CHAPTER 77

After a few hours of sleep, I woke up and started on the second scroll. Luke had done a masterful job on the first one, and the story of Jesus was compelling. But I was not being asked to defend Jesus. Paul was the one under house arrest. Book two contained his story.

The second book began right where the first one ended, with Jesus leaving his disciples and the beginning of the movement I knew as the Way. Rather than fading away after Jesus disappeared, his followers began preaching with renewed fervor. I found it astonishing that more and more people in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas continued to believe in this Messiah even after he was gone.

Paul made his first appearance as a man named Saul, a persecutor of the church. Luke then described Paul’s vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus. After becoming a follower, Paul changed his name and went from persecutor to preacher. From enemy of the Way to its foremost advocate. By doing so, he became a target. In the following years, he suffered many things at the hands of those who wanted to silence him.

I was troubled by the last several pages of this second manuscript. Paul was a brilliant man, but he had no sense of how to defend himself. He seemed intent on converting anyone who sat in judgment of his case. King Agrippa, for example, who was now serving as the prefect over the entire area of Syria (including Pilate’s former territory), seemed insulted by Paul’s approach. “Do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to become a Christian?” he had asked.

Paul’s reply was not exactly astute: “Short time or long —I pray to God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what I am, except for these chains.”

The trial ended when Agrippa declared that Paul had not done anything deserving of death but sent him to Rome anyway. “This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar.”

I could see it coming. I would be standing with Paul in front of Nero, and Paul would tell the arrogant young emperor that he must repent and worship the Jewish Messiah. It seemed that Paul’s sole objective was to stir up trouble everywhere he went. He certainly wasn’t afraid to suffer for his beliefs. Perhaps he was so enchanted with the Nazarene that he felt called to die a violent and noteworthy death too. But I was not willing to go down with him.

In my younger years, I had been driven by the same kind of fierce idealism. I was willing to die for my principles when Flavia and I took on Caligula. Yet all that had been for naught. We risked our lives, the emperors changed, and now Rome was worse off than before.

Paul could sacrifice his life for the Way if he wanted. But unlike Paul, I had a family now. Flavia and Mansuetus needed me alive.

Still, I couldn’t stop my mind from working through the possibilities. Perhaps there was a clever way to establish Paul’s innocence. Perhaps Nero had an Achilles’ heel the same way that Caligula did years before.

If he did, there was one man who would know. I packed up the parchments and went to visit Seneca.

“You don’t know what Nero’s doing right now, do you?” Seneca asked.

I shrugged. I had quit trying to keep track of the emperor and the backstabbing politics of the capital.

“He’s extending his palace,” Seneca said. “He’s bringing in gold from the four corners of the empire so that the edifice will be blinding. He’s draining a lake at the foot of the Palatine Hill to build a racetrack for the chariots that will be ten times larger than the Circus Maximus. He’s planting a forest on his property, fencing it in, and stocking it with wild game so he and his friends can hunt.”

Seneca got up from his seat and stoked the fire in the hearth. He moved slowly, his body stiff, his spine curved.

“For Saturnalia, he’s preparing the most lavish and spectacular party the Roman Empire has ever seen.”

I shuddered at the thought of it. Saturnalia was the annual celebration that took place in December, starting on the shortest day of the year. For six days, society threw off its constraints, roles were reversed, and anything went. Masters were expected to serve dinner to their slaves. Gangs of boys looted homes and assaulted pedestrians. Sexual depravity found new depths.

It all started with a sacrifice at the temple of Saturn followed by a great banquet open to the people of Rome. Schools, courts, and businesses closed. Togas were stuffed away and replaced with a loose Greek garment called a synthesis. People started drinking in the morning and partied until late at night. For days, banquets were held all over the city, with a “king” of Saturnalia chosen by lot for each banquet.

Seneca returned slowly to his seat and caught his breath before continuing. “Nero has appointed his friend Tigellinus to be the chief entrepreneur for Saturnalia this year.”

There could not have been a more troubling choice. During Caligula’s reign, Tigellinus was suspected of having an affair with Agrippina the Younger and was banished to Greece. At the request of Agrippina, he was allowed to return to Rome when Claudius became emperor.

Tigellinus eventually inherited a vast sum of money and invested it in breeding horses for the chariot races. When Nero became emperor, he installed Tigellinus as prefect of the Praetorian Guard, making him the second-most-powerful man in all of Rome. Though he was old enough to be the emperor’s father, he was also the emperor’s main instigator, partying with Nero indiscriminately.

He was known to be both brilliant and ruthless.

“And that’s not all. The case of your friend Paul has finally garnered the emperor’s attention,” Seneca informed me. “It seems the followers of the Way are refusing to show the emperor proper respect. Tigellinus has been appointed to prosecute Paul’s case and make an example of him.”

Tigellinus had little experience in court and had never studied under the great rhetoricians. But he had something that all the eloquence in the world could not overcome. He was a fellow rabble-rouser with Caesar. He could whisper in the emperor’s ear at night as they frequented the brothels together and thought up new ways to shock Rome’s aristocracy.

Paul would become their plaything.

“Are you saying the case has already been decided?”

“I’m saying Paul is fortunate to be a Roman citizen. Beheading is much quicker than crucifixion.”

Paul took the news that I could not represent him with great equanimity. He thanked me for reading every word of the manuscripts Luke had authored. He also thanked me for allowing Mansuetus to spend so much time with him. I told him I would make sure the scrolls made it into Nero’s hands.

Before I left, Paul and his friends laid hands on me and closed their eyes while Paul prayed for me. I was more than a little uncomfortable, finding myself in the center of this prayer circle, and I inquisitively opened my eyes to catch a glimpse of the others. They all seemed to be taking this exercise very seriously, their eyes closed tight in concentration, murmuring their agreement with Paul.

Paul thanked his God for sending me and Mansuetus into his life to help him prepare for his trial. He prayed for God’s blessing on me and my household. He asked that I might see the message of the cross of Jesus not as foolishness but as the power and wisdom of God.

On the way home, I had to remind myself that there was nothing I could do. Augustus Caesar himself could come back from the dead to represent Paul, and the apostle would still be sentenced to death.

It was one thing to be noble; it was another to be foolhardy. Nero had killed his own mother. He would not hesitate to destroy me if I stood up for a cause that was undermining his authority.

When I told Mansuetus, he took it hard. I tried to explain, but he retreated to his room. For two days, he only spoke to me when I spoke to him first. He never smiled, and he refused to look me in the eye.

I remained troubled but undeterred. I knew I had made the right decision. I would not risk my own neck for a man with a death wish. Still, in quiet moments, doubts nagged. What was it that Seneca had said? “The real danger is not to die while you are young. The shame is dying young yet living to be old.”

On the third day, I read through Luke’s first manuscript a second time. I was drawn to the Nazarene again just as I had been thirty years ago in Jerusalem. I loved his stoicism, his teachings, the way he silenced his critics. Even his shameful death on the cross seemed to have a deeper meaning —a way to somehow appease the wrath of God. When I finished, I knew what I had to do.

On the day before Saturnalia, against my own instincts and Flavia’s strong advice, I told Paul I was taking his case.