Neil Elliott (2004b) has also tried to heed Scott’s call to take texts seriously by paying close attention to the dynamics of discourse that are persistent throughout all asymmetrical power relationships. Scott points out that any hermeneutical analysis “based exclusively on the public transcript is likely to conclude that subordinate groups endorse the terms of their subordination and are willing, even enthusiastic, partners in that subordination” (1990: 2). Elliott sees this, our failure to delve beneath the public transcript, as one of the factors contributing to the cooptation of Romans 13 by the very powers Paul sought to expose therein. “Only the most pernicious twists of fate would later enlist these verses in service of the empire itself” (1997: 204). But the blame does not lie solely on the empires of this world. “That we should allow these verses to thwart even the most modest inquiries into our government’s complicity in repression and murder is a staggering betrayal. . . . Only the arrogant presumptions of our own privilege have allowed us to hear these verses as a sacred legitimation of power” (2006: 226, emphasis mine).

So how ought we to hear these verses? The fact that these words of the apostle Paul were as early as the second century worn incisively on the lips of Christian martyrs should be our first indication that not everything is at it seems on the surface. “The declaration of loyalty,” the public transcript, “belongs together with persecution, in a tradition reaching back to the Jewish martyrs under the Greek tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes” (2006: 225-26). Thus, Elliott proceeds (2004b: 113ff) by locating us more broadly within the milieu of Judaism under Roman domination. Elliott examines the writings of Philo, demonstrating Philo’s frequent oscillation between the public transcript of Roman benefaction and the hidden transcript of Roman brutality. In book 2 of On Dreams, for instance, Philo discusses Joseph’s dream in which sheaves of grain bow down to him. Ostensibly interpreting the biblical text, Philo proceeds to depict the proud men who “set themselves up above everything, above cities and laws and ancestral customs and the affairs of the several citizens,” who impose “dictatorship over the people,” bringing “into subjection even souls whose spirit is naturally free and unenslaved” (De Somniis 2.79-79). Here Philo’s chosen genre, biblical allegory, “allows him a certain ‘deniability,’ a ‘disguise’ for his political views” (2004b: 114).[1] His political views, of course, are seen in his description of an “unnatural imposition of dictatorship upon those who are naturally free” (114). This reading, of course, has no basis in the Genesis text.

Nevertheless, fully conscious of the destructive power of the Roman empire, Philo encourages caution (the public transcript), over against what he calls “ultimate frankness” (the hidden transcript). Philo acknowledges the existence of “lunatics and madmen” who “dare to oppose kings and tyrants in words and deeds.” But, as Elliott points out, Philo does not call them “lunatics” because “they fail to recognize the inherent benefit of accepting their subordination to the imperial order (as the official transcript would define lunacy)” (115). On the contrary, they are lunatics, according to Philo, because they refuse to see how destructive the imperial order can be to those who challenge the public transcript. They are blind to the fact that

not only like cattle are their necks under the yoke, but that the harness extends to their whole bodies and souls, their wives and children and parents, and the wide circle of friends and kinsfolk united to them by fellowship of feeling, and that the driver can with perfect ease spur, drive on or pull back, and mete out any treatment small or great just as he pleases. And therefore they are branded and scourged and mutilated and undergo a combination of all the sufferings which merciless cruelty can inflict short of death, and finally are led away to death itself. (De Somniis 2.83-84)

For this reason, Philo promotes caution over “ultimate frankness.” This can be seen further in another allegorical reading, this time of Genesis 23:7, in which Philo describes Abraham’s obedience to the sons of Heth. “Although the text does not present these terms, Philo insists that Abraham’s obedience was compelled by ‘fear,’ not ‘respect,’ playing on a well-known political topos” (116):[2] “For it was not out of any feeling of respect for those who by nature and race and custom were the enemies of reason . . . that he brought himself to do obedience. Rather it was just because he feared their power at the time and their formidable strength and cared to give no provocation” (De Specialibus Legibus 2.90). Philo’s interpretation, again having no basis in the text, was autobiographical. “The speeches Philo puts into the mouths of the praiseworthy [De Somniis 2.93-95] are worthy of any zealot call to arms. The political subordination Philo describes is tantamount to living as brute livestock, suffering torment and indignity until finally being butchered” (115). But all of this “is said obliquely, in the most general of terms” (116), because “to give no provocation” is the mark of true prudence under domination. “Just as a traveler encountering a bear or a lion or a wild boar on the road will seek to soothe and calm the beast, so the wise citizen will manifest patience and deference to rulers” (De Specialibus Legibus 2.86-87).[3]

We are able to discern in Philo two distinct transcripts: the onstage, public transcript, and the offstage, hidden transcript. Caution must be exercised until “the times are right,” when a “social space is opened up in which the ‘offstage’ transcripts can come onstage” (117), then “it is good to set ourselves against the violence of our enemies and subdue it; but when the circumstances do not present themselves, the safe course is to stay quiet” (De Specialibus Legibus 2.92).

Having established the existence of Scott’s categories within the Judaism of the Roman empire, Elliott proceeds to analyze Paul’s language against this template. First, Elliott sees in Romans 13:11-13 traces of a hidden transcript, appearing onstage, in Paul’s encrypted allusions to “the time,” “the hour,” and “the day.” Paul could expect “these terse phrases to be meaningful to his hearers without elaborating the apocalyptic scenario to which they refer.” (117).

Using Scott’s terminology, we might speak of a fully apocalyptic offstage transcript to which Paul makes repeated references. Indeed, the very intentionality of apocalyptic or “revelatory” rhetoric is to refer to a reality that is not universally, or “publicly,” evident—as Paul puts it, a reality that must be “revealed” as a “mystery” (Rom. 11:25) but is otherwise “unsearchable” and “inscrutable” (Rom. 11:33). These observations lead to the suggestion that every performance of one of Paul’s letters, before a group constituted as an “ekklesia,” generated a social site for the rehearsal and reiteration of a hidden apocalyptic transcript. (118, original emphasis)

According to Elliott, this very “hiddenness” of the apocalyptic transcript in Romans explains why many interpreters who “easily gravitate to more self-evident language” have been baffled by the apparent lack of apocalypticism in Romans, considering the pervasiveness of apocalyptic logic in Paul’s other letters (118).[4]

Elliott suggests that one hermeneutical key for discerning Pauline hidden transcripts is by identifying Paul’s use of the cross of Christ to illustrate his own “apostolic presence.” Elliott points to several Pauline hidden transcripts (1 Cor. 1:18-25; 2:6-8; 2 Cor. 2:15-16; 1 Thess. 5:2-4), but focuses on 2 Corinthians 2:14: “But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ.” The image represents an ironic inversion of the public transcript in which the triumphal procession of the imperial “benefactors” is applied to Paul’s arrest and imprisonment in Ephesus (2 Cor. 1:8-9), whereas “the public transcript regards Paul as simply a humiliated captive.” Thus, according to Elliot, the fact that “here and elsewhere Paul establishes a distinction between public and hidden transcripts in terms borrowed from the ceremonial of the imperial cult suggests that the larger transcript of Paul’s gospel is powerfully ironic and subversive of the imperial order” (119). In this light, Elliott sets out to reexamine Romans 13.

Elliott attempts to draw the hidden transcripts to the surface by situating the pericope against the backdrop of Roman imperial rhetoric. There was a distinction made by Roman propagandists, beginning with Cicero, between the use of persuasion in politics, and the threat of force. The latter was “necessary only for insubordinate and uncivilized peoples,” but the art of persuasion applied to citizens, who would “naturally yield their happy consent” (120). Thus the prudent politician would be skilled in the art of rhetoric, in order to persuade his peers, as well as in military strategy, in order to coerce his inferiors (De Haruspicum Responsis 5.6, 3.41). Persuasion and coercion were long considered the “twin instruments of social order” (History of Rome 2.126).

Thus it was upon this conventional distinction between persuasion and coercion that Nero’s propagandists depended when they argued that “strategies of coercion belonged to a bygone era: The emperor had come to power without resort to violence, and had thus ushered in a golden age of Clemency” (120). Nero’s Clemency had “broken every maddened sword-blade,” forging “peace in her fullness” by “knowing not the drawn sword” (Calpurnius Siculus, Eclogue 1.45-65). The armaments of Rome’s former wars were now “mere historical curiosities,” (120; cf. Einsiedeln Eclogues 25-30). Seneca, who worked for the Nero administration, put this proclamation on the lips of Nero: “With me the sword is hidden, nay, is sheathed; I am sparing to the utmost of even the meanest blood; no man fails to find favor at my hands though he lack all else but the name of man.” Seneca effervesced that such a benign ruler need not fear for his own well-being, hence “the arms he wears are for adornment only” (De Clementia 1.3; 13.5).

With this unflinching propaganda fomenting in the background, we can begin to see the incongruity between the official transcript and the perspective of Paul. Despite the claims of the emperor’s propagandists, Paul reminds the Roman Christians that “the Roman sword is still wielded, provoking terror (phobos, 13:4)” (120). Though the emperor may claim to wear his sword purely for ornamental purposes, the reality is that “he does not bear the sword in vain.” Thus, Paul urges the fledgling Christian community in Rome to adopt a “posture of ‘subjection’ or ‘subordination’ rather than revolt (13:2)” (120). Elliott points out the parallel here between Paul’s hidden transcripts and “the carefully calculated remarks” in Philo’s On Dreams. “While Roman propaganda leads us to expect that a beneficiary of the Roman order would extol consent and agreement . . . Paul speaks, with what would have sounded like the ingratitude of the uncivilized, of two alternatives: subjection (hypotassesthai) or revolt (antitassesthai; anthistemi).” Thus we can see how, “given the exuberant currents of political rhetoric in the Neronian age, Paul’s phrases encouraging submission are remarkably ambivalent.” While Paul’s ambivalence could clearly not be mistaken for outright insubordination, Elliott reminds us that “in a Roman official’s ear, Paul’s language would have seemed to offer a peculiarly grudging compliance, rather than the grateful contentment of the properly civilized” (120-21).

In conclusion Elliott suggests that we read Romans 13:1-7 as an ad hoc strategy for survival produced in turbulent political times. Dunn concurs at least on this point, calling Paul’s realism the “realism of the little people who had the most to lose” should another revolt arise (1998: 155-87). Elliott insists that “Paul was at least as adroitly political a creature as Philo,” who pleaded with his restive kinsmen to discern the political moment (2004b: 121). What is remarkable here is not that Paul was a political animal after all. What is remarkable, Elliott asserts, is how “out of step” Paul’s warning to the Roman Christians would have sounded “to ears accustomed to the exultant themes of Roman eschatology. In effect, Paul declares: ‘The empire is as dangerous as it has ever been. Nothing has changed. Exercise caution’” (121).

Labels: New Perspective on Paul, Paul, Pauline Theology, Romans 13