Review of Fletcher-Louis’s Divine Heart

Posted on by

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.

[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.

Review of Haddad’s Paul & Empire Criticism: Why and How?

Posted on by

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.

Review of Jonathan Bernier, Rethinking the Dates of the New Testament: The Evidence for Early Composition (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2022)

Posted on by

The purpose of this book is to explore the question: when were the twenty-seven books of the New Testament as well as 1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas composed? Jonathan Bernier’s answer to this query is that, aside from the Pauline epistles, many of these works were written some twenty to thirty years before most scholars conclude they were composed:

Early Christian WorkDate (all dates are in AD)
Matthew 45–49
Mark 42–45
Luke 59
John 60–70
Acts 62
Romans Winter of 56/57
1 Corinthians Early 56
2 Corinthians Late 56
Galatians 47–52
Ephesians 57–59
Philippians 57–59
Colossians 57–59
1 Thessalonians 50–52
2 Thessalonians 50–52
1 Timothy (if Pauline)63 or 64
1 Timothy (if not Pauline)60–150
2 Timothy (if Pauline)64–68
2 Timothy (if not Pauline)60–150
Titus (if Pauline)64–68
Titus (if not Pauline)60–150
Philemon 57–59
Hebrews 50–70
James Before 62
1 Peter 60–69
2 Peter (if Petrine) 60–69
2 Peter (if not Petrine)60–125
1 John 60–100
2 John 60–100
3 John Before 100
Jude Before 96
Revelation 68–70
1 Clement 64–70
Didache 60–125
Epistle of Barnabas70–132
Shepherd of Hermas 70–125

Bernier arrived at these dates from what he calls a synthetic treatment of early Christian history that “considers judgments on a disparate range of distinct yet densely interconnected matters and seeks to integrate them into a complex but unified synthesis.” The reason for this type of treatment is that the issue of dating these Christian works tends “to spiderweb into a need to treat one or more of” the above-mentioned works (1).   

Bernier divides his monograph into an Introduction, ten chapters, which form the bulk of the book, and a Conclusion. In the Introduction, he places his work into the history of scholarship on the question of dating the New Testament books, especially the work of James A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (3–17), and defines its parameters, method, and goals (17–32). Bernier’s aim is to provide relative dates for the New Testament books and four other early noncanonical Christian works from the synchronization of events of early Christian history, the contextualization of these Christian literary sources, and from what we know of the authors of these works, what Bernier calls authorial biography (22–27). 

The first and second chapters of Rethinking focus on the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. Bernier accepts that Mark was composed first, Matthew second, and Luke and Acts (by the same author) third. His main foci of the first chapter is: (1) whether or not Jesus’s prediction of Jerusalem’s destruction requires a post AD 70 date (see Matthew 22:7; 24:1–2; 26:59–61; 27:51; Mark 13:1–2; 14:57–58; 15:38; Luke 19:41–44; 21:5–6, 20–28; 23:45) and (2) the dating of Luke-Acts. Bernier concludes that nothing in Matthew, Mark, or Luke demands a post AD 70 date. To the contrary, Jesus’s warning about the abomination of desolation and the events connected to it (Matthew 24:15–31; Mark 13:14–27) “are more fully intelligible before 70 than they are after” and the references to Jesus’s Second Coming (Matthew 16:28; 24:34; Mark 9:1; 13:30; Luke 9:27; 21:32) favor an earlier, rather than a later, date (66–67). Moreover, because Acts ends with Paul awaiting trial, it most likely dates before AD 62 (67). 

In the second chapter, Bernier contextualizes the Synoptic Gospels and examines biographical data from them, proposing that the lack of emphasis on the Gentile mission in Mark places it before the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15 (AD 48) and Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels sometime after that but before AD 62 (because he dates Acts to AD 62 and places Matthew before Luke) (70–71). In addition, Marcan authorship of Mark and its connection to Peter in Rome is plausible and the “we-passages” of Acts suggest that the author was a companion of Paul (82–84). 

The third and fourth chapters of Rethinking examine the Johannine documents, John’s Gospel, 1–3 John, and Revelation. External evidence, namely P52, places John before AD 120, the prediction of Peter’s death (John 21:18–19) tends to support a time when the apostle was alive, Jesus’s comment about the author of John remaining alive until the Second Coming (John 21:22–23) does not require the Beloved Disciple to be dead at the time of composition, and Jesus’s references to the temple (John 2:19–22; 4:21) are intelligible before or after its destruction. However, Bernier finds that the mentioning of the pool of Bethesda as existing at the time of the Gospel’s composition suggests a date before AD 70 (102). Moreover, he argues that past reasons for a late date of John, namely Christology and the author’s supposed knowledge of Gnosticism, are flawed. He proposes that John’s Christology is as “high” as Paul’s and that John does not evince knowledge of second century AD Gnosticism (108). For these reasons, he dates John before AD 70. 

From external evidence, 1–3 John date before AD 150, AD 175, and AD 250 respectively. Internally, the Christology of 1–2 John suggests that these letters are not earlier than Paul’s epistles (115–17) and the most probable candidates for authorship of these missives are John the son of Zebedee or John the Elder, both of which lived in the first century AD (118). Concerning Revelation, Bernier hypothesizes that the beasts of Revelation 13:1–18 make more sense before Nero’s death in AD 68 than after, and the references to the Jerusalem temple and Jerusalem in Revelation 11:1–2, 13 are more intelligible before AD 70 than after (123). Internally, the author’s concern for food offered to idols makes more sense between AD 40 and 60 (when early Christians were debating under what circumstances Gentiles could enter their movement), the references to Rome as Babylon cannot exclude a pre-AD 70 date, and that the work probably dates between AD 68 and 70 (126).

In chapters five and six, Bernier tackles the Pauline corpus. The former chapter discusses Pauline authorship—Bernier accepts the undisputed letters, that Paul contributed to Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians, and he offers possible date ranges that include and exclude Pauline authorship for the Pastorals (1–2 Timothy and Titus)—and the importance of Acts for dating Paul’s letters (133–43). In chapter six, he attempts to date and provide provenances for each epistle in the corpus. In the process, he places Galatians as the first extant Pauline letter, the Prison Epistles in Caesarea Maritima in the late AD 50s, and the Pastorals to the AD 60s if genuine, but between AD 60 and the mid-second century AD if they are not (179–82).

Chapters seven and eight discuss the Catholic Epistles, less 1–3 John. In chapter seven, Bernier examines Hebrews and James. Concerning the former, the reference to the temple (Hebrews 10:1–3) is more intelligible if the temple were still standing and the mentioning of Timothy places the work after this individual entered Christian ministry around AD 50 (193). Hebrews 2:3 and the reference to the author and his audience hearing the Gospel from those who heard it from Jesus presupposes an author who has not heard the earthly Jesus. All these data place the missive between AD 50 and 70 (194–95). Decisive external and internal evidence to date the letter of James is lacking. However, it’s probable author, James the brother of Jesus, places it before AD 62 (209). 

Chapter eight of Rethinking considers 1–2 Peter and Jude. Concerning 1 Peter, Bernier notes that decisive external and internal data to help date this missive are lacking. However, because Peter composed it, it dates between AD 60 and 69 (223). Second Peter must postdate the Pauline letters (2 Peter 3:15b–16) and this epistle is the strongest candidate for a pseudonymous letter in the New Testament (229). Like 1 Peter, there is not much data to date Jude. However, it was probably written by the historical Jude who probably died at the end of Domitian’s reign. Therefore, the letter probably predates AD 96. 

In chapters nine and ten, Bernier examines the noncanonical writings,1 Clement, the Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and the Shepherd of Hermas. Chapter nine considers the first two. Concerning 1 Clement, Bernier contends that the work’s reference to the deaths of Peter and Paul (1 Clement 5:4–7) call for a date after AD 64 and that 1 Clement is more intelligible before AD 70 than after (250–51). With regard to the Didache, Bernier surmises that the author(s) knew Matthew’s Gospel (which he dates between AD 45 and 49), that the focus on the inclusion of Gentiles (Didache 6:2–3) “parallels” the concern of the Christian movement between AD 40 and 60, and that the references to traveling teachers, prophets, apostles, bishops, and deacons (Didache 11–13) are closer to AD 40 through 60 than the second century AD (258). In chapter ten, Bernier concludes that the Epistle of Barnabas (especially 16:3–4) postdates the temple’s destruction in AD 70 but no later than AD 132, the beginning of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (270–71), and that the Shepherd of Hermas is more intelligible near the end or after the apostolic generation than before (274). 

Finally, in his Conclusion, Bernier summarizes his work and calls for more attention to synthetic methods of dating early Christian and Jewish texts.

This monograph is a tour de force of synthetic logic and reasoning, which has caused me to reconsider my own dating of some New Testament documents and the “orthodoxy” of dating of these early Christian texts found in most New Testament introductions. In particular, Bernier has piqued my interest in exploring further the relationship between the temple’s destruction and the dating of the New Testament documents. In short, do the references to this event in the Gospels necessitate a post AD 70 dating? I look forward to thinking with Bernier’s work to answer this question and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the dating of the New Testament documents! Click here to purchase the book directly from Baker and here from Amazon.

The destruction of the temple (1867) by Francesco Hayez now in the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice, Italy

I appreciate Baker Academic for providing me with a review copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it!   

Oldest Christian Artifact in Northern Europe and St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians!

Posted on by

Archaeologists from Goethe University (Frankfurt, Germany) announced this week the discovery of a small silver amulet, 3.5 cm, outside Frankfurt. The artifact contains an 18-line Latin inscription indicating that its wearer was a third century AD Christian. The amulet, along with an incense burner and a clay jug, was found in the grave of a man dating between AD 230 and 270 and specifically under his chin. Therefore, the object must have worn around the man’s neck, at least for his burial but probably during his life, too. The inscription contains references to St. Titus, the Trisagion, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and a reference to St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 2:10-11a.

All pictures taken from https://arkeonews.net/frankfurt-silver-inscription-archaeologists-unearth-oldest-christian-artifact-north-of-the-alps/.

The significance of the find is that it provides the earliest concrete evidence to date for Christianity in Northern Europe (for more, see Goethe University’s press release by clicking here). What interests me is the inscription’s references to Philippians 2:10-11a–“so that a Jesus’s name every knee in heaven, on earth, and under the earth might bow and every knee might confess” (my translation)–and to St Titus.

According to the announcement, the epigraph reads:

(In the name?) of St. Titus.
Holy, holy, holy!
In the name of Jesus Christ, Son of God!
The lord of the world
resists to the best of his [ability?]
all seizures(?)/setbacks(?).
The god(?) grants well-being
Admission.
This rescue device(?) protects
the person who
surrenders to the will
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
since before Jesus Christ
bend all knees: the heavenly ones,
the earthly and
the subterranean, and every tongue
confess (to Jesus Christ)” (translation from Dr. Markus Scholz, see here).

The announcement did not contain the epigraph’s Latin text so it is unclear if this is a direct quotation or an allusion to the verses from Philippians. Nevertheless, this exciting discovery is evidence for the use of this letter of St. Paul’s as well as at least knowledge of one or more of the following letters, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 2 Timothy, and Titus, which mention St. Titus (2 Cor 2:13; 7:6, 13, 14; 8:6, 16; 12:18; Gal 2:1, 3; 2 Tim 4:10; Tit 1:4, in an early Christian community outside modern-day in Frankfurt!

Another Possible Epigraphic Reference to Lucius Sergius Paullus

Posted on by

In 1895, the German epigrapher Ludwig Bürchner visited the Greek island of Samos to record inscriptions, which he placed in a notebook that currently is in the archive of the Inscriptiones Graecae at the Berlin Academy (Germany). One epigraph that Bürchner noted was a Latin epitaph that may refer to Lucius Sergius Paullus; the most probable candidate for the Cypriot proconsul whom Paul and Barnabas encountered on Cyprus (Acts 13:7).

This funerary inscription remained unknown to most of the scholarly world until 1964, when another German epigrapher, Günter Dunst published all known Latin epigraphs from Samos, which were known at that time.[1] In the process, he pointed out the existence of a certain first century AD “grave inscription” (Grabinschrift), which refers to “a slave of L(ucius) Ṣẹrgius Paullus” (eines Skiaven des L(ucius) Ṣẹrgius Paullus) named “Gemellus” (Gemellus).

Some historians have accepted Dunst’s identification. Professor Werner Eck (Cologne University, Germany) comments on the epitaph:

Vermutlich ist dies der in der Apostelgeschichte bezeugte Sergius Paulus; sein Sklave war vielleicht auf der Fahrt nach dem Osten auf Samos gestorben. Er erhielt ein eigenes Grab und der volle Name des Herrn sagte, dass der Verstorbene kein Niemand gewesen ist.

Presumably, this is the Sergius Paulus attested in the Acts of the Apostles; perhaps his slave died on Samos on his journey to the East. He received his own tomb and his master’s full name testified that the deceased was not a nobody.[2]

In 2003, Prof. Klaus Hallof (Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Germany) edited all the Samian inscriptions and revisited the epigraph in question. After consulting Bürchner’s notebook, he reproduced the following text, restoring the name Lucius Sergius Paulinus, not Lucius Sergius Paullus:

Gemello ∙ L(uci) ∙
Ṣẹrgi ∙ Paul–
[i]n[i ∙] servo
– –m ∙ f(aciendum) c(uravit) ∙ Dro–

“For Gemellus, the slave of L(ucius) Sergius Paulinus, who made this . . . Dro . . .”[3]

I have been unable to examine the epigraph or see a picture of it. Presumably, the inscription is lost and Prof. Hallof informs me that the squeeze that Bürchner made is of poor quality. Therefore, it remains debatable whether or not the stone refers to the member of the Sergii Paulli whom Paul and Barnabas probably met.

Nevertheless, Alexander Weiß proposes that even if the epitaph refers to Lucius Sergius Paulinus, he still may be associated with Lucius Sergius Paullus:

denn Paulinus wäre wohl ein Freigelassener oder ein Nachkomme eines Freigelassenen dieser Familie.

For Paulinus is probably a freedman or a descendant of a freedman of this family.[4]

Weiß may be correct. Hopefully, future epigraphic discoveries will shed light on this epigraph and the presence of Lucius Sergius Paullus or Lucius Sergius Paulinus on Samos and his possible connection to early Christianity.

[1] Günter Dunst, “Die lateinischen Inschriften von Samos,” Helikon 4 [1964]: 284

[2] Werner Eck, “Sklaven und Freielassene von Römern in Iudaea und den angrenzendenzenden Provinzen,” Novum Testamentum 55 (2013): 19

[3] IG XII.6 no. 711

[4] Alexander Weiß, Soziale Elite und Christentum Studien zu ordo-Angehörigen unter den frühen Christen (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2105), 73.