Jews and Christians in Paul's Rome

A letter is better understood when we know the world of its readers. The Christians in Rome lived at the heart of a powerful empire, which looked on the Jews, and the Christians with them, with suspicion.

A Judaism with many faces

In the first century, the Jews were not united. The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus describes several “sects” or “philosophies”. Some of Paul’s readers came from these circles and kept their habits of thought. Paul himself had been a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5).

• The Pharisees, whose name means “separated ones”, were for Josephus the most precise interpreters of the law. Highly respected by the people, they attached great importance to obedience to the law and to the traditions they had added to it (Matthew 15:1-3).
• The Sadducees formed a small, wealthy and influential group, linked to power and to the Temple. They acted as intermediaries between the Jewish people and Rome.
• The Essenes are not named in the Bible. Philo and Josephus describe them as communities living mainly from working the land and holding their goods in common.
• Revolutionary groups, such as the Zealots and the Sicarii, refused any authority other than God’s. The Sicarii took their name from the dagger they hid under their clothes.

Faced with those who refused all human authority, we can better understand why Paul writes: “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God” (Romans 13:1).

The Jews in Roman society

The Jews formed a significant minority in the Empire. It is estimated that there were between 40,000 and 50,000 of them in Rome. Many had arrived there as prisoners after the capture of Jerusalem by the general Pompey in 63 BC. They lived mainly in their own district, Trastevere, on the other side of the Tiber.

Their relations with Rome were ambivalent. On the one hand, Julius Caesar and then Augustus had granted them privileges: living according to their own laws, sending money to the Temple in Jerusalem, not appearing in court on the Sabbath. On the other hand, they could be brutally driven out. According to the historian Suetonius, the emperor Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome because they were constantly causing disturbances “at the instigation of Chrestus”. This is probably what forced Aquila and Priscilla to leave the city (Acts 18:2).

Why these tensions? To maintain peace, the Pax Romana, the Empire expected everyone to honour its gods and the emperor. Faithful to the one God, the Jews refused pagan festivals, practised circumcision, kept food laws and did not marry outside their people. This obedience to God was not a fault, but it set them apart. Cicero already considered their religion incompatible with the greatness of Rome. The armed revolts of certain groups made the suspicion worse, up to the great war of 66 to 70, which ended with the destruction of the Temple.

When Paul writes, these tensions are very real. He recalls that the name of God “is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you” (Romans 2:24). The conduct of believers has consequences for God’s reputation.

The Christians in Roman society

To many Romans, the Christians looked like the Jews. Like them, they rejected idols and pagan rites. Some Jewish Christians continued to keep the Sabbath or food rules. Paul mentions those believers who do not eat meat and observe certain days (Romans 14:1-6).

The Christians also seemed strange: no temple, no statue, no sacrifice, no public festival. In a world full of visible cults, a religion without any of this could seem to be hiding something. In 64, the emperor Nero blamed them for the great fire of Rome, which shows that they were by then distinguished from the Jews.

Who were these Christians?

The pagan philosopher Celsus, in the second century, mocked the Christians as a group of ignorant people, slaves, women and children. Origen answered him, and the facts partly prove him right. While many Christians were of humble origin, others were well off. The New Testament mentions a tax collector (Mark 2:14), the wife of a steward of Herod (Luke 8:3), the proconsul Sergius Paulus (Acts 13:7-12) and Dionysius the Areopagite (Acts 17:34).

According to the historian Wayne Meeks, only the two extremes of society were missing from the Christian communities: the Roman aristocracy on one side, the slaves of the mines and the fields on the other. Christians often met in the homes of members wealthy enough to own a house, or thanks to benefactors. And at the common meals, social ranks were not respected as they were elsewhere, which could shock people.

A lesson for today

Like the Christians in Rome, believers today live in the world without being of the world. Their convictions and their way of life may seem strange. Our vocabulary, such as “being washed in the blood of the Lamb”, can surprise those who are not familiar with it.

The study of Romans invites us to several attitudes:

• To be measured and not to despise local cultures.
• To respect the laws and the culture as far as faithfulness to God allows, to avoid needless conflicts.
• To settle our internal conflicts among ourselves, without scandal.
• To ask ourselves how we are perceived, then seek to be understood, so that the gospel’s message of peace and love may be heard.