1 Earliest Rome

9.4 Gods and mortals
9.4 Gods and mortals
The emperors were not the only 'divine humans' in the Roman empire.
Perhaps the deification of emperors was itself an impetus to the wider spread of
divine status in other areas of Roman society. Or perhaps all these developments
are symptomatic of an increasingly flexible perception of the boundary
between humans and the gods in the Roman empire (see 2.8). That humans
should turn out to be gods on earth was clearly a possibility; and the performance
of miracles was prima-facie evidence of divinity. Christians, however,
were committed to the view that the miracles proved divinity only in the case
of Jesus; pagans were not so limited.
9 -4a Paul as Hermes
Acts of the Apostles 14.8-18
This passage from the Acts of the Apostles shows how closely pagans could
associate miracle workers (here Paul and Barnabas) with divinity in the first
century A.D. The author is, of course, hostile to pagan conduct; and the dramatic
tale may have served as an opportunity for a sermon to the gentiles -
telling them to abandon their confused notions of deity and accept the true
one. The story is set in south-west Asia Minor (modern Turkey), around
A.D. 47.
See further: Haenchen (1971) 424-34; Lane Fox (1986) 99-100*.
there sat a certain crippled man, lame from birth, who had never been able
to walk. He listened to Paul speaking; and when Paul looked back at him, he saw that
he had the faith to be healed; so he said in a loud voice: 'Stand up straight on your
feet.' The man jumped up and walked. There was a crowd watching what Paul did,
and these people called out in the local language of Lycaonia: 'These are gods who
have come down to us In the likeness of humans.' So they called Barnabas Zeus and
Paul Hermes since he was the master of speech. And the priest of Zeus, whose temple
was before the city, brought bulls and garlands to the gates and wanted to hold a
sacrifice with the crowd. But when Barnabas and Paul heard this, they tore their
clothes, rushed out into the crowd and said: 'What are you doing? We are humans too,
of a nature just like your own, preaching to you that you should turn away from these
empty ways and towards the living god who made the heavens and the earth and the
sea and everything in them. In past generations he allowed all the nations to follow
their own paths. And yet he did not let himself pass quite unwitnessed, giving benefits
in the form of rain from heaven and times of harvest, filling us with food and our
hearts with happiness.' But even speaking like this, they had a hard time to stop the
crowds from performing the sacrifice to them.
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