1 Thessalonians versus Empire...Who Knew?
At least, that's the question that has come to mind as I've re-engaged Paul's earliest extant letter.
For some time I have not paid particular attention to the Thessalonian correspondence. Part of the avoidance may be the sour taste of overdone eschatological speculation that has drawn from these letters. 1 Thess supposedly teaches the "rapture" and 2 Thess explains the "coming world leader Antichrist blah blah blah." In other words, these two brief letters have been scripted into the otherwordly and spiritualized narrative of contemporary First World apocalypticism. Just give us that pie in the sky, Jesus, we're waiting to go home!
But what if there's more going on in this correspondence than meets the eye? I've recently come across some interesting work on these letters, most particularly 1 Thessalonians, as anti-imperial rhetoric. Paul writes to a community that is suffering difficult ostracism and persecution. The archaeological and historical record indicates that the elites of Thessalonica strongly cultivated Roman beneficence. Alongside the state-sponsored cult of Cabirus the imperial cult was established and promoted early. The small community of Christians thus encountered opposition not from "Judaizers" but from their "own countrymen" (2:14). Nevertheless, Paul reminds the believers, Jesus Christ is truly "Lord" (and, it is implied, not Caesar) and he is the one who brings salvation (again, not the guy in Rome).
These believers belong to an alternative brotherhood (1:6-8) that operates independently of Roman patronage system and in separation from Caesar's claim of the empire as household and family. Looking forward to their future vindication, Paul tells the Thessalonians that those who live to see the Lord Jesus return will "meet" (apantesis) him in the air. This term was used to describe the ceremonial reception of a visiting emperor or other such official who is met outside the city gates and then escorted on the final leg of his journey. The point, then, is not that Christians get to escape this world but that they have the honor of receiving the true Sovereign just before he arrives. Further still in 5:3 Paul criticizes the claim of "peace and security," which was something of an imperial slogan from the days of Augustus.
What we have in 1 Thessalonians, argues Abraham Smith, is a document of moral formation "designed to support the shared values of a network of ekklesiai in the face of competing values in the larger society." ("1 and 2 Thessalonians," A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, 312).
For some time I have not paid particular attention to the Thessalonian correspondence. Part of the avoidance may be the sour taste of overdone eschatological speculation that has drawn from these letters. 1 Thess supposedly teaches the "rapture" and 2 Thess explains the "coming world leader Antichrist blah blah blah." In other words, these two brief letters have been scripted into the otherwordly and spiritualized narrative of contemporary First World apocalypticism. Just give us that pie in the sky, Jesus, we're waiting to go home!
But what if there's more going on in this correspondence than meets the eye? I've recently come across some interesting work on these letters, most particularly 1 Thessalonians, as anti-imperial rhetoric. Paul writes to a community that is suffering difficult ostracism and persecution. The archaeological and historical record indicates that the elites of Thessalonica strongly cultivated Roman beneficence. Alongside the state-sponsored cult of Cabirus the imperial cult was established and promoted early. The small community of Christians thus encountered opposition not from "Judaizers" but from their "own countrymen" (2:14). Nevertheless, Paul reminds the believers, Jesus Christ is truly "Lord" (and, it is implied, not Caesar) and he is the one who brings salvation (again, not the guy in Rome).
These believers belong to an alternative brotherhood (1:6-8) that operates independently of Roman patronage system and in separation from Caesar's claim of the empire as household and family. Looking forward to their future vindication, Paul tells the Thessalonians that those who live to see the Lord Jesus return will "meet" (apantesis) him in the air. This term was used to describe the ceremonial reception of a visiting emperor or other such official who is met outside the city gates and then escorted on the final leg of his journey. The point, then, is not that Christians get to escape this world but that they have the honor of receiving the true Sovereign just before he arrives. Further still in 5:3 Paul criticizes the claim of "peace and security," which was something of an imperial slogan from the days of Augustus.
What we have in 1 Thessalonians, argues Abraham Smith, is a document of moral formation "designed to support the shared values of a network of ekklesiai in the face of competing values in the larger society." ("1 and 2 Thessalonians," A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings, 312).
Labels: Bible and Empire
