Topic
Roman Empire
17 passages cited, from 2 classic reference works.
These works date from 1884–1896 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 1 Maccabees 1:10Smith
And there came out of them a wicked root Antiochus surnamed Epiphanes, son of Antiochus the king, who had been an hostage at Rome, and he reigned in the hundred and thirty and seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks.
- Luke 2:1Nave Ruled by — Augustus Caesar
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
- Luke 3:1Nave Ruled by — Tiberius Caesar
Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judæa, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene,
- Acts 13:7Smith
Which was with the deputy of the country, Sergius Paulus, a prudent man; who called for Barnabas and Saul, and desired to hear the word of God.
- Acts 16:37Nave The rights of citizens
But Paul said unto them, They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves and fetch us out.
- Acts 17:24Smith
God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
- Acts 17:26Smith
And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;
- Acts 18:2Nave Ruled by — Claudius Caesar
And found a certain Jew named Aquila, born in Pontus, lately come from Italy, with his wife Priscilla; (because that Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome:) and came unto them.
- Acts 18:12Smith
¶ And when Gallio was the deputy of Achaia, the Jews made insurrection with one accord against Paul, and brought him to the judgment seat,
- Acts 19:38Smith
Wherefore if Demetrius, and the craftsmen which are with him, have a matter against any man, the law is open, and there are deputies: let them implead one another.
- Acts 22:25–29Nave The rights of citizens
And as they bound him with thongs, Paul said unto the centurion that stood by, Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned? When the centurion heard that, he went and told the chief captain, saying, Take heed what thou doest: for…
- Acts 22:28Nave Citizenship in — By birth
And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born.
Show 5 more
- Acts 25:10 Nave The right of appeal
- Acts 25:16 Nave The right of trial
- Acts 25:21 Nave The right of appeal
- Galatians 4:4 Smith
- Philippians 4:22 Nave Ruled by — Nero
In the reference works
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884) · 7 references
- The first historic mention of Rome in the Bible is in 1 Macc. 1:10, about the year 161 B.C. in the year 65 B.C., when Syria was made a Roman province by Pompey, the Jews were still governed by one of the Asmonaean princes. The next year Pompey himself marched an army into Judea and took Jerusalem. From this time the Jews were practically under the government of Rome. Finally, Antipater’s son Herod the Great was made king by Antony’s interest, B.C. 40, and confirmed in the kingdom by Augustus, B.C. 30. The Jews, however, were all this time tributaries of Rome, and their princes in reality were Roman procurators, On the banishment of Archelaus, A.D. 6, Judea became a mere appendage of the province of Syria, and was governed by a Roman procurator, who resided at Caesarea. Such were the relations of the Jewish people to the Roman government at the time when the New Testament history begins.
- Extent of the empire . --Cicero’s description of the Greek states and colonies as a "fringe on the skirts of barbarism" has been well applied to the Roman dominions before the conquests of Pompey and Caesar. The Roman empire was still confined to a narrow strip encircling the Mediterranean Sea. Pompey added Asia Minor and Syria. Caesar added Gaul. The generals of Augustus overran the northwest Portion of Spain and the country between the Alps and the Danube. The boundaries of the empire were now the Atlantic on the west, the Euphrates on the east, the deserts of Africa, the cataracts of the Nile and the Arabian deserts on the south, the British Channel, the Rhine, the Danube and the Black Sea on the north. The only subsequent conquests of importance were those of Britain by Claudius and of Dacia by Trajan. The only independent powers of importance were the Parthians on the east and the Germans on the north. The population of the empire in the time of Augustus has been calculated at 85,000,000.
- The provinces . --The usual fate of a country conquered by Rome was to be come a subject province, governed directly from Rome by officers sent out for that purpose. Sometimes, however, petty sovereigns were left in possession of a nominal independence on the borders or within the natural limits of the province. Augustus divided the provinces into two classes -- (1) Imperial; (2) Senatorial; retaining in his own hands, for obvious reasons, those provinces where the presence of a large military force was necessary, and committing the peaceful and unarmed provinces to the senate. The New Testament writers invariably designate the governors of senatorial provinces by the correct title anthupatoi , proconsuls. (Acts 13:7; 18:12; 19:38) For the governor of an imperial province, properly styled "legatus Caesaris," the word hegemon (governor) is used in the New Testament. The provinces were heavily taxed for the benefit of Rome and her citizens. They are said to have been better governed under the empire than under the commonwealth, and those of the emperor better than those of the senate.
- The condition of the Roman empire at the time when Christianity appeared has often been dwelt upon as affording obvious illustrations of St. Paul’s expression that the "fullness of time had come." (Galatians 4:4) The general peace within the limits of the empire the formation of military roads, the suppression of piracy, the march of the legions, the voyages of the corn fleets, the general in crease of traffic, the spread of the Latin language in the West as Greek had already spread in the East, the external unity of the empire, offered facilities hitherto unknown for the spread of a world-wide religion. The tendency, too, of despotism like that of the Roman empire to reduce all its subjects to a dead level was a powerful instrument in breaking down the pride of privileged races and national religious, and familiarizing men with the truth that "God had made of one blood all nations on the face of the earth." (Acts 17:24,26) Put still more striking than this outward preparation for the diffusion of the gospel was the appearance of a deep and wide-spread corruption, which seemed to defy any human remedy.
In the topical indexes
Nave's Topical Bible (1896) · 11 references, grouped by sub-topic
Texts: Smith's Bible Dictionary (1884); Nave's Topical Bible (1896), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.