Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 90:358 (Apr 1933)
Article: The First Twelve Roman Emperors Their Morals And Characters
Author: E. G. Sihler

BSac 90:358 (Apr 1933) p. 159

The First Twelve Roman Emperors Their Morals And Characters

A Complement to The Testimonium Animae

E. G. Sihler

Professor, John Hopkins University

Christ, from whose birth the world dates its chronology, was born under Augustus according to almost all the ancient authorities, such as Eusebius, Photius, Epiphanius, Zonaras, and Orosius, in the 752nd year of Rome, and in the 43rd year of the monarchy of Caesar Augustus, in the 13th consulate of the latter with Silanus. We read in the Greek version of the Monumentum Ancycanum: “When I was conducting my thirteenth Consulate, the Senate and the Equestrian order and all the Roman People designated me Pater Patriae, and this was publicly inscribed on the gateway of my house and in the senate-house and in the Forum Augusti, under the chariot by a decree of the Senate”. Our Lord was crucified by the unwilling verdict of Pontius Pilate, Procurator of Tiberius, third Emperor. Nero in 64 A. D. caused the terrible persecution of the Christians in Rome. Luke did not carry his narrative beyond the first arrival of St. Paul in Rome, as a prisoner of State, in March 61 A. D. Claudius, the fifth emperor (41–54 A. D.) is mentioned in Acts 18:2. Nero, to whom St. Paul appealed in his trial before the Procurator Festus at Caesarea, in 60 A. D., Nero, I say, is not mentioned by name, but simply referred to as “Caesar”. Twice St. Paul saved himself by appealing to his “Civitas Romana”. In Philippi in Macedon, Acts 16:37; which had been made a Roman “Colonia”, probably on account of the victory which Antony and Augustus had won there over the murderers of Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, in 42 B. C. (Horace held a command under Brutus, Carm. II, 7) Luke translates “Praetores” as strategoi, and “lictores” as ‘rabdouchoi. The other occasion is Acts 22:28, when Paul told the Roman Tribunus Militum, that he, Paul, was born a Roman citizen. (I discussed all of this in a paper; “ST PAUL AND THE ROMAN LAW”. Am. Philol Association. 1894.)

BSac 90:358 (Apr 1933) p. 160

The name of Domitian is, of course, not mentioned in Revelation, when St. John was exiled from Ephesus to the Isle of Patmos. Nerva (96 A. D.) cancelled all the acts of Domitian. Rome itself, its vices and luxuries are abundantly described in Revelation; much confirmation could be found in Seneca. The “Great Babylon” in Revelation XVII, XVIII. Details of that incredible luxury abound in the works of Seneca, e. g., Epistulae Morales 95, 19: “Vide, quantum rerum per unam gulam transiturarum permisceat luxuria terrarum marisque vastaerix”. The Seven Hills o...