With that one phrase, the centurion stretching out Paul of Tarsus for scourging relaxed his grip.
Turning to his commander, the centurion repeated that this troublemaker bringing Gentiles into the Jewish Temple claimed to be a citizen of Rome.
It wasn’t the first time a scoundrel had made such a claim before punishment. It wouldn’t be the last. This commander of the one of the cohorts defending (or more accurately, suppressing) Jerusalem hadn’t risen to his rank on the basis of gullibility. Nevertheless, the punishment for violating the rights of a citizen of Rome was dire.
The commander grabbed Paul’s shirt and yanked him violently towards him, spitting as he spoke. “Tell me,” his eyes narrowed at the ragged man, his arms stretched, “are you a Roman citizen?”
Perhaps it was the look in the man’s eyes. Or the calmness in his voice. But the stretch collection of rags and bone responded thoughtfully with a nod.
“Yes.”
The Roman commander was not impressed, so he tested this beggar. “I,” the commander lifted Paul by his tunic, “acquired this citizenship for a large sum of money.”
“But I was born one.”
The commander slowly set Paul down, as if he were a child. His face moved, his eyes drifted to the sinews binding the arms of his prisoner — this “citizen of Rome” — and beyond to a centurion still backing away. The commander’s hands relaxed and rose from the dirty, now-crumpled tunic he held as he turned to his men, ordering Paul of Tarsus to be cut down.
The next day, this once-beggar now Roman would speak before the entire Sanhedrin, at the orders of the cohort commander. Perhaps it was to curry favor with Paul. Or rather, perhaps he too was tired of the constant bickering and games of the Jewish Sanhedrin that for years the Roman Empire had simultaneously protected and watched.
Yet called to order by the same cohort commander who knew the punishment for holding a Roman citizen against his will, even the Sanhedrin of Jerusalem could not disobey the power and command of Rome, her citizens, and her mighty legions. It would be a maxim Judea’s Zealots would learn at the hands of Vespasian to accept — or cease to exist.
ORTHODOX “JUSTIFIABLE WAR” THEORY
This tradition of Roman civil law extended to its successor in the east. The Byzantine Empire survived as both plague and the waves of war pounded the Christianized East.
But survive Byzantium did. And in spectacular fashion, she began to reclaim her lost provinces, first in the Balkans by driving out pagan invaders from the steppe, then turning upon Arabs, Turks, and Persians in the East.
By 1025, the Byzantine Empire literally stood atop the world as a colossus, doubling its territory from the losses of the previous four centuries and extending her wealth and power across the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
Why did Byzantium’s power grow? Tradition, position, and a high degree of internal cohesion all played parts. As the heart of Orthodox Christianity, it was the unique position of the Byzantine Empire to be seen as the defender of all Christians under her aegis — both within and outside her borders.
The result was a compelling reason not just for toleration in Muslim lands for Orthodox Christians, but for a nascent theory of what Orthodox scholars Alexander Webster and Darrell Cole have termed “justifiable war” under the Byzantine Empire.
Different than the mere invocation of Roman citizenship, the Byzantine tradition infused Orthodox theology into her foreign policy, namely that since all Orthodox followers were part of the Body of Christ they were entitled to the full protection of God’s instrument of justice on earth.
Needless to say, the struggle between Byzantium and Islam did not end peacefully or well. But for 800 years it was the Byzantine Empire’s tenacious grip on Anatolia that preserved the West for centuries. Once unleashed, the Turks under the Ottoman Empire rolled to the very gates of Vienna, only to be repulsed by a coalition of Austrians and Poles in 1683.
AMERICAN PRESTIGE POST 9/11
I have always been fascinated with the idea that Americans have tended to command some degree of awe overseas.
Sure, the propagators of the “uglyAmerican” slur would say otherwise. But even in the times it is deserved, there is always something about being an American abroad that commands a degree of conversation, if not respect.
In the 1990’s, talk of the Pax Americana reached across our consciences and into the next fifty years, with a greater degree of talk as to what that peace would entail and — if push came to shove — how it would be imposed.
The so-called Peace Dividend after years of pushing against Soviet Communism would be spent making the world safe, not for democracy, but for commerce. As as so many spokes on a wheel, it would be the United States in the middle ensuring the wheels of commerce continued to spin.
September 11th has been hammered long and hard into the American psyche over the years, more a reaction to America’s Cold War policies than our new found presence as the world’s economic and strategic superpower. Nevertheless, it is American presence and prestige around the world that has suffered.
It wasn’t that America was dealt some terrible blow on 9/11, but rather we bled that day.
Suddenly, to be an American overseas was to be the object of derision. American interests were suspect. American businesses were seen as the imposition of American military strength if the object of importation (oil?) were strategic enough. American banks were now to be subsidized despite improper loans. American soldiers were even criticized back home by an anti-war left too enamored with the 1960’s to understand 21st century realities.
MODERN UNDERSTANDINGS
During the 1970’s, the Russians had a way of dealing with terrorism. They killed everyone — terrorists, innocents, bystanders. The message was simple: Terrorism will be met with death. The Soviet government had no concern for civilians that were cogs in the socialist machine… new babies were born every day.
Destroying the memory of martyrs was (and to some degree, remains) the key to any Russian counter-terrorist strategy… one that nearly succeeded in Afghanistan and continues to remain in the Russian psyche to this day, as the 2002 Moscow Theatre Siege 2004 massacre in Belsan illustrate quite cleanly.
In this sense, the Russian government continues to prosecute its war against breakaway Muslim provinces such as Chechnya, Dagestan, and Ingushetia not because of some paranoid need to retain power, but rather because her policies dictate that Russians do not negotiate with terrorists, they kill them until their memory is wiped out.
The Russian Federation’s approach to terrorism is a violent and generalized modification of the approach of their Byzantine predecessors, though perhaps a slight return to first principles concerning a Roman ethos of violence.
To contrast, Muslim jihadist have shown little compulsion towards being stinted by casualties. Thousands have died in Iraq and Afghanistan alone since the U.S.-led War on Terrorism began in earnest in October 2001. Thousands more stand to die.
The one thing that hasn’t died as of yet is the persona of al–Qaeda and its leader, Osama bin Laden.
CIVIS AMERICANUS SUM!
To announce one’s citizenship as an American citizen used to be a calling card to the world. Like the British Empire before us, Americans uniquely enjoyed the status of all things attributed: wealth, power, but a naivete and simplicity that presented the opportunity to appeal to our revolutionary spirit.
But unlike the British, ours was intended to be an empire not of culture and commerce, but of liberty.
Announcing one’s citizenship to the world is a calling card, and depending on the circumstances it implied many different things. For the Romans, it meant death. Byzantines, protection. Russians, violence. British, culture.
For Americans, the announcement of one’s status as an American was formerly in the vein of missionary zeal. In a Jeffersonian sense, it was the defense of innate human rights. In a Lincolnian sense, one did not belong to a man, but to Divine Providence. In a Wilsonian sense, men had the right to govern themselves.
John F. Kennedy was the founder of the Peace Corps, where our best and brightest went overseas to help those nations in most dire need. Where the Soviets sent arms, we sent hands. Where the Soviets send indoctrination, we sent schools and teachers and books and tools. Where the Soviets schemed towards command economies, Americans dreamed of competitive economies and opportunity.
To date, not only have detractors of the last best hope for peace and prosperity on Earth smacked away our efforts as opportunistic and shallow, but they have pegged Americans as weak and vacillating after the Clinton era of diplomacy. Bomb an embassy, they send missiles into Sudanese pharmaceutical plants… America is weak because America will do anything — anything — to preserve status.
This must change.
Americans are the living embodiments of one of two great revolutionary spirits, the other being our compatriots in France. But unlike the French, our revolution was never secular in spirit, but rather of religious men and women being able to live secularly, to set aside our differences in the interests of liberty and freedom.
To be an American citizen abroad should embody the best of all worlds. Culture and opportunity, but also a short element of that revolutionary flavor that no American can truly shake free. American citizens do represent freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of expression, and freedom of worship.
In short, American citizens demand freedom from tyranny. When denied, Americans alone have that unique power to bring the might of their influence to bear. Whether that influence is media, charity, persuasion, or at times force is entirely up to the American citizen. But his presence should be immutable, felt, and backed by action.
Over the next fifty years, America’s predominance will not be debated. It exists. What should be debated rather than “clashes of civilizations” and whether America’s military might should be made present where diplomatic influence fails is what precisely it should mean to be an American abroad.
Back to Paul of Tarsus.
To say “I am an American citizen” whether on a plane, in a restaurant, in a refugee camp, or at a high-level dinner should say something. Better still, those who are not Americans should be given reason to pause and consider.
What others consider — and what we would like non-Americans to reflect upon when confronted with an American citizen — will shape our approaches to a myriad of things at home, save nothing of the myriad of questions we will ask of ourselves.