04_Peters_copiaaa_67-84 28/04/15 12:15 Pagina 77 CROWNS IN 1 THESSALONIANS, PHILIPPIANS, AND 1 CORINTHIANS 77 games to Corinth were thought in the Roman period to give crowns that were tokens of mourning for the boy Palaimon, whose cult was well attested in Roman Corinth on coinage, statuary, and temples 35. According to a scholiast of a sacrificial roast in Aristophanes’ Peace, “priests and prophets were crowned with laurel as a symbol of their craft” 36. Both the crown of the priest-prophet and the crown of the victorious athlete were dedicated to the god 37. Such a connection is made in the next chapter, where Paul ex- presses the desire not to have run in vain at 3,16 and then joins the Philippians in their rejoicing if he has been “made a victim upon the sacrifice and service” of their faith in 3,17. Here in chapter 2, however, with the spla,gcna of compassion, the Philippians are the priests, and Paul is the victim. If the crown is a priestly crown, it must represent the dialectic of sacrificing priest and sacrificed victim present in Philippians, just as the crown itself is comprised of the Philippians as the joy upon Paul’s head. Athletic and priestly imagery are intertwined in the two subsequent and final chapters of Paul’s letter to the Christian community at Philippi. In Philippians 3, the athletic Paul presses on according to the goal (kata. skopo,n), that is, the prize of eternal vocation (to. brabei/on th/j a;nw klh,sewj). According to Aletti, it is only the terminology of the prize that makes the athletic metaphor evident. The athletic metaphor is applied only to Paul, who emphasizes his movement forward to the prize in both v. 12 and v. 14 and simply his forward movement in v. 13. Paul instructs the Philippians to share the same mindset, but he does not offer himself explicitly as an example as he does in 1 Corinthians. By the end of chapter 3, Paul’s focus shifts to Jesus, who will conform (su,mmorfon) the dishonored bodies of Philippians and Paul to his own glorified body (tw/| sw,mati th/j do,xhj auvtou/) 38. 35 M.E. HOSKINS WALBANK, “Image and Cult: The Coinage of Roman Corinth”, Corinth in Context. Comparative Studies on Religion and Society (eds. S.J. FRIESEN – D.N. SCHOWALTER, – J.C. WALTERS) (Leiden 2012) 151- 198, 182. 36 In Aristophanes’ Peace, a servant is instructed: “Do a good job of roast- ing the victim, for here comes someone who is crowned with laurel” (1043- 1044). See D. SANSONE, Greek Athletics and the Genesis of Sport (Berkeley, CA 1988) 84. 37 Pliny, NH 18.2.6; SIG 3 762. 38 ALETTI, Saint Paul, 107.