The Authorities That Exist

 Some have tried to argue that Paul's teaching in Romans 13 is just a generic statement that has nothing to do with the government the Roman Christians are under at the time. However, the statement he makes in v. 1 αἱ δὲ οὖσαι ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι εἰσίν means that he is referring to those authorities that currently exist. The phrase literally means "the authorities that presently exist are ordained by God."

But what is the character of these authorities, and is Paul merely saying this of a just Roman Empire before it reaches the craziness of Nero's later persecution? Some have tried to argue by this that Paul's words only apply to a just government and not the unjust or tyrannical one that would supposedly come later. Let me just say that this is a completely unhistorical understanding of the Roman world in the first century. The Empire did not go from just to unjust under Nero's persecution over night.

Romans is likely written between AD 57-58, a time that most scholars argue is characterized by civil unrest in the city due to over-taxation. There were undoubtedly many Roman Christians caught up in the zealotry of opposing the Roman government in their excessive taxes and rebellion was brewing. This is why Paul likely commands the Roman Christians to submit to the government and to pay their taxes to whomever they are due. One might notice that Paul does not say that the system is corrupt and taxation is theft.

Furthermore, the idea that the Roman government was somehow a just system run by honorable men before Nero's persecution of Christians is nonsense. At the end of Tiberius' reign, he largely retired and left the empire in the hands of his Praetorian prefects, first Lucius Aelius Sejanus and then Quintus Macro, the former of which murdered Tiberius' son and the latter ordering the murder of the emperor himself as well as previously killing off the family members of Sejanus. Sejanus himself had taken hold of power in the absence of Tiberius and began to purge, i.e., kill, the senate and the wealthy class of any political opposition, having many people falsely accused at trial in order to fill his pockets with lands and wealth when they chose suicide as their punishments. Caligula was a psychopath who was so hated for his tyranny that he was killed by his own Praetorian Guard. He killed quite a few members of his family, against Roman law executed people without trial, bankrupted the state from giving out money to gain political favor, auctioned off the lives of gladiators at shows so that people could pay to see them die horrific deaths, stole property, caused famine and economic ruin by seizing grain boats to make a bridge, he had numerous senators killed for trumped up charges, began dressing up as various gods and calling himself a god at political meetings, tried to get an image of himself placed in the Jerusalem temple so that the temple would now be dedicated to him as Jupiter manifested upon the earth, temples were erected in Rome for his worship, and he cut off the heads of numerous statues of the gods and replaced the with his own. The following is a good summary of the man.

    Philo of Alexandria and Seneca the Younger, contemporaries of Caligula, describe him as an insane         emperor who was self-absorbed, short-tempered, killed on a whim, and indulged in too much                 spending and sex. He is accused of sleeping with other men's wives and bragging about it, killing for      mere amusement, deliberately wasting money on his bridge, causing starvation, and wanting a statue     of himself in the Temple of Jerusalem for his worship. Once, at some games at which he was                     presiding, he was said to have ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the audience into the         arena during the intermission to be eaten by the wild beasts because there were no prisoners to be             used and he was bored. While repeating the earlier stories, the later sources of Suetonius and Cassius     Dio provide additional tales of insanity. They accuse Caligula of incest with his sisters, Agrippina the     Younger, Drusilla, and Livilla, and say he prostituted them to other men. They state he sent troops on         illogical military exercises, turned the palace into a brothel, and, most famously, planned or promised     to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul, and actually appointed him a priest.

After Caligula was killed, his loyal guard sought vengeance and killed numerous conspirators along with innocent senators and bystanders.

Claudius issued decrees that forbade the religious assemblies of Jews and likely Christians to meet in Rome and ended up banishing Jews/Christians from Rome. He killed numerous senators to fortify his political position but was likely used by his wife Agrippina. 

Nero was always a loose canon even under the finger of his mother until he had her killed in AD 59, but from 54-59 she basically ruled through him, a woman who had likely murdered her husband Claudius and now ruled through her son who was basically a puppet king, continuing to murder her political rivals, subjects over whom she ruled through her son. The Empire was characterized by the corruption of its leaders all the way to the top. There were secret trials, bribery in judgments, ignoring Roman law and the autonomy of the Senate, etc. Even though he attempted to end taxation for Roman citizens in the city in AD 58, a way to gain favor with the people, Nero's building projects had largely bankrupted much of the city and brought it to ruin due to his desired contributions from its citizens. Scholars argue that Nero's mental state declined after he had his brother murdered in AD 55.

 It is in this context that Paul tells the Christians to submit and honor those who presently have authority, to pay to them their taxes (rendering to Caesar what belongs to Caesar), not because they are great people who are not abusing their power but because God put them in those positions and they represent Him in their authority, not in their character and just behavior toward their citizens. At the time of Paul's writing, Nero was only 19 or 20 years old. As the emperors before and after him, he would assume titles from various nations in his empire that lifted him up to the highest status (e.g., in Egypt, he would be given the title, "Emperor [Autokrator] Nero, King of kings, chosen by Ptah, beloved of Isis, the strong-armed one who struck the foreign lands, victorious for Egypt, King of kings, chosen of Nun who loves him." 

Peter's writing is likely even later in Nero's reign, when Nero had started executing his political opponents, and declining ever more so into madness; and yet, he still commands Christians to submit even to unjust authorities and those who are not in line with God's revealed will.

And Americans whine about the injustice of their governing authorities because they have to wear a mask in public that is meant to help stop a disease.