Citizenship
VIEW:38 DATA:01-04-2020
CITIZENSHIP.See Paul, Rome.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Paul's Roman citizenship was of the lower kind, which though not entitling him to vote with the tribes and enjoy a magistracy, yet secured to him the protection of the laws of the empire, and the right of appeal from his own hostile countrymen to Caesar, as also exemption from scourging (Act_16:37; Act_22:25-28; Act_25:11). He seems to have inherited it from his father. Hence, he naturally uses the image to express the believer's high privileges as a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem.
"Our citizenship (Greek, or rather our life as citizens; politeuma, not politeia) is in heaven," etc. (Php_3:20); an image especially appropriate at Philippi, it being a Roman colony and possessing Roman citizenship of which its people were proud. Moreover, it was there that Paul had compelled the magistrates publicly to recognize a Roman citizen's privileges. So believers, though absent from their heavenly city in body, still enjoy its civic privileges and protection; pilgrims on earth, citizens of heaven (Eph_2:6; Gal_4:26; Heb_11:9-10; Heb_11:13-16; Heb_12:22; Rev_21:2; Rev_21:10; Luk_10:20).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
sit?i-zen-ship: All the words in use connected with this subject are derived from πόλις, pólis, ?city.?
1. Philological
These words, with the meanings which they have in the Bible, are the nouns, πολίτης, polı́tēs, ?citizen?; πολιτεία, politeı́a, ?citizenship?; πολίτευμα, polı́teuma, ?commonwealth?; συμπολίτης, sumpolı́tē̄s, ?fellow-citizen?; and the verb, πολιτεύω, politeúō, ?to behave as a citizen.? Each will be considered more fully in its proper place.
2. Civil
(1) The word for citizen is sometimes used to indicate little if anything more than the inhabitant of a city or country. ?The citizens of that country? (Luk_15:15); ?His citizens hated him? (Luk_19:14). Also the quotation from the Septuagint, ?They shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen? (Heb_8:11; compare Jer_31:34). So also in the Apocrypha (2 Macc 4:50; 5:6; 9:19).
(2) Roman citizenship. - This is of especial interest to the Bible student because of the apostle Paul's relation to it. It was one of his qualifications as the apostle to the Gentiles. Luke shows him in Acts as a Roman citizen, who, though a Jew and Christian receives, for the most part, justice and courtesy from the Roman officials, and more than once successfully claims its privileges. He himself declares that he was a citizen of Tarsus (Act_21:39). He was not only born in that city but had a citizen's rights in it. See PAUL; TARSUS.
But this citizenship in Tarsus did not of itself confer upon Paul the higher dignity of Roman citizenship. Had it done so, Claudius Lysias would not have ordered him to be scourged, as he did, after having learned that he was a citizen of Tarsus (Act_21:39; compare Act_22:25). So, over and above this Tarsian citizenship, was the Roman one, which availed for him not in one city only, but throughout the Roman world and secured for him everywhere certain great immunities and rights. Precisely what all of these were we are not certain, but we know that, by the Valerian and Porcian laws, exemption from shameful punishments, such as scourging with rods or whips, and especially crucifixion, was secured to every Roman citizen; also the right of appeal to the emperor with certain limitations. This sanctity of person had become almost a part of their religion, so that any violation was esteemed a sacrilege. Cicero's oration against Verres indicates the almost fanatical extreme to which this feeling had been carried. Yet Paul had been thrice beaten with rods, and five times received from the Jews forty stripes save one (2Co_11:24, 2Co_11:25). Perhaps it was as at Philippi before he made known his citizenship (Act_16:22, Act_16:23), or the Jews had the right to whip those who came before their own tribunals. Roman citizenship included also the right of appeal to the emperor in all cases, after sentence had been passed, and no needless impediment must be interposed against a trial. Furthermore, the citizen had the right to be sent to Rome for trial before the emperor himself, when charged with capital offenses (Act_16:37; Act_22:25-29; Act_25:11).
How then had Paul, a Jew, acquired this valued dignity? He himself tells us. In contrast to the parvenu citizenship of the chief captain, who seems to have thought that Paul also must have purchased it, though apparently too poor, Paul quietly, says, ?But I was free born? (King James Versions; ?a Roman born? the Revised Version (British and American), Act_22:28). Thus either Paul's father or some other ancestor had acquired the right and had transmitted it to the son.
3. Metaphorical and Spiritual
What more natural than that Paul should sometimes use this civic privilege to illustrate spiritual truths? He does so a number of times. Before the Sanhedrin he says, in the words of our English Versions, ?I have lived before God in all good conscience? (Act_23:1). But this translation does not bring out the sense. Paul uses a noticeable word, politeuō, ?to live as a citizen.? He adds, ?to God? (τῷ Θεῷ, tō̇ Theō̇). That is to say, he had lived conscientiously as God's citizen, as a member of God's commonwealth. The day before, by appealing to his Roman citizenship, he had saved himself from ignominious whipping, and now what more natural than that he should declare that he had been true to his citizenship in a higher state? What was this higher commonwealth in which he has enjoyed the rights and performed the duties of a citizen? What but theocracy of his fathers, the ancient church, of which the Sanhedrin was still the ostensible representative, but which was really continued in the kingdom of Christ without the national restrictions of the older one? Thus Paul does not mean to say simply, ?I have lived conscientiously before God,? but ?I have lived as a citizen to God, of the body of which He is the immediate Sovereign.? He had lived theocratically as a faithful member of the Jewish church, from which his enemies claimed he was an apostate. Thus Paul's conception was a kind of blending of two ideas or feelings, one of which came from the old theocracy, and the other from his Roman citizenship.
Later, writing from Rome itself to the Philippians, who were proud of their own citizenship as members of a colonia, a reproduction on a small scale of the parent commonwealth, where he had once successfully maintained his own Roman rights, Paul forcibly brings out the idea that Christians are citizens of a heavenly commonwealth, urging them to live worthy of such honor (Phi_1:27 margin).
A similar thought is brought out when he says, ?For our commonwealth (politeuma) is in heaven? (Phi_3:20 margin). The state to which we belong is heaven. Though absent in body from the heavenly commonwealth, as was Paul from Rome when he asserted his rights, believers still enjoy its civic privileges and protections; sojourners upon earth, citizens of heaven. The Old Testament conception, as in Isa 60 through 62, would easily lend itself to this idea, which appears in Heb_11:10, Heb_11:16; Heb_12:22-24; Heb_13:14; Gal_4:26, and possibly in Rev 21. See also ROME.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Strict isolation did by no means, as some suppose, form the leading principle in the system of theocracy as laid down by Moses, since even non-Israelites not only were allowed to reside in Palestine, but had the fullest protection of the law, equally with the descendants of Abraham (Exo_12:19; Lev_24:22; Num_15:15; Num_35:15; Deu_1:16; Deu_24:17; the law of usury, Deu_23:20, made, however, an exception), and were besides recommended in general terms by Moses to humanity and charity (Exo_22:21; Exo_23:9; Lev_19:33-34; Deu_10:18; comp. Jer_7:6; Mal_3:5), as well as to a participation in certain prerogatives granted to the poor of the land, such as a share in the tithe and feast-offering, and the harvest in the Jubilee-year (Deu_14:29; Deu_16:10; Deu_16:14; Deu_26:11; Lev_25:6). In return, it was required on the part of non-Israelites not to commit acts by which the religious feelings of the people might be hurt (Exo_20:10; Lev_17:10; Lev_18:26; Lev_20:2; Lev_24:16; Deu_5:14. The eating of an animal which had died a natural death, Deu_14:21, seems to have been the sole exception). The advantage the Jew had over the Gentile was thus strictly spiritual, in his being a citizen, a member of the theocracy, of the community of God, on whom positive laws were enjoined. But even to this spiritual privilege Gentiles were admitted under certain restrictions (Deu_23:1-9). The only nations that were altogether excluded from the citizenship of the theocracy by especial command of the Lord, were the Ammonites and Moabites, from a feeling of vengeance against them: and in the same situation were all castrated persons, and bastards, from a feeling of disgrace and shame (Deu_23:1-6). In the time of Solomon, no less than 153,600 strangers were resident in Palestine (2Ch_2:17). Roman citizenship (Act_22:28), was granted in the times of the Emperors to whole provinces and cities, as also to single individuals, for some service rendered to the state or the imperial family, or even for a certain sum of money (Act_22:28). The Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen by family (Act_22:28), and hence his protesting against corporal or capital punishment.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Citizenship
the rights and privileges of a native or adopted citizen (πολίτης, 2Ma_4:50; 2Ma_5:6; 2Ma_9:15; 2Ma_9:19; Luk_15:15; Luk_19:14; Act_21:39), in distinction from a foreigner. The laws in this respect are very different in different ages and countries. SEE ALIEN.
I. Hebrew. Under the Mosaic constitution, which was framed on a basis of religious rather than of political privileges and distinctions, the idea of the commonwealth (πολιτεία, Eph_2:12) was merged in that of the congregation, to which every Hebrew, and even strangers under certain restrictions, were admitted. SEE CONGREGATION. Strict isolation did by no means, as some suppose, form the leading principle in the system of theocracy as laid down by Moses, since even non-Israelites, under various names SEE STRANGER, not only were allowed to reside in Palestine, but had the fullest protection of the law equally with the native Israelites (Exo_12:19; Leveticus 24:22; Num_15:15; Num_35:15; Deu_1:16; Deu_24:17 : the law of usury, Deu_23:20, made, however, an exception), and were, besides, recommended in general terms by Moses to humanity and charity (Exo_22:21; Exo_23:9; Lev_19:33-34; Deu_10:18; comp. Jer_7:6; Mal_3:5; see Josephus, Apion, 2, 28), as well as to a participation in certain prerogatives granted to the poor of the land, such as a share in the tithe and feast-offering, and the harvest in the jubilee-year (Deu_14:29; Deu_16:10; Deu_16:14; Deu_26:11; Lev_25:6). In return, it was required on the part of non-Israelites not to commit acts by which the religious feelings of the people might be hurt (Exo_20:10; Lev_17:10; Lev_18:26; Lev_20:2; Lev_24:16; Deu_5:14. The eating of an animal which had died a natural death, Deu_14:21, seems to have been the sole exception). The advantage the Jew had over the Gentile was thus strictly spiritual, in his being a citizen, a member of the theocracy (the קְהִל יְהוָֹה community of Jehovah, Num_16:3; Deu_23:2), on whom positive laws were enjoined. But even to this spiritual privilege Gentiles were admitted under certain restrictions (Deu_23:1-9); thus we find among the Israelites, Doeg, an Edomite (1Sa_21:8), as also Uriah, a Hittite (a Canaanite). The only nations that were altogether excluded from the citizenship of the theocracy by especial command of the Lord were the Ammonites and Moabites, from a feeling of vengeance against them; and in the same situation were all castrated persons and bastards, from a feeling of disgrace and shame (Deu_23:1-6). In the time of Solomon no less than 153,600 strangers were resident in Palestine (2Ch_2:17). SEE GENTILE.
II. Roman. The right of citizenship (πολιτεἰα, freedom, Act_22:28, i.e. to be considered as equal to natives of the city of Rome, jus civitatis, civitas) was granted in the times of the emperors to whole provinces and cities (Dio Cass. 41:25; Suet. Aug. 47), as also to single individuals (Tacit. Annal. 1:58; Sueton. Nero, 12; Dio Cass. 43:39; Appian, Civ. 3. 26), for some service rendered to the state (Cic. Balb. 22) or the imperial family (Sueton. Aug. 47), sometimes through mere favor (Tacit. Hist. 3. 41), or even for a certain sum of money (Act_22:28; Dio Cass. 41, 24; see Heinecc. Antiq. jur. Romans 1, 1, 11 sq.). The apostle Paul was a Roman citizen (civis natus, Sueton. Calig. 38; see Amntzen, De civitate Romans apost. Pauli, Utr. 1725) by family (Acts , 1.c.) SEE TARSUS, and hence his protesting against corporal or capital punishment (Act_16:37; comp. Cic. Verr. v. 57, 65; Eusebius Hist. Ecclesiastes 5, 1, etc.). It appears from a variety of passages in the classic writers that a Roman citizen could not legally be scourged (virgis or flagellis coedi); this punishment being deemed to the last degree dishonorable, and the most daring indignity and insult upon the Roman name. Such was the famous Porcia Lex. A Roman citizen, judges, exclaims Cicero, in his oration against Verres, was publicly beaten with rods in the forum of Messina; during this public I dishonor, no groan, no other expression of the unhappy wretch was heard amid the cruelties he suffered, and the sound of the strokes that were inflicted, but this: I am a Roman citizen!' Neither was it lawful for a Roman citizen to be bound, or to be examined by the question, or torture, to extort a confession from him. These punishments were deemed servile; torture was only inflicted upon slaves; freemen were exempted from this inhumanity and ignominy. The right once obtained descended to a man's children (Act_22:28; see Zimmern, Gesch. des rom. Privat-rechts, 1, 2, 441).
The Jews had rendered signal services to Julius Caesar in the Egyptian war (Josephus, Ant. 14, 8, 1 and 2), and it is not improbable that many obtained the freedom of the city on that ground; certain it is that great numbers of Jews who were Roman citizens were scattered over Greece and Asia Minor (Ant. 14, 10, 13 and 14). Among the privileges attached to citizenship, the most noteworthy was the above, that a man could not be bound or imprisoned without a formal trial (Act_20:29), still less be scourged (Act_16:37; Cic. Verr. 5:63, 66); the simple assertion of citizenship was sufficient to deter a magistrate from such a step (Act_22:25; Cic. Verr. v. 62), as any infringement of the privilege was visited with severe punishment. A Jew could only plead exemption from such treatment before a Roman magistrate; he was still liable to it from Jewish authorities (2Co_11:24; Selden, Syn. 2, 15, § 11). Another privilege attaching to citizenship was the appeal from a provincial tribunal to the emperor at Rome (Act_25:11). SEE APPEAL.
The rights of the Roman citizen included several other important privileges: he had a full right over his property, his children, and his dependents; he had a voice in the assemblies of the people, and in the election of magistrates; and his testament had full authority after his death. See Smith's Dict. of Class. Antiq. s.v. Civitas; Sigon. De antiquojure civ. Roman. (Par. 1572; Hal. 1715; also in Grasvii Thesaur. 1); Spanheim, Orbis Romans (London, 1703; Hal. 1728); Cellarii Dissertatt. p. 715 sq.; also Bittner, De civ. Romans virgideniis exempt. (Jen. 1672); Lange, De immunitate civ. Roman. (Hafn. 1710). SEE FREEMAN.
CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909
Paul's Roman citizenship was of the lower kind, which though not entitling him to vote with the tribes and enjoy a magistracy, yet secured to him the protection of the laws of the empire, and the right of appeal from his own hostile countrymen to Caesar, as also exemption from scourging (Act_16:37; Act_22:25-28; Act_25:11). He seems to have inherited it from his father. Hence, he naturally uses the image to express the believer's high privileges as a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem.
"Our citizenship (Greek, or rather our life as citizens; politeuma, not politeia) is in heaven," etc. (Php_3:20); an image especially appropriate at Philippi, it being a Roman colony and possessing Roman citizenship of which its people were proud. Moreover, it was there that Paul had compelled the magistrates publicly to recognize a Roman citizen's privileges. So believers, though absent from their heavenly city in body, still enjoy its civic privileges and protection; pilgrims on earth, citizens of heaven (Eph_2:6; Gal_4:26; Heb_11:9-10; Heb_11:13-16; Heb_12:22; Rev_21:2; Rev_21:10; Luk_10:20).
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.
sit?i-zen-ship: All the words in use connected with this subject are derived from πόλις, pólis, ?city.?
1. Philological
These words, with the meanings which they have in the Bible, are the nouns, πολίτης, polı́tēs, ?citizen?; πολιτεία, politeı́a, ?citizenship?; πολίτευμα, polı́teuma, ?commonwealth?; συμπολίτης, sumpolı́tē̄s, ?fellow-citizen?; and the verb, πολιτεύω, politeúō, ?to behave as a citizen.? Each will be considered more fully in its proper place.
2. Civil
(1) The word for citizen is sometimes used to indicate little if anything more than the inhabitant of a city or country. ?The citizens of that country? (Luk_15:15); ?His citizens hated him? (Luk_19:14). Also the quotation from the Septuagint, ?They shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen? (Heb_8:11; compare Jer_31:34). So also in the Apocrypha (2 Macc 4:50; 5:6; 9:19).
(2) Roman citizenship. - This is of especial interest to the Bible student because of the apostle Paul's relation to it. It was one of his qualifications as the apostle to the Gentiles. Luke shows him in Acts as a Roman citizen, who, though a Jew and Christian receives, for the most part, justice and courtesy from the Roman officials, and more than once successfully claims its privileges. He himself declares that he was a citizen of Tarsus (Act_21:39). He was not only born in that city but had a citizen's rights in it. See PAUL; TARSUS.
But this citizenship in Tarsus did not of itself confer upon Paul the higher dignity of Roman citizenship. Had it done so, Claudius Lysias would not have ordered him to be scourged, as he did, after having learned that he was a citizen of Tarsus (Act_21:39; compare Act_22:25). So, over and above this Tarsian citizenship, was the Roman one, which availed for him not in one city only, but throughout the Roman world and secured for him everywhere certain great immunities and rights. Precisely what all of these were we are not certain, but we know that, by the Valerian and Porcian laws, exemption from shameful punishments, such as scourging with rods or whips, and especially crucifixion, was secured to every Roman citizen; also the right of appeal to the emperor with certain limitations. This sanctity of person had become almost a part of their religion, so that any violation was esteemed a sacrilege. Cicero's oration against Verres indicates the almost fanatical extreme to which this feeling had been carried. Yet Paul had been thrice beaten with rods, and five times received from the Jews forty stripes save one (2Co_11:24, 2Co_11:25). Perhaps it was as at Philippi before he made known his citizenship (Act_16:22, Act_16:23), or the Jews had the right to whip those who came before their own tribunals. Roman citizenship included also the right of appeal to the emperor in all cases, after sentence had been passed, and no needless impediment must be interposed against a trial. Furthermore, the citizen had the right to be sent to Rome for trial before the emperor himself, when charged with capital offenses (Act_16:37; Act_22:25-29; Act_25:11).
How then had Paul, a Jew, acquired this valued dignity? He himself tells us. In contrast to the parvenu citizenship of the chief captain, who seems to have thought that Paul also must have purchased it, though apparently too poor, Paul quietly, says, ?But I was free born? (King James Versions; ?a Roman born? the Revised Version (British and American), Act_22:28). Thus either Paul's father or some other ancestor had acquired the right and had transmitted it to the son.
3. Metaphorical and Spiritual
What more natural than that Paul should sometimes use this civic privilege to illustrate spiritual truths? He does so a number of times. Before the Sanhedrin he says, in the words of our English Versions, ?I have lived before God in all good conscience? (Act_23:1). But this translation does not bring out the sense. Paul uses a noticeable word, politeuō, ?to live as a citizen.? He adds, ?to God? (τῷ Θεῷ, tō̇ Theō̇). That is to say, he had lived conscientiously as God's citizen, as a member of God's commonwealth. The day before, by appealing to his Roman citizenship, he had saved himself from ignominious whipping, and now what more natural than that he should declare that he had been true to his citizenship in a higher state? What was this higher commonwealth in which he has enjoyed the rights and performed the duties of a citizen? What but theocracy of his fathers, the ancient church, of which the Sanhedrin was still the ostensible representative, but which was really continued in the kingdom of Christ without the national restrictions of the older one? Thus Paul does not mean to say simply, ?I have lived conscientiously before God,? but ?I have lived as a citizen to God, of the body of which He is the immediate Sovereign.? He had lived theocratically as a faithful member of the Jewish church, from which his enemies claimed he was an apostate. Thus Paul's conception was a kind of blending of two ideas or feelings, one of which came from the old theocracy, and the other from his Roman citizenship.
Later, writing from Rome itself to the Philippians, who were proud of their own citizenship as members of a colonia, a reproduction on a small scale of the parent commonwealth, where he had once successfully maintained his own Roman rights, Paul forcibly brings out the idea that Christians are citizens of a heavenly commonwealth, urging them to live worthy of such honor (Phi_1:27 margin).
A similar thought is brought out when he says, ?For our commonwealth (politeuma) is in heaven? (Phi_3:20 margin). The state to which we belong is heaven. Though absent in body from the heavenly commonwealth, as was Paul from Rome when he asserted his rights, believers still enjoy its civic privileges and protections; sojourners upon earth, citizens of heaven. The Old Testament conception, as in Isa 60 through 62, would easily lend itself to this idea, which appears in Heb_11:10, Heb_11:16; Heb_12:22-24; Heb_13:14; Gal_4:26, and possibly in Rev 21. See also ROME.
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.
Strict isolation did by no means, as some suppose, form the leading principle in the system of theocracy as laid down by Moses, since even non-Israelites not only were allowed to reside in Palestine, but had the fullest protection of the law, equally with the descendants of Abraham (Exo_12:19; Lev_24:22; Num_15:15; Num_35:15; Deu_1:16; Deu_24:17; the law of usury, Deu_23:20, made, however, an exception), and were besides recommended in general terms by Moses to humanity and charity (Exo_22:21; Exo_23:9; Lev_19:33-34; Deu_10:18; comp. Jer_7:6; Mal_3:5), as well as to a participation in certain prerogatives granted to the poor of the land, such as a share in the tithe and feast-offering, and the harvest in the Jubilee-year (Deu_14:29; Deu_16:10; Deu_16:14; Deu_26:11; Lev_25:6). In return, it was required on the part of non-Israelites not to commit acts by which the religious feelings of the people might be hurt (Exo_20:10; Lev_17:10; Lev_18:26; Lev_20:2; Lev_24:16; Deu_5:14. The eating of an animal which had died a natural death, Deu_14:21, seems to have been the sole exception). The advantage the Jew had over the Gentile was thus strictly spiritual, in his being a citizen, a member of the theocracy, of the community of God, on whom positive laws were enjoined. But even to this spiritual privilege Gentiles were admitted under certain restrictions (Deu_23:1-9). The only nations that were altogether excluded from the citizenship of the theocracy by especial command of the Lord, were the Ammonites and Moabites, from a feeling of vengeance against them: and in the same situation were all castrated persons, and bastards, from a feeling of disgrace and shame (Deu_23:1-6). In the time of Solomon, no less than 153,600 strangers were resident in Palestine (2Ch_2:17). Roman citizenship (Act_22:28), was granted in the times of the Emperors to whole provinces and cities, as also to single individuals, for some service rendered to the state or the imperial family, or even for a certain sum of money (Act_22:28). The Apostle Paul was a Roman citizen by family (Act_22:28), and hence his protesting against corporal or capital punishment.
The Popular Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature
by John Kitto.
Citizenship
the rights and privileges of a native or adopted citizen (πολίτης, 2Ma_4:50; 2Ma_5:6; 2Ma_9:15; 2Ma_9:19; Luk_15:15; Luk_19:14; Act_21:39), in distinction from a foreigner. The laws in this respect are very different in different ages and countries. SEE ALIEN.
I. Hebrew. Under the Mosaic constitution, which was framed on a basis of religious rather than of political privileges and distinctions, the idea of the commonwealth (πολιτεία, Eph_2:12) was merged in that of the congregation, to which every Hebrew, and even strangers under certain restrictions, were admitted. SEE CONGREGATION. Strict isolation did by no means, as some suppose, form the leading principle in the system of theocracy as laid down by Moses, since even non-Israelites, under various names SEE STRANGER, not only were allowed to reside in Palestine, but had the fullest protection of the law equally with the native Israelites (Exo_12:19; Leveticus 24:22; Num_15:15; Num_35:15; Deu_1:16; Deu_24:17 : the law of usury, Deu_23:20, made, however, an exception), and were, besides, recommended in general terms by Moses to humanity and charity (Exo_22:21; Exo_23:9; Lev_19:33-34; Deu_10:18; comp. Jer_7:6; Mal_3:5; see Josephus, Apion, 2, 28), as well as to a participation in certain prerogatives granted to the poor of the land, such as a share in the tithe and feast-offering, and the harvest in the jubilee-year (Deu_14:29; Deu_16:10; Deu_16:14; Deu_26:11; Lev_25:6). In return, it was required on the part of non-Israelites not to commit acts by which the religious feelings of the people might be hurt (Exo_20:10; Lev_17:10; Lev_18:26; Lev_20:2; Lev_24:16; Deu_5:14. The eating of an animal which had died a natural death, Deu_14:21, seems to have been the sole exception). The advantage the Jew had over the Gentile was thus strictly spiritual, in his being a citizen, a member of the theocracy (the קְהִל יְהוָֹה community of Jehovah, Num_16:3; Deu_23:2), on whom positive laws were enjoined. But even to this spiritual privilege Gentiles were admitted under certain restrictions (Deu_23:1-9); thus we find among the Israelites, Doeg, an Edomite (1Sa_21:8), as also Uriah, a Hittite (a Canaanite). The only nations that were altogether excluded from the citizenship of the theocracy by especial command of the Lord were the Ammonites and Moabites, from a feeling of vengeance against them; and in the same situation were all castrated persons and bastards, from a feeling of disgrace and shame (Deu_23:1-6). In the time of Solomon no less than 153,600 strangers were resident in Palestine (2Ch_2:17). SEE GENTILE.
II. Roman. The right of citizenship (πολιτεἰα, freedom, Act_22:28, i.e. to be considered as equal to natives of the city of Rome, jus civitatis, civitas) was granted in the times of the emperors to whole provinces and cities (Dio Cass. 41:25; Suet. Aug. 47), as also to single individuals (Tacit. Annal. 1:58; Sueton. Nero, 12; Dio Cass. 43:39; Appian, Civ. 3. 26), for some service rendered to the state (Cic. Balb. 22) or the imperial family (Sueton. Aug. 47), sometimes through mere favor (Tacit. Hist. 3. 41), or even for a certain sum of money (Act_22:28; Dio Cass. 41, 24; see Heinecc. Antiq. jur. Romans 1, 1, 11 sq.). The apostle Paul was a Roman citizen (civis natus, Sueton. Calig. 38; see Amntzen, De civitate Romans apost. Pauli, Utr. 1725) by family (Acts , 1.c.) SEE TARSUS, and hence his protesting against corporal or capital punishment (Act_16:37; comp. Cic. Verr. v. 57, 65; Eusebius Hist. Ecclesiastes 5, 1, etc.). It appears from a variety of passages in the classic writers that a Roman citizen could not legally be scourged (virgis or flagellis coedi); this punishment being deemed to the last degree dishonorable, and the most daring indignity and insult upon the Roman name. Such was the famous Porcia Lex. A Roman citizen, judges, exclaims Cicero, in his oration against Verres, was publicly beaten with rods in the forum of Messina; during this public I dishonor, no groan, no other expression of the unhappy wretch was heard amid the cruelties he suffered, and the sound of the strokes that were inflicted, but this: I am a Roman citizen!' Neither was it lawful for a Roman citizen to be bound, or to be examined by the question, or torture, to extort a confession from him. These punishments were deemed servile; torture was only inflicted upon slaves; freemen were exempted from this inhumanity and ignominy. The right once obtained descended to a man's children (Act_22:28; see Zimmern, Gesch. des rom. Privat-rechts, 1, 2, 441).
The Jews had rendered signal services to Julius Caesar in the Egyptian war (Josephus, Ant. 14, 8, 1 and 2), and it is not improbable that many obtained the freedom of the city on that ground; certain it is that great numbers of Jews who were Roman citizens were scattered over Greece and Asia Minor (Ant. 14, 10, 13 and 14). Among the privileges attached to citizenship, the most noteworthy was the above, that a man could not be bound or imprisoned without a formal trial (Act_20:29), still less be scourged (Act_16:37; Cic. Verr. 5:63, 66); the simple assertion of citizenship was sufficient to deter a magistrate from such a step (Act_22:25; Cic. Verr. v. 62), as any infringement of the privilege was visited with severe punishment. A Jew could only plead exemption from such treatment before a Roman magistrate; he was still liable to it from Jewish authorities (2Co_11:24; Selden, Syn. 2, 15, § 11). Another privilege attaching to citizenship was the appeal from a provincial tribunal to the emperor at Rome (Act_25:11). SEE APPEAL.
The rights of the Roman citizen included several other important privileges: he had a full right over his property, his children, and his dependents; he had a voice in the assemblies of the people, and in the election of magistrates; and his testament had full authority after his death. See Smith's Dict. of Class. Antiq. s.v. Civitas; Sigon. De antiquojure civ. Roman. (Par. 1572; Hal. 1715; also in Grasvii Thesaur. 1); Spanheim, Orbis Romans (London, 1703; Hal. 1728); Cellarii Dissertatt. p. 715 sq.; also Bittner, De civ. Romans virgideniis exempt. (Jen. 1672); Lange, De immunitate civ. Roman. (Hafn. 1710). SEE FREEMAN.
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