James R. Harrison investigates the collision between Paul's eschatological gospel and the Julio-Claudian conception of rule. The ruler's propaganda, with its claim about the ‘eternal rule' of the imperial house over its subjects, embodied in idolatry of power that conflicted with Paul's proclamation of the reign of the risen Son of God over his world. This ideological conflict is examined in the epistles to the Thessalonians and the Romans, with a view to exploring how Paul's eschatology in each letter intersects with the local claims of imperial cult in the Greek East and in the Latin West. A wide selection of evidence - literary, documentary, numismatic, iconographic, archeological - unveils the ‘symbolic universe' of the Julio-Claudian rulers.weiterlesen