GOD'S NEW WORLD, DAY 3 (to Rome, but not quite as planned...)
Remember when Paul shared his travel plans with the
Christians in Rome (cf. Rom. 15.22-33)?
Well, this is the story of how he actually got to the imperial capital…
Rome or bust. Ever since Acts chapter 19, when Luke told
us that Paul “had to” see Rome, we have known where all this travelling was
going to end (cf. 19.21). Thanks to his
appeal to the Emperor, Paul is finally bound for the imperial capital. Over against the pretensions of the emperors
(inscribed on Roman currency) who proclaimed themselves the “saviours” and
“lords” of the world, Paul has been traveling the eastern end of the empire
proclaiming “another king” by the name of Jesus (cf. Ac. 17.7).
Paul “had” to get to Rome, and circumstances
“conspire” to get him there…
1.
Paul goes to Jerusalem to celebrate
Pentecost (Ac. 20.16).
2.
Paul’s rescue from the mob/arrest by
the Tribune Lysias (Ac. 21.31-36; 24.7).
3.
Lysias sends Paul to Felix the
Governor at Caesarea to protect him from the Sanhedrin’s plan to assassinate
him in Jerusalem (Ac. 23.23-35).
4.
After a two-year imprisonment in
Caesarea, Paul appeals to the imperial tribunal in Rome and is sent there by Governor
Festus (Ac. 25.10-12).
“Gospel” was a common word in the first century, and
was used by the Romans to refer to the news of a military triumph or the
enthronement of a new emperor. Luke,
Paul and the other early apostles were only too glad to use this term to refer
to the (paradoxical) victory of Jesus through his death/resurrection and his
enthronement at the right hand of God as Lord of all creation (cf. Ac.
1.9-11). This is how the book of Acts
began – the risen Jesus ascended “into heaven” after giving his apostles orders
to spread the “good news” (i.e. “gospel”) to the ends of the earth. How can people know who the world’s Lord is
unless they are told? And so, after
having received the gift of the Holy Spirit, the apostles go forth and announce
the lordship of Jesus and the kingdom of God to the four corners of the kingdom
of Caesar… the revolution was underway!
One scholar estimates that the passages in Acts
that describe Paul traveling by sea suggest that the apostle covered some 3,000
miles on the sea during the three decades of his ministry recorded in Acts
chapters 9-28.[1] Indeed, today’s passage in Acts is not
Paul’s first experience of shipwreck (cf. 2 Cor. 11.25).
Caesarea Maritima – where Paul has spent the last two
years – had a port, so Paul’s “last” journey begins in a straightforward
manner. Paul, along with other
prisoners, is put into the custody of “a centurion of the Augustan Cohort,
named Julius” (27.1). This probably
refers to a unit of about 500 auxiliaries in the army of Syria and Judea. Due to its association with the original
Caesar, the name of “Julius” suggests that this centurion was the son of a man
who had won his citizenship, and thus Julius had something in common with Paul
(cf. Ac. 22.27-28).[2]
In 27.9, Luke tells us that it was getting to that
time of year when sailing was dangerous.
The Roman writer Vegetius (lived during the late 4th century)
situates this period between September 14 – November 11, after which all
sailing basically ceased for the rest of the winter.[3] Claudius Caesar had given extra incentives to
shipbuilders and owners willing to take risks by sailing in the dangerous
season to get extra grain to Rome. He
did this in order to avoid uprisings caused by lack of grain in the capital,
which were a constant threat to his reign (41-54). These measures remained in place during the
reign of Nero (54-68), who was emperor at the time of Paul’s voyage (as well as
his death).[4]
In 27.21-26, Paul addresses his fellow travellers and
relays a message that he had received the night before from “an angel of the
God whom I worship” (cf. Ac. 18.9-10; 23.11).
Paul’s presence on the ship will have the opposite effect to that of
Jonah – because Paul is with them, the 276 souls on board the beleaguered
vessel will be saved. Paul must
stand before the emperor (27.24).
“Luckily” for the others, they find themselves caught up into the divine
plan to get Paul to Rome.
Scholars have calculated how long it would take a ship
of the sort Paul was on, in the face of a northeaster, to drift from Cauda (27.16)
to the mouth of Saint Paul’s Bay at Malta (27.39). The distance is some 475 miles, and a
comparison of nautical accounts from this region showed that it was likely to
take precisely fourteen days to drift this far (cf. Ac. 27.27). This is a rather striking confirmation of the
accuracy of Luke’s account.[5]
Beginning in 27.18-19, we read that the crew began to
throw the ship’s cargo overboard in an effort to lighten the ship and reduce
the danger of capsizing. In 27.38, we
read that the last thing to be jettisoned is the wheat, the commodity for which
the owner had taken such risks in the hopes of turning a profit in Rome.
In 27.42-43, Paul’s life is once again saved by a
Roman army officer (cf. Ac. 21.31-33).
Julius the centurion, motivated by a desire to save Paul, forbids his
soldiers executing the prisoners in an attempt to prevent them from escaping
(cf. Ac. 16.27-28).
It was commonly held by those influenced by
Greco-Roman culture that it was impossible for a criminal to escape divine
justice. On Malta, Paul enjoys the
“mirror” experience of his earlier misadventure in Lystra (cf. Ac. 14.8-20),
when, following their healing of a lame man, Paul and Barnabas had been hailed
as gods by the townsfolk who, a few hours later, changed their mind and stoned
Paul, leaving him for dead. On the other
“hand”, after being bitten by the snake on Malta, the locals conclude that Paul
must be a murderer and that “Lady Justice” has finally caught up with him. However, after Paul suffers no ill effects,
the islanders change their mind and decide that he’s a god. Paul then proceeds to heal many people on the
island, beginning with the father of Publius.
The only time in Acts that Luke mentions a
ship’s figurehead is in 28.11, where we hear that the craft that will finally
carry them to Italy (another Alexandrian grain transport) is named the “Twin
Brothers”, a reference to Castor and Pollux, the deities sailors prayed to for
protection. These gods were also related
to the “cult of the emperor” (i.e. worshipping him as a god), and there was a
frequent comparison between these gods and the Caesars, who was sometimes identified
with one of them. This may indicate that
the fact that Paul sailed from Malta not only under the Twin Brothers’
protection but also with their favour may refer to an implicit rendering of the
(favourable) imperial verdict that awaited him before Nero. In other words, Acts 27-28 may be
intending to send signals to a Gentile audience not only about Paul’s innocence
in God’s eyes but also ultimately his vindication and release when he appeared
before the emperor.[6]
As Paul journeys through southern Italy to Rome,
Christians (i.e. “believers”) offer him hospitality (28.14-15). The origins of the Christian community in
Rome are shrouded in mystery. One thing
seems clear: by the time Peter (43 AD) and Paul (60 AD) made their way to the
capital of the empire, a church had already long been established there. Both Peter and Paul would be martyred in Rome
shortly following the Great Fire (64 AD), which the emperor Nero reportedly
blamed on the Christians of the city.
Since Christians were already suspect as “incestual”, “cannibalistic”
“enemies of humanity” – due to their “love feasts” where they were said to “eat
the body and drink the blood of Christ” (i.e. Eucharistic celebrations) and due
to their refusal to participate in the public rituals of Roman pagan religion
(of which the emperor was the Pontifex Maximus, i.e. “High Priest”) – it
wasn’t difficult for Nero to scapegoat the Christians and amuse himself by
killing hundreds of them in ignominious ways.
Nero’s persecution of the Christians of Rome was the first (but far from
the last!) case of imperially-sanctioned violence against the Church. The fact that both Peter and Paul were
martyred there greatly increased Rome’s prestige among the wider Church and
would eventually encourage the acceptance of the “primacy” of the Bishop of
Rome – understood to be the successor of Peter – over the universal Church.
A mere three days after having begun his “house
arrest” in Rome, Paul summons the leaders of the local Jewish community
(28.16-29). Paul wants to make it clear
that he has no agenda against the Jewish community, either in Jerusalem or in
Rome. As far as these elders are
concerned, “the Way” is a “sect” within Judaism (28.22). During a second meeting, Paul (as was his
custom) preaches to them “from morning until evening” and does what he had
always done during his visits to synagogues throughout the eastern half of the
Empire – he demonstrated through the Hebrew Scriptures that Jesus of Nazareth
was the promised Messiah (i.e. King) of Israel (and therefore, the Lord of the
whole world). Failing to convince all of
them of the truth of his “gospel”, Paul quotes the same passage from Isaiah
(6.9-10) that Jesus had quoted during his ministry (cf. Mt. 13.14-17). As he had said before when faced with
unbelief on the part of Jews (cf. Ac. 13.44-49), Paul says that “this salvation
of God has been sent to the Gentiles” (28.28).
The narrative of Acts ends with Paul once again
enduring a 2-year imprisonment, albeit with the freedom to teach and preach to
all those willing to come and listen (28.30-31). The herald of Jesus “proclaims the kingdom of
God” under Caesar’s nose, and nothing in heaven or on earth can prevent the
progress of the gospel of the Lord Jesus the Messiah (i.e. “Christ”). What happened during the final 2 years of
Paul’s life (following this period of house arrest)? No one knows…
Comments
Post a Comment