ROMAN LAW APPLICABLE TO THE TRIAL OF JESUS
WHAT was the law of Rome in relation to the trial of Jesus? The answer to this question is referable to the main charge brought against the Master before Pilate. A single verse in St. Luke contains the indictment: "And they began to accuse him, saying, We found this fellow perverting the nation, and forbidding to give tribute to Cæsar, saying that he himself is Christ a King." Three distinct elements are wrapped up in this general accusation; but they are all interwoven with and culminate in the great charge that Jesus claimed to be "Christ a King." Of this accusation alone, Pilate took cognizance. And there is no mistake as to its nature and meaning. It was High Treason against Cæsar—the most awful crime known to Roman law. This was the charge brought by the priests of the Sanhedrin against the Nazarene. What then was the law of Rome in relation to the crime of high treason? The older Roman law, crimen perduellionis, applied chiefly to offenses committed in the military service. Deserters from the army were regarded as traitors and punished as public enemies either by death or interdiction of fire and water. Later Roman law broadened the definition of treason until it comprehended any offense against the Roman Commonwealth that affected the dignity and security of the Roman people. Ulpian, defining treason, says: "Majestatis crimen illud est quod adversus populum Romanum vel adversus securitatem ejus committitur."[41] Cicero very admirably describes the same crime as: "Majestatem minuere est de dignitate aut amplitudine aut potestate populi aut eorum quibus populus potestatem dedit aliquid derogare."[42] The substance of both these definitions is this: Treason is an insult to the dignity or an attack upon the sovereignty and security of the Roman State. From time to time, various laws were passed to define this crime and to provide penalties for its commission. Chief among these were the lex Julia Majestatis, 48 B.C. Other laws of an earlier date were the lex Cornelia, 81 B.C.; lex Varia, 92 B.C.; and the lex Appuleia, 100 B.C. The lex Julia was in existence at the time of Christ, and was the basis of the Roman law of treason until the closing years of the empire. One of its provisions was that every accusation of treason against a Roman citizen should be made by a written libel. But it is not probable that provincials were entitled to the benefit of this provision; and it was not therefore an infraction of the law that the priests and Pilate failed to present a written charge against Jesus.
TIBERIUS CÆSAR (ANTIQUE SCULPTURE)
In studying the trial of Jesus and the charge brought against Him, the reader should constantly remind himself that the crucifixion took place during the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, a morbid and capricious tyrant, whose fretful and suspicious temper would kindle into fire at the slightest suggestion of treason in any quarter. Tacitus records fifty-two cases of prosecution for treason during his reign. The enormous development of the law of majestas at this time gave rise to a class of professional informers, delatores, whose infamous activity against private citizens helped to blacken the name of Tiberius. The most harmless acts were at times construed into an affront to the majesty or into an assault upon the safety of this miserable despot. Cotta Messalinus was prosecuted for treason because it was alleged "that he had given Caligula the nickname of Caia, as contaminated by incest"; and again on another charge that he had styled a banquet among the priests on the birthday of Augusta, a "funeral supper"; and again on another charge that, while complaining of the influence of Manius Lepidus and Lucius Arruntius, with whom he had had trouble in court, he had said that "they indeed will be supported by the senate, but I by my little Tiberius."[43]
Manercus Scaurus was prosecuted for treason because he wrote a tragedy in which were certain lines that might be made to apply in an uncomplimentary manner to Tiberius. We are told by Dio that this tragedy was founded on the story of Atreus; and that Tiberius, believing himself referred to, said, "Since he makes me another Atreus, I will make him an Ajax," meaning that he would compel him to destroy himself.[44]
"Nor," says Tacitus, "were even women exempt from danger. With designs to usurp the government they could not be charged; their tears are therefore made treason; and Vitia, mother to Fusius Geminus, once consul, was executed in her old age for bewailing the death of her son."[45]
An anecdote taken from Seneca but related in Tacitus, illustrates the pernicious activity of the political informers of this age. At a banquet in Rome, one of the guests wore the image of Tiberius on his ring. His slave, seeing his master intoxicated, took the ring off his finger. An informer noticed the act, and, later in the evening, insisted that the owner, to show his contempt of Tiberius, was sitting upon the figure of the emperor. Whereupon he began to draw up an accusation for high treason and was getting ready to have it attested by subscribing witnesses, when the slave took the ring from his own pocket, and thus demonstrated to the whole company that he had had it in his possession all the time. These instances fully serve to illustrate the political tone and temper of the age that witnessed the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. They also suggest the exceedingly delicate and painful position of Pilate when sitting in judgment upon the life of a subject of Tiberius who claimed to be a king.
It is deemed entirely appropriate, in this place, to discuss a peculiar phase of the law of treason in its relationship to the trial of Jesus. It is easily demonstrable that the teachings of Christ were treasonable under Roman public law. An essential and dominating principle of that law was that the imperial State had the right to regulate and control the private consciences of men in religious matters. It was held to be an attribute of the sovereignty of Rome that she had the right to create or destroy religions. And the theory of the Roman constitution was that the exercise of this right was not a religious but a governmental function. The modern doctrine of the separation of Church and State had no place in Roman politics at the time of Christ. Tiberius Cæsar, at the beginning of his reign, definitely adopted the principle of a state religion, and as Pontifex Maximus, was bound to protect the ancient Roman worship as a matter of official duty.
Roman treatment of foreign religions, from first to last, is a most interesting and fascinating study. Polytheistic above all other nations, the general policy of the Roman empire was one of toleration. Indeed she not only tolerated but adopted and absorbed foreign worships into her own. The Roman religion was a composite of nearly all the religions of the earth. It was thus natural that the imperial State should be indulgent in religious matters, since warfare upon foreign faiths would have been an assault upon integral parts of her own sacred system. It is historically true that attempts were made from time to time by patriotic Romans to preserve the old Latin faith in its original purity from foreign invasion. The introduction of Greek gods was at first vigorously opposed, but the exquisite beauty of Greek sculpture, the irresistible influence of Greek literature, and the overwhelming fascination of Greek myths, finally destroyed this opposition, and placed Apollo and Æsculapius in the Roman pantheon beside Jupiter and Minerva.
At another time the senate declared war on the Egyptian worship which was gradually making its way into Rome. It had the images of Isis and Serapis thrown down; but the people set them up again. It decreed that the temples to these deities should be destroyed, but not a single workman would lay hands upon them. Æmilius Paulus, the consul, was himself forced to seize an ax and break in the doors of the temple. In spite of this, the worship of Isis and Serapis was soon again practiced unrestrained at Rome.[46]
It is further true that Rome showed not only intolerance but mortal antagonism to Druidism, which was completely annihilated during the reign of the Emperor Claudius.
A decree of the Roman senate, during the reign of Tiberius, ordered four thousand freemen charged with Egyptian and Jewish superstitions out to Sardinia to fight against and be destroyed by the banditti there, unless they saw fit to renounce these superstitions within a given time.[47]
But it must be remembered that these are exceptional cases of intolerance revealed by Roman history. The general policy of the empire, on the other hand, was of extreme tolerance and liberality. The keynote of this policy was that all religions would be tolerated that consented to live side by side and in peace with all other religions. There was but one restriction upon and limitation of this principle, that foreign religions would be tolerated only in their local seats, or, at most, among the races in which such religions were native. The fact that the worship of Serapis was left undisturbed on the banks of the Nile, did not mean that the same worship would be tolerated on the banks of the Tiber. An express authorization by Rome was necessary for this purpose. Said authorization made said worship a religio licita. And the peregrini, or foreigners in Rome, were thus permitted to erect their own altars, and to assemble for the purpose of worshiping their own gods which they had brought with them. The reverse side of this general principle of religious tolerance shows that Roman citizens were not only permitted but required to carry the Roman faith with them throughout the world. Upon them, the Roman state religion was absolutely binding; and for all the balance of the world it was the dominant cult. "The provinces," says Renan, "were entirely free to adhere to their own rights, on the sole condition of not interfering with those of others." "Such toleration or indifference, however," says Döllinger, "found its own limits at once whenever the doctrine taught had a practical bearing on society, interfered with the worship of the state gods, or confronted their worship with one of its own; as well as when a strange god and cultus assumed a hostile attitude toward Roman gods, could be brought into no affinity or corporate relation with them, and would not bend to the supremacy of Jupiter Capitolinus."
Now, the principles declared by Renan and Döllinger are fundamental and pointed in the matter of the relationship between the teachings of Jesus and the theory of treason under Roman law. These principles were essential elements of Roman public law, and an attempt to destroy them was an act of treason under the definitions of both Ulpian and Cicero. The Roman constitution required that a foreign religion, as a condition of its very existence, should live in peace with its neighbors; that it should not make war upon or seek to destroy other religions; and that it should acknowledge the dominance and superior character of the imperial religion. All these things Jesus refused to do, as did his followers after Him. The Jews, it is true, had done the same thing, but their nationality and lack of aggressiveness saved them until the destruction of Jerusalem. But Christianity was essentially aggressive and proselytizing. It sought to supplant and destroy all other religions. No compromises were proposed, no treaties concluded. The followers of the Nazarene raised a black flag against paganism and every heathen god. Their strange faith not only defied all other religions, but mocked all earthly government not built upon it. Their propaganda was nothing less than a challenge to the Roman empire in the affairs of both law and religion. Here was a faith which claimed to be the only true religion; that proclaimed a monotheistic message which was death to polytheism; and that refused to be confined within local limits. Here was a religion that scorned an authorization from Rome to worship its god and prophet; a religion that demanded acceptance and obedience from all the world—from Roman and Greek, as well as Jew and Egyptian. This scorn and this demand were an affront to the dignity and a challenge to the laws of the Roman Commonwealth. Such conduct was treason against the constitution of the empire.
"The substance of what the Romans did," says Sir James Fitz-James Stephen, "was to treat Christianity by fits and starts as a crime."[48] But why a crime? Because the Roman religion, built upon polytheism, was an integral and inseparable part of the Roman State, and whatever menaced the life of the one, threatened the existence of the other. The Romans regarded their religion as "an engine of state which could not be shaken without the utmost danger to their civil government." Cicero further says: "The institutions of the fathers must be defended; it is the part of wisdom to hold fast the sacred rites and ceremonies."[49] Roman statesmen were fully aware of the truthfulness of the statement of a modern writer that, "wherever the religion of any state falls into disregard and contempt it is impossible for that state to subsist long." Now, Christianity was monotheistic, and threatened destruction to polytheism everywhere. And the Romans treated it as a crime because it was regarded as a form of seditious atheism whose teachings and principles were destructive of the established order of things. The Roman conception of the nature of the crime committed by an attack upon the national religion is well illustrated by the following sentence from Döllinger: "If an opinion unfavorable to the apotheosis of any member of the imperial dynasty happened to be dropped, it was dangerous in itself as falling within the purview of the law of high treason; and so it fell out in the case of Thrasea Pætus, who refused to believe in the deification of Poppæa." If it was high treason to refuse to believe in the deification of an emperor or an empress, what other crime could be imputed to him whose design was to destroy an entire religious system, and to pile all the gods and goddesses—Juno and Poppæa, Jupiter and Augustus—in common ruin?
From the foregoing, it may be readily seen that it is impossible to appreciate the legal aspects of the trial of Jesus before Pilate, unless it is constantly kept in mind that the Roman constitution, which was binding upon the whole empire, reserved to the state the right to permit or forbid the existence of new religious faiths and the exercise of rights of conscience in religious matters. Rome was perfectly willing to tolerate all religions as long as they were peaceful and passive in their relations with other religions. But when a new and aggressive faith appeared upon the scene, proclaiming the strange dogma that there was but one name under heaven whereby men might be saved, and demanding that every knee bow at the mention of that name, and threatening damnation upon all who refused, the majesty of Roman law felt itself insulted and outraged; and persecution, torture, and death were the inevitable result. The best and wisest of the Roman emperors, Trajan and the Antonines, devoted to the ax or condemned to crucifixion the early Christians, not because Christianity was spiritually false, but because it was aggressive and intolerant, and they believed its destruction necessary to the maintenance of the supremacy and sovereignty of the Roman State.
An interesting correspondence between Pliny and Trajan, while the former was governor of Bithynia, reveals the Roman conception of and attitude toward Christianity. Pliny wrote to Trajan: "In the meanwhile, the method I have observed toward those who have been brought before me as Christians is this: I asked them whether they were Christians; if they admitted it, I repeated the question twice, and threatened them with punishment; if they persisted, I ordered them to be at once punished, for I was persuaded, whatever the nature of their opinions might be, a contumacious and inflexible obstinacy certainly deserved correction. There were others also brought before me possessed with the same infatuation, but being Roman citizens, I directed them to be sent to Rome."
To this, Trajan replied: "You have adopted the right course, my dearest Secundus, in investigating the charges against the Christians who were brought before you. It is not possible to lay down any general rule for all such cases. Do not go out of your way to look for them. If, indeed, they should be brought before you, and the crime is proved, they must be punished; with the restriction, however, that where the party denies he is a Christian, and shall make it evident he is not, by invoking our gods, let him (notwithstanding any former suspicion) be pardoned upon his repentance."[50] Here the magnanimous Trajan called Christianity a crime, and this was the popular Roman conception of it during the first two centuries of its existence.
Now, it is true that Christianity was not on trial before Pilate; but the Author of Christianity was. And the same legal principles were extant and applicable that afterwards brought the Roman State and the followers of the Nazarene into mortal conflict. For the prisoner who now stood before the procurator to answer the charge of high treason asserted substantially the same claims and proclaimed the same doctrines that afterwards caused Rome to devote His adherents to flames and to wild beasts in the amphitheater. The record does not disclose that Pilate became fully acquainted at the trial of Jesus with His claims and doctrines. On the other hand, it is clear that he became convinced that the claim of Jesus to be "Christ a King" was not a pretension to earthly sovereignty. But, nevertheless, whatever might have been the information or the notions of the deputy of Tiberius, the teachings of Jesus were inconsistent and incompatible with the public law of the Roman State. Pilate was not necessarily called upon to enforce this law, since it was frequently the duty of Roman governors, as intimated by Trajan in his letter to Pliny, to exercise leniency in dealing with religious delinquents.
To summarize, then: it may be said that the Roman law applicable to the trial of Jesus was the lex Julia Majestatis, interpreted either in the light of claims to actual kingship made by Jesus, or to kingship of a religious realm whose character and existence were a menace to the religion and laws of Rome. In the light of the evidence adduced at the hearing before Pilate, these legal principles become mere abstract propositions, since there seems to have been neither necessity nor attempt to enforce them; but they were in existence, nevertheless, and were directly applicable to the trial of Jesus.
