My aim in this chapter is to delineate the strategies by which Paul's language both participated in Roman culture and created distinct claims to authenticity in response to conflicts and reprisals. This approach shifts the scholarly paradigm from Paul against Roman culture, or Paul and Roman culture, to Paul within Roman culture. Paul's letters show that he was a full participant in his cultural home of the Roman world. This point reflects back on and adds to my opening list of paradoxes in Chapter 1: modern people may imagine that Paul subverted the imperialism of the ancient Romans, but in fact he relied on their rhetoric and ideologies. The so-called paradoxes are creations of modern readings that this book challenges. I do not see contradictions in Paul, but consistencies. The consistencies extend even between Paul and Roman culture.

Chapter 2 focused on Paul's founding and nurturing of Christian communities, and on the various internal and external conflicts to which his letters responded. We saw that Paul's greatest adversaries arose from within the Jesus movement – rival apostles proclaiming to Gentiles a different gospel about the Messiah Jesus. This finding raises a central question for this chapter: How can we understand Paul as a “key figure” not just in early Christianity but also in classical antiquity?