Conscripted for a Mile—Matt 5:41
Jesus’ saying about “going the
extra mile” is among examples of turning the other cheek and not resisting the
evil person (5:38-42). Conscription (angareuseí) for a mile has long
been interpreted as a reference to civilians being legally obligated to carry
soldier’s supplies in the Roman provinces. Scholars commonly assume there was a
law that mandated civilians carry a soldier’s burden up to one mile, but there
is no evidence for such laws and this inference is unnecessary. Laurena Ann
Brink has demonstrated that such a meaning does not capture the legal sense of
the word anagareia in the Roman East during the first century CE which
differed from the common conception in important ways. (Laurena Ann Brink,
“Going the Extra Mile: Reading Matt 5:41 Literally and Metaphorically,” 111-28)
Namely, while officers could conscript others to carry their load, those
conscripted were not civilians themselves, but civilians’ animals; even then,
they were only allowed to do for so for official business—anything else was
legally tantamount to robbery. Brink demonstrates that the supposition that
civilians themselves were legally obligated to carry military goods is unfounded.
She points to several inscriptions and papyri from the first century; one
inscription erected 18-19 CE near Pisidia (AE 1976.653), for instance,
clarifies that the number and species of livestock each rank were allowed: an
equestrian officer was allowed three wagons or three miles, whereas a centurion
was permitted one wagon or three mules. Regardless of the officer’s rank, the
edict indicates the payment due to the owner of the livestock, one sestertius
per schoenus of mule travel (roughly 3.5 miles). Of course, just because
anything beyond this was legally considered robbery does not mean it never
happened. Ancient writers regularly depicted soldiers as bullies who demanded
inscription from civilians they encountered (e.g., Apuleius Metam, 9.39)
and the very existence of such an edict in Pisida indicates that it was deemed
necessary to prevent exploitation.
Matthew assumes that humans are
the ones being conscripted to go a mile, not the livestock. Perhaps someone is
being extorted or illegally threatened to accompany an “evil person”—in this
case, a soldier or officer. If so, this would imply a double humiliation should
be accommodated: not only is the reader not being paid as would be legally
required, but they themselves are being treated like livestock; it is easy to
see why the person demanding such would be deemed “evil” by the evangelist! (Christopher
B. Zeichmann, The Roman Army and the New Testament [Lanham, Md.:
Lexington Books, 2018], 67)
