Review of Crispin Fletcher-Louis, The Divine Heartset: Paul’s Philippians Christ Hymn, Metaphysical Affections, & Civic Virtues (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023)

Divine Heartset is the largest book ever written on Phil 2:6–11, the so-called “Philippian Christ hymn,” just shy of half a million words. Because of that and Fletcher-Louis’s bold claims in it, this volume is too big to describe and discuss in detail, as is my habit in book reviews. Therefore, I will provide only a short summary of the work and interact with Fletcher-Louis’s main theses about the passage. 

Divine Heartset’s goal is to provide a “comprehensive interpretation” of Phil 2:6–11 (1), a goal that Fletcher-Louis attempts to accomplish by walking the reader through his intellectual journey of his interpretation of the passage (xix). In the first chapter, “Philippians 2:6–11 in Modern Scholarship: Agreements, Uncertainties, Questions and Possibilities” (1–59), he explores in detail the current state of scholarship on Phil 2:6–11 not only among English speaking scholars but also among those on continental Europe. The second chapter, “Christ the Ideal ‘Divine’ Ruler and Emperor?” (60–105), examines the argument, popular today, that the “hymn” draws on language from imperial divine honors, more commonly but erroneously known among New Testament scholars and clergy as “the imperial cult.” Fletcher-Louis concludes that Phil 2:6’s reference to Jesus having equality with God and his exaltation to the heavenly throne in Phil 2:9–11 do not reflect an adoption of divine honors for rulers.   

Chapters three–nine, “Popular Religion and the Hymn’s Primary Narrative: Divine and Human Transformation” (106–64), “Τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ “The Being (That Is) in a Manner Equal to God” (Phil 2:6c) (165–205), “The Divine Being That Has Become: Christ and Philosophy” (206–64), “Against the Behavior of Sexual Predators (Phil 2:6b: οὐχ ἁρπαγμὸν) (265–316), “Divine Desire and Love after Christ (Phil 1:8–10, 23; 2:6–8; 3:12–14; and 4:1), including a long excursus on the interpretation of ἁρπαγμός (317–412), “The ‘Name above All Names’: Κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς (Phil 2:9–11) (413–57), and “LORD Jesus Christ”: Divine Cult Name with ‘Biographical’ Epithets” (458–517), are the book’s load-bearing technical chapters in which Fletcher-Louis provides a comprehensive interpretation of Phil 2:6–11 focusing on its syntax and meaning and providing linguistic and historical evidence supporting his arguments. 

In these chapters, he sets forth three bold proposals. First, the language of equality with God (τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ) in Phil 2:6 is taken, not from the Bible or Hellenistic and Roman propaganda about kings and emperors, but from Greek and Roman philosophical language about the nature of the divine. To this end, Phil 2:6 speaks of the preincarnate Messiah’s equality with God in an absolute, ontological sense, demonstrating its true meaning by the Messiah becoming a fully human obedient slave who suffered death on the cross (Phil 2:7–8). 

Second, Fletcher-Louis translates the term ἁρπαγμός in Phil 2:6, which the NRSV renders, “as something to be exploited,” the NIV as “something to be grasped,” and the ESV as “a thing to be grasped,” as “erotic abduction,” “kidnap marriage,” or “bridenapping.” Thus, according to Fletcher-Louis, “Christ, before his self-transformation, reckons that the God-equal manner of being is not one defined by such an aggressive means to erotic satiation or conjugal union” (315). His justification for this translation is the lexical use of the term, ἁρπαγμός, in Greek texts. For Fletcher-Louis, it is the preincarnate Messiah’s rejection of bridenapping, which he contends was a popular pagan belief, that demonstrates his “servant-hearted disavowal of the usual mechanisms of power [of the pagan gods], in the gift of himself” (315). 

Third, the name that is above every name in Phil 2:9–11 is not “Lord” or “Jesus” as many scholars claim, but “Lord Jesus Messiah,” which identifies the human Jesus with the divine king of the cosmos, YHWH the Lord. 

Returning to the summary of Divine Heartset, in chapter ten, “Genre and Source: A Traditional, Para-Philippians, Hymn” (518–79), Fletcher-Louis explores the genre of Phil 2:6–11 and the issue of whether St. Paul is quoting some kind of liturgical text with which his audience is familiar. He concludes that Phil 2:6–11, along with Phil 3:20–21, is a “hymn” that dates to St. Paul’s Christian lifetime. He does not attempt to speculate on its origins, however.  

Chapters eleven–thirteen as well as nine, “Glory, Honor, and Praise: Celebrity Life in This Metaphysic” (580–751), “Incarnation and Empathy” (752–88), and “Persons: Divine and Human” (789–818), investigate the passage’s place and function in the letter to the Philippians and offers Fletcher-Louis’s own proposals about them as well as discussing the divine nature of the Messiah in Phil 2:6–11. In short, Fletcher-Louis argues that the “hymn” is didactic and provides believers in Philippi with a reminder of the true way of life grounded in the ontology of the empathetic incarnate, crucified, resurrected, and ascended Messiah Jesus. Moreover, St. Paul’s original audience would have understood the passage to reveal that the God of Israel exists in two divine persons, the Father and the Son. 

Chapter 14, “Conformity to Christ and Salvation” (819–55), serves as the capstone of Fletcher-Louis’s book contending that the “hymn’s” purpose is to explicate the divine identity of God as two persons, the Father and the Son, and it is this God to whom St. Paul and the Philippian Christians are being conformed. Hence, the letter’s purposes are to reveal the “complete formation” in the Philippians of an “identity,” a “spirituality,” and “virtuous mortal facilities” that are “conformed to the divine and human person who is (the incarnate, crucified, resurrected, and exalted) LORD Jesus Christ” (854; emphasis his). 

In the Postscript, “On the Origins of the Hymn,” (856–60), Fletcher-Louis argues that Phil 2:6–11 + 3:20–21 is not a pre-Pauline “hymn” but one that is most probably para-Pauline in that it was composed during St. Paul’s Christian lifetime. Fletcher-Louis sees its composition as arising from what he calls a “creative Christological development” from the engagement of Christians with Greco-Roman culture for the purpose of evangelism, what he refers to as a “missiological accommodation.” Thus, the “hymn” “tells an existing and settled story of Christ using language and concepts that its author was at home with and to which the [Christian] young movement found itself exposed, as it moved out from its birthplace in Palestine and Jerusalem . . . [and it exists because] some Greek-speaking Christ-follower(s) decided . . . to tell their Savior’s story in ways intelligible to family, friends, and neighbors” (858). 

Fletcher-Louis provides three appendices: one on translating the hymn “Translating the LORD Jesus Christ and God the Father Hymn” (861–62) (for his translation see the end of this review), one on the use of the concept of divine equality in ancient Greek texts, “An Inventory of Divine-Equality Texts, from Homer to the Third Century CE” (863–82), and one on statistics related to the second appendix, “Statistical Observations on the Six Syntactic Types of Divine-Equality Statement” (863–82). Finally, he provides a complete bibliography and indices, the latter of which is available in a downloadable PDF. 

This work is big and bold. Regardless of whether one agrees with Fletcher-Louis’s conclusions, it is clear that he has conducted a great deal of research and included it in this volume. For that alone, one should give thanks to him! 

Fletcher-Louis has convinced me that the name that God bestows upon the ascended Jesus is “LORD Jesus the Messiah” (Phil 2:9–11). Thanks for your hard work there and for pointing out that for ancient Greeks and Romans more names are better in that they demonstrate more honor!

I am sympathetic with his argument that the background of equality with God in Phil 2:6 is found in ancient Greek myths about the pagan gods. As readers can see, I agree with Fletcher-Louis that Phil 2:6’s framework cannot be divine honors for ancient Greek kings and Roman emperors.^[i] Therefore, this alternative is compelling and one that I will continue to think with and that scholars should explore. If Fletcher-Louis is correct about the concept of equality with God in Phil 2:6, then I see no way around the conclusion that Phil 2:6–11 presents the divinity of Jesus as ontological, not functional, as many scholars claim today. 

Fletcher-Louis makes a compelling case for the translation of ἁρπαγμός as “erotic abduction,” “kidnap marriage,” or “bridenapping.” To be honest, for some reason I find myself pushing back against this proposal. It may be my faith and my conservative Anglican theological perspective, or it may be my modern Western sensibilities. I don’t know. I will have to consider this point further. 

Finally, I too contend that Phil 2:6–11 is not Pauline, and I agree that it could easily be para-Pauline, or composed after the apostle was called to be a Christian. However, I am uncomfortable with the conclusion that the passage is a “hymn” because it does not look like any ancient Greek or Jewish hymn that we possess.^[ii]

In sum, this work is a necessary tool for anyone conducting research on Phil 2:6–11. My hope is that Fletcher-Louis will publish his findings in a shorter, abridged, and more accessible version so that non-scholars and clergy can read and interact with it!

Fletcher-Louis’s translation of Phil 2:5–11:

“Think this way among yourselves, which also you think in Christ Jesus, 

            who being in God’s form,

            considered not bridenapping

            the God-equal mode of being,

            but emptied himself,

            taking a slave’s form,

            in human likeness becoming

            and in human figure found,

            he humbled himself, 

            becoming obedient unto death

            –death, even, by a cross.

            Wherefore God also highly exalted him

            and gave him the name

            that is above every name, 

            that at the name of Jesus 

            every knee should bend

            in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

            and every tongue confess 

            ‘LORD Jesus Messiah!’

            for the glory of God, the Father” (Phil 2:5–11).

I am grateful to Cascade Books for this gratis copy of Divine Heartset, which in no way prejudiced my review of it.

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^[i] D. Clint Burnett, Paul & Imperial Divine Honors: Christ, Caesar, and the Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024), 62–63.

^[ii] D. Clint Burnett, Christ’s Enthronement at God’s Right Hand and Its Greco-Roman Cultural Context, BZNW 242 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 113–16.

In this book, Najeeb T. Haddad explores and critiques the scholarly trend of reading St. Paul and his letters in light of “empire criticism,” which he defines as “how” St. Paul “engages with the presence of Rome,” “how” he “offer[s] arguments for and against empire, and how Greco-Roman religion, especially imperial cult, could have influenced” him (2).

In the first chapter, “Paul, Politics, and Empire” (1–27), Haddad places “empire criticism” into its modern social context, the numerous military engagements and forever wars in which the United States of America remains embroiled. He, then, contextualizes Rome’s first century AD power structures and how she integrated and/or suppressed foreign peoples and their cults. Haddad concludes that Rome’s main goal with regard to her power and her attitude toward foreign peoples and their cults was to maintain her hegemony. He demonstrates that if any cult threatened that power, Rome suppressed it. One of these cults was Judaism, which gave birth to Christianity. Therefore, Haddad is adamant that one must understand St. Paul as a Second Temple Hellenistic Jew and the history of Roman-Jewish relations to understand the place of empire in the study of the apostle.

The second chapter, “Methods of Empire Criticism in Paul” (28–51), explores and critiques three non-exclusive “sections” of empire criticism: “polemical parallelism” advocated by Adolf Deissmann and N. T. Wright, “imperial cult” advanced by Karl P. Donfried, Richard Horsley, and Bruce Winter, and “hidden criticism” endorsed by Wright and Horsley. Concerning the first, Haddad proposes that parallelism does not necessarily equal a polemic. With regard to the second, he contends that these scholars work with an improper understanding of “imperial cult” and he agrees with Colin Miller that the “imperial cult” did not have a central place in most cities in which St. Paul established nascent Christian congregations. Finally, Haddad picks apart the underlying assumptions of “hidden criticism,” which he says stems from a failure of the first two “sections” to produce a convincing “empire critical” reading of St. Paul.

In the third chapter, “Goals and Techniques for Empire Criticism in Paul” (52–78), Haddad attempts to nuance the discussion of empire criticism in St. Paul by providing methodological clarity. He pushes readers to consider data outside written texts and then explores two facets of antiquity, the polis or city-state in Greek and the place of ancient associations in the civic landscape. Haddad examines what a polis meant for first century denizens of the Greco-Roman world: an entity in which families strive together to meet their civic and cultic duties. In this context, Haddad places St. Paul whom he says knew that civic authority was necessary for civil and economic stability of the empire, despite the occasional tyrant. As far as ancient associations are concerned, he notes that they provided stability to society and encouraged the worship of an associational patron deity. St. Paul’s congregations resembled ancient associations save for the offering of members participation in the resurrection and a new heaven and new earth.

The fourth chapter, “The Theological Significance of Pauline Empire Criticism” (79–107), tries to produce a more nuanced empire critical reading of one Pauline letter, Philippians. In the process, Haddad reads the missive in light of the apostle’s understanding of the new creation that has dawned in the Messiah event. On the one hand, St. Paul’s converts were adopted children of God, they were filled with God’s Holy Spirit, and they were “in Christ.” On the other hand, this new existence does not result in antagonism, but in believers’ “willful and voluntary obedience” to God just like Jesus, as the so-called Philippian hymn (Phil 2:5–11) underscores.

In the final chapter, “Conclusion: Paul and Empire Criticism” (108–10), Haddad summarizes his work and highlights what he considers two main points: St. Paul was a Hellenistic Jew, which means that from his Jewish upbringing the apostle already had a vision of the relationship between political authority and Judaism; and the lack of empire criticism being founded upon the traditional historical-critical method.

Haddad’s work is careful and nuanced and I appreciate his main emphasis on reading St. Paul’s letters in light of the new creation that has dawned in the Messiah event, his desire to move the empire critical discussion to more methodological clarity by exposing some of flaws in its current “sections,” and his use of material culture to interpret Philippians. However, there is one area in which this volume that is deficient and which I must push back: Haddad’s understanding of the role of the so-called “imperial cult” is inadequate, which stems from his reliance upon Colin Miller’s earlier, flawed work. Miller’s contention that “the imperial cult” was not particularly important for the cities in which St. Paul established congregations was built upon his misguided understanding of imperial divine honors, a term that I prefer, as a monolith religious movement instead of a complex, contextual series of divine honors that individuals, associations, cities, provinces, and Rome established to show appreciation for imperial benefaction. Moreover, as I show in my recent book, numismatic, archaeological, and inscriptional evidence demonstrates conclusively that imperial divine honors were a major part of the civic landscapes of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth.

In short, if readers understand this one area of deficiency of Haddad’s work, then his Paul & Empire Criticism: Why and How? is a great introduction to empire criticism and some of the methodological problems!

I am grateful to Cascade Book for providing me with a copy of this work, which in no way prejudiced my review of it.

One of my goals in my book, Paul and Imperial Divine Honors: Christ, Caesar, and the Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2024), is to demonstrate the diversity of Julio-Claudian imperial divine honors in the Roman Empire and that no such thing as “the imperial cult” existed. This is evident from a contextual examination of grants of such honors.

For example, in Rome and her colonies, imperial divine honors tended to be given to deceased Julio-Claudians whom the Roman Senate deified and provided a temple, cultic statue, altar, priests, sacrifices, festivals, and the official title Divus (for a male Julio-Claudian) and Diva (for a female Julio-Claudian). Because this deification tended to be reserved for Julio-Claudians who advanced the interests of Rome and her empire, not every emperor or Julio-Claudian was hailed as a Divus. For a list of these divi (the Latin plural of divus), see p. 43 of my book.

In Greek provinces, a group of provincials most often worked with the Roman provincial administration, the Roman Senate, and the reigning emperor to determine which Julio-Claudian would be given divine honors, where they would be located, and of what the honors in question would consist. These provincial honors were usually bestowed on living Julio-Claudians, but official documents associated with them tended to avoid calling the honored a “god” (theos in Greek). Moreover, the reason for their establishment was typically to be show gratitude for imperial benefaction and to court such future munificence.

Greek cities most often provided imperial divine honors to living Julio-Claudians to render appropriate gratitude for a specific beneficence and to court more acts of charity. Once the Julio-Claudian divinely honored died and thus could no longer benefit Greek cities concretely, they tended to lump that imperial into a growing number of divine imperials known as Augustan gods, θεοὶ Σεβαστοί (with the emperor Augustus being the chief exception). The traditions by which cities honored divinely the Julio-Claudians were local and some of them stretched back to Hellenistic period of Greek history and even beyond. Therefore, such honors were diverse. Given that there was no Roman oversight of these grants of divine honors, denizens of cities were free to call living or deceased Julio-Claudians “gods” or manifestations of the Olympians.

Finally, ancient Greeks and Romans divinely honored Julio-Claudians, both dead and alive, in their own homes, to varying degrees, and for varying reasons. For example, archaeologists working in Ephesus found a domestic imperial shrine in an elite apartment (insula) in a house in a block of such apartments (insulae) known as Terrace House 2. The shrine dates between AD 14 and 37 and consists of busts of Tiberius and Livia that had been set in a domestic shrine in a niche in the wall.

For the shrine, see Elisabeth Rathmayr, “New Evidence for Imperial Cult in Dwelling Unit 7 in Terrace House 2 in Ephesos,” in Ephesos as a Religious Center under the Principate, ed. Allen Black, Christine M. Thomas, and Trevor W. Thompson, WUNT 488 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022), 9–35. Often, scholarly works reference a bronze snake that was found with Tiberius’s and Livia’s busts. However, Rathmayr demonstrates that this is not the case and that the snake was placed in front of the niche much later.

In short, to quote Nijay Gupta’s excellent blurb about my book, “imperial divine honors were everywhere . . . [but] they were not everywhere the same.” This means that the early Christian interactions with them were not uniform and must have varied from city-to-city and province-to-province. For more on these interactions, check out my new book!

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.

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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.

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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.