Christ’s Πίστις vs. Caesar’s Fides : Πίστις Χριστοῦ in Galatians and the Roman Imperial Cult 1

Imperial cult and imperial ideology

Augustus made Asia Minor a Roman province (Provincia Galatia) after the demise of King Amyntas (39–25 bce) who ruled the southern part of central Asia Minor (Dio Cassius, Hist. rom. LIII.26.3). The first Roman emperor wanted to secure control of Asia Minor and intended Galatia to be under the cultural and political influence of Rome. ⁶ To this end, Augustus constructed new cities in Galatia and moved discharged soldiers there. ⁷ He let the Galatians see and know Rome’s status and rule by means of city plans, building constructions, imperial statues and temples, and the issuing of coins. ⁸

The imperial cult was important for Rome’s control of Galatia. ⁹ After Octavian had received the title of Augustus, he tried to raise the status of the emperor up to the point of deification. For example, coins with Augustus’ face were minted in over 200 cities during his era while those with Julius Caesar’s face were struck in three cities. ¹⁰ This difference shows a rapid change which occurred during the imperial deification and the consolidated mood of the empire. Such deification served to propagate the divine status of the emperor and his solemn authority. The imperial cult was utilised to establish the relationship between the emperor and each region of the empire. Provincial elites became priests of the imperial cult. Honouring the divine emperor, they sponsored games, religious events, banquets, building projects, and imperial statues. ¹¹ In so doing, they also promoted their own status. Many cities in Galatia competed with one another for the position of νεωκόρος (imperial temple guardian). ¹²

The imperial cult was of interest not merely to provincial elites, but to all people in the provinces. Celebrating the divine empire, they all participated in festivals, games, and banquets. ¹³ In Asia Minor, the imperial cult incorporated regional history and culture so that it could persuasively appeal to the provincial people. ¹⁴ In this way, Galatia was incorporated into the order of the empire.

Within this political and religious environment, Gentile believers in Galatian churches received Paul’s gospel and accepted Christ as Lord. They experienced the challenge of their dual identity as both Christ-believers and the empire’s subjects. Although the imperial cult was not compulsory and coexisted with local traditions in a harmonious way, ¹⁵ rejection of the cult likely caused a variety of conflicts since the provincial people and elites promoted and actively participated in it. For instance, Jews were criticised for their lack of love for humankind because they did not participate in Gentile cults. Although Jews were allowed to not participate in the cults (cf. Josephus, Ant. 14.185–267), they were under pressure to do so, as cults bring the community together and Jews were considered harmful to that harmony. ¹⁶ Besides, the imperial cult incorporated the subjects into the order of the empire. ¹⁷ If the Galatian believers refused to participate in the cult, they would have to deal with communal and political pressure to do so since they were living in Galatia, a newly established province of the empire in which the imperial cult was promoted and well-received.

The conflict between Jews and Greeks in Alexandria (38 ce) shows that Jews in diaspora experienced political and religious crises in relation to the imperial cult. In this conflict, the Greek citizens raided Jewish synagogues and placed the emperor’s statues inside (Philo, Legat. 134). The Jews were in a complicated situation; they could neither remove the statutes nor allow them in their sacred spaces. ¹⁸ Any unauthorised relocation of those statues would be an affront to the emperor, and holding religious meetings next to the statues would be a violation of Jewish law. The incident in Alexandria shows that the issue of the imperial cult was used against the Jews for religious and political reasons.

The incident above suggests that the issue of the imperial cult was a point of conflict between the Jews and the Gentiles and could be utilised for the latter’s political gains. James S. McLaren contends that the imperial cult caused problems only in very exceptional cases, for such incidents were rarely documented. ¹⁹ Although it is unclear how frequent such conflicts were, it is reasonable to state that the tension between the Jews and the Gentiles was common and the imperial cult could become a point of conflict at any time. The Gentile believers in Galatia more than likely experienced troubles in relation to the imperial cult.

Galatians 6:12 reveals that the Gentile believers were compelled by some to choose circumcision so that those compellers would not be persecuted for the cross of Christ. In regard to the incident at Alexandria, the persecution in 6:12 seems to reflect problems around the issue of the imperial cult. That is, the persecution for the cross likely refers to the pressure to participate in the imperial cult (see below).

Imperial cult and Paul’s mission

During the time of Paul’s mission, Colin Miller argues, the imperial cult was not active in Asia Minor; in many parts of the province, it was not practised. ²⁰ He points out that the remains of the imperial cult were found only in six of the eleven cities that were part of Paul’s mission, and of those six, only four cities (Ancyra, Pessinus, Ephesus, and Hierapolis) have the ruins of the imperial cult that are traced to Paul’s time. ²¹ Miller further contends that the imperial cult occupied only a marginal position in those cities where it existed; the scale and the location of the imperial temples indicate this minor position. The imperial cult was blended with local religions so that it could not occupy its own independent position. According to Miller’s research, the imperial cult did not pose a serious challenge to Paul’s mission, and it is not reasonable to discuss Paul’s political stance against the imperial cult; ‘The Apostle may have travelled from city to pagan city without ever running into this form of worship. Even if a city had the emperor cult, it may not have caught Paul’s attention’. ²²

Miller focuses on sacrificial rites to worship the emperor when discussing the imperial cult; however, the imperial cult had a variety of forms and cannot be limited to only the sacrificial aspect. The imperial cult could be practised not only through sacrifices but also through ‘prayers for the emperor’s genius’, ‘the portrayal of a deified Augustus on coins’, and ‘the inscriptional propagation of the emperor’s virtues’. ²³ These were important ways to promote the imperial cult and propagate the imperial ideology. Miller’s omission of the other forms of the emperor cult hinders his sight to the actual circumstances of Paul’s mission.

The term cult has a broader sense than the worship ritual of sacrifice; the imperial cult ‘had to do with being a member of a community that actively sought to ascribe honour to imperial rule’. ²⁴ The imperial cult served to religiously and politically unify the empire by conferring divine glory and honour upon the emperor; ²⁵ sacrifices were just one means to this end. The deification of the emperor and the unity of the empire were two sides of a coin. Besides, the imperial cult could be promoted and practised without imperial temples. Divine honour and status were given to the emperor, and people could celebrate the emperor’s deification in various ways.

Return to τὰ στοιχεῖα

Galatians 4:9–10 reflect the Gentile believers’ return to the Roman imperial cult. In verse 9, Paul indicates that the recipients are turning back again to ‘the weak and worthless elemental things’ (τὰ ἀσθενῆ καὶ πτωχὰ στοιχεῖα; cf. 4:3). The given στοιχεῖα likely refers to the cultic situation of the Gentile believers before they received Paul’s gospel message. ²⁶ In 4:3, the apostle states, ‘while we were children, we were enslaved to the elemental things of the world [τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου]’. Here, τὰ στοιχεῖα refers to the religious situations of both the Gentile and the Jewish believers before they became Christ-believers. ²⁷ Before the son of God came, the Jews were under Jewish law, which served as their guardian and trustee (4:2, 5), and the Gentiles remained in their own religious traditions. Paul intends τὰ στοιχεῖα to signify every worldly principle of existence separated from Christ. For the apostle, the Gentile, as well as the Jewish, religious situations belong in the same sphere; they have nothing to do with Christ and his gospel. In 4:9, Paul rebukes those Gentiles who return to the imperial cult which they actively participated in before their Christian fellowship.

Paul indicates that the Gentiles did not know God before accepting the gospel message; the Gentile believers ‘were enslaved to those which by nature are not gods [ἐδουλεύσατε τοῖς φύσει μὴ οὖσιν θεοῖς]’ (4:8). In this verse, the apostle refers to the ones who served ‘those who are not gods’ as ‘you’ (pl.). While ‘we’ in 4:3 includes Paul, ‘you’ in 4:8 excludes him. In 4:8, Paul indicates that the Gentile believers served ‘those which by nature are not gods’. If so, who are ‘those which by nature are not gods’ that Paul mentions?

Those who are intrinsically not divine likely refer to the deified emperors and their family members. After Julius Caesar’s deification, emperors such as August, Tiberius, Gaius, and Nero were deified and given the divine honour. ²⁸ Additionally, imperial family members were also deified; they all were gods not by nature (φύσει) but by human convention (φέσει). ²⁹ Those imperial family members were not like the gods in the mythical and religious traditions of the Greco-Roman culture; they were recently elevated to their new status through the empire’s proclamation. The sense of the given Greek expression becomes apparent when we observe Galatians 2:15, in which Paul states, ‘We are Jews by nature [φύσει] and not Gentile sinners’. Paul’s Jewish identity is innate. By the same token, ‘those which by nature are not gods’ point to those who acquired the divine status during their lives, indicating the emperors and their family members who were deified by the Roman Senate (cf. φέσει).

The deified Roman emperors were designated divi filius. The sense of divus is distinguished from that of deus. The latter refers to the traditional gods of the Greco-Roman culture, while the former means those who are newly deified. The emperors and their family members, even after their deification, were not considered deus; their status was distinct from that of deus. ³⁰ Paul was aware of this difference in a sense and utilised it to criticise the deified emperor and his cult. The Latin words divus and deus were both translated θεός in Greek. ³¹ The Latin phrase divi filius, which signified the ruler’s divine status, was translated υἱὸς θεοῦ or θεοῦ υἱός. ³² The Greek word φύσει in 2:15 betrays Paul’s critical awareness of the distinction between divus and deus.

The Gentile believers who returned to the imperial cult observed ‘days [ἡμέρας] and months [μῆνας] and seasons [καιούς] and years [ἐνιασυτούς]’ (4:10). Many scholars understand those four Greek words in terms of Jewish calendar observances. ³³ Nevertheless, they likely refer to the observances of the imperial calendar for the imperial cult. Paul states that ‘you’ obeyed ‘those which by nature not gods’ in the past but now ‘returned to the elemental things’ observing ‘days and months and seasons and years’. Their return to ‘the elemental things’ was actualised in their religious observances. If the Gentile believers observed the Jewish calendar, it is odd to understand their Jewish observance as a return. Additionally, the phrase ‘those which by nature are not gods’ reflects polytheistic circumstances, and it contradicts the Jewish monotheism.

Cities in the Roman Empire had their own calendars of religious festivals and sacrifices, which followed the imperial calendar. ³⁴ Those four terms Paul employs in 4:10, which is, days, months, seasons, and years, are not the Jewish expressions. Instead, they likely signify non-Jewish religious observations. ³⁵ ‘According to fragments of Augustan calendar’, Taylor comments, ‘festivals or celebrations for the honour of the living emperor or imperial family took place about twice every month’. ³⁶ The empire imposed its own calendar in order to arrange her subjects’ life in political and cosmic terms. Caesar ‘was celebrated as supreme “time giver” and as archetypical restorer the order of time in manner reminiscent of Zeus’. ³⁷

Considering the imperial cult, ‘days’ likely refer to the celebration of the emperor’s birthday and ‘months’ may mean the newly declared months of Julius (the fifth month) and Augustus (the sixth month); ‘seasons’ and ‘years’ can also indicate, respectively, the festivals for the emperor and the religious ritual vows for the emperor’s health which were completed every year. ³⁸

‘The one who is disturbing’ in the churches in Galatia

Justin K. Hardin, who discusses Galatians concerning the imperial cult, understands ‘the one who is disturbing’ (ὁ ταράσσων, 5:10; cf. 1:7) to be the Jewish believers. ³⁹ According to his study, ὁ ταράσσων advised the Gentile believers to get circumcised so that he or she avoid persecution in relation to the imperial cult. Nevertheless, Hardin encounters difficulties in interpreting Galatians from the perspective of the imperial cult; he states, ‘There still remain unresolved difficulties with our nuanced understanding of the Galatian crisis. The primary difficulty is that the issue of circumcision seems to be the major thrust of the letter’. ⁴⁰

If circumcision is the major thrust of Galatians, how can we read the letter with respect to the imperial cult? We may deal with Hardin’s difficulty when we examine the relation of the trouble-makers and the Jerusalem church. In Galatians 2, Paul tells on two different occasions in succession in which he experienced conflicts with the Jerusalem church and her representatives. It seems that there is a certain analogy between those two incidents and the Galatian situation, ⁴¹ and this explains why Paul documents the two experiences consecutively. If this was not the case, it is difficult to explain why the apostle repeatedly said that the external forces which hindered his mission were related to the Jerusalem church. Then, why did ‘certain people from James’ (2:12) came to Antioch?

Those from the Jerusalem church seemed to visit the Antiochian church to address the issue of the table fellowship of the Jewish and the Gentiles believers; however, it might not be the sole or primary reason for their visit. If so, is there any possibility that some from the Jerusalem church came to Galatia for the imperial cult issue? Such a possibility remains open, as the Galatian churches were inter-ethnical congregations. ⁴² The circumcision of the Gentile believers could be a point of conflict in the following aspects. First, circumcision was recommended to the Gentiles because it was necessary to partake of the Abrahamic blessings from the Jewish theological perspective. Second, circumcision could help the Gentile believers deal with pressure to participate in the imperial cult.

The Galatian believers experienced certain persecution for the cross of Christ; to avoid this problem, the Gentile believers were compelled to be circumcised (6:12). Then, who were those compellers? They were unlikely someone from the Jerusalem church such as in the Antiochian incident. If someone arrived from the mother church, his or her stay at the Galatian churches would not be extensive. What they taught during their brief visit was likely repeated after they left. Then, who repeated their teaching of circumcision? They were likely Jewish believers in Galatia. Mark D. Nanos suggests that the agitators were not Christ believers, representing ‘Jewish communities in Galatia that were concerned about the integration’ of the Gentile believers who refused the imperial cult. ⁴³ However, the parallel between the incident in Antioch and that in Galatia shows that those disturbing people were likely Jewish Christ-believers. They could exert influence upon the Gentile believers because of the commonality between the Jewish and Gentile believers: their Christian faith. Those Jewish believers seemed to be under pressure by local authorities and/or the Jewish community since the Gentile believers did not join in the imperial cult. ⁴⁴

Why did the Jewish believers urge the Gentile fellows to be circumcised? They likely thought that they could avoid the problems with the imperial cult by persuading the Gentiles to choose circumcision. This solution might be found to be more favourable to the Jewish believers than the Gentiles. The Jewish believers took strong measures with their hidden motives; they discontinued the fellowship with the Gentile believers to drive them into a corner. Paul informs the Gentile recipients of those motives, stating, ‘they eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they want to exclude you [presumably, from fellowship] so that you will seek them’ (4:17). If the Gentile believers were isolated in the church, they would be under a great deal of pressure.

Imperial cult and circumcision at the churches in Galatia

In Galatians, Paul confronted the issues of circumcision and the imperial cult and tried to deal with both problems at the same time, as these two matters were intertwined. Circumcision presented a double-sided problem for Paul. First, if the Gentile believers decided to be circumcised, they would become Abraham’s descendants to inherit the Abrahamic blessings through the law, not through πίστις Χριστοῦ. For Paul, that means that ‘Christ will be of no benefit to’ the Gentile believers (5:2) and that they will be cut off from Christ (5:4). In other words, the Gentile believers would be under the law, that is, under the curse of the law. Therefore, Paul asserted that the message of circumcision was ‘another gospel’ (1:6–9) that was condemned.

Second, the Gentile believers, once circumcised, would be incorporated into the empire’s order and could not avoid problems related to the imperial cult. The Jews had no immunity from participation in the cult. Although the Jews were permitted not to join in sacrifices, they participated in the other events of the imperial cult. In some regions, the Jewish community actively took part in the cult. For instance, a synagogue in Rome was dedicated to the emperor Augustus, and three synagogues in Alexandria displayed items such as gilded shields, gilded crowns, pillars, and inscriptions, offered to honour the emperor Gaius (Philo, Legat. 133). The Gentile believers, although they belonged to the Jewish community through circumcision, could not claim full exemption from partaking in public veneration of the emperor. ⁴⁵ The Gentile believers’ circumcision would only solve the problem of persecution that the trouble-makers attempted to avoid (cf. 6:12). In Paul’s view, those agitators led the whole faith community in the wrong direction just for their benefits. The Gentile believers, through circumcision, would end up accepting the emperor as the ultimate authority and benefactor.

If ‘those from the Jerusalem church’ recommended circumcision to the Gentile believers, did they encourage those church members to observe the imperial cult? Their advice for the Gentiles could have unintended implications. They could promote circumcision mainly for Jewish theological concerns about the inheritance of the Abrahamic covenant. The Galatian believers, and especially the Jewish believers, could be attracted to circumcision. They likely considered that it had double-folded merit; they could become full heritors of the Abrahamic covenant, on the one hand, and could deal with the issue of the imperial cult, on the other; the latter seemed to be more immediate concerns. Paul exhorts the Galatian recipients in 4:12, stating, ‘Brothers, become as I am, for I also have become as you are’. Does this exhortation imply that Paul already experienced a situation similar to the persecution that the Galatian believers faced? The apostle seemed to encourage the Galatian recipients, as he did, to endure the current difficulties and remain faithful to Christ. The stigmata of Jesus in Paul’s body (6:17) shows his faithfulness to Christ as enduring persecutions for the mission from God. Paul reminds the Galatian believers that they would have plucked out their eyes for Paul (4:15) and that they received him ‘as an angel of God, as Christ’ (4:14). If we read this statement in the context of persecution, it seems that the Galatian believers were in danger because of Paul and, presumably, his gospel message, and they were willing to endure bodily injuries for him.

One may object that the persecution Paul experienced had nothing to do with the imperial cult, but everything to do with circumcision (cf. 5:11). Paul’s persecutions, nevertheless, could be related to the imperial cult. The apostle certainly suffered oppression by the Jewish communities and local authorities during his mission. Paul’s own statement of the many persecutions he endured is found in 2 Corinthians 6:45 and 11:23–27. During his mission, the apostle was, for instance, imprisoned, flogged countlessly, beaten many times, and even stoned once. Paul’s gospel message provoked the Jewish communities, and Jewish synagogue officials punished him by Jewish conventions (cf. ‘forty lashes minus one’, 11:24). ⁴⁶ Those physical attacks on Paul were not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles; thus, he specifies ‘from the Jews’ once (11:24). However, the apostle certainly suffered persecutions, such as imprisonment and beatings, by the Gentiles as well (cf. Acts 16:16–24; 19:26–34). Whereas Luke wrote in Acts that Paul found favours with local authorities, that likely reflects his apologetic intentions. For the apostle, there is only one God and one Lord; although people believe that there are many gods and many lords (1 Cor 8:5–6). ⁴⁷ Considering this strong stance from Paul, he probably faced conflicts and oppression in various ways.

Politics of fides: the emperor’s & his people’s fides

The Roman imperial cult was established and operated on the basis of the particular Roman way of thinking, referred to as fides. ⁴⁸ This Latin word (and its Greek equivalent πίστις) signifies belief, trust, faith, fidelity, and so forth and can be translated to πίστις in Greek. The core sense of the two terms is trust and trustworthiness. Linguistically, both fides and πίστις are ‘action nominals’, that is, ‘nouns derived from verbs which abandon distinctions of transitivity to encompass both active and passive meaning of the verb’. ⁴⁹ Fides contains very important ideas pertaining to the mutual relationship between the emperor and his subjects. ⁵⁰ The emperor’s fides should be shown to all subordinates, people, and states under Rome’s rule, and they should return their fides to the emperor. This reciprocity of fides was operative in the imperial cult, so the cult functioned as a political device for the ruler’s interests. The emperor had the paramount power and exercised it as the sole father and supreme benefactor of the empire. The emperor, thus, was to show his fides to all people under his dominion through his benefactions. Res Gestae Divi Augusti, for instance, recounts the faithfulness and benefactions that Augustus showed to the empire, of which the end of the civil war and the restoration of peace in the empire were documented. In the autobiographical account, for example, Augustus declared, ‘Wars, both civil and foreign, I [i.e., Augustus] undertook throughout the world, on sea and land, and when victorious I spared all citizens who sued for pardon’ (paragraph 3); ‘nations experienced the good faith [fidem] of the Roman people during my principate’ (paragraph 32). ⁵¹ In return, all people of the empire showed their fides through trust, respect, and veneration. ⁵² This relationship was also functioning on provincial levels. The governor and other high ranking officials saw their roles as benefactors, and the local populace, as their beneficiary, returns honour and respect to them. ⁵³ The ideology of fides regulated social and political relations in the empire.

The Roman ideology of fides has important implications for our discussion of πίστις Χριστοῦ in Galatians. First, the emperor’s fides initiates the fides–based relationship with his subjects, and they subjects show their fides to the emperor as a secondary response. Second, the relationship of fides is bilateral; it is established and maintained as long as the emperor and the subjects exchange fides. The reciprocity of fides supports the dominion of the empire; the imperial cult functions based upon the mutual dynamic of fides. In those regards, the relationship between Jesus and the believer is possible on the foundation of reciprocal πίστις between them. Jesus’ πίστις is the initiation of the relationship, and the believer’s πίστις is the response to it. Paul’s πίστις Χριστοῦ contains such mutuality of πίστις while maintaining Jesus’ initiative.

Religious and political aspects of the imperial cult

The observation of the imperial cult presumes the acceptance of Rome’s polytheistic worldview. The Gentiles who received Jesus as their sole Lord gave up the Roman worldview and agreed on the monotheism of early church. If they returned to the imperial cult, their theological conversion would be nullified; they would display in public their veneration of the emperor as the supreme authority. Paul was vehemently opposed to this return and tried to persuade them to remain faithful to the Lord.

We observe clear contrasts between Paul and the imperial ideology. For example, the apostle employed εὐαγγέλιον to denote his gospel message. This use of the Greek word betrays the apostle’s critical view of the imperial propaganda. The empire used the plural form εὐαγγέλια to promote the imperial rule. The Greek term εὐαγγέλια was intended to refer to imperial good news, such as the emperor’s and his family members’ birthdays, victories, health, and so forth. ⁵⁴ Paul’s εὐαγγέλιον, nevertheless, denotes Jesus’ good news and proclaims his supreme lordship (cf. Gal 1:7). The apostle seems to employ the singular form of the Greek word to place his message in contrast to the imperial good news. The tension between εὐαγγέλιον and εὐαγγέλια shows Paul’s critical view of the empire and, also, could be a source of conflict and controversy for believers living in the reality of the imperial dominion. Paul presented an either-or choice to the believers; they could not simultaneously live by Paul’s εὐαγγέλιον and the imperial εὐαγγέλια (cf. 1 Cor 8:5–6).

For Paul, the imperial cult presented a particular problem in that it demanded the participants to acknowledge the emperor as the highest benefactor. All believers in the empire were required to conform to the order and system of the empire to some extent. The apostle, however, indeed viewed the observation of the cult as beyond what could be tolerated for the believer. Caesar’s favour is inferior to what Jesus grants to humans. God’s salvation, the greatest benefaction, is available to humankind only through Jesus Christ; thus, Jesus stands as the superior patron, not the Roman emperor. That is, Paul’s religious stance is apparently political and even anti-imperial.

Some may oppose our anti-imperial understanding of Paul. Seyoon Kim, for instance, asserts that the apostle had no anti-imperial intentions. ⁵⁵ Paul was convinced of his innocence during his imprisonments (cf. Phil 1:19–26); Kim explains, the apostle ‘was confident of explaining at the Roman court that his message does not contain any subversive element to the imperial order’. ⁵⁶ Even if Paul did not bring his criticism of the imperial cult to the forefront, it is not tenable that his gospel message had no subversive elements. We observe subversive elements in Paul’s letters from a different point of view. In Galatians, whereas the issue of circumcision seems more salient, Paul’s concern about the believers’ observation of the imperial cult is obvious enough. Besides, the circumcision itself matters in the context of the imperial cult. The Gentile believers were exhorted to choose circumcision because of the persecution for Christ. The apostle’s opposition to the cult is a clear index of his resistance to the political propaganda and ideology of the empire that supports the imperial order. The political and religious aspects are intertwined, as Paul’s ‘religious’ exhortations have certain political implications; therefore, the apostle could intend for those exhortations to address his political concerns with the Galatian recipients. The anti-imperial understanding of Paul’s message is not an unreasonable interpretation based on, in Kim’s own words, ‘superficial parallelism of terms between Paul’s gospel preaching and the Roman imperial ideology’. ⁵⁷

Paul’s primary purpose of sending letters was to address the recipients’ issues at hand. He had no intent to lead his churches to a full-scale battle with the Roman authorities, for instance, like the first Jewish-Roman war (66–73 ce). In that regard, John Dominic Crossan states, ‘He [i.e., Paul], like Jesus before him, had a divinely-mandated program that secondarily and negatively resisted imperial Rome but that primarily and positively incarnated global justice on the local, ordinary, and everyday level’. ⁵⁸ Paul meant to establish God’s righteousness in the believers’ everyday lives, so his anti-imperial message did not come to the front. For the apostle, the righteous relationship with God necessitated his critical view of the imperial order and, to be more specific, the imperial cult. God’s righteousness is to be realised in both religious and political terms. The true believer should obey God, not Caesar, as the highest authority.

Paul’s πίστις Χριστοῦ: Christ’s & the believer’s faithfulness

If we approach πίστις Χριστοῦ asking whether it means ‘the πίστις which Christ had’ or ‘[the believer’s] πίστις toward Christ,’ it would be difficult to consider the Galatian situations and Paul’s intents with the Greek formulation. The Galatian believers faced the difficult issues of the imperial cult and circumcision. This study discusses the given phrase with respect to the recipients’ situations related to the imperial cult and the apostle’s response to it.

Regarding the issue of circumcision, Paul asserted that justification was possible only through πίστις Χριστοῦ, not the Jewish law. He argued against those who recommended circumcision that the Gentiles could inherit the Abrahamic blessings though πίστις; ‘those who are of πίστις are blessed with Abraham, the man of πίστις’ (Gal 3:9). Before Jesus Christ, ‘we were in custody under the law’ (3:23; cf. 4:5). That is, ‘we’ were ‘under the law’, ‘under an elemental teacher’ (3:24; cf. 3:25), ‘under guardians and trustees’, (4:2; cf. 4:3) and ‘under the elemental things’ (4:3; cf. 4:9). It is πίστις Χριστοῦ that lead them out of those conditions.

Concerning the imperial cult, we can discuss πίστις Χριστοῦ with respect to the aforementioned relational dynamic of fides. Πίστις necessitates reciprocity between Christ and the believer which develops with the former’s initiation of the relationship. Christ’s πίστις concurrently denotes both the faithfulness and the trustworthiness of Christ; in Morgan’s term, Christ is ‘at the center of a nexus of divine-human pistis’. ⁵⁹ The Greek phrase πίστις Χριστοῦ shows such reciprocity. Roy A. Harrisville III examined the patristic literature to suggest that the Fathers understood the second word of πίστις Χριστοῦ to be the objective genitive. ⁶⁰ As Morna Hooker indicates, nevertheless, the patristic texts can be interpreted in another direction: the subjective genitive. ⁶¹ Wallis, for example, comments on De carne Christi 11.6 that Tertullian seems to consider ‘faith to be … one which Christ needed to exercise if he was to secure salvation for all people through his incarnation and resurrection’. ⁶² We should also consider that several ancient translations of the Scripture (e.g., the Peshitta, the Coptic Scripture, and the Vulgate) and Erasmus’ Latin translation view the Greek phrase in terms of the subjective genitive. ⁶³ In this regard, πίστις Χριστοῦ could be understood from either perspective and, in fact, so it was. If this is the case, is it possible that Paul intended such an ambiguity?

F. Gerald Downing studies the semantics of the classical and Hellenistic literature to suggest that the objective genitive and the subjective genitive sense are not mutually exclusive but evoke each other. ⁶⁴ That is, they could both be meant at the same time in the set of words. In the ancient world, the meaning was not determined by form and/or grammar. In Downing’s terms, ‘“meaning” is in the mind, not in individual words; and quite different sets of words may be expected to evoke ‘the meaning’ intended but not otherwise defined’. ⁶⁵ Christ’s faithfulness elicits the believer’s faith, and the believer’s faith presumes Christ’s trustworthiness. ⁶⁶ Put differently, when one considers Christ to be faithful, it means that he or she believes in Christ or, at least, is willing to do so. Paul’s πίστις Χριστοῦ has such mutuality of the relationship between Christ and the believer; therefore, the sense of πίστις Χριστοῦ should not be decided between the subjective genitive and the objective genitive.

Downing’s study is helpful for this research when we consider the Roman imperial ideology of fides. The semantic aspects of the Latin term were externalised in Roman political and social relations. Like the Greek equivalent πίστις, fides denotes the reciprocity of the emperor and the subjects. In other words, the emperor’s fides and the subjects’ cannot stand alone. Paul employed πίστις Χριστοῦ to denote the inseparable mutuality of Christ’s πίστις and the believer’s and to promote that relationship over that of the emperor and his people.

Paul’s πίστις Χριστοῦ had specific political and religious implications to the Galatian believers. The empire propagated the emperor’s faithfulness and encouraged the people’s response in the form of trust, honour, worship, and so forth. Against this background, the apostle’s πίστις Χριστοῦ is apparently in opposition to the imperial ideology of fides. Furthermore, it provides the Galatian believers with an alternative symbolic world which rejects the supremacy of the emperor. They should participate in Christ’s faithfulness, not that of the emperor. In this sense, the justification Paul spoke of has social dimensions, and the gospel he proclaimed is a message that Christ rescues the believer ‘from this present evil world’ (1:4 NJB).