Far More Imprisonments
This chapter takes as its point of departure 2 Corinthians 11:23 and the multiple imprisonments of Paul to which it attests. Surveying the uses of prison in the administration of Rome’s eastern provinces, it argues that the detentions of Paul and other early Christ purveyors were mostly undertaken not by Roman provincial authorities but by local magistrates. This conclusion has significant implications for reconstructing the accusations against Paul and describing his social location. Paul was not charged with treason (maiestas), as some recent scholars have suggested. Rather, local officials took punitive or coercive action against him for much the same reason they periodically sought to contain other freelance religious experts, whose activity was often deemed disruptive. For historians of the Roman prison, the detention of Paul and other early Christ purveyors provides valuable and largely neglected evidence for such use of punitive confinement.