OpenJournals Publishinghttp://www.openjournals.netinfo@openjournals.nethttp://www.hts.org.za0259-94222072-8050Using postcolonial analysis to account for the Roman Empire’s pervasive presence in and influence on early Jesus-follower communities (early Christians), as depicted in New Testament texts, is both evident (given its usefulness for analysing situations of unequal power relationships) and complicated. The complications are due partly to the material and conceptual potential and constraints inherent in postcolonial biblical studies, as well as to the complexities involved in dealing with empire and imperialism. The study of the Roman Empire, as far as its impact on early Christianity and (in this article) on the letters of Paul is concerned, requires attention to Empire’s material manifestation, ideological support for Empire, and religious aspects – issues that are identified and briefly discussed. Empire can be understood in many different ways, but it was also constantly constructed and negotiated by both the powerful and the subjugated and therefore attention is required for its possible reach, uses and the purposeful application of discursive power in New Testament texts that were contemporary with Empire.
Jeremy Punt11Department of Old and New Testament, University of Stellenbosch, South AfricaJeremy Puntjpunt@sun.ac.zaDepartment of Old and New Testament, Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, Private Bag X1314, Matieland 7602, South Africa33066110.4102/hts.v66i1.330© 2010The Authors. Licensee: OpenJournals Publishing. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
11 Aug. 2009
24 Dec. 2009
17 June 2010
Punt, J., 2010, ‘Empire as material setting and heuristic grid for New Testament interpretation: Comments on the value of postcolonial criticism’, HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 66(1), Art. #330, 7 pages. DOI: 10.4102/hts.v66i1.330
IntroductionThe materiality of life in the first-century CE Mediterranean context was determined largely by the omnipresent and omnipotent Roman Empire in its various forms and guises. True to imperial ideology, the Empire made its presence felt in tangible and visible ways. Regular contact with the material reality of imperial imposition was par for the course for first-century people, constantly reinforced by visual images and verbal and written decrees, through military presence and social systems such as patronage, held in place in ways that reinforced both the Roman imperial presence and the people’s sense of submissiveness to Empire. At the same time, but more difficult to account for with immediate references, since it goes beyond citing New Testament texts, requiring attention for the use of discursive power, the context of an all-pervasive Roman imperial presence and practice informed the consciousness and worldview of people around the Mediterranean in the first century CE. In short, material and historical imperialism, as well as discursive imperialism, informed, sculpted and determined the daily lives of people in a myriad of ways, also at the level of consciousness, through ideology.
During the last decade or two it has become clear that a new grammar and vocabulary are needed to understand first-century power relations and their structural organisations, especially in the light of the strong apocalyptic framework of many New Testament texts, with their bold challenge to the Roman Empire through privileging God’s imperial designs. In short, it has become increasingly important to account for the empire as both material setting and as heuristic grid. Historical studies have been, and remain, valuable for investigating the nature, reach and impact of the first-century Roman Empire. However, accounting for Empire as a horizon of understanding in New Testament studies has invoked the use of postcolonial criticism and related categories to account for the impact of the Roman Empire on early Christianity, given the problematic relationship between texts and socio-historical context (see Whitelam 1998:35–49, for example). The purpose of this short article is to acknowledge the role of Empire as material setting and heuristic grid in the interpretation of New Testament texts in general and Pauline texts in particular, briefly considering the usefulness of a postcolonial approach when using Empire as heuristic grid.
Empire in the first-century CEPaul’s material settingAccounting for the Roman Empire as material setting during New Testament times is of course more complicated than listing some categories of overt manifestation in imperial structures, systems and mechanisms. Such material aspects of Empire are important, but the complex nature of each of these entities, as well as their entanglement with a range of other (related and, for our context, unrelated) items, often make their description difficult. A particular challenge in adequately acknowledging the reach and impact of the Roman Empire is related to the imperial presence and power already involved in or at least intimately related to various other social and economic structures and systems on different levels in first-century society. The wealth and diversity of various studies on Empire ancient and modern has made an important contribution to a better understanding of the materiality of the Roman Empire in New Testament times. 
The Roman Empire was propped up by a number of important supports, including military conquest, the system of patronage, the rhetoric of peace, prosperity and concord and the imperial cult (see Horsley 1997:87–90, 2000:74–82 in this regard). However, Empire’s pervasive influence was probably at its strongest on an ideological level and interconnected with various dimensions of first-century life across the spectrum of communities spread out geographically, thus requiring a broad-spectrum approach when discussing Empire during the time of the New Testament. In fact, subsequent to the success of military conquest, it would be the rhetoric of Empire that continuously inscribed and replicated the language of power and domination required for its continuance. Discussing these and other elements separately is not intended to deny that materiality and ideology feed off one another.
The overt manifestation of the Roman Empire is a good place to begin an investigation of its nature and the impact it had on New Testament texts. The basis of Roman power was most evidently and forcefully situated in its vast military might, a force of generally well-trained and well-resourced legions, which generally operated efficiently and ruthlessly. Punishment for dissention and sedition was harsh and the cross was the ultimate symbol of Roman power and cruel brutality. Roman justice was not limited to foreigners and the lower classes; at times even those Roman provincial governors accused of wrongdoing were held accountable before the courts. Roman taxes cut a broad swathe and while legitimised as recompense for the privileges provided by Empire, such as peace and security, or freedom and justice, they mostly served to increase the magnificence and opulence of the elite, who ultimately benefitted from imperial machinations.
For the majority of people in New Testament times, the local elites were predominantly the cutting edge of Empire, its public face and an important aspect of the imperial machinery. Through their ‘government without bureaucracy’ (Garnsey & Saller 1987:20–40) the Roman Empire yielded administrative authority to indigenous elites. This had a twofold purpose. On the one hand, the local elites kept the imperial wheels turning in many ways, for instance ensuring the collection of tribute, organising business and politics and generally garnering support for Empire through bestowing benevolence and undertaking public-works programmes. On the other hand, the elites were an important aspect of the imperial divide-and-rule politics (Moore 2006b:199), since popular resentment and even uprisings could be blamed on them while the imperial powers retained ultimate authority by remaining remote and unavailable.
A vital component of the first-century imperial footprint was, secondly, its ideological framework. By the beginning of the first century, the Roman Empire had established itself as the supreme political power, after it had some decades before conclusively dealt with its main rival, Carthage, and largely stabilised internal divisions, consolidating its power, influence and wealth. Imperial ideology was intimately and reciprocally connected to symbols of its power, with the symbols informing ideology and the latter sustaining and providing purpose and justification for the former. The Roman imperial ideology was built on revisiting the ideals of the old republic and presenting itself as a democratic institution –this pretence being underwritten by notions of liberty and justice. Moreover, following the civil war, Augustus was often deemed the one who brought peace to the Roman Empire and therefore to the world at large. In the end, ‘[f]reedom, justice, peace and salvation were the imperial themes that you could expect to meet in the mass media of the ancient world, that is, on statues, on coins, in poetry and song and speeches’ (Wright 2005:63). The claims to such values and achievements were ultimately ascribed to the benevolence of the emperor and were individually and collectively presented as euangelion or ‘good news’, the same word used, of course, by the early followers of Jesus in describing his life, work and message. Poets and historians like Virgil, Horace, Livy and others created, in their different ways, a grand narrative of Empire – a long eschatology that had reached its climax. In the court of Augustus, the story of Rome was told as a narrative of culmination – a long process of training and preparation that would see the Empire assume its destiny as ruler of the world. 
At times, the emperors themselves engaged in ideology mongering, as in the case of Augustus, who had his achievements (on behalf of the Roman people and the world) inscribed in various texts and on various memorials. Rather than the domination and subjection of other peoples, the actions of the emperors are described as acts bestowing the friendship and fidelity of the Roman people on the peoples of the world. The defeat of other peoples through conquest and warfare is described as the miraculous achievement of the Pax Romana, as worldwide peace. ‘The ideology of Roman supremacy involved the inferiority of other peoples who were destined to be subservient to the Romans; within this ideology, the Jews were on occasion singled out as a people “born to servitude”’ (Elliott 2007:187). The breadth and depth of the imperial ideology and propaganda meant that the Roman world was saturated ‘with a carefully managed repertoire of images depicting the piety and benevolent potency of the emperor, and of the routinised representations and celebrations of those virtues through a ubiquitous imperial cult’ (Elliott 2007:183).
And this introduces a third, religious, dimension of Empire, one which featured most prominently in the past, when biblical scholars considered imperial influence in their studies on the New Testament. Generally, such studies focussed strongly on the emperor cult, with some scholars today arguing that, by the middle of the first-century CE, the emperor cult was the fastest growing religion of that time (Wright 2005:64). In addition to encouraging the worship of the gods of Empire, the emperors were often included among those worshipped. While few emperors attempted to claim divine honours for themselves, their insistence on the divinity of their predecessors often served to reinforce their own positions of power. This practice ensured that the claim by any given, serving emperor to be a ‘son of god’ was not uncommon at the time, even if the relationship between the emperor and his predecessor was at most one of adoptive kinship, as in the case of Octavian/Augustus.
The emperor cult was one, albeit an important, element of a much more pervasive religion-saturated imperial system. Augustus, for example, was hailed by contemporary poets for what was described as his remarkable piety. This piety was often given as the reason for his successful establishment of the Empire. On the Ara Pacis, the Augustan Peace altar in Rome, the image of the pious Trojan hero, Aeneas, making sacrifices on the shore of Latium was paired with a similarly pious Augustus offering sacrifices on behalf of the Roman people (Elliott 2007:183).
In the eastern part of the Empire, where rulers were traditionally regarded as divine, the emperor cult grew particularly strong and as a result saw cities benefit enormously by receiving rewards of various kinds. Building programmes generally led to the erection of temples in honour of the emperor, often accompanied by a restructuring of the city, as in the case of Ephesus and was accompanied by various other activities such as games, festivals and other celebrations in honour of the emperor. Given the imperial military might through which the emperor laid claim to all territory and people ‘[a]s far as most of the Roman world was concerned, the “divinity” of the emperor was obvious and uncontroversial’ (Wright 2005:65; cf. Richey 2007:34–40).
Everything considered, the Roman Empire did not have to force-feed its imperial subjects its ideology and propaganda, or impose accompanying socio-cultural, political and religious rituals, since the provincial elites were eager to develop their own versions of imperial splendour in imagery and ritual to demonstrate the new configuration of power in their cities. Competition with their counterparts elsewhere for the best reproduction of Caesar’s example of ritualised piety and benevolence soon led to the blurring of boundaries between the emperor and the elites – to such an extent that such values were identified with each other (Elliott 2007:183). Imposing the emperor-cult through the threat of force would prove unnecessary, in any case, as long as the threat of violent action was considered real enough and that the perceived benefits of imperial rule, such as safety and stability, seemed to overwhelm its distractions.
Paul, Empire and postcolonial studiesEmpire as heuristic gridIt is on this imperial canvas, then, that a portrayal of the earliest communities of Jesus-followers can be painted by means of broad strokes (as far as Empire was concerned), but also with the purposefully directed strokes (as far as each Letter’s own distinct purpose was concerned) of the various, contingent Pauline Letters in the New Testament. Empire was a material reality for the New Testament authors and certainly also for Paul, with his metropolitan make-up and extensive travel experience. Paul’s urban-focussed mission would have brought him in close contact with the omnipresent imperial tentacles, since Roman cultural hegemony was particularly strong in the cities and their immediate spheres of influence (Garnsey & Saller 1987:203). So, more than a socio-historical material reality, the Roman Empire is also a heuristic grid for understanding Paul’s vision of the cosmos, life and God, especially in light of his experience of Jesus Christ.
And this is where another approach with different terminology and grammar is needed and which, this article suggests, can be found particularly, but not necessarily exclusively, in postcolonial theory and criticism. An ‘anti-imperialist’ reading cannot simply be equated to a ‘postcolonial’ reading, since the understanding of what constitutes the postcolonial – and even the imperial – requires consideration. However (and depending on the literary nature of the New Testament documents) a postcolonial approach would want to bear upon the indeterminacy and instability that can be identified in many texts (cf. Burrus 2007:153). The value of postcolonial criticism for studying biblical texts has been established over the last two decades and no longer needs elaborate arguments to justify its use in biblical studies. Postcolonial criticism is not a monolithic enterprise, nor is it beyond criticism (cf. Moore & Segovia 2005), but its usefulness for the study of the New Testament appears to be settled. And, in focus here, it has the ability to provide a broader interpretative framework, creating the capacity to both frame and analyse imperialism and colonialism in their hybridity and as contained and reflected in biblical texts. In picking up on surface-level and underlying tensions in texts, postcolonial biblical criticism is useful and effective in studying Empire as heuristic grid for biblical interpretation, something that can be illustrated by briefly looking at the concept of mimicry.
Paul and Empire: ideology, ambivalence and mimicryIn biblical hermeneutics, a postcolonial optic can be framed as an analysis of the texts of early Christianity in and according to a specific context. The broad socio-cultural context of these texts would include the omnipresent, inescapable and overwhelmingly socio-political reality of Empire, imperialism and colonialism around the Mediterranean as constituted and exercised during the first century CE (cf. Segovia 1998:56). The documentary evidence – sometimes limited to mere hints – about the Empire contained in New Testament texts should not be seen as hidden transcripts (Scott 1990) simply because these texts come from the underside of the Empire. Taking into account that the existence of these documents was largely determined by those who ruled or who had the resources, ability and reason to write, they were, in another sense, public transcripts of power within the communities in which they circulated.
An ideologically critical reading of texts therefore has often been an important starting point in New Testament interpretation, also in postcolonial approaches; in fact, ideological criticism has been recognised as one of the most prominent influences and even a kind of centripetal force in postcolonial biblical studies. This is certainly the case as far as the efforts of postcolonial biblical studies are concerned in retrieving the voice of the subjugated and making it audible (cf. Segovia 2000a:119–132). In as far as ideology is connected to language and meaning, to ideas and systems of thought and belief, in such a way that the interests of the powerful and ruling groups are best served – primarily by presenting their positions and actions as normal and righteous – all texts in their reflection and refraction of reality stand in a relation of some sort to the vested interests of the contexts and people from where they originated (cf. Rowland 2006:655–671). But when, as in the case of the New Testament, texts serve as both hidden and public transcripts, the value of ideological criticism is curtailed, while other complexities can be addressed, particularly with the use of a postcolonial optic.
As stated at the end of Section 2, the first-century Roman Empire was neither monolithic nor was it imposed in a singular and simplistic fashion on passive and interest-less subjects. The profile of the imperial subject should also not be posited as uncomplicated. Given the interaction between imperial forces and indigenous foreigners, the Empire was in effect the distillation of a sustained interaction between rulers and subjects. The Roman Empire’s overpowering military force cannot be ignored and while words such as oppression and subjection remain fair and accurate descriptions of Empire, at the same time it also bears reminding that Empire is made possible through a series of ongoing choices and negotiations between subjects and rulers. Amid the powerful, political manoeuvres and overtures of powerful imperials, the subalterns were also engaged in negotiating their own positions a new (Price 2004:176). 
Postcolonial interpretation wants to acknowledge that imperialism and colonialism are set in such strong ambivalence, particularly where the relationship between the powerful and the powerless is concerned. Here the notion of cultural mimicry is often employed as an analytical tool.
In postcolonial theory, cultural mimicry – a term coined by Bhabha (1994:85–92) – refers to the imposition of a compelling, cultural framework on the colonised, resulting not only in the coercing of the colonised but also in the internalisation and replication of the coloniser’s culture by the colonised – mainly through a process of enticement. The replication is not perfect, however, and neither is it intended as such by the coloniser, since it would erase the all-important boundaries of power between coloniser and colonised. The discourse of mimicry is governed by additional ambivalence: that the colonised may use that very mimicry to mock – and therefore subtly challenge and subvert – the control and authority of the coloniser, while simultaneously subverting the coloniser’s narcissistic claim to self-identity (Bhabha 1994:85–92). In its submissive subversiveness, mimicry is therefore not only ambivalent through its insistence on and desistence of mimesis; it constitutes the risk for colonisers of having their culture parodied (Moore 2006:110). In fact, mimicry often becomes mockery, exposing the falsity of the claims made, deriding the conventional rhetoric through exaggeration and misapplication, and imitating the claims of Empire and its associates, only to make them appear ridiculous.
Paul’s rhetoric to the communities he addressed within the prevailing hegemonic situation can be understood, for example, along the line of mimicry, which would show that the Roman imperial context is more than an underlying canvas for the first-century portrait and indeed also functions as hermeneutic grid. For example, what would the Pauline emphasis on judgement according to works (Rom 2:12–16) have implied in an ideological context in which the superiority of the Roman people was celebrated? On the other hand, how would the Pauline insistence on faithfulness (pistis) ‘apart from works (erga)’ have resonated when Roman patronage and the ‘works’ of benefactors determined people’s lives and livelihood (as ultimately underwritten by the emperor as benefactor par excellence who readily claimed his ‘works’ (cf. Augustus and the Res Gestae))? How would Paul’s proclamation of one, single ancestor for all people of the whole world, Abraham, as father of faith but also ‘impious’ (asebēs; Rom 4:5), have been perceived in a world where the imperial ideology focused so strongly on the legacy of piety as exemplified in the portrayal of Aeneas? (cf. Elliott 2007:186).
Criticism of, and opposition to, the practices and claims of the imperial regime that occurred in the ‘social space in which offstage dissent to the official transcript of power relations may be voiced’ (Scott 1990:xii) were the ‘hidden manuscripts’ of the oppressed. Criticism and opposition (that no-one dared to express for fear of fatal retribution) form a hidden discourse linked to culture, religion and imperial rule and originate from those who, on the one hand, did not have the resources to record this discourse, or, on the other hand, chose to hide the discourse, not making it public for fear of reprisals. As texts are always imbued with ambivalences and ambiguities, (indicative of the intricaciesof the real-world contexts where they originate) they conceal, beneath their concern for the dominant or hegemonic, elements more characteristic of the oppositional culture or values (cf. Rowland 2006:655–671). Through dissenting deference, Paul’s mimicry of Empire created the impression that he internalised and replicated imperial culture while he actually used the ambivalence of the hegemonic discourse to his advantage. To some extent, therefore, Paul’s public transcripts to communities scattered around the Mediterranean served as hidden transcripts in relation to the Empire.
Postcolonial hermeneutics represents a shift in emphasis, a strategy of reading that attempts to point out what was lacking in previous analyses, as well as to rewrite and correct (Punt 2003:59). Indeed, the postcolonial condition is about more than subscribing to either of the two extremes, of choosing either submission or subversion, but rather comprises unequal measures of aversion and admiration, resentment and desire, rejection and imitation, resistance and cooption, separation and surrender (Moore 2006a:x); therefore, those who found and find themselves engaged by postcoloniality can reflect on such complexities in an appropriately nuanced way.
ConclusionThe analysis of social and political contexts during New Testament times cannot be divorced both from accounting for the history of biblical interpretation and for the social location and ideological setting of modern scholarship (cf. Whitelam 1998:45). The realisation that Empire was a pervasive presence in New Testament times and, as a result, finding its traces in these texts, probably does not require postcolonial theory. However, while other critical theories and methodologies used in the interpretation of the New Testament texts generally either account for the material setting of Empire (through broad-ranging historical-critical approaches and even socio-scientific methodology), or are engaged in examining the ideological aspects of Empire (with ideological criticism or even feminist criticism), postcolonial theory currently probably offers the best possibility of investigating Empire as both material setting (as cultural production and social matrix) and heuristic grid for New Testament interpretation.
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