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  • From: Jill and Dale Walker <jilldale AT rcnchicago.com>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Romans 13:1-7
  • Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 15:04:20 -0500

From what comes to mind, I think the Roman theory is that divinization is posthumous.
I think that circumvents the hybris of divinity while alive (in theory the emperor is a
citizen who cooperates with the Senate) and posthumous honors advance dynastic
ambitions. Seneca's (?) Apocolocyntosis reflects the posthumous expectation, as do
Vespasian's (supposed) last words: "My goodness, I think I'm becoming a god."  On the
other hand Philo's Embassy to Gaius paints a picture of the emperor as expecting divine
honors during his lifetime: Gaius complains that the Jews sacrificed on his behalf but not
to him. And Vespasian was acclaimed as a god in Egypt in the year 69. There's also an
anecdote about an old German barbarian who sought an audience with Tiberius in order to
behold a god. But my favorite is an inscription that pays divine respect to the emperor
for financial help in time of disaster and compares him as better than the unseen gods who
don't deliver when help is needed, whereas the emperor's powerful presence is indisputable,
for he brought relief when it was needed. The evidence I can recall here suggests that the
Romans and the empire held different views about the emperor's divinity. I recall a couple of
inscriptions in which the living emperor (Tiberius) refused divine honors from Greek cities.
I don't know if Latin cities ever made such an offer to a living emperor. I don't recall whether
Simon Price argues specifically for a difference between Rome and the Greek East, but his
entire anthropological approach would seem to require one.

Dale Walker
Chicago


At 03:34 PM 5/16/02 -0400, you wrote:
Isn't Steve Black's historical assumption wrong here? It was my understanding that Roman emperors were deified after their deaths, not during their lifetimes. Is this incorrect?
 
Eric Zuesse




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