A growing scholarly consensus in English-speaking scholarship holds that Paul's reference to ‘peace and security’ (εἰρήνη καὶ ἀσϕάλεια) in 1 Thess 3.5 is an overt allusion to a catchphrase of Roman imperial propaganda designed to convey the message that Rome was the ultimate guarantor of social stability throughout the empire. Its familiarity could be assumed among Rome's subjects, in much the same way that ‘hope and change’ was immediately recognisable to Americans as Barack Obama's characteristic campaign slogan during the years of his ascendancy. According to this reading Paul invokes a well-known Roman maxim in order to warn the Thessalonians not to trust Rome's benefaction, for ‘when they [i.e. officials and supporters of the imperium Romanum] say “peace and security”, then destruction will come upon them suddenly, as labour pains come upon a pregnant women, and they will by no means escape’ (ὅταν λέγωσιν εἰρήνη καὶ ἀσϕάλεια τότε αἰϕνίδιος αὐτοῖς ἐϕίσταται ὄλεθρος ὥσπερ ἡ ὠδὶν τῇ ἐν γαστρὶ ἐχούσῃ καὶ οὐ μὴ ἐκϕύγωσιν). It seems clear that, in order for the thesis to be deemed correct, it must be proven that the phrase was such a commonplace of imperial propaganda prior to 50 ce that the Thessalonians would have immediately grasped the allusion.
In a recent article,Footnote 1 I questioned whether this burden of proof has been met by the many proponents of the thesis. A thorough review of the evidence raised considerable doubt, at least in my mind, that the phrase or anything resembling it was, in fact, well known in Paul's time. I noted that despite careful scrutiny of Greek literary and epigraphic sources, scholars have uncovered only two verbatim instances of the phrase: (1) an inscription from Ilium honouring Pompey for liberating the Aegean region from the scourge of pirates and restoring ‘peace and security’ (SEG xlvi.1565; 62 bce), and (2) a remark by Plutarch that the Parthian king Phraates assured Mark Anthony ‘peace and security’ if he were to retreat immediately (Plutarch, Ant. 40.4; 110–20 ce). There is also one instance of the phrase in reverse order in the Encomium of Kings where it refers to local rulers as those who ‘preside over common security and peace’ (Corp. Herm. 18.10; third century ce), and one instance of the genitive construction ‘the security of peace’ in Tacitus (Hist. 2.12.1; 105–9 ce). Significantly, none of these texts is from the crucial period extending from the establishment of the Principate under Caesar Augustus (27 bce) to the writing of 1 Thessalonians (50 ce). Even more difficult for the thesis to overcome is the fact that, to date, no single instance of the Latin equivalent pax et securitas has been uncovered in any of the ancient Latin literary and epigraphic sources. In fact, the phrase occurs for the first time in the Vulgate translation of 1 Thess 5.3.
I further noted that the concept of security, in contrast to that of peace, played no important role in Roman propaganda before Nero. This is due to the fact that the reigning political philosophy of the day taught that it was important for rulers to maintain a certain level of insecurity among the populace; only if the people felt a tinge of fear could the rulers be assured of their obedience. Nero was the first emperor to emphasise security as a part of his political agenda; securitas first appears as a motif on Roman coins late in his reign. Of the few instances of the use of the word securitas in imperial contexts before Nero's time, it is most often found in lists of Roman virtues alongside terms like iustitia and dignitas. These lists sometimes, though not always, include pax.
I concluded that the thesis that ‘peace and security’ in 1 Thess 5.3 should be understood against the background of Roman imperial propaganda has not been demonstrated to be preferable to previous attempts to interpret it against the background either of the OT prophetic tradition or the eschatological discourse of Jesus; all three proposals can adequately explain the allusion to ‘peace’, but none of them convincingly explains the reference to ‘security’. I did not, however, offer any counter-thesis regarding the tradition-historical provenance of Paul's phrase. It is to that unfinished task that I now turn.
1. A New Proposal
The thesis that ‘peace and security’ has its origins in Roman imperial propaganda is not completely without merit. Rather, it is, in my opinion, only half-wrong, which is, of course, also to say that it is half-right. To be specific, I regard it as likely that the reference to peace does, in fact, echo claims by Rome to be the ultimate guarantor of societal stability throughout the Empire and that Paul is consciously evoking it in 1 Thess 5.3.Footnote 2 It cannot, in any case, be seriously doubted that the political ideology of the Pax Romana played a prominent role in Roman imperial propaganda, beginning at the latest with the commissioning of the Ara Pacis Augustae in 13 bce.Footnote 3 As the epigraphic record of countless proclamations, inscriptions, temple dedications, etc. from the early Principate bears witness, Rome constantly made both implicit and explicit promises to those who willingly accepted her aegis that they would enjoy the lasting benefits of the Augustan Peace. This point has been convincingly demonstrated by many able scholarsFootnote 4 and is so widely accepted that we can assume its veracity here.
What has escaped the attention of scholars thus far, however, is the fact that, although the concept of security played no corresponding role to that of peace in Roman propaganda, it seems to have been quite important in Greek summations of the benefits of life in the city. That is to say, when Greeks sought to describe the advantages proffered by their characteristic political institution, the polis, they tended to do so by pointing, above all, to the security it afforded to those who lived within its jurisdiction. Put simply, what peace was to the Romans in the imperial period, security was to Greeks during the classical and Hellenistic ages: the highest common good that a society can bestow on its members. This understanding of security runs through many literary and epigraphic sources from the late classical era onwards, as will become evident in what follows.
1.1. Fourth-Century Greek Authors
A number of Greek authors place a high premium on the security afforded by the city in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War, which was the cause of widespread upheaval and anxiety throughout the Aegean region. Xenophon's musings in the early fourth century bce, for instance, reflect the uncertainty of those times:
And if a foreign army of superior force advances against their city, the weaker army knows that it is in danger as long as it is outside the walls, but when they come inside the fortress, all deem themselves to be stationed in security (ἐν ἀσϕαλείᾳ πάντες νομίζουσι καθεστάναι). (Heiro 2.10)Footnote 5
Also in the early fourth century bce, Lysias castigates Philon, a citizen of Athens, for valuing his own safety above that of the city and not coming to its aid when this was sorely needed. He begins his accusation as follows:
I will now demonstrate that this fellow Philon has placed his own security (τὴν ἰδίαν ἀσϕάλειαν) above the common danger of the city and considered it better to live his life without risk of danger than to save the city by subjecting himself to her dangers like the other citizens. (Against Philon 31.7)
In his discussion of the rise of autocratic rule in various city states in the introduction of his monumental work (ca. 400 bce) Thucydides takes a negative view of the tyrants' political programme, noting that they emphasised the security of the polis above all else:
Now as for the tyrants in the Hellenic cites, their first thought was to their own well-being. Thus, they sought to increase their personal safety and the advantage of their families and to enable their cities to live in utmost security (δι᾿ ἀσϕαλείας ὅσον ἐδύναντο μάλιστα τὰς πόλεις ᾤκουν). No noteworthy deed was ever wrought by them, with the exception of those that served their respective local interests, apart from the tyrants of Sicily, who attained great power. (Hist. 1.17)
In marked contrast to Thucydides, Isocrates, who viewed the Social War as a disaster, urges the Athenians in the mid fourth century bce to give up their militant policies towards their neighbours and accept the Common Peace, even though they found it distasteful:
Let me ask, then, whether we should be satisfied if we could dwell in our city secure from danger (εἰ τὴν τε πόλιν ἀσϕαλῶς οἰκοῖμεν), if we could be provided more abundantly with the necessities of life, if we could be of one mind amongst ourselves, and if we could enjoy the high esteem of the Hellenes. I, for my part, hold that, with these blessings assured us, Athens would be completely happy … But if we make peace and demean ourselves as our common covenants [i.e. the peace treaties] command us to do, then we shall dwell in our city in great security (μετὰ πολλῆς μὲν ἀσϕαλείας τὴν πόλιν οἰκήσομεν), delivered from wars and perils and the turmoil in which we are now involved amongst ourselves, and we shall advance day by day in prosperity, relieved of paying war-taxes, of fitting out triremes, and of discharging the other burdens which are imposed by war, without fear cultivating our lands and sailing the seas and engaging in those other occupations which now, because of the war, have entirely come to an end … And, what is most important of all, we shall have all mankind as our allies – allies who will not have been forced, but rather persuaded, to join with us, who will not welcome our friendship because of our power when we are secure (ἐν ταῖς μὲν ἀσϕαλείαις) only to abandon us when we are in peril, but who will be disposed towards us as those should be who are in very truth allies and friends. (De pace, 8.19–21).Footnote 6
This lengthy quotation makes it clear that, for Isocrates, security (ἀσϕάλεια) is the ultimate societal good to which all others must be subordinated, even if Athens must demean itself in the process by accepting the odious conditions of the Common Peace.
It seems, then, that the devastation and social disruption caused by the Peloponnesian War in the waning years of the fifth century was followed in the fourth century by a palpable longing for a secure life, and many in Greece looked to the poleis to provide it. Not everyone deemed this change in outlook a felicitous one, but it indisputably left an indelible mark on Hellenistic society.
1.2. Hellenistic Proxeny Decrees
The high value placed on security is also evident in the frequent use of the term ἀσϕάλεια in a well-known corpus (at least it is well known to historians of Ancient Greece): the so-called ‘proxeny decrees’Footnote 7 of the late classical era and especially the early Hellenistic age. Surprisingly, despite the fact that they contain a standardised phrase that includes both ἀσφάλεια and εἰρήνη in close proximity to each other,Footnote 8 they have not yet attracted the attention of New Testament scholars in their discussion of 1 Thess 5.3. Proxeny decrees were promulgated by the city states of central Greece in an effort to secure the good will of other poleis and koina. They were especially popular in the late third and early second centuries bce, but they fell out of style as Rome gained more and more power in the region, and the poleis no longer controlled their own inter-state relations.Footnote 9 The term ‘proxeny decree’ denotes the characteristic feature of the inscriptions that preserved them: they declare benefactors to be ‘public friends’ (πρόξενοι) of the cities that chose to bestow this honour upon them. In most cases these proxenoi were foreigners from cities throughout the Aegean region, Anatolia, and sometimes further afield. In many cases they served as diplomatic representatives of those cities.Footnote 10
One such proxeny decree (IG vii.4257), a fairly typical example of the genre, is inscribed on a white marble stele in the Amphiareion in Oropos and reads as follows:
Proxeny decrees have a largely standardised form to which this one quite closely adheres: (1) an invocation of the gods (θεοί) and a wish of good fortune (ἀγαθῆι τύχηι); (2) the name of the presiding magistrate and his office (which often allows for fairly precise dating); (3) a resolution formula: ‘it was resolved by the counsel [or people or assembly] that …’ (ἔδοξεν τῆι βουλῆι); (4) a formulaic description of the virtue of the honouree: ‘inasmuch as so-and-so has demonstrated himself to be a good and righteous man towards such-and-such a city’ (ἐπειδὴ ἀνὲρ ἀγαθὸς καὶ δίκαιος περὶ τὴν πόλιν); (5) the name, patronym and eponym of the honouree; (6) the honorific title conferred on the honouree, generally ‘public friend and benefactor’ (πρόξενος καὶ εὐεργέτος); and finally (7) the list of privileges and benefits conferred on the honouree, which include the following: citizenship (πολιτεία), the right to own a house and land in the city (ἐγκτήσις), the right of sanctuary (ἀσυλία), exemption from taxes and duties (ἀτέλεια), the right to import and export goods (εἰσάγη καὶ ἐξάγη), banquet and theatre privileges, etc. For our purposes the most important benefit was that of ‘security in times of war and peace’ (ἀσϕάλεια καὶ πόλεμου καὶ εἰρήνης), a standardised formula attested in hundreds of proxeny decrees from Attica and Central Greece during this period.Footnote 11 It is particularly frequent in the myriad inscriptions at Delphi and Oropos that were placed prominently within the temple precincts.Footnote 12
Now it is readily apparent that the phrase ‘security both in war and peace’ does not, in and of itself, explain Paul's use of ‘peace’ and ‘security’ in 1 Thess 5.3. The term ἀσϕάλεια is not paired with εἰρήνη in the proxeny decrees; in that case it surely would have caught the attention of exegetes of 1 Thessalonians long ago. Rather, the latter term forms a merism with πολέμος; i.e. it implies that security will be guaranteed under all conditions, ranging from outright war to complete peace. Thus, ἀσϕάλεια stands alone and comprehensively denotes the sense of safety and well-being accorded to the proxenoi, which, of course, only serves to underscore the great value that the Hellenistic city states placed on security. It crowns a list of benefits that they wished to extend to those they considered friends.
1.3. Hellenistic Jewish Authors
The high regard of earlier Hellenistic authors for the security offered by the polis and expressed in the proxeny decrees did not wane in the intervening centuries. Indeed, it held powerful sway over the imagination of Jewish admirers of Hellenism well into the early Principate, long after the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean had ceased exercising control over their own political destiny. The city as a place of security is a frequent theme in Philo. He compares local rulers and judges to doctors (because they prepare medicines that are not pleasant but healthy) who make the safety and security of the commonweal (τῶν κοινῶν σωτηρία καὶ ἀσϕάλεια) their primary concern (Ios. 63). Significantly, he designates judges and legislators as ‘common benefactors’ (κοινὸς εὐεργέτης) who, again, are committed to the ‘safety and security’ (σωτηρία καὶ ἀσϕάλεια) of those entrusted to them (Spec. Leg. 4.58). Thus, one of Philo's weightiest charges against Flaccus is that he injured ‘the security of the commonweal’ (τῆς κοινῆς ἀσϕάλεια, Flac. 41). In Philo's view, the very purpose of a city, like that of a house, is to provide ‘shelter and security’ (σκέπη καὶ ἀσϕάλεια) to its inhabitants (Cher. 126). Indeed, the cosmos was both Adam's house and city (πόλις), and as the first citizen of the cosmic city he initially lived there without fear and ‘in complete security’ (μετὰ πάσης ἀσϕαλείας, Opif. 142).
Interestingly, Josephus seems to be aware of the strong association between the Greek polis and the concept of security. In Ant. 7.67 he relates that it was David who first cast the Jebusites out of Jerusalem (῾Ιεροσολύμων), which, according to Josephus, was called ‘Solyma’ during the time of Abraham. Then, intriguingly, he notes that Homer mentions ‘Hierosolyma’,Footnote 13 and goes on to explain that Homer was referring to the ‘Temple Solyma’ in accordance with the Hebrew term – he clearly has שׁלום in mind – which means ‘security’ (ἀσϕάλεια). Josephus seems to be drawing on a folk etymology of the proper noun ‘Jerusalem’ that traces its origin to ‘Hieron Solomonos’ (the temple of Solomon).Footnote 14 Though Josephus' reasoning is untenable by modern linguistic standards, his rhetorical goal is clear enough: he is trying to convince his readers that Jerusalem was an ideal polis, offering many benefits, above all security, to those who dwelt there (cf. Ant. 13.41). This is very much in line with Josephus' conviction that the destruction of Jerusalem was an unfortunate tragedy (cf. J. W. 1.9–11; 7.375–9), all the more so because it could easily have been avoided if only Jewish leaders had acted more sensibly.Footnote 15
2. Roman ‘Peace’ and Greek ‘Security’
Given what is commonly known about the importance of the concept of peace in Rome's propaganda and what literary and epigraphic sources reveal about the significance of the concept of security in Greek political culture, I want to put forward the thesis – as far as I know, it has not been previously advanced – that the phrase ‘peace and security’ was coined by Paul himselfFootnote 16 and that he meant it to be understood as a pithy summation of the ancient world's widely shared hope for a stable and undisturbed life free from fear of loss of life or limb. In other words, he chose two familiar terms, one with powerful connotations in Roman society (pax) and one strongly evocative of Greek conceptions of well-being (ἀσϕάλεια), to describe the greatest common good that both Greek and Roman civilisation claimed to offer.
This fits quite well in the argument Paul advances in 1 Thess 5.1–11. After affirming the certainty of the parousia in 1 Thess 4.13–18, he goes on to warn, in opposition to a strong tendency in the Jewish apocalyptic tradition, against trying to determine the exact timing of Jesus' return.Footnote 17 Yet there is, he says in 1 Thess 5.1, no need for him to write about this, the implication being that he had already instructed the Thessalonians on this topic when he was with them.Footnote 18 As a result, according to 1 Thess 5.2, ‘you yourselves know precisely that the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night’. This ‘thief saying’ is, as we noted above, a clear allusion to a Jesus logion,Footnote 19 and Paul interprets it to mean that ‘at the very time when they are saying “peace” and “security”, sudden destruction will come upon them’.
Unfortunately for modern exegetes Paul does not disambiguate the deictic significance of the third person plural in this sentence; if we knew who ‘they’ were, it would go a long way towards allowing us to determine the provenance of the phrase ‘peace and security’. As it is, we must draw whatever inferences we can from its immediate context. This is not as hopeless a task as it initially might seem, however, for as he proceeds with his argument in 1 Thess 5.1–11 Paul refers to a particular amorphous group that stands in sharp contrast to the believers in Thessalonica. ‘You’, he says to the church in 1 Thess 5.4, are not ‘in the dark’ about these things and are thus not in danger of being overwhelmed when the day of Christ's coming arrives like a thief. ‘You’, he goes on to say in 1 Thess 5.5, are ‘sons of light and sons of the day’.Footnote 20 At this point, it occurs to Paul to include himself and his co-workers in this select group, and he adds ‘we are neither of the night nor of the darkness’; rather ‘we’ are exercising appropriate watchfulness and sobriety,Footnote 21 unlike ‘the rest’, who are spending their precious time sleeping or getting drunk as the eschatological dawn approaches (1 Thess 5.6–7) and deluding themselves with false hopes of ‘peace’ and ‘security’.
Here, it seems, is the elusive referent of the deictic ‘they’ in 1 Thess 5.2. Clearly, ‘they’ are not public officials seeking to mollify an anxious populace with stupefying slogans drawn from Roman imperial propaganda. Instead ‘they’ seem to be the everyday folk – mostly pagans, of course – from whom the Thessalonian Christ-followers were largely drawn and with whom they lived in the insulae and worked in the shops and streets of the city.Footnote 22 When they gathered for an evening meal or a celebration in a tavern,Footnote 23 they shared their hopes and aspirations, which, we can reasonably assume, were those of the masses everywhere and at all times. They desired a peaceful life among family and friends, a modicum of comfort within their modest means and, above all, the political stability that would allow them to pursue their lives without outside interference. Some, among them the many Roman merchants who inhabited Thessalonica in the first century ce,Footnote 24 would have looked to Rome to guarantee the peace; others, in a proud city like Thessalonica whose ethos and self-understanding was thoroughly Greek,Footnote 25 recalled the civic traditions of the Hellenistic city states that for so long offered the promise of an ordered and secure life.
This may have seemed perfectly innocuous to the Gentile believers in the church of Thessalonica, but in light of the apocalyptic cataclysm that Paul expects to break in on the world, he warns his readers to put their trust neither in Roman imperial administration nor in Hellenistic civic virtues, for sudden destruction is bound to come, and neither a law-and-order government nor an illustrious democratic tradition will be able to prevent it. Both Rome's promise of ‘peace’ administered with a heavy hand from above and Greece's goal of ‘security’ growing out of a stable civic culture are, in Paul's view, transient, at best, and delusory, at worst. Both have the potential to blind the Thessalonian believers to the immanent destruction that will suddenly overwhelm the present world order and sweep them away with their compatriots. It is thus imperative that they maintain a high level of watchfulness (1 Thess 5.5).
3. Ramifications for Anti-imperial Readings of Paul
If the thesis I have presented above is correct, it has implications that go well beyond the proper exegesis of 1 Thess 5.3 and serve as a warning for overzealous political readings of Paul. Though it can hardly be doubted, as I have argued elsewhere, that Paul's Gospel has a subversive quality about it,Footnote 26 many of the ‘Paul vs Empire’ readings that have flourished in the past two decades have gone too far. Their proponents, having discovered a long-neglected aspect of Paul's theology (its far-reaching political ramifications), subsequently reinscribed it as a major generative force within his theological programme. This, of course, is a much harder case to prove, and much of the evidence for it has been overplayed. 1 Thess 5.3 is a case in point.
Even here, however, politics is in view, though it is by no means the all-encompassing object of Paul's concern that those who lend their support to an anti-imperial reading of 1 Thess 5.3 have often made it out to be. This was thought by many to increase its significance, but by narrowing the focus of the phrase ‘peace and security’ to Roman political propaganda – without warrant, as we have seen – they actually end up circumscribing the import of Paul's response and, with it, his theological vision. As John Barclay has convincingly argued, Paul's theology ‘concerns the subversive and redemptive power of divine grace in Christ, which creates and empowers new communities of social (and therefore broadly political) significance’.Footnote 27 That is to say that he attends not merely to politics, but to the ‘comprehensive features of reality which penetrate (what we call) the “political” sphere, but only as it is enmeshed in larger and more comprehensive force-fields’.Footnote 28 This implies that we must seek to articulate Paul's theology within a broader matrix that encompasses the entire spectrum of human interactions, social, economic, political, and so on. The readings of Paul that emerge will inevitably be somewhat more quotidian, but they will be no less political (in the more limited sense that Barclay has in mind), and they may prove to be more broadly applicable.
1 Thess 5.3, as I interpret it, serves to demonstrate the point. Rome's self-aggrandising ideology of ‘peace’ had far-reaching political ramifications, but it was not just savvy politics. Rather, it represented an all-encompassing vision that, if the poets of the age are any guide, captured the imaginations of many. Hellenistic society aspired to a similar goal, one less grandiose, perhaps, but no less captivating: ‘security’ for its citizens in self-reliant poleis. To refer to either Roman ideology or Greek aspirations as merely ‘political’ is to minimise their powerful appeal in a tempestuous world, on the one hand, and the danger they represented, in Paul's eyes, for the fledgling community of believers in Thessalonica, on the other. Lasting peace and security were to be found, as far as Paul was concerned, neither in the imperium nor the polis, but only in the community of believers in Jesus. Only those who place their trust in ‘our Lord Jesus Christ’ will avoid the wrath to come, obtain salvation, and so live eternally with him (1 Thess 5.9–10).
