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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT home.com>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: rights of extradition
  • Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 14:29:18 -0500

I have been doing a little reading on Paul as persecutor of the EC. One of the critical issues is the reliability of the Acts testimony that Paul was somehow operating under the aegis of the Sanhedrin in his persecutions in/near Damascus, given that the Sanhedrin reputedly had no authority over Jews within that city.

But I note that F.F. Bruce disputes this. Here is the relevant section from his book _Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free_:

*****
Paul's own narrative implies that his conversion to the faith which he was attempting to wipe out took place at or near Damascus:' the narrative of Acts tells us what took him to Damascus. [Cf. Galatians 1: 17, "1 returned to Damascus".].  The violence of the persecution drove many of the disciples, especially the Hellenists, out of Judaea, but even so they were not necessarily out of reach of the Sanhedrin. When the Jewish state won independence under the Hasmonaeans, it had powerful patrons in the Romans, who let the countries surrounding J Judaea know this and demanded that Judaea should be granted the rights and privileges of a sovereign state, including the right of extradition. Thus, a letter delivered by a Roman ambassador to Ptolemy VIII of Egypt in 142 B.C. concludes with the requirement: "if any pestilent men have fled to you from their country [Judaea, hand them over to Simon the high priest, that he may punish them according to their law" (1 Maccabees 15: 21).

The author of the letter is "Lucius, consul of the Romans" (1 Maccabees 15: 16) - presumably L. Caecilius Metcllus, consul in 142 B.C. (E. J. Bickermann, review of M. S. Ginsburg, Rome et la Judee, in Gnomon 6 [19301, pp. 358 f.).
Those rights and privileges were confirmed anew to the Jewish people (even though they no longer constituted a sovereign state), and more particularly to the high-priesthood, by Julius Caesar in 47 B.C.
Josephus, Ant. xiv. 192-195. See S. Safrai and M. Stern (ed.), The jewish People in the First Century, i (Assen, 1974), p. 456.
Paul in his crusading zeal resolved that the high priest should exercise his right of extradition against the fugitives, and procured from him "letters to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem" (Acts 9: 1).

It appears that there was already in Damascus a community of followers of the Way, with whom the fugitives from Judaea could hope to find refuge. These Damascene disciples were not the subjects of the extradition papers which Paul carried; he may not even have been aware of their presence there. It was the refugees whom he had come to apprehend [This is the implication of the adverb EKEISE "thither", in Acts 22: 5; "those who were there" are "those who had gone thither"], no doubt hoping that if he could accomplish this purpose satisfactorily in 12 Damascus, he could repeat the procedure in other foreign cities. (pp. 72-73)

*****

My question is:  Does Bruce's claim about rights of extradition hold up under scrutiny. Even assuming that there were such rights in effect in Julius Caesar's time, do we have any reason to think that they were also in effect in the fourth decade CE?

Yours,

Jeffrey Gibson
 
 
 
 
 

11.
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--
Jeffrey B. Gibson, D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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e-mail jgibson000 AT home.com
 



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