1. Derrida, “Time of the King,” 121–47 (128).
2. Derrida, “Time of the King,” 129. Emphases, here and in subsequent citations of Derrida, are in the work cited.
3. Derrida, “Time of the King,” 124.
4. Derrida, “Time of the King,” 124.
5. Bourdieu, Logic of Practice; Bourdieu, “Marginalia; and Bourdieu, Practical Reason.
6. Both Pseudo-Aristotle’s Oeconomica and Xenophon’s Oeconomicus treat household management, including the ordering of familial relations (parents/children; husbands/wives), the management of slaves, and agriculture. Moses I. Finley argued that the ancient economy was “embedded” within social relations; that is, it neither functioned as an independent sphere nor was construed as such. See Finley, Ancient Economy. On the suppression of mercantile exchange within familial and close social relations, see Bourdieu, Logic of Practice, 112–34.
7. Petitat, “Le don.”
8. Derrida, “Time of the King,” 130.
9. Petitat, “Le don,” 27.
10. Godbout and Caillé, World of the Gift; quotations on pp. 9 and 18, respectively.
11. Ben. 1.4.2.
12. Petitat cites the writings of Derrida and Thomas Aquinas as examples of the “utopian” view of the gift (“Le don,” 17–20).
13. The fullest form of the name given in the film is Eulys F. Dewey.
14. The fictive location appears to conflate the town of “Boutte” in southeast Louisiana with a bayou (“Bayou Boutte”) some eighty kilometers south of Baton Rouge.
15. On the “gift” of salvation in The Apostle, see also Blanton, “Gift, Film.”
16. Jonathan Z. Smith, “In Comparison a Magic Dwells,” in Smith, Imagining Religion, 19–35; Smith, Drudgery Divine; Smith, “The ‘End’ of Comparison,” Smith, “Bible and Religion,” in his Relating Religion, 197–214 (esp. 198).
17. For Smith’s discussion of “definitions” of “religion,” see his “Religion, Religions, Religious,” in his Relating Religion, 179–96.
18. Smith, “Bible and Religion,” 198.
19. Smith, “The ‘End’ of Comparison,” 239.
20. “Marcel Mauss,” in Encycopaedia Britannica; online at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/370263/Marcel-Mauss. See also Mauss, “An Intellectual Self-Portrait”; Mary Douglas, “Foreword: No Free Gifts,” in Mauss, The Gift, vii–xviii.
21. Gouldner, “Norm of Reciprocity,” 171.
22. So also Douglas (“Foreword,” viii): “By ignoring the universal custom of compulsory gifts we make our own record incomprehensible to ourselves: right across the globe and as far back as we can go in the history of human civilization, the major transfer of goods has been by cycles of obligatory returns of gifts.”
23. On the significance of gift exchange in the contemporary context marked by globalized corporate capitalism, see Godbout and Caillé, World of the Gift.
24. De Waal, “Chimpanzee’s Service Economy”; see also de Waal’s Ted Talk “Moral Behavior in Animals” at TED, http://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_do_animals_have_morals?language=en.
25. Schino and Aureli, “Relative Roles of Kinship and Reciprocity.”
26. Schino and Aureli, “Grooming Reciprocation,” 9.
27. Schino and Aureli, “Grooming Reciprocation,” 10.
28. Schino and Aureli, “Grooming Reciprocation,” 9.
29. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious,” 193–94.
30. I am thus in agreement with the recent proposals of Brent Nongbri, who writes: “a good focus for those who would study ‘religion’ in the modern day is keeping a close eye on the activity of defining religion and the act of saying that some things are ‘religious’ and others are not. Such an approach means giving up on the essentialist project of finding ‘the’ definition of religion. Such a reorientation in the study of religion would also allow for a more playful approach to second-order, redescriptive usages of religion. Religion could be deployed in nonessentialist ways to treat something as a religion for the purposes of analysis” (emphases in original). See Nongbri, Before Religion, 155.
31. Mauss, The Gift, 5.
32. Said, Culture and Imperialism.
33. Mauss, The Gift, 4.
34. Mauss, The Gift, 7.
35. The gift, in Mauss’s view, was a form of exchange that forestalled the necessity of obtaining goods through martial means: war, raids, or theft (The Gift, 13, 25, 41, 82).
36. Mauss, The Gift, 3.
37. Mauss, The Gift, 3.
38. Petitat, “Le don,” 27: “Les échanges sociaux ne forment pas un système, mais ils s’articulent au contraire autour de l’impossibilité d’une règle des règles qui transcenderait l’hétérogénéité de base des échanges. La diversité infinie des sociétiés et des jeux de l’échange procède de cette hétérogénéité irréducible.”
39. On the language of gift exchange, see Benveniste, “Gift and Exchange in the Indo-European Vocabulary”; Walter Burkert, “The Reciprocity of Giving,” in his Creation of the Sacred, 129–55 (esp. 129–30); Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 575–82.
40. So, for example, Edwin A. Judge, “The Social Identity of the First Christians: A Question of Method in Religious History,” in his Social Distinctives, 117–35 (130–31).
41. On the category “religion” as (often, but not always) involving “culturally postulated superhuman beings,” see the discussion of Smith (Relating Religion, 160–78), who in turn cites the definition of Melford Spiro (pp. 165–66).
42. So, for example, Mauss, The Gift, 15–17; see also Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 109–17.
1. Veyne, Bread and Circuses.
2. See, for example, Saller, Personal Patronage; Eisenstadt and Roniger, Patrons, Clients, and Friends; Garnsey and Saller, The Roman Empire, 148–59; Wallace-Hadrill, ed., Patronage in Ancient Society; Gellner and Waterbury, eds., Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies; Gill, Postlethwaite, and Seaford, eds., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece.
3. On the role of social networks within the reciprocity system, see Boissevain, Friends of Friends.
4. The designation “religious symbolic good” depends on a definition of the term “religion.” For heuristic purposes, I define “religion” as those discourses and practices that involve significant reference to supernatural beings. The problems in defining the term are discussed, inter alios, by Jonathan Z. Smith, “Religion, Religions, Religious,” in his Relating Religion, 179–96, and Arnal, “Definition”; Nongbri, Before Religion, 15–24.
5. Bourdieu, “The Economy of Symbolic Goods” and “Appendix: Remarks on the Economy of the Church,” in Bourdieu, Practical Reason, 92–123, 124–26, respectively.
6. Regions in which reciprocity systems have been described include the ancient Mediterranean, Melanesia and Polynesia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. These and other regions are discussed in Mauss’s seminal work on reciprocity, The Gift, and Eisenstadt and Roniger, Patrons, Clients, and Friends. Alvin Gouldner (“Norm of Reciprocity”) regards reciprocity as a universal norm, while recognizing that its forms are culturally specific. For an overview of Seneca’s views on reciprocity, see Griffin, “De Beneficiis and Roman Society.”
7. Translations from Seneca are those of J. W. Basore, Seneca: Moral Essays (3 vols., LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, and London: Heinemann, 1935 [repr. 1964], 3:13, 15), in some cases slightly modified.
8. There are, however, distinctions to be made. Unlike loans, in the case of gifts, no written accounts are kept, no legal sanctions enforce a return, and no time limit is specified within which the return must take place. There is always a danger that, due to ingratitude, a gift may not be reciprocated.
9. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice, 198, n. 7; Bourdieu, Logic of Practice, 298, n. 10.
10. The inscriptions assembled by Frederick W. Danker in Benefactor are illustrative. They attest to reciprocal interactions in which the return constitutes a medium of exchange different from that of the original donation. For example, public honors are bestowed in return for valued services of human labor (inscription nos. 3, 9, 16, 21), public honors are bestowed in return for material benefaction and (in some cases) public service (nos. 11, 12, 17, 20, 23, 24, 33, 35, 39), and divine honors (sacrifices, dedication of altars or statues in temples) are bestowed in return for military service (no. 30) or public benefaction (nos. 31, 44). Compare also Saller, Personal Patronage, 29.
11. Although systems of reciprocity existed in both Greece and Rome, their specific mechanisms varied. For attempts to distinguish various types of reciprocity, including patron-client relationships and “friendship” relationships, see Eric R. Wolf, “Kinship, Friendship, and Patron-Client Relations in Complex Societies,” in Schmidt, Scott, Landé, and Guasti, eds., Friends, Followers, and Factions, 167–77; Saller, “Patronage and Friendship.” On euergetism, or “civic benefaction,” see Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 10–13; Danker, Benefactor, 26–55.
12. Peterman, Paul’s Gift from Philippi; Joubert, Paul as Benefactor; Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion; Lampe, “Paul, Patrons, and Clients”; Engberg-Pedersen, “Gift-Giving and Friendship”; Briones, Paul’s Financial Policy; Barclay, Paul and the Gift. David J. Downs argues that Paul’s presentation of benefits as originating with the god of Israel “subtly subverts the dominant ideology of pagan benefaction by highlighting the honor, praise, and thanksgiving due to God, the one from whom all benefactions ultimately originate” (Offering of the Gentiles, 143–44). However, as Apuleius of Madauros’s The Golden Ass indicates, the construal of a divine being as heavenly patron/patroness does not subvert the “ideology of pagan benefaction,” but coheres with it (11.6, 12, 13–14, 18; cp. also Seneca, Ben. 2.30.1–2). James R. Harrison (Paul’s Language of Grace) views Paul as departing in significant ways from the ideal of reciprocity. For the relationship of various Jewish writers (although not including Paul) with the “Mediterranean value” of reciprocity, see Schwartz, Were the Jews a Mediterranean Society?
13. See Engberg-Pedersen, “Gift-Giving and Friendship,” for Paul’s use of charis in relation to his covenantal paradigm. On Paul’s use of charis, in addition to the titles mentioned in the previous note, see Hans Conzelmann, TDNT 9:393–96; Klaus Berger, EDNT 3:457–60.
14. Although Paul describes reciprocal relationships in term of patronage, he also employs friendship topoi to describe such relationships. For use of friendship themes in Pauline literature, see the survey of Alan C. Mitchell, “‘Greet the Friends by Name’: New Testament Evidence for the Greco-Roman Topos on Friendship,” in Fitzgerald, ed., Greco-Roman Perspectives, 225–62, and Fitzgerald, “Paul and Friendship.” However, as Richard Saller points out, socially asymmetrical patron-client relationships were sometimes euphemized as instances of (ostensibly symmetrical) “friendship” in order to avoid shaming inferior parties by labeling them clients (“Patronage and Friendship,” 49–62; cp. also Griffin, “De Beneficiis and Roman Society,” 97, 109–12). Both patron-client and “friendship” relationships were governed by the principles of reciprocity outlined by Seneca.
15. That the divine benefits posited by Paul existed only in symbolic form is demonstrable. The postulated benefits rely on two false assumptions: (1) the imminence of the apocalyptic judgment (e.g., 1 Thess 4:13–18; Rom 2:5–7; 9:27–29; 12:19); and (2) a geocentric cosmological view, such that a heavenly world was construed as existing some finite distance above the surface of the earth (implied in the spatial language of 1 Thess 4:16–17; 2 Cor 12:1–4; Gal 4:25–26; Phil 1:9–10; 3:14, 20). On the importance of this cosmology for Hellenistic religions in general, see Martin, Hellenistic Religions, 6–9; see also Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos; Cicero, Republic 6.17. The view is parodied in Lucian of Samosata’s Icaromenippus.
16. There are several studies on Paul’s collection for Jerusalem, including Georgi, Remembering the Poor; Nickle, The Collection; Joubert, Paul as Benefactor; Friesen, “Paul and Economics”; and most recently Longenecker, Remember the Poor. Although David Downs views the collection as a response to an economic crisis, he himself notes that the extended time span during which the collection was undertaken rendered it unsuitable as a form of emergency relief (Offering of the Gentiles, 25). Longenecker views the collection as an instance of an abiding early Christian concern that the economically advantaged should supply funding (i.e., alms) to the disadvantaged (Remember the Poor, 135–219).
17. Translation mine. All other translations of Pauline epistles used in this chapter are those of the NRSV, in some cases slightly modified.
18. Romans was written c. 56–57 CE; 2 Cor 8–9, c. 55–56 CE. On the dates, see Roetzel, Paul, 178–83; Meeks and Fitzgerald, eds., Writings of St. Paul, 44, 61.
19. I favor the theory that 2 Cor 8–9 originally represented independent letters that were brought together with other letters in the canonical version of 2 Corinthians. For overviews of various partition theories, see Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 1:1–49; Reimund Bieringer, “Teilungshypothesen zum 2. Korintherbrief. Ein Forschungsüberblick,” in Bieringer and Lambrecht, Studies on 2 Corinthians, 67–105; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 3–36. None of the arguments advanced in this chapter hinge on this partition theory, or on the order in which the various parts of 2 Corinthians were written.
20. For previous discussions of the gift-giving/charis themes in the collection letters, see Barclay, “Manna and the Circulation of Grace”; Gaventa, “Economy of Grace.”
21. Bruce Longenecker observes that the related phrase, ergazesthai to agathon, which Paul uses in Gal 6:10, “is (virtually) technical terminology in the ancient world for bestowing material benefits on others” (Remember the Poor, 163).
22. On the background of the agrarian imagery, see the excursus of Hans Dieter Betz in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 98–100, where he notes that Paul construes Achaia’s gift to Jerusalem in a manner analogous to a sacrifice for a god: “The gift given to the divinity represents a thank-offering for gifts received, accompanied by the expectation of future blessings” (p. 99).
23. On the issues involved in dating the letter, see Roetzel, Letters of Paul, 113.
24. So Rapske, Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody, 209–19.
25. Carolyn Osiek notes: “The second piece of would-be economic language, repeated at the end of verse 17, is ‘in the matter of’ (eis logon), which can technically mean ‘into the account of’ (NRSV: ‘to your account’). The third is ‘giving and receiving’ (dosis kai lēmpsis), meaning regular exchange or debits and credits (see Sir 41:19 [42:11 LXX]; 42:7). Another is the ‘profit’ or ‘return’ or therefore ‘interest’ (literally, ‘fruit,’ karpos) that accrues to their account because of their gift in verse 17. Yet another is apechō, ‘I have been paid in full,’ the language of a business receipt in verse 18. Taken all together, they present a formidable set of formal financial language, all of which is well attested in business documents” (Philippians, Philemon, 121). Jean-Baptiste Edart (following Wettstein) cites Cicero, Lael. 58, to the effect that one “popular view” of Roman friendship involved balanced, reciprocal economic relations (L’Épître aux Philippiens, 314–15). Cicero objects to this “popular view,” not on the grounds that friendship excludes reciprocal economic exchange, but that is excludes strict accounting practices that would reduce it to a mercantile relationship. He states, “It surely is calling friendship to a very close and petty accounting to require it to keep an exact balance of credits and debits” (ratio acceptorum et datorum; translation of William Falconer, Cicero: De senectute, de amicitia, de divinatione [LCL; London: Heinemann, and New York: Putnam, 1930 [1923], 169).
26. Julien Ogereau has recently objected to the view that Paul was united in a gift exchange relationship with the Philippians, postulating instead that they had formed a societas evangelii in which the Philippians provided funding and Paul provided labor to perpetuate the latter’s mission (Paul’s Koinonia with the Philippians). Despite the excellent work that Ogereau has performed in illuminating the socioeconomic context of Paul’s language, the thesis has serious problems: (1) in the examples that he adduces, societas unius rei is inaugurated in situations in which some material gain is envisioned (i.e., sale of goods or services, joint ownership of land, resources, or an estate; cp. pp. 337–38); no parallels are adduced in which the “gain” envisioned is ideological and social (i.e., spreading a message or philosophy); (2) any (necessarily unilateral, cp. p. 342) Philippian contribution to the society’s joint account would have assumed the character of a donation, as it would have gone directly to Paul’s own upkeep and maintenance; (3) the karpos (“fruit” or “profit”) mentioned in Phil 4:17 is said to accrue to “your account,” that is, that of the Philippians specifically, and not to a joint account as Ogereau’s thesis requires (Phil 4:19, not 1:22, glosses the character of the “fruit” mentioned in v. 17); (4) the thesis does not explain why Paul should liken the Philippian contribution to a “gift to God” in the form of a sacrifice in 4:18, or why the theme of a divine countergift should be introduced in 4:19. Here as elsewhere, Paul introduces language implying obligatory payment into what in actuality were elective reciprocal exchanges (cp. 1 Cor 9:1–18; 2 Cor 8–9; Rom 15:27).
27. Downs discusses texts in which Paul uses cultic language to describe his collection of funds for the Jerusalem church (Offering of the Gentiles, 120–60). He views the cultic language as a means of subverting the ideology of the patronage system (pp. 134; 138; 141–43; 145, n. 84; 158). Harrison, on the other hand, correctly notes that religious ritual (and consequently, cultic language) is built on the ideas of benefaction and reciprocity: “People initiated a relationship with the gods in the hope of reciprocal favour. By observing the proper cultic rites in honour of the gods, human beings might secure the gods’ favour. A bond of mutual obligation—initially founded in the gods’ acceptance of the rites—ensued, with the suppliant adopting a grateful disposition towards the gods, and the gods reciprocating with favours and gratitude to those who had demonstrated the requisite piety” (Paul’s Language of Grace, 53). Greco-Roman religion, including that of Paul, is construed in terms of patronal reciprocity (cp. Blanton, “De caelo patrocinium.”)
28. Gordon Fee argues that the line refers both to an “eschatological referent” and to material wealth (Paul’s Letter, 452 and n. 19). Similarly Peter O’Brien: “By stating that God will supply the Philippians’ every need, the apostle not only echoes the immediately preceding context and refers to their material needs, but also and more significantly he focusses on . . . the fulfilling of their spiritual needs” (Epistle to the Philippians, 543).
29. Fee aptly summarizes Paul’s rhetoric: “Although he cannot reciprocate in kind, since their gift had the effect of being a sweet-smelling sacrifice, pleasing to God, Paul assures them that God, whom he deliberately designates as “my God,” will assume responsibility for reciprocity. . . . They obviously have the better of it!” (Paul’s Letter, 452).
30. For these dates, see Roetzel, Letters of Paul, 116–17; Meeks and Fitzgerald, eds., Writings of St. Paul, 95–96.
31. The reason for Onesimus’s presence in the prison with Paul has been the subject of debate. For overviews of the discussion, see Osiek, Philippians, Philemon, 126–31; Barth and Blanke, Letter to Philemon, 141–42, 227–28; Dunn, The Epistles, 301–7; Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 181–82. Peter Lampe, (“Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ des Onesimus” and “Paul, Patrons, and Clients”) understands Philemon as a clemency letter. Sara C. Winter views the letter as a request by Paul for the manumission of Onesimus so that he might assist him in his missionary endeavors (“Paul’s Letter to Philemon” and “Methodological Observations”).
32. The location of the addressees cannot be established with any certainty. The mention of Onesimus in Col 4:7 has led some to the conclusion that he and Philemon were located there. However, uncertainties about the authorship of Colossians render this evidence dubious (see Meeks and Fitzgerald, eds., Writings of St. Paul, 95–96; Roetzel, Letters of Paul, 116–17).
33. Winter notes that the formula parakalein tini peri tinos used in v. 10 can be construed as a request for Onesimus (i.e., that he be allowed to serve Paul), the preposition peri signaling the object of the request (“Paul’s Letter,” 6–7). Scott S. Elliott (“‘Thanks but No Thanks’”) takes a contrary view, arguing that, in sending Onesimus back to Philemon, “Paul is returning a gift of patronage to his would-be patron, [and] his expressions of reluctance and the wish that he could keep Onesimus for himself can be read as a rather clever way of saying, ‘Thanks, but no thanks’” (i.e., he does not wish to retain Onesimus’s services) (p. 59). Although I agree that Paul resists any implication that Philemon could be construed as his patron—in fact, Paul assumes the opposite (v. 19; cp. the use of the language of command and obedience in vv. 8 and 21 and the imperative of v. 22)—vv. 13–14 imply that Paul wishes to retain the slave’s service in some capacity but refuses to humiliate Philemon by commanding it.
34. For overviews, see Barth and Blanke, Letter to Philemon, 200–224; Dunn, The Epistles, 299–307; Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 181–82; Callahan, Embassy of Onesimus, 1–19.
35. Dunn, The Epistles, 340, writes, “It is universally inferred that the obligation referred to is Philemon’s conversion under Paul’s ministry (cp. Rom 15:27).” More recently, Douglas Moo (Letters to Colossians and Philemon, 430–31) writes: “What Paul means by saying that Philemon owes him his very ‘self’ (seauton) is that Philemon is in debt to Paul for his eternal life. Paul was used by God in Philemon’s conversion. . . . In light of this infinite debt that Philemon owes to Paul, he should have no hesitation in accepting Paul’s offer to cover Onesimus’ debts.” It is clear, however, that the “benefit” for which Paul asks (employing the verb oninēmi) in v. 20 refers to more than his offer to cover Onesimus’s debts. Paul’s reference to his “heart” in v. 20b recalls v. 12, where he referred to Onesimus in identical terms. By implicitly recalling his affection for Onesimus in v. 20, Paul reminds Philemon of his request that Onesimus, Paul’s “heart,” might be allowed to serve him during his imprisonment (v. 13).
36. BDAG, s.v. hyper, A.1.c, supports this rendering of the prepositional phrase (cp. also Harald Riesenfeld, TDNT 8:512–13). Daniel Wallace (Greek Grammar, 384–87) adduces ample evidence for the use of hyper with the genitive as “bearing a substitutionary force” in Koine Greek. It encroaches on semantic territory reserved for the preposition anti in Attic Greek.
1. The first three topics are treated in Sevenster, Paul and Seneca. For more recent treatments, see Vining, “Comparing Seneca’s Ethics”; Malherbe, “Hellenistic Moralists”; Hartog, “‘Not Even among the Pagans’”; James P. Ware, “Moral Progress and Divine Power in Seneca and Paul,” in Fitzgerald, ed., Passions and Moral Progress, 267–83; Horn, “Der Zeitbegriff der antiken Moralphilosophie,” 132–34; Joubert, “‘Homo reciprocus’”; Engberg-Pedersen, “Gift-Giving and Friendship”; Engberg-Pedersen, “Gift-Giving and God’s Charis.” On the fourth century CE pseudepigraphic correspondence between Paul and Seneca, see Cornelia Römer, “The Correspondence between Seneca and Paul,” in Schneemelcher, Hennecke, and Wilson, eds., New Testament Apocrypha, 2:46–53; Elliott, Apocryphal New Testament, 547–53.
2. Bourdieu, Logic of Practice, 69.
3. Biographies of Seneca include Griffin, Seneca, and Veyne, Seneca. For a recent English translation of De Beneficiis with notes and introduction, see Griffin and Inwood, Lucius Annaeus Seneca. Other discussions include Griffin, “Seneca as a Sociologist”; Griffin, “De Beneficiis and Roman Society”; Dixon, “Meaning of Gift and Debt.”
4. A small sampling of the vast literature on reciprocity in Greek and Roman societies includes Wallace-Hadrill, ed., Patronage in Ancient Society; Veyne, Bread and Circuses; Saller, Personal Patronage; Gouldner, “Norm of Reciprocity”; Gellner and Waterbury, eds., Patrons and Clients; Gill, Postlethwaite, and Seaford, eds., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece.
5. Compare Saller, Personal Patronage, 29.
6. Griffin and Inwood, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 2.
7. Griffin, “Seneca as Sociologist,” 115.
8. The analogy between gift-giving and the ball game, like the analogies of the Graces (Ben. 1.3.4–1.4.1) and the foot race (2.25.3), Seneca owes to Chrysippus, who, Griffin and Inwood note, was a long-distance runner before becoming a philosopher (Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 195, n. 26).
9. All translations of Seneca’s De Beneficiis in this chapter are those of Griffin and Inwood, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, in some cases slightly modified.
10. The seminal article on bookkeeping in Greece and Rome is that of de Ste. Croix, “Greek and Roman Accounting.”
11. Brad Inwood (“Politics and Paradox”) argues that Seneca employs the paradox between the view of gift-giving as disinterested (i.e., the giver has no desire to receive a countergift) and as interested (a gift is given on the basis of calculations as to the possibility of the donee returning a countergift) as a means of mediating between the lofty moral ideals of Stoicism and the “realities of giving morally based advice to real and imperfect people” (p. 265). Inwood overlooks the fact, however, that even the lofty moral ideal of disinterested giving itself constitutes a gift-giving strategy designed (paradoxically) to maximize the probability of a reciprocal interaction. Thus the polarity between the disinterested ideals of the Stoic sage and the interested acts of “ordinary people” (p. 253) collapses; the disinterested ideal masks interest. On the “interest in disinterestedness” that characterizes many gift-giving systems, see Bourdieu, Practical Reason, 75–123.
12. As argued by Lampe, “Keine ‘Sklavenflucht’ des Onesimus” and “Paul, Patrons, and Clients,” 501–2. Sara C. Winter argues that the letter implies a request by Paul for the manumission of Onesimus so that he might assist him in his missionary endeavors (“Paul’s Letter to Philemon” and “Methodological Observations”).
13. A third possibility, that Onesimus had been arrested and imprisoned in the same jail in which Paul was spending time, is impossible: had Onesimus been arrested and jailed, Paul would have lacked the authority to “send him back” to Philemon (v. 12). Nevertheless, the view still finds its supporters (Roetzel, Letters of Paul, 116–17). For overviews of the various possibilities, see Osiek, Philippians, Philemon, 126–31; Dunn, The Epistles, 301–7; Thurston and Ryan, Philippians and Philemon, 181–82. Brian Rapske critiques the various views and finds additional support to bolster Lampe’s thesis (“The Prisoner Paul”).
14. Paul writes: “I am appealing to you for my child” (v. 10 NRSV).
15. Translations of New Testament passages in this and subsequent chapters are my own unless indicated otherwise. Peter Müller argues that vv. 18–19 interrupt the argument in which v. 20 logically follows v. 17, and so constitute a “juristischer Einschub” or excursus (Der Brief an Philemon, 130–31). The digression is a well-crafted rhetorical gesture, however, as indicated by Paul’s use of the figure of paraleipsis in v. 19 (on which, see n. 17 below). Moreover, vv. 18–19 remove a potential obstacle (i.e., Onesimus’s indebtedness to Philemon) and provide positive grounds (i.e., Philemon’s indebtedness to Paul) for Philemon’s acquiescence to Paul’s requests in vv. 17 and 20 and for Paul’s “confidence” expressed in v. 21.
16. Paul’s use of economic terms is discussed in Osiek, Philippians, Philemon, 121–22; Dunn writes of v. 17: “Somewhat surprisingly Paul now switches his appeal to a sustained commercial metaphor (vv. 17–19)” (The Epistles, 336). Julian Ogereau outlined the commercial context of the term synergos (v. 1) in his paper “Business Partnership Among the First Christians? The Funding of the Pauline Mission,” delivered in the Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy section at the SBL annual meeting, San Francisco, Nov. 22, 2011; see also his massive study Paul’s Koinonia.
17. On the rhetorical figure paraleipsis, see Smyth, Greek Grammar, §3036.
18. So Dunn, The Epistles, 340: “It is universally inferred that the obligation referred to is Philemon’s conversion under Paul’s ministry (cp. Rom 15:27).” Similarly, Douglas Moo, in Letters to Colossians and Philemon, 430: “What Paul means by saying that Philemon owes him his very ‘self’ (seauton) is that Philemon is in debt to Paul for his eternal life. Paul was used by God in Philemon’s conversion.”
19. On mediators, or “brokers” of patronage in the Roman empire, see Saller, Personal Patronage, 35, 43, 48–51, 59, 75–76; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, “Patronage in Roman Society: From Republic to Empire,” in Wallace-Hadrill, ed., Patronage in Ancient Society, 81–84. On Jesus’ role as mediator of divine benefaction in the New Testament, see Malina, “Patron and Client”; Neyrey, “God, Benefactor and Patron”; Lampe, “Paul, Patrons, and Clients.” On Paul’s self-presentation as a mediator of divine gifts, see Jennings, “Patronage and Rebuke”; Briones, “Mutual Brokers of Grace.”
20. Incidentally, Seneca warns against the use of mediators when giving gifts: “So if you want your gifts to be thought of with gratitude, take care that they get to the people to whom they are promised intact and undiminished, with no ‘deduction’ having been made. Don’t let anyone intervene; don’t let anyone slow them down. When you are going to give something, no one can earn any gratitude without reducing yours” (Ben. 2.4.3).
21. For the category of “sinners,” see Rom 5:8, 19; Gal 2:15, 17. On the eschatological “destruction” of members of that group, see Rom 9:22; Phil 1:28; 3:19; 1 Thess 5:3. Paul apparently does not think that there is an afterlife for the wicked; they simply cease to exist—destroyed in the apocalyptic judgment (cp. Wis 5:9–14; contrast the fate of the righteous, who “live forever,” Wis 5:15).
22. As noted in chapter 2 herein, “Paul is willing to charge to his own account any debt incurred by Onesimus (v. 18). Paul indicates that he is creditworthy; he will repay the debt (v. 19). Philemon’s account, however, stands in the red, as he owes Paul an unrepayable debt: his own life, or ‘self’ (v. 19).” Dunn’s (The Epistles, 339) assumption that Paul, although a man of “little independent means,” “would be able to call on wealthy backers . . . should the IOU be called in” is unnecessary, as is the related view of Peter Müller that, since Paul had little money, his statement must have been made in jest (Der Brief an Philemon, 130). Paul’s rhetoric effectively removes the possibility that Philemon should “call in the IOU”: any amount to be charged to Paul’s account on Onesimus’s behalf would fall far short of the unrepayable debt that Philemon owed Paul, which amounted to the value of his very life. Carolyn Osiek (“Politics of Patronage”) astutely refers to v. 19 as a “reminder that Philemon owes Paul considerably more than Onesimus owes Philemon, or that Paul is asking of Philemon. Thus Philemon, while expected to reciprocate, remains pitiably in even greater debt to Paul, the gracious giver . . . [H]e will never catch up and attain parity with Paul, and this is the whole point” (p. 148). So also John Barclay: “The transparent rhetorical device of praeteritio . . . is here used to transform Philemon’s position from creditor to debtor and to put him under a limitless moral obligation to comply with Paul’s requests” (“Paul, Philemon, and the Dilemma,” esp. 171–72).
23. So Müller, Der Brief an Philemon, 115–16.
24. NRSV.
25. It is possible, although less likely, that Paul was implicitly requesting the manumission of Onesimus, as argued by Callahan, Embassy of Onesimus. The verb phrase that Paul uses in v. 13, hina . . . moi diakonē (“in order that he might be of service to me”) is, however, an appropriate description of a slave’s labor. Moreover, in 1 Cor 7:21–24, Paul seems more interested in perpetuating the social status quo than in upsetting it. On the tensions involved between early Christian fictive kinship and the “practical reality” of slavery, see Barclay, “Paul, Philemon, and the Dilemma.”
26. So Lohse, Colossians and Philemon, 202 and n. 49; Winter, “Paul’s Letter to Philemon,” 1–15; Winter, “Methodological Observations,” 203–12.
27. So Dunn, The Epistles, 331.
28. On Seneca’s biography, see Griffin, Seneca, 29–128; Veyne, Seneca, 1–29. The following discussion draws heavily from Griffin.
29. Seneca or his father owned a suburban Roman villa; later in his career, Seneca the Younger acquired estates at Nomentum, Albanum, and Egypt. Griffin cautiously accepts Rostovtzeff’s conjecture that the Egyptian estates were gifts of Nero. It is certain that Seneca acquired the villa at Nomentum during Nero’s reign (Griffin, Seneca, 286–89). Tacitus has Seneca refer to the pecunia and lands given to him by Nero in his resignation speech in 62 CE (Ann. 14.53.5–6). Seneca was further enriched by the interest he received from loans in Italy and the provinces (Ann. 13.42.4). On the contradictions involved in a Stoic philosopher amassing great wealth, see Griffin, Seneca, 286–314.
30. Tacitus, Ann. 13.42, discussed in Griffin, Seneca, 291. A word of caution is in order: Walter Scheidel argues that figures that are powers of ten and multiples of thirty and forty are best understood as “purely conventional valuations” (“Finances,” 222). Suillius’s figure cited by Tacitus is stereotypical (Scheidel, “Finances,” see Table 2, p. 231: “Private Fortunes”).
31. Scheidel and Friesen, “Size of the Economy,” esp. 75–81 and Table 10, p. 85.
32. On Paul’s trade as a leatherworker and the low social esteem in which craftsmen were held in the Roman world, see Hock, Social Context of Paul’s Ministry.
33. For an attempt to reconstruct Paul’s itinerary, including estimates of time spent in transit, see Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: His Story, passim; Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life, 1–31.
34. The verb translated “to be sent on one’s way” (propemphthēnai), implies a request for travel funding or supplies (BDAG, s.v. propempō).
35. Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 350. In a subsequent article (“Prospects for a Demography,” esp. 368), Friesen categorizes Paul on the lowest economic rungs (PS6–PS7; the latter indicating an inability “regularly [to] procure the amount of food necessary to sustain the human body”). Despite some quibbles, Longenecker largely depends on Friesen’s economic analysis in Remember the Poor, 298–332.
36. Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 350.
37. On the problems caused in Corinth by the admixture of fractions representing differing economic levels, see Marshall, Enmity; Chow, Patronage and Power; Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 348–50; Friesen, “Prospects for a Demography,” 367.
38. Some of Seneca’s statements indicate that gift-giving should be motivated by altruism: “The bookkeeping for benefits is quite simple. A certain amount is dispersed; if there is any repayment at all, then it is a profit. If there is no repayment, then it is not a loss. I gave it only in order to give” (Ben. 1.2.3; cp. 2.6.2; 2.9.1–2.10.3; 4.13.3). His later qualifications, however, indicate that such statements are hyperbolic: “Do you want to repay the benefit? Accept it with a kindly attitude; you have returned the favor. Not that you should think that you have paid off the debt, but so that you may be indebted with a greater sense of confidence” (2.35.5). Likewise: “And so, although we can say that he who has willingly received a benefit has returned it [i.e., through his gratitude], we nevertheless urge him to give back to the donor something similar to what he has received” (2.35.1). Griffin (“De Beneficiis and Roman Society,” 94) views statements in the former category as examples of the Stoic rhetorical method of making exaggerated ethical demands in the hope that, although falling short of perfection, people might at least arrive nearer the goal when prompted by lofty ideals (for a similar view, see Inwood, “Politics and Paradox,” 241–65). Seneca notes: “Hyperbole never expects to attain all that it aspires to; instead, it claims the unbelievable in order to secure the believable” (Ben. 7.23.2).
39. Saller, Personal Patronage, 1, 10–17; cp. also Saller, “Patronage and Friendship,” 49.
40. On the socially hierarchizing function of asymmetrical gift-giving, see Blau, Exchange and Power, 106–12, who notes: “A person who gives others valuable gifts or renders them important services makes a claim for superior status by obligating them to himself. If they fail to reciprocate with benefits that are at least as important to him as his are to them, they validate his claim to superior status” (p. 108).
41. Arnaldo Momigliano and Tim Cornell note: “Ordinary clients supported their patron (patronus) in political and private life, and demonstrated their loyalty and respect by going to his house to greet him each morning . . . and attending him when he went out. The size of a man’s clientele, and the wealth and status of his individual clients, were a visible testimony to his prestige and social standing” (OCD, s.v. cliens).
42. Citing Seneca’s De Vita Beata 24.2, Saller notes: “Because friends were so strongly obliged to return favors, all beneficia distributed to them were felt to be insurance against misfortune since in time of need they could be called in. As Seneca says, a beneficium should be stored away like a buried treasure (thensaurus), ‘which you would not dig up, except from necessity.’ The recipient, on the other hand, should be content to guard the beneficium until a time of need” (Personal Patronage, 25).
43. Seneca’s gift-giving strategy did prove effective; his beneficence was praised (albeit after his death in 65 CE) by both Martial and Juvenal. Martial (Ep. 12.36) addresses Labullus as a relatively liberal patron during times of illiberality: “To tell the truth, you’re the best of a bad lot. Give me back the Pisos and the Senecas and the Memmiuses and the Crispuses, or their predecessors: you will immediately become the worst of a good lot.” Translation of D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Martial: Epigrams (3 vols., LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993). Juvenal (Satire 5.107–11) romanticizes days past, when patrons like Seneca lavishly dispensed gifts: “No one asks for the gifts sent to his humble friends by Seneca, the gifts good Piso and Cotta used to dispense. In those days, you know, the glory of giving (donandi gloria) was prized more highly than titles and symbols of office.” Translation of Susanna Morton Braund, Juvenal and Persius (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
44. See n. 38 above on Seneca’s use of hyperbole.
45. It is to the extraordinarily wealthy that Seneca’s gift-giving advice is directed. Aubutius Liberalis, to whom De Beneficiis is dedicated, was himself a wealthy benefactor, perhaps of equestrian rank (Griffin, Seneca, 455–56).
46. Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 353–54; Friesen, “Prospects for a Demography,” 368, places Philemon at level 4 (moderate surplus of resources) or 5 (stable near subsistence) on his poverty scale; Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 245, concurs.
47. Benefits mentioned in the letter include Philemon’s hosting the assembly in his household (v. 2) and Paul in a guest room (v. 22). For Paul’s view that “love” is manifested through gift-giving, see 1 Cor 8:8, where he refers to the collection for the Jerusalem assembly.
48. On households (such as Philemon’s) as the “Basiselemente” and “Keimzellen” of early Christian mission, see Müller, Der Brief an Philemon, 48.
49. Julien Ogereau (“Jerusalem Collection”) has recently focused attention on Paul’s use of koinōnia and its cognates (cp. also his “Business Partnership Among the First Christians?”); Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia.
50. Proponents of an “egalitarian” view of early Christian communities include Ehrensperger, Paul and the Dynamics of Power; Welborn, “‘That There May Be Equality’”; Briones, “Mutual Brokers of Grace”; Barclay, “Manna and the Circulation of Grace”; Ogereau, “Jerusalem Collection.”
51. That Paul construes himself as standing in a hierarchical relation with respect to the communities that he founds is conceded in Briones (“Mutual Brokers of Grace,” 555): “This is not to deny Paul’s apostolic authority, especially when he is, in many ways, superior to the Corinthians. . . . But his mutual dependency on the Corinthians should challenge any view that considers his authority over and mutuality with his churches an either-or option. The two are undeniably inseparable.” Mutuality should not be confused with egalitarianism, however. Both authority and hierarchy presuppose the agreement and cooperation of subordinates. For analyses of the social dynamic involved, see Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 197–223; Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 131–59; Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 163–70.
52. Note that Paul makes the issue semipublic by addressing not just Philemon, but the ecclesial functionaries Apphia and Archippus, as well as the assembly that meets in Philemon’s household (vv. 1–3).
53. Peter Stuhlmacher observes: “Dementsprechend deutet Paulus hier mit dem sonst bei ihm ungebrä uchlichen, massiven epitassein die Mölichkeit einer definitiven Anordnung an und weist in V 19 darauf hin, daß Philemon seine christliche Existenz dem Apostel verdankt (also ihm gegenüber besondere Verpflichtungen hat)” (Der Brief an Philemon, 37). Chris Frilingos (“‘For My Child’”) offers a perceptive analysis of Paul’s use of the language of authority in the letter.
54. Translation of Walsh, Pliny the Younger; Latin text in Radice, Pliny: Letters and Panegyricus (2 vols., LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, and London: Heinemann, 1969).
55. NRSV.
56. So BDAG, s.v. xenia.
57. For an analysis of the early Christian assemblies (albeit in Corinth, not Colossae) in terms of patronage practices, see Chow, Patronage and Power.
58. For a more detailed treatment of the “heavenly patronage” depicted in Apuleius, see Blanton, “De caelo patrocinium.”
59. Text and translation in J. Arthur Hanson, Apuleius: Metamorphoses (2 vols., LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989).
60. Compare Stuhlmacher: “Philemon ist verpflichtet, dem Apostel in der Mission zu dienen” (Der Brief an Philemon, 50).
61. Briones, “Mutual Brokers of Grace,” 553. Barclay’s formulation: “Paul backs off from making himself patron of the churches, anticipating instead a mutual patronage, where each will have something to contribute to the other” (“Manna and the Circulation of Grace,” 424).
62. For the view that Paul’s letters accord a “material exchange value” to “nonmaterial, discursive products, such as the promise of deliverance from an eschatological judgment imagined to be imminent,” see chapter 2 herein. See also Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an Philemon, 50–51 and n. 126.
63. Saller, “Patronage and Friendship,” 51–52, 60–61 (quoted). Saller cites Proculus’s comments in Justinian’s Digest 49.15.7.1.
64. Saller has pointed out that the terms patronus and cliens were often avoided, as it was viewed as unseemly to call attention to the asymmetry involved in such relationships, which were often euphemized as “friendship” (amicitia) rather than patronal relations (Personal Patronage, 8–11). Although the Greek equivalents of patronus (euergetēs, sōtēr, or the loanword patrōn) and of cliens (pelatēs; cp. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Ant. Rom. 1.83.3; Plutarch, Romulus 13) do not appear in Paul’s letter to Philemon, Osiek (“Politics of Patronage,” 147) notes: “[A word of] caution should be raised against the assumption that if the usual language for patronage is not present, neither is the social construct to which it refers.” It is Paul’s language of debt and obligation (Phlm 19), as well as Paul’s paternal language (v. 10), that establishes the patronal context. On the “debt” owed by a recipient to the giver of a gift, see Dixon, “Meaning of Gift and Debt,” 451–64. On the patron as “father,” see Neyrey, “God, Benefactor and Patron,” 468, 471–72.
65. Since Paul’s rhetoric and practice both mimic and invert aspects of Roman patronage, Steven Friesen’s argument that Paul attempts to avoid patronage practices seems unwarranted (“Paul and Economics”). Paul neither wholly adopts nor unequivocally rejects Roman patronage practices; he modifies and adapts them to the local conditions of particular house-churches.
66. Schütz, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority, passim (on Philemon, see 221–24); Polaski, Paul and the Discourse of Power, 23–51.
1. Mauss, The Gift.
2. Carrier, “Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations”; Carrier, “Gift in Theory and Practice”; Carrier, “Emerging Alienation in Production.”
3. Herrmann, “Gift or Commodity.”
4. Herrmann, “Gift or Commodity,” 910.
5. Miller, “Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid.”
6. I define “commodity” as any good that is exchanged (sold or bartered) under the conditions of market transaction and “gift” as any good that is exchanged under nonmercantile conditions. Arjun Appadurai’s (“Introduction”) use of the term “commodity” to apply to goods or services exchanged in both mercantile and gift-giving contexts unduly broadens the meaning of the term; however, Appadurai’s point that commodities are not unique to capitalist economic systems is well taken.
7. Mauss, The Gift, esp. 1–14, 39–43.
8. Mauss, The Gift, 33–39.
9. Mauss, The Gift, 47–83.
10. Mauss, The Gift, 67.
11. Carrier acknowledges a debt to Gregory (Gifts and Commodities) in his use of Marxian categories to explicate Mauss; “Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations,” 122.
12. Carrier, “Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations,” 122.
13. Carrier, “Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations,” 132.
14. Hermann, “Gift or Commodity,” 910–11.
15. Hermann, “Gift or Commodity,” 918.
16. Hermann, “Gift or Commodity,” 920.
17. Hermann, “Gift or Commodity,” 919. The idea that the status of a particular good as “gift” or “commodity” may change over time, and on that basis can be said to have a “life history” or “cultural biography,” is to be credited to Igor Kopytoff (“Cultural Biography of Things”).
18. Miller, “Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid,” 18–50.
19. Miller, “Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid,” 42.
20. The model proposed here differs significantly from that of Ronald F. Hock, who bases his model on parallels with Cynic philosophers (Social Context of Paul’s Ministry, 52–59). Hock proposes four modes of support: charging fees for lectures, becoming the client of a wealthy politician or merchant, begging, and working to earn a living. There is, however, no evidence in the first century CE that Christian evangelists garnered economic support through charging fees for lectures or by begging. Gerd Theissen incorrectly identifies the practice of hospitality (see text above, mode no. 1) as a form of “begging” (Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, 31). Beggars were offered handouts in a public space, not granted room and board. A. E. Harvey notes the absence of any reference to the pēra, or beggar’s pouch (as worn by Cynics) in the missionary’s list of approved travel accouterments in Mark 6:8 and parallels (“‘Workman Is Worthy,’” 218). There is clear evidence that some evangelists worked a trade to earn money, and there is some overlap between early Christian hospitality and the patron-client relationship. Thus Hock’s typology provides at best two models of early Christian economic support for ecclesial functionaries; it overlooks several important modes of support, which appear in the text below. On finances in Pauline assemblies, see also Datiri, “Finances in the Pauline Churches”; Briones, Paul’s Financial Policy; Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia; see chapter 2 n. 26 herein for criticisms of Ogereau’s thesis.
21. Luke 10:5–7 reads: “Into whichever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ And if there is a ‘son of peace’ there, your peace will remain upon him. But if not, it will return to you. Remain in that house, eating and drinking what they provide, for the worker deserves his wage.” Note that the symmetry of the gift exchange, in which the evangelist’s blessing (“peace”) upon the household is recompensed by food, drink, and temporary lodging, is broken by the last line, which constitutes a discursive attempt to shift from the gift exchange mode into the mode of business and commodity. The Matthean version of the saying does not attempt to shift the practice into commodity mode; it avoids the use of the term misthos, “wage.” Instead, it reads “The worker deserves his nourishment” (trophē; Matt 10:10). In the Gospel of Matthew, the gift mode is emphasized (10:8): “You have received freely, give freely.”
22. Josephus (J.W. 2.8.4, §125): “On the arrival of any of the (Essene) sect from elsewhere, all the resources of the community are put at their disposal, just as if they were their own; and they enter the houses of men whom they have never seen before as though they were their most intimate friends” (translation of H. St. J. Thackeray in LCL 203: Josephus: The Jewish War 2:370). For overviews, see John Koenig, “Hospitality,” ABD 3:299–301; Fitzgerald, “Hospitality.” For the Roman context, see Nicols, “Hospitium and Political Friendship”; Nicols, “Hospitality Among the Romans”; Nicols, “Practice of Hospitium.”
23. Davies and Allison, Gospel According to St. Matthew, 2:626–27. The Greek form Cephas derives from the Aramaic kephā’.
24. John Nicols notes that the phrases hospes atque cliens (“guest-client”) and patroni atque hospites (“patron-hosts” or “patron-guests”) are attested (“Hospitium and Political Friendship,” 101). Both Marshall (Enmity in Corinth, 143–47) and Chow (Patronage and Power) interpret the situation in Corinth in relation to patronage practices. On the indignities suffered by clients, see Lucian of Samosata, “On Salaried Posts in Great Houses” (A. M. Harmon, Lucian [LCL; London: Heinemann, and New York: Putnam, 1921], 3:412–81).
25. OCD, s.v. “Friendship, ritualized,” 611–13 (612).
26. If the term timē in 1 Tim 5:17 refers to an honorarium or stipend, it would appear that by the early second century CE, some Christian functionaries had begun to receive pay in monetary form. However, there is no evidence for such a practice in the first century.
27. For a discussion of the relation of early Christian missionaries to their hosts and the modifications that the relation entails visà-vis patron-client relations, see chapter 7 herein.
28. Rom 16:1–2; Florence Gillman, “Phoebe,” ABD 5:348–49.
29. Acts 13:1–3; Gal 2:1; Jon Daniels, “Barnabas,” ABD 1:610–11.
30. As, for example, in Acts 15:1–5.
31. So BDAG, s.v. propempō.
32. The standard work on Paul’s occupation as leatherworker remains Hock, Social Context. On Paul’s association with Priscilla (or Priska) and Aquila, see Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life, 261.
33. So Hock, Social Context, 37–42.
34. A possible sixth mode may be mentioned. Independently wealthy individuals who commanded the necessary resources could travel and preach at their own expense. Although the book of Acts may portray Paul in this light (if one is to suppose that he rents at his own expense an Ephesian lecture hall in which to speak in Acts 19:9–10, as some commentators assume), it is unlikely that the picture is accurate, as it conflicts with the apostle’s own statements as to his relative impoverishment (on Paul’s economic location, see chapter 3 herein). Acts appears to have systematically distorted its picture of Paul to make him appear far wealthier than he actually was. In view of the likelihood that few, if any, members of early Christian communities commanded more than a moderate surplus of resources (Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies” and “Prospects for a Demography”), it is unlikely that this mode was practiced in the first century CE.
35. OCD, s.v. “Friendship, ritualized,” 612.
36. That the pronouncement of “peace” was more then a simple greeting is clearly indicated by Luke 10:6. On the Matthean parallel in Matt 10:13, Davies and Allison write, “Peace is here spoken of as though it had an objective existence and as though it were subject to the disciples’ commands” (Gospel According to St. Matthew, 2:176).
37. Lucian, “On Salaried Posts,” §§4–6, 10–11, 13, 20–21, 24, 36, 38; Martial, Epigrams 3.7, 60; 4.26, 68; 10:27; 14.125. Early in the Roman imperial period, the standard payment was twenty-five asses (so Ernst Badian, OCD, s.v. salutatio).
38. On the charges to which Paul responds, see Senft, La Première Épitre, 117–20. Senft, however, does not clearly distinguish the literal use of misthos, “salary” or “wage,” from the practice of providing room and board (i.e., hospitality; cp. his comments on vv. 14 and 18, pp. 121–22). In view of 1 Cor 9:4 (“Do we not have the right to eat and drink?”) and the use of the term opsōnion, which refers to a soldier’s provisions (Caragounis, “OPSŌNION”), the latter is more likely at issue in 1 Cor 9. Note that in 9:17, Paul uses the term misthos in the context of a counterfactual statement, and in v. 18, his misthos, “payment,” is that he gives away the gospel free of charge. Neither verse provides evidence that he was offered a “salary” in Corinth (see also Caragounis, “OPSŌNION,” 52–53).
39. Joseph A. Fitzmyer (First Corinthians, 353–54), Richard B. Hays (First Corinthians, 146–49), Helmut Merklein (Der erste Brief, 2:211, 217), Wolfgang Schrage (Der erste Brief, 2:278–83), and Christian Wolff (Der erste Brief, 184–85) note that the use of the term exousia as well as the reference to “food and drink” serve to link the contents of 1 Cor 9 with the discussion of the “rights” of members of the Corinthian assemblies to eat meat that had originated in sacrifices to Greco-Roman deities, discussed in 1 Cor 8 and 10 (esp. 8:9). For additional links between 1 Cor 9 and its immediate context, see Willis, “An Apostolic Apologia?” Willis overplays his hand when he denies that Paul responds to criticism in the chapter, as 9:3 clearly indicates.
40. On “expenses,” see Caragounis, “OPSŌNION,” 52.
41. Although NA28 sets the phrase “the one who plows should plow” in italics, indicating that it is a quotation, that is unlikely, since no known text includes the statement. More likely, the verse glosses the meaning of Deut 25:4 by extending it to other agricultural roles (so Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 364; Fee, First Epistle, 409, n. 68; otherwise Schrage, Der erste Brief, 302).
42. Paul Millett, OCD, s.v. “wages.”
43. The distinction between human and divine authority is implied in 1 Cor 9:8: “I am not saying these things on human authority; does not the law itself say them?”
44. So Schrage (Der erste Brief, 303, n. 152), who points to similar agrarian metaphors in 1 Cor 3:6–8 and Mark 4:3–9.
45. On the exchangeability of “spiritual” and material things in Paul’s discourse and practice, see chapter 2 herein.
46. Cp. Luke 10:7; Matt 10:10.
47. Harry Nasuti writes: “Instead of receiving a misthos, Paul claims to have been entrusted with a stewardship (oikonomia). When seen solely from the perspective of its involuntary origins, it is not entirely clear why such an oikonomia should rule out a misthos” (“Woes of the Prophets,” 259). The reason is that oikonomoi (stewards or household administrators) were often slaves (see Stegemann and Stegemann, Jesus Movement, 45–46, commenting on Luke 16:1–9).
48. The term “gain” (kerdainō) bears strong economic connotations, even though, as BDAG (s.v. kerdainō, 1b), Fitzmyer (First Corinthians, 368–69), and others point out, it is often used to refer to the result of missionary activity in terms of “gaining” adherents within the context of a religious movement.
49. Similarly Gordon Fee: “Since [Paul] is under ‘compulsion,’ he cannot receive ‘pay,’ for ‘pay’ implies voluntary labor. His labor has been ‘involuntary’ in the sense of v. 16, that divine destiny has prescribed his task—he is a slave entrusted with a charge (v. 17)” (First Epistle, 415).
50. Broneer, “Isthmian Victory Crown”; Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth, 106. Both pine and celery were used in the Isthmian games at different periods.
51. Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth, 12–15.
52. Paul also compares himself favorably with a different group of evangelists in 2 Cor 11:21b–33.
53. On the rhetorical figure of aposiopesis, see Smyth, Greek Grammar, §3015.
54. See Blanton, “Boasting.” Nasuti points out that Paul also adduces his renunciation of support from the Corinthians as grounds for boasting in 2 Cor 10–13 (“Woes of the Prophets,” 255).
55. Seneca, Ben. 3.6.1–10.1; on contracts, see also Mauss, The Gift, 47–64.
56. On the social expectations underlying Seneca’s views, see above in this chapter and chapter 2 herein; Mauss, The Gift, 3–4.
57. Compare the similar implication that an addressee owes Paul a “gift-debt” in Phlm 19; see chapter 3 herein.
58. See, for example, Carrier, “Gifts, Commodities, and Social Relations,” 119–36; Miller, “Gift, Sale, Payment, Raid,” 18–50.
59. Seneca, Ben. 1.3.4–5; 1.4.2.
60. The same instability is evident in the parallel Matthean and Lukan version of Jesus’ missionary mandate (cp. n. 21 above).
1. Godbout and Caillé, World of the Gift, 9.
2. The chapter’s subtitle is derived from Sherry, McGrath, and Levy, “Dark Side of the Gift.” See also Marcoux, who repeatedly uses the phrase “the dark side of the gift” in “Escaping the Gift Economy.”
3. Davis, Gift in Sixteenth-Century France, 67–84. The title below, “Gifts Gone Wrong in Corinth,” is indebted to a chapter similarly titled in Davis’s book.
4. Marcoux, “Escaping the Gift Economy,” 671–85.
5. Mauss, The Gift, 13.
6. Ben. 3.1.4.
7. Ben. 3.1.1. Translation of J. W. Basore, Seneca: Moral Essays (3 vols., LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, and London: Heinemann, 1935 [repr. 1964]).
8. Peter Sidney Darow, OCD, s.v. “Laelius, Gaius,” 811.
9. Ernst Badian, OCD, s.v. “Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus (Numantinus), Publius,” 397–98.
10. Amic. 10.35; translation of William A. Falconer, Cicero: De senectute, De amicitia, De divinatione (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992 [1923]), 147.
12. So Hock, Social Context, 59–64; Marshall, Enmity in Corinth, 174–77, 247; Chow, Patronage and Power, 109–10; Welborn, End to Enmity, 398–400.
13. So also Collins, Second Corinthians, 216, 220; Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 2:689–90, 703–4; Furnish, II Corinthians, 506–9; Martin, 2 Corinthians, 348; Harris, Second Epistle, 766–67.
14. So Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 842; Furnish, II Corinthians, 556; Martin, 2 Corinthians, 438; Harris, Second Epistle, 869, 877–79.
15. Peter Marshall has made this point forcefully: “Paul’s acceptance of the Philippian gifts does appear to have been understood by the Corinthians within the conventions of friendship and enmity. By his refusal [to accept gifts in Corinth] he has insulted and dishonoured them, treated them as inferiors and showed them that he did not love them. . . . There is ample evidence of a hostile relationship between Paul and his enemies—invective, comparison, conspiracy, charges—and it does appear to result from Paul’s refusal, and his consequent behaviour” (Enmity in Corinth, 246–47). Welborn dissents: “Paul’s decision to decline the offer of support from Gaius, whenever it came, must have occasioned consternation, as a departure from the paradigm of Greco-Roman friendship. But it need not have instigated enmity” (End to Enmity, 400). In light of Cicero’s statement in Amic. 10.35 (quoted above), it is evident that failure to accede to a friend’s request constituted a breach of the “law of friendship,” which would be expected to lead to recrimination. While a single breach need not destroy a friendship, “ceaseless recriminations” (querella inveterata) threaten to dissolve social intimacy and engender “everlasting enmities” (odia . . . sempiterna). It is the possibility that recrimination might degenerate into irreparable and “everlasting enmity” that Paul’s assertion of his “love” (2 Cor 11:11) and his indication that he has done no “wrong” (12:13) attempt to forestall. He attempts to save the friendship by addressing the grounds on which the recrimination was based.
16. For overviews of the pertinent issues, see Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 3–36; Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 1:1–49; Reimund Bieringer, “Teilungshypothesen zum 2. Korintherbrief: Ein Forschungsüberblick,” in Bieringer and Lambrecht, Studies on 2 Corinthians, 67–105; Mitchell, “Corinthian Epistles”; Mitchell, “Paul’s Letters to Corinth”; Schmeller, Der zweite Brief an die Korinther, 18–40.
17. Here I follow the dates suggested by Meeks and Fitzgerald, eds., Writings of St. Paul, 21–23, 44–46. For discussions of the chronology see, among others, Jewett, Chronology of Paul’s Life; Lüdemann, Paul.
18. Various reconstructions of the background and ideology of these missionaries have been proposed; see, for example, Georgi, Opponents of Paul, 1–9; Sumney, Identifying Paul’s Opponents; Reimund Bieringer, “Die Gegner des Paulus im 2. Korintherbrief,” in Bieringer and Lambrecht, Studies on 2 Corinthians, 181–221; Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 2:926–45; Blanton, Constructing a New Covenant, 109–21; Blanton, “Spirit and Covenant Renewal.”
19. Cicero, Reg. Deiot. 11.30; Verr. 2.2.37. For additional evidence, see Marshall, Enmity in Corinth, 56–60.
20. So Furnish, II Corinthians, 498, 506; Barnett, Second Epistle, 521; Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 2:693; Harris, Second Epistle, 752–53, 767.
21. Welborn, End to Enmity, 142. See also Welborn, “Paul’s Caricature.”
22. Welborn, End to Enmity, 139–50.
23. Welborn, End to Enmity, 140–50. Welborn’s translation (139–40).
24. So Marshall: “It is clear enough that refusal of gifts and services or attempts to end a friendship could be and were construed as an act of hostility by the offended party. . . . By his refusal he has insulted and dishonoured them, treated them as inferiors and showed that he did not love them” (Enmity in Corinth, 246).
25. On Paul’s assertions that he serves as “father” to the assemblies he founds, see White, “Paul and Pater Familias,” esp. 470–71.
26. The asymmetry between benefits conferred by parents and their children was so great that Seneca addresses at length the question of whether children can ever surpass their parents’ benefactions (Ben. 3.29.2–38.3).
27. Welborn relates this to the associations with patronage latent in an offer of hospitality: “Paul cleverly exploits the parent-child analogy to bring about a role-reversal in his relationship with the Corinthians; for in the analogy, Paul figures himself as the parental patron and the Corinthians his filial clients” (End to Enmity, 139).
28. Here Paul returns to a theme introduced in 1 Corinthians; see chapter 4 herein.
29. Marshall (Enmity in Corinth, 341–48) notes that Paul engages in the technique of non-naming, whereby one refers to one’s enemies only obliquely; the technique amounts to a form of damnatio memoriae.
30. So Peterman, Paul’s Gift from Philippi, 168–69; Hock, Social Context, 30 and n. 44.
31. Tacitus, Annals 2.38. Translation of John Jackson, Tacitus: The Annals (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, and London: Heinemann, 1962 [1931]), slightly modified.
32. Translation of R. D. Hicks, Diogenes Laertius: Lives of Eminent Philosophers (LCL; London: Heinemann, and New York: Putnam, 1925), slightly modified.
33. BDAG defines the verb hessoomai, “to be put in lesser or worse circumstances or status.” The term implies a diminution of status; thus the translation into idiomatic English, “to slight someone.” BDAG suggests the translation, “in what respect, then, are you being made to feel less important than the other congregations” (s.v. hessoomai).
34. The Vulgate can translate both verbs with gravare; 2 Cor 12:13: ego ipse non gravavi vos (Greek katanarkan); 2 Cor 12:16: ego vos non gravavi (Greek katabarein).
35. Both glosses suggested by BDAG, s.v. katanarkaō.
36. Compare Welborn (End to Enmity, 134–35): “It cannot be that Paul employs katanarkan [in 2 Cor 11:9] simply for the sake of variation, since the term is repeated strategically in Paul’s recapitulation of his defense in 12:13, and comes up again in 12:14. So we must assume that Paul has used this unusual word intentionally, and with consciousness of its original meaning.” Welborn, however, prefers the meaning “to be slothful towards” (citing LSJ) in these instances.
37. Literally, “In what way have you been slighted (or, diminished) more than the other assemblies?” The use of hyper with the accusative indicates a comparison (cp. BDAG, s.v. hyper).
38. In favor of the letter’s unity, see Fitzgerald, “Philippians, Epistle to the,” esp. 320–22; in favor of the view that canonical Philippians consists of three originally independent letters, see Reumann, Philippians, 8–18.
39. On the economic context of Paul’s language, see Ogereau, Paul’s Koinonia; see, however, chapter 2 n. 26 herein for criticisms of the thesis.
40. Marshall, Enmity in Corinth, 34; Peterman, Paul’s Gift from Philippi, 53–65. Cicero, Amic. 16.58, illuminates the social context: “It surely is calling friendship to a very close and petty accounting to require it to keep an exact balance of credits and debits [ratio acceptorum et datorum]. I think true friendship is richer and more abundant than that and does not narrowly scan the reckoning lest it pay out more than it has received; and there need be no fear that some bit of kindness will be lost, that it will overflow the measure and spill upon the ground, or that more than is due will be poured into friendship’s bin.” Translation of Falconer, Cicero, 169. See also Seneca, Ben. 1.2.3, and chapter 3 herein on Paul’s keeping an imaginary account book listing credits and debits in his gift exchange relationships. Ogereau argues against the idea that reciprocal gift exchange is in view in Philippians (Paul’s Koinonia, 28–42, 274–80), but Paul’s comparison of the donations that Epaphroditus sent him with sacrifices, prototypical “gifts to God” (Phil 4:18), and his assurance that God would provide a countergift (v. 19) establish Paul’s use of the gift exchange paradigm.
41. For a brief overview of the Roman carceral system, see Rapske, “Prison, Prisoner”; Rapske, Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody.
42. In Thessalonica as in Corinth, Paul labored as a leatherworker to support himself (1 Thess 2:9).
43. So Furnish, II Corinthians, 553, 556. Thrall objects that the use of the emphatic autos egō points to a contrast, not with “other churches,” but with other missionaries, that is, those with whom Paul compares himself in 2 Cor 11:1–12:13 (Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 841–42). Thrall is only partially correct, since the contrast between Paul and his missionary rivals and that between his practices in Corinth and other communities are not mutually exclusive. The comparison between Paul and his rivals entailed judgments about their respective modes of support.
44. So Furnish, II Corinthians, 507. It is possible that other cities (Thessalonica and Beroea) were included; so Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 685–86. Peterman, however, notes that “the evidence is too sparse to make a decision” as to whether cities other than Philippi were in view (Paul’s Gift from Philippi, 146, n. 134).
45. As calculated using “ORBIS: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World,” http://orbis.stanford.edu/#using.
46. Contra Caragounis, who asserts that the opsōnion took the form of provisions: “in all probability, the gifts were in kind; they were provisions: foodstuff and perhaps clothes, though the possibility that some money also was included can not be ruled out” (“OPSŌNION,” 53).
47. Contra David Dungan, who asserts that Paul received from Philippi “financial support in sufficient amount so that it could be termed a salary” (cited in Martin, 2 Corinthians, 346). It is not the amount, but the measured regularity with which it is given, that distinguishes salary from gift.
48. Welborn, End to Enmity, 380–481.
49. Plummer, Second Epistle, 364.
50. I am largely persuaded by Margaret Mitchell’s recent arguments concerning the order in which the various letters now contained in 2 Corinthians were written (“Corinthian Epistles” and “Paul’s Letters to Corinth”). Two caveats are in order. First, Thomas Schmeller, who argues that 2 Corinthians was written as a single letter, offers an important cautionary remark on the hypothetical and provisional nature of all reconstructions of the literary history of the letter or letters in 2 Corinthians: “Jeder der vorgetragenen Lösungsversuche bringt eigene Schwierigkeiten mit sich. Eine Abwägung ist nicht objektiv möglich” (Der zweite Brief, 37). The same holds true of the hypothesis of literary unity, however. The manuscript tradition provides “objective” evidence for the literary unity of 2 Corinthians only as the text was transmitted during the third–fourth centuries CE and later (i.e., from the time of our earliest manuscripts). If the various sections of 2 Corinthians ever existed in independent form, they had already been edited into a single document by that time. Failing objective evidence to establish the form in which 2 Corinthians, or its component parts, circulated in the mid-first century CE, the researcher must come to a decision on the basis of literary-critical issues, fully recognizing the provisional nature of his or her own position. Second, Larry Welborn (End to Enmity, xix–xxvii) has recently argued in favor of a “literary history” of the Corinthian correspondence similar to Mitchell’s, although he places the apologetic letter of 2:14–7:4 (minus 6:14–7:1) after the “tearful letter” (2 Cor 10–13), rather than before it. For the purposes of the present argument, the placement of 2:14–7:4 in relation to 10–13 is not crucial. For a relative chronology of the events and letters of greatest significance to the present argument, see the Appendix.
51. On the patroness Phoebe, see Lampe, “Paul, Patrons, and Clients,” 498–99.
52. NRSV (modified).
53. So Welborn, End to Enmity, 321–35; Dunn, Romans, 2:910–11; Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth, 182–83. It may have been in Gaius’s house that the meetings for the Lord’s supper, a communal meal commemorating the death of the early Christian community’s “lord,” Jesus, took place (1 Cor 11:17–34). On the Lord’s supper and the problems of social stratification that it entailed in Corinth, see, among others, Theissen, Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, 145–74; Lampe, “Das korinthische Herrenmahl”; Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth, 178–85; Schmeller, Hierarchie und Egalität, 66–73; Welborn, End to Enmity, 358–65, 401–3.
54. So Welborn, End to Enmity, 243: “there is general agreement among scholars that Paul resided with Gaius on the occasion of his final visit to Corinth, and was, in this way, the recipient of Gaius’ hospitality.” Similarly, Dunn, Romans, 1:xliv; Jewett, Chronology of Paul’s Life, “Graph of Dates and Time-spans” (n.p.); Fitzmyer, Romans, 85–88 (Corinth in the winter of 57–58 CE); Murphy-O’Connor, Paul: A Critical Life, 30–31, 331–32 (55–56 CE). A caveat is in order: Lüdemann (Paul, 178–79) views the three-month time span as a “round number” created by the redactor of Luke-Acts; he places Paul’s third visit to Corinth in 51/52 CE (pp. 171–72).
55. John T. Fitzgerald notes that, although the terms philia and philos do not occur in Paul’s letters, closely associated motifs appear frequently; friendship is thus an important category for Paul. See Fitzgerald, “Paul and Friendship.” On shifts in Paul’s thinking, see Fitzgerald, “Paul and Paradigm Shifts.” Welborn holds a similar view (End to Enmity, 380–91): “Paul did not simply accommodate himself to the framework of Roman friendship, but shifted some of its conventional elements” (p. 391).
56. On the “dance of the Graces” as a metaphor for gift exchange, see chapter 2 herein.
57. Mitchell, “Paul’s Letters to Corinth,” 307–38.
58. Plutarch observes that parasites are “driven away and punished by everyone” (Mor. 778D–E; cited in Welborn, End to Enmity, 148).
1. Mauss notes: “No less important in these transactions of the Indians [of the American Northwest] is the role played by the notion of honour. Nowhere is the individual prestige of a chief and that of his clan so closely linked to what is spent and to the meticulous repayment with interest of gifts that have been accepted, so as to transform into persons having an obligation those that have placed you yourself under a similar obligation” (The Gift, 37). Note also the unilateral (and therefore accumulative) distribution of baskets and other valuables to the chief of the wife’s clan during marriage exchanges in Polynesia described by Claude Lévi-Strauss in Elementary Structures, 63–65.
2. Mauss, The Gift, 5–7, 36–46.
3. C. A. Gregory explains the relationship between giving and status: “The accumulation of capital, whether in the form of pigs, blankets or money, is not the aim of a gift transactor. To the extent that gift transactors accumulate at all it is in the form of gift-credit. The big-man is the one with the most gift-credit for he has been able to maximise net-outgoings” (“Gifts to Men and Gifts to God,” 638).
4. On the relations between economic and other forms of capital, see Bourdieu, “Forms of Capital”; Swartz, Culture and Power, 65–94; Robert Moore, “Capital,” in Michael Grenfell, ed., Pierre Bourdieu, 101–17.
5. Mauss, The Gift, 37.
6. Gregory, “Gifts to Men and Gifts to God,” 626–52.
7. See Saller, Personal Patronage, 128–29. The economic dependence and subordinate status of the client is illustrated by the poet Martial: “Yesterday, Caecilianus, when I came to bid you ‘Good Morning,’ I accidentally greeted you by name and forgot to call you ‘My Lord.’ How much did this liberty cost me? You knocked a dollar off my allowance” (Ep. 6.88). Translation of Shelton, As the Romans Did, 14.
8. OLD, s.v. status, 1–3.
9. OLD, s.v. status, 9–10.
10. John Scott, “Class and Stratification,” in Geoff Payne, ed., Social Divisions, 25–64 (esp. 26–31). Compare Max Weber, “Class, Status, Party” and “Status Groups and Classes,” reprinted in Grusky, ed., Social Stratification, 114–24, 124–28, respectively.
11. Scott, “Class and Stratification,” 29.
12. Scott, “Class and Stratification,” 29.
13. Scott, “Class and Stratification,” 29.
14. Tepperman and Curtis, Sociology, 362.
15. Macionis, Sociology, 140.
16. Macionis, Sociology, 140–41.
17. Vanfossen, Structure of Social Inequality, 8–9.
18. Seneca the Younger, Prov. 2.5; Ira 2.21.1–6.
19. Pliny the Younger, Ep. 9.12.
20. See the discussion in Lincoln, Ephesians, 400–402, citing Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 2.26.1–4; Xenophon, Mem. 4.4.19–20; Cicero, Offic. 1.58; Epictetus, Diss. 2.17.31; 3.7.26.
21. Seymour M. Lipset (“Social Class”) distinguished three “dimensions” of status: “(1) objective status, or aspects of stratification that structure environments differently enough to provoke differences in behavior; (2) accorded status, or the prestige accorded to individuals and groups by others; (3) subjective status, or the personal sense of location within the social hierarchy felt by various individuals” (p. 310).
22. Claud. 15.4; cited in Welborn, Paul, the Fool of Christ, 47.
23. See, for example, Seneca’s ruminations on slaves who save the lives of their masters, thus achieving high accorded status (Ben. 3.18.1–29.1, esp. 23.5, 25), and Pliny the Younger’s lament over Fannia, the second wife of Helvidius Priscus: “Yet how charming and genial she is, and how she inspires affection as much as respect, a quality granted to few! Will there be any woman after whom we can establish a model for our wives, and to whom we men can look for patterns of courage? Will there be any whom we can likewise gaze upon and listen to in admiration, like the heroines of history?” (Ep. 7.19). Translation of Walsh, Pliny the Younger, 176.
24. See most recently Friesen, “Junia Theodora of Corinth.”
25. See Blanton, “Boasting”: “since honor is based on communal judgment, it cannot be self-conferred: ‘even the winners of the crown at the games are proclaimed victors by others, who thus remove the odium of self-praise’ (Plutarch, Mor. 539C; cp. Quintilian, Educ. Or. 11.1.22). Attempts to confer honor on oneself risk arousing the envy (phthonos) of the hearers (Isocrates, Antid. 8, 13; Plutarch, Mor. 539D) and bringing dishonor (adoxia; Mor. 547E–F) to the speaker.”
26. Translation of Walsh, Pliny, 251.
27. Compare Cicero, Agr. 2.2.3: dignitas consularis, “a being worthy of the office of consul”; cited in L&S, s.v. dignitas, I.
28. Walsh, Pliny, 364, note to 26.1. Sherwin-White concurs: “This is a rather obscurely worded recommendation of Rosianus for any posts in the emperor’s service to which his present rank qualifies him” (Letters of Pliny, 596).
29. On the reciprocal exchange of gifts and services involved in patron-client relations, see chapter 2 herein (and the literature cited in notes 1–2 of that chapter).
30. Translation of Walsh, Pliny, 244.
31. So Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 174.
32. The “right of three children” actually consists of two regulations: the Lex Iulia de maritandis ordinibus (18 BCE) and the Lex Papia Poppaea (9 CE); see Berger, Encyclopedic Dictionary, 553–54. It was sometimes granted as an honorary award even to those who did not have three children.
33. Translation of Walsh, Pliny, 243–44.
34. The term “friend” used here is a euphemism. On the avoidance of the term cliens, see Saller, Personal Patronage, 8–15, and Saller, “Patronage and Friendship.” This is not to deny that genuine goodwill and positive regard may have existed between the two.
35. Although the book as a whole is highly illuminating, Zeba A. Crook’s claim in Reconceptualising Conversion, 56–59, 64, that the “technical definition” of gift exchange necessarily entails equality between the parties to the exchange (i.e., that the recipient of a gift should be able to reciprocate on an equal basis) is problematic. He himself notes that the Greco-Roman literature speaks of “gifts” in exchanges both between patrons and clients and between humans and their gods (85–86, 98–99). Gift exchanges may occur within the context of either symmetric or asymmetric relations. “Gift” is a broad term that refers simply to “that which is given” in a wide variety of extramercantile contexts. See chapter 4 herein for the distinction between “gift” and “sale.”
36. Translation of Griffin and Inwood, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, 53.
37. Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 210.
38. Translation of Walsh, Pliny, 56–57 (slightly modified).
39. Sherwin-White, Letters of Pliny, 211.
40. So NRSV; lit. “are not a terror to the good deed, but to the bad.”
41. There is not a wholly satisfying way to translate the term leitourgos. It refers to someone who performs a leitourgia—a sort of tax imposed upon wealthy individuals by cities in which the individuals were required to cover the expenses for some public work, such as outfitting ships for war. Although BDAG’s gloss “servant” effectively captures the idea that the leitourgos provides a public service, it is misleading in that it may be taken to imply low status, a connotation not present with the Greek term. My translation “public service provider” attempts better to capture the connotations of the Greek. One caveat: contemporary “service providers” tend to charge fees, whereas liturgies were provided at the expense of the public benefactor.
42. On the structure of Rome’s extractive economy, see Hanson and Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, 107–8. For the more recent view that Roman imperialism generated market conditions conducive to economic growth, even in the provinces, see Jongman, “Re-constructing the Roman Economy.”
43. As, for example, in Mark 13:7; Matt 24:6, 14.
44. These beings he designates as the “elements of the world” whose power “enslaves” the majority of humanity (Gal 4:3). On the “elemental spirits,” see Betz, Galatians, 204–5. In comparison with the superior rank and quality of the god of Israel, such beings cannot even lay claim to the designation “gods”: in Paul’s view, they are “those who by nature are not gods” (Gal 4:8).
45. The term occurs in Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, and 1 Thessalonians. In the letter to the Philippians, the term is used to designate Epaphroditus as an emissary of the assembly at Philippi (Phil 2:25); it is absent from the letter to Philemon.
46. See the discussions of the term in Betz, Galatians, 37–39, 74–75; Meeks, First Urban Christians, 131–33; Schütz, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority, 22–34.
47. BDAG, s.v. charis, 4: refers to the “exceptional effect produced by generosity, favor,” citing 1 Cor 15:10abc as examples.
48. NRSV translates “grace” each time the term charis appears in these verses. The theological appropriation and subsequent development of doctrines of “grace” by Augustine and Luther often obscures the logic of gift exchange in Paul’s letters. I have attempted to restore the clarity of Paul’s formulations by translating as “beneficence” and “favor” (in most cases following BDAG). It is, however, difficult to assign a specific nuance to the multivalent term in each case; it can refer alternately to a favorable disposition that might result in the giving of a gift, the gift itself, or thanksgiving in response to a gift. For a discussion, see Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion, 132–50; Harrison, Paul’s Language of Grace, 273–79. Note, however, the criticisms of Harrison’s work in Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion, 145–47, and Engberg-Pedersen, “Gift-Giving and Friendship,” 17–18. John Barclay retains the translation “grace” but offers a history of the term’s use in Christian theology in order to differentiate Paul’s views from later developments; see his Paul and the Gift, 79–193.
49. So also Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion, 157–58.
50. BDAG, s.v. charis, 4.
51. So Fitzmyer, Romans, 237.
52. Compare BDAG, s.v. charis, 2: “a beneficent disposition toward someone, favor, grace . . . goodwill” (italics in original), citing Gal. 1:15 as an example.
53. Note, however, that the phrase “and, through his beneficence, called me” is missing from the c. 200 CE manuscript P46.
54. On God as patron in the synoptic gospels, see Malina, “Patron and Client”; for patronage motifs in the New Testament and Greco-Roman religions, see Neyrey, “God, Benefactor and Patron”; on patronage motifs in Paul, see Pickett, “Death of Christ”; Osiek, “Politics of Patronage.” On God as Paul’s patron, see Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion, 151–97, 243–50; Lampe, “Paul, Patrons, and Clients,” esp. 505–7. David J. Downs (“Is God Paul’s Patron?”) rejects patronage as a model illuminating Paul’s theology. He argues that Paul’s language of God as “father” (rather than “patron”) and the possibility for exploitation in patron-client relations indicate that patronage does not apply to Paul’s constructions of divine-human relations. However, it is precisely in his role as imperial patron that Augustus was called pater patriae (cp. Favro, “Making Rome a World City,” esp. 245–48), and, in the wake of Friedrich Nietzsche (e.g., The Antichrist, sections 42, 45), the possibility of religious exploitation on Paul’s part cannot simply be dismissed without argument.
55. Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion, passim, esp. 151–97; Crook, “Divine Benefactions”; see also Jennings, “Patronage and Rebuke.” For the exchange of services, or officia, in the Roman context, see Saller, Personal Patronage, 15–22. For a discussion of “heavenly patronage” in relation to the cultus of Isis, see Blanton, “De caelo patrocinium,” and Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion, 113, 122–23.
56. The point is acknowledged (or conceded) by most commentators; see, for example, Ehrensperger, Paul and the Dynamics of Power, 135–36, 150–51, 155, who, however, sees Paul’s claims to power as temporally self-limiting; he does not seek to “establish a permanent structure of domination and control” (emphasis added; 136); Polaski, Paul and the Discourse of Power, 30–35; 104–11; 118–23; Castelli, Imitating Paul, 96, 100–102, 110–17; McNeel, Paul as Infant and Nursing Mother, 172; Økland, Women in Their Place, 176–77; Schmeller, Hierarchie und Egalität, 77. For a critique of the contrary position represented by Edwin Judge, see below, “‘Anti-Status’ Views of Paul.”
57. Grant, Paul in the Roman World, 24.
58. According to Douglas Moo, “Paul would intend the ‘gifts’ to summarize those privileges of Israel that he enumerated in 9:4–5” (Epistle to the Romans, 732), where the “privileges” include the covenants and the patriarchs; for the covenant of circumcision, see Gen 17:9–14, where the connection between the patriarch Abraham and circumcision is also established.
59. Note that, in addition to the “gift” of status with respect to apostles, teachers, and the other positions to be surveyed, Paul construes marital status as a “gift” in 1 Cor 7:7. The context makes it clear that the sorts of “gifts” to which Paul refers are not the “spiritual gifts” of prophecy, glossolalia, and so on discussed in 1 Cor 12–14, but the gift of marital status.
60. This phrase is often translated as “concerning spiritual gifts,” as in NRSV. The term “gifts,” however, is not present in the Greek but is supplied on the basis of the context.
61. Greek kybernēseis; cp. kybernētēs: a ship’s “steersman” or “pilot” (see MM and EDNT under the respective headings).
62. As noted by Garland, 1 Corinthians, 598.
63. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, 482. Fitzmyer’s subsequent qualification that the ordinals “could be simply an indication of historical time when such functions emerged in the church” lacks support.
64. Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 282.
65. On the theme of mimesis, or imitation, and its implications for the hierarchical ordering of social relations within the assemblies, see Castelli, Imitating Paul, passim.
66. See the recent detailed work of McNeel on this passage: Paul as Infant and Nursing Mother, passim.
67. On the content of Paul’s “gospel,” see Sanders, Paul, 25–29.
68. Note that in Rom 1:5 and 15:18, obedience to Christ entails obedience to Paul’s proclamation and directives.
69. Hospitality could be anticipated for most or all members of the early assemblies (e.g., Rom 16:1–2), but it is only apostles for whom room and board was considered a “right”; for others, it was a gift or favor. On hospitality in Greece, Rome, and early Judaism, see Fitzgerald, “Hospitality.”
70. The citation continues: “The Father sent it as a helper of good men, and again to Zeus it goes, having been cast with the thunderbolt of God.”
71. Verses 34–35 are placed after 14:40 in manuscripts D, F, G, and some Vulgate texts; they occur after v. 33b in Codex Sinaiticus, A, B, and other texts. For a detailed discussion, see Schrage, Der erste Brief, 4:457, 479–87. For an argument in favor of Pauline authorship, see Wire, “1 Corinthians,” esp. 186–87.
72. On the “language of the gods,” see Bader, La langue des dieux; Bader, “Language of the Gods in Homer”; Bernabé, “Las Ephesia Grammata,” 5–28; Brashear, “Greek Magical Papyri”; Clay, “Planktai and Moly”; Charles de Lamberterie, “Grec homérique MŌLY”; Graf, “Prayer in Magical and Religious Ritual.”
73. See Hans-Josef Klauck, “Mit Engelszungen? Von Charisma der verständlichen Rede in 1 Kor 14,” and “Von Kassandra bis zur Gnosis: Im Umfeld der frühchristlichen Glossolalie,” repr. in Klauck, Religion und Gesellschaft, 145–67 and 119–44, respectively; Martin, “Tongues of Angels.”
74. Lincoln, “Theses on Method.” See esp. thesis 11.
75. Judge, Social Distinctives, 105.
76. Judge, Social Distinctives, 105.
77. Judge, Social Distinctives, 108.
78. Judge, Social Distinctives, 108.
79. Martin, Slavery as Salvation. Martin states: “In the Greco-Roman world certain highly visible slaves, some of whom were downright famous, controlled substantial amounts of money. Greek and Roman authors were constantly carping about uppity slaves who were rich rather than honest, upstanding free men such as themselves. . . . Higher-placed imperial slaves are an obvious example of slaves with money. They were the most famous wealthy slaves in the first century” (pp. 7–8). See also Harrison, Paul’s Language of Grace, 234–35.
80. Schmeller (Hierarchie und Egalität, 57) notes: “Das Prestige eines Patrons färbt gleichsam auf die Klienten ab.”
81. Translation of J. W. Cohoon, Dio Chrysostom (LCL; London: William Heinemann, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1937), 1:129–31.
82. Veyne, Bread and Circuses, esp. 10–18, 246–60.
83. See Engberg-Pedersen’s cogent critique of the dichotomy, “Gift-Giving and Friendship”; Briones, Paul’s Financial Policy, 48–53.
84. Translation of Cohoon, Dio Chrysostom, 1:123.
85. So, for example, Taylor, Paul, Apostle to the Nations, 288: “In his intervention for Onesimus [in his letter to Philemon], Paul outlines some of the basics of life in the Christ-believing community, which is a family of siblings.”
86. Cited in Schussler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 255.
87. Schussler-Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 205–50: “Paul’s interpretation and adaptation of the baptismal declaration Gal 3:28 in his letters to the community of Corinth unequivocally affirm the equality and charismatic giftedness of women and men in the Christian community” (p. 235).
88. Attempts to escape the subordination of female to male in this passage by understanding kephalē as “source” rather than “head” are beside the point: whether based on a metaphor of derivation or elevation, a hierarchical relation is entailed; see rightly Økland, Women in Their Place, 174–83. Økland writes: “But in spite of recent attempts I find it impossible to strip Paul’s use of the word kephalē from the hierarchical connotations the term has in other ancient contexts, or to eliminate value-judgements and power implications from the expression ‘man is the head/source of woman.’ ‘Source’ is not a neutral concept in Greco-Roman discourse! Rather, the source is more authentic, or in Elizabeth Castelli’s words, the origin, the original or first-born, had priority and superior status vis-a-vis the imitation” (pp. 175–76).
89. Although in some instances Paul does use female imagery when referring to the god of Israel, the god is nevertheless classified as “male.” On female imagery in Paul’s depictions of the god of Israel, see most recently McNeel, Paul as Infant and Nursing Mother; note also my review in RBL (http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/9921_10985.pdf). It is doubtful that Paul personifies the feminine-gendered “wisdom” as, for example, in Wisdom of Solomon 9:1–10:21.
90. Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 142–59, esp. 145–48; Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 157–64; Martin, Corinthian Body, 38–68.
91. See most recently Ogereau, “Jerusalem Collection,” who notes: “It is therefore unlikely that by appealing to the principle of isotēs and Exod 16.18 Paul wished to impose an exact equalisation of resources across all the churches, an impractical, if not impossible objective to attain. Rather, his edited citation suggests that the goal was to achieve a relative, proportional equality by restoring a certain balance between need and surplus” (pp. 365–66). See also Welborn, “‘That There May Be Equality.’”
92. Translation of W. D. Ross, cited in Pojman and Westmoreland, eds., Equality, 20.
93. For a concise overview of Aristotle’s statements on equality, see Welborn, “‘That There May Be Equality,’” 76, 81–82, citing Hirzel, Themis, Dike und Verwandtes, 277–81.
94. On this passage, see Welborn, “‘That There May Be Equality,’” 86–88; Gaventa, “Economy of Grace”; Barclay, “Manna and the Circulation of Grace”; Jennings, “Patronage and Rebuke,” esp. 126.
1. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 22–23, 54–55.
2. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 55.
3. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 54 (emphasis in original).
4. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 54–55, 174, 191.
5. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 54.
6. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 54. See also Seymour M. Lipset, “Social Class,” in Sills, ed., International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 296–316 (310).
7. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 54.
8. There is a tension between Meeks’s theoretical formulations, which lack elements of time, change, and contestation, and his more nuanced analyses of Paul’s letters, in which those factors do play a role (cp. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 117–25, where the notion of status, however, plays only a minor role in the analysis). Meeks does, however, note that “the weight of each dimension depends on who is doing the weighing” (p. 54). This statement opens the door to issues of contest and negotiation, but the insight is not further developed.
9. “Preface,” in Ehrenreich, Crumley, and Levy, eds., Heterarchy, v. Crumley notes that the idea was developed as early as 1945 by Warren McColloch in an analysis of neural networks; see Crumley, “Heterarchy,” 3.
10. Crumley, “Heterarchy,” 1–5 (2).
11. Crumley, “Heterarchy,” 3.
12. Mark Mosko, cited in Dmitri M. Bondarenko, “Homoarchic Alternative,” 20. See also Bondarenko and Grinin, “Alternative Pathways”; Bondarenko, “Approaching ‘Complexity.’”
13. Crumley, “Dialectical Critique,” 163 (emphasis in original).
14. Crumley, “Dialectical Critique,” 163.
15. Rautman, “Hierarchy and Heterarchy,” 329.
16. Rautman, “Hierarchy and Heterarchy,” 328, citing Brumfiel, “Heterarchy.”
17. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 54.
18. Meeks, First Urban Christians, 54.
19. Translation of Kennedy, Progymnasmata, 50.
20. See chapter 3, n. 43 herein.
21. Branham and Kinney, eds., Petronius.
22. Judge, Social Distinctives, 43, 86–87, 164–74; Lampe, “Paul, Patrons, and Clients”; Lampe, “Das korinthische Herrenmahl”; Theissen, Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, 69–174; Marshall, Enmity in Corinth; Chow, Patronage and Power; Osiek, “Politics of Patronage”; Osiek and MacDonald, A Woman’s Place, 194–219; Kirner, “Apostolat und Patronage (I).”
23. For a classic treatment of the rhetoric of inversion, see Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 142–59.
24. So Taylor, Paul, Apostle to the Nations, 278–79.
25. See Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 350; Friesen, “Prospects for a Demography of the Pauline Mission,” esp. 368; Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 298–332.
26. Palmer, Mood and Modality, 80.
27. On paraleipsis, see Smyth, Greek Grammar, §3036.
28. So Dunn, The Epistles, 340: “It is universally inferred that the obligation referred to is Philemon’s conversion under Paul’s ministry (cp. Rom 15:27).” See also Moo, Letters to Colossians and Philemon, 430: “What Paul means by saying that Philemon owes him his very ‘self’ (seauton) is that Philemon is in debt to Paul for his eternal life.”
29. Crook, Reconceptualising Conversion, 73–74: “To the client seeking something from a patron too far removed by status, the broker is a benefactor or patron because he or she has provided a benefaction by acting as broker.”
30. On the social implications of claims to apostolic status, see chapter 6 herein.
31. On the term, see Judge, Social Distinctives, 171–72; Meeks, First Urban Christians, 60; Dunn, Romans, 2:888–89. For a recent (and in my view unsuccessful) argument that Phoebe did not function as a patroness to the assembly, see MacGillivray, “Romans 16:2.” The distinction between patronage and benefaction is not as clearly drawn as MacGillivray suggests, and the distinction between vertical (“dependency”) and horizontal (“friendly”) relations cannot simply be correlated with the two terms. Thomas Schmeller has provided weightier arguments against understanding Phoebe as a patroness: (1) her role as prostatis was “sehr offen; sie ist nicht prostatis ihrer Heimatgemeinde, sondern ‘vieler’”; (2) the phrase kai gar autē connects Phoebe’s role as prostatis with the preceding request that the Roman assembly “assist” (“beistehen”) her, using the verb parastēte; (3) it is unlikely that Paul was related to Phoebe as her client. See Schmeller, Hierarchie und Egalität, 58–59. However, Junia Theodora is an example of a woman who served as patroness to “many,” and not just a home community, and forms of material “assistance” (including lodging, as is apparently requested for Phoebe) were endemic to the “services” (officia) provided by patrons (see, for example, Lucian’s “On Salaried Posts in Great Houses”). On Junia, see most recently Friesen, “Junia Theodora of Corinth.” On the basis of an inversion of the usual patronal logic (the argument of this chapter), I agree that it is unlikely that either Paul or Phoebe considered Paul to be her client. This does not, however, indicate that “patroness” is an improper gloss of Phoebe’s role (see the comments of Lampe quoted in the text following this note). One must concede that the role was, as Schmeller indicates, “sehr offen,” due not least to the inversions and modifications that took place within the heterarchic situation of the early Christian assemblies.
32. So Meeks, First Urban Christians, 16.
33. Lampe, “Paul, Patrons, and Clients,” 499.
34. Marshall, Enmity at Corinth; Peterman, Paul’s Gift.
35. Peterman (Paul’s Gift, 159) states: “Paul has not become socially obligated, and thereby in a sense inferior, by accepting their gifts. Rather, because he has accepted their gifts, they have been elevated to the place of partners in the gospel. Though Paul is in receipt of their gift and can mention his own benefit from it (4.18a), in 4.17b he rather makes it appear that they are actually the ones benefitted. Their gift does bring them a return. It is an investment that reaps spiritual dividends. But ultimately the responsibility to reward them rests not with Paul, but with God (4.19).” Peterman, however, rests content merely to have explicated Paul’s theological construction; he does not subject it to critical analysis or relate it to Paul’s position of interest.
36. However, as Reumann (Philippians, 7, 17) notes, “it is unclear” whether Paul had already been imprisoned when he wrote Phil 4:10–20; it is possible that the gift entailed financial aid, rather than supplies for his stay in prison. Bormann (Philippi, 208) opines that Paul’s reference to “distress” in v. 14 probably indicates imprisonment.
37. According to Brian Rapske, prison rations often failed to meet the requirements to sustain life; see Rapske, Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody, 209–16.
38. See Phil 4:10, where he notes that the Philippian assembly “lacked opportunity” to provide at an earlier date, perhaps politely euphemizing what he experienced as their neglect.
39. Hock, Social Context of Paul’s Ministry, 36.
40. His audience consisted of “auditors” because his letters were read aloud in assembly meetings (1 Thess 5:27; 1 Cor 3:2).
41. On the negative assessments of Paul’s oratorical ability, see Winter, Philo and Paul, 203–39; Litfin, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation, 154–73; Peterson, Eloquence and the Proclamation of the Gospel, 60–66; Mihaila, Paul-Apollos Relationship, 82–94, 152–64; Finney, Honour and Conflict, 84; Welborn, End to Enmity, 101–22.
42. On the evaluation of “bodily presence” in ancient oratory, see Dulk and Langford, “Polycarp and Polemo,” esp. 224–35; Winter, Philo and Paul, 113–16, 221–23.
43. The term kolaphizō denotes a closed-fisted attack and so is generally translated “to beat” or “cuff” (cp. BDAG). I have translated the term “slapped around” to convey the sense of physical abuse in more idiomatic English.
44. The term perikatharma indicates “that which is removed as the result of a thorough cleansing,” that is, “refuse” or “off-scouring” (BDAG, s.v.). Again, I have translated to reflect the modern idiom: “dirty dishwater.” The synonymous term peripsēma (BDAG: “that which is removed by the process of cleansing”) I translate as “soap scum” in keeping with the dishwashing motif. The idiomatic rendition restores the sense of ignominy that is lost in most English translations.
45. Nguyen, “Identification of Paul’s Spectacle of Death Metaphor,” 497.
46. According to Michel Foucault (Discipline and Punish) punishment ceased to be construed as a “spectacle” that served to preserve the moral order and began to be understood as a means of “correcting the soul” in Europe in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
47. Nguyen, “God’s Execution,” 40.
48. The characterization of the evangelists with whom Paul compares himself in the passage need not detain us here; on the issue, see Blanton, “Spirit and Covenant Renewal”; Sumney, Identifying Paul’s Opponents; Sumney, “Servants of Satan”; Georgi, Opponents of Paul, 1–9; Reimund Bieringer, “Die Gegner des Paulus im 2. Korintherbrief,” in Bieringer and Lambrecht, Studies on 2 Corinthians, 181–221; Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 2:926–45; Harris, Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 67–87.
49. For a detailed examination of Paul’s lists of hardships within the context of Greco-Roman peristasis catalogs, see Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel.
50. On Paul’s “boasting” or “bragging,” see Edwin A. Judge, “Paul’s Boasting in Relation to Contemporary Practice,” Australian Biblical Review 16 (1968), 37–50 (repr. in Judge, Social Distinctives, 57–72); Betz, Der Apostel Paulus, 75–77; Hans Dieter Betz, “De Laude ipsius (Moralia 539A–547F),” in Betz, Plutarch’s Ethical Writings, 367–93; Forbes, “Comparison, Self-Praise and Irony”; Danker, “Paul’s Debt”; Mitchell, “Patristic Perspective”; David Aune, “Boasting,” in Aune, Westminster Dictionary, 81–84; Watson, “Paul and Boasting”; Blanton, “Boasting.”
51. On “weakness” as indicating a lack of sociopolitical efficacy, note Philo, On Dreams: “Are not private citizens continually becoming officials, and officials private citizens, rich men becoming poor men and poor men men of ample means, nobodies being celebrated, obscure people becoming distinguished, weak men [astheneis] strong [ischyroi], insignificant men powerful [dynatoi], foolish men wise men of understanding [synetoi], witless men sound reasoners?” (Somn. 155), cited in Theissen, Social Setting, 72.
52. David Graf, “Aretas,” ABD 1:374–76.
53. Edwin Judge, “The Conflict of Educational Aims in the New Testament,” Journal of Christian Education 9 (1966): 3–45; repr. in Judge, First Christians, 693–708 (708), writes: “But if it is realized that everyone in antiquity would have known that the finest military award for valour was the corona muralis, for the man who was first up the wall in the face of the enemy, Paul’s point is devastatingly plain: he was first down.”
54. Pro Rabino 5.16, cited in Welborn, “Mōros genesthō,” 421.
55. The older tripartite educational scheme, which places training in the art of declamation at the final stage, has been called into question by more recent studies, which note diversity in the ways in which the curriculum was ordered. For the older scheme, see Marrou, History of Education; for criticisms, see Dutch, Educated Elite, 58–91.
56. Timothy A. Brookins has recently argued that Paul’s references to “wisdom” imply philosophical traditions rather than oratory, as Duane Litfin and others have maintained; see Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom, 8–61.
57. See Martin, Corinthian Body, 40–44; Theissen, Social Setting, 70–73.
58. Welborn, “On the Discord in Corinth,” 101, citing Herodotus 5.66.
59. Gerd Theissen (Social Setting, 70–72) has demonstrated the social significance of the phrases ta onta (“the things that are”; i.e., “somebodies”) and ta mē onta (“the things that are not”; i.e., “nobodies”) in 1 Cor 1:28.
60. See also Martin, Corinthian Body, 47–63.
61. Mysteries were associated with Isis and Serapis, Demeter and Kore; sanctuaries were associated with each of those deities in Corinth. Nancy Bookidis notes that “the popularity of Sarapis and Isis at Corinth is manifested in four sanctuaries to the deities at the base of Acrocorinth, in a fifth to Sarapis in the South Stoa . . . on a column from the theater, dedicated to both deities by C. Iulius Syros in the first century, and possibly in two more heads identified as Sarapis.” See Bookidis, “The Sanctuaries of Corinth,” in Williams and Bookidis, eds., Corinth, 247–59 (257). There was also a sanctuary of Demeter and Kore in the city that was in use during the Roman period. It is impossible to determine from these archaeological data, however, whether mystery initiations took place in connection with those deities in the first century. Apuleius’s fictive depictions of Lucius’s initiations into the mysteries of Isis in his novel The Metamorphoses (or The Golden Ass) date from the second century CE. Nevertheless, well-known mystery initiations took place at Eleusis from the sixth century BCE; those associated with Dionysus-Bacchus are attested only slightly later; see Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 2.
62. On the initiation ceremonies, see Burkert, Ancient Mystery Cults, 89–114; Meyer, Ancient Mysteries, 1–14; Klauck, Religious Context, 81–89; Bowden, Mystery Cults of the Ancient World, 6–25.
63. On the theme of panoptic vision in Paul’s letters, see Becklin, “‘The One Who Searches the Hearts,’” and Glowacki, “All Things to All People”; both depend on Foucault, Discipline and Punish, 195–228.
64. The inversion between the politically powerful and powerless is characteristic of Jewish apocalyptic (e.g., Dan 7), wisdom (e.g., Prov 3:34), and narrative (e.g., Deut 28:13) traditions. Paul nuances the basic scenario by relating it to the negative evaluations that he had received in Corinth.
65. Bruce Lincoln notes: “The shift from aesthetic or ethical to religious discourse effects a qualitative transformation of enormous importance. Human propositions, precepts, and preferences are (mis)represented as distinctly more than human, with the result that they are insulated against criticism by mere mortals.” Citation in Lincoln, Holy Terrors, 55; see also Lincoln, Gods and Demons, 5.
66. Schmeller, Hierarchie und Egalität, 57: “Das Prestige eines Patrons färbt gleichsam auf die Klienten ab.” On the prestige that may accrue to slaves on the basis of association with more prestigious masters, see Martin, Slavery as Salvation, 47–48; Hellerman, Reconstructing Honor, 106–8.
67. Compare Betz, Der Apostel Paulus, 44–57, who draws a parallel with assessments of philosophers on the basis of their schēma, or external appearance and dress.
68. These chapters may well stem from two originally independent letters; what is relevant to the argument at hand, however, is that both were written after 1 Corinthians. On the partition theories of 2 Corinthians, see Thrall, Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 1:1–49; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 3–36; Furnish, II Corinthians, 29–48; Reimund Bieringer, “Teilungshypothesen zum 2. Korintherbrief. Ein Forschungsüberblick,” in Bieringer and Lambrecht, Studies on 2 Corinthians, 67–105; Blanton, Constructing a New Covenant, 107–9; Mitchell, “Corinthian Epistles”; Schmeller, Der zweite Brief, 1–38.
69. On the “inner human being,” see Markschies, “Innerer Mensch”; Burkert, “Towards Plato and Paul”; Betz, “Concept of the ‘Inner Human Being.’”
70. Bruce Winter (Philo and Paul, 158–59, 162–63) notes that the terminology of 1 Cor 2:4 reflects that of Greco-Roman oratory.
71. On the order in which the various sections of canonical 2 Corinthians were written, see most recently Mitchell, “Corinthian Epistles”; Mitchell, “Paul’s Letters to Corinth”; and Welborn, End to Enmity, xix–xxvii.
72. Lampe, “Paul, Patrons, and Clients,” 498.
73. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power, 168: “Dominant class fractions, whose power rests on economic capital, aim to impose the legitimacy of their domination either through their own symbolic production, or through the intermediary of conservative ideologues. . . . The dominated fraction (clerics or ‘intellectuals’ and ‘artists,’ depending on the period) always tend to set the specific capital, to which it owes its position, at the top of the hierarchy of the principles of hierarchization.”
1. To borrow the apt phrase of Godbout and Caillé, World of the Gift, 9.
2. I borrow the phrase from Gregory, “Gifts to Men and Gifts to God,” 630, 638. Gregory credits Andrew Strathern with coining the phrase.
3. As, for example, Mauss, The Gift, 14–18; Godelier, Enigma of the Gift, 170–200.