The existence and power of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the Christian era are usually taken for granted as we read through the New Testament. But it is well that we should understand how it came about that when Jesus was born at Bethlehem, his country was subject to a city 1,500 miles to the West, a city which not only controlled Judaea, but dominated the known world from the Rhine to the Euphrates, from the Straits of Gibraltar to the Black Sea.
The city of Rome lies about midway on the western side of the Italian peninsula. It was situated in the north of the district known as Latium, and hence the familiar adjective “Latin.” Most of the early population of Rome was of Latin stock. A kingdom in its earliest days, Rome became a republic about 509 B.C. By 264 B.C., the Romans were masters of all Italy. Venturing overseas, they came into contact with the great maritime power of Carthage, the famous North African city founded about 800 B.C. by Phoenician enterprise. After three wars, the second of them made famous by the exploits of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, Rome mastered her rival and proceeded to conquer Southern Gaul, Spain, Macedonia, Greece and western Asia Minor. Between 66 and 63 B.C., the Roman general Pompey brought the remaining lands of the Eastern Mediterranean, including Palestine, under Roman rule or influence. Fifteen years later, he was overthrown by a much greater man, Julius Caesar; but Pompey had only been dead three and a half years when Caesar himself was assassinated on the fifteenth of March, 44 B.C.
His grandnephew and adopted son, Octavian, then a youth of 18, discovering that he was Caesar’s chief heir, joined Caesar’s right-hand man Antony to crush the assassins, then gradually consolidated his position against Antony, who was overthrown and slain by 30 B.C. Octavian was now undisputed head of the Roman State, a position he was to hold for 44 years, but under his new name of Augustus, given him by the Roman Senate in 27 B.C. He was the supreme ruler mentioned by Luke:—“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar, that all the world should be taxed.” (Luke 2:1.) When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the grandnephew of Julius Caesar was sixty years old. What kind of a man was this ruler of 80 millions of people, of the lands we now call Spain, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Yugo-Slavia, Greece, Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Libya and all the islands of the Mediterranean?
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Author: J. B. Norris
Keywords: Augustus, Tiberius, Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Caesar Tiberius, Tiberius Caesar, Augustus Caesar, Octavian, Octavian Caesar, emperor, Roman emperor, Roman empire, ancient Rome, legate, imperial Rome
Bible reference(s): Matthew 22:17, Matthew 22:21, Mark 12:14, Mark 12:17, Luke 2:1, Luke 3:1, Luke 20:22, Luke 20:25, Luke 23:2, John 19:12, John 19:15, Acts 11:28, Acts 17:7, Acts 25:8, Acts 25:11, Acts 25:12, Acts 25:21, Acts 25:25, Acts 26:32, Acts 27:24, Acts 28:19
Source: “The Emperors and the Faith,” The Testimony, Vol. 18, No. 214, October 1948, pp. 335-44.
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