Virgil was commissioned by Emperor Octavian to write an allegorical narrative about the founding, the victories, the glorious future of Rome.
This was at a time of civil unrest, which had culminated in the defeat, in 31 B.C.E., of Mark Antony's forces by Octavian, who was now interested in seeking to vindicate his imperial rule.
Virgil accepted the commission but died before he completed his work. Octavian ordered that the work, the Aeneid, be published anyway.
The Aeneid is the story of Aeneas, a Trojan, who journeys to Italy to become the ancestor of Caesar Augustus and his adopted son Octavian, who also took the honorific, Augustus - the One who is Revered.
The 10,000 line epic poem includes a description of a shield used by Aeneas in victory. The making and employment of Aeneas' shield is explicitly paralleled upon the Homeric shield of Achilles.
Professor Kahl devotes considerable attention (pp. 129-148) to comparing the two shields and argues that by the 40's and 50's C.E. "imperial monotheism" embodied in the emperors Caligula and Nero "constituted a fundamental challenge that Paul confronted in his Jewish-messianic theology of the One God - a God who is other than Caesar." (p. 144).
The shield comparison is necessary, following the larger argument of the book, so as to link as closely as possible, the cult of emperor worship associated most explicitly with Rome, to the earlier epics and events associated with Anatolia, which is the physical ground upon which Paul met and evangelized Galatians.
Kahl is articulate both in descriptive and rhetorical gambits and her explication of the development and the historical importance of the cult of the emperor is persuasive as providing the larger context for any examination of religious developments during the period of empire.
But the linkage of the Galatians letter to the establishment of the official imperial religion is being oversold here.
It simply cannot be known to what extent emperor worship was only formally adopted or was taken on as a matter of personal conviction by subject populations - impressed, perhaps, that their local traditions had been incorporated into a pantheon of empire, proclaimed by apologists (like Virgil) as both universal and eternal.
Nor can it be known if the literary work of propagandists (like Virgil) was intended to influence non-Latin speaking illiterate
or semi-literate subject peoples.
Nor is there any association, so far made, between the content of the Galatians letter and the cult of emperor worship, which Kahl has painted on the larger canvas.
Kahl is of course aware of the issue of formalism vs. conviction in worship. But she does not resolve this historical problem, because it cannot be resolved.
Kahl writes (p. 145) :
"The core issue was not primarily what someone really believed but what was embodied, depicted, monumentalized in stone and marble, and collectively practiced by concrete human actors."
But then again we read (p. 146):
"If the manifold practices of sacrifice, worship, feast, and commemoration of imperial cult were not 'empty rituals' but communicated and established the new worldview, created meaning and cohesion, identity and reassurance, they did so both collectively and individually."
"If . . ."
If we could know on which side of the coin conviction lies, we c0uld drop that "if" but we cannot know.
Perhaps in Galatia, whether north or south, there were individuals who truly believed what they were told to believe - assuming they were "told" anything at all.
Perhaps in Galatia, there were individuals, who went through the motions and enjoyed the feasts and games, but who would never in their heart of hearts have conceded a sintilla of truth to the religion of the Roman overlords, who proclaimed themselves a super race.
Or, how about this:
Some among Paul's (former?) ethnic Galatian converts, preserving memories of the old ways, sneaked off into the woods to search out drunemeton, the oaken sanctuary, where the ancient Council met and where worship was conducted, secretly, in proper druidic fashion.
One can well imagine an increase in the nostalgic tug for the forest sanctuary, prompted by squabbling that had broken out between Paul and former adherents of the cult of the Messiah.
The former Messianic adherents had appeared in the Galatian assemblies to denounce Paul, who, with other thugs, had beaten them up, for their willingness to open their messianic worship to Gentiles in say, Damascus or Jerusalem.
These victims of Paul's violence denounced him to his converts, as a persecutor of the followers of the very Messiah he now claimed to profess - and to proclaim to Gentiles!
Paul responded to those who sliped away into the forest:
"How can you turn back again to the weak and beggarly elemental spirits? Whose slaves you would again become? You observe days and months and seasons and years! I fear I have labored over you in vain!" (Gal 4:9, 10)
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