Floyd O. Parker, «‘Our Lord and God’ in Rev 4,11: Evidence for the Late Date of Revelation?», Vol. 82 (2001) 207-231

This article challenges a commonly-held belief that the title ‘our Lord and God’ (Rev 4,11) served as a Christian counter-blast to the claim of the emperor Domitian to be dominus et deus noster. Despite the claims of several scholars that the title ‘our Lord and God’ does not appear in the OT, the data collected favors the view that the title in Rev 4,11 does indeed have its origin in the divine title ‘Lord and God’ found in the LXX and other Jewish sources. Consequently, the title is of no use in helping to determine the date of the book of Revelation.

        Until recently, the majority of historians and biblical scholars have accepted this negative presentation of Domitian at face value. However, scholars such as B.W. Jones and L.L. Thompson have argued that, although some subjects addressed Domitian as ‘lord and god’, he did not require them to do so⁷. These studies re-evaluate contemporaneous sources, later sources, and epigraphic evidence for the use of the title by Domitian. Their interpretations of the earlier and later sources were essentially the same. Thompson, claims that this negative portrayal of Domitian’s reign was not written by neutral observers, but by rhetoricians under Trajan (i. e. Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius, and Dio Cassius) who sought to promote the ideology of a new era by maligning the emperor’s Flavian predecessors. Thompson notes that authors such as Quintilian, Statius, Frontinus, Martial, and Silius Italicus, who wrote during the reign of Domitian, paint a more positive picture of his administration. Not only do they praise his public rule, they do not even refer to him as ‘lord and god’ in their writings as supposedly would have been required. Statius even provides a bit of counter-evidence by noting that when Domitian was acclaimed dominus at one of his Saturnalia, the emperor forbade the practice (Silv. 1.6.81-84). Thompson concludes that this title was used by those ‘approaching power from below’ (e.g. Martial), but that ‘Domitian did not encourage divine titles such as dominus et deus noster, nor is there evidence that Domitian had become a mad tyrant seeking divinization’⁸. Jones notes that the habit of calling Domitian ‘our lord and god’ developed from a letter he dictated and that later writers (i.e. Aurelius Victor, Eutropius, and Orosius) ‘repeat and embellish it’⁹. Like Thompson, he regards the use of the title as sycophancy: ‘terms used by flatterers such as Martial, Statius, Juventius Celsus (or Pliny) to secure a favour from an autocrat hardly constitute proof that they were instructed or required to use them’¹⁰. Jones continues, ‘He obviously knew that he was not a God, and, whilst he did not ask or demand to be addressed as one, he did not actively discourage the few flatterers who did’¹¹.