Augustus and all future emperors who
succeeded him were given the title “Father of the Fatherland” (Pater Patriae),
which implied that the Empire was a big family over which the emperor stood as
a father figure who protected, disciplined, and blessed his family members. The
designation also spoke of the emperor’s divine right to rule the earth on
behalf of Jupiter, the highest Roman god (equal to the Greek god Zeus), and to
carry out his will.
When Jesus called God his “Father”
and admonished his disciples to “call no one your father on earth, for you have
one Father—the one in heaven” (Matt 6:9; 23:9), he was saying that they were to
look only to God for their welfare and not Caesar. (R. Alan Streett, Caesar
and the Sacrament—Baptism: A Rite of Resistance [Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade
Books, 2018], 24)
Paul carried on this tradition
when he wrote, “Yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all
things and for whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6). Such counter-imperial statements
were politically subversive, and if overheard, would bring down the wrath of Rome
on all who subscribed to them. (Ibid., 24 n. 9)
