Power does strange things to people

Aug 15, 2020

By Anil Netto
Power does strange things to people — and in turn, can make people do strange and diabolical things. The lure of power, which often brings with it the key to immense personal wealth and influence, draws all kinds of aspirants like ants to sugar and bees to honey. A few of them may be altruistic – wanting to serve the people – but many are in it for themselves.

The history of the Roman emperors is littered with backstabbings, and betrayals by those closest to the emperors, including family members, relatives and trusted members of the inner circle. This invariably led to jealousy, suspicion, paranoia and shifting alliances, eventually leading to numerous assassination attempts and actual assassinations of sitting emperors and potential rivals, many of them close family members.

While the Roman Empire controlled the land where Jesus walked, it was often not direct control. The Romans set up a twotiered system of governance which allowed them to control affairs behind the scenes, except in emergency situations.

The day-to-day affairs were handled by local puppets like Herod the Great and his sons. Although the latter were half-Jews, many of the locals detested these puppet kings for selling out to the Romans.

What’s more, Herod’s son Archelaus, who controlled Judaea and Samaria, was so brutal that he was finally removed and  replaced by a string of Roman prefects including, later, Pontius Pilate.

Other groups also exerted some measure of secular and religious authority, especially the Sadducees and the Pharisees.

Sadducees were the aristocratic class of the time, comprising wealthy nobles and priests. They tried to conserve and accumulate their wealth through cooperation with Rome. Though they believed in Jewish teachings, they were more concerned with secular matters than the afterlife (they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead).

The Pharisees were the dry theologians of the time, sticklers for religious purity, and they did not favour compromising with the Romans.

The Sadducees and the Pharisees met face-to-face in the powerful Sanhendrin council, which was presided over by the high priest.

Even the role of high priest seemed like a family affair. The high priest at the time of Jesus was Joseph Caiaphas, who was the son-in-law of Annas.

Annas, who served from AD 6-15, was a  sort of “emeritus” or “retired” high priest at the time of Jesus’ last days. Annas exercised great influence behind the scenes, and the family held the helm through his five sons who succeeded him as high priest: Eleazar, (AD 16–17), Jonathan (AD 37), Theophilus (37–41), Matthias, (43) and Ananus (63), as well as Annas’ son-inlaw Caiaphas (18-36/37).

Whatever the roles they all played, those in power felt threatened by the likes of John the Baptist and Jesus – not because they were leading violent armed revolutions but because of the moral authority they exerted and the grassroots support they had from the masses.

Anytime a leader, especially a spiritual one, commands the support of thousands of people through the sheer strength of moral authority, those in power shift uneasily in their seats and keep a sharp eye on them.

John, for instance, questioned the family life of Herod Antipas in Galilee – which would eventually cost him his life.

Jesus questioned the status quo and the ways the wealthy and the powerful oppressed the people – whether it was through  burdensome religious practices, economic subjugation, patriarchial power structures and the whole notion of “purity”, ie what was religiously clean and unclean.

For the Sadducees, concern for the suffering of the poor threatened their cosy political and economic arrangement with the Roman imperial overlords, especially centred around the Temple.

Not only that, Jesus exposed the rank hypocrisy of the existing religious order. The Pharisees grew uncomfortable when Jesus lashed out at their fanatical obsession with religious rituals and purity while forgetting and neglecting justice, which was what the Father desired.

Jesus’ teaching that even those deemed unclean and low in the social pecking order would be invited to the heavenly banquet did not go down well with the religious leaders. Through his silent observation of the widow giving all she had at the temple treasury after the widows’ wealth had been “devoured” by those in authority, he explained how the people suffered under the weight of unjust power structures.

Jesus’ kingdom may not have been of this world – a concept Pilate had difficulty grasping – but this was a kingdom that was attractive to the downtrodden of the world who lived in darkness, injustice and oppression.

It was a vision of a different kind of world order based on an entirely different value system.