Besides ANE royal ideology, Christianity also shares motifs with Greco-Roman royal cults. In the NT, Jesus is being presented as the king and savior so he shares motifs with previous kings and saviors that are found throughout ANE and Greco-Roman culture.
Cambridge History of Christianity: Volume 1, Origins to Constantine By Margaret M. Mitchell, Frances M. Young, K. Scott Bowie
Assessing representations of the imperial cult in New Testament studies, Pieter J J BothaThe earliest and most insistent analogy between the way Christ was celebrated and pagan cultic activity is to be found in the use of the language from the ruler-cult tradition, by then associated with the divinisation of the Roman emperor, particularly but not solely in Asia Minor. An inscription from Ephesus speaks of Julius Caesar as 'the god made manifest, offspring of Ares and Aphrodite and common saviour of human life'. For Christians, Jesus was God manifest, God's offspring and the Saviour of all. In Pergamum an inscription reads:'Caesar, absolute ruler(autokrator), son of god, the god Augustus, overseer of every land and sea', For Christians, God was the autokrator who oversees everything, seeing even into the hearts of human beings, ultimately their judge, and Jesus was the one who exercised these powers on God's behalf. Inscriptions accord to the emperors titles such as 'lord' and 'god', 'king of kings', saviour, and 'high priest', all of which Christians ascribed to Christ... And it is not just titles
that provide parallels: the birthday of the emperor Augustus was 'good news' (evangel or gospel); the 'presence'(parousia or advent) of the sovereign was a matter of hope and expectation for a city. For Christians hope and expectation were focused on the return of Christ, and they knew it as his parousia.
The Roman Empire in Luke's Narrative, Kazuhiko Yamazaki-RansomIn this article my aims are:
• to indicate that a fairly typical and standard concept of the imperial cults can be found in NT scholarship;
• to criticize this depiction as inadequate to the evidence and basically ethnocentric;
• to argue that the imperial cults provide us with powerful insights into the “mentality” of the Roman Period;
• to point to some aspects of the New Testament writings and early Christian developments interacting with imperial cult practices which might be
reinterpreted in the light of a more comprehensive understanding of the imperial cults.
The imperial cult, it is claimed, is of Hellenistic and especially Egyptian background...
Long before the principat the Romans believed that gods became humans — or revealed themselves in human form in order to help people in need...
During the Republic the number of gods expanded considerably, and among them we find many Roman heroes. Scipio Africanus, the conqueror of Hannibal, was said to have conversed daily with Iuppiter; when he went to the temple at night time, the dogs did not bark as no dog barks when its master comes home. This Scipio was called the son of Iuppiter, who impregnated Scipio’s mother in the form of a snake 6...
6. Remember that after Scipio’s death the sun had a pale light (his death was called the extinguishing of the second Sun); after Caesar’s death the sun had a pale light all through the year (Scipio: Diogenes Laertius 4.64; Cicero De natura deorum 2.14, De divinatione 1.97; Caesar: Virgil Georgica 1.466; Plutarch Caesar 69.4; Pliny Naturalis historia 2.98; Julius Obsequens 68; De viris illustribus 78.10). No wonder there was darkness at the death of Jesus, or that for the early church his resurrection was the rise of the new Sun and that He wore a radiant crown (cf. Firmicus Maternus De errore profanarum religionum 24.2–4; Zeno Veronensis Tractatus 2.9.2). Consider also the “woman clothed with the sun” seen by John (Rev 12.1)...
On 30 January 9 BCE a monument was dedicated by the Senate to commemorate Augustus’ safe return from Gaul and Spain. This was not an altar devoted simply to Pax but to Pax Augusta28. The iconography of the altar’s relief shows “the epiphany of Pax, Felicitas, Concordia and Pietas in the person of Augustus and his restoration of the Roman and universal order” (Fears 1981b:885)...
Augustus’ transformation of society was accompanied by a transformation of nature into a saeculum aureum. Virgil’s fourth Eclogue (40 BCE), written in the form of a prophecy (by the Sibyl of Cumae, under the inspiration of Apollo) expects the return of the Golden Age; the agent of this return is a newly born wonder child whose birth would be accompanied by a miraculous transformation of nature. He will free us from the last traces of sin and pacify and rule the world (Eclog. 4.4–25). By the time that Virgil had written Georgics (29 BCE), the puer had become identified with
Octavian himself, whose birth was responsible for the pax deorum shown in the natural order in which earth yielded its bounty (1.24–42), and who, like the puer of Eclogue 4.17, would rule the globe (reget patriis virtutibus orbem). When accepted by the gods into their number, Octavian would prove to be both the “increaser of the crops (auctorem frugum)” and “the master of the seasons (tempestatumque potentem)” (Georgics 1.27). He would be welcomed as such by the “great world (maximus orbis)” (1.26). No wonder Tacitus (Ann. 1.73) recounts that worshippers of Augustus were to be found in all Roman households.
The “golden age” with its manifestations of Fortuna, Providentia, Salus, Concordia, Pax and Victoria flows from the divinity of the emperor (and in Aeneid 6.791–94 Virgil finally identified Augustus as the bringer of the saeculum aureum)...
On the day of Octavian’s birth, the astrologer Publius Nigidius Figuluus is said to have proclaimed the birth of the ruler of the world, and “that the gods of Egypt had placed Capricorn in the sky to commemorate the liberation of the world from the tyranny of Typhon and the re-establish-ment of divine order”...
The reorganisation of the cultus over which Augustus and his successors were to hold power as pontifex maximus and as divi filius made the imperial ruler the mediator of metaphysical order and thereby peace.
The well-known traditional notions of peace, salvation, concord and others were given a concrete focus in Augustus and the saeculum aureum that he inaugurated, as had the old republican cult of virtues... It is these merits, personalised as they were in the collective personality of the emperor, that are celebrated in various inscriptions.
One is a decree of the Council of the province of Asia (9 BCE). Bear in mind that the author is a Roman proconsul and member of the old Roman aristocracy:
"...Providence granted to us Augustus...blessing us and those after us with a saviour... and whereas Caesar on his appearance surpassed all hopes and anticipated good tidings... not even leaving those [benefactors] to come any hope of surpassing him; and whereas the birthday of the god was the beginning for the world of the good tidings through his coming... a crown be awarded to the person proposing the greatest honours for the god..."
However, two very clear indications must be heeded by investigators into Luke-Acts. Firstly, the general thrust of Luke-Acts has long been recognised as being aimed at a high-minded audience of the Flavian period, and in Acts we have the one NT book expressly relating to a Romanised context. It follows that if the imperial cult was a dominant part of that context, Luke would have related his message to those practices, even if only implicitly.
But, secondly, Luke quite explicitly evokes imperial motifs, and he does so right from the start of his narrative. In Luke 1–2 we find themes such as nature and society at peace through the birth of a divine child, with residual themes of judgement and cataclysm placed in the background, themes evoking the fulfillment of the saeculum aureum and raising profound questions of legitimization, political loyalties and so forth.
It is precisely against the backdrop of the concept of a saeculum au-reum, inaugurated by Augustus’ religious fulfilment of an imperfect republican cultus, and his extraordinary act of augury, that I would suggest the social background to Luke-Acts be understood: a narrative exploration of how some early Christians understood the relationship of their new faith to what their fellow citizens (and many among them themselves) believed was not only a political achievement in restoring civil order, but a religious achievement securing peace (by divine activity, so to speak)...
The importance and implications of taking the imperial cult seriously as a profound aspect of the life-worlds of first-century followers of Jesus should be clear. Yet, the formidable gap separating us and them can far too easily be underestimated. It seems to me that even where New Testament scholars do consider the imperial cult seriously there is a tendency to discriminate, with an approach which acknowledges the Romans as different, but somehow the early Christians remain as more like us, more likeable and more acceptable.
The struggle of the followers of Jesus was not just against the impe-rial cult, but also with it, adapting and adopting, changing and incorpora-ting. It is clear that the neglect of attempting to understand the imperial cult, and missing the religious elements thereof, also contributes to mis-understanding early Christianity...
The importance, value and power of the imperial cult in the first two centuries of the common era should be acknowledged, and consequently the early Christians’s interaction with it carefully rethought. There may be much more at stake than simple contrasts.
Brent correctly recognizes the Augustan ideology as an important socio-historical context for Luke-Acts. This has not only eschatological but also Christological significance. It is likely that Luke employed the widespread Augustan myth to present his Christology. Augustus' alleged supernatural conception and ascension perfectly fit Luke's presentation of Jesus' career. As is evident in the Priene inscription, the Roman portrayal of Augustus is strikingly similar to that of Jesusin Luke-Acts. Most importantly, the reference to Augustus in the Lukan birth narrative (Lk. 2.1) strongly suggests that Luke deliberately related Jesus' birth to Augustus... Not only does he[Brent] provide detailed parallels between Luke's narrative and imperial ideology, but he provides a useful framework to overcome the false dichotomy of the Greco-Roman and Jewish backgrounds of Luke-Acts. Brent acknowledges that Luke emphasizes the fulfilment and continustion of the Old Testament in his narrative, but he further argues that this fulfilment, located in the context of Roman imperial ideology, becomes a ne legitimation of Christianity for his readers. Thus the Greco-Roman and Jewish traditions are both important dialogue partners for Luke in shaping his narrative. In sum, Luke was not only familiar with the jargon of the imperial ideology of Rome that sought to justify it's world domination, but imitated it in his narrative...
Luke seems to have been aware of the Roman representaion of Augustus when he formed his Christology. The Emperors were said to become deities after their deaths, ascending into heaven. Charles Talbert calls attention to a category of divinity in the ancient Mediterranean world, namely, the 'immortals'. He explains that immortals were originally mortal, but at the end of their career became immortal through a transformation or ascension, hence attaining the same status as the eternal. According to Talbert, the influence of the immortals is seen at it's fullest in Luke-Acts. He argues that the important elements of the immortal tradition- a supernatural conception, a virtuous life, and exaltation- are all found in Luke's narrative... Gary Gilbert more specifically argues for Luke's use of the Roman political propaganda. Gilbert points out that, since Augustus, Roman emperorswere hailed as saviour, and the most important benefaction associated with the emperor as saviour was his ability to establish peace. However, Luke also presents Jesus as saviour and bringer of peace. Thus Gilbert concludes, 'By identifying Jesus as saviour and stressing that peace has been established through him, Luke-Acts invokes the language of imperial authority and applies it to Jesus'. As noted above, Roman emperors were often posthumously deified, and their apotheosis was frequently associated with their heavenly ascent. Gilbert argues that the imperial apotheosis had the function of political legitimation. Luke is the only evangelist who gives narrative accounts of Jesus' ascension (Lk. 24.50-53; Acts 1.9-11). Gilbert argues that in both the imperial apotheosis and Jesus' ascension in Luke-Acts there are two important elements in common: eyewitness testimony and worship as the reaction to ascension.