During his missionary activities in Asia Minor and Greece, Paul is continuously confronted with the 'Gods of Others'. Interestingly enough, he is quite reluctant in reacting against his 'pagan surroundings'-as Luke is in his portrayal of Paul (esp. Acts 16-17). On the basis of reconstructing Paul's missionary activities in Philippi-a city which was most obviously characterized by 'Romaness' (romanitas)-and analyzing Phil 2: 6-11-a core piece of Paul's proclamation of 'Christ' -, this article argues that Paul was neither interested in anti-imperial polemics nor in the mythical construct of a 'Christ-cult'. In order to react on his pagan surroundings in Macedonia and to make the ekklesia of Christ-believers attractive to its sympathizers, he rather uses a myth-historical text by which he teaches the ethos of Christ's 'Statusverzicht' as a moral paradigm (exemplum): In pagan surroundings, Pauline theology thus finds its actual vanishing point in the discourse on ethics and 'moral progress'.
