{"id":6148,"date":"2013-12-05T13:28:46","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T20:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6148"},"modified":"2013-12-03T20:34:12","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T03:34:12","slug":"what-did-jesus-know-about-rome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6148","title":{"rendered":"What Did Jesus Know about Rome?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Jesus healing the centurion’s servant. Paolo Veronese, 16th century (Wikimedia Commons).<\/p><\/div>\n

An interesting short essay in which a historian conjectures just how much Jesus of Nazareth would have known about the Roman Empire, in which he lived<\/a>. The assumption is that he spoke Greek as a second language; otherwise, how did he communicate with Pontius Pilate, not to mention the centurion of the miracle<\/a>?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interesting short essay in which a historian conjectures just how much Jesus of Nazareth would have known about the Roman Empire, in which he lived. The assumption is that he spoke Greek as a second language; otherwise, how did he communicate with Pontius Pilate, not to mention the centurion of the miracle?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,56],"class_list":["post-6148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christianity","tag-rome"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Ba","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":877,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=877","url_meta":{"origin":6148,"position":0},"title":"Reading Augustine on Polytheism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 25, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As a Reed College student in my freshman humanities class, I read St. Augustine's Confessions, often considered to be the first autobiography in the Western world.Augustine did more to shape institutional Christianity in the West (Roman Catholics, Protestants) than anyone except the apostle Paul. The eastern Orthodox churches were not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6935,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6935","url_meta":{"origin":6148,"position":1},"title":"Saturnalia with the Romans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We are in the midst of Saturnalia, so consider this article by Classics scholar Mary Beard on \"Five Things the Romans Did at Christmas.\" The headline was just to grab you, because she begins, \"OK, the Romans didn\u2019t actually have Christmas. And even Christian Romans didn\u2019t celebrate Jesus\u2019 birthday on\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Rome\"","block_context":{"text":"Rome","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=rome"},"img":{"alt_text":"io-saturnalia","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/io-saturnalia.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1315,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1315","url_meta":{"origin":6148,"position":2},"title":"Slavery, Vikings, and Charlemagne","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 24, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is a little bit of synchronicity in my historical reading. I am not sure if it \"proves\" anything, other than the fact that it is difficult to sort people into \"good guys\" and \"bad guys.\" 1. At the library, I recently picked up The Long Morning of Medieval Europe:\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"France\"","block_context":{"text":"France","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=france"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0754662543","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":14050,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14050","url_meta":{"origin":6148,"position":3},"title":"Will Christians Fulfill a Pagan Emperor’s Plan?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 15, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Julian \"The Philosopher,\" Rome's last Pagan emperor (mid-360s), would get chuckle out of this. (Although to me he comes across as super-serious, he must have found some things funny. I hope.) While he was force-fed Christian theology by bishops, growing up in a royal Christian household, he later studied ancient\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Julian_antioch-mint-bull.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4911,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4911","url_meta":{"origin":6148,"position":4},"title":"Revising the Story of Christmas","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 30, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It is an article of faith (an appropriate word here) for contemporary Pagans that Christianity stole holidays left and right from our spiritual ancestors, particularly Christmas. Here Mollie Ziegler at Get Religion, a blog about the critical examination of religion-writing in the (mostly) American media, gets into some of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":548,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=548","url_meta":{"origin":6148,"position":5},"title":"What the Romans did for\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 31, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"What the Romans did for us--and keep on doingSpurred by the latest spate of TV miniseries and feature films, Cambridge classics professor Mary Beard looks in the mirror of ancient Rome and describes the different images that it reflects back to us.This game of defining ourselves against the habits of\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6148"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6151,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6148\/revisions\/6151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}