Claudius
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor at Lugdunum in Roman Gaul, where his father was stationed as a military legate. He was the first Roman emperor to be born outside Italy. Nonetheless, Claudius was an Italian of Sabine origins.
Although he had a limp and slight deafness due to sickness at a young he was an able leader considering. The ancient historians Tacitus wrote a narrative that Claudius was a passive pawn and an idiot in affairs relating to the palace and often in public life. While the historian Suetonius saw Claudius as a ridiculous figure and attributed many of his acts and good works to others.
Exiled Christians
"The Roman government under Augustus had already been issuing (inscribed ) Tesserae (tiles) as proof of entitlement to the periodic grain doles.[1]"[2]
In the time of Caligula, there is a record of the people providing what would be called in Greek a charagma. A charagma was required, by the time of Nero, to do business in the market place, but before him, we know that Claudius had exiled many Jews because of their lack of cooperation and trouble making. A marked Tessarae could be required as a passport to even enter the city.
What kind of trouble and what kind of Jew?
Christians for the most part were considered Jews. They claimed a king of the Jews[3] as their king and often did contrary to the decrees of Caesar.[4]
It has been written, “Since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus , he expelled them from Rome.”[5]
Chrestus, was either some Hellenist, who caused a political disturbances or he was Christ whose teachings was causing an actual dissension between Jews and Christians. Suetonius did confound the name Christ, "which was most unusual as a proper name, with the much more frequent appellation of Chrestus (see Tertullian, Apol. 3; Lactantius, Instit. 4:7, 5; Milman, Hist. of Christianity, 1:430)."[6]
At first there seemed to be no practical distinction between Jew and Christian. But the difference was acute and caused a stirring in the hearts of people everywhere. [Rome] had rose to prominence with an all voluntary system of social welfare that bound their society so tightly together that local militias would come together at a moments notice to oppose any danger to the peace of the community.
This was no longer the situation or state of Rome. The government was centralized power first in an indirect democracy and then the empire through the covetous practices of the Imperial Cult of Rome, the republic was all but dead. The free bread and circuses provided at someone else's expense placated the populous which degenerated the masses and fed on the authoritarian benefactors of the new Roman Empire.
Just as the Pharisees hated Christ many Romans and Greek would first envy and hate the Christian because Christians did what they no longer had the will or moral character to do. Christian created a social safety net through the charitable practice of pure Religion and a daily ministration of love.
Romans had compromised their morals with the treats and gratuities of Julius Caesar at the expense of the Gauls which ruined the Roman people.
"That the man who first ruined the Roman people twas he who first gave them treats and gratuities." Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus (c. 100 AD.)
The general magistrate power was not granted to the praefectus until Claudius in 44 AD. But we know that at least according to the Jewish Virtual Library[7] the term "Procurator" is defined with the addition of "From a recently discovered inscription in which Pontius Pilate is mentioned, it appears that the title of the governors of Judea was also 'praefectus'."
"Crispus Passienus was wont to say that some men's advice was to be preferred to their presents, some men's presents to their advice; and he added as an example, "I would rather have received advice from Augustus than a present; I would rather receive a present from Claudius than advice." I, however, think that one ought not to wish for a benefit from any man whose judgement is worthless. What then? Ought we not to receive what Claudius gives? We ought; but we ought to regard it as obtained from fortune, which may at any moment turn against us. Why do we separate this which naturally is connected? That is not a benefit, to which the best part of a benefit, that it be bestowed with judgment, is wanting: a really great sum of money, if it be given neither with discernment nor with good will, is no more a benefit than if it remained hoarded. There are, however, many things which we ought not to reject, yet for which we cannot feel indebted." Seneca ON BENEFITS, DEDICATED TO AEBUTIUS LIBERALIS. BOOK I. XIV.
- “And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth [economic depression] throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.” Acts 11:28
- ↑ Suetonius, Aug. 40.2 42.3
- ↑ The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays, Page 425, By E. A. Judge. Mohr Siebeck, Jan 1, 2008 - Religion - 786 pages.
- ↑ Luke 23:38 And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew, THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. : John 19:19 ¶ And Pilate wrote a title, and put [it] on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.
- ↑ Acts 17:7 Whom Jason hath received: and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, [one] Jesus.
- ↑ Suetonius, De Vita Caesarum-Divus Claudius 25, trans. J. C. Rolfe, Internet Ancient History Sourcebook, ed. Paul Halsall, 1999,
- ↑ McClintock and Strong Biblical Cyclopedia
- ↑ Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved April 15, 2014.