The next meeting of the Institute of Christian Origins took place a week after the four had returned to Cambridge. Now fully recovered from jet lag, Jon was eager to learn the American reaction to the debate, and the forty-some members attending that morning were only too happy to oblige.
It seemed that more Americans had watched the debate than the seventh game of the World Series the previous October, and far more than the Academy Awards in March—yes, despite the extraordinary length of the debate, which exceeded even that of the awards, Hollywood’s annual attempt to model eternity. With so huge an audience, every shade and stripe of response was being collated by several secretaries at the ICO, but Jon and Shannon got a general picture from the comments of institute members, prompting a long discussion over the next several hours.
A large secular sector of the viewing audience thought it “engrossing . . . good theater,” but no one expected such to join church or mosque once they had switched off their TVs. The general Christian response was overwhelmingly positive, although fundamentalists complained that Jon had not sufficiently “proclaimed Christ in that citadel of Satan,” while radical liberals like Harry Nelson Hunt objected, “Too bad Weber couldn’t have gotten beyond that Trinity thing. It’s been a millstone around the neck of Christianity for twenty centuries now. And Weber even seems to believe in the Resurrection—a Harvard professor, no less!”
“I plead guilty!” Jon laughed, holding his hands up in surrender.
Heinz von Schwendener commented, a twinkle in his indigo eyes, “I think the most careful, in fact, the finest response to your debate that I’ve heard, Jon, came from the mouth of . . . Melvin Morris Merton.”
“You’ve got to be kidding, Heinz!” Richard Ferris thundered. Everyone knew that Merton was a prophecy freak who had always been Jon’s nemesis.
Barely able to keep a straight face, von Schwendener continued, “Merton announced that the debate was a meeting of the ‘Two Antichrists.’ I don’t know where he got that idea, maybe somewhere in Revelation. But there you were, both of you sitting in the temple of God—guess he meant Hagia Sophia—so the second coming of Christ and the end of the world are just around the corner!” Then his shoulders shook with released laughter.
Jon and the rest joined in. If an institute could have a court jester, Heinz von Schwendener filled the bill for the ICO.
Next, Osman al-Ghazali, who had spent the week assembling reactions from the Muslim world, gave his report, which was a shade more sobering. Jon and Shannon had received daily updates after the debate, but these were the first details many institute members had heard about the Muslim reaction.
“The Islamic response—to put it mildly—is less nuanced than what we’ve just heard from the West. They seem to love you or hate you, Jon. The moderates, the leading intellectuals, and the secular leaders thought it a very fair debate, and they particularly appreciated the near-friendly atmosphere you developed with al-Rashid. Some thought it a model for future Christian-Muslim dialogue.” Sounds of approval rose from those gathered.
Osman went on. “Then, of course, there’s the broad middle of Islam. The faithful there seemed to range from neutral to bewildered. We’ve heard reports of believers rising from their prayer mats to ask some penetrating questions of their mullahs regarding the Prophet and the Qur’an.”
“But I find it interesting,” Shannon interposed, “that the reaction from the Islamic conservatives was not as vocal as we anticipated. Right, Osman?”
He nodded. “Most of the noise is coming from the radical clerics—those we call our ‘usual suspects’—the firebrand mullahs in London, radical cells elsewhere in Europe, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, jihadists in the Middle East, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and, of course, al-Qaeda wherever. Actually, they’re attacking Abbas al-Rashid nearly as much as you, Jon. It’s almost as if we’re back to where we started. Well, things are a bit better; we don’t have another fatwa on Jon’s head, for example.”
“At least, not yet,” Jon offered, helpfully. “Fanaticism, in any form, replaces reason with madness. It’s the greatest enemy of truth ever devised.”
Lunch and a backlog of business consumed the rest of the day. At the close, Jon made an announcement that he knew his conferees would find startling. “Two items, my colleagues. One, thank you all once again for your deliberations and advice during the weeks before the debate in Istanbul. Two, which you may find more interesting, Shannon and I came across something of extraordinary importance during our time in Turkey that I want to share with you once we’ve arranged everything. I know that our next meeting isn’t scheduled until two months from now, but might we make an exception and hold a special conclave—I hate to say it—about three weeks from today? I well realize this is terribly short notice and your schedules may not permit it at all, but that’s how very significant this matter is.”
For some time, silence ruled the room. But then Katrina Vandersteen coaxed, “Come on, Jon, give us a little hint . . . ?”
“You’ll understand when you hear what it is, Trina.” Jon grinned at her. Then he reconsidered. “Well . . . on second thought, I guess I’ll have to give you a bit of a hint anyway since I’ll need your permission to invite a few guests. Might you members of the ICO be kind enough to allow members of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts to join us for that meeting?”
Much oohing, aahing, and nodding at the clue signaled an affirmative.
“Another semi-hint: the Eastern Orthodox Church is already involved in this matter, so I think it only fair that Roman Catholicism be represented also. I have a close friend at the Vatican—Monsignor Kevin Sullivan—whom I’ve also asked to fly over and attend—if you agree. Would that be acceptable?”
Agreement seemed unanimous, punctuated by comments like “I don’t have a problem with that.” “Of course, Jon.” “Why not?”
Pleased with the response, Jon said, “Fine. Dick will be in touch as to the specific date and time.”
The conference adjourned. Had an artist rendered the scene in a cartoon, he would have drawn thought clouds over each head with just two characters: a question mark and an exclamation point.
Shannon was uncharacteristically glad for the ICO meeting to adjourn. Ever since their return from Turkey, Jon had been busy at work translating Second Acts. After a day or two battling jet lag—it was always worse on the homebound trip—he had taken a happy plunge back into the AD 300s, to see what a scribe in Caesarea, writing for an emperor in Rome, would have to say to them in Massachusetts—and of course, to future Bible readers everywhere.
As they drove to the ICO meeting, he told her he had translated the first third of Luke’s final treatise, and he planned to let her read it when they got home. The text had proven so challenging that they both agreed it would be best to wait until he had a good chunk of it completed for her to read, rather than his trying to share it word for word, as he’d tried to do at first.
While driving back to their still-guarded home in Weston, Jon resisted all of Shannon’s efforts to pry any nuggets of information out of him.
“No, darling, I really think it’s best if you read it for yourself. Although, I admit I got so caught up in the account that I couldn’t resist adding paragraph divisions in the text, as well as some of my own comments—in brackets, of course, or at the margins. Obviously, they’ll be removed when the text goes public. I really can’t wait to hear your reaction.”
Shannon could hardly wait and had earlier been tempted to tease out a translation for herself. But Jon’s printout, presented on their return home, was much more convenient.
“Here’s what I have so far, sweetheart,” Jon said. “Our final, authoritative version will look much more biblical in format, and I left out a few ‘he said,’ ‘she replied’—that sort of thing. Chapter and verse divisions can come later too.”
She took a deep breath, walked over to the sofa, and started to read.
This third treatise, O Theophilus, deals with all that befell Paul after Aristarchus and I arrived with him in Rome, where we lived in his own rented house near the Praetorian camp for two years, awaiting his trial before Caesar. No one from the priests and the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem had come to Rome to speak against Paul in his appeal to Caesar, for they preferred that he simply languish in house arrest.
But our Lord intervened. On the Ides of May, in the eighth year of Nero Caesar [May 15, AD 62] we learned that Titus Flavius Sabinus, the prefect of Rome [mayor of the city!] whose wife was a believer, asked the emperor to hear Paul’s appeal. He agreed, provided that his friend Ofonius Tigellinus could serve as substitute accuser [prosecutor] and Sabinus himself as defender. It was agreed.
At Paul’s hearing, a board of assessors served as advisers to the emperor, including the philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Paul took great heart at this, because Seneca was the brother of Gallio, the very proconsul of Achaia who had heard Paul’s case in Corinth ten years previous and had set him free, as noted in my second treatise [Acts 18].
Tigellinus, who had read the documents of indictment against Paul that the centurion Julius had saved from our shipwreck on the way to Rome, now stood up and said, “Hail, beloved Caesar, you who guide our empire and our lives with the same wisdom that Jupiter employs for the world itself; you who have spread the marvelous blanket of peace and prosperity over all provinces surrounding Our Sea [the Mediterranean]. We thank you for all you have done to make Rome glorious. But now, so as not to detain you, this defendant—one Paul of Tarsus, a Jew—had the insolence to appeal to you from the courts of our procurators in Judea, Felix and then Festus, because of accusations made against him by the Jewish high priests in Jerusalem.”
Nero Caesar asked, “Is he really a Roman citizen?” Flavius Sabinus produced a record from the city clerk in Tarsus, attesting that this was so.
“What are the charges, then?” Caesar asked.
Tigellinus read them word for word from Julius’s documents: namely, that Paul was a pestilent agitator among Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
Caesar asked, “And who are the Nazarenes?”
“Most now call them ‘Christians,’ noble Caesar,” Tigellinus replied.
“Oh yes—the Christians. I’ve heard of them. Continue.”
Tigellinus returned to his document and said, “He even tried to profane the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem by bringing a Gentile inside the sacred Temple boundaries.”
Nero Caesar then said to Paul, “Oh yes, you Jews can get very exclusive. I’ve heard that even if I myself stepped over that barrier in Jerusalem, you Jews could kill me since—alas, I am a Gentile. I must keep reminding my dear Poppaea of that, since the empress is very interested in Jewish ways. But do continue, good Tigellinus. What penalty are you seeking for this . . . this Paul of Tarsus?”
Tigellinus replied, “The death penalty of course, noble Caesar.”
“Very well, then. The defense may speak,” said the emperor.
Flavius Sabinus arose and said, “My governing the city of Rome is so much more pleasant due to your wise administration of the entire Empire, great Caesar. The people of Rome and all the urban officers are most grateful to you. I, too, have examined the documents against Paul of Tarsus and would ask that you immediately dismiss the second and the third charges.
“The second charge, O Caesar, that Paul of Tarsus is a ‘ringleader of the Christians’ means little or nothing, since Christians are just a Jewish sect that has never been rendered illegal by any law of the senate and the Roman people. As for the third charge, the defendant did not violate Jewish law by introducing a Gentile into the sacred courts of the Jerusalem Temple because it was a fellow Jew with Paul who was mistaken for a Gentile by Paul’s accusers. Here is the deposition on that matter from our tribune in Jerusalem, one Claudius Lysias [Acts 23:26].”
Sabinus handed Nero the document, and he said, “I respectfully ask that you dismiss these two charges, great Caesar.”
Nero consulted with his assessors, particularly Seneca, for some time. Finally he announced, “We do indeed dismiss them. Now what is this first charge, that this Paul causes riots wherever he goes? Tigellinus, give us more information on that.”
“As suffering and death follow the plague, noble Caesar, so rioting and disorder erupt wherever this agitator travels. In Asia Minor, he was driven out of Antioch in Pisidia. Then he was attacked in Iconium and stoned in Lystra. Next he carried the disease to Greece. They had to imprison him in Philippi and expel him from Thessalonica. He caused a riot among Jews in Corinth and silversmiths in Ephesus. He created his last uproar—thank the Fates—in Jerusalem, where he was arrested.”
The emperor was amazed and said, “This one man did all these things—a man that small could cause such big trouble?”
“Yes, and much more, wise Caesar. Rome has not had such a treasonable troublemaker since Spartacus himself!”
Caesar then asked Flavius Sabinus for the defense. He stood up and said, “Paul of Tarsus has never caused a riot anywhere, great Caesar. He only proclaimed the Christian message of peace everywhere he went, but those who disagreed with him and were unwilling to open their minds to accept what he calls the Good News often tried to stop him by resorting to violence. They caused the disturbances, not this innocent Roman citizen.”
“So,” said the emperor, “what is this ‘Good News’ that you teach, Paul of Tarsus?”
Paul rose and said, “Long have I waited for this opportunity to tell you, O Caesar, but I knew that one day I would stand before you since the God who made heaven and earth promised that I would do so. And here I am. He is the God of the Jews, yet also of the Gentiles—the supreme Father of the universe—who made us all and preserves us all. But because we, his children, fell into wickedness and disobedience, he might have destroyed us all in his anger. Yet in his great mercy, he decided to save humankind by sending us a Savior—the emanation of God himself in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. Although Jesus lived a perfect life, he was unjustly condemned and crucified by one of your governors, Pontius Pilate. But God raised him from the dead, as he will do for all who believe in him, and this is the Good News that he has commanded us all to proclaim to all men everywhere.”
Caesar looked at him strangely and said, “Do you really believe all this, Paul of Tarsus? What proof do you have that this is not some daydream? Or nightmare?”
Paul now told of his conversion on the road to Damascus in words similar to those I recorded several times in my second treatise to you, O Theophilus [Acts 9, 22, and 26]. When he had finished, Tigellinus said, “This man must have mental afflictions, illustrious Caesar, and we must not let this Christian delusion of his take root in Rome.”
Said Caesar, “This does seem to be true, Tigellinus. What do you have to say for yourself, Paul of Tarsus?”
“This is not delusion but divine truth, O Caesar. And I have done nothing worthy of death or further imprisonment, as one of your own assessors here should be able to confirm.”
“And who might that be?”
“I call on your wise tutor and adviser, Annaeus Seneca, who honors me with his presence today. Your own brother Gallio, dear Seneca, judged my case ten years ago in Corinth and found me totally innocent. Surely he must have mentioned this to you?”
Seneca replied, “Yes, I seem to remember that. My brother is back in Rome, and I will get further details from him.”
“Finally, honored Caesar, I will ask my traveling companion—his name is Luke—to provide a copy of the statement made by King Agrippa II, who heard my case in Caesarea about three years ago. The king is Jewish and should therefore best be able to judge my guilt or innocence.”
I then presented a copy of what I had previously written in my second treatise [Acts 26:31-32]: “‘This man is doing nothing to deserve death or imprisonment.’ And Agrippa said to Festus, ‘This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.’”
Now we waited for Nero to give his judgment. The evidence showed that Paul was clearly innocent, but Tigellinus, the accuser [prosecutor], was Nero’s closest friend, and Caesar wanted to reward him. He made a show of consulting with his assessors, but then he announced his decision as to condemnation or absolution.
“Paul of Tarsus,” he said, “I herewith condem . . . I con . . . I ca . . .” He stopped speaking. His face grew red, and he started coughing. Then he said softly, “I absolve you.”
God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, again stood by Paul to control Caesar’s speech, and he was set free. All the brethren in Rome rejoiced that he had been restored to them, offering prayers of thanksgiving to God, who had again delivered his servant.
We remained in Rome for several months, confirming fellow believers in the faith, and then we left the city in great joy for Puteoli [on the Bay of Naples], where we spent another week with the brethren there. Then we found a ship bound for Spain and set sail aboard it.
Shannon put down the translation and realized she’d been quietly weeping. She wiped her eyes, shaking her head back and forth in awe over what she had just read. Finally she said, “So that’s what happened after the record in Acts breaks off! Jon, this is just . . . fabulous new information—absolutely fabulous! But help me a bit with these new characters. Seneca I know, but who is that Tigellinus character?”
“Seneca and Tigellinus were the good and bad influences, respectively, in Nero’s life. Seneca tutored young Nero and really did a great job of running the Roman government for the first five years of Nero’s administration while that teenager was still growing up. But shortly after the events you just read, Seneca retired because Tigellinus, the nasty new prefect of the Praetorian guard, was gaining more and more influence over Nero. From then on, that walking glob of garbage pandered to Nero’s every whim and seduced him into the debauchery for which he would later become notorious.”
“Well, maybe that explains why Nero doesn’t seem to be the brutal monster here that we usually expect, even though his bias for Tigellinus was pretty disgusting. But in your translation, he seems almost ‘normal,’ shall we say?”
“Yes, he was. Exactly. Seneca ran Rome for Nero’s first five years—wrote his speeches, handled his appearances—and he did such a great job of it that the later emperor Trajan would claim that the quinquennium Neronis—the first five years of Nero—were the finest government Rome ever had. And Trajan was right: Seneca was also the great Stoic philosopher, you’ll recall.”
“And was he really Gallio’s brother?”
“Yep!”
“Why didn’t they have a common name, then?”
“Gallio’s original name was Annaeus Novatus, brother of Annaeus Seneca, but he was adopted by a wealthy, childless senator named Lucius Junius Gallio the Elder. The one who judged Paul was Gallio the Younger.”
“And Paul knew all that?”
“He must have, which probably is why he appealed to the tribunal of Nero in the first place. Paul had some kind of friend at court—the very brother of the man who had set him free in Corinth!”
Shannon grinned and nodded. “That Paul was a survivor. But one of the arguments raised on his behalf was that Christianity was not illegal. If so, then why did Nero persecute believers? He’s notorious for that.”
“This is AD 62, Shannon. The Great Fire of Rome didn’t ignite until July of 64, two years later. When Nero got blamed for that, he switched the blame to the Christians in order to save himself. Christianity was illegal only from that point on.”
“And that Flavius Sabinus person? Was he really mayor of Rome at that time? And a Christian?”
“‘Yes’ to the first, and ‘we’re not sure’ for the second. His mother-in-law was Christian, and his sons definitely were since one of them died as a martyr. But I haven’t told you yet who his brother was, have I?”
“No, but I didn’t ask.”
“Ask.”
“Okay, who was Sabinus’s brother?”
“Merely a fellow named Flavius Vespasian, the future emperor of Rome.”
She laughed. “Oh, Jon, this is unbelievable. That part of Second Acts pulls it all together, doesn’t it, like some kind of crossroads of the past.”
“Now you see why I’m just a wee bit excited over all this?” Then he stopped smiling and added, “It’s just . . . so sad that the church couldn’t have had this document over most of the past centuries.”