in fact, decisively shaped by the fact that so much of its core religious
vocabulary is expressly political and so frankly imperial.
Consider, for example, the common early Christian invocation of Jesus
as Lord (kyrios), the promise of incorporation through Jesus into a divine
kingdom (basileia) or higher “heavenly” household, and the description of
those affiliated with Christ as the official assemblies (ekklêsiai) of such a
realm. Richard A. Horsley (1998, 170) tries to distinguish, in the historically
authentic Pauline writings, between “the primary sense of political ruler”
for the title kyriosand its other possible meaning as “slave-master.” Hors-
ley’s main concern is to challenge any suggestion that early Christian self-
understanding was a form of slave-consciousness. But this strikes me as
wanting to have your cake and eat it, too. Could one be recognized in antiq-
uity as politically kyrioswithout a corresponding slave-body (doulos), since
the term kyrios(dominus) denotes precisely domination over someone else?
Even the term “gospel” (euaggelion), as Helmut Koester has underscored
(with other scholars before him), was part of the discourse of Roman
(Augustan) imperial propaganda. Thus Koester writes:
All these inscriptions [using the term euaggelion] result from the religio-
political propaganda of Augustus in which the rule of peace, initiated by
Augustus’ victories and benefactions, is celebrated and proclaimed as the
beginning of a new age. This usage of the term [euaggelion] is new in the
Greco-Roman world. It elevates this term and equips it with a particu-
lar [imperial] dignity. Since the Christian usage of the term for its sav-
ing message begins only a few decades after the time of Augustus, it is
most likely that the early Christian missionaries were influenced by the
imperial propaganda in their employment of the word.^2
Whatever we might wish to conclude about the influence of imperial
propaganda on early Christian discourse originally—as Koester notes (1990,
4n. 2), most scholars have been “very hesitant” to imagine such a direct con-
nection—the imperial inscriptions to which Koester refers make it clear
that early Christian self-presentation in these terms certainly would have
been heard as “talking the talk” of Rome. The same holds true for other
vocabulary as well: for example, the description of Jesus Christ kyriosas Sav-
iour (sôtêr:Luke 2:11; Acts 5:31; 13:23; John 4:42, etc.) or offering salvation
(sôtêria:1Thess. 5:8–9; Phil. 1:28; 2:12; Rom. 1:16; 10:1; 11:11; 13:11, etc.);
Why Christianity Succeeded (in) the Roman Empire 2552 See Koester 1990, 4; cf. Deissmann 1927, 366–67; Schniewind 1927, 87–93; Friedrich
1964, 721–25; Stuhlmacher 1968, 196–206. For the best known of these inscriptions,
namely, the calendar inscription from Priene, see Mommsen and von Wilamowitz-Moel-
lendorff 1899, 275ff; Dittenberger 1960, 2:48–60 (#458); also Wendland 1904, 335ff;
Pfohl 1966, 134–35.