Divine Accounting: Theo-Economics in the Letter to the Philippians

Abstract

This dissertation investigates how early Christ-followers used financial language to articulate and imagine their relationship to the divine. In the ancient Mediterranean, the divine was an active participant in what we call the economic sphere. Gods and goddesses were represented as owning goods, holding accounts, and producing wealth through the mediation of religious and civic officials. In this dissertation, I use a variety of epigraphic, papyrological, and literary evidence to examine the use of financial terms that are found throughout Paul’s letter to the Philippians, asking: what sorts of human-human and human-divine relationships are described? Paul describes his relationship with the Philippians using the business language of a koinonia, a shareholding venture, in the gospel. He uses language of deposit and security to represent his imprisonment as a contribution to the success of the gospel venture in which both he and the Philippians participate. In Philippians 3, he commodifies Christ and suffering. In Philippians 4, Paul refers to a divine accounting system to offer a promissory note to the Philippians for their support of him. I also explore Polycarp’s Letter to the Philippians, which exemplifies one trajectory in the afterlife of this theo-economic rhetoric. There the commodification of Christ and suffering has been turned towards polemical ends. My study adds a new framework of analysis, theo-economics, to New Testament and early Christian texts. This new framework allows a better understanding of major theological and economic logics in early Christianity, and the imbrication of themes such as poverty, labor, social status, cosmology, and eschatology. The framework of theo-economics also makes visible an emerging “economy of suffering” in early Christianity, which is present in the Letter to the Philippians and expands in multiple directions after Paul. Thus, my study has implications for New Testament and early Christian studies as well as Roman history, economics, and the study of religion.