To clear our reputation, we in the committee for Eastern affairs had made a thorough investigation into the actual situation within the Jewish colony in Rome and its danger to the security of the State after the Jewish uprising in Jerusalem. Many of us had grown wealthier during these profitable activities. With a clear conscience we could lay a reassuring account before Nero and the Senate.
By a narrow majority we managed to convince the Senate that there should be no real persecution of the Jews, but that we should be content with weeding out suspected elements and talkative agitators. Our suggestion was based on sound reason and was accepted, despite the hatred of the Jews the rebellion in Jerusalem had aroused. To be truthful, I used my own means in preparing the case, because Claudia had so many Jewish Christian friends. For instance, Aquila with his crooked nose and brave Prisca would have certainly been taken with the rest. But I am a hardhearted man, a miser, a rogue who always manages to save himself and for whom your best friend Juvenal has not a good word. I expect my friends pay him well for copies of his verses. There is no joy among human beings like malicious joy. Let us rejoice then, you and I, that your bearded friend can at least pay his debts thanks to me, and without it costing me a thing.
If I were as avaricious as he maintains, then naturally I should buy that cursed verse from him and allow my own publisher to reap the profits. But I am not like Vespasian, who even taxed the water a man makes. We once were discussing funerals, and he asked us how much we thought his funeral would cost the State treasury. We calculated that the ceremonies would come to at least ten million sesterces, a calculation which was not just a compliment but could be proved with the clear figures. Vespasian sighed heavily and said: “Give me a hundred thousand now and you can throw my ashes in the Tiber.”
Naturally we then had to collect a hundred thousand sesterces in his old-fashioned straw hat, so the meal was an expensive one and the food had been nothing to boast about either. Vespasian loves simple honest customs and his own fresh country wine. For the sake of my position, I have many a time had to contribute to the building of his amphitheater. It will be the wonder of the world, and Nero’s Golden Palace will be nothing but a spoiled youth’s finicky mess in comparison.
Why do I keep postponing my story time and time again? It is like having a tooth extracted. Swiftly and speedily, Minutus, and then it is over. And I am not guilty. I did everything I could for them, and no man can do more than that. No power on earth could have saved the lives of Paul and Cephas. Cephas returned to Rome of his own free will, although he could well have gone into hiding through the worst time.
I know that nowadays everyone uses Cephas’ Latin name, Petrus, but I prefer to use his old name which is dear to me. Petrus is a translation of Cephas, which means rock and which name he received from Jesus of Nazareth. I don’t know why. Cephas was no rock in mind; indeed, he was a rough and touchy man who on some occasions behaved in a cowardly way. He even denied all knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth on that last night, and in Antioch he behaved anything but courageously in face of Jacob’s representative who regarded it as a crime against the Jewish laws that he ate with the uncircumcised. But all the same, Cephas was an unforgettable person, or perhaps because of this. How can one know?
It is said of Paul now that he had taken the name Sergius Paulus because Sergius, who was governor of Cyprus, was the most important man he converted. That is quite without foundation. Paul changed his name from Saul long before he met Sergius and only because in Greek it means the insignificant one, the worthless one, just as does my own name Minutus in Latin.
When my father gave me my despicable name, he could have had no idea that he was making me Paul’s namesake. Perhaps it was in part my name which made me begin to write down these memoirs, to show that I am not quite such an insignificant man as I seem. The main reason, however, is because I am here at this resort, drinking mineral water, the physicians watching over my stomach trouble, and at first I could not find any other outlet to satisfy my need for activity. I also thought that you might find it useful to know at least something about your father when you one day come to wall in my ashes in the tomb in Caere.
During Cephas’ and Paul’s long imprisonment, I saw to it that they were well treated, and I arranged for them to meet and talk together, if under guard. As dangerous public enemies they had to be imprisoned in Tullianum, away from the anger of the people. That is not an especially healthy place, although Tullianum naturally has glorious traditions of many hundreds of years’ standing. Jugurtha was strangled there, and there too Vercingetorix’ head was crushed, and Catilina’s friends lost their lives there, and Sejanus’ little daughter was violated there before her execution as the laws prescribe, since Romans never execute a virgin.
Paul seemed to fear a painful death, but in such cases Nero was not small-minded, although he was angry about the Jewish rebellion and regarded all Jewish agitators as to blame for it. Paul was a citizen and had a legal right to be executed by the sword, a right the judges did not question at his last trial. Cephas was sentenced to be crucified according to the law, although I had no wish to inflict such a death on an old man and a friend of my father’s.
I made sure that I could accompany them on their last journey on the fresh summer morning they were taken away to be executed. I had arranged that no other Jews should be crucified at the same time. There were constant crowds on the execution places because of the Jews, but I wanted Paul and Cephas to be allowed to die alone with dignity.
At the road fork to Ostia I had to choose with whom I should go, for it had been decided that Paul would be taken to the same gate at which my father and Tullia had been executed. The judges had ordained that Cephas be taken through the Jewish quarter of the city as a warning and then crucified on the execution place for slaves near Nero’s amphitheater.
Paul was accompanied by his friend the physician Lucas, and I knew Paul would not be offended, for he was a citizen. Cephas needed my protection much more, and I feared too for his companions, Marcus and Linus. So I chose Cephas.
I need not have worried about demonstrations from the Jews. Apart from a few lumps of clay, Cephas had nothing thrown at him. The Jews were very Jewish, and despite their bitter hatred, contented themselves with silently watching a Jewish agitator being taken away to be crucified because of the rebellion in Jerusalem. Cephas had the usual plaque around his neck on which was inscribed in Greek and Latin: Simon Petrus from Capernaum, Galilean, enemy of the people and mankind.
When we had left the city and reached the gardens, the heat began to be oppressive. I saw beads of sweat running down Cephas’ wrinkled forehead and ordered the crossbar of the cross to be taken from him and given to an approaching Jew to carry. The soldiers had a right to do this. I then told Cephas to join me in my sedan for the last stretch, without a thought for the talk this would give rise to afterwards.
But Cephas would not have been Cephas if he had not brusquely replied that he could carry the cross on his broad shoulders to the very end without help. He did not want to sit at my side but preferred, he said, to feel the dust of the road beneath his feet for the last time, and the heat of the sun on his head, in the same way as he had felt them long ago when he had traveled with Jesus of Nazareth along the paths of Galilee. He did not even wish the rope by which he was being led to be loosened, but said that Jesus of Nazareth had foretold this and he did not want to bring shame on the prophecy. Nevertheless he leaned wearily on his worn shepherd’s stave.