Pilate, Jesus, and Paulina

Now Pilate, the governor of Judea, moved his army from Caesarea to Jerusalem to take up winter quarters there, with the aim of doing away with the Jewish laws. So he brought into the city the images of Caesar that were on the standards, although our law forbids us even to make images. That was why the earlier governors used to enter the city with standards that had no such ornaments. Pilate was the first to bring those images into Jerusalem and set them up there. It was done without the people’s knowledge, because it was done at night. [a]

But as soon as they knew of it, they went in crowds to Caesarea and pleaded with Pilate for many days to remove the images. He would not grant their request, since that would be an affront to Caesar. When they still persisted, on the sixth day he ordered his soldiers to arm themselves secretly, while he came and sat on his judgment seat. This seat had been set up in the stadium, which hid the army lying ready to overpower them. When the Jews petitioned him again, he gave the soldiers a signal to surround them, and threatened that their punishment would be nothing less than immediate death unless they stopped troubling him and went home. But they threw themselves on the ground, bared their necks, and said they would gladly accept death rather than see the wisdom of their laws transgressed. Pilate was astonished at their firm resolve to keep their laws inviolate, and at once ordered the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to Caesarea.

Pilate also undertook to bring a stream of water into Jerusalem. He paid for it with the sacred money, and drew the source of the stream from a distance of about twenty-five miles. But the Jews were not pleased with what was done about this water. Many tens of thousands of people gathered and raised an outcry against him, insisting that he give up the plan. Some of them even hurled insults and abuse at the man, as crowds of that kind usually do. So he dressed a large number of his soldiers in the people’s own clothing, with clubs hidden under their garments, and sent them to a place where they could surround the crowd. Then he himself told the Jews to go away. When they boldly went on insulting him, he gave the soldiers the signal agreed on beforehand. They struck far harder blows than Pilate had ordered, and punished the rioters and the peaceable alike. The Jews showed no weakness; but since they were unarmed and were caught by men prepared for what they were doing, a great many of them were killed there, and others ran away wounded. And so this uprising was brought to an end. [d]

About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such people as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew to himself many of the Jews and many of the Greeks as well. This man was the Christ. And when Pilate, on the accusation of the leading men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those who had loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again on the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and countless other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, named after him, has not died out to this day. [g]

About the same time another sad calamity threw the Jews into disorder, and certain shameful things took place at the temple of Isis in Rome. I will first give an account of the wicked deed at the temple of Isis, and then tell of the affairs of the Jews. [j]

There was at Rome a woman named Paulina, who had a great reputation both for the dignity of her ancestors and for the well-ordered conduct of a virtuous life. She was also very rich, and although she was beautiful, and at the age when women are most given to gaiety, she lived a life of great modesty. She was married to Saturninus, a man in every way her equal in excellence of character. Decius Mundus, a man of very high standing in the equestrian order, fell in love with her. She was of too great dignity to be won by presents, and had already refused them, though they had been sent in great abundance. This inflamed his love all the more, so that he promised to give her two hundred thousand Attic drachmae for a single night. When even this did not prevail on her, and he could not bear his failure in love, he thought it best to starve himself to death for want of food, to put an end to the misery that had seized him. He made up his mind to die in that way, and went ahead with his purpose.

Now Mundus had a freedwoman named Ide, who had been freed by his father, and who was skilled in every kind of mischief. She was much grieved at the young man’s resolve to kill himself, for he did not hide his intention from others. So she came to him and encouraged him with her talk, and by certain promises made him hope that he might yet have a night with Paulina. When he gladly listened to her proposal, she said she needed no more than fifty thousand drachmae to entrap the woman. Having encouraged the young man and received as much money as she asked, she did not go about it the way it had been tried before, for she saw that the woman could by no means be tempted with money. But knowing that she was very much devoted to the worship of the goddess Isis, she devised this scheme. She went to some of the priests of Isis and, under the strongest pledges of secrecy, persuaded them by words, but chiefly by the offer of money: twenty-five thousand drachmae in hand, and as much again when the thing was done. She told them of the young man’s passion and urged them to use every means to deceive the woman. They were drawn into promising to do it by the large sum of gold they were to receive.

So the oldest of them went at once to Paulina. When he was admitted, he asked to speak with her alone. When that was granted, he told her that he had been sent by the god Anubis, who had fallen in love with her and bade her come to him. She received the message gladly, and boasted to her women friends of the honor Anubis had shown her. She told her husband that a message had been sent to her, and that she was to dine and sleep with Anubis; and he agreed to her accepting the offer, being fully satisfied of his wife’s chastity. So she went to the temple. After she had dined there and it was time to sleep, the priest shut the doors of the temple, and in the holy part of it the lights were put out. Then Mundus leapt out, for he had been hidden inside, and he did not fail to have his way with her. She gave herself to him the whole night long, supposing he was the god. He went away before the priests, who were in on the plot, began to stir; and Paulina came early to her husband and told him how the god Anubis had appeared to her. Among her friends, too, she declared how highly she valued this favor. Some of them disbelieved the thing when they considered its nature; others were amazed at it, and had no grounds for disbelieving it when they considered the modesty and dignity of the woman.

But on the third day after it had been done, Mundus met Paulina and said, “Well, Paulina, you have saved me two hundred thousand drachmae, a sum you might have added to your own household, and yet you have not failed to be at my service in just the way I asked. As for the insults you have heaped on Mundus, I care nothing for names; I rejoice in the pleasure I reaped by what I did, while I took for myself the name of Anubis.” When he had said this, he went his way.

Then for the first time she understood the outrage that had been done to her. She tore her clothes, told her husband how monstrous this wicked plot had been, and begged him not to fail to help her. So he reported the matter to the emperor. Tiberius investigated it thoroughly by examining the priests, and ordered them to be crucified, along with Ide, who had brought about their ruin and had contrived the whole affair that did the woman such injury. He also demolished the temple of Isis and ordered her statue to be thrown into the river Tiber. Mundus he only banished and did nothing more to him, because he judged that the crime he had committed was done out of the passion of love. These were the circumstances concerning the temple of Isis and the wrongs done by her priests. I now return to the account of what happened about this time to the Jews at Rome, as I told you earlier I would.

There was a man who was a Jew, but who had been driven from his own country by an accusation of breaking their laws and by fear of being punished for it, and who was in every respect a wicked man. Living at that time in Rome, he professed to teach the wisdom of the laws of Moses. He also took on three other men of exactly the same character as himself as his partners. These men persuaded Fulvia, a woman of high rank who had embraced the Jewish religion, to send purple and gold to the temple at Jerusalem. When they had received them, they used them for themselves and spent the money; that was why they had asked her for it in the first place. Then Tiberius, who had been informed of it by his friend Saturninus, Fulvia’s husband, at his wife’s urging, ordered all the Jews to be banished from Rome. At that time the consuls enlisted four thousand of them as soldiers and sent them to the island of Sardinia; but they punished a greater number of them who refused to become soldiers for the sake of keeping the laws of their forefathers. So these Jews were banished from the city by the wickedness of four men. [m]