Anti-Imperial Subtexts in Paul 313 b) 1 Thess 5,3 The second passage to be considered is 1 Thess 5,3: “When they say, ‘peace and security’ destruction will come upon them suddenly, just as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will certainly not be able to escape”. The doublet “peace and security” (eijrhvnh kai; ajsfavleia) is taken by a great many recent commentators to be a slogan summing up the benefits of the pax romana. They maintain that Paul references it in an attempt to subvert the imperial ideology by exposing the reality of Roman aggression. This interpre- tation likewise goes beyond the evidence. While there can be no doubt that both words are often used in Roman imperial propaganda, the commonplace assumption that the Latin phrase pax et securitas lies behind the doublet, and further, that it was a well-worn Roman slogan cannot be sustained. The many supporters of this contention offer countless examples of the use of either one word or the other in imperial literature, coins, and inscriptions, but not both together (36). My search of the Perseus database revealed no instances of the slogan in the Latin works. Further, it is not even certain that, at the time Paul was writing 1 Thessalonians, the Roman propaganda machine was making broad use of both concepts. While the pax-ideology was standard fare under the Julio-Claudian emperors beginning with Augustus, the securitas-component seems to have taken on importance only later. It played virtually no role in imperial propaganda under Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius (37). It was only during the latter part of Nero’s reign that “eine verstärkte Propagierung von pax und securitas einsetzt” (38). For this reason, Holtz’s conclusion that the doublet in 1 Thess 5,3 contains no allusion to the propaganda of the early Roman empire seems reasonable (39), especially in light of the fact that a (36) Cf. especially the plethora of primary source material that C. VOM BROCKE has amassed in Thessaloniki, Stadt des Kassander und Gemeinde des Paulus. Eine frühe christliche Gemeinde in ihrer heidnischen Umwelt (WUNT 2/125; Tübingen 2001) 167-185. (37) Cf. A. KNEPPE, Metus temporum. Zur Bedeutung von Angst in Politik und Gesellschaft der römischen Kaiserzeit des 1. und 2. Jhdts. n. Chr. (Stuttgart 1994) 233. (38) KNEPPE, Metus, 271. (39) Cf. T. HOLTZ, Der erste Brief an die Thessalonicher (EKK XIII; Zürich 1986) 215, n. 364.