QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; You are clearly a Roman scholar.  Is it true that the Romans used crucifixion only for political crimes and that the two who were crucified with Jesus were not thieves but rebels? There has been some debate on this subject. I would like to hear your views.

Thank you

WR

ANSWER: Jesus’ crime was really sedition and not blasphemy. The high priests may have seen this as blasphemy, but Jesus would never have been put to death by the Romans for such a local issue. The Romans practiced freedom or religion. They allowed the provinces that they had conquered to retain their own gods. Even the Roman Emperor Elagabalus (218-222AD) was an heir to the throne being of the Severian House. He had been a priest in Emesa of the sun god, which is the modern city of Homs in Syria today. He worshiped a black meteor that had fallen from the sky and a temple had been built for this stone of god (see above). When Elagabalus became emperor, he carried the Stone of Emesa to Rome and built a temple there. After he was murdered, the Romans respectfully returned the stone to Syria as to not offend any god. As for the Black Stone of Emesa is concerned, it was most likely smashed to pieces when the temple was converted into a Christian church at some point during the 4^th Century AD by the Byzantines.

Therefore, the only possible way that Jesus would have been crucified was for a civil crime, not a religious one, and the penalty had to be only for sedition, which is conduct or speech inciting people to rebel against the authority of a state. It is rabble-rousing, incitement to rebel, subversion, troublemaking, but not a religious issue. Therefore, the high Jewish priests took Jesus to the governor and had to make their case that he was inciting a rebellion against Rome by claiming to be King of the Jews. Pilate interrogates Jesus:

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.

“What is truth?” retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him.”

Rome’s punishment only for a political crime was a crucifixion, which was a public display that was painful, and a visible warning to others. There is no possible way that the two men crucified with Jesus were common thieves. The sentence of crucifixion was only something that Rome could order. The two men who were killed along with Jesus are identified in the Gospel of Nicodemus as Dismas and Gestas.

Luke 23:39-41 says, “One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!’ But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’”

Matthew refers to Barabbas who is released by Pilate in place of Jesus only as a “notorious prisoner” and that would never imply a common thief. Mark and Luke further refer to Barabbas as one involved in a στάσις (stasis, a riot), probably one of the numerous insurrections against the Roman power who had committed murder. The translation as “thieves,” however, the word can also mean “insurgents,” and it is more-likely-than-not that the two were co-conspirators of Barabbas rather than thieves. This is the only possibility that would support the sentence of crucifixion, which was a political weapon used to send a message to those still living: Do not engage in sedition or this will be your fate.

Crucifixion was an execution that was severe and reserved for political crimes, not common thieves. The more common method of execution in the Roman Empire was by strangling. Even the leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, who was an adversary was put on display in a triumph of Julius Caesar and then strangled – not crucified. This was simply a captive of a conquered nation or group who had not been under Roman rule and thus did not warrant crucifixion.

Spartacus (111-71BC) was a Thracian gladiator who escaped and became a slave leader during the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Crassus crucified 6,000 of Spartacus’ followers on the road between Rome and Capua pictured here in the 1878 painting by Fyodor Bronnikov. Again, the punishment of crucifixion is employed for rebellion. Even Karl Marx listed Spartacus as one of his heroes and described him as “the most splendid fellow in the whole of ancient history” and a “noble character, real representative of the ancient proletariat”.

Therefore, from a historical perspective of Roman law, Jesus would then have been crucified ONLY as a rebel and not for blasphemy. Giving a choice to the crowd between Jesus and Barabbas would not have been plausible unless they both stood for the same type of offense of sedition. This to me is clear evidence of the political nature of Jesus’s execution and was not merely a local religious issue but was a crime of sedition against the Roman Empire.

The War Cycle is in full swing upward since 2014. We have witnessed the invasion of Ukraine, the invasion of Syria, Rocketman in North Korea, and numerous civil uprisings. However, the war also comes with sharply declining economies as political leaders need to point the finger outside their domestic rule to distract their people.

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is also on a power trip and the sharply collapsing currency only puts more pressure on him to start conflicts. That basic incentive has played out with his visit to Greece in December. This was the first time a Turkish leader visited Greece in 65 years. As the Guardian reports, Erdoğan shocked Greece by calling for a revision of the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. The Turkish president in Turkey has sharply criticized the opposition for this demand and as always there is the justification for protecting people of Turkish origin living in Greece. Hitler used the same excuse to invade neighbors to defend Germans living on foreign lands.

The Treaty of Lausanne marks the conclusion of the four-year Greco-Turkish War, which regulated the demarcation between Greece and Turkey and the rights of the religious minority in the other country. Keep in mind that Turkey was the seat of the Ottoman Empire that conquered Constantinople and renamed it Istanbul. The Church of St Sophia became the Blue Mosque. So the conflicts between Greece and Turkey extend back thousands of years. Turkey was originally Anatolia settled by Greeks. They were conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia and then by Rome. The Turks invaded from Turkestan and thus the ancient land of Anatolia became Turkey. This was where written language and even money were both born.

Erdoğan, while visiting Athens, accused the Greek government of not allowing the Turkish minority to vote for muftis, as promised in the treaty. Instead, the religious jurists would be appointed by the government. The Turkish President had questioned the Treaty of Lausanne in an interview with the Greek broadcaster Skai TV before leaving for Athens. Airspace and the maritime border could be “improved”, Erdoğan said.

In the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Greece had been given almost all the Aegean islands off the Turkish coast. The Greek Islands comprise more than 6,000 islands and islets covering much of the eastern Mediterranean. Only about 230 Greek islands are inhabited and, of these, just 80 or so have more than 100 permanent inhabitants.

Erdoğan has domestic problems with the currency moving dangerously toward hyperinflation, which only unfolds when confidence in the government collapses. Turkey’s currency is being attacked from all sides. In October 2017, the Turkish lira collapsed when Turkey and the United States suspended bilateral visa processing, which was restored in early November. However, our model is warning that the Turkish lira will collapse into 2021.

Erdoğan is obviously trying to create an external enemy as the domestic economy turns against his policies. For several months, Erdoğan is trying hard to provoke a conflict in the Aegean Sea of Greece. On April 16th, 2017, Greek Minister of Defense Panos Kammenos and Greek Commander-in-Chief Alkiviadis Stefanis flew to Agathonisi Island, just off the Turkish coast. There they carried out an action with several soldiers. Lambs were roasted on a skewer, which was a symbolic action that dates way back to the Greek occupation of Turkey from 1919 to 1922. At that time, the Greek occupiers in the conquered territories of Turkey roasted lamb on skewers to make it clear to the Turks that they would be defeated.

Erdoğan asserts that the protection of the rights of ethnic Turks is his “top priority” and he wants to visit the Turkish minority in the northern Greek region of Thrace. Erdoğan was twice in Athens before back in 2004 and 2010. But it is the first visit of a Turkish head of state in Greece since 1952.

Erdoğan also criticized the implementation of the EU refugee pact with Turkey in Athens. The EU had “not fulfilled any of its economic promises”, while its country has kept all promises, Erdoğan said. He has long accused the EU of failing to fulfill its part of the March 2016 agreement, including the payment of aid.

Erdoğan also criticised the matter of the eight military personnel who had fled to Greece after the coup attempt in a helicopter. Erdoğan stated that Greece promised to extradite those men to Turkey, but that still had not happened.