The Politics of God: Christian Encounters with Empire in Acts 4–5

Abstract

In this essay, I draw attention to part of the Acts narrative that should be included in an investigation of Luke’s political stance but often gets left out: the narratives of Acts 4–5. Studies typically focus on Jesus’s trial before Pilate and Herod; Christian encounters with Roman officials in the diaspora (Philippi, Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, and Ephesus); or Paul’s trials before Claudius Lysias, procurators, and King Agrippa II in Judea. Few give more than passing glances at these early chapters in Acts. The lacuna is, prima facie, reasonable: What, after all, does Christianity’s encounter with Jerusalem authorities have to do with Christianity’s encounter with Roman political authority? A historically textured investigation into the question, however, yields a much more complicated picture. From the time of Herod the Great till the outbreak of the Jewish war, high priests were appointed by Roman legates, prefects, and Herodian kings, and they played an important role in mediating imperial authority to the Jewish people. They thus served as representatives, in part, of the Roman state. The narratives of Acts 4–5 therefore constitute important evidence that should be included in an investigation into Luke’s theological politics because they describe Christianity’s repeated collision with the Roman-appointed priestly aristocracy. In the end, I argue that when these narratives are included, the critical volume of Luke’s theological politics becomes amplified appreciably, and the wider theological character of Luke’s political perspective comes into greater focus.