Behind | Workbook: Caesar Augustus and Jesus Christ

Grab your Workbook Journal!

[Record your answers in the workbook provided at the beginning of this course.]

We learn in the opening verse of Luke 2 that Jesus will be born during the rule of Caesar Augustus. Augustus was the first Roman Emperor and is remembered in history as one of the great leaders of ancient Rome. He was so well regarded by his contemporaries that one of them, Paulus Fabius Maximus, proconsul of the Roman Province of Asia, suggested reordering the calendar around Augustus’ birthday so that it was the first day of each new year. Having read Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth carefully, read the selection below from a decree issued in the Province of Asia proclaiming the greatness of the Caesar.

Recall Luke’s description of Jesus and other New Testament descriptions of Jesus that you may be aware of. Keep in mind that this decree has been dated to 9 BC, roughly five years before the birth of Jesus.

(It is hard to tell) whether the birthday of the most divine Caesar is a matter of greater pleasure or benefit. We could justly hold it to be equivalent to the beginning of all things … ; and he has given a different aspect to the whole world, which blindly would have embraced its own destruction if Caesar had not been born for the benefit of all.

… since Providence, which has divinely disposed our lives, having employed zeal and ardor, has arranged the most perfect culmination for life by producing Augustus, whom for the benefit of mankind she has filled with excellence, as if she had sent him as a savior for us and our descendants, a savior who brought war to an end and set all things in order; and since with his appearance Caesar exceeded the hopes of all those who received glad tidings before us, but not even leaving any hope of surpassing him for those who are to come in the future; and since the beginning of glad tidings on his account for the world was the birthday of the god, and since Asia decreed in Smyrna … that the person who found the greatest of honors for the god should have a crown, and Paulus Fabius Maximus the proconsul, as benefactor of the province having been sent from that god’s right hand and mind together with the other men through whom he bestowed benefits on the province … has found something unknown until now to the Greeks for the honor of Augustus, that from Augustus birthday should begin the time for life—for this reason, with good luck and for our salvation, it has been decreed by the Greeks in Asia that the New Year’s first month shall begin for all the cities on the ninth day before the Kalends of October, which is the birthday of Augustus …

Sources: Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, 1997, pp. 133-136; N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 2013, p. 326.

1. Titles like “Savior” and “Lord” were commonly used to refer to the emperor. Do you think Luke was deliberately trying to contrast his Messiah with the ones typically praised and worshiped in Rome? Explain.

2. What themes or language did you find especially striking and why?