TIBERIUS: THE CÆSAR OF CHRIST’S MINISTRY
[Illustration: TIBERIUS]
After Cæsar Augustus came Tiberius Cæsar. His father’s name was
Tiberius Claudius Nero. His mother was the famous Livia Drusilla. She
was afterward taken away from her husband to become the wife of the
Emperor Augustus, with whom, as we have already shown, she shared the
honors and power of his distinguished career. Tiberius and his full
brother Drusus,--younger than himself,--became, therefore, the stepsons
of Augustus.
While still a youth Tiberius appeared in honor upon several occasions,
and once he made a plea before the emperor in behalf of the King
Archelaus and the Thessalians. Later he became also the son-in-law of
Augustus, by his marriage to Julia, his stepsister. To accomplish this,
and thus obey the command of Augustus, Tiberius separated from his
first wife, Vipsania, with whom always, however, his heart remained.
Suetonius tells us that one day afterward, when he accidentally met
her, his eyes filled with tears and followed her as long as she was in
sight. This pathetic incident does much to increase our interest in
him.
His brother Drusus, to whom he was much attached, died in the year
9 B. C. when he was in military service on the banks of the Rhine.
Bringing back his body to Rome, Tiberius walked on foot before the
funeral train all the long journey. Augustus gave to him also the
honorable mission of going to receive from the Parthians the military
standards that Crassus had lost in war with that people, but which they
were now willing to restore.
Tiberius performed with energy every duty that Augustus assigned to
him. He rapidly, therefore, received military promotion. For thirty
years he was a prominent and skillful general and acquired much
experience in public affairs. He was strict in military discipline and
a good administrative officer. He was sent across the Rhine nine times
on important missions. Many believed him to possess those stern, Roman
qualities that would fit him for the highest position. His temper,
however, was somewhat surly and, like many of his contemporaries, he
seems to have had little reluctance to shed blood.
He was admitted to an important and special share of the government two
years before the death of Augustus. He was thirty-five years old when
he came to the throne. His accession was quietly brought about by the
careful management of his mother, Livia, by the support of the army,
and by the acquiescence of the people.
The inheritor of a vast empire from his predecessor, Tiberius had at
the outset much to do to keep its various parts in subordination. For
some time he avoided foolish extravagance and insisted upon order and
efficiency in the various departments. He defeated the plans of the
enemies who had plotted against him, and showed much decision and
firmness. He did not allow himself in the first years of his reign to
come into conflict with the senators, and conciliated them in various
ways. He was very obsequious, at the same time, to the wishes of his
ambitious mother, Livia, who had always been watchful of his interests,
and who was a great helper to his plans. The first nine years of his
reign he was a conservative ruler. If he had died within that period
he might have been rated by posterity as an industrious and patriotic
monarch.
But even during that time he was unlike Augustus, in that he had
none of those striking qualities that appeal to the sentiment and
imagination of the people. He had no personal magnetism. He led in
no great enterprises. He cared neither to provide nor to attend
exciting gladiatorial shows. On the other hand, he was often gloomy
and irritable, cynical in judgment, and fearful of the malice of his
enemies. This tendency was afterward increased by disappointments in
his domestic life. His marriage with Julia, the daughter of Augustus,
owing to her bad character, proved to be unfortunate and unhappy. He
turned against her, and fifteen years of later experience in life could
not soften his attitude toward her.
The victories, triumphs, and death of his nephew, Germanicus, the son
of his brother Drusus, occurred during his reign. Germanicus was a
great soldier, a man of interesting character, and a sort of popular
idol. While the people were giving themselves up to mourning over
his death, Tiberius told them that both they and he should find the
best consolation in attending to their regular duties. This seemed to
them to be a very cold treatment of the occasion and confirmed their
suspicions that the emperor had been jealous of Germanicus. It lessened
his hold upon the affections of the people, although, to please them,
he caused the arrest of Cnæus Piso, who was suspected of having
poisoned Germanicus, and who committed suicide before he was sentenced.
At the same time Tiberius was completing the concentration of power in
his own hands and began to employ _delators_, or spies, that he might
detect and punish the beginnings of all plots against himself. He
was suspicious of his subjects at Rome. “I have a wolf by the ears,”
he said, referring to the great body of the people. This being his
attitude of mind toward them, it is not strange that they lost for him
their love and loyalty. His son, another Drusus, who had grown to be
about thirty years old, was now associated as a consul of the empire
with him.
The career of Tiberius rose to a certain height and then gradually
declined. The turning-point was when he received into his intimate
confidence an infamous adviser named Sejanus. He trusted this man more
than he did the experienced officers of his realm. Sejanus was utterly
selfish and corrupt, and willing to stop at no point in his domination
of the emperor’s mind. Tiberius began to manifest a depressed and
morose spirit. He frequently retired to the island of Capri, near
Naples, for relief and recuperation. There, upon the high cliffs, amid
beautiful scenery and the soft breezes of a salubrious climate, he
made for himself extensive gardens and villas and gathered around him
servile flatterers, who ministered to his vanity and catered to his
caprices. He was fascinated by oriental superstitions and employed many
sorcerors and magicians. Juvenal pictures the scene of the emperor
sitting on a rock of Capri with his “Chaldeans” (that is, soothsayers)
around him.
Tiberius continued in a large measure to direct through others the
affairs of the empire. His son, Drusus II, proved to be a man of
ability and discharged well the duties that were laid upon him. But
Sejanus was made prefect and had the control of the city and of the
Pretorian guard. It was Sejanus who took the bold step of bringing all
the soldiers of that guard,--nine or ten thousand in number,--together
into one camp, where they could be more at his own bidding. This camp
was on the northeast border of Rome, where the square projection in
the line of the walls still indicates its large proportions. Of course
Drusus was in the way of Sejanus’ unprincipled ambitions; so the latter
insidiously managed to gain influence over the wife of Drusus; and
these two, Sejanus and this woman, together poisoned the promising heir
to the throne. Tiberius was deceitfully told that the prince Drusus had
died from sickness only. It was a severe blow to his fondest hopes. He
manifested great grief before the Senate and mournfully declared that
he must now transfer his hopes to the youthful children of Germanicus.
[Illustration: DRUSUS]
Meanwhile jealousies and recriminations prevailed between Tiberius and
his mother Livia as one party, and Agrippina, the widow of Germanicus
and granddaughter of Augustus, as the other. Agrippina was living at
Rome with her fatherless children, among whom was a third Drusus, a
Nero, and a Caius. Caius, under the name of Caligula, was destined to
be the next emperor. Sejanus fostered this quarrel for his own ends.
He also encouraged the emperor in his deliberate purpose to make
his permanent residence in the island of Capri, which Tiberius did
soon after. There the luxurious seclusion of the emperor was guarded
with the strictest vigilance; but day by day a regular service of
couriers brought dispatches to him from the continent and from Rome.
His commands, in turn, were transmitted to the capital city.
Not long afterward Livia, the mother of the emperor and the widow
of Augustus,--from whose somewhat officious oversight Tiberius had
effected his escape by retiring to Capri,--died at the advanced age of
eighty-six, having held for seventy years nearly as much influence as
any other personage in the Roman court. She had been also called Julia
Augusta, on account of her marriage to Augustus and her admission to
the Cæsarian family. She had combined ambition with prudence, great
ability with virtue and benevolence. At her obsequies Caius, the
youngest of the sons of Germanicus, pronounced the eulogy.
In my sketch of the life of Augustus I have described some of the
apartments of Livia’s house, with their ancient beautiful frescoes,
which are still to be seen among the ruins on the Palatine Hill.
Not far from the beginning of the Appian Way the tourist, after
nearly nineteen centuries, also visits, with curiosity and wonder, a
columbarium, or great burial vault, so called from the niches in the
walls resembling those of dovecotes, in which are believed to repose
the ashes of Livia’s numerous attendants, slaves and freedmen, said to
be more than a thousand in number. This gives some idea of the opulence
in which she lived.
It now remained for the unprincipled Sejanus to get rid of
Agrippina,--the widow of Germanicus,--and her children, who caused
him great uneasiness. By his exaggerated accusations, Tiberius was
induced to send word to the Senate that they must arrest and condemn
them. In spite of earnest opposition from the people, this was done.
Agrippina was sent into exile in the island of Pandataria, now called
Ventotienne, where she is said to have starved herself to death in the
year A. D. 33,--the year of Christ’s crucifixion. Her son Nero was sent
into another island, called Pontia. Another son, Drusus, was thrown
into prison at Rome. All of these afterwards came to miserable deaths
as the result of their ill treatment. But another son, Caius by name,
was fortunate enough to be looked on with more favor by the emperor and
to be kept by his side at the imperial resort in the island of Capri.
Sejanus, seeming now to be in full power, was made consul by the
emperor, to serve along with himself. But it was not a great while
before the tide turned. Tiberius discovered the utter hollowness and
treachery of this man, so that in a time when he least expected it
Sejanus was summoned before the Senate at Rome, the charges of the
emperor against him were read, and he was thrown into the Mamertine
prison. Upon others also, besides Sejanus, the wrath of Tiberius fell.
Then, disappointed by those in whom he had trusted, and embittered by
his own successes in tyranny, he began to divert himself at Capri with
debasing pleasures. He seemed to have thrown off all the restraint of
decency and to have given himself up with his boon companions to the
wildest orgies of dissipation and vice. His ancient biographers paint
these scenes of his life in the darkest colors. He had broken all the
fair promises of his earlier days and, instead of a painstaking ruler,
had become a self-indulgent, besotted, and vindictive old man. The most
charitable view that can be taken of his life at Capri is that his mind
had become weakened by his gloomy suspicions, by his absolute authority
and by his uncontrollable appetites.
Milton in his “Paradise Regained,” when he represents Satan as tempting
Christ with “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them,”
represents the former as saying:
“All nations now to Rome obedience pay;
To Rome’s great emperor, whose wide domain,
In ample territory, wealth and power,
Civility of manners, acts and arms
And long renown, thou justly may’st prefer
Before the Parthian....
This emperor hath no son and now is old,
Old and lascivious and from Rome retired
To Capreæ, an island small but strong
On the Campanian shore, with purpose there
His horrid lusts in private to enjoy,
Committing to a wicked favorite
All public cares, and yet of him suspicious,
Hated of all and hating. With what ease,
Endued with regal virtues as thou art,
Appearing and beginning noble deeds,
Might’st thou expel this monster from his throne,
Now made a sty, and, in his place ascending,
A victor people free from servile yoke!”
It was certainly a very subtle form of temptation to suggest to a noble
mind, the thought of supplanting a monarch who had become so reprobate
and vile.
The youth and early manhood of the famous writer and philosopher,
Lucius Annæus Seneca, fell within the twenty-three years of the reign
of Tiberius. He had been born seven years before the Christian era,
at Cordova, in Spain. His father was a man of knightly rank; and his
mother, Helvia, a Spanish lady, is praised by her son for the nobility
and sweetness of her character. They were people of wealth, and had
cultivated tastes.
When Seneca was still a babe only two years old the family migrated to
Rome. He had two brothers,--Marcus Annæus Novatus and Lucius Annæus
Mela. The latter was the father of Lucan, the poet of Rome’s declining
literature. The former is known in history as Julius Gallio, a name
which he took when adopted by an orator of that name. It was the same
Gallio who became deputy of Achaia in Greece and before whom the
Apostle Paul was dragged at Corinth by the Jews, who were indignant
at his success in preaching. When some Greeks seized Sosthenes, the
ruler of the synagogue, and beat him before the judgment seat, Gallio
“cared for none of those things.” How little he dreamed that the one
thing that would keep his name before the ages would be the fact that
a Christian Jew, obscure at that time, was brought for a few moments
before his tribunal! But he was popular in his day for his culture and
refinement and was called _dulcis Gallio_,--the sweet Gallio.
Seneca had the best educational advantages of his times. He studied
rhetoric and philosophy. From Sotion, a Pythagorean, he imbibed the
doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and from Attalus, the Stoic,
a hatred of “vice, of error, and of the ills of life.” He learned in
theory to commend poverty, to despise luxury, and to declare that
the mind should be superior to its surroundings. He was too far from
Palestine to have been brought in contact with the ministry there of
Christ and of his apostles, but it is striking to remember (and here we
may quote the language of Dean Farrar) that “amid all the guilty and
stormy scenes in which his earlier destiny was cast there lived and
taught in Palestine the Son of God, the Saviour of the World.” While
the young Seneca was being guarded by his attendant slave through the
crowded and dangerous streets of Rome on his way to school, Saint Peter
and Saint Andrew were fisher lads by the shore of Lake Gennesareth;
while Seneca was ardently assimilating the doctrine of Attalus, Saint
Paul with no less fervency of soul sat learning at the feet of the
Rabbi Gamaliel in Jerusalem, and long before Seneca had made his way
through paths dizzy and dubious to the zenith of his fame, the Saviour
of men, unknown to him, had been cruelly crucified.
Seneca’s writings during the life of Tiberius were chiefly on subjects
drawn from nature and on India and Egypt,--countries in which he had
been traveling. He won a high reputation in literature. He had little
to do with the imperial court. He was not brought into any personal
relation with the emperor Tiberius, but not infrequently in his pages
refers to that “brutal monster” and to the dangerous power of his prime
minister, Sejanus. We shall hear more of Seneca farther on.
While a few men such as Seneca were beginning to reach after higher
things, the reign of Tiberius was, on the whole, a period of dark
skepticism, of degraded morals, of manifold intrigues. Thoughtful
persons had lost faith in the old mythology, the conventional paganism.
Many were longing for something better. Many had settled into the worst
pessimism. Various dreadful tragedies went on in high life at Rome.
There was a great deal of contention, and much confusion among all
orders of citizens. Accusations and suspicions were everywhere rife.
Twice during his residence at Capri Tiberius determined to go back to
Rome. Each time he started from that mountainous island to make the
journey. He pursued it until he had come near the imperial city. Then,
without entering Rome, he, in each case, took a meditative view of its
walls and buildings and turned back, terrified, it was reported, by
some evil omen. The last time, as he was retracing his route through
Campania, he was taken ill at Asturia. At Cerceii he presided at
festive sports in the military camp, even casting with his own hand
javelins at wild beasts, which were driven before his seat in the
amphitheater.
But this was too much for his physical strength. Though he reached
Misenum near Puteoli, he could go no farther. There he died in A. D.
37, when he was seventy-eight years old, at the close of a reign of
twenty years. His funeral was soon after conducted with formal pomp by
his successor, and his body was laid in the mausoleum of Augustus, at
Rome.
Such was the emperor within the limits of whose administration fell the
greater part of the youth and all the public ministry of Jesus Christ.
It seemed as if in his person selfish power was allowed to run to every
excess before divine mercy should make its great manifestation and
self-sacrifice for mankind.
We read in Luke’s third chapter that it was in the fifteenth year of
this Tiberius Cæsar that John the Baptist began to preach in all the
country about Judea. As Jesus was “about thirty years old” when he came
to John to be baptized, we suppose Luke’s reckoning to be made from the
time that Tiberius became associated with Augustus in the government.
In that dark age there were many who were defying God and going to
every extreme of injustice and vice, but there were others who were
“waiting humbly and prayerfully for the consolation of Israel.” How
startling to the former and how welcome to the latter must have been
the great forerunner’s cry echoing in the wilderness of Judea: “Prepare
ye the way of the Lord and make his paths straight!” Among the people
who went out to hear John were some of the soldiers of Tiberius, who
were then stationed in Palestine.
“What shall we do?” they asked.
“Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with
your wages,” was his reply.
Herod Antipas, the son of Herod the Great, had been the tetrarch or
ruler of Galilee under the Roman emperor since the death of his father.
In his courageous zeal, John the Baptist did not hesitate to rebuke
even this Herod Antipas, because he was then scandalously living
with Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. John, therefore, was
hated and thrown into prison, and there remained until he was cruelly
beheaded at the request of Herodias, through her daughter, who had
pleased this Herod by her dancing in the revels of his birthday feast.
When Jesus had begun his ministry in Galilee, Herod hearing about him,
said:
“John have I beheaded, but who is this of whom I hear such things? It
is John the Baptist who has risen from the dead.”
And he desired to see Jesus.
On another occasion some Pharisees came to Jesus saying:
“Get thee out and depart hence, for Herod will kill thee.”
And he said unto them:
“Go ye and tell that fox, Behold I cast out devils and do cures to-day
and to-morrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.”
Herod’s desire to see Jesus was afterward gratified in very remarkable
circumstances. He was temporarily in Jerusalem, having come south
from his city Tiberias, on the Sea of Galilee, when Jesus was brought
before Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea. Hearing that Jesus
was from Galilee, Pilate tried to turn the case away and put the
responsibility of deciding it upon Herod by sending Jesus to him for
examination. But Jesus would not answer Herod’s interrogations; and so,
after ill-treatment by Herod’s guards, he was sent back to Pilate, who
had to make the decision after all. He passed judgment in spite of his
hypocritical washing of his hands in the presence of the mob.
We learn from secular history that one cause of the unpopularity of
Pilate with the people was that, in removing some Roman troops from
Cesarea to Jerusalem, he had tried to bring into the holy city the
military standards that bore the image of the emperor Tiberius. The
old religious feelings of the Jews against any representation of the
human figure, especially when, as in this case, it tended to idolatry,
was roused to the utmost; and their remonstrance had to be heeded. So
stirring were the events in Jerusalem taking place while Tiberius was
emperor at Rome.
It was the face of Tiberius, or of his predecessor Augustus, that was
on the Roman “penny” or _denarius_ that Jesus once asked to be shown to
him. Seeking a pretext for accusing him before the Roman authorities,
his foes had inquired of him:
“Is it lawful to pay tribute to Cæsar or not?”
Looking at the _denarius_, Jesus said:
“Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s and unto God the things
that are God’s!”
The government of Tiberius had, indeed, a claim upon the tribute of its
citizens, who enjoyed its protection and used its coin: but that claim
should never interfere with their obligations to the Supreme Ruler of
all consciences.
Again, when the Jewish rabble tried to overcome the scruples of Pilate
by shouting:
“If thou let this man go thou art not Cæsar’s friend,” it was to the
fear of Tiberius in Pilate’s heart that they appealed. Centurions, or
captains of a hundred men in the army of Tiberius, appear in the scenes
of the New Testament. It was the shadow of Tiberius over the land that
was withholding from the Jews the right to put any man to death.
They had to look to the Roman authorities to do this; and then it was
accomplished not by the Jewish method of stoning but by the Roman
method of crucifixion.
Those were Roman soldiers, “the whole band of them,” at Jerusalem, who
so heartlessly derided Jesus in the Governor’s hall. We read that “they
stripped him and put on him a scarlet robe.” And when they had platted
a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head and a reed in his right
hand. And they bowed the knee before him and mocked him, saying:
“Hail, King of the Jews!”
And they spit upon him and took the reed and smote him on the head.
And after they had mocked him they took the robe off from him and put
his own raiment on him and led him away to Golgotha. Those were Roman
soldiers that drove the nails into his hands and feet.
“They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall.”
They elevated him upon the cross, and then sat down to gamble for his
raiment, while they cast occasionally a glance at his dying agonies.
It was the Roman centurion, commanding these soldiers, who, seeing the
earthquake and those things which were done, feared greatly, saying:
“Truly, this was the Son of God!”
Afterward it was a Roman soldier that thrust a spear into the side of
the crucified, to make sure that he was dead, and it was a group of
them that were placed as a watch at the sealed tomb. One wonders if
the miraculous facts about the life and death and resurrection of Jesus
were ever fully reported to the emperor Tiberius and whether he ever
gave any consideration to their deep significance.
Tiberius was not a great builder as Augustus had been. Yet he built
or enlarged the imperial palace on the Palatine. It was on the north
corner of the hill and overlooked the Forum. Some ruins of it remain,
as well as some of the villas that he erected on the island of Capri.
There are said to have been ten of the latter. Statues and other relics
of them now adorn the grounds and halls of modern summer resorts near
the spots which he selected. A triumphal arch was erected in his honor
in the Roman Forum. After him also was named the city of Tiberias,
mentioned in John vi, 23, which was built by the tetrarch, Herod
Antipas, to be the Roman capital of Galilee, and which was adorned with
a palace and a stadium. On the edge of that Palestinian lake, which is
sometimes called in Scripture the Lake of Gennesareth, sometimes the
Sea of Galilee and sometimes, from this city, the Sea of Tiberias, the
traveler finds to-day its modern representative, broken and picturesque.
It was to me a memorable night when, many years ago, I encamped, with
some friends, among its ruins and watched the storm, which, as often in
the days of Christ, had come up suddenly and was raging on the waters.
The fishermen, Simon and Andrew and James and John, as they plied their
craft of old, could see across the waves the walls of the palace by
day and its gleaming lights by night. And not far away in the city
of Capernaum, on the shore of the same lake, Matthew, when he was an
unpopular publican or tax-gatherer, sat at the seat of the customs and
took in the tribute money, which was for the treasury and government of
Tiberius at Rome.
It is not more than fifteen miles away over the hills to Nazareth,
where Jesus was brought up; and we may well suppose that the wonderful
boy sometimes came from there and looked down from the precipitous
cliff into that deep natural basin where the lake lies and upon this
city of Tiberias upon its bank. The shores were then inhabited by
a great and busy population. About twelve miles long and six miles
broad, it was then dotted by many a sail. Caravan roads connected its
cities, and many races and languages were then represented there. Any
youth from a rural home would take rich delight in coming thither and
so getting into touch with the great outside world. And it was the
scene of so much of his holy manhood’s ministry that it seems almost a
desecration that the name of Tiberias should also have been fastened
there. It has now little more to attract the eye than the circling
banks, the rippling waters and the blue haze on the surrounding hills.
Yet to the Christian student, acquainted with its past and in love
with the character of Him who lived and taught there, it has taken on
an interest that belongs to no other locality on earth.
“O Galilee! Bright Galilee!
Hallowed thoughts we turn to thee.
Woven through thy history
Gleams the charming mystery
Of the life of One who came,
Bearing grief, reproach and shame,
Saviour of the world to be,
God with us by Galilee!”
It is thought to have been in the reign of Tiberius that the two
granite obelisks, known as Cleopatra’s Needles, which in the nineteenth
century before Christ had been set up by Thothmes III, a monarch of
Egypt, before the Temple of the Sun at Heliopolis, were removed to
Alexandria and placed in front of a temple dedicated to Cæsar. In our
own time they have been carried very much further from their original
location. One of them stands on the Victoria Embankment in London.
The other is in Central Park, New York. The latter is 68½ feet high
and nearly 8 feet wide on each side of the base. Who knows but that
Joseph and Mary on their flight with the sacred child into Egypt
from Bethlehem looked with wonder on its curious hieroglyphics at
Heliopolis? At any rate, as it stands now in the park of an American
city, it is a venerable and heavy link between the life of to-day and
far distant ages.
Tiberius sits in the Vatican Museum. That is to say, his marble effigy
does. It was discovered in modern times at Veii in Italy and has been
pronounced by antiquarian experts to be a genuine representation of
him. He appears as a young man of fine figure and handsome face.
With his right hand he holds up a baton, with his left he grasps a
sheathed dagger between his knees; and this seems to be a fitting
emblem,--though not perhaps intentional,--of his cruelty. Drapery is
thrown over his shoulder and across his lap. On his head he wears a
wreath. The ribbons that fasten it hang down behind his neck. His
forehead is intellectual. The hair is cut straight across it. The
face is smoothly shaven. The lips are thin. The other features are of
generous size. Some may discern in the figure the promise of a strength
and wisdom, which, also, was not fulfilled. Others may see in the face
only weakness and a consciousness of posing. At any rate, the statue
helps us to make history real to the imagination.
Why was this wicked man elevated to such honor and power? The thought
comes to us that we have no such ancient portrait of the meek and lowly
Saviour, who, while Tiberius was reigning, “went about doing good”
and inviting the weary and heavy-laden to come to himself for rest.
No sculptor from among Rome’s eminent artists was, of course, ever
commissioned with promise of rich reward to perpetuate in bronze or
marble the form and features of the despised Nazarene.
This is one of the many facts that remind us that the highest worth has
often to wait long for its appreciation. But that appreciation will
come at last. A few may turn aside from the busy streets of Rome to
contemplate in the Vatican gallery this cold semblance of the unworthy
man who petulantly ruled the world when the cruel cross was erected
outside the walls of Jerusalem and when the yearning arms of Love
Incarnate were stretched out in pain upon it. But the Victim on that
cross has gloriously triumphed and has won His throne in millions of
human hearts.