Paul In The Greco-Roman World: A Handbook Volume II 9780567657060, 9780567669810, 9780567657077

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PAUL IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

PAUL IN THE GRECO-ROMAN WORLD A Handbook Volume II

Edited by J. Paul Sampley

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

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First edition published 2003. Revised edition published 2016 © J. Paul Sampley, 2016 J. Paul Sampley has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editor of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

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978-0-56765-706-0 978-0-56766-885-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Cover design: Catherine Wood Cover image © Plaque depicting St. Paul disputing with Greeks and Jews, mid 12th century (champleve enamel on copper) / Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK / The Bridgeman Art Library Typeset by Forthcoming Publications (www.forthpub.com)

Contents Abbreviations vii Chapter 15 Paul, Hardships, and Suffering David E. Fredrickson 1 Chapter 16 Paul, Honor, and Shame David A. deSilva 26 Chapter 17 Paul and Indifferent Things Will Deming 48 Chapter 18 Paul and Literacy John C. Poirier 68 Chapter 19 Paul, Marriage, and Divorce O. Larry Yarbrough 89 Chapter 20 Paul and Maxims Rollin A. Ramsaran 116 Chapter 21 Paul and Memory Peter-Ben Smit 147 Chapter 22 Paul and Pater Familias L. Michael White 171 Chapter 23 Paul, Patrons, and Clients Peter Lampe 204

vi Contents

Chapter 24 Paul and Performance Glenn S. Holland 239 Chapter 25 Paul and Self-Mastery Stanley Stowers 270 Chapter 26 Paul and Slavery J. Albert Harrill 301 Chapter 27 Paul and Social Memory Rafael Rodríguez 346 Chapter 28 Paul, Virtues, Vices, and Household Codes Stanley E. Porter 369 Epilogue Living in an Evil Aeon: Paul’s Ambiguous Relation to Culture (Toward a Taxonomy) J. Paul Sampley 391 Index of References Index of Authors Index of Subjects

433 458 470

Abbreviations AB ABR AGRW

Anchor Bible Australian Biblical Review Ascough, Richard S., Philip A. Harland, and John S. Kloppenborg, Associations in the Greco-Roman World: A Sourcebook. Berlin/Waco, 2012 AJA American Journal of Archaeology AJP American Journal of Philology AnB Analectca biblica AncPhil Ancient Philosophy ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt: Geschichte und Kultur Roms im Spiegel der neueren Forschung. Edited by H. Temporini and W. Haase. Berlin, 1972– ANTC Abingdon New Testament Commentaries AS Anatolian Studies ASP American Studies in Papyrology AUS American University Studies AUSS Andrews University Seminary Studies BAGD Bauer, W., W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W. Danker. Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 2nd ed. Chicago, 1979 BASP Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists BBB Bonner biblische Beiträge BDAG Bauer, W., F. W. Danker, W. F. Arndt, and F. W. Gingrich. Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago, 1999 BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium BGU Aegyptische Urkunden aus den Königlichen Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Griechische Urkunden. 15 vols. Berlin, 1895–83 BHT Beiträge zur historischen Theologie Bib Biblica BibSac Bibliotheca sacra BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester BJS Brown Judaic Studies BNTC Black’s New Testament Commentaries BR Biblical Research BSRP British School at Rome. Papers BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin BU Biblische Untersuchungen BZ Biblische Zeitschrift BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft

viii Abbreviations

CBET CBQ CBQMS CdE CIL CJ CNT ConBNT

Contributions to Biblical Exegesis and Theology Catholic Biblical Quarterly Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series Chronique d’Egypte Corpus inscriptionum latinarum Classical Journal Commentaire du Nouveau Testament Coniectanea neotestamentica or Coniectanea biblica: New Testament Series Conc(D) Concilium CP Classical Philology CPJ Corpus papyrorum judaicorum. Edited by V. Tcherikover. 3 vols. Cambridge, 1957–64 CQ Classical Quarterly CW Classical World EA Epigraphica Anatolica EAOR Epigrafia anfiteatrale dell’Occidente romano. Edited by P. Sabbatini Tumolesi and G. L. Gregori. Rome, 1988– ECHS Early Christianity in its Hellenistic Context ECL Early Christianity and its Literature EDNT Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by H. Balz, G. Schneider. ET. Grand Rapids, 1990–93 EKK Evangelisch-katholischer Kommentar EvQ Evangelical Quarterly FCNTECW Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments GCS Die griechische christliche Schriftsteller der ersten [drei] Jahrhunderte GNB Good News Bible GNS Good News Studies GRBS Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies HCS Hellenistic Culture and Society HDR Harvard Dissertations in Religion HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament HSCP Harvard Studies in Classical Philology HTKNT Herders theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament HTR Harvard Theological Review HUT Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie ICC International Critical Commentary IG Inscriptiones Graecae. Editio minor. Berlin, 1924– IGRR Inscriptiones Graecae ad Res Romanas Pertinentes. Edited by R. Cagnat. Paris. 1901–27 IGUR Moretti, L. Inscriptiones graecae urbis romae. 4 vols. Studi Pubblicati dall’Istituto Italiano per la Storia Antica 17, 22, 28, 47. Rome: Istututo Italiano per la Storia Antica, 1968. IJHS International Journal of the History of Sport IK Inschriften griechischer Städte Kleinasiens IKZ Internationale kirchliche Zeitschrift

Abbreviations

ix

Dessau, Hermann. Inscriptiones latinae selectae. 3 vols. Berlin: Weidmann, 1892–1916. Repr. Dublin: Weidmann, 1974; repr. Chicago: Ares, 1979 IMT Barth, Matthias and Josef Stauber. Inschriften Mysia und Troas. Munich: Leopold Wenger-Institut, 1993. Int Interpretation IvO Inschriften von Olympia JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion JAC Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies JES Journal of Ecumenical Studies JESHO Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient JGRChJ Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism  JQR Jewish Quarterly Review JRASup Journal of Roman Archaeology: Supplementary Series JRH Journal of Religious History JRS Journal of Roman Studies JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods JSJSup Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods: Supplement Series JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the Old Testament: Supplement Series JSP Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha JTS Journal of Theological Studies KEK Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament (MeyerKommentar) LCL Loeb Classical Library LHJS Library of Historical Jesus Studies LNTS Library of New Testament Studies LSJ Liddell, H. G., R. Scott, H. S. Jones, A Greek-English Lexicon. 9th ed. with revised supplement. Oxford, 1996 MAMA Monumenta Asiae Minoris Antiqua. Manchester and London, 1928–93 MEFR Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’école français de Rome MNTS McMaster New Testament Studies NCB New Century Bible NDIEC New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity NIB The New Interpreter’s Bible NIDB New International Dictionary of the Bible. Edited by J. D. Douglas and M. C. Tenney. Grand Rapids, 1987 NIDNTT New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Edited by C. Brown. 4 vols. Grand Rapids, 1975–85 NIGNTC New International Greek New Testament Commentary NIGTC New International Greek Testament Commentary NIV New International Version ILS

x Abbreviations

NKZ NovT NovTSup NRSV NRTh NTAbh NTD NTL NTM NTS NTTS NTTSD OCD OGIS OSAPh PAST PBSR PIBA PKNT PRSt RAC REA REG ResQ RevExp RevPhil RIB RSV RTR SBLDS SBLEJL SBLMS SBLRBS SBLSBS SBLSymS SBLTT SBLWGRW SBS SBT SCHNT SE SEG SIG³

Neue kirchliche Zeitschrift Novum Testamentum Novum Testamentum Supplements New Revised Standard Version La nouvelle revue théologique Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen Das Neue Testament Deutsch New Testament Library New Testament Monographs New Testament Studies New Testament Tools and Studies New Testament Tools, Studies and Documents Oxford Classical Dictionary. Edited by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth. 3rd ed. Oxford, 1996 Orientis graeci inscriptiones selectae. Edited by W. Dittenberger. 2 vols. Leipzig, 1903–1905 Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Pauline Studies Papers of the British School at Rome Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament Perspectives in Religious Studies Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum. Edited by T. Kluser et al. Stuttgart, 1950– Revue des études anciennes Revue des études grecques Restoration Quarterly Review and Expositor Revue de philologie Roman Inscriptions of Britain Revised Standard Version Reformed Theological Review Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and Its Literature Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series Society of Biblical Literature Resources for Biblical Study Society of Biblical Literature Sources for Biblical Study Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series Society of Biblical Literature Texts and Translations Writings from the Greco-Roman World Stuttgarter Bibelstudien Studies in Biblical Theology Studia ad corpus hellenisticum Novi Testamenti Studia evangelica I, II, III (= TU 73 [1959], 87 [1964], 88 [1964]. etc.) Supplementum epigraphicum graecum Sylloge inscriptionum graecarum. Edited by W. Dittenberger. 4 vols. 3rd ed. Leipzig, 1915–24

Abbreviations

SNTSMS SP SR STAC StPatr SVF TAM

TANZ TAPA TBT TDNT TENTS THKNT TLNT TSAJ TU TynBul VTSup WBC WMANT WUNT YCS ZAW ZdZ ZNW ZPE ZTK ZWT

xi

Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Sacra Pagina Studies in Religion Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum Studia patristica Stoicorum veterum fragmenta. H. von Arnim. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1903–24 Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Tituli Asiae Minoris. Wien: Hoelder, Pichler, Tempsky, 1901–. I: Ernst Kalinka, Tituli Lyciae lingua Lycia conscripti  (1901); II/1–3: Ernst Kalinka, Tituli Lyciae linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti. 1 vol. in 3 (1920–44); III: Rudolf Heberdey, ed. Tituli Pisidiae linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti (1941); IV: Friedrich Karl Dörner, and Maria-Barbara von Stritzky, eds. Tituli Bithyniae linguis Graeca et Latina conscripti (1978); V/1–2: Peter Herrmann,Tituli Lydiae linguis graeca et latina conscripti (1981, 1989). Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter Transactions of the American Philological Association The Bible Today Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by G. Kittel and G. Friedrich. Translated by G. W. Bromiley. 10 vols. Grand Rapids, 1964–76 Texts and Editions for New Testament Study  Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament Theological Lexicon of the New Testament. C. Spicq. Translated and edited by J. D. Ernest. 3 vols. Peabody, MA, 1994 Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum Texte und Untersuchungen Tyndale Bulletin Supplements to Vetus Testamentum Word Biblical Commentary Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament Yale Classical Studies Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft Zwischen den Zeiten Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie

List of Contributors

Efrain Agosto Loveday Alexander Richard S. Ascough Thomas R. Blanton, IV Alan H. Cadwallader Will Deming David A. deSilva Benjamin Fiore John T. Fitzgerald Christopher Forbes David E. Fredrickson Clarence E. Glad J. Albert Harrill Ronald F. Hock Glenn S. Holland Peter Lampe Margaret Y. MacDonald Troy W. Martin John C. Poirier Stanley E. Porter Rollin A. Ramsaran Rafael Rodriguez J. Paul Sampley Peter-Ben Smit Stanley Stowers Jerry L. Sumney James C. Walters Duane F. Watson L. Michael White O. Larry Yarbrough

New York Theological Seminary The University of Sheffield Queen’s University Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago Australian Catholic University University of Portland Ashland Theological Seminary Canisius College University of Notre Dame Macquarie University Luther Seminary The Reykjavik Academy / The Icelandic Centre for Research (Rannís) The Ohio State University University of Southern California Allegheny College University of Heidelberg and University of the Free State, South Africa Saint Mary’s University Saint Xavier University Kingswell Theological Seminary McMaster Divinity College Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan Johnson University Boston University VU University Amsterdam/Utrecht University/ University of Pretoria Brown University Lexington Theological Seminary Boston University Malone University University of Texas Middlebury College

Chapter 15

Paul, Hardships, and Suffering David E. Fredrickson

Ancient philosophers were quite fond of classifying emotions. They began with four primary passions (fear, desire, pleasure, and grief) but finished with more than several variants derived from each. Such terminological precision served their goal of healing passions in the young men who submitted themselves to their moral guidance.1 For example, if the doctor of the soul, a role philosophers often played, could detect symptoms characteristic of grief, the passion at the center of this chapter, a rational cure could be designed and deployed.2 It was therefore critical that one emotion not be mistaken for another. We will see that while Paul certainly was familiar with the emotional taxonomy of the philosophers and utilized it when it suited his rhetorical aims, he also struggled against their compartmentalization of feelings, especially in the case of grief. Similarly, we will argue that Paul both plays moral guide with the church and subverts this role in the name of an extreme form of friendship bordering on erōs and filled with a kind of grief over rupture or separation called longing (πόθος, pothos). This philosophic penchant for classification went even deeper than distinguishing one emotion from another. The very idea of emotion for the philosophers rested on a binary conception, on a logic of mutual exclusion. The Greek term for passion (πάθος, pathos) denotes the self being acted upon rather than acting upon the external world. To suffer (πάσχειν, paschein) is to be moved by externals.3 The importance of this binary opposition (to act on/to be acted upon) can hardly be overstated, since for those who held this view the self’s activity on the world was associated with masculinity, free status, and good birth while passivity was thought to express the nature of the 1  M. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 2  In 2005 the discovery of Galen’s lost treatise De Indolentia reinforced scholarly opinion concerning the medical conceptualization of grief among ancient philosophers. See especially J. Fitzgerald, “Galen’s De Indolentia in the Context of Greco-Roman Medicine, Moral Philosophy, and Physiognomy,” and L. M. White, “The Pathology and Cure of Grief (λυπή): Galen’s De Indolentia in Context,” in Galen’s De Indolentia: Essays on a Newly Discovered Letter, ed. C. K. Rothschild and T. W. Thompson (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 203–20, 221–49. 3  A. Glibert-Thirry, Pseudo-Andronicus De Rhodes: ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΘΩΝ, Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum, Suppl. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 223.

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female, the slave, and the ill-born.4 To study ancient emotions, then, is to confront the restrictive definitions of what it means to be human and divine or what might be counted praiseworthy and shameful, restrictions that have shaped the church and secular culture to this day.5 With the gravity of the issue in mind, we will ask whether Paul merely reiterated the philosophic system of “active/passive” and passed on a host of social ills to the church or whether, in the end, through the representation of his own hardships and sufferings, and those of his first readers, he challenged philosophic rigidity.6

Part I. Hardships and Suffering in Greco-Roman Philosophy and Epistolography The Psychology of Suffering Grief as irrational contraction (συστολή, systolē) of the soul or heart is a commonplace in Stoic psychology (Diogenes Laertius 7.111, 118; SVF 1.51.2631; 3.94.14–15; 3.95.17–18, 24–25, 41–43; Epictetus, frg. 9; Plutarch, Lib. aegr. 1, 7).7 Cicero shows that the metaphor of grief as soul shrinkage was so well established in Greek writers that it survived the translation of philosophical terms into Latin: “Distress [aegritudo] then is a newly formed belief of present evil, the subject of which thinks it right to feel depression and shrinking of soul [demitti contrahique animo]” (Cicero, Tusc. 4.14; cf. Tusc. 1.90; 3.83; 4.66–67; Quint. fratr. 1.1.4; Seneca, Ep. 99.15). Some of the varieties of grief imply the idea of contraction. For example, groaning (στεναγμός, stenagmos) conveys the notion of contraction in the root στεν (sten; see Rom 8:23, 26; 2 Cor 5:2, 4).8 While soul shrinkage accounts for the experience of grief in the philosophers,9 for another group of ancient authors grief manifests itself in the body’s See D. LaCourse Munteanu, Emotion, Genre and Gender in Classical Antiquity (London: Bristol Classical, 2011). 5  From the philosophic perspective, it mattered little whether the irrational movement of the soul was occasioned by grief or by the other primary passions. Nonetheless, we will limit this investigation to what English speakers normally mean by suffering—emotional pain or grief—even though, strictly speaking, every emotion was considered by the philosophers as a form of suffering. See A. Erskine, “Cicero and the Expression of Grief,” in The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature, ed. S. M. Braund and C. Gill (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 41–42. 6  For an appreciative treatment of the Stoic view of emotion, see M. Nussbaum, Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). Her own commitment to compassion leads her to identify shortcomings in the Stoic view. 7  See M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa, 2 vols., 2nd ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), 1:149, 2:77. 8  Philo (Leg. 3.111) cites what appears to have been a standard definition: “groaning is intense and excessive sorrow [λύπη, lypē].” (Unless otherwise indicated, texts and translations of ancient works are from LCL.) 9  If we associate soul shrinkage with grief, we are more likely to recognize allusions to emotional pain in Paul’s letters. In addition to the words with the root sten, contraction of soul is present in the following 4 



Paul, Hardships, and Suffering

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liquefaction.10 Ancient poets, physicians, and a few philosophers noted how grief arising from the absence of a loved one melted the innards, the organs in the chest above the diaphragm.11 Longing desire caused the solid self to liquefy and drain away. In perhaps one of the most touching moments of the Odyssey (19.136), Penelope expresses the grief she felt over her far-wandering husband: “In longing for Odysseus I wasted my heart away.” It is worth noting that Penelope’s emotion escaped the tidy system of the philosophers, since in her longing she neither acts on anything nor is acted upon or perhaps, more accurately, she both acts and is acted upon. Grief inhabits her love, and her example frustrates the philosophic determination to keep emotions separated from one another. This confluence of love and grief in the emotion of longing was one of the most important motifs in the erotic literature of antiquity, since it challenged philosophic confidence in reason to put an end to grief.12 A related point: pain was conceptualized as a kind of emptying (κένωσις, kenōsis) of the liquefied self, a hollowing out within the body, an event which once again was neither voluntary nor involuntary but involved both.13 Not all types of emotional pain, however, exhibit contraction of the soul or melting and emptying of the body. One such variety of grief often treated by the philosophers was regret (μεταμέλεια, metameleia), a particularly sharp form of suffering.14 The standard definition of regret was “grief over sins done as though happening through one’s own self.”15 What makes regret so painful is self-hatred and self-condemnation: “Regret is a factious passion of the soul which brings unhappiness, for to the extent that the one is encompassed by regrets and is grieved at the things which have happened, to this degree he is angry at himself, since he became the cause of these things” (SVF 3.149.20–24; my translation). According to Plutarch, the soul that regrets a deed is filled with no other thought than “how it might escape from the memory of its iniquities, drive out of itself the consciousness of guilt, regain its purity and begin life anew” (Plutarch, Sera 556A). Such persons condemn their lives, feel remorse, hate themselves, and are distressed over what they have done (Plutarch, Sera 566E). The notion that, as Seneca put it, “he who has sinned has already punished himself,” terms in the Pauline epistles; note, however, that the English translations provided by the various modern versions (the NRSV is cited here) fail to convey the physiological aspect of the emotion: affliction (θλίψις, thlipsis; e.g., Rom 5:3; 8:35; 2 Cor 1:4, 6, 8; 2:4), anguish of heart (συνοχή καρδίας, synochē kardias, 2 Cor 2:4); fainthearted (ὀλιγόψυχος, oligopsychos, 1 Thess 1:14). 10  See M. S. Cyrino, In Pandora’s Jar: Lovesickness in Early Greek Poetry (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995). See also White, “The Pathology and Cure of Grief (λύπη): Galen’s De Indolentia in Context,” 233. 11  See D. Fredrickson, Eros and the Christ: Longing and Envy in Paul’s Christology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 45–52. 12  T. Whitmarsh, Narrative and Identity in the Ancient Greek Novel: Returning Romance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 139–76. 13  Fredrickson, Eros and the Christ, 59–63. For melting and grief, see D. Armstrong, “ ‘Be Angry and Sin Not’: Philodemus Versus the Stoics on Natural Bites and Natural Emotions,” in Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought, ed. J. Fitzgerald (New York: Routledge, 2008), 79–121 (96–97). 14  See L. Fulkerson, No Regrets: Remorse in Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 26–32, 186–212. 15  Glibert-Thirry, ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΘΩΝ, 227, my translation.

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echoed throughout ancient writings (Seneca, Ira 2.30.2).16 Seneca comments further that “no man is more heavily punished than he who is consigned to the torture of remorse” (Seneca, Ira 3.26.2). Philosophers used the notion of self-condemnation to explain the nature of regret. Aristotle formalized a connection probably found already in everyday speech: But a good man does not rebuke himself either at the time, like the uncontrolled, nor yet his former self his later, like the penitent [ὁ μεταμελητικός, ho metamelētikos]…because when men blame themselves they are putting themselves to death… (Aristotle, Eth. eud. 7.6.14–15; modified translation)

Plutarch draws out the analogy between regret and punishment. Like prisoners sentenced to death, every wicked man suffers “terrors, forebodings, and the pangs of remorse” (μεταμελείας, metameleias; Plutarch, Sera 554E–F). He also writes that when “despots…desire to make miserable those whom they punish, [they] maintain executioners and torturers, or devise branding-irons and wedges; vice…fills the man with grief and lamentation, dejection and remorse” (μεταμελείας, metameleias; Plutarch, An vit. 498D; cf. Sera 554A–B). Consciousness of a sin “leaves behind it in the soul regret [μεταμελείαν, metameleian] which ever continues to wound and prick it. For the other pangs reason does away with, but regret [μετάνοιαν, metanoian] is caused by reason itself, since the soul, together with its feeling of shame, is stung and chastised by itself” (Plutarch, Tranq. an. 476E–477B; cf. Gen. Socr. 592A–B). This understanding of regret in juridical metaphors occurred frequently in discussions of conscience and repentance.17 Writers used courtroom imagery for the self-examination of conscience (Seneca, Ira 3.36.3; Juvenal, Sat. 13.2–3). The notion of a self-imposed sentence of death figures prominently: “genuine repentance is utterly to root out of the soul the sins for which a man has condemned himself to death” (Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 39; cf. Strom. 4.22.143).

Hardships and Hardship Lists The work of John T. Fitzgerald on hardships and hardship lists in ancient moral philosophy has proven to be a rich resource for students of the Pauline epistles.18 He summarizes what writers had in mind when recounting hardships:

See A. C. van Geytenbeek, Musonius Rufus and Greek Diatribe, Wijsgerige Teksten en Studies 8 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1963), 138. See also Plato, Gorg. 472D–479D; Isocrates, Nic. 53; Juvenal, Sat. 13.192–98. 17  See H. Deku, “Selbstbestragung: Marginalien zu einem sehr alten, aber noch nicht ganz lexikonreifen Begriff,” Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte 21 (1977): 42–58. See also Epictetus, Diatr. 2.22.35; Ench. 34; Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.12.55; Marcus Aurelius, 8.53; 12.16; Lucian, Merc. cond. 42; 1 John 3:19–22. 18  John T. Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence, SBLDS 99 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). Critics of Fitzgerald underestimate the power of the Greek philosophical tradition on the Jewish sources that, it is claimed, were more of an influence on Paul. Furthermore, they fail to understand Fitzgerald’s main contribution, to show how 16 



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5

The intimate connection between virtue and adversity has been thoroughly documented in the preceding pages. Since peristaseis [difficulties] constitute a test of human character, they have both a revelatory and a demonstrative function. The man with little or no integrity collapses under the weight of his burdens. His peristaseis reveal and prove his deficiencies as a person. The proficiens [one who makes progress], by contrast, shows greater strength of character in dealing with his hardships, so that his peristaseis reveal his progress, what he is becoming. Since they help to form his character, they play a crucial role in his paideia [education]. For the sapiens [wise man], however, peristaseis no longer have this educative character. They provide the proof that he is educated. Consequently, they exhibit who he is, what he has become.19

Fitzgerald has accounted for two functions of the philosophic discourse about hardships. First, the philosophers taught that reason is superior to all the vicissitudes of life, and because the self is identified with reason, nothing external can cause harm.20 Hardships provide an opportunity for this lesson to be illustrated in an actual life.21 Second, by the time of Paul most philosophers had abandoned the absolute distinction between the wise man and the fool and had settled on a doctrine of progress in moral virtue.22 The notion that hardships train the proficiens (one who makes progress) in virtue and that suffering produces character had widespread appeal.23 We have seen that hardships demonstrate the sage’s virtue or train the person aspiring to the serenity of the sage. There was yet a third function of representing the sage’s endurance: to demonstrate his philanthropy (Epictetus, Diatr. 2.12.17–25; Lucian, Peregr. 18). Reminiscent of Antisthenes’ depiction of Odysseus’ dangers (Antisthenes, frg. 15.1–3, 9),24 Dio Chrysostom distinguishes himself from philosophers who refused to associate with the crowd and face danger: “For some among that company do not appear in public at all and prefer not to make the venture, possibly because they despair of being able to improve the masses” (Dio Chrysostom, Alex. 8; cf. Alex. 24; 1 Tars. 15).25 The genuine philosopher “stands ready, if need be, to submit to ridicule and to the disorder and the uproar of the mob” (Dio Chrysostom, Alex. 32.11). He should be compared with Diogenes, whose free speech was often not endured (Dio Chrysostom, Isthm. 9.7–9).26

the rhetorical use of hardship lists flowed out of the central teachings of the philosophers on the relation between virtue and endurance. See, for example, N. Willert, “The Catalogues of Hardships in the Pauline Correspondence: Background and Function,” in The New Testament and Hellenistic Judaism, ed. P. Borgen and S. Giversen (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1995), 217–43. 19  Fitzgerald, Cracks, 115. 20  Ibid., 51–55. 21  See J. Perkins, The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era (New York: Routledge, 1995), 77–98. 22  Fitzgerald, Cracks, 55–70. 23  See N. C. Croy, Endurance in Suffering: Hebrews 12.1–13 in its Rhetorical, Religious, and Philosophical Context, SNTSMS 98 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 139–59. 24  See R. Höistad, Cynic Hero and Cynic King (Lund: Carl Blom, 1948), 97. For the readiness of the wise man to suffer indignities for the good of others, see Antisthenes, frgs. 14.5–6; 15.5, 9. See H. D. Rankin, Antisthenes Sokratikos (Amsterdam: Hakkert), 168–70. 25  For the dangers faced by bold speakers, see Lucian, Pisc. 20; Peregr. 32. See A. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989), 38. 26  See Höistad, Cynic Hero, 195–96.

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Grief and Moral Reformation. Harsh Cynic philosophers regarded moral failure as justification for causing grief (λύπη, lypē) (Ps.-Socrates, Ep. 24; Lucian, Pisc. 20).27 From a text representing harsh Cynicism, we learn that the laughter of Democritus aimed to condemn humanity for its foolishness.28 Not regarding laughter a strong enough measure against human vice, however, Democritus wished “to discover something even more painful [λυπηρόν, lypēron] to use against them” (Ps.-Hippocrates, Ep. 17.45 [Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci 304, my translation]). Cynic moral reproof was often painful because it was inopportune (Ps.-Hippocrates, Ep. 17.19–20, 34). Hippocrates protests that Democritus’ laughter at others’ misfortunes does not consider the circumstances of those he mocks (Ps.-Hippocrates, Ep. 17.20–21). Likewise, Plutarch denounces those who cause suffering when the circumstances of the hearer demand encouragement and consolation (Plutarch, Adul. amic. 69A). In response to these criticisms, some Cynics sought to place their frank speaking in a better light by stressing philanthropic aims (Plutarch, Virt. mor. 452D; Stobaeus, Flor. 3.13.42).29 They claimed that although words of truth are sometimes painful, in the end they are beneficial, because they are not motivated by hatred but by a desire to heal others (Seneca, Vit. beat. 26.5). It is the duty of the philosopher to benefit others, even if this requires a painful dose of truth telling (Epictetus, Diatr. 3.1.10–11; cf. Dio Chrysostom, Alex. 5, 7, 11; Lucian, Hermot. 51). In his introduction to Epictetus’ Discourses, Arrian testifies to the concept of appropriate suffering in the reception of moral exhortation: He was clearly aiming at nothing else but to incite the minds of the hearers to the best things. If, now, these words of his should produce that same effect, they would have, I think, just that success which the words of philosophers ought to have; but if not, let those who read them be assured of this, that when Epictetus himself spoke them, the hearer could not help but feel [πάσχειν, paschein] exactly what Epictetus wanted him to feel (παθεῖν, pathein; Arriani epistula ad Lucium Gellium 57).

Epictetus himself compared the lecture hall of the philosopher to a hospital, from which students should not walk out in pleasure “but in pain” (Epictetus, Diatr. 3.23.30; cf. 3.1.10–11; 3.23.37).30 The role of pain in moral improvement was controversial.31 For the Epicureans, emotional pain (λύπη, lypē) was something to be avoided, because tranquility, the

For Cynic misanthropy, see G. A. Gerhard, Phoinix von Kolophon: Texte und Untersuchungen (Leipzig: Teubner, 1909), 39, 165–67, 170–75. 28  Ps.-Hippocrates, Ep. 17.40 (R. Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci [Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1965], 303). 29  See Gerhard, Phoinix, 32–45. 30  See A. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 21–28. 31  The role of pain in ancient theories of moral improvement is by no means a settled question. See especially L. L. Welborn, An End to Enmity: Paul and the “Wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 470–76, and “Paul and Pain: Paul’s Emotional Therapy in 2 Corinthians 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 in the Context of Ancient Psychagogic Literature,” NTS 57 (2011): 559–70. See also Armstrong, “ ‘Be Angry and Sin Not’.” 27 



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goal of Epicurean mutual exhortation, was the opposite of grief.32 In their view, pain was a sign of misapplied or misunderstood frank speech (Philodemus, Lib. 12, 13, 31, 61–62, XVA, XVIB, XXIIB). This Epicurean judgment is not far removed from the position of the earlier Stoics, who argued against the usefulness of pain in moral transformation. They considered regret over one’s errors a characteristic of the bad person (SVF 3.100.33; 3.149.18–24; 3.150.24–27). The later Stoics, on the other hand, emphasized progress in the moral life and mitigated the absolute distinction between the wise man and the fool.33 In this context, grief over one’s errors was a good thing— the beginning of the moral life and a sign of progress (Cicero, Amic. 90; Lucian, Nigr. 4, 35; Plutarch, Virt. prof. 82C). Plutarch illustrates the function of grief in moral transformation when he describes the way students should listen to the frank speech of philosophers.34 Although cowardly grief is to be avoided, the student has to feel some pain (Plutarch, Rec. rat. aud. 46C). The student must see that the teacher’s speech aims to reform character. Admonitions should be allowed to penetrate like a biting drug and cause humiliation, sweating and dizziness, and a burning with shame in the soul (Plutarch, Rec. rat. aud. 46D). Yet, Plutarch does not want the student to experience excessive grief: For this reason he who is taken to task must feel and suffer some smart, yet he should not be crushed or dispirited, but, as though at a solemn rite of novitiate which consecrates him to philosophy, he should submit to the initial purifications and commotions, in the expectation that something delect­able and splendid will follow upon his present distress and perturbation. (Plutarch, Rec. rat. aud. 47A)

Grief and Epistolary Theory In the epistolary handbook of Ps.-Libanius (fourth–sixth centuries CE) we discover the following definition of the grieving style: “The grieving style is that in which we present ourselves as being grieved.”35 More instructive is his sample letter: The letter of grief [Λυπητική, Lypētikē]. You caused me extremely much grief [λελύπηκας, lelypēkas] when you did this thing. For that reason I am very much vexed with you, and bear a grief [λυποῦμαι λύπην, lypoumai lypēn] that is difficult to assuage. For the grief [λῦπαι, lypai] men cause their friends is exceedingly difficult to heal, and holds in greater insults than those they receive from their enemies. (Ps.Libanius, Charact. Ep. 90; Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 80–81)

For the Epicurean care of souls, see C. E. Glad, Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy, NovTSup 81 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 101–81. Note the emphasis on reason, truth and bold speech in Lucian’s (Alex. 47) account of the Epicurean path to tranquility; no mention is made of a conversion involving pain, leading in turn to repentance. 33  See I. Hadot, Seneca und die griechischrömische Tradition der Seelenleitung (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969), 71–78. 34  See H. G. Ingenkamp, Plutarchs Schriften über die Heilung der Seele, Hypomnemata 34 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 74–90. 35  Ps.-Libanius, Charact. Ep. 43. Text and translation in A. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, SBLSBS 19 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 72–73. 32 

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The grieving style has overtones of rebuke (Gregory of Nazianzus, Ep. 40.1–4; Basil, Ep. 44.1).36 Friendship language calls attention to the unexpected pain the writer has suffered at the hands of his friend and thereby increases the force of the rebuke. Two letters attributed to Demosthenes, both of doubtful authenticity, exhibit the grieving style. In Epistle 2, Demosthenes complains to the council and assembly of the unfair treatment he has received. The letter is full of indignation and reproach (Demosthenes, Ep. 2.1, 3, 8, 12). Demosthenes portrays himself as grief-stricken over the wrongs he has received from his readers (Demosthenes, Ep. 2.13, 21–22). Near the conclusion of the letter, he expresses his suffering one last time: Let not one of you think, men of Athens, that through lack of manhood or from any other base motive I give way to my grief from the beginning to the end of this letter. Not so, but every man is ungrudgingly indulgent to the feeling of the moment, and those that now beset me—if only this had never come to pass!—are sorrows and tears [λῦπαι καὶ δάκρυα, lypai kai dakrya], longing both for my country and for you, and pondering over the wrongs I have suffered, all of which cause me to grieve. (Demosthenes, Ep. 2.25; cf. Ep. 3.44)

Note especially Demosthenes’ reference to his tears and the rebuke they communicate.37 The conciliatory letter was another epistolary type that made suffering thematic. According to Ps.Libanius, the conciliatory style was appropriate when the writer had grieved the letter’s recipient: “The conciliatory style is that in which we conciliate someone who has been caused grief by us for some reason. Some also call this the apologetic style” (Ps.Libanius, Charact. Ep. 19; Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 68–69). As the example below will illustrate, the writer does not deny that he had caused the recipient pain. In fact, he acknowledges the pain his words had inflicted. He does, however, assert that causing pain had not been his intention. Furthermore, even if pain did arise, its real significance, so it is asserted, is the healing that it bestowed in the end: The conciliatory letter. In addition to making the statements that I did, I went on (to put them) into action, for I most certainly did not think that they would ever cause you sorrow [λυπηθήσεσθαι, lypēthēsesthai]. But if you were upset by what was said or done, be assured, most excellent sir, that I shall most certainly no longer mention what was said. For it is my aim always to heal my friends rather than to cause them sorrow (λυπεῖν, lypein). (Ps.Libanius, Charact. Ep. 66; Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 76–77)

The conciliatory letter reflects the philosophic teaching concerning the reforming power of grief brought on by bold words uttered in friendship (Cicero, Quint. fratr. 1.2.12–13; Gregory of Nazianzus, Epp. 17.13; 59.14). 36  For expressions of grief as moral condemnation in the philosophic tradition, see the Cynic appropriation of Heraclitus and the philosophers who imitated his gloominess: Ps.Heraclitus, Epp. 5.3; 7.2–10; Lucian, Demon. 6; Vit. auct. 7; Fug. 18. 37  For other examples of the grieving style, see Julian, Ep. 68; Gregory of Nazianzus, Epp. 7, 16; Basil, Epp. 45, 156, 204, 207, 212, 223, 224, 270; Chrysostom, Ad Theodorum Lapsum (lib. 1)1; Ad Theodorum Lapsum (lib. 2)1; Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. 1496; Barsanuphius and John, Ep. 229; Alexander of Nicea, Ep. 1. Paul’s “many tears” communicated moral reproof according to Chrysostom (In epistulam ii ad Corinthios [homiliae 1–30] PG 61.420; In epistulam ad Ephesios [homiliae 1–24] PG 62.118).



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Shared Suffering and Friendship The notion of friends sharing suffering was not the invention of philosophers. “Suppose the misfortunes of friends to be your own,” Menander wrote, echoing what we can assume to be a widespread opinion.38 Yet, the philosophers too explored shared suffering in friendship but, significantly, set limits upon it. Aristotle recognizes as a friend “one who shares his friend’s joys and sorrows” (Aristotle, Eth. nic. 9.4.1). Furthermore, he points out that suffering is indeed “lightened by the sympathy of friends” (Aristotle, Eth. nic. 9.10.2; cf. Cicero, Amic. 22). Aristotle hesitates to answer definitively whether the pain is actually shared, or whether it is simply the pleasure of comrades’ company and “consciousness of their sympathy” that mitigates pain. He does maintain, however, that it is “womanish” for one person to allow another to share in pain (Aristotle, Eth. nic. 9.11.4). Later writers enforce a similar limitation. On the one hand, it is necessary to risk danger on account of friendship (Cicero, Amic. 23; Plutarch, Amic. mult. 96A; Lucian, Tox. 7, 9). Yet, shared suffering must not go so deep as to touch the soul of the friend who gives comfort (Epictetus, Ench. 16.1). It is also problematic whether a friend should share in another’s disrepute (Cicero, Amic. 61), although some writers believe this to be the case with true friends (Plutarch, Amic. mult. 96B; Lucian, Tox. 46; Maximus of Tyre, Or. 14.5). In spite of these limits imposed by some philosophers, we find the complete sharing of adversity, even pain, sorrow and grief, to be a commonplace pertaining to friendship (Cicero, Amic. 46–48). In fact, according to Lucian this sharing is the first thing that must be said about friendship (Lucian, Tox. 6). The ground for such a notion is that friendship is a kind of sharing, that friends have all things in common (Seneca, Epp. 6.2; 48.2–4; Themistius, Or. 22.269, 270, 274). The ultimate demonstration of friendship was willingly to suffer death for another (Diogenes Laertius 10.120; Plutarch, Amic. mult. 96C–D; Lucian, Tox. 20, 36–37; Maximus of Tyre, Or. 14.3).39 Cicero reports that theatergoers were moved to standing ovation at scenes of such devotion (Cicero, Amic. 24), and we know from literary sources that the theme of death for friendship’s sake was gaining great popularity in the first century BCE.40 Again, however, there was a limit. The one for whom suffering and death are endured must be good. This qualification is based on the requirement that a friendship be established only with the good person. Friendship is possible only after testing to see if the potential friend possesses virtue (Cicero, Amic. 79, 85).

Menandri sententiae 370. In the same work we read, “Suppose all the burdens of friends to be in common” (534) and “When a friend suffers with a friend he suffers with himself” (803; my translations; see also 543K). 39  Both Plato (Symp. 179B–180B) and Seneca (Ep. 9.10–12) recognize blurring in the distinction between friendship and erotic love when it comes to dying for a friend. 40  S. Farron, Vergil’s Aeneid: A Poem of Love and Grief (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 19 n. 5. 38 

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Part II. Hardships and Suffering in Paul’s Letters (2 Corinthians 1–7; Romans 5:1–11 and 8:18–39) Grief and the Occasion of 2 Corinthians 1–7 2 Corinthians 1–7 is full of references to suffering and hardships. Paul’s acknowledgment of the suffering of the Corinthian community opens (1:3–7) and closes (7:8–11) this portion of the letter. References to Paul’s own suffering are fitted between the portrayals of the church’s grief in two ways. First, he narrates his travel from Asia Minor into Macedonia (1:8–11; 2:12–16; 7:5–6). It is a journey of woe told in hyperbolic terms.41 Paul deploys in 2:14 a popular poetic motif (see Ovid, Am. 1.2.19–52) concerning erotic suffering: “But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession…”42 Here Paul portrays himself as suffering lover, humiliated and depressed over the beloved’s silence and possible rejection—real worries in light of the severity of the letter of tears as we will see in a moment. Second, Paul employs the philosophic convention of hardship lists (4:7–12; 4:16–5:5; 6:3–10). Our current task is twofold: to reconstruct the occasion of 2 Cor 1–7 and to understand its rhetorical strategy, using what we know about the ancient ways of speaking about suffering and hardships. We will treat the occasion first. In 2 Cor 2:4 Paul refers to a letter which has been named appropriately “the letter of tears”: “For out of much affliction [θλίψεως, thlipseōs] and contraction of heart [συνοχῆς καρδίας, synochēs kardias] I wrote to you through many tears” (διὰ πολλῶν δακρύων, dia pollōn dakryōn, my translation). This letter was a critical event between the writing of 1 and 2 Corinthians.43 Paul had made an emergency visit to Corinth to deal with the troubles in the church.44 During this intermediate visit, an individual injured or insulted Paul (2 Cor 1:15, 23; 2:1–11; 7:12; 12:21–13:2).45 The identity of this individual is unknown, but in the secondary literature he is frequently called

41  In contrast to the calm of philosophic discourse, Welborn (“Paul and Pain,” 555–59, 567–70) has called attention to just how emotional 2 Corinthians must have seemed to first-century readers. He believes that Paul inaugurated a new, Christian identity modeled ultimately on the passion of Jesus. This is an intriguing proposal, well worth exploring not least of all for its implied criticism of contemporary scholars who confine Paul (and God!) to the parameters of ancient philosophy of the emotions. 42  For triumphal procession as an amatory motif, see J. F. Miller, “Reading Cupid’s Triumph,” CJ 90 (1995): 287–94. 43  See C. K. Barrett, “O ADIKHSAS (2 Cor 7.12),” in Verborum Veritas: Festschrift für Gustav Stählin, ed. O. Böcher and K. Haacker (Wuppertal: Theologischer Verlag Rolf Brockhaus, 1970), 149–57. Welborn places Paul into a very similar philosophic context as the one described in this chapter. His position, however, that the “letter of tears” refers to 2 Cor 10–13 (“Paul and Pain,” 561) and that 2 Corinthians is not a single letter but a collection of letters and fragments (An End of Enmity, xix–xxvi) leads in my estimation to a reconstruction of the letter’s occasion less precise than it might have been given his perceptive remarks on Paul’s adoption and adaptation of the philosophers’ therapeutic practices. 44  V. Furnish, II Corinthians, AB 32A (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984), 54–55, 143. 45  Barrett, “O ADIKHSAS,” 149–52.



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ὁ ἀδικήσας (ho adikēsas, “the one who caused injury”) after 2 Cor 7:12.46 After Paul left Corinth, he wrote a letter that rebuked the church for not taking disciplinary action against “the one who caused injury.”47 Our knowledge of the grieving style in ancient epistolography (above pp. 7–9) allows us to see the rebuking function of this letter and to assess its impact on the Corinthian community. Paul portrayed himself as weeping and made his grief the stated motivation for writing. As we have seen, shrinking soul is a commonplace in Stoic psychology, in which expressions similar to Paul’s “affliction and contraction of the heart” signify grief. We also know from 2 Cor 7:8 that this letter caused pain to the congregation at Corinth. There is more evidence that the pain caused by this letter was a factor in the occasion of 2 Cor 1–7. Many scholars agree that 6:11–13 states Paul’s reconciling purpose in writing 2 Cor 1–7, although a full appreciation of his use of the psychology of suffering has not accompanied this correct insight.48 In 6:11, Paul refers to his frank speech with the phrase “our mouth stands open toward you.”49 He then places his bold speech in the context of friendship. Paul’s friendship for the Corinthians is indicated by the joy that accompanies his speech. Joy, understood by the philosophers as the opposite of grief, was often depicted as a widening of the heart (SVF 3.105.17–18; Seneca, Ep. 59.2). In 6:12 Paul reiterates his joy for the Corinthians by denying that they are the cause of any grief to him. Reflecting the philosophic definition of grief as soul shrinkage, he says that the church is not restricted (στενοχορεῖσθε, stenochōreisthe) in his heart, even as he, as a friend, uses frank speech in moral admonition. Yet in 6:12b, Paul notes the narrowness in the church’s affections toward him, and he exhorts his hearers to return his friendship by widening their hearts so that he might exist there. Shrinking soul covered a range of suffering, including annoyance. Indeed, the terms Paul employs to depict the church’s attitude toward him in 6:11–13 are reminiscent of the definition of annoyance (Diogenes Laertius 7.111; SVF 3.100.29; Plutarch, Sera 564B–C; Seneca, Dial. 2.10.23; Ira 2.6.1; Marcus Aurelius 9.32). So far, we have accounted for two ways in which the issue of suffering contributed to the occasion of 2 Cor 1–7. Paul suffered grief over the community’s indifference to the injury that he had received and the congregation was grieved at being rebuked by Paul through the letter of tears. Another grief must be considered as well. In 2 Cor 2:5–11 Paul skillfully minimizes the wrong that “the one who caused injury” had done to him and pleads with the congregation to affirm love for the man. Apparently, the “letter of tears” had worked too well. The Corinthian congregation had disciplined Welborn (An End to Enmity, 287) believes the unnamed offender was in fact Gaius. For arguments against identifying the letter with either 1 Corinthians or 2 Cor 10–13, see Furnish, II Corinthians, 163–68. Although D. A. Campbell (Reframing Paul: An Epistolary Biography [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014], 74 n. 36) appreciates my reconstruction of the “letter of tears,” he nevertheless maintains that there is nothing to prevent an identification with 1 Corinthians. This is puzzling, since nowhere in 1 Corinthians does Paul present himself as grieving. 48  Furnish, II Corinthians, 367–71. 49  D. Fredrickson, “Παρρησία in the Pauline Epistles,” in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World, ed. J. Fitzgerald, NovTSup 82 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 180. 46  47 

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the offender too harshly, and now, alienated from the community, he suffered from excessive grief, possibly in danger of suicide. Paul’s plea in 2:5–11 for the community to exhort, love, and forgive him parallels the philosophical concern for appropriate grief in the context of moral reformation. To appreciate the grief “the one who caused injury” experienced, attention must be given to the term ἐπιτιμία (epitimia) in 2:6. Here ἐπιτιμία is synonymous with ἐπιτίμησις (epitimēsis, “rebuke”).50 Rebuke was defined as a type of moral exhortation (Isocrates, Demon. 1.38; Dio Chrysostom, Alex. 33; Lucian, Demon. 55; Jupp. trag. 23; Fug. 12; Pseudol. 3; Stobaeus, Flor. 3.13.42).51 Philo draws up a list of the salutary forms of moral discourse: If I speak in the general assembly I will leave all talk of flattery to others and resort only to such as is salutary and beneficial, reproving [ἐπιτιμῶν, epitimōn], warning, correcting in words studied to shew a sober frankness without foolish and frantic arrogance. (Philo, Ios. 73; cf. Cicero, Off. 1.38.137; Seneca, Ep. 94.39; Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 1.9.75.1; 1.9.77.1)52

Striking is the inclusion of encouragement and comfort in the contexts in which rebuke is treated as a type of moral exhortation (Plutarch, Superst. 168C; Lucian, Demon. 7; Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 1.9.75.1; 1.9.87.2; Seneca, Ira 1.15.1; Ep. 99.32; Ps.-Demetrius, Form. Ep. 6; Julian, Or. 6.201C). Because the final goal of rebuke was moral improvement, once shame and grief had taken hold and repentance had been brought about, words of encouragement and comfort were to be added lest excessive suffering lead to alienation and even death (Plutarch, [Lib. ed.] 13D–E).53 This is Paul’s stated fear, and exhortation and affirmation of friendship is the remedy he pleads for the church to employ for the sake of the now grief stricken “one who caused injury.” One last grief remains to be described. It is Paul’s own grief, suffered as he made his way from Asia Minor to Macedonia in order to receive from Titus news of the congregation’s reaction to the severe rebuke in the letter of tears: “We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters, of the affliction [θλίψεως, thlipseōs] we experienced in Asia; for we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself” (2 Cor 1:8). Paul exaggerates his suffering for rhetorical purposes, which we will explore more fully below.54 It is enough here to pinpoint the nature of the affliction which he reports. Ancient exegetes viewed ἐπιτιμία here as ἐπιτίμησις and thus an aspect of moral exhortation. See, for example, Chrysostom, Hom. 4 in 2 Cor. 4 (PG 61.422). 51  For the goals of moral exhortation, and rebuke in particular, see Hadot, Seneca und die griechisch-römische Tradition der Seelenleitung, 168–69. Philodemus (Lib. 31,82,XXIVA) understands ἐπιτίμησις as a form of frank speech. 52  See A. Malherbe, “ ‘Pastoral Care’ in the Thessalonian Church,” NTS 36 (1990): 381–85. 53  For rebuke leading to shame and suicide, see Plutarch, Adul. amic. 70F–71C. 54  R. L. Fowler (“The Rhetoric of Desperation,” HSCP 91 [1987]: 6–38) has identified a rhetorical form employed from Homer to Roman times, which he has named “desperation speech.” Its identifying marks include indication of the extreme weight of suffering born by the speaker, the impossibility of a solution (ἀπόρια, aporia), questioning whether life is any longer possible, not knowing whether to choose life or death, and an exclamation about how wretched one has become (parodied in Epictetus, Diatr. 1.12.27). In addition to 2 Cor 1:8, two other passages in Paul fit this form very well: Rom 7:24–25 and Phil 1:21–26. Fowler (27–31) calls attention to the fact that Euripides introduces the sympathy of friends as a solution 50 



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In 1:9, Paul indicates to his hearers that he suffered from regret. He had passed the “sentence of death” (τὸ ἀπόκριμα τοῦ θανάτου, to apokrima tou thanatou) upon himself. We have learned that the metaphor of self-condemnation was a common way of speaking about regret, a variety of grief (see above pp. 2–4). 2 Corinthians 7:8 confirms that the emotion he describes in 1:9 is regret: “For even if I grieved [ελύπησα, elyphsa] you with my letter, I do not regret [μεταμέλομαι, metamelomai] it, though I did regret [μεταμελόμην, metamelomēn] it, for I see that I grieved [ἐλύπησεν, elyphsen] you with that letter, though only briefly.” The philosophical understanding of regret as self-condemnation allows us to connect chs. 1 and 7. Some of Paul’s references to his pain in the intervening passages (2:13–14; 4:8–11; 7:4–7), which otherwise might be understood as allusions to the general sufferings of an apostle, can be seen as the regret he claims to have suffered after writing the letter of tears.55

Suffering in the Rhetorical Strategy of 2 Corinthians 1–7 Having noted the way grief sets the stage for the letter, we turn now to Paul’s rhetorical strategy within the letter itself. Paul adopts and adapts philosophic and epistolographic conventions to reconcile the Corinthian community, who had been stung by rebuke in the letter of tears. He employs four aspects of the ancient discourse about suffering: the notion that friends share both joy and sorrow; the epistolographic conventions of the conciliatory letter; the idea of appropriate grief in the reception of moral exhortation; and the endurance of hardships. 2 Corinthians 1:3–7 develops the notion that friends share both joy and suffering. The key term that connects Paul’s rhetoric with the philosophic discourse about suffering is τά παθήματα (ta pathēmata): 1:5: the sufferings (τά παθήματα, ta pathēmata) of Christ abound in us 1:6: the same sufferings (παθημάτων, pathēmatōn) which we ourselves have (πάσχομεν, paschomen) 1:7: partners in the sufferings (κοινωνοί ἐστε τῶν παθημάτων, koinōnoi este tōn pathēmatōn, my translation)

Shared suffering is the necessary condition for true friendship. This goes to the heart of traditional teaching on friendship. Christ, Paul, and the church are one because

to the aporia of the speaker. Similarly, Paul introduces the notion of friendship in each instance of his use of desperation speech. 55  K. Y. Lim (“The Sufferings of Christ are Abundant in Us”: A Narrative Dynamics Investigation of Paul’s Sufferings in 2 Corinthians [New York: T&T Clark International, 2009] 60 n. 85) deems this proposal “too speculative.” Welborn (An End to Enmity, 434–37) approves my suggestion but modifies it to fit his own reconstruction of the events. Whereas I think that Paul’s suffering in 1:9 is a result of sending the “letter of tears” and not knowing its consequences (or at least that is how Paul appears to want his readers to understand the situation), Welborn (434), who equates 2 Cor 10–13 with the letter of tears, reports inaccurately that it is my position that “Paul reveals to the Corinthians how much anguish he suffered following his painful experience at Corinth.”

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they share emotions.56 Not only did this identity of emotions provide the ground for friendship, it also defined its task (Plutarch, Adul. amic. 49F; Amic. mult. 95F–96D; Dio Chrysostom, 3 Regn. 3.100–103; Gnomologium Vaticanum 273; Cicero, Amic. 48, 64; Seneca, Ep. 6.3). Friends were to share sorrow, or in the Pauline idiom in 2 Cor 1:3–7, to share in affliction (θλίψις, thlipsis). It is no surprise, then, that in 1:7 Paul uses the key term for this sharing of emotion in friendship: κοινωνία (koinōnia) (Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.9.1; 8.12.1; 9.12.1; Eth. eud. 7.9.1; Plutarch, Amic. mult. 96D; Lucian, Tox. 6–7; Julian, Or. 8.240A–B, 241C).57 2 Corinthians 1:3–7 underscores the friendship that Paul claims exists between the community and himself. Sharing suffering is proof that they are friends. Here Paul does not call attention to the fact that he caused the community its grief. The vocabulary of suffering is vague enough to allow Paul to categorize the sting of rebuke felt by the church and his own regret to be categorized under the same terms. Later in the letter (beginning in 2:1–4 and culminating in 7:9–10) Paul deals directly with the pain he caused, characterizing it as appropriate grief. Before exploring that strategy in detail, however, we need to examine the ways 2 Cor 1–7 exhibits characteristics of the conciliatory letter. First, stating one’s regret for acting offensively or having written in severe tones was an element in the letter of reconciliation (Cicero, Quint. fratr. 1.2.12–13; Chariton, Chaer. 4.4; Philostratus, Vit. soph. 562–63; Fronto, Ad M. Ceas. 5.59).58 Paul makes such statements in 1:8–9 and 7:8. Second, Paul follows the conventions of the conciliatory letter by saying that the intention of his rebuke was not to cause pain but to demonstrate his friendship (2:4 and 7:3; see above pp. 8–9). Finally, Paul claims that the intent and the effect of his severe words were to promote healing. In 7:8–12 Paul reviews for his readers the salutary effects of the rebuke conveyed in the grieving letter. Behind these verses stands the topos that a friend does not intend his frank speech to cause pain but to bring about repentance and moral healing. The progression in 7:9–10 from grief to repentance and then to salvation places Paul’s characterization of his treatment of the church squarely in the psychagogic tradition (see above pp. 4–7). The distinction between godly grief and worldly grief in 7:9b–11a further demonstrates Paul’s use of the Greco-Roman tradition of soul care in order to justify the severity of the grieving letter. Godly grief and the grief of the world were distinguished in their effects: repentance leading to salvation on the one hand, and death on the other.59 Plutarch contrasts the grief that God inflicts with the pain caused by humans. God causes pain in order to bring about repentance; humans simply punish

Cf. Phil 1:7–8, on which see Fredrickson, Eros and the Christ, 26–28, 35–36. Friends have like emotions (see Plutarch, Adul. amic. 51E; Amic. mult. 97A). Friendship comes into being through likeness, and this includes the identity of emotions (see Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.3.6–7; Plutarch, Amic. mult. 96E–F; Cicero, Amic. 50). 58  D. Fredrickson, “Paul’s Sentence of Death (2 Corinthians 1:9),” in God, Evil, and Suffering: Essays in Honor of Paul R. Sponheim, ed. T. Fretheim and C. Thompson, Word & World Supplement Series 4 (St. Paul: Word & World, 2000), 103–107. See also Fulkerson, No Regrets, 114, 121. For healing letters, see Welborn (“Paul and Pain,” 552–59). 59  “Worldly grief” recalls Paul’s description in 2:7 of the grief suffered by “the one who caused injury.” 56  57 



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without a view to moral improvement (Plutarch, Sera 551C–E).60 Moreover, unlike humans who get angry, cause pain, and then regret their severity (Plutarch, Cohib. ira 464C–D; Sera 550E–F; 551C; Seneca, Ira 2.6.2), God knows no remorse and causes no damage (Philo, Conf. 171). In 7:9, Paul claims that godly grief caused by the grieving letter did the church no damage. We have moved from the epistolographic conventions of 2 Cor 1–7 to the philosophical topos of appropriate emotional pain in the context of moral exhortation. This is natural, because the rhetoric of conciliation draws from the philosophic tradition of the care of souls. Paul had already invoked the notion of appropriate grief in 2:5–11 and emphasized that the grief inflicted by moral admonition should be combined with exhortation and affirmations of friendship. He reiterates this theme in 7:2–4, only now to ameliorate the suffering he had caused the church. In 7:3a, he denies that his speech aims to condemn his readers (πρὸς κατάκρισιν οὐ λέγω, pros katakrisin ou legō).61 The uses of frank speech for moral edification, on the one hand, and condemnation, on the other, were well known (Stobaeus, Flor. 3.13.63; Isocrates, Paneg. 4.130; 8.72; Philodemus, Lib. 37–38,IB; Lucian, Pseudol. 3; Deor. conc. 2; Icar. 30; Ps.Diogenes, Ep. 29.23; Marcus Aurelius 11.6.2.).62 As we have seen, harsh Cynics were noted for their unbridled use of free speech to condemn the ills of humankind (see above pp. 6–7). Democritus’ laughter condemned humanity for its inconsistency (Ps.Hippocrates, Ep. 17.40). The notion of the philosopher’s rebuke of sin as the guilty verdict in a legal proceeding is found in Cynic self-description (Ps.Heraclitus, Epp. 7.2; 9.8; Gnomologium Vaticanum 116, 487). Similarly, the harsh Cynic understood bold speech as punishment of human error (Ps.Diogenes, Ep. 29.1, 4; Ps.Socrates, Ep. 12; Ps.Heraclitus, Epp. 7.4; 9.3; Plutarch, [Vit. X orat.] 842D; Epictetus, Diatr. 3.22.94, 97–98; Dio Chrysostom, Isthm. 8). Paul distances himself from these harsh practitioners of frank speech by opposing the excessive grief their words inflict. This brings us to the last of his rhetorical strategies in 2 Cor 1–7. Paul uses hardship lists to shape his image as a bold-speaking friend whose chief concerns are reconciliation and the salvation of his hearers. In order to understand how the hardships in 4:7–15 shape Paul’s image, I will first consider his reliance on God and abasement for the sake of the church. 2 Corinthians 4:5–6 anticipates the hardships in 4:7–15 by raising the issue of the source of Paul’s authority. He claims not to preach himself but Jesus Christ as Lord and himself as the church’s slave. The hardships in 4:7–15 amplify these two claims. They depict the free and bold-speaking Paul, who nevertheless relies entirely on God, not his own virtue, and who subordinates himself to the Corinthian congregation.63 For the role of emotional pain or grief in God’s plan for moral reform, see Plutarch, Sera 549F–550A; 550E–F; 551C–E. Cf. Philo, Det. 144–146; Conf. 180–182; Somn. 1.91; Heb 12:10–11; Rev 3:19. 61  Other interpreters (e.g., C. K. Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC [London: A. & C. Black, 1973], 203; Furnish, II Corinthians, 369) regard this phrase as Paul’s attempt to mitigate the severity of the previous denials (7:2), which they view as his accusations against the church. 62  See Gerhard, Phoenix, 36. 63  Paul’s references to slavery might be instances of a popular erotic motif, the “slavery of love” (servitium amoris) which conveyed suffering, depression, and humiliation when the lover has been conquered by love. See Fredrickson, Eros and the Christ, 69–71. 60 

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An ambiguity in 4:7 prepares the reader to move from the theme of God as source of power (4:8–9) to Paul’s abasement for the sake of the church (4:10–15). On the one hand, the term θησαυρός (thēsauros, “treasure”) suggests Paul’s illumined and transformed soul.64 The phrase “in earthen vessels” evokes the fragility of his outer self in anticipation of 4:16–5:5, and the “transcendent power” points to God’s power to preserve the fragile Paul in the midst of hardships.65 On the other hand, “treasure” could also refer to Paul’s ministry. Then earthen pottery denotes the abasement he accepts for the sake of the church,66 and “transcendent power” evokes the lifegiving power of Paul’s ministry.67 The ambiguity of 4:7 reflects the correlation of the salvation Paul has received from God and God’s salvation of humanity through his ministry (cf. 1:4; 4:1; 5:18–19). The catalogue of hardships in 4:8–9 illustrates the dangers of Paul’s ministry, his endurance, and, most of all, his source of power—God.68 The fact that Paul’s power derives not from himself but from God distinguishes him from the wise man whose authority depends upon his ability to make all things depend upon himself. By making himself dependent upon God in this way, Paul prepares for his self-presentation as a reconciler. The hardships in 4:10–15, however, point no longer to Paul’s God-given power to endure difficulties but to his endurance of ignominy and death for the sake of the church. Paul now becomes a suffering bold-speaker whose concern is the salvation of the church. The purpose clauses in 4:10–11 suggest the voluntary nature of Paul’s suffering. Moreover, if παραδιδόμεθα (paradidometha, “we hand ourselves over”) is in the middle voice, the voluntary quality of Paul’s suffering finds further emphasis.69 The philanthropic aspects of Paul’s hardships come out clearly in 4:12: “So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.” The theme of Paul’s voluntary enslavement to the Corinthian church also appears in 4:15 where he asserts that all things he does are for their sake.

For the soul as treasure, see Philo, Leg. 3.104–106; Cher. 48; Det. 35, 43; Deus 42, 91–93; Sobr. 41, 68; Conf. 69; Plutarch, An. corp. 500D; Seneca, Ep. 92.31–32. Barrett (The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 137) gives good reasons to believe that Paul is alluding to his illumined soul; in the end, however, like other interpreters he does not come to this conclusion for fear of turning Paul’s anthropology over to Hellenistic ideas about the body and soul. For Paul’s ability to manipulate philosophic terminology, see n. 70 below. 65  So Fitzgerald, Cracks, 167–69. 66  See H. B. Walters, History of Ancient Pottery: Greek, Etruscan, and Roman, 2 vols. (London: Murray, 1905), 1:135–36; 2:455, 479. Cf. Rom 9:21 and esp. 2 Tim 2:20. 67  The power of God to give life through Paul’s ministry is the theme of 5:12. Cf. 2 Cor 1:6; Gal 3:5; Phil 2:13; 1 Thess 2:13. For a similar notion, in the philosophic tradition, of divine power, see Dio Chrysostom, Alex. 15. 68  Fitzgerald, Cracks, 169–76. He believes, however, that the divine power in Paul’s weakness in 4:8–9 is “one of the ways in which the Corinthians are to know that he has been commissioned by God and the word that he speaks comes from God (172).” I would assert that Paul distinguishes himself from the popular conception of the philosopher whose claim to authority rested on his own power. 69  Ibid., 180. This is perhaps another example of Paul’s struggle against the “active/passive” scheme of the philosophers, since it is also possible to read this phrase as “we are handed over.” 64 



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In 4:16–5:5, Paul’s hardships no longer emphasize the enslavement theme but underscore his spiritual transformation. The renewal of Paul’s inner self is treated in 4:16–17, while the renewal of his outer self is expressed in 5:15. In both cases, Paul calls upon, yet also modifies, the philosophic theme of hardships as the sage’s training in virtue. The theme of training is present in 4:17 when Paul claims that affliction produces glory. Yet, hardships prepare a future weight of glory, not a sage trained and perfected in reason. Paul modifies the philosophic topos by stressing the eschatological dimension of the transformation that God is working in him. He does not yet possess the transformed self but points to God’s daily renewal of his inner self and God’s preparation of an eternal dwelling (cf. Phil 3:12–14). By stressing progress instead of perfection, Paul distinguishes himself from the notion in the philosophic tradition that bold speech derived from the moral superiority of the sage. Yet, it needs to be pointed out that “progress” is itself a philosophic conception that retains the goal of individual perfection precisely by deferring accomplishment. In contrast, in 2 Cor 5:2–5 Paul introduces another sort of deferral: the event of “being further clothed” (5:2, 4). By rejecting the “stripping” of the body from the soul, a moment some philosophers eagerly awaited, Paul dismantles the structure of ancient philosophical ethics, shifting focus from the perfection of the self through mastery of passions to the welcoming of the other. If “body” is for Paul the medium of sociality, as I think it was, then his longing (5:2) for more body (whatever that might mean!) implies a desire filled with a grief over the non-presence of more and richer relationships in community.70 We turn to the last hardship list in 2 Cor 1–7. In 6:3–10, Paul uses a list of hardships to commend himself to the Corinthians.71 Again, we see that Paul is not satisfied simply to reproduce a philosophic topos. In addition to the hardships that Paul enumerates in 6:4–10, which portray him as courageous and steadfast, we find terms in 6:6–7a which seem anomalous: “by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God…” These terms make sense if they are viewed in light of the Greco-Roman psychagogical tradition.72 The phrases “truthful speech” and “genuine love” refer to frank speech. Paul describes himself, the servant of God, as a bold speaker.73 Paul’s creativity here consists of introducing insights from philosophic soul-care about the way moral criticism is to be applied to avoid excessive grief. 70  For Paul’s use and critique in 2 Cor 4:16–5:5 of philosophic commonplaces such as “body as temporary dwelling” and “death as stripping the soul of the body,” see D. Fredrickson, “Paul Playfully on Time and Eternity,” Dialog 39 (2000): 21–23. For these commonplaces incorporated into discussions of hardships and suffering, see Seneca, Epp. 24.17–21; 92.30–35; 102.21–30; 120.13–19. 71  The view that 6:3–10 is apologetic has been challenged with good reason by Fitzgerald (Cracks, 187–88). He has demonstrated (191–201) that 6:3–10 reflects the philosophic use of hardships to depict the sage’s courage and constancy. I disagree, however, with his view that Paul’s self-commendation fosters his hearers’ confidence in him. Something more specific is at stake, namely, the integrity of the flexible approach to the care of souls suggested in 6:6–7. The constancy of Paul portrayed in 6:7–10 guards against any accusation that his gentleness is flattery. For the theme of adaptability in the care of souls, see Glad, Paul and Philodemus, 15–98. 72  Fredrickson, “Παρρησία in the Pauline Epistles,” 179–80. 73  Ibid., 179.

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The notion of excessive grief is present in 6:3, although modern translations and exegesis obscure it. The NRSV reads “We are putting no obstacle [προσκοπήν, proskopēn] in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.” Exegetes have incorrectly regarded the term προσκοπή as equivalent to προσκόμμα (proskomma, “obstacle”).74 A very different understanding emerges, however, if προσκοπή is seen in contexts associated with bold speech. In these instances, it designates arousal of hatred because of the grief inflicted by moral rebuke (Polybius 38.4.24; Sextus Empiricus, Math. 2.54; Cicero, Amic. 88–89).75 προσκοπή is the alienation caused by bold speech (Isocrates, Ep. 9.12; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. rom. 11.9.1; Ps.Socrates, Ep. 1.7; Dio Chrysostom, Diod. 4; Lucian, Hermot. 51; Aristides Rhetor, Or. 3.668). If this lexical insight is brought to bear on 6:3, then the reason Paul adds the phrase “so that no fault may be found with our ministry” becomes clear. According to 5:18–19, Paul’s ministry aims at reconciliation. He would subvert this purpose if his speech alienated those he aimed to win over. If his speech only caused suffering, it would be inconsistent with the ministry of reconciliation. In 6:3–10, Paul presents himself as one who combines words of truth with kindness and encouragement in order not to alienate those whom he has addressed with bold speech. Yet, kindness and patience should not be mistaken for timidity, because the hardships he has endured demonstrate courage.

The Problem of Suffering Reconstructed: Romans 5:1–11 and 8:18–39 No better passages demonstrate Paul’s familiarity with philosophic discourse concerning hardships and suffering than Rom 5:1–11 and 8:18–39. Familiarity is perhaps too weak a word. Paul is so acquainted with the philosophic tradition that he uses its commonplaces effortlessly. Yet, Paul manipulates theses commonplace sayings and ideas in order to criticize philosophy’s claim about the capacity of the wise man to endure suffering. In other words, Paul both employs and subverts the patterned discourse of philosophy with its confidence in reason to conquer hardships. He does this for a purpose. In place of virtue or reason as the solution to the problem of suffering, Paul advances the notion of shared suffering. Although he derives from the philosophic tradition the idea that friends share joy, suffering, and even death, Paul radically expands the pool of friends to include God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, and all of creation. The controlling image in these two passages is not the sage, protected from hardships by his reason, but the friend surrounded by friends who share all things. At first glance, Rom 5:3–4 simply reproduces the notion that hardships train the sage in virtue.76 Suffering builds character (see above pp. 4–5). Paul writes “And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces See, for example, R. Martin, 2 Corinthians, WBC 40 (Waco: Word, 1986), 170–71. For the sense of hatred, see SVF 3.102.40; Cicero, Tusc. 4.23–24; 4.26; Seneca, Ep. 14.7. 76  Substitute “Christian” for “sage” and you have Paul’s meaning. So C. H. Talbert, Learning Through Suffering: The Educational Value of Suffering in the New Testament and in Its Milieu (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1991), 21–22. 74  75 



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endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope…” Paul recasts this commonplace philosophical notion in a familiar rhetorical figure, climax.77 Yet, some unfamiliar aspects of Paul’s argument would have frustrated the ancient reader’s expectations. Notice that Paul completes the climax in 5:4 by saying that “character produces hope.” From the philosophic standpoint, this is an odd conclusion to an account of the way suffering builds character.78 Some philosophers regarded hope as a moral disease, because hope placed happiness in externals, over which no one has control. Pursuit of externals can only lead to shame (Seneca, Epp. 5.7; 13.13; 23.2; 24.1; 71.14; 99.5, 13; 101.4).79 Thus, by introducing hope as the product of character, Paul begins his critique of the philosophic view of suffering as the training of reason. In its place, Paul explores the relationship between friendship and suffering. We must note the ways Paul works the friendship motif into the argument as a replacement of philosophic reason. In 5:5 we read that hope is secure, “because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” The putative exegetical dilemma that would force a decision whether “love of God” is an objective genitive (the love we have for God) or a subjective genitive (God’s love for us) likely is a false problem. The central metaphor of the sentence, love as a liquid, suggests a mutuality of love. The idea of love as a liquid poured into the heart is found in amatory literature. It depicts the beloved as the source of the lover’s affection.80 If Paul is utilizing this notion of mutual love, then the reason why hope is secure and can replace reason in the face of hardships becomes clear: friendship with God means a mutual sharing of suffering and joy. Paul has already alluded to this sharing in 5:2 when he boasts on the hope of sharing the glory of God. In 5:6–8 Paul reiterates the theme of friendship and suffering from a different angle: “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.” This verse echoes the philosophic idea that the ultimate proof of friendship was to undergo hardships and even to die for the friend.

J. Wettstein, Novum Testamentum Graecum, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Ex officina Dommeriana, 1752; reprint Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, 1962), 46. 78  A similar surprise awaits the reader in 1 Thess 5:8. The “armor of the sage” constructed out of reason was a widespread philosophic motif. See Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers, 95–103. Paul subverts the image, however, by constructing the armor out of faith, love, and hope. These make a person vulnerable to realities external to the soul. Paul’s earliest interpreters were not so eager to abandon reason. Note the more conventional construction of armor in Eph 6:10–17 and 1 Tim 1:18. 79  Nevertheless, Paul’s appeal to hope in affliction has parallels. For example, Menander (813K) writes “In adversity a man is saved by hope.” Does Rom 8:24a echo this saying? Cicero (Amic. 23, 59) believes that friendship provides hope for the future and does not let the spirit grow faint. This connection between friendship and hope is crucial for Rom 5 and 8. 80  See notes by M. Davies, Hermes 111 (1983): 496–97, and O. Vox, Hermes 120 (1992): 375–76. For additional examples, see D. Sider, The Epigrams of Philodemus: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 95–97. 77 

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Paul construes Jesus’ death for others in just this way. Notice also that Jesus’ death also demonstrates God’s love (5:8). There are some important distinctions, however, which set Paul’s argument apart from the usual discussion of this matter. It will be remembered that the philosophers were careful to put a limit on friendship. Friendship is possible only between the virtuous (see above p. 9). Jesus (and by implication God) violates this canon of friendship. Jesus dies for the weak, sinners, and enemies. The final way Paul works the friendship motif into the argument is the repeated use of καταλλάσσειν (katallassein) in 5:9–11. This term, translated somewhat misleadingly as “to reconcile,” does not simply mean the cessation of animosity, although this is the way commentators invariably regard it. The term regularly referred to the establishment of friendship (Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.6.7; Dio Chrysostom, Nicom. 11.41, 47–48), and with friendship comes the notion of sharing all things. Thus, we have come again to the point that began the passage: Paul’s confidence resides in his hope of sharing God’s glory. Paul does not take the philosopher’s approach of viewing suffering as the occasion to display or to train human reason. In the last analysis, human suffering is a test of divine friendship. Will the sharing between suffering humanity and God be complete? If there is to be a human boasting in God’s glory will there also be God’s participation in human suffering? Romans 8:18–39 makes the case for divine participation in human suffering. This passage takes up the issue of suffering, as the opening verse clearly indicates: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.” There are numerous parallels between 8:18–39 and 5:1–11. The most obvious is the hardship lists in 8:35–39 that remind the reader of 5:3–4: Who will separate [χωρίσει, chōrisei] us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors [ὑπερνικῶμεν, hypernikōmen] through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate [χωρίσει, chōrisai] us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The items in the first list (8:35) are typical of the dangers endured by the wise man. The provocative aspect of both lists, however, is their rhetorical function. Neither list works in any of the three ways hardships were used in the ancient discourse about the wise man. Virtue is neither displayed nor trained here, nor is the philanthropy of Paul and his readers exhibited. Paul is putting these hardship lists to a novel use, and what he does not say about suffering might have struck his hearers to be as important as what he does. The novelty of Paul’s use of these hardship lists is that he puts them in the context of friendship. Instead of calling attention to an individual’s virtue or philanthropy, they name the things that cannot separate Paul and his readers from the love of God. Paul mentions separation twice (8:35, 39) thus putting his hearers in mind of a problem often treated in discussions of friendship (Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.5.1; Plutarch, Amic. mult. 95A; Seneca, Ep. 55.8–11; 63.3). Separation was the greatest grief friends might



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suffer. Yet, there was comfort. Even when physically absent from one another, friends were inseparable, because they were one soul in two bodies. Hardships in Paul’s hands, then, serve the rhetorical purpose of reconstructing the problem of suffering. Suffering is not the occasion for the display of the training of virtue as would have been the case for Stoics and indeed for much of the Greco-Roman world. For Paul, hardships produce or exhibit nothing in themselves; rather, and simply, hardships do not obstruct the friendship between God, Paul, and his hearers. Paul further challenges the understanding of suffering in the philosophic tradition when he employs the phrase “we are more than conquerors [ὑπερνικῶμεν, hypernikōmen] through him who loved us.” To understand why this is a challenge, we need first to appreciate the claim the victory motif makes for the supremacy of reason in the face of misfortune. The victory motif was a popular metaphor in the philosophic portrayal of the wise man’s superiority to hardships. The wise man conquers hardships (Seneca, Dial. 1.2.2; 2.10.4; Polyb. 17.1–2; Helv. 2.2), while he himself is invincible (ἀνίκητος, anikētos; Ps.Diogenes, Ep. 33; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.18.21–23; Ench. 19.2; Seneca, Ep. 85.29; Vit. beat. 4.2; Helv. 5.5). Fortune vanquishes lesser souls (Seneca, Helv. 1.1). Both military and athletic victory served as a point of comparison for the sage’s indomitable soul.81 The victory could be over external dangers or over one’s own passions.82 Seneca, who used the metaphor extensively,83 ends a discourse on suffering like Paul with the rhetorical flourish supplied by the victory motif: And when will it be our privilege to despise both kinds of misfortune? When will it be our privilege, after all the passions have been subdued and brought under our control, to utter the words “I have conquered [vici]!”? Do you ask me whom I have conquered [vicerim]? Neither the Persians, nor the far-off Medes, nor the warlike race that lies beyond the Dahae; not these, but greed, ambition, and the fear of death that has conquered the conquerors of the world [qui victores gentium vicit]. (Seneca, Ep. 71.37)

The motif emphasized the importance of placing all of one’s hopes in oneself and not in others (Ceb. Tab. 22–24; Seneca, Vit. beat. 8.3). It also pointed to the capacity of reason to protect the self from every misfortune (Cicero, Tusc. 5.52–54; Seneca, Epp. 9.18–19; 78.15–21; Dial. 2.5.7; 2.6.6). Paul seems to affirm the philosopher’s confidence in reason by introducing the victory motif into a discussion of hardships. Nevertheless, he dismantles the philosophic view in two ways. First, he claims that “we are more than conquerors” (emphasis added) implying that the metaphor of victory over suffering may not be adequate. Second, victory over suffering comes not through an individual’s use of

Athletic victory: Ps.Diogenes, Ep. 31; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.24.1–2; 3.25.1–6; 4.4.30–32; Philo, Agr. 110–21; Mut. 82.1; Prob. 26–27, 110–12. Military victory: Ps.Diogenes, Ep. 5; and most of the instances in Seneca, including Polyb. 15.3; 16.3. 82  Victory over external hardships: Seneca, Epp. 98.12, 14; 104.27. Victory over passions: SVF 3.129.9; Ps.Heraclitus, Ep. 4.3; Philo, Abr. 48–49; Epictetus, Ench. 34. External and internal are brought together in Ps.Diogenes, Ep. 12; Cicero, Tusc. 2.63. 83  For a brief account, see C. E. Manning, On Seneca’s “Ad Marciam” (Leiden: Brill, 1981), 62. Seneca reserves the victory motif for a final flourish in Ep. 67, a discourse on the endurance of hardships. 81 

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reason but through friendship with God: “we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (8:37). If anything is clear about the philosopher’s use of the victory motif, it is this: the individual soul has within itself all that is necessary to overcome suffering. Victory through another’s agency would have appeared ludicrous and an insult to the providence of God, who saw fit to place a fragment of divine reason in every human soul. If Rom 8:35–39 is the highpoint of Paul’s attempt to reconstruct the problem of suffering from the perspective of friendship, then Rom 8:18–34 builds up to this conclusion by advocating the power of a friend’s sympathy (taken in the strong sense of co-suffering) to console the sufferer.84 In these verses, Paul explores the consolation of friendship as an alternative to the philosophic method of dealing with suffering through rational control.85 He portrays four agents as friends who share all things with human sufferers: creation (8:19–22), the Spirit (8:26), God (8:31–33), and Christ (8:34). Space allows only for developing the theme of shared suffering in terms of creation and the Spirit. In 8:19–22 creation is conceptualized as a person with emotions desiring to share both in humanity’s future freedom and in its present suffering. In short, creation is a friend: For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now.86

Paul draws upon motifs found in Greek literature and philosophy to portray the friendship of creation with humans. While for some modern readers it may be reminiscent of the opening chapters of Genesis and the development of biblical themes in Compared with the other techniques for mitigating emotional pain, which focused on the irrationality of grief, a friend’s sympathy was a little utilized theme in Greco-Roman consolatory literature. See J. H. D. Scourfield, Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 81. A few examples can be located: Plutarch, [Cons. Apoll.] 102A; Seneca, Polyb. 12.2. For the rational therapy of grief in philosophic consolation, see H.-T. Johann, Trauer und Trost: Eine quellenund strukturanalytische Untersuchung der philosophischen Trostschriften über Tod, Studia et Testamonia Antiqua 5 (Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1968) and R. C. Gregg, Consolation Philosophy: Greek and Christian Paideia in Basil and the Two Gregories, Patristic Monograph Series 3 (Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975). Outside of the philosophic writings, however, the notion that sharing emotional pain has consolatory power appears to have been widespread. See J. H. M. Strubbe, “Epigrams and Consolation Decrees for Deceased Youth,” L’Antiquité classique 67 (1998): 45–75. Stobaeus (Flor. 5.48.16–31) provides a collection of texts around this theme. 85  We can be certain that Paul was aware of the forms of philosophic consolation, since he adopts some of them. See Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians, 57–58, and Paul and the Popular Philosophers, 64–66. 86  The NRSV’s “in labor pains” is too free a translation of συνωδίνει (synōdinei). The verbal aspect needs to be retained, and it is debatable whether the birth imagery should be given such emphasis. The term ὠδίνω (ōdinō) in the sense of “I am in anguish” was employed with “I groan” (στένω, stenō)” in epitaphs without calling attention to birth imagery. The early association of the term with birth pain is no indication of actual usage in a later period. 84 



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Jewish apocalyptic thought,87 nature’s subjection to futility and its bondage to decay was a stock theme in consolation philosophy (Philo, Cher. 77–78; Ps.Crates, Ep. 35; Plutarch, [Cons. Apoll.] 104C–106C, 112D; Cicero, Tusc. 3.58–61; Seneca, Ep. 71.11–16; Polyb. 1.1–4; Menander Rhetor, Περὶ ἐπιδεικτικῶν 2.9).88 It was thought that those grieving might derive some encouragement from the thought that all existing things must of necessity suffer and perish. The second motif is decidedly not from philosophical sources. The characterization of nature or an aspect of nature as a person in sympathy with human suffering is an ancient literary figure known in modern parlance as the pathetic fallacy.89 “Groan (στένειν, stenein),” and “be in anguish (ὠδίνειν, ōdinein)” were frequently employed in instances of the pathetic fallacy to communicate nature’s sympathy and mourning for human suffering (Greek Anthology 7.10, 142, 241, 268, 292, 328, 393, 468, 476, 481, 547, 549, 599, 633; 8.3; Bion, Epitaph. Adon. 35).90 Creation is a friend, groaning over humanity’s suffering, subject to the same futility, yet hoping to share in the same freedom and glory. In 8:26, we discover that the Spirit also groans. This is a remarkable statement, but fits with the overall purpose of the passage to assert the shared sufferings of friends as an alternative to consolation through rational self-control. The moral philosophers condemned groaning (στεναγμός, stenagmos) as a sign of weakness and the lack of reason (Plutarch, [Cons. Apoll.] 113A; Epictetus, Diatr. 2.6.16–17). No good man ever groans (Epictetus, Diatr. 1.1.12, 22; 1.6.29). It is a disgrace to groan (Cicero, Tusc. 2.30–33). Groaning must be resisted (Cicero, Tusc. 2.42–50). Paul, on the other hand, makes this particularly acute form of grief part of the Spirit’s experience.91 The Spirit shares human groaning and is therefore in solidarity with humanity. God’s friendship with humanity is implied in suffering the loss of the Son, or more accurately, in handing the Son over to death (8:32). Finally, the circle of friends is completed. As in the case of 5:6–8, Christ’s friendship is demonstrated through his death for others (8:34; see above p. 9). Paul’s reconstruction of the problem of suffering is finished. He has employed rhetorical forms and commonplace ideas associated with philosophy’s confidence that reason conquers suffering. Yet, he has disarmed that confidence. In place of the virtue of self-control, he has advocated the shared suffering of friends, and the circle of Paul’s friends includes all of creation and the divine community.

87  O. Christoffersson, The Earnest Expectation of the Creature: The Flood-Tradition as Matrix of Romans 8:18–27, ConBNT 23 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1990), 129–32. 88  See Johann, Trauer und Trost, 63–67, 119–64. 89  J. L. Buller, “The Pathetic Fallacy in Hellenistic Pastoral,” Ramus 10 (1981): 35–52; J. M. Hurwitt, “Palm Trees and the Pathetic Fallacy in Archaic Greek Poetry and Art,” CJ 77 (1982): 193–99; C. Segal, “Dissonant Sympathy: Song, Orpheus, and the Golden Ages in Seneca’s Tragedies,” Ramus 12 (1983): 229–51; J. D. Reed, Bion of Smyrna: The Fragments and the Adonis, Cambridge Classical Texts and Commentary 33 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 125, 215–16. 90  Nature’s sympathy for human suffering should not be confused with the Stoic doctrine of συμπάθεια (sympatheia), which taught the impersonal, causal interconnection of all things. See H. R. Neuenschwander, Mark Aurels Beziehungen zu Seneca und Poseidonios, Noctes Romanae 3 (Stuttgart: Paul Haupt, 1951), 14–23. 91  For groaning as a type of grief, see above n. 4.

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Part III. Other Pauline and Paulinist Passages Rom 2:9, 15; 7:24; 8:17; 9:1–3; 12:12, 15, 21; 15:1–3, 30 1 Cor 4:9–12, 21; 5:2; 7:35; 12:25–26; 13:3; 15:30–33 2 Cor 2:12–16; 5:14–21; 8:2; 11:23–33; 12:7–10, 21 Gal 6:2 Phil 1:8; 2:7; 3:18 1 Thess 1:6; 2:1–2, 7–8, 13–16; 3:3–6; 4:13–18; 5:8, 14 2 Thess 1:4–10 Col 1:24 Eph 3:13; 6:10–17 1 Tim 1:18–20; 4:10 2 Tim 1:8–2:13; 3:10–13; 4:6–8

Part IV. Select Bibliography Classical, Hellenistic, and Greco-Roman Braund, S. M., and C. Gill, ed. The Passions in Roman Thought and Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Buller, J. L. “The Pathetic Fallacy in Hellenistic Pastoral.” Ramus 10 (1981): 35–52. Fowler, R. L. “The Rhetoric of Desperation.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 91 (1987): 6–38. Cyrino, M. S. In Pandora’s Jar: Lovesickness in Early Greek Poetry. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995. Fulkerson, L. No Regrets: Remorse in Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Glibert-Thirry, A. Pseudo-Andronicus De Rhodes: ΠΕΡΙ ΠΑΘΩΝ. Corpus Latinum Commentariorum in Aristotelem Graecorum, Suppl. 2. Leiden: Brill, 1977. Gregg, R. C. Consolation Philosophy: Greek and Christian Paideia in Basil and the Two Gregories. Patristic Monograph Series 3. Cambridge, MA: Philadelphia Patristic Foundation, 1975. Höistad, R. Cynic Hero and Cynic King. Lund: Carl Blom, 1948. Johann, H.-T. Trauer und Trost: Eine quellen- und strukturanalytische Untersuchung der philosophischen Trostschriften über Tod. Studia et Testamonia Antiqua 5. Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 1968. Nussbaum, M. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994. ———Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Perkins, J. The Suffering Self: Pain and Narrative Representation in the Early Christian Era. New York: Routledge, 1995.



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Rothschild, C. K., and T. W. Thompson, ed. Galen’s De Indolentia: Essays on a Newly Discovered Letter. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Strubbe, J. H. M. “Epigrams and Consolation Decrees for Deceased Youth.” L’Antiquité classique 67 (1998): 45–75.

New Testament Fitzgerald, J. Cracks in an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence. SBLDS 99. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. Fitzgerald, J., ed. Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought. New York: Routledge, 2008. Fredrickson, D. Eros and the Christ: Longing and Envy in Paul’s Christology. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013. Glad, C. E. Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy. NovTSup 81. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Malherbe, A. J. Paul and the Popular Philosophers. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989. ———Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987. Talbert, C. H. Learning Through Suffering: The Educational Value of Suffering in the New Testament and in Its Milieu. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1991. Welborn, L. L. An End to Enmity: Paul and the “Wrongdoer” of Second Corinthians. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011. ———“Paul and Pain: Paul’s Emotional Therapy in 2 Corinthians 1.1–2.13; 7.5–16 in the Context of Ancient Psychagogic Literature.” NTS 57 (2011): 547–70.

Chapter 16

Paul, Honor, and Shame David A. deSilva Introduction People raised within the Greco-Roman world, including the people in Judea, were raised to be deeply concerned with how a body of significant others would esteem or fail to esteem them. The implanted desire to be esteemed and aversion toward disgrace—the carefully nurtured sense of shame qua concern for the opinion of others—was a primary mechanism for social control, ensuring that each successive generation would continue to value the ideals and practices that gave a particular culture its distinctive identity and perpetuated its structures. The exploration of the importance and the manifestations of honor and shame in the ancient world owes much to modern cultural anthropological studies of the Mediterranean, but it also rests on the stronger foundation of classical studies and the evidence of the primary, ancient texts themselves. This study begins with an analysis of what ancient metalevel discussions of the art of persuasion can tell us about the role of honor and shame indecision-making on the part of individuals and groups. It proceeds from there to a consideration of special topics pertinent to honor in this environment (competi­tion for honor, honor and gender roles) and thence to an analysis of how honor and shame function in the complex, multi-cultural environment of the Greco-Roman world wherein members of different groups have significantly different ideas of what constitutes honorable and dishonorable behavior, and who must therefore navigate complex social dynamics if they are to remain committed to their own group’s values and practices.

Part I. Honor and Shame in the Greco-Roman World Honor and Disgrace as Behavioral Incentives Honor and shame have justifiably been called “pivotal values” of the ancient Mediterranean world.1 The essential measure of a person in this context is not his or her net Bruce Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology, 3rd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 27. Gerald Downing (“ ‘Honor’ Among Exegetes,” CBQ 61 [1999]:

1 



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worth, but his or her embodiment of what is held in esteem by the community of his or her peers. A comment made in this regard by Seneca, a first-century Roman statesman and philosopher, is telling: “the one firm conviction from which we move to the proof of other points is this: that which is honorable is held dear for no other reason than because it is honorable” (Ben. 4.16.2).2 According to this statement, the “honorable” is a “final topic”—a determinative and decisive value—in his own and, to the extent that he represents them accurately, his contemporaries’ thinking. Urge a person to expend a great deal of money on a public work, and she might ask, “Why should I wish to use my wealth in that way?” Answer her that such a work is an honorable expression of the virtue of generosity and will redound to her fame and the esteem in which she is held in the community, and she will not ask, “And why should I desire honor?” Greek and Latin rhetorical handbooks such as Aristotle’s Art of Rhetoric, Anaximenes’s Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, Cicero’s De Inventione and De Oratore, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, and Quintilian’s Institutes attest to the importance and power of honor and disgrace as principal motivators to action. These are not examples of persuasive literature but, rather, books about how to persuade. They are written at a one-step remove from, or at one level of abstraction above, “normal” communication, providing reflections upon how speakers may harness their audiences’ taken-forgranted values in order to effect persuasion. As meta-level reflections by insiders, these handbooks are especially valuable guides to outsiders on the hierarchies of socio-cultural values in the Greek and Roman world.3 According to Aristotle, deliberative (or advisory) rhetoric focused on the topic of the “expedient” or the “harmful” (Rhet. 1.3.5): people choose one course of action over others because they regard it as leading to greater advantages or away from greater disadvantages. “The advantageous,” as a category, is broader than “the honorable,” as Aristotle recognized that people could be moved to take action based on a number of considerations.4 Nevertheless, he will later point the advisor to considerations of

53–73) issued the caveat that “the issue of honor, of respect in community, is important, and may even on occasion be of prime importance. It does not help to assume—irrespective of the evidence—that it always must be dominant.” To call honor and shame “pivotal” values, of course, is not to claim that they are exclusively valued (so, rightly, Zeba Crook, “Honor, Shame, and Social Status Revisited,” JBL 128 [2009]: 591–611, especially 595). We do need to be aware, however, that the values of honor and shame may be at work even where these values are not explicitly named: “It is not reasonable to demand that whatever values make a social exchange charged will always appear near the surface. It goes without saying that outsiders will sometimes have to work very hard to interpret insider discourse (especially nonverbal discourse), since insiders rarely need to make subtexts explicit” (Crook, “Social Status,” 596). 2  Four centuries earlier, Aristotle had also spoken of “the noble” as “that which is desirable in itself” (Rhet. 1.9.3). 3  For fuller discussions of ancient texts attesting to honor and shame as primary, though by no means not the only, considerations in decision-making, see D. A. deSilva, Despising Shame: Honor Discourse and Community Maintenance in the Epistle to the Hebrews, rev. ed. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008), 39–85; ibid., The Hope of Glory: Honor Discourse and New Testament Interpretation (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 14–26. 4  In his Nicomachian Ethics, Aristotle identified “the noble, beneficial, and pleasant (kalou, sympherontos, hēdeos)” as incentives to action (or “motives of choice”) and “the shameful, harmful, and painful” (aischrou, blaberou, lupērou)” as disincentives to action (Eth. nic. 2.3.7). Later in the same work, these

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honor when they ponder what advice to give, since the orator’s addressees would naturally desire what was praiseworthy. He thus makes a close connection between what is advisable and what is praiseworthy: Praise and counsels have a common aspect; for what you might suggest in counseling becomes encomium by a change in the phrase… Accordingly, if you desire to praise, look what you would suggest; if you desire to suggest, look what you would praise. (Aristotle, Rhet. 1.9.35–36)5

The successful advisor would tend to steer his or her audience toward the honorable course, precisely that course which would be praised in retrospect. Following Aristotle, the unknown author of Rhetorica ad Herennium classifies deliberative rhetoric as concerned with the topic of “advantage.” Advantage, however, consists of two principal subcategories: security and honor (Rhet. Her. 3.2.3). Audiences will be concerned about what course of action leads to security or safety, to be sure, but the other principal consideration focuses on discovering the honorable course of action or avoiding a course that leads to disgrace. This author provides evidence for the correctness in calling honor and shame “pivotal” values: even in cases where considerations of safety outweigh considerations of honor, the orator could not admit the course he promotes to be dishonorable and still expect to prevail (Rhet. Her. 3.5.8–9).6 Quintilian would even go so far as to limit deliberative rhetoric to the consideration of what course of action would be “honorable,” since nothing dishonorable could be truly expedient or advantageous (Inst. 3.8.1). A course would be shown to be honorable if it aligned with a virtue held in esteem by the group, often discussed in terms of the four cardinal virtues of wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage, since possession of these virtues was a component of honor (Rhet. Her. 3.2.3).7 The Rhetorica ad Herennium also highlights the “praiseworthy” as a component of honor, not because what is praiseworthy differs from what is virtuous, but because sometimes one gains more by emphasizing the cause, other times by emphasizing the effect (i.e., promising a heightened reputation and an honorable remembrance, the results of pursuing the virtuous course).8

motives are reduced to two: “Pleasure and nobility (ta hēdea kai ta kala) between them supply the motives of all actions whatsoever” (Eth. nic. 3.1.11 [1110b11–12]). Considerations of the honorable and disgraceful are prominent in both lists. 5  Quintilian (Inst. 3.7.28) would echo this four centuries later: “But panegyric is akin to deliberative oratory inasmuch as the same things are usually praised in the former as are advised in the latter.” 6  The author of the collection of advice known as “To Demonicus” (Ad Demonicam), falsely attributed to Isocrates, also placed the value of honor above one’s personal safety (Demon. 43) and above the value of pleasure as well (Demon. 17). 7  Rhet. Her. 3.3.4–3.3.5 provides an extensive listings of topics pertinent to each of these virtues, and hence to honorable practice. On the relationship between virtue and honor, see also Aristotle, Virt. vit. 1.1–2: “the virtues are objects of praise, and also the causes of the virtues are objects of praise, and the things that accompany the virtues and that result from them, and their works, while the opposite are the objects of blame.” 8  The importance of honor and disgrace as incentives to behavior is also evident from ancient collections of advice, whether Greek in origin (such as the collection of advice To Demonicus) or Jewish in origin (such as LXX Proverbs or Ben Sira). Labeling a behavior or trait “honorable” (kalon) or “shameful”



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The classical rhetorical handbooks also associate a second genre of rhetoric— “epideictic” oratory—closely with honoring and shaming. The quintessential epideictic speech is the funeral oration, an address to honor the dead insofar as the decedent embodied the traits and virtues valued by the larger group.9 Guidelines for composing such orations reveal those facets of a person’s life and achievements that were most valued, what qualities, circumstances, and deeds (as windows into moral habits) were held in esteem by the group to which the individual belonged. These were largely of two kinds: qualities that were accidents of birth or otherwise “external” advantages, and achievements that sprung from the moral excellence of the person himself or herself.10 External advantages included nobility of birth and lineage, education, wealth, offices held, citizenship, friendships and associates, and physical characteristic like strength, beauty, and health. Qualities of character consisted of the moral virtues manifested in deeds, practices, and habits.11 The eulogy served to reinforce a society’s values by holding up those individuals who have exemplified those values as praiseworthy, honorable members of the group, thus rousing the audience to emulate the deceased with a view to their own honorable remembrance.12 A peculiarity of praising someone in an honor culture is this dynamic of emulation. Plutarch remarked that hearing others praised for the attainment of some goal that also lay within the grasp of the hearers would motivate the latter to pursue that goal with zeal (De laude [“On Inoffensive Self-Praise”] 15 [Mor. 544D]). Thucydides, writing centuries earlier, concurred, adding the caveat that “praise of other people is tolerable only up to a certain point, the point where one still believes that one could do oneself some of the things one is hearing about. Once you get beyond this point, you will find people becoming jealous and incredulous” (Hist. 2.35.2). These comments provide important insights into the way an audience or readership would respond to periods of praise or censure in a speech or document.

(aischron), or naming honor or shame as the consequence of a particular behavior or trait, is often all the sanction that the author deems necessary to promote or discourage that behavior or trait. 9  Epideictic rhetoric appeared in many other venues and served a variety of functions. According to Quintilian, elements of epideictic rhetoric were routinely incorporated into judicial speeches as a defendant might be alternatively praised by the defense attorney or by character witnesses and censured by the prosecutor and witnesses for the prosecution. The gods, the living, and the inanimate (like cities, abstract virtues, or public works) were also subjects for encomia (Inst. 3.7.2–6, 26–27; see also Rhet. Her. 3.8.15). 10  These categories reflect what anthropologists refer to as “ascribed honor” and “acquired honor” (Malina, New Testament World, 32–33) or, in terms preferred by Zeba Crook, “attributed” and “distributed” honor (“Social Status,” 610). 11  Extensive lists of topics under which a person’s honor might be developed and celebrated appear in Rhet. Her. 3.6.10–11, 13–15; Aristotle, Rhet. 1.9.3–36; also in Theon, Exercises 9; Hermogenes, Preliminary Exercises 7 (available in George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003], 50–52, 81–83). On encomia as windows into honor in the classical world, see deSilva, Despising Shame, 50–53; Bruce J. Malina and J. H. Neyrey, Portraits of Paul: An Archaeology of Ancient Personality (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 19–63. 12  See G. A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation Through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 19.

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People in the Greek and Roman world, which include the people of Judea, were thus highly attuned to honor and dishonor (or shame). Being thus oriented toward the approval and disapproval of others, individuals would tend to seek to embody the qualities and to perform the behaviors held to be “honorable” by the larger society and to avoid behaviors that caused one’s estimation in the eyes of others to drop. Honoring and shaming became powerful tools for promoting conformity with the values and practices that the larger group needed for individuals to adopt for the continued survival and functioning of the group (the values and practices that would henceforth characterize the “honorable” person). While a person could have self-respect in terms of his or her awareness of being well aligned with the core values of the group, the affirmation of the group remained important—without it, the individual would need strategies for overcoming the cognitive dissonance that would result. This sense of shame before the larger group—this “kind of pain or uneasiness in respect of misdeeds, past, present, or future, which seem to tend to bring dishonor” (Aristotle, Rhet. 2.6.2)—was a powerful, internalized mechanism that could be exploited by the group or its representatives for the sake of implementing social control. As Aristotle himself commented, “there are many things which they either do or do not do owing to the feeling of shame which these men [i.e., the public whose opinion matters to the doers] inspire” (Rhet. 2.6.26).13 A group would take measures (e.g., reproach, physical abuse, social or economic marginalization) to shame the transgressor with a view to rehabilitating the transgressor (if correction were possible) and also reinforcing other group members’ aversion to committing such transgressions themselves.

Honor in Agonistic Cultures: Cooperation and Competition The honor and shame culture of the Greek and Roman Mediterranean was complex in terms of knowing to whom to give the honor that was due and knowing at whose expense one might win honor for oneself. On the one hand, nemesis guards against “the deliberate dishonouring of those one should honour.”14 The gods, rulers, and parents were all to be shown respect at all times. Similarly, one’s patrons were to be given honor unfailingly as one component of a response of gratitude, which recipients of favor were obliged to make.15 Challenging the honor of such persons was not an 13  The threat of dishonor supported prohibitions of socially disruptive behavior. Adultery, the violation of the marriage bond that was a layer of bedrock for society and well as the channel for producing legitimate heirs that perpetuated the internal lines of that society, promises disgrace (cf. Prov 6:32–33). Dissensions and strife bring the threat of disgrace for a city, the orderly life of which requires internal harmony and unity (cf. Dio, Or. 48.5–6). Irrevocable dishonor, and with it exclusion from future patronage, threatened those who might fail to show gratitude to their patron or benefactors (Dio, Or. 31), whose continued generosity was essential to the ancient city and its inhabitants (Seneca, Ben. 1.4.2). 14  N. R. E. Fisher, Hybris: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greece (Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1992), 193. 15  According to Seneca, “the giving and receiving of benefits” was “the chief bond of human society” (Ben. 1.4.2). Perhaps the most important studies of the phenomenon of patronage are R. P. Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), and F. W.



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opportunity to win honor for oneself, but only an opportunity to invite disgrace in the eyes of the public who regarded these obligations as sacred. On the other hand, those who were social equals could compete with one another for honor at one another’s expense. Anthropologists speak of such exchanges in terms of “challenge” and “riposte.” Honor and “precedence” go hand-in-hand. The former can be established abstractly or individually; the latter is established only in competition with others as one distinguishes oneself above one’s peers, one’s social equals with whom competition is proper (rather than an affront). Sometimes a challenge takes the form of an attack, whether a taunt or a rebuke of someone’s practice or a more direct attack that potentially demonstrates a peer to be weaker. The person challenged must respond in such a way as to demonstrate that he is not, in fact, weaker, or must answer challenges to his virtue or his alignment with the group’s values, or else he will lose face to the challenger. The success of the challenge and the riposte is determined by the public witnesses. “The victor in any competition for honour finds his reputation enhanced by the humiliation of the vanquished.”16 Seducing a man’s wife was (and remains) a potent challenge to that man’s honor; the cuckold must answer the challenge in a way that will remind the public that he is not a man to be made a fool of, or else his shame will cling to him. Jesus’ exchanges with the Pharisees and other groups who challenge his behavior or his disciples’ behavior, or who pose questions to trip him up, are good examples of this social dynamic at work.17 Such competition can even manifest itself within friendship. Allowing another to do more or greater favors than one does for the other threatens to turn a relationship between social equals into a relationship between unequals, forcing one party into the junior, and then into the inferior position. Thus (Pseudo-) Isocrates advises: “consider it equally disgraceful to be outdone by your enemies in doing injury and to be surpassed by your friends in doing kindness” (Demon. 26). “Boasting”—claiming honor for oneself on the basis of one’s achievements or actions—is an almost conventional behavior in this world. Praising oneself is always a risky business and needs to be done in the right way (witness Plutarch’s treatise “On Inoffensive Self-Praise”). Nevertheless, stating the facts, as it were, and asking the audience implicitly to judge for itself whether the claim to honor is justified is certainly a well-attested practice. If the claim has merit, such “boasting” is neither arrogant nor inappropriate. Robert Jewett calls attention to Augustus’s Res Gestae, Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field (St. Louis, MO: Clayton Publishing House, 1982). See also D. A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000), 95–156; idem, “Exchanging Favor for Wrath: Apostasy in Hebrews and Patron-Client Relations,” JBL 115 (1996): 91–116. The following classical sources are priceless as first-hand witnesses to the practice: Seneca, On Benefits (De beneficiis); Dio Chrysostom, Oration 31 (“To the Rhodian Assembly”); Pliny, Letters, Book X (containing many requests of favors addressed to the emperor Trajan on behalf of Pliny’s clients). 16  Julian Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status,” in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society, ed. J. G. Peristiany (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965), 21–77, especially 27. 17  See especially Luke 13:10–17, and observe how the result of the exchange is that the synagogue audience has greater esteem for Jesus while those who challenged him are the ones who ended up put to shame.

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in which Octavian lists his achievements and public benefactions and the honors he was awarded as a result, as a supreme example of this mindset.18 Archaeological sites around the Mediterranean attest to the self-congratulatory spirit of those who sought and claimed honor on the basis of their public services or public works. Erastus of Corinth lets every pedestrian know that the pavement they walk upon is a testimony to his beneficence, particularly in response to his being awarded the office of aedile. Babbius Philenus, also of Corinth, erected an ample circular monument to commemorate his holding of the offices of aedile, pontifex, and duovir in that city.19 Even those who erected monuments in honor of someone else rarely fail to enhance their own honor as well. For example, Mazaeus and Mithridates, two of Augustus’s most successful freedmen, erected a gate to the main agora in Ephesus in honor of Augustus.20 The inscription, however, bearing their names quite prominently, makes this no less a monument immortalizing their success, their public benefaction, and their virtue in honoring their patron. In these examples, the inherent claim to honor is made—quite literally—at one’s own expense rather than at another’s expense, as in the “challenge–riposte” interaction described above.

Honor and Gender Many virtues were universal in application. Women could display courage and endurance as well as any man—and sometimes far better.21 Members of both genders were expected to show justice, piety, temperance, and prudence. There were, however, some unmistakable differences as well in terms of how honorable women behaved: for women, honor was closely linked to sexuality and visibility.22 Men occupied the public spaces; women generally remained in the private spaces of the home or in those public spaces that were more typically populated by other women. When they left the home, they were careful to avoid conversation with other men. Plutarch, for example, wrote that women should be visible in public when they are with their husbands but should hide themselves at home when he is away (Conj. praec. [“Advice on Marriage”] 9; Mor. 139C). Her speech, like her body, should be reserved for her husband, through whom she should speak to others (Conj. praec. 31–32; Mor. 142C–D). Three centuries before, the Jerusalem-based sage Ben Sira similarly praised the silence, modesty, and self-restraint of an honorable wife (Sir 26:13–18). Thucydides perhaps offers the most extreme view when he calls that woman most honorable of whom there is least talk among men, whether of good or ill (Hist. 2.45.2). 18  “Paul, Shame and Honor,” in Paul and the Greco-Roman World, ed. J. P. Sampley (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003), 551–74, especially 554–55. 19  John Fotopoulos, Food Offered to Idols in Roman Corinth: A Socio-rhetorical Reconsideration, WUNT 2/151 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003), 133, 156. 20  Jerome Murphy O’Connor, St. Paul’s Ephesus: Texts and Archaeology (Collegeville, MN: Michael Glazier, 2008), 197–98; Mark Wilson, Biblical Turkey: A Guide to the Jewish and Christian Sites of Asia Minor (Istanbul: Ege Yayinlari, 2010), 217–18. 21  See, for example, the women celebrated in Plutarch’s treatise “On the Bravery of Women” (Mulierum virtutes), in the book of Judith, or in 4 Maccabees. 22  This is true even for the heroines of Judith (13:6) and 4 Maccabees (see 4 Macc 17:1; 18:6–9).



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Such a delineation of the virtues and sphere proper to the honorable woman results from the fact that a woman’s identity and honor are embedded in the identity and honor of some male (her father, while unmarried; generally her husband, once and while married). A loose woman does not merely bring disgrace upon herself, but also upon the man in whom she is embedded, since he has failed to keep her under control. A man might also challenge another man’s honor through approaching a woman “embedded” in him; again, a weakness on her part is a point of vulnerability in her father’s or husband’s rearguard against disgrace. These dynamics help to account for Ben Sira’s (to us reprehensible) comment that a daughter’s birth is a liability (Sir 42:9–14) and his strong words about the potential loss incurred through women (Sir 26:10–12).

Honor and Shame in Complex Cultural Settings Specific groups in specific periods provide the content of what is considered honorable or disgraceful.23 An essential factor in the Greco-Roman environment is the existence of diverse and often competing cultures or groups, each with its own matrix of what constitutes honorable or dishonorable behavior. This makes for a much more complex dynamic than exists for the Bedouin tribe that lives in relative isolation on the southeastern fringes of the Roman empire, whose members do not rub shoulders extensively with people whose ideas of what is honorable (or how a particular virtue is to be expressed in practice) differ markedly from their own, whose members do not experience being shamed for what they hold to be honorable nor see others honored for what they hold to be shameful. Roman and Greek elites (“dominant cultures”), non-elites (the “majority cultures”), Jews (an “ethnic subculture,” with its own internal differentiations), philosophical schools (voluntary groups that are often “countercultures”), the emerging Christian movement (which has a complex relationship with regard to each of these other groups)—each group defined what was noble and shameful in its own way. There was often significant overlap, but the equally significant differences created a complex environment in which members of one group might experience being shamed for the very things that were central to its own definition of the honorable. For a group to persevere, maintaining its own distinctive identity, culture, and values, it needed to develop mechanisms for dealing with the assaults of mixed messages its members received. We can take for our example here the challenges facing Jews in this environment. There were no doubt many villages in Judea wherein Jews lived out their lives in relative isolation from other cultural groups and the social dynamics they brought with them—though certainly not ignorant of these other groups and their vastly differing values and practices. In the urbanized centers throughout Palestine and, even more so, throughout the Diaspora, the challenges would be far more acute. Central to the values of the Jewish group were the worship of one and only one God and living in line with the regulations of the Torah, a good number of which focused on the making

23 

Pitt-Rivers, “Honour and Social Status,” 38.

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of distinctions between the “clean” and the “unclean” in replication of, and to a great extent facilitating, the God-decreed distinction between the Jew and the Gentile. To the non-Jew, these commitments and practices were not the perfect expression of piety, but its absolute breach. The Jew’s piety is interpreted as “atheism,” denying all gods but one the service due them (and even denying their existence); the Jew’s loyalty to the ancestral law is perceived as misoxenia, a hatred for outsiders, from whom Jews tended to hold apart as a practical result of their food laws, monolatry, and formation of their own markets.24 To be a Jew was essentially to be in perpetual dishonor in the eyes of many non-Jews. This was most likely expressed simply as a perpetually simmering disdain and the occasional verbal sneer, but could erupt into attempts at all-out genocide as in Alexandria during the reign of Gaius.25 In addition to disincentives to perseverance in the Jewish way of life, there were incentives to abandon it (or, at least, make room for a much more relaxed interpretation of its boundaries). Accommodation or apostasy was often seen as the path to individual or even national advancement (as seen in the career of Tiberius Julius Alexander, a nephew of Philo who became procurator of Judea, prefect of Egypt, and a prominent general under Titus during the Jewish War, or in the Hellenizing Reforms under the high priest Jason in 175–172 BCE).26 The Jew is thus confronted by a dilemma: following Torah may lead to honor in the sight of other observant Jews, but it appears to lead away from honor and even to contempt in the sight of the dominant and majority cultures. How can a Jew remain a loyal Jew in such a world? It is vitally important, in such a setting, to carefully define who belongs to one’s group of significant others—that court whose opinion of one’s honor matters—and to know why the opinion of other parties is neither valid nor worth considering. The “court of reputation” is limited to other, Torah-observant Jews, who will reinforce traditional Jewish values in their grants of honor and censure. Non-Jews and lapsed Jews may openly scorn and shame the Jew who walks in the way of Torah, but their opinion and the pressure they apply cannot be allowed to erode the loyal Jew’s commitment to his or her convictions and practice. Two topics that are frequently used to insulate a group’s members from the opinion and social pressure of non-group

Sample criticisms leveled against Jews by non-Jewish authors can be found in Diodorus of Sicily 34.1–4; 40.3.4; Tacitus, Hist. 5.5; Juvenal, Sat. 14.100–104; also as reported in 3 Macc 3:3–7; LXX Esth 13:4–5; Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.121, 258. On ancient Anti-Judaism, see J. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 35–112; Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 87–176. This is not to say that the Jewish way of life did not at the same time attract admiration and even emulation, as Feldman (Jew and Gentile, 201–415) also amply demonstrates, but this was more the opinion of a learned minority among Gentiles. 25  See the moving accounts in Philo, Against Flaccus. 26  On Tiberius Julius Alexander, see E. G. Turner, “Tiberius Iulius Alexander,” JRS 44 (1954): 54–64; J. M. Modzrejewski, The Jews of Egypt (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1995), 185–90. On the Hellenistic Reform, see 1 Macc 1:1–15; 2 Macc 4:7–17; Viktor Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1959), 152–74; Martin Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974), 267–309. 24 



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members are the ignorance and the vice (and, hence, shamelessness) of the latter. If outsiders heap contempt upon the Torah-observant Jew (in our example), it is because they lack genuine knowledge of the cosmos and the honorable, as reflected in their own disordered lives. Concern for grants of honor and shame from such people could only lead one into similar error and folly. The author of Wisdom of Solomon, for example, gives considerable attention to developing both the ignorance and viciousness of both the lapsed Jew and the Gentile. Lapsed Jews, who have betrayed their training, have committed the supreme folly of deciding that the present life is all that there is and therefore all that matters (Wis 1:16–2:5). This, in turn, leads them to commit injustice, to live for pleasure rather than for what is noble in God’s sight, and even to shame and affront the righteous Jew, whose fidelity is a constant reproach to their own life choices (2:6–20; incidentally an indication of the challenge that the faithful Jewish community poses to the security of lapsed Jews in their life choices). Their values and practices are ultimately based on “reasoning unsoundly” (2:1), on their failure to discern God’s purposes for human existence (2:21–24), leaving them ignorant and susceptible to errant behavior. Future events, however, will reveal to them and to all their error. If not in this life, certainly in the hereafter it is they who will come to perpetual disgrace while the honor of the righteous and loyal Jew will be vindicated by God (3:1–13; 4:16–5:23). Armed with such a view, the loyal Jew may better resist both the enticements that draw the apostate and the social pressures that the apostates may inflict in the attempt to shame the loyal Jew into assimilation. Gentiles are presented similarly as enshrouded by gross ignorance of God and virtue, of genuine piety and honorable practice (13:1–9; 14:22– 31). What they call “piety” is the result of easily explained errors (13:10–14:21); their criticism of Jews as “atheists” betrays their ignorance of the very human origins of their own pseudo-religious practices. Their opinion of the loyal Jew, if taken seriously, will only lead the loyal Jew astray from what is truly honorable or shameful.27 Introducing a supra-social entity into the in-group—here, the one and only genuine God—offsets the minority (and therefore deviant) status of the minority group’s opinion. Life is played out prominently before God, and the opinion that God forms of the individual’s honor or lack thereof is what is of paramount importance, since God’s opinion carries eternal consequences for the individual’s fate. The social pressure that outsiders can apply recedes in importance: the loyal Jew’s experience of disgrace can only last as long as this life, but his or her experience of being honored by God for his or her loyalty to God’s covenant—an experience already enjoyed in this life (Wis 7:27–28) and reinforced by the community of loyal Jews—will last for eternity beyond this life (Wis 3:1–9; 5:15–16).28 The traditional Jewish way of life is

27  Greco-Roman philosophers similarly contrast the unworthy opinion of the many, who are not guided by a commitment to philosophical inquiry, and the opinion of those few who do examine reality in the light of philosophical truth (Plato, Cri. 44C; 46C–47A; Seneca, Constant. 11.2–12.1; 13.2, 5; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.29.50–54). 28  Greco-Roman philosophers similarly direct their adherents to live with a view to achieving honor in the sight of God rather than in the sight of the uninitiated (see, e.g., Plato, Gorg. 526D–527D; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.30.1).

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thus supported by a “court of reputation” of infinitely greater import than the court of opinion formed by its detractors. Experiences of being shamed or otherwise marginalized by outsiders may even be reinterpreted as opportunities for or badges of honor within the community of loyal Jews. Thus the experiences intended by their perpetrators to discourage Jews from persevering in their distinctive and, to them, offensive way of life actually become incentives to persevere. In Wisdom of Solomon, we find the experience of being shamed by lapsed Jews interpreted as God’s formative discipline and God’s testing and proving of the loyal Jew: “Having been disciplined (paideuthentes) a little, they will be greatly benefited, because God tested them and proved them to be worthy of himself; he tried them like gold in the furnace, and he received them like a burnt offering” (3:5–6). The experience becomes an opportunity to prove one’s worth to God through perseverance in loyalty to God, rendered endurable—and even noble— by the end result in God’s estimation and future. It is also interpreted in terms of education or discipline, which often involved experiences otherwise humiliating or painful, but which is rendered noble by the character and skills that it forms.29 In other texts, the framing image of the athletic contest can be used to turn an experience of being degraded into a contest of commitment that the loyal Jew can win by persevering against all that the antagonist has to throw at him or her (see, e.g., 4 Macc. 11:20; 16:16; 17:11–16). The image works well since the athlete often must endure significant pain and deprivation on the way to an honorable victory.30 Within the community of loyal Jews, leaders and other community-shapers can remind the group of the honor they enjoy by virtue of remaining faithful members of that community. Thus the author of Wisdom of Solomon reminds his hearers that the path to lasting honor remains a commitment to pursue wisdom, which is particularly the knowledge revealed by Israel’s God in the Torah. Wisdom still leads to honor and a good reputation in this life (Wis 8:10), even though the ignorant may get in the way of this. She teaches what will please God, who awards the final honor and disgrace (9:10, 18). Failure to pursue this wisdom results in a failure to know what things are truly noble (ta kala, 10:8), but pursuing wisdom means acquiring the virtues also prized by the non-Jewish world: “her labors are virtues; for she teaches self-control and prudence, justice and courage; nothing in life is more profitable for mortals than these” (8:7).31 Encouragement and support among group members will often need to be intentionally and energetically pursued, so that individual members will feel the

29  Thus the famous dictum, “The roots of education are bitter, but its fruits sweet” (variously attributed to Isocrates or Aristotle). This interpretative frame is used more extensively in Seneca, De Providentia and Heb 12:5–11. See N. Clayton Croy, Endurance in Suffering: Hebrews 12.1–13 in its Rhetorical, Religious, and Philosophical Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 139–56, 192–209. 30  This image was also popular among Greco-Roman philosophical minority groups (see, e.g., Epictetus, Diatr. 1.18.21; 1.24.1–2; 3.22.56; Dio, Or. 8.15–16). See, further, Victor Pfitzner, Paul and the Agon Motif: Traditional Athletic Imagery in the Pauline Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1967); Croy, Endurance in Suffering, 37–76. 31  The claim that Jews—and only Torah-observant Jews—fulfill the highest ideals prized even by Greek and Roman culture is more forcefully advanced in 4 Macc 1:15–17; 5:22–24; 7:18–19; 9:18.



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strongest attachments to fellow group members, will have the group’s values consistently reinforced and held before the eyes, and will be more concerned about the esteem of the group than any other social body.32

Part II. Honor and Shame in the Letters of Paul: 1 Thessalonians as a Test Case In light of the foregoing discussion, Paul can be understood as highly attentive to honor and to the particular dynamics of facilitating perseverance in a minority group that is considered deviant by the majority and that is subjected to a variety of shaming—that is, deviancy-control—tactics. His first letter to the Christians in Thessalonica provides a suitable test case. In this brief text, Paul exhibits his concern over the converts’ experiences of and responses to being shamed (“persecuted”) and employs the full range of techniques available to him to insulate his converts against this social pressure while redirecting their ambitions for honor and concerns against disgrace in such a way as will nurture ongoing commitment to their new convictions and practices. Paul speaks of the Thessalonian Christians’ situation as one of “trial” or “hardship” (thlipsis, 1 Thess 1:6; 3:3–4; cf. 2 Thess 1:4, 6) and refers to the believers suffering hardships inflicted by their neighbors in Thessalonica (paschein, 1 Thess 2:14; cf. 2 Thess 1:5). An important component of the setting of this epistle is the hostility of the Christians’ neighbors and the effects of this response upon the Christians’ newfound commitments to the Gospel and to the community formed around this message.33 This hostility is intelligible, as their neighbors’ attempt to express their lack of approval of the shifts in allegiance and practice reflected in the behavior of those in their midst who have converted to this foreign superstition. They are attempting to shame their deviant neighbors back into the commitments and practices from which the wandering missionary Paul had turned them. The reasons for their neighbors’ disapproval are evident when one stops to consider the import of the converts’ reorientation: “you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and a genuine God and to wait for his son from the heavens, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath” (1 Thess 1:9–10). The turning described here involved the converts in a withdrawal from everything

32  For more detailed analyses of these dynamics at work in Hellenistic- and Roman-period Jewish texts, see D. A. deSilva, “The Noble Contest: Honor, Shame, and the Rhetorical Strategy of 4 Maccabees,” JSP 13 (1995): 31–57; idem, “The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of the Values of a Minority Culture,” CBQ 58 (1996): 433–55. 33  Leon Morris, The First and Second Epistles to the Thessalonians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 48; C. A. Wanamaker, The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1990), 81; contra A. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 44–48.

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their neighbors would have recognized as piety, from every practice that showed the converts to be people who gave the gods and the rulers their due reverence and allegiance and, thus, to be people who could be relied upon to do their duty to the city and the family as well.34 A reputation for piety was an essential component of personal honor.35 Since practices involving idolatrous expressions of piety were interwoven into many domestic, social, civic, and business functions, refusing to participate in these practices would either be very conspicuous, were one to continue to be present, or lead to an equally conspicuous withdrawal from social interactions, inviting further criticism for a lack of commitment to showing solidarity and unity with one’s neighbors and associates.36 The Christian hope and expectation (“waiting for his Son,” etc.) sounded more like revolution and a perverse desire for the rending of the fabric of the Roman peace, upon which civic and personal well-being depended, with the return of some (duly executed) messiah/revolutionary to establish a new regime. To many, this would be viewed as a most unwelcome upheaval, not “salvation” in any sense. The converts were thus subjected to “persecution,” the forms of unofficial harassment typically suffered by people whose commitments and practices seriously contravene social values with the aim of shaming and coercing them to move back into the acceptable range of social practice.37 Paul shows himself to have been very much concerned with the effects of their neighbors’ shaming and other deviancy-control efforts upon his converts. Prior to writing 1 Thessalonians, he had sent Timothy back to Thessalonica (being unable to return himself due to his own having become persona non grata in the city; cf. Acts 17:5–10) to consolidate their commitment to their new allegiances and practices in the face of their neighbors’ shaming (3:1–5), lest they be “shaken” (3:3) by their neighbors’ responses. Paul follows up this visit with a letter from himself in which he

34  Plutarch regarded piety toward the gods (and the belief in their rule) as the bedrock of government: “It would be easier to build a city without the ground it stands on than to establish or sustain a government without religion” (“Reply to Colotes” 31, Mor. 1125E [cf. the whole paragraph in Mor. 1125D–E]; translation mine). On the importance of honoring the emperor and Roman benefactors in cultic venues in Thessalonica, see the evidence gathered in Holland Hendrix, “Thessalonicans Honor Romans” (ThD diss., Harvard University Press, 1984); Charles Edson, “Macedonia, II. State Cults in Thessalonica,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 51 (1940): 127–36; idem, “Macedonia, III. Cults of Thessalonica,” HTR 41 (1948): 105–204. 35  Thus Pseudo-Isocrates advises his readers: “Revere the gods, both by performing sacrifices and keeping your vows. Honor the gods at all times, but all the more at public festivals. This will give you the reputation for being pious and law-abiding” (To Demonicus 13; translation mine). 36  R. A. Markus (Christianity in the Roman World [London: Thames & Hudson, 1974], 24–47) provides a helpful discussion of the suspicion that such self-separating groups would attract. Ramsey MacMullen (Paganism in the Roman Empire [New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1981], 40) rightly observes that “there existed…no form of social life…that was entirely secular. Small wonder, then, that Jews and Christians, holding themselves aloof from anything the gods touched, suffered under the reputation of misanthropy.” 37  William Neil (The Epistle of Paul to the Thessalonians [Naperville: Alec R. Allenson, 1957], 64) and Robert Jewett (The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986], 93–94) have both recognized that the society’s opposition weighed heavily on the minds of the new converts, causing them to question the correctness and validity of their new commitments.



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seeks to “supply what is lacking in [their] faith” (which he would have preferred to do in person, 3:10), that is, to further continue the work of cementing their commitment in the face of their neighbors’ rejection and pressures (and in the face of questions that have arisen that might erode commitment from within, e.g., 4:13–18). A number of passages would serve to reinforce the boundaries of the “court of reputation” before whose eyes the converts are to have a concern about their honor, both positively in terms of the construction of this court of reputation and negatively in terms of exclusion of parties from the same. Paul keeps the primary significant Other—God—in clear focus throughout the letter. The thanksgiving section in this letter, as in other Pauline letters, provides a consistent reminder that it is before God that the authors and addressees are conducting their lives and ministries, as well as a reminder of those things that have positive value before God and are even signs of God’s action among them, since God is “thanked” for these things (1:2–3; cf. 2 Thess 1:3). Pleasing God above pleasing human beings is a feature of Paul’s own example (2:4), the example the converts are imitating (1:6), and a goal that the converts are called to keep before them (4:1). Having God’s approval far outweighs the benefits of having their neighbors’ approval, since God’s approval or disapproval carries far more lasting promise or consequences (1 Thess 1:5; 2:19–20; 3:13; 5:9; 2 Thess 1:6–9). Paul also calls attention to the company of the “brothers and sisters” who now form their primary reference group, a new family with similar responsibilities to one another, a reference group formed by God’s selection of each convert (1:4). He seeks to nurture ever more meaningful interaction between converts, especially interactions that reinforce group convictions, values, and practices as they “encourage one another” (5:11; cf. 5:14), “build one another up” (5:10), “extend to one another the love of sisters and brothers” more and more (4:9–10; cf. 3:12), “do good to one another” (5:15), and “comfort one another” (4:18). As feelings of attachment within the group become more important to the convert than feelings of disconnectedness from non-Christian family and neighbors, the approval of fellow Christians will become more important than the opinion of outsiders as well. Paul’s own expressions of his affection for his converts (and of theirs for him) probably also serve this end (2:7b–12a; 2:17–3:1, 6–10). The local Christian community is but one chapter of a larger court of reputation formed by the churches of God in all of Macedonia, Achaia, and Judea, among other sites (1:7–9a; 2:14–16), a trans-local reference group whose breadth of existence serves to reinforce the correctness of the group’s values and, thus, of thinking about honor and disgrace in terms of those values. At the same time, a good number of remarks would serve to exclude the converts’ neighbors from this court of reputation as people whose approval or disapproval is equally valueless, given their distance from the truth and their own shameful behavior. Paul speaks of the non-Christians in Thessalonica as people given over to shameful lust and ignorance of God (4:5; evident also in these neighbors serving idols rather than the true and living God, 1:9–10), a familiar pair in Hellenistic Jewish anti-Gentile polemic (cf. Rom 1:18–32; Wis 13:1–9; 14:22–27; Eph 4:18–19). The outsiders are ignorant of the real nature of the moment, proclaiming “peace and security” when the cataclysmic climax of human history draws ever closer (1 Thess 5:3). They belong to the night and to the darkness (a common image for ignorance and error) rather

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than to the day and to the light, as do the converts (5:5). They go through life with as much awareness of the real issues at stake as people who sleep through the day or who stumble in a drunken stupor (5:6–7). Their censure is to be taken as seriously as the insults that the drunkard spits out at passers-by; their opinion as to honorable and censurable behavior is equally enlightened as the drunkard’s advice. The social separation that has emerged between the converts and their neighbors (created, in part, by the former’s withdrawal from contexts where idols are worshiped) is anchored in God’s will for them—it is “sanctification” (4:3), being “set apart” for God, and thus a supremely positive step in the eyes of God (though obviously not in the eyes of their neighbors). Their neighbors are depicted as agents of the “Tempter” (3:5) and the pressure their shaming inflicted is “temptation” aimed at leading the converts away from the path that leads to the safety “from the coming wrath” that their having turned to the One God affords (1:10). These outsiders are hindering God’s purposes, and thus displeasing God, as surely as the Jewish Christ-followers’ neighbors in Judea, whom they are imitating (2:14). The goal of shaming is to make the shamed feel deviant, like they had fallen out of order and needed to alter their behavior as a result. Paul normalizes the experience of being made to feel like deviants, thus potentially defusing its power. He reminds the converts that he and his team had prepared them for this response from their neighbors in advance (3:3–4). The same response had befallen Paul (1:6; 2:1–2), the churches in Judaea at the hands of their neighbors (2:14), and now the converts in Thessalonica (1:6; 2:14). The converts are thus equipped to look upon the experience of being shamed not as a sign that something is wrong with themselves, but as a sign that a well-worn pattern continues to be enacted—and thus, in fact, there is nothing wrong at all. Rather than allow the social pressure exerted by such people to influence their commitments, then, converts are to continue to look to one another, to God, and especially to the Christian leaders as reliable, honorable guides to right knowledge and conduct. Paul specifically exhorts the converts to hold their local church leaders in high esteem and show them respect as they exercise oversight and give guidance to the community (5:12–13). Paul also seeks to reassure and remind the converts of his own reliability and sincerity as a messenger of God (1:5; 2:1–12), thus reinforcing their certainty in the new path they have begun to walk as a result of his work among them as well as their confidence in his ongoing guidance and assurance.38 Paul also addresses the honor that the converts have (in the estimation of those who are better equipped to evaluate what is truly honorable anyway) as a result of the same choices and changes that brought them into disfavor with their neighbors. Compensating them for the loss of esteem they have suffered in society’s eyes. Paul himself honors them for their “work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness” (1:3), for their reception of the gospel in the face of society’s opposition (1:6; 38  It is not likely that rival teachers have called the integrity of Paul and his team into question (as in Galatia or Corinth), but they may have come under attack from the converts’ neighbors, who mock them for having been taken advantage of by this Jewish charlatan as part of their attempt to dislodge them from their new commitments and practices embraced as a result of their heeding Paul.



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2:13–14).39 The fact that Paul gives God thanks for these aspects of the community’s life expressed not only his team’s approval of the converts’ progress, but also presupposes God’s approval (even God’s hand at work in this progress). He speaks of them having been particularly selected by God to respond to the good news about God’s Son and to experience this change of allegiance, orientation, and practice, making their conversion itself the mark of divine privilege and, therefore, honorable status (1:4; 2:12; cf. 2 Thess 1:11–12; 2:14). While the converts suffer loss in terms of their reputation among locals, they have a growing reputation among the churches throughout the regions of Macedonia (of which Thessalonica was the capital) and Achaia. They have experienced thus a net increase in honor because of their eager reception of the gospel, their welcome of God’s emissaries, and their endurance of affliction—that is, their endurance of their neighbors’ attempts to shame them into conformity once again (1:6–10; cf. 2 Thess 1:3–4).40 Specifically, what caused them to lose their neighbors’ approval and esteem becomes the believers’ claim to fame among all the churches in Greece (1:9–10). Paul also holds out the promise of future honor and vindication—and the threat of future dishonor for the group’s opponents (and those who succumb to their pressures)—as incentives to follow the course which will promote the survival of the group and its distinctive values as the path to one’s own honor and security. To this belong the passages in which Paul urges converts to continue to make their choices with an eye toward attaining the honor and security which Jesus will provide for his faithful clients on the Day of the Lord (1:9–10; 2:11–12; 3:12–13; 5:9, 23; cf. 2 Thess 1:6–10). Their reception of the Gospel has given these converts an incomparable advantage over their neighbors in regard to the day of the Divine Assize and the possibility of being honored or disgraced eternally before that court of reputation (1:10; 5:4–10). Paul himself charts his own course fully with a view to being honored on that Day on account of his faithfulness to his commission and his fruitfulness in regard to the same: “For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? For you are our glory and joy” (2:19–20). His selfrespect comes from his own preparedness for that Day; he needs no further affirmation from outsiders. Within the group, it is possible both to confer honor upon those who embody the group’s values and norms and to shame members into conforming more fully (e.g., admonishing the idle or unruly, 5:14; cf. 2 Thess 3:6, 14–15). At a number of points, Paul holds out the hope that outsiders may come to a new evaluation of Christ-followers. When he advises the converts not to “repay anyone evil for evil” (5:15), he speaks in part at least to the parameters within which Christians may offer “ripostes” to outsiders’ “challenges” to their honor. The Christians are

39  Wanamaker comments that the “theme of praise” introduced in 1 Thess 1:2–3, 6–9 serves “a paranetic goal throughout the letter” (Epistles, 49). The thanksgiving section functions as much more than a captatio benevolentiae, assuring the addressees of the authors’ good will and putting them in a receptive frame of mind. 40  Wanamaker (Epistles, 80) recognizes how 1 Thess 1:6 constitutes “a subtle piece of parenesis inculcating perseverance in all circumstances through imitation of Paul and the Lord Jesus.” Cf. also E. Richard, First and Second Thessalonians (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007), 50–51.

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instead to “do good to one another and to all” (5:15), committing themselves to act as benefactors even to their unsupportive and hostile neighbors. It may happen that the converts will begin to dispel their neighbors’ suspicion as they embody more completely the virtues of generosity and goodness that even their neighbors must recognize and respond to with gratitude rather than dishonor. Paul also challenges them to “behave becomingly toward outsiders” (4:12) to the extent possible and to give as little occasion for legitimate shaming as possible. Even while the converts must remain detached from their neighbors’ opinion, their lifestyle is not to confirm their neighbors’ opinion of them as disruptive, dissentious, non-contributing parts of the social body except where unavoidable (e.g., in withdrawal from idolatry in every form). Many passages in 1 Thessalonians, therefore, work together to exclude outsiders from the court of reputation, such that neither honor nor shame in the eyes of such people should exercise pressure on the convert’s commitments or practices, and to call the believer to live with a view to pleasing God, to gain God’s approval as this is mirrored in the interaction of the believing community and in the admonition and praise of its leaders. In this way, the Christian minority is freed from the majority culture’s social-control techniques to pursue the goals deemed honorable within the group.

Part III. Passages for Further Exploration in the Pauline and Paulinist Epistles The Divine court of reputation: Rom 2:16, 28–29; 8:7–8; 14:10–12, 15–18; 1 Cor 1:8; 3:13; 4:3–5; 2 Cor 5:9–10; 10:18; Gal 1:10; Phil 1:9–11; Col 1:9–10; 2 Tim 2:15; 4:1, 7–8 The Christian group (and its leaders) as court of reputation: Rom 1:8; 14:15–18; 16:1–16, 19; 1 Cor 16:10, 15–20; 2 Cor 7:4, 14; 8:1–8, 18–24; 9:1–5; 12:20–21; Eph 1:15; Phil 2:29–30; 2 Thess 1:4; 1 Tim 3:13; 2 Tim 1:16–17; Phlm 4–7 Shaming by outsiders: Gal 1:13; 5:11; 6:12, 17; Phil 1:27–30; 2 Tim 1:8–9, 11–12, 16; 2:8–10; 3:10–13 Undermining the opinion of unbelievers (or other parties): Rom 1:18–32; 9:31–33; 1 Cor 12:2; 2 Cor 4:3–6; 5:12; Eph 2:1–3; 4:17–20; 5:6–12; Phil 1:29–30; 2:15; 3:18–19; 2 Thess 1:6–10; 2:9–12; 2 Tim 3:12–13; Titus 3:1–3 New ways of evaluating, expressing, and seeking honor in the new community: Rom 3:27–30; 5:1–5, 11; 11:17–20; 12:3, 10, 16; 14:3, 10–13; 1 Cor 1:26–31; 3:18–23; 4:7; 8:1–2; 11:20–22; 12:23–27; 13:4; 2 Cor 5:12; 10:17; 11:30; 12:5–10; Gal 5:6, 26; 6:3–4, 15; Eph 3:13; 4:1; 5:21; Phil 1:27, 29–30; 2:3b; Col 1:10; 3:11; 2 Thess 1:11–12 God’s honor and vindication of the same: Rom 1:18, 21–32; 2:23–24; 1 Cor 6:20; 10:21–22; Eph 5:6; Col 3:6 Jesus’ honor: Rom 1:3–4; Phil 2:5–11; Eph 1:20–23; Col 1:15–20



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Paul’s honor: Rom 15:17–19; 1 Cor 4:18–21; 9:1–6, 15–18; 2 Cor 3:1–3; 4:1–2; 6:3–10; 10:2, 8–12, 15–18; 11:1–12:13; Gal 1:14; 2:11–14; 6:17; Phil 1:20; 2:16; 3:4–6; Phlm 17–20 The believers’ honor and experience of divine affirmation: Rom 1:8; 4:11–12; 8:14–17; 9:6b–8; 12:3; 1 Cor 1:4–9; 2 Cor 1:12–14; 6:18; Gal 3:26–29; 4:4–7; 4:31–5:1; Eph 1:3–5, 11–14; 2:19–22; Col 1:3–8, 12, 27; 2 Thess 2:13–14; 2 Tim 2:20–22 Using shaming and social pressure within the church: Rom 16:17–18; 1 Cor 3:1–4; 5:1, 9–11; 6:1–5a; 11:17, 20–22; 15:34; Gal 1:6; 3:1–5; 4:8–11; 6:1; 2 Thess 3:6, 14–15; 1 Tim 5:20; Titus 3:10 Future vindication of the believers’ honor: Rom 2:6–11; 8:18, 21, 29–30; 10:11; 2 Cor 3:18; 4:17–18; Eph 2:4–7; Phil 3:21; Col 3:4; 2 Thess 2:14; 2 Tim 1:8, 12 Honor and Gender: 1 Cor 11:4–6, 14–15; 14:33b–35; 1 Tim 2:8–12 Offering counterevidence of the Christian community’s honor: Rom 12:14, 17, 20–21; 13:3–4, 7; 1 Tim 5:14; 6:1; Titus 2:4–10 Miscellaneous: Rom 1:16; 6:19–22; 9:21–24; 1 Cor 4:9–13; Gal 4:14; Eph 6:1–2, 5–6; 1 Tim 3:1, 6–7, 13; 4:12; 5:3–7, 17

Part IV. Select Bibliography Adkins, Arthur W. Merit and Responsibility: A Study in Greek Values. Oxford: Clarendon, 1960. Bailey, Kenneth E. Paul Through Mediterranean Eyes: Cultural Studies in 1 Corinthians. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2011. Barton, Carlin. Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Bassler, Jouette M. “The Enigmatic Sign: 2 Thessalonians 1:5.” CBQ 46 (1984): 496–510. Cairns, D. L. Aidos: The Psychology and Ethics of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greek Literature. Oxford: Clarendon, 1993. Camp, Claudia V. “Honor and Shame in Ben Sira: Anthropological and Theological Reflections.” Pages 171–88 in The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research. Edited by P. C. Beentjes. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997. Campbell, J. K. Honour, Family, and Patronage: A Study of Institutions and Moral Values in a Greek Mountain Community. Oxford: Clarendon, 1964. Chance, John K. “The Anthropology of Honor and Shame: Culture, Values, and Practice.” Semeia 68 (1994): 139–51. Corrigan, C. M. “Paul’s Shame for the Gospel.” BTB 16 (1986): 23–27. Cotter, Wendy. “Women’s Authority Roles in Paul’s Churches: Countercultural or Conventional?” NovT 36 (1994): 350–72. Crook, Zeba A. “The Divine Benefactions of Paul the Client.” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 2 (2001–2005): 9–26. ———“Honor, Shame, and Social Status Revisited.” JBL 128 (2009): 591–611. ———“Paul’s Riposte and Praise of the Thessalonians.” BTB 27 (1997): 153–63.

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Cuss, Dominique. Imperial Cult and Honorary Terms in the New Testament. Fribourg: Fribourg University Press, 1974. Danker, F. W. Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field. St. Louis, MO: Clayton Publishing House, 1982. deSilva, David A. “Despising Shame: A Cultural-Anthropological Investigation of the Epistle to the Hebrews.” JBL 113 (1994): 459–81. ———Despising Shame: Honor Discourse and Community Maintenance in the Epistle to the Hebrews. SBLDS 152. Atlanta: Scholars, 1995. Revised edition, Studia Biblica 21. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008. ———“Honor and Shame.” Pages 431–36 in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Pentateuch. Edited by T. Desmond Alexander and David W. Baker. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2002. ———“Honor and Shame.” Pages 287–300 in Dictionary of the Old Testament: Wisdom and Poetical Books. Edited by Tremper Longman and Peter Enns. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2008. ———Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000. ———The Hope of Glory: Honor Discourse and New Testament Interpretation. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999. ———“The Noble Contest: Honor, Shame, and the Rhetorical Strategy of 4 Maccabees.” JSP 13 (1995): 31–57. ———“Turning Shame into Honor: The Pastoral Strategy of 1 Peter.” Pages 159–86 in The Shame Factor: How Shame Shapes Society. Edited by Robert Jewett, Wayne Alloway, Jr., and John G. Lacey. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. ———“The Wisdom of Ben Sira: Honor, Shame, and the Maintenance of the Values of a Minority Culture.” CBQ 58 (1996): 433–55. Dewey, Arthur J. “A Matter of Honor: A Socio-Historical Analysis of 2 Corinthians 10.” HTR 78 (1985): 209–17. Dodds, Eric R. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Dover, K. J. “Honor and Shame.” Pages 226–42 in Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975. Downing, Gerald F. “ ‘Honor’ among Exegetes.” CBQ 61 (1999): 53–73. Drexler, Hans. “Gravitas.” Aevum 30 (1956): 291–306. ———“Honos.” Romanitas 3 (1961): 133–57. Duff, Paul Brooks. “Honor or Shame: The Language of Processions and Perception in 2 Cor. 2:14–6:13; 7:2–4.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 1988. Elliott, John H. Conflict, Community, and Honor: 1 Peter in Social-Scientific Perspective. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2007. ———“Disgraced Yet Graced. The Gospel according to 1 Peter in the Key of Honor and Shame.” BTB 24 (1994): 166–78. Esler, Philip F. The First Christians in Their Social Worlds: Social-Scientific Approaches to New Testament Interpretation. London: Routledge, 1994. Finley, Moses I. The World of Odysseus. 2nd ed. New York: Penguin, 1979. Finney, Mark. “Conflict and Honour in the Ancient World: Some Thoughts on the Social Problems behind 1 Corinthians.” PIBA 29 (2006): 24–56. ———Honour and Conflict in the Ancient World: 1 Corinthians in its Greco-Roman Social Setting. Library of New Testament Studies. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2012. ———“Honour, Head-coverings and Headship: 1 Corinthians 11.2–16 in Its Social Context.” JSNT 33 (2010): 31–58.



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———“Honor, Rhetoric, and Factionalism in the Ancient World: 1 Corinthians 1–4 in Its Social Context.” BTB 40 (2010): 27–36. Fisher, N. R. E. HYBRIS: A Study in the Values of Honour and Shame in Ancient Greece. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1992. Fitzgerald, J. T. Cracks in an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence. SBLDS 99. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. Garnsey, Peter D. A., and Richard P. Saller. The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture. London: Duckworth, 1987. Gilmore, D. D., ed. Honor and Shame and the Unity of the Mediterranean. American Anthropological Association Special Publication 22. Washington American Anthropological Association, 1987. Gosnell, Peter. “Honor and Shame Rhetoric as a Unifying Motif in Ephesians.” BBR 16 (2006): 105–28. Hellerman, Joseph. “Brothers and Friends in Philippi: Family Honor in the Roman World and in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.” BTB 39 (2009): 15–25. ———“The Humiliation of Christ in the Social World of Roman Philippi, Part I.” BibSac 160 (2003): 321–36. Hendrix, Holland. “Thessalonicans Honor Romans.” ThD diss., Harvard University, 1984. Hengel, Martin. Crucifixion in the Ancient World. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977. Herr, Larry G. “Retribution and Personal Honor.” Biblical Archaeologist 44 (1981): 230–34. Jewett, Robert. “Honor and Shame in the Argument of Romans.” Pages 257–72 in Putting Body and Soul Together: Essays in Honor of Robin Scroggs. Edited by A. Brown, G. F. Snyder and V. Wiles. Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1997. ———“Paul, Shame and Honor.” Pages 551–74 in Paul and the Greco-Roman World. Edited by J. P. Sampley. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003. ———Romans: A Commentary. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. ———Saint Paul Returns to the Movies: Triumph Over Shame. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998. Jewett, Robert, ed. The Shame Factor: How Shame Shapes Society. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011. Joubert, Stephan. “1 Cor 9:24–27: An Agonistic Competition?” Neotestamentica 35 (2001): 57–68. Judge, Edwin A. “Paul’s Boasting in Relation to Contemporary Professional Practice.” ABR 16 (1968): 37–50. ———Rank and Status in the World of the Caesars and St. Paul. Christchurch: University of Canterbury Press, 1982. Kee, Howard Clark. “The Linguistic Background of ‘Shame’ in the New Testament.” Pages 133–47 in On Language, Culture, and Religion: In Honor of Eugene A. Nida. Edited by Matthew Black and W. A. Smalley. The Hague: Mouton, 1974. Lawrence, Louise J. “ ‘For Truly, I Tell You, They Have Received Their Reward’ (Matt 6:2): Investigating Honor Precedence and Honor Virtue.” CBQ 64 (2002): 687–702 Lendon, J. E. Empire of Honour: The Art of Government in the Roman World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Levasheff, Drake. “Jesus of Nazareth, Paul of Tarsus, and the Early Christian Challenge to Honor and Shame Values.” PhD diss., UCLA, 2013. Malina, Bruce J. The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology. 3rd. ed. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1993.

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Malina, Bruce J., and Jerome H. Neyrey. “Conflict in Luke–Acts: Labelling and Deviance Theory.” Pages 97–124 in The Social World of Luke–Acts: Models for Interpretation. Edited by Jerome H. Neyrey. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991. ———“Honor and Shame in Luke–Acts: Pivotal Values of the Mediterranean World.” Pages 25–66 in The Social World of Luke–Acts: Models for Interpretation. Edited by Jerome H. Neyrey. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991. ———Portraits of Paul: An Archaeology of Ancient Personality. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996. Malina, Bruce J., and John J. Pilch. Social Science Commentary on the Pauline Letters. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Marshall, Peter. “A Metaphor of Social Shame: thriambeuein in 2 Cor. 2:14.” NovT 25 (1983): 302–17. Matthews, Victor H., and Don C. Benjamin, ed. Honor and Shame in the World of the Bible. Semeia 68. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1996. McRae, Rachel. “Eating with Honor: The Corinthian Lord’s Supper in Light of Voluntary Association Meal Practices.” JBL 130 (2011): 165–81. Meeks, Wayne A. “The Circle of Reference in Pauline Morality.” Pages 305–17 in Greeks, Romans and Christians. Edited by D. L. Balch, E. Ferguson, and W. Meeks. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990. ———The Origins of Christian Morality. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Moxnes, Halvor. “Honour and Righteousness in Romans.” JSNT 32 (1988): 61–77. ———“Honor and Shame.” BTB 23 (1993): 167–76. ———“Honor and Shame.” Pages 19–40 in The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation. Edited by R. L. Rohrbaugh. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. ———“Honor, Shame, and the Outside World in Paul’s Letter to the Romans.” Pages 207–18 in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism. Edited by Jacob Neusner, Peder Borgen, E. S. Frerichs, and Richard Horsley. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988. ———“The Quest for Honor and the Unity of the Community in Romans 12 and in the Orations of Dio Chrysostom.” Pages 203–30 in Paul in His Hellenistic Context. Edited by T. Engberg Pedersen. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. Newbold, R. F. “Sensitivity to Shame in Greek and Roman Epic, with Particular Reference to Claudian and Nonnus.” Ramus 14 (1985): 30–45. Neyrey, Jerome H. 2 Peter, Jude. AB 37C. New York: Doubleday, 1993. ———Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998. ———“Loss of Wealth, Loss of Family and Loss of Honour: The Cultural Context of the Original Makarisms in Q.” Pages 139–58 in Modelling Early Christianity: Social-scientific Studies of the New Testament in its context. Edited by Philip F. Esler. London: Routledge, 1995. Osiek, Carolyn. “Women, Honor, and Context in Mediterranean Antiquity.” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 64, no. 1 (2008): 323–27. Osiek, Carolyn, Margaret Y. MacDonald, with Janet Tulloch. A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Patterson, Orlanda. “Honor and Degradation.” Pages 77–101 in Slavery and Social Death. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982. Pietersen, L. K. “Despicable Deviants: Labelling Theory and the Polemic of the Pastorals.” Sociology of Religion 58 (1997): 343–52. ———The Polemic of the Pastorals: A Sociological Examination of the Development of Pauline Christianity. JSNTSup 264. London: T&T Clark International, 2005.



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Peristiany, John G., ed. Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1966. Pitt-Rivers, Julian. “Honour and Social Status.” Pages 21–77 in Honour and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society. Edited by John G. Peristiany. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1965. Rabichev, Renata. “The Mediterranean Concepts of Honour and Shame as Seen in the Depiction of the Biblical Women.” Religion and Theology 3, no. 1 (1996): 51–63. Race, William H. “Shame in Plato’s Gorgias.” Classical Journal 74 (1978–79): 197–202. Reasoner, Mark. The Strong and the Weak: Romans 14.1–15.13 in Context. SNTSMS 103. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Rohrbaugh, Richard L. The New Testament in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Matrix: The Bible in Mediterranean Context. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2007. Romilly, Jacqueline de. “Le thème du prestige dans l’ouvre de Thucydide.” Ancient Society 4 (1973): 39–58. Saller, Richard P. “Poverty, Honor, and Obligation in Imperial Rome.” Criterion 37 (1998): 12–20. Schneider, Johannes. “τιμή.” TDNT 8:169–80. Seely, David. The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology and Paul’s Concept of Salvation. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1990. Spencer, F. Scott. “Paul’s Odyssey in Acts: Status Struggles and Island Adventures.” BTB 28 (1999): 150–59. Still, Todd D. Conflict at Thessalonica: A Pauline Church and its Neighbors. JSNTSup 183. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999. van Bremen, Riet. The Limits of Participation: Women and Civic Life in the Greek East in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods. Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 15. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1996. Wanamaker, C. A. The Epistles to the Thessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. NIGTC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990. Williams, Bernard. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Winter, Bruce W. “The Public Honouring of Christian Benefactors. Romans 13:3–4 and 1 Peter 2:14–15.” JSNT 34 (1988): 87–103. Witherington, Ben, III. Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995.

Chapter 17

Paul and Indifferent Things* Will Deming Ἀδιάφορον (adiaphoron) is the Stoic term for an “indifferent thing.” What the Stoics intended by this term, and what role it played in their understanding of ethical behavior is our focus in the first part of this chapter. The next part explores the possibility of better understanding certain passages from Paul in light of these Stoic teachings. For the new edition I have added a postscript that considers some possibilities for a fuller comparison between Pauline and Stoic ethical systems. Following this is a selection of passages from Paul for further study and a short, updated bibliography.1

Part I. Stoic Views on Indifference The Stoics held that every thing in existence was either a “good thing” (ἀγαθόν, agathon), a “bad thing” (κακόν, kakon), or an “indifferent thing” (ἀδιάφορον, adiaphoron).2 Because they used “good” as the equivalent of “morally beautiful” (καλόν, kalon),3 good things, or simply “goods,” for the Stoics consisted of virtue and all things that “participated” in virtue. Although they envisioned virtue as a unified whole,4 they often spoke of four cardinal virtues with many sub-virtues below these.5 Thus goods consisted of virtues like discernment, prudence, courage, and justice, and things that participated in virtue like true joy, cheerfulness, and confidence. Bad things

* For Frank Reynolds, for his instruction in comparative religious ethics. 1  My thanks to Abraham Malherbe for his help with these two parts. 2  E.g., Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.5a; Diog. Laert. 7.101–102. For this sketch of Stoic ethics, with documentation and further discussion, see A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vol. 1, Translations of the Principal Sources with Philosophical Commentary (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 344–437. 3  E.g., Philo, Post. 133: “Indeed, it was from virtue that the Stoic canon sprang that the morally beautiful alone is good” (Colson and Whitaker, LCL). See also Cicero, Fin. 3.27, 29; and Diog. Laert. 7.100–101. 4  E.g., Diog. Laert. 7.125; Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.5b5, 7; Philo, Mos. 2.7; Plutarch, Stoic. rep. 1046E. 5  E.g., Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.5b2; Diog. Laert. 7.92.



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were the opposite of good things, consisting of vice (parsed into four cardinal vices and sub-vices)6 and all things that participated in vice.7 Everything else in the world was an “indifferent.” Thus, indifferents were neither virtue nor vice, nor did they participate in virtue or vice. They included things like health and sickness, wealth and poverty. While the Stoics classed all such things as indifferents, they held that indifferents could nonetheless differ from one another on the basis of “value.” Some indifferents, like health and wealth, had an appreciable amount of value (ἀξία, axia), while indifferents like sickness and poverty had an appreciable amount of negative value, or disvalue (ἀπαξία, apaxia).8 Then there were indifferent things whose value was scant or insignificant, like whether one had an odd or even number of hairs on his or her head. Here, for example, is Antipater’s understanding of value, as cited by Arius in a review of different definitions of value: Value is spoken of in three ways…; and the third type, which Antipater calls selective, through which, when things allow, we rather choose these particular things instead of those, such as health instead of sickness, life instead of death, and riches instead of poverty. (Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.7f [Pomeroy])

If an indifferent had an appreciable amount of positive value, the Stoics called it a “preferred indifferent.” An appreciable amount of disvalue earned it the title “rejected” or “avoided indifferent”; and an indifferent whose value was insignificant was inconsequential. Again, Arius gives us a summary: [O]f indifferent things, some have more value and others have less… And some are preferred, others dispreferred, while others are neither. Preferred are whatever indifferent things have much value—to the extent that this exists among indifferent things. Likewise dispreferred are whatever have much lack of value. Neither preferred nor dispreferred are whatever have neither much [value nor] much lack of value. (Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.7b [Pomeroy])9

Although many in antiquity, including some Stoics, took issue with these views, arguing that things with positive value such as health and wealth should be classified as “goods,”10 most Stoics stood by this distinction between goods and preferred indifferents. Goods, they contended, were always “beneficial,”11 and consequently of the “greatest” value. Preferred indifferents, by contrast, had only “much” or “little” value. In the normal course of life they were “in accord with nature” and “useful,” but never “beneficial” in their own right; and under some conditions they could even be an impediment to one’s moral development. Theirs was thus an “assigned” value, not an inherent one; a value that was relative to something good, and variable, depending on circumstances. Diogenes Laertius and Arius offer us these accounts:

E.g., Diog. Laert. 7.93. For other examples of what Stoics considered good and bad things, and their relation to virtue and vice, see Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.5a–5b2; and Diog. Laert. 7.95–99. 8  E.g., Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.7; Cicero, Fin. 3.21.69. 9  See also Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.7f-g; and Diog. Laert. 7.105–107. 10  See Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 1:401–10. 11  E.g., Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.5d; and Diog. Laert. 7.94, 98–99. 6  7 

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For as the property of hot is to warm, not cool, so the property of good is to benefit, not to injure; but wealth and health do no more benefit than injury, therefore neither wealth nor health is good. Further, they say that that is not good of which good and bad use can be made; but of wealth and health both good and bad use can be made; therefore wealth and health are not goods. (Diog. Laert. 7.103 [Hicks, LCL]) No good thing is a preferred, because they have the greatest value in themselves. But the preferred, having the second rank and value, to some extent come close to the nature of the good… The preferred are so called, not because they contribute some things to happiness and work in partnership towards it, but because it is necessary to make the selection from these things instead of the dispreferred. (Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.7g [Pomeroy])

The practical significance for the Stoics, and there was one, of insisting on this complicated and rather counterintuitive classification of things comes into view when we consider their understanding of ethical actions. For them, the process by which humans became moral and progressed toward moral perfection depended on a person’s interaction with things, especially indifferent things. It is through selecting preferred indifferents, avoiding rejected indifferents, and maintaining equanimity toward the other indifferents that one developed his or her moral disposition and, if able, became completely virtuous. Thus, for the Stoics, a thing might be indifferent, but the use one made of it was not a matter of indifference. Depending on a thing’s assigned value relative to gaining virtue, selecting, rejecting, or being neutral toward it became one’s moral imperative in life. As Seneca explains to his friend Lucilius: “[I]f good health, rest, and freedom from pain are not likely to hinder virtue, shall you not seek all these?” Of course I shall seek them, but not because they are goods,—I shall seek them because they are according to nature and because they will be acquired through the exercise of good judgment on my part. What, then, will be good in them? This alone,—that it is a good thing to choose them. For when I don suitable attire, or walk as I should, or dine as I ought to dine, it is not my dinner, or my walk, or my dress that are goods, but the deliberate choice which I show in regard to them… [I]f I have the choice, I shall choose health and strength, but…the good involved will be my judgment regarding these things, and not the things themselves. (Seneca, Ep. 92.11–13 [Gummere, LCL])

Likewise, Plutarch reports: [T]he prudent selection and acceptance of those things is the goal, whereas the things themselves and the obtaining of them are not the goal but are given as a kind of matter having “selective value”… (Plutarch, Comm. not. 1071B [Cherniss, LCL])12

Part II. Ἀδιάφορα in Paul’s Letters In considering whether Paul’s ethics can be better understood in light of Stoic “indifferent things,” we must acknowledge that almost any system of ethics will distinguish between what is good, what is bad, and what is neither, or “indifferent.” Specifically 12 

See also Seneca, Ep. 82.10–11; and Cicero, Fin. 3.58.



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in the Greco-Roman context, the Stoic definitions of these notions were preceded by and competed with Platonic and Aristotelian positions.13 One task of this investigation, therefore, beyond simply locating discussions of indifferents in Paul, must be to demonstrate that it is Stoic notions about indifferents, not those from some other system of thought, that are important for understanding Paul. This task is complicated by the fact that Paul rarely uses the principal terms of the Stoic discussions, and rarely, if ever, in a manner that would mark their usage as distinctively Stoic. Ἀδιάφορον and ἀπαξία, for example, never occur in Paul. Likewise, Paul never identifies the good, τὸ ἄγαθον, solely with the morally beautiful, τὸ καλόν, and it is an open question as to whether any of the occurrences in Paul of the term “wise” (σόφος, sophos) owe any debt to Stoic thought or are even better understood in light of Stoic usage (e.g., 1 Cor 1:20–25). Likewise, an attempt to demonstrate Stoic influence on Paul by comparing Paul’s lists of indifferent things (e.g., Phil 4:12) with those used by Stoics also seems to offer little promise. The problem here is that much of what these lists contain is common philosophical material, not anything exclusively Stoic; these lists are never complete, either in Paul or the Stoics; in the Stoa they change over time and between teachers;14 and Paul’s lists, quite naturally, have a Christian emphasis, which further frustrates comparison with the Stoics.15 In light of these considerations, I will use two somewhat indirect approaches. In the first instance, I will examine three passages in which Paul discusses things that are in some sense “indifferent” for the purpose of identifying Stoic parallels generally, not just with respect to Stoic ideas about indifferents. These passages are Phil 1:20–26; 1 Cor 7:25–38; and 1 Cor 7:20–23. On the strength of my success in uncovering Stoic influence per se, I will suggest that Paul’s treatment of indifferents in these passages is likely to owe a debt to Stoicism as well, even if the evidence with regard specifically to indifferents is too weak to make the case on its own. In the second set of passages, which pertain to circumcision, my argument will rely even less on the presence of material parallels with Stoic texts. Rather, I will attempt to show that there exist conceptual similarities between the basic assumptions of Stoic thinking on indifference and the way in which circumcision functions as an indifferent for Paul. From this I will suggest that it is helpful to interpret Paul’s approach as a

See above, n. 10, and A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vol. 2, Greek and Latin Texts with Notes and Bibliography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 350. 14  See Damianos Tsekourakis, Studies in the Terminology of Early Stoic Ethics, Hermes: Zeitschrift für klassische Philologie, Einzelschriften 32 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1974), esp. 38–44. 15  On Paul’s lists, see David E. Aune, The New Testament and Its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987), 194–96; John T. Fitzgerald, Cracks In an Earthen Vessel: An Examination of the Catalogues of Hardships in the Corinthian Correspondence, SBLDS 99 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988); and Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 561–62. The nature of our sources is a further problem. With the Stoics we have primarily lectures and handbooks that treat ethics in a theoretical and systematic fashion. With Paul we have occasional correspondence that treats ethics practically and unsystematically. We could wish for better dialogue partners in a comparison. 13 

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“functional” or “dynamic” equivalent of the Stoic approach, even if the evidence for material parallels is scant.16 But before I begin, let me pause for some clarification and to point out the obvious. For an author to be “influenced” by a particular stream of thought can mean many things. From Paul actively seeking out Stoic expressions for their potential rhetorical impact on his audiences, to his inadvertently using a phrase that was introduced into the Greek language centuries before him, there is a long and subtle continuum of “influence.” As far as I know, no scholar has argued that Paul was a Stoic or studied under a Stoic teacher, but this does not rule out the many other possibilities for Stoic influence on Paul. Most Americans, for example, assume that they have a “subconscious,” a notion that can be traced back to the work of Sigmund Freud. Yet this does not mean that Americans are Freudians, or that most Americans have even heard of Freud. It does mean, however, that our way of thinking about ourselves has been profoundly influenced by Freudian thought. Likewise, Paul may have been influenced by Stoic thought regardless of whether he attended a Stoic lecture or met a Stoic. How profound this influence was on Paul—that is, what difference it should make in our understanding of Paul—is another matter, and something scholars will need to debate, and perhaps for some time. But this is no reason to deny the presence of “influence” in the first place. § In one form or another, Paul treats many things as indifferents: social class, ethnic identity, gender, food, education, speaking in tongues, life and death, marriage, slavery, and circumcision.17 Of these, it is the last five, in my view, that have the most potential for being better understood in light of Stoic teachings on indifference. Let us begin with Paul’s discussion of life and death in Phil 1:20–26.18 From a Stoic perspective, biological life and death were indifferent things: as they had no share in virtue or vice, one could be virtuous (or vicious) with either.19 But as we have indicated, this did not mean that life and death were without value for the Stoics. In the natural flow of things, life was a highly valued, preferred indifferent, while its opposite, death, was a highly disvalued, rejected indifferent.20 Under normal circumstances it was against nature, reason, and God to select death over life. So, while life and death as things were indifferent, the selection of one over the other was a matter of great ethical concern, requiring careful consideration. Here, for example, is Cicero’s summary of Stoic theory: Cf. the discussion in Troels Engberg-Pedersen, “Stoicism in Philippians,” in Paul in His Hellenistic Context, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 269–74. 17  See Part III, below. 18  Cf. the discussion in James L. Jaquette, Discerning What Counts: The Function of the “Adiaphora Topos” in Paul’s Letters, SBLDS 146 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995), 110–20. 19  E.g., Epictetus, Diatr. 4.1.133, “ ‘Life is not a good, is it?’ —‘No.’ —‘Death is not a bad thing, is it?’ —‘No.’ ” 20  E.g., Diog. Laert. 7.106; cf. Cicero, Fin. 5.7.18–20; and Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.7d. 16 



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But since these neutral things [i.e., indifferents] form the basis of all appropriate acts, there is good ground for the dictum that it is with these things that all our practical deliberations deal, including the will to live and the will to quit this life. When a man’s circumstances contain a preponderance of things in accordance with nature, it is appropriate for him to remain alive; when he possesses or sees in prospect a majority of the contrary things, it is appropriate for him to depart from life… Therefore the reasons for both remaining in life and for departing from it are to be measured entirely by the primary things of nature aforesaid… And very often it is appropriate for the wise man to abandon life at a moment when he is enjoying supreme happiness, if an opportunity offers itself for making a timely exit. For the Stoic view is that happiness, which means life in harmony with nature, is a matter of seizing the right moment. (Cicero, Fin. 3.19.60–61 [Rackham, LCL])21

Yet not only was the topic Paul addresses in Phil 1:20–26, whether he should choose life or death, popular among Stoics, but his approach—his appraisal of the alternatives—is also in line with Stoic treatments. As he makes clear, his goal is not to gain either life or death, necessarily, but to act with moral purpose. He is determined to conduct himself “boldly” (ἐν πάση παρρησίᾳ, en passē parrēsia) and not be “put to shame” so that Christ will be honored through his body, “whether by life or by death” (εἴτε…εἴτε, eite…eite, v. 20). Paul’s moral dilemma in this passage stems from the fact that life and death both offer attractive advantages: life is “Christ” and “fruitful labor,” and death is “gain” (κέρδος, kerdos). “I do not know which I will choose (αἱρέομαι, haireomai),” he states, “I am hard pressed between the two” (vv. 21–23a). In Stoic thought this would be seen as an attempt to select between two preferred indifferents on the basis of their value with respect to one’s moral duty. Beyond this, Paul’s resolution of the question is quite similar to the pronouncements of his Stoic contemporaries Musonius Rufus and Seneca. In a letter Seneca writes to Pauline, his second wife, he reasons that even though he is very sick and in much pain, he must choose life over death for the sake of those he holds dear …because the good man should not live as long as it pleases him, but as long as he ought. He who does not value his wife, or his friend, highly enough to linger longer in life—he who obstinately persists in dying—is a voluptuary.22

Likewise, Musonius states:

See also J. M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 233–55; David Seeley, The Noble Death: Graeco-Roman Martyrology and Paul’s Concept of Salvation, JSNTSup 28 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1990), 113–41; Anton J. L. van Hooff, From Autothanasia to Suicide: Self-killing in Classical Antiquity (London: Routledge, 1990), passim; Arthur J. Droge and James D. Tabor, A Noble Death: Suicide and Martyrdom among Christians and Jews in Antiquity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991), 29–39; and J. L. Jaquette, “A Not-So-Noble Death: Figured Speech, Friendship and Suicide in Philippians 1:21–26,” Neot 28 (1994): 177–92. And see the brief mention in Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.7f (cited above) of the choice of life over death as having “selective value” for the Stoics. 22  Seneca, Ep. 104.3 (Gummere, LCL); cf. Ep. 78.1–2. The first passage continues in 104.4: “It gives proof of a great heart to return to life for the sake of others; and noble men have often done this. But this procedure also, I believe, indicates the highest type of kindness…one should watch over one’s old age with still greater care if one knows that such action is pleasing, useful, or desirable in the eyes of a person whom one holds dear. This is a source of no mean joy and profit” (Gummere, LCL). 21 

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It is not allowed for one who is benefiting many to die if he is living in a fitting manner, unless by dying he benefits more.23

Paul, in turn, reasons that it is “more necessary” (ἀναγκαιότερον, anankaioteron, v. 24) for him to remain alive for the sake of his church at Philippi, to further their “moral progress” (προκοπή, prokopē, v. 25). In making his choice on their account, rather than for honor, or wealth, or even so that he might “be with Christ,” which is his own “desire” and “far better” for him (v. 23b), he comes very close to these Stoic views. Finally, throughout this passage Paul relies on a terminology that is well documented in philosophical discussions and, in some cases perhaps, more at home there than in Paul’s own theology.24 Thus, the notion of “necessity” (ἀνάγκη, anankē) has a long history in philosophical considerations of “noble death,”25 and according to Antipater of Tarsus, head of the Stoa at the end of the second century BCE, the superlative “most necessary” (ἀναγκαιότατος, anankaiotatos) designated a special category of Stoic duties.26 Προκοπή (prokopē, moral progress) is a term so integral to their concept of the moral life, that both Seneca and Epictetus devoted short works to it,27 and as Paul Holloway notes, Paul’s expression εἴτε…εἴτε in 1:20 (“whether…or whether…”) was also used by Musonius, Epictetus, and Seneca to compare indifferents.28 When Paul states that dying is “gain” (κέρδος, v. 21), he is using a word that occurs both

Musonius, frag. 29, my translation. Epictetus 4.1.167 provides an interesting variant of this tradition, especially in light of 2 Cor 11:32–33: “[words of a coward:] ‘If I save my life I shall be useful to many persons, but if I die I shall be useful to no one.’ —[Epictetus]: ‘Yes, indeed, and if we had had to crawl out through a hole to escape, we should have done so!’ ” (Oldfather, LCL). 24  For the possibility of philosophical, and specifically Stoic, terminology elsewhere in Philippians, see Engberg-Pedersen, “Stoicism in Philippians,” 261–64; and Abraham J. Malherbe, “Paul’s Self-Sufficiency (Philippians 4:11),” in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies of Friendship in the New Testament World, ed. John T. Fitzgerald, NovTSup 82 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 125–39. On parrēsia, see David E. Fredrickson, “ΠΑΡΡΗΣΙΑ in the Pauline Epistles,” in Fitzgerald, ed., Friendship, 163–83. On Stoic notions of “things that matter” (τά διαφέροντα)—i.e., “goods” as a counterpart to “indifferents”—see Paul A. Holloway, Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical Sources and Rhetorical Strategy, SNTSMS 112 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 74–83, 94–99, 103, 130–32, and the discussion below. 25  Beginning with Plato, Phaedo 62C (cf. Laws 873C); see Arthur J. Droge, “Mori lucrum: Paul and Ancient Theories of Suicide,” NovT 30 (1988): 283–84; and Droge and Tabor, Noble Death, 21–22, 35–36, 122–24. 26  Antipater of Tarsus, SVF 3.255.5 (Stobaeus 4.508.2–3 W.-H.), speaks of “the most necessary and primary actions that are fitting” as a distinct category of duties (see also Hierocles in Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.22a.21 [4.502.2 W.-H.]). On other possible Stoic uses of ἀνάγκη in Paul, see Ernst Baasland, “ἀνάγκη bei Paulus im Lichte eines stoischen Paradoxes,” in Geschichte—Tradition—Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag. Vol. 3, Frühes Christentum, ed. Herman Lichtenberger (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1996), 357–85; and Will Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 203. 27  Seneca, Ep. 32; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.4. The word is also used by Philo in a Stoic sense (e.g., Leg. 2.81; Det. 46). Elsewhere in Paul only at Phil 1:12 (on which, see Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 141–42, and the discussion below); and in the Pauline collection at 1 Tim 4:15. 28  Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 104–105, 110. 23 



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in Epictetus, as part of a specialized Stoic vocabulary,29 and in Phil 3:7–8, several features of which also argue for a comparison with the Stoic doctrine of indifferents (see below). Even Paul’s statement “to live is Christ” (τὸ ζῆν Χριστός, to zēn Christos, v. 21) is of interest in this respect. It is possible that Paul intended this awkward expression as a wordplay between Χριστός and the similar sounding χρηστός (chrēstos, “good, useful”).30 If this is so, Paul’s choice of words has reference to a moral concept used by Musonius to describe the character of the good person;31 and this, in turn, accords well with Paul’s use of αἱρέομαι (haireomai, choose) in 1:22, a word favored by Stoics when describing a wise man’s choice of indifferents.32 In sum, there appears to be sufficient reason to conclude that what Paul writes in Phil 1:20–26 has been shaped by Stoic discussions of indifferents and that we bring further clarity to this passage if we interpret it in light of those discussions. § A second passage in which it may be possible to detect the impact of Stoic thinking about indifferents upon Paul is 1 Cor 7:25–38. Because I have dealt with this passage at length in another context,33 I will simply summarize those points that are relevant to our investigation here. As in Phil 1:20–26, we find in 1 Cor 7:25–38 a topic much favored by the Stoics34 as well as several terms that suggest a Stoic provenance. Among these are “free from concern” (ἀμέριμνος, amerimnos) and “to worry” (μερινμάω, merimnaō) in vv. 32–34; “benefit” (σύμφορον, symphoron) and “undistractedly” (ἀπερισπάστως, aperispastōs) in v. 35; and the pair “propriety/to act shamefully” (τὸ εὔσχημον/ἀσχημονέω, to euschēmon/aschēmoneō) in vv. 35–36.35 In 7:27–28, moreover, Paul uses a diatribe pattern that was popular in the first and second centuries among both Stoics and authors influenced by Stoicism, including Philo,

Epictetus, Diatr. 1.28.13; 3.22.37; 3.26.25 (with χρήσιμον, chrēsimon—see n. 31); and 4.5.8. Not in the LXX. Elsewhere in the Pauline collection only at Titus 1:11. It is possible that κέρδος also reflects the Socratic tradition found in Plato’s Apology 40D–E. See D. W. Palmer, “To Die Is Gain (Philippians 1.21),” NovT 17 (1975): 203–18; cf. Josephus, Ant. 15.158. 30  See Droge, “Mori lucrum,” 279–80; and Phlm 11. 31  Musonius, frag. 3.42.10; 8.66.11; 10.78.16; 14.92.31; 16.104.33 Lutz. Elsewhere in Paul: Rom 2:4, as an attribute of God, which coincides with both LXX and Stoic usage; and 1 Cor 15:33, in a philosophical adage that Paul quotes. 32  When speaking technically, Stoics made a distinction between “choosing” (αἱρέομαι) and “selecting” (λαμβάνω), the former describing only the actions of the wise man (e.g., Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.5o). In informal contexts, however, the words could be interchangeable, as in Musonius, frags. 1.32.24–26 and 18B.118.5–7 Lutz. It is possible, therefore, that through his choice of αἱρέομαι, Paul is suggesting that his decision to live is a “right action,” consistent with perfect reason. Otherwise αἱρέομαι occurs in the Pauline collection only at 2 Thess 2:13 (God choosing the Thessalonians, which may derive from LXX usage). 33  Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, 169–206. 34  Ibid., 64–86. 35  Ibid., 169–206, 208–10. 29 

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Seneca, Plutarch, and Epictetus.36 The function of this pattern, significantly, was to highlight the indifference of certain things such as old age, holding political office, slavery (see below), and marriage, which is Paul’s topic here. Thus, for example, we may compare this passage to one from Epictetus: Are you bound to a wife? —Do not seek release! Have you been released from a wife?—Do not seek a wife! (1 Cor 7:27–28) Your little child died?—It was given back! Your wife died?—She was given back! (Epictetus, Ench. 11)

Paul also approaches the issue of marriage as a Stoic might. For the Stoics, marriage was a preferred indifferent, which meant that in the normal course of one’s life it was a moral “duty” to marry. If poverty, war, or some other adverse circumstance intervened, however, a person’s moral allegiances might call him or her away from the responsibilities of marriage. In these cases marriage became a “rejected indifferent,” and not marrying became the fitting course of action.37 As Hierocles explains: [M]arried life is “preferred” for the wise man, although life without a wife when there are mitigating circumstances. And so, since we need to imitate the man of reason in whatever ways we can, and for him marrying is “preferred,” it is clear that it would be “fitting” for us as well, unless some circumstance is impeding. (Hierocles in Stobaeus, Ecl. 4.22a.22 [4.502.9–14 W.-H.])

In 1 Cor 7:25–31, Paul frames his discussion in a manner that appears to owe a great deal to this perspective. He considers what is “good for a man” in light of the adverse circumstances that were pressing in on the Corinthians.38 While he rejects the Stoic notion that selecting marriage under these circumstances is “making a mistake” or “sinning” (ἀμαρτάνω, hamartanō, vv. 28, 36),39 he nevertheless outlines the drawbacks of marriage in terms of one’s allegiance to Christ over against the distractions of a spouse (vv. 32–35).40 Here we may compare Paul with Epictetus:

36  Ibid., 154–60; Seneca, Ep. 42.9; 47.17 (see below, n. 45); 70.8–9; 96.1; 99.2; Brev. vit. 17.5–6; Ira 2.24.2–4; 2.30.1; Prov. 5.5; Tranq. 11.10, 12. While much has been written on the style and content of the diatribe, the investigation of diatribal patterns has been neglected. On Paul’s use of diatribe style, see Stanley Kent Stowers, The Diatribe in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, SBLDS 57 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981); and Thomas Schmeller, Paulus und die “Diatribe”: Eine vergleichende Stilinterpretation, NTAbh 19 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1987). 37  See Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, 70–84. 38  Ibid., 169–93; cf. 107–109. 39  So Arius: “everything that happens among rational animals contrary to that which is fitting is a sin [ἀμάρτημα, hamartēma]” (Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.8a); and ps.-Ocellus Lucanus, “many sin [ἀμαρτάνω, hamartanō] by forming marriages without regard for the excellence of a person’s soul or for the benefit of the community” (De univ. nat. 48). These, naturally, are informal ways in which Stoics discussed “error,” or “sin.” According to their formal or technical definition, every action contrary to the perfect reason of the wise man was a sin (e.g., Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.11a). 40  Deming, Paul on Marriage, 193–201.



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The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about the affairs of the world, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided… I say this for your benefit…to promote good order and undistracted devotion to the Lord. (1 Cor 7:32b–35) [P]erhaps it is necessary that the Cynic be undistracted, completely engaged in the service of God, able to make his rounds to men, not attached to private duties nor involved in social relations. (Epictetus, Diatr. 3.22.69)

Paul then concludes the passage by contrasting the Christian who marries with the Christian who does not, using expressions that Stoics commonly employed to characterize the wise man (vv. 36–38).41 As with Phil 1:20–26, it would be difficult, I would argue, to understand Paul’s reasoning in 1 Cor 7:25–38 without some reference to Stoic materials on indifference. § Next we turn to 1 Cor 7:20–23, where Paul gives advice on slavery and freedom. Like the topics of life and death and marriage, this was also a popular topic among Stoics in Paul’s day.42 The Stoics, along with most other Greco-Roman moralists, made a distinction between legal slavery, or physical bondage, and “real” slavery, or bondage of the spirit. They considered the former an indifferent thing, the latter a bad thing. Likewise, they distinguished between legal freedom and “real” freedom, the former being an indifferent, the latter a good. It is on this basis, for example, that Philo introduces his subject in Every Good Man Is Free: Slavery then is applied in one sense to bodies, in another to souls; bodies have men for their masters, souls their vices and passions. No one makes the first kind the subject of investigation… Casting aside, therefore, specious quibblings and the terms which have no basis in nature but depend on convention, such as “homebred,” “purchased” or “captured in war,” let us examine the veritable free man, who alone possesses independence, even though a host of people claim to be his masters. (Philo, Prob. 17–19 [Colson, LCL])43

Thus, the Stoics held that legal slavery and legal freedom were neither good nor bad in themselves. One could be virtuous as a slave or as a freeman. What was important, rather, was that one pursued the true freedom of the spirit and rejected spiritual enslavement.

Ibid., 202–206. E.g., Philo, Prob.; Seneca, Ep. 47; Epictetus, Diatr. 3.24.64–77; 4.1; and Dio Chrysostom, Or. 14 and 15. For discussion see Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, 160–62; Samuel Vollenweider, Freiheit als neue Schöpfung, FRLANT 147 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989), 23–104; and Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 128–52. 43  See also Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.11i; and Diog. Laert. 7.121–22. 41  42 

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In 1 Cor 7:20–23, Paul appears to reproduce this line of thought in a Christianized form. On the one hand, he states that neither legal slavery nor legal freedom is a matter of any real concern for people “in the Lord,” because they can fulfill their obligations to God in either condition (vv. 21a, 22). The important thing, rather, is that believers avoid becoming “slaves of men” (v. 23b), by which he means human ideologies that are opposed to God.44 Further, while we find nothing that is distinctly Stoic in Paul’s word choice in this passage, we may nonetheless point out that 7:21–22 is couched in the same diatribe pattern we noted in our discussion of 7:27–28.45 On several counts, then, it can be argued that 1 Cor 7:20–23 draws on Stoic traditions about the indifference of slavery and freedom. It may even be the case that Paul’s particular use of the diatribe pattern in 1 Cor 7:21–22 can give us insight into the pedigree, so to speak, of the Stoicism reflected in this passage. As I have argued elsewhere, Paul modifies the way in which this diatribe pattern was typically used, adding the phrase ἀλλ᾽ εἰ καὶ δύνασαι ἐλεύθερος γενέσθαι, μᾶλλον χρῆσαι (all’ ei kai dunasai eleutheros genesthai, mallon chrēsai) in 7:21b, which in the context of this pattern seems to mean, “but if you are able to become free, take advantage of the opportunity.”46 If this is correct, then Paul is offering advice, based on solid Stoic principles, that is unparalleled among his Stoic contemporaries. In Stoic terms, Paul has categorized legal slavery not only as an indifferent thing, but more specifically as a rejected indifferent, and thus something that normally should be de-selected when the opportunity arises. This conclusion is well within the logic of Stoic ethical theory,47 although, somewhat curiously, we have no record of a Stoic taking this position, nor do we possess a text that includes legal slavery in a list of rejected indifferents (along with poverty and illness, for example), or legal freedom in a list of preferred indifferents (along with wealth and health, for example).48 In attempting to understand how Paul might have come to this conclusion on the basis of Stoic ethics, even though we have no record it was ever supported by the Stoics themselves, we should note that a philosophical position against slavery such as could have developed among the Stoics is documented as early as the fourth century BCE. In Politics 1253b, Aristotle records the view of some of his contemporaries that legal slavery is wrong because it is unjust (οὐδὲ δίκαιον, oude dikaion), against nature (παρὰ φύσιν, para physin), and based on compulsion (βίαιον, biaion). This is a view that is both congenial to Stoic teachings on justice, nature, and freedom, and one that may even have influenced some early Stoics;49 yet it was never embraced by

E.g., Raymond F. Collins, First Corinthians, SP 7 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999), 286; and Thiselton, First Epistle to the Corinthians, 561–62. 45  See especially Seneca, Ep. 47.17: “He is a slave! —But his soul may be that of a freeman. He is a slave! —But shall that stand in his way?” [Gummere, LCL]. See also Philo, Prob. 48. 46  Will Deming, “A Diatribe Pattern in 1 Cor. 7:21–22: A New Perspective on Paul’s Directions to Slaves,” NovT 37 (1995): 130–37. 47  So also Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, 150–51, 163. 48  On this, see the excellent discussion in ibid., 129–31, 134–52. 49  See Diog. Laert. 7.122, where slave ownership is equated to tyranny and judged “bad” (φαύλη, phaulē). 44 



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the middle or late Stoa. It is, however, reflected in this later period in Philo. Thus, in Special Laws, Philo declares that no one is a slave by nature (ἐκ φύσεως, ek physeōs);50 and in Contemplative Life, he reports of the Therapeutae that these “philosophers” regard slave ownership as an injustice (ἀδικία, adikia) and against nature (παρὰ φύσιν), and so they choose to serve one another without compulsion (οὐ πρὸς βίαν, ou pros bian).51 Consistent with this, in Rewards and Punishments, Philo comes very close to treating legal slavery as a rejected indifferent, calling it a “lesser evil” that should be avoided.52 As we saw earlier, of course, Philo is already familiar with the notion that legal slavery is an indifferent. In Philo, therefore, whose treatment of slavery in Stoic terms has been said to “anticipate” the Stoicism of Seneca,53 we find a rationale congenial to Stoic principles that may explain the position Paul takes in 1 Cor 7:21–22, namely, that legal slavery should be treated as a rejected indifferent.54 This observation, in turn, seems to indicate that the Stoicism reflected in 1 Cor 7:20–23 has affinities with Stoic thought as it was transmitted or developed in Jewish theological circles, rather than within the dominant school-tradition of Stoicism that we know from Arius, Musonius, Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus, and Hierocles. This hypothesis is strengthened, moreover, in light of another parallel between Paul and Philo. In his Every Good Man Is Free, a work whose Stoic leanings are beyond dispute, Philo reports that Jewish philosophers known as the Essenes reject slave ownership because it annuls “the statute of Nature, who mother-like has born and reared all men alike, and created them genuine brothers, not in mere name, but in very reality.”55 Here Philo has grounded the philosophy of the Essenes in Stoic universalism, a fact made apparent not only by the Stoic bent of this tractate, but also by Seneca’s advocacy for the humane treatment of slaves, based on the notion that “Heaven is the one parent of us all.”56 Thus, in accord with Stoic universalism—which did not advocate universal equality, of course, but the equality of those seeking wisdom57—Philo’s Essenes and Seneca agree that the measure of a person should not be birth or legal status, but his or her allegiance to wisdom, even though, unlike Philo’s Essenes, Seneca does not come to the conclusion that slave ownership is bad. Paul, however, seems to have been led precisely in this direction when he states in Phlm 16 that he expects

Philo, Spec. 2.69; and see Miriam T. Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 459. 51  Philo, Contempl. 70–71. Likewise, Josephus, Ant. 18.21, reports that the Essenes do not have slaves because slavery is a source of injustice (ἀδικία, adikia). 52  Philo, Praem. 137–38. 53  Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery, 171. 54  It has been a source of frustration to many modern theologians that Paul does not simply condemn slavery as “bad,” but this would not have been the Stoics’ or Paul’s understanding of a rejected indifferent. 55  Philo, Prob. 79 (Colson, LCL). 56  Seneca, Ben. 3.28.1–2 (Gummere, LCL); “Heaven” in this translation is the word mundus, “heaven, earth, universe.” See also Ep. 47.10: “[H]e whom you call your slave sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself breathes, lives, and dies” (Gummere, LCL). 57  E.g., Seneca, Ben. 3.18.2. 50 

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Philemon to accept the slave Onesimus back as “a beloved brother…both in the flesh and in the Lord.” If this is a request for Onesimus’s manumission, as some New Testament scholars surmise,58 then Paul’s argument can be read as a Christianized extension of the Stoic universalism that underlies the “Essene” view found in Philo. Just as Philo’s Essenes, on the basis of Stoic universalism, take the position that individuals become “genuine brothers…in reality” by virtue of their devotion to wisdom, so also Paul asks Philemon to regard Onesimus as a brother “in the flesh and in the Lord” because of the latter’s devotion to Christ (Phlm 10–11). Indeed, generalizing this (Stoic) reasoning may have contributed to Paul’s declaration in his other letters that all distinctions of status and birth and social identity are irrelevant for those “in Christ,” including not only the distinction between slave and freeman, but also that between Jew and Greek, and male and female (e.g., Gal 3:28; cf. Rom 10:12–13; and see below). To return to 1 Cor 7:20–23, there is reason to believe that this passage not only draws on Stoic traditions, but, more precisely, on Stoic traditions as they developed or were transmitted by some of Paul’s Jewish (and Jewish-Christian?) contemporaries. § Paul’s advice on slavery and freedom in 1 Cor 7:20–23 is immediately preceded in 7:18–19 by his remarks on circumcision and its opposite, “uncircumcision,” both of which he declares to be “nothing” (οὐδέν ἐστιν, ouden estin). This raises the possibility that Paul may have envisioned circumcision, too, along the lines of a Stoic indifferent, especially when we observe that his discussion of circumcision in 7:18–19 is cast in the same diatribe pattern used in 7:21–22 and 7:27–28. Against this, however, is the fact that Paul readily joins the pairs Jew/Greek (i.e., circumcised/uncircumcised) and slave/free elsewhere in his letters (1 Cor 12:13; Gal 3:28). To explore this possibility, therefore, it will be necessary to examine Paul’s statements on circumcision outside of 1 Cor 7:18–19, as this passage offers too little with which to work. When we do this we find no certain evidence of Stoic vocabulary or phraseology, but we do discover two potentially important things. First, in Galatians Paul also declares circumcision and uncircumcision to be “nothing” (οὔτε τί εστιν, oute ti estin, 6:15) and “of no avail” (οὔτε τι ἰσχύει, oute ti ischyei, Gal 5:6); and similarly, in Gal 3:28 and Rom 10:12 he states that both Jewish and Greek identities are irrelevant.59 There is reason to think that these statements depend, in part, on Stoic notions of universalism. Second, Paul refers to circumcision as having moral value and disvalue. In Rom 2:25, he states that circumcision benefits one who keeps the law; and in Rom 3:1–2, he asks, “What benefit has circumcision?” answering, “Much, in every way!” Yet Paul can also place circumcision among the things he counts as

58  See Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Letter to Philemon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 34C (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 113–16. 59  Gal 3:28, οὐκ ἔνι Ἰουδαῖος οὐδὲ Ἕλλην (ouk eni Ioudaios oude Hellēn); and Rom 10:12, οὐ γὰρ ἐστιν διαστολή (ou gar estin diastolē), where διαστολή (“difference, distinction”) carries a rather scholarly or philosophical meaning not found in the papyri (see BDAG, s.v. “διαστολή” [p. 237], and cf. Rom 3:22).



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“loss” since becoming a Christian (Phil 3:5–8); he holds that receiving circumcision “estranges” one from Christ such that Christ, on whom salvation depends, will be of no benefit (Gal 5:2–4); and, consistent with this, he objects passionately to Gentile Christians receiving circumcision (Gal 2:3; 5:12; Phil 3:2–3). While many scholars find it possible to explain Paul’s reasoning in these passages without reference to Stoic ethics, I would suggest that the potential inconsistency we find here can be understood, if not best understood, if we bring to mind some of the peculiarities of Stoic ethics. First, as we saw, Stoics made a sharp distinction between things and actions. A thing could be an “indifferent,” meaning that it had no real or inherent value with respect to what was truly good; but moral actions, which involved selecting and rejecting things, were either “fitting” or “not fitting.” From this perspective we can understand Paul as speaking about circumcision as a “thing” that has no moral significance—for one can be made righteous whether or not one has circumcision (Rom 3:30)—but “receiving circumcision” or “becoming circumcised” as an action that is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not. Second, and following naturally from this, Stoics spoke of indifferent things as having an assigned value, which was a value based on their potential for enabling someone to act morally and work toward moral perfection. This value was variable, moreover, depending on circumstances. In a given situation an indifferent could be preferred, rejected, or inconsequential. In speaking about circumcision, Paul seems to envision a variety of circumstances. For someone who is already a Jew, circumcision can have great value (Rom 3:1–2).60 Likewise, circumcision has value for someone who intends to observe the law (Rom 2:25),61 for as Paul implies in Gal 5:3–4, receiving circumcision is tantamount to seeking justification under the law (ἐν νόμῳ δικαιοῦσθε, en nomō dikaiousthe). Since the time of Christ’s resurrection, however, God’s justification has been available through faith in Christ, not through works of the law (e.g., Gal 2:16), and thus it is now both inconsequential if one already has circumcision, and at the same time unfitting for one to receive circumcision, for then Christ is of no benefit (Gal 5:2). Finally, we have seen that Stoics spoke of indifferents as having “much” or “little” value, whereas goods had “the greatest” value. This, in turn, might be the conceptual framework for Phil 3:5–8. Here Paul explains that in view of the “surpassing greatness” (ὐπερέχον, hyperechon) of knowing Christ, things that he formerly counted as “gain” (κέρδος, kerdos), including circumcision, he now considers “loss” (ζημία, zēmia),62 so Paul uses ὠφέλεια/ὠφελέω (ōpheleia/ōpheleō) to indicate this value—terms that Stoics consistently reserve to describe the “benefit” of goods only (e.g., Diog. Laert. 7.102; cf. Seneca, Ep. 87.36–37), using χρεία (chreia), “utility,” for both goods and indifferents (e.g., Diog. Laert. 7.98–99, 107). That Paul, a non-Stoic, would use a technical term in a casual way, however, poses no problem. Even Stoics sometimes (although there is no recorded instance for this term) used their terminology somewhat casually (see above, n. 32). 61  Which, interestingly, Paul phrases with the “you” singular of the diatribe (ἐὰν νόμον πράσσῃς, ean nomon prassēs). 62  That Paul’s former gain is now considered loss rather than simply indifferent may be due to his having redefined the good as “knowing Christ”; see Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 136–38, and the discussion below. 60 

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that he might “gain Christ” (ἵνα Χριστὸν κερδήσω, hina Christon kerdēsō). And to this we need only add that κέρδος and ζημία, while not uniquely Stoic, do occur in Epictetus as part of his ethical vocabulary.63 § I realize that to a modern reader this interpretation of Paul’s views on circumcision may seem overly technical and artificial. But the Stoics did employ these ethical categories, and they became popular among many non-Stoics, especially in the period from ca. 150 B.C.E. to ca. 150 C.E. (i.e., from Arius and Cicero to Epictetus and Hierocles). I stress this point here because of the potential importance of this for understanding circumcision in Paul. Unlike life and death, marriage, and slavery, circumcision was not a topic that was discussed by the Stoics. This means that when Paul treats circumcision as an indifferent thing in these passages, he is not doing so by borrowing or imitating an existing Stoic treatment. Rather, either he or another early Christian theologian has integrated basic elements of Stoic ethical theory into Christian discourse and applied them to issues facing the early church. And if the integration of Stoic and Christian ethics has taken place at such a foundational level in Paul’s theology, then several exciting possibilities come into view. First, it is possible that Paul’s indifference to the other things on our original list— for example, food, education, and speaking in tongues—may also depend on a Stoic approach to the world, even though there is little or nothing in what Paul says about them to suggest the presence of Stoic reasoning. Second, if the rationale of Paul’s arguments depends to some measure on Stoic premises, then a basic understanding of these premises must have been part of the intellectual and moral world of his audiences, if we are to assume that his arguments were effective. Third, and quite beyond this, we must consider the implications of this integration of Stoic and Christian ethics for mapping out a theoretical basis for Paul’s ethics. After all, if there is a category of “indifferent things” in Paul’s ethics, are there also “good” and “bad things” or virtues and vices—and if so, what are they? To some extent, these questions have already been taken up by Paul Sampley, James Jaquette, Paul Holloway, and Troels Engberg-Pedersen.64 Holloway, for example, on the basis of a careful exegesis of Philippians, has identified several “things that matter” in Paul (τὰ διαφέροντα, ta diapheronta, Phil 1:10), which, for the Stoics, would be the equivalent of “goods.” These include: “the progress (προκοπή) of the gospel” (Phil 1:12–18a), “Paul’s own anticipated salvation (σωτηρία, sōtēria)” and “the boldness (παρρησία, parrēsia) of the gospel messenger” (both Phil 1:18b–21), and “the surpassing

63  On κέρδος, see above, n. 29. Ζημία occurs only here in Paul and is seldom in the LXX. In Epictetus: 1.11.11 (twice); 1.20.11; 2.10.15, 19 (thrice, with κερδαίνω, kerdainō); 3.25.10; 3.26.25 (with κέρδος); 4.1.120; 4.4.32; 4.9.10 (twice); 4.12.18. Also Musonius, frags. 9.74.2; 15.96.19 Lutz. On the unusual expression “to gain Christ,” see Phil 1:21, “to live is Christ,” and the discussion above. 64  J. P. Sampley, Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 77–83; Jaquette, Discerning What Counts, 213–25; and Troels Engberg-Pedersen, “Paul, Virtues, and Vices,” in this volume. For Holloway, see next note.



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greatness of the knowledge of Christ” (Phil 3:8–14).65 To these, in turn, we could add love (1 Cor 13:1–13), “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6), and the “new creation” (Gal 6:15), all of which Paul explicitly contrasts with things of relative worth and, consequently, indifference. Fourth, since Paul treats circumcision as an indifferent, he may have viewed other commandments of the Mosaic law as indifferent things. We know, for instance, that Paul devalued all “works of the law” by comparison with grace and faith (e.g., Gal 3:2); and the striking statement he makes in 1 Cor 7:19b might also point in this direction. In 1 Cor 7:18–19a, as we are contending, Paul treats circumcision, a prominent commandment of the law, as an indifferent. In v. 19b, he then justifies this position, in part, by stating: “circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything.” Evidently, “what matters” here is the “commandments of God,” which are somehow distinct from circumcision, an (indifferent) work of the law.66 § Has Paul employed or been influenced by Stoic notions of indifference in his thinking on life and death, marriage, slavery, and circumcision? Based on his choice of words and phrases, there is reason to think so. In addition, a case can be made that Paul shares certain conceptual assumptions with the Stoics, even if he expresses these assumptions in his own theological idiom. Yet perhaps determining the extent of Stoic influence on Paul should not be our primary concern. After all, if Paul’s writings make better sense to us in light of Stoic ideas, then Stoic thought is relevant for understanding Paul, whether or not we can demonstrate influence. It has, in other words, heuristic value for interpreting Paul. The more important question, therefore, seems to be: “Does Paul make better sense in light of Stoic ethics?”—and as I suggested above, this is a matter that scholars will need to debate, perhaps for some time.67

Postscript In the twelve years since writing this essay, I have continued to study Stoic ethics and its possible relevance for understanding Paul. As a postscript for this second edition, I offer the following considerations as to how one might move beyond the

Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 101–45. On this understanding of the “law of God,” see Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, 165–69; and John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 229–30, 246; cf. idem, Apocalypse, Prophecy, and Pseudepigraphy: On Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 78–81. Nonetheless, Paul believes that the Mosaic law still enables one to discern “the things that matter” (τὰ διαφέροντα). This information is found in Rom 2:18, which is couched in diatribe style. 67  See the remarks by Engberg-Pedersen, “Stoicism in Philippians,” 277–80. 65  66 

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topic of indifferents to a fuller comparison of Pauline and Stoic ethics. First, given my assessment of our evidence, I think that further speculation based on Paul’s understanding of indifferents would be precarious. In particular, I do not see much promise in an investigation of Stoic “appropriate actions” (καθήκοντα, kathēkonta). As noted above, Stoics held that one’s ability to determine the preferred indifferents (προηγμένα, proēgmena) in a given situation was essential for his or her progress toward virtue, for by selecting these indifferents one performed appropriate actions.68 Paul, however, does not indicate that the selection of preferred indifferents, to the extent they exist in Paul, leads to any discrete category of Christian works comparable to “appropriate actions.”69 Second, it is uncertain that a consideration of “things that matter” in Paul will lead to a meaningful comparison with Stoic thought. While Paul clearly has such a category, as demonstrated near the end of the essay, a simple comparison with Stoic discussions would be misleading. What “mattered” for the Stoics was the good (τὸ ἀγαθόν, to agathon), or virtue (ἀρετή, aretē), which had little direct relevance for practical ethics in Paul’s time, as it pertained only to the theoretical sage figure, not everyday people.70 At the very least, some allowance would need to be made for this important difference. Third, I am not overly optimistic about the method proposed by Troels EngbergPedersen in his Paul and the Stoics and other publications, by which he applies his heuristic I→X→S model to individual Pauline texts.71 This model, as he himself admits, does not account for everything in Paul or the Stoics. Rather, it is an abstraction from their writings designed to depict changes in an individual’s identity and values, and thus to locate “overlaps” between Pauline and Stoic anthropology and ethics.72 In applying this model, however, Engberg-Pedersen makes a number of assumptions and comparisons that I find questionable. For example, he assumes that moral error and sin in Stoicism and Paul is rooted in self-centeredness.73 Doubtless,

On appropriate acts, also rendered “proper functions,” see Arius in Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.8–11a (50.34– 62.33 Pomeroy); Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 1:359–68. 69  Although it is possible that Paul understood “works of the law” in a manner functionally similar to Stoic appropriate actions—see my comment near the end of the essay that Paul may have viewed some Mosaic commandments as indifferents. 70  E.g., Rist, Stoic Philosophy, 256–61; Cicero, Off. 3.16–17; Seneca, Ep. 59.1–2; Epictetus, Diatr. 2.24.9. 71  Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (London: T&T Clark International, 2000); idem, “The Relationship with Others: Similarities and Differences between Paul and Stoicism,” ZNW 96 (2005): 35–60. 72  Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 30–34, 43, 81; idem, “Relationship with Others,” 37. In this model, “I” represents the unsaved or unwise stage of a individual; “X” is the divine, with which an individual is “struck” and may come to identify him or herself; and “S” is the stage at which an individual attains an identity within a group of those who are saved or have attained wisdom. 73  E.g., Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 37–38. Cf. idem, “Stoicism in the Apostle Paul: A Philosophical Reading,” in Stoicism: Traditions and Transformations, ed. Steven K. Strange and Jack Zupko (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 67: “the root idea that serves to define the flesh in Paul is that of selfishness.” See also idem, “Paul, Virtues, and Vices,” in this volume, where he suggests that self-centeredness is linked to the body’s physicality, asserting that Paul makes “intrinsic connections” between an “exaggerated concern for one’s own body” and “a failure of concern for others.” 68 



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from some perspectives—e.g., a Buddhist or a modern philosophical perspective—it is possible to argue that moral error in any ethical system derives from selfishness. But as this is not the Pauline or Stoic perspective, it remains unclear what EngbergPedersen has accomplished by identifying this “overlap” through his heuristic model. Likewise, I fail to see how the Stoic “sense of belonging,” explained through their doctrine of oikeiōsis, has any significant overlap with Paul’s understanding of “belonging to Christ.”74 Finally, Engberg-Pedersen’s approach necessitates the assumption that altruism is a principal goal of Stoic ethics,75 which is a view now widely rejected.76 Finally, on a positive note, I do see some potential for a comparison of Pauline and Stoic ethics based on the several, largely unexplored, similarities between the two systems. These include beliefs regarding the sinfulness of all humanity, the instantaneous change from sinner to saint or sage, the impossibility (or near impossibility) of living ethically by one’s own efforts, the necessity of actions, the insufficiency of actions, and the utility of precepts and repeated admonitions over against written law. Since there are many such similarities, and since some of them are distinctive in Greco-Roman and Jewish thought, or even unique to Paul and the Stoics, it may be possible to clarify some of the idiosyncrasies of Paul’s thought by understanding these beliefs in Paul as functional equivalents to corresponding beliefs in the Stoic ethical system.77

Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 64. Likewise, he sees a similarity between “the relation to one another within the ‘group’ of Stoic wise men and within the Pauline group of Christ-believers” (EngbergPedersen, “Relationship with Others,” 51, cf. 37; and cf. idem, Paul and the Stoics, 127). Yet, to mention just one of many stark differences, the wise man, unlike the believer, does not forgive and shows no compassion (Diog. Laert. 7.123; Arius in Stobaeus, Ecl. 2.7.11d; Cicero, Mur. 61 = SVF 1.214). I imagine that Engberg-Pedersen might respond that the overlap between Paul and the Stoics is never an exact fit; but once again, what is accomplished in maintaining such a similarity? 75  Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 67–70; cf. 37–38, 50–53. Cf. idem, “Paul, Virtues, and Vices,” in this volume: “moral virtue is essentially other-regarding.” This mistake, but to a greater degree, is made by Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), who characterizes Seneca as “loving each and all” (27), Musonius as concerned with the “welfare of the neighbor” (43), and Epictetus as preaching “love without limits” (58). 76  See Gisela Striker, “Following Nature: A Study in Stoic Ethics,” OSAPh 9 (1991): 43, 45, 67–68; idem, “The Role of Oikeiosis in Stoic Ethics,” OSAPh 1 (1983): 165; John M. Rist, “The Stoic Concept of Detachment,” in The Stoics, ed. John M. Rist (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), esp. 263, 272; Paul Veyne, Seneca: The Life of a Stoic (New York: Routledge, 2003), 31, 95; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 53–82; William O. Stephens, “Epictetus on How the Sage Loves,” OSAPh 14 (1996): 193–210. 77  For an example of what this might look like, see Stanley K. Stowers, “Jesus the Teacher and Stoic Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew,” in Stoicism in Early Christianity, ed. Tuomas Rasimus, Troels EngbergPedersen, and Ismo Dunderberg (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010), 59–76. 74 

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Part III. Other Relevant Pauline and Paulinist Texts Rom 8:35–39; 14:5, 6–8, 14–17, 20 1 Cor 1:26; 3:21–23; 4:10–13; 6:7–8, 12–13a; 8:8; 10:23–24; 13:1–3; 14:18–19 2 Cor 5:8–10 Gal 2:6–9 Phil 3:4–8, 12–16; 4:10–13

Part IV. Select Bibliography Primary Texts, Translations, and Commentaries Arnim, Johannes [Hans] von, ed. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1968. [See 3:117–68.] Dyck, Andrew R. Commentary on Cicero, De Officiis. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Griffin, M. T., and E. M. Atkins, eds. Cicero: On Duties. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Hicks, R. D., trans. Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931. [See 2:110–319.] Inwood, Brad, and L. P. Gerson, trans. Hellenistic Philosophy: Introductory Readings. 2nd ed. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997. [Pp. 190–260.] Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987–88. [See 1:346–86, 394–410; 2:343–82, 389–404.] Pomeroy, Arthur J., ed. Arius Didymus: Epitome of Stoic Ethics. SBLTT 44. Graeco-Roman Series 14. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999. Wright, M. R., ed. and trans. Cicero: On Good and Evil. Warminster: Aris & Phillips, 1991.

Secondary Literature Deming, Will. Review of Discerning What Counts, by James L. Jaquette. JBL 115 (1996): 758–60. Downing, F. Gerald. Review of Paul and the Stoics by Troels Engberg-Pedersen. JTS ns 52, no. 1 (2000): 78–80. Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. “The Relationship with Others: Similarities between Paul and Stoicism.” ZNW 96 (2005): 35–60. Holloway, Paul A. Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical Sources and Rhetorical Strategy. SNTSMS 112. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Inwood, Brad. Ethics and Human Action in Early Stoicism. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985. Ioppolo, Anna Maria. “Chrysippus and the Action Theory of Aristo of Chios.” Pages 197–222 in Virtue and Happiness: Essays in Honour of Julia Annas. Edited by Rachana Kamtekar. OSAPh, suppl. vol. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.



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Jaquette, James L. Discerning What Counts: The Function of the Adiaphora Topos in Paul’s Letters. SBLDS 146. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995. Lesses, Glen. Review of The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis: Moral Development and Social Interaction in Early Stoic Philosophy by Troels Engberg-Pedersen. AncPhil 15, no. 2 (1995): 640–45. Long, A. A. Hellenistic Philosophy: Stoics, Epicureans, Skeptics. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1974. [Pp. 179–209.] Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. [See 2:505–10.] Malherbe, Abraham J. “Determinism and Free Will in Paul: The Argument of 1 Corinthians 8 and 9.” Pages 231–55 in Paul in his Hellenistic Context. Edited by Troels EngbergPedersen. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. Paige, Terence, “Stoicism, ἐλευθερία, and Community.” Pages 180–93 in Worship, Theology and Ministry in the Early Church: Essays in Honor of Ralph P. Martin. Edited by Michael J. Wilkins and Terence Paige. Sheffield: JSOT, 1992. Rist, J. M. Stoic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969. Sandbach, F. H. The Stoics. New York: W. W. Norton, 1975. [Pp. 28–68.] Stowers, Stanley K. “Jesus the Teacher and Stoic Ethics in the Gospel of Matthew.” Pages 59–76 in Stoicism in Early Christianity. Edited by Tuomas Rasimus, Troels EngbergPedersen, and Ismo Dunderberg. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010. Tieleman, Teun. Review of The Stoic Theory of Oikeiosis: Moral Development and Social Interaction in Early Stoic Philosophy by Troels Engberg-Pedersen. Mnemosyne 48, no. 2 (1995): 226–35. White, Stephen A. “Stoic Selection: Objects, Actions, and Agents.” Pages 110–29 in Ancient Models of Mind. Edited by Andrea Wilson Nightingale and D. N. Sedley. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Chapter 18

Paul and Literacy John C. Poirier

Part I. Literacy in the Ancient World To ask whether someone is literate per se is to miss a necessary nuance. What is literacy? Does it consist in the ability to read, to write, or to do both? If the ability to read is what makes one literate, how quickly and at what level must one be able to read? And if an ability to write is a necessary part of the concept, how much must one be able to write? Does writing one’s own name suffice? And does it matter which language(s) one uses? There is no clear answer as to how “literacy” should be defined, except to say that the term rules out anyone who can scarcely read or write anything. At best we can speak of different levels and types of literacy, and of how those levels and types obtained in late antiquity.1 Johannes Unsok Ro presents a quick and easy typology: “1. reading; 2. copier’s or craftsman’s writing; and 3. composer’s writing.”2 But this fails to cover all literacy, as it omits signature literacy. Those who might want to exclude signature literacy from our definition of literacy would not have the sympathies of those ancients who could do scarcely more than sign their name, but nonetheless protested the charge of illiteracy. The case of Ischyrion and Petaus has been thoroughly discussed: here was a pair of government-appointed town scribes for whom writing much beyond their signature seems to have been a difficult (and thoroughly rote) undertaking.3 According to Chris Keith, “ ‘literacy’ is not a well-defined category but rather a spectrum (or spectrums), and thus it is perhaps more appropriate to speak of ‘literate competency(ies)’ ” (“ ‘In My Own Hand’: Grapho-Literacy and the Apostle Paul,” Bib 89 [2008]: 39–58, esp. 47). Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf write, “Literacy is not a single phenomenon but a highly variable package of skills in using texts: it may or may not include writing as well as reading and is generally geared only to particular genres of texts, particular registers of language and often to only some of the languages used within multilingual societies” (“Literacy and Power in the Ancient World,” in Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, ed. Alan K. Bowman and Greg Woolf [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], 1–16, esp. 2–3). 2  “Socio-Economic Context of Post-Exilic Community and Literacy,” ZAW 120 (2008): 597–611, esp. 602. 3  On Ischyrion and Petaus, see Herbert C. Youtie, “Pétaus, fils de Pétaus, ou le scribe qui ne savait pas écrire,” Chronique d’Égypte 41 (1966): 127–43; idem, “Βραδέως γράφων: Between Literacy and 1 



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If literacy is a splintered category, what might we say about its spread (however we define it) within the first-century Greco-Roman world? William Harris’s celebrated 1991 book on Ancient Literacy put scholarship on the trail of a more minimalist estimate of ancient literacy rates than earlier scholars had supposed. Although Harris has had his share of detractors (see below), his arguments have determined the literacy-studies agenda for the past two decades.4 He argued that the institutions required for high rates of literacy within the Roman world (viz. public schools) were not in place in late antiquity, and that this consideration, along with those of necessity and expense, shows literary education to be scarcer than earlier generations of scholars had supposed: The classical world, even at its most advanced, was so lacking in the characteristics which produce extensive literacy that we must suppose that the majority of people were always illiterate. In most places most of the time, there was no incentive for those who controlled the allocation of resources to aim for mass literacy. Hence the institutional lacunae which would have impeded any movement towards mass literacy—above all, the shortage of subsidized schools—were confronted to no more than a slight extent.5

On Harris’s account, literary allusions to higher literacy rates or to presumptive literacy on the part of one’s fellows were either idealizations or examples of social myopia. Estimates of overall literacy in the ancient Mediterranean world vary widely, but they tend to be more reserved than they once were—mostly owing to Harris’s work. Harris gives estimates for different settings throughout his discussion, but he always tends toward something in the range of 10–15% overall, which he sometimes restates as well below 20–30% for adult males (esp. in and around Italy).6 He posits a lower rate for the eastern Roman Empire: around 5–10% overall.7 The reader cannot help

Illiteracy,” GRBS 12 (1971): 239–61, esp. 239–41; Ann Ellis Hanson, “Ancient Illiteracy,” in Literacy in the Roman World, ed. J. H. Humphrey, JRASup 3 (Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1991), 159–98, esp. 171–75; T. J. Kraus, “(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt: Further Aspects of the Educational Ideal in Ancient Literary Sources and Modern Times,” Mnemosyne 53 (2000): 322–42, esp. 329, 334–37; Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 172; Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 52–53; idem, Jesus’ Literacy: Scribal Culture and the Teacher from Galilee, LNTS 413, LHJS 8 (London: T&T Clark International, 2011), 89–90. Youtie showed that those said to be “illiterate” in Greco-Roman Egyptian papyri were incapable of signing their name to a document (“ΑΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΟΣ: An Aspect of Greek Society in Egypt,” HSCP 75 [1971]: 161–76). Cf. idem, “ΥΠΟΓΡΑΦΕΥΣ: The Social Impact of Illiteracy in Graeco-Roman Egypt,” ZPE 17 (1975): 201–21; idem, “ ‘Because They Do Not Know Letters,’ ” ZPE 19 (1975): 101–108; Hanson, “Ancient Illiteracy,” 163–64. 4  William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1991). Some of Harris’s views were anticipated by Sir Frederick Kenyon (Books and Readers in Greece and Rome, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Clarendon, 1951], 80). 5  Harris, Ancient Literacy, 13. Chris Keith outlines “six key factors” for the discussion of “scribal authority”: “majority illiteracy,” “degrees of literacy,” “separate literate skills of reading and writing,” “multilingualism,” “scribal literacy,” and “the social perception of literacy” (Jesus Against the Scribal Elite: The Origin of the Conflict [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014], 20–33). 6  Harris, Ancient Literacy, 259. 7  Ibid., 272.

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but feel that Harris’s figures owe a great deal to guesswork, and Harris himself refers to making such assessments a “risky task.”8 The lasting value of Harris’s discussion, therefore, lies not so much in his figures—which should not be received as hard-andfast judgments—but rather in the removal of any imagined forms of public education (on which, see below). Once the tutoring of one’s children becomes a matter of one’s own purse and of the leisure time of the household’s available workforce (not to mention the availability of a qualified teacher), it seems unavoidable that many in the Roman world were never afforded a serious opportunity to learn to read and/or write. Setting out an intelligent figure for overall literacy is complicated by the variables involved—including settings, local trends, religious factors, etc. Philip Alexander, in fact, complains that such figures become meaningless at the level of specific application. After briefly discussing the “broad brush” approach of three well-received monographs on ancient literacy (those of Harris, Harry Gamble, and Catherine Hezser),9 Alexander remarks, If the three monographs which I have mentioned have a common fault then it surely must be that the social entities within which they attempt to investigate the social functions of literacy are sociologically nebulous and problematic (“the Greek and Roman world”, “the early Church”, “Jewish Society in Roman Palestine”). Generalizations about such constructs are of dubious value.10

Instead of applying a translocal figure to a local instance, Alexander calls for some­ thing analogous to “[t]he approach…adopted by the modern historians who stress the importance of micro-history”—that is, we should look to describe “smaller, more socially real, communities of text-users.”11 Perhaps the most important way in which context matters lies in the question of the rural setting versus the city. If a figure of 10–15% overall applies to the population as a whole, the figure for cities was obviously higher. James Franklin, in fact, writes convincingly of “widespread literacy” in first-century CE Pompeii.12 He points to how many of those laboring in professions for which literacy was not indispensable nonetheless were able to read and write:

Ibid., 7. James G. Keenan writes that “the percentages [in Harris’s book] appear free-floating” (review of Harris, Ancient Literacy, in Ancient History Bulletin 5 [1991]: 101–107, esp. 104). 9  Harris, Ancient Literacy; Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, TSAJ 81 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2001). The “broad brush” remark is found in Philip S. Alexander, “Literacy among Jews in Second Temple Palestine: Reflections on the Evidence from Qumran,” in Hamlet on a Hill: Semitic and Greek Studies Presented to Professor T. Muraoka on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday, ed. M. F. J. Baasten and W. Th. Van Peursen, Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 118 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 3–24, esp. 4. 10  Alexander, “Literacy among Jews in Second Temple Palestine,” 4 n. 5. 11  Ibid. 12  James L. Franklin, Jr., “Literacy and the Parietal Inscriptions of Pompeii,” in Humphrey, ed., Literacy in the Roman World, 77–98, esp. 97. Cf. Helen Tanzer: “one of the unexpected things we learn about these Pompeians is that their standard of literacy was so high. Everybody could read and almost everybody could and apparently did write” (The Common People of Pompeii: A Study of the Graffiti [Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1939], 6). 8 



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Salutes, slanders, threats, building instructions, theatrical allusions, even a death notice: in all, it is a surprisingly vivacious picture, suggesting that nearly all of these workmen were capable of writing, given the impetus and the invitation by a stretch of unrestricted wall. Of Crescens’ literacy, requisite to the boss of the shop, few scholars would have had suspicion; but that his laborers also could read and write indicates literacy considerably higher than the “craftsman’s level.” The 83 graffiti that covered this peristyle, some eliciting others, confirm the ability to read and write among a class of laborers for whom literacy would not a priori have been assumed. …[A]t the famous brothel at [CIL] VII.12.18–20, where too the walls appear to have been free for thoughts to be recorded, more than 120 graffiti were recovered—graffiti that had been written not only by clients but also by the whores, again a class probably below the “craftsman’s.” It is to such studies that analysis of literacy at Pompeii must turn, for they allow us to progress beyond the failure of statistics to characterize the evidence.13

Franklin has an explanation for why Pompeii should be so exceptionally literate: not only are we dealing with an urban setting, but a carefully policed “economic bureaucracy” seems to have impressed people with the advantages of reading and writing.14 Franklin closes with the suggestion that Pompeii might not have been all that exceptional after all—that it might have been more representative of Italian city-life than the (already surprised) reader might expect.15 In the wake of Harris’s study, the debate has often turned to individual types of evidence, sometimes with the same evidence being pulled in opposite directions. The discussions about abecedaries and seal-boxes are two cases in point. Scholars routinely cite the frequent discovery of incomplete abecedaries as evidence of writing exercises, but others argue that many of these abecedaries are better explained as magical texts.16 And in 2002, T. Derks and N. Roymans argued that the large number and wide distribution of Roman seal-boxes (viz. small, closeable copper boxes filled with wax) support widespread literacy: if these boxes were used for sealing written

Franklin, “Literacy and the Parietal Inscriptions of Pompeii,” 96–97. Cf. Roger S. Bagnall, Everyday Writing in the Graeco-Roman East, Sather Classical Lectures 69 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 25–26. 14  Franklin, “Literacy and the Parietal Inscriptions of Pompeii,” 96–97. 15  Ibid., 98. For a somewhat later period, see Jaclyn L. Maxwell, Christianization and Communication in Late Antiquity: John Chrysostom and his Congregation in Antioch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 100–102. 16  See Keith, Jesus’ Literacy, 77–79; John C. Poirier, “Education/Literacy in Jewish Galilee: Was There Any and at What Level?,” in Galilee in the Late Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods. Vol. 1, Life, Culture, and Society, ed. David A. Fiensy and James Riley Strange (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2014), 253–60. Cf. Juhana Markus Saukkonen, “Dwellers at Qumran: Reflections on their Literacy, Social Status, and Identity,” in Scripture in Transition: Essays on Septuagint, Hebrew Bible, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honour of Raija Sollamo, ed. Anssi Voitila and Jutta Jokiranta, JSJSup 126 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 615–27, esp. 620–22. On abecedaries as magical texts, see no. 1 in Barry Cunliffe, ed., The Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath. Vol. 2, The Finds from the Sacred Spring, Oxford University Committee for Archaeology Monograph 16 (Oxford: Oxford University Committee for Archaeology, 1988). There a Latin text inscribed on a cast alloy sheet apparently reads “A B C D E F X,” with the following explanation for the out-of-place “X”: “Since this example was deposited with curse tablets, a possible explanation for the intrusive X is that the author intended a covert allusion to cursing: ABC def(i)x(io).” 13 

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correspondence (as Derks and Roymans presume) then their sheer number and geographical scatter would seem to speak in favor of a literate public.17 But Colin Andrews has recently argued—conclusively, to my mind—that the premise on which this picture is based is flawed: he makes the case that seal-boxes were not used for sealing written correspondence, as previously thought, but rather for sealing money bags tied closed with drawstrings.18 The reaction to Harris has turned on how one should understand evidence for or against literacy in the face of the non-public nature of literacy education. For example, Nicholas Horsfall, in a spirited response to Harris, complains that “ ‘School’ has acquired disproportionate importance within Harris’ perceptions.” It is even possible to absorb some of the force of Harris’s argument more directly, by noting that a limited amount of publicly funded education did exist in certain (urban) locales (although most of the evidence for this belongs to Vespasian and his successors).19 The evidence, therefore, suggests a significant qualification of Harris’s contentions about literacy in the ancient world. He sought to show that mass literacy did not obtain, and he succeeded in showing that. A more meaningful and sensitive approach, however, might have been content merely to highlight the disconnect between urban and rural settings.20 This is not to say that mass literacy obtained in the cities, but rather to say

17  T. Derks and N. Roymans, “Seal-boxes and the Spread of Latin Literacy in the Rhine Delta,” in Becoming Roman, Writing Latin? Literacy and Epigraphy in the Roman West, ed. A. E. Cooley, JRASup 48 (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2002), 87–134. 18  Colin Andrews, “Are Roman Seal-boxes Evidence for Literacy?,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 26 (2013): 423–38. Andrews writes “There is some strong archaeological evidence, at Trier, Kalkreise, and in the Snettisham jeweller’s hoard, for associating seal-boxes with small bags or sacks (at Trier, one containing gold aurei). This kind of use suits the technical features shared by all seal-boxes better than the notion that they were tied to stylus tablets” (437). 19  See John S. Schneider, “The Extent of Illiteracy in Oxyrhynchus and Its Environs during the Late Third Century A.D.,” CJ 28 (1933): 670–74, esp. 670–72; Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 26. Teachers were often supported by public funds and tax exemptions, as well as by private benefactors—this was to allow some poor but deserving students to receive an education. Of course, set-ups like this were basically confined to the cities. See Robert A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 114–18. 20  The rural–urban divide is supported in an intriguing way by R. P. Duncan-Jones’s study of the correlation between illiteracy and epitaphic age-rounding in “Age-Rounding, Illiteracy, and Social Differentiation in the Roman Empire,” Chiron 7 (1977): 333–53. Duncan-Jones notes that, at least for northern Africa, age-rounding became a more pronounced phenomenon the further one traveled from the regional capital (341–42). (But cf. Leonard A. Curchin’s complaint that Duncan-Jones’s study, “[l]ike Harris’s epigraphic density study…assumes homogeneity within each province” [“Literacy in the Roman Provinces: Qualitative and Quantitative Data from Central Spain,” AJP 116 (1995): 461–76, esp. 471].) Morgan warns against totalizing the disconnect: “We should note that schooltexts do turn up in one or two far-flung places, like Elephantine (though there was a well-documented Greek community there) and the army camp at Mons Claudianus—so we should beware of assuming that education was confined to large and wealthy centres of Greek culture” (Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, 56). (Cf. the list of school-related writings compiled in Janine Debut, “Les documents scolaires,” ZPE 63 [1986]: 251–78.) See Scott D. Charlesworth, “Recognizing Greek Literacy in Early Roman Documents from the Judaean Desert,” BASP 51 (2014): 161–89, esp. 170–71.



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that widespread literacy perhaps obtained in some cities21—enough perhaps to make any attempt at rendering an overall figure meaningless. As Alan Bowman notes, “It is… misleading to argue that mass literacy and widespread literacy are the same thing.”22 In a sense, it is a question of how one should understand the words “extensive” and “most places” if we are to grant the point Harris wishes to make in the quotation near the beginning of this section.23

Literacy in a Jewish Context Some attempts to apply Harris’s insights to Jewish Palestine have adjusted his figures downward for that setting, in view of the agricultural setting of much of the population. Unfortunately, some of these attempts forget to readjust upward in view of the sizable cadre of priests and other levitical workers living in the cities.24 As Hezser has shown, the priestly element within the population is indeed key for understanding the forces behind literacy at that time: What is most striking is that practically all Palestinian Jewish literary activity seems to have come to a temporary end with the destruction of the Temple. Perhaps this is because the Palestinian Jewish circles which were able to compose such works were priestly circles, and priestly circles disintegrated and/or lost all interest in literary compositions after the war.25

Chris Keith similarly points out that “[t]he closest one gets to a reference to a typical literate education of a literate class is the clear instruction for the sons of Levi to teach reading in T. Levi 13:2”—that is, a text depicting education among priests for the pursuit of priestly duties.26 It is therefore a grave mistake to leave out the priestly

21  And in some army camps—see Alan K. Bowman, “The Roman Imperial Army: Letters and Literacy on the Northern Frontier,” in Bowman and Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, 109–25; Zsuzsanna Varhelyi, “Continuities in Late Antique Literacy: The Evidence from North Africa and Gaul,” Acta Classica Universitatis Scientiarum Debreceniensis 46 (2010): 177–85, esp. 182–83. 22  Alan K. Bowman, “Literacy in the Roman Empire: Mass and Mode,” in Humphrey, ed., Literacy in the Roman World, 119–31, esp. 123. 23  To the degree that the terminology of literacy matters, we should note that “literacy” often was not credited to those whose literate abilities happened to be in the wrong language—viz. in something other than Greek. This appears to reflect the conventions of contractual signatory writing, although it might apply more broadly. See esp. Kraus, “(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt,” 330. 24  This is a noticeable defect in the work of Meir Bar-Ilan (see his “Illiteracy in the Land of Israel in the First Centuries C.E.,” in Essays in the Social Scientific Study of Judaism and Jewish Society, ed. Simcha Fishbane, Stuart Schoenfeld, and Alain Goldschläger, 2 vols. [Hoboken: Ktav, 1992], 2:52–55) and John Dominic Crossan (see his Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography [San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1994], 25). On literacy in the Jewish Galilee, see Poirier, “Education/Literacy in Jewish Galilee,” 253–60. 25  Catherine Hezser, “Jewish Literacy and the Use of Writing in Late Roman Palestine,” in Jewish Culture and Society under the Christian Roman Empire, ed. Richard Kalmin and Seth Schwartz, Interdisciplinary Studies in Ancient Culture and Religion 3 (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 149–95, esp. 152. Hezser elsewhere discusses a Tosefta passage (t. Pes. 10.8) that deals with how an entirely illiterate town might fulfill the Passover requirement of reading the Hallel (Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, 467). 26  Keith, Jesus’ Literacy, 98.

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factor when determining the spread of literacy in post-70 CE Jewish Palestine. This does not mean that literacy, even in the larger cities of Jewish Palestine, would have been as widespread as the evidence suggests for certain Greco-Roman cities. In fact, inscriptional remains are relatively scarce, as Hezser notes: Why should tens of thousands of inscriptions have survived in Roman Italy but only a few hundred in Palestine? The Italian climate and better preservation of the material cannot have been the reason. Again, a great number of private papyrus letters have been found in Egypt but practically none in Palestine. If such letters had actually been written by the Palestinian Jewish masses, the total lack of both papyrological and literary evidence would be more than strange.27

One problem that hampers any straightforward reliance on what first-century figures say about the literacy or educational levels of their day is that the elite tend to treat their fellow elite as the rule rather than the exception. Thus, Philo (Legat. 16.115–16) and Josephus (C. Ap. 1.12; 2.25) present the Jewish world of their day as comprised almost exclusively of educated and literate people. But we should read Philo’s and Josephus’s views as little more than evidence of their entrenchment within the privileged class.28 (This would be an example of the “social myopia” mentioned above.) As Keith notes, Sirach’s reference to the illiteracy of the artisan class makes him “likely more forthcoming [than Philo or Josephus] about the historical reality of the general availability of literate education.”29 (See below on Sirach’s remarks on the artisan class.)

Part II. Paul’s Literacy Many readers of Paul’s letters continue to picture the senior Christian statesman regularly taking stylus to papyrus while sitting in a study or jail cell. In the roughest sense, some parts of this picture may yet be correct, but the details are not always imagined correctly. If we say that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians, in what sense is it proper to use the word “wrote”? And what (if anything) might our qualifications say about Paul’s ability to handle the stylus for himself? The same questions can be asked about those surrounding the apostle, including the members of his traveling party and those to whom he addressed his letters. The two main cultures with which Paul had to do were both heavily invested in the written word. Personal literacy then was a matter of how immediately (and deeply?) one could access the bookish core of those cultures.30 In some ways, therefore, asking Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, 488. Hezser writes, “In practically all areas in which writing was commonly used in antiquity there is much less evidence for Jewish than for Roman society” (500). 28  So ibid., 76–77. An apologetic element might also be present in Philo’s and Josephus’s remarks. 29  Ibid., 85. 30  Bowman writes, “The size of the literate group itself may be less important than the fact that a very much larger proportion of the population lived according to rules and conventions established on the 27 



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about Paul’s literacy is an attempt to puzzle out his place among the elite and semielite. Were Paul’s self-deprecations, so central to his rhetoric in 1 and 2 Corinthians (see 1 Cor 1:17; 2:4; 2 Cor 10:10; 11:6), reflective of a real educative shortcoming? Did his amanuenses help him become a letter-writer in a way he otherwise could not have attained? As we will see, it makes a difference that Paul was brought up in an urban setting, that his pursuits were religious in nature, and perhaps even that Tarsus was renowned for its educational opportunities. Some scholars have approached the question of Paul’s literacy by considering his profession as a tent-maker (Acts 18:3; cf. 1 Cor 4:12; 9:6; 1 Thess 2:9). If one’s likelihood of having learned to read and write is positively indexed to social status, it follows (so it is argued) that an apostle needing to work at a technē like tent-making was not of the status commonly associated with literacy. Thus, in support of a low assessment of Paul’s rhetorical training, Dean Anderson points to the necessity of Paul learning “the trade of tent-making” as indicating a lack of educational opportunity.31 Indeed, Sirach notes how difficult it was—to the point of countering all expectation— for artisans (specifically engravers, designers, metalsmiths, and potters) to “become wise” (Sir 38:24–33).32 In response, some have suggested that Paul took a job beneath his social status, either for the sake of the gospel or because of a renunciation of that status.33 (The notion of status renunciation was hardly unknown, at least in fictional writing [e.g., see Petronius, Satyricon 57.4].) Calvin Roetzel rejects this as “sheer speculation,” and insists that Paul was born into the artisan class—socially high enough that he could achieve “a formal but not a gymnasium education.”34

presumption that written communication was a normal and widespread form of regulating and ordering (in the broadest possible sense) its life” (“The Roman Imperial Army,” 111–12). 31  R. Dean Anderson, Jr., Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul, CBET 18 (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996), 249. Cf. Adolf Deissmann: “We must not think of Paul the tentmaker as a scholarly writer of books who by way of recreation after his brainwork took his place for an hour or two at the loom as an amateur” (St. Paul: A Study in Social and Religious History [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912], 50–51). 32  See Menahem Haran, “On the Diffusion of Literacy and Schools in Ancient Israel,” in Congress Volume: Jerusalem 1986, ed. J. A. Emerton, VTSup 40 (Leiden: Brill, 1988), 81–95, esp. 92; M. D. Goodman, “Texts, Scribes and Power in Roman Judaea,” in Bowman and Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, 99–108, esp. 105; Keith, Jesus’ Literacy, 84–85. 33  See esp. Ronald F. Hock, “Paul’s Tentmaking and the Problem of his Social Class,” JBL 97 (1978): 555–64; idem, “The Problem of Paul’s Social Class: Further Reflections,” in Paul’s World, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Pauline Studies 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 7–18; Bruce W. Winter, Philo and Paul among the Sophists, SNTSMS 96 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 166–69. See the response to Hock in Todd D. Still, “Did Paul Loathe Manual Labor? Revisiting the Work of Ronald F. Hock on the Apostle’s Tentmaking and Social Class,” JBL 125 (2006): 781–95. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor suggests that Paul learned his tent-making trade after his turn to Christianity cut him off from financial support (Paul: A Critical Life [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996], 86—see Phil 3:8). Calvin J. Roetzel considers Murphy-O’Connor’s suggestion “adventurous,” apparently in view of the fact that Prisca and Aquila plied the same trade (Paul: The Man and the Myth, Studies on Personalities of the New Testament [Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1998], 23), but one could easily argue that Paul’s chosen trade was suggested to him by its association with Prisca and Aquila. 34  Roetzel, Paul, 23. It should be noted that while scholars traditionally have held to a three-tier educational program, recent years have seen a loosening of this view’s hold. For some, the traditional view should be replaced by a twofold division of educational tracks (differing according to status), while others see

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The question of Paul’s Greek literacy relative to literacy in Aramaic and/or Hebrew was once closely tied to how strongly a Jerusalem setting figured in Paul’s education. If Paul spent the balance of his secondary-education years in Tarsus—as some argue—then the likelihood that he had been drilled to read and write Greek at an early age would certainly be higher than if he had spent those years studying in Jerusalem.35 But how much higher? When W. C. van Unnik first set forth his argument for placing Paul in Jerusalem at an early age (based on detailed exegesis of Acts 22:3), the possibility of a quality Hebrew (proto-rabbinic) education in Tarsus was difficult to fathom, and the possibility of a quality Greek education in Jerusalem was usually dismissed out of hand.36 But today it is widely admitted that a Greek education could almost certainly be had in first-century Jerusalem, and it is also admitted (albeit less frequently) that an Aramaic- or Hebrew-based education might also have been possible in Tarsus.37 Yet it still might be pertinent to note the limited reach of Van Unnik’s case: if he has shown that Luke places Paul in Jerusalem at an early age—and it still is not clear that he has38—that does not mean that the historical Paul studied in Jerusalem at an early age. After all, although it serves Luke’s apologetic purpose to place Paul at the feet of Gamaliel, (the historical) Paul fails to mention his tutelage under Gamaliel when listing his credentials, and it seems odd that Paul should not be “known by sight” to any of the Judean churches (Gal 1:22) if

less real evidence that divisions along the lines of either tiers or tracks are comprised of hard-and-fast rules. See A. D. Booth, “Elementary and Secondary Education in the Roman Empire,” Florilegium 1 (1979): 1–14; Robert A. Kaster, “Notes on ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools in Late Antiquity,” TAPA 113 (1983): 323–46; Stanley K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity, Library of Early Christianity 5 (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 32–33; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 37; Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts, “Paul’s Bible, his Education and his Access to the Scriptures of Israel,” JGRChJ 5 (2008): 14–16. On the teaching of reading skills, see Lisa Maurice, The Teacher in Ancient Rome: The Magister and His World (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2013), 51–56. On the teaching of writing skills, see there, 56–62. 35  Ronald F. Hock suggests that Paul’s references to the Law as a παιδαγωγός were based on personal experience (“Paul and Greco-Roman Education,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, ed. J. Paul Sampley [Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003], 198–227, esp. 216). 36  W. C. van Unnik, Tarsus or Jerusalem: The City of Paul’s Youth (London: Epworth, 1962). See also Martin Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM, 1991), 18–39. 37  As Murphy-O’Connor notes, “van Unnik’s sharp distinction between a ‘Jewish’ education in Jerusalem and a ‘pagan’ education in Tarsus is untenable” (Paul, 46). See Andrew W. Pitts, “Hellenistic Schools in Jerusalem and Paul’s Rhetorical Education,” in Porter, ed., Paul’s World, 19–50, esp. 42–45. On Greek literacy in Roman Palestine, see now Charlesworth, “Recognizing Greek Literacy in Early Roman Documents from the Judaean Desert,” 161–89. 38  Cf. esp. Andrie B. du Toit, “A Tale of Two Cities: ‘Tarsus or Jerusalem’ Revisited,” NTS 46 (2000): 375–402, esp. 378–88; Pitts, “Hellenistic Schools in Jerusalem and Paul’s Rhetorical Education,” 27–33; Porter and Pitts, “Paul’s Bible, his Education and his Access to the Scriptures of Israel,” 12–14 (this last article incorporating material verbatim from the one listed immediately preceding). Pitts writes, “There is plenty of evidence for a widespread knowledge of Greek among first-century Palestinians and this would have required some form of educational mechanism. This makes the existence of elementary Hellenistic schools in Jerusalem during the time of Paul a very likely possibility” (“Hellenistic Schools in Jerusalem and Paul’s Rhetorical Education,” 19, cf. 39–43).



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he had walked the streets of Jerusalem during some of the same years as the Twelve.39 Contra Martin Hengel, it also is not clear that Paul’s claims to be a Pharisee imply a Jerusalem connection.40 We might, however, take an overly general approach, and simply ask about the likelihood of Paul’s literacy. If it is true that literacy is more common in the city than in the countryside, then we are met with an increased probability for a literate Paul. Whichever way we answer the question in the title of van Unnik’s little book— Tarsus or Jerusalem—we will end up associating Paul with a center of learning. Strabo describes Tarsus as surpassing even Athens and Alexandria (!) in its devotion to education, and ascribes this devotion to the Tarsian natives themselves (Geogr. 14.5.13).41 To my mind, however, Paul’s autographic letter-endings (see below) already establish that he has at least some schooling in literacy.

Paul as Reader There is little doubt that Paul could read. That he could do so is far and away the best explanation of his exegetical prowess—even if we must admit that nonliterates can easily be exegetes of texts they have learned orally. As Paul consistently quotes one or another of the Greek versions of Scripture, it is almost certain that he regularly read Scripture in Greek, and he apparently read it a lot. E. P. Sanders writes, In [Gal 3:6–14], Paul quotes scripture six times. Two of the quotations are the only passages in the Greek translation of the Hebrew scripture that combine the words for “righteousness” and “faith” in the same sentence, and one is the only passage that combines “law” and “curse” in the same sentence. It is, of course, the memory that produces this result. It would take forever and a day to find the only examples of certain word combinations by turning scrolls.

39  Cf. Murphy-O’Connor, Paul, 46; Roetzel, Paul, 11–12; Tor Vegge, Paulus und das antike Schulwesen: Schule und Bildung des Paulus, BZNW 134 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 425–26. E. P. Sanders writes, “According to Galatians 1:22 [Paul] was not known by sight to the churches in Judaea, which makes it most unlikely that Jerusalem had been the scene of his activity as persecutor” (Paul, Past Masters [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991], 9). 40  Hengel takes Paul’s self-description as a “Pharisee” to indicate that he must have been educated in Jerusalem, dismissing H. J. Schoeps’s notion of the “Diaspora Pharisee” as an “error” (The Pre-Christian Paul, 29). According to Hengel, there is no evidence “for the existence of this genre of Pharisee.” E. P. Sanders, on the other hand, finds equally little reason to dismiss the notion of a Diaspora Pharisee: “[B]elief in the resurrection, the combination of free will with predestination, and reliance on tradition as well as on the written text of the Bible…show only that Paul was not a Palestinian Sadducee; they do not prove that he was a Palestinian Pharisee.” Thus, when Paul claims to be a Pharisee (Phil 3:5), that “probably means only that he believed in the resurrection and in some specific nonbiblical traditions” (“Paul between Judaism and Hellenism,” in St. Paul among the Philosophers, ed. John D. Caputo and Linda Martin Alcoff, Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009], 74–90, esp. 77). 41  See Stanley E. Porter, “Paul of Tarsus and His Letters,” in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period: 330 B.C.–A.D. 400, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 533–85, esp. 534; Roetzel, Paul, 13; Porter and Pitts, “Paul’s Bible, his Education and his Access to the Scriptures of Israel,” 11–12. Roetzel writes, “Tarsus offered a place where Greek and Semitic cultures could meet and enjoy a vital reciprocity” (Paul, 13).

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I conclude from this and other virtuoso performances (e.g., 1 Cor 10:1–13) that Paul was highly, highly, highly expert in Jewish scripture and in arguments based on it. It is impossible to demonstrate this level of familiarity with anything else. He knew his scripture at least as well as the most expert students of Homer knew the Iliad and the Odyssey. In fact, from reading the letters one of the few things that we know for sure about his education is that he knew the Greek translation of Hebrew scripture cold: backward and forward.42

Notwithstanding the impressive feats of oral memorization apparently found in the ancient world, it seems obvious that Paul spent a great deal of time reading Scripture. It is also likely that Paul could read Aramaic and Hebrew. As Jerome MurphyO’Connor notes, “Given his stress on being a ‘Hebrew of Hebrews’ (Phil 3:5), Paul must also have learnt Hebrew and/or Aramaic.”43 Luke gives indications that Paul could speak those languages. In fact, one episode in Acts (Paul’s arrest: Acts 21:26–22:29) appears to depict Paul as trilingual, able to speak Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic.44 If I read that episode correctly—my reading has not gone unchallenged— Paul interacts with the crowd in Aramaic after being dragged out of the Temple (see 21:31–36), he addresses the tribune in Greek in 21:37–39, and finally he addresses the crowd in Hebrew in 21:40–22:21.45 Therefore Luke apparently thought that Paul was trilingual.

Paul as a Writer Paul “wrote” letters—we have at least seven of them. Tradition credits him with seven more (including the remainder of the “Pauline” corpus in the NT canon), and the letters whose authorship is undisputed make reference to others that we do not

Sanders, “Paul between Judaism and Hellenism,” 81–82. Sanders writes, “I am willing to guess that [Paul’s] education included the elements of Greek grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and some modes of argumentation in a school that took most of its examples—which children and youths studied and memorized—from the Septuagint. Alternatively, one could propose a very basic education in Greek language and literature followed by further education in a Greek-speaking Jewish school. I merely wonder whether or not these two were combined: a Jewish school that taught in Greek and made extensive use of the Greek translation of the Bible, with very little Greek literature in the curriculum” (80). 43  Paul, 47. 44  Thus Hengel perhaps understates the matter when he writes that “[Luke] demonstrates the bi-lingual… character of his hero” (The Pre-Christian Paul, 34). 45  I offered this reading a few years ago (“The Narrative Role of Semitic Languages in the Book of Acts,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 16 [2003]: 107–16). Craig S. Keener recently objected to certain aspects of this reconstruction and its supporting argument, suggesting (pace my reading) that Paul “had no deliberate reason to exclude the tribune” from understanding his second address to the crowd (Acts: An Exegetical Commentary. Vol. 3, 15:1–13:35 [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2014], 3191 n. 629)—but then we might wonder why the tribune must have Paul “examined by flogging” (22:24) in order to learn what he said. Keener also supposes that the tribune would not have understood Aramaic if he had come from an urban setting in Syria. But if the tribune could not understand Aramaic, surely someone in the arresting party could. (The arresting party was comprised of “soldiers and centurions” [21:32].) It therefore appears that Paul did not address the crowd in Aramaic once the tribune gave him permission to speak, and τῇ Ἑβραΐδι διαλέκτῳ (Acts 22:2) could only mean “Hebrew”—a language neither the tribune nor any of his men could understand. See Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul, 117–18 n. 146. 42 



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possess (cf. 1 Cor 5:9; 2 Cor 2:3–4; 7:8)—unless they are preserved as fragments in 2 Corinthians. If we ask whether Paul was grapho-literate—that is, able to write in his own hand—we must start by asking in what sense he “wrote” his letters. If they were almost entirely written out by an amanuensis (see below), what (if anything) does that say about his writing ability? Keith correctly emphasizes the separateness of reading and writing as taught skills—there were many who could read but not write.46 (Goodman emphasizes that writing will have been much rarer among Jews [at least for the period of the Mishnah], given that it had such a specialized application.)47 What might seem especially odd to many moderns is that this works in the other direction as well: there were those who could write but not read—or who could not read, that is, with immediate comprehension.48 This is because writing was not taught as the transcription of words known to the one writing, but rather as the putting down of smaller units of graphic signs in an entirely rote manner: first letters, then syllables, then words, then whole sentences. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus (first century CE): When we are taught to read, first we learn by heart the names of the letters, then their shapes and their values, then, in the same way, the syllables and their effects, and finally words and their properties… And when we have acquired knowledge of these things, we begin to write and read, syllable by syllable and slowly at first. It is only when a considerable lapse of time has implanted firmly in our minds the forms of the words that we execute them with the utmost ease, and we read through any book that is given to us unfalteringly and with incredible confidence and speed. (On Literary Composition)49

This procedure is also mentioned by Manilius: “Children who have not yet begun their lessons are first shown the shape and name of a letter, and then its value is explained: then a syllable is formed by the linking of letters; next comes the building up of a word by reading its component syllables” (Astron. 2.755–58).50 The notion of writing letter by letter (rather than syllable by syllable, or word by word) lies behind a memorable detail in the Shepherd of Hermas, as Hermas complains of being able only

46  Keith, Jesus’ Literacy, 93. See Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 177; Robin Lane Fox, “Literacy and Power in Early Christianity,” in Bowman and Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, 126–48, esp. 128–29. 47  Goodman writes, “[W]riting was less common [than reading], not because it was thought unimportant but, on the contrary, because the production of religious texts was a specialized task” (“Texts, Scribes and Power in Roman Judaea,” 100). 48  See Konrad Vössing, “Schreiben lernen, ohne lesen zu können? Zur Methode des antiken Elementar­ unterrichts,” ZPE 123 (1998): 121–25, esp. 124; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 177–78. On the teaching of writing skills, see Vegge, Paulus und das antike Schulwesen, 117–21. 49  Trans. Stephen Usher, Dionysius of Halicarnassus. The Critical Essays, vol. 2, LCL 466 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 229. See Lisa Maurice, The Teacher in Ancient Rome: The Magister and His World (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2013), 53–54. 50  Trans. G. P. Goold, Manilius. Astronomica, LCL 469 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977), 143. See Rubén R. Dupertuis, “Writing and Imitation: Greek Education in the Greco-Roman World,” Forum (3rd series) 1, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 3–29.

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to copy letter by letter (2.1).51 Alexander notes, “Some of the most beautifully written manuscripts are textually poor because they were copied by professional scribes who do not seem to have had much idea what they were copying.”52 Hengel fields a rather maximalist view of Paul’s writing ability, suggesting that Paul’s “revised texts” of the Old Testament (= non-LXX-aligned quotations) might “very well in part…derive from his own work as a scribe.”53 As it stands, this is an improbable explanation of Paul’s departures from the Septuagint, but whether Paul’s writing skills were at or near “scribal” level is less immediately clear. To be sure, some amount of confusion breaks in when we invest Paul’s use of γραμματεύς with the pared-down definition that scholars routinely ascribe to their own use of “scribe.” Paul asks: “Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe (γραμματεύς)? Where is the debater of this age?” (1 Cor 1:20). A “scribe” in this sense appears to be more than a professional copyist or transcriber of speeches. It appears, rather, to be an expert in “wisdom”—the sort of wisdom that comes (among other ways) from being widely read. Adam White understands Paul to be referring to Jewish scribes, which he takes to be more than merely writers: These three figures (the σοφός, γραμματεύς and συζητητής) have been defined as the three main types of tertiary scholar in the Graeco-Roman world, that is, the rationalistic philosopher…the Jewish legal expert and the rhetorician respectively… Paul wants to remind the Corinthians that the teachers in the Christian community are not to be found amongst the world’s σοφοί; rather, a closer inspection will reveal that such men are virtually nowhere to be seen.54

This view comports with recent studies of the “scribes” as portrayed in the gospels. As Goodman notes, the scribes depicted in the gospels are primarily authoritative teachers (see Matt 7:29; 17:10; Mark 1:22).55 Thus Paul’s apparent self-distancing from the title “scribe” should not be taken as a deprecation of his writing skills.56 The use of an amanuensis was standard—almost universal.57 It is true that Quintilian protested against the “luxury of dictation”—he claimed that wielding the stylus for See Lane Fox, “Literacy and Power in Early Christianity,” 132; Kim Haines-Eitzen, Guardians of Letters: Literacy, Power, and the Transmitters of Early Christian Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 36–37; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 175; Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 50–51; idem, Jesus’ Literacy, 102. 52  Alexander, “Literacy among Jews in Second Temple Palestine,” 17. 53  Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul, 35. 54  Adam G. White, Where Is the Wise Man? Graeco-Roman Education as a Background to the Divisions in 1 Corinthians 1–4, LNTS 536 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015), 72. Christine Schams writes, “1 Cor. 1.20 reflects the notion that scribes were associated with knowledge and wisdom, representing the understanding of Paul who was familiar with both Greek and Jewish culture” (Jewish Scribes in the Second-Temple Period, JSOTSup 291 [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998], 201). 55  See Goodman, “Texts, Scribes and Power in Roman Judaea,” 103–104. On scribes in the New Testament, see Schams, Jewish Scribes in the Second-Temple Period, 143–201. 56  Joachim Theis takes the unusual position that Paul was a scribe (Paulus als Weisheitslehrer: Der Gekreuzigte und die Weisheit Gottes in 1 Kor 1–4, Biblische Untersuchungen 22 [Regensburg: Pustet, 1991], 169–73). 57  See Paul J. Achtemeier, “Omne Verbum Sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late Western Antiquity,” JBL 109 (1990): 3–27, esp. 13. There is some evidence for the use of shorthand 51 



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oneself set the task of writing at the best possible pace for developing a more effective argument (Inst. Or. 11.2.33)—but his way of putting the matter only shows how exceptional his views were.58 In fact, some well-known letter writers (esp. Cicero, Julius Caesar) appear to have managed their amanuenses almost like production capital.59 It was common for the one dictating the letter to add a brief remark in closing, partly to function as an authentication of the letter. Within the Pauline corpus, there are five instances of Paul (or his imitator) taking the stylus from the hand of the amanuensis in order to add a personal touch or a proof of the letter’s authenticity. All of these appear at a late point in the letter—as an element of the letter’s (prolonged) closing: 1 Cor 16:21 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Ὁ ἀσπασμὸς τῇ ἐμῇ χειρὶ Παύλου. Gal 6:11 See what large letters I make when I am writing in my own hand! Ἴδετε πηλίκοις ὑμῖν γράμμασιν ἔγραψα τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί. Col 4:18 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Remember my chains. Grace be with you. Ὁ ἀσπασμὸς τῇ ἐμῇ χειρὶ Παύλου. μνημονεύετέ μου τῶν δεσμῶν. ἡ χάρις μεθʼ ὑμῶν. 2 Thess 3:17 I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. This is the mark in every letter of mine; it is the way I write. Ὁ ἀσπασμὸς τῇ ἐμῇ χειρὶ Παύλου, ὁ ἐστιν σημεῖον ἐν πάσῃ ἐπιστολῇ. οὕτως γράφω. Phlm 19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self. ἐγὼ Παῦλος ἔγραψα τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί, ἐγὼ ἀποτίσω· ἵνα μὴ λέγω σοι ὅτι καὶ σεαυτόν μοι προσοφείλεις.

George Bahr argued that the verses explicitly mentioning the introduction of Paul’s hand should not be considered the point in the letter at which that hand takes over the writing. In each case, he thinks Paul took control of the stylus at an earlier point: in 1 Corinthians at 16:15, in Galatians at 5:2, in Colossians at 2:8, in 2 Thessalonians at 3:1, and in Philemon at v. 17. He also conjectures that Paul’s hand can be detected in several letters in which Paul makes no explicit reference to writing for himself: Paul begins writing in Romans at 12:1, in 2 Corinthians at 10:1, in Philippians at 3:1, and among amanuenses, a skill that would have made their use all the more valuable. See F. W. G. Foat, “On Old Greek Tachygraphy,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 21 (1901): 238–67; E. Randolph Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, WUNT 2/42 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991), 26, 32–33. 58  See Michael Prior, Paul the Letter-Writer and the Second Letter to Timothy, JSNTSup 23 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989), 47; Casey Wayne Davis, Oral Biblical Criticism: The Influence of the Principles of Orality on the Literary Structure of Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, JSNTSup 172 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 28; Keith, Jesus’ Literacy, 105–106. 59  See Prior, Paul the Letter-Writer and the Second Letter to Timothy, 46–47.

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in 1 Thessalonians at 4:1.60 There is, however, little to commend Bahr’s conjectures. As Randolph Richards notes, The evidence strongly suggests that remarks like “I am writing this in my own hand” begin the autographed section. Thus without [Bahr’s] criterion of “summarization,” all the evidence is against beginning the postscript any earlier than when Paul indicates that he is now writing “τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί”.61

Galatians 6:11 is perhaps the most widely discussed among these passages. What did Paul mean (or mean to imply) by referring to the ungainliness (πηλίκοις) of his script? At one time it was popular to explain this in terms of Paul’s supposed poor eyesight—and then to suppose, in conjunction, that a defect of the eyes might be the “thorn in the flesh” Paul mentioned in 1 Cor 12:7. This interpretation was once widely held in subscholarly circles—less so, it seems, among scholars—but blaming Paul’s eyesight at least has the benefit of a parallel explanation found in P.Oxy. 6.911 (cf. P.Oxy. 41.2696) and in Cicero’s references to Atticus.62 Deissmann, on the other hand, supposed that Paul’s hands had been “deformed by toil,” making it difficult for him to write whole epistles in his own hand—or even, indeed, to write well-shaped letters.63 It has also been suggested that Paul wrote with large letters for emphasis (cf. Plutarch, Cato maior 20.5).64 A more likely explanation, however, is given by W. F. Albright: “it was that the apostle’s signature was not the well-formed and precise calligraphy of the professional scribe.”65 This fits with what we know about the production values expected of an amanuensis. We might compare the poor handwriting of the much-discussed Petaus, as described by Ann Ellis Hanson: “his capital letters were belabored and irregular; he slowly formed each letter individually, as would a child who was just learning to write.”66 By calling attention to the (amateurish) characteristics of his handwriting, Paul was probably alluding to the use of his autograph as a device for authentication.67 This was not an uncommon gesture in Greco-Roman writings, and Richards suggests it in explanation of 1 Thess 3:17 (“This is the mark in every letter of mine; it is the way I write”).68

George J. Bahr, “The Subscription in the Pauline Letters,” JBL 87 (1968): 27–41, esp. 35–39. Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, 178. Richards notes that Paul’s formula τῇ ἐμῇ χειρί was “also a preferred formula for Cicero (mea manu),” and was “apparently a standard means in personal letters of signaling the use of a secretary for the preceding part of the letter” (173). 62  P.Oxy. 6.911 and 41.2696 are noted in Kraus, “(Il)literacy in Non-Literary Papyri from Graeco-Roman Egypt,” 327–28. The references in Cicero are listed in Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, 62 n. 197. 63  Deissmann, St. Paul, 51. See the response in Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 42–44. 64  Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 314; J. Louis Martyn, Galatians, AB 33a (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 560. 65  “Paul’s Education,” in Johannes Munck, The Acts of the Apostles, AB 31 (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 309–12, esp. 312. 66  Hanson, “Ancient Illiteracy,” 173. 67  This was a very real need. Lane Fox notes that Cyprian (in Epistle 9) called on his addressees to authenticate his writings based on his handwriting style—a necessary response to forgeries that had been circulated in his name (“Literacy and Power in Early Christianity,” 137). 68  See Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, 174. 60  61 



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To the above list of Paul’s autographic intrusions we must add another piece of evidence for Paul’s use of an amanuensis. At the end of Romans we find a line written, not in Paul’s voice, but in that of the amanuensis: Rom 16:22 I Tertius, the writer of this letter, greet you in the Lord. ἀσπάζομαι ὑμᾶς ἐγὼ Τέρτιος ὅ γράψας τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ἐν κυρίῳ.

Tertius’s intrusion into Romans might be compared with a line in the Martyrdom of Polycarp (20.2), in which a certain Evarestus refers to himself as the one who “wrote” (viz. transcribed) the book.69 To the objection that an artisan like Paul lacked the financial wherewithal to hire a professional letter-writer, we should probably think of the arrangement as non-fiduciary: Paul’s secretary was likely an assistant to Paul, who saw his/her work as a service to the Lord. This is suggested by the lack of rhetorical polish in Paul’s letters, as a professional scribe should have been capable of improving Paul’s rhetoric. As Richards explains: “Many of the contentions from his letters that argue against a rhetorical training for Paul must also be used to argue against a rhetorical training for any Pauline secretary… The unpolished aspects of Paul’s letters remained uncorrected because his secretary (or secretaries) was an amateur—probably a member of the apostolic band.”70 We should not close our discussion of Paul’s literacy without considering Keith’s interesting thesis. Keith argues that Paul’s writing ability was more modest than is often supposed. Setting out to determine “how [Paul] employed and displayed his literate status in a rhetorical fashion”71—that is, how he gave the maximal appearance

See Paul Hartog, Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians and the Martyrdom of Polycarp: Introduction, Text, and Commentary, Oxford Apostolic Fathers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 166. On Tertius, see Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, 170–71. 70  Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, 152. Anderson similarly writes, “the rough paratactic style and occasional grammatical anomalies do not suggest a professional secretary, at least they do not suggest the literary influence of such a secretary” (Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Paul, 250). According to Anderson, “Such passages as Ep. Gal. 2.4–6 suggest rather hasty dictation.” Cf. M. Luther Stirewalt, Jr.: “Paul…surrounded himself with helpers: co-senders named in the salutation, scribes, greeters from the local congregation, commissioners and visitors from other churches. This group of people provided a kind of voluntary ad hoc secretariat” (Paul, the Letter Writer [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003], 10). Jerome Murphy-O’Connor writes, “The secretary to whom Paul dictated Romans makes his presence obvious… That he felt free to do so says much for his relationship to Paul; no professional hired for the occasion would have taken the liberty. Tertius was more a friend and collaborator than an employee” (Paul the Letter-Writer: His World, His Options, His Skills, Good News Studies 41 [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995], 6). Porter suggests that the degree of rhetorical polish we do find in Paul’s letters might actually have been contributed by the amanuensis, but he notes that “the distinct Pauline voice that resonates throughout his letters…would [then] seem to require that Paul made use of the same amanuensis for most if not all of his writings, an assumption not held by most Pauline scholars” (“Paul of Tarsus and His Letters,” 536). 71  Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 39. 69 

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of being able to write, and what he hoped to gain in terms of power72—Keith construes Paul’s autographic closings as false advertisements (more or less) of the sort of authority inhering in grapho-literacy: I…suggest that these passages in the Pauline corpus functioned rhetorically in a much more significant manner than simply highlighting an “importance” or merely conforming to an epistolary norm, be it a signature or a method of authentication or both. Paul’s inclusion of his own handwriting in some of his epistles underscored not just what Paul said but who Paul was and why he was in a position to say it—they demonstrate that Paul was capable of writing.73

The first thing to say about Keith’s thesis is that it is strikingly similar to what he elsewhere writes about Jesus’ pretensions to grapho-literacy in John 8:1–12.74 The more important point, however, is that Keith’s thesis seeks to explain what already would be explained fully through an awareness of common writing practices. If we wish to say (with Keith) that Paul’s autographic additions were intended to assert his power (and not just his authorial stamp), must we not be prepared to forward the same thesis in connection with other ancient writers who acted similarly? In fairness to Keith, it appears that he is prepared to do just that—he quotes approvingly Raffaella Cribiore’s explanation of the Egyptian penchant to sign documents as an avoidance of the stigma of illiteracy, even if doing so meant revealing the clumsiness of their handwriting.75 As Cribiore writes, “It was better to possess and exhibit the skill in limited and imperfect degree, however difficult and unpleasant to the eye their efforts were.”76 Keith takes this as a key to understanding Paul’s felt need to conclude his letters in his own hand:

72  A point on which all scholars agree is that literacy can almost always be cashed out in terms of power. Mary Beard writes, “Writing is necessarily connected with power” (“Writing and Religion: Ancient Literacy and the Function of the Written Word in Roman Religion,” in Humphrey, ed., Literacy in the Roman World, 35–58, esp. 58). On the connection between writing and power, see Tim Cornell, “The Tyranny of the Evidence: A Discussion of the Possible Uses of Literacy in Etruria and Latium in the Archaic Age,” in Humphrey, ed., Literacy in the Roman World, 7–33, esp. 9–10; Greg Woolf, “Power and the Spread of Writing in the West,” in Bowman and Woolf, eds., Literacy and Power in the Ancient World, 84–98; Samuel L. Adams, Social and Economic Life in Second Temple Judea (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2014), 96–97. Lane Fox (referring to an early church context) calls literacy “an enhancement of power” (“Literacy and Power in Early Christianity,” 128). Goodman qualifies the literacy–power nexus by pressing it strictly for grapho-literacy: “among Jews reading did not in itself bring power, but…writing—or at least writing of a particular kind—probably did” (“Texts, Scribes and Power in Roman Judaea,” 99). Lucian of Samosata poked fun at Peregrinus’s award of instant status within the Christian community: simply because he interpreted the Christians’ books (and wrote some new ones), “they revered him as a god” (De morte Per. 11)—see Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church, 9–10. 73  Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 46. Keith writes, “If Paul’s use of an amanuensis is due to the fact that he can write nothing more than short greetings and his name, this would suggest that his education in Greek was, in the least, adequate but not protracted” (57). 74  Chris Keith, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus, NTTSD 38 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 75  Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 53. See Raffaella Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in GraecoRoman Egypt, American Studies in Papyrology 36 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 10. 76  Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, 10 (quoted in Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 53). Unsok Ro writes, “In advanced agrarian societies, literacy has been one of the most



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If an individual could do nothing more than sign his name, he could locate himself within that minority of the society that was educated, even if he was clearly not as educated as others. That is, it was better to be on the bottom rung of the literacy ladder (and prove it) than it was not to be on the literacy ladder at all (and prove that).77

Perhaps it would not be surprising for a “bottom rung” Paul to assert his grapholiterate abilities in the way Keith argues. Unfortunately for Keith’s case, however, his attempt to anchor this strategy in general practices has the effect of showing how inconspicuous Paul’s practice is within the context of ancient epistolary conventions. Keith even quotes the author of the Rhetorica ad Herennium (first ca. BCE) to the effect that laborious writing tasks are not praiseworthy for those who are able to avoid them, which would seem to hold for writers of all ability levels.78 Where then is the evidence that Paul is not “merely conforming to an epistolary norm”?79 But it is not necessary to read Keith’s theory as an explanation applying solely to Paul. Perhaps his point is that Paul was more similar to other grapho-literates, and that that is what makes it difficult for him to write in his own hand. In that case, Keith’s contribution involves less revisionism of Paul as a literate among literates in general, and more emphasis on what literacy meant in Paul’s day.

Literacy in Paul’s Communities If Paul could read and write at the level his apostolate required—or in the style his cosmopolitan approach to ministry required—what might be said about those around him? And what might be said about the communities to which he addressed his letters?

significant tools the upperclass has used for distinguishing itself from lower strata” (“Socio-Economic Context of Post-Exilic Community and Literacy,” 601–602). 77  Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 54. Cribiore writes, “Personal literacy carried some prestige, a positive reinforcement of identity, a badge of belonging to a literate society, and a shield against fraud” (Gymnastics of the Mind, 164). 78  Keith, “ ‘In My Own Hand’,” 55. As Edwin A. Judge puts it: “[N]ot writing one’s own letters was the mark of a gentleman, who could afford a secretary” (“The Reaction against Classical Education in the New Testament,” in The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays, WUNT 1/229 [Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2008] 709–16, esp. 710). Keith writes, “Quintilian’s statement [in Inst. 1.1.28–29]…reveals, along with the disparagement of rote copying in the Rhetorica ad Herennium (first century B.C.E.), that one mark of high culture was the possession of literate skills and the ability to avoid their usage by having someone write on one’s behalf. Attainment of literate skills was a product of wealth, as was the ability to educate slaves in order to avoid writing or reading when desired” (Jesus’ Literacy, 106). 79  Something here depends on why Paul refers to the size of his script in Gal 6:11: Keith opts for the view that Paul wishes to emphasize something, but I argued above that Paul was simply calling attention to the distinctive style of his writing, as a sign of authenticity. If my explanation is correct, we must account for Paul’s willingness to point to a sign of his amateur status as a writer—which would be surprising on Keith’s larger thesis.

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Paul used an amanuensis for many—perhaps all—of his letters. We have noted the likelihood that this amanuensis was not a professional, but rather an insider to Paul’s circle.80 But what about Paul’s co-authors? Casual readers often fail to register how many of Paul’s letters explicitly name co-authors (e.g., 1 Corinthians: Sosthenes; 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Colossians, Philemon: Timothy; Galatians: “All the brethren with me”; 1 and 2 Thessalonians: Silvanus and Timothy).81 We have no secure indication that any of these co-authors were literate. None of them appends an autographic greeting or closing, and nothing suggests that co-authorship with Paul depended on any sort of educative status.82 The ability to read was clearly of some importance for ministering as an apostle or “deputy” apostle (evangelist), so there the presumption might perhaps lie more in line with an affirmative view. What of the communities to which Paul wrote? Paul’s couriers probably read his letters to the addressees. This arrangement would have assured Paul that his letters would be read in their entirety (some of them are rather long!) and with the proper emphases and spirit.83 It also would have allowed for clarification of Paul’s meaning. Scholars disagree about the educational levels obtaining within Paul’s communities. Wayne Meeks notes that the “prevailing viewpoint” in 1983—a viewpoint reflective of Deissmann’s lingering influence—was “that the constituency of early Christianity, the Pauline congregations included, came from the poor and dispossessed of the Roman provinces.”84 Meeks himself, however, cites approvingly the findings of more recent scholarship, including Abraham Malherbe, Edwin A. Judge, and Robert M. Grant, the last of whom writes that the “triumph” of Christianity “in a hierarchically organized society necessarily took place from the top down.”85 As Judge writes, “The commonest opinion now is that the churches were partly drawn from educated circles.”86 According to Casey Wayne Davis, Prior objects to Bahr’s suggestion that the amanuensis contributed to the “composition” of the letter, on the grounds that this would involve an “abrogation of [Paul’s] apostolic authority” (Paul the LetterWriter and the Second Letter to Timothy, 49). I cannot see any grounds internal to the New Testament, however, for linking apostleship with the (later-attributed) bibliological nature of the NT writings, or for any incipient notions of that bibliology as they might be suggested for the writing of the letters. 81  We can probably rule out the possibility that a named co-author might actually have been the amanuensis in a particular instance: Tertius names himself as the amanuensis in Rom 16:22, but is not named by Paul as a writer of the letter. 82  The co-authors were not uninvolved with determining the content of the letters. Murphy-O’Connor has shown that the naming of co-authors in a work is never merely a matter of honor (Paul the Letter-Writer, 18). 83  Hezser notes that, as a general practice, “[t]he carriers of letters would sometimes summarize their contents from memory rather than reading them out aloud in front of illiterate recipients” (Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, 450). It is hard to imagine that Paul would countenance such a practice among his couriers. 84  Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 52. See Davis, Oral Biblical Criticism, 24–25. 85  Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 52. See Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity, Rockwell Lectures of 1975 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), 31; Edwin A. Judge, “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community,” Journal of Religious History 1 (1960): 4–15, 125–37; Robert M. Grant, Early Christianity and Society: Seven Studies (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 11. 86  Judge, “The Reaction against Classical Education in the New Testament,” 710. 80 



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[I]t would be unreasonable to expect the Church to have a rate of literacy substantially higher than that of the overall society… [S]ince the aristocracy were the ones who used literacy for cultural leisure, the skills of the literate Church membership would have been those of the craftsmen who used writing only for professional purposes.87

From time to time, scholars have tried to discern the educative levels obtaining in one or another of Paul’s congregations. White, for example, recently gave particular attention to the Corinthian community, taking “as a starting point the view that there were a few educated, elite Corinthians in the Christian community.”88 He partly agrees with Dale Martin’s suggestion that “the more affluent members of Paul’s churches were in that middle area between the true elite and the poor,”89 arguing that the middle group in Corinth was probably larger than in other cities. White also claims to uncover evidence that Corinth paid particular honor to the philosophers within its midst: of a total of six inscriptions within the Peloponnese containing the term φιλόσοφος, three were from Corinth.90 According to White, “Corinth appears to be the only city that honours people as philosophers on account of their character and education alone.”91 This probably provides a more reliable guide to the values against which Paul aimed his rhetoric than it does to the church in Corinth, but it might also indicate that the city of Corinth prized education. If this can be unpacked in terms of literacy education, we might have a situation similar to that obtaining in Pompeii (see above), in which even the lower classes often obtained a decent degree of grapho-literacy. Unfortunately, this is all mixed with a great deal of speculation, and White’s argument, on which this scenario is based, is not as straightforward as we might have hoped.92 Perhaps the most direct bit of evidence we possess on this score are Paul’s repeated uses of περὶ δε—a pattern best explained as responses to inquiries from the Corinthians (cf. 1 Cor 7:1, 25; 8:1; 12:1; 16:1, 12).93 Such a series of inquiries most likely would have been sent as a letter from the Corinthians. This, of course, tells us very little about the Corinthians’ overall literacy level: that one could find at least one person to wield the stylus should hardly be surprising in even a small urban community.

Davis, Oral Biblical Criticism, 25. White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 17. 89  Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), xvii (quoted in a garbled form in White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 16). 90  White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 69–70. 91  Ibid., 70. 92  Mary E. Andrews connected Paul’s anti-philosophical rhetoric in 1 Corinthians with his failures in Athens: “According to the most generally accepted chronology of Paul’s life he went from Athens to Corinth. The Book of Acts states that he had not been over-successful in dealing with the Athenian philosophers (Acts 17 18ff.)” (“Paul, Philo, and the Intellectuals,” JBL 53 [1934]: 150–66, esp. 162). 93  Although 16:1, 12 also begin with περὶ δε, commentators often exclude those verses when compiling the Corinthians’ inquiries. 87  88 

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Part III. Other Passages All passages directly reflecting on Paul’s literacy are discussed above. For the deuteroPauline situation (possibly based on a reminiscence of authentic Pauline practice), an interesting light is shone by the reference to the community leader’s “public reading of scripture, preaching, and teaching” in 1 Tim 3:13.

Part IV. Select Bibliography Bahr, George J. “The Subscription in the Pauline Letters.” JBL 87 (1968): 27–41. Hock, Ronald F. “Paul and Greco-Roman Education.” Pages 198–227 in Paul in the GrecoRoman World: A Handbook. Edited by J. Paul Sampley. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003. Keith, Chris. “ ‘In My Own Hand’: Grapho-Literacy and the Apostle Paul.” Bib 89 (2008): 39–58. Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. Paul the Letter-Writer: His World, His Options, His Skills. Good News Studies 41. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995. Porter, Stanley E., and Andrew W. Pitts. “Paul’s Bible, his Education and his Access to the Scriptures of Israel.” JGRChJ 5 (2008): 9–41. Prior, Michael. Paul the Letter-Writer and the Second Letter to Timothy. JSNTSup 23. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1989. Richards, E. Randolph. The Secretary in the Letters of Paul. WUNT 2/42. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1991. Stirewalt, M. Luther, Jr. Paul, the Letter Writer. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003. Vegge, Tor. Paulus und das antike Schulwesen: Schule und Bildung des Paulus. BZNW 134. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006.

‑Chapter 19

Paul, Marriage, and Divorce O. Larry Yarbrough

In the Greco-Roman worlds of the first century, marriage and divorce were threads in an intricate web of social relations, the patterns of which changed over time and varied widely across regions. Both marriage and divorce had public and private aspects that could be manifested simultaneously. Even the most intimate relations in a marriage had implications for the wider public; and the values and customs of the wider public determined much of how couples perceived their private relations. Thus, when we seek to understand marriage and divorce across the Greco-Roman world, we must take into account a wide variety of evidence drawn from many and disparate sources. Furthermore, we must evaluate that evidence with considerable care, lest our own presuppositions (and terminology) cause us to over emphasize one kind of evidence and undervalue another—and thus lead us to false assumptions about what marriage was and how it functioned. Sources for the study of Greek and Roman marriage and divorce are both literary and material. The literary evidence derives from law codes and other judicial writings, wills, philosophical essays (both political and moral), histories, letters, census data (especially in Egypt), drama, poetry, and novels. Even medical texts include discussions of marriage—addressing such issues as whether or not it is beneficial to marry and how one goes about selecting a spouse. Material evidence includes the remains of domestic architecture (villas, houses, and apartments), funerary monuments, and art—from wall paintings to sculpture to household objects (such as rings, terracotta lamps, and gold-glass medallions). Recent studies of the role of families and households in the economies of the Greek and Roman worlds draw on all this evidence, read with theoretical models that allow refining earlier work on social and economic status, especially in Rome and the provinces. If each body of evidence makes a unique contribution to the study of marriage and divorce, each also presents its own peculiar methodological problems. Most of the literary evidence, for example, derives from men in elite circles and thus reflects their values and points of view. One sees this clearly in Greco-Roman moralists of almost all stripes who wrote on marriage, parenting, and other matters related to the household. Most of the debate was concerned with whether marriage was beneficial to the man who studied philosophy, though some voices dealt with ways philosophy was

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important for women also.1 The same can be said of medical texts—even those written about women.2 Most of the references to marriage in Greek and Roman drama occur in comedy; most of the references in poetry appear in satires. The question here is the extent to which comedy and satire reflect reality. Both forms create effect through exaggeration and reversal of the normal order. So, we must ask, can their treatment of marriage and divorce be trusted? Were divorces as common as Juvenal claims? Were fathers really as doting as Plautus suggests?3 The same kind of question can be asked of ancient novels. Although marriage is a major element in the plots of Greek and Roman novels, their depictions depart from many of the norms derived from other sources. For example, while most sources suggest that marriages were arranged by the head of a household (usually, though not always, the father) who was concerned with matters of money and status, ancient novels turn on plots that involve a young couple meeting accidentally, falling violently in love at first sight, and, after facing many obstacles, marrying and living happily ever after.4 Secondary literature on the Stoic debates is especially important for Pauline studies. See Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), Chapters 6–7; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); Tad Brennan, The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); James Jopes addresses the issues from the perspective of gender studies in “Platonic and Roman Influence on Stoic and Epicurean Sexual Ethics,” in A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, ed. Thomas L. Hubbard (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014), 417–30. An engaging introduction that focuses on an important practitioner is A. A. Long, Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Important studies from scholars of the New Testament include: Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000); Will Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004); Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Roman Christianity and Roman Stoicism: A Comparative Study of Ancient Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); Timothy A. Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy and the Ancient Economy, SNTSMS 159 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 2  Readily available editions of medical texts that have a bearing on marriage include Soranus, Gynecology, trans. Owsei Temkin (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956), and Galen, A Translation of Galen’s Hygiene (De Sanitate Tuenda), trans. Robert Montraville Green (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1951). Secondary studies of the physicians include Aline Rousselle, Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988); Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), and “Paul without Passion,” originally in Constructing Early Christian Families: Family as Social Reality and Metaphor, ed. Halvor Moxnes (London: Routledge, 1997), 201–15, and now in Dale B. Martin, Sex and the Single Savior (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 65–76; and Holt Parker, “Women and Medicine,” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, ed. Sharon J. James and Sheila Dillon (Oxford: Blackwell, 2015), 107–24—which includes a review of recent literature. 3  See, for example, Juvenal, Satire 6, and any of the surviving plays of Plautus. On Juvenal, see Juvenal: Satire 6, ed. Lindsay Watson and Patricia Watson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). On the social context for Juvenal, see Alison Keith, “Women in Augustan Literature,” in James and Dillon, eds., A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, 385–99; and for Plautus, see Women in Roman Republican Drama, ed. Dorata Dutsch, Sharon L. James, and David Konstan (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2015), especially the essays by Dutsch, James, and Elaine Fantham. 4  The obstacles frequently included the parents, who thought a son or daughter’s choice was not satisfactory. For a survey of marriage in ancient novels, see Brigitte Egger, “Women and Marriage in the Greek Novels: The Boundaries of Romance,” in The Search for the Ancient Novel, ed. James Tatum (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), 260–80. For translations of the novels, see The Collected Greek Novels, ed. B. P. Reardon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), and Ancient 1 



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The legal material is problematic because the relevant codes were drawn up long after our period and do not always reflect laws as they existed in the first century.5 Furthermore, the question of when and how Roman law was put into effect in the provinces is difficult to determine. Since Roman citizenship was extended to the whole of the empire only after our period, we cannot assume Roman laws applied in the cities of the provinces in the first century CE—when Pauline Christianity was developing.6 And even when they did, Roman and local laws frequently conflicted, creating situations in which married couples (or their families) had options, allowing them to follow whatever laws offered the most benefits. This, of course, could lead to complicated lawsuits.7 Further with regard to legal documents, one always has to wonder how many Roman citizens were aware of marriage laws in any but the most superficial way—any more than, say, the average American would know them today. Nor are we to understand marriage law as pertaining only to issues concerning whom one might marry or what status marriage might confer. In many instances, the laws most relevant to the study of marriage really have to do with inheritance and wills.8 Complicating the study of Roman wills is the fact that although they were legal documents concerned with the distribution of property, they also reflected the social values for which the testator wanted to be remembered (either personally or for the sake of the family).9

Greek Novels: The Fragments: Introduction, Text, Translation, and Commentary, ed. Susan A. Stephens and John J. Winkler (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014). For a discussion of recent debates over the question of whether Greek and Roman novels support the common view of marriage or undermine it by contrasting “the destructive, willful eros, and the cohesive, social bonds of marriage,” see Helen Morales, “The History of Sexuality,” in The Cambridge Companion to The Greek and Roman Novel, ed. Tim Whitmarsh (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 39–55. 5  The same problem obtains for the study of the Mishnah and Talmuds. The main codifications of Roman law are those of Gaius and Justinian. The literature on Roman law is vast. For a useful introduction, see Andrew Borkowski, Textbook on Roman Law, 2nd ed. (London: Blackstone, 1994). Suzanne Dixon reviews ways scholars have manipulated legal material in studies of Roman marriage in “From Ceremonial to Sexualities: A Survey of Scholarship on Roman Marriage,” in A Companion to the Family in the Greek and Roman Worlds, ed. Beryl Rawson (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 245–61. 6  Corinth and Philippi, for example, were Roman colonies. But we do not know the extent to which Roman law applied with regard to marriage and divorce. On the question of the use of Roman law in the provinces, see the comments and bibliography by David Johnston in Roman Law in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 9–11. Judith Evans Grubbs treats the issue in “Promoting pietas through Roman Law,” in Rawson, ed., A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, 388–92. For an informative collection of essays on Roman families in the provinces, see Michele George, The Roman Family in the Empire: Rome, Italy, and Beyond (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). 7  For an essay that weaves together law, fiction, and autobiography, see Josiah Osgood, “ ‘Nuptiae Iure Civili Congruae’: Apuleius’s Story of Cupid and Psyche and the Roman Law of Marriage,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 136 (2006): 415–41. 8  This is also the case with regard to divorce—both then and now. 9  For a treatment of wills in Roman society, see Edward Champlin, Final Judgments: Duty and Emotion in Roman Wills, 200 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), and J. A. Crook, “Women in Roman Succession,” in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. Beryl Rawson (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986). On the range of purposes for which Romans made wills and their significance for understanding marriage and family, see Jane F. Gardner, “Roman ‘Horror’ of Intestacy?,” in Rawson, ed., A Companion to the Family in the Greek and Roman Worlds, 361–76.

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The material evidence presents a different set of challenges. While many of the numerous funerary monuments and epitaphs scattered throughout the Greco-Roman world derive from predominately wealthy mourners (both men and women), a significant number reflect the sentiments of people further down the social ladder who wanted to emulate the wealthy. They also record the voices of women. Reading them, however, is problematic, and not simply because so many of them are in fragments. While the peoples of the ancient Mediterranean wrote considerably more on their tombstones than modern Westerners, they were not always as detailed in recording the data scholars need to reconstruct both the realities and ideals of Greek and Roman marriage. Still, they come as close to demographic data as we are likely to get for the Greco-Roman world (outside of Egypt) and present the same kind of challenges—how to correlate and categorize a wealth of disparate information.10 And then there is the question of how much to believe. The sentiments reflected on ancient tombstones were clearly commonplaces, so that to save time and money a grieving husband could inscribe on his wife’s tombstone that he had lived with her forty years s. u. q and be confident that everyone would know he meant “without any quarrels.”11 But, though passersby would have known what he meant, would they have believed him? And should we?12 The funerary inscriptions of slaves present a similar problem. There are numerous examples of slaves commemorating the deaths of their husbands, wives, and children in the same terms that the wealthy used. The problem here is that according to Roman law slaves could not marry! How is it then they used familial language when burying their dead? Archeological excavations of villas, houses, and apartment complexes are corroborating, and adding to, what we know of living arrangements from the literary sources, though the interpretation of sites remains a matter of dispute. For our purposes, the excavations and reconstruction of apartment complexes and living quarters attached to street-side shops are especially revealing, since Paul’s mission apparently drew from the population who lived in them.13 10  For an important treatment of Egyptian census data that addresses numerous issues related to marriage and divorce, see R. S. Bagnall and B. W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 11  See number 8156 in Hermann Dessau, Inscriptiones latinae selectae (Berlin: Weidmann, 1954). 12  For two recent studies of the sentiments and commonplaces in funerary inscriptions dealing with marriage, see Hugh Lindsay, “The Man in Turia’s Life, with a Consideration of Inheritance Issues, Infertility, and Virtues in Marriage in the 1st c. B.C.,” JRS 22 (2009): 183–98, and Werner Riess, “Rari exempli femina: Female Virtues on Roman Funerary Inscriptions,” in James and Dillon, eds., A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, 491–501. 13  See Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), and Chapters 11–13 in Beryl Rawson and Paul Weaver, The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space (Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, 1997), each of which has a useful bibliography. Jens-Arne Dickmann (“Space and Social Relations in the Roman West,” in Rawson, ed., A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, 53–72) challenges some of Wallace-Hadrill’s conclusions regarding the public–private use of space in Roman households, especially in villas and townhouses. In section three of this essay (56–60), Dickmann discusses problems related to identifying separate quarters for women and children within the Roman domus. See also Markia Trümper, “Gender and Space, ‘Public’ and ‘Private’,” in James and Dillon, eds., A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, 288–303. David G. Horrell discusses the size of apartments that may have served the house



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Wall paintings and gold-glass medallions portraying married couples (and their children) also contribute to our understanding of marriage in the Greco-Roman world, though it is hard to know just what to make of them. They clearly portray people from the wealthier strata of society, for such works of art were expensive. Furthermore, the iconography and symbolism of the portraits are not always clear.14 Other wall paintings and household furnishings may also tell us something about marriage, or, more precisely, about attitudes to sexuality. For while most examples of “erotic” art in antiquity are found in brothels and public baths, they also show up in Roman domestic architecture. In addition, there are the remains of numerous oil lamps, vases, porcelain pieces, and mirrors with erotic scenes. Here again “reading” these examples of artistic expression is difficult, for the iconography must be understood in its own terms and not ours. Indeed, as John R. Clarke has shown, the iconography of erotic art changed decidedly from the Hellenistic to the Roman period, so that we must treat examples from antiquity with care, lest we transfer the meanings of one time and place to those of another.15

Part I. Marriage and Divorce in the Roman World The purpose of Roman marriage was to produce legitimate children—liberorum quaerundorum causa. This phrase, or one similar to it, shows up in legal documents, in epitaphs, in poetry, and in comedies. Because marriage had such a prominent role in promoting the public good, it was not simply a private affair between a man and a woman—or even between the two households that arranged their marriage. Augustus was among the first to attempt social engineering through legislation designed to reward citizens for marrying and producing children and to punish those who did not.16 Other emperors changed the laws when new times required new measures. But everyone recognized this purpose for marriage, even if they chose not to carry it out. churches in Corinth in “Domestic Space and Christian Meetings at Corinth: Imagining New Contexts and the Buildings East of the Theatre,” NTS 50 (2004): 349–69. 14  On the question of “reading” family portraits, see Beryl Rawson, “The Iconography of Roman Childhood,” and Janet Huskinson, “Iconography: Another Perspective,” in Rawson and Weaver, eds., The Roman Family in Italy, 205–38. Huskinson returns to the topic in “Picturing the Roman Family,” in Rawson, ed., A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, 521–41. In the same volume, see Ada Cohen, “Picturing Greek Families” (465–87). These latter two essays include good bibliographies of recent studies. 15  See Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art 100 B.C.–A.D. 250 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998). 16  The literature on Augustus’ legislation is vast, with interpretations of its purpose differing. For a good survey, with references to the earlier literature, see Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 60–80. Treggiari (59) suggests that Julius Caesar may also have sought to encourage marriage and increased fertility in the privileged classes at Cicero’s prodding. In addition to the literature cited by Treggiari, see J. H. W. G. Liebeschuetz, Continuity and Change in Roman Religion (Oxford: Clarendon, 1979), 90–100, and Mary Rose D’Angelo, “Roman Imperial Family Values and the Gospel of Mark: The Divorce Sayings (Mark 10:2–12),” in Women and Gender in Ancient Religions: Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. Stephen P.

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Because of the legal power (potestas) they held in the Roman Republic, the pater familias determined the selection of spouses for the dependents within their household. Richard Saller has shown, however, that by the beginning of the empire that power was greatly limited.17 Arrangements for the marriages of Cicero’s daughter Tullia suggest that no pattern worked for all situations, even in the same family. Cicero himself apparently chose her first two husbands. But neither marriage lasted. The first ended in the death of the husband; the second in divorce. Tullia and her mother decided on a third husband, while Cicero was abroad on a diplomatic mission. Their choice was not much better, however, for the third marriage ended in divorce also. Thus, while it might have been traditional, and in keeping with familial pietas, for a son or daughter to acquiesce to a father’s choice, there were options. Mothers, other family members, and even the couple itself had a voice.18 Indeed, Augustus’ legislation decreed that a father could not force a child to marry or refuse his consent for a child’s marriage if all else were in order. And as Susan Treggiari notes, the couple’s role may have been greater the lower we look down the social ladder.19 The other crucial requirement for marriage was proper legal standing. Some aspects used to determine legal standing will be familiar enough to modern readers. For example, while the degrees of kinship prohibited by Roman law may differ from those set in modern societies, the topic is common to both ancient and modern codes. Also similar to Rome, most Western cultures have established a minimum age for marriage. In Rome the minimum legal age for females was twelve, for males fourteen. It was probably very rare, however, for either sex to marry at such an early age. Based on his analysis of tens of thousands of inscriptions, Richard Saller has set the median age for first marriage at twenty for females and thirty for males. But there were regional differences. This evidence, moreover, does not reflect the practice of those in the senatorial rank, among whom marriage tended to occur earlier.20 The difference in age between the husband and wife was common for all classes, meaning, among other things, that if the wife survived childbirth she was likely to outlive her husband for a considerable time. It also meant that relatively few fathers would have lived to see the marriages of their children.21 Ahearne-Kroll, Paul A. Holloway, and James A. Kelhoffer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 59–83. Most of D’Angelo’s essay examines the Augustan legislation. 17  Richard P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), and ibid., “Pater familias, mater familias, and the Gendered Semantics of the Roman Household,” CP 94 (1999): 182–97. In this volume, see L. Michael White, “Paul and Pater Familias.” 18  See Dixon, The Roman Mother (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 62–63. 19  Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 122–24. 20  See Chapters 2 and 3 in Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family, ed. Richard P. Saller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). On age of marriage for the privileged classes, see Keith Hopkins, “The Age of Roman Girls at Marriage,” Population Studies 18 (1965): 309–27, but in light of the comments in Saller. 21  See Richard P. Saller, “Men’s Age at Marriage and Its Consequences in the Roman Family,” CP 82 (1987): 21–34. For a critique of Saller’s reading of the evidence related to the age for marriage based on a different model for interpreting the data and various key terms, see Walter Scheidel, “Roman Funerary Commemoration and the Age at First Marriage,” CP 102 (2007): 389–402.



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The most unusual requirement for legal standing, from a modern point of view at any rate, was conubium, which was based on notions quite foreign to most Western cultures. In essence, conubium was the capacity (facultas) to enter into a legal marriage based on a person’s social status. As stated in the Tituli Ulpiani 5.3–5, Conubium is the capacity to marry a wife in Roman law. Roman citizens have conubium with Roman citizens, but with Latins and foreigners only if the privilege was granted. There is no conubium with slaves.

At issue here is the legal status of children. In effect, if the parents did not have conubium, their children were illegitimate, which had significant legal implications with regard to rights of succession, inheritance, and all the privileges afforded by Roman citizenship. As Roman influence expanded with the acquisition and annexation of more and more territory, moreover, claims to citizenship and thus to conubium became the subject of debate and numerous lawsuits, especially with regard to marriages between a Roman citizen and a “foreigner.” Late in the Republic and early in the principate, the tendency was toward preserving boundaries. The Minician Laws, for example, decreed that children of “mixed marriages” took the status of the parent with inferior status.22 Augustus’ legislation on marriage went so far as to limit the right of conubium for senators and soldiers.23 The effect of the laws regarding conubium, therefore, was to preserve the boundaries between Roman and non-Roman and between Romans of high social status and those of low status—which had the effect of preserving property and other forms of wealth. Roman law and the prejudices of the upper classes protected the “authorized marriages” (iusta matrimonia) of citizens. Other classes (and the elite who transgressed the norms) were consigned to “unauthorized marriages” (iniusta matrimonia), relationships that had no legal standing at all. Nonetheless, men and women did live together in such relationships, one form of which was concubina, living together without intent of marriage. There is no indication that in the first century there was any moral stigma attached to this relationship in Roman society. Indeed, it could be long lasting, satisfying, and beneficial for both partners.24 Finally, there was contubernium, which designated a relationship in which one or both partners were slaves. Such relationships had no legal standing at all. It existed at the discretion of owners (who could benefit from them through ownership of any children the couple might have) and could be ended by the sale of one or both of the partners. What is most striking about this category is that those who engaged in such relationships commonly referred

These laws were promulgated sometime before 90 BCE. “Mixed marriage” here does not refer to interracial marriage but to marriage between persons of different social (and legal) status. 23  Augustus disallowed marriages between any member of a senatorial family and a person who was not freeborn. The morals of a senator’s potential spouse should also be unquestionable. Augustus forbade soldiers to marry while in active service. For a discussion of “marriage” in the military, see Walter Scheidel, “Marriage, Families, and Survival: Demographic Aspects,” in A Companion to the Roman Army, ed. Paul Erdkamp (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 417–34. 24  See Beryl Rawson, “Roman Concubinage and Other De Facto Marriages,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Association 104 (1974): 279–305. 22 

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to one another with traditional terms for family. “Husbands” buried “wives”; “wives” buried “husbands”; “fathers” and “mothers” buried their “sons” and “daughters.” What is more, the same intimate terms we see elsewhere appear on their tombstones also. Here, then, we have evidence that even those who could not marry did.25 When marriage did take place, engagements and weddings could be very elaborate, with invitations, “wedding gowns,” rings, veils, vows, a homily, and parties with lots of well-wishers—just the sort of thing one might see in a wedding today.26 Other parts of the ritual are not so familiar—sacrifices, omens, the bride’s smearing fat on the door posts of the groom’s house, and an elaborately decorated bed in the house’s entryway. None of this was necessary, even for a legal marriage. A simple declaration of intent to live together as husband and wife was sufficient. And, it was not always clear, even to the couple itself, when the marriage began. This question appears as a set topic in legal debates.27 Negotiating over a dowry and concern with arranging financially and politically advantageous matches were standard features for marriages among the wealthy. That does not mean, however, that sentiment was lacking in them. As Treggiari shows, there is abundant evidence for concluding that feelings of respect, kindness, and even affection were both the ideal and the reality for many marriages. And this was true for all forms of “marriage,” at all social levels.28 Still, marriages did not always work. The frequency of divorce continues to be debated, especially in the privileged classes. Susan Treggiari concludes that, “[o]n balance the divorce-rate seems much less rapid and the habit of divorce less widespread than has commonly been thought.”29 Keith Bradley, reads the evidence quite differently, arguing that in the upper classes divorce and remarriage were common and that the constant reconfiguring of households must be taken into account when defining the Roman family.30 Whatever the rate may have been among the elite, we know even less about the rest of Roman society, for the sources are almost completely lacking. Divorce, after all, is not the kind of subject likely to show up in funerary inscriptions. Because Roman law was less concerned with unauthorized forms of marriage and informal relationships, moreover, ending them would not have involved complicated legal maneuvering as it did among the elite. “Divorce” took place by mutual agreement, or when one partner abandoned the other. Where inheritance and financial exchanges were limited or non-existent, that is, divorce was not a matter for extended legal wrangling. See, for example, Beryl Rawson, “Family Life Among the Lower Classes at Rome in the First Two Centuries of the Empire,” CP 61, no. 2 (1966): 71–83, here at 78–79. 26  See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, Chapters 4 and 5; Karen K. Hersch, The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); and Allison Glazebrook and Kelly Olson, “Greek and Roman Marriage,” in Hubbard, ed., A Companion to Greek and Roman Sexualities, 69–82. 27  For discussion, see Hersch, The Roman Wedding, 55–58. 28  Treggiari, Roman Marriage, Chapter 8. 29  Ibid., 473–82, and appendices 5 and 6 on 516–19. The quotation is from 482. 30  See Keith Bradley, “Remarriage and the Structure of the Upper-Class Family at Rome,” in Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Toman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 172. 25 



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Whenever and wherever divorce occurred, the most “dispensable” member of the family was the wife/mother, for since the children of legal marriages belonged to the father, she was the one to leave.31 In upper class households where remarriage was common, a child could in fact have numerous mothers while growing up.32 Although, as Keith Bradley shows, servants provided the physical and emotional support for most children in upper class households, pietas worked both ways.33 Consequently, divorce could be painful for a child, as Cicero’s nephew Quintus showed when he broke down upon learning, at the age of fourteen, that his parents were contemplating divorce.34 Scholars still debate the roles of nuclear families (husband, wife, and their children) in households of antiquity. The evidence suggests that there was a wide range of possibilities. Since the family is treated elsewhere in this volume, we will not explore it in any detail here.35 It is important to note, however, that marriage must be seen in the context of the larger family, which includes both parents and children on the one hand and the more broadly defined domus on the other. But it is important to note both components, for Saller is certainly correct in arguing that much of the debate on the “nuclear family” has been off-center.36 The Romans clearly had a notion of husband, wife, and children as an identifiable unit. They sculpted images of them, painted pictures of them, told stories of them, and reflected on their obligations and concerns for one another. In all likelihood, however, they seldom lived alone, unless, that is, they belonged to the “families” who inhabited rooms behind (or over) street-side shops or cubicles on the upper stories of tenements—most likely the living quarters for many in Pauline communities. The rest, both the wealthy families of senatorial or equestrian rank and the families of slaves who served them, lived together in villas and houses—along with all the others who worked in the household or were in and out of it on a daily basis as clients. Even in death the nuclear Roman family was not alone, for when its members died, their remains were often buried and memorialized along with others from their household, including slaves and freedmen.37 Thus far, we have examined marriages, as most Romans knew them. There were other voices, especially among popular moralists and physicians.38 Some of the See Dixon, The Roman Mother, Chapters 9 and 11. If a man remarried late in life, the new mother could even be younger than his children, given the usual age of girls at first marriages. The story of Knemon in Heliodorus’ novel “An Ethiopian Story” (Bk. I, 9–17), which has explicit echoes of Euripides’ tragedy “Hippolytus,” teasingly relates what could happen when a young wife becomes stepmother to a sexually mature, and attractive, young man. For an introduction and translation (by J. R. Morgan), see Reardon, Collected Ancient Greek Novels, 349–588. 33  See Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family, Chapters 2–4. The servants were frequently called mamma and tata, that is, “mamma” and “daddy.” 34  See Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family, 195. 35  See Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Paul and Family Life” in this volume. 36  See his comments in the preface to Patriarchy, Property, and Death, ix, and Chapters 4 and 5. 37  See Dale B. Martin, “The Construction of the Ancient Family: Methodological Considerations,” JRS 86 (1996): 40–60. Based on their surveys, Paul Gallivan and Peter Wilkins argue that nuclear families were the rule. See “Familial Structures in Roman Italy: A Regional Approach,” in Rawson and Weaver, eds., The Roman Family in Italy, 239–79, especially 240 n. 4. 38  For bibliography, see nn. 1–2 above. 31  32 

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moralists, echoing debates about the value of marriage from earlier Greek traditions, questioned whether it was good to marry. For others, the focus of the debate shifted from whether one should marry to how one could control sexual passions. Physicians, whose views were closely linked to some of the philosophers, were especially interested in the latter question. It is difficult to say how many Romans took either question seriously. Augustus’ marriage legislation, directed toward the elite, suggests that many in their circles were not marrying and producing legitimate children. Though we cannot be certain of the extent to which the moralists and physicians influenced decisions about whether and whom to marry, they doubtless played a role. For the moment, however, it is enough to note the questions and to locate them among the elite. As we shall see when we examine 1 Corinthians, debates among philosophers (especially Stoics and Cynics) played an important role in the way Paul and the Corinthians debated questions of marriage and divorce. As diverse as the attitudes and customs regarding marriage were among Romans, Paul would have encountered still others when he traveled through the Empire. Unfortunately, we do not know as much about them as we do about the attitudes and customs of Rome. Scholars are just beginning to gather and sort through the evidence from the diverse parts of the Roman world.39 Studies of marriage in classical Athens are of some help, but the world had changed decidedly since that time, and customs changed with it. Because of his own background and his continued contact with the synagogue, Paul would also have encountered Jewish households, which were very much part of the Greco-Roman world. Indeed, in the cities to which he wrote his letters, the structure of Jewish households was probably quite similar to all the others, even if Jewish moralists claimed superior ethics.40 Here again, we will have occasion to note some of the similarities and differences as we work through Paul’s references to marriage and divorce.

Part II. Marriage and Divorce in Paul Paul was very much a part of the social network that defined the Greco-Roman worlds in which he lived—as were members of the house churches he founded. Consequently, every source for the study of marriage and divorce identified in Part I of this essay is also a source for studying Paul’s letters. Sometimes, though rarely, one of these sources allows us to pinpoint the meaning of a Pauline argument or allusion. Most of For bibliography, see n. 6 above. See the essays in Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Jewish Family in Antiquity, BJS 289 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993). The most comprehensive treatment of Jewish marriage and divorce is Michael Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Satlow also has an introductory article on “Marriage and Divorce,” in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine, ed. Catherine Hezser (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 344–61. See also Gail Labovitz, Marriage and Metaphor: Constructions of Gender in Rabbinic Literature (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009), which is important for its analysis of marriage as “acquisition” of a wife. 39  40 



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the time, however, we are limited to identifying a range of ideas or customs on which Paul drew. This should not surprise us, however, since all inhabitants of the Roman world negotiated multiple meanings of marriage and divorce, and because Paul’s habit was to adapt his arguments to the particular situation he addressed, making use of one source or another to the extent it aided his treatment of the matter at hand. So in seeking to understand marriage and divorce in Paul’s letters, we look to (1) his occasional references to them in the course of constructing an argument dealing with totally unrelated topics, (2) his comments about the married couples he knew, and (3) the rare occasions he explicitly treats marriage or divorce—noting where and how they find resonance in the Greco-Roman worlds he inhabited. (1) In Rom 7:1–6 and 2 Cor 11:2–6 Paul makes use of marriage as an analogy. In the Romans passage, a wife’s remarrying after the death of her husband serves as an analogy to illustrate how the death of Christ brings new life; in 2 Corinthians, the father’s role in giving his daughter in marriage is an analogy for Paul’s role in founding the Corinthian community.41 In both instances, Paul manipulates the metaphor in the middle of the comparison, however, so that his argument wanders. In Rom 7:2, Paul writes, “by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives.”42 True as far as it goes, Paul’s statement disregards legal provisions allowing women to instigate divorce.43 By focusing on the death of the husband as the condition for a wife’s remarrying, however, he can apply “the law concerning the husband”44 to the theological point he makes in v. 4: “In the same way, my friends, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may marry another.”45 Paul then develops the analogy in two very different ways: In the second part of v. 4, he focuses on a wife’s freedom to marry another when her husband dies and identifies the new husband as Christ, “who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.” Then, in vv. 5–6 Paul contrasts (a) bearing “fruit for God” to bearing “fruit for death” and (b) being “discharged from the law” to being “discharged from the law concerning the husband” (v. 2b) to make a similar soteriological point. This time, however, Paul’s ends with a different metaphor: “But we are discharged 1 Thess 4:3–8 may also refer to marriage; though Paul’s metaphorical language in v. 4 precludes certainty. I treat it briefly at the end of this essay. Other possible references include 1 Cor 11:2–16, 14:34–35, and 2 Cor 6:14–7:1. Because of the problems associated with all three passages, I use them only secondarily. Paul’s quotations of the commandment against adultery (Exod 19:14; Deut 5:18) in Rom 2:22 and 13:9 appear in lists of other commandments. Neither substantively addresses marriage or divorce. 42  My translation of v. 2a: ἡ γὰρ ὕπανδρος γυνὴ τῷ ζῶντι ἀνδρὶ δέδεται νόμῳ (hē gar hypandros gynē tō zōnti andri dedetai nomō). The NRSV renders it, “Thus a married woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he lives.” 43  Deut 24:1–4 likely informs some of Paul’s argument in Rom 7:2–6. See Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), 428–39 for a review and analysis, with bibliography. 44  ὁ νόμος τοῦ ἀνδρός, ho nomos tou andros in v. 2b. 45  I modify the NRSV, which renders the last phrase (εἰς τὸ γενέσθαι ὑμᾶς ἑτέρῳ, eis tō genesthai humas heterō) as “so that you may belong to another.” In 1 Cor 6:16–17, Paul makes a similar argument with more explicit sexual imagery: In the same way a man who is “united” (κολλώμενος, kollōmenos) to a prostitute becomes “one body” (ἕν σῶμά ἐστιν, hen soma estin) with her, so the one who is “united” (κολλώμενος, kollōmenos) to the Lord becomes “one spirit” (ἕν πνεῦμα, hen pneuma) with him. 41 

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from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but in the new life of the Spirit.” Both the marriage metaphor and the slave metaphor, however, are part and parcel of the Greco-Roman households his readers readily knew, so that he does not range far in using them in the same intricate argument. Paul uses the analogy of marriage to Christ again in 2 Cor 11:2, but to very different effect. “I promised you in marriage to one husband,” he writes to the Corinthians, “to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” Here Paul bases his argument on widely held assumptions about marriage: The father plays a prominent role in arranging the marriage and the bride is presumed to be chaste. Furthermore, Paul’s characterization of the Corinthians as a chaste virgin and the false apostles who have challenged Paul’s authority as lecherous seducers would have been familiar to his readers from the caricatures and plots of many Greco-Roman comedies and novels.46 As in Rom 7:2–6, however, Paul’s use of the marriage analogy breaks down, since by the end of the argument in 2 Cor 11:2–6 it is not clear whether Paul sees himself in the role of father or husband.47 But the effect is the same: The Corinthians, like young brides, must be protected, lest they fall prey to unscrupulous suitors who would lead them into adultery.48 Romans 7:2–6 and 2 Cor 11:2–6 suggest, therefore, that Paul makes use of conventional ideas and customs related to marriage as analogies in other arguments. They also suggest that Paul is capable of shifting analogies in the midst of an argument, using them only insofar as they suit his purpose. We should be prepared, therefore, for such shifts and the mixture of the conventional and unconventional in his other treatments of marriage. (2) Unlike “the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas,” Paul chooses not to exercise his “right” (ἐξουσία, exousia) to be accompanied by a “sisterwife” in conducting his apostolic mission (1 Cor 9:5).49 Nonetheless, he mentions the names of several married people who worked along side him in workshop and in mission.50 The language he uses to describe them is striking. Prisca and Aquila are the most noteworthy of the couples Paul mentions, not only because we can clearly identify them as a married couple, but also because of his long relationship with them.51 He mentions Prisca and Aquila twice in the concluding

46  Even if Paul had Gen 3–4 in mind (as mediated by 2 En. 31:6), his readers would likely have recognized themes from popular culture. 47  Note especially Paul’s use of the first person in vv. 5–6. Paul’s reference to his “jealousy” (ζῆλος, zēlos) in v. 2 is also ambiguous: Is he jealous as a father or a lover? 48  Similar notions appear in the characterization of “younger widows” in 1 Tim 5:11–15. 49  The NRSV renders the term ἀδελφὴ γυνή (adelphē gynē) as “believing wife.” 50  Here I refer only to the men and women who appear to be married (whether legally or not) and have roles in Paul’s mission. See M. R. D’Angelo, “Women Partners in the New Testament,” JFSR 6 (1990): 65–86, for a treatment of women who work together in the Pauline mission, such as Tryphaena and Tryphosa (Rom 16:12) and Euodia and Syntyche (Phil 4:2). 51  Paul himself never refers to Prisca (Priscilla) and Aquila as married, as the author of Acts does (18:2). It is unlikely Paul intentionally avoided the term, however, since the Corinthians and the Romans were familiar with their marital status. If Paul had met Prisca and Aquila in Corinth in 50 CE (as Acts 18



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sections of his letters: In 1 Cor 16:19 he sends their greetings to the church in Corinth;52 in Rom 16:3–5 he sends his greetings to them in Rome, to which they had returned after a period of exile.53 In both cases, Paul makes reference to “the church in their house,” though this may have meant only a small gathering in their living quarters above a shop or one of the upper stories of an apartment building.54 The greeting in Romans tells us more, for Paul indicates that Prisca and Aquila “risked their necks” (τόν ἑαυτῶν τράχηλον ὑπέθηκαν, ton heautōn trachēlon hypethēkan) on his behalf. Just what he means by this rather dramatic phrase, Paul does not say.55 But whatever may have happened, there is no question that Paul held the couple in high regard. After commending Phoebe in vv. 1–2, he mentions them first in the long list of former associates that makes up Rom 16, and extends thanks to them on behalf of himself and the churches of the Gentiles.56 He also refers to them as “co-workers” (συνεργοί, synergoi), the same term he uses to describe such prominent members of his mission as Timothy and Titus.57 Prisca and Aquila, therefore, had been engaged in the Pauline mission for a long time and were well known.58 They may have been in Rome to help prepare the way for Paul’s visit.59

suggests), he would have known them for between four and seven years by the time he wrote Romans. Furthermore, if we follow the account in Acts, he would have lived with them for eighteen months in Corinth and traveled with them to Ephesus. Under such conditions, Paul would clearly have known them well. 52  They were in Ephesus at the time (1 Cor 16:8 and 19). 53  According to Acts 18:2. 54  For recent assessments of their work and social status, see Peter Lampe, Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries: From Paul to Valentinus (London: Continuum, 2003), 187–95; Carolyn Osiek and Margaret Y. MacDonald, A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 29–35; and Timothy A. Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy and the Ancient Economy, SNTSMS 159 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), Chapter 4. All of these treatments place Prisca and Aquila among mid-level artisans who were neither wealthy nor subsistent. For scholars of early Christianity, Brookins’ review of the literature is a good starting point for examining the Roman economy. 55  Luke refers to conflicts in Corinth while Paul, Prisca, and Aquila were there (Acts 18:5–17); he recounts a more dramatic event when they were in Ephesus (19:23–41), though Prisca and Aquila are not explicitly mentioned in connection with any of the conflicts. 56  Mentioning the gratitude he and the gentile churches owe to Prisca and Aquila puts a human face to the debt gentiles owe Jewish Christians in Rome, which is a theme throughout Romans. 57  For Timothy, see Rom 16:21; 2 Cor 1:24; and 1 Thess 3:2. For Titus, see 2 Cor 8:23. See also the reference to Apollos in 1 Cor 3:9. Other “co-workers” include Epaphroditus (Phil 2:25); Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke (Phlm 23); and Euodia, Syntyche, Clement, and the others “whose names are in the book of life” (Phil 4:3). 58  The author of 2 Timothy still finds it appropriate to mention them (4:19). 59  According to Acts 19:21–22, Paul sends Timothy and Erastus to Macedonia to prepare for his stop there on his impending trip to Jerusalem. Peter Lampe also raises the possibility of Prisca and Aquila’s having a role in preparing the way for Paul in “The Roman Christians in Romans 16,” in The Romans Debate, ed. K. P. Donfried, 2nd ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 220. Dominika A. Kurek-Chomycz examines the textual tradition of the references to Prisca in “Is There an ‘Anti-Priscan’ Tendency in the Manuscripts? Some Textual Problems with Prisca and Aquila,” JBL 125 (2006): 107–28.

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The names Andronicus and Junia are also linked in Paul’s greetings to the Roman church (16:7).60 His description of them in terms similar to those he uses for Prisca and Aquila suggests they too were married. Interestingly enough, we may actually know as much about them as we know about Prisca and Aquila—at least from the evidence found only in Paul’s letters. Indeed, we may know more. Paul greets Andronicus and Junia as “my relatives and fellow-prisoners” (τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου καὶ συναιχμαλώτους μου, tous syngeneis mou kai synaichmalōtous mou).61 He also says they were “in Christ” before he was. Apparently, therefore, Andronicus and Junia, like Prisca and Aquila, were Jewish-Christians who at some point had met Paul, joined his mission, and been imprisoned with him. Since Paul does not refer to them as hosts of a house church, they may not have had the same social and economic standing as Prisca and Aquila. But his regard for them does not appear to be any the less. Indeed, Paul refers to Andronicus and Junia as “prominent among the apostles” (ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, epistēmoi en tois apostolois), though here again he offers no details. Paul would likely have assumed the Roman churches already knew their story, just as they knew of Prisca and Aquila’s. In Rom 16, therefore, Paul greets two married couples that were actively engaged in his mission and had shared in his trials. One had risked their necks on his behalf; the other had been imprisoned with him.62 Philemon and Apphia, who are mentioned in Phlm 1–2, are the only other names that might be husband and wife in the seven Pauline letters we are currently treating. But if they were married, Paul makes nothing of it. In contrast to the way he describes Prisca and Aquila, he uses the term “co-worker” here only in reference to Philemon; and in contrast to Rom 16:15 where Paul greets “Nereus and his sister” (Νηρέα καὶ τὴν ἀδελφὴν αὐτοῦ, Nerea kai tēn adelphēn autou), he does not use a possessive pronoun in reference to Apphia. She is simply “the sister” (τῇ ἀδελφῇ, tēn adelphē).63 More to the point, Paul writes as if Onesimus belonged to Philemon alone—or at least as if he assumed Philemon had the final say regarding his request for Philemon to send Onesimus back to him. Still, if we argue Philemon and Apphia were married, it is certainly worth noting that Paul does not appeal to Apphia in his otherwise highly rhetorical entreaties on Onesimus’ behalf.64 60  On the textual support for the reading “Junia” (i.e., a feminine name), the most thorough treatment now is Eldon J. Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005). For an alternative reading, see Al Wolters, “ΙΟΥΝΙΟΝ (Romans 16:7) and the Hebrew Name ‘Yeḥunni’,” JBL 127 (2008): 397–408. 61  In 16:11, Paul describes Herodian as “my relative” (τὸν συγγενῆ μου, ton syngenē mou). In 16:21, Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater (who were with Paul when he wrote the letter to Rome and asked that their greetings be included in it) are also described as “relatives” (ὁι συγγενεῖς μου, hoi syngeneis). The meaning of the term is suggested by Rom 9:3, where Paul uses it in the phrase, “my own people, my kindred according to the flesh (τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου τῶν συγγενῶν μου κατὰ σάρκα, tōn adelphōn mou tōn syngenōn mou kata sarka).” Epaphras is said to be a “fellow-prisoner” in Phlm 23. See also Col 4:10, which refers to Aristarchus as a “fellow-prisoner.” 62  Philologus and Julia and Nereus and his “sister,” whom Paul greets in v. 15, may also have been married couples. But we know nothing of them, except that Olympas and a number of unnamed “saints” were “with them.” In a house church? In a commercial enterprise? Both? 63  The NRSV renders it “our sister.” 64  It is worth noting because Paul knows of women who have authority in a household, Chloe and Phoebe being the most obvious (1 Cor 1:11 and Rom 16:1–2), and on another occasion makes a direct appeal to



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Paul’s comments about the apostles and their “sister-wives” in 1 Cor 9:5 raise interesting questions about his notion of the roles married couples played in early Christian missions. As Gal 1–2 makes clear, there were tensions between Paul and the apostles based in Jerusalem. Though he makes no reference to marriage as a factor in those tensions, the structure of the two missions may have contributed to them. The members of Paul’s inner circle, the ones he mentions by name, are men; and he never alludes to a wife for any of them. So it is certainly possible that Paul regarded himself and his co-workers as more committed (and freer?) than the apostles who traveled with their wives, which could have reflected his notion of “divided interests” that characterized married couples (1 Cor 7:32–35). This is speculation, of course, though Paul’s comparison of himself and Barnabas to the apostles, brothers of the Lord, and Cephas in 1 Cor 9:4–7 suggests that the tension between Paul and the Jerusalem faction had an intensely personal dimension.65 Still, the presence of Prisca and Aquila and Andronicus and Junia among Paul’s co-workers indicates that married couples were involved in both missions. Unfortunately, apart from the passing references in Rom 16 (corroborated to some extent by the accounts of Prisca and Aquila in Acts), we do not know much about how such couples worked. Prisca and Aquila, as patrons of house churches who appear to have worked in one location for extended periods (and yet were highly mobile), provide one model. If Cephas and the other apostles were itinerants, as Paul’s language in 1 Cor 9:5 suggests, they and their wives provide another model. In all likelihood, a couple’s social status, profession, degree of wealth, and level of education would have determined what they did—either together or separately.66 At any rate, Paul’s comments about Prisca and Aquila and Andronicus and Junia are enough to make us look more closely at his claim in 1 Cor 7:32–35 that married couples were concerned only with pleasing one another and not the Lord. From his own experience, he knew this was not the case for everyone. (3) 1 Corinthians 7 contains Paul’s most extended comments on marriage and divorce. Every paragraph, every verse, every phrase, and every word in this chapter has been the subject of numerous studies.67 While broad consensus has been reached on some topics, on others opinions remain widely divergent. The same can be said with regard to the interpretation of the chapter as a whole. For the remainder of this

two women in Philippi alongside of whom he contended (“labored” in the NRSV) for the gospel—Euodia and Syntyche (Phil 4:2). See Osiek and MacDonald, A Woman’s Place, for an excellent overview of women’s roles in the early church. Chapters 2 and 10 have the fullest treatments of married women. For a survey of married women in early Christian missions, see Christoph Stenschke, “Married Women and the Spread of Early Christianity,” Neotestamentica 43 (2009): 145–94. 65  Interestingly, Barnabas is one of the two co-workers Paul takes on the trip to Jerusalem he recounts in Gal 2. Paul’s response to attacks from a Jerusalem faction in 2 Cor 10–13 also has a deeply personal tone. 66  The same observation pertains to other pairs who worked together—whether Paul and Barnabas or Tryphaena and Tryphosa. 67  One indication of the importance of 1 Cor 7 for the study of Paul in the Greco-Roman world is the number of references to it in the Scriptural index to the first edition of Paul and the Greco-Roman World. The wide range of issues is demonstrated in the topics of the essays in which they appear: Adaptability, Exemplification and Imitation, Families and Households, Frank Speech, Indifferent Things, Maxims, Pater Familias, Self-Mastery, Shame and Honor, and Slavery.

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essay, I work from the broad consensus that Paul is indebted to Stoic-Cynic traditions in his treatment of marriage and divorce, since the terminology, rhetoric, and argumentation of these traditions appear throughout 1 Cor 7 and inform both its parts and the whole. So the question is no longer whether Stoicism and Cynicism influenced Paul, but how. In what follows, I do not rehearse all the evidence that informs the consensus or attempt to address all the questions 1 Cor 7 raises.68 I focus, rather, on some of the patterns in the chapter that reflect Paul’s debt to Stoics and Cynics with a view to understanding the chapter as a whole. The structure of 1 Cor 7 is complex. It begins with reference to a letter the Corinthians had sent to Paul (v. 1a), from which he appears to quote—“It is good for a man not to touch a woman” (καλόν ἀνθρὠπῳ γυναικὸς μὴ ἅπτεσθαι, kalon anthrōpō gynaikos mē haptesthai, v. 1b); his initial response to the quotation follows in vv. 2–7. In vv. 8–16 Paul addresses three different groups: “the unmarried and widows” (τοῖς ἀγάμοις καὶ ταῖς χήραις, tois agamois kai tais chērais, v. 8), “the married” (τοίς γεγαμηκόσιν, tois gegamēkosin, v. 10), and “the rest” (τοῖς δὲ λοιποῖς, tois de loipois, v. 12). An excursus on circumcision and slavery that initially seems totally out of place but in fact illustrates a central theme in 1 Cor 7 follows in vv. 17–24. Verse 25 appears to introduce a new topic in the Corinthians’ letter to Paul: “the virgins” (Περί δὲ τῶν παρθένων, Peri de tōn parthenōn).69 In vv. 25–40, however, Paul also interweaves comments to (or about) married men and women, unmarried women, betrothed virgins, and widows. But such mixing of categories occurs throughout 1 Cor 7, suggesting that Paul reflects broadly on the issues the Corinthians raise. He concerns himself with those who have been married in vv. 8–9, 11a, 27b, and 39–40; he treats those who are married in vv. 2–6, 10–11, 12–16, 27a, and 29–31; and he addresses those who are not married or are contemplating marriage in vv. 8–9, 25–26, 28, 32–35, 36–38, and 39–40. So if there is an order to the way Paul responds to the Corinthians’ letter, it is not obvious. Still, there are recurring phrases that give us a sense of what he was about, traceable

Will Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, remains the most thorough survey of Stoic-Cynic terminology, concepts, and rhetoric in 1 Cor 7. In ch. 3 he identifies and discusses Stoic-Cynic elements in each section of the chapter. See also his summary list of Stoic-Cynic terms on p. 213. In Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy, and the Ancient Economy, Timothy A. Brookins examines Stoic (and Cynic) influence on 1 Cor 1–4. His discussion of the social status of the Corinthian house church(es) in light of recent work on the Roman economy and his treatment of gymnasia as the locus for basic education in Greek philosophy in Romans cities of the East advance our understanding of Paul’s troubled relationship with the Corinthian elite. Stanley K. Stowers, “Paul on the Use and Abuse of Reason,” in Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. David L. Balch, Everett Ferguson, and Wayne A. Meeks (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 253–86, and his essay on self-mastery in this volume provide a closer look at the deeper logic of Paul’s use of Stoic thought. See also Stowers’ “Readers in Romans & the Meaning of Self-Mastery,” in A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), 42–82. Troels Engberg-Pedersen develops his earlier work on Paul’s reasoning in “A Stoic Concept of the Person in Paul? From Galatians 5:17 to Romans 7:14,” in Christian Body, Christian Self, ed. Trevor W. Thompson and Robert S. Kinney (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 85–112. 69  “Now concerning” (Περὶ δέ, Peri de) is a formula that signals transition to a new topic. The distinction between a man and a virgin in vv. 27–28 implies that v. 25 refers to women only, which reflects common expectations regarding the sexual experiences of males and females at the time of first marriage (and after!). 68 



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as threads woven throughout the chapter and reflective of patterns in Paul’s responses. I focus on three, linking each to important terms found in Stoic-Cynic discussions of marriage: (1) “I wish everyone were like me”—self-mastery (ἐγκράτια, enkratia);70 (2) “Remain as you are”—indifferent things (ἀδιάφορα, adiaphora); and (3) “I give my opinion, but…”—freedom (ἐλευθερία, eleutheria) and power (ἐξουσία, exousia). (1) Paul’s response to the Corinthians’ claim that “it is good for a man not to touch a woman” (v. 1b) takes a number of twists and turns in vv. 2–6, ending with his expostulation, “I wish everyone were like me” (θέλω δὲ πἀντας ἀνθρώπους εἶvαι ὡς καὶ ἐμαυτόν, thelō de pantas anthrōpous einai hōs emauton, 7a). He uses a similar phrase in v. 8, when speaking to “the unmarried and the widows”: “[It is] good for them, if they remain as I” (καλὸν αὐτοῖς ἐὰν μείνωσιν ὡς κἀγώ, kalon autois ean meinōsin hōs kagō). Both comments reflect Paul’s use of imitation (μιμέσις, mimesis) as a rhetorical device frequently found in Greco-Roman moral instruction.71 But to what aspect of his life does Paul refer? Initially, the context suggests Paul intended his elliptical expressions in vv. 7 and 8 as encouragement to imitate him by not marrying. But while he will later cite “the impending crisis” (v. 26) and the need for “unhindered devotion to the Lord” (v. 35) as reasons not to marry,72 his argument in 7:2–9 indicates other issues are at stake. One of these issues is sexual immorality (πορνεία, porneia), which, he says in v. 2, is a reason “each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.” Paul had already wrestled with the danger of porneia in chs. 5–6, indicating that it corrupts the body of Christ.73 It is telling, therefore, that he mentions porneia at the beginning of his response to the Corinthians’ letter, with its claim that it is good to avoid all sexual intercourse.74 Paul’s development of his response to the Corinthians’ maxim in vv. 3–5, however, shows how he thought marriage—or, more precisely, sexual intercourse between married couples—could serve as a guard against porneia.75 Indeed, the logic 70  Following Stanley K. Stowers, I use “self-mastery” rather than “self-control” or “self-discipline.” See his analysis of ἐνκράτια, enkratia in A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (especially Chapter 2) and in “Paul and Self-Mastery” in this volume. See also Stefan Krauter’s intriguing essay “Is Romans 7:7–13 about akrasia?,” in Thompson and Kinney, eds., Christian Body, Christian Self, 113–22. 71  See Benjamin Fiore, S.J, “Paul, Exemplification, and Imitation” in volume 1 of the present work. 72  Paul repeats his concern with the impending crisis in vv. 29 and 31. 73  In 5:1–8, Paul compares the expulsion of the man who is living with his father’s wife to cleaning out the old yeast in preparation for Passover. In 6:11, he returns to the image of cleansing when he refers to the Corinthians as “washed,” “sanctified,” and “justified.” In 6:12–20 Paul contrasts becoming one body with a prostitute and becoming one spirit with the Lord. 1 Thess 4:1–8 demonstrates that Paul’s concern with porneia was part of his earliest parenesis. For a recent debate about the meaning of porneia in Paul and other early Christian literature, see Kyle Harper, “The Making of a Christian Sexual Norm,” JBL 131 (2012): 363–83 and Jennifer A. Glancy, “The Sexual Use of Slaves: A Response to Kyle Harper on Jewish and Christian Porneia,” JBL 134 (2015): 215–29. 74  “Touching a woman” in the Corinthians’ maxim almost certainly refers to sexual intercourse. See Yarbrough, Not Like the Gentiles, Chapter 3. As Paul quotes the maxim, it appears that he understands the Corinthians to mean it applies to all “touching,” that is to all forms and contexts for sexual intercourse. Verse 2, with its implied “Yes, but…” argument confirms this conclusion. (See the same formula in 6:12; 8:1; and 10:23.) 75  Every aspect of Paul’s argument in vv. 2–5c resonates with arguments in Stoic-Cynic treatments of marriage. See, for example, Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, 110–30.

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of these verses indicates Paul must have thought of sexual intercourse as a regular part of marriage even for believers, otherwise abstinence during a time of prayer could hardly serve as an exceptional occasion for temptation.76 Still, Paul does not think of sexual intercourse within marriage as unqualifiedly good or of sexual intercourse outside of marriage as only a matter of porneia. But what is most at stake in Paul’s response to the Corinthian maxim becomes clear at the end of v. 5, when he explains that porneia poses a threat to married couples who abstain from sexual intercourse only because of their lack of self-mastery (ἀκρασία, akrasia).77 The importance of self-mastery for Paul is reflected in his returning to the theme in vv. 8–9. Here, at first glance, “remaining as I am” also implies “remaining unmarried.” After all, Paul addresses these verses to “the unmarried and widows” and concludes that it is better (κρεῖττον, kreitton) to marry than to be aflame with passion.”78 Marriage derives its value here only as an alternative to being aflame with passion. As in v. 5, however, marriage is not the only alternative. The unmarried and widows should marry, that is, only “if they are not practicing self-mastery (εἰ δὲ οὐκ ἐγκρατεύονται, ei de ouk enkrateuontai).”79 In his response to the Corinthians’ maxim and in his advice to the unmarried and widows, practicing self-mastery is Paul’s preferred manner of life. It is not only better than porneia and burning with passion, but also better than marriage. Consequently, imitating Paul in vv. 7 and 8 first and foremost references his self-mastery. Paul returns to the theme yet again in vv. 36–38, where he treats the case of a man considering marriage with the virgin to whom he is betrothed. Echoing his argument in vv. 2–6 and 8–9, Paul contrasts the man’s “not behaving properly” (ἀσχημονεῖν, askēmonein) toward his virgin to “having his own desire under control” (ἐξουσίαν δὲ ἔχει περὶ τοῦ ἰδίου θελήματος, eksousian de exei peri tou idiou thelēmatos.80 “Self-mastery,” that is, now appears in the guise of control over sexual passions and porneia is described as “not behaving properly.” Consequently, these verses also reflect Paul’s treatment of marriage as a guard against porneia and his judgment that not marrying is “better” (κρεῖσσον, kreisson) than marrying. There is a difference in vv. 36–38, however, in that Paul does not refer to himself as an example. Instead he reflects on the deliberative process the man must undertake to make a decision about

76  In v. 5, Paul argues that married couples should abstain from sexual intercourse only (a) for short periods, (b) by consent, and (c) for the purpose of prayer. 77  To be precise, the lack of self-mastery is the cause of temptation, not yielding to it. But the two are almost certainly related. Though he does not mention 1 Cor 7:5, Krauter’s discussion of “paradoxical effects” in Romans appears to be applicable here. See “Is Romans 7:7–13 about akrasia?,” in Thompson, ed., Christian Body, Christian Self, 113–22. 78  Though the phrase “with passion” is not in the Greek text, it expresses the primary meaning of the sentence. “Burning” with passion is a common notion in Greco-Roman literature. See, for example, Martin, Sex and the Single Savior, 66–69 and 111–12. 79  Here the verbal form “not practicing self-mastery” is equivalent to “lacking self-mastery” in v. 5. The contrasting Greek nouns are ἐγκράτια, enkratia and ἀκρασία, akrasia. 80  The comparison works here whether the ambiguous phrase ἐὰν ᾖ ὑπέρακμος, ean ē hyperakmos refers to the man or the virgin. For a discussion of the phrase, see Martin, The Corinthian Body, 219–28.



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what he should do with his virgin—a topic I take up below when examining how Paul reasons his way through 1 Cor 7. (2) Paul’s advice to “remain as you are” appears throughout 1 Cor 7.81 He first uses the phrase itself in vv. 8–9, when he addresses “the unmarried and the widows.”82 To paraphrase Paul’s argument in vv. 8–9 as we examined it above: I prefer that the unmarried and widows remain unmarried—and practice self-control—like me; if they cannot, they should marry [and follow the advice regarding sexual intercourse I give to husbands and wives]. At any rate, it would be better than remaining single and burning with passion, which is what happens to people who do not have self-control.

In 1 Cor 7:10–11, when Paul turns to the issue of divorce (perhaps taking up another question from the Corinthians’ letter), he does not use the phrase. Still, referring to words of “the Lord,”83 he argues that a wife should not be separated from her husband and a husband should not divorce his wife.84 In effect, forbidding divorce in this way is tantamount to saying that married couples should remain as they are. Paul makes this clear in the concession regarding wives, arguing that if a woman does separate from her husband, she should “remain unmarried” (μενέτω ἄγαμος, menetō agamos) or be reconciled to him—and thus return to the status quo ante.85 In 7:12–16, Paul addresses believers who are married to unbelievers, noting this time that he is speaking, not the Lord.86 His position, however, is fundamentally the

J. A. Harrill argues that Paul makes an exception to the principle of remaining as you are in the case of a slave who has an opportunity to be freed (1 Cor 7:21b). See The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity, HUT 3 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 108–21, and “Paul and Slavery” in this volume. Though I find Harrill’s argument convincing, v. 21a suggests that Paul did not encourage slaves to take initiative in seeking their freedom. As Will Deming has shown, Paul regarded physical slavery as a matter of indifference. See Will Deming, “A Diatribe Pattern in 1 Cor 7:21–22: A New Perspective on Paul’s Directions to Slaves,” NovT 37 (1995): 130–37 and “Paul and Indifferent Things” in this volume. 82  I understand “unmarried” here in the broadest terms, opposite to “the married” (ὅι γεγαμηκόσοι, hoi gegamēkosoi) in v. 10. Later (v. 34) Paul distinguishes between “the unmarried woman” (ἡ γυνὴ ἡ ἄγαμος, hē gynē hē agamos) and “the virgin” (ἡ παρθένος, hē parthenos). In vv. 8–11, the married and unmarried belong to the circle of “believers.” In v. 12 he turns to “the rest” (Τοῖς δέ λοιποῖς), meaning “believers” (ὃι πιστοί, hoi pistoi) who are married to “unbelievers” (ἄπιστοι, apistoi). Though the latter terms are difficult to define with precision, I use them here to refer to membership in the community and thus relate them to such terms as “in the Lord” (ἐν κυρίῳ, en kyriō) in vv. 22 and 39 and “with God” (παρὰ θεῷ, para theō) in v. 24. 83  See Mark 10:2–12; Matt 5:31–32; 19:3–12; and Luke 16:18. The saying in 1 Cor 7:10–11 differs from all of these versions, which in turn differ from one another. 84  Paul echoes conventional language for the Roman divorce process. See Treggiari, Roman Marriage, 435–41. Anticipating his treatment of believers married to unbelievers in vv. 12–16, Paul appears to focus here on believers married to believers. 85  Would Paul apply this logic in the case of slaves who regarded themselves as married and were separated by their owner (by selling one or the other)? Or would he argue that they would be free to “marry” another, as he allows for the widow in v. 39? 86  For explorations of 1 Cor 7:12–16 in light of recent research on the makeup of Roman households, see Caroline Johnson Hodge, “Married to an Unbeliever: Households, Hierarchies, and Holiness in 1 Corinthians 7:12–16,” HTR 103 (2010): 1–25; and Margaret Y. MacDonald and Leif E. Vaage, “Unclean But Holy Children: Paul’s Everyday Quandary in 1 Corinthians 7:14c,” CBQ 73 (2011): 526–46. 81 

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same: a brother or sister should not divorce an unbelieving partner who is content with the marriage. Paul’s advice to the believing partner, therefore, is “remain as you are.” He adds, however, that if the unbelieving partner does not consent to live with a believing spouse, the believer is not “bound” (οὐ δεδούλωται, dedoulōtai) to the partner who wishes to separate and thus may consent to the divorce.87 The excursus on circumcision and slavery in 7:17–24 underscores the importance of Paul’s advice to remain as you are.88 In v. 17 he introduces the excursus with the admonition, “[L]et each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches (Εἰ μὴ ἑκάστῳ ὡς ἐμέρισεν ὁ κύριος, ἕκαστον ὡς κέκληκεν ὁ θεός, οὕτως περιπατείτω. καὶ οὕτως ἐν ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις πάσαις διατάσσομαι, Ei mē hekastō hōs emerisen ho kyrios, hekaston hōs keklēken ho theos, houtōs peripateitō, Kai houtōs en tais ekklēsiais pasais diatassomai). He repeats the advice in v. 20: “Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called” (ἕκαστος ἐν τῇ κλήσει ᾖ ἐκλήθη, ἐν ταύτῃ μενἐτω, hekastos en tē klēsei ē eklēthē, en tautē menetō). In v. 24 he gives it a third time: “In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God” (ἕκαστος ἐν τῷ ἐκλήθη, ἀδεκφοί, ἐν τούτῷ μενέτω παρὰ θεῷ, hekastos en tō eklēthē, adelphoi, en toutō menetō para theō). The threefold repetition of his advice and his claim that it expresses what he taught “in all the churches” demonstrate that “remaining as you are” is a fundamental principle.89 The cases Paul treats in the rest of the chapter address believers who have never married (vv. 25–28 and 36–38) and whose marriages have ended in the death of a spouse (vv. 39–40). In the case of the woman whose husband has died, Paul is explicit: she should “remain” (μείνῃ, meinē) as she is, since, in his opinion, she will be “more blessed.” The details of the case in vv. 25–28 are not clear, but in principle Paul treats it in conformity to the pattern in the rest of the chapter. Part of the problem in understanding this passage is that in treating the topic of “virgins,” Paul’s primary concern is the man in the relationship: I hold that because of the impending crisis…it is good for a man to act in the following way: If you [sing.] are bound to a wife, do not seek a divorce (λύσιν, lusin); if you [sing.] are divorced (λέλυσαι, lelusai), do not seek a wife.

I reference the NRSV translation here, though “enslaved” is perhaps a better rendering of δεδούλωται, dedoulōtai. Paul makes a similar argument in vv. 27 and 39 and in Rom 7:2, in each case using δέδεται, dedetai (which the NRSV also renders as “bound”). Would Paul argue that the person whose unbelieving spouse instigated divorce should remain unmarried or remarry her husband (as he directed the woman who divorced her husband in v. 11) or would he argue that the believing partner should remain unmarried or marry “in the Lord”—as he advised the widow in vv. 39–40? 88  The excursus is linked to the rest of the chapter by (1) the transitional phrase “However that may be” (Εἰ μὴ, Ei mē, v. 17); (2) the repetition of the word “remain” (vv. 20 and 24) in vv. 8, 11 and 40, and (3) the arguments for the status quo in vv. 10–11, 12–13, 25–27, and 37–38. 89  See further Rollin Ramsaran, Liberating Words: Paul’s Use of Rhetorical Maxims in 1 Corinthians 1–10 (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 43–46, and his essay in this volume. 87 



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Again, therefore, Paul’s advice is to remain as you are—this time taking into account the man who is married or divorced. The nature of the relationship Paul addresses in vv. 36–38 is even less clear, though again his argument follows the pattern. Working from the assumption that vv. 36–38 deal with a special case in the section on virgins introduced in v. 25, Paul appears to address a man who is concerned about the way he is behaving toward the “virgin” to whom he is betrothed.90 Paul’s advice differs in this situation, but only in the order he gives it.91 Here he begins with a concession: “if passions are strong…let them marry” (v. 36);92 he then states that the man who is able to remain as he is93 and keep the virgin as she is does well (καλῶς ποιήσει, kalōs poiēsei, v. 37). This leads him to restate his opinion in v. 38, this time more clearly: “The one who marries his virgin does well (καλῶς ποιήσει, kalōs poiēsei); the one who does not marry will do better (κρεῖσσον, kreisson).” Yet again, Paul advises, it is better to remain as you are. Throughout 1 Cor 7, therefore, though his reasons vary from case to case, Paul’s advice to the married, the never married, the widow, and the divorced is always the same: remain as you are. The consistency with which he offers this advice, in spite of such differing circumstances, strongly suggests that for Paul marriage was a matter of indifference, which makes him very much like the Stoics, who used precisely this term—ἀδιάφορον, adiaphoron—to describe what was neither a good thing (καλόν, kalon) nor a bad thing (κακόν, kakon).94 “Good,” “bad,” and “indifferent” were the principal categories by which Stoics assessed what one should do to be a wise man and live the good life—the ideal being not simply to do good but to be good. As with most ethical systems, however, Stoicism recognized a continuum between the “good” and the “bad,” so that they spoke of indifferent things as belonging either more to the good (preferred) or more to the bad (non-preferred). They also argued that circumstances had a bearing on how one might determine where an act might be on the continuum. In some situations, they argued, an act might be indifferent toward the good and in other situations it might be indifferent toward the bad. For most Stoics, marriage was a good indifferent, since it accords with nature, insures the good order of the state, and provides benefits—such as a wife to run the house and allow the wise man time to pursue philosophy.95 Only when circumstances or a special calling demand a wise man’s attention, might he forego the benefits (and responsibilities) of married life.96 And so it is with Paul—in part. The NRSV renders “virgin” (παρθένος, parthenos) as “fiancée” in vv. 36–38. Note that Paul does not address the virgin here, following the course he set in vv. 25–29. 92  As noted earlier (n. 80), Paul could be referring to the passions of the man or the virgin. 93  We come back to the argument in v. 37 below. 94  They could also refer to the good as ἀγαθόν (agathon). For a good treatment of indifference as a technical term in Stoic ethics, see Deming, “Paul and Indifferent Things” in this volume. Paul does not use the term ἀδιάφορον (adiaphoron) itself, but was clearly aware of the concept, as Deming shows. 95  Roman Stoics like Musonius Rufus argued that women also benefited from the study of philosophy. But they still held that a wife’s duty is to run the household. See That Women Too Should Study Philosophy 42, 5–11. 96  Epictetus, Discourses 3.22, 69–71. One of the most striking features of Paul’s argument in 1 Cor 7:25–31 is his apocalyptic concern with “the impending crisis” (v. 26), “the appointed time” (v. 29), and 90  91 

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(3) As we have seen, Paul wanted the Corinthians to be like himself, which meant practicing self-mastery and not marrying. At the same time, however, he repeatedly advised the Corinthians to remain as they are. Paul apparently recognized the two admonitions do not readily go together, however, since his argument in 1 Cor 7 frequently includes a phrase like, “I give my opinion, but…” This is most clear in v. 7: I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another a different kind.

The phrases appear in vv. 8–9 (“I say…but…”), 10–12 (“I give this command [not I but the Lord]…but…”), 12–15 (“I say [I and not the Lord]…but…”); 7:26–28 (“I think…but…”) and 39–40 (reversing the order: “[a widow] is free to marry anyone she wishes, only in the Lord. But in my judgment she is more blessed if she remains as she is”). In all of these instances, Paul states his opinion clearly, but allows for an alternative point of view. In the opening verse of 1 Cor 7, Paul makes a similar move, though in this instance he starts with the alternative point of view and then challenges it with his own: “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” But because of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

The language Paul uses here in v. 2 is striking, not only because he expresses concern with both men and women, but also because he is concerned with each man (ἕκαστος, hekastos) and each woman (ἕκαστη, hekastē). This phrase also appears repeatedly in 1 Cor 7: • • • •

Each (ἕκαστος, hekastos) has a particular gift from God (v. 7); Let each of you (ἕκαστος, hekastos) lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you (v. 17); Let each of you (ἕκαστος, hekastos) remain in the condition in which you were called (v. 20); In whatever condition each (ἕκαστος, hekastos) was called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God (v. 24).97

This particularity in Paul’s language in 1 Cor 7 also appears in his use of the term anyone (τίς, tis) in vv. 12–13 (“if any brother, if any woman”),98 18 (“if anyone” [twice]), and 36 (“if anyone”). When we see these expressions in the context of Paul’s references to “husbands,” “wives,” “the unmarried,” “widows,” “the married,” “virgins,” “betrothed,” and all the others he mentions in 1 Cor 7, it is striking how carefully he delineates his the “passing away” of the present form of this world (v. 31). In spite of this concern, however, Paul’s advice is “remain as you are.” It is as if the changes that are to come at the end the age (as described in 1 Cor 15) inform Paul’s understanding of adiaphora—things that do not matter. 97  The NRSV does not translate the term ἕκαστος (hekastos) in v. 24. 98  The NRSV renders these phrases “if any believer” and “if any woman.”



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audience—and how he adapts his admonitions and exhortations for each group. Throughout the chapter, that is, Paul wrestles with the tension between self-mastery (ἐγκράτια, enkratia) and indifferent things (ἀδιάφορα, adiaphora) and offers a variety of ways to deal with it. With regard to marriage, Paul clearly favored self-mastery (and remaining unmarried), but he also recognized the need to allow for varying ways his readers might respond to the standards he set. In addition to Paul’s specific concerns with “the impending crisis,” the world’s “passing away,” “experiencing distress,” and “anxieties,” two passages stand out with regard to the way he develops the options: v. 7 and vv. 36–38. Though Paul’s contrast between what he wishes for “all” and the particular gift from God that “each” person has looks back to vv. 2–6, it also anticipates the rest of the chapter and expresses a fundamental principle, one that takes precedence over Paul’s wishes. Still, with regard to marriage and slavery, individuals have choices, at least in some instances. Making those choices, Paul argues, requires reasoned deliberation, which he models for his readers in vv. 36–38 in his treatment of the man who thinks he is not behaving properly toward his virgin. The precise circumstances that lie behind vv. 36–38 are not clear. Even so, we can trace the contours of Paul’s argument. The central piece is controlling one’s desires, which, as we have seen, means practicing self-mastery. Paul clarifies his understanding of what it means to practice self-mastery, however, by adding conditions: The man must act of his own free will, standing firm and being determined in his heart.99 There must be clarity of purpose, that is, and inner resolve. Finding himself between Paul on the one hand and the elite on the other, the man who was wrestling with what to do about his virgin finally had to decide for himself.100 How are we to understand Paul’s reasoning? The rhetorical shape of 1 Cor 7 is the first indication of how we should read Paul’s argument, since it shows that Paul’s letters were not free form and idiosyncratic, but carefully written with regard to both form and content.101 They reflect, that is, Paul’s awareness of debates among rhetoricians and moralists about how to determine the best type of letter for any specific occasion. Pseudo-Demetrius, whose essay Epistolary Types is dated between the second century BCE and the third century CE, lists twenty-one different types of letters, each recognized by its “form of style.” In time, rhetoricians also recognized a “mixed” type of letter, that is, one that includes stylistic

I paraphrase a very fulsome sentence here. The NRSV renders this sentence, “But if someone stands firm in his resolve, being under no necessity but having his own desire under control, and has determined in his own mind to keep her as his fiancée, he will do well.” Rather than “in his own mind,” the Greek text uses has the phrase “in his own heart” twice, in slightly different grammatical constructions. 100  I echo Stan Stowers here: “Paul expected the Corinthians to be responsible moral agents and to choose the right course of action for themselves.” See “Paul and the Use and Abuse of Reason,” in Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. David Balch, Everett Ferguson, and Wayne A. Meeks (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 253–86. The quotation is from 265. 101  On letter-writing among the moralists, see Abraham J. Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, SBLSBS 19 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), and Stanley K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986). 99 

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elements of more than one type of letter. 1 Corinthians 7 is just such a letter, reflecting elements of a “responding” type (ἀποφαντικός, apophantikos) and an “advisory” type (sυμβουλευτικός, sumbouleutikos).102 As Pseudo-Demetrius describes them, the first “responds to the person making an inquiry,” clearly seen in 7:1a; the second type is recognized “when, by offering our own judgment, we exhort (someone to) something or dissuade (him) from something.” Pseudo-Libanius, whose Epistolary Styles dates to some time between the fourth and sixth centuries CE, allows us to be even clearer in identifying Paul’s argument, since he distinguishes between parenetic letters “that [do] not admit of a counter-statement” (exhortatory speech) and those “that [do] admit of a counter-statement” (advisory speech).103 1 Corinthians 7 fits both definitions of an advisory letter, though Paul’s “I give my opinion, but…” anticipates “advisory speech” in Pseudo-Libanius’s definition, in that it allows for “counter-statement.” The elite among the Corinthians would almost certainly have recognized Paul’s craft in responding to their letter. They may also have recognized another rhetorical device in 1 Cor 7, the philosopher’s role as “physician of the soul.” As Abraham J. Malherbe has emphasized in several important essays on Cynics, Stoics, and other moralists of the time, philosophers commonly spoke of themselves as physicians.104 Referring to Dio Chrysostom Discourse 77/78, for example, Malherbe writes, “The philosopher is not to be indiscriminate in severity but as one who is sound (hygiēs) in words and deeds, is to adapt his treatment to the condition of the hearers.” This is just what Paul does in 1 Cor 7.105 Thus, while Paul had a clear preference for self-mastery as an ethical norm, shaped in part by a deep concern with the dangers of porneia and passion, he studiously avoided forcing the Corinthians to conform to his wishes. Cynic-Stoic treatments of the human condition may have taught him that such efforts were bound to fail. Some of the married couples he valued as co-workers may have taught him that there were many ways to practice self-mastery. Perhaps from his own experience he knew that there were different gifts and that while he might value one more than others, they all contributed to the good order of the community. And if the elite in Corinth sought to impose their maxim on everyone in the community, 1 Cor 7 may have been Paul’s way to provide a different model—a practitioner of self-mastery with an understanding of weakness and concern for the weak.

Malherbe, Ancient Epistolary Theorists, 36–37. Pseudo-Libanius also includes a “replying” letter in his list (23). See also p. 71. 103  Ibid., 69. 104  The essays are collected in Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis, Fortress, 1989). See especially “Gentle as a Nurse: The Cynic Background to 1 Thessalonians 2,” “Paul: Hellenistic Philosopher or Christian Pastor,” “Antisthenes and Odysseus, and Paul at War,” and “Medical Imagery in the Pastoral Epistles.” 105  Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers, 130. 102 



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Part III. Other References to Marriage in Paul and Paulinist Literature 1 Thessalonians 4:3–8 continues to attract the attention of scholars interested in Paul’s views of marriage, sexuality, and, now, slavery. The primary debate over the interpretation of the passage focuses on how to translate σκεῦος κτᾶσθαι (skeuos ktasthai) in v. 4. Longstanding attempts include “obtain a wife” and “control one’s body.”106 More recent treatments include Jouette Bassler’s suggestion that the phrase refers to celibate partnerships like the ones Paul treats in 1 Cor 7:36–38 and that were later discussed in patristic writers,107 and Jennifer A. Glancy’s discussion of it in the context of slavery in Greco-Roman households. Glancy argues that σκεῦος κτᾶασθαι “could be construed as instructions to the male Thessalonian Christians to find morally neutral outlets for their sexual urges,” which, given the widespread use of domestic slaves for sexual purposes, would make them just such “vessels.”108 Marriage remained a concern for Paul’s later followers—of all stripes. In the Paulinist literature, the household codes of Col 3:18–4:1 and Eph 5:21–6:9 reflect the more traditional aspects of Paul’s thought. 1 Timothy 2:8–3:13 and 5:1–6:2 and Titus 2 continue this trajectory. The Acts of Paul and Thecla is in direct opposition to the positions espoused in Colossians, Ephesians, and the Pastoral Epistles, reflecting the more ascetic aspects of Paul’s thought. The history of interpretation demonstrates that the tensions between the two trajectories have never been resolved. They even appear now among the scholars who write about them.109

For a review of the issues, see Yarbrough, Not Like the Gentiles: Marriage Rules in the Letters of Paul, Chapter 3, and Abraham Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, AB 32B (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 224–41. Dale Martin (The Corinthian Body, 216) and Stanley K. Stowers, “Paul and Self-Mastery,” in this volume are among scholars who translate σκεύος κτάσθαι as a reference to obtaining a wife. 107  See “Σκεύος: A Modest Proposal for Illuminating Paul’s Use of a Metaphor in 1 Thessalonians 4:4,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, ed. L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 55–66. E. Elizabeth Johnson develops Bassler’s argument in “A Modest Proposal in Context,” in The Impartial God: Essays in Biblical Studies in Honor of Jouette M. Bassler, ed. Calvin J. Roetzel and Robert L. Foster (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2007), 232–45. 108  See Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 59–63. Glancy argues that for Hellenistic Jewish writers (including Philo and Paul) the sexual use of slaves was the sexual norm, just as it was in the Greek and Roman worlds. In “The Sexual Use of Slaves,” Glancy revises her earlier readings and concludes that Paul would not have regarded sexual intercourse with domestic slaves as porneia. Because I think Paul would recognize “marriages” between slaves (even though they had no standing in Roman law), and because Paul regards self-mastery as a matter of controlling one’s passions in all settings, I find Glancy’s argument from silence that Paul would not treat intercourse with slaves as porneia unconvincing. 109  On the household codes of Colossians and Ephesians, see Osiek and MacDonald, A Woman’s Place, 118–43; Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Slavery, Sexuality and House Churches: A Reassessment of Col 3.18–4.1 in Light of New Research on the Roman Family,” NTS 53 (2007): 94–113, and J. P. Hering, The Colossian and Ephesian Haustafeln in Theological Context (New York: Peter Lang, 2007). Outi Lehtipuu 106 

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Part IV. Select Bibliography Classicists Bradley, Keith R. Discovering the Roman Family. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Brennan, Tad. The Stoic Life: Emotions, Duties, and Fate. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Corbett, P. E. The Roman Law of Marriage. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936. Dixon, Suzanne. The Roman Family. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. ———The Roman Mother. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1988. Gardner, Jane. Women in Roman Law and Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Hallett, Judith P. Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society: Women and the Elite Family. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. Hersch, Karen K. The Roman Wedding: Ritual and Meaning in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. James, Sharon J., and Sheila Dillon. A Companion to Women in the Ancient World. Oxford: Blackwell, 2015. Pomeroy, Sarah B. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997. Rawson, Beryl, ed. A Companion to the Family in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. ———ed. The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. ———“Family Life Among the Lower Classes at Rome in the First Two Centuries of the Empire.” CP 61, no. 2 (1966): 71–83. ———ed. Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. ———“Roman Concubinage and Other de facto Marriages.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 104 (1974): 279–305. Rawson, Beryl, and Paul Weaver. The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space. Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, 1997. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Rousselle, Aline. Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity. New York: Blackwell, 1988. Saller, Richard P. “Patria potestas and the Stereotype of the Roman Family.” Continuity and Change 1 (1986): 7–22. ———Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Treggiari, Susan. Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the Time of Ulpian. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.

examines the relation between the Pastoral Epistles and The Acts of Paul and Thecla in “The Example of Thecla and the Example(s) of Paul: Disputing Women’s Roles in Early Christianity,” in Ahearne-Kroll, Holloway, and Kelhoffer, eds., Women and Gender in Ancient Religions, 349–78.



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New Testament and Early Christian Balch, David L. Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter. SBLMS 26. Chico: Scholars Press, 1981. Brookins, Timothy A. Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy and the Ancient Economy. SNTSMS 159. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Deming, Will. Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2004. Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. Paul and the Stoics. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000. MacDonald, Margaret Y. “Early Christian Women Married to Unbelievers.” Studies in Religion 19 (1990): 221–34. ———“Women Holy in Body and Spirit: The Social Setting of 1 Corinthians 7.” NTS 36 (1990): 161–181. Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. ———Sex and the Single Savior. Louisville. KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006. Osiek, Carolyn, and David L. Balch. Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Osiek, Carolyn, and Margaret Y. MacDonald. A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Sampley, J. Paul. “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh”: A Study of Traditions in Ephesians 5:21–33. SNTSMS 17. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Ward, Roy Bowen. “Musonius and Paul on Marriage.” NTS 36 (1990): 281–89. Yarbrough, O. Larry. Not Like the Gentiles: Marriage Rules in the Letters of Paul. SBLDS 80. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985.

Chapter 20

Paul and Maxims Rollin A. Ramsaran Let this suffice for what we had to say concerning maxims, their nature, how many kinds of them there are, the way they should be used, and what their advantages are. —Aristotle, The “Art” of Rhetoric 2.21.16

Proverbial speech is known from all cultures. In the Western tradition, strong speech, the pointed word, and the maxim were known, admired, and imitated from Homer’s Iliad—and the Greek cultural tradition of excellence in speech moved through the Golden Age to the Hellenistic period with an increased interest in analyzing and recording elements of persuasive rhetoric, including the use of maxims. There was no less activity during the Greco-Roman period into the Second Sophistic. Our analysis of rhetoric is enhanced by extant rhetorical handbooks (e.g., Rhetorica ad Herennium, Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria), student training manuals (progymnasmata; e.g., those of Theon and Hermogenes), and various extant speeches (e.g., those of Isocrates and Cicero; Elder Seneca, Controversiae and Suasoriae). With regard to maxims, in addition to the rhetorical handbook instruction, a number of maxim lists remain (gnomologia; e.g., The Sayings of the Seven Sages; The Sentences of Sextus). As is evident from the Aristotle quote above, by the time of the Greco-Roman period, maxim argumentation had been reflected on with precision and its traditions were well known. In this piece, Paul is placed squarely in the Greco-Roman period with an acute knowledge of and ability to use maxim argumentation and its traditions.

Part I. Maxims in the Greco-Roman World of Paul’s Time Investigation of Paul’s use of rhetorical maxims continues to be an important avenue for interpretation.1 Interest in the subject had been sparked by the ongoing investigation of the wisdom sayings of Jesus and the rediscovery of rhetoric as a key Since this chapter was originally written in 2005, the recent commentary tradition on 1 Corinthians reflects a more engaged attentiveness to the usage of the term “maxim” and Paul’s argumentation in light of such identified maxims. Specific studies on Paul’s use of maxims or a particular maxim are still limited, but see the New Testament Studies section of the bibliography for Ramsaran and Zeller.

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framework out of which to view and interpret the NT writings.2 In what follows, I seek to demonstrate (1) how maxims functioned in Paul’s time and (2) how Paul made excellent use of their persuasive value in his letters.

The Persuasive World of Paul’s Time Paul lived and traveled in a lively world. Acquainted with Judea’s major urban center, Jerusalem, Paul moved on to preach a message of good news in Arabia, in the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and, then, in major cities along the Roman road system from Antioch on the Orontes to Rome.3 From every indication the former Saul of Tarsus, a diaspora Jew, moved about easily in the Greco-Roman urban world. This lively world was inherently persuasive. The deep social, intellectual, and political changes wrought by Alexander the Great and his successors included the movement of Greek rhetorical theory and practice into the imperial period.4 The ability to speak well was connected to the Greco-Roman educational system. Techniques for persuasion were built upon the firm foundation of received παιδεία, paideia (culture); indeed, rhetoric was in the service of propagating, defending, and making a convincing case for the retention of Greco-Roman ways.5 Paul, though at many points critical of Greco-Roman ways, found rhetoric redeemable as a means to convince community members to progress in their faith and moral behavior.6 As did other NT writers, Paul certainly understood his role as one who brought into being competent moral communities—new covenant communities in line with the expressions of the people of God found in Israel’s scriptures.7 For Paul, believers made up deliberative assemblies (ἐκκλησίαι, ekklēsiai) who along with the Spirit of God worked out among themselves the will of God in the present (Phil 2:12–13; Rom 12:2; 1 Cor 2:6–16).8 Rhetoric provided linguistic patterns and argumentative strategies for persuasive deliberation; Paul and others engaged in its use.

See the discussion in Rollin A. Ramsaran, Liberating Words: Paul’s Use of Rhetorical Maxims in 1 Corinthians 1–10 (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 74–77. 3  On the urban settings for Paul’s early missionary work in Arabia, Syria, and Cilicia, see Martin Hengel and Anna Maria Schwemer, Paul Between Damascus and Antioch: The Unknown Years (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 106–26, 151–77. 4  George A. Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 81–127. 5  Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 5, and the literature cited therein. 6  It is now widely recognized that Paul’s letters, written to believers, are rhetorically shaped. See ibid., 1 with nn. 2 and 3; 79 with n. 147. 7  Wayne A. Meeks, The Origins of Christian Morality: The First Two Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), esp. 3–7. 8  See Richard A. Horsley, “Building an Alternative Society: Introduction,” in Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society, ed. Richard A. Horsley (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997), 209. 2 

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To the rhetorician, speaking well could never be viewed apart from the perceived character (ἦθος, ēthos) of the one speaking. Moral integrity was connected to honor, self-mastery, and consistency in word and deed, loyalty in friendship, moral wisdom, and freedom.9 Who was speaking, how one spoke, what one spoke, where one spoke, and to whom one spoke were not incidental. Also of prime importance were attention to proper conventions and appeals to the common bond between speaker and audience. Rhetorical speech and practices were carried on in the private and public spheres.10 In private, rhetorical expression might take either an informal or formal shape through conversations, debates, or speeches at symposia (dinner parties) or elsewhere. Furthermore, in a lively city like Corinth, for instance, public demonstrations of rhetoric might be connected with formal debates, declamation (fully composed speech exercises), speeches connected with civic duties, religious festivals, or the biennial athletic games, and, of course, local assembly gatherings. The public orientation of much rhetoric, along with its frequency of occurrence, was a major factor in developing rhetorical competency throughout the various levels of Greco-Roman society.11

Maxim Persuasion in Three Forms Maxims—a pervasive, basic feature of rhetoric in antiquity—were concisely expressed, stylized, and memorable principles or rules of conduct. Greeks called such sayings γνῶμαι, gnōmai; Romans called them sententiae. The content of maxims is drawn largely from recurrent, observable, and taken-for-granted experiences common to the world of the intended hearers. As a rhetorical device, the maxim at the time of Paul was particularly valued for its persuasive power and for its character-building qualities. Maxims had a long history of development and usage from the Greek classical period to the early Empire.12 The use of maxims altogether, and the moral sententia (see below) in particular, was intensified in the time of Paul with the rise of declamation exhibitions. In his Institutio Oratoria 8.5.3–34, the late first-century CE rhetorician, Quintilian, brings together the current traditions, forms, and uses of the maxim. Quintilian’s work suggests that Paul and his contemporaries had access to three different maxim forms: the gnomic maxim, the gnomic sentence, and the moral sententia.13

On ἦθος (ēthos) in general, see George A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), 15. 10  For what follows, see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 5, 13. Cf. the background in M. L. Clarke, Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Study (London: Cohen & West, 1953), 7–22, 85–108. 11  Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 79–80 with nn. 14 and 15. 12  Note that with Quintilian the two generic terms for “maxim” (Greek: γνώμη, and Latin: sententia) form descriptive subcategories as the two cultures move together. For a complete discussion, see ibid., 5–29. 13  The following discussion of the three maxim forms follows closely the more detailed investigation in ibid., 9–17. 9 



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The gnomic maxim, at home in poetry and prose, was encapsulated wisdom, an expression of general, traditional, and moral truth. The truth of the gnomic maxim was generally thought to be universal and indisputable. In Paul’s time the gnomic maxim would be heard in the exhortations of everyday speech, childhood instruction, the quotation of the poets, and as a well-chosen argumentative component in rhetorical speeches. An example of a gnomic maxim is “The chances of war are the same for both [sides].”14 Compare 1 Cor 4:2: “Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy.”15 The gnomic sentence was an individual’s expression of recognized wisdom based on general observations or decrees of judgment, but always applied to particular circumstances of the moment. Such a maxim could certainly be tested for its truth, usefulness, and applicability to any given situation. Rather than being simply considered indisputable (cf. the gnomic maxim), the gnomic sentence could be affirmed or refuted. As a move from the universal to the particular, the gnomic sentence is not simply traditional, but it is rhetorical. The gnomic sentence brings recognized wisdom to bear in a deliberative context and as such must be framed in light of one’s stature, one’s ability to move the audience, and the pertinence of the counsel to the particulars of the situation.16 In Paul’s time the gnomic sentence was most prominent in formal deliberative discussions, debates, and speeches where persuasive moral reasoning was imperative. An example of the gnomic sentence is “There is no man who is really free, for he is the slave of either wealth or fortune [τύχη, tychē].”17 Compare 1 Cor 1:25, “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.” Here, Paul’s maxim reflects the apocalyptic intervention of God’s power in human history through the cross of Christ (1:18–31)—a striking reversal and subversion of human norms about the acquisition of strength and power. According to Quintilian (Inst. 8.5.9–34), general moral truth could be shaped in the form of a “newer,” moral sententia: a statement that is brief, well-rounded, memorable, employing a striking figure, having an aesthetic-emotional appeal, and often placed as a clausula (conclusion). The popularity of this moral sententia18 paralleled the rise and extensive practice of declamation exercises. Declamation sessions moved from the school rooms and private homes and became “an entertaining and stimulating social activity in their own right,” offering recreation, entertainment, intellectual excitement, friendly competition, and the practice, maintenance, and improvement of oratorical skills and criticism.19 The use of stylish and proper sententiae increased the ἦθος, ēthos of the speaker even to the point that “an exceptionally good one [moral sententia] passed swiftly among the declaimers and could confer an instant reputation

Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.11. All translations from classical sources are from the LCL unless otherwise specified. 15  All biblical translations are from the NRSV unless otherwise specified. 16  See Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.2–16. 17  Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.2. 18  For the moral sententia as a subset of sententiae in general, see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 19  Lewis A. Sussman, The Elder Seneca (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 13–17. Cf. Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 12–17. 14 

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upon its author.”20 An example of the moral sententia is “All happiness is unstable and uncertain.”21 Compare 1 Cor 4:20, “The kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (RSV) or 1 Cor 10:23, “ ‘All things are permissible’ ” (my trans.).

Navigating Effectively with Maxims What strategies would Paul’s contemporaries use to increase the persuasive value of maxims in communication? First, moral maxims were deemed appropriate for speakers of good character. The rhetor’s ἦθος, ēthos contributed to the persuasiveness of spoken maxims; and interestingly enough, the use of such maxims further built up that same ēthos. The establishment of good rapport between audience and speaker was important to the introduction of moral maxims. Once introduced, further moral maxims continued to enhance the speaker or writer’s ēthos as the communication proceeded.22 Second, the persuasive power of a maxim came not only through its content, but also through the expressive techniques used in its construction. The maxim finds its power to draw attention, distinguish itself as a rhetorical and poetic form, and become memorable through its stylistic markings. This is most noticeable with the moral sententia described above. Gnomic maxims, however, were also singled out and appreciated for presenting wisdom in an aesthetically pleasing way with poetic figures of speech.23 And rhetoricians took exceptional care to catalog stylistic markings that would aid in formulating gnomic sentences, as evidenced in Ad Alexandrum, Ad Herennium, Ps.-Hermogenes’ Progymnasmata, and Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria.24 Brevity and the employment of a figure of speech or thought characterized most maxims. Third, their position, clarity, and elaboration enhanced the persuasiveness of maxims. Strictly speaking, the maxim may appear in any position in argumentation, but placement at the beginning or the end highlights particular usage patterns. The rhetorical exercise handbook of Theon points to the use of the maxim to confirm a thesis.25 Hence, in advancing argumentation for or against a thesis, the maxim may be the ground from which argumentation is introduced. In that case, it would occupy the lead position in the argument. Popularity for using the moral maxim in the final (end) position is characteristic of the new sententia usage from at least the time of the Elder

Sussman, Elder Seneca, 38. Cf. Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 2.4.9; 7.6.15; 9.2.23; 10.1.14; 10.2.10. Seneca the Elder, Controversiae 1.1.3. 22  Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 17, 35–37. 23  For Homer’s stylistic influence on the gnomic-maxim tradition, see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 9–10. 24  Rhetoricians show a propensity for classification and attention to stylistic instruction. Anaximenes suggests hyperbole and parallel (Ad Alexandrum 1430b.10–11). Ad Herennium 4.17.24–25 notes single and double forms. Ps. Hermogenes proposes categorizing maxims into true, plausible, simple, compound, or hyperbolic. Finally, Quintilian sums up classification under ten heads before listing his own favorites: opposition, simple statement, transference of the statement from the general to the particular, and giving the general statement a personal turn (Institutio Oratoria 8.5.5–8). 25  Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 8. 20  21 



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Seneca (fl. 80 BCE–CE 35) forward. The maxim in final position (clausula) provides summation, reiteration, and emphasis.26 A skilled rhetorician expressed maxims in a way that focused clarity. Some maxims are self-evident: described by Aristotle as “already known” and “no sooner are they uttered than they are clear to those who consider them.”27 Some maxims are in need of a supplement (ἐπίλογος, epilogos) or reason: namely, those “contrary to general opinion,” “disputable,” “paradoxical,” or where the statement is “obscure.”28 In addition, when the maxim is offered as a guide for moral conduct, a supplement may be added to focus the interpretation of the maxim’s more general truth to the particular situation. In this way the supplement may clarify the motivations of the speaker and the desired response.29 If the language of the proposed maxim is very general, a supplement should be offered to pinpoint “the moral purpose.”30 Good rhetoricians bolstered their maxim argumentation with, among other things, expansion or condensation, illustrations, examples, contrast, enthymeme proof, objection, and refutation.31 We do not have specific instructions for using all of these methods of elaboration with the maxim. Presumably some methods were taught in the course of education and required little explanation for use. The rhetorical strategies of refining, refutation, and commonplace preparation of maxims, however, require further comment. In Ad Herennium32 4.42.54–4.43.56, expolitio, or refining, takes two argumentative patterns. In the first place it “consists in dwelling on the same topic and yet seeming to say something ever new.” It is accomplished by repetition with changes in words, in delivery, and in treatment by “form of dialogue” or “form of arousal” (4.42.54).33 In the second place, refining is, as a fuller argumentative pattern, the discoursing on a theme with a treatment in seven parts: simple pronouncement, reason(s), second expression in new form, contrary, comparison, example, and conclusion (4.42.54–4.44.58).34 Porcius Latro’s training regime is instructive for maxim use and elaboration.35 Competent rhetoricians had a set of moral sententiae that were their “stock.” These moral sententiae were of a general nature and truth, forming a repertoire of commonplaces to fit a variety of moral questions, deliberations, or τόποι, topoi (common Ibid., 14–15, with nn. 108 and 110. Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.5. Also Rhet. Ad Alex. 1430b.3–4; Seneca, Ep. 94.10, 27, 44. 28  Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.3–7. Also Rhet. Ad Alex. 1430b.3–7; Ad Herennium 4.17.24; Seneca, Ep. 94.10, 27, 44. 29  E.g., Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.13–14, “Nor do I approve the maxim ‘Nothing in excess,’ for one cannot hate the wicked too much” and Quintilian, Inst. 8.5.7, “Caesar, the splendour of your present fortune confers on you nothing greater than the power and nothing better than the will to save as many of your fellowcitizens as possible.” 30  Aristotle, Rhet. 2.21.14. 31  Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 7–8. 32  The writer of Ad Herennium is unknown. The work is generally thought to date from the first century BCE and is falsely attributed to Cicero. 33  For refining in a Pauline text, see the discussion of 1 Cor 10:23–31 in Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 56–62. 34  See H. Caplan, Ad Herennium, LCL, lviii. 35  Elder Seneca, Controversiae 1.pr.24 and Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 14, 20. 26  27 

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topics). A supply of moral maxims readily at hand was impressive, especially in spontaneous situations such as debate or declamation displays. Finally, maxim sentences and moral sententiae were subject to refutation. Aelius Theon of Alexandria (ca. 50–100 CE) and Aristotle provide some counsel on maxim refutation. Theon tells us that refutation of the maxim was an important progymnasma (practice exercise) for schoolboys. Theon offers a list of helpful commonplace arguments (for obscurity, for incompleteness, for impossibility, and so forth) from which the refutation of a maxim might be established.36 Aristotle discusses the refutation of maxims in his Rhetorica (2.21.13–14), immediately after he has given advice about confirmation by supplement or reason. Aristotle notes that maxims should be used “even when contrary to the most popular sayings” (2.21.13). Success is gained when doing so makes one’s character appear better or when the contrary maxim is spoken with passion.37 In using a maxim for refutation, the response should have its moral purpose made clear by the language; otherwise a reason should be added.38 This now completes our depiction of the contemporary persuasive world and the types, functions, and options for the use of maxims within it. We must now consider factors in identifying maxims in Paul’s letters and, then, Paul’s persuasive argumentation using four maxims in Gal 5:6 and 6:15, 1 Cor 7:19, and Rom 14:17.

Part II. Maxims in Paul’s Letters Paul’s Commonplace Maxim Formulations Our understanding of maxims in Paul’s letters needs to be expanded along a number of avenues.39 In this section, I intend (1) to discuss factors that help to identify maxims in Paul’s letters, (2) to examine the relationship between commonplaces or common topics (τόποι, topoi) and maxims, (3) to make a brief survey of commonplace maxims

James R. Butts, “The ‘Progymnasmata’ of Theon: A New Text with Translation and Commentary” (PhD diss., Claremont Graduate School, 1987), 217. 37  “It would be an instance of the latter if a man in a rage were to say, ‘It is not true that a man should know himself; at any rate, such a man as this, if he had known himself, would never have claimed the chief command.’ And one’s character would appear better, if one were to say that it is not right, as men say, to love as if one were bound to hate, but rather to hate as if one were bound to love” (Rhet. 2.21.14). 38  “[B]y saying ‘that it is right to love, not as men say, but as if one were going to love for ever, for the other kind of love would imply treachery’ ” (Rhet. 2.21.14). Note how maxim refutation can be a reformulation, using common vocabulary, of the maxim in dispute (dei; philein). 39  Two major studies have been Ramsaran, Liberating Words (an investigation of the moral maxims of Paul and some Corinthians within the context of open maxim debate in 1 Cor 1–10), and Walter T. Wilson, Love Without Pretense: Romans 12:9–21 and Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom Literature, WUNT 46 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991) (the analysis of the form, function, and argumentation of Paul’s gnomologium or “maxim stack” in Rom 12). 36 



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in Paul’s letters, and (4) to examine more fully the argumentation of three recurrent commonplace maxims focused on ἀδιάφορα, adiaphora: Gal 5:6; 6:15; 1 Cor 7:19, and one stylized moral sententia in Rom 14:17.

Identifying Maxims in Paul’s Letters Ancient speakers and writers did not necessarily call attention to their use of maxims. Rhetoricians and philosophic moralists considered it a sign of maturity and stature to compose maxims for proper living, commonly neither citing their sources nor prefacing their created wisdom outright. In Paul’s letter, maxims appear in two ways: embedded maxims and maxim stacks. Embedded maxims (our main focus in this study) denote those maxims, that standing independently, are woven into a composition as an important part of its argumentation. Maxim stacks or gnomologia (γνωμολογία) are collections or anthologies of gnomic sayings composed alongside one another, usually for didactic purposes. Identification of maxim stacks in Paul’s letters is relatively easy. Paul uses stacks near the end of some of his letters for the didactic purpose of “painting pictures” of proper community relationships (e.g., Rom 12:9–18; 1 Thess 5:12–22).40 Identifying individual embedded maxims, however, is a bit more challenging. The classification of embedded maxims of any of the three types (moral sententia, gnomic sentence, or gnomic maxim) begins with three factors.41 First, one establishes that a proposed maxim contains traditional moral content derived from either (1) the social stock of knowledge recognizable in the wider Greco-Roman society or (2) the common (in-group) social stock of knowledge recognizable to a participant in a Pauline community. Second, one considers the brevity or conciseness of the statement. Moral sententiae are usually brief. Gnomic sentences, while concise, tend to be longer, with the addition of particularizing characteristics such as the supplement or reason. Gnomic maxims vary with the types of stylistic features chosen. Third, maxims have a figured form. One or more figures or stylistic markers (e.g., comparison, antithesis, interrogation, or even brevity itself) attract the hearer’s attention and mark the maxim off from everyday speech. Two further, supporting factors for maxim identification are argumentation and recurrence. Rhetorical handbooks provide known argumentative patterns for maxim usage: establishment of the rhetorician’s character, refutation of another maxim, detailed elaboration, and inclusion in diatribal style (raising and answering objections in a school [teacher and pupil] or other instructional context). A statement of traditional moral content, expressed in a concise and figured form, found in one of these argumentative contexts gives a strong indication of being a maxim. Recurrence of a maxim within the same or another Pauline letter also strengthens identification. To

See J. Paul Sampley, Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 96–97. A definitive and complete analysis is Wilson, Love Without Pretense. 41  The following two paragraphs follow Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 23–25, closely. 40 

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some degree, rhetoricians treated their maxims as commonplaces.42 Useful maxims were ready at hand for certain moral situations and could be flexibly applied according to the needs of the particular circumstances.

Common Topics (Τόποι, Topoi) and Maxims Paul, like other rhetoricians of his time, often structured his argumentation around common topics (topoi). The τόπος, topos is a “place” around which certain recurring themes come together to support argumentation on a specific moral subject (e.g., civil concord, marriage, anger, and slavery versus freedom).43 Topoi can form combinations with one another in support of a larger subject: topoi on civic responsibility, the household, and covetousness could, for example, pertain to a treatise on the state. As part of rhetorical invention, the rhetorician creatively selects, shapes, and applies the traditions chosen from any topos or topoi. Rhetoricians could find maxims in connection with certain topoi or develop their own maxims as support of themes within a topos.44 Paul, of course, also developed topoi on moral subjects peculiar to the thought world of believers in Christ. Paul’s preaching of the gospel was in service of bringing into being faithful and just moral communities before God. Indeed, it was the gospel that formed the core of Paul’s own identity and the focus of his mission endeavors to others. Simply put, then, one would expect Paul to use both traditional topoi and newly developed topoi which argued for the truth and vitality of the gospel—at these “places” (topoi), Paul often constructed maxims from scratch and from traditional materials. Therefore, among Pauline commonplaces one finds maxims.

A Brief Survey of Commonplace Maxims in Paul’s Letters Let us now briefly consider recurrent maxims that are connected with some prominent topics related to Paul’s gospel. Close to the core of Paul’s gospel is the topic of peace. In the present, through Christ’s death, there is peace between two parties: God and faithful humanity (Rom 5:1). Using maxims relating to peace, Paul capitalizes on the character of God as peaceful and deduces moral counsel for three very different social settings. From the maxim “It is to peace that God has called you” (1 Cor 7:15) he derives counsel concerning the maintenance or dissolution of marriage bonds between believers and unbelievers. Based on the maxim “For God is a God not of disorder but of peace” (1 Cor 14:33) he offers guidelines for proper conduct in worship. By the

See The Elder Seneca, Controversiae 1.pr.24 and the discussion in Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 14. See Margaret M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians, HUT 28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), 67 n. 8. 44  On the definition of topos and its creative and flexible use by the rhetorician or moralist, see Abraham J. Malherbe, “Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament,” ANRW II.26.1, 320–25; idem, Moral Exhortation: A Greco-Roman Handbook (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 144–45; and Luke T. Johnson, “James 3:13–4:10 and the Topos PERI PHTHONOU,” NovT 25 (1983): 334–35. 42  43 



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maxim “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom 14:17, cf. 14:19) Paul addresses differences of opinion (see the analysis of Rom 14:17 below). As the Rom 2:11 maxim—“God shows no partiality”—avers, the God of peace who advances to meet humanity is also the God who shows no distinction by accepting and bestowing gifts on those who respond in faith. Again, the perceived character of God sets the moral nature and agenda for a believing community’s relationships with one another. In Gal 3:28, the extended maxim, again declaring impartiality—“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”—serves Paul’s redrawing of the boundary lines for God’s new people, God’s family. Divine impartiality is once more expressed in the maxim “For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him” (Rom 10:12) as an assurance that because they are confessing believers they will not be shamed at the judgment seat of Christ.45 For Paul, the gracious movement of God toward humanity and God’s acceptance of renewed relationship with humanity always took a covenantal shape. Hence, human responsibility and faithfulness were also an important part of the moral nature of God’s people. Paul expected believers to return gratitude to God, to express dependence on God’s provisions for daily living, and to exercise proper and just social relationships within and among the communities. Paul sometimes delivers community reminders concerning “human obligation” by way of maxims: “For whatever a person sows, that he or she will also reap” (Gal 6:7, my trans. based on RSV) appears in a discussion of moral boundaries defined by flesh and Spirit; and “The one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will reap bountifully” (2 Cor 9:6) bolsters Paul’s appeal for monetary support for “the poor” in Jerusalem. Paul realized that human obligation could easily be misconstrued into human achievement apart from dependence on God, leading to pride, self-conceit, and boasting. Rather than working together with God and keying in on God’s values, human beings might choose forms of idolatry and dependence on other human beings. In order to bridle this tendency, Paul uses a gnomic maxim from Israel’s scriptures when counseling the Corinthians on proper boasting: “Let the one who boasts, boast in [what] the Lord [has done through him or her]” (my trans., 1 Cor 1:31, again verbatim in 2 Cor 10:17).46 Finally, we would be remiss not to make a comparison of the maxim stacks in 1 Thess 5:12–22 and Rom 12:9–18. In each of these two letters, Paul paints a picture of vibrant and functioning community. Pauline believers are invited to reflect upon this topos, join into “the picture,” and further grow in true community expression. In 1 Thess 5:12–22 and Rom 12:9–18, the maxim overlap around this common topic of proper community life is striking: love genuinely; be in harmony, at peace; care for

45  Cf. 1 Cor 12:12–13; Col 3:11. Space will not permit me to draw out the relationship between “no distinction,” “the body” topos, and “giftedness” as expressed in 1 Cor 12–14 and Rom 12–15. 46  For an extensive discussion of the maxim form and function of 1 Cor 1:31 and its connection with boasting, see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 30–38.

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the weak and faint-hearted; repay no one evil with evil; rejoice together; be constant in prayer; be open to the Spirit’s guidance; keep hold of the good and direct it toward others.47

A Detailed Study of Three Maxims Marked by Ἀδιάφορα, Adiaphora: Galatians 5:6; 6:15; 1 Corinthians 7:19 Let us now consider three of Paul’s maxims in more detail. These three merit study together because they share similar opening clauses: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love” (Gal 5:6); “For neither circumcision or uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” (Gal 6:15); “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything” (1 Cor 7:19). Important to the discussion of each statement is (1) its maxim shape; (2) its adiaphora (indifference) content; and (3) its rhetorical use in Paul’s larger argumentation.

Maxim Features I begin my analysis by providing the Greek transliteration of the three statements followed by my own English translation. After that, we can consider similarities and differences, the shape of the statements, and the use of stylistic devices. Gal 5:6: (ἐν γὰρ Χπιστῷ Ίησοῦ) οὔτε περιτομή τι ἰσχύει οὔτε ἀκροβυστία, αλλὰ πίστις δι’ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη (Εn gar christō Iēsou) oute peritomē ti ischyei oute akrobystia, alla pistis di’ agapēs energoumenē. “(For in Christ Jesus,) neither circumcision enables anything nor uncircumcision [enables anything], but [what enables something is] faith working through love.” Gal 6:15: οὔτε (γὰρ) περιτομή τί ἐστιν οὔτε ἀκροβυστία, ἀλλὰ καινὴ κτίσις oute (gar) peritomē ti estin oute akrobysti, alla kainē ktisis. “(For) neither circumcision is anything nor uncircumcision [is anything], but [what is something is] a new creation.” 1 Cor 7:19: ἡ περιτομὴ οὐδέν ἐστιν, καὶ ἡ ἀκροβυστία οὐδέν ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ τήρησις ἐντολῶν θεοῦ Hē peritomē ouden estin, kai hē akrobystia ouden estin, alla tērēsis entolēn theou. “Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but [what is something is] doing the commandments of God.”

First, each of the statements includes traditional moral content. The issue of circumcision, introduced in the first clause of each of our statements, was a moral issue debated both in movements of Second Temple Judaism and in the early Christian 47 

Also cf. 1 Thess 4:9–12 with Rom 12:9–18.



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communities.48 Following ἀλλά, alla (“but”), each second clause speaks of moral direction: faith working through love; new creation; doing the commandments of God. “New creation” (Gal 6:15b) is not as self-evident as the other two regarding moral direction; thus I comment on it briefly. Paul’s reference to “new creation” is, in its larger context, surely a moral statement. In 6:16, Paul references his maxim in 6:15 as a “straight (measuring) rod” (κανών, kanōn, “standard”) from which the people of God follow (στοχεῖν, stoichein) a course to peace and mercy before God. The maxim in 6:15 summarizes the Spirit-led versus the flesh-led life Paul has outlined in ch. 5. This “new creation” (a new community of individuals to be enfolded into the redemption of all creation, Rom 8:18–25) stands on the basis of a new reality and power, over and against the worldly structures of the day (Gal 6:14). Second, the maxim core of each of the three statements is marked by brevity. I have placed transitional material in parentheses, leaving the maxim core for analysis. The maxim cores of Gal 5:6 and 6:15 are identical with the exception of the verb used in the first clause and, of course, the second clauses. Both are marked by abbreviation through ellipsis of the verb and object (“enables/is anything”) in the second half of the first clause and by ellipsis of the subject and verb (“what enables/is something is”) in the second clauses. These have been added in the bracketed portions of the English translations. 1 Corinthians 7:19 is not abbreviated in the first clause (this, however, provides stylistic balance, as we will see), but has ellipsis of the subject and verb (“what is something is”) in the second clause. The structure of the maxim core in 1 Cor 7:19 drops the positive indefinite pronoun (τί, ti; “something”) used with two negative coordinating conjunctions (οὔτε…οὔτε, oute…oute; “neither…nor”) as found in Gal 5:6 and 6:15. In its place Paul uses the nominal indefinite negative pronouns (οὐδἐν…οὐδέν, ouden…ouden; “nothing…nothing”) with the positive coordinating conjunction (καί, kai; “and”). Although the grammatical structure is slightly different, the sense remains the same as in Gal 5:6 and 6:15. In sum, then, all three maxim cores are marked by brevity and a similar structure. Third, certain stylistic features mark out these three statements from ordinary speech. Common to all three is brevity, as just discussed. In addition, each statement is marked by antithesis49 where “what is not important” is more drawn out, only to be followed by a strong, quick movement to climax concerning “what is important.” 1 Corinthians 7:19 is the most artfully constructed: there are no introductory particles or phrases; there is almost perfect balance on either side of the καί, kai (“and”) (nine syllables and ten syllables respectively), forming an isocolon50 in the first clause and a period51 overall; there is the same structure on both sides of the Robert G. Hall, “Circumcision,” ABD, 1:1029–31. Ad Herennium 4.15.21: “Antithesis occurs when the style is built upon contraries, as follows: ‘Flattery has pleasant beginnings, but also brings on bitterest endings.’ ” Note the maxim as illustration. 50  Ad Herennium 4.20.27. The isocolon is the figure made up of two or more cola—a colon or clause being a part of a sentence that is brief and complete but needing another colon to complete the entire thought— that “consist of a virtually equal number of syllables.” 51  Ad Herennium 4.19.27: “A period is a close-packed and uninterrupted group of words embracing a complete thought. We shall best use it in three places: in a maxim, in a contrast, and in a conclusion” (emphasis mine). 48  49 

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kai (“and”), with repetition of three out of four words producing epanaphora52 and antistrophe53 (interlacement54); there is a double use of emphatic ἐστιν, estin (“is”). In Greek, the first estin is not strictly necessary. Its inclusion, however, makes the second estin doubly unnecessary, as any native hearer would supply it in the parallel grammatical construction. Hence, the inclusion of both uses of estin should be judged as intentionally placed for stylistic balance. Both Gal 5:6 and 6:15 use conjunction55 with epanaphora to maintain a similar balance on either side of the predicate-verb combination (τι ἰσχύει, ti ischyei / τί ἐστιν, ti estin; “[neither]…enables anything / is anything”) and, then, move more quickly from first clause to second clause. Galatians 5:6 is drawn out a bit by the explanatory clause (“For in Christ Jesus”), but 6:15 is notable for its brevity and quick movement overall (only minimally hindered by the explanatory particle, “For”). Galatians 6:15 concludes with a tight alliteration.56 The analysis demonstrates that these three statements, Gal 5:6, Gal 6:15, and 1 Cor 7:19, are indeed maxims. In a fashion that sets them apart from normal speech, these maxims give us traditional content, brevity, balance, and stylistic figures to produce a form that is memorable. Finally, variations in the maxim forms (including the second clauses) should not be viewed as a problem for maxim identification but as normal. Rhetoric is the “hidden art”57 and this dictate is appropriate for isolated, embedded maxims. Paul’s use of maxims, in line with the world we have described, telegraphs encapsulated wisdom naturally. The rhetorician formulates a gnomic sentence with strong attention to the particular situation being addressed. Adaptation to distinct situations leads to variation, to be sure, but also provides the proper criteria for assessing the truth of the maxim. In his use of these three maxims marked by adiaphora, Paul exemplifies Seneca the Elder’s portrait of Porcius Latro as one prepared with a supply of moral maxims to fit a variety of moral questions, deliberations, and common topics (Controversiae 1. pr. 24).

Recurrent Maxims Marked by Adiaphora Moralists in Paul’s time, particularly those connected with Stoicism, shaped their moral reasoning on the basis of virtues, vices, and things of indifference (adiaphora). The flourishing life was achieved by focusing on what was important, namely, virtue; by laying aside vice; and by setting aside or using rightly indifferents. Adiaphora or Ad Herennium 4.13.19: “Epanaphora occurs when one and the same word forms successive beginnings for phrases expressing like and different ideas.” 53  Ad Herennium 4.13.19: “In antistrophe we repeat, not the first word in successive phrases, as in epanaphora, but the last.” 54  Ad Herennium 4.14.20. Interlacement combines epanaphora and antistrophe. 55  Ad Herennium 4.27.38: “Conjunction occurs when both the previous and the succeeding phrases are held together by placing the verb between them.” 56  “The repetition of the same letter or syllable at the beginning of two or more words in close succession” (homoepropheron). E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), 171. 57  Note Longinus, On the Sublime 17.1–3. 52 



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indifferents were regarded as largely neutral morally; however, Stoics divided indifferents into matters “preferred” and “unpreferred,” based on whether they helped or hindered the individual along the path to virtue. Paul’s own moral reasoning followed suit by clarifying matters of importance through the identification of indifferent matters such as ethnic background, gender identification, social status, life and death, and the amount of one’s possessions or comfort.58 The three statements, Gal 5:6, 6:15, and 1 Cor 7:19, demonstrate that Paul takes this classic pattern of moral reasoning (“is not anything” and “is nothing” = “is a matter of indifference”) and uses it as a framework for creating moral statements regarding what truly matters. Given our above analysis of these statements, we can rightly refer to them as recurrent maxims marked by adiaphora. We can paraphrase our maxims as follows: “Circumcision and uncircumcision are both matters of indifference, but what is truly important is faith working through love (—a new creation,—doing the commandments of God).” The foundation of Paul’s adiaphora reasoning differed from that of other moralists of his time. For Paul, the attainment of virtue by living in accord with nature or reason is not principal. Rather, what is truly important is that believers have been granted a proper relationship to God so that they can live according to the gospel with power: they are part of the new creation; their faith therefore expresses itself in love; and they do the commandments. Hence, as we examine Gal 5:6, Gal 6:15, and 1 Cor 7:19 below, we must seek to understand the second clauses of each in such a way that they encapsulate or move the believer toward “living according to the gospel.”

Paul’s Rhetorical Argumentation Galatians 5 and 6. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is a deliberative letter in which a future change of action is argued for and anticipated.59 The issue at hand is whether the Galatian communities will change or add anything to the sufficient gospel proclaimed by Paul or whether they will stand firm at present in the faith they received in the not-too-distant past (1:6; 3:1–5; 4:8–9; 5:1, 7).60 Three issues are pertinent to understanding the maxims in Gal 5:6 and Gal 6:15: (1) the supreme importance and truthfulness of Paul’s gospel; (2) the Galatians’ already-established commitment to non-distinctions in status; and (3) the function of Gal 5:6 and 6:15 in Paul’s overall argumentation. See the texts and discussion in Sampley, Walking Between the Times, 77–83. See Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, 144–52. I am sympathetic to J. Louis Martyn’s analysis of the letter’s genre and structure (Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33A [New York: Doubleday, 1997], 20–23). He considers it an “extended sermon” in which Paul re-preaches the gospel to the Galatians as a performative speech act that argues for the death of the old cosmos and the arrival of a new one. One can maintain Martyn’s strong points and also speak of the structure of the letter in rhetorical terms as basically deliberative with judicial elements interspersed. 60  See J. Paul Sampley, “Reasoning from the Horizons of Paul’s Thought World: A Comparison of Galatians and Philippians,” in Theology and Ethics in Paul and His Interpreters: Essays in Honor of Victor Paul Furnish, ed. Eugene H. Lovering, Jr. and Jerry L. Sumney (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 117–18. 58  59 

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In Galatians, Paul states straightforwardly that his call and his gospel, having their source in a revelation of Jesus Christ, are of supreme importance. Neither the content of Paul’s gospel nor the commission to proclaim it have human beings as their source (1:1–2, 11–12). Paul chastises the Galatian believers: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel—not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ” (1:6–7). Of course, the “Teachers’ ”61 “different gospel” is, according to Paul’s rhetorical construction, the gospel with an addition—the demand that Gentile believers be circumcised and that, possibly, they also adopt other Jewish cultural patterns. Put another way, the important and sufficient (i.e., dependence on God’s gracious giving of the Spirit and the human act of faith in response; 3:1–4) had been or was about to be abandoned, as Paul construes it, by the addition of inconsequential, indifferent matters (i.e., dependence on “works of the law” such as circumcision and possibly cultic eating patterns and times; 3:2; 5:2; 4:8–10).62 Paul addresses this conflict over priorities by using exemplification in Gal 1–2. Consistent with the gospel, Paul ate with all believers in Antioch regardless of distinction. But when Peter came and remained apart from Gentile believers (contrary to the agreed upon gospel; 2:1–10), being led astray by false brothers, Paul stood his ground against Peter and for the “truthfulness of the gospel” (2:11–14). The Galatian believers, in line with Paul’s example, are now to do the same: not to follow after present false Teachers or those who follow them but to stand their ground for the truthfulness of the gospel (4:12; 5:1). The truth of the gospel, for Paul, is evident in the Galatians’ coming-to-faith experience: God’s grace and purposive power (Spirit) were extended to Gentile believers who, apart from circumcision, heard the gospel and responded in faith (Gal 3:1–4). The Galatians’ already-established commitment to non-distinctions in status also stems from their coming-to-faith experience that is rooted in their words of baptismal performance:63 But now that faith has come [to us], we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise. (Gal 3:27–29)

61  For background and agenda of these Teachers who have threatened Paul and persuaded some in the Galatian communities, see Martyn, Galatians, 14, 18, and esp. 117–26. The designation “Teachers” is adopted from Martyn. 62  See Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 262–63. Martyn (Galatians, 123) also suggests that the Teachers may connect reception of the Spirit with proper interpretation of and obedience to the Law. 63  Betz, Galatians, 186–201; Martyn, Galatians, 373–83.



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Among believers there are no distinctions according to ethnic lines, social placement, or gender. Instead, inclusion is by the promise to Abraham brought forward in Christ (3:29) and by a response of faith based on Christ’s faithfulness (2:16, 20; 3:22).64 In chs. 3–5, Paul emphasizes, in a variety of ways, the following key points concerning all children of God: (1) they share a common heritage—being the people of God through Abraham, (2) they share a common entry point—receiving the grace of God with a response of faith, and (3) they share a common endowment to live rightly—being guided by the Spirit of God. Having established God’s impartiality toward Gentile believers and the inclusion of Gentiles in the heritage of Israel by faith apart from “works of the law,” Paul addresses, in chs. 5–6, their common endowment through the Spirit and its resulting moral course. The following basic outline of Gal 5–6 will guide the analysis: A. B. C.

Setting Forth the Thesis: “Faith Working Through Love”—5:1–12 Repetition and Further Elaboration of the Thesis: Energizing and Doing Love—5:13–6:10 Letter Closing and Reiteration of Thesis: The Stance of a “New Creation”—6:11–18

Having concluded that the true people of God are according to promise, through the free woman (4:21–31), Paul develops this theme of freedom versus slavery by setting down a thesis statement: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1). In what follows, Paul comments on the second half of his thesis statement in 5:2–4; the first half in 5:5–7a; and the second half again in 5:7b–12. “Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” In 5:2–4, Paul “testifies” that subsequent dependence on circumcision and other customs of the law will separate the Galatians from God’s present and more apocalyptically driven plan of hope that they have experienced through dependence on the Christ-event and its effects (3:1–4; 5:2b). The Galatians are turning from the “truth” of God’s gospel, from the power that operates by grace in the present time.65 Paul’s testimony is firmly grounded in his example (cf. the exemplary sections in 1:11–2:21 and 4:12–20).66 His comportment is marked by the Spirit-driven, self-giving love of Christ (5:5–6 with 2:19–20) and his persuasion is through a faithful proclamation of the cross of Christ (5:11 with 6:14–17). In the cross of Christ is found the power that breaks slavish, sinful, and worldly bonds and resists their alignments and standards in the present (2:17–21; 5:24; 6:14). “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore” (5:1). The positive pole of Paul’s thesis statement is picked up in 5:5 with a key clarifying statement: “For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness.” Freedom comes

64  See Richard B. Hays, “Jesus’ Faith and Ours: A Rereading of Galatians 3,” in Conflict and Context: Hermeneutics in the Americas, ed. Mark Lau Branson and C. René Padilla (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), 257–80. 65  Cf. Rom 3:21–26; 4:16–25; 5:15–21. See the insightful description of Paul’s apocalyptic theology in Martyn, Galatians, 97–105, 570–74. 66  George Lyons, Pauline Autobiography: Toward a New Understanding, SBLDS 73 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), 138–68.

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through the Spirit and by faith—and as we will see, through continual responsiveness to the Spirit and the continual exercise of faith—as one stands fast and waits. In 5:6, Paul further clarifies (gar; “for”) 5:5, and therefore also 5:1a, by formulating a maxim: “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” The Galatian believers had made a good start and had been functioning well (v. 7a), but now they are in danger of being led astray (vv. 7b–12). Paul’s use of this maxim in 5:6 is significant for five reasons. First, by reasoning according to adiaphora, the maxim negates the Teachers’ urging of circumcision for Gentiles. Second, the maxim demonstrates the active, dynamic, covenantal quality of the “wait for the hope of righteousness.” The biblical idea of righteousness contains within it the expectation that believers’ moral actions in community will align with the character, plans, and actions of God67—“faith working through love.” Third, given the context of 5:5, the maxim in 5:6 implies a cooperation between the Spirit and the human response of faith. One might paraphrase: “…but what enables something is the Spirit and faith together working through love.”68 Fourth, the maxim’s expected outcome sets the agenda for Paul’s discussion in 5:13–6:10 (see below). Finally, the maxim has a memorable shape which forms a definitive link with Gal 6:15. In Gal 5:13, Paul restates his thesis from 5:1a: “For freedom Christ has set us free” becomes “For you were called to freedom”; and “do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (5:1c) becomes “do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh” (5:13b). Next, in 5:13c, Paul clarifies the positive pole of his thesis, using the key term, “love,” which was introduced by his maxim in 5:6: “but through love be servants of one another.” The rest of the section, 5:13–6:10, indicates that Paul’s thought and argument conform to his maxim in 5:6—as if to say, “with the guidance of the Spirit, exercise your faith so that ‘through love [you become] servants of one another’.” Paul reinforces his point with a quotation from Lev 19:8: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Paul claims that his maxim and counsel do what the Galatian Teachers encourage—he pays proper attention to the whole law (5:14a; cf. Rom 8:4). By contrast, what the Teachers have precipitated among the Galatians is divisive and destructive (5:15). The argumentative structure of Gal 5:16–6:10 can be divided into two parts: Gal 5:16–26—Conduct your life by the Spirit Gal 6:1–10—Put love into action

Two structural features mark 5:16–26 as a unit:69 (1) the repeated use of “live/ be led/ be guided by the Spirit” (5:16, 18, 25; note the similar expressions at 5:16 [πνεύματι 67  Bruce C. Birch, Let Justice Roll Down: The Old Testament, Ethics, and Christian Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 153–55, 176–78, 259–61. 68  This point has already been important to Paul. See esp. Gal 3:1–4: where faith took root, the Spirit had preceded. The point remains vital to Paul’s argument in ch. 5: for faith to remain authentic and growing, it must be guided by the Spirit. 69  Siding with the text division in Nestle-Aland27 and contra the 5:25–6:10 of Betz, Martyn, James D. G. Dunn (The Epistle to the Galatians, Black’s NT Commentary [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1993]), and



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περιπατεῖτε, pneumati peripateite] and 5:25 [πνεύματι, pneumati…στοιχῶμεν, stoichōmen]) and (2) the antithesis between “flesh” and “Spirit” and their structural elaboration through vice (5:19–21) and virtue (5:22–23) lists respectively. As noted above, the Spirit’s interaction with human faith is essential to Paul’s maxim in 5:6. In 5:16–26 Paul emphasizes the Spirit’s role in motivating and guiding the moral life. As can be seen within the section, faith is ever present in the call for believers to respond to God’s Spirit (5:16, 18, 25, 26). Believers can resist and even avoid the internal and external pressures of the flesh, because faith, inaugurated by the Christ-event, joins itself to the guidance of the Spirit (5:24–25).70 The result is the development of character and the exercise of appropriate moral decisions based on love. Hence, Paul’s virtue list (“the fruit of the Spirit”) begins with the desired outcome (love) and then provides the contributing virtues (joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).71 Galatians 6:1–10 provides general parenesis that is modestly shaped to the Galatians’ situation. Paul’s “Spirit” language (6:1, 8) builds upon the previous section. Paul reinforces his earlier point: the true meaning of the law is to love or “bear one another’s burdens”; indeed, this fulfills the standard of conduct set down by Christ (6:2). Utilizing a series of maxims,72 much of Paul’s counsel in 6:1–10 connects to the virtue list in 5:22–23: gentleness (6:1a); self-control (6:1b, 4–5, 7–8); love (6:2, 10); generosity (6:6); patience/faithfulness (6:9); also cf. 5:26 with 6:3.73 In this section, Paul provides a picture of believers living in effective and proper community, with the actions of love abounding.74 Paul moves quickly to his letter closing in 6:11–18. Two recognizable features from Paul’s other letters are present here: (1) Paul picking up the pen to close (6:11) and (2) the concluding prayer (6:18). By and large, though, the closing is concerned with the summation of Paul’s position and argument to the Galatian communities. This summation or peroration75 continues to contrast the Galatian Teachers with Paul’s own example and ēthos. The Teachers do not value law for how it defines God’s others. It is difficult to ignore Paul’s use of adelphoi (“brothers and sisters”) as a subsection marker in Galatians (cf. 1:11; 3:15; 4:12, 28, 31 [marking an inclusion for the subsection that makes application of the allegory]; 5:13; 6:1). No doubt 5:25–26 is transitional to 6:1–10, but its connection is stronger to what comes before, as I argue here. 5:26 stands as a refrain to 5:15, as does 5:25 to 5:16. 70  See Martyn’s insights (Galatians, 524–36) on this point. 71  Victor Paul Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968), 87–88. 72  The fine analysis of sententiae in ch. 6 by Betz (Galatians, 291–311) has been followed up with insightful commentary by John M. G. Barclay (Obeying the Truth: Paul’s Ethics in Galatians [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991], 146–77) and Martyn, Galatians, 541–54. In my estimation, Paul’s commonplace maxim stack of sententiae (n. 40 above with discussion in text) has been particularized to the Galatian situation and to Paul’s redefined worldview (rightly Barclay and Martyn) in Christ through a transformation to gnomic sentences. A similar move on Paul’s part is made in Phil 4:4–9. 73  Cf. the similar observations and list in Martyn, Galatians, 543. 74  Hence, the section functions as a maxim stack. See the discussion at the beginning of Part II and nn. 40 and 47, with discussion in the text. 75  The peroration “summarizes the argument and seeks to arouse the emotions of the audience to take action or make judgment.” Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, 24.

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will and purposes for humanity and for the world; rather they selectively use the law to boast about their superior knowledge and to instruct others toward circumcision (6:12–14; reiterating 2:3, 14; 3:3; 4:17; 5:11–12). Apparently, according to Paul, this suits their purpose, for other Jewish groups, even Christ-believing ones, might be inclined to persecute them for neglecting circumcision as a boundary marker of God’s present communities. Paul, in contrast to the stance of the Teachers, claims that the cross of Christ has utterly reshaped reality. God has chosen to renew God’s promises through the cross of Christ, and in doing so to reorient how the promises will be accomplished. As God reclaims the full heritage of Abraham (now including Gentile believers), this movement of grace is accomplished apart from the law—even against the law (Gal 3:13)! Now God’s new reality stands beyond and above all standard expectations and power structures within the present cosmos (world). The heart of Paul’s peroration comes in 6:14–16. Paul’s own example is to boast (and therefore to live/walk) in the cross of Christ “by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” By this, Paul means that he perceives and acts within a new reality, one in which he refuses to let the world (now passing away, cf. 1 Cor 7:31) set his standards and values. Instead, he aligns himself with God’s present transformation of humanity and of the cosmos. One world is crucified as another is reborn. A believer’s proper boast requires the claim for and fully participating in this ongoing transformation of reality brought into being by the cross of Christ. Speaking as a wise moralist, Paul, in Gal 6:15, restates his point in maxim form: “For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!” In its final position (clausula), the maxim is the capstone statement to Paul’s argument. Old standards, if they have any value, are largely indifferent. What is of true importance is the new reality—a new way of seeing the world and humanity’s place within it as being transformed. Two factors indicate that Paul’s full argument is not simply that of “perception.” First, because this adiaphora maxim is recurrent with the opening clause of 5:6, one can be assured that laying hold of this new reality involves a response of “faith [guided by the Spirit] working through love.” Paul’s concluding maxim casts its insightful shadow back over every part of chs. 5 and 6. Second, the remarkable blessing in 6:16 also indicates that the desired response to the 6:15 maxim requires proper action. Paul states, “And whoever follows (στοιχήσουσιν, stoichēsousin) [the Spirit]76 according to this standard (from κανών, kanōn; cf. Eng. ‘canon’), let peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God” (my trans.). Paul’s rhetorical argumentation in Gal 5 and 6 is skillfully constructed, using appropriate devices: thesis statement and restatement, warning, proverb (5:9), personal example, virtue and vice lists, parenesis, blessing. It is, however, Paul’s maxim argumentation that ties chs. 5 and 6 together from beginning (elaboration of the thesis statement in 5:1 and setting the moral agenda to be discussed) to end (summary

The catchword, στοιχήσοθσιν (“follows”), connected to πνεύματι καὶ στοιχῶμεν (“let us also follow the Spirit”) in Gal 5:25, and the overall argument based upon the Spirit in Gal 5–6 warrant this clarification in translation. 76 



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conclusion in maxim form, followed by exhortation and promised blessing).77 Appropriately, Paul has strengthened his ēthos by placing his maxims at the two points in the letter where he takes strongest issue with these faltering Galatians over the matter of circumcision! (5:2–12; 6:11–17). 1 Corinthians 7. 1 Corinthians 7 considers the appropriateness of women (certainly) and men (possibly) to renounce normal marriage obligations for either alternative spiritual arrangements or separation (7:1–16). Furthermore, Paul considers the appropriateness of single persons to marry in a traditional or spiritual manner or remain single as a religious vocation (7:25–40).78 In 1 Cor 7:17, Paul states: “Therefore, unless peace is at stake [7:15c],79 each person should seek to live properly80 within the context assigned by the Lord when God called. And this is a directive81 I give in all the churches” (my trans.). The basis of this “directive” is an important starting point, as opposed to an ending point (it contains an exception!), for Paul’s argument, as is evidenced by its varied repetition at 7:20 and 24.82 Paul’s primary counsel in 7:17, then, is to address how persons should walk or conduct their lives appropriately in differing circumstances.83 This being the case, the moral appeal to a maxim (7:19) supports Paul’s purposes much better than a 77  At these points, then, Paul’s maxim argumentation is according to the counsel of the rhetorical handbooks as discussed in Part I above: Paul’s maxims form memorable, well-crafted statements with recurrent opening clauses; give guidance for moral conduct; elaborate a thesis statement; focus clarity in thinking though adiaphora reasoning; provide a summary of the larger argument; and reinforce his ēthos. 78  Studies on 1 Cor 7 abound. For recent readings see, Will Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, SNTSMS 83 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), Judith M. Gundry-Volf, “Controlling the Bodies: A Theological Profile of the Corinthian Sexual Ascetics (1 Cor 7),” in The Corinthian Correspondence, ed. R. Bieringer (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996), 519–41, and Richard A. Horsley, 1 Corinthians, Abingdon NT Commentaries (Nashville: Abingdon, 1999). For my larger interpretive framework and other sources, see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 38–46. 79  The translation “Therefore, unless peace is at stake” gives true recognition to εἰ μὴ (“nevertheless”) as a continuative connector of exception (“Since this usage ‘excepts’ a preceding negative, it almost certainly goes back to v.15b: ‘The brother or sister is not bound in such cases… Nevertheless…’ ” Gordon D. Fee, 1 Corinthians, NIGNT [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987], 309). Paul and the Corinthian community are participating in a give-and-take deliberative discussion of real life situations in which varying circumstances do matter. 80  Peripatein (“to walk”) has the strong metaphorical sense of “to conduct one’s life.” See BAGD, 649. The translation “seek to live properly” is justified by the deliberative nature of the chapter as a whole (cf. 7:1, 8, 10, 12, 25–26, 35, 40) and the inclusive nature of the directive for all Paul’s churches (17c). 81  Diatassomai (“make arrangements,” LSJ, 414; cf. “order, direct, command,” BAGD, 189) is a word Paul uses when ordering proper community life, see 11:34. Nominalizing, then reifying, the lexical value of diatassomai, makes for the unhappy translation of “this is my rule” (RSV, NRSV) which fits neither the deliberative context of this chapter, nor 1 Corinthians, nor Paul’s generally preferred method of moral counsel (see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 68–73). 82  Verse 20 is specific to circumcision and uncircumcision; v. 24 widens the directive to be a starting point from which a variety of situations can be deliberated (i.e., the manumission opportunity before [7:21b] and the issues of engaging or refraining from marriage after [7:25–40]). 83  The Greek syntax with οὕτως περιπατείτω in final position gives emphasis: “thus, he/she should walk/ live!”

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commandment. Paul’s counsel is not a “rule” about “remaining in the state [social situation] in which one was called.” Rather, Paul’s “directive” is qualified by a maxim in 7:19 that both gives a definitive answer in one specific situation (circumcision/ uncircumcision) and suggests an open-ended deliberation process for other areas.84 In this way, the function of the maxim mirrors the counsel of the chapter as a whole.85 How does one walk according to 1 Cor 7:17–24? The structure of the unit86 pinpoints the answer in two places: A B C A’ B’ C’ A”

Directive: Live appropriate to one’s place and call—v. 17 Illustration: Circumcision/uncircumcision mark ethnic indifferences; neither is a “preferred”— v. 18 How to Walk: Maxim—“Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing, but what is something is doing the commandments of God”—v. 19 Repetition of directive, focused on maintaining one’s call—v. 20 “Illustration”: Being set apart to God makes social status an adiaphoron; however, social movement from slavery to freedom is a “preferred”; mutual equality among community members is through a common internal disposition—vv. 21–22 How to Walk: Exhortation = “You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human beings”—v. 23 Repetition of directive focused on remaining with God in whatever situation—v. 24

“Keeping the commandments of God.”87 Apparently Paul has previously instructed the Corinthians concerning the law and the traditions of Israel. He appeals to these traditions in relationship to Christ’s death (“our paschal lamb,” 5:7); he draws a “patterned example” from the Exodus story to guide present behavior within the community (10:1–22); and the Corinthians appear to have been informed about the corrupting power of the law controlled by sin, “the power of sin is the law,” 15:56). Paul’s maxim, however, frames “keeping the commandments” as the very foundation (that which is most important!) for the believer’s relationship to God. In addition, a correlation of the concluding statements from the other two recurrent adiaphora maxims (faith working through love; a new creation) argues for a very positive appreciation of the counsel provided in Paul’s final phrase in 1 Cor 7:19. Paul’s use of “the commandments” represents God’s instruction and telic purposes for all humanity, now redeemed in Christ. Characteristic of the obedient life of believers

Sampley, Walking Between the Times, 97: “[Maxims] demand direct and active participation and provide the individual with a resource that in some future situation may yield an insight into how to live in faithfulness to God.” 85  Commentators generally agree that this chapter contains a series of positions that are qualified by exceptions. See Horsley, 1 Corinthians, 102. 86  The following chart has minor updates from the first edition, drawing on my further work on this section of 1 Corinthians. See Rollin A. Ramsaran, “1 Corinthians 7:17–24: Considering Stoic Argumentation and the ’Αδιάφορα of Slavery and Freedom,” in One in Christ Jesus: Essays on Early Christianity and “All That Jazz,” in Honor of S. Scott Bartchy, ed. David Lertis Matson and K. C. Richardson (Eugene, OR; Pickwick, 2014), 150–64. 87  The following comments are probing and exploratory—i.e., the kind of thinking generated by a maxim. For further investigation, see n. 86 above. By necessity I leave aside the vast topic of Paul and the law. 84 



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is the breaking down of distinctions; the opening up of God’s call of grace to all; the furthering of humanity’s ability to love one another; and the initiation of a realm of peace and solidarity for human creation as a whole. “Circumcision and uncircumcision are matters of indifference; what is truly important is keeping the commandments of God” (my trans.). In the ongoing context of deliberation begun in ch. 7, Paul’s maxim reinforces the long-standing covenantal social obligations required of God’s people—here, emphasizing social obligations between marriage partners (7:1–16). In its immediate context, as a self-contained maxim, 7:19 demands full social obligations and contact across ethnic lines. In its larger context (7:17–24), the maxim’s refrain, “keeping the commandments,” echoes the first commandment (Exod 20:3), no doubt important to Paul: maintaining a singleminded, proper stance before God negates connection with other idolatrous spiritual and human influences. Fidelity to God provides a springboard to a number of issues that lie ahead in 1 Corinthians (7:23, 35; 10:20–22; 11:27–30; 12:2–3; 15:24–28, 34; 16:13, 22). To keep the commandments of God, to ascertain what is most important in any of a number of situations, is to have the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor 2:16b; cf. Rom 12:2; Phil 1:9–11).88 Thus, the elaboration of Paul’s directive, through two illustrations and a very significant maxim in 1 Cor 7:17–24, is important for Paul’s argumentation before (7:1–16) and after (7:25–40, and beyond).89 At the point of what is most important, then, the three maxims come into focus together. For a husband and wife to maintain covenantal bonds of marriage, as God has done for God’s people, is to “keep the commandments of God” (7:10–11). For a believer to remain yoked to an unbelieving spouse, so long as peace can be maintained, is truly “faith working through love” (7:12–16). To recognize holiness in the offspring of a believer and an unbeliever is to be able to see, believe in, and experience the coming “new creation” (7:14). To maintain “set-apartness” to God by marrying rather than “burning” which could lead to impropriety (7:36) or by remaining single in order to achieve “maximum devotion to God” (7:32–35) or by not sharing sacred space and rituals with idols (10:14–22) is to “keep the commandments.” Not to violate another’s conscience in matters of eating or worshipping (1 Cor 8–14) is “faith working through love.” And to crucify a world and be crucified to it; to die daily; to be willing to live courageously by faith and for love, even to death, is to glimpse one’s part in a complete and unbounded new creation (1 Cor 15).

Paul’s “Kingdom of God” Maxim in Romans 14:17 Romans 14:17 shows a different maxim construction that also works well in the context of adiaphora and issues of moral choice. Like our three adiaphora maxims above, Paul’s propensity for maxim argumentation based on antithesis is evident

Note how at the conclusion of ch. 7 Paul states, “And I too believe I have the Spirit of God.” This is surely equivalent to “the mind of Christ” based on a reading of 1 Cor 2. 89  Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 42–43. 88 

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again in Rom 14:17. Paul’s choice of a “kingdom of God” saying shows continuity of thought and construction with the remembered early Jesus traditions and their worldview.

Maxim Features As before, I begin my analysis by providing the Greek transliteration of the Greek statement followed by my own English translation. We consider the shape of the statement in Rom 14:17, the use of stylistic devices within it, and, finally, compare it with a similar statement and construction in 1 Cor 4:20. Rom 14:17 οὐ (γάρ) ἐστιν ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ βρῶσις καὶ πόσις, ἀλλὰ δικαιοσύνη καὶ εἰρήνη καὶ χαρὰ ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ Ou (gar) estin hē basileia tou theou brōsis kai posis, alla dikaiosunē kai eirēnē kai chara en pneumati hagiō. (For) the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.

The shape of the statement in Rom 14:17 is as a sententia—powerful, short and balanced.90 Balance is achieved with 17 syllables and 18 syllables on each side of the adversative, ἀλλὰ, alla, respectively. The front 17 syllables obtain two by the inclusion of ἐστιν, estin, which because it is grammatically unnecessary, adds an emphatic element: “the kingdom of God IS NOT…” The alignment of brōsis kai posis with dikaiosunē kai eirēnē uses homoeoptoton91 to produce a flowing sound distinction within the statement. Paul’s use of polysyndeton92 (καὶ…καὶ…) serves to slowly draw out the positive criteria of the kingdom of God, emphasizing the smooth flowing, yet slightly different ending of xapa. Along with the stylistic shape of the statement, the emphasis on moral issues (what to eat and drink; proper exercise and disposition of actions among community members—righteousness, peace, and joy) gives strong indication that Rom 14:17 is a moral sententia. Paul has a keen understanding and usage of the rhetorical device of antithesis.93 The pattern is evident with the three adiaphora maxims above (not circumcision or uncircumcision; but faith, new creation, doing the commandments). Here in Rom 14:17, and in the similarly crafted statement in 1 Cor 4:20 (“The kingdom of God does not consist of speech, but of power!” RSV),94 Paul uses a traditional “kingdom of God” construct with antithesis to provide moral counsel. In Rom 14:17, Paul advances an

For early work on the evaluation of Rom 14:17 as a maxim, see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 37, 117 n. 82, 122 n. 123, 141 n. 1. 91  Ad Herennium 4.20.28: “The figure called Homoeoptoton occurs when in the same period two or more words appear in the same case, and with like terminations.” 92  “Polysyndeton is the use of conjunctions between each item in a series or list…[producing] the effect of ‘extensiveness and abundance’.” See David E. Aune, The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 367. 93  See n. 49 above. 94  For analysis of 4:20 as a maxim, see Ramsaran, Liberating Words, 37. 90 



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antithetical maxim based on what he believes the Romans will accept as a self-evident moral sententia: “The kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy [in the Holy Spirit]!”95 The constructed antithetical maxim (“For the kingdom of God is not [judging others about matters of] eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”) supplies a corrective by contrasting an improper behavior pattern with what should be self-evident truth. In his maxim, Paul contrasts and invalidates the position of those who judge others in the community. Paul continues to point the entire community to its new place and power. God’s reign in the present brings a new social community in which the power of the Spirit brings righteousness, peace, and joy. Paul’s maxim neatly contrasts the point at issue—judgments that weaken and destroy faith are antithetical to proper functioning community that strengthens believers through right relationships with each other, proper relationship to God, and confident cohesion.

Paul’s Use of “Kingdom of God” as Recurrent Motif and Basis for Maxims It is well known that Paul’s use of the phrase, kingdom of God, is limited to five occurrences in the indisputable letters (Gal 5:21; 1 Cor 4:20; 6:9–10; 15:50; Rom 14:17). A full study is not possible here.96 Due our attention, at this point, is the common context of all the occurrences. Paul’s thought world is predicated on a former reality sharply marked by the cosmic power of Sin’s97 domination that remains operative after the present intervention of God through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. God’s story through Jesus leads out toward a final culmination of God’s plans that is the not yet fullness of the Spirit.98 Paul’s kingdom of God passages take place within the former, now, not yet structure of Paul’s apocalyptic thought, with Paul’s concept of the kingdom of God (either believers’ present or future social reality before God) contrasted with the former reality of Sin’s reign over humanity prior to the Christ event. Out of this context, Paul argues on the basis of two vice list constructions (Gal 5:21; 1 Cor 6:9–10), a prophetic pronouncement (1 Cor 15:50), and two maxims (1 Cor 4:20; Rom 14:17). Because Christ’s death has opened up a new present reality marked by the Spirit’s power and gifting, all the kingdom of God passages are strongly connected to the Holy

On analogy with 1 Cor 4:20 (“The kingdom of God consists of power!”), the core of Rom 14:17 may very well be: “The kingdom of God is righteousness, joy, and peace!” The phrase, “in the Holy Spirit” makes clear an unexpressed agency and, if it has been added, it would help to keep the maxim structure balanced on each side of the estin when Paul reshapes it into his antithetical construct. 96  For a short summary on the subject, see Arland J. Hultgren, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 519. 97  My reading of Paul understands “Sin” as a personified (hence the capitalization) “power” of magnitude within an apocalyptic context. For further background, see Joseph R. Dodson, The “Powers” of Personification: Rhetorical Purpose in the Book of Wisdom and the Letter to the Romans (New York: de Gruyter, 2008), 123–39. 98  For this paradigm, see Sampley, Walking Between the Times, 7–24. 95 

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Spirit.99 The construction of Rom 14:17 as an antithetical maxim is consequential to Paul’s larger thought structure and Paul’s place for the Spirit in the present time of the kingdom: righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Paul’s apocalyptic context aligns well with the early tradition’s remembrance of Jesus’ teaching concerning the “kingdom of God breaking in” (Mark 1:15; my trans.) and his elaboration of the kingdom of God through sayings and parables. Paul’s use of kingdom maxims in 1 Cor 4:20 and Rom 14:17 appear, then, to line up with the wording, worldview, and use of traditions within the context of early Christian origins.

Paul’s Rhetorical Argumentation in Romans 14 A main theme in Romans is “mutuality” among believers who all share in (1) a world darkened by Sin’s power, (2) release from Sin’s stronghold through the death of Jesus, and (3) the reception of the power and gifts of the Spirit as these are forged in love by the gathered people of God according to God’s unfolding purposes. Paul upholds God as righteous and, therefore for Paul, the mark of the people of God are those who treat one another with a righteousness modeled on the courageous, loving, faithfulness of Jesus. There is a certain rhythm to Rom 14:1–15:13 that cautions us from dividing it up too readily (the repeated references to “judgment”; the bookend markers of “welcome” in 14:1 and 15:7; the triad of peace, joy, Holy Spirit in 14:17 and 15:13). For our purposes, however, we will view Paul’s maxim in 14:17 in light of the argumentation of Rom 14:1–23. I suggest that the maxim in 14:17 is a central point of weight in Paul’s argumentation in ch. 14. The following outline will guide us: A. B. A’. C.

The Judgment of Others in order to Exclude Versus the Welcome of God—14:1–4 Self-testing of Inner Conviction by the Standards of Thanks and Honor—14:5–9 The Improper Judgment of Others versus the True Judgment of God—14:10–12 Walking in Love in Light of Proper Conviction Before God—14:13–23

Whether general paranesis or particular problem,100 Paul’s argumentation in Rom 14:1–4 begins with the problem of believers judging one another on secondary matters of “reasonings” (διαλογισμῶν, dialogismōn; RSV—“opinions”).101 Indeed, Paul’s 99  Gal 5:21 begins a vice list that is antithetical to the “fruit of the Spirit.” 1 Cor 6:9–10 presents a vice list that is in the larger context of ch. 6 that concludes with the question: “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit within you…?” 1 Cor 15:50 concludes a sub-section that points to the spiritual aspect of the resurrection body. 1 Cor 4:20 concludes a larger section of 1 Corinthians that contrasts rhetorical speech (1 Cor 2:1, 4) with revealed understanding through the Spirit (1 Cor 2:10). 100  The question of whether particular present problems are being addressed in the Roman churches by Paul has been the subject of debate. A definitive answer is not necessary for our reading here. For extensive background and options, see the essays in Karl R. Donfried, ed., The Romans Debate, rev. and expanded ed. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991). 101  What Paul has in mind here with διαλογισμῶν, dialogismōn are not the foundation beliefs such as one finds in 1 Cor 15:1–5, but the items of moral reasoning on how to live in the world in light of faith’s call. While Paul allows a certain fluidity in such matters, he does not deny their importance in maintaining a proper relationship to God, as is evident as his counsel unfolds.



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words indicate (1) a sense of deprecating pride on the part of some ( who “despise”) that excludes the presumed “weak” one and (2) a defensive response (by the “weak”) that pushes back and away (“pass judgment” on) the “offender.”102 The result is the body of Christ (Rom 12:4–5) does not reflect the “welcome of God.” Paul presents God as proper judge and the basis for judgment coming solely from the testimony of each individual servant before God (and not outside condemnation of another). Paul has a confidence in the God who has increased grace (5:20), brought peace through Jesus (5:1), empowered believers through the Spirit (8:14–16), and whose love is unfailing in accomplishing God’s purposes for humanity and the cosmos (8:31–39). Hence, Paul can assert without question the acceptability of each believer before the true judge: “for the Master is able to make her or him stand” (my trans. based on RSV). In Rom 14:5–9, Paul further develops what he means by secondary matters or “opinions.”103 Having begun the conversation with “eating,” Paul now broadens it with “observance of days.” Paul’s illustrations of clean or unclean are rather oblique with regard to the precise behaviors advocated by the weak and strong.104 Neat categories are difficult to assert—certainly not the weak as Jewish believers and the strong as Gentile believers. Eating only vegetables, abstaining from certain days, even the issue of drinking wine are rather broad categories of illustration rather than the specific problems in the Roman communities. Paul hopes to say something that will be applicable to any problem present or arising in the Roman churches. Already in Rom 12, Paul attributes differences among believers to differing strengths of faith—and this ordained by God!: “[Each] must think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him/her” (Rom 12:3b; my trans.).105 Moral competency also is remarkably individuated in Rom 14. Paul is clear that there are morally relevant differences among believers based on strength of faith as conviction:106 “One believes he or she may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables… One person esteems one day as better than another, while another person esteems all days alike” (Rom 14:2, 5; my trans. based on RSV). Each individual must gauge his/her behavior based on judgment before God (14:6–9, 22). Hultgren, Letter to the Romans, 511. In the following paragraphs, I draw on some of the ideas and wording that I first developed in Rollin A. Ramsaran, “ ‘In Nonessentials, Liberty’: A Key Ministry Context in Romans 14:1–15:13,” Leaven 8, no. 4 (2000): 164–68. 104  Noted by J. Paul Sampley in “The Weak and the Strong: Paul’s Careful and Crafty Rhetorical Strategy in Romans 14:1–15:13,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, ed. L. Michael White and O. Larry Yarbrough (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 40–52, who discusses these examples in light of the rhetorical convention of “oblique speech.” For a different view, see the study by Mark Reasoner, The Strong and the Weak: Romans 14:1–15:13 in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 88–101. 105  On this issue of an individuated measure of faith apart from but in addition to the believer’s initial response of faith, see J. Paul Sampley, “Faith and Its Moral life: A Study of Individuation in the Thought World of the Apostle Paul,” in Faith and History: Essays in Honor of Paul W. Meyer, ed. John T. Carroll, Charles H. Cosgrove, and E. Elizabeth Johnson (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990), 221–38, esp. 232. 106  See the discussion of faith as “conviction” in Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33 (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 687. 102  103 

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When Paul first moves into moral reckoning in light of another (from [each person’s] “I” to “us”; vv. 7–8), it is between each believer and the Lord, not each believer in light of other believers. Paul considers these moral choices (“reasonings” or “opinions”) as serious concerns that maintain one’s relationship to God. God expects God’s people to live by conviction (“being fully convinced in his or her own mind”; 14:5). Conviction stems from an exchange of lordship to Jesus accompanied by benefits secured through his death and resurrection (“None of us lives to him- or herself”; Rom 14:7a—reiterating Rom 6 which points to the benefits of “newness of life”). Faithful conviction leads to obedience in following the Lord’s pattern of faithfulness107 in life through the power of the Spirit—and death is but an open door to the presence and love of God (14:7–9; reiterating Paul’s larger argument in Rom 3–8). Jesus’s lordship is redeeming the cosmos and life within it—and the believer can partake of food, observance of days, and other matters when thanks to God is in place. In Rom 14:10–12, Paul reiterates the point from 14:1–4: passing judgment on another’s freedom or despising another’s lack of freedom will hold no weight at God’s judgment seat. Each must give an account to God about their obedience under the lordship of Jesus—whether giving grateful thanks to God for the openness to a redeemed creation or a more guarded stance to elements of the cosmos not yet re-ordered and dangerous to one’s relationship to the God of judgment. Specifically, believers are to have well thought out and articulated convictions, which are not to be judged by others. Because individual inner conviction is worked out before God, a touchstone is maintained that keeps all such convictions from simply being articulated as selfserving interests of the individual. To bring God into the decision-making process is to value the plan and purposes of God to create an authentic people of God, a true community of the faithful. Paul addresses this aspect in Rom 14:13–23 with his emphasis on “walking in love” (14:15b) and the pursuit of “mutual upbuilding” (14:19b; a phrase synonymous with love—also 15:2; cf. 1 Cor 8:1b). Hence, Paul’s ethic is: the exercising of individual liberties, constrained by love of others when necessary. In Rom 14:17, Paul casts his advice about love—that is, what is the proper context for exercising individual liberties—in maxim form: “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Maxims reinforce Paul’s moral character as a speaker; here the maxim provides a capstone to a section of Paul’s argumentation as evidenced by the strong following endorsement: “one who thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by all!” (14:18; my trans. based on RSV). Employing this maxim fits well Paul’s use of oblique illustrations as mentioned above, for maxims by nature require moral reflection and they support a wide spectrum of applications from a general principle. In composing his maxim, Paul adeptly contrasts undesirable behavior “not [disputes over] food and drink” with desirable (God-sanctioned; 14:18) behavior that leads to

107 

Luke Timothy Johnson, “Rom 3:21–26 and the Faith of Jesus,” CBQ 44 (1982): 85–89.



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“righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” (cf. 1 Cor 4:20). Verse 21 explicitly takes the application of this maxim beyond eating and drinking. For “anything that makes your brother or sister stumble” violates the coming into being of righteousness, peace, and joy. Hence, while believers have individual rights, the exercise of those rights must reflect upon specific outcomes: fidelity in relationships, wholeness within the community, and the common expression of praise to God, which will result when such a course of action is taken. Second-level reasonings (“opinions”—RSV; “disputable matters”—NIV) are matters of adiaphora, but how one relates to other people is not an indifferent matter whatsoever—believers are marked by love. Paul’s maxim provides a touch point for the development of moral competency—reflection and self-testing on the outcomes of working toward love. Does one’s actions produce righteousness, peace, and joy? As a kingdom of God maxim, there is the reminder that all moral reflection stems from a proper faithful relationship to God who judges the outworking of believers’ love for one another (cf. above, Gal 5:6—“faith working itself out in love”). The foundation and the motivation for doing love is the loving God who welcomes all (v. 3) and sustains the faithful (15:5–6, 13). As Paul calls for members not to judge each other, he calls each individual to self-test their relationship to God with regard to moral choices. An individual’s choice before God moves in or out according to the faith maturity of the individual: “The faith that you [singular!] have, have as your own conviction before God” (v. 22a). Truly blessed (at peace) is the individual who holds firm to his/her principles before God (v. 22b). If, however, an individual doubts or wavers with regard to inner conviction, the trusting relationship with God is threatened, freedom threatens to become sin, and the course of action should be abandoned (v. 23). As Paul calls for members not to judge one another, he calls each individually and all together to test the quality of their corporate life together. If one’s relationship to God is strong, one’s intent toward others is love, and the outcomes of community members’ actions are marked by Paul’s maxim—righteousness, peace, and joy—then indifferent matters such as food and drink can be negotiated well and directed toward the proper goal of serving Christ and being found acceptable to God—a testimony to all humanity and the presence of the kingdom of God (14:18).

Part III. Relevant Pauline and Paulinist Texts Paul’s Letters Gnomic Maxims: 1 Cor 1:31; 4:2; 9:7a, 7b, 7c, 9a, 10b; 2 Cor 9:6; Gal 6:7b. Gnomic Sentences: Rom 6:23; 10:12; 13:7; 14:7–8, 22b, 23b; 1 Cor 1:25; 3:21–23; 4:15; 6:12, 13; 7:1b, 19, 26, 40a; 8:1c, 8; 9:15b (καλόν γάρ, kalon gar…), 19; 10:23, 31; 2 Cor 8:21; Gal 2:20; 3:28; 4:12a, 18a; 5:6; 6:8, 15.

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Sententiae: Rom 2:11; 14:17; 1 Cor 3:21b, 22b; 4:20; 6:12a, 13a; 7:15c; 8:1b, 4b, 4c; 9:25a; 10:23a; 11:12b; 13:6b; 14:26c, 33, 40; Phil 1:21; 4:13. Gnomologia (maxim stacks): Rom 12:9–18; 1 Cor 16:13–14; 2 Cor 13:11b; Gal 6:2–6; Phil 4:4–9; 1 Thess 5:12–22.

Paulinist Writings Gnomic Maxims: 1 Tim 5:18; 2 Tim 2:4–6; Titus 1:12. Gnomic Sentences: 1 Tim 1:8; 4:8; 6:6, 10; 2 Tim 2:19.

Part IV. Select Bibliography Rhetorical Handbooks and Progymnasmata (Loeb Classical Library edition, unless otherwise noted) Anaximenes, Rhetorica ad Alexandrum. Aristotle. The Art of Rhetoric. Demetrius. On Style. Elder Seneca. Controversiae and Suasoriae. Longinus. On the Sublime. Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria. Rhetorica ad Herennium. Seneca. Epistulae Morales. Kennedy, George A. Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition Introductory to the Study of Rhetoric. (Writings by or attributed to Theon, Hermogenes, Aphthonius, Nicolaus, together with an Anonymous Prolegomenon to Aphthonius, Selections from the Commentary attributed to John of Sardis, and Fragments of the Progymnasmata of Sopatros translated into English, with Introductions and Notes.)

General Reference Horna, K., and K. von Fritz. “Gnome, Gnomendichtung, Gnomologien.” Realencyklopädie für prostetantische Theologie und Kirche Suppl. 6 (1935): 74–90. Lausberg, Heinrich. Handbook of Literary Rhetoric: A Foundation for Literary Study. Foreword by George A. Kennedy. Translated by Matthew T. Bliss, Annemiek Jansen, David E. Orton and R. Dean Anderson. Leiden: Brill, 1998. Martin, Josef. Antike Rhetorik: Technik und Methode. Munich: C. H. Beck, 1974. Porter, Stanley E., ed. Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period: 330 B.C–A.D. 400. Leiden: Brill, 1997.



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Classical Studies Bonner, Stanley F. Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977. ———Roman Declamation in the Late Republic and Early Empire. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949. Clark, Donald Lemen. Rhetoric in Greco-Roman Education. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957. Clarke, M. L. Rhetoric at Rome: A Historical Study. London: Cohen & West, 1953. Delarue, F. “La sententia chez Quintilien.” La Licorne 3 (1979): 97–124. Henderson, Ian H. “Quintilian and the Progymnasmata.” Antike und Abendland 37 (1991): 82–99. Karavites, Peter. “Gnōmē’s Nuances: From Its Beginning to the End of the Fifth Century.” Classical Bulletin 66 (1990): 9–34. Kriel, D. M. “The Forms of the Sententia in Quintilian VIII.v.3–24.” Acta Classica 4 (1961): 80–89. Lardinois, André. “Modern Paroemiology and the Use of Gnomai in Homer’s Iliad.” CP 92 (1997): 213–34. Levet, J. P. “RHĒTŌR et GNŌMĒ: Présentation sémantique et recherches isocratiques.” La Licorne 3 (1979): 9–40. Marrou, H. I. A History of Education in Antiquity. 3rd ed. Translated by George Lamb. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982. Russell, D. A. Greek Declamation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Searby, Denis. Aristotle in the Greek Gnomological Tradition. Studia Graeca Upsaliensia 19. Stockholm: Gotab, 1998. Sinclair, Patrick. “The Sententia in Rhetorica Ad Herennium: A Study in the Sociology of Rhetoric.” AJP 114 (1993): 561–80. ———Tacitus the Sententious Historian: A Sociology of Rhetoric in Annales 1–6. University Park: Pennsylvania University Press, 1995. Sussman, Lewis A. The Declamations of Calpurnius Flaccus. Leiden: Brill, 1994. ———The Elder Seneca. Leiden: Brill, 1978. Villemonteix, J. “Remarques sur les sentences homériques.” La Licorne 3 (1979): 83–96.

New Testament Studies Betz, Hans Dieter. 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985. ———Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979. Henderson, Ian H. Jesus, Rhetoric and Law. Biblical Interpretation Series 20. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Ramsaran, Rollin A. “ ‘In Nonessentials, Liberty’: A Key Ministry Context in Romans 14:1–15:13.” Leaven 8, no. 4 (2000): 164–68. ———“In the Steps of the Moralists: Paul’s Rhetorical Argumentation in Philippians 4.” Pages 244–300 in Rhetoric, Ethic, and Moral Persuasion in Biblical Discourse. Edited by Tom H. Olbricht and Anders Eriksson. New York: T&T Clark International, 2005. ———Liberating Words: Paul’s Use of Rhetorical Maxims in 1 Corinthians 1–10. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996.

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———“Living and Dying, Living Is Dying (Phil 1:21): Paul’s Maxim and Exemplary Argumentation in Philippians.” Pages 325–38 in Rhetorical Argumentation in Biblical Texts: Essays from the Lund 2000 Conference. Edited by Anders Eriksson, Tom H. Olbricht, and Walter Uberlacker. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002. Sampley, J. Paul. Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Snyder, Graydon F. “The ‘Tobspruch’ in the New Testament.” NTS 23 (1976): 117–20. Snyman, Andreas H. “On Studying the Figures (schēmata) in the New Testament.” Bib 69 (1988): 93–107. Wilson, Walter T. Love Without Pretense: Romans 12.9–21 and Hellenistic-Jewish Wisdom Literature. WUNT 46. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991. Zeller, Dieter. “Pauline Paraenesis in Romans 12 and Greek Gnomic Wisdom.” Pages 73–86 in Greco-Roman Culture and the New Testament: Studies Commemorating the Centennial of the Pontifical Biblical Institute. Edited by David E. Aune and Frederick E. Brenk. Boston: Brill, 2012.

Chapter 21

Paul and Memory Peter-Ben Smit

Introduction Memory is of key importance in Greco-Roman society and for anyone inhabiting it or participating in it. Memory is indispensable for understanding this society, one’s own place in it, and how to navigate in it. At least since Socrates and Plato (e.g., Minos 81a–98a; Phaedo 72e–77a) and Aristotle (notably De memoria et reminiscentia),1 the notion of memory played a vital role in (popular) philosophical accounts of knowledge and perception down to and contemporary with Paul. In particular, during Paul’s time, Greco-Roman society in particular was preoccupied with the creation and formation of memory through architecture (including inscriptions), sculpture, literature (virtually all genres, narrative, biography, autobiography such as Augustus’ Res gestae, theatre, poetry, etc.), art, iconography (including numismatics),2 and (religious) ritual of a variety of sorts.3 Acquiring and maintaining, through reminiscence, the right kind of knowledge was in (popular) philosophy the path toward happiness. Also, in Greco-Roman society, behavior based on the right insight in and knowledge of societal conventions, values, and structures, ensured living one’s life in a proper way. Memory is therefore, on the David Bloch, Aristotle on Memory and Recollection: Text, Translation, Interpretation, and Reception in Western Scholasticism (Leiden: Brill, 2007). References to Aristotle’s work derive from this volume, unless indicated otherwise. 2  Dietrich-Alex Koch, Bilder aus der Welt des Urchristentums. Das Römische Reich und die hellenistische Kultur als Lebensraum des frühen Christentums in den ersten zwei Jahrhunderten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009). 3  See for a convincing case study, Paul Zanker, Augustus und die Macht der Bilder, 5th ed. (Munich: Beck, 2009), as well as the “multi-medial” approach to memory in the ancient world offered by Beate Dignas and R. R. R. Smith, eds., Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). On the religious dimension of memory, see in particular the contributions in: Nicola Cusumano, Valentino Gasparini, Attilio Mastrocinque, and Jörg Rüpke, eds., Memory and Religious Experience in the Greco-Roman World (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2013). See for a similar approach, but then in relation to the deutero-Paulines and the pastorals: Harry O. Maier, Picturing Paul in Empire: Imperial Image, Text and Persuasion in Colossians, Ephesians and the Pastoral Epistles (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013). 1 

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one hand, the subject of philosophical accounts of epistemology and treatises about the human mind; on the other hand, it is an eminently practical tool that served to steer one’s life in the proper direction. Of course, what is deemed “proper” is normatively defined, so questions of influence are never far away whenever an appeal to memory or knowledge is made. Knowledge is never just knowledge and memory is never just memory. In order to chart the landscape of ancient conceptions of memory and knowledge, we will provide in Part I an overview of several influential voices and institutions that were respectively conceptualizing and shaping memory (and knowledge). In Part II we will examine Paul’s view of memory (and, insofar as it is related to it, knowledge) in its Greco-Roman context. The study of Paul will, of course, be based on the generally accepted authentic letters only (even if the pseudepigraphic Paulines are a fascinating case of shaping the memory of a person and his thought). We will see that epistemological accounts, referring as they do, in various ways, to knowledge being constituted through a process that also involves memory and recognition, are inextricably intertwined with the construction of and, as it were, participation in the shared cultural memory of a particular society or subgroup in society.4 This is the case, despite the fact that the two are often treated separately from each other, the one a subject for those interested in ancient psychology and epistemology, the other for those interested in the construction, legitimation, and functioning of ancient societal institutions and their traditions.

Part I. Memory in the Greco-Roman World In Greek mythology,5 memory (μνημοσύνη) appears as the mother of the muses,6 who serves as a the source of insight, knowledge, and truth (ἀλήθεια, the significance of which becomes apparent when contrasting memory with its binary opposite: forgetting, λήθη—also the river that needs to be crossed in order to reach Hades in mythological geography). According to Hesiod, the nine muses mediate the right

Cf. the influential work of Jan and Aleida Assmann that further develop insights of Maurice Halbwachs: Jan Assmann, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich: Beck, 1992); Aleida Assmann and Jan Assmann, eds., Kanon und Zensur (Munich: Fink, 1987); Aleida Assmann, Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft: Grundbergriffe Themen, Fragestellungen (Berlin: Schmidt, 2nd ed., 2008); Jan Assmann, Fünf Stufen auf dem Wege zum Kanon: Tradition und Schriftkultur im frühen Judentum und seiner Umwelt (Münster: LIT, 1999). 5  For this and the following, see Catherine Baroin, “Erinnerung, Gedächtnis,” in Der Neue Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Manfred Landfester. Brill Online 2015. Reference: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (accessed 28 June 2016). Online: http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/ der-neue-pauly/erinnerung-gedachtnis-e401520. 6  On whom, see the following overview: Christine Walde, “Muses,” in Brill’s New Pauly, ed. Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider and Manfred Landfester. Brill Online. Reference: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Accessed 28 June 2016. Online: http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/brill-s-new-pauly/musese812670. 4 



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way of speaking to human leaders, enabling them to create order and peace (Hesiod, Theogony 75–103), while, as generally acknowledged in ancient Greek poetry, the muses also inspire the memory of heroes and gods alike (e.g., Homer, Iliad 2.488– 94).7 This memory upholds order and continues the normative “story” of the past and makes the world inhabitable by providing a narrative concerning it, as is demonstrated by Hesiod’s Theogony (104), where the Muses are called upon to provide the poet with the memory of the beginning of the world: Hail, children of Zeus, and give me lovely song; glorify the sacred race of the immortals who always are, those who were born from Earth and starry Sky, and from dark Night, and those whom salty Pontus (Sea) nourished. Tell how in the first place gods and earth were born, and rivers and the boundless sea seething with its swell, and the shining stars and the broad sky above, and those who were born from them, the gods givers of good things; and how they divided their wealth and distributed their honors, and also how they first took possession of many-folded Olympus. These things tell me from the beginning, Muses who have your mansions on Olympus, and tell which one of them was born first.

At least since Simonides of Ceos (late sixth century BCE) tradition has it that human memory could also be trained to an astonishing level (thus somewhat lessening one’s dependence on the Muses).8 Truth and insight are gained through memory, in particular through the soul’s memory consisting of recollections of previous incarnations. For Pythagoras,9 Empedocles,10 and Plato (see, e.g., Minos 81a–98a; Phaedo 72e–77a), memory has a “soteriological” role, leading the soul to the truth. With Plato the idea becomes prominent that the human soul is naturally prepared for this world and thus contains insights concerning it that must be “remembered.” This remembering, as Plato pointed out in particular, takes place through a dialectal process. Only such insight and knowledge, innate to a human person, truly stem from memory—a claim that does not apply to knowledge gained from, for example, writing (Phaedo 247C–F, Philebus. 34B–C). Plato’s influential position is well illustrated by the following passage from Phaedo, 75E–76A: But, I suppose, if we acquired knowledge before we were born and lost it at birth, but afterwards by the use of our senses regained the knowledge which we had previously possessed, would not the process which we call learning really be recovering knowledge which is our own? And should we be right in calling this recollection?… “For we found that it is possible, on perceiving a thing by the

For this and the following, see the broader studies of memory by Kurt Danziger, Marking the Mind: A History of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); Douwe Draaisma, Metaphors of Memory: A History of Ideas about the Mind (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); Stefan Berger and William John Niven, eds., Writing the History of Memory (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014); Bloch, Aristotle; R. A. H. King, Aristotle and Plotinus on Memory (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009); Janet Coleman, Ancient and Medieval Memories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Anne Mackay, ed., Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 8  Cf. the classical study of the history of memory by Frances A. Yates, The Art of Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 42ff. 9  Cf. Christoph Riedweg, Pythagoras: His Life, Teaching, and Influence (Munich: Beck, 2002), 33–34. 10  Cf. Radcliffe G. Edmonds, Myths of the Underworld Journey: Plato, Aristophanes, and the “Orphic” Gold (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 52–55. 7 

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sight or the hearing or any other sense, to call to mind from that perception another thing which had been forgotten, which was associated with the thing perceived, whether like it or unlike it; so that, as I said, one of two things is true, either we are all born knowing these things and know them all our lives, or afterwards, those who are said to learn merely remember, and learning would then be recollection.

While arguing, like Plato had, that memory is a kind of imprint on the soul (Plato, Theaetetus. 191c–92a), Aristotle, in particular in his De memoria (e.g., 450A–B), developed a further theory of memory, which was less concerned with reincarnation and more with the functioning of memory, which allowed a person to order the world he lived in, including time, and to base decisions and actions upon that ordering. In the following two quotations, we see both Aristotle’s definition of memory (μνήμη) and its relation to recollection (ἀνάμνησις) which is the conscious use of memory in order to make sense of the world and to navigate in it: Memory, then, is neither sensation nor judgement, but is a state or affection of one of these, when time has elapsed. There can be no memory of something now present at the present time, as has been said, but sensation refers to what is present, expectation to what is future, and memory to what is past. All memory, then, implies lapse of time. Hence only those living creatures which are conscious of time can be said to remember, and they do so with that part which is conscious of time. (De memoria 449B) Recollecting differs from remembering not merely in the matter of time, but also because, while many other animals share in memory, one may say that none of the known animals can recollect except man. This is because recollecting is, as it were, a kind of inference; for when a man is recollecting he infers that he has seen or heard or experienced something of the sort before, and the process is a kind of search. This power can only belong by nature to such animals as have the faculty of deliberation; for deliberation too is a kind of inference. (De memoria 453A)

(Popular) philosophers continue to occupy themselves with the psychology of memory, with the connection between memory and insight in the world, and with knowledge as to what mattered in it.11 Further, various interplays between the Platonic emphasis on recollection and the Aristotelian emphasis on experience can be seen to characterize further theorizing on memory, recollection, learning and knowledge. In particular, the interplay between what may be termed “productive” (or “creative”) and “reproductive” approaches to memory is so pronounced that it is not possible to capture “memory” under either heading in a definitive way.12 11  Cf. Loveday Alexander, “Memory and Tradition in the Hellenistic Schools,” in Jesus in Memory: Traditions in Oral and Scribal Perspectives, ed. Werner H. Kelber and Samuel Byrskog (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009), 113–53. 12  Cf. Dominic Scott, Recollection and Experience: Plato’s Theory of Learning and Its Successors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), as well as Gail Fine, The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s Paradox from Socrates to Sextus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), see further also Frieda Klotz, “Imagining the Past. Plutarch’s Play with Time,” in The Philosopher’s Banquet: Plutarch’s Table Talk in the Intellectual Culture of the Roman Empire, ed. Frieda Klotz and Katerina Oikonomopoulou (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 161–78, and further also Mark Beck, ed., A Companion to Plutarch (Oxford: Blackwell, 2014), in which especially Philip A. Stadter, “Plutarch and Rome” (13–31), as well as the essays in the book’s third section on “Plutarch’s Biographical Projects” (249–528); in his lucid The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006),



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While inheriting the earlier Greek tradition, Latin thought began to exercise its influence and to reflect the values dear to Rome as it ruled the Mediterranean world, so that we see a different accent.13 Representative thinkers such as Cicero, Pliny the Elder, and Quintilian were less concerned with distinctions between inward and outward memory and recollection (see, e.g., Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 11.2.1–10, but contrast Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes 1.XXIV–XXVIII). They were very much occupied with the more practical role that memory played in the proper attitude and walk of life of an inhabitant of the Empire.14 Cicero, for example, identified memory as one of the faculties of “wisdom” (prudentia), along with intelligence, and foresight (“Virtue may be defined as a habit of mind in harmony with reason and the order of nature. Therefore when we have become acquainted with all its parts we shall have considered the full scope of honour, pure and simple. It has four parts: wisdom, justice, courage, temperance. Wisdom is the knowledge of what is good, what is bad and what is neither good nor bad. Its parts are memory, intelligence, and foresight. Memory is the faculty by which the mind recalls what has happened. Intelligence is the faculty by which it ascertains what is. Foresight is the faculty by which it is seen that something is going to occur before it occurs,” Cicero, De inventione 2.159–60),15 which itself is part of a citizen’s “character” (in the sense of virtuousness, one’s “virtus”). This memory serves to remember in particular “the conditions of his social and historical status: his obligations to the gods and to other humans beings (Sen. Ben.), his genealogy (Cicero, Att. 6.1, 17) and the exempla in family and people that constitute history (Cicero, De or. 2.36; Sallust, Jug. 4).16 An orator’s task was closely related to this, as the following quotation from Quintilian shows: Some have regarded Memory as simply a gift of Nature, and no doubt it does depend mostly on this. But like everything else, it is improved by cultivation. All the effort I have described up to now is futile unless the other parts are held together, as it were, by this animating principle. All learning

Christopher Gill rightly uses the notion of “competing readings” of, among others, Plato to characterize the later debate. The tension between a primarily reproductive and a primarily productive understanding of memory in such later debates is captured well by Zsolt Komáromy, Figures of Memory: From the Muses to Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics (Plymouth, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2011), 1–115. See also the detailed exegesis offered in J. L. Ackrill, “Anamnēsis in the Phaedo,” in Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos, ed. E. N. Lee and A. P. D. Mourelatos (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973), 177–95. 13  Cf. the essays collected in Karl Galinsky, ed., Memoria Romana: Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014). 14  Cf. Coleman, Memories, 39–59. 15  M. Tullius Cicero, De inventione; De optimo genere oratorum; Topica, ed. and trans. H. M. Hubbell (London: Heinemann, 1960), 326–27: “Nam virtus est animi habitus naturae modo atque rationi consentaneus. Quamobrem omnibus eius partibus cognitis tota vis erit simplicis honestatis considerata. Habet igitur partes quattuor: prudentiam, iustitiam, fortitudinem, temperantiam. Prudentia est rerum bonarum et malarum neutrarumque scientia. Partes eius: memoria, intellegentia, providentia. Memoria est per quam animus repetit illa quae fuerunt; intellegentia, per quam ea perspicit quae sunt; providentia, per quam futurum aliquid videtur ante quam factum est.” 16  See for this and the following Baroin, “Gedächtnis.”

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depends on memory, and teaching is in vain if everything we hear slips away. It is this capacity too that makes available to us the reserves of examples, laws, rulings, sayings, and facts which the orator must possess in abundance and have always at his finger-tips. It is with good reason that it has been called the Treasury of Eloquence. (Institutio oratoria 11.2.1—for his relative disinterest in the psychological aspects of memory see 11.2.1–10)

Memory’s task, therefore, has much to do with an awareness of (authoritative) traditions and, as a result, of one’s own place and role in society and that of others. Whoever was in charge of society’s memory, therefore held considerable authority and constituted a power to be reckoned with. Such keepers of (the collective) memory would typically be those in charge of the religious and juridical framework of society and, quite literally, of the appertaining archives. One may think of the (inherently conservative) senate, legal specialists, and ritual experts such as priests in this respect. At the same time also, orators who had, as part of their training and profession, memorized substantial amounts of history, often in the form of exempla, served as “masters of memory” and could provide access to it through their speeches (see, e.g., Cicero, Inv. 1, 9; “memoria est firma animi rerum ac verborum perceptio,” following Aristotle’s disposition of a speech; Cicero, De or. 2.355; Quintilian, Inst. 11.2.1).17 All of this, however, should not give the impression that memory was a relatively stable entity that was simply in need of preservation. Although this impression certainly was one given by those formally in charge of matters of (shared) memory, anything but this was the case, given that the manipulation of memory was a virtual necessity for those political (and other) leaders who wanted to find a legitimate basis for their actions—especially if these actions were innovative in any measure and hence potentially suspect. The point of memory was never just memory as such, but it always came with an agenda, as is shown by the the example of orators as “masters of memory” (masters both in their being able to memorize incredible amounts of material and in their being able to press it into the service of a particular line of argument). These considerations place the discourse on and use of memory in line with the scholarly descriptions of cultural memory that were developed in recent decades and, indeed, were applied in a substantial extent to memory and memorialization in the first century CE as well. The core concept, developed by Jan and Aleida Assmann, is followed by Hübenthal: Kulturelles Gedächtnis (“cultural memory”) is focused on central points of the past that are preserved for the present. But this is no mere representation of an objective past. The past events tend to turn into symbolic figures which serve as carriers for remembrance: “in the context of cultural memory, the distinction between myth and history vanishes”… What seems, at first glance, to be an improper blending of fact and fiction, makes sense when one turns back to it for a second time: Kulturelles Gedächtnis does not memorialize history as such, but only the community’s memory construct insofar as it has actual relevance for the members of the community. Not history as such is of interest

17  Cf. in general, Thomas H. Olbricht, “Delivery and Memory,” in Handbook of Classical Rhetoric in the Hellenistic Period, 330 BC–AD 400, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 159–70.



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to the memory group, but only remembered history and that is “myth”… Remembering myth as founding stories of a community is never without intentions: Either it is regarded as the motor of growth or as the foundation of continuity…18

At this theoretical background, it can be shown that what applied to Cicero and his contemporaries, also applied to authors active in the first century CE, who, like Plutarch, in his voluminous literary output, served as a literary master of both Greek and Roman memory, seeking to construct a synthesis of both: First, one should come to an understanding of the character of the subject… Secondly, and more importantly, Plutarch thought that a knowledge of the character of the great men of the past should lead the reader in his own life to imitate the good and abhor the bad; the study of the past was—or at least should be—a morally improving activity.19

How Plutarch would proceed in an actual argument might be apparent from the following example from his non-biographical work, given that it addresses an issue that will be of relevance for the analysis of Phil 3 as well. In De laude ipsius (Mor. 539A–547F), Plutarch discusses the subject of self-praise (περιαυτολογία) with the help of exempla.20 The following illustrates this.21 In the first place, self-praise goes unresented if you are defending your good name or answering a charge, as Pericles was when he said: “Yet I, with whom you are angry, yield to none, I believe in devising needful measures and laying them before you; and I love my country and cannot be bought.” For not only is there nothing puffed up, vainglorious, or proud in taking a high tone about oneself at such a moment, but it displays as well a lofty spirit and greatness of character, which by refusing to be humbled humbles and overpowers envy. For men no longer think fit even to pass judgment on such as these, but exult and rejoice and catch the inspiration of the swelling speech, when it is well-founded and true. The facts confirm this. Thus when the generals were tried on the charge that they had not returned home at once on the expiration of their term as Boeotarchs, but had invaded Laconia and handled the Messenian affair, the Thebans came near to condemning Pelopidas, who truckled to them and entreated mercy; but when Epameinondas expatiated on the glory of his acts and said in conclusion that he was ready to die if they would admit that he had founded Messenê, ravaged Laconia, and united Arcadia against their will, they did not even wait to take up the vote against him, but with admiration for the man, commingled with delight and laughter broke up the meeting. (Mor. 540C–E)

Cf. Sandra Hübenthal, “Social and Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis,” in Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis, ed. Kåre Berge and Pernille Carstens (Piscataway: Gorgias, 2012), 175–99, cf. also Sandra Hübenthal, Das Markusevangelium als kollektives Gedächtnis (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014). Hübenthal, naturally, receives the work of Jan and Aleida Assmann as it was mentioned above. 19 Tim Duff, Plutarch’s Lives: Exploring Virtue and Vice (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 49–50. See also the preceding discussion of Plutarch’s programmatic statements in this respect, 13–49. 20  Cf. Ibid., 49–51. See on this topic also: Peter-Ben Smit, “Paul, Plutarch and the Practice of Self-Praise,” NTS (2014): 341–59. 21  Cf. for this and the following: Peter-Ben Smit, Paradigms of Being in Christ: Paul’s Use of Exempla in Philippians, LNTS 476 (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 16–30. 18 

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Here, Plutarch calls on the (shared) memory of a number of heroes from the past, but he does so quite clearly in the service, not just of disinterested historical argument, but quite emphatically in support of an argument that he is mounting, specifically as to what kinds of self-praise are and are not to be regarded as legitimate. Thus, through exempla, history is remembered and in a particular way placed before the eyes of the audience—images are indeed evoked—and memory can play its rhetorical role, making sure that history is remembered in the desired way.22 Such processes of shaping history through a particular way of remembering it played a role in a variety of media beyond the spoken written word. Architecture (including inscriptions), sculpture, the visual arts, iconography as it was employed in numismatics, and (religious) ritual of a variety of sorts, were just as important. All of these elements, present as they were, for example, on the forum of a city, conveyed and evoked memories, thus determining the way in which history (and whose history) was being represented and shaping the normative memory of a community. Among the many examples that can be adduced for this may be the third-century CE panegyrist Eumenius, who commented on the public display of maps as follows: “Let the schoolchildren see it in those porticoes and look every day at all lands and seas and every city, race or tribe that unconquerable emperors either assist by their sense of duty or conquer by their valour or control by inspiring fear.”23 Although “just” a map and a tool to help those viewing it grasp a little more of what the world looks like and, presumably, remember this, the map also serves to convey, in a pictorially coded way, the memory of the Roman conquest and domination of whatever is shown on the map and, depending on the identity of the viewer, Roman citizen or not, what his or her place was, literally and figuratively on this map. Quite in line with such endeavors in the first century would be the construction of a triumphal arch, such as Titus’, that also remembered history’s course from a very particular angle. At the same time, conflicting biographies of emperors (though not so much of Vespasian and Titus) would serve to remind one of the relative value of memory and recollection, but would not negate the propagandistic power of coins such as the famous Iudea capta coins minted during Vespasian’s reign, offering to anyone using it the “correct” memory of the Judean war.24 In other words, the first-century CE discourse on and use of memory was less concerned with the question what memory constituted precisely, and more with questions such as: Whose memory is normative or can be enforced, who is remembered in which way, and what is and is not remembered? Those whom this normative memory forgot or failed to mention lost, for all practical purposes, all existence. The more extreme formal form of forgetting, the damnatio memoriae (itself not a classical

Cf. Martin Paul Schittko, Analogien als Argumentationstyp. Vom Paradeigma zur Similitudo (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 85. 23  Quoted in O. A. W. Dilke, Greek and Roman Maps, C. Nicolet, Geography and Politics in the Early Roman Empire, 54. Text in R. A. B. Mynors, XII Panegyrici Latini IX (IV) (Oxford: Clarendon, 1964), ad loc. 24  Cf. Maier, Picturing, 16. 22 



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Latin expression), that was the fate of some emperors and others, had the somewhat paradoxical effect of inscribing the memory of the act of forgetting someone in the defaced inscriptions, statues, coins, and other records. In this context, early Judaism, as one of the many colonial subjects of the Roman Empire, did seek to develop its own kind of cultural memory,25 of necessity one that sought to negotiate between an often rather strong sense of its own, independent identity and proud heritage, and the reality of Roman colonial supremacy. An additional complexity, the general Hellenistic cultural sphere within which the Jewish people were swept, also confronted other subject people, such as the Greek,26 or pagan Semites such as Lucian of Samosata,27 and including first-century CE intellectuals such as Plutarch,28 or the second Sophistic in general.29 Among Jewish authors, exemplified by the work of Philo of Alexandria (e.g., in Vita Mosis and Legum allegoriarum I–III), this led both to impressive attempts to (re)write and thus remember the history of humanity in such a way that Jewish tradition would come out on top, and to literary works, exemplified by Josephus’ Jewish War, but just as well by his Jewish Antiquities, that sought to navigate a way between Rome and Jerusalem.30 Various apocalyptic works as well as historical writings such as 4 Maccabees also sought to shape the readers’ view of the world through the manipulation of historical memory,31 usually to the detriment of Roman power and Hellenistic culture (during the Jewish revolt, even coins were struck for this purpose).32 An index of Qumran’s (or at least: the Dead Sea Scrolls’) creation of its own memory of history33 includes even

25  See for this and the following the comparative perspective emerging out of Doron Mendels, Memory in Jewish, Pagan and Christian Societies of the Graeco-Roman World (London: T&T Clark International, 2004). 26  Cf. the contributions collected in Simon Goldhill, ed., Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 27  Cf. Eleni Bozia, Lucian and His Roman Voices: Cultural Exchanges and Conflicts in the Late Roman Empire (New York: Routledge, 2015). 28  Cf. Rebecca Preston, “Roman Questions, Greek answers: Plutarch and the Construction of Identity,” in Goldhill, ed., Being, 86–119. 29  Gary Gilbert, “Luke–Acts and Negotiation of Authority and Identity in the Roman World,” in The Multivalence of Biblical Texts and Theological Meanings, ed. Christine Helmer (Atlanta: SBL, 2006), 83–104, offers a good overview of this in relation to Luke–Acts. 30  Cf. Steve Mason, “Flavius Josephus in Flavian Rome: Reading On and Between the Lines,” in Flavian Rome: Culture, Image, Text, ed. A. J. Boyle and W. J. Dominik (Brill: Leiden, 2003), 559–89, as well as idem, “Of Despots, Diadems, and Diadochoi: Josephus and Flavian Politics,” in Writing Politics in Imperial Rome, ed. W. J. Dominik, J. Garthwaite, and P. A. Roche (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 323–49. On Josephus’ negotiating and navigating, see also Maud Gleason, “Mutilated Messengers: Body Language in Josephus,” in Goldhill, ed., Being, 50–85. 31  Cf. Jan Willem van Henten, The Maccabean Martyrs As Saviours of the Jewish People: A Study of 2 and 4 Maccabees (Leiden: Brill, 1997). 32  Cf. Martin Goodman, “Coinage and Identity: The Jewish Evidence,” in Coinage and Identity in the Roman Provinces, ed. C. J. Howgego, Volker Heucher, and Andrew M. Burnett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 163–66. 33  Cf. the overview offered by Benjamin G. Wold, “Memory in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Exodus, Creation, and Cosmos,” in Memory in the Bible and Antiquity, ed. Stephen C. Barton, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, and Benjamin G. Wold (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 47–74, esp. 47–50; see also the more detailed

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using a different calendar. Whoever is in charge of time is also in charge of memory; claiming one’s own reckoning of time, is also to claim one’s own right to remember history as one deems fit. However, the presumably sectarian Qumran community was simultaneously defying and acknowledging the powers that (seemed to) rule the present. Wherever their texts sought to create a new memory of the past through historical narrative, their authors acknowledged, precisely through their use of historical memory, that the present was a time in which such claims were much less self-explanatory. Such tensions were also apparent in the use of precisely “imperial” language and literary form to express oneself. Still, with regard to the Jewish subculture, such negotiation of historical memory was closely tied to an aspect of its covenantal understanding of the relationship between the God of Israel and the people of Israel, given that this relationship could be expressed in terms of a mutual “remembering” of each other (‫)זכר‬. Because the remembering on the part of the God of Israel was less than apparent in the political context of the Roman Empire, various recastings of Israel’s historical memory also served to create a space for the argument that Israel’s God had not forgotten the people of Israel, but still remembered them—or would do so in the future. This allowance for a delay in God’s remembering freed up space to continue the praxis of remembering [‫ ]זכר‬this deity and resisting others.34 As soon as early Christianity emerged as a recognizable entity with its own literature, ritual, and ethos, it began to produce a memory along lines very similar to the dynamics of remembering found in other “subcultures” within the Greco-Roman world under Roman rule,35 while simultaneously continuing the Jewish heritage and its mnemonic conventions.36 Like the memory of other “subcultures” within the Roman insight offered by the contributions in Otto Fuchs and Bernd Janowski, eds., Die Macht der Erinnerung (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2007). 34  See on this the contributions in the following two volumes: Barton, Stuckenbruck, and Wold, eds., Memory, and Ehud Ben Zvi and Christoph Levin, eds., Remembering and Forgetting in Early Second Temple Judah (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012). 35  Cf. the studies on both Jewish and Christian memory collected in Mendels, Memory, and further Gregg Gardner and Kevin Osterloh, eds., Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), as well as the studies in early Christian memory in Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher, eds., Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity (Atlanta: SBL, 2005), Coleman A. Baker, Identity, Memory, and Narrative in Early Christianity: Peter, Paul, and Recategorization in the Book of Acts (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), as well as idem, “A Narrative-Identity Model for Biblical Interpretation: The Role of Memory and Narrative in Social Identity Formation,” in J. Brian Tucker and Coleman A. Baker, eds., T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament (London: T&T Clark International, 2014), 106–18. James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) represents a systematic attempt to consider the earliest traditions about Jesus as memories as well. On the potentially subversive character of early Christian memory and commemorative praxis, see, e.g., Richard A. Horsley, Jesus in Context: Power, People, and Performance (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), idem, ed., Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance: Applying the Work of James C. Scott to Jesus and Paul (Atlanta: SBL, 2004), as well as Bruce T. Morrill, Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000). 36  To be sure, Paul can be placed firmly in the context of early Jewish ways of remembering and transmitting tradition, on which, cf. the classic study of Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript with



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Empire, the memory of early Christianity was potentially subversive, given that it held on to a different normative memory than the Empire at large. The subversive character of early Christianity memory was largely determined by its anamnesis of its Lord (see explicitly the various accounts of Jesus’ last meal and the “words of institution”), Jesus of Nazareth, who had been crucified by imperial powers and whose resurrection from the dead defied precisely these powers.

Part II. Memory in Paul When addressing Paul and memory, it seems that there are a number of avenues that could be pursued, all of which have led to a substantial output. For example, studies have focused on: what Paul knew in terms of early Christian tradition (i.e. what Paul “really” knew—e.g., of an empty tomb tradition or not, usually in discussions of 1 Cor 15);37 Paul’s use of Scripture;38 his statements on (shared) knowledge; his references to “remembering” others and being remembered by them; his memory of himself (the author of Acts and the pseudepigraphical letters were not the first to call to mind a picture of Paul attuned to the [perceived] needs of a community used as a vehicle for the transmission of “authentic” tradition!); the occurrence of exempla in Paul’s work; and the rhetorical role of all of these kinds of remembrance, memory, and knowledge in the course of Paul’s various arguments. Memory is never just memory, neither is knowledge just knowledge.39 Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity, reprint (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), as well as the following volume dedicated to Gerhardsson’s legacy: Kelber and Byrskog, eds., Jesus, as well as Samuel Byrskog, Story as History—History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). Of importance is also Werner H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983 [rev. ed.: 1997]) and its legacy, as discussed in Tom Thatcher, Jesus, the Voice, and the Text: Beyond the Oral and Written Gospel (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008). 37  Cf. the discussion in Roy D. Kotansky, “The Resurrection of Jesus in Biblical Theology: From Early Appearances (1 Corinthians 15) to the ‘Sindonology’ of the Empty Tomb,” in Reconsidering the Relationship between Biblical and Systematic Theology in the New Testament, ed. Benjamin E. Reynolds, Brian Lugioyo, and Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 83–107, and the literature cited there (esp. n. 1). 38  Cf. Christopher D. Stanley, ed., Paul and Scripture: Extending the Conversation (Atlanta: SBL, 2012), in which a number of contributions engage with theories concerning cultural and collective memories. Paul must have been familiar with mnemonic techniques, given his ability to quote Scripture (although he was a poor speaker, by his own judgment). 39  Cf. Roy R. Jeal, “Melody, Imagery, and Memory in the Moral Persuasion of Paul,” in Rhetoric, Ethic, and Moral Persuasion in Biblical Discourse, ed. Thomas H. Olbricht and Anders Eriksson (London: T&T Clark International, 2005), 160–78, or, from a different vantage point Paul Holloway, “Thanks for the Memories: On the Translation of Phil 1.3,” NTS 52 (2006): 419–32. In a similar vein, cf. Stefan Schreiber, “Aus der Geschichte einer Beziehung. Die Funktion der Erinnerung in I Thess 2,1–12,” ZNW 103 (2012): 212–34, 234: “Erinnerung ist immer zugleich Interpretation. Sie liefert nicht einfach historische Fakten, sondern stellt einzelne Geschehenselemente im Rückblick in neues Licht, in neue Zusammenhänge. Wenn sich die Briefadressaten auf die erinnernde Interpretation des Paulus einlassen, wird die gemeinsame Beziehung aktuell lebendig.”

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Here, the focus will be on Paul and his appeals to and use of memory in relation to their rhetorical function and argumentative effect, in line with the uses of memory in the Greco-Roman world of the first century CE. There will not be much emphasis on Paul’s psychology or epistemology in terms of his (possible) theory of memory,40 as it was discussed above in relation to a number of thinkers, because comments on this topic are difficult to find in Paul’s letters. Surely, there are some instances in which one gets the impression that knowledge or insight, remembered or not, is something that is a gift from the “beyond” (from God, Christ, the Spirit), not entirely unlike the memories that were given to one through the agency of the Muses (see in Paul’s letters, e.g., the mediation of wisdom through the Spirit in 1 Cor 12:8 and elsewhere). Or, knowledge or insight is at times viewed as something that is simply available to human beings, not entirely unlike knowledge available from earlier incarnations of the same soul or from the soul’s being “tuned” for this world (see not only Paul’s appeal to a “natural” knowledge of God in Rom 1:19–20, but also his frequent use of phrases like “do you not know that…” such as in 1 Cor 6).41 For the most part, it can be observed that Paul, through his use of memories, is constantly shaping and molding his narration of what it means to be “in Christ” and a citizen, not so much of the Empire, but rather of heaven (see, e.g., Phil 3:21). Throughout, Paul’s explicit appeals to memory play a role that is analogous, if not virtually the same as Paul’s appeals to knowledge, which are also based on the assumption of a shared memory. At the same time, any such appeal also serves to lead Paul’s addressees to new insights based on their prior knowledge, which means that memory is both reproductive and productive in Paul. Paul’s most frequent appeals to memories, whether available through Scripture or transmitted orally, belong to the cultural heritage and memory of Israel and the Jesus tradition,42 but outsiders might Although it would be worthwhile to pursue this further; a relatively recent volume on Paul’s epistemology, however, only makes scant reference to memory, see Ian W. Scott, Implicit Epistemology in the Letters of Paul: Story, Experience and the Spirit (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). 41  It is also a topic that seems to have received little attention in more recent research; it does, in any case, receive no substantial attention in studies such as Gerd Theissen, Erleben und Verhalten der ersten Christen: eine Psychologie des Urchristentums (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), or Matthias Konradt and Esther Schläpfer, eds., Anthropologie und Ethik im Frühjudentum und im Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014). Similarly, the topic does not receive much attention in Troels EngbergPedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000), or in idem, Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). Geurt-Henk van Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology in Context: The Image of God, Assimilation to God, and Tripartite Man in Ancient Judaism, Ancient Philosophy and Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 209, does mention the importance of memory when it comes to mediation between gods and humans in Plato’s philosophy (Phaedrus 253a), but does not explore this further in relation to Paul’s letters. Similarly, in the work of Abraham Malherbe, the topic of memory in terms of a psychological faculty does not play a major role; his focus is more on memory as a phenomenon that sustains relationships despite historical or geographical distance between people remembering each other. See the remarks concerning memory and making sense of the world that one lives in, as Ian W. Scott, Paul’s Way of Knowing: Story, Experience, and the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 68–69, puts it in relation to the letters of Paul. 42  Paul’s recollection functions in terms of cultural memory from his earliest letters onwards; cf. Georgia Masters Keightley, “The Church’s Memory of Jesus: A Social Science Analysis of 1 Thessalonians,” BTB 17 (1987): 149–56. 40 



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find it surprising or incomprehensible how Paul mixes those traditions with insights from popular Hellenistic philosophy; in that regard his way of using such memories was quite in tune with his contemporaries.43 Nonetheless, it should be immediately clear that the memories Paul appeals to belong to a subculture, not to the Greco-Roman mainstream. This is of significance, as it immediately makes Paul’s use of memory potentially subversive, given that it serves to create an alternative identity and an alternative view of history to the one represented by all those coins, inscriptions, statues, texts, maps, and rituals (including such performances as triumphal entries or execution, e.g., by crucifixion) that served to instill into the public sphere the normative, or at least dominant, memories of the Empire (even if these could be quite polyphonic at times as well) and perpetuate these, adapting them, if necessary, to the times. Thus, in what follows, the focus will be on Paul’s role in the construction of a particular kind of cultural memory through his appeals to and use of selected memories. Paul’s references to remembering44 or knowledge45 fall into two categories, into two distinct kinds of memory, both of which are important for construction of community or individual identity. Paul’s quotations of or allusions to known traditions, scriptural or not,46 and his actual use of memories (of whichever kind) fall into two distinct kinds of memory that we may label as social and ideological (or theological).

Cf. Smit, Paradigms. For this, Paul uses at least the following expressions: λογίζομαι [1 Cor 13:5; 2 Cor 5:19]; οἶδα [e.g., 1 Cor 1:16]; ἀναμιμνῄσκω/ἀναμιμνῄσκομαι [e.g., 1 Cor 4:17; 2 Cor 7:15]; ἐπαναμιμνῄσκω [e.g., Rom 15:15]; ἀνάμνησις [e.g., 1 Cor 11:24–25]; ἐπιλανθάνομαι [forgetting, Phil 3:13]; μνημονεύω [Gal 2:10; 1 Thess 1:3, 2:9]; μνεία [Rom 1:9; Phil 1:3; 1 Thess 1:3; 3:6; Phlm 4]). 45  For this Paul uses expressions such as: γινώσκω [e.g., Rom 1:21; 2:18, etc.], οἶδα [e.g., 1 Cor 9:24; Phil 4:15, etc.; see also σύνοιδα in 1 Cor 4:4 and the references to συνείδησις, esp. in 1 Cor 8 and 10, where the concept is clearly related to recollection/memory], γνῶσις [e.g., Rom 15:14; 1 Cor 8:1, etc.], ἐπιγινώσκω [e.g., Rom 1:32—see also ἐπίγνωσις in, e.g., Phil 1:9; Phlm 6], σοφία [e.g., 1 Cor 1:19; 2 Cor 1:12]; σοφός [e.g., Rom 1:14; 1 Cor 3:10]; ἀγνοέω [esp. in rhetorical questions such as in Rom 6:3 and 7:1); ἀγνωσία [1 Cor 15:34]; γνωστός [Rom 1:19]; ἀφικνέομαι [Rom 16:19]; φανερός [e.g., Phil 1:13; Gal 5:19]; ἐμφανής [Rom 10:20]; φανερόω [e.g., Rom 3:21; 2 Cor 2:14]; αὐγάζω [2 Cor 4:4]; ἀποκαλύπτω [e.g., 1 Cor 2:10; Gal 1:16; see also: ἀποκάλυψις, e.g., in Rom 14:16; Gal 1:12]; δηλόω [e.g., 1 Cor 1:11; 3:13]; βεβαίωσις [e.g., Phil 1:7]; συμβιβάζω [1 Cor 2:16]; συνίστημι [e.g., Rom 5:8; 2 Cor 6:4]; ἐνδείκνυμαι [e.g., Rom 9:22]; ἔνδειξις [e.g., Rom 3:25–26]; δῆλος [e.g., Gal 3:11]; ἀποδείκνυμι [e.g., 1 Cor 4:9] Also relevant is the notion μυστήριον [e.g., 1 Cor 2:7; 15:51]; related to knowledge is furthermore also γνωρίζω, but more to the process of making than a situation of something being known; this also applies to δείκνυμι, e.g., in 1 Cor 12:31, see in a similar way also φαίνομα in: Rom 7:13; 2 Cor 13:7] 46  These are often introduced with a vocabulary of their own that cannot be covered here as well. The sheer amount of citations (not to speak of allusions, elusive as they are) does give an idea of the importance of memory for Paul—both in terms of memorization and in terms of his drawing on the shared memory of early Christianity as a Jewish sect. See for (an attempt at compiling) a comprehensive list (excluding allusions, which are notoriously difficult to capture): Moises Silva, “Old Testament in Paul,” in Dictionary of Paul and His Letters: A Compendium of Contemporary Biblical Scholarship, ed. Gerald F. Hawthorne, Ralph P. Martin, and Daniel G. Reid (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1993), 630–42. 43  44 

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(1) Social Remembering. Paul refers to his remembering of others (e.g., Phil 1:3) and events (e.g., 1 Cor 1:16) and others’ remembering of himself and his efforts (e.g., 1 Thess 2:9; 3:6; 1 Cor 11:2), the remembering of some by others (e.g., 2 Cor 7:15, see also: 1 Cor 11:24–25), others’ role in reminding (or helping remember) a congregation of Paul (1 Cor 4:17, Rom 15:15) the remembering of persons or events “before God” (e.g., 1 Thess 1:2–3, probably Rom 1:9 and Phlm 4) with the occasional reference to God’s remembering (or not remembering: 2 Cor 5:19, for Paul’s own forgetting, see: Phil 3:13), and appeals to remember certain persons or groups of persons (e.g., the poor in Gal 2:10). (2) Ideological (or Theological) Remembering. Paul makes use of memories or knowledge from a number of sources: the very particular source of his relationship with a community (see, e.g., Phil 1:3, to be discussed below), the somewhat less particular source of his own biography (see, e.g., Gal 2:1–10; Phil 3:2–21),47 the somewhat more general source of traditions about Jesus and traditions stemming from Jesus (apart from 1 Cor 11:23–26 that will be discussed below, see also 1 Thess 4:15; 1 Cor 7:10; 9:14; 14:37),48 and the even more broadly shared source of the Scriptures,49 as well as philosophical insights that he considers to be generally shared (e.g., a maxim such as in 1 Cor 8:1, or a reference to knowledge of God in Rom 1:21). Such appeals to memory are always tied in with Paul’s rhetorical aims. Space permits us to consider one representative example from each of these types of memories, the one more social, the other more ideological (or theological). The first is the opening part of Philippians (1:3–11), the second is Paul’s reference to the tradition concerning the Lord’s supper in 1 Cor 11:23–26. The first example of Paul’s use of memory is primarily related to the maintenance and shaping of social relationships, the second more to a gaining access to and making use of a shared “culture” or tradition. In line with this, the first example is more illustrative of memory’s function in crossing geographical gaps, whereas the second example has more to do with memory’s ability to overcome a chronological gap. In both cases, to be sure, memory provides Paul and his addressees with tools to make sense of the world and to navigate it.

47  On aspects of this, cf. also Smit, “Paul.” See for a comprehensive list of (boastful) references of Paul to himself: Kate C. Donahoe, From Self-Praise to Self-Boasting: Paul’s Unmasking of the Conflicting Rhetorico-Linguistic Phenomena in 1 Corinthians (PhD diss., University of St. Andrews, 2008), see: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/493 (retrieved 29 January 2013) xiv: Rom 2:17, 23; 3:27; 4:2; 5:2, 3, 11; 11:18; 15:17; 1 Cor 1:29, 31; 3:21; 4:7; 5:6; 9:15–16; 13:13; 15:31; 2 Cor 1:12, 14; 5:12; 7:4, 14; 8:24; 9:2–3; 10:8, 13, 15–17; 11:10, 12, 16–18, 21, 30; 12:1, 5, 6, 9; Gal 6:4, 13, 14; Eph 2:9; Phil 1:26; 2:16; 3:3; 1 Thess 2:19; 2 Thess 1:4; Heb 3:6; Jas 1:9; 3:14; 4:16. Cf. also Gal 2:1–10. 48  Cf. Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Paulus en de rest (Zoetermeer: Boekencentrum, 2010), 120–23, as well as the overview offered by: David E. Aune, “Jesus Tradition and the Pauline Letters,” in Kelber and Byrskog, eds., Jesus, 63–86. Cf. also: Yongbom Lee, Paul, Scribe of Old and New: Intertextual Insights for the Jesus–Paul Debate (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2015). 49  Cf. Silva, “Testament,” and Lee, Paul.



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Memory, Fellowship, and Persuasion: Philippians 1:3–11 In Phil 1:3–11, Paul continues his letter after its prescript and salutation (1:1–2) following a pattern that occurs in his other letters as well50 and, even though somewhat lengthy by comparison, is not too dissimilar from other Greco-Roman letters.51 In this context, remembrance plays a key role. In fact, a reference to “my remembrance” (μνεία) provides at starting point for a lengthy thanksgiving on Paul’s part to God (even if the Philippians were “listening in” on it, given that it is part of a letter addressed to them and will therefore also have affected them).52 He gives thanks to God because of his fellowship with the Philippians (1:3–8) and offers a prayer on their behalf (1:9–11).53 No matter whether Paul intends to say (a) that he is grateful for all the good memories that he has of the Philippians or (b) that he gives thanks whenever he remembers them, with whom he is generally thought to have a strong relationship (see, e.g., v. 5),54 or (c) that he is grateful for their remembrance of him in terms of the (somewhat awkward, see 4:10–20) support that he receives from the

Consisting of an introduction such as εὐχαριστῶ τῷ θεῷ μου (as in Phil 1:3, see further Rom 1:8; 1 Cor 1:4; 1 Thess 1:2; Phlm 4), a reference to the permanent remembering of one another (especially before God, see besides Phil 1:3, 7 further: Rom 1:9; 1 Thess 1:2; Phlm 4), an indication of the reason for thankfulness (see also Phil 1:5, 7; cf. Rom 1:8; 1 Cor 1:4–5; 1 Thess 1:3–4; Phlm 5), and an indication of the theme or main concern of the letter. See e.g. Gerhard Barth, Der Brief an die Philipper (Zurich: TVZ, 1979), 17; Christine Gerber, Paulus und seine “Kinder”: Studien zur Beziehungsmetaphorik der paulinischen Briefe (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), 64–65; Ulrich B. Müller, Der Brief des Paulus an die Philipper, 2nd ed. (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2002), 37–38, and Nikolaus Walter, “Der Brief an die Philipper,” in Die Briefe and die Philipper, Thessalonicher und an Philemon, ed. Nikolaus Walter, Eckhart Reinmuth, and Peter Lampe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 11–101, 34–35. This and the following largely derives from Smit, Paradigms, 60–63. 51  On the pattern of Paul’s letters and that of Greco-Roman letters with particular attention to Philippians, cf. Loveday Alexander, “Hellenistic Letter-Forms and the Structure of Philippians,” JSNT 37 (1989): 87–101. Cf. also, e.g. Müller, Brief, 37; this section of Philippians agrees with the opening section of Hellenistic letters and can be termed proem. As far as the thanksgiving is concerned, see especially Jeffrey T. Reed, “Are Paul’s Thanksgivings ‘Epistolary’?,” JSNT 61 (1996): 87–99. 52  At least formally, as Stephen E. Fowl, Philippians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 21, notes, the addressees of Paul’s written thanksgiving were of course also the Philippians. 53  Cf. Müller, Brief, 38, for this structure; the vv. 7–8 have a transitory function between vv. 1–6 and 9–11, the two sections of Phil 1:3–11 are concluded with references to the day of Christ. 54  Cf. for a representative overview, e.g., Walter, “Brief,” 12–14, see also John Reumann, Philippians (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 5–6. See also the argument of John T. Fitzgerald, “Philippians in the Light of Some Ancient Discussions of Friendship,” in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech, ed. John T. Fitzgerald (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 141–60, for Philippians as a letter of friendship. Cf. also the length of the thanksgiving in Philippians with its much shorter counterparts in other letters: Rom 1:8–9 contains a short and very general thanksgiving for the faith of the Romans, in 1 Cor 1:4–8 the thanksgiving is for the charisms the Corinthians have received, in 2 Cor 1:3–6 the thanksgiving remains very impersonal and does not touch on the issue of communion, but rather sticks to the theme of suffering and comfort; strikingly, Gal has no thanksgiving whatsoever, 1 Thess 1:2a only mentions the fact of thanksgiving in the prayers of Paul, Silvanus and Timothy (“we,” “our”), though the reason for these prayers is mentioned in the subsequent verses; a similar structure can be found in Phlm 4–7. See for comparative observations noting the particular cordiality of this section of Philippians also e.g. Barth, Brief, 17–18, 19–20; Müller, Brief, 39–40. 50 

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Philippians,55 or whether (d) he uses a somewhat hendiadystic expression, with reference to remembrance and prayer as coterminous—no matter which interpretation we give, it remains the case that memory or remembrance between two human partners provides the basis for thanksgiving and prayer (as Paul puts it somewhat hyperbolically in v. 4: “constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you” (πάντοτε ἐν πάσῃ δεήσει μου ὑπὲρ πάντων ὑμῶν, μετὰ χαρᾶς τὴν δέησιν ποιούμενος). This is well in line with general epistolary conventions in the Greco-Roman world, in which references to memory served to cross the geographical gap between the two epistolary partners.56 Should the reference to “my remembrance” (μνεία) in v. 3 be intended to mean the Philippians’ remembrance of Paul (with ὑμῶν as a subjective genitive), then the content of this remembrance may well be contained in v. 5 (“because of your sharing in the gospel from the first day until now,” Greek: ἐπὶ τῇ κοινωνίᾳ ὑμῶν εἰς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης ἡμέρας ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν) and be related to material support (see 4:10–20).57 Otherwise, certainly when taking the reference to “sharing” or “fellowship (κοινωνία) in a more general sense than a material or financial partnership,58 or a partnership with a common goal (“for the Gospel”),59 it could indeed be the case that Paul gives thanks for the good memory of the fellowship that he has been experiencing with the Philippians (“from the first day until now”; ἀπὸ τῆς πρώτης ἡμέρας ἄχρι τοῦ νῦν, i.e., likely from the [Pauline] foundation of the community onward).60 What appears in the opening verses of the letter is a very positive evaluation of the relationship between Paul and the Philippians,61 all based on memory or remembering. What this memory consists of is further elaborated in vv. 6–7, where Paul, describing the Philippians as those in whom God has begun a good work (through Paul, it seems), 55  For an outline of these options, cf. Holloway, “Thanks,” 419–20 and the references there. For a consideration of Phil 4:10–20, see also Peter-Ben Smit, “No Mum, But Thanks: A Note on Pauline Parental Authority in Phil. 4:10–20,” Lectio Difficilior (2006). Online: http://www.lectio.unibe.ch/06_1/smit_very_ sweet.htm (accessed 28 June 2016). 56  Letters relativize one’s absence, see, e.g., Gerber, Paulus, 69–72. 57  For a more metaphysical interpretation, cf. Barth, Brief, 21. Müller, Brief, 51, entertains the possibility that the Philippians provided the financial means to bribe Paul’s prison guards to allow him more privileges, a common practice; see also the earlier contribution by Wilhelm Michaelis, “Die Gefangenschaftsbriefe des Paulus und antike Gefangenenbriefe,” NKZ 36 (1925): 586–95, 594. 58  Cf. the argument of Julien M. Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia with the Philippians: A Socio-Historical Investi­ gation of a Pauline Economic Partnership (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), see also, e.g., G. Walter Hansen, “Transformation of Relationships: Partnership, Citizenship, and Friendship in Philippi,” in New Testament Greek and Exegesis: Essays in Honor of Gerald F. Hawthorne, ed. Amy M. Donaldson and Timothy B. Sailors (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 181–204, 182–89. Many interpretations take the reference to κοινωνία εἰς τὸ εὐαγγέλιον (Phil 1:5) as participation in the Gospel, see, e.g., Barth, Brief, 18–19. 59  Cf. James P. Ware, The Mission of the Church in Paul’s Letter to the Philippians in the Context of Ancient Judaism (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 166–67, see further 168–71; the concrete shape of this partnership probably included the support mentioned in Phil 1:5 and 4:10–20. 60  Cf. Paul A. Holloway, Consolation in Philippians: Philosophical Sources and Rhetorical Strategy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 43–44. 61  Ralph Brucker, Christushymnen oder epideiktische Passagen?: Studien zum Stilwechsel im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 301–302, plausibly identifies elements of Phil 1:3–11 as epideictic.



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is confident that God will also complete this good work (v. 6). In v. 7, Paul substantiates that it is right for him to think this (καθώς ἐστιν δίκαιον ἐμοὶ τοῦτο φρονεῖν, v. 7), given that the Philippians hold Paul in their heart, and share in the same grace with Paul (συγκοινωνούς μου τῆς χάριτος), doing so both during Paul’s imprisonment and his defense and confirmation of the Gospel. This description of the Philippians, which indicates how Paul remembers them, is completed in v. 8, where Paul expresses his yearning for them, thus taking up a trope familiar from other Greco-Roman letters, in which the yearning for the epistolary counterpart is a common theme, generally supported by precisely the good memories that one has of the other. So the yearning is for the “remembered other,” in this case on the basis of a remembered fellowship.62 So far, however, Paul has outlined that he remembers the Philippians and indicated how he remembers them, noting only that he prays for them. The contents of his prayer follow in vv. 9–11. Given that it would have suited epistolary conventions perfectly well to only mention the fact of prayers as such,63 Paul’s decision to explicate his individual petitions is of significance. Indeed, the two main elements of Paul’s prayer, petitions concerning love (ἀγάπη) and growth in discernment (v. 9), may well be seen to reflect two main concerns of the whole letter that mutually imply each other: the unity of the community (1:27–2:18) and, in relation to this and in service of this, but also shaping the kind of unity and community that are in play: a faithful continuation of that teaching and tradition that enables fellowship with Christ (3:2–21). The unity of the Philippians may also be underlined by Paul’s prayer for all Philippians (1:4, 8),64 while the fellowship between Paul and the Philippians is of paramount importance for the entirety of this section (vv. 3–11).65 Nonetheless, in 1:9–11, with its emphasis on soteriologically relevant discernment, Paul leaves the content of this discernment open, thus preparing for the rest of the letter, which as a whole has clear deliberative traits and seems to have been intended as an aid for the Philippians in their own process of discernment.66

Cf. Gerber, Paulus, 72. Cf. John L. White, Light from Ancient Letters (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 200. In Rom 1:9–10, Paul only mentions his future coming to Rome as the object of his prayers, 1 Corinthians does not contain a prayer in this place at all, nor does 2 Corinthians, neither does Galatians; 1 Thess 1:2 only mentions prayers again, as is the case in Phlm 4. 64  So Demetrius K. Williams, Enemies of the Cross of Christ: The Terminology of the Cross and Conflict in Philippians (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2002), 108. See also David Alan Black, “The Discourse Structure of Philippians: A Study in Textlinguistics,” NovT 37 (1995): 16–49, 29. While John Paul Heil, Philippians: Let Us Rejoice in Being Conformed to Christ, Early Christianity and Its Literature 3 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010), 39–40, is right in noting that Paul refers frequently to the encompassing nature of things (every prayer, always; for all), only the last of these references may have significance for the unity of the Philippians, a major concern of Paul in this letter. 65  Presumably, this discernment is related to growing in ἀγάπη (v. 9), which adds a Christian touch to vocabulary that is otherwise shared with contemporary popular philosophy. For this emphasis, see, e.g., Heil, Philippians, 43, 48; Williams, Enemies, 108; see also Black, “Discourse,” 29, with emphasis on the alliteration found in the vv. 3–8. 66  Cf. the considerations of Wolfgang Schenk, Die Philipperbriefe des Paulus. Kommentar (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1984), 112–23. 62  63 

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Thus, functioning as a captatio benevolentiae (in the looser sense of the word),67 and as a common part of a letter, Paul’s introductory thanksgiving and prayer contribute much to preparing its readers for the rest of the letter both strategically (rhetorically) and thematically.68 Rhetorically it could be compared to a speech’s exordium that sets the scene and prepares for the propositio.69 In the subsequent verses, the basis for all of this is memory (whatever the preferred sense of “my remembrance” [μνεία] in v. 3) and Paul indicates that he remembers the Philippians in a particular way (and it is likely that he assumes their remembrance of him as well) and declares that for these remembered Philippians, he yearns. The picture that Paul paints of the Philippians also serves to strengthen the relationship between the Philippians and Paul by calling it to mind in a particular way, without a doubt hoping that the Philippians will be able to identify with it.70 Implied in it all may well be the memory of Paul as the founding father of the Philippian community and thus as a figure of considerable status for that community. If this is indeed the case, then it will provide Paul with a footing for his further argument(s) in the letter.71 Thus, evoking memories and being grateful for them is much more than a mere nicety or an expression of true friendship or emotion; it also paves the way for what will come in the remainder of Philippians. Bound together in one (remembered) fellowship (κοινωνία) with them and they with him, Paul will not just pray for the ongoing discernment of the Philippians, but he will also proceed to indicate in no uncertain terms what this discernment should entail, doubtlessly in the hope that the Philippians will also remember him as a person who is well positioned to provide guidance and whose relationship with them is sustained both by their memory of him and his of them (both appear as a “remembered other” to each other). Thus, in 1:3–11, memory serves both as a tool to enhance social bonding across distance, as would be typical of references to memory and remembrance in letters, and, on top of this, as the basis for the provision of guidance and counsel in the context of this relationship. What Schreiber argues for the function of memory in 1 Thessalonians, thus also applies to Philippians: Recollection is always interpretation at the same time. Recollection does not simply produce historical facts, but also retrospectively places individual events in a new light, in new contexts. When the addressees of the letter are open to Paul’s recollecting interpretation, their joint relationship becomes alive and of importance. Cf. Wilhelm Egger, Galaterbrief. Philipperbrief. Philemonbrief (Würzburg: Echter, 1985), 54. This should not be taken to mean that the thanksgiving at the beginning of the letter is a captatio benevolentiae as they occur in speeches. See for the captatio benevolentiae at this point, e.g., Gerber, Paulus, 64, as well as Schenk, Philipperbriefe, 101–104, and Reumann, Philippians, 149, about v. 3. Williams, Enemies, 109, describes these verses as an exordium. 68  See similarly, e.g., Müller, Brief, 47: “V. 9–11 weisen deutlichen auf den paränetischen Haupteil 1,27–2,18 voraus.” 69  Cf. Ben Witherington III, Friendship and Finances in Philippi. The Letter of Paul to the Philippians, The New Testament in Context (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994), 35. 70  Cf. Holloway, Consolation in Philippians, 87–92. 71  Cf. also Williams, Enemies, 109. 67 



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Thus, in Paul’s letters, of which Phil 1:3–11 is representative, memory is both the stuff of fellowship and it provides a basis for further shaping it.

Memory, Tradition, and Argument: 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 The second type of memory that plays a role in Paul’s writings consists of his various appeals to tradition, be it in the shape of references to Scripture, references to generally shared knowledge (e.g., 1 Cor 8:1, etc.), references to (shared) traditions about Jesus (e.g., a poetic tradition such as the one found in Phil 2:5–11, or various credal formulations, such as in Rom 1:3–4), or (less frequent) references to words of Jesus. One of the instances of the latter kind of reference to tradition and hence to the shared (cultural) memory of Paul and other early Christ devotees can be found in 1 Cor 11:23–26.72 Many aspects of memory and remembrance come together here: (a) an explicit reference to shared knowledge and memory (11:23: “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you”; ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν); (b) an explicit reference to remembering (ἀνάμνησις, 11:24–25); (c) a ritual setting and an explicit reference to ritual as the mode of remembering (v. 24: “Do this in remembrance of me”; τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν; v. 25: “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me”; τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, ὁσάκις ἐὰν πίνητε, εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν); (d) the clear rhetorical use of the shared memory in order to adjust the ritual practice that this memory substantiates and demands—the Lord’s supper (κυριακὸν δεῖπνον, 11:20); and (e) the etiological memory concerning a ritual that itself is shaped by the remembrance of Jesus and thus becomes the basis of Paul’s appeal to adjust or correct this same ritual.73 All this suggests that “memory” is much more than a noetic process; it involves embodiment, communal praxis, and performance, with all the material and social dimensions that has. As Aitken Bradshaw put it eloquently: The cultic meal felicitously performed is that which is successful in its reenactment of the cultic legend. In the Corinthian meal, the foundational legend of the covenant is the death of Jesus. This memory, as an event in ritual and narrative, as well as in the ethic and koinonia of the people, becomes for Paul the criterion for the successful performance of the cult. It has, moreover, the power to define the community anew, as the people who “get it” through ethical, affiliative, and intellectual capacities. The memory of Jesus’ death thus constitutes a community and provides a certain shared identity within this reenactment of the covenant.

While Paul’s reference to Jesus’ words at the last supper in the context of his argument concerning the κυριακὸν δεῖπνον in Corinth begs all sorts of (tradition-)historical questions and questions pertaining to the shape and reshaping of the Corinthian meal On which, see also: Peter-Ben Smit, “Ritual Failure, Ritual Negotiation, and Paul’s Argument in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34,” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 3, no. 2 (2013): 165–95. The following is informed by this earlier study. 73  See in relation to Paul’s knowledge of Jesus and ritual in particular: Georgia Masters Keightley, “Christian Collective Memory and Paul’s Knowledge of Jesus,” in Kirk and Thatcher, ed., Memory, 129–50, with ample reference to both theories concerning collective memory and ritual. 72 

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praxis,74 it can clearly also be considered an instance of Paul’s remembering and thus reconstituting the memory of Jesus in relation to the life and praxis of the Corinthian community. Particularly intriguing is the fact that Paul makes explicit reference to remembrance here, given that according to his tradition Jesus said “Do this in remembrance of me” (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν, v. 24) after identifying the bread with his body and “Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (ὁσάκις ἐὰν πίνητε, εἰς τὴν ἐμὴν ἀνάμνησιν, v. 25) after identifying the (contents of) the cup with his blood. Thus, while Paul recalls this tradition in an argument, the tradition that he refers to understands remembering less in terms of a noetic recalling and more in terms of a praxis of (cultic) remembrance that includes, but also goes beyond, remembrance at the noetic level. At the same time, Paul’s remembering, which he refers to quite literally as “tradition” in the sense of “passing on” (“For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you”; ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν, v. 23), is just as little aimed at thoughts only as the request for remembrance in the words of Jesus that he quotes. The words of Jesus serve as a starting point and as a legitimization of his subsequent argument as to the shape of the Lord’s supper (κυριακὸν δεῖπνον), which in itself is, or at least should be, the praxis through which Jesus (and Jesus’ giving of himself) is remembered and communion is upheld. This remembering and its communion are quite analogous with the way in which communion between various members of the body of Christ was upheld through mutual remembering and well in line with the Israelite concept of remembrance as part of its understanding of Israel’s covenant with YHWH. While it is stylistically quite fitting that Paul, in an argument about the same Lord’s meal, introduces Jesus’ words by stating that he received them from the Lord, this connection also serves to make the stake’s higher: the Lord, as the cult’s initiator, has pronounced these words at the Lord’s supper himself. Thus Paul can be seen as “quoting a tradition that already has authority in the community.”75 In doing so, Paul does something that was more than common among first-century authors: he uses an exemplum or chreia,76 as 11:23–26 can well be classified.77 In this way, Paul accesses the tradition. Or, if one wishes: the collective or cultural memory that he and the Corinthians share in a way that would be recognizable to most of their contemporaries—how much more so Paul’s followers at Corinth who have identified with the particular tradition and memory of Jesus of Nazareth whom they now venerate as Lord Christ—would be in a position to consider it as authoritative and with that, become susceptible to the argument built on it. That is precisely Paul’s intention. 74  On which see Rachel McRae, “Eating with Honor: The Corinthian Lord’s Supper in Light of Voluntary Association Meal Practices,” JBL 130 (2011): 165–81. 75  Bradshaw Aitken, “δρώμενα,” 366. 76  On their synonymy, see Smit, Paradigms, 22–23. The use of this device was especially (even if not exclusively) associated with the genus deliberativum that sought to steer a community in a particular direction. 77  For the identification of 1 Cor 11:23–26 as a chreia, cf. Tobias Hägerland, Jesus and the Forgiveness of Sins: An Aspect of his Prophetic Mission (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 231.



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This recognition also means that the “memory” of the community’s origins—and the re-connection of the Corinthian followers to it—has lost all innocence. Here, as elsewhere in Paul’s letters, it is always memory with a vengeance, or rather, with an agenda. Paul’s command of the community’s memory of the Lord (that he transmits!) serves to undergird his argument and, with that, his own authority.78 Paul’s authority rests on the personified memory of the tradition. Finally, at least a mention should be made of the “memory of Paul,” given that, apart from Jesus, he is probably the most memorialized person in earliest Christianity.79 It goes beyond the confines of this chapter to provide an exhaustive treatment of the canonization of (a number of) Paul’s own letters, which in itself served to shape the memory not only of Paul but also of the way in which Paul sought to shape the knowledge and the memory of the communities with whom he interacted through these very letters. Another step in developing the “memory of Paul” extended Paul’s influence to a much broader audience by creating fictional letters of Paul (2 Thessalonians, Ephesians, Colossians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus, and to some extent Hebrews),80 and by the literal exegesis of Paul as in the (equally fictional) 2 Peter (3:16). Further, narratives such as the canonical Acts of the Apostles (a work rather explicitly concerned with creating a well-ordered shared memory of the past, assuming that Luke 1:1–4 also hold true for Acts) and the non-canonical Acts of Paula and Thecla—documents that probably were the most effective in the shaping of the memory of Paul and thus in reshaping the knowledge and insight that Paul sought to commit to the memories of the communities with which he corresponded.

Concluding Observations When looking back over this essay, a number of brief observations can be offered by way of conclusion. As will have become perspicuous, the topic of “memory” in the letters of Paul is a very rich one that is yet to be explored fully. This applies both

78  See for this interplay also Jürgen Zangenberg, “Paul’s Methods of Christological Conflict Control,” Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 62 (2008): 271–83. See for emphasis on Paul’s use of shared traditions as an effective starting point for his (deliberative) argument: Smit, Paradigms. 79  Cf. in general Benjamin L. White, Remembering Paul. Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), as well as Philip F. Esler, “ ‘Remember my fetters’: Memorialisation of Paul’s Imprisonment,” in Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science, ed. Petri Luomanen, Ilkka Pyysiäinen, and Risto Uro (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 231–58, see also Peter-Ben Smit, “St. Thecla: Remembering Paul and Being Remembered Through Paul,” Vigiliae Christianae 68 (2014): 551–63. For a recent collection of essays on memory and fiction, see Susanne Luther, Jörg Röder, and Eckart D. Schmidt, eds., Wie Geschichten Geschichte schreiben. Frühchristliche Literatur zwischen Faktualität und Fiktionalität (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015). 80  On which cf. the contributions in Luther, Röder, and Schmidt, eds., Geschichten; for a timely call for intersectional analysis of such memory of Paul, see: Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, “An Intersectional Approach to Early Christian Memory: The Case of the Pastoral Epistles,” Journal of Early Christian History 1 (2011): 119–34.

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to Paul’s treatment of the “cultural memory” of his time—in particular that of the tradition of Christ devotees—and also to the psychological aspects of memory in Paul’s work, which would also require a study of its own. When it comes to matters of memory, Paul seems to be well in tune with the rhetorical conventions of his day, calling upon shared memories in order to support his arguments. Therefore, any appeal to or use of memory in Paul’s letters is always bound up with issues of not just identity as such, but with memory’s active shaping— and therefore with questions of power and authority. Memory is never just memory. While Paul seems to be well in line with his contemporaries when it comes to appeals to memory and their rhetorical use, he certainly stands out among his contemporaries because of the particular memory that is normative for him: that of Christ and the Scriptures of the people of God.

Part III. Other Pauline and Paulinist Texts For further study of the topic of memory in Paul, a large number of texts—too large to list each individually—would be of relevance. In particular look for texts having to do with Paul’s use of Scripture or other traditions common among the Christ devotees, texts referring to Paul’s remembering of others, others’ remembering of himself, his own memory of himself, his calls on others to remember, and all the references to existent and/or shared knowledge. Consider also his comments on the workings of the mind. See many more possible texts listed in the footnotes.

Part IV. Select Bibliography Ackrill, J. L. “Anamnēsis in the Phaedo.” Pages 177–95 in Exegesis and Argument: Studies in Greek Philosophy Presented to Gregory Vlastos. Edited by E. N. Lee and A. P. D. Mourelatos. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1973. Assmann, Aleida. Einführung in die Kulturwissenschaft: Grundbergriffe Themen, Fragestellungen. 2nd ed. Berlin: Schmidt, 2008. Assmann, Aleida, and Jan Assmann, ed. Kanon und Zensur. Munich: Fink, 1987. Assmann, Jan, Das kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen. Munich: Beck, 1992, ———Fünf Stufen auf dem Wege zum Kanon: Tradition und Schriftkultur im frühen Judentum und seiner Umwelt. Münster: LIT, 1999. Baker, Coleman A. Identity, Memory, and Narrative in Early Christianity: Peter, Paul, and Recategorization in the Book of Acts. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011. ———“A Narrative-Identity Model for Biblical Interpretation: The Role of Memory and Narrative in Social Identity Formation.” Pages 106–18 in T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament. Edited by J. Brian Tucker and Coleman A. Baker. London: T&T Clark International, 2014.



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Barton, Stephen C., Loren T. Stuckenbruck, and Benjamin G. Wold, ed. Memory in the Bible and Antiquity. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Ben Zvi, Ehud, and Christoph Levin, ed. Remembering and Forgetting in Early Second Temple Judah. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012. Berge, Kåre, and Pernille Carstens, ed. Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis. Piscataway: Gorgias, 2012. Berger, Stefan, and William John Niven, ed. Writing the History of Memory. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014. Bjelland Kartzow, Marianne. “An Intersectional Approach to Early Christian Memory: The Case of the Pastoral Epistles.” Journal of Early Christian History 1 (2011): 119–34. Bloch,  David. Aristotle on Memory and Recollection: Text, Translation, Interpretation, and Reception in Western Scholasticism. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Bozia, Eleni. Lucian and His Roman Voices: Cultural Exchanges and Conflicts in the Late Roman Empire. New York: Routledge, 2015. Bradshaw Aitken, Ellen. Jesus’ Death in Early Christian Memory: The Poetics of the Passion. Fribourg: Academic, 2004. ———“τα δρώμενα και τα λεγόμενα: The Eucharistic Memory of Jesus’ Words in First Corinthians.” HTR 90 (1997): 359–70. Byrskog, Samuel. Story as History—History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. Christopher Gill. The Structured Self in Hellenistic and Roman Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Coleman, Janet. Ancient and Medieval Memories. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Cusumano, Nicola, Valentino Gasparini, Attilio Mastrocinque, and Jörg Rüpke, ed. Memory and Religious Experience in the Greco-Roman World. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2013. Danziger, Kurt. Marking the Mind: A History of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Dignas, Beate, and R. R. R. Smith, ed. Historical and Religious Memory in the Ancient World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Draaisma, Douwe. Metaphors of Memory: A History of Ideas about the Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Esler, Philip F. “ ‘Remember my fetters’: Memorialisation of Paul’s Imprisonment.” Pages 231–58 in Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science. Edited by Petri Luomanen, Ilkka Pyysiäinen, and Risto Uro. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Fine, Gail. The Possibility of Inquiry: Meno’s Paradox from Socrates to Sextus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Fuchs, Otto, and Bernd Janowski, ed. Die Macht der Erinnerung. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 2007. Galinsky, Karl, ed. Memoria Romana: Memory in Rome and Rome in Memory. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014. Gardner, Gregg, and Kevin Osterloh, ed. Antiquity in Antiquity: Jewish and Christian Pasts in the Greco-Roman World. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Gerhardsson, Birger. Memory and Manuscript with Tradition and Transmission in Early Christianity. Reprint. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998. Goldhill, Simon, ed. Being Greek Under Rome: Cultural Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Holloway, Paul A. “Thanks for the Memories: On the Translation of Phil 1.3.” NTS 52 (2006): 419–32.

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Horsley, Richard A., ed. Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance: Applying the Work of James C. Scott to Jesus and Paul. Atlanta: SBL, 2004. ———Jesus in Context: Power, People, and Performance. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008. Hübenthal, Sandra. Das Markusevangelium als kollektives Gedächtnis. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014. Jeal, Roy R. “Melody, Imagery, and Memory in the Moral Persuasion of Paul.” Pages 160–78 in Rhetoric, Ethic, and Moral Persuasion in Biblical Discourse. Edited by Thomas H. Olbricht and Anders Eriksson. London: T&T Clark International, 2005. Kelber, Werner H. The Oral and the Written Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983. Rev. ed., 1997. Kelber, Werner H., and Samuel Byrskog, eds. Jesus in Memory. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2009. King, R. A. H. Aristotle and Plotinus on Memory. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2009. Kirk, Alan, and Tom Thatcher, eds. Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity. Atlanta: SBL, 2005. Komáromy, Zsolt. Figures of Memory: From the Muses to Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics. Plymouth, PA: Bucknell University Press, 2011. Luther, Susanne, Jörg Röder, and Eckart D. Schmidt, ed. Wie Geschichten Geschichte schreiben. Frühchristliche Literatur zwischen Faktualität und Fiktionalität. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015. Mackay, Anne, ed. Orality, Literacy, Memory in the Ancient Greek and Roman World. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Masters Keightley, Georgia. “The Church’s Memory of Jesus: A Social Science Analysis of 1 Thessalonians.” BTB 17 (1987): 149–56. Mendels, Doron. Memory in Jewish, Pagan and Christian Societies of the Graeco-Roman World. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2004. Morrill, Bruce T. Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2000. Schreiber, Stefan. “Aus der Geschichte einer Beziehung. Die Funktion der Erinnerung in I Thess 2,1–12.” ZNW 103 (2012): 212–34. Scott, Dominic. Recollection and Experience: Plato’s Theory of Learning and Its Successors. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Signer, Michael A., ed. Memory and history in Christianity and Judaism. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2001. Smit, Peter-Ben. Paradigms of Being in Christ: Paul’s Use of Exempla in Philippians. LNTS 476. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013. ———“St. Thecla: Remembering Paul and Being Remembered Through Paul.” Vigiliae Christianae 68 (2014): 551–63. Stanley, Christopher D., ed. Paul and Scripture: Extending the Conversation. Atlanta: SBL, 2012. Thatcher, Tom. Jesus, the Voice, and the Text: Beyond the Oral and Written Gospel. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008. White, Benjamin L. Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Yates, Frances A. The Art of Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Zangenberg, Jürgen. “Paul’s Methods of Christological Conflict Control.” Nederlands Theologisch Tijdschrift 62 (2008): 271–83.

Chapter 22

Paul and Pater Familias L. Michael White

Part I. Pater Familias in the Greco-Roman World The Latin term pater familias is properly translated “father of the family,” meaning roughly “head of the household.” In the social and cultural milieu of the Greco-Roman world, however, it carried a broader range of meaning than either of these translations can communicate simply. The reason, in part, is the difference in meaning of the word familia; next, the definition and role of the “father” within the familia and in the society at large. In Roman legal sources, the term pater familias (also paterfamilias) was normally applied to the ascendant male (usually the father or grandfather) within a family in the exercise of his “power” (patria potestas) over his descendants and property. It was considered the unique right of Roman citizens, although it might be applied to certain non-citizens. “Any male who became independent (sui iuris) by being freed from patria potestas became a pater familias, even if he were too young to be a father.”1 There was no equivalent legal concept for women, even though functional independence and personal authority to manage their own estates increased during the Principate. The ubiquity of the concept in the Roman world is due to its deeply ingrained cultural meaning, which was closely attached to the notion of the family. “For all Romans the domus was closely associated with wives, children, and other relatives; for aristocrats it was also associated in a concrete way with lineage, for which it could stand as a symbol.”2 Thus, the family and its lineage, as well as its integrity, authority, and honor were all bound up in the symbolism of the pater familias and his potestas. Eventually these same cultural ideals came increasingly to be applied to the state during the later Republic and under the Empire, seen especially

Barry Nicholas and Susan M. Treggiari, “patria potestas,” Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003), 1122. 2  Richard P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 90. 1 

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in the honorific title Pater Patriae (“father of the fatherland”), which was applied to all emperors after Augustus and Tiberius. “The title was eloquently suggestive of the protecting but coercive authority of the pater familias.”3 Closely related are the virtues symbolized in these relationships, whether familial or political. Family members owed loyalty (pietas) and deference (obsequium) to the pater familias, and the pater familias was expected to show loyalty in return, both by protecting (patrocinium) the family from harm or dishonor and by distributing resources (beneficium). An important corollary of these familial values, then, is the practice of patronage. As a result elements of this conceptual apparatus appear in many sources, ranging from legal texts, to philosophical and literary texts, even satire and novels, and to inscriptions and funerary texts.4 The concepts were also inscribed spatially and symbolically in the architecture and social organization of the Roman house. These sources and implications will be discussed in detail below.

Pater and Familia in Context The term familia was not limited to the “nuclear family” consisting of parents and children, as it is commonly applied in the modern world.5 Instead, the familia in the Roman world was both a legal and social designation for the larger “household” (or domus), modeled after the patrician social structure of Republican Rome. Thus, the familia normally included parents and children, along with other relatives (agnates and cognates), the domestic slaves, and a coterie of other dependents, freedmen, or clients. From a strictly legal perspective the word familia could also mean the property of an estate that was inherited by the heirs or other agnate kin.6 When applied to persons rather than property it could designate all the agnate kin or just the domestic slaves.7 When these two concepts are combined, familia refers to all the persons who Nicholas Purcell, “Patria Patriae,” Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. rev.), 1121. Prior to Augustus, who was accorded the title at age 60 (in 2 BCE), it was first voted to Cicero by the Senate in the wake of the Catalinian conspiracy (62 BCE) and then to Julius Caesar after his defeat of the Pompeians at Munda (45 BCE). Among the emperors, only Tiberius unwaveringly refused to accept the title. 4  Specifically on depictions of Roman family organization in the inscriptions see Richard P. Saller, “The Family and Society,” in Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions, ed. J. Bodel (London: Routledge, 2001), 95–117; Hanne Sigismund Nielsen, “The Physical Context of Roman Epitaphs and the structure of the Roman Family,” Analecta Romana Instituta Danici 23 (1996): 35–60. 5  Richard P. Saller, “Familia, Domus, and the Roman Conception of the Family,” Phoenix 38 (1984): 336–55; also Patriarchy, Property and Death, 74–77. Regarding the changed semantic meanings of the term between ancient Roman and modern times Saller follows the groundbreaking work of J. L. Flandrin, Families in Former Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 4–10. 6  The definition of familia by Ulpian in Digest 50.16.195.1–4 opens with a legal maxim, drawn from an archaic Roman law regarding inheritance in the XII Tables: “let the nearest agnate [kin] have the familia” (adgnatus proximus familiam habeto). It is meant to show that the term familia here means “things or property” (res), rather than persons. 7  Thus, one of the standard meanings of the term familia as found in certain contexts is explicitly the household slaves. While this reflects the broader notion of the “extended family” it may also result from homonymy with the more specific term for slave, famulus, and the cognate verb famulo, meaning “to serve” or “make serviceable.” 3 



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are under the power (potestas) of the pater familias either by nature (i.e., descent) or by law (i.e., adoption or ownership); its definitions and workings were closely bound up with laws governing inheritance.8 At times the word domus (meaning either the house itself or the household, kinship, and patrimony) was virtually synonymous with familia. Hence, the terms familia and domus both refer to a set of relationships extending vertically over several generations.9 The pater familias stood as the ultimate source of power and authority in the household. This notion, called patria potestas (“paternal power”), was the father’s hereditary rule over the goods, possessions, and people belonging to his patrimonial estate.10 In legal discussions, many of the concepts of public law, administration, and statecraft were patterned after this idealized notion of paternal rule over the household. At root stood the conception of the extended familia and its social structure as a microcosm of the state.11

The Powers and Responsibilities of the Pater Familias Roman familial life was extremely patriarchal and exclusively patrilineal. The autocratic and despotic nature of patria potestas is a commonplace in discussions of the Roman family.12 From the legal perspective the pater familias held the right to punish slaves at will, and he had the power of life and death over newborn children. See Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death, 75 again based on the passage in the Digest cited above: “Someone is called pater familias if he holds dominion in the house, and he is rightly called by this name even if he does not have a son, for we do not only mean his person but his legal status” (pater autem familias appllatur, qui in domo dominium habet, recteque hoc nomine appellature, quamvis filium non haveat: non enim solam personam eius, sed et ius demonstramus). The passage continues a few lines later: “We designate a familia consisting of all the agnates under a single legal rule, for even if all of them have their own families after the death of the pater familias, nonetheless all of them who were under the power of a single person will rightly be called by the same familia since they come from the same house and gens” (commune iure familiam dicimus omnium adgnatorum: nam etsi patre familias mortuo singuli singulas familias habent, tamen omnes, wui sub unius potestate fuerunt, recte eiusdem familiae appellabuntur, qui ex eadem domo et gente proditi sunt). 9  Brent D. Shaw, “The Family in Late Antiquity: The Experience of Augustine,” Past and Present 115 (1987): 3–51. 10  Consequently, the concept of the pater familias influenced a number of other key terms and ideas in Roman culture, including dominium (“dominion”), imperium (“sovereign authority”) of emperors and magistrates, and patrocinium (or “protection, patronage”) of a person or the state over another. The word dominium itself comes directly from domus, and thus signifies one’s rule over something, like that of the pater familias over the household. 11  This notion is found extensively in Stoic discussions; cf. Cicero, De officiis 1.17.54: “…the first bond of union is that between husband and wife; the next, that between parents and children; then we find one home [domus] with everything in common; and this is the foundation [principium] of the city and, as it were, the seedbed [seminarium] of the state.” See also the article by W. K. Lacey, “Patria Potestas,” in The Family in Ancient Rome: New Perspectives, ed. Beryl Rawson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987), 121–44. For the way this idea is taken over in St. Augustine’s thought, with a slight modification, see Shaw, “The Family in Late Antiquity,” 10–11. 12  Saller (Partiarchy, Property, and Death, 103–104) comments on the commonplace and its exaggera­ tions in the modern literature. 8 

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Even freeborn children were virtually slaves to their father’s estate until his death.13 In the mythic traditions of early Rome, fathers were supposed to discipline even adult children severely, including execution in cases of sedition (for sons) or unchastity (for daughters).14 At the very least, patria potestas provided the pater familias with both strict discipinary authority and sexual dominion over the members of his extended familia.15 Even so, the discussions of the Roman jurists may be somewhat misleading in regard to the social reality; the pater familias had moral obligations as well.16 The quintessential Roman virtue of pietas (“piety, loyalty”) described both the duties of children to obey parents and the devotion of fathers to wives and children.17 The duties and responsibilities of the pater familias toward the household were extensive. First and foremost, he had to provide food and care for all persons under his power, whether slave or free. He also provided monetary allowances for his freedmen and other clients The Roman system of patronage and clientellage, with its attendant values and social bonds, emerged from this responsibility as well. Consequently, the value systems of these two institutions overlap in numerous ways. The pater familias was required to oversee the estate, not only in day-to-day operations, but also in terms of guarding the patrimonium (or familia) for succeeding generations. He might delegate individual management responsibilities in the operation of the household to his chief slave, a son, or his wife, but ultimately he was responsible. A son’s share of the inheritance was held and managed as peculium (“private purse”) by the father until such time as it was released, either by action of the father or by execution of the father’s will. The father had to give formal approval for both sons and daughters to marry. Disposal of any and all properties, including chattel slaves, was his province, no matter to whom he might delegate the actual negotiations. At the same time laws regarding patrimony and inheritance placed some restrictions on the powers of the pater familias. By the end of the Republic, most Roman marriages fell under the legal category sine manu (“without hand” or “handless”).

13  Cf. Paul Veyne, A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press/Belknap, 1987), 16–17 (deciding whether the child should live), 29 (children as slaves to the father), 65–67 (mistreatment of slaves). In general on the powers of life and death see Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death, 115–22. 14  In 18 BCE, the Augustan law on adultery (lex Iulia de adulteris, Dig. 48.5) established a special court to hear cases of adultery. Prior to that charges of adultery (against wives) or unchastity (against daughters) were always decided by the pater familias, usually in consultation with a family council. Men could not be charged with adultery, except when it involved a married woman; seduction or rape of an unmarried, freeborn woman could be prosecuted by the pater familias by suing for “damages” (iniuria). 15  Shaw, “The Family in Late Antiquity,” 29, with some special notes on Augustine’s attitudes in regard to sexual mores. See also Hanne Sigismund Nielsen, “Men, Women, and Marital Chastity: Public Preaching and Popular Piety at Rome,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White, NovTSup 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 323–42. 16  Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death, 105; cf. John A. Crook, “Patria Potestas,” Classical Quarterly ns 17 (1967): 113–22. For a summary of the laws governing patria potestas, see John A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome, 90 BC–AD 212 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967), 107–13. 17  Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death, 109.



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It meant that when she entered the marriage, a woman did not actually enter into the “hands,” i.e., the agnatic kinship line, of the husband. Instead, she remained tied to the familia of her own father. This change had important implications for property rights and inheritance.18 A woman’s inheritance, therefore, did not pass over to the ownership of her husband; instead, it remained technically the property of her father’s familia or patrimonium.19 Such restrictions did not apply to funds or properties given to the husband as dowry, but once her father was deceased, a woman had de iure control of her own property. In practical terms this meant that a woman could manage her own properties even within marriage while technically under the patria potestas of her husband.20 By the time of the empire, women were increasingly in control of larger personal estates that they were able to manage either within the marital family or on their own.21 The pater familias, as a public figure, was also responsible for obligations to the city and the state. These duties included holding public magistracies, sponsoring annual festivals or games, and serving in the civic curia (the senate at Rome itself, or the decurionate or “council” in other cities). Such duties carried significant financial responsibilities as well. The dignitas (“dignity,” meaning the repute or “good name”) of the familia was viewed as a trust that had to be managed, just like the patrimonium itself, for the benefit of future generations. A family’s status was multidimensional, depending on several distinct and related factors. Wealth and land were very important, to be sure, but other factors were also at work, including social prestige (e.g., intermarriage of elite families), political success, and the number of clients one could command. Thus, there was a greater degree of social mobility in the Roman world than is sometimes imagined, at least within certain limits. For example, a freedman could not normally achieve the rank of decurion (council member) within his own lifetime, no matter how much wealth he might amass. But the son of a freedman could, although it was rare to do so in only one generation.22 At the same time, each successive generation encountered some risk of losing status and fostered intense competition to maintain and acquire status.23 The bulk of this competition necessarily

18  The practice seems to have evolved as a mechanism for protecting the patrimonies of elite families from inheritance by marriage. Roman families developed strategies to accommodate these contingencies through adoption and other mechanisms. For a discussion see Keith Hopkins, Death and Renewal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 99–117. See also the discussion by Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death, 36–42, 66–69. 19  See Crook, Law and Life of Rome, 103–104. 20  Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 45–53. 21  Sons might even “borrow” from the mother’s estate in order to advance their own careers; cf. Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death, 128–29. 22  For example the case of Numerius Popidius Celsinus at Pompeii (CIL X.846), son of the freedman, N. Popidius Ampliatus, and discussion by L. M. White, Social Origins of Christian Architecture. Vol. 1, Building God’s House in the Roman World (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996), 31; cf. Willem Jongman, The Economy and Society of Pompeii (Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988 [repr. 1991]), 260–64, 284–89; Henrik Mouritsen, Freedmen in the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 248–78. 23  Hopkins, Death and Renewal, 107–17.

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fell on the pater familias as public figure. There was a complex calculus to his life built around his networks of social and political relationships.24

Between Public and Private: The Pater Familias at Home The cultural resonances of Roman familial structure can be seen in the plan and ordering of daily life at home, explicitly in the provisions made by and for the pater familias. The rhythm and the rules (many of them unspoken) of daily life are often difficult for moderns to grasp. In particular we must be cautious of the notion of the home as the seat of “private” life alone. Just as we have already seen that the modern term “family” does not map so easily onto the ancient social structures of familia and domus, so too a traditional Western dichotomy of home/private vs. work/public does not aptly describe the daily life of the pater familias. New perspectives on the physical setting of the Roman house and the life of the household25 help to decipher encoded elements of Roman daily life; as a result we are better able to understand their implicit moral template of household order. For example, the “typical” Roman houses found in Pompeii and Herculaneum do not have areas that are easily labeled as men’s areas, women’s areas, or slave quarters.26 Most domestic spaces were assumed to have multiple functions depending on the time of day and the people involved. Even within the house architectural forms were “obsessively concerned with distinctions of social rank”27 both for those who resided there and those who merely visited. Slaves were virtually omnipresent throughout the house during most hours of the day and night, but the social encoding of the architecture often masks their presence. Domestic space reinforced the ideological superiority of the pater familias and his pattern of movements and functions within the house.28 There were two key areas of the house where the role and status of the pater familias was encoded architecturally (see Fig. 1).29 They are the atrium and the triclinium. On the topic of social networks, see my article “Finding the Ties that Bind: Issues from Social Description,” in Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment, ed. L. M. White, Semeia 56 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991), 16–18 et passim. 25  An excellent introduction to the problems and the new perspectives may be found in the article by Ray Laurence, “Space and Text,” in Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond, ed. Ray Laurence and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, JRASup 22 (Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997), 7–14. 26  See Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society in Pomeii and Herculaneum (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 9–13. The following paragraph is largely based on the observations of WallaceHadrill, supplemented by additional studies as noted. 27  Ibid., 10. 28  Michele George, “Servus and domus: The Slave in the Roman House,” in Laurence and Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World, 22–24; eadem, Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013); Sandra Joshel, Slavery in the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 161–214. 29  Due to the diversity and variations of domestic planning found at Pompeii and elsewhere, it is difficult to demonstrate all of the features of a “typical” Roman atrium-peristyle house with just one example. For purposes of this discussion I have chosen the Casa degli Amanti (Reg. I.10.11) from Pompeii, because it represents a none-too-lavish version of the atrium-peristyle house, a stark contrast with its immediate 24 



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The atrium was the site of daily rituals surrounding the salutatio and worship of the Penates (household deities); the triclinium, the site of evening hospitality and social dining, the cena. With the introduction of the Hellenistic peristyle there was a two-stage entry into the inner confines of the house.30

It was the outer court, the atrium proper, that served as the public reception hall of the pater familias in his daily ritual of “greetings” (salutatio) by clients, well-wishers, and suppliants. He usually sat in a small chair (Fig. 1, locus c)—sometimes fixed in neighbor to the north, the Casa del Menandro (I.10.4), one of the grandest villas of Pompeii. The effort to accommodate all the features of an “elite” domus of atrium-peristyle type in very cramped quarters is thus indicative of the social conventions. The original portions of the Casa degli Amanti lay to the west, in the area of the atrium. To accommodate the peristyle, the “summer” dining room (triclinium) had to be installed in a gallery above the cubicula. Cf. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses and Society, 38–43 and fig. 3.7. For other comments on this house see the article by Pedar Foss, who classifies the Casa degli Amanti as a casa media: “Watchful Lares: Roman Household Organization and the Rituals of Cooking and Eating,” in Laurence and Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World, 197–218, esp. 209 and fig. 15. 30  For this development see Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Rethinking the Roman Atrium House,” in Laurence and Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World, esp. 236–40. On the introduction of the peristyle, see Jens-Arne Dickmann, “The Peristyle and the Transformation of Domestic Space in Hellenistic Pompeii,” in Laurence and Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World, 121–36. Dickmann concludes (135–36) that the Hellenistic peristyle could not simply replace or be integrated into the atrium itself due to the established symbolic status of the atrium. This observation further reinforces the architectural articulation of its cultural function within the emerging Roman patron– client system in relation to the extended familia.

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place, sometimes portable, a sella curulis (or “magisterial seat”)—opposite the front door (a) with the impluvium (b, the central basin open to the sky) in between. From 6 to 8 am the “callers” would gather outside the front door (d) along the street.31 The chief household servant, the master’s trusted chamberlain (Latin cubicularius), would stand at the main door to admit and announce each of the clients or suppliants in turn. On entering, the clients would then approach the seated pater familias with a gesture of obeisance (obsequium) and devotion (pietas). This show of loyalty and respect signaled the client’s willingness to serve at the patron’s bidding, e.g., to show up and voice support if he were in court on some matter. In turn, they might ask for a particular favor from the patron. Most freedmen and clients received a daily allowance (called sportula) of either food or money as part of the salutatio. Those clients who were especially trusted or favored might serve in some other capacity in business or public life for the patron and, in turn, might receive special rewards for their services.32 Beginning at the salutatio and for much of the day, the main doors of the house were expected to stand open to the street; the atrium of the house was considered a part of the pater familias’ public domain, an extension of his activities as a public citizen. The line of demarcation between public and private was not drawn neatly at the front door; rather, the atrium marked an intentionally “open” space that was used for a variety of ordinary household functions, including commercial production, as well as for the formal receptions of the pater familias. For anyone entering the atrium of such a house there was an accepted (but rarely stated) etiquette, a set of social cues and conventions by which one negotiated the domestic space. Rooms with doors closed or areas guarded from direct view by a person in the atrium were being “marked” as more private. Sheer distance sometimes served as a marker, too.33 Accordingly, visitors had to be alert to the signs of where the private domain of the pater familias—the spaces reserved for his household and staff—began. No single room or type of space stood for privacy alone in the Roman house. Rather, privacy was more a function of time of day, status, and social context.34 Such functions help to explain the lavish decorations one finds so commonly in the bedrooms of elite Roman satirists provide frequent comments on the earliness of the hour or the crowds at the door, as well as the affronts to one’s dignity when even freeborn citizens had to make such calls; cf. Juvenal, Satires 1.95–102; 3.127–30 and esp. Martial, Epigrams 4.8.1: prima salutantes atque altera conterit hora (“the first hour—and even the next—wears out those making the salutation rounds,” my translation). 32  On the role of freedmen as agents of commercial activity for their patrons see John D’Arms, Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 121–48. 33  See Mark Grahame, “Public and Private in the Roman House: The Spatial Order of the Casa del Fauno,” in Laurence and Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World, 137–61; Penelope Allison, “Roman Households: An Archaeological Perspective,” in Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City, ed. Helene M. Parkins (London: Routledge, 1997), 112–46; “Artifact Distribution and Spatial Function in Pompeian Houses,” in The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space, ed. Beryl Rawson and Paul Weaver (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997), 321–54; and Joanne Berry, “Household Artifacts: Towards a Re-interpretation of Roman Domestic Space,” in Laurence and Wallace-Hadrill, eds., Domestic Space in the Roman World, 183–95. 34  Andrew M. Riggsby (“ ‘Public’ and ‘Private’ in Roman Culture: The Case of the cubiculum,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 [1997]: 36–56) provides an excellent study of different ways or circumstances in which the cubiculum was considered private space and so defined both legally and culturally in Roman 31 



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houses at Pompeii.35 The visitor to the house had to know his or her own place and how to “negotiate” the spatially marked areas by time and circumstance. The other principal arena of the pater familias in domestic activity was as host and patron at dinner parties. Here Petronius’ satirical “Cena of Trimalchio” provides ample evidence of the social interplay that might take place at such a gathering with the pater familias thoroughly in charge of the proceedings. Usually, the most honored guest and the host were stationed strategically at the center of the head couch so that they had the most impressive view of the house. The sight-lines and artistic decorations were orchestrated for maximum visual effect.36 Horace’s Satire 2.8 uses the term cenae pater (“father of the dinner”) to depict the “host” of an extravagant dinner party where Gaius Maecenas was guest of honor. The poem is also useful for the way it depicts the arrangements (2.8.18–24) and social conventions, as the diners recline on the couches of the triclinium. Oddly, the host, a certain Nasidienus, does not recline next to Maecenas on the head couch, but facing him on the right. Ultimately, this too is part of the satire, when the soirée turns comic farce as the host repeatedly botches his attempts to impress Maecenas with overly contrived arrangements and menu, and thereby ruins the “proper” social etiquette of the dinner. Increasingly in the imperial period, such dinners were not only for respected friends but also for clients and others who viewed such occasions both as duty and dole. A letter of advice from Pliny the Younger illustrates how status and dependency might be orchestrated by the host and pater familias. [I]t happened that, although not one of his “familiars” (i.e., clients), I was with a certain man for a dinner that seemed to him to be lavish though frugal but which seemed to me to be meager yet extravagant. The best dishes were for himself and a select few, while cheap morsels were served to the rest. He even assigned the wine in tiny little flasks into three categories, not so that a person might be able to choose, but so that he might not have the right to refuse what he was given. One was for himself and for us; another for his lesser friends (even his “friends” have grades); and another for his and our freedmen. The man who was reclining closest to me took note [of this] and asked whether I approved. I said, “No.” “What procedure do you follow, then?” he asked. “I serve the same to everyone,” [I replied], “for I invite people to a dinner, not to make a show of inequalities; rather, I make them equals at the same table and with the same treatment.” “Even the freedmen?” [he asked]. “Certainly, for then they are my fellow-diners, not just freedmen”…37

These comments show that food and the seating arrangements were symbols of status for friends and clients alike. Moreover, the point of Pliny’s letter, addressed to a young thought and literature. Cf. Matthew Roller, “Pliny’s Catullus: The Politics of Literary Appropriation,” Transactions of the American Philological Association 128 (1998): 265–304. 35  So noted in the master bedrooms h1 and h2 in the Casa degli Amanti (Fig. 1 above). In general on the way art and decoration were used as “roadsigns” and social cues for moving around the house, see John R. Clark, The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 BC–AD 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), 99–101. 36  For sight-lines in architectural planning among Pompeiian houses see L. Bek, “From Eye-Sight to View Planning: The Notion of Greek Philosophy and Hellenistic Optics as a Trend in Roman Aesthetics and Building Practice,” in Aspects of Hellenism in Italy: Towards a Cultural Unity, ed. P. Guldager Bilde, I. Nielsen, and M. Nielsen (Copenhagen: Institute for Study of Antiquity, 1993), 127–50. 37 Ep. 2.6.1–4.

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aristocrat named Junius Avitus, was to instruct him on how not to fall into bad habits in social entertaining. It assumes, however, that similar shows of snobbery took place with some frequency, even though there were higher ideals to be found.38

Part II. Pater Familias in Paul’s Churches A Note on Greek Equivalents The pater familias was a product of Roman social and cultural construction. So, a question still remains on how, if at all, these ideas might have been present outside of Italy, and especially in the predominantly Greek-speaking world of Paul. We may begin with a note on terminology. The Greek words οἶκος (oikos) and οἰκία (oikia, both meaning “house or home”) were used to translate both familia and domus in Latin; they can thus mean house, household, family, or estate depending on the context.39 A good example is the term familia Caesaris, the designation for the imperial bureaucracy made up of clerks and bookkeepers who were technically slaves of the emperor. The typical Greek equivalent for this group, which was extensive in Greek cities under Roman rule, was οἶκος/οἰκία Καίσαρος (oikos / oikia Kaisaros) as in Phil 4:22.40 On the other hand, there is no exact Greek equivalent for pater familias, even though there is such for the Latin pater patriae using the Greek πάτηρ πατρίδος (patêr patridos), an honorific epithet meaning “father of the fatherland.”41 More common in Greek usage might be πάτηρ τῆς πόλεως (patêr tês poleôs, “father of the city”), regularly found as an honorific title for civic benefactors. While the term pater familias does not occur in normal Greek usage, the concept seems still to be alive in Greek cities under Roman rule. The common form in Greek that reflects such patriarchal household order is οἰκοδεσπότης (oikodespotês) or just δεσπότης (despotês, both meaning “ruler of the house”). That it was thought of as the Greek equivalent to pater familias is perhaps best illustrated by a comment from Cicero; writing in Latin to his friend Atticus, he refers to efforts to find a new house for himself:

Compare Martial, Epigram 3.60, a client’s complaint about “second-class” treatment at a dinner. In Greek texts of the Roman Empire, such as census records from Egypt, οἰκία (oikia) is the term most often used to designate the “house” as physical dwelling place, but it can also mean “household.” So see the census list of buildings from Panopolis in the Thebaid, P.Gen. Inv. 108 [= SB VIII (1967) 9902]. Οἶκος (oikos) often means “household” in the Roman period; however, when used of physical structures, it can mean a “building” of any type and does not refer exclusively to domestic edifices. 40  P. R. C. Weaver, Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), passim. 41  Compare Cicero, In Pisonem 6 (in reference to himself as parentem patriae) with Plutarch, Cicero 23.3. For non-literary texts see BGU 1074.1 (a papyrus from the 1st cent. CE); IGRR 3.176–77 (Greek inscriptions from Ankyra under Trajan); and Inscr. Corinth VIII.3.99 & 106 (Greek inscriptions referring to Trajan). 38  39 



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[W]hat is needed except an opening for a purchaser?… But I think Mustela will arrange that, if you ask. You will have provided me not only with the very place I want for my purpose, but a place to grow old in as well. For those [houses] of Silius and Drusus do not seem to be sufficiently οἰκδοδεσποτικά (oikodespotica) for me. (Letters to Atticus 12.44.2, dated 45 BCE)

So, in this Latin text, when Cicero is referring to the suitability of a house for the life of a pater familias, he opts for the Greek, largely because it allows for coining an adjectival form that the Latin does not. The term οἰκοδεσπότης (oikodespotês) shows up frequently in the New Testament where the context clearly means “householder” (as it is usually translated) or “head of the household.”42 The usual Greek term for the chief household slave (Latin cubicularius or “chamberlain”) is οἰκονόμος (oikonomos, often translated “steward”) or ἐπίτροπος (epitropos, “a trustee, overseer, or bailiff”).43 A good example of the usage is found in Luke 12:39–45, where οἰκοδεσπότης (oikoespotês) designates the householder, and οἰκονόμος (oikonomos), the chief steward. As the parable continues two other terms are given as synonyms that further elucidate the usage: in 12:43 the οἰκονόμος is called a δοῦλος (doulos, “slave”), while the οἰκοδεσπότης is called κύριος (kyrios, here meaning “lord, master”).44 The same equivalents are seen in the parable of the “Dishonest Steward” (Luke 16:1–13), where the householder is called “a man of wealth” (v. 1) and later “master” (κύριος, kyrios, vv. 3, 5, 8); having heard a report that his “steward” (οἰκονόμος, oikonomos) was mishandling his property, the householder confronted him: “render an accounting of your property management” (ἀπόδος τὸν λόγον τῆς οἰκονομίας σου, apodos ton logon tês oikonomias sou, v. 2). The clearest use of this terminology in Paul comes in his description of the son as heir in Gal 4:1–3. The passage reflects the commonplace assumptions regarding the status of children still under the power of the pater familias: I am saying that the heir (κληρονόμος, klêronomos), so long as he is a child (νήπιος, nêpios), is no better than a slave (δούλος, doulos), even though he is master of all [the estate] (κύριος πάντων ὤν /kyrios pantôn ôn). Rather, he is under overseers and stewards (ἐπιτρόπους…καὶ οἰκονόμους, epitropous…kai oikonomous) until the time set by his father (προθεσμίας τοῦ πατρός, prothesmias tou patros).

42  So Matt 13:27, 52; 20:1, 11; Mark 14:14 // Luke 22:11; Luke 12:39; 13:25; 14:21. Interestingly, the term does not occur in the LXX. 43  So Luke 12:42; 16:1, 8; Rom 16:3 (Erastus, the “city treasurer”); 1 Cor 4:1–2; Gal 4:2; Titus 1:7; 1 Pet 4:10. The term ἐπίσκοπος (episkopos, lit. “overseer,” but later the office of “bishop” in Christian usage) was also used in this way in the Roman period; however, its range of meaning was a bit broader, since it could apply to public officials (in Classical Athens) or freeborns. In Roman sources, it was also used of a “friend” who took responsibility for watching over the master’s household in his absence. So, note the usage of the participial form of ἐπισκοπέω (episkopeô, “to watch over”) in the sample “friendly letter” of Ps-Demetrius, Epistolary Types 1 (ed. Malherbe). In Latin, the term procurator could be used in this way, especially of clients and freedmen. For the latter, see especially Mouritsen, Freedman in the Roman, 215–16. 44  Compare PGiss. 17, a papyrus letter, where a slave uses κύριος (kyrios) and δεσπότης (despotês) interchangeably to address her master.

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Thus, Paul too is using κύριος (kyrios) and πατήρ (patêr) interchangeably to define the role of the pater familias. Such uses reflect the common discussions among philosophers of the ideal household and its management. Compare Dio Chrysostom’s terminology for household relationships in Or. 38.15: While the salvation of households [οἴκων, oikôn] lies in the like-mindedness of the masters [τῇ τῶν δεσποτῶν ὁμοφροσύνη, tê tôn despotôn homophrosynê] and in the obedience of domestic slaves [τῇ τῶν οἰκετῶν πειθαρχία, tê tôn oiketôn peitharchia], yet discord between master and mistress [literally, masterly discord—ἥ τε δεσποτικὴ στάσις, hê te despotikê stasis] has destroyed as many households [οἴκους, oikous], as has the bad character of slaves [ἡ κακοδουλία, hê kakodoulia].

The context indicates that the plural “masters” (δεσποτῶν, despotôn) refers to the husband and wife, viewed jointly as head of the household. In Greek, the ideal of household management is typically called οἰκονομία (oikonomia), from which we get the word “economy,” but the meaning is broader than just financial dealings as its two roots (“household” and “ordinance/law/apportionment”) suggest. The Epicurean philosopher, Philodemus of Gadara, wrote a treatise On Property Management (Περὶ οἰκονομίας, Peri oikonomias) while living in Italy under the patronage of L. Calpurnius Piso, father-in-law of Julius Caesar.45 The treatise was written ca. 50–25 BCE as a companion piece to a treatise On Wealth, both of which belong to a ten-part work On Vices and their Opposite Virtues.46 In general the treatise reflects ways that the older Greek philosophical tradition on such matters was being adjusted to Roman social and political realities, including great wealth.47 Its practical advice on the topic again shows how the standard terminology was used in Greek. …in matters of household management (οἰκονομίαν, oikonomian) the masters should wake up before the household slaves (πρότερον δεσπότας οἰκετῶν, proteron despotas oiketôn) and should go to sleep after them… For this is useful for health as well as for property management and for philosophy.

A key linkage seen in Philodemus’ treatment connects the proper management of one’s wealth and property with ethics and virtue. Philodemus stops short of calling it a “virtue” per se; instead he calls it “art of household management” (οἰκονομικὴ τέχνη, oikonomikê technê) with both ethical and practical dimensions, such as in the proper

45  Voula Tsouna, Philodeums, On Property Management, Translated with Introduction and Notes, WGRW 33 (Atlanta: SBL, 2013). 46  Philodemus’ treatise On Frank Criticism (Περὶ παρρησίας, Peri parrhêsias) is also a part of this larger ethical corpus. See D. Konstan et al., Philodemus, On Frank Criticism: Text, Translation, and Notes, SBLTT (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998); and L. M. White, “A Measure of Parrhesia: The State of the Manuscript of PHerc. 1471,” in Philodemus and the New Testament World, ed. J. T. Fitzgerald, D. Obbink, and G. Holland, NovTSup 111 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 103–30. 47  Elizabeth Asmis, “Epicurean Economics,” in Fitzgerald, Obbink, and Holland, eds., Philodemus and the New Testament World, 131–76, and, in the same volume, David L. Balch, “Philodemus, ‘On Wealth’ and ‘On Household Management’: Naturally Wealthy Epicureans against Poor Cynics,” 177–96.



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use of managers and overseers (typically using ἐπίτροπος, epitropos) and treatment of slaves.48 The “good property manager” (here meaning the pater familias)49 is one who does so with a high moral standard and virtuous ideals for the use and benefit of all. Philodemus thus defines this “art” of household management in four key skills or attributes for the pater familias, “the ability to acquire, and to preserve, to order, and to use” one’s estate and possessions in a proper manner.50 Similarly, the Greek novels and rhetorical handbooks reflect many of these same conventions of ethics and management of household relations. These themes are often depicted through moral exempla and similitudes that characterize either admirable or poor property management, including the proper treatment of slaves or the proper trust of subordinates or slaves as estate managers. These themes are quite similar to what we see in the unique cluster of “householder parables” found in the Gospel of Luke.51 The peculiarly Lukan nature of these passages, and their philosophical background in the Hellenistic moralist tradition place them very close to the social world of Paul’s thought.52 These discussions also reflect the broader social expression of the so-called “household duty code” that shows up in the later Paulinist writings (see below).

Paul’s House Church Patrons: Pater and Mater Familias As in Greek literature more generally, the Latin term pater familias does not occur in Paul’s letters. Nonetheless, the social place of the “father,” and in some cases the “mother” of the household, are apparent in the social organization of Paul’s churches. It was part of Paul’s missionary strategy that he organized his congregations around local households.53 His letters are regularly addressed to “so-and-so and the church

Tsouna, Philodemus, On Household Management, xiii–xv, cf. 7.13–14; 9.14–18; 23.4, 20; 26.20. Peri oikonomias col. A, lines 20–26 make it clear that the discussion concerns management of “ones own property” not that of another person. 50  Peri oikonomias 10.28–34: τὸ τεκτητικὸν καὶ τὸ φυλακτικὸν καὶ τὸ κοσμητικὸν καὶ το χρηστικὸν (to tektêtikon kai to phylaktikon kai to kosmêtikon kai to chrêstikon). 51  These distinctive Lukan parables and similitudes are: 12:13–21 (“Rich Fool”); 12:39–48 (“The Prudent Manager and Slaves Wages a”); 14:15–24 (“Great Banquet”); 16:1–13 (“Unjust Steward”); 16:19–31 (“Lazarus and Dives”); and 17:7–10 (“Slaves Wages b”). All these parables occur in the so-called “Special Section” or travelog, and all are unique to Luke, with one exception; the “Great Banquet” (14:15–24) is based on a Q unit but has been given a distinctive Lukan form. 52  For studies of these parables in light of the rhetorical handbooks and novels see especially Ronald F. Hock, “The Parable of the Foolish Rich Man (Luke 12:16–20) and Graeco-Roman Conventions of Thought and Behavior,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of A. J. Malherbe, ed. J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White, NovTSup 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 181– 96; “Romancing the Parables of Jesus,” Perspectives in Religious Studies 29 (2002): 12–37; and “Why New Testament Scholars should read Ancient Novels,” in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative, ed. R. F. Hock, J. B. Chance, and J. Perkins, SBLSymS 6 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 121–38. 53  The secondary literature on the “house church” is now quite extensive. See inter alia Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 74–90; Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 60–91; Richard S. Ascough, What Are They Saying About The Formation of Pauline Churches? (New 48  49 

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in his/her/their/your house.”54 It would appear that there were multiple house church cells in the larger cities. In greater Corinth, for example, there may have been as many as six during Paul’s time there; three were led by men (Crispus, Gaius, and Stephanus), two by women (Chloe, Phoebe), and one by a married couple (Prisca and Aquila) where the woman is mentioned first.55 Similarly, the Roman letter seems to offer greetings to as many eight different house church cells.56 The most direct points of contact with the role of the pater familias are the Pauline house church patrons, both men and women. Paul and his co-workers regularly stayed in the homes of house church patrons while visiting in each city.57 Consequently hospitality and patronage were important virtues in the social dynamics of congregational life (cf. Rom 12:13b); the dinner gathering for the eucharistic meal or “Lord’s supper” (κυριακὸν δεῖπνον, kyriakon deipnon, 1 Cor 11:20) would have been hosted by them as well.58 It also appears that Paul himself baptized only the head of the household, who in turn baptized the rest of the group.59 This practice would have been in keeping with the prerogatives of a pater/mater familias over the rest of the household members. Especially noteworthy is the appearance of a number of women house church patrons within Paul’s Aegean mission sphere. They must be women of independent means who manage their own households as mater familias. In addition to Phoebe, Chloe, and Prisca there are implicit references to Euodia and Syntyche at Philippi (Phil 4:1–2) and an explicit one to Nympha at Laodicea (Col 4:15, if genuine).60 Among the list in Rom 16:5–16 are several other women who are prominently noticed for their “labors” (ἐκοπίασεν/ekopiasen, κοπιώσας/kopiôsas) on behalf of the churches (Mary, 16:6; Tryphaena and Tryphosa, 16:12) as well as a “renowned” apostolic

York: Paulist, 1998), 5–9; David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek, Families in the New Testament World: Households and Housechurches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 91–102; Hans JosefKlauck, Hausgemeinde und Hauskirche im frühen Christentum (Stuttgart: Katholische Bibelwerk, 1981), 30–40; and L. M. White, The Social Origins of Christian Architecture, 2 vols., Harvard Theological Studies 42 (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996–97), 1:11–25, 102–23. 54  Rom 16:5; 1 Cor 16:19; Phlm 2; cf. Col 4:15. 55  The respective references are: 1 Cor 1:14 (Crispus and Gaius); Rom 16:23 (Gaius); 1 Cor 16:15 (Stephanus, cf. 1:16); 1 Cor 1:11 (Chloe’s “household”); Rom 16:1–2 (Phoebe); 1 Cor 16:19 (Prisca and Aquila, cf. Rom 16:5; Acts 18:1–3). 56  Rom 16:5–16. 57  Rom 16:23; Phlm 22; Rom 16:1–2. 58  Cf. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 60–67; Malherbe, Social Aspects, 92–112; Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World, 206–14. 59  This is an inference drawn from 1 Cor 1:14–17, contra the picture given in Acts (e.g., 16:15, 33, etc.); see also below n. 108. 60  On the likelihood that Euodia and Syntyche are house church patrons who have had some disagreement over Paul, see L. M. White, “Morality between Two Worlds: A Paradigm of Friendship in Philippians,” in Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. David L. Balch, Everett Ferguson, and Wayne A. Meeks (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1990), 214; Nils A. Dahl, “Euodia and Syntyche and Paul’s Letter to the Philippians,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, ed. L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 3–15.



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couple, Andronicus and Junia (16:7). Paul regularly uses terms associated with labor, work, and struggle to value the efforts of his patrons, the house church leaders, both men and women.61 So we may compare 1 Thess 5:12 where the exhortation to acknowledge “those who labor among you” (εἰδέναι τοὺς κοπιῶντας ἐν ὑμῖν, eidenai tous kopiôntas en hymin) is supplemented with the additional descriptors “who preside over you and admonish you in the Lord” (καὶ προϊσταμένους ὑμῶν ἐν κυρίω καὶ νουθετοῦντας ὑμᾶς, kai proïstamenous hymôn en kyriô kai nouthetountas). The verb προΐστημι (proïstêmi) here is also of note since it can mean to “stand before” or “preside over” and especially in the middle voice where it means “to take as leader or guardian.” The term “patroness” (προστάτις, prostatis) found in reference to Phoebe, the house church leader at Cenchreae (Rom 16:2), is a cognate of this same verb. We should thus think of the reference in 1 Thess 5:12 as referring to the “presidents and patrons” of the house churches, i.e., the pater or mater familias who owned the house and opened it for hospitality to the churches.62 There is no direct indication of resistance to their leadership here; this admonition is a rhetorical commonplace that reaffirms the traditional social expectations for behavior toward a pater/mater familias who provides hospitality in their home.63 Paul, again following social convention, regularly uses language regarding their laborious service as a means of acknowledging and honoring them.64

Paul as Client Paul also relied on these house church patrons for financial support of his missionary activities, especially as he traveled to new locations. Phoebe’s embassy to the churches in Rome should be seen in this light as Paul prepared to end his Aegean

61  Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 181–82. 62  The sense of “presiding” here does not imply a hierarchical office of elder or bishop; that is a later development to be seen in the Pastoral Epistles (see below). Rather, here it is a functional designation for service within the congregation; so Abraham J. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 311–13. Malherbe elsewhere (Paul and the Thessalonians [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987], 15) suggests that this might likely be a person of some means, like Jason in Acts 17:6, 9, who posted bond and hosted the congregation in his house. Compare also Rom 12:8 where προϊστάμενος (proïstamenos) occurs in the context of other financial services (μεταδιδούς, metadidous, ἐλεῶν, eleôn) to the congregation listed among the hierarchy of charismatic gifts. 63  Robert Jewett (The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986] 103 argues more explicitly for these leaders to be “house church patrons and patronesses” based on the social profile of other congregations, but he sees in the exhortation of 5:12 evidence of resistance to their leadership. 64  The image of a patron or benefactor who “gives ‘till it hurts” is, in fact, a commonplace in inscriptions honoring benefactors; Frederick Danker rightly identifies this as “the endangered benefactor motif”; Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field (St. Louis: Clayton, 1982), 417–35.

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mission and move on to a new territory, Spain.65 He seems to be relying on the same patterns of financial support he had developed among the house churches of the Aegean. Paul’s reliance on such financial support can best be seen in his “thank you note” of Phil 4:10–20. Here it is important to observe that Paul uses the language of “partnership” (κοινωνία/koinônia, κοινωνέω/koinôneô)66 to refer explicitly to the financial arrangements between himself and the Philippian congregation. Note especially 4:15: ἐκοινώνησεν εἰς λόγον δόσεως καὶ λάμψεως (ekoinônêsen eis logon doseôs kai lampseôs—“entered into partnership for an account of giving and receiving”). This language of partnership or sharing is closely connected to two other rhetorical topoi in cultural ideals of that day. First, it is found in legal contract language in reference to business arrangements.67 Second, it is closely connected to the ideals of friendship in Greek culture, but could imply patronal relations as well.68 Especially the latter semantic context places this terminology in the social matrix of activities for a pater/mater familias. Even though Paul phrases his “financial partnership” as a relation to the church in Philippi, one must guess that the bulk of the funds came from the house church patron(s). Paul’s financial dependence also places him in a difficult position relative to the power of such patrons. It may be for this reason that Paul refused to accept financial support at times, as in the case of at least some of the house churches at Corinth (2 Cor 11:7–10). Even so, it has been argued convincingly by Peter Marshall that this refusal also created tensions, even enmity, with house church patrons who expected to offer such aid and to be accorded corresponding honor.69 Accepting financial support, or even hospitality, placed Paul in the position of a client to the patron; the social conventions associated with such a relationship demanded obsequious respect on the part of the client. In both Philippi and Corinth, where the social and administrative climate was even more heavily informed by Roman models of the pater familias, these conventions could hardly be ignored.70

Robert Jewett, “Paul, Phoebe, and the Spanish Mission,” in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee, ed. Jacob Neusner et al. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 142–61. 66  These pregnant Pauline terms may also be translated “communion” or “sharing,” but the financial and patronal implications of the terms are often overlooked. 67  See J. Paul Sampley, Pauline Partnership in Christ: Christian Community and Commitment in Light of Roman Law (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 11–20, 51–77. 68  See the discussion in White, “Morality Between Two Worlds,” 210–15; cf. Ken L. Berry, “The Function of Friendship Language in Philippians 4:10–20,” in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World, ed. John T. Fitzgerald (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 107–24, and, in the same volume, Fitzgerald, “Philippians in the Light of Some Ancient Discussion of Friendship,” 141–60. 69  Peter Marshall, Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul’s Relations with the Corinthians, WUNT 2/23 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987), 130–64. 70  For the importance of the Roman colonial framework for understanding the patronal elements in the Corinthian situation, see John K. Chow, Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth, JSNTSup 75 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), 38–81. 65 



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Contravening the Powers of a Pater Familias: Philemon, Onesimus, and Paul Perhaps the clearest case where dependency on a house church patron created a delicate situation for Paul comes in his dealings with Philemon over the matter of the slave Onesimus. Because Paul seems to be intervening in the powers of a pater familias in matters of a household slave, this case is particularly instructive. The situation of the Philemon letter is generally well known, even though some of the key details remain unclear. Philemon was a house church patron (Phlm 2) who afforded Paul hospitality when he came to visit (v. 22). It would appear that Paul himself had baptized Philemon (v. 19), and he established the congregation around the nucleus of Philemon’s household (v. 2, assuming that Apphia and Archippus are the wife and son, respectively). Also among the members of Philemon’s household was the domestic slave, Onesimus, who had not been baptized. The occasion for the letter arose after Onesimus came to Paul while in prison in Ephesus. Rather than a runaway slave or as an appeal for Paul’s intervention,71 we may guess that Onesimus was sent to Paul, perhaps with a gift of financial aid from Philemon.72 While there, Paul had also baptized Onesimus (v. 10). Apparently Paul wanted to keep Onesimus with him, but dared not do so without the permission of the slave’s master.73 The letter

71  Against the traditional interpretation that Onesimus was a runaway slave, see especially John Knox, Philemon Among the Letters of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1959), passim. For the “intermediary hypothesis,” which is now the more common reading, see Peter Lampe, “Keine ‘Sklavenflucht” des Onesimus,” ZNW 76 (1985): 135–37; S. Scott Bartchy, “Philemon, Epistle to,” ABD 5:305–10; Peter Artz-Grabner, Philemon (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003), 98–100, and “Onesimus erro: Zur Vorgeschichte des Philemonbriefs,” ZNW 95 (2004): 131–43; Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World. Lampe’s interpretation (followed by Bartchy and others) differs in suggesting that Onesimus had got into trouble with Philemon at home and had sought out Paul to intervene on his behalf. The crux for this interpretation is that Philemon has apparently suffered some “wrong” because of Onesimus (v. 18). While there is evidence for slaves seeking out a third party to mediate situations (as shown by Lampe), it is difficult to see how this would fit as easily with the occasion of Onesimus traveling to Ephesus on behalf of Philemon. But see now J. Albert Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Moral, and Social Dimensions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 6–16, who sees the same problem and argues instead that Onesimus had been apprenticed by Philemon to work with Paul. The latter is closer to the proposal made here but with some key differences. 72  I am thus suggesting a situation similar to that of Ephaphroditus in the Philippian letter (Phil 2:25; 4:14–18). Here I follow the proposal of John Knox (see previous note), as developed by Sara C. Winter, “Methodological Observations on a New Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 39 (1984): 203–12, and “Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” NTS 33 (1987): 1–15. She argued that Onesimus had been sent by the church of Colossae to assist Paul in his ministry. I am not convinced, however, by Winter’s proposal that Onesimus was sent by the “whole church” (whether Colossae or Laodicea is imagined as Philemon’s home town). Instead, Philemon was the main source for Paul’s aid, as suggested by the singular pronoun in vv. 2, 5–6, and esp. 13. Nor am I convinced that Paul wanted Onesimus to work with him as a minister because of his gifts as a speaker. Paul also regularly uses διακονία to refer to the services of a patron, and this seems to me to be the implication of Phlm 13, similar to the situation of Epaphroditus on behalf of the church at Philippi (Phil 2:25–30, esp. 25). 73  So note especially vv. 13–14: “[Onesimus] whom I wished to retain for myself, in order that he might minister on your behalf to me in my imprisonment for the gospel, but without your consent I wished to

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then was written as a recommendation for Onesimus’ return, and in it Paul made a plea for Onesimus to be welcomed back “no longer as a slave but as above a slave, a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (v. 16). Most commentators think this means that Paul was asking for Philemon to free Onesimus, because manumission was an institutional expectation for many slaves in the Roman world. While I agree that this is likely Paul’s intent, it finally remains unclear.74 It ultimately comes down to the subtlety of Paul’s rhetorical ploy to persuade Philemon, as pater familias and master, to do “what is fitting (ἀνῆκον, anêkon)” (v. 8). What has gone largely unnoticed in most discussions of the letter is the way that Paul calls on Philemon to take Onesimus back into the household, but with some sort of new status. Even as a friend, Paul could hardly command a pater familias in such a matter, much less as a client, and less so still if Philemon had somehow been “wronged” (v. 18) by Onesimus’ and/or Paul’s actions. Yet such is the implication of Paul’s statement to “charge it to my account” (τοῦτο ἐμοὶ ἐλλόγα / touto emoi elloga), namely that Paul had accepted financial support from Philemon, especially while in prison.75 Now he says, in effect, “Just write off the Onesimus affair to what you would have given me as your client.” Next, Paul employs similar patronage language regarding his spiritual relationship to Philemon (vv. 18–19) as a ploy in order to claim that Philemon “owes” him this favor or “benefit,” as interest on Paul’s investment in him. This banking terminology continues the theme of obligation in keeping with the values of patronage.76 This is a rhetorical tour de force that relies precisely on the implicit and accepted notions of patronage and the status of the pater familias in order for it to work. By calling Philemon to account to the one who baptized him, Paul was claiming rights that accrued from being Philemon’s “spiritual patron.” This also has the effect of placing Philemon and Onesimus on a more equal footing, because Paul had personally baptized both of them. It is also significant, therefore, that Paul used “birthing” language (v. 10: ἐμοῦ τέκνου ὃν ἐγέννησα, emou teknou hon egennêsa, “my child whom I have borne”) in reference to having baptized Onesimus.77 do nothing…” (my translation). It is possible that Paul’s strong language here implies that he wanted to retain Onesimus as his own personal servant or assistant; cf. Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World, 177. 74  See J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity, HUT 32 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995), 2–3, 127; Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 204 n. 41; Bartchy, “Philemon,” 309. 75  The famous “I owe you” statement in v. 19 is part of this arrangement. The financial relationship between Philemon and Paul is also the implication of the “partnership” language in v. 17, where Paul asks for Onesimus to be welcomed back hospitably. Here I disagree with Bartchy (“Philemon,” 308–309) who assumes that Paul was already acknowledged as Philemon’s “patron” from the outset, because he had baptized him. In fact, it seems to me that this gambit on Paul’s part is the central rhetorical twist of the letter. 76  See Thomas R. Blanton, “The Benefactor’s Account-Book: The Rhetoric of Gift-Reciprocation according to Seneca and Paul,” NTS 59 (2013): 396–414. 77  The gender imagery here is somewhat mixed, as the Greek (γεννάω, gennaô), meaning “to bear, give birth, or beget” can be applied to either men or women. The term τίκτω, tiktô by the Hellenistic-Roman period was usually applied to women (“to give birth”), as in Gal 4:27 (cf. Luke 2:6, 7, 11); τέκνον / teknon (“child”) is its cognate noun. Because the γεν-, gen- root is closely associated with the notion of “lineage



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By implication, then, Paul has “borne” Philemon, too, and Philemon owes the same debt to Paul. Now Paul has become both the “spiritual patron” and pater familias, symbolically at least, to both Onesimus and Philemon.78

Paul as Pater Familias and Spiritual Patron Paul seems to use both patronage and paternal language (and sometimes maternal language) of himself in a selective way to refer to his special relationship to his Gentile converts (cf. 1 Thess 2:7, 9, 11). As in the case of the letter to Philemon, it often occurs in rhetorically charged passages, and often in conjunction with his efforts at bringing them into Christ. One of these is 1 Cor 4:14–21 where Paul delivers a stern rebuke as to wayward children: “I do not write this to make you ashamed, but to admonish you, as my beloved children” (v. 14). In v. 15 he even contrasts his role as their “father” to that of ordinary “guides” (παιδαγωγούς, paidagôgous, literally the household slave who tutored the master’s children). Once again he turns to the birthing imagery noted above, and explicitly in reference to bringing them into Christ: “For I myself begat/ gave birth to you in Christ Jesus through the gospel” (ἐν γὰρ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἐγὼ ὑμᾶς ἐγέννησα, en gar Christô Iêsou dia tou evangeliou egô hymas egennêsa). Next, he urges them to imitate him (v. 16), and he delegates Timothy, “my beloved and faithful child in the Lord” (μου τέκνον ἀγαπητὸν καἰ πιστὸν ἐν κυρίῳ, mou teknon agapêton kai piston en kyriô, v. 17), to show them the proper path.79 Finally, he cautions against arrogance or recalcitrance on their part by threatening them with his patria potestas, i.e., his apostolic presence and “power” (v. 20), and so he concludes (v. 21) with the prerogatives of a pater familias: “What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod or with love and a spirit of gentleness?” Another example occurs in Gal 4:11–20; once again Paul is delivering a rebuke, but the case is more serious, because his converts are threatening to abandon Paul’s “gospel.” We find key terms that cluster around Paul’s “labors” on their behalf (v. 11), friendship (“enmity,” v. 16), imitation (v. 12), and his apostolic “presence” (v. 20). The rebuke reaches its rhetorical peak in v. 19 with Paul’s exasperated outburst: “My little children, with whom I am once again in travail80 until Christ be formed in you!” (τεκνα μου, οὓς πάλιν ὠδίνω μέχρις οὗ μορφωθῇ Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν, tekna mou, hous or descent” (Greek γένος, genos, sometimes [mis]translated “race”), it may suggest closer ties to the sense of the pater familias. In other cases (e.g., Gal 4:19 to be discussed below), Paul explicitly uses a maternal metaphor. 78  On this language and its implications, see Chris Frilingos, “For My Child, Onesimus: Paul and Domestic Power in Philemon,” JBL 119 (2000): 91–104. 79  He uses similar language of his “father–son” relationship with Timothy in Phil 2:22. 80  The verb ὠδίνω / ôdinô is a technical term for “birthpangs” or “going into labor.” While the term can be used metaphorically of great toil or mental anguish, that does not seem to be the intent here; nor is its maternal imagery ambiguous. For other interpretations of the birthing imagery here see J. Louis Martyn, Galatians, AB 33A (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 430–31; cf. Beverly Roberts Gaventa, “The Maternity of Paul: An Exegetical Study of Gal 4:19,” in The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul and John in Honor of J. Louis Martyn, ed. R. T. Fortna and B. R. Gaventa (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1991), 189–201. See also Gaventa, Our Mother Saint Paul (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 29–39, 51–62.

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palin ôdinô mechris hou morphôthê Christos en hymin). The use of birthing imagery, and here with an explicitly maternal sense, refers to his efforts in converting them, just as in Phlm 10. Yet here, Paul is also accusing them of turning their back on his spiritual patronage, which completes the frame of the passage by harking back to v. 11: “I fear for you, lest somehow I have labored over you in vain.” Here Paul’s “labor” (κεκοπίακα) refers to his earlier efforts of bringing them into Christ, equivalent to his “labor pains” of v. 19.81 Paul’s “spiritual patronage” may also be connected to his use of “father” language in reference to God. Paul regularly calls God “father,” as in his epistolary greetings. Not all of these explicitly employ imagery or social conventions from the Roman pater familias, but some do. One of these is Gal 4:1–9, where Paul uses the model of adoption to discuss the status of those who are “in Christ.” The passage opens (vv. 1–2), as noted earlier, with very traditional language of Roman household relations under the pater familias. Next, the new status of heirs by adoption is affirmed by the “Spirit” which allows one to call on God as “Abba, Father!” (vv. 6–7). Romans 8:14–17 employs a very similar formulation regarding the role of the Spirit in adoption as heirs who receive the ability to call on God as “Abba, Father!” But if God is now the pater familias, and the gentile converts his adopted children, what is Paul’s role? Paul’s use of such metaphors for his theological reflections is not always consistent; it is noteworthy that he sometimes opts into maternal or birthing language for his role in conversion (as in Gal 4:19, by contrast to 1 Cor 4:14–21 and 1 Thess 2:11). In this way, his imagery shifts from the paternal/maternal role directly and stresses more his role as patron, or more specifically as “broker” of the spiritual gifts afforded by God.82 Worth noting in these passages is the prominent place of the “Spirit” as a gift received from God at baptism, as a sign of adoption (Gal 4:6). Galatians 3:1–5 may be taken to suggest that Paul saw himself as the one who supplied the Spirit by his role in preaching and conversion.83 Taken together, these elements point to Paul’s declaring himself as the benefactor (or “broker”) for their reception of

Hans Dieter Betz (Galatians, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979], 236–37) takes the passage as rhetorical artifice without much relevance either for Paul’s theological conceptions or for the actual situation of the letter. For this reading of the passage see L. M. White, “Rhetoric and Reality in Galatians: Framing the Social Demands of Friendship,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White, NovTSup 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 307–49, esp. 341–43. 82  For this notion of “brokerage” within patronage systems see Andrew Drummond, “Early Roman Clientes,” in Patronage in Ancient Society, ed. A. Wallace-Hadrill (London: Routledge, 1989), 101. It is interesting to note, however, that Paul does not here employ the metaphor of midwife for this role, in the way that Socrates was portrayed in Plato’s Theatetus; cf. Julius Tomin, “Socratic Midwifery,” CQ 37 (1987): 97–102. Tomin argues that this imagery was “purely a Platonic invention” (97), rather than originating with Socrates himself. In the Platonic tradition, it refers to Socrates’ “method” of the dialogical process of enlightenment, and is also likened to a mystagogue and initiation. Notably Paul does use the “gentle nurse” metaphor in 1 Thess 2:7. 83  Most commentators take this as a reference to God as “the one who supplies the Spirit”; so Betz, Galatians, 135; Martyn, Galatians, 285–86. Paul would surely say God is the ultimate source (so Gal 4:6; cf. 2 Cor 5.5). Yet, the parallelism with Gal 3:2 in reference to their “receipt” of the Spirit and the 81 



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the Spirit.84 He thus becomes, in some sense, an intermediary or functionary relative to the “fatherhood” of God (cf. 2 Cor 11:2).

God as Father and the Divine Oikonomia Paul occasionally refers to God as father, typically in epistolary greeting formulas, doxologies, or benedictions.85 The other distinctive usage in Paul is in reference to the death/resurrection of Jesus (Rom 6:4, “through the glory of the Father”), which may well anticipate his symbolic use of the Akedah (or “binding of Isaac”) in Rom 8:32–34.86 The latter passage famously extends the “Father–Son” metaphor regarding the death/resurrection by linking it to “Abraham’s promise” (cf. Rom 4:13–25) and concludes with an allusion to Ps 110:1 (109:1 LXX) as Christ’s exaltation “at the right hand of God” (v. 34), where he serves as intercessor. The connection between these ideas as a divine oikonomia is drawn together most explicitly in the eschatological scenario of 1 Cor 15:22–28: For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive. But each one in his own order of command: Christ the first fruits, next those who belong to Christ in his coming; then [comes] the end, when he hands over the kingdom to his God and Father, whenever he has destroyed every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until “He has put all his enemies under his feet” [Ps 109.1 lxx]. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For “He has subjected all things under his feet” [Ps. 8:7 lxx]. But when it says, “All things are subjected,” it is plain that this does not include the one who subjected all things to him. And whenever all things have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all.

parallelism with the participial constructions of Gal 1:6 and 5:8 where Paul is clearly referring to himself as the active agent who “called” them to God offer the possibility of reading Gal 3:5 as a reference to Paul’s role in supplying the Spirit. See the discussion in White, “Rhetoric and Reality in Galatians.” 84  For “supply” (ἐπιχορηγεῖν, epichorêgein) as benefaction language, see Frederick W. Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field (St. Louis: Clayton Publishing, 1982), 331; for the phrase “the one who called you” (τοῦ καλεσάντος ἡμᾶς, tou kalesantos hêmas) as reference to benefactor see ibid., 452. Even if Paul views God as the ultimate source of these benefits, this still puts Paul in a position of supplying benefaction. The recent study of Stephan Joubert, Paul as Benefactor: Reciprocity, Strategy, and Theological Reflection in Paul’s Collection, WUNT 2/124 (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2000) should be mentioned here, because he also sees Paul using the ideology and language of benefaction, especially in formulating ideas about the collection for Jerusalem. Joubert, however, distinguishes between the “systems” of patronage and benefaction based on their hierarchical vs. reciprocal relations, respectively. He also argues that Roman patronage was not as operative in the Greek east (65). In keeping with this distinction, he finds Paul using the language of benefaction, not patronage, but his citation of evidence from Roman colonies such as Corinth is far too limited. For an alternative view see White, “Rhetoric and Reality in Galatians.” 85  See further discussion on p. 195, with references. 86  On the “binding of Isaac” see Nils Alstrup Dahl, “The Atonement—An Adequate Reward for the Akedah,” in The Crucified Messiah and Other Essays (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974), 144–66.

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The key here is quotations from Ps 110:1 (109:1 lxx) and Ps 8:7 (lxx), where in both cases the implied subject (“He”) is clearly understood to be God.87 Psalm 110, traditionally assumed to have been authored by David himself, has David referring to an enthronement of his “Lord” at the right hand of God. In early Christian interpretation, this “Lord” was of course taken to be Jesus as the Messiah.88 This is precisely how it was interpreted in the earliest oral tradition as a way of validating the resurrection/ exaltation of Jesus as noted above in Rom 8:34. The second is a quotation of Ps 8:6 (v. 7 in the lxx), which is being treated as a version of the same idea based on the nearly identical wording “under your/his feet” in both Psalms.89 The rhetorical force of this passage, with its apocalyptic overtones of cosmic conflict and military “order,” commences in v. 23 with “each in his own order of command” (ἐν τῷ ἰδίῳ τάγματι, in tô idiô tagmati). The noun τάγμα (tagma) means either an “order” given by a commander or the “order” of a military squadron. The passage ends (vv. 27–28) by returning the wording of Ps 8:7, with its distinctive term “to subject or subordinate,” using ὑποτάσσω (hypotasso), a verb with strong military connotations and a cognate of the noun τάγμα (tagma) in v. 23.90 In the middle section (vv. 24–26), however, the reliance is on the wording of Ps 109:1 LXX instead, with its play on the word “enemy” (ἐχθρός, echthros) both in the plural (v. 25), in the allusion to the Psalm, and the singular (v. 26), in reference to death as “the last enemy.” The ultimate point, then, is the eschatological “moment” when the exalted Christ, having been given authority over all cosmic powers, even to the point of vanquishing death itself, then delivers his hard-won kingdom to God the Father. The military imagery here has a similar ring to the eschatological scenario in 1 Thess 4:16 with its allusions to the angelic armies, the heavenly trumpet, and the “commander’s orders” (ἐν κελεύσματι, en keleusmati). That may account in part for the emphasis here on the wording of Ps 8:7, which otherwise has no obvious “messianic” or eschatological significance. At the same time, the term ὑποτάσσειν also has a prominent usage in the “household management” literature usually in reference to the faithful overseers and “subordinates” who assist the pater familias or to the subjection of slaves and dependents.91 In the MT of Ps 110:1, the two words rendered into Greek with κύριος / kyrios (“Lord”) are different: the first is the Tetragrammaton proper and the second is the Hebrew word ‫אד ֹנֵ י‬, ֲ adonai. 88  See D. M. Hay, Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973). 89  The Greek of Ps 109:1 literally reads: “until I put your enemies as a footstool for your feet” (ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου, heôs an thô tous echthrous sou hypopodion tôn podôn sou) using the verb τίθημι / tithêmi (“to put or place”). Paul has changed the wording to θῇ (thê), the thirdperson form of the same conjugation. The sense of Ps 8, which opens as a praise of God, was originally about the status of humanity (called “son of man”) as “a little lower than God” (rendered as “the angels” in the LXX), while all the rest of creation was “put in subjection under his feet.” The wording of the latter is otherwise distinctive: πάντα ὑπέταξας ὑποκάτω τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ, panta hypetaxas hypokatô tôn podôn autou), with the verb ὑποτάσσω (hypotasso) “to subject or subordinate” being the key. Once again, Paul has changed the second-person verb in the LXX to a third-person (ὑπέταξεν, hypetaxen) in order to fit his syntax. 90  An echo of this same idea is seen in Phil 3:21, which likewise anticipates the “glory” language in Rom 6:4. Compare also 1 Pet 3:22. 91  In Philodemus’ On Household Management (Peri oikonomias) 12.14, discussed above, the term is used regularly, usually a passive-participle in form, to refer to “those under orders,” or “subordinates” to the 87 



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In the final analysis, then, the interplay between the Father–Son language seen here (in vv. 24 and 28), like that in Rom 6:4 and 8:32–34, finally blends into the notion of the cosmos as God’s kingdom and household, set under his exalted Son. Apocalyptic categories and household ideals are thus merged into one scheme of the divine “economy” (oikonomia). Paul’s call to “be subject to governing authorities” (ἐξουσίαις ὑπερεχούσαις ὑποτασσέσθω, exousiais hyperechousiais hypotassesthô) in Rom 13:1 thus falls in line with this tradition of the “ordered” household under the authority of the pater familias as the microcosm of the state: “for there is no authority except from God and those that exist have been ordered/instituted by God” (ὑπὸ θεοῦ τεταγμέναι εἰσίν, hypo theou tetagmenai eisin). In Paul these ideas certainly reflect the general tenor of the household order in the moralist tradition, although more typically applied as metaphor of the divine order. They will be extended and concretized to govern both the household and church order in the later Paulinist literature, especially in the Pastoral Epistles, to be discussed below.92

Managing the Household: Paul on Sexuality Paul’s advice on marriage and sexuality in 1 Cor 7 also enters into the traditional domain of the pater familias. The key passage is 1 Cor 7:2–6. The context for this discussion is an interest on the part of at least some of the Corinthian Christians in sexual asceticism; indeed, the appeal to asceticism as a superior mode of life seems to come from Paul himself.93 Even so, it reflects a view of sexuality widely known in ancient philosophical and medical circles.94 In Jewish contexts, Philo had already adopted similar injunctions.95 Typically, these discussions tend to take the male perspective with regard to matters of the sexual control required and medical benefits to be derived. So too, the opening slogan that Paul repeats in 1 Cor 7:1 (“It is good for a man not to touch a woman”) comes from this dominant male perspective. master in the household operations; specifically, in 26.20–21 is is paired with ἐπίτροπος (epitropos), the “overseer or bailif.” The simpler form τάσσειν (tassein) is used there (A.19, 10.42) to mean “the orderly arrangement of one’s estate.” 92  Both in the household duty codes of Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Timothy and in the church order passages in the Pastorals the verb ὑποτάσσειν (hypotassein) and its cognates (such as ὑποταγή, hypotagê) are the principal forms used to stress the subordination and submission of women, children, and slaves, as well as in the hierarchical ordering of church relations. In general on the “household of God” metaphor, see David A. deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2000), 199–239. 93  Thus, the slogan in 7:1 may depend on his own earlier instructions on the subject, for which they are now seeking clarification. Paul’s own view that the unmarried and ascetic life is better is clearly stated in 7:7, 9. For the situation in 1 Corinthians and its relation to ancient notions of sexuality see Dale Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 200–212. 94  For a good introduction to this ancient medical discussion see Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World, 103–11; see also Martha Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), passim; Teresa Shaw, The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 27–77. 95  So David L. Balch, “Backgrounds of I Cor. VII: Sayings of the Lord in Q, Moses as Ascetic Theios Aner in II Cor. III,” NTS 18 (1971–72): 351–64.

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Given this view, however, it seems surprising at first that Paul should give such balance in regard to a woman’s rights in regard to marital sexuality. It has been argued, for example, that the degree of reciprocity and parallelism voiced by Paul in 1 Cor 7:3–5 marks a significant departure from the patriarchal rights of the pater familias in the ancient world.96 But, in fact, there were similar arguments for sexual “mutuality” in the marriage, especially among Stoics. The Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus advised: For a husband…and a wife should come together each with the other, on the one hand so that they make a life together with one another, and on the other so that they together procreate children, and furthermore to consider all things in common and [to consider] nothing one’s own alone, not even their own bodies.

Musonius reflects a persistent theme among the moralist philosophers of the day regarding the ideals of household management.97 In this case, Musonius advocates a marital mutuality built on the ideal of friendship, as seen in his adaptive use of the slogan “to hold all things in common (κοινά, koina),” which comes from the traditional Greek definition of friendship. As noted above, friendship language figures prominently in other aspects of Paul’s dealings with his house church patrons. Also, such Stoic moral ideals were widely disseminated in the early empire.98 In the final analysis, then, while Paul calls for ethical constraints on the traditional powers of the pater familias in sexual matters, his is not an entirely unusual stance by the moral standards of the day. Here as elsewhere Paul fits well within the realm of contemporary moralist advice aimed at improving people’s lives, albeit with some differences on the theological underpinnings of that advice.

Part III. Further Examples of Pater Familias in Paul’s Letters and Paulinist Literature In many ways Paul stands in an ambiguous position in relation to the traditional powers of the pater familias. He adopts many of the critical views of contemporary moralists, but at the same time he rarely challenges the traditional familial structure in any overt way. It may be suggested, however, that in some ways this more conservative aspect of Paul’s thought actually served to expand and protect the social position of women, especially the women house church patrons who were so central to his missionary activities around the Aegean. On the other hand, when we turn to the literature of the later Paulinist tradition, there appears an even more traditional and conservative turn with regard to the exclusively patriarchal role and power of the pater familias, both as head of the family and as head of the church. 96  Robin Scroggs, “Paul and the Eschatological Woman,” JAAR 40 (1972): 283–303; cf. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 224. 97  See n. 11 above. 98  Compare Plutarch, Amatorius (Mor. 750D–771C); cf. Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World, 115.



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God as Father In addition to the greeting formulas (cf. Rom 1:7; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3–4; Phil 1:2; 1 Thess 1:1; Phlm 3), the usage occurs sporadically.99 It is found frequently in doxological (1 Cor 8:6; 2 Cor 1:3; Phil 2:11; 4:20) or benedictory formulations (Rom 15:6; 1 Thess 3:11), but also occurs in the apocalyptic description of 1 Cor 15:24 (discussed above). The other distinctive usage in Paul is in reference to the death/ resurrection of Jesus (Rom 6:4), and his symbolic use of the Akedah (or “binding of Isaac”) in Rom 8:32–34 (also discussed above).100 These ideas are extended and systemized in the Paulinist tradition. As noted earlier, a number of the unique parables in the Gospel of Luke liken God to a householder, which, in Luke–Acts and later sources, is linked to the notion of God as benefactor of humanity through divine guidance of history.101 In the Deutero-Pauline letters we may compare Eph 3:14–19, which takes a similar stance by projecting the cosmos as a household under God as father. A continuation of this idea is found in the following exhortation of Eph 4:1–6 with its famous creedal formula: “one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all” (vv. 5–6). The point is made even more explicit in Colossians which, likewise stresses God as “father” (1:12; 3:17) in an appeal for unity in the household. It also refers to the apostle’s ministry over them as God’s “commission” (1:25), but the word used here is that for “household management” (οἰκονομία, oikonomia), likening Paul to the resident “steward” for the absentee master (God). Finally, it calls each of the local leaders Epaphras and Tychicus “fellow slave” (σύνδουλος, syndoulos, 1:7; 4:7) of Paul the “chief steward.” But if Paul and his local representatives are “fellow slaves” in the household of God, then so are the other members of the congregation. Both Ephesians and Colossians here resemble the principles of the Hellenistic-Roman handbooks on household management.102 One of the recurring themes in the Pastorals is the image of the church as the “household of God” (οἶκος τοῦ θεοῦ, oikos tou theou), and the model of leadership by the pater familias is central to this image.103 The bishop is even called “God’s household manager” (Titus 1:7: θεοῦ οἰκονόμον, theou oikonomon), using the standard designation for the chief slave of the pater familias in a Greek/Roman household.

It does not occur in the closing formulas in any of the genuine letters. In the context of adoption see Rom 8:12–17 and Gal 4:1–5 (see above). 101  See Miriam Palmer Bonz, The Past as Legacy: Luke–Acts and Ancient Epic (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000). Bonz argues further that this is directly tied to an imperialist rhetoric in Roman applications of the same idea, chiefly in Virgil’s Aeneid, in which the Roman gods guide Rome’s march to greatness. 102  See especially Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 115–16 and further references there. 103  So 1 Tim 3:15 (cf. 3:5; 5:4; 2 Tim 2:20). See David C. Verner, The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles, SBLDS 71 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983), 13–25, 83–111. 99 

100 

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One other development of the household model in the later Paulinist literature is found in 1 Clement (esp. 20:3), using the terms ὁμόνοια (homonoia, “concord”) and ἁρμονία (harmonia, “harmony”) modeled on that found in a well-ordered house­hold.104

Paul as Father/Mother/Slave 1 Thess 2:11 (compare 1 Thess 2:7 “gentle as a nurse”). 1 Cor 4:14–21; Gal 4:19 (discussed above). See also Phil 2:22 (Paul to Timothy) in comparison to Phlm 10.

By contrast, Paul generally uses the verb form κυριεύειν (kyrieuein, “to lord it over or master someone”) in the typical sense of hierarchical or power relationships, often with a negative sense; cf. Rom 6:9 (death), 14 (sin); 7:1 (Law); 14:9 (Christ); 2 Cor 1:24 (Paul). Paul regularly uses the language of slavery as a moral metaphor (e.g., “slave to sin,” Rom 6:15–23; 7:6, 21–25). By derivation, this caricature comes from a well-established ancient caricature of the “master” (pater familias) vs. the slave.105 While most of these discussions fall properly under the treatment of slavery per se, the implicit dualism with “manhood/mastery” noted in each case relies on the inscribed cultural paradigm of the pater familias, and thus should be noted here in passing. Of these uses, the one in Rom 7:21–25 has traditionally drawn the greatest interest because it seems to portray Paul himself as “slave to sin” prior to his ”conversion” to Christ.106 The more recent interpretations, however, have shown this passage to be part of a rhetorical depiction (through prosopopoiia, or “speech in character”) of the state of the Gentile prior to receiving “freedom in Christ,” instead of a basic anthropology of human fallenness.107 Finally, the slave physiognomy, with its caricature of weakness and servility, was apparently employed as invective against Paul by some opponents in Corinth (2 Cor 10:10), leading Paul to respond with his own “weakness vs. strength” (slave vs. master) rhetoric in 2 Cor 10–13.108

See especially Cilliers Breytenbach, “Civic Concord and Cosmic Harmony: Sources of Metaphoric Mapping in 1 Clement 20:3,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies, 260–73. 105  Hence, the basic caricature is linked to ancient discussions and topoi both on “slavery” and on “self-mastery,” as discussed in this volume. See Harrill, Slavery in the New Testament, 17–25, 35–44; Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), 3–38; cf, Keith Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987); Slavery and Society at Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 106  For the classic statement on Paul’s “conscience” see Krister Stendahl, “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West,” HTR 56 (1963): 199–215; cf. Paul W. Meyer, “The Worm at the Core of the Apple,” in The Conversation Continues, 62–84. 107  Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994), Chapter 9; cf. Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 26–33, with further bibliography. 108  See Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 35–57, with further bibliography, based on his earlier article, “Invective against Paul (2 Cor 10:10), the Physiognomics of the Ancient Slave Body, and the 104 



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Patronage, Hospitality, and Household Management House(hold) Churches: Rom 16:2, 5, 23; 1 Cor 16:15–17, 19; Phlm 2; cf. Col 4:15. Patronage: Rom 16:2 (see above); cf. 1 Thess 5:12; Rom 16:12 (see above). Hospitality: Rom 12:8–13 (see above); Phlm 22; Rom 16:23.

There are other indications that later Pauline Christians made apologetic accommodations in relation to Roman household mores.109 Perhaps the best example of this tendency is the so-called Haustafel or “Household Duty Code” (Col 3:18–4:1; Eph 5:22–6:9; cf. Titus 2:4–10); compare the deutero-Petrine tradition (1 Pet 2:18–3:7). It reflects a fixed formula of household relationships that circulated widely in Hellenistic moral philosophy,110 used as an image of the cosmic order but with Christ at its “head” (Col 1:18; 3:15; Eph 1:22; 4:4). As a result “the church came more and more to resemble an extended household, characterized by patriarchal leadership.”111 By the second century, there were even stronger tendencies to reassert the traditional patriarchal models of household organization for church governance as seen in the Pastoral Epistles. In addition to introducing prohibitions on women’s public roles in the church (1 Tim 2:11–12), they oppose asceticism (1 Tim 4:3) and assert the value of marriage and childbearing (1 Tim 5:14; cf. 2:15). These texts reflect an intensification of patriarchal structures within the family but also within the organization of the church.112 In particular, one sees for the first time explicit lists of qualifications for male church offices of bishop/elder and deacon that are patterned after the model pater Greco-Roman Rhetoric of Manhood,” in Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy, Presented to Hans Dieter Betz, ed. A. Y. Collins and M. M. Mitchell (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 189–213. 109  This is perhaps most clearly seen in a characteristic feature of the conversion stories in Acts, especially prominent in Acts 16–18. At the end of each of these episodes, Paul (or earlier, one of the other disciples) has encountered a main character, either male or female, who is won over by his preaching and/or miracles and is “baptized together with all his/her household.” Acts 7:10; 10:2; 11:14; 16:15, 31, 33; 17:33; 18:8. Taken together with the passages in Acts, it appears, then, that the author has constructed the conversion stories to show that Christian missionaries had not intruded into the household in inappropriate ways. Instead, Paul (and Peter) dealt directly with the pater or mater familias who, in turn, authorized the new cult for the rest of the household. This thematic tendency reflects the new social plateau that Pauline Christianity had reached by the end of the first century, and the resultant apologetic point for the author of Luke–Acts was to show that Christians do not transgress the traditional boundaries of patria potestas. See L. M. White, “Visualizing the ‘Real’ World of Acts 16: Towards Construction of a Social Index,” in White and Yarbrough, eds., The Social World of the First Christians, 234–61. 110  David Balch, “Household Codes,” in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, ed. David E. Aune, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 25–50. The formula originally came from Aristotelian political theory on household management; cf. David Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter, SBLMS 26 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1981), 68–82. See also Johannes Woyke, Die neutestamentlichen Haustafeln: Ein kritischer und konstruktiver Forschungsüberblick (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2000), 23–38. 111  Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World, 220. Cf. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 250–70. 112  Cf. Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 286–94.

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familias (1 Tim 3:2–13; Titus 1:7–9; 2:4–5). In the case of both elders and deacons the need to “manage their children and household well” (1 Tim 3:12) is a clear criterion for judging them fit to manage the church (1 Tim 3:4–5; Titus 1:11).113

Part IV. Select Bibliography Classical Studies Allison, Penelope. “Roman Households: An Archaeological Perspective.” Pages 112–46 in Roman Urbanism: Beyond the Consumer City. Edited by H. Parkins. London: Routledge, 1997. Asmis, Elizabeth. “Epicurean Economics.” Pages 131–76 in Philodemus and the New Testa­ ment World. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, D. Obbink, and G. Holland. NovTSup 111. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Balch, David L. “Philodemus, ‘On Wealth’ and ‘On Household Management’: Naturally Welathy Epicureans against Poor Cynics.” Pages 177–96 Philodemus and the New Testa­ ment World. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, D. Obbink, and G. Holland. NovTSup 111. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Berry, Joanne. “Household Artifacts: Towards Reinterpretation of Roman Domestic Space.” Pages 183–95 in Domestic Space in the Roman World. Edited by R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill. JRASup 22. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997. Bradley, Keith R. Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. ———Slavery and Society at Rome. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Clarke, John R. The Houses of Roman Italy, 100 BC–AD 250: Ritual, Space, and Decoration. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Crook, John A. Law and Life of Rome, 90 BC–AD 212. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967. ———“Patria Potestas.” Classical Quarterly ns 17 (1967): 113–22. D’Arms, John. Commerce and Social Standing in Ancient Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981. Dickmann, Jens-Arne. “The Peristyle and the Transformation of Domestic Space in Hellenistic Pompeii.” Pages 121–36 in Domestic Space in the Roman World. Edited by R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill. JRASup 22. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997. Dixon, Suzanne. The Roman Family. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992. Drummond, Andrew. “Early Roman Clients.” Pages 89–116 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989. Flandrin, J. L. Families in Former Times. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979. Foss, Pedar. “Watchful Lares: Roman Household Organization and the Rituals of Cooking and Eating.” Pages 197–218 in Domestic Space in the Roman World. Edited by R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill. JRASup 22. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997.

113  See also the discussion above on p. 185. Cf. Malherbe, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 313, and Social Aspects, 99.



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George, Michele. ed. Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture. Phoenix Supplements 52. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. ———“Servus and domus: The Slave in the Roman House.” Pages 15–24 in Domestic Space in the Roman World. Edited by R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill. JRASup 22. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997. Grahame, Mark. “Public and Private in the Roman House.” Pages 137–61 in Domestic Space in the Roman World. Edited by R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill. JRASup 22. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997. Hopkins, Keith. Death and Renewal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Jongman, Willem. The Economy and Society of Pompeii. Amsterdam: J. C. Gieben, 1988. Joshel, Sandra R. Slavery in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Konstan, David, Diskin Clay, Johann Thom, and Clarence E. Glad. Philodemus, On Frank Criticism. SBLTT. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. Laurence, Ray. “Space and Text.” Pages 7–14 in Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompii and Beyond. Edited by R. Laurence and A. Wallace-Hadrill. JRASup 22. Portsmouth: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997. Mouritsen, Henrik. The Freeedman in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Nicholas, Barry, and Susan M. Treggiari. “patria potestas.” Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. Revised by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Nielsen, Hanne Sigismund. “Men, Women, and Marital Chastity: Public Preaching and Popular Piety at Rome.” Pages 323–42 in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White. NovTSup 110. Leiden: Brill, 2003. ———“The Physical Context of Roman Epitaphs and the Structure of the Roman Family.” Analecta Romana Instituti Danici 23 (1996): 35–60. Nussbaum, Martha. The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. Pomeroy, Sarah. Families in Classical and Hellenistic Greece: Representations and Realities. Oxford: Clarendon, 1997. Purcell, Nicholas. “Patria Patriae.” Oxford Classical Dictionary. 3rd ed. Revised by S. Hornblower and A. Spawforth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Riggsby, Andrew M. “Public and Private in Roman Culture: The Case of the Cubiculum.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 10 (1997): 36–56. Roller, Matthew. “Pliny’s Catullus: The Politics of Literary Appropriation.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 128 (1998): 265–304. Saller, Richard P. “Familia, Domus, and the Roman Conception of the Family.” Phoenix 38 (1984): 336–55. ———Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni­ versity Press, 1994. ———Personal Patronage under the Early Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. ———“The Family and Society.” Pages 95–117 in Epigraphic Evidence: Ancient History from Inscriptions. Edited by J. Bodel. London: Routledge, 2001. Shaw, Brent D. “The Family in Late Antiquity: The Experience of Augustine.” Past and Present 115 (1987): 3–51. Tomin, Julius. “Socratic Midwifery.” CQ 37 (1987): 97–102.

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Tsouna, Voula. Philodemus, On Property Management: Translated with an Introduction and Notes. WGRW 33. Atlanta: SBL, 2013. Veyne, Paul. A History of Private Life: From Pagan Rome to Byzantium. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press/Belknap, 1987. Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew. Houses and Society in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. ———ed. Patronage in Ancient Society. London: Routledge, 1989. Weaver, P. R. C. Familia Caesaris: A Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972. White, L. Michael. “Counting the Costs of Nobility: The Social Economy of Roman Pergamon.” Pages 331–72 in Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods. Edited by H. Koester. Harvard Theological Studies 46. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998. ———“A Measure of Parrhesia: The State of the Manuscript of PHerc. 1471.” Pages 103–30 in Philodemus and the New Testament World. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, D. Obbink, and G. Holland. NovTSup 111. Leiden: Brill, 2004.

New Testament Studies Artz-Grabner, Peter. “Onesimus erro: Zur Vorgeschichte des Phlemonbriefs.” ZNW 95 (2004): 131–43. ———Philemon. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. Ascough, Richard S. What Are They Saying About The Formation of Pauline Churches. New York: Paulist, 1998. Balch, David. “Backgrounds of I Cor. VII: Sayings of the Lord in Q, Moses as Ascetic Theios Aner in II Cor. III.” NTS 18 (1971–72): 351–64. ———“Household Codes.” Pages 25–50 in Graeco-Roman Literature and the New Testament. Edited by D. E. Aune. SBLSBS 21. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. ———Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter. SBLMS 26. Chico: Scholars Press, 1981. Balch, David, and Carolyn Osiek. Families in the New Testament World: Households and Housechurches. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Bartchy, S. Scott. “Philemon, Epistle to.” ABD 5:305–10. Berry, Ken L. “The Function of Friendship Language in Philippians 4.10–20.” Pages 107–24 in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Betz, Hans Dieter. Galatians. Hermeneia. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979. Blanton, Thomas R. “The Benefactor’s Account-Book: The Rhetoric of Gift-Reciprocation according to Seneca and Paul.” NTS 59 (2013): 396–414. Bonz, Miriam Palme. The Past as Legacy: Luke–Acts and Ancient Epic. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000. Breytenbach, Cilliers. “Civic Concord and Cosmic Harmony: Sources of Metaphoric Mapping in 1 Clement 20:3.” Pages 259–73 in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White. NovTSup 110. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Chow, John K. Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth. JSNTSup 75. Sheffield: JSOT, 1992.



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Dahl, Nils A. “The Atonement, An Adequate Reward for the Akedah (Rom 8:32).” Pages 144–66 (+184–89) in The Crucified Messiah and Other Essays. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1974. ———“Euodia and Syntyche and Paul’s Letter to the Philippians.” Pages 3–15 in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks. Edited by L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. deSilva, David A. Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity, 2000. Danker, Frederic W. Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field. St Louis: Clayton, 1982. Fiore, Benjamin. “Household Rules at Ephesus: Good News, Bad News, No News.” Pages 589–607 in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White. NovTSup 110. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Fitzgerald, John T. “Philippians in the Light of Some Ancient Discussions of Friendship.” Pages 141–60 in Friendship, Flattery, and Frankness of Speech: Studies on Friendship in the New Testament World. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald. Leiden: Brill, 1996. Frilingos, Chris. “For My Child Onesimus: Paul and Domestic Power.” JBL 119 (2000): 91–104. Gaventa, Beverly Roberts. “The Maternity of Paul: An Exegetical Study of Gal 4:19.” Pages 189–201 in The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul and John in Honor of J. Louis Martyn. Edited by R. T. Fortna and B. R. Gaventa. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1991. ———Our Mother Saint Paul. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007. Harrill, J. Albert. “Invective against Paul (2 Cor 10:10), Physiognomics of the Ancient Slave Body, and the Greco-Roman Rhetoric of Manhood.” Pages 189–213 in Antiquity and Humanity: Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy, Presented to Hans Dieter Betz. Edited by A. Y. Collins and M. M. Mitchell. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. ———The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity. HUT 32. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995. ———Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Hay, David M. Glory at the Right Hand: Psalm 110 in Early Christianity. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1973. Hock, Ronald F. “Why New Testament Scholars Should Read Ancient Novels.” Pages 121–38 in Ancient Fiction and Early Christian Narrative. Edited by R. F. Hock, J. B. Chance, and J. Perkins. SBLSymS 6. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. ———“The Parable of the Foolish Rich Man (Luke 12:16–20) and Graeco-Roman Conventions of Thought and Behavior.” Pages 181–96 in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of A. J. Malherbe. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White. NovTSup 110. Leiden: Brill, 2003. ———“Romancing the Parables of Jesus.” Perspectives in Religious Studies 29 (2002): 12–37. Jewett, Robert. “Paul, Phoebe, and the Spanish Mission.” Pages 142–61 in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee. Edited by J. Neusner et al. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982. ———The Thessalonian Correspondence: Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian Piety. Minnea­ polis: Fortress, 1986.

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Joubert, Stephan. Paul as Benefactor: Reciprocity, Strategy, and Theological Reflection in Paul’s Collection. WUNT 2/124. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000. Klauck, Hans-Josef. Hausgemeinde und Hauskirche im frühen Christentum. Stuttgart: Katholische Bibelwerk, 1981. Knox, John. Philemon among the Letters of Paul. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1959. Lampe, Peter. “Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ des Onesimus.” Zeitschrift für die Neuentestamentlich Wissens­chaft 76 (1985): 135–47. Malherbe, Abraham J. Ancient Epistolary Theorists. SBLSBS 19. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. ———The Letters to the Thessalonians. AB 33B. New York: Doubleday, 2000. ———Paul and the Popular Philosophers. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. ———Paul and the Thessalonians. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987. ———Social Aspects of Early Christianity. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983. Marshall, Peter. Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul’s Relations with the Corinthians. WUNT 2/23. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1987. Martin, Dale. The Corinthian Body. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995. ———Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Martyn, J. Louis. Galatians. AB 44. New York: Anchor, 1997. Meeks, Wayne A. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. Meyer, Paul W. “The Worm at the Core of the Apple.” Pages 62–84 in The Conversation Continues: Studies in Paul and John in Honor of J. Louis Martyn. Edited by R. T. Fortna and B. R. Gaventa. Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1991. Sampley, J. Paul. Pauline Partnership in Christ: Christian Community and Commitment in the Light of Roman Law. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980. Scroggs, Robin. “Paul and the Eschatological Woman.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40 (1972): 283–303. Shaw, Teresa. The Burden of the Flesh: Fasting and Sexuality in Early Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998. Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroads, 1982. Stendahl, Krister. “The Apostle Paul and the Introspective Conscience of the West.” HTR 56 (1963): 199–215. Stowers, Stanley K. A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994. Varner, David C. The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles. SBLDS 71. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983. White, L. Michael. “Finding the Ties that Bind: Issues from Social Description.” Pages 1–20 in Social Networks in the Early Christian Environment. Edited by L. M. White. Semeia 56. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1991. ———“Morality between Two Worlds: A Paradigm of Friendship in Philippians.” Pages 188–215 in Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe. Edited by D. L. Balch, E. Ferguson, and W. A. Meeks. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990. ———“Rhetoric and Reality in Galatians: Framing the Social Demands of Friendship.” Pages 307–49 in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe. Edited by J. T. Fitzgerald, T. H. Olbricht, and L. M. White. NovTSup 110. Leiden: Brill, 2003.



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———The Social Origins of Christian Architecture. 2 vols. Harvard Theological Studies 42. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996–97. ———“Visualizing the ‘Real’ World of Acts 16: Towards Construction of a Social Index.” Pages 234–61 in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks. Edited by L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995. Winter, Sara C. “Methodological Observations on a New Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 39 (1984): 203–12. ———“Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” NTS 33 (1987): 1–15. Woyke, Johannes. Die neutestamentlichen Haustafeln: Ein kritischer und konstuctiver Forschungsüberblick. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 2000.

Chapter 23

Paul, Patrons, and Clients Peter Lampe

Part I. Patrons and Clients in the Greco-Roman World When describing modern societies, we tend to think in horizontal categories: in social strata, in lower, middle or upper classes. Horizontal layers also characterized the ancient society of the Roman Empire. At the same time, however, interaction between these strata divided society into vertical sections as well. The individual inhabitants of the Roman Empire lived in vertical relationships of dependency. These relationships were characterized by the reciprocal exchange of services and goods between those of lower and higher statuses. In fact, these vertical relationships defined a person’s identity much more than his or her social contacts on the horizontal level. “I belong to Caesar’s household,” or “This senator is my patron, and I support his political causes, while he protects my economical and legal interests”: such statements defined a person’s identity, not statements such as “I belong to the working class.” In general, class consciousness hardly existed in the Roman Empire. The cohesion, for example, among slaves or among lower-class people was very weak. Only the small social elite, the members of the three noble classes (senators, equestrians, and, to some extent, the decuriones, the local elite), developed cohesion among themselves and a “class consciousness.” The smallest vertical units in society were the individual households, the so-called oikoi (see “Paul and Family Life” [Chapter 10] and “Paul and Pater Familias” [Chapter 22] in these volumes). At the hierarchical top resided the “father of the household,” the pater familias, or frequently also a (widowed) woman, a mater familias.1 All members of the household—wives, children, slaves, freed persons—were reverently and obediently oriented toward this patron at the top and were dependent on him (or her) in all crucial aspects of life,2 while the patron was expected to protect, support, and love For references, see P. Lampe, “Family in Church and Society of New Testament Times,” Affirmation (Union Theol. Seminary in VA) 5, no. 1 (1992): 2, 14 n. 5. For a definition of “household,” see ibid. 1–2. 2  Even the dignity of the individual household members depended on that of the pater familias. This was true since Homer’s time (Od. 1.234ff.; Iliad 22.483–99) and can still be observed in modern-day cultures. 1 



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these dependents. The early Christian household codes followed this societal pattern.3 The small unit of the household for its part was tied into larger vertical-dependency relationships. If the pater familias was a freedman (libertus) or a so-called client (cliens), he was personally bound in his loyalty to another, even more superior patron. With scholarship often disagreeing on how patronage functioned in different parts of the Roman Empire and also in the pre-Roman era of the East, this article will adopt a wide definition of the topic “Patrons and Clients,” also looking at sources that do not use technical terminology such as patronus, cliens or prostates/-tis, but nevertheless document vertical dependency relationships that entail more or less informal reciprocal responsibilities.4 (1) Freed slaves (libertus, liberta), even if they moved out of the former master’s house and founded households and businesses of their own, were expected to remain respectful and loyal to him as a patron for the rest of their lives. Most of them stayed under the care of his legal protection, and most were obligated to fulfil unpaid services (operae) for their patron after manumission.5 The patron, in return, was obliged to keep faith with his freed persons by providing them with legal aid, supporting them in need, and developing economic opportunities for them. The mutual loyalty went so far that neither the patron nor the freed person could be forced to testify against each other in court. Although many of the freed persons were economically independent from their patron, sometimes accumulating great wealth for themselves, they nevertheless often also continued to work as agents or associates for their patron’s businesses. In this way, large business clusters could emerge, “associations of households,” which were involved in big, often superregional businesses. These clusters included a great many freed persons who were active for their patron in many places in the empire. The family of the Faenii, for example, traded in fragrances and had business branches run by the family’s freed persons in Capua, Puteoli, Rome, Ischia, and Lyon. With their freed slaves, the Olitii family was in business both in Rome and Narbo, the Aponii family both in Narbonne and Sicily. Freed persons of the senatorial Laecanii family owned large land tracts near (modern) Trieste; these freed persons in turn employed their own freed slaves in businesses in Italian ports—all of these business people were extensions of the economically powerful senatorial family of the Laecanii. Other families of senators and the local aristocrats had freed persons or slaves working in the production and sales of textile materials or in the construction business. Thus, noble family masters, who as rich landowners were proud of not being “tainted” by craft or trade, nevertheless were able to participate in “dirty” but lucrative businesses through their slaves and freed persons. A business cluster of this caliber, based on patron–client 3  Col 3:18–4:1; Eph 5:22–6:9; 1 Pet 2:18–3:7; 1 Tim 2:8–15; Titus 2:1–10; Pol., Phil. 4.2–6.3; cf. Did. 4.9–11; Barn. 19.5–7; 1 Clem. 21.6–9. 4  Slave–master, guardianship or marriage relationships, however, all having their own legal implications, will not be considered. 5  At manumission, a certain number of days’ service to the patron was stipulated. Freed persons with Roman citizenship and with two children of their own, however, were freed from these services. Cf. Paulus, Dig. 38.1.37 pr.

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relations, could profit from a whole production circle in one area: the landowner’s flocks of sheep, for example, produced the wool that was subsequently woven into fabric and sold by the landowner’s slaves and freed persons.6 Obviously, the patron– client relationships, which made these clusters possible, were of the highest economic importance—not only for the families involved but also for the entire society. (2) A cliens, on the other hand, usually was a freeborn person who entered a relationship of dependency with an influential patron. The two made a contract based on mutual trust and loyalty (fides). This meant that the client was expected to show respect and gratitude to the patron, to render certain services to him (operae and obsequium) and to support his political, economical, and social activities.7 In return, the influential patron protected the client’s economical, social, and legal interests by letting him profit from the patron’s social connections and by allowing him access to the patron’s resources.8 Patron–client relationships had existed for a long time in many places in the ancient Mediterranean world. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Ant. rom. 2.9.2) mentions them, for example, in early Athens and Thessaly as well as in early Rome. Early Rome, however, was unique in that it clearly defined the rights and duties of clients and protected their status in relation to the patron; this was recorded already in the fifth-century BCE Law of the Twelve Tables (8.21). In early Roman times, the contract between patron and client often involved the lending of land. Italian patricians established personal dependency relationships by giving small parcels of land (a precarium) to settlers for an indefinite period, maintaining the right to revoke this agreement at any time. With increasing urbanization, agricultural land became less important in patron–client relations. Whether land utilization was part of the contract or not, a client voluntarily9 (or involuntarily)10 subjected himself to the authority of the patron (in fidem se dare) who then accepted him (in fidem suscipere).

Cf. the literature reviewed by H. W. Pleket, “Wirtschaft,” in Europäische Wirtschafts- und Sozial­ geschichte, ed. F. Vittinghoff, Handbuch der Europäischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 1 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1990), 40–41, 84, 125, 132. 7  Obsequium means “obedience” and “subordination.” The literal translation of cliens is “the obedient” (participle of cluere). Plutarch (Rom. 13) and others translated “client” into the Greek by πελάτης (pelates), which denotes a person who seeks protection and becomes dependent. 8  The loyalty could extend so far that one was allowed to testify in favor of a client against a blood-related person (Gellius 5.13.4; cf. 20.1.40). Neither patron nor client could sue the other in court or testify against the other (CIL 12. 583.10, 33). For these duties of both clients and patrons, see especially Dionysius Halic., Ant. rom. 2.9f. 9  The voluntary submission of a client looking for protection was called applicatio ad patronum (Cicero, De Or. 1.177). It implied that the client could choose on his own to whose power (potestas), protection and loyalty (fides) he wanted to submit himself. This entirely private contract between client and patron was based on mutual consent. Inheritable but always-revocable land utilization (precarium) could be part of the contract but was not a prerequisite. Cf. Dionys. Halic., Ant. rom. 2.9.2 (one could choose a προστάτην [prostaten] one wanted); 2.10.4; Terence, Eun. 885, 1039; Gellius 5.13.2 (“clientes…sese…in fidem patrociniumque nostrum dediderunt”); 20.1.40 (“clientem in fidem susceptum”). 10  Often these settlers belonged to conquered populations and were given land that they previously had owned. The involuntary submission of defeated or conquered persons was not part of a private contract 6 



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The voluntary client did not lose his personal freedom or his legal capacity but was obliged to allegiance and to carry out services for the patron.11 He strengthened the patron’s social prestige and supported his political goals. The patron in return vowed to protect and help the client in all his needs, provided free legal advice and representation,12 and offered economic advantages. “To put the matter briefly,” the patron was expected “to secure for them [the clients] both in private and in public affairs all that tranquillity of which they particularly stood in need,” Dionysius writes.13 Because both parties to the voluntary and private contract could be Roman citizens,14 and because the client retained his freedom and legal responsibility, the aspect of power (potestas) of the patron over an inferior, obedient client increasingly faded into the background, while the moral aspect of reciprocal loyalty (fides) increased.15 On the basis of this system of vertical-dependency relationships between patrons and clients or freed persons, large portions of the society were tied to a few influential families during the Roman Republic: not only the masses of slaves and freed persons, but also numerous freeborn persons, sometimes even entire communities in Italy. but a matter of public law; the submission under the power of a conqueror and the latter’s vow to loyalty (fides, which was under the protection of the gods to whom the patron vowed) were rooted in international law that regulated the relations between citizens and non-citizens. Contrary to the voluntary clientage, this submission could imply serious limitations to the legal capacity of the client. He, for example, had to accept the nomen gentile of the patron; the power of the pater familias was replaced by the patronage; he could not marry whomever he wanted; the patron often inherited his estate after his death; and so on. Such limitations did not confront voluntary clients. See A. v. Premerstein, “Clientes,” Pauly/Wissowa 4 (1901): 28–30, 33, 38f., 41ff., 51. 11  For military service until the second century BCE, see ibid., 37. For financial contributions to the patron, see Dionys. Halic., Ant. rom. 2.10; Livius 5.32.8 (cf. 38.60.9; Dionys., ibid. 13.5.1). These payments helped to cover extraordinary expenses of the patron. Apart from this, financial gifts to the patron were frowned upon, but they could occur (Dionys., ibid. 2.10.4; Plutarch, Rom. 13; Gellius 20.1.40; Livius 34.4.9; the lex Cincia de donis, probably from 204 BCE, had ruled that only very small presents to the patron were allowed; cf. A. W. Lintott, “Cliens, clientes,” Neue Pauly 3 [1997]: 32). For the personal freedom of the clients, see, e.g., Proculus, Dig. 49.15.7 § 1: “clientes nostros intellegimus liberos esse, etiamsi neque auctoritate neque dignitate neque viribus nobis pares sunt.” 12  This was called patrocinium. Cf., e.g., Cicero, De or. 1.177; 3.33; Livius 34.4.9; Tacitus, Ann. 11.5; Dial. 3; Horace, Ep. 2.1.104; Dionys. Halic., Ant. rom. 2.10.1; Gellius 5.13.6. This task of the patrons, however, became less and less important the more complicated law and trials became. Already in late Republican times, professional upper-class lawyers often were consulted, and during a trial a temporary patron–client relationship was established between the professional attorney and the litigant (cf. Cicero, Att. 15.14.3). This form of clientage has survived until today, when “clients” put their legal dealings in the hands of lawyers. The original patrons’ loss of legal competence contributed, of course, to the loosening of the ties between clients and patrons already in Republican times. 13  Dionys. Halic., Ant. rom. 2.10.1. 14  A client could even be of the equestrian rank, such as the poet Martial. 15  Fittingly, since Republican times, a patron and a client could marry one another. Cf., e.g., Gellius 13.20.8; Plutarch, Cat. Maj. 24; Pliny, Nat. 7.61. The reciprocity between patron and client was idealized by Dionysius Halic. (Ant. rom. 2.10.4): “It is incredible how great the contest of good will was between the patrons and clients, as each side strove not to be outdone by the other in kindness, the clients feeling that they should render all possible services to their patrons and the patrons wishing by all means not to occasion any trouble to their clients.” Although talking about earliest Roman times here, Dionysius insists that the patron–client relations described in 2.10 “long continued among the Romans.” Satirical authors such as Martial (see n. 22 below) counterbalance this idealized picture.

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Powerful and wealthy Roman families secured their societal and political influence through droves of clients in Italy and the provinces.16 In fact, during the Roman Republic, political power to a large extent was based on the number of supporting clients one could count on in several strata of the society.17 In imperial times, the political influence of the noble families faded. Consequently, clientage became less a political factor but remained a social and economic institution. Unlike the freed persons who were tied to their patrons by clearly defined legal relations, clients’ bond to their patrons was a very loose, merely moral, social, and economic dependency. Juridical implications were negligible; the patron–client relationship was legally irrelevant during imperial times.18 Both sides voluntarily agreed upon it, and although it usually was hereditary,19 it could be dissolved at any time. Often one client served several patrons at the same time.20 Conversely, a patron usually had many clients—as a symbol of his power to provide for social inferiors. Dionysius (Ant. rom. 2.10.4) put it this way: “It was a matter of great praise to men of illustrious families to have as many clients as possible and not only to preserve the succession of hereditary patronages but also by their own merit to acquire others.” In the first two-thirds of the first century CE, the influential families still were very eager to increase their prestige through their clientele (Tacitus, Ann. 3.55.2; Hist. 1.4). The clients were a retinue for a rich patron, whose social status was reflected in the size of this following.21 The patron in return saved the clients from unemployment and starvation. In the morning, the clients presented themselves in the atrium of the patron’s house and made their obeisances. In Rome, they were required to dress up in a toga for this occasion. During the day, they surrounded the patron as his entourage, accompanied him to the Forum, to the bath, or to his visits, joined him for his travels, clapped at his public speeches, and walked behind his sedan-chair.22 They addressed him as

Cf., e.g., Livy 5.32.8; Dionys. Halic., Ant. rom. 9.41.5; Plautus, Men. 574ff. It is not clear, however, to what extent the patrons in Republican times could control their clients’ behavior at the polls. Bribery increased in the second century BCE, and this indicates that the ties between patrons and clients had loosened already in Republican times. See also n. 12, above, and Lintott, “Cliens,” 32: From the lex Gabinia in 139 BCE onward, the Roman legislation contributed to the loosening of these ties. 18  The ius civile proper did not regulate the clientage; and in the domain of public law these private relationships, of course, did not play any role either. Their only meager legal protection was provided by the criminal law, which punished the fraus patroni, the patron’s violation of loyalty (cf. Servius, Aen. 6.609, and v. Premerstein, “Clientes,” 39–40, 46). The obligations of these give-and-take relationships, rooted in mutual loyalty (fides), were of a moral nature. They were not legally enforceable but rather were governed by custom and by reverence for the gods who protected the fides. Cf. Dionys. Halic., Ant. rom. 2.9.3: θέμις (themis) and ὅσιον (hosion) established the basis. 19  Cf. Dionys. Halic., Ant. rom. 2.10.4; 4.23.6; 11.36; Plutarch, Mar. 5. 20  Cf., e.g., v. Premerstein, “Clientes,” 38, 52–53. Even freed persons could choose an additional patron besides their former slave master (cf., e.g., Cicero, Sex. Rosc. 19; Att. 1.12.2). 21  Therefore even less wealthy patrons aimed for a large entourage, with some getting into debt in order to finance this status symbol (Martial, Ep. 2.74). 22  For Roman clients, cf., e.g., Martial, Ep. 12.68.1–2; 9.100.2; 6.88; 4.40.1; 3.38.11; 3.36; 2.74; 2.18; 1.108; 1.59; 1.55.5–6; also Seneca, Ben. 6.33f.; Livy 38.51.6; Juvenal 1.95ff.; Suetonius, Vesp. 2.2. 16  17 



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dominus (“sir”) or even rex (“king”) and sometimes honored him with a statue.23 In Pompeii, some actively supported their patrons’ election campaigns for city offices.24 These were time-consuming services. And most often clients were not enthusiastic about their “job.” In cold weather, they cursed the early-morning walks across the city to the patron’s house. They frowned when they were ranked lower than other clients at the patron’s receptions or dinners. They deplored the lack of fides (loyalty). Martial, Juvenal, Lucian, and Epictetus continually report these numerous complaints.25 For their services, the clients were paid a sportula each day that they came to the patron’s house. Originally, the sportula had been “a little basket,” as the word is literally translated, containing food. In imperial times, however, the sportula often was pocket money. At the time of Martial, in the second half of the first century CE, this usually amounted to twenty-five asses. For that amount of money, one could buy twelve and a half loaves of bread or six liters of good wine.26 In other words, the sportula was a sort of private support for the unemployed. In addition to the sportula, the patrons occasionally invited the clients to dinner. This was especially done at the festival of the Saturnalia. Now and then the clients were given a piece of clothing or some extra money. Sometimes they were offered a loan, legal aid, or a surety. Very rarely did they receive a whole farm as a gift or were granted free lodging.27 At the Saturnalia or on a birthday, clients usually offered little gifts, such as candles, to the patron28 in order to receive more valuable presents in return. In the realm of financial activities, there was no sophisticated banking system. Therefore, people tended to turn to friends, patrons, or clients rather than to banks in order to obtain advice, loans, or gifts. Aristocratic landowners, for example, when lacking cash for the financing of their careers, games, or electoral bribery, often asked not only superior patrons or equal friends but also inferior clients for loans. On the other hand, aristocrats exercised influence as creditors to friends and clients. Thus, an exchange between patrons and clients took place, both groups taking on the roles of creditors and borrowers. The social bond created by financial favors cannot be overestimated.29 Loans and gifts helped to raise the status both of the receiver and of the donor. The latter’s prestige was raised by his or her generosity. And the former’s need for money to finance a career or other status-raising activities was met. At times the

Cf., e.g., Horace, Ep. 1.7.37. For a statue: CIL 6.1390; cf. Pliny, Nat. 34.17. CIL 4.593, 822, 933, 1011, 1016. 25  Cf. n. 22 above and L. Friedländer, Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von Augustus bis zum Ausgang der Antonine, 4 vols. (Aalen: Scientia, 1979), 1:227f. 26  For prices, see P. Lampe, Die stadtrömischen Christen in den ersten beiden Jahrhunderten: Untersuchungen zur Sozialgeschichte, 2nd ed., WUNT 2/18 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1989), 163. For twenty-five asses, cf. Martial, Ep. 1.59. Under Trajan, twenty-five asses were the amount of the usual sportula. Martial (Ep. 9.100.2) also knows of a sportula of three denarii (= 48–54 asses). 27  Cf. Dig. 7.8.2 §§1, 3; 9.3.5 §1; Tacitus, Ann. 16.22; and see Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, 1:227. 28  Cf. Macrobius, Sat. 1.7.33 (lex Publicia, probably 209 BCE). 29  For the financial exchanges between patrons and clients, see the material collected by R. P. Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 120ff., 205. 23  24 

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patron also helped a client retrieve money that had been lent to a third person. In order to protect the client’s interests in these cases, the patron used his social connections to exercise social pressure on the borrower until everything was repaid.30 We are best informed about clients in the city of Rome. However, this form of patron–client relationship also existed in smaller Italian towns, such as Pompeii and in the provinces.31 Private support for the unemployed or financial gifts and loans were only one side of patronage and clientage in imperial times. Another was the active sponsoring of (talented) individual persons—much the same way that it is done today. This was an even looser form of patronage, without the daily sportula, and it could be found throughout the entire Roman Empire. A senator, for example, sponsored a sophist,32 and a matron named Phoebe sponsored and supported the apostle Paul.33 Naturally, patronal relations between teachers and students also developed, for example, between physicians and their students34 or sophists and their students.35 In summary, vertical units of different sizes constituted society and prevented the development of horizontal class consciousness below the ranks of the nobility. These vertical units prevented the socially lower population from developing homogeneous interests. Neither the freed persons nor the clients formed a “class.”36 To a large extent, the members of the non-noble societal strata were distinguished from each other by vertical demarcation lines, created by the dependencies on different patrons and their households.37

See Pliny, Ep. 6.8. CIL 3.6126. For further epigraphical evidence, particularly concerning Gaul, cf., e.g., v. Premerstein, “Clientes,” 54. For North Africa, see Saller, Patronage, 145ff. 32  See the inscription in R. Merkelbach and J. Stauber, eds., Steinepigramme aus dem griechischen Osten, vol. 1 (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1998), 1:no. 03/02/28: The sophist Hadrianos of Tyre honors the consul Claudius Severus (second century CE) with a statue, thanking him for his patronage (προστασίης, προστάτην [prostasies, prostaten]). 33  See below for Rom 16:2, where the same term is used: προστάτις (prostatis). 34  Cf., e.g., the inscription in Merkelbach and Stauber, eds., Steinepigramme, no. 06/02/32: A medical doctor from Pergamon praises his deceased teacher, who left him behind “as a son, worthy of your art.” Greek physicians were like fathers to their students. According to our inscription, the student even gave a burial place to his teacher in his own tomb. 35  Cf., e.g., the gift from students in the inscription Merkelbach and Stauber, eds., Steinepigramme, no. 03/02/31. For our purposes we will leave out the rural coloni, farmers who rented land from landowners and who were highly dependant on these landlords. Usually they were bound by heredity to the place where they were born and which they rented, being burdened by high rents and losing more and more rights. Sometimes these vertical relationships were considered client-like: Hermogenianus, Dig. 19.1.49 pr. (“colonum…in fidem suam recipit”). But the often oppressive relationships were governed more by solid, legally defined obligations than by the moral value of loyalty. 36  For a definition of “class,” see G. Alföldy, Römische Sozialgeschichte, 3rd ed. (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1984), 126–27. 37  Vertical borderlines also distinguished between slaves, freed persons, and freeborn persons, and between rural and urban lower class people. A free person, for example, did not automatically have a higher social position than a slave. Often it was the other way around. Any idea of horizontal borderlines between these groups would be misleading. Cf., e.g., G. Alföldy’s pyramid model of the society of the Roman Empire (Sozialgeschichte, 125). 30  31 



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These vertical connections helped to increase the clients’ chances for upward social mobility. Personal social advancement was largely influenced by loyalty toward a patron whose connections and resources could be helpful for ambitious clients. Municipal aristocrats, for example, had no chance of moving up socially without the patronal protection of some members of the senatorial or equestrian ranks.38 One important characteristic of the patron–client relation was that power (potestas) was much less emphasized than mutual loyalty (fides, pistis). The latter confined the display of power. In this way, reciprocal give-and-take relationships could develop which suited the interests of both partners in this vertical interaction. In the middle of the first century CE, these relationships still served the superiors’ interests in prestige and the inferiors’ desire for social protection. Later, patron–client relationships increasingly failed in meeting these goals. (3) Not only individual persons were clients. Also clubs, entire communities, even provinces could obtain the client status. Rome’s supremacy over subjected territories often was interpreted as patronage (deditio in dicionem et fidem populi Romani).39 Conquerors of provinces and founders of colonies became their “patrons.”40 Cities selected influential senators, former municipal authorities, or other distinguished personalities to be their patrons. These patrons represented the community’s political and legal interests, sponsored its various activities, particularly its building projects, and were generous with donations.41 Sometimes a city selected several patrons simultaneously.42 We are able to identify more than 1,200 city patrons of this kind between about 70 BCE and 300 CE in the Roman Empire.43 In addition, patrons of religious and professional associations (collegia, clubs) were numerous. They excelled in donations, gifts, and the financing of banquets. And the more distinguished they were, the more they raised the social prestige of the club and its members. Women, too, often were the patrons of religious associations.44 The profit the patrons received from these relationships was prestige: their grateful clients praised them in inscriptions and immortalized them in statues.

Cf., e.g., Saller, Patronage, 120. Cf. Paulus, Dig. 49.15.7 §1; Cicero, Off. 2.27; Livy 26.32.8; 37.54.17. 40  Lex col. Gen. 97; Cicero, Off. 1.11.35: “ut ii, qui civitates aut nationes devictas bello in fidem recepissent, eorum patroni essent more maiorum”; Valerius Maximus 4.3.6; Livy 37.45.2; Dionys., Ant. rom. 2.11.1: “each of the conquered towns had…προστάτας [prostatas, patrons].” The term parallels προστάτις (prostatis) in Rom 16:2. 41  Tacitus, Dial. 3; Cicero, Sest. 9; Pis. 25; Pliny, Ep. 4.1. Cf. also, e.g., the consul Cn. Claudius Severus, who in about 165 CE was honored as “protecting the city” of Ephesus. See the inscription in Merkelbach and Stauber, eds., Steinepigramme, no. 03/02/28. 42  E.g., Inscriptiones Latinae Selectae (ed. H. Dessau, Berlin 1,1892–3.2, 1916), 6121. 43  See J. Nicols, “Prefects, Patronage, and the Administration of Justice,” ZPE 72 (1988): 201 n. 3. 44  See F. Vittinghoff, ed., Europäische Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte in der Römischen Kaiserzeit, Handbuch der Europäischen Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte 1 (Stuttgart: Klett, 1990), 203, 211. 38  39 

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(4) The emperor, of course, was considered the most prestigious patron. His clientele included his freed persons, the urban Roman plebs, the soldiers of the army and fleet and the members of the local elite in the provinces. Senators and equestrians were often called amici, friends on an equal level. However, this was mere diplomatic language, because they were in fact clients, too. Finally, the entire population of the Roman Empire was seen as being in a patronal relationship with the emperor, who was considered the pater patriae, the “father of the country.” Dion of Prusa depicted the ideal ruler as someone who “sees the social care for the people not as a triviality or a mere hassle…, but rather as his personal task and his profession. If he is busy with something else, he feels that he is doing something unimportant” (Or. 3.55).45 Of course, many emperors did not live up to this ideal. Nevertheless, as defensor plebis (”defender of the common people“), the emperor looked after the plebs in the city of Rome with donations of money and grain; after earthquakes, he offered financial help to communities for rebuilding. The examples are well known and could easily be augmented. Also in this special patron–client relationship, the clients were of course obliged to show their loyalty to the patron, by rendering “to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s”— by paying taxes, by taking oaths of allegiance (e.g., ILS 190), or worshiping the emperor in the imperial cult (e.g., ILS 112). But it is clear that the second half of the above-quoted early Christian text, “give to God the things that are God’s” (Matt 22:21), focuses on a second, competing pyramid, with God at the apex. In times of political stress, such as the threat that the writer of Revelation perceived in Domitian, who wanted to be worshiped by pagans as well as Christians, this second patron–client relationship competed mightily with the first. The Socratic Clausula Petri (Acts 5:29; cf. Plato, Apol. 29d) also did not exclude such a competition. The early Christians developed the concept of an alternative pyramid with alternative loyalties. It was explosive, and, in Revelation, it led to the provocative thesis that the pagan pyramidal Greco-Roman system, with Satan, the emperor, and the priests of the imperial cult at the apex, merely mimicked the triad of God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit.46 There is no doubt that the alternative pyramid with God and Christ at the top was just as real for the early Christians as was the pyramid presided over by the emperor. For them, the risen Kyrios represented just as real a personal and social entity as the emperor himself. Thus, according to their perception, both pyramids were on the same level. The possible modern reproach that different categories are mixed here, and that human society and the religious world cannot be placed in competition with each other on the same level, would have perplexed the early Christians, leaving them shaking their heads.

Cf. also Pliny, Pan. 2.21. Cf. Rev 5:6 with 13:3, 12, 14, and 13:15 with 11:11 as well as 13:2, 4, 11; 16:13; 20:10; 7:3; 13:16. See also P. Lampe, “Die Apokalyptiker—Ihre Situation und ihr Handeln,” in Eschatologie und Friedenshandeln, ed. U. Luz et al., 2nd ed., SBS 101 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1982), 95. 45  46 



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Part II. Patron and Client in Paul’s Letters Pagan sources that illuminate patron–client relationships most often focus on aristocratic patrons from Rome and the provinces. Patrons and clients of lower social standing left a lesser record of their activities; these have been found mainly in the inscriptions and the Egyptian papyri, but also in Pauline Christianity. In Pauline Christianity, patron–client relationships can be found both between individuals and between individuals and groups. However, at the same time, these vertical relationships were also questioned as being problematic. Two seemingly contradictory tendencies therefore coexisted in Pauline Christianity.

Egalitarian Tendencies In Gal 3:27–28, Paul refers to the early Christian understanding of baptism. In baptism and in the postbaptismal existence, worldly differences among the baptized become irrelevant; regardless of their worldly status, all who are baptized are assured of the same closeness to Christ. Without differentiation, all Christians are “children of God through faith” (3:26).47 Whatever the worldly differences among the Galatians may be, they are abolished. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female” (3:28). The text differentiates between two social contexts that stand both beside and in opposition to each other. On the one hand, there is the worldly, Hellenistic-Roman context in which Jews and Greeks are differentiated from each other, as well as the not legally free from the free, and the men from the women. On the other hand, the Christian community has changed the paradigm. In the new social context of the Christians, these differentiations among people were no longer made. In the house churches and in the Christians’ interactions with each other, such worldly differences, vertical or horizontal, were considered irrelevant, so that the one person stood equal to the other.48 This was the egalitarian maxim in Pauline Christianity. On the other hand, however, there were vertical relationships even within Pauline Christianity. And we will have to ask how far the principal of equality radiated into these social relationships and possibly modified them.

For the Christians as children of God, see also, e.g., Rom 8:14–17, 19, 21, 23. Christ, consequently, can be called their brother (v. 29), although he also appears as the vertically superordinated lord (see below). 48  This is what is meant by “you all are one” (εἷς, heis) in 3:28. You are all together one and the same; nothing differentiates you. A paraphrase capturing the meaning would be: “You all are the same as each other.” Contrary to popular assumption, the masculine εἷς (heis) cannot mean that they all are “one (church) body.” The neuter of σῶμα (soma, “body”) contraindicates this. 47 

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Patrons as a Basis of Early Christian Church Life The Christian patrons and their private households played a most vital role in the life of the early church. In the first two centuries CE, almost the only real estate that the church used was the private rooms of patrons.49 Church-owned buildings and land did not exist before the third or even fourth century. Only in the third century CE were so-called “homes of the church” (domus ecclesiae) set up, that is, special rooms that were reserved exclusively for worship purposes. In the first two centuries, the Christian congregations or “house churches” met in private rooms in the homes of patrons. These rooms, of course, were used for everyday purposes by their owners or tenants during the week.50 Thus, in the first and second centuries the church existed not beside Christian patrons’ private households, it existed exclusively in them. This service rendered by Christian hosts was praised accordingly, and the virtue of hospitality was emphasized. Those who opened their homes were greatly appreciated—whether they had houses or only apartments such as the one on the third floor of a tenement house in Troas (Acts 20:8–9) or Justin’s rental apartment “above Myrtinus’ bath” in Rome.51 Usually, all of the Christians in a city could not fit into one private household. Therefore, several house churches coexisted in the bigger cities in New Testament times. In Corinth and its harbor satellite town Cenchreae, groups crystallized in the homes of Stephanas, Gaius, Titius Justus, Crispus, and Phoebe. In the capital city of Rome, at least seven Christian circles can be identified in the middle of the first century CE. In the Lycus Valley in Asia Minor, in the area of Colossae-LaodiceaHierapolis, Christians met at the dwelling of Nympha or at Philemon’s house.52 We know of only one early central meeting place where all of the Christians of one city sometimes assembled: Gaius’ home in Corinth.53 Other cities did not have plenary meetings of several house churches, certainly not Rome. The structure of the early church was thus fragmented; several house churches met in one city. That is, several patrons hosted church meetings, and no single patron gained a monopoly of the leadership in one city. This fragmented church structure was indeed one of the reasons why a central church government headed by a city bishop evolved relatively late. In Rome, for instance, it was not until the second half of the second century CE that city bishops emerged who at least tried to subject all Christian groups of the city of Rome to their leadership and patronage. They were not always successful in their

Exceptions: At the very beginnings of Judeo-Christianity, the Christian life also took place in the Jerusalem temple and in the synagogues. In Ephesus, Paul preached in a rented lecture room (Acts 19:9). 50  For literary and archaeological evidence, cf., e.g., Lampe, Die stadtrömischen Christen, 307–10. 51  For the services of house owners, cf., e.g., 2 Tim 1:16–18; Phlm 2, 5, 7; 1 Cor 16:15; compare also Mark 10:30 and 1:29–35; 2:15; 14:3. For hospitality, cf., e.g., Rom 12:13; 1 Tim 3:2; Titus 1:8; 1 Pet 4:9; 1 Clem. 1:2; compare also 1 Tim 5:10; 2 John 10. For Justin, see Acta Iustini 3.3. 52  For Asia Minor, cf., Phlm 2; Col 4:15; 1 Cor 16:19 (Ephesus); possibly 2 Tim 4:19. For Corinth, cf. 1 Cor 1:14, 16; 16:15; Rom 16:1, 23; Acts 18:7, 8. For Thessalonica, cf. possibly 1 Thess 5:27 (Paul implores that the letter be read to all Christians in the city; this makes sense if at least two different house churches existed in town). For Rome, cf. Lampe, Die stadtrömischen Christen, 301–13. 53  Rom 16:23; cf. 1 Cor 11:18; 14:23. 49 



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attempts, not even Victor, whose tenure fell into the last decade of the second century. Before the middle of the second century, we only encounter leaders of individual house churches in Rome, but no sole, central bishop.54 A similar development can be observed in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. There, the city bishops did not emerge before the first decades of the second century. Ignatius, for example, called himself the only bishop of Antioch. But whether these sole city bishops of early times were always acknowledged as such by all of the Christians in the town is doubtful; also in the east, some Christians did not want to be under the “bishop.”55 And still at the end of the second century, at least the church of Ancyra in Asia Minor was led by a group and not by a single city bishop.56 Neither from the New Testament documents nor First Clement nor the Shepherd of Hermas can it be proved that the term “bishop” implied a sole central leader of the Christians in one city. All these writings still reflect a collegial church leadership: a number of people governed the church in each city.57 And this had to do with the fragmented structure of the church, represented by multiple house churches that were hosted by multiple patrons. To summarize, the hosts of congregational meetings, of house churches, can be construed as patrons of these congregations. As parallels in the Hellenistic world we saw political communities and pagan religious associations that enjoyed the patronage of individual (often female) benefactors and sponsors. It would be fair to say that all early Christian hosts who opened their homes for Christian house church gatherings were “patrons.”58 Did these patrons of small house churches hold a position over the other church members in Pauline Christianity? As far as we know, the answer is no. There was no static vertical subordination under these patrons. Christian patronage did not automatically imply a hierarchical structure. The early Christian social relationships were more dynamic and less clearly defined. (1) It would be a misconception to infer from their role as hosts that these patrons also were the leaders of the congregational meetings. According to 1 Cor 12 and 14, especially 12:28, the function of steering and leading the Corinthian congregation was not tied to one specific person, not even to a fixed group of persons. No one presided at the Corinthian worship services. No individual leader was responsible for its order, for its beginning, for the sequence of its elements (cf. also 1 Cor 11:17–32). The whole congregation was responsible (14:26 ff.). Thus, the worship service was spontaneous

For the relatively late emergence of a monarchic bishop in the city of Rome, cf. in detail Lampe, Die stadtrömischen Christen, 334–45. 55  Ignatius, Phil. 7–8 (cf. Magn. 6–8). 56  Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 5.16.5. 57  Cf., e.g., Lampe, Die stadtrömischen Christen, 336–39. 58  The same can be said about those economically stronger Christians who took care of fellow Christians in need. In Rom 12:13 they are listed side by side with the hosts. Often both groups would probably have been identical. The “good person” in Rom 5:7 probably was considered a patron, too: It might have been conceivable for people to give up their lives for their benefactor because of the ties of patronage (cf. A. D. Clarke, “The Good and the Just in Romans 5:7,” TynBul 41 [1990]: 128–42). 54 

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and sometimes even chaotic. The Holy Spirit led. And everybody whom the Spirit inspired could perform “leading acts” (12:28, κυβερνήσεις, kyberneseis) in the congregation. Without a doubt this included the hosts, but was not exclusive to them. The task of leading was still in many hands. (2) Paul had not a vertical but a symmetrical model in mind when he asked all Christians for mutual respect, for mutual love and for φιλαδελφία (philadelphia, Rom 12:10; cf. Gal 5:13). It is significant that this symmetrical model stands in the immediate context of the “patrons” who take care of the economically weak Christians and who open their houses as hosts (Rom 12:13). (3) More than once, Paul had to admonish congregations to respect their leaders who had worked hard for them and to subordinate themselves (ὑποτάσσησθε, hypotassesthe]) to them (1 Thess 5:12–13; 1 Cor 16:16). Apparently, there was a lack of proper respect for those who performed “leading acts” (κυβερνήσεις, kyberneseis]; cf. 1 Cor 12:28). Did the maxim of Gal 3:28 play a role in this? This is probable. According to 1 Tim 6:2, Christian slaves often tended to show less respect for their masters if the latter were Christian brothers. The maxim of Gal 3:28 (cf. Col 3:11, also Jas 2:1–5) seems to have been realized to a certain extent in the life of the congregations—even to such an extent that Paul and the author of 1 Timothy felt obliged to steer in the opposite direction once in a while. Even though patrons and leaders were merely “brothers” and “sisters” in the house-church context, some subordination and respect for those who performed “leading acts” and opened their homes for worship meetings seemed appropriate in Paul’s eyes. After all, love among equals also entails “serving” others and self-denial (1 Cor 8; 13; Phil 2:5 ff., etc.). Whoever insists on his or her rights and status, insisting that she or he is “equal” to (or even “better” than) others, does not live according to Christ’s example of being ready to renounce his status for the benefit of others. In summary, in early Pauline Christianity, there were no clear-cut and rock-solid static vertical relationships. Things were more dynamic. The same can be observed once we look at the social relationships in which Paul himself worked and lived.

Patrons of Paul Like the early church as a whole, also Paul in his missionary work relied on several patrons who supported his apostolic mission by hosting and encouraging him, by providing helpers for him59 and an audience that also included the dependants of these patrons. Lydia in Philippi, a well-to-do importer of luxury textiles, was baptized by Paul, hosted him and his entourage in her house, and also arranged the baptism of her dependents (Acts 16:14–15). She certainly was one of the sponsors 59  Cf., e.g., Tertius, to whom Paul dictated the Letter to the Romans in the house of Gaius in Corinth (Rom 16:22–23). Gaius hosted Paul and probably also arranged Tertius’ job as secretary. Or was it Phoebe who provided this scribe, as R. Jewett suggests? (Romans: A Commentary, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007], 23, 80, 89–91, 941–48, 979f.).



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who enabled the Philippian congregation to send money to Paul more than once to support his missionary work in other cities (Phil 4:10, 14–18; 2 Cor 11:9). In Thessalonica a certain Jason supported Paul and Silas by hosting them in their house and shielding them against the local mob (Acts 17:5, 7). Several ladies of the local aristocracy in Thessalonica, several respected women and men in Beroea, and some of the local elite in Athens such as Dionysius and Damaris allegedly also became adherents of Paul’s preaching (Acts 17:4, 12, 34) and may well have supported him, although we do not have direct information about this.60 In Corinth, a certain Titius Justus opened his house for Paul’s teaching activities (Acts 18:7), and Gaius hosted him when he wrote the Letter to the Romans (Rom 16:23). The mother of Rufus in Rome also was a “mother” to Paul once when she stayed in the east of the empire (Rom 16:13).61 The only person for whom Paul explicitly used the term “patron” (προστάτις, prostatis) was Phoebe in Cenchreae, as we already saw (Rom 16:1–2). As a “patroness,” she supported and sponsored “many” Christians, including Paul. Paul may have enjoyed the hospitality of her home in Cenchreae for a while when he was working in Corinth. She carried Paul’s Romans letter to Rome, possibly presenting it there orally. She also seems to have opened her home for the meetings of the local house church of Cenchreae (16:1b). However, Phoebe’s support for local Christians did not really establish a vertical relationship. In the same passage she is also called “our sister” and “servant” (διάκονος, diakonos) of the house church in Cenchreae. And when she travelled to Rome, the Roman Christians were supposed to support her dealings in Rome—as a patron would do. Thus, the roles of patron and client are reversed in this case, with Phoebe being the “client,” if one really wanted to apply the patron–client model to this support relationship. The is same true for the relationship between Paul and Phoebe. On the one hand, Phoebe is a “patroness” for Paul (16:2c). On the other hand, Paul was an apostle, the founder of the Corinthian church, and, in Rom 16:1–2, he writes a short letter of recommendation in favor of Phoebe. That is, he assumes the role of patron here, wanting to make sure that the Roman Christians receive her well and support her in all that she needs during her visit in Rome. Thus, the roles of patron and client were not static, vertical-dependency relationships in early Pauline Christianity, but could even be reversed. This fact underscores that the principal equality of all Christians formulated in Gal 3:28 was no mere theory in the Pauline churches. Because Phoebe was the only one for whom the technical term “patron” was specifically used, we may assume that this dynamic character of patron–client relationships also held true for the other patrons of Paul listed above. It certainly held true for Paul’s 60  The same is true about the Jewish-Christian Crispus (Acts 18:7; 1 Cor 1:14) and about Stephanas (1 Cor 1:16; 16:15). Both were masters of households and supported church life in Corinth, thus indirectly also Paul’s apostolic mission. 61  For other examples of patronage: If 2 Tim 1:16–18 preserves an accurate tradition, a certain Onesiphorus had a patronage role for the Christians in Ephesus and also tried to care for Paul when the apostle was in prison in Rome. Acts 19:31 mentions some leaders in the Province of Asia as “friends” of Paul. They were not Christians but allegedly tried to protect him from the turmoil that had been stirred up by the silversmiths in Ephesus.

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relationship to Prisca and Aquila. As patrons they supported his missionary work in Corinth by housing him and giving him a job in their workshop (Acts 18:2–3). As patrons they hosted house churches in Ephesus (1 Cor 16:19) and Rome (Rom 16:5). They “risked their necks” for Paul’s life (Rom 16:4); this probably occurred during their stay in Ephesus, where Paul was exposed to serious dangers (1 Cor 15:32; 2 Cor 1:8–9). “All” Gentile Christian churches owed them thanks (Rom 16:4). On the other hand, Paul was more than just their “client.” In 1 Cor 16:19, it sounds like they were more Paul’s co-workers in Ephesus than his “patrons.” And in Rom 16:3, just one verse after Phoebe had been called a “patron,” the couple was not labeled with this term but with the attribute “my co-workers.” At least at the time of the Letter to the Romans, a symmetrical relationship had evolved between Paul and this couple. “Coworker” could even be used for helpers subordinate to Paul.62 Thus, again, the vertical relations could be turned upside down, exemplifying the principal of the equality of all Christians. This can be also illustrated for Gaius and Paul: Gaius on the one hand sponsored Paul’s activities in Corinth and hosted the apostle (Rom 16:23). The apostle, on the other hand, had baptized this “patron” (1 Cor 1:14) and thus had sponsored his faith.63 The flexibility of relationships can finally be illustrated by Paul’s relationship to Barnabas. Barnabas was older than Paul and seems to have called Paul to Antioch, introducing him to the Christians of that city (Acts 11:25–26; cf. 9:26f.). He seems to have been a patron for Paul in these early years. Being more experienced and influential in the church than the newly converted Saul, Barnabas might even have played a fatherly role for Paul at the beginning.64 Paul, however, soon seems to have turned out to be the more influential missionary, and this changed their relationship into a symmetrical one, as we can see during the apostolic conference in Jerusalem (Gal 2:1, 7–9).65 Paul even seems to have become the speaker and leader (Gal 2:2, 5–8) until they separated (Gal 2:13; cf. Acts 15:36–40). The ambiguity of this example is due to dynamic developments within the relationship of the two men. And this is the main point that we learn from this ambiguity: the patron’s position in Pauline Christianity is not rigid with one always over the other. Sometimes the patron appears equal to the client; sometimes the “patron” and “client” even change roles.

62  2 Cor 8:23 (Titus), cf. Gal 2:1–3; Rom 16:21 (Timothy); Rom 16:9 (Urbanus); Phil 2:25 (Epaphroditus); Phlm 24 (Mark, Aristarchus, Demas, and Luke); Phlm 1, 8 (Philemon); Phil 4:3. After the Emperor Claudius’ death in 54 CE, Prisca and Aquila had returned to Rome. This move might have been strategically motivated. Paul possibly sent them as his vanguard to Rome, where he wanted to gain a firm footing with his gospel before continuing to Spain. 63  Also Rufus’s mother “mothered” Paul like a patron would do (Rom 16:13), probably by hosting Paul, but that did not make the apostle a subordinate “client.” 64  Cf., e.g., S. Tarachow, “St. Paul and Early Christianity: A Psychoanalytic and Historical Study,” in Psychoanalysis and the Social Sciences, ed. W. Muensterberger and S. Axelrad (New York: International University Press, 1955), 4:240; B. E. Redlich, S. Paul and his Companions (London: Macmillan, 1913), 62. Barnabas also was one of the patrons of the early Jerusalem church (Acts 4:36–37). 65  Cf. also Acts 13–14. From 13:13 on, most of the times Paul is even mentioned before Barnabas.



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Other Apostles as Patrons of Paul? How did Paul define his relationship to the other apostles who had been disciples of Jesus of Nazareth during his life time and who had been apostles long before Paul was converted? In 1 Cor 15:8–9, Paul confesses: ”Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also. For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.” Two to three years after his conversion, Paul travelled to Jerusalem where he talked with Peter for fifteen days and met James. Were these two apostles therefore “patrons” of the newcomer Paul who instructed him, who taught him what it was like to be an apostle and who sent him into his missionary work? No, although being the least of all, Paul claimed to be an apostle directly dependent on Christ and not on any of the other apostles (Gal 1:11–12, 16–17). Only to Christ and God did he feel responsible and accountable as a “slave,” “servant” or “steward” (Rom 1:1, 9; 1 Cor 4:1–2). That is, only in this relationship was there a vertical subordination that could be compared to patron–client structures.

Paul as Patron of Co-Workers and Congregations How is Paul’s relationship to his other co-workers (besides Prisca and Aquila) and to his congregations to be defined?66 What kind of leadership style did he exercise? Were these relationships strictly vertical, or did they also incorporate symmetrical elements that reflected the principal equality of all Christians? Did he leave room for situations in which equality was made manifest? After the separation from Barnabas, Paul surrounded himself with helpers who travelled with him, preached with him, coauthored letters with him and were sent by him to congregations: Silas, Timothy, Titus, Erastus, Urbanus, Epaphroditus, Sosthenes, Tertius, Clement, Euodia, Syntyche, the travel companions Aristarchus, Gaius from Derbe, Sopater, Secundus, Tychicus and Trophimus along with anonymous persons.67 Some of them were sent by congregations.68 66  We will not take into consideration the parties mentioned in 1 Cor 1–4: Corinthian Christians, who had been initiated into Christianity by Paul, or Peter, or Apollos, had formed three parties that were puffed up against each other. Similar to pagan teacher–students relationships, these parties looked up to their respective apostles as to patrons and venerated them and their respective theological “wisdom.” Paul scolds this practice as a perversion. One can only adhere to Christ as a patron and venerate him, not human apostles. Cf., e.g., P. Lampe, “Theological Wisdom and the ‘Word About the Cross’: The Rhetorical Scheme in I Corinthians 1–4,” Interpretation 44 (1990): 117–31. 67  Silas and Timothy (1 Cor 4:17; 16:10; 2 Cor 1:1, 19; 1 Thess 1:1; 3:2; Phil 1:1; 2:19, 22–23; Rom 16:21; cf. Acts 15:40; 16:1–3; 17:14f.; 20:4), Titus (2 Cor 8:17, 23; Gal 2:1–3), Erastus (Acts 19:22), Urbanus (Rom 16:9), Epaphroditus (Phil 2:25, 28–30), Sosthenes (1 Cor 1:1), Tertius (Rom 16:22), Clement, Euodia, and Syntyche (Phil 4:2–3), the travel companions Aristarchus, Gaius from Derbe, Sopater, Secundus, Tychicus, and Trophimus (Phlm 24; Acts 19:29; 20:4; cf. Eph 6:21–22; Col 4:7–8, 10), plus anonymous persons (Gal 1:2; 2 Cor 8:22, 18–19; Phil 4:3). 68  2 Cor 8:18–19; Phil 2:25, 30. In Paul’s temporary entourage see also Andronicus and Junia (Rom 16:7), some anonymous “brothers” (Phil 4:21), Epaphras (Phlm 23; cf. Col 1:7–8; 4:12), Mark, Luke, Demas, Onesimus, and Jesus Justus (Phlm 23; cf. Col 4:9–11, 14; 2 Tim 4:10–11), Lucius, Jason, and Sosipater (Rom 16:21). The latter might be identical with Sopater (Acts 20:4).

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The question of Paul’s leadership style has often been addressed and answered along the lines of a predominantly “democratic” style.69 However, after Walter Rebell’s thorough analysis using social-psychological categories, a damper has been put on this optimism.70 There is no room here to go into the details of this extended discussion. To sum up its result: the material that reflects Paul’s leadership behavior sends out ambiguous signals. On the one hand, the apostle leaves room for his congregations to develop a certain degree of independence. They may, for instance, choose on their own among alternative ethical options.71 Paul also stressed the φιλαδελφία (philadelphia), the love between equal brothers and sisters, which should dominate life within the churches.72 But on the other hand, Paul styles himself as their “father,”73 to whom they owe “service” (λειτουργία, leitourgia, Phil 2:30) and “lasting obedience,” as Walter Rebell words it.74 He locates Paul in “a middle position between democratic and authoritarian leadership style,” but he also has serious doubts that we really may speak about a “leadership style” in view of Paul’s complex and ambiguous leadership behavior. The ambiguity of Paul’s leadership can be illustrated by his relationship to Philemon. As “co-worker,” Philemon was subordinate to the apostle, for Paul had initiated Philemon into Christianity and could have “ordered” Philemon “to do what is proper” if he had wanted to (Phlm 1, 8, 19). Paul, however, refrained from “ordering”: “For love’s sake I rather appeal to you” (v. 9); “without your consent I did not want to do anything, so that your goodness would not be, in effect, by compulsion but 69  Cf., e.g., A. Schreiber, Die Gemeinde in Korinth: Versuch einer gruppendynamischen Betrachtung der Entwicklung der Gemeinde von Korinth auf der Basis des ersten Korintherbriefes. Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen n.f. 12 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1977), 100–103; K. Stalder, “Autorität im Neuen Testament,” IKZ 67 (1977): 1–29, esp. 4; E. Berbuir, “Die Herausbildung der kirchlichen Ämter von Gehilfen und Nachfolgern der Apostel,” Wissenschaft und Weisheit 36 (1973): 110–28, esp. 116; J. Eckert, Der Apostel und seine Autorität: Studien zum zweiten Korintherbrief (Habilitationsschrift München: unpublished manuscript, 1972), 494ff.; G. Friedrich, “Das Problem der Autorität im Neuen Testament,” in Auf das Wort kommt es an: Gesammelte Aufsätze by G. Friedrich, ed. J. H. Friedrich (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), 374–415, esp. 392; J. A. Grassi, A World to Win: The Missionary Methods of Paul the Apostle (Maryknoll, NY: Maryknoll Publications, 1965), 135ff.; R. Pesch, “Neutestamentliche Grundlagen kirchendemokratischer Lebensform,” Conc(D) 7 (1971): 166–71, esp. 170; G. Schille, “Offenbarung und Gesamtgemeinde nach Paulus,” ZdZ 24 (1970): 407–17, esp. 409; R. Schnackenburg, “Die Mitwirkung der Gemeinde durch Konsens und Wahl im Neuen Testament,” Conc(D) 8 (1972): 484–89, esp. 486f.; J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (London: SCM, 1975), 278; J. Hainz, Ekklesia: Strukturen paulinischer Gemeinde-Theologie und Gemeinde-Ordnung, Biblische Untersuchungen 9 (Regens­ burg: Pustet, 1972), 54, 291; W. Schrage, Die konkreten Einzelgebote in der paulinischen Paränese (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1961), 113; R. Baumann, Mitte und Norm des Christlichen: Eine Auslegung von 1 Korinther 1,1–3,4. Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen n.f. 5 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1968), 248; H. Ridderbos, Paulus: Ein Entwurf seiner Theologie (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1970), 326; already E. von Dobschütz, Die urchristlichen Gemeinden (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1902), 51. 70  W. Rebell, Gehorsam und Unabhängigkeit: Eine sozialpsychologische Studie zu Paulus (Munich: Kaiser, 1986), esp. 104–45. 71  E.g., 1 Cor 6:5, 7 and 1 Cor 7. See also 2 Cor 8:17 (about Titus). 72  E.g., 1 Thess 4:9; Rom 12:10. 73  E.g., 1 Cor 4:14–16. See also 1 Cor 4:17 (Phil 2:22): Timothy as Paul’s “child.” In 1 Cor 16:10–11, Paul writes a recommendation for Timothy just like a patron does. The same is true for Epaphroditus for whom Paul writes a recommendation and who “serves” the apostle (Phil 2:29–30). 74  Rebell, Gehorsam, 130. Cf. above the founders of colonies as patrons of these political communities.



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of your own free will” (v. 14). This “appeal” at first glance seems to have put less pressure on Philemon, but at second glance it did not. The pressure only became more subtle and less direct this way. A little later Paul makes clear that he “has confidence” in Philemon’s “obedience” (v. 21)—a statement that kept up the level of pressure to comply with Paul’s wishes. The ambiguity of the relationship becomes even more obvious once we see Philemon taking on the role of patron. As a host of a house church (vv. 1–2) and as a host of Paul himself (v. 22), Philemon also was a “patron” not only of other Christians, but also of Paul. In Paul’s eyes, the ambiguity of this relationship was best summarized by the symmetrical terms “brother” (vv. 7, 20) and “partner” (v. 17).75

Paul as Onesimus’s Patron The Letter to Philemon confronts us with still another type of patronage. Philemon had suffered a material loss in his household; we do not know the details (maybe something precious was broken). Philemon accused his slave of this damage. Onesimus, the slave, was afraid of his master’s wrath and chose to do something that often was done by slaves in similar situations, as legal texts show:76 He left the master’s house not in order to run away but to go to a friend of his master, in this case to the apostle Paul, and asked him to take on a mediating role in this conflict. Paul was asked to put in a good word for Onesimus; that is, he was asked to take on a temporary patronage or advocate’s role. Paul accepted this role and wrote the Letter to Philemon, vigorously asking Philemon to swallow his anger and to accept Onesimus with love as a brother. This temporary patron–client relationship between Paul and Onesimus was clearly vertical. And Paul used his patronage to convert the slave to Christianity and to teach him the Christian faith. However, in the course of his letter, Paul puts these vertical categories in another perspective by using symmetrical terms, thus undermining the absoluteness of vertical structures. The apostle claims that Onesimus is equal to him, “a beloved brother, especially to me, but how much more to you” (v. 16). Paul even

See also Phlm 1, 3–4, 8–9, 20: Both are equals. Κοινωνία (koinonia) in Phlm 6, 17 clearly is a symmetrical term; see P. Lampe, “Der Brief an Philemon,” in Die Briefe an die Philipper, Thessalonicher und an Philemon, by N. Walter, E. Reinmuth, and P. Lampe, NTD 8/2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 203–32 (212–32), with references. The ambiguity can be also seen in other relationships. Sosthenes and also the “co-workers” (Rom 16:21; Phil 2:25) Timothy and Epaphroditus were “brothers” (1 Cor 1:1; 2 Cor 1:1; Phil 2:25), although the apostle could “send” these co-workers wherever he wanted to and Epaphroditus “served” him (e.g., Phil 2:30, 25, 28). Paul called Titus not only a “co-worker” but also a “partner” (2 Cor 8:23), who to a certain extent could make his own decisions (8:17). On the other hand, being younger than Paul, Titus was clearly subordinated to Paul at the apostolic council (Gal 2:1, 3). In all of these relationships, the ambiguity prevailed. 76  Diog. 21.1.17.4–5; 21.1.43.1; 21.1.17.12; Pliny, Ep. 9.21, 24. For this analysis of the situation behind the Letter to Philemon, see P. Lampe, “Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ des Onesimus,” ZNW 76 (1985): 135–37; idem, “Der Brief an Philemon”; idem, “Affects and Emotions in the Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon: A Rhetorical-Psychological Interpretation,” in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter, ed. D. F. Tolmie, BZNW 169 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 61–77. 75 

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identifies with Onesimus: “If then you regard me a partner, accept him as you would me” (v. 17); “I have sent him back to you in person, that is, sending my very heart” (v. 12); “if he has wronged you in any way or owes you anything, charge that to my account” (v. 18). Also by emphasizing his own imprisonment frequently (vv. 1, 9, 10, 13, 23), Paul puts himself on the same level as the enslaved Onesimus. In Christ, those who in worldly eyes are super- or subordinated to each other become equal brothers. Philemon therefore is expected to receive Onesimus as an equal and beloved brother (vv. 16–17). He is expected to redefine his social relationship with Onesimus—not only during worship services but also “in the flesh” (v. 16), in everyday life. That is, he is expected to put aside his secular social role as master of a slave or (in case he decided to free Onesimus) as patron of a freed man. He is expected to make this continuing worldly difference irrelevant in his interactions with Onesimus—which corresponds exactly to the maxim of Gal 3:28. This maxim can be filled with life when superordinate persons such as Paul and Philemon renounce their privileged status, without Onesimus, however, being relieved from his usual household duties as a slave. To sum up the paradoxical result, in the Letter to Philemon, Paul uses his role as advocate and patron to abolish the relevance of such vertical hierarchies in innerChristian social life.

Congregations as Patrons? In Rom 15:24, 28, Paul hopes that the Roman Christians will sponsor his missionary work in Spain, possibly by providing travel companions, food or money for the trip, perhaps also by arranging means of transportation (προπέμπω, propempo). Such sponsoring of travel activities by local congregations can also be seen elsewhere. Paul expects the Corinthians to support Timothy’s trip from Corinth to Ephesus (1 Cor 16:11) and his own trip to Judea (2 Cor 1:16; cf. 1 Cor 16:6). On this journey to Judea, with the money collected for Jerusalem in his bags, he is indeed accompanied by representatives of the congregations who had donated money for Jerusalem. These delegates of Macedonian and Achaian churches supported him on this trip. Through their presence, they also guaranteed and documented to any possible critics that everything in connection with this money transaction was handled properly (2 Cor 8:19–23; Acts 20:4–6). Furthermore, when Paul founded the Thessalonian and Corinthian churches, the Philippian congregation sponsored these missionary activities (2 Cor 11:8–9; Phil 4:14–16). From a one-sided perspective, this sponsoring of apostolic journeys by congregations—through personnel or materials—could be interpreted as temporary patronage, with Paul or his co-worker Timothy being clients of the sponsoring churches. However, and here the above-mentioned ambiguity starts again, Paul also was the founder, the “father,” of the same congregations (see above). Thus, the patron–client roles were exchangeable. There was no one-sided vertical relationship between Paul and his churches. Once again, this fact illustrates the principle of equality in early Christian social life. The more adequate category, therefore, would not be the patron–client



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model but rather that Paul and his congregations were partners connected by friendship (amicitia, φιλαδελφία [philadelphia]; see above). Of course, symmetrical relationships could include sponsoring activities; friends in the Greco-Roman world supported and helped each other. Especially the Philippians, who sponsored Paul’s work more than any other congregation did, had a warm amicitia relationship with Paul, which was based on equality and reciprocity (Phil 2:25–30).77 In Corinth, Paul refused to take money from the local Christians when he founded their church; they did not understand this brusque refusal (1 Cor 9; 2 Cor 11:9–12; 12:13), especially since he did accept support from the Philippians while he was at Corinth. What were his motivations? He preached the gospel about God’s free gift of grace to the Corinthians, and he did this at no charge; the content and form of his preaching corresponded to each other. By refusing support, he also avoided any dependencies on local donors that could be misunderstood as patron–client relationships. It may well have been that some Corinthians had not understood the ambivalence of equality and patronage that Paul had in mind. By declining donations from Corinthian donors, as a preacher, he remained free of having to please anybody to whom he “owed” something.78 By preaching at no cost, he wanted to avoid any obstacle to the spread of the gospel (1 Cor 9:12b; 2 Cor 11:9). Several other factors motivated his refusal as well. God’s will and not Paul’s own forced him to preach; therefore, he felt uncomfortable taking reimbursement for his work (1 Cor 9:16–17). Also, he wanted to demonstrate that a Christian has to be free to forgo the use of one’s rights if necessary—in this case, he did not insist on the missionary’s right to be fed by those for whom he preached (1 Cor 9 in the context of chs. 8 and 10). Whatever Paul’s conscious motivation might have been to refuse any support from the Corinthians during his stay in Corinth, his refusal prevented the development of a patron–client relationship with any local donor in Corinth. The relationship between the church in Jerusalem on the one hand and the Pauline congregations on the other was a problematic case. According to 2 Cor 9:12, 14 and Rom 15:26–27, 30–31, the purpose of the money collection in the Pauline churches of Macedonia and Achaia was to ease the economic need of the Jerusalem Christians. At first glance, it seems that the Pauline congregations took on the role of a patron for the Jerusalem church. However, this was not Paul’s intention. His aim was a symmetrical, egalitarian relation. In 2 Cor 9:14 and Rom 15:27, he emphasized that the Jerusalem church, being older, let the Pauline congregations “share in their spiritual things”79 and often prayed for the Pauline Christians. Therefore, the latter were “indebted” to the Jerusalem church (Rom 15:27). In Paul’s eyes, reciprocity at eye level was guaranteed. Even more important, Paul understood the collection of money as an economic balancing on the horizontal level; according to him, the money collection specifically aimed at equality (ἰσότης, isotes) in economic things (2 Cor 8:13–14). For in the future, when the Jerusalem Christians might have more financial means than 77  See esp. Rainer Metzner, “In aller Freundschaft: Ein frühchristlicher Fall freundschaftlicher Gemein­ schaft (Phil 2.25–30),” NTS 48 (2002): 111–31. 78  Cf. Gal 1:10. 79  Κοινωνέω (koinoneo), like κοινωνία (koinonia), has an egalitarian aspect. See n. 75 above.

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the Pauline churches, they would donate in return: “this present time your abundance is a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need, that there may be equality.” However, the Jerusalem Christians looked at the Pauline collection of money differently. From what we know, they most likely rejected this financial gift,80 even though they were in need of money. In Rom 15:31, Paul had feared this disastrous outcome of the collection. And Luke did not know anything about a successful ending of it, although he knew about the offering (Acts 24:17) and although he usually liked to report success stories—even where it was inappropriate to do so.81 In the first place, Jerusalem’s rejection of the money offering was theologically motivated. In the time since the apostolic conference (Gal 2:3, 5–9), antagonism had started to color the relationship between the apostle of the Gentiles and the Jerusalem Christians. In the explosive situation in Palestine before the Jewish War, the Jewish Christians of Judea felt increasing pressure from their Jewish neighbors to prove their Jewish identity, especially in their obedience to the Torah. In this situation, a gospel free from the Law increasingly did not fit into the picture, and it became more advisable for the Jerusalem Christians to begin to distance themselves from Paul and his congregations. Presumably, this was one of the reasons they rejected Paul’s money offering, which was meant to be a symbol of koinonia and unity between Jerusalem and Paul’s Torah-free congregations (Gal 2:9–10). A second reason for the rejection of Paul’s money offering is also plausible.82 By accepting the support, the Jerusalem church would have run the risk of becoming a recipient of charity, of becoming a client of the economically stronger Pauline congregations in Macedonia and Achaia. The symmetry, the status of equals that was once established at the Jerusalem council (Gal 2), would have been lost. Consciously or subconsciously, the Jerusalem church avoided such a patron–client relationship when it rejected the offering of the Pauline churches.83 *** To summarize, wherever we encountered vertical patron–client-like structures in the social life of Pauline Christianity, they were in conflict with the strong early Christian feeling that horizontal symmetry and equality should govern the social interactions of Christians. This maxim constantly questioned and undermined top-to-bottom social structures and often led to ambiguity in social relationships.

Cf., e.g., P. Achtemeier, The Quest for Unity in the New Testament Church: A Study in Paul and Acts (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 60, 109. 81  Especially at the end of Acts, where he seems to suppress the negative news of Paul’s martyrdom (cf., e.g., 1 Clem. 5) in favor of an optimistic tone (Acts 28:31). In the same way he apparently suppressed the news of the disastrous ending of the Pauline collection. 82  See especially Rebell, Gehorsam, above all Part 1. 83  Seneca reports an analogous case (Ben. 2.21.5f.). When receiving money from friends to pay for his praetorian games, Iulius Graecinus refused to accept anything from two particular persons whom he considered infamous. He did not want to be socially bound and obligated to such people. 80 



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The early Christian communities were not unique in this respect. Pagan GrecoRoman clubs also often combined hierarchical and egalitarian elements and thus departed from the hierarchical patterns of their social environment.84 The Christians’ religious reasons for this departure, however, were unique. Vertical structures were a given in the Hellenistic world in which the early Christians continued to live. Equality, on the other hand, characterized the coming of the new world that was expected by the Christians and that was believed to manifest itself partially already in the present. According to the early Christians, since the coming of Jesus of Nazareth, the old and the new aeons overlapped until the coming of the eschaton, when the old aeon with its worldly structures would disappear. Thus, wherever the new aeon became manifest already in the present time, wherever people interacted lovingly in relationships of equality, the eschaton was realized at least in a fragmentary way. The theological reason for the early Christians’ equality was their relationship to God: all were considered equally close to God. Thus, the only theologically legitimate vertical structure was God’s relation to humanity.

God and Christ as Patrons An analogy can be drawn between the patron–client model and the relationship that Christ has with Christians. Christ is their Lord (e.g., Rom 1:4; 10:9, 12; 14:6–9, 14; 1 Cor 1:3). They are joined to him (Rom 7:4; cf. 1 Cor 3:23). They live for him and not for themselves (Rom 14:7–8; 2 Cor 5:15). Christ intercedes for the Christians before God (Rom 8:34; cf. 8:27), like a patron seeks the advance of his client in forensic and other social contexts. The nexus between Christ and the Christians can also be expressed in the category of “corporate representation” (1 Cor 15:20–22; Rom 5:12–19). This category exhibits at least similarities to a patron–client relationship. According to Paul, both Adam and Christ represent two different aeons. They embody whole groups. Each one of them represents many people: Like Adam all humans sin and are therefore unable to evade sin and must die. Christ’s act of righteousness on the cross, on the other hand, leads to justification of many, provided that they accept Christ as their representative and make Christ’s attribute of being righteous their own attribute. Their righteousness then comes from Christ and not from their own achievements. Applied to resurrection, the category of “corporate representation” means: because God raised Christ from the dead, and because Christ is the representative of a whole new aeon, all people of this new aeon—the Christians (1 Cor 15:23b)—will be raised by God, too. Thus, Christ elevates the eschatological status of Christian persons: they will be eternally saved, reigning with Christ, and made similar to Christ. That is, like a secular patron, Christ promotes the upward mobility of his clients—an upward mobility that depends on the loyalty (πίστις [pistis], fides) of the clients toward the patron and on the loyalty of the patron toward the clients. This is the main conclusion of T. Schmeller, Hierarchie und Egalität (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995).

84 

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Because loyalty is a mutual attitude in patron–client relationships, the question whether the expression πίστις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (pistis Jesou Christou, Phil 3:9; Gal 2:16, 20) represents a subjective or an objective genitive might present false alternatives because it is both. Not by our “works of the Law,” but because Christ was faithful and loyal and because we faithfully believe in this Christ, we are justified.85 All these statements establishing a vertical patron–client-like relationship between Christ and the Christians, however, are counterbalanced by texts which emphasize Christ’s “brotherhood” in regard to the Christians,86 his humility, which allowed him to “empty himself” for the benefit of the Christians, and to “take upon him the form of a servant” (e.g., Phil 2:6–8). So even here in the Christ–Christian relationship, an ambiguity arises. For the Christian idea of lordship and patronage includes the willingness to serve and to break open static, vertical structures (cf., e.g., 2 Cor 8:9; Phil 2:7). Christians become equal siblings and fellow heirs with Christ (Rom 8:17). Last but not least, God’s role as it is pictured in Rom 1–5 can be interpreted in analogy to the patron–client model,87 although Paul himself does not use these technical terms. As creator, God expects exclusive loyalty (πίστις, pistis) from all human beings. Like clients, they are expected to “praise” and “thank” God (Rom 1:21), and if they fail to do so the patron’s wrath is legitimate (1:18). The divine patron for his part shows his own loyalty by bestowing an act of beneficence (χάρις, charis): God reconciles humanity through the death of Christ (e.g., Rom 3:25; 5:8; 8:3) and “provides the believer with a new status (δικαιόω, dikaioo]) and unprecedented access (προσαγωγή, prosagoge]).”88 In human patron–client relationships, acts of benefaction reinforce the difference in status between the benefactor and the client. This is also Paul’s concern in Rom 1:23, 25: in the realm of sin, the distinction between the Creator and creature was blurred, and this alienated humanity from God. Thus, God’s beneficial act of reconciliation re-establishes this distinction. Like all acts of patronage, this benefaction carries with it the obligation to honor the divine patron as sovereign God.89

The context (Gal 1:23; 3:6, 9) seems to indicate that Paul himself was more focused on an objective genitive. However, the author’s intention is not always congruent with the text’s entire potential. Gal 3:20, especially, can also be read as a subjective genitive, with the participles at the end of the verse expressing beautifully Christ’s loyalty toward his clients. 86  See above, n. 47, above, and Heb 2:11–12 and John 20:17. 87  See R. W. Pickett, “The Death of Christ as Divine Patronage in Romans 5:1–11,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1993 Seminar Papers, ed. E. H. Lovering (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 726–39. For God as benefactor and patron and Jesus as mediator of God’s favor in the New Testament, see also, e.g., D. A. DeSilva, “Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament,” ATJ 31 (1999): 32‑84; A. Smith, Comfort One Another: Reconstructing the Rhetoric and Audience of 1 Thessalonians (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995); B. J. Malina, “Patron and Client: The Analogy behind Synoptic Theology,” Forum 4 (1988): 2–32. 88  Pickett, “Death,” 736. For the προσαγωγή (prosagoge), see Rom 5:2. 89  Pickett (ibid., 738f.) also suggests: “By depicting God as divine patron in Rom. 1–5,… Paul may…have been challenging the emperor´s role as great patron of all.” There may be some truth to it, if the singular in Rom 1:23 (ἀνθρώπου, anthropou) really alludes to the imperial cult. In Rom 13, however, we look in vain for such challenging allusions. That receiving charis implies obligations, especially gratefulness and loyalty (fides, pistis), toward the generous patron according to Greco-Roman standards shows that this concept of grace, which Paul uses, is not unilateral but prevents “cheap grace.” However, assuming 85 



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Part III. Pauline and Paulinist Passages for Further Reflection Rom 16:3, 7, 9, 21 1 Cor 1:1; 3:21–22; 12:28; 16:10–11, 15–16, 18–19 2 Cor 1:1, 11, 19; 2:13; 3:1; 4:5; 7:6–7, 13–15; 8:6, 13–14, 16–19, 22–23; 9:3, 5; 11:7, 12, 20, 28–29; 12:10, 17–18; 13:4, 9a Gal 1:10; 2:1, 3, 7; 4:13–18; 6:6 Phil 1:1; 2:19–23, 25, 29–30; 3:17; 4:1–3, 9–19 1 Thess 1:1, 6–7; 2:6–9; 3:2, 5–6; 4:11–12; 5:12–14 2 Thess 1:1; 3:7–12; Col 1:1, 7; 4:1, 7–14, 17 Eph 6:9, 21 1 Tim 3:1–13; 4:13f.; 5:1–2, 4, 8, 16–17; 6:17–19 2 Tim 1:16–18; 4:10–12, 19–20 Titus 1:5–9; 3:12–13; and see the cross-references in the footnotes.

Part IV. Select Bibliography Albertini, A. “Un patrono di Verona del secondo secolo d.C.: G. Erennio Ceciliano,” Pages 439–59 in Il territorio veronese in età romana: Convegno del 22–23–24 ottobre 1971. Verona: Accademia di agricoltura, scienze e lettere di Verona, 1973. Albertini, E. “La clientèle des Claudii.” Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire de l’école française de Rome 24 (1904): 247–76. Alexander, L. “Women as Leaders in the New Testament.” ModBelieving 54, no. 1 (2013): 14–22. Alföldy, G. Römische Sozialgeschichte. Wissenschaftliche Paperbacks 8: Sozial- und Wirt­ schafts­geschichte. 3rd ed. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1984. [See especially pages 19ff., 35, 38, 40f., 47, 69, 90f., 117, 126, 132.] Allen, W. “Cicero’s salutatio (In Catilinam 1,9).” Pages 707–10 in Studies Presented to D. M. Robinson on His Seventieth Birthday. Edited by G. E. Mylonas and D. Raymond. Saint Louis: Clayton, 1953. Anderson, G. Sage, Saint and Sophist: Holy Men and their Associates in the Early Roman Empire. London: Routledge, 1994. Ardevan, R. “Un patronat inconnu de Sextus Cornelius Clemens,” Pages 213–16 in Epigrafía Jurídica Romana: Actas del Coloquio International A.I.E.G.L. sobre novedades de Epigrafía Jurídica Romana en el último decenio, Pamplona 1987. Edited by C. Castillo. Pamplona: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, 1989. Badian, E. Foreign Clientelae (264–70 B.C.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958. that this concept challenges the soteriological sola-gratia formula of the Reformation (thus P. Pettersson, “Charis och reciprocitet i 2 Kor 8–9.” SvenskExegÅrs 73 [2008]: 101–21) may be misunderstanding the Reformers.

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Batten, A. “God in the Letter of James: Patron or Benefactor?” NTS 50 (2004): 257–72. Beschaouch, A. “Uzappa et le proconsul d’Afrique Sex.: Cocceius Anicius Faustus Paulinus.” MEFR 81 (1969): 195–218. Bieringer, R. “Women and Leadership in Romans 16: The Leading Roles of Phoebe, Prisca, and Junia in Early Christianity. Part I.” East Asian Pastoral Review 44, no. 3 (2007): 221–37. Bitto, I. “La concessione del patronato nella politica di Cesare.” Epigraphica 32 (1970): 172–80. Blanton, T. R. “The Benefactor’s Account-Book: The Rhetoric of Gift Reciprocation According to Seneca and Paul.” NTS 59, no. 3 (2013): 396–414. Bloy, D. “Roman Patrons of Greek Communities before the Title ‘Patron’.” Historia 61, no. 2 (2012): 168–201. Bonneville, J.-N. “Les patrons du municipe d’Emporiae (Ampurias, Espagne).” Pages 181–200 in Hommage à Robert Etienne. Publications du Centre Pierre Paris 17. Paris: Centre Pierre Paris, 1988. Bormann, L. Philippi: Stadt und Christengemeinde zur Zeit des Paulus. NovTSup 78. Leiden: Brill, 1995. Braund, D. “Function and Dysfunction: Personal Patronage in Roman Imperialism.” Pages 137–52 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989. Briones, D. “Mutual Brokers of Grace: A Study in 2 Corinthians 1.3–11.” NTS 56 (2010): 536–56. ———“Paul’s Intentional ‘Thankless Thanks’ in Philippians 4.10–20.” JSNT 34 (2011): 47–69. Brunt, P. A. “Clientela.” Pages 382–442 in The Fall of the Roman Republic. Edited by P. Brunt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. ———“Patronage and Politics in the ‘Verrines’.” Chiron 10 (1980): 273–89. Buonocore, M. “C. Herennius Lupercus patronus Larinatium.” Tyche 7 (1992): 19–25, 96. ———“Varia epigraphica abruzzesi (III): A proposito delle due tabulae patronatus di Amiternum.” Miscellanea greca e romana: Studi publ. dall’ Istituto italiano per la storia antica 9 (1984): 234–45. Campagno, M., J. Gallego, and C. García Mac Gaw, ed. Rapports de subordination personnelle et pouvoir politique dans la Méditerranée antique et au-delà: XXXIVe Colloque international du GIREA and III Coloquio internacional del PEFSCEA. Besançon: Presses universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2013. Campbell, J. B. Phoebe: Patron and Emissary. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2009. Canali de Rossi, F. Il ruolo dei patroni nelle relazioni politiche fra il mondo greco e Roma in età repubblicana ed augustea. Munich: K. G. Saur, 2001. Carter, T. L. “ ‘Big Men’ in Corinth.” JSNT 66 (1997): 45–71. Chow, J. K. Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth. JSNTSup 75. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992. Christol, M. “Hommages publics à Lepcis Magna à l’époque de Dioclétien: Choix du vocabulaire et qualité du destinataire.” Revue Historique de Droit français et étranger, sér. 4, 61 (1983): 331–43. Clarke, A. D. “The Good and the Just in Romans 5:7.” TynBul 41 (1990): 128–42. Clemente, G. “Il patronato nei collegia dell’Impero Romano.” Studi Classici e Orientali 21 (1972): 142–229. Cloud, D. “The Client–Patron Relationship: Emblem and Reality in Juvenal’s First Book.” Pages 205–18 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989.



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Coello, J. M. C. “Patrons, Tribes and Elections: The Roman Senator and Politics.” Classica et mediaevalia: Revue danoise de philologie et d’ histoire 61 (2010): 89–125. Corbier, M. “Usages publics du vocabulaire de parenté: patronus et alumnus de la cité dans l’Afrique romaine.” Pages 815–54 in vol. 2 of L’Africa romana: Atti del VII convegno di studio Sassari, 15–17 dicembre 1989. Edited by A. Mastino. Sassari: Gallizzi, 1990. Corell, J. “Nueva tabula patronatus procedente de la Baetica.” Epigraphica 56 (1994): 59–67. Coskun, A. “Zur Feldherrnpatronage in der Römischen Republik (Cic. Off. I. 35).” Mnemosyne 58 (2005): 423–29. Cotton, H. M. Documentary Letters of Recommendation in Latin from the Roman Empire. Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie 132. Königstein: Anton Hain, 1981. ———“Mirificum genus commendationis: Cicero and the Latin Letter of Recommendation.” AJP 106 (1985): 328–34. ———“The Role of Cicero’s Letters of Recommendation: iustitia versus gratia?” Hermes 114 (1986): 443–60. Crampon, M. “Le parasitus et son rex dans la comédie de Plaute: La revanche du langage sur la bassesse de la condition.” Pages 507–22 in Forms of Control and Subordination in Antiquity. Edited by T. Yuge and M. Doi. Leiden: Brill, 1988. Crook, Z. A. “The Divine Benefactions of Paul the Client.” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 2 (2001–2005): 9–26. ———Reconceptualising Conversion: Patronage, Loyalty, and Conversion in the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean, Berlin: de Gruyter 2004. Cumont, F. “Patrobouloi.” Revue de Philologie 26 (1902): 224–28. Danker, F. W. Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Greco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field. St. Louis: Clayton, 1982. D’Arms, J. H. “Control, Companionship, and clientela: Some Social Functions of the Roman Communal Meal.” Échos du Monde Classique 28 ns 3 (1984): 327–48. De Martino, F. “Clienti e condizioni materiali in Roma arcaica.” Pages 679–705 in vol. 2 of Philias charin: Miscellanea di studi classici in onore di Eugenio Manni. Edited by M. J. Fontana. Rome: Bretschneider, 1980. ———“Nota minima sulla clientela.” Index 22 (1994): 343–59. De Visscher, F. “Jules César patron d’Alba Fucens.” L’Antiquité Classique 33 (1964): 98–107. Deniaux, E., and P. Schmitt-Pantel. “La relation patron–client en Grèce et à Rome.” Opus 6, no. 8 (1987/89): 147–63. Deniaux, E. Clientèles et pouvoir à l’époque de Cicéron. Collection de l’École Française de Rome 182. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1993. ———“Commendatio, recommandations, patronages et clientèles à l’époque de Cicéron.” L’Information Historique 49 (1987): 194–96. ———“Les hôtes des Romains en Sicile.” Pages 337–45 in Sociabilité, pouvoirs et société: Actes du Colloque de Rouen 24/26 Novembre 1983. Edited by F. Thelamon. Rouen: Université de Rouen, 1987. ———“Patronage.” Pages 401–20 in A Companion to the Roman Republic. Edited by N. Rosenstein and R. Morstein-Marx. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. DeSilva, D. A. “Exchanging Favor for Wrath: Apostasy in Hebrews and Patron–Client Relationships.” JBL 115 (1996): 91–116. ———Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Westmont, IL: InterVarsity, 2000. ———“Patronage and Reciprocity: The Context of Grace in the New Testament.” Ashland Theological Journal 31 (1999): 32–84.

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Dixon, S. “Gracious Patrons and Vulgar Success Stories in Roman Public Media.” Pages 57–68 in Role Models in the Roman World: Identity and Assimilation. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome: Supplementary Volume 7. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008. Downs, D. J. “Is God Paul’s Patron? The Economy of Patronage in Pauline Theology.” Pages 129–56 in Engaging Economics: New Testament Scenarios and Early Christian Reception. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009. Drummond, A. “Early Roman Clientes.” Pages 89–115 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989. Duthoy, R. “Le profil social des patrons municipaux en Italie sous le Haut-Empire.” Ancient Society 15, no. 7 (1984/86): 121–54. ———“Quelques observations concernant la mention d’un patronat municipal dans les inscriptions.” L’Antiquité Classique 50 (1981): 295–305. ———“Scenarios de cooptation des patrons municipaux en Italie.” Epigraphica 46 (1984): 23–48. ———“Sens et fonction du patronat municipal durant le Principat.” L’Antiquité Classique 53 (1984): 145–56. Eck, W. “Abhängigkeit als ambivalenter Begriff: Zum Verhältnis von Patron und Libertus.” Memorias de Historia Antigua [Actas del Coloquio 1978: Colonato y otras formas de dependencia no esclavistas] 2 (1978): 41–50. ———“Wahl von Stadtpatronen mit kaiserlicher Beteiligung?” Chiron 9 (1979): 489–94. Edgar, D. “The Theology of Luke’s Gospel.” Search 20 (1997): 115–20. Edlund, I. E. M. “Invisible Bonds: Clients and Patrons through the Eyes of Polybios.” Klio 59 (1977): 129–36. Eilers, C. F. “A Patron of Myra in Ephesus.” Tyche 10 (1995): 9–12. ———“Cn. Domitius and Samos: A New Extortion Trial (IGR 4, 968).” ZPE 89 (1991): 167–78. ———Roman Patrons of Greek Cities. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002. Eisenstadt, S. N., and L. Roniger. Patrons, Clients, and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. Elliott, J. H. “Patronage and Clientism in Early Christian Society: A Short Reading Guide.” Forum 3 (1987): 39–48. Elliott, S. S. “ ‘Thanks, But No Thanks’: Tact, Persuasion, and the Negotiation of Power in Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” NTS 57 (2011): 51–64. Ellis, E. E. “Paul and His Co-workers.” NTS 17 (1971): 437–52. Engesser, F. “Der Stadtpatronat in Italien und in den Westprovinzen des römischen Reiches bis Diokletian.” PhD diss. Freiburg, 1957. Enríquez, J. A. “Una nueva tabula patronatus.” Pages 299–306 in Epigrafía Jurídica Romana: Actas del Coloquio International A.I.E.G.L. sobre novedades de Epigrafía Jurídica Romana en el último decenio, Pamplona 1987. Edited by C. Castillo. Pamplona: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Navarra, 1989. Espinosa Ruiz, U. “Iuridici de la Hispania citerior y patroni en Calagurris.” Gerión 1 (1983): 305–25. Evans, J. K. “Political Patronage in Imperial Rome: The Appointment of Marius Celsus as Governor of Syria in A.D. 72.” Epigraphische Studien 12 (1981): 215–24. Ferenczy, E. “Über die alte Klientel.” Oikumene 3 (1982): 193–201. Folcando, E. “Il patronato di comunità in Apulia et Calabria.” Pages 51–137 in Epigrafia e territorio: Politica e società. Edited by M. Pani. Temi di antichità romane 3. Bari: Adriatica, 1994.



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Franciosi, G. “Una ipotesi sull’origine della clientela.” Labeo 32 (1986): 263–81. Freis, H. “Zwei lateinische Inschriften aus Albanien.” ZPE 61 (1985): 224–28. Frei-Solba, R. “Zur tessera hospitalis aus Fundi (CIL I 2 611).” ZPE 63 (1986): 193–96. Friedländer, L. Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von Augustus bis zum Ausgang der Antonine. Aalen: Scientia, 1979. [See vol. 1, pp. 225–35; vol. 2, pp. 241–46.] Gagé, J. “Les ‘clients’ de M. Manlius Capitolinus et les formes de leur ‘libération’.” Revue Historique de Droit français et étranger, sér. 4, 44 (1966): 342–77. Gallego Franco, M. H. “Los términos epigráficos amicus/a y hospes como indicadores de dependencia en el ámbito social de la mujer hispanorromana.” Hispania Antica: Revista de historia antiqua 19 (1995): 205–16. Ganido-Hory, M. “Le statut de la clientèle chez Martial.” Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne 11 (1985): 380–414. Garnsey, P., and G. Woolf. “Patronage of the Rural Poor in the Roman World.” Pages 153–70 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989. Garnsey, P. D. A. “Roman Patronage.” Yale Classical Studies 34 (2010): 33–54. George, R. T. “ ‘Be Subject to the Governing Authorities’: Reading Romans 13:1–7 in the Matrix of Roman Patronage.” Doon Theological Journal 3, no. 2 (2006): 105–26. Gooder, P. “Apostles, Deacons, Patrons, Coworkers, and Heads of Household: Women Leaders in the Pauline Communities.” Pages 163–75 in Biblical Interpretation and Method: Essays in Honour of John Barton. Edited by K. J. Dell and P. M. Joyce. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Green, G. L. “¡Patrón! La clientela en Tesalónica romana.” Kairós (Guatemala City) 43 (2008): 79–85. Gregori, G. L. “Gaio Silio Aviola, patrono di Apisa Maius, Siagu, Themetra e Thimiliga.” Pages 229–37 in vol. 1 of L’Africa romana: Atti dell’VIII convegno di studio Cagliari, 14–16 dicembre 1990. Edited by A. Mastino. Sassari: Gallizzi, 1991. Grelle, F. “Patroni ebrei in città tardoantiche.” Pages 139–58 in Epigrafia e territorio: Politica e società. Edited by M. Pani. Temi di antichità romane 3. Bari: Adriatica, 1994. Guido, R. “Liberi e dipendenti nella ‘Geografia’ di Strabone.” Index 11 (1982): 245–56. Guttenberger Ortwein, G. Status und Statusverzicht im Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt. NTOA 39. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999. Hanson, K. C., and D. E. Oakman. Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures and Social Conflicts. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2002. Harmand, L. Un aspect social et politique du monde romain: Le patronat sur les collectivités publiques des origines au Bas-Empire. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1957. Harrison, J. R. Paul’s Language of Grace in its Graeco-Roman Context. WUNT 172. Tübingen: Mohr, 2003.  Hartmann, E. “ ‘Euer Purpur hat unsere Togen aus dem Dienst entlassen’: Zum Wandel des städischen Klientelwesens im Rom der frühen Kaiserzeit.” Millennium 6 (2009): 1–37. Heen, E. M. “Radical Patronage in Luke–Acts.” Currents in Theology and Mission 33, no. 6 (2006): 445–58. Heinze, R. “Fides.” Hermes 64 (1929): 140–66. Hemelrijk, E. A. “City Patronesses in the Roman Empire.” Historia 53 (2004): 209–45. ———“Patronesses and ‘Mothers’ of Roman Collegia.” Classical Antiquity 27, no. 1 (2008): 115–62. Hendrix, H. “Benefactor/Patron Networks in the Urban Environment: Evidence from Thessalonica.” Semeia 56 (1991): 39–58.

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Herrmann, P. “Cn. Domitius Ahenobarbus—patronus von Ephesos und Samos.” ZPE 14 (1974): 257–58. Horsley, R. A., ed. Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997. Jayakumar, D. K. “A System of Equality and Non-Acquisitiveness as a Subversion of the Greed-Based Capitalism and the Patronage System.” Asia Journal of Theology 22, no. 2 (2008): 237–54. Jennings, M. A. “Patronage and Rebuke in Paul’s Persuasion in 2 Corinthians 8–9.” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 6 (2009): 107–27. Jewett, R. “Tenement Churches and Communal Meals in the Early Church: The Implications of a Form-Critical Analysis of 2 Thessalonians 3:10.” BR 38 (1993): 23–43. Jones, F. L. “Martial, the Client.” CJ 30 (1934–35): 355–61. Joubert, S. J. “Patronatus as dominante sosiale sisteem in die Romeinse wêreld gedurende die Nuwe‑Testamentiese era (Patronage as Dominant Social System in the Roman World During the New Testament Era).” Skrif en Kerk 21 (2000): 66–78. Judge, E. A. “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community.” JRH 1 (1960–61): 4–15, 125–37. Kajava, M. “A New City Patroness?” Tyche 5 (1990): 27–36. Katzoff, R. “Suffragium in Exodus Rabbah 37.2.” CP 81 (1986): 235–40. Kea, P. V. “Paul’s Letter to Philemon: A Short Analysis of its Values.” PRSt 23 (1996): 223–32. Keener, C. S. “Paul’s ‘Friends’ the Asiarchs (Acts 19.31).” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 3 (2006): 134–41. Kelhoffer, J. A. “Reciprocity as Salvation: Christ as Salvific Patron and the Corresponding ‘Payback’ Expected of Christ’s Earthly Clients According to the Second letter of Clement.” NTS 59 (2013): 433–56. Kirner, G. O. “Apostolat und Patronage I: Methodischer Teil und Forschungsdiskussion.” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 6, no. 1 (2002): 3–37. ———“Apostolat und Patronage II, Darstellungsteil: Weisheit, Rhetorik und Ruhm im Konflikt um die apostolische Praxis des Paulus in der frühchristlichen Gemeinde Korinth (1Kor 1–4 u. 9; 2Kor 10–13).” Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum 7, no. 1 (2003): 27–72. Klein, V. S. “Performing the Patron–Client Relationship: Dramaturgical Clues in Horace’s Sermones 2.5.” Illinois Classical Studies 37 (2012): 97–119. Kleiner, D. E. E. “Women and Family Life on Roman Imperial Funerary Altars.” Latomus 46 (1987): 545–54. Konstan, D. “Patrons and Friends.” Classical Philologie 90 (1995): 328–42. Kraus, J.-U. “Das spätantike Städtepatronat.” Chiron 17 (1987): 1–80. Lampe, P. “Affects and Emotions in the Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon: A RhetoricalPsychological Interpretation.” Pages 61–77 in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter. Edited by D. F. Tolmie. BZNW 169. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. ———“Die Apokalyptiker—Ihre Situation und ihr Handeln.” Pages 59–115 Eschatologie und Friedenshandeln. Edited by U. Luz et al. 2nd ed. SBS 101. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1982. ———“Der Brief an Philemon.” Pages 203–32 in N. Walter, E. Reinmuth, and P. Lampe. Die Briefe an die Philipper, Thessalonicher und an Philemon. NTD 8/2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998.  ———“ ‘Family’ in Church and Society of New Testament Times.” Affirmation 5, no. 1 (1992): 1–20. ———“Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ des Onesimus.” ZNW 76 (1985): 135–37.



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———Die stadtrömischen Christen in den ersten beiden Jahrhunderten: Untersuchungen zur Sozialgeschichte. 2nd ed. WUNT 2/18. Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1989. ET: From Paul to Valentinus. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003, 6th ed. 2010. Leach, E. W. “Patrons, Painters, and Patterns: The Anonymity of Romano-Campanian Painting and the Transition from the Second to the Third Style.” Pages 135–73 in Literary and Artistic Patronage in Ancient Rome. Edited by B. K. Gold. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982. Le Gall, J. “La ‘nouvelle plèbe’ et la sportule quotidienne.” Pages 1449–53 in vol. 3 of Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire offerts à André Piganiol. Edited by R. Chevallier. Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1966. Lemosse, M. “Hospitium.” Pages 1269–81 in vol. 3 of Sodalitas: Scritti in onore di Antonio Guarino. Biblioteca di Labeo 8. Naples: Jovene, 1984/5. ———“L’aspect primitif de la fides.” Pages 39–52 in vol. 2 of Studi in onore di P. de Francisci. Milan: Giuffrè, 1956. Levi, M. A. “Da clientela ad amicitia.” Pages 375–81 in Epigrafia e territorio: Politica e società. Edited by M. Pani. Temi di antichità romane 3. Bari: Adriatica, 1994. ———“Familia, servitus, fides: Indagación en torno a la dependencia humana en la sociedad romana.” Gerión 1 (1983): 177–213. ———“Liberi in manu.” Labeo 22 (1976): 73–80 = Pages 87–96 in M. A. Levi, Né liberi né schiavi: Gruppi sociali e rapporti di lavoro nel mondo ellenistico-romano. Milan: Cisalpino-Goliardica, 1976. Lintott, A. W. “Cliens, clientes.” Der Neue Pauly 3 (1997): 32–33. ———Imperium Romanum: Politics and administration. London: Routledge, 1993. Lorencin, I. “Hospitality versus Patronage: An Investigation of Social Dynamics in the Third Epistle of John.” AUSS 46, no. 2 (2008): 165–74. MacGillivray, E. D. “Re-Evaluating Patronage and Reciprocity in Antiquity and New Testament Studies.” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 6 (2009): 37–81. ———“Romans 16:2, προστατις/προστατης, and the Application of Reciprocal Relationships to New Testament Texts.” Novum Testamentum 53, no. 2 (2011): 183–99. Maier, H. O. “Purity and Danger in Polycarp’s Epistle to the Philippians: The Sin of Valens in Social Perspective.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993): 229–47. Malina, B. J. “Patron and Client: The Analogy Behind Synoptic Theology.” Forum 4 (1988): 2–32. ———The Social World of Jesus and the Gospels. London: Routledge, 1996. Mangas, J. “Clientela privada en la Hispania Romana.” Memorias de Historia antigua 2 (1978): 217–26. ———“Hospitium y patrocinium sobre colectividades públicas: términos sinónimos? (De Augusto a fines de los Severos).” Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne 9 (1983): 165–83. Marache, R. “Juvénal et le client pauvre.” Revue des Études Latines 58 (1980): 363–69. Marcone, A. “Le relazioni di patronato e la crisi della Repubblica romana.” Pages 33–46 in Letteratura e Civitas: Transizioni dalla Repubblica all‘ Impero. Edited by M. Citroni. Testi e studi di cultura classica 53. Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2012. Marshall, J. Jesus, Patrons, and Benefactors: Roman Palestine and the Gospel of Luke. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009. Martina, M. “Grassatores e carmentarii.” Labeo 26 (1980): 155–75. Martini, R. “Su alcune singolari figure di patroni.” Pages 319–26 in Atti dell’Accademia Romanistica Costantiniana: X convegno internazionale in onore di Arnaldo Biscardi. Edited by G. Crifò and S. Giglio. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1995.

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May, J. M. “The Rhetoric of Advocacy and Patron–Client Identification: Variation on a Theme.” AJP 102 (1981): 308–15. Mbamalu, A. “Patronage and Clientelism in the Fourth Gospel.” In Die Skriflig 47, no. 1 (2013). Online: http://www.indieskriflig.org.za/index.php/skriflig/article/view/657. McNamara, D. “Shame the Incestuous Man: 1 Corinthians 5.” Neotestamentica 44, no. 2 (2010): 307–26. Merz, A. “Phöbe von Kenchreä: Kollegin und Patronin des Paulus.” Bibel und Kirche 65, no. 4 (2010): 228–32. Miller, J. D. “What Can We Say about Phoebe?” Priscilla Papers 25, no. 2 (2011): 16–21. Mommsen, Th. “Das römische Gastrecht und die römische Clientel.” Sybels historische Zeitschrift 1 (1859): 332–79 = Pages 319–90 in Th. Mommsen, Römische Forschungen 1. Berlin: Weidmann, 1864. Moxnes, H. “Patron–Client Relations and the New Community in Luke–Acts.” Pages 241–68 in The Social World of Luke–Acts: Models for Interpretation. Edited by J. H. Neyrey. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991. Mueller, S. “Paul the Pastor,” BibToday 42, no. 4 (2004): 207–12. Nadeau, Y. Dog Bites Caesar! A Reading of Juvenal’s Satire 5 (with Horace’s Satires I.5; II.5; II.6; Epistles I.1; I.16; I.17). Brussels: Latomus, 2013. Neri, C. “Suffragium: Per la storia di un’idea.” Pages 115–37 in vol. 5 of Hestíasis: Studi di tarda antichità offerti a Salvatore Calderone. Messina: Sicania, 1995. Neyrey, J. H. “God, Benefactor and Patron: The Major Cultural Model for Interpreting the Deity in Greco-Roman Antiquity.” JSNT 27 (2005): 465–92. ———2 Peter, Jude: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. AB 37C. New York: Doubleday, 1993. Ng, E. Y. L. “Phoebe as Prostatis.” Trinity Journal 25 (2004): 3–13. Nicols, J. “The Caecilii Metelli, patroni Siciliae?” Historia 30 (1981): 238–40. ———Civic Patronage in the Roman Empire. Mnemosyne 365. Leiden: Brill, 2014. ———“The Civic Religion and Civic Patronage.” Pages 36–50 in The Impact of Imperial Rome on Religions, Ritual and Religious Life in the Roman Empire: Proceedings of the Fifth Workshop of the International Network Impact of Empire (Roman Empire, 200 B. C.– A. D. 476). Münster, June 30–July 4, 2004. Edited by L. de Blois, P. Funke, and J. Hahn. Leiden: Brill, 2006. ———“The Emperor and the Selection of the patronus civitatis: Two Examples.” Chiron 8 (1978): 429–32. ———“Patrona civitatis: Gender and Civic Patronage.” Pages 117–42 in vol. 5 of Studies in Latin Literature and Roman History. Edited by C. Deroux. Collection Latomus 206. Bruxelles: Latomus, 1989. ———“Patrons of Greek Cities in the Early Principate.” ZPE 80 (1990): 81–100. ———“Patrons of Provinces in the Early Principate: The Case of Bithynia.” ZPE 80 (1990): 101–108. ———“Patronum cooptare, patrocinium deferre: Lex Malacitana c. 61.” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte 96 (1979): 303–306. ———“Pliny and the Patronage of Communities.” Hermes 108 (1980): 365–85. ———“Prefects, Patronage and the Administration of Justice.” ZPE 72 (1988): 201–17. ———“Tabulae patronatus: A Study of the Agreement between Patron and Client-Community.” Pages 535–61 in ANRW 2.13. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1980. ———“Zur Verleihung öffentlicher Ehrungen in der römischen Welt.” Chiron 9 (1979): 243–60.



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Oropeza, B. J. “The Expectation of Grace: Paul on Benefaction and the Corinthians’ Ingratitude (2 Corinthians 6:1).” Bulletin for Biblical Research 24, no. 2 (2014): 207–26. Osiek, C. “Diakonos and Prostatis: Women’s Patronage in Early Christianity.” HTS Teologiese Studies 61 (2005): 347–70. ———“The Politics of Patronage and the Politics of Kinship: The Meeting of the Ways.” BTB 43 (2013): 155–68. Osiek, C., and M. MacDonald. “Women Patrons in the Life of House Churches.” Pages 194–219 in A Woman’s Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005. Panciera, S. “I patroni di Aquileia fra la città e Roma.” Antichità altoadriatiche 30 (1987): 77–95. Pani, M. “Le raccomandazoni nell’epistolario di Plinio.” Pages 141–57 in Potere e valori a Roma fra Augusto e Traiano. Documenti e studi 14. Bari: Edipuglia, 1992. Parma, A. “Un presunto vir inlustris patrono di Minturnae (AE 1954, 27).” ZPE 79 (1989): 188–90. Pavis d’Escurac, H. “Pline le Jeune et les lettres de recommandation.” Pages 55–69 in La mobilité sociale dans le monde romain. Edited by E. Frézouls. Actes du colloque de Strasbourg (novembre 1988): Contributions et travaux de l’Institut d’Histoire Romaine 5. Strasbourg: AECR, 1992. Pettersson, P. “Charis och reciprocitet i 2 Kor 8–9. (Charis and Reciprocity in 2 Cor 8–9).” SvenskExegÅrs 73 (2008): 101–21. Pflaum, H.-G. “Clients et patrons à la lumière du cimetière de l’Autoparco sous le Vatican à Rome.” Arctos 9 (1975): 75–87. Pickett, R. W. “The Death of Christ as Divine Patronage in Romans 5:1–11.” Pages 726–39 in Society of Biblical Literature 1993 Seminar Papers. Edited by E. H. Lovering. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1993. Poinssot, C. “M. Licinius Ruffis patronus pagi et civitatis Thuggensis.” Bulletin du Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques ns 5 (1969): 215–58. Punt, J. “Framing Human Dignity through Domination and Submission? Negotiating Borders and Loyalties (of Power) in the New Testament.” Scriptura (Online) 112 (2013): 1–17. Rajak, T., and D. Noy. “Archisynagogoi: Office, Title and Social Status in the Greco-Jewish Synagogue.” JRS 83 (1993): 75–93. Rawson, E. “The Eastern clientelae of Clodius and the Claudii.” Historia 22 (1973): 219–39 = Pages 102–24 in E. Rawson, Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. ———“More on the clientelae of the Patrician Claudii.” Historia 26 (1977): 340–57 = Pages 227–44 in E. Rawson, Roman Culture and Society: Collected Papers. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. Rebell, W. Gehorsam und Unabhängigkeit: Eine sozialpsychologische Studie zu Paulus. Munich: Kaiser, 1986. Rich, J. “Patronage and International Relations in the Roman Republic.” Pages 117–35 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989. Roda, S. “Polifunzionalità della lettera commendatizia: Teoria e prassi nell’epistolario simmachiano.” Pages 177–207 in Colloque genèvois sur Symmaque à l’occasion du mille six centième anniversaire du conflit de l’autel de la Victoire. Edited by F. Paschoud. Paris: Belles Lettres, 1986. Rodríguez Neila, J. F., and J. M. Santero Santurino. “Hospitium y patronatus sobre una tabla de bronce de Canete de las Torres (Córdoba).” Habis 13 (1982): 105–63.

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Rohrbaugh, L., ed. The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996. Roldàn Hervas, J. M. “La comunidad romana primitiva, la clientela y la plebe.” Memorias de Historia antigua 2 (1978): 19–39. Rouland, N. “I rapporti clientelari.” Pages 150–64 in La rivoluzione romana: Inchiesta tra gli antichisti. Biblioteca di Labeo 6. Naples, Italy: Jovene, 1982. ———Pouvoir politique et dépendance personnelle dans l’Antiquité romaine: Genèse et rôle des rapports de clientèle. Collection Latomus 166. Bruxelles: Latomus, 1979. Saavedra Guerrero, M. D. “La cooptatio patroni e el elogio de la virtus en el patronato colegial.” Athenaeum 83 (1995): 497–507. Sabbatini Tumolesi, P. “Una nuova tabula patronatus da Paestum.” Miscellanea greca e romana: Studi publ. dall’Istituto italiano per la storia antica 15 (1990): 235–56. Saller, R. P. “Martial on Patronage and Literature.” Classical Quarterly ns 33 (1983): 246–57. ———“Patronage and Friendship in Early Imperial Rome: Drawing the Distinction.” Pages 49–62 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989. ———Personal Patronage Under the Early Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Sartori, M. “Un frammento di tabula patronatus del collegium centonariorum Laudensium.” Athenaeum 65 (1987): 191–201. Schmeller, T. Hierarchie und Egalität: Eine sozialgeschichtliche Untersuchung paulinischer Gemeinden und griechisch-römischer Vereine. SBS 162. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1995. Schütz, J. H. Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975. Schumacher, L. “Das Ehrendekret für M. Nonius Balbus aus Herculaneum (AE 1947, 53).” Chiron 6 (1976): 165–84. Schwartz, S. R. “A God of Reciprocity: Torah and Social Relations in an Ancient Mediterranean Society.” Pages 3–35 in A Tall Order: Writing the Social History of the Ancient World. Essays in Honor of W. V. Harris. Edited by J.-J. Aubert and Z. Várhelyi. Munich: K. G. Saur, 2005. Seguí Marco, J. J. “Un aspecto particular en las relationes hispano-africanas durante el Alto Imperio: los patrocinios públicos.” Pages 1547–64 in vol. 3 of L’Africa romana: Atti dell’XI convegno di studio Cartagine, 15–18 dicembre 1994. Edited by M. Khanoussi, P. Ruggeri, and C. Vismara. Ozieri: Il Torchietto, 1996. Serrao, F. “Patrono e cliente da Romolo alle XII Tavole.” Pages 293–309 in vol. 6 of Studi in onore di Arnaldo Biscardi. Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino / La Goliardica, 1987. Shaw, B. D. “Tyrants, Bandits and Kings: Personal Power in Josephus.” Journal of Jewish Studies 44 (1993): 176–204. Sloan, I. “The Greatest and the Youngest: Greco-Roman Reciprocity in the Farewell Address, Luke 22:24–30.” Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses 22 (1993): 63–73. Smith, A. Comfort One Another: Reconstructing the Rhetoric and Audience of 1 Thessalonians. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1995. Smith, S. “Women: Coworkers and Apostles with Paul.” BibToday 46, no. 2 (2008): 93–98. Soffredi, A. “Il patronato in Italia alla luce delle iscrizioni latine.” Epigraphica 18 (1956): 157–72. Soltau, W. “Grundherrschaft und Klientel in Rom.” Neue Jahrbücher für Philologie und Pädagogik 29 (1912): 489–500. Sordi, M. “Ottaviano patrono di Taranto nel 43 a.C.” Epigraphica 31 (1969): 79–83.



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Sperber, D. “Patronage in Amoraic Palestine (c. 220–400): Causes and Effects.” JESHO 14 (1971): 227–52. Starr, R. J. “Augustus as ‘Pater Patriae’ and Patronage Decrees.” ZPE 172 (2010): 296–98. Stoops, R. F. “Christ as Patron in the Acts of Peter.” Semeia 56 (1991): 143–57. Susini, G. “Q. Pompeius Senecio, console nel 169 d.C.: Alcune note.” Pages 289–99 in vol. 1 of Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire offerts à André Piganiol. Edited by R. Chevallier. Paris: S.E.V.P.E.N., 1966. Taylor, W. F. “Cultural Anthropology as a Tool for Studying the New Testament.” Trinity Seminary Review 18, no. 1 (1996): 13–27, and 18, no. 2 (1997): 69–82. Torjesen, K. J. When Women Were Priests: Women’s Leadership in the Early Church and the Scandal of Their Subordination in the Rise of Christianity. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993. Trisoglio, F. “La lettera di raccomandazione nell’epistolario ciceroniano.” Latomus 43 (1984): 751–75. Tucker, J. B. “Baths, Baptism, and Patronage: The Continuing Role of Roman Social Identity in Corinth.” Pages 173–88 in Reading Paul in Context: Explorations in Identity Formation. Essays in Honor of W. S. Campbell. London: T&T Clark International, 2010. Van Berchem, D. “Les ‘clients’ de la plèbe romaine.” Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archaeologia 18 (1941/42): 183–90. ———“Note sur les diplômes honorifiques du IVe siècle: A propos de la Table de patronat de Timgad.” RevPhil 60 (1934): 165–68. Van Eck, Ernest. “When Patrons Are Not Patrons: A Social-Scientific Reading of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Lk 16:19–26).” HTS 65, no. 1 (2009): 41–60. Voigt, M. “Über die Clientel und Libertinität.” Berichte über die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, phil.-hist. Kl. 30 (1978): 147–220. von Premerstein, A. “Clientes.” Pauly/Wissowa 4 (1901): 28–51. Vyhmeister, N. J. “The Rich Man in James 2: Does Ancient Patronage Illumine the Text?” AUSS 33 (1995): 265–83. Waldstein, W. Operae Libertorum: Untersuchungen zur Dienstpflicht freigelassener Sklaven. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1986. Wallace-Hadrill, A. “Patronage in Roman Society: From Republic to Empire.” Pages 63–87 in Patronage in Ancient Society. Edited by A. Wallace-Hadrill. London: Routledge, 1989. Walton, S. “Paul, Patronage and Pay: What Do We Know about the Apostle’s Financial Support?” Pages 220–33 in Paul as Missionary: Identity, Activity, Theology, and Practice. London: T&T Clark International, 2011. Warmington, B. H. “The Municipal Patrons of Roman North Africa.” Papers of the British School at Rome 22 ns 9 (1954): 39–55. Wasyl, A. M. “Poet’s Freedom and its Boundaries: Literary Patronage in the Eyes of Roman Authors of the Late Republican and Augustan Period.” Pages 91–111 in Freedom and its Limits in the Ancient World: Proceedings of a Colloquium Held at the Jagiellonian University Kraków, September 2003. Edited by D. Brodka, J. Janik, and S. Sprawski. Electrum: Studies in Ancient History 9. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Jagielloñskiego, 2003. Welborn, L. L. “Paul’s Caricature of His Chief Rival as a Pompous Parasite in 2 Corinthians 11.20.” JSNT 32 (2009): 39–56. Wheatley, A. B. Patronage in Early Christianity: Its Use and Transformation from Jesus to Paul of Samosata. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011. Whelan, C. F. “Amica Pauli: The Role of Phoebe in the Early Church.” JSNT 49 (1993): 67–85.

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White, L. M. “Social Authority in the House Church Setting and Ephesians 4:1–16.” ResQ 29 (1987): 209–28. ———“Social Networks: Theoretical Orientation and Historical Applications.” Semeia 56 (1991): 23–36. Whitlark, J. “Enabling Χάρις: Transformation of the Convention of Reciprocity by Philo and in Ephesians.” PRSt 30, no. 3 (2003): 325–57. Whitmarsh, T. “Greek Poets and Roman Patrons in the Late Republic and Early Empire.” Pages 197–212 in The Struggle for Identity: Greeks and their Past in the First Century B.C.E. Edited by T. A. Schmitz. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2011. Wiedemann, T. “The Patron as Banker.” Pages 12–27 in Bread and Circuses: Euergetism and Municipal Patronage in Roman Italy. Edited by K. Lomas and T. Cornell. London: Routledge, 2003. Wilkins, P. I. “Legates of Numidia as Municipal Patrons.” Chiron 23 (1993): 189–206. Winter, B. W. “ ‘If a Man Does Not Wish to Work…: A Cultural and Historical Setting for 2 Thessalonians 3:6–16.” TynBul 40 (1989): 303–15. ———“Roman Law and Society in Romans 12–15.” Pages 67–102 in Rome in the Bible and the Early Church. Edited by P. Oakes. Ada, MI: Baker Academic, 2002. ———Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens. First-Century Christians in the Graeco-Roman World. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994. Winterling, A. “Freundschaft und Klientel im kaiserzeitlichen Rom.” Historia 57 (2008): 298–316. Woodhull, M. L. “Matronly Patrons in the Early Roman Empire: The Case of Salvia Postuma.” Pages 75–91 in Women’s Influence on Classical Civilization. Edited by F. McHardy and E. Marshall. London: Routledge, 2004.

Chapter 24

Paul and Performance Glenn S. Holland The word “performance” usually evokes the idea of some sort of live artistic effort, whether musical, theatrical, or otherwise, an effort that incorporates vocal or instrumental music, spoken words, dance, acrobatics, or other physical actions within a controlled environment. The “live” aspect is particularly important to this definition, the idea that one watches a performance as it takes place before one’s eyes. A recorded event such as a film or a television program, a video or audio recording, is not performance in this sense, although we may speak of an actor’s, a dancer’s or a musician’s “performance” as part of such a recorded event. Marvin Carlson explains in Performance: A Critical Introduction (1996) that our experience of various sorts of performances “suggest that these arts require the physical presence of trained or skilled human beings whose demonstration of their skills is the performance.”1 Here “skill” initially appears to be used in the artistic sense, referring to the sorts of skills employed in acting, singing, dancing, juggling, stage-fencing, equestrianism, and so on. But “skill” in fact encompasses any facility in undertaking a particular activity, artistic or otherwise, in the presence and for the benefit of others. Such skills include oratory, reading aloud, and “signing” an event for the benefit of the hearing-impaired. Even the act of silently projecting a particular image through stance, costume, or equipment may constitute performance, as in the case of a bouncer at a nightclub or a grenadier guard at attention in a guard box outside Buckingham Palace. “Performance” encompasses a large number of face-to-face actions undertaken by one or more persons with the intention of making an impression of some sort on other people. So performance is not limited to artistic—i.e., self-consciously aesthetic—actions. Any sort of human action undertaken deliberately or self-consciously by one or more persons before an “audience”—a group of other people who experience via their sensory apparatus the physical consequences of the action—is “performance.” Therefore “performance” consists not only in the “doing” of a performance, the actions of the performer or performers; an audience is also necessary to performance, as is a specific time and place. In fact every performance includes what is performed, the content, a “text” of some sort (a play, a musical score, the lyrics and music of a song, the choreography of a 1 

Marvin Carlson, Performance: A Critical Introduction (New York: Routledge, 1996), 3.

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dance, the history of the grenadier, the implicit threat of the bouncer), rendered into physical (embodied) form in some way. Performance includes the how of the performance, the particular way in which the text is rendered perceptible to an audience’s sensory apparatus. Performance includes the who of the performer or performers and the audience, but also the where and when of the specific circumstances, planned or spontaneous, under which a given performance takes place. The setting or spatial context of performance may have a powerful influence on how the performance is undertaken and understood. Performance in a theatre is different than performance in a temple or a private home or a workshop or the agora, since each setting represents different expectations for group behavior, demeanor, and attentiveness. Occasion also influences how a performance is carried out and how it is understood. And performance includes most notably the “reception” of the performance by members of the audience—their reactions to and opinions of what they have experienced in the course of the performance in the unique context and conditions of a specific time and occasion, a specific setting and place. At the same time, the members of an audience experiencing a performance should not be thought of as a group of ideal receptors who differ from one another only by virtue of the personal histories and circumstances each brings to a performance. Each person in an audience differs from the others in the ability to take in their common experience on a physical and/or intellectual level, and may be further aided or hindered by extraneous circumstances that are the fault of neither performer nor audience.2 It’s easy to imagine how the threat of a sudden storm, a persistent insect, a crying child, or a coughing adult might affect an audience’s enjoyment of an outdoor concert. Moreover how an audience perceives/receives a performance depends to some extent on the various expectations members of the audience bring to a performance on the one hand and how well the performance fulfills and re-adjusts those expectations on the other. A performer (and/or an author or a creator) will anticipate and accommodate an audience’s expectations for a performance, but will often also deliberately work to introduce new elements to the performance an audience does not expect, and so to that extent change the nature of the audience’s experience, and so also the performance itself. So the “success” of a given performance in achieving a particular goal or fulfilling a particular intention in a given context is the result of collaboration between those responsible for the performance (author, creator, performer) and those who experience it under a particular set of delimiting circumstances (members of an audience). A per­formance’s success is thus also dependent on the ability and willingness of each of these participants to work with the others in a common effort to create meaning from the experience of performance in a specific context and setting.

The classic example for those of a certain age in biblical studies is Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in “Monty Python’s Life of Brian.” People standing at the edge of the crowd have a difficult time following what Jesus is saying. “What was that?”… “I think it was ‘Blessed are the Cheesemakers.’ ” “What’s so special about the cheesemakers?” “It’s not meant to be taken literally. Obviously it refers to any manufacturers of dairy products.” Graham Chapman et al., Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (of Nazareth) (London: Eyre Methuen, 1979), 9.

2 



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Part I. Orality, Literacy, Letters and Rhetoric in the First-Century Greco-Roman World Despite the extensive use of alphabetic writing in both Greek and Latin at the turn of the age, the prevailing culture of the early Roman Empire was primarily oral (centered on speaking) and aural (centered on hearing) and based on face-to-face interactions rather than primarily literate (centered on writing and reading, both visual skills) and based on texts. While this common claim is generally true, especially in regard to the far-flung provinces of the Empire, it is also a claim that requires some explanation and modification in specific cases. For example, Hans-Josef Klauck cautions that it is not only difficult to determine the degree to which the Roman Empire in the first century represented either oral or literary forms of communication, but also how the two might be employed by any given person. What someone made or could make of the opportunities that were in principle available varied greatly from case to case, and there remains a wide range over which complete illiteracy and perfect reading and writing ability form only the two endpoints…a part of the population could read and write only hesitantly and with great effort… Moreover, the capabilities of reading and writing did not always go hand in hand, so that someone able to read a letter would not necessarily also be able to answer it…3

Even to describe the prevailing forms of human intercommunication in the GrecoRoman world in the simple terms of “orality v. literacy”—as many theorists have done—is to create a false dichotomy between the two which does not accurately reflect the more nuanced historical reality. It appears certain there has historically been a mutual influence between orality and literacy in most even partially literate cultures; John Halverston notes, “The problem is that in real-life situations the relationships between literate and non-literate discourse are far too complex to be reduced to a simple dichotomy; in fact, any generalizations are dangerous.”4 Deborah Tannen argues there are many shades of variation among oral and literate cultures: “…both oral and literate strategies can be seen in spoken discourse. Understanding this, let us not think of orality and literacy as an absolute split, and let us not fall into the trap of thinking of literacy, or written discourse, as decontextualized. Finally…it is clear that it is possible to be both highly oral and highly literate. Thus, let us not be lured into calling some folks oral and others literate.”5 So what distinction should be made in regard to modes of communication in the early Roman Empire? Tannen writes, “…it is not ‘orality’ per se that is at issue but rather the relative focus on communicator/audience interaction on the one hand, as Hans-Josef Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis, trans. and ed. Daniel P. Bailey (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006), 56. 4  John Halverson, “Oral and Written Gospel: A Critique of Werner Kelber,” NTS 40 (1998): 181. 5  Deborah Tannen, “The Myth of Orality and Literacy,” in Linguistics and Literacy, ed. William Frawley (New York: Plenum, 1982), 47–48. 3 

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opposed to the relative focus on content on the other, or…to what degree interpersonal involvement or message content carry the signaling load.”6 The knowledge among the non-literate portion of a population that writing and reading can communicate on the one hand, and an accommodation of literacy to expectations and presuppositions based in oral culture on the other, produce an intermingling of orality and literacy even in cultures in which literacy is limited to a very few. This appears to be true for both the literate and the non-literate both among the Romans and among their subject peoples in the first century CE. The Mediterranean culture of the early Roman Empire combined elements of Greek and Latin literacy to varying degrees with a variety of primarily oral cultures— including those of Greece and Rome themselves—with distinctive popular and elite attitudes towards what was communicated through speech and through writing. Estimates of the percentage of people in the early Empire who were in some sense literate vary. The literate are sometimes referred to as an “elite,” but it appears literacy was primarily limited to those who had specific uses for it, either practical (scribes, priests, military, merchants) or intellectual (orators, philosophers, those involved in politics).7 Estimates that put the literacy rate among men in the early Roman Empire at about ten percent8 are considered by more recent studies based on a wider range of sources to be too low; a more accurate estimate would be twenty percent literacy among men, with lower literacy in the provinces and among women generally.9 At the same time, there are indications of fairly widespread literacy among soldiers and the women in their families.10

Tannen, “The Oral/Literate Continuum in Discourse,” in Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Oral­ ity and Literacy, ed. Deborah Tannen, Advances in Discourse Processes 9 (Norwood, NJ: Aplex, 1982), 3. 7  William V. Harris, Ancient Literacy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), 25–42. Teresa Morgan writes, “…literate education…equipped a small minority of people in Hellenistic and Roman society to perform a large number of political, economic, social and cultural functions… Besides teaching practical skills, literate education provided learners with a quantity of cultural information and a repertoire of values which proclaimed that they belonged to the ruling elite, and an acquired form of Latin or Greek (or an approximation of it) in which to assert their hegemony” (Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 271). 8  Harris, Ancient Literacy, 3–24; similarly Richard A. Horsley puts the literacy rate in the Roman Empire in general at 10%, with a much lower 2% in Palestine. See his Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing, Biblical Performance Criticism 9 (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013), 2, 4, citing for the latter figure the analysis of Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine, TSAJ 81 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2001). On the other hand, Luke 4:16–20 assumes Jesus, a teknōn (Mark 6:3), is literate in Hebrew and able to read from the scroll of Isaiah. 9  Teresa Morgan, Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 3, n. 8. There Morgan notes, “…at least minimal literacy was needed in a wide range of occupations, was regularly taught in the army and is evidenced by a vast body of graffiti Empire-wide” (3 n. 8). 10  Evidence for literacy among Roman soldiers and the women associated with them is provided by the Vindolanda tablets. These wooden tablets were found in 1973 among the ruins of a Roman fort in Northumberland near Hadrian’s Wall in northern England. The tablets, written in ink in Old Roman Cursive, date from 92–103 CE and include texts written by women, notably an invitation to a birthday party that represents the earliest surviving example of a woman writing in Latin. See Vindolanda Tablets Online (http://vindolanda.csad.ox.ac.uk/) and Vindolanda Tablets Online II (http://vto2.classics.ox.ac.uk/). 6 



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There are also different theories of what constituted literacy (and illiteracy) in the Roman world,11 and Harris lists the primary outlets for writing.12 Casey Wayne Davis notes: …there were many barriers which inhibited the growth of widespread literacy in ancient Greece and Rome. Harris lists the following as crucial factors. (1) Practical writing materials were expensive and hard to come by. (2) Availability of eyeglasses was extremely limited. (3) There were virtually no open school systems and the private schools could only be afforded by the rich. (4) The society was still primarily rural. (5) Finally, literacy simply was not necessary, even for cultural success. The society as a whole was still basically oral, and its traditional education provided the essentials for social life. The few among the élite who were illiterate could use literary materials and communicate by the written word through literate intermediaries such as slaves. Literary material was readily available to the illiterate through performances, speeches and recitations in the market place, the theater and in various governmental and religious settings.13

The general availability of literary material through oral performance is in fact a good example of the intermingling of orality and literacy in the Greco-Roman world. Halverson elaborates: In most societies, past and present, the typical spread of literacy is probably between a small number of people who are highly literate and a considerable minority who are barely literate or not literate at all… In such circumstances ideas and styles of discourse emanating from the literate minority may reach the larger population by word of mouth, a situation for which the term “secondary orality” has been used. Conversely, written discourse is often greatly influenced by speech, in both style and content: inevitably when writing is used primarily to record spoken words…14

In short, the primarily oral cultures of the far-flung regions and peoples under Roman imperial sway differed in various ways, but the habits and traditions engrained through centuries of orality shaped the way the vast majority of those cultures and their peoples understood and utilized literacy, primarily in regard to the way literacy was understood by and mediated to the culture and people at large.

11  Cf. Greg Wolff, “Literacy or Literacies in Rome?,” in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome, ed. William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 46–68, and in the same volume, Thomas Habinek, “Situating Literacy at Rome,” 114–40; Ann Ellis Hanson, “Ancient Illiteracy,” in Literacy in the Roman World, ed. Mary Beard et al., JRASup 3 (Ann Arbor: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1991), 159–98: “…functional semiliterates and illiterates occupied a broad terrain between those illiterates, whose very lives poverty and the passage of time have obliterated, and those who were fully literate in every sense, the élites of cities whose literary productions and literary tastes continue to influence our own. The story of ancient illiteracy—with all its shading of ability and deficiency; its pairing with bi- and multilingualism in much of the Graeco-Roman world of the historical period; its perils and coping mechanisms—was a facet of ancient literacy and its story has still to be told” (160–61). 12  Harris, Ancient Literacy, 25–42. 13  Casey Wayne Davis, Oral Biblical Criticism: The Influence of the Principles of Orality on the Literary Structure of Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians, JSNTSup 172 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999), 24. 14  Halverson, “Oral and Written Gospel,” 181.

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One important aspect of the priority and dominance of practices associated with orality in the Mediterranean world of the first century CE was that the vast majority of reading was reading done aloud, to be heard by the reader and most often by an audience as well.15 This means reading was for the most part not a silent, solitary activity—nor thought of as such—but rather a social activity, a live performance based on a text. Florence Dupont puts it this way: “Ancient writing was a statement in quest of a speech act. Reading, in all its forms…was always a means of creating a social symbolism through a pragmatic meaning that was in many cases quite distinct from the reading itself. That pragmatic meaning, which could only be produced in an event, furthermore often required the presence of speaking bodies. In the absence of those bodies, when reduced to a book, writing was fated to draw attention endlessly to that absence,” i.e., to the absence of the oral event.16 In other words most texts were meant to be performed, to be read aloud face to face with an audience (even if that audience were only the reader), and in the absence of voice and audience, when a text was unread and silent, its very existence as a text called out for its verbalization, its performance by someone for someone. Literary works were intended to be presented to an audience, and this qualified as their mode of “publication.” A literary text was written with the intention that it would be read aloud to its audience and so composed with an eye to its performance by a reader. It is important to note that not all reading in the early Empire was done aloud; the ability to read silently to oneself was commonly recognized as a skill at least some people (including some among the enslaved) possessed.17 But whenever reading was done aloud, that reading constituted performance. A written text was thus the basis for (potentially, a series of) performances, each occurring whenever the text was read aloud in a different situation. As a result, written texts to be read aloud would be composed with an eye to the exigencies of live performance, what would be effective when the text was performed before an audience. This is one way, among many others, that the practices, expectations, and approaches associated with oral/aural, face-toface communication came to influence ancient literary composition. The influence was in many cases a natural result of communication in a partially oral and a partially literary culture, but in at least some cases the choice to follow characteristic patterns of oral communication in writing was deliberate, an author’s decision. Davis makes this point:

In Acts 8:26–40, for example, Philip hears the Ethiopian eunuch “reading the prophet Isaiah” while riding in his chariot (Acts 8:27–30). See also the opening blessing in Rev 1:3: “Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it; for the time is near.” 16  Florence Dupont, The Invention of Literature: From Greek Intoxication to the Latin Book, trans. Janet Lloyd (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), 248. 17  Cf. Bernard M. W. Knox, “Silent Reading in Antiquity,” GRBS 9 (1968): 421–35; Myles F. Burnyeat, “Techniques of Reading in Classical Antiquity,” CQ 47 (1997): 56–71. For silent reading among the enslaved, a scene in Aristophanes’ Knights (ll. 107–51) depends on it. “What prophecies! Give me the cup, give it here quickly!” “Here. What’s the oracle say?” “Pour me a refill!” “The prophecies say ‘pour me a refill’?” Aristophanes, Knights (Henderson, LCL). 15 



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The composition and interpretation of materials composed at the beginning of the common era in general…were heavily influenced by the oral culture of the day. The flow of narrative and argument was circular rather than linear. Since the acts of both writing and reading were normally accompanied by vocalization, the structure of text was marked by aural rather than visual indicators. Mnemonic clues were important because people usually made reference to written materials by using their memory rather than looking up a citation. These factors…must be considered when interpreting literature from this period.18

The fact that most writing was read aloud before an audience affected not only how texts were written, but also how they were performed—to convey their meaning effectively through speech and gesture, i.e., through the use of voice and body, heard and seen. Tannen explains: In speaking, everything that is said must be said in some way: at some pitch, in some tone of voice, at some rate of speed, with some expression or lack of expression in the voice and on the face of the speaker. All these nonverbal and paralinguistic features reveal the speaker’s attitude toward the message…and establish cohesion, that is, show relationships among ideas, highlight relative importance, foreground and background information, and so on… In contrast, in writing, the features of nonverbal and paralinguistic channels are not available.”19

So, the reader must create them de novo in the act of reading aloud.20 Since these sorts of choices are always necessarily made by the one reading aloud—although in some cases they might be cued to some extent by the text—there can be no such thing as a “straight” reading, i.e., one that is “neutral” and “transparent,” allowing the text to “speak for itself.”21 Nor would such a “straight” or neutral reading be desirable even if it were possible—it would not reflect the way human beings communicate face-to-face. And even if possible, such a performance, like every other, would be unrepeatable. The circumstances surrounding and determining live performance inevitably and necessarily change each time a performance is undertaken and experienced. So each reading aloud constitutes a unique performance, shaped not only by the choices and skills of the reader/performer in the specific circumstances of an individual reading, but also by the audience involved in that specific reading at a given time in a given space. Audiences are “involved” in a performance in two distinct senses of the word. An audience is involved as a necessary component of a performance but also involved in the performance insofar as its members are emotionally invested in what they experience—aurally, visually and otherwise—while the performance takes place. Further, as Carlson notes, “All reception is deeply involved with memory, because it is memory that supplies the codes and strategies that shape reception, and, as Davis, Oral Biblical Criticism, 11. Tannen, “The Myth of Orality and Literacy,” 41. 20  Both the importance and the inevitability of stress and tone in speaking are well illustrated by Leo Rosten, The Joys of Yiddish (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968), xiv–xvi, xxiv–xxv. 21  Cf. Dan Nässelqvist makes the case for “straight” readings in antiquity, but does so with a limited appreciation for the full range of meanings for “performance” (“Oral Performance or Public Reading? The Oral Delivery of New Testament Writings in Early Christianity,” paper presented to the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Diego, November 22, 2014). 18  19 

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cultural and social memories change, so do the parameters within which the reception operates… The expectations an audience brings to a new reception experience are the residue of memory of previous such experiences.”22 In other words, past performances define the parameters for further performances and each performance is “haunted” by similar performances members of its audience have experienced in the past. Despite the emphasis on performance as an aspect of ancient orality, it is important to remember that performance encompasses far more than just what is heard. Performance by its very nature employs a range of effects or phenomena associated with the entire human body—and sometimes the phenomena created as part of the performance environment—and so is perceived by an audience through a variety of human senses. Performances engage both the ears and the eyes of the audience, since the words of the text are spoken aloud and accompanied by bodily actions that invariably supplement and influence the audience’s reception of what it hears.23 Other senses may be actively or passively involved, including smell, taste, and touch, as well as one’s “sense” of place and of the presence of other people. When a text is performed it is not only spoken but embodied, and the entire person, inside and out, influences how the words of the text are both performed and received. The performer’s delivery and character (ēthos) both exert a powerful influence over how his or her words are heard, as the rhetorical authors well knew.24 We may compare how the role assumed by an actor influences how the words spoken are heard and assessed by the audience; what would be the advice of a trusted underling in one character’s mouth is the vilest treachery in the mouth of Iago, the villainous betrayer in Shakespeare’s Othello. The importance of ēthos is especially prominent when a letter is read aloud to a group, in this case the ēthos of both author and reader. Klauck rightly asserts that not all letters were read aloud and provides several interesting examples,25 but it appears most letters were read aloud, and those addressed to groups of people necessarily were. In the case of a letter read aloud, the audience’s experience and reception of its contents will be influenced both by memories of the author of the letter and previous dealings with him or her and by immediate sensory perceptions of the reader who reads aloud and addresses the audience more or less effectively in the person of the author.26 Indeed, one of the purposes of a letter is to evoke among members of its audience memories of the writer and, through effective performance, to evoke the writer’s presence and ēthos. Seneca expressed this idea in a letter to Lucilius: “If the pictures of our absent friends are pleasing to us, though they only refresh the memory

Carlson, The Haunted Stage (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002), 5. Cf. Cicero, Orator 17.55–60. 24  Cf. the opinion of Aristotle, Rhetoric 1.2.3–6, which reflects a debate over whether the ēthos of a speaker exerted influence on an audience, and if so, whether the influence was the result of his reputation among members of the audience or the result of his character expressed in his oratory. 25  Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament, 208–11. 26  This is especially the case when the reader is also the letter carrier acting as an envoy for the letter’s author, cf. Margaret M. Mitchell, “New Testament Envoys in the Context of Greco-Roman Diplomatic and Epistolary Conventions: The Example of Timothy and Titus,” JBL 111 (1992): 641–62. 22  23 



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and lighten our longing by a solace that is unreal and unsubstantial, how much more pleasant is a letter, which brings us real traces, real evidences, of an absent friend! For that which is sweetest when we meet face to face is afforded by the impress of a friend’s hand upon his letter—recognition.”27 A letter from a person familiar to an audience is “haunted” by its audience’s memories of past interactions with that person, but those memories are also subject to change—or at least reinterpretation—for the better or the worse by the contents of the letter itself read aloud, by both the text and its performance by a reader. The audience’s memories may determine to a large extent the initial reception of a letter read aloud, but those memories are also malleable and, if not subject to change, at least subject to reinterpretation. Although memories provide the basis for the audience’s reception of a letter’s performance, those memories are in turn influenced by what the audience hears in the letter and experiences during its performance, as the author (through the one reading aloud) presents his or her own view of a common past shared with the members of the audience. Although the past doesn’t change, how one remembers and understands it is potentially subject to constant revision and change. Letters in the Mediterranean world of the first century CE were written for a variety of purposes, but all letters were intended effectively to serve as a substitute for the writer’s actual presence. Abraham Malherbe, for example, reviews the ancient epistolary theorists and lists the various sorts of letters they describe; all function in some way as a substitute for the author’s presence.28 But the issue of authorship of a letter in the Greco-Roman context is a complicated matter, or at least one that requires qualification. Although short letters might be handwritten by the sender, longer letters were likely to be written down by a scribe.29 There were essentially four ways a scribe might participate in the creation of a letter: A scribe might (1) transcribe dictation from the author, who is the sole source of the letter’s content; (2) receive detailed instructions about the contents and argument of a letter, and then develop the letter from those notes; (3) receive general directions from the author in regard to the content and general thrust of the letter, and then create a letter that conforms to the author’s wishes; (4) work only from instructions to write a certain sort of letter; “all the rest is left to the experience and skill of the secretary.”30 In what is essentially a process of converting speech into writing (writing later to be rendered back again into speech), the exact amount of collaboration between an author (or authors) and a secretary is obviously difficult to determine. Not only was the final product as the audience experiences it a result of collaboration between author and scribe, but also of collaboration between author and reader and (when the letter was read aloud) between reader and audience; all are part of the act of communication.

27  Seneca to Lucilius, Moral Letters 40.1; quoted by Stanley K. Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity, LEC (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), 29. 28  Abraham Malherbe, “Ancient Epistolary Theorists,” Ohio Journal of Religious Studies 5, no. 2 (October 1977): 3–77; see also Stowers, Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity, 51–173. 29  Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament, 55–60. 30  Ibid., 59, citing E. R. Richards, The Secretary in the Letters of Paul, WUNT 2/42 (Tübingen: Mohr/ Siebeck, 1991), 97–111.

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Letters were also conveyed in a number of different ways; private citizens would typically depend on enslaved servants, couriers, or travelers, each with varying speed and dependability, subject to the difficulties of the road.31 The person who read a letter aloud might be either the conveyor of the letter or someone within the household to whom it was addressed. In either case there is some question as to whether the reader would have to prepare to read the letter aloud, or even whether the reader would read the letter word for word. Just how difficult it was for those with knowledge and experience to read ancient texts—including letters—is a contested issue,32 but whatever difficulties reading might have entailed no doubt seem much greater to us as moderns who process very different texts in very different ways. Given the idea of a letter in some way conveying an author’s “self”—“real traces, real evidences, of an absent friend”—the view that the person reading aloud for an audience would read a letter word-for-word is to be preferred. Another issue to be considered in discussion of letters in the early imperial world is the question of the connection between letters and oratory as rhetorical construct.33 Once a letter reaches a certain length to serve one or a number of functions, the experience of the letter read aloud inevitably takes on for its audience many of the attributes of a speech. A long text read aloud is experienced by its audience as an extended oral discourse and so is expected by its audience, consciously or unconsciously, to conform to the rules determining one-sided oral discourse; in short, speeches. Moreover, situations in which a letter might be addressed to a group are situations in which such letters are intended to have some sort of major effect upon the beliefs and/or the actions of the members of its audience. In other words, the letter is meant to serve some sort of practical purpose. To achieve its end, a letter must work some sort of change on the minds and opinions of the members of its audience, to persuade them to think and act in a particular way; this is the province of effective rhetoric. Without identifying rhetoric with simple “persuasive speaking,” it is clear that a letter read aloud is meant to do something; the question is, how best to do it? Klauck among others insists that letters are not speeches and should not be treated as such; he concludes, “…the analysis of epistolary theory with the help of rhetoric must not fall subconsciously into the error of valuing speaking higher than writing, as some ancients did (e.g., Plato), or of regarding writing and the written material as a surrogate for speaking or as a makeshift solution. Its writtenness is part of the essence of the letter that deserves to be respected, not dissolved.”34 This is undeniably

Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament, 60–65. Cf. Larry W. Hurtado, “Oral Fixation and New Testament Studies? ‘Orality,’ ‘Performance’ and Reading Text in Early Christianity,” NTS 60 (2014): 327–30. 33  On this issue, cf. J. Paul Sampley’s “Ruminations Occasioned by the Publication of These Essays and the End of the Seminar,” in Paul and Rhetoric, ed. J. Paul Sampley and Peter Lampe (New York: T&T Clark International, 2010), ix–xvii, esp. ix–x, and, in the same volume, Christopher Forbes, “Ancient Rhetoric and Ancient Letters: Models for Reading Paul, and Their Limits,” 143–60. 34  Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament, 209. 31  32 



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true, and a letter as artifact is significant even when it is unread.35 On the other hand, letters written to groups, unlike private letters, are written not to be experienced by their audiences as texts, but through performance.36 When (especially long) letters are read aloud, they are texts performed by a reader who is both heard and seen by the audience, whose members, although aware what is read is a letter, react specifically to its performance, much as they would react to any other sort of face-to-face communication event. There is also the question of whether it is appropriate to think of the persuasive intentions of Greco-Roman letters in terms of classical rhetoric.37 But letters written with the knowledge that they would be read aloud to the author’s intended audience are likely to be shaped as oral/aural expressions. The most important aspect of classical rhetoric was delivery—a point that Demosthenes memorably established (Cicero, De or. 3.56.213)—but what has survived of classical oratory is of course transcribed speeches or texts for speeches to be performed. Letters read aloud were examples of performance not least because when they were read aloud the reader was obliged to express their meaning—i.e., deliver them—effectively. Moreover, the longer a performed letter was, the more likely it was to conform to the forms and expectations that determine long-form oral discourse, and much less so by the practices and conventions common to shorter letters. To the extent a letter is written to influence an audience’s ideas and to shape the behavior of its members it serves the essential function of an oration, as evidenced by the inclusion in some letters (notably those of Paul of Tarsus) of rhetorical tropes and structure.38 It would be difficult for an audience to distinguish the reading aloud of a letter from other occasions of semi-public oral communication, at least in terms of the experience of performance; the experience of oral performance supersedes the artifact of the written letter.39

35  Cf. Lee A. Johnson, “Paul’s Letters as Artifacts: The Value of the Written Text among Non-Literate People” (paper presented to the Social Science Criticism of the New Testament section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, November 23, 2009). 36  Although Klauck argues, “…neither the secondary orality of the letter that is read aloud nor the fact that a letter could be dictated to a scribe cancels out its originally written character” (Ancient Letters and the New Testament, 208), this is arguably a distinction that would have been lost on an audience used to face-to-face communication that experienced a letter’s content only through its live performance. As Forbes notes, “Paul was not writing letters to individuals, to be read at their leisure. He was writing letters to Christians assemblies, where his letter would be read aloud, often in quite polemical situations” (Forbes, “Ancient Rhetoric and Ancient Letters,” 148–49). 37  Klauck argues that letters are not generally representative of classical rhetoric, which itself should not be reduced to “persuasive argumentation” (Ancient Letters and the New Testament, 210–11). 38  Cf. Davis, Oral Biblical Criticism, 64–97; Troy W. Martin, “Invention and Arrangement in Recent Pauline Rhetorical Studies: A Survey of the Practices and the Problems,” in Sampley and Lampe, eds., Paul and Rhetoric, 48–118, and, in the same volume, Duane F. Watson, “The Role of Style in the Pauline Epistles: From Ornamentation to Argumentative Strategies,” 119–39. 39  On this point Forbes writes, “Paul’s letters are not written to be read, but to be performed. As such they function as speeches, as rhetoric, every bit as much as they function as conventional letters. They are thoroughly atypical letters, in size, in content, and in style, precisely because they are letters designed to be delivered orally to (thoroughly atypical) groups. On this basis, epistolographic models can be fruitfully applied to some features of his letters; but rhetorical models will also very definitely have their place”

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Any oral rendering of a text—even a so-called “straight” reading—is by definition “performance” and subject to the limitations and consequences of oral performance. Each reading aloud of any text is only one of a series of readings, each an equally unrepeatable and non-authoritative performance. At the same time, texts that will be read aloud are presumably composed so as to be effective when performed and experienced by the audience on the basis of what was heard as well as seen in the performance; an author does whatever is within his or her power to elicit particular understandings of what is written among the members of its audience. An intelligent author of a letter is aware of the dual nature of the audience it addresses: All the members of the audience together share a common experience of the same performance at the same time under the same circumstances, yet each of them is a unique individual who will inevitably interpret the common experience in a particular way, dependent on both group and individual circumstances. The effectiveness of a text was thus largely dependent on its proper performance. Effective performance is therefore performance that complements and conveys the meaning of the text as the reader understands it and that has the desired effect upon the members of its audience whether they understand it as the author intended or not—the point of the letter is to inspire a desired behavior, not a specific interpretation. The entire point of writing a text that would be read aloud was for it to be “read”—i.e., performed—and in the case of a letter read aloud its initial performance was paramount. A persuasive text, whether an oration or a letter, was composed to be persuasive in its initial performance. Any subsequent use was usually of little to no concern. But even a literary text meant to be read aloud repeatedly—either to the same or to different audiences—was experienced in each of its performances under new and different circumstances, and so was in some respects different to each of its audiences according to the unique circumstances of each of its performances. In either case—read aloud once for all or repeatedly—no performance of a text can be original, definitive, or authoritative (i.e., the Ur-performance) in the sense that is somehow more “correct” or “authoritative” than any other performance. Even if it were, it would be in any case irrecoverable and unrepeatable, due to the ever-changing circumstances of live performance. This means there is no “right” way to perform a letter, and for an audience, no “right” way to understand it; all meaning in the text is contingent, based on performance. In fact, from the point of view of the audience, the text effectively does not exist, since it “speaks” only when performed. It might retain “authority” as an artifact, as something coming from the hand of the author as something of a gift to the intended audience. But the authority a letter might have as an artifact is distinct from any authority attributed to its contents, since as an artifact the letter is unread and as such remains silent. When writing a letter to a group, an author will generally address the audience as a cohesive group (cf. “brothers and sisters”) to help to produce a consensus of support for what the audience hears performed. But an author can also set apart one portion

(“Ancient Rhetoric and Ancient Letters,” 159; emphasis original), although those models will not include “the tightly woven rhetoric of the trained and self-consciously stylish Greco-Roman orator” (160).



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of the audience for praise or blame, and use the potential approval or disapproval of the majority of the audience to enforce a desired behavior on an individual or smaller group within the audience. In such a situation the person or group set aside hears what the author “says” through the reader at the same time the rest of the audience does, making that person or group acutely aware of the majority’s possible reaction to what it hears, and the potential for according praise or blame. The author may draw the majority’s attention to a situation they may or may not have recognized as a “moral” situation—one whose resolution will evoke either praise or blame—until the moment the pertinent words are spoken by the person reading the letter aloud, the same moment the person or group concerned hears them. The author works to provoke the correct reaction from the majority to supplement and reinforce the author’s own words of praise or blame for the minority. In short, when a text is thought of as a text to be “performed”—meaning a text that reaches its audience only through the mediation of a person who reads it aloud faceto-face with an audience—it makes sense to think of both the text and its meaning primarily in terms of the exigencies of live performance. On the one hand, this means considering what an author intended the effect of what he or she wrote to be when what was written was read aloud to an audience. On the other hand, this also means conceding there is a wide variety of possible responses to a performed text contingent on the context in which it is performed and the circumstances that affect both performer and audience.

Part II. Performance and Paul’s Letters Performance is clearly a factor to be considered in the interpretation of Paul’s letters since those letters were written to be read aloud to assembled believers. In other words, they were written with the intention that the texts would be performed and make their impact through performance. There has been a great deal of discussion in recent years about the role of performance in New Testament studies, although most of this discussion has centered on the role performance might or might not play in the composition and interpretation of the gospels, especially Mark.40 But that discussion is not germane here. There is no doubt that Paul’s uncontested letters (including notably Phlm 2c) were addressed to congregations and so written with the intention that they Proponents have argued e.g. that Mark shows signs of “oral composition” and reflects a primarily oral, interactive approach, now codified in writing, cf. Pieter J. J. Botha, Orality and Literacy in Early Christianity, Biblical Performance Criticism 5 (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012), 163–90, Richard A. Horsley, Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing, Biblical Performance Criticism 9 (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013), 246–78, and Antoinette Clark Wire, The Case for Mark Composed in Performance, Biblical Performance Criticism 3 (Eugene, OR: Cascade. 2011). Critics of this approach have questioned the nature of “orality” in the first-century CE Mediterranean (as have I; see above) and especially the concept of “oral composition” or “composition in performance,” cf. Holt N. Parker, “Books and Reading Latin Poetry,” in Johnson and Parker, eds., Ancient Literacies, 63–80, Hurtado, “Oral Fixation,” 335. 40 

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would be read aloud to the assembled members of those congregations. Both the limited nature of first-century literacy and the problem of addressing all the members of a congregation at the same time mean the only way to communicate effectively the contents of a letter written to a group would be to read the letter aloud. This fact makes it most likely that Paul’s letters were read aloud in the context of a worship assembly, i.e., in a setting and at the time and in the place where the congregation usually gathered for worship, probably on the first day of the week. It is worth bearing in mind that community (and to some extent, individual) worship is itself a type of performance, involving things done, things said, things heard and things seen, at a particular time and in a particular setting, with the implicit or explicit understanding among those taking part that what they are doing and experiencing takes place in the presence of the god(s) they worship. In this setting there are different sorts of authority and language than those that prevail in the everyday world, authority and language that reflect a spiritual, rather than a material, reality. Paul’s letters read aloud in such a context serve to create a particular sort of discourse, in which the ideas and emotions associated with a particular metaphor evoke in his audience a response that goes beyond the straightforward and strictly propositional.41 In other words, in the context of performance, and by virtue of the metaphorical complexes he employs, Paul’s letters carry more meaning than the “plain sense” of their words provide. In this connection it is also worth noting the operation of poetic delectatio, “in the sense of ‘to hold where one wants,’ ‘attract with bait,’ ” which is the compelling power of poetry in its various forms to lead members of an audience to accept what they hear as true.42 It is delectatio that leads to what Samuel Taylor Coleridge called “the willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”43 Delectatio may result from music, song, or formulaic words in various settings, notably the theatre or the temple or other worship space. It is that “which, through the power of the stylistic form of the utterance, has the ability to exercise auctoritas on those who listen, directly causing their fides.”44 Particular forms of expression, particular patterns of words and phrases, especially in a solemn assembly, foster an audience’s acceptance of the truth those words convey. Paul’s words, spoken by the person reading one of his letters aloud in the context of worship, would in this way convey a sense of the authority of Paul’s words to his audience, an authority quite distinct from Paul’s standing as an apostle; 1 Cor 5:3–5 seems to reflect just such a situation. In at least some instances a single letter would be read aloud to several different groups at different times and in different places. Romans 16 (assuming that chapter is original to Paul’s letter) suggests that Rome has at least five Jesus congregations (Rom 16:1–16). Galatians is addressed “to the churches of Galatia” (Gal 1:2c), and

41  On this point see Michael Winger, “Paul as Poet: Death and Life as Metaphors,” in Sampley and Lampe, eds., Paul and Rhetoric, 203–22. 42  Maurizio Bettini, “Authority as ‘Resultant Voice’: Towards a Stylistic and Musical Anthropology of Effective Speech in Archaic Rome,” Greek and Roman Musical Studies 1 (2013): 182–89. 43  Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria xiv, quoted by Bettini, “Authority as ‘Resultant Voice,’ ” 182. 44  Bettini, “Authority as ‘Resultant Voice,’ ” 186.



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so would have to be read aloud to each of those congregations. The circumstances of each of those performances would vary one from another in most respects apart from the text and, perhaps, the person reading the letter aloud. The same may be true for Paul’s other letters, with the exception of Philemon, which is directed to a very specific congregation and a very specific situation. Similarly, the author of Colossians envisions secondary readings of letters directed to specific congregations as well, when instructing that the letter to Colossae should also be read (clearly aloud) in Laodicea and the Laodicean letter read (aloud) in Colossae (Col 4:16). Paul’s writings are real letters and include the self-consciously literary conventions of letters—greeting, thanksgiving, closing greetings, formulaic closing—that are characteristic of a specifically written form of communication.45 As a result his letters—like all genuine letters—represent separation from the recipients and the absence of the author by their very existence. Paul clearly writes letters only when he is absent and separated from the congregation he addresses, and he may refer both implicitly and explicitly to his absence (cf. 1 Cor 5:3; 2 Cor 13:2; Gal 4:18, 20; Phil 1:27; Phlm 22). But the contents of those same letters are communicated directly to the audience through its oral performance, a performance that embodies Paul’s immediate “presence.”46 It is worth noting that these self-consciously literary conventions of letters in fact play a part in the visual/aural experience of the audience that hears and sees a performance of a letter’s contents by a reader. In Paul’s cultural context letters were experienced as another form of oral communication, but one bracketed by formalities serving in part to acknowledge the specific nature of the oral communication taking place—a letter being read aloud. Those formalities also provide a context for what the audience hears “within the brackets”—what they hear is something written by an absent person in another specific location, at some time (and some time) before the immediate performance of the letter’s contents. Those contents were not necessarily consistent with the context in which their performance takes place. The contents could in fact vary among different degrees of “distance” and “presence” to their actual performance in specific cases. “Distance” and “presence” as an aspect of the performance of a letter have nothing to do with the letter’s “warmth,” but rather with the circumstances under which its contents are read and the audience’s awareness of the author’s absence. Another implication of the epistolary formalities for the audience’s experience of a letter’s performance is that whatever is communicated “within the brackets” is understood as part of a continuing relationship and a continuing conversation between two parties, the author and the audience. The letter itself represents essentially one-way communication and is therefore an imperfect substitute for face-to-face interaction, but it is still based on the common experience and a common understanding between Cf. F. Schnider and W. Stenger, Studien zum Neutestamentlichen Briefformular, NTTS 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1987). 46  Some of what follows appears in a somewhat different form in Glenn S. Holland, “Frightening You With Letters: Traces of Performance in the Letters of Paul,” Proceedings of the Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 26 (2006): 1–21. 45 

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author and audience, at least as the author of the letter remembers and re-presents it. Paul often takes advantage of the letter-writing situation and exemplifies in his work the advantages of the literary mediated by oral performance over direct face-to-face oral communication (and provides reasons why he does so in 2 Cor 10:1ff.). What Edward L. Rocklin says in reference to the idea of a “theater event” is also true of performance in general: “Event points to the temporal nature of the…performance; temporal not only because a sequence of activities leads up to and includes the performance and subsequent meditation and discussion by spectators but also because the audience experiences the play as an act that unfolds in time. This focus on the event reminds us that readers of the play text must attend to the temporal nature of the imagined event and may attend to the temporal nature of their experience of reading the play.”47 With the appropriate substitutions, what Rocklin says about theater is also true of the circumstances surrounding the reading aloud of Paul’s letters. Paul’s letters are “reading events” whose participants include Paul “whose ideas are embodied” in the letters’ texts; lectors who read the letters aloud; and audience, the members of the congregations who experience the performance in their own concrete historical circumstances as groups and as individuals. Performance of the letters includes not only what is heard and seen, but also the full range of what an audience experiences via all the bodily senses—both what is planned and what happens spontaneously—as the letter is read aloud. Paul will address his audience as a cohesive group (cf. adelphoi) to help produce a consensus for support of his views, but he will also set one person or group apart for praise or blame (cf. the wealthy in 1 Cor 11), for censure (cf. the incestuous man in 1 Cor 5), or for commendation (cf. Onesimus in Phlm 11–13 or the brothers commissioned in 2 Cor 8 and 9). Paul also uses the potential approval or disapproval of the majority of his audience to enforce a given behavior on an individual or smaller group. For example in the case of Philemon, Paul’s effusive praise for his “dear friend and co-worker” is coupled with pleas for “my child” Onesimus, whom he wishes Philemon to welcome back “no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother” (Phlm 16a). When he heard these words as the letter was read aloud to the other members of the congregation, Philemon must have been acutely aware of their expectations about how he should and would respond, and so had little choice but to comply with Paul’s wishes to save his own honor and reputation. Similarly, in 2 Cor 2:5–8, Paul instructs his supporters to forgive whoever had spoken out against Paul and “to reaffirm your love for him” (2 Cor 2:8). On the one hand, these instructions may have given comfort to the offender(s), but on the other, read aloud to the congregation as a whole, they compel those who consider themselves loyal to Paul to demonstrate that loyalty by publicly forgiving their former opponent(s). Performance of the letters makes choices that will invoke either praise or blame even more public— and therefore more pressing—than ever.

Edward L. Rocklin, “Performance Is More Than an ‘Approach’ to Shakespeare,” in Teaching Shakespeare through Performance, ed. Milla Cozart Riggio (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999), 55. 47 



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Paul also makes use of an essentially oral rhetorical device in both Romans (1:18– 2:11; 8:31–39; 11:1–24) and 1 Corinthians (4:6–15; 9:1–8; 15:29–49), the diatribe, a dialogical polemic with parallels in Hellenistic philosophy.48 One of the distinguishing features of the diatribe is simulated interaction with an imaginary interlocutor of the sort found in Rom 2:1–5 (“Therefore you have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others…,” 2:1a) and 1 Cor 15:35–38 (“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies,” 15:35–36). In Paul’s letters a diatribe most often serves to restate his arguments in more personal terms, creating solidarity with his audience against an imaginary opponent whose points and point of view Paul can effectively attack and dismantle. In doing so, Paul (as well as the one who reads the letter aloud) assumes the role of vociferous defender of truth against those who would obscure or deny it. The sort of highly charged language characteristic of a diatribe carries dramatic import (aphrōn, 1 Cor 14:36a) and suggests a particular sort of performance by the one reading the letter aloud, speaking as if an actual debate were taking place between Paul and an opponent. The use of the diatribe indicates that important truths are at stake, and that vigor and passion are necessary in their defense. There are numerous indications in Paul’s letters that he understood what the letters are and the way they come into being in a variety of ways. Sometimes he apparently thinks of his letters as something written, and sometimes he apparently thinks of them as something performed. There are only five references in Paul’s uncontested letters to writing in the strict sense of making marks on a surface: 1 Cor 16:21, Gal 6:11, and Phlm 19a, all instances in which Paul writes something with his own hand; 1 Cor 10:11, where Paul refers to stories “written down to instruct us”; and Rom 16:22, where the scribe Tertius refers to himself as “the writer [ho grapsas] of this letter.” Other references to writing apparently refer to “writing by dictation” where both the act of dictation and the existence of a scribe are elided, as if Paul himself were doing the physical work of writing.49 For example, in 1 Cor 9:15 we find, “But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this [ouk egrapsa de tauto] so that they may be applied in my case” (italics added). Here Paul apparently refers to writing by dictation simply as “writing,” even though at the moment he does so he is actually engaged in speaking aloud to a scribe. Paul’s words here indicate a continuing action (“…I am writing this…”) that takes place within both the “present” of Paul as author speaking aloud to a scribe on the one hand and the “present” of the reader of the letter speaking aloud to an audience on the other. The distance in time and space between Paul as author and the reader/audience is effectively eliminated, giving Paul’s words read aloud the same

48  For the problems presented by what scholars have identified as the diatribe, see Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans, SBLDS 57 (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1981), 7–78. See also Thomas Schmeller, Paulus und die ‘Diatribe’. Eine vergleichende Stilinterpretation, NTAbh n.f. 19 (Münster: Aschendorff, 1987), 1–97. 49  For “writing” in the sense of “cause to be written” (i.e., by someone else) compare for example John 19:19–22, where the chief priests say in reference to the title attached to Jesus’ cross, “Do not write…” and Pilate replies, “What I have written I have written” (John 19:22).

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immediacy they had when he himself spoke them. Moreover, Paul does what he does (“writing”) in the “present” with a negative intention, i.e., not so that the rights he can properly claim might be granted him. His use of the participle and the continuing present tense emphasize both the rights he might claim and his steadfast refusal to do so. Paul’s rights and his refusal to take advantage of them are continuous twin realities that now continue and will continue into an indefinite future to exist in tension with one another. More commonly when Paul refers to writing the reference is not to a present continuing action, but to an action in the past or one accomplished in the present. Romans 15:14–16 provides an example of the first, referring to a past action: “…on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder…,” even though the action is only recently past, in the course of the letter itself up to that point. Philippians 3:1b is an example of writing as an act accomplished in the present: “To write the same things to you [i.e., as I have just done and will do again] is not troublesome to me, and for you it is a safeguard” (emphasis added). In both cases Paul “writes” as a means of reaffirming information either already known by the members of his audience or conveying new information to them. Also in this category we find new information prefaced by a reference to the audience members as adelphoi and the formula, “I do not want you to be uninformed…” (1 Cor 10:1; 12:1; 1 Thess 4:13a; cp. 1 Cor 15:1). Paul can also combine action in the past and action accomplished in the present, and in the process elide the difference between what he says face to face and what he “says” through a letter read aloud. Paul writes in Phil 3:18: “For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears.”50 Here Paul claims to reiterate (an act accomplished in the present—with tears!—through the performance of the letter) information he had previously conveyed face to face through his own spoken words when he was present among the members of the audience (a past action). The phrase “and now I tell you even with tears” implies Paul is thinking of his spoken words written down by a scribe and conveyed through a letter and spoken again by another person when the letter is read aloud as equivalent to his own words spoken face to face with the same audience. Here Paul presents an idea he elaborates upon at some length elsewhere: When his words, frozen in text, are read aloud, Paul in effect “speaks” them himself. Our primary examples of the influence of performance on the way Paul’s composes his letter and their reception by an audience will be taken from the Corinthian correspondence. The Corinthian correspondence represents a series of letters—some 50  Phil 3:18 raises the interesting question: Does what Paul writes here suggest that the person reading the letter aloud should shed a tear at this point? On the one hand, if Paul expected the reader to do so, that would be an additional argument against the idea of a “straight” reading, one performed without conscious emotion or affect. On the other, we may wonder whether Paul as the writer of a letter is sufficiently distanced in the minds of his audience from the reader who “enacts” his authorial voice that the audience considered Paul’s tears to be a “past” event, concurrent with the composition of the letter, rather than a “present” event concurrent with its reading aloud. In any event, the ease with which Paul moves between the terminology of speaking (cf. legō here, laleō in 2 Cor 12:19) and the terminology of writing (cf. graphō in Phil 3:1) suggests that the difference between the two is effectively elided in his own mind as well as that of his audiences.



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of which have been lost, and some incorporated into 2 Corinthians—each with a distinctive intention and approach, representing several different letter genres.51 Apart from every other consideration, the Corinthian correspondence represents Paul’s most frequent meditations on the nature and effect of writing. About two-thirds of Paul’s references to the business of writing letters appear in the Corinthian correspondence, with about sixteen appearing in 1 Corinthians, and twelve in 2 Corinthians. By comparison, the other uncontested letters (Romans, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians and Philemon) each have between two and four references to the business of reading and writing. In the letters that make up 2 Corinthians Paul reflects on the history of his relationship with the congregation, including the letters he has written to them. The correspondence between Paul and the Corinthians also included at least one letter from members of the congregation to Paul, asking his opinions on a variety of issues. The writers of the letter apparently offered their opinions on a variety of issues important to the congregation. Paul responds to issues raised by this letter, as well as other issues in Corinth he has learned of either from a letter or from face-toface conversations with people familiar with the situation there, introducing each new topic with the formula, “Now concerning…” (1 Cor 7.1; 8.1; 12.1; 16.1).52 In 1 Cor 5:9–13, Paul attempts to clarify a point he had made in an earlier letter he had written to them: “I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons—not at all meaning the immoral of this world…since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber” (1 Cor 5:9–11). It is uncertain whether Paul’s audience had misunderstood the reference to “sexually immoral persons” in the earlier letter or whether Paul refers to what he had written earlier to reinforce the point he wishes to make in the present letter about the shame of allowing the man guilty of incest to remain in the congregation’s good graces (1 Cor 5:1–2). In either case, Paul allows for the fact that his letters are open to misunderstanding, and misunderstanding in turn is revealed through the wrong sort of behavior within the congregation. Here we see introduced the idea that the proper reception of one of Paul’s letters—hearing it read aloud and internalizing what is heard and seen—results in the proper sort of behavior, and “mishearing” in some way results in the wrong sort of behavior. What proves that one of Paul’s letters has been performed effectively by the one reading it aloud and received effectively by his audience is the audience’s resulting obedience to

51  For the purposes of this chapter, we accept the division of the Corinthian correspondence as worked out by Günther Bornkamm, “The History of the Origin of the So-called Second Letter to the Corinthians,” NTS 8 (1962): 258–63. 52  Margaret M. Mitchell, in “Concerning Περὶ δέ in 1 Corinthians,” NovT 31 (1989): 229–56, has demonstrated that the formula introduces new information, but “is not solely a formula for answering written questions” (255). She says further, “We have also noted that often envoys who bring letters play a role in supplementing the contents of those letters. The receipt of a letter thus frequently entails a combination of oral and written communication” (255). We would add that since written communication was most often also received as an oral event, the two sources of information are even more “inextricably linked” than Mitchell indicates.

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Paul and his teaching, whether he himself is present in the congregation or away and speaking to the people of the congregation through an intermediary. In the Corinthian correspondence Paul deals with his opponents in a variety of ways, apparently depending on whether they are among the members of his audience or not. In the case of problems endemic to an entire congregation—such as the concerns with status, wisdom, and spiritual gifts, leading to divisions of various sorts, the problems Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians—the apostle gears an entire letter to convincing his audience as a whole to readjust their way of thinking in terms of his gospel of “Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor 2:2b). He may also single out particular groups in his audience for rebuke, such as the wealthy who misunderstand the nature of the congregation’s common meals (1 Cor 11:17–22). Those rebuked are and will remain part of the congregation, and performance of the letter is intended to shame them in the eyes of other members of the congregation and so compel their conformity to Paul’s wishes. But there are others who are not part of the congregation and also apparently not part of Paul’s audience. Such appears to be the case with the “super-apostles” Paul attacks both overtly and covertly in 2 Cor 10 and 11. Paul has no compunction in comparing them to the serpent that deceived Eve (2 Cor 11:3) or calling them ministers of Satan who imitate his works (2 Cor 11:14–15), in contrast to Paul who imitates the suffering of his master Christ (2 Cor 10:1, 7, 14–18; 11:2, 23–29). Although there were no doubt supporters of the “super-apostles” among the members of Paul’s audience when the letter was read aloud, hearing them denounced in such definitive terms would discourage any supporters from defending the “super-apostles,” at least while the letter was being read. Paul also feels free to condemn in no uncertain terms one member of the congregation who was presumably also part of his audience, the man living with his father’s wife (1 Cor 5:1–13), ultimately calling for his condemnation and expulsion from the congregation (1 Cor 5:3–5, 13b). Here, as so often in the Corinthian correspondence, Paul invokes issues of his presence and absence, specifically his presence “in person” among the Corinthians and his presence while absent “made present” through the performance of his letters.53 In this case, he pronounces judgment “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” against the man involved in an incestuous relationship. Paul does this “as if present” (1 Cor 5:3) and orders members of the congregation “to hand this man over to Satan” when they are assembled “and my spirit is present with the power of our Lord Jesus” (5:4b–5a). Paul’s “presence” in this case is specifically his presence as a mediator of the power and authority of Jesus, which is effectively exerted through the letter itself. In other words, when the letter is read aloud the reader “performs” Paul—acts in his place as his substitute—to serve both as a voice of (divine) authority and as a vehicle for (divine) power. It may be that this portion of the letter was read aloud— re-performed—as an integral part of the process when the man guilty of incest was actually “handed over” to Satan, however that may have been done.

53  Cf. Lee A. Johnson, “Paul’s Epistolary Presence in Corinth: A New Look at Robert W. Funk’s Apostolic Parousia,” CBQ 69 (2006): 481–501.



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Note that Paul provides no special justification for his assertion that he will be “present in spirit” when the Corinthian congregation is assembled; Paul makes the point in a way that seems to assume his audience will accept his inscribed “presence” as a fact. If Paul is “present in spirit” he will be able to act in the congregation “as if present”; but how is this possible? It is possible only through the oral performance of his letter by a reader who speaks (and so in this case also acts) in Paul’s name and persona. It is only the reading aloud of Paul’s letter which allows it to “speak” and so reveal Paul’s intention to his audience, so it is also only through the reading aloud of Paul’s letter that the apostle is able to be active in achieving—actualizing—that intention. But whenever Paul’s letters are read aloud, although Paul is “absent in body” he is also “present in spirit,” and when present in spirit, he is able—through the reading aloud of a letter—to act, to be active, among the members of the congregation. Paul includes a similar act of epistolary condemnation, another to be carried out by the reading of his words by a reader/performer, in 1 Cor 16:21–22. Here Paul explicitly invokes his own person and authority by drawing attention to the otherwise invisible fact that he has inscribed the relevant words himself: “I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. Let anyone be accursed who has no love for the Lord. Our Lord, come [marana tha]!” Here Paul combines both clearly epistolary elements (a greeting and an explicit indication of personal inscription, 16:21, cp. Gal 6:11, Phlm 19a) with essentially prophetic pronouncements normally delivered in person, in this case a severe condemnation for a group only vaguely defined and an apocalyptic catchphrase preserved in the apparently original Aramaic. Paul presents himself simultaneously as “absent” (and therefore communicating by means of a letter) and as actively “present” to deliver condemnation through the reading aloud of the letter by a lector who in the act of doing so also performs Paul’s “spiritual” presence. We may compare Paul’s assertion of authority and conditional condemnation in 1 Cor 14:37–38: “Anyone who claims to be a prophet, or to have spiritual powers, must acknowledge that what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord. Anyone who does not recognize this is not to be recognized” (emphasis added). Here again are both acknowledgement of Paul’s physical absence (“I am writing to you”) and his spiritual presence to compel recognition. Paul is the absent composer of the letter, but through its performance by a reader, he is simultaneously spiritually present, “as if present.” We find Paul is “as if present” through the performance of his letters not only with the power to condemn, but also with the power to forgive: “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ” (2 Cor 2:10). Here there is again a dual concept of time that seems to reflect Paul’s awareness of the difference between what he speaks and is written down in his own present time, and what is subsequently spoken again when the letter is performed in a later “present” by a reader. On the one hand he forgives “now,” as the letter is performed aloud, but what is forgiven “now” he has in fact forgiven in the past, when he spoke the words written down in the letter: “What I have forgiven, if I have forgiven [kecharismai] anything…” (2 Cor 2:10b). The paradox of being actively “present” through the performance of a text by a reader is summed up in this temporal contrast, “I forgive/I have forgiven.”

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In 2 Cor 3:1b–3 we find the idea of a “letter” whose contents are communicated not only through what is spoken, but by what is performed in worship and in daily life: “Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our [or your] hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:1b–3; emphasis added).54 The meaning appears to be that the Corinthians “recommend” Paul insofar as they live and worship as a congregation obedient to Paul, and by so doing demonstrate Paul’s apostolic authority and the fruit of his apostolic ministry. Only to the extent that the Corinthians provide public examples of the power of his preaching through lives openly lived in obedience to Paul and Christ, do the Corinthians serve as a “letter of recommendation.” Like a written letter, the Corinthians’ letter of recommendation for Paul is realized only through live performance. But this idea of an “embodied” or “living” letter of recommendation realized only through performance stands beside the idea of a letter specifically as written. On the one hand, “You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all” (2 Cor 3:2; emphasis added). Paul’s heart—to be understood both as his true nature and as what is dearest to him—is “known and read by all” who see, hear of, and experience the Corinthians behaving as his obedient and faithful congregation. On the other hand, “you are a letter of Christ, prepared by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Cor 3:3; emphasis added). The idea of a letter written “with the Spirit of the living God” on (a) human heart(s) pretty much stretches this metaphor to its limits, although it is clear the emphasis is on the “written” nature of a letter as a text. 2 Corinthians 3:4–6 indicates Paul draws his metaphor of a text written on the heart from the image of the “new” covenant of Jer 31:31–34, when Yahweh “will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jer 31:33b). The Corinthians and their faithfulness serve as a letter of recommendation affirming Paul’s competence as a minister of the new covenant (2 Cor 3:6a). That such a “letter” is written, like the covenant, on the human heart, suggests again the conflation of letter as written text and letter as performance, since it is only through “performance” that the “text” written on the heart can be known. A similar idea appears in 1 Cor 9:2: “If I am not an apostle to others, at least I am to you; for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord” (emphasis added). A seal is a mark of authentication visible to all as a confirmation of legitimacy. But a seal is silent, since it need not be read; it is not necessary for its markings to be deciphered or spoken aloud for the seal to be recognized or acknowledged as an authenticating mark. So here again when the Corinthians live visible lives of obedience and faithfulness to Paul’s gospel, through their enactment of the faithful life they attest to the legitimacy of Paul’s apostolic authority. There are difficulties with these verses: the alternative “your hearts” for “our hearts” in 2 Cor 3:2a and the exact meaning of diakonētheisa in 2 Cor 3:3a, but neither of these materially affects the points being made here. 54 



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This idea that people or groups may embody and display through some sort of performance a spiritual reality may take many forms in Paul’s letters and notably in the Corinthian correspondence. In 2 Cor 4:11, Paul presents apostles as embodiments of the (resurrected) life of the Lord: “For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh.” The apostles’ actions and way of life are visible evidence of the life of Jesus as they imitate his life of obedience, love, and suffering. Note here again that embodiment of the message is performed through specific acts of obedience, as the apostle submits to the rigors and sufferings of his ministry. This idea is central to the Second Apology (2 Cor 10:1–13:10), when Paul catalogues a series of his own trials as an apostle (2 Cor 11:23–28) as part of his “foolish discourse,” claiming his trials display his weakness that in turn manifests God’s power at work in Paul (2 Cor 12:7b–10; 13:4b). A similar idea of Paul himself embodying the life of Jesus underlies Gal 6:17b: “I carry the marks of Jesus branded on my body.” The apostle’s sufferings, and the physical scars that attest to their severity (“the marks of Jesus”), imitate those of Jesus and attest to Paul’s authenticity as Jesus’ apostle. This idea of embodying the life of Jesus seems to lie behind Paul’s instruction in 1 Cor 11:1, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.” By his behavior, and especially through his suffering, the apostle “embodies” Christ and provides a model for the members of his congregations to imitate. Although Paul in 1 Cor 7 is careful to distinguish between “a word of the Lord” and Paul’s own opinions in regard to moral legislation, he is happy to be taken as a sort of embodiment of the Risen Lord, who by the Spirit works though him. Christ is spiritually present and spiritually active wherever and whenever his faithful followers enact and imitate his works of love and faithful obedience; the same is true of Paul. The dynamic of Paul’s physical absence and his spiritual presence comes to the fore in the Second Apology (2 Cor 10:1–13:10), when Paul makes an explicit contrast between the two while using his physical absence to his own advantage.55 The contrast is introduced at the very beginning of the Second Apology, where the performance of Paul’s letter makes him actively present in entreaty: “I myself, Paul, appeal to you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ—I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away!—I ask that when I am present I need not show boldness by daring to oppose those who think we are acting according to human standards” (2 Cor 10:1–2). Here Paul contrasts his being “away” physically and his being “present” through the performance of his letter in terms of his weakness and humility or his boldness in dealing with the Corinthians, the way he treats them being commensurate with the nature of his “presence.” Paul invokes “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” immediately before his characterization of his own behavior in his own person as “humble.” On one hand, this association with Christ reinforces Paul’s stated preference for that way of dealing with the Corinthians (note his wish that “I need not show boldness” when again present, 2 Cor 10:2a). On the other hand, “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” also commends both Paul’s

55  Johnson considers the efficacy of the Second Apology in terms of its effective performance in “Performance in Corinth: Envisioning Paul’s Successful ‘Letter of Tears’,” PRSt 42 (2015): 87–103.

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Christ-like demeanor in contrast to the self-assertion of the “superlative apostles” and his solidarity with Christ as one who “performs” Christ’s acts in the course of his apostolic ministry. But Paul also says his solidarity with Christ dictates the nature of his (second) apology in 2 Cor 10–12: “Have you been thinking all along that we have been defending ourselves before you? We are speaking in Christ before God. Everything we do, beloved, is for the sake of building you up” (2 Cor 12:19). “Speaking in Christ before God” is both an affirmation that Paul is speaking the truth and a claim that what Paul says in the letter (and is spoken again by the reader) is said “in Christ” and so authoritative. Paul’s authority is specifically to “build up” (cp. 2 Cor 10:8; 13:10) those he calls “beloved,” a free-standing title found primarily in the Corinthian correspondence when Paul reassures his audience after argument or admonishment (1 Cor 10:14; 15:58; 2 Cor 7:1; cp. Phil 2:12; 4:1). Paul’s active presence while absent is again conflated with that of Christ in 2 Cor 13:2–3: “I warned those who sinned previously and all the others, and I warn them now while absent, as I did when present on my second visit, that if I come again, I will not be lenient—since you desire proof that Christ is speaking [lalountos—note tense] in me” (emphasis added). The use of the present participle in 2 Cor 13:3a (“Christ is speaking in me”) means Christ speaks through Paul even as Paul is speaking “now” through the performing reader who reads his letter aloud. The letter itself as a performed text is evidence Christ is speaking in Paul “now.” We find the complement to the earlier contrast in 2 Cor 10:1–2 between Paul absent and Paul present in 2 Cor 13:10, forming an inclusio with its complementary phrasing: “So I write these things while I am away from you, so that when I come [and so am again present among you], I may not have to be severe in using the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down” (emphasis added; cp. 2 Cor 10:8; 12:19b). This verse effectively closes the Second Apology, an extended exercise in “tearing down” that relies on a variety of rhetorical effects to do its work, most notably employing a complex irony that operates on several levels.56 The contrast is between Paul’s extensive “tearing down” in the Second Apology while “away” and writing while still actively present through the performance of the letter by a reader “now,” and Paul’s future “building up” when he is once again actively present in Corinth in his own person. So Paul begins and ends the Second Apology, an exercise in rhetorical demolition, with the image of Paul “in person” as a humble apostle entrusted with the authority to “build up” the members of the Corinthian congregation. But it has become clear that Paul is fully capable of dealing with the audience of his letter either with “meekness and gentleness” (2 Cor 10:1; 13:10) or with “boldness” (2 Cor 10:1b–2; 13:2–4) no matter whether he is “face to face” or “away,” present in body or absent in body. In either case, he is “present” either in his own person or in spirit—“as if present”— through the performance of the text of his letter made alive through its reading aloud, an act which both evokes and enacts his spiritual presence. 56  For an extensive discussion of Paul’s use of irony in 2 Cor 10–13, see Glenn S. Holland, Divine Irony (Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2000), 119–56.



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Part III. Other Relevant Pauline and Paulinist Texts Romans: Paul’s letter introducing both himself and his understanding of the gospel to an audience that does not know him adds further complications to Paul’s attempt to present his key ideas in a relatively short period of time. How does his use of the diatribe, which we have argued is essentially oral, work to build solidarity between Paul and his audience when the letter is read aloud in the various Jesus congregations in Rome? Galatians: Paul’s self-defense and his concurrent attack on the congregation should be understood in the context of those he attacks forming the audience that experiences the performance of the letter when it is read aloud. Paul explicitly rebukes his audience throughout the letter; how does such a rebuke work out as a performance in front of a hostile audience? Philippians 2:12–13: Paul emphasizes the constancy of the apostle’s authority despite his physical absence or presence; how well do such assurances work when they are offered through a performed letter while Paul is physically absent? Philemon: The instructions Paul gives Philemon in regard to Onesimus are couched in terms of Philemon’s voluntary action, but they are performed by the reader in the presence of the entire congregation that meets in Philemon’s house. How does the presence of the members of the congregation who look to Philemon as a leader influence his decision to obey Paul’s commands? Can Paul plausibly deny he is commanding Philemon to act in a certain way (Phlm 8–9, 14, 17, 21) when his letter is performed in the presence of the entire congregation? How do Paul’s praise for Philemon and his commands work together when the letter is performed? Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, Ephesians: These works are framed as letters addressed by Paul to his congregations, so their performance would be understood by an audience as a “re-performance” of the sort envisioned in Col 4:16. How might the exigencies of performance have affected how these letters were received (or were expected to be received) as letters of Paul himself by their audiences? Both Colossians and 2 Thessalonians conclude with a reference to an authenticating signature (Col 4:16; 2 Thess 3:17) which would of course have been invisible to an audience; what purpose was such “authentication” supposed to serve in the context of live performance?57 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus: These works are framed as letters Paul wrote to two of his close associates. How might the public performance of these works to a congregation or other group of Jesus’ followers affect their perception of the contents of a “private” letter?

For a brief discussion of “authenticating” signatures in deutero-Pauline letters, see Glenn S. Holland, The Tradition That You Received from Us: 2 Thessalonians in the Pauline Tradition, HUT 24 (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1988), 57–58. 57 

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Part IV. Select Bibliography Ancient Orality and Literacy Aristophanes. Archarnians, Knights. Translated and edited by Jeffrey Henderson. LCL. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998. Balogh, Josef. “Voces Paginarum.” Philologus 82 (1927): 84–109, 202–40. Beard, Mary, Alan K. Bowman, Mireille Corbier, Tim Cornell, James L. Franklin, Jr., Ann Hanson, Keith Hopkins, and Nicholas Horsfall. Literacy in the Roman World. JRASup 3. Ann Arbor, MI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1991. Bowman, Alan K., and Greg Woolf, eds. Literacy and Power in the Ancient World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Burnyeat, Myles F. “Techniques of Reading in Classical Antiquity.” Classical Quarterly 47 (1997): 56–73. Dupont, Florence. The Invention of Literature: From Greek Intoxication to the Latin Book. Translated by Janet Lloyd. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. Foley, John Miles. The Theory of Oral Composition: History and Methodology. Indiana Folkloristics Series. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988. Goody, Jack, ed. Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. Goody, Jack, and Ian Watt. “The Consequences of Literacy.” Pages 27–68 in Literacy in Traditional Societies. Edited by Jack Goody. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968. Graham, William A. Beyond the Written Word: Oral Aspects of Scripture in the History of Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Habinek, Thomas. “Situating Literacy at Rome.” Pages 114–40 in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome. Edited by William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Hadas, Moses. Ancilla to Classical Reading. New York: Columbia University Press, 1954. Halverson, John. “Goody and the Implosion of the Literacy Thesis.” Man 27 ns (1992): 301–17. Harris, William V. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989. Harvey, F. David. “Greeks and Romans Learn to Write.” Pages 63–78 in Communication Arts in the Ancient World. Edited by Eric A. Havelock and Jackson P. Hershbell. Humanistic Studies in Communication Arts. New York: Hastings House, 1978. Havelock, Eric A. The Literate Revolution in Greece and Its Cultural Consequences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982. ———The Muse Learns to Write: Reflections on Orality and Literacy from Antiquity to the Present. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1986 Hendrickson, G. L. “Ancient Reading.” Classical Journal 25 (1929): 182–96. Horsfall, Nicholas. “Rome Without Spectacles.” Greece & Rome 42 (1995): 49–56. Johnson, William A., and Holt N. Parker, eds. Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Knox, Bernard M. W. “Silent Reading in Antiquity.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 9 (1968): 421–35. Lentz, Tony M. Orality and Literacy in Hellenic Greece. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989.



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Manguel, Alberto. A History of Reading. New York: Viking, 1996. McDonnell, Myles. “Writing, Copying, and Autograph Manuscripts in Ancient Rome.” Classical Quarterly 46 (1996): 469–91. Morgan, Teresa. Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Olson, David R., and Nancy Torrance, eds. Literacy and Orality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Ong, Walter J. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. London: Methuen, 1982. Parker, Holt N. “Books and Reading Latin Poetry.” Pages 63–80 in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome. Edited by William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pattison, Robert. On Literacy: The Politics of the Word from Homer to the Age of Rock. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Ruge-Jones, David. “The Word Heard: How Hearing a Text Differs from Reading One.” Pages 101–13 in The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance. Edited by Holly E. Hearon and Philip Ruge-Jones. Biblical Performance Criticism 1. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009. Scaglione, Aldo. The Classical Theory of Composition from Its Origins to the Present: A Historical Survey. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972. Starr, Raymond J. “Reading Aloud: Lectores and Roman Reading.” Classical Journal 86 (1991): 337–43. Tannen, Deborah. “The Myth of Orality and Literacy.” Pages 37–50 in Linguistics and Literacy. Edited by William Frawley. New York: Plenum, 1982. ———“The Oral/Literate Continuum in Discourse.” Pages 1–16 in Spoken and Written Language: Exploring Orality and Literacy. Edited by Deborah Tannen. Advances in Discourse Processes 9. Norwood, NJ: Aplex, 1982. Thomas, Rosalind. Literacy and Orality in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Wolff, Greg. “Literacy or Literacies in Rome?” Pages 46–68 in Ancient Literacies: The Culture of Reading in Greece and Rome. Edited by William A. Johnson and Holt N. Parker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Yates, Francis A. The Art of Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1966. Yunis, Harvey. Written Text and the Rise of Literate Culture in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Performance Theory Bennett, Susan. Theatre Audiences: A Theory of Production and Reception. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1997. Bulman, James C., ed. Shakespeare, Theory, and Performance. New York: Routledge, 1996. Carlson, Marvin. The Haunted Stage. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002. ———Performance: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge, 1996. Hodgdon, Barbara, and William B. Worthen, ed. Companion to Shakespeare and Performance. Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Rhoads, David. “What is Performance Criticism?” Pages 83–100 in The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance. Edited by Holly E. Hearon and Philip Ruge-Jones. Biblical Performance Criticism 1. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009.

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Riggio, Milla Cozart. Teaching Shakespeare through Performance. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999. Rocklin, Edward L. “Performance Is More Than an ‘Approach’ to Shakespeare.” Pages 48–62 in Teaching Shakespeare through Performance. Edited by Milla Cozart Riggio. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999. Sauer, David Kennedy, and Evelyn Tribble, “Shakespeare in Performance: Theory in Practice and Practice in Theory.” Pages 33–47 in Teaching Shakespeare through Performance. Edited by Milla Cozart Riggio. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999.

Letters in Ancient Greece and Rome Klauck, Hans-Josef. Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis. Translated and edited by Daniel P. Bailey. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2006. Malherbe, Abraham. “Ancient Epistolary Theorists.” Ohio Journal of Religious Studies 5, no. 2 (1977): 3–77. McGuire, M. Letters and Letter Carriers in Antiquity. Classical World 53 (1959–60): 148–53, 184–85, 199–200. Mitchell, Margaret M.  “New Testament Envoys in the Context of Greco-Roman Diplomatic and Epistolary Conventions: The Example of Timothy and Titus.” JBL 111 (1992): 641–62. Richards, E. Randolph. Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity, 2004. Stowers, Stanley K. Letter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity. Library of Early Christianity. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986.

Orality and Literacy in the Bible and Early Christian Literature Botha, Pieter J. J. Orality and Literacy in Early Christianity. Biblical Performance Criticism 5. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012. Dewey, Joanna, ed. Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. Semeia 65. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1994. Draper, Jonathan A. “Confessional Western text-Centered Biblical Interpretation and an Oral or Residual-Oral Context.” Pages 59–77 in “Reading With”: African Overtures. Edited by Gerald O. West and Musa W. Dube. Semeia 73. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1996. Fowler, Robert M. “Why Everything We Know About the Bible Is Wrong: Lessons from the Media History of the Bible.” Pages 3–18 in The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance. Edited by Holly E. Hearon and Philip Ruge-Jones. Biblical Performance Criticism 1. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009. Gamble, Harry Y. Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. Hall, Ronald L. “The Living Word: An Auditory Interpretation of Scripture.” Listening: Journal of Religion and Culture 21 (1986): 25–42. Halverson, John. “Oral and Written Gospel: A Critique of Werner Kelber.” NTS 40 (1998): 180–95. Jaffee, Martin S. “Oral Culture in Scriptural Religion: Some Exploratory Studies.” Religious Studies Review 24 (1998): 223–30.



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Kelber, Werner H. The Oral and Written Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul and Q. 1983. Reprinted with a new introduction, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. Loubser, J. A. (Bobby). Oral and Manuscript Culture in the Bible: Studies on the Media Texture of the New Testament—Explorative Hermeneutics. Biblical Performance Criticism 7. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013. Robbins, Vernon. “Oral, Rhetorical, and Literary Cultures: A Response.” Pages 75–91 in Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. Edited by Joanna Dewey. Semeia 65. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1994. ———Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation. Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1996.

Performance in the Bible Hearon, Holly E., and Philip Ruge-Jones, eds. The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance. Biblical Performance Criticism 1. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009. Holland, Glenn S. “Playing to the Groundlings: Shakespeare Performance Criticism and Performance Criticism of the Biblical Texts.” Neotestamentica 41 (2007): 317–40. Horsley, Richard A. Text and Tradition in Performance and Writing. Biblical Performance Criticism 9. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013. Hurtado, Larry W. “Oral Fixation and New Testament Studies? ‘Orality,’ ‘Performance’ and Reading Text in Early Christianity.” NTS 60 (2014): 321–40. Nässelqvist, Dan. “Oral Performance or Public Reading? The Oral Delivery of New Testament Writings in Early Christianity.” Paper presented to the Bible in Ancient and Modern Media section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, San Diego, CA, November 22, 2014. Rhodes, David. “Performance Criticism: An Emerging Methodology in Second Testament Studies—Part 1.” BTB 36 (2006): 118–33. ———“Performance Criticism: An Emerging Methodology in Second Testament Studies— Part 2.” BTB 36 (2006): 164–84. Shiner, Whitney. “Oral Performance in the New Testament World.” Pages 49–63 in The Bible in Ancient and Modern Media: Story and Performance. Edited by Holly E. Hearon and Philip Ruge-Jones. Biblical Performance Criticism 1. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2009. Wire, Antoinette Clark. The Case for Mark Composed in Performance. Biblical Performance Criticism 3. Eugene, OR: Cascade. 2011. ———“Performance, Politics, and Power: A Response.” Pages 129–35 in Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. Edited by Joanna Dewey. Semeia 65. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1994.

Paul and Letter Writing Bornkamm, Günther. “The History of the Origin of the So-called Second Letter to the Corinthians.” NTS 8 (1962): 258–63 Holland, Glenn S. The Tradition That You Received from Us: 2 Thessalonians in the Pauline Tradition. HUT 24. Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1988.

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Johnson, Lee A. “Paul’s Epistolary Presence in Corinth: A New Look at Robert W. Funk’s Apostolic Parousia.” CBQ 69 (2006): 481–501. ———“Paul’s Letters as Artifacts: The Value of the Written Text among Non-Literate People.” Paper presented to the Social Science Criticism of the New Testament section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, New Orleans, LA, November 23, 2009. Lampe, Peter, and J. Paul Sampley, ed. Paul and Rhetoric. New York: T&T Clark International, 2010. Richards, E. Randolph. The Secretary in the Letters of Paul. WUNT 2/42. Tübingen: Mohr/ Siebeck, 1991. Mitchell, Margaret M. “Concerning Περὶ δέ in 1 Corinthians.” NovT 31 (1989): 229–56. Schmeller, Thomas. Paulus und die “Diatribe”. Eine vergleichende Stilinterpretation. Neutesta­ mentliche Abhandlungen n.f. 19. Münster: Aschendorff, 1987. Stowers, Stanley K. The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans. SBLDS 57. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981.

Orality and Literacy in Paul Davis, Casey Wayne. Oral Biblical Criticism: The Influence of the Principles of Orality on the Literary Structure of Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians. JSNTSup 172. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999. Dewey, Arthur J. “A Re-Hearing of Romans 10:1–15.” Pages 109–27 in Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. Edited by Joanna Dewey. Semeia 65. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1994. Dewey, Joanna. “Textuality in an Oral Culture: A Survey of the Pauline Traditions.” Pages 37–65 in Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. Edited by Joanna Dewey. Semeia 65. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1994. Harvey, John D. Listening to the Text: Oral Patterning in Paul’s Letters. ETS Studies 1. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998.

Performance in Paul Botha, Pieter J. J. “The Verbal Art of the Pauline Letters: Rhetoric, Performance and Presence.” Pages 409–28 in Rhetoric and the New Testament: Essays from the 1992 Heidelberg Conference. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Thomas H. Olbricht. JSNTSup 90. Sheffield: JSOT, 1993. Holland, Glenn S. “Frightening You With Letters: Traces of Performance in the Letters of Paul,” Proceedings of the Eastern Great Lakes and Midwest Biblical Societies 26 (2006): 1–21. Johnson, Lee A. “Performance in Corinth: Envisioning Paul’s Successful ‘Letter of Tears.’ ” Perspectives in Religious Studies: Journal of the NABPR 42 (2015): 87–103. Oestreich, Bernhard. Performanzkritik der Paulusbriefe. WUNT 1/296. Tübingen: Mohr/ Siebeck, 2012. Simonson, Peter. “Assembly, Rhetoric, and Widespread Community: Mass Communication in Paul of Tarsus.” Journal of Media and Religion 2 (2003): 165–82.



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Ward, Richard F. 1987. “Paul and the Politics of Performance at Corinth: A Study of 2 Corinthians 10–13.” PhD diss., Northwestern University, 1987. ———“Pauline Voice and Presence as Strategic Communication.” Pages 95–107 in Orality and Textuality in Early Christian Literature. Edited by Joanna Dewey. Semeia 65. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1994.

Other Bettini, Maurizio. “Authority as ‘Resultant Voice’: Towards a Stylistic and Musical Anthropology of Effective Speech in Archaic Rome.” Greek and Roman Musical Studies 1 (2013): 175–94 Chapman, Graham, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin. Monty Python’s The Life of Brian (of Nazareth). London: Eyre Methuen, 1979. Holland, Glenn S. Divine Irony. Selinsgrove, PA: Susquehanna University Press, 2000. Morgan, Teresa. Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Rosten, Leo. The Joys of Yiddish. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.

Chapter 25

Paul and Self-Mastery Stanley Stowers

The Greek notion of self-mastery (ἐγκρατεία) is central to a network of moral discourse that is prominent in Paul’s letters and the broader Greco-Roman culture. One simply cannot understand the ethical teachings of Paul’s letters and the New Testament apart from this tradition. The theme of self-mastery proves central not only to the argument of Romans, the apostle’s greatest letter, but also to Paul’s project of transforming those chosen from the non-Jewish peoples into Christ-like persons. Lack of self-mastery characterizes those Gentiles, according to Paul. The concept appears in all of the letters except Philemon. Since discourses about self-mastery were prominent in Paul’s time, the theme aids our understanding of how he found Greeks, Romans and others who were interested in his message, how he connected with others. This moral discourse of Paul’s day first took its characteristic form in Classical Greece, although it has older roots in wider Greek and Mediterranean folk psychology and moral practices, including of the Hebrew Bible. The classical heritage remained strong in Paul’s time because the larger culture looked to the art, literature, philosophy and history of the Classical period for its dominant cultural models. The notion also has a broader context in the larger arena of ancient Mediterranean cultures for which the idea of restraint was important. In a society and economy nearly the opposite of our capitalistic consumer culture that produces new goods and services, and encourages consumption, all of the land and goods available through the ancient technology were already distributed. Thus the social order was based on maintaining inherited social status and property and passing it on to heirs. The morals of the ancient Mediterranean revolved around an ethic of restraint: “Do not desire more than is your due by your station of birth.” Thus the central ancient moral precepts were like the Hebrew Bible’s “thou shall not covet” and the Greek “in nothing too much.”

Part I. Self-Mastery in the Greek Ethical Tradition The Greeks of the fourth and fifth centuries BCE possessed a very rich vocabulary for talking about feeling, emotions, thinking, believing, deliberation and in general what we describe as mental activity. The vocabulary was enriched by literature, especially



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the tragic and comic stage, and by the growing work of medical doctors and natural philosophers. But Plato and Aristotle reflect an important broader Greek cultural trend that added a new element to this vocabulary by talking about people as political animals and describing citizens as political entities. Greek orators, writers and philosophers began to use concepts such as that of ruler and ruled, power, authority, stable rule and revolt in order to talk about the person and the self.1 The adjective ἐγκρατῆς (“having control over”) originally applied only to political or physical control over something. The noun first appears in Plato and Xenophon and it may have been Socrates who first used the term as an attribute for a person’s character.2 Our long Western heritage of such vocabulary runs so deep that it is difficult for us to imagine a time and cultures for which there was no explicit concept of self-control.3 Thus we must exercise our imaginations to understand just how revolutionary was Socrates’ idea that the person had a distinct self and that there could be a science of the self. After Socrates, philosophers would articulate teachings about the person, of what the person consisted, and offer techniques that aimed to give people authority and control over the directions of their lives as wholes. Socrates also became the great model for self-mastery and that model had lost none of its power in Paul’s day. According to Xenophon (Mem. 1.2.1), “regarding sexual desire and the stomach he was the most self-mastered (ὲγκρατέστατος) of all men; and possessed the most endurance of cold and heat and every sort of toil; and regarding needs he was trained in moderation so that he was content with very little.”4 Above all, the paradigm of Socrates’ selfmastery was his willingness to die and stand for his teachings rather than give into the desires for safety, comfort and survival. Christianity inherited a culture that already possessed vivid models of martyrdom.5 The opposite of self-mastery was ἀκρασία (English akrasia), lack of self-mastery. Isocrates (15.221), for example, writes “many people because of their failures of self-mastery (ἀκρασίαι) do not abide by their reasonings, but neglect their interests and follow their impulse to pleasure.” Plato, and especially Aristotle, analyzed “the problem of akrasia” and “the type of person who lacked self-mastery” thereby establishing themes that became prominent in literature, philosophy and the common discourse. Lack of self-mastery (akrasia) might exhibit itself in psycho-ethical conflict and the great cultural paradigm for such conflict became Medea in Euripedes’ Medea. In view of the context in the play, the famous words in 1077–80 should probably be translated along the lines of Christopher Gill’s, “I know that what I am about to do is bad, but anger is master of my plans, which is the source of human beings’ greatest Kenneth Dover, Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 124–26, 208. 2  Anthony Long, “Hellenistic Ethics and Philosophical Power,” in Hellenistic History and Culture, ed. P. Green (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993), 143–45. 3  Helen North, Self-control and Self-restraint in Greek Literature (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966), together with Long, “Hellenistic Ethics,” 143. 4  All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 5  Candida Moss, Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies and Traditions (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 23–27, and The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom (New York: HarperOne, 2013), 55–82. 1 

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troubles.”6 Here Medea affirms that the reasons for her anger, and thus revenge, are persuasive even though her reason also tells her that the plan is horrible. But the Platonic and popular understanding soon came to construe the lines as about irrational passion overcoming reason. The following translation along traditional lines captures that view: “I realize what I am about to do is evil, but passion is stronger than my reasoned reflection, this is the cause of the worst evils for humans.” Chrysippus, the Stoic, discussed the text extensively and defended the first interpretation. Throughout antiquity the passage was much written about and discussed by philosophers, moralists and in literature. Paul’s Stoic contemporary, Seneca, wrote a play about Medea and forms of the saying very close to Paul’s in Rom 7:15, 19 appear in Epictetus, Ovid and other writers.7 Because Paul explicitly discusses akrasia, knows the philosophical vocabulary, and even alludes to Medea’s famous words, understanding the philosophical debate about akrasia is essential for interpreting the texts and grasping the significance and larger cultural location of the apostle’s discussions. The discussion began with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.8 Plato as on so many topics has left not one coherent position regarding akrasia, but at least two distinct views that would influence later opposing interpretations. In the Protagoras, Socrates argues against the popular view that people can be overcome by pleasure so as to act against what they believe to be good or most pleasant. People may be mistaken about what is good/pleasant, but they will always do what they believe to be best or most pleasurable. In the Republic, Plato reverses himself by accepting the popular view in the context of a very different account of knowledge. He also now has the famous tripartite soul that would be so important to Platonism in the late Roman Empire. The soul consists of the reasoning part, the spirited part and the appetitive part. Reason is the natural ruler, but an emotion like anger of the spirited part can disobey or rebel against reason and might even side with the appetites. The primarily civic metaphors are often violent. The three parts have desires and beliefs of their own almost as if the person consisted of three different inner persons who had an inherent tendency to fight. Recent scholarship has shown that Plato’s three-part soul over-emphasizes the division in the self as compared to his discussions of the soul in terms of sets of beliefs and reasonings.9 Even though Plato’s metaphors may have misrepresented his theory of the soul by exaggerating division and conflict, the images and metaphors made an enormous impression on the culture of the Roman Εmpire and, after Justin, Clement and Origen, Platonism became the unofficially official philosophy of Christianity. One of the most vivid and influential images comes from book 9 (588c–591b) of the Republic. Plato likens the soul to the inside of a person that consists of a large untamable and always

Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), 223. 7  Stanley Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 260–64. 8  Justin Gosling, Weakness of the Will (London: Routledge, 1990), 7–47; Anthony Price, Mental Conflict (London: Routledge, 1995). 9  Gill, Personality, 245–60. 6 



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changing many-headed beast in the lowest part; a somewhat smaller lion in the middle and a yet smaller person at the top. The person inside representing the reasoning part is what has often been translated as the “inner man” (hereafter, “inner person”). Paul uses the expression in 2 Cor 4:16 and Rom 7:22.10 Although one can be fairly certain that Paul’s image originated in book 9 of the Republic, how he uses it is a matter of much dispute.11 At any rate, Plato’s image of the soul makes a fierce struggle for selfmastery inherent to human nature. Reason (the inner person) can sooth the lion and suppress the beast, but never totally tame them. Thus akrasia is normal for all but a few philosophers who have become so fixated on the divine ordering of the universe that only the desire for its truth and beauty can be active, the lower emotions and appetites having no object on which to direct themselves. Although one frequently hears New Testament scholars speak of “Platonic dualism” as if it were the dominant philosophical or even Greek view, neither Plato’s tripartite soul of the Republic nor his dualism of the Phaedo had much influence for about 400 years, even in the Platonic Academy.12 It was only during Paul’s own time that these doctrines based on a certain way of reading Plato were just beginning to become influential. The earliest important figures in this new kind of Platonism were Paul’s Jewish contemporary, Philo, and Philo’s fellow Alexandrian Eudorus. The dominant school in Paul’s time was Stoicism. Discussions about whether Paul had a unitary or dualistic view of the person generally confuse a number of issues and naively presuppose modern so-called Cartesian conceptions. Descartes, one of the founders of modernity, and Plato were ontological dualists. For Descartes there was the natural material universe that is subject to the laws of science and the supernatural or spiritual realm that is totally other. The human body belongs to the first and the human soul or mind to the second. In antiquity, only Plato and the Platonists defended a view that was similar to Descartes in its dualism with regard to humans.13 For modernists and Descartes, there are only these two ontological realms, but Plato

Theo Heckel, Der Innere Mensch: Der paulinische Verarbeitung eines platonischen Motivs, WUNT 2/53 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993); Christoph Markschies, “Innerer Mensch,” RAC 18 (1997): 266–312. Although helpful, I do not find any of the treatments of this image by New Testament scholars satisfactory, either on the philosophical traditions or Paul’s use of the metaphor. The discussions tend to be dominated by apologetic attempts to guard Paul’s uniqueness, among other problems. 11  For bibliography see the two works in n. 10 and Betz in n. 12. 12  The Old Academy had very little interest in the soul and Plato’s ideas on it were very strongly attacked by the other schools. The skeptical New Academy rejected all such doctrines and held sway until the end of the Academy in 87 BCE. So-called Middle Platonism was based upon finding systematic doctrines derived from Plato’s unsystematic dialogues and revived dualism and the tripartite soul in the first and second centuries CE. These facts are well known by scholars of ancient philosophy, but do not seem to have been noticed by New Testament scholars. For examples of the apologetic use of “Platonic dualism” as a foil for a supposedly unitary view by Paul, see Hans Dieter Betz, “The Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being’ (ho esō anthrōpos) in the Anthropology of Paul,” NTS 46 (2000): 315–41. This aspect of Betz’s erudite article is typical of a widespread phenomenon. 13  The context and purposes of the two dualisms are, of course, quite different. Descartes wanted to create autonomous realms for the new science and secular human activity over against religion, thereby protecting both. Plato and later Platonists still have a universe that is united and fully interactive, but with a great hierarchy of qualities and substances. 10 

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and the ancients differed in that the whole cosmos, including the divine, formed a hierarchy of interacting properties and substances with inherent qualities and powers, even if as Platonism developed it, more and more saw God as unknowable. Especially in the Phaedo, Plato claims that the soul is separate from the body and of an entirely different order of existence. But these views had very little influence until the first or second century CE. All of the other schools of philosophy were so called-materialists or physicalists. Everything in the universe, including God or the gods, is a part of one “natural” or physical order and can in principle be investigated by humans. All of this raises questions about how to understand Paul’s views of the person and the universe at a time when the near universal assumption was physicalist, but a few intellectuals were beginning to promote a proto-dualism. It is not clear that anyone, including Jews, in Paul’s time were fully dualists of this sort, especially when the Hebrew Bible had dominant traditions that even gave God a bodily existence.14 A consistent dualism may have only come with Plotinus in the third century. And it is important to remember that this is only one kind of dualism. Paul certainly has ethical and temporal dualisms and dualisms of substance that are part of larger hierarchies of being (e.g., flesh/spirit; mind/body; heavenly stuff/earthly stuff). The Stoics were strong opponents of dualism and of the divided Platonic soul. They took a major interest in the problem of akrasia and revived Socrates’ attack on the paradox of how people could do what they did not want to do.15 In contrast to the Platonists, the Stoics argued for a model of the person as a unified physical entity including what we would call the mind or psyche. Their very complex theory has a number of significant similarities to contemporary philosophical and scientific views, but of course also with huge differences.16 For the Stoics, emotions are not to be contrasted with reason. In fact, emotions are rational in the sense of involving, or even being, judgments and beliefs with accompanying psychophysical reactions. People who feel angry, for instance, may believe that someone has insulted them. If they perceived no insult, there could be no anger. A person who is afraid believes that some circumstance poses a danger. Take away the mistaken belief that a bear is on the trail and the fear disappears. But the Stoics went further and argued that virtue is the only true good, and therefore, what people ordinarily experienced as emotions, in a society that was generally corrupted by false values, involved false beliefs about what was good or to be desired, making the emotions morally bad. The person grieves when the stock market crashes because he falsely believes that wealth is a good rather than an indifferent matter that one might prefer to have, but that has no bearing on what is truly good. Thus Stoics advocated ἀπάθεια, the elimination of culturally corrupted emotions/passions based on false values. The wise instead would have certain rational

14  Benjamin Sommer, The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 15  Gosling, Weakness of Will, 48–68; Price, Conflict, 145–78; Gill, Personality, 229–32. 16  As pointed out in Anthony Long and David Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). For texts in translation and commentary, see vol. 1, 266–74, 313–22, 410–22 and vol. 2, 264–70, 310–20, 404–18 for the Greek and Latin texts with bibliography on pp. 491–510.



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“good emotions”: The terms for the good emotions are extremely difficult to translate, but are, above all, joy and then “wish” instead of desire (ἐπιθυμία) and “caution” instead of fear. The Stoic sage was to be passionate with powerful emotions and desires based upon genuine values and therefore without psychophysical confusion and upheaval.17 If Stoics could not subscribe to the popular and Platonic idea of emotion and appetite coming from a distinct irrational part of the person, how did they explain akrasia, especially akrasia with strong mental conflict? Ironically, some of the most important sources for answering this question come from the writings of Platonists who lived shortly after Paul’s time and who reflect earlier debates. Because Platonism became the philosophy of Christianity, almost none of the major Stoic writings have survived intact. Instead we must often depend upon reports and quotations in the writings of Platonists such as Plutarch and Galen who are attacking Stoicism. They especially attack Chrysippus, the most important Stoic and third head of the school, who had a great interest in the problem of akrasia. Chrysippus saw in Medea and the medean saying an especially interesting and challenging case for his theory of the emotions. For Chrysippus, Medea’s mental conflict was not a conflict between reason and irrational emotion, but between different sets of reasonings and beliefs with the appropriate accompanying impulses and bodily manifestations.18 Medea, in Stoic terminology, has “assented to the impression” that it is appropriate to take revenge on her husband who has horribly betrayed her, that vengeance is even better than the lives of her children. In the normative sense of reason, her decision is irrational and based upon false beliefs about what is good, but in involving beliefs and reasoning, her anger is an expression of reason in the sense of a functional capacity. Medea wavers back and forth as her beliefs and reasonings about revenge conflict with those about the value of her children. In attacking the Stoics, Plutarch (On Moral Virtue 446F) correctly describes their view of mental conflict as temporal alteration rather than a struggle of distinct parts: [Stoics] say that emotion is not different from reason, and that there is no dispute or conflict between the two, but a turning of the same reason in two directions, which we do not notice because of the suddenness and speed of change. We do not see that it is the nature of the same function of the soul to desire and to change one’s mind, to feel anger and fear, and which being carried toward what is shameful by pleasure, while being moved, recovers itself again.

Chrysippus argued that the fresh false belief/psychophysical impulse of which an emotion consists could be so strong that one lost the capacity for reflective decisionmaking, but one could not truly do what one did not want to do. Lack of self-mastery (akrasia), however, in another sense is a part of emotion because, on the one hand, all humans have “a natural tendency to develop toward virtue” (οἰκείωσις), but on the Margaret Graver, Stoicism and Emotion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Christopher Gill, “Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions?,” The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. J. Sihvola and T. Engberg-Pedersen (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998), 114–23; Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 70–74.

17  18 

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other hand, have false beliefs due to social environment.19 Thus all typical emotions (but not the “good emotions”) involve an inner conflict between the two tendencies. In the Stoic view, only wisdom constituted a complete consistency of beliefs, and wisdom is an enlarged view of the world that puts everything in its true relation. Thus the Stoics defined self-mastery (ἐγκράτεια) not as in the popular conception of control over irrational and rebellious internal forces, but as “an unconquerable character with respect to what is according to right reason” (SVF 67–21 cf. 67.45– 68.2). Self-mastery is constancy over time by following what appears as true to reason and according to right reason (cf. Rom 1:18–20). As in Rom 1:21–28, akrasia is foolishness (e.g., ἀφροσύνη, cf. 2:20), a lack of constancy based on a failure to act according to what is true, a state of passion. Epictetus writes: “One time you think of these things as good, and then of the same things as bad, and later as neither; and constantly you experience pain, fear, envy, turmoil, and change. This is why you admit that you are foolish (ἄφρων)” (Diss. 2.22.6–7). Thus Stoics placed little value on the idea of self-control in the normal sense of ramping up one’s will power. Holding out against a desire or emotion made no sense because the desire or emotion was centrally constituted by false beliefs in ones reasoning faculty.

The Politics of Self-Mastery in the Wake of the Augustan Revolution Self-mastery was not only central to the work of philosophy in articulating a self, creating practices of self-cultivation, and formulating ethics, but was also an important principle for constructing social hierarchies in Greco-Roman cultures. Self-mastery concerns power over both self and the potential for power or lack of it over others. As Xenophon’s (Mem. 1.5.1–6) Socrates teaches, if you want a general to save the city, or a guardian for your children, or a manager of your estate, you will want someone who is “stronger than his belly,” having subdued his appetite for wine, sexual pleasure, and sleep. In the Alcibiades, Socrates tells an ambitious young man that to succeed as a politician he must first master himself by overcoming passion and desire. Mastery of oneself to the degree possible for one’s “natural” endowments places a person on the social hierarchy, indicating who one is fit to rule and by whom one is ruled. Aristotle is only following the common ancient assumption when he says that lack of self-mastery is innate, that is, natural, to some people. The examples he gives are of barbarians and women as compared to men (Eth. Nic. 7.7 1150b). In the cultures using this kind of discourse, a series of dualities created a hierarchy of the more selfmastered who are fit to rule others and those without enough mastery to rule or fully rule themselves: e.g., mind/body, humans/animals, men/women, soft men/hard men, free/slaves, Greeks/barbarians, Israelites/Canaanites, Judeans/Gentiles. 19  For two very different interpretations of oikeiōsis, compare Gisela Striker, Essays on Hellenistic Epistemology and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 281–98, and Troels EngbergPedersen, The Stoic Theory of Okeiosis: Moral Development and Social Interaction in Early Stoic Philosophy (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990).



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The successful effort led by Augustus to transform the Roman Republic and its colonies into a great empire united under him as monarch made great use of the ethic of self-mastery in its propaganda and as a principle of social organization.20 Paul’s era, the early empire, was a time when the connection between self-mastery and ambition seems to have reached its apex. Augustus’ laws on morals and marriage set the tone for the age. The ruling elites would have to show that they exercised firm control over themselves, their families, and their dependents if Rome was to rule successfully the world. Local aristocracies and the elites of ethnic minorities all over the empire vied to demonstrate to Rome their fitness to rule. The Judeans were no exception. The Republic ended and the imperial age began with a massive propaganda effort that centered on an exaggerated form of the myth that while early Rome had been disciplined in all things, recent times had seen a dramatic loss of public and private discipline, an age of sin. Romans 1–3 plays on a major theme of the first century. In the war for the empire, Augustus and his followers had depicted Antony as a lustcrazed slave of Cleopatra who led a life of sensual gratification. Augustus, by contrast, was the very model of self-mastery. Self-mastery also proved an essential ingredient in the justification of Rome’s conquests. Cicero claims that in the past the magistrates of Rome exercised such great self-control that other nations had willingly relinquished self-rule in order to be ruled by the Roman people. Those whom Pompey conquered were so impressed by his self-mastery that they thought him a god (Leg. Man. 14.41). In the Republic, Cicero gives Laelius the task of justifying Roman imperialism. Certain people lack the natural endowments to govern their own lives. These people are better off as the slaves of others. Thus self-disciplined Rome rules subject peoples in their own good. Some scholars believe that Cicero derived this argument from the Stoic philosopher Panaetius.21 Panaetius not only supported Roman rule in opposition to the earlier Stoa’s democratic and anti-monarchical teachings, but also revised the unitary Stoic psychology that denied conflict in the healthy person between soul and body or between reason and emotion. Panaetius may have posited the inherent irrationality and rebelliousness of the passionate part of the soul. The rational part of the soul must subdue and master the emotional and instinctive part of the soul just as self-mastered peoples must rule irrational nations. Augustus explicitly appealed to philosophy and many, but not all philosophers, helped to supply an ideology for his new, yet supposedly ancient, order of virtue. Other sorts of philosophers formed the major opposition to monarchy. Judean and Christian intellectuals also claimed to have an affinity with philosophy and to possess effective routes to self-mastery. Augustus made Egypt into a lesson for subjected peoples who were not selfmastered.22 Augustus, his successors in the first century, and writers and speakers depicted Egypt as an irrational mass of native Egyptians and corrupted Greeks who were drenched in wicked passion. Thus the epic battled between Augustus and Antony For a more detailed discussion of this topic with bibliography, see my Rereading, 52–65. Andrew Erskine, The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990), 192–200. 22  Stowers, Rereading, 52–53. 20  21 

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with Cleopatra could be depicted as a struggle for virtue and the good itself. Augustus punished Egypt by denying it self-rule and by imposing a system of apartheid that segregated native Egyptians, Jews and Greeks, with the Egyptians on the bottom of the hierarchy. Ethnic peoples, including Judeans, knew that Egypt was a lesson for them. The self-mastered would be rewarded; the passion-ruled punished.

Judaism as a School for Self-Mastery Jewish writers did indeed depict Judaism as a philosophy for the passions, a school for self-mastery. The most extensive, evidence for this understanding of Judaism comes from Philo, the Jewish aristocrat from Alexandria. “The law exhorts us to philosophize and thereby improve the soul and the ruling mind. Therefore each seventh day stand open thousands of schools in every city; schools of wisdom, self-restraint, courage and all the other virtues” (Spec. 2.61–62). Philo’s schools are likely to be what we would call synagogues. He emphasizes that these schools stand open not only to Jews but also to Gentiles. Judeans inhabit the world because they have a mission to be to the whole world as the priest is to the whole Jewish people. This sacred office of the Judean people is evident because they purify both body and soul, obeying the divine laws that control “the pleasures of the belly and the parts below it…setting reason as charioteer of the irrational senses and…the wild and extravagant impulses of the soul…with philosophical exhortations” (Spec. 2.162–63). The mission of the Jewish people consists in teaching the truth of the supreme God and the virtues that God has ordained when reason rules over the passions. Why do the Jewish laws win such approval among Gentiles? What makes the law of Moses superior to other laws? “The law requires that all who assent to the sacred constitution of Moses must be free from every irrational passion and all vice to a greater degree than those who are governed by other laws” (Spec. 4.55). The Jewish law is superior because it better produces self-mastery. In contrast, the idolatry-promoting laws of other peoples “nourish and increase” the passions and vices (Sacr. 15). Above all, the law for Philo solves the greatest of human problems, the treachery of desire (ἐπιθυμία). Desire is a “treacherous enemy and source of all evils” (Virt. 100). “Moses put off emotion, loathing it as the vilest thing and the cause of evils, above all denouncing desire as like a destroyer of cities to the soul which must itself must be destroyed and made obedient to the rule of reason” (Spec. 4.95). Desire causes relatives to become bitter enemies and is “why large and populous countries are decimated by civil wars, and both land and sea are constantly filled with new catastrophes caused by sea and land battles. For all the wars of Greeks and barbarians, among themselves and among each other, that are the subject of tragic drama, spring from one source, desire, desire for money, glory or pleasure. These are the things that bring destruction upon the human race” (Decal. 151–53). Desire and emotion serve as general explanations for human evil.



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Philo, Paul and 4 Maccabees all understand the tenth commandment as a prohibition of desire. They read it as “you shall not desire.” Just as we modern interpreters of the Bible unconsciously read modern psychology, values and institutions into the text, so Jews in the Greco-Roman world saw their assumptions about human nature in the writings of ancient Israel. For Judeans like Paul and Philo, the tenth commandment showed that the law was concerned with the Greco-Roman ethic of self-mastery. As one might expect, the writings of Philo, Paul’s letters and 4 Maccabees are written from the perspective of male ruling elites in this ethnic sub-culture of the GrecoRoman world. The discourse of desire and self-mastery is the language of their social location. This discourse embodies not only the psychology of social and gender hierarchy but also the ideology of the ethnic other. As Greeks represent barbarians as dangerously different and as being incapable of controlling passions and desires, so Gentiles including Greeks suffer the same depiction at the hand of some Jewish writers, although Paul’s hard binary is distinctive. Paul and Philo also pick out desire (ἐπιθυμία) as the most dangerous of the passions. In both cases, but most clearly in Philo, this seems to come from the way that they combined Stoic and Platonic influences. Desire is no worse than any other passion in Stoicism since all passions derive in the same way from false beliefs and judgments due to bad socialization. But in the Platonic tripartite soul, the spirited passions can listen to reason and be persuaded, but the appetites (for which he uses ἐπιθυμία) are a many-headed wild beast. It appears that Jewish intellectuals in the Roman world found congenial a mixture of Stoic and Platonic ethical and psychological ideas. With these, they could treat the Judean scriptures as fonts of ethical and cosmological teachings. Philo views the law as an antidote to desire in several ways. Commandments like the tenth serve as exhortations addressed to the rationality of individuals. The law also contains the constitution of the ideal commonwealth where all of the institutions and offices are designed to promote self-mastery. The tenth commandment stops that fountain of injustice, desire, from which flow the most lawless acts, both public and private, both small and great, sacred and profane, concerning both bodies and souls and things called external. For nothing escapes desire, and as I have said before, like a flame in wood, it spreads and consumes and destroys everything. Many parts of the law come under this heading which is for the admonition of those who can be reformed and for the punishment of those who rebel making a lifelong surrender to emotion. (Decal. 173–74)

Philo explains that the law prohibits eating the meat of certain animals because they are most appetizing. Eating them would encourage desire and pleasure, whereas abstaining develops self-mastery. Such prohibitions embody further symbolic meaning. Animals, for example, that crawl on their stomachs represent the life of the belly, i.e. the passions (Spec. 113). Philo also describes (Spec. 4.92–100) the laws pertaining to marriage, food and drink as laws of self-mastery (ἐγκράτεια) and restraint (σωφροσυνῆ). Scholars have long wondered what attracted Gentiles to Jewish practices and especially to food laws. But if one understands the enormous attraction exerted by the ideal of self-mastery and the powerful interpretation of the Jewish law as a means to it, then the popularity of Jewish practices becomes understandable. According to one

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strategy, the Jews were said to be set apart from all the other peoples of the empire in certain ways, and could be made to appear as a uniquely disciplined nation of philosophers.23 Josephus also presents Judaism to non-Jews as a philosophy offering a better way to self-mastery. While Greek philosophy addresses only the few, Judaism addresses the many (C. Ap. 2.168–71). Judaism is a philosophy for the masses. Josephus stresses that Gentile religious practices lead to a lack of self-control (C. Ap. 2.193) and what great discipline the Judean law requires (C. Ap. 2.234). Nevertheless, Gentiles have increasingly adopted Jewish laws beginning with the Greek philosophers (2.282). In striking contrast to the Qumran writings themselves, which display no interest at all in an ethic of ascetic self-mastery but instead have an ethic of purity and pollution together with norms and regulations about social interactions, Philo and Josephus depict the Essenes as austerely self-mastered philosophers. “They shun pleasures as evil and consider self-mastery (ἐγκράτεια) and resisting the power of the passions as virtue… They do not reject marriage on principle…but wish to protect themselves against the sexual depravity of women being convinced that no woman ever remains faithful to one man” (B.J. 2.120–21). Similarly, but with less extremity, the Pharisees lead a simplified life and staunchly resist any concessions to luxury (A.J. 18). The accounts of the Essenes, Pharisees and Therapeutai in Philo and Josephus undoubtedly serve as attempts to claim that Jewish philosophical groups outdo Greeks and others in their degree of self-mastery.24 Philo, Josephus and other Jewish writings from the period of the second temple provide extensive evidence for Jews who wanted to attract Gentiles into a sympathetic relationship with the Jewish community by advertising Judaism as a superior school for self-mastery. Paul’s letters argue that Gentiles through assimilation to Christ can attain self-mastery apart from works of the law.

Part II. Self-Mastery in Paul’s Letters Paul’s letters use all of the major terms that philosophers used in their discussions of self-mastery and its opposite: self-mastery (ἐγκράτεια) in Gal 5:23; to practice self-mastery (ἐγκρατεύομαι) in 1 Cor 7:9; 9:25; lack of self-mastery (ἀκρασία) in 1 Cor 7:5; passion/emotion (πάθη, πάθος) in Rom 1:26; 7:5; 8:18; 2 Cor 5:5, 6, 7; Gal 5:24; Phil 3:10; 1 Thess 4:5; desire or appetitive desire (ἐπιθυμία) and to experience desire (ἐπιθυμέω; numerous instances of the noun and verb); endurance (ὑπομονῆ, -έω; numerous instances); to be restrained or moderate (σωφρονέω) in Rom 12:3; 2 Cor 5:13. The terms along with the standard concepts, issues and arguments common in the writings of philosophers and moralists are prominent in the letters.

Stowers, Rereading, 62–64. Troels Engberg-Pedersen, “Philo’s DE VITA CONTEMPLATIVA as a Philosopher’s Dream,” JSJ 30 (1999): 40–64.

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But to understand Paul’s use of these discourses one must have an interpretation of Paul’s overall project. Traditional theologians and critical scholars have had numerous accounts of what the letters are about and the debate is ongoing.25 I will attempt to lay out some points of one reading that allows for an understanding of self-mastery in Paul’s thought.26 By broad agreement, interpreters understand Paul as the apostle to the non-Jews, the Gentiles. But the traditional idea that Paul’s project was part of a mission of world evangelism to convert those who would form a church of the saved bound for heaven runs into insuperable difficulties. Just one of the many problems will need to be sufficient to make the point. In Romans, Paul proclaims that he has finished his mission to the eastern half of the Mediterranean and says that he will soon go on to Spain to complete his work (Rom 15:16–24). He expects that most of his converts will be alive when Christ returns (1 Cor 15:51; 1 Thess 4:15). Clearly Paul envisions only having a few hundred Gentile Christ people alive at Christ’s return from God’s heavenly court. Rather than world evangelism, a better thesis sees Paul as God’s chosen instrument for creating a species of Christ-beings from the Gentiles (as presumably Peter was also doing from the Jews?) who were to play a special role in Christ’s rectification of the cosmos. These Christ-people might also be some sort of prototype or forerunner of the more universal human transformation to which he seems to refer, but Paul’s hints in that direction are conflicting and vague. The letters can be read with cogency from this perspective as guides and interventions for people chosen by God to assimilate to Christ, the archetype.27 Paul writes to guide these elect holy ones who are being progressively transformed (2 Cor 3:18) from Gentile’s lost to proper worship of God, with appetite- and emotion-ridden characters, to perfectly obedient servants of God. In God’s mysterious plans, a Judean human being, Jesus Christ, lived a perfectly obedient and faithful life even to the point of death. God then raised him from the dead by recreating him with his own divine πνεῦμα (mistranslated as spirit or ghost; hereafter pneuma), the most perfect material in the cosmos. Unlike even the angels, Christ has become a being of perfectly humble obedience toward God who cannot be disloyal (e.g., Phil 2:5–11). Those chosen to be baptized into Christ share in Christ’s pneuma that first transforms their minds and, at Christ’s return, will transform their bodies also into bodies of pneuma (1 Cor 15:44; Phil 3:20–21). As citizens of heaven, the Philippians await the return of Christ who will “transform our lowly bodies so as to take on the form of his glorious body by the power that enables him to subject the whole cosmos to himself” (Phil 3:20–21).

25  An influential Protestant evangelical account in the Augustinian-Lutheran traditions is James Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). 26  For a more detailed version of this case, see my “The Dilemma of Paul’s Physics: Features StoicPlatonist or Platonist-Stoic?,” in From Stoicism to Platonism, ed. T. Engberg-Pedersen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming). 27  Both “assimilation” to a god or God and “archetype” or “image” (see Rom 8:29; 1 Cor 15:49) are Platonic concepts. Indeed, the human telos in the new Platonism developing in Paul’s time was “likeness to” or “assimilation” to God. See my “Dilemma of Paul,” and M. David Litwa, We Are Being Transformed, BZNW 187 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012); George van Kooten, Paul’s Anthropology in Context, WUNT 232 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008).

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The same holy pneuma of which Christ and his transformed Christ people consist will allow Christ to subdue every recalcitrant human, angel and god in the cosmos with his host of fellows (1 Cor 15:23–28; Phil 2:9–11). The transformation that Paul husbands makes his assembled chosen Gentile contingent into sons of God and brothers of Christ, the archetype (e.g., Rom 8:29). Even angels and heavenly powers cannot stand between Christ and the fellow sons of God (Rom 8:35–39) who will join him in the region between the moon and the lower atmosphere as he returns to earth to set things right (1 Thess 4:16–17). With Christ (e.g., 1 Cor 15:23–28; Phil 2:5–11) and his Christ people now ruling the cosmos, those who are of Christ will even be involved in judging angels and the whole cosmos (1 Cor 6:2–3) This scenario entails a key point about morals and self-mastery in Paul’s thought; although the subjects of transformation are highly flawed humans, the character toward which they are progressing is divine, beyond human. Thus an enormous moral tension marks the letters. In sharing Christ’s pneuma, Paul’s Gentiles participate in Christ and will be transformed into persons with his obedient character and divine body. Whatever else Christ is, as one who sits beside God’s throne, he is a divine being. While ancient Christian thinkers and Eastern Christianity have widely recognized a process of divinization in Paul’s letters, modern interpretation has generally not taken Paul’s language literally.28 But statements such as “those who are of Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” cannot be dismissed so easily. Paul allows us no hint that to kill one’s emotions and appetites is mere metaphor (see below). I think it most likely that Paul borrowed from the thought of his day that imagined human perfection and progress toward it precisely because the goal was a kind of divination with Christ as the model.29 Indeed, Stoics and Platonists in their different ways likened sages, the perfected, to gods. In the former they were like gods morally (= in character) and in the latter could become such both morally and ontologically. The tension arises in Paul’s thought because although “those in Christ” have started to participate in him, to be assimilated to him in character, to have their minds transformed, the process is ongoing and requires that a pneumatic body replace the flesh body for completion. The transformation at baptism is decisive: they are dead to sin (Rom 6:2). But the transformation is not complete. Romans is by far the most important site for the discourse of self-mastery in Paul’s letters. The letter is a useful place to begin because it gives a fairly clear account of his normative conception, the role that self-mastery and its opposite play in his gospel. The issue of self-mastery serves an important function in the letter’s argument and relates closely to the fact that the apostle addresses the letter to Gentiles and tells a story about the past, present and future of these non-Judean (non-Jewish)

An important exception is Litwa, We Are Being Transformed. For the claim that deification was repellent to Jews, see Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Jesus in Earliest Christian Devotion (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003). For critiques of Hurtado’s claims, see M. David Litwa, Iesus Deus: The Early Christian Depiction of Jesus as a Mediterranean God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 11–16. 29  For progress in Paul’s letters, see Laura Dingeldein, “Gaining Virtue, Gaining Christ: Moral Development in the Letters of Paul” (PhD diss., Brown University, 2014). 28 



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peoples.30 Romans 1:18–32 narrates how humans (no Jews until Abraham) gave up a true understanding of God, failed to worship him and instead turned to gods made with human hands (i.e., Gen 1–11). The passage three times says that in response, God fittingly punished these idolaters by “handing them over” (1:24, 26, 28) to desires (ἐπιθυμίαις), passions or emotions (πάθη) and an unfit mind. Because of the latter cognitive state, these peoples characteristically came to perform “inappropriate acts” (μὴ καθήκοντα). The latter is a technical Stoic term for the kinds of behavior that become natural for all humans as individuals habituate themselves in their social worlds, a kind of common morality. The whole passage also has a Stoic flavor in the way that it makes a false understanding of people’s larger view of the world the cause of passions and passionate desire. Paul never attributes such domination by passions and desire to Judeans generally. The asymmetry is remarkable.31 But akrasia and worse characterize the non-Jewish peoples as in 1 Thess 4:3–4 where the apostle urges that the Thessalonians “abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you ought to possess his own wife [lit. vessel] in holiness and honor, not with passion of desire like the Gentiles who do not know God.” Just as the traditional ethnic-religious other of Greeks was barbarians who could by definition lack self-mastery, so the ethnic-religious other of Judeans among some Jewish thinkers was Gentiles who also typically failed in self-mastery. Romans 1:18–32 puts them in a state far worse than everyday akrasia—failure to consistently do the good. Rather, they exhibit total moral failure and this is because God has punished them by allowing or causing them to be enslaved to their emotions and appetites. Paul identifies his audience in Romans as Gentiles (1:13–14; 11:13; 15:14–21) who have turned to Christ so that the story of 1:18–32 is about their past and their current culture. The recent past of his readers is made more dramatically personal when Paul suddenly turns away from his audience to address an imaginary Gentile in 2:1–16.32 Using the common ancient rhetorical technique of apostrophe that was especially popular with moral philosophers, the passage characterizes this gentile as a person who says one thing, but inconsistently does another. In this case, he sets himself up as a judge of the kind of people who perform “inappropriate acts” due to idolatry when he “does the same things” (1:32; 2:1, 2, 3) because he is yet another worshipper of false gods who has been “handed over” to passion and desire. Further confirmation that this person whom Paul sharply warns is a Gentile like those in ch. 1, appears in 2:15.33 There the apostle not only explains that God will judge Jews and Gentiles The acknowledgment of the Gentile audience has now become widespread among scholars. For arguments, see Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography, ConBNT 40 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003), and my Rereading, 6–33. 31  In a desperate attempt to find texts that would make Judeans as sinful as Gentiles, some have appealed to 1 Cor 10:1–22 where Paul discusses the dangers of desire, but Paul does not generalize Israel’s disobedience at Sinai to Judeans in general as he does the evil of Gentiles. 32  On the rhetoric here, see my Rereading, 16–21, 100–104. 33  I owe this basic interpretation to Troels Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000), 203 and n. 43. Engberg-Pedersen, I believe, confuses the issue when he describes the passage as depicting the mental conflict of akrasia, but then goes on to describe the person 30 

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impartially, but that God will look into the mental record of even the best Gentiles who have done much of what the law requires and find a conflicted mind of accusing and excusing self-judgments. The letter returns to this classic picture of strong akrasia and worse as mental conflict in ch. 7. Thus 1:18–2:16 argues that the fundamental condition of the non-Jewish peoples is a general endemic tendency toward vice and denial of God, even among the best who somehow “by nature” try to do what God’s law requires. Gentiles cannot escape enslavement to emotion and desire by attempting to keep God’s law. The failure to understand (false beliefs) that God has created and rules the universe, and therefore to serve him, has led to a mental state that allows passion and desire to run rampant. The assumptions here are both Jewish and Stoic, but could easily be given a Platonic interpretation also. This statement, however, needs clarification. It is a category mistake to treat something called “Judaism” as if it were a philosophy like Stoicism or Platonism or like what later Christian intellectuals would project as the beliefs and practices of all orthodox Christians. The ancient culture(s) and people called Judeans did not have a common set of doctrines such as the hundreds of, e.g., Stoic systematic writings, about knowledge, the nature of the universe and ethics, into which a massive educational system trained all Judeans. Ancient thinkers like Philo, later Christian theologians and modern New Testament scholars have often treated “Judaism” this way, but the practice is without historical foundation. We have good evidence that among the tiny fraction of highly literate Judeans in this period—such as Aristobulous, the writers of Wisdom and Fourth Maccabees, Philo and others—Greek philosophy became a resource for their own Jewish intellectual projects. Romans also betrays this pattern. The issue of self-mastery and its opposite re-emerges in chs. 6–8. Traditional readings take what is said of Jews and Gentiles in 1:18–3:21 as an argument about a fallen essential and timeless human nature beyond culture.34 In my judgment, Paul argues that due to God’s just impartiality toward both Judeans and the other peoples, he has sent Christ as a solution to the just condemnation of the Gentiles and for a rectification of an apocalyptic moment of world-wide sinfulness (chs. 3–5). That current sinfulness has caused a powerful leveling so that God can display his impartial mercy equally on all (3:9–31). Chapters 6–8 go on to argue that the law that Jewish teachers have offered to Gentiles (2:17–3:8) as a solution to passion and akrasia cannot and was never meant to produce obedience and unconflicted self-mastery as a solution to this sin of the Gentiles. Only identification with Christ in his death and the new life of God’s pneuma can bring about sinlessness and self-mastery. That Paul truly meant sinlessness and self-mastery has been controversial in Western Christianity

as the “self-mastered” individual who regularly struggles and succeeds in doing the right thing, but with internal conflict. This introduces a definition of the “self-mastered” person from Aristotle that does not fit Stoic thought or Paul’s claim that the Gentile of ch. 2 does “the same things” as those in 1:18–32. 34  For support of this paragraph, see my “Paul’s Four Discourses About Sin,” in Celebrating Paul: Essays in Honor of Jerome Murphy O’Connor, O.P., and Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J., ed. Peter Spitaler, CBQMS 48 (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2011), 100–127.



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since Augustine launched his massive and momentous attack on the idea and sought to overthrow more than 300 years of Christian interpretation of Paul’s letters.35 The readers of the letter have died to sin (6:2). The old person has participated in Christ’s death so that the body of sin might be destroyed and the person is no longer enslaved to sin (6:6). The readers are to think of themselves as dead to sin (6:11) and not to let sin rule over their mortal bodies so as to obey its desires (ἐπιθυμίαις, 6:12). Paul’s language seems to be definitive—they are dead to sin—and yet he urges them to be dead to sin. Troels Engberg-Pedersen has powerfully argued that this makes good sense in light of Stoicism in which virtue or goodness was an all or nothing affair.36 Once a person had come to the decisive insight and self-understanding that reordered every value in relation to that insight, then one was qualitatively different, even if one still might have to work out in detail how this newness might apply in specific cases. According to Engberg-Pedersen, this situation called for paraenesis in which one is urged to realize fully the implication of the new state. In Stoic thought, however, progress toward wisdom and goodness was only for those who were not yet wise. Sages did not progress, but had reached human perfection and were a theoretical ideal rather than a realistic possibility. But Engberg-Pedersen is right in stressing that moral-religious progress is a central element both to Stoics and to Paul as recent scholarship has underlined.37 If Paul’s understanding of Christ was at major points shaped by Stoic conceptions, then his seeming insistence on ἀπάθεια, that is, the elimination of ordinary emotions and appetites corrupted by false beliefs, makes sense. Up until the Protestant Reformation, Christians widely understood Paul to teach the elimination of passion, even if they had come to see this as a practical goal only for saints and monks who followed the higher calling. According to Gal 5:24, “those who are of Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” In 1 Cor 7, Paul wishes that everyone could be celibate like him, but he allows marriage because of the temptation to porneia. Porneia, as we have seen, is according to Paul a characteristic of Gentiles who experience passionate desire when they have sex with their wives (1 Thess 4:4). Marriage is needed because of akrasia, the lack of self-mastery that would otherwise ensue for most people (1 Cor 7:1–5). If the unmarried cannot exercise self-mastery, they should marry because it is better to marry than to burn (7:9). Burning was a common description in Paul’s time for sexual desire and Paul uses it for sexual desire in Rom 1:27.

For a presentation of the Augustinian-Lutheran tradition and the varied modern scholarly reactions to it, see Magnus Zetterholm, Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship (Minneapolis, MI: Fortress, 2009). The scholarship on Augustine’s novelties is vast. For some key points relevant to this article, see my “Two Kinds of Self: A Response to Ekkkehard W. Stegemann,” in Reformation Readings of Romans, ed. K. Ehrensperger and R. W. Holder (London: T&T Clark International, 2008), 50–56. 36  Paul and the Stoics, 225–39. 37  For progress in Paul and in post-hellenistic philosophy, see Dingeldein, “Gaining Virtue.” Dingeldein also discusses and critiques the resistance to or outright denial of progress and habits of character (i.e., virtue) in the Augustinian-Lutheran tradition. 35 

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Some scholars have concluded that Paul advocated passionless sex and have mistakenly attributed this idea to Stoicism.38 To the contrary, Stoics of the Hellenistic age gave a highly positive evaluation of sex and eros, and at least five of them wrote treatises on the subject.39 The right sort of sex and erotic desire would be an important characteristic of the sage.40 Instead of passion out of control, but like the other good emotions, this eros would be quite different, characterized by the perception of physical and moral beauty and aimed at the good of the other. Of course, Stoics at the same time attacked sex and eros founded on ἐπιθυμία, the false emotion of desire. Roman Stoics like Musonius and Seneca were more conservative, but as Gretchen Reydams-Schils has shown, some scholars have distorted their thought, claiming that marriage was only for procreation and the control of sexual appetite.41 Later Platonists polemically depicted Stoic ἀπάθεια as the elimination of all feeling and emotion, ignoring the passionate good emotion of the sage. Ironically, some of them, such as Philo, embraced this distortion of the Stoic teaching as a characteristic of the most godly and virtuous people, even though the standard Platonic position was moderation of the emotions.42 Paul’s writings nowhere display positive ideas about sex and eros, but that could stem from his focus on Gentiles and his goal of deification. The letters seem to employ more negative Platonic moral ideas, at least with Gentiles in view, especially in Rom 6–7. Pauline paraenesis appealing to participation in Christ’s death that eliminates passion, desire and sin, forms a preface to ch. 7’s discussion of extreme akrasia and the law. The passage is one of the most contested and exegetically complex in the New Testament. Ancient and medieval commentators generally recognized that Paul’s discussion in 7:7–24 was carried out in the terms of the ancient moral tradition and sometimes specifically of akrasia.43 After the Protestant Reformation, this was often forgotten or denied for theological and apologetic reasons.44 An unfortunate result of removing the interpretation of the passage from the context of the Greco-Roman and ancient Mediterranean moral tradition is that it has typically been interpreted in a historically naïve way in terms of post-Cartesian and Kantian psychology that differs in important ways from any known ancient conception of the person.45 Ancient commentators widely believed that the words of 7:7–24 were not Paul’s own, but the

Dale Martin, “Paul without Passion: On Paul’s Rejection of Desire in Sex and Marriage,” in Constructing Early Christian Families, ed. H. Moxnes (London: Routledge, 1997), 201–15. 39  I.e., Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Persaeus, and Sphaerus. 40  For a key discussion and support of my immediate points, see Graver, Stoicism and Emotion, 185–89. Zeno in his Republic even makes eros and sexual relations into the basis of society, the social glue. 41  Gretchen Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 150–53. 42  John Dillon, The Middle Platonists (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996), 151–52. The case is complex, however, because Philo sometimes also appeals to Stoic-like good emotions. 43  E.g., Stowers, Rereading, 267–69. 44  Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 368–69 n. 27. 45  On modern versus ancient conceptions, see Gill, Personality. A clear example of assuming a basically Cartesian and more specifically Freudian view of the person is Gerd Theissen’s fascinating and erudite study, Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987). 38 



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common rhetorical technique of προσωποποιία, in which speech is crafted so as to represent the character of some individual or some type of person.46 A recent important interpretation of 7:7–24 by Troels Engberg-Pederson argues that Paul gives a fundamentally Stoic treatment of akrasia and its cure.47 The text aims to show that life under the law as seen from Paul’s new perspective issues in a conscious self-understanding (true belief). Such a person understands her or himself as constantly running the risk of sinning. Awareness of akrasia constantly threatens those who try to keep the law. The “I” of 7:14 (“I am sold under sin”) and 24 is the whole person. Paul then divides the self into its different parts to illustrate the problem. The I whole has different relationships with its different aspects. The I whole identifies with the mind/reason or inner person that rejoices in God’s law, but not with the limbs and flesh so that it sometimes does not even identify with its own acts. According to EngbergPederson, such akrasia and awareness of disassociation comes about when the people understand themselves from an egoistic, self-directed perspective. Identification with Christ resembles the enlarged objective view of the world in Stoicism that is wisdom and that eliminates the inconsistency in the self that issues in passion and desire, lack of self-mastery. Thus the law alone cannot produce consistent sinlessness; only identification with Christ through the pneuma of God can do that. Engberg-Pederson’s important reading fits with a number of Stoic-like features of Paul’s discourse, and especially with texts supporting the idea that those in Christ have crucified the passions and desires of the flesh. But the reading does not easily explain all of the evidence and is overly elaborate. Overall the language seems to rather support a Platonic-like divided person with inherently rebellious irrational parts, as I have argued elsewhere.48 As discussed above, the image of the inner person comes from Book 9 of Plato’s Republic. The image is antithetical to the unitary soul of Stoicism. Paul uses the image in a characteristic way in Romans. He also employs the image of passions and appetites as beasts in 1 Cor 15:32. The inner person represents the reasoning part of the person with its own desires and the person also has typically contradictory desires that belong to the lower fleshly part of the person. On a Stoic interpretation, all passion and desiring would be states of the reasoning ability. There is no intrinsically irrational or fleshly thinking, willing or desiring part. If Paul is giving a Stoic interpretation, he has done so by employing terms and images uncongenial to the task. Texts from other letters are also difficult to square with Stoicism. In 1 Cor 9:24–27, Paul speaks of pummeling and enslaving his body so as to attain self-mastery. This fits well with a divided soul, but poorly with a Stoic position in which the body is not intrinsically rebellious but part of the rational psychophysical whole. Self-mastery occurs when reasoning is consistent with right reason. Put a bit differently, it happens when one understands who one truly is as a moral agent in the scheme of the universe. Similarly, Paul’s advice that Corinthian followers 46  Stowers, Rereading, 264–69, and on the technique, 16–21, and idem, “Apostrophe, Prosopopoiia, and Paul’s Rhetorical Education,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. J. Fitzgerald and L. M. White (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 351–69. 47  Engberg-Pederson, Paul and the Stoics, 239–53. 48  Stowers, “Dilemma of Paul,” and Rereading, 279–81.

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should marry to avoid akrasia, if they cannot attain self-mastery, is not aimed at the understanding as, for example, in Rom 6:11 when he says, “consider yourself dead to sin.” The advice is go ahead and be akratic if necessary, but at least within marriage so that you will not be a passion-consumed adulterer. This is Platonic-like advice. Emma Wasserman, I believe, has decisively explained the contours and sense of ch. 7. The “I” constructed with the rhetorical technique of προσωποποιία, disassociates itself from its own flesh, that is body, earlier called “body of sin” (6:6). The true self in a rebellious body of flesh does not do what it wants to do (7:14–20). In fact, it does what it hates. No good lies in the true self’s flesh (7:18). In other words, the true self has been so overpowered by appetitive desire (ἐπιθυμία) and passions (πάθη) that it no longer controls what the body does. The condition is worse than simple akrasia. The true self has been taken captive, enslaved and lives in a “body of death” (7:24). As is typical with a parts psychology, Paul constantly attributes features of mind to the irrational soul or body. Wasserman calls the condition total moral failure and points out that the two theoretical limiting cases for moral thinking in Hellenistic philosophy were the sage and the person with total moral failure. Wasserman has shown that from Plato to Philo, Plutarch and Galen, Platonists employed metaphors and images of captivity, attack, enslavement and so on to depict the emotions and appetites, the irrational soul, when unchecked by the mind. This is the imagery of ch. 7. Indeed, I would argue that the true self here is unambiguous. It is the mind, and Paul uses the key Platonic term for it (νοῦς). The mind “wants” the good (7:14–20). The inner person “delights in its connection with” the law of God (7:22) and “agrees” that God’s law is good by its innate desire to do what is right (7:16). The νοῦς still serves God’s law, the good, even as its flesh and body-parts serve the law of sin (7:25). In the argument of the letter, ch. 7 tries to show that the Judean law is of no help to the non-Jew without the pneuma of God to empower the mind. But the moral psychology used in this rhetoric is Platonic with a mind of a different ontological order than its body/irrational soul. The flesh body bears the inherent weaknesses of the earthy material from which it is made (1 Cor 15:42–49), but the mind has an innate connection to God. Chapter 8 argues that God’s pneuma transforms the mind. All of this makes sense of Paul’s central contrast between flesh and pneuma. When Paul says (1 Cor 15:50) that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” it is not metaphor about an attitude as in much contemporary interpretation, but real flesh and blood. Unlike the still popular existentialist-symbolic reading based on Martin Heidegger’s primordial dimensions of existence and popularized by Rudolf Bultmann, this interpretation can be shown to belong to Paul’s own culture.49 The solution to this mixed evidence about Paul’s understanding of self-mastery, akrasia, and the person may come from concluding that he did not have a pure philosophical heritage regarding these concepts. The idea is broadly plausible because the late Republic and early Empire was a time that saw different attempts to combine Stoic and Platonic teachings about the person. To say this is not to fall into the highly

49  So, for example, the “flesh” in this reading is not the body’s physical flesh, but rather symbolizes a certain attitude toward existence.



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discredited notion of an age of eclectic philosophy and syncretism. From the Stoic side, scholars have often found three examples, Panaetius, Posidonius and sometimes Paul’s exact contemporary, Seneca. Although the evidence is not very clear, a number of scholars have thought that Panaetius accepted an Aristotelian-like bipartite soul or that he was open to Platonic influences.50 Posidonius seems to have accepted either an inherent irrational part to the soul or at least some kind of inherent tendency to the irrational.51 It used to be thought that Seneca was either “eclectic” and perhaps influenced by Platonic ideas or that he followed, or sometimes followed, Posidonius in accepting an irrational part to the soul. In light of current scholarship, it seems that either Seneca was basically Chrysippean (i.e.,“orthodox”) with some minor concessions to dualism or that he was merely in the habit of using images, analogies and metaphors through literary habit that falsely seem to imply dualism, if not read from a strictly Stoic point of view.52 This latter possibility might support Engberg-Pederson’s reading of 7:7–24 by providing an example of a Stoic picture of the person depicted with easily misleading Platonic-like images. The examples suggest that a fundamentally Stoic picture of the person could sometimes be combined with Platonic or dualist elements, but the picture of the divided person goes too far to be explained in this way. In the first and second century BCE, Antiochus of Ascalon who first turned the Academy from skepticism to positive doctrines gave a Stoic interpretation to Platonism and later Platonism typically incorporated Stoic elements.53 Cicero, an admirer of Antiochus, tried to combine a Stoic view of the emotions with a Platonic divided soul in the Tusculan Disputations 4. But the most interesting evidence comes from Jews contemporary with Paul who found a combination of Stoicism and Platonism congenial to imagining and interpreting a biblical world. The naming and condemnation of desire in the interpretation of the tenth commandment is just one among many commonalities that have scarcely been explored in Pauline scholarship.54 Philo’s dominating ideas were Platonic, but for him the tripartite soul is just a further elaboration of the Aristotelian bipartite soul that he elaborates with Stoic doctrines. He holds sometimes to the Stoic idea of the elimination of the passions and replacement by the Stoic “good emotions.” Like Paul, he speaks of the reasoning part as the inner person, but with some difficulty and inconsistency, has a Stoically inflected conception of the good and of virtue, yet thinks of bodily goods as goods in some places. The writer of 4 Maccabees also seems to take a basically Stoic conception

Long and Sedley, Hellenistic Philosophers, 2:316 (J), 321. Recently there has been considerable debate about Posidonius’ position: see Price, Mental Conflict, 175–78, and for an argument that Galen read a Platonic soul into Posidonius who only added an emphasis on irrational movements in the soul to Chrysippus’ view, see John Cooper, Reason and Emotion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 449–84. 52  Brad Inwood, “Seneca and Psychological Dualism,” in Passions and Perceptions, ed. J. Brunschwig and M. Nussbaum (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 150–83. 53  Dillon, Middle Platonists, 52–105. For the extremely complex and nuanced state of scholarship on Platonic and (supposedly) Pythagorean use of Stoicism, see the essays in From Stoicism to Platonism. 54  But see now, Hans Svebakken, Philo of Alexandria’s Exposition of the Tenth Commandment, Studia Philonica M. 6 (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012). 50  51 

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of the single good, but a Posidonian or Platonically shaped view of the passions.55 Wisdom also displays both Platonic and Stoic ideas.56 One can conclude that reading scripture through the lens of Greek philosophy and combining Stoic and Platonic elements in ethics and on the nature of the person were intellectual currents in the air that Jews like Paul breathed.57 In Engberg-Pederson’s Stoic interpretation of Rom 7:7–24, he makes the body, flesh, body parts, passions and desires, into a self-understanding from the perspective of the egoistic bodily self.58 With the help of this modernist symbolic reading, this preserves the Stoic interpretation in which there is only one cognitive-bodily ruling element, but I find it implausible in light of Paul’s strongly dualistic language. The flesh and the mind are of different materials ontologically. Engberg-Pederson struggles when he tries to explain how 8:1–13 provides a solution to total moral failure that he takes as simple akrasia. In other words, the attainment of self-mastery, so that one no longer runs the risk of sinning. A Stoic interpretation would expect a solution like the one suggested by hortatory elements in ch. 6 whereby a self-understanding of having died with Christ eliminates the sinful self. But 8:1–13 speaks of invasion by the pneuma that then dominates the flesh as the solution. Engberg-Pederson argues that the passage overall appeals to the self-understanding brought about by the Christ event, but as he admits, that does not eliminate the reference to substantive effects of the pneuma.59 In his more recent book, he has in fact emphasized the material nature of pneuma and how it is compatible with a cognitive approach.60 The Stoic sage’s attainment of wisdom meant the elimination of duality and struggle in the self, but this was also a physical state. The reading need not be either/or and it is possible to construe Paul’s solution as congruent with the mixed Stoic-like and Platonic-like picture. Paul’s emphasis on a new understanding of God and the world would be Stoic-like. But Paul posits an inherently irrational tendency to the body that can only be fully eliminated by a substantive change when those in Christ obtain a body of pneuma. Before that, Christ people are to develop a transformed mind as they gradually assimilate to Christ. These elements are Platonic-like. The interpretation that I have given to Rom 7 goes against the grain of much traditional New Testament scholarship that has been dominated by the Augustinian-Lutheran tradition and modernist symbolic dualist (e.g., spiritual/physical) interpretation. But I find that Christian interpreters before Augustine, and after in the East, understood Paul’s moral psychology and its implications about sin, freedom and sometimes

55  Richard Renehan, “The Greek Philosophic Background of Fourth Maccabees,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie 115 (1972): 221–38; Stanley Stowers, “Fourth Maccabees,” in Harper’s Bible Commentary (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988), 924. 56  Gregory E. Sterling, “Stoicism and Platonism in the Wisdom of Solomon,” in From Stoicism to Platonism. 57  For the philosophical climate in Paul’s time and why Platonic and Pythagorean thought was attractive to Judean intellectuals, see my “Paul and the Terrain of Philosophy,” Early Christianity 6 (2015): 141–56. 58  Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 247–50, and Cosmology and Self, 164–69. 59  Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 247–50. 60  Engberg-Pedersen, Cosmology and Self, 75–106, 164–69.



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even the law.61 As Robert Wilken writes, “In the Greek commentators of the fourth and fifth century, Romans did not become, as it did for Augustine, a treatise on the various stages in the life of an individual: prior to the law, under the law, under grace, and finally in peace. Romans was first and foremost a book about God’s purpose in the history of the Jews and in the life of the Christian community. It was read in the context of Paul’s mission to the Gentiles.”62 Paul has the situation of the Gentiles in view not the perversion of the human will in the Garden of Eden. As Rowan Greer writes, “What is clear, however, is that Augustine’s conclusion that we all sinned in Adam’s fall represents both a transformation of the older view he inherited and a radical novelty.”63 Christian writers before Augustine who interpret Paul on sin hold that mortal fleshly human nature is the cause of the tendency toward sin, and they explain this claim with the moral psychology that for them is lucidly presented in Rom 7 and other places.64 As Theodoret nicely summarizes, “such a nature needs many things…and these needs often arouse the passions to disorder. The disorder generates sin.”65 Before his radical turn, Augustine agrees: “Thus here (Rom 6:12) he shows we still have desires but, by not obeying them, that we do not allow sin to reign in us. But these desires arise from the mortality of the flesh, which we bear from the first sin of the first man, whence we are born fleshly (Prop. Ad Rom. 13–18).”66 In light of Paul’s claim that God punished the Gentiles with bondage to emotion and appetitive desire, the I of Rom 7 (the mind), becomes alienated from what ought to rightly be its whole self. In Platonist thought, the alienated appetites and passions can cloud and hinder the mind’s thinking, but what they cannot do is to take away the mind’s desire to do the good, in Paul’s case, the law. This is why, when a Gentile comes to know the law, that knowledge does no good at all and makes the situation worse (Rom 1:32; 2:14–16; 3:20; 4:15; 5:13; 7:7–13; Gal 3:19–4:7; 1 Cor 15:56). Now wicked acts become knowing sins against God; the Gentile becomes highly conflicted, and some Platonists said that knowledge of the good only excited the passions and appetites to even greater wickedness in cases of complete moral failure.67 As we have seen, the mind repeatedly says that it wills to do the good (7:15–20) and “I delight in the law of God as the inner person” (7:22). Nothing could be further from Augustine’s perverted will that can never fully desire the good or Luther’s adoption of that will

I find much to support this claim in Mark Reasoner, Romans in Full Circle: A History of Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005). 62  Robert Wilken, “Free Choice and the Divine Will in Greek Christian Commentaries,” in Paul and the Legacies of Paul, ed. W. S. Babcock (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1990), 138. 63  Rowan Greer, “Sinned We All in Adam’s Fall,” in The Social World of the First Christians: Essays in Honor of Wayne A. Meeks, ed. L. M. White and O. L. Yarbrough (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1995), 394. 64  Lucid, that is, if taken in terms of the ancient conceptions, but highly confused by attempts to read modern conceptions and claims about Jewish uniqueness into the texts. 65  Translation from Greer, “Sinned We All,” 287. 66  Translation by Paula Fredriksen Landes, Augustine on Romans: Propositions from the Epistle to the Romans; Unfinished Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, SBLTT 23 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1982), 7. 67  Wasserman, “Death of the Soul,” 815. 61 

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and addition of enslavement to demons and the Devil. Luther writes, “And doubtless that ignorance and contempt [of God] are not seated in the flesh, in the sense of the lower and grosser affections, but in the highest and most excellent powers of man, in which righteousness, godliness and knowledge and reverence of God should reign— that is, in reason and will, and so in the very power of ‘freewill…’68 This astounding reversal of the sense of the text required that Augustine, later Augustinians and the Reformers make Rom 7 (and sometimes 2:14–15) descriptions of the psychology of the Christian. Paul’s portrayal of total moral failure became the picture of the Christian who still had the perverted will caused by pride, but who now knew that he was a sinner who could only be saved by grace.

Paul and the Politics of Self-Mastery Paul was a participant of his culture and did not escape the politics of self-mastery. One finds such discourse especially on ethnicity, gender, sex, opponents and regarding his own character. Unlike a Stoic sage, Paul represents himself as maintaining control over his passions and desires by means of a vigorous struggle. He quite explicitly commends this picture of himself as a model for his followers. The most vivid passage is 1 Cor 9:24–27, “Do you not know that all those in a race compete, but only one receives the prize? So run that you might win! Everyone who is an athlete exercises self-mastery (ἐγκρατεύεται) in all things. They do it to win a perishable wreath, but we for one imperishable. So then I pummel my body and subject it to slavery, lest after preaching to others I myself not meet the test.” Here self-mastery is emphatically involved in attaining the goal(s) that Paul preaches. This Cynic-sounding passage employs an athletic metaphor for the struggle to subdue the passions and desires of the body in a way typical of many types of philosophers. For Stoics, however, passions and desires are not distinctly bodily problems and obtaining true beliefs with reasonings rather than ascetic suppression of the body is the way to self-mastery. This passage confirms a reading of Romans in which the defeat of moral failure due to desires and passions of the body and the attainment of self-mastery is one goal of the gospel. The surprise is that Paul represents himself as still violently struggling rather than having reached the calm victory of the perfected human. His purpose of presenting a model for emulation has probably shaped the rhetoric here. Paul’s struggles in preaching the gospel (e.g., the desire to avoid suffering and rejection) are made into a model for struggle with the distinctive Gentile passions of his audience. The image in 1 Cor 15:32 of Paul fighting with wild animals at Ephesus also accords with this picture. As Abraham Malherbe has shown, the wild animals are the passions.69 Indeed, the image is coupled with an antithesis, “let us eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.” The common philosophical image of life as a moral contest or struggle (ἀγών: mistranslated as “opposition” in the NRSV) appears in

The Bondage of the Will, trans. J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston (Old Tappan, NJ: Revell, 1957), 280–81. Abraham Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1989), 79–89. 68  69 



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1 Thess 2:2. Paul then characteristically goes on to say that he had resisted error, impurity, guile, the desire to flatter, greed, and the desire for reputation in 2:3–6, all very typical false desires against which philosophers claimed to struggle. Scholarship on the last two passages displays the tendency of modernist (as opposed to ancient and medieval) interpreters to read passages about an internal moral struggle as human opponents of Paul. Paul’s hardship lists also make the point that the apostle is inwardly strong and continues his work in spite of circumstances such as hunger, thirst, hard labor, persecution and so on (e.g., 2 Cor 6:4–10; 11:23–29).70 In other words, Paul has mastered his desires for pleasure, comfort, good repute and so on and has attained the self-rule by his mind (αὐτάρκεια) that he touts as a gift from God in Phil 4:11–12. Paul presents his self-mastery in sexual desire as a higher norm in 1 Cor 7. He wishes that all people could be unmarried and like him not involved in any sexual activity (7:7). The whole discussion equates the unmarried and sexless life with self-mastery and married life with akrasia. Marriage is a concession by God for those who cannot exercise consistent self-mastery and therefore is not sinful, but it shares the state of unmastered passion and desire with porneia (religiously disloyal sexual activity). He recommends marriage due to the temptation to porneia (7:2, 5). Even short periods of abstinence for married partners poses a threat of porneia because married people are characterized by akrasia (7:5). Marriage manages appetitive desire, but does not cure the disease. Widows and the unmarried are to marry if they cannot exercise selfmastery (ἐγκρατεύονται) because it is better to be married than to burn (7:9). Protestant and modernist attempts to make Paul give an unqualified approval of marriage and a validation of sexuality completely ignore the words, concepts and logic of selfmastery in the chapter. Traditional Christian readings in which Paul claims celibacy as a higher way are much closer to the ethos of the language in its context. A crucial point for understanding Pauline thought comes from seeing that he has two sets of norms for judging behavior. The first is whether the activity in question is recommended or condemned by Judean law (e.g., marriage, sex outside of marriage) and the second whether the activity involves uncontrolled appetites or emotions. As we have seen, for the latter, Jews in Paul’s era appealed especially to the tenth commandment. In their reading shaped by the standard Greek ethical assumptions of their day, unlike the other commandments that prohibited actions, the tenth commandment prohibited an internal condition of the soul, unmastered passion and desire. It is crucial to note that other commandments (e.g., “thou shall not steal”) would not work for Paul’s argument in Rom 7 or for the interests of the other Jewish sources.71 That is because they are interested in the moral and psychological state itself and the tenth commandment can thus validate the Greek moral tradition that was the moral psychology of their day.

John T. Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel, SBLDS 99 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988). A very important point that I have only seen made by J. A. Ziesler, “The Role of the Tenth Commandment in Romans 7,” JSNT 33 (1988): 47–49. 70  71 

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If in Paul’s representation, he is the model of self-mastery, then his opponents epitomize enslavement to the passions of the flesh. Philippians 3:18–19 speaks of undefined “enemies of the cross” whose god is the stomach. The stomach is a standard metaphor for the appetitive desires and a bodily reference to the seat of the appetites.72 In Rom 16:17–18, those who cause dissention and teach a different message than Paul serve their stomach. As is typical of so much Greco-Roman thought, the ultimate motivations for those who differ on intellectual or political matters gets attributed to unmastered appetites. Much of the discourse of ethnicity and self-mastery in Paul’s letters comes interwoven with the discourse of self-mastery, sex and gender. According to Paul, except for the Judeans (e.g., Gal 2:15), all of the other peoples are characterized by lack of self-mastery. The narrative of the turn from God to idols in Rom 1 describes the bondage to passion and desire of the peoples who do not worship the Judean god as a punishment by God for false worship (1:24, 26, 28). In a way reminiscent of Greek representations of barbarians, and especially Persians after the Persian wars, Paul follows some Jewish writers who represent other ethnicities as inherently ruled by strong passions and therefore immoral.73 In this representation, other peoples are especially characterized by porneia, sexual, gender and kinship error. When he wants to humiliate the Corinthian group of followers, Paul admonishes that a case of incest in the group is so bad that such porneia is not even seen among the Gentiles (1 Cor 5:1). One root of this myth of the immoral Gentile lies in the Hebrew Bible’s treatment of the Canaanites and other nations of the land. There texts justify the Israelite conquest and possession of the land, and even the extermination of the native inhabitants, by claiming that the natives were given to constant sexual, gender and kinship activity that was abhorrent (e.g., Deut 20:17–18; 7:2–5; Lev 18:24–25; 20:22–25). Jubilees (25:1) describes “all the deeds” of the Canaanites as impure, immoral and lustful and a reason not to intermarry with them. Paul, like Wisdom and Philo, and probably unlike Judeans more broadly in this time, generalizes this tradition and interprets it as the problem of inherent strong akrasia. 1 Thessalonians 4:4 explains that in order to be holy, the Thessalonian men should possess their own wives (literally “vessels”) in holiness and honor and not like the Gentiles, ignorant of the true god, who act with desiring passion (πάθει ἐπιθυμίας) toward their wives. Here Paul uses the same language as in Rom 1:24–28. The implication as in 1 Cor 7 is that Paul’s Christ-believing followers should be married due to akrasia, but have sex in marriage only with controlled desire.74 Paul may envisage three moral levels: ἀκολασία, complete domination by one’s passions and desires; akrasia, lack of consistent self-mastery that consists of struggling against passion and desire; and the goal of complete self-mastery that will be the result of assimilation to Christ by God’s pneuma. 72  Karl Olav Sandnes, Belly and Body in the Pauline Epistles (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002). 73  For the important case that Paul nearly invented the Jew/Gentile binary, and anticipated the rabbinic usage, see Ishay Rosen-Zvi and Adi Ophir, “Paul and the Invention of the Gentiles,” JQR 105 (2015): 1–41. 74  See p. 293 above.



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Some scholars following the Augustinian/Lutheran tradition have thought that Paul is denying the role of reason and instead replaces reason with knowledge of God. Thus while a philosopher would say that gentile passion was caused by a lack of reason, Paul attributes its cause to an ignorance of God. This interpretation constitutes a very serious misunderstanding of both Greek philosophy and of Paul. One must be clear about the two overlapping, but ultimately distinct senses of reason. For the philosophers, reason was a function or faculty of the human being, the ability to formulate premises and draw inferences. It also, as in English usage, meant for them norms in the sense of beliefs that have a normative force. Paul’s frequent reference to reasoning and the mind (e.g., Rom 7:22, 23, 25) shows clearly that he understood humans to operate with a reasoning function or faculty. For a Stoic, belief in God might be one of those normative beliefs of which right reason consists. For Platonists, the human mind, also called the rational soul, was inherently and ontologically connected to God. Paul understood true beliefs about God not in opposition to reason, but as a component of reason. His claim is that somehow false beliefs about divinity on the part of the non-Judean peoples make them incapable of exercising their reason in such a way that they can master passions and desire. Paul’s letters, as one would expect, also evince the ancient constructions of sex and gender that were heavily implicated in the ethic of self-mastery. In GrecoRoman antiquity, it was assumed that every person could be ranked on a spectrum of femaleness and maleness.75 Some males could have predominately female characteristics and some women male characteristics. Physical, psychological and more narrowly moral characteristics were all thought to be mutable. A female child nursed by a woman who had previously had a boy or a woman who led a rigorous life would acquire masculine traits, both physical and moral/psychological. All female traits were by nature inferior to male traits, even if natural for women. Women were by nature deemed to be more passionate, less able to master themselves, and therefore needed to be under the rule and protection of men. Thus women were to stay indoors, enjoy softer occupations and, in the Greek East, to wear veils. For men, maleness was a constant achievement that could be lost by lack of toughness and self-mastery. Manly men were dry, hard, active and had weak passions and desires. Women were by nature passive, soft, damp and had strong passions and desires. Paul’s discussion in 1 Cor 7 is written from the point of view of ruling men beginning with the question of whether it is good for a man to touch a woman (7:1). Some of the advice, however, may not be entirely typical in treating the dangers of desire and akrasia as equal for men and women. The exception is the discussion of virgins (7:36–38) were the language speaks of the insatiable sexual desire of young women—an ancient cliché—and the possibility of men who have control over the young women handling the situation due to their own self-mastery.76

75  There is now an extensive bibliography on this and my following remarks about gender. An accessible introduction to the material is Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), who I follow here. 76  Martin, Corinthian Body, 217–27.

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Still Paul would prefer that followers not marry. The common claim that he advocated celibacy because Christ’s return and the events ushering in the new age were near (7:29–31) does not explain his position because his fundamental reasons stem from a moral condemnation of desire and passion. Along with many writers of his age, he views passion and desire as moral and physical states in which reason—both the reasoning function and the normative beliefs of one’s rationality—has lost control of its proper role as the true self. Thinkers in this ancient ethical tradition agreed that the social and communal goals about which they were concerned when they spoke of virtues such as justice could not be achieved unless people followed reason instead of their individual passions and desires. Texts like Gal 5:22–26 show that Paul also understood self-mastery within the context of a larger social ideal, even if he never clearly articulates the relation between self-mastery and the communal virtues: “The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-mastery. Concerning such [habits of character], no law applies, but those who are of Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Paul seems to imply that mastery over passions and desires is necessary to eliminate individual interests that compete against the virtues of social solidarity (cf. 5:26, 16–21).77 Paul in 1 Cor 6:9 says that soft men (μαλακοί; mistranslated as “male prostitutes” in the NRSV) will not inherit the kingdom of God. Ancient sources say that soft men (μαλακοί) were particularly fond of sex with women.78 Male homoeroticism was considered manly for the active partner and an expression of femaleness by the passive partner. Paul’s language in Rom 1:26–27 strongly suggests that he saw two problems with homoerotic activity. First it involved passion out of control and second an overturning of the “natural order” that lawful sex must involve a passive woman and an active man.79 Why the example of homoeroticism? The most likely answer seems to come from contemporary or near contemporary moralists and philosophers such as Musonius Rufus, Dio Chrysostom and Philo who paint a picture of how passionate desire gets out of control.80 Theirs is a domino theory of the emotions. Or in another figure, if one opens the gates of the fully mastered self, then the wild ponies will escape and keep running and running. All of these moralists draw on established traditions when they give male homoerotic sex as an illustration of how passionate this uncontrolled condition could become. The assumption here is that while moderate or even passionless sex is possible with women, that the love of beautiful boys is an objective fit for great passion. Paul in his distinctive way (cf. 1 Cor 7:2–5) seems to uncharacteristically extend the parallel to women, but typically stresses the greater passion of the men by speaking of their “burning up with impulsive desire” and the damage to their bodies/selves (1:27).81 The latter is almost certainly a reference to the 77  This text seems to me to be one of the strongest pieces of evidence for Engberg-Pedersen’s interpretation (Paul and the Stoics) of Pauline thought as aimed at eliminating the self-directed perspective. 78  Martin, Corinthian Body, 33. 79  Stowers, Rereading, 94–95, and Dale Martin, “Heterosexism and the Interpretation of Romans 1:18–32,” Biblical Interpretation 3 (1995): 332–55. 80  Martin, “Heterosexism.” 81  Especially on the women in 1:27, see Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).



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physical/moral changes that were thought to come about from allowing passion to run wild and from experiencing pleasure. Such men become soft and weak, although as we have seen, soft effeminate men are not particularly linked to homosexuality, but to desire for sex in general, especially with women. Face, voice, gait, posture, complexion and character all changed when a man lost strict control over desires.82 To understand the ancient Mediterranean ethic of self-mastery, as found in the discourses of the texts that were preserved by later Christian culture, one must envisage a social and economic order different from our own.83 The construction of moral character in the ethic of self-mastery is the reverse of our moral economy of consumption. Paul’s Jewish contemporary, Philo of Alexandria, writes (Abr. 134–35) that the Gentile inhabitants of Canaan, among whom were the sodomites, and later of Syria were characterized by the uncontrolled quest for pleasure that was caused by the continual and unfailing abundance available to them; for being deep soiled and well watered, the land had bountiful harvests every year of all kinds of fruits, and the greatest cause of evils, as has aptly been said is, “goods in excess.” Incapable of bearing this burden [of dealing with the goods of an abundant economy], bolting like animals they threw off the law of nature and pursued drinking much unmixed wine and eating fine foods and unlawful forms of intercourse. Not only in their desire for women did they violate the marriages of others, but men got on top of men without respecting the common nature [i.e., that men must always be active and women passive] that the active partner shares with the passive and so when they tried to conceive children they where unable due to ineffective seed.84 Yet the discovery was of no benefit, so much more powerful was the desire (ἐπιθυμία) by which they were conquered.

It is instructive to observe that modern types of Christianity, such as Protestant Evangelical and bourgeois Roman Catholic, whose values are designed to support capitalism, neatly reverse the basic structure of values manifest in early Christianity. Capitalism is founded on massive consumption stimulated by the thousands of advertisements and entertainments seen by individuals that are designed to arouse desire and to construct a way of life aimed at working, buying and consuming: a house in the suburbs on three acres with a mall nearby, fast cars, big SUVs, television, professional sports, constant entertainments and so on. In other words, the aim of our modern culture is to stimulate desire for all of the sorts of things and goals that ancient moralists deplored. The goal, on the other hand, of the ancient and early Christian ethic is the limitation of desire for things, experiences and pleasures: “thou shall not desire.” Paul inhabited this world and developed his own distinctive yet familiar interpretation of its moral possibilities.

For much material on changes brought about by softness leading to effeminacy, see Maud Gleason, Making Men (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), esp. 55–81, and Martin, Corinthian Body, 33. 83  I write the sentence this way because we should not assume that the ideals and prescriptions of the elite sources transmitted by Christians accurately represent actual behavior, even if surely influencing behavior to some extent, for some people. 84  The passion leads to intercourse that is unlawful precisely because one man, in this construction, must always play a passive role and thus act as a woman. Philo also assumes that such softness would so attack the body that it would render the man incapable of having children, probably in virtue of “weak seed.” 82 

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Part III. Relevant Pauline and Paulinist Additional Texts Galatians 5:16–24 is an important text for Paul’s conception of self-mastery, if read in relation to Greco-Roman moral thought rather than supposed “apocalyptic powers.” The following passages show that the ethic of self-mastery was very much alive in the decades after Paul’s death when the works below were written in his name by those who tried to extend his teachings and appeal to his authority for their own purposes. Note that the texts from Colossians and Ephesians pick-up and reinterpret Paul’s idea of the gentile bondage to passions and desire that is overcome in Christ. Eph 2:3–4; 4:19–24 Col 3:5–11 1 Tim 6:9–10 2 Tim 1:7; 2:22; 3:6 Titus 1:8, 12; 2:2, 5–7, 12; 3:3

Part IV. Select Bibliography The Greco-Roman World Cooper, John. Reason and Emotion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999. Dover, Kenneth. Greek Popular Morality in the Time of Plato and Aristotle. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974. Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. “Philo’s DE VITA CONTEMPLATIVA as a Philosopher’s Dream.” JSJ 30 (1999): 40–64. Erskine, Andrew. The Hellenistic Stoa: Political Thought and Action. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Gill, Christopher. “Did Galen Understand Platonic and Stoic Thinking on Emotions?” Pages 114–23 in The Emotions in Hellenistic Philosophy. Edited by J. Sihvola and T. EngbergPedersen. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1998. ———Personality in Greek Epic, Tragedy and Philosophy: The Self in Dialogue. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996. Gosling, Justin. Weakness of the Will. London: Routledge, 1990. Graver, Margaret. Stoicism and Emotion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007 Inwood, Brad. “Seneca and Psychological Dualism.” Pages 449–84 in Passions and Perceptions. Edited by J. Brunschwig and M. Nussbaum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990. Long, Anthony. “Hellenistic Ethics and Philosophical Power.” Pages 138–64 in Hellenistic History and Culture. Edited by Peter Green. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993.



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Long, Anthony, and David Sedley. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Markschies, Christoph. “Innerer Mensch.” RAC 18 (1997): 266–312. Martin, Dale. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. North, Helen. Self-knowledge and Self-restraint in Greek Literature. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1966. Price, Anthony. Mental Conflict. London: Routledge, 1995. Reydams-Schils, Gretchen. The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Svebakken, Hans. Philo of Alexandria’s Exposition of the Tenth Commandment. Studia Philonica M. 6. Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012.

Paul and Self-mastery Betz, Hans Dieter. “The Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being’ (ho esō anthrōpos) in the Anthropology of Paul.” NTS 46 (2000): 315–41. Dingeldein, Laura. “Gaining Virtue, Gaining Christ: Moral Development in the Letters of Paul.” PhD diss., Brown University, 2014. Dunn, James. The Theology of Paul the Apostle. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998. Engberg-Pedersen, Troels. Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. ———ed. From Stoicism to Platonism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. ———Paul and the Stoics. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2000. Fitzgerald, John T. Cracks in an Earthen Vessel. SBLDS 99. Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1998. Heckel, Theo. Der Innere Mensch: Der paulinische Verarbeitung eines platonischen Motivs. WUNT 2/53. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993. Hurtado, Larry. Lord Jesus Christ: Jesus in Earliest Christian Devotion. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. Litwa, L. David. We Are Being Transformed. BZNW 187. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012. Malherbe, Abraham J. Paul and the Popular Philosophers. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1989. Martin, Dale. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. ———“Paul Without Passion: On Paul’s Rejection of Desire in Sex and Marriage.” Pages 201–15 in Constructing Early Christian Families. Edited by Halvor Moxnes. London: Routledge, 1997. Moss, Candida. Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies and Traditions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012. Rosen-Zvi, Ishay, and Adi Ophir. “Paul and the Invention of the Gentiles.” JQR 105 (2015): 1–41. Sandnes, Karl Olav. Belly and Body in the Pauline Epistles. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Stowers, Stanley. “The Dilemma of Paul’s Physics: Features Stoic-Platonist or PlatonistStoic?” In From Stoicism to Platonism. Edited by T. Engberg-Pedersen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. ———“Paul and the Terrain or Philosophy.” Early Christianity 6 (2015): 141–56. ———“Paul’s Four Discourses About Sin.” Pages 100–127 in Celebrating Paul: Essays in Honor of Jerome Murphy O’Connor, O.P., and Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J. Edited by P. Spitaler. CBQMS 48. Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2011.

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———A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews and Gentiles. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. Theissen, Gerd. Psychological Aspects of Pauline Theology. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987. Thorsteinsson, Runar M. Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography. CBNTS 40. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2003. van Kooten, George H. Paul’s Anthropology in Context. WUNT 232. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008. Wasserman, Emma J. The Death of the Soul in Romans 7. WUNT 256. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ———“Paul Beyond the Judaism/Hellenism Divide? The Case of Pauline Anthropology in Romans 7 and 2 Cor 4–5.” Pages 259–79 in Christian Origins and Hellenistic Judaism: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament. Edited by S. E. Porter and A. Pitts. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Zetterholm, Magnus. Approaches to Paul: A Student’s Guide to Recent Scholarship. Minneapolis, MI: Fortress, 2009. Ziesler, J. A. “The Role of the Tenth Commandment in Romans 7.” JSNT 33 (1998): 47–49.

Chapter 26

Paul and Slavery J. Albert Harrill Part I. The Evidence of Greek and Roman Slavery One hot summer day probably in 107 CE Encolpius, a talented slave trained as an excellent literary reader (lector), was traveling with his owner’s entourage to an Italian country estate when he spat up blood from the intense dust and heat. His master––the wealthy landowner and senator, Pliny the Younger––was mortified. The sight of his pride and joy fallen ill on the road, as Pliny later retold in a short letter, prompted him to spare no expense, like a loving and indulgent father, in providing attentive doctors, an extended convalescence, and prayers to the gods necessary for his young lector’s throat to recover fully (Pliny, Letters 8.1). Pliny presents himself more as pater (father) than as dominus (master) in the epistolary retelling.1 This example illustrates the initial challenge in approaching the topic of slavery. Reading slavery in Paul’s Greco-Roman world is less straightforward than one might think, and it requires close reading of the text. The epistolary construction of a letter as literature is important to consider carefully. The slave Encolpius functions as a mirror in which to see a kind, indulgent master for Pliny’s intended reader (the dedicatee of Pliny’s letter collection) to admire as a model of virtue. To be sure, Pliny’s epistolary paternalism may at first sight appear to exhibit the so-called dilemma of slave ownership by erasing its violence. The weakness of Encolpius does seem to move his master and to elicit his care and concern, a reversal of power that promotes an egalitarian reading. On a closer examination, however, the alleged egalitarianism evaporates. Pliny writes that the illness “will be a sad blow to him [Encolpius] and a great loss to me if this makes him unfit for his services to literature when they are his main recommendation. Who else will read and appreciate my efforts or hold my attention as he does?” (Pliny, Letters 8.1.2–3). Pliny voices his own desires as though they belong to his slave, which supports a hierarchical reading. The illness A. N. Sherwin White, The Letters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966), 448; Sandra R. Joshel, “Slavery and Roman Literary Culture,” in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, ed. Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 235–36. 1 

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threatens to render Encolpius unfit to further his master’s literary pursuits. After all, the job of household lector requires a healthy throat and a sound set of lungs to recite literary works and their drafts aloud. Pliny’s paternalism imagines the slave as a mere extension of the master’s self. Encolpius exists only to serve his master and so must live and become healthy. We learn from this example that the behavior of slaves in Roman literature tells us more about slaveholders’ aspirations and imaginations than the perspectives of actual slaves in antiquity.2 The challenge lies in overcoming this main obstacle: our evidence, like this letter of Pliny, represents the voice not of the slave but rather of the master. The primary evidence is already rare, and the little that does survive emanates virtually exclusively from ancient slaveholders and does not express the views of the slaves themselves.3 In addition to this initial challenge, there is another. Imperial Rome, the historical context of the Apostle Paul, had a slave system on a scale unlike that in classical Greece or in modem times.4 This finding leads to the next serious obstacle in the history of research. Many interpreters approach slavery with a comparative interest, as a phenomenon of Western culture in light of its modem manifestations in the New World (the Caribbean, Brazil, and the southern United States), and they often speak of “ancient slavery” as a monochrome institution without respect to its distinct Joshel, “Slavery and Roman Literary Culture,” 214–40. Mary Beard, “Ciceronian Correspondences: Making a Book Out of Letters,” in Classics in Progress: Essays on Ancient Greece and Rome, ed. T. P. Wiseman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 130–43, makes a similar point in her examination of perhaps the most important text on slavery to have survived from the ancient world––Cicero, Ad Fam. 16. My approach to slavery thus follows the insights of the Linguistic Turn, in the historical disciplines and across the humanities, away from reading primary sources as straightforward social description. 3  In part due to this lack of evidence, the secondary literature on classical slavery is enormous and much of the older research controversial with now outmoded debates. Start with Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Other research guides include: Keith Bradley, “Bibliographical Essay,” in Slavery and Society at Rome, Key Themes in Ancient History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 183–85; Joseph C. Miller, ed., Slavery and Slaving in World History: A Bibliography, 2 vols. (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1993–1999); John Byron, “Slavery,” in Oxford Biographies Online–Biblical Studies (2010), www.oxfordbiographies.com; idem, Recent Research on Paul and Slavery, Recent Research in Biblical Studies 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2008); Heinz Heinen et al., eds., Handwörterbuch der antiken Sklaverei (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2006–); Paul Finkelman and Joseph C. Miller, eds., Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery, 2 vols. (New York: Simon & Schuster Macmillan, 1998); Seymour Drescher and Stanley L. Engerman, eds., A Historical Guide to World Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Junius P. Rodriguez, ed., The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery, 2 vols. (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 1997); J. Albert Harrill, “Slavery,” NIDB 5:299–308. Advanced students should also be aware of the important monograph series Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1967–). Primary sources on classical slavery in English translation are collected in Thomas Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery (London: Routledge, 1988); and Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 163–202. 4  On the number and position of slaves in Roman society, compared with those in classical Athens and the modern Americas, see J. Albert Harrill, The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity, HUT 32 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 1995), 42–51; David Braund, “The Slave Supply in Classical Greece,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 112–33, and, in the same volume, Walter Scheidel, “The Roman Slave Supply,” 287–310. 2 



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manifestations in classical antiquity. In classical studies, however, Greek slavery designates the institution in the world of classical Athens (fifth and fourth century BCE), and Roman slavery specifies the institution in the world (mostly in Italy and Sicily) of the middle Republic to the end of the Principate (200 BCE–235 CE). It is important to keep the evidence from Athens and Rome separate, for Athenian slavery differed markedly from the institution in the Roman context. Although some Athenian material can illumine the history of the development of later Hellenistic practices in the East, classical Athens in fact has little to do with Paul’s situation in Roman cities.5 The importance of keeping the Athenian and Roman evidence separate becomes apparent in the attempt to define slavery. Aristotle calls a slave a “living tool” and claims that some human bodies, by virtue of their very anatomy, were biologically built for servitude (Politics 1.1–7 [1252a–56a]; see also Nicomachean Ethics 8.11). Such a theory of natural slaves did not convince the Romans, however. In Roman law, slavery is an institution of the law of nations (ius gentium) by which, contrary to nature (contra naturam), one person is subjected to the power (dominium) of another, remarkably the only case in the entire extant corpus of Roman law in which the ius gentium and the ius naturale are in conflict (Justinian, Institutes 1.3.2; Digest 1.5.4.1). Likewise, Roman Stoic philosophy argues for a shared humanity between slave and free, making no natural distinction between the two, and avers slavery to be the product of fate and not nature: slaves were fellow human beings who just happened to have had bad luck (Seneca, Letters 47). Yet this did not mean that Roman jurists or Stoic philosophers considered slavery morally wrong. Although both understood slavery to be against nature, they clearly presumed slavery to be legitimate, proper, and morally right. They just did not share Aristotle’s view about natural slaves; accordingly Aristotle has limited value for defining slavery in Paul’s specific situation in the Roman world.6 Constructing a definition of slavery in light of this finding can take two interpretive approaches. The first, a conventional approach, begins with the Roman juridical concept of absolute ownership (dominium) and proceeds to define slavery as the treatment of human beings and their offspring as property (or “chattel”) capable of being bought and sold by private owners. Hence, the term chattel slavery. This term distinguishes the phenomenon properly from other forms of dependent labor––debt bondage, indentured servitude, clientship, peonage, helotry, and serfdom––which ancient writers may also describe with the language of slavery. For example, the helots of ancient Sparta are often called “slaves” in ancient literature, yet helots (unlike chattel slaves) were not imported from outside but were subjected collectively within their own territories and could not be bought or sold.7 Because “slave” in both Latin

Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 12–13. See P. A. Brunt, “Aristotle and Slavery,” in Studies in Greek History and Thought (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), 343–88. On Stoic influence on Aristotle’s ethics in the Roman era, see Christopher Gill, “The Transformation of Aristotle’s Ethics in Roman Philosophy,” in The Reception of Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. Jon Miller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 31–52. 7  Yvon Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece, rev. and expanded ed. (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 93–98; M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, expanded ed., ed. Brent D. 5  6 

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(servus) and Greek (δοῦλος, doulos) does not always refer to what we would call a slave (but ranges in meaning from the metaphorical, such as a senator as a political or moral slave, to the generic, such as a laborer generally), the term chattel slavery helps clarify what the actual institution is––absolute ownership of a human being as a tangible object that can be bought and sold. This law-oriented approach, however, raises a larger methodological question about the use of legal evidence in historical inquiry. Law codes at best provide only inexact knowledge about social practice and, at worst, can build a highly misleading model of slavery, as we shall see below in the examination of Paul’s Letter to Philemon. Fortunately the second approach, a sociological one, offers a solution. It rejects the centrality of property ownership in the definition, even for the Roman period. While not denying slaves to be property objects, this interpretation argues nonetheless that to define slaves only as property fails to specify a distinct category of persons, because many who are clearly not slaves (spouses, children, or professional athletes, for example) can also be objects of a property relation. Rather, the concept of absolute power is key. In this sociological approach, slavery is less a static institution of property law than a dynamic process of total domination, an absolute kind of mastery that denies the slave access to autonomous relations outside the master’s sphere of influence––in effect, reducing the slave to an alienated outsider, socially “dead” to the free population. Slavery is thus defined as social death. The historical sociologist Orlando Patterson, this definition’s pioneer, identifies three necessary forces that must be present, and combined in a permanent way, before a phenomenon of domination may be called slavery: (1) direct and insidious violence (a social force); (2) nameless and alienating social death (a psychological force); and (3) general dishonor (a cultural force).8 The impact of the first item on the Pauline material is minimal, not because Greco-Roman slavery lacked violence (far from the case), but because the Pauline evidence provides a non-representative sample of the slave condition in early Christianity. Here and there we find momentary glimpses of slavery’s inherent violence, through metaphorical imagery––the “slap on the face” (2 Cor 11:20), the daily reality of corporal punishment (1 Cor 9:27), the slave’s agony as “groaning in labor pains” (Rom 8:21–23)––but Paul nowhere in his undisputed letters remarks about slavery’s direct and insidious violence with the attention and zeal that the deutero-Pauline material does (Eph 6:5–9; 1 Tim 6:1–2; Titus 2:9–10; cf. 1 Pet 2:18–25).9 Shaw (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1998), 138–40. Recent literature: Paul Cartledge, “Helots: A Contemporary Overview,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 74–90; Nino Luraghi and Susan E. Alcock, eds., Helots and Their Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures, Hellenic Studies 4 (Cambridge, MA: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University Press, 2003). 8  Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 1–34. See also Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 135–45, 164. 9  On Paul’s language of bodily abuse, see Jennifer A. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 24–47; J. Albert Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006), 35–57; and idem, “The Slave Still Appears: A Historiographical Response to Jennifer Glancy,” BibInt 15 (2007): 212–21. On the household



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Given the honor/shame structure of Greco-Roman society, the third item, general dishonor, may also seem problematic if not outright lacking the nuance required for defining slavery in Paul’s world. While an example of this dishonor is the common address of male slaves of any age as “boy” (Greek παῖς, pais; Latin puer), denigrating them as infantile adults, counterexamples are also found. Classical sources, to be sure, do mention high-ranking slaves and freedpersons having “honor” (Greek τιμή, timē; Latin honor), notably managerial or bailiff slaves (Greek οἰκονόμοι, oikonomoi; Latin vilici) and wealthy imperial freedmen (familia Caesaris), many of whom had slaves of their own (vicarii, underslaves of slaves).10 In these ancient contexts, however, the term honor carried specific and limited meaning: the bureaucratic nuance of holding rank associated with administrative office; or the commercial value of being expensive goods (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23; cf. Acts 10:19; Matt 27:9). Although the emperor Augustus, for example, “held many of his freedmen in high honor [in honore] and close intimacy,” he did so “as patron and master”: Augustus put in chains his slave Cosmos “who spoke of him most insultingly,” forced his favorite freedman Polus to commit suicide for “adultery with Roman matrons,” broke the legs of his secretary Thallus for accepting a bribe “to betray the contents of a letter,” and had the pedagogue and attendants of his son Gaius “thrown into a river with heavy weights around their necks” because of their “acts of arrogance and greed” (Suetonius, Life of Augustus 67 [Rolfe, LCL]). From an historical perspective, then, any honor conferred even on high-ranking servile persons was always fragile, as Thallus discovered when Augustus broke his legs. Subject to corporal punishment, limited in power, and existing solely at the whim of the master, servile honor was not aristocratic Roman dignitas.11 One might nonetheless object that Suetonius is an upper-class author and not representative of lower-class values and perceptions. Because of the status-by-association in the wider Greco-Roman patron–client system, the freeborn lower class might have granted a measure of honor (in the sense of dignity or prestige) to slaves and freedpersons of the managerial and imperial elite, in contrast to the fundamental dishonor given them by the aristocratic upper-class.12 Problematic to this claim is that it elides the difference between the patron–client system and the slave–master dynamic.13 duty codes, see Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Beyond Identification of the Topos of Household Management: Reading the Household Codes in Light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of the New Testament,” NTS 57 (2011): 65–90; and Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 85–118. 10  On elite slave administrators, see Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 103–13; John Goodrich, Paul as an Administrator of God in 1 Corinthians, SNTSMS 152 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 25–102; and Jesper Carlsen, Vilici and Roman Estate Managers until AD 284, Analecta Romana Instituti Danici Supplementum 24 (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 1995). 11  Henrik Mouritsen, The Freedman in the Roman World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 21. For discipline and corporal punishment defining the boundary between slave and free in the Roman system of honor and shame, see Richard P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property, and Death in the Roman Family, Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy, and Society in Past Time 25 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 133–53. 12  See, e.g., Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 48. 13  For detailed criticism, see Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 115.

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Funerary epitaphs among the lower social orders at Rome reveal a clear recognition of the divide between the humble freeborn and the freed. Most freedmen had low socioeconomic standing and they married women of the same rank; only imperial freedmen were capable of overcoming the awkward contradiction between rank and status to marry freeborn aristocratic women.14 Such evidence is, I think, the best refutation of the view that the “lower class” somehow saw less dishonor in slavery than did the aristocratic elite. Patterson argues, furthermore, that members of the familia Caesaris were elevated to their positions not in spite of but because they were bereft of true honor. In this way, according to Patterson, the familia Caesaris share the fundamental dishonor of palace (palatine) slaves cross culturally, such as the Byzantine court eunuchs and the Islamic Ghilmān (slave-soldiers; lit. young men) some of whom were grand viziers of the Ottoman Empire. Though being elites, such palace slaves remained outsiders and were not in themselves honorable persons.15 The denigration began with the enslavement process. Enslavement of (usually) foreigners relied on a variety of sources, including natural reproduction of the existing slave population, capture in warfare, import from overseas trade, piracy, brigandage, kidnapping, infant exposure, and the punishment of criminals (penal slavery). Ancient slavery was not based on race or skin color. The Romans acquired their slaves from all over the Mediterranean world––from Egypt, Asia Minor and Syria, Spain and Greece, Arabia and Ethiopia, Scythia and Thrace, Gaul and Britain. To get an idea of the ubiquity and inconspicuousness of slaves in Roman society, consider Seneca’s remark about the idea of requiring a codified slave costume: “A proposal was once made in the Senate to distinguish slaves from free people by their dress; it then became apparent how great would be the impending danger if our slaves should begin to count their number” (Seneca, On Mercy 1.24.1 [Basore, LCL, alt.]).16 As Seneca’s remark reveals, even the Romans themselves did not know the absolute number of slaves. Despite the inadequacy of evidence, some scholars estimate that in urban areas of Roman imperial society slaves made up one-third of the population, but others place the figure lower, within the range of 17 to 20 percent.17 We do not know Peter Garnsey and Richard Saller, The Roman Empire: Economy, Society, and Culture, 2nd ed. (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 142–43; Beryl Rawson, “Family Life among the Lower Classes at Rome in the First Two Centuries of the Empire,” CP 61 (1966): 71–83. 15  Patterson, Slavery and Social Death, 299–333; Hugh Kennedy, “The Late ʿAbbāsid Pattern: 945–1050,” in The New Cambridge History of Islam. Vol. 1, The Formation of the Islamic World, Sixth to Eleventh Centuries, ed. Chase F. Robinson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 363. 16  Michele George, “Slavery and Roman Material Culture,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 399, and, in the same volume, Keith Bradley, “Resisting Slavery at Rome,” 366. 17  W. V. Harris, “Demography, Geography, and the Sources of Roman Slaves,” in Rome’s Imperial Economy: Twelve Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 93. Census records: Roger S. Bagnall and Bruce W. Frier, The Demography of Roman Egypt, Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time 23 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 70–71. For an excellent attempt at quantifying the size and reproduction of the Roman slave population, see Scheidel, “Roman Slave Supply,” 287–310. Scheidel estimates Roman Italy at its peak (the Republic’s end) to have had between 1 and 1.5 million slaves, equivalent to 15–25 percent of the total population, with lower percentages of slaves in other Mediterranean regions. 14 



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for sure. The ratio is comparable, some scholars have claimed, to the demographics of modern periods where census data are available: in 1860, slaves made up 33 percent of the total population of the southern United States, with a slightly lower percentage in the Caribbean and Brazil. Yet demographic generalization based on slavery in the Americas is problematic because Roman slavery was an open system into which new slaves continued to be imported, unlike US slavery in 1860, which was a closed system that required the slave population to reproduce itself. Natural reproduction served as one source of new slaves in the Roman world, but its importance is a matter of debate.18 Warfare and overseas trade were major sources of new slaves throughout the Roman period. Captives by the tens of thousands poured into the slave markets of Sicily and Italy as early as the First Punic War (264–241 BCE), a direct result of the annual pattern of warfare and military expansion of Rome’s borders during the Republic. In his campaigns in Gaul alone, Julius Caesar shipped back to Italy nearly one million Gallic prisoners of war (Plutarch, Life of Caesar 15.3; Appian, Gallic History 1.2). Parasitic military-camp followers (traders, veterans, and vagabonds) facilitated the traffic and sale of plentiful war captives. In addition to war captives, other foreigners were imported into the Roman heartland as slaves from barbarian suppliers operating on the remote edges of the empire, the outlying areas of the Black Sea being particularly attractive.19 The international slave trade relied on not only foreign but also domestic supply, both legitimate and illegitimate. One legitimate source came from infant exposure, which involved the circulation of unwanted babies left at conspicuous places known for foundlings (like a municipal dunghill or a temple of the healer god Asclepius). Traders were also not above obtaining their chattel by means deemed illegitimate by Greco-Roman custom, such as piracy, brigandage, and kidnapping of individuals in the free population. Whatever the method of procurement, the regular means of actual sale was by auction, either at a seasonal market or a year-round slave emporium in one of the major metropolitan ports, such as Ostia or Corinth; the island of Delos at its height reportedly received and dispatched “tens of thousands of slaves” on any given day (Strabo 14.5.2). Because the price of slaves was not prohibitively high, slave ownership went far down the social scale; most Roman families, not just the very wealthy, could have afforded to purchase slaves. The slave for sale usually stood in a single garment on a rotating platform, with a placard around his or her neck bearing

Walter Scheidel, “Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire,” JRS 87 (1997): 156–69, claims that natural reproduction provided more new slaves than all other sources combined; however, Harris, “Demography,” 88–109, disagrees. Scheidel responds to such criticism in “Roman Slave Supply,” 306–308. See also Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, 32–34; Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 148. Cf. Philip D. Curtin, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969). 19  Scheidel, “Roman Slave Supply,” 293–310; M. I. Finley, “The Black Sea and Danubian Regions and the Slave Trade in Antiquity,” in Economy and Society in Ancient Greece, ed. Brent Shaw and Richard P. Saller (New York: Viking, 1982), 167–75; Keith Hopkins, Conquerors and Slaves, Sociological Studies in Roman History 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), 1–15, 99–115. 18 

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origin, talents, and (by a Roman law known as the Aedilician Edict) any defects. Auctioneers typically used chalk to mark the feet of fresh overseas slaves to set them apart from the more domesticated, homebred ones.20 Caution was advised when buying a slave. Seneca warns, “When you buy a horse, you order its blanket to be removed; you pull off the garments from slaves that are advertised for sale, so that no bodily flaws may escape your notice” (Letters 80.9 [Gummere, LCL]). The Elder Pliny reports that the infamous dealer Toranius sold, for a good price, two slave boys to the triumvir Mark Antony as twins, even though one came from Asia Minor and the other from Gaul (Natural History 7.12.56). Such dishonest practices gave slave dealers a reputation in the ancient world similar to that of used-car sellers today.21 Once enslaved and sold, a slave might later become freed by his or her master. The process of liberating a slave is called manumission, a legal procedure that should not be confused with emancipation, an attempt to effect political change. In Latin, a Roman householder “emancipated” (emancipo) an adult child from paternal power (patria potestas), but “manumitted” (manumitto) a slave. Ancient sources never use the term emancipation (the end of legal subordination) in connection with slaves. The emancipation of slaves is a modern coinage coming from the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment to express the moral and political conviction that slavery, both as an institution and ideology, is repugnant to the aims of all civilized and just societies of human beings. As such, emancipation becomes synonymous with abolition.22 The distinction between emancipation and manumission is important because Roman manumission was a limited form of enfranchisement that made the ex-slave a freedman or freedwoman who nonetheless still owed the ex-master a specific number of days of work (operae) and respectful deference (obsequium), including forfeiture of the right to sue. The freed slave, therefore, entered into a patron–client relationship with the former master, now the patron. The patron–client relationship began by the very act of manumission itself, which took both formal and informal forms. The formal ceremony was either a public legal proceeding with all parties before a magistrate (manumissio vindicta) or an official publication in the master’s valid will (manumissio testamento). If the form was done properly and the master a Roman citizen, the manumitted slave became a Roman citizen. Informal manumission took

On Roman slave markets and their regulation, see George, “Slavery and Roman Material Cul­ture”; Jane F. Gardner, “Slavery and Roman Law,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 416–18; and Éva Jakab, Praedicere und cavere beim Marktkauf: Sachmängel im griechischen und römischen Recht, Münchener Beitrage zur Papyrusforschung und antiken Rechtsgeschichte (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1997), 97–152. 21  William V. Harris, “Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade,” in Rome’s Imperial Economy: Twelve Essays (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 57–87; John Bodel, “Slave Labour and Roman Society,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 313; idem, “Caveat Emptor: Towards a Study of Roman Slave-Traders,” JRA 18 (2005): 181–95; Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 119–44. 22  J. Albert Harrill, “Slavery and Society at Corinth: The Issues Facing Paul,” TBT 35 (1997): 287–88. 20 



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place in a private domestic gathering before friends serving as witnesses (manumissio inter amicos) or in a private letter stating that the slave was liberated (manumissio per epistulam).23 There were also several degrees of Roman manumission ranging from full enfranchisement (Roman citizen) to partial (Junian Latin). A Junian Latin had the right to enter into Roman contracts (commercium) but neither the right to a recognized marriage (conubium) nor the capability to make or to inherit from a Roman will (testamenti factio). The creation of Junian Latins became common under the early Empire because of efforts to bar slaves from full Roman citizenship. In Hellenized areas of the Greek East, the enfranchisement obligations took the form of a paramonē contract, which required the former slave to remain with and serve the ex-master, often “as a slave” until the master’s death.24 An unusual feature of Roman slavery, compared with the institution in classical Athens or in the Hellenized East, is that the Romans regularly manumitted their deserving urban slaves. In fact, manumission was incorporated into Roman slavery as a structured and highly conventional practice. Urban manumission became so accepted by the upper orders that the Emperor Augustus had to enact laws curtailing manumission practices by citizens: the lex Fulfia Caninia (2 BCE) set limits on the number of slaves that owners could manumit in their will, and the lex Aelia Sentia (4 CE) set minimum age requirements of twenty for the slave owner and thirty for the slave before formal manumission could occur. However, the frequency of manumission in the Roman context should not be exaggerated or pressed too far. A common mistake in New Testament scholarship is to assume manumission to be relatively automatic after six years of servitude or when the slave turned thirty years of age, often as evidence for humane treatment of slaves under the Roman Empire.25 The only literary support for this claim is Cicero (Eighth Philippic 32), who writes that after six years a slave captured as a prisoner of war could expect to be freed. But Cicero’s remark is more rhetoric than social description. He does not mention six years because it is a statistical minimum (or average); these are the six years from Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon River in January 49 BCE to February 43 BCE, during which the Roman state was politically enslaved (from the perspective of Cicero). Any Roman senator would understand and accept Cicero’s argument even if it would never occur to him to manumit his own slaves after six

Mouritsen, Freedman, 120–205; Matthew J. Perry, Gender, Manumission, and the Roman Freedwomen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 43–68; Keith Bradley, “Slavery in the Roman Republic,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 254–58. 24  R. Zelnick-Abramovitz, Not Wholly Free: The Concept of Manumission and the Status of Manumitted Slaves in the Ancient Greek World, Mnemosyne Supplement 266 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 222–48; Gardner, “Slavery and Roman Law,” 428–29; Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 54–55, 90, 169–72. 25  Example: S. Scott Bartchy, “Slavery (Greco–Roman),” ABD 6:71; and idem, First Century Slavery and 1 Corinthians 7:21, SBLDS 11 (Missoula, MT: Society of Biblical Literature, 1973), 67–72. Bartchy has now admitted the error; idem, “Response to Keith Bradley’s Scholarship on Slavery,” BibInt 21 (2013): 528. 23 

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years. Cicero himself did not manumit his personal domestic, Tiro, until 53 BCE, Tiro’s fiftieth birthday.26 When manumission suited the master’s interests and because it reinforced both the institution and the ideology of slavery, many Romans saw manumission as the customary reward for their worthy slaves. Although only a fraction of slaves actually were freed in Roman society––most, especially those laboring in agriculture or the mines, never saw freedom––the possibility nonetheless proved to be a powerful incentive for slave obedience. Though the motives for manumission varied according to the whims of individual owners, it would be a mistake to assume kindness as a major factor. Often a liberated slave proved more useful to the master as a Roman citizen who could legally make contracts as an agent (procurator) in the master’s commercial affairs. Manumission in Roman society was thus not a “clean break” but created new degrees of supervision by and dependency upon the ex-master, now a patron. The dependent freedperson continued to experience subjugation in the form of direct patronal control and management––remaining in the patron’s house was not unusual. Indeed failure to show fides (trust, loyalty), frugalitas (honesty), and industria (diligence) in performing the required operae (days of work) for the patron could lead to expulsion from the patron’s house.27 In the Roman understanding of aristocratic virtue, greater honor (dignitas) came to the patron who had a “crowded house” swelled with many freedmen clients and protégés instead of slaves who were forced by violence to be there.28 Slaves were vulnerable to physical abuse and violence. Both male and female domestics suffered rape and other forms of harm, including forced prostitution. Field hands working on large agricultural estates (latifundia), when disobedient, were chained up in prison-houses (ergastula) and left to starve. But the worst conditions were in the mines and mills, where slaves toiled to death. In his Greek romance, Apuleius provides one of the most haunting accounts. The protagonist, in the form of a donkey trapped in a flour mill, narrates the full horror: The men were indescribable––their entire skin was coloured black and blue with the weals left by whippings, and their scarred backs were shaded rather than covered by tunics which were patched and torn. Some of them wore no more than a tiny covering around their loins, but all were dressed in such a way that you could see through their rags. They had letters branded on their foreheads,

See Thomas Wiedemann, “The Regularity of Manumission at Rome,” CQ n.s. 35 (1985): 162–75, who questions also the alleged epigraphic support for the claim that slaves were regularly freed at age thirty. On the debate in modern scholarship, see Mouritsen, Freedman, 131–41; Perry, Gender, 192 n. 54; Walter Scheidel, “Slavery,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy, ed. Walter Scheidel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 94. 27  Mouritsen, Freedman, 148–50. A good example is Pliny the Younger, who banished his ungrateful freedman from the household; the freedmen later pleaded with a friend of Pliny for intercession, in order to secure a welcome back to the household, which occasioned Pliny’s Letters 9.21 and 9.24 (To Sabinianus). I discuss this evidence later, in my section on Philemon. 28  Mouritsen, Freedman, 141–59; Shelton, As the Romans Did, 187–91; Keith Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 81–112; Susan Treggiari, Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), 11–20. 26 



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their hair had been partially shaved off, and they had fetters on their feet. They were sallow and discoloured, and the smoky and steamy atmosphere had affected their eyelids and inflamed their eyes. Their bodies were a dirty white because of the dusty flour––like athletes who get covered with fine sand when they fight.29

Although admittedly a piece of fiction and highly rhetorical, Apuleius’s account is confirmed by a historical narrative mentioning slave living conditions in the quarries and mines. There slaves “wear out their bodies both by day and by night in the diggings under the earth, dying in large numbers because of the exceptional hardships they endure” (Diodorus Siculus 5.38.1 [Oldfather, LCL]).30 Torture, which Roman law required in the questioning of slaves for any court testimony, involved flogging, burning, and racking the body. The whip had metal pieces attached to its thongs and was meant to make deep, cutting wounds: the victim was either hung up, with feet weighted down, or stood with arms tied to a beam across the shoulders. Burning called for boiling pitch, hot metal plates, and flaming torches applied directly to the skin. Racking by the “little horse” (eculeus) or “lyrestrings” (fidiculae) meant tearing the body limb from limb. Slave owners weary of the effort could hire the services of professional torturers. The services of one tortureand-execution business survives in an inscription from Puteoli, offering flogging and crucifixion as standard options for a flat, low rate.31 If the ubiquitous violence against slaves attested in ancient sources is clear, the demography of their number and location proves more difficult to establish. The demographic question of slave economic and social location is a critical one in the academic literature. This is because professional historians of comparative slavery distinguish between genuine slave societies and societies that simply contained slaves. Genuine slave societies bear this designation not for the slaves’ actual numbers so much as for the slaves’ integration into their economies and societies. On this criterion, classical Italy (including Roman colonies such as Corinth) qualifies as a genuine slave society.32

29  Apuleius, The Golden Ass 9.12; translated in Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, 176–77. For a literary analysis of the passage, see E. J. Kenney, “In the Mill with Slaves: Lucius Looks Back in Gratitude,” TAPA 133 (2003): 159–92. 30  For the material evidence of slave conditions in workshops, quarries, and mines, see Sandra R. Joshel and Lauran Hackworth Petersen, The Material Life of Roman Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 118–61; and F. Hugh Thompson, The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slavery (London: Duckworth, 2003), 131–215. 31  Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, 166–67; John Bodel, “Graveyards and Groves: A Study of the Lex Lucerina,” American Journal of Ancient History 11 (1986): 1–133; Page duBois, Torture and Truth (New York: Routledge, 1990). 32  On the definition of a slave society, see Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 271–74, 289; T. E. Hill, “Classical Greece,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 48, 69–72; Bradley, “Slavery in the Roman Republic,” 244–45; Neville Morley, “Slavery under the Principate,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 284–85, and, in the same volume, Jonathan Edmondson, “Slavery and the Roman Family,” 339.

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Roman slaves were not segregated from free people in work or type of job performed, with the notable exceptions of military service and mining. This integration of slaves into all levels of the ancient economy marks an important contrast with modern slavery. Slavery in the Americas, for example, often required slave illiteracy by law, whereas ancient masters prized educated slaves. In cities throughout the Mediterranean, slaves were trained and served as physicians, engineers, artisans, shopkeepers, architects, artists, thespians, magicians, prophets (e.g., Acts 16:16–24), teachers, professional poets, and philosophers.33 In such occupations, some slaves accumulated and administered a peculium, a potentially large fund of assets including money, tools, goods, land, and even other slaves. Although technically belonging to the master, the peculium often provided the means for a slave to bargain for manumission by offering to pay the cost of a replacement. In addition to a large peculium, some slaves and freedmen belonging to the household of the Roman emperor (familia Caesaris) also possessed royal power and privilege, a phenomenon known as palatine slavery. These imperial slaves and freedmen held administrative posts throughout the Empire. Felix, for instance, who served as procurator of Judea and whom the author of Acts reports as presiding initially over the trial of Paul (Acts 24:22–27), was an imperial freedman in the household of the emperor Claudius. However, most slaves were of quite modest means and worked as ordinary laborers or as specialized domestics. Because slaves could be found at all economic levels of society, they had no cohesion as a group and lacked anything akin to a “class consciousness.”34 The very wealthiest of Roman slave owners managed a large atrium-style house that contained up to hundreds of domestic slaves. The architecture kept slaves in their place, housed in small cells (cellae, cellulae) that also doubled as storage rooms.35 In contrast to the situation in the American antebellum South, which typically had slaves living in separate “slave quarters” outside the master’s manor, ancient slaves lived under the same roof as their owners, and this close-living arrangement heightened slave influence on Roman family relations.36 Within the aristocratic house, slaves had jobs of extra­ ordinary specialization. There were bath-attendants, masseurs, hairdressers, barbers,

33  See Bodel, “Slave Labour and Roman Society”; and Dennis P. Kehoe, “The Early Roman Empire: Production,” in The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World, ed. Walter Scheidel, Ian Morris, and Richard Saller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 543–69. 34  Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 42–51; Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, 57–80; Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology, 145. Cf. Martin, Slavery as Salvation, 1–49. 35  Bradley, Slavery and Society at Rome, 84. See also Edmondson, “Slavery and the Roman Family,” 345–46; Joshel and Petersen, Material Life, 24–86; Sandra R. Joshel, “Geographies of Slave Containment and Movement,” in Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture, ed. Michele George, Phoenix Supplementary Volumes 52 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013), 103–107, 112–14, 119; Michele George, “Slavery and Roman Material Culture,” in Bradley and Cartledge, eds., The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World, 386–90; idem, “Servus and Domus: The Slave in the Roman House,” in Domestic Space in the Roman World: Pompeii and Beyond, ed. Ray Laurence and Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, JRASup 22 (Portsmouth, RI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1997), 15–24. 36  Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 51–53.



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household guest announcers, waiters, tasters, choristers, cooks, child minders (paedagogi), secretaries, business managers (procuratores), and physicians.37 The Roman identification of slaves by precise occupations, however, may reveal more about “the Roman mania for classifying property than about the varieties of tasks that Roman slaves actually performed.”38 Some modern biblical scholars suggest a model for the ancient Christian house church that relies heavily on Roman atrium-style villas, such as those found at Pompeii and Herculaneum.39 Tenement apartment buildings (insulae), a more likely setting for the early Christian congregations, also had specialized integration of slaves into each activity of domestic life. The religious life of domestic slaves, whether in houses or apartments, required participation in the daily ritual of the household cult, which centered around the family guardian spirits (lares) that represented the ancestral spirit (genius) of the estate owner (pater familias). During one January rite (the Compitalia), the family hung male and female dolls for each free member of the household (domus) but a woolen ball for each slave. While the ritual integrated slaves as family members (an enforced natal association), the representation nonetheless also subordinated them as dehumanized, genderless balls (articulating their natal alienation, even dehumanization). The simultaneous interplay of natal association and natal alienation treated the slave both as a person and as a thing.40 (This dynamic character of slavery will be important to remember when we turn to the Pauline material.) Another interplay, that of gender and status distinctions, also was present in religious festivals for the benefit of slaves, the Saturnalia in December and the slaves’ holiday on 13 August (servorum dies festus). Both celebrations “recognized the permeability of the boundary between master and slave status in the household, but only as the exception that confirmed that boundary.”41 Bodel, “Slave Labour,” 322–25, 342–43; Kinuko Hasegawa, The “familia urbana” during the Early Empire: A Study of Columbaria Inscriptions, BAR International Series 1440 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005), 30–51; Bradley, Slaves and Society, 61–65; Andrew Garland, “Cicero’s Familia Urbana,” GR 39 (1992): 163–72; Jérôme Carcopino, Daily Life in Ancient Rome: The People and the City at the Height of the Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), 70–71. 38  Bodel, “Slave Labour,” 321. 39  Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 16–17, a view since nuanced and corrected to include insulae; see David L. Balch, “Rich Pompeiian Houses, Shops for Rent, and the Huge Apartment Building in Herculaneum as Typical Spaces for Pauline House Churches,” JSNT 27 (2004): 28. 40  I owe the use of “natal association” to the excellent study by Chris L. de Wet, Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015), 20–21, which helpfully problematizes the exclusive idea of “natal alienation” in Patterson, Slavery and Social Death. Patterson and de Wet, in any case, agree that the dynamics of slavery depend on the master seeing the slave both as a thing and a person. 41  Richard P. Saller, “Symbols of Gender and Status Hierarchies in the Roman Household,” in Women and Slaves in Greco–Roman Culture: Differential Equations, ed. Sandra R. Joshel and Sheila Murnaghan (London: Routledge, 1998), 90. See also Edmondson, “Slavery in the Roman Family,” 338, 344–45; Fanny Dolansky, “Celebrating the Saturnalia: Religious Ritual and Roman Domestic Life,” in A Compan­ ion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2011), 488–503; and Markus Öhler, “Das ganze Haus: Antike Alltagsreligiosität und die Apostel­geschichte,” ZNW 102 (2011): 201–34. 37 

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Greco-Roman religions as polytheistic systems allowed slaves to worship in rituals additional to, and different from, that of the domestic cult of the master’s household. Outside the domus, some slaves were also devotees and functionaries in a variety of transnational cults (of Mithras and of Isis, for example). Others joined and even served as magistrates in the neighborhood voluntary associations. Public slaves, those owned by the state, served as liturgical attendants and temple functionaries in municipal and imperial cult.42 Joining a cult outside the household was not only a sign of slave independence but also of some resistance to the social death imposed by the master’s realm. Other forms of slave resistance included flight, truancy, theft, black marketeering, sabotage, random violence, uppity or slovenly behavior, feigned illness, murder, and even suicide. Seneca reports a large number of suicide cases: one runaway slave jumped off a roof; another stabbed himself rather than face recapture (Letters 4.4). A certain gladiator suffocated himself by ramming a latrine sponge down his throat; another placed his head between moving chariot-wheel spokes, decapitating himself to avoid fighting in the arena (Letters 70.19–26). One Spartan slave-boy even smashed his head against a stone wall to end having to perform menial tasks (Letters 77.14–15). Outright, armed rebellions of slaves were seldom. This is not surprising because the comparative history of slavery shows slave revolts to be extremely rare occurrences. Only four outright slave wars are known: one in modern Haiti (1791, the French colony of Saint-Domingue); two in ancient Sicily (136–132 BCE and 104–101 BCE); and the one led by Spartacus in ancient Italy (73–71 BCE). The Romans never forgot the legacy of Spartacus, who had ravaged Italy in a war that took three years and ten legions to suppress (a size comparable to what Julius Caesar used to conquer all of Gaul). Yet all the ancient revolts occurred in a very limited time span in the context of massive military expansion and political upheaval under the Roman late Republic, and they coincided with relaxation––not tightening––of control over the slave population.43 The absence of slave revolt in the Roman imperial period does not indicate that slavery was then “humane” or that slaves had “relative contentment” with their lot.44 Rather, the paucity of rebellion represents what the political theorist James Scott has called “the public transcript,” the actions and words that dominant and subordinate

42  Alexander Weiss, Sklave der Stadt: Untersuchungen zur öffentlichen Sklaverei in den Städten des römischen Reiches, Historia Einzelschriften 173 (Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2004), 135–58; Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 147–52; Franz Bömer, Untersuchungen über die Religion der Sklaven in Griechenland und Rom, 4 vols. (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1958–63). 43  Keith Bradley, “Resisting Slavery at Rome”; idem, Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989); idem, Slavery and Society at Rome, 107–31; Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 98; R. H. Barrow, Slavery in the Roman Empire (London: Methuen, 1928), 55. Theresa Urbainczyk, Slave Revolts in Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008); Brent D. Shaw, Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with Documents, Bedford Series in History and Culture (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001). For the Saint-Dominque slave revolt, see Lawrence C. Jennings, French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 120–22. 44  Contra Bartchy, First-Century Slavery, 85 (an error now admitted in Bartchy, “Response,” 528).



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groups use in open interaction.45 In this public transcript, the Romans defined slavery as only part of a continuum of domination in the hierarchies of a society in which everyone was subordinated in some sense. Mastery over slaves was an absolute, personalized form of power, known in Latin as auctoritas, which involved a series of specific modes of domination to make the subordinate not only comply with individual orders but also to anticipate the master’s wishes.46 By broadening our understanding of rebellion to contain a whole range of practices (flight, truancy, theft, suicide), we begin to see hints of the “hidden transcript” of slave resistance under the public transcript of auctoritas, the quintessentially Roman form of domination that was extremely effective in its repressive aims. Slavery in the Greco-Roman world, therefore, should be understood in light of several factors. First is careful consideration of the available evidence, which is meager. Second is evaluation of comparative definitions of slavery, whether based on legal notions of property or on sociological theories of social death. In the end, slavery is best understood as a combination of violence, social death, and dishonor in a dynamic process that begins with enslavement (from multiple sources) and ends either with biological death or manumission, a limited form of freedom that created a social order of freedpersons beneath that of the freeborn population. The third factor is the separation of the ancient and the modern contexts, especially regarding the idea of emancipation. Although there were some opportunities for high status or resistance for a select group of the most resourceful and fortunate slaves, most slaves lived and died under a brutal system that never questioned the morality of enslaving fellow humans and had no abolitionist movement.

Part II. The Apostle Paul on Slaves and Slavery Paul’s letters exemplify the difficulty that Greco-Roman writing as a whole presents to the study of ancient slavery. There is little about slaves. The paucity of references is not due to a lack of slaves in the congregations, but to the biases and occasional nature of the evidence itself. Paul mentions slaves only incidentally and in passing, or metaphorically to make a theological point. Ethical inferences about slavery as a general phenomenon of the Greco-Roman world should be drawn from Paul’s words only with great caution. The material yields little evidence for a reconstruction of Paul’s ethic of slavery (assuming he had one); his outlook, as deduced from his letters, hardly differed from that in the wider Greco-Roman culture. The present essay will focus on the three main passages where a case for reference to actual slaves in Pauline congregations is clearest and easiest to establish: 1 Cor 7:20–24; Philemon; and Gal 3:28 (with parallel in 1 Cor 12:13). James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 2–4, 79. 46  Kathleen McCarthy, Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 24–26. 45 

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The most important passage is 1 Cor 7:20–24, the only place in his authentic letters where Paul addresses slaves directly.47 It is among the most contested passages in the Christian Bible. The debate centers on v. 21, a sentence ambiguous in the original Greek and difficult to translate because Paul does not complete his final clause. The verse reads, “Were you called a slave? Do not worry about it. But if you can become free, rather use ––––––” (my translation). The reader is left to ask, Use what? Does Paul mean to use being a slave? Or does he mean the opposite, becoming free? In the first option, Paul would be telling his audience to “remain slaves,” closing opportunities for freedom; the second has Paul urging slaves to “take liberty,” the precise opposite advice. Comparison among frequently referenced English translations reveals the contradiction and current dilemma: Remain a Slave Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition more than ever. (NRSV, 1989) Wast thou called being a bond-servant? care not for it: nay, even if thou canst become free, use it rather. (American Standard Edition, 1885) If you were a slave when you were called, never mind. Even if you can gain your freedom, make the most of your present condition instead. (Edgar J. Goodspeed, New Testament: An American Translation, 1923) Were you a slave when you were called? Do not be concerned but, even if you can gain your freedom, make the most of it. (NAB, rev. ed., 1986)

Take Liberty Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity. (RSV, 1946) Were you a slave when called? Do not let that trouble you; though if a chance of freedom should come, by all means take it. (REB, 1992) You were a slave when called? Never mind. Of course, if you do find it possible to get free, you had better avail yourself of the opportunity. (James Moffatt Version, 1954) If, when you were called, you were a slave, do not let this bother you: but if you should have the chance of being free, accept it. (JB, 1974)

Yet even many of these versions remain ambiguous: the NRSV, the previous RSV, the NEB, the American Standard Edition, and the REB each has a note to this verse that presents the opposite translation as a possible alternative. Such contradictory readings demonstrate 1 Cor 7:21 to be a genuine interpretive problem, a puzzle beginning on the lexical level, which many scholars consider insoluble.48 There may be a possible solution. First, the passage’s grammar and syntax heavily favor the “take liberty” interpretation. The verse contains two conditional clauses, each expressing a different situation. The first conditional clause asks, “Were you called a slave?” Given this first situation Paul then advises the slave not to be concerned about slavery. The second conditional sentence expresses a new situation: “But if you can gain your freedom.” Given this second, new situation Paul changes his 47  Cf. Michael Flexsenhar III, “Recovering Paul’s Hypothetical Slaves: Rhetoric and Reality in 1 Corinthians 7:21,” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 5 (2015): 71–88, on the whole section as diatribe and so not a literal address to slaves. 48  Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 74–108; cf. Brad R. Braxton, The Tyranny of Resolution: 1 Corinthians 7:17–24, SBLDS 181 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000).



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advice toward a new course of action, that the slave should “take liberty.” This kind of grammatical construction––the depiction of one situation followed by a direction, then the depiction of a second situation followed by a new direction with the clause “rather use” (μᾶλλον χρῆσαι, mallon chrēsai)––finds parallel in a number of Greek authors. They in fact use the same Greek words as Paul does. A pattern therefore emerges. When Paul sets up one premise (being a slave), he urges one action (do not be concerned). However, when he sets up a subsequent, different premise (if you can become free), he urges a different action (be concerned and take it).49 The distinctive formula of Greek diatribe that Paul employs in the passage’s context is a second reason to favor the “use liberty” interpretation. The formula consists of a predictable stylistic pattern of three elements: (1) a statement of fact given in the form of a rhetorical question; (2) an imperative whose main purpose is to deny the statement of fact’s significance for a person’s life; and (3) an explanation for why the statement of fact should be treated with such indifference (sometimes omitted in the pattern).50 The full context of 1 Cor 7 addresses slavery as part of larger themes of marriage and circumcision. Paul asks rhetorically, “Was anyone at the time of his call already circumcised?” (1 Cor 7:18a), issues an imperative, “Let him not remove the marks of circumcision,” and provides an explanation, “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything” (1 Cor 7:19).51 He repeats this pattern for those uncircumcised at the time of baptism (1 Cor 7:18b) and for those married (“Were you bound to a wife?” Paul asks, followed by an imperative, “Do not seek to be free”) or single (“Are you free from a wife? Do not seek a wife” [1 Cor 7:27]). Similarly, on the topic of slavery Paul asks, “Were you a slave when called,” but answers unexpectedly, “Do not be concerned about it” (1 Cor 7:21). Given the rhetorical pattern deployed (a school-room style of speech, called diatribe), one would anticipate Paul’s saying, Don’t seek to become free, but instead Paul softens his imperative’s impact, allowing for an exception in the case of slavery. This break from his diatribal pattern suggests that his opening line in 1 Cor 7:20 (“Let each of you remain in the condition in which you were called”) does not hold for the case of slavery. When this evidence is laid beside the above-mentioned grammatical and syntactical parallels of mallon chrēsai in Greek authors, we confront an accumulation of compelling arguments heavily favoring the “use liberty” interpretation.52 Social history confirms this conclusion. The city of Corinth in Paul’s day was a Roman colony (colonia), founded in 44 BCE by Julius Caesar and was at first populated by Italian freedmen. Nothing in the city––families, buildings, or

Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 108–21. For diatribe patterns, see Stanley K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans, SBLDS 57 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), with extensive bibliography; see also idem, “The Diatribe,” in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, ed. David E. Aune, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 71–83. 51  Unless otherwise noted, all biblical translations are from the NRSV. 52  Will Deming, “A Diatribal Pattern in 1 Cor 7:21–22: A New Perspective on Paul’s Directions to Slaves,” NovT 37 (1995): 130–37. 49  50 

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institutions––was over a century old. The previous city of Old Corinth was sacked in 146 BCE (and its inhabitants sold into slavery) when Rome expanded its military influence into the eastern Mediterranean. No other city of Paul operated more under the Roman model and legacy of slavery. Located on the isthmus connecting mainland Greece to the Peloponnesus, Corinth had two seaports with an extensive network of roads: Kenchrea on the Saronic Gulf; and Lechaion on the Corinthian Gulf, one of the largest human-made harbors in the Mediterranean. These seaports served as freight way stations that handled high volumes of traffic and vast inventories of merchandise, including human chattel. Paul must have seen or known about the large slave market in the city’s northern quarter. Paul may allude to it when he writes, “You were bought with a price; therefore glorify God with your body” (1 Cor 6:20), an exhortation against Christians frequenting prostitutes that compares Christians to purchased slaves (1 Cor 6:12–20). Paul may also be alluding to the sexually seedy reputations of slave dealers in the wider Greco–Roman world.53 Paul relies on the language of economics and the slave trade also in 1 Cor 7: “For you were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters” (1 Cor 7:23), a metaphor of slavery to Christ as the proper condition of the Christian believer. Corinth’s marketplace setting, therefore, provides the context against which we should read Paul’s exhortation to slaves in 1 Cor 7:21.54 When Paul addressed slaves and their possible liberation in 1 Cor 7:21, he spoke to a Roman social context. In that setting, liberation opportunities for slaves would mean manumission in one of the many forms available in Roman practice and not emancipation or abolition in the modern sense of these terms. Paul’s acceptance and even encouragement of manumission for slaves are not indications that he opposed slavery as an institution or ideology. By incorporating the Roman institutionalized practice of regular urban manumission into his theology, Paul in 1 Cor 7:21 speaks in ways similar to other Romans.55 Yet one might object that Paul was a social conservative and thus was more likely to exhort slaves to remain slaves. To be sure Paul may have been a social conservative: his belief that Christ would return soon and bring the Kingdom of God did not lead him to efforts to change the present society in fundamental ways. But social conservatism in the Roman world did not include restriction of manumission.

53  Cf. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity, 65–67. On ancient condemnation of prostitution in the slave trade, see Thomas A. J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 288–319; idem, The Economy of Prostitution in the Roman World: A Study of Social History and the Brothel (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004), 55–77; and Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 129–36. 54  Laura S. Nasrallah, “ ‘You Were Bought with a Price’: Freedpersons and Things in 1 Corinthians,” in Corinth in Contrast: Studies in Inequality, ed. Steven J. Friesen, Sarah James, and Daniel N. Schowalter, NovTSup 155 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 54–73. For the history of Corinth, see James Wiseman, “Corinth and Rome I: 228 B.C.–A.D. 267,” in ANRW 2.7.1 (1979), 438–548; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archaeology, GNS 6 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1983); Timothy E. Gregory, ed., The Corinthians in the Roman Period, JRASup 8 (Ann Arbor, MI: Journal of Roman Archaeology, 1993). 55  Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 69–74.



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Such a restriction may be typical of modern slave societies, especially in response to abolitionist calls for the political emancipation of slaves. In the decades before the American Civil War, for example, southern apologists defended slavery as the “peculiar institution,” a euphemism that reveals a certain uneasiness white Southerners had about the moral legitimacy of slavery as an American and a Christian institution. The rarity of legal manumission in the southern United States served to justify both the peculiarity of and the need for slavery in the modern world. To this perspective, manumission is a “liberal” value that a “conservative” Paul would not hold. Unlike their modern counterparts, however, Greco-Roman slaveholders saw no need to justify their institution as “peculiar.” In fact, Cicero, Augustus, Seneca, and other Roman “social conservatives” did not oppose the manumission of slaves. Quite the contrary, Roman conservatives widely favored and regularly practiced the manumission of deserving urban slaves in their households. Thus to label Paul a “social conservative” based on his advice to slaves concerning manumission is to evaluate Paul from a modern perspective, not from within his ancient context.56 Therefore, we find that the nineteenth-century battles over the Bible and slavery have little contact with Paul’s original situation.57 In his extant letters, Paul neither attacked nor defended slavery as a social institution. Rather, he accepted slavery as a given fact of ancient life. He understood the institutional practice of urban manumission, and he knew that slaves were in his Corinthian congregation. Because Corinth was a Roman city, the possibility arose that slaves might become manumitted. So Paul included this possibility as an exception to his general rule of Christians remaining in the situation in which they had their baptismal call. The second important Pauline text dealing with actual slaves, in this case a specific slave named Onesimus, is the Letter to Philemon.58 The brevity of the work (one page in modern translations) might encourage readers to assume it easily comprehensible and straightforward. Indeed, forty years ago, commentators spent little time on Philemon, because they understood the story of the letter to be obvious—the story of runaway slave. Recent research questioning that traditional view has yielded new debate, unsettling previous confidences.59 We now recognize that the letter contains 56  Ibid., 74–75, 121–22. For Roman social conservatives favoring selective manumission, see Mouritsen, Freedman, 120–205; Perry, Gender, 43–68, Bradley, “Slavery in the Roman Republic,” 254–60; Wiedemann, “Regularity of Manumission,” 162–75. 57  See Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 165–96. 58  Another possibly servile figure whom Paul mentions by name is Erastus (Rom 16:23), an administrator of municipal rank and perhaps an ex-slave. Holding a civic office (Greek oikonomos; Latin aedile), this Erastus is likely the same person mentioned also on a first-century inscription in Corinth. Yet the civic rank of Erastus and his freedman status are disputed in current scholarship: see John K. Goodrich, “Erastus of Corinth (Romans 16.23): Responding to Recent Proposals on His Rank, Status, and Faith,” NTS 57 (2011): 583–93; idem, “Erastus, Quaestor of Corinth: The Administrative Rank of ὁ οἰκονόμος τῆς πόλεως (Rom 16.23) in an Achaean Colony,” NTS 56 (2010): 90–115; and Steven J. Friesen, “ ‘The Wrong Erastus’,” in Corinth in Context: Comparative Studies on Religion and Society, ed. Steven J. Friesen, Daniel N. Schowalter, and James C. Walters, NovTSup 134 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 31–51. 59  Francois Tolmie, “Tendencies in the Research on the Letter to Philemon since 1980,” in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter, ed. D. Francois Tolmie, BZNW 169 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 2–3.

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only one half of a dialogue––bits and pieces of what apparently were ongoing conversations, visits, and personal exchanges between Paul and the church that met in Philemon’s house. When reading this letter, we are in one sense eavesdropping on the (mostly lost) conversations of these people in the past. In another sense, however, this analogy to eavesdropping can also mislead us into a false confidence in the objectivity of the letter. This letter, like all epistolary correspondence in antiquity, is a deliberate literary composition.60 This is the main problem with the “runaway slave” hypothesis. It merely assumes the letter to be an objective account of events, as Patristic commentators since John Chrysostom (fourth century) said it was––an epistle requesting the Christian slaveholder Philemon to take back his runaway slave Onesimus who, after doing damage, theft, or some other wrong, had somehow contacted Paul in prison and had been baptized.61 We know that ancient slaves fled their masters and typically sought asylum in a temple or at a statue of the emperor (Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon 7.13), went underground in a large city (Cicero, Letters to Quintus 1.2.14), joined marauding bands of maroon societies in the countryside (Athenaeus 265D–266E), or tried to enlist in the army under a false identity (Pliny, Letters 10.29–30).62 Yet Onesimus, it is alleged, took none of these options (or was captured before he had a chance to do so) and either became (by remarkable luck) thrown in the same prison cell as Paul or took refuge among the associates of Paul. Subsequently, Paul converted Onesimus––becoming his “father during my imprisonment” (Phlm 10)––and then sent Onesimus with the letter, back to the master. Supporters of the runaway-slave hypothesis often draw an alleged parallel with the correspondence of the Younger Pliny (Letters 9.21 and 9.24) about an errant but repentant freedman being asked to return to the household of his patron Sabinianus.63 Pliny, after being convinced of the freedman’s “genuine penitence,” says he had severely scolded the freedman and firmly warned him never to make such a request again, in order to frighten the youth (Pliny, Letters 9.21). But this modern comparison creates more difficulties than solutions. Paul, in contrast, does not say what we would expect of a situation involving an errant slave: Paul does not ask Philemon (as Pliny does of Sabinianus) to forgive or have pity.64 Pliny talks to Sabinianus about having scolded the errant youth, pardoned his disobedience as foolish, and received genuine penitence and reassurance that it will not happen again, which is not what Paul says to Philemon about Onesimus.

J. Albert Harrill, Paul the Apostle: His Life and Legacy in Their Roman Context (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 13. 61  For an overview of the exegetical issues, see S. Scott Bartchy, “Philemon, Epistle to,” ABD 5:305–10. 62  On maroon societies, see Bradley, Slavery and Rebellion, 4–11, 38–41, 54, 111, 123–24; and Richard Price, ed., Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas, 3rd ed. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996). 63  Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), 196–97. 64  Paul, furthermore, imbues his letter with kinship imagery, something lacking in Pliny’s letter (Chris Frilingos, “ ‘For My Child, Onesimus’: Paul and Domestic Power in Philemon,” JBL 119 [2000]: 92). 60 



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Most importantly, Pliny discusses a freedman (not a slave)––and not a runaway at all. As mentioned above, manumission established new patronal control and supervision, even continued residence in the ex-master’s household, requiring work duties and modes of respect from the ex-slave to the former master, now a patron. The libertus ingratus (ungrateful freedperson) faced punitive relegation by banishment out of the house, a distressing situation. The banished freedman in Pliny’s letter had sought intercession to enable a return to his patron’s household.65 The parallels between Pliny and Paul stem more from each author writing in same epistolary genre––a letter of recommendation––than from sharing the same situation. Recommendation letters necessarily involved an amicitia (friendship) triangle.66 The discovery of Philemon as a formulaic recommendation letter has thus cast doubt on the entire runaway-slave hypothesis, which leads us to the “intercession” hypothesis. The “intercession” hypothesis claims that Onesimus was not running away to freedom but to Paul for intercession after some misdeed. The first form of this argument initially relied on the opinions of three classical Roman jurists recorded in the Digest of Justinian––who state that a slave running to a friend of the master to seek intercession is not technically a “criminal runaway” (servus fugitivus) but merely a “delinquent truant” (erro). Scholars in this camp argue that Onesimus was not a fugitivus but an erro according to Roman slave law. This interpretation, however, has received criticism from its methodological mistakes of making monolithic claims about Roman slave law and of relying on law exclusively for one’s reconstruction of ancient slavery.67 A subsequent reply to this criticism has turned to papyrological evidence to ground the legal texts in recorded practices of slave sale.68 Several papyri of slave-sale contracts do indeed guarantee––or refuse to guarantee––that the slave is neither a “truant” (Greek ῥέμβος, rhembos; Latin erro) nor a “fugitive” (Greek δραπετικόν, drapetikon; Latin fugitivus), following the series of marketplace regulations collectively known as the Aedilician Edict. This law increased the seller’s liability by requiring full disclosure of any defects in the merchandise. Yet what we discovered in regard to the vice of slave traders (above) holds true also in regard to papyri contracts of sale: the Aedilician Edict is not social description; quite the contrary, the prevalence of marketplace warnings to be on the lookout for such defects provides ample evidence that people generally ignored the law in daily practice.69 The larger Mouritsen, Freedman, 150. Roger Rees, “Letters of Recommendation and the Rhetoric of Praise,” in Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, ed. Ruth Morello and A. D. Morrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 156–59. 67  My discussion on Philemon thus builds on and updates Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 6–16. 68  Peter Lampe, “Affects and Emotion in the Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon: A RhetoricalPsychological Interpretation,” in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter, ed. D. Francois Tolmie, BZNW 169 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 64. The papyrological evidence is discussed in more detail in Peter Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus? Paul’s Solution within the Frame of Ancient Legal and Documentary Sources,” in Tolmie, ed., Philemon in Perspective, 124–33. 69  Sources surveyed in Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus,” 124–33; and idem, “ ‘Neither a Truant nor a Fugitive’: Some Remarks on the Sale of Slaves in Roman Egypt and Other Provinces,” in 65  66 

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methodological doubt (whether Roman slave laws offer a window into slaveholding practices that then relate to an interpretation of Philemon) still holds. Neither term (rhembos or drapetikon) appears in Paul’s letter. The letter is not a contract of slave sale or otherwise under the possible jurisdiction of Aedilician Edict. (Paul’s has a strong view against letting outside courts of law have jurisdiction in the church; see 1 Cor 6:1–7.) Paul’s appeal on behalf of Onesimus does not, in short, invoke or involve the Aedilician Edict. Even if one accepts the intercession hypothesis, however, it brings us back to the same doubts about the runaway-slave theory: Why would a slave voluntarily go to any prison? Why does Paul not scold and rebuke Onesimus for leaving the household without permission? Why does Paul’s letter not share the same tone as Pliny’s letter to Sabinianus, an explicit example of how a third party could react to a request for intercession. Furthermore, the distinction between a runaway fugitivus and an intercession-seeking erro exists only in the academic arguments of jurists. There was no substantial difference in the actual practice of Greco-Roman slavery, because even the papyri of slave sales mention the terms together as a similar class of defect. In the end, the intercession hypothesis is but a variation on the runaway-slave hypothesis and leaves still unanswered the original problem, that Paul’s tone lacks rebuke of Onesimus.70 One answer is the “dispatched slave” hypothesis, a better challenge to the runawayslave hypothesis. This view holds that Onesimus did not run away but was sent to Paul by Philemon.71 It explains why the slave would go to a guarded jail, for example. There is encouraging precedent for such a scenario. In Philippians, Paul thanks the congregation for sending Epaphroditus to “minister to my need” (Phil 2:25) in prison. Paul acknowledges that “I have been paid in full and have more than enough; I am fully satisfied, now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent” (Phil 4:18). Perhaps Onesimus served in a function on behalf of Philemon’s congregation similar to that of Epaphroditus on behalf of the congregation at Philippi.72 GrecoRoman culture had no penal system, because incarceration was not a punishment but a detention before trial, beating, or execution. Guards generally threw the criminal into any available strong room or secure hole and left issues like feeding, clothing, and other needs to the criminal’s friends or family to supply, with bribery being

Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Papyrology, ed. Traianos Gagos, American Studies in Papyrology Special Edition (Ann Arbor: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2010), 21–32. For the Aedilician Edict’s effects on slave traders, see Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 125–26. 70  This is the fatal flaw of Lampe’s hypothesis, as Arzt-Grabner rightfully exposes (“How to Deal with Onesimus,”134). Lampe’s reply that Paul had no need to point out the “obvious” (Lampe, “Affects and Emotions,” 64–65) is unconvincing. See the additional criticism of Lampe’s hypothesis in Ulricke Roth, “Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus: A Christian Design for Mastery,” ZNW 105 (2014): 119–20. 71  Sara C. Winter, “Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” NTS 33 (1987): 1–15. 72  Craig S. Wansink, Chained in Christ: The Experience and Rhetoric of Paul’s Imprisonments, JSNTSup 130 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996), 188–89; Roth, “Paul, Philemon,” 112–14. Epaphroditus, a well-documented slave name, may well have been a slave of the congregation at Philippi (Roth, “Paul, Philemon,” 121 n. 70)



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common.73 Especially along roads and other remote areas, travelers often found themselves kidnapped and thrown into private prisons (Latin, ergastula) on estates of wealthy landowners, never to be heard of again. Early Christian congregations would have known the dangers that an imprisoned Paul faced and at least on one occasion (recorded in Philippians) sent a representative with money and other gifts to sustain Paul while he was in chains. Onesimus could have served Paul as a lector, cleaner, scribe, letter carrier, daily assistant, or a combination of all these things. The occasion of the letter would be, in this scenario, Paul’s carefulness in not detaining the slave whom Philemon had lent him.74 We have abundant examples of such cases, especially in the letters of Cicero, who was notorious for keeping his friends’ letter carriers too long. “You too,” reminds Publius Cornelius Dolabella in a letter to Cicero, “on your part, honourable and courteous as you are, will see that the letter-carrier I have sent to you may be enabled to return to me, and that he brings me back a letter from you” (Cicero, Letters to Friends 9.3 [Williams, LCL]). “I have been rather slow,” writes Cicero to his friend Atticus, “in sending back your letter-carrier, because there was no opportunity of sending him” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus 11.2 [Winstedt, LCL]). And Cicero apologizes: “What is happening here you may gather from the bearer of your letter. I have kept him longer than I should, because every day I am expecting something fresh to happen, and there was no reason for sending him even now, except the subject on which you ask for an answer” (Cicero, Letters to Atticus 11.3 [Winstedt, LCL]).75 A papyrus letter dated September 12, 50 CE, provides further support. Mystarion, an Egyptian olive planter, asks Stotoëtis, a chief priest, for the prompt return of Mystarion’s slave Blastus. Mystarion to his own Stotoëtis, many greetings. I have sent to you my Blastus for forked(?) sticks for my olive gardens. See then that you do not detain [κατάσχῃς, kataschēs] him. For you know that I need him every moment [ὥρας, hōras]. [in another hand:] Farewell. In the year 11 of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Imperator in the month Sebastos 15. [Endorsed in the first hand:] To Stotoëtis, chief priest, at the island(?)76

Brian Rapske, The Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody, vol. 3 of The Book of Acts in Its First– Century Setting, ed. B. W. Winter (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1993), 195–225. 74  On the renting out of slaves, see Shelton, As the Romans Did, 165–66. 75  Ibid., 189–90. 76  BGU I.37; translation in Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World, rev. ed., trans. Lionel R. M. Strachan (1927; repr., Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1995), 170–71 (alt.). For discussion of this text, see W. Hersey David, Greek Papyri of the First Century (New York: Harper & Bros., 1933), 57–59; Norman R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul’s Narrative World (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 44–53, 78–81; Peter Arzt, “Brauchbare Sklaven: Ausgewahlte Papyrustexte zum Philemonbrief,” PzB 1 (1992): 44–55. 73 

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Two verbal parallels, clear in the original Greek, are immediately apparent. First, Mystarion asks not “to detain” (katechein) Blastus, and, similarly, Paul admits that he wants “to detain” (katechein) Onesimus (Phlm 13). Second, Mystarion emphasizes that he needs Blastus each “moment” (hōra); likewise, Paul explains the need (“usefulness”; Phlm 11) to keep Onesimus for a “moment” (hōra, Phlm 15). These similarities suggest the same kind of story: a slave sent to aid a friend. The slave Onesimus must be sent back as soon as possible, so Paul writes a letter to say the importance of not delaying the return of Onesimus. This scenario explains the absence both of any rebuke on the part of Paul for the slave’s actions and of any reference to remorse on the part of Onesimus for wrongdoing. Doubts nonetheless remain about this reconstruction of the letter’s backstory (prehistory). One might object, for example, that the pledge Paul makes to “repay” any wrongdoing (Phlm 18) seems to support the runaway-slave hypothesis, or at least the idea that the fault lies with Onesimus. Yet Paul could refer to a number of things here––such as the peculium that Onesimus had at his disposal (which in law technically belonged to the master), the additional cost of keeping Onesimus from his regular duties at home, or the lost wages that the slave would have earned for his master had he not stayed away so long––and the text is too brief to be certain. Moreover, the conversion of another’s slave without his master’s permission, and the slave’s possible pledge of peculium in that conversion, could be taken as a wrong by a slave to the master.77 Perhaps Paul was anticipating this reaction, because he describes a circumstantial condition: “if he wronged you at all, or owes you anything, charge that to my account” (Phlm 18)––meaning, not to the slave’s account (peculium). The past (aorist) condition introduced by if is likely not actual but hypothetical; otherwise the sentence would not be conditional in the first place.78 Arguably, then, the circumstantial if-clause implies the wrongdoing was something Paul tentatively perceived, perhaps as an afterthought, and not an actual condition.79 Paul addressed the letter to several people, including the church in Philemon’s house (Phlm 2), to raise the honor– shame stakes to that of a public hearing, in the agonistic code of face-to-face rhetorical encounters. Paul pressures Philemon by making a public plea, before the entire house church, to strengthen his hypothetical language.80

David E. Garland, Colossians and Philemon (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 337. See C. F. D. Moule, An Idiom Book of New Testament Greek, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 150; cf. Thomas J. Kraus, “An Obligation from Contract Law in Philemon 19: Characteristic Style and Juridical Background,” in idem, Ad fontes: Original Manuscripts and Their Significance for Studying Early Christianity: Selected Essays, Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 3 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 218–19. 79  Wansink, Chained in Christ, 183–88; Clarice J. Martin, “The Rhetorical Function of Commercial Language in Paul’s Letter to Philemon (Verse 18),” in Persuasive Artistry: Studies in New Testament Rhetoric in Honor of George A. Kennedy, ed. Duane F. Watson; JSNTSup 50 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991), 321–37. 80  See Frilingos, “ ‘For My Child, Onesimus,’ ” 99. For further analysis of Paul’s language of fatherhood and its obligation placed upon Philemon, see J. Albert Harrill, “Paul and Empire: Studying Roman Identity After the Cultural Turn,” Early Christianity 2 (2011): 306–307. 77  78 



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Yet exegetical problems remain with this or any attempt to write Onesimus’s story from the letter. The problems are due in part to Paul’s diction, which is unusually deferential and circumspect.81 “I preferred,” he writes, “to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed should be voluntary and not something forced” (Phlm 14). In one interpretation, the “good deed” that should be “voluntary and not something forced” is manumission and/or granting Paul domestic authority over Onesimus. “Perhaps for this reason [Onesimus] went away from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother––especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord” (Phlm 16).82 The phrases “more than a slave” and a brother “in the flesh and in the Lord” may imply that Paul hopes to secure the manumission of Onesimus, a possibility that Paul’s ending the letter with a note of confidence supports somewhat: “knowing that you will do even more than I say” (Phlm 21). If so, then Paul’s support of manumission would correspond to what he says in 1 Cor 7:21, revealing once more that Paul shared commonplace Roman views about the institution of slavery.83 We find nothing in the Letter to Philemon that opposes slavery as an institution or ideology; here the distinction made above between manumission and emancipation is crucial. Manumission was a regular and integral part of Roman slavery. It served to reinforce mastery and social control. Freed slaves remained under the hierarchy and personalized power of their former master, now patron. Manumission was a regular feature of Roman slavery because it suited the master’s interests. Often slaves were of more practical use after manumission, because the enfranchised slave had greater legal capacity to administer household affairs.84 If Paul asks for manumission, he is not condemning slavery but reinforcing its legitimacy by working within its rules and procedures. That Paul may be requesting manumission to gain the services of Onesimus as an enfranchised freedman only strengthens the point. In any case, Paul first denies the validity of Onesimus’s prior slave relationship with Philemon (“no longer a slave”) and then substitutes a fraternal bond in its place (“a beloved brother”). Paul wants Philemon to accept Onesimus in accordance with Paul’s

81  Paul may be avoiding direct language because he writes from a prison, under guarded supervision; cf. Thomas E. Jenkins, Intercepted Letters: Epistolary and Narrative in Greek and Roman Literature, Roman Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), 47–49. I owe this observation to Hans Dieter Betz, personal conversation. 82  I agree that “went away,” rather than “was separated,” best translates the passive form of χωρίζω (chōrizō), following its idiom in both literary and documentary sources; Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus,” 123–24; with wider discussion in idem, “Onesimus erro: Zur Vorgeschichte des Philemonbriefes,” ZNW 95 (2004): 131–43. 83  Cf. the Mosaic prohibitions in Deut 23:15–16: “Slaves who have escaped to you from their owners shall not be given back to them. They shall reside with you, in your midst, in any place they choose in any one of your towns, wherever they please; you shall not oppress them.” The relevance, however, of this Hebrew Bible slave law for Paul is doubtful; Paul nowhere quotes it. 84  On the practical benefits of manumission in the Roman slave system, see Harrill, Manumission of Slaves, 170–72; on the role of manumission to reinforce slavery’s social control, see Bradley, Slaves and Masters, 81–122.

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terms, making the slaveholder acknowledge Paul’s mastery over Philemon’s domestic affairs. By calling himself a “father” of Onesimus, Paul asserts rhetorical authority over Philemon’s legal right to determine the future of his slave Onesimus.85 To reconstruct what future Paul wants for Onesimus, Peter Arzt-Grabner in a signifi­ cant methodological advance reads the letter against the context of Greco-Roman documentary papyri.86 He argues that Paul makes an appeal to Philemon comparable to the demand of one business partner (Gr. κοινωνός, koinōnos) to another in apprentice contracts and in letters of recommendation. On this reading,87 Paul expresses his association with Philemon in the specific terms and aims of a corporate partnership (Latin societas): Paul has transformed Onesimus from being “useless”—a loitering, truant slave known as an erro, unhelpful to a business—to being a “useful” figure of trustworthiness (πιστός, pistos). Paul therefore asks Philemon not only to accept Onesimus back in Philemon’s house but also to give Onesimus greater tasks of higher responsibilities as a full koinōnos in their corporate partnership for the gospel.88 This methodology is promising. Paul does describe his relationship to Philemon as a “partnership” and uses many formulae standard in apprentice contracts. These formulae include a command for the slave to obey (cf. Phlm 8) (which Paul does not impose on Philemon but would on Onesimus), a reference to the slave “doing service” under an agreement (13), and the assumption that the proposed apprenticeship will turn a “useless” slave (one unskilled in any particular trade) into a useful one, both to the master craftsman and its original owner.89 Apprentice contracts also end with the usual penalty clause by which the master guarantees assumption of any debts that might accrue (19) (such a sick days, loss of work due to truancy, and so forth) and the promise to return the slave, using the language of receipts (12). These parallels suggest that Philemon is a recommendation letter of a specific kind: Paul recommends Onesimus for apprenticeship in the service of the gospel, an explicit “appeal” (10). Important to this appeal is Paul’s enumeration of the slave’s credentials (10). Onesimus, Paul notes, has already become “my child” (10), proven to be “useful” whereas before he was “useless” (11), and to be already a “beloved brother” (16). Frilingos, “ ‘For My Child, Onesimus,’ ” 102–3. Peter Arzt-Grabner, Philemon, Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003); and idem, “How to Deal with Onesimus.” 87  Using an exclusively Roman model of voluntary associations, however, may be problematic; see Roth, “Paul, Philemon,” 119-20. 88  Arzt-Grabner, “How to Deal with Onesimus,” 139–41. 89  In this regard, despite the widespread sexual abuse of slaves in antiquity, I find unconvincing the exegesis of Joseph A. Marchal (“The Usefulness of an Onesimus: The Sexual Use of Slaves and Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” JBL 130 [2011]: 749–70), which claims a necessarily sexual interpretation for the term “useful” (χρῆσις, chrēsis) in Philemon. The exegesis disregards a fundamental rule of philology, that context determines meaning; James Barr, The Semantics of Biblical Language (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 139–40. Cf. the criticism in Jennifer Glancy, “The Sexual Use of Slaves: A Response to Kyle Harper on Jewish and Christian Porneia,” JBL 134 (2015): 228 n. 52. On Paul’s rejection of sexual desire, see Dale B. Martin, Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 65–68, 111–12, 138–39, 120 n. 37. Exegesis better contextualizes Philemon in ancient discussions on how to “make use of” a slave, e.g., Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 10.1–3 and 10.17–22. 85  86 



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Onesimus, therefore, extends Paul’s own self and should be received accordingly (12). Paul also emphasizes the creditworthiness of Onesimus (18–19). In short, Paul wants to give the slave with new responsibilities as a full business partner. Partnership (and brotherhood) is a unity but not necessarily an equality, however. There can be unequal partners in a koinōnia, just as there can be younger and elder brothers in a family. In any case, the parallels with documentary papyri suggest that Paul deployed stock formulae of slaves in apprentice journeyman contracts, probably familiar from his manual labor associated with the weaving industry, to “think with,” perhaps without realizing the wider cultural habit in which he participated.90 That cultural habit judged slaves and their actions in a bland moral division into “the useful” and “the useless.” Such language in Paul’s letter advances the evidence less of “Onesimus’s story” than of Paul’s participation and deep implication in ancient slavery. The letter does not tell us whether the historical Onesimus was really “useful” but that Paul described (and recommended) slaves in terms of stereotypes and bland moral polarities. Even if journeyman-apprentice contracts provide the best interpretative context in which to read Philemon, the affective language of the letter is still a cliché. Paul treats Onesimus instrumentally, as a “thing” to be transferred, owned, and used. Although we can invent stories of Onesimus that help the text seem more moral, the letter offers no evidence that Paul or Philemon listened to what Onesimus may have wanted to do; we, in fact, have no way of knowing what Onesimus wanted or what decisions he made. No matter which story of Onesimus they tell, even the most imaginative modern historians cannot restore to this Christian slave his voice or agency. There is no story that Onesimus tells. Paul considers Onesimus’s wishes to be unimportant, at least not important enough to mention to Philemon. The idea that Onesimus wanted any other life than serving Paul and his gospel seems an unthinkable proposition in the letter. The slave literally is a “living tool” caught between two “masters” deciding on the use of his labor. While the letter arguably shows evidence that Paul deploys the terminology and tropes of ancient apprentice contracts, one might still object that Paul nonetheless transforms them into directions of love—“in Christ” and “in the Lord”—that “break down” the normal boundary between slave and master. On this view, Paul is more father than master: Onesimus is his “child” and even “very heart.”91 A reply to this objection points the reader back to the example that opened the present essay, about the talented slave Encolpius suffering heat stroke while on the road with his master (Pliny, Letters 8.1). Recall that Encolpius’s master, the Younger Pliny, uses an analogous “paternal” language of love and affection. Pliny declares himself to be a loving and indulgent father of his slave and even his own self. This example is one of many illustrating Greco-Roman masters consuming epistolary slaves into themselves.92

Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 14–15, with further notes to the literature. Tobias Nicklas, “The Letter to Philemon: A Discussion with J. Albert Harrill,” in Paul’s World, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Pauline Studies 4 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 201–220; Kraus, “Obligation,” 222–23. Nicklas bases his critique on theology rather than history. Similarly, see N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God, 2 vols., Christian Origins and the Question of God 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2013), 1:3–74. 92  On masters “consuming” their slaves in literature, see Joshel, “Slavery and Roman Literary Culture.” 90  91 

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Seeing Paul in his Greco-Roman context of such a literary culture makes it clear that the Letter to Philemon was no challenge to slavery. In the epistolary retellings, Encolpius and Onesimus each suffer the social death of an identity only through his respective owner: both a thing and a person. The natal alienation enforcing social death accompanies a reinforcing natal association erasing the slave’s former self, family, and nationality.93 In the end, the Letter to Philemon reveals no “dilemma of Christian slave ownership,” but a consuming hierarchy of master over slave familiar in wider Greco-Roman literary culture.94 This survey of Philemon began with questioning the traditional “runaway slave” hypothesis. Exposing those exegetical problems has challenged the traditional view–– most importantly, through the “intercession” hypothesis and the “dispatched slave” hypothesis––as well as brought a methodological advance for future research. While the historical value of the increasingly numerous solutions proposed in the Philemon debate varies considerably, the new debate shows that critical scholars no longer read Philemon as a straightforward or objective account, but as an actual letter whose exegesis is far from certain. A similarly intense scholarly debate surrounds the third important text dealing with actual slaves––Gal 3:27–28 (parallel in 1 Cor 12:13; cf. Col 3:11): “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” The three polarities of circumcision/uncircumcision, slave/free, male/female appear precisely in the same order as in 1 Cor 7:17–28, forming a literary pattern. The pattern reveals a belief that the termination of such social distinctions betokens the eschatological change (or “breakthrough”) that the believer experiences by becoming baptized “in Christ.”95 Paul did not coin this baptismal formula but borrowed its language from early initiation rituals that preceded his ministry. These rituals articulated a “new creation” and drew on certain aspects of the Adam legends. In those legends, the first form of humanity was neither male nor female (but both; Gen 1:27), neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free. The sin of Adam represented the loss of the original unity and a change of clothes, from the “image of God” (Gen 1:26) or a “garment of light” to “garments of skin” (Gen 3:21) or the physical body. The ritual of baptism, in which initiates removed their clothes and put on new garments, aimed to recover that unity in paradise where “all are one.”96

De Wet, Preaching Bondage; Patterson, Slavery and Social Death. On the stereotyped language of a de facto joint ownership of Onesimus as a “thing,” see now Roth, “Paul, Philemon.” 95  Bartchy, First-Century Slavery, 174. 96  Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 88; idem, In Search of the Early Christians: Selected Essays, ed. Allen R. Hilton and H. Gregory Snyder (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), 3–54; Dennis R. MacDonald, There Is No Male and Female: The Fate of a Dominical Saying in Paul and Gnosticism, HDR 20 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), 113–26. 93  94 



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Other Greco-Roman writers could invoke a world without such social distinctions, but usually only to highlight its utopian, unattainable nature. Commenting humorously on the diversity of philosophical sects, Lucian of Samosata compared their professed goal of “virtue” to a fantastic “city all of whose inhabitants are happy”: “inferior or superior, noble or common, bond or free, simply did not exist and were not mentioned in the city” (Lucian, Hermotimus 24, [Kilburn, LCL]). The impracticality of this ideal city, without distinctions of social rank, shows the absurdity of the multiple philosophical “roads” to it. Earlier Aristotle had tried to imagine a world without slaves in practical terms. He could only envision a fantasy land, where tools performed their work on command (even anticipating what to do), utensils moved automatically, shuttles wove cloth and quills played harps without human hands to guide them, bread baked itself, and fish flipped themselves over in fryers at the appropriate times (Aristotle, Politics 1.4 [1253b]; see also Athenaeus, Deipn. 6.267). The satire illustrates how preposterous such a slaveless utopia would be, so integral was slavery to ancient life. One wonders, then, whether any ancient person, even Paul, could imagine the piece of ritual language in Gal 3:28 as a feasible basis for social practice. Furthermore, the difficulty Paul has in sorting out the polarities of circumcised/uncircumcised, married/unmarried, slave/free in 1 Cor 7 illustrates the problem of claiming that Paul advocates some practical program of social reform. Still, such utopian language had undeniable appeal in a society as hierarchical as classical antiquity, as evidence from other ancient Mediterranean religions indicates. Some ancient cultic associations advertised, like the baptismal phrase in Gal 3:28, the irrelevance of social distinctions in the enjoyment of their deity’s benefits. In ancient Philadelphia (in Asia Minor), a shrine erected in honor of savior gods reads: “The commandments given [by Zeus] to Dionysius [the owner of the house] granting access in sleep to his own house both to free men and women, and to household slaves.”97 This equal access to the Dionysian cult did not lead adherents to become emancipationists, however. There was also the Roman religious festival of Saturnalia, which temporarily inverted the slave and the master roles. Yet the inversion functioned on the level of ritual and play; it was not an attempt to abolish slavery. Slave owners used the Saturnalia as a vehicle of social control, to appease slave discontent and reward slave obedience.98 Early Christian baptism was a rite of passage that moved a person into natal association––from the status of stranger to one of family. Some scholars claim that, because the baptismal formula (“neither free nor slave”) spoke of all members being one “in Christ,” early congregations must have taken this saying not only on the level of theological metaphor but also on the literal level: to erase the slave–free distinction in custom and society.99 Yet expressions similar to that in Gal 3:28 in the wider Greco-Roman culture provide important evidence that slaveholders might 97  Frederick C. Grant, Hellenistic Religions: The Age of Syncretism (New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1953), 28–30 (text); Meeks, In Search, 6. 98  Bradley, Slaves and Masters, 41–44. 99  See discussion in Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 192–95. A helpful analysis of the letter’s exegetical

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believe that slavery could be erased in the ideal but not in daily practice. Roman Stoic morality, for example, blurred the slave–free division in philosophy. According to Stoicism, it was fate and not nature that made people slaves. Every human was a potential slave.100 This insight led Stoics to exhort Roman masters to see the humanity of their slaves, and to urge for humane treatment. In his famous correspondence to Lucilius, said to be a middle-aged politician and wealthy slaveholder (an imaginary interlocutor),101 the Stoic philosopher and Roman statesman Seneca congratulates the kindness of a master toward his slaves: I am glad to learn, through those who come from you, that you live on friendly terms with your slaves. This befits a sensible and well-educated man like yourself. “They are slaves,” people declare. Nay, rather they are men. “Slaves!” No, comrades. “Slaves!” No, they are unpretentious friends. “Slaves!” No, they are our fellow-slaves, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over slaves and free men alike. (Seneca, Letters 47.1 [Gummere, LCL])

The kindness of giving friendship toward one’s slaves meant, in particular, restraining one’s rage at them. This teaching participated in a particularly Roman ideology of anger control, which saw rage as a disease that disgraced the honor (dignitas) of the aristocratic adult Roman male. An emphasis on the harmful effects of anger on the abuser, not on the slave per se––on the loss of dignitas that personalized mastery (auctoritas) over slaves required––urged the therapy of daily self-examination and betterment.102 Because it aimed to make Romans better masters who were morally capable of proper domination, Seneca’s teaching on the humane treatment of slaves reinforced slavery as an ideology and an institution. By emphasizing the unity of slave and free, in terms of a common humanity, Seneca exhorts Lucilius (and the letter’s wider audience of Roman readers) toward this ideal: You must think carefully about the fact that the man whom you call your slave is born from the same seed (ex isdem seminibus), enjoys the same sky, breathes like you, dies like you! You are as able to recognize a free man in him as he is to recognize a slave in you. After the destruction of Varus’ army, Fortune (fortuna) pulled down many men of respectable birth who were expecting to attain senatorial rank as the result of a military career; it (fortune) made one of them a shepherd, another a doorkeeper. Will you be contemptuous of a man whose status is one that you may yourself be reduced to––for all that you’re contemptuous of it? (Letters 47.10)103

context appears also in J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 33A (New York: Doubleday, 1997), 373–418. 100  See Brent D. Shaw, “The Divine Economy: Stoicism as Ideology,” Latomus 44 (1985): 16–54. 101  Brad Inwood, “The Importance of Form in Seneca’s Philosophical Letters,” in Ancient Letters: Classical and Late Antique Epistolography, ed. Ruth Morello and A. D. Morrison (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 134, with further literature. 102  William V. Harris, Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 317–36; Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 94–95, with further literature. 103  Translation in Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, 234 (alt.).



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Seneca refers to the Roman general whose three legions suffered a disastrous military defeat in Germany (9 CE). The “Varian disaster” involved a serious loss of military manpower, and its anniversary was a dark shadow on the Roman calendar.104 In the catastrophe, many young Roman officers of equestrian and senatorial families, on a promising career path (cursus honorum), instead found themselves slaves of barbarian victors. This military history taught the precarious character of life, even in high social orders. In Roman Stoic understandings of fortune, there was neither slave nor free: to the Powers That Be, the terms slave and free had no stable or intrinsic value for the human condition. On this moral lesson, the slave is necessarily both a thing and a person. Similar preaching appears in Dio Chrysostom. His work provides one of the longest extant discussions on freedom and slavery that survives in ancient literature and an additional context for how a Greco-Roman audience might have heard Paul’s words. Dio has a hypothetical slave ask his master, “ ‘Is it possible, my good friend, to know who is a slave, or who is free?’ ” (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 15.2 [Cohoon, LCL]), and declare, “ ‘For of those who are called slaves we will, I presume, admit that many have the spirit of free men, and that among free men there are many who are altogether servile’ ” (Discourses 15.29). Even those not chattel slaves may nonetheless be moral slaves, in bondage to greed, gluttony, or other desires. This belief that all people are potentially bound to slavery in either chattel or moral form renders the slave–free distinction meaningless in Stoic philosophy. “We are all fettered to Fate,” writes Seneca, “For some, the chain is made of gold, and is loose; for others it is tight and filthy––but what difference does it make?” Seneca continues: All of us are surrounded by the same kind of captivity, and even those who hold others bound are in bonds themselves, unless you happen to think that the handcuff the guard wears on his left wrist hurts less than the prisoner’s. Public offices hold one man captive, wealth another; some are disadvantaged by high birth, some by humble birth; some have to put up with other people’s commands, some with their own. Some have to stay in one place because they’ve been exiled, others because they’ve been appointed to a priesthood––all life is slavery. 105

Seneca expresses the capricious character of life even as he holds one of the highest social ranks in Roman society. Slave owners, he reminds his aristocratic readers, might not possess moral freedom, freedom in the absolute sense. Yet this philosophy did not translate into a program of social reform of slavery at Rome.106 Seneca was, after all, one of the largest slaveholders in the city, and he kept his philosophy and politics separate. He did not care about the slaves’ plight for its own sake, but for the sake of the ethical well being of the slaveholders in general and for strengthening the hierarchy of the upper equestrian and senatorial orders in particular. For example, in 61 CE, Pedanius Secundus, the emperor’s deputy at Rome (praefectus urbi), was murdered at home by his own slave. The details as to why are unclear: either H. H. Scullard, From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome, from 133 BC to AD 68, 5th ed. (London: Methuen, 1982), 258–59. 105  Seneca, The Tranquility of Mind 10.3; translated in Wiedemann, Greek and Roman Slavery, 232. 106  For Seneca’s philosophy on slavery, see Joshel, “Slavery and Roman Literary Culture,” 227–34. 104 

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the household slave expected to be freed at a previously agreed price, or the slave and master were competitors for the affection of the same slave boy. The particular motivation did not concern the Roman senate. After some debate and despite protests from the populace about the innocents, the senate ordered, in accordance with ancient custom, the immediate execution of all slaves living under the same roof, in this case four hundred lives, no matter how loyal or high ranking, as an example to others of how Rome would respond to the murder of a slaveholder. When the senate ordered the execution, Seneca as political adviser and minister to the emperor Nero did nothing to stop the slaughter of innocents.107 Paul employs metaphors of slavery that cohere with Greco-Roman philosophical discussions on how relative the slave–free distinction is. Any attempt to weigh Paul’s place in this Greco-Roman philosophical discussion must take seriously that he made positive and widespread use of slavery as the metaphor for the proper relation of the believer to God. A case in point is 1 Cor 7:22–23: “For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedperson [apeleutheros] belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free [eleutheros] when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters.” Slaves of human masters stands as a metaphor for submitting oneself to the claims and values of another person (cf. Rom 8:12–17; Gal 5:1).108 To understand Paul’s metaphorical language, we need to do close reading of the previous verse. The crucial term is freedperson (apeleutheros), which biblical commentaries tend not to take seriously. Many exegetes explain the passage in the following way, which has become a standard reading: Paul introduces a leveling of all Christians to one eschatological condition, freedom in Christ, which annuls previous differences in status among Christians.109 Yet by calling the slave a “freedperson” (apeleutheros) rather than a “freeperson” (eleutheros) in Christ, Paul stresses precisely what this standard commentary denies––that the status of the person is the issue, not eschatological freedom. Paul is not simply saying that “in Christ” all people hold basically the same, egalitarian position. He introduces an actual reversal of normal status, reinforcing the Roman understanding of slavery as only part of a continuum of domination. In Roman society everyone was subordinated in some sense, even an aristocrat like Seneca. Creating a salvific hierarchy, Paul elevates the slave to the (higher) social order of freedperson and demotes the free person to the (lower) rank of slave. Salvation, according to Paul, is not simply an improved individual

Tacitus, Ann. 14.42–45; Richard P. Saller, “Slavery and the Roman Family,” in Classical Slavery, ed. M. I. Finley (London: Frank Cass, 1987), 65–66; Miriam Griffin, Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford: Clarendon 1976), 256–85; Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 147. 108  Victor Paul Furnish, “First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians,” in The HarperCollins Study Bible, ed. Harold W. Attridge et al., updated ed. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2006), 1941 (note to 1 Cor 7:23). 109  Hans Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, trans. James W. Leitch, ed. George W. MacRae, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 127–28; Kenneth C. Russell, Slavery as Reality and Metaphor in the Pauline Letters (Rome: Catholic Book Agency, 1968), 49–50. 107 



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condition––freedom––but purchase in the market and subsequent relocation as servile domestics in a new hierarchy (the household of the Lord) as slaves and freedpersons of Christ.110 This interpretation, however, may seem counterintuitive. It appears to contradict Paul’s declarations elsewhere that the Christian condition is freedom and sonship, in direct opposition to slavery. “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery,” Paul writes, “to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption” (Rom 8:15; cf. Eph 1:5). “For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal 5:1). “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death” (Rom 8:1). Creation “itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21). “For you were called,” he exhorts Gentile converts, “to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another” (Gal 5:13). In his theology, Paul appears to combine the opposing values of slavery and freedom. Whereas one may dismiss this tension as Pauline inconsistency, or bald doublethink––perhaps the irony of a self-designated “slave of Christ” (Rom 1:1; Phil 1:1; Gal 1:10) preaching the Christian life as “freedom” was lost on Paul––there is another possible interpretation. The alleged contradiction holds only if slavery means the same thing when used in these various passages. Identical metaphors, however, do not always point to the same phenomenon when used in different ways. Although both share the same term slavery, two distinct metaphors are present, two different slaveries betokened: first, a negative slavery pointing to the pre- or non-Christian state; second, a positive slavery pointing to salvation in Christ. Because the second slavery refers to the process by which one is freed from the first slavery (to sin, Satan, and other cosmic forces), Paul can speak of slavery to Christ as “freedom” even though it is not freedom in the sense of the absence of enslavement: “But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification” (Rom 6:22). A beneficial, higher slavery to the divine replaces the lower, pernicious slavery to sin.111 Whether beneficial or pernicious, slavery remains normative. Important in Paul’s metaphors were beliefs in slavery as only part of a continuum of domination––in essence, the Roman cultural understanding of auctoritas (mastery). This quintessentially Roman idiom of power distinguished true slavery from other forms of domination by requiring not just compliance to particular commands but total acceptance of the master’s will.112 This view of mastery emphasized patriarchy and personalized power. In such a system of personalized power, “the slave must carry out the master’s orders, put the master’s interest before his or her own, without compensation or consideration,

Martin, Slavery as Salvation, 63–68. Ibid., 60. 112  For Roman understanding of auctoritas, see McCarthy, Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority, 22–24; Karl Galinsky, Augustan Culture: An Interpretive Introduction (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 12–14. Cf. Gregory Rowe, “Reconsidering the Auctoritas of Augustus,” JRS 103 (2013): 1–15. 110  111 

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just because the slave is a slave.”113 When Paul exhorted Christians that slavery was the proper relationship of the believer to God, his words were embedded in this Roman cultural milieu. Paul’s words in 1 Cor 7:22–23 did not merely recommend subjection but signaled acceptance of an organic model of human existence for which subjugation was essential. How such language criticized the ideology of the social institution, or suggests some political program for abolition, is difficult to see. One wonders whether Paul’s words in Gal 3:28 translated into some program of political change. Did Paul mean that slave believers were no longer actual slaves in the understanding of the church? Were slaves in the congregations demanding equal rights as a result of this baptismal statement? There is no evidence of such. Nor is there any indication of any unrest or rebellion among slaves in the Pauline congregations. The important clue is 1 Cor 12:13, in which Paul drops the phrase “there is no longer male and female” of Gal 3:28. The change suggests that a conflict did exist over male and female roles in Corinth. But because Paul retains the phrase “slaves or free” in 1 Cor 12:13, it is difficult to prove the presence of any conflict between Christian masters and slaves at Corinth or elsewhere.114 We find, then, in the three main Pauline texts addressing actual slaves––1 Cor 7:21, Philemon, and Gal 3:28 (with 1 Cor 12:13)––no call for the end of legalized slavery, or even criticism of the institution itself, though the first passage seems to countenance slaves’ seeking their freedom when presented with the opportunity.115 The advice in 1 Cor 7:21 addresses the institutionalized practice of urban manumission, not emancipation or abolition. The Letter to Philemon asks a slaveholder for permission regarding his slave, thus operating within the Roman slave system. Galatians 3:28 speaks about the erasure of the slave–free distinction in a ritual moment, but not in society. In all three instances, Paul accepts the Roman institution of slavery as part of the actualities of daily life. Far from unique, his expressions are similar to those found in wider Roman culture.

Part III. Other Relevant Pauline and Paulinist Texts Metaphors of Slavery Paul’s self-designation as “slave of Christ.” Rom 1:1; Phil 1:1; Gal 1:10 (cf. 1 Cor 9:16–18). Paul’s self-designation as “slave of all” (rhetorical topos of a public servant or enslaved leader). 1 Cor 3:5; 9:19–23; 2 Cor 4:5. Believers exhorted to become “slaves of Christ” and/or “slaves of all.” Rom 12:11; 13:4; 14:4, 18; 1 Cor 7:22–23; Gal 5:13. McCarthy, Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority, 23. Osiek and Balch, Families in the New Testament World, 179. 115  Contrary to Peter Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 53–86. 113  114 



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Imagery of war captives paraded as slaves. 2 Cor 2:14 (cf. Col 2:15). Exhortation against servility. 2 Cor 11:20. Imagery of manumission, redemption. Rom 3:24; 6:6–23; 7:14; 8:12–23; Gal 3:13–14; 4:1–5:1 (cf. Eph 1:5; 2:19). Christ taking the form of a slave, an image of humiliation. Phil 2:6–11 (cf. 2 Cor 11:7). Imagery of Paul’s degraded (slave-like) body. 2 Cor 10:10; 11:23–29. Imagery of the ancient slave market and slave trading. 1 Cor 6:12–20; 7:23 (cf. 1 Tim 1:10). Exhortation against becoming a “slave of desire,” advising self-control. Rom 16:18; 1 Cor 9:24–27 (cf. Titus 2:3; 3:3; Eph 2:3).

Possible References to Actual Slaves or Freedpersons in Pauline Congregations Rom 16:10–11, 23 1 Cor 1:11, 16, 26; 16:17 (cf. 2 Tim 1:16; 4:19; Acts 16:15, 32–34; 18:8) Phil 4:22

Household Duty Codes for Slaves and Masters Eph 6:5–9 Col 3:22–4:1 1 Tim 6:1–2 (cf. 3:4–5, 12) Titus 2:9–10; cf. 1 Pet 2:18–25 Did. 4.10–11 Barn. 19.7

Part IV. Select Bibliography Classical Studies (including Ancient Judaism) Alston, Richard, Edith Hall, and Laura Proffitt, ed. Reading Ancient Slavery. London: Bristol Classical, 2011. Amiri, Bassir. “The Apollo of Slaves and Freedmen.” Pages 195–205 in Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. Anastasiadis, Vasilis I., and Panagiotis N. Doukellis, ed. Esclavage antique et discriminations socio-culturelles: Actes du XXVIIIe colloque international du Groupement international de recherche sur l’esclavage antique. Bern: Peter Lang, 2005. Andreau, Jean. “The Freedman.” Pages 175–98 in The Romans. Edited by Andrea Giardina. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

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Andreau, Jean, and Raymond Descat. The Slave in Greece and Rome. Translated by Marion Leopold. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011. Avila Vasconcelos, Beatriz. Bilder der Sklaverei in den “Metamorphosen” des Apuleius. Vertumnus 7. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009. Bell, Sinclair, and Teresa Ramsby, eds. Free at Last! The Impact of Freed Slaves on the Roman Empire. London: Bristol Classical, 2012. Bellen, Heinz, and Heinz Heinen, eds. Fünfzig Jahre Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei an der Mainzer Akademie, 1950–2000: Miscellanea zum Jubiläum. Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 35. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2001. [See the review by J. Albert Harrill, Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2002.07.30. bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2002/2002-07-30.html.] Bodel, John. “Caveat Emptor: Towards a Study of Roman Slave-Traders.” JRA 18 (2005): 181–95. ———“Slave Labour and Roman Society.” Pages 311–36 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Bosworth, A. B. “Vespasian and the Slave Trade.” CQ 52 (2002): 350–57. Bradley, Keith R. “Animalizing the Slave: The Truth of Fiction.” Pages 59–79 in Apuleius and Antonine Rome: Historical Essays. Phoenix Supplementary Vol. 1. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012. ———“Engaging with Slavery.” BibInt 21 (2013): 533–46. ———“Freedom and Slavery.” Pages 624–36 in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Studies. Edited by Alessandro Barchiesi and Walter Scheidel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. ———“Resisting Slavery at Rome.” Pages 362–84 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. ———“Slavery.” OCD 1415–17. ———Slavery and Rebellion in the Roman World. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. ———Slavery and Society at Rome. Key Themes in Ancient History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994. ———“Slavery in the Roman Republic.” Pages 241–64 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. ———Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Bradley, Keith, and Paul Cartledge, eds. The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Buckland, W. W. The Roman Law of Slavery: The Condition of the Slave in Private Law from Augustus to Justinian. 1908. Reprint. New York: AMS, 1969. duBois, Page. Slaves and Other Objects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Duff, A M. Freedmen in the Early Roman Empire. 2nd ed. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1958. Eck, Werner. “Sklaven und freigelassene von Römern in Iudeaea und den angrenzenden Provinzen.” NovT 55 (2013): 1–21. Edmondson, Jonathan. “Slavery and the Roman Family.” Pages 337–61 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.



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Edwards, Catherine. “Free Yourself! Slavery, Freedom and the Self in Seneca’s Letters.” Pages 139–59 in Seneca and the Self. Edited by Shadi Bartsch and David Wray. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Eidinow, Esther. “ ‘What Will Happen to Me If I Leave?’ Ancient Greek Oracles, Slaves and Slave Owners.” Pages 244–78 in Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. Finley, M. I. The Ancient Economy. Sather Classical Lectures 43. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985. ———Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology. Expanded ed. Edited by Brent D. Shaw. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1998. ———ed. Classical Slavery. Slavery and Abolition, special issue 8. London: Frank Cass, 1987. ———“Slavery.” Pages 307–13 in vol. 14 of International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Edited by David L. Sills. New York: Macmillan, 1968. ———ed. Slavery in Classical Antiquity: Views and Controversies. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, 1960. Fitzgerald, William. Slavery and the Roman Literary Imagination. Roman Literature and Its Contexts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Gabrielsen, Vincent. “Piracy and the Slave Trade.” Pages 389–404 in A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Edited by Andrew Erskine. The Blackwell Companion to the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003. Gardner, Jane F. “Slavery and Roman Law.” Pages 414–37 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Gardner, Jane, and Thomas Wiedemann, eds. Representing the Body of the Slave. Studies in Slave and Post-Slave Societies and Cultures. London: Frank Cass, 2002. Garland, Andrew. “Cicero’s Familia Urbana.” Greece and Rome 39 (1992): 163–72. Garnsey, Peter. Ideas of Slavery from Aristotle to Augustine. The W. B. Stanford Memorial Lectures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ———“Independent Freedmen and the Economy of Roman Italy under the Principate.” Klio 63 (1981): 359–71. George, Michele, ed. Roman Slavery and Roman Material Culture. Phoenix Supplementary Volumes 52. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. ———“Slavery and Roman Material Culture.” Pages 385–413 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Gibson, E. Leigh. The Jewish Manumission Inscriptions of the Bosporan Kingdom. TSAJ 75. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999. [See the review by Irina Levinskaya, JQR (2002): 507–20.] Glazebrook, Allison, and Madeleine M. Henry, eds. Greek Prostitutes in the Ancient Mediterranean, 800 BCE–200 CE. Wisconsin Studies in Classics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2011. Harper, Kyle. “Review Article: Knowledge, Ideology, and Skepticism in Ancient Slave Studies.” AJP 132 (2011): 160–68. ———Slavery in the Late Roman World, AD 275–425. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Harris, William V. “Demography, Geography, and the Sources of Roman Slaves.” Pages 88–109 in Rome’s Imperial Economy: Twelve Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. ———“Towards a Study of the Roman Slave Trade.” Pages 57–87 in Rome’s Imperial Economy: Twelve Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

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Hasegawa, Kinuko. The “familia urbana” During the Early Empire: A Study of Columbaria Inscriptions. BAR International Series 1440. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2005. Heath, Malcolm. “Aristotle on Natural Slavery.” Phronesis 53 (2008): 243–70. Heinen, Heinz, ed. Antike Sklaverei: Rückblick und Ausblick. Neue Beiträge zur Forschungs­ geschichte und zur Erschliessung der archäologischen Zeugnisse. Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 38. Edited by Andrea Binsfeld. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2010. ––––––––ed. Kindersklaven–Sklavenkinder: Schicksale zwischen Zuneigung und Ausbeutung in der Antike und im interkulturellen Vergleich. Forschungen zur antiken Sklaverei 39. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2012. Hezser, Catherine. Jewish Slavery in Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. ———“Der Loskauf von Sklaven und Kriegsgefangenen im antiken Judentum.” Pages 3–23 in Gefangenenloskauf im Mittelmeerraum: Ein interreligioeser Vergleich. Edited by Heike Grieser and Nicole Priesching. Sklaverei–Knechtschaft–Zwangsarbeit 13. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag. Hodkinson, Stephen, and Dick Geary, ed. Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. Hopkins, Keith. Conquerors and Slaves. Sociological Studies in Roman History 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978. ———“Novel Evidence for Roman Slavery.” Past and Present 138 (1993): 3–27. Hughes, Lisa A. “The Proclamation of Non-Defective Slaves and the Curule Aediles’ Edict: Some Epigraphic and Iconographic Evidence from Capua.” Ancient Society 36 (2006): 239–61. James, Sharon L. “Slave-Rape and Female Silence in Ovid’s Love Poetry.” Helios 24 (1997): 60–76. Jongman, Willem. “Slavery and the Growth of Rome: The Transformation of Italy in the Second and First Centuries BCE.” Pages 100–122 in Rome the Cosmopolis. Edited by Catharine Edwards and Greg Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Joshel, Sandra R. “Slavery and Roman Literary Culture.” Pages 214–40 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. ———Slavery in the Roman World. Cambridge Introduction to Roman Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Joshel, Sandra R., and Lauran Hackworth Petersen. The Material Life of Roman Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Kamen, Deborah. “Manumission, Social Rebirth, and Healing Gods in Ancient Greece.” Pages 174–94 in Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. Kenney, E. J. “In the Mill with Slaves: Lucius Looks Back in Gratitude.” TAPA 133 (2003): 159–92. Laes, Christian. “Child Slaves at Work in Roman Antiquity.” Ancient Society 38 (2008): 235–83. Lintott, Andrew. “Freedmen and Slaves in the Light of Legal Documents from First-Century A.D. Campania.” CQ 52 (2002): 555–65. Luraghi, Nino, and Susan E. Alcock, ed. Helots and Their Masters in Laconia and Messenia: Histories, Ideologies, Structures. Hellenic Studies 4. Cambridge, MA: Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University Press, 2003. Manning, C. E. “Stoicism and Slavery in the Roman Empire.” Pages 1518–43 in ANRW 2.36.3. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989.



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McCarthy, Kathleen “The Joker in the Pack: Slaves in Terence.” Ramus 33 (2004): 100–119. ———Slaves, Masters, and the Art of Authority in Plautine Comedy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000. McKeown, Niall. “Greek and Roman Slavery.” Pages 19–34 in The Routledge History of Slavery. Edited by Gad Heuman and Trevor Burnard. The Routledge Histories. London: Routledge, 2011. ———The Invention of Ancient Slavery? Duckworth Classical Essays. London: Duckworth, 2007. ———“Magic, Religion, and the Roman Slave: Resistance, Control and Community.” Pages 279–308 in Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. ———“Seeing Things: Examining the Body of the Slave in Greek Medicine.” Slavery and Abolition 23 (2002): 29–40. Morley, Neville. “Slavery under the Principate.” Pages 265–86 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Mouritsen, Henrik. “The Families of Roman Slaves and Freedmen.” Pages 129–44 in A Companion to Families in the Greek and Roman Worlds. Edited by Beryl Rawson. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. ———The Freedman in the Roman World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Murnaghan, Sheila, and Sandra R. Joshel, ed. Women and Slaves in Greco–Roman Culture: Differential Equations. London: Routledge, 1998. Neutel, Karin. “Slaves Included? Sexual Relations and Slave Participation in Two Ancient Religious Groups.” Pages 133–48 in Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. North, J. A. “The Ritual Activity of Roman Slaves.” Pages 67–93 in Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012. Pellegrin, Pierre. “Natural Slavery.” Pages 92–116 in The Cambridge Companion to Aristotle’s Politics. Edited by Marguerite Deslauriers and Pierre Destrée. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Perry, Matthew J. Gender, Manumission, and the Roman Freedwoman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pomeroy, Sarah B. Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity. New York: Schocken, 1975. Roth, Ulrike, ed. By the Sweat of Your Brow: Roman Slavery in Its Socio-Economic Setting. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 109. London: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2010. ———“Men Without Hope.” Papers of the British School in Rome 79 (2011): 71–91. ———Thinking Tools: Agricultural Slavery Between Evidence and Models. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 92. London: Institute of Classical Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2007. Ruffing, Kai, and Hans-Joachim Drexhage. “Antike Sklavenpreise.” Pages 321–51 in Antike Lebenswelten: Konstanz–Wandel–Wirkungsmacht: Festschrift für Ingomar Weiler zum 70. Geburtstag. Edited by Peter Mauitsch et al. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008. Sabnis, Sonia. “Lucian’s Lychnopolis and the Problems of Slave Surveillance.” AJP 132 (2011): 205–42.

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Saller, Richard P. “Family and Household.” Pages 855–74 in vol. 11 of The Cambridge Ancient History. 2nd ed. Edited by Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey, and Dominic Rathbone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Scheidel, Walter. “The Comparative Economics of Slavery in the Greco-Roman World.” Pages 105–26 in Slave Systems: Ancient and Modern. Edited by Enrico Dal Lago and Constantina Katsari. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ———“The Demography of Roman Slavery and Manumission.” Page 107–15 in La démographie historique antique. Edited by Martine Bellancourt-Valdher and Jean-Nicolas Corvisier. Arras: Artois presses université, 1999. ———“Frauen als Ware: Sklavinnen in der Wirtschaft der griechisch-römischen Welt.” Pages 143–80 in Frauenreichtum: Die Frau als Wirtschaftsfaktor im Altertum. Edited by Edith Specht. Vienna: Wiener Frauenverlag, 1994. ———“Human Mobility in Roman Italy, II: The Slave Population.” JRS 94 (2005): 64–79. ———“Quantifying the Sources of Slaves in the Early Roman Empire.” JRS 87 (1997): 156–69. ———“Real Slave Prices and the Relative Cost of Slave Labour in the Greco-Roman World.” Ancient Society 35 (2005): 1–17. ———“The Roman Slave Supply.” Pages 287–310 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. ———“The Slave Population of Roman Italy: Speculation and Constraints.” Topoi 9 (1999): 129–44. ———“Slavery.” Pages 89–113 in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy. Edited by Walter Scheidel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Schumacher, Leonhard. “Slaves in Roman Society.” Pages 589–608 in The Oxford Handbook of Social Relations. Edited by Michael Peachin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Shaw, Brent D. Spartacus and the Slave Wars: A Brief History with Documents. The Bedford Series in History and Culture. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2001. Silver, Morris. “Places for Self-Selling in Ulpian, Plautus and Horace: The Role of Vertumnus.” Mnemosyne 67 (2014): 577–87. Ste. Croix, G. E. M. de. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquest. 1981. Reprint with corrections. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989. Stewart, Roberta. Plautus and Roman Slavery. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012. Straus, Jean A. L’achat et la vente des esclaves dans l’Egypte romaine: Contribution papyrologique à l’étude de l’esclavage dans une province orientale de l’Empire Romain. Archiv für Papyrusforschung und verwandte Gebiete 14. Munich: K. G. Saur, 2004. Thébert, Yvon. “The Slave.” Pages 138–74 in The Romans. Edited by Andrea Giardina. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Thompson, F. Hugh. The Archaeology of Greek and Roman Slavery. London: Duckworth, 2003. Treggiari, Susan. Roman Freedmen during the Late Republic. Oxford: Clarendon, 1969. Urbainczyk, Theresa. Slave Revolts in Antiquity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. Vogt, Joseph. Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man. Translated by Thomas Wiedemann. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974. Watson, Alan. Roman Slave Law. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. Weaver, P. R. C. Familia Caesaris: A Social Study of the Emperor’s Freedmen and Slaves. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972.



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Weiler, Ingomar. “Über Sklavenhandel und Sklavenpreise in der Antike.” Pages 15–40 in Von Menschenhandel und Menschenpreisen: Wert und Bewertung von Menschen im Spiegel der Zeit. Edited by Andreas Exenberger and Josef Nussbaumer. Innsbruck: Innsbruck University Press, 2007. Weiss, Alexander. Sklave der Stadt: Untersuchungen zur öffentlichen Sklaverei in den Städten des römischen Reiches. Historia Einzelschriften 173. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 2004. Westermann, William L. The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society 40. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1955. [Must be read with the critical review by P. A. Brunt in JRS 48 (1958): 164–70.] Wiedemann, Thomas. Greek and Roman Slavery. London: Routledge, 1988. ———“The Regularity of Manumission at Rome.” CQ ns 35 (1985): 162–75. ———“Servi Senes: The Role of Old Slaves at Rome.” Polis 8 (1996): 275–93. ———“Slavery.” Pages 575–88 in vol. 1 of Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome. Edited by Michael Grant and Rachel Kitzinger. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1988. ———Slavery. Greece and Rome: New Surveys in the Classics 19. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987. Wrenhaven, Kelly L. Reconstructing the Slave: The Image of the Slave in Ancient Greece. London: Bristol Classical, 2012. Yavetz, Zvi. Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1988. Zelnick-Abramovitz, R. Not Wholly Free: The Concept of Manumission and the Status of Manumitted Slaves in the Ancient Greek World. Mnemosyne Suppl. 266. Leiden: Brill, 2005. ———“Slaves and Role Reversal in Ancient Greek Cults.” Pages 96–132 in Slaves and Religions in Graeco-Roman Antiquity and Modern Brazil. Edited by Stephen Hodkinson and Dick Geary. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012.

New Testament and Early Christian Studies Arzt-Grabner, Peter. “ ‘Bitten für’ oder ‘bitten um’?” Zur Problematik des Textvergleichs am Beispiel von Phlm 10.” PzB 13 (2004): 49–55. ———“The Case of Onesimos: An Interpretation of Paul’s Letter to Philemon Based on Documentary Papyri and Ostraca.” Annali di storia dell’esegesi 18 (2001): 589–614. ———“Gott als verlässlicher Käufer: Einige Papyrologische Anmerkungen und bibeltheo­ logische Schlussfolgerungen zum Gottesbild der Paulusbriefe.” NTS 57 (2011): 392–414. ———“How to Deal with Onesimus? Paul’s Solution within the Frame of Ancient Legal and Documentary Sources.” Pages 113–42 in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter. Edited by D. Francois Tolmie. BZNW 169. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. ———“ ‘Neither a Truant Nor a Fugitive’: Some Remarks on the Sale of Slaves in Roman Egypt and Other Provinces.” Pages 21–32 in Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Papyrology. Edited by Traianos Gagos. American Studies in Papyrology Special Edition. Ann Arbor: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2010. ———“Onesimus erro: Zur Vorgeschichte des Philemonbriefes.” ZNW 95 (2004): 131–43. ———Philemon. Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament 1. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. Balch, David L., and Carolyn Osiek, ed. Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. Barclay, John M. G. “Paul, Philemon, and the Dilemma of Christian Slave-Ownership.” NTS 37 (1991): 161–86.

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Bartchy, S. Scott. “Response to Keith Bradley’s Scholarship on Slavery.” BibInt 21 (2013): 524–32. ———“Slavery (Greco-Roman).” ABD 6:58–73. . , Brooten, Bernadette, ed. Beyond Slavery: Overcoming its Religious and Sexual Legacies. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. Bieberstein, Sabine. “Disrupting the Normal Reality of Slavery: A Feminist Reading of the Letter to Philemon.” JSNT 79 (2000): 105–16. Braxton, Brad R. No Longer Slaves: Galatians and African American Experience. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2002. ———The Tyranny of Resolution: 1 Corinthians 7:17–24. SBLDS 181. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000. Brookins, Timothy A. “ ‘I Rather Appeal to Auctoritas’: Roman Conceptualizations of Power and Paul’s Appeal in Philemon.” CBQ 77 (2015): 302–21. Brown, Michael J. “Paul’s Use of ΔΟΥΛΟΣ ΧΡΙΣΤΟΥ ΙΗΣΟΥ in Romans 1:1.” JBL 120 (2001): 723–37. Byron, John. Recent Research on Paul and Slavery. Recent Research in Biblical Studies 3. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2008. ———“Slave of Christ or Willing Servant? Paul’s Self-description in 1 Corinthians 4:1–2 and 9:16–18.” Neot 37 (2003): 179–98. ———“Slavery.” Oxford Biographies Online–Biblical Studies (2010). Online: www. oxfordbiographies.com. ———Slavery Metaphors in Early Judaism and Pauline Christianity. WUNT 2/162. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003. Caldwallader, Alan H. “Name Punning and Social Stereotyping: Re-inscribing Slavery in the Letter to Philemon.” ABR 61 (2013): 44–60. Callahan, Allen D., Richard A. Horsley, and Abraham Smith, ed. Slavery in Text and Interpretation. Semeia 83/84. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1998. Cotter, Wendy. “ ‘Welcome Him As You Would Welcome Me’ (Philemon 17): Does Paul Call for Virtue or the Actualization of a Vision?” Pages 185–207 in From Judaism to Christianity: Tradition and Transition. A Festschrift for Thomas H. Tobin, S.J., on the Occasion of His Sixty-Fifth Birthday. Edited by Patricia Walters. NovTSup 136. Leiden: Brill, 2010. De Vos, Craig S. “Once a Slave, Always a Slave? Slavery, Manumission and Relational Patterns in Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” JSNT 82 (2001): 89–105. De Wet, Chris L. Preaching Bondage: John Chrysostom and the Discourse of Slavery in Early Christianity. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. Deming, Will. “A Diatribe Pattern in 1 Cor 7:21–22: A New Perspective on Paul’s Directions to Slaves.” NovT 37 (1995): 130–37. Du Plessis, Isak J. “How Christians Can Survive in a Hostile Social-Economic Environment: Paul’s Mind Concerning Difficult Social Conditions in the Letter to Philemon.” Pages 387–413 in Identity, Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament. Edited by Jan G. van der Watt. BZNW 141. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006. Eastman, Susan G. “ ‘Cast Out the Slave Woman and Her Son’: The Dynamics of Exclusion and Inclusion in Galatians 4.30.” JSNT 28 (2006): 309–36. Elliott, Scott S. “ ‘Thanks, But No Thanks’: Tact, Persuasion, and the Negotiation of Power in Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” NTS 57 (2010): 51–64. Fitzgerald, John T. “The Stoics and the Early Christians on the Treatment of Slaves.” Pages 141–75 in Stoicism in Early Christianity. Edited by Tuomas Rasimus, Troels EngbergPedersen, and Ismo Dunderberg. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010.



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Frilingos, Chris. “ ‘For My Child, Onesimus’: Paul and Domestic Power in Philemon.” JBL 119 (2000): 91–104. Glancy, Jennifer A. “Christian Slavery in Late Antiquity.” Pages 63–79 in Human Bondage in the Cultural Contact Zone: Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Slavery and Its Discourses. Edited by Raphael Hoermann and Gesa Mackenthun. Cultural Encounters and the Discourses of Scholarship 2. Münster: Waxmann, 2010. ———Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. ———“Early Christianity, Slavery, and Women’s Bodies.” Pages 143–58 in Beyond Slavery: Overcoming its Religious and Sexual Legacies. Edited by Bernadette Brooten. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2010. ———“Response to Harrill.” BibInt 15 (2007): 222–24. ———“The Sexual Use of Slaves: A Response to Kyle Harper on Jewish and Christian Porneia.” JBL 134 (2015): 215–29. ———“Slavery and the Rise of Christianity.” Pages 456–81 in The Cambridge World History of Slavery. Vol. 1, The Ancient Mediterranean World. Edited by Keith Bradley and Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. ———Slavery as Moral Problem: In the Early Church and Today. Facets. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011. ———“Slavery, Historiography, and Theology.” BibInt 15 (2007: 200–211. ———Slavery in the Early Christianity. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Repr., Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Goodrich, John K. “From Slaves of Sin to Slaves of God: Reconsidering the Origin of Paul’s Slavery Metaphor in Romans 6.” BBR 23 (2013): 509–30. ———Paul as an Administrator of God in 1 Corinthians. SNTSMS 152. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Harrill, J. Albert. The Manumission of Slaves in Early Christianity. HUT 32. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1995. ———“The Metaphor of Slavery in the Writings of Tertullian.” StPatr 42 (2006): 385–90. ———“Paul and Empire: Studying Roman Identity after the Cultural Turn.” Early Christianity 2 (2011): 281–311. ———“Philemon, Letter to.” NIDB 4:497–99. ———“The Psychology of Slaves in the Gospel Parables: A Case Study in Social History.” BZ ns 55 (2011): 63–74. ———“Servile Functionaries or Priestly Leaders? Roman Domestic Religion, Narrative Intertextuality, and Pliny’s Reference to Slave Christian Ministrae (Ep. 10,96,8).” ZNW 97 (2006): 111–30. ———“The Slave Still Appears: A Historiographical Response to Jennifer Glancy.” BibInt 15 (2007): 212–21. ———“Slavery.” NIDB 5:299–308. ———“Slavery and Inhumanity: Keith Bradley’s Legacy on Slavery in New Testament Studies.” BibInt 21 (2013): 506–14. ———“Slavery and Society at Corinth: The Issues Facing Paul.” TBT 35 (1997): 287–93. ———Slaves in the New Testament: Literary, Social, and Moral Dimensions. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Horsley, Richard A. “Paul and Slavery: A Critical Alternative to Recent Readings.” Pages 153–200 in Slavery in Text and Interpretation. Edited by Allen D. Callahan, Richard A. Horsley, and Abraham Smith. Semeia 83/84. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1998.

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Johnson, Matthew V., James A. Noel, and Demetrius K. Williams, ed. Onesimus Our Brother: Reading Religion, Race, and Culture in Philemon. Paul in Critical Contexts. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012. Keddie, G. Anthony. “Paul’s Freedom and Moses’ Veil: Moral Freedom and the Mosaic Law in 2 Corinthians 3.1–4.6 in Light of Philo.” JSNT 37 (2015): 267–89. Kraus, Thomas J. “An Obligation from Contract Law in Philemon 19: Characteristic Style and Juridical Background.” Pages 207–30 in Ad fontes: Original Manuscripts and Their Significance for Studying Early Christianity: Selected Essays. Texts and Editions for New Testament Study 3. Leiden: Brill, 2007. Kyrtatas, Dimitris. The Social Structure of the Early Christian Communities. New York: Verso, 1987. Lampe, Peter. “Affects and Emotion in the Rhetoric of Paul’s Letter to Philemon: A RhetoricalPsychological Interpretation.” Pages 61–77 in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter. Edited by D. Francois Tolmie. BZNW 169. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. ———“Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ des Onesimus.” ZNW 76 (1985): 135–37. MacDonald, Margaret Y. “Beyond Identification of the Topos of Household Management: Reading the Household Codes in Light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of the New Testament.” NTS 57 (2011): 65–90. Marchal, Joseph. “The Usefulness of an Onesimus: The Sexual Use of Slaves and Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” JBL 130 (2011): 749–70. Martin, Dale B. “Slave Families and Slaves in Families.” Pages 207–30 in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Edited by David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. ———“Slavery and the Ancient Jewish Family.” Pages 113–29 in The Jewish Family in Antiquity. Edited by Shaye J. C. Cohen. BJS 289. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993. ———Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Murray, J. Harris. Slave of Christ: A New Testament Metaphor for Total Devotion to Christ. Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity, 2001. Nasrallah, Laura S. “ ‘You Were Bought with a Price’: Freedpersons and Things in 1 Corinthians.” Pages 54–73 in Corinth in Contrast: Studies in Inequality. Edited by Steven J. Friesen, Sarah James, and Daniel N. Schowalter. NovTSup 155. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Nicklas, Tobias. “The Letter to Philemon: A Discussion with J. Albert Harrill.” Pages 201–20 in Paul’s World. Edited by Stanley E. Porter. Pauline Studies 4. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Nordling, John G. “Some Matters Favouring the Runaway Slave Hypothesis in Philemon.” Neot 44 (2010): 85–121. Osiek, Carolyn. “Female Slaves, Porneia, and the Limits of Obedience.” Pages 255–74 in Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Edited by David L. Balch and Carolyn Osiek. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003. Osiek, Carolyn, and David L. Balch. Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches. The Family, Religion, and Culture. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997. Pereira Delgado, Alvaro. De apostol a esclavo: El exemplum de Pablo en 1 Corintios 9. Analecta biblica 182. Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2010 Petersen, Norman. Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul’s Narrative World. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985. Powery, Emerson, B., ed. “Roman Slavery and the New Testament: Engaging the Work of Keith Bradley.” Special Forum, BibInt 21 (2013): 495–546.



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Punt, Jeremy. “Pauline Brotherhood, Gender and Slaves: Fragile Fraternity in Galatians.” Neot 47 (2013): 149–69. Roth, Ulrike. “Paul, Philemon, and Onesimus: A Christian Design for Mastery.” ZNW 105 (2014): 102–30. Snyman, Andries H. “Persuasion in Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” Acta Patristica et Byzantina 20 (2009): 178–93. Still, Todd D. “Pauline Theology and Ancient Slavery: Does the Former Support or Subvert the Latter?” HBT 27 (2005): 21–34. Tolmie, D. Francois, ed. Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter. BZNW 169. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. Tsang, Sam. From Slaves to Sons: A New Rhetorical Analysis of Paul’s Slave Metaphors in His Letter to the Galatians. Studies in Biblical Literature 81. New York: Peter Lang, 2005. Wansink, Craig S. Chained in Christ: The Experience and Rhetoric of Paul’s Imprisonments. JSNTSup 130. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1996. Wendland, Ernest. “ ‘You Will Do Even More Than I Say’: On the Rhetorical Function of Stylistic Form in the Letter to Philemon.” Pages 79–111 in Philemon in Perspective: Interpreting a Pauline Letter. Edited by D. Francois Tolmie. BZNW 169. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. Winter, Sarah B. C. “Paul’s Letter to Philemon.” NTS 33 (1987): 1–15. ———“Philemon and the Patriarchal Paul.” Pages 122–36 in A Feminist Companion to Paul. Edited by Amy-Jill Levine. FCNTECW 6. London: T&T Clark International, 2004.

Chapter 27

Paul and Social Memory Rafael Rodríguez

Since the publication of the first edition of Paul in the Greco-Roman World in 2003, biblical scholarship has turned to memory studies—and particularly social and/or collective memory studies—to investigate the texts at the heart of our disciplines. Historical Jesus and Gospels scholarship (my specialty) has seen an explosion of studies employing social memory studies.1 Pauline studies, however, has not taken significant notice of social memory. Besides essays scattered across multiple journals and edited volumes, I am aware of only one book-length study of Paul and social memory: Benjamin White’s Remembering Paul.2 White focuses his attention on the memory of Paul (that is, Paul as a remembered—or traditioned—figure) in the latesecond century CE. The present essay, in contrast, highlights the function of memory in Paul’s letters.

1  See Chris Keith, “Social Memory Theory and Gospels Research: The First Decade,” Early Christianity 6 (2015): 354–76, 517–42. For critiques of the rise of memory studies in Jesus research, see Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, Jesus and the Historians, WUNT 269 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 13–32, as well as the chapter titled “Memory” (pp. 189–223). See also Birger Gerhardsson, “The Secret of the Transmission of the Unwritten Jesus Tradition,” NTS 51 (2005): 1–18; and Paul Foster, “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: Three Dead-Ends in Historical Jesus Research,” JSHJ 10 (2012): 193–202. 2  Benjamin L. White, Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests over the Image of the Apostle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014); see also Georgia Masters Keightley, “The Church’s Memory of Jesus: A Social Science Analysis of 1 Thessalonians,” BTB 17 (1987): 149–56; eadem, “Christian Collective Memory and Paul’s Knowledge of Jesus,” in Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity, ed. Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher, SemeiaSt 52 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005), 129–50; Philip F. Esler, “Paul’s Contestation of Israel’s (Ethnic) Memory of Abraham in Galatians 3,” BTB 36 (2006): 23–34; Stephen C. Barton, “Memory and Remembrance in Paul,” in Memory in the Bible and Antiquity: The Fifth Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium, ed. Stephen C. Barton, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, and Benjamin G. Wold, WUNT 212 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 321–39; Dennis C. Duling, “Social Memory and Commemoration of the Death of ‘the Lord’: Paul’s Response to the Lord’s Supper Factions at Corinth,” in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz, ed. Tom Thatcher, SemeiaSt 78 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014), 289–310. See also Peter-Ben Smit, “St. Thecla: Remembering Paul and Being Remembered Through Paul,” VC 68 (2014): 551–63 (my thanks to Ben White for bringing Smit’s article to my attention).



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Part I. Social Memory Theory French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs (1877–1945) is frequently described as the “pioneer” or “founder”—even as the “godfather”—of social memory theory,3 though Schwartz and Schuman explain that Halbwachs’s discussions of les cadres sociaux de la mémoire and la mémoire collective “did not cause the great current of collective memory research beginning in the 1980s; they were swept into it.”4 Halbwachs noted that individuals remember within the social frameworks (les cadres sociaux) of the groups to which they belonged. Ricoeur helpfully summarizes Halbwachs: “The text basically says: to remember, we need others. It adds: not only is the type of memory we possess not derivable in any fashion from experience in the first person singular, in fact the order of derivation is the other way around.”5 Halbwachs is emphatic at this point: “No memory is possible outside frameworks used by people living in society to determine and retrieve their recollections.”6 Despite the common-sensical suspicion that “groups and cultures do not remember and recall, individuals do,”7 Halbwachs (a student of Durkheim) insisted that individuals never remember qua individuals but rather always in relation to others. Halbwachs presses this thesis to the extreme and makes the individual derivative of her social context and relations: “if we examine a little more closely how we recollect things, we will surely realize that the greatest number of memories come back to us when our parents, our friends, or other persons recall them to us.”8 The reader could be excused for suspecting that individuals are more prone to remember others’ memories on their behalf than to recall their own memories (whatever we might think this latter term refers to).9 In his introduction to the related discussion of social identity, Barry Schwartz and Howard Schuman (“History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945–2001,” ASR 70 [2005]: 183) describe Halbwachs’s work as “pioneering” and explain, “Maurice Halbwachs founded the field of collective memory.” Michael Thate (Remembrance of Things Past? Albert Schweitzer, the Anxiety of Influence, and the Untidy Jesus of Markan Memory, WUNT 2/351 [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013], 190) calls him “the ‘godfather’ of modern critical memory theory,” citing Gabriel Moshenska, “Working with Memory in the Archaeology of Modern Conflict,” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20 (2010): 34. 4  Schwartz and Schuman, “History, Commemoration, and Belief,” 183–84; see also Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, trans. Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 120. For a biographical discussion and a survey of Halbwachs’s work, see Lewis Coser’s Introduction, in Maurice Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, trans. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 1–34. 5  Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 120. 6  Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 43. 7  Samuel Byrskog, Story as History—History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History, WUNT 123 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 255; original in italics. See also Jeffrey K. Olick, “From Collective Memory to the Sociology of Mnemonic Practices and Products,” in A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, ed. Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, and Sara B. Young (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010), 151–61. 8  Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, 38. 9  See also Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting, 122. 3 

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Richard Jenkins draws attention to and criticizes “the assumption that individual identity and collective identity are qualitatively, if not utterly, different.”10 Jenkins calls the distinction of the individual-personal from the social-cultural “neither stupid nor necessarily problematic,” but he goes on to note that, more than simply being distinguished from one another, one is often “assumed to be more important—if not actually more ‘real’—than the other. The greater is also often assumed, even if only in the last instance, to determine the lesser.”11 Samuel Byrskog’s objection, quoted above, that “groups and cultures do not remember and recall, individuals do,” reifies the individual as a concrete entity and privileges her over the more abstract group or society.12 Halbwachs, on the other hand, reifies society and privileges social frameworks over the more precarious individual. To remedy the excesses of both positions, Jenkins likens rather than differentiates individual and collective dynamics of identity: [T]he individually unique and the collectively shared can be understood as similar (if not exactly the same) in important respects; that each is routinely related to—or, better perhaps, entangled with—the other; that the processes by which they are produced, reproduced and changed are analogous; and that both are intrinsically social. The theorisation of social identity must include each in equal measure.13

If the social order does not exist without individuals populating that order, neither do individual selves exist apart from the social order that animates and contextualizes their interactions. The individual and the collective are mutually constitutive.14

The Obdurate Past: Memory as a Cultural System Though Halbwachs has been taken up across the Humanities, no one has done more to critique and extend his work from within the Durkeimian tradition than Barry Schwartz.15 Schwartz’s critique of Halbwachs has focused on the latter’s “presentism,” Richard Jenkins, Social Identity, Key Ideas (London: Routledge, 1996), 14. Ibid., 15. 12  Richard Bauckham (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006]) commits the same error despite repeated references to memory’s “intersubjectivity.” 13  Jenkins, Social Identity, 19–20. 14  See Jeffrey K. Olick, “Collective Memory: The Two Cultures,” Sociological Theory 17 (1999): 333–48; see also my discussion of “collective and individual influences on memory,” in Rafael Rodríguez, Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text, European Studies on Christian Origins, LNTS 407 (London: T&T Clark International, 2010), 42–47. For the significance of collective in “collective memory,” see Barry Schwartz, “Reexamining Conflict and Collective Memory— The Nanking Massacre,” in The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology, ed. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ronald N. Jacobs, and Philip Smith, Oxford Handbooks (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 529. 15  Schwartz’s most significant work focuses on Abraham Lincoln (see Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000]; idem, Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009]). Schwartz has also addressed SBL Annual Meetings in 2003, 2010, and 2015 and contributed two essays to Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher’s introduction of social memory theory to NT scholarship: see Barry Schwartz, “Christian Origins: Historical Truth and Social Memory,” in Kirk and Thatcher, eds., Memory, Tradition, and Text, 43–56, and, in the same volume, “Jesus in First-Century Memory—A Response,” 249–61. See also the collection of essays that apply Schwartz’s work on memory 10  11 



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that is, his programmatic collapsing of the past into the problems and interests of the present. For example, “Halbwachs’s accounts of the Christian memory of Jesus are stunning because they violate common sense, making the past a hallucination pressed to the service of individual faith and social solidarity. But violations of common sense, although refreshing and stimulating, are often wrong.”16 Schwartz warns of presentist (or constructionist) distortions endemic among social memory theorists: “These distortions result from a cynical ‘constructionist’ project rooted in the valuable idea of memory being assembled from parts, but fixated on the circular assumption that constructed products are not what they seem precisely because they are constructed.”17 The past, Schwartz insists, is not reducible to a screen against which present concerns can be projected and magnified. But he goes further; he insists that the past does more than provide (real?) raw materials for constructing present concerns and making them meaningful. “[T]he reality of events is a primary determinant of what we remember.”18 We cannot overestimate the importance of this conviction for Schwartz’s work. The past is more than a playground in which the present plays its games; the past is constitutive of the very present that seeks to know something about the past. Schwartz adapts Clifford Geertz’s semiotic analysis of culture and applies it to “memory as a cultural system.”19 Memory, like culture, “is public”; moreover, memory “is public because meaning is.”20 Schwartz matches the past to the present as a double model: the past is a model of as well as a model for the present. This matching Schwartz calls “keying,” which “transforms memory into a cultural system because it matches publicly accessible (i.e., symbolic) models of the past…to the experiences of the present… Keying is communicative movement—talk, writing, image- and musicmaking—that connects otherwise separate realms of history.”21 Keying provides the mechanism by which the past constitutes the very present that turns back on itself to understand what has come before (and to extrapolate what might lie ahead): The past is matched to the present as a model of society and a model for society. As a model of society, collective memory reflects past events in terms of the needs, interests, fears, and aspirations of the present. As a model for society, collective memory performs two functions: it embodies a template that organizes and animates behavior and a frame within which people locate and find meaning for their present experience. Collective memory affects social reality by reflecting, shaping, and framing it.22 (Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz, ed. Tom Thatcher, SemeiaSt 78 [Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014]). 16  Barry Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Memory and History,” in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 19. 17  Schwartz, “Christian Origins,” 43–44. He continues: “No assumption, in my view, has done more to undermine the foundation of social memory scholarship or hinder its application to biblical studies.” 18  Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke,” 20. The original reads, “Whether the reality of events is a primary determinant of what we remember or mere building material for what present situations require makes a difference.” Schwartz prefers the former. 19  See Barry Schwartz, “Memory as a Cultural System: Abraham Lincoln in World War II,” American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 908–27; idem, Forge of National Memory, 17–20. 20  Clifford Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic, 1973), 10, 12. 21  Schwartz, Forge of National Memory, 226; see also idem, Post-Heroic Era, 61. 22  Schwartz, Forge of National Memory, 18; italics in the original. See also Schwartz’s slightly different formulation of this model in idem, “Where There’s Smoke,” 16.

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The constituting force of keying acts objectively (that is, externally, from the outside) on social actors whose actions produce, embrace, transmit, endorse, or challenge images of the past. Actors are indeed responsible for shifting images of the past; “history, sacred and secular alike, is malleable and constantly reinterpreted.”23 Even shifting images, however, maintain a continuity with previous images that allows a group to maintain its sense of connectedness with the past: “these variations would not be noticeable if not superimposed upon a stable essence that makes events and individuals recognizable across generations.”24 This stable essence is fundamentally related to the reality of the past and is not subject to the constructive work of memory’s ideological dynamics: “interpretation is more often forced upon the observer of an event by its inherent quality than imposed by the observer’s worldview and interests. Put another way, reality counts more than bias in the remembering of most events most of the time.”25 In none of this does Schwartz suggest that knowledge of the past as past is ever straightforward or simply a matter of recalling “what actually happened.” Rather, in a research environment that prizes exposing “the sins of memory,”26 Schwartz sets out to identify (and correct!) the “excessive, sometimes pathological and often paralyzing cynicism” of memory research.27 Over a quarter-century ago, Michael Schudson stressed the obvious point that “[t]here are features of our pasts that become part of the givens of our lives, whether they are convenient or not.”28 Like scars on our skin, “inconvenient features” of the past are not reducible to ideological interests in the present; they require discursive management, whether to be explained or to be explained away. Schudson drew attention to the way that the inherited past (Schudson would say “available past”) limited the rhetorical and ideological options available to those wrestling to make sense of the past:29 “Given that people can choose only from the available past and that the available past is limited, are individuals free to choose as they wish? Far from it. There are a variety of ways in which the freedom to choose is constrained.”30 Schudson discussed this “variety of ways” under four headings: trauma, vicarious

Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke,” 20. Ibid. 25  Ibid., 20–21; italics in the original. 26  Dale Allison (Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010], 2), refers to memory’s “many sins”; note also the title of Daniel Schacter’s book, The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers (Boston: Mariner, 2002). 27  Schwartz, “Where There’s Smoke,” 22; see also idem, Forge of National Memory, 25; citing Michael Schudson, “The Present in the Past versus the Past in the Present,” Communication 11 [1989]: 113): “Political structures shape our understanding of the past, observes Michael Schudson; ‘[b]ut this is half the truth, at best, and a particularly cynical half-truth, at that.’ ” 28  Schudson, “Present in the Past,” 108. 29  Barry Schwartz echoes Schudson’s model, anchoring both the past’s reconstruction and its retention in the remembering present, in his essay, “Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington,” American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 234. Nachman Ben-Yehuda (Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel [Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995]) endorses Schwartz’s model in his discussion of “mythmaking in Israel.” 30  Schudson, “Present in the Past,” 109. 23  24 



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trauma, channel, and commitment.31 In each of these, “[t]he past becomes part of us; and shapes us, it influences our consciousness, whether we like it or not.”32 Moreover, the past does not simply “become part of us” as a series of discrete events. Patterns of behavior, or habits, become engrained within individual as well as social norms of conduct, so that the way we act in the present is, often, dependent upon how we have acted in the past. Again, Schudson: “There are some facets of the past we cannot ignore because we do not have enough energy to escape their inertial pull.”33 Alternatively, and relatedly, individuals and groups develop emotional and/or moral attachments to the past: “There are some facets of the past we cannot ignore or forget without feeling the loss of some part of ourselves… A person comes to have a commitment in him or her self—in what is called identity or character or, with a more social aspect emphasized, reputation.”34 Actors in the present, in other words, while always free to alter behavior and/or reconfigure their image of the past, experience established patterns of behavior and/or images of the past as in various ways parts of their identity in the present. Changes to such patterns or images, therefore, become rather more momentous than simply following the whims of new ideological interests; “commitments and loyalties become a part of the person’s or organization’s identity. Abandoning these commitments would be transforming the self.”35 The weight of the past upon the present, however, is not rooted solely in psychological or social factors. The very same political dynamics that attend to every act of remembering the past (see the next sub-section) also constrain the extent to which ideological forces are able to upend and replace established images of the past. “Different reconstructions clash. Control over the past is disputed and the past becomes contested terrain.”36 Individuals and groups competing to propose and sanction images of the past have to convince their audiences of the veracity of their proposals. In other words, while anyone can produce any image of the past they might wish, historians have also to account for how images are received (or, alternatively, rejected). We cannot subscribe to what Schwartz calls “a supply-side theory that attends to the production of images but ignores their reception.”37 While anyone can propose a revisionist image of the past, getting the wider public to embrace that revisionist image is another matter entirely.38 The interpretation of history is pathdependent: “each human event is a step in a sequence, a node in a branching tree of

See ibid., 109–12. Ibid., 110. 33  Ibid., 111. 34  Ibid. 35  Ibid., 112; my emphasis. 36  Ibid. 37  Schwartz, Forge of National Memory, 255; Schwartz continues: “Reception, however, is always problematic.” 38  See Howard Schuman, Barry Schwartz, and Hannah d’Arcy, “Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs: Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain?,” Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (2005): 2–29, who first describe traditional and revisionist images of Christopher Columbus and then measure the popular distribution of those images according to national surveys of Americans as well as school history textbooks and mass media (newspapers, television, etc.) in the late 1990s. 31  32 

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events that permits only so many next steps and thereby precludes untold numbers of others.”39 Radical breaks and unexpected events within the “sequence” or “branching tree” of history may be possible; radical breaks and unexpected events are not, however, the norm, and even when they occur they are not usually completely radical or unexpected.40

The Malleable Past: The Politics of Memory Schwartz regularly differentiates “the politics of memory,” as an analytical perspective, from “memory as a cultural system” (see the previous sub-section).41 The former, which Schwartz identifies as dominant among the literature, “sees the past as a social construction shaped by the concerns and needs of the present.”42 The politics of memory highlights the dynamics, distribution, and interactions of power structures in its analyses of images and commemorations of the past. In a culture “where the minorities and the powerless enjoy more dignity and rights than ever before,” the politics of memory offers utile theoretical concepts and bears compelling explanatory force for the shifting images of the past.43 Precisely because of its theoretical utility and explanatory power, however, Schwartz offers qualifications to the politics of memory, stressing that this approach “leads to an atemporal concept of collective memory, one that makes the past precarious, its contents hostage to the political conditions of the present.”44 Such atemporalism “produces little understanding of collective memory as such—only of its causes and consequences. How the past is symbolized and how it functions as a mediator of meaning are questions that go to the heart of collective memory, but they have been skirted.”45 Schwartz turns to memory as a cultural system (discussed above) in order to raise questions directly of remembrance of the past rather than to focus merely on shifting images of the past through time. (The present essay intentionally discusses “memory as a cultural system” before “the politics of memory” in order to counter—in whatever small way—the institutional bias toward the latter.)

39  Michael Schudson, Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct The Past (New York: Basic, 1993), 2. 40  For a re-appraisal of the “radical” and/or “unexpected” nature of Paul’s purported “break” with Judaism, see the essays in Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm, eds., Paul within Judaism: Restoring the FirstCentury Context to the Apostle (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). 41  See the sub-section, “Two Theories of Collective Memory” (Schwartz, Forge of National Memory, 13–20), which itself forms part of a chapter titled, “Two Faces of Collective Memory.” This differentiation was already programmatic for Schwartz’s work in 1991 (see idem, “Social Change and Collective Memory”; Ben-Yehuda, Masada Myth, 271–306). 42  Schwartz, “Social Change and Collective Memory,” 221. Alan Kirk (“Social and Cultural Memory,” in Kirk and Thatcher, eds., Memory, Tradition, and Text, 13) notes, “the radical constructionist approach at times seems less argued for than it is taken as an axiomatic point of departure.” 43  Schwartz, Forge of National Memory, 14. 44  Ibid., 16. 45  Ibid., 17. Similarly, see Rafael Rodríguez, “ ‘According to the Scriptures’: Suffering and the Psalms in the Speeches in Acts,” in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, 241–62.



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The politics of memory shifts attention away from questions about what actually happened and focuses instead on the contestation over the right and authority to represent the past and to determine the lessons to be drawn from it. Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone draw attention to the “emphasis on memory as process,” which emphasis highlights memory’s “motivation and meaning.”46 Schwartz acknowledges, “[s]erving political interest is one of commemoration’s functions… Considering the commemoration of Lincoln as a symbol of political order makes the ups and downs of his reputation easier to understand.”47 Establishing and promoting images of the past requires capital investments, both cultural and financial; “reputational entrepreneurs” who speak for historical events and figures often—but not always—represent “official” or “hegemonic” social forces.48 Schwartz distinguishes entrepreneurial efforts that serve narrow self-interests from those that serve wider social concerns: Reputational entrepreneurs sometimes make this connection [between national identity and national memory] with a view to promoting and protecting their own interests; sometimes, with a view to promoting and protecting the interests of society at large. The consequence differs. An audience manipulated into associating its interests with a particular conception of the past will withdraw its commitment as soon as the manipulation ends; but if entrepreneurs and their audience share the same values, then reputational enterprise will sustain rather than create collective memory.49

Analytical emphases on social conflict and the interaction of political interests too frequently assume opposition as the fundamental social condition, “dismissing the possibility of image-makers embracing the same values and goals as their audience and invoking shared symbols to articulate rather than manipulate its sentiment.”50 This assumption finds programmatic force, for example, in Hodgkin and Radstone’s approach to memory “as a tool with which to contest ‘official’ versions of the past” and their emphasis on “the question around the many ways in which conflict and contest can emerge.”51 Memory studies have not only simplified concepts of power and conflict; they often conflate a variety of processes under the often ill-defined concept of memory. Jeffrey Olick largely agrees “that collective memory over-totalizes a variety of retrospective products, practices, and processes,” and he responds by configuring collective memory “as a sensitizing rather than operational concept” that “raises useful questions.”52

46  Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, “Introduction: Contested Pasts,” in Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory, ed. Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, Routledge Studies in Memory and Narrative (London: Routledge, 2003), 4. Similarly, see Erik Meyer, “Memory and Politics,” in Erll, Nünning, and Young, eds., A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies, 176. 47  Schwartz, Forge of National Memory, 294–95. 48  Schwartz (Forge of National Memory) regularly refers to “reputational entrepreneurs”; the term comes from Gary Alan Fine, Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001), and idem, Sticky Reputations: The Politics of Collective Memory in Midcentury America (New York: Routledge, 2011). 49  Schwartz, Forge of National Memory, 295. 50  Ibid., 255. 51  Hodgkin and Radstone, “Introduction,” 5. 52  Olick, “From Collective Memory,” 152.

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Olick offers three principles to assist in acknowledging the political dynamics of memory practices without reducing memory or the past to ideological constructions in the present.53 First, we can no longer refer to “the collective memory of an entire society” or claim to describe an entire epochal or cultural perception of the past as a monolith. “Collective memory is a highly complex process, involving numerous different people, practices, materials, and themes.” Second, we must view memory as “a fluid negotiation between the desires of the present and the legacies of the past.” When we speak of memory, we are referring to neither “the authentic residue of the past” nor “an entirely malleable construction in the present.” Third—and this will echo the first two principles—“memory is a process and not a thing, a faculty rather than a place.”54 As process, memory refers to the representation and commemoration of the past in interactions between individuals and groups, and our analyses must account for memory-as-interaction. Conflict, however, is not the only mode of social interaction, and the politics of memory, as Schwartz reminded us earlier, will need to differentiate whether official images of the past express wider or narrower ideological interests. Meyer, following Halbwachs, might be correct that “remembrance of the past is impossible without current interests,”55 but we should also recognize that current interests are themselves constituted by and perceived with reference to established images of the past. With these qualifications in mind, we ought nevertheless to recognize that different groups remember the past differently, and they compete for the privilege of defining the past’s images and lessons. The past offers very powerful resources for defining identity in the present and orientation toward the future. Alan Kirk rightly notes, “[t]he past is appropriated to legitimize particular sociopolitical goals and ideologies and to mobilize action in accord with these goals.”56 The politics of memory becomes especially visible in the selection, arrangement, and interpretation of historical events and figures. The obvious fact is that history—in the sense of the raw, uninterpreted flow of events—comprises more information (events, figures, etc.) than any historical narrative can include. To speak of the past necessarily means to narrate some things and to omit others, to mention some figures and to ignore others. The decisions— conscious or otherwise—about what and whom to include and exclude are inherently ideological, as evidenced both in traditional American history textbooks that emphasize the role of social elites (especially white males) and their contemporary counterparts that intentionally feature contributions of ethnic and religious minorities and women. Historical narratives and images only ever present a partial reality; they cannot present reality in toto. The “truth,” therefore, of every historical narrative is only partial truth, and an alternative selection of facts and narrative emplotments could conceivably

Ibid., 158–59; the rest of this paragraph quotes p. 159. In 2004, Jeffrey Olick addressed the Social Scientific Criticism of the New Testament section at the SBL Annual Meeting. His paper, later published as “Products, Processes, and Practices: A Non-Reificatory Approach to Collective Memory,” BTB 36 (2006): 5–14, similarly argued for “a ‘practice’ approach to collective memory.” 55  Meyer, “Memory and Politics,” 177. 56  Kirk, “Social and Cultural Memory,” 12. 53  54 



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legitimize different sociopolitical goals and ideologies and mobilize different action toward those goals.57 Selection and emplotment, however, are not the only means of bending the past to the will of the present. Nachman Ben-Yehuda identifies three empirical patterns of distorting history for present interests: (i) the omission of inconvenient facts, (ii) the exaggeration or manipulation of useful details, and (iii) the wholesale invention/ fabrication of details.58 In general terms, these discontinuities cohere with Schwartz’s synthetic model of collective memory: “As each generation modifies the beliefs presented by previous generations, there remains an assemblage of old beliefs coexisting with the new, including old beliefs about the past itself.”59 The past is reconstructed in the present, yes; but the past is also retained in the present because the remembering present is itself constituted by the past it seeks to remember. We have only begun to scratch the surface of social memory studies; we have not even mentioned a number of central issues in the study of memory that could richly inform Pauline studies, including, among others, commemorative rituals, tradition, communicative media, and social structures. Our focus on the dialectical, mutually constitutive relationship between past and present has, I think, introduced the foundational issue in social memory studies, which scholars can then work out in other areas.

Part II. The Ethnic Past in the Present of Paul’s Gentile Communities The entanglement of past and present in Paul presents especially complicated challenges. While we could turn to a number of difficult issues in the Pauline corpus (the interpretation/use of Scripture, the interpretation/use of Jesus tradition, Paul and Judaism/Torah, and so on), we will examine Paul’s approach to the conversion of Gentiles, the transformation of their ethnic identity from former (ποτέ, pote) Gentiles to descendants (σπέρμα, sperma) of Abraham. Already, we find ourselves at a disadvantage when we go looking for Paul’s approach to conversion. As historians and commentators, we have inherited a strong tradition of dichotomizing Paul and his Jewish identity. Even when we have recognized that Paul was and remained a Jew, we often continue to dichotomize Paul’s Gentile communities and Jewish identity. Paul emphatically denies that his Gentile readers should “become Jews,” especially by submitting to circumcision, and he positively bristles at any suggestion to the contrary. In this vein, references to Paul’s “law-free gospel,” which are common enough in the literature, implicitly at least suggest that Paul summons his Gentile audiences around the eastern Mediterranean (and in Rome) with a message that stands at fundamental 57  Ben-Yehuda, Masada Myth, 276. Ben-Yehuda briefly discusses the issue of “historical sequencing” (viz. the emplotment of history as narrative) on pp. 277–79. 58  See ibid., 299–301. 59  Schwartz, “Social Change and Collective Memory,” 234.

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odds with the laws, customs, and/or traditions of the Jewish people. Love Sechrest has recently engaged a survey of race and ethnicity—primarily as evidenced in the use of the Greek words for “nation” (ἔθνος, ethnos) and “race/kind” (γένος, genos)—in Jewish and non-Jewish authors in the first centuries BCE and CE, arguing that Paul no longer thinks of ethnic Jews who follow Jesus as still being “Jews.”60 If Jewish followers of Jesus no longer count, in Paul’s mind, as Jews, Paul’s Gentile converts certainly do not. Joshua Garroway, on the other hand, has recently argued, “GentileChristians of the first century should in fact be considered Jews, at least to some extent.”61 This last caveat, of course, gets tricky quickly. Social memory theory provides a useful set of resources to help illumine the ethnic dynamics of Paul’s message.62 In his discussion of identity in Romans,63 Christopher Zoccali concludes: “the community of righteous ones necessarily consists of both Jews qua Jews and gentiles qua gentiles, who thereby share Abraham as father and exemplar of group identity.”64 He calls this identity (i.e. “descendants of Abraham”) a “superordinate group” identity, which Paul defines in terms of Abraham’s πίστις, pistis, his “faithful response to God’s promise and the fulfilment of this promise found in the multi-ethnic Christ community.”65 As a superordinate identity, descent from Abraham “promote[s] a ‘common ingroup identity’…while simultaneously maintaining the salience of subgroup identities.”66 The “subgroup identities” in question, of course, are “Jew” and “Gentile.” Paul maintains a basic ethnic distinction between Jews and non-Jews even as he grafts the latter into Abraham’s family tree, fusing them into one.67

See Love L. Sechrest, A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race, LNTS 410 (London: T&T Clark International, 2010), 150–51. 61  Joshua D. Garroway, Paul’s Gentile-Jews: Neither Jew Nor Gentile, But Both (New York: Palgrave, 2012), 1. 62  Pace Orrey McFarland (“Whose Abraham, Which Promise? Genesis 15.6 in Philo’s De Virtutibus and Romans 4,” JSNT 35 [2012]: 108), who thinks Paul sees Abraham “as the first of a non-ethnically determined group” (my emphasis). Caroline Johnson Hodge (If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007]) has shown how Paul’s discourse creates rather than erases ethnic ties. 63  The processes of social memory and social identity, as subsets within the larger problem of the sociology of knowledge, are mutually entangled and can be brought to bear on one another (see, e.g., our earlier references to Richard Jenkins’s work on social identity). For the application of social memory and identity theories to a biblical text, see Coleman A. Baker, Identity, Memory, and Narrative in Early Christianity: Peter, Paul, and Recategorization in the Book of Acts (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011). 64  Christopher Zoccali, “Children of Abraham, the Restoration of Israel and the Eschatological Pilgrimage of the Nations: What Does It Mean for ‘In Christ’ Identity?,” in T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament, ed. J. Brian Tucker and Coleman A. Baker (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 270; my emphasis. 65  Ibid., 270–71. 66  Ibid., 258; citing Philip F. Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 143–44. 67  Garroway, Gentile-Jews, 109–13, nicely expresses both the similarities (= fusion) and the differences (= distinction) between the circumcision of ethnic Jewish Christ-followers and the “circumcision” of Paul’s “Gentile-Jews.” 60 



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Zoccali, unfortunately, does not raise the question how Paul grafts non-Jews into Abraham’s family, apart from the general and undefined principle of pistis and, somehow, being ἐκ πίστεως Ἀβραάμ, ek pisteōs Abraam (Rom 4:16). Being ek pisteōs Abraam had at one point meant “full Torah submission in the era beginning with ‘Moses’,” but such significance has now become obsolete and “requires first and foremost acceptance of [Christ], his death and resurrection.”68 Joshua Jipp defines Abraham’s pistis in terms of Isaac’s conception and birth: “according to Paul’s reading of Genesis, Abraham did not receive Isaac through circumcision or anything else which could be characterized as κατὰ σάρκα (4.1). Isaac’s birth was a result, rather, of divine promise and Abraham’s faithful response to the promise.”69 This identification, however, makes problematic Jipp’s earlier claim that “Paul’s audience is…identified not simply as those who imitate, but as those who participate in their representative founder’s own faithfulness.”70 I am not sure what it would mean for Paul’s audience to “participate in” Isaac’s conception and/or birth, unless Jipp means that Abraham’s procreative act led, ultimately, to the messiah kata sarka (Rom 9:5) and, through him, to the life Paul’s converts receive “in Christ.” The relationship between Abraham, pistis, and Paul’s Gentile readers in Rome still requires some explanation.71 Stanley Stowers points in a helpful direction: “[Romans] asks how families of people establish a kinship with God and with one another. Jews inherit a status as God’s children (literally ‘sons’) from generation to generation; other peoples do not.”72 Ethnic Jews, in other words, inherit descent from Abraham κατὰ σάρκα, kata sarka (see Rom 4:1),73 by virtue of their birth, putatively, from an unbroken line of Abraham’s physical descendants.74 Gentiles, individuals to whom this putative ancestry is by definition off-limits, must be reckoned “sons” via another route.75 This Zoccali, “Children of Abraham,” 269. Joshua W. Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” JSNT 32 (2009): 238. 70  Ibid., 233. 71  I follow those who have noted that Romans as a text “explicitly addresses itself only to gentiles and nowhere explicitly encodes a Jewish audience”; see Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 21–33 (p. 30 quoted); see also Runar M. Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography, ConBNT 40 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003), 87–122; A. Andrew Das, Solving the Romans Debate (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007); idem, “The Gentile-Encoded Audience of Romans: The Church Outside the Synagogue,” in Reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans, ed. Jerry L. Sumney, RBS 73 (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2012), 29–46. 72  Stowers, Rereading of Romans, 227. 73  Robert Jewett (Romans, Hermeneia [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007], 308) wrongly reads kata sarka negatively. See Rom 1:3; 9:3, 5 (Garroway, Gentile-Jews, 110–11, helpfully discusses these verses and others like them). 74  Jonathan M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 25: “[I]t must be the myth of shared descent which ranks paramount among the features that distinguish ethnic from other social groups, and, more often than not, it is proof of descent that will act as a defining criterion of ethnicity.” 75  I am not sure why Edward Adams (“Abraham’s Faith and Gentile Disobedience: Textual Links Between Romans 1 and 4,” JSNT 65 [1997]: 62) thinks that, “by adding the words κατὰ σάρκα” in Rom 4:1, Paul “signals at the outset that this level of understanding of Abraham is going to be increasingly put into the shade as the argument proceeds.” If, as Adams has just claimed, 4:1 carefully introduces Abraham as “the 68  69 

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is the fundamental problem with which Paul must wrestle, especially if, as Joshua Garroway argues, Paul’s Gentile readers, qua Gentiles, nevertheless “became Jews.” “In virtually one breath…Paul describes his charges in both Jewish and Gentile terms. Somehow or another, it seems, they are Gentiles and Jews.”76 The “other route” to Abrahamic descent, according to the many (most?) Jews, involved observing practices enjoined in Torah, especially circumcision.77 Judaism in the Hasmonean era began to reconfigure what it meant to be a Ioudaios, to privilege ideas of politeia (“citizenship” or “way of life”) over ideas of genealogical descent.78 Judaism, to use Matthew Thiessen’s word, became a “choice,” and in this conception circumcision came to hold “conversionistic significance.”79 Not all Jews, however, accepted that Gentiles could “choose” to become Jews and, by undergoing circumcision, be made into sons of Abraham. “Even in the Second Temple period, many Jews continued to define Jewishness in genealogical terms, refusing to view circumcision as a ritual remedy for the deficits of a Gentile identity.”80 Paul of Tarsus, for example, clearly did not accept that Gentiles should be circumcised. Those Gentiles who did undergo circumcision found themselves obligated to observe the whole Torah (Gal 5:3), a position that Paul strictly and starkly differentiates from any benefit to being “in Christ” (see Gal 5:2). Paul, however, did not therefore agree with the author of Jubilees that “conversion was impossible,”81 that “anyone who is born whose own flesh is not circumcised on the eighth day is not from the sons of the covenant which the Lord made for Abraham since (he is) from the children of destruction” (Jub. 15:26).82 Instead, despite agreeing that Torah-observance by Gentiles was a non-starter, Paul goes on to identify a different “other route,” one he calls “the promise” (ἡ ἐπαγγελία, hē epangelia; see Rom 4:13–21).83 Yhwh swears to provide for the aged Abraham “a great nation” of descendants (Gen 12:2 LXX). When YHWH promises to make Abraham’s “reward” exceedingly great (Gen 15:1 LXX), Abraham understands this reward as the provision of children and questions the Lord precisely on the basis that he continues childless (Gen 15:2 LXX).84 YHWH responds to Abraham’s challenge by explicitly affirming that “one who will come forth from you” would be his heir and that, through Abraham’s direct issue, his descendants would be innumerable, as the stars in the

Jewish patriarch” (italics in the original), the addition of κατὰ σάρκα hardly signals a gradual diminution of the “fleshly” “level of understanding.” 76  Garroway, Gentile-Jews, 3; emphasis in the original. 77  See, e.g., Jdt 14:10; Philo, QE 2.2; Josephus, J.W. 2.454; Ant. 20.43–45; see also Acts 15:1–5. 78  Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, HCS 31 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 125–29. 79  Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 5. 80  Ibid., 143. 81  Ibid., 85. 82  See O. S. Wintermute’s translation in OTP, 2:35–142. For a discussion of Jub. 15:25–34, see Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 73–78. 83  See Jipp, “Rereading,” 233–34; Jewett, Romans, 325. 84  “And Abram said, ‘Since you have not given me an heir, my male house-slave will be my heir’ ” (Gen 15:3 LXX).



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heavens. “And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him for righteousness” (Gen 15:6 LXX). God repeats and seals this promise in Gen 17, vowing to multiply Abraham greatly (Gen 17:2 LXX). “And I—behold, my covenant shall be with you, and you shall be the father of a host of nations. And no longer shall your name be called ‘Abram,’ but your name shall be ‘Abraham,’ because I have set you to be the father of many nations” (Gen 17:4–5 LXX).85 YHWH seals this promise with the sign of circumcision on the eighth day (Gen 17:12 LXX). In fact, references to Abraham’s descendants (σπέρμα, sperma) are more tightly clustered in Gen 17 than in any previous chapter; in other words, Gen 17 is the climax of God’s oath to Abraham for prodigious progeny and emphatically enjoins the observance of the Abrahamic covenant of circumcision on that progeny. Jipp rightly recognizes that this close association between the Abrahamic sperma and the sign of circumcision presents problems for Paul’s reading of the Abraham story.86 Jipp’s reading of Rom 4, however, suffers two flaws. First, despite rightly highlighting Stowers’s work on diatribe, Jipp has thoroughly cast Rom 4 in terms of Paul’s polemical response to “multiple charges” against his gospel by the rhetorical interlocutor.87 Stowers, however, locates the origins of the diatribe in the philosophical school; “censure is not an aspect of real inquiry, but an attempt to expose specific errors in thought and behavior so that the student can be led to another doctrine of life.”88 Diatribe is a pedagogical tool with which a teacher instructs a student rather than a polemical tool with which a disputant debates an opponent. Paul, therefore, is not defending his gospel against the interlocutor’s charges but rather instructing the interlocutor (and, indirectly, his encoded readers, whom the interlocutor represents89). Second, Jipp rightly recognizes the surprise of Paul’s direct quotation of Gen 17:5 in Rom 4:17, but he cannot explain either why Paul should cite the very passage that links the Abrahamic promise with the “eternal covenant” of circumcision (Gen 17:13) or even why Paul should want to disassociate circumcision from the Abrahamic promise in the first place.90 Given Gen 17’s repeated injunctions for Abraham’s sperma to circumcise their sons on the eighth day as an eternal covenant,91 Paul’s N. T. Wright (“Paul and the Patriarch: The Role of Abraham in Romans 4,” JSNT 35 [2013]: 207–41) argues Paul has all of Gen 15 in view. Paul, however, has more than Gen 15 in mind; see his quotations of Gen 17:5 (Rom 4:17) and Ps 32:1–2 (Rom 4:6–8). Wright goes on to identify “echoes” of Gen 18 and 22 in Rom 4:13. See also Mark Forman, “The Politics of Promise: Echoes of Isaiah 54 in Romans 4.19–21,” JSNT 31 (2009): 301–24. 86  Jipp, “Rereading,” 234. 87  Ibid., 218; see also pp. 225, 226, as well as Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 256–57. 88  Stanley K. Stowers, The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans, SBLDS 57 (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981), 77; see Rafael Rodríguez, If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014), 36–37. 89  See Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor, 140–45. 90  Jipp implies that Paul cited Gen 17:5 because his opponents stressed the association of the promise for sperma with circumcision: Paul had to answer for this association and provide an alternate explanation for the promise’s fulfillment (see Jipp, “Rereading,” 234–35). As we have seen, however, the rhetoric of diatribe does not counter charges but rather instructs pupils. 91  See Gen 17:7, 13; see also 17:8, 9, 10, 12, 14, 19, 21. 85 

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disjunction of circumcision and the promise of progeny becomes inexplicable.92 All we can hope to explain is how—but not why—Paul disjoins them. Jipp has helpfully demonstrated that Paul uncouples the prospect of becoming a descendant of Abraham from circumcision. The question remains: Why does a Jew like Paul categorically reject the “eternal covenant” of circumcision for his readers? Paul’s encoded readers provide the key: writing to Gentiles in Rome, Paul rejects any notion that his Gentile readers must be circumcised in order to become descendants of Abraham.93 Garroway goes so far as to suggest that, for Paul, “faith makes observing the righteous decrees of the Law possible for Gentiles and enables Gentiles to be reckoned as though they are circumcised, whether or not they really are!”94 Paul is not addressing the question how Abraham became the father of Isaac (and, from Isaac, Israel and the Jews); that question runs directly through Gen 17 and the covenantal seal of circumcision. We should not be surprised to find, when we look more closely, that Paul does not actually undermine circumcision as the seal of the Abrahamic covenant and the sign of Isaac’s (and through him, Israel’s) chosen status as the “child of promise” (see Gen 17:19, 24–26; 21:4 LXX); Paul, under the “inertial pull” of the past,95 continued to identify eighth-day circumcision as the sign of Abraham’s descendants through the line of Isaac. Instead, in the immediately preceding paragraph to his discussion of the Abrahamic promise (Rom 4:13–21), Paul focuses his interlocutor’s attention narrowly on the status of Abraham’s prepuce when he received the blessing from God. Paul asks his interlocutor: “This blessing, then, was it upon his [= Abraham’s] circumcision or even upon his foreskin? For we say, ‘His faith was reckoned to Abraham unto righteousness’ (Gen 15:6). How, then, was it reckoned? While he was circumcised? Or while he retained his foreskin?” (Rom 4:9–10a). The interlocutor answers, “Not while he was circumcised; rather, while he retained his foreskin” (Rom 4:10b). Paul then proceeds to explain the virtue of circumcision: circumcision is the seal of the righteousness that had already been reckoned to Abraham.96 Paul’s conclusion is not that Abraham’s children do not need to be circumcised; after all, circumcision is an “eternal covenant” to be observed “throughout their generations,”97 and Paul himself emphasizes Abraham’s circumcision in the latter’s paternity over at least the circumcised Jews who follow in Abraham’s faithfulness (Rom 4:12).98 Paul’s conclusion, rather, is that not all Abraham’s children need be physically circumcised, that Gentiles who are not able to observe the law of circumcision (because they are older than eight

92  Thomas Schreiner (Romans, BECNT [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998], 210) too comfortably dismisses circumcision as “dispensable” (see also pp. 224–26) something one (including Paul) could not say on any serious reading of Gen 17. 93  See n. 71, above. 94  Garroway, Gentile-Jews, 107; my emphasis; see also idem, “The Circumcision of Christ: Romans 15.7–13,” JSNT 34 (2012): 303–22. 95  Schudson, “Present in the Past,” 111. 96  Jewett, Romans, 318–19. 97  See n. 91, above. 98  See Garroway, Gentile-Jews, 108–9.



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days)99 nevertheless can claim Abrahamic descent, if they “believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (4:24), just as Abraham had believed yhwh could restore life to his lifeless body and Sarah’s lifeless womb (4:19). Indeed, if Garroway is right, Paul thinks his readers’ Abrahamic faith becomes, in effect, the removal of their foreskin!100 In other words, in Rom 4 Paul instructs his interlocutor how God transforms Gentiles into Abraham’s descendants, a transformation that Paul likens to resurrection from the dead, whether Abraham’s (and Sarah’s; see Rom 4:19–21) or Jesus’ (Rom 4:24–25). The emphasis on how is intentional. Commentators often discuss Rom 4 as if Paul were arguing, against the weight of Jewish tradition, that Gentiles could become children of Abraham.101 The point in Rom 4, however, is not that but rather how God transforms Gentiles into descendants for Abraham. This point holds particular relevance for a non-Jewish interlocutor who, like the Gentile king Izates, desired to become a Jew and identified circumcision as the conversionistic rite par excellence to effect that change.102 Runar Thorsteinsson has argued that this, in fact, is exactly how Paul introduces his interlocutor in Rom 2.103 Joshua Garroway goes so far as to argue, and not without merit, “Paul declares that ‘the circumcision’ of Abraham actually includes those Gentiles who have emulated the faith Abraham exhibited prior to his circumcision. In other words, Paul is suggesting that uncircumcised Gentiles are in fact circumcised!”104 If we use Shaye Cohen’s criteria for conversion to Judaism (practice of Jewish customs, exclusive devotion to the Jewish God, and integration into the Jewish community) as a reference point, we see that, in fact, Paul conforms exactly to this traditional pattern of conversion. The point bears repeating: Whatever innovations Paul introduces into his Jewish heritage and, specifically, the available patterns of conversion he inherited from that heritage, he also stands squarely within his tradition and continues to think in its categories.105 Despite the popularity of images of Paul as a radical innovator vis-à-vis his native Judaism and its view of Gentiles, Paul shows evidence of the “obduracy of the past” (see above) in his indebtedness to established symbolic frameworks that foster traditional meanings even in the face of new experiences. First, regarding practice of Jewish customs, Paul expects his Gentile readers to follow the example of Abraham’s pistis, his “faithfulness” (Rom 4:16), which clearly has moral and volitional significance and does not refer merely to a cognitive or

See Thiessen, Contesting Conversion. See Garroway, Gentile-Jews, 106–9. 101  Examples are ubiquitous among the commentaries; see, for example, Moo, Romans, 256: “Paul shows that the ‘reckoning’ of Abraham’s faith for righteousness took place before he was circumcised, thereby enabling him to become the ‘father’ of both Jewish and Gentile believers” (my emphasis). 102  See Josephus, Ant. 20.34–48. 103  See Thorsteinsson, Paul’s Interlocutor. 104  Garroway, Gentile-Jews, 83–84; italics in the original. 105  The phrase “available patterns of conversion” recalls Michael Schudson’s phrase, “available past” and the ways the available past constrains reconfigurations of the past in the present (Schudson, “Present in the Past,” 109, cited above). 99 

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mental trait.106 Romans refers on more than one occasion to Gentiles who “do Torah” (2:14), “keep Torah’s just requirements” (2:26), and even, by loving their neighbor, “have fulfilled Torah” (13:8, 10; see Gal 5:14). Even though Paul adamantly rejects that Gentiles must be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses,107 he just as clearly reorients his Gentile readers’ ethic “in Christ” toward Torah.108 Second, regarding exclusive devotion to the Jewish God, Paul clearly, explicitly, and repeatedly enjoins not just monotheism but worship specifically of the God revealed in Torah (see Rom 1:2–3; 3:21; 9:4–5; 10:4, 6–12, and passim). Third, regarding integration into the Jewish community, Paul clearly, explicitly, and repeatedly enjoins the unity of the body of Christ even as he maintains differences among its members. Paul’s use of inclusive language, specifically the first-person plural pronouns in Rom 4:23–25, unites ethnic Jews and “Gentile-Jews” in one body and actualizes the reality of Paul’s earlier portrayal of Abraham as “the father of us all” (Rom 4:16). Whatever discussion might be necessary regarding our classification of the ekklēsia as a “Jewish community,” Paul clearly expects that Gentile converts will be fully integrated into the ekklēsia as full (and not as second-class) members. Despite the similarities we have noted between Paul’s and other Jews’ handling of the conversion and integration of non-Jews into the Jewish community, obvious differences remain. The most glaring difference, of course, is Paul’s stance on the circumcision of non-Jews. Paul opposed the circumcision of Gentiles as a conversionist ritual. We should not imagine, however, Paul was the only Jew to reject that Gentiles should be circumcised and could thereby become Jews. Matthew Thiessen has adduced a number of voices from the Second Temple era that, like Paul, reject the idea that Gentiles should or even could submit to circumcision and become Jews.109 Paul agrees with the former view (Gentiles should not submit to circumcision); he disagrees with the latter (that Gentiles could not become Jews [= descendants of Abraham]). Even here, however, where Paul’s views are thought to be the most radical—even the allegorical exegete, Philo, did not spiritualize away circumcision as a physical rite—we find Paul taking social and ideological stances that make sense within broader discursive patterns among Hellenistic- and Roman-era Jews. This brings us to our final observation. Many—perhaps even most—Jews in the late Second Temple era identified circumcision as at least part of the process whereby non-Jews could become Jews. A circumcised Gentile may not have been reckoned a Jew automatically, but a Gentile who wanted to become a Jew would certainly

Stowers, Rereading of Romans, 228; Zoccali, “Children of Abraham,” 262–63, 269. See Luke’s portrayal of Paul in Acts 15:1–5, which reflects well the Paul of Galatians even if historians struggle to reconcile the events of Paul’s [auto]biography in these two texts. 108  See Brian Rosner’s helpful discussion of Torah-ethics under the rubric of wisdom (“re-appropriation of the Law as wisdom”), in Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013). 109  Space prevents us from discussing Thiessen’s examples, which include the translator of Genesis LXX and the author of Jubilees; see Thiessen, Contesting Conversion; idem, “Paul’s So-Called Jew and Lawless Lawkeeping,” in The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, ed. Rafael Rodríguez and Matthew Thiessen (Minneapolis: Fortress, forthcoming). 106  107 



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encounter at some point the expectation that he be circumcised.110 Paul’s insistence that non-Jews not be circumcised leaves open the question: How ought Gentiles who convert to Paul’s form of Judaism—upon which history would look back and say, “This is Christianity”—experience Judaism’s heritage, what Josephus calls “the ancestral customs of the Jews” (Ant. 20.41)? We can only suggest an answer: Paul expects his Gentile converts to shed their non-Jewish past and to identify with Israel’s history and story. Schwartz’s double model of “keying” appears nicely suggestive, according to which Abraham becomes a mirror reflecting Paul’s Gentile converts back to them (= Abraham as model of Paul’s Gentile converts), a template giving shape to their present experiences and animating behavior in response to those experiences, and a frame contextualizing those experiences, within which they find meaning (= Abraham as model for Paul’s Gentile converts). Being “in Christ,” which Paul describes as being “a new creation” (2 Cor 5:17), involves a radical discontinuity with his Gentile converts’ past.111 To effect this discontinuity, Paul maps the narrative stretching from Abraham to Jesus onto his Gentile converts so that they are now constituted by a new (hi)story, a new past, a new frame. Social memory research, which highlights “the present in the past [and] the past in the present,”112 is especially well disposed to exploring the dynamics of this narratival reconfiguration and, as a necessary consequence, the transformation of Paul’s converts’ identity in the present. These are sociological questions as much as they are theological questions, and exploring them in social terms will shed additional light on the Pauline communities of Gentile followers of Jesus throughout the Roman Empire. Paying attention to Paul’s and his readers’ (and his opponents’!) “fluid negotiation between the desires of the present and the legacies of the past” can help us locate Paul and his followers as they carved out socially meaningful spaces for themselves in the complex flux of the Greco-Roman world.113

Part III. Other Relevant “Pauline” Texts The peculiar focus of the present essay (vis-à-vis the other essays in these volumes) means this section will look a little different. Social memory is not a topic to be

See, again, Acts 15.1–5, as well as Josephus, Ant. 20.43–46. Michele Murray (Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE [Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004]) argues that Gentiles who had judaized exerted pressure upon other Gentiles to do the same. 111  Recall our earlier admission: “Certainly radical breaks and unexpected events within the ‘sequence’ or ‘branching tree’ of history are possible. The point, however, is that radical breaks and unexpected events are not the norm, and even when they occur they are not usually completely radical or unexpected.” This statement could be productively unpacked with respect to Paul, his Gentile converts, and the relation of both to diaspora Judaism. 112  See Schudson, “Present in the Past.” 113  Olick, “From Collective Memory,” 159. 110 

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studied in (or through) Paul’s letters; neither is it a method to be applied to them. Social memory is a theoretical perspective that puts us at a new angle relative to the Pauline tradition to see Paul and images of Paul from a different point of view. In this sense, all of Paul’s letters—both the undisputed Hauptbriefe and the deutero-Pauline letters—as well as Luke’s portrayal of Paul are ripe for analysis from perspectives informed by social memory research. On the basis of our discussion thus far, I imagine a close reading of Paul’s allegorical reading of Sarah and Hagar in Gal 4:21–31 would pay nice dividends. On the other hand, reading Philippians, which never explicitly refers to scriptural texts or narratives, with an eye out for how Paul maps Israel’s history onto his Gentile readers might produce radically different results. Even so, as Paul exhorts his Philippian readers to a politeia centered on Christ and his example (Phil 1:27–2:11), readers with ears to hear may pick up a number of significant echoes of Scripture. Another “Pauline” text is relevant here: Eph 2:11–22. Texts outside the Pauline corpus also offer some promise, including Luke’s portrayal of Paul’s ministry in synagogues across the Roman Empire (see, inter alia, Acts 13:13–52; 18:1–11), especially in comparison with Paul’s ministry among Gentiles (e.g., Acts 14:8–18; 17:18–34). Similarly, 1 Peter is often described as having Pauline overtones and, like most (all?) of Paul’s letters, is written to a Gentile audience; this letter also maps an Israelite history onto its readers, describing them as “chosen sojourners in the diaspora” (1 Pet 1:1) and incorporating them, like Eph 2, into the imagery of the temple at Zion (1 Pet 2:1–10). All of these texts (and certainly others) have some potential for helping us place Paul and other early followers of Jesus within the broader discourse about conversion in the GrecoRoman world.

Part IV. Select Bibliography Adams, Edward. “Abraham’s Faith and Gentile Disobedience: Textual Links Between Romans 1 and 4.” JSNT 65 (1997): 47–66. Allison, Dale C. Jr. Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010. Baker, Coleman A. Identity, Memory, and Narrative in Early Christianity: Peter, Paul, and Recategorization in the Book of Acts. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2011. Barton, Stephen C. “Memory and Remembrance in Paul.” Pages 321–39 in Memory in the Bible and Antiquity: The Fifth Durham–Tübingen Research Symposium. Edited by Stephen C. Barton, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, and Benjamin G. Wold. WUNT 212. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. Masada Myth: Collective Memory and Mythmaking in Israel. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. Byrskog, Samuel. Story as History—History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History. WUNT 123. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000.



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Cohen, Shaye J. D. The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties. HCS 31. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. Das, A. Andrew. Solving the Romans Debate. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. ———“The Gentile-Encoded Audience of Romans: The Church Outside the Synagogue.” Pages 29–46 in Reading Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Edited by Jerry L. Sumney. SBLRBS 73. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2012. Duling, Dennis C. “Social Memory and Commemoration of the Death of ‘the Lord’: Paul’s Response to the Lord’s Supper Factions at Corinth.” Pages 289–310 in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz. Edited by Tom Thatcher. SemeiaSt 78. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014. Esler, Philip F. Conflict and Identity in Romans. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003. ———“Paul’s Contestation of Israel’s (Ethnic) Memory of Abraham in Galatians 3.” BTB 36 (2006): 23–34. Fine, Gary Alan. Difficult Reputations: Collective Memories of the Evil, Inept, and Controversial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. ———Sticky Reputations: The Politics of Collective Memory in Midcentury America. New York: Routledge, 2011. Forman, Mark. “The Politics of Promise: Echoes of Isaiah 54 in Romans 4.19–21.” JSNT 31 (2009): 301–24. Foster, Paul. “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: Three Dead-Ends in Historical Jesus Research.” JSHJ 10 (2012): 191–227. Garroway, Joshua D. “The Circumcision of Christ: Romans 15.7–13.” JSNT 34 (2012): 303–22. ———Paul’s Gentile-Jews: Neither Jew Nor Gentile, But Both. New York: Palgrave, 2012. Geertz, Clifford. Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic, 1973. Gerhardsson, Birger. “The Secret of the Transmission of the Unwritten Jesus Tradition.” NTS 51 (2005): 1–18. Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Translated by Lewis A. Coser. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Hall, Jonathan M. Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Hobsbawm, Eric. “Introduction: Inventing Traditions.” Pages 1–14 in The Invention of Tradition. Edited by Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger. Canto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Hodgkin, Katharine, and Susannah Radstone. “Introduction: Contested Pasts.” Pages 1–21 in Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory. Edited by Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone. Routledge Studies in Memory and Narrative. London: Routledge, 2003. Jenkins, Richard. Social Identity. Key Ideas. London: Routledge, 1996. Jewett, Robert. Romans. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007. Jipp, Joshua W. “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4.” JSNT 32 (2009): 217–42. Johnson Hodge, Caroline E. If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Keightley, Georgia Masters. “Christian Collective Memory and Paul’s Knowledge of Jesus.” Pages 129–50 in Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity. Edited by Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher. SemeiaSt 52. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005. ———“The Church’s Memory of Jesus: A Social Science Analysis of 1 Thessalonians.” BTB 17 (1987): 149–56. Keith, Chris. “Social Memory Theory and the Gospels Research: The First Decade.” Early Christianity 6, no. 3 (2015): 354–76, 517–42.

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Kirk, Alan. “Social and Cultural Memory.” Pages 1–24 in Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity. Edited by Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher. SemeiaSt 52. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005. Kirk, Alan, and Tom Thatcher, eds. Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity. SemeiaSt 52. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005. McFarland, Orrey. “Whose Abraham, Which Promise? Genesis 15.6 in Philo’s De Virtutibus and Romans 4.” JSNT 35 (2012): 107–29. Meyer, Erik. “Memory and Politics.” Pages 173–80 in A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Edited by Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, and Sara B. Young. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. Moo, Douglas J. The Epistle to the Romans. NICNT. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996. Moshenska, Gabriel. “Working with Memory in the Archaeology of Modern Conflict.” Cambridge Archaeological Journal 20 (2010): 33–48. Murray, Michele. Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2004. Nanos, Mark D., and Magnus Zetterholm, eds. Paul Within Judaism: Restoring the FirstCentury Context to the Apostle. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015. Olick, Jeffrey K. “Collective Memory: The Two Cultures.” Sociological Theory 17 (1999): 333–48. ———“From Collective Memory to the Sociology of Mnemonic Practices and Products.” Pages 151–61 in A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Edited by Astrid Erll, Ansgar Nünning, and Sara B. Young. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010. ———“Products, Processes, and Practices: A Non-Reificatory Approach to Collective Memory.” BTB 36 (2006): 5–14. Ricoeur, Paul. Memory, History, Forgetting. Translated by Kathleen Blamey and David Pellauer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Rodríguez, Rafael. “ ‘According to the Scriptures’: Suffering and the Psalms in the Speeches in Acts.” Pages 241–62 in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz. Edited by Tom Thatcher. SemeiaSt 78. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014. ———If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2014. ———Structuring Early Christian Memory: Jesus in Tradition, Performance, and Text. European Studies on Christian Origins. LNTS 407. London: T&T Clark International, 2010. Rosner, Brian S. Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013. Schacter, Daniel L. The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers. Boston: Mariner, 2002. Schreiner, Thomas R. Romans. BECNT. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1998. Schudson, Michael. “The Present in the Past versus the Past in the Present.” Communication 11 (1989): 105–13. ———Watergate in American Memory: How We Remember, Forget, and Reconstruct the Past. New York: Basic, 1993. Schuman, Howard, Barry Schwartz, and Hannah d’Arcy. “Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs: Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain?” Public Opinion Quarterly 69 (2005): 2–29.



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Schwartz, Barry. Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. ———Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late TwentiethCentury America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009. ———“Christian Origins: Historical Truth and Social Memory.” Pages 43–56 in Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity. Edited by Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher. SemeiaSt 52. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005. ———“Jesus in First-Century Memory—A Response.” Pages 249–61 in Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early Christianity. Edited by Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher. SemeiaSt 52. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005. ———“Memory as a Cultural System: Abraham Lincoln in World War II.” American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 908–27. ———“Reexamining Conflict and Collective Memory—The Nanking Massacre.” Pages 529–63 in The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology. Edited by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ronald N. Jacobs, and Philip Smith. Oxford Handbooks. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. ———“Social Change and Collective Memory: The Democratization of George Washington.” American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 221–36. ———“Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire: Memory and History.” Pages 7–37 in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz. Edited by Tom Thatcher. SemeiaSt 78. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014. Schwartz, Barry, and Howard Schuman. “History, Commemoration, and Belief: Abraham Lincoln in American Memory, 1945–2001.” ASR 70 (2005): 183–203. Sechrest, Love L. A Former Jew: Paul and the Dialectics of Race. LNTS 410. London: T&T Clark International, 2010. Smit, Peter-Ben. “St. Thecla: Remembering Paul and Being Remembered Through Paul.” VC 68 (2014): 551–63. Stowers, Stanley K. The Diatribe and Paul’s Letter to the Romans. SBLDS 57. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981. ———A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994. Thatcher, Tom, ed. Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity: A Conversation with Barry Schwartz. SemeiaSt 78. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014. Thate, Michael J. Remembrance of Things Past? Albert Schweitzer, the Anxiety of Influence, and the Untidy Jesus of Markan Memory. WUNT 2/351. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Thiessen, Matthew. Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. ———“Paul’s So-Called Jew and Lawless Lawkeeping.” In The So-Called Jew in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. Edited by Rafael Rodríguez and Matthew Thiessen. Minneapolis: Fortress, forthcoming. Thorsteinsson, Runar M. Paul’s Interlocutor in Romans 2: Function and Identity in the Context of Ancient Epistolography. ConBNT 40. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003. Wedderburn, Alexander J. M. Jesus and the Historians. WUNT 269. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. White, Benjamin L. Remembering Paul: Ancient and Modern Contests Over the Image of the Apostle. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

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Wright, N. T. “Paul and the Patriarch: The Role of Abraham in Romans 4.” JSNT 35 (2013): 207–41. Zoccali, Christopher. “Children of Abraham, the Restoration of Israel and the Eschatological Pilgrimage of the Nations: What Does It Mean for ‘In Christ’ Identity?” Pages 253–71 in T&T Clark Handbook to Social Identity in the New Testament. Edited by J. Brian Tucker and Coleman A. Baker. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014.

Chapter 28

Paul, Virtues, Vices, and Household Codes Stanley E. Porter

Pauline theology has tended to overwhelm study of Pauline ethics. However, throughout the years and especially within the last several years, a number of studies have addressed the question of Pauline ethics, even if mostly in journal- or chapterlength articles rather than in entire books.1 The subject of Pauline ethics is often connected with the parenetic portion of Paul’s letters, that particular section of the Pauline letter form in which Paul develops his moral and ethical injunctions for his congregants or addressees.2 Within his ethical and moral instructions, there are often more focused discussions of specific ethical or moral issues, such as social behavior (1 Cor 6:1–11), politics (e.g., Rom 13:1–7), sexual ethics (1 Cor 6:12–20), social ethics (1 Cor 7:1–16), and the like. These ethical instructions take a variety of forms within the Pauline letters. These are not the only places that Paul mentions ethical or moral behavior. Interspersed throughout his letters are lists of virtues and vices, that is, both positive and negative prescriptions of characteristics or behaviors. These are often called virtue and vice lists, with the vice lists (of which there are more) slightly more often occurring in the parenetic section than the virtue lists (of which there are fewer). These ethical statements are sometimes linked to a particular type of formulation, the Haustafel or household table or code. These virtue and vice lists are found in a number of different letters within the Pauline corpus, some within the major letters and some within the minor letters (sometimes called the deutero-Pauline letters). In this essay, I wish first to discuss the Greco-Roman and Jewish understandings of virtues, vices and household codes, then to identify and describe the major virtue and

Three of the better known books are: Victor Paul Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968); Furnish, The Moral Teaching of Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979); and J. Paul Sampley, Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). For a compendium of essays, see Brian S. Rosner, ed., Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth-Century Approaches (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995). 2  See Young Chul Whang, “Paul’s Letter Paraenesis,” in Paul and the Ancient Letter Form, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Sean A. Adams, PAST 6 (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 253–68. 1 

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vice passages and the household codes within all the Pauline letters, and finally to describe the unique contribution of their content to an understanding of Pauline ethics, or rather Pauline Christian ethics.

Part I. Virtues, Vices and Household Codes in the GrecoRoman World Discussion of the origins and backgrounds of Pauline virtues and vices and the household codes will treat the two groups separately, as the history of their discussion reflects two different possible origins and backgrounds for them, even if, as we shall see, they end up being shaped in uniquely Pauline ways in their final forms in Paul’s letters.

Virtues and Vices Virtue and vice lists probably originated in ancient Greek philosophical writing. As Thompson says, the “most prominent list in antiquity was the catalog of cardinal virtues attributed to Plato, which shaped the consciousness of a major portion of Greek ethical thought.”3 These virtues—wisdom, courage, self-restraint, and justice— constitute the four cardinal virtues (see Plato, Phaedo 69C; Leges 631C, cf. 963A), with a fifth one, piety, also added by Plato (Protagorus 349B, cf. 330B)4—each seen as a type of knowledge. These virtues were soon taken over or adapted by other Greek moral philosophers, so that the Stoics preserved the list while Aristotle expanded it. Just as there were four cardinal virtues, so there were four cardinal vices. These vices—folly, intemperance, injustice, and cowardice—were sometimes treated in conjunction with the virtues (e.g., Stobaeus, Eclogae 2.59), although often not. Whereas the cardinal virtues constituted a form of knowledge, the four cardinal vices formed a type of ignorance. The virtues and vices were defined with the goal of the individual (rather than the community) attaining a content spirit by exemplifying the virtues and conquering the vices.5 These virtue and vice traditions continued to be developed by later writers, includ­ ing the Hellenistic Jewish writers of the Second Temple Period, of particular interest to our discussion of Paul. Both trends of preservation and of expansion of the classical virtues and vices, as seen in earlier Greek thought, are found in the Jewish writers as well, as is an expansion from personal to community ethics. For example, the Wisdom

James W. Thompson, Moral Formation according to Paul (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011), 88. My discussion here is dependent upon Thompson. 4  See Louis H. Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 96. 5  Thompson, Moral Formation, 88–89. Cf. Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 84. 3 



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of Solomon (8:7) and 4 Maccabees (1:1–6, 16–18; 5:23) draw upon the earlier classical lists. Perhaps more importantly, Josephus and Philo show thorough knowledge of the classical virtues. Josephus places the various virtues as sub-categories of biblical religion: “he did not make religion a department of virtue, but the various virtues—I mean justice [δικαιοσύνην], temperance [σωφροσύνην], fortitude [καρτερίαν], and mutual harmony [συμφωνίαν] in all things between the members of the community—departments of religion” (Apion 2.170; LCL).6 More than that, he sees the biblical heroes (as well as himself) as exemplifying the classical virtues. For example, Abraham, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, Saul, Nathan, Solomon, Daniel, and even Samson, are seen as demonstrating wisdom. Many more examples are to be found.7 Philo, who discusses the classical virtues at several places (e.g., Alleg. Interp. 1.63; Moses 2.185; QG 1.12; QE 2.112), sees the virtues as taught by the ten commandments (Spec. Laws 4.134–35).8 These virtues, along with vices, are expanded and supplemented in a variety of Hellenistic Jewish writers. Several lists from these authors have a noticeable similarity to the types of lists noted above in Paul’s letters. For example, the author of Wisdom of Solomon writes of idolatry as “to err about the knowledge of God” (14:22): For whether they kill children in their initiations, or celebrate secret mysteries, or hold frenzied revels with strange customs, they no longer keep either their lives or their marriages pure, but they either treacherously kill one another, or grieve one another by adultery, and all is a raging riot of blood and murder, theft and deceit, corruption, faithlessness, tumult, perjury, confusion over what is good, forgetfulness of favors, defiling of souls, sexual perversion, disorder in marriages, adultery, and debauchery. (14:23–26; NRSV)

These kinds of vice lists are also to be found in other literature of the time, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (e.g., T. Reu. 3:2–7; T. Jud. 16:1; T. Iss. 7:2–5; T. Gad 5:1; T. Ash. 2:5).9 Whereas a short list of virtues, and along with it vices, originated in classical philosophical thought in terms of the individual as personal characteristics, it appears that such lists became integrated into popular moral philosophy and expanded in scope. Along with this integration came both preservation but also expansion of these lists. These lists then became fully integrated into the Second Temple literature of Hellenistic Judaism. Whether this integration occurred for apologetic purposes— Jewish writers justifying their beliefs in light of classical categories—or for cultural reasons—these structures of thought were simply the currency of contemporary moral reasoning—the result was the same. The classical virtues and vices expanded into lists of virtues and vices that were seen as ways of characterizing the traits of both individuals and groups. Paul seems to have drawn upon this popular moral tradition and adapted it for his ecclesial purposes of distinguishing the attitudes and behavior of those who are within and without the ecclesial community and the kingdom of God.

Feldman, Josephus’s Interpretation, 96. Ibid., with examples on 97–129. 8  Thompson, Moral Formation, 88–89. 9  Ibid., 89–90. 6  7 

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Haustafeln or Household Codes The origins and sources of the Haustafeln or household codes require a separate analysis from virtue and vice lists, even if they eventually converge in the writings of Paul. There have been at least five major, overlapping (and sometimes conflated) lines of interpretation in the discussion of the household codes: the Stoic, the Jewish, the Christian, the Roman, and the contextual.10 Most scholars agree that the household codes had some initial relationship to Aristotle’s discussion of the family (including master and slave, husband and wife, and father and child) and the state (Aristotle, Politics 1253B.1–10; cf. Nicomachean Ethics 1160B23–1161A9; 1134B9–18). The Stoic interpretation might also be called the form-critical period in discussion of the household codes. Such scholars as Martin Dibelius and his student Karl Weidinger are associated with this period, in which they found philosophical wording in the New Testament household codes. They believed that early Christian authors adapted a set literary form used in Stoic thought, and essentially adopted its ethical values in a period when Christians needed to live in a world in which the return of Christ had not occurred. In the second interpretive movement, Ernst Lohmeyer (and later David Daube) argued that the household code, while form-critically established earlier, had its origins in early Jewish thought regarding the family, not in a Hellenistic background. The failure to provide suitable parallel examples limited this hypothesis, although James Crouch later revived a form of this theory in relation to Hellenistic Judaism (while still retaining close associations with the form-critical analysis of Dibelius and Weidinger and some of the characteristics of the third interpretation). The third proposal, attributed to Karl Heinrich Rengstorf and Karl Schroeder, claimed that the household codes were distinctly Christian in nature, and served a social function (note the reciprocity in the major codes). This theory was based upon how the term for “obedience” is used at the outset of the codes and the appearance of the phrase “in the Lord,” among some other features. This identification of stages in interpretation is my formulation based upon information from the following: David L. Balch, “Household Codes,” in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, ed. David E. Aune, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 25–50; Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in I Peter, SBLMS 26 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1981), 1–10; George E. Cannon, The Use of Traditional Materials in Colossians (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985), 95–131; James E. Crouch, The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haustafel, FRLANT 109 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972), esp. 9–36; John H. Elliott, A Home for the Homeless: A Social-Scientific Criticism of I Peter, Its Situation and Strategy (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1981), 208–20; Stephen E. Fowl, Ephesians: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2012), 179–81; James P. Hering, The Colossian and Ephesian Haustafeln in Theological Context: An Analysis of Their Origins, Relationship, and Message, AUS 7/260 (New York: Peter Lang, 2007), 9–60; Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), 720–29; Abraham J. Malherbe, “Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament,” in ANRW, 2.26.1 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992), 267–333, esp. 304–13; J. Paul Sampley, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh”: A Study of Traditions in Ephesians 5:21–33, SNTSMS 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), 17–30; Angela Standhartinger, “The Origin and Intention of the Household Code in the Letter to the Colossians,” JSNT 79 (2000): 117–30; and Jerry L. Sumney, Colossians: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 230–38. 10 



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The Roman hypothesis, associated with David Balch, Klaus Thraede, Dieter Lührmann, and a number of scholars since them, believed that the household codes, which probably drew upon elements of both Hellenistic Jewish and Greco-Roman thought, were primarily concerned with social matters of management of the household in relation to larger political issues, and served to show that organized and controlled early Christians were not a threat to Roman social order. The fifth and final interpretation, which I call contextual, has more recently argued that, whereas some Hellenistic discussions of household affairs had political implications, others did not, including those of Second Temple Judaism. The household codes of the New Testament reflect various social and theological contexts in which the New Testament author, in particular Paul, wrote and displayed the new social values of Christian communities even if they were within their larger contexts. They were not designed for an apologetic agenda. This view is associated with John Elliott, Margaret MacDonald, and a growing number of scholars. James Hering has summarized the situation well, when he recognizes that there has been much confusion regarding study of the household codes. Various theories have been modified and conflated, and interests have shifted from determining the original form to their political and social functions. Along with that movement has been a shift from theories of dependence to recognition of the influence of a mix of factors, in which early Christianity played a part, to the point of having some formative influence upon the household management tradition.11

Part II. Virtues, Vices and Household Codes in All of Paul’s Letters There are many places within Paul’s letters where he singles out a particular moral or ethical topic for somewhat extended discussion. As noted above, these might include, for example, political behavior. In Rom 13:1–7, Paul instructs his Roman addressees to be obedient to morally upright authorities, because authority is established by God and those who are morally upright are fulfilling God’s purposes. In this passage, Paul prescribes obedience to just authorities, but he does not address the issue of unjust authorities, either how to define them or the proper Christian response to them (although elsewhere he seems skeptical of them; see 1 Cor 2:6–8). The implication is that Christians must determine the uprightness of authorities on their own, and are not bound to be obedient to unjust ones, if for no other reason than that one cannot count on such authorities as rewarding good and punishing evil. Paul has other ethical passages of a similar sort.

11 

Hering, Colossian and Ephesian Haustafeln, 58.

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However, there are a number of places where Paul identifies groups of positive or negative behaviors, and lists these virtues or vices together. By placing them together in either a strict or discursive list, Paul effectively unites them together within his letter argument. Within the context of their respective books, these groupings of positive and negative behaviors form contextually based semantically united sets of virtues and vices.12 A number of these can be identified within the New Testament, with some brief comments on their epistolary context and significance.13 Space does not permit me to explain the individual terms, except to note their common orientation regarding ethical behavior and their function within a Christian community context.

Lists of Virtues There are five virtue lists in the Pauline letters. As noted above, this does not mean that Paul does not mention these and other virtues in other places.14 However, these are the places where he presents them as groups of virtues. The virtue lists appear in various places within the Pauline letter structure.15 Rom 5:3–5: And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us… (NRSV)

Although not in the parenetic section but in the midst of the discourse peak of the letter (Rom 5), Paul creates a step parallelism based upon a list of virtues that extend from suffering to eschatological hope.16 This virtue list is different from most of the others in having a linear and progressive connection that leads from one condition to another, rather than simply being a list of similar virtues. 2 Cor 6:4–8: But as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: …by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. (NRSV)

This list of virtues is inserted within Paul’s recapitulation of the tribulations of being an apostle. He begins by listing his various physical sufferings (2 Cor 6:4–5) by which he has commended himself, then includes the virtues listed above that have See Stanley E. Porter, The Letter to the Romans: A Linguistic and Literary Commentary, NTM 37 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015), where I identify what I call “cotextual semantic domains.” 13  See the following for helpful lists, from which I have gleaned the ones that follow: Cannon, Use of Traditional Materials, 51–65; Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 84–89; Daniel J. Harrington and James F. Keenan, Paul and Virtue Ethics: Building Bridges between New Testament Studies and Moral Theology (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 109–13; and Thompson, Moral Formation, 87–109, esp. 91–93 and 102–103. 14  See Thompson, Moral Formation, 102–103, who provides a fuller list, including individual instances. 15  One list that I do not include below is Eph 6:14–17 (see Cannon, Use of Traditional Material, 59). This does not strike me as a virtue list, but as a theological exposition of several virtues. 16  Porter, Romans, 243–50. 12 



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commended him, and then turns to the results of his ministry (2 Cor 6:9–10). In this passage, the list of character virtues is part of Paul’s commendation of his ministry to others, seen to be parallel with his physical sufferings as a form of commendation. Gal 5:22–23: By contrast [to the vices in 5:19–21; see below], the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (NRSV)

Within the parenetic section of Galatians,17 after distinguishing fleshly and spiritual desires and listing the fleshly works, Paul labels this list of virtues as “fruit of the Spirit.” The singular use of “fruit” indicates that the list that follows is for Paul an inclusive one in relation to the product of the Spirit’s work, not simply a listing of individual virtues. Victor Paul Furnish, following Heinrich Schlier, sees here a threefold ordering in which there are three groups with three members each: love, joy, and peace; patience, kindness, and generosity; and faithfulness, gentleness, and selfcontrol. He finds both rhetorical and conceptual unity within these groups, as well as connections to other such groupings (e.g., love, joy, peace with faith, hope, love in 1 Cor 13:13; 1 Thess 1:3; 5:8; cf. Col 1:4–5).18 Phil 2:2–4: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. (NRSV)

This list of character virtues is part of the prologue to the Christ-hymn of Phil 2:6–11. Paul sets the stage for that hymn by speaking of what it means to have the same mind as that of Christ. This virtue list actually contains a mixed list of virtues and vices, in which the vices are offset by a corresponding desirable virtue that is part of creating the Christ-like mind. Phil 4:8: Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (NRSV)

As Paul draws this exhortative portion of his letter to the Philippians to a close (Phil 4:2–7; note the use of “finally”), he presents a list of virtues to consider as a basis of Christian behavior in relation to others.19 James Thompson notes that this list is “distinctive among Paul’s paraeneses, not only because ‘virtue’ (ἀρετή [trans. ‘excellence’]) appears only here, but also because the six attributes that characterize virtue have few parallels elsewhere in the undisputed letters of Paul.”20 As noted earlier, this set of virtues probably comes closest to the lists found in Greek popular

Stanley E. Porter, The Apostle Paul: His Life, Thought, and Letters (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), Chapter 7. 18  Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 87–88, following Heinrich Schlier, Der Brief an die Galater, KEK, 13th ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965), 256. 19  See Porter, Apostle Paul, Chapter 11. 20  Thompson, Moral Formation, 107. 17 

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moral discourse, even though, despite using the word “virtue,” only one of the Greek cardinal virtues is listed, “just[ice].” The terms used here, however, are used in other instances of Greek popular moral philosophy, as well as in Hellenistic Jewish literature.21 Nevertheless, Paul does use these terms as part of a recommendation of a distinctly Christian response (cf. Phil 4:1), not simply as Greek moral reflection.22

Lists of Vices In contrast to the virtue lists above, there are numerous vice lists within Paul’s letters. Only one of these lists of vices is connected to a virtue list (apart from some of the mixed lists noted below). Most of these vice lists stand on their own, often within the parenetic sections of Paul’s letters, where he focuses upon exhorting his addressees to good purpose. As J. Paul Sampley says, “[t]he vice lists mark out the farthest boundaries of acceptable behavior,” that is, “persons who do such things simply will not inherit the kingdom of God…”23 Rom 1:29–31: They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. (NRSV)

Apart from Gal 5:19–21, this is probably the best known of Paul’s vice lists, and is the longest (cf. Rom 1:24, 26, which might be part of the further list that follows).24 Like the one in Galatians, this is a full and encompassing list that makes evil behavior and its consequences explicit. However, unlike Galatians, this list appears at the outset of the body of Paul’s letter to the Romans, as part of his argument for general human sinfulness. Paul sets up his argument by means of language of substitution, in which evil-doers have exchanged evil for good, and this list is the behavioral result of such abandonment of good. The formulation of this list not only includes various types of evil, such as wickedness, but also embodies these in their practitioners, those who are performing such evils. As a result, Paul condemns both various vices but also those who perform these vices,25 what Furnish calls “social vices,”26 as they destroy the community. Rom 13:13: let us live honorably as in the day not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. (NRSV)

See Thompson, Moral Formation, 107–108. Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 88–89, who contrasts Paul’s call to virtue with Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10, arguing against Martin Dibelius, An die Thessalonicher I, II, An die Philipper, 3rd ed., HNT 11 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1937), 95. 23  Sampley, Walking Between the Times, 57. 24  Cannon, Use of Traditional Materials, 55. 25  See Porter, Romans, 69–70. 26  Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 84. 21  22 



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This vice list appears within the parenetic section of Romans, in particular the section on individual behavior (Rom 12:1–13:14, within 12:1–15:33).27 Paul contrasts works of light from works of darkness, and commends honorable living by contrasting dishonorable behavior. 1 Cor 5:9–11: I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral persons—not at all meaning the immoral of this world, or the greedy and robbers, or idolaters, since you would then need to go out of the world. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber. Do not even eat with such a one. (NRSV)

This vice list, which occurs near the outset of the parenetic section of 1 Corinthians (which extends from 5:1–16:12),28 is more discursive in nature than most others. In this section, Paul is addressing sexual immorality and its effects on the church. As a result, he includes sexual vices within his list—in fact, as he does in virtually all of his lists—even though Hellenistic vice lists do not contain them.29 Paul makes a distinction between brothers and sisters in Christ and those outside of the faith community. However, he recognizes that those having the same kinds of vices—and these seem to be a list that he considers particularly heinous for Christians—might include both Christians and non-Christians. The difference is that Paul knows that those “in the world” will act in such a way, but he expects Christians not to and for those who are Christians not to associate with those who do such things, even if such people claim to be within the faith community. 1 Cor 6:9–10: Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. (NRSV)

In this section of his parenesis of 1 Corinthians, Paul is addressing lawsuits brought by Christians against other Christians. Paul tells his addressees that they should not be involved in lawsuits with each other. Paul’s perspective is that those who are wrongdoers, apparently including those who bring such suits but also others, will not inherit the kingdom of God. His vice list includes a range of sexual and ethical anti-social behavior. 2 Cor 12:20–21: I fear that there may perhaps be quarreling, jealousy, anger, selfishness, slander, gossip, conceit, and disorder. I fear that when I come again, my God may humble me before you, and that I may have to mourn over many who previously sinned and have not repented of the impurity, sexual immorality and licentiousness that they have practiced. (NRSV)

Porter, Apostle Paul, Chapter 10. See ibid., Chapter 9. 29  Thompson, Moral Formation, 94. 27  28 

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Despite debate over the textual integrity of 2 Corinthians,30 this is a parenetic section, in which Paul expresses his displeasure at the Corinthians’ behavior, especially in relation to his apostolic calling. He expresses his fear that when he comes to Corinth he will find the cause of his displeasure in their behavior. There are two vice lists in this passage. The first is concerned with social behavioral vices and the second with sexual vices. Gal 5:19–21: Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before; those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (NRSV)

As noted above in discussion of the virtue lists, this is probably the best known of Paul’s vice lists. This vice list precedes the virtue list in Gal 5, and is part of Paul’s parenesis regarding Christian freedom and its relationship to human physical existence. Paul says that Spirit life is opposed to fleshly life, and he then enumerates the works of the flesh. He uses the plural “works” (as opposed to the singular “fruit” for virtues) because, as he says, there are many different types, and this is not a complete list of the “social vices” that one might perform.31 However, it does provide a wide-ranging list of ethical, sexual, social, and even pseudo-religious vices, all of which exclude their performers from the kingdom of God.32 Eph 4:31. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice. (NRSV)

This relatively short list, which occurs in the Ephesians parenesis (4:1–6:20),33 includes a number of attitudinal vices. This list occurs in the context of the things that are to be put aside in living the new Christian life. The list is very similar to the one in Col 3:8,34 and would no doubt contribute to discussions of the literary relationship between Ephesians and Colossians. Eph 5:3–5: But fornication and impurity of any kind, or greed, must not even be mentioned among you, as is proper among saints. Entirely out of place is obscene, silly, and vulgar talk; but instead, let there be thanksgiving. Be sure of this, that no fornicator or impure person, or one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (NRSV)

See Christopher D. Land, The Integrity of 2 Corinthians and Paul’s Aggravating Absence, NTM 36 (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015), for matters regarding the textual integrity of 2 Corinthians. 31  See Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 84. 32  John M. G. Barclay, Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians, SNTIW (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 153, notes that there are some vices listed that are unique to this Galatian list and that relate to “community dissension.” He sees these as supporting the notion of “a situation of discord in the Galatian churches.” 33  Porter, Apostle Paul, Chapter 11; cf. Chapter 6 on authorship issues. 34  See Cannon, Use of Traditional Materials, 56. 30 



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This more discursive list, similar to the one in Col 3:5, 8 (see below), occurs within the parenetic section of Ephesians (4:1–6:20). In a section concerned with living the Christian life (4:17–5:20), Paul offers two short vice lists, the first concerned with impure moral behavior and the second with inappropriate talk. Those in the first list are singled out for exclusion from the kingdom. Col 3:5, 8: Put to death, therefore, whatever in you is earthly: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed (which is idolatry)… But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. (NRSV)

These two short lists, which occur in the Colossians parenesis (2:16–4:9),35 in particular on rules for living a holy life (see above on Eph 5:3–5), offer a wide range of examples of attitudinal and behavioral vices that do not have a place in the life of one who is raised with Christ. 1 Thess 4:3–7: For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication; that each one of you know how to control your own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passion, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one wrong or exploit a brother or sister in this matter, because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, just as we have already told you beforehand and solemnly warned you. For God did not call us to impurity but in holiness. (NRSV)

This discursive vice list is offered by Paul as a behavioral definition of what constitutes sanctification. This exhortation to behavior occurs within the parenetic section of 1 Thessalonians (4:1–5:22) concerning how to live a life pleasing to God.36 Rather than sanctification here being an attitude or a set of positive behaviors, Paul defines it as not engaging in inappropriate or bad behavior, such as fornication, lust, and exploitation. Furnish notes that Paul’s treatment of the topic of sexual morality here is not typical of other similar treatments, as Paul’s focus is not upon the vice but upon the positive, sanctification.37 1 Tim 1:9–10: the law is laid down not for the innocent but for the lawless and disobedient, for the godless and sinful, for the unholy and profane, for those who kill their father or mother, for murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to the sound teaching… (NRSV)

In the body of his first letter to Timothy,38 Paul specifies for whom the law was given. The law was not for those who had not violated the law but for those who had done any number of other things. Paul provides a wide-ranging vice list that emphasizes evil behaviors that are contrary to healthy Christian teaching.

See Porter, Apostle Paul, Chapter 11. Ibid., Chapter 8. 37  Furnish, Theology and Ethics, 85–86. 38  Porter, Apostle Paul, Chapter 12. 35  36 

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1 Tim 3:2–4, 8–12: Now a bishop must be above reproach, married only once, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an apt teacher, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, and not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way—for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of God’s church?… Deacons likewise must be serious, not double-tongued, not indulging in much wine, not greedy for money; they must hold fast to the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience. And let them first be tested; then, if they prove themselves blameless, let them serve as deacons. Women likewise must be serious, not slanderers, but temperate, faithful in all things. Let deacons be married only once, and let them manage their children and their households well. (NRSV)

The qualifications of a bishop and deacon (cf. Titus 1:6–9 below), found within Paul’s comments to Timothy regarding church governance and behavior (1 Tim 2:1–3:16), consist of two very similar yet not identical mixed lists of what appear to be virtues and vices (and could as easily perhaps have been put in the list of virtues above, except that the lists here are probably more negative than positive in orientation). However, the virtues and vices listed are not of the same extreme type as those mentioned in the typical virtue and vice lists, which tend to be used to distinguish those within the community from those outside. Nevertheless, as Daniel Harrington and James Keenan indicate, “they are clearly influenced by the ‘list’ tradition” in their formulation.39 Whereas the vice and virtue lists typically include various characteristics or behaviors that have fundamentally positive or negative effects upon the individual and hence the community, these lists in 1 Timothy include less extreme but clearly advantageous behaviors for the congregation. 1 Tim 6:3–5: Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that is in accordance with godliness, is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and for disputes about words. From these come envy, dissension, slander, base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. (NRSV)

In his instructions to Timothy (there is probably a parenesis section in 1 Tim 5:1–6:19),40 Paul offers a form of vice list regarding false teachers. This list is actually two lists, the first concerning attitudes, and the other concerning behavior that comes from such bad attitudes. Some consider this part of a larger Pauline household code (see below on 1 Tim 6:1–2).41 2 Tim 3:2–5: For people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to the outward form of godliness but denying its power. (NRSV)

Harrington and Keenan, Paul and Virtue Ethics, 116. Porter, Apostle Paul, Chapter 12. 41  See Sampley, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh,” 19. 39  40 



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This is the longest vice list in the Pauline letters. 2 Timothy does not have a parenetic section, so this vice list occurs in the body of the letter within an eschatological section concerning the last days (2 Tim 3:1–9).42 In leading up to his apostolic charge of Timothy (2 Tim 3:10–4:18), Paul describes the conditions of the last days by means of this vice list that concentrates on mostly social behavior. Titus 1:6–9: An elder should be someone who is blameless, married only once, whose children are believers, not accused of debauchery and not rebellious. For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or addicted to wine or violent or greedy for gain; but he must be hospitable, a lover of goodness, prudent, upright, devout, and self-controlled. He must have a firm grasp of the word that is trustworthy in accordance with the teaching, so that he may be able both to preach with sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict it. (NRSV)

As in the lists in 1 Tim 3:2–4, 8–12, the qualifications for an elder or bishop (the two seem to be used as contextual synonyms here) contain a mixed virtue and vice list. This list is found within the body of the letter (Titus 1:5–16).43 The most important Christian virtues are not mentioned, but neither are the worst vices, as these are qualifications for those serving within the Christian community, not distinguishing themselves from it by their behavior. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, the list tradition seems to have influenced the formulation of this mixed list here. Titus 3:3: For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasure, passing our days in malice and envy, despicable, hating one another. (NRSV)

In the parenesis of Titus (2:1–3:14), Paul exhorts Titus to remind his congregants how they should respond to authority.44 Paul offers this vice list by referring to his own pre-conversion behavior, which he characterizes as given over to various attitudinal and behavioral vices.

Haustafeln or Household Codes The third category of ethical statements is Haustafeln or household codes. Whereas in Part I, I already discussed the origins and sources of these conventionalized ethical sections, here I note that these household codes, which are found in a maximum of five places within the Pauline letters (all five in what are often said to be deutero-Pauline letters), offer instructions for ethical behavior in some relation to the primary social unit of the time, the family.45 These family units included father, mother, children of

Porter, Apostle Paul, Chapter 12. Ibid. 44  Ibid. 45  The maximal number (with 1 Pet 2:81–3:7 added) was first identified by Martin Dibelius (see below) and followed by others (e.g., Sampley, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh,” 19). Most scholars today opt only for the examples found in Ephesians and Colossians (and 1 Peter), for form-critical reasons. See Hering, Colossian and Ephesian Haustafeln, 9–10, citing Martin Dibelius, An die Kolosser, Epheser, an Philemon, ed. Heinrich Greeven, 3rd ed., HNT 12 (Tübingen: Mohr, 1953), 48. 42  43 

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varying ages, and slaves (including household servants), with some of the boundaries among these groups being flexibly defined, especially those between children and slaves.46 Not all of the New Testament household codes include all of these groups, and not all of the household codes below follow the same pattern, as will be noted. Ephesians 5:21–6:9. The first major question regarding the Ephesians household code is whether it begins with Eph 5:21 or 22. There is divided opinion about this among translations and editions of the Greek New Testament, as well as commentators. The statement, “be obedient to each other in reverence of Christ” (5:21; NRSV), seems like a suitable heading for the household code, apart from the fact that the clause is a participial structure dependent upon the verb “be filled” in 5:18, as are similar participles in vv. 19–20. However, 5:22 (‘wives to their own husbands as to the Lord’) does not have its own finite verb, which verb could be provided by the participle of 5:21. A possible way forward is to consider the household code as part of the previous section on Christian behavior, including being filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit is exemplified in a variety of behaviors, including mutual respect among husbands and wives (although not all of the participles are to be taken as commands, as is the one in 5:21).47 The Ephesians household code—apart from the question of the heading in 5:21—is divided into three major sections, with each section divided into two parts with some reciprocality, even though the socially inferior precedes the superior in order. The first section concerns wives and then husbands. Wives are told to be subject to their husbands. The husband is head of the wife as Christ is head of the church. Husbands are to love their wives as Christ loved the church. Paul elaborates this injunction in two ways, first in sacrificial language (as Christ offered himself up for the church, so the husband purifies his wife) and second in respect of his own body (the husband is to love the wife as much as he loves himself). This elaboration extends to the relationship of Christ and the church. The second section concerns children and then parents. Children are to obey their parents, on the basis of the commandment to honor father and mother, the first commandment with a promise (cf. Exod 20:12). Fathers are not to provoke their children so that they become angry, but to discipline and instruct them. The third section concerns slaves and their masters. Slaves are told to obey their earthly masters as they would obey Christ if he were there watching them, as he is in fact their master. Masters are to do the same, and for the same reasons—they have a master in heaven who does not play favorites. This household code is addressed to a Christian household and how it functions as such. Colossians 3:18–4:1. The Colossians household code begins with the statement addressed to wives, but unlike in Eph 5:22, it has a main verb, the imperative to be obedient. The Colossians household code is shorter than the one in Ephesians, but See Margaret Y. MacDonald, “Reading the New Testament Household Codes in Light of New Research on Children and Childhood in the Roman World,” Studies in Religion 41, no. 3 (2012): 376–87. 47  See Fowl, Ephesians, 186–87. 46 



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is organized with the same three sections, with each of these sections having two somewhat reciprocal parts.48 The first section concerns wives and husbands. Wives are told to be subject to their husbands, which is fitting in the Lord, and husbands are told to love their wives and not to treat them harshly. The second section concerns children and parents. Children are told to obey their parents as a duty in the Lord, and fathers are not to provoke their children. The third section concerns slaves and masters. This is the longest section of the Colossians household code. Slaves are told to obey their earthly masters, and to do their tasks as if doing them for the Lord, who will provide their ultimate reward as his servants. Masters are to treat their slaves justly and fairly for the same reason—they have a master in heaven. This household code, as is the one in Eph 5:21–6:9, is addressed to a Christian household. 1 Timothy 2:8–15. The first letter to Timothy has a distinct form of household code, to the point where it might well be questioned whether this qualifies as one of the codes (most think that it does not). Nevertheless, it occurs within the body of the letter, in a section given to church governance and behavior (1 Tim 2:1–3:16). This household code contains instructions only for men and women, but not for children or slaves. Whereas some take this household code as referring to husband/wife relations, which would put it more in line with the Ephesians and Colossians codes, this is a matter of debate among interpreters.49 Even if other household codes do not refer to husband and wife (e.g., Titus 2:1–10), they often have more of an ecclesial household idea in view than is apparent in 1 Tim 2. There is also a lack of symmetry between the discussions that is not usually found in the Pauline household codes. The instructions to men are that they are to pray by lifting up holy hands.50 Women are told that they should dress modestly and appropriately, and let their good works substitute for outward adornment. The NRSV continues: “Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent” (1 Tim 2:11–12).51 The code concludes with the analogy of Adam and Eve. Scholars debate whether this set of instructions is addressed to social order, church order or household order, as well as debating the meanings of various of the wordings. In any case, the instructions are addressed to Christian behavior within such a context.

48  There have been many discussions of the relationships between the Colossians and Ephesians household codes. See Sampley, “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh,” 23–25, among others. 49  See I. Howard Marshall, with Philip H. Towner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999), 444. 50  At least, this is the usual interpretation of the passage. See Stanley E. Porter, Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament: Studies in Tools, Methods, and Practice (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015), 339–46, where I question whether it is holy men lifting, rather than it being holy hands. 51  I note that this passage has been highly contentious in its interpretation and its application, but that is outside the bounds of discussion of it as a household code. I believe that the NRSV translation, and possibly others, do not do justice to the Greek text in context. For some preliminary thoughts, see Stanley E. Porter, “Reframing Social Justice in the Pauline Letters,” in The Bible and Social Justice, ed. Cynthia Long Westfall and Bryan R. Dyer, MNTS (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015), 125–51, esp. 137–39.

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1 Timothy 6:1–2. As noted above, some think that an entire household code is found in 1 Tim 6:1–10. I have treated the vice lists above, as I believe that 1 Tim 6:1–2 is probably at best only a small part of a household code concerning slaves. If this is a household code (most question it), it only concerns the slave and not the master, although some comments are made regarding the master. Slaves are to give honor to their masters so as not to blaspheme God. Those with believing masters are to serve these masters even more diligently than they would presumably serve non-believing masters, because they are believers. Titus 2:1–10. The letter to Titus has its own form of household code, which includes virtue and vice lists.52 This household code is not for a typical family but for the members of the family of God. This household code has three sections. The first section concerns older men and older women. Paul commands Titus to tell the older men to be “temperate, serious, prudent, and sound in faith, in love, and in endurance” (NRSV), a form of virtue list. He then tells the older women to “be reverent in behavior, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink; they are to teach what is good…” (NRSV), with a short mixed list of virtues and vices. The first section for older men and women then leads directly into the second section on young women and young men. The instructions for the older women are designed “so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self-controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands…” (NRSV). The younger men are also to be in control of themselves and to demonstrate this in good works and show “integrity, gravity, and sound speech that cannot be censured” (NRSV), a short virtue list. The third section concerns slaves. Slaves are to be submissive to their masters and “not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity” (NRSV), a mix of virtues and vices. There is nothing explicit said of masters. Harrington and Keenan believe that this household code “provides insight into what virtues were regarded as most appropriate for various categories of early Christians,” in which there is a more “domesticated” form of Christianity that assumes the social conventions of elite Greco-Roman households. For them, this “suggests that early Christians had recognized and were exploiting an important sociological truth: Religions spread and grow through social networks, and new converts are attracted primarily through contact with the exemplary behavior of representatives (even if they are women or slaves!) of that religion.”53 There is no doubt truth in the notion that good behavior might be attractive to outsiders, but they probably miss the fact that this expression of the household code is more oriented to the congregation as the household of God than it is to the household itself. In that sense, the household code is as much a theological statement as it is an ethical one.

Harrington and Keenan, Paul and Virtue Ethics, 117, say that Titus 2:1–10 “looks much like a household code,” although they appear to believe that it is more in the “format of the household code” (118) than actually being one. 53  Ibid., 118. 52 



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Contribution of Pauline Virtue and Vice Passages and Household Codes to Pauline Ethics and Christian Formation Before we are able to discuss the Pauline virtue and vice lists and the household codes, I wish to make an observation regarding their distribution within the Pauline corpus. If my summary is at all accurate (and I believe that it represents a fairly broad span of opinion), then all of the virtue lists are included within the recognized Pauline letters (an exception might be if Eph 6:14–17 is taken as an instance of a virtue list), whereas vice lists are found within both the recognized and the purportedly deutero-Pauline letters. The household codes are only found within the deutero-Pauline letters. For some, this distribution, first, confirms the deutero-Pauline authorship of the letters that include the household codes, and, second, colors interpretation of some of these vice lists when they occur in such letters.54 This is not the place to argue for or against Pauline authorship of particular letters, nor is it the place to make comments upon the virtue and vice lists or household codes by invoking such prior understandings, as they are still within the Pauline corpus and at the least were thought to be—and accepted as such—compatible with the Pauline voice. In what follows, I will treat them as part of the Pauline corpus. As we have seen in the discussion above, there is a wide range of discussion of the Pauline virtue and vice lists and the household codes. In his concluding comments on the household codes, Balch notes three suggested functions for the ethic contained within them: (1) “use as general ethical exhortation unrelated to any specific situation”; (2) use “to repress social unrest within the church among Christian slaves and wives,” as encouraged by such ideas as found in Gal 3:28; and (3) use as “a part of the church’s mission.”55 As a result, and by extension, some have argued that the virtue and vice passages, and the household codes along with them, are simply instances of Paul reflecting the contemporary ethical stances of his culture, and they are not particular to his ecclesial context (position one above). In that sense, these lists and codes are a-contextual, in some instances possibly even interpolations. The vices that Paul condemns and the virtues that he commends are, in this accounting, merely reflective of the values that were present in the Greco-Roman world of the first century, perhaps with some influence of Hellenistic Judaism taken into consideration. The household codes in this view also reflect the traditional and arguably oppressive social views of the time, in which the pater familias dominated the family, with unequal statements being made in the tripartite formulation in which the dominant partner has priority over the lesser. This position is often held regardless of the view of the origins of the household codes one may take, as such one-sided submission is often seen to be endemic to the Greco-Roman world of the time, of which Judaism was a part. Whether For example, among others, see Jack T. Sanders, Ethics in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), 81–90, but 85, where he notes that “a new ethical note is heard in these Epistles” (the Pastoral Epistles); and Margaret Y. MacDonald, The Pauline Churches: A Socio-historical Study of Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Writings, SNTSMS 60 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 102–105. 55  Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 10. 54 

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the codes were designed for apologetic value to show that Christianity was not a threat to Rome (position 2) or as a means of configuring the household within early Christian communities (position 3), they are often still seen as inherently unequal. There have been many reactions to such a position, including simply dismissing these passages for a variety of reasons or downgrading their interpretive significance within the overall scope of Pauline thought or reinterpreting certain portions of them so as to argue for various alternative understandings that are more compatible with other kinds of ethical and social stances. Recent discussion of the social function of Pauline household codes perhaps helps us to see a way forward in understanding them, along with the virtue and vice lists, as Pauline expressions of Christian ethics useful for Christian individual and community formation. The diverse nature of the Pauline virtues and vices—clearly indicating, even within the recognized letters, that Paul did not have a standard list that he invoked—shows that Paul may well have been familiar with a Greco-Roman tradition of virtues and vices. Whereas such virtues and vices were originally concerned with individual behavior, he uses such catalogs with reference to personal and communal behavior, especially the behavior of those within the Christian community. Paul’s lists of virtues and vices are not simply related to individual characteristics but include social, sexual, and other types of behavior. Their differences in elements and length presumably indicate that Paul is using such language as either a commendatory or corrective commentary (or both) upon the particular Christian ecclesial or other situation that he is addressing. In that sense, rather than simply seeing the use of lists of virtues and vices as a topos of ancient writing, I think that they should be seen as contextually fashioned ethical statements designed to influence Christian formation, even if they have their basis in contemporary moral and philosophical thought (whether Greco-Roman or Jewish). The result is that we see Paul affirming particular behavioral patterns that he sees as building up both the individual practitioner and the Christian community, along with denouncing other behaviors that he sees as individually destructive or as harmful to the Christian community (and in some instances meriting exclusion from the kingdom of God). More research probably needs to be done into the individual characteristics of these lists and how they give insight into and reflect the situation of individual letters and, more particularly, the unfolding argument of individual letters.56 This is particularly noteworthy in light of the fact that the virtue and vice lists appear in both the body and the parenesis of Paul’s letters. As with the lists of virtues and vices, the household codes seem to reflect a concern for Christian formation within the household, with the household seen both as the basic unit of social organization within the first-century Greco-Roman and Jewish world and as a metaphor for the organization of the early Christian church. There are at least two factors to take into account. The first is the inclusiveness of at least some of the household codes, with reference to husbands and wives, children and parents, slaves and masters. The fullest household codes, perhaps based upon Aristotle in the

56  See some of the comments above on the virtues and vices for basic comments on their contextual interpretation, as well as some references to those who have used them in their historical reconstructions.



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first instance, include those members from the top to the bottom of the social structure, from the parents to the slaves. As we know from the realities of ancient family life, the boundaries within these categories are somewhat flexible.57 This perhaps makes more understandable some codes addressed to husbands and wives and others to man and woman and still others to older and younger people, as well as some of the potential overlap that would have been found between children and slaves. The second feature is the distinctly Christian stance of the Pauline household codes including reciprocity. Even if the household codes are reflective of codes found in other ethical thinkers of the times, they have distinctive Christian features. For example, even if there is reciprocity in some instances within other household codes (although some have said that this is directed toward “enlightened self-interest”),58 such reciprocity is not framed as directed to “pairs in a household.”59 Therefore, we must take seriously the reciprocity that Paul invokes especially within its distinctly Christian context.60 His reciprocity is not based upon self-interest but is based upon the work of Christ, and in fact somewhat mitigates the reciprocity by appeal of all parties to a higher level of responsibility. This Christ-focused basis is found throughout the Ephesians household code (e.g., Eph 5:21: “out of reverence for Christ” [lit. “in fear of Christ”]; 5:22: “as to the Lord”; 5:25: “as Christ loved the church”; 5:29: “as Christ does for the church”; 6:1: “in the Lord”; 6:5: “as you obey Christ”; 6:7: “as to the Lord”; 6:9: “the same master”) and the Colossians household code (e.g., Col 3:18: “as is fitting in the Lord”; 3:20: “in the Lord”; 3:23: “as done for the Lord”; 4:1: “that you also have a Master in heaven”), the two major household codes where the hierarchically arranged groups interact with each other. The reciprocity is admittedly not found in all instances (e.g., 1 Tim 2:8–15; 6:1–2; and Titus 2:1–10), but these other codes are still found within a similar Christian context as the basis of the appeal (e.g., 1 Tim 6:1: “the name of God”; Titus 2:5: “so that the word of God may not be discredited”; Titus 2:10: “the doctrine of God our Savior”).61 As a result, at least in Ephesians and Colossians, but with implications for the other passages, husbands are not just to love their wives but to love them at least as much as they love themselves and the way Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, fathers are not to provoke their children to anger but disciple and instruct them in the Lord, and masters are to treat their slaves as they would want their master, Christ, to treat them.62 This means that “conventional authority structures of the ancient household are thereby subverted even while they are

See MacDonald, “Reading the New Testament Household Codes.” Russ Dudrey, “ ‘Submit Yourselves to One Another’: A Socio-Historical Look at the Household Code of Ephesians 5:15–6:9,” Restoration Quarterly 41 (1999): 27–44, here 41. 59  Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive, 10. 60  On how this reciprocity relates to the matter of equality, at least in the Ephesians household code, see Cynthia Long Westfall, “ ‘This Is a Great Metaphor!’: Reciprocity in the Ephesians Household Code,” in Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts, ECHC 1, TENTS 9 (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 561–98. 61  All of the immediately above translations are from the NRSV or based upon it. 62  Cf. Richard A. Burridge, Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 137 (who also quotes Hays; see below). 57  58 

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left in place” by instructing those in power to place the other above themselves.63 The implication is not simply that hierarchy is flattened but that there is an inversion of values, where the conventional authority acts in the best interests of the conventional inferior, recognizing that both are in subordinate service to Christ.

Part III. Conclusion The Pauline virtue and vice lists, along with the household codes, continue to provide interesting topics for analysis and for discussion. Paul was not only a theologian but an ethicist—at least he included ethical statements within his letters to his congregations. This paper has been concerned to examine how Paul formulated some of his ethical statements in terms of lists of virtues and vices and as household codes. There has been much discussion regarding what constitutes these lists and these codes. There has been much further discussion of their origins and background. Finally, there has been some discussion of their function within the Pauline letters. Although questions regarding origins and background are interesting, and even potentially profitable (mostly as a means of indicating what is unique in the Pauline formulation), such questions are not nearly as important as seeing the way that Paul uses these ethical formulations within the arguments of his various letters. For Paul, these lists and household codes seem to form a part of the ethical-theological apparatus that he creates to guide his Christian communities in their formation.

Part IV. Select Bibliography Balch, David L. “Household Codes.” Pages 25–50 in Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament. Edited by David E. Aune. SBLSBS 21. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988. ———Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in I Peter. SBLMS 26. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1981. Barclay, John M. G. Obeying the Truth: A Study of Paul’s Ethics in Galatians. SNTIW. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988. Burridge, Richard A. Imitating Jesus: An Inclusive Approach to New Testament Ethics. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007. Cannon, George E. The Use of Traditional Materials in Colossians. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985.

63  Richard B. Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation. A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), 64. Hays also recognizes the reciprocity of the Ephesians household code and its “explicitly theological elaboration that seeks to show how these norms are warranted by the gospel” (65).



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Crouch, James E. The Origin and Intention of the Colossian Haustafel. FRLANT 109. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1972. Dibelius, Martin. An die Kolosser, Epheser, an Philemon. Edited by Heinrich Greeven. 3rd ed. HNT 12. Tübingen: Mohr, 1953. ———An die Thessalonicher I, II, An die Philipper. 3rd ed. HNT 11. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1937. Dudrey, Russ. “ ‘Submit Yourselves to One Another’: A Socio-Historical Look at the Household Code of Ephesians 5:15–6:9.” Restoration Quarterly 41 (1999): 27–44. Elliott, John H. A Home for the Homeless: A Social-Scientific Criticism of I Peter, Its Situation and Strategy. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1981. Feldman, Louis H. Josephus’s Interpretation of the Bible. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Fowl, Stephen E. Ephesians: A Commentary. NTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2012. Furnish, Victor Paul. The Moral Teaching of Paul. Nashville: Abingdon, 1979. ———Theology and Ethics in Paul. Nashville: Abingdon, 1968. Harrington, Daniel J., and James F. Keenan. Paul and Virtue Ethics: Building Bridges between New Testament Studies and Moral Theology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010. Hays, Richard B. The Moral Vision of the New Testament: Community, Cross, New Creation. A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996. Hering, James P. The Colossian and Ephesian Haustafeln in Theological Context: An Analysis of Their Origins, Relationship, and Message. AUS 7/260. New York: Lang, 2007. Hoehner, Harold W. Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002. Land, Christopher D. The Integrity of 2 Corinthians and Paul’s Aggravating Absence. NTM 36. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015. MacDonald, Margaret Y. The Pauline Churches: A Socio-historical Study of Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Writings. SNTSMS 60. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. ———“Reading the New Testament Household Codes in Light of New Research on Children and Childhood in the Roman World.” Studies in Religion 41, no. 3 (2012): 376–87. Malherbe, Abraham J. “Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament.” Pages 267–333 in ANRW 2.26.1. Edited by Wolfgang Haase. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992. Marshall, I. Howard, with Philip H. Towner. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles. ICC. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1999. Porter, Stanley E. The Apostle Paul: His Life, Thought, and Letters. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016. ———The Letter to the Romans: A Linguistic and Literary Commentary. NTM 37. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2015. ———Linguistic Analysis of the Greek New Testament: Studies in Tools, Methods, and Practice. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2015. ———“Reframing Social Justice in the Pauline Letters.” Pages 125–51 in The Bible and Social Justice. Edited by Cynthia Long Westfall and Bryan R. Dyer. MNTS. Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015. Rosner, Brian S., ed. Understanding Paul’s Ethics: Twentieth-Century Approaches. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. Sampley, J. Paul. “And the Two Shall Become One Flesh”: A Study of Traditions in Ephesians 5:21–33. SNTSMS 16. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. ———Walking Between the Times: Paul’s Moral Reasoning. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991. Sanders, Jack T. Ethics in the New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975.

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Schlier, Heinrich. Der Brief an die Galater. KEK. 13th ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965. Standhartinger, Angela. “The Origin and Intention of the Household Code in the Letter to the Colossians.” JSNT 79 (2000): 117–30. Sumney, Jerry L. Colossians: A Commentary. NTL. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2008. Thompson, James W. Moral Formation according to Paul. Grand Rapids: Baker, 2011. Westfall, Cynthia Long. “ ‘This Is a Great Metaphor!’: Reciprocity in the Ephesians Household Code.” Pages 561–98 in Christian Origins and Greco-Roman Culture: Social and Literary Contexts for the New Testament. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts. ECHC 1. TENTS 9. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Whang, Young Chul. “Paul’s Letter Paraenesis.” Pages 253–68 in Paul and the Ancient Letter Form. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Sean A. Adams. PAST 6. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

Epilogue

Living in an Evil Aeon: Paul’s Ambiguous Relation to Culture* (Toward a Taxonomy) J. Paul Sampley

The appearance of this volume in a second, revised edition is one more index that Pauline studies continues to be a vigorous discipline. A sequence of events helps account for that vigor. First, Paul escaped the hegemony of Acts so that he could be read on his own grounds and not through Luke’s lens. Second, Pauline studies benefited from insights and methods we borrowed from our colleagues in social sciences; I think particularly of anthropology and sociology. And third, we’ve always known and studied Paul the Jew, but it is only in the last couple of decades that renewed interest has been paid to setting Paul’s letters in the Greco-Roman world, and this enterprise is clearly on the cutting edge of Pauline scholarship today. Now, Roman social, economic and political practices, social conventions, and values are the common coin of Pauline studies. Even Greco-Roman patterns of rhetoric have emerged as a major research area. This should be no surprise. Paul clearly understands himself as apostle to the non-Jews (Rom 1:5; 11:13; 15:16; Gal 1:16; 2:2, 9; cf. Acts 9:15), and though he uses a Jewish expression to describe them (we translate it “Gentiles”), he dedicates himself to making the gospel available to those outside Judaism. We have no reason to doubt that there might be Jews in any Pauline congregation, but we have probably been too inclined to overestimate their numbers. And we can demonstrate that every undisputed Pauline letter (save Philemon) explicitly supposes that Gentiles are present among the recipients (the same statement cannot be made regarding Jews). When Paul describes the churches he founded in what I take to be his last unquestionably authentic letter, Romans, he says that Prisca and Aquila have done so much that “all the churches of the Gentiles” are indebted to that couple (Rom 16:4). “All the churches of the

An earlier version of this essay was first delivered as the 2002 Frederick D. Kershner Lectures in New Testament at what is now the Emmanuel Christian Seminary at Milligan. * 

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Gentiles”—that’s Paul’s own characterization of them. So how can it be surprising that Paul, in his missionary efforts to “win some” of those “outside the law” (1 Cor 9:21) had no choice but to use categories, conceptions, perceptions, and inclinations that were familiar to his non-Jewish audiences. In his missionizing among Gentiles, it would have made no sense to present the gospel in Jewish categories that had first to be explained and elucidated before he could preach and move an audience toward conversion. Communication begins with taking one’s hearers precisely in the context where they are. Effective persuasion can move people from where they are, but it must always begin with them where and as they are. Accordingly, Paul’s addresses to non-Jews had to be cast in non-Jewish categories. True, after Paul has gained a hearing with Gentiles, he can and does socialize them into the story of Israel as God’s people. Then he can retell the Exodus story in such as way as to include his Gentile auditors as persons who with Paul can identify the characters in the original exodus as “our ancestors” (1 Cor 10:1); they can come to understand that Christ is “our paschal lamb” (1 Cor 5:7); and they can come to view themselves as part of the “Israel of God” (Gal 6:16). The world around him. As can be seen from his letters, Paul is a careful observer of the way the world works. His capacity to engage it and to use its categories is directly proportional to how well he understands how things function. Let us recount what Paul knows about how the world operates, how power works and how things happen. The following is merely a sampling designed to show that, from the clues in his letters, Paul has an informed view of the realia of the world and its culture. Some of the items mentioned in these six samples will bear on the later parts of this essay. (1) The political structure affects life. Out of their ignorance, the rulers of this world, though they will ultimately be overthrown as God’s plan in Christ comes to completion, killed “the Lord of glory” (1 Cor 2:6, 8). And one of them, “the governor under King Aretas,” sought to capture Paul in Damascus (2 Cor 11:32–33). Rulers’ power is expressed down the chain through magistrates and judges who favor the wealthy and don’t know righteousness or justice (1 Cor 6:1–7). The Pretorian guard have units at certain key places across the empire (Phil 1:13). With considerable familiarity, Paul knows prisons hither and yon (2 Cor 6:5; 11:23; Phlm 9, 13). Citizenship is credited with value and implies the exercise of appropriate responsibilities (Phil 1:27; 3:20). Paul has benefited from imperial power in that the appropriately celebrated Pax Romana has made travel feasible; accordingly, Paul and his associates (relatively; 2 Cor 11:24–27) freely make their way around the Mediterranean basin from city to city (Rom 15:19–20; cf. Gal 1:17–22). Additionally, he expects believers everywhere to provide hospitality to him and to his associates for his travel in behalf of the gospel (Rom 12:13; 15:24). Paul is aware of the victory triumphs that emperors and their subalterns staged. Paul and all his communities will have been familiar with the Roman military’s pattern of victory processions, and Paul’s rhetoric in 2 Cor 2:14–16 will call to his auditors’ minds those processions where defeated leaders were paraded in shame and disgrace. In 44 CE, just a few years prior to Paul’s writing of 2 Cor 2, Claudius had defeated the southern Britons and came back home to stage a monumental triumph (as Suetonius describes it in Claud. 17). At least some of the Corinthians, as residents of an official



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Roman colony city and therefore especially attuned to Rome, will remember Claudius’ triumphal procession. Paul’s use of thriambeuein in 2 Cor 2:14, though it most often is associated with military processions led by the victorious leaders as just suggested, may, however, also call to mind an epiphany procession of deities such as Dionysus and Isis who were regarded as victors and honored with processions through city streets. Likewise, the fragrance noted in 2 Cor 2:15–16 may evoke memories of the triumphal incense burned in those very processions. Paul knows battle strategies, how people used pointed wooden stakes for offensive and for defensive purposes—his infamous “thorn” in the flesh may in fact have been such a stake (2 Cor 12:7)—and how warriors girded themselves (1 Thess 5:8–10). He knows the way the Romans made and kept peace—by crushing any opposition—and he can’t imagine God doing any less. Accordingly, he writes to the Romans “May the God of peace crush Satan under your feet” (Rom 16:20). He is fascinated with athletic imagery—which reflects the practice and maintenance of military skills—and he uses it to talk about himself and the life of faith. He likens his life to a race (1 Cor 9:26; Phil 2:16; 3:12–14); he hopes to win the crown as a prize for the race (1 Thess 2:19); he knows the boxer’s regimen of shadow-boxing (1 Cor 9:26); and he knows that all athletes have to practice discipline and self-control (9:25). His heavy use of athletic imagery in 1 Corinthians, for example, is an instance of his using something he knows is familiar to his audience. The biennial Isthmian games had been staged no more than eight miles from Corinth and within less than a year of his writing of 1 Corinthians. On the legal front, he realizes that judges do render decisions (1 Cor 6:1), that people are sometimes hauled before the bēma, or tribunal, for judgment (Rom 14:10; 2 Cor 5:10), and that in the courts the wealthy prevail (1 Cor 6:1–7). Further, civil judges who are unbelievers cannot be expected to understand anything about real justice. (2) Paul knows a great deal about the social realities of his time. Peripatetic sages wander around, giving counsel, taking food and money and are never seen again; this is the model he fears that the Thessalonians may take to be his when he is bereft of them suddenly and cannot go back to see them, even though they are newly minted Christ-followers (1 Thess 2:1–12). Sages, scribes, debaters, orators, and even peddlers are everywhere (1 Cor 1:20; 2 Cor 2:17); at times he must appear to be such. The world is filled with crafty people, some of whom readily take advantage of others (2 Cor 11:20–21; 12:16–18) by their underhanded ways (2 Cor 4:2). He knows rhetors were advised to lie if necessary to win their case, but he’s not up to that as he says in 2 Cor 13:8. He knows that apostles are not held in high regard in the world (1 Cor 4:9–13). Social stratification is a reality and makes its mark in some of his churches (1 Cor 1:26–28). Comparison of oneself with others in the hope of finding someone that you better is the staple of the all-pervasive honor/shame system. Commendation is the way to milk the patronage network (Rom 16:1; 1 Cor 16:10–11; 2 Cor 3:1–3). People pursue what they think to be their self-interests (Phil 2:4, 21); if divisions and

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fractiousness results, so be it. Prostitution is a part of life (1 Cor 6:16). Immorality is everywhere; as a corollary, self-control is a key human dilemma (1 Cor 7:5). Paul really knows the institution of slavery, no doubt because slaves were present in most households but also because at times they became his followers (Phlm 10). Base line: slaves have to be trustworthy (1 Cor 4:2); and what they do and how well they do is not a matter for public scrutiny but is between the master and the slave (Rom 14:1–4). Slaves can be traded or sold, and therefore, can be “bought for a price” (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23). When they are bought by a new master, the former owner no longer has any say or power over them. Slaves can earn or bargain or be granted their freedom (1 Cor 7:21–22). Manumission, not emancipation, is the name of the game. (3) He knows households are the basic social unit. Households are most often intergenerational and usually include slaves. Children watch their parents and learn by doing; emulation is the biggest teaching tool in the entire culture (Phil 4:9). Adoption is an open act with no social stigma (Rom 8:15). Inheritance is the way of passing along whatever the family has accrued (8:17). Every household has a pater familias, the person who is in charge of the household and responsible, even legally, for each member of it. Paul is very concerned with the way brothers and sisters in the household of faith get along with one another. (4) Paul knows a fair amount about popular religion and the way cultic ceremonies were carried out (1 Cor 8:1, 10; 10:25). Though he calls their representations of their deities “idols,” he knows that some people credit them with power (1 Cor 8:4–5). He is aware that meat markets sell meat that has been offered to idols (1 Cor 10:25). (5) Paul knows skills such as building and enterprises such as agriculture. He likens himself to a master builder (1 Cor 3:10) who knows that the quality of the entire building depends on the worth of its foundation; he knows a remarkable range of materials from which one might build a house and extends the list beyond stones, wood, hay and straw (3:12). Concerning agriculture, he knows that farming requires strenuous effort and that, if you have enough people, you can divide the chores. Seeds decompose as they generate their new, transformed life (1 Cor 15:36–37). You can sow skimpily, but you should also then expect to reap skimpily (2 Cor 9:6). He even knows that olive trees are regularly grafted because wild root stock does not produce well (Rom 11:17–19). In fact, he knows so much about olive husbandry that his daft notion of grafting wild olive branches back into the tree can only be in service of some theological conviction about God’s surprising, graceful ways (11:23–24). (6) Finally, Paul knows that life is not without hazard. Not all goes well; his peristasis (hardship) catalogs show that in ample fashion. Dangers persist. Health is threatened. And comfort is hardly a high priority (cf. 2 Cor 1:3–10; 4:7–11; 6:1–10; 11:22–29). Of crucial importance for this study, Paul seems utterly fearless in his embrace of Greco-Roman conventions and assumptions as a vessel for promulgating the gospel. I find Paul (and Luke in Acts, for that matter) a refreshing alternative to those today who so dearly and carefully guard the gospel from what they might consider “contamination” and who would have it as their goal to repristinate Christianity, as if that were ever an attainable much less desirable objective. Like Mark Twain regarding



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friendship, Paul never found a Greek notion that he didn’t like and that he couldn’t domesticate into service of the gospel. Granted, and this is an important point, Paul never (well, almost never) took over anything from his Greco-Roman culture without tweaking it or torqueing it a bit—or a great deal—in light of the gospel. In reference to Paul I just used the expression “his Greco-Roman culture.” In Paul’s time there is no Judaism that is not already hellenized. Yes, even Qumran has the marks of Rome on it at some points; compare the way the War Scroll relates to tactical military manuals of the time. So, Paul the Jew is already a part of the Greco-Roman world; thus he is not taking a giant step when he employs Greco-Roman conventions; he is not “borrowing” notions, as some would say, from Greco-Roman culture; rather, he is simply using what he and other contemporary Jews know, what is at hand. So, at present many of us are busy doing scholarly studies of Paul’s use of this social convention or of that rhetorical topos. But, so far as I know, none of us has yet decided to back off and analyze or examine just what Paul’s relation to his cultural social setting really is. Until now. In this study, I want to ask the question “Just what is Paul’s relationship to the culture in which he lives and which he so readily employs in his formulations of his thought?” The matter is too complex to complete in any study; indeed, it is so complicated that I do not profess to understand it fully; but it is my purpose to make some sorties into the issue so that we can not only see its complexity but also perhaps begin to map out the territory. I hope to begin what other scholars can refine and continue, what we might call a taxonomy of Paul’s relation to the culture in which he and his followers lived. I have entitled this study “Living in an Evil Aeon: Paul’s Ambiguous Relation to Culture.” Here, the word “culture” is used not as a technical term but as an umbrella designed to cover topics such as those noted earlier: social conventions, practices and values. In my pursuit of Paul’s relation to culture, I want to assess how and in what ways he appropriates some practices and values and how and in what ways he seeks to separate himself from others. The phrase “evil aeon” is Paul’s, from Galatians: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil aeon, according to the will of our God and Father” (Gal 1:4; emphasis added). The term aeon here could be translated “age” and is identical to his appeal in Rom 12:2 not to “be conformed to this aeon, this age.” The translation of “aeon” as “world” (KJV, ASV) is unfortunate because it contributes to a non-Pauline, proto-gnostic denigration of the world as God’s creation. Granted, Paul does view this world and creation as having fallen under the power of sin and accordingly in need of redemption (Rom 8:18–25). More typically, other Jewish apocalyptic views, apart from Paul, tend to separate this admittedly evil aeon or age from the age to come. The book of Revelation, for example, anticipates a new heaven and a new earth precisely because the old heaven and old earth, where the believers now live, have been contaminated by sin and evil (Rev 21; cf. 12:7–9). In that document, the corruption of the present order necessitates a dissociation from the present and its evil and requires a fresh start, a new beginning. Paul, by contrast—and it is a part of his genius—understands that believers, though

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they are already part of the new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15; cf. Eph 2:15; 2 Pet 3:13) that God has begun in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, still live also in the present evil aeon. Their citizenship is in heaven (Phil 3:20), but they exercise the responsibilities of their citizenship right here and now (Phil 1:27) in a world where the power of sin is not yet finished, and where death is the continual reminder of sin’s perduring power. Let’s be clear. In Christ’s death, sin’s power was broken so that believers were, by God’s grace, called forth to a new Lord. Believers as the children of God begin to enjoy a new freedom that the creation, already taken over by sin’s power, yearns to share (Rom 8:18–23). But sin’s mark, its power, still permeates the structures of the world in which believers must live. For example, believers still experience the sting of death (1 Cor 15:55–56). So the world and believers cannot expect to be immune from sin’s impact until Christ’s parousia or return at the end. Only then, for example, will death, which is sin’s fruit, be robbed of that sting. Only then will the schema of this world have completely fallen away (1 Cor 7:31). True, the schema of this world is already falling away and death’s sting, though real, is no longer the final word. So the distinctiveness of Paul’s apocalyptic vision is that the believers all inescapably live in two aeons at the same time. Courtesy of God’s grace, they are already granted to be part of the new creation (2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15). But just as surely they already live the new life in Christ, and they do so smack dab in the middle of the old aeon, right in the world marked by sin’s corrupting power. There are the ways of faith (Paul identifies them as his ways also; 1 Cor 4:17) and there are the ways of the world. Accordingly, Paul urges the Romans not to “be conformed to this [evil, understood] aeon” but to “be transformed by the renewal” of their minds (12:2). Likewise, he tries to counsel the Corinthians to live at an eschatological arm’s length from the world when he writes: “I mean, brothers and sisters, the time is shortened; henceforth, let even the ones with wives comport themselves as if not, and the ones weeping, as if not weeping, the ones rejoicing, as if not rejoicing, and the ones frequenting the mall, as if not possessing, and the ones using the world, as if not using it” (1 Cor 7:29–31). It’s what he is after with the Galatians as well when he advises of his singular boast “in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” which provides him with a sort of ‘double insulation’ from the world, as follows: the cross has crucified the world to me and the cross has crucified me to the world (Gal 6:14). We will return to these points at the end of the study. Paul’s answer, however, is decidedly not asceticism, not a withdrawal from the world; neither is it a fear of being in the world, surrounded by sinners. Some of his Corinthian followers, by contrast, apparently bid to become novice ascetics as they have interpreted his previous, lost letter in which Paul apparently advised them to avoid contact with unbelievers in the believing community, and they took his counsel to mean a Qumran-like withdrawal from the world (1 Cor 5:9). Paul’s correction to the Corinthians’ wrong interpretation may have been one of his best, though admittedly woefully feeble, efforts at humor; he writes: if you wanted to do avoid any association with pornoi, with immoral persons, you’d have to escape the world (5:10–11). Rather, he supposes that Corinthian believers will be invited to dinner in the homes of unbelievers and that they should go if they want (10:27–28). Rather, he supposes



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that believers will be married to unbelievers and that is not only fine, it may even result in holiness spreading to the unbelievers (7:12–16; more on this later). Rather, he supposes that unbelievers will wander into the Corinthian worship and that the Corinthians should have them in mind when they conduct themselves in their assemblies (14:16–17, 23–25). Most strikingly, even in 1 Thessalonians, where the unfledged community is experiencing persecution from their Gentile neighbors, Paul writes them a passage that translators have too often wimpishly rendered as we see in the NRSV: “so that you may behave properly toward outsiders” (1 Thess 4:12a). What it actually encourages is that the persecuted believers are to “walk [Paul’s favorite term for the way people conduct their lives] in a good-patterning fashion for the ones outside.” In some instances, the people for whom the Thessalonian believers were to be setting an example were the very ones who as their neighbors were persecuting them. In one of his peristasis catalogs Paul expresses this same apocalyptic detachment from the world and its allurements. “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything” (2 Cor 6:8–10). In all those comparatives, Paul notes a disconnect between what the world sees and knows and the recreated reality of believers’ lives. The world’s judgment about him and such apostles is that they are impostors whom nobody knows, who seem to be poor, punished, suffering and dying. Wrong. In fact, Paul and other apostles like him are true, alive, and rejoicing; they are brokers of richness and in fact possess everything. Superficial assessment that is content to rely on externals and appearances will inevitably err. People who do not understand simply will not understand. Outsiders’ views and assessments are never indicators of one’s true worth or of one’s reality. Not only is there apocalyptic detachment for Paul; equally importantly, there is apocalyptic engagement. Stoics gained freedom by rehearsing what was under their control and being careful to distinguish all those things that were not under their control. Put differently, Stoics enhanced their freedom by a strategy of withdrawal from all those entanglements that bid fair to weave them into some sort of dependency, some degree of interdependence with others. Stoic freedom employed the tactic of retreating from, or perhaps we should say, minimizing risk and the exposure to risk. For Stoics, the greatest freedom was achieved by risking the least, by exposing themselves to other forces and other people to the minimum. Some of Paul’s followers, in their Qumran-like eagerness to insure their holiness by withdrawal from society and its entanglements, would have fit the Stoic mentality quite well on this point. In another, related matter Qumran provides a telling contrast with Paul. The covenanters at Qumran effectively wrote off the rest of the world. They believed that the people outside did not understand what was important; in fact outsiders are frequently and scornfully dismissed as “children of the pit” (CD 6.15; 13.14–16). Qumran’s rigid and demanding entrance requirements testify to our point. Only the few, enlightened ones can be expected to qualify for entrance, and even such postulants and novitiates must be scrutinized for years before being granted full admission (1QS 6.16–21; 7.19–20).

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By contrast, Paul does not write off the rest of the world. “Christ died for all,” Paul boldly declares (2 Cor 5:14–15). The grace-full call of God through the enabling work of the Holy Spirit claims people for God, as God’s children (Rom 8; cf. Gal 3:1). And the whole created order, so far subjected to sin’s ravaging devastation, “will be set free from its slavery to destruction so that it may arrive at the glorious freedom of God’s children” (Rom 8:21). The key: once Paul understood that the gospel not only did not call for a wholesale retreat from the world and its practices but also allowed, yes even encouraged engagement of the world, the door was open for his creative, even if ambiguous relation to the culture and its categories.

Two Exemplary Passages Two Pauline texts illustrate some ways that Paul relates to the culture of which he and his auditors were equally parts. The first is 1 Cor 11:2–16. After a cursory examination of that text, we will consider 1 Cor 9:1–18, a passage that by certain formal considerations may appear similar. 1 Corinthians 11:2–16. Nowhere else in the Pauline corpus do we see Paul so doggedly determined to dredge up a case for something he has decided beforehand is appropriate. It is a curious passage in that regard because what he does here is build a protracted case for a practice that he reports is not being forced especially on the Corinthians: it is his policy in all his churches that women should wear what I will refer to in a general way as a “head covering.” I can think of no other particular behavior that is enforced on the same sub-group across the many Pauline churches; there are, indeed, other patterns or guidelines that he expects to be followed in all his churches (for example, God is a God of peace—so order is expected in all his churches; 1 Cor 14:33; 7:17). But, latitude is granted the Romans on all sorts of fronts, from honoring or not honoring days to eating meat or vegetables (Rom 14:1–6). Even the Corinthians, a little before the passage now in question, have been counseled that eating meat offered to idols is in most contexts an adiaphoron, an indifferent thing (8:8; 10:25–26). All that notwithstanding, Paul is absolutely certain that women ought to wear a head covering and stacks up a whole range of arguments that he must have thought would support his position. Granted, we do not understand much about when and why women in Paul’s churches wore head coverings, but Paul has apparently seized on this as a uniformly enforced pattern in all his churches (11:16). At least some of the Corinthian women, however, seem to have broken with Paul in this practice, so he determines to persuade them to reaccommodate him in this regard. Bear in mind: it is Paul’s conviction that they need to have head covers, not theirs, so Paul’s rhetorical challenge is to bring the Corinthian women to agree with him. Accordingly, he scurries in every imaginable direction to find arguments and practices that he can construe as supporting him in this matter. Right away, he marshals a powerful theological conviction of his, that God is over all. That argument



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has already been put in service of other matters in 1 Corinthians prior to ch. 11 where the head covering comes up: In 1 Cor 3:21, “All things are yours; you belong to Christ; Christ belongs to God”; in 8:6, “for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” The hierarchical structure of that conviction, that God is over all (cf. Rom 9:5), lends itself to his extending the rankings until he can depict wives as needing to honor their heads, which whether kephalē means “head” or “source,” refers to their husbands (1 Cor 11:3). Next in 1 Cor 11:2–16, the argument strings along, by association, to Paul’s thinking of a woman’s honoring, or dishonoring, her head, and then to shaving hear head as a shame. At one point he even fancies that a woman’s refusal to wear head covering is tantamount to the shame she would have if she had her head shaved (11:4–5). Paul’s frequent appeal to shame will be treated in a subsequent context, but suffice it to say that this reference to possible shame is Paul’s playing one of the biggest cultural cards (11:6). The Greco-Roman world is structured around shame/blame and honor/praise as the single most telling social value dyad. For Paul even to suggest that the Corinthian women might be shaming themselves is for him to warn them in the gravest way that they are wrong-headed, in several senses. Next, Paul adduces a couple of arguments from Scripture in 11:7. First, men, being the “image/eikōn” and “glory” of God—echoing the Genesis creation account (Gen 1:27; 5:1)—are subject to different rules on head coverings, but “woman is the glory of man.” Indeed the “image/eikōn of God” tradition extends even out through Wisdom and Sirach (Wis 2:23; Sir 17:3). Second, Paul argues, Scripture declares that women were made from men, not the other way around, and women were created for men (11:8–9; Gen 2:18, 21–23). And it may be that in 11:10, the woman ought to have a head covering “because of the angels,” extends the scriptural arguments by referencing the mythic story of Gen 6:1–4 where the sons of God saw the daughters of men and produced giants with them. If that is the case (I say “if” because Paul’s reference is so allusive and laconic)—if that is the case, then supposedly the wearing of some head covering might be expected to protect women from such abuse. In 11:14–15 Paul caps off his reasoning with what he describes as an argument “from nature.” Carefully phrased as a rhetorical question whose Greek supposes a “Yes” answer, Paul asks: “Doesn’t nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a dishonor to him, but if a woman wears long hair, it is her glory?” Rhetoricians agreed that the points of greatest importance should be at the first and at the last in a sequence such as we have here. So, Paul’s first argument is one of monumental proportions for him, namely, that God is over all (11:2–3). His last “proof,” which means that he supposes it to be powerful as well, is his argument “from nature”: nature teaches that men shouldn’t have long hair, but that women should. The problem, however, is that Paul’s argument “from nature” is actually an argument not from nature, but from social convention, and indeed from the social convention that he, Paul, prefers. Might there have been Corinthians who viewed what was “natural” regarding hair length in a different perspective? Quite possibly. A quotation from Musonius Rufus, a contemporary of Paul’s and incidentally a mentor of Epictetus among others, is instructive because it shows just how

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self-serving Paul’s argumentation is about hair length. In a treatise entitled “On Cutting the Hair,” Musonius quotes with approbation Zeno’s remark that “it is quite as natural to cut the hair as it is to let it grow long…” (On Cutting the Hair XXI.10; trans. Lutz). If Paul’s argument “from nature”—that women, not men, should have long hair—is in last position and therefore is supposed to be one of his best arguments, and yet, that very argument is a social convention that he simply prefers, then we need to ask how seriously are we to take his argumentation on this issue of women’s wearing head covering? One way, I suppose, to minimize this problem would be to assert that Paul was not trained in rhetoric, so he might not have known that last position in a series was supposed to be emphatic. But this is preposterous because (1) elsewhere Paul knows his way around in rhetoric, and (2) nowhere else in Paul’s letters is the last item in a series not also emphatic. So Paul’s exhortation for the Corinthian women to wear head coverings is a telling place to engage the question of Paul’s ambiguous relation to culture. In this passage we see him quite ready to marshal all sorts of arguments, most of them clearly ad hominem, in service of his own conviction; and of most interest is his appeal that women’s long hair is dictated by nature when in fact it is a social convention that simply conforms to his own prejudices. We will return to this passage at the end of this study for some further observations. Suffice it to say at the present that Paul’s stacking up of arguments in this passage has a “he doth protest a bit too much” quality to it. 1 Corinthians 9:1–18. Another instance of what I call Paul’s argument-stacking occurs in 1 Cor 9:1–18 and will serve as a comparison and yet as a significant contrast. The passage in 1 Cor 9 is the beginning of a long Pauline digression that runs through 10:13. The digression is in several parts: it opens with three instances of self-exemplification, two positive and one negative; and the digression closes with the negative exemplification of grumbling Israel in the Exodus. For this study, I am interested in Paul’s positive self-exemplification that opens ch. 9. Paul’s interrogation of the Corinthians in 1 Cor 9:1–18 is designed to establish himself first as congruent with cultural expectations and yet finally as a countercultural figure. Paul’s argument can be summed up as follows: Everybody in the world knows, don’t they, that a worker deserves support, that rights come along with whatever task is done—even to the most menial job, that of shepherd? In effect, he asks: Can you even imagine one who tends a flock not getting any of its milk (9:7)? So Paul reasons that he deserves support for his apostleship among them and that they full well know it too. For twelve verses he cites coordinated illustrations supporting this point—from other apostles, the military, vineyard keepers, the law of Moses regarding oxen, a plower, a thresher and those in temple service—all these point in one direction: namely, the worker merits support for labor done. Who can dispute such a panoramic view of a taken-for-granted, across the board, cultural practice? Case made. But the case is made so that Paul can, in exemplary fashion, pointedly refuse to



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exercise the very rights that everyone ought to grant are appropriately his. Some of my scholarly colleagues continue to refer to what Paul is doing here as a renunciation or a “giving up of his rights.” Anything but! Rather he is insisting on his rights so as to establish that those rights are properly his, but then he strikingly eschews the exercise of those very rights. So in this case the universally accepted cultural practice that the worker deserves some rights is upheld by Paul, but upheld precisely so his stunning non-exercise of his own rights stands out the more clearly. In so doing, Paul is offering himself (once again) to the Corinthians as the example of the one whose love for others overrides the utilization of acknowledged rights. If the Corinthians would follow him and his example, they would be less centered on themselves and their rights and, properly, more concerned about the well-being of others and the common good. Paul’s interrogation of the Corinthians in 1 Cor 9 is designed to establish himself as qualified along with cultural expectations but, overall, the function of the argument is to set himself up as a counter-cultural example. So in 1 Cor 9:1–18 Paul uses commonplace cultural suppositions to put perspective on his counter-cultural exemplification of love over-riding the exercise of one’s rights. He establishes cultural values (namely, workers have rights to the fruit of their labors) but only so he can pointedly renounce the exercise of these rights. That’s love at work. Superficially the arguments of 1 Cor 9:1–18 and 11:2–16 appear the same because in both Paul hustles around, pulling together all sorts of culturally acknowledged practices in support of a single point: in 1 Cor 9, Paul wants to argue that, though nobody is more privileged with rights (exousia) than he, he lovingly eschews the exercise of those rights because of his love of others; in the 1 Cor 11:2–16, he wants to establish the propriety of women wearing head coverings. But the two passages are actually distinct in significant ways. The argument in 1 Cor 9 begins from what Paul supposes that everybody already knows—namely that a worker is entitled to some of the fruits of his or her labors—but the argument in 1 Cor 11 begins with what Paul knows, namely that women should wear head coverings. In the former (1 Cor 9) Paul invites the auditors to recognize in him what they already know; in the second (1 Cor 11) he wants the auditors to practice what he knows. Let me repeat that in a slightly different way. The first passage (1 Cor 9) uses the cultural assumptions to advocate what turns out ultimately to be counter-cultural, namely love triumphing over self-interest; the second passage (1 Cor 11) uses highly selective and even ad hominem interpretations of cultural practices to support cultural conformity of women’s wearing head covering. That leaves us exactly where we need to be if we hope to attempt some examination of Paul’s ambiguous relation to culture. In the next section, we will identify and examine one model that he employs in his appropriation of cultural conventions and values. There we will see him embrace one set of social conventions and use it as a vehicle for expressing his own convictions. When that convention fits he will use it; when it no longer fits, he simply shifts to an alternative social convention and uses it instead. In neither of those models will we see him explicitly critique the social values and conventions in question.

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One Model: Use Social Patterns or Conventions as Needed, Without Significant Alteration and Without Concern for Whether Other Patterns Might Be in Tension The Greco-Roman world was structured primarily vertically. By contrast, Paul’s vision of the Christian community, of the relations among believers, is decidedly not vertical. Rather, for Paul all believers stand on the common ground provided by God’s grace equally given to each and to all. Paul sometimes deals with cultural ambiguities by adopting distinctive cultural commonplaces that may be in tension with one another, using one for certain purposes and using another, distinctive one to express another aspect of his convictions. In what follows, I suggest, for example, that Paul employs the vertically ordered notions of patronage and the pater familias, the head of the household, when it suits him, for limited purposes, but on other occasions pointedly shifts to different social conventions to express a radically distinct social structure. Rather than critique either of these two social conventions, Paul simply employs one for one purpose and another, different social convention for purposes where the first simply would neither meet his needs nor fit his convictions. As we know, the Greco-Roman world has relatively few wealthy and powerful at the top, the masses of poor and relatively powerless at the bottom and no middle class as we have known it. Patronage extends from the Roman Emperor down through the ranks so that every client has dependent clients. Patronage makes the Roman world go round, and patronage weaves a web of social reciprocity, dependency and obligation. A favor done, a door opened, a benefit passed along—all of these goods passed down the line bind the recipients to return the honor to the patrons who have extended them. Seneca, a Roman moralist and rhetorician who died about the time Paul was called to become apostle, can guide us concerning the effects of benefaction. Seneca writes: “The giving of a benefit is a social act, it wins the good will of someone, it lays someone under obligation” (Ben. 5.11.5). Honor is bestowed and enhanced up and down the line of clientage. The recipients share the honor of the benefactors by being linked to them, and they just as surely must find avenues to reward the patrons with more honor and praise. A gift is, therefore, never really free. Gratitude is simply what Seneca calls the “first installment on his debt” (Ben. 2.22.1). But the patronage system is even more than quid pro quo. The beneficiaries must seek to repay in a scope that exceeds the granted favor; as Seneca says, only an ingrate “repays a favour without interest” (Ep. 81.18). Recipients of benefits are obliged to respond to their donors with good will, honor and other favors. Again, Seneca confirms: “Making a return means offering something to him from whom you have received something” (Ep. 81.9–10). The giving and receiving of gifts and associated honor build enduring social bonds and create the context for future, further actions of beneficence and patronage. Refusal of patronal gifts is unthinkable because it constitutes social rebuke; similarly, failure to reciprocate is inconceivable. Friendship between social equals usually has the same characteristics of obligation and reciprocity.



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Paul embraces the patronal and patriarchal hierarchy with reference to God. Every undisputed letter of Paul begins with the identical evocation of God as Father: “Grace to you and peace from God our Father…” (Rom 1:7b; 1 Cor 1:3; 2 Cor 1:2; Gal 1:3; Phil 1:2; 1 Thess 1:1; Phlm 3). The notion of God as Father is not particularly well represented in Israel’s traditions (cf. Ps 2), but is integral to the Roman notion of the pater familias who is responsible for all the members of the household (including the slaves); it is he who must protect them; he can represent them legally; and it is he to whom the members owe deference and reverence. For Paul, believers are enabled to become God’s children by the working of the Holy Spirit (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). And God’s children become God’s heirs. In 2 Cor 1:3 God’s pity/mercy/compassion (eleos) is linked to God’s being Father. Christ is frequently pictured as God’s son (Rom 1:9; 5:10; 8:3, 29, 32; 1 Cor 1:9; Gal 1:16; 4:4; 1 Thess 1:10) and in one text the idea is developed so that Christ is understood as our brother (Rom 8:29). Believers are God’s children (Rom 8:16–21; 9:8; Phil 2:15). In 1 Cor 15 we find Paul’s delineation of what will happen at the conclusion of God’s plan. It is instructive here. Christ is the agent at the end (telos); Christ, the proper Son, when he has wiped out “every rule and every authority and power,” “delivers the kingdom/reign to God the Father” (15:24). God is there depicted as the Father who is in charge, who has power over all things, who can by that power subject all things to his Son, so that in the end, in that great cosmic telos, God can be “everything to everyone” (15:28). In other words, Paul expects that in the eschaton God’s fatherhood will be extended to all things and for everyone. It is no surprise that the Paulinist letter to the Ephesians picks up this notion and expresses it as follows: “I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named” (3:14). God’s eminence and power are assumed and affirmed across the corpus. God is the source of all things: “There is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist” (1 Cor 8:6). Paul takes it as a given that Ps 24:1 is right when it says “the earth is the Lord’s and the plēroma of it” (1 Cor 10:26). God is the head over everything (1 Cor 11:3). By linking all these cosmic claims to God understood as Father, Paul effectively personalizes the understanding of God who might otherwise be thought of as distant and disconnected. Paul also coopts a related, classic Cynic formulation that makes the same point about believers’ relation to all things. Its Cynic premise is that because all things belong to the gods, and because the wise are the friends of the gods and friends share all things, therefore the wise possess all things (Diogenes Laertius, II, 37, 72). Paul shifts the paradigm but makes the same argument. Paul translates the Cynic maxim into his own categories: it is not the wise but the believers, the ones in Christ, who share all things; and they share all things not because they are friends but because they have become God’s children and therefore brothers and sisters. Finally, Paul turns the Cynic logic around for the Corinthians and begins with the claim “All things belong to you” (1 Cor 3:21b). Then he gives the reason all things belong to you: “because you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God” (3:23). In this passage it is to whom you belong, from whom you have come, that places you in line to possess

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everything; in other passages such as the ones noted earlier, it is having God as your Father that puts you in line to inherit all things. In accord with this, it is easy to see that when Paul wants to chide the boastful, who’s-the-greatest-among-us Corinthians, expressing his wish that none of them should be puffed up “in favor of one or against another,” he hammers them with a series of powerful rhetorical questions: “Who can distinguish you from any other? What do you have that you didn’t receive as a gift? And if indeed you received it as a gift, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” (1 Cor 4:6–7). God the Father to whom all things belong, and from whom are all things, has abundantly and freely provided all that the Corinthians need. God is the supreme patron, who, from boundless resources, bestows gifts and blessings upon all, which gifts and blessings place the recipients, God’s clients, in a situation that demands a response of thankfulness and praise/honor (Rom 1:20d–21). The hierarchical portrait of God as Father and as primary patron, as rich as it is in some ways for Paul’s expression of the faith, invites, or at least leaves itself vulnerable to, the Greco-Roman world’s predilection for reckoning where one stands in the world of associated, hierarchical status. When Romans see any hierarchy they line up to determine who’s first, who’s highest. How easy it might be for the wealthy at Corinth, who would have been busily engaged in the chain of patronage, to relish the power and status they could derive from using their homes as meeting places for the assembly of believers. And how natural it might have seemed to the glossolalists to take their very obvious gift as a sign of patronage and special status. Paul also complicated the matter further because he readily viewed himself as the pater familias of the faithful communities. He became the slave Onesimus’s father in prison (Phlm 10); he reminded the Corinthians that though they may have had many paidagogoi (instructors/teachers), they had only one father, himself (1 Cor 4:15); and he it was, like a good father, who had betrothed his wards, the Corinthians, to Christ (2 Cor 11:2). When the Corinthians are divisive, he takes that as a sign that they are merely children in the faith, that they are “babies in Christ,” and that they are nowhere near the grown-ups that they should have been by this time (1 Cor 3:1–3). As the responsible father, Paul chides them, remonstrates with them, and most importantly in the Greco-Roman setting, he models the faithful life for them. Fathers teach their children by setting examples for them, by showing them how to live. As Plutarch, a moralist born before Paul first went to Corinth, says: “Fathers ought above all, by not misbehaving and by doing as they ought to do, to make themselves a manifest example to their children, so that the latter, by looking at their fathers’ lives as at a mirror, may be deterred from disgraceful deeds and words” (Plutarch, Lib. edu. 14A). In recent years we have come to realize that Paul holds a pattern of believers’ progress that ideally moves the babies in the faith through a process of growth whose ultimate goal is maturity/adulthood. Paul’s term is teleios, which means reaching the goal (Phil 3:12–15); in the context of father and family, that goal is maturity, adulthood. Across the corpus, Paul stresses his paternal role and develops it any time either of two situations arise. One, he self-references as father when the church in question



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is newborn—or acting like a child—and needs the gentle, guiding hand of a caring father. Once again, Seneca helpfully lets us see the father as care-giver for his children (Ben. 5.5.2–3; cf. 2 Cor 12:14). With the Thessalonians, Paul sounds like the proper Greco-Roman father in his individualized treatment of his children and like their apostle when he uses that paternal care to direct them toward God’s kingdom/reign: “You know that, as a father treats his own children individually, we consoled you and encouraged and implored you to walk worthy of God who calls you into his own kingdom/reign and glory” (1 Thess 2:12 [translation adapted from Malherbe’s, The Letters to the Thessalonians, 150]). Two, Paul’s paternal role can take on the distinctive character of a threat (cf. 1 Cor 4:21), of the father who must discipline his children. In letters expressing this second paternal role, one can also usually find Paul refers to himself as “apostle,” highlighting his authoritative, hierarchical status. In 1 Corinthians, for example, Paul opens the letter: “Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus…” (1:1). Likewise, in the letter fragment that opens in 2 Cor 1:1 Paul distinguishes himself as “an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God…” When “apostle” appears in a letter as a reference to Paul himself, we often find the related use of father as the one in charge, ultimately responsible and frequently ready to take his readers to task. A word of caution: nowhere does Paul, in his role as father, confuse himself, his purposes or his standing with God as Father. Paul’s use of the term for himself corresponds directly with Greco-Roman expectations: he is gentle and adaptable when that is appropriate; he is stern and remonstrative when the situation calls for it. As noted already, God is over all; the kingdom is God’s; Christ is God’s son who is, like God, “for us.” In distinction, Paul sees himself as “slave” of Jesus Christ before God (Rom 1:1; Gal 1:10). But Paul’s use of “father” nomenclature for God and for himself inevitably carries hierarchical freight with it, and insofar as it does it makes it easier for Paul’s followers to think that their relation to God and to Paul has great similarities to the rest of their vertically structured life that they know so well out in the world. Furthermore, and this is critical, nowhere does Paul try to deny or even modify the hierarchical burden of the patriarchal language. Nowhere does he say such and such is like a father, but different in this or that way. As I noted earlier, the goals to which he directs the paternal claims are distinctively his own and express his own faith. But Paul treats the father imagery as if it causes him no problem; he simply freely embraces it with respect to God and to himself and seems to find in it a helpful way of saying things about God, about himself, and by extension, about his dependent followers. So, Paul and his gospel do not have a critique of the paternal references that some of us would appreciate today. But ideally and to the contrary, the believing community, as Paul sees it, is not hierarchical when applied to members of the body of Christ. Believers have the common definition as those for whom Christ has died (Rom 5:6–8; 14:15; 1 Cor 8:11), and more specifically, as those who have died with Christ (Rom 6:8). In Paul’s view, all believers are equally dependent on God’s grace, they are all justified and reconciled by God and not by any performance or standing of their own, and any differences among them are not the signs of distinctions of status but of the diversity that enriches their unity in Christ and enhances their service of the common good.

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For Paul to express his deep and abiding conviction that believers are those who all weep when one does (Rom 12:15), who all are incensed when one among them is caused to stumble (2 Cor 11:29), and who all celebrate when one rejoices (Rom 12:15), he must turn to some metaphor or image other than a culturally defined hierarchical one—because in the family of God, no one has any special status over another. No spiritual gift (charisma) carries exalted status with it; instead the charisma obligates service to the common good. Wisdom and wealth and their associated worldly status exalt no one in the community of faith. Likewise, the family connections that matter in the household of faith are not the biological ones but the new relations to others in the family of which God is the Father. To express this mutuality and equality of believers, Paul turns to the socially and culturally available models of family and friendship among equals. In order to coopt the conventions of family life, Paul has to make certain modifications. First, there are no such things as first-borns and their associated standing, unless you note the one reference to Christ as the first-born (Rom 8:29; cf. Col 1:15, 18). Second, in Christ there is neither male nor female (Gal 3:28; cf. 1 Cor 7:17–24; 12:13) so the societal preference for the male children is overridden. The Letter to Philemon is a good place to see how the concept of the family works for Paul. In the following observations, it is critical to keep in mind that, though the letter moves to the singular address of the slave-owner (whom I will take to be Philemon) in v. 4 and stays in that singular engagement through the first half of v. 22, the letter is nevertheless not a private communication. Paul’s call for Philemon’s deliberation is framed by the address of the letter not only to the slave owner, but to two named persons and to the “church in your house” (vv. 1–2). As noted earlier, Paul refers to Onesimus, the formerly useless slave, as “my child…whose father I have become in my imprisonment” (v. 10). When Onesimus became Paul’s child in the faith, Onesimus and Philemon became brothers. Imagine Philemon’s peripeteia, as Aristotle would have called it, that radical change of circumstances on which the story line turns dramatically. Onesimus’ identity has changed fundamentally since Philemon last saw him: he goes from slave “no longer” to “brother”; indeed, Paul has ratcheted the notion to “beloved brother” (v. 16; emphasis added). On either side of that reference to Onesimus as Philemon’s “beloved brother,” Paul addresses Philemon as “brother” (vv. 7, 20). Further, Timothy, as co-author of the letter, is mentioned as “our brother,” which invites all the letter recipients to embrace Timothy as brother also. With the addressee Apphia identified as “our sister” (v. 2), Paul uses the family terminology as a way of sometimes introducing and always reinforcing the way all the believers are expected to think of themselves as equally brothers and sisters in the community. Everybody in that little letter is brother or sister to one another. It is worth noting that, in his rhetorical efforts to focus the issue for Philemon by bracketing out all false routes of escape, Paul does wave the apostolic or paternal flag briefly in the letter, but without using the term apostle. In a move somewhat like telling the jury to ignore some testimony, Paul tells Philemon that he could have commanded him to do what is proper, what is his duty (to anēkon), but prefers instead to appeal/ beseech (vv. 8–14). The rest of the letter, however, overrides that furtive flagging



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of hierarchical conventions and instead trades heavily on familial categories. Why? Because familial conceptions are more appropriate to love, leaving to Philemon, in the context of his worshipping community, the inaugurating determination of what shape love should take in this instance. Paul’s two, alternative ways of relating—as apostle who can direct with authority or as brother who appeals in service of love—are symptomatic of Paul’s preferences: he would rather that believers exercise their own free will, act voluntarily, as they determine how to put love in play. But the capacity to figure-out-and-do love presupposes a certain maturity in the faith, a maturity that is clearly not always present in his communities. As Paul put the choice to the Corinthians, they can choose the Paul they wish: he will come with a rod, as an enforcer, or he will come in love with a spirit of Christ-like gentleness (1 Cor 4:21; cf. 2 Cor 10:1). So he resorts to the cultural power hierarchy but works to limit its function and to encourage in its stead his reconstructed family in which all members hold equal status. Strikingly, even with those communities where Paul plays a heavy hand and invokes his apostolic and fatherly status, he still utilizes family categories. In 1 Corinthians, for example, though he self-identifies as apostle and charges them with being babies too long, he uses the term adelphos, “brother” (and, we can argue, “sister” for Paul) thirtyeight times, usually as a way of talking about believers, of identifying believers from among the Corinthians or of describing those such as Sosthenes or Apollos who have worked with them. He calls all of the Corinthians brothers and sisters when he makes his opening appeal to them in 1:10. Three times in the first chapter he reaffirms them as his brothers and sisters (1:10, 11, 26). Even at the point where he has to declare them babies because of their divisiveness, he addresses them as “brothers and sisters” (3:1). It is as if he yearns to be able to relate more fully to them as brothers and sisters but their penchant for fractiousness leaves him no choice but to resort/revert to his role as father. How could he be more pointed regarding the inappropriateness of believers taking one another to court than the ironic formulation “but brother with brother goes to court” (1 Cor 6:6)? Though the Corinthians force Paul to relate as apostle/father, he continues to socialize them into thinking of themselves as God’s family, as brothers and sisters who are to love one another. Galatians is more extreme: Paul declares himself apostle, calls the Galatians back from the precipice, and rebukes them with a letter of harsh frankness. Yet even across Galatians, at eight turning points or places where he makes application of his argument to the readers, he refers to them as his “brothers and sisters” (1:11; 3:15; 4:12, 28, 31; 5:13; 6:1, 18; cf. 5:11). Even in Paul’s most contentious letter, the fragment of his harshest speech, namely 2 Cor 10–13, where he has no countervailing praise for the recipients (a sign of the harshest frankness; parrēsia), he concludes the letter (or letter fragment) with a series of injunctions addressed to them as his “brothers and sisters” (2 Cor 13:11–12). The Corinthian cantankerousness has driven Paul to exert his apostolic authority as the father responsible for them, and in that way he employs the hierarchical power structures that are so prevalent in the society. But even as he is doing that, he concludes on the familial note of “brothers and sisters” because that too is what he is to them and they to him—and it will be recalled this is Paul’s preferred relationship.

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If the case is to be made in full, friendship must be considered here, also. The matter is complicated because much friendship in the Greco-Roman world was structured vertically and inextricably intertwined with patronage. There friendship had a price on it and the question affecting moral deliberation was: How can I grease the machinery of patronage, both to those above me, and to those below and dependent upon me, to make myself not only more secure but also more honored? But not all friendship was among unequals. The friendship between and among equals must be considered. Much has been made of Paul’s failure to use the terms of friendship in his letters; in fact, some have argued that Paul has little interest in friendship because he does not use the terms philos and philia, for example. Such a literalist, word-search interpretation, however, overlooks considerable evidence to the contrary. Those who diminish Paul’s interest in friendship fail to note that from early times in Greece, and right along into Paul’s time, conceptions of friendship and family had considerable overlap. Family terminology was frequently and regularly employed to express friendship (cf, Homer, Od. 8.856–86). In fact, Lucian, a second-century writer, in his Toxaris 61, tells the following story: Robbers attacked a group that included two friends, Gyndanes and Abauchas. In the scuffle, two things happened: Gyndanes was injured and the two friends retreated to Abauchas’ home where the latter’s wife and children also were. When fire began to consume Abauchas’ residence, he rushed in and rescued his friend Gyndanes and left wife and children to escape on their own, if they could. Here friendship trumps family ties. Though Paul does not employ the most frequently used terminology of friendship, he does twice use the compound term, philadelphia, uniting “friend” and “brother,” just as we have been describing in the preceding paragraphs. Twice, Paul incorporates it in a maxim, which means that he has codified it into his basic teaching. We find it first in the maxim stack in Rom 12:10: “love one another with brotherly love.” The other passage is in 1 Thess 4:9 and is rich for our purposes. Let me translate if first: “Now concerning love of brothers and sisters [philadelphia], you do not have any need for anyone to write you” and note the reason why: “because you are God-taught to love one another.” Their special caring for one another is not learned from the culture but is “God-taught.” Also, here Paul ties together love, the proper expression of one’s right relation to God, with philadelphia, the love of friends as brothers and sisters. The marks of friendship are across the corpus. First, reciprocity that involves the friends becoming like one another lies at the foundation of Pauline education of believers and of Paul’s sense of community: “Brothers and sisters, I beg you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are” (Gal 4:12a). Second, true friends always seek what is best for the other and are unable to wrong one another (Gal 4:12b). Third, Paul’s willingness to put the friendship on the line by undertaking frankness is seen in his asking the Galatians “Have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?” (Gal 4:16). Fourth, the chief characteristic of friends is that they can be counted on, consistently; they are tried and true; they are there for you in good times and in bad. Paul’s recounting of his faithfulness, and therefore his abiding friendship, is the hallmark of most of 2 Corinthians. Plutarch, in his “How to Tell a Flatterer from a Friend,” knows



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that friends keep what he calls “close watch” on one another “not only when they go wrong but also when they are right” (73D). Galatians 4:12–20 is Paul’s recounting of the foundational story for the Galatian churches. It is a story at once of God’s grace and of the inauguration of a strong friendship. Though Paul had not expected to missionize among them, he stopped there because of illness and he shared the gospel with them. Their response showed that they overcame whatever trial his illness was to them—an early sign of friendship on their side—and that their friendship flourished so that quickly they were ready to give of themselves for the well-being of their new friend, Paul (4:14–15). He reminds them that they would have plucked out their eyes and given them to him—surely a metaphorical and rhetorically exuberant way of describing such a deep friendship that nothing matters more than the well-being of one’s friend. What has changed, he asks in effect, since that foundational time of such great, good enthusiasm? Not himself. Not the gospel. By reciting their early exuberance which he calls “blessedness” (4:15a) and which he thereby takes to be an overflowing of God’s love through them back to Paul, Paul asks them in effect why they need to do any different thing, like being circumcised, to add to their blessedness that was so rich and overflowing from early in his ministry to them. We may conclude that Paul’s strong use of familial terminology to describe the dynamics within the believing community and his relative lack of the expected terminology of friendship shows that he prefers the familial terms for understanding the new relationship of believers in Christ, but overlays them with friendship conventions and ideas. This may spring from his early redefinition of God’s people away from some external sign such as circumcision or some legal issue of who is your mother and over to the people of God construed as a family. Of course the family is under the sway of the ultimate pater familias, God. And the brothers and sisters are to exercise proper care for one another under that divine rule. One final matter related to Paul’s shift to and preference for familial categories to express believers’ proper relationship to one another. Paul thinks all believers share the common story of the Holy Spirit joining with their spirits and enabling them to cry “Abba” if they are semitic speakers, and “Pater” if they are Greek speakers (Rom 8:15; Gal 4:6). All stand equally on the grace of God. None has any advantage over another. No one’s status exceeds or is lesser than that of any other person. All that is undeniably and inalterably true. But Paul’s vision of the community of believers is more complex than that suggests, and its complexity creates some problems here and there among his followers. Two fundamental Pauline claims complicate the picture and we need to understand them. One, Paul thinks different believers have different measures of faith. Two, believers have different types and numbers of charismata, gifts. Let us consider each briefly. Different measures of faith. Paul believes that one is either in faith with God, that is in right relation with God, or one is not. There is not middle or third ground. And when believers are in faith, they are fully admitted into God’s people, into the body of Christ. So forget partial membership or junior league. Having said that, however, believers are at different stages along the continuum of development from babies to adults in

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their faith. All believers start out as babies with respect to faith. Witness Onesimus, who has become Paul’s child in prison (Phlm 10). Witness the Corinthians who must have been surprised when they heard 1 Cor 3:1–4 wherein Paul chides them for still being babies when they should be ready for meat; instead Paul has to feed them milk. Consider also the following passages, all of which in one way or another recognize that there are various stages of growth, different measures of faith. Romans 12:3: “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has measured.” He urges the Romans to exercise the gift of prophecy “in proportion to faith” (12:6). To the Philippians, he writes: “I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith” (Phil 1:25). Again to the Romans, he urges those who are strong to bear with those whom he describes as “weak with respect to faith” (14:1). Even Abraham, the very type of the faithful person, exemplifies the growth in faith that Paul expects of believers: “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, being fully convinced that God was able to do what God had promised” (4:20–21; emphasis added). Even Paul, as strong and mature as he is in faith, acknowledges without any hint of embarrassment that he has not yet gained maturity, but he presses on to make it his own—and all believers should emulate him by pressing on (Phil 3:12–16). The differences in the strength of faith do not confer special status on the strongerfaithed believers. This is the tricky part. Some of the Corinthians may have tried to make hay on that. In fact, one of the enduring problems reflected in 1 Corinthians is their effort to take anything and make it the basis for superior status over some of the other believers. Insofar as any Corinthian believers do that, they are captives of the Greco-Roman culture. Ideally, for Paul, those with stronger faith should not be so eager to exercise their freedom and prerogatives; instead they should put their attention onto loving one another and caring for one another in such a way as to bring out the best all around, not to triumph over them. What is ideally a strength in Paul’s view of community, namely a celebration of the richness that diversity brings into the mix, becomes under the power of sin a way to convert God-given differences into status markers that they were never intended to be. Different Types and Numbers of Charismata, Spiritual Gifts. In a similar way, Paul complicates his picture of community in which all believers have equal standing when he recognizes that the Holy Spirit distributes different types and numbers of charismata to different believers. How are believers to understand that the seemingly distinctive or more numerous gifts are not a sign of preference by God? Paul launches a multifaceted attack on such a presumption among some of the Corinthians who have decided—and it must be noted enough others have gone along with them so that they have carried the day—that glossolalia, speaking in tongues, is the preferred gift: those who have it have the very best, and correspondingly have special status. His attack is based on two points, both of which are succinctly declared in 1 Cor 12:4–11. One, consider the source of the gifts: in an inclusio that frames the entire pericope, Paul twice asserts that the Spirit doles out charismata as the Spirit chooses (12:6, 11); no



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one bids for them or deserves them. Two, consider the goal of the gifts: they are given for enriching the common good, for the advantage of the believers in toto (12:7); none is given to boost or elevate the recipient. 12:4–6, rhetorically structured around the word diairesis, “allocations,” which is repeatedly placed in first position in each of three clauses for emphasis, acknowledges that there are distributed differences in charismata, in serving and in working. The translations of diairesis by the NRSV (“varieties”) and by the NIV (“different kinds”) recognize Paul’s effort to acknowledge differences, but they miss the note of “apportionment” or “distribution/allocation” which Paul shows that he has in mind when he repeats the same basic term once again in 12:11: “The one and same Spirit produces [or works] all of these [charismata], distributing [diairoun] them to each just as it wishes.” By Paul’s choice of the term diairesis for his description of the diversities among the Corinthians (12:4–6) he anticipates the point with which the passage will emphatically conclude: the Spirit is the source of all charismata and allocates to each as the Spirit chooses. As with the distinctive measures of faith, the Corinthians have taken the variety of charismata, in particular they or at least some have chosen one as the most desirable and once again have made false distinctions among and between themselves as to who has it. Paul allows no distinction on the basis of charismata and no status on the basis of any particular charisma. Interestingly, the larger literary unit that begins in 1 Cor 12:1 and ends in 1 Cor 14:39, that is, from the first to the last of this long section, all of it is framed with an appellation of his auditors as “brothers and sisters.” From beginning to end, they are brothers and sisters who ought to recognize that God makes no distinctions among them as to worth or status. Accordingly, they should cease making such false distinctions. In this section, then, we have seen a model of Paul’s relation to culture: he takes cultural conventions and values and uses them, without major alteration, when they help him and shifts to another cultural convention or value when his needs or purposes change. Here, in each case, the conventional cultural assumptions are embraced by Paul, much as they would have functioned for most people in the world Paul and his followers inhabited. Paul seems not to have any problem when the cultural conventions may be in tension with one another. Hierarchical structures function fine with regard to God and even work at important times when Paul as father of the believers needs to exercise responsibility for the wellbeing of the communities of faith. When, however, he wants to talk about the relations between and among believers, Paul readily turns to the picture of them as brothers and sisters with God as Father. And he stays with the familial terminology even while he front-loads it with friendship conventions and even when he wants to make certain distinctions among the believers with regard to their measure of faith and charismata. Admittedly, his sometimes embrace of hierarchical categories probably encouraged some of his followers to drag hierarchical distinctions into the community. In the next section we will identify and examine a different model of Paul’s relation to culture.

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Another Model: Social Patterns and Cultural Values Embraced Without Change and Redefined Now we examine a different example of Paul’s relation to culture and its conventions and values. Here we consider shame–blame/honor–praise, a social and cultural value that Paul and all his readers would have known from the world around them. Now we will see that Paul readily uses either side of this dyad. More precisely he positively embraces these terms as they are understood regularly out in the world, but his relation to their value is indeed quite complex. Shame and honor compose the governing paradigm of the Greco-Roman world. Basically, the majority of people in that world, at whatever social status level they found themselves, would be aiming to do whatever they could to garner praise and honor for themselves. Those same people would be just as intent on avoiding or at least minimizing the social alternatives, blame and shame. All the transactions of life, the decisions one made, the goals to which one aspired, all of them passed through the honor–shame, praise–blame filter. And that filter was universally set assiduously to increase honor and decrease shame. Honor and shame were available in every human encounter, from the most public to the most intimate and private. Some Honor and Some Shame Were Inherited. In that world, wealth carries with it a certain status and associated honor. People at the low end of the steep social pyramid, for example shepherds who by definition own neither land nor herd, inherit social shame no matter how thoughtful, loving or industrious they might be. One born into a wealthy family stands to inherit the family wealth; that person will surely get an education that will further endow honor and carry with it the right to speak before and ahead of others. So honor begets more honor. Similarly, shame due to birth and family status generates more shame. Some Honor—and in Like Fashion, Some Shame—Was Acquired. Military conquests and victories in the games were avenues to honor. So were beneficences (benefactor; euergetēs) bestowed on cities or public services; of course both of those routes were made easier by having wealth. Being selected for office in one of the voluntary associations also enhanced honor. Shame was more readily available for the violation of any of the understood codes of conduct, and for stepping across conventionally established borders. Shame functioned as a strong social enforcer, as a means of rebuke and, therefore, as a tool for enforcing social conformity. Status and its associated honor were very jealously guarded by those who had them. In the civic realm, honor was often garnered for past or expected beneficence. The three Corinthian freedmen who erected statues in first century had every reason to expect that the other citizens of Corinth would respond in appreciation and recognition. Cities sometimes honored persons from whom they hoped to gain a beneficence in response. Dio Chrysostom, a generation after Paul, refused an honor his city sought



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to bestow upon him; it is possible to suppose that he might have refused it because of the expected, costly beneficence expected in return. Paul’s relation to this dominant social dyad is exquisitely complex. To grasp what Paul does with it, we have to do what parliamentarians would call divide the question. First, we need to consider shame/blame and honor/praise discourse separately, because Paul relates to them distinctly. Second, at times he adopts the cultural values of shame and honor and uses them quite in line with the widespread, accepted patterns; third, at other times, however, he keeps the terminology but basically transvalues the original values. First, then, to shame/blame. Shame/Blame, as Used in the Wider Culture and World. At several points across the corpus, Paul uses shame just as it would be employed in the larger world. In those points he expects it to have the same social opprobrium and he embraces its culturally assumed negative value for its usefulness in eliciting a change or in enforcing a particular behavior. In short, Paul also uses shame and blame as a social sanction to discourage a particular behavior or to encourage another. For example, we have already seen that he used shame in his attempt to leverage some of the Corinthian women who stopped wearing head coverings. They might as well have their heads shaved, he says with indignation (1 Cor 11:5). He uses the shame vocabulary when he says a woman might “dishonor” her head (11:5). Likewise, he uses the loaded term “shameful” to describe a woman having her hair cut off (11:6). Another example: when he wants to rebuke some of the Corinthians for seeking resolution of their disputes by going to the civil courts, he openly decries their “shame” (entropē), a forceful social exposure and enforcement (6:5a). Again, toward the end of 1 Corinthians, he calls his auditors to recognize that “bad company ruins good morals” and rebukes the Corinthians: “Come to your right senses and stop sinning, for some have ignorance regarding God; to your shame [entropē], I speak to you” (15:34). At other intermediate points in 1 Corinthians—in one particular instance where the wealthier Corinthians have themselves shamed the poor Corinthians by getting drunk at the Lord’s supper and leaving them hungry—Paul further employs the conventional social pattern of rebuke and shame: “What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? I shall not praise!” (11:22). Praise explicitly withdrawn equals shame. Early in 1 Corinthians, Paul sets up the shame theme, saying that he would much prefer not to shame them but would opt instead for warning (4:14) which is one clear step down the harshness scale of enforcement. In fact, such a setup makes even more powerful his subsequent resort to shaming them: they are simply beyond warning in some matters, so Paul represents himself as having no choice but to shame them. Similarly, his pointed withdrawal of praise (“But in these following instructions, I do not praise you…,” 11:17) is itself an invocation of shame. These Pauline sanctions function just as they would in the broader culture of which he and his readers were parts. No special Pauline spin is visible here in the categories or in their use as a social sanction; what does remain distinctive are the Pauline values which, when the Corinthians do not express them toward one another, do become the occasion for shaming. So even if we might say that the values such as loving your

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neighbor are peculiarly Pauline, still in these instances the form and function of the shaming is absolutely in line with the culture. If 2 Thessalonians is authentic, it will be Paul who starts his enforcement statement at the end of the letter by employing shame as a social control device just as it would have been in the wider world of his time: “If any one does not obey our word conveyed in this letter, take special note of such a one; do not associate with that person, so that he may be shamed” (2 Thess 3:14; emphasis added). So far, then, in each of these instances Paul does not surprise us when his sanctions are viewed against the backdrop provided by the culture. (Parenthetically, 3:15 does give a Pauline tweak to the recommended shunning: the Thessalonian believers are not to pursue it to such an extreme that they lose the brother or sister from the community. “Do not consider him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” [2 Thess 3:15; note Paul’s stated preference mentioned earlier: he would rather warn than shame; 1 Cor 4:14].) In this same category belongs the shunning that he recommends to the Corinthians regarding the man who is sleeping with his step-mother (1 Cor 5:1–6). There Paul lambastes the Corinthians for not having done frank speech with the man, for their failure to have intervened in the proper in-house judgment that is appropriate to believers’ proper care for one another. So the Corinthians are depicted as having accrued shame by allowing such porneia, immorality, to persist unchallenged in their midst. Further, Paul encouraged them to enforce shame on the man by withdrawing fellowship from him. In fact, encoded in his instruction is the covert message that their public shaming of him is to include banning him, in effect, from the Lord’s supper: “Do not even eat with such a person” (5:11). In at least two instances, Paul describes himself as subjected to standard-brand cultural shaming. One was when he refused to allow the wealthy among the Corinthians to become his patrons; he simply could not let himself be put under obligation to them. As their client he would have owed them fealty and honor and would therefore have lost his moral suasion leverage on them (2 Cor 11:7–15). Another time is reflected only obliquely in 2 Corinthians. There Paul reports that when he went to Corinth an individual (he describes him indirectly and negatively as “the one who did the wrong,” 7:12) apparently publicly rebuked Paul, an act of shaming, and to Paul’s chagrin no one in the Corinthian community came to his defense. Paul left Corinth shamed—in fact so severely shamed that he did not make the return visit he had promised them; instead of the visit, he wrote them a letter of frankness, rebuking them as a community of believers (7:8–12). Interestingly, the Corinthians, on receiving that now-lost letter of harsh frankness, formally shunned the “one who had done the wrong” and, enhancing his ēthos, Paul shows his magnanimity by telling the Corinthians that the man has been shamed sufficiently: Readmit him to fellowship, Paul urges (2:5–11). So the shame and rebuke that permeates the Greco-Roman world has made its way into the Pauline communities. No wonder in that. And Paul himself has made ready use of it as it has fit his perceived needs. Not only that, but it has also been used against him. So far, we have noted that Paul often takes over shame and dishonor as it would function in the wider world. In those instances, he simply embraces it and uses it where he finds it helpful. But that is not at all the whole picture of his relationship to



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the social category of shame/honor. At times, Paul is critical of the cultural view of shame/honor and, as we shall see, even subversive of it. Honor/Praise Transvalued by Paul. Paul’s treatment of honor is distinctive. He uses the same terms that his contemporaries used. He writes of honor and glory. He knows that timē (cf. epainos) which we may translate with a range of terms such as praise, approval, recognition, is good and, when understood within the frame of Paul’s gospel, desirable. In that he shares his culture’s convictions. But what makes Paul’s view on this matter distinctive is the proper (= Pauline) understanding of it, of its source and of its significance. We will consider Paul’s special content of it in a moment. Paul was not alone in critiquing the Greco-Roman honor system. Cynics thought that people too readily enslaved themselves to the opinions of others or to the socially accepted conventions. A few examples will suffice: One should study a mouse and head for the simple life apart from convention (Diog. Laert. II). Once, Diogenes of Sinope, often credited with being the father of Cynicism, is said to have been lying out, enjoying the sun. Who happened by but Alexander the Great? Diogenes was unmoved (literally and figuratively) by the presence of the great one who is depicted as honoring Diogenes by standing next to him and telling him: Declare whatever you wish and I will make it happen for you. Diogenes’ response: Just move, because your shadow is blocking my sunlight (Diog. Laert. vi.38; Plutarch, Mor. 717c). Another Cynic example shows how they counseled practice in experiencing shame as the best inoculation against its power. Diogenes recommended, for example, begging from a miserly person or statues as a means of practicing rejection. By practice one becomes inured to shame (Diog. Laert. vi.49). Stoics like Seneca, a rough contemporary of Paul, moderated the Cynic position a bit, but took their moral cues not from what would garner popular public approval. Seneca’s ideal sage is moved neither by the lure of honor nor the fear of disgrace. He writes: Just as he will not be flattered if a beggar shows him respect, nor count it an insult if a man from the dregs of the people, on being greeted, fails to return his greeting, so, too, will he not even look up if many rich men look upon him. For he knows that they differ not a whit from beggars… For men may all differ one from another, yet the wise man regards them all alike because they are all equally foolish. (Constant. 13.2, 5)

Epictetus, a Stoic who was born just before Paul’s death, held that honor and shame were not under one’s own control because they were bestowed or withdrawn at the whim of others. Shame and honor therefore fell under the category of externals, as adiaphora, and were dismissed because they were not part of one’s moral purpose which alone one could control. For Stoics, the good is concerned with virtue and with living according to one’s moral purpose. Everything else, including wealth, health and repute, are adiaphora, indifferent things (Diss. 2.9.15). So Paul’s critique of cultural shame and honor is not the only dissenting voice but his view is distinctive and rests on grounds peculiar to him, which we now set forward. Something radical happened to the category of shame when Paul found the central claim of his gospel to be grounded in the cross where Jesus was crucified.

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Crucifixion was the ultimate Roman sanction; nothing was more shameful. By comparison, exile paled; so did being renounced by family or by one’s polis. Paul’s whole-hearted embrace of the cross (1 Cor 2:2) necessitated a fundamental critique of its culturally associated shame. Paul’s grasping of the cross as the heart of faith places worldly shame in a distinctly different light. No wonder Paul declares that he is not ashamed of the gospel which centers on the cross, that ultimate object of disgrace (Rom 1:16). No wonder he can twice aver his confidence that in his preaching of the gospel he will not be shamed (2 Cor 10:8 and Phil 1:20). No wonder hope, based as it is on God’s performance and promise, and not on human power, will not generate shame (Rom 5:5). And if no shame can be visited upon believers from outside, because God is with them and for them, then believers owe it to one another to love one another (Rom 12:10: “love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor” ) and to make certain that whatever they say and do must not shame and dishonor others for whom Christ died. That’s why Paul rebukes the wealthy Corinthians for shaming those who “have nothing,” who arrive later at the Lord’s supper (1 Cor 11:22). Paul’s Revisionist View of the Cross, Shame and Honor. The cross, the ultimate marker of social shame in the Greco-Roman world, becomes the central symbol of the believers. Talk about turning the world upside down. And because honor is the reciprocal of shame, the same transvaluation has to be claimed for honor in the Pauline world. In fact the change on both fronts, honor and shame, is so profound that the terms might have proved unusable by Paul. We have seen that Paul did use culturally recognizable shame in certain circumstances. Now, however, we will consider the many more numerous honor references that Paul has taken over and used as refracted in the light of the cross. Paul’s revisionist, totally alien view of honor can be laid out this way: the honor that counts comes from God, not from others (except that love honors others; Rom 12:10) and not from our selves. Paul’s ideal character, cast for his own purposes in Romans as one whose circumcision is inward and a matter of the heart, receives praise “not from people but from God” (Rom 2:29). Similarly, to the Corinthians he declares that the only commendation that counts is the one from God (1 Cor 4:5). Paul debunks comparison with others, the staple by which the shame/honor system of the Greco-Roman world operated (2 Cor 10:12; though in another context, when it suits him, he uses comparison freely, in the way it would have been understood in the world; 2 Cor 11:12–15). He also disparages self-commendation, affirming again that the only commendation that counts is from God (2 Cor 10:18). Paul’s ironic view of worldly honor, praise and commendation may understandably be seen when, in his fool’s speech, he “commends” himself by reference to his hardships and difficulties which serve to show that the Lord’s power is perfected in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Honor among Pauline believers is garnered by working hard for propagating and inculcating the gospel. The descriptors Paul chooses for co-workers capture Paul’s sense that value comes from advancing the gospel. Euodia and Syntyche are “ones who struggle alongside Paul”; they are counted among his other co-workers (Phil 4:3). Phoebe is a deacon of the church in Cenchreae and a prostatis, a patron, of many,



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including Paul (Rom 16:1–2). Prisca and Aquila are fellow-workers (Rom 16:3). Gaius is host to the whole church at Corinth (Rom 16:23). Paul readily commends such persons. The list reads like a Who’s Who of Pauline Christianity: we’ve already noted Phoebe and Prisca and Aquila. To them we might add Titus whom Paul calls his partner (2 Cor 8:23), Titus in whose heart God has put zeal for the Corinthians equaling Paul’s (7:13–15), Titus whom Paul counts as co-worker (8:23), Titus whom Paul trusted to carry and interpret his now lost letter of frankness to the Corinthians and Titus whom Paul entrusted to oversee the collection from the Macedonians (8:6); Timothy, whom Paul calls his soul-mate, who in exemplary fashion puts the interests of others ahead of his own (Phil 2:19–21), whom Paul trusts to educate the Corinthians in his own absence (1 Cor 4:17), to intercede in the dispute among two important women in Philippi (Phil 2:19), and to go to the youthful, persecuted church in Thessalonike (1 Thess 3:2). And the list of named leadership-type people in the earliest churches could be extended considerably. Usually, they are persons whose performance has a consistency, a durability and a dependability through thick and thin. They are what Paul hopes all believers mature into, what he calls dokimos which I translate with the phrase “tried and true.” The prevailing cultural drive to seek honor is condoned by Paul as long as two conditions are met: one should seek the true honor and seek it in appropriate ways. Early in Romans, Paul addresses both of these issues together. Let me translate Rom 2:6–11 and then we can analyze it. To those who are persisting in good work and seeking glory and honor and immortality, eternal life. To those who are factious and disobedient to the truth, who are obedient to wickedness, wrath and fury. Tribulation and anguish upon every last person who works evil, Jew first, also Greek. Glory and honor and peace to everyone who works the good, Jew first, also Greek. For there is no partiality with God.

The parallels and contrasts within this passage are extraordinarily structured from beginning to end. The text opens and closes with affirmations of good works and with rewards for the ones who do them. Via negativa, note the parallel regarding the ones who work evil: their “rewards” are wrath, fury, tribulation and anguish. The rewards awaiting the ones who do good are variously and richly described: eternal life, glory, honor and peace. Those who persist patiently in doing good work and who seek the honor that truly counts are here assured that they will receive their reward. But this is not the honor that the world can give; rather, it is honor available only from God; it is honor that is appropriately associated with the glory and peace that only God can give. The only way appropriately to seek that God-given honor is by doing the good, by working the good, by persisting in good work. We’ve mentioned judgment on the basis of works—and love is how those works are realized—and here it is again. The notion of believers’ pursuing rewards may seem strange to us in this postLutheran world where any sense of striving may seem out of order, but it is not strange for Paul or his communities. Paul knows that (even) he has not yet received the ultimate gift, resurrection from the dead (Phil 3:12–13); he knows that (even) he has not yet reached full maturity/adulthood, but he does “pursue it so as to seize it, because I have been seized by Christ Jesus; brothers and sisters, I do not reckon

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that I have seized it; but one thing I do…I pursue the prize that is the object of the upward call” (Phil 3:12–14). Note well that Paul’s pursuing and striving originates in his having been seized by Christ Jesus (3:12d). That same linkage lies behind his call for the Philippians to “work out their salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12)— which sounds totally unPauline unless you go ahead to read the rest of the sentence “because God is at work in you, both to will and to work for God’s good pleasure” (2:13). Pursuing awards, in particular pursuing honor, would not have seemed strange to Paul’s audiences—or to anybody else in the Greco-Roman world. His grounding of all the pursuing and seizing, however, in believers’ having been seized by Christ Jesus would sound strange to those outside Paul’s communities. One more point in this connection. Because believers have been reconciled to God and their erstwhile enmity with God has been ended by God’s grace, they are expected to live out that peace and reconciliation with one another. Toward the culmination of Romans, Paul once again ties together the notion that believers can receive the proper honor by loving one another. The passage (Rom 14:18–19) comes in a section where Paul tells the Roman believers that they should stop judging one another, that they should determine not to put stumbling blocks or hindrances in the way of other brothers or sisters, in short that they should do what he calls “walk in love” (14:15). In that context he addresses the honor question in two directions: before God and in relation to one’s fellow human beings: “The one who is thus enslaved to Christ [that is who is walking in love] is pleasing to God and approved by humans” (Rom 14:18). That is straight honor talk, but recast in Paul’s understanding of the gospel. The first, what is pleasing to God, echoes Rom 12:1–2 where Paul appealed to the Roman believers to “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” and coupled that with his call for them to “figure out and do” (dokimazein) what is pleasing to God (12:2). In 14:13–19, Paul details what pleases God: no longer judging one another but presently walking in love. To walk in love is pleasing to God and thereby places the love-walker in the position of honor before God (see the linking of love and honor in Rom 12:10). Coincidentally, not only is love the occasion for God’s pleasant honor, but it also gains the favor of others. In 14:18, Paul uses the term dokimos, “tried and true,” to describe the proper recognition and honor bestowed by other believers. Because walking in love is the prescribed path to proper honor before God and among believers, Paul caps off his appeal to the Romans: “Therefore, then, let us pursue [the same verb again] the things that make for peace and the things that build up one another” (Rom 14:19). Much is encapsulated in that little verse. First, Paul supposes that the human pursuing/seizing he urges is grounded in proper servitude to Christ. Second, because believers have peace with God, as he has argued earlier in Rom 5:1, they must become agents of peace; they must pursue the things that bear on peace. And in his call for believers’ attention to the things that “build up one another,” he is using his own personal code language for love. Love and edification are hand in glove in Paul’s thought world, as he expresses it directly to the Corinthians: “Knowledge puffs up; love builds up/edifies” (1 Cor 8:1). Later in the same letter, Paul exhorts the Corinthians directly and succinctly: “Pursue love” (14:1). It is not only OK to pursue the honor that comes with the expression of love; the pursuit of love is an obligation, it is the proper expression of faith, believers’ relation to God.



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As Paul writes the Galatians, circumcision and uncircumcision don’t matter, but faith working itself out, expressing itself, in love does matter (Gal 5:6). So it turns out that, in the Pauline circle, proper, enduring honor is the byproduct of the proper exercise of love—and the exercise of love springs from the graceful granting of the right relation to God. Bedrock for Paul is his assumption, grounded in Scripture, that believers will not be put to shame. Twice in Rom 9–11 he quotes Isa 28:16: “No one who believes in God will be shamed” (Rom 9:33; 10:11). The second time he follows it with a quote from Joel 2:32 that states the equivalent, though in positive form. Instead of “No one who believes in him will be shamed” Joel says “every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom 10:13), and between the two quotations from Scripture, Paul expresses the common story of Jews and Greeks who believe: “the same Lord is Lord of all and bestows his riches upon all who call upon him” (Rom 10:12). In his own theological construction Paul says with confidence that believers will be saved; that is God’s purpose. In the categories of the world Paul says the same thing another way: believers will not be shamed. On the praise and honor side of the dyad, Paul makes his counter-cultural mark. When Paul thinks of praise or honor, two options occur to him: does honor/praise come from God or from people? When framed in that way, it is no contest. Only the honor from God counts. In Romans, when Paul sets up his idealized picture of the true Jew as one who is circumcised in the heart (cf. Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4; 9:26; Ezek 44:7, 9), he declares of that person: “His praise/honor [epainos] is not from people but from God” (Rom 2:29). To the Corinthians who seem altogether too eager to judge one another, Paul reminds them that when the Lord comes, he will check out the hidden things and manifest the purposes of the heart and then, he says, “Praise/honor/ commendation will be given to each person from God” (1 Cor 4:5). Tied up with the whole issue of gaining honor and status is a complex Pauline notion, namely boasting. Boasting is a sub-form of honor discourse. Paul believes there is a wrong boasting and a proper boasting. We can do a taxonomy of boasting. The proper Pauline boast takes several forms. First we have what we may call his “central boast.” We can start by observing that it is no accident that Paul twice quotes Jer 9:24: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” That he quotes it in 1 Corinthians (1:31) and again in 2 Corinthians (10:17) shows how basic it is for him. Philippians 3:3 has the same christological focus when there Paul claims that he and other true believers are the ones who “worship in the Spirit of God and boast in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh.” We may say, then, that in this instance his departure from the cultural practice around him is at least resonant with the Jeremiah quote and may even have been derived from it. Paul’s central boast is in effect a thanksgiving for what God has done in Christ for believers; put differently, it is a thankfulness for grace, God’s freely given, unmerited favor. A close relative of the “central boast” is what we may call the “indirect boast,” a second form. In this the boast is on Paul’s (or any other believer’s) work done for God because Paul is always clear that any work he (or other believers) do is God-inspired work. Believers work because God is at work in them to work God’s good pleasure

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(Phil 2:13). So, the indirect boast boasts in one’s work for God, all the while realizing that the work is God-initiated and -enabled. By far the most frequent form of this indirect boast takes the recipients of one of Paul’s letters and treats them as the focus of his boast—because those believers are God’s work wrought through Paul. Examples of his boasting about his readers are strewn across the corpus. A few examples will suffice. To the Thessalonians, “For what is our hope, our joy, our crown of boasting if it is not truly you?” Twice Paul describes the Corinthians as his boast or as the ones in whom his boast is focused (1 Cor 15:31; 2 Cor 7:4). The reciprocal is also present: Paul anticipates that the Corinthians can boast of him—and he of them—in the day of the Lord (2 Cor 1:14), repeated with refinement in 2 Cor 5:12. Third, Paul also has what we may call an “ironic boast” which is also proper. There Paul boasts of his weakness (2 Cor 12:9), of things that show his weakness (2 Cor 11:30), or of his sufferings (Rom 5:3) because, as he says about his thorn in the flesh, the real power, namely God’s power, is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Paul’s difficulties, hardships and tribulations trump any claim of his own prowess. They show that it is truly God who is working through him. Here Paul’s boast is countercultural and perhaps even subversive. Paul’s claims here are distinctive. And to finish with the fourth form of boasting, Paul thinks there is a “wrong boast.” One boasts wrongly when the boast expresses allegiance to other human beings; it forms parties within the body of Christ. In 1 Cor 3:21 Paul critiques the divisiveness of the Corinthians and their tendency to form cliques by creating the fictive notion that there are parties of Corinthians devoted to Paul, Apollos, Cephas, and, get this, even Christ (1:12). All believers have their proper allegiance fixed on Christ and not on human beings. It is also a mistake to boast as if all the important things of life have not come as a gift (1 Cor 4:7), as if some, by their own efforts, have produced the riches and plenty that only God can give. Accordingly, even Abraham had nothing to boast about (Rom 4:2). In other words, wrong boasting denies the centrality of God’s grace in the life of faith, from beginning to end; proper boasting celebrates God’s grace as the source of believers’ workings and accomplishments. So, boasting and shame and honor reveal a complex pattern of Paul’s relationship to culture. At times he uses shame and dishonor discourse precisely as it would have been employed in the culture at large, primarily as a device of social control. On several fronts, Paul thinks the Corinthians’ treatment of one another is shameful and he tells them so. Public shaming is a powerful factor in that time, and Paul’s references to Corinthian shame are public because his letters were experienced as read documents in that congregation. The shunning of believers who have crossed too far over the borders of propriety is another instance of public shaming which has no special Christian character to it; the reasons for the shunning are distinctively Christian, but the shame of the shunning is not. A special irony attends these Corinthian shamings. At least two of them have to do with the way the wealthy Corinthians have taken advantage of their poorer brothers and sisters in the faith. The wealthy have taken poorer believers to court to settle disputes (1 Cor 6:1–8); and perhaps some of these same people, hosting the Lord’s



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supper, have used their leisure time as an opportunity to eat early and, perhaps even more shamefully, they have gotten drunk (11:21–22). Imagine the irony when the poorer believers at Corinth hear the letter read and find themselves, so regularly accustomed to the cultural shames and stigmas associated with poverty in that world, not the objects of the shaming. They who are regularly shamed just for existing as unprosperous people out in the world, are in these instances in the Pauline letter, the ones whose standing and worth are indirectly being defended—by the one who brought them the gospel in the first place. Paul rejiggers the values. He adulterates the currency. Shame and honor are no longer reckoned on one’s achieved or inherited status; honor is not a product of one’s endless and energetic efforts to enhance one’s standing through manipulation of the system. Honor is simply and profoundly bestowed by God. It is reckoned on God’s terms. It is allocated as God pleases. And no believer is left out of the honor. Accordingly, believers no longer calculate human relations on what they can get out of the engagement; instead, they ask what love requires in this and that circumstance; radically and even subversively, they seek the advantage of the other; they seek what builds up or edifies the neighbor. And most surprisingly and requiring an incredible amount of trust in God, they come to realize that their own self-interests are cared for not by securing themselves but by honoring their neighbors in love. In sum. We have seen two models that Paul uses in his ambiguous relation to the culture around him. There surely may be more, but these two are the predominant ones and can be demonstrated time and again across the corpus. In the last part of the study, we attempt the daunting challenge of a fuller explanation why Paul makes the cultural choices he does.

The Problem’s Key: Paul’s Apocalyptic (Dis)engagement In the previous three sections, we have observed Paul’s ambiguous relation to culture by examining his appropriation of social conventions such as pater familias and family, the conventions of friendship and social values such as honor and shame. We have seen that Paul is very flexible in his appropriation of cultural conventions and values. One model shows Paul adopts and adapts cultural commonplaces without any objections or qualifications. So, he takes over without critique only what already fits his purposes and view of the gospel. The other model that we examined involved his taking over the culturally dominant dyad of shame and honor. There his treatment sometimes used the notions in the culturally established way, primarily as social enforcement. All Paul’s other uses of the shame/honor pair, however, show him radically retrofitting his own values into what traditionally confers honor and avoids shame. By transvaluing the cultural presumptions, he undermines the conventional picture of how things work and is insofar subversive of the cultural values. I challenge you to discover other models. I can imagine variations on the ones we examined in the second and third sections. Earlier, I promised that we would return to the first passage we considered in this study, namely Paul’s treatment of women’s head coverings in 1 Cor 11:2–16. We

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need to return there because I purposely skipped a couple of verses in the middle of that passage. With what we know now we are in a position to understand some things about those strange verses, 11:11–12. They follow the claim that a woman ought to have something on her head because of the angels (11:10), which verse we noted earlier rang true with all the other arguments that Paul stacks up in favor of his pre-determined opinion that women should have head coverings of some sort. The two verses in question here are so strange that some translators, such as the RSV, have put them in parentheses. Why? Because the translators rightly sense that the two verses intrude into the argument and in fact do not fit the rest of the case that Paul is making. Let’s consider them more closely. First, remember their context: these two verses are surrounded by a consistent picture where Paul argues that women, even though they are praying and prophesying in the assembly (11:4), should wear a distinctive mark of their place in the hierarchical scheme of things. But these two verses to which we now turn sing a different song: “Nevertheless, neither woman apart from man nor man apart from woman. For just as surely as the woman is from the man, surely now the man comes into being through the woman” (11:11–12). Strange words in a context otherwise consistently arguing for women to get in line! The particle plēn that introduces these verses is, according to Blass–Debrunner–Funk, often used in Paul to “emphasize what is essential” (BDF 449). So we are dealing with an essential intrusion here. Women are praying and prophesying in the church at Corinth. Paul takes that practice for granted, and it is no problem for him (11:5, 13). A later discussion in this letter shows that prophesying is a public mode of discourse that can edify, encourage, console or lead to conviction in the hearts of others (14:3, 24–25). Clearly, women at Corinth have heard Paul’s gospel as welcoming them into full participation in the life of the church. Midway through 11:2–16 Paul appears to become self-critical about or at least aware of the implication of his multi-faceted but one-sided argument for women to wear head coverings. In his eagerness to bring the Corinthian women into conformity with the practice of women in his other churches (11:16), Paul has distinguished women/wives from and subordinated them to men/husbands. And this in a letter where he has already counter-culturally reconstructed the relationship of husbands and wives in marriage (ch. 7) as one of reciprocity and parity. In the process of writing 11:2–16, Paul discovers two of his own values in conflict with each other: on the one side he wants women believers to accommodate to the culturally aligned practice of wearing head coverings; on the other and in a deliberation that he grounds in the (possibly pre-)Pauline baptismal affirmation that “in Christ there is neither male nor female” (Gal 3:28), he believes that in Christ the cultural differentiations between men and women are eschatologically challenged by the gospel. It is important to note how Paul’s argument moves. In the opening verses (11:3–10) Paul single-mindedly piles up one point after another, all to the end of sustaining his hierarchical distinction in praxis between men/husbands and women/wives. Then, all of a sudden, in 11:11–12 he interrupts his own argument with the particle plēn, “nevertheless, however, but,” which is a standard Greek way to break into a previous



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discussion and emphasize what is very important, and introduces what amounts to a strong counterpoint to his own argumentation just advanced in 11:2–10. In 11:13a he closes the intrusion and invites the Corinthians to make their own judgments in this matter. With the very next verses, 11:13b–16, he once again returns to compiling more arguments whose goal is to encourage the Corinthian women to decide in favor of Paul’s view that they should cover their heads. So the bulk of the argumentation goes in the direction of head coverings, but it is significantly interrupted by Paul’s reaffirmation of male/female equality/reciprocity that he sees in the gospel. So we have in 11:2–16 two competing arguments based on two distinct pictures of the order of creation. The first, and dominant one in these verses, is structured upon the repeated affirmation that God is the source of all there is, that God is over all and the head of all (3:21–23; 8:6; 15:24–28). No other gods exist; there is no rival Lord. From this basic conviction Paul posits an orderly, hierarchical universe whose structure he details in such a way as to bear on the problem he faces with the women who are not wearing the head coverings. The argument is one of source or head. Beginning with God (for all the right theological reasons), Paul traces the lineage that God is the source or head of Christ who is the source or head of men who are the source or head of women and the woman who does not wear proper head covering dishonors her head, meaning her own head but also her husband, and, one might wonder, even Christ and God. The claim that man is the source of woman (11:12a) probably draws on the scriptural base of Gen 2:21–23 which says as much—so Paul insinuates that Scripture is also on his side in this issue. Paul knows that his hierarchical picture or argument is only part of the story; it is one important way of looking at things. But logic and his other theological convictions lead him to recognize, counter to his main argument, that every man is in fact born of a woman (11:12b). Not only that, but Paul has earlier preached to them and can in this letter draw upon it as established tradition that in Christ—“in the Lord” as he puts it in 11:11—there is neither male nor female (Gal 3:28; consider esp. 1 Cor 7:17–24; 12:13). So his commitment to the tradition that “in the Lord” one finds neither male nor female breaks into his earlier hierarchical argument and shapes and inspires his even-handed statement in 11:11: nevertheless in the Lord “woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman” (11:11; NRSV). In this portrait of the new creation, men and women are not distinguished in an hierarchical fashion, although he knows and reaffirms the truth of the core of the first argument, namely “All things are from God” (11:12c). In a creative reworking of the same tradition that is found in Gal 3:28 and in 1 Cor 7:17–24 and its context, Paul affirms that “in the Lord there is neither woman apart from man nor man apart from woman” (11:11). While he has suggested in 11:8 (Gen 2:22) that woman came out of man because it served his point there to do so, it is just as surely true that “man is born of woman”—as he acknowledges in 11:12b—and as if to keep it all in proper perspective, “all that is comes from God” (11:12c). Recognizing that he has now presented the Corinthians with very different lines of argument in the same passage and bearing on the same issue, he turns it over to them: “Weigh out these matters among yourselves” (11:13a; cf. 6:5). But without waiting

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for whatever they may decide, Paul stacks up even more arguments favoring women’s wearing head coverings (11:13b–16) and clearly hopes the Corinthians will agree with him. With his dogged return to the head covering for women, Paul seems not to have seen the full weight of his own insights. In part we may be dealing here with Paul’s not having thoroughly and consistently thought through the implications of his having embraced the traditional baptismal claim that in the Lord there is neither male nor female. In that case his call for women in all his churches to wear head coverings would be an unfiltered vestige of the popular culture’s prejudice for men and hierarchies. If so, some of the Corinthians, at least some of the Corinthian women, are way ahead of Paul in following through the critique of the culture on this point. In part, also, we may be dealing with the very nature of theological claims: each theological assertion is partial, each theological claim is limited and gains certain important points. Not all theological claims fit neatly together without friction. Each important point gained by one theological claim usually causes some conflict with the consequences of some other theological claim. A classic example will illustrate. When one stresses that all power, glory and honor belong to God—as the Pauline tradition does and as Calvin later emphasized—one inevitably implies something troublesome about the power of human beings. If God is all-powerful how can one talk about human beings having any capacity to make decisions, because choosing this or avoiding that implies not only the exercise of some power of one’s own, some freedom of one’s will, but also inevitably implies some restriction on God’s control? On the other side, if one posits freedom of the human will to choose, what does such an assertion inevitably imply about God’s will, about God’s power? One may want to hold both positions despite the associated theological ambiguities. Paul surely holds both. And another factor complicates the matter even further: any theological assertions must not only take into consideration the problems just noted but also the complexity of life and social arrangements which add their own complicating nuances to applied theological claims. Now back to the problem of Paul and Paul’s theological claims in 11:2–16. God is surely over all in Paul’s view. Such a claim, right as it is, inevitably contributes to an hierarchical vision. In dealing with idolaters’ rival claims, such a conviction might be very helpful and illuminating because it could provide the framework in which one could place oneself in the line of authority and power (Paul used 1 Cor 15:3–11 in such a way; the narrative ties Paul into the line of divinely appointed authority). But when one is dealing, as Paul is here in 11:2–16, with intimate human exchanges and the social dynamics of his community of believers at Corinth, the conviction that God is over all can lead to or endorse stratification. Now, for our purposes in this study, note that Paul is doing in this passage with theological convictions precisely what he did in our first model of the way he related to cultural conventions. In the first model, he was quite ready and able to use disparate cultural conventions as the distinctive needs became apparent. So, he could switch from the hierarchical pater familias construction to the more equitable and reciprocal relationship between brothers and sisters and within friendship of equals. So also in



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2 Cor 11:2–16 he shows the same supple (or complex? or proclivity of?) mind that can bring to bear on almost any problem a vast array of theological convictions. And, as Paul regularly reasons from what we know, his knowledge of distinct, even different, convictions puts him in a quandary—as we see in 11:12–13—even at the very moment he is writing. So, it should not be a surprise that Paul can only push the hierarchical argument so far when he calls to mind a theological premise that is grounded in a distinctively different view of reality where in Christ there is no distinction between men and women. In short, we probably are dealing with a disposition of mind on Paul’s part where he freely ranges disparate traditions alongside on another—and has no reticence in doing so. Now, I want to do two analogous and interrelated things. First, I want to look at the way Paul’s ambiguous relation to culture is not only seen in his appropriation of social conventions and values, but also visible in his counsel for believers’ interchange with unbelievers. And finally, I want to suggest that Paul’s understanding of holiness and its stewardship is properly lived in the world and in contact with unbelievers, a contact that is at times perilous for corporate holiness and, this is important, just as surely at times advantageous. We will now test whether we can gain insight into Paul’s ambiguous relation to culture by seeing how he relates to the Corinthians regarding their association with unbelievers. At the end, we will offer some reflections about Paul’s view of holiness and its proper stewardship. Even prior to what we now call 1 Corinthians, Paul had written the Corinthian believers a letter that caused them some confusion. We know of this now lost letter because Paul refers to it in 1 Cor 5:9–13. We can tell that the letter dealt with believers’ association with unbelievers. Apparently, Paul had intended that believers should not involve themselves with other believers who were pornoi, immoral persons, but some Corinthians at least seem to have understood it as a Pauline declaration that believers should have absolutely no contact with any immoral persons, a prospect that Paul thinks ludicrous, an impossibility tantamount to escaping the world altogether (5:10). Paul clarifies: No, they are to avoid a sister or brother in the faith when that person has strayed across into the territory denominated by the vice list (5:11). Indeed, and this has telling consequences for access to the Lord’s supper, they are not even to eat with such a person (5:11). Some Corinthians, apparently acting on their own interpretation of Paul’s previous letter, have taken a radical stance regarding their separation from worldly defilement. These radical Corinthians are probably the authors of the maxim with which Paul opens 1 Cor 7: “It is good for a man not to ‘touch’ a woman,” with “touch” of course being a euphemism for sexual intercourse (7:1). Perhaps it is these same persons, trying to carry through on their interpretation of Paul’s previous letter, who consider divorcing their unbelieving partners (1 Cor 7:12–16). A few more moderate Corinthian interpreters of Paul’s earlier letter have apparently taken a temperate position that they will not totally forgo sexual intercourse with their partners, but they will set apart times when they will abstain (7:3–7). Of course, we know from 1 Corinthians that Paul rejects each of these misguided efforts to enforce his earlier expressed concern that they safeguard their God-given holiness.

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1 Corinthians displays two further occasions when Paul anticipates that believers will have dealings with unbelievers. In the first, Paul projects an hypothetical situation where an unbeliever invites a believer over for dinner. No problem. Go, if you are so inclined. Furthermore, eat whatever they serve you without any question regarding their shopping practices. His only caution regards what to do if someone there decides to tell you that the meat had been offered to some rival deity. Paul’s argument shows concern for the informer’s, not the believer’s, conscience. The believer who knows that “there is no God but one” and “an idol has no real existence” (1 Cor 8:4) is not put in hazard by this new information about where the meat came from; rather, the believer is to take special care not to harm the informant who may be supposed to have some budding sensitivities to the question of what deity is in charge of things. So table fellowship with unbelievers is not forbidden; eating meat offered to idols is not forbidden; what is expected, whether the person is a believer or not, is care for the other one’s sensitivities and urgings of conscience. In 1 Corinthians, the third encounter with unbelievers is anticipated when the assembly gathers for worship. Paul’s picture of the Corinthians’ worship is clear: he knows the Corinthians to be fully endowed by the Spirit (cf. the thanksgiving; 1:7); he thinks their worship is chaos, that believers are showing no concern for one another, but instead are eagerly displaying whatever working of the Spirit they may be experiencing at any given moment. No one waits for another. No one exercises the highly esteemed Pauline value, self-control (7:5, 9; 9:25; Gal 5:23). Corinthian worship falls somewhere on the continuum from chaos to bedlam. Paul’s thought turns to what unbelievers might think of their assembly and reckons that they would probably just think them mad (14:23). Paul supposes that unbelievers enter worship unbidden? How do they do that? The answer lies in two facts. One, Pauline assemblies typically met in homes. Two, houses, typically not only the family’s residence but also the family’s business place, were structured so that persons passing along the way could see deep into the house. The houses were decorated so as to enhance curiosity and to entice entrance. Business depended on ready access by strangers; worship made itself available to outsiders’ wandering in to see what the commotion was about. Paul is not the least bit distressed that outsiders might come in during worship. On the contrary, he seems delighted at the possibility that an idealized scenario might play itself out as follows: the outsiders might be “convinced and called to account by all” (14:24); they might have the secrets of their hearts brought to light; they would then fall on their faces before God and even say, “God really is among you!” (14:24–25). Note well: in this instance, believers’ interface with unbelievers is positive, not a hazard for believers; and what is only hinted at as the possible outcome in the hypothetical exchange at table with an unbeliever, namely that person’s being claimed by God, here is carried to its logical and desired extension with the unbeliever acknowledging God’s reality and presence. Let’s summarize: Where some Corinthians might think themselves risking their God-given holiness, Paul lets them know he does not agree with them. He says: they don’t need to abstain from all sexual intercourse; they don’t even need to set apart special high holy times in their marriages where they forgo their conjugality; they



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surely don’t need to divorce their unbelieving spouses; they don’t need to abandon their social life with their unbelieving neighbors; but they do need to conduct themselves in worship so as to make outsiders welcome and exposed to the lived gospel. In all these instances, Paul welcomes contact with unbelievers and anticipates no hazard to believers’ holiness, no problems for their piety. What does distress Paul at Corinth, however, is the presence within the community of a man whose porneia, whose immorality, he thinks would be shocking even to pagans: a man is sleeping with his stepmother and some Corinthian believers, far from distressed, are putting on airs or are being conceited about it (5:2, 6a). He ruminates about this problem for a chapter and in it warns that one bad apple spoils the barrel, or as he put it, employing Jewish Passover imagery, Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so that you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. For our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us celebrate the festival…with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (5:6–8)

Immediately, in the following verses, Paul makes the connection with the previous letter he had written them. The irony is that some of the Corinthians, so eager to enact Paul’s stronger urgings about holiness, as we have just recounted, abide, yes even exult in, what he considers an egregious invasion of the community’s holiness with porneia, immorality, that is off the chart. A genuine hazard to their holiness is present among them and they don’t recognize it. Instead they busy themselves with sweeping out little nooks and crannies within the house and fail to see the log in their own communal eye. A paired, similar distress hits Paul, and is discussed next in the letter, when believers who should settle their disputes within the community take their conflicts before outsiders. Think of it: to settle disputes between believers, they go to what we would call civil court and ask just, righteous deliberation from unbelievers. Paul says, it doesn’t compute. Why? Because believers are supposed to do collective moral deliberation; believers are supposed to know about righteousness/justice; they are supposed to resolve their disputes in a just and loving way; and they are to seek the common good, assured that their individual goods are most surely and directly served by doing so. Paul’s picture is a bit complex, but we can lay it out, piece by piece. If we start from Paul’s concern that what should be kept outside the community borders has, in the instance of the man sleeping with his stepmother, invaded the community and placed it at peril, we can see he thinks certain factors of the outside world can be hazardous when they are imported. How to tell what items represent such a peril? The vice lists are Paul’s guide; vice lists mark off what Paul thinks are outside the borders. It is not social conventions, per se, that are hazardous. In Paul’s adopted Stoic view, social conventions and practices are adiaphora, that is, they are indifferent things which one may or may not embrace but vice lists are totally different for Paul. The second piece that requires a closer look is his counter to the Corinthian matter of believers’ divorcing unbelieving spouses, which we noted earlier was probably the

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attempt on the part of some of them to ratchet up their holiness in accord with their interpretation of Paul’s previous letter (7:12–16). His counsel is that believers should not divorce their unbelieving spouses. Yes, if the unbeliever requests it, divorce should be granted. That advice implies Paul’s conviction that believers experience no hazard to their holiness by staying in marriages with unbelievers. Quite the contrary, their marriage to unbelievers may prove advantageous for their partners. “The unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife…the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband” (7:14a–b). Like a bulldog that won’t let go, Paul carries his logic one step further: How do you think your children are holy? He assumes they know their children are already holy (7:14c) and that simply by association with their believing parent(s). In a most uncharacteristic claim, which I can only understand as Paul’s determined reach for emphasis, he makes the identical, startling assertion first to the wife and then to the husband: “For all you know, you might save your spouse” (7:16). Nowhere else in the corpus does Paul credit salvation to human initiative! “You might save your spouse.” Paul is clear that salvation is God’s business, God’s work; make no mistake about it. But, for stress here, Paul takes the risk of emphasizing human agency in salvation because it is so very important for him to enlarge the Corinthians’ understanding of holiness. They are agents of God’s holiness; as they live their lives together, Paul sees their holiness as positively infectious, as contagious and transmittable. Some Corinthians may think more of “protecting” or “safeguarding” their holiness from contamination. Paul does too: he thinks the bad yeast of the man sleeping with his father’s wife may contaminate the whole lump, the entire community of believers. But Paul does not stop there: he also knows that holiness may be infectious in the way we speak of infectious laughter. Holiness is not a private possession; it does not stop at our personal borders. It moves out and affects others. So proper stewardship of God-given holiness not only guards against its pollution by what ought properly to be kept outside, but it also lives itself and manifests itself in such a way as to be given maximum exposure, sharing with others. Sociologists tell us that community identity is directly proportional to the specific definition of borders. No clearly defined, distinctive standards for what distinguishes one from those outside, no community. Clear distinctions, strong community. For Paul, vice lists demarcate the behavior that is inappropriate within the believing community. But it is behavior, not ideas, that Paul monitors. The ultimate test is whether one is walking in love. To walk, that is to go toward a goal, to lead one’s life in a certain direction is in the nature of being human; everyone who can, walks. So the moral question is not whether one walks, for Paul, it is whether one walks in love (Rom 14:15). As with Paul’s relation to social conventions and the value structure of the world, so also with holiness within the community of believers, Paul thinks believers live in the world, they live in this evil aeon. Granted, their politeuma, their citizenship, is in heaven (Phil 3:20), but they discharge their obligations as citizens of heaven right here in this broken world.



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Conclusions. Let us now attempt an assessment of how Paul relates to the social conventions and values of the world. He has what we might dub a pragmatist’s relation to them. He picks and uses them as they serve his immediate needs. He employs those aspects of them that fit his convictions; he ignores or restructures the aspects that do not fit. He readily shifts patterns or paradigms when others suit his rhetorical goals. As a polymath, he draws upon the vast riches of the culture like a concert organist playing a multi-consoled instrument. He pulls the stops that suit him; he shifts range and even tone as his understanding of the gospel and his rhetorical purposes require. He can move freely among the social conventions and worldly values because he apparently does not fear contamination. Pauline adaptability is at the heart of his posture. As he tells the Corinthians about his evangelistic modus operandi, he can become all things to all people when it serves his goal of winning them to the gospel (1 Cor 9:22). But he is not an end-justifies-the-means person. When it comes to persuading, he cannot tell a lie as some rhetoricians would advise (2 Cor 11:31; Gal 1:20). He cannot accept Corinthian patronage even though it might make the richer Corinthians happier. He is guided by the principles of his gospel. He asks the Galatians whether he has become their enemy by telling them the truth (Gal 4:16). He knows he has to express profound things in terms that can be grasped (1 Cor 2:1, 13). At times, he openly declares that he is speaking in human terms partly because of his hearers’ natural limitations (Rom 3:5; 6:19) and partly because what he has to describe is so hidden and different from the world (1 Cor 2:13). Among those he calls mature, he does speak a wisdom that discloses the mystery (2:6). He does what he has to do in order to get his point across. He uses what is at hand. By his own admission, he does not share everything he knows. Some things simply cannot be told; even if he has heard them on high, they cannot be repeated (2 Cor 12:4). With most of his letter recipients being Gentiles, he cannot expect them to know the Scriptures at the outset, and even later, as fully as he. He can and does, however, expect them to be competent in the culture where they were reared, so whether they are educated or not, they will know, and even share, many of the cultural values and social conventions of the time. He makes common coin with them and, like Diogenes of Sinope was accused of doing, Paul sometimes adulterates the currency. At every point, though, it is Paul’s convictions that govern and trump the cultural conventions and social values of his world. Never the other way around. The gospel and its focus on the cross is his filter, his lens through which he sees and evaluates all things (1 Cor 2:3). Paul’s conviction is that believers already live in the new creation, even while walking in the evil aeon. They have a new Lord; they must live in such a way as to please their new Lord; Paul is confident that each believer, like a proper house servant, will be enabled to stand before the Lord (Rom 14:1–4). At two points in his correspondence with the Corinthians, Paul gives especial insight into how he understands cultural practices and conventions. The first is 1 Cor 7 where he treats some of the Corinthians’ concerns about proper socio-sexual relations; we have already noted that this is a place where we can see some of the more radical Corinthians’ efforts to apply Paul’s expressions of concern over their stewardship of holiness. Well along in that chapter, Paul gives the grounds for how

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he sifts through the world’s values and perceptions and arrives at his perspective. At ground zero, he knows that the schema, the form, of this world is passing away (1 Cor 7:31); this is a fundamental conviction for Paul’s apocalyptic gospel. In Christ’s death and resurrection, God has inaugurated the new creation; believers can and do now walk in newness of life; the power of sin is broken, though it still manifests itself in the structures of life and its product death, is the last enemy and yet to be undone; and between now and the parousia of Christ when God brings the entire cosmic redemption to completion and at which time we shall all be changed and the mortal will take on immortality; between now and then, believers walk by faith, not by what they see, they reckon by what can be seen in the heart, not by what they see on one’s face. So one cannot simply take things as they are; one must look into them with care; one must see them in the light that shines forth from Christ’s death and resurrection. Accordingly, Paul says, believers should live hos mē, as-if-not. Paul’s hos mē, as-if-not approach to life holds the world’s values and social conventions at arm’s length and looks at them through the cross. Look at him express it: This is what I mean, brothers and sisters, the time is shortened. Therefore, let the ones having wives live as if not having them; and the ones weeping as if not weeping; and the ones rejoicing as if not rejoicing; and the ones shopping the malls as if not possessing; and [get this, especially] the ones using the world as if not using it, because the schema of this world is passing away. (7:29–31)

The same apocalyptic disconnect from the world and insight into it is expressed inadvertently in one of Paul’s peristasis/hardship catalogs when he describes how the world and its lackeys have shamefully treated him; their darkened understandings prevent them from seeing him accurately. Paul stresses the irony of his treatment when compared with what he knows to the contrary to be true: “We are considered impostors, yet are true…as dying, and see, we live; as disciplined with punishment, yet not killed; as grieving, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making those around us rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Cor 6:8b–10). The complexity of Paul’s vision that we have just now seen expressed in 1 Cor 7:29–31 and again in 2 Cor 6:8–10 is incredibly condensed into one sentence in his letter to the Galatians. The repetition of what we might call this “angle of vision” across his correspondence testifies to its being one of his abiding convictions and insights. Consider the one sentence: “Let me not boast in anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which [cross] the world is crucified to me and me to the world” (Gal 6:14). What a laconic, maxim-like expression of everything this study has been about! The cross stands between the believers and the world and does double duty. It is as if the cross serves as double insulation of the believer from the claim of the world and, just as importantly, from a claim upon the world. Put differently, the world’s power of judgment upon people is broken by the cross; and people’s enticement with the world is broken by the cross. Put yet another way, the cross— standing for God’s redemptive breaking into the world and people’s lives in it—the cross lets Paul see through the world’s charade of power, through its enticement, and renders the world approachable as another part of God’s good creation; and just as surely, the cross breaks the power the world bids to hold over people and gives people



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and the broken creation back to one another on fresh terms, on God, the Creator’s terms. In this context, Paul knows himself free to use the world without being taken over by it. Its power, formerly generated by sin, is broken and the world is made available for his use—and as the context for the walk of love. Paul’s apocalyptic disconnect from the world frees him to employ the social conventions of the world that fit his understanding of the gospel, to let lie those that do not and to alter any others that he chooses to employ. It is that same apocalyptic disengagement that expresses itself in his counsels to the Corinthians that they can safely relate to unbelievers without risking the contamination of their holiness. In the particulars of 1 Corinthians, they can be the sexual creatures that God has created them to be; they can stay married to their unbelieving spouses; they can go to dinner with unbelievers if they are so inclined; and they can properly welcome unbelievers into their worship services. It is this same apocalyptic disengagement that frees Paul to “become all things to all people so that he can win some” to the gospel. Paul’s apocalyptic disengagement prompts and even grounds apocalyptic engagement. Even the conventions of his own religious tradition (for example, that males must be circumcised, that the food laws must be observed by all and that some days are special) are not binding in the light of the cross. Neither the gospel nor his own personal holiness are jeopardized by his meeting potential believers where and how they live. Paul takes seriously that the cross, that symbol of worldly shame which has now become the icon of believers’ hope, is planted deep in the soil of history. Involvement in the world, blooming where you are planted, sharing the suffering of the world cannot be avoided. Our earlier differentiation of Christian love from Stoic freedom is relevant here as well. For Paul, because believers are secured by God’s grace and love, they are indeed freed—no, let’s ratchet that up a notch—they are required to love. As Paul says it in Gal 5:6, faith, the right relationship to God, works itself out in love, the right relationship between people. Both the apocalyptic disengagement and the apocalyptic engagement are encapsulated in one part of a single Pauline sentence, 2 Cor 5:14a. Let me quote it first as the NRSV has it: “For the love of Christ urges us on, because we are convinced that one has died for all.” I’m interested in the part translated: “For the love of Christ urges us on.” Apart from what any Greek student will immediately recognize as the genitive construction, “the love of Christ,” and whether it means our love for Christ or Christ’s love for us, the most critical hermeneutical issue centers on the verb there translated as “urges.” That verb is synechein and has the semantic range of “urge on” or “impel,” as the NRSV has taken it. But it equally has a semantic range that runs to “close by holding together” or “control.” Love, whether believers’ for Christ or Christ’s for believers, can therefore be understood to impel them outward into the world and toward others, or it can equally well be taken to close them in together and control, that is set limits on, them. For Paul, both things are true about the power of love. Love causes believers to recognize the borders of inappropriate action, and in the matters with which this study has been concerned, love causes believers to recognize what ought not to be appropriated from the culture. Love received, love being given, those two become the filter whereby believers test what the culture offers and see

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whether it can be appropriated or how much it needs to be transvalued. At the same time, and equally importantly, love received, love being given, these two become the force that does not let believers pull the wagons into a circle and become defensive, worrying only about themselves and their own. Rather, love pushes believers to reach out into the world, to others, and love, through them, engages the culture, uses its conventions, forms, and values, in service of the gospel. In that same love, believers go forth boldly into the world in peace and in joy, being convinced with Paul “that one has died for all.”

Index of References Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament Genesis

1–11 283 1:26 328 1:27 328, 399 2:18 399 2:21–23 399, 423 2:22 423 3–4 100 3:21 328 5:1 399 6:1–4 399 12:2 lxx 358 15 359 15:1 lxx 358 15:2 lxx 358 15:3 lxx 358 15:6 360 15:6 lxx 359 17 359, 360 17:2 lxx 359 17:4–5 lxx 359 17:5 359 17:7 359 17:8 359 17:9 359 17:10 359 17:12 359 17:12 lxx 359 17:13 359 17:14 359 17:19 359, 360 17:21 359 17:24–26 360 18 359 21:4 lxx 360 22 359 Exodus 19:14 99 20:3 137

Leviticus 18:24–25 294 19:8 132 20:12 382 20:22–25 294 Deuteronomy 5:18 99 7:2–5 294 10:16 419 20:17–18 294 23:15–16 325 24:1–4 99 Esther 13:4–5 lxx 34 Psalms 2 403 8 192 8:6 192 8:7 lxx 191, 192 24:1 403 32:1–2 359 109:1 lxx 191, 192 110 192 110:1 191, 192 Proverbs 6:32–33 30 Isaiah 28:16 419 Jeremiah 4:4 419 9:24 419 9:26 419 31:31–34 260 31:33 260 Ezekiel 44:7 419 44:9 419

Joel 2:32 419 New Testament Matthew 5:31–32 107 7:29 80 13:27 181 13:52 181 17:10 80 19:3–12 107 20:1 181 20:11 181 22:21 212 27:9 305 Mark 1:15 140 1:22 80 1:29–35 214 2:15 214 6:3 242 10:2–12 107 10:30 214 14:3 214 14:14 181 Luke 1:1–4 167 2:6 188 2:7 188 2:11 188 4:16–20 242 12:13–21 183 12:39–48 183 12:39–45 181 12:39 181 12:42 181 12:43 181 13:10–17 31 13:25 181 14:15–24 183 14:21 181 16:1–13 181, 183

434

Luke (cont.) 16:1 181 16:2 181 16:3 181 16:5 181 16:8 181 16:18 107 16:19–31 183 17:7–10 183 22:11 181 John 8:1–12 84 19:19–22 255 20:17 226 Acts 4:36–37 218 5:29 212 7:10 197 8:26–40 244 8:27–30 244 9:15 391 9:26 218 10:2 197 10:19 305 11:14 197 11:25–26 218 13–14 218 13:13–52 364 13:13 218 14:8–18 364 15:1–5 358, 362, 363 15:36–40 218 15:40 219 16–18 197 16:1–3 219 16:14–15 216 16:15 184, 197, 335 16:16–24 312 16:31 197 16:32–34 335 16:33 184, 197 17:4 217 17:5–10 38 17:5 217 17:6 185

Index of References

17:7 217 17:9 185 17:12 217 17:14 219 17:18–34 364 17:33 197 17:34 217 18 100 18:1–11 364 18:1–3 184 18:2–3 218 18:2 100 18:3 75 18:5–17 101 18:7 214 18:8 197, 214, 335 19:7 217 19:21–22 101 19:22 219 19:23–41 101 19:29 219 19:31 217 20:4–6 222 20:4 219 20:8–9 214 21:26–22:29 78 21:31–36 78 21:32 78 21:37–39 78 21:40–22:21 78 22:3 76 22:24 78 24:17 224 24:22–27 312 28:31 224 Romans 1–5 226 1–3 277 1 283, 294 1:1 219, 333, 334, 405 1:2–3 362 1:3–4 42, 165 1:3 357 1:4 225 1:5 391 1:7 195, 403

1:8–9 161 1:8 42, 43, 161 1:9–10 163 1:9 159, 161, 219, 403 1:13–14 283 1:14 159 1:16 43, 416 1:18–3:21 284 1:18–2:16 284 1:18–2:11 255 1:18–32 39, 42, 283 1:18–20 276 1:18 42, 226 1:19–20 158 1:19 159 1:20–21 404 1:21–32 42 1:21–28 276 1:21 159, 160, 226 1:23 226 1:24–28 294 1:24 283, 294, 376 1:25 226 1:26–27 296 1:26 280, 283, 294, 376 1:27 285, 296 1:28 283, 294 1:29–31 376 1:32 159, 283, 291 2:1–5 255 2:1 255, 283 2:2 283 2:3 283 2:4 55 2:6–11 43, 417 2:9 24 2:11 125, 144 2:14–16 291 2:14–15 292 2:14 362 2:15 24, 283 2:16 42 2:17–3:8 284 2:17 160



2:18 63, 159 2:20 276 2:22 99 2:23–24 42 2:23 160 2:25 60, 61 2:26 362 2:28–29 42 2:29 416, 419 3–8 142 3–5 284 3:1–2 60, 61 3:5 429 3:9–31 284 3:20 291 3:21–26 131 3:21 362 3:22 60 3:24 335 3:25–26 159 3:25 226 3:27–30 42 3:27 160 3:30 61 4 359, 361 4:1 357 4:2 160, 420 4:6–8 359 4:9–10 360 4:10 360 4:11–12 43 4:12 360 4:13–21 358, 360 4:13–25 191 4:13 359 4:15 291 4:16–25 131 4:16 357, 362 4:17 359 4:19–21 361 4:19 361 4:20–21 410 4:23–25 362 4:24–25 361 4:24 361 5 19, 374 5:1–11 10, 18, 20 5:1–5 42

Index of References

5:1

124, 141, 418 5:2 19, 160, 226 5:3–5 374 5:3–4 18, 20 5:3 3, 160, 420 5:4 19 5:5 19, 416 5:6–8 19, 23, 405 5:7 215 5:8 20, 226 5:9–11 20 5:10 403 5:11 42, 160 5:12–19 225 5:13 291 5:15–21 131 5:20 141 6–8 284 6–7 286 6 142, 290 6:2 282, 285 6:3 159 6:4 191–93, 195 6:6–23 335 6:6 285, 288 6:8 405 6:9 196 6:11 285, 288 6:12 285, 291 6:14 196 6:15–23 196 6:19–22 43 6:19 429 6:22 333 6:23 143 7 284, 286, 288, 290–93 7:1–6 99 7:1 159, 196 7:2–6 99, 100 7:2 99, 108 7:4 99, 225 7:5–6 99 7:5 280 7:6 196 7:7–24 286, 287, 289, 290 7:7–13 291

435

7:13 159 7:14–20 288 7:14 287, 335 7:15–20 291 7:15 272 7:16 288 7:18 288 7:19 272 7:21–25 196 7:22 273, 291, 295 7:23 295 7:24–25 12 7:24 24, 287, 288 7:25 288, 295 8 19, 398 8:1–13 290 8:3 226, 403 8:4 132 8:7–8 42 8:12–23 335 8:12–17 195, 332 8:14–17 43, 190, 213 8:14–16 141 8:15 333, 394, 403, 409 8:16–21 403 8:17 24, 226, 394 8:18–39 10, 18, 20 8:18–34 22 8:18–25 127, 395 8:18–23 396 8:18 43, 280 8:19–22 22 8:19 213 8:21–23 304 8:21 43, 213, 333, 398 8:23 2, 213 8:24 19 8:26 22 8:27 225 8:29–30 43 8:29 213, 281, 282, 403, 406 8:31–39 141, 255 8:31–33 22

436

Romans (cont.) 8:32–34 191, 193, 195 8:32 23, 403 8:34 22, 23, 191, 192, 225 8:35–39 22, 66, 282 8:35 3, 20 8:37 22 8:39 20 9–11 419 9:1–3 24 9:3 357 9:4–5 362 9:5 357, 399 9:6–8 43 9:8 403 9:21–24 43 9:22 159 9:31–33 42 9:33 419 10:4 362 10:6–12 362 10:9 225 10:11 43, 419 10:12–13 60 10:12 60, 125, 143, 225 10:20 159 11:1–24 255 11:9 160 11:13 283, 391 11:17–20 42 11:17–19 394 11:18 160 11:23–24 394 12–15 125 12 122, 141 12:1–15:33 377 12:1–13:14 377 12:1–2 418 12:1 81 12:2 117, 137, 395, 396, 418 12:3 42, 43, 141, 280, 410 12:4–5 141 12:6 410

Index of References

12:8–13 197 12:9–18 123, 125, 126, 144 12:10 42, 216, 220, 408, 416, 418 12:11 334 12:12 24 12:13 184, 214–16, 392 12:14 43 12:15 24, 406 12:16 42 12:17 43 12:20–21 43 12:21 24 13 226 13:1–7 369, 373 13:1 193 13:3–4 43 13:4 334 13:7 43, 143 13:8 362 13:9 99 13:10 362 13:13 376 14 140, 141 14:1–15:13 140 14:1–23 140 14:1–6 398 14:1–4 140, 142, 394, 429 14:1 410 14:2 141 14:3 42, 143 14:4 334 14:5–9 140, 141 14:5 66, 141 14:6–9 141, 225 14:6–8 66 14:7–9 142 14:7–8 142, 143, 225 14:7 142 14:9 196 14:10–13 42 14:10–12 42, 140, 142 14:10 393 14:13–23 140, 142

14:13–19 418 14:14–17 66 14:14 225 14:15–18 42 14:15 142, 405, 418, 428 14:16 159 14:17 122, 123, 125, 137–40, 142, 144 14:18–19 418 14:18 142, 143, 334, 418 14:19 125, 142, 418 14:20 66 14:21 143 14:22 141, 143 14:23 143 15:1–3 24 15:2 142 15:5–6 143 15:6 195 15:7 140 15:13 140, 143 15:14–21 283 15:14–16 256 15:14 159 15:15 159, 160 15:16–24 281 15:16 391 15:17–19 43 15:17 160 15:19–20 392 15:24 222, 392 15:26–27 223 15:27 223 15:28 222 15:30–31 223 15:30 24 15:31 224 16 101, 102 16:1–16 42, 252 16:1–2 101, 102, 184, 217, 417 16:1 214, 217, 393



16:2

185, 197, 217 16:3–5 101 16:3 181, 227, 417 16:4 218, 391 16:5–16 184 16:5 184, 197, 218 16:6 184 16:7 102, 185, 227 16:9 218, 227 16:10–11 335 16:11 102 16:12 100, 184, 197 16:13 217, 218 16:15 102 16:17–18 43, 294 16:18 335 16:19 42, 219 16:20 393 16:21 101, 218, 219, 221, 227 16:22–23 216 16:22 83, 86, 219, 255 16:23 184, 197, 214, 217, 218, 319, 335, 417 1 Corinthians 1–10 122 1–4 104, 219 1:1 221, 227, 405 1:3 195, 225, 403 1:4–9 43 1:4–8 161 1:4–5 161 1:4 161 1:7 426 1:8 42 1:9 403 1:10 407

Index of References

1:11

102, 159, 184, 335, 407 1:12 420 1:14–17 184 1:14 184, 214, 217, 218 1:16 159, 160, 214, 217, 335 1:17 75 1:18–31 119 1:19 159 1:20–25 51 1:20 80, 393 1:25 119, 143 1:26–31 42 1:26–28 393 1:26 66, 335, 407 1:29 160 1:31 125, 143, 160, 419 2 137 2:1 140, 429 2:2 258, 416 2:3 429 2:4 75, 140 2:6–16 117 2:6–8 373 2:6 392, 429 2:7 159 2:8 392 2:10 159 2:13 429 2:16 137, 159 3:1–4 43, 410 3:1–3 404 3:1 407 3:5 334 3:9 101 3:10 159, 394 3:12 394 3:13 42, 159 3:18–23 42 3:21–23 66, 143, 423 3:21–22 227 3:21 144, 160, 399, 403, 420

437

3:22 144 3:23 225, 403 4:1–2 181, 219 4:2 119, 143, 394 4:3–5 42 4:4 159 4:5 416, 419 4:6–15 255 4:6–7 404 4:7 42, 159, 160, 420 4:9–13 43, 393 4:9–12 24 4:9 159 4:10–13 66 4:12 75 4:14–21 189, 190, 196 4:14–16 220 4:14 189, 413, 414 4:15 143, 189, 404 4:16 189 4:17 160, 189, 219, 220, 396, 417 4:18–21 43 4:20 120, 138–40, 143, 144, 189 4:21 24, 189, 405, 407 5–6 105 5 254 5:1–16:12 377 5:1–13 258 5:1–8 105 5:1–6 414 5:1–2 257 5:1 43, 294 5:2 24, 427 5:3–5 252, 258 5:3 253, 258 5:4–5 258 5:6–8 427 5:6 160, 427 5:7 136, 392 5:9–13 257, 425

438

1 Corinthians (cont.) 5:9–11 43, 257, 377 5:9 79, 396 5:10–11 396 5:10 425 5:11 414, 425 5:13 258 6 158 6:1–11 369 6:1–8 420 6:1–7 322, 392, 393 6:1–5 43 6:1 393 6:2–3 282 6:5 220, 413, 423 6:6 407 6:7–8 66 6:7 220 6:9–10 139, 140, 377 6:9 296 6:12–20 105, 318, 335, 369 6:12–13 66 6:12 105, 143, 144 6:13 143, 144 6:16–17 99 6:16 394 6:20 42, 305, 318, 394 7 103, 104, 107, 109–12, 135, 137, 193, 220, 261, 285, 293–95, 317, 318, 422, 425, 429 7:1–16 135, 137, 369 7:1–5 285 7:1 87, 104, 105, 112, 135, 143, 193, 257, 295, 425

Index of References

7:2–9 105 7:2–7 104 7:2–6 104–106, 111, 193 7:2–5 105, 296 7:2 105, 110, 293 7:3–7 425 7:3–5 105, 194 7:5 106, 280, 293, 394, 426 7:7 105, 106, 110, 111, 193, 293 7:8–16 104 7:8–11 107 7:8–9 104, 106, 107, 110 7:8 106, 108, 135 7:9 193, 280, 285, 293, 426 7:10–12 110 7:10–11 104, 107, 108, 137 7:10 104, 107, 135, 160 7:11 104, 108 7:12–16 104, 107, 137, 397, 425, 428 7:12–15 110 7:12–13 108, 110 7:12 104, 107, 135 7:14 137, 428 7:15 124, 135, 144 7:16 428 7:17–28 328 7:17–24 104, 108, 136, 137, 406, 423 7:17 108, 110, 135, 136, 398 7:18–19 60, 63 7:18 110, 136, 317

7:19

63, 122, 123, 126–29, 135–37, 143, 317 7:20–24 315, 316 7:20–23 51, 57–60 7:20 108, 110, 135, 136, 317 7:21–22 58–60, 136, 394 7:21 58, 107, 135, 316–18, 325, 334 7:22–23 332, 334 7:22 58, 107 7:23 58, 136, 137, 305, 318, 335, 394 7:24 107, 108, 110, 135, 136 7:25–40 104, 135, 137 7:25–38 51, 55 7:25–31 56, 109 7:25–29 109 7:25–28 108 7:25–27 108 7:25–26 104, 135 7:25 87, 104, 109 7:26–28 110 7:26 105, 109, 143 7:27–28 55, 56, 58, 60, 104 7:27 104, 108, 317 7:28 56, 104 7:29–40 110 7:29–31 104, 296, 396, 430 7:29 105, 109 7:31 105, 110, 134, 396, 430 7:32–35 56, 57, 103, 104, 137 7:32–34 55 7:34 107



7:35–36 55 7:35 24, 55, 105, 135, 137 7:36–39 108, 109 7:36–38 104, 106, 111, 295 7:36 56, 109, 110, 137 7:37–38 108 7:37 109 7:38 109 7:39–40 104, 108 7:39 107, 108 7:40 108, 135, 143 8–14 137 8 159, 216, 223 8:1–2 42 8:1 87, 105, 142–44, 159, 160, 165, 257, 394, 418 8:4–5 394 8:4 144, 426 8:6 195, 399, 403, 423 8:8 66, 143, 398 8:10 394 8:11 405 9 223, 400, 401 9:1–18 398, 400, 401 9:1–8 255 9:1–6 43 9:2 260 9:4–7 103 9:5 100, 103 9:6 75 9:7 143, 400 9:9 143 9:10 143 9:12 223 9:14 160 9:15–18 43 9:15–16 160 9:15 143, 255

Index of References

9:16–18 334 9:16–17 223 9:19–23 334 9:19 143 9:21 392 9:22 429 9:24–27 287, 292, 335 9:24 159 9:25 144, 280, 393 9:26 393 9:27 304 9:28 426 10 159, 223 10:1–22 136, 283 10:1–13 78 10:1 256, 392 10:11 255 10:13 400 10:14–22 137 10:14 262 10:20–22 137 10:21–22 42 10:23–31 121 10:23–24 66 10:23 105, 120, 143, 144 10:25–26 398 10:25 394 10:26 403 10:27–28 396 10:31 143 11 254, 399, 401 11:1 261 11:2–16 99, 398, 399, 401, 421–24 11:2–10 423 11:2–3 399 11:2 100, 160 11:3–10 422 11:3 399, 403 11:4–6 43 11:4–5 399 11:4 422 11:5–6 100 11:5 413, 422 11:6 399, 413

439

11:7 399 11:8–9 399 11:8 423 11:10 399, 422 11:11–12 422 11:11 423 11:12 144, 423 11:13–16 423, 424 11:13 422, 423 11:14–15 43, 399 11:16 398, 422 11:17–32 215 11:17–22 258 11:17 43, 413 11:18 214 11:20–22 42, 43 11:20 165 11:21–22 421 11:22 413, 416 11:23–26 160, 165, 166 11:23 165, 166 11:24–25 159, 160, 165 11:24 165, 166 11:25 165, 166 11:27–30 137 11:34 135 12–14 125 12 215 12:1 87, 256, 257, 411 12:2–3 137 12:2 42 12:4–11 410 12:4–6 411 12:6 410 12:7 82, 411 12:8 158 12:11 410, 411 12:12–13 125 12:13 60, 315, 328, 334, 406, 423 12:23–27 42 12:25–26 24 12:28 215, 216, 227 12:31 159

440

1 Corinthians (cont.) 13 216 13:1–13 63 13:1–3 66 13:3 24 13:4 42 13:5 159 13:6 144 13:13 160, 375 14 215 14:1 418 14:3 422 14:16–17 397 14:18–19 66 14:23–25 397 14:23 214, 426 14:24–25 422, 426 14:24 426 14:26 144, 215 14:33–35 43 14:33 124, 144, 398 14:34–35 99 14:36 255 14:37–38 259 14:37 160 14:39 411 14:40 144 15 110, 137, 157, 403 15:1 256 15:3–11 424 15:8–9 219 15:20–22 225 15:22–28 191 15:23–28 282 15:23 192, 225 15:24–28 137, 423 15:24–26 192 15:24 193, 195, 403 15:25 192 15:26 192 15:27–28 192 15:28 193, 403 15:29–49 255 15:30–33 24 15:31 160, 420

Index of References

15:32

218, 287, 292 15:33 55 15:34 43, 137, 159, 413 15:35–38 255 15:35–36 255 15:36–37 394 15:42–49 288 15:49 281 15:50 139, 140, 288 15:51 159, 281 15:55–56 396 15:56 136, 291 15:58 262 16:1 87, 257 16:6 222 16:8 101 16:10–11 220, 227, 393 16:10 42, 219 16:11 222 16:12 87 16:13–14 144 16:13 137 16:15–20 42 16:15–17 197 16:15–16 227 16:15 81, 184, 214, 217 16:16 216 16:17 335 16:18–19 227 16:19 101, 184, 197, 214, 218 16:21–22 259 16:21 81, 255, 259 16:22 137 2 Corinthians 1–7 10, 11, 13– 15, 17 1 13 1:1–2 261 1:1 219, 221, 227, 405 1:2 195, 403

1:3–10 394 1:3–7 10, 13 1:3–6 161 1:3 195, 403 1:4 3, 16 1:5 13 1:6 3, 13, 16 1:7 13 1:8–11 10 1:8–9 14, 218 1:8 3, 12 1:9 13 1:11 227 1:12–14 43 1:12 159, 160 1:14 160, 420 1:15 10 1:16 222 1:19 219, 227 1:23 10 1:24 101, 196 2 392 2:1–11 10 2:1–4 14 2:3–4 79 2:4 3, 10, 14 2:5–11 11, 12, 414 2:5–8 254 2:6 12 2:7 14, 393 2:8 254 2:10 259 2:12–16 10, 24 2:13–14 13 2:13 227 2:14–16 392 2:14 10, 159, 335, 393 2:15–16 393 2:17 393 3:1–3 43, 260, 393 3:1 227 3:2 260 3:3 260 3:4–6 260 3:6 260 3:18 43, 281 4:1–2 43 4:1 16



4:2 393 4:3–6 42 4:5–6 15 4:5 227, 334 4:7–15 15 4:7–12 10 4:7–11 394 4:7 16 4:8–11 13 4:8–9 16 4:10–15 16 4:10–11 16 4:11 261 4:12 16 4:15 16 4:16–5:5 10, 16, 17 4:16–17 17 4:16 273 4:17–18 43 4:17 17 5:2–5 17 5:2 2, 17 5:4 2, 17 5:5 190, 280 5:6 280 5:7 280 5:8–10 66 5:9–10 42 5:10 393 5:12 16, 42, 420 5:13 280 5:14–21 24 5:14–15 398 5:14 431 5:15 17, 225 5:17 363, 396 5:18–19 16, 18 5:19 159, 160 6:1–10 394 6:3–10 10, 17, 18, 43 6:3 18 6:4–10 17, 293 6:4–8 374 6:4–5 374 6:4 159 6:5 392 6:6–7 17 6:7–10 17

Index of References

6:8–10 397, 430 6:9–10 375 6:11–13 11 6:11 11 6:12 11 6:14–7:1 99 6:18 43 7 13 7:1 262 7:2–4 15 7:3 14, 15 7:4–7 13 7:4 42, 160, 420 7:5–6 10 7:6–7 227 7:8–12 14, 414 7:8 11, 13, 14, 79 7:9–11 14 7:9–10 14 7:12 10, 11, 414 7:13–15 227, 417 7:14 42, 160 7:15 159, 160 8 254 8:1–8 42 8:2 24 8:6 227, 417 8:9 226 8:13–14 223, 227 8:16–19 227 8:17 219–21 8:18–24 42 8:18–19 219 8:19–23 222 8:21 143 8:22–23 227 8:22 219 8:23 101, 218, 219, 221, 417 8:24 160 9 254 9:1–5 42 9:2–3 160 9:3 227 9:5 227 9:6 125, 143, 394 9:12 223

441

9:14 223 10–13 10, 11, 13, 103, 196, 262, 407 10–12 262 10 258 10:1–13:10 261 10:1–2 262 10:1 81, 254, 258, 262, 407 10:2 43 10:7 258 10:8–12 43 10:8 160, 262, 416 10:9 416 10:10 75, 196, 335 10:13 160 10:14–18 258 10:15–18 43 10:15–17 160 10:17 42, 125, 419 10:18 42, 416 11 258 11:1–12:13 43 11:2–16 425 11:2–6 99, 100 11:2 100, 191, 258, 404 11:3 258 11:6 75 11:7–15 414 11:7–10 186 11:7 227, 335 11:8–9 222 11:9–12 223 11:9 217, 223 11:10 160 11:12–15 416 11:12–13 425 11:12 160, 227 11:14–15 258 11:16–18 160 11:20–21 393 11:20 227, 304, 335 11:21 160 11:22–29 394 11:23–33 24

442

2 Corinthians (cont.) 11:23–29 258, 293, 335 11:23–28 261 11:23 392 11:24–27 392 11:29 406 11:28–29 227 11:30 42, 160, 420 11:31 429 11:32–33 54, 392 12:1 160 12:4 429 12:5–10 42 12:5 160 12:6 160 12:7–10 24, 261 12:9 160, 420 12:10 227 12:13 223 12:14 405 12:16–18 393 12:17–18 227 12:19 256, 262 12:20–21 42, 377 12:21–13:2 10 12:21 24 13:2–4 262 13:2–3 262 13:2 253 13:3 262 13:4 227, 261 13:7 159 13:8 393 13:9 227 13:10 262 13:11–12 407 13:11 144 Galatians 1–2 103, 130 1:1–2 130 1:2 219, 252 1:3–4 195 1:3 403 1:4 395 1:6–7 130 1:6 129, 191

Index of References

1:10

42, 223, 227, 333, 334, 405 1:11–2:21 131 1:11–12 130, 219 1:11 133, 407 1:12 159 1:13 42 1:14 43 1:16–17 219 1:16 43, 159, 391, 403 1:17–22 392 1:20 429 1:22 76, 77 1:23 226 2 103, 224 2:1–10 130, 160 2:1–3 218, 219 2:1 218, 221, 227 2:2 218 2:3 61, 134, 221, 224, 227 2:5–9 224 2:5–8 218 2:6–9 66 2:7–9 218 2:7 227 2:9–10 224 2:10 159, 160 2:11–14 43, 130 2:13 218 2:14 134 2:15 294 2:16 61, 131, 226 2:17–21 131 2:19–20 131 2:20 131, 143, 226 3–5 131 3:1–5 43, 129, 190 3:1–4 130–32 3:1 398 3:2 63, 130, 190 3:3 134 3:5 16, 191 3:6–14 77 3:6 226

3:9 226 3:13–14 335 3:13 134 3:15 133, 407 3:19–4:7 291 3:22 131 3:26–29 43 3:26 213 3:27–29 130 3:27–28 213, 328 3:28 60, 143, 213, 216, 217, 222, 315, 329, 334, 385, 406, 422, 423 4:1–5:1 335 4:1–9 190 4:1–5 195 4:1–3 181 4:1–2 190 4:2 181 4:4–7 43 4:4 403 4:6–7 190 4:6 190, 403, 409 4:8–11 43 4:8–10 130 4:8–9 129 4:11–20 189 4:11 189, 190 4:12–20 131, 409 4:12 130, 133, 143, 189, 407, 408 4:13–18 227 4:14–15 409 4:14 43 4:15 409 4:16 189, 408, 429 4:17 134 4:18 143, 253 4:19 189, 190, 196 4:20 189, 253 4:21–31 131, 364 4:27 188



4:28 133, 407 4:31–5:1 43 4:31 133, 407 5–6 131, 134 5 127, 129, 132, 134, 378 5:1–12 131 5:1 129–32, 134, 332, 333 5:2–12 135 5:2–4 61, 131 5:2 61, 81, 130, 131, 358 5:3–4 61 5:3 358 5:5–7 131 5:5–6 131 5:5 131, 132 5:6 42, 63, 122, 123, 126–29, 132, 133, 143, 419, 431 5:7–12 131, 132 5:7 129, 132 5:8 191 5:11 42, 131, 407 5:12 61 5:13–6:10 131, 132 5:13 132, 216, 333, 334, 407 5:14 132, 362 5:15 132, 133 5:16–6:10 132 5:16–26 132, 133 5:16–21 296 5:16 132, 133 5:18 132, 133 5:19–21 133, 375, 376, 378 5:19 159 5:21 139, 140 5:22–26 296 5:22–23 133, 375 5:23 280, 426 5:24–25 133

Index of References

5:24

131, 280, 285 5:25–6:10 132 5:25–26 133 5:25 132–34 5:26 42, 133, 296 5:31 133 6 129, 134 6:1–10 133 6:1 43, 133, 407 6:2–6 144 6:2 24, 133 6:3–4 42 6:3 133 6:4–5 133 6:4 160 6:6 133, 227 6:7–8 133 6:7 125, 143 6:8 133, 143 6:9 133 6:10 133 6:11–18 131, 133 6:11–17 135 6:11 81, 82, 85, 133, 255, 259 6:12–14 134 6:12 42 6:13 160 6:14–17 131 6:14–16 134 6:14 127, 131, 160, 396, 430 6:15 42, 63, 122, 123, 126–29, 132, 134, 143, 396 6:16 127, 392 6:17 42, 43, 261 6:18 133, 407 6:19 60 8:11–12 134 Ephesians 1:3–8 43 1:5 333, 335 1:11–14 43

443

1:15 42 1:20–23 42 1:22 197 2 364 2:1–3 42 2:3–4 298 2:3 335 2:4–7 43 2:9 160 2:11–22 364 2:15 396 2:19–22 43 2:19 335 3:13 24, 42 3:14–19 195 3:14 403 4:1–6:20 378, 379 4:1–6 195 4:1 42 4:4 197 4:5–6 195 4:17–5:20 379 4:17–20 42 4:18–19 39 4:19–24 298 4:31 378 5:3–5 378, 379 5:6–12 42 5:6 42 5:18 382 5:19–20 382 5:21–6:9 113, 382, 383 5:21 42, 382, 387 5:22–6:9 197, 205 5:22 382, 387 5:25 387 5:29 387 6:1–2 43 6:1 387 6:5–9 304, 335 6:5–6 43 6:5 387 6:7 387 6:9 227, 387 6:10–17 19, 24 6:14–17 374, 385 6:21–22 219 6:21 227

444

Philippians 1:1–6 161 1:1–2 161 1:1 219, 227, 333, 334 1:2 195, 403 1:3–11 160–65 1:3–8 161, 163 1:3 159–62 1:4 162, 163 1:5 161, 162 1:6–7 162 1:6 163 1:7–8 14 1:7 159, 161, 163 1:8 24, 163 1:9–11 42, 137, 161, 163 1:9 159, 163 1:10 62 1:12–18 62 1:12 54 1:13 159, 392 1:20–26 51–53, 55 1:20 43, 53, 416 1:21–26 12 1:21–23 53 1:21 54, 55, 144 1:22 55 1:23 54 1:24 54 1:25 54, 410 1:26 160 1:27–2:18 163 1:27–2:11 364 1:27–30 42 1:27 42, 253, 392, 396 1:29–30 42 2:2–4 375 2:3 42 2:4 393 2:5–11 42, 165, 281, 282 2:5 216 2:6–11 335 2:6–8 226 2:7 24, 226

Index of References

2:9–11 282 2:11 195 2:12–13 117, 263 2:12 262, 418 2:13 16, 418, 420 2:15 42, 403 2:16 43, 160, 393 2:19–23 227 2:19–21 417 2:19 219, 417 2:21 393 2:22–23 219 2:22 189, 196, 220 2:25–30 187, 223 2:25 101, 187, 218, 219, 221, 227, 322 2:28–30 219 2:28 221 2:29–30 42, 220, 227 2:30 219–21 3 153 3:1 81, 256 3:2–21 160, 163 3:2–3 61 3:3 160, 419 3:4–8 66 3:4–6 43 3:5–8 61 3:5 77, 78 3:7–8 55 3:8–14 63 3:8 75 3:9 226 3:10 280 3:12–16 66, 410 3:12–15 404 3:12–14 17, 393, 418 3:12–13 417 3:12 418 3:13 159, 160 3:17 227 3:18–19 42, 294 3:18 24, 256 3:20–21 281 3:20 392, 396, 428

3:21 43, 158, 192 4:1–3 227 4:1–2 184 4:1 262, 376 4:2–7 375 4:2–3 219 4:2 100, 103 4:3 101, 218, 219, 416 4:4–9 133, 144 4:8 375 4:9–19 227 4:9 394 4:10–20 161, 162, 186 4:10–13 66 4:10 217 4:11–12 293 4:12 51 4:13 144 4:14–18 217 4:14–16 222 4:15 159, 186 4:18 322 4:20 195 4:21 219 4:22 180 31:1 219 Colossians 1:1 227 1:3–8 43 1:4–5 375 1:7–8 219 1:7 195, 227 1:9–10 42 1:10 42 1:12 43, 195 1:15–20 42 1:15 406 1:18–3:15 197 1:18 406 1:24 24 1:25 195 1:27 43 2:8 81 2:15 335 2:16–4:9 379 3:4 43



3:5–11 298 3:5 379 3:6 42 3:8 378, 379 3:11 42, 125, 216, 328 3:17 195 3:18–4:1 113, 197, 205, 382 3:18 387 3:20 387 3:22–4:1 335 3:23 387 4:1 227, 387 4:7–14 227 4:7–8 219 4:7 195 4:9–11 219 4:10 102, 219 4:12 219 4:14 219 4:15 184, 197, 214 4:16 253, 263 4:17 227 4:18 81 1 Thessalonians 1:1 195, 219, 227, 403 1:2–3 39, 41, 160 1:2 161, 163 1:3–4 161 1:3 40, 159, 375 1:4 39, 41 1:5 39, 40 1:6–10 41 1:6–9 41 1:6–7 227 1:6 24, 37, 39–41 1:7–9 39 1:9–10 37, 39, 41 1:10 40, 41, 403 1:14 3 2:1–12 40, 393 2:1–2 24, 40 2:2 293 2:3–6 293 2:4 39

Index of References

2:6–9 227 2:7–12 39 2:7–8 24 2:7 189, 190, 196 2:9 75, 159, 160, 189 2:11–12 41 2:11 189, 190, 196 2:12 41, 405 2:13–16 24 2:13–14 41 2:13 16 2:14–16 39 2:14 37, 40 2:16–20 39 2:17–3:1 39 2:19–20 41 2:19 160, 393 3:1–5 38 3:2 101, 219, 227, 417 3:3–6 24 3:3–4 37, 40 3:3 38 3:5–9 227 3:5 40 3:6–10 39 3:6 159, 160 3:10 39 3:11 195 3:12–13 41 3:12 39 3:13 39 3:17 82 4:1–8 105 4:1–5:22 379 4:1 39, 82 4:3–8 99, 113 4:3–7 379 4:3–4 283 4:3 40 4:4 99, 113, 285, 294 4:5 39, 280 4:9–12 126 4:9–10 39 4:9 220, 408

445

4:11–12 227 4:12 42, 397 4:13–18 24, 39 4:13 256 4:15 160, 281 4:16–17 282 4:16 192 4:18 39 5:3 39 5:4–10 41 5:5 40 5:6–7 40 5:8–10 393 5:8 19, 24, 375 5:9 39, 41 5:10 39 5:11 39 5:12–22 123, 125, 144 5:12–14 227 5:12–13 40, 216 5:12 185, 197 5:14 24, 39, 41 5:15 39, 41, 42 5:23 41 5:27 214 2 Thessalonians 1:1 227 1:3–4 41 1:3 39 1:4–10 24 1:4 37, 42, 160 1:5 37 1:6–10 41, 42 1:6–9 39 1:6 37 1:11–12 41, 42 2:9–12 42 2:13–14 43 2:13 55 2:14 41, 43 3:1 81 3:6 41, 43 3:7–12 227 3:14–15 41, 43 3:14 414 3:15 414 3:17 81, 263

446

1 Timothy 1:8 144 1:9–10 379 1:10 335 1:18 19 2 383 2:1–3:16 380, 383 2:8–3:13 113 2:8–15 205, 383, 387 2:8–12 43 2:11–12 197, 383 2:15 197 3:1–13 227 3:1 43 3:2–13 198 3:2–5 380 3:2–4 380, 381 3:2 214 3:4–5 198, 335 3:5 195 3:6–7 43 3:8–12 380, 381 3:12 198, 335 3:13 42, 43, 88 3:15 195 4:3 197 4:8 144 4:10 24 4:12 43 4:13 227 4:15 54 5:1–6:19 380 5:1–6:2 113 5:1–2 227 5:3–7 43 5:4 195, 227 5:8 227 5:10 214 5:11–15 100 5:14 43, 197 5:16–17 227 5:17 43 5:18 144 5:20 43 6:1–10 384 6:1–2 304, 335, 380, 384, 387

Index of References

6:1 43, 387 6:2 216 6:3–5 380 6:6 144 6:9–10 298 6:10 144 6:17–19 227 1:1820 24 2 Timothy 1:7 298 1:8–2:13 24 1:8–9 42 1:8 43 1:11–12 42 1:12 43 1:16–18 214, 217, 227 1:16–17 42 1:16 42, 335 2:4–6 144 2:8–10 42 2:15 42 2:19 144 2:20–22 43 2:20 195 2:22 298 3:1–9 381 3:6 298 3:10–4:18 381 3:10–13 24, 42 3:12–13 42 4:1 42 4:6–8 24 4:7–8 42 4:10–12 227 4:10–11 219 4:19–20 227 4:19 101, 214, 335 Titus 1:5–16 381 1:5–9 227 1:6–9 380, 381 1:7–9 198 1:7 181, 195

1:8 298 1:11 198 1:12 144, 298 2 113 2:1–3:14 381 2:1–10 205, 383, 384, 387 2:2 298 2:3 335 2:4–10 43, 197 2:4–5 198 2:5–7 298 2:5 387 2:9–10 304, 335 2:10 387 2:12 298 3:1–3 42 3:3 298, 335, 381 3:8 214 3:10 43 3:12–13 227 Philemon 1–2

102, 221, 406 1 218, 220–22 2 184, 187, 197, 214, 324, 406 3–4 221 3 195, 403 4–7 42, 161 4 159–61, 163, 406 5–6 187 5 161, 214 6 159, 221 7 214, 221, 406 8–14 406 8–9 221, 263 8 188, 218, 220, 326 9 220, 222, 392 10–11 60



10

187, 188, 190, 196, 222, 326, 394, 404, 406, 410 11–13 254 11 324, 326 12 222, 326, 327 13–14 187 13 187, 222, 324, 326, 392 14 221, 263 15 324 16–17 222 16 59, 188, 221, 222, 325, 326, 406 17–20 43 17 81, 188, 221, 222, 263 18–19 188, 327 18 188, 222, 324 19 81, 187, 188, 220, 255, 259, 326 20 221, 406 21 221, 263, 325 22 184, 187, 197, 221, 253, 406 23 101, 102, 219, 222 24 218, 219 Hebrews 2:11–12 226 3:6 160 12:5–11 36 12:10–11 15 James 1:9 160 2:1–5 216 3:14 160 4:16 160

Index of References

1 Peter 1:1 364 2:1–10 364 2:18–3:7 197, 205, 381 2:18–25 304, 335 3:22 192 4:9 214 4:10 181 2 Peter 3:13 396 3:16 167 1 John 3:19–22 4 2 John 10 214 Revelation 1:3 244 3:19 15 5:6 212 7:3 212 11:11 212 12:7–9 395 13:2 212 13:3 212 13:4 212 13:11 212 13:12 212 13:14 212 13:15 212 13:16 212 16:13 212 20:10 212 21 395 Apocrypha Judith 13:6 32 14:10 358 Wisdom of Solomon 1:16–2:5 35 2:1 35 2:6–20 35 2:21–24 35

447

2:23 399 3:1–13 35 3:1–9 35 3:5–6 36 4:16–5:23 35 5:15–16 35 7:27–28 35 8:7 36, 371 8:10 36 9:10 36 9:18 36 13:1–9 35 13:10–14:21 35 14:22 371 14:22–31 35 14:22–27 39 14:23–26 371 Ecclesiasticus 17:3 399 26:10–12 33 26:13–18 32 38:24–33 75 42:9–14 33 1 Maccabees 1:1–15 34 2 Maccabees 4:7–17 34 Pseudepigrapha 2 Enoch 31:6 100 3 Maccabees 3:3–7 34 4 Ezra 17:1 32 18:6–9 32 4 Maccabees 1:1–6 371 1:15–17 36 1:16–18 371 5:22–24 36 5:23 371 7:18–19 36

448

Index of References

4 Maccabees (cont.) 9:18 36 11:20 36 16:16 36 17:11–16 36

De confusione linguarum 69 16 144–146 15 171 15 180–182 15

Quod omnis probus liber sit 17–19 57 26–27 21 48 58 79 59

Jubilees 15:25–34 358 15:26 358 25:1 294

De vita contemplative 70–71 59

Quaestiones et solutiones in Exodum 2.2 358 2.112 371

Testament of Asher 2:5 371 Testament of Gad 5:1 371 Testament of Issachar 7:2–5 371 Testament of Judah 16:1 371 Testament of Levi 13:2 73 Testament of Reuben 3:2–7 371 Dead Sea Scrolls 1QS 6:16–21 397 7:19–20 397 CD 6:15 397 13:14–16 397 Philo De Abrahamo 48–49 21 134–35 297 De agricultura 110–21 21 De cherubim 48 16 77–78 23

De decalogo 151–53 278 173–74 279 Quod deterius potiori insidari soleat 35 16 43 16 46 54 144–146 15 Quod Deus sit immutabilis 42 16 91–93 16 De Iosepho 73 12 Legum allegoriae 1.63 371 2.81 54 3.104–106 16 3.111 2 Legatio ad Gaium 16.115–16 74 De vita Mosis 2.185 371 De mutatione nominum 82.1 21 De posteritate Caini 133 48 De praemiis et poenis 137–38 59

Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin 1.12 371 De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 15 278 De sobrietate 41 16 68 16 De somniis 1.91 15 De specialibus legibus 2.61–62 278 2.69 59 2.162–63 278 4.55 278 4.92–100 279 4.95 278 4.134–35 371 113 279 De virtutibus 100 278 Josephus Jewish Antiquities 15.158 55 18 280 18.21 59 20.34–48 361 20.41 363 20.43–46 363 20.43–45 358



Against Apion 1.12 74 2.25 74 2.121 34 2.168–71 280 2.170 371 2.193 280 2.234 280 2.258 34 2.282 280 War 2.120–21 280 2.454 358 Tosefta Talmud Pesaim 10:8 73 Apostolic Fathers 1 Clement 1:2 214 5 224 20:3 196 21:6–9 205 Barnabas 19:5–7 205 19:7 335 Didache 4:9–11 205 4:10–11 335 Ignatius To the Magnesians 6–8 215 To the Philadelphians 7–8 215 Polycarp To the Philippians 4:2–6:3 205 Shepherd of Hermas 2:1 80

Index of References

Classical and Ancient Christian Writings Achilles Tatius Leucippe and Clitophon 7.13 320 Acta Iustini 3.3 214 Alexander of Nicea Epistulae 1 8 Anaximenes Ad Alexandrum 1430b.3–7 121 1430b.3–4 121 1430b.10–11 120 Antisthenes Fragments 14.5–6 5 15.1–9 5 15.1–3 5 15.5 5 15.9 5 Appian Gallic History 1.2 307 Apuleius The Golden Ass 9.12 311 Aristototle Ethica eudemia 7.9.1 14 Ethica nichomachea 2.3.7 27 3.1.11 28 7.7.1150b 276 8.3.6–7 14 8.5.1 20 8.6.7 20 8.9.1 14

449

8.11 303 8.12.1 14 9.4.1 9 9.10.2 9 9.11.4 9 9.12.1 14 1134B9–18 372 1160B23– 1161A9 372 De memoria et reminiscentia 450A–B 150 453A 150 Orationes 3.668 18 Politica 1.1–7 303 1.4 329 1253B.1–10 372 1253b 58 Rhetorica 1.2.3–6 246 1.3.5 27 1.9.3–36 29 1.9.3 27 1.9.35–36 28 2.6.2 30 2.6.26 30 2.21.11 119 2.21.13–14 121, 122 2.21.13 122 2.21.14 121, 122 2.21.2–16 119 2.21.2 119 2.21.3–7 121 2.21.5 121 De virtutibus et vitiis 1.1–2 28 Athenaeus Deipnosophistae 6.267 329 265D–266E 320

450

Augustine Expositio quarumdam quaestionum in epistula ad Romanos 13–18 291 Barsanuphius and John Epistulae 229 8 Basil Epistulae 44.1 8 45 8 156 8 204 8 207 8 212 8 223 8 224 8 270 8 Bion of Smyrna Epitaph of Adonis 35 23 Cebetis Tabula 22–24 21 Chariton De Chaerea et Callirhoe 4.4 14 John Chrysostom Ad Theodorum lapsum (lib. 1) 1 8 Ad Theodorum lapsum (lib. 2) 1 8 Homiliae in epistulam i ad Corinthios PG 61.420 8 Hom. 4 in 2 Cor. 4 PG 61.422 12

Index of References

Homiliae in epistulam i ad Ephesios PG 62.118 8 Cicero De amicitia 22 9 23 9, 19 35 7 46–48 9 48 14 50 14 59 19 61 9 64 14 79 9 85 9 88–89 18 90 7

De finibus 3.19.60–61 53 3.27 48 3.29 48 3.58 50 5.7.18–20 52 De inventione rhetorica 1 152 2.159–60 151 9 152 De oratore 1.177 206, 207 2.36 151 2.355 152 3.33 207 3.56.213 249 17.55–60 246

De officiis 1.11.35 211 1.17.54 173 1.38.137 12 2.27 211 3.16–17 64

In Pisonem 6 180 25 211

Eighth Philippic 32 309

Pro Murena 61 65

Epistulae ad Atticum 1.12.2 208 6.1 151 6.17 151 11.2 323 11.3 323 12.44.2 181 15.14.3 207

Pro Sestio 9 211

Epistulae ad familiars 9.3 321 16 302 Epistulae ad Quintum fratrem 1.1.4 2 1.2.12–13 8, 14 1.2.14 320

Pro Lege manilia 14.41 277

Pro Sexto Roscio Amerino 19 208 Tusculanae disputations 1.90 2 2.30–33 23 2.42–50 23 2.63 21 3.58–61 23 3.83 2 4.14 2 4.23–24 18 4.26 18 4.66–67 2 5.52–54 21



Clement of Alexandria Paedagogus 1.9.75.1 12 1.9.77.1 12 1.9.87.2 12 Quis dives salvetur 39 4 Stromata 2.12.55 4 4.22.143 4 Demosthenes Epistulae 2 8 2.1 8 2.3 8 2.8.12 8 2.13 8 2.21–22 8 2.25 8 3.44 8 Digesta 1.5.4.1 303 7.8.2 209 9.3.5 209 19.1.49 210 38.1.37 205 48.5 174 49.15.7 207, 211 50.16.195.1–4 172 Dio Chrysostom Ad Alexandrinos (Or. 32) 5 6 7 6 8 5 11 6 15 16 32.11 5 33 12 34 5 De regno iii (Or. 3) 3.100–103 14

Index of References

Discourses 10.1–3 326 10.17–22 326 15.2 331 15.29 331 77/78 112 Orationes 8.15–16 36 14 57 15 57 31 30 38.15 182 48.5–6 30 Tarsica prior (Or. 33) 15 5 Ad Diodorum (Or. 51) 4 18 Isthmiaca (Or. 9) 8 15 9.7–9 5 Ad Nicomedienses (Or. 38) 11.41 20 11.47–48 20 Diodorus Siculus 5.38.1 311 34.1–4 34 Diogenes Laertius ii 415 ii, 37 403 ii, 72 403 vi.38 415 vi.49 415 7.92 48 7.93 49 7.94 49 7.95–99 49 7.98–99 49, 61 7.100–101 48 7.101–102 48 7.102 61 7.105–107 49

451

7.106 52 7.107 61 7.111 2, 11 7.118 2 7.121–22 57 7.122 58 7.123 65 7.125 48 10.120 9 21.1.17.4–5 221 21.1.17.12 221 21.1.43.1 221 Dion of Prusa Orationes 3.55 212 Dionysius of Halicarnassus Antiquitates romanae 1.9.1 18 2.9.2 206 2.9.3 208 2.10 207 2.10.1 207 2.10.4 206, 207 2.11.1 211 4.23.6 207 9.41.5 207 11.36 208 13.5.1 207 Epictetus Enchiridion 11 56 16.1 9 19.2 21 34 4, 21 Diatribai (Dissertationes) 1.1.12 23 1.1.22 23 1.4 54 1.6.29 23 1.11.11 62 1.12.27 12 1.18.21–23 21 1.18.21 36 1.20.11 62

452

Diatribai (Dissertationes) (cont.) 1.24.1–2 21, 36 1.28.13 55 1.29.50–54 35 1.30.1 35 2.6.16–17 23 2.9.15 415 2.10.15 62 2.10.19 62 2.12.17–25 5 2.22.6–7 276 2.22.35 4 2.24.9 64 3.1.10–11 6 3.22 109 3.22.37 55 3.22.56 36 3.22.69 57 3.22.94 15 3.22.97–98 15 3.23.30 6 3.23.37 6 3.24.64–77 57 3.25.1–6 21 3.25.10 62 3.26.25 55, 62 3.69–71 109 4.1 57 4.1.120 62 4.1.133 52 4.1.167 54 4.4.30–32 21 4.4.32 62 4.5.8 55 4.9.10 62 4.12.18 62

Index of References

Gregory of Nazianzus Epistulae 7 8 16 8 17.13 8 40.1–4 8 59.14 8 Gellius 5.13.2 206 5.13.4 206 5.13.6 207 13.20.8 207 20.1.40 206 Gnomologuim Vaticanum 116 15 373 14 487 15 Greek Anthology 7.10 23 8.3 23 7.142 23 7.241 23 7.268 23 7.292 23 7.328 23 7.393 23 7.468 23 7.476 23 7.481 23 7.549 23 7.574 23 7.599 23 7.633 23

Fragments 9 2

Heliodorus An Ethiopian Story Bk. I, 9–17 97

Eusebius Historia ecclesiastica 5.16.5 215

Hermogenes Preliminary Exercises 7 29

Fronto Epistulae ad Marcum Caesarem 5.59 14

Hesiod Theogony 75–103 149 104 149

Homer Iliad 2.488–94 149 22.483–99 204 Odyssey 1.234 204 19.136 3 Horace Epistulae 1.7.37 209 2.1.104 207 Satirae 2.8 179 2.8.18–24 179 Isidore of Pelusium Epistulae 1496 8 Isocrates Ad Demonicum (Or. 1) 17 28 26 31 43 28 Panegyricus 1.38 12 8.72 15 4.130 15 Ad Nicoclem 53 4 Epistulae 9.12 18 15.221 271 Julian Epistulae 68 8 Orationes 6.201C 12 8.240A–B 14 8.241C 14



Index of References

Justinian Institutes 1.3.2 303

Hermotimus 24 329 51 6, 18

Juvenal Satirae 1.95 208 1.95.102 178 3.127–30 178 13.2–3 4 13.192–98 4 14.100–104 34

Icaromenippus 30 15

Law of the Twelve Tables 8.21 206

De morte Peregrini 11 84 18 5 32 5

Lex coloniae Genetivae Iuliae 97 211 Livy 5.32.8 207, 208 26.32.8 211 34.4.9 207 37.45.2 211 37.54.17 211 38.51.6 208 38.60.9 207 Longinus On the Sublime 17.1–3 128 Lucian Demonax 6 8 7 12 55 12 Deorm concilium 2 15 Fugitivi 12 12 18 8

Juppiter tragoedus 23 12 De mercede conductis 42 4

Piscator 20

5, 6

453

Martial Epigrams 1.55.5–6 208 1.59 208, 209 1.108 208 2.18 208 2.74 208 3.36 208 3.38.11 208 3.60 180 4.8.1 178 4.40.1 208 6.88 208 9.100.2 208, 209 12.68.1–2 208 Maximus of Tyre Orationes 14.3 9 14.5 9

Pseudologista 3 12, 15

Menander Rhetor 2.9 23

Toxaris 7 9, 14 9 9 20 9 36–37 9 46 9 6 9

Menander Sententiae 370 9

Vitarum auction 7 8 Macrobius Saturnalia 1.7.33 209 Manilius Astronomica 2.755–58 79 Marcus Aurelius 8.53 4 9.32 11 11.6.2 15 12.16 4

Musonius Fragments 1.32.24–26 55 3.42.10 55 8.66.11 55 9.74.2 62 10.78.16 55 14.92.31 55 16.104.33 55 18b.118.5–7 55 29 54 On Cutting the Hair XXi.10 400 Ovid Amores 1.2.19–52 10

454

Index of References

Petronius Satyricon 57.4 75 Philodemus De libertate dicendi 12 7 13 7 31,82,XXiVA 12 37–38,IB 15 61–62 7 XVA 7 XVIB 7 XXIIB 7 On Household Management 10.28–34 192 10.42 193 12.14 192 26.20–21 193 Philostratus Vitae sophistarum 562–63 14 Plato Apologia 29d 212 40D–E 55 Crito 44C 35 46C–47A 35 Gorgias 472D–479D 4 526D–527D 35 Leges 631C 963A 370 873C 54 Minos 81a–98a

147, 149

Phaedo 62C 54 69C 370 72e–77a 147, 149

75E–76A 149 247C–F 149 Philebus 34B–C 149 Protagoras 330B 370 349B 370 Respublica 9.588c–591b 272 Symposium 179B–180B 9 Theaetetus 191c–92a 150 Plautus Menaechmi 574 208 Pliny the Elder Naturalis historia 7.12.56 308 7.61 207 34.17 209 Pliny the Younger Epistulae 2.6.1–4 179 4.1 211 6.8 210 8.1 301 8.1.2–3 301 9.21 221, 320 9.24 221, 320 10.29–30 320 Panegyricus 2.21 212 Plutarch Animine an corporis affectiones sint peiores 500D 16

De amicorum multitudine 95A 20 95F–96D 14 96A 9 96B 9 96C–D 9 96D 14 96E–F 14 97A 14 An vitiositas ad infelicitatem sufficiat 498D 4 Caesar 15.3 307 Cato Major 20.5 82 24 207 Cicero 23.3 180 De cohibenda ira 464C–D 15 De communibus notitiis contra stoicos 1071B 50 Conjugalia Praecepta 9 32 31–32 32 Consolatio ad Apollonium 102A 22 104C–106C 23 112D 23 113A 23 De genio Socratis 592A–B 4 De libidine et aegritudine 1, 7 2



Index of References

De liberis educandis 13D–E 12 14A 404 Marius 5 208 Moralia 139C 32 142C–D 32 539A–547F 153 540C–E 153 544D 29 717C 415 750D–771C 194 1125D–E 38 1125E 38

Quomodo adulator ab amico internoscatur 49F 14 51E 14 69A 6 70F–71C 12

17.40 6, 15 17.45 6 19 8 43 7 66 8 90 7

Vitae decem oratorum 842D 15

Ps.-Ocellus Lucanus On the Nature of the Universe 48 56

Polybius 38.4.24 18 Ps.-Crates Epistulae 35 23

De recta ratione audiendi 46D 7

Ps.-Demetrius Epistolary Types 1 181

Romulus 13

206, 207

Form. Ep. 6 12

De sera numinis vindicta 549F–550A 15 550E–F 15 551C–E 15 554A–B 4 554E–F 4 556A 3 564B–C 11 566E 3

Ps.-Diogenes Epistulae 5 21 12 21 29.1 15 29.4 15 29.23 15 31 21 33 21

De superstitione 168C 12

Ps.-Heraclitus Epistulae 4.3 21 5.3 8 7.2–10 8 7.4 15 9.3 15 17.40 15

De tranquillitate animi 476E–477B 4 De virtute morali 446F 275 452D 6 Quomodo quis suos in virtute sentiat Profectus 82C 7

455

Ps.-Hippocrates Epistulae 17.19–20 6 17.20–21 6 17.34 6

Ps.-Socrates Epistulae 1.7 18 12 15 24 6 Quintilian Institutes 1.1.28–29 85 3.7.2–6 29 3.7.26–27 29 3.7.28 28 3.8.1 28 8.5.3–34 118 8.5.5–8 120 8.5.9–34 119 11.2.1–10 151, 152 11.2.1 152 11.2.33 81 Rhetorica ad Herennium 3.2.3 28 3.3.4–3.3.5 28 3.5.8–9 28 3.6.10–11 29 3.6.13–15 29 3.8.15 29 4.13.19 128 4.14.20 128 4.15.21 127 4.17.24–25 120 4.17.24 121 4.19.27 127 4.20.27 127 4.27.38 128

456

Rhetorica ad Herennium (cont.) 4.42.54– 4.44.58 121 4.42.54– 4.43–56 121 4.42.54 121 Sallust Bellum jugurthinum 4 151 Seneca De beneficiis 1.4.2 30 2.21.5 224 2.22.1 402 3.18.2 59 3.28.1–2 59 4.16.2 27 5.5.2–3 405 5.11.5 402 6.33 208 Brevitate vitae 17.5–6 56 De constantia sapientis 11.2–12.1 35 13.2 35, 415 13.5 35, 415 Dialogi 1.2.2 21 2.5.7 21 2.6.6 21 2.10.23 11 2.10.4 21 Epistulae morales 4.4 314 5.7 19 6.2 9 6.3 14 9.10–12 9 9.18–19 21 13.13 19

Index of References

14.7 18 23.2 19 24.1 19 24.17–21 17 32 54 40.1 247 42.9 56 47 57, 303 47.1 330 47.10 59, 330 47.17 56, 58 48.2–4 9 55.8–11 20 59.1–2 64 59.2 11 63.3 20 67 21 70.8–9 56 70.19–26 314 71.11–16 23 71.14 19 71.37 21 77.14–15 314 78.1–2 53 78.15–21 21 80.9 308 81.9–10 402 81.18 402 82.10–11 50 85.29 21 87.36–37 61 92.11–13 50 92.30–35 17 92.31–32 16 94.10 121 94.27 121 94.39 12 94.44 121 96.1 56 98.12 21 98.14 21 99.2 56 99.5 19 99.13 19 99.15 2 99.32 12 101.4 19 102.21–30 17

104.3 53 104.4 53 104.27 21 120.13–19 17 Ad Helviam 1.1 21 2.2 21 5.5 21 De Ira 1.15.1 12 2.6.1 11 2.6.2 15 2.24.2–4 56 2.30.1 56 2.30.2 4 3.26.2 4 3.36.3 4 On Mercy 1.24.1 306 Ad Polybium de consolatione 1.1–4 23 12.2 22 15.3 21 16.3 21 17.1–2 21 De Providentia 5.5 56 De vita beata 4.2 21 8.3 21 26.5 6 De tranquillitate animi 11.10 56 11.12 56 Seneca the Elder Controversiae 1.1.3 120 1.pr.24 121 2.4.9 120 7.6.15 120



9.2.23 120 10.1.14 120 10.2.10 120 Sextus Empiricus Adversus mathematicos 2.54 18 Stobaeus Eclogae 2.7.5o 55 2.7.5a–5b2 49 2.7.5a 48 2.7.5b2 48 2.7.5d 49 2.7.7 49 2.7.7b 49 2.7.7d 52 2.7.7f–g 49 2.7.7f 49, 53 2.7.7g 50 2.7.8–11a 64 2.7.8a 56 2.7.11a 56 2.7.11i 57 2.59 370 4.22a.21 54 4.22a.22 56 4.508.2–3 54 Florilegium 3.13.42 6, 12 3.13.63 15 Strabo Geographica 14.5.13 77 14.5.2 307 Suetonius Divus Augustus 67 305 Divus Claudius 17 392 Vespasanius 2.2 208

Index of References

457

Tacitus Annales 3.55.2 208 3 207, 211 11.5 207 14.42–45 332 16.22 209

P.Giss. 17 181

Historiae 1.4 208 5.5 34

CIL 3.6126 210 4.593 209 4.822 209 4.933 209 4.1011 209 4.1016 209 6.1390 209 VII.12.18–20 71 12.583.10, 33 206

Terence Eunuchus 10.39 206 885 206 Themistius Orationes 22.269 9 22.270 9 22.274 9 Theon Excercises 9 29 Thucydides Historiae 2.35.2 29 Tituli Ulpiani 5.3–5 95 Valerius Maximus 4.3.6 211 Xenophon Memorabilia 1.2.1 271 1.5.1–6 276 Ostraca, Papyri and Tablets P.Gen.Inv. 108 180 P.Oxy 6.911 82 41.2696 82

Inscriptions BGU I.37 323 1074.1 180

IGRR 3.176–77 180 ILS 112 212 190 212 Inscr. Corinth VIII.3.99 180 VIII.3.106 180 SVF 1.51.2631 2 1.214 65 3.94.14–15 2 3.95.17–18 2 3.95.24–25 2 3.95.41–43 2 3.100.29 11 3.100.33 7 3.105.17–18 11 3.129.9 21 3.149.18–24 7 3.149.20–24 3 3.150.24–27 7 3.255.5 54 67.45–68.2 276

Index of Authors Achtemeier, P. J. 80, 224 Ackrill, J. L. 151, 168 Adams, E. 357, 364 Adkins, A. W. 43 Albertini, A. 227 Albertini, E. 227 Alcock, S. E. 304, 338 Alexander, L. 150, 161, 227 Alexander, P. S. 70, 80 Alföldy, G. 210, 227 Allen, W. 227 Allison, D. C., Jr 350, 364 Allison, P. 178, 198 Alston, R. 335 Amiri, B. 335 Anastasiadis, V. I. 335 Anderson, G. 227 Anderson, R. D., Jr 75, 83 Andreau, J. 335, 336 Andrews, C. 72 Andrews, M. E. 87 Ardevan, R. 227 Armstrong, D. 3, 6 Artz-Grabner, P. 187, 200, 321, 322, 325, 326, 341 Arzt, P. 323 Ascough, R. S. 183, 184, 200 Asmis, E. 182, 198 Assmann, A. 148, 168 Assmann, J. 148, 168 Atkins, E. M. 66 Aune, D. E. 51, 138, 160 Avila Vasconcelos, B. 336 Baasland, E. 54 Badian, E. 227 Bagnall, R. S. 71, 92 Bahr, G. J. 82, 88 Bailey, K. E. 43 Baker, C. A. 156, 168, 356, 364 Balch, D. L. 115, 182, 184, 187, 188, 193, 194, 197, 198, 200, 313, 334, 341, 344, 372, 385, 387, 388 Balogh, J. 264

Bar-Ilan, M. 73 Barclay, J. M. G. 133, 341, 378, 388 Baroin, C. 148, 151 Barr, J. 326 Barrett, C. K. 10, 15, 16 Barrow, R. H. 314 Bartchy, S. S. 187, 188, 200, 309, 314, 320, 328, 342 Barth, G. 161, 162 Barton, C. 43 Barton, S. C. 156, 169, 346, 364 Bassler, J. 43, 113 Batten, A. 228 Bauckham, R. 348, 364 Baumann, R. 220 Beard, M. 84, 264, 302 Beck, M. 150 Bek, L. 179 Bell, S. 336 Bellen, H. 336 Ben Zvi, E. 156, 169 Ben-Yehuda, N. 350, 352, 355, 364 Benjamin, D. C. 46 Bennett, S. 265 Berbuir, E. 220 Berge, K. 169 Berger, S. 149 Berry, J. 178, 198 Berry, K. L. 186, 200 Beschaouch, A. 228 Bettini, M. 252, 269 Betz, H. D. 82, 130, 133, 145, 190, 200, 273, 299, 329 Bieberstein, S. 342 Bieringer, R. 228 Birch, B. C. 132 Bitto, I. 228 Bjelland Kartzow, M. 167, 169 Black, D. A. 163 Blanton, T. R. 188, 228 Bloch, D. 147, 149, 169 Bloy, D. 228 Bömer, F. 314 Bodel, J. 308, 311–13, 336



Index of Authors

Bonner, S. F. 145 Bonneville, J.-N. 228 Bonz, M. P. 195, 200 Booth, A. D. 76 Borkowski, A. 91 Bormann, L. 228 Bornkamm, G. 257, 267 Bosworth, A. B. 336 Botha, P. J. 251, 266, 268 Bowman, A. K. 68, 73, 75, 264 Bozia, E. 155, 169 Bradley, K. 96, 97, 114, 196, 198, 302, 306, 307, 309–14, 319, 320, 325, 329, 336 Bradshaw Aitken, E. 166, 169 Braund, D. 228, 302 Braund, S. M. 24 Braxton, B. R. 316, 342 Brennan, T. 90, 114 Breytenbach, C. 196, 200 Briones, D. 228 Brookins, T. A. 90, 101, 104, 115, 342 Brooten, B. 296, 342 Brown, M. J. 342 Brucker, R. 162 Brunt, P. A. 228, 303 Buckland, W. W. 336 Buller, J. L. 23 Bullinger, E. W. 128 Bulman, J. C. 265 Buonocore, M. 228 Burnyeat, M. F. 244, 264 Burridge, R. A. 387, 388 Butts, J. R. 122 Byron, J. 302, 342 Byrskog, S. 157, 169, 170, 347, 364 Cairns, D. L. 43 Caldwallader, A. H. 342 Callahan, A. D. 342 Camp, C. V. 43 Campagno, M. 228 Campbell, D. A. 11 Campbell, J. B. 228 Campbell, J. K. 43 Canali de Rossi, F. 228 Cannon, G. E. 372, 374, 376, 378, 388 Caplan, H. 121 Carcopino, J. 313 Carlsen, J. 305

Carlson, M. 239, 246, 265 Carter, T. L. 228 Cartledge, P. 302, 304, 336 Champlin, E. 91 Chance, J. K. 43 Chapman, G. 240, 269 Charlesworth, S. D. 72, 76 Chow, J. K. 186, 200, 228 Christofferson, O. 23 Christol, M. 228 Clark, D. L. 145 Clark, J. R. 179, 198 Clarke, A. D. 215, 228 Clarke, J. R. 93 Clarke, M. L. 118, 145 Cleese, J. 269 Clemente, G. 228 Cloud, D. 228 Coello, J. M. C. 229 Cohen, A. 93 Cohen, S. J. D. 98, 358, 365 Coleman, J. 149, 151, 169 Coleride, S. T. 252 Collins, J. J. 63 Collins, R. F. 58 Conzelmann, H. 332 Cooper, J. 289, 298 Corbett, P. E. 114 Corbier, M. 229, 264 Corell, J. 229 Cornell, T. 84, 264 Corrigan, C. M. 43 Coser, L. 347 Coskun, A. 229 Cotter, W. 43, 342 Cotton, H. M. 229 Crampon, M. 229 Cribiore, R. 69, 76, 79, 80, 84, 85 Crook, J. A. 91, 174, 175, 198 Crook, Z. A. 27, 29, 43, 229 Crossan, J. D. 73 Crouch, J. E. 372, 389 Croy, N. C. 5, 36 Cumont, F. 229 Cunliffe, B. 71 Curtin, P. D. 307 Cuss, D. 44 Cusumano, N. 147, 169 Cyrino, M. S. 3, 24

459

460

Index of Authors

D’Angelo, M. R. 93, 94, 100 d’Arcy, H. 351, 366 D’Arms, J. 178, 198, 229 Dahl, N. A. 191, 201 Danker, F. W. 31, 44, 185, 191, 201, 229 Danziger, K. 149, 169 Das, A. A. 357, 365 David, W. H. 323 Davies, M. 19 Davis, C. W. 81, 86, 87, 243, 245, 249, 268 De Martino, F. 229 De Plessis, I. J. 342 De Visscher, F. 229 De Vos, C. S. 342 De Wet, C. L. 313, 328, 342 Deissmann, A. 75, 82, 323 Deku, H. 4 Delarue, F. 145 Deming, W. 54–58, 63, 66, 90, 104, 105, 107, 109, 115, 135, 317, 342 Deniaux, E. 229 Derks, T. 72 Descat, R. 336 deSilva, D. A. 27, 31, 37, 44, 193, 201, 226, 229 Dessau, H. 92 Dewey, A. J. 44, 268 Dewey, J. 266, 268 Dibelius, M. 376, 381, 389 Dickmann, J.-A. 92, 177, 198 Dignas, B. 147, 169 Dilke, O. A. W. 154 Dillon, S. 114, 286, 289 Dingeldein, L. 282, 285, 299 Dixon, S. 91, 94, 97, 114, 175, 198, 230 Dobschütz, E. von 220 Dodds, E. R. 44 Dodson, J. R. 139 Dolansky, F. 313 Donahoe, K. C. 160 Donfried, K. R. 140 Doukellis, P. N. 335 Dover, K. J. 44, 271, 298 Downing, G. F. 26, 27, 44, 66 Downs, D. J. 230 Draaisma, D. 149, 169

Draper, J. A. 266 Drescher, S. 302 Drexhage, H.-J. 339 Drexler, H. 44 Droge, A. J. 53, 54 Drummond, A. 190, 198, 230 duBois, P. 311, 336 Dudrey, R. 387, 389 Duff, A. M. 336 Duff, J. H. 44 Duff, T. 153 Duling, D. C. 346, 365 Duncan-Jones, R. P. 72 Dunn, J. D. G. 132, 156, 220, 281, 299 Dupertuis, R. R. 79 Dupont, F. 244, 264 Duthoy, R. 230 Dutsch, D. 90 Dyck, A. R. 66 Eastman, S. G. 342 Eck, W. 230, 336 Eckert, J. 220 Edgar, D. 230 Edlund, I. E. M. 230 Edmonds, R. G. 149, 311 Edmondson, J. 312, 313, 336 Edson, C. 38 Edwards, C. 337 Egger, B. 90 Egger, W. 164 Eidinow, E. 337 Eisenstadt, S. N. 230 Elliott, J. H. 44, 230, 372, 389 Elliott, S. S. 230, 342 Ellis, E. E. 230 Engberg-Pedersen, T. 52, 54, 62–66, 90, 104, 115, 158, 276, 280, 283, 285–87, 290, 296, 298, 299 Engerman, S. L. 302 Engesser, F. 230 Enríquez, J. A. 230 Epp, E. J. 102 Erskine, A. 2, 277, 298 Esler, P. F. 44, 167, 169, 346, 356, 365 Espinoza Ruiz, U. 230 Evans, J. K. 230



Index of Authors

Farron, S. 9 Fee, G. D. 135 Feldman, L. H. 34, 370, 371, 389 Ferenczy, E. 230 Fine, G. 150, 169, 353, 365 Finkelman, P. 302 Finley, M. I. 44, 303, 304, 307, 311, 337 Finney, M. 44, 45 Fiore, B. 105, 201 Fisher, N. R. E. 30, 45 Fitzgerald, J. 1, 4, 5, 16, 25, 45, 51, 161, 186, 201, 293, 299, 342 Fitzgerald, W. 337 Fitzmyer, J. A. 60, 141 Flandrin, J. L. 172, 198 Flexsenhar, M. III 316 Foat, F. W. G. 81 Folcando, E. 230 Foley, J. M. 264 Forbes, C. 248–50 Forman, M. 359, 365 Foss, P. 177, 198 Foster, P. 346, 365 Fotopoulos, J. 32 Fowl, S. E. 161, 372, 382, 389 Fowler, R. L. 12, 24 Fowler, R. M. 266 Franciosi, G. 231 Franklin, J. L., Jr 70, 71, 264 Fredrickson, D. 3, 11, 14, 15, 17, 25, 54 Frei-Solba, R. 231 Freis, H. 231 Friedländer, L. 209, 231 Friedrich, G. 220 Frier, B. W. 92, 306 Friesen, S. J. 319 Frilingos, C. 189, 201, 320, 324, 326, 343 Fritz, K. von 144 Fuchs, O. 156, 169 Fulkerson, L. 3, 14, 24 Furnish, V. 10, 11, 15, 133, 332, 369, 370, 374–76, 378, 379, 389 Gabrielson, V. 337 Gagé, J. 231 Gager, J. 34 Galinsky, K. 151, 169, 333 Gallego Franco, M. H. 231 Gallego, J. 228

461

Gallivan, P. 97 Gamble, H. Y. 70, 84, 266 Ganido-Hory, M. 231 García Mac Gaw, C. 228 Gardner, G. 156, 169 Gardner, J. 91, 114, 308, 309, 337 Garlan, Y. 303 Garland, A. 313, 337 Garland, D. E. 324 Garnsey, P. D. A. 45, 57–59, 231, 306, 334, 337 Garroway, J. D. 356–58, 360, 361, 365 Gasparini, V. 147, 169 Gaventa, B. R. 189, 201 Geertz, C. 349, 365 George, M. 91, 176, 199, 306, 308, 312, 337 George, R. T. 231 Gerber, C. 161–64 Gerhard, G. A. 6, 15 Gerhardsson, B. 156, 157, 169, 346, 365 Gerson, L. P. 66 Geytenbeek, A. C. van 4 Gibson, E. L. 337 Gilbert, G. 155 Gill, C. 24, 151, 272, 275, 298, 303 Gilliam, T. 269 Gilmore, D. D. 45 Glad, C. E. 7, 17, 25 Glancy, J. A. 105, 113, 304, 305, 318, 326, 343 Glazebrook, A. 96, 337 Gleason, M. 155, 297 Glibert-Thirry, A. 1, 3, 24 Goldhill, S. 155, 169 Gooder, P. 231 Goodman, M. D. 75, 79, 80, 84, 155 Goodrich, J. K. 305, 319, 343 Goody, J. 264 Goold, G. P. 79 Gosling, J. 272, 274, 298 Gosnell, P. 45 Graham, W. A. 264 Grahame, M. 178, 199 Grant, F. C. 329 Grant, R. M. 86 Grassi, J. A. 220 Graver, M. 275, 286, 298 Green, G. L. 231 Greer, R. 291

462

Index of Authors

Gregg, R. C. 22, 24 Gregori, G. L. 231 Gregory, T. E. 318 Grelle, F. 231 Griffin, M. T. 59, 66, 332 Grubbs, J. E. 91 Guido, R. 231 Gundry-Volf, J. M. 135 Guttenberger Ortwein, G. 231 Hägerland, T. 166 Habinek, T. 243, 264 Hadas, M. 264 Hadot, I. 7, 12 Haines-Eitzen, K. 80 Hainz, J. 220 Halbwachs, M. 347, 365 Hall, E. 335 Hall, J. M. 357, 365 Hall, R. G. 127 Hall, R. L. 266 Hallett, J. P. 114 Halverson, J. 241, 243, 264, 266 Hansen, G. W. 162 Hanson, A. 264 Hanson, A. E. 69, 82, 243 Hanson, K. C. 231 Haran, M. 75 Harmand, L. 231 Harper, K. 105, 337 Harrill, J. A. 107, 187, 188, 195–97, 201, 302–305, 308, 309, 312, 314, 316–22, 324, 325, 327, 330, 332, 343 Harrington, D. J. 374, 380, 384, 389 Harris, W. V. 69, 70, 242, 243, 306–308, 330, 337 Harrison, J. R. 231 Hartmann, E. 231 Hartog, P. 83 Harvey, F. D. 264 Harvey, J. D. 268 Hasegawa, K. 313, 338 Havelock, E. A. 264 Hay, D. M. 192, 201 Hays, R. B. 131, 388, 389 Hearon, H. E. 267 Heath, M. 338 Heckel, T. 273, 299

Heen, E. M. 231 Heil, J. P. 163 Heinen, H. 302, 336, 338 Heinze, R. 231 Hellerman, J. 45 Hemelrijk, E. A. 231 Henderson, I. H. 145 Hendrickson, G. L. 264 Hendrix, H. 38, 45, 231 Hengel, M. 34, 45, 76–78, 80, 117 Henry, M. M. 337 Henten, J. W. van 155 Hercher, R. 6 Hering, J. 381 Hering, J. P. 113, 372, 373, 389 Herr, L. G. 45 Herrmann, P. 232 Hersch, K. K. 96, 114 Hezser, C. 70, 73, 74, 86, 242, 338 Hicks, R. D. 66 Hill, T. E. 311 Hobsbawm, E. 365 Hock, R. F. 75, 76, 88, 183, 201 Hodgdon, B. 265 Hodge, C. J. 107, 356, 365 Hodgkin, K. 353, 365 Hodkinson, S. 338 Hoehner, H. W. 372, 389 Höistad, R. 5, 24 Holland, G. S. 253, 262, 263, 267–69 Holloway, P. A. 54, 61, 63, 66, 157, 162, 164, 169 Hooff, A. J. L. van 53 Hopkins, C. 94, 175 Hopkins, K. 199, 264, 307, 338 Horna, K. 144 Horrell, D. G. 93 Horsfall, N. 264 Horsley, R. A. 117, 135, 136, 156, 170, 232, 242, 251, 267, 342, 343 Hübenthal, S. 153, 170 Hughes, L. A. 338 Hultgren, A. J. 139, 141 Hurtado, L. W. 248, 251, 267, 282, 299 Hurwitt, J. M. 23 Huskinson, J. 93



Index of Authors

Idle, E. 269 Ingenkamp, H. G. 7 Inwood, B. 66, 289, 298, 330 Ioppolo, A. M. 66 Jaffee, M. S. 266 James, S. J. 114 James, S. L. 90, 338 Janowski, B. 156, 169 Jaquette, J. L. 52, 53, 62, 67 Jayakumar, D. K. 232 Jeal, R. R. 157, 170 Jenkins, R. 348, 365 Jenkins, T. E. 325 Jennings, L. C. 314 Jennings, M. A. 232 Jewett, R. 32, 38, 45, 99, 185, 186, 201, 216, 232, 357, 360, 365 Jipp, J. W. 357–59, 365 Johann, H.-T. 22–24 Johnson, E. E. 113 Johnson, L. A. 249, 258, 261, 268 Johnson, L. T. 124, 142 Johnson, M. V. 344 Johnson, W. A. 264 Johnston, D. 91 Jones, F. L. 232 Jones, T. 269 Jongman, W. 175, 199, 338 Jopes, J. 90 Joshel, S. R. 176, 199, 301, 302, 312, 327, 331, 338, 339 Joubert, S. 45, 191, 202, 232 Judge, E. A. 45, 85, 232 Kajava, M. 232 Kamen, D. 338 Karavites, P. 145 Kaster, R. A. 72, 76 Katzoff, R. 232 Kea, P. V. 232 Keddie, G. A. 344 Kee, H. C. 45 Keenan, J. G. 70, 374, 380, 384 Keener, C. S. 78, 232 Kehoe, D. P. 312 Keightley, G. M. 158, 165, 170, 346, 365 Keith, A. 90

463

Keith, C. 68, 69, 71, 73, 75, 79–85, 88, 346, 365, 366 Kelber, W. H. 157, 170, 267 Kelhoffer, J. A. 232 Kennedy, G. A. 29, 117, 118, 129, 133 Kennedy, H. 306 Kenney, E. J. 311, 338 Kenyon, F. 69 King, R. A. H. 149, 170 Kirk, A. 156, 170, 352, 354, 366 Kirner, G. O. 232 Klauck, H.-J. 184, 202, 241, 246–49, 266 Klein, V. S. 232 Kleiner, D. E. E. 232 Klotz, F. 150 Knox, B. M. W. 244, 264 Knox, J. 187, 202 Koch, D.-A. 147 Komáromy, Z. 151, 170 Konradt, M. 158 Konstan, D. 90, 182, 199, 232 Kooten, G.-H. van 158 Kotansky, R. D. 157 Kraus, J.-U. 232 Kraus, T. J. 69, 73, 82, 324, 344 Krauter, S. 105, 106 Kriel, D. M. 145 Kurek-Chomycz, D. A. 101 Kyrtatas, D. 344 LaCourse Munteanu, D. 2 Labovitz, G. 98 Lacey, W. K. 173 Laes, C. 338 Lampe, P. 101, 187, 202, 204, 209, 212, 214, 215, 219, 221, 232, 233, 268, 321, 322, 344 Land, C. D. 378, 389 Landes, P. F. 291 Lane Fox, R. 79, 80, 82, 84 Laqueur, T. 295, 298 Lardinois, A. 145 Laurence, R. 176, 199 Lausberg, H. 144 Lawrence, L. J. 45 Le Gall, J. 233 Leach, E. W. 233 Lee, Y. 160

464

Index of Authors

Lehtipuu, O. 114 Lemosse, M. 233 Lendon, J. E. 45 Lentz, T. M. 264 Lesses, G. 67 Levasheff, D. 45 Levet, J. P. 145 Levi, M. A. 233 Levin, C. 156 Liebeschuetz, J. H. W. G. 93 Lim, K. Y. 13 Lindsay, H. 92 Lintott, A. W. 207, 233, 338 Litwa, M. D. 281, 282, 299 Lohse, E. 320 Long, A. A. 48, 49, 51, 64, 66, 67, 90, 271, 274, 289, 299 Lorencin, I. 233 Loubser, J. A. 267 Luraghi, N. 304, 338 Luther, S. 167, 170 Lyons, G. 131 MacDonald, D. R. 328 MacDonald, M. Y. 46, 97, 101, 103, 107, 113, 115, 235, 305, 344, 382, 385, 387, 389 MacGillivray, E. D. 233 MacMullen, R. 38 Mackay, A. 149, 170 Maier, H. O. 147, 154, 233 Malherbe, A. J. 5–7, 12, 19, 22, 25, 37, 54, 67, 86, 111–13, 124, 183–85, 198, 202, 247, 266, 292, 299, 372, 389 Malina, B. J. 26, 29, 45, 46, 226, 233 Mangas, J. 233 Manguel, A. 265 Manning, C. E. 21, 338 Marache, R. 233 Marchal, J. 326, 344 Marcone, A. 233 Markschies, C. 273, 299 Markus, R. A. 38 Marrou, H. I. 145 Marshall, I. H. 383, 389 Marshall, J. 233 Marshall, P. 46, 202 Martin, C. J. 324

Martin, D. 87, 90, 97, 106, 113, 115, 193, 196, 202, 286, 295–97, 299, 305, 312, 326, 333, 344 Martin, J. 144 Martin, R. 18 Martin, T. W. 249 Martina, M. 233 Martini, R. 233 Martyn, J. L. 82, 129–31, 133, 189, 190, 202, 330 Mason, S. 155 Mastrocinque, A. 147, 169 Matthews, V. H. 46 Maurice, L. 76, 79 Maxwell, J. L. 71 May, J. M. 234 Mbamalu, A. 234 McCarthy, K. 315, 333, 334, 339 McDonnell, M. 265 McFarland, O. 356, 366 McGinn, T. A. J. 318 McGuire, M. 266 McKeown, N. 339 McNamara, D. 234 McRae, R. 46, 166 Meeks, W. A. 46, 86, 117, 183, 184, 202, 328, 329 Mendels, D. 155, 170 Merkelbach, R. 210, 211 Merz, A. 234 Metzner, R. 223 Meyer, E. 353, 354, 366 Meyer, P. W. 196, 202 Michaelis, W. 162 Miller, J. C. 302 Miller, J. D. 234 Miller, J. F. 10 Mitchell, M. M. 124, 246, 257, 266, 268 Modzrejewski, J. M. 34 Mommsen, Th. 234 Moo, D. J. 359, 361, 366 Morales, H. 91 Morgan, T. 72, 242, 265, 269 Morley, N. 311, 339 Morrill, B. T. 156, 170 Morris, L. 37 Moshenska, G. 347, 366 Moss, C. 271, 299



Index of Authors

Moule, C. F. D. 324 Mouritsen, H. 175, 181, 199, 305, 309, 310, 319, 321, 339 Moxnes, H. 46, 234 Mueller, S. 234 Müller, U. B. 161, 162, 164 Munck, J. 82 Murnaghan, S. 339 Murphy-O’Connor, J. 32, 75–78, 83, 86, 88, 318 Murray, J. H. 344 Murray, M. 363, 366 Mynors, R. A. B. 154 Nadeau, Y. 234 Nanos, M. D. 352, 366 Nasrallah, L. S. 318, 344 Nässelqvist, D. 245, 267 Neil, W. 38 Neri, C. 234 Neuenschwander, H. R. 23 Neutel, K. 339 Newbold, R. F. 46 Neyrey, J. H. 29, 46, 234 Ng, E. Y. L. 234 Nicholas, B. 171, 199 Nicklas, T. 327, 344 Nicols, J. 211, 234, 235 Nielsen, H. S. 172, 174, 199 Niven, W. J. 149, 169 Noel, J. A. 344 Nordling, J. G. 344 North, H. 271, 299 North, J. A. 339 Noy, D. 235 Nussbaum, M. 1, 2, 24, 193, 199 Oakman, D. E. 231 Oestreich, B. 268 Ogereau, J. M. 162 Öhler, M. 313 Olbricht, T. H. 152 Olick, J. K. 347, 348, 353, 354, 363, 366 Olson, D. R. 265 Olson, K. 96 Ong, W. J. 265 Ophir, A. 294, 299 Oropeza, B. J. 235 Osgood, J. 91

465

Osiek, C. 46, 101, 103, 113, 115, 184, 187, 188, 193, 194, 197, 200, 235, 313, 334, 344 Osterloh, K. 156, 169 Paige, T. 67 Palin, M. 269 Palmer, D. W. 55 Panciera, S. 235 Pani, M. 235 Parker, H. 90, 251, 264, 265 Parma, A. 235 Patterson, O. 46, 304, 306 Pattison, R. 265 Pavis d’Escurac, H. 235 Peerbolte, B. J. L. 160 Pellegrin, P. 339 Pereira Delgado, A. 344 Peristiany, J. G. 47 Perkins, J. 5, 24 Perry, M. J. 309, 310, 319, 339 Pesch, R. 220 Petersen, L. H. 311, 312, 338 Petersen, N. 344 Petersen, N. R. 323 Pettersson, P. 235 Pfitzner, V. 36 Pflaum, H.-G. 235 Pickett, R. W. 226, 235 Pietersen, L. K. 46 Pilch, J. J. 46, 313 Pitt-Rivers, J. 31, 33, 47 Pitts, A. W. 76, 77, 88 Pleket, H. W. 206 Pohlenz, M. 2 Poirier, J. C. 71, 73, 78 Pomeroy, A. J. 66 Pomeroy, S. B. 114, 199, 339 Porter, S. E. 76, 77, 83, 88, 144, 374, 375, 377–81, 383, 389 Powery, E. 344 Preston, R. 155 Price, A. 272, 289, 299 Price, R. 320 Prior, M. 81, 86, 88 Proffitt, L. 335 Punt, J. 235, 345 Purcell, N. 172, 199 Rabichev, R. 47

466

Index of Authors

Race, W. H. 47 Radstone, S. 353, 365 Rajak, T. 235 Ramsaran, R. 108, 117–21, 123–25, 135–38, 141, 145, 146 Ramsby, T. 336 Rankin, H. D. 5 Rapske, B. 323 Rawson, B. 92, 93, 95, 96, 114, 306 Rawson, E. 235 Reardon, B. P. 90, 97 Reasoner, M. 47, 141, 291 Rebell, W. 220, 224, 235 Redlich, B. E. 218 Reed, J. D. 23 Reed, J. T. 161 Rees, R. 321 Renehan, R. 290 Reumann, J. 161, 164 Reydams-Schils, G. 65, 90, 114, 286, 299 Rhoads, D. 265 Rhodes, D. 267 Rich, J. 235 Richard, E. 41 Richards, E. R. 81–83, 88, 247, 266, 268 Ricoeur, P. 347, 366 Ridderbos, H. 220 Riedweg, C. 149 Riess, W. 92 Riggio, M. C. 266 Riggsby, A. M. 178, 199 Rist, J. M. 53, 64, 65, 67 Ro, J. U. 68, 84 Robbins, V. 267 Rocklin, E. L. 254, 266 Roda, S. 235 Röder, J. 167, 170 Rodriguez, J. P. 302 Rodríguez, R. 348, 352, 359, 366 Rodríguez Neila, J. F. 235 Roetzel, C. J. 75, 77 Rohrbaigh, L. 236 Rohrbaugh, R. L. 47 Roldàn Hervas, J. M. 236 Roller, M. 179, 199 Romilly, J. de 47 Roniger, L. 230 Rosen-Zvi, I. 294, 299 Rosner, B. S. 362, 366, 369, 389

Rosten, L. 245, 269 Roth, U. 322, 326, 339, 345 Rothschild, C. K. 25 Rouland, N. 236 Rousselle, A. 90, 114 Rowe, G. 333 Roymans, N. 72 Ruffing, K. 339 Ruge-Jones, D. 265, 267 Rüpke, J. 147, 169 Russell, D. A. 145 Russell, K. C. 332 Saavedra Guerrero, M. D. 236 Sabbatini Tumolesi, P. 236 Sabnis, S. 339 Saller, R. P. 30, 47, 94, 114, 171–75, 199, 209, 211, 236, 305, 306, 313, 332, 340 Sampley, J. P. 62, 115, 123, 129, 136, 139, 141, 146, 186, 202, 248, 268, 369, 372, 376, 380, 381, 383, 389 Sanders, E. P. 77, 78 Sanders, J. T. 385, 389 Sandnes, K. O. 294, 299 Santero Santurino, J. M. 235 Sartori, M. 236 Satlow, M. 98 Sauer, D. K. 266 Saukkonen, J. M. 71 Scaglione, A. 265 Schachter, D. 350 Schachter, D. L. 366 Schackenburg, R. 220 Schams, C. 80 Scheidel, W. 94, 95, 302, 306, 307, 310, 340 Schenk, W. 163, 164 Schille, G. 220 Schittko, M. P. 154 Schlier, H. 375, 390 Schlöpfer, E. 158 Schmeller, T. 56, 225, 236, 255, 268 Schmidt, E. D. 170 Schmitt-Pantel, P. 229 Schneider, J. 47 Schneider, J. S. 72 Schnider, F. 253 Schrage, W. 220 Schreiber, S. 157, 170, 220 Schreiner, T. R. 360, 366



Index of Authors

Schudson, M. 350–52, 360, 361, 363, 366 Schumacher, L. 236, 340 Schuman, H. 347, 351, 366, 367 Schüssler Fiorenza, E. 185, 194, 197, 202 Schütz, J. H. 236 Schwartz, B. 347–53, 355, 366, 367 Schwartz, S. R. 236 Schwemer, A. M. 117 Scott, D. 150, 170 Scott, I. W. 158 Scott, J. C. 315 Scourfield, J. H. D. 22 Scroggs, R. 194, 202 Scullard, H. H. 331 Searby, D. 145 Sechrest, L. L. 356, 367 Sedley, D. N. 48, 49, 51, 64, 66, 67, 274, 289, 299 Seeley, D. 53 Seely, D. 47 Segal, C. 23 Seguí Marco, J. J. 236 Serrao, F. 236 Shaw, B. D. 173, 174, 199, 236, 314, 330, 340 Shaw, T. 193, 202 Shelton, J.-A. 302, 310, 323 Sherwin White, A. N. 301 Shiner, W. 267 Sider, D. 19 Signer, M. A. 170 Silva, M. 159 Silver, M. 340 Simonson, P. 268 Sinclair, P. 145 Sloan, I. 236 Smit, P.-B. 153, 159, 160, 162, 165–67, 170, 346, 367 Smith, A. 226, 236, 342 Smith, R. R. R. 147, 169 Snyder, G. F. 146 Snyman, A. H. 146, 345 Soffredi, A. 236 Soltau, W. 236 Sommer, B. 274 Sordi, M. 236 Spencer, F. S. 47 Sperber, D. 237 Stadter, P. A. 150

467

Stalder, K. 220 Standhartinger, A. 372, 390 Stanley, C. D. 157, 170 Starr, R. J. 237, 265 Stauber, J. 210, 211 Stendahl, K. 196, 202 Stenger, W. 253 Stenschke, C. 103 Stephens, S. A. 91 Stephens, W. O. 65 Sterling, G. E. 290 Stewart, R. 340 Still, T. D. 47, 75, 345 Stirewalt, M. L., Jr 83, 88 Stoops, R. F. 237 Stowers, S. K. 56, 65, 67, 76, 104, 105, 111, 113, 196, 202, 247, 255, 266, 268, 272, 277, 280, 281, 283–87, 290, 296, 299, 300, 317, 357, 359, 362, 367 Straus, J. A. 340 Striker, G. 65, 276 Strubbe, J. H. M. 22 Stubbe, J. H. M. 25 Stuckenbruck, L. T. 156 Sumney, J. L. 372, 390 Susini, G. 237 Sussman, L. A. 119, 120, 145 Svebakken, H. 289, 299 Tabor, J. D. 53, 54 Talbert, C. H. 18, 25 Tannen, D. 241, 242, 245 Tanzer, H. 70 Tarachow, S. 218 Taylor, W. F. 237 Tcherikover, V. 34 Temkin, O. 90 Thatcher, T. 156, 157, 170, 366, 367 Thate, M. 347, 367 Thébert, Y. 340 Theis, J. 80 Theissen, G. 158, 286, 300 Thiessen, M. 358, 361, 362, 367 Thiselton, A. C. 51, 58 Thomas, R. 265 Thompson, F. H. 311, 340 Thompson, J. W. 370, 371, 374–77, 390 Thompson, T. W. 25

468

Index of Authors

Thorsteinsson, R. M. 65, 90, 283, 300, 357, 359, 361, 367 Tieleman, T. 67 Toit, A. B. du 76 Tolmie, D. F. 345 Tolmie, F. 319 Tomin, J. 190, 199 Torjeson, K. J. 237 Towner, P. H. 383 Treggiari, S. 90, 94, 96, 114, 171, 199, 310, 340 Tribble, E. 266 Trisoglio, F. 237 Trümper, M. 92 Tsang, S. 345 Tsekourakis, D. 51 Tsouna, V. 182, 183, 200 Tucker, J. B. 237 Tulloch, J. 46 Turner, E. G. 34 Unnik, W. C. van 76 Urbainczyk, T. 340 Usher, S. 79 Vaage, L. 107 Van Berchem, D. 237 van Bremen, R. 47 Van Eck, E. 237 van Kooten, G. H. 300 Varhelyi, Z. 73 Varner, D. C. 202 Vegge, T. 77, 79, 88 Verner, D. C. 195 Veyne, P. 65, 174, 200 Villemonteix, J. 145 Vittinghoff, F. 211 Vogt, J. 340 Voigt, M. 237 Vollenweider, S. 57 von Armin, J. 66 von Premerstein, A. 207, 208, 210, 237 Vössing, K. 79 Vox, O. 19 Vyhmeister, N. J. 237 Walde, C. 148 Waldstein, W. 237 Wallace-Hadrill, A. 92, 176, 177, 200, 237

Walter, N. 161 Walters, H. B. 16 Walton, S. 237 Wanamaker, C. A. 37, 41, 47 Wansink, C. S. 322, 324, 345 Ward, R. B. 115 Ward, R. F. 269 Ware, J. P. 162 Warmington, B. H. 237 Wasserman, E. J. 291, 300 Wasyl, A. M. 237 Watson, A. 340 Watson, D. F. 249 Watson, L. 90 Watson, P. 90 Watt, I. 264 Weaver, P. 92, 114, 180, 200, 340 Wedderburn, A. J. M. 346, 367 Weiler, I. 341 Weiss, A. 314, 341 Welborn, L. L. 6, 10, 11, 13, 14, 25, 237 Wendland, E. 345 Westermann, W. L. 341 Westfall, C. L. 387, 390 Wettstein, J. 19 Whang, Y. C. 369, 390 Wheatley, A. B. 237 Whelan, C. F. 237 White, A. G. 80, 87 White, B. L. 167, 170, 346, 367 White, J. L. 163 White, L. M. 1, 94, 175, 176, 182, 184, 186, 190, 191, 197, 200, 202, 203, 238 White, S. A. 67 Whitlark, J. 238 Whitmarsh, T. 3, 186, 238 Wiedemann, T. 238, 302, 310, 311, 319, 330, 331, 337, 341 Wilken, R. 291 Wilkins, P. 97 Wilkins, P. I. 238 Willert, N. 5 Williams, B. 47 Williams, D. K. 163, 164, 344 Wilson, M. 32 Wilson, W. T. 122, 146 Winger, M. 252 Winkler, J. J. 91 Winter, B. W. 47, 75, 238



Winter, S. B. C. 345 Winter, S. C. 187, 203, 322 Winterling, A. 238 Wintermute, O. S. 358 Wire, A. C. 251, 267 Wiseman, J. 318 Witherington, B. III 47, 164 Wold, B. G. 155 Wolff, G. 243, 265 Wolters, A. 102 Woodhull, M. L. 238 Woolf, G. 68, 84, 231, 264 Woyke, J. 203 Wrenhaven, K. L. 341 Wright, M. R. 66 Wright, N. T. 327, 359, 368

Index of Authors

Yarbrough, O. L. 113, 115 Yates, F. A. 170, 265 Yavetz, Z. 341 Youtie, H. C. 68, 69 Yunis, H. 265 Zangenberg, J. 167, 170 Zanker, P. 147 Zeller, D. 146 Zelnick-Abramovitz, R. 309, 341 Zetterholm, M. 285, 300, 352, 366 Ziesler, J. A. 293, 300 Zoccali, C. 356, 357, 362, 368

469

Index of Subjects Subjects and page numbers in bold face type are intended to guide the reader to extended discussions of topics that are central to the chapters in these volumes.

adaptability 1:1–32 adiaphora, see indifferent things 1:328–29 adoption 1:33–67 advisory, see deliberative 1:6, 239, 240, 242, 2:27, 112 advantage, advantageous 1:1, 5, 6, 16, 18, 19, 23, 37, 92, 93, 105, 106, 177, 200, 217, 218, 260, 298, 321, 350, 2:27, 28, 40, 41, 58, 96, 254, 256, 261, 333, 380, 393, 409, 411, 420, 421, 425, 428 amanuensis, see scribe 2:79, 81–84, 86 amplification 1:175, 197–99, 202, 207–209, 215, 221 apocalyptic 1:29, 65, 82, 256, 2:23, 63, 109, 119, 131, 139, 140, 155, 192, 193, 195, 259, 284, 298, 395–97, 421, 430, 431 asceticism 1:274, 298, 299, 2:193, 197, 396 associations 1:20, 22, 28, 62, 68–89, 124, 264, 2:205, 211, 215, 314, 326, 329, 412 athletics, see games 1:363–90 beneficence 2:32, 226, 402, 412, 413 blame 1:11, 21, 119, 132, 143, 177, 197, 210, 242, 306–308, 326, 2:4, 28, 251, 254, 399, 412, 413 boasting 1:90–112, 221–23, 377, 386, 2:20, 31, 41, 25, 419, 420, 427 character, see ethos 1:3, 22, 146, 148, 149, 158, 159, 163, 164, 246, 309, 312, 314, 316, 319, 322, 323, 2:118–20, 133, 135, 156, 246, 414 children 1:23, 34, 35, 36, 38, 58, 60, 63, 64, 77, 176, 220, 224, 226, 237, 241, 254, 256–81, 286–93, 295, 298, 314, 315, 317, 327, 334, 2:22, 70, 78, 79, 92–98, 130, 131, 149, 154, 171–74, 181, 189, 190, 193, 194, 198, 204, 205, 214, 275,

297, 304, 357, 358, 360, 361, 371, 380– 84, 386, 387, 384, 396–98, 403–406, 408, 428 chreia 1:197, 180, 234–36, 239, 240, 245, 251, 339, 341, 2:61, 166 circumcision 1:17, 52, 56, 57, 65, 113–42, 186, 187, 218, 312, 324, 329, 379, 380, 2:51, 52, 60–63, 104, 108, 126, 129–38, 317, 318, 355–62, 409, 416, 419 citizen, citizenship 1:11, 36–40, 47–49, 72, 75, 92, 148, 149, 174, 205, 208, 244, 266, 271, 289, 290, 298, 304, 336, 341, 344, 356, 368–71, 373, 377, 379, 380, 2:29, 91, 93, 95, 121, 151, 154, 158, 171, 178, 205, 207, 238, 248, 271, 281, 308–10, 358, 392, 396, 412, 428 clients, see patrons 1:95, 110, 143, 149, 150, 151, 154, 158, 242, 256, 342, 349, 2:31, 41, 71, 97, 172, 174, 175, 177–79, 181, 204–38, 310, 402, 404 collection 1:73, 74, 96, 152, 186, 189, 319, 322, 361, 2:191, 223, 224, 417 commendation 1:99, 100, 143–68, 222, 310, 317, 318, 321, 2:17, 254, 375, 393, 416, 419 common topics/commonplaces 1:18, 23, 199, 207, 209, 2:17, 18, 92, 121, 122, 124, 128, 402, 421 comparison 1:196–229 conciliatory 2:8, 13, 14 conscience 1:27, 2:4, 137, 196, 380, 426 consolation 1:189, 289, 352, 2:6, 22, 23 convert, conversion 1:53, 56, 130, 138, 244, 246, 312, 313, 359, 2:7, 39, 41, 190, 196, 197, 219, 221, 281, 324, 355, 358, 361–64, 381, 392



Index of Subjects

daughter 1:36, 39–41, 43, 46–48, 52, 64, 65, 99, 260, 262, 264, 269, 271, 276, 288, 2:33, 90, 94, 96, 99, 174 declamation 1:173, 177, 183, 199, 200, 243, 373, 2:118, 119, 122 deliberative 1:171, 172, 177, 178, 180, 197– 201, 205, 212, 213, 2:27, 28, 106, 117, 119, 129, 135, 163, 167 desire 2:270–300 dishonor, see shame 1:96, 101, 102, 105, 107, 218, 220, 382, 2:26–47, 172, 304– 306, 315, 374, 377, 399, 413, 414, 416, 420, 423 divine condescension 1:12–14, 23 divorce, see marriage 1:17, 18, 43, 47, 259–61, 266, 277, 288, 2:89–115, 427, 428 education 1:11, 43, 99, 103, 143, 145, 172– 74, 176, 196, 197, 200, 203, 214, 225, 230–53, 263, 265, 266, 269, 273, 275, 368, 372, 2:5, 36, 69, 70, 72–88, 103, 104, 121, 242, 243 encomium (encomia) 1:6, 143, 146, 149, 196, 198, 200, 201, 206, 207, 209–12, 220, 221, 239, 240, 247, 248, 341, 2:28, 29 enthymeme 1:172, 2:121 epideictic 1:4, 177, 197, 198, 200–202, 204, 212, 220, 222, 2:29, 162 ēthos/ethos (character) 1:3, 22, 146, 148, 149, 158, 159, 163, 164, 246, 309, 312, 314, 316, 319, 322, 323, 2:118–20, 133, 135, 156, 246, 414 exemplification (example) 1:169–195, 323, 327, 328, 2:130, 400, 401 family (familia) 1:33–67, 75, 146, 147, 254– 81, 333, 2:89–115, 171–205, 312–13, 327–29, 372, 381, 384, 385, 406–409 father (see pater familias) 1:33–67, 254–81, 2:171–203, 404–407 flatterer 1:5, 7, 12, 22, 96–98, 106, 304, 305, 343, 359 flattery 1:5, 7, 8, 13, 22, 206, 303–11, 345, 358, 2:12

471

forensic 1:37, 170–72, 175, 177, 197–209, 221, 250, 2:225 frankness (frank speech) 1:22, 301–30, 335, 343, 344, 358, 359, 2:7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 407, 408, 414, 417 freed, freedpersons 1:48, 49, 54, 55, 70, 72, 101, 256, 260, 261, 369, 2:204–10, 212, 222, 301–45 freedom 1:17, 19, 54, 55, 58, 60, 224, 271, 278, 313, 318, 344, 2:22, 23, 57, 58, 60, 124, 131, 132, 136, 142, 143, 207, 290, 316, 301–45, 378, 394, 397, 398, 424, 431 friendship 1:4–9, 146–50, 304, 305, 308, 309, 331–62, 2:9, 13, 14, 18, 22, 23, 209, 408, 409 games 1:363–90 glory 1:19, 92, 97, 104, 107, 109, 110, 188, 205, 215, 218, 221, 308, 349, 379, 382, 2:17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 41, 153, 191, 192, 333, 392, 399, 405, 410, 415, 417, 424 grief 1:270, 318, 344, 2:1–25 guardian, guardianship 1:43–63, 264, 267, 2:205 gymnasium, gymnasia 1:130, 251, 364, 368, 372, 376–82, 2:75 hardship, hardships, see suffering 1:93, 102, 163, 221, 373, 2:1–25, 37, 293, 394, 430 heart 1:125, 134–39, 218, 2:2, 3, 10, 11, 19, 260, 419 holiness 1:288, 295, 2:17, 137, 283, 294, 374, 379, 397, 425–31 honor, see shame 1:74–86, 95–97, 101–108, 148–50, 155, 162–64, 372, 373, 382, 2:26–47, 171, 254, 294, 305, 306, 324, 330, 374, 393, 399, 402, 404, 412–19, 424 household codes 1:254, 271, 2:113, 205, 369–90 imitation, see exemplification 1:164, 169–95, 241, 246, 249, 265, 327, 2:41, 105, 189 impartiality, divine 1:216, 219, 2:125, 131, 284

472

Index of Subjects

inclusio 1:320, 328, 2:262, 410 indifferent things (adiaphora) 1:328, 2:48– 67, 105, 109, 111, 415, 427 inheritance 1:33–67, 278, 279, 314, 2:91, 92, 95, 96, 172–75, 394 judicial 1:36, 37, 171, 175, 201, 213, 230, 239–42, 249, 250, 2:29, 89, 129 judgment 1:40, 135, 170, 215–19, 266, 2:7, 112, 119, 140–42, 153, 258, 393, 410, 414, 417, 430 knowledge 1:24, 25, 94, 99, 104, 105, 172, 177, 265, 266, 275, 317, 2:17, 35, 36, 79, 80, 147–53, 157–60, 165–68, 248, 249, 272, 284, 291, 292, 295, 304, 370, 371, 374, 418, literacy, literate 1:225, 231, 245, 375, 2:68– 88, 241–251, 284 manumission 1:277, 2:60, 135, 188, 205, 308–15, 318, 319, 321, 325, 394 marriage, see divorce 2:89–115 mater familias 1:48, 2:183–86, 197, 204 maxims 1:234, 243, 245, 2:116–46 meals 1:75, 76, 84–87, 264, 2:258 memory, see social memory 2:147–70, 245, 246 military, see games 1:363–90, 2:21, 95, 192, 207, 307, 312, 314, 318, 330, 331, 392, 393, 412 novel, Greek 1:282–302 new creation 1:57, 60, 61, 65, 319, 329, 2:63, 126, 127, 129, 131, 134–38, 363, 396, 423, 429, 430 oaths 1:77, 102, 343, 373, 2:212 Parousia 1:63, 64, 396, 430 passion 1:101, 138, 285, 289, 291, 294–99, 2:1, 3, 106, 107, 112, 272, 276–80, 283– 287, 293–97, 379 pater familias 1:46–50, 275, 279, 2:94, 2:171–203, 204, 205, 207, 313, 385, 394, 402–404, 409, 421, 424 pathos 1:3, 2:1

patronage 1:74, 75, 87, 100, 102, 149, 151, 154, 155, 160–63, 2:30, 172, 174, 184, 188–91, 197, 198, 205, 207, 210, 211, 214, 215, 217, 220–23, 226, 393, 402, 404, 408, 429 patrons, see clients 1:68, 71, 80–82, 95, 100, 143, 146, 149–51, 153, 156, 160, 163, 182, 342, 2:30, 183–86, 194, 204– 38, 402, 414 peace 1:139, 314, 328, 329, 346, 347, 354, 374, 2:38, 39, 124, 125, 127, 133–35, 137–43, 149, 291, 296, 375, 393, 395, 398, 403, 417, 418, 432 performance 2:239–69 peristasis (hardship) 1:248, 283, 353, 357, 2:394, 397, 430 polis 1:289, 295, 298, 336, 339, 341, 345, 378, 2:416 praise, see honor 1:5, 11, 90–112, 137, 139, 143, 144, 146, 148, 149, 155, 167, 173, 177, 197, 198, 201, 206, 207, 210–12, 218, 221, 223, 242, 248–50, 305, 307, 308, 313–21, 324–36, 331, 332, 338, 343, 370, 2:28, 29, 31, 41–43, 143, 153, 154, 160, 192, 208, 226, 251, 254, 263, 321, 375, 399, 402, 404, 407, 412, 413, 415, 416, 419 prayer 1:77, 85, 208, 272, 288, 2:106, 126, 133, 161–64 progymnasmata 1:196, 197, 205–10, 239– 41, 246–48, 2:116 progress 1:10, 178, 314, 323, 344, 2:5, 7, 17, 41, 54, 62, 64, 117, 282, 285, 404, 410 prosopopoiia 1:175, 210, 217, 2:196 purity 1:83, 84, 99, 133, 260, 295, 2:3, 17, 280, 293, 374, 377–79 pursue 1:85, 180, 200, 210, 378, 379, 382, 2:29, 36, 42, 57, 393, 417, 418 reconciliation 1:334, 345, 354–57, 2:14, 15, 18, 226, 418 refining 2:121 reward 1:148, 209, 278, 377, 2:278, 358, 383, 402, 417 scribe, see amanuensis 1:233, 245, 2:80–83, 247, 249, 255, 256, 323 scripture 1:54, 135, 272, 273, 2:77, 78, 157, 158, 168, 290, 355, 364, 399, 419, 423



Index of Subjects

self-commendation, see self-praise 1:99, 100, 151, 152, 164, 222, 2:17, 416 self-mastery (self-control), see desire 1:103–106, 110–13, 118, 196, 2:270–300 self-praise, see self-commendation 1:90– 110, 221, 223, 248, 2:153, 154 self-sufficiency 1:345, 353 sex/sexuality 1:83, 180, 270, 275, 276, 295, 300, 2:94, 285, 286, 292–97 shame, see dishonor, honor 1:21, 85, 96, 101, 107, 220, 221, 2:4, 7, 12, 19, 26–47, 53, 257, 258, 305, 324, 392, 393, 399, 412–16, 419–21, 431 slavery 1: 16, 22, 29, 47, 55–65, 80, 157, 224, 278, 280, 312, 313, 383, 2:15, 52, 56–63, 104, 107–13, 124, 131, 132, 136, 196, 2:301–45, 394, 398 slaves 1:17–19, 29, 47, 55, 59, 60, 62, 69, 72, 80, 81, 101, 115, 159, 256–80, 288, 293, 313, 314, 333, 344, 369, 370, 381, 2:58, 59, 85, 92, 95, 97, 100, 105, 107, 113, 136, 174–83, 188, 192–96, 204–207, 210, 216, 221, 243, 276, 277, 301–45, 381–87, 394, 403 social memory 2:346–68 Spirit 1:51, 56, 58, 60–63, 86, 99, 133, 137–39, 151, 158, 188, 210, 218, 221, 226, 248, 275–77, 288, 312–14, 317, 324, 329, 2:17–19, 22, 23, 32, 57, 86, 99, 100, 105, 115, 117, 125, 127, 130–34, 137–43, 153, 158, 189–91, 212, 216, 220, 258, 259–62, 274, 281, 296, 299, 313, 331, 333, 370, 374, 375, 378, 382, 398, 403, 407, 409–11, 419, 426 strong 1:96, 106, 107, 185, 220, 223, 321, 358, 2:141, 410

473

supper, the Lord’s 1:84, 85, 317, 2:160, 165, 166, 2:46, 160, 165, 166, 184, 346, 365, 413, 414, 416, 420, 425 suffering, see hardships 1:99, 101, 106, 110, 2:1–25, 37, 161, 258, 261, 292, 327, 374, 397, 431 thanksgiving 1:71, 77, 109, 145, 165, 246, 312, 360, 2:39, 41, 161, 162, 164, 253, 378, 419, 426 typology 1:58, 69, 231, 232, 367, 2:68 venator 1:366, 373, 380, 382 vice, see virtue 1:1–3, 2:4, 6, 35, 49, 52, 238, 2:33, 134, 139, 140, 278, 284, 321, 369–90 virtue, see vice 1:8, 10, 92, 173, 174, 177, 178, 199, 206, 211, 212, 259, 268, 289, 339, 340, 344, 353, 354, 369, 372, 2:5, 9, 15, 17–23, 27–36, 48–52, 64, 65, 128, 129, 133, 134, 151, 174, 214, 240, 252, 274, 275, 277, 278, 280, 285, 289, 297, 301, 303, 310, 329, 357, 2:369–90, 415 virtue and vice lists 2:134, 369–72, 376–80, 384–88, 427, 428 weak/weakness 1:16, 19, 24, 91, 96, 99, 101–108, 133, 185, 189, 214, 220, 223, 358, 380, 2:16, 19, 20, 23, 31, 33, 112, 119, 126, 129, 141, 196, 204, 261, 295, 297, 410, 416, 420 weddings 1:99, 211, 2:96 well-being 1:4, 6, 43, 315, 323, 2:38, 401, 409