The centurion

[patrick457]

Herod at this time was a Roman Client King - meaning that while technically independent, he still acted as a Puppet for Rome’s Whims in exchange for the Kingdom of Israel’s continued existence.

So it is reasonable that Rome would have some people there to protect it’s interests, such as by preventing a popular rebellion against Herod’s rule (and thereby preventing an anti-Rome government from taking power).

Not exactly. As far as we know, both King Herod and at least two of his three sons who inherited parts of his kingdom kept their end of the bargain. There was no reason for Rome to watch their back, since they did their job just fine. In fact, the only reason Archelaus’ ethnarchy became a direct Roman province ruled by a prefect was precisely because Archelaus was not doing his job properly by Roman standards.

The same thing did not happen to Antipas’ or Philip’s tetrarchies - Rome left them alone. The Romans were not that paranoid. In fact, they preferred just letting strongmen do the actual work for them. Even in Judaea after it became a Roman province, the Roman governor mostly delegated the actual duties to native leaders such as the Temple priesthood, the Jewish aristocracy, and the Temple police. Only when things got out of hand will the governor and his troops step in.

A full understanding of the governmental structures in Palestine in Jesus’ day would demand that we go back over a hundred years. It will be sufficient, though, to begin with Herod the Great, who reigned from 37 to 4 BCE and died about the time Jesus was born. His two wills divided his kingdom among some of his sons. After Augustus Caesar considered Herod’s wills and determined which points would be binding, three sons stepped into office and governed their parts of Herod’s former kingdom on the same terms and conditions that had applied to their father.

What were those terms and conditions? Herod conquered his kingdom with the aid of Roman troops, but he then hastened to get rid of them, in fact paid large bribes to make sure they left. They did not return. Herod ruled his kingdom and defeated his enemies by using his own army of mixed Idumean and Jewish troops. He was probably the ablest of Rome’s client kings.

Rome’s client kingdoms may be compared to the countries of Eastern Europe before the dissolution of the Soviet Empire. Countries such as Hungary, Poland, and Czechoslovakia all had their own governments. They passed laws and enforced them. They had to contribute to the Soviet Empire in various ways, but Moscow intervened directly in these countries only very occasionally, when unrest or civil tumult got out of hand or when a brash government felt too independent. That is similar to the way Rome dealt with Palestine. Herod ruled, and, as long as he ruled correctly (in Rome’s view), he was left in peace. The conditions of his rule were that he pay tribute, that he defend his borders, that he not allow revolt at home, and that he contribute troops to any military activity Rome wished to carry out in one of the nearby countries.

As a semi-independent king-completely independent in domestic policy, provided he observed the four conditions-Herod carried out fantastic building schemes, and he probably imported gentile architects and head masons. At least one of his principal aides, Nicholaus (or Nicholas) of Damascus, was a gentile, and Herod built some cities that were heavily populated with gentiles, but these were new cities. Herod did not fill the Jewish parts of his kingdom with gentiles. A lot of Jews lived in the gentile cities, such as Caesarea, but not many gentiles lived in the predominantly Jewish cities. Herod was more a Jewish king than a geographical king, though the thinly populated area east of the Jordan valley and north of the Sea of Galilee was predominantly gentile.

…] When Herod died, one of his ablest sons, Antipas, inherited Galilee-home of Nazareth, where Jesus lived. Jesus was perhaps two or three years old when Antipas came to power. Antipas was not king, but had a lesser title: tetrarch, “ruler of a fourth,” that is, a fourth of Herod’s kingdom. Antipas ruled on the same four terms and conditions as his father, meeting them all, except for a little slip, which I shall explain below. Therefore, Rome left him alone. Rome did not send officials to govern Galilee, nor did Roman troops occupy Galilee.

People who imagine that, in the Roman empire, Romans actually governed and policed every substantial city, that Roman or Greek bureaucrats kept good Roman records, and that Roman magistrates enforced Roman law, have not only failed to read Roman imperial history, they have failed to contemplate the question of numbers. There were not enough able Romans to spread around in such a prodigious way. And, besides, why should they exercise such heavy supervision? All they really wanted from a place like Palestine was loyalty and secure borders. They wanted to Romanize Gaul-modern France-and they did so to a considerable degree, but they had no such ambition in Palestine. New Testament scholars and others frequently attribute to the Romans of Jesus’ day the objectives that Hadrian, a hundred years later, may have had: to homogenize the empire and to make it all Greco-Roman in culture. It is, however, an error to attribute this ambition to Julius Caesar, Augustus, or Tiberius.

 

[patrick457]

(Continued)

Herod’s heir, Antipas, also lacked the desire to change the entire culture of his domain. In matters that touched the populace as a whole, he observed the Jewish law. He did not put his face, or that of Augustus, or later that of Tiberius on his coins. He did not build gymnasia; there were no Greek schools. He may have built a theater in his first capital city, Sepphoris, and possibly in his second capital, Tiberias. There was no reason not to do so, since his father had built a theater near Jerusalem. But the populace of both cities was Jewish. Sepphoris was a Jewish city of long standing, and there is no indication whatsoever that Antipas offered bribes to gentiles in and around Palestine to move to Sepphoris, though he doubtless used some gentiles in the way his father had. Even the city of Tiberias, named in honor of the new emperor, which Antipas built from the ground up, was settled mostly by Jews. Since part of it was over a cemetery and since Jews tended to avoid corpse impurity, Antipas had to force high ranking Jews to move there, and he attracted others by various devices (Antiq. 18.36-8). Corpse impurity was not a problem for gentiles, and, had gentiles been his preferred settlers, he would not have needed special exertions to populate his new capital. Tiberias was predominantly Jewish at the time of the great Jewish revolt against Rome, which erupted in the year 66.

There was, however, one time when Antipas failed in his responsibilities as a client ruler. He decided to marry his half-niece, Herodias, who was already married to another of her half-uncles. According to the New Testament, John the Baptist was severely critical of the move (Mark 6.18). So were Antipas’ first wife and her father. The first wife (whose name is unknown) managed to avoid divorce by crossing the border to her father, Aretas, who was an Arab king. Sometime later, Aretas took advantage of a border dispute to invade Galilee and thrash Antipas’ army. The Galilean populace thought that this was just retribution, because, meanwhile, Antipas had executed John the Baptist, who was a highly revered prophet. Aretas’ army did not run into a Roman legion, for the good and simple reason that there were no Roman troops in Galilee. Antipas was a client ruler, and he had his own army. If Jesus healed the servant of one of Antipas’centurions (as Matthew tells us), it was not a Roman centurion.

The Roman army did, however, react to Aretas’ invasion. Not only were the client rulers responsible to their patron, the emperor, but Rome reciprocated by taking care of its clients. And so, after some slow communications, a force of Roman troops was sent from Syria to punish Aretas for invading Rome’s good ally. To make a long story short, the emperor died, orders were suspended, and Aretas got away, but the point is clear, nonetheless. The nearest substantial body of Roman troops was Syria, where there
were four legions, 20,000 to 24,000 men, plus cavalry, perhaps another 5,000. Aretas was no fool. When he invaded Galilee, he was not attacking the Roman army. And when it bestirred itself, he fled.

So, in Jesus’ Galilee, a good and able Jewish tetrarch ruled. He used Jewish troops, presumably mixed with some Idumeans (from his grandfather’s native country) and probably enhanced with foreign mercenaries-as were most armies of the day. His governors and magistrates were Jews. On the whole, in Antipas’ Galilee, which was Jesus’ Galilee, the law was Jewish, the courts were Jewish, the education was Jewish. Wherever there was a sizable number of gentiles, of course, their rights were respected: they were not forced to Judaize.

In order to clarify the extent and the non-extent of Romanization and Hellenization in Palestine, I wish now to offer one more analogy: post-war Germany. The British and Americans (I shall ignore the French) established armies of occupation in Germany after the second world war. Because of the cold war, large concentrations of English-speaking troops have resided in Germany ever since. Moreover, Germany is a frequent place of tourism for Americans. Finally, most German children study English for several years in school. The consequence of all this is that a lot of Germans know a lot of English. There has been far more Anglo-American influence in Germany than there was Greco-Roman influence in Palestine. Yet, if there arose a German evangelist who had a message for the villagers, he would not go to the small churches of the towns and villages and speak English. Much less would he speak in English aphorisms. If by some chance he wandered onto an American military base, and was stopped by the MPs, he might be very glad that he could speak and understand a little English, but otherwise he would not have much use for the language. I believe that the application to Jesus is clear enough. Some scholars propose that he taught in Greek, and specifically in Greek aphorisms.

• Jesus in Historical Context by E.P. Sanders

 

[patrick457]

A bit off-topic, but just a quick rundown of titles:

• Herod the Great was a basileus, a ‘king’.
• Herod Archelaus was an ethnarchos, ‘ethnarch’, while his brothers Antipas and Philip were both tetrarchoi (sing. tetrarchos), ‘tetrarchs’ or ‘rulers of a fourth’. Both of these titles are lower than basileus; ‘ethnarch’ is the higher of the two.
• Herod Agrippa was a basileus.
• Pontius Pilate was a praefectus ‘prefect’. In fact, it’s likely that early-1st century Roman governors were called ‘prefect’. It was probably only after the Romans resumed direct control of Judaea after Agrippa’s death that the title was switched to ‘procurator’, which has less militaristic and more fiscal overtones.

Mark does call Antipas ‘king’, and Matthew sort of slips into it once after giving his correct title (only Luke consistently calls him ‘tetrarch’), but this is likely either just a colloquialism on Mark’s part or maybe even a bit of harsh satire in hindsight, since the reason Antipas was deposed was because he also coveted a higher rank after Agrippa received the title of ‘king’ from Gaius Caligula.

In other words, when Mark says “King Herod” in reference to Antipas, there’s probably some scare quotes in the word ‘king’. Antipas was not a king, and he was kicked out of office precisely because he eventually aspired to be one.