Tiberius continued, though perhaps not on the scale reported by his historians.3

DECEMBER 18, AD 32 (KISLEV 25)

The charismatic rabbi from Galilee is again in Jerusalem. Though the inhabitants, beginning their joyful Feast of Hanukkah, do not know it, this is to be the valedictory of his public teaching. On this winter’s day he has made his way to Jerusalem, 2 miles from the small village of Bethany, over the hills to the west, where he habitually stays while visiting the holy city.

He has already entertained a crowd with his vivid, figurative teaching. As usual he teaches, like others, under the broad colonnade which skirts the lower court of the temple, known as the Court of the Gentiles. Its broad pillars provide shelter from cold winds in the winter and shade from the sun the rest of the year. Though Jesus of Nazareth lacks the educated Judaean accent of the official religious teachers, he speaks with authority. As usual, the common people hear him gladly. Today there has been a hard edge to his words, for, as he expected, in the crowd are a number of the religious professionals – chief priests, scribes and others of Jerusalem’s wealthy elite. He has spoken of being the good shepherd, and of being the protective gate for his sheep, for whom he cares. He has talked about gathering his flock and laying down his life for them. This bit of his teaching is easy for the crowd – they know the sheep are the Jews, God’s chosen people, defined by the life and procedures of the temple in Judaea. The result of his words, inevitably, is a division among his hearers. Some say he is insane, demon-possessed.

Afterwards Jesus walks in the long colonnade of Solomon’s Portico, which runs along the edge of the huge artificial plateau of the temple area. He can see in the centre of the court, raised above balustrades, the colossal temple proper, the sanctuary which only Jews can enter. Stone tablets warn Gentiles not to go in. Walking to Jerusalem early that morning, in the first hour, he had seen the rising sun’s rays burn back from the gold plate of the high temple. It looked like a mountain covered with snow – the blaze of fire was so intense he saw its after-image as he turned away his gaze.

The temple, with its vast lower courtyard and high colonnades, is an immense structure, taking up one-sixth of the area of the city. The colonnade of Solomon extends along the eastern side of the temple complex.

Jesus does not enjoy the peace of his walk very long, or his professional appreciation of the cedarwork of its ceiling high above. Some of the religious leaders wall him about and confront him impatiently, stirred up by his teaching about being the one true shepherd of the Jews. There had been many in Israel before him with messianic claims.

‘How long are you going to goad us? You hide your words in parables and figures of speech. Out with it, man! Are you the Messiah who has been promised through the ages? Come on, spit it out!’

Jesus answers in a deliberate and measured tone, ‘I’ve already told you many times, but you don’t believe. What I’ve done in my father’s name bears witness to who I am.’ (He is referring to his much-talked-about teaching, healings and other supernatural signs.) ‘The only reason you don’t believe is because you are not part of my flock.’ As he says ‘my flock’, his gesture takes in some men and women listening nearby who are known to be his disciples. Among them are individuals who are certainly not fit company for pious Jews.

He continues to speak penetratingly over the rising murmurs of dissent on the part of his interrogators: ‘As I said to you, my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me, and I give to them life that is everlasting, and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone pluck them out of my hand. My father, who gave them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to take them out of my father’s hand.’

Then there is a pause before the punch-line, as Jesus looks directly at his critics, knowingly condemning himself to destruction: ‘And I and my father are one.’4

We are told in John’s Gospel that, at this point, his accusers picked up stones that they may have brought with them. They were incensed by his blasphemy – his claim to be one with God, Maker of heaven and earth. Jesus was known by contemporary historians such as Tacitus and Josephus as the ‘Christ’, or as claiming to be the Christ (Greek, Christos, Messiah). A messianic claim by itself would not be blasphemy. Jewish belief at this time was diverse. Some groups looked for a messiah who would deliver the nation by force as an insurrectionist leader. Others placed their hope in a holy man or priest, who would come apocalyptically at the end times. None of these concepts of messiah implied a divine claim.

By now, either the group had moved outside the temple area through one of the great entrances where rocks could be found in the Kidron Valley, or perhaps they armed themselves with building material (parts of the temple area were still under construction nearly fifty years after its foundation by Herod the Great).

History would be very different, unrecognisable in fact, if the small mob had stoned him there and then. They might have pushed him over the edge of the steep Kidron Valley, then finished off the job with rocks, smashing his head and body before soldiers had time to arrive from Fortress Antonia. His distraught followers would have dragged away his body, buried him, and venerated his tomb for a while as one of many failed messiahs and potential saviours, more memorable perhaps than Theudas,5 Judas the Galilean, and his sons James and Simon,6 but not much more. Jesus, however, continued to reason with his interrogators in rabbinic fashion, from a point within the scriptural Torah where people entrusted as divine agents were called ‘sons of God’, which was clearly not blasphemous. This exposition made them remain a group instead of a mob. They may also have feared the vast number of people around about, increased because of the feast, who favoured Jesus. They changed their minds about stoning, and instead tried to arrest him. We are told simply that he evaded capture and left Jerusalem, escaping beyond the River Jordan.

It was no accident that Jesus chose the Feast of Dedication for his valedictory public teaching. The winter feast was heavy with symbolism. Its purpose was to celebrate the rededication of the temple after its desecration under Syro-Grecian domination. The festival – called the ‘Feast of Lights’ by Josephus – was established by Judas Maccabaeus in 164 BC.7 The feast began on 25 Kislev (December) and lasted eight days. On each day the ‘Hallel’ was sung, and people joyfully carried palms and other branches. The temple was magnificently illuminated, and so were all private houses. The head of the household might light one lamp for all family members, or a light for each. The particularly devout might increase the number each day, so if a household had ten lights on the first day, there would be eighty on the last day of the festival.8

Jesus by his presence at the Feast was signalling that this year the temple was undergoing a rededication even more radical than that of 164 BC. It was not simply remembering that great event. In this case, according to the New Testament accounts, Jesus himself was the new temple. This claim was based on his identity – he was, he says, one with God (his father). In the Christian view, he replaced the existing temple as the place where all are to come for forgiveness of sin and to meet God.9 He was simultaneously the final sacrifice and the ‘place’ of worship. With the destruction of the temple in ad 70, the Christian and rabbinic versions of Judaism were to gradually diverge – for Christians, Jesus replaced the temple worship and sacraments; for the rabbinic Jews, the synagogue and the Torah filled the aching void.10

Significantly, Jesus announced this claim in the Court of the Gentiles, not in the higher sanctuary of the temple proper, where non-Jews were forbidden access. As always with Jesus’ actions, a living iconography was enacted. The apostles later understood him as signifying the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven of which he had so often spoken, that transcended all nations, states and civilisations. In his claim, it transcended even the temple of the nation of the chosen people, which was only a copy of the original. His claim was that he is the Original.11

Rome and Jerusalem at this time were both cities that were symbols as well as places. Under Augustus and Tiberius the Roman empire had established a civilising ‘Pax Romana’, and Jerusalem’s very name could mean ‘foundation of peace’. These two cities hereafter symbolically would dominate the history of western and world civilisation. Rome represented the rule of civilised law – an idea that transcended the works of bad men like Caligula and Nero. Jerusalem, and its temple in particular, defined the monotheism, allegiance to the Torah and moral clarity of ancient Jewish faith. Rooted in this ancient faith, the new allegiance to Jesus would forever in its essence have the character of that faith, however ignorant of this inheritance some of its followers might become. By a strange irony, the idea of a ‘new Jerusalem’, associated with following Christ, would win over the mighty empire without force in less than 300 years. The result would be mutual enrichment and a creative tension, what George Steiner calls ‘the dual currents which determine Western consciousness, that of classical antiquity and that of scriptural–Christian inheritance’.12

ONE

Papyri and Puzzles

If you wandered into a private Roman library in AD 33 – of which there were many, as it was the height of fashion to have one – you might be surprised to find that it was quite small, even though, likely enough, well furnished and decorated. If you stretched out your arms you might be able to touch both sides of the room. Yet a room this size could house up to 1,700 scrolls – each the equivalent of a small book. The rolls would typically be in cases around the walls, all numbered, with a rectangular case in the middle of the room.

Such manuscript rolls – for, of course, literature at this time was hand-written – comprised sheets made out of papyrus (the source of the English word ‘paper’), stitched together end on. Unrolled they could be up to as much as about 20m or 40m in length. Many of the ancient sources used in writing this book would have had their lengths, or the lengths of their divisions, determined by the physical length of the scrolls used.

As well as many private libraries, there were also large libraries such as the magnificent one at Alexandria, in Egypt, which may have housed as many as 500,000 rolls, or that in Pergamum with about 200,000 rolls. A whole industry surrounded the making of written works. An author might dictate to a group of scribes. A copy might be loaned or hired out to use for further copying, by a single scribe or a group, with one person dictating. Even in modern publishing, where the best publishers have stringent methods for checking and double-checking proofs before a text goes to the printers, errors can creep in. In the copying system of first-century publishing, words could be misheard or handwriting misread. Once introduced, errors could be passed on if the faulty copy were used as the basis for further copies, rather like Chinese whispers. It is not surprising that scholars trying to determine meanings of ancient texts, whether Gospels, or works by Latin or Greek authors, often find it difficult to gauge the true meaning of some details.

Later in the first century came the remarkable development of the codex, which is far more like our concept of a book. Pages were stitched together and written on both sides. It is possible that the technology of the codex was driven by the need of Christian churches throughout the empire to group together their writings. Certainly, by the mid-second century, and perhaps earlier, the four Gospel accounts were collected together – the accounts that became known as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. One of the earliest fragments of a Gospel from a codex has been dated around AD 130, from the Gospel of John. Remarkably, some forty-two papyrus fragments of the Gospels have so far been discovered from codices. T.C. Skeat pointed out the significance of this: ‘This is an astonishing statistic, if we reflect that among non-Christian papyri the roll form predominated for centuries, and it was not until about AD 300 that the codex achieved parity of representation with the scroll, and another two or three centuries passed before the roll disappeared altogether as a vehicle for literature.’1

Graham Stanton, an eminent British New Testament scholar, agrees with T.C. Skeat’s belief that Christians adopted the codex because it could contain all four Gospels. (The individual Gospels only fitted on to a scroll.) This has profound implications for the complex issue of canon (how the early Church decided which texts were authoritative as holy Scripture).

The Gospel accounts, of course, must be an important source for the task of discovering events in AD 33. Scholars for several centuries have debated the nature of these accounts. Are they history (in which case, how do we weigh up elements that appear to be historically unlikely, such as miracle-working)? Are they biography (and, if so, why are they so different from a modern perception of the genre of biography)? Are they religious texts (and, therefore, may have a totally different purpose from that of the historian)? Also essential are the Roman histories of Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio Cassius, all of whom write of events of the year AD 33, or preceding and subsequent events that are relevant to that year. Tacitus is the most helpful, as his Annals, by its nature, recounts events year by year. Then too there are the Jewish histories of Josephus. Other literature of the period casts incidental light on the lives, thinking and beliefs of people throughout the empire. Outside of the Roman and Jewish world, carefully preserved documentation of the era is to be found in China, whose civilisation had already flourished for many centuries. In exploring these ancient texts, my overwhelming feeling has been delight in what has survived for us to read, and today is so easy to access through cheap paperbacks and the Internet, but also sorrow at what has been lost to us. My admiration for textual scholars, historians, translators and archaeologists concerned with this period is immense.

In using the four Gospel accounts, I have made the same assumption as with employing the three accounts of the emperor Tiberius to be found in the Roman historians Tacitus, Suetonius and Dio Cassius. From these can be built up a picture of events that is reasonably consistent, supplemented by any other available source (e.g. archaeological finds). I have focused on this broad picture, rather than on very detailed differences in the accounts, which are really the realm of the textual scholar. This is because my purpose is to try to give a consistent portrait of the events of AD 33, in which various strands, particularly Roman and Jewish, interrelate. It is possible to weigh the individual purposes of each Gospel, just as it is to weigh the antipathy of the three Roman historians to the Julio-Claudian period of Tiberius, without dismissing their historicity. The closeness of the accounts to the actual events is of course an important issue. We assume that the Roman historians drew (with varying closeness) on older documents. Many scholars similarly assume that the Gospel writers drew on older sources, or were eyewitnesses, or drew upon eyewitness accounts. Some scholars, however, believe that the Gospel accounts are too distant from the events, in the sense that Christian beliefs radically developed and modified the stories of Jesus, for them to be accepted at historical face value. They have to be deconstructed to reveal the original Jesus, prior to Christian spin, a Jesus who turns out to be one of several holy teachers whose charisma attracted followings, or an eschatological prophet, or a wandering philosopher. A problem with these views is that such a figure would hardly set the world alight in the way that Jesus did – the overriding causal element in the rapid expansion of the Christian movement in its first generation was its conviction that Jesus had returned from death, and that this authenticated his claim to be the Messiah. The considerable number of scholars who do not put a radically late view on composition suggest a maximum range between the mid-60s (with Mark’s Gospel) and the 90s (John’s Gospel). Dating of writings of this period is notoriously difficult. The fact that a fragment from John’s Gospel exists from a codex, dated early second century (Rylands Papyrus 457, dated around AD 130), indicates publication well before the date of that codex.

The fact that there are four Gospel accounts has led to intense debate over many generations as to their interrelationship. Though all are independently authored, with differing purposes, three of them in particular have striking similarities, suggesting that at least two may have used at least one of the others as a partial source. A persuasive theory has posited that a core of lost oral or even written material, mainly comprising segments of Jesus’ teaching, was a source the three Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) had in common. The content of this core is also the subject of extensive debate. Some scholars argue that similarities between the three can be explained without this core material, called by scholars ‘Q’ (that is, if Luke made use of both Mark’s and Matthew’s accounts).2 The majority view is that Mark’s Gospel was written first, and that Luke and Matthew made use of Mark and another source (the material called ‘Q’), as well as material unique to each (such as accounts of Joseph and Jesus’ birth in Matthew). The fourth Gospel was, in the view of scholars, written independently of the other three, and, most likely, was written last.

As well as literary and source criticism of the Gospels, there has been a great deal of scholarly debate over the dates of their composition. Judgements about this are inevitably swayed by one’s views of how close the Gospels bring us to the actual events of Jesus’ life and his teaching. If the view is that much of the material is anachronistic, being in fact the expression of later developments in Christian thought, then later dates are posited, as writers who were eyewitnesses, or who draw on eyewitness accounts, are unlikely to modify the material in this way. Inevitably, therefore, larger questions are involved. One very fruitful line of enquiry is to consider the Gospel accounts in the context of the diversity of Jewish beliefs in the period before AD 70, when the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple had such an impact on both Jewish and Christian communities, and when so much was lost to us (see Chapter Six). Such enquiry can take into account the Jewish nature of the New Testament writings, in, for example, the letter to the Hebrews, or the late-written Book of Revelation. There is strong evidence that the Church in its first generation was predominantly Jewish. If one considers the Gospels as literary narratives, their affinities are with the Jewish Scriptures, rather than with Hellenistic literature. An example of racy narrative by a Latin author is Petronius’ Satyricon. Although, like the Gospel writers, Petronius includes characters from low life, he has no interest in a distinctive historical context: what he writes is intentionally fiction that is close to the genres of its time, particularly of comedy and satire. The Satyricon was probably written around the same time as the Gospel of Mark, and so makes a significant comparison.

It is true, however, that the Gospel writers had some knowledge of contemporary Graeco-Roman history writing, which affected the structuring of their material rather than its distinctive narrative character. Building on the work of some earlier scholars, Richard A. Burridge has offered a convincing case for genre similarities between the Gospels and contemporary Graeco-Roman biography. In his What are the Gospels?: A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, he concludes that the Gospels belong to the genre of Graeco-Roman biography, after a detailed examination of the structure of representative biographies by Xenophon, Satyrus, Nepos, Philo, Tacitus, Plutarch and others. Generic features in common with the Gospels include length (between 10,000 and 20,000 words, fitting a typical scroll of about 10m long), absence of a strict chronological sequence in the narrative, and inclusion of selected stories, anecdotes, sayings and discourses in the middle sections. In content, there are also similarities between such contemporary biography and the Gospels. Dr Burridge explains:

They begin with a brief mention of the hero’s ancestry, family or city, followed by his birth and an occasional anecdote about his upbringing; usually we move rapidly on to his public debut later in life. Accounts of generals, politicians, or statesmen are much more chronologically ordered when recounting their great deeds and virtues, while lives of philosophers, writers, or thinkers tend to be more anecdotal, arranged around collections of material to display their ideas and teachings. While the author may claim to provide information about his subject, often his underlying aims may include apologetic (to defend the subject’s memory against others’ attacks), polemic (to attack his rivals) or didactic (to teach his followers about him). Similarly, the gospels concentrate on Jesus’ teaching and great deeds to explain the faith of the early Christians. As for the climax, the evangelists devote between 15 and 20 per cent of the gospels to the last week of Jesus’ life, his death and the resurrection; similar amounts are given over to their subjects’ death in biographies by Plutarch, Tacitus, Nepos and Philostratus, since in this crisis the hero reveals his true character, gives his definitive teaching or does his greatest deed.3

In his The New Testament and the People of God, N.T. Wright extends Richard Burridge’s conclusions to consider a unique blending of genres in each of the four Gospels. He accepts the genre similarities between Graeco-Roman biography and the Gospels. The blending of genres is distinctive in each of the Gospels, but similarities outweigh differences. He builds a strong case for each Gospel being a Jewish story intended for a wider Gentile readership. Thus each brilliantly blends a Jewish genre with Hellenistic biography, making their accounts accessible to both Jewish and Gentile readerships. The Jewish genre in itself is superbly accomplished, being an integral whole that includes strongly distinctive elements such as apocalyptic, fulfilment of ancient prophecy, and sense of the ending of a millennia-old story, as Jesus fulfils the Old Testament. The emphasis on particular elements, of course, varies from Gospel to Gospel.4 On top of their accomplishments in employing the Jewish story, the Gospel writers also brilliantly succeeded in using the Hellenistic genre of biography, in such a way that it would be recognisable by a Graeco-Roman readership.

Dr Wright points out this unique blending of genres, for example, in Luke:

How do these genres – the Jewish story reaching its climax, and the Hellenistic bios, the life-story of a human individual within the Greco-Roman world – fit together? … Luke believed that, prior to Jesus, Israel’s story had yet to reach its climax … But at the same time Luke clearly grasped the equally important Jewish belief that when Israel was redeemed the whole world would be blessed … The good news of the established kingdom would have to impinge on the Gentile world. Since, therefore, he believed that this good news had taken the form of the life, and particularly the death and resurrection, of one human being, and since this was a Jewish message for the Gentile world, Luke blended together two apparently incompatible genres with consummate skill. He told the story of Jesus as a Jewish story, indeed as the Jewish story, much as Josephus told the story of the fall of Jerusalem as the climax of Israel’s long and tragic history. But he told it in such a way as to say to his non-Jewish Greco-Roman audience: here, in the life of this one

man, is the Jewish message of salvation that you pagans need.5 As well as their uniqueness in blending genres, the Gospels are also remarkable, from a literary point of view, in having a ‘low-life’ setting, even though, of course, their biographical subject is a great man, mockingly dubbed ‘The King of the Jews’ by Pontius Pilate. In this Jewish heritage they anticipate the rise of the realistic novel very many centuries later, and also the related genesis of documentary journalism in Daniel Defoe’s account of the plague year and the recording of ordinary life in diarists such as Samuel Pepys.

Tacitus’ Annals, though part of the work has been lost, nevertheless gives an essential account of the year AD 33, as part of a portrayal of the emperor Tiberius. It also recounts preceding events that bear upon the year, particularly the rise and fall of Sejanus, Tiberius’ deputy. It may have been written around AD 115–17. Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars includes a much more anecdotal and colourful account of Tiberius than is found in Tacitus’ measured and concise history. His Lives were written later in the second century. The third substantial account we have of Tiberius, and events relating to AD 33, is found in Dio Cassius’ Roman History, written in Greek around the end of the second century.

The remaining major history that documents the period is Flavius Josephus’ History of the Jews (covering Jewish history from ancient times to AD 66 – the beginning of the Jewish wars – which he leaves to another book). As he was born four years after the death of Jesus, and the birth of the Church, in AD 37, Josephus is the closest to the period after the authors of the Gospels. His work provides many insights into the Jewish world of that time, and its key players.

The East

TWO

Tiberius and the Eastern Empire

Rome’s eastern empire – taking in areas such as Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine and Egypt – was essentially the advanced civilisation bequeathed by Greece through its former empire, and still deeply influenced by Hellenism. This empire had been established by Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) and, after his death, was dominated by the Seleucids and Ptolemies. Expanding Roman Republican rule gained the extremities of Syria and Egypt in the first century BC. The common language of this vast area was, tellingly, koine or common Greek. It stood in dramatic contrastto the western empire, in which the processes of Romanisation were generally more radical for the indigenous cultures.

The influence of Greek civilisation was relatively unobtrusive, and the imposition of Roman rule followed the same pattern, enabling cultural diversity to continue. An example of this accommodation was that Jewish people were allowed to continue their monotheism, exempt from worshipping the Roman pantheon of gods. They were also not required to submit to the cult of the emperor. Even though Augustus had been deified, Jews were not expected to participate in his worship. A similar benign attitude operated in the western regions such as Gaul, Germania and later Britannia. Though not a national entity, Celtic cultural identity was distinctive and affected every area of life. Resistance to the alien Roman culture was at first strong, though the Celts were eventually pacified. Those outside the Roman economy, like the Germanic tribes of the north-east, were considered barbarians.

This is not to say that, in the east, there were no parts that resisted Romanisation; Judaea had only partly been Hellenised. Syria, Macedonia, Greece and Egypt had all been part of a dying Hellenistic empire, before being defeated by Rome. These lands became provinces of Rome, under the control of governors appointed by the Senate or directly by the emperor. Roman legions were stationed across the eastern empire ready to bring to bear appropriate force when necessary.

To get an insight into the complexity and diversity of the eastern empire in AD 33, we can visit several important locations, and individuals in those places who played significant roles in the unfolding events of that year. The most significant figure, historically, Jesus of Galilee, we shall leave to other chapters.

TIBERIUS AT CAPREAE, ITALY

Tiberius’ choice of the tiny island of Capreae as his main base after AD 27, when he was 67 years of age, perhaps reflected a changed perception of Rome. Its city civilisation had become, with the emperors, an ideal to be realised across the world – or at least in the vast domains of the empire east and west. Julius Caesar had pointed the way for the future emperors as he conquered Gaul and tried to invade Britannia. It also suited the reclusive emperor personally to live at Capreae. Like the first emperor, Augustus, Tiberius had been invested with powers that were novel and untried, such as that of being active sovereign over an immense and diverse region of the world. Powers that had been tailored for Augustus, as first citizen rather than self-consciously emperor, were exercised by a very different man. Later Roman historians were to see a corrupt dynasty beginning with Tiberius, and perpetrated by Caligula, Claudius and Nero. Tiberius’ territories extended beyond the farthest horizons south and north, west and east of the city. Although he relied on his provincial governors, and allowed them great discretionary powers, he took a detailed interest in the provinces, particularly where the governors were his direct responsibility. Hence his intervention in Pilate’s characteristic misjudgement in sending inscribed shields into Jerusalem, probably at the Feast of Tabernacles in autumn AD 32.

Suetonius describes Tiberius as ‘being greatly delighted with the island, because it was accessible only by a narrow beach, being on all sides surrounded with rugged cliffs, of a stupendous height, and by a deep sea’.1 Capri is merely 4 miles (6km) long, 2 miles (3km) wide, and only 3 miles (5km) from the Point of Campania, from which it continues geologically. The air is pure, and the vegetation nearly tropical. The highest point is Monte Solaro (1,932ft, 589m). When Tiberius moved to the island the population was scanty. Suetonius repeats some gossip about Tiberius:

A few days after he reached Capreae and was by himself, a fisherman appeared unexpectedly and offered him a huge mullet; whereupon in his alarm that the man had clambered up to him from the back of the island over rough and pathless rocks, he had the poor fellow’s face scrubbed with the fish. And because in the midst of his torture the man thanked his stars that he had not given the emperor an enormous crab that he had caught, Tiberius had his face torn with the crab also.2

Tiberius benefited from roads, aqueducts and villas that Augustus had built on Capreae during his reign. During the ten years Tiberius was there he built villas at dominant points, most likely dedicated to various Roman gods. The most important was Villa Jovis, honouring Jupiter, which was effectively his palace, near the lighthouse (pharos). Here there was a sheer cliff (296m) over which Tiberius reputedly had victims of his displeasure thrown.