The citizenship and the appeal to Caesar

The name and the tongues served Paul in speech; the citizenship served him in law. Twice in Acts Paul produces his citizenship at the moment of punishment.

At Philippi, beaten and imprisoned without trial, he waits until the magistrates order his release and then refuses to go quietly: they have beaten Romans uncondemned, and they must come themselves to fetch him out.¹ In Islamicjerusalem, bound for scourging, he asks the centurion whether it is lawful to scourge a Roman uncondemned; the chief captain, who bought his own citizenship at great price, learns that Paul was born to it, and is afraid.²

25ὡς δὲ προέτειναν αὐτὸν τοῖς ἱμᾶσιν εἶπεν πρὸς τὸν ἑστῶτα ἑκατόνταρχον ὁ Παῦλος· Εἰ ἄνθρωπον Ῥωμαῖον καὶ ἀκατάκριτον ἔξεστιν ὑμῖν μαστίζειν; 26ἀκούσας δὲ ὁ ἑκατοντάρχης προσελθὼν τῷ χιλιάρχῳ ἀπήγγειλεν λέγων· Τί μέλλεις ποιεῖν; ὁ γὰρ ἄνθρωπος οὗτος Ῥωμαῖός ἐστιν. 27προσελθὼν δὲ ὁ χιλίαρχος εἶπεν αὐτῷ· Λέγε μοι, σὺ Ῥωμαῖος εἶ; ὁ δὲ ἔφη· Ναί. 28ἀπεκρίθη δὲ ὁ χιλίαρχος· Ἐγὼ πολλοῦ κεφαλαίου τὴν πολιτείαν ταύτην ἐκτησάμην. ὁ δὲ Παῦλος ἔφη· Ἐγὼ δὲ καὶ γεγέννημαι.

25And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? 26When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for this man is a Roman. 27Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. 28And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.³

Roman citizenship in the provinces of the first century was rare among Jews and could be inherited only from a citizen father.⁴ Paul possessed it, and he used it as a shield against the discipline of the synagogue and the rod of the magistrate alike. The disciples of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam had no such shield.

Peter and John were beaten by the Sanhedrin and rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer.⁵ Stephen was stoned with Saul consenting.⁶ James, the brother of ʿĪsā ibn Maryam, was stoned in 62 at the order of the high priest Ananus.⁷

None of them could say “I am a Roman.”

The appeal to Caesar

The shield had a final use. Before Festus at Caesarea, offered a trial in Islamicjerusalem, Paul refused the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin altogether: “I appeal unto Caesar.”⁸ Festus answered that to Caesar he should go, and Agrippa remarked afterward that the man might have been set at liberty had he not appealed.⁹

11εἰ μὲν οὖν ἀδικῶ καὶ ἄξιον θανάτου πέπραχά τι, οὐ παραιτοῦμαι τὸ ἀποθανεῖν· εἰ δὲ οὐδέν ἐστιν ὧν οὗτοι κατηγοροῦσίν μου, οὐδείς με δύναται αὐτοῖς χαρίσασθαι· Καίσαρα ἐπικαλοῦμαι. 12τότε ὁ Φῆστος συλλαλήσας μετὰ τοῦ συμβουλίου ἀπεκρίθη· Καίσαρα ἐπικέκλησαι, ἐπὶ Καίσαρα πορεύσῃ.

11For if I be an offender, or have committed any thing worthy of death, I refuse not to die: but if there be none of these things whereof these accuse me, no man may deliver me unto them. I appeal unto Caesar. 12Then Festus, when he had conferred with the council, answered, Hast thou appealed unto Caesar? unto Caesar shalt thou go.¹⁰

The appeal took the case out of the hands of the people to whom ʿĪsā ibn Maryam was sent and placed it in the hands of the power that had condemned him. Paul chose Rome over Islamicjerusalem as his judge, and Rome, in the end, judged him: the tradition that he died under Nero is examined in Count·VI.¹¹ Robert Eisenman reads the whole pattern, the citizenship, the appeal, the doctrine of obedience to the powers, as the politics of a man aligned with the Herodian and Roman order against the people who resisted it.¹²

What the Roman shows

The Qurʾān describes the messengers as men of their own people, sent in the tongue of their people so that the message might be plain.¹³ ʿĪsā ibn Maryam was sent to the Children of Israel, spoke their tongue and died to the world in their land. Paul was a citizen of the empire that ruled them, took its name, spoke its language when it served, invoked its protection when threatened and appealed to its emperor when tried.

The religion he founded followed the same road, from Islamicjerusalem to Rome, and made its home there. That is the subject of Count·VI.

1. Acts 16:37–39. ↩
2. Acts 22:25–29. ↩
3. Acts 22:25–28 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
4. Paul’s father is mentioned in no reliable source; on his citizenship see Who was Paul of Tarsus?, and Robert Eisenman, “Paul as Herodian,” Journal of Higher Criticism 3, no. 1 (1996): 110–122. ↩
5. Acts 5:40–41. ↩
6. Acts 7:58–8:1. ↩
7. Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 20.9.1. ↩
8. Acts 25:10–12. ↩
9. Acts 26:32. ↩
10. Acts 25:11–12 (SBLGNT; KJV). ↩
11. See The failed prophet. ↩
12. Eisenman, op. cit., pp. 115ff.; cf. Romans 13:1–7, treated under The character. ↩
13. Sūrah Ibrāhīm 14:4. ↩