The Humiliation of Christ in the Social World of Roman Philippi, Part 2

By Joseph H. Hellerman

[Joseph H. Hellerman is Professor of New Testament Language and Literature, Biola University, La Mirada, California, and Copastor, Oceanside (California) Christian Fellowship.]

The first article in this two-part series[1] investigated the social world of Philippi, where the social verticality so central to Roman sensibilities—and the corresponding quest for public honors that characterized the lives of elite males in the empire—left their marks in the inscriptions uncovered throughout the colony.[2] This second article reflects on the importance of the social setting of the colony for understanding Paul’s rhetorical strategy in his portrayal of Christ’s humiliation in Philippians 2:6–11.

Paul in Philippi: Evidence from Acts

The New Testament reinforces the image of Philippi as a Roman settlement that had an exceptionally stratified social environment. The Roman orientation of Philippi finds expression, for example, in a charge brought against Paul by residents of the colony, as described in the Book of Acts. Throughout Luke’s narratives of the various missionary journeys, only in Philippi were Paul and his co-workers specifically charged with advocating behavior inimical to the Roman way of life (16:21). Only Philippi, moreover, is identified as a κολωνία (“colony,” v. 12), in spite of the fact that Luke mentioned seven or eight other Roman colonies in the course of his narrative, which he did not designate as colonies.[3] Luke was clearly sensitive to the “Romanness” of Philippi.

Only for Philippi, among the various locations where Paul ministered, did Luke mention the offices of οἱ στρατηγοί (16:20, 22, 35, 38; alternately described as οἱ ἄρχοντες in v. 19) and of οἱ ῥαβδοῦχοι (vv. 35, 38). Scholarly consensus identifies the στρατηγόι as the duumviri iure dicundo, the top civic officers in the colony.[4] The term ῥαβδοῦχοι, then, corresponds to the Latin lictores, a title for persons who proceeded before the chief magistrates bearing the fasces, which symbolized magisterial authority. The two official posts of στρατηγός and ῥαβδοῦχος would certainly have been in existence in other cities where Paul ministered (e.g., Pisidian Antioch). The fact that they are attested in Acts only for Philippi suggests Luke’s awareness of the heightened sensitivity to social status and public honor which characterized the colony, as evidenced in the archaeological data outlined in the first article of this series.

Paul and the Philippians: Initial Considerations

An examination of Paul’s letter to the Christians at Philippi confirms the analysis of the colony as a highly stratified, distinctly Roman environment. The preoccupation with public honors and offices and particularly the pride taken in citizenship in the colony shed much light on various portions of Paul’s short epistle. It is no accident, in this regard, that only in Philippians did Paul specifically address overseers and deacons (ἐπισκόποις καὶ διακόνοις) in his salutation (Phil. 1:1).[5] Only in Philippians did Paul carefully delineate his own social honors and achievements as a Pharisaic Jew (3:5–6).[6] And only in this epistle did Paul substitute the term πολιτεύομαι (1:27; cf. πολίτευμα, 3:20) for his more common περιπατέω, when he described the manner in which Christians are to conduct their lives.

Perhaps more than any of Paul’s converts, Christians in the Philippian church would have been under great pressure to conform in their own social relations to the marked stratification of the surrounding environment.[7] As already noted, voluntary associations attested from Philippi inevitably replicated the social stratification of the dominant culture. Philippian Christians would naturally tend to adopt similar values, and in fact they did so, as later inscriptions indicate. In the second century, honors in the ἐκκλησία would be trumpeted in a fashion similar to the display of honors in the civic arena. A certain Aurelius Kuriakos, for example, publicly identified himself as διδάσκαλος (“teacher”).[8] Posidonia wanted passersby to esteem her as a διακονίσση (“deaconess”) and Pancharia as aἐλαχίστη κανονική (“most humble consecrated virgin”).[9]

Paul, however, would have no part of this. Instead he challenged his readers to maintain a worldview diametrically opposed to that of the colony in which they resided. Specifically Paul resisted the idea that his readers should accommodate themselves to the social verticality and pride of honors that so indelibly left their mark on life in Philippi. He radically redefined the kind of behavior to be honored among believers. And nowhere are Paul’s convictions in this regard more apparent than in his presentation of the humility of Jesus Christ in Philippians 2:6–11.

The Humiliation of Christ as Cursus Pudorum

Scholarly attention to Philippians 2:6–11 has generated an almost unmanageable bibliography. Much of this work has been preoccupied with issues of ontological Christology, as commentators have sought to clarify the meaning of expressions such as μορφῇ θεοῦ, ἁρπαγμὸν, τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ, and ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν, and the implications of these phrases for understanding the nature of the Incarnation.[10] The concern in this article, however, relates not to ontology but to the manner in which Paul’s picture of Jesus’ self-humiliation would have resonated in the readers’ social context. Paul’s purpose in this passage was to engender behavior among his readers that he deemed appropriate for those whose citizenship is in heaven. From the perspective of the dominant culture of Philippi, Jesus, Paul demonstrated, was engaged in a cursus pudorum, “a succession of ignominies.” The imitation of Jesus, then, to which Paul called his readers presupposes an inversion of the relational orientation of the colony of Roman Philippi.

Paul used several expressions in the passage to challenge the Christians in Philippi to resist the temptation to accommodate themselves to surrounding social values. Most striking in this regard are the terms δούλου (“slave,” v. 7) and σταυροῦ (“cross,” v. 8), which represent, respectively, the most dishonorable public status and the most dishonorable public humiliation imaginable in the world of Roman antiquity. That a crucified δοῦλος is identified in the ensuing verses as one who is greatly honored by God—indeed logically so (διὸ καὶ, v. 9)—utterly redefines social relations as understood among persons in the ancient world, especially those who inhabited first-century Roman Philippi.

Slavery and Social Status

Determining the status of slaves represents a vexing challenge to social historians, since slavery in antiquity was not a monolithic institution. The difference in quality of life experienced by slaves serving as tutors in elite households versus slaves working in the mines has led Bartchy to caution against viewing Roman slaves as members of a single social class. Nor should slaves be viewed as being at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid. That position is more reasonably assigned to free day laborers, who generally fared much worse economically than slaves in the Roman world.[11] Arlandson, in contrast, has recently insisted that slaves “had the lowest status of any class.”[12]

Consideration of the complexity of social status provides a helpful pathway through this scholarly impasse, while positively affirming the contributions of both Bartchy and Arlandson. A variety of factors—political power, wealth, natal origin, education, gender, occupation, and so forth—converged to determine social status in the ancient world. This was particularly the case for slaves. Bartchy’s emphasis on economic security and the relative honor of a slave’s owner as the prime criteria for an individual slave’s social position naturally generates a highly variegated picture of slavery. Focusing on the common legal status of slaves inherited at birth, produces, in contrast, a much more uniform picture of slavery in the Roman world.

With Bartchy, wealthy freedmen made much of their individual economic advantage and the esteem of their patron (ex-owner), in order to bolster their social standing. Elites, on the other hand, utilizing the natal status of the slave as the fundamental evaluative criterion, generally relegated all slaves—rich or poor, powerful or powerless—to a single class that they situated decidedly below free persons of any stripe on the social pyramid.

Petronius’s Satyricon characteristically reflects the two perspectives outlined above. The author’s portrayal of Trimalchio constitutes the classic expression of the elite stereotype of the boorish freedman who could never rise above his natal servile status. The tirade of Hermeros, an ex-slave in the Satyricon, indicates, however, that “successful freedmen were sensitive to the insults implicit in this elitist ideology and responded by emphasizing their personal accomplishments in buying their freedom and accumulating wealth.”[13]

To summarize, although a slave attached to a wealthy home likely enjoyed a better standard of living than a free day laborer or a struggling peasant, the legal status of the slave in question—and the corresponding public dishonor associated with that status—persisted as the primary consideration of elites who wrestled with the social anomaly of a wealthy or influential slave. “Some emancipated slaves held more political influence than many senators. Yet the odium of unfree birth clung to them through their lives and as such was, naturally, not only a problem of their own self-consciousness but also a social factor. For in the mind of the ancient elite, as we have seen, it was origin, first and above all, that determined status.”[14]

The dishonor associated with slavery, viewed in generic terms by elites, is widely attested. Dio Cassius, for example, categorically asserted, “No one of a servile background can develop any great pride.”[15] Similarly Cicero maintained, “It belongs to slavery not to speak for or against anyone you wish.”[16] So anomalous was it for a slave to defend his honor in a public encounter that the association of slavery with public humiliation even informed the philosophical literature. Epictetus, for example, who experienced firsthand the social stigma of slavery, wrote, “When you see someone cringing before another or fawning on him against his real opinion, you can with confidence say this fellow is no free man.”[17]

When considered generically by representatives of the dominant culture, the variegated picture of slavery fades into the background, and the referent “slave” takes on uniformly negative social connotations—especially where public honor is concerned. MacMullen made the following incisive observation about the inverse relationship between slavery and honor in the Roman world:

“That slavery even under a humane master negated pride and self-respect was its only essential evil, in the ancient mind.”[18]

The relevance of all this for Philippians 2:5–11 should be clear. To ascribe to Jesus the status of δοῦλος (v. 7) was to assign to Him a position of greatest opprobrium in the social world of Paul’s readers. It is hardly coincidental, moreover, that only in Philippians, among his letters, did Paul explicitly describe Jesus as δούλος, for Paul’s readers lived in what was the most status-conscious city in the Roman East.

The Shame of Crucifixion

Hengel has identified the emphatic θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ as the most decisive statement in the humiliation of Jesus Christ in Philippians 2.[19] Two aspects of crucifixion deserve mention in connection with the social environment of Philippi: the social stigma attached to crucifixion, and the association of crucifixion with slavery in the Roman mind.

Among the ancients, death by crucifixion was universally deemed the most dishonorable experience imaginable. Christians were quite aware of the problem posed by a crucified Messiah. According to Justin Martyr opponents of the Jesus movement “charge us with madness, saying that we give the second place after the unchanging and ever-existing God and begetter of all things to a crucified man.”[20] As Hengel notes, Justin’s ensuing response to this charge “make[s] it clear that the dishonour involved in the death of Jesus by crucifixion was one of the main objections against his being son of God.”[21]

The association of the cross with public shame occurs in Christian and pagan literature alike. Celsus, for example, portrayed Jesus as “bound in the most ignominious fashion [ἁτιμότατα]” and “executed in a most shameful way [αἴσχιστα].”[22] Also in Hebrews 12:2 “shame” and “cross” are juxtaposed [ὑπέμεινεν σταυρὸν αἰσχύνης καταφρονήσας]. Centuries later Lactantius still wrestled with the question of why God did not choose for Jesus “an honorable kind of death” (honestum … mortis genus) but instead chose an “infamous kind of punishment” (infami genere supplicii).[23]

The musings of Melito of Sardis pointedly underline the social dissonance associated with the idea of a crucified God: “He who hung the earth [in its place] is fixed there, he who made all things fast is made fast upon the tree, the Master has been insulted, God has been murdered, the King of Israel has been slain by an Israelitish hand. O strange murder, strange crime! The Master has been treated in unseemly fashion, his body naked, and not even deemed worthy of a covering, that [his nakedness] might not be seen. Therefore the lights [of heaven] turned away, and the day darkened, that it might hide him who was stripped upon the cross.”[24] For Melito it was the public humiliation of God, not His physical suffering, that he found so troubling. As O’Brien remarks, “By first-century standards no experience was more loathsomely degrading than this.”[25]

The shameful manner in which Jesus died carried with it unavoidable implications for those who worshiped Him, and Paul’s status-sensitive readers at Philippi would surely have been uncomfortable with the fact that a logical line could be drawn, in this regard, from the cross of Christ to the social status of His followers. The shame of crucifixion was in fact to be widely utilized in precisely this fashion in later anti-Christian polemic. Caecilius, Minucius Felix’s pagan interlocutor, reasoned as follows: “To say that their ceremonies center on a man put to death for his crime and on the fatal wood of the cross is to assign to these abandoned wretches sanctuaries which are appropriate to them and the kind of worship they deserve.”[26] Tacitus had already utilized the dishonor of the crucifixion of Jesus to cast aspersions on the Christian movement. “Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilate.” The resulting “disease” (malum) found its way to Rome, “where all things horrible or shameful [pudenda] in the world collect and find a vogue.”[27] For Christians in Philippi, the sharp verticality of their social world would have served only to accentuate the foolishness and shamefulness of worshiping a crucified Christ.

A second aspect of crucifixion relevant to Philippians 2 is the explicit identification in the Roman world of crucifixion as a punishment particularly fitting for a slave.[28] The frequency with which slaves were crucified was so well known that the practice could serve as material for Plautus’s comedies as early as the late third century B.C. A slave named Sceledrus proclaimed, “I know the cross will be my tomb. There’s where my ancestors rest—father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather.”[29] In another work Plautus portrayed a deceitful slave named Chrysalus expressing concern that his master would uncover his misbehavior. Should such occur, exclaimed the slave, “[My master will] change my name for me the minute he gets back, and transform me from Chrysalus [‘gold-bearer’] to Crossalus [‘cross-bearer’] on the spot.”[30] Later Cicero wrote that the crucifixion of slaves suspected of rebellion as a tradition belonged to the mos maiorum (“ancient practice”), and the practice of crucifying slaves is attested throughout Roman literature.[31] Slaves who avenge the cruelty of their owners, Seneca summarized, “stood under the certain threat of crucifixion.”[32]

The crucifixion of slaves was so widespread that the expression servile supplicium (“slaves’ punishment”) came to serve as a technical phrase to refer to death by crucifixion—even where nonslaves were concerned. Scipio Africanus, for example, crucified a group of Roman deserters in Africa during the war with Carthage. Valerius Maximus, who related the story, criticized the general’s decision: “Roman blood should not be insulted by paying the slaves’ penalty (servile supplicium), however deservedly.”[33]

It is hardly an accident that crucifixion, the most dishonorable form of public humiliation that socially conscious Roman elites could employ in their efforts to punish and discourage rebellion among the lower classes, was so closely associated with slavery, the lowest class in the stratified social world of Roman antiquity. The juxtaposition of the two ideas—σταυρός and δούλος—served to compound the social stigma associated with both slavery and crucifixion in the ancient world and thereby to reinforce in the public arena the social hierarchy that served the interests of the dominant culture.

Redefining Honor and Shame in Paul’s Christology

As a crucified slave Jesus arrived at the utter nadir of the cursus pudorum outlined in Philippians 2:6–8. If the δοῦλος/σταυρός nexus constituted the sum total of the biography of Jesus known to Paul’s readers in Roman Philippi, there would be no reason for them to follow Jesus and every reason to accommodate themselves instead to the colony’s social values. Paul, however, assured his readers of two further realities that could compel them to embrace Jesus and to reject prevailing cultural norms. One fact was the preexistent, divine Messiah, who voluntarily assumed the status of a slave and received the public shame of crucifixion for the benefit of others, and the other fact was that God had assigned to Jesus the highest in public honors specifically because of the manner in which Jesus chose to use the power at His disposal.[34]

It is commonly acknowledged that the expression οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν ἡγήσατο τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ portrays Jesus utilizing (or pursuing) power in a manner diametrically opposed to the practices of Roman emperors familiar to the readers. Roman emperors and elites in the Philippi colony were known for grasping at honors through self-assertion. Jesus’ “equality with God” was, in contrast, not something He sought as “booty,” or used for His own advantage.[35] Instead Jesus willingly used His position for the good of others. He “made himself nothing by taking on the form of a slave … becoming obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.”[36] Such a utilization of power—indeed, an apparent relinquishing of power—would have struck Roman elites as abject folly. Paul assured his readers, however, that God’s value system is utterly unlike that of the world of Roman Philippi. For it is precisely Jesus’ use of power in the interests of others that explains His exaltation to the highest position of authority and results in the name (κύριος) that is above every name being ascribed to Him.[37]

Conclusion

Early Christianity established itself in a remarkably antagonistic society in which the quest for public honor dominated the behaviorial priorities of males of nearly every social rank. Individuals like Paul who sought to challenge their social world could hardly reject, in principle, notions of honor and shame without at the same time “shedding their skin,” so to speak.[38] Instead of rejecting the social realites of honor and shame, Paul and those who shared his sentiments sought to reconstruct their world by substituting, for those behaviors and attitudes deemed honorable by the dominant culture, a radically alternative set of behaviors and attitudes to be honored in the Christian church. That God Himself had profoundly honored these very behaviors in Jesus assured Paul’s readers that the alternative vision for social relations which he offered them is far superior to the public pomp and status-conscious world of Roman Philippi.

Early Christianity thrived in a collectivist world that thought first in terms of groups and only secondarily in terms of individuals. Written in a cultural setting in which religion was neither personal nor private but was deeply embedded in institutions such as politics and kinship, Philippians 2:6–11 must be understood as a challenge to conceive of a new kind of group, a new πολίτευμα, not simply a new kind of person. Paul envisioned the Christian ἐκκλησία as a social environment in which behaviors and attitudes deemed repulsive by the dominant culture, but preeminently exemplified in the humiliation of Jesus, would be greatly honored. Conversely the local church should also be a place where those behaviors and attitudes inconsistent with Jesus of Nazareth but honored by the dominant culture encounter only community disdain.

In the case of Philippians 2:6–11 it is not Jesus’ possession but His use of His status and power that elicited the exalting response of God in the conclusion of the passage (vv. 9–11). Correspondingly it is not merely the possession of status but rather the use of status or power for the benefit of others which should be honored in congregations today. This distinction between the possession and the use of status is an important one, given the presence of some decidedly contrary tendencies in modern evangelicalism. Attention is often given to high-status persons who convert to Christ, along with the disproportionate public esteem they often receive in the Christian community. Also deference is sometimes given to church members who are wealthy or who occupy positions of significant status in the dominant culture. Sadly such behaviors and values only serve to honor the possession of status or wealth in a manner that simply parrots the culture of the world.

Believers today should align themselves with a radically counter-cultural, divine alternative to the values of the world, an alternative that seeks to create in congregations a social value system that honors individuals who demonstrably use their status and wealth for the benefit of the less fortunate. Then perhaps believers today, like Paul, will be charged with “turning the world upside down” (Acts 17:6, NRSV).

Notes

1. Joseph H. Hellerman, “The Humiliation of Christ in the Social World of Roman Philippi, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra 160 (July-September 2003): 321-36.
2. Lukas Bormann, Philippi: Stadt und Christengemeinde zur Zeit des Paulus (Leiden: Brill, 1995); Peter Pilhofer, Philippi, vol. 1: Die erste christliche Gemeinde Europas, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 87 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1995); and idem, Philippi, vol. 2: Katalog der Inschriften von Philippi, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 119 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 2000).
3. Mikael Tellbe, Paul between Synagogue and State (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 2001), 218 n. 39.
4. Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 496.
5. Pilhofer assumes from the singly attested presence of the title in Philippians that at that time Christian leaders were called ἐπισκόποι only at Philippi. He attributes this to the Roman climate of the colony (Philippi, 1:147). In contrast to Pilhofer, the present writer understands that the office of overseer was relatively widespread by the early 60s, the term ἐπισκόποι being interchangeable with the more familiar πρεσβύτεροι (Acts 14:23; 20:17; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Pet. 5:1). Although local Christian communities did not wholly duplicate the variety of honors and offices characteristic of voluntary associations during the mid-first century, specific leadership positions seem to be deeply embedded in the literature, and it is most reasonable to trace the office of πρεσβύτερος/ἐπισκόπος back, with Luke, to the founding of these congregations (Acts 14:23). The widespread use of ἐπισκόπος in later literature (20:28; 1 Tim. 3:2; Titus 1:7) weakens Pilhofer’s association of the term solely with the Roman orientation of Philippi. The social stratification of the colony sheds light, then, not on the particular term in question but rather on the fact that Paul specifically addressed local congregational leaders at all here. Paul’s intentions become patently clear when one observes what is missing from the salutation, namely, the reference to his God-given apostleship, which graces the opening of each of his other letters except Philemon. In marked contradistinction to the social values of Roman Philippi Paul began at the outset of his epistle to model a principle expressly stated and exemplified in Jesus. By refraining from calling attention to his apostolic office and instead by honoring the congregation’s leaders by singling them out by title, Paul illustrated what it means to “do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind [to] regard one another as more important than yourselves” (Phil. 2:3).
6. Pilhofer has paralleled Paul’s references to positions and symbols of honor in the stratified social setting of Philippi: toga (virilis), περιτομῇ ὀκταήμερος (“circumcised the eighth day”); civis Romanus,ἐκ γένους ᾿Λσραήλ (“of the nation of Israel”); tribu Voltinia,φυλῆς Βενιαμίν (“of the tribe of Benjamin”); and Cai filius,῾Εβραῖος ἐξ ῾Εβραίων (“a Hebrew of Hebrews”) (Philippi, 1:123–27). While the correspondence may not be as specific as Pilhofer suggests, the parallel between Paul’s strategy in 3:5–6 and the public parading of honors in the colony cannot be overlooked. It is all the more striking, then, that Paul’s “pre-Christian résumé” appears in this form only in Philippians and that in verses 7–8 Paul firmly negated a life based on this value system.
7. Limited evidence (sixty-four names from literary and epigraphic sources) suggests two important conclusions concerning the make-up of the Philippian congregation. First, the lack of a single Thracian name demonstrates the exclusively urban orientation of the ἐκκκλησία, and second, the majority of Greek names, along with just a few in Latin, argues for a predominantly Greek congregation (ibid., 240–45).
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. See, for example, the fine expositions by David J. MacLeod (“The Christological Hymn of Philippians 2:6–11, Part 1,” Bibliotheca Sacra 158 [July-September 2001]: 308-30; and idem, “The Christological Hymn of Philippians 2:6–11, Part 2,” Bibliotheca Sacra 158 [October-December, 2001]: 437-50).
11. S. Scott Bartchy, “Slavery (Greco-Roman),” in Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:66.
12. James M. Arlandson, Women, Class and Society in Early Christianity (Peabody, MA: Hendrikson, 1997), 98. Actually Arlandson, following Lenski, says people who were “unclean,” “degraded,” and “expendables” were below slaves in the social hierarchy, but he clearly places slaves below urban day laborers and rural landless peasants (see his chart on p. 22).
13. Peter Garnsey and Richard Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society and Culture (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1987), 121. See also Juvenal, Satirae 4.1; 6.84.
14. Ekkehard W. Stegemann and Wolfgang Stegemann, The Jesus Movement: A Social History of Its First Century (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), 60 (italics added).
15. Dio Cassius, History of Rome 52.8.5 (Ramsay MacMullen, Roman Social Relations: 50 B.C. to A.D. 284 [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974], 116).
16. Cicero, Pro Sulla 48 (MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 116).
17. Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.55 (MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 116).
18. MacMullen, Roman Social Relations, 199 n. 89.
19. Martin Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), 62. Grammarians almost universally identify θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ as intentionally emphatic (Peter T. O’Brien, Commentary on Philippians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 230; Gordon D. Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995], 215; and F. Blass, A. Debruner, and Robert W. Funk, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961], par. 447).
20. Justin Martyr, Apology 1.13.4 (Early Christian Fathers, ed. Cyril C. Richardson [New York: Macmillan, 1970]).
21. Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World and the Folly of the Message of the Cross, 1 n. 1.
22. Origen, Contra Celsum 6.10 (Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World, 7).
23. Lactantius, Institutiones 4.26.29 (Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World, 7 n. 10).
24. Melito of Sardis, Homily on the Passion 96 (Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World, 21).
25. O’Brien, Commentary on Philippians, 231.
26. Caecilius, Octavius 9.4.
27. Tacitus, Annales ab excessu divi Augusti 15.44.3. Hengel finds in the Tacitean phrase “death penalty” (supplicio adfectus) an echo of the “slaves’ punishment” (servum supplicium), based on Valerius Maximus 8.4.1; Scriptores Historiae Augustae 15.12.2; and Hadrian: ut homicidam servum supplicum eum iure iubete adfici (Hengel, Crucifixion in the Ancient World, 3 n. 3).
28. Hengel utilizes the connection to argue persuasively for the unity of the passage (Crucifixion in the Ancient World, 62). Paul’s juxtaposition of crucifixion and slavery emphasize the utter shamefulness of the humiliation of Christ.
29. Plautus, Miles Gloriosus 372.
30. Plautus, Bacchides 362.
31. In Verrem 2.5.12. Other sources on the crucifixion of slaves include Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Antiquitates Romanae 5.51.2; 7.69.1); Livy (History of Rome 22.33.2; 33.36.3); Orosius (Historiae 5.9.4); Appian (Bella Civilia 1.120); Dio Cassius (History of Rome 49.12.4; 54.3.7); and Petronius (Satyricon 53.3).
32. Seneca, De Clementia 1.26.1.
33. Valerius Maximus, 2.7.12. Others who use servile supplicium to refer to death by crucifixion include Tacitus (Historiae 4.11, 2.72); Horace (Satires 1.8.32); and Livy (History of Rome 29.18.14).
34. The clause ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὐπάρχων does not exclude the idea of preexistence. The view that ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὐπάρχων refers solely to Christ’s humanity has a long pedigree, having experienced a renaissance of sorts in recent decades (George Howard, “Phil 2:6–11 and the Human Christ,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 40 [1978]: 368-87; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Christological Anthropology in Phil. II, 6–11, ” Revue biblique 83 [1976]: 25-50; James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making [London, 1980]: 114-21; and others). Cogent refutations of this view are given in Paul D. Feinberg, “The Kenosis and Christology: An Exegetical-Theological Analysis of Phil 2:6–11, ” Trinity Journal 1 [1980]: 21-46; Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, 203 n. 41; and O’Brien, Commentary on Philippians, 263–71). The sociological interpretation advocated here favors a view that understands that the opening strophe of verse 6 presents Christ as preexistent since the effect of Paul’s rhetoric depends on the distance between the phrase ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὐπάρχων and the expression θανάτου δὲ σταυροῦ, as Jesus descended His cursus pudorum. A recent tendency to read Paul’s imagery against the background of the Roman imperial cult (see the following note) also supports the traditional interpretation of ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὐπάρχων.
35. For the self-serving activities of earthly rulers—specifically the Roman emperors—as important background for appreciating Paul’s polemic, see Tellbe, Paul between Synagogue and State, 253–59. Tellbe rightly rejects as unconvincing various attempts to read the behavior of a specific emperor as the foil against whom Paul placed Christ (Karl Bornhäuser, “Zum Verständnis von Philipper 2, 5–11, ” Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift 44 [1933]: 453-55; and David Seeley, “The Background of the Philippians Hymn,” Journal of Higher Criticism 1 [1994]: 69). Tellbe concludes that “the text should rather be viewed as positing a general contrast between Christ’s exaltation and the pursuit of power among earthly rulers” (Paul between Synagogue and State, 256). It can hardly be doubted, moreover, that Paul intended theκύριος terminology (v. 11) as a direct challenge to the claims of κύριος Caesar. As Tellbe expresses it, Jesus is depicted here as “an imperial figure with universal authority” (ibid., italics his). The term ἁρπαγμόν has garnered much attention in recent years, and scholars disagree on whether the term should be taken in its active, abstract sense, as “grasping” or “seizing” or, more negatively, as “booty” or “prey.” For the former see Roy W. Hoover, “The HARPAGMOS Enigma: A Philological Solution,” Harvard Theological Review 64 (1971): 95-119; and N. Thomas Wright, “ἁρπαγμὸς and the Meaning of Philippians 2:5–11, ” Journal of Theological Studies 37 [1986]: 321-52). For the latter view see S. Vollenweider, “Der ‘Raub’ der Gottgleichheit: Ein religionsgeschichtlicher Vorschlag zu Phil 2.6-11, ” New Testament Studies 45 (1999): 413-33. The NRSV paraphrase, “something to be exploited,” is broad enough to include both options. Interesting in this regard is Dio Chrysostom’s uses of the verb ἁρπάζω to express improper ways of exercising a ruler’s authority in contrast to his presentation of the ideal ruler (Orationes 4.95) (see Tellbe, Paul between Synagogue and State, 257).
36. Author’s translation.
37. Grammatically verse 9 marks the crucial transition in this passage about Jesus. The subject shifts sharply from Christ to ὁ θεὸς, and grammarians have consistently observed that the addition of καὶ in the expression διὸ καὶ denotes that “the inference (διὸ) is self-evident” (Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3d ed., rev. Frederick W. Danker [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000], 250; cf. O’Brien, Commentary on Philippians, 233; and Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, 220 n. 10). This would have rendered Paul’s rhetoric all the more arresting to the first hearers of the letter, since the honoring of a crucified δούλος would have been anything but a “self-evident” inference for persons steeped in the social realities of Roman Philippi.
38. John H. Elliot has recently discussed a tendency toward anachronism in the employment of social scientific models in the study of ancient texts. Some have argued that Jesus was an egalitarian, but Elliot calls this an “idealist fallacy.” “The focus of Jesus’ social teaching was not the elimination of status but rather the inversion of status” (John H. Elliot, “Jesus Was Not an Egalitarian: A Critique of an Anachronistic and Idealist Theory,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 32 [Summer 2002]: 87 [italics added]). The same must be said about Paul’s utilization of the example of Jesus in Philippians 2.