The Debt of AD 33
In the Bible, Jesus often tells debt parables, notably Luke 16:13 and Matthew 18:21-35. That probably because in AD 33, the approximate year of the crucifixion of Jesus, the Roman Empire was going through a debt crisis. Perhaps Jesus was betrayed to pay a debt?
The historian Tacitus, writing around the year 116 AD, in book 6 chapter 15 of the Annals gives us the date of the crisis as, “in the consulate of Servius Galba and Lucius Sulla.” They were Consuls in the year 33 AD.[1]
Continuing writing in the Annals, book 6, chapters 16-17, Tacitus records that money was in short supply and property values were crashing until the state flooded the system with money, after causing the problems. Specifically,
16 1 Meanwhile, an army of accusers broke loose on the persons who habitually increased their riches by usury, in contravention of a law of the dictator Caesar,51 regulating the conditions of lending money and holding property within the boundaries of Italy: a measure dropped long ago, since the public good ranks second to private utility. The curse of usury, it must be owned, is inveterate in Rome, a constant source of sedition and discord; and attempts were accordingly made to repress it even in an older and less corrupt society. First came a provision of the Twelve Tables52 that the rate of interest, previously governed by the fancy of the rich, should not exceed one-twelfth per cent for the month; later53 a tribunician rogation lowered it to one-half of that amount; and at length usufruct was unconditionally banned;54 while a series of plebiscites strove to meet the frauds which were perpetually repressed, only, by extraordinary evasions, to make their appearance once more. In the present instance, however, the praetor Gracchus, to whose jurisdiction the case had fallen, was forced by the numbers implicated to refer it to the senate; and the Fathers in trepidation — for not one member was clear from such a charge — asked an indulgence from the prince. It was granted; and the next eighteen months were assigned as a term of grace within which all accounts were to be adjusted in accordance with the prescriptions of the law.
17 1 The result was a dearth of money: for not only were all debts called in simultaneously; but after so many convictions and sales of forfeited estates, the cash which had been realized was locked in the treasury or the imperial exchequer.55 To meet this difficulty, the senate had prescribed that every creditor was to invest two-thirds of his capital, now lying at interest, in landed property in Italy; <the debtor to discharge immediately an equivalent proportion of his liability.> The lenders, however, called in the full amounts, and the borrowers could not in honour refuse to answer the call. Thus, at first there were hurryings to and fro, and appeals for mercy; then a hum of activity in the praetor's court; and the very scheme which had been devised as a remedy — the sale and purchase of estates — began to operate with the contrary effect, since the usurers had withdrawn their capital from circulation in order to buy land. As the glutting of the market was followed by a fall in prices, the men with the heaviest debts experienced the greatest difficulty in selling, and numbers were ejected from their properties. Financial ruin brought down in its train both rank and reputation, till the Caesar came to the rescue by distributing a hundred million sesterces among various counting-houses,56 and facilities were provided for borrowing free of interest for three years, if the borrower had given security to the state to double the value in landed property. Credit was thus revived, and by degrees private lenders also began to be found. Nor was the purchase of estates practised in accordance with the terms of the senatorial decree, a vigorous beginning lapsing as usual into a careless end.”
The fact that the Roman Empire was experiencing a credit crunch may be shown in Matthew 18:21-35,
“Then Peter came to him and asked, Lord, how often must I see my brother do me wrong, and still forgive him; as much as seven times? Jesus said to him, I tell thee to forgive, not seven wrongs, but seventy times seven. Here is an image of the kingdom of heaven; there was a king who resolved to enter into a reckoning with his servants, and had scarcely begun the reckoning, when one was brought before him who was ten thousand talents in his debt. He had no means of making payment; whereupon his master gave orders that he should be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and so the debt should be paid. With that the servant fell at his feet and said, Have patience with me, and I will pay thee in full. And his master, moved with pity for him, let the servant go and discharged him of his debt. So the servant went out, and met with a fellow servant of his, who owed him a hundred pieces of silver; whereupon he caught hold of him and took him by the throat, and said, Pay me all thou owest me. His fellow servant went down on his knees in entreaty; Have patience with me, he said, and I will pay thee in full. But the other refused; he went away and committed him to prison for such time as the debt was unpaid. The rest of the servants were full of indignation when they saw this done, and went in to tell their master what had happened. And so he was summoned by his master, who said to him, I remitted all that debt of thine, thou wicked servant, at thy entreaty; was it not thy duty to have mercy on thy fellow servant, as I had mercy on thee? And his master, in anger, gave him over to be tortured until the debt was paid. It is thus that my heavenly Father will deal with you, if brother does not forgive brother with all his heart.”
In Matthew 26, Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, notably below the 300 pieces of silver “wasted” on Jesus in the version of the same story from the Gospel of Mark (14:5).
Matthew 26: 14-16 states,
“And at that, one of the twelve, Judas who was called Iscariot, went to the chief priests and asked them, What will you pay me for handing him over to you? Whereupon they laid down thirty pieces of silver. And he, from that time onwards, looked about for an opportunity to betray him.”
Like valuable Roman property being sold at a fraction of the cost, “as the glutting of the market was followed by a fall of prices,” as recorded in the Annals, maybe Judas was paying off a debt.
Possibly referring to his future betrayal, Jesus even says in Luke 16:13,
“No servant can be in the employment of two masters at once; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will devote himself to the one and despise the other. You must serve God or money; you cannot serve both.”
Alluding to the payment of the debt, upon his death, Jesus said in John 19:30, “It is finished,” or “It is achieved,” which in Greek is tetelestai (τετέλεσται).
Tetelestai is the Greek word that people wrote on receipts once they had been paid in full, as Greek was the lingua franca of the Eastern Mediterranean. It was also the phrase said by the high priests upon receiving an acceptable sacrifice. John was the only gospel to be originally written in Greek.[2]
It is possible that Jesus paid our debt in full because Judas owed someone money in AD 33.
[1]https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Annals/6A*.html
“(4) MERCHANTS: In ancient times when a promissory note was paid, the one holding the note wrote ‘Tetelestai’ across it. A deed to property was not in effect until it was dated and signed, and when this was accomplished, the clerk wrote ‘Tetelestai’ across the deed. When someone had a debt and it was paid off, the creditor would write ‘Tetelestai’ on the certificate of debt signifying that it was ‘PAID IN FULL’. Several years ago, archaeologists digging in Egypt uncovered the ‘office’ of an ancient ‘CPA.’ In this office they found a stack of bills, with the Greek word ‘tetelestai’ inscribed across each bill - ‘Paid in full’! When Christ gave Himself on the Cross, He fulfilled all the righteous demands of the law and our "sin debt" was paid in full.”