Taxing Questions. Victor Paul Furnish (1979: 115-41) locates our pericope principally within the context of the Roman tax system, and argues that Paul is attempting to dissuade the Roman Christians from participation in tax protest, or tax evasion, which was of course a practice of the Jewish Zealots. Furnish argues that the sword of 13:4 is a reference neither to the war-making power of the state, nor to the right of capital punishment, but simply to the tax collector’s sword, used principally for the threat of force in collecting taxes. Recent scholarship has shown that Furnish’s thesis fits the historical situation around the time of Romans almost seamlessly.

In the early Neronian period, there were in fact widespread tax protests over the indirect taxes, as well as considerable unrest among immigrants living in Rome over the direct taxes. First, the city-wide tax revolt was precipitated by widespread abuse of the indirect taxes. While the direct taxes were collected by actual government collectors, the indirect taxes were collected by armed mercenaries hired by corrupt entrepreneurial agencies, what are called “revenue-farmers,” or publicanorum in the Latin. Tacitus informs us that the popular antipathy toward the indirect tax agencies, on account of their excessive greed, was so intensely felt that Nero promised to abolish the indirect taxes altogether. Of course, his senators prevented him from abolishing them by persuading him that if he did so the public would demand the abolition of the direct taxes also (cf. Tacitus, Annals 13.50-51; Walters 1993: 132 n.50; Jewett 2007: 798; Dunn 1986: 60).

From the Roman perspective, this was actually sound advice, because there was also a great deal of unrest at that time over the direct taxes (tributes). The direct tax was levied on residents of the provinces, but normally did not apply to inhabitants of Rome proper. But Coleman has recently provided evidence that the Neronian administration ratified a policy requiring immigrants in Rome to pay the tribute levied by the province in which they had resided at the time of the previous census, around 54/53 C.E. This indicates that the Jews who had been expelled from Rome in 49 C.E. by the Edict of Claudius would have returned to Rome only to find themselves subject to the provincial tribute, since they were not in Rome at the time of the last census (1997: 312-13). Jewett describes the administration’s policy as a “crackdown” on immigrants, one that went to great and novel lengths to squeeze out as much tribute as they could (2007: 799, esp. n.170). There is even evidence that the administration took measures (measures involving “the sword”?) to prevent immigrants from escaping their districts in an attempt to evade the heavy taxes that had recently been thrust upon them (Llewelyn 1998: 97-105).

While the indirect tax revolt was somewhat successful (the indirect taxation system was never abolished but was partially reformed), the direct tax system was concurrently intensified. Roman citizens would not have been affected by this, but a good portion of the Christians in Rome, especially the Jewish Christians, would have been adversely affected by the new direct tax policy. Paul’s letter to the Romans was penned in precisely this period, and so Furnish’s thesis fits the historical context quite neatly. The language Paul uses in 13:7 corresponds exactly to the situation: direct taxes (phoron) and indirect taxes (telos).

There are a few problems with Furnish’s thesis, however. Furnish attempts to limit the scope of the entire pericope to just the tax question, but as Witherington points out, the immediate context in vv. 1-5 indicate government officials in general, not specifically tax officials, “though tax officials seem to be the illustration of the general principle Paul chooses to focus on” (2004: 311). Additionally, several scholars have pointed out that the phrase dia touto gar kai phorous teleite (13:6) can reasonably be translated as an indicative rather than as an imperative, i.e., “this is also the reason you pay taxes,” rather than “for this reason, you must pay taxes” (so Elliott 2006: 219; Dunn 1988: 766; Wengst 1986: 82, and others). But this objection is extraneous, considering that indicatives quite frequently serve the rhetorical function of imperatives. (“That’s why we don’t run with scissors!”) Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that the historical situation matches the content of our pericope quite well. While we may not want to limit the identification of the governing authorities to tax officers only, further investigation along this line looks promising.

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Labels: New Perspective on Paul, Paul, Pauline Theology, Romans 13