CHAPTER 85

Nero returned in a foul mood. His jaw was firmly set as he took his seat and the clerk called the session back to order. His assessores shuffled into their places behind him, their eyes darting around the judgment hall. I wondered what they had talked about during the break.

I hoped that I would get a chance to give a closing argument before he ruled. I knew that I at least had to try.

“Before the court pronounces judgment, I believe I’m entitled to provide Your Excellency with a closing argument.”

Nero scowled at me. “The defendant seemed quite capable of speaking for himself.”

“Still, if Caesar pleases, the defendant is not a trained advocate. He is not versed in the intricacies of Roman law that might determine whether he lives or dies.”

“Perhaps he should have thought of that before he spoke.”

“With respect, Caesar, you asked him questions. It is traditional in cases of this nature —”

“Enough!” Nero barked.

“But, Caesar, there are procedures. Time-honored rights —”

“I said enough!” Nero stood and glowered at me. His guards took a few steps forward. I felt my face flush with anger.

“My assessores have informed me of your history of advocacy,” Nero said, practically spitting the words out. “You defended Apronius when he heaped vile insults on Tiberius. ‘Mere words,’ you called them. Later, the body of Caligula was not even cold when you mounted the Rostra and rallied the citizens against the principate. You said that emperors turn Romans into slaves.”

Nero’s face was tight with rage, the veins in his neck bulging. I stared back at him, unapologetic.

His anger simmered for a moment before he spoke again. “Perhaps you should be the one on trial rather than some deluded Jewish madman with his strange new superstition.”

“I have a job to do as an advocate,” I said. My voice was steady though my throat was tight, my mouth suddenly dry. “Our Roman system of justice requires that I do it well.”

This seemed to appease Nero, if only a little. He relaxed and sat back down, his fierce stare still fixed on me. In that moment he seemed to remember that he was there as a judge, not my adversary.

He took a sip of wine and surveyed the judgment hall, taking in the ostentatious beauty that reflected his unlimited power. There were pearls from Persia lining the walls. Colored marble from Egypt on the floor. Intricately carved columns from Corinth. His own gold statue looming over the defendant. Who could stand up to his power?

He looked at Paul with an expression that worried me. A glint of irony in the small blue eyes. The faintest hint of a smile. A wave of premonition swept over me. Nero was up to something that couldn’t possibly be good.

“You claim to believe in a resurrection,” he said. His voice was less acerbic and more playful now. “I should give you a chance to prove it at noon.”

Paul, for once, had the good sense not to respond.

“Tigellinus has proven his case that you are a danger to Rome. You call on Rome’s emperor to repent. You say there is a God greater than the Roman gods. You swear allegiance to another king.

“But maybe Festus had it right. Maybe you are simply out of your mind. Visions of a dead man. Speaking to Caesar as though I were a common slave. You seem to believe that with just a few sentences you can convince me to throw away the power of Rome and become a convert to a religion founded by a Jewish rabbi. What sane man has such thoughts?”

For a moment, the smallest flicker of hope kindled inside me. Was he going to call Paul a madman, punish him for insanity, and set him free? Yet even as Caesar took this unexpected path, my instincts were telling me something more insidious was at play. Nero, the great actor, was playing a part. This trial was a scene in a larger play. But I had no idea what that larger play was about. And why did it matter as long as Paul was ultimately set free?

“You have spoken of a God who shows great mercy and grace,” Nero said. He rose and stood to his full height, chest out, chin up, a specimen for the world to admire. “Today you will know that Caesar is the greatest god of all. I find you guilty of sedition. I find you deserving of death. But by the grace and mercy of Caesar, you shall be released.”

The ruling stunned the entire judgment hall and took a moment to sink in. A quick glance at my client told me that Paul was troubled by it and wanted to speak. I placed my left hand on his arm to keep him from doing so.

“Thank you, Your Excellency,” I said.

“Now get out of my sight before I change my mind,” Nero said.

Against my strong advice, Paul proceeded directly to the Forum and preached like he had never preached before. He didn’t say a word about the trial, but he still drew quite a crowd. He talked about the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. He told the well-worn story of his own conversion on the road to Damascus. If anybody deserved to be punished, Paul said, it was him, the greatest of all sinners. But he had found forgiveness and so could everyone else.

At noon, he was shoved aside by the Roman soldiers, who dragged the condemned prisoners to the Gemonian Stairs for their ceremonial beheadings. I thought this might sober Paul, but it only seemed to invigorate him. He directed his preaching at the prisoners and spoke with a greater sense of urgency. The condemned men just stared at him as if he were some kind of lunatic.

When the executions were over, Paul invited everyone to the Tiber for baptisms. I followed in his wake along with Flavia and Mansuetus. At the dawn of this day, being baptized was the furthest thing from my mind. I was an advocate, not a disciple. But so many things had changed in the last few hours.

Sometime during the trial, though I couldn’t say precisely when, the jumbled pieces of my life all came together. I suppose they were there all along, these discrete blocks of evidence from an Advocate far greater than I, building a case I could no longer ignore.

My face-to-face meeting with the Nazarene. His sacrifice. The anguished protest of nature at his death. The growing proof of his resurrection. The supernatural power of his followers.

Paul had made the choice magnificently stark. Who was Lord —Nero or the man called Christ? Whose kingdom would prevail?

As Romans, we were fascinated with death, inventing the cross as the ultimate tool of pain and humiliation. I had hung there once, feeling the full force of the shame.

But now, in this new movement, the cross was an instrument of power. Humiliation became strength. The blood that flowed from the Nazarene created a river of forgiveness and freedom and hope. Death was no longer something to be feared but a passageway to new life.

“What is truth?” Pilate had asked.

His wife, Procula, had discovered the answer. So had my son, Mansuetus, and eventually even Flavia, when the healing power of Jesus had brought a Virgin back from the brink of death.

It was only fitting that I would find the answer in the middle of a trial, through the brave words of a client who cared more about truth than freedom, more about the souls of kings than the chains that bound him.

For whatever reason, in spite of Paul’s blunt words about Caesar’s need for repentance, the emperor had sided with the apostle. The verdict was wholly unexpected and nothing short of a miracle.

Paul was guilty, yet still he was free.

And now, as I followed him to the banks of the Tiber River, for the first time in my life, so was I.