07 - Antonius the Stable Boy

Tigellinus, the criminal condemned and pardoned, and now the favorite of Nero, owed his good fortune to his skill as a horse trainer. Nero passionately loved horses and often participated in chariot races, and appointing Tigellinus as stable master was considered a high honor. But Tigellinus had higher ambitions. He wanted the highest position under Caesar – commandant of the Praetorian Guard. Once old Burrus was put out of the way, Tigellinus, with Poppea’s help, realized his dream.

Among the stable boys under Tigellinus was a simple lad named Antonius, one of hundreds of unskilled servants and slaves who performed the menial work. His food was poor, his clothing shabby. In winter he walked through the slushy or muddy streets on his errands wearing a thin tunic, with arms and legs exposed, and no covering for his feet.

One day some comrades invited Antonius to visit Paul, and Paul led him to Christ. So the slave in the flesh became free in the spirit. After his baptism, he ate the common meal at Priscilla’s house as an equal with freedmen. This made him aware that he actually had a will of his own and could think for himself. The human beast acquired a human dignity that none of the more privileged slaves of Tigellinus had.


It was a custom in Rome that whenever a son was born to a Roman freedman, regardless of whether it was born to his wife or to a slave, the new-born child would be laid at the feet of his father. If the father adopted the child, it was brought up with the other children of the household. If he rejected it, the child was done away with. This usually meant that it was thrown into the Cloaca like a newborn puppy or kitten.

One morning, Tigellinus was having his wiry body, and his muscular arms and legs, bent by much riding, massaged by his slaves, while one of his servants was helping him memorize a poem in which Nero was being likened to Orpheus. The overseer of the house entered, and announced that Tigellinus’ beloved Egyptian slave-concubine had given birth to a son.

After the massage, Tigellinus sat in his library with the tiny infant lying on a sheet before him. Its red hands and legs were lifted in the air, its face was puckered, its mouth open in a long wail, and its eyes were closed. But even before the child was brought in, Tigellinus’ knew what he would do. Now that he had risen to the first position in the empire under Caesar, he wanted no more of his bastards cluttering up the place. He was planning to take a new wife, and he didn’t care to burden her with the upbringing of another offspring of one of his slaves.

Therefore he turned away from the infant, looked angrily at the overseer of the house, and muttered through thin lips, “Expose it!”

The infant was taken away, and the order to have it drowned was given, not to one of the educated slaves, but to the stable boy Antonius.

Now it never occurred to Antonius to disregard or challenge the order, for there was nothing unusual about it and he was committing no crime. On the contrary, the only crime would be disobedience to the order, for which he could be thrown to the wild beasts.

Human life was of such little value in Rome that when some valuable horse was thrown and trampled by the other horses during a race, there was no thought for the rider, but only for the irreplaceable racer. The Romans were long accustomed to gladiators shedding blood in the arena by killing each other or by slaves thrown to wild beasts. The sight of a human’s death brought no pity. This was the world in which Antonius had been brought up.

So as he threaded his way through the streets of Rome toward the opening of the Cloaca Maxima at the foot of the Capitoline, where the great sewer emptied into the Tiber, bearing this tiny bundle of life wrapped in a sheet in his arms, he was barely conscious of his mission.

But as he approached the opening of the Cloaca Maxima, feeling the warmth of the quivering, wailing infant, he suddenly remembered something Paul had taught him.

“God has compassion on all men. He sent his Son down to suffer torment and death, so that he might redeem all mankind with his blood. And they who believe in Christ must be like him, ready to sacrifice themselves, even unto death, for their fellow men. They must love their fellow men even as Christ did, in order to be one with him.”

Antonius stopped dead. Paul had made him the equal of all believers. Antonius believed that he must act in all things as Christ would have acted. He remembered other words of Paul.

“Every man is born in the image of God, and all men are made of the same flesh.”

“Born in the image of God!” thought Antonius, in sudden horror. “This is a child of God, and it is my brother. It belongs to Christ, and it is my brother.”

Antonius resolved to disobey his master’s order. He would not throw the infant into the waters of the Cloaca Maxima. He would carry it to the other side of the Tiber, and he would leave it in an orphanage maintained near the synagogue. The women there would receive it and care for it.

But as soon as he came to this resolve, he was seized by a great fear. What was this? He had decided? But a slave cannot decide. A slave has neither will nor soul. He wasn’t his own man, he was the instrument of his master. His mind revolted from the dastardly deed, but what could he do? In his mind, he saw the overseer, the iron collar, the arena. He saw the great fish swimming in the basin in his master’s garden, its huge, slimy jaws, with their double rows of teeth, opening for him. He remembered a slave, who though Tigellinus’ favorite, had been thrown to the crocodiles.

No, he dared not have a will of his own. He was a dumb slave, the instrument of the will of another. And covered with the sweat of his conflict, Antonius reached the sewer’s opening.

The Cloaca Maxima was one of the greatest engineering feats of the Roman world. From ancient times it had been emptying the filth and refuse of Rome into the Tiber. This included not just garbage, but gladiators, criminals, and rebels taken in battle, brought to Rome to show off its triumph, then beheaded and thrown into the sewer, to feed the countless tuna fish breeding in the waters of the river.

The banks of the Tiber were also places of refuge for the poorest of Rome’s citizens as well as for its sick. When Antonius came there with his wailing burden, he saw, lying on the stones, many vagabonds, ragged, hungry, and verminous.

“If Caesar were only as generous with his bread for poor citizens as the nobles are with their bastards for the fishes!” one vagabond was saying.

Antonius stood paralyzed at the wide, black entrance of the Cloaca. The waves beat outward from the dark interior, bringing a sickening odor. Filth, rags, and animal carcasses floated on the surface. Antonius tried to detach the warm bundle from his body, but he couldn’t. There was a violent agitation in his heart, and his limbs trembled.

Suddenly he jumped back from the sewer. He thought for sure that he saw his own body floating on the miasmal waters. He felt himself about to be thrown in.

Then he cried, “Jesus, help me,” and he sank to his knees, clutching his burden. “What was I about to do? I almost threw myself into the black hole. But it was you, Jesus, who rescued me. I would have thrown both our lives into the water, but you saved me, and made me part of you.”

He pressed the infant close to him, bent down to the earth, and murmured, “Thank you, Jesus, for saving me and this little one from the mouth of the pit.”

In comparison with the horror that was just averted, all the other horrors, the lead-loaded lash, the beasts of the arena, the crocodiles, all melted into nothingness. Assurance flowed back into Antonius’ heart. Whatever happened to him, Christ was waiting on the other side to receive him with outstretched arms. He, Antonius the stable boy, would be one with Christ for the torments he suffered for his sake. He knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that what he was doing was good and right and proper. He knew he could do nothing else. No longer was he a slave without a soul, a dead implement for the fulfillment of another’s will.

Yes, his body was at the mercy of his master, but his soul was free in Christ. And like any free man, he could now do what he knew was right.


Antonius walked with swift and certain footsteps away from the Tiber and toward the Aventine hill. The house he’d visited there on occasion at night, stealing away from the slave dormitory, was where the ones who taught him the meaning of brotherhood in Christ lived. Priscilla and Aquila had welcomed him into the companionship, and a man who had personally lived with, eaten with, and learned from Christ was sometimes there telling stories about spreading the gospel through the world. Antonius knew that in this house, his tiny charge would be received.

When Priscilla received Antonius at the door, her look of astonishment only deepened when she learned why he was there. She thought she’d seen everything. But this was the first time that a slave had come, bearing his lord’s offspring, which he had saved from death at the peril of his life. But once her first astonishment was past, she thought, What could be more natural? Antonius was bringing a soul to her, a little one to be raised up in the faith of Christ instead of being given to the waters of the Tiber.

Priscilla was already overburdened with the tasks of the congregation, so she couldn’t take the little one herself. Plus, she and Aquila were preparing to move to Ephesus at Paul’s request, and they couldn’t very well take a newborn infant on such a perilous journey. So Priscilla decided to put the child into an orphanage until she could find some god-fearing woman of the congregation to give the child to. There were two such orphanages, one founded by the Jews many generations before, and one recently opened by the Christians. Priscilla veiled herself, and with characteristic impetuosity, hurried along with Antonius across the Sublicius Bridge.

The synagogue stood among the narrow, tortuous alleys of the Jewish quarter, among the houses packed with Jews and poverty. Around the synagogue were a schoolhouse, a ritual bath, and a hospice. Nearby there was a hall, an annex, which had been turned into an orphanage. It consisted of a single large room with an earthen floor and rows of benches around the walls. Here the good and pious Mary, aided by the sisters of the church, had installed the orphanage. And here the son of Tigellinus, the mightiest man in Rome after Caesar, was left, to be cared for with other orphans and to be given to some Christian woman for a Christian upbringing.

06 - One Family in God

The little apartment on the Aventine hill became a beehive of activity after James’ death as Paul vigorously renewed his efforts. Messengers came in and went out to the Christian congregations of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Achaia, and Paul, who couldn’t go in the flesh, went in the spirit through his letters. Among his staff of assistants, John Mark became more than just a fellow worker, for there was much in him that reminded Paul of Barnabas. Justus, too, became part of the organization.

Paul prepared to send letters to Ephesus by the hand of Tychicus, recently arrived from Asia Minor, and to Colossi by the hand of Onesimus.

In these letters Paul’s spirit is calmer and more clarified than in previous letters. They lack the bitterness and bursts of anger that marked the letter to the Philippians. Paul is no longer thinking of his personal enemies. His thoughts, in so far as they are concerned with opposition, are directed against the general enemies of the faith, the “philosophers” and misleaders, the Gnostics, the aesthetes, and “choice spirits,” who would make Christ a privilege for the “inner circle,” the initiated and educated, who teach that Christ couldn’t have died, since Christ was not a man, but was composed of pure spirit, his whole life just a series of symbols, intelligible only to the trained mind.

Paul saw this approach to the faith as an attempt to change Christ into a philosophical concept, like Stoicism was among the Greeks and Romans. But Christ was not a symbol or a series of symbols. He was not a “philosophy,” or the “Logos” for the cognoscenti. Christ was and is the flesh and blood of faith for all, the universal redemption. Every man is buried with Christ and every man is resurrected with him through faith in the work of God. In the faith every man shares Christ’s triumph over death, not symbolically, but in the flesh. By the death and resurrection of Christ, every man who accepts the faith is released from the laws of nature that govern the world, because he is no longer of the world. He is part of the order of heaven; he has died in Christ to the order of the world.

“Why do you think of the laws as if you were of the world? If you have risen with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. For you are dead, and you are hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, you will be revealed with him in glory. Therefore put to death those things that are of the earth, such as whoredom, uncleanness, lust, base desire, idol worship. . . .”

The conquest of death and the linking of the self with Christ became clarified in Paul’s mind after James’ death. Like Peter, Paul too envied James’ ascension, and he longed to be with Christ in heaven. But he regards the present part of his sojourn on earth as more important than any previous part. In these critical days Paul understands that his present task is to prepare Christians for a great trial, the like of which will require every resource of faith. Every believer has to be made to feel that he is one with the body and soul of Jesus and therefore ready to abandon all earthly possessions and being. He has to act as though there is nothing more to expect from this world, as though all hope and expectation are bound up with the world beyond the grave.

So he writes to the Ephesians, “It is our peace that has made one out of two and has thrown down the dividing wall. Through his flesh Christ has destroyed the enmity of the Torah, which consisted of laws and commandments so that out of two men he might make one new in himself, and bring peace. For through him both Jew and Gentile have access to the Father in one spirit. Therefore you are no longer strangers and converts, but sons of the house in the family of God.”

Paul has begun to find his way back to God, Whom he’d lost for a time, because of his love for Christ, his zeal for his mission, and his bitterness against his enemies. After he asks the Ephesians not to be oppressed “because of my sufferings for you, which are a glory,” he tells them, “Therefore I bend the knee to the Father of Jesus Christ, in Whom all the families in heaven and on earth are named. . . . And it is one God and Father for all, One Who is over all and in all.”

In no other letter does Paul work so hard to inscribe the Ten Commandments in the hearts of the believers, as in the letters to the Ephesians and Colossians. Although he absolves them of the laws and commandments as such, since they have the fulfillment of them in faith, yet they must live on earth, and life on earth is sinful. So they must have guidance and rules. One principle he would plant forever in the lives of the Gentiles is the purity of family life, so he talks about the bodily union of man and wife in a holy bond.

“Be obedient to one another in the fear of God. Wives be obedient to your husbands as to the lord, for the husband is the head of the wife. . .”

Here is a man who has never known the happiness of family life, having bound himself to lifelong celibacy for the sake of his mission, and yet he recognizes the mysterious bond that holds man and wife in a sacred bond of body and soul with trembling awe. The sacred purity of the Jewish woman, which tradition has passed down from mother to daughter, is his guide in the rule of family life for the congregations of Christ.

From his youth he remembers the lessons from the rabbis, “The husband who loves his wife more than his own body, and honors her more than he honors himself, peace shall dwell in his tent.”
And, “The Shechina, the Presence, dwells between husband and wife.”

And so he exalts family life to the level of high worship of God.

“Husbands, love your wives! As Christ loved his congregation, and sacrificed himself for it, so shall you husbands love your wives even as your own bodies.”

And in the spirit of the Pharisees, who said, “He that honors his wife honors himself,” Paul writes, “He who loves his wife loves himself.”

“As Christ is to the church, so is the husband to the wife, the limbs of his body, his flesh, his bone, even as it is written, ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and they shall be one body.’”

All his longing for pure love is in the words, “Children, heed your parents in the lord.”
“Honor your father and your mother, which is according to the commandment, that it may be well with you and that you may live long in the land.”

Indeed, for all his abrogation of the law and the commandments, the directives he addresses to Jews and Gentiles are taken almost word for word from the commandments of Moses. They were hammered out again in the school of Paul’s rabbi, Gamaliel, and now Paul sends them forth again from the gates of Rome. He nourishes his congregations with milk, and supports them in the first steps they take into the new life.

“Put aside deceit and lying, let brother speak truth to his brother, for we are all members of one another. . . . He who is inclined to steal, let him steal no more, but let him work and do good with his hands, so that he may have something to give to the needy. . . . Let no evil talk come from your lips, but only what is good and an aid to improvement.”

He bids servants obey their masters in fear and trembling. “You know that the good you do shall be returned to you by our lord, whether you are servants or masters. . . . And you that are masters, deal thus also with your servants, be not harsh with them, for you know that your lord is in heaven and he is no respecter of persons.”

And in the same vein does he enjoin the Colossians too.

Toward the end of his letter to the Ephesians this new spirit in Paul sings with the tone of the Psalmist himself. Gone is the bitterness and resentment. Gabelus, the faithful soldier, and the men he brought with him had contributed something toward this change. Caesar’s legionaries, in their helmets and shining bronze breastplates, had thrown themselves at his feet, begging to be taken into the faith. This gave rise to an image in Paul’s mind of the believer with the weapons to repulse the assault on his faith, not with physical weapons, but with arms and armor that would never rust.

“Put on the whole armor of God,” he writes, “that you may be able to stand firm in the evil day. Gird yourselves with truth, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. Above all grasp the shield of faith, and set the helmet of salvation on your head, holding in your hand the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

He labors hard and long with himself in order to create the image of the armed believer. In a sense all his life has been a preparation for this creation. He’s made many detours; he’s erred and blundered. But in the end his feet are on the true path. Others may have found it more easily, but Paul did find it, step by painful step.

“The old is dead, and the new man has been born.”


Paul sent his messengers out with these letters to the four corners of the world. Epaphroditus, having recovered his health, went back to the Philippians, Tychicus returned to Ephesus and Onesimus to the Colossians. Remaining at Paul’s side were the faithful Aristarchus, John Mark, Justus, and Timothy.

And so he sat in his hired house on the Aventine, the hand that was chained to the guard lifted up in a proclamation of freedom and redemption for the world. It was lifted up for the liberation not only of the slave, but of the freedman too. This was the universal freedom of God, beyond the law of man. No Caesar on his throne, no evil in the hearts of men, should ever abrogate it. From his prison house Paul conferred on all men a new and irrevocable citizenship in the name of Christ.

05 - Peter in Rome

There were many Jewish legends that had to do with the founding of Rome. One said that when King Solomon took Pharaoh’s daughter as his wife, the angel Gabriel came down from heaven, lifted a mass of ooze from the bottom of the sea, and set it down where Rome was to be founded. Another said that when Jereboam set up the two calves, the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were born, in order to dissuade the Jews from going to Jerusalem. The Jews looked on Rome as the rod the Lord had appointed to punish Israel for its sins.

But Rome was also connected in the Jewish mind with salvation as well. This city of sin, this new Babylon, was considered to be not just a fiery furnace of trial, but was also the gate of redemption, for according to another legend, Messiah sat at the gate of Rome, among beggars, waiting for the sound of the trumpet of liberation. On that day Moses would come out of the desert, and Messiah would come to meet him from Rome.

Rome and Jerusalem. Each was built on the ruin of the other. Out of the heart of destruction would blossom the fruit of salvation.

This was why Peter eventually went to Rome, to wait in the lion’s den for Messiah.

Like Paul, Peter had also traveled through far-off cities and provinces. He left Antioch sometime after Paul, and took John Mark with him. They climbed the Galatia hills to Cappadocia, then went across the mountain country to Pontus of Bithynia, where Paul had not gone. They founded congregations in Asia Minor, reached the seashore and sailed to Rome. There, in the Jewish quarter in the Trans-Tiber, they discovered a congregation of Christians and settled there in one of the houses around the courtyard of the synagogue named in honor of the just emperor Augustus.


Ships unloaded cargoes of vegetables, wood and grain each day on the farther bank of the Tiber where hundreds of Jews had their booths and shops, selling clothing, fish, and spices. A horde of children played around every shop, getting underfoot while their parents dragged bundles and crates of merchandise from the ships to the booths. There was constant noise as merchants competed and quarreled, swearing by the Temple in Jerusalem that their goods were the best and the cheapest. It was a city within a city, Jerusalem in the heart of Edom.

But when the Sabbath came this stretch of the bank was silent, the shops closed, the booths empty. Wisps of straw and vegetable leaves lay scattered about. Every window in every Jewish home was adorned with garlands of flowers and leaves in honor of the Sabbath. The air was fragrant with the odor of cooked fish and of the spiced foods that were an endless source of amusement for the Gentiles. For that matter, everything Jewish was a matter for satire and burlesque among the mimes and actors of the circuses, but the Jewish Sabbath above all. The pamphleteers made a great point of the imbecilic Jewish habit of losing one day in seven, which was given up to utter idleness. The Jews, moreover, were incomprehensible in their treatment of children. Infanticide was quite unknown among them, and every child, every single one, was brought up.

The Jews paid little attention to this endless mockery. “Let the Gentiles laugh to their hearts content,” they said.

On the Sabbath morning the Jews assembled in the synagogues, prayed, listened to the reading of the Torah, and drank up the words of their prophets thirstily.

The Christian congregation in Rome was now so large that they had a separate place of worship within each synagogue. After they performed the services and repeated the prayers with all their fellow Jews, omitting no detail, they gathered for the special service of their own. They had their common meals, held meetings of their own, and collected money for the widows and orphans. Officially they belonged to the Jewish community, and they made no attempt to separate themselves. They simply had their own additional customs.

Pious Gentiles were invited to their gatherings on condition that they accept baptism. When the group became large enough, it acquired an acknowledged position in the Jewish congregation.

Now Simon didn’t come to Rome to mend and reinterpret the faith. His God was perfect and complete. Who was he that he should seek to penetrate into the mystery of God? He was an unlearned fisherman, and not the scholarly “brother Paul”, who was so hard to understand. His God was the God of faith, to whom man in his loneliness clings with all hope. It was this simplicity that brought many poor laborers to hear his sermons, and there was a new spark of growth when the simple fisherman came with his warm speech, his winning manner, and his charming parables.

“We serve and adore but one God, the Creator of all the worlds, and we observe his laws, the first of which is, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and might.’ Man is created in the image of God. Therefore we must glorify God by sharing our bread with the hungry and our clothes with the naked. We must visit the sick, extend hospitality to the stranger, and ransom him that is in captivity. As God has called you to be holy, so shall you be holy.”

And to the Gentiles he said, “Be as obedient children, and not as before in your lusts. For you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible gold and silver, but with the dear blood of Messiah, who is as a lamb without blemish. You are born anew, not through corruptible seed, but through the word of God, which lives and is everlasting. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the field. The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of God abides forever. Therefore put off from yourselves all evil and falsehood, all flattery and envy and evil speech. Desire the pure milk of the Word, like new-born children, in order that you may grow.”

After preaching and praying, Peter would visit one of the Jewish homes, where the Sabbath meal was spread on the table, and sit with the family and eat in the joy of God. They also thanked God for this special privilege of the holy Sabbath, on which they dedicated their bodies and souls to Him.

Thus Peter lived his simple life among the Jews of Rome. He seldom left the Jewish quarter, preferring to sit in his house praying, repeating psalms, or recounting again and again the deeds of the righteous Messiah to his helper, Mark, who carefully wrote it all down. Or else Peter would sit in his chair and receive all who came to him, Jew and Gentile, speaking to them in all kindness and gentleness.


One time a rich matron came to see Peter to hear about the faith. This made him quite uncomfortable, as did many things about the giant city that he regarded as the source of all abomination. He had little faith in Roman matrons, for their belief in their gods had always been a self-indulgent thing, and they were always willing to hear of any new Oriental god, not just Messiah.

Simon considered Rome to be a drunken harlot, a painted Babylon, full of witchcraft, whoredoms and idolatry. But he was convinced that it was from this place that Messiah would come a second time, “suddenly, and as a thief in the night,” and he would ascend the throne to judge the mighty of the world.

So while the great power of Rome, her palaces and temples, her slaves and legionaries, her nobles and rulers, filled Peter with dread, he knew that Messiah would sweep away this blot with a fiery broom. He often preached about “the great judgment day,” and prophesied of the dark end of the imperial city. He had visions of a rain of fire coming down from glowing clouds.

“In that day the heavens will dissolve and the foundations will melt, for we shall yet have the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, where we will live in righteousness.”

This was Peter’s message to the people of Rome, and it brought fear and trembling to many. Jew and Gentile learned that the messenger from Jerusalem was foretelling the end of the world, the destruction from which only the believers, they who had taken baptism in the name of Messiah, would be saved.

As this message of doom spread throughout the city, there were many who came to seek salvation. So the congregation grew from day to day, among Jews and Gentiles, and everywhere among the poor, the slaves and the oppressed, they spoke of the doom that was approaching.

* * * * *

Simon knew that Paul was in Rome in chains, a prisoner in his own home, and that he was spreading the gospel to the Gentiles on the other side of the Tiber. He couldn’t understand the special doctrine that Paul preached, nor did he wish to. Who was he to scrutinize the intentions of God? God was to be feared, not scrutinized. And though he knew that Messiah had to suffer as part of his mission of the redemption of mankind, Peter preferred to remember him as his beloved rabbi, the just man, the chosen one. But he also knew that the spreading of the gospel through Caesar’s household was not a bad thing.

Peter found himself more and more longing to be in the presence of his rabbi. He hungered to be with him in heaven, to see his white, shimmering robe, and to hear his sweet voice. But he also remembered the prediction that he would have to drink the same bitter cup Messiah had. But Simon was a weak man, and he trembled just thinking about the torment. He wanted that day to be far off, if it ever came at all. Sometimes, though, the longing to see Jesus made him almost think he was willing to go through the fiery circle.


One day a man from Jerusalem came to visit. His name was Jesus Justus, and he was of the Greek Jews. He brought dreadful news.

“After many years of waiting and scheming, old Annas’ youngest son, whose name is also Annas, paid a huge bribe and became the High Priest. He immediately cut the Pharisees out of the Day of Atonement service completely. He started a new form of service that’s entirely Sadducee. Well, you can imagine the bitterness that caused in the rabbis and scholars. They’re more bitter than ever.

“But it gets worse. Festus left for Rome and the new Procurator wasn’t there yet, so the High Priest was the only ruler in the land. He took advantage of that to seize James in the Temple courts, and have him stoned to death. There was no investigation or trial.

“When the rabbis and Pharisees heard about the stoning, they got a delegation together and made John son of Zachai their head. They went to King Agrippa and told him they were going to bring a charge against Annas, even before Caesar. King Agrippa deposed the High Priest immediately. He was only High Priest for three months, but on the very day he was deposed the leaders of the Pharisees broke into his chamber and tore the lobe of his ear, so that he’d have a defect and be unfit for the priestly office.”

Peter said nothing, so Justus continued, “James died as a saint, for the sanctification of the Name. The holy congregation of Jerusalem is orphaned.”

Simon’s first reaction at the dreadful news was a bit of envy that James had been gathered to Messiah and he was like one left outside when a friend enters the house. But this feeling was quickly replaced by dread. James was the one person he leaned on, someone who was to him what Joshua was to Moses. In matters of doctrine, in all that had to do with the law, James had been his right hand. Who would he lean on now?

But once the horror of the news broke through to his heart, he knew he really needed someone to cry with. Suddenly he felt his heart being drawn to the great apostle to the Gentiles, who’d started so many congregations, and who, even in chains, was still spreading the gospel. All at once the division that kept them apart didn’t seem so important. What did this or that interpretation of the faith signify by comparison with the work that needed to be done? Simon thought of the quarrel he’d had with Paul in Antioch, and realized he couldn’t even remember what it had all been about.

He called John Mark.

“Please take me to the chained apostle to the Gentiles, to Paul.”

Simon, John and Justus passed over the bridge into the center of the city and made their way to the Aventine hill, near the Porta Capena, and having found the house, climbed the narrow stairs to Paul’s lodgings.

The apostle to the Jews and the apostle to the Gentiles fell on each other’s necks, and for a long time they said nothing.

Paul listened to the recital of the fearful incident in Jerusalem, and when Justus finished, Paul looked at Peter and said, “I guess this makes you the leader of the Jewish congregation. I’ll help in any way I can.”

“Ah, brother Paul,” answered Peter, “whom the lord has appointed to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, you are the one in chains. Please, let me leave John Mark to help you in your work as a seal of our brotherhood.”

04 - Ringing of Chains

From the Porta Capena of Rome the Via Appia continued through the countryside, lined on both sides with monuments and mausoleums of the mighty dead. Nymphs and fauns had their homes in the swampy fields and caverns of volcanic stone. Here the Romans heard the singing of sprites and the murmur of gods, and they saw the shadows of demons stealing across the wastes.

It was in this part of Rome that a new Jewish settlement had sprung up.

The reason for building this new quarter was that the Jews didn’t burn their dead like the Romans, but placed them in caskets on natural or hewn-out shelves in caverns. The volcanic stone of the land around the Via Appia was soft making it easy to honeycomb with twisting passages and to cut out shelves in the walls. At the same time these catacombs were strong enough so as not to collapse and bury the tombs.

The Jewish community in the Trans-Tiber was so overcrowded that many Jews had moved away and lived among the Gentiles on the lower slopes of the Viminal Hill near the filthy Suburra. But with the new quarter and a proper burial ground, the Jews moved there, even though it was a bit of a distance from the heart of the city. The settlement developed rapidly and was soon swollen with Jews from every quarter.


The animosity Paul found in Rome from the non-Christian Jews did not surprise him. What did surprise him was the discovery that two Christian parties had formed. Most of the Jewish Christians were under the influence of James, whose word carried as much weight in Rome as it did in all the other Jewish communities of the Diaspora. Even later, when Peter came to Rome, he disdained to greet the apostle to the Gentiles.

So despite the fact that he was a prisoner in his own home, Paul set out to create his own congregation of Christians. He tried to win anyone he came into contact with, including the guards, and he sent out the men who’d come with him to win new believers, as well as the Christians here who’d remained faithful to him from the days of Corinth.

Among his followers Priscilla stood out as his greatest help. As always, she kept watch over him as a mother over her child. She prepared his meals, comforted and strengthened him, and assured him that any day now he’d be brought before Caesar and set free. She organized visits of groups to his home with the help of Timothy and Luke.

Luke was a help to him as a healer, too. The sedentary life forced on Paul had an adverse affect on his health, and Luke did what he could to strengthen him with medicinal herbs and roots.

Paul was especially strengthened by the conversions he saw in Caesar’s household, the soldiers of the Praetorian Guard. Old Gabelus brought to his new God all the military discipline, obedience and devotion he’d once lavished on Caesar. In Priscilla’s household, he found the intimacy and brotherly spirit Paul promised him, and in his gratitude he did his best to widen the circle of the “family.” He sought out men in the cohort that he judged to be most likely to accept the new faith, and he brought them secretly to Paul’s house whenever the guard happened to be one of his own soldiers. He also did what he could to assign men of the right spirit to this special duty, who could be influenced by Paul. When the matter was not in his hands, he recommended men of mild character, and he often slipped in a word of reminder that the prisoner was a Roman citizen, adding that he was a man of influence in high circles.

Before long Gabelus and Eubulus had soldiers in their cohort who were either of the faith or strongly inclined toward it. But these two soldiers were also in and out of the palace talking up the new faith to the cooks, bakers and butlers. Servants of Caesar’s household would steal through the Porta Capena at night to Priscilla’s house where the common feasts were held. Soldiers and slaves exchanged the “kiss of peace.”

But the ten cohorts stationed at the Praetorian barracks were changed daily, so Paul often found himself in the care of a rough, unmanageable soldier. He’d be chained again and had to bear the soldiers’ company for twenty-four hours, accompanying him even when he went to answer the call of nature. Worse, the soldier would drag Paul wherever he went, including the foul public comfort stations, where men and women sat side-by-side, indulging in the grossest and most revolting jests. The soldiers often took special delight in mocking Paul’s Jewishness, imitating his gestures, interfering with his prayers and defiling his food by throwing a piece of pork into it. Occasionally, a soldier of the baser sort would compel the prisoner to witness frightful obscenities, and when Paul would close his eyes and whisper a prayer to God for release from the torment, the soldier would burst into brutal laughter. At night, when Paul’s devotions disturbed the soldier, he’d be elbowed in his side and told to sleep.

These were times he reminded himself over and over that he was an apostle to the Gentiles and that he did not belong to himself. He’d forfeited his privacy to be chained to another, for good and evil, in order that he might bring salvation to that other.

And so Paul discovered a new demonstration of grace and was strengthened.


Paul withheld his message from no one. No matter how cruel and base his keeper, no matter how revolting his conduct, Paul strove mightily to forget his own individuality, and to dedicate himself to understanding the other person in order to find any spark that could be kindled into the flame of faith. He stopped thinking of men as good or bad, believers or unbelievers. He thought of them only as ignorant or enlightened, and the most ignorant could be enlightened if only the proper way could be found. There was not a singe guard whom Paul did not seek to win over to the faith.

Besides soldiers, Paul was able to witness to acquaintances that Luke made in his capacity as a physician. Some of these were scholars, readers, and secretaries. Timothy spoke with strangers in inns, restaurants, and barbershops, and there were many Roman matrons in Priscilla’s circle who could be converted.

And so two Christian communities grew side by side. One was mostly Jewish, with a sprinkling of Gentiles who’d either converted to Judaism or at least kept “the commandments of the sons of Noah,” according to the long ago ruling of James. The other was made up chiefly of servants of Caesar’s household, soldiers of the Praetorium, slaves, and freedmen. They gathered around Priscilla’s house on the Aventine hill.

The river Tiber divided the two communities.

* * * * *

It was early morning in Paul’s house. Loud street noises floated through the “windows,” which were stopped up with sackcloth and other rags because of the chill. Children’s voices in a school on an upper floor could be heard reciting the alphabet, and the sound mixed with the ringing hammer of a nearby smithy. The screams of a quarreling couple nearby competed with Paul’s voice. The smoke from the stove of a sausage maker in the next apartment penetrated into the room, for the walls were full of cracks and the ceilings were faulty.

Paul lay on the bed that was his only piece of furniture. A long chain connected his wrist to that of a hairy, bearded soldier who sat at the window and shouted down to passersby of his acquaintance. This particular guard was a Corsican, whom Paul had met for the first time that morning. He wasn’t of Gabelus’ cohort, and he’d never heard of Paul before, but he was a kindly fellow, and he’d been surprised and softened when Aristarchus offered him a pitcher of new wine. He sat now with the pitcher between his knees. Whenever he lifted his arms to greet someone or to bring the pitcher to his lips, he tugged at Paul. Except for this thoughtless gesture, he didn’t disturb the old man.

Paul was weak and weary, his hands blue and swollen. His face was ashen, his cheeks pendulous, and the tear-sacs below his eyes unnaturally large. Only his thick eyebrows bristled with a strange liveliness above the pale shimmer of his eyes.

Luke stood next to him, ever calm, ever at peace. His black, well-kept beard and hair were streaked with gray. His mantle fell in careful folds around his body. With strong, skillful hands he massaged the flabby skin of his teacher, the face, throat, and chest. He’d also prepared a special drink of fig juice mixed with herbs.

The two were having a lively discussion about Luke’s attempt to write a gospel account of the life and deeds of Christ. They’d been doing this each morning for some time now, Luke reading the few paragraphs he’d written the day before, and Paul asking questions and offering suggestions.

For example, when Luke quoted Christ as commanding his disciples not to go to the Gentiles, or to the cities of the Samaritans, but to the lost sheep of the House of Israel, a startled Paul demanded, “Who put those words into the mouth of the lord?”

When Luke replied that Matthew had written them, Paul responded, “Maybe in another context, but to me the lord said, ‘I will send you to the Gentiles.’ He is the master of all men, and he came to bring redemption to Jew and Gentile alike.”

Another quote Luke had gotten from Matthew said that if you greet only your brothers, how are you better than others? Don’t the Gentiles so? To this Paul said, “That’s just a comparative statement. The Gentiles are not sinners. They’re just unborn children of the faith, and someone not born cannot be a sinner.”

Thus Paul’s influence on Luke’s gospel regarding Israel’s relation to the Gentiles. And to emphasize that Jesus’ mission extended to all mankind, he had Luke carry Jesus’ genealogy back beyond Abraham, where Matthew had ended, to Adam, the first man.

While Paul was busy with this, Timothy came in. The years the young man had spent with Paul in voluntary imprisonment, as well as his concern about the fate of the congregations of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Achaia, had aged him greatly. His tall, slender figure had acquired a stoop. His face was yellow in the framework of his lustrous, black beard, and many wrinkles had gathered on his forehead. He wanted to write or visit the congregations, maybe take Luke with him.

Paul had sent Titus to the infant congregations, but what was one man? Besides, he didn’t want to burden Paul with his desire, for a messenger would need money for the journey, and he and Paul both knew that the funds of his congregation were low.

As if to confirm his thoughts, Aristarchus and Priscilla appeared together in the doorway with a small pot of grits and honey talking in low voices, and Paul knew why. Priscilla had sold their last bundle of goat’s hair to pay his rent. There was nothing left in her house to sell. Her husband’s looms were idle because they didn’t have the money to buy raw material. The situation was dire. Paul’s congregation was made up of soldiers, slaves and the poorest freedmen, and he suddenly felt that he was a burden to them. If only his hands were free! As old as he was he would sit at the loom again and earn his own bread. But his hands were literally bound. Where would help come from?

But no sooner did that thought enter his mind than he turned from it in shame. Didn’t he believe in the lord Jesus Christ? The lord had reduced him to this condition, and the lord would not turn his life to nothingness. Hadn’t he brought him to Rome, a prisoner in chains, because he intended great things with him?

Suddenly he called Timothy over.

“Titus should be sent to Crete,” he said. “It’s a gross and ignorant people, but there is a field ready for Christ. A strong hand is needed, and Titus is the man for it. It would be well to send Tychicus back to Ephesus, for Ephesus too is important. Many congregations have been founded in that area. You will go there. And you,” – he turned to Priscilla – “you and your husband must give up your house here in Rome and return to Ephesus. We must strengthen the hands of the new congregations.”

“And what of the congregation here?” asked Timothy.

“There is only one congregation and one Christ. The new Gentile believers will have to turn to the other side of the Tiber and become part of the Christian congregation over there, so that the two congregations may be united. Let the barriers between Jew and Gentile be broken down. Let all belong to the single congregation of Christ!”

Priscilla nodded and said, “Just yesterday the new believers met for the first time with the Jewish Christians and exchanged the kiss of peace.”

“How many of them were of Caesar’s household?”

“Thirty-six legionaries, brought by Gabelus and Eubulus, and upward of a score of the servants of Caesar’s household, freedmen and slaves.”

“I bend my knee before the Father of my lord Jesus Christ.”

“But what is to be –“

“Priscilla, my sister. God has spread the seed from Rome to Ephesus. In every city there are congregations, and they will help in the completion of God’s work.”

“And who will look after you in your chains?”

“He who has looked after me all these years. The congregations are more important than I.”

Meanwhile little Aristarchus stood by Paul’s bed holding the pot of grits and honey, and muttering, “Wouldn’t it be better, after all, for the apostle to eat something?”

Paul turned to him, and with his free hand took a few spoonfuls of food, sighing, “Will I be allowed to ever again see the children I’ve won to Christ? If only these hands weren’t chained. I would fly to them.”

“They will be free, they will surely be free. How often have you been in danger, and how often has the Lord rescued you! For the Lord needs you for His work.”

So Aristarchus babbled eagerly, as he held the pot of grits.

“I must give up this hired house, and return to my cell until I’m called before Caesar,” said Paul.

“God forbid!” Aristarchus shouted. “What do you mean by such words?”

“But where will we get the money to pay for these lodgings?”

“We’ll find it somewhere!” answered Aristarchus. “You have more important concerns. The Lord knows our needs. Surely someone will come from one of the congregations. And if no one does, we’ll talk to the Christians. They must remember the words, ‘Don’t muzzle the ox that treads the corn.’”

“No, not from the Gentile believers. They are children of the faith, and children must receive, not give,” said Paul. “Cross the Tiber. Speak with the believers who are our brothers in Israel. They’re grown in the faith, and they carry the burden lovingly.”

“However it happens,” answered Aristarchus, “it’s not for you to worry about. We’ll do what must be done, and God will be with us.”


These words were barely out of his mouth when a stranger appeared at the door, dressed in a Macedonian mantle. The man’s face and robe were covered with dust.

“Is this the house of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles?”

And looking toward the bed, the man waited for no answer, but came forward and bowed deeply, saying, “Peace to you, my rabbi and my lord! I’ve just arrived from Philippi and I bring greetings from the holy congregation in Jesus Christ. They’ve heard that you are in bonds and wish to send help to you through me. They’ve heard that you are in need, and this is an offering, made in love, from the congregation of Philippi.”

And the man placed a small sack of money at Paul’s feet.

Immediately Paul motioned to Aristarchus to bring a pitcher of water and wash his hands and feet. Aristarchus then helped him up from his bed and placed his tunic and black mantle over him.

Washed and dressed, Paul sank to his knees and murmured, “Father of all living things, I’m not worthy of the grace You’ve manifested toward me. May Your Name become known to all the peoples of the world through the redeemer You’ve chosen. May Your name be sanctified in all the world, and may Your spirit come on all people. May all people make a covenant in You and be bound through the grace of the redemption You sent to the world through Your holy servant, Your chosen son. For all comes from You, and all returns to You, the Holy One of Israel.”

Then Paul arose, sat on the bed and listened to the report brought to him by Epaphroditus of Philippi. Then he set about his plans with renewed energy.

He had Epaphroditus go out into the city to find any Philippians he could in the streets, shops, and inns, and preach the gospel to them. He rejoiced with Aquila and Priscilla, who were now relieved of their monetary anxiety.

And to top it all off, Tychicus and Onesimus arrived from Macedonia, and Demas came from Thessalonica the very next day. Paul’s house was once again transformed into a lively center for the uncircumcised Christians of Rome. Day after day the word went out to slaves and freedmen. Before long Paul had a little chair brought in, and sitting there, sometimes bound to a soldier, and sometimes with hands free, he taught from morning to night, winning souls to Christ.


Paul began to dictate a letter to the Philippians to Timothy. He always opened his heart in his letters, speaking without reserve, but to the Philippians, who’d always come to his aid when he was in need, like a mother to her child, he wrote with special feeling and unashamedly told of the heaviness of heart that he suffered because of his bondage, and of the faith that triumphed over it.

“I want you to know that what has happened to me has only served to spread the gospel. Even Caesar’s household knows that I am in chains because of Christ.”

“For me Christ is life, and death is gain. . . . I’m torn between two paths: I long to go be with Christ, but for your sakes it’s necessary that I remain in the flesh.”

And after explaining what having the “mind of Christ” meant, and that “every tongue should confess that Christ was lord to the Glory of God the Father,” he goes on.

“Be pure and spotless, children of God without stain. . . . Let me have pride in you in the day of Christ, so that I have not labored in vain. And if I should offer myself as a sacrifice for your faith and service in God, so shall I rejoice in his hope with you.”

He writes that he is sending Timothy to them, “for there is no one after my heart who will care for you in complete devotion. Others have tried to serve themselves, but he served with me in the spreading of the gospel as a son serves his father. . . . “

He still hopes to see the Philippians with his own eyes, but he also remembers those who are trying so hard to hinder him in his work. “Beware of the dogs!” he cries.

He talks about his Jewish origins, as he does in other letters. “I am a Jew of the Jews, of the Jewish tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee, according to the law.”

But now he’s ready to give up everything for Christ, “so that I may no longer have my own righteousness which is of the law, but that which is of faith, the righteousness which is of God through faith.”

In his eagerness to emphasize faith, he even counts as loss what he had once counted as gain. “Yea, I count everything a loss that I held before the great knowledge of Christ my lord, for whom I have given up everything.”

But Paul is also human and in his bitterness he speaks of his former belief as utterly worthless. Certain tones in the letter also betray the discomfort of his chains, a human discomfort his spiritual libation cannot wholly overcome. But these are nothing more than spots, which he regrets passionately, and he can’t help revealing them in his letters, though again and again, he rises to heights of which he alone is capable.

“And now, brothers, whatever is true and honest and just and pure, whatever is of good report, and whatever is praised, set your heart on these things.”

In a surge of love and gratitude he says, “I do not speak to you out of want, for I have learned to be content with what I have. I know how to suffer want and how to conduct myself in plenty. I can do everything with the help of Christ. But you have shared with me in my affliction.”


It so happened that a young Tuscan was Paul’s guard on the day he finished his letter, a new man he’d never seen before. When he had taken over the prisoner from the previous guard, the young soldier kneeled down and cried, “I know you’re a holy man, and are sent by God. I know that it is for Jesus Christ that you’re in chains.”

“How do you know the name of Christ? Did Gabelus or Eubulus send you?”

“No. It’s well known on the Palatine hill, and everywhere in Caesar’s household they call on it,” said the soldier. “Take me, I pray, into your faith.”

Paul knelt down by the side of the soldier who was his keeper, and, lifting up their chained hands to heaven, called out, “See, O Lord! These chains You placed on my hands ring our Your praise and Your glory among men. I thank You for them!”

03 - Disputation

Thus Paul was granted the privilege of living in private quarters, under the watchful eye of a soldier, until his trial. These quarters would have to be near the barracks on the Palatine hill, since his guard was changed daily, so his friends rented rooms for him in a lodging house on the Aventine hill, on the other side of the Circus Maximus, not far from the home of Priscilla and Aquila, who took on the responsibility of the apostle’s care.

The first thing Paul did was to contact the heads of the Jewish community of Rome. He was concerned that rumors that he intended to lodge a complaint with Caesar against the Jews may have spread. So he sent Aristarchus and Timothy to bring the elders of the synagogue to him since he was confined under guard in his house.

The elders had indeed heard of his arrival, but most of them didn’t know who he was. They only knew that a Jew was a Roman prisoner, and any time such a Jew was brought to Rome, they considered it especially meritorious to rescue him whenever possible. So a number of elders accepted the invitation and came to find out exactly what the charges were against him and how they could be of service.


Paul had aged greatly during his imprisonment. For more than two years he’d been deprived of his liberty, and for a man of such a restless spirit this was even more exhausting than the wild journeys he’d taken. He was used to traveling long distances and attracting people like a magnet. Now he was reduced to conducting his enterprise as best he could from within the four walls of a prison, chained to a single individual and passing countless days under the careful watch of a guard, who accompanied him wherever he went. He was tired and his nerves were frazzled.

Some of Paul’s guards were like Julius had been, sensitive enough to respond to his message and the warmth of his personality. The wall of suspicion between Jew and Gentile broke down, hostility turned to friendship, and with some, Christ became the common bond between prisoner and keeper. But there were others whose dull, hardened souls allowed no response to Paul’s faith and magnetism. Sometimes Paul’s prayers and meditations awoke only anger or derision in the creature he was chained to.

The latter caused Paul to cling more closely to the one who was the reason for his bondage. For Christ was not just the source of his life and the center of his being. He was both his tormenter and his liberator. In Christ, he had sinned, and in Christ he’d been redeemed. Though he’d sunk to the level of a murderer, he’d been raised to the level of spreader of the gospel to all men. Jesus was no longer just the intermediary between man and God, the “holy servant” who was to bring all mankind under the authority of God. Paul now went a step further.

“Every knee in heaven and on earth and under the earth shall bend to the name of Jesus.” Every tongue should acknowledge that “Jesus Christ is lord to the glory of God the Father.”

Thus he gave to Christ the place that his Jewish tradition had reserved for the One Whose Name may not be uttered, the God of Israel. Only in the double nature of Jesus could man unite with God and become part of Him through his human aspect and nature. God was close, intimate.

“You can love Him with your human nature. You can quench your thirst in him. You can become filled with the love of God, and through your faith in Christ you become part of him who is himself divine.”

These meditations on man’s relationship to Christ were the sources from which Paul derived strength in his loneliness. Love for Christ consumed him like a burning fever. But his body was worn down to its skeleton, and his bones protruded through the withered skin on which the poisonous air of his prisons had cast a yellow sheen. His throat became stringy. The pear shape of his face became more accentuated, his hair thinner, his cheekbones more prominent. His thin, bony hands were restless. They seemed forever to vibrate, like stringed instruments plucked by a passing finger.


The head of the Jewish delegation that came to visit Paul was Zadoc, the rabbi of the Synagogue of the Hebrews. He had the official title of interpreter of the law. As such he was the spiritual leader of the Jews in Rome. He was born in Jerusalem and had been a disciple of John Zachai, the head of the Pharisees. Not being a Christian, he didn’t know much about the prisoner or his dispute with the Jews. He saw only a Jew in bondage, chained by his right hand to the left hand of a Roman soldier. He listened to this “captive child amid the Gentiles.”

“Men and brothers, I have nothing against the customs of our fathers. God forbid that I would have anything to accuse my people of. I was delivered a prisoner into the hands of the Romans. They heard my case and would have set me free, for they found nothing in me worthy of death. But when the messengers of the High Priest brought charges against me, I was compelled to appeal to Caesar. Therefore I’ve sent for you, that I might talk with you, because it is for the sake of the hope of the Jews that I’ve been bound with this chain.”

The eyes of Zadoc became moist as he listened to “the captive child.” Like Paul, his beard was pointy and gray, and his earlocks trembled when he spoke.

“We received no letter from Judea about you, and none of our brothers recently arrived have given any evil report about you.”

A member of the delegation threw in a word, “Indeed, we’d like to hear from you about this sect against which so much is being said.”

“That’s true, but they also speak against all Israel everywhere, not just this sect,” interjected another.

“Yes, the house of Jacob is shamed and humiliated,” sighed the rabbi.

“But it’s precisely this sect that is spoken against everywhere that I want to talk to you about,” said Paul.

“Then we will schedule a day and meet again, and you will talk then.”

So a day was set. And as the rabbi was about to rise, he added, “If you have need of anything, we will help you.”

“No, thank God,” answered Paul. “God has graciously sent a pious couple to me, who are of the sect, and who live not far from here. Their names are Aquila and Priscilla. She prepares kosher food for me and brings it here. And my faithful companion” – he pointed to Aristarchus, who was sitting modestly in a corner – “attends to my needs, as do the other companions who came with me. As for any other needs, I trust in the Lord.”


On the appointed day the rabbi of the Synagogue of the Hebrews came to Paul’s lodgings with the sages of the community of Rome. Representatives of other synagogues came as well. For a whole day Paul sat in discussion with them, declaring his doctrine of Christ, which Christians accepted and which he preached to Gentiles as well as to Jews, for Christ, he said, had come to throw down the wall between Jew and Greek, and to make them as one.

Now the sages knew that the Torah is divided into two parts, the first being rules and regulations, and the second being applications, that is principles and edification. As long as Paul talked about the first part, even though it digressed from traditional teaching in some respects, it was founded on the Ten Commandments, so the listeners found little to dispute in it. It derived from the Jewish body of law Paul had studied under Gamaliel.

He taught on women obeying their husbands, husbands loving their wives and not dealing harshly with them. He taught on children honoring their parents and on parental compassion toward their children. He even enjoined servants to be obedient to their masters and masters to deal justly with their servants, “for all of us have one and the same Lord in heaven.” He warned them against idolatry and fornication, for “the children of God must be without stain.”

The doctrine Paul preached to the Gentiles made a favorable impression on the listeners. Indeed, they saw the hand of God in his preaching of a messenger sent to save the Gentiles from the depths of uncleanness or, as Paul said, “to put off the old man, who is corrupt by lust, and to put on the new man, who is created in the image of the God of righteousness and in true sanctity.”

But when Paul reached the second part of his discourse and spoke of the principles of the faith behind the regulations, when he placed at the center of the doctrine not the God of Israel, but Christ, they took offense. And how could it be otherwise? What new authority had come to replace the authority of Moses?

So a passionate dispute broke out between Paul and his listeners, the kind of dispute that Jews, and only Jews, who had poured out their blood for the faith, could have conducted. The air became hot and charged and the ceiling seemed ready to take fire. Bodies trembled and fingers were thrust out, as if to point at invisible texts. They quoted the Pentateuch, they called on the prophets, and they fought over the interpretations of texts. They no longer listened to Paul, even going so far as to stick their fingers in their ears and shake their heads violently.

But Paul was not a man to be put off. The hotter the debate, the more insistent he was that they hear him out. And in the end, he forced them to listen to his conclusions.

“Until Christ came,” cried Paul, “there was no one to come in direct contact with God, not even Moses, who talked with God through a veil. God was God, man was man. God appeared only in a likeness, and men spoke to him through a cloud. Only with the advent of Christ, who in his nature is both deity and a being of flesh and blood, did man and God become united. Thus we are drawn into intimate union with God directly, and not through a veil. The man who believes in Christ is no longer guided by laws and commandments; he’s guided by a higher power, by the spirit of God, which is in him through his faith in Christ. Faith becomes man’s guide. It’s his law and commandments. It makes him a son of Abraham, circumcised or not. Jew or Gentile, man or woman, freedman or slave – all are lifted up to divinity through faith in Christ.”

What Jew could listen to such things from the mouth of another Jew? The assembled scholars were astounded, even as others had been.

“The God of Israel is single and alone!” cried one. “No one, and I mean no one, can approach Him, not the fathers, not Moses, not anyone!”

“Not the fathers and not Moses,” agreed Paul, “but Christ can, for he is part of deity.”

Up to this point, Zadoc had been as fiercely active in the debate as anyone. But when he heard Paul repeat these words, the strength went out of him. His eyes flooded and his face took on an expression of deep sorrow. When he spoke, his voice trembled.

“’What is man, that You are mindful of him,’” he began. “We are dust and ashes. Who can be lifted up to God? Only Gentiles believe that a king can become a god, and that they can sacrifice to him. We Jews know only one God. He who appeared to Moses and said, ‘I am that I am.’ All the rest is emptiness. It is for this faith that we’ve endured torture and death. We are mocked in the theaters and circuses, and treated like dust in the streets. Everywhere the flood threatens to carry us away.

“We have only one to hold onto, God. We have only one word from Him, the Torah. With king David we say, ‘I trust in God and will not fear the deeds of man.’

“If you take the Torah to the Gentiles and teach them the Ten Commandments, if you plant the fear of God in them and the love of good deeds, we say, ‘Blessed be the work of your hands.’ We will pray that God crown your labor with success. But if you say that we must relinquish the Torah of God for another authority, then you’ve said too much. Continue your work with the Gentiles. Leave the Jews to the law of Moses!”

Though trembling with impatience while the rabbi spoke, Paul kept himself in check. But finally he could listen no more.

“Oh, how just were the words of Isaiah when he spoke these words to our fathers, ‘They will hear, but not understand. They will see, but they will not know!’

“Now be it known to you, that the salvation of God is sent to the Gentiles, and they will hear!”

“Let the Gentiles accept your salvation, for they have no other. But we have the salvation given to our fathers and preached by the prophets. Let the Gentiles accept your salvation as we accept ours. Then it will be said of them also, ‘O stiff-necked people! They hear but do not understand, they see but do not know!’ And when that happens, you will know that their salvation is a true one, and will endure, even as ours is true and endures. If the salvation you preach is a true one, then God will bring us together with them. There is no true salvation without God.”

And with these words most of the delegation left. But a few remained behind with Paul.

2b - Paul Before Seneca

Paul was brought to Seneca chained to a legionary. From his judgment seat Seneca briefly inquired into the nature of the crime on which the apostle had been arrested.

“It’s for the hope of Israel, which I preach, that I’ve been thrown in chains,” answered Paul.

“The hope of Israel?” asked the consul, frowning. “To revolt against Rome and conquer the world? Is that why your countrymen imprisoned you?”

“Yes, conquest of the world,” answered Paul, “but not through revolt against Rome. Rather through the savior and redeemer God has raised through Israel, to bring the world under the rule of the one living God of Israel.”

“I’ve heard that the people of Israel believe that they alone worship the one living God, and that their Temple is the one place on earth where the God of the universe lives,” said Seneca, with a faint smile. “But this is the first I’ve heard of a savior and redeemer sent for the benefit of the whole world. What conceit! Couldn’t the God of the universe find some more fitting people to raise a redeemer for mankind than this barbarous Asiatic-Syrian-Palestinian horde? If He’d at least chosen us Romans, or let us say the wise Greeks. . .”

“God chose Israel because it is the Jews alone whose forefathers recognized the one living God. We have worshipped Him from ancient days,” answered Paul.

“This too is the impudent conceit of an impudent people,” said Seneca, contemptuously. “All of us recognize and pray to the one living God of the universe, not just Jews. The gods are only agents, intermediaries between ourselves and the one God of the universe.”

Paul was astounded, not so much by Seneca’s views, but by his daring in expressing them. He cried out, “O Seneca! How near you are to salvation! But it’s not the gods who are intermediaries, but the chosen Christ, the man-God and God-man, Jesus of Nazareth. He was sent down to earth by God in the likeness of man to be intermediary. He alone acts between us and the one living God, his Father.”

Seneca was suddenly interested, and the philosopher in him awakened. Not the gods, then, but a man-God had been appointed as the sole intermediary between man and divinity. He signaled to Paul to continue.

Paul knew this man’s reputation, and all his old longing to win the high representatives of the Greek-speaking world over to the faith came to life.

“Who and what are we, O Seneca, with all our wisdom and achievements? How far have these carried us? Can these break the iron ring of our earthly destiny? For all our lofty thoughts that carry us into the highest heavens, don’t we remain just crawling things subject to the laws of nature like every other earthly creature? How can we, with our created intelligence and emotions, achieve what we are not, the Creator? But God our Father has compassion on man. He has desired to lift him out of the chain of all other created things and to bring him nearer to Himself. Therefore He breathed a soul into us, which is part of us, and that awakens the longing for divinity in us.

“But the soul can only give us the thirst for divinity, as it has in you, O Seneca. It cannot give the actual drink. Therefore God took a part of His divinity and confined it in a man. And He sent this man down to earth, giving him all the nature of man. And He made him endure all the physical sufferings of man that he might bind himself to us and purify us of our earthly, beastly nature with his blood and tears, and lift us up with him. God is a portion in Christ. Thus we too are a portion in Christ. For Christ partakes of both natures, and we who believe in him are thereby bound through him to God. Christ alone is the bond between man and God, and there are no other gods besides.”

Seneca listened attentively. He had little use for any of the many religions that poured into Rome from the Orient. To him they were no better than the star-gazing Chaldeans, with their snake-charming and soothsaying and all their other superstitions.

But this struck him as entirely different. There seemed to be some philosophic perception in it. He couldn’t deny that faith acquired a universal appeal through a medium that shared both human and divine natures. Seneca was courageous and consistent in these thoughts, even if he kept them to himself. He didn’t shrink from truth, wherever he found it. But as a Roman he couldn’t understand how God could choose the lowest of the low, the Jews, as the dwelling place of His spirit. Not even a king of the Jews, a Herod brought up in the Roman court, was chosen. Instead, one who had died the death of a slave.

To Paul he said, “It’s all well and good that the God of the universe is filled with love toward man, His creature, and He wants to see man happy, joyous, and above all free in him. So why did God choose to incorporate His nature in a man who suffered and was killed? Why not choose one of the great one’s of the earth?”

“O Seneca!” cried Paul. “How do you measure greatness? With God’s measure or man’s? Are they great who debase humanity with the power that chance has placed in their hands? Or are they great who lift up the human species by their heroic deeds, in which they pour out their blood?

“Christ had the power to put away the bitter cup; he didn’t have to drink it. But he took on himself the death of a slave for all of us, and for all who will come after us. This is who you show such contempt for. He went down to the lowest rung of hell to lift out the last of us who’ve been thrown into it. Not in his heavenly garb alone does Christ shine for us. He shines in the royal raiment he won on earth, and stands before us as an example, bidding each of us bear his cross in love and humility and gratitude toward our Father in heaven.”

But still the great philosopher couldn’t see it. Divinity for him was wisdom, the path in the midst of chaos, the thread in a lightless maze. Without it man falls into primeval confusion. Intellectual perception is man’s perfection, whether it leads to the earthly or the non-earthly. But this man was talking about something higher than intellect, something that would burst the bonds of intelligence.

This Seneca dreaded. If divinity were united with the intellectual perfection and harmony of a Socrates, he could accept it. But it terrified him to think that it could be united with goodness instead. Goodness was the god of the weak, who had need of it. It wasn’t the god of the mind. Truth was accessible only to the intelligence.

After a pause he answered, with a serenity that imparted a suggestion of alabaster to his face. “Your God has settled in the man of pain, not in the man of mind. Such a man cannot strive to divinity of his own free will like the man of mind can, but he is under the compulsion of a destiny prescribed for him long in advance. And as the God of suffering, he’s the God of those who suffer. He’s a God for slaves. They’ll find consolation and comfort in Him to help them bear their fate and to inspire them to obedience to their lords. From that point of view, I see no objection to the spreading of such a faith among the slaves of Rome.

“But beware of spreading this faith among the Romans. You can go.”

With that Seneca rose from his seat and walked out to the litter waiting for him. He ordered the carriers to make haste, for the Jewish prisoner had broken in on his routine, that is, on his discipline and intelligence, and he’d spent more time with him than he’d intended.


On the way to the Palatine Seneca busied himself trying to come up with new words of adulation to greet the compositions that Caesar would undoubtedly have. But his mind kept coming back to the conversation with the man who would sooner or later appear before Caesar.

“Spiritual barrenness paralyzes the intellect, and fruitful thoughts make it alive,” he meditated.

A dreadful boredom spread over his features.

“I don’t know which death is easier, Nero’s poison, or his mediocre verses.”

He decided in favor of poison.


Later, when he met up with Burrus, he brought up his conversation with Paul. “The faith he preaches is a good one for the slaves. It’ll make them more obedient. That makes it a good thing for the state. But his doctrines are not ones that freedmen will accept.

“By the way, you might be interested in what he has to say about a second life in a world to come.”

And Seneca smiled into the face of the old soldier, who was also under the shadow of Caesar’s disfavor.

“And mark this, Burrus, that second life is not for sages and philosophers. It’s reserved for old soldiers like you.”

“If there is a Nero in Pluto’s world, then let the man keep his second life,” muttered Burrus into Seneca’s ear.

“No, he’s not there. But you’ll find a certain dead slave, who is the lord of the other world. His name, hang on a second, I just had it. I think his name is Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard soldiers in the Praetorium call on it,” answered Burrus.

“Really? Then the Jews have already been active here in spreading his faith,” said Seneca. “Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe he is a danger to the state.”

Then he added, “No, no. It’s a faith that only the wretched and enslaved will accept. Never will the free Roman bow to it.”

And with these words he decided Paul’s fate for some time to come.

2a - Rome

It’s easier for a man to die for his principles than to live by them. In this respect Seneca, the great Stoic philosopher, was no different than any other man. His philosophies, which he taught in his many letters to his friends, were doctrines of discipline, modesty, and contentment, but his life was one of unrestrained luxury.

But, living in Rome under Nero, the great Seneca, lying by his lovely young wife Paulina in their ivory bed with the gilded corners, knew no rest, and when he awoke in the morning out of his fitful sleep, it was invariably with a headache.

It wasn’t the fear of death that robbed him of sleep, not even after Nero had fallen completely under the influence of the cruel and cunning Tigellinus and of the depraved Sabina Poppea. For Seneca’s Stoic philosophy taught that death was just the beginning of a new and purified life. But his life was utterly devoid of personal values. So while he was certain that the spiritual part of him was assured of a great future, his personal life was bound up in this world. Indeed, while he consistently denied the significance of this wretched, earthly episode called life, he devoted himself with much skill and success to the accumulation of wealth, as if he expected to live forever.

But now that he stood on the brink of death, Seneca experienced emotionally what he’d proclaimed only in principle before. How foolish, he thought, to accumulate a fortune of vast estates and farms, costly furniture and art, all scattered throughout the empire. None of it mattered now that he expected the visit from the centurion who would bring him the imperial decree of death at any moment. He’d waited until his life was as insecure as that of other Roman nobles and citizens before he understood in his heart what he knew in his head when he wrote to a friend, “Not the count of days builds a long life, but their use in making a man his own master.”

At a banquet in the imperial palace just yesterday Seneca offered all his estates and palaces to Nero in exchange for release from his responsibilities as Consul. He begged to be allowed to retire to the country, to devote his remaining years to contemplation and study. Nero turned the occasion into a theatrical performance. His smooth round face took on a tinge of deep red. His watery blue eyes overflowed, his thick, swollen neck trembled, and his bosom heaved in the stress of his emotions.

“Seneca,” he said, in a sickly, gentle voice, “you guided my infant steps in the path of moral law and natural wisdom. You inducted my manhood into the ways of rulership. I ask you, what would the world say if I sent you away from my side? Would they not add this to the list of my cruelties? How can you be so unheedful to the good name of your friend?”

Then Nero leaned over, embraced him, kissed him, and promised him many other estates. But Seneca saw the familiar, deadly glitter in Nero’s eyes. He also saw the twitching grin of anticipation on Tigellinus’ lips, and the characteristic, cynical smile on Petronius’ face. Poppea tried to stop herself from giggling, but failed. They all knew the decision was made. Nero had smiled and spoken in the same emotion filled voice and with the same trembling neck when bidding his last farewell to his own mother. He’d uncovered her bosom, and said, chokingly, “These are the breasts that suckled me.” Then in all love, he’d conducted his mother to the foot of the villa and handed her into the boat that was to be her hearse.

This was an infallible sign with Nero. Whenever he became sentimental, whenever his eyes filled with tears, he was contemplating some frightful deed, so that by now every exhibition of tender emotion on the part of his pupil affected Seneca like the stench of a dead rat.


All night Seneca waits for the centurion to knock on his door. But the night passes, and no message comes, and in the morning he sees the hideous day before him. He will have to dress, wrap himself in his toga, so that the folds fall just so and no other way, not too perfectly, so as not to show up his master. Even in speech Seneca has to be skillful, but not too skillful. His phrases have to serve as a foil of his master’s phrases, but not seem to compete with them. In his bearing, in the appointments of his house and in the elegance of his banquets, he must always lag behind the imperial comedian.

Now he must proceed to the palace and become part of the hysterically flattering mob of courtiers who crowd around Nero, each seeking to outdo the other in outrageous eulogy of Nero’s verses and Nero’s performances on the lyre. If only those verses were frankly bad, and reflected some of Nero’s character! But Nero’s poetry, like his voice, is neither good nor bad. It’s commonplace. His poems are like stagnant pools in which countless bodies had bathed. They are an inspiration into decay.

The slaves finish massaging Seneca, for twice a day he submits his aging, swollen body to the masseurs, whose strong, skillful fingers awaken a fleeting sensation of youth in him as they rub costly oils into his flesh. Slave girls come in and anoint and perfume the flesh, spreading Oriental balsam on his skin with delicate fingers and working it into the pores, so that the skin blossoms and sings. He looks down at his body and it looks to him like a vessel about to be trampled. He tries unsuccessfully to summon the principles and rules of the Stoic life to his aid.

While all this is happening, Seneca follows his normal routine of dictating his moralistic letters to his friends. He writes to his friend Lucius “On the Welfare of the Body and the Neglect of the Soul,” warning him against preoccupation with bodily needs, and advising him to pay more attention to the needs of the soul. “Hasten to return from the body to the soul, and discipline yourself in her day and night.”

But none of these distractions allow him to get rid of the persistent thought that his body, which is receiving so much attention, is to have its functions prematurely suspended. It might happen today, or it might happen tomorrow.

The masseurs and slave girls pass Seneca’s body on to the hairdresser, for Nero is particularly finicky about his hair. Nero’s heavy, copper-yellow locks have to fall in certain designs on his fat neck and low forehead. And if Caesar is finicky about his hair, then his couriers can be no less so. The Syrian hairdresser and his assistants do what they can to soften the lines and pouches on Seneca’s face that the restless night has accentuated. And while the features are being fondled and smoothed out, and little beauty spots are being place on them, he listens to the reports of his estate managers.

He lays and listens to the long reports on his granaries and farms, his loans at interest, and his slaves. Here and there he interjects a question. Wouldn’t it be better to sell this or that harvest now? Did they have too large a stock of produce in the granaries?

When he completes the session with the directors, other slaves dress him, draw a tunic of Persian silk over his body and throw a heavy woolen toga over that. A highly specialized task, this is only performed by special slaves, “folders”, who are trained in this art. Properly “thrown”, the toga keeps its straight up and down folds all day.

Once the majordomo, reviewing the total effect of the hairdressing and the folding of the toga, expresses satisfaction with his lord’s appearance, the doorkeeper, who is chained to the corridor wall like a dog, throws open the heavy cedar doors.

* * * * *

Seneca’s city residence was surrounded by gardens large enough and beautiful enough to arouse even Nero’s jealousy. They contained exotic plants from all over the world. Long rows of pillars, made of Italian and African marble, ran parallel to the alleys of fantastic trees. There were basins set like jewels under overhanging trellises and surrounded by many-colored jasmine. Parrots, peacocks, and doves were kept in the gardens, and countless statues of gods and goddesses, athletes and flute players, peeped out of ingeniously planted thickets. Long lines of oleander bounded by thick bushes sheltered the residence from the noises and unpleasant odors of the streets.

As soon as Seneca came out of his house, men of every age appeared from between the pillars within the garden, crawling men in woolen togas, each trying to get as near as he could, pushing others out of the way. With outstretched hands, fawning smiles and bodies bent double they called out to him.

“Hail, patron!”
“Hail to you, lord!”
“My lord! Your appearance is like Jupiter!”
“No, not like Jupiter! Like Apollo!”
“Like neither, I say! Like Mars!”

One who fancied himself a philosopher, cried out, “Is this how you praise our lord? With commonplace words in stupid flattery? Leave such flatteries for the ignorant. For our lord’s appearance is like that of Plato, and no other.”

Seneca turned with a smile to the last speaker. “And who flatters you, Atonis? Is there anyone left to cringe before you?”

“Aye, my lord, my wife flatters me,” answered the philosopher.

Seneca laughed. “True, in Rome everyone flatters and is flattered.”

This group of people was Seneca’s claque, or groupies as we might call them today. For however much his better nature revolted from the all-encompassing corruption he saw in Rome, he could not, he would not as a Consul, dispense with their services. Like every Roman politician he kept a large staff of them. He paid them a few sesterces more than other patrons and was a little more generous in providing them with wool for togas. But he did this more for his own honor, than for any altruistic reason.

He was also different from other patrons in that he tried to pick his men from among the more intelligent sort, like obscure authors, unsuccessful dramatists and poets. He did pick ordinary clients as well, so that he might be certain of reaching every level of the populace. He was compassionate toward them, especially the “philosophers”, for Seneca saw himself as nothing more than a philosopher-client of the emperor.

“Clients, nothing but clients,” he thought. “That is what the Romans have become. As these are the clients of the ‘mighty,’ so we, the ‘mighty’, are the clients of the one patron of Rome –Caesar.”

The slaves with the litter waited at the foot of the broad flight of marble stairs in front of the house. Seneca disliked the ordinary litter, which he deemed only fit for women. He preferred the two-seater, one for him and one opposite for his secretary, who took down dictation or read to him. This morning, however, Seneca traveled alone.

A procession formed, led by Negro slaves in loincloths, who carried long, silver-tipped staves, to break a path through the crowds. Behind them came the younger clients in their togas, whose duty was to shout loudly, “Make way for the lord Seneca, the Consul.” Seneca’s most intimate servants, his secretaries, managers and other favorites, crowded around the litter. The older clients, who followed behind, had the honor of talking loudly about the great merits of their patron so that all bystanders could hear. Some of them proclaimed their own verses about Seneca’s achievements in education and literature. Others chanted about his great plans for the welfare of the Romans, how he would bring down the price of bread and arrange gigantic spectacles in the arena at his own expense. The whole procession was surrounded by a double row of slaves with pointed sticks and ox hide whips to keep the plebs at a respectful distance.

The wide gates swung open, and the procession poured into the street.

Seneca lived in the Vicus Patricius quarter, between the Viminale and Esquiline hills. Like all patrician palaces, it was surrounded by narrow, dirty streets, in which every foot of ground was needed for the swarming populace. Stone houses rose five and six stories on either side, so that the lower apartments were in perpetual darkness. Patricians and plebeians both lived there, thrown together like herrings in a barrel.

Tiny shops, booths, and work stalls were on the ground floor, with the display of goods on the street so that even the narrow passage between the houses was only partially open. Some of the ground floors were used as warehouses and an odor of decaying meat came from the shops, mixing with the odor that escaped from the open sewers.

The patricians, house owners, or their most important tenants lived above the shops in apartments whose rooms were fairly large, and had windows covered with cloth curtains. In the topmost floors, reached by narrow, twisted lightless stairs, were the smallest rooms inhabited by the poorest citizens. In order to earn part of the rent, they subleased rooms, or parts of rooms, to lodgers. Thus, on these floors there were large families crowded into rooms that were nothing more than open holes. The sole furniture was the bed, on which the family slept at night and ate its meals by day.

Along with smoke from three-legged braziers and the sour smell of unwashed linen, or of garbage the residents were too lazy to carry down to the sewers, there was a perpetual tumult of shouting, quarreling, and laughing, mixed with hammers ringing, millstones grinding, and steam whistling. But for the most part the rooms were used only at night for sleeping. During the day the inhabitants were all out on the streets.

The procession soon entered the Suburra, Rome’s gutter, and marketplace of the poor. A veritable babel of tongues was heard here from slaves and freedmen who visited the movable wooden booths stocked with every imaginable variety of merchandise. Sackcloth coverings for slaves could be found next to silk Persian shawls, although the latter were most likely stolen. The huge casks of wine that the dealers had to keep in the open, for lack of space, would surely have been broken or emptied by the rabble, were it not for the guards who were stationed at close intervals in the market with whips in hand.

A strange mixture of many races filled the Suburra. A red-haired Briton and a black-haired Gaul dragged a load of planks across the market. Blond Germans, bent double like beasts, carried a block of marble on a wooden frame.

In one corner sat a woman of Judea, her face covered with a black sackcloth veil, her stock of balsams and cosmetics in a basket in front of her. A Chaldean stargazer nearby offered to read people’s horoscopes, while next to him a snake charmer blew into his flute while the heads of the snakes swayed before him in the basket. Over here a crowd was betting on a cockfight and over there a dice game was in progress. A drunken legionary was dragging a whore by the hair out of the door of an inn.

And high above this sea of labor, sweat, and drunkenness floated the litter of the mighty Seneca.

Next the procession turned from the Suburran gutter and swung through an alley into the opulent and resplendent Via Sacra

Here, the richest shops and business houses of Rome displayed their wares for the aristocracy just a few steps from the Suburra. There were gigantic pearls the size of hazelnuts, as opalescent and transparent as Poppea’s skin. There were precious stones flashing in all the colors of the rainbow and vessels of ivory overlaid with Corinthian bronze. There were shirts and tunics of Sidonian linen and Persian silk, and drinking cups of rare and costly Phoenician glass. There were also marketplaces for the sale of beautiful slaves, young athletes and Egyptian flute players with lithe bodies.

The Roman aristocracy strolled through the Via Sacra, always accompanied by its suites of freedmen and slaves. They purchased rare, exotic fruits and flower wreaths, wines and honeys, for their nightly banquets. Men did most of the buying for the households and where a woman was seen, it was usually a matron carried in her litter, her face and lips painted, her hair built into a towering coif, her fingers and headdress adorned with jewels, and her dress drenched in perfume. She too had her attendant suite of slaves who brought along her favorite pets, the parrots, apes and trained wild animals.

For the first time Seneca seemed to actually see the frightful contrast between the human swamp of the Suburra and the boundless luxury of the Via Sacra, abysmal slavery and immeasurable self-indulgence virtually in contact with each other! But wasn’t this physical condition symbolic of Rome’s spiritual condition? A government whose legal system was based on a supreme concept of justice was headed by a Caesar whose nightly pleasure it was to seek the entertainment of lust and cruelty in assaults on his own citizens! A Caesar who was a tyrant, whose chief minister was a robber, whose consort was a whore, and whose nearest kindred spirit, the “arbiter of elegance,” was a pornographer.

Clearly, justice and law, the foundations of government, were not enough to sustain a moral system, for government was only an accumulation of human efforts, and a Nero-Caesar had become the government. Seneca understood that whatever the moral convictions issuing from the philosophic system, they lacked the power to impose themselves and be transformed into action. They lacked the voice of ultimate authority.

“My moral system,” he confessed, “has led to no obligation in my personal conduct. Rome’s gods have everything, and they can bestow everything on mankind – everything except righteousness. Who can give Rome a God of righteousness?”


Among other matters that day, Seneca found the case of one “Paul, born in Tarsus, a Roman citizen: appeal to Caesar in connection with alleged transgression of the law of his faith, the faith of the Jews, said law being under the protection of Rome.”

Appeals to Caesar by Roman citizens were considered matters of honor by the emperors ever since Augustus, and were taken very seriously. They attended the trials in person and often examined the person who made the appeal personally. But Nero was not like his predecessors. The tedium of trials for the honor of Rome was not for him. He had more important matters to attend to. Even now, he was closeted in one of the palace chambers proclaiming one of his thunderous poetical compositions at the top of his voice to a group of actors. Tonight at the banquet, he would inflict the same torment on his guests, who would compete with each other in groveling praise of the imperial buffoon. Seneca knew all this. So he asked Burrus, the commandant of the Praetorium, who was in charge of the appeals, what had been done in the case of the man Paul.

“He’s only a Jew,” he told Seneca. “I’ve had too much trouble with the Jews.’”

“But he’s a Roman citizen,” said Seneca to the old general, “and he’s appealed to Caesar. The man’s committed no crime against the state. As a Roman citizen, he’s entitled to his trial, and he must be treated with every consideration.”

“Then the man must be judged by Caesar himself.”

“True, Burrus, but you know as well as I that if he has to wait that long, he may rot away in prison. Caesar has other matters to attend to. We can make an investigation, and at least find out the nature of the accusation. And if he’s no danger to the peace of the state, I see no reason why he shouldn’t be allowed to take up quarters elsewhere, under guard, of course, until his case comes up.”

“I know nothing about these distinctions in crime, Seneca. Do you want to talk to the man?”

“I am interested in the man because he is a Roman citizen,” answered Seneca. “Let him be brought to me.”

01 - Out of Strength Comes Forth Sweetness

Whenever a Roman soldier returned from a distant frontier, there was nothing he looked forward to more than to scalding and steaming his body in the splendidly appointed baths constructed by Agrippa especially for the guards, overseers and soldiers around Caesar on the Campus Martius near the Parthenon. There were other baths sprinkled throughout the city, of course, for next to bread and circuses the Roman populace loved its steam baths most. The rich had their private thermal chambers, while the poor received a regular distribution of metal checks or tickets that admitted them to the public baths. Even slaves had similar institutions.

After surrendering his prisoners to the local guards, Julius went off to the thermal baths of his barracks.

Such a visit could take the better part of the day, for these were not simply bathhouses. There were hot and cold basins, steam rooms, and rubbing rooms where the attendant used a bronze currycomb to set the blood in circulation. There were also game rooms and dining rooms where the bathers assembled to eat, drink and gossip.

After his body was thoroughly steamed, rubbed, and anointed, Julius went to lie down on a couch. A number of legionaries lay nearby, members of the Praetorian Guard. They were talking about the strange lot of prisoners that had just arrived from Judea.

“By Jupiter!” said Eubulus, a broad-boned, mighty figure of a man, a Macedonian member of the Palace Guard. “I hear these men won’t touch anything but the nuts and figs they brought with them. They won’t taste any of our bread, wine, or meat. They spend all their time singing or muttering prayers to their gods. I also heard that most of them are priests from their Temple in Jerusalem.”

Eubulus was of the Ninth Legion, which had just returned from an expedition sent to repress an uprising in Britain. His cohort had distinguished itself in the campaign, and had been transferred to the Praetorian Guard, stationed near Caesar’s palace, as a reward.

“The Jews are a queer people,” interjected a Galatian legionary. “They worship a god no one’s ever seen. When I was in charge of some of them, they kept me awake all night bawling hymns. Not even the lash stops them. You’d think they were freely worshiping in their own Temple rather than being prisoners.

“You know they built their God a Temple of pure gold, and he won’t even let them put his image in it.”

“It’s not just that, they won’t let anyone bring Caesar’s image in there either. I was in a detachment bringing Caesar’s statue to them. They threw themselves down in front of us and would have let themselves be killed before they’d let us through. Some of them even were killed. When Petronius saw he’d have to kill them all, he backed off.”

This came from Old Gabelus, who had served in Judea under Petronius.

“So how does their God reward them for all this? Are they rich or powerful?” someone asked.

“They’re the poorest of the poor, the weakest of the weak,” answered Gabelus. “Their God treats them like slaves. I never knew anyone more feeble or helpless. Everyone spits on them. Surely you’ve seen our actors lampoon them in the circus.”

“So why do they cling to this God of theirs?”

“Because they believe that they will be rewarded in another world for their devotion,” said Julius. “This world means nothing to them. This life is just a trial of suffering and humiliation, so they can be with their God in heaven in a second life.”

“And who are you, brother, that you know the mysteries of the Jews so well?” asked Gabelus.

“My name is Julius. I just got back from Judea with that batch of prisoners.”

“Julius of the Augustan Legion?” asked Gabelus, enthusiastically. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. You say you just got back.”

“Just today. There was a prisoner of some importance, too, Paul by name.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of him,” said Eubulus. “In Philippi many people have converted to the Jewish faith. And it’s true. They sacrifice everything for the sake of the next life.”

“You can talk to him if you want to know more,” said Julius. “I delivered him to Caesar today. He’s a marvelous man. He filled my mind with thoughts of his God.”

“Is he a priest in the Jerusalem Temple?”

“That I don’t know. But he is Jewish, like the priests,” answered Julius.

“One of your soldiers says he saved your men from shipwreck,” said someone, curiously. “Is that true?”

“Yes, it’s true. I don’t know who or what he is, but there’s a demon or spirit in him, that’s for sure. He’s definitely in communion with the gods. He told us that only the ship would be lost, but not a hair of our heads would be touched. And that’s just what happened. We’d all given up hope in the storm. He was the only one who remained calm. I don’t know what would have happened to us if it weren’t for him. And he says it was his God that saved us all through him. Of that I’m sure.”

And Julius added, “But that’s nothing! You should see the miracles he performs by the power of his God. I saw him myself heal a dying man with nothing more than a look. I also saw a viper wind itself around his arm and he just grabbed it with his other hand, tore it loose and threw it into the fire. Like I said he’s got a demon in him for sure.

“Oh, a magician, then!”

“I don’t know where he gets his power, but he gets it from somewhere.”

“So why is he here? What crimes has he committed?”

“It’s about their faith. Agrippa, the Jewish king, heard the man plead his cause, and said the man hadn’t committed any crime. He would’ve set him free, but the man appealed to Caesar. Did I mention he’s a Roman citizen?”

“A Roman citizen!” exclaimed several legionaries at the same time.

“By birth, no less. His confinement in Caesarea was honorable. Festus gave him some liberty, and I was told to be considerate to him. Let me add that he was an honest prisoner. He behaved loyally. Not once did he give me any trouble,” said Julius.

* * * * *

That evening Paul was placed in the custody of Eubulus. He was exhausted after the long, perilous journey. His endurance was not what it used to be. Eubulus, impressed by Julius’ report, didn’t insist on chaining himself to Paul. So Paul was alone in his cell. Here in Rome, his companions from the journey were not allowed to visit, but they didn’t go far. They walked back and forth outside the walls of the Praetorium.

For the first day of his confinement Paul ate nothing, since the food offered was unclean. He was also too exhausted to pay much attention to his new guard. He slept through the first and second nights, and it wasn’t until he awoke the third morning that it dawned on him that his hand was not chained to a keeper. He wasn’t even chained to the wall. A legionary sat in another corner of the cell, his massive head sunk in meditation.

“Friend,” asked Paul, “are you my guard?”
“Yes, prisoner.”
“What is your name, legionary?”
“Eubulus.”
“Eubulus. A fine name. Do you speak Greek?”
“From birth.”
“Where were you born, my friend?”
“Philippi, in Macedonia.”

“Philippi,” exclaimed Paul, obviously pleased. “A fine city, and a famous one. Do you know Lydia, the seller of purple?”

“Who doesn’t? I’ve been away from Philippi for a long time, fighting in Gaul and Britain. But I still remember Lydia. She had a good name among us when I was a boy.”

“She is my sister,” cried Paul.

“Your sister!” cried the astounded legionary. “You were born in Philippi?”

“No, I’m a Jew from Tarsus, in Cilicia. And yet Lydia is my sister. For we who believe in the one living God are bound, as brothers and sisters, in the faith, through the savior God sent for all of us, Jesus Christ.”

“What do you mean?” asked Eubulus. “You have a father and mother as I do, do you not?”

“You speak of our earthly life. In our heavenly life we’ve neither father nor mother, sister nor brother. But all who believe in Christ are of one family, brothers and sisters through his blood. He’s given us heavenly life, and we are born into the faith.”

“Who was this Christ you’re talking about?”

“Not was, but is. He is here with us, even though you don’t see him. You may not be of my faith, but you’re already no stranger to me. Your goodness makes you my brother.”

“You must tell me more of this later. But I see you haven’t touched your food. I know that you Jews won’t eat food prepared by someone of another faith. We do have three of your priests here in the Praetorium. I’ll have some of their fruit sent to you.”

“It’s true I don’t eat the bread of strangers,” admitted Paul, “but I share the bread I have with my brother. And what is pure for my brother is pure for me too. For all is pure that comes from the pure. Come, brother Eubulus, we will break our fast together.”

Paul sat down next to his keeper, and they divided the bread and olives and water mixed with sour wine between them.

While they ate, Eubulus said, “There’s a friend of mine here among the legionaries, an old soldier, Gabelus. He was stationed in the land of the Jews since the days of Caligula. He told me that the Jews wouldn’t allow the image of Caesar into their Temple and refused to worship him as a god.”

“To Caesar we render the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. God alone is divine, and we worship only Him. Caesar we serve.”

Eubulus was silent as he meditated on the distinction.

After a while he said, “Hear me, stranger. I’ve been told you’re an intimate of the gods, and I’d like for you to do something for me. I fought in Britain with an old friend, Aurusus Sevantus. The Britons surrounded us in the battle, and rained spears on us. I was wounded and Sevantus pulled the spear out of me and bound up my wound. There was a second attack and we stood back to back with our shields in front of us. Then the enemy gathered to one side, and Sevantus placed himself in front of me and took a spear through his chest. I would have given my life for him, but when the retreat sounded he was dead, so I left him there.

“Could you pray to your God that he take Aurusus Sevantus to him in heaven, together with the believers? You’re a pious man, and I’ve heard your God holds you in great regard. Pray to him for my friend Aurusus Sevantus.”

“O, good Eubulus! You’ve already prayed to my God the best of all prayers, the prayer of devotion and friendship. I know that my God, who sees the secret thoughts of all men, has heard your prayer, even before you said it.”

“What? He would listen to me, a stranger?”

“Because of your love, you are not a stranger to my God. You’re as close to Him as I am. For all of us are one blood in His sight.”

Eubulus was confused. The apostle’s words were meaningless, for he couldn’t understand a faith that reached out to strangers and made them brothers of the believers.

So he asked, “And those who don’t know each other are brothers and sisters?”

“Anyone, whether of my flesh and blood or not, whether I know him or not, no matter where he is, if he believes in Jesus Christ we are bound in brotherhood.”

“Even if you’re a free man, and he’s a slave?” persisted Eubulus.

“Among us who believe in our lord, there are no free men and no slaves, for we are all free in God. We belong to each other.”

“No, no, these are things impossible to understand,” said Eubulus, bewildered. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. You expect me to believe that I, a soldier of the Ninth Legion, am the brother of the wild, barbarous, fiery-haired Britons who rebelled against Rome, and who we brought captive here to become beasts of burden? Such a man is my brother? Or the German, or the black African slave? Only Romans are brothers, for we worship the same Caesar and the same gods.”

“But isn’t the wild, barbarous red-haired Briton made of the same flesh as you? When you plunged your spear into him, didn’t he bleed? When you took away his wife and children, didn’t you see pain written on his face? The wild Briton, the German, the African are all as you are now, ignorant in the knowledge of God. But bring them this knowledge, that one God made all of us and that God sent His savior on earth to redeem us all through his suffering, and in that instant they become our brothers in the faith.”

Eubulus shook his head. “You say, then, that all who believe in God become members of one family, brothers and sisters, even though they don’t have the same father and mother, even if they’re of different races, born in different lands, is that it?”

“It is so, my son.”

“Hear me then. I have friends here, old Gabelus, who I mentioned, and Lucius and Sadonius. I’ll bring them to you and have you talk to them like you did to me, so that we all may become brothers in your God. Will you do this?”

“Bring them this evening, and any one else of your comrades.”

Eubulus was strangely moved. He didn’t know what to say.

After a while he said, “What would you have me do for you?”

“You’ve already done the greatest thing one brother can do for another. The Lord has comforted me because of you. But if you would like to do something for me, there are friends of mine walking back and forth outside the gates. You’ll know them easily enough. One’s a short man, yellow beard, big eyes. Tell them, ‘Out of strength comes forth sweetness, and out of the mouth of the lion the voice of God.’”


That night Eubulus brought his friends into Paul’s cell. Like him they were all part of the Praetorian Guard as a reward for long years of service as soldiers. He, Gabelus, Lucius, and Sadonius had campaigned in many lands, and borne themselves valiantly.

Paul could their read faces by the weak light of the oil lamp in his cell. Gabelus was earnest. His cropped hair stood up like bristles, his beard was gray, his back, neck and shoulders were scarred. His eyes were brown. Lucius, much younger than he, was no less earnest, but his blue eyes were fresh and lively, and his lips were sensitive. Sadonius, who held himself more in the shadow, seemed to be a silent, thoughtful man.

First Paul asked each man where he came from. He was familiar with all the provinces and cities they mentioned.

And he praised their military records too. He praised their faithfulness, their courage, and their devotion to Caesar.

“When our lord was here, he said, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s.’”

And he assured them that there was a reward for faithfulness.

“But Caesar is not a god. He’s a man, just like we are. There is only one God in heaven, and He first made a covenant with the Jewish people. Then He had compassion on all men, and sent His son down in the likeness of a man and made a covenant with all men through him.”

Then he told them of Jesus Christ, how he’d lived on earth and taught men to live in truth and honesty, to love one another, and to help each other in the hour of need. All men, he said, were soldiers of Christ.

“We are comrades, and we must not hate each other, but rather share our bread with each other. We must even forgive our enemies who’ve sinned against us, and we must pray to God to turn their hearts to goodness. Christ set the example for all of us, for though he was the Son of God and had power, he let himself be bound like a sheep, and he died in torment on the cross so that we might be purified through his suffering.

“Then he rose from the dead and was seen by hundreds of people. He also showed himself to me, and sent me to take his gospel to the world. This Jesus will come down from heaven in the near future, and he’ll sit on the throne to judge all men. The dead, too, will be raised, for those who believe in him are not really dead, but alive in Christ and are with him in heaven. And then will begin the life of righteousness on earth.

The soldiers listened in silence. Gabelus in particular had been thinking about the foundations on which his life had been built. He’d been a faithful servant to Caesar since the day he took his oath. He’d submitted proudly and readily to the disciplines and hardships of his calling, the endless marches, the climbing of mountains, the wading through swamps, the struggles with men and beasts. He had many scars to prove it. He helped to put down rebellions among the Gauls, Germans and Britons. For him Caesar was god, and to him and to Rome he had given his life. When his time came, Charon would find the coin placed in his mouth to pay his fare across the Styx to the cypress-covered Elysian fields. There the old soldier would meet his Emperor, Claudius, and would enter his service once more.

But now he had doubts. He’d witnessed the obstinate devotion of the Jews when they refused to admit Caesar’s image, and he could never forget that they were the only ones who understood that mad Caligula had been no god, but had been a disgrace to mankind.

It was the same with the new emperor, Nero. Gabelus himself had helped raise Nero to the purple after Claudius’ death. But now it was known that Nero had had him poisoned. After that he killed his own mother, the daughter of the beloved general, Germanicus. The whole Praetorium had shuddered at that incredible crime. But that was just the beginning! One faithful general after another was executed. Nero rejected the gentle Octavia, of the noble line of Augustus, and took a slave woman to his side, and after her a vicious harlot. Gabelus had been horrified to learn of Octavia’s death.

Now there wasn’t a single Roman citizen who could be certain that he wasn’t on the black list. A Caesar who liked to disguise himself at night like a robber captain, and lead a band of ruffians to attack his own citizens! A Caesar who was not ashamed to wrestle with gladiators in the arena! A Caesar who surrounded himself with flutists and guitarists, and recited his own poetry in the palaces and circuses like a cheap actor! What had become of the reign of law and order that was the pride of Rome? Where was the justice and honesty that he, Gabelus, was ready to give up his life for? And how much deity could there be in a Caesar who was known as a beast, a murderer, a matricide?

Suppose this simple Jew is speaking the simple truth? Suppose God alone is divine and the Kingdom of Heaven will be instituted by the new Caesar, Christ, the Son of God? For such a Caesar, immortal and divine, for such a kingdom, eternal and just, a man could give his life. Only such a Caesar could reward the soldier for his faithful service with a second life beyond the Styx.

Ah, what a pity that he came to this notion so late in life, after giving his best years for the old Caesar, and so little was left for the new.

But as if reading his thoughts, Paul answered him, “It’s never too late to come to him. He was with you before you knew him. And before you knew his name, he shed his blood for you, and bore the cross for you, that you might be saved.”

Glory to the new Caesar, thought the old soldier, to Jesus Christ! I swear by my honor as a soldier that from this day on I will be faithful to him, live for him and die for him! For he alone is worthy of the inheritance of the Caesars on earth.

And as old Gabelus was moved to these thoughts, so too were his friends. So when morning came to Paul’s dark cell, the apostle had with him four of Caesar’s soldiers who swore eternal faith to the Caesar of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ.