A Somewhat Slanted Look at the History of the Christian Church – Part XIII

drhiter-churchseriesHerod was not a Hasmonean. The Hasmonean dynasty ended with a fellow named John Hyrcanus. That’s where the Roman politics came in.

Rome was negotiating furiously to erect buffer states between the eastern provinces of the Empire and Persia, and then Rome itself fell into civil war, with three competing factions. Julius Caesar, you’ll remember, had been assassinated on the Senate floor by his old friend, Brutus.

On his way to becoming Rome’s first Emperor, Julius had joined two other Senators, Crassus and Pompey, to form an unofficial three-man ruling body called “The First Triumvirate”. When Brutus and others killed Julius, another such three-man body was put together, the Second Triumvirate.

Dr. T.Y. Hiter
Dr. T.Y. Hiter

This second body consisted of Octavian, Marcus Lepidus and Marc Antony. Unlike the first, the Second Triumvirate had official standing, and with its declaration, the old Roman Republic came to an end. Well, anyway: the three members of the Second Triumvirate soon began quarreling among themselves, and eventually threw the entire Empire into another civil war.

While all this was going on in Rome, Judea, a tiny Jewish province of the old Seleucid dynasty, was itself in the throes of civil war. John Hyrcanus had died and several claimants to his throne emerged and began to fight among themselves.

Some called on Egypt and its queen Cleopatra, for assistance, while others called on Marc Antony, and yet others on Octavian. Herod opted for Octavian, and of course he won and changed his name to Augustus. We know him from Scripture as “Caesar Augustus”. Once he came to power in Rome, he named Herod king in Judea, and signed an alliance with him.

It wasn’t really an alliance, of course, it was a merger, but Herod and the Jews were able to pretend to continue to be independent for several more years.

Herod was insane. Herod was a bloodthirsty, insane tyrant, but he supported Augustus, and so Augustus supported him. But, when he died, Judea was in an awful mess, and so Augustus took over the governorship of Judea directly, and named a Roman governor, or Procurator, to run the place.

The Romans were very efficient administrators. Whatever else can be said about them, they insisted on efficient administration. So, one of the first things that Rome did, when a new piece of territory officially came into the Empire, was to conduct a census. The next was to impose a tax. Does any of this sound the least bit familiar?

“In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed (Luke 2:1 KJV)” (or “registered” (ESV), or “enrolled” or “counted”, or simply that “a census should be taken” (NIV and others)…, and each man went to his own city. And Joseph went up to Bethlehem, for he was of the house and lineage of David.”