Paul VS Nero: Analyzing the Beginning of Paul, Apostle of Christ - Why Luke is a model of Filial Piety
And a brief analysis of the time
To say that to defy a Roman Emperor or Princeps as they preferred to be called was a foolish or suicidal act is to earn for onself a massive ‘DUH’ in these modern times. To say that the rulers after Augustus were not up to his standard, or equal to the task is also a fairly obvious statement.
Even back then in the era immediately after 14 A.D. when the greatest of all the rulers of Rome had passed at 77 years old after a reign of 41 years, in which he had restored peace, sanity and the rule of law and also strangely a certain freedom in the Roman world. The freedom of which I speak is that in which a man might travel from Egypt, to Greece, or from Greece to Italia, to Sicily, to Sardinia or even to Gaul or Hyspania. It goes without saying that the civil wars that had plagued the world at the time were bloody and disruptive, and that the common people suffered as much as their aristocrats did.
Augustus restored a sense of normality, and it was one that he was eager to perpetuate. In a lot of ways, he had done more to prepare the world for the coming of Christ than any other man at the time, as he had made the world safe for travel as mentioned and had ensured that men could earn their bread in peace, and had likely softened many hearts towards the Romans. Assuring them that the powerful, and haughty Romans were not simply bloodthirsty savages but sophisticated men, with a powerful culture and the earnest desire to leave men alone rather than always including people in forever wars between one faction of Romans or another.
So to say he was popular is incredibly obvious. He was charismatic and beloved for a reason, his immediate successor was considered something of a dullard add to that that Tiberius was a paedophile and a pervert in his latter years and you have much room for criticism.
Tiberius was disliked also for his treason trials, which he held without reason later in his reign as he succumbed to madness and paranoia over on Capri, where he had a nice estate.
Originally a man who liked astronomy, law and literature, as said he succumbed to the worst of perversions over time. After Tiberius there was Caligula, ‘Little Boots’ who honestly the less said the better as he gave vent to one madness after another, and to one bloodbath or party after another.
He was the og ‘Joker’ so to speak wanting to prove the world was evil, and it was from his example and that of his uncle Claudius that Nero was to learn the lessons of madness, observing the power and the brutal acts of these men with watchful, child eyes.
Then came the reign of Claudius. While many tend to think him an innocent man who just fell prey to insane and manipulative women. We now know that he was very much in control of his own court, that it was he who arranged for the assassination of Caligula in the first place and that he was a masterful player of court politics. The trouble was that at first he continued ruling in a similar style, continuing the reign of terror.
The trouble was that later he needed a fall guy or ‘fall girl’ to be more apt, and his wife was more than a suitable enough target for him to pin all his crimes upon. Once she was nice and dead, he married his niece, Agrippina Minor and set to work setting up the succession. It is at this time that his reign shifts and he begins trying to clean up, realizing that his enemies were all dead, and that he had no rivals save for Nero, but that killing him might turn him into another Caligula, with the sole difference being that the Julio-Claudian dynasty will truly be dead at that point.
So the clever and highly intelligent Claudius set to work grooming his heir, with the hope that he might wed him to his daughter Octavia, another insanely popular figure in Rome at the time, as she was apparently gentle as a doe, and a pretty sort of young girl.
Agrippina interestingly for all that some have hated her, surrounded her son with incredibly well educated, erudite figures the most notable being Seneca the great philosopher. The trouble for Agrippina was that while she enjoyed a great deal of influence and power in the reign of her husband, once he died she had to fashion a new role for herself as ‘Queen Dowager’. At first she succeeded… up until she didn’t.
She apparently ended up on the opposite end of Seneca, who was to encourage his wicked charge down the path of corruption, and Nero thus turned to having his mother butchered.
In this he met with some initial difficulties, only to later succeed. His success was predicated upon sending the Praetorians to clean up after him, in this he succeeded in at last disposing of his mother.
The reign that followed was, interesting to say the least. Nero was not a man to deny himself the remotest pleasures, and was a man who hated difficulty and challenges. When the great fire broke out though, he needed a scapegoat.
He had learnt that it was always best to have one from his stepfather of old, and his gaze fell upon this small sect known as the Christians. The thing is though there are those in the movie who speak of Nero starting the blaze, we all know this was not the case now. It was something of a ‘conspiracy’ theory at the time, as the blaze began quite by accident by some random person with an oven, Nero was out of town but raced over and quite heroically tried his utmost to kill the fire.
The trouble was that like all madmen in the suffering of others he saw opportunity; deciding to seize a massive amount of city real estate, and to grab what he could that belonged to others. To establish a grand palace for himself, and to build on a monumental scale but then came the rumblings of political discontent.
The Emperor though detached from reality was to decide that in his Circus’ (or Coliseums) the Christians should face execution to the entertainment of his people. Some likely were entertained as they would be to-day.
But Romans’ were a people who despite the negative reputation, did have some virtues and a great many were horrified, as they wanted to see fighting men combat and triumph, not helpless, infirm physical weaklings get torn asunder by lions and beasts.
In this it seems that Nero semi miscalculated again.
In his initial purges though, he apparently crucified upside down the leader of the sect, a former fisherman by the name of Simon-Peter. Peter was a premier follower of Christ and had split leadership in the province of Judea with James the Just. This before he eventually ended up in Rome, a hothead in his youth he had since become a powerful orator and a wizened old man hardly able to put up a fight. His crucifixion was a cruel act to a man who was as harmless as a rabbit.
The next serious leader of the Christians was to an extent St-Paul. Paul had led an interesting life; at first he was a Roman-Pharisee, having been raised in a mixed-manner in Tarsus where he was likely the scion of a minor gentry family. Highly intelligent, cultivated and charismatic, he likely in another life might have made his way to the Imperial Court and become a man of great estate and high prominence.
The trouble was that the brilliant Paul was a man gripped by a great religious fervour. He truly believed in the God of Ancient Israel, but was corrupted by the teachings of those around him and turned to murder to resolve the problems that gripped the Judaen world at the time.
He had St-Stephen seized, threw his cloak on the ground and had him stoned to death. Stephen took pity upon his murderers though, as was customary at the time among Christians. Saul as he was then known was to seize from his fellow Pharisees permission to depart for Damascus where a great many Christians had fled for fear of the persecutions that Saul had initiated as the rising star among the Pharisees at the time.
Whether the High Priest even had the authority to authorize such a mission, is questionable. The trouble is that Saul was a Roman, and thus there was no one else who could go from province to province hunting people like cattle, so if the High-Priest lacked the right, Saul as a Pharisee and also a Roman official certainly had it.
What happened next changed history; he was gripped on the road to Damascus by a powerful vision of Christ and blinded, he was brought into the city a shattered figure. Apparently he converted, was baptized and went on to become the most powerful speaker, financier and mover of Christ at the time.
He became as it is said in the Bible itself the ‘vessel of Christ’ so to speak, and was to throw himself heart and soul into the conversion of non-Hebrews to their faith, leaving the conversion of those already in the east to Peter and James. Naturally the conversion of Saul or Paul as we should now call him, was an event that threw the Pharisees into confusion as he was all but their new leader. Confused they would seek to be rid of him, only for him to be seized by the Romans.
But where Jesus had not been a Roman citizen and had little of their protection, Paul was a different matter; they could not simply kill him or turn him over to the local officials as he was one of them (Romans I mean).
This is how he ends up in Rome. Interestingly, just before the events of this movie, Paul met with Nero, and was apparently tried by him.
What came next was one of the most fascinating events in history. By this time Paul had lived in the city for some time, had been spreading the Gospel, and had won himself friends within the city. Quite a few lower-class Romans, widows, orphans and cripples were converted, we know Christians at the time had a fondness for them as is later commented on in the movie.
Seized and tried by Nero, the trial though not fully recorded was recorded post-facto of sorts, but it must have been quite the show. By this time an old man, Paul was at least double Nero’s age and had been spreading his faith for possibly longer than Nero had been alive for, and was apparently denied legal council as was his right as a Roman citizen. His friends did not rush to his defence, and Paul forgave them even as he took the opportunity one suspects to reprimand the debauched Emperor.
Nero had not taken such ‘slights’ from his mother well, so he was unlikely to take it well from some random gentryman from Tarsus.
By this time Paul’s friend Peter had likely already been put to death, so Paul was the last rock upon which Christianity rested. Most of the Apostles were by this time old or dead, and Paul was the last of their generation, even as he stared down one of the most wicked men of the Ancient world.
How different they must have seemed; one a semi-Hellenized ascetic and the other a fanboy of Greece, debauched, corrupted and venal. One was the real deal the other the wannabe. One must have seemed like the ideal Emperor, the other as a child playing at the role.
Whatever the Romans thought Paul was soon sentenced and imprisoned. It was during his imprisonment that the fires burst, and as the leader of the Christians Paul became the scapegoat. Few of the Romans likely believed that a by now physically broken old man preaching peace, love and faith could possibly have done such a thing.
It is into this vision of Rome, a divided city traumatized by fire and blood that St-Luke the Evangeliste enters the city, eager to find Paul so that he might be there for him in his last days. Luke succeeds in entering the city, in part thanks to his status as a Greek, as he was more Greek than even Paul (who was from a Syrian town, so though Hellenized was always of mixed heritage where Luke was likely ‘pure-bred’).
In the movie just as he enters the city the Romans mistrust and are suspicious of Christians, with many of the guards revelling in lighting them afire. This was a punishment for arson at the time, with Luke visibly affected by it. He goes to meet though in a small ghetto with Aquila and Priscilla a married couple who served Paul and whom took over his motley group of followers after his imprisonment.
They are uncertain of themselves, and confused and at a loss as to how to lead their flock so that they beg Luke to enter the prison and make contact with Paul. Luke agrees, and uses what money he can collect to bribe a prison official.
Paul meanwhile has been flogged and beaten, at the hands of his captors, with the prison now under the management of Mauritius a Gallic Roman, who is a hero of the Third Legios and who’s daughter has fallen sick, and is now dying.
Now when Luke smuggles his way into the prison, it is he to whom we should look to as a model of masculinity.
He is willing to risk death in a myriad bad ways; starvation, crucifixion, burning alive, beheading and so many other punishments were not unknown to the Romans. Though fond of Greeks, and though likely a Roman citizen also, the Emperor could target even Romans as exemplified by his sentencing Paul.
Luke is eager to help the man who has become like a father to him, with the two very evidently closely bonded to one another. Luke apparently met Paul in Greece and was inspired by him when they met, hearing the cultivated and highly educated Paul speak he was inspired and abandoned his medical practice in favour of preaching the Gospel.
Luke seeks to encourage Paul to inspire the faith and courage that his flock so desperately need from him. Paul though is more cynical and is unsure of how much good it might do, and is told to write another letter.
In this he remains unconfident and seems to demure. Likely his hands have become shaky since last he wrote, possibly due to old age and possibly due to the physical damage that has been inflicted upon him. It is then that Luke reveals that he had copied down as best he could a hand-written account of the life of Jesus and that he wishes now to copy down the ‘Acts’ of Paul.
Paul is frightened at the notion, saying, ‘you risk people looking to me in place of Christ!’ fearful of replacing God in the minds of people and thus being disgraced before his God. In this one can certainly sympathize with Paul, who takes a little persuading from Luke.
It is Luke who tells him that his story could inspire people in a different way than Christ could, his is a story in danger of fading away, in danger of disappearing from history if not copied down. So Paul reluctantly begins to cede ground, saying at the end of the scene, more as a question, ‘you could write it in here?’
At which time Luke assures him that he could easily smuggle the equipment needed, with Paul still nervous. Fearful for Luke he tells him that if caught he would surely be put to death, which Luke shrugs off in a typically youthful manner.
Hardly fearful for himself, Luke is undaunted.
What is interesting also about the scene beyond Luke’s pretty youthful answer to the older man’s nervousness, is how he tells him that he never met Christ but that he saw ‘Christ in his eyes’ when they first met. An interesting comment, and one that some might take as blasphemy, that is if they were unfamiliar with the third aspect of the Triune God; the Holy Spirit.
Blessed with it, Paul was indeed a vessel of it, with the man speaking powerfully throughout Greece as said before, and Luke was an early follower of his. It is thus entirely possible for him to have glimpsed something of his God within Paul, as there might well have been a glimmer of him in him, thanks entirely to the Saint-Esprit (as we French call it).
What are we to learn from this exchange? Luke might be impetuous, but there is something in the young that can inspire the old just as it can children. It is in them that the elderly find reassurance, as the elderly can be a tad more nervous about risking those younger than themselves at times, at least traditionally. The trouble is that the young are always full of youth, piss and vinegar, as is the case with Luke who will not be dissuaded from what is honestly his destiny.
Apprehensive as he is, it is interesting that in this situation though the ‘father’ figure between the two and the wise-man, it is Paul who needs reassurance and in a way guidance by what is his surrogate son.
In this way it is highly realistic as fathers will often look to their sons, look to their wives as much for guidance as the sons’ will look to their fathers for inspiration and wisdom. And in this film it is no different, as Paul hesitates and stumbles, weary from torture and from a lack of son as his eyes have begun to lose their sight, his spirit its vigour and his flesh its strength, he thus needs to rely upon the only child he has ever had.
In this way Luke with his filial piety, and his genuine piety is an example to us all, Christian and non-Christian alike.
Excellent and thoughtful analysis.
An excellent read, well done.