Despite a growing consensus that Paul wrote Philippians from Ephesus, there are still some who argue that he wrote the letter while imprisoned in Rome. These arguments rely on interpretations of Paul’s phrase in Phil. 1.13 (ἐν ὅλῳ τῷ πραιτωρίῳ) as ‘Praetorian Guard’ or ‘Imperial Guard’, that is, as a reference to the Roman emperor’s personal bodyguard in Rome. I first explain the methodological problems with the Praetorian Guard interpretation, especially the misuse of canonical Acts. Then drawing from textual and lexicographical evidence along with material evidence, notably from Philippi’s sister colony at Dium, I show that Paul’s key term πραιτώριον (Phil. 1.13) referred to a common provincial building with various functions not limited to official, administrative work. This article thus argues that Philippians was written from the province of Asia, though not necessarily from Ephesus. In so doing the article opens up new interpretive questions for Paul’s letter.

This article describes the use of Philippians in triumphalist narratives about the rise of Christianity. Outlining the place of two key terms in the reception history of the letter – praetorium (Phil. 1.13) and ‘Caesar’s household’ (Phil. 4.22) – the article critiques the underlying assumptions and ideologies that have often guided its interpretation, focusing especially on the use of canonical Acts. A brief survey of the evidence for these two key terms in their original context – literary, epigraphic, lexicographical – suggests new interpretive possibilities for understanding Paul’s life and letter.

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Current opinion on 1 Cor 7:21 is that Paul addresses slaves in his Corinthian churches concerning their social status as enslaved people, instructing them whether or not to take freedom if they have the opportunity. Most now conclude that Paul did not require these slaves to remain in their calling (slavery) but advised them to “make use of freedom.” This reading, however, does not fully appreciate Paul's rhetoric in its Greco-Roman context or its reception among the Corinthians. Nor does it capture the social realities of slavery and manumission as both Paul and the Corinthians understood them. Paul's comments about slavery take on a different light if we recognize that both Paul and the Corinthians presumed that slaves would indeed take freedom given the chance, because slaves did not have a choice. This social reality, I will suggest, helps account for the rhetorical nature and the sociocultural context of v. 21, and in turn sets it within Paul's broader concerns in 1 Cor 7. The textured reading I propose is that Paul's comments, though rooted in the reality of slavery, do not advise slaves concerning slavery or freedom. Slavery or freedom as such are not at issue in 1 Cor 7. Rather, Paul uses a diatribal and hence primarily hypothetical argument about slavery and manumission for other instructional purposes, and this reflects the conventions of Stoic moral instruction on indifference.

While speaking to the women of his church about marriage, widowhood, and remarriage Tertullian of Carthage marshals a negative example of prosperous gentile women taking their own freedmen or slaves as their sexual partners. Common opinion is that this example was chiefly metaphorical, warning against mixed marriages between Christian women and non-Christian men. This article shows that Tertullian’s example of mistress-slave sex was a rhetorical trope also deployed in other early Christian writings that participated in a Roman literary discourse on household management (oikonomia). As such Tertullian’s example of mistress-slave sex was more than metaphorical. It sought to establish a marriage economy that regulated Christian women’s bodies for their economic resources. The example further reveals Tertullian’s economic interests in Christian marriage, tensions over gender roles and class, and a fear that some Christian women might also enter relationships with their own freedmen or slaves.