Balance is what Tom calls for in the discussion of Paul’s already and not yet comments on rulers and authorities, and I quite agree. And the not yet seems clearly enough in play in 2 Thess. 2.1-5 when we hear about the man of lawlessness who will be revealed, who usurps divine roles, making himself out to be a god. Here, it would indeed appear that the target may be the Emperor cult. Having said that, it is well to bear in mind that the description here seems indebted to the story about Antiochus Epiphanes and his foray into the Jewish Temple, and more proximately Gaius Caligula and his thwarted attempt in about 40 A.D. to have his statue set up in the Jerusalem Temple, which thankfully never came to pass. Paul however in 2 Thess. 2 seems to be envisioning a future event, not a past one, and as Tom goes on to say on p. 1291, the language of parousia in 1 Thess. 4-5 seems to be drawing on, and at least implicitly critiquing the visiting of a king or Emperor to a city like Thessalonike. Now if both the passages in 1 Thess. 4-5 and 2 Thess. 2 use language alluding to the Emperor cult, it is crucial to point out that both of these passages are about the FUTURE, and in particular what is true about the parousia. There is thus no contradiction with say Rom. 13.1-7, as Paul does not think when he wrote that that we had yet arrived at such a scenario. And then there is this point to be made. Precisely because Paul does believe in and trust the sovereignty of God, and does believe that the rulers of this world are being made obsolete, there is no reason for him to engage in a huge polemic against obsolescent rulers in his letters to his converts. All he really needs to say is they are on their way out, and when Jesus returns he will deal especially with the God-usurping ones. It is not necessary then for him to either spend a lot of time critiquing earthly rulers, or connecting them with the demonic, or suggesting that current rulers are already necessarily bad to the bone, hopelessly compromised, never upholding justice and the like. He can simply leave them in God’s hands, and focus instead on the positive presentations of his Gospel.
Again, when Tom deals with Phil. 3.18-21, he rightly says there seem to be some allusions to the Emperor claiming to be the savior and the like, but notice that the juncture at which Paul wants to say that sort of rule is supplanted by Jesus is not back at the resurrection and ascension but rather at the coming parousia. “We are citizens of heaven and we eagerly await for the [true] Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ to come from there.” Just so. This is part of Paul’s future eschatology, not the ‘already’ and it is at that juncture Jesus will supplant the rulers of this world. It is at that point it will be fully true and clear that Jesus is the reality of which all arrogant human rulers, especially those claiming divine status, will be seen as mere parodies of the Coming One. For now, we live in hope.
One of the issue Tom has regularly brought up when it comes to Paul and Emeperor cult critique is the issue of hidden transcripts. As others have said, the purpose of hidden transcripts is if you are writing to a broad enough audience that some one or some ones might dramatically reject what is said if they picked up the allusions. So, for example, as John Barclay has pointed out to me, there is a difference between Josephus, who is writing in part for a Roman imperial audience (or at least the court) and Paul who is simply writing to Christians, mainly his own converts. In other words, there was not a lot of need or pressure for Paul to use coded language or hidden transcripts in his letters, and especially if the real critique was not referring to a contrast between Jesus and various current rulers who might well be decent and just leaders at least to some degree, and but a contrast between Jesus and an anti-Christ like leader who would come in the future and whom Jesus would respond to at his return (see 2 Thess. 2). Was Paul apt to pussyfoot around an issue, worried he might offend some in the audience? This hardly sounds like the Paul of say Galatians. If he really wanted to critique the Emperor cult in an full and direct way, he could have done so in these letters, or at least some of them. The fact that he doesn’t, when it comes to present rulers (see again Rom. 13.1-7) when the opportunity was there to do so, should warn us against taking the overtones or allusions of a text more seriously than the tones and direct utterances in a text. Thus, while it may be that Paul in Philippians (see ppp. 1296-97) be suggesting to the Philippians that they think less of their Roman citizenship status and more of their heavenly status, it is only the latter which is front lighted. And when he tells them ‘whatever is excellent etc.’ the audience surely must have seen that as a reference to finding and affirming the good things about the social life in a Roman colony city, and affirming them. Finally, the fact that Jesus is Lord, indeed our Lord, can be seen as a counter claim to polytheisms of various sorts including the Emperor cult, but the idea that such claim is stated in specific opposition to Caesars claims is more uncertain. Paul is trying to make a strong positive point about the Lordship of Christ. Whether it has buried in it a barb directed specifically at the Emperor cult is less clear than the positive thrust. Had, as Tom suggests (p. 1298), the human rulers and authorities already been judged and mocked and humiliated on the cross of Jesus? Paul does not say so, indeed he suggests they would not have done what they did had they been better informed (see 1 Cor. 2). Likewise in Acts, the ignorance motif is used to explain why the Jewish leaders acted as they did, and Jesus himself says from the cross they were acting in ignorance in Luke’s Gospel. Even when the rulers of this world are critiqued, they are not demonized as having been judged and humiliated on the cross. No, it is the powers of darkness whom Jesus took on on the cross and whipped. As Tom admits on p. 1299— Paul’s teaching and theology cannot be reduced to some sort of anti-Imperial rhetoric. Just so. The question then becomes, to what degree at all is he critiquing the human rulers. Some will say more, some will say less, but in either case, it is not his major emphasis or thrust. That would be the Good News about Jesus, a very different message of love, joy, peace, patience, and kindness, even towards rulers and those who abuse Christians. We are up to p. 1300, and will take a pause to do some chronicling of a different journey, not unlike one of Paul’s sea journeys, before returning to finish the last 200 or so pages of the book in the latter days of September.
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