Paul & Imperial Divine Honors

I am thrilled that my new book, Paul & Imperial Divine Honors, is out in print! In this work, I introduce imperial divine honors, more commonly called imperial cult in New Testament circles, to a more general audience and then provide contextual reconstructions of imperial divine honors in first century AD Corinth, Philippi, and Thessalonica with the goal of adjudicating with precision what relationship, if any, these honors had to early Christianity in these cities.

This book is one on which I have been working since Spring 2010 when I took my first class on imperial divine honors at Harding School of Theology (Memphis, TN) and it is much more than words on a page. I have procured (and in some cases paid for) the rights to publish 43 images and maps from and associated with ancient Corinth, Philippi, and Thessalonica and, in an appendix, I provide 60 Latin and Greek inscriptions associated with Corinthian, Philippian, and Thessalonian imperial divine honors along with fresh translations of them.

I hope this work will be of use not only to scholars but also to clergy as they reconstruct the gospel in its original imperial context and exegete what it means for the Church in our modern context.

New Volume on Ancient Villages and the Rise of Christianity

Recently, I received my complimentary copy of The Village in Antiquity and The Rise of Early Christianity, edited by Alan Cadwallader, James R. Harrison, Angela Standhartinger, and L.L. Welborn.

This work contains eighteen essays by seventeen different scholars ranging from specialists on second millennium BC Egypt to historians of early Christianity, Greco-Roman epigraphers, and Greco-Roman archaeologists. The scope of this volume is immense, as it examines villages and aspects of village life in Pharaonic and Roman Egypt, ancient Israel, Roman Palestine, Roman Galatia, Roman Asia, Roman Macedonia, Roman Achaea, and Roman Italy. The overall thesis of The Village in Antiquity is that the scholarly consensus that early Christianity was a largely urban phenomenon is fundamentally flawed and in need of revision. Those interested in ancient villages in general and the spread of early Christianity in them in particular will benefit from this great collection of essays. Thanks to Alan, Jim, Angela, and Larry for their hard work in producing it and for including me among its contributors!

Most Important Inscription for Roman Public Religion

What if there was an inscription that provided records of actual sacrifices offered in Rome by one of the city’s colleges of priests?

What if this epigraph dated to the time of the composition of the New Testament documents? 

Would such a source illuminate not only public religion in Rome but also public religion in the Roman colonies mentioned in the New Testament like Corinth, Philippi, and Pisidian Antioch?  

Such an inscription does in fact exist! 

It is called the Arval Acta after the priestly college who offered the sacrifices mentioned in the epigraph, the Arval Brothers. The Arval Brothers were a priestly college that consisted of twelve men who served for life and who were drawn from senators in Rome. They served the Roman deity Dea Dia who was the goddess of grain and fertility. The Arval Brothers had a cultic site in a sacred grove of trees atop a hill 7-8 km west of Rome. Temples of Dea Dia and other goddesses were on the hill and at its bottom a bath and imperial temple in which the Arval Brothers gathered to recline at sacred banquets. 

Bust of the emperor Lucius Verus depicted as an Arval Brother from 160 CE © Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

Each year the priestly college appointed a president (magister) whose main duty was to offer a number of sacrifices throughout the year. Most of these were directed to Dea Dia but in the imperial period (post 31 BCE) a number of these sacrifices either were offered to deceased and officially deified emperors called divi or to the gods on behalf of the reigning emperor and his family, especially for his health and for celebrating important days like his birthday. 

To provide an example:

A(nte) d(iem) (undecimum) k(alendas) Octobres (vacat)| Taurus Statilius Corvinus promagister collegii fratrum arṿ[ali]um| nomine, quod eo die C. Caesar Augustus Germanicus conṣ[ensu]| senatus delatum sibi patris nomen recepisset in Cạ[pitlio]| Iovi, Iunoni, Minervae hostias maiores (tres) inmolavit et ad templum| novom divo Augusto unam. (vacat). | Adfuerunt Paullus Fabius Persicus, M. Furius Camillus, Appius Iunius| [Silanus, P. Me]ṃmiuṣ [Reg]ụḷụṣ, C. Cạẹcịṇạ, Ḷ. Ạṇṇịụṣ Ṿịṇịcịạṇụ[s,]| [C. Calpurniu]s Piso. (vacat)

On the eleventh day before the Calends of October (Sept 21, 38 CE), because Caius Caesar Augustus Germanicus received the title father of the fatherland, which was offered with the senate’s consent, the vice president Taurus Statilius Corvinus sacrificed on the Capitoline Hill in the name of the college of the Arval Brothers three adult victims to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, and a victim to Deified Augustus at his new temple. Paullus Fabius Persicus, Marcus Furius Camillus, Appius Iunius Silanus, Publius Memmius Regulus, Caius Caecina Largus, and Lucius Annius Vinicianus, and Caius Calpurnius Piso were present (Commentarii fratrum Arvalium 12c lines 83-91; translation D. Clint Burnett).

Each year the president chose to have certain (or all?) their sacrifices recorded in a codex. Beginning from Augustus’s reign (21 BCE) and continuing into the third century CE (241 CE), portions of these sacrifices were inscribed on marble plaques placed in Dea Dia’s temple. Numerous of these engraved marble plaques have survived and they make up the Arval Acta, which are our most important primary source for public Roman religion in the entirety of the Roman Empire.[1]

Commentarii fratrum Arvalium 48 © https://drc.ohiolink.edu/handle/2374.OX/187237

Currently, I am working through the Arval Acta, translating them from their original Latin, which is no easy task. However, as I work through the text I cannot help but think of the numerous ways in which this inscription could produce nuanced readings of 1-2 Corinthians, Philippians, and Acts of the Apostles as well as refine our understanding of the relationship between Paul and the Roman Empire. Therefore, I want to encourage my New Testament colleagues to pick up this amazing epigraph to expand their understanding of public religion in the Roman Empire and its connections to the New Testament.    


[1] For more on the Arval Brothers see Mary Beard, “Writing and Ritual: A Study of Diversity and Expansion in the Arval Acta,” Papers of the British School at Rome 53 (1985): 114-162; John Scheid, Commentarii fratrum Arvalium qui supersunt: Les Copies épigraphiques des protocoles annuels de la confrérie arvale (21 AV.-304 AP. J.-C.) (Rome: École Francaise de Rome, 1998), iii-xxii.

New Online Inscriptions and the New Testament Class!

I am honored to offer an online (Zoom) class beginning January 30, 2021 that will meet eight times, on Saturdays, either in the morning, early afternoon, or late afternoon EST. Each session will be recorded and I will do my best to accommodate everyone who signs up, irrespective of their location in the world!

The course will cover the following areas related inscriptions and how to use them to interpret the New Testament:

  • The Why, What, and How of Inscriptions 
  • The Typology of Inscriptions: Public 
  • The Typology of Inscriptions: Private
  • The Typology of Inscriptions: Graffiti and Magic
  • Using Inscriptional Corpora
  • Inscriptions as Embedded Artifacts

The final two meetings will be devoted to two specific case studies related to inscriptions and the New Testament:

  • Greco-Roman Women and the New Testament 
  • Imperial Divine Honors and the New Testament

Check out the course webpage by clicking here for more details!

Material Culture and Why I Use It To Reconstruct Early Christianity

This week I had the pleasure of being part of a panel on the use of documentary sources or material culture as I prefer to call it and the interpretation of the Bible at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, which due to COVID 19 was online this year. My task in the panel was to address how I determine a source to be documentary or material, what method I use to interpret documentary sources or material culture, and what value these sources have in the interpretation of the Bible. 

As a historian of early Christianity who focuses on the Greco-Roman period of history, I determine a source to be documentary or material if it restores the human touch to the inquest of history. Thus, I define documentary sources as archaeological, papyrological, numismatic, statuary, inscriptional, and ceramic (i.e., pottery) evidence that individuals living in antiquity produced. In essence, almost anything that does not consist of written literature that scribes copied throughout the centuries. 

Let me unpack what I mean. Archaeological evidence comes from controlled, scientific excavations—whether they be large like the city of Philippi (see Image 1) or small like a cave near Khirbet Qumran (see Image 2)—conducted by qualified archaeologists. Papyrological evidence consists of ancient written documents on papyri or ostraca (i.e., pottery sherds). This dataset is diverse and contains private letters, reports, census, and much more (see Image 3).

Image 1: Forum of Philippi, Greece (© Wikimedia Commons: Marsyas)
Image 2: Cave 4 from Khirbet Qumran, Israel (© Wikimedia Commons: Effi Schweizer)
Image 3: Bill of sale for a donkey from Houghton Library, Harvard University (© Wikimedia Commons)

Numismatic evidence consists of coins that local cities and empires produced (see Image 4). These sources are diverse too and contain texts and images that help to reconstruct cults, magistrates, and customs of individual Greek cities. Statuary evidence are images that ancient artists created and that individuals viewed, which were erected throughout Greco-Roman cities (see Image 5). For a discussion of some of the famous statues of mainland Greece, see the second century CE traveler Pausanias and his Description of Greece

Image 4: Coin from Philippi, Greece depicting statue base of the Deified Julius crowning the Deified Augustus (© Wildwinds.com)
Image 5: Statue of Augustus from Thessalonica, Greece (© Livius.org)

Inscriptions are messages engraved, incised, or scratched on durable materials that imperial and local governments as well as individuals set up in conjunction with monuments (see Image 6). There are myriads of surviving Greco-Roman inscriptions (close to half a million) and this lot, like papyri, is diverse and consists of official decrees, funerary inscriptions, magical curses, and much more. Finally, ceramic evidence is pottery that individuals made, distributed, and used (see Image 7). Pottery is one of the surest chronological dating methods on an archaeological excavation because of the diversity of pottery in time and place and the constant changes in its appearance and shape.

Image 6: Gate of Mazaeus from Ephesus (© D. Clint Burnett)
Image 7: So-called scroll jars which is a distinctive pottery type to Qumran (© Wikimedia Commons: Public Domain)

To say that these sources are variegated is an understatement. Each type of documentary source has its method of interpretation with limitations and possibilities. As a historian of earliest Christianity, I try not to prefer one over the other (even though I am partial to inscriptions, see Image 8 and click here to purchase my book on inscriptions) because I am convinced that historians must use all these documentary sources to reconstruct antiquity. However, I confess to the ire of my friends and colleagues who are ceramicists that I find pottery the least exciting of documentary sources with which to work. In my reconstruction of history, I endeavor to use all these sources for one common goal: to provide what I call narrative glimpses, always incomplete, into the lives of ancient individuals. Thus, I am convinced that each documentary source that I use has a life of its own and a story to tell, which I labor to reconstruct. 

Image 8: My book on inscriptions!

In the end, every narrative glimpse that I reconstruct will be incomplete due to the fragmentary nature of the source. However, I am an optimist and something is always better than nothing. To reconstruct a given narrative glimpse, I approach whatever documentary source with which I am working contextually. That is, I interpret each datum in light of its archaeological context. Consider the following example. 

In the winter of 1855, a statue base with an inscription was discovered on the Greek island of Calymnus (on the western coast of modern-day Turkey, see Image 9) among the partial remains of a temple dedicated to a personification of Apollo, Delian Apollo, who appears to have been Calmynus’s patron deity. The inscription (see Image 10) dates to 37 CE and says: 

Image 9: Calymnus or Kalymnos is marked on this Google Map

 The citizen-body of the Calymnians dedicated (a statue of) Gaius Caesar [G]e[rma]nicus beside Apoll[o] [De]lian the Guardian of Calymnus because of his piety . . . (Ὁ δᾶμος ὁ Καλυμν[ί]ων συνκαθιέρωσε Ἀπόλλ[ω]νι [Δ]αλίῳ 
Καλύμ[ν]ας μεδέοντι άϊον Καίσαρα Γερ[μα]νικὸν εὐσεβ[είας ἕνε][κεν . . . . ]; my translation).

M. Segre, “Tituli Calymnii,” Annuario della scuola archeologica di Atene e delle missioni Italiane in oriente 22-23, (1944-1945) [1952]: no. 105
Image 10: Caligula’s temple sharing inscription (© Segre, ‘Tituli Calymnii”)

Because of the findspot of this inscription and a Greek term (συνκαθιέρωσε) and a linguistic construction (Ἀπόλλ[ω]νι [Δ]αλίῳ Καλύμ[ν]ας μεδέοντι, a dative of place) used in it, I have argued elsewhere that this statue base is of a temple sharing image.[1] That is, a statue of a benefactor that is set up inside the temple of a deity next to their cultic image. In this case, the benefactor is Caligula and the temple is that of Delian Apollo. During the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Greek kings and Roman emperors were in the best position to offer benefactions to Greek cities and thus there is more evidence that monarchs shared Greek temples than any other individual from antiquity. When rulers shared temples, it was to acknowledge the ruler’s piety and beneficence and to showcase that the deity in whose temple the ruler’s image was erected approved of and supported their reign. Provided that I have identified correctly this inscription from Calymnus, we can reconstruct the following narrative glimpse. 

Caligula provided some concrete benefaction for Calymnus, which the city interpreted as stemming from his piety. Hence, the mentioning of “because of his piety” (εὐσεβ[είας ἕνε][κεν . . .]) in the inscription. To show appreciation for this gift, the citizen-body met to decide how best to honor the emperor. Someone must have put forth the motion, which was subsequently ratified, that Caligula should share the temple of Delian Apollo and that his statue should be set up next to that the deity’s, which indeed occurred. This short narrative glimpse, however, is incomplete. We neither know the benefaction for which Calymnus granted Caligula temple sharing with Delian Apollo, details of other divine honors that the emperor received, nor if and when the island polity removed him from being Delian Apollo’s temple sharer. Nevertheless, without this inscription and archaeological site from Calymnus, we would never have known that Caligula has a relationship with this tiny, insignificant island. 

In my estimation, documentary sources such as this inscription and archaeological site from Calymnus are invaluable for reconstructing the social history of the early Roman Empire and thus the context of the spread of nascent Christianity for two main reasons. First and foremost, they are direct witnesses of the past that provide windows into the lives of non-elite men. Almost all surviving Greek and Latin literature are either by elite men or those who were patronized by them, much of which focuses on major events that and persons who changed the course of history in the Mediterranean world and the ancient Near East. In short, they focus on history from above. What is more, this literature has been passed down through the copying, editing, and sometimes alteration of scribes until the invention and widespread use of the printing press. Such is not the case with documentary sources where we can construct the social history of non-major cities such as Calymnus and where we can find letters and inscriptions composed by non-elite men, women, children, and slaves and sometimes archaeological sites where such individuals lived and worked. In short, documentary sources provide us with a history from below. Such information often supplements and sometimes contradicts surviving Greco-Roman literature. 

Second, documentary sources are contextual data allowing historians to contextualize early Christian documents in a way heretofore unrealized. Archaeological sites, inscriptions, coins, statuary, pottery, and the occasional papyri finds outside Egypt provide evidence for local cults, customs, law-codes, and traditions. This information has the potential to help us contextualize more concretely early Christian texts whose provenance and addressees are certain. To provide an example, I have been able to show in my contextual work that contrary to the oft-repeated false claim that the Roman emperor was hailed as Lord (kyrios) during Paul’s tenure as the apostle to the Gentiles (from the early 30s to the early 60s CE) inscriptions and coins from Philippi, Corinth, and Thessalonica indicate that the denizens of those cities did not acclaim the emperor with this title.[2] For all these reasons, I endeavor to employ documentary sources, as much as literary sources, in any research project that I undertake. My hope is that my fellow New Testament scholars will do likewise!   


[1] D. Clint Burnett, Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand and Its Greco–Roman Cultural Context, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 242 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2021)

[2] D. Clint Burnett, Studying the New Testament Through Inscriptions: An Introduction (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2020); “Imperial Divine Honors in Julio–Claudian Thessalonica and the Thessalonian Correspondence,” Journal of Biblical Literature 139 (2020): 567–89; reprinted in The First Urban Churches 7: Thessalonica, edited by James R. Harrison and Larry L. Welborn (Atlanta: SBL Press, forthcoming); “Divine Titles for Julio–Claudian Imperials in Corinth,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 82 (2020): 437–55; Christ’s Enthronement.