PIRACY AND PAGANISM

What a week it has been! Because the mainsail tore completely in two (my guess is that it was at least 25 years old, past normal retirement age for sails. (if Captain Steve, the former owner of SailingActs reads this he will let me know if this is incorrect) we needed to change our itinerary and go back into Greek waters from Turkey in order to pick up the sails delivered to the isand of Lesbos. Then, as soon as we got them, to go back into Turkey to continue the voyage of Paul. While the distances are not great, the bureaucracy involved in leaving one country and entering the other is significant. It can eat up a whole forenoon, a fair amount of cash, and all of one’s patience. The sails, by the way, improved the performance of SailingActs so much that it was well worth the effort. (For any sailors, we went from Lesbos to Ayvalik, Turkey on July 15 on a close reach, and stayed between 5 and 6 knots for most of the way.)

One of the great benefits of the Roman military domination of the Mediterranean, was its triumph over piracy. A hazard of sea travel, up until the First Century BC, was piracy. Whole communities made their living by preying on ships carrying valuable cargo across the Mediterranean. The Romans, with their massive naval presence, took care of the piracy problem, and enabled travelers, including the Apostle Paul, to travel in relative safety from piracy. This came at a price, as does all military control of violence. Some would say that Rome simply legitimized and monopolized piracy, that they merely eliminated the competition. However you look at it, the result of Rome’s triumph made it easier for Paul to travel up and down the Mediterranean than we can today. It is not that piracy is again a threat, it is that the control of the waters that were once united by Rome, are again divided.

At 7:30 a.m. I went to the passport police in Lesbos (Greece) to get our passports stamped with an exit stamp, to submit our transit log to customs, and finally, to get a slip from the port authority declaring we were free to leave Greece. I am not sure, but it seems to me that not all of these separate bureaucratic entities are always on the same page, because each one told me I had to start the process at some other office than theirs. I won’t go into detail but it was 3 hours later when we finally left the wharf. In that 3 hours I had criss-crossed the streets of Mytilini between the offices, pleaded with officials, stood in the passport line for the better part of an hour only to be told Janet had to be with me, and that I had to go back to where the boat was and bring it the customs wharf. All of this to sail about 20 miles to Turkey. I was beginning to long for the days of the Roman Empire by the time I left.

In Turkey, arriving later in the same day, the whole process started again. Fees to be paid, huge elaborate stamps to be procured, forms to be signed, all in different offices scattered at opposite ends of the town. Like shopping, there is also a kind of negotiation that occurs on both sides. It is exhausting.

Paul, in the Roman Empire, traveled by sea at one of the best times to do so in the history of the Mediterranean. Rome monopolized piracy.

While piracy was monopolized by Rome, paganism adapted by Rome as part of its triumph, was promoted in the Mediterranean world of the Empire as part of Rome’s political strategy. As Janet and I have been looking closely at what Paul actually saw in the places named in Acts, we are amazed at the power and the glory of human achievement within the pagan world. At practically every harbor, the visitor is greeted with prominent structures even before landing, temples visible from far out in the water, elaborate edifices, beautiful, dominant. In every city visited by Paul are monuments to the success of pagan promises. Wealth was flaunted. Self-indulgence was celebrated. The triumph of human effort and blessings of the gods was visible throughout the Mediterranean.

Incredibly, Paul is not intimidated by this. The power and the glory of Rome he sees in places like Assos and Troas, gave him, I believe, new ideas about the power and the glory of the Kingdom of God and how to communicate the good news of Jesus in ways that connected to those living in the pagan world united by Roman domination.