gelist’s larger political vision of early Christian accommodation and submis-
sion to Roman rule. At the same time, such a depiction of exemplary per-
sonal virtue would soon be able to be read, by a later generation, as a warrant
for its right to exercise imperial power, just as Virgil understood his depic-
tion of Aeneas’s rigours of renunciation in the Aeneidto represent part of the
formativepaideiaand now proper claim of the Roman people to universal
hegemony (see Keith and Vaage 1999).
COMMUNICATIO IDIOMATUM POLITICORUM
More instructive for the purposes of this essay are those texts that appear
to contravene the preceding interpretation of Luke-Acts because they would
speak against or compete with the claims of Roman rule. Such texts are the
focus of this next section, beginning with the birth narratives in Luke 1–2
and the account of Jesus’ ascension to heaven in Luke 24:50–52; Acts
1:1–11. Extending this analysis, I shall then go on to discuss the seven let-
ters to the seven churches in Revelation 2:1–3:22; and, finally, a number of
writings of the Pauline Corpus, most especially 1 Thessalonians, 1–2
Corinthians, and Philippians.
My principal purpose in reviewing seriatim these different forms of
early Christian self-representation is to assess their collective thrust. How-
ever much each text is plainly quite unlike the others in this or that regard,
what kind of (political) discourse do they nonetheless constitute when
taken together as a whole? Does an early Christian style of pronounce-
ment become apparent, which is sufficiently continuous or coherent in its
mode of programmatic articulation to explain the subsequent cumulative
effect of imperial success by Christianity? In the language of pharmacology,
does the canonical combination produce a certain unforeseen “potentiation”
of effect, however much, in retrospect, this now seems predictable?
Of course, one could always try to show that the apparent challenge to
Roman rule in these texts does not, in fact, occur. This is, for example, the
interpretation of Luke-Acts by Klaus Wengst (1986, 89–105), according to
whom Luke not only depicts Jesus and his followers as being respectful of
Roman rule because of such fair treatment by it, but the evangelist also
underscores that the kingdom whose ruler Jesus is, is essentially a spiritual
one. Hence the removal to heaven in Luke 19:38 of the peace that Jesus’
birth is said to inaugurate in Luke 2:14, as well as Jesus’ own departure to
heaven at his ascension in Luke 24:50–52; Acts 1:1–11, are both supposed
by Wengst to make clear to the early reader of Luke-Acts that the kingdom
of God that Jesus preached was not, ultimately, a threat in any way to
Roman rule or the Augustan peace (see, further, Janzen 2000).
Why Christianity Succeeded (in) the Roman Empire 259