Chili

Nice post. Could I say that the Gods actually penetrate the inner sanctum of man instead of just arousing it?

Crimson Glory

What "ethical code"? Most Christian "lessons" on ethics are taken directly from the pagans... Seneca, Epictetus and all the stoics, the cynics, Plato and so on...

DCHindley

Paul is a radical with regard to slavery and gender? In the undisputed letters? Could you be more specific?

The undisputed Paul thinks pagan women have "exchanged natural relations [presumably with husbands] for unnatural [i.e., with men not their husbands]" (Romans 1:26), and by implication endorses marriage as the only form of natural relationship for a woman with a man.

He also says "women should keep silence in the churches ... they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says ... let them ask their husbands at home ... it is shameful for a woman to speak in church" (1 Corinthians 14:34-35), which is not the words of a man who thinks of women in radical terms.

Also, aren't household codes being discussed in both Ephesians & Colossians (more detailed in Ephesians)? Are you moving these both to disputed status? Usually someone tries to save at least one of them. Household codes, it seem to me, may simply be more natural to find in personal letters than epistles proper (I am open to correction), making their presence in the pastorals more a matter of genre than theological development.

Or is the radicality in 1 Corinthians 7:22 "22 For he who was called in the Lord as a slave is a freedman of the Lord. Likewise he who was free when called is a slave of Christ"? Yet it is prefaced by vs 21: "Were you a slave when called? Never mind. But if you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity," which is essentially advising someone to conform within social norms, as slaves might naturally be expected to yearn to be free.

Yet even Galatians 3:28, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" has to be tempered by the subsequent pair of threads revolving around the slavery of Hagar and the freedom of Sarah, which is heavy with household terminology, especially in Galatians 4:1-7 "1 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no better than a slave, though he is the owner of all the estate; 2 but he is under guardians and trustees until the date set by the father. 3 So with us; when we were children, we were slaves to the elemental spirits of the universe. 4 But when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" 7 So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son then an heir." This is household language, particularly as it relates to manumission of a slave!

This is exactly why Wayne McCready can say: "The third characteristic [of the Christian ekklesia] is the familial structure of the early Christian communities. A number of scholars [footnote cites 6 by name and publication] have emphasized the significance of 'household' as a basic social element of the early church. The tern oikos can refer to home 'quarters,' as well as the social network reflected in a family setting. ... Indeed, some would argue that Paul sought to build a socio-religious entity that fostered a familial sense of oneness and that his reference for such a structure was the household factor that linked communities of the Jewish diaspora (Caffert 1993). While examples of [non-Christian] voluntary associations being formed in conjunction with households are numerous, the number of references to oikos as a dimension of Christian assemblies is rather substantial in New Testament texts and verifies that household contributed to the peculiarity of church membership. That is, the basic societal unit of household was structured in such a manner as to generate loyalty, group solidarity, and exclusivity, perhaps even with economic benefits, to provide a higher quality of life than was typical in the larger society." ["EKKLHSIA AND VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS" in Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World, (Routledge, 1996), pg 64, emphasis mine]. In the footnote for this final sentence (ibid. pg 72) he adds: "Malherbe (1983:60-70) has made the point that a household included immediate family, slaves, freedmen, servants, laborers, and possibly business associates and tenants. Cf. Meeks 1983:222, n 17. See Rom. 16:5, 14, 15; 1 Thess. 5:27; Col 4:15. ..."

Paul is all about households and making sure relationships conform to the norms of society.

DCH

Ben C Smith

The epistle to Philemon for slavery (no rhetorical device spared in persuading Philemon to release Onesimus), and Romans 16 and 1 Corinthians 7 for gender.

I do not think you are interpreting Romans 1.26 aright. Nevertheless, I agree that Paul disapproves of sexual relations outside of marriage. What this has to do with my claim, however, escapes me. I never said Paul was a hippie.

I regard this passage as either an interpolation (a quite common view amongst scholars) or a Corinthian quotation that Paul is refuting. I think the former is more likely, but J. M. Holmes makes a pretty good case for the latter (pace D. A. Carson) in Text in a Whirlwind (or via: amazon.co.uk).

There is no need to move them to disputed status; they have been there for several decades now. It has been my distinct impression since I first started intensively studying Paul in about 1990 that a majority of Pauline scholars regard both of these epistles as spurious. J. D. Crossan appears to agree on page 106 of In Search of Paul:

In this book we accept, therefore, the general scholarly consensus that the following six letters are inauthentic and post-Pauline: 1-2 Timothy and Titus (very strong consensus), Ephesians (strong consensus), Colossians (less strong consensus), and 2 Thessalonians (weak consensus).

(I myself tend to accept 2 Thessalonians, but I admit that in doing so I am bucking a weak consensus.)

Paul does not advocate violent revolution or mass slave revolts. But in Christ it is clear that he does not approve of slave ownership.

Manumission. Exactly. There is (metaphorical) freedom in Christ where before there was (metaphorical) slavery. I do not know what you mean by the rest of your comments here.

Paul tells Philemon that he is bold enough to command him to do the right thing (το ανηκον, verse 8), but prefers to persuade him to do it (verse 9). What is the right thing? Freeing Onesimus (verse 16).

In the undisputed epistles Paul never addresses Christian masters qua masters; he does address Christian slaves, and advises them to secure their freedom if possible, and not to become slaves to men (not to sell oneself into slavery for social or economic reasons). Paul is not a revolutionary. But he is a radical (compared to his Roman culture).

Concerning households, while Paul certainly seems to use the household structures that exist around him to his advantage, he can hardly be said to be involved in building them up; he is a celibate, and recommends celibacy (both for men and for women; see 1 Corinthians 7.32-34) to all who can handle it. Contrast, say, Augustus, who actually required (or attempted to require) marriage by law, precisely in order to foster the family as the backbone of his empire.

I certainly agree that Paul uses the language of households to describe Christian relationships (brother, sister, bondslaves of Christ, et cetera). This has the effect of turning the faith into a (surrogate) family. This has the makings of a radical, utopian vision; relationships according to the flesh (blood relationships) mean nothing; relationships according to the spirit (in Christ) mean everything. This turns Roman social priorities upside down.

Paul is all about equality in Christ.

Ben.

bacht

Okay but what about 1st C apocalypticism? Is the Pauline material no longer examined with this in mind? If the early believers were expecting the end, weren't their ethical teachings only provisional?

Ben C Smith

I think they expected their ethics to reflect the ethics of the oncoming age. The age to come was going to feature radical equality, so they started striving for radical equality in the present.

Ben.

gstafleu

Hi Jay,

If you are talking about love affairs between gods and the occasional individual, you are right. What is at issue here, though, is whether or not the gods harbored a disinterested love for humanity as a whole. What I have read suggest that the normal relation between a human and the supernatural was "do ut des:" I, the human, give something (a sacrifice e.g.) to you, the god, so that you may give me something back that I want. AFAICT that had been the relation between human and supernatural since the paleolithic.

If you want to point to something closer to Christian soteriology in Roman times, the mysteries (as e.g. described by Apuleius in the Golden Ass, think of the scene where Lucius meets Isis) would be closer to the mark: there a god(dess) does indeed seem to take an interest in a human that is more than an interest in screwing his brains out. But the mysteries were expensive, Christianity took the idea and made it more easily accessible.

Gerard Stafleu

mountainman

Dear gstafeu,

The concept of superiority is itself a transcendental one into which many presumptions enter in the guise of ethics. War is hardly an ethical thing and neither are blind eyes. Claims to "superiority of this ethic or that ethic" should be treated with the greatest of circumspect. Unless of course the claim for superiority is made with (an) authority.


More to the point their infra-structure - their ancient temples and collegiate complexes of temples and shrines throughout the Roman empire had been torn down, in many cases utterly destroyed to their foundations though the age of Constantine and Constantius (ie: 324 to 359 CE). They had no place to call their own anymore, and to make matters worse, there were now a whole heap of basilicas dotting the Roman empire. Julian arrived at a time when the pagans had had their assets detroyed (with the booty taken to adorne The City of Constantine).


My response to this question would be to discuss the greek law codes found in the last century (or so) at Gortys on Crete. If you want to gauge the ethics of a society, have a quick glance at their laws. The Romans did not destroy Gortys and it remained a central place in the Roman empire through the first few centuries.

Once you have examined these, start looking at the laws enacted from 312 CE through to the time of Theodosius. What do the laws found in the Codex Theodosianus tell us about the ethics of the fourth century "christians"?

Best wishes,


Pete

Reliable Skeptic

Hi all new here . I think they expected the end in their life time and it did not happen.

DCHindley

Ben,

I realize you are gone this weekend, but I thought I should respond to your statements made Dec 2. Perhaps you can find time to respond during the obligatory Pearl Harbor movies on the 8th.

A statement such as "Paul is a radical" can be taken quite a few different ways without context. My examples were only meant to make this apparent, and did not necessarily reflect my own views. Thank you for the clarification.

I'll have to look at the latter suggestion, although I am not sure how this supposed quote is actually addressed in response. This approach is similar to the one that removes a difficulty in vocabulary in the first two chapters of Galatians by proposing Paul quoted some sort of rule which utilized the name Peter rather than Cephas. The room looks swept, but there is dirt under the rug.

I have my reasons to not automatically accept Crossan's evaluations. He seems to me to project unusually strong ideological implications into his criticism ... making Jesus seem too much like a 1960 campus radical, and an unnervingly free-wheeling way of fabricating social scientific models by cherry-picking what he favors from other authors while ignoring what he does not like, even when such statements are in the same sentences and paragraphs of the works he does cite directly.

Regarding Ephesians & Colossians, they sure do present a problem on account of their shared content. Ephesians contains fuller accounts of these shared passages, filled out with household code language, but the different application of "christ" language between them does not suggest that one borrowed from the other in the form we have them now.

As I have mentioned before, David Trobisch has long proposed that the current Pauline corpus (sans Hebrews) is composed of a group 1 consisting of Romans, 1 & 2 Cor, and Galatians, with a second group (group 2) being appended to it, consisting of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians. [BTW, you were correct that Ephesians seems better related to group 2, as my earlier statements that they belonged to group 1 were due to me misreading Trobisch]. To this combined group consisting of group 1 & 2, which were all addressed to churches or regions, was finally appended a third group, the pastorals, consisting of 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus & Philemon, which are addressed to individuals.

It is not hard to notice that group 1 are all pretty much undisputed (except among the "Dutch" inspired super-radicals), group 2 books are all subject to dispute by some reputable mainstream critics, and group 3 is virtually all rejected (except Philemon). The relative proportion of undisputed vs rejected letters in each group may be due to relatively later dating of each grouping, with each group including progressively more questionable materials or even entire letters. Still, some differences (such as in vocabulary between groups (1+2) & 3 can also be explained by differences in genre, and it cannot be denied that group 1 works are considerably more complex works than group 2 works, suggesting their transmission history includes a period of editing where multiple letters were combined together into single artificial letters, or at least augmented by other materials to bolster argumentative strategies.

To accept the consensus pretty much requires one to explain away or smooth over the issues just described, but this should be addressed in other threads.

No, what it indicates is that Paul encourages slaves to seek out opportunities for manumission by recommending they apply themselves faithfully to their human masters, all of which is quite common and the norm for elite households. It is on account of this that I have cited Wayne McCready's article in Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World, as I think it indicates that Paul's intended audience was the slave and retainer classes of elite households, such as those associated with the Herodian princes.

That kind of explanation for the Pauline context does not require metaphorical Christ-language to be comprehensible, and can be found in all letters of the Pauline corpus, whether commonly accepted, disputed or rejected. The very phrase "in Christ" is the subject of many a journal article and monograph because it is frequently interjected (in various configurations) into otherwise perfectly comprehensible sentences in the Pauline corpus. Exactly how does "in Christ" make it "clear" that Paul "does not approve of slave ownership"?

Refer to above.

DCH