Seeking the Way

Augustus, the junior Roman guard at the Tullianum prison, had lied to the jailer regarding his shift schedule. It was not his turn to guard the newly arrived prisoner, Paul, a learned man from Tarsus. Augustus could pay a severe penalty for lying to the jailer. But he didn’t care. For ever since Paul was admitted, Augustus had wanted to speak with him. Truthfully, it was to hear more from Paul about the ‘miraculous man’ whose name had turned hearts all over Galilee and Judea. Some of which hearts, Augustus heard through the grapevine, also belonged to fellow Roman guards working in those regions. The story of that miraculous man was unlike any Augustus had heard about — healed blindness, water turned into wine and, even, the resurrection of individuals. Augustus wished for such a man to enter Rome. Mainly because of his wife who, day by day, was dying of a disease which doctors couldn’t name. So Augustus just had to know more from Paul about that miraculous man and his deeds. Deeds which, Augustus felt, carried more credibility than the deities brought into Rome by foreign locals. Indeed, Augustus would ask Paul about that name. The name ‘Jesus’.