Bruce W. Winter - Divine Honours for the Caesars: The First Christians Responses

Divine Honours for the Caesars

The First Christians Responses

Bruce W. Winter

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Grand Rapids, Michigan / Cambridge, U.K.

2015 Bruce W. Winter
All rights reserved
Published 2015 by
Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
2140 Oak Industrial Drive N.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505 /
P.O. Box 163, Cambridge CB3 9PU U.K.
Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Winter, Bruce W.
Divine honours for the Caesars: the first Christians responses / Bruce W. Winter.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8028-7257-9 (pbk.: alk. paper)
eISBN 978-1-4674-4414-9 (ePub)
eISBN 978-1-4674-4374-6 (Kindle)
1. Church and state Rome.
2. Christianity and politics History Early church, ca. 30-600.
3. Christians Political activity Rome.
4. Church history Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600.
I. Title.
BR170.W56 2015
270.1 dc23
2015018067

www.eerdmans.com

Contents

1. The All-Pervasive and Inescapable
Imperial Cultic Phenomena

I. The Enigma for Ancient Historians
Concerning the First Christians

Part I. Divine Honours for the Caesars
and the Roman East

3. Honours to, for and by the Caesars
and Reciprocal Benefits

5. Adopt, Adapt, Abstain:
Jewish Responses to Divine Honours

I. Herod the Greats Blatant Adoption
of the Imperial Cultic Veneration

IV. Abstention of Jerusalem Temple Sacrifices
and the Jewish Rebellion

Part II. Divine Imperial Honours and the
First Christians Responses

6. The Admission of New Gods to Athens:
Romes and Pauls

I. Imperial Cult Places, Priests and the
Public Veneration in Athens

IV. Pauls Confrontation, Gods Amnesty
and the Audiences Responses

7. Promoting Cultic Honours in Achaea
and Exemption for Christians

8. New Imperial Honours:
Some Corinthian Christians Compromise

9. Avoiding Divine Honours:
Some Galatian Christians Strategy

I. Reactions to Jewish Circumcision
in First-Century Roman Society

II. Traditional and First-Century Arguments
Promoting Circumcision

10. Confrontation for Thessalonian Christians
and the Most Divine Caesar

I. Paul and Silas as Jewish Revolutionaries
Against Rome (Acts 17:6)

III. The Civic Authorities Response
to the Allegation of Treason

IV. Exalts Himself over Every So-Called God,
2 Thessalonians 2:4

Index of Scripture References
and Other Ancient Sources

Why were imperial cultic activities not a problem for the first Christians? is a question posed by ancient historians. They have demonstrated that imperial cultic activities grew rapidly and exercised a far more dominant rle in the lives of citizens in the Latin West and the Greek East in the Roman Empire, regularly affecting them much more than had been previously thought. Its effect on their psyche is not to be underestimated nor is the enormous challenge it had to have posed for the first Christians. Thus their question is an appropriate one.

The intention here is first to harvest some of the riches of the primary evidence of imperial cultic veneration recorded in official inscriptions, coins and statues and archaeological evidence of imperial cult temples in those major cities or provinces where early Christian communities were established.

Against this background it is then proposed to examine the New Testament corpus to see if there is evidence of the first Christians facing the challenge of divine honours needed to be given to the Caesars and the ways in which they coped, in view of the undivided loyalty they were required to give to their divine king, Jesus.

This method of focusing firstly on ancient primary sources was originally acquired in the school () of Emeritus Professor E. A. Judge. He did the same for those who heard his Annual Tyndale Lectures in the Divinity Faculty of the University of Cambridge delivered on a return visit to his alma mater in Lent Term, 2001.

His approach has rightly been seen as a highly significant example for subsequent studies, greatly influencing generations of doctoral students at Macquarie University, Sydney, and elsewhere. Like many students beginning their dissertation, I recall him taking me down to the university library to be shown a largely unexplored but a neglected primary source that was a crucial starting point for my own doctoral thesis.

His scholarly example, personal kindness, warm on-going encouragement and wisdom have long supported many researchers, and not least of all myself. By first-century Roman social conventions the term friend would not be an adequate description, given its overtone of the politics of friendship. In New Testament terminology, as a Christian he has long been a brother. Rather, using first-century terminology that Paul surprisingly but appropriately plundered from the Graeco-Roman social world to aptly describe the contribution of Phoebe to Pauls ministry in Romans 16:1-2, he became a patron of many ( ) and mine ( ). Hence this monograph has been dedicated to him.

It is only right that I record my thanks to Professor Alanna Nobbs, the Deputy Director Ancient Cultures Research Centre, Macquarie University, for kindly agreeing to read a draft of this book and for her corrections and helpful suggestions and also to my wife for her patience as I researched this project in the Tyndale House Library and the Classics Library, University of Cambridge, and for her commitment to editing the draft of this monograph.

Chapter 1

The All-Pervasive and Inescapable
Imperial Cultic Phenomena

There is a perception that the most striking feature of the first century a.d. was the speedy rise and expansion of Christianity. However, ancient historians have shown that in the same century an even stronger cultic movement spread far more rapidly both in the East and West of the vast Roman Empire.

In his two-volume work, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, Mitchell concluded, The diffusion of the cult of Augustus and of other members of his family in Asia Minor and throughout the Greek East from the beginning of the empire was rapid, indeed almost instantaneous.

Mitchell further noted that in all three of the Roman cities in central Anatolia, namely Ancyra, Pessinus and Pisidian Antioch, the central fea Other cities where Christians resided in the East were no different in terms of the central location of these temples.

How had it come about that the Greek East, incorporated as it was by Rome into its vast empire, saw divine imperial veneration spread so spectacularly at both the local and provincial levels? There were intense social pressures brought to bear on all provincials and Roman citizens residing in the East to reciprocate with appropriate divine honours to and for emperors in their temples because of the enormous benefits and other blessings brought by the pax romana socially, economically and politically. Performing cultic acts before statues of living emperors, and at times members of their family, on the numerous official high and holy days in the citys annual calendar was considered the only appropriate expression of loyalty. Romes great achievements were attributed to the divine imperial peace and prosperity, long anticipated but only now being enjoyed throughout its empire by its loyal subjects. All this is well attested in official and literary sources.