In antiquity, the highest “god” (be he pagan, Jewish, or Christian) was a member of a larger class, “gods.” The very idea of a theos hypsistos—a favorite designation for Israel’s god in the Septuagint—is itself intrinsically comparative: the god in question is the highest of all the (other) gods. Even the phrase εἷς θεὸς ἐν οὐρανῷ, “one god in heaven,” asserted superiority, not singularity (Angelos Chaniotis, “Megatheism: The Search for the Almighty God and the Competition of Cults,” in One God: Pagan Monotheism in the Roman Empire, ed. Stephen Mitchell and Peter van Nuffelen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 112–40). See also, in the same collection, the essay by Nicole Belayche, “Deus deum … summorum maximus [Apuleius]: Ritual Expressions of Distinction in the Divine World in the Imperial Period,” 141–66, on divine hierarchy and plurality. The current scholarly vogue in ancient pagan “monotheism” expresses what earlier scholars termed “henotheism,” one god among many: see most recently Christian Gers-Uphaus, “Paganer Monotheismus anhand der θεὸς ὕψιστος- und εἷς θεός-Inschriften,” JAC 60 (2017): 5–82. Pagans who invoked theos hypsistos need not have had the LXX’s god in mind, on which Dorothea Rohde, “Die religiöse Landschaft einer Hafenstadt im Wandel,” in Juden-Christen-Heiden? Religiöse Inklusion und Exklusion in Kleinasien bis Decius, ed. Stefan Alkier and Hartmut Leppin, WUNT 400 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 197–217, esp. 210; cf. Christian Marek, “Nochmals zu den Theos Hypsistos Inschriften,” ibid., 131–48. As Marek points out, commenting on the Oenoanda inscription, Apollo—one of the Olympian gods—demotes himself to being a messenger (“angel”) vis-à-vis the highest, self-existing god, 143–44. By contrast, Clement of Alexandria considers “gods” and “angels” as two distinct and non-hierarchically arranged categories (Strom. 7.3.20.4);
- cf. Celsus’ ranking of these entities as the greatest god, gods, angels, daemons (which can be good or evil), and heroes (Cels. 7.68).
- Antiquity’s cosmos, in short, was a god-congested place. Loyalty to (or pious enthusiasm for) one particular god, or assertion of the superiority of one’s own city’s god, was not the same as asserting that the deity in question was the only god. For those (rare) ancients who thought systematically in terms that we identify (confusingly) as “monotheist,” heaven, though heavily populated, was organized hierarchically. At the pinnacle was the “one god.” Numerous and various others ranged beneath
- Cosmology recapitulated theology. Divinity stood on a gradient, and it spanned heaven and earth: stars, planets, sun, moon, lesser superhuman beings (daimones and daimonia) were to varying degrees divine. “Lower” gods, like divine humans and heroes, stood further down and closer in to the geocentric center of the universe. “Higher” gods, especially the glowing, perfect, immortal somata pneumatika of astral deities, were quite literally “higher,” above the line of cosmic demarcation set by the moon, superior both morally and metaphysically to beings ranged beneath. On the religious and scientific implications of this cosmic architecture, E. R. Dodds, Pagan and Christian in an Age of Anxiety (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), 6–14; on the ways that it structures second and third-century Christians theologies, Paula Fredriksen, Sin: The Early History of an Idea (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012), 51–112 (Valentinus, Marcion, Justin, and Origen). For a brief first-century tour of this cosmos, 1 Cor 15:39–42; for a more orderly, fourth-century survey, Sallustius, Concerning the Gods and the Universe, ed. and trans. A. D. Nock (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1966). Nock’s introduction richly repays reading.
Apollo referred to himself and to his Olympian colleagues as merely that god’s angeloi or “messengers”. “Born of itself, untaught, without a mother, unshakeable, not contained in a name, known by many names, dwelling in fire, this is god. We, his angels, are a small part of god.” Thus, the opening hexameter lines of the famous Oenoanda inscription. For Clement of Alexandria, by contrast, “gods” and “angels” were two distinct and different species of beings, both serving as celestial spectators for heroic Christian sufferings (Strom. 7.3.20). Philo’s first-century heaven glowed with gods, those sidereal bodies whom he names “manifest and visible theoi” (Opif. 7.27; Spec. 1.13–14; Aet. 46). For Philo, further, the Jewish god’s logos was a “second god” (QG 2.62) as, similarly, was Jesus for Justin (heteros theos, Dial. 59.1) (Dial. 61.1).
Paul forthrightly acknowledges the existence of many gods and many lords, active social agents who serve as Christ’s cosmic resistance at his messianic return, and who seek to frustrate Paul’s mission in the fast-diminishing meanwhile. Besides saying so forthrightly at 2 Cor 4:4 (the θεὸς τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου) and at 1 Cor 8:5 (ὥσπερ εἰσὶν θεοὶ πολλοὶ καὶ κύριοι πολλοί), Paul in my view refers to cosmic divinities at Gal 4:8–9 (στοιχεῖα); at 1 Cor 2:8 (ἄρχοντες τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου); at 1 Cor 10:20–21 (δαίμονia); and at 1 Cor 15:24–27, a sort of messianic theomachy between the returning Christ and lower cosmic powers (ὅταν καταργήσῃ πᾶσαν ἀρχὴν καὶ πᾶσαν ἐξουσίαν καὶ δύναμιν, cf. Rom 8:19–21, where these entities “groan”). According to Phil 2:10, in the End, these cosmic beings wherever they are—“above the earth or upon the earth or below the earth”—will “bend knee” (in defeat? in homage?) to Christ and so to his Father; cf. Ephesians 3:10; 6:12. For the definitions of rule (archē), authority (exousia), and power (dynamis) as cosmic forces (a.k.a. “gods”) see BDAG.
Both Celsus and Origen agree that many different divine entities exist (angels, demons, gods), though Origen disputes demonic morality (Cels. 5.2–8). As late as the fifth century, no less a light than Augustine conceded that the true difference between pagan gods and Christian demons really got down to terminology (Civ. 9.23). Jews, Christians, and pagans, finally, all imputed divinity to special humans. **Philo named Moses a “god” (Mos. 1.158; Somn. 2.189; Sacr. 9–10). And though he nowhere calls Jesus a god (a point that I see as significant), and though he specifically classifies Jesus as a human being (anthropos), Paul certainly imputes divine functions and characteristics to Jesus, elevated messianic status not least of all. For Origen, both David and Paul are gods (sine dubio non errant homines sed dii, Comm. Rom. II.10,18; SC 532, p. 438).** And for pagans as well as (post-312 CE) for Christians, Roman emperors were also a type of god. Up until Constantine, emperors received sacrificial cult. Thereafter, though blood sacrifices were gone, divine prerogatives like priesthoods, liturgies, adoration of the imperial image, celebration of festal days, ritual proskynesis, incense (a marker of divine presence), and public acknowledgment of divine numen remained.
On imperial divinity in the early empire see: Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 31–49; on the sanctity and numen both of the emperor (whether pagan or Christian) and of his image, Jas Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 53–87; further, Keith Hopkins, “Divine Emperors, or the Symbolic Unity of the Roman Empire,” in Conquerors and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 197–226. Emperor worship continued under Constantine and his successors, A. H. M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire, 284–602: A Social, Economic, and Administrative Survey, 2 vols. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964), 1:93 (with comments on Constantine’s personal approval of various dedicated cultural competitions and gladiatorial games under the supervision of an imperial priest); G. W. Bowersock, “Polytheism and Monotheism in Arabia and the Three Palestines,” DOP 51 (1997): 1–10; Ramsay MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth through Eighth Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 34–39, on the cult of the Christian Roman emperor.
Created and Uncreated Gods
Jewish scriptures teem with other gods. As is common in ancient literatures, and as is to be expected given antiquity’s normal association of peoples and pantheons, gods struggled when their peoples did. Heaven’s politics conformed to human politics. Thus, when Israel battles Egypt, Israel’s god executes judgment on the gods of the Egyptians (Exod 12:12). When Israel prevails over the Ammonites, YHWH sends Milcom into exile (Jer 49:3). Their contesting relationship with YHWH implies the moral autonomy, thus independence, of these gods: they resist him. In Jewish texts, of course, YHWH always prevails, even when Israel does not.
Outside of battle situations, the supremacy of Israel’s god over these lesser ones is simply asserted. YHWH presides over a divine court: “In the midst of the gods he gives judgment” (Ps 81(82):2). He appoints these lesser beings to be the gods of gentile nations (Gen 32:8). They all bow down to him (Ps 97(98):7). Ancient Jewish texts display a certain narrative insouciance about divine origins. Some of these beings, sometimes, will be named as God’s “sons” (as at Genesis 6:2, 4, for example). The hierarchical family language organizes their relationship: “sonship” implies derivation, dependence, and subordination. Angelic origins likewise go unexplained, though angels abound in all sorts of ancient Jewish texts, with many powers and duties—including bearing the divine name, and providing God’s visual stand-in—delegated to them. God’s absolute power over all of these lesser beings is continuously asserted. His role as their maker, however, usually must be assumed or inferred. For a quick orientation to this angelic throng see: L. W. Hurtado, “Monotheism, Principal Angels, and the Background of Christology,” in Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. John J. Collins and Timothy H. Lim (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 547–64, at 552–5. See too Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration and Christology, WUNT 2/70 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), and his essay, “ ‘Angels’ and ‘God’: Exploring the Limits of Early Jewish Monotheism,” in Stuckenbruck and North, Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, 45–70.
As with these lesser divine entities, so also with the larger universe itself. In Genesis, God organizes what seems to be already to hand: empty and formless earth, primeval cosmic waters (Gen 1:1–2). Like gods and angels in the later narratives, these media, without apology, are just there. No idea of creation ex nihilo complicated the biblical stories—nor would it until long after Paul’s lifetime.
Pagan philosophy in the early Roman period, especially as inflected through the Timaeus, helped to organize the Septuagint’s opening chapter into rational cosmology. In theistic philosophies, theos and hylē were the two extreme poles of reality: cosmos represented a sort of organized precipitate formed between them. Definitions of theos, the eternal, unnamed and ungenerate god, expressed ideas of absolute perfection. The highest god was self-existing (that is, contingent upon nothing else), all good and all powerful, radically changeless (an aspect of his perfection), radically unembodied (body being a form of limitation), beyond space and time. This gods metaphysical opposite pole was hylē, preexistent matter, absolutely without form, coeternal with theos which, otherwise, would have been implicated in change (and, worse, in imperfection) (On the Gods and the Universe 7.1). The actual “activity” of cosmic organization was tasked to divine subordinate powers, the highest god’s demiurge or logos (rational power) or logoi or (depending on the myth) to his angeloi. Activity and temporality do not really frame this idea of world making, however: to preserve theos from any imputation of change, philosophers posited that hylē, thus cosmos, were co-eternal with God, his divine logos perpetually organizing the whole. In later centuries, Christian theologians will adapt such formulations to describe the effortless co-eternality and inter-relationship of the persons of the Trinity. Philosophically educated readers of the LXX, whether Jewish (like Philo in the first century) or gentile (like Justin in the second), understood the biblical creation narrative in these terms. The divine lower rational agent in creation, God’s logos, is Philo’s “second god,” as he is Justin’s heteros theos, the pre-incarnate Son. And while biblical exegetes from Philo through Clement to Athenagoras will assert that the world was made “out of nothing,” their word choice is both cautious and telling.
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