Phil. 2:6-11 - Christ and Caesar?
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Christ and Caesar? maybe not...
While the emperor worship was practiced when Paul wrote Philippians, it may have yet been confined to dead emperors, as it was when it was established by Augustus. Nero did insist that he was on equal footing with the gods and had a statue of himself erected, but this was in 65 A. D., which most scholars would consider to be too late for the composition of Philippians (most prefer to place it at the beginning of the 60’s). Furthermore, Nero wasn’t taken very seriously, and didn’t do anything to enforce his claim. I believe the first Roman Emperor to demand and enforce worship of himself during his lifetime was Domitian. This is most certainly addressed in the book of Revelation, but Paul was long dead. Caligula also tried to enforce emperor worship, but was assasinated before anything could come of it; but this was long before Philippians was written, and probably before Paul had even been commissioned by the church in Antioch for missionary work.
While I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that Paul is referring to Nero or the imperial cult, I think it is more plausible to conjecture that he has someone like Antiochus Epiphanes, the ’manifest god’ as a recent example of something which went back much, much farther. I would actually relate the whole thing more directly to a reversal of the fall in Christ:
Adam was created in the image of God, the ’form’ of God, if you will. And what was the serpent’s bait? "You will be like God."
Eve, and Adam, being in the image of God, thought equality with God was something to be grasped. What they thought would be their bid for divinity turned out to be their humiliation.
Jesus, in the renewed image of God, as God’s second ontological son, chose subordination; and it turned out to be the true road to glory.
It’s interesting, then, that Philippians is the only letter of Paul’s that addresses a group of leaders in salutation ("Overseers and deacons" or "Overseers who are also servants"). These leaders in the church, as Jesus made so clear, were to be the servants of the church, not the Lords of it, as pagan rulers. Perhaps there was a situation in the church where authority was being abused, which Paul addresses. Perhaps this is a both a warning and an exhortation to clergy who have overstepped their bounds.
That is not to say that Paul did not intend for echoes of the behavior of contemporary political figures to be found in his illustration about Adam, but I don’t think they were of principle importance to his point.
Aaron Christianson
The form of God
Aaron, these are helpful comments. Let me respond.
The practice of divinizing emperors after death would not have been irrelevant for the christological narrative. In Phil. 2:6-11 Christ is given the status of Lord after death, but he is exalted not because he aspired to seize the glory that accompanies imperial power but because he took the form of a servant.
Augustus claimed the status of ’son of god’ - son of the divine Julius. Paul does not use the title here, but according to Romans 1:4 Jesus is ’designated Son of God in power... by his resurrection from the dead’.
You’re probably right, however, to stress the paradigmatic significance of Antiochus Epiphanes. My argument in The Coming of the Son of Man is that Daniel’s account of Antiochus’ assault on Judaism provides the template for the apocalyptic story of the ’man of lawlessness’ in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12, who in effect makes himself equal to God. Paul envisages an archetypal opponent like Antiochus emerging from the matrix of Roman imperial ideology, but I don’t think we need to be too precise about the actual identity of that figure.
This is not necessarily to discount the argument that Genesis 1-3 is in the background - indeed it may be that the story of the fall presupposes the polemic against pagan imperial apotheosis. But it’s not altogether compelling. Paul has the unusual morphē rather than eikōn; ’taking the form (morphē) of a servant’ (Phil. 2:7) becomes problematic under this reading; and the serpent offers likeness to God in knowing good and evil but not equality of status.
Paul addresses Philippians to the whole church and highlights, as you point out, the responsibility of the overseers and deacons (1:1). The context for this is given, I think, in 1:29-30 - the church is facing severe opposition and suffering, comparable to Paul’s own suffering. This is what is causing selfishness and disunity (2:1-4), so he urges them to respond to these circumstances by adopting the mind of Christ (2:5), who willingly accepted the path of suffering, even to the point of death. The anti-imperial polemic is not of direct substantive relevance to this argument, but it is at least contextually appropriate.
RE: the form of God
It’s an interesting and valid point that you make about Jesus being glorified after death as the emperors were, especially given the strength of the imperial cult in Philippi. However, it seems that Paul is striking a contrast with those who try to exalt themselves in the present life. However, Nero was no small offender in this regard, I suppose that Paul could have had him in mind, given his aquaintence with the Caesar’s household (4:22). I think you’ve won me to your initial point after all. Nonetheless, I’d like to defend my reading here as an example of ’second Adam’ christology.
Though you correctly point out that this passage lacks the verbal parallels that would tie it to Genesis, the images and the narrative drawn up present a striking foil to Adam (and Eve), and would be in concert with Paul’s teaching elsewhere about Jesus as the second Adam, the succesful attempt at humanity. Paul’s (or his source’s) use of other words foreign to the fall account (of the Lxx) probably has to do this section being poetry. It’s a hymn, and constructing a parallel image with different words could be an intentional poetic device. This is a semetic mind, relying on image and story, rather than a western mind, relying on precision and definition.
While it is very likely that the tensions within the church stem, in part, from pressures outside, another important factor seems to be eritheia selfishness (2:3), especially among servants of the Gospel (1:17). It is also implied to some extent in Paul’s commendation of Timothy (2:21). I would tend to argue that this did not actually come from the external stress, but was merely manifested because of it. It root of the selfishness goes back much farther, and it’s cure is only found in Christ’s reversal thereof (I realize that the argument here is a little circular, but I don’t think it’s vicious; it simply makes sense within itself).
I believe James Dunn makes a similar argument in his Christology in the Making, but I’m not totally sure on that (I skimmed some of his arguments very quickly for a paper about the Incarnation, but I ended up approching the whole thing from below, so I didn’t use his section on Paul).
Aaron Christianson
Re: Phil. 2:6-11 - Christ and Caesar?
In the second half of verse 6 Paul seems to be challenging the meglomania and self-deification of Roman imperialism as described by Andrew. But how does the first part of the verse fit in? In particular the way Paul uses the word ’morphe’? How does this fit in with Paul’s polemic? This scripture is often used to show that Jesus is the second person of the trinity and I can see how easily this conclusion can be made.
Re: Phil. 2:6-11 - Christ and Caesar?
Ryan, I don’t think that the anti-imperial theme necessarily precludes a reference to Christ’s pre-existence, though it would not make the smoothest sense of the text.
But I wonder if there isn’t further dependence here on Ezekiel 28:1-19. The prince of Tyre, who is the type of the imperial blasphemer who grasps at equality with God, claimed in effect to be ’in the form of a god’ (cf. 28:6 LXX: ’you have set your heart as the heart of a god’). Perhaps the ’hymn’ depicts Jesus as one who did have this oneness with God, who revealed in himself the true character of God, but nevertheless took on the form of a servant, who suffered and died. The references to Adam may also be relevant:
The prince of Tyre was perfect, as Adam was - a ’seal of resemblance’ (homoiōsiōs). But iniquity was found in him, he sinned, he became arrogant because of his beauty and his wisdom was corrupted (28:15-17). Christ had the same perfection, the same likeness to Adam, who was in the image of God, but did not become arrogant and disobedient.