First-Century Roman Approaches to Religious Minorities and the Security of the Empire

Much of what we know about the relations of first-century AD “Christians” and the authorities of the Roman Empire, as well as the relationship between Jews of this time, is derived from the writings of Paul the Apostle through his various Letters. Moreover, historical research has uncovered a significant amount of information on this subject; yet, so-called Pauline scholarship is central to our understanding of these intricate relationships. Paul occupies a special place in the history and shaping of the Church for numerous reasons. He is loved and hated with equal vigor and he is certainly responsible more than any other early Christian apostle, or otherwise, for removing the Church from the constraints of Judaism. But, of course, not even Paul can be understood without an excellent account of Roman law at the time and how it was applied in practice. Our accounts, in this Article, of the position of the Pauline Churches within the law of the Roman Empire and its society are derived from his letters—this author has made every effort to employ only the undisputed ones; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke and contained within the canon of the New Testament; some historical sources, whether written by contemporaries of Paul or sometime thereafter; as well as our knowledge of Roman law at the time. The historical sources are well-known to historians and those theologians with an interest in early Christianity. Their scarcity tends to demonstrate how little interest there was in the early Church by the non Christian public during its relatively “quiet” years, as well as confirm that when Christians came to the forefront through the persecutions, the blood of its martyrs became its seeds.