Layman

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sauron

I was perfectly aware that Antipas and Josephus were examples of unusual circumstances (which is why I moved on to "examples further down the social scale." But Josephus shows that one could achieve Roman citizenship by bestowing a substantial benefit to Rome. As you noted, "Again: the reward of citizenship as an act of gratitude for extraordinary service, or to reward special loyalty."

There is certainly nothing to suggest that Paul's father could not have performed a special service to the Romans.




Britannica:

The Romans, under the command of the future emperor Vespasian, arrived in Galilee in the spring of AD 67 and quickly broke the Jewish resistance in the north. Josephus managed to hold the fortress of Jotapata for 47 days, but after the fall of the city he took refuge with 40 diehards in a nearby cave. There, to Josephus' consternation, the beleaguered party voted to perish rather than surrender. Josephus, arguing the immorality of suicide, proposed that each man, in turn, should dispatch his neighbour, the order to be determined by casting lots. Josephus contrived to draw the last lot, and, as one of the two surviving men in the cave, he prevailed upon his intended victim to surrender to the Romans.

Led in chains before Vespasian, Josephus assumed the role of a prophet and foretold that Vespasian would soon be emperor--a prediction that gained in credibility after the death of Nero in AD 68. The stratagem saved his life, and for the next two years he remained a prisoner in the Roman camp. Late in AD 69 Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by his troops: Josephus' prophecy had come true, and the agreeable Jewish prisoner was given his freedom.



Another bad example. Citizenship was a grant to Antipater, after he had backed the winning side in a civil war, and after helping Caesar in quelling disturbances in Alexandria:

http://www.livius.org/he-hg/herodian...e_great01.html

Herod was born 73 BCE as the son of a man from Idumea named Antipater and a woman named Cyprus, the daughter of an Arabian sheik. Antipater was an adherent of Hyrcanus, one of two princes who struggling to become king of Judaea.

In this conflict, the Roman general Pompey intervened in Hyrcanus' favor. Having favored the winning side in the conflict, Antipater's star rose, especially since he cooperated with the Romans as much as possible. In the civil war between Pompey and Julius Caesar, Hyrcanus and Antipater sided with the latter, for which especially the courtier was rewarded: in 47, he was appointed epitropos ('regent') and received the Roman citizenship.

Again: the reward of citizenship as an act of gratitude for extraordinary service, or to reward special loyalty.

Josephus and Antipater are both *extremely* atypical scenarios, and no valid generalizations about the common-ness of Jewish Roman citizenship can be drawn from them.

You got me there. But it does not change the fact that Josephus is here referring to Jews who held Roman citizenship.

As you cite:

What I should have said, these citations show that there were Jews who were Roman citizenship because they were being considered for military service.

All of these passages are discussing the exemption of Jewish Roman Citizens from military service. And it is notable that Josephus does not treat this as an unusual situation.

With the aforementioned examples of Jewish-Roman Citizens, it is clear that there is nothing remarkable or doubtful about the claim that Paul the Jew was also a Roman citizen.

I disagree. In this case we have an ancient historical source making a clear historical claim. The claim is not remarkable. The source gets many other biographical details of the subject correct. And the claim coheres well with what else we know about the subject. I think a "probable" and/or "likely" is justified even if we take a neutral approach to Acts.

Since I place much more credence in Acts as a primary, as well as an accurate secondary source, I am much more willing to accept the position as even better established. But even those who have serious doubts about the historical value of Acts' biographical remarks about Paul have no strong reason to be skeptical.

Assuming it is no fun. Checking its likelihood is the goal. This is what historians do.

I disagree. A historical writing that is full of provably wrong assertions has less credibility than a historical writing that is full of confirmed historical attestations.

I appreciate the information. It seems to reinforce the pluasibility of Paul possesssing Roman citizenship even though he was a Jew.

Yes there were Christian evangelists who did travel beyond the empire.

But, I agree this is not a strong point.

I think the interesting point is the attitude of Paul towards citizenship, not necessarily that only a Roman citizen would have known what citzenship entailed. To him, it is a favorable comparison. I do not remember the General Epistles using this same kind of comparison.

[quote]Not surprising, since Paul was from Tarsus - "no mean city", which had functioned as a unique crossroad for cultures. That still does not imply citizenship on the part of Paul. It only demonstrates that he was exposed to such influences, which would have been entirely consistent given his city of birth and Jewish background. No citizenship necessary:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl.../missions.html

Do we know anything about Paul's upbringing, his background?

Traditionally Paul grew up as a Diaspora Jew. That is from a Jewish family, [with a] very traditional Jewish upbringing but living not in the homeland but rather in Tarsus, a city in Eastern Turkey. So he lives in a Greek city, itself, in fact, an interesting kind of crossroads on the frontier of the Middle East, and yet he also had a very traditional Jewish education.

He was himself a Pharisee and trained as a Pharisee so he would have been conversant with the tradition of interpretation of the scriptures and indeed of the prophets themselves. When we hear Paul using prophetic language both as a way of framing his preaching message and also as a way of describing his own self-understanding, it is because he was steeped in that prophetic language from his own studies in the Jewish tradition.


I do not think that Paul's training as a Pharisee would have introduced him to Greco-Roman Rhetoric. Indeed, the fact that Paul was trained as a Pharisee and is aware of pagan rhetoric is most consistent with being a Pharisee and someone who had reason to be conversant in such practices.

Of course, being from Tarsus (are you accepting that part as true?) would explain why he spoke and wrote Greek at all. But I do not think that the fact he wrote Greek suggests he was a Roman citizen at all.

I do not recall claiming they were "definitely not Roman citizens" though it is unlikely that many, if any, of them were.

There is nothing about being a Pharisee that would indicate that one was rich in ancient times.

Tell that to African Americans in the 30s being tried by all white juries for raping white women. The analogy may not be exact, but there is good reason to think that Jews who were Roman citizens would not necessarily have the favor or protection accorded to more traditional Roman citizens. There were constantly rumblings of rebellion in Palestine. The Jews had only recently been expelled from Rome for rioting. There were stories about Jews swindling Roman women in Rome. There was the constant tension of their religion--which was generally a negative to most Romans.

Actually, we have specific examples Roman citizens being punished in violation of Roman law. And even Acts makes it clear what Paul's rights as a Roman were--he notes that Paul was unlawfully punished before he could even establish his Roman identity.

Paul and his audience seems to have a rather low opinion of his oratory. But I am skeptical that training as a Pharisee would be an effective regime for improving ones perusasive skills on Gentiles.

The question is not really Gentile success vs. Jewish success, but why was Paul so oriented to the Roman world and so succesful in operating therein. Neither Peter, James, John, or any of the other twelve came anywhere close to this success.

And one of them is that Paul's Roman citizenship was an aid in his missionary activities.

Paul's Roman citizenship gave him certain legal rights that were not afforded to non Romans. Although he was not always succesful in employing those rights, Acts demonstrates how -- at times -- they did indeed help Paul's missionary activities, not the least by keeping him alive or getting him out of prison. And, of course, getting him back to Rome.

Just to reiterate, most of these supporting points were not meant to be conclusive. As I said, "there are features of Paul's own letters that correlate and cohere with his status as a Roman citizen."

What I thought was a more important point was the probable presence of a Pauline tradition already existing in Rome:

In sum.

We have an early attestation that Paul was a Roman citizen.

If you are correct that Roman citizenship was unimportant, Luke would have gained little by inventing it--better to make him wealthy instead of a tentmaker, there is little or no reason to invent Roman citizenship.

There is little or no reason to invent Tarsian citizenship.

This claim is not remarkable--we have many examples of Jews being Roman citizens around that time. And examples of Jewish citizens of Tarsus.

The attestation was made in Rome, where -- more than anywhere else -- there is likely to be traditions about how Paul came to Rome.

There are many features of Paul's letters that correlate and cohere with his being a Roman citizen. Which, as you point out, are not strong arguments in themselves.

The main objection to Paul's Roman citizenship is rather weak because it dubiously assumes that the law was applied equally to a disfavored minority such as Paul and it ignores evidence that this exact law was at times ignored by Roman authorities.

Layman

"Paul's Roman citizenship would have provided him with advantages that would have assisted his work as a traveling evangelist. Besides having Roman justice on his side [usually], he would have an instant entree to any city in the Empire, especially Roman colony cities like Corinth and Philippi [important cities for Paul's ministry]. Given his social status, he would command respect, especially whenever he announced his citizenship. He would have read access to Roman roads and could have travelled with parties of other Roman citizens or even with the Roman soldiers on a mission if need be."

Ben Witherington, The Paul Quest, at 73.

Geoff Hudson

Freedom for a prisoner does not necessarily mean the granting of citizenship, does it?

Geoff

Sauron

Which situation was not unusual? I'm not clear what you're referring to here.

1. That Jews held Roman citizenship? Josephus says nothing about how widespread this was. If you want to make the argument that Jews holding Roman citizenship was a common thing, you'll need something more substantive than Josephus' silence.

2. On the other hand if you're saying that the exemption from military service on the grounds of religion was a not uncommon; well, unfortunately, you cannot say that, either. The fact that Josephus bothered to stop and take note of it could also be interpreted as fact that the exemption from service *was* indeed unusual in the Roman Empire. Perhaps Josephus was acting out of ethnic pride, and noting that fact to show that, even in the Roman Empire, the Jews were treated as a "separate and special people".


Except that the "aforementioned examples" do not give us an indication of how widespread that circumstance was.

Here is what you have to prove:

1. Jews, in general, *could* have obtained Roman citizenship - there was no hard block preventing it;
2. Possession of Roman citizenship was a sufficiently common circumstance that it would not have been extraordinary;
3. This one Jew in particular, Saul of Tarsus, possessed Roman citizenship

So far, #1 is satisfied. We are still at #2.

The evidence from Josephus doesn't indicate either way. There may be other evidence that shows that this circumstance (Jews holding Roman citizenship) was fairly mundane. But Josephus is not proving that point in these passages.

Earlier you (or one of your sources) argued that Jews were held in especially low esteem by Romans. That argues *against* the claim that Jews would have commonly held Roman citizenship. So if you could find more evidence that Jews, in particular, commonly held Roman citizenship, even while being the least assimilated group in the Empire, then that would be a definite plus for your argument.


I agree; the claim is clear. But clarity is not proof.

As for whether the claim is remarkable or not; that hasn't been proven yet.

Does it? How do we verify the correctness of these other biographical details without an independent source?

The claim coheres with many points. But I do not think that anyone has claimed that it coheres with *all* such historical points. Because 100% fidelity with all historical points has not been established or claimed, then we are justified in examining each point one at a time, and requiring individual proofs. The discovery of even a small number of errors means that we cannot take anything at face value.


As I said earlier - I do not know what the answer to this particular question is (i.e., did Paul possess Roman citizenship or not). You might very well be correct on it. My responses so far have been limited to the quality of *some* of the arguments you have presented to buttress your position.

As for the claim "even those who have serious doubts about the historical value of Acts' biographical remarks about Paul have no strong reason to be skeptical"; well; that's your opinion and your desired conclusion. But it has not been proven yet.


I see. So this was historical research, for the sake of it. Very commendable.


Your position yields several logical contradictions and results in sloppy historical research.. The Iliad and the Odyssey contain many accurate historical and geographic details. Working from your position, that means we should accept stories of gods and sea-monsters. Your position also results in errors that are less fantastic, but are still contrary to the spirit of true historical investigation (that *is* why you started this investigation into the citizenship of Paul, right)?

The Greenland Lay of Atli also contains many historical facts. But it also contains historical fancy. In that saga, we read about the great Germanic warrior Atli, as well as the deeds of other players such as Gunnar and Jormunrek. Woven throughout the whole tale, we see mythological heroes such as Sigmund and Sigurd, who perform impossible feats and win renown for themselves. We also observe the behind-the-scene machinations of the gods, working their will through the actions of the players, rewarding some, while punishing others. Surprisingly enough, The Lay of Atli has some basis in historical fact and actual historical figures. But is that enough to accept it as an ancient testimony to factual history?

Not at all. Just because a story starts with factual history, that is no guarantee that the story will conclude with all those facts fully intact. For example, the real Atli was actually not a Germanic warrior at all; the name is a corruption of Attila, the selfsame Hun who overran Europe. Gunnar, Gudrun's brother, is a corruption of Gundicar, king of the Burgundians. Another character in this Norse poem, Jormunrek, is actually Ermanaric, king of the Goths. Any interaction between Ermanaric and Attila is, of course, flatly impossible; we know Ermanaric died 59 years before Attila ever became king of the Huns. Other historical impossibilities also surface in The Lay of Atli. Sigurd's father is referred to as the king of the Franks; yet Sigurd himself is referred to as the king of the Huns. Gunnar's historical predecessor (Gundicar) was king of the Burgundians; yet Gunnar himself is impossibly referred to in this tale as king of the Goths. In spite of all these errors and transpositions of detail, the story stubbornly continues, oblivious to the twisted history it contains.

This is a case in point, as to why each detail has to be independently checked.


Actually, it illustrates two things that are problems for your argument:

1. Possession of citizenship didn't do as much for people as simply being upper class, or lower class - and it can be assumed from Paul's background as a Pharisee that the law would have been on his side by virtue of his position and background anyhow. This means that any special treatment or access that he (allegedly) received was the fruit of his social status, and not his citizenship status;

2. and secondly, it shows that in the timeframe we are talking about - the late first century - the possession of citizenship did not adhere to it the special favoritism that Witherington claims. That is the crux of this point:

Basically, by the late first century, being a Roman citizen was not inherently so important. Although there were still some privileges in the law, these became less significant as more and more lower-class people became citizens, either through the grant of citizenship to entire communities or through honorable discharge after military service.


Good. Let's move on, then.


But at most, that would only indicate that Paul held the citizenship ideal in high esteem. It does not indicate that he possessed it, though. It might have been a model of govt that he admired, but didn't personally possess.

Or, perhaps he felt that the "citizen" concept was an excellent teaching analogy to the Christian life to which he was calling his converts; Roman soldiers fought and died for the Empire; Paul did an entire chapter on warfare of the spirit and the weapons of warfare (shield of faith, helmet of salvation), "dying for Christ", etc. Again: all this implies is that his audience understood the concepts; but employing that terminology doesn't mean Paul was a citizen. There is no obvious implication in either passage cited that Paul personally possessed Roman citizenship.

The general epistles do contain some of this same language, by the way. The "sword of faith, helmet of salvation" material is from Ephesians.



Sorry; I wasn't clear. Greco-Roman rhetoric is essentially Greek rhetoric, borrowed and used by Romans. Tarsus, being

a. a Greek city;
a large city that was important to Rome; and
c. a crossroads with frequent contact with citizens from elsewhere in the Empire

provides more than ample reason to believe that Paul could have been exposed to such rhetoric as a result of birth and boyhood. Not necessarily as a result of citizenship.

Also - and I apologize for not asking sooner - several questions about the Greco-Roman rhetoric claim:

1. How does a knowledge of rhetoric imply Roman citizenship? where is the proof that being a Roman citizen automatically made someone familiar with Greco-Roman rhetoric? Especially given the way in which people and communities became Roman citizens in the late 1st century, that would seem to be a hard condition to prove.

2. What specific examples do you have, to show Paul's specific familiarity with Greco-Roman rhetoric? The reason that I ask is that, from what I can see, the amount of rhetorical influence is not a settled matter:
http://english.ohio-state.edu/People...ies/Chapin.htm

The reading list appears to go back and forth, debating the level to which such rhetoric influenced Paul's writings.

3. And how do you know that any such familiarity was not acquired AFTER his conversion? As a result of traveling in the key cities of the Roman Empire, on his missionary journeys? When one travels, it's to be expected that he was exposed to such influences as a result. Since Paul might have been needed to pitch his arguments in a format that his audience appreciated and accepted, perhaps he learned the rhetorical style during his journeys. Paul gains an appreciation of such rhetoric during his travels, uses it as an evangelistic tool, and not from citizenship at all.


Agreed on both points. I don't see any reason to fabricate the Tarsian origin of Paul. And knowing Greek doesn't demonstrate Roman citizenship. But knowing Greek would make the Greek rhetorical writings available to Paul.



You did make the claim. Here it is:

Paul's wide travels, association with Roman authorities and citizens, and ministry to Gentiles stands in contrast to the actions of the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem, who were definitely not Roman citizens. Accordingly, the evidence suggests that Paul was indeed a citizen of Rome.


Yes, there is. The priestly class were always been better off than the average person in any society. In the specific case of the especially the "high priests and Sadducees", the Pharisees, there are indications in the gospels that they were better off; they acted as the interface between the occupying Roman army, they received special honors such as the "chief seats at the synagogue", etc.

See also:
http://xx.acs.appstate.edu/~davisct/...el_parties.htm

Jewish national religion began with the Davidic Empire. Every nation had a temple because kingship is based on religious experience. Kings are perceived as divinely appointed. Myths recount the orginal revelation that established kingship. Under King David plans were made to build a Temple on Mt. Zion in Jerusalem adjacent to the palace. The Temple was actually built under Solomon. The roots of the Sadducee Party of the first century go back to this event, making it the oldest of the Jewish parties. The Sadducee Party was responsible for the Temple and all activities centered there. Having such political power tended to make this party a party of the wealthy aristocracy. After the Babylonian Exile, there were no Jewish kings but the Temple was rebuilt. Priests and prophets took over the role of political leadership. This came to an end when the Romans expelled Jews from Palestine in A.D. 135. The Sadducee Party also ceased to exist. With the rise of Johanan ben Zacchai, Jewish national religion is replaced by Judaism or the religion of the Rabbis which views religion as a spiritual quest.

Also:

http://www.saltshakers.com/gospels/gosp5.htm

Vs. 37, 38: You will note that the woman had easy access to the home. Entrance was easy because of the custom of wealthy Pharisees to have their doors open during meals. Mishnah Avot 1:5 says, "Rabbi Yosi ben Yochanan of Jerusalem said, 'Let your house be open to the street and let the poor be children of your house.'" So usually wealthy Pharisees had their door open so the poor could come in and get some food to eat.

Now as to the perfume she put on him, there is something to note in Mishnah Berakhoth 6:6: "The blessing is also said for the perfume although it could not be brought in until after the meal." She probably brought in the perfume during the meal, but anointed Him afterwards in keeping with Jewish practice.


But this is actually Witherington's argument to prove. Witherington (and you, by extension) were arguing that Paul's writings indicated that he was "stepping down" the social ladder. Thus, he must have been a Roman citizen. But that same high status that he was supposedly abdicating is more easily explained by his status as a Pharisee, a position that he was quite proud of:

ACT 22:3 I am verily a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as ye all are this day.

PHI 3:4 Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:
PHI 3:5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

Witherington postulates Roman citizenship as the reason for Paul's "stepping down the social ladder". But the stronger argument is that Paul was referring to giving up his former status as a respected Pharisee.

I have a better idea: since my claim was about the majority of cases, how about you demonstrating that such violations against African-Americans constituted 51% or more of all court cases? Or even better: demonstrate that they constituted a clear majority (say, two-thirds) of all cases?

If you can't do either of these, then in the future, avoid throwing out irrelevant red herrings.


That's an understatement.


But by the same argument, there is good reason to believe that Jews would not have received such citizenship in the first place, except in rare circumstances.

And, if this is truly your position, then the reaction of the guard in Acts 22 makes no sense. Upon hearing Paul say that he was a Roman, the guard should have said "so what" and kept beating him.

That is the contradiction in your position. First you want to say that Jews with Roman citizenship would have nevertheless been mistreated. Then you want Jews to have special legal protection as a result of that citizenship. Which position are you arguing here?


You have presented no such incidents.

And even so, singular isolated examples do not refute my argument: The law would have been followed in the majority of cases. Your position relies upon several minority situations falling into place, all at the same time.

No. Acts describes what a Roman citizen's rights were - but that was common knowledge at the time during the Empire; there is nothing noteworthy or commendable about being able to accurately recite that. The fact that the book of Acts is able to correctly enumerate what those rights were does not give proof that Paul was a Roman citizen, any more than me being able to write out what the privileges of the President are, prove that I must be the President.


I'm unclear what you're saying here. Paul had a low opinion of his own oratory? If so, then that merely sounds like modesty on Paul's own part, something that we know Paul practiced.

Or, that his audience hade a low opinion of Paul's oratory? If so, based upon what?


I disagree. Being from Tarsus, Saul would have been trained in Judaism, yet exposed to gentile beliefs all around him. It wouldn't be surprising that his training included a knowledge of surrounding religions, if only to explain to Jews why their religion was superior, and to encourage them to remain separate. Israel had a habit of adopting "foreign gods" from among the Canaanites; why not from among the Greco-Roman world?

Being able to present an argument in a formal fashion, as to why your own religious views were superior to those of the people around you, would have flowed naturally out of the fact that a Jewish exile community existed at Tarsus - an island of Judaism surrounded in a sea of polytheistic gentiles. Maintaining a separate Jewishness in such an environment would be much harder, than back in Israel. Preventing assimilation would have been important in such circumstances.


There are two points here.

1. You argued that Paul was very successful, and you tried to attribute that to the fact that he was a Roman citizen. However, you ignore the fact that the two tasks you are comparing are different.

a. converting polytheistic gentiles with no a priori bias against a messiah;

vs.

b. converting monotheistic Jews who do possess a bias against false messiahs, and who would resist being told that their Law was past and a new testament was now taking its place. After all, even Paul says in ROM 9 and 10 that the Jews are purposedly blinded, and would not receive the gospel. And Christ said "a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country".

The Jewish "ground" was harder to plow and plant seeds in, than the gentile ground. Paul makes that clear. So your comparison is not valid, because you're comparing apples and oranges.


2. And we've already discussed the "why" of the orientation outwards, towards the gentiles in the Roman Empire: it was logical, if Paul wanted to win as many converts as possible - travel to the big towns and cities, which were all part of the Empire. In addition, there was a spat (for lack of a better term) between Paul and the other apostles in Jerusalem, after which Paul focused on the gentile community. Perhaps they "divided up the work" among themselves, and Paul was assigned the gentiles, who (for reasons stated above) turned out to be much easier to convert than native Jews would have been.


Actually, no, for several reasons:

1. As indicated above, in the quote:

Basically, by the late first century, being a Roman citizen was not inherently so important. Although there were still some privileges in the law, these became less significant as more and more lower-class people became citizens, either through the grant of citizenship to entire communities or through honorable discharge after military service.

This indicates few, if any, remaining privileges by the latter first century AD.

2. If we assume for the sake of argument that citizenship might have been such an aid, you have yet to show where Paul actually used his citizenship to open any such doors. It's one thing to have an ability; it's quite another to put it into practice.

3. You have to also show that, by appealing to citizenship, that it actually produced any results for Paul. Yet we know that Paul had a record of tribulation:

CO2 11:24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
CO2 11:25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
CO2 11:26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
CO2 11:27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.

Not all of these can be attributed to questions of citizenship and Roman law. But some of them can. I maintain that the record of Paul's own tribulations indicates that if he ever did try to use his citizenship to help him, then it must have utterly failed him - or, as the quotation I provided indicates, citizenship as a legal concept was of declining value. In which case, it would not have helped his missionary efforts either.

Besides, you earlier argued that Jews with Roman citizenship would have still been mistreated and denied legal privilege.

Now you want to argue that such citizenship was a powerful and useful tool, and effective at opening doors.

Which is it?

Sauron

Two points:

1. Given the quotation from the coursework at the Univ of Calgary, you (or Witherington) will need to show proof that such broad privileges still existed in the latter 1st century AD, before this argument will fly.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~csmackay/CL...itizenship.html

Cheapening Of Citizenship And Changing Attitudes

Tacitus once compares unfavorably the attitude toward granting citizenship under the Empire with that of the Republic, when it was granted only seldom and only for courage. Basically, by the late first century, being a Roman citizen was not inherently so important. Although there were still some privileges in the law, these became less significant as more and more lower-class people became citizens, either through the grant of citizenship to entire communities or through honorable discharge after military service.

2. Moreover, you need to show that non-citizens would have typically been denied such rights, and that such privileged access was exclusively extended to Roman citizens.

Sauron

Not normally. But in this case, they went together due to the unusual circumstances surrounding Josephus:

http://religion.rutgers.edu/iho/josephus.html

Upon his surrender, he predicted the man who defeated him [Vespasian] would become emperor of Rome, a prediction soon made possible by Nero's suicide [68 CE]. Taken to Jerusalem as a hostage, Josephus was eye-witness to the Roman siege. When Vespasian was called to Rome to become emperor [69 CE], he directed his son Titus to continue the siege. Josephus was held in the Roman camp & witnessed the destruction of the temple [70 CE] that had been the center of his family's life for generations.

Taken to Rome after the war, Josephus was declared a freed man, granted Roman citizenship, provided a pension & lodging on Vespasian's estates. He adopted the family name of his imperial patrons & was thus known to Romans as Flavius Josephus. He was near the top of Vespasian's "civil list" of Roman citizens. He witnessed first-hand the rebuilding of Rome after Nero's fire [65 CE] & the erection of the Flavian monuments [Colosseum, the temple of Peace, the forum of Vespasian & the arch of Titus, depicting the conquest of the temple in Jerusalem]. He used his position both to support the cause of the Flavian emperors & to defend his own place as a fixture in their court.

Geoff Hudson

Thankyou. After my post I did realise the answer was in Life 76.

As you probably know, it is my view (not argued at any great depth) that Paul and Josephus are the same character. Given that I think this, and that some of your arguments are against Paul being a Roman citizen, a question arises in my mind. If Josephus (imo Paul) did not become a Roman citizen until after the war, then who was the Roman citizen referred to in Acts? It is my view that James has largely been written out of Acts and Paul written in by a later editor. In my book, which some would describe as fiction, it was James the lord or Just who was the Roman citizen. This might then be a good reason for having Paul a citizen of Tarsus (as the editor of Acts drums into the reader on three occasions) - a place well away from Jerusalem, the probable birthplace of James and Paul. Reference to Tarsus is pure dissimulation. I think the same is true about Paul once being a pharisee, or Josephus being a pharisee and a priest - for which there is little or no evidence, apart from statements to these effects. Paul and Josephus shared some common interests, such as prophecy, visions or interpretation of dreams, and other languages. The first three are not those of a pharisee who was more interested in the interpretation of the Jewish law.

It is also my view that the original eyewitness author of Acts was Paul/Josephus himself.

I wonder at the time some of you find to write replies at length.

Geoff

Layman

Not at all. I have provided a respected secondary source on this issue. One that stands unrefuted and, indeed, confirmed by your own.

You provide nothing but a very generalized comment that actually affirms that Roman citizens retained special privileges under the law.

By definition the rights granted to Roman citizens were not generally granted to nonRoman citizens.

Sauron

*You* respect him. As I would guess, conservative christians who agree with your viewpoint also do.

But that doesn't make him a generally "respected source". That only makes him friendly to your cause.


Wrong. The U of Calgary quotation refutes his claims that Roman citizenship carried significant legal advantages in the late 1st century AD. It does not confirm it.

Witherington is a professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is not a specified expert in classical civilization, and by his position and beliefs has a particular agenda to advance.

On the other hand, my source (Christopher S. Mackay) is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Classics of the University of Alberta. He is an area expert on the question at hand, and with no axe to grind.

You've been trumped.



Not "by definition" at all. There is a difference between rights that were guaranteed, vs. rights that people generally might have been able to use, but weren't necessarily guaranteed in writing.

One of Witherington's alleged rights is that of entry into Roman cities. According to his (and your) position, non-Romans would not have had entry. But if non-Romans were rarely if ever stopped or prevented from entering (which is what I suspect ws the daily, routine norm) then such a "right" is meaningless. A right that was rarely questioned or challenged becomes a right that is de facto extended to everyone.

So you will have to show that non-Romans were actively denied the rights that Roman citizens allegedly enjoyed in this timeframe. Otherwise, the claim that Paul's alleged status as a Roman citizen gave him special legal privileges will stand unproven.

Toto

This URL is garbled- it looks like a UBB error?

I think the correct URL is here: Spread of Roman Citizenship

Is there any source for this:

I notice that, besides some comments from Tacitus regarding the practices in the late first century (after the Jewish wars and well after Paul), the main indication for the "cheapening" of Roman citizenship is that it was granted to St. Paul, a tentmaker and traveling evangelist. But this is what Layman is trying to prove.