Nov 8: Dez

Philippian

Acts 16 takes place mostly in Philippi, a military colony with unparalleled significance for Roman history. It was there, in 42 BCE, that the Republic died at the so-called Liberators Civil War, after which imperial commanders retired several cohorts of legionarii there. Octavian did it again fifteen years later, in 27 BCE, with aged prætorian guards and other high-status Italians.

Between then and the time of Jesus’ ministry, the colony was thoroughly militarized. Not only was it heavily populated by military families, but it was also “centuriated” (put on a square grid) and placed under the control of two military officers, duoviri, who answered directly to Rome. It is referred to in many sources as a ‘miniature Rome,‘ and governed under the municipal ordinances of the capital city rather than those of the local provincial administration.

As the first city evangelized by Paul on the European continent, Philippi also plays an outsized role in the expansion of Christianity. The first convert of the city is Lydia, a wealthy woman whose home also becomes the first church there. This is where Psaul and Silas are staying when he gets entangled in a local business dispute that lands him before the stratēgos, literally “military leadership” (perhaps the duoviri) at the mercy of Dez, the town’s jailer.

Desmophylax

Under normal circumstances, the prison guard, desmophylax, might be an enslaved person or another low-status civilian, but Philippi was not normal. The intimate relationship between it and Rome meant the city probably dealt with political prisoners, so they were unlikely to trust any old passerby. The responsibility would have fallen to a veteran of impeccable loyalty or detailed out to legionarii stationed either within the military colony itself or nearby in the imperial province of Macedonia.

Dez is ordered to put them in the innermost cell, so Psaul and Silas are considered particularly dangerous. This lines up with his reaction when an earthquake frees them: he’s so afraid of the consequences that he prepares to take his own life. Psaul talks him down, after which Dez addresses the missionaries as kyrioi, Lords. That doesn’t fly with the 13th apostle, who tells him “believe in the Lord Jesus,” not me. As with Cornelius, Dez and his whole household are baptized, probably joining the church already meeting in Lydia’s home.