This book has attempted to delineate some of the material implications of “spiritual,” or religious, discourse in the letters of Paul of Tarsus. The opening chapter addressed two fundamental issues that constitute a prolegomenon to that which follows. First, the notion of the “free gift,” common in Christian theological constructions, indicates that the gift is not transmitted under the conditions of mercantile exchange, but does not imply that it bears no reciprocal obligations. As a “catalyst and an outward sign of elective affinities,”1 the “free gift” is laden with the obligation of reciprocal interaction: to offer one’s time, one’s goods, and one’s services for the construction and maintenance of ongoing social relations. The refusal of reciprocity is tantamount to a rejection of the social relation of which the gift is an “outward sign.” Second, it is noted that the “irreducible heterogeneity” of human exchanges and the roles of agents in classifying those transactions disallow any unproblematic definition of “gift.” Nevertheless, some typical characteristics are identified for their heuristic value in distinguishing gifts from other types of exchange. Finally, a brief summary of each of the book’s chapters is offered.
On the basis of the principle that the “spiritual” and the material stand in a relation of exchangeability within an economy of symbolic goods, Paul developed notions concerning reciprocal transaction such as were common in his Roman context and modified them in the service of his own agenda, namely, that of preaching his version of the “gospel” throughout the northern Mediterranean region, as argued in chapter 2. Portraying himself in the role of broker or mediator of spiritual gifts, some of which are made available on the basis of a positive response to his evangelistic proclamation, he utilizes the discourse of the gift to motivate the exchange of goods and services within early Christian communities. These were at times directed toward Paul, in the form of a slave’s occasional service, monetary donations to cover living and travel expenses, or food and clothing during his stays in prison. In the case of his collection of funds to be contributed to the early Christian assembly in Jerusalem, monetary goods were transmitted in interassembly exchanges. In each case, the notion that Israel’s god had first provided gifts of various sorts was instrumental in motivating agents to offer their own currency, goods, or services, which were construed in the role of countergifts for God’s benefactions.
Chapter 3 considers Paul’s (strategic) faux pas of calling attention to a gift given. This contrasts with the advice of Seneca the Younger, who admonishes his addressee(s) never to do so, as it humiliates the donee. Both Seneca’s “virtuous” advice and Paul’s “shameful” breach of etiquette are explicable as strategies to maximize their access to valued goods and services—whether honor, in the case of Seneca, or the services of a wealthier man’s slave, in the case of Paul. The contrasting strategies of the two are inflected by their diametrically opposed economic situations.
In chapters 4 and 5, a close examination of the terms used to characterize unremunerated evangelistic labor indicates the futility of searching for “objective” criteria by which to classify that endeavor. Did Paul’s performance of manual labor to support himself render his evangelistic work in Corinth, which he was able subsequently to offer “free of charge,” a gift? Was his receipt of ostensible gifts from Macedonian assemblies to be classified as an act of “theft,” performed for the benefit of the Corinthians? Was the acceptance of hospitality from wealthier patronal figures in Corinth to be classified as an act of “parasitism,” as his caricature of one such figure suggests? The versatility that Paul exhibits in his classification of particular exchanges, his apparent use of categories to activate differential social responses (i.e., friendship or hostility), and his ability to adjust his classificatory schemes over time strongly suggest that exchanges are defined not solely on the basis of their “objective” characteristics, but are subject to a “politics of classification” whereby agents characterize transactions in the terms that best suit their sociopolitical interests.
Chapter 6 distinguishes two types of status: positional status, which refers to roles or positions within a sociopolitical system, each with its distinct duties, responsibilities, and privileges; and accorded status, which refers to honor and prestige. Whereas in the political system of the Roman empire positional status was often granted as a patronal donation by highly placed figures—Pliny’s letters to Trajan offer numerous examples—in Paul’s view, it was granted by the god of Israel. Paul asserts that his own status as an “apostle” is a “gift” from God. Moreover, in an attempt to naturalize his position of authority, he argues that apostles are granted a place of preeminence within the hierarchical organization of the early Christian assemblies.
Paul’s attempts to orchestrate an inversion of the criteria utilized in the allocation of honor and prestige within the assembly in Corinth are addressed in chapter 7. In opposition to an evaluative scheme in which prestige was positively correlated with wealth and its concomitant, elite education as evidenced by skill in philosophical reasoning and public declamation—a scheme by which Paul, an apparently poor, homeless, and ineloquent craftsman, was accorded scant honor—he strategically deployed the notion that the “gift of the spirit” was at work within his “inner human being,” transforming him into the glorious image of the risen Jesus. He posits that, to the extent that his “outer” person, lacking signs of honor and prestige, manifests the “death” of Jesus, the “life” of Jesus—his divine power and glory—was being made manifest within his “inner person.” Paul’s rhetoric implies a desire to be evaluated on the basis of the inner characteristics that he claimed rather than the external characteristics that were evident to his detractors. On the basis of the evaluative scheme that he proposed, the external signs by which Paul was accorded low honor and prestige were recoded as indicia of the considerable honor and prestige that accrued by association with the glorified body of Jesus of Nazareth, construed as a heavenly being.
Chapter 7 also argued that the aspects of process, contest, and change highlighted by Carole Crumley’s notion of heterarchy are on display in Paul’s attempts to invert the evaluative criteria employed by his Corinthian detractors. Attending to processual aspects facilitates the development and elaboration of Wayne Meeks’s notion of status inconsistency. One’s status is more than a “composite of [one’s] ranks in all of the relevant dimensions,” as Meeks argued. Both positional and accorded status are subject to contestation and negotiation as various interested parties promote evaluative systems privileging the assets that each typically has at its disposal. Paul instrumentalizes discourses of gift exchange in contests over the definition and assessment of both his positional and his accorded status.
Although in some cases, Paul deploys the logic of the classic formulation do ut des, “I give so that you might give,” more often he operates on the basis of a different logic: do quia dedisti, “I give because you have given.” In the latter formulation, the temporal framing of the gift associated with the second person (“you”) is shifted from that of posteriority (“I give so that you might give”) to that of anteriority (“I give because you have given”). In Paul’s economy of symbolic goods, it is preeminently God’s gift of his son and Jesus’ sacrificial gift of himself in a death by crucifixion that hold priority in the “circle” of gift exchange. The faithful give because the heavenly Father and Son, both singly and collectively, “have given.”
The placement of emphasis on what is construed as the prior gift of God undoubtedly arises from the historical datum that Jesus’ death by crucifixion, understood as God’s gift par excellence, preceded Paul’s proclamation of the crucified Messiah. Paul’s emphasis on the temporal priority of the “gifts of God” bears significant implications for his economy of symbolic goods, inasmuch as it places those regarded as recipients of such gifts in the role of debtor: “you have given, therefore I should give.” Considerable amounts of labor services, currency, and material goods have been transmitted, from the first century until the present day, in accordance with the logic of this symbolic economy. Unlike gift economies operating in the “secular” sphere of interpersonal relationships, which may function according to a logic of “alternating disequilibrium”2 in which each gift and countergift respectively burdens the recipient with a perception of gift-debt, in Paul’s economy equilibrium is never achieved: the human donor of countergifts in various forms can never attain parity with, nor supersede in magnitude, the gifts of the heavenly Father and Son. Agents acting within the constraints of this economy of symbolic goods may play the role of grateful recipients of heavenly gifts, responding in gratitude with gifts of their own: their lives, their service, their goods and currency. Conversely, agents may construe themselves as operating under a situation of oppressive debt, bearing in the cross of Jesus a burden that they do not have the power to remove. The former perception may engender renewed acts of service and sentiments of gratitude, whereas the latter may prompt resentment and attempts to escape the symbolic economy that generates such affects.
As the “gifts of God” cannot be reciprocated directly to their putative donors, God and/or Christ, except through “offerings” of thanksgiving and praise, material donations of labor, goods, and currency are frequently transmitted to an individual or organization claiming to function as a proxy for those divine agents. Paul himself served in that role, as today do ecclesiastical organizations and their functionaries.
Utilizing the principle of generalized reciprocity (as understood by Claude Lévi-Strauss), now popularly indicated by the phrase “paying it forward,” agents might escape the circular and apparently self-serving character of the religious economy of symbolic goods by transmitting material items, foodstuffs, currency, and services outside the confines of the religious institution in acts of “charity.” Such acts of generalized reciprocity may result, however, in differential effects on the continued viability of the institution: either ruining it by diverting the resources that might otherwise contribute to its maintenance, or augmenting it through the accumulation of agents who, having received goods and services mediated through it, respond by offering donations and labor services of their own on behalf of the religious organization. As Seneca already noted, all gifts assume the element of risk that characterizes investments: they may or may not be acknowledged or reciprocated.
Critical analyses of symbolic economies in which religious agents claim to mediate the “gifts of God” through their proclamation and practices need assume neither cynical manipulation nor dissimulation on the part of agents, who are likely socialized to accept the logic of the symbolic economy that they themselves are instrumental in perpetuating.
When examined within the context of a comparative program, the letters of Paul are of considerable value to classical studies, in that they indicate strategies both for the accumulation of honor and prestige and for the securing of a positional status of some importance and authority—even if on the small scale of various early Christian assemblies—by one who identified with a colonized group (Judeans/Jews) within the Roman empire. Apparently lacking both wealth and political connections, Paul creatively modified discourses and practices of gift exchange—positioning himself as a mediator of gifts from Israel’s god—in order to craft a position of influence and significance, albeit limited in scale. His letters thus serve as a counterpoint to the perspectives of the elite, wealthy, and politically connected authors whose writings constitute the majority of our sources for Roman social history.
Paul’s letters are of significance to religious studies in that they demonstrate the importance of discourses and practices of gift exchange for the construction of authority: he claimed that his role as an authoritative apostle was granted as a gift of Israel’s god. Similarly, claims to knowledge concerning a posited transcendent realm, and insight into the thoughts, desires, and intentions of the beings purported to inhabit that realm, may be couched in the terminology of gift-giving. Construing the “spirit” as a gift, Paul writes, “the spirit searches all things—even the deep things of God.” The deployment of the language of gift-giving may hold an advantage over other modes of constructing religious authority, inasmuch as they imply that (1) the recipient stands in the goodwill and favor of the divine being or beings construed as having given such gifts, and (2) the recipient has been honored through the bestowal of a highly valued donation by a divine agent. Constructions of religious authority involving “gifts of the gods” draw on a rich set of associations involving honor, status, and the perception of divine favor. Implied in the gift itself, such associations need not be stated outright.
Moreover, Paul’s preference for the do quia dedisti (“I give because you have given”) paradigm rather than the standard do ut des (“I give so that you might give”) pattern indicates the necessity of paying close attention to the temporal sequencing of gifts and countergifts posited within religious economies of symbolic goods. When gifts of a transcendent sort (e.g., immortal life, a heavenly existence) are posited as having been transmitted to donees or as being contingent on a gift that has already been given, would-be recipients of such benefactions are placed into the position of perpetual debtors—a position that may be exploited by those who style themselves intermediaries between the human and the divine.
Anthropological and sociological studies since Marcel Mauss have charted in detail the mechanics of gift exchange. Although such studies advert to the role of religion in gift exchange,3 there remain lessons to be learned from transactions of a highly symbolic character, that is, when one of the parties to the exchange or the posited gifts exist purely in symbolic form, in discourse and the imagination. The introduction of such imaginary entities into the cycle of exchange provides a means by which agents who lack material goods or political connections may attempt to gain honor, prestige, and enhanced positional status by claiming a role as mediators between humans and the divine. When paired with systems that evaluate “spiritual” gifts more highly than material ones, mediatorial figures may lay claim to countergifts in the form of valued goods and services from those cast in the role of recipient of the gifts of God.
Economies in which purely symbolic goods and agents are construed as operative may produce significant material effects, such as binding parties into social units and spurring the transmission of goods, currency, and labor services. Such “spiritual economies” are no less effective in facilitating material transmissions than economies in which all participants and goods are of evident material substance. Since the “goods” postulated to circulate within “spiritual economies” are nonevident, and are to be apprehended (it is claimed) only on the basis of faith, “belief,” or hope, participants have no obvious means of evaluating their worth. As a result, the agents who promote such systems are in a position to evaluate most highly the “spiritual goods” that they claim circulate within the symbolic economy in which they take part. Paul’s letters thus serve as vehicles for the refinement and elaboration of theories of gift exchange, contributing (inter alia) to discussions concerning the gift/sale dichotomy, the role of the “politics of classification” entailed in agents’ labeling of transactions, and the functions of (purely) symbolic goods in “religious” exchanges.
Finally, Pauline studies benefit significantly from interaction with the data, theories, and methods utilized in classics, religious studies, anthropology, and sociology. Interaction with these data and methods facilitates the historical enterprise of describing with greater precision the ideas, discursive habits, and rhetorical strategies used in Paul’s letters, and of imagining with greater clarity the practices and complex sociopolitical interactions that prevailed in the communities presupposed by them. More importantly, enhanced interaction with other disciplines is the prerequisite to surpassing the somewhat insular position that biblical studies has long occupied within the contemporary academy. The present study is offered in the hope that it may facilitate that process. When utilized as exemplars in the service of a broader project of comparison and rectification, Paul’s letters may yet bequeath gifts to the academy, some twenty centuries after their initial reception in Corinth, Philippi, Colossae, and Rome.