Paul: A Biography

by N.T. Wright

But that is only a start. There was a more pressing need. Something had happened in the recent past that had put the Roman Jesus-followers in a new and complex position. We recall that Claudius, who became emperor in AD 41, had banished the Jews from Rome after riots in their community. We have less information about this than we would like, but such evidence as we have suggests the late 40s as the probable time. (We should also assume that not all Jews would actually have left, only that the community would have been decimated and that any remaining Jews might have had to go to ground to hide their identity.) Paul’s friends Priscilla and Aquila were among those who had left, which was why they were there in Corinth when Paul first arrived, probably in 49. But with Claudius’s death in 54 and Nero’s accession to the throne, Claudius’s edict was revoked. Jews could once again be, if not exactly welcome, at least permitted back in town. I say “if not exactly welcome” because in this period, as in many other times and cultures, there was a streak, and sometimes more than a streak, of anti-Jewish sentiment in Rome. (We use the term “anti-Jewish” not “anti-Semitic,” because the latter implies some kind of racial theory unknown until the nineteenth century.) Think of the charge in Philippi that Paul and Silas were Jews, teaching things it would be illegal for Romans to practice. Think of the angry whispers when Alexander, a Jew, stood up to speak in the amphitheater at Ephesus. T...