The purpose of this monograph is to situate the New Testament materials relating to Roman Philippi in their proper socio-historical setting. I have suspected for some time that the author of Philippians 2 intentionally structured his portrayal of Jesus with Roman social values and practices directly in view. I am now convinced that Rome's cursus honorum, the formalized sequence of public offices that marked out the prescribed social pilgrimage for aspiring senatorial aristocrats in Rome (and which was replicated in miniature in municipalities and in voluntary associations), forms the background against which Paul has framed his picture of Jesus in the great Christ hymn in Philippians 2.

The layout of my project is quite straightforward. The first two chapters survey the social landscape of the broader Roman world. Chapter one describes the various status groups in the empire, and then reviews the ways in which the Roman elite class sought intentionally to preserve their highly stratified social environment. Chapter two discusses the importance of personal and familial honor to Roman social sensibilities and proceeds to examine Rome's cursus honorum and the replication of cursus ideology in elite and non-elite settings across the empire. The second major portion of the monograph, consisting of the third and fourth chapters, seeks to situate Roman preoccupation with honor and public esteem in the colony at Philippi.