The Magistrate Script by Michael Kokkinaris

                                       The Magistrate Script by Michael Kokkinaris

Long Line: ROME 53 AD. The magistrate TITUS LIBIUS, following the order of Emperor CLAUDIUS, will seek the truth in Judea for the fabled resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. LYDIA, widow of the murderded Roman officer in Judea, seeks the truth about the murder of her husband. The quest for the truth will unite them and will test their strength, through unforeseen overturnings that the future has for them. Historic adveture: Duration 120'

 

                                              The magistrate (full treatment) 

A few years after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth in Judea the rumors that reach Rome about His Resurrection and mainly the effect that this ‘superstition’ has on almost all the social classes of the Empire will for the first time force the emperor Claudius to carry out unofficial inquisitions as to the origin and goals of this ‘myth’. The orator Titius Libius will take on the difficult mission of going to Judea in order to interrogate all those who were witness to the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth and to put to trial whoever spread the falsehoods about the resurrection of this prisoner who had been put to death on the cross. A little while before leaving Rome, Titius Libius is paid a visit by the widow of a Roman officer who asks him to investigate the circumstances surrounding her husband’s death in Judea as all those who survived the attack on their encampment by Jewish robbers had returned to Rome with huge fortunes… The orator is charmed by Lydia and accepts to investigate the circumstances of her husband’s death in order to keep in contact with her. However, when he goes to Judea and begins his investigatory work he will soon realize that the attempts on his life do not ultimately come from the followers of Jesus who want to obstruct his work, but from the paid assassins of those who have reason not to want the circumstances of the strange attack by Jewish robbers to come to light, including the disappearance of a large amount of money that was being transferred to Rome by a military detachment whose leader had been the centurion Poplius Lentulius, Lydia’s husband. Nonetheless, performing a delicate balancing act, Titius Livius will eventually succeed in questioning significant surviving biblical figures as well as ordinary people who had met Jesus, collecting valuable information which will allow him to reach a final conclusion as to who Jesus of Nazareth really was and whether in fact he was resurrected three days after his death. The young Jew companion, Simon, that is convinced finally for his honesty, but also for his internal need to find the truth, Christian himself, will show him the place of Jesus’s torture but also the place that they placed His body. The next step is for Titus Livius to meet one of Jesus’s student, Evangelist Mathew, which firstly he approaches with mistrust. The anaphora of Mathew in the Crucifixion and His Resurrection shakes the certainties of Titus Livius, however as judicial speaker he wants proofs in order to accept the truth of Christians. Mathew asks him to have patience and the proofs will come to him. After a few days Simon will lead him to Galiley, where he will meet Maria Magdaline. The interrogation of Maria Magdaline is catalytic. Titus Livius has drawn his conclusions, ready to returns to Rome. In Jerusalem however an unpleasant surprise awaits for him. Claudius has died and Neron has succeeded him. Thus his Roman persecutors decide without fear to take him out of the way.

His attempt of murder however is still detered from Simon and certain Christians, that wants without fail the testimony of Titus Livius to reach Rome. Titus Livius will reach Rome, the day that Neron burns it, while he becomes a witness of killing of thousands of Christians in the Colloseum, that were considered responsible for the fire. During the next days he will find shelter in the house of Lydia, that will fall in love with him, until he accomplishes with the help of senatots, that were benefited by hims, to achieves the juridicial prosecution of the main guilty of the murder the Roman chiliarch in Judea.

What however will torture him up to his death, in a very old age, is that he could not prove judicial that Jesus, of Nazareth, resurrected from the dead, even if he had the testimonies of those that saw the killing and His Resurrection!