"Question about reference to legions in a religious text" Topic

Disclaimer: This is not a religious question, even though it comes from a passage in the Bible.

In Matthew there is a reference to calling down 12 legions of angels.
The question is, did the Romans ever field an army that big in one place at that time (~35 AD)?

I'd go with "no" at that time, at least in the sense of "on one battlefield" because that would be something between half and a third of everyone, and people in Gaul tend to notice when all the occupation troops leave for Palestine, or the other way around.

If you stretched the time-frame to cover the Civil Wars of Octavian's day, I'd be less confident. But while you get into the usual arguments about ancient numbers, you'd be hard-pressed to feed that many soldiers in one place very long. And do angelic legions have auxiliaries? Fine for them, but it raises the number of mortal mouths to be fed for comparison purposes.

At the Battle of Philippi in 42 B.C. Octavian and Mark Anthony fielded 19 Legions against Cassius and Brutus with 17 Legions.

I think '12' doesn't mean literally '12' in this case, but 'the total of armies of angels'. But for the question itself, LtJBSz gave the answer, if for a previous period :)

To answer your question it will be necessary to provide a Biblical interpretation.

The key is the number twelve,that can be found in 187 places in the Bible. Revelation alone has 22 occurrences of the number. The meaning of 12, which is considered a perfect number, is that it symbolizes God's power and authority, as well as serving as a perfect governmental foundation. It can also symbolize completeness or the nation of Israel as a whole using the Twelve Tribes reference. So 12 Legions is God's perfect army with one legion per tribe

Yes, the number 12 is used for symbolic effect.

Redblack
Wasn't sure if they were going for that or something like "the biggest army the world has ever seen."

You can also loose a lot due to less than perfect translation – say from Aramaic to Greek, to Latin (a couple of times) and then to English (a couple of times).

For instance, Julius Caesar 'threw' (traiecio) his troops all over the place – does this mean he used catapults to throw them or did the Republican Romans have a secret airforce? Or did he simply say – 'Go over there' and the Legions just waded/swam across a creek?

"Legion" is definitely a later biblical translation, from what I understand it's not specifically mentioned at least until the first major bible translations of the 16th and 17th century.

It's all part of the language of the day, the nostalgia for the Roman empire was a cultural phenomenon and everything tended to refer to that glorious period, so much so that you struggle to find translations of Greek texts that aren't heavily Latinized, such as Jove/Jupiter being the default translation/name for Zeus until the first "heretical" translations in more recent times.

I'm sure there are still a few scholars who hold to this day that Ancient Greek was a mistake duly rectified by the awesome Romans.

The biggest force I can think of after the Civil Wars is the one gathered by Tiberius at Sirmium in AD 7: according to Velleius Paterculus (who was there, but is also trying to emphasise how competent his boss was: 2.113.1; his work was apparently published c. AD 30) that was 10 legions, "more than 70" auxiliary cohorts, and either 10 or 14 alae. But only for a demonstration and only for a few days.

This is Matthew 26.53, right? The Greek there does have 'legionas' so one can see the temptation to translate as 'legions'.

Remember that Latin and Greek come from the same source. They are closely related Indo-European languages. "Legeon" is a direct transliteration of the Latin into Greek. It is found in the NT but also in Plutarch and other authors of this time period.

link gives:
legions - λεγιῶνας (legiōnas) – of Latin origin

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