stance, since the salvation in view is essentially the same. In the end,
Koester’s claim is an empty one: a negative assertion, limited to the decon-
struction of “traditional apocalyptic topics” and “postures” (1997, 166).
In the case of the early Christian community at Corinth, if Paul had
determined initially to know nothing among them but “Jesus Christ and
him crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2), opining subsequently that if “the rulers of this
age” (tôn archontôn tou aiônos toutou) had known the preordained counter-
cultural wisdom of God “they would not have crucified the Lord of glory”
(2:8), the risen Christ nonetheless continues to be described by Paul in his
correspondence with the Corinthians as a conquering general, whose own
eventual submission to God will occur only after all other things have been
made subject to him (cf. R.A. Horsley 1998, 162). Indeed, the eschatologi-
cal scene in 1 Corinthians 15:20–28 unabashedly recalls the triumphal pro-
cession of a Roman military chief of staff returning to the imperial city,
first, to display the evidence of his far-flung conquests before then submit-
ting to the governing authority of the Senate. That this end-time scenario
also might derive, in part, from Jewish apocalyptic speculation hardly
diminishes its Roman imperial connotations.
Traces of the image of a triumphal procession are also present in 2
Corinthians 2:14. According to Klaus Wengst: “When Paul continues in II
Cor. 2.14, ‘And reveals the fragrance of his knowledge through us all every-
where,’ he is retaining the image of the triumphal procession. For the men-
tion of ‘fragrance’ might be made in this context against the background
of the custom of carrying containers with incense alongside the triumphal
chariot, from which clouds of incense ascended to heaven” (1986, 206n. 74;
cf. Carr 1981, 62f). Conceivably, the thorn in Paul’s flesh, which is imme-
diately identified as an aggelos Satanaswho beat Paul lest he should become
overly inflated after his brief sojourn in paradise (2 Cor 12:7), similarly
recalls, albeit sardonically, the slave who stood behind each general return-
ing triumphantly to Rome in order to remind him that sic transit gloria
mundi.Not surprisingly, in 1 Corinthians 15:23, Paul continues to anticipate
with all the same connotations as before the parousiaof the Lord Jesus
Christ. The horizon of Paul’s hope remains as imperial as ever.
Even so, Paul’s so-called theology of the Cross, to which especially the
statements in 1 Corinthians 2:2, 8 have seemed to so many scholars to bear
witness, could represent a countervailing, if not wholly “anti-Roman-impe-
rial,” perspective on the part of the apostle. This presumes, of course, that
Paul had a theology of the Cross. According to Neil Elliott: “It is impossi-
ble to exaggerate the importance of the cross of Jesus Christ to Paul” (1997a,
167). In my opinion, however, such a claim is, exegetically, a gross exagger-
Why Christianity Succeeded (in) the Roman Empire 273