04_Peters_copiaaa_67-84 28/04/15 12:15 Pagina 81 CROWNS IN 1 THESSALONIANS, PHILIPPIANS, AND 1 CORINTHIANS 81 persed throughout the Mediterranean world. It is possible that a statue of Herakles Crowning Himself stood in Corinth, as indicated by second-century BCE coinage of Herakleia and Baktria and a bronze struck under the reign of Commodus that occurs in a series of statuary reproductions well-known to the Corinthians, including the Aphrodite of Acrocorinth 48. In this visual representation of the pa- tron deity of athletes, the apotheosis of Herakles is reflected not only in his reception of the crown of immortality but also in the fact that he has transcended the entire athletic hierarchy: Herakles is both competitor and judge, both ephebe and elder. Having over- come his emotions and learned enkrateia, Herakles is the ideal king. Paul’s previous reference to the Corinthians’ aspirations to kingship in 1 Corinthians 4 coupled with his instructions on disci- pline and the singularity of the crown in 1 Corinthians 9 would all have resonated with the cultural commonplace of Herakles Crown- ing Himself represented in visual culture at Corinth and kingship literature throughout the empire. Paul’s imperishable crown implicitly differentiates itself from the eternal crowns of Roman Corinthian culture. The opposition Paul sets up in 9,25 is between the crown of Roman Greek culture and the crown of God. Paul defines secular crowns as perishable, while religious crowns are imperishable. The uneasy relationship that Jews and Christians experienced with the crown can be found already in Wisdom where the rose crowns of the unrighteous (2,8) are contrasted with the traditional crowns from God (5,16). Accord- ing to Jubilees, Abraham founded the Feast of Tabernacles with in- structions that the ritual was to be performed by participants “with wreaths upon their heads” (16,30) 49. The passage in which these instructions, unattested elsewhere, are found (16,28-30) connects the festival with the solar calendar and emphasizes its eternal aspect 50. By evoking imperishable crowns and setting them in the civic re- ligious context of the stephanitic athletic games, Paul contrasts the 48 C.C. VERMEULE, “Herakles Crowning Himself: New Greek Statuary Types and Their Place in Hellenistic and Roman Art”, Journal of Hellenic Studies 77 (1957) 283-299. 49 This was possibly the reason Plutarch called the celebration bacchic (Quaestiones Graecae 4.6). 50 H. NAJMAN, Past Renewals. Interpretative Authority, Renewed Reve- lation and the Quest for Perfection in Jewish Antiquity (Leiden 2010) 53-54.