Modern scholarship has increasingly insisted that Paul borrowed heavily from Hellenized Greco-Roman sources for the formulation of his teaching concerning the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  This article will argue that the evidence does not support a belief that Paul developed his resurrection teaching based on Greco-Roman mythologies.  Part one will discuss apotheosis in Greco-Roman culture.   Part two will discuss Paul’s theology of Christ’s resurrection.  Part three will consider potential and alleged relationships between the two subjects.

APOTHEOSIS IN GRECO-ROMAN CULTURE

By the time of the New Testament era the Mediterranean world was awash in agnosticism.  Artisans such as Euripides and Aristophanes aided this journey from faith in the gods to skepticism and then to outright cynicism through their sarcastic depictions of the gods in plays and skits.[1]  Seneca contributed his own biting commentary aimed at the dismantling of the gods and goddesses mystique.[2]

Paul’s apologetic evangelism to the Epicureans and Stoics of Athens recorded in Acts 17 and his confrontation with the worshippers of Artemis recorded in Acts 19 reveal remnants of a previous age of veneration of the gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology but should not be confused with evidence of a robust allegiance to the same.  Instead it can be demonstrated by both epigraphy and archaeology as Horseley has done so adeptly,[3] that “the cult of Caesar was not simply one new religion among many in the Roman world.  Already by Paul’s time it had become the dominant cult in a large part of the Empire, certainly in the parts where Paul was active, and was the means whereby the Romans managed to control and govern such huge areas as came under their sway. Who needs armies when they have worship?”[4]

This pronounced cultic worship can be seen in the least as a veneer covering a deeper skepticism toward the gods in the pagan New Testament world.  This rich history of Greek and Roman mythology can be useful however in understanding the rise and development of Christianity.  Garrison for example suggests that “early Christianity firmly rejected Graeco-Roman traditions about the gods”[5]  while at the same time utilized Greek poetry and even philosophy, albeit cautiously in order to further the gospel.  One such area of interest to the modern-day Christian is apotheosis mythology.

Apotheosis, from the Greek aποθεόω, “apotheoō” “to deify,”[6] is the term used to signify the veneration of man to god or divus status.  The apotheosis of individuals was often supported by the sighting of a streaking comet or falling star which was said to be the departed soul of the hero transcending the heavens.  Suetonius noted that after the death of Julius Caesar, “a comet appeared about an hour before sunset and shone for seven days running. This was held to be Caesar’s soul, elevated to heaven; hence the star, now placed above the forehead of his divine image.”[7]

These new gods did not replace the old gods but merely took their place alongside the existing gods as a new branch of gods within the Olympian pantheon.[8]  Initially this was an honor reserved for the deceased but eventually evolved into the Roman emperor cult and worship of emperors as living gods within the Roman Empire of New Testament times.  As such, the deification of select Roman emperors became part of the normal religious experience of Roman citizens.[9]

Ferguson points out that Rome developed their propensity for apotheosis from Greece through the Egyptian Ptolemaic Kings.[10]  While he begins with Alexander the Great others have forcefully suggested that the practice of apotheosis took root within the Greek hero cults as early as 620 B.C.[11]  Versnel reminds readers that the Romans likely developed their triumph and Jupiter imagery not long after this.[12]

In the hero cult ritual, animal sacrifice was performed at the gravesite of a deceased hero as a means to insure continued protection from and influence for good by the departed.  Later, Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great declared himself a god and during one of his many marriage ceremonies had a statue of himself carried among the images of the Greek gods during the processional.[13]

This was a foreshadowing of the emerging practice of kings and emperors minting coins and commissioning statues of their own images inscribed with declarations of divinity.  Indeed the Greek practice of such has been traced to the reign of Alexander the Great.[14]  Rome eventually adopted the same practice as evidenced by minted coins inscribed with Caesar Parens Patriae (Caesar, Father of the Nation) and by a statue erected in honor of Julius Caesar’s military conquest of the Greek city of Pharsalus in 46 B.C. that bore the inscription Theos Epiphanes (God Made Manifest).[15]  Kim believes that “Gaius Julius Caesar, the founder of the Julian dynasty, is thought to have initiated, though posthumously, the custom of imperial deification.”[16]  It can be argued from Cicero’s account in his second Philippic that Gaius received the honor of deification before his death and if true, would mark the true beginning of Roman apotheosis.[17]  Caesar’s great-nephew, adopted son, and successor Augustus, likewise saw the power of the myth of divinity.  After negotiating with the Senate for his predecessor’s divine honor and commemorating it by hosting games, young Augustus, not more than 28 years old at the time,[18] declared himself a direct descendent of Venus.  The Roman Senate was delighted to honor Venus and built the Ara Pacis Augustae in 13 A.D. in commemoration.  The multiple friezes tell the narrative of the Julian family and their divine ancestry.[19]

Spawforth notes that as early as 54 A.D. the cities of the so-called Achaean League, of which Corinth was chief, petitioned Rome for tax exempt status in order to host emperor worship games.[20]  Finney appears to agree that the imperial cult at Corinth had made enormous inroads by this time and suggests that Paul made it a point to address this situation with the believers there: “underlying Paul’s salutation, and thereafter at numerous and key points in the letter, there is a clearly articulated attempt to undermine the focus of the imperial cult in Corinth.”[21]

Some have argued that Christianity borrowed heavily from Greco-Roman ideas and mythology concerning apotheosis given the cultural saturation of such at the time of the birth of the church and the ministry of the apostles.  Did Paul in fact borrow ideas foreign to Judaism and his understanding of the teachings of Christ to build his doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ?  We must investigate his theology on the subject to derive an answer to that question.

TO BE CONTINUED-NEXT POST – PAUL’S THEOLOGY OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST