Spying in the Bible 31 - AD 55 to AD 70

The Jewish-Roman War

When Paul was preaching in c. AD 55 a mob attacked him, so the Roman centurions arrested him to keep the peace and find out what he had done (Acts 21:30-33).

The whole city was aroused, and the people came running from all directions. Seizing Paul, they dragged him from the temple, and immediately the gates were shut. While they were trying to kill him, news reached the commander of the Roman troops that the whole city of Jerusalem was in an uproar. He at once took some officers and soldiers and ran down to the crowd. When the rioters saw the commander and his soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. The commander came up and arrested him and ordered him to be bound with two chains. Then he asked who he was and what he had done.

Paul then told the Romans that he was a Roman citizen, so they took him before the Sanhedrin to find out what he had done. Some of the Jews came up with a plot to assassinate him, but Paul’s nephew learned of the plot and told Paul. Paul and his nephew then told the centurions, who protected him because of his citizenship by sending him to Caesarea to Herod Agrippa’s II palace to be tried by the governor, Felix. Once again the intelligence that Paul’s spies brought him saved his life from an assassination attempt (Acts 23:16-23).

But when the son of Paul’s sister heard of this plot, he went into the barracks and told Paul.

Then Paul called one of the centurions and said, “Take this young man to the commander; he has something to tell him.” So he took him to the commander.

The centurion said, “Paul, the prisoner, sent for me and asked me to bring this young man to you because he has something to tell you.”

The commander took the young man by the hand, drew him aside and asked, “What is it you want to tell me?”

He said: “Some Jews have agreed to ask you to bring Paul before the Sanhedrin tomorrow on the pretext of wanting more accurate information about him. Don’t give in to them, because more than forty of them are waiting in ambush for him. They have taken an oath not to eat or drink until they have killed him. They are ready now, waiting for your consent to their request.”

The commander dismissed the young man with this warning: “Don’t tell anyone that you have reported this to me.” Then he called two of his centurions and ordered them, “Get ready a detachment of two hundred soldiers, seventy horsemen and two hundred spearmen to go to Caesarea at nine tonight.

The governor Felix left Paul in prison for two years while the trial went on and when he was replace as governor by Porcius Festus, he left Paul in prison as a favor to the Jews, since he was married to a Jew. Festus then wanted to do a favor to the Jews, since he was their new governor, asked Paul if he would go to Jerusalem to be tried by the Jews. Paul said no and that he had already been tried by Felix in Caesarea, where he should have been and wanted a verdict, which he had not gotten, so Paul appealed to Caesar. However, Herod Agrippa wanted to interview him first, so that he had something to write to Nero about why he was sending a prisoner. After Paul made his case to Festus and Herod Agrippa II, they both found no fault in him and would have just let him go, but they still had to send him to Nero, since he had appealed (Acts 26:30-32).

The king rose, and with him the governor and Bernice and those sitting with them. After they left the room, they began saying to one another, “This man is not doing anything that deserves death or imprisonment.”

Agrippa said to Festus, “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”

Once Paul arrived in Rome, he began preaching to the Jews there and continued to do so for the two years he awaited his trial before Nero, during which time he was released. In c. AD 64, a few years after Paul left Rome, most of the city was destroyed in the Great Fire, which many Romans believed Nero himself started to clear land for his new palace. Whether or not that was true, the population began to turn against him, so he blamed the Christians for setting the fire as scapegoats. After that, he began persecuting Christians in “retribution” for the fire. This persecution eventually led to the martyrdom of both Peter and Paul.

Two years after the fire, the First Jewish-Roman War broke out due to long held animosity between the Jews and their occupiers as well as because of the taxation policies of Nero. Nero sent his general Vespian to fight the rebellion. During the beginning of the revolt, Herod Agrippa II made it clear he was on Rome’s side by sending Vesipian his own troops as reinforcements, and so was promptly expelled from Jerusalem by angry Jews. In c. AD 68, other rebellions of Vindex in Gaul and Galba in Hispania began due to Nero’s taxation policies. Facing assassination, Nero committed suicide that same year and he was the last of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty.

Nero’s death began a brief civil war, known as the Year of the Four Emperors, where a series of powerful Romans fought for power. Servius Sulpicius Galba Caesar Augustus ruled for seven months, until Marcus Salvius Otho Caesar Augustus took over from January 15 to April 16. Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus then held on to the throne for a full eight months, until AD December 22, 69, when Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus (Vespian) took over. After become emperor, Vespian assigned his son his old role of being the general who was fighting against the Jewish revolt. His son had the same name, but was known as Titus. Titus finally put down the Jewish revolt in c. AD 70, which ended with the destruction of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and a second Jewish diaspora. Titus and his descendants would then go on the rule Rome as the Flavian dynasty. Herod Agrippa II later died childless and so was the last of the Herodian dynasty and the last civil king of the Jews.