A Sly Civility Col and Empire, JSNT

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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X05052509
2005 27: 323 Journal for the Study of the New Testament
Harry O. Maier
A Sly Civility: Colossians and Empire
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DOI: 10.1177/0142064X05052509
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A Sly Civility: Colossians and Empire

Harry O. Maier

Vancouver School of Theology
6000 Iona Drive, Vancouver, BC V6T 1L4, Canada
hmaier@vst.edu

Abstract

This article relates Colossian vocabulary, motifs and theological themes to
the cultural situation of the cult of the emperor. The authors language and
conceptualization of reconciliation as a cosmic and earthly peace (Col.
1.15-23) reects an imperial backdrop and utilizes civic vocabulary typical
of Greek and Roman treatments of concord. His representation of Jesus
death as a Roman triumph (2.15), and the incorporation of all humankind
including barbarians and Scythiansin a trans-ethnic unity (3.11) similarly
reects the geopolitical notions of a worldwide Roman Empire. The
imperial imprint on the Household Code (3.184.1) is recognizable through
attention to numismatic representations of Nero and his consort enjoying a
divinely appointed familial concord. Though used by court theologians like
Eusebius of Caesarea to legitimate a Christian application of Empire, the
letter may be read as a destabilization of Empire inasmuch as it derives
imperial-sounding ideals from the crucixion of Jesus.

One of the more exciting recent developments in Pauline studies has been
the scholarly attention given to the relationship of Pauls gospel and his
preaching of the crucied Jesus to Roman imperial politics and the domin-
ion centred in the divine claims of Caesar and his rule. This exegetical
turn represents more of a renaissance in the study of Paul than a new initia-
tive. A century ago, largely as a consequence of new archaeological and
epigraphic discoveries, a host of studies appeared seeking to illumine the
interface and conict between Pauls and Caesars gospel.
1
So far, however,

1. Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated
by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World (trans. Lionel R.M.
324 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 27.3 (2005)

scholarly attention has with only a very few exceptionsand those most
usually in only a most general and thematic waypassed over the relation-
ship of the letter to the Colossians to the imperial context.
2
Instead, the
exegetical focus of Colossian studies has been centred on the sources and
possible redactive history of the Colossian Hymn of 1.15-20, its relation
to Old Testament and intertestamental themes, and a proper identication
of the false teaching addressed in 2.8-23.
3
What follows, then, seeks to ll

Strachan; New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910) rst published in German in 1908
is the best-known exemplar of this earlier period. For representative earlier studies in
this vein, see Paul Wendland, ooqp, ZNW 5 (1904), pp. 335-53; Adolf Harnack,
Als die Zeit erfllet war, and Der Heiland, in Reden und Aufstze (Giessen: Tpel-
mann, 2nd edn, 1906), pp. 301-306, 307-11 (rst published in 1899 and 1900,
respectively); Hans Lietzmann, Der Weltheiland (Bonn: Marcus and Weber, 1909). For
other literature with reference specically to the relation of the imperial cult to Phil.
2.5-11 where the earlier scholarship focused most closely, see Peter Oakes, Philippians:
From People to Letter (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 129-32.
2. An important exception is the study of Wesley Carr, Angels and Principalities:
The Background, Meaning and Development of the Pauline Phrase hai archai kai hai
exousiai (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 47-86, in his focused
exegesis of Col. 2.15 by reference to Roman triumph ceremony. Klaus Wengst, Ver-
shnung und Befreiung: Ein Aspekt des Themas Schuld und Vergebung im Lichte
des Kolosserbriefes, EvT 36 (1976), pp. 14-25, especially 16-17, relates Colossians to
the context of imperial Rome by interpreting Colossians cosmic Christology as a
liberating religious response to alienating societal forces of imperial domination.
Joachim Gnilka, Der Kolosserbrief (Freiburg: Herder, 2nd edn, 1991), pp. 74-75, and
P.T. OBrien, Col. 1.20 and the Reconciliation of all Things, RTR 33 (1974), pp. 45-
33 (51) offer passing comment on Colossians and imperial politics. Oscar Cullmann,
Knigsherrschaft Christi und Kirche im Neuen Testament, in Karl Barth (ed.),
Theologische Studien (Zrich: Evangelischer Verlag, 1941), pp. 174-92, The State in
the New Testament (London: SCM Press, 1955), pp. 50-70, The Christology of the New
Testament (trans. Shirley C. Guthrie and Charles A.M. Hall; Philadelphia: Westminster
Press, 2nd edn, 1963), pp. 195-99, Christ and Time (trans. Floyd F. Filson; London:
SCM Press, 3rd edn, 1965), pp. 185-90 relates Colossians to imperial Rome by reading
the universal afrmations of Col. 1.18, 20 with 1 Cor. 2.8, 6.1-3, 8.5 and Rom. 13.1-7,
in order to reconstruct a Pauline theology of the state afrming the universal lordship
of Christ over and against the dominion of Caesar and cosmic powersan account that
has earned him no little exegetical scorn: see Hans Jakob Gabathuler, Jesus Christus
Haupt der KircheHaupt der Welt (Zrich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1965), pp. 122-24, 169-74
for scholarly critique and Cullmanns lively rejoinders.
3. For surveys of the vast literature, see Larry R. Helyer, Recent Research on Col.
1.15-20 (19801990), GTJ 12 (1992), pp. 51-67; Pierre Benoit, Lhymne christo-
logique de Col 1,15-20. Jugement critique sur ltat des recherches, in Jacob Neusner
(ed.), Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), I,
MAIER A Sly Civility 325

a lacuna in Pauline studies by offering a reading of Colossians against the
backdrop of the Roman Empire and in particular in the light of the politi-
cal culture surrounding, embracing and championing the cult of the divine
emperor.
4

Some have rejected such an orientation to New Testament evidence as
an exegetical cul-de-sac, or as introducing to early Christian religious devo-
tion to Jesus what one recent treatment calls the repellent category of
emperor worship.
5
However, once read in the context of the cultural situ-
ation of the imperial cult and the political ideals associated with it, dimen-
sions of the letter passed over by more traditional exegetical accounts gain
a striking relief.
6
Colossians representation of a gospel embracing the

pp. 226-63; Fred O. Francis and Wayne A. Meeks (eds.), Conict at Colossae: A
Problem in the Interpretation of Early Christianity Illustrated by Select Modern
Studies (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979).
4. In what follows I assume pseudonymity, though questions of authorship are not
denitive for the arguments presented here; for the account of pseudomymous co-
authorship with Paul in the early 60s CE (the theory assumed here), see Eduard
Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians (trans. Andrew Chester; Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 1982), pp. 15-24.
5. Thus, Martin Hengel, The Cross of the Son of God (trans. John Bowden;
London: SCM Press, 1976), p. 28, who concludes that the ofcial, secular state
religion was at best a negative stimulus, not a model for early Christian developments.
For emperor worship as repellent to early Christians and therefore discountable as a
source for early Christian reection, see Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion
to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Ann Arbor, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), pp. 92-99. Hengels
reference to secular state religion reects a now discredited and anachronistic view of
the imperial cult as purely formal and political and not religious: see S.R.F. Price,
Rituals and Power: The Roman Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1984), esp. pp. 234-48. Hurtado sets up a straw man when he dismisses the
relevance of the imperial cult for explaining the Christ-devotionof the Christian
movement (p. 93). The imperial cult does not explain early Christian devotion to
Jesus. Rather, reference to the imperial cultural system in which Christianity took root
and grew helps to recognize the appropriation of imperial themes and ideas by Christians
to make sense of their religious devotion and to communicate their own ideals.
6. I borrow the phrase cultural situation, from Adela Yarbro Collins, The
Worship of Jesus and the Imperial Cult, in Carey C. Newman, James H. Davila and
Gladys S. Lewis (eds.), The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from
the St. Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus (Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 1999), pp. 243-57 (241-42), who uses it to describe the imperial context as
an important source in shaping and giving expression to early Christian experience and
theology. Cultural situation helps to avoid a reductive direct causeeffect relationship
between early Christianity and the imperial culta chief weakness of the accounts of a

whole world (1.6; cf. 1.23) and its imagery of a Roman Triumph (2.15)
represent the most recognizable parallel with imperial ideas. As we shall
see, similarly echoing Roman political ideology is its afrmation of a
universal reconciliation (oo|ooiio oi) on earth and in heaven and its
celebration of Christs making peace (tipqvooiq oo,; 1.20) with erst-
while enemies. The celebration of a moral and natural renewal (3.10)
made possible by Christs enthronement (3.1) as well as the exhortation to
let the peace of Christ rule [potu tiv] in believers hearts (v. 15) plays
in the contact zone of imperial politics. A cosmic and global renewal and
peace brought about by the universal reign of Christ penetrating and over-
coming every ethnic and social boundary, and representing a cosmic
harmony (3.11; 1.15, 20, 23, 28), especially in the kingdom [ooiiti ov]
of [Gods] beloved son (1.13), has similarly imperial associations. The
Colossian application is, of course, paradoxical in situating the site of
Jesus triumphus and all the imperially sounding benets derived from it
in the cross (1.20; 2.15).
7
It thus, as we shall see, offers an imperial vision
on other terms and thereby implicitly challenges an imperial ideology
centred in military domination and the honouring of ruling elites. Never-
theless, a rst-century Christian audience hearing the letter read aloud
would immediately have recognized imperial-sounding themes, greeted as
it was daily by ubiquitous imperial imagesin market squares, theatres,
baths, law courts, temples, households, on coins, on triumphal arches and
public buildings, not to mention the many sacred precincts dedicated to
the worship of the emperor and his familycelebrating the Roman order
as a divinely ordained order representing a pacication of erstwhile hostile
and ethnically dispersed peoples, brought by military might into a global
pax by a divinely appointed emperor heading a moral, natural and spiritual
renewal.
8
Attention to imperial themes and imagery cannot give a complete

century ago. And it also urges locating the imperial cult in a broader Graeco-Roman
cultural system of values and ideals. See similarly Dieter Zeller, Die Menschwerdung
des Sohnes Gottes im Neuen Testament und die antike Religionsgeschichte, in Dieter
Zeller (ed.), Menschwerdung Gottes: Vergttlichung von Menschen (NTOA, 7;
Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988), pp. 141-76 (173), who refers to the
imperial cult and pagan notions of incarnation and apotheosis as furnishing early
Christians with Denkmglichkeiten.
7. Interpreting tv ouo at 2.15 as the cross, in keeping with the metaphor intro-
duced at v. 14.
8. For the ubiquity, social functions and meanings of imperial imagery, see Clifford
Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2000), pp. 206-73. For strategic locations of images of

account of Colossians, nor does it supplant other exegetical treatments.
Instead, it seeks to expand those accounts by attending to an imperial
cultural situation to discover how prevailing ideas were possibly adapted
and redeployed as a means of forging a unique religious and social identity.
At its most general level, Colossians offers its audience exhortations to
lead a well-ordered communal life (3.54.6) issuing forth from the
incorporation of believers (1.18; 2.11-12, 15, 19) into the resurrection life
of an enthroned Christ (3.1), whose death has brought about reconciliation
of heavenly powers and of all humankind (1.20, 22; 2.15; 3.11) and inaugu-
rated a reign of peace (3.15). Adopting ideas found in ancient Judaism
generally and sapiential literature in particular, the author offers a unique
vision of a pre-existing Son of God by whom and for whom all things
were created and are sustained.
9
The so-called Hymn of 1.15-20 presents a
three-stage Christology celebrating the incarnate Son as Gods agent in
creation (v. 16), before all things [po o vov], in whom all things
hold together [o o vo tv ouo ouvt oq|tv] (v. 17), through whom
God reconciled [oo|ooiio oi] to himself all things, whether on earth
or in heaven, making peace [tipqvooiq oo,] by the blood of his cross
(v. 20). These verses rightly occupy a central role in Colossian scholarship,
not only for obvious theological reasons, but also because of their central
epistolary role in furnishing their rst-century listeners with a succinct
rejoinder to those insisting on self-abasement and the worship of angels
and extra ceremonial and ascetical observances (2.16, 20-23). The Son
through whom and for whom all things were created (1.16e), and whose
death is the means toward a universal cosmic reconciliation of hostile
powers (1.20; 2.15)especially those cosmic powers some feel obliged to
offer religious observance (2.16-18)makes redundant any extra ritual or
practice.

the emperor and his family and their meaning, see Thomas Pekry, Das rmische
Kaiserbildnis in Staat, Kult und Gesellschaft (Das rmische Herrscherbild 3.5; Berlin:
Mann, 1985), pp. 42-65. For imperial imagery as a visual language broadcasting
moral, natural and religious renewal, see Paul Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age
of Augustus (trans. Alan Shapiro; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990), pp.
172-83.
9. For a full discussion of the sapiential connection, see J.-N. Aletti, Colossiens
1,15-20. Genre et exgse du texte: Fonction de la thmatique sapientielle (Rome:
Biblical Institute Press, 1981); Helyer, Research; Benoit, Hymne, pp. 254-57. N.T.
Wright, Poetry and Theology in Colossians 1.15-20, NTS 36 (1990), pp. 444-68 resists
a too restrictive sapiential account and argues (pp. 451-52) for wider Jewish parallels.

Colossians 1.15-20 has been given voluminous attention from form-
geschichtliche, religionsgeschichtliche and traditionsgeschichtliche per-
spectives. Unnoticed, however, are the potent resonances of certain aspects
of these verses with contemporary imperial political culture. Once those
echoes are noticed, other similarly sounding imperial tones may be heard
reverberating throughout the letter as whole. The Son whose crucixion
reconciled all and makes a cosmic peace expresses the triumph and divine
favour of his rule in governing a kingdom (1.12) in which not only peace
reigns (3.15), but all, including those at the furthest boundaries of the
Roman Empirebarbarians and Scythians (3.11b)have been embraced
by the universal moral renewal of his reign (3.5-17), and govern themselves
in good order [o i,] (2.5), as harmonious members of the body of his
realm (3.14-15) according to the civilizing political ideals of right house-
hold management (3.184.1). In all this, whatever the biblical and extra-
canonical Jewish sources of Colossians, our author reveals his location in
ideals centring on imperial celebrations of political and civic concord, the
hallmark of a Roman pax, stretching to the frontiers of the known world.
In the Roman peace, what makes all this possible is an emperorin the
Neronian imperial ideology (contemporary with Colossians), the vice-
regent of the gods, if not incarnate deitywho holds all things together in
the body of his Empire of which he is head, and which he maintains in
health and security. In the Colossian vision, it is the incarnate Son, in
whom the fullness of God dwells bodily, who exercises a universal reign,
manifested especially in the properly regulated body of his church united
to its head from whom comes nourishment and growth (2.19).
The following discussion will rst identify the political backdrop of the
language of reconciliation in Col. 1.15-23 and relate it to other recognizably
political language in that section. This will prepare the way for identifying
ways in which the rest of the letter develops the reconciliation theme, in
the application of the metaphor of a Roman triumph in 2.15, in the ethical
exhortations of 3.14.6, especially in the celebration of Christ overcoming
ethnic divisions in 3.11, and in the household rules. Especially helpful in
recognizing the imperial valences of these texts is attention to Neronian
imperial iconography deployed to celebrate a global imperial rule by a
divine emperor appointed to pacify the world and bring all into an over-
arching political union. Where Colossians differs from imperial propaganda
is in its paradoxical assertion that the origin of all the imperial-sounding
ideals Colossians celebrates is to be found in the cross. Thus if Colossians
rehearses imperial notions and bears the imprint of their political culture,

it also reverses them and represents a dramatic reorientation of prevailing
ideals.

Colossians 1.15-23, Reconciliation and Imperial Politics

Colossians 1.20 celebrates the reconciliation (oo|ooiio oi; also, v. 22)
of all things by a Son who makes peace (tipqvooitiv) through his death.
While other parts of 1.15-20 have been persuasively linked with biblical
and extra-testamental Jewish literature, scholars have had difculty making
the case for strong Jewish parallels with these afrmations.
10
Instead,
semantic investigation of Jewish and pagan uses of the verbs ioiio ootiv/
|ooio ootiv and their cognates has revealed abundant evidence that these
terms were especially at home in ancient diplomatic and political contexts
to describe the cessation of hostility and the reconciliation of hostile
parties. Cilliers Breytenbachs encyclopaedic discussion of this termi-
nologythe most far-reaching and painstaking analysis to datehas
persuasively argued that Rom. 5.10 and 2 Cor. 5.18-20 offer a Pauline
adaptation of diplomatic, political representations to celebrate Gods
initiative in overcoming the enmity between God and pagan unrighteous-
ness and bringing about a renewed harmony.
11
Breytenbach conrms that
diplomatic usage by recognizing that Pauls representations of himself
and his colleagues in 2 Cor. 5.17-20 as exercising the ministry of reconcili-
ation [qv io|ovi ov q, |ooiioyq,], proclaiming the message [or

10. For a thorough discussion of the LXX and intertestamental uses of |ooiioootiv,
see Cilliers Breytenbach, Vershnung: Eine Studie zur paulinischen Soteriologie
(Dsseldorf: Neukirchener Verlag, 1989), pp. 68-80 with reference to Pauline usage in
Rom. 5.10 and 2 Cor. 5.18-20. For attempts to account for Pauls theology of reconcili-
ation by reference primarily to Jewish tradition and texts, see pp. 34-36. I.H. Marshall,
The Meaning of Reconciliation, in Robert A. Guelich (ed.), Unity and Diversity in
the New Testament (Festschrift George Eldon Ladd; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978),
pp. 117-32, is representative. Like other treatments it suffers from basing itself on the
extremely infrequent use of |ooiioootiv to describe divinehuman reconciliation (in
this case, 2 Macc. 5.11-20) and ignores the widespread political uses of the term in
Hellenistic and Jewish literature.
11. Thus Breytenbach, Vershnung, pp. 45-68, 82-84, 107-87; similarly, Stanley E.
Porter, Kooiio oo in Ancient Greek Literature with Reference to the Pauline Writings
(Cordoba: Almendro, 1994). Most recently, Anthony Bash, Ambassadors for Christ:
An Exploration of Ambassadorial Language in the New Testament (Tbingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 1997), pp. 29-32 conrms Breytenbachs political reading while remaining
unpersuaded by his linking of the language of reconciliation with embassies.

gospeltuoyytiiov, following P
46
] of reconciliation [ov ioyov q,
|ooiioyq,], and acting as ambassadors for Christ [utp Xpioou
ptotu otv] exactly echo imperial political language describing politi-
cally appointed legates designated with the task of initiating or concluding
civic reconciliation between hostile parties.
12

Unfortunately, Breytenbach unnecessarily resists applying these insights
to Col. 1.20. He argues that, since Colossians celebrates a metaphysical,
as opposed to earthly political, reconciliation between cosmic powers (the
povoi, |upioqt,, op_oi and touoioi of 1.16), the origins of the semantic
domain of oo|ooiio oi at 1.20 is not in politics but lies elsewhere.
13

Here he follows Eduard Schweizer, who similarly contrasts the human
and cosmic contexts of 2 Cor. 5.19 and Col. 1.20 and explains the reference
to reconciliation in the latter instance by reference to ancient pre-Socratic,
Aristotelian, Stoic and especially [neo-] Pythagorean physical theories of
contending natural elements.
14
However, Schweizer and Breytenbach
anachronistically introduce a false dichotomy in this contrasting of recon-
ciliation in the human and the cosmic domains, and in the separation of
diplomatic celebrations of |ooiioyq from ancient religion. Further,
Schweizer casts his net too far to ancient sources and neglects important
evidence celebrating the Roman imperial order as civil concord mirroring
heavenly peace that would have made the Colossian representation of a
universal cosmic and human reconciliation especially compelling and
recognizable in its rst-century political cultural context. Both scholars
fail to recognize the sustained political deployment of reconciliation
language in 1.20-23, how this is bound into a rhetorical unity with the
theme of cosmic reconciliation of the preceding verses, and how vv. 20-
23 unite with 1.15-16 to prepare the way for recognizably civic applications
of reconciliation and concord in the remainder of the letter.
Colossians 1.15-23 presents a potent vision offered in politically charged
terms of reconciliation in the cosmic and earthly spheres. Mirroring
contemporary political depictions of a civic harmony based in heavenly
concord, the author to the Colossians celebrates a reconciliation of all
things, whether on earth or in heaven (v. 20c) and, deploying a term fully

12. Breytenbach, Vershnung, pp. 65-68.
13. Breytenbach, Vershnung, pp. 190-91.
14. Eduard Schweizer, Vershnung des Alls. Kolosser 1,20, in Neues Testament
und Christologie im Werden: Aufstze (Gttingen: Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), pp.
164-78 (171-76); Der Brief an die Kolosser (Zrich: Benziger Verlag, 2nd edn 1980),
pp. 67-68.

a part of the diplomatic language of restored relations between hostile par-
ties, celebrates Jesus death as making peace [tipqvooiq oo,] (v. 20b).
15

That the author wants his audience to hear 1.15-23 as a unity is evident
stylistically and rhetorically. While the shift from third (vv. 15-20) to
second person (vv. 21-23) divides the unit into two parts, the fourfold
reference to the earthly and heavenly as the universal domain of reconcili-
ation binds the two parts together, running as a red thread from v. 16 to
v. 23 (1.16a [o o vo (o ) tv oi, |oi (o ) ti q, yq,], 16b [o opoo
|oi o oo poo], 20c [o ti q, yq, o tv oi, oupovoi,], 23c [tv ooq
|i oti q uo oupovov]). More particularly, vv. 20-23 form a rhetorical
and literary unity building on the afrmations of vv.15-16. Verse 23 offers
a concluding inclusio to v. 20 (o ti q, yq, tit o tv oi, oupovoi,
[v. 20c]; tv ooq |i oti q uo oupovov [v. 23]). By way of staircase
parallelism, vv. 21-23 continue the ideas of the preceding verses concerning
the death of Jesus as reconciliation (oo|ooiio oiio ou oioo,
ou ooupou ouou [v. 20]; oo|oqiiotv tv o oo oi q, oop|o,
ouou io ou ovoou [v. 22]).
These stylistic elements help reinforce the conceptual and semantic
unity of vv. 20-23 in particular and vv. 15-16 more generally. Verses 21-
23 pick up the diplomatic language of which tipqvooiq oo, in v. 20b is a
part. It is signicant that these verses deploy language not only belonging
to the diplomatic representations of |ooiioyq, but also at home in the
closely associated semantic domain of civil concord, or oovoio. The
Onomasticon of Pollux (second century CE) lists amongst the civic terms
used to describe t_poi and oitioi precisely the vocabulary we discover
in vv. 20-23.
16
Christ has come to bring peace to those once estranged
[oqiiopiotvoi] and hostile in mind [t_pou, q iovoi o ]. A little bit
later, deploying another term especially associated with diplomatic ideals
of reconciliation, he describes his listeners as knit together [ouioo-
tvt,] in love (2.2), and at 2.19 weaves that image together with the
similarly politically charged reference to the church as bodythe image

15. For political discourse celebrating civic oo voio mirroring cosmic harmony,
see, for example, Dio Chrystostom, Or. 38.11; 40.35-41; Aristides, Or. 23.75-77;
24.42; 27.35; Lucan, Bell. civ. 1.45-69; 2.272-73; ps.-Aristotle, Mund. 5.396a.32-
396b.11; compare, 1 Clem. 20 for an early Christian adaptation of tipqvq |oi oo voio
(v. 11). See Philo, Jos. 145; Congr. 133; Spec. Leg. 2.141; Leg. Gai. 6-10 for Jewish
adaptation.
16. Pollux, Onomastikon 1.150-54, fully cited in Breytenbach, Vershnung, pp. 46-
47.

introduced in 1.18.
17
Also civic are the technical terms in vv. 21-23 associ-
ated with oovoio, a term of course at home in the diplomatic semantic
domain of |ooiioyq. Colossians once hostile in mind [t_pou, q
iovoi o]a wordplay on oovoioare now blameless [oo ou,] and
are to continue stable and steadfast and not shifting [tttiiot voi |oi
tpoioi |oi q to|ivoutvoi] from the message preached to them. This is
architectural language especially common in civic representations of
political concord.
18
From vv. 20-23, then, we have a sustained application
of diplomatic and civic language. Given that deployment, it is highly
probable that as the passage concludes with the representation of Paul
preaching and being a minister of the gospel (vv. 23b-c), we are squarely
in the domain of the diplomatic ptoti o of 2 Cor. 5.18-20.
Colossians 1.20 is a critical lynchpin, wedding the communal civic-
sounding ideals of vv. 21-23 with the cosmic afrmations of vv. 15-19.
The cosmic reconciliation that the so-called hymn of 1.15-20 celebrates
presupposes the pacication (hence, tipqvooiq oo,, v. 20b) of erstwhile
hostile powersthe povoi, |upio qt,, op_oi and touoi oi of 1.16
(similarly 2.10, 15), including, as well, the elemental spirits of the universe
[o ooi_tio ou |ooou] (2.8, 20)a reconciliation as pacication that
the authors deployment of a Roman triumph makes explicit in 2.15.
19
The

17. For a full discussion and citation of t_po,, tipqvooitiv, oo voio and ou-
iotiv in diplomatic contexts, see Breytenbach, Vershnung, pp. 100-104; for body
imagery as a political topos, see E. Schweizer and F. Baumgrtel, ooo |i., TDNT,
VII, pp. 1024-94 (1032-44); Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1995), pp. 3-37.
18. For thorough citation and discussion of the use of each of these terms in
representations of civic concord, with secondary literature, see Margaret M. Mitchell,
Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language
and Composition of 1 Corinthians (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1992),
pp. 99-111.
19. Reconciliation as pacication recurs repeatedly in political applications of
|ooioootiv/ioioootiv and cognates: Plutarch, Alex. fort. 329C; Aelius Aristides,
Or. 26.22; 35.35-7; Dio Cassius 62.20.1; Dionysius Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 3.7.2, 9.2,
28.5; 5.30.3, 31.2, 32.2, 49.2, 60.1; 6.20.4. See also, OBrien, Reconciliation, p. 51
contra Eduard Schweizer, Neotestamentica (Zrich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1963), p. 326, who
neglects the cosmic and earthly dimension of the civic peace and so misses the political
connection of the cosmic and the earthly so at home in imperial celebrations of civil
concord. Carr, Angels, pp. 49-52, 58-66 and most recently R. Yates, Col. 2.15: Christ
Triumphant, NTS 37 (1991), pp. 573-91 drive a wedge between 1.16 and 2.8 and
interpret 2.15 not as a disarming of principalities and powers, but a display of them in
festal procession of the triumph of the cross. The majority of exegetes have rejected

overall effect of 1.15-23 is to offer a vision of a universal reconciliation in
which earthly civic oovoio mirrors heavenly concord and peace assured
and won by the creating and reconciling/pacifying work of the Son.
As has been widely noted, the references in Colossians to povoi,
|upio qt,, op_oi and touoi oi (1.16; 2.15), as well as o ooi_tio ou
|ooou (2.8, 20) represent language characteristic of Jewish cosmic
speculation.
20
Not fully enough exegeted, however, is the degree to which
the Colossian author unites this language with concepts and motifs at home
in the political culture of imperial Rome, to celebrate the peace Christ has
made by his death. Eipqvooitiv is not only a term that belongs to the
diplomatic representation of |ooiioyq; it appears more specically in
Roman political discourse to celebrate the universal pax or military paci-
cation arising from imperial rule.
21
Indeed, so widely spread was its use
that, by the time of Commodus, tipqvooio, q, oi|outvq, had become
one of the emperors ofcial titles.
22
Dio celebrates Julius Caesar as o
tipqvooio, (44.49.2), and Philo, recalling how Augustus restored civic
harmony by pacifying unsociable, hostile, and brutal nations, calls the
emperor tipqvouio (Leg. Gai. 145). An earlier inscription (c. 9 BCE)
from Halicarnassus praises Augustus for improving the lot of humankind
by bringing peace to the world: Land and sea are at peace, the cities are
ourishing in good order, concord, and prosperity
23
The roughly con-
temporary inscription from Priene celebrating the inauguration of the
imperial cult in Roman Asia similarly heralds the emperor as one who
has made war to cease and ordered the world with peace.
24

this, correctly noting that the immediate context of 2.8-10 suggests a pacication of
powers as a means towards the realization of an ecclesial peace (thus, for example,
James D.G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Colossians and to Philemon [NIGTC; Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], p. 169).
20. Thus, Clinton E. Arnold, The Colossian Syncretism (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck,
1995), pp. 158-94; Dunn, Colossians, pp. 92-93.
21. See especially Hans Windisch, FriedensbringerGottesshne. Eine religions-
geschichtliche Interpretation der 7. Seligpreisung, ZNW 24 (1925), pp. 240-60 (251-
57) for primary references with discussion.
22. Thus, Dio Cassius 72.15.5.
23. V. Ehrenberg and A.H.M. Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus
and Tiberius (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2nd edn, 1983), pp. 83-84, no. 98a, ll. 9-10:
tipqvtuouoi tv yop yq |oi oioo, oiti, t ovouoiv tuvoi oi oo voio t |oi
tutqpio.
24. Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, pp. 81-84, no. 98 ll. 36-7: ov ou oovo tv
oitov, |ooqoovo t tipqvqv.

In the imperial programme, such peace celebrates military success in
ending civil war, pacifying enemies and ending piracy.
25
More important
for the interpretation of cosmic and civic themes of reconciliation in Col.
1.15-23, imperial pax reects a cosmic concord, a pax deum, guaranteeing
Augustuss and his successors achievements, preserved for human benet
by their piety, and made manifest in the security and tranquillity of the
Roman order.
26
Peace here is not only a civic phenomenon, it is cosmic.
27

In the Priene inscription, Augustuss birth is celebrated as good tidings
[tuoyytiiov] (l. 41) whence streams forth the beginning of all things
[qi ov o vov op_qi] (l. 6). Characteristic of the panegyric celebrating
the aurea aetas of Augustus, and later Nero who was celebrated by court
poets as bringing about a second Golden Age, is reference to the blessing
of cosmic powers preserving imperial concord manifested in natural abun-
dance and earthly fertility.
28

A common theme in literary celebrations of imperial earthly rule is the
way it mirrors a concord of diverse, sometimes opposing, elemental
forces.
29
Aelius Aristides in his Roman Oration (26.102-105), for example,

25. Thus, for example, Velleius Paterculis 2.89-91, 126; Res gestae 34, 2534.
26. For piety, religion and the preservation of the pax romana, see Karl Galinsky,
Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1996), pp. 288-331; Richard Gordon, The Veil of Power: Emperors, Sacricers, and
Benefactors, in Mary Beard and John North (eds.), Pagan Priests: Religion and Power
in the Ancient World (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), pp. 199-232; Price,
Rituals, pp. 207-48.
27. For the relationship of pax romana to pax deum, see Harald Fuchs, Augustin und
der antike Friedengedanke: Untersuchungen zum neunzehnten Buch der Civitas Dei
(Berlin: Weidmann, 2nd edn, 1965), pp. 186-205; Stefan Weinstock, Pax and the Ara
Pacis, JRS 50 (1960), pp. 44-58.
28. For example, Virgil, Ecl. 4.20-52 and earthly fertility as a consequence of the
reign of Saturn (l. 6); Horace, Carmen saeculare ll. 25-36, linking Apollo and Diana,
and the astral deities associated with them (Sol and Luna), with fertility; the Priene
inscription irting with celebrating Augustuss birth with a new beginning in nature (ll.
6-7) heralds it as giving to the whole world a different appearance (ll. 8-9). For
Neronian versions in a second Golden Age, the reign of Saturn, Calpurnius Siculus,
Ecl. 1.42, 64; 4.80-136; Einsiedeln Ec. 2.15-35; Seneca, Clem. 2.1.4-2.1. For discussion
of this and other cosmological imagery, see Giuseppe Zechinni, Nron et les traditions
latines de lge dor, in Jean-Michel Croisille, Ren Martin and Yves Perrin (eds.),
Neronia. V. Nron: histoire et lgende (Collection Latomus, 247; Brussels: Latomus
revue dtudes latines, 1999), pp. 187-244.
29. For example, Plutarch, Fort. Rom. 2.316e-317c, likens Roman imperial paci-
cation of contending powers with a cosmic ordering of opposing natural elements;

likens the worldwide concord arising from imperial rule to the cosmic
harmony of Olympian deities as a result of Zeuss victory over the Titans.
Imperial oovoio won from Caesars pacication of hostile powers and
his bringing of political order to civic chaos mirrors Zeuss ordering of
primordial chaos and defeat of hostile powers.
30
The cosmic dimensions
of Roman order are invoked in inscriptions celebrating imperial rule. One
acclaims Nero as o ou o vo, |o oou |u pio,vt o, Hiio, tiiooo,,
invoking Golden Age cosmic mythology associating political harmony
with the reign of Helios.
31
Thus, when in 1.15-23 the Colossian author

Princ. iner. 5.781f-82a likens the ruler governed by divine reason to the sun, the image
of god, regulating the cosmos, free from chance and change; Ps.-Aristotle, Mund.
5.396a.326.401a.11 betrays the imprint of its authors rst-century imperial culture in
its representation of the absolute ruler as bringing about civic harmony mirroring the
divine governance of conicting natural and cosmic forces; Philo similarly reects his
imperial backdrop in his depictions of civil order mirroring cosmic concord (Dec. 178;
Spec. Leg. 2.188-92; Fug. 10here the Augustan order is transparent in celebrating
God as the giver of peace [tipqvooio,], who has abolished all seditions in cities, and
in all parts of the universe, and has produced plenty and prosperity [192]). (cf. Leg.
Gai. 8.15-19 where the imperial application of cosmic harmony is explicit). Schweizer,
Vershnung, pp. 167-71 entirely misses the imperial political connection in his discus-
sion of these passages and their relation to Col. 1.20. Erik Peterson, Der Monotheismus
als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der politischen Theologie im
Imperium Romanum (Leipzig: Jakob Hegner, 1935), pp. 21-31, correctly notes the
Augustan analogies; Aelius Aristides, Or. 23.76-78 likens the harmony of emperors
with cosmic concord. Seneca, Clem. 1.1.2, 1.3.4-3 conceives the Empire as a unity of
diverse forces that would descend into chaos were it not for the emperor, the vicar of
the gods, as its head, governed by divine reason and regulating the body of his empire.
For the eclectic philosophical backdrop to these ideas, see Glenn F. Chesnut, The Ruler
and the Logos in Neopythagorean, Middle Platonic, and Late Stoic Political Philo-
sophy, ANRW, II.16.1: 1310-32; E.R. Goodenough, The Political Philosophy of
Hellenistic Kingship, Yale Classical Studies 1 (1928), pp. 55-102. For the image of
the emperor as Jupiters viceroy ordering the political realm after the Jovian example
of heavenly rule, see J. Rufus Fears, Princeps a diis electus: The Divine Election of the
Emperor as a Political Concept at Rome (Rome: American Academy in Rome, 1977),
pp. 189-251.
30. Lucan, Bell. civ. 1.33-67 similarlyif perhaps ironicallylikens Zeuss victory
over the Titans (l. 33) with a Neronian civil peace (ll. 61-62).
31. E.M. Smallwood, Documents Illustrating the Principates of Gaius, Claudius
and Nero (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), pp. 35-37, no. 64 (SIG
3
, II,
p. 813 ll. 30-31); see Wendland, ooqp for a survey of similar cosmological epigraph-
ical treatments and discussion. For Helios and the Golden Age in imperial ideology,
see Rigobert Gnther and Reimar Mller, Das goldene Zeitalter: Utopien der

emphasizes that Christ is po o vov (1.17), or that o, toiv op_q , so
that ytvqoi tv ooiv ouo, potu ov (v. 18)notwithstanding the
important function of such afrmations in furnishing the warrant for
resisting worship of cosmic powers (2.18), and the important links with
Old Testament themes centring in creation narrativesthe universal
language bears a recognizably imperial imprint.
The literary and epigraphical theme of the harmony of the gods and
cosmic powers embodied in Caesars reign was the topic of a widespread
iconographical treatment designed to persuade the diverse peoples consti-
tuting the Roman Empire of the divinely willed and embodied rule of the
emperor, and the natural and civic abundance issuing forth from his reign.
First-century imperial iconography regularly represented emperors as
enthroned in heaven with depictions of conquered peoples or personied
nations pacied by Roman victory below them, or as associated with
natural fertility.
32

Only 100 km from Colossae, the temple complex or Sebasteion at
Aphrodisias, for example, dramatically displayed the divine appointment
of the Julio-Claudian dynasty to pacify the peoples of the earth and bring
them into a civil union mirroring divine harmony. Completed at precisely
the time Colossians was composed, the sculptural programme included
representations of emperors and their family members depicted in the
company of Olympian deities and personied nature and cosmic powers,
towering over some 50 statues representing peoples pacied, restored and/
or absorbed into the Roman order.
33
The same notion was broadcast in

hellenistisch-rmischen Antike (Leipzig: Kohlhammer, 1988), pp. 121-55.
32. See Ann L. Kuttner, Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of
the Boscoreale Cups (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), pp. 69-123 for
discussion of depictions of enthroned emperors and subject peoples in imperial iconog-
raphy; also, Zankers discussion of the Gemma Augustea in Power, pp. 230-38, where
Augustus is represented in the guise of Jupiter, enthroned beside Roma, surrounded by
divine personications of the earth; additionally, Galinskys discussion in Culture, pp.
141-64, of the cosmic, natural and pacication imagery of the ara pacis and the cuirass
of the Augustus statue from Prima Porta. For imagery of fertility in Julio-Claudian
iconographical programmes, see Zanker, Power, pp. 172-83. For the temple complex at
Aphrodisias, Charles Brian Rose, Dynastic Commemoration and Imperial Portraiture
in the Julio-Claudian Period (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 163-
69 excellently situates the iconography in the Julio-Claudian iconographical and ideo-
logical programme, with bibliography of archaeological reports.
33. See R.R.R. Smith, Myth and Allegory in the Sebasteion, JRS Suppl. 1 (1990),
pp. 89-100; idem., The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias, JRS 77

coinagein the case of the emperor Nero, in numismatic issues associating
him with the enthroned Jupiter and/or with head radiate, or depictions
associating him with the Jovian aegis. Such symbols, representing a renais-
sance of Jovian imagery in imperial media, urged imperial subjects to
believe that Neros reign was ordained by Jupiter and represented the
earthly copy of a cosmic model, if not the eneshed embodiment of the
divine.
34

Caesar, whether you are Jupiter himself on earth in altered guise, or one
other of the powers above concealed under an assumed moral semblance (for
you are very god [es enim deus])rule, I pray, this world, rule its peoples
for ever! Let love of heaven count naught with thee; abandon not, O father
[pater], the peace you have begun! (Calpurnius Siculus, Ecl. 4.142-46; LCL
trans. slightly modied.)

(1987), pp. 88-138, for reproductions and discussion; Rose, Portraiture, pp. 167-68,
recognizes more fully than Smith does the important cosmological afrmations of this
portraiture.
34. For the radiate bust and aegis in the Neronian iconographical programme, see
Fears, Princeps, pp. 235-37; for a renaissance of Jovian imagery, idem., Nero as the
Viceregent of the Gods in Senecas De clementia, Hermes 103 (1975), pp. 486-96;
idem., The Cult of Jupiter and Roman Imperial Ideology, ANRW, II.17.1, 3-141 (69-
74). For Asia Minor numismatic issues associating Nero with radiate bust with Jupiter,
see Andrew Barnett, Michael Amandry and Pere Paul Ripolls, Roman Provincial
Coinage (London: British Museum Press, 1992), I, p. 479, nos. 2917, 2919 (Laodicea,
c. 55 CE), Nero radiate and Zeus Laodiceus; I, pp. 485-86, nos. 2974-6 (Hierapolis,
c. 55), Nero radiate and Apollo on horseback; no. 2978, radiate Nero with standing Zeus.
In Greece Nero was heralded as Zeus Eleutherios upon exempting Achaea from taxation
(SIG
3
, II, p. 814). For history, application and cosmic signicance of Jovian motifs
applied to emperors in coins and other media, see Andreas Alfldi, Insignien und
Tracht der rmischen Kaiser, in Die monarchische Reprsentation im rmischen
Kaiserreiche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970), pp. 186-276.
Pierre Grimal, Le De clementia et la royaut de Nron, Revue des tudes latines 49
(1971), pp. 205-17; H.P. LOrange, Apotheosis in Ancient Portraiture (New York:
Caratzas, 1982), pp. 57-63; and Pascal Arnaud, Lapothose de Nron-kosmokrator et
la cosmographie de Lucain au premier de la Pharsale (1, 45-66), Revue des tudes
latines 65 (1987), pp. 167-93 argue that the radiate bust should be placed within the
broader context of Neronian attempts to identify himself as Sol and to promote a solar
monarchy. H.P. LOrange, Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic Kingship in the
Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953), pp. 28-34 referring
to Lucans representation of Nero as sun in Bell. civ. 1.45-69 (similarly, Seneca, Apol.
4) argues that Neros Domus Aurea (Suetonius, Nero 31) with its revolving rotunda
was built to reect the emperors cosmic/political power as incarnate Helios governing
the heavens and the earth.

The imperial panegyrist offers a realized political eschatology couched in
a divine incarnation; elsewhere, in a more traditional vein, Lucan (Bell.
civ. 1.60-66) looks forward to Neros apotheosis when, having taken his
place as a star (here as the sun) in the heavens, humankind will lay down
its arms and peace will govern the earth, even as it already does under the
emperors divine governance. What we may call a realized apotheosis
could not only be read about, it could also be seen. Nero took advantage
of a monetary reform and the introduction of new coins to broadcast
images of his divine rule. On coins issuing forth from the imperial mints
Nero is portrayed with a radiate crownan honour usually reserved to
designate posthumous deication. Such media, as Pierre Bastien aptly
comments, were the occasion for Nero to afrm his nature supra-
terrestre.
35

All this brings into striking relief the panegyric afrmations of Colossian
Christology. An early Christian audience listening to Col. 1.15-23, with
its charged diplomatic language, surrounded by imperial imagery celebra-
ting the cosmic and earthly concord of Roman rule, could not have helped
but recognize imperial overtones in the celebration of an incarnate Son in
whom the fullness of God dwelt (1.19; 2.9) to bring about a universal
reconciliation. Like Nero, whom imperial poets acclaimed as an embodied
deity, and Seneca celebrated as the head of the body, the Roman Empire,
on whom all rests and depends for its health and vigour, the incarnate
Son, the enthroned Jesus, heads the cosmos by which all things hold
together (1.17) and from whom, in the empire [ooiiti o] of his beloved
Son (1.13) comes growth and renewal (2.9-10, 19; 1.6).
36
Even as the

35. Here Nero was following the lead of Gaius, who introduced the iconographical
innovation of representing himself on coins as radiate; for the history and meaning, see
Pierre Bastien, Le buste montaire des empereurs romains (Wetteren: Editions
numismatique romaine, 1992), I, pp. 105-107. A similar innovation proclaiming
virtual apotheosis can be seen on coins with the inscription genio augusti, the dative
replacing the customary nominative and thus drawing attention to Neros divinity:
C.H.V. Sutherland and R.A.G. Carson, The Roman Imperial Coinage (London: Spink,
2nd edn, 1984), I (RIC), p. 158, nos. 83-87; p. 160, nos. 124-25; pp. 163-64, nos. 213-
20; p. 174, nos. 382-83; p. 176, nos. 419-20; p. 178, nos. 462-63; p. 182, nos. 532-36.
No. 214 is especially instructive: genius bears a cornucopiaa celebration of natural
abundance bursting forth from Neros divine rule.
36. For Nero as embodied divine numen governing the earth, see Calpurnius Siculus,
Ecl. 4.84; deus ipse (4.165); mea numina (7.80); for Nero as embodied Mars/Apollo,
7.84; Einsiedeln ecl. 1.37. For the semantic range of imperial incarnation of the divine
and its important differences from early Christian afrmations of the incarnation of the

imperial order was celebrated as civil order and concord mirroring the peace
of the gods, replacing the faction and strife that had divided the cities and
nations of the world, so our author praises Colossian good order [oi,],
and their being rooted [tppiotvoi], built up [toi|oooutvoi] and
rmly established [toioutvoi] in Christ (2.5, 7), all civic terms used
in political commonplace treatments of oovoio, and to celebrate the bene-
ts and character of Roman rule.
37

To be sure, Colossians is unique for what N.T. Wright has well described
as the christological monotheism of early Christian afrmation.
38
Whereas
in the imperial programme the emperor is a god, or son of god, numbered
amongst a series of deities in a natural/cosmic order that is cyclic, in the
Colossian afrmation Jesus is the Son of the only God, who has brought
creation into being and sustains it.
39
These essential and important differ-
ences should not make us deaf, however, to the resonances one discovers
in celebrations and confessions of imperial ruleresonances amplied by
the clear use of diplomatic language that Colossians deploys and the loca-
tion of the political language in a politically oriented cosmology.
Those resonances take on pointed socio-political meaning once they are
situated in the context of Colossian ecclesiology. Colossian christological
monotheism and the universal imperial-sounding claims associated with it
are always afrmed with reference to the church understood as both the

Son in Jesus, see S.R.F. Price, Gods and Emperors: The Greek Language of the
Roman Imperial Cult, JHS 104 (1984), pp. 79-95. The important differences should
not blind us, however, to the clear analogues (thus, Collins, Worship, pp. 244-51, who
depends heavily on Zeller, Menschwerdung, pp. 157-72). For Nero as head of the
body of his empire, through whom all are united, see Seneca, Clem. 1.3.4; 1.5.1; 1.13.4;
2.2.1-2; cf. ps.-Aristotle, De mundo 7.401a.29-401b.7 where the civic body and cosmic
body of Zeus are likened. For the empire as body with the emperor at its head in imperial
ideology, see Dietmar Kienast, Corpus imperii. berlegungen zum Reichsgedanken
der Rmer, in Gerard Wirth (ed.), RomanitaChristianitas: Untersuchungen zur
Geschichte und Literatur der rmischen Kaiserzeit (Festschrift Johannes Staub; Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1982), pp. 1-17.
37. See, for example, Aelius Aristides, Or. 26.29, 101, 103-104 for civil chaos
replaced by imperial rule and civic concord adorning the empire as a garden (99);
Plutarch, Fort. Rom. 9.321D for Fortune permitting Rome pioooi |oi |oooqooi
qv o iiv ouovot vqv tv qou_io toio,, anticipating an empire-wide concord to
come; for the lengthy tradition of political applications of toio,, oi|ootiv and
cognates, with representations of Roman political peace and reconciliation, see Mitchell,
Paul, pp. 105-107.
38. Wright, Poetry, p. 459.
39. Similarly, Zeller, Menschwerdung, p. 173.

local assembly of the gathered house church (4.15, 16) and a more cosmic
reality it makes manifest (1.18, 24; 2.19). The Christ who is head of the
body, the church, parallels the emperor who is head of the body of his
Empire, with the difference that Christs is not a rule centred in military
dominion over pacied enemies. His rule is rather manifested in a recon-
ciling death making friends out of enemies. His reign is marked not by
domination, but by self-giving (1.20, 22). The citizens of this alternative
Empire in the body of the church are urged to live according to its counter-
imperial logic (3.13-15). The local house churches of Colossae, Hierapolis
and Laodicea thus are to express in their ethics (3.14.6) and their worship
of the enthroned Jesus (1.15-20) a pattern of life that, while not offering
the critique of Roman dominion found elsewhere in the New Testament
(especially the Apocalypse), nevertheless differs signicantly from the
imperial ideas Colossians draws upon and echoes. Indeed, in its afrmation
of Jesus as the one in whom, through whom and for whom all things are
made (1.16) and continue to hold together (v. 17), by logical implication
even Caesar, together with the cosmic powers he serves, is ultimately
subject (Col. 2.10). We have here the making of a Quiet Revolution.

Here there cannot bebarbarian, Scythian

As the letter unfolds it continues to sound imperial tones, especially in its
declarations of the universal rule of Christ who is all and in all [(o )
o vo |oi tv ooiv] (3.11). Colossians appropriation of imperial imagery
has been most discussed with reference to 2.15 with its celebration of
Jesus death as a Roman triumphus, and the relation of that imagery to the
cosmic powers named in 1.16.
40
But if the image points backwards, it also
prepares the way for the ethical exhortations that follow in 3.1ff.,
especially in the celebration of the overcoming of all ethnic boundaries in
3.11. Wayne Meeks has correctly named the afrmations of 3.11, as well
as the related ones of Gal. 3.28, 1 Cor. 12.13, and beyond in Eph. 2.11-22
and Ignatius, Smyrn. 1.2, as utopian declarations exclaimed at Chris-

40. See Carr, Angels, pp. 61-63; Lamar Williamson, Led in Triumph, Int 22
(1968), pp. 317-32; F.F. Bruce, Colossian Problems Part 4: Christ as Conqueror and
Reconciler, Bibiotheca Sacra 141 (1984), pp. 291-302 (298-99); and Roy Yates,
Colossians 2.15: Christ Triumphant, NTS 37 (1991), pp. 573-91; R.G. Tanner, St.
Pauls View of Militia and Contemporary Social Values, in E.A. Livingstone (ed.),
Studia Biblica: Sixth International Congress on Biblical Studies (JSNTSup, 3;
Shefeld: JSOT Press, 1980), III, pp. 377-82.

tian baptism, which helped believers gain a sense of belonging in a large
and cosmopolitan world.
41
Meekss analysis focuses on these afrmations
as Pauline and pre-Pauline, a baptismal reunication formula whose
point was to proclaim that the initiatory ritual of baptism was a drama of
the re-creation of mankind, and that the hallmark of the new human was
unity.
42
That analysis is too parochial, however, as long as it remains
focused solely on ritual patterns and their associations with religious
traditions. Meekss religionsgeschichtliche insights gain contextual relief
once related to a more imperial reading of Col. 3.11 that places its utopian
declaration in the social setting of imperial ideals.
Early Christian proclamations of a unity transcending ethnic boundaries
took place in an Empire that celebrated its dominion over subject peoples
iconographically as incorporated or subjected through military might into
a trans-ethnic order.
43
Ethnic diversity in unity created by means of Roman
military pacication of enemieswhat Max Mhl aptly calls cosmopoli-
tanism with powerwas the imperial vision Rome held up to its subjects
to convince them of Romes entitlement to govern the world.
44
As Claude
Nicolet has shown, Augustuss Res gestae celebrates precisely such a
cosmopolitanism as the Roman fullment of Alexanders incomplete pro-
ject of bringing the world into a trans-ethnic unity.
45
The universal claims
of a gospel bringing into one unity ethnically diverse often mobile peoples
of varying socio-economic status was at home in an Empire that equated
its realm with the world, integrated its subject peoples militarily and

41. Wayne A. Meeks, In One Body: The Unity of Humankind in Colossians and
Ephesians, in Jacob Jervell and Wayne A. Meeks (eds.), Gods Christ and his People:
Studies in Honor of Nils Alstrup Dahl (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1977), pp. 209-21
(209).
42. Meeks, Body, p. 210; idem., The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a
Symbol in Earliest Christianity, HR 13 (1974), pp. 165-208 (180-97).
43. See especially Walter F. Taylor, The Unity of Mankind in Antiquity and Paul
(PhD dissertation, Claremont, 1981), pp. 420-567 for a survey of the backdrop of
Roman imperial cosmopolitanism and its relation to Pauline ideals.
44. Max Mhl, Die antike Menschheitsidee in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung
(Leipzig: Dieterich, 1928; repr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1975),
p. 82.
45. Claude Nicolet, Space, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire
(trans. Hlne Leclerc; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), pp. 21-22,
commenting on the geographical organization of Res gestae, pp. 25-33; Plutarch repre-
sents Alexanders vision in recognizably Roman imperial terms in Alex fort. 6.329C.

diplomatically into a political union, and created new possibilities for social
and economic mobility.
46

The Empires inhabitants were especially urged to conceive of them-
selves as part of a divinely appointed cosmopolitan order by imperial
monuments portraying subject peoples pacied by Roman might and
incorporated into the imperial order. Their importance as a medium in
propagating Roman rule as a utopian cosmopolitan order can hardly be
overestimated. This is especially true because these monuments were not
necessarily imposed by Rome from above, but were also erected by local
elites to indicate their allegiance to that order and the material, political
and societal benets streaming forth to them from it.
47
These monuments
drew on a long iconographical tradition of military and triumphal imagery
originating in the Hellenistic period celebrating military pacication of
enemies.
48
Roman iconography characteristically depicted vanquished en-
emies, or personied peoples or geographical areas in poses of submission
before their victors and political overlords.
The Sebasteion at Aphrodisias is especially instructive, not only for
its extensive representation of pacied peoples, but also for its portrayals
of them in various stages of assimilation to the Roman imperial moral
order.
49
The 50 statues of personied subject peoples and places, placed in
the second story of the temples north portico, beneath cosmic and mytho-
logical representations of emperors, were erected to communicate to
viewers the geographical extent of Romes imperium and the imperial

46. For the expanse of the Roman geographical imagination together with its
military function, see Nicolet, Space, pp. 29-94; Susan Mattern, Rome and the Enemy:
Imperial Strategy in the Principate (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999),
pp. 26-40; Ando, Ideology, pp. 277-335.
47. See Ando, Ideology, pp. 303-13 for discussion of representative examples.
48. For the tradition and literature, and the iconographical uses in Roman triumphal
ceremony, see Kuttner, Dynasty, pp. 73-86; still denitive are P. Bienkowski, De
simulacris barbararum gentium apud Romanos (Krakow: Gebethner, 1900); M. Jatta,
Le rappresentanze gurate delle Provincie Romane (Rome: Ermanno Loescher, 1908);
J.M.C. Toynbee, The Hadrianic School: A Chapter in the History of Greek Art
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), pp. 7-23 (for the Julio-Claudian and
Flavian periods).
49. For a full discussion of Roman imperial iconography as a guide in interpreting
Colossians, see Harry O. Maier, Barbarians, Scythians and Imperial Iconography in the
Epistle to the Colossians, in Annette Weissenrieder, Frederike Wendt and Petra von
Gemnden (eds.), Picturing the New Testament: Studies in Iconography and the New
Testament (Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005).

households divinely appointed role in civilizing the world. Amongst the
statues are personications of subject barbarian peoples. One example
powerfully communicates a barbarian ethnos in the process of roman-
ization: she stands with bound arms, wearing an unkempt peplos that has
slipped off her shoulder, with hair between the stereotypical dishevelled
barbarian style and the regulated Greek coiffure. On the third story of the
south portico, a similar depiction of a barbarian nation in media res is repre-
sented with Nero standing victorious over a kneeling, despondent female
personication of the recently conquered Armenia. Nero, grasping her
from beneath her shoulders, is pulling her to her feet to symbolize not only
pacication, but the romanization that will come to her as a consequence
of the political/military reconciliation with the defeated Armenian king,
Tiridates. These representations erected by local elites to celebrate imperial
rule put in stone what was theorized by Roman moralists in printthat
Romes dominion over subject nations was a consequence of its moral
superiority and was the sign of a divine favour extending throughout the
world, to bring order where chaos had once ruled, and peace where there
had been war.
50
In a ight of the utopian imagination, Horace asks his
listeners to imagine those at the farthest reaches of the world, inhabiting a
moral no-mans landIndians and Scythians, but recently disdainful
now asking to be pacied as a consequence of the moral order expressing
the Augustan Golden Age.
51

50. See especially, Cicero, De republica 3.36; also, Virgil, Aen. 6.850-53; Aelius
Aristides, Or. 26.102-107, Philo, Leg. Gai. 49-50; 143-47; for discussion with further
texts, see P.A. Brunt, Laus Imperii, in Roman Imperial Themes (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990), pp. 288-325 (293-300); Wilhelm Capelle, Griechische Ethik und rm-
ischer Imperialismus, Klio 25 (1932), pp. 86-113; Ulrich Knoche, Die geistige Vorbe-
reitung der augusteiischen Epoche durch Cicero, in Hans Oppermann (ed.), Rmertum:
Ausgewhlte Aufstze und Arbeiten aus den Jahren 1921 bis 1961 (Darmstadt:
Wissenchaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1970), pp. 203-23; Hermann Strasburger,
Poseidonios on Problems of the Roman Empire, JRS 55 (1965), pp. 40-53 (46-53); J.
Rufus Fears, The Theology of Victory at Rome, ANRW, II.17.2, 737-825 (749-52,
773-77, 804-24). For Rome as civilizing and bringing order to chaos, see A.A.T.
Ehrhardt, Imperium und Humanitas. Grundlagen des rmischen Imperialismus,
Studium Generale 14 (1961), pp. 646-64; F. Klingner, Humanitt und Humanitas, in
Rmische Geisteswelt. Aufstze zur lateinischen Literatur (Stuttgart: Artemis, 6th edn,
1979), pp. 704-46.
51. Horace, Carmen saeculare 53-56; contemporary with Nero, Lucan, Bell. civ.
1.367-72, cites Roman triumph over Scythia as expression of a conquered world. For
Graeco-Roman ethnology associating Scythians with extreme otherness, remoteness

Thus, when the author to the Colossians afrms here there cannot be
Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave,
free, but Christ is all, and in all (3.11), we have a text that resonates with
imperial utopian associations. Those associations become all the more
striking once placed within the context of the authors celebration of a
gospel that expresses the triumphus of Christ (2.15) proclaimed through
all the world (1.6, 23) as the advent of a new moral order (3.54.6). As in
the imperial context, where military pacication expresses the divinely
appointed right of Rome to rule and the advent of good morals, so in
Colossians, Christs triumphus brings with it good order and right behav-
iour. Colossians language of putting off the old nature, with its vices
(3.8-10) and putting on the new nature (vv. 10, 12-15) has been much
remarked upon with reference to Gen. 1.26-27, especially in relation to
baptismal initiation and the recovery of a prelapsarian condition.
52
But
this language also reects imperial political notions. The ritual of Roman
triumph included a ceremonial taking off and putting on of clothing to
celebrate victorious rule. This is the image introduced at 2.15 where the
aorist middle ot|uootvo, refers to Christs death as a disrobing in
preparation for the victory parade to follow in which he publicly displays
(tiyoitiv) the principalities and authorities in the triumphal procession
of his resurrection.
53
The political-moral dimensions of that triumph
continue in 3.1, with the exhortation to seek the things above where Christ
is enthroned, and in 3.15 with the call to let the peace of Christ rule [q
tipqvq ou Xpioou potut o]. Thus 3.10 with its obvious connection

and intractability, see the discussion of the Greek presentation in Franois Hartog, The
Mirror of Herodotus: The Representation of the Other in the Writing of History (trans.
Janet Lloyd; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 61-111; Edith Hall,
Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Denition through Tragedy (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1989), pp. 101-200, and Brent Shaw, Eaters of Flesh, Drinkers of Milk: The
Ancient Mediterranean Ideology of the Pastoral Nomad, Ancient Society 13 (1982),
pp. 5-31; and of the application of this tradition in Roman imperial ethnology in Susan
P. Mattern, Rome and the Enemy: Imperial Strategy and the Principate (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999), pp. 70-80, and David Braund, The Caucasian
Frontier: Myth, Exploration and the Dynamics of Imperialism, in Philip Freeman and
David Kennedy (eds.), The Defence of the Roman and Byzantine East (Oxford: BAR,
1986), I, pp. 31-49 (fantasy-space, pp. 36-38). For literary depictions of Scythians
more generally, see E. Bieder, 2|u q,, TDNT, VII, pp. 447-49.
52. Meeks, Androgyne, pp. 187-89.
53. Thus Carr, Angels, p. 61; H.S. Versnel, Triumphus: An Inquiry into the Origin,
Development and Meaning of the Roman Triumph (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), pp. 56-93.

to the Old Testament is framed by imperial metaphors. In 3.11, where the
ethical renewal of the Colossians is related to a trans-ethnic unity in
which Christ is all, and in all, the imperial tone resonates more strongly.
The triumph acclaimed at 2.15 now takes on a recognizably Roman
imperial reach and universality. With even barbarians and Scythians caught
up in the moral renewal of the ooiiti o of [Gods] beloved Son (1.13),
the gospel has indeed reached the world the furthest limits of the
imperial imagination.

Concordia Augusta and the Colossian Haustafel

Imperial echoes continue in the Household Code of 3.184.1. It has long
been recognized that the Haustafeln here and elsewhere in early Christian
literature are to be interpreted as a topos at home in Hellenistic political
literature.
54
Recently Margaret MacDonald has urged a more precise
imperial political connection in her study of the Ephesian household code
(Eph. 5.226.9).
55
Drawing on scholarship focusing on the political uses
of family imagery by governing imperial households to promote their rule
as a divinely appointed concord extending from the imperial family to the
empire as whole, she argues that the Ephesian Haustafel bears the marks
of its imperial context. Especially important in situating New Testament
Haustafeln in their Roman setting is attention to imagery found on imperial
coins depicting the concord and familial bonds of the Julio-Claudian
dynasty. Suzanne Dixon notes the importance of this imagery in presenting
political ideals.
56
In addition to exploiting pro-family ideals current in the
populace at large, it afrmed that imperial concord owed forth from the
harmony of the ruling household, the mirror of divine concordia.
Of relevance for recognizing the imperial connections with the Colossian
Household Code are the contemporary Augustus Augusta and Concordia

54. For a succinct review of scholarship as well as application in pagan political
ideals, see Mitchell, Paul, pp. 121-25.
55. Margaret Y. MacDonald, The Politics of Identity in Ephesians, JSNT 26.4
(2004), pp. 419-44; I am grateful to Professor MacDonald for making her paper
available to me before it went to press; see also, David L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submis-
sive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter (SBLMS, 26; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981),
pp. 72-73 for imperial ideology celebrating Augustus as protector and promoter of
family morals.
56. Suzanne Dixon, The Sentimental Ideal of the Roman Family, in Beryl Rawson
(ed.), Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1991), pp. 99-113 (107).

Augusta issues celebrating Neros marriage to Poppaea in 62 CE.
57
In the
former, a radiate Nero with patera and sceptresymbols of generosity
and Jovian rulestands beside the traditionally veiled Poppaea bearing a
cornucopia; the latter depicts Concordia, again with the benecent symbols
of patera and cornucopia. The strong afrmations of divinity in these issues
strikingly illustrate Dixons point concerning imperial familial represen-
tations of concordiano small irony in the case of the matri- and uxoricide
Neroto promote Roman rule, and the use of representations of the
imperial households female members for propaganda purposes.
58

In the Colossian Haustafel, where the author urges each family order to
full its characteristic obligations in obedience to the Lord/Master (3.18,
20, 22, 23, 24; 4.1), and husbands are urged to love their wives (v. 19),
well-governed household relations are similarly made to reect the divine
governance of the rule and peace of Christ celebrated in 3.15. The Haustafel
thus represents a further application of the diplomatic language and politi-
cal metaphors found elsewhere in the letter. Further, the extended exhorta-
tions outlining the obligations of slaves to masters (3.22-25) similarly
reect imperial political treatment of the well-regulated household. Dio
Chrysostom, for example, reects his Roman context when he likens civic
oovoio to a well-governed household in which husband and wife are
like-minded and slaves obey their masters.
59
Colossians idiosyncratic
lengthening of slave instructions perhaps originated from the needs of a
community constituted mostly by converted slaves, anxious to defend
itself against pagan suspicions.
60
It certainly reinforces the overall message
of the letter, that Christs reconciling/pacifying rulelike Caesarshas
penetrated beyond every ethnic, national, religious and social boundary to
bring all into a divinely appointed global paxa peace and concord
nowhere more manifest than in the faithful execution of traditional house-
hold duties. The local house churches under the rule of their divine master
realize a domestic political ideal championed in the civic culture around

57. RIC, p. 153, nos. 44, 56, 48; see also the earlier (54-56 CE) Agrippina issues
linking Nero with his mother as mater augusti: e.g., RIC, p. 150, no. 6; 185, nos. 607-
11, as well as those representing Nero as son of the deied Claudius (RIC, p. 150, nos.
1-3; p. 185, nos. 607-12 [obverse legends]).
58. See M. Grant, Roman Imperial Money (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1972), pp. 133-
48, for discussion of other examples.
59. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 38.14.
60. Thus, Balch, Wives, pp. 96-97; Margaret Y. MacDonald, Colossians Ephesians
(Sacra Pagina, 17; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000), pp. 160-69.

them. However, just as Colossian afrmation of reconciliation through the
death of Jesus implicitly rejects Roman ideas of pacication through
diplomacy backed by the sword, so the Household Code urges upon those
inhabiting traditional positions of power (husbands and slave owners)
love (oyoov, 3.19), justice and equity (i |oio,; iooq ,, 4.1). It thereby
unsettles the traditional absolute rule and exploitation of Graeco-Roman
patresfamilias over their subordinates.
61
A domestic peace in the house
church marked by love, justice and equity insists that the Colossian church
realize a civic identity that runs counter to the exploitative rule by domi-
nation of its imperial overlords.

A Sly Civility

The preceding discussion has shown that a full exegetical treatment of
Colossians requires close attention to the way it adopts and adapts Roman
imperial themes in its presentation of a global, universal reconciliation
grounded in a cosmic vision of the creating and triumphal work of an
incarnate Christ, extended to the farthest reaches of the Roman ethnic
imagination, expressed in politically charged civic terms to describe the
ethical renewal and communal ordering of believers. While these more
politically oriented themes are usually passed over in contemporary
exegetical accounts of Colossians, resulting in a too parochial reading of
an imperially charged text, ancient commentators were quick to recognize
Colossians imperial resonances. Colossians, with its three-stage Christol-
ogy celebrating the enthronement of an exalted Christ and a global
proclamation of the gospel celebrating the incorporation of all peoples ti,
qv ooiitiov ou uiou q, oyo q, ouou (1.13) was especially suited
for expressing the imperial dominion of a Christian Empire under Con-
stantine and his successors. Eusebiuss Oration in Praise of Constantine
repeatedly draws on Colossians imperial tropes and political language to
celebrate a pre-existing Son of God through whom and for whom all

61. For iooq, as (economic) equity (a critical alternative translation to the RSV
fairness), see Dieter Georgi, Remembering the Poor: The History of Pauls Collection
for Jerusalem (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1992), pp. 154-57. For i|oio, and iooq,
as twin concepts in philosophical ethical tradition as legal notions, and Pauline
reconguration through association with notions of incarnation and grace, see Petros
Vassiliadis, Equality and Justice in Classical Antiquity and in Paul: The Social Impli-
cations of the Pauline Collection, St. Vladimirs Theological Quarterly 36 (1992), pp.
51-59.

things visible and invisible have been created, enthroned in splendour, and
triumphant over all the nations, his sovereign power extended over Greeks
and barbarians alike through the power of his everywhere penetrating
logos (Laud. Const. 1; 4; 7). His earthly representative, Constantine, is the
earthly image of that cosmic rule; the emperor mirrors Christs victory
over invisible powers by overthrowing pagan religion and extending the
sweep of his Christian Empire to include Greeks and barbarians alike (9
10). Christ and Caesar conspire together in a cosmic and global rule, as
saving religion guarantees imperial peace and concord and a global imperial
reach brings the gospel to the furthest points of the compass (16). Pre-
eminent amongst the biblical texts Eusebius draws upon to present the
realized eschatology of his political messianism is Colossians. Here he
nds the imperial metaphor of triumph, the overcoming of all ethnic
distinctions, the cosmic penetration of divine rule mirrored by imperial
order, the moral renewal of all peoples under the direction of an emperor.
The case for an imperial reading of Colossians argued for in this essay is
assumed as a matter of course in Eusebiuss oration.
But if Colossians can be read as offering support for that imperial
vision, it also proclaims a more destabilizing truth. For the paradox of
Colossians is that an imperial-looking victory is signalled by a defeat. It is
from the crossa symbol of Roman pacication of enemiesin the body
of Jesus death, that a new imperium issues forth (1.20; 2.15). Enemies are
pacied and incorporated in the body of this ooiiti o, but not by the
Roman vision of a sword wielded to rule the world, to crown peace with
justice, to spare the vanquished and crush the proud (Vergil, Aen. 6.851-
52). Reconciliation comes through the death of the ruler, not the ruled,
and in the ethical life of love for and care of others (3.12-14), who share
the rule of Christ (3.1; 1.18; 2.10, 15) and his riches (1.27; 2.2-3), not
through the dominion of one over the vanquished who owe him honour.
This is an imperial pax by other means. That it is from Jesus crucixion
and resurrection that a universal peace and renewal comes presumes that
the old Augustan order is no real peace (its pax deum is an illusion), and
that the violence on which it rests offers no genuine reconciliation. The
blood of the cross is the full revelation of the true nature of such a pax and
offers a sobering cross-examination of all those, then and now, who march
forth in battle to make a desert and call it peace (Tacitus, Agricola 30.5).
Colossians offers an alternative vision of victory in the exhortation to put
on love (3.14), which picks up on the sartorial triumphus imagery of
disrobing (ot|uootvo,) in 2.15, and thereby renounces violence as the

means of achieving universal peace (3.15). It urges believers gathered in
local house churches to realize by love what Rome seeks to achieve by the
force of arms, and thereby to be the visible ecclesial manifestation of an
alternative cosmic rule centred nally in an empire-renouncing logic.
Colossians is, to borrow a phrase from Homi Bhabha, a sly civility.
62
If
it echoes imperial-sounding ideals, it does not replicate them. Colossians
twists Empire and makes it slip. This hybrid vision from the cross disavows
Empire even as it mimics it.

62. Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 93-
102.

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