Seeing Rape and Robbery: ἁρπαγμαός and the Philippians Christ Hymn (Phil. 2:5-11)
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In the first century ce, images of Roman imperial figures subduing foreign, sexualized women were installed throughout the civic spaces of the Empire as a celebration of victory over other nations. The well-known reliefs on the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias are just one example. Images like these dominated the visual fields of ancient people, working to persuade viewers of certain ideals about power, beauty, and authority. This article argues that setting the Philippians Christ hymn (Phil. 2:5-11) in the context of this visual culture and rhetoric helps solve a significant lexical problem: the meaning of ἁρπαγμός in Phil. 2:6. Methodologically, I argue that reading the Christ hymn in conversation with the visual rhetoric of the Aphrodisian reliefs, and other images like them throughout imperial cities, significantly shifts the interpretative framework for the hymn. The use of sexualized women’s bodies to depict conquered peoples suggests that ἁρπαγμός means “rape and robbery” rather than “something to be exploited or grasped” as most major lexica and biblical translations suggest. Theologically, Phil. 2:6 thus fits with first-century discourses around the image and power of divine emperors rather than later inter-Christian arguments about pre-existence. The result is a hymn that simultaneously critiques Roman practices of “rape and robbery” and also draws on imperial power structures.
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19
Moule, “Further Reflections,” p. 267; Hoover, “Harpagmos Enigma,” pp. 106-114.
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20
Hoover, “Harpagmos Enigma,” pp. 102-106. See also J.C. O’Neill, “Hoover on harpagmos Reviewed, with a Modest Proposal Concerning Philippians 2:6,” HTR 81 (1988), pp. 445-49 (448).
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21
D. Burke, “On the Articular Infinitive in Philippians 2:6: A Grammatical Note with Christological Implications,” Tyndale Bulletin 55 (2004), pp. 253-74.
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23
Hoover, “Harpagmos Enigma,” pp. 117-18. Wright (“ἁρπαγμός”) reinvigorates Hoover’s argument.
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30
L.S. Nasrallah, Early Christian Responses to Roman Art and Architecture (London: Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 1-17.
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33
Nasrallah, Early Christian Responses, p. 171. See also C. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), pp. 209-232.
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35
P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (trans. A. Shapiro; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988), p. 237; see also pp. 195-201 and 230-38. Zanker continues, “The imagery of military glory, of the divinely sanctioned world order, or of civic peace and prosperity transcended everyday reality, filtered out the undesirable, and created a certain level of expectation, so that even setbacks would be accepted automatically and on faith as the prelude to a turn for the better” (p. 237).
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38
Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered, p. 32. For a discussion about the consistency of iconography between Rome and Asia Minor during Augustus’ time, see R.R.R. Smith, “Simulacra Gentium: The Ethnē from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias,” JRS 78 (1988), pp. 50-77 (71-77). See also Zanker, Power of Images, pp. 167-238, for a discussion of how common myths appear in representations of Augustus.
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43
See also D.P. Moessner, “Turning Status ‘Upside Down’ in Philippi: Christ Jesus’ ‘Emptying Himself’ as Forfeiting Any Acknowledgment of His ‘Equality with God’ (Phil 2:6-11)” HBT 31 (2009), pp. 123-43 (124-26, especially n. 8); Heen, “Phil. 2:6-11 and Local Resistance,” pp. 125-54.
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Seeing Rape and Robbery: ἁρπαγμαός and the Philippians Christ Hymn (Phil. 2:5-11)
In: Biblical InterpretationSearch for other papers by Katherine A. Shaner in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
In the first century ce, images of Roman imperial figures subduing foreign, sexualized women were installed throughout the civic spaces of the Empire as a celebration of victory over other nations. The well-known reliefs on the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias are just one example. Images like these dominated the visual fields of ancient people, working to persuade viewers of certain ideals about power, beauty, and authority. This article argues that setting the Philippians Christ hymn (Phil. 2:5-11) in the context of this visual culture and rhetoric helps solve a significant lexical problem: the meaning of ἁρπαγμός in Phil. 2:6. Methodologically, I argue that reading the Christ hymn in conversation with the visual rhetoric of the Aphrodisian reliefs, and other images like them throughout imperial cities, significantly shifts the interpretative framework for the hymn. The use of sexualized women’s bodies to depict conquered peoples suggests that ἁρπαγμός means “rape and robbery” rather than “something to be exploited or grasped” as most major lexica and biblical translations suggest. Theologically, Phil. 2:6 thus fits with first-century discourses around the image and power of divine emperors rather than later inter-Christian arguments about pre-existence. The result is a hymn that simultaneously critiques Roman practices of “rape and robbery” and also draws on imperial power structures.
| All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 1136 | 93 | 1 |
| Full Text Views | 468 | 50 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 426 | 101 | 1 |