Paul's Political Manifesto

“REJOICE IN THE LORD ALWAYS.” “Do not worry about anything.”

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Verse fragments such as these, in the midst of a warm, fuzzy letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the house churches in Philippi, sustained me through high school and beyond. Indeed, the entire letter is saturated with joy. Philippians has been a source of great comfort to many Christians over the centuries.

It is clear that Paul had a close friendship with the believers in Philippi. A major purpose of the letter was to thank them for sending one of their own, Epaphroditus, with a gift for Paul. Sadly, the messenger became very ill while with Paul, but now that he has recovered, Paul is returning him to Philippi, along with the letter (2:25-30; 4:15-18).

Less clear are the political assumptions and harsh realities that frame this encouraging missive. Paul lived and traveled within the mightiest empire the world had known up to that point. He carried his gospel message thousands of miles on Roman roads built for military conquest. At the same time he challenged the very foundations that supported this empire, and his activism was perceived by political authorities as a threat. Paul paid for this by suffering in a Roman prison (1:13) and did not know if he would survive his ordeal or not (1:21-24).

Stuff that happened earlier

Around 50 C.E., Paul and his companions were on a missionary journey through Asia Minor, what is now western Turkey. At Troas, Paul received a night vision of a person from Macedonia, a region now part of Greece, begging him to “come and help us” (Acts 16:9). The little group immediately set sail across the Aegean Sea to the port of Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, “a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony” (Acts 16:12).

Note the term “Roman colony.” This was no ordinary city, but one that had been successively colonized by the Athenians, then the Macedonians, and now the Romans. Octavian (later called Augustus Caesar) had settled there a number of veterans from his military campaigns nearly a century earlier. As a colonial city, Philippi was given the rights of Ius Italicum, the same rights as major cities in Italy. This included freedom from direct taxation and full citizenship for elite, Latin-speaking Romans. Under their thumbs, however, a culturally mixed population of noncitizen Greeks, Thracians (ancestors of modern Bulgarians), and other immigrants subsisted. Thus the house churches Paul planted at Philippi would probably have included some higher-ranking Roman citizens (including women) along with lower-class clients, servants, and slaves (see Acts 16:15).

Paul’s first prison experience that we know of took place in Philippi (Acts 16:16-40), but it was short-lived, and he moved on to other cities in the Greek provinces of Macedonia and Achaia—and finally back across the Aegean Sea to Ephesus in Asia Minor.

Imprisoned by the empire

Although Acts never records an incarceration of Paul in Ephesus, this is geographically the most likely place from which he wrote to the Philippians. The letter was traditionally thought to have been from Rome because of the reference in 1:13 to the “imperial guard” and because we know Paul was imprisoned in Rome. But Rome was too far away, considering the letters carried to and fro and the visit from Epaphroditus. (In addition, we now know the imperial Roman guard existed in various major cities of the Empire.) According to Acts 19, Paul got himself into enough political trouble at Ephesus that a stint in prison there is not at all unlikely.

Because Paul’s letter sounds so joyful, it is hard to imagine the conditions he was living under. Even today, in the nation with the highest incarceration rates in the world, most Americans know little of the daily routine of prison life. But examples abound of abusive conditions in U.S. prisons: For example, a recent letter from 20 women at the Middle River Regional Jail in Verona, Va., to the Virginia Department of Corrections highlighted, among many complaints, inadequate medication for diabetic and mentally ill prisoners, as well as a lack of sanitary products. In the June 2015 newsletter of the Open Door Community in Atlanta, a prisoner on death row for 20 years cited increasingly poor food quality, and inadequate amounts as well. “One chicken with rice will feed 20, but where is the chicken? We get bones and skin to make up for the meat.”

Prisons in the Roman Empire, however, were not meant for lengthy incarcerations. Conditions were so inhumane that no one could have survived for long. Rather, these dungeons served as holding pens until prisoners were sentenced—either to freedom or execution. Knowing this, Paul debated with himself in 1:19-24 whether living or dying would be better.

In his book Paul in Roman Custody, Brian Rapske describes prison conditions almost impossible for us to imagine: perpetual darkness; overcrowding and lack of sanitation with bad air and overpowering smells; heavy chains that rust on sweaty limbs and create deep sores; insufficient food (about 14 ounces of bread and a half-pint of water per day); no bedding except for the prisoner’s cloak worn through the day; no water for bathing or washing clothes; no haircuts. Without friends bringing food and other necessities, a person would soon die or go insane living in this hell.

Given these prison conditions, the gift Epaphroditus brought from Philippi was likely not simply a thoughtful present but a matter of life and death for Paul. He probably brought Paul necessities such as food, a clean cloak, scissors for cutting his hair, a wash basin, and companionship and encouragement from his friends in Philippi. We can also understand how Epaphroditus’ health broke down during his visits to the disease- and rat-infested dungeons of Ephesus (2:26-27).

How could any letter have been written under such conditions, let alone such a cheerful missive? There may be a clue in 1:13 where Paul’s guards apparently were aware that he was not there for criminal behavior and may have allowed periods of time in daylight where he and Epaphroditus could work together on his letter. Paul evidently did not have a scribal hand (see Galatians 6:11), so he would have dictated this letter to his companion.

These intermittent periods of writing may explain various breaks in the letter, such as 3:1 and 4:8 where Paul used “finally” but then continued anyway. Though some have proposed that Philippians is a composite of several letters, most scholars today assume the unity of the letter because of its recurring themes. Under such difficult prison conditions, it is unrealistic to assume this letter was written at one sitting.

Not just “believers,” but “loyalists”

No one is more aware of a clash between worldviews than a political prisoner. Paul was incarcerated because he proclaimed an alternate lord to the Lord Caesar. In a world where religion supported the political aims of those in power, Roman religion honored its gods and freely absorbed the deities of other nations it conquered. Temples, images, and political proclamations were ubiquitous and served to bolster the empire. Each Caesar in turn was a “son of god” who was received among the immortal gods upon his death. Inhabitants of Rome’s empire were free to worship whatever gods they desired, so long as such loyalty did not conflict with one’s outward allegiance to the empire and its goals.

Jews were the one monotheistic people that Rome alternately persecuted and tolerated—so long as they did not make political waves. But Paul is an apocalyptic Jew who could not keep quiet. He presented the Jewish Jesus as superior to Caesar—the Messiah and Lord who is son of the true God to whom ultimately “every knee should bend” (2:10). In every major city of the empire, Paul planted and nurtured little assemblies of people to whom he taught an alternate worldview. We usually call them “believers,” but Gordon Zerbe, in his book Citizenship: Paul on Peace and Politics, prefers the term “loyalist.” The term implies not just verbal assent but the practice of an alternate way of life by adopting the same self-emptying “mind ... that was in Christ Jesus” (2:5-7).

Paul’s subversive politics

Three texts in Philippians specifically highlight Paul’s politics, although both the NRSV and NIV downplay their subversive nature. In 1:27, the NRSV says, “Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” But the Greek imperative for “live your life” is politeuesthe. Zerbe observes that each Greek word in this exhortation is politically loaded, so he translates it as, “Singularly, be a citizen body and practice your citizenship in a manner worthy of the good tidings of Messiah.” In contrast to Caesar’s gospel proclaimed through statue, temple, inscription, and sword, the Messiah’s gospel calls for a radically different lifestyle of self-emptying of privilege.

This is further explained in 2:6-11, where Paul quotes an early “Christ hymn” that he did not write but has adapted to the political situation in Philippi. This hymn is often seen as an early statement supporting Jesus’ divinity in the trinitarian and Christological debates of later centuries, but that is not its purpose here. In 2:5-6, the NRSV misses the point where it says that “Christ Jesus ... was in the form of God.” Rather, Paul compares Jesus to the Roman declaration that Caesar was “in the form of a god.” Though Jesus was also “in the form of a god,” he refused divine honors and instead took the form of a human slave and humbled himself even to death on a Roman cross (2:7-8). What can be more countercultural than that!

This Christ-hymn carried special significance in Philippi where the elite, Latin-speaking Romans boasted of their Italian citizenship. For any belonging to the Jesus-assemblies, following a leader who became a slave would be a bitter pill to swallow. It would have meant relating to their own slaves as equals.

The third text is 3:20: “Our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” The Greek term is politeuma, meaning “place of citizenship.” We hold our proof of citizenship in heaven, and it is from there that we expect our savior. These terms are highly political and subversive. On many carved plaques throughout the empire, Augustus Caesar had been hailed as savior and lord. Note further that the true Savior and Lord comes from heaven to earth. The implication, spelled out in 2:9-11, is that ultimately Jesus will be Lord of every nation, including the Roman Empire. Whatever interim obedience Jesus-loyalists give to Rome, it is always subject to the higher authority of the coming Lord Jesus.

Paul’s contentment under miserable prison conditions (4:11-13) and his repeated calls to rejoice are indeed ironic, but they are the consistent result of one who takes the long view. Rome may not fall in a day or a century. American empire may not fail in a generation or two. But Paul’s view of Jesus’ eventual political triumph on earth enables him to “pray with joy” (1:3) for every loyalist Philippian who will receive his letter.

America today, though in the guise of a democracy, has become an empire through its vast military involvement and multinational corporations. Those who hold a “god-and-country” theology identify the United States as especially chosen by God to fight the forces of evil in the world. They miss the many ways the U.S. operates in the interests of its elite power brokers. Rome also publicized itself as “savior of the world.” But Paul’s prison letter to the Philippians challenges both empires. Let’s keep reading it as a political manifesto of a radically alternate lifestyle.