La ἐλπίς e la Spes Augusta in alcuni discorsi di Paolo di Tarso (Ac. 23.6; 24.15; 26.6-7; 28.20). Una correlazione di annuncio kerygmatico, strategia giudiziaria e hidden political Transcripts

In the last chapters of the Acts of the Apostles there are some speeches of Paul in ‘judicial’ settings. In these speeches a relevant presence of the language of ‘hope’ arises. Paul states that it is ‘for the hope’ that he is ‘under judgment’ (Ac. 23.6: κρίνομαι), ‘accused’ (26.7: ἐγκαλοῦμαι) and ‘in chains’ (28.20: τὴν ἅλυσιν ταύτην περίκειμαι). This hope is shared with all or a part of Israel and is significantly considered the ‘cause’ of the trial and imprisonment. The purpose of this article is to show that Luke describes Paul’s insistence on being accused ‘for the ἐλπίς’ for three related reasons: 1. A kerygmatic reason: to announce the eschatological and soteriological fulfilment, through the resurrection of Christ, of Israel’s hope. 2. A precise trial strategy: to circumscribe the area of conducts attributable to the accused within the sphere of religious disputes irrelevant to the Roman Law. 3. Finally, the insistence on the hope in Christ may represent a hidden political transcript, that is a surreptitious, but it is a consistent message of opposition to the political and imperial propaganda apparatus of early Principate, when the promotion and spread of the ideology of Spes Augusta led to the identification of the hopes of the subjects for the vitality, welfare and survival of the Empire in the action of the princeps and in the continuity of his dynasty.