Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics 9780567668127, 9780567668158, 9780567668134

Table of contents :
Cover
Half-title
Title
Copyright
Contents
Abbreviations
Contributors
Introduction
Part I: Warts and All? Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity
The Language of Gender in Acts
1. Language Ideology
2. The Character of Language
3. The Role of Speech
4. Men and Phallogocentrism
Taking the Measure of Masculinities in Acts
1. Masculinity in Theory
2. Bodily Apparitions in Acts
3. Toward a Passionate Reading of New Testament Masculinities
Contextualizing Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases
1. Masculinities in the Graeco-Roman World
2. Peter and Paul’s ‘Unmanly’ Identity Markers
3. Luke’s Refiguration of Masculinity in Acts
4. Conclusion
Making Jewish Men in a Greco-Roman World: Masculinity and the Circumcision of Timothy in Acts 16.1-5
1. Constructing Gender and Making Men
2. Greco-Roman Masculinities
3. Greco-Roman Views of Circumcision and Jewish Masculinity
4. Jewish Views of Circumcision and Masculinity
5. The Circumcision of Timothy and Jewish Masculinity
Part II: Empowering, Engaging or Distancing? Acts in the Discourses of Politics
The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire
1. Previous Views
a. Political Apology for the Church to Rome
b. Apology for Rome to the Church
c. Legitimation
d. Equipping
e. Not Interested in Politics
2. Key Evidence
a. The Administration of the Roman Empire
b. Christianity Placed in the Context of the Roman Empire
c. Jesus Acts within a Jewish ‘Religious’ Framework
d. The Trial of Jesus
e. The Presentation of Roman Officials and Roman Justice
f. Trouble Caused by Paul
g. Jesus as Lord, King and Saviour
h. The Ending of Acts
3. Evaluation of Theories
4. Proposal
Who Speaks for (or against) Rome? Acts in Relation to Empire
1. Where We Have Been
a. Developments since Walton’s Study
b. The State of the Question
2. Where We Are Now
3. Conclusion
Paul and Roman Law: ‘The Luck of the Draw?’
1. Roman Law Breached in Philippi
2. Roman Law Infringed in Thessalonica
3. Roman Law Enforced in Corinth
4. Roman Law Breached in Caesarea Maritima
5. Acts’ Conclusion: ‘Without Let or Hindrance’
Empowering, Empire-ing or Engaging? Acts in the Discourse of Politics: A Response
1. Acts and Political Discourse: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Now
2. Where We Are Going? Two Examples
a. Bruce Winter
b. Warren Carter
3. Conclusion
Turning the Empire (οἰκουμένη) Upside Down: A Response
1. Οἰκουμένη as ‘Empire’
2. Oἰκουμένη as ‘Empire’ in Roman Texts
3. Oἰκουμένη as Empire in the New Testament: Luke and Acts
Afterword
Bibliography
Index of References
Index of Authors

Citation preview

LIBRARY OF NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES

559 Formerly Journal of the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series

Editor Chris Keith

Editorial Board Dale C. Allison, John M.G. Barclay, Lynn H. Cohick, R. Alan Culpepper, Craig A. Evans, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, John S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Love L. Sechrest, Robert Wall, Steve Walton, Catrin H. Williams

READING ACTS IN THE DISCOURSES OF MASCULINITY AND POLITICS

Edited by Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner and Steve Walton

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Bloomsbury T&T Clark An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Imprint previously known as T&T Clark 50 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DP UK

1385 Broadway New York NY 10018 USA

www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

First published 2017 © Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner and Steve Walton, 2017 Eric D. Barreto, Matthew L. Skinner and Steve Walton have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN:

HB: ePDF: ePub:

978-0-5676-6812-7 978-0-5676-6813-4 978-0-5676-6814-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Library of New Testament Studies, volume 559 Typeset by Forthcoming Publications (www.forthpub.com) Printed and bound in Great Britain

C on t en t s

Abbreviations vii Contributors ix Introduction Eric D. Barreto

xi

Part I Warts and All? Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity The Language of Gender in Acts Christina Petterson 3 Taking the Measure of Masculinities in Acts Colleen M. Conway 17 Contextualizing Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases Brittany E. Wilson 28 Making Jewish Men in a Greco-Roman World: Masculinity and the Circumcision of Timothy in Acts 16.1-5 Christopher Stroup 49 Part II Empowering, Engaging or Distancing? Acts in the Discourses of Politics The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire Steve Walton 75

vi Contents

Who Speaks for (or against) Rome? Acts in Relation to Empire Matthew L. Skinner 107 Paul and Roman Law: ‘The Luck of the Draw?’ Bruce W. Winter 126 Empowering, Empire-ing or Engaging? Acts in the Discourse of Politics: A Response Mikeal C. Parsons 141 Turning the Empire (οἰκουμένη) Upside Down: A Response Barbara Rossing 148 Afterword Matthew L. Skinner 156 Bibliography 159 Index of References 175 183 Index of Authors

A b b rev i at i ons

Unless noted below, abbreviations are taken from Billie Jean Collins, Bob Buller and John F. Kutsko (eds), The SBL Handbook of Style for Ancient Near Eastern, Biblical and Early Christian Studies (Atlanta: SBL, 2nd edn, 2014). AJEC BAFCS COQG EC IGR

JAJ JHSEX Plato, Rep. SBLAB

Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity The Book of Acts in Its First Century Setting Christian Origins and the Question of God Epworth Commentaries René Cagnat, J. Toutain, Georges Lafaye and Victor Henry (eds), Inscriptiones Graecae ad res Romanas pertinentes (3 vols.; Paris: Leroux, 1901–27) Journal of Ancient Judaism Journal of the History of Sexuality Plato, Republic Society of Biblical Literature Academica Biblica

C on t ri b u tor s

Eric D. Barreto, Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, USA. Colleen M. Conway, Professor of Religious Studies, Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA. Mikeal C. Parsons, Professor and Macon Chair in Religion, Baylor University, Waco, TX, USA. Christina Petterson, Research Associate, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia. Barbara Rossing, Professor of New Testament, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, IL, USA. Matthew L. Skinner, Professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary, Saint Paul, MN, USA. Christopher Stroup, Assistant Editor, New Testament Abstracts and Research Assistant Professor of New Testament, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA. Steve Walton, Professorial Research Fellow in New Testament, St Mary’s University, Twickenham (London), UK. Brittany E. Wilson, Assistant Professor of New Testament, Duke University Divinity School, Durham, NC, USA. Bruce W. Winter, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Ancient History, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia.

I n t rod uct i on Eric D. Barreto

Luke’s second volume tells a story about power. The power of God that raised Jesus from the dead also propels his disciples to the edges of their known world. These disciples speak with power and boldness. Cultural forces, such as gender and ethnicity, manifest their power over the articulation of the gospel in subtle and noticeable ways. Temple-based authorities assert and reassert their power, as do anxious magistrates, greedy magicians and threatened silversmiths. And, of course, Roman political might makes itself known throughout this narrative about the followers of a crucified savior, becoming especially visible in the final chapters. These various kinds of power coexist, sometimes flowing together and other times contesting one another. Thus, the construction, deployment and contestation of power are critical matters for those who interpret the book of Acts. Indeed, queries around the political stance of Acts vis-à-vis the Roman Empire are nothing new. New in this volume and in recent scholarship, however, is the array of methodological approaches and ideological frameworks scholars have begun to deploy in revisiting these long-disputed questions. Various forms of political power, according to newer analyses, are not just the provenance of emperors, kings and other political figures. Political power is negotiated in the quotidian choices of everyday people as much as it is in the halls of Caesar. Constructions of power participate in all elements of culture, social identity and civic interaction. This volume therefore considers not only questions about whether the empire’s long administrative and military shadow falls (or not) on Luke’s narrative but also the issue of masculinity and how it constructs and deploys power in the Graeco-Roman cultural milieu.1 1.  Most of the essays and responses in this book were first presented at the Society of Biblical Literature Book of Acts Section meetings in Baltimore, MD in 2013 and San Diego, CA in 2014.

xii Introduction

The choice of these twin foci – masculinity and politics – is hardly incidental; neither is the order accidental. In the negotiation of masculinity in Acts, we can see the intersecting power dynamics that create a structure of belonging, a structure that stretches from household to throne room, empowering some people and behaviors while derogating others. The essays focusing on masculinity seek to grow out of previous studies of women in Acts, which began to open up questions of how gender is constructed in this text. The time is now right – even overdue – for digging deeper into these questions about the intersections of power and identity.2 A key premise underlies the two interrelated conversations that this collection of essays hosts: identities are human constructions. Whether one speaks of negotiating gender norms or political forces, the issues involved are forms of identity that people narrate, author, create and reconstruct. These forms of identity hold, bind and empower people, for everyone participates in them, knowingly or not. This volume’s focus on masculinity and politics therefore ventures into truly critical issues, for it asks interpreters to dig beneath the narrative structures of Acts and thus examine its ideological substratum, the assumptions around power that shape and color the world in which Acts was written and read and even the world which Acts itself seeks to create. These analyses do not allow Acts to sit passively as a mere object of study, for we, the interpreters of Acts, also become the object of our critical inquiry as we discern how our own ideas about power, politics and gender influence our readings. As a result, we also discover opportunities to consider how our various and diverse experiences open up new possibilities for how these texts might be read today. The collection of essays begins with the very language and grammar of gender in Acts. Before wondering about depictions of masculinity, we ought to look at the very linguistic and grammatical under­pinnings of these narrative constructions of gender, suggests Christina Petterson in ‘The Language of Gender in Acts’. The concept of ‘language ideology’ explores how language and ideas are mutually reinforcing, how grammatical and 2.  It is also important to notice that the essays do not focus on ‘gender’, per se, at least partly because so many studies of gender in the past have tended to focus on women in the narrative of Acts. Of course, this was a necessary set of questions to broach in a discipline and in texts where women are rarely seen and rarely heard, present but not named, recipients of God’s grace though denied opportunities to be active agents in the distribution of this grace. However, this focus on women in the Lukan narratives has left too unexamined how the construction of gender itself and scholarly attempts to describe that construction remain imbedded in structures of power that interpreters typically fail to acknowledge.

Introduction

xiii

social constructions of gender are interwoven and mutually constitutive. Petterson draws our attention especially to the way direct and indirect speech is gendered in Acts, the former highlighting the power of the speaker. When Acts credits introspection to particular characters, the narrative additionally enhances their masculine credentials. Both these aspects of language confirm Luce Irigary’s argument that language is phallogocentric, that language inevitably makes the feminine entirely dependent on the masculine. As Petterson concludes, ‘Acts, then, presents a narrative of socially stratified men and through this narrative participates in the ideological obliteration of its producers’.3 However, in the end, Petterson wonders how extensive this obliteration might really be. In ‘Taking the Measure of Masculinity’, Colleen M. Conway critiques biblical scholars’ tendencies to apply ‘the protocol for Greco-Roman masculinity’4 too easily in their reading of the New Testament. A consensus around the performance of ancient masculinity has rather unexpectedly resulted in bifurcated exegesis, with some interpreters concluding that Luke embraces Graeco-Roman ideals of masculinity and others contesting that Luke subverts those very same models. While we may be tempted to split the middle between these two approaches and credit Luke with a complex and ambiguous perspective on gender, Conway finds this conclusion inadequate, for a deeper analysis of the very philosophical and ideological grounds of recent work on masculinity is in order. Perhaps we may have misunderstood entirely the very endeavor of reading for masculinity in Acts. Returning to the focus on bodies that gender theorists have forwarded, Conway suggests: …the violation of the bodies of Lukan heroes is not the point as much as the maintenance of a cultural masculine ideal in spite of the violence. By passing quickly over the violence, by having the apostolic heroes overcome it, albeit with divine intervention, the narrative glosses over both the physical reality of the violence and its emasculating implications. In this way, the narrative reminds the reader of the degree to which gender is after all discursively constructed. In this world, characters enact esteemed versions of masculinity regardless of the violence done to them.5

Unlike Luke, we readers ought not to have the luxury of looking away from the violated bodies that litter the narrative of Acts. Nor do we have the luxury to do the same in the world today. 3.  Petterson, ‘Language’, p. 16 in this volume. 4.  Conway, ‘Taking’, p. 17 in this volume. 5.  Conway, ‘Taking’, p. 25 in this volume.

xiv Introduction

Brittany E. Wilson turns to two key figures in Acts, Peter and Paul, in ‘Contextualizing Masculinity in the Book of Acts: Peter and Paul as Test Cases’. Countering an emerging consensus that Acts affirms, participates in and extends elite, male and Roman views of masculinity, Wilson contends that ‘Luke provides a refiguration of ancient elite understandings of what it means to “be a man” in order to further his larger theme of God’s paradoxical power in Jesus’.6 That is, the two dominant male protagonists in Acts embody a masculinity that cannot be characterized as either straightforwardly subversive of or accommodating to Roman norms. Wilson outlines the various ‘unmanly’ attributes of Peter and Paul in Acts but also notes how their characterization does indeed participate in Roman ideals. But, Wilson notes, these ideals are themselves in need of more nuance, for an empire split between Latin West and Greek East produced a bifurcated imagination around masculinity. In the end, Luke’s project is shaped by a theology that ‘casts Peter and Paul and other male characters as members of a larger apocalyptic drama in which their words and deeds ultimately further God’s plan’.7 Focusing on the contested gender of Timothy in Acts 16, Christopher Stroup’s ‘Making Jewish Men in a Graeco-Roman World: Masculinity and the Circumcision of Timothy in Acts 16.1-5’ argues that Luke presents Christian men as Jewish, rather than Greco-Roman men. By embracing an ostensibly Jewish model of masculinity, Luke subverts the Greco-Roman model of masculinity-as-mastery only to re-appropriate it into his Jewish men. Luke’s men are Jewish men, but they dominate like Greco-Roman men. Timothy’s foreskin serves as the sacrifice needed forcefully to make this point.8

That is, Stroup examines 16.1-5 and wonders how Paul’s circumcision is itself an act of gender performance, not just a religious and/or ethnic matter. So, Stroup details how circumcision was perceived by Israel and its neighbours, not just as a religious practice but also as a gendered, cultural act. He discerns that the Graeco-Roman world tended to see circumcision as a feminizing act of mutilation, even as Jewish sources claimed circumcision as the sine qua non of Jewish male identity. Acts 16, therefore, is a ‘marginal moment’ that demonstrates that Luke dwells in between these two perspectives. The circumcision of Timothy poses a

6.  Wilson, ‘Contextualizing’, p. 30 in this volume. 7.  Wilson, ‘Contextualizing’, p. 46 in this volume. 8.  Stroup, ‘Making’, p. 49 in this volume.

Introduction

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challenge to both perspectives: ‘Timothy occupies that in-between place by which the polarizing boundaries of Jew and Greco-Roman masculinities are blurred’.9 Part II focuses on ‘Empowering, Engaging or Distancing? Acts in the Discourses of Politics’, turning specifically to the complex negotiation of Roman politics and power on display in the book of Acts. Steve Walton’s ‘The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire’ is a republication of his indispensable 2002 survey of scholarly approaches to the question of how Acts construes Roman imperial power. Walton proposes five heuristic categories within which previous approaches to the question fall. The first contends that Acts is a defense of Christians aimed at Roman officials, a view dominant in scholarship for centuries. In more recent efforts, four additional approaches emerged. The second type of approach flips the first, arguing that Acts is a defense of Rome aimed at Christians. The next option is that ‘Acts is providing legitimation for the church’s identity’.10 According to the fourth, Acts eschews apology in order to train Christians how to live under Roman power. Finally, other scholars want to critique the very question under consideration, for they claim Acts has no interest in the political power of Rome. In light of this typology, Walton returns to the textual evidence in Acts and focuses on seven key interfaces between Acts and Rome which ought to serve as an exegetical foundation for further exploration. In short, ‘Luke offers his readers a strategy of critical distance from the empire’,11 one that lives in the light of Jesus’ evident supremacy over Caesar but refuses to romanticize or vilify Rome itself. Matthew L. Skinner’s ‘Who Speaks for (or against) Rome? Acts in Relation to Empire’ renews and reinvigorates the debates Walton outlines by surveying more recent attempts to spell out Luke’s perspective on Rome as well as imagining a way forward. More than a survey of approaches, therefore, Skinner’s essay is a diagnostic of the question’s ‘messy state right now’.12 The various and distinctive conclusions scholars have reached about the politics of Acts have as much to with the contested rationales and understandings of Luke’s negotiation of Roman power as they do with the data we find in the book of Acts itself. Skinner does not lament this state, contesting that there is ‘fecundity’ in these various approaches because new methodologies and approaches are helping scholars reinvigorate what had become rather stale debates. Skinner closes 9.  Stroup, ‘Making’, p. 71 in this volume. 10.  Walton, ‘State’, p. 76 in this volume. 11.  Walton, ‘State’, p. 106 in this volume. 12.  Skinner, ‘Who Speaks’, p. 107 in this volume.

xvi Introduction

with six observations of this complex field of inquiry, especially emphasizing how a more nuanced understanding of ‘empire’, its referents and its instantiations is leading to an ever more complex – if not unanimous – understanding of Luke’s imagination of empire. As Skinner concludes, ‘The point is not that Acts supports any and every interpretive proposal, but that scholarship’s ongoing efforts should not expect the disentangling of the book’s perspectives to be any easier than it is for scholars to dis­entangle their own sociopolitical realities’.13 Bruce W. Winter’s contribution, ‘Paul and Roman Law: “The Luck of the Draw?” ’, starts by noting the curious juxtaposition of antiquity’s admiration of Roman law and its uneven, less admirable application in Acts. Save for one exception in Acts 18.12-16, the vaulted ideals of Roman law fall short and reflect the inconsistency of the law’s application in the Roman East. Such inconsistency is not just a reflection of historical reality for Acts but also a theological claim: ‘on the basis of the legal proceedings recorded in Acts that the phrase “without hindrance” (28.31) at the very end of Acts justifies the view that there still remained no legal impediment to being or becoming a Christian in light of the cases recorded there’.14 Winter proceeds to examine how Roman law is breached at Philippi in Acts 16, Thessalonica in Acts 17 and Caesarea Maritima in Acts 23, but enforced properly in Corinth in Acts 18. For Winter, the final word of Acts discloses a key theme: ἀκωλύτως points to the possibility of following Christ, no matter Rome’s uneven distribution of justice. Responding to these three essays is Mikeal C. Parsons’s ‘Empowering, Empire-ing or Engaging? Acts in the Discourse of Politics: A Response’, which begins with appreciation for Walton’s and Skinner’s surveys and how ‘these two pieces together as a diptych illuminat[e] the past and present state of scholarship on this subject’.15 Winter, Parsons suggests, highlights the complexities of Roman power in Acts by focusing on the uneven application of Roman law, although Parsons also critiques how Winter understands Luke’s use of ἀκωλύτως. Parsons also provides an extensive summary and critique of Warren Carter’s recent essay on ‘Aquatic Displays’ of the Roman Empire.16 13.  Skinner, ‘Who Speaks’, p. 125 in this volume. 14.  Winter, ‘Paul’, p. 127 in this volume. 15.  Parsons, ‘Empowering’, p. 141 in this volume. 16.  Warren Carter, ‘Aquatic Display: Navigating the Roman Imperial World in Acts 27’, NTS 62 (2016), pp. 79-96. This paper was originally presented at the same meeting of the SBL Book of Acts Section (San Diego, November 2014) as those of Skinner and Winter.

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A final response is Barbara Rossing’s ‘Turning the Empire (οἰκουμένη) Upside Down’. In this constructive rejoinder, Rossing extends and buttresses her previous work on Revelation, arguing that οἰκουμένη is best rendered as ‘empire’ in the New Testament. Such a translation, for Rossing, demonstrates the anti-imperial stance of Acts and Revelation alike, for in the New Testament ‘Rome is less “benevolent” than “dangerous”. This is because all the references to οἰκουμένη in Acts are negative.’17 Although these essays do not break open entirely new ground in the study of Acts, the tools of this scholarship have changed. The methodological approaches exemplified are reinvigorating these lines of inquiry. Together, these essays provide a tightly woven and deeply textured analysis of Acts. The specific questions they pursue about power and human identities have always been a part of how readers have interpreted Acts, even if those previous interpretations have not always been consciously aware of these topics’ complexity, to say nothing of the topics’ ability to break open much of the cultural and theological discourse operating in Acts. The ground may not be new, but the tools of inquiry are sharper than they were before, more able to refresh these fields of study. No consensus emerges from these pages on these critical lines of exegetical inquiry, but in concert the contributors have discerned a key set of questions. Readers will find themselves spurred by these analyses to become more informed and skilled critics themselves, for the questions pursued here will prove inescapable as scholars continue to study Acts, its ancient readers and its interpreters today.

17.  Rossing, ‘Turning’, p. 149 in this volume.

Part I

W a rt s a n d A ll ? A c t s i n t h e D i s c ou rs es of M asculi ni t y

T he L a n g u a g e of G en de r i n A cts Christina Petterson

One of the fundamentals of Acts studies is its enigmatic relationship to the Roman Empire. Is Acts to be understood as an apologetic text that shows no contradiction between believing in Jesus and being a faithful Roman citizen? Or is it primarily concerned with internal church politics?1 These questions are usually addressed at the text’s surface level, which leaves little room for analyses of the deeper ideological features which inform the surface narrative in ways perhaps not even apparent to the producer of the story. The fact that both cases may be made for the book of Acts makes it necessary to examine some of these deeper ideological issues more closely and consider whether it is possible to ask the question from a different perspective. This essay focuses on how the grammar of the text of Acts constructs masculine subjects and inferior objects and whether it is possible to identify the class and gender ideology of the empire at the level of sentence production in Acts. Assuming that it is possible to move from language to the ideology of the text, or, in other words, that language, word choice and sentence construction are ideological,2 I will briefly begin by considering character construction as well as a more narrow functional grammatical

1.  Loveday C. A. Alexander, Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at the Acts of the Apostles (LNTS, 298; London: T&T Clark International, 2005), pp. 183-206. 2.  See e.g. Roland Boer, ‘Spermatic Spluttering Pens: Concerning the Construction and Breakdown of Prophetic Masculinity’, in Jonathan Stökl and Corrine L. Carvalho (eds), Prophets Male and Female: Gender and Prophecy in the Hebrew Bible, the Eastern Mediterranean, and the Ancient Near East (Atlanta: SBL, 2013), pp. 215-35. He argues that ‘it is not the content of the language that counts, the ideas and beliefs it seeks to express directly, but the forms and structures – or what I call the machinery and workings – of language that provide unwitting insights into the deeper patterns of ideology, precisely those that everyone assumes to be natural’ (p. 216).

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Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics

analysis of Acts and then move on to a speech-oriented approach in order to articulate the move from grammar to phallogocentric perspective with special focus on direct/indirect speech and introspection. 1. Language Ideology In an insightful article entitled ‘Neo-Marxism, Language Ideology and the New Testament’, Giovanni B. Bazzana introduces the notion of language ideologies to the field of New Testament studies.3 Because his article discusses language and power and touches upon the issue of gender, I will use it as a way into my analysis of Acts, and here give an outline of the argument. Language ideology is, in brief, ‘the cultural system of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests’.4 Such an approach is suspicious of the way in which language has become reified and naturalised as well as its representation of the world. Instead, language ideology recognises how language is ‘fundamentally implicated in relations of domination’.5 Precisely because of this complex relationship with reality, it is necessary to analyse language at the level of syntax, lexicon and sequencing to show how these may be used to produce different perspectives.6 Bazzana points to two reasons why the field of language ideology could be useful to New Testament scholars. First, it can help dislodge the survival of the functionalist paradigm still stubbornly present in the work on social histories of early Christianity and instead focus on ‘what a text can “do,” at the socio-political level, through its speech structures, its genre, the ideological weight embedded in its very syntax and grammar’.7 The second advantage is that of severing the link between agency and intentionality, which is important in our present discussion. Bazzana notes that one of the biggest problems in the use of ‘agency’ is the collapsing of the term with intentionality. This is especially evident in the multiple 3.  Giovanni B. Bazzana, ‘Neo-Marxism, Language Ideology and the New Testament’, The Bible and Critical Theory 8 (2012), pp. 16-26. 4.  Judith T. Irvine, ‘When Talk Isn’t Cheap: Language and Political Economy’, American Ethnologist 16 (1989), p. 255, quoted in Bazzana, ‘Neo-Marxism’, p. 18. 5.  Susan Gal, ‘Language and Political Economy’, Annual Review of Anthropology 18 (1989), p. 348, quoted in Bazzana, ‘Neo-Marxism’, p. 19. 6.  Gal, ‘Language’, p. 359. 7.  Bazzana, ‘Neo-Marxism’, p. 20. I attempted such an analysis in my recently published study on John’s Gospel: Christina Petterson, From Tomb to Text: The Body of Jesus in the Book of John (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016).



Petterson The Language of Gender in Acts

5

readings of the New Testament as resistance texts ‘in ways that oftentimes appear to be nothing else than thinly disguised attempts at apologetics’.8 Language ideology’s emphasis on linguistic structures as social practices that may be reproduced without intention or awareness highlights the problems and one-dimensionality of such an approach. To illustrate this, Bazzana uses the example of gendered pronouns in English, an example which is particularly instructive for the task at hand. Drawing on the work of anthropologists Hill and Mannheim,9 Bazanna presents the example of the attempt to dislodge the pronoun ‘he’ as ‘dominant indefinite index’, an attempt whose results might be measured on the surface, but whose actual political results are meagre, to say the least.10 One of the reasons for this lack of success, according to Hill and Mannheim, is that pronouns are part of a larger category system, which remains unchallenged and which functions to reproduce men as a normative, unmarked category of persons below the speaker’s threshold of awareness. This example problematizes the conflation of agency and intentionality, in that ‘[t]he hegemonic structure is reproduced below the speaker’s threshold of awareness, unconsciously, but is challenged from above the threshold of awareness, consciously. The different systems move back and forth across the threshold of consciousness, occasionally emerging into direct, purposive conflict.’11 In other words, agency and intentionality may (or may not) move in opposite directions, and so we should take great care before assuming that what may look like resistance could actually leave in place and re-inscribe the fundamental hegemonic system.12 Bringing in such an understanding of language and ideology implies that any ‘construction of masculinity’ in a narrative takes place above the threshold of consciousness and that there is much going on beneath this threshold, which we need to take into consideration before determining 8.  Bazzana, ‘Neo-Marxism’, p. 21. 9.  Jane H. Hill and Bruce Mannheim, ‘Language and World View’, Annual Review of Anthropology 21 (1992), pp. 381-406. 10.  See also Dale Spender, Man Made Language (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 2nd edn, 1980), pp. 147-51. 11.  Hill and Mannheim, ‘Language’, pp. 389-90. This quote is also reproduced in Bazzana’s article but with the unfortunate accidental omission of ‘unconsciously, but is challenged from above the threshold of awareness’, thus producing a sentence that is almost Orwellian in character: ‘The hegemonic structure is reproduced below the speaker’s threshold of awareness, consciously’ (Bazzana, ‘Neo-Marxism’, p. 22). 12.  Bazanna, ‘Neo-Marxism’, p. 23. Bazzana’s own analysis of the Lord’s Prayer in the final part of the article illustrates this tension perfectly (pp. 22-25).

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Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics

whether or not characters are subversive. As an example, comparing the characterisation of Paul and the Roman authorities according to Aristotle’s criteria for character shows that they are granted the same level of consistency, introspection and reflection. In other words, they are granted status as moral subjects, however dissimilar these morals may be. These initial observations merit further analysis, to which I now turn. The first section, on the characteristics of language in Acts, begins with an engagement with Gustavo Martín-Asensio’s linguistic analysis of Acts and then moves on to discuss how speech forms characters and masculinity in the text. The second section critiques the focus on gender and the class dynamics such a focus conceals. 2. The Character of Language Within a niche of New Testament studies, scholars are deploying linguistic analysis of the New Testament texts with interesting results. One such study is Gustavo Martín-Asensio’s thesis on functional grammatical analysis of Acts.13 Using the work of Michael Halliday, Martín-Asensio analyses grammar as a rhetorical literary device deployed by the author of Acts to present his message in a particular way, which is embedded in its social setting: [A] text is an instance of social meaning in a particular context of situation. We shall therefore expect to find the situation embodied or enshrined in the text, not piecemeal, but in a way which reflects the systematic relation between the semantic structure and the social environment.14

Although Martín-Asensio’s thorough analysis of the careful production of a text and its sentences may be accused of the functional fallacy indicated by Bazzana earlier, his attention to grammar and detail are nevertheless helpful in directing attention towards the fact that language has a specific function and the importance of how it is used in a given text. Martín-Asensio approaches the text through grammatical strategies which foreground a certain perspective that must be related to the text as a whole. One is through aspect, by which he analyses the shipwreck 13.  Gustavo Martín-Asensio, Transitivity-Based Foregrounding in the Acts of the Apostles: A Functional-Grammatical Approach to the Lukan Perspective (JSNTSup, 202; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2000). 14.  Michael A. K. Halliday, Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning (Baltimore: University Park Press, 1978), p. 141, quoted in Martín-Asensio, Foregrounding, p. 38.



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episode in Acts 27 through Halliday’s notion of ‘ergativity’, which understands a certain ‘process’ (Halliday’s term) as either a non-ergative clause, in which there is no external agent, or an ergative clause, in which there is an external cause, acting upon the process.15 The result of the analysis is that the ‘fundamental feature’ of the we-character in the story is ‘the sense of powerlessness created by their non-ergative structures’, which means that this character is a ‘passive medium’, who rather than affecting the events is affected by the course of events.16 In contrast, the text depicts the soldiers and the crew as busy agents who nonetheless fail in their task. Paul’s only action on the ship is, as Martín-Asensio notes, breaking the bread. Paul is thus not to be seen as an agent but rather as an interpreter who understands the events from the divine perspective, which constitutes the actual cause of the events and against which all resistance is futile. This is why the soldiers and the crew fail in their tasks. MartínAsensio uses his analyses to support the ‘edification thesis’ which sees the purpose of Acts as internal, that is, directed towards believers to show them that God is in control. In particular, his analysis of Stephen (Acts 6–7) and Paul (21–22) shows that ‘in each case…Luke utilizes a syntaxbased foregrounding scheme to highlight the inability of human actions, grammaticalized by means of ergative clauses, to resist the unfolding and irresistible will of God’.17 3. The Role of Speech While the use of a functional grammar opens up the text in different ways, we may nevertheless question whether the distinction between material process and verbal process is fruitful in working with New Testament texts, particularly considering their emphasis on the word of God and the effect of speech. If one operates with such a basic distinction, it excludes speaking as having any effect and places the emphasis on action 15.  While Martín-Asensio’s study has made me aware of the function of grammar and the importance of emphases on doing and speaking, all of which yield very interesting insights into the mechanics of textual manipulation, I am not really convinced that ergativity is the way to go in the grammatical analysis of ancient texts. The most obvious reason is that Greek is not an ergative language but an accusative language, which means that in Greek there is no grammatical distinction between the subject of a transitive or an intransitive verb, a distinction which is the benchmark of absolute-ergative languages. See Robert M. W. Dixon, Ergativity (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 69; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 6. 16.  Martín-Asensio, Foregrounding, p. 71. 17.  Martín-Asensio, Foregrounding, p. 146.

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alone. For example, Martín-Asensio’s analysis of Paul in the arrest and trial scene (21.27–22.29) does not include Paul as an actually speaking subject.18 He thus notes that Paul is only the ‘agent of ergative clauses’ in eight cases, which enables him to argue that Paul’s persona recedes dramatically in the text because his persona is now only significant in relation to the risen Christ.19 However, studies of Roman rhetoric show not only how speech is crucial for constructing and sustaining masculinity, but that the aim of such speech is ‘virility, authorized speech, and social control’,20 which brings together precisely the spheres separated by Halliday in his functional grammar: material processes (processes of doing), mental processes (processes of sensing), verbal processes (processes of saying) and relational processes (processes of being).21 With public speaking so central not only to the plot of Acts22 but also to the characterisation of its participants, it seems one-sided to focus on an approach (namely Halliday’s functional grammar) that excludes precisely those acts of public speechmaking that characterise Acts. So I want to look at speaking in Acts and in particular at the difference between direct speech (first person) and indirect speech (third person) so that we can then consider to what extent the use of direct and indirect speech tells us something about the production of the characters. A good example of such a difference between direct and indirect speech is the storyteller’s shift from third to first person speech in the so-called

18.  Martín-Asensio remarks that the narrative that follows (Acts 22.22-29) sees no changes in the transitivity patterns. Of the sixteen clauses where Paul is a participant, he is the object of the processes of others in seven. ‘Of the rest, Paul is the subject of clauses encoding verbal processes (processes of saying, three instances), relational processes (processes of being, four instances), and on two occasions, the passive subject of actions carried out by the Roman soldiers’ (Martín-Asensio, Foregrounding, p. 145). 19.  Martín-Asensio, Foregrounding, p. 145. 20.  Erik Gunderson, Staging Masculinity: The Rhetoric of Performance in the Roman World (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), p. 21. See also Maud W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) and Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Gossip and Gender: Othering of Speech in the Pastoral Epistles (BZNW, 164; Berlin: de Gruyter 2009), pp. 181-82. 21.  Martín-Asensio, Foregrounding, pp. 93-94 n. 30. Martín-Asensio’s footnote does not include verbal processes. 22.  Marion L. Soards, The Speeches in Acts: Their Content, Context, and Concerns (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), pp. 182-83.



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we-passages (16.10-17; 20.5-15; 21.1-8; 27.1–28.16). If we see direct speech as a technique of foregrounding the speaker or even backgrounding the surroundings, then direct speech stands out as a level above the narrative level. This is at least what it looks like in two stories: the healing of the beggar at the Beautiful Gate in 3.1-10 and Peter’s visit to Mary’s house in 12.12-17. In both cases, there is an odd conversation between direct and indirect speech. In the case of Peter, John and the beggar, the indirectly narrated request of the beggar (v. 3) remains at the narrative level, against which Peter’s and John’s direct utterings (vv. 4 and 6) stand out in sharp relief. And in the case of Rhoda, the slave girl who opens the door for Peter, the same shift from between direct and indirect speech takes place. Rhoda’s account is at the narrative level in indirect speech (vv. 14-15), while the disbelief of the interlocutors stands out in direct speech (v. 15). Another striking feature of direct and indirect speech is evident in the role of Barnabas in the narrative of Acts. William Campbell argues that ‘Barnabas’s unassailable character and credibility are enlisted in support of Paul from the inception of Paul’s apostleship’.23 The ‘we’ character, according to Campbell, takes the place of Barnabas; that is, the narrator assumes the ‘we’ character when Barnabas leaves the narrative.24 However, Campbell’s production of Barnabas’s ‘estimable character’ and ‘exceptional insight’ presents us with a much more complex character than the one we find in Acts. After first being introduced in ch. 4, Barnabas reappears in chs. 9–15 as the one who introduces Paul to the Jerusalem congregation and accompanies Paul on the trip from Antioch through Pisidia, Lystra, Derbe, Iconium, Jerusalem and back to Antioch. In 9.27, the narrator recounts how Barnabas took Paul to the apostles and describes Paul’s conversion and subsequent evangelisation. While this verse, from an ergative point of view, narrates Barnabas as a man of action, the speech is nevertheless rendered indirectly. Similarly, in 11.25-26, after Barnabas had hunted down Paul in Tarsus and brought him to Antioch, they taught ‘a great many people’ (11.26). On the mission trip proper (13.1–15.35), however, the only times Barnabas is credited with direct speech is when he and Paul are listed as joint subjects of a speech (13.46-47 and 14.14-17). Even in the quarrel with Paul (15.3639), Barnabas’s response is narrated in the third person, while Paul speaks in the first person. Another interesting figure is Philip who only speaks directly once in Acts, namely when he asks the Ethiopian eunuch, ‘Do 23.  William S. Campbell, The ‘We’ Passages in the Acts of the Apostles: The Narrator as Narrative Character (SBLStBL, 14; Atlanta: SBL, 2007), p. 62. 24.  Campbell, ‘We’ Passages, p. 65.

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you understand what you are reading?’ (8.30). Everything else he says is narrated in third person narrative.25 The concept of direct speech is significant, because it enables us to see a fuller character in that it brings together thought and speech, as the brief story of Peter’s release from prison in 12.6-17 illustrates. After being released from prison by the angel of the lord, Peter says to himself, in direct speech, ‘Now I know in truth that the Lord sent his angel’ (12.11). Upon realising this, he then goes to Mary’s house. Pervo outlines how Peter himself offers an interpretation of what has happened and shows us how he has passed from ignorance in 12.9 to truth in v. 11. This, notes Pervo, makes the opening of the following verse (v. 12) redundant.26 If we look at it from the perspective of Aristotelian agency, then we are presented with an agent who thinks, speaks and acts in accordance with his reflections, and more importantly, in correspondence with the truth claims of the narrative. Another character in Acts endowed with introspection and an abundance of direct speech is, of course, Paul. Paul is consistently presented as a character who acts upon reflection, be it as an adversary (e.g. 9.1-2) or as a missionary. This is exemplified not only in his speeches but also in the scattered references to his introspection. In 14.9, Paul knows that the man has faith to be healed and so heals him.27 In 15.36-41, Paul takes a stand against Barnabas on the matter of John Mark. In 16.3, Paul has Timothy circumcised because of all the Jews in those places, which shows reasoning behind the act of circumcision. This is a scene to which I shall return below. In 17.16, Paul is wandering around Athens, his spirit within him provoked because of the city’s ubiquitous idols. While this may very well be a common expression, merely denoting his feelings,28 it nevertheless also places Paul’s feelings on par with the larger purpose 25.  F. Scott Spencer, The Portrait of Philip in Acts: A Study of Roles and Relations (JSNTSup, 67; Sheffield: JSOT, 1992), in contrast, endeavours to flesh out Philip’s character in ways reminiscent of the analysis of Lydia in Ivoni Richter Reimer, Women in the Acts of the Apostles: A Feminist Liberation Perspective (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), pp. 98-109. 26.  Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), p. 305. 27.  Compare this with Peter’s healing of the crippled man in 3.1-10. In many respects, the stories are similar in structure and in content, as F. Scott Spencer, Acts (Readings; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997), p. 149, points out. However, at this stage, Peter is not represented as someone who reflects and thus has the powers of introspection. 28.  C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994, 1998), vol. 2, p. 827.



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and direction of God’s spirit, which governs the narrative. This is also apparent in 19.21 where Paul resolves to travel through Macedonia and Achaia and then to Jerusalem.29 Paul, then, is consistently portrayed as being reflective in accordance with a larger purpose that governs his actions. He acts appropriately according to his citizen status, speaks publicly and is, according to the commentaries, a good, noble and fearless man. Acts has thus portrayed its hero well, according to Aristotle’s criteria for character. The Roman authorities also merit attention, in that they are represented as being consistent in their actions and reflections: Claudius Lysias is anxious because he almost flogged a Roman citizen (22.24-29) and sends Paul to Felix to protect this Roman citizen (23.26-30). The motives of Felix to hang on to Paul are financial and to stay on friendly terms with the Jews (24.26-27), and Festus also wants to stay on good terms with the Jews (25.9). Much of this characterisation is constructed through a mixture of direct speech and the storyteller’s observations, both of which cast the Romans in a less than favourable light. In the case of Festus, for example, we are presented with his motives by the storyteller, accompanied by his question to Paul regarding a possible trial in Jerusalem (25.9). Also Claudius Lysias’s construction of his own heroic self in his letter to Felix (23.26-30) stands in contrast to his order to have Paul flogged but consistent with or motivated by his fear of almost having flogged a Roman (22.24). So while we are not left in doubt about the storyteller’s moral valuation of these Romans, the men are still presented as consistent. By articulating the chain of command, from Claudius Lysias through Felix and Festus, which brings Paul to Rome, the text produces Paul as a Roman subject through the emphasis on his citizenship and his appeal to the emperor. The text simultaneously produces these Roman characters as moral subjects, who are able to act in accordance with a larger motive, be it greed, compliance or Roman law (26.32). So while they might be presented as morally flawed characters, they are nevertheless still presented as elite males,30 who communicate in the way (direct first person speech) idealised in Greek epic poetry.31 29.  Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit in 13.9 and refers to himself as bound by the spirit in 20.22. He is also hindered by the spirit to speak and travel in 16.6-7 and 21.4. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit bears witness to Paul in 20.23. 30.  Mary Rose D’Angelo, ‘The ANHP Question in Luke–Acts’, in Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to Luke (London: Continuum, 2002), p. 53. 31.  Karen Bassi, Acting Like Men: Gender, Drama, and Nostalgia in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), p. 44.

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Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics

So, direct speech as a specific operation of language in Acts undergirds the characterisation of selected men in the narrative as elite moral subjects. But where do we go from here? 4. Men and Phallogocentrism French philosopher Luce Irigaray sees language as inherently phallogocentric.32 Just to freshen our memories, this means not only that the male is the norm but also that Woman/the female does not have an independent existence outside its relation to the male and is always set in relation to the masculine through either likeness, opposition or complementarity.33 This is almost painfully easy to show in Acts when one looks at the role of women.34 However, the task here concerns masculinities, which is a bit more of a challenge, because, if we for a moment accept that phallogocentrism is gender under the threshold of consciousness, how do we then relate it to masculinities, which I place above the level of consciousness? Cue Timothy. Timothy is presented by name in 16.1 and given attributes such as disciple, the son of a Jewish woman and a Greek father, well spoken of by the brethren in Lystra and Iconium (vv. 1-2). Then in v. 3, when Paul steps into the narrative, Timothy is placed in an emphasised object position and then taken and circumcised by Paul. This circumcision has caused much excitement because of the discrepancies with Galatians. Many have attempted to explain how Paul in Galatians, Paul in Acts 16.3 and the apostolic decree can peacefully co-exist.35 What no one seems to find problematic is that Paul apparently has control, or rather, the right to circumcise Timothy. This places Paul in the position of a slaveholder that has the right over the bodies of his slaves, including in religious matters,36 32.  Luce Irigaray, This Sex Which Is Not One (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977). 33.  Jorunn Økland, Women in Their Place: Paul and the Corinthian Discourse of Gender and Sanctuary Space (JSNTSup, 269; London: T&T Clark International, 2004), p. 16. 34.  I have discussed this at greater length in Christina Petterson, Acts of Empire: The Acts of the Apostles and Imperial Ideology (Chung Li: CYCU Press, 2012), pp. 27-53. 35.  Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. Bernard Noble, Gerald Shinn, Hugh Anderson, and R. McL. Wilson; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), pp. 380-82; Pervo, Acts, p. 388; and Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 474-76. 36.  See the section on household conversions and first Christian slaveholders in Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press,



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an impression compounded by the order or command (ἐντολή)37 issued by Paul to Silas and Timothy in 17.15 to join him as soon as possible. This would add a different dimension to 18.1-5, where Paul works with Aquila and Priscilla, until Silas and Timothy turn up in Corinth. Most commentators assume that Timothy and Silas bring money or supplies,38 which enable Paul to concentrate on preaching.39 However, this does not take the hierarchy that the text takes for granted into consideration, nor the fact that money, as we know it, did not exist at the time, nor for that matter the text itself, which says nothing about Timothy and Silas bringing anything. A different possibility is that Timothy and Silas work to support Paul, enabling him to preach full time. This would fit well within the hierarchies present in the text, hierarchies wherein Paul has command over them, in Timothy’s case even to the point of circumcision. It would also be conceivable within the hierarchies of the time that those who did not need to work because of their social position relied on those who worked.40 As indicated in the examples of Barnabas and Philip, and more blatantly in the case of Timothy, there are men, and then there are men. So with such dramatically different constructions of masculinity in the text, it is obvious that other factors play a role in the shaping of men, manliness and masculinities in Acts. And this is where the concept of phallogocentrism 2002), pp. 46-49. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles (AB, 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998), p. 575, while noting the directness of the language does not pursue its implications. 37.  Translations and commentaries usually translate ἐντολή as ‘instructions’, which softens the force of the word and takes for granted that they are co-workers and not that Timothy is subservient to Paul. 38.  F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (London: Tyndale, 2nd edn, 1952), p. 344. 39.  I. Howard Marshall, Acts of the Apostles (NTG; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1992), pp. 293-94; Pervo, Acts, p. 452; and Witherington, Acts, pp. 548-49. 40.  In a thought-provoking article, Thomas E. Phillips, ‘Paul as a Role Model in Acts: The “We”-Passages in Acts 16 and Beyond’, in Thomas E. Phillips (ed.), Acts and Ethics (NTM; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2005), pp. 60-61, argues that Peter and Paul represent two different economic lives: Peter, as living within the community of goods, sustained by the generosity of others, and Paul, who was self-supporting and generous. Phillips argues that the we-sections function to historicise the communal aspect as something bygone and promote the Pauline example as the current role-model. This is a compelling argument, but it does not address the issue in 18.1-5 and the relationship between Silas, Timothy and Paul. Even if one does not agree with my interpretation, the text still implies that Paul stops working when Silas and Timothy show up. This text suggests that Paul too lived off the generosity of others.

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loses its radical edge, not only because of its focus on gender but also because it, perhaps unintentionally because it is such a forceful concept, clouds the bigger picture of which it must be a part. So digging beyond the representations of masculinities in Acts and their phallogocentric conditions, what would we then be looking for? In their study on the dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno offer the following trenchant critique of ancient philosophy’s ability to represent the world: Through their claim to universal validity, the philosophical concepts with which Plato and Aristotle represented the world elevated the conditions which those concepts justified to the status of true reality. They originated, as Vico put it, in the marketplace of Athens; they reflected with the same fidelity the laws of physics, the equality of freeborn citizens, and the inferiority of women, children, and slaves. Language itself endowed what it expressed, the conditions of domination, with the universality it had acquired as the means of intercourse in civil society.41

We may place Stephen Halliwell’s observation on character in Aristotle as an extension of this quote, when he notes the intersection between character and ethics in the agent’s ethical choice in his study of character in Aristotle’s poetics: ‘Aristotle’s understanding of character is essentially ethical, rests on a close relation between character and action, and interprets the behaviour of persons less in terms of individuality than by reference to a set of objective and common standards’.42 As Halliwell hints, Aristotle’s perspective on characters is entirely consistent with what we find in his Nicomachean Ethics. However, the objective and common standards to which Halliwell refers need some analytical unpacking, beyond a vague mention of class. Bringing in G. E. M. De Ste Croix’s analysis of the vocabulary of social status shows us that this vocabulary is a mixture of socioeconomic and moral terminology which is applied to the propertied and non-propertied classes.43 Socio-economic terms which mean propertyowning, rich, fortunate, distinguished, well-born and influential are used 41.  Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment: Philosophical Fragments (trans. Edmund Jephcott; Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002), p. 16. 42.  Stephen Halliwell, Aristotle’s Poetics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), p. 164. 43.  G. E. M. De Ste Croix, ‘Early Christian Attitudes to Property and Slavery’, in Michael Whitby and Joseph Streeter (eds), Christian Persecution, Martyrdom, and Orthodoxy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 328-71. In addition, see his



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synonymously with terms with more explicit moral connotations, such as the good, the best, the upright, the fair-minded and so on. Likewise, socio-economic terms such as the poor, the many, the mob and so on are interchangeable with moral words meaning ‘bad’. As Boer states, the implications of this is that the apparently innocent Platonic questions – what is good? what is beautiful? what is ethical? – lose their class innocence and become questions pertinent only for a small, anti-democratic, slave-owning and propertied oligarchy. In this light, it becomes well-nigh impossible to separate Aristotle’s proposed ethics from the class assumptions that structure them, not merely because of Aristotle’s own oligarchic leanings but because the terminology of ethics and goodness is inseparably a class terminology, one that excludes the slaves, indentured labourers and impoverished peasants from its orbit.44

Not only does this mean that socio-economic classifications are fundamental or essential to Aristotelian ethics, it also means that socio-economic classifications are fundamental to Aristotle in general, including his Poetics,45 which should not surprise us given the quote above from Horkheimer and Adorno. One relation which skims the surface of the narrative of Acts is the master/slave relation. As Jennifer Glancy showed us more than ten years ago, not only is slavery assumed in the narrative of Acts, the text also takes the slaveholder’s position.46 There is yet another relation significant for the various masculinities in Acts, namely the relationship between the polis, along with its urban perspective so representative of Acts, and its chorae, the agricultural surroundings on which the polis is entirely dependent. This is, according to De Ste Croix, the socio-economic foundation for New Testament times.47 Also here we find the backgrounding effect in play, where the events in the chorae often are narrated in summarising form, analysis of καλὸς καγαθός in the additional notes in G. E. M. De Ste Croix, Origins of the Peloponnesian War (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 1989), pp. 371-76. A summary with more terms is found in De Ste Croix, ‘Early Christian Attitudes’, pp. 338-39. 44.  Roland Boer, ‘Toward Unethical Insurgency’, Rethinking Marxism 25 (2012), pp. 38-51 (49). 45.  As Halliwell, Aristotle’s Poetics, pp. 138-67, also notes. 46.  Glancy, Slavery, pp. 46-49. 47.  G. E. M. De Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), pp. 425-41.

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while the events in the poleis are more full and dynamic. Furthermore, the people of the chorae are not represented except in a couple of side remarks, such as ‘the brothers in Judea’ (11.1, 29). Closely related and significant is of course, the Roman Empire, which shapes the high profile men, their communication skills, their sphere of influence and their general prowess. Acts, then, presents a narrative of socially stratified men and through this narrative participates in the ideological obliteration of its producers, the ones that De Ste Croix calls ‘the voiceless toilers, the great majority of the population of the Greek and Roman world, upon whom was built a great civilisation which despised them and did all it could to forget them’.48 The question is, then, to what extent does a focus on gender contribute to such obliteration.

48.  De Ste Croix, Class Struggle, p. 209.

T a k i ng t h e M ea s u re of M a s culi ni t i e s i n A cts Colleen M. Conway

The book of Acts creates a world populated with former fishermen and tax collectors turned followers of Jesus, a highly educated persecuting Pharisee turned apostle, a high-powered court eunuch, Roman centurions, Roman governors, merchants and magicians, exorcists and healers, angels and spirits. It is a world of bodies that act and are acted upon in sometimes non-violent but often violent ways: speaking boldly, praying, proclaiming, beating and being beaten, stoning and being stoned, flogging and being flogged, killing and being killed. For those interested in examining the construction of masculinity in this world, there is much to explore. There is also, it seems, much on which to disagree. In recent years scholars have arrived at different assessments of manliness in Acts, in spite of the fairly standard approach or ‘method’ that is used for this type of study. In what follows, I propose an explanation for these varied readings, and then offer another way to consider the book’s construction of masculinity. The major way of reading for masculinity in the narratives of the New Testament consists of an examination of particular characters, typically those who are grammatically marked as male, alongside the substantial collection of data that has been provided by classics scholars on what it meant to be ‘manly’ in the ancient Mediterranean world. This work in classical studies has provided New Testament scholars with abundant evidence for how an ideal Greco-Roman man was supposed to look, sound and especially act. As Stephen D. Moore notes, ‘the student of early Christian masculinities can now lazily consult [these encyclopedic handbooks on ancient Mediterranean sex/gender] and use them to parse out the gendered performances of Jesus, Paul and other early Christian or proto-Christian males’.1 By now, the protocol for Greco-Roman masculinity is so well-established among New Testament scholars working 1.  Stephen D. Moore, ‘Final Reflections on Biblical Masculinity’, in Ovidiu Creangă (ed.), Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond (Sheffield: Sheffield Phonenix, 2010), pp. 240-55 (245).

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with gender that it bears no repeating. But for the uninitiated, Fredrick Ivarsson has helpfully summarized the ‘ground rules of Greco-Roman masculinity’: 1) Mastery is the basic criterion of masculinity. Being fully gendered as a man, as opposed to merely having the physical features held to signify a male, means being on top in relation to non-men (women, slaves, children, barbarians) and being able to control one’s own passions and desires. 2) Manliness is an achievement and has to be constantly proven in competition with other men. Masculinity is always under construction. 3) Manliness is a moral quality… Being manly is always a positive value, even when applied to a woman. By contrast, being effeminate or soft is morally reprehensible.2

Notably missing from this summary, but important for any discussion of masculinity, is the place of the violated body with respect to masculinity. Jonathan Walters argues that another crucial factor of masculinity in Roman free men is the idea of impenetrability or the inviolability of the masculine body.3 Protecting one’s body from violation was closely related to the idea of self-control. Allowing oneself to be beaten or sexually penetrated amounted to the same thing – a body that was under the control of another dominant force. While this may all seem clear enough, the truth is that the results from using this protocol to measure New Testament masculinity have not been consistent. This is true also of studies of masculinity in Acts. In recent years, two main interpretations of masculinity in Acts have emerged. The first argues that the narrative’s heroes are clearly aligned with the cultural ideal of masculinity in the Roman Empire, often referred to as hegemonic masculinity.4 The second line of interpretation concludes that the heroes are decidedly unmanly vis-à-vis this cultural ideal. 2.  Fredrik Ivarsson, ‘Vice Lists and Deviant Masculinity: The Rhetorical Function of 1 Corinthians 5:10-11 and 6:9-10’, in Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele (eds), Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), pp. 163-84 (165-66). See also Moises Mayordomo, ‘Construction of Masculinity in Antiquity and Early Christianity’, lectio difficilior (2006). Online: http://www.lectio. unibe.ch/06_2/marin_construction.htm (accessed 6 February 2016). 3.  Jonathan Walters, ‘Invading the Roman Body: Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought’, in Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner (eds), Roman Sexualities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), pp. 29-43. For an extended discussion of the violated body in relation to Paul’s masculinity, see Jennifer A. Glancy, ‘Boasting of Beatings (2 Corinthians 11:23-25)’, JBL 123 (2004), pp. 99-135. 4.  For discussion of the origins of this concept in the sociological work of R. W. Connell and colleagues, see R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Gender and Society 19 (2005), pp. 826-59.



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Those who argue for the first interpretation focus on the narrative associations between the male protagonists in Acts and the structures of power that undergird hegemonic masculinity. The best example of this interpretation is found in two different articles by Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele. In the first article, they make the case that the apostle Paul is constructed in the narrative as ‘the ideal Jew, the astute Greek, and the legally adept Roman’ or, in other words, the ‘Übermensch of the narrative’.5 For these two interpreters, Paul is ‘not just the ideal Christian in the story, [but also]…the ideal male’.6 The second article explores the function of scriptural recapitulation in the speeches of Stephen and Paul. Here, they argue that the evocation of Jewish heroes and history in these speeches constructs and reinforces the impression of the apostles as ideal men. That is, ‘their ideal masculine comportment is thus quite literally script(ur)ed into existence’ and presented as a ‘ “God-given” mandate within the space of this ancient Jewish tradition’.7 In my own work, I have agreed with this assessment of the Lukan heroes’ masculine deportment. I note how Paul’s encounters with various Roman officials confer a high level of prestige on him, a prestige that comports with ideal masculinity. The ‘intelligent’ proconsul Sergius Paulus wants to hear Paul and is impressed Paul’s ability to blind Elymas the magician (13.7-12). The corrupt governor Felix provides a foil against whom Paul appears morally superior and sober-minded (24.22-27). King Agrippa is depicted in the midst of imperial pomp and circumstance offering an audience for Paul to exhibit his rhetorical prowess (25.23– 26.32). The Spirit endows Paul and the other apostles with healing power that results in expressions of honor and acclaim (14.11-19; 28.5, 10). And the author emphasizes the fact that the gospel message attracts Greeks of high standing (17.12). For these reasons, I have been convinced that the author wants to present his heroes as ‘fully capable of holding their own in the upper echelons of the masculine world of the Roman Empire’.8 5.  Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, ‘Gendering Violence: Patterns of Power and Constructs of Masculinity in the Acts of the Apostles’, in Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 193-209 (208). 6.  Penner and Vander Stichele, ‘Gendering Violence’, p. 208. 7.  Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, ‘Script(ur)ing Gender in Acts: The Past and Present Power of Imperium’, in T. Penner and C. Vander Stichele (eds), Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses (Atlanta: SBL, 2007), pp. 231-66 (251). 8.  Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 127.

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Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics

Others are not so convinced. Another line of interpretation sees the narrative of Acts as constructing the heroes in Acts as decidedly ‘unmanly’. For instance, Beverly Gaventa argues that Paul ‘fails to live up to the male norm in Acts’.9 She notes that Paul is shown to be out of control before his Damascus road vision (‘breathing threats and murder’, 9.1), and afterwards he is made helpless. Gaventa further points to Paul’s speech to the Ephesian elders in 20.18-35 as evidence of his less than ideal masculinity. There Paul summarizes his work not by citing accomplishments or manly virtues but by speaking of working with his own hands, laboring in tears and being captive to the Spirit.10 Brittany Wilson follows this same line of interpretation through a detailed reading of Paul’s Damascus road blinding.11 By speaking of Paul as a ‘slave of God’ and narrating accounts of Paul being blinded, flogged and beaten, the author positions Paul at the opposite end of the spectrum from manly men. Wilson builds on Gaventa’s view that Paul is shown to be God’s ‘overthrown enemy’ rather than an ideal of Greco-Roman masculinity.12 Wilson reads the major characters of Paul and Jesus, along with the minor characters of Zechariah and the Ethiopian Eunuch, as examples of characters who do not conform to Greco-Roman standards of masculinity. Wilson contends that these four characters represent a refiguration of masculinity, one that lifts up qualities that would be deemed unmanly in the ancient world (e.g. powerlessness), in order to emphasize the power of God.13 On one level, this difference in reading might be explained by a difference in emphasis on the various elements of the masculinity code. To take Paul as an example, whereas the first reading stresses the moral superiority, boldness of speech, self-control and power displayed by Paul, the second reading stresses the violation done to his body. He is definitely not impenetrable but rather regularly subjected to bodily harm. And it is not just Paul whose masculine deportment could be split two ways in Acts (manly vs. unmanly). The figure of Peter, too, offers conflicting evidence. On the one hand, he is a low status fisherman, 9.  Beverly Roberts Gaventa, ‘What Ever Happened to Those Prophesying Daughters?’, in Levine and Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles, pp. 49-60 (57). 10.  Gaventa, ‘What Ever Happened’, pp. 57-58. 11.  Brittany Wilson, ‘The Blinding of Paul and the Power of God: Masculinity, Sight, and Self-Control in Acts 9’, JBL 133 (2014), pp. 367-87. 12.  See Beverly R. Gaventa, ‘The Overthrown Enemy: Luke’s Portrait of Paul’,  in SBL Seminar Papers (SBLSP, 24; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 439-49. 13.  Brittany Wilson, Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke–Acts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).



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uneducated, poor and, in the Gospel of Luke, famously craven when confronted with his association with Jesus. Yet, in the opening chapters of Acts, Peter soon becomes a bold spokesman for the movement. The power given by the Spirit enables him to heal the lame. The authorities recognize his speaking prowess even while they acknowledge him as uneducated and illiterate. Peter, like Paul, attracts the attention of crowds who are amazed at his display of power, and the Roman centurion Cornelius falls to his feet to worship Peter on first sight (3.1-10; 10.25).14 Strangely, however, soon after Peter addresses the Jerusalem counsel about this meeting (15.7-11), he disappears abruptly and completely from the narrative. If the author is aware of a tradition of martyrdom of Peter, he does not narrate it. In fact, while he does mention Herod’s killing of James, he tells a story of Peter’s miraculous escape from Herod’s murderous plot (12.6-11). Two other examples: Stephen appears both manly in deportment and unmanly in bodily penetrability. As masculinity studies were just beginning to filter into New Testament studies, Abraham Smith recognized Stephen as a paradigm of self-mastery.15 Building on earlier scholarship, Smith analyzed Stephen with respect to first-century philosophical ideals. He contrasted the intensifying loss of control of the Jewish council in Acts 4–7 with Stephen’s steadfast calmness in the face of persecution. But, of course, this self-control of Stephen’s is demonstrated while he is being stoned to death in public, a potentially emasculating experience and in any case, a violation of his body. Finally, the Ethiopian eunuch’s appearance in the narrative seems designed to confound our ‘masculinity method’. He is introduced as a ‘man’ (ἀνήρ, 8.27), one with a high-powered position in a royal court. And he is a eunuch, a fact that necessarily complicates his relationship to hegemonic masculinity, once again, by highlighting a certain violence done to his body.16 14.  For a discussion of the ‘alternative’ masculinity exemplified in Cornelius, see Bonnie J. Flessen, An Exemplary Man: Cornelius and Characterization in Acts 10 (Eugene: Pickwick, 2011). 15.  Abraham Smith, ‘ “Full of Spirit and Wisdom”: Luke’s Portrait of Stephen as a Man of Self-Mastery (6:1–8:1a)’, in L. E. Vaage and V. L. Wimbush (eds), Asceticism and the New Testament (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 97-114. 16.  The ancient figure of the eunuch, not surprisingly, is a frequent subject of masculinity analysis in the New Testament and early Christianity. As already mentioned, Wilson examines the Ethiopian eunuch in Unmanly Men, pp. 113-49. In addition, see Mathew Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001); Halvor Moxnes and Marianne B. Kartzow, ‘Complex Identities: Ethnicity, Gender and Religion in the Story of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40)’, Religion

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Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics

Perhaps the differing perspectives on masculinity in Acts point to the limits of our approach to the subject. There seems to be validity to both the ‘manly’ and ‘unmanly’ views of the male characters in Acts depending on how one weighs the evidence. One might chart a course between these two positions, tacking back and forth before deciding that the construction of masculinity in Acts is ultimately ambiguous or ambivalent. Looking for these places of ambiguity does undercut the idea of gender stability, a strategy that can be helpful in certain political contexts. In other words, we may make a conscious choice to read for instability, looking for ways to undermine the idea of normative gender identities that serve to label others as ‘deviant’. But for understanding Acts in its ancient context, I find reliance on gender instability ultimately unsatisfying and perhaps too easy a way out. In short, I doubt that the author was aiming to demonstrate the gender instability of his heroes. 1. Masculinity in Theory Instead, I suggest that to take the discussion further we look at the theoretical foundations that originally inspired New Testament masculinity studies. By now, these foundations are well known, but I review them briefly because of the role they play in the differing appraisals of masculinities in Acts. Much of the gender work by classics scholars was influenced by the poststructuralist theories of Michele Foucault and Judith Butler. Both Foucault and Butler emphasized the notion of power as discursively constructed. Language does not simply reflect perceived reality; it produces or constructs perceived reality. Along these lines, Butler famously extended J. L. Austin’s concept of the performative utterance to a performative theory of gender.17 According to Butler, neither sex nor gender has a pre-linguistic essence; both categories are culturally constructed through discursive practices. So far so good. Using these basic ideas, classicists and biblical scholars alike explored how masculinity as a cultural gender performance manifested itself in ancient artifacts, primarily ancient texts.

and Theology 17 (2010), pp. 184-204; Susanna Asikainen, ‘ “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven”: Matthew and Subordinated Masculinities’, in Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit (eds), Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014), pp. 156-88. 17.  See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990) and J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962).



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But our seemingly ready acceptance in New Testament masculinity studies of this theoretical foundation perhaps too easily overlooks a longstanding feminist critique of this performative gender theory. It is a critique summed up in a question that Butler reports was repeatedly put to her after the publication of Gender Trouble: ‘What about the materiality of the body, Judy?’18 In other words, the argument goes, Butler’s theory of the discursive cultural production of gender and sex too readily dismisses the materiality of human existence. Butler’s Bodies that Matter was written to answer this critique, although she does so by further describing the nature of the body as discursively produced. As one of her reviewers suggests, ‘In Butler’s world of bodies, we may have nothing to lose but a chain of signifiers’.19 2. Bodily Apparitions in Acts But what about the world of bodies in the book of Acts? In a way, by highlighting the violence done to the male followers of Jesus in Acts, the second line of interpretation similarly poses the question: What about the bodies? That is, for all the ways that ideal masculine comportment is discursively constructed in Acts, there is also the presence of beaten and, in some cases, dead bodies that tell another story. So, it is a fair question. But the question is better put to the narrative, rather than to its interpreters. While one could argue that there is no escaping the reality of violated male bodies as part of the original story, in some cases the author appears to try. Two scenes of violence against Paul in Acts illustrate my point. The first scene occurs in Acts 14. Paul is preaching in Lystra and wins the acclaim of the crowds after healing a man crippled since birth. In spite of Paul’s protests, the crowd hails Paul and Barnabas as Hermes and Zeus. Soon enough, however, Jews from Antioch reverse the sentiments of the crowd, and Paul is stoned, dragged out of the city and left for dead (14.19). That sounds quite bad, both for Paul’s body and for his masculine image. But once surrounded by the disciples, Paul gets up, walks away

18.  Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York: Routledge, 1993), p. ix (emphasis original). 19.  Jacquelyn Zita, review of L. Adelson, Making Bodies, Making History: Feminism and German Identity; S. Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body; J. Butler, Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’; E. Grosz, Volatile Bodies: Toward a Corporeal Feminism, Signs 21 (1996), pp. 786-95 (790).

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Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics

and is well enough to travel the next day with Barnabas to Derbe. At this point, there is no more attention in the narrative of the harm done to Paul, whether to his body or his manliness. The second scene occurs in Acts 16 when Paul and Silas travel to Philippi. The entire episode unfolds because Paul is annoyed with a slave girl, who, by the way, is simply proclaiming the truth about Paul and Silas (albeit repeatedly) that they are slaves of the Most High God who proclaim a way of salvation (16.17). In his irritation, Paul uses his power easily to cast out the spirit of divination in her. This might be the happy end of a healing story except that Paul has now removed a source of income from the girl’s owners. Disgruntled, they proceed to manhandle Paul and Silas, dragging them into the marketplace before the magistrates. The owners stir up the crowd by playing on Roman animosity toward Jews. In this context, Paul and Silas are stripped, beaten severely with rods and thrown in prison (16.18-24). According to the Greco-Roman masculinity protocol, this is beyond doubt a humiliating and emasculating experience. And in fact, Paul will identify it as such. But, in so doing, his behavior does not suggest someone who has been severely beaten. Paul and Silas are well enough to pray and sing hymns in the prison. Paul is able to call to the jailer in a loud voice, not the voice of one severely beaten with rods by a mob. Significantly, he is able to protest against their public humiliation. When the magistrates discover that they have beaten Roman citizens, they quickly order their release. But Paul is not satisfied with this. He indignantly demands a personal escort by the magistrates from the prison (16.37). Not only do the officials comply, they also offer apologies to Paul and Silas. In the end, Paul appears unfazed by the physical effects of the beating and manages his release in a way that restores his dignity and masculinity.20 Here I should be clear. I do not expect verisimilitude in a narrative that includes a character (Philip) being whisked away under the power of a holy spirit from one place to another (8.39-40). But if the author wanted to make a point about the physical harm being done to his heroes and how this marked them as ‘unmanly’ and thereby alternatively or subversively masculine, he could have done a better job. Instead, these episodes of physical attack show a pattern of narrating the violence only to have the victims quickly recover in an extraordinary manner. There are exceptions. As already mentioned, James is put to death by the sword, but this is briefly reported, rather than narrated in detail (12.1-2). Stephen, of course, does not recover from the violence done 20.  See the similar point made in Penner and Vander Stichele, ‘Gendering Violence’, p. 206.



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to him. Still, as already noted, his conduct in death is extraordinary, and this is the focus of the narrative, more than the stoning and death itself. Like Jesus, when death comes, Stephen remains in control, kneeling (not falling) down and petitioning God to receive his spirit (7.59-60). As Shelly Matthews has argued, he is shown to be the perfect martyr, and his pre-death prayer for forgiveness of his persecutors ‘shares rhetorical space with the virile and distinctively Roman discourse of imperial clemency’.21 In other words, Stephen is shown to have masculine composure far surpassing those who kill him as well as the sort of merciful clemency held up as a standard in Roman leadership. Given this evidence, I propose that in Acts the violation of the bodies of Lukan heroes is not the point as much as the maintenance of a cultural masculine ideal in spite of the violence. By passing quickly over the violence, by having the apostolic heroes overcome it, albeit with divine intervention, the narrative glosses over both the physical reality of the violence and its emasculating implications. In this way, the narrative reminds the reader of the degree to which gender is after all discursively constructed. In this world, characters enact esteemed versions of masculinity regardless of the violence done to them.22 That said, I do not suggest that as readers we should join the narrative in looking away from the violence done to its male bodies. Indeed, given the conflicting readings of manliness reviewed earlier, it seems that however the narrative wishes to promote the ideal masculinity of its men, it remains haunted by material bodies. Or, to put it another way, it may discursively construct ideal men, but it cannot entirely obscure or escape the history and traditions that provide the raw materials for this construction. It cannot hide the material reality of the beaten and dead bodies – not just of Stephen but also of James, of Peter, of Paul and perhaps of others – deaths of which the ancient audience was surely aware. Given this haunting, one could argue that the attempt to recuperate the masculinity of the Lukan heroes fails in light of the material, bodily evidence. Perhaps, in the end then, both readings of masculinity have insight to offer for our understanding of Acts. Overall, the discursive constructions of the text produce a picture of apostolic masculinity that complies with the cultural norm: the apostles speak boldly, are self-restrained, sober-minded, recognized by others as powerful and often held in high esteem. On the other hand, the history and traditions that bear witness to 21.  Shelly Matthews, Perfect Martyr: The Stoning of Stephen and the Construction of Christian Identity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 128. 22.  Moreover, they also perpetuate both verbal and physical violence over others. See Penner and Vander Stichele, ‘Gendering Violence’, esp. pp. 203-208.

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Reading Acts in the Discourses of Masculinity and Politics

the material remains of the apostles impinge on this discursive project, complicating and perhaps subverting this particular project. We could even say that the evidence of these violated bodies does produce an alternative masculinity. If so, we then would have to ask whether this alternative masculinity is any more desirable than a hegemonic masculinity grounded in power over others. Here I am reminded of another characteristic of Roman masculinity discussed by Carlin Barton, the expendability of male bodies. In this case, what otherwise might be a shameful experience is mitigated by the notion of self-sacrifice, ‘the willingness, on behalf of the collectivity to lose everything, to become nothing’.23 3. Toward a Passionate Reading of New Testament Masculinities Moore’s closing remarks in Men and Masculinity in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond note a certain disinterested approach to the study of masculinity in the Bible, commenting that it is strangely lacking in passion. He urges scholars to name and critique ‘the unlovely aspects of what we teach and research’.24 He is not the only one to call for a more politically engaged study of masculinities in the Bible. On the New Testament side of things, Robert Myles has noted the largely descriptive enterprise of masculinity studies and argues that it is ‘ethically necessary’ to include a hermeneutics of liberation.25 Ovidu Creangă is perhaps the most forthright in claiming that scholars have an obligation ‘to offer viable models of masculinity that promote well-being, healthy relationship/marriages/ unions, good parenting, peaceful conflict-resolution, and responsible living among all people and the creation’.26 This seems a tall order, at least for a short study of the book of Acts. Nevertheless, I will be clear. I do find some unlovely aspects in the constructions of masculinity that scholars have uncovered in Acts. From my perspective, there is little appeal in a type of masculinity that is conceived as a divinely given power over others. But just as problematic is a potentially ‘alternative’ masculinity that is founded on a legacy of violated, dead and expendable bodies. Both types of masculinities (to 23.  Carlin A. Barton, Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), p. 277. 24.  Moore, ‘Final Reflections’, p. 238. 25.  Robert J. Myles, ‘Dandy Discipleship: A Queering of Mark’s Male Disciples’, Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality 4 (2010), pp. 66-81. Online: http:// www.jmmsweb.org/issues/volume4/number2/pp66-81 (accessed 6 February 2016). 26.  Ovidiu Creangă, ‘Introduction’, in Creangă and Smit (eds), Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded, p. 10.



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name just two) should be subject to critique and deconstruction, both in our interpretations of this ancient text and in our daily discursive practices. The much harder question, of course, is what type of masculinity should be proposed in their stead and whether such is to be found in the Bible at all. But this is the subject for future studies of masculinities.

C on t ex t ua l i z i n g M asculi ni ty i n t h e B ook of A cts : P et er a n d P a ul a s T e st C ase s* Brittany E. Wilson

Studies on masculinity in the book of Acts are being produced at an increasing rate. The genesis of such work can be traced to the 1990s, when an interdisciplinary field known as ‘masculinity studies’ first emerged among social scientists such as R. W. Connell and David Gilmore.1 Connell and Gilmore followed closely on the heels of theorists such as Michel Foucault, whose influential three-volume work, The History of Sexuality, in turn made a significant impact on the field of Classics, especially given that the second and third volumes dealt respectively with ancient Greece and Rome.2 Although New Testament scholars have been slow to incorporate masculinity studies into their own work, the pace has picked up since the 2003 publication of the volume New Testament Masculinities edited by Stephen Moore and Janice Capel Anderson.3 *  I thank Steve Walton, Matthew Skinner and Eric Barreto for inviting me to contribute this essay, which I delivered at the 2013 SBL annual meeting in a session sponsored by the Book of Acts Section, with the title ‘Warts and All? Constructions of Masculinities in the Acts of the Apostles’. I have slightly revised and updated the piece for publication, but it largely retains the style of oral delivery. 1.  R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995); David D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990). See also Bryce Traister, ‘Academic Viagra: The Rise of American Masculinity Studies’, American Quarterly 52 (2000), pp. 274-304. 2.  Michel Foucault, Histoire de la sexualité (3 vols.; Paris: Gallimard, 1976–84); Foucault, The History of Sexuality (trans. Robert Hurley; 3 vols.; New York: Pantheon, 1978–88). 3.  In this volume, see especially Stephen D. Moore, ‘ “O Man, Who Art Thou…?” Masculinity Studies and New Testament Studies’, in Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson (eds), New Testament Masculinities (SemeiaSt, 45; Atlanta: SBL, 2003), pp. 1-42.



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Since then, many New Testament scholars – including Acts scholars – have joined colleagues in Classics and other related fields by examining constructions of masculinity in the ancient world. While those who have worked on masculinity in Acts are still relatively few, a discernible interpretative trend has already begun to emerge. In the vein of Ernst Haenchen and others who emphasize Luke’s cultural accommodation in Acts, a number of scholars, including Abraham Smith, Mary Rose D’Angelo, Todd Penner, Caroline Vander Stichele, Colleen Conway and Shelly Matthews, maintain that Luke perpetuates imperial masculine norms.4 In other words, this interpretative tendency claims that Luke in effect reifies elite masculine norms in an effort to cater to his elite male audience. A few recent works, however, have challenged this ostensible consensus regarding masculinity in Acts. Bonnie Flessen’s 2011 study on the centurion Cornelius from Acts 10 argues that Luke’s account of masculinity challenges imperial authority, and Sean Burke’s 2013 study on the Ethiopian eunuch from Acts 8 argues that Luke destabilizes gender categories with the figure of the eunuch, as well as other intersecting 4.  See Abraham Smith, ‘ “Full of Spirit and Wisdom”: Luke’s Portrait of Stephen (Acts 6:1–8:1a) as a Man of Self-Mastery’, in Leif E. Vaage and Vincent L. Wimbush (eds), Asceticism and the New Testament (New York: Routledge, 1999), pp. 97-114; Mary Rose D’Angelo, ‘The ΑΝΗΡ Question in Luke–Acts: Imperial Masculinity and the Deployment of Women in the Early Second Century’, in Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to Luke (London: Sheffield Academic, 2002), pp. 44-69; D’Angelo, ‘ “Knowing How to Preside over His Own Household”: Imperial Masculinity and Christian Asceticism in the Pastorals, Hermas, and Luke–Acts’, in Moore and Anderson (eds), New Testament Masculinities, pp. 265-95; Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele, ‘Gendering Violence: Patterns of Power and Constructs of Masculinity in the Acts of the Apostles’, in Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 193-209; Penner and Vander Stichele, ‘ “All the World’s a Stage”: The Rhetoric of Gender in Acts’, in R. Bieringer, G. van Belle and J. Verheyden (eds), Luke and His Readers (Festschrift A. Denaux; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2005), pp. 373-98; Penner and Vander Stichele, ‘Script(ur) ing Gender in Acts: The Past and Present Power of Imperium’, in Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele (eds), Mapping Gender in Ancient Religious Discourses (BibInt, 84; Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 231-66; Colleen M. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco-Roman Masculinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 127-42; Shelly Matthews, ‘The Weeping Jesus and the Daughters of Jerusalem: Gender and Conquest in Lukan Lament’, in Ute E. Eisen, Christine Gerber and Angela Standhartinger (eds), Doing Gender – Doing Religion: Fallstudien zur Intersektionalität im frühen Judentum, Christentum und Islam (WUNT, 2/302; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013), pp. 381-403.

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categories such as status and ethnicity.5 My own 2015 monograph on masculinity in Luke–Acts argues that Luke ultimately reconfigures, or refigures, masculinity to align with his larger theological aims regarding God’s action in Jesus.6 While studies on Lukan masculinity are still too nascent to discern whether the tide has turned, so to speak, these three recent works at the very least complicate the contention that Luke primarily reinforces elite masculinity. In this essay, I continue to problematize the understanding that Luke only reifies elite masculine mores by focusing on Peter and Paul as test cases. Peter and Paul provide helpful entrées into the complicated landscape of Lukan masculinity because they are the two central male characters in Acts: Peter dominates Acts 1–12, and Paul does the same in Acts 13–28. After first providing a brief sketch of the multiple ‘masculinities’ in the Graeco-Roman world, the essay then proceeds to contextualize Peter and Paul’s main identity markers in relation to these masculinities. By situating Peter and Paul within their ancient context, the essay concludes that Luke neither rejects nor reproduces elite masculine norms. Instead, Luke provides a refiguration of ancient elite understandings of what it means to ‘be a man’ in order to further his larger theme of God’s paradoxical power in Jesus. 1. Masculinities in the Graeco-Roman World A perennial problem in reconstructing any aspect of the ancient world – including constructions of masculinity – is the limited nature of our sources. For the most part, our extant literary sources are written or produced by those at the very pinnacle of the social pyramid, namely elite males, and thus only represent a small portion of the actual population. Outside of these social positions of power, people may have held different understandings of masculinity, and even among elite males there is not always a univocal view.7 Many voices are lost to us and the assumption 5.  Bonnie J. Flessen, An Exemplary Man: Cornelius and Characterization in Acts 10 (Eugene: Pickwick, 2011); Sean D. Burke, Queering the Ethiopian Eunuch: Strategies of Ambiguity in Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013). 6.  Brittany E. Wilson, Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke–Acts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 7.  For example, Roman love poets do not play by the typical ‘rules’ of masculinity and often depict men passively being enslaved to the women they love. See, e.g., Maria Wyke, ‘Taking the Woman’s Part: Engendering Roman Elegy’, in A. J. Boyle (ed.), Roman Literature and Ideology: Ramus Essays for J. P. Sullivan (Bendigo, Australia: Aureal, 1995), pp. 110-28.



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that there is a monolithic understanding of ancient masculinity is just that: an assumption and an illusory one at that. To further complicate matters, texts written during the imperial period, or Principate (27 BCE–284 CE), tend to fall on either side of a dividing line that splits the Roman Empire roughly in two: the Latin West and the Greek East. The Latin West, or more specifically Rome, signifies the ‘center’ of power during the Principate, whereas the Greek East lies outside of this central power, thus signifying the ‘margins’. Elite male authors writing from Rome during the Principate often characterize the Greek East as the effeminate ‘other’, and, in turn, some elite male authors writing from the Greek East characterize Rome as boorish, overly concerned with luxury and ultimately inferior to Greece in terms of cultural and intellectual sophistication.8 Even this division into East and West, however, is too monolithic a view, for it overlooks regional particularity. Numerous provinces made up both the eastern and western halves of the Empire, and within these provinces the views of the urban elite do not necessarily correlate with the views of the rural peasantry. Within these provinces the views of Jewish authors also do not always correlate with those of non-Jewish, or ‘pagan’, authors, especially if those views conflict with Jewish scripture.9 In sum, a number of factors crucially inform constructions of masculinity in the ancient world, including historical and geographical location, as well as status, gender, ethnicity and religious identity, to name only a few. Despite the reality of numerous masculinities in the ancient world, recurrent representations of masculinity do emerge in our available sources.10 According to much of our extant evidence at least, a ‘manly’ man must be elite and, above all, not act like a woman. ‘Man’ was the 8.  See, e.g., Lucian, De mercede conductis; Nigrinus; Catharine Edwards, The Politics of Immorality in Ancient Rome (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. pp. 92-97; Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality (New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 2010), esp. pp. 67-102, 137-76. 9.  See, e.g., Michael L. Satlow, ‘ “They Abused Him Like a Woman”: Homoeroticism, Gender Blurring, and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity’, JHSex 5 (1994), pp. 1-25. See also Daniel Boyarin, ‘Are There Any Jews in “The History of Sexuality”?’, JHSex 5 (1995), pp. 333-55 (esp. 340-45). 10.  A number of scholars term these recurrent features ‘hegemonic masculinity’, drawing from Connell’s distinction between ‘hegemonic’ and ‘marginalized’ masculinities. This essay, however, uses the phrase ‘elite constructions of masculinity’ or the like for purposes of clarity. For a defense (and reformulation) of the concept of hegemonic masculinity in light of widespread criticism, see R. W. Connell and James W. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept’, Gender and Society 19 (2005), pp. 829-59.

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ostensible antithesis of ‘Woman’ in the ancient world, and ‘manliness’ functioned as the unspoken norm and the standard to which some ‘nonmen’ could aspire. For the comparatively few men who held power, though, most other males failed to meet the necessary criteria to distinguish them as true men. For instance, slaves, low-status men, conquered peoples and so-called barbarians were considered non-men and frequently feminized by elite male authors.11 Imperial propaganda visually reinforced such gendered claims to power, often in the form of monuments, coins and Sebasteia, or imperial cult complexes.12 Through these forms of material culture, cultural scripts concerning masculinity would have been disseminated among those of lower status, even if non-elites did not always subscribe to those views. At the same time, elite men themselves were also not immune from accusations of unmanliness. Even for men of ‘respectable’ social status, manliness was not necessarily a given, but something that had to be fought for and consistently reaffirmed. In order to maintain and cultivate his manliness, a manly man was above all expected to exercise power, an expectation that manifested itself in two main ways.13 First, manly men were to exercise sexual and paternal power. That is, they were to take the dominant, penetrative position in sexual acts, and they were to be the ‘head’ of their household.14 Second, manly men were to exercise political and military power. Roman men in particular were expected to participate in politics and perpetuate the collective military identity of Rome as the victorious conqueror of the nations.15 11.  See Iain Ferris, Enemies of Rome: Barbarians through Roman Eyes (London: Sutton, 2000), esp. pp. 1-25; Davina C. Lopez, Apostle to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul’s Mission (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), pp. 26-118. 12.  Lopez, Apostle, pp. 1-2, 35-48. On the visual dissemination of cultural scripts during the early Principate, see Paul Zanker’s classic text, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (trans. Alan Shapiro; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988). 13.  For a more in-depth discussion of power and self-control in ancient constructions of masculinity, see Wilson, Unmanly Men, pp. 58-75. 14.  On the role of the man as the penetrator in sexual acts, see Holt N. Parker, ‘The Teratogenic Grid’, in Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner (eds), Roman Sexualities (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), pp. 47-65. On the role of the man as the paterfamilias with respect to family and property, see Richard P. Saller, Patriarchy, Property and Death in the Roman Family (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). 15.  See Ferris, Enemies, esp. pp. 26-60; Lopez, Apostle, pp. 26-118; Paul Veyne, ‘The Roman Empire’, in Paul Veyne (ed.), From Pagan Rome to Byzantium (vol. 1 of Philippe Ariès and Georges Duby [eds], A History of Private Life) (trans. Arthur



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A manly man was not only expected to exercise power over others, however, but to exercise power over himself. Self-control, or power over ‘the self’, often manifested itself in terms of controlling one’s emotions, diet and exercise.16 Moreover, by the time of the early Principate, a central signifier of Roman citizen status included bodily autonomy and protection from outside bodily invasion.17 Non-citizen status, however, was characterized by the lack of bodily autonomy and protection. For instance, slaves – both male and female – could be beaten, tortured, raped and killed without any legal repercussions.18 To use classicist Jonathan Walters’s turn of phrase, elite males were ‘impenetrable penetrators’ because only elite males were able to defend the boundaries of their body from invasive assaults and in turn invade the bodies of others.19 For elites, self-control was a prime marker of manliness, for, to paraphrase Dio Chrysostom, a man could not hope to control others if he could not first control himself (3 Regn. 34). 2. Peter and Paul’s ‘Unmanly’ Identity Markers When we turn to the Lukan Peter and Paul with these ancient constructions in view, it becomes clear that they do not fit the profiles of elite, manly men. First, Peter and Paul are not elites. In Acts 4.13, Luke describes Peter (along with John) as ‘uneducated’, or literally ‘un-lettered’ (ἀγράμματοί), and ‘ordinary’ (ἰδιῶται).20 We also know from Luke’s Gospel that Peter is Goldhammer; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), pp. 6-233 (95-115). On the participation in politics by local male elites living throughout the Empire, see Richard P. Saller, ‘Status and Patronage’, in Alan K. Bowman, Peter Garnsey and Dominic Rathbone (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 11: High Empire, A.D. 70–192 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2nd edn, 2008), pp. 817-54. 16.  See Foucault’s famous account of self-control during the Principate in The History of Sexuality III: The Care of the Self (trans. Robert Hurley; New York: Vintage, 1988), esp. pp. 99-144. 17.  See Jonathan Walters, ‘Invading the Roman Body: Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought’, in Hallett and Skinner (eds), Roman Sexualities, pp. 29-43. 18.  Walters, ‘Invading’, pp. 29-43. 19.  Walters, ‘Invading’, pp. 38-39. 20.  For a discussion of these two terms in Acts 4.13, see Thomas J. Kraus, ‘ “Uneducated”, “Ignorant”, or Even “Illiterate”? Aspects and Background for an Understanding of ΑΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΟΙ (and ΙΔΙΩΤΑΙ) in Acts 4.13’, NTS 45 (1999), pp. 434-49. Kraus rightly highlights that the terms ‘illiterate’ and ‘laymen’ (as he translates them) would not necessarily have held negative connotations among rural people. At the same time, Kraus neglects to examine how these markers intersect with

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a fisherman (Lk. 5.1-11), hardly a profession that ranks him among the upper echelons of society.21 True, Luke portrays Peter as an accomplished rhetorician who delivers key speeches throughout the first half of Acts.22 Yet, as Luke reminds us in Acts 4, Peter’s oratorical skills do not derive from his education or rhetorical prowess, but from the Holy Spirit (4.8). Here Luke highlights Peter’s ‘unlettered’ and ‘ordinary’ status to make this very point, for when Peter makes his Spirit-filled speech before the Jewish council (4.8-12), his hearers marvel that one so uneducated could speak so boldly (4.13). In other words, Luke indicates that Peter’s rhetorical savvy is not of his own doing, but of divine origin. Unlike Peter, Paul’s status is more ambiguous. On the one hand, Luke appears to present Paul as a well-educated Roman citizen with impressive rhetorical skills and access to money.23 Paul was trained by the Pharisee Gamaliel, or ‘taught at the feet of Gamaliel’ (22.3), whom Luke earlier describes as a council member, a teacher of the law and ‘respected by all the people’ (5.34). Paul also employs a number of rhetorical techniques in his many speeches, and he is bilingual, for he can speak both Aramaic and Greek (21.37, 40).24 Paul has access to wealth since the procurator Felix hopes that Paul will give him money as a bribe (24.26). Paul also funds the purifying rite for four Nazarites (21.23) and lives in Rome for Peter and John’s status as Galilaean fishermen or how they align with Luke’s so-called apologetic toward elites. Note also that the D-text omits καὶ ἰδιῶται, ‘perhaps because the double expression ἀγράμματοί εἰσιν καὶ ἰδιῶται seemed to deprecate the apostles too much’ (Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft/United Bible Societies, 2nd edn, 1994, repr. 2000], p. 277). 21.  On the status of fishermen in circa first-century Palestine, see Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), pp. 35-49. 22.  See Acts 1.15-25; 2.14-36; 3.12-26; 4.8-12; 11.4-17; 15.7-11. 23.  For arguments in favor of the Lukan Paul’s high status, see John Clayton Lentz Jr, Luke’s Portrait of Paul (SNTSMS, 77; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. pp. 23-61; Jerome H. Neyrey, ‘Luke’s Social Location of Paul: Cultural Anthropology and the Status of Paul in Acts’, in Ben Witherington III (ed.), History, Literature, and Society in the Book of Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 251-79. 24.  On Paul’s incorporation of rhetorical techniques in Acts, see, e.g., Fred Veltman, ‘The Defense Speeches of Paul in Acts’, in Charles H. Talbert (ed.), Perspectives on Luke–Acts (Danville, VA: Association of Baptist Professors of Religion, 1978), pp. 243-56; Derek Hogan, ‘Paul’s Defense: A Comparison of the Forensic Speeches in Acts, Callirhoe, and Leucippe and Clitophon’, PRSt 29 (2002), pp. 73-87.



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two years in ‘his own hired dwelling’ (28.30; cf. 28.16).25 Finally, Paul twice reveals that he is a Roman citizen (16.37-38; 22.25-29), and he clarifies that he did not purchase his citizenship, but that he was born a citizen (22.28). On the other hand, however, Luke does not clearly identify Paul as an elite.26 Paul may be well educated, but he is mainly educated according to the law and his education does not appear to impress the procurator Festus, who informs Paul that ‘too much learning [τὰ πολλά…γράμματα] is driving you insane!’ (26.24).27 Paul may be an adept rhetorician, but his rhetorical skills – as with Peter’s – derive from God and they are in service to the gospel.28 Moreover, Paul may have access to money, but he earns his money as a tentmaker, supporting himself with his own hands (18.2-3; 20.33-34).29 According to many elites, manual labor undermined a man’s dignity, with Plutarch writing that workmen, such as dyers and perfumers, 25.  Lentz in particular discusses Paul’s access to wealth in Luke’s Portrait, pp. 56-58. 26.  Note also that elites do not univocally accept Paul or his message in Acts. Sometimes elites are friendly or receptive to Paul, such as the proconsul Sergius Paulus (13.4-12), ‘leading women’ (17.4), Greek women and men of high standing (17.12), Dionysius the Areopagite (17.34), some Asiarchs (or officials of the province of Asia) (19.31) and the ‘leading man’ of Malta, Publius (28.7). But sometimes elites are ambivalent, or even hostile, toward Paul. See Acts 13.50; 14.2-5; 17.18-21; 18.12-17; 22.22-35; 24.26-27; 26.24, 28. On this point, see Wilson, Unmanly Men, pp. 248-49. 27.  For a brief overview of Jewish education in the Graeco-Roman world and how it differed from the education received by pagan elites, see Kent L. Yinger, ‘Jewish Education’, in Joel B. Green and Lee Martin McDonald (eds), The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), pp. 325-29. 28.  For example, in his study of ‘bold speech’ (παρρησία), a word often associated with the Lukan Paul, Stanley Morrow argues that such speech in Acts is not a virtue attained by personal application and rhetorical exercise, but a divine gift (‘Parrēsia in the New Testament’, CBQ 44 [1982], pp. 431-46). Paul’s defense speeches also become avenues for his proclamation of the gospel. As Beverly Gaventa notes, Paul’s final defense speech in Acts 26, for instance, may begin as a personal defense, but it quickly moves to a proclamation of Jesus and a call for conversion (Beverly R. Gaventa, The Acts of the Apostles [ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 2003], pp. 338-39). 29.  On Paul’s identity as a tentmaker (or more specifically a leather worker) and the low status associated with this trade, see Ronald F. Hock, The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2nd edn, 2007). See also Todd D. Still, ‘Did Paul Loathe Manual Labor? Revisiting the Work of Ronald F. Hock on the Apostle’s Tentmaking and Social Class’, JBL 125 (2006), pp. 781-95.

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were despised, illiberal and vulgar (Per. 1.4–2.2), and Cicero claiming that receiving a wage for manual labor was a form of slavery (Off. 1.42.150).30 Luke, however, has no scruples saying that Paul ‘worked’ (ἠργάζετο, 18.3; cf. 20.34).31 Like Priscilla and Aquila, Paul is an itinerant tentmaker (18.2-3), and even though some wandering Cynic philosophers supported themselves by manual labor, for the educated elite the stigma of such labor would still be associated with Paul’s ‘trade’ (τέχνη, 18.3).32 Additionally, Luke does not indicate that Paul’s Roman citizenship marks him as an elite. On the two occasions where Paul mentions his citizen status, he reveals this information after he has been publicly beaten and put in chains: the very thing that should protect his bodily boundaries he mentions as an afterthought. Paul’s first self-identification as a Roman citizen in 16.37 does not prevent his corporeal violation, for he has already been stripped naked, beaten and imprisoned (16.1924). Instead, his revelation mainly functions as a public witness and a chance to prove his innocence (16.35-40). And while Paul’s claim to citizen status in 22.25, 27-28 does prevent his examination by flogging, this aborted examination occurs in the aftermath of Paul being seized, beaten, almost killed and taken into custody (21.27-36). Paul’s citizenship does not prevent his corporeal violation but mainly functions as a public witness and a chance to prove his innocence. Furthermore, Eric Barreto has recently problematized the idea that Luke introduces Paul’s Roman citizenship chiefly as a status marker.33 Although commentators and translators insert the word ‘citizen’, Luke literally writes that Paul is a ‘Roman’ (Ῥωμαῖος, 16.37-38; 22.25-29). Paul’s identification as a ‘Roman’, Barreto argues, primarily references his hybrid ethnicity as both a Jew and a Roman living in the Roman colonized Greek East and his ability to adapt 30.  Cited in Jennifer Larson, ‘Paul’s Masculinity’, JBL 123 (2004), pp. 85-97 (93-94). See also Hock, Social Context, esp. pp. 26-49. 31.  Some scribes, however, may have been uncomfortable with the notion of Paul’s tentmaking trade. Several Alexandrian witnesses alter the singular ἠργάζετο (‘he worked’) to the plural ἠργάζοντο (‘they worked’), which in effect shifts the focus from Paul alone doing ‘work’. The D-text lacks the statement ‘for they were tentmakers by trade’. 32.  On how some Cynic philosophers supported themselves by means of manual labor, see Hock, Social Context, pp. 50-65. On how Paul’s ministry does and does not correlate to that of a Cynic philosopher, as well as the disparagement of Cynics by elite authors, see Stanley K. Stowers, ‘Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: The Circumstances of Paul’s Preaching Activity’, NovT 26 (1984), pp. 58-82. 33.  Eric D. Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (WUNT, 2/294; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. 139-80.



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to different ethnic, linguistic and geographical contexts. In other words, Paul’s identity as a ‘Roman’ refers more to Paul’s ethnicity and not his citizen status.34 Second, and related to this latter point, Peter and Paul’s ethnic identity would also have raised an eyebrow or two among the centered elite. Paul may be a ‘Roman’, but Luke underscores that both Peter and Paul are emphatically Jews. Peter, for instance, emphasizes his adherence to Jewish law (e.g., 10.14; 11.8), and Paul himself reiterates that he is a Pharisee, trained at the feet of Gamaliel (21.39; 22.3; 23.6; 26.5). As Jews, Peter and Paul are members of a people whom many elites (especially elite Romans) would have considered the unmanly conquered.35 Many non-Jewish elites also would have taken issue with Paul’s apparent endorsement of circumcision (16.1-3; cf. 15.1-21; 21.18-26), a Jewish religious practice that was tantamount to castration in the eyes of such elites.36 Even among Jews, Peter and Paul are a far cry from elites such as the philosopher Philo, who is well-versed in Platonic philosophy, or the historian Josephus, who can claim Flavian patronage. Third, besides the issues of status, ethnicity and religious identity, Peter and Paul lack manly identity markers related to power. Peter and Paul do not exercise sexual or paternal power. Peter is presumably married since Luke mentions Peter’s mother-in-law in his first volume (Lk. 4.38-39). But when Jesus calls Peter to become a disciple, Peter leaves behind his wife and household to don a life of itinerancy.37 He joins a band of men called to ‘hate’ their wives and children (Lk. 14.26), and he follows a man 34.  Furthermore, G. A. Harrer in his study of Paul’s two names (Saul and Paul) argues that Paul very likely received his cognomen ‘Paul’ (Paulus) and his citizenship because his father, or a more distant male relative, was either a freed slave or a naturalized ‘foreigner’ (‘Saul Who Also Is Called Paul’, HTR 33 [1940], pp. 19-33 [20]). See also, however, Sean A. Adams, ‘Paul the Roman Citizen: Roman Citizenship in the Ancient World and Its Importance for Understanding Acts 22:2229’, in Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman (Pauline Studies, 5; Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 309-26. 35.  Lopez, Apostle, pp. 26-118. 36.  See Justinian, Dig. 48.8.11; Historia Augusta, Hadrian 14.2 (cf. Paulus, Sent. 5.22.3); Ra’anan Abusch, ‘Circumcision and Castration under Roman Law in the Early Empire’, in E. Wyner Mark (ed.), The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2003), pp. 75-86; Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 93-105. 37.  On Jesus’ itinerancy and masculinity vis-à-vis space, see Halvor Moxnes, Putting Jesus in His Place: A Radical Vision of Household and Kingdom (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003).

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who has ‘no place to lay his head’ (Lk. 9.58). Paul is not married at all and likewise lives a life of itinerancy. Like Jesus, Paul appears to be a sexual ascetic, and he does not exercise paternal power in a traditional household.38 This characterization of Jesus and Paul as sexual ascetics who lack traditional households coincides with Luke’s larger celebration of sexual asceticism, as well as his replacement of the biological family with what is known as the fictive family of God.39 Peter and Paul also do not exercise political or military power, at least as traditionally conceived. Instead, Peter and Paul are consistently at odds with political and religious leaders, and both end up in prison at various points throughout Acts (4.3-21; 5.17-40; 12.3-11; 16.23-40). Paul in particular spends the last third of Acts in custody (21.33–28.31), and, like Jesus, he presumably falls victim to Rome’s penal power since Luke intimates that Paul dies in Rome (20.22-25; 21.13; 23.11; 28.14, 30-31).40 Of course, Peter and Paul gain the trust of various military representatives of Rome, such as the centurions Cornelius and Julius (10.1-48; 27.1-44). Yet, as Bonnie Flessen argues, the conversion of the centurion Cornelius in fact critiques imperial power and demonstrates that the power of Rome is subordinate to the God of Israel.41 Kavin Rowe further clarifies that Acts as a whole offers a political paradigm concerning God’s revelation in Jesus that run counters to the life patterns of the Graeco-Roman world.42 Moreover, Luke never encourages followers to perpetuate violence against others. Instead, Luke maintains that faithfulness may very well lead to followers becoming targets of violence.43 Throughout Acts, the 38.  On Jesus’ sexual asceticism, see Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), pp. 172-216. 39.  See Dale B. Martin, Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), pp. 103-24; Turid Karlsen Seim, ‘Children of the Resurrection: Perspectives on Angelic Asceticism in Luke–Acts’, in Vaage and Wimbush (eds), Asceticism and the New Testament, pp. 115-25; Seim, ‘The Virgin Mother: Mary and Ascetic Discipleship in Luke’, in Levine and Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to Luke, pp. 89-105. 40.  Of course, Luke does not actually narrate Paul’s death. For a summary of the options that attempt to explain why, see Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (ed. Conrad H. Gempf; WUNT, 49; Tübingen: Mohr, 1989), pp. 383-87. On Paul’s status as a prisoner in Acts 21–28, see Matthew L. Skinner, Locating Paul: Places of Custody as Narrative Settings in Acts 21–28 (SBLAB, 13; Atlanta: SBL, 2003). 41.  Flessen, Exemplary Man. 42.  C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 43.  See, e.g., Lk. 21.10-19; Acts 4.18-21; 5.27-32; 9.16; 20.22-26; 21.10-14.



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good news does not spread through triumphalistic conquest, but through proclamation, as well as persecution. Indeed, followers are consistently persecuted in Acts, and this persecution leads to their dispersion and hence the outward progression of the gospel (e.g., 1.8; 8.1, 4; 11.19). This point concerning persecution leads to a final identity marker that positions Peter and Paul outside of elite masculine norms: Peter and Paul do not exert power over themselves. Peter is not only thrown into prison, but he exits Luke’s Gospel denying Jesus and weeping bitterly.44 Paul is not only persistently persecuted from Acts 9 onward, but he also displays both grief and anger. Anger, weeping and grief were common antitheses to the ideal of manly self-control in the ancient world, and Luke has no qualms associating Peter and Paul with these emotions.45 Just as Peter weeps at the end of Luke’s Gospel, Paul recalls his past tears in his speech to the Ephesian elders (Acts 20.19, 31), and he may even join the collective weeping that occurs at the end of his speech (20.37). Unlike Peter, Paul also displays anger on three separate occasions (15.39; 16.18; 17.16). And while many elite Romans approved of anger when it was directed in an appropriate quantity toward an appropriate target, Paul’s anger – or ‘extreme annoyance’ – toward a slave girl with a Pythian spirit in 16.17-18 does not have justifiable grounds since she proclaims the truth about Paul and his companions.46

44.  On Peter’s weeping and final appearance, see Lk. 22.62. While Luke relates that the resurrected Jesus appears to Peter (Lk. 24.34), he does not narrate this appearance, for we only learn of it through indirect discourse. And while some scribes place Peter at the empty tomb (Lk. 24.12; cf. Jn 20.3-10), many scholars agree that this verse is an interpolation. For a discussion of this verse and the other textual variants in Lk. 24, see Michael Wade Martin, ‘Defending the “Western Non-Interpolations”: The Case for an Anti-Separationist Tendenz in the Longer Alexandrian Readings’, JBL 124 (2005), pp. 269-94. 45.  For an overview of the emotions, or ‘passions’, in ancient philosophical texts, see David E. Aune, ‘The Problem of the Passions in Cynicism’, in J. T. Fitzgerald (ed.), Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 48-66. See also William V. Harris, Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001); Martha C. Nussbaum, The Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994). 46.  On the appropriate way to control anger in the ancient world, see Harris, Restraining Rage, pp. 218-19. On the ambiguity regarding Paul’s annoyance toward the slave girl and various interpretations of this scene, see Ivoni Richter Reimer, Women in the Acts of the Apostles: A Feminist Liberation Perspective (trans. Linda M. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), pp. 167-84.

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To be sure, Peter and Paul do evince some forms of self-control in Acts. After his shameful weeping at the end of Luke’s Gospel, Peter returns in Acts as the leader of the apostles and the deliverer of key speeches. After his conversion in Acts 9, Paul no longer zealously pursues his opponents in a manner that is both violent and excessive (8.3; 9.1-2, 13-14; 22.4-5; 26.9-11).47 Paul’s opponents increasingly direct violent rage toward Paul as the narrative progresses, but their actions function as a foil to Paul.48 Paul also remains calm in crisis situations (e.g., 27.17-36), and he even mentions ‘self-control’ (ἐγκρατεία, σωφροσύνη) on two separate occasions (24.25; 26.25).49 All the same, neither Peter nor Paul embody elite articulations of manly self-control. Luke makes no effort to erase Peter’s tearful denial, nor does Luke redress Peter’s past failing by suggesting that Peter repented or regained his leadership status on account of self-mastery.50 Luke also emphasizes Paul’s lack of self-mastery in his account of Paul’s conversion on the Damascus road.51 Here Paul loses both his sight and self-control when Jesus appears to him as a light that causes him to fall to the ground and to lose his vision for a total of three days (9.3-4, 8-9). Indeed, Luke recounts Paul’s conversion a total of three times (9.1-19a; 22.6-16; 26.1218), suggesting that this ‘out-of-control’ incident is key to Paul’s identity as a follower of Jesus. ‘Because Luke does tell of Paul’s conversion three times, and at three significant points in the narrative’, Beverly Gaventa notes, ‘it appears that Luke understands the conversion to be definitive or constitutive of Paul’.52

47.  Note also that excess violence was often associated with anger and effeminacy in the ancient world. See Harris, Restraining Rage, pp. 229-82. 48.  On the direction of such violent emotion and mob-like behavior toward Paul and other followers, see Acts 4.1-3; 5.17-18, 33, 40; 6.12; 7.54–8.3; 9.23-24, 29; 12.1-4; 13.50; 14.2, 4-6, 19-20; 16.19-24; 17.5-9, 13; 18.6, 12-17; 19.9, 25-41; 20.3; 21.27-36; 22.22-29; 23.9-10, 12-35; 25.3, 7. See also Lawrence Wills, ‘The Depiction of the Jews in Acts’, JBL 110 (1991), pp. 631-54. 49.  Lentz in particular argues that the Lukan Paul embodies self-control (Luke’s Portrait, pp. 62-104). For a critique of this argument, see Wilson, Unmanly Men, pp. 153-89. Herein I also argue that Luke does not promulgate the virtue of self-control with his two references to the term in 24.25 and 26.25 (pp. 177-80). 50.  Beverly R. Gaventa, ‘What Ever Happened to Those Prophesying Daughters?’, in Levine and Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles, pp. 49-60 (56-57). 51.  See Wilson, Unmanly Men, pp. 157-71. 52.  Gaventa, ‘Prophesying Daughters?’, p. 57.



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What is more, Peter and Paul do not control their bodily boundaries. Peter does not experience the same degree of persecution that Paul experiences, but he is still imprisoned a total of three times that increase in severity (4.1-22; 5.17-42; 12.1-19). At first, the Jewish council is ‘much annoyed’ with Peter and John and puts them in custody (4.2-3), though the council finds ‘no way to punish them’ (4.21). Next, however, the high priest and the Sadducees are ‘filled with jealousy’ (5.17); they imprison the apostles, and this act quickly escalates with the following events: the apostles are brought by the captain of the temple and the temple police (though without violence) (5.26), the Sadducees are enraged and want to kill the apostles (5.33), and the apostles are flogged (5.40). After this beating, Luke relates that Peter and the apostles ‘rejoiced that they were considered worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name’ (5.41).53 Finally, King Herod arrests Peter after laying ‘violent hands’ on church followers and killing James the brother of John (12.1-3). Luke indicates that Herod also plans to kill Peter because Herod intends ‘to bring him out to the people after the Passover’ (12.4), a phrase that recalls the people’s participation in Jesus’ own trial after the Passover meal and before his death (Lk. 23.13-25).54 Although Peter escapes death due to his miraculous release by an angel (12.7-11), he likewise disappears from the narrative after his escape except for a brief reprise in Acts 15. Persecution is even more closely linked with the Lukan Paul. Luke repeatedly depicts Paul as the former persecutor turned proclaimer, and, because of this proclamation, Paul often finds himself vulnerable to persecution. During his conversion, Jesus foretells that Paul is ‘to suffer’ (παθεῖν, Acts 9.16), and Jesus’ words quickly come to fruition. Paul experiences persecution directly after his conversion (9.23-30), and this persecution continues throughout the remainder of Acts. Like Peter, Paul sometimes escapes physical punishment and his death is never narrated. Yet Paul is still pelted with stones (14.19), stripped naked (16.22) and beaten (16.22-23; 21.32).55 He is also bound in chains and consistently seized, dragged and led from place to place until he presumably dies

53.  Although Luke writes that the Jewish leaders flog ‘the apostles’ in 5.40, he singles out Peter in 5.29, indicating his continued role as spokesperson for the apostles. 54.  After Peter’s escape, the fact that Herod puts to death the prison guards (12.18-19) and that an angel of the Lord subsequently strikes down Herod himself (12.23) suggests that Herod has murderous intent. See also 12.11. 55.  On the shame of being stripped naked, especially for Jews, see Michael L. Satlow, ‘Jewish Constructions of Nakedness in Late Antiquity’, JBL 116 (1997),

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in Rome.56 According to Luke, Paul’s persecution demonstrates that he follows in the footsteps of Jesus, who was himself ‘subject to suffering’ (παθητός, Acts 26.23). Jesus did not protect his bodily boundaries, and so Paul likewise does not value this typically masculine virtue. Paul’s specific turn from ‘persecutor to proclaimer’ on the road to Damascus also exemplifies Luke’s tendency to depict the violation of male bodies, here in the form of a punitive miracle. Luke is unique among the canonical evangelists in that he includes a number of punitive miracles, miracles that function as a type of corporeal punishment.57 In some instances, these divinely inflicted miracles temporarily disable the recipients until they ‘correct’ their actions, as in the case of Paul, as well as John the Baptist’s father, Zechariah, who is silenced until he demonstrates his fidelity to God (Lk. 1.19-79).58 In other instances, we do not witness this ‘correction’, as with the Jewish false prophet Bar-Jesus (Acts 13.4-12) and the sons of the high priest Sceva (19.13-16).59 Finally, sometimes the recipients have no chance to correct their actions because they are killed by an ostensibly divine source. The husband-and-wife believers Ananias and Sapphira (5.1-11) and the corrupt ruler King Herod (12.23) fall into this latter camp.60

pp. 429-54, esp. 447-54. On the indignity and emasculation of being physically beaten, see Jennifer A. Glancy, Corporal Knowledge: Early Christian Bodies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 24-47. 56.  See Acts 9.25, 27, 30; 14.19; 16.19, 24; 17.19; 18.12; 21.27, 33-34; 22.24, 29-30; 23.10, 24, 27-28, 30-35; 24.25; 25.6, 17, 23, 25, 26; 27.1; 28.17, 20. 57.  On the punitive miracles in Luke–Acts, see J. Massyngberde Ford, ‘The Social and Political Implications of the Miraculous in Acts’, in Paul Elbert (ed.), Faces of Renewal: Studies in Honor of Stanley M. Horton Presented on His 70th Birthday (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1988), pp. 151-78; Raymond M. Gen, ‘The Phenomena of Miracles and Divine Infliction in Luke–Acts’, Pneuma 11 (1989), pp. 3-19. 58.  For a discussion of these two punitive miracles as they relate to masculinity, see Wilson, Unmanly Men, pp. 79-112, 153-89. 59.  In Acts 13.11, Luke says that Bar-Jesus will be blind ‘until time’ (ἄχρι καιροῦ), but we do not witness his recovery. In 19.13-16, the sons of Sceva are attacked by a demon in language reminiscent of rape and then flee the scene. 60.  On the ambiguity of divine agency in the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, see F. Scott Spencer, ‘Scared to Death: The Rhetoric of Fear in the “Tragedy” of Ananias and Sapphira’, in Steve Walton et al. (eds), Reading Acts Today: Essays in Honour of Loveday C. A. Alexander (LNTS, 427; London: T&T Clark International, 2011), pp. 63-80. On the role of divine retribution in Herod’s death, see O. Wesley Allen Jr., The Death of Herod: The Narrative and Theological Function of Retribution in Luke–Acts (SBLDS, 158; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997).



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In almost all cases, however, the main targets of these punitive miracles are men. The exception, of course, is Sapphira, who falls over dead apparently because she ‘put the Spirit of the Lord to the test’ (6.9).61 Sapphira, however, arguably falls victim to this fate because she acted in tandem with her husband Ananias or perhaps followed her husband’s initiative regarding the duplicitous handling of his property.62 While Luke’s focus on men as the recipients of punitive miracles could simply be indicative of his overall androcentric orientation, it is striking that Luke depicts men losing control of their bodily boundaries. Such acts in effect ‘feminize’ these men by violating the cardinal rule of masculinity regarding power and control. Men are the ones who wielded power in the ancient world, and, via punitive miracles, Luke intimates that men are the ones who need to be reminded of their subordinate place in the cosmic hierarchy. Luke’s account of divinely inflicted male bodies – Paul’s included – highlights a central theme that runs throughout both of Luke’s volumes: namely, the power of God.63 Luke repeatedly reminds his hearers of the futility of fighting this all-powerful God (e.g., Acts 5.39), and he consistently portrays Paul as God’s ‘overthrown enemy’ to underscore this futility.64 Luke’s focus on God and God’s power offers a helpful corrective to how we view men such as Peter and Paul in Acts. As Gaventa concludes: ‘Acts is finally not a story about human beings – male or female – but about God’.65 Luke’s focus, then, is not so much directed toward the so-called heroism of his male characters but toward how human characters either align themselves with God’s plan or resist God’s plan. The very fact that Peter and other male followers disappear from the narrative reveals that Luke’s attention is directed elsewhere, beyond the individual stories of heroic men.66 Indeed, the actions of God – not men – are the main focal point of Acts.

61.  On the ambiguity of why Ananias and Sapphira fall over dead, see Spencer, ‘Scared to Death’, pp. 63-80. 62.  See Reimer, Women, pp. 1-29. 63.  On this theme in Luke–Acts, see Wilson, Unmanly Men, esp. pp. 243-63. 64.  See Beverly R. Gaventa, ‘The Overthrown Enemy: Luke’s Portrait of Paul’, in Kent Harold Richards (ed.), SBL Seminar 1985 Papers (SBLSP, 24; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 439-49. 65.  Gaventa, ‘Prophesying Daughters?’, p. 59. 66.  For example, Luke places a lot of emphasis on finding a male replacement for Judas at the opening of Acts, but after the disciple Matthias is finally chosen, we never hear about him again. Other male characters, such as Stephen, Philip and Barnabas, play key roles in the narrative, but then disappear (or die) as the narrative progresses.

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3. Luke’s Refiguration of Masculinity in Acts Luke is likely writing from the Greek East and is thus writing from a more marginalized position in the ancient world; that is to say, he is writing from the margins of the Roman Empire itself.67 Luke is mainly preoccupied with the God of Israel (now manifest in Jesus, according to Luke) and so aligns himself with a recently conquered minority. And though Luke has some of the best Greek in the New Testament, he is not a Plutarch, nor is he a Philo or Josephus.68 We should therefore not be surprised that Luke’s constructions of masculinity differ substantially from those who represent more ‘centered’ forms of power. With the examples of Peter and Paul, their non-elite status and other collective identity markers would have impinged on their manliness in many elite eyes. Yet an important question still remains: Does Luke reproduce elements of elite masculinity in order to make his ‘orderly account’ more palatable to his audience? In other words, does Luke mimic elite constructions of masculinity for apologetic purposes? On the one hand, Luke does mimic pervasive gender norms. We should expect this mimicry because Luke did not write in a vacuum. Male characters populate the pages of Acts and further the overall impression that men play a more vital role in the leadership of the early church than women. Peter and Paul themselves are identified as ἄνδρες, and they consistently direct their speeches to other ἄνδρες.69 Peter and Paul also perform powerful words and deeds, just like Jesus, who is called a ‘man [ἀνήρ], a prophet powerful in deed and word’ (Lk. 24.19; cf. Acts 2.22-23).70 Paul in particular delivers speeches in a variety of public forums ranging from the Areopagus in Athens (17.22) to the audience

67.  On Luke’s social location in relation to masculine norms and the GraecoRoman world, see Wilson, Unmanly Men, pp. 24-38. 68.  On how Luke’s Greek is ‘biblicizing Greek’, see Loveday C. A. Alexander, ‘Septuaginta, Fachprosa, Imitatio: Albert Wifstrand and the Language of Luke– Acts’, in Acts in its Ancient Literary Context (LNTS, 298; repr.; London: T&T Clark International, 2005), pp. 231-52. 69.  On the identification of Jesus’ male followers as ἄνδρες, see, e.g., Acts 9.13; 21.11; 22.3; 23.27, 30; 24.5; 25.5, 14, 17 (cf. Acts 7.58). On the identification of speech recipients as ἄνδρες, see Acts 2.14, 22; 3.12; 13.16; 14.15; 17.22; 22.1; 23.1, 6; 27.21, 25; 28.17. 70.  Jesus is only specifically identified as a ‘man’ (ἀνήρ) a total of five times in the New Testament, with three of those five times occurring in Luke–Acts: Lk. 24.19; Acts 2.22; 17.31; Jn 1.30; Eph. 4.13 (D’Angelo, ‘ΑΝΗΡ Question’, pp. 58-60).



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hall in Caesarea (25.23).71 Paul also follows rhetorical practices that were popular among elite males, and he demonstrates an ability to adapt to different masculine norms depending on his specific cultural context.72 On the other hand, Luke is not as preoccupied with gender norms as many of his coevals. Luke may use the term ἀνήρ (as well as γυνή) quite often, but like other New Testament authors he nowhere uses the term ἀνδρεία, which means ‘courage’ or literally ‘manliness’.73 ‘Manliness’ was one of the four cardinal virtues of the ancient world, and many ancient elites assumed that manliness set the standard of morality.74 Luke mentions courage, but when he does so, he uses the gender-neutral term θάρσος and its cognates (εὐθυμέω, θαρσέω) and he identifies God as the source of this courage (Acts 23.11; 27.22, 25; 28.15). While Luke depicts Jesus’ male opponents (and proponents!) undergoing ‘feminizing’ experiences via punitive miracles, he does not use the specifically gendered language common among his contemporaries to describe those experiences. Nowhere does Luke claim that men are literally ‘feminized’ (ἐθηλύνετο), as Josephus recounts at times (e.g., War 1.59), or suggest that men are infected with the ‘female disease’ (νόσον θήλειαν), as Philo claims quite frequently (e.g., Abr. 135-136; Contempl. 59-61; Spec. 1.60.325).

71.  See Stowers’s argument, however, that the ‘private’ home was Paul’s main platform for his preaching activity (‘Social Status’). See also Skinner, who problematizes the notion of public vs. private space in Acts by focusing on Paul’s preaching while in custody (Locating Paul). 72.  On Paul’s ability to adapt masculine norms for apologetic purposes, see Brittany E. Wilson, ‘Destabilizing Masculinity: Paul in the Book of Acts and Beyond’, JBR 2 (2015), pp. 241-61. 73.  Luke uses the term ἀνήρ (depending on the manuscript tradition) around twenty-seven times in his first volume (cf. Mark four times; Matthew eight times) and one hundred times in his second volume. Luke uses the term γυνὴ forty-one times in his first volume (cf. Mark seventeen times; Matthew twenty-nine times) and nineteen times in his second volume. On the lack of ‘manliness’ (ἀνδρεία) language among New Testament authors (with the exception of the verb ἀνδρίζομαι [‘act like a man’] in 1 Cor. 16.13), see Moisés Mayordomo, ‘ “Act Like Men!” (1 Cor 16:13): Paul’s Exhortation in Different Historical Contexts’, Cross Currents 61 (2011), pp. 515-28, esp. 515. 74.  See Myles A. McDonnell, ‘Roman Men and Greek Virtue’, in Ralph M. Rosen and Ineke Sluiter (eds), Andreia: Studies in Manliness and Courage in Classical Antiquity (Mnemosyne Supplement, 238; Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 235-61.

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In his depiction of male persecution in Acts, Luke also does not dwell on the severity of these violated bodies like many of his Jewish and Christian coevals. Just as Luke denies us physical descriptions of his main characters, so does he deny us gory details of the persecuted bodies of Peter, Paul and others.75 In this respect, Luke differs from Jewish and Christian martyrological texts that dwell at length on the corporeal violations of their ‘heroes’. Jewish and Christian martyrological texts often linger on the (frequently gruesome) details of a martyr’s death, and they also depict the martyr valiantly exuding self-control in the midst of this death. Contra such accounts, Luke’s portrayals of his male characters’ persecution lack such detail, and they also lack an emphasis on their corresponding manliness and self-control in the midst of pain.76 Stephen, for example, faces his death with relative calm (Acts 7.54-60), but he does not evince ‘manliness’ (ἀνδρεία) like the mother from 4 Maccabees (4 Macc. 15.23; cf. 15.30; 16.14), nor is he commanded to ‘be a man [ἀνδρίζου]’ like Polycarp from the Martyrdom of Polycarp (9.1). Stefan Krauter has recently argued that Stephen’s behavior during his death is not even characterized by self-control, but by ecstasy.77 Overall, Luke casts Peter and Paul and other male characters as members of a larger apocalyptic drama in which their words and deeds ultimately further God’s plan (βουλή τοῦ θεοῦ). Peter finds that he cannot ‘hinder’ the Holy Spirit (10.47; 11.17), and Paul is ‘bound’ to the Holy Spirit, as well as to God’s will (19.21; 20.22-23; 21.10-14). Both Peter and Paul also frequently act – or do not act – in response to divine prompting.78 Luke even describes Peter, Paul and other followers as ‘slaves’ of God (Acts 2.18; 4.29; 16.17; 20.19; cf. Lk. 1.38), a designation that positions males, at least, at the opposite end of the spectrum from ‘manly men’. 75.  In a world where outer physical attributes reflected inner character traits (including one’s manliness or lack thereof), Luke’s lack of physical descriptions of Peter and Paul, or indeed of any of his main characters, including Jesus, is striking. Instead, the main thing we know about the bodies of Jesus, Peter and Paul is that they were physically violated. 76.  To be clear, the Lukan Jesus has more self-control during his passion than his Synoptic counterparts. Regardless, Luke still primarily portrays Jesus as a ‘suffering servant’ who experiences bodily violation. See Wilson, Unmanly Men, pp. 190-242. 77.  Stefan Krauter, ‘The Martyrdom of Stephen’, in Jakob Engberg, Ufe Holmsgaard Eriksen and Anders Klostergaard Petersen (eds), Contextualising Early Christian Martyrdom (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2011), pp. 45-74, esp. 63, 69-71. 78.  See, e.g., Acts 4.8; 9.6; 10.10-16, 19-20, 44-48; 12.7-9; 13.2, 9, 47; 16.6-10; 18.9-11; 19.21; 27.21-26.



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Peter and Paul’s dependence on God emerges out of Luke’s overarching apocalyptic worldview in which one is either a ‘slave’ of Satan or a ‘slave’ of God in a cosmos of two competing realms.79 According to Luke, a person is either acting under the power of Satan or acting under the power of God, and the power of Satan has already been defeated (at least in part) by Christ’s death and exaltation. For Luke, then, men are mistaken if they act as though they are their own masters, for humans in effect are always serving a higher Master. True power belongs to God alone, but this is a power, Luke maintains, that paradoxically unfolds according to powerlessness and persecution. 4. Conclusion To conclude, this essay has contextualized Peter and Paul within the agonistic context of ancient masculinity. In doing so, it has argued that Acts represents a largely non-elite, or ‘marginalized’, representation of masculinity within the wider Graeco-Roman world. Acts, of course, represents a more elite perspective compared to other early Christian texts, such as the Gospel of Mark or the book of Revelation. But compared to many of our elite constructions of masculinity, the book of Acts falls far short. While Luke does not reject elite masculine norms, he also does not simply reproduce these norms either. Luke instead reconfigures – or refigures – ancient norms to serve his larger theological purposes, namely, his understanding of God’s power. Whether he does so intentionally or not, Luke refigures elite understandings of power and self-control to further his own understanding of God’s ultimate power in Jesus. Of course, Luke is not alone in this refiguration of masculine norms, for even elite authors sometimes refigured such norms to suit their purposes. As a primarily theocentric narrative, however, Luke’s refiguration understandably aligns with his key theological and narrative themes. For example, Luke refigures sexual power as sexual asceticism and paternal power as power within the fictive family of God. Luke refigures political power as the faithful actions of followers that often lead to persecution 79.  On Luke’s apocalyptic discourse, see Gregory L. Bloomquist, ‘The Intertexture of Lukan Apocalyptic Discourse’, in Duane F. Watson (ed.), The Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament (Atlanta: SBL, 2002), pp. 45-68; Susan R. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989); Steve Walton, ‘ “The Heavens Opened”: Cosmological and Theological Transformation in Luke and Acts’, in Jonathan T. Pennington and Sean M. McDonough (eds), Cosmology and New Testament Theology (LNTS, 355; London: T&T Clark International, 2008), pp. 60-73.

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by religious and political leaders, and he refigures military power as the agonistic cosmic war between God and Satan. Moreover, Luke only valorizes self-control insofar as it aligns with God’s ultimate course of action. In short, Luke’s depiction of power and self-control underlines the theme of God’s power as found in Israel’s scriptures and now made manifest in the crucified κύριος. Luke’s refiguration of power does not mean that his depiction of the early church approximates modern notions of an egalitarian community. Luke still places God-given power in the hands of men, and men dominate his second volume from beginning to end. At the same time, Luke also emphasizes that men need to act in so-called unmanly ways, emulating many of the situations in which women and other ‘non-men’ in Acts find themselves. And while God’s power at times looks hyper-masculine, as when God ‘unmans’ men such as Paul via punitive miracles, Luke also conveys God’s power in paradoxical terms. Jesus, for instance, may be a powerful, resurrected ‘Lord’, but he is also a powerless figure who dies on a cross. Indeed, Luke’s portrayal of God, men and power has potentially far-reaching ramifications. When read in context, Luke’s provocative portrayal provides a picture of masculinity that looks unmanly to the world of the first century and to the world of the twenty-first century as well.

M aking J ewish M en in a G reco -R oman W orld : M asculinity and the C ircumcision of T imothy in A cts 16.1-5 Christopher Stroup

Timothy’s circumcision by Paul continues to perplex scholars. Not only do scholars wonder why Luke would depict an adult circumcision, but they wonder why Luke would include a circumcision story immediately after the Apostolic Council, which decided that non-Jews do not need circumcision. Some argue that Timothy’s circumcision is necessary because he was Jewish. The Jerusalem Council did not apply to Timothy because he was a Jew. Others contend that Timothy was Greek, but his circumcision made him more suitable for ministry with Paul. It was not necessary, but useful. Eric Barreto has recently argued that Timothy was both Jewish and Greek and his circumcision did not eliminate his ethnic hybridity.1 These interpretations situate Timothy’s circumcision in ethnic and religious terms, but they do not adequately contextualize circumcision as a gendered performance in the Greco-Roman world. This essay uses gender-critical theory and the constructions of GrecoRoman and Jewish masculinities to seek space for another reading. Based on insights derived from these models, I argue that the circumcision of Timothy uses constructions of masculinity to negotiate the Jewishness of Christian identity, contending that Luke presents Christian men as Jewish, rather than Greco-Roman men. By embracing an ostensibly Jewish model of masculinity, Luke subverts the Greco-Roman model of masculinityas-mastery only to re-appropriate it into his Jewish men. Luke’s men are Jewish men, but they dominate like Greco-Roman men. Timothy’s foreskin serves as the sacrifice needed forcefully to make this point.

1.  Eric D. Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (WUNT, 2/294; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), pp. 61-118.

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To make a case for this reading a theoretical framework is first laid out. Next, constructions of a picture of Roman masculinity and its relation to ethnicity and, specifically, the act of circumcision are made. This picture is then contrasted with a picture of Jewish masculinity and the important role circumcision plays in its construction of masculinity. Finally, a reexamination with an eye to gender-critical issues will propose a model of how Acts 16.1-4 fits into the rest of the book. 1. Constructing Gender and Making Men One of the primary assumptions underlying this essay is that identity, specifically gendered identity, is socially constructed rather than natural or given.2 Gender is enacted through performance and recitation of the larger discourse on gender.3 Through such recitation and performance, constructions of gender are woven into the fabric of a given society.4 In the words of Judith Butler:

2.  See Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd C. Penner, Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse: Thinking beyond Thecla (London: T&T Clark International, 2009), pp. 50-58. On gender criticism more generally see Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, ‘Gender Criticism’, in Stephen Greenblatt and Giles B. Gunn (eds), Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies (New York: MLA, 1992), pp. 271-302. Sedgwick comments that ‘gender’ is distinguished from ‘sex’ in that it is ‘far more elaborated, more fully and rigidly dichotomized social production and reproduction of male and female identities and behaviors…in a cultural system for which “male–female” functions as a primary and perhaps model binarism affecting the structure and meaning of many other binarisms whose apparent connection of chromosomal sex may often be exiguous or nonexistent’ (Sedgwick, ‘Gender’, p. 273). 3.  For a helpful explanation of discourse and its relation to gender see Vander Stichele and Penner, Contextualizing Gender, pp. 17-38. 4.  Cf. Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus, defined as a ‘system of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an expressed mastery of operations necessary in order to attain them’ (Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990], p. 53). Bourdieu also sees one’s practices as ‘the product of a modus operandi of which he [sic] is not the producer and has no conscious mastery… It is because subjects do not, strictly speaking, know what they are doing that what they are doing has more meaning than they know’ (Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977], p. 79).



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Gender is…a construction that regularly conceals its genesis; the tacit collective agreement to perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions is obscured by the credibility of those productions…; the construction ‘compels’ our belief in its necessity and naturalness.5

Through questioning the objectivity of gender (and anatomical sex), theorists such as Butler are able to turn their critique from the performance (for example, the marginalization of women) to an examination of the ‘structuring structures’ of gender itself. This move, viewed more broadly, destabilizes the foundations of all interpretation of ‘natural’ identity markers while firmly entrenching the scholar in the interpretation of discourse indicators rather than examinations of ‘reality.’ For the historian of antiquity, adopting this method allows the scholar to interpret literary documents as representatives of social discourses and the locus of a ‘social logic’ that aids the description of the culture of distant societies.6 According to Gabrielle Spiegel, ‘social logic’ describes a document’s ‘site of articulation and its discursive character as articulated “logos” ’.7 For Spiegel, the use of social logic allows the construction of a bridge between the deconstructed literary document and historical description. It is through such a method that ancient culture, found in both texts and contexts, can be described through specific textual iterations. In light of this approach, it is assumed that specific texts both construct and disseminate social logic through a written document. Though the intention of the author and the reception of the ‘original’ audience are unattainable, the production of the work itself encodes a social location and discursive logic which are helpful for reassessing the value of varying 5.  Judith Butler, ‘Bodily Inscriptions, Performative Subversions (1990)’, in Sara Salih and Judith Butler (eds), The Judith Butler Reader (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2003), pp. 90-118 (114). 6.  Discourse, according to Caroline Vander Stichele and Todd Penner, ‘constructs and distributes the ideas that constitute the norms, values, concepts, and practices of that society’ (Vander Stichele and Penner, Contextualizing Gender, p. 18). See also Averil Cameron, ‘Review: Redrawing the Map: Early Christian Territory after Foucault’, JRS 76 (1986), pp. 266-71. On social logic see Gabrielle M. Spiegel, ‘History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle Ages’, Speculum 65 (1990), pp. 59-86 (77-78). Spiegel comments that the use of social logic is helpful for analysis of literary history because ‘it permits us to examine language with the tools of the social historian, to see it within a local or regional social context of human relations, systems of communication, and networks of power that can account for its particular semantic inflections and thus aid in the recovery of its full meaning as cultural history seeks to understand it’ (Spiegel, ‘History’, p. 77). 7.  Spiegel, ‘History’, p. 78.

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interpretations.8 This is to say that though a singular ‘meaning’ may be unattainable, something productive may be said about the way the social logic of a given text is depicted in relation to a larger discourse. Connected with the assumption that texts construct and disseminate social logic is the understanding that texts are not innocuous.9 More than innocent descriptions of history or harmless constructions of fictional stories, texts have the power both to reify and to subvert the claims of the dominant discourse. As Edward Said has so forcefully shown, this often occurs unbeknownst to the author, audience and interpreter.10 In light of this, the historian of antiquity must look not only to the descriptions and depictions of a given text, but also to ‘the social order of power in which the text participates’.11 This move to highlight a text’s participation in the social order of power inevitably draws the historian into postcolonial descriptions of power and its relation to the construction and maintenance of identities. Power, according to some postcolonial theorists, is not exclusive to the colonizer but is also possessed by the colonized.12 Awareness of the hybridity of power, and in turn the hybridity of identity, is helpful for descriptions of documents originating at the margins of a given set of power relationships because it allows the ‘marginal moments’ of a text to come to the forefront of analysis.13 These marginal moments create a space for analysis of ideological agendas as constructed within the dominant discourse on aspects of identity such as gender.14 How an author manipulates a dominant discourse through support and subversion allows the interpreter to get a glimpse at the social logic undergirding the text. 8.  On point of view and problems of attaining meaning from texts see Stephen D. Moore, Literary Criticism and the Gospels: The Theoretical Challenge (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), esp. pp. 44-55, 174-76. 9.  Vander Stichele and Penner, Contextualizing Gender, p. 21. 10.  See, e.g., Edward W. Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Vintage, 1993) and idem, Orientalism (New York: Pantheon, 1978). 11.  Elizabeth A. Clark, ‘The Lady Vanishes: Dilemmas of a Feminist Historian after the “Linguistic Turn” ’, CH 67 (1998), pp. 1-31 (12), referring to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘French Feminism in an International Frame’, Yale French Studies 62 (1981), pp. 177-78. 12.  See, e.g., Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994). For a description of various interpretations of postcolonial power see Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (London: Routledge, 2005), pp. 42-48. 13.  On ‘marginal moments’ see Clark, ‘Lady’, p. 12. There, Clark is describing the work of Spivak. 14.  Clark, ‘Lady’, p. 12.



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2. Greco-Roman Masculinities Gender and sexuality are characterized by power and dominance in the Greco-Roman world.15 According to Stephen Moore and Janice Capel Anderson, masculinity in the ancient Mediterranean world can be summarized in one word: mastery.16 Ancients displayed gendered mastery by creating and maintaining the perception of dominance over others. In this sense, Greco-Roman masculinity is active while Greco-Roman femininity is passive both in sexual practice and gender construction. This dichotomy is shown most clearly in depictions of the Roman man but corresponds to the Greek man as well. With regard to sexual acts, Craig Williams states: First and foremost, a self-respecting Roman man must always give the appearance of playing the insertive role in penetrative acts, and not the receptive role: to use popular terminology often unfortunately replicated in the language of contemporary scholarship, he must be the ‘active’, not the ‘passive’, partner. This can justly be called the prime directive of masculine sexual behavior for Romans, and it has an obvious relationship to broader structures of hierarchical male power.17

Though there were differences between Greeks and Romans in the classification of appropriate sexual behavior, scholars believe that the models for each culture were similar: the ‘real’ man masters all others sexually.18 15.  See, e.g., Vander Stichele and Penner, Contextualizing Gender, p. 25. For a survey of scholarship on this issue see Ruth Mazo Karras, ‘Active/Passive, Acts/ Passions: Greek and Roman Sexualities’, American Historical Review 105 (2000), pp. 1250-65 (1259-60). 16.  Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson, ‘Taking It like a Man: Masculinity in 4 Maccabees’, JBL 117 (1998), pp. 249-73 (250). Though I accept Moore and Capel Anderson’s definition of masculinity in the Greco-Roman world, I am hesitant to classify it as characteristic of all cultures that could be classified ‘ancient Mediterranean’. This broad classification of ‘ancient Mediterranean’ seems to raise similar issues to those Said has pointed out concerning the term ‘Oriental’. On the modern construction of the ancient Mediterranean world and its relationship to ‘Orientalism’, see James G. Crossley, Jesus in an Age of Terror: Scholarly Projects for a New American Century (London: Equinox, 2008), pp. 110-42. 17.  Craig A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 18. Williams classifies this model of masculinity as Priapic after the Greek fertility god, Priapus (Homosexuality, p. 18). 18.  See, e.g., the discussion of the differences between Greek and Roman views of sexual relations with men in Williams, Homosexuality, pp. 63-95.

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Another way this construction of masculinity is played out in the Greco-Roman world is through mastery over others in the public realm.19 Through the display of dominance over others, men (and women) could perform their masculinity. One area where this shows up prominently is in descriptions of non-Greco-Roman ἔθνη. Because of the military domination and control of the Roman Empire, Greco-Roman authors were able classify foreign ethnicities as either masculine or feminine depending on their specific location or perceived physical, social and religious traits.20 While the Gauls, Germans and Celts are viewed as hyper-masculine, the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Persians and Jews are often classified as effeminate in Roman sources.21 The ‘natural’ effeminacy of these ἔθνη comes in part from living in or originating from a poor environment. The Latin poet Lucan (39–65 CE) writes: Every people born in the northern snows is fierce in wars and loves death; but as one goes towards the East and the moderate parts of the world, peoples grow softer through the mildness of the sky. There, one sees both loose garments and flowing robes worn by men. (Bellum Civile 8.363-66)22

On this view, masculinity is not only a matter of power but of environment and appearance. Greco-Roman concern for the masculinity of different ἔθνη arose, in part, because of the assimilation that took place between Greeks, Romans and conquered peoples. The constant interaction between effem­inate people and conquerors created a threat to the masculinity of the 19.  See, e.g., Plato, Rep. 549d-50e. There, a mother complains to her son that her husband is ‘no kind of man’ (ἄνανδρος) because he does not punish wrongdoing. The house slaves have the same feelings and ‘urge the boy to punish all such [wrongdoers] when he grows to manhood and prove himself more of a man than his father’ (διακελεύονται ὅπως, ἐπειδὰν ἀνὴρ γένηται, τιμωρήσεται πάντας τοὺς τοιούτους καὶ ἀνὴρ μᾶλλον ἔσται τοῦ πατρός). [All texts and translations from Greek and Latin texts are from the Loeb Classical Library, unless noted.] For discussion of the above passage see Tat-siong Benny Liew, ‘Re-Mark-able Masculinities? Jesus, the Son of Man, or the (Sad) Sum of Manhood’, in Stephen D. Moore and Janice Capel Anderson (eds), New Testament Masculinities (SemeiaSt, 45; Atlanta: SBL, 2003), pp. 93-136 (95). 20.  Greek-speaking authors were able to join the conquering Romans as ‘victors’ through their cultural domination of Romans. 21.  Benjamin H. Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), pp. 324-70, 411-91. The classification of Jews is often ambiguous because they have similar customs as the Egyptians but can be fierce like the Germans. 22.  Cited in Isaac, Invention, p. 93.



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victors.23 While Horace famously quips that the victors were conquered by the vanquished with no apparent concern for Roman masculinity,24 Juvenal appears more worried. In his Satires, he chastises a Roman elite who takes on an Armenian slave as a lover and degrades himself more than the effeminate foreigner: ‘But what we now do in our victorious city, those whom we vanquished will not do. And yet they say that one Armenian, Zalaces, more effeminate than all our young men, has given himself to a passionate tribune. See what foreign contacts do! He came as a hostage, here they are turned into men’ (Sat. 2.163-68).25 Juvenal is not worried about the masculinity of foreigners, but is concerned that Roman men are becoming so effeminate that the ‘naturally’ effeminate foreigners have become manly by comparison. A few generations earlier, Livy comments on the power of foreign cultures to feminize Greek, and in turn, Roman men. In a speech composed for a Roman general addressing his troops in the second century BCE, Livy reminds his audience of the dangers of foreign influence. He writes: The Macedonians who rule Alexandria in Egypt, who rule Seleucia and Babylon and other colonies spread all over the world, have denigrated (degenerarunt) into Syrians, Parthians and Egyptians… Whatever grows in its own soil, prospers better; transplanted to alien soil, it changes and it denigrates (degenerat) to conform to the soil which feeds it… You, by Hercules, being men of Mars, must take care and escape as quickly as possible from the amenities of Asia: such power have these foreign pleasures to smother vigour of character; so powerful is the impact of contact with the way of life and customs of the natives. (38.17, 12, 16)26

For Livy, Greek and Roman men are under the threat of foreign influence which denigrates the naturally masculine Greco-Roman man into a foreigner lacking vigor. Both of these Roman authors represent extreme examples of a broader Greco-Roman fear that effeminacy of foreign peoples would penetrate Greco-Roman men.27 23.  For an early example see Isocrates, Cyr. 8.15-17. There the Greek writes that the softness of the Medes has corrupted the Persians through their luxury and excess, a common complaint among Greek and Roman elite. See discussion in Isaac, Invention, p. 292. 24.  Ep. 2.1.156: Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artis intulit agresti Latio (‘Captive Greece took her savage victor captive and brought the arts to rustic Latium’). 25.  Cited in Isaac, Invention, p. 232. 26.  Cited in Isaac, Invention, p. 307. 27.  On this fear see Isaac, Invention, pp. 225-47. This is part of a greater fear of foreign influence more generally. See, e.g., the discussion of the Jews below.

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This fear holds so much weight because of the hierarchical status relations found in the Greco-Roman world and the ability of foreigners to rise to the peak of masculinity.28 These relations are not ‘natural’ or bound by ethnic categories but are maintained through specific private or public actions.29 Such actions are enforced through another stream of Greco-Roman thought, namely, self-mastery. They are not only done to others (through, for example, military or sexual conquest), but they can be performed on oneself. Another way that masculinity is displayed in the Greco-Roman world is through self-mastery. This self-mastery appears in at least two iterations: philosophical and physical. Philosophical self-mastery, characterized by the Stoic rejection of passion, displays one’s ability to control desire and enact prudence, temperance, justice and courage.30 Lack of such mastery is sometimes portrayed as the disease which deteriorates one’s masculinity.31 The rise and appropriation of a constant demand for philosophical self-mastery serves to enhance the precariousness of masculinity in the Greco-Roman world. Not only must the ‘manly man’ control those around him, but he (or she) must dominate the passions within.32 In addition to the ability to dominate the passions, masculinity is displayed in one’s appearance and ability to control the physical appearance. Maud Gleason has helpfully delineated the nuances of masculine comportment 28.  This structure is what Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza calls a Kyriarchal structure ruled by stratification and status organization. See Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ‘Introduction: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Gender, Status, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies’, in Laura Salah Nasrallah and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (eds), Prejudice and Christian Beginnings: Investigating Race, Gender, and Ethnicity in Early Christian Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), pp. 1-23. 29.  See Schüssler Fiorenza, ‘Introduction’, p. 14. See also Diana Swancutt, ‘ “The Disease of Effemination”: The Charge of Effeminacy and the Verdict of God (Romans 1:18–2:16)’, in Moore and Anderson (eds), New Testament Masculinities, pp. 193-234. 30.  Characterized as the four Greco-Roman virtues by Moore and Anderson, ‘Taking It’, p. 252. On the Stoic control of desire see Dale B. Martin, ‘Paul without Passions: On Paul’s Rejection of Desire in Sex and Marriage’, in Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), pp. 65-76 (69-71). 31.  Swancutt, ‘Disease’, pp. 202-4. 32.  The relationship between domination of the passions (self-mastery) and the domination of others in the Roman world is an interesting one. Many ancient authors thought that the lack of self-control created an inability to control others. On this view, if the individual became effeminate, the society was sure to follow. For literature and discussion see Isaac, Invention, pp. 304-23.



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found during the Second Sophistic.33 For Gleason, masculinity is found in the proper arrangement of one’s body, and it is determined through the ‘science’ of physiognomy.34 Accordingly, ‘[m]asculinity, in the conceptual world inhabited by physiognomists, astrologers, popular moralists, and their audiences, constituted a system of signs. It was a language that anatomical males were taught to speak with their bodies. The process began at birth.’35 This supports the earlier conclusion that men are made. In this context, men are made through the observation and classification of masculine and feminine characteristics. The determination is not always clear but is the result of the accumulative sum of respective traits. So, according to Polemo, ‘in the masculine there is something feminine to be found, and in the feminine something masculine, but the name “masculine” or “feminine” is assigned according to which of the two prevails’ (2.1.192F).36 Polemo shows an awareness of gendered qualities present in the appearance and comportment of an individual and the subjectivity of determining gender. This indicates, according to Gleason, that ‘[m]asculinity was still thought to be grounded in “nature”, yet it remained fluid and incomplete until firmly anchored by the discipline of an acculturative process’.37 In the context of such a battle for masculine comportment within Greco-Roman ideology, it is no surprise that the acculturative differences found in some non-Roman and non-Greek ἔθνη are viewed as ‘naturally’ feminine. One cultural practice found in a few ‘naturally’ feminine ἔθνη drew the negative attention of both Greeks and Romans and became a source of ridicule and, eventually, persecution. 3. Greco-Roman Views of Circumcision and Jewish Masculinity Circumcision was viewed as a foreign practice and became a source of ridicule in Greco-Roman ideology.38 Even in areas where circumcision was prominent, it could be stigmatized by locals.39 It was well known by 33.  Maud W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 34.  See Maud W. Gleason, ‘The Semiotics of Gender: Physiognomy and Self-Fashioning in the Second Century CE’, in David M. Halperin et al. (eds), Before Sexuality: The Construction of Erotic Experience in the Ancient Greek World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 389-415. 35.  Gleason, ‘Semiotics’, p. 402. 36.  Translation from Gleason, ‘Semiotics’, p. 390. 37.  Gleason, ‘Semiotics’, p. 412. 38.  Philo, Spec. 1.2. 39.  E.g., Josephus, Apion 2.142.

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Greeks and Romans that circumcision was not only practiced by Jews but was a common practice among Egyptians, Ethiopians, Phoenicians and Syrians as well.40 Herodotus claims that circumcision was practiced by the Colchians, Egyptians and Ethiopians first and was later taken on by the Phoenicians and Syrians (Hist. 2.1042-43).41 Despite a near universal acknowledgment of its Egyptian origin, however, circumcision comes to be seen as a distinctively Jewish practice by the first century CE.42 The association of circumcision with Egyptians is important for understanding hostility toward Romans who adopt circumcision. Egyptians’ ethnicity was ‘naturally’ feminine.43 Though circumcision is not in itself viewed as an effeminate practice, it was understood to be a practice of Eastern, effeminate peoples; it was connected to 40.  Throughout this work the term ‘Jews’ is used to represent those people who conceived of themselves and/or were perceived by others to be associated with the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος either by birth, country of origin or cultural affiliation. This is not an unproblematic use of the term ‘Jews’, however. See the discussion in Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), and Steve Mason, ‘Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History’, JSJ 38 (2007), pp. 457-512. See also the uncharacteristic explanatory note in BDAG, p. 478, Ἰουδαῖος: ‘Incalculable harm has been caused by simply glossing Ἰ[ουδαῖος] with “Jew”, for many readers or auditors of Bible translations do not practice the historical judgment necessary to distinguish between circumstances and events of an ancient time and contemporary ethnic-religious-social realities, with the result that antiJudaism in the modern sense of the term is needlessly fostered through biblical texts’. 41.  Josephus contends that Herodotus’s ‘Syrians’ are actually Jews because there are no other circumcised populations in his area (Apion 1.171). See also similar ethnographic interest in circumcision in Diodorus, Bibliotheca Historica 1.55.5 and Strabo, Geogr. 17.2.5. Other groups that are classified as practicing circumcision are the Creophagi (Strabo, Geogr. 16.4.19) and the Ituraeans (at the request of Jews, Josephus, Ant. 13.319) 42.  So Cohen, Beginnings, p. 42. See also discussion in Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 96-102. Schäfer contends that there is evidence for an earlier correlation between circumcision and Judaism, but the evidence from Naevius (third century BCE) is ambiguous and the evidence from Timagenes (first century BCE) is only found in Josephus. Horace does refer to the ‘circumcised Jew’ but it is unclear whether or not this is a descriptive (a circumcised as opposed to uncircumcised Jew) or ascriptive (circumcised as a common characteristic) classification (Serm. 1.9.69-70). Cf. the second-century CE author Celsus, who still views circumcision as Egyptian in origin (Origen, Cels. 6.22). 43.  Not only did the Egyptians trade masculine and feminine roles (see, e.g., Sophocles, OC 337-342), but they were known for their lust, aversion to war and



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the Egyptians, the quintessential feminine ἔθνος; and it was regarded as a deformity or mutilation of the quintessentially masculine body part by Greeks and Romans.44 Though circumcision is acknowledged as a marker of Jewish identity in the Greco-Roman world, it is commonly perceived as a practice assimilated by Jews. According to Strabo, Moses was a pious man who apparently embodied the characteristics of the wise sage, but after his death ‘superstitious men were appointed to the priesthood, and then tyrannical people; and from superstition arose abstinence from flesh, from which it is their custom to abstain even to-day, and circumcision and excisions and other observations of the kind’ (Geogr. 16.37). Circumcision was a degradation appropriated by the otherwise pious Jews. Along similar lines, Tacitus contends that Jews ‘adopted circumcision to distinguish themselves from other peoples by this difference’ (Hist. 5.5.2). Thus, circumcision, though viewed as characteristic of Jews, is not ‘natural’ to Jews but was appropriated for either superstitious or xenophobic purposes according to these authors.45 This understanding of circumcision may not have been widely held, but the presence of such views suggests that Jews were at least connected with other ἔθνη from the East and distinguished from Greeks and Romans through circumcision.46 Other Greek and Roman writers are more hostile toward the (Jewish) practice of circumcision. Greco-Egyptian Apion ‘derides the practice of circumcision’ (τὴν τῶν αἰδοίων χλευάζει περιτομήν), but according to Josephus, is forced to be circumcised because of an infection which eventually leads to his painful death.47 Roman satirist Petronius utter uniqueness. See discussion in Isaac, Invention, pp. 352-54. Along similar lines, Greco-Roman mastery over Egypt is shown through Rome’s independence from Egyptian grain supplies (Isaac, Invention, pp. 360-61). 44.  It is connected explicitly with Eastern peoples by Persius, Saturae 5.184. Louis Feldman notes the Greek and Roman connection of circumcision with deformity. See Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 155. On circumcision as a mutilation see John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996), pp. 438-39. On the aesthetics of Greek masculinity see Kenneth J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality (London: Duckworth, 1978), pp. 127-32. 45.  Cf. the fragmentary writings of Artapanus who claims that Moses actually shows the Ethiopians and Egyptians how to circumcise (9.27.10). The works of Artapanus on Moses are found in Eusebius, Praep. ev. 9.27.1-37. 46.  See, e.g., Suetonius, Dom. 12.2. There an elderly man is stripped naked to see if he is circumcised and therefore libel for the tax on Jews. 47.  Josephus, Apion 2.137-43.

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(ca. 27–66 CE) speaks of a slave who, despite his lack of education and lazy eye, is ‘perfect’ except for his circumcision and snoring (Satyricon 68.8). Here, circumcision is understood to be a fault found in an otherwise ‘perfect’ slave. Later in the same work, Petronius tells a story of a man named Encolpius who recommends that he and his friends paint themselves to look like Aethiopian slaves so they can escape their enemies. One of his companions chidingly remarks, ‘Oh, yes, and please circumcise us too, so that we look like Jews, and bore our ears to imitate Arabians, and chalk our faces till Gaul takes us for her own sons; as if this colour alone could alter our shape’ (102.14). This association between circumcision and Jews is more than a simple description of circumcision as a practice typical of Jews:48 the association typecasts male Jews as both barbarian like Aethiopians, Arabians and Gauls and as non-Roman. No matter how integrated Jews were into civic life at this time, they are still seen as foreign barbarians by Petronius, in part because of the practice of circumcision.49 Martial repeatedly ridicules circumcised men, often in association with their sexual potency.50 The unfortunate singer Menophilus is exposed when the fibula (‘sheath’) hiding his circumcision falls off at the bath (Ep. 7.82). The fibula, in the case of Menophilus, was not used to protect his singing ability but to hide his difference.51 Menophilus becomes the butt of Martial’s jibe because of his circumcision. In another epigram, an anonymous circumcised Jewish poet is chided, not because he is a poor writer and plagiarizes, but because he seduces Martial’s own boy (pedicas puerum, Ep. 11.94). Martial repeatedly identifies this Jew from Jerusalem by his circumcision (four times in nine lines) and thus creates the impression that his circumcision makes the sexual conquest of Martial’s boy all the more offensive. Finally, Martial derides a Roman woman for providing ‘favors’ to foreigners but not Romans. He writes: 48.  Many scholars have used this passage in this way. An exemplar of this is Schäfer, Judeophobia, p. 99. He understands ‘chalking the face’ as a practice ‘typical of the Gauls’! On this model, Encolpius’s suggestion to paint his face black like the Aethiopians is because this is a typical custom of the Aethiopians not because they are characterized by dark skin color. See also Barclay, Jews, p. 438; Feldman, Jew, p. 156; John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 56; Isaac, Invention, p. 472. 49.  In light of the theoretical assumptions above, the portrayal of the Jews in this way reifies the social logic of Jewish foreignness and consequent femininity. 50.  On this see Schäfer, Judeophobia, pp. 99-100. 51.  Schäfer, Judeophobia, p. 101 and notes.



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You grant your favours to Parthians, you grant them to Germans, you grant them, Caelia, to Dacians, and you do not spurn the couch of Cilicians and Cappadocians; and for you from his Egyptian city comes sailing the gallant of Memphis, and the lack Indian from the Red Sea; nor do you shun the lecheries of circumcised Jews (nec recutitorum fugis inguina Iudaeorum), and the Alan on his Sarmatian steed does not pass you by. What is your reason that, although you are a Roman girl (Romana puella), no Roman lewdness has attraction for you? (Ep. 7.30)

Here Martial, like Petronius, uses the practice of circumcision to indicate the foreignness of Jews, but he also uses it highlight the sexual degradation of Caelia. Jewish men are not Roman men, in part because of their circumcision, and therefore should not be the object of desire of Roman women. In other writers, the fact that Jewish men are not Roman men becomes salient through attitudes toward Greek and Roman adaption of Jewish practices, specifically circumcision. Seneca, in a quotation recorded in Augustine’s City of God, contends that ‘the customs of this accursed race [that is, the Jews] have gained such influence that they are now received throughout all the world. The vanquished have given laws to their victors’ (Civ. 6.11). The fear of foreign degradation and effeminacy is now projected onto the influence of Jews and their practices. Tacitus is more explicit in his condemnation. About Jews, he writes, ‘Those who are converted to their ways follow the same practice [that is, circumcision], and the earliest lesson they receive is to despise the gods, disown their country, and to regard their parents, children, and brothers as of little account’ (Hist. 5.5.2). Not only are Jews giving laws to the Romans, they cause them to despise identifying with Rome at all. Such xenophobia, derision and prejudice against Roman adoption of Jewish practice come to a head in Juvenal. He laments: Some who have had a father who reveres the Sabbath, worship nothing but the clouds, and the divinity of the heavens, and see no difference between eating swine’s flesh, from which their father abstained, and that of man; and in time they take to circumcision (mox et praeputia ponunt). Having been wont to flout the laws of Rome, they learn and practice and revere the Jewish law, and all that Moses handed down in his secret tome, forbidding to point out the way to any not worshipping the same rites, and conducting none but the circumcised (verpos) to the desired fountain. For all which the father was to blame, who gave up every seventh day to idleness, keeping it apart from all the concerns of life. (Sat. 14.96-106)

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While other authors feared what appears to be Roman identification with the Jewish ἔθνος, Juvenal fears that an act that began because of laziness (observance of the Sabbath) will lead down a path that could eventually destroy the culture of Rome itself.52 This is reflective of the Greco-Roman view that if the male does not display Greco-Roman masculinity, the whole culture is in danger of becoming effeminate. The views of circumcision and Jews constructed thus far are largely written by Roman men. These men are constructing and maintaining their mastery (that is, masculinity) over those ἔθνη that practice circumcision, specifically Jews, through a perpetuation of a Roman male-centered discourse. Through the perpetuation of discourses such as this, Roman masculinity becomes the standard by which all men under the domination of Rome are measured and the terms in which all (subjected) men respond, whether Greek, Egyptian, Asian, Syrian or Jew.53 4. Jewish Views of Circumcision and Masculinity From the first book of the Hebrew Bible the people of God are characterized by male circumcision.54 During the Greco-Roman period, this view 52.  A more benign view of adopting Jewish practices is found in Epictetus. He questions a philosopher saying, ‘Why, then, do you call yourself a Stoic, why do you deceive the multitude, why do you act the part of a Jew, when you are a Greek? Do you not see in what sense men are severally called Jew, Syrian, or Egyptian? For example, whenever we see a man halting between two faiths, we are in the habit of saying, “He is not a Jew, he is only acting the part”. But when he adopts the attitude of mind of the man who has been baptized and has made his choice, then he both is a Jew in fact and is also called one. So we also are counterfeit “baptists”, ostensibly Jews, but in reality something else, not in sympathy with our own reason, far from applying the principles which we profess, yet priding ourselves upon them as being men who know them’ (Diatr. 2.9.19-21). See discussion in Schäfer, Judeophobia, pp. 97-98. 53.  One way Asian Greeks reconstruct their masculinity in terms of Roman power is through deifying Caesar as a hyper-masculine conqueror. On this deification see S. R. F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) esp. pp. 174-206. On a local level, this was done by connecting Romans and Asian Greeks in their common conquest of ‘barbarians’. See, e.g., the simulacra gentium found in the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias at Caria. On this see R. R. R. Smith, ‘The Imperial Reliefs from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 77 (1987), pp. 88-138; and idem, ‘Simulacra Gentium: The Ethne from the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias’, JRS 78 (1988), pp. 50-77. 54.  Gen. 17.14. See discussion of this and women in Judaism in Shaye J. D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), pp. 70-75.



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was maintained and developed through the assumption that the ideal Jewish citizen is a circumcised male.55 As shown above, circumcision became a tangible (though not unproblematic) way to distinguish Jews from other ἔθνη, but it also became the defining mark of Jewish masculinity, regardless of one’s lineage or associations with the Jewish people. On the positive side, if one was a male circumcised for any reason associated with Judaism, one was a Jewish man. But on the negative side, if one was an uncircumcised male, one was either not a Jew or an apostate Jew.56 There are a few places in Greco-Roman Jewish literature that clearly illustrate the power of circumcision for identification of non-Jews with the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος.57 Since Jewish authors seem to assume that males born to Jewish families were circumcised,58 these accounts of circumcision are associated with the full assimilation of non-Jews into the community of the Jews.59 Through the act of circumcision, non-Jews actually become Jews.60 Sometimes something like a ‘conversion’ takes place, in other 55.  Cohen, Maccabees to Mishnah, p. 71. 56.  Cf. 1 Macc. 1.11-15. Some ‘renegades’ (υἱοὶ παράνομοι) arranged for the construction of a gymnasium, thus observing ‘the ordinances of the Gentiles’ (τὰ δικαιώματα τῶν ἐθνῶν) and ‘they built a gymnasium in Jerusalem, according to Gentile custom, and removed the marks of circumcision, and abandoned the holy covenant. They joined with the Gentiles and sold themselves to do evil’ (ᾠκοδόμησαν γυμνάσιον ἐν Ιεροσολύμοις κατὰ τὰ νόμιμα τῶν ἐθνῶν καὶ ἐποίησαν ἑαυτοῖς ἀκροβυστίας καὶ ἀπέστησαν ἀπὸ διαθήκης ἁγίας καὶ ἐζευγίσθησαν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν καὶ ἐπράθησαν τοῦ ποιῆσαι τὸ πονηρόν, 1 Macc. 1.14-15). 57.  For understanding Jews as primarily an ἔθνος (rather than a religion or ‘race’) see the extended discussion of Mason, ‘Jews’. See also a response to this line of thinking in Daniel R. Schwartz, ‘ “Judaean” or “Jew”? How Should We Translate Ioudaios in Josephus’, in Jörg Frey et al. (eds), Jewish Identity in the Greco-Roman World (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity; Leiden: Brill, 2007), pp. 3-27, and Seth Schwartz, ‘How Many Judaisms Were There? A Critique of Neusner and Smith on Definition and Mason and Boyarin on Categorization’, JAJ 2 (2011), pp. 208-38. 58.  See, e.g., Philo, the Hellenistic Jew who nuances the practice of circumcision the most. Though circumcision is more about a spiritual interpretation of the act than the physical act, Philo still assumes its validity for Jewish identification. So much so, it is the first custom of the Jews mentioned in his work on the laws of the Jews (Spec. 1.1-9). 59.  This is usually labeled ‘conversion’. Language of conversion is not used because of hesitations surrounding the implications of modern discussions of conversion on this issue. On this see Paula Fredriksen, ‘Mandatory Retirement: Ideas in the Study of Christian Origins whose Time Has Come to Go’, SR 35 (2006), pp. 231-46. 60.  Cohen sees this as a phenomenon that began in the second century BCE (Beginnings, pp. 109-39).

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cases circumcision is forced upon individuals and groups, and in others still, marriage to a Jewish woman requires circumcision. In Judith, an Ammonite acknowledges God and is circumcised (14.10). In the Greek additions to Esther, many non-Jews are circumcised and ‘Judaize’ (ἰουδάιζον) because they are afraid of the Jews (8.17).61 But it is Josephus who has the most to say about this topic. For Josephus being Jewish is not only open to members of τό γένος Ἰουδαῖος but is also available to those who follow the customs of Jews (Apion 2.210). Josephus equates full assimilation of non-Jews into the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος with circumcision in multiple places. In the story of the conversion of Izates (Ant. 20.38-48), Josephus clearly illustrates that, to thoroughly become a Jew, one must be circumcised (μὴ ἂν εἶναι βεβαίως Ἰουδαῖος εἰ μὴ περιτέμνοιτο, 20.38). Izates balks initially at being circumcised because of political reasons: the inhabitants of Abilene ‘would never bear to be ruled over by a Jew’ (οὐκ ἀνέξεσθαί τε βασιλεύοντος αὐτῶν Ἰουδαίου, 20.39) and is convinced by a Jewish tutor that God will forgive him for not being circumcised (20.40-42). He later is circumcised, however, at the persuasion of a Jew from Galilee who was trained in Jewish customs (τὰ πάτρια, 20.43-44). For Josephus, then, Izates could not attain the status of ‘Jew’ apart from circumcision, despite the advice he had earlier received. This story clearly illustrates that for Josephus membership in the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος requires circumcision. Two famous instances of circumcision of non-Jews at the instigation of Jews are found in Josephus’ descriptions of the Idumeans and the Itureans.62 After the conquests of John Hyrcanus, the Idumeans were given an ultimatum: be circumcised and follow the customs of the Jews or leave your homeland. The Idumeans in that region chose circumcision and ‘from that time on they were Jews’ (ὥστε εἶναι τὸ λοιπὸν Ἰουδαίους, Ant. 13.258).63 There were Idumeans that existed outside of Judea for some time after this,64 and one prominent Idumean, Herod the Great, appears on 61.  Though Ἰουδαῖζω does have a range of meanings, ‘to become a Jew’ appears to make the most sense in this context. Cohen understands the term as meaning merely ‘to profess to be Jews’ (see Beginnings, pp. 175-97). It seems that if one adopts circumcision, more than ‘profession’ is taking place. 62.  On Idumeans see Josephus, Ant. 13.257-58; War 1.63; Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.34 and Ptolemy (via Ammonios) cited in Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974), vol. 1, p. 356, no. 146. On the Itureans see Josephus, Ant. 13.318 and Strabo (via Josephus, Ant. 13.319). 63.  Translation mine. 64.  See Cohen, Beginnings, p. 112 n. 5.



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the scene after this assimilation (14.403). Though he is called an Idumean, his ethnic identity is far from clear. Josephus indicates this complication when he calls him an ‘Idumean, that is, a half-Jew’ (Ἰδουμαίῳ τουτέστιν ἡμιιουδαίῳ, 14.403). As shown above, Idumeans were not half-Jews, but an ἔθνος with a long history of its own that was assimilated into the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος during the Hasmonean conquests through circumcision. This designation is complicated further when Josephus records that the Jews of Caesarea claim Herod as one of their own when they attempt to justify their existence in the city to the local Syrians. For them, Herod is a ‘Jew by birth’ (τὸ γένος Ἰουδαῖον, 20.173). Like the Idumeans, the Itureans, during the conquest of Aristobulus (104–103 BCE), were compelled to be circumcised and follow the customs of the Jews if they wished to remain in their ancestral homeland. According to Strabo (cited in Josephus), Aristobulus ‘brought over a portion of the Iturean ἔθνος whom he joined to [the Jews] by the bond of circumcision’ (τὸ μέρος τοῦ τῶν Ἰτουραίων ἔθνους ᾠκειώσατο δεσμῷ συνάψας τῇ τῶν αἰδοίων περιτομῇ, Ant. 13.319).65 Shaye Cohen sees both instances as examples of Jewish political assimilation rather than ethnic assimilation.66 This may be the case at the time of the respective political conquests, but Josephus’s descriptions of Herod make this simple equation problematic. He clearly realizes there is a ‘problem’ with Herod’s family origins, but later Jews still claim him, without qualification, as a Jew. At the very least, circumcision, as a coerced action, clearly associates men 65.  Cf. Josephus, Ant. 13.318. Josephus requires the Itureans to follow the practices of Jews as well. Cohen takes οἰκειόω in 13.319 to mean that Aristobulus established a friendship with the Itureans (Cohen, Beginnings, p. 113). Though this meaning is part of the semantic range of the word, it seems more appropriate to define οἰκειόω as ‘to make one’s own’ or ‘to take as one’s own’ (see LSJ, οἰκειόω). Aristobulus did not befriend the Itureans but conquered them and subjected them to adult circumcision. 66.  Cohen, Beginnings, pp. 116-18. This dichotomy is problematic in itself. Political and ethnic associations are not the only ways one could ‘be’ a Jew. Cohen seems to be contrasting political membership and membership by birth (usually τό γένος in Greek). This becomes problematic in light of recent work on ethnicity and the myth of origins in Greek and Roman literature. Claims of heritage are perpetuated through rehearsal of common narratives of origin rather than genealogical classification. On constructed ethnicity see Werner Sollors, ed., Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader (New York: New York University Press, 1996). On Greek ethnicity see Jonathan M. Hall, Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997) and idem, Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).

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with the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος in Josephus. More than this, it is likely that male circumcision makes non-Jews such as Ammonites, Persians, Idumeans and Itureans into Jews. For Josephus, full assimilation into the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος is equated with accepting the practices of Jews, primarily circumcision.67 This is reflective of the similar process of Hellenization occurring throughout the Greco-Roman world.68 In the Greco-Roman world, Jews depict male circumcision as the act that makes Jewish men and adult circumcision as the act that makes non-Jews into Jews.69 Another way that circumcision makes Jewish men is in its ability to mark out who a Jewish woman should or should not marry. As the story of the rape of Dinah graphically illustrates, Jewish women were neither supposed to have sex with nor marry uncircumcised men (Gen 17). Josephus shows that this tradition continued into the first century (at least in Palestine) with his depiction of two Herodian queens who convinced their would-be husbands to be circumcised before they marry (Ant. 20.139, 145-46).70 This is illustrative of Josephus’s depiction of why circumcision was instituted, namely, because God desired to keep the γένος of Abraham unmixed with foreigners (βουλόμενος τὸ ἀπ᾽ αὐτοῦ γένος μένειν τοῖς ἄλλοις οὐ συμφυρόμενον περιτέμνεσθαι τὰ αἰδοῖα, 1.196). Philo makes a similar

67.  Cohen, Beginnings, p. 158. Though Cohen acknowledges that proselytes are ‘just like the native borns’, he contends that a distinction still remained between ‘native born’ and ‘non-native born’ Jews (p. 159). Rabbinic and epigraphic evidence may confirm this for the third and fourth centuries, but Judith, Greek Esther, Philo and Josephus indicate that this was a distinction not clear in earlier periods. 68.  On this see the essays collected in Simon Goldhill, ed., Being Greek under Rome: Cultural Identity, the Second Sophistic and the Development of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), and Irad Malkin (ed.), Ancient Perceptions of Greek Ethnicity (Center for Hellenic Studies Colloquia, 5; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). On the construction of early Hellenic identity see Hall, Ethnic Identity. 69.  Barclay notes that this belief has its roots in the Hebrew Bible (Jews, p. 411). See, e.g., the rape of Dinah and the Shechemites (Gen. 34). See discussion of the reception of this story in Erich S. Gruen, Heritage and Hellenism: The Reinvention of Jewish Tradition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), pp. 120-27. One possible exception to this is Philo (Spec. 1.1-8), who prioritizes the moral purity associated with circumcision over its ritual aspects. See discussion in Jonathan Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 65. On circumcision as equal with full assimilation into Judaism see John J. Collins, Between Athens and Jerusalem: Jewish Identity in the Hellenistic Diaspora (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 59. 70.  See discussion in Barclay, Jews, pp. 410-12.



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claim when he regards the uncircumcised as sowing foreign seed (QG 3.61).71 In theory, this approach to circumcision had the double effect of restricting the marriage of Jewish women and eliminating (one half of) the complexity of ethno-cultural hybridity. Defining Jewishness in this way, Jewish women were required to associate sexually only with circumcised men (that is, Jewish men) in order to remain Jewish. The ethno-cultural identification of offspring of a mixed relationship would be in question. This clear boundary is not as easy for Jewish men who were looking for a ‘good’ Jewish wife because they did not have a clear indication of the origins of a potential spouse.72 Because of this, it is likely that when a Jewish male chose a wife, she could actually become Jewish.73 Therefore in a very real sense, circumcision makes men, Jewish men; Jewish men make women, Jewish women; and Jewish women give birth to more Jewish men. Acts of the Apostles, a late first-/early second-century document from a growing sect of Greco-Roman Judaism shows that, in practice, this was not so clear.74 71.  Philo’s fragmentary Questions in Genesis does not exist in the Greek at this point. Translation from Barclay, Jews, p. 412. 72.  This raises questions regarding how one would make a claim of being a ‘Jew’ in the ancient world. A Jewish male could literally point out their Jewishness, but this would only indicate an ethno-cultural association with Jews, not necessarily any type of claim to Jewish lineage. A Jewish woman, on the other hand, does not possess such a physical marker, so it follows that one could ‘pass’ as a Jewish woman either through ethno-cultural association with Jews, or through marriage to a Jewish (i.e., circumcised) man. On ‘passing’ and its relation to racial ideology see Andrew Jacobs, Christ Circumcised: A Study in Early Christian History and Difference (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012). 73.  The Hebrew Bible is replete with examples of this. See, e.g., the stories of Rahab (Josh. 6.17-25) and Ruth. From the Greco-Roman point of view, it is assumed that a good wife will adopt the ancestral customs of her husband. See Plutarch, Conj. praec. 140d, 19: ‘A wife ought not to make friends of her own, but to enjoy her husband’s friends in common with him. The gods are the first and most important friends. Wherefore it is becoming for a wife to worship and to know only the gods that her husband believes in, and to shut the front door tight upon all queer rituals and outlandish superstitions. For with no god do stealthy and secret rites performed by a woman find any favour.’ 74.  This appears to be the issue that explodes into what eventually become the Christian and Jewish religions. The primary material and associated bibliography of the scholarly discussion of who Christians thought should and should not be circumcised could fill many volumes. In this work, I work with the assumptions of John G. Gager, Reinventing Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale

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5. The Circumcision of Timothy and Jewish Masculinity Because of Paul’s discussion of circumcision in his letters and the declaration of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, the question of why Luke depicts Paul as circumcising Timothy has perplexed scholars.75 Many scholars contend that Timothy must be circumcised because he is technically Jewish through his mother.76 Others argue that Paul is merely ‘playing the Jew’ to pass Timothy off as Jewish for the sake of the Gospel.77 Still others contend that the pericope is about ‘religious unity’.78 Though each view has been challenged and ultimately left University Press, 1997); and Caroline E. Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Each of these scholars acknowledges the nuance of ethnic language in early Christianity and the complexity of Jew/Gentile distinctions, especially in Paul. 75.  Shaye Cohen has pointed out that there is no evidence that Jewish lineage was determined maternally during this period as it was in the later rabbinic literature. See Shaye J. D. Cohen, ‘Was Timothy Jewish (Acts 16:1-3)? Patristic Exegesis, Rabbinic Law, and Matrilineal Descent’, JBL 105 (1986), pp. 251-68. See also discussion in Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation and Commentary (AB, 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998), pp. 573-76. Perhaps the first to point out that it is Luke’s depiction that matters was Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ: His Life and Works, His Epistles and Teachings (repr.: Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003 [1873–75]). Baur understood Luke as attempting to unite the divergent parties of Petrine and Pauline Christianity. 76.  Cf. F. J. Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake (eds), The Beginnings of Christianity, Part I: The Acts of the Apostles (5 vols.; London: Macmillan, 1920–33; repr. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1966), vol. 4, p. 184. For a more complete list see Christopher Bryan, ‘A Further Look at Acts 16:1-3’, JBL 107 (1988), pp. 292-94 (292 n. 1). 77.  See discussion in Cohen, ‘Timothy’, pp. 252-53. See also discussion in H. Dixon Slingerland, ‘ “The Jews” in the Pauline Portion of Acts’, JAAR 54 (1986), pp. 305-21 (309-11). Slingerland presents possible scenarios in which Paul might circumcise Timothy and persuasively argues that Timothy’s circumcision was not an indication of Paul becoming a Jew to the Jews (1 Cor. 9.20). Agreeing with this is Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008), p. 388. 78.  Pervo, Acts, pp. 388-89. The existence of ‘religion’ as an ancient category has been called into question recently. See Brent Nongbri, ‘Dislodging “Embedded” Religion: A Brief Note on a Scholarly Trope’, Numen 55 (2008), pp. 440-60; idem, Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013). This becomes more salient in light of the recent discussion of ethnicity and culture of ‘the Jews’ versus the practice of the religion of ‘Judaism’ in, e.g., Mason, ‘Jews’.



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wanting, one theme is woven throughout each of these interpretations: Luke understands Timothy’s circumcision as intimately connected with his identity.79 The examination of Jewish masculinity above makes it clear that Timothy’s circumcision is about his identity as a Jewish man. As the discussion of Greco-Roman ideologies of masculinity showed, Jewish manliness was thought to be effeminate and circumcision a mutilation, especially for those who received it in adulthood. Luke challenges this ideology throughout and brings these conflicting masculinities together in a unique way in Acts 16.1-4. The description of Timothy’s hybrid lineage is unique in Acts. Luke describes some as Ἰουδαῖος from a different ἔθνος (2.5) and at other places he describes individuals as a Ἰουδαῖος from a different γένος. Aquila, for example, is a Ἰουδαῖος Ποντικὸς τῷ γένει (18.2) and Apollo is a Ἰουδαῖος Ἀλεξανδρεὺς τῷ γένει (18.24). At no other place is someone described as coming from a mixed lineage in the way Timothy is. With his Greek father and Jewish mother, he serves as a test case for Luke. In light of the freedom proclaimed by the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Paul’s act becomes all the more shocking and draws the gaze of the reader. Acts 16.1-4 serves as a ‘marginal moment’ in the text of Acts which bridges the seemingly fixed boundaries between Greco-Roman and Jewish gender discourse that run through the entire work.80 On the surface of the narrative of Acts, Greeks and Romans remain Greeks and Romans (cf. 10.44-48; 11.22) and Jews remain Jews (3.1-2). But from the models of masculinity presented above, both Greco-Roman and Jewish ideologies of masculinity are challenged. Throughout the work Greeks, Romans and other Jews are mastered by the Jews who believe in Jesus. Peter and the apostles subvert the authority of the Jewish elders (5.27-32). Stephen masters the Jewish Council with his recitation of Israel’s history and displays self-mastery by forgiving his murderers (7.1-60). Peter’s words bring a Roman centurion under the power of the Holy Spirit and then under the authority of Jesus Christ (and, therefore, the Jewish apostles, 10.44-48). Paul masters a false prophet (13.11), a proconsul (13.12), many collective groups such as inhabitants of cities throughout Asia Minor and Greece, and numerous synagogue members.81 79.  See e.g. Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations, pp. 61-118. 80.  This reflects Luke’s blending of ethno-cultural boundaries as well. 81.  On the authority of ‘historical’ Paul in his letters see Elizabeth A. Castelli, Imitating Paul: A Discourse of Power (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991). Castelli sees Paul’s mimetic calls as an attempt to display his power over other communities.

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Throughout the work, Paul, like Peter, masters those who come in contact with him.82 Some respond positively, some negatively, but all respond. On the Greco-Roman model, Paul’s masculinity demands it. By working with this Greco-Roman model of masculinity, Luke places his men on the Roman map of masculinity: they dominate all with their words and deeds. The picture is not quite so clear, however. Luke’s men are not emperors who can penetrate whomever they wish. Luke’s men do live under the authority of others and are therefore subject to the will of other men, and to possible bodily violation by them.83 Even when they come under the domination of other men, however, Luke’s men display a masculine self-mastery only rivaled by the GrecoRoman philosophers. When prison doors miraculously burst open, Luke’s men sit stoically while the Roman guard is overcome by his fears and acts effeminately (16.25-34). When in court, Luke’s men deftly defend themselves (24.10-23). When threatened, beaten or shipwrecked, Luke’s men do not fear or cower. In fact, Luke’s Übermensch, a circumcised Jew, is also a Roman man who is more masculine than many other Romans (16.37-40). He displays his mastery as a Jewish man so well that he can deploy his Roman identity whenever he desires, as if it were auxiliary.84 Luke’s Paul is a Jewish man who dominates Roman men at their own gendering game. The masculinity of non-Jews that come under the authority of Jesus (and therefore, the apostles) is not quite as clear. Since degradation of Greco-Roman masculinity is often connected with cultural associations with non-Greco-Roman ἔθνη, men who submitted to the God of the Jews to the point of circumcision were in danger of being viewed as effeminate and even traitors. Acts indicates that the full assimilation within the subgroup of Jews that believed in Jesus was attractive for some non-Jewish males because they could fully participate with the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος without the need for an emasculating circumcision. One could remain Greek or Roman and fully assimilate with a group of the ἔθνος Ἰουδαῖος yet still keep one’s foreskin. Timothy’s circumcision, however, calls this view into question.

82.  Acts 2.37. Peter’s words ‘pierce the heart’ (κατενύγησαν τὴν καρδίαν) of those who hear him. 83.  See especially Brittany E. Wilson, Unmanly Men: Refigurations of Masculinity in Luke–Acts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 84.  On Paul’s complex identity see Caroline E. Johnson Hodge, ‘Apostle to the Gentiles: Constructions of Paul’s Identity’, BibInt 13 (2005), pp. 270-88.



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Timothy occupies that in-between place by which the polarizing boundaries of Jew and Greco-Roman masculinities are blurred.85 He is a believer in Jesus and a Greek, but is emasculated through circumcision, at least according to Greco-Roman models. The circumcision is performed so that he can become a full Jewish man, according to the Jewish model. Moreover, this act is performed (or perpetrated?) by a Jewish man who dominates non-Jewish men and thus embodies the epitome of masculinity, also according to the Greco-Roman model. In a sense Timothy’s emasculation actually brings him to a place of greater masculine potential. More than this, Timothy’s circumcision reveals that Luke’s men are Jewish men. Throughout Acts, the question of the status of non-Jews in the Jesus believing community looms large. Many Jewish communities that Paul visits have some members that respond violently to the claims about Jesus and the membership of uncircumcised men. According to some he persuades people ‘to worship God in ways that are contrary to the law’ (παρὰ τὸν νόμον ἀναπείθει οὗτος τοὺς ἀνθρώπους σέβεσθαι τὸν θεόν, 18.13). Timothy’s circumcision is one way that Luke has shown that Paul does not act contrary to the law, but there is more to it than that. Timothy’s circumcision actually makes a larger claim: Jewish men who believe in Jesus are more manly than Greco-Roman men, and Greco-Roman men are becoming Jewish men through the power of the Holy Spirit without circumcision. The story of Timothy’s circumcision highlights Luke’s presentation of the traditional marker of the Jewish masculinity as no longer being the primary marker of a Jewish man who believes in Jesus. Timothy was a believer and apparently a member of the synagogue before he was circumcised. He was a Jewish man all along. His circumcision is a stark and violent illustration that something has changed in the Jewish and GrecoRoman models of masculinity. Early in Acts, a circumcised Peter needed a fiery tongue to empower him (2.2). Then a circumcised Saul, controlled by his passions, needed to be thrown down by the voice of Christ, to become a Greco-Roman-Jewish Übermensch. But uncircumcised Romans and Greeks can join Luke’s men and have the potential to become even more masculine. On this model Timothy’s circumcision in Acts 16 serves as an extreme example that, through belief in Jesus, Greco-Roman and Jewish masculinities are redefined and combined into a new masculinity. Ironically, it is through Timothy’s circumcision that the uncircumcised Jewish man is unveiled. 85.  He occupies the same place as Heschel’s Jesus. See Susannah Heschel, ‘Jesus as Theological Transvestite’, in Miriam Peskowitz and Laura Levitt (eds), Judaism Since Gender (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 188-99.

Part II

E mp ower i n g , E n g a g i n g or D i stanci ng ? A c t s i n t h e D i s cou rs es of P oli ti cs

T h e S tate T h ey W e r e I n : L u k e ’ s V i ew of t h e R oman E mpi r e * Steve Walton

Scholars have long debated Luke’s view of the Roman Empire – and for good reasons. Luke’s Jesus is silent in the face of his accusers before the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, but in similar situations Luke’s Paul speaks up for himself and claims his rights as a Roman citizen. Luke alone records that Jesus had a Zealot among his disciples, but he portrays the early Christians as non-violent and compliant in the face of a sometimes hostile state. Luke presents the Jewish authorities as responsible for the death of Jesus, but also implicates the Roman Empire in Jesus’ demise by characterising Pilate as weak and ineffectual. Further, this is no mere academic debate, for similar tensions can be seen in Christian responses throughout history to nation-states whose attitudes vary from outright hostility through undermining by absorption to modern Western pluralism. Within the New Testament there are a range of views of the state, from Paul’s apparently positive and ‘submissive’ view (Rom. 13.1-7) through 1 Peter’s concern to witness by being ready to suffer for doing right (3.1317; cf. 2.13-17; 4.12-15), to the seer’s vision of the same Roman state as the beast which rises from the sea to oppose the people of God (Rev. 13).

*  Originally published in Peter Oakes (ed.), Rome in the Bible and the Early Church (Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), pp. 1-41. I am grateful to Dr Peter Oakes for kind permission to reproduce this essay here. Previous rescensions of this paper were presented at the New Testament research seminar of London Bible College (now London School of Theology) and the Acts seminar of the British New Testament Conference (Roehampton, September 2000). Professor Edwin Judge and Drs Bruce Winter, David Gill and Gerald Borchert kindly advised me or commented on partial or full drafts. I am grateful to all of them; inadequacies which remain are, of course, my own responsibility.

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Presumably these varying approaches reflect the various situations of the writers and their readers. So where does Luke fit on this spectrum? This study will briefly outline major views in scholarship before discussing key passages and themes in Luke–Acts and critiquing the main views in the light of this examination. Finally, we shall propose a series of theses summarising Luke’s view of how Christians should see the Roman state. 1. Previous Views Five key views can be found in scholarship of the last two hundred years. The first is by far the dominant view until recent times; the last thirty years has seen a growth in alternative perspectives, reflecting the decline in the dominance of historical-critical scholarship and the growth of other methods of reading the New Testament. The proposals are: Acts is a political apology on behalf of the church addressed to Roman officials; Acts is an apology on behalf of the Roman state addressed to the church;1 Acts is providing legitimation for the church’s identity; Acts is equipping the church to live with the Roman Empire; and Acts is not interested in politics at all. a. Political Apology for the Church to Rome This approach has the claim to age, for it can be traced back to the work of Heumann in the eighteenth century.2 In recent times it finds classic statements in the work of Easton, Cadbury, Conzelmann and Bruce.3 While 1.  Klaus Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), pp. 89-105, seeks to combine these first two views by arguing that Luke’s intended readership includes Christians, sympathisers and non-Christians. His basis for this claim is that the dedications of Luke and Acts imply that Theophilus is to see that the books are published (p. 101), but this demonstrates little about the intended readership of the volumes. 2.  C. A. Heumann, ‘Dissertatio de Theophilo, cui Lucas historiam sacram inscripsit’, in Bibliotheca Historico-Philologico-Theologica, Class. IV (Bremen, 1720), pp. 483-505, cited by W. Ward Gasque, A History of the Criticism of the Acts of the Apostles (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), pp. 21-22; Philip F. Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke–Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (SNTSMS, 57; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), p. 205. 3.  Burton Scott Easton, Early Christianity: The Purpose of Acts and Other Papers (Greenwich, CT: Seabury, 1954), pp. 42-57; Henry J. Cadbury, The Making of Luke–Acts (London: SPCK, 1927, repr. 1958), pp. 308-15; Hans Conzelmann, The Theology of St Luke (London: Faber & Faber, 1960), pp. 137-49; F. F. Bruce, The Book of Acts (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rev. edn, 1988), pp. 8-13; also



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particular emphases differ – often considerably – these scholars agree that Luke is offering an apologetic designed to persuade Roman officials that Christianity is politically harmless. Many also believe that Luke is seeking to show that Christianity should be regarded as a sub-species of Judaism in order that Christians may receive the same freedom to practise their faith which the Roman Empire afforded to Jews.4 This latter point is usually expressed by claiming that Luke wishes Christianity to be seen as a religio licita (i.e., a ‘legally recognised’ religion).5 For Conzelmann (and some – but not all – others), coming to terms with the empire is part of the reality of dealing with the delay of the parousia; Luke needs to help his church adjust to issues which could be glossed over in earlier times (and hence, e.g., Paul in Rom. 13.1ff. takes a positive view of the empire, for he wrote in a period of ‘imminent expectation’). Thus Luke’s use of ‘apology’ language (particularly ἀπολογέομαι and ἀπολογία6) indicates the purpose of his account. This apology is accomplished by two main strategies. First, Luke shows that whenever Roman officials consider the case of Christians (in particular, Paul) or Jesus, they are found innocent of political wrongdoing.

Harry W. Tajra, The Trial of St Paul: A Juridical Exegesis of the Second Half of the Acts of the Apostles (WUNT, 2/35; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), p. 199; Robert F. O’Toole, SJ, ‘Luke’s Position on Politics and Society in Luke–Acts’, in Richard J. Cassidy and Philip J. Scharper (eds), Political Issues in Luke–Acts (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983), pp. 1-17 (4-8). 4.  Easton, Early Christianity, p. 46, observes that Luke uses αἵρεσις for the church (Acts 24.5; 28.22) as well as for the Pharisaic and Sadducean Jewish parties (Acts 5.17; 15.5; 26.5). 5.  E.g. Easton, Early Christianity, p. 43. This phrase appears to be used in ancient literature only by Tertullian, Apol. 21.1. Hans Conzelmann, Acts of the Apostles (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987), p. xlvii distances himself from this specific view, observing correctly that Luke does not argue on the basis of Roman law; cf. in agreement, Henry J. Cadbury, ‘Some Foibles of New Testament Scholarship’, JBR 26 (1958), pp. 213-16 (215) – failing to admit that he himself defends the idea that Luke is arguing that Christianity should be legally recognised in his earlier work (Cadbury, Making, pp. 308-15)! This is not to deny that Judaism had a particular place in the empire (see Josephus, Ant. 14.10.1–1.4 §§186-285; 16.6.2-8 §§160-74 and the valuable discussion in Tajra, Trial, pp. 14-21), but simply to assert that there was not a general Roman legal category of religio licita into which Christianity might fit. 6.  The verb is found in Acts 19.33; 24.10; 25.8; 26.1, 2, 24 (cf. Lk. 12.11; 21.14); the noun in Acts 22.1; 25.16. These are Lukanisms not found in the other Gospels, and only occurring eight times in the rest of the New Testament.

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Second, Luke portrays the attitudes of these Roman officials toward the Christians as positive. Thus in Acts examples claimed include: the first Gentile convert is the centurion Cornelius (10.1–11.18); Sergius Paulus, the governor of Cyprus, believes (13.12); the Philippian praetors apologise to Paul and Silas when they realise they have acted wrongly (16.39); the Thessalonian politarchs simply put the missionaries’ host Jason on bail, rather than acting against Paul, Silas and Timothy (17.9); in Corinth the proconsul Gallio rejects the accusations against Paul as internal Jewish debates (18.14-16); the Ephesian Asiarchs seek to protect Paul and the town clerk rejects the uproar over Paul’s ministry (19.31, 35-41); Claudius Lysias rescues Paul and writes that he is innocent (21.31-32, 37-40; 23.29); Felix pays no attention to Tertullus’s indictment of Paul as an insurrectionist (24.5-6, 22) and treats Paul well (24.23-27); Festus tells Agrippa that Paul is innocent of political charges (25.25) and Agrippa agrees (26.32); and on arrival in Rome Paul is allowed to live in his own rented place and to preach freely (28.30-31). Further, in Luke’s Gospel Jesus is declared innocent by Pilate three times (23.4, 13-14, 22), by the Roman client-king Herod (23.15) and by the centurion at the foot of the cross (23.47).7 By contrast, Luke emphasises the responsibility of the Jewish leaders for the death of Jesus (Lk. 23.1-2, 5, 10, 18, 21, 23, 25, 35; Acts 2.23; 3.14; 4.11; 7.52; 10.39; 13.27-28),8 and presents the Jews as the cause of civil disturbance when Paul visits towns and cities (Acts 13.50; 14.5, 19; 17.5-7, 13; 18.12-13; 21.27-29; 22.22-23) and the ones who pursue the (false) accusations against him (Acts 23.12-15; 24.16; 25.1-3, 7). b. Apology for Rome to the Church A second proposal is that Luke is writing to persuade his Christian readers of his own positive view of the Roman Empire in the light of Christians who are either suspicious of it (Walaskay) or courting 7.  Each of these Gospel passages is either without parallel in, or shows a different wording from, the other synoptic evangelists. 8.  Again, many of the Gospel passages represent Lukan Sondergut. Jack T. Sanders, The Jews in Luke–Acts (London: SCM, 1987), presents the evidence fully, although note the effective critique of his conclusions by Jon A. Weatherly, Jewish Responsibility for the Death of Jesus in Luke–Acts (JSNTSup, 106; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), and idem, ‘The Jews in Luke–Acts’, TynBul 40 (1989), pp. 107-17, arguing cogently that Luke presents the responsibility for the death of Jesus as lying with the Jews of Jerusalem rather than all Jews everywhere; thus Sanders misrepresents Luke as antisemitic.



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(semi-deliberate) martyrdom (Maddox9). A common feature of scholars espousing this view is their rejection of the claim that Luke is writing for a non-Christian audience and the repeated quotation of Barrett’s famous verdict concerning the ‘political apology’ view: No Roman official would ever have filtered out so much of what to him would be theological and ecclesiastical rubbish in order to reach so tiny a grain of relevant apology. So far as Acts was an apology, it was an apology addressed to the Church…10

Walaskay argues cogently that there are features of Luke’s presentation of the empire which do not fit the ‘political apology’ view so well and fit this view rather better.11 In particular he identifies elements in Luke–Acts which would be disturbing or unhelpful in persuading a Roman official of the harmlessness of Christianity: Jesus has a Zealot among his disciples (Lk. 6.15, contrast Mk 3.18; Acts 1.13); Jesus commands his followers to buy swords (Lk. 22.35-38); the emphasis on Jesus as Lord and king throughout Luke–Acts would sit uncomfortably with the use of these titles for Caesar; and the silence of the ending of Acts would not impress a Roman official reading the book, for such a reader would not have been shown that Paul was innocent. Walaskay also responds to the claim that there are features of Luke– Acts’ presentation of the empire which portray imperial power as capricious, harsh or corrupt.12 Walaskay’s response13 to these elements is to claim that Luke constantly presents the various Roman magistrates as under pressure from jealous Jews, and to suggest that Luke is showing the durability of the imperial legal system. Walaskay observes that Luke does not present the kind of anti-Roman polemic found in 4 Esdras, the Sibylline Oracles (Book VIII) and Revelation; rather he glosses over negative aspects of the empire and presents imperial power positively. Thus, Jesus’ birth is placed in the context of the empire (Lk. 2.1-5), showing that God’s plan of salvation is being worked out in conjunction with the empire’s history: the pax 9.  Robert Maddox, The Purpose of Luke–Acts (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1982), pp. 96-97, noting particularly the evidence of 1 Pet. 2.13-17 as suggesting that this tendency developed quite early in the life of the church. 10.  C. K. Barrett, Luke the Historian in Recent Study (London: Epworth, 1961), p. 63. 11.  Paul W. Walaskay, ‘And So We Came to Rome’: The Political Perspective of St Luke (SNTSMS, 49; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), esp. pp. 15-37. 12.  See below, pp. 92-93, 95-97. 13.  Walaskay, ‘And So’, pp. 23-25.

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Augusta would be completed by the pax Christi. John’s preaching reflects Augustan ideals of fair taxes and just military rule (Lk. 3.10-14). Luke often presents centurions14 and other Roman officials positively. He has edited Mark’s story of the question concerning tribute to Caesar (Mk 12.13-17; Lk. 20.20-26) to heighten the treachery of the Jewish leaders (note v. 20); Luke’s purpose in including this story is to answer Christians who were unsure about paying tribute to Caesar – the question would have seemed a non-question to a Roman official, for it was obvious that such tribute should be paid! Luke has edited Mk 10.42-45 and inserted it into the Last Supper narrative (Lk. 22.24-27) in order to portray the empire more favourably.15 Walaskay follows this with a point-by-point discussion of the trials of Jesus and Paul.16 He claims that Luke presents Pilate as dealing fairly with Jesus and maintaining his innocence, whereas the sinful Jewish leaders pervert justice in order to do away with Jesus. Paul defends himself by appeal to the resurrection of Jesus and thereby shows Christians of Luke’s day both that their predecessors were innocent before the state and that Paul had no political quarrel with Rome. Robbins’s view is close to those of Walaskay and Maddox, although more nuanced, for he argues that Luke–Acts is commending a symbiotic relationship between the empire and Christianity.17 He believes that Luke–Acts is intended to support Christians building strategic alliances with local leaders in the Roman Empire (and thus is written for a Christian audience). Robbins identifies a number of ways in which the church works in a similar manner to the empire: different levels of workers operate, negotiation happens with insiders and outsiders, both develop a presence everywhere, and both extend citizenship to new groups. The eastern empire is the ‘workplace’ of Christianity; it is where power ‘takes place’, particularly in synagogues and homes. Jesus’ followers are in an analogous position to those in the Roman military system, for they have no choice but to do God’s work. God ensures that his will is communicated and executed by using angels, the Lord Jesus and the Spirit at key moments, to work through and with obedient Christian leaders.

14.  Lk. 7.2; 23.47; Acts 10.1ff.; 22.25-26; 23.17, 23; 27.1ff.; 28.16. 15.  See further below, pp. 92-93. 16.  Walaskay, ‘And So’, pp. 39-63. 17.  Vernon K. Robbins, ‘Luke–Acts: A Mixed Population Seeks a Home in the Roman Empire’, in Loveday Alexander (ed.), Images of Empire (JSOTSup, 122; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), pp. 202-21.



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c. Legitimation Esler18 rejects both apologetic views and proposes that Luke is writing for a Christian audience and offering them legitimation for their beliefs and lifestyle, which includes assurance that faith in Christ is not incompatible with allegiance to Rome. He is rightly critical of the religio licita theory, on the ground that we know nothing of such a category in the first century AD, as well as rejecting Walaskay’s view, since Luke’s portrayal of the relationship of Rome and Christianity is mixed, including situations in which Roman officials treat Jesus and Paul unfairly or badly. Esler draws attention to the presentation of Christianity as an ancestral religion in order to help legitimate his readers’ beliefs by appealing to the (Roman) cultural value of antiquity – the supposed ‘new’ religion was in fact ancient. Thus Luke omits ‘new’ from his Markan source (Mk 1.27; Lk. 4.36), he adds ‘the old is best’ (Lk. 5.39; contrast Mk 2.22) and he regards the Athenians’ love of new things as scornful (Acts 17.19, 21). Further, Luke repeatedly links Christianity with Israelite ancestors (Acts 3.13; 5.30; 15.10; 22.14; 26.6; 28.25). Esler proposes that within Luke’s community there were a number of Roman soldiers or administrators who needed reassurance that Christian faith and serving the empire could co-exist satisfactorily. He claims that Luke diverges from his sources to highlight such Romans among the first believers, including the centurions (Lk. 7.1-10; 23.47; Acts 10.1ff.19), Sergius Paulus (Acts 13.6-12) and Titius Justus (Acts 18.7). Further, Luke 18.  Esler, Community, pp. 201-19; so also Ben Witherington III, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 810-11; Helen K. Bond, Pontius Pilate in History and Inter­pre­ tation (SNTSMS, 100; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), pp. 161-62. 19.  Esler, Community, pp. 95-96, argues that the account of Cornelius’s conversion is unhistorical on the grounds that: (i) for Peter to subsequently do the about-face described in Gal. 2.11-14 is incredible; (ii) we should not expect Peter to be the ‘apostle to the circumcised’ and Paul the ‘apostle to the uncircumcised’ if it had been Peter who began the Gentile mission; (iii) we should expect that the Council (Acts 15) would simply refer back to this event as decisive if it were historical. However: (i) Peter is presented as changing his behaviour in different company (particularly when under pressure) in the Gospels, including in Luke (esp. 22.54-62); (ii) the titles in Galatians are concerned with the focus of the two apostle’s ministry – one could equally argue (equally erroneously, that is) that Paul should be known as ‘apostle to the circumcised’, on the basis that he constantly goes to synagogues in Acts; (iii) the use of ἡσύχασαν (11.18) need not imply acceptance – as in Lk. 14.4; Acts 21.14 (the only other uses of the verb in Acts) it may well imply continuing reservations – such reservations only being resolved at the Council (James D. G. Dunn, The Acts of the Apostles [EC; London: Epworth, 1996], p. 152). In any case the question in 11.1-18

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adds ethical advice to soldiers and tax-collectors in his account of John’s preaching (Lk. 3.12-14) and gives prominence to Paul claiming his rights as a Roman citizen (Acts 16.37-40; 22.25-29). However, this is hardly ‘quite a body of evidence’;20 it simply involves the doubtful procedure of ‘mirror-reading’21 Luke–Acts for its audience. Of course the contents and presentation of a book will tell us something about the intended audience; Mark’s explanation of Jewish washing customs (Mk 7.3-4) suggests that he does not expect his readers to know about them. However, to argue that the presence of these features implies a significant presence of Romans in Luke’s church assumes both that Luke is writing for a particular, identifiable, small community (a claim which Bauckham has rightly challenged22) and that each feature in Luke–Acts corresponds to a need or grouping within Luke’s church – an assumption which only needs to be stated in order to see that it is unlikely to be correct. In any case, as we have seen, the presentation of Roman officials is rather more mixed than Esler’s brief presentation allows, and Luke– Acts presents Jesus, rather than Caesar, as Lord and king. d. Equipping Cassidy offers a further level of nuancing of Luke’s presentation of the empire which seeks to take greater account of the ‘mixed message’ which appears to come through in Luke–Acts.23 Like Esler he rejects ‘apologetic’ explanations of Luke’s presentation of the empire, arguing that Acts does not present Christians as politically harmless or law-abiding, for there are a large number of public controversies concerning Christianity, particularly featuring Paul. When he arrives in a city his preaching frequently leads to public disorder, causing him to have to leave. Cassidy argues that Luke does not show that the problems were due to Jewish trouble-makers, is about the acceptance of Peter eating with this group of Gentiles, and does not raise the question of whether circumcision was required for Gentile converts, which is the central question in 15.1ff. 20.  Esler, Community, p. 210. 21.  For the phrase, see John M. G. Barclay, ‘Mirror-reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case’, JSNT 31 (1987), pp. 73-93. 22.  Richard Bauckham (ed.), The Gospels for All Christians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997); see Esler’s review and Bauckham’s rejoinder: Philip F. Esler, ‘Community and Gospel in Early Christianity: A Response to Richard Bauckham’s Gospels for All Christians’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 235-48; Richard Bauckham, ‘Response to Philip Esler’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 249-53. 23.  Richard J. Cassidy, Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987), esp. pp. 145-70; cf. idem, Jesus, Politics, and Society: A Study of Luke’s Gospel (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1978).



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for the problems only arose when Paul came into the city. Further, Paul is not finally exonerated by Roman justice; for example in the case of Gallio Paul simply benefits from bias against the Jews. Indeed, Cassidy notes, Paul’s attitude to his Roman citizenship and his co-operation with Roman officials are highly qualified in Acts. Although Paul is generally co-operative, he is hardly an unquestioningly loyal Roman citizen: he identifies himself as a citizen of Tarsus (Acts 21.39); he mentions his citizenship only in private to officials who fail to treat him properly; and Paul’s references to Jesus as ‘Lord’ show that he does not see Caesar as exercising ultimate sovereignty (cf. Acts 17.7). In places Paul is far from accommodating to his judges: he speaks with Felix of ‘justice, self-control, and the coming judgment’ (Acts 24.25) and rebukes Festus (Acts 25.10). Luke portrays Paul as not expecting to receive justice from Festus; that is why he reacts angrily and appeals to Caesar (Acts 25.10-11) and tells the Roman Jews that he was compelled (ἠναγκάσθην) to appeal to Caesar (Acts 28.19). Cassidy asserts that Luke does not in fact portray the Roman Empire particularly favourably, for Paul was in prison for four years without an effective verdict, principally because of corrupt judges (Acts 24.26, 27; 25.9). Christians are pictured as those who are critical of human authority, for they have a higher allegiance (Acts 4.19-20; 5.29). Thus Cassidy proposes a threefold theory of Luke’s purposes, which he calls the ‘allegiance-conduct-witness’ theory: he wrote to share and express his own faith in Jesus, to provide his fellow-Christians with guidance on how to live under Roman rule and to give guidance and perspective for Christians when on trial before political authorities. The first is relatively uncontroversial; the second and third, Cassidy believes, show why Luke presents the trials of Jesus and Paul as he does. Luke is demonstrating that faithful witness is required in such situations, but different outcomes might come from trials – severe punishment and even death were real possibilities. In particular, Cassidy cites Luke’s editing of Mk 13.9-13 in Lk. 21.12-19 as showing that Jesus is here giving significantly fuller guidance to disciples.24 He speaks of disciples experiencing betrayal by family and even death (21.16); he gives more definite advice on how to act when on trial (21.14-15); 21.12 shows greater emphasis on secular persecution, for he places ‘kings’ first, adds ‘prisons’ and omits Mark’s ‘councils’; the addition of ‘before all this’ (21.12) shows that the instructions are for a time before the cataclysmic upheavals to come. 24.  Cassidy, Society and Politics in Acts, p. 165 (with n. 18).

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Cassidy also argues that his view fits the ending of Acts better than others, for it shows the book climaxing with Paul ready to testify before Caesar. Luke thereby encourages his readers to be faithful in their own testimony to Jesus in ‘ordinary’ life. Thus, Cassidy asserts, five concerns animated Luke in writing.25 Luke wished: (i) to inform his readers both about Jesus’ trials before Roman officials and his predictions that his disciples would have similar experiences; (ii) to equip his readers to handle such trials rightly by presenting Jesus’ instructions on what to do; (iii) to make his audience aware that some leading disciples had, in fact, suffered such trials; (iv) to warn his readers of the different possible trial outcomes, which might include death or imprisonment; (v) to encourage his readers to show the same faithfulness of testimony when under trial as Jesus and the leading disciples. e. Not Interested in Politics Finally, Jervell and Franklin argue that Luke is simply uninterested in the politics of the Roman Empire.26 Franklin sees Luke’s focus as being on the triumph of God in Paul’s arrival in Rome; Roman officials are merely agents used by God to achieve his purposes. Luke is not favourable toward the empire, for he presents Pilate unfavourably (Lk. 23.13-25; 13.1), he includes sayings which predict the destruction of the temple by Rome (Lk. 23.28-31), he shows the empire acting badly toward Christians (Acts 16.39; 17.6-10; 18.12-17) and he shows the Roman authorities as uncomprehending of Christian preaching (Acts 24.26-27). The state is not actively hostile to Christianity, but it is fickle. On the other hand, Christianity is not guilty of deliberate subversion, but it is a threat to the peace of the empire: Lysias sees Paul as a disturber of the peace (Acts 23.30). Jervell’s presentation is fuller than Franklin’s. He argues that in the latter chapters of Acts we are seeing Jewish charges against Paul (21.21, 28; 23.29; 24.5; 25.8, 19; 28.17) rather than political charges initiated by the Roman authorities. Paul is being charged concerning his alleged teaching against Israel, the law and the temple. Charges of sedition come from the Jews (17.6-7; 24.5), whereas the Romans simply charge Paul 25.  Cassidy, Society and Politics in Acts, p. 160. 26.  Jacob Jervell, The Theology of the Acts of the Apostles (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 15-16, 86-88, 100-106, 134; Eric Franklin, Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke–Acts (London: SPCK, 1975), pp. 134-39.



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with civil disturbance (16.20; 21.38; 25.8; cf. the charges against Jesus, Lk. 23.2). Thus Luke’s readers are Christian Jews under pressure from their non-Christian compatriots. Jervell goes against the trend of scholarship in proposing that Luke is himself Jewish and wishes to show that Christian Jews are highly influential in the life of the early church. Jervell observes that both Jews (Acts 2.23; 3.14-15; 4.10; 7.52; 10.39; 13.27-28) and Romans (Acts 2.23; 4.27; cf. 13.28) are responsible for the death of Jesus in Luke–Acts. Further, Luke’s unflattering presentation of the Romans hardly allows Walaskay’s approach. Thus Luke is showing his readers that the empire is no threat to the church; it cannot obstruct the progress of the gospel to the ends of the earth, even if it acts in concert with the Jewish authorities.27 The church does not react politically toward the authorities: its only response is proclamation (Acts 4.20, 28-29; 5.29-32). Similarly, relations with the empire are through presenting the name of Jesus (Acts 9.15; 13.7; 24.14ff.; 26.1-32; Lk. 12.11-12; 21.14-15); for now, Christianity is politically harmless, but when the kingdom of God appears the political powers will stand helpless (Lk. 21.20-31). In sum, in this view Luke has no ‘theology of the state’: he simply recognises its existence as a political reality, but he is clear that God is greater. Defiance of the empire only happens when it attempts to hinder the proclamation of the gospel. 2. Key Evidence This survey of scholarship drives us back to the texts to see how far they support these views. We shall review the Romans’ ways of administering their empire, focusing particularly on cities, the key contexts in Acts for Christian mission, and then reconsider seven features of Luke–Acts: the placing of Christianity in the context of the Roman Empire; the location of Jesus within a Jewish framework; the trial of Jesus; the presentation of Roman officials and Roman justice; troubles caused by Paul; Jesus as Lord, king and saviour; and the ending of Acts. In each case we shall identify key passages and issues, and evaluate the relevance and strength of the evidence.

27.  Cf. Douglas R. Edwards, ‘Surviving the Web of Roman Power: Religion and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles, Josephus, and Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe’, in Loveday Alexander (ed.), Images of Empire (JSOTSup, 122; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991), pp. 179-201.

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a. The Administration of the Roman Empire This is a vast topic, and we shall of necessity concentrate on a small number of key points.28 It is common in NT scholarship to assume that contacts between the Christians and the city authorities within the Roman Empire can be taken as evidence of Christian relations with the empire. However, the Romans employed a system of delegated government which meant that significant facets of city life were under the control of local people. In NT times the empire was divided into provinces, some under direct imperial authority and some under senatorial control. In charge of each province was a governor, normally of senatorial rank, supported by a (usually very small) staff under his immediate control. Only in frontier or troublesome provinces, such as Judaea, were significant numbers of Roman troops present in order to preserve Roman control and political stability. A key member of the governor’s staff was the procurator, whose duties could include the collection of taxes, as well as looking after the emperor’s interests.29 Within a province there would be a number of communities with ‘city’ (πόλις) status, and the nature of this status could vary considerably from 28.  For (considerably) fuller accounts, see the following, to which my brief account is indebted: Joyce Reynolds, ‘Cities’, in David C. Braund (ed.), The Administration of the Roman Empire 241 BC–AD 193 (Exeter Studies in History, 18; Exeter: University of Exeter, 1988), pp. 15-51; Fergus Millar, The Roman Empire and Its Neighbours (London: Duckworth, 2nd edn, 1981), Chapter 5; David W. J. Gill, ‘The Roman Empire as a Context for the New Testament’, in Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Handbook to Exegesis of the New Testament (NTTS, 25; Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 389-406; David W. J. Gill and Conrad H. Gempf (eds), The Book of Acts in Its Graeco-Roman Setting (BAFCS, 2; Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994); Andrew Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (London: Routledge, 1993), esp. Chapters 3–4, 8; A. H. M. Jones, The Greek City from Alexander to Justinian (Oxford: Clarendon, 1940), esp. Chapters IV, VIII, XI; Anthony D. Macro, ‘The Cities of Asia Minor under the Roman Imperium’, ANRW II.7.2 (1980), pp. 658-97. Valuable collections of source material in English translation are found in W. K. Lacey and B. W. J. G. Wilson, Res Publica: Roman Politics and Society according to Cicero (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), and Jo-Ann Shelton, As the Romans Did: A Sourcebook in Roman Social History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 1998), esp. sections X, XII. 29.  Judaea and Egypt were exceptions to this structure in NT times, not having their own governor, but rather a procurator or prefect of equestrian rank: Emil Schürer, Geza Vermes and Fergus Millar, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC–AD 135) (4 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, rev. edn, 1973), vol. 1, p. 358.



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one community to another.30 Among its inhabitants, some were citizens of the city, and a smaller group (often much smaller) were Roman citizens. Philippi, Corinth and Pisidian Antioch were Roman colonies, all of whose citizens were Roman citizens – many were former soldiers granted citizenship on their retirement from the army.31 Athens, by contrast, retained the feel of a Greek city with the Areopagus as its ruling council.32 In this case, the Romans had taken an established Greek city and permitted its own civic structures to continue, but now overseen by the governor of the province of Achaia and his staff. As long as the city ran smoothly and peacefully, and Roman taxes were paid promptly, the governor would not be likely to interfere. Typically a πόλις in the eastern empire would consist of an urban centre which controlled a surrounding territory, usually containing villages under the centre’s jurisdiction – thus, to think of a modern ‘city’ does not give quite the right picture. When the emperor granted the status of πόλις to an existing place he would allow the people to appoint (or in the case of an established city, to continue to appoint) a council (βουλή) which could pass local laws, and to elect their own magistrates annually,33 who dispensed justice in many matters and had their own subordinate officials.34 Cities usually had a citizen assembly (ἐκκλησία), but under the Romans it was increasingly subject to the council, which tended to consist of members of the wealthy social élite.35 Indeed, magistrates were frequently appointed from the council members, and were required to contribute financially to the city’s affairs on appointment,36 further limiting those who could be candidates for office. 30.  See Reynolds, ‘Cities’, p. 23, for a helpful taxonomy. 31.  David W. J. Gill, ‘Macedonia’, in David W. J. Gill and Conrad H. Gempf (eds), The Book of Acts in Its Graeco-Roman Setting (BAFCS, 2; Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 397-417 (411-13). 32.  David W. J. Gill, ‘Achaia’, in Gill and Gempf (eds), The Book of Acts, pp. 433-53 (441-43, 447). 33.  Luke gets the designation and jurisdiction of these officials right in place after place; see Colin J. Hemer, The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (ed. Conrad H. Gempf; WUNT, 49; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1989), pp. 115 (on 16.22), 119 (on 17.34), 121 (on 19.31), 122 (on 19.35), 123 (on 19.38), 153 with n. 152 (on 28.7). 34.  Cicero, Att. 6.1.15 (written ca. 50 BC) says that he allowed Greeks to try cases between provincials under their own laws. Methods of election varied considerably across the empire: Reynolds, ‘Cities’, pp. 26-27. 35.  Millar, Roman Empire, p. 87. 36.  Reynolds, ‘Cities’, p. 36.

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The powers of these local magistrates, councils and assemblies were circumscribed by those of the governor. Hence the Ephesian town clerk warns the citizens that the city is in danger of being charged with rioting (Acts 19.40), which could lead to the governor disbanding the citizenassembly, punishing city officials or taking away privileges already granted to the city.37 More specifically, cases which could result in death or exile were reserved for the governor’s judgment, as well as cases involving Roman citizens,38 and some cases involving commercial questions or public order.39 The governor would travel annually to various cities within his province to try such cases, and others which the local magistrates could not resolve.40 In Achaia, Luke records Gallio hearing the Jews’ case against Paul in Corinth, the governor’s seat (Acts 18.12-17).41 In Judaea, this comports well with John’s assertion that the Jews were not allowed to ‘put anyone to death’ (Jn 18.31).42 It is within this setting that the Acts accounts of encounter between the Christians and the ‘powers that be’ should be seen. This limits the number of direct contacts between the Christians – and Paul in particular – and the Roman Empire, as we shall see.43 b. Christianity Placed in the Context of the Roman Empire44 Luke alone among the canonical evangelists sets the coming of Jesus and the growth of the church in the context of the Roman Empire. He 37.  Paul R. Trebilco, ‘Asia’, in Gill and Gempf (eds), The Book of Acts, pp. 291-362 (344-45, where examples are given). 38.  Macro, ‘Cities’, p. 671. Hence the Philippian magistrates are taken aback when they realise they have beaten Roman citizens, thus acting in a case over which they have no jurisdiction (Acts 16.37-39). 39.  Bruce W. Winter, Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as Benefactors and Citizens (Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), pp. 107-108. 40.  See G. P. Burton, ‘Proconsuls, Assizes and the Administration of Justice under the Empire’, JRS 65 (1975), pp. 92-106 for a careful description of the system of travelling assizes. 41.  Most governors had at least one legal advisor among their personal staff (cf. Acts 25.12), whereas Gallio, a noted jurist, gives his own judgment without consulting advisors. 42.  Supported by Josephus, War 2.8.1 §117. See discussion (and further references) in George R. Beasley-Murray, John (WBC, 36; Dallas: Word, 1987), pp. 308-10; D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John (Leicester: IVP; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 590-92. 43.  See pp. 905-97. 44.  See Bond, Pontius Pilate, pp. 140-41.



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identifies Augustus as emperor and Quirinius as governor of Syria when Jesus is born (Lk. 2.1-2).45 He offers a six-fold dating by Roman rulers for John beginning to preach (Lk. 3.1-2). Throughout Luke–Acts readers who are aware of the ancient world are conscious that Paul (for example) is able to travel freely because of the benefits of Roman roads, harbours, ships and, above all, the pax Romana.46 In Acts, particularly in the second half, Luke relates developments in the Christian community to the empire, referring to Roman officials from time to time and the interaction between the missionaries and these people. However, this evidence is slight, for Luke never explicitly mentions the benefits of the pax Romana or the Roman road system.47 If, as some urge,48 this is a significant sign of Luke’s positive view of the empire, he has not gone out of his way to draw attention to it. Paul’s direct contacts with Roman officials are limited to Gallio in Corinth (18.12-17), the tribune in Jerusalem (21–22), Felix (23.31–24.26), Festus (24.27–26.32) and Julius the centurion (27.1, 11, 31, 43). The emperors themselves never appear in the narrative, but are always peripheral (e.g. Lk. 2.1-2; 3.1-2; Acts 5.37; 11.28; 18.2).49 Nero is not mentioned by name, although in places it must be him to whom a character refers (Acts 25.11-12, 21, 25-26). c. Jesus Acts within a Jewish ‘Religious’ Framework For Conzelmann it is important that Luke places Jesus within a Jewish ‘religious’ framework,50 for this shows that Luke is attempting to show that Christianity is politically neutral and harmless. Luke, Conzelmann 45.  The dating here is notoriously difficult; see discussion in John Nolland, Luke 1–9.20 (WBC, 35A; Dallas: Word, 1989), pp. 99-102 (particularly thorough); Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Luke (AB, 28; 2 vols.; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), vol. 1, p. 400; Christopher F. Evans, Saint Luke (London: SCM, 1990), pp. 193-95; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text (NIGTC; Exeter: Paternoster, 1978), pp. 99-104; Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (ABRL; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1993), pp. 547-56. 46.  See Michael B. Thompson, ‘The Holy Internet: Communication between Churches in the First Christian Generation’, in Bauckham (ed.), The Gospels for All Christians, pp. 49-70; Michael Green, Evangelism in the Early Church (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1970), pp. 14-16. 47.  On the latter, see David French, ‘Acts and the Roman Roads of Asia Minor’, in Gill and Gempf (eds), The Book of Acts, pp. 49-58. 48.  Walaskay, ‘And So’, pp. 25-27; Brown, Birth, pp. 415-16. 49.  Robbins, ‘Luke–Acts’, pp. 205-207. 50.  Conzelmann, Theology of St Luke, pp. 137-49.

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believes, is coming to terms with the delay of the parousia, and therefore is handling a situation where the church must come to a ‘settlement’ with the empire. Several lines of evidence are important to Conzelmann’s case. In Luke, John’s preaching to the soldiers and tax collectors (3.10ff.) includes the implicit instruction to be loyal to the state. John’s arrest is for non-political reasons (3.19). Jesus’ career is presented as non-political in the Nazareth scene (4.18ff.). When Herod seeks to ‘see’ Jesus it is because of his miracles, not for any political reason (9.7ff.; cf. 23.8). Jesus’ death will be that of a prophet, not a political subversive (13.31ff.). At the entry to Jerusalem Jesus is acclaimed as ‘king’ in a non-political sense, for the goal of his journey is the temple (19.38). When the question of the political supremacy of Rome is raised explicitly, Jesus encourages submission to the emperor (20.20-26). Although the accusations against Jesus are framed politically (23.2), Luke makes it clear that the Jewish authorities are lying (20.20ff. shows that they themselves are disingenuous in their question; 23.18ff. shows that they are in fact in solidarity with political insurgents). However, Conzelmann operates with a division of ‘religion’ and ‘politics’ which is untenable for the first century AD. To speak of Jesus in kingly terms was inevitably to speak politically, for that was the kind of king known in that world.51 Further, to speak of Jesus as ‘Son of God’ was to invoke a messianic, that is, a royal title (cf. Ps. 2.7) with political overtones. To argue that Luke’s insertion of ‘king’ into the triumphal entry is non-political is naïve in a world where Caesar was known as ‘king’. For Jesus to read Isa. 61.1ff in the synagogue at Nazareth (4.16ff.) cannot be construed as apolitical, for it echoes jubilee legislation which presupposes that Israel once again has control of her own land.52 For John to speak against Herod’s marriage was to speak against the king’s fitness to rule in a world where divine law concerning marriage was taken seriously.53 51.  On this paragraph, see N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (COQG, 2; London: SPCK, 1996), pp. 97-98, 296-97, 310-11, 481-86; Marcus J. Borg, Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (New York: Edwin Mellen, 1984). 52.  Cf. Wright, Jesus, pp. 294-50; Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), pp. 212-13; Nolland, Luke 1–9.20, p. 197; Sharon H. Ringe, Jesus, Liberation, and the Biblical Jubilee (OBT, 19; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), pp. 36-45; contra Robert C. Tannehill, The Narrative Unity of Luke–Acts: A Literary Interpretation (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986, 1990), vol. 1, pp. 67-68. 53.  Cf. Wright, Jesus, pp. 160-62; Harold W. Hoehner, Herod Antipas (SNTSMS, 17; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 142-44.



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The question of tribute to Caesar (Lk. 20.20-26) requires a little more discussion.54 In a time and place where revolution was in the air Jesus’ answer to the question whether tribute should be paid to Caesar would have been awaited with bated breath. If he said that tribute should be paid to Caesar, he would identify himself with the collaborators; if not, he would mark himself as a revolutionary and a danger to Rome. Jesus’ brilliant answer, ‘Give to Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and to God that which is God’s’ (v. 25), avoids both horns of the dilemma. This answer echoes Mattathias’s dying words, ‘Pay back the Gentiles in full and obey the commands of the law’ (ἀνταπόδοτε ἀνταπόδομα τοῖς ἔθνεσιν καὶ προσέχετε εἰς πρόσταγμα τοῦ νόμου, 1 Macc. 2.68). The first clause of Mattathias’s words is unquestionably a revolutionary charter. Thus, facing someone holding a Roman coin with a blasphemous inscription,55 Jesus’ response was implicitly revolutionary, for it implied that Caesar should get what he deserved. Yet it was not explicitly so, for Jesus had not forbidden paying the census tax and thereby avoided being arrested before he was ready. The second clause of Jesus’ answer (in agreement with the second clause of Mattathias’s words) echoes Israel’s call to worship the one true God (e.g. Ps. 96.7-10; Deut. 6.4-5) and to avoid idolatry. Thus, faced with this blasphemous Roman coin, Jesus implicitly states that possession of it involves compromise with paganism – and therefore gives a clarion call to faithfulness to YHWH by calling his hearers to follow Jesus’ way of the kingdom. Jesus’ two-edged answer could be accused of many things, but that it was ‘political’ in both Jewish and Roman contexts, is hard to deny.

54.  What follows is based on Wright, Jesus, pp. 502-507; cf. John Nolland, Luke 18.35–24.53 (WBC, 35C; Dallas: Word, 1993), pp. 955-61. For other views, see F. F. Bruce, ‘Render to Caesar’, in Ernst Bammel and C. F. D. Moule (eds), Jesus and the Politics of His Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 249-63, esp. 257-62; Marshall, Luke, pp. 733-37; Fitzmyer, Luke, vol. 2, pp. 1284-98; J. Duncan M. Derrett, ‘Luke’s Perspective on Tribute to Caesar’, in Richard J. Cassidy and Philip J. Scharper (eds), Political Issues in Luke–Acts (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983), pp. 38-48, esp. 41-43. 55.  H. StJ. Hart, ‘The Coin of “Render unto Caesar…” (A Note on Some Aspects of Mark 12.13-17; Matt. 22.15-22; Luke 20.20-26)’, in Bammel and Moule (eds), Jesus and the Politics of His Day, pp. 241-48, shows that the inscription would probably be: TI(BERIUS) CAESAR DIVI AUG(USTI) F(ILIUS) AUGUSTUS: PONTIFEX MAXIMUS (= ‘Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, Augustus: high priest’) – thus making blasphemous claims alongside the offensive presence of Caesar’s εἰκών (image).

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d. The Trial of Jesus It is clearly crucial to understanding Luke’s view of the empire to consider the empire’s treatment of Jesus. Pilate as Roman governor three times declares Jesus innocent of any crime (Lk. 23.4, 14, 22) and invokes the client-king Herod as having come to the same conclusion (Lk. 23.15). Herod himself has failed to gain any answer from Jesus after having earlier sought to see him and, reportedly, plotted to kill him (Lk. 23.8-11; cf. 9.7-9; 13.31-32). The centurion at the foot of the cross likewise declares Jesus to be innocent (Lk. 23.47; contrast Mk 15.33; Mt. 27.54). So who is responsible for the death of Jesus from Luke’s perspective? A key passage for understanding Luke’s view is Acts 4.27-30, which asserts that opposition to Jesus is the factor which unites Pilate, Herod, the Gentiles and the ‘peoples of Israel’.56 To assert, as some do,57 that the Jewish people alone are held responsible for the death of Jesus is to overstate the case. Luke’s presentation is more nuanced, for he locates responsibility on the Jewish side with the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem and, to a lesser degree, the people of Jerusalem.58 This is clear, not least, since it is only in Jerusalem itself that the apostles speak of ‘you’ as responsible for killing Jesus (Acts 2.36; 3.13, 14, 17; 4.10; 5.30; 7.52; cf. 5.28). Further, on the one occasion outside Jerusalem where Paul speaks of responsibility for the death of Jesus, he attributes it to the Jerusalem residents and especially their leaders (Acts 13.26-27). It is also clear from Luke’s characterisation of Pilate that the Roman system is by no means guiltless in this regard.59 Luke 18.31-34 asserts that Jesus will be handed over to the Gentiles (v. 32). Pilate is named in speeches in Acts concerning the death of Jesus (Acts 3.13; 4.27; 13.28). In the Lukan passion narrative, while Pilate pronounces Jesus innocent three times, he nevertheless gives him over to be executed (Lk. 23.25). This portrays Pilate as all the more culpable, not least because the verb παραδίδωμι (‘give over’) is used on at least twenty occasions by Luke as indicating ‘giving over’ in persecution, arrest, betrayal or execution, especially in the passion narrative, where it is the only sense in which this verb is used.60 56.  Jervell, Theology of Acts, pp. 100-101. 57.  Especially Sanders, Jews in Luke–Acts. 58.  Weatherly, Jewish Responsibility, esp. Chapter 2. 59.  See Bond, Pontius Pilate, pp. 150-60. 60.  Lk. 9.44; 12.58; 18.32; 20.20; 21.12, 16; 22.4, 6, 21, 22, 48; 23.25; 24.7, 20; Acts 3.13; 8.3; 12.4; 21.11; 22.4; 27.1; see Weatherly, Jewish Responsibility, p. 96 (the list of references is an expanded version of his). The verb is used 30 times in total in Luke–Acts.



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Certainly Luke regards the purposes of God as being achieved through the death of Jesus (not least in Acts 4.28), but this does not exonerate either the Jewish or Roman authorities. Both share the blame, just as both Jews and Gentiles may benefit from the fruits of the death of Jesus, as Acts makes clear by the response among both to the preaching of the gospel. e. The Presentation of Roman Officials and Roman Justice This is a significant group of evidence on our question, for there are several occasions when the empire’s officials, soldiers or justice system impinge on Luke–Acts, especially Acts. We may divide the passages into those which present positive and negative views of the empire. As far as positive aspects go, six features of Luke’s Dopplewerk come to mind. First, John the baptiser’s preaching to tax collectors and soldiers (Lk. 3.1-10) avoids telling them to withdraw from their occupations, but rather instructs them on how to conduct their vocations in a manner consistent with being baptised by John. Given that these people are in both cases likely to be Jewish61 (for John’s was a Jewish renewal movement), these instructions are at least supportive of the empire, since they are compatible with Augustan ideals for these groups.62 Second, Walaskay regards Lk. 22.24-27 as an edited version of Mk 10.42-45 and in particular proposes that the replacement of the compound verbs κατακυριεύω and κατεξουσιάζω (Mk 10.42; they imply domineering rule) by the simple forms κυριεύω and ἐξουσιάζω (Lk. 22.25; they do not carry ‘domineering’ overtones) suggests that Luke is ‘toning down’ Mark’s wording to sound less anti-empire. However, it is unlikely that the Lukan passage is a true parallel to the Markan,63 for the verbal agreement 61.  With Marshall, Luke, p. 143; Nolland, Luke 1–9.20, p. 150; Fitzmyer, Luke, vol. 1, 470; Evans, Saint Luke, p. 241; contra Walaskay, ‘And So’, p. 31 (with p. 81 n. 82); Green, Luke, p. 180. 62.  Walaskay, ‘And So’, pp. 29-32. 63.  For this paragraph (including fuller detail on differences between Mark and Luke), see my Leadership and Lifestyle: The Portrait of Paul in the Miletus Speech and 1 Thessalonians (SNTSMS, 108; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 110-15, and Peter K. Nelson, Leadership and Discipleship: A Study of Luke 22.24-30 (SBLDS, 138; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994), pp. 124-31, in agreement with Marion L. Soards, The Passion according to Luke: The Special Material of Luke 22 (JSNTSup, 14; Sheffield: JSOT, 1987), pp. 30-31; Sydney H. T. Page, ‘The Authenticity of the Ransom Logion (Mark 10.45b)’, in R. T. France and David Wenham (eds), Gospel Perspectives: Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, Vol. 1 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1980), pp. 137-61 (148-54); Joel B. Green, The Death of Jesus: Tradition and Interpretation in the Passion Narrative (WUNT, 2/33;

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is poor: of 67 words in Lk. 22.24-27, only 16 occur in the same form in Mark – including four definite articles, four conjunctions, three third person plural nouns and the phrases οὐχ οὓτως and ἐν ὑμῖν. No verbal forms are common to the two passages, and the only noun they share is ἐθνῶν. Further, Luke rarely relocates material from its Markan sequence, but rather uses the material in the same order. Jeremias points to only two small deviations before the passion narrative (Lk. 6.17-19; 8.19-21) and concludes that deviations imply that Luke is not using Mark.64 In sum, it is unlikely that we should draw any conclusions from this proposed parallel, since it is not a real parallel. We may add that, from the perspective of Luke’s first readers, such subtleties would be likely to be invisible, for they likely did not have access to Mark’s Gospel (nor, indeed, a Gospels Synopsis!).65 Third, the lack of any reporting of Roman persecution of the early Christian community in Jerusalem suggests that the Jesus movement was not seen as a political threat, for the Romans could and did round up and execute the followers of would-be revolutionaries.66 Fourth, Luke presents Roman officials and (especially) centurions positively, drawing attention to their godliness or justice. The centurion of Capernaum (Lk. 7.1-10; cf. Mt. 8.5-13) is presented more fulsomely by Luke than by Matthew, for Luke includes a speech telling Jesus of the man’s piety (7.4-5). The portrait of Cornelius (Acts 10.1–11.18) echoes this centurion’s godliness, for Cornelius is ‘devout and God-fearing’, he gives to the needy, prays (10.2) and is commended by the angel (10.4). When Peter hears about Cornelius, these qualities are underlined (10.22). In addition, some Roman officials believe, such as the proconsul in Cyprus, Sergius Paulus (Acts 13.7, 12).67 Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), pp. 44-46; Vincent Taylor, The Passion Narrative of St Luke (SNTSMS, 19; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), pp. 61-64; Nolland, Luke 18.35–24.53, pp. 1062-63. 64.  Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus (London: SCM, 1966), p. 98. 65.  Cf. C. K. Barrett, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994, 1998), vol. 1, p. l: ‘We cannot suppose that Luke wrote his gospel with the notion that it should be published in one of four parallel columns in a Synopsis’. 66.  E.g. Josephus, War 2.13.5 §§261-63 (the Egyptian false prophet); Ant. 20.5.2 §102 (the sons of Judas the Galilean); War 2.8.1 §118; Ant. 18.1.1 §§4-10 (Judas the Galilean); Ant. 20.5.1 §§97-98 and Acts 5.36-37 (Theudas). 67.  The tax-collector Zacchaeus (Lk. 19.1-10) and the Philippian jailer (Acts 16.27-34) are not Roman officials, but local officials, even though Zacchaeus would have been seen as a Roman collaborator by the Jewish people at large.



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Fifth, Paul is portrayed as submitting to the legal process, and generally being helpful to Roman officials. He does not resist arrest; he answers the charges against him and speaks respectfully to the courts (e.g. Acts 24.10; 26.2-3). He assists and advises Julius the centurion during the voyage to Rome (27.21-26, 30-32, 33-36). However, Paul is no doormat, for on key occasions he expects justice and exercises his privileges as a Roman citizen (22.25-29; 25.11).68 Similarly, he speaks frankly with Felix about judgment to come (24.25). Sixth, Paul is regularly found innocent and/or treated well by Roman officials irrespective of their acceptance of the Christian faith. In Corinth, the proconsul Gallio finds that he has no case to answer (Acts 18.14-15). Claudius Lysias, the commander of the Jerusalem garrison, saves Paul from the mob (21.31-34), permits him to speak to the crowd (21.37-40a), complies with Paul’s request to exercise the privileges of his Roman citizenship (22.24-29), protects Paul from the Sanhedrin (23.10), and finally sends Paul away from the plot to kill him to Caesarea, accompanied by a letter expressing the view that Paul has no charge to answer (23.16-30). Felix appears to regard Paul as innocent and only keeps him in prison from expediency (24.23, 27). Festus judges that Paul is innocent of crime (25.25), a verdict confirmed by the client-king Herod Agrippa II (26.32). Julius treats Paul well by allowing him to visit his friends in Sidon (27.3) and by protecting him when the soldiers plan to kill all the prisoners during the shipwreck (27.42-43). Publius, the first man of Malta,69 welcomes Paul and his companions and treats them well (28.7). We may also observe that the charges against Paul are almost always presented as an internal Jewish argument in which Roman officials do not wish to become involved (Acts 18.13-15; 23.27-29; 25.19; cf. 26.2-3).70 The magistrates are only concerned to keep public order and do not wish to become involved in ‘theology’. Such are the positive aspects of Christianity in relation to the Roman Empire. Two striking negative aspects of the portrait of the Jesus movement in relation to the empire should also be noted. 68.  Cf. Paul’s response to the local magistrates in the Roman colony of Philippi (Acts 16.35-39). 69.  Publius may be a Roman official or a local official whose jurisdiction was recognised by the Romans, after the manner of city magistrates; see discussion in Barrett, Acts, vol. 2, pp. 1224-25; Witherington, Acts, p. 779. 70.  Jervell, Theology of Acts, pp. 87-88, astutely observes that the charges against Paul are as a false teacher of Israel (Acts 21.21, 28; 25.8; 24.5-6; 23.29; cf. 25.19). In the Roman colony of Philippi (Acts 16.20-21), the issue is ironically to do with Paul’s Jewishness.

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First, Luke underlines the fact that Jerusalem will fall to the Romans, and highlights this more than Mark or Matthew (Lk. 21; Mk 13; Mt. 24), particularly in Lk. 21.20 (which makes it clear that Jerusalem is being spoken about) and 21.24 (which speaks of Jerusalem being trampled by the Gentiles). Second, Luke presents Roman officialdom ‘warts and all’ and does not hesitate to tell of failings and corruption.71 Pilate is represented as weak and swayed by the Jewish leaders into acting unjustly, knowing Jesus to be innocent (Lk. 23.3, 14, 22, 24).72 The verb ἐπικρίνω (v. 24) is used elsewhere in judicial contexts,73 which suggests that Pilate is here giving a formal judgment in his own person, and thus his conduct is not excused by Luke. This adds to the description of Pilate’s act of killing the Galileans (Lk. 13.1), which Luke alone reports. We may grant that the focus of Lk. 13.1ff. is not on Pilate’s conduct, but on God’s judgment on those who reject his messengers,74 but nevertheless Luke does report this unflattering action (which appears not untypical of the historical Pilate).75 Similarly, when Paul travels, Roman officials fail to offer him protection or justice in cities under direct Roman law (as opposed to Hellenistic cities), whether in Pisidian Antioch (Acts 13.50-51),76 Lystra (14.19) or Philippi (16.20-24, 35-39).77 The primary concern of the officials is to get the problem (Paul) to go away, rather than with the truth of the matter or the requirements of justice. Similarly, a careful reading suggests that the Roman proconsul Gallio disregards the accusations against Paul not because they are untrue, but because of his apparent disdain for Paul’s accusers: his address ὦ Ἰουδαῖοι (18.14) in combination with the feeling of exasperation conveyed in the rest of his ruling (18.14-15) and the fact that 71.  Jervell, Theology of Acts, pp. 103-104; Witherington, Acts, p. 811; Brian M. Rapske, The Book of Acts and Paul in Roman Custody (BAFCS, 3; Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 431; Franklin, Christ the Lord, pp. 136-39; Bond, Pontius Pilate, pp. 142-43. 72.  ‘In the governor’s court, injustice has triumphed over justice’ (Bond, Pontius Pilate, p. 159). 73.  E.g. Plato, Laws 6.768a; Aristophanes, Wasps 1434; Josephus, War 6.9.1 §416; Ant. 14.10.2 §192; cf. Bond, Pontius Pilate, p. 156. 74.  Walaskay, ‘And So’, p. 24. 75.  N. T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God (COQG, 1; London: SPCK, 1992), pp. 173-74. 76.  See NewDocs, vol. 3, p. 30, proposing that the ‘leading men’ (Acts 13.50) are Roman magistrates. 77.  Both Lystra and Philippi were Roman colonies, where one might expect some protection for Roman citizens, as happens eventually in Philippi.



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Gallio ‘drove’ (ἀπήλασεν, 18.16) the accusers from before the judgment seat, all suggest bias by Gallio against Paul’s accusers.78 If the ‘all’ who assault Sosthenes (18.17) are (Gentile) bystanders, this suggests antisemitic feeling was present in Corinth more widely than Gallio’s views.79 When it comes to Paul’s trials in Jerusalem and Caesarea, although Paul is protected by Roman officials from the attempts of the Jewish authorities to do away with him, the tribune Claudius Lysias transfers Paul to Caesarea despite believing him to be innocent of a crime (Acts 23.27), Felix hopes for a bribe and keeps Paul in custody to please the Jews (24.26-27) and Festus is (understandably, as a new governor) more concerned with pleasing the Jews than giving Paul justice (25.9, 25). Ultimately, Paul appeals to Caesar because he does not expect to receive justice from Festus (25.11) – and with good reason! The result of the actions (or non-actions) of Felix and Festus is that Paul unnecessarily spends four years imprisoned. If, as some emphasise,80 Roman officials recognise Paul’s innocence, his continuing imprisonment suggests that Roman justice is corrupt – hardly a persuasive argument if Luke is seeking to persuade the church to trust the state, or if Luke hopes to convince Roman officials that they have nothing to fear from the church. Luke offers a mixed (and, therefore, probably realistic) portrait of the Roman officials who encounter Jesus and Paul.81 Such a portrait would offer models of handling relationships with the authorities to Christians in various situations in the ancient world.82

78.  Cassidy, Society and Politics in Acts, p. 92. 79.  So Bruce, Book of Acts, pp. 353-54; Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. Bernard Noble, Gerald Shinn, Hugh Anderson and R. McL. Wilson; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), pp. 536-37; Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (SP, 5; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), p. 329; Witherington, Acts, pp. 554-55; contra Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation and Commentary (AB, 31; New York: Doubleday, 1998), pp. 630-31. Barrett, Acts, vol. 2, pp. 875-76, adopts a mediating position in which Jews and Greeks combined to attack Sosthenes. 80.  E.g. Wengst, Pax Romana, pp. 98-99. 81.  Rapske, Paul in Roman Custody, pp. 190-91. 82.  Rapske, Paul in Roman Custody, p. 190, helpfully suggests that Paul’s appeal to his Roman citizenship at times would demonstrate that Christian faith did not forbid use of this privilege in order to receive better treatment, while the wider example of Paul would also suggest that the use of such privileges should never be a way of avoiding suffering for the sake of the gospel.

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f. Trouble Caused by Paul On several key occasions Paul is presented as the source of trouble in the cities he visits. In places this is the result of Jewish agitators persuading the populace to attack Paul, such as Antioch (Acts 13.50), Iconium (14.2, 4-5), Lystra (14.19), Thessalonica (17.5-8), Beroea (17.13), Corinth (18.12-13) and Jerusalem (21.27-30). But on other occasions it is Gentiles opposed to Jewish practices (Philippi, 16.20-21) or Gentile traders who are being harmed economically by Paul’s ministry (Ephesus, 19.23-28). Neither group of events would persuade Roman officials reading Acts that Christians were politically harmless or neutral and that all the trouble was the work of Jewish agitators – Paul is simply a cause of trouble wherever he goes, and the charges of civil disturbance which are brought against him (16.20; 21.38; 25.8) would reinforce this view. For Christian readers these stories would highlight the vulnerability of proclaiming the gospel in the face of hostile opponents, whether Jewish, Hellenistic or Roman. g. Jesus as Lord, King and Saviour Luke stresses that Jesus is ‘Lord’, for he uses this title for Jesus very frequently,83 especially after the resurrection (but also – and programmatically – in the birth narratives, Lk. 2.11), to the extent that we may see this as Luke’s standard way of describing Jesus’ present position. Luke never mentions Caesar’s claim to be lord84 explicitly, but to use κύριος so prominently for Jesus could not but remind readers living in the empire of this claim and would suggest that Luke was making a counter-claim for Jesus over against Caesar (as indeed he was). Similarly, Jesus is referred to as ‘king’ by Luke more frequently than the other evangelists,85 not least in reference to him ‘reigning’ in the birth 83.  Κύριος is the most frequent title for Jesus in Acts, found some 60 times: see James D. G. Dunn, ‘ΚΥΡΙΟΣ in Acts’, in The Christ and the Spirit: Collected Essays of James D. G. Dunn. Vol. 1, Christology (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 241-53; D. L. Jones, ‘The Title ΚΥΡΙΟΣ in Acts’, in Society of Biblical Literature 1974 Seminar Papers (SBLSP, 13; 2 vols.; Atlanta: SBL, 1974), vol. 2, pp. 85-101; Steve Walton, ‘Where Does the Beginning of Acts End?’, in J. Verheyden (ed.), The Unity of Luke–Acts (BETL, 142; Leuven: Peeters, 1999), pp. 448-67 (460). 84.  See Adolf Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco-Roman World (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 4th edn, 1927), pp. 353-55; Tajra, Trial, p. 36, the latter observing that κύριος was used in poetry of the emperor as early as Augustan times. 85.  Βασιλεύς and βασιλεύω are used 7 times of Jesus by Luke (cf. Matthew 6 times; Mark 6 times – in both cases mainly in the passion narrative): Lk. 1.32-33;



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narratives (Lk. 1.33) and the insertion of ‘king’ into the acclamation at the ‘triumphal entry’ (Lk. 19.38). The charge against Jesus, which he does not deny, is that he claims to be a king (Lk. 23.2; cf. 23.37-38). Behind the claim that the Christians proclaim ‘another king’ (Acts 17.7) surely stands Caesar’s claim to be king. Luke also uses the language of ‘salvation’ more frequently than the other evangelists,86 to the extent that it can be claimed as the main theme of Luke–Acts,87 and specifically calls Jesus σωτήρ (Lk. 2.11; Acts 5.31; 13.23). Again, this echoes language used of Caesar.88 The use of these three groups of words for Jesus so prominently suggests that Luke presents the early Christians as subversively using Caesar’s titles for Jesus. When we add to this the strong statements in 19.38 (here Walaskay, ‘And So’, p. 17, correctly argues that Conzelmann, Theology of St Luke, p. 139, is mistaken in arguing that Luke’s introduction of βασιλεύς into Mark’s story preserves a non-political view of kingship); 22.29-30; 23.2, 37-38; Acts 17.7. Brent Kinman, Jesus’ Entry into Jerusalem in the Context of Lukan Theology and the Politics of His Day (AGJU, 28; Leiden: Brill, 1995), esp. pp. 91-103, demonstrates that Luke heightens the sense of Jesus’ kingship in his account of the entry into Jerusalem. Walaskay, ‘And So’, p. 22, notes that Lk. 1.52; 4.18-19; 12.49, 51; Acts 5.29, 42; 21.38; 28.31 imply an anti-Caesar stance. In conversation, Dr Gerald Borchert proposed to me that John makes the theme of the kingship of Jesus prominent, particularly from Jn 12 onwards, even though John does not use the language of kingship as frequently as Luke; see Gerald L. Borchert, John 12–21 (NAC, 25B; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002), passim. 86.  25 times in Luke; 22 times in Acts (Matthew 15 times; Mark 16 times, John 8 times). Luke programmatically signals this theme in his birth narrative by using the word group six times (1.47, 69, 71, 77; 2.11, 30), as well as summarising the Christian message using τοῦτο τὸ σωτήριον τοῦ θεοῦ at the end of Acts (28.28), thus forming an inclusio. 87.  I. Howard Marshall, Luke: Historian and Theologian (Exeter: Paternoster, 1970), esp. pp. 94-102. 88.  E.g., Julius Caesar is described as ‘the god made manifest…and common saviour of human life’ (SIG3 §760; translation from Deissmann, Light, p. 344); Augustus is one ‘providence…[sent] us and those after us a saviour who put an end to war and established all things’ (OGIS II §458; translation from Naphtali Lewis and Meyer Reinhold [eds], Roman Civilization: Selected Readings, Vol. 2, The Empire [Records of Civilization: Sources and Studies, 45; New York: Columbia University Press, 1955], p. 64) and ‘saviour of the entire world’ (IGRR III §719; my translation); and Claudius is ‘saviour of the world’ (IGRR IV §12; Oakes’s translation) and ‘god who is saviour and benefactor’ (IGRR IV §584; Oakes’s translation). See further Peter Oakes, Philippians: From People to Letter (SNTSMS, 110; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), Chapter 5 (Dr Oakes kindly allowed me to see a draft which outlines these references).

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the face of the Jewish authorities that obeying God is more important than obeying mere human beings (Acts 4.19; 5.29) the reading of Jesus’ ‘render to Caesar’ saying proposed above,89 and Luke’s view that the kingdoms of the world are in the hands of the devil (Lk. 4.5-6),90 we have a picture of a movement which could not but be seen as subversive and anti-emperor to a Roman loyalist. h. The Ending of Acts Acts ends with Paul living in his own rented accommodation able to preach the gospel unhindered (ἀκωλύτως,91 28.31), and without his hearing before Caesar having taken place. The question why Luke ends at this point has long been debated, but we shall consider only its contribution to our understanding of Luke’s view of the Roman Empire. Cassidy argues that this ending provides completeness: Paul’s faithful testimony before Caesar is complete ‘in principle’.92 As Acts closes Paul is close to appearing before the emperor’s tribunal in Rome, and we know from assurances given by God that he will appear there (23.11; 27.2324). Further, throughout Paul has spoken faithfully for Jesus, so we may be confident that he will do so before Caesar. Luke goes on to present a scene in Rome where Paul speaks in precisely that manner (28.17-20, 23, 25-28). All this is true enough, but hardly answers our question about Luke’s view of the empire. As far as the fate of Paul is concerned, the ending of Acts is unresolved.93 If Luke had reported Paul’s execution94 this would have told against any presentation of the empire as acting justly (although we have seen reasons to doubt this as a uniform picture throughout Luke– Acts). If Paul had been acquitted, then the story would have been complete from the perspective of Paul’s political innocence being demonstrated – and thus the political harmlessness of Christianity would be clear. 89.  See above, pp. 80, 91. 90.  Jervell, Theology of Acts, p. 106; Evans, Saint Luke, p. 259; Green, Luke, p. 194. 91.  A legal term: MM, p. 20; BDAG, p. 40; Tajra, Trial, pp. 192-93; Barrett, Acts, vol. 2, p. 1253. 92.  Cassidy, Society and Politics in Acts, pp. 167-70. 93.  Franklin, Christ the Lord, pp. 134-36. 94.  Reported explicitly by Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 2.25 and hinted at in 1 Clem. 5.1–6.1. For discussion see F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit (Exeter: Paternoster, 1977), pp. 441-55; E. P. Sanders, Paul (Past Masters; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 16-17; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, OP, Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), pp. 368-81.



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Some95 suggest that the hints of martyrdom during the book (Acts 20.25, 29, 37-38;96 21.11-14; 28.17-20) show that Luke and his readers already knew that Paul had been executed in Rome, and so that part of the story did not need telling. Indeed, had Luke told it, it would have distracted from the point he wished to make.97 On this view, Luke’s concern is not with whether Paul is acquitted or condemned, but simply with his being in Rome at all – but it would hardly encourage a positive view of the empire. It is not easy to decide the date at which Luke wrote. If it was before the trial of Paul, then Paul’s fate was unresolved at that point, which would explain why Luke did not report the result.98 If Luke wrote after the death of Paul (whether or not Paul was initially released before being imprisoned again before his execution), he must have had good reason for not including this event. Perhaps the explanation, whatever Luke’s date of writing, is in his demonstration that Paul was able to preach about Jesus freely for two years in the heart of the empire (28.30-31). If Paul could do this, then he – and, by extension, the Christian community – was regarded by the empire as innocent of a crime.99 Acts 28.31 closes with the portrait of the word of God unhindered, triumphant over human attempts to imprison its messengers, and that would speak powerfully to Luke’s Christian readers in their attempts to be faithful to God in their day.100 3. Evaluation of Theories In considering the theories which we outlined at the beginning of this article, our chief concerns must be how far each manages to get the variety of data from Luke–Acts into the view, and how much explanatory power the theory has for Luke’s intentions in writing.

95.  E.g. R. P. C. Hanson, The Acts (New Clarendon Bible; Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 31, 203-204; Haenchen, Acts, pp. 731-32. 96.  For discussion of the Acts 20 verses, which leave Paul’s fate open rather than certainly speaking of his death, see Walton, Leadership and Lifestyle, pp. 78-80. 97.  Although Acts 7.54-60; 12.1-2 show that Luke does not shy away from reporting the death of faithful believers. 98.  Although 28.30 implies that something happened to bring the two-year period to an end (Witherington, Acts, p. 807). 99.  Bruce, Book of Acts, p. 511; Haenchen, Acts, p. 726; Rapske, Paul in Roman Custody, p. 191. 100.  Cf. Fitzmyer, Acts, p. 797, and numerous others.

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Luke’s readership has been widely debated, and is beyond the scope of this study. We simply re-emphasise that we should be cautious in mirror-reading Luke–Acts for its audience, particularly in seeking to find a section of Luke’s readership for every individual emphasis of the two volumes.101 Luke may have had reasons other than his audience’s needs for recording an event – such as that it happened and was important for the church as part of its historical foundation. To turn, then, to the different proposals, we must declare the claim that Luke is not interested in politics as barren. There is too much politically sensitive material for this view to be tenable when Luke–Acts is read in its first-century settings, both Jewish and Graeco-Roman. Nevertheless, Jervell identifies a crucial point, which is that Luke’s central concern is not political; rather, Luke focuses on what God is doing and other topics arise in relation to God’s actions.102 We shall return to this below. We must regard the ‘political apology’ view as inadequate, for it omits too much important data, as we have repeatedly indicated. The greatest difficulty of this view is that, if one of Luke’s primary purposes was to persuade Roman officials of the harmlessness of Christianity, he has been far too subtle to succeed and has included far too much extraneous material. More than that, his presentation of Roman officials is far from flattering, particularly his portrayal of Pilate’s involvement in the death of Jesus. The fact that Paul is regularly a cause of civil unrest in cities he visits would not commend Christianity to Roman officials charged with maintaining the pax Romana – indeed, Acts ends without any verdict on Paul’s case. Nor would the presence of a Zealot among Jesus’ disciples add to these officials’ sense of security. Moreover, the claims that Jesus was ‘another king’ (Acts 17.7), ‘lord’ and ‘saviour’ made repeatedly in Luke–Acts would clash with Caesar’s claims to these titles. A subsidiary part of this view is often that Luke is presenting Christianity as a sub-species of Judaism; in view of the distance which 101.  See above, p. 82. 102.  It is noticeable that θεός is the commonest verbal subject in Acts (63 times in the singular); note esp. Acts 11.17-18; 14.27; 15.4, 7-8, 12, 14; 16.10; 21.19. The Lukan themes of fulfilment and God’s plan are both suggestive for this point also; see David Peterson, ‘The Motif of Fulfilment and the Purpose of Luke–Acts’, in Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke (eds), The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting (BAFCS, 1; Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), pp. 83-104; John T. Squires, The Plan of God in Luke–Acts (SNTSMS, 76; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); idem, ‘The Plan of God in the Acts of the Apostles’, in I. Howard Marshall and David Peterson (eds), Witness to the Gospel: The Theology of Acts (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 19-39.



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Luke at times places between Jews who believe the gospel and those who oppose it, we may nuance this point to say that it is likely that Luke is presenting Christianity as the true Judaism. In common with Paul, Matthew and John (at least), Luke sees no future for Judaism which rejects its Messiah, Jesus. The ‘ecclesial apology’ view, which sees Luke–Acts as commending collaboration with the empire as the way forward, fails to account for material which is critical of the empire. Luke–Acts contains much which would damage the estimation of the empire in Christian eyes, including Pilate’s share in the death of Jesus and the continuing detention of Paul for four years, even though he was successively adjudged to be innocent by Roman officials Claudius Lysias, Felix and Festus. Further, we lack evidence that there were Christians acting provocatively toward the empire or awaiting its apocalyptic collapse, apart from the doubtful inferences drawn from Luke–Acts by Maddox and Walaskay.103 Esler’s ‘legitimation’ view is more nuanced and, at significant points, close to the truth. Luke is writing to offer assurance to his readers in their faith (Lk. 1.3-4).104 Whether that readership includes those outside or on the fringe of the church is debatable, but that it includes those inside the church is surely clear. However, we may doubt the likelihood of Esler’s scenario, that Luke’s congregation included a significant group of Romans for whom Luke is seeking to legitimate Christian faith in particular to demonstrate to them the compatibility of Christian faith with allegiance to the empire. First,105 Esler’s mirror-reading of Luke–Acts is at best speculative. Second, the presence of significant materials which stress the incompatibility of Christian faith with the ‘metanarrative’ claims of Caesar to supremacy suggests that Luke’s view is not as straightforward as this: Luke’s Jesus is Lord, king and saviour – all imperial titles – and his followers ‘must obey106 God rather than any human authority’ (Acts 5.29 NRSV; cf. 4.19-20).

103.  Esler, Community and Gospel, p. 209. Esler observes this blind spot in Walaskay and Maddox but apparently does not realise that he argues in the same manner in claiming that the presence of Roman officials presented positively in Luke– Acts implies that Luke’s church contained such people. 104.  See Loveday Alexander, The Preface to Luke’s Gospel: Literary Convention and Social Context in Luke 1.1-4 and Acts 1.1 (SNTSMS, 78; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. pp. 136-42. 105.  See above, pp. 81-82. 106.  Πειθαρχεῖν, a word which can connote political obedience, e.g., Aristotle, Politics 1262b3; Herodotus, Histories 5.91.1 (LSJ, p. 1353).

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Cassidy’s ‘allegiance-conduct-witness’ proposal represents a further level of nuancing and manages to fit more of the data in. His proposal that Luke writes to affirm and support his readers in their Christian faith by sharing his own faith agrees substantially with Esler’s view and is likely to be correct, providing that we understand it in the sense of assuring his readers of the truth of that which he writes (Lk. 1.3-4), rather than simply sharing his own story (as we might say). Given that Luke has such a concern for mission and witness – for God’s action to spread the gospel is one of the major themes of Acts beginning, programmatically in 1.8107 – it is likely that he writes in part to encourage the church of his day to preserve or recover a readiness to witness faithfully and to take risks in mission at God’s prompting. It is also likely that Luke realises that some of this testimony will be given under adversity, not least because he records Jesus as predicting this and the earliest Christians as fulfilling it (e.g. Lk. 12.4-12; Acts 20.19, 23-25, 28-31108). Cassidy is also correct in observing the high proportion of Luke’s narrative given over to Paul’s testimony before Roman officials. Nevertheless, Cassidy finds it hard to handle the preponderance of passages where Roman officials are presented kindly, even warmly, as fair, efficient and helpful to Paul. As we have seen, Luke chooses to present these people positively in significant cases, which suggests that he is not only seeking to help Christians facing pressure from the authorities, but also those dealing with friendlier versions of the ‘powers that be’. The ending of Acts, which presents Paul preaching ‘unhindered’ (20.31) in Rome, suggests a more positive view of the empire’s treatment of Christians than Cassidy leads us to expect. While Luke is by no means uncritically pro-Roman, he certainly does not portray the empire in a similar vein to Revelation, as the beast rising from the sea to oppose the people of God (Rev. 13). Rather, he sees the empire as a system through which God can and does work.109 This leads to a key criticism of Cassidy, which is that he seems to sub­ sume all of Luke–Acts under the heading of political and social issues.110 107.  Haenchen, Acts, p. 144, rightly observes, ‘As Acts presents it, the Christian Church is a missionary Church’ (italics his). Note the summaries at Acts 2.47; 5.42; 6.7; 9.31, 42; 12.24; 16.5; 18.11; 19.10, 20; 28.30-31, each identifying the growth of the church (or the word) as the focus of what God is doing. 108.  See discussion in Walton, Leadership and Lifestyle, pp. 87-89, 122-24. 109.  Cf. John M. G. Barclay, review of Richard J. Cassidy, Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987), SJT 42 (1989), pp. 577-79 (577). 110.  Cf. Robert F. O’Toole, SJ, review of Richard J. Cassidy, Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987), Bib 70 (1989), pp. 424-28 (427).



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Against this, we need to assert that Luke’s primary concern is with what God is doing by the Spirit and through the Christian community.111 Luke–Acts is focused on the progress of the word of God around the Mediterranean basin and, in this context, Luke is concerned with who God is (and thus Christology and pneumatology are central to his theology) and how to respond to God as he has now revealed himself in the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah. How, then, might we summarise Luke’s view of the empire in this context? 4. Proposal We may summarise the view of Luke’s presentation of the Roman Empire by a series of affirmations. First, Luke writes purposively when he writes about the Roman Empire, and not merely descriptively. He tells his stories of Christians, and particularly Paul, relating to the empire to help his readers see what shape Christian discipleship in relation to the empire might take in their day. The prologue to the Gospel suggests this strongly (Lk. 1.3-4). Second, Luke offers a variety of perspectives on Christian relations with the empire. When the empire is friendly and acting justly, Christians can expect the state to allow them freedom to bear witness to Jesus and to speak ‘unhindered’. For this situation, models include the eighteenmonth period in Corinth either side of the hearing before Gallio (Acts 18.1-18a), the two years or more in Ephesus of (relatively) peaceful ministry (19.1-22) and the visit to Malta (28.1-10) – to say nothing of the closing scene in Rome (28.30-31). Luke’s presentation of the innocence of Paul and Jesus of the charges against them would encourage Christians to live at peace with the authorities as far as it lay with them to do so. When the empire behaves thus toward Christians, Robbins’s view that the relationship of church and Caesar is symbiotic has much to commend it, as does his claim that in such situations Christians work by negotiation with the Roman authorities. But Luke does not have a romantic, idealised view of the empire. He is well aware that Christians can be harassed, persecuted and arrested for their witness to Jesus, both officially and unofficially. In such situations the examples of Jesus, Peter and John, Stephen, James the brother of Jesus, and Paul offer pictures of faithfully maintaining the ‘good confession’ (cf. 1 Tim. 6.12-14) in some cases leading to deliverance and in some 111.  See n. 102. I shall argue this in extenso in a commentary on Acts which is in progress.

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to punishment or even death.112 The repeated emphasis on the innocence of the Christians and of Jesus shows that Luke’s readers should not fight with the enemy’s weapons, whether violence or falsehood, but rather that they should offer testimony to Jesus in similar manner to Peter and John, Stephen or Paul, relying on Jesus’ promise that the Spirit will show them how to speak (Lk. 12.11-12). With Paul, they should maintain their innocence (Acts 25.8), and with Peter and John they should ‘obey God rather than human beings’ (Acts 4.19; 5.29). Third, Luke underlines the supremacy of Jesus over Caesar. Luke’s prominent use of ‘lord’, ‘king’ (esp. Acts 17.7) and ‘saviour’ of Jesus is highly suggestive in this regard, for it highlights that Jesus, not Caesar, truly reigns. Thus – and supremely – the unjust execution of Jesus in which both Jewish and Roman authorities were complicit, was overcome and reversed by God in the resurrection.113 Luke also draws attention to God’s reassurances to Paul that he will stand before the emperor (Acts 23.11; 27.23-24) – both occasions coming when Paul’s circumstances would lead Luke’s readers to think the opposite might be the case. The evident climax of the book at Paul’s arrival in Rome underlines how God has kept his word. Throughout Luke–Acts God works his purposes out, whether or not he receives human co-operation, and those purposes are not ultimately frustrated; hence (e.g.) he rescues Paul and Silas from prison in Philippi (Acts 16.25ff.), and he enables Stephen to be faithful to death (Acts 7). The greatness of God’s power is an encouragement to Luke’s readers to keep trusting God, for he is at work and his purposes will come to fruition in spite of human opposition. In sum, Luke offers his readers a strategy of critical distance from the empire. He thus falls at both ends of the spectrum we sketched between Romans 13 and Revelations 13. Where co-operation and mutual respect are possible, Christians should do nothing to harm those; where the empire or its representatives turn against the church, the believers’ stance is to be twofold: to call the state back to its former ways and to bear faithful witness to Jesus. The church is to live in the knowledge that, just as its Lord suffered injustice from the empire and was vindicated, so the church of the Lord will be able to withstand by the same ‘good confession’.

112.  Cf. Bond, Pontius Pilate, p. 147. 113.  Note the use of passive voice forms of ἐγείρω with God as subject and Jesus as direct object in evangelistic speeches, e.g. Acts 3.15; 4.10; 5.30; 13.30.

W ho S p ea k s f or ( or a gai nst ) R ome ? A ct s i n R el at i on to E mpi r e * Matthew L. Skinner

Scholarship on the political outlook of the Acts of the Apostles is in a messy state right now. No clear consensus has emerged about what the book’s political outlook actually is, although that is to be expected. Rather, the real messiness resides here: there seems to be no widespread, dominant, coherent understanding about what it means to explore the ways in which Acts is embedded in and participates in its ancient political settings. The nature of the inquiry itself remains undecided. The complexity and ambiguity of Acts as a narrative, to say nothing of the persistent uncertainty regarding the book’s provenance, contributes to the state of affairs. Justifiably, then, all parts of Acts now receive scrutiny from scholars interested in these questions. This has not always been the case. Also, many methodological choices present themselves for use in contemporary scholars’ toolboxes, leaving the workbench rather crowded. Of course, the presuppositions that drive these methods and the findings that they generate also vary, making it difficult to keep track of and evaluate all the projects. Yet interpreters of Acts should consider any mess that has arisen as a positive, creative mess. We find ourselves currently in a situation in which scholars are pushing beyond some of the longstanding questions, methods and assumptions that have governed, and perhaps stunted, inquiries into Acts and the Roman Empire. Scholars are trying out various hypotheses for how best to analyse the book’s sense of the early Christian movement’s relationship to, or estrangement from, the empire. In this case, I mean ‘trying out’ in the most salutary sense of the phrase. As most artists, inventors, young children and other creators can attest, messiness and experimentation are usually the prerequisites of breakthroughs. *  I am grateful to Eric D. Barreto for reading an early draft of this paper and offering me counsel.

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On the whole, scholarship is making progress – not ‘progress’ in the sense of obliterating variety or approaching a single solution that will clean everything up and put the question to rest once for all, but ‘progress’ in scholarly fecundity and in the ability to articulate a complex issue and name its many dimensions. This essay surveys some of the claims that previously and especially more recently have been staked regarding how to understand Acts in relation to the Roman Empire. It begins by revisiting Steve Walton’s oft-cited 2002 essay, ‘The State They Were in: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire’, and then offers an update in the same orienting spirit of that important study.1 Like Walton did nearly fifteen years ago, I take stock of the current landscape of scholarship on the political outlook of Acts, aiming to lend clarity to the methodological alternatives and to offer several proposals for advancing the discussions into the future. As much as possible in a limited space, I refer to individual passages from Acts to make the proposals more focused or concrete and also to identify specific places in Luke’s narrative that might inform the conversation to follow.2 Like most status quaestionis overviews, this one must paint with broad strokes. 1. Where We Have Been Just as Acts begins by renarrating and adjusting the final scene in the Gospel according to Luke, I take the liberty of beginning this sequel to Walton’s essay with a very brief overview of that previous essay’s structure and claims. In doing so I aim to highlight what I consider the most essential or durative elements of Walton’s presentation. Walton identifies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Lukan scholarship five general approaches to the question of how Luke–Acts shapes its readers’ perspectives on the Roman state and the threats or advantages Rome might pose in its relationship to Christianity.3 1.  Originally published in Peter Oakes (ed.), Rome in the Bible and the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002), pp. 1-41; reproduced in pp. 75-106 of this volume. 2.  I limit the scope of this essay to the Acts of the Apostles. No one should infer from this focus that I consider the question of how Acts regards the ancient Roman political context as entirely separate from the question of how the Gospel according to Luke does so. 3.  I occasionally use the term Christianity for simplicity’s sake, even though I acknowledge it is anachronistic as a reference to the communities and messages associated with Jesus’ followers in the book of Acts.



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The primary focus of the first two of these five views is more apologetic than political. By that, I mean both views reflect scholarship that concerns itself with how Acts equips ancient readers to anticipate or avert specific forms of conflict.4 But these two views nevertheless make their proposals for understanding the apologetic purposes of Acts in response to exegetical observations that see Acts presenting the Roman Empire as essentially nonthreatening to Christian vitality and the church as willing to cooperate with Roman authority and imperial values. That is, the proposals are apologetic proposals derived from how scholars assess the political claims made in Acts. The first view, clearly the dominant one over the long arc cut by historical-critical scholarship – and the one that many Acts scholars still encounter with regularity in conversations with specialists in other religious or theological disciplines, those who assume the issue was settled long ago – characterizes Luke the author’s agenda as accommodationist or conciliatory: that is, the Christian message and the churches that articulate it pose no harm to Rome’s interests or to Rome’s survival. This view persists, with some contemporary biblical scholars continuing 4.  The term apologetic has become difficult to define, for it requires significant nuance. I use it here merely to note that the first two of the views sketched by Walton focus on equipping readers to defend themselves and their faith in a context of conflict or legal challenge. For more on apologetic and Acts, see, e.g., Todd Penner, ‘Civilizing Discourse: Acts, Declamation, and the Rhetoric of the Polis’, and Gary Gilbert, ‘Roman Propaganda and Christian Identity in the Worldview of Luke–Acts’, in Todd Penner and Caroline Vander Stichele (eds), Contextualizing Acts: Lukan Narrative and Greco-Roman Discourse (SBLSymS, 20; Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 65-104 and 233-56; Loveday Alexander, ‘The Acts of the Apostles as an Apologetic Text’, in Mark Edwards, Martin Goodman and Simon Price (eds), Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 15-44; Vernon K. Robbins, ‘Luke–Acts: A Mixed Population Seeks a Home in the Roman Empire’, in Loveday Alexander (ed.), Images of Empire (JSOTSup, 122; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1991), pp. 202-21; Alexandru Neagoe, The Trial of the Gospel: An Apologetic Reading of Luke’s Trial Narratives (SNTSMS, 116; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 4-21. Friedrich W. Horn provides additional orientation to past Western scholarship (covering the final decades of the twentieth century) in ‘Die Haltung des Lukas zum römischen Staat im Evangelium und in der Apostelgeschichte’, in Joseph Verheyden (ed.), The Unity of Luke–Acts (BETL, 142; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1999), pp. 203-24 (212-15). For his part, Horn argues that Luke–Acts displays a grundsätzlichen Tendenz of political apologetic, even as his contemporaries’ scholarship convincingly demonstrates the literary dynamics of Luke–Acts to be more complex than earlier interpreters recognized (see p. 204 n. 3).

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to find it defensible.5 They characterize Acts as pro-Roman or willing to accommodate the claims and authority of the empire. Acts tells Rome (or Acts tells ancient readers, so they will communicate it to their neighbors and officials across the empire) that Christ’s followers willingly and eagerly play by the rules. Just like Jesus in Luke, in Acts his followers are consistently innocent of charges leveled against them, as even multiple Roman officials themselves recognize throughout the latter half of Acts. Henry Joel Cadbury, Hans Conzelmann and Ernst Haenchen have probably been the most influential proponents of this position.6 The second view, exemplified most clearly in Paul Walaskay’s landmark study in 1983, rearranges the issue. The outlook on the empire in Acts is again conciliatory according to Walaskay, but in his view Acts persuades its wary readers that Roman rule is safe, nothing for the church to fear. Roman officials and the systems they manage (especially the legaljuridical world) can be trusted to treat Christians fairly when the Romans abide by their own rules. According to this interpretation, Acts maintains that it is Jesus’ and the church’s influential Jewish opponents who have caused trouble for the Christian mission and stirred up dissent or public disturbance.7 5.  For a recent example, see Shelly Matthews, Perfect Martyr: The Stoning of Stephen and the Construction of Christian Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 37-43. Craig S. Keener, in his comprehensive commentary on Acts, puts an apologetic purpose operating in Acts in the foreground in front of questions about how Acts regards the Roman Empire. He sees in Acts no indication that Jesus’ followers represent a movement that, on its surface at least, threatens political subversion or harm to social order. Especially important to Keener is the pattern of Roman officials who see Paul as essentially harmless. See Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (4 vols.; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012–15), pp. 435-58. 6.  For bibliography and other notable proponents of this view (including such notables as Burton Scott Easton and F. F. Bruce), see Walton, ‘State’, pp. 2-4 (pp. 76-78 in this volume). Following other scholars, Walton observes this perspective as far back as C. A. Heumann in the eighteenth century. Walton does not mention Haenchen in this discussion, but I believe he belongs in this camp and among its most influential members (see Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary [trans. Bernard Noble, Gerald Shinn, Hugh Anderson and R. McL. Wilson; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971], pp. 106, 693). 7.  For bibliography, see Walton, ‘State’, pp. 5-6 (pp. 78-80 in this volume). As Walton notes, Vernon Robbins follows a similar line, reading Acts as endorsing the prospect of church leaders fostering symbiotic ties with Roman authorities. For Robbins, the message Acts conveys is: what’s good for church is good for state, and vice versa. Walton also includes Robert Maddox in this general category, insofar as Maddox suspects that Acts addresses Christian audiences that saw (or courted) martyrdom in their future.



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The third perspective, which Walton roots in Philip Esler’s book Community and Gospel in Luke–Acts, also has Acts telling its ancient readers that belonging to the church is fully compatible with allegiance to the empire.8 Both spheres or institutions recognize the legitimacy of the other; they share values. One can faithfully and honorably serve both God and Caesar. Roman soldiers and officials can join the Way without conflict or mixed loyalties.9 Esler sees Acts as conciliatory, insofar as its vision of Christianity commends and reflects certain Roman values, such as antiquity. The fourth view, the one among the five that is the most distinctive and perhaps a forerunner to more recent scholarly proposals, is Richard J. Cassidy’s. Cassidy advances it in his book Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles, tending carefully to the many scenes of conflict and public disturbance we read about in Acts.10 For Cassidy, Acts presents a ‘nondeferential’ church, a portrayal that equips readers to expect that their own witness, if done faithfully and following Jesus’ own pattern, will generate friction that will result in legal trouble from sometimes unappreciative and occasionally abusive imperial officials.11 More so than most of his predecessors in the field, Cassidy takes the violence, abuse and neglect perpetrated by Roman officials as definitive and as symptomatic of a more widespread Roman disease. His methods are largely literary and redactional, although he too speculates about the conditions of Luke’s earliest audiences and the author’s purposes for writing to them, both in a general sense and with a focus on the hazards that come with living faithfully to the gospel in the Roman world. 8.  Philip Francis Esler, Community and Gospel in Luke–Acts: The Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (SNTSMS, 57; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). 9.  Walton’s overview rightly notes the flaws and speculative aspects of Esler’s position on Luke–Acts, especially regarding the books’ presumed historical circumstances and the challenges facing Luke’s original audiences. Walton also includes Ben Witherington and Helen K. Bond in this category with Esler (for bibliography, see ‘State’, pp. 7-8 [pp. 81-82 in this volume]). For a recent study that aims to buttress the idea of Acts as providing apologetic legitimation, see Joshua Yoder, Representatives of Roman Rule: Roman Provincial Governors in Luke–Acts (BZNW, 209; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014). 10.  See discussion in Walton, ‘State’, pp. 9-11 (pp. 82-84 in this volume). Walter E. Pilgrim also belongs in this category; see his Uneasy Neighbors: Church and State in the New Testament (OBT; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), pp. 125-43. 11.  Richard J. Cassidy, Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987), p. 143.

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Walton’s fifth group of scholars concludes that Acts has no interest in talking about the Roman Empire or shaping readers’ perspectives on navigating life within Roman rule. He puts Eric Franklin (whose work I will return to later) in this category, as well as the more influential Jacob Jervell.12 For Jervell, Acts is about the spread and proclamation of the gospel. The Roman Empire, for all its strength, proves essentially powerless to impede this advance and so it poses no real concern to Luke. When Jervell describes interactions between Christians and imperial officials, he says Acts presents the church as ‘politically harmless, no threat to the state’; further, ‘Rome is not only just and powerful; Rome can abide the Christian message’.13 In many ways, and probably more by coincidence than cause, the publication of Walton’s essay marked the onset of the arrival of new approaches to the study of the political outlook in Acts. Walton did not set out to invalidate the five categories, but his essay added needed clarity to the discussion at a time when the terrain was beginning to grow messy. It is not obvious that the essay foresaw what scholars would propose between 2002 and now, but in retrospect Walton appears to have anticipated some aspects of what did indeed follow. Walton’s own views constitute part of what came next, and they form what is essentially a sixth category in his essay, a view that characterizes Acts as operating at a ‘critical distance from the empire’.14 He takes seriously the violence and injustice carried out against the church (and against others) in Rome’s name. Walton notes other critical or antagonistic overtones, emphasizing the book’s consistent attempts to 12.  See Walton, ‘State’, pp. 11-12 (pp. 84-85 in this volume). 13.  Jacob Jervell, The Theology of the Acts of the Apostles (New Testament Theology; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 134; see also Paul W. Walaskay, ‘And So We Came to Rome’: The Political Perspective of St. Luke (SNTSMS, 49; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 63. Even if it risks oversimplification, it is fair to say that in Jervell we hear echoes of Conzelmann’s and Haenchen’s interpretation of ambivalent Roman officials in Acts, but Jervell denies Acts having a specific apologetic function directed to ancient Christians to help them navigate life within the empire. 14.  Walton, ‘State’, p. 35 (p. 106 in this volume). For Walton’s evaluation of the five positions and details of his own proposals, see pp. 29-35 (pp. 101-6 in this volume). Walton further develops his proposal about the mixed messages Acts gives about the empire in a subsequent essay about Paul’s juridical challenges in Acts (‘Trying Paul or Trying Rome? Judges and Accused in the Roman Trials of Paul in Acts’, in David Rhoads, David Esterline and Jae Won Lee [eds], Luke–Acts and Empire: Essays in Honor of Robert L. Brawley [PTMS, 151; Eugene: Pickwick, 2011], pp. 122-41).



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assert Jesus’ supremacy over the emperor as the true ‘Savior’, ‘Lord’ and ‘King’, terms that resonate with Roman propaganda and thus declare within the imperial setting ‘an alternate vision of universal authority’.15 Yet Walton also cautions against overestimating two things: first, scholars’ ability to determine too much about the circumstances or identities of Luke’s original audiences and, second, the Roman Empire’s importance in Acts, given that the story focuses primarily on God’s activity and God’s resolve to work out God’s purposes. Regarding this second point: sometimes in Acts the empire’s agents simply provide opportunities, usually unwittingly, for God’s purposes to be accomplished (as in Philippi, Ephesus, Malta and Rome), although Walton does not categorize this tendency as necessarily threatening or a form of antiimperial rhetoric. He identifies the accent on God’s power as a means by which Acts reassures Christian disciples, not necessarily as a criticism of Rome’s abuses or an aggressive yearning for Rome’s come-uppance. Walton seeks to let a tension remain unresolved: depictions and language that characterize Roman power as flawed and depreciated, coupled with a theological vision that sets its ultimate concerns on other, almost transpolitical realities. Walton’s two cautions have proven quite durable over the last decade. At least, they mark a gradual shift in the scholarship: a shift away from excessive – and perhaps speculative – preoccupation with Luke the author’s historical audience and toward more nuanced consideration of what it means to read Luke’s politics in light of Luke’s theology. This does not mean everyone agrees with Walton, especially since his second caution contains within it the question of something that subsequent scholarship has shown to be a debated issue: whether or how Luke’s theological outlook might express a political vision that engages the Roman context directly and whether that engagement happens overtly or subtly. a. Developments since Walton’s Study Much has been proposed since 2002, keeping Walton’s five categories mostly descriptive of past scholarship rather than proscribing directions that subsequent scholars had to travel. And so my survey moves now

15.  Gilbert, ‘Roman Propaganda’, p. 255. Although Gilbert wrote after Walton and with no apparent connection, his study gives more weight to what Walton and others before him observe about Luke’s messianic and soteriological terminology. At the same time attention to κύριος and other key terms is not necessarily a brandnew proposal with regard to Acts; see, e.g., David L. Tiede, ‘Acts 1:6-8 and the Theo-Political Claims of Christian Witness’, WW 1 (1981), pp. 41-51 (44-45).

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to what followed Walton’s essay. A desire to limit this discussion to a reasonably sized foray instead of an exhaustive tour permits me to note only a few representative examples from the last dozen years. I must skip over others or leave them relegated to footnotes.16 Once upon a time, someone might have categorized Kavin Rowe’s monograph World Upside Down as a study of Lukan theology and not, strictly speaking, a study of Lukan perspectives on the ancient political setting. Rowe contends, however, that those topics are inseparable. This is not to say that Rowe finds a particular political theology on display in Acts. Rather, Rowe explicates a tension manifest in Acts between Luke’s vision of Christianity and the constructions of the surrounding (polytheistic) culture; what we encounter in Acts are, at root, ‘competing realities’.17 Lukan theology reorients basic cultural assumptions across the Greco-Roman landscape, rendering sociopolitical institutions and conventional values essentially insignificant or surpassed, from the church’s perspective. Rowe asserts that an ‘apocalyptic’ theology operates in Acts, constituted by the church’s claims about Jesus as the κύριος of the world, by the church’s universal mission, and by new (set-apart) Christian communities that sprout up throughout Acts. As Rowe sees it, an ‘apocalyptic’ Christianity entails an entirely new cultural vision established by God. It is not merely a political alternative to the Roman Empire; it is an altogether new society with an altogether different kind of king.18 Since the realization of this new theological and social vision must mean the end of certain Roman foundations (honors to the emperor and worship of other deities, to take obvious examples), the Roman world experiences the church’s multifaceted witness as destabilizing and anti-imperial. But 16.  Not only is the discussion limited to representative examples, it also limits itself to scholarship that directly and explicitly engages questions about how Acts views the Roman state. Missing, then, are plenty of works that investigate how Acts may be adapting and reconfiguring the literature, forms and symbolism that gave shape to Roman identity. Consider, for example, the work of Dennis R. MacDonald and also Marianne Palmer Bonz’s The Past as Legacy: Luke–Acts and Ancient Epic (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000). These types of studies certainly pose implications for scholars’ explorations of how Acts regards and perhaps criticizes or reasserts Rome’s values and assumed prerogatives. 17.  C. Kavin Rowe, World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 91. Rowe’s argument manifests similarities to the conflicting message that Walton sees in Acts, as Walton describes in ‘State’ and as I reviewed above. 18.  See, similarly, Loveday Alexander, ‘Luke’s Political Vision’, Int 66 (2012), pp. 283-93.



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from the church’s perspective, what is occurring is merely the in-breaking of new theological realities. Rowe further contends that Acts does not purport to establish a new Christian ‘empire’ that mimics Rome and its hegemonic tendencies, insofar as the church’s mission in Acts rules out coercive tactics as inconsistent with the heart and origins of its good news. Kazuhiko Yamazaki-Ransom also views Lukan theology as the route into an understanding of Luke’s political outlook.19 For him, Acts crafts the Roman officials according to familiar ways of rhetorically branding outsiders (akin to how ancient Jewish texts treat gentile authorities). The officials thus provide something like foils to the book’s ecclesiology. They, through their negative portrayals, accentuate God’s determination to see the divine plan to its fulfillment. Thus, Acts exhibits a negative outlook on the empire, not because of Rome’s abusive behavior or because of the arrogant claims and prerogatives it inculcates into human societies, but because imperial officials and other opponents of the gospel exemplify rebellion against God. Acts does not draw attention to the political world in which the church travels in order to condemn Rome qua Rome; Acts does so, instead, to declare more generally the futility of any rebellion, since no form of it can derail God’s purposes. My own work on Paul’s extended legal travails in Acts 21–28 contends that Luke’s theological outlook effectively minimizes claims about Roman prerogatives and thereby presents the Christian gospel as a corrosive force, one potentially destabilizing to Roman interests.20 I mostly agree with Eric Franklin’s exegetical observations that Acts is primarily a story about God’s persistence and that in Acts constellations of Roman 19.  Kazuhiko Yamazaki-Ransom, The Roman Empire in Luke’s Narrative (LNTS, 404; London: T&T Clark International, 2010). In describing Yamazaki-Ransom as focused on the theology of Acts, I do not imply that his work neglects historical inquiry. Far from it, for he carefully studies how contemporary literature may have influenced Luke’s own writing and theological framework. Cf. a much older contribution, by Douglas R. Edwards, which describes ‘an unstoppable, non-subversive religion’ at work in Acts, as well as a narrative description of Roman apparatuses compelled to participate in an overarching order, namely the reign of God (‘Surviving the Web of Roman Power: Religion and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles, Josephus, and Chariton’s Chaereas and Callirhoe’, in Alexander [ed.], Images of Empire, pp. 179-201 [187]). 20.  Matthew L. Skinner, ‘Unchained Ministry: Paul’s Roman Custody (Acts 21–28) and the Sociopolitical Outlook of the Book of Acts’, in Thomas E. Phillips (ed.), Acts and Ethics (New Testament Monographs, 9; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2005), pp. 79-95; idem, The Trial Narratives: Conflict, Power, and Identity in the New Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), esp. pp. 151-55.

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authority are coopted to assist in achieving divine purposes. But – and here I depart from Franklin – I find this phenomenon and the many stories about Jesus’ followers disturbing the Roman peace to contain subtle yet weighty sociopolitical implications, too.21 These implications, I contend, run counter to claims that Acts portrays a separate society that cannot be considered a political alternative to Roman society. Rather, Paul’s message, activities and preservation in Acts imply a power at work within a political network, particularly since aspects of Paul’s custody prove to contravene Rome’s efforts to manage an empire through protecting its sociopolitical interests. Paul’s trial (as well as other aspects of Paul’s public ministry in Acts 13–19) is a drama about the manipulation of Roman power at some of its highest levels, involving military tribunes, governors (procurators) and a client king. This drama stages a cultural contest, replete with competing and overlapping propagandas; the contest asks what true jurisdiction looks like and who possesses it.22 The trials are not merely legal; they are also about acceptability and power, for they reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a larger society.23 These details constitute a key element of the larger question about how Acts regards the Roman Empire. The gospel on display in Acts not only denies this particular empire its authority to exercise jurisdiction; it denies that Rome finally even possesses power or right to exert its presumed authority. To commandeer is to subordinate. As Demetrius the silversmith recognizes (Acts 19.23-41), to subordinate 21.  See, e.g., Eric Franklin, Christ the Lord: A Study in the Purpose and Theology of Luke–Acts (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1975), p. 138: ‘Luke does not suggest that God’s final action inaugurated by (Christ’s exaltation) will win over the Roman state. What he does maintain is that the Roman state is compelled to co-operate in something greater than itself, that God uses it to achieve his purposes.’ Franklin appears not to see in this the potential for Acts to deliver political critique. Cf. Jervell, Theology, p. 134. 22.  On propagandistic elements, see Gilbert, ‘Roman Propaganda’, p. 255. 23.  Because of this, scholarship surrounding this topic cannot satisfy itself with seeking answers about whether specific Roman officials in Acts should be labeled as either kind or self-serving, either fair or corrupt. Analyses must also take seriously what it means when Roman strength finds itself unable to restrict Jesus’ followers from what they have been called to do, as seen when the incarcerated Paul exercises substantial control over his circumstances and continues to bear witness to Jesus Christ. This inability that plagues the officials in Acts extends beyond Roman governors; similar things occur in Acts 4–5 when the Jerusalem priestly aristocracy repeatedly finds its tactics of threat, violence, coercion and incarceration useless for inhibiting the apostles’ public ministry.



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is potentially to humiliate and to undermine – and therefore to threaten, even if the threat does not present itself with revolutionary rhetoric or ambitions. Acts issues a warning, then, to any institutions or social groups that would choose tyrannizing tactics over the ethics inscribed in the gospel. When Roman functionaries do, Acts infers that the Roman Empire itself – and not just its leaders – has no clothes. A 2008 chapter by Brigitte Kahl urges readers to consider the delicate circumstances surrounding the writing of Acts.24 It would have been a risky project for Luke or anyone to write a history of the church’s expansion through the Roman Empire, including encounters with high-profile Roman officials, during the post-70 world. For this world, as the Christian movement experienced it, was a context replete with distrust and ongoing threats of violence. Kahl sees mixed messages in Acts: the book describes a Christianity compatible with the Roman order, yet a Christianity that also makes bold claims about Christ’s and not Caesar’s lordship.25 Acts neither indicts nor affirms the empire, as much as it reveals multiple narratives or ‘scripts’ at work. These scripts promote a sanitized public version of Christian history, yet one also marked with residue from more subversive elements of the nascent Christian movement. Keeping an eye on the historical setting after the destruction of the temple, Kahl concludes Luke was not a pro-Roman shill, but his writing betrays the struggles the ancient church faced – or, perhaps, the adaptations it made – in ensuring its long-term security in a potentially unwelcoming political environment, all while determining how to articulate its faithfulness to a savior who died ignominiously on a Roman cross. Postcolonial biblical criticism has expanded the conversation along a number of angles, proving especially helpful in making sense of the mixed messages and tensions that many have detected in Acts. These modes of criticism remind us that the narrative’s ambivalent outlook is not necessarily a problem to be resolved, and that we must consider various ways of reading a text before making claims about how it ‘views empire’. Inquiries using these methods to examine the relationships between texts and power have underscored and given greater definition to what was already clear to most interpreters: Acts offers a complex 24.  Brigitte Kahl, ‘Acts of the Apostles: Pro(to)-Imperial Script and Hidden Transcript’, in Richard A. Horsley (ed.), In the Shadow of Empire: Reclaiming the Bible as a History of Faithful Resistance (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), pp. 137-56. 25.  Her reading of these dynamics bears similarities to Walton’s, as described above.

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literary landscape, thereby creating a complex interpretive landscape. That landscape includes a complex and variegated sociocultural terrain with complex imperial realities, meaning that the early church could not choose between simply placating or resisting certain expectations, as if those two options were the only ones available. The ground between compliance and defiance necessarily involves careful and even ambiguous footwork, footwork that easily lends itself to varied conclusions among interpreters who seek to trace and characterize it.26 An explicitly postcolonial lens leads Margaret Aymer to find examples of colonial mimicry in Acts and in the history of its interpretation, meaning that colonized subjects find themselves called in Acts 1.8 to export into faraway lands what Aymer calls a ‘new imperial message’.27 But Aymer and other postcolonial interpreters also take seriously the ways in which Acts has been read through history, particularly among communities of African American audiences, to challenge totalizing impulses and to support liberative, anti-imperial movements.28 Contributions like Aymer’s beckon scholars to devote more energy to the role of reception history in their proposals. Eric D. Barreto’s scholarship on how Acts depicts ethnicity offers another example of postcolonial categories’ ability to reveal the early Christian movement’s potential to destabilize Roman power.29 Acts provides multiple examples of hybridity – that is, a person’s or group’s ability to occupy a variety of ethnic and cultural identities (and loyalties) 26.  See, e.g., Virginia Burrus, ‘The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles’, in Fernando F. Segovia and R. S. Sugirtharajah (eds), A Postcolonial Commentary on the New Testament Writings (New York: T&T Clark International, 2007), pp. 133-55. Burrus surveys the groundwork for applying postcolonial methods to Luke–Acts and notes that the history of interpretation has greatly underestimated the potential for Luke–Acts to criticize and mimic empire. Her commentary does not offer as much in terms of specific proposals or conclusions, however. 27.  Margaret Aymer, ‘Acts of the Apostles’, in Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (eds), Women’s Bible Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 3rd edn, 2012), pp. 536-46 (539). 28.  See also Demetrius K. Williams, ‘The Acts of the Apostles’, in Brian K. Blount (ed.), True to Our Native Land: An African American New Testament Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007), pp. 213-48. 29.  Eric D. Barreto, ‘Crafting Colonial Identities: Hybridity and the Roman Empire in Luke–Acts’, in Adam Winn (ed.), An Introduction to Empire in the New Testament (SBLRBS; Atlanta: SBL, 2016), pp. 107-21. For a detailed exposition of hybridity’s theoretical foundations and a thorough analysis of ethnic discourse in Acts 16, see Eric D. Barreto, Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (WUNT, 2/294; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010).



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at the same time. For example, Paul presents himself, depending on the circumstances, as either a Ἰουδαῖος, a citizen of Tarsus or a Ῥωμαῖος. By inhabiting various identities and privileges (or liabilities), Paul can, depending on the needs of any given circumstances, claim greater affinity with or greater distance from the empire’s totalizing and hegemonic means of defining hierarchies of belonging and exclusion. This dynamic highlights not only Paul’s craftiness as a literary protagonist but also the nature of an emerging Christian movement that hospitably embraces differences among its members and thereby embodies a new society that resists colonial tendencies to order, define and thus control imperial subjects. If the Roman Empire must claim and exercise such hegemonic authority, then it could find this new religious movement able to elude its imperial power to control or to coopt. Other interpreters, such as Seyoon Kim and Drew Strait, criticize these newer proposals about anti-imperial rhetoric and theology in Acts – even while they sometimes agree with certain exegetical observations – and they contend that Rome remains simply incidental in Acts. Often following in Jacob Jervell’s trajectory, they argue that Luke’s horizon is eschatological in the sense that the characters in Acts remain uninterested in realizing the political realities of God’s reign in the here and now, which means for these interpreters that Acts presents no real discernible or noteworthy outlook on the nature of the Roman Empire, or any other empires for that matter.30 b. The State of the Question How, then, has this rapid survey depicted the state of the question as a messy state? It has traced the numerous avenues along which recent scholarship travels and noted that some diverge sharply from others, while others converge, and still others circle back to familiar places. These avenues follow a variety of trajectories, compelled not only by historical questions. Their methods also devote themselves to literary, theological, postcolonial and reception-history concerns. The conversations generated by this scholarship have launched many explorations – very productive 30.  Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), pp. 151-90; Drew J. Strait, ‘Proclaiming Another King Named Jesus? The Acts of the Apostles and the Roman Imperial Cult(s)’, in Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica (eds), Jesus Is Lord, Caesar Is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2013), pp. 130-45. Kim’s analysis in particular follows closely in Jervell’s footsteps and operates, I believe, from a very restricted definition of what counts as ‘political’ action or a ‘political’ perspective.

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explorations – but they have not yet been collectively mapped. Acts scholarship still awaits the emergence of a kind of shared vocabulary and parameters for this discourse. Acts scholarship also awaits a clearer consensus of whether there are certain methodological, historical or literary questions that absolutely must be accounted for in any sustainable or comprehensive attempts to address this issue. If it appears that Acts has arrived late to the party hosted by empire studies, perhaps this is because Acts has had to travel a more challenging road to get there than other New Testament books have. What has made the road challenging? For one thing, so much of the long, dominant history of interpretation labeled the book as either accommodationist or disinterested in political matters, making Acts perhaps an unattractive subject for more nuanced empire-critical approaches. Second, the uniqueness of Acts among the contents of the New Testament in terms of its genre, its purposes and its source-critical and redaction-critical challenges may have kept it an outlier. Third, Acts has so far lacked an empire-criticism champion who has devoted sustained and prolific attention to Acts in the way that Warren Carter, Neil Elliott and Richard A. Horsley (to name just a few examples) have done with other New Testament writings.31 2. Where We Are Now Where should the discussions go from here? Based on the generative spaces to which scholarship has taken this topic in the last decade and a half, I offer six brief observations and proposals. First, as Walton notes in his 2002 essay, there are sharp limits to what anyone can deduce about Luke the author’s original readership and their specific circumstances, limits that inquiries into the political outlook of Acts must acknowledge better than they have in the past.32 The narrative dynamics of Acts, the general cultural setting of the broader Roman world, and the individual locales that appear as settings in Acts offer the most fruitful places to seek evidence on which to base scholarly proposals about Acts and politics. Those who reassert the older apologetic 31.  To name only one representative work from each of these authors: Warren Carter, Matthew and the Margins: A Sociopolitical and Religious Reading (Maryknoll: Orbis, 2000); Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008); Richard A. Horsley, Hearing the Whole Story: The Politics of Plot in Mark’s Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001). 32.  Walton, ‘State’, p. 30 (p. 102 in this volume).



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arguments would do well to restrain proposals about what can be discerned regarding exactly what Acts might have equipped ancient readers to do or to withstand. Consider, for example, the question of how to characterize the charges brought against Paul and Silas in Acts 16.20-21 and Paul’s public shaming of the Philippian magistrates in 16.35-39. Proposals must still look deeply into the historical context of Philippi and the rhetorical potential of the colony’s ancient reputation, finding useful evidence to consider without making it serve posits about Luke’s earliest readers actively contemplating their own looming prosecutions or persecutions. Second, if it was not obvious already fifteen years ago (as I am sure it was), the relatively recent rise of empire studies and the expanded applications of postcolonial biblical criticism have made it quite clear that discourse about ‘Rome’ and ‘empire’ too often remains prone to reductionism. The complexities deserve greater attention. Roman presence and privilege would have been experienced and depicted quite differently in colonial Philippi in comparison to off-the-tracks Lystra, for example. The dynamics of the Acts narrative appears to reflect such complexities, given the diverse sermons, diverse rhetoric and diverse types of controversies the book describes across a wide array of cultural contexts. At the same time, the diversity in Acts has its limits. For example, readers rarely receive opportunities to move beyond merely superficial references to characters of low social status; those with more social clout get much more attention from the narrator.33 The specific details involved in negotiating imperial realities obviously look different for various people in various settings, as James Scott demonstrates in his influential book Domination and the Arts of Resistance. The misdirection that a subordinate group in an imperial setting must employ to preserve its values or survival depends on the situations it encounters and those situations’ inherent risks.34 Exegesis and overarching proposals about Acts must respect this and account for the variety while not flinching at ambivalence.

33.  Regarding social status: the various characters identified in Acts as ‘highstanding’ (εὐσχήμων) or ‘first’ (πρῶτος) may offer interesting subjects for considering the book’s understanding of Christianity’s relationship to the Roman Empire. See James M. Arlandson, ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Christian: Women, Wealth, and Social Freedom’, in Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 155-70 (155-58). 34.  James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 136-82.

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A corollary to this second point, this caution against oversimplification, is a caution against interpreters’ tendencies to find in Acts neat divides between anti-imperialist heroes and oppressive villains. Reception history promises to provide a helpful means of illuminating how Acts can prompt (and indeed has prompted) both resistance to and accommodation of imperial-colonial environments – sometimes simultaneously. Recall that no other New Testament book puts faces on imperial representatives to such a degree, naming names (e.g., Gallio, Felix, Drusilla and Festus) and allowing some officials to appear as more than flat characters. No other New Testament book provides as much detail about specific conflicts, which are mostly juridical in nature, as Acts does when powerful imperial figures directly engage the book’s main (Christian) protagonists. In these many scenes, with their detail and relative nuance, Acts should remind interpreters that all kinds of persons, not just accused prisoners, employ strategies to negotiate the imperial world. The appearance and brief characterization of Herod Agrippa II (Acts 25–26) signals to knowing readers that Paul is not the only cultural hybrid on this stage. If the church’s ‘resistance’ to the empire proves tricky to map in the narrative, so too does the empire itself, insofar as Agrippa represents ‘Rome’ with a measure of multidimensionality. Agrippa may be presented to readers in these scenes as a ‘king’, and his time in the spotlight may be a climactic moment for the Lukan narrative about Paul, but a nuanced understanding of the identity and position of the historical Agrippa requires interpreters to admit that a variety of pressures and negotiations are taking place in this narrative and in the figures and political circumstances it describes.35 Third, the scholarly output has widened in the last decade or so from inquiries into ‘Rome’ (which typically rely heavily on historical and comparative analyses) into wider questions about ‘empire’, generally construed (which require expertise in ideological analyses and the findings of sociology and semiotics).36 I welcome this widening and find it mostly helpful for making sense of Acts not only in academic contexts but in ecclesial ones, too. Yet the widened methodological scope requires 35.  Agrippa II certainly presents readers with a more nuanced identity than his father (Herod Agrippa I), who appears in Acts 12 to round out Peter’s story. Both, however, contribute to the book’s conceptions of empire and its powers. 36.  For an example of a study that leans toward a rather abstracted notion of empire, exploring how language constructs empire at a symbolic level, see Christina Petterson, Acts of Empire: The Acts of the Apostles and Imperial Ideology (SinoChristian Studies Supplement Series, 4; Chung Li, Taiwan: Chung Yuan Christian University, 2012).



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scholars to strive for greater precision about how Roman power and Roman agents in Acts might function in their particularity and also how they extend beyond this historical particularity. For when these figures are taken as more representative characters, rhetorically more expansive than merely stock Roman officials, they make Acts criticize other constellations of power, beyond Rome. Gallio the proconsul (Acts 18.12-17) offers an interesting test case for this in his lack of jurisdictional curiosity and his passivity and apparent disdain during the beating of Sosthenes.37 Does the sordid and aloof nature of Gallio’s imperium make him simply a villain inhabiting first-century Corinth, or does it make him betray a widespread, timeless imperial preference for violence and capriciousness when empires deal with difference within an occupied population? Fourth, there are reasons to question many of the sharp distinctions that some Acts scholars have drawn between the church’s conflicts with Jewish opponents and its conflicts with Roman opponents.38 When it comes to the opposition that Paul (and Peter before him) faces from members of the Jerusalem sociopolitical establishment, one cannot draw stark lines between, on one hand, the governor and his military officers (such as Claudius Lysias) and, on the other hand, the high priest and other members of the priestly aristocracy. These groups’ interests intersected, as Luke’s earliest readers probably readily knew; both groups represent forms of Roman authority, although in distinctive ways.39 Whether investigating the opposition to Peter and others in Acts 4–5 or the opposition to Paul in Acts 21–28, scholarship must seek greater precision in its discourse about who or what counts as Roman, who or what represents imperialism and who or what is Jewish.40 37.  See further Walton, ‘Trying’, pp. 126-32. 38.  I have Jervell and Walaskay in mind here, as well as – although to a lesser degree – Yamazaki-Ransom. 39.  Skinner, Trial Narratives, pp. 17-19; Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, A.D. 66–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 36-44, 110-13. 40.  This point also calls interpreters to consider how topics pertaining to ‘Acts and Judaism’ relate to those under the umbrella of ‘Acts and politics’. Of course, the matter of how Acts depicts the church’s power or powerlessness vis-à-vis the wider Jewish population (and the church’s embrace or rejection of wider Judaism) remains another topic with no clear consensus among scholars and none coming on the visible horizon. Relating these modes of inquiry for the sake of understanding the book of Acts is hardly a unique challenge; consider other New Testament books such as Matthew, Romans and Revelation – all of which urgently beg interpreters to consider the church’s imperial setting in light of the books’ dispositions toward (or within) Judaism.

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Fifth, some recent studies in this field have set their scopes broadly enough to include the full range of the Acts narrative, not merely the book’s scenes of accusation and apologia, and not merely scenes involving face-to-face meetings between disciples and recognized authorities.41 The larger, comprehensive cultural vision(s) put forth in Acts deserves continued attention, for it is rooted in the whole of the book’s narrative rhetoric. Scholars also do well to continue looking carefully at those scenes of public accusation that frame conflicts in which questions of propriety, law and belonging are most obviously up for debate.42 Sixth, recent scholarship has made it appear impossible now to consider how Acts contributes to discourse about politics and empire apart from also considering the theological message that Acts advances.43 This might sound like an obvious statement, but I believe it represents a significant departure, at least in terms of methodological execution, from some of the formerly dominant proposals reviewed in Walton’s essay. Most of the inquiries since Walton’s essay that I sketched above make a similar point. To illustrate, I simply note that the scenes of most intense conflict and most suspenseful indecision occur when the church’s main activity – namely, the propagation of the gospel – occurs in settings purportedly under strict Roman control. These are scenes especially from the second half of Acts in which Jesus’ followers provoke responses from recognized officials. What kind of theology is at work in a story about a God whose word or good news has deep, transformative and maybe even manipulative effects on the culture it encounters? What kind of God does this, according to Acts? Is it accurate to speak of a totalizing ‘apocalypse’ 41.  This is in my view, a particular strength of Rowe’s approach in World Upside Down. 42.  The legal questions and scenes are, in my mind, still vitally important subjects for additional scholarly analysis. For too long, studies of the juridical scenes in Acts have relied on unsubstantiated speculations about first-century provincial legal procedures and a sometimes uncritical reliance on A. N. Sherwin-White’s rather brief and occasionally derivative study Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963). 43.  Here I simply assume rather than make a vigorous case that Acts has a theological message. I explore the theological dimensions of Acts in a book addressed to popular audiences: Matthew L. Skinner, Intrusive God, Disruptive Gospel: Encountering the Divine in the Book of Acts (Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2015). It strikes me as odd when some deny that Acts is concerned with describing God and God’s activity. Those deniers appear to be operating with a very narrow definition of what counts as ‘theology’ (e.g., Bruce J. Malina and John J. Pilch, Social-Science Commentary on the Book of Acts [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008], p. 10).



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of God on display in Acts? With what means and toward what ends do Jesus’ followers in Acts respond to shaming circumstances or attacks? Those theological questions seem essential to consider before asking what kind of empire, with or without its consent, can become a vehicle through which such a God accomplishes God’s purposes. What kind of empire cannot abide the newness Acts describes – a newness created not by a visible king or political usurper but by a church talking about and embodying Jesus Christ? What are the various implications, according to Acts, when God ignores, manipulates or subverts this (or any other) empire, not through bald coercion, but through displays of power (as in Philippi in Acts 16), in stubborn persistence (as in Paul’s extend trial throughout Acts 22–28), and even despite suffering horrible loss (as in James’s execution in Acts 12)? Good scholarship has been done on these fronts, and it will surely continue. 3. Conclusion If indeed the question of How should we situate Acts in relation to discourse about politics? is currently in a messy state, we need not expect that greater productivity and maybe even increased clarity in future scholarship will clean it up. Not only can the messiness lead to salutary outcomes down the road, the methodological messiness also may accurately reflect the reality of what it studies. Postcolonial critics, theological interpreters, those who deny Acts is even concerned about the Roman Empire, some historical critics – in all, a variety of interpreters have found Acts a book that exhibits meaningful tensions and resists simplistic solutions. Following the conventions of ancient historiography and in line with what makes for a compelling narrative, Acts tells its story with a multidimensionality and inconsistency – forms of messiness themselves, perhaps – that lend verisimilitude to that story.44 If the book tells a tale of the church’s resistance, it may also turn out to be a story that valorizes the church, that implicates the church, or that does both. If the book describes Jesus’ ascendency, it could also tell the story or either Rome’s downfall or Rome’s irrelevance. The point is not that Acts supports any and every interpretive proposal, but that scholarship’s ongoing efforts should not expect the disentangling of the book’s perspectives to be any easier than it is for scholars to disentangle their own sociopolitical realities.

44.  Daniel Marguerat, The First Christian Historian: Writing the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ (SNTSMS, 121; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 1-25.

P a ul a n d R om a n L aw : ‘T h e L u c k of t h e D raw ? ’ Bruce W. Winter

The statue type that still symbolises the administration of the law is that of the Roman goddess Justitia. Traditionally she was blindfolded with a set of scales in her right hand, one side symbolising truth and the other lies. In her left hand she holds a sword typifying the judge’s role administering punishment to the guilty party. This portrayed the impartiality of the administration of Roman law with the judge weighing the arguments of the accuser and the accused. In its day Roman law was remarkable in its aim to shape the lives of its citizens in its vast Roman Empire. It covered not only criminal and civil matters, stipulating legal protocol, but also all aspects of life requiring obligations to others under ‘The Laws of Obligation’.1 Almost five decades ago J. A. Crook, a former Professor of Ancient History, University of Cambridge amply demonstrated this last important nexus in his landmark monograph, Law and Life of Rome.2 However comprehensive Roman law was and however much its protocol was admired in terms of its due processes, its first-century deficiencies emerge in Acts in terms of a breach of processes and abuses in its official administration. Rome appointed governors in its provinces primarily to administer criminal law on their annual assizes to its major cities. In the JulioClaudian era they possessed the power to prosecute and punish capital 1.  R. Zimmermann, The Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition (Oxford. Oxford University Press, 1996). 2.  J. A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome, 90 BC–AD 212: Aspects of Greek and Roman Life (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1967). His insights are affirmed in his Festschrift: P. McKechnie (ed.), Thinking Like a Lawyer: Essays on Legal and General History for John Crook on his Eightieth Birthday (Mnemosyne Supplements, 231; Leiden: Brill, 2002).



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offenders (ius gladii).3 There were exceptions when Rome conferred the status of ‘freed and allied city’ (civitas libera et foederata), for example, Thessalonica and Athens,4 where it fell to its magistrates to administer Roman criminal law rather than governors. It will be argued that the actual administration of Roman law recorded in the book of Acts did not measure up to Rome’s propaganda and its sophisticated processes and impartiality, with only one exception – the preliminary hearing of the Jews versus Paul before Gallio in Corinth (18.12-16). This comes as no surprise. A. Z. Bryen has assembled evidence from primary sources to show how the administration of Roman law could be the luck of the draw. He demonstrates how powerful provincials in the Roman East knew how to manipulate legal protocol and procedures to their own advantage. Proconsuls could likewise use the legal office for personal or political ends while in some cases the sheer overload of cases created a backlog that was very difficult to remedy.5 It is proposed in this chapter to restrict the discussion to an examination of the book of Acts to see what can be gleaned about the administration of Roman law in relation to Paul in Philippi, Thessalonica, Corinth and finally Caesarea Maritima. It will show the lack of consistency in the Roman East providing examples of Roman law being breached, infringed, enforced and finally invoked by Paul. It will also suggest on the basis of the legal proceedings recorded in Acts that the phrase ‘without hindrance’ (28.31) at the very end of Acts justifies the view that there still remained no legal impediment to being or becoming a Christian in light of the cases recorded there. 1. Roman Law Breached in Philippi Philippi was a Roman Colony and while not all its residents were Roman citizens, its laws and due processes certainly applied to everyone who lived there. Acts records that the magistrates punished Paul and Silas with 3.  P. Garnsey, ‘The Criminal Jurisdiction of Governors’, JRS 58 (1968), pp. 51-59 (52, 55). 4.  A. Lintott, Imperium Romanum: Politics and Administration (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 36-41, for a discussion of a ‘free city’ under the Romans. See also pp. 147-48 for evidence of the same status for Athens. On the issue of concern regarding the possible loss of status or some other penalty imposed by the governor of the province for riotous behaviour, see Acts 19.35-41 esp. v. 40. 5.  A. Z. Bryen, ‘Judging Empire: Courts and Culture in Rome’s Eastern Provinces’, Law and History Review 30 (2012), pp. 771-811.

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flogging and imprisonment (16.22). This began because of the exorcism Paul performed on a slave girl who was a fortune-teller hounding him and bearing witness that Paul and Silas were servants of the Most High God proclaiming the ways of salvation (16.17). Her owners were incensed as she was their source of income and thus dragged Paul and Silas into the Agora where a formal charge was laid as the preliminary step to initiating a legal action (16.19). The charge was that Paul and Silas, who were ‘Jews’, were advocating customs that were illegal for Roman citizens to accept and practice (16.20-21). Instead of establishing whether there was a case to answer and thus initiate due legal processes, the magistrates along with the crowd inflicted physical punishments on the accused before the allegations could be heard in court. Had due legal processes been observed, Paul and Silas would first have faced their accusers before a formal hearing. There they would have listened to the charges against them and made their defence before judgment was passed by the magistrates and appropriate punishment meted out if they were found guilty under Roman law. In fact, Acts later records Festus the governor of Judea indicating the legal process: ‘It is not the custom of the Romans to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face and had opportunity to make his defence concerning the charge laid against him’ (25.16). Even more astonishing, the magistrates had actually put them in the ‘inner prison’ and the jailer ‘fastened their feet in stocks’ (16.23). The following day the magistrates issued instructions to the jailer, whose conversion occurred during the night, that both men were to be released (16.25-34). He conveyed the ‘decision’ of the magistrates to Paul and Silas to release and expel them. Paul’s response indicates the failure of the magistrates to observe the due legal processes: ‘They have beaten us publicly, uncondensed, men who are Roman citizens and do they now throw us out secretly?’ (16.37). The magistrates by their actions were admitting de facto that they had breached the Roman legal processes. Paul demanded a face-toface apology and ‘they released them and asked them to leave the city’ (16.39). Thus Acts records the admission of clear breaches of Roman law for political reasons by those responsible for observing due processes, followed by an official apology to Paul and Silas. 2. Roman Law Infringed in Thessalonica Thessalonica under the Romans had been awarded the status of ‘a free city’ (civitas libera) and was not under the jurisdiction of the Roman governor of the province in the way that others cities were. Therefore it



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was within the remit of its most senior elected officials to act in the legal capacity of the governor. This may well explain the immediate move by the officials to deal with Paul and Silas. The accusation was that these two men were among the notorious, known Jewish revolutionaries opposed to Roman rule and undermining the pax Romana. It was alleged ‘the ones who have turned the world upside down’ (οἱ τὴν οἰκουμένην ἀναστατώσαντες) ‘these also have come here’ (οὗτοι καὶ ἐνθάδε πάρεισιν) (17.6). It was against such that Claudius had given a warning to the Alexandrian Jews at the very beginning of his reign in AD 41. They were to avoid at all costs ‘certain Jews from Egypt and Syria’, who rejected Roman rule and sought support for their revolutionary cause from their compatriots. Hence the emperor’s dire warning that they were not to invite in as allies or approve of (μηδὲ ἐπάγεσθαι ἢ προσίεσθαι)6 Jews who come down the river from Syria or Egypt, a proceeding which will compel me to conceive serious suspicions; otherwise I will by all means take vengeance on them as fomenters of what is a general plague infesting the whole world.7

There were good grounds, therefore, for identifying them as ‘the ones who have turned the world upside down’ and as ‘fomenters of…a general plague’ that Claudius saw as infesting the whole of his empire, namely, ‘the [Roman] world’. Paul and Silas had declared in the synagogue that ‘Jesus is the Messiah’ who had been crucified and raised from the dead. The charge by the Jews was therefore not unwarranted, given the Jewish messianic claim of kingship. This charge is explicated with the accusation of ‘plotting against the decrees of Caesar’ (ἀπέναντι τῶν δογμάτων Καίσαρος πράσσουσιν) (17.7).8 It indicates not just one but a plurality of official ‘decrees’. It is significant that the reason for the implied rejection of Roman imperial decrees is explained as ‘saying there is another king, Jesus’ (βασιλέα ἕτερον λέγοντες εἶναι Ἰησοῦν) (17.7).

6.  The verb ἐπάγεσθαι is used to describe ‘to bring in, invite as aiders or allies’ and προσείεσθαι used in the passive ‘to be like’, i.e., ‘to identify with’, ‘to approve’. 7.  P. Lond. 1912, lines 96-99. 8.  The verb πράσσω has a number of meanings, including ‘plotting’ or ‘passing over’ with the latter meaning ‘only found in the present’ according to LSJ, s.v. §I. Also ἀπέναντι ‘against’ with the genitive ‘opposite’, with LSJ, s.v. who also cite Acts 17.7. A clear rejection of the decrees is implied.

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Different opinions have been expressed as to which decrees were being referred to.9 However, there is an important link between the initial accusation of rejecting imperial decrees and the explanation that immediately followed. It was a long-standing literary as well as a legal convention to begin official imperial decrees by indicating the emperor’s name followed by his titles. One common feature of official imperial decrees was that all used not only the name of the emperor issuing the decree but also his titles including ‘a god’ followed by the phrase ‘a son of a god’, and then the term ‘imperator’ was added. The Greek equivalent for the Latin term was αὐτοκράτωρ that is rendered in the English as ‘emperor’ i.e., ‘king’.10 Augustus used it as his praenomen – ‘Imperator Caesar’ – rather than ‘Caesar Imperator’, which had been chosen by his predecessor, Julius Caesar. It was used by all subsequent emperors. As a consequence of endorsing a rival king it is understandable why Christians could be seen to be rejecting not only the divine, imperial titles but ipso facto the validity of all official imperial decrees and their jurisdiction over them, since they were sent by emperors from Rome, in this case, by Claudius. The Jewish charge was clearly related to Paul’s declaration in their synagogue that Jesus was the Messiah. Given the explanation for this charge (17.7), it is explicable why the Christians could be accused of over-riding the validity of imperial decrees per se as their opponents saw them as being subject not to Claudius’s jurisdiction but to that of a rival king, Jesus, and his ‘decrees’, and as having abandoned their former allegiance. It was being alleged that they were guilty of high treason. Acts records the officials’ responses to the crowd shouting allegations against Jason and ‘some of the brothers’. It notes that ‘having taken the surety’ (καὶ λαβόντες τὸ ἱκανόν) ‘they released them’ (καὶ τῶν λοιπῶν ἀπέλυσαν αὐτούς) (17.9).11 Some have argued that the term refers to a 9.  E.g., E. A. Judge, ‘The Decrees of Caesar in Thessalonica’, in his The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays (ed. J. R. Harrison; WUNT, 299; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), Chapter 32, and Justin K. Hardin, ‘Decrees and Drachmas at Thessalonica: An Illegal Assembly in Jason’s House (Acts 17.1-10a)’, NTS 52 (2006), pp. 29-49, have argued for a particular Roman decree. 10.  For evidence of titles of Nero, see the bilingual decree from him in Latin and Greek, M. P. Charlesworth, ‘Nero’, in Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Claudius and Nero (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1939), no. 4. 11.  In the legal semantic domain the term ἀπολύω means ‘to release’, as elsewhere in Acts where Agrippa tells Festus that Paul could have been released had Paul not already appealed to Caesar (Acts 26.32). The latter term ‘to release’ is used elsewhere in Acts in legal contexts where there was no case to answer or to proceed with (3.13; 4.21, 23; 5.40; 16.35-36; 28.18).



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bribe. However, under Roman law a ‘surety’ was certainly not a bribe but rather an integral part of the legal processes.12 Under the section ‘Criminal Proceedings’ in The Digest, ‘surety’ was given if the reputation of the persons was such that they would not be expected to break their word as a matter of honour.13 It was also the case in Roman law that ‘a person prepared to give sureties should not be put in chains’.14 While no reason is given for not proceeding with a trial in the Acts account, it is suggested this city with its special status as ‘a free city’ would have wanted Paul and Silas out of the way after this public and illegal incident and any case against Jason and other Christians not proceeded with. The magistrates had clearly acted politically and not within the parameters of Roman law in this very serious allegation. Given their special status as a city they may have done this in case the matter came to the attention of the governor of Macedonia, and Rome might have withdrawn their privileged status. They de facto infringed Roman law by not proceeding with the case because of the allegation of treason. Instead they took surety and ‘released’ (ἀπέλυσαν) Paul and Silas on condition of them leaving the city.15 3. Roman Law Enforced in Corinth In order to receive the best training in Roman law, Seneca the Elder sent his son, Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeus, along with his brother, Seneca the Younger, from Spain to Rome. Lucius became the proconsul of the province of Achaea whose capital was Corinth.16 Gallio later bore the 12.  I am grateful to Dr S. Butler, Director of Studies in Roman Law, St Edmund’s College, Cambridge for providing references in Roman law on ‘surety’ and his opinion that the reference in Acts 17.9 was not to a bribe but was part of its recognized process in criminal proceedings. On ‘Criminal Proceedings’ see A. Watson, The Digest of Justinian (4 vols.; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), vol. 4, book 48. 13.  Digest 48.3.1. 14.  Digest 48.3.3. 15.  BDAG p. 117 ἀπολύω §1 provides ample evidence of its use ‘[a]s a legal term’ meaning to ‘grant acquittal’, ‘release’. 16.  Seneca the Younger was appointed the personal tutor of young Nero. For a detailed discussion of both brothers’ roles in Rome see my ‘Gallio’s Ruling on the Legal Status of Early Christianity (Acts 18.14-15)’, TynBul 50 (1999), pp. 213-24, and subsequently ‘Rehabilitating Gallio and his Judgement in Acts 18.14-15’, TynBul 57 (2006), pp. 291-308 as a response to the late J. Murphy-O’Connor’s negative view that he overlooked some of the extant primary evidence in his St Paul’s Corinth (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 3rd edn, 2002), pp. 168-69.

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prestigious title conferred by Claudius of ‘Friend of Caesar’ and after his time in Corinth became Nero’s herald when he returned to Rome.17 Gallio’s expertise in Roman law is revealed in the Acts account. After the accusers laid before him their case that ‘this man [Paul] persuades men to worship God contrary to the law’ (18.13), and before Paul could give his defence, Gallio gave his ruling – there was no case to answer. Normally the governor was presented with a petition outlining the charge against the accused, and he then deferred the full hearing of the case to a later date, giving him time to evaluate the charge to see if there was a legal case. However, Gallio immediately ruled there was no case to answer (18.15). Paul was not guilty of ‘a felony’ (ἀδίκημά) or of ‘a political misdemeanour’ (ῥᾳδιούργημα πονηρόν) under Roman law (18.14). The term πονηρόν had political connotations.18 The choice of language in Gallio’s ruling at this point suggests that the Jewish charge concerning the worship of God contrary to Roman law was meant to point to the fact that the issue was a criminal one. The other term ῥᾳδιούργημα implied some misdeed or villainy. Gallio made it clear to the accusers that if their charge could be sustained under Roman law, he would institute legal proceedings – ἀνεσχόμην was a technical legal term and the phrase κατὰ λόγον in 18.14 refers to the legal grounds for a charge.19 He gives his considered judgment, stating that the issue before him related to ‘subjects of dispute’ or ‘claims’ (ζητήματα). Gallio summarizes their case as relating to three legal issues, περὶ λόγου καὶ ὀνομάτων καὶ νόμου τοῦ καθ᾿ ὑμᾶς. The term λόγος is used to refer to ‘a debate’, ‘an argument’, ‘a law’, ‘a rule of conduct’ or ‘a declaration of legal immunity’ (18.15).20 The Jews had a ‘legal immunity’ in relation to the observation of the imperial cult, although they themselves offered sacrifices for the emperor in Jerusalem but not to him.21 One argument 17.  See the Dephi inscription, and also his favourable standing with the Emperor Claudius, as ‘Caesar’s friend’; cf. SIG3 vol. 2, pp. 492-94 (§801); and Seneca the Younger, Dialogues 12.7. 18.  See LSJ, πονηρός. 19.  For the use of this phrase to describe the legal basis for proceeding, see LSJ, λόγος §III.b. 20.  See this additional classification of λόγος in the Revised Supplement to Liddell and Scott (Oxford: Clarendon, 1996), s.v. §VII.6, citing Justinian, Nov. 17.6, Edict 2 pr. 21.  M. H. Williams, The Jews among the Greeks and Romans (London: Duckworth, 1998), p. 91; and my ‘Adopt, Adapt, Abstain: Jewish Responses to Divine Honours’, in Divine Honours for the Caesars: The First Christians Responses (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), Chapter 5.



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in the petition could have been that Paul’s group did not qualify for such immunity, given its racial composition and Paul’s abandoning of the synagogue declaring there ‘from henceforth I will go to the Gentiles’ (18.6). The second term ὀνομάτα sometimes means ‘names’ as the opposite to a real person, ‘false names’ or ‘pretexts’ or ‘terms’. If the word refers to ‘terms’ in this context, then Gallio sees it as an internal dispute over words.22 ‘[Under] Roman law a person was held liable for actions and not for any name they professed’.23 This may well account for the fact that Christians were subsequently charged with crimes that involved actions.24 Gallio’s judgment enunciated an important principle of Roman law that would have precluded proceeding with a criminal action. Gallio also ruled that the matter concerned ‘law, your own’ (νόμου τοῦ καθ᾿ ὑμᾶς). Two observations are made in connection with this ruling. First, the Jews apparently did raise in their petition the issue of circumcision, i.e., that Paul did not teach it. Circumcision was a widely accepted distinguishing feature of the Jews, and although repugnant to the Romans who equated it with castration,25 it nevertheless functioned as an effective racial identification marker.26 Secondly Gallio in declaring that it was an issue concerning ‘your own law’, was drawing a clear distinction between the Jewish law and that of the Romans. Breaches of the latter, the Jews alleged, constituted the grounds of Paul’s guilt. Gallio, in giving this judgment, clearly rejected the essence of their charge that Paul had breached Roman law by ‘persuading people to worship God contrary to the law’ (18.13). What is to be made of Luke’s assessment that ‘none of these things were a concern to Gallio’ (οὐδὲν τούτων τῷ Γαλλίωνι ἔμελεν) (18.17), and to what does the plural genitive demonstrative pronoun ‘these’ (τούτων) refer? Gallio ruled that the Jews’ dispute with Paul was related to words

22.  Dio Chrysostom, Or. 15.32: ‘our argument (λόγος) shows that it is not the philosophers who misuse the terms (ὀνομάτα)’. 23.  W. Cotter, ‘The Collegia and Roman Law: State Restrictions on Voluntary Associations’, in John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson (eds), Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World (London: Routledge, 1996), pp. 74-89 (82); and O. F. Robinson, The Criminal Law of Ancient Rome (London: Duckworth, 1995), p. 17. 24.  For the history of this see most recently M. Sordi, The Christians and the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 1994). 25.  Robinson, Criminal Law, pp. 51-52. 26.  Suetonius, Domitian 12; Martial 7.82.

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and names and their own law, and as a result ‘I myself am not minded or willing to be a judge with respect to these (τούτων)’ (18.15).27 The legal remit of Gallio as governor had already been defined before Paul’s accusers – ‘a felony’ (ἀδίκημα) or ‘a political misdemeanour’ (ῥᾳδιούργημα πονηρόν) under Roman law (18.14) but that clearly was not the case in this initial hearing of proposed prosecution. It could therefore be argued that the demonstrative pronoun τούτων in 18.17 refers to the issues raised by the Jews in their legal petition because their charge would not stand up in court. If this is the case, then Luke ends the narrative by underscoring the importance of Gallio’s refusal to proceed because the Christians had committed no legal infringement of Roman law. The other grammatical possibility that is normally assumed, i.e., the referents of the plural demonstrative pronoun, are the actions of ‘seizing’ and ‘beating’ Sosthenes where the neuter refers to these actions, which is a common koine Greek usage. What was the reason for this in the Corinthian forum? There are a number of possibilities. It is known that leading Roman citizens would be followed by their clients into the forum and operated as loyal supporters of their patrons in the realm of politeia. Those standing around saw the dismissal of the Jews’ case in the Roman criminal court as an opportunity to demonstrate their support for the emperor’s recent anti-Jewish decree recorded by Luke – ‘because Claudius had commanded all Jews to depart from Rome’ (18.2) – hence their beating the new leader of the synagogue. Would this better resonate with the role of clients who would gather with their patrons around the tribunal and the general expectation that good citizens of Roman colonies demonstrated their loyalty to the emperor’s policies? Roman colonies were after all clones of Rome. Another suggestion is that this response was typical of urban uprisings in the Roman world. Hubbard has canvassed evidence for this from ancient sources in order to show that ‘no special hypothesis of racial animosity is needed to account for this sudden eruption’.28 He states: A plausible historical reconstruction of the critical moments beneath the tribunal is not difficult to imagine. Following Gallio’s abrupt dismissal of the suit against Paul, lectors move in, rods in hand, and begin to forcibly eject the (already agitated) plaintiffs, focusing on the leader of the throng, 27.  The referents of the neuter demonstrative pronoun in 18.15 are clearly ‘words, names and your own law’ (λόγου καὶ ὀνομάτων καὶ νόμου) – the masculine and neuter plural genitive demonstrative pronoun is τούτων. 28.  Moyer V. Hubbard, ‘Urban Uprisings in the Roman World: The Social Setting of the Mobbing of Sosthenes’, NTS 51 (2005), pp. 416-28 (426).



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Sosthenes. Tempers flare so Sosthenes is bullied from the front and pulled from behind; undoubtedly he pushes back in both directions. The market layabouts join the kerfuffle, which quickly degenerates into fisticuffs, with Sosthenes now getting it from both sides. Gallio hardly notices; he has already moved on to other business.29

Given his incisive legal ruling on the nature of the charges brought by Paul’s accusers, there was no breach of Roman Criminal Law. Therefore it was not within his legal remit as the Roman governor and the case was closed in accordance with the due procedures under Roman law. Thus it could be of no further legal concern to him as governor of the province. 4. Roman Law Breached in Caesarea Maritima The circumstances that led to the Jews’ criminal action against Paul’s trial before the Roman governor, Felix, in Caesarea Maritima, were succinctly summarized in the document from Claudius Lysias that accompanied the large security escort (23.25-29). Under Roman court processes the accused was entitled to have certified copies of any legal documents associated with his case. Claudius Lysias’s letter commences with a copy of one such document. It begins ‘writing a letter, this copy…’ (γραψας ἐπιστολη ἕξουσαν τὸν τύπον τοῦτον). Liddell and Scott in their Greek–English Lexicon render τύπος as ‘the text of a document’ and specifically cite Acts 23.25 as an example.30 It was a copy of one of the legal documents that the accused was entitled to have. Claudius Lysias to the most excellent governor Felix, greetings. This man was seized by the Jews, and was about to be slain of them, when I came upon them with the soldiers and rescued him, having learned that he was a Roman. And desiring to know the cause wherefore they accused him, I brought him down unto their council: whom I found to be accused about questions of their law, but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or imprisonment. (23.26-29)

It was only five days after Paul arrived that Ananias, along with some elders, arrived in Caesarea Maritima and the case was opened. Tertullus, their ‘lawyer’ (ῥήτωρ), made the accusations in keeping with Roman 29.  Hubbard, ‘Uprisings’, p. 427. 30.  See G. H. R. Horsley, New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity: A Review of the Greek Inscriptions and Papyri Published in 1976 (North Ryde, NSW: The Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University 1981), pp. 77-78, for a discussion of this.

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legal protocol (24.2-6, 8).31 He commenced with the ‘introduction’ (exordium) (vv. 2-4) in which the competence of the judge to hear the case was presented. This was known as the captatio benevolentiae. It was followed with the contents of the charge, the narratio (vv. 5-6), then the confirming evidence, the confirmatio (v. 6). The essence of the case was then summarized in the conclusion, the peroratio (v. 8). After this the witnesses would give their testimony (v. 9). This presentation would be taken down verbatim in shorthand and reproduced as part of what were called ‘Official Proceedings’.32 Paul’s defence is also presented in keeping with legal protocol, as a form-critical analysis indicates. He began with his introduction (exordium), v. 10, and the facts of the case (narratio), vv. 11-12. Then followed his refutation (refutatio) of the charges made by his accusers through their lawyer, vv. 13-18. In his conclusion (peroratio, vv. 18-21), Paul draws attention to a major legal failure by his accusers that meant under Roman law the case technically should not proceed. ‘But some Jews from Asia – whom it was necessary for them to be before you and to make an accusation (οὓς ἔδει ἐπὶ σοῦ παρεῖναι καὶ κατηγορεῖν), if they have anything against me (εἴ τι ἔχοιεν πρὸς ἐμέ)’ (vv. 18b-19). He then adds this important caveat that would have meant the hearing could legally proceed – ‘or else these men themselves must indicate what wrongdoing they found when I stood before the Council (ἢ αὐτοὶ οὗτοι εἰπάτωσαν τί εὗρον ἀδίκημα στάντος μου ἐπὶ τοῦ συνεδρίου)’ (vv. 20-21). The one issue he did affirm was that of the resurrection. This was a theological issue but not a breach of the law even though it caused a violent dispute among members (v. 21). In spite of the Jerusalem Council hiring ‘a lawyer’, Tertullus, for the criminal case in Caesarea Maritima (23.1-8), technically there was no case against Paul as the accusers were not there to lay charges.

31.  Some manuscripts have ‘and we would have judged him according to our law. But the chief captain, Lysias, came and with great violence took him out of our hands, commanding his accusers to come before you’ (24.7). 32.  For evidence of extant proceedings and a detailed form-critical analysis see my ‘The Role of the captatio benevolentia in the Speeches of Tertullus and Paul in Acts 24’, JTS n.s. 42 (1991), pp. 505-31, and a further discussion in my ‘Official Proceedings and Forensic Speeches in Acts 24–26’, in Andrew D. Clarke and Bruce W. Winter (eds), The Book of Acts in its Ancient Literary Setting (BAFCS, 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), Chapter 11.



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A fundamental principle in Roman law was actually referred to just before the resumption of Paul’s trial some two years later when the governor Felix was replaced by Festus who enunciated this (25.18b21). He stated to the chief priests and elders of the Jews on his first visit to Jerusalem who asked him to sentence Paul who was in detention in Caesarea Maritima ‘it was not the custom of the Romans to give up anyone before the accused met the accusers face to face [in court] and had the opportunity to make his defence concerning the charges laid against him’ (25.16). It is interesting that Lewis and Reinhold’s reproduction of ancient primary sources in ‘Rules of Evidence’ actually cites Acts 25.15 as an ancient source before referencing two other examples from Justinian’s Digest on this protocol.33 The delay of two years in resuming the case hardly reflected well on the way Felix exercised his judicial role as governor. He had granted some ‘liberty’ to Paul who shared the Christian message with both he and his Jewish wife concerning ‘righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment’, but he deferred further such discussion (24.24-26). The reference to Felix’s lack of self-control is explicable when cognizance it taken of the fact that the governor lived in a relationship with Drusilla, who divorced her husband to do so. She was the second of three queens he married.34 Felix was also recorded as having sought a bribe from Paul (24.27). In those instances where governors misbehaved thus in office it was not possible to bring them to justice during their term as governor. It was only after they left office and returned to Rome that they could be legally prosecuted. If found guilty then they would suffer damnatio that resulted in the official defacing of their name in inscriptions in their former province, but only to the point where it could still just be discerned by those who subsequently read them.35 In Felix’s case his brother intervened and Nero did not pursue the charge, according to Josephus.36 Another ancient source indicates that Felix confirms he was not an impartial governor nor did he enhance the reputation of Roman rule, given his cruelty.37 He did not in any way epitomise the ideal Roman governor’s 33.  See ‘Rules of Evidence’ in N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, Roman Civilization: Selected Readings (2 vols.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), vol. 2, no. 160. See also The Digest 22.3.2 and 22.5. 34.  Suetonius, Claudius 28 [see LCL edn, p. 58 n. b]. 35.  R. Syme, ‘C. Vibius Maximus, Prefect of Egypt’, Historia 6 (1957), pp. 48087. 36.  Josephus, Ant. 20.7.8-9. 37.  Tacitus, Ann. 12.54.

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legal role. He wore no blindfold as he was not an impartial administrator of justice – one of the blessings the pax Romana brought to the inhabitants of their vast empire. Soon after the arrival of Festus, the case against Paul was resumed in Caesarea Maritima. The chief priests and elders of the Jews had sought to have the hearing in Jerusalem, it being assumed by the author of Acts that they intended to assassinate Paul on his way back to Jerusalem to face trial as they had planned to do when he was being escorted to Caesarea (23.12-25; 25.1-6). Paul as a Roman citizen appealed to Caesar (25.6-12). Festus was now in a dilemma because he did not know what to write in the memorandum that would have to be sent to the emperor with all the other legal documents associated with the case. The issue, he saw, was not a matter of the infringement of Roman law but disputes ‘about their own religion and a certain Jesus’ (25.18-19). Festus stated he had ‘found that he [Paul] had done nothing worthy of death… But I have nothing definite to write to my Lord about him’ (25.25-26). A proconsul of Asia faced a similar challenge: Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, Proconsul [of Asia], to the magistrates, council and people of the Coans, greetings. I have often thought is necessary to present [to Augustus] those accusations which in my opinion may be deemed worthy of the divine judgment of Augustus and which are stipulated for the provincial governors, set out in the mandata [the emperor’s instructions to provincial governors]. As for this case, from your decree [name of appellant missing] made an appeal to Augustus, and I perceived that he did this as an abuse of the system. It is necessary, however, if an appeal is made to Augustus, that I look into the case first. But if it is made to me, it is sufficient for the present to take 2,500 denarii as surety in accordance with the edict issued by me on account of those who shirk trials. But if in this regard it does not come about…38

The outcome of Paul’s defence and his unsuccessful attempt to convert the king (26.28) was that both Festus and King Agrippa (whom Festus had invited to attend this further hearing) agreed that ‘Paul had done nothing worthy of death or imprisonment’ (26.31). King Agrippa also declared to Festus, ‘This man could have been set free if he had not appealed to Caesar’ (26.32). Compared with the behaviour of his predecessor, Festus presented himself as an impartial judge. However, he ought to have dismissed the case initially brought before Felix. Paul had rightly argued in his defence 38.  IGR, 4.1044.



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that a basic legal procedure had been breached. His accusers, the Jews from Asia, were absent from the initial hearing, and those present had to indicate what he had said before the Council in Jerusalem that had breached Roman law, as Paul argued in his defence (24.19-21). When Paul arrived in Rome after his hazardous journey from Caesarea Maritima he was under house detention awaiting the imperial hearing. Those in the first century would have seen his experience before Roman courts as ‘the luck of the draw’ but for Paul it was clearly an opportunity to use the two years’ wait for his trial before Nero to share the Christian message (28.16-28). In his letter written from Rome to the Philippians he records positively the fruit of his evangelistic efforts with the Praetorian Guard and other officials connected with the imperial household, a period that proved to be fruitful indeed. He concluded his letter to them, ‘All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s Household’ (Phil. 1.13; 4.27). 5. Acts’ Conclusion: ‘Without Let or Hindrance’ The ending of Acts carries a very important message to its recipient, Theophilus (1.1). It is seen in the concluding sentence – ‘preaching and teaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, unhindered (μετὰ πάσης παρρησίας ἀκωλύτως)’ (28.31). It was an ancient literary convention used by some authors, and it is suggested the author of Acts, to end abruptly with a single but highly significant word. The intention was to make the reader reflect back on an essential issue of the work.39 In this case the legal term ‘unhindered’ (ἀκωλύτως) indicated that there were no legal impediments under Roman law to becoming a Christian40 – to this day the legal phrase ‘without let or hindrance’ conveys the fact that there is nothing illegal. While the Christian message was consistently presented in Acts, the much-lauded system of Roman law certainly had not been administered impartially on occasions. It was used, misused or ignored as the evidence in Acts reviewed in this chapter has shown. Its administration by Gallio in Corinth was highly commendable, in other instances condemnable. Hence, Roman law and its protocols were not always among the blessings promoted by the Romans as having been brought to the inhabitants of 39.  For the literary device of abrupt endings to make the reader reflect on an essential issue see N. Denyer, ‘Mark 16.8 and Plato, Protagoras 328D’, TynBul 57 (2006), pp. 149-50. 40.  See P.Oxy. 1127 and 1641 (AD 68).

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their enormous empire as a part of the pax Romana. One could never be sure how it would be administered and whether justice would always be impartial, with a blindfold, scales and sword. What Acts records happened in different cities and provinces in the Greek East of the great Roman Empire. It resonates with the evidence that Bryen helpfully assembled. He suggests ‘we should focus primarily on law in practice, and in particular, on the exercise of rights’.41 In an earlier work Brunt produced evidence of forty cases of a Roman governor’s punishment of freedmen without a formal hearing.42 Acts certainly witnesses the fact that the advice given to proconsuls on their legal duties was not always adhered to. ‘On the Duties of a Proconsul’, The Digest spells out: It is the duty of a proconsul to be patient with advocates, but to do so shrewdly, so as not to seem contemptible: nor should he disguise his feelings on the point if he should detect people illegally participating in litigation… Accordingly, he is duty bound to watch that he has some system of ranking applications, and in fact to make sure that everyone’s request gets a hearing and that it does not turn or that while the high rank of some applicants gets its due and unscrupulousness gets concessions, middling people do not put in their requests, either having quite failed to find advocates or having instructed less well known ones, whose position is not one of any standing.43

This investigation on the administration of Roman law in Acts has shown that the subjects of the Roman Empire could not be sure that the law would be duly administered according to the legal processes of what came to be in later centuries a much admired system of jurisprudence. In terms of the iconic statue of Justice, the Roman scales were not always used to weigh the evidence according to innocence and guilt under Roman law and certainly not all governors wore the blindfold.

41.  Bryen, ‘Judging Empire’, p. 807. 42.  P. A. Brunt, ‘Charges of Provincial Maladministration under the Early Principate’, Historia 10 (1961), pp. 189-227. 43.  ‘Duties of a Proconsul’, Digest of Justinian 1.34 (Ulpian Book 10).

E mp oweri n g , E m p i r e - i n g or E ngagi ng ? A c t s i n t h e D i s c ou rs e of P oli t i cs : A R es p on s e Mikeal C. Parsons ‘Acts in the discourse of politics’ is a timely and important topic in contemporary Acts studies. The first two studies in this section, by Steve Walton and Matthew Skinner are, in my opinion, the best surveys available of where scholarship has been, where it currently stands, and hints of the direction(s) we may be headed in the future on the topic of Acts and Empire, or more broadly, as the title suggests, ‘Acts in the discourse of politics’. We are all grateful to have these two pieces together as a diptych illuminating the past and present state of scholarship on this subject. My first section touches briefly on these two essays; the second section takes up the issue of where Acts scholarship may be headed on this topic in the (near) future. 1. Acts and Political Discourse: Where We Have Been and Where We Are Now Steve Walton’s essay, ‘The State They Were In: Luke’s View of the Roman Empire’ (originally published in 2002), provides a taxonomy within which to locate previous approaches to Luke’s perspective on the relationship of Rome to early Christianity. Those earlier approaches ranged in their characterization of Luke’s attitude toward Rome from apologetic (whether as [1] an apology to Rome – the Christians are not subversives – or as [2] an apology to the Church – Roman rule is, and will be, just toward the Christians) to (3) conciliatory (Christians can be full participants in both church and state) to (4) uncompromising (believers faithful to Jesus’ teachings will run afoul of Roman rule) to (5) indifferent to discussing the relationship of early Christianity to the Roman Empire.1 Walton’s essay seems to me to a helpful and accurate state of affairs current to the 1.  Walton, pp. 76-85 in the present volume.

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time of its publication. Matthew Skinner, with slight modification, briefly and approvingly rehearses Walton’s categories. Skinner sees Walton’s essay as introducing a sixth category of ‘critical distance’ between early Christianity and Rome.2 Skinner then fills in the gap between the original publication of Walton’s essay and the occasion of his own contribution to this volume. Skinner proves a sure-footed guide over the rocky landscape of Acts and Empire, recalling some of the usual suspects in the debate as well as introducing some newer voices into the mix that consider political issues from the perspectives of postcolonialism and ethnicity.3 I have no quarrel with any of his descriptions: the ones I know are accurately and aptly summarized; the ones I am less familiar with are presented with lucid brevity. Skinner searches for the appropriate metaphor to describe the current state of affairs. This is typical of past Acts surveys in which scholars used pithy expressions to describe the status quaestionis of research on the book at the time of their writing. W. C. van Unnik called Acts a ‘storm center’ in 1966.4 A decade later, Charles Talbert referred to the ‘shifting sands’ of Lukan scholarship,5 and in 1988 Ward Gasque spoke of Acts scholarship as a ‘fruitful field’.6 Now, just over twenty-five years later, Matthew Skinner revives that practice of metaphorical labeling and tells us that ‘scholarship on the political outlook of the Acts of the Apostles’ is a mess!7 What this description lacks in poetic flair it makes up for in explanatory power. Acts and Empire scholarship really is a ‘mess’, a ‘positive, creative mess’ as Skinner points out, but a mess nonetheless. In the second part of the study, ‘where we are now’, Skinner gives a list of half a dozen helpful caveats and questions to guide us as we move forward. Regarding the ‘messy state’ of Acts and Empire, Skinner warns us that ‘we need not expect that greater productivity and maybe even increased clarity in future scholarship will clean it up’.8 One might surmise that the essays in this volume serve to increase the mess (in the most positive sense, of course). 2.  Skinner, pp. 112-13 in this volume. 3.  Skinner, pp. 113-19 in this volume. 4.  W. C. van Unnik, ‘Luke–Acts: A Storm Center in Contemporary Scholarship’, in Leander E. Keck and J. Louis Martyn (eds), Studies in Luke–Acts (Festschrift Paul Schubert; Nashville: Abingdon, 1966), pp. 15-32. 5.  Charles H. Talbert, ‘Shifting Sands: The Recent Study of the Gospel of Luke’, Int 30 (1976), pp. 381-95. 6.  W. Ward Gasque, ‘A Fruitful Field: Recent Study of the Acts of the Apostles’, Int 42 (1988), pp. 117-31. 7.  Skinner, p. 107 in this volume. 8.  Skinner p. 125 in this volume.



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2. Where We Are Going? Two Examples9 a. Bruce Winter Bruce Winter’s essay demonstrates Skinner’s concluding claim that ‘Acts tells its story with a multidimensionality and inconsistency…that lends verisimilitude to that story’.10 Winter presents a compelling case that Roman justice was inconsistently applied to Paul and his entourage within just a few chapters in Acts. While some may wish to challenge specific details of Winter’s reading, it seems to me that the main point is firmly made that in Acts the first Christians could not always be sure justice ‘would be administered’.11 My only quibble has to do with Winter’s interpretation of the last word of Acts, ἀκωλύτως. Appealing to the use of cognates that describe legal access, Winter sees ἀκωλύτως in Acts 28.31 as ‘a legal phrase’ indicating ‘that there were no legal impediments to becoming a Christian’.12 I doubt that the legal connotation is primarily in view in Acts 28.31, because methodologically, the occurrences of the term κωλύω earlier in Acts (and Luke – see 6.29; 9.49, 50; 11.52; 18.16; 23.2) should take priority over other instances of the terms in antiquity. In the first two uses of κωλύω in Acts, the context is baptism for converts. After Philip opens the messianic identity of the servant of Isaiah 53 to the Ethiopian eunuch, the eunuch points to a nearby stream and asks, ‘What hinders (κωλύει) me from being baptized?’ (8.36). Likewise, when the Holy Spirit falls upon Cornelius and his household, Peter asks, ‘Surely no one is able to withhold water (δύναται κωλῦσαί) from these to be baptized…?’ (10.47). In Peter’s re-telling of the event in Acts 11, he makes clear that preventing baptism for the Gentiles who had received the same gift of the Spirit as they had 9.  In this section I respond to essays by Bruce Winter and Warren Carter. Both papers were presented at the 2014 Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in San Diego, CA, in a session on ‘Acts in the Discourse of Politics’, sponsored by the Book of Acts section. The essay by Winter is included in this current volume. A slightly revised version of the essay by Carter has now been published as ‘Aquatic Display: Navigating the Roman Imperial World in Acts 27’, NTS 62 (2016), pp. 79-96. Because Carter is a leading figure in ‘empire studies’ and because his paper served as a springboard for presenting an alternative reading of Acts 27, I decided to retain this section of my response. I would like to thank Warren Carter for generously providing me prepublication page proofs of the NTS article. 10.  Skinner, p. 125 in this volume. 11.  Winter, p. 140 in this volume. 12.  Winter, p. 139 in this volume; so also Ernst Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (trans. Bernard Noble, Gerald Shinn, Hugh Anderson and R. McL. Wilson; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), p. 726.

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received at Pentecost would be to ‘hinder God’ (11.17; cf. also Acts 16.6, where it is the Holy Spirit who ‘hinders’ Paul’s movements). Again, this may seem a minor point, but Winter himself observes that ancient authors often ended their works with a specific word with the intention of having the reader reflect back on its particular theme.13 I agree about the function of the last word, but on its particular nuance in Acts, I concur with Beverly Gaventa, who argues that what is in view in Acts 28.31 is not ‘Roman permission’ but ‘divine design’.14 b. Warren Carter Skinner suggests that Acts has ‘arrived late to the party hosted by empire studies’, in part because it has ‘lacked an empire-criticism champion who has devoted sustained and prolific attention to Acts’.15 A first step has been taken toward redressing that situation with Warren Carter’s analysis of Acts 27. Carter’s description of the ‘aquatic displays’ in Pliny is fascinating, but I find myself mostly unconvinced by Carter’s interpretation of the ‘sea as a contested site in which the sovereignties of God and Rome co-operate and collide’ and which ‘Christ-believers must navigate… by numerous simultaneous means’.16 Carter concludes by wondering if his interpretation ‘can adequately embrace all of the narrative of Acts… beyond 27–28.10’.17 I wonder that, too. So at the risk of oversimplification (which Skinner warns against), but in the hope of opening up our conversation as fully as possible, allow me for a moment to play the ‘Devil’s Advocate’. When we consider the overall plot of Acts, we find that, for Luke, there are two kinds of characters. There are what we can call the Θεόφιλοι (cf. Acts 1.1), who consist of certain Christians (e.g. the Twelve, the Seven, Paul, Barnabas), Jews (e.g. Diaspora Jews [2.41], priests [6.7]) and Romans (e.g. Cornelius, Sergius Paulus), and who are aligned, explicitly or implicitly, with God and God’s plan (βουλὴ τοῦ θεοῦ [20.27; cf. 2.23; 5.38; 13.36]). Then there are the enemies of God and God’s plan who are classified as θεομάχοι (those who fight against God) by Gamaliel in Acts 5.39 (cf. Josephus, Ant. 14.310; 2 Macc. 7.19). These θεομάχοι consist of 13.  Winter, p. 139 in this volume. 14.  Beverly R. Gaventa, Acts (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), p. 369; cf. Mikeal C. Parsons, Acts (Paideia; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), p. 367; Frank Stagg, The Book of Acts: The Early Struggle for an Unhindered Gospel (Nashville: Broadman, 1955), p. 266. 15.  Skinner, p. 120 in this volume. 16.  Carter, ‘Aquatic Display’, p. 80. 17.  Carter, ‘Aquatic Display’, p. 96.



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certain other Christians (e.g. Judas, Ananias and Sapphira), Jews (e.g. Elymas, the sons of Sceva) and Romans (e.g. the Philippian magistrates, Felix [24.7]) who have been aligned, explicitly or implicitly, with the anti-God Powers. Of course, the contours of these divisions are complex, and there is plenty of tension within the groups as individual characters move back and forth between them. Still, at key moments in the Acts narrative, the θεομάχοι are aligned as allies with (or co-opted as servants by) cosmic anti-God Powers, typically associated in Luke/Acts with Satan or the devil.18 So, Peter confronts his fellow Christian, Ananias, and demands, ‘Why has Satan filled your hearts to lie?’ (5.3). Later, Paul confronts the Jewish false prophet, Elymas, ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness…will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord?’ (13.10; see also the sons of Sceva in 19.13-16). Finally, when Paul is before the Roman procurator, Festus, and the Roman client-king, Agrippa, he declares that the Lord has revealed to him that he (Paul) is sent to the Gentiles ‘to open their eyes that they may turn…from the power of Satan (τῆς ἐξουσίας τοῦ σατανᾶ) to God’ (26.18). After this speech, preparations are made to send Paul to Rome. So against the larger canvas of the whole narrative of Acts, it is Satan and the cosmic anti-God Powers that are contesting God’s sovereignty. And those Powers have found allies among (or co-opted) certain Christian, Jewish and Roman individuals and institutions. Given the cosmic struggle between God and Satan and their human agents that unfolds from Acts 1 through Acts 26, we should not be surprised to find that the sea in Acts 27 is not (or perhaps not just) the site of a contest between God and Rome, but rather ‘a hostile place, the locus of demonic chaos that God alone could subdue (Exod 15:1–8; Isa 51:9–10)’.19 A return to the primordial chaos of the sea is part of the Lukan Jesus’ apocalyptic imagery in Lk. 21.25 (‘And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves’). In this reading of Acts 27 the sea becomes the context in which God demonstrates divine sovereignty (27.23-25) primarily over the demonic lurking just beneath its surface.20 18.  See Susan R. Garrett, The Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke’s Writings (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989).  19.  Richard I. Pervo, Acts (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), p. 649. 20.  Cf. the comment of Gaventa: ‘Luke shows their God triumphing over the sea, perhaps even over the gods of the sea as well’ (Acts, p. 356).

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This reading does not exclude seeing secondary or incidental hints of imperial power at work here; as Pervo points out, the sheer length of the sea voyage as well as the stock imagery of ships and sea in antiquity encourages polyvalence and demands the ‘investigation of a deeper meaning of this story’.21 But it does raise the question as to which of these intertexts (Pliny or the biblical watery chaos) should be given priority over the other(s). I would submit that the unfolding argument of Acts, at the least, relegates the imperial reading to a subordinate place (and not vice versa); Roman resistance is significant only as it is a specific manifestation of the anti-God Powers. The issue is God’s sovereignty, a sovereignty that has been in conflict throughout the narrative with Satan and the anti-God forces, with whom, from Luke’s perspective, some Roman (and Christian and Jewish) individuals and institutions conspire. This ‘cosmic conflict’ interpretation finds confirmation in the closing scene of the sea voyage, which occurs on the isle of Malta (28.1-10). Carter acknowledges this passage is part of the unit but makes only one passing comment to it that I could find.22 Pervo, on the other hand, sees the scene as climatic and paradigmatic: it is ‘the eschatological symbol of the defeat of the serpent’ and, since ‘[s]nakes could be viewed as agents of the devil (Luke 10.18)… Paul’s immunity from the viper vividly depicted the defeat of death and the devil’.23 Taken in isolation from the rest of the narrative and read (arbitrarily?) in light of Pliny’s ‘aquatic displays’, Acts 27.1–28.16 could easily be construed as a contest between God and Rome and as offering strategies for Christ-believers to negotiate Roman power. But in light of the overall movement of the narrative as I see it, God’s conflict is primarily with the power of Satan and those human individuals and structures that have been co-opted by Satan. That is the power Christ-believers must negotiate in Acts; they must negotiate instantiations of imperial power to the extent that Rome conspires with or is co-opted by the anti-God Powers. I find John Barclay’s conclusion regarding Paul’s view of Rome similar to my own current understanding of Luke’s view of Rome: Luke, like Paul, ‘does not oppose Rome as Rome, but opposes anti-God powers wherever and however they manifest themselves on the human stage’.24 There are differences between Luke and Paul, of course, but they are differences of degree, in my opinion, and not of kind. 21.  Pervo, Acts, p. 648. 22.  Carter, ‘Aquatic Display’, p. 90. 23.  Pervo, Acts, p. 672; see also Gaventa, Acts, p. 360. 24.  John M. G. Barclay, Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews (WUNT, 275; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), p. 387, emphasis original.



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3. Conclusion Will Campbell was a white Baptist minister, a controversial civil-rights activist in the 1960s, the author of Brother to a Dragonfly,25 and an iconic figure among progressive, white Southerners of a certain age. Brother Will spoke in seminary chapel when I was a student years ago and said if he were in charge of theological education, he would have students sit around a campfire listening to country music until they ‘got it’. Then he would send them out into the world. Perhaps the same thing will work with Acts and political discourse. We sit around listening to Luke’s story until we ‘get it’. But, as Skinner reminds us, we are not likely to get the same thing, not because we are all radical reader-response critics (though some may be), but because, like a good country and western song, Acts is filled with tensions, ambiguities and double entendres, and we ‘should not expect the disentangling of the book’s perspectives to be any easier than it is for scholars to disentangle their own sociopolitical realities’.26

25.  Will D. Campbell, Brother to a Dragonfly (New York: Seabury, 1977). 26.  Skinner, p. 125 in this volume.

T u r ni ng t h e E m p i r e ( οἰ κουμ έν η ) U psi de D own : A R es p on s e Barbara Rossing

If Matthew L. Skinner is right that ‘Acts has arrived late to the party hosted by empire studies’,1 then I’m glad scholars on Acts are now at the party – a party that started with the book of Revelation, the most overtly anti-empire text in the New Testament. So I will mainly offer insights from working on Revelation and specifically from working on the term οἰκουμένη. In this response I will argue that in Acts, as well as Revelation, we should translate the word οἰκουμένη as ‘empire’. I am grateful to Matthew Skinner for his helpful survey of different approaches to Acts and empire and the tensions among them. And thanks also to Steve Walton’s chapter from which some of the survey draws, even while Skinner also expands and draws his own new views. (Just from the essay’s description the view which I find most attractive is Cassidy’s, the idea of a ‘nondeferential church’ in the context of a Roman ‘disease’ – a view similar to that of Daniel Berrigan in his wonderful Acts commentary.2) I am thankful, too, for Skinner’s own work on the trial scenes and the delicate exigencies of Acts, including the relationship between conflicts with Jewish opponents vis-à-vis Roman opponents.3 This helpfully opens up the complex footwork between compliance and defiance. I do hear the plea that we cannot overstate the importance of empire at the expense of the theological message of Acts; like Skinner, I am persuaded they are related, even while multiple historical reconstructions of that relationship are possible.

1.  Skinner, ‘Who Speaks’, p. 120 in this volume. 2.  See Daniel Berrigan, Whereon to Stand: The Acts of the Apostles and Ourselves (Baltimore: Fortcamp, 1991). 3.  Matthew L. Skinner, The Trial Narratives: Conflict, Power, and Identity in the New Testament (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010).



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I appreciate Warren Carter for bringing Pliny’s Panegyricus into the discussion and for the idea that ‘aquatic display’ schools an audience in imperial negotiation.4 Even while the centurion and other aspects of empire are presented positively, his interpretation of aquatic displays as imperial spectacles is convincing. The argument that the sea as contested space might be something Acts is using to assert the lordship of Christ over against these displays is intriguing. Carter’s relating this to the grain boat – arguing that Myra is a grain port, the ship is a privately contracted grain boat, and that this relates to Rome’s economic and taxing prowess, and more broadly to the tributary economy – is of most interest to me, since, as Carter says, this recalls the critique of cargoes in Revelation 18 – although he ends up saying there is more contrast than similarity between the two texts. Bruce Winter offers a helpful use of inscriptional, papyrus and textual evidence and also the distinction between Roman law itself and how that law was administered as depicted in the Acts accounts. Roman law was not itself so much the problem, he argues, but the problem was how it was misused or ignored, ‘breached in Philippi’, ‘infringed in Thessalonica’, ‘enforced in Corinth’, and again ‘breached in Casearea’.5 Early Christians could not always be sure justice would be administered in accordance with Roman law. I appreciated especially Winter’s legal analysis of Caesarea. However, I want to address his section on Thessalonica, where he employs papyrus evidence to make the case for identifying ‘the ones who have turned the οἰκουμένη upside down’ in Acts 17.6-7 as those ‘Claudius saw as infesting the whole empire’, ‘certain Jews from Egypt and Syria’ who were, as papyrus evidence charges, ‘fomenters of what is a general plague infesting the whole world’.6 What is the Greek word in that papyrus text/ inscription for ‘whole world’? If the Greek word for the ‘whole world’ is οἰκουμένη, then that is really significant. It may be further evidence that Rome is less ‘benevolent’ than ‘dangerous’.7 This is because all the references to οἰκουμένη in Acts are negative.

4.  Warren Carter presented a paper to which I responded at the 2014 Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in San Diego, CA, in a session on ‘Acts in the Discourse of Politics’, sponsored by the Book of Acts Section. A slightly revised version of Carter’s paper has now been published as ‘Aquatic Display: Navigating the Roman Imperial World in Acts 27’, NTS 62 (2016), pp. 79-96. 5.  Winter, pp. 127, 128, 131, 135 in this volume. 6.  Winter, p. 129 in this volume, where he quotes P.Lond. 1912. 7.  Cf. Warren, ‘Aquatic Display’, p. 95.

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1. Οἰκουμένη as ‘Empire’ The most important evidence I would point to in Acts as evidence of its anti-imperial perspective is the use of the word οἰκουμένη, which I argue refers much more to the Roman Empire than scholars have previously seen.8 Interestingly, the only scholar I know who has actually used ‘empire’ in his translation of οἰκουμένη for both Luke and Acts is Luke Timothy Johnson, who translates οἰκουμένη as ‘empire’ in a number of passages in Luke and Acts, although not all (see Lk. 2.1; 4.5; 21.25; Acts 11.28; 17.6).9 I think Johnson is right to translate οἰκουμένη as ‘empire’. The word οἰκουμένη is used eight times in Luke–Acts (Lk. 2.1; 4.5; 21.26; Acts 11.28; 17.6, 31; 19.27; 24.5). The third edition of the Greek–English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature views many New Testament references to οἰκουμένη as fitting the geographical definition of the ‘earth as inhabited area’, along with the derivative definition ‘inhabitants of the earth’.10 We must ask, however, whether BDAG’s second and more political definition of οἰκουμένη as ‘the world as administrative unit, the Roman Empire’ is not the more predominant understanding of οἰκουμένη in the New Testament, including in Acts. I would argue it is. I first came to this conclusion when working on the translation of οἰκουμένη in the book of Revelation; the use of the term in Revelation exemplifies the translational and exegetical problem we face. Revelation uses the phrase τῆς οἰκουμένης ὅλης three times and always negatively (see Rev. 3.10; 12.9; 16.14). To be sure, οἰκουμένη in the Septuagint is largely synonymous with γῆ (‘earth’), encompassing the whole geographical world, both physical and human, that is accountable to God. ‘The earth (γῆ) is the Lord’s and all that is in it; the world (οἰκουμένη) and those who dwell in it’ (Ps. 24.1). 8.  This section draws on my ‘(Re)Claiming Oikoumene? Empire, Ecumenism and the Discipleship of Equals’, in S. Matthews, C. Briggs Kittredge and M. JohnsonDeBaufre (eds), Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003), pp. 74-87. 9.  Johnson explains his translation of οἰκουμένη as ‘empire’ for Lk. 2.1 and 4.5, as well as Acts 17.6 and 24.5, stating that these passages ‘give a thoroughly “political” nuance to the term’. He singles out Acts 17.6 in particular as requiring the translation ‘empire’: ‘the political connotation here is unmistakable, and any other translation would miss the point of the charge’. See Luke Timothy Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles (SP, 5; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1992), pp. 205-206, 307. See idem, The Gospel of Luke (SP, 3; Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1991). 10.  BDAG, p. 699 οἰκουμένη §§1, 3.



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God will ‘judge the world (οἰκουμένη) in righteousness’ (Pss. 9.8; 96.13; 98.9). God lays claim to the whole οἰκουμένη: ‘The world (οἰκουμένη) is mine’ (Pss. 50.12; 49.12 LXX). 2. Oἰκουμένη as ‘Empire’ in Roman Texts But the definition shifted from the time of the LXX into the Roman period. By the first century BCE, Rome laid claim to the οἰκουμένη. In propaganda and iconography celebrating Rome’s conquests of lands and peoples, οἰκουμένη was claimed not only as the ends of the world in a geographical sense but also in a political sense, as the ends of Roman imperial sway. In his landmark analysis of Rome’s and Augustus’s ‘ecumenical and ostentatious claims’, Claude Nicolet argues that Rome’s empire and its geographical knowledge developed hand in hand, as evidenced by the use of the Greek word οἰκουμένη and the Latin phrase orbis terrarum.11 Already in the work of the Greek historian Polybius (150 BCE), Nicolet finds that geographical claims about the οἰκουμένη were ‘essentially political’, not merely geographical.12 Polybius frames his work with the political question of how ‘all the known parts of the inhabited world (οἰκουμένη) have come under the domination of Rome’.13 According to Plutarch, Romans were called κύριοι τῆς οἰκουμένης (lords of the empire),14 a claim realized and further expanded through military conquests by Pompey, Julius Caesar and Augustus. In 61 BCE, a huge trophy of the conquered οἰκουμένη was carried in triumphal procession in Rome to celebrate Pompey’s three military victories over Libya, Europe and Asia: [Pompey] celebrated the triumph in honor of all his wars at once, including in it many trophies beautifully decked out to represent each of his achievements, even the smallest; and after them all came one huge one, decked out in costly fashion and bearing an inscription stating that it was a trophy of the inhabited world (οἰκουμένη).15

11.  Claude Nicolet, Space, Geography, and Politics in the Early Roman Empire (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), p. 11. 12.  Nicolet, Space, p. 31. 13.  Polybius, Histories 3.1.4. See also 1.1.5; 1.2.7; 6.49.9. See Nicolet, Space, p. 30. 14.  Plutarch, Tiberius Gracchus 9.6. 15.  Dio, Roman History 37.21.2.

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Following the triumph, a permanent statue of Pompey was erected in his theatre, showing him holding a globe of the world in his left hand: ‘The globe, like his trophy, discreetly recalled that he had in principle “conquered the world”, in the name of the Roman people’.16 Julius Caesar’s domination of the οἰκουμένη is illustrated by a bronze statue showing the emperor treading with his foot upon the οἰκουμένη. Dio’s Roman History describes this statue as ‘mounted upon a likeness of the inhabited world (οἰκουμένη), with an inscription to the effect that he was a demigod’ by decree of the Roman Senate. On the day of his triumph, Julius Caesar ‘climbed up the stairs of the Capitol on his knees’ until he reached the ‘image of the οἰκουμένη lying beneath his feet’.17 Coins from this period also depict the image of the emperor with the globe beneath his feet, an image of triumph. Augustus made the most far-reaching claims of imperial domination as evidenced in his Res Gestae, his official list of global conquests prepared for posthumous publication on his mausoleum and on Greek and Latin inscriptions in cities throughout the empire. Beginning with a description of how ‘at the age of nineteen, on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army’, Augustus’s Res Gestae sets his vision of οἰκουμένη within the context of his military conquests: ‘Wars, both civil and foreign, I undertook throughout the whole οἰκουμένη, on land and sea’.18 Lists of conquered territory in Africa, Asia and Europe substantiate Augustus’s claim that ‘I extended the boundaries of all the provinces which were bordered by races not yet subject to our empire’. The Gemmma Augustea, a carved cameo, personifies Oἰκουμένη as a feminine figure who places a crown on the head of Emperor Augustus.19 Together with coins showing the emperor’s foot on the globe and architectural assertions of ecumenical domination, such imagery symbolically lays claim to the οἰκουμένη in much more than a geographical sense.

16.  Nicolet, Space, p. 39. 17.  Dio, Roman History 43.14.16; 43.21.2. 18.  Augustus, Res Gestae 3 (trans. F. W. Shipley; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1924). 19.  The identification of the feminine figure as Οἰκουμένη in the Gemma Augustea in Vienna is debated. Fulvio Canciani categorizes as ‘probable’ her identification as Οἰκουμένη (see Fulvio Canciani, ‘Oikoumene’, Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae [Zurich: Artemis, 1981]). Nicolet, Ando and others accept the identification as certain. See Nicolet, Space, p. 45; Clifford Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 287.



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Other ancient authors’ usage of the term οἰκουμένη reflects such imperial perspectives. Aelius Aristides’s The Roman Oration lauds the harmony and unity that Rome brought to the whole οἰκουμένη, exemplifying the use of οἰκουμένη for imperial propaganda. Drawing on a medical analogy, Aristides argues that prior to Roman rule, the ‘inhabited world (οἰκουμένη) was, as it were, ill’ because of its many wars, factions and rivalries.20 In place of disunity, Rome has brought universal good order. Local traditions and laws are superseded, as Rome organizes the entire οἰκουμένη into a ‘single household’ under its rule. Aelius Aristides describes Rome’s conquests of the landscape and its unifying of the οἰκουμένη in both geographical and political terms: What was said by Homer, ‘The earth was common to all’, you have made a reality, by surveying the whole inhabited world (οἰκουμένη), by bridging the rivers in various ways, by cutting carriage roads through the mountains by filling desert places with post stations, and by civilizing everything with your way of life and good order… And now, indeed, there is no need to write a description of the world, nor to enumerate the laws of each people, but you have become universal geographers for all…by opening up all the gates of the inhabited world (οἰκουμένη)…and by organizing the whole inhabited world (οἰκουμένην) like a single household.21

The speech by King Agrippa II in Book 2 of Josephus’s Jewish War is a poignant example of the imperial context of the term οἰκουμένη. Agrippa underscores Rome’s hegemony over the οἰκουμένη as he seeks to persuade the Judeans of the futility of their revolt against Rome. Throughout the whole οἰκουμένη, Roman power is undefeated, Agrippa tells his hearers (2.362). Peoples and nations who have submitted to Rome’s rule include the Gauls, Greeks, Germans and Britons (2.364). Finally Agrippa asks the Judeans, What allies then do you expect for this war? Will you recruit them from the uninhabited (ἀοίκητου) wilds? For in the habitable world (οἰκουμένη) all are Romans.22

20.  Aelius Aristides, Or. 26.97 (trans. C. A. Behr; Leiden: Brill, 1981). This oration dates to the mid-second century CE. 21.  Aelius Aristides, Or. 26.101-102. 22.  Josephus, War 2.388 (trans. H. St. J. Thackeray; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1928). Emphasis mine.

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3. Oἰκουμένη as Empire in the New Testament: Luke and Acts ‘In the οἰκουμένη all are Romans᾽: this fact – mourned by Agrippa but celebrated by Aelius Aristides – describes the first-century context both geographically and politically. It is the context we have to assume also for Acts. So, I would argue οἰκουμένη in Acts means ‘empire’. And this proves important for the reading of Acts 17 (both the account of the incident at Thessalonica as well the Areopagus speech) and Acts 19 along with the trial scene we find there. What Paul is turning upside down is not the ‘world’ in the cosmic sense but rather the ‘empire’ or imperial world. The political context of the term οἰκουμένη can be seen in the Gospel of Luke. Luke situates Jesus’s birth alongside Augustus’s imperial declaration in Lk. 2.1: ‘In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that the whole οἰκουμένη should be enrolled’. Satan tempts Jesus by offering to give him the kingdoms of the οἰκουμένη (Lk. 4.5). Luke uses the word οἰκουμένη in reference to the end and to the tribulations that will come upon the nations: ‘There will be distress of nations…people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming upon the οἰκουμένη’ (Lk. 21.25). These references to the οἰκουμένη in this apocalyptic context should be read in a political sense, asserting the end of empire even more than the end of the geographical world or earth. All the references to οἰκουμένη in Acts are clearly political, it seems to me, most notably the accusations against Paul and other Christians for disrupting civic order. A mob in Thessalonica attacks Jason’s house and brings him before authorities on the grounds that ‘these people who have been turning the world (οἰκουμένη) upside down have come here also… They are acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus’ (Acts 17.6-7). Paul’s speech at the Areopagus in Acts 17 is not as overtly political, but it is more political than we have realized because we have mistranslated both κόσμον in v. 24 and οἰκουμένην in v. 31 as ‘world’, but they are two different words, reflecting a carefully constructed argument for the οἰκουμένη falling under God’s judgment. The speech builds its argument on the basis of God’s creation and people’s desire for God, using the words κόσμον (‘world’) and γῆς (‘earth’) to describe God’s good creation. The author appears to go to great lengths, however, to avoid referencing the οἰκουμένη positively as God’s creation: God who made the world (τὸν κόσμον) and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines…since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor, [God] made all nations to inhabit all the face of earth (τὸν κόσμον). (Acts 17.24-26; author’s translation)



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Not until the concluding warning about God’s impending judgment of the world does Paul turn to the word οἰκουμένη, telling the Athenians that the time for repentance has come, because God ‘has fixed a day on which to judge the world (τὴν οἰκουμένην) in righteousness’ (Acts 17.31; cf. Pss. 9.8; 95.13; 97.9). In quoting here from the LXX, Acts selects only a Psalm verse about God’s judgment upon the οἰκουμένη but does not quote any of the Psalms describing the οἰκουμένη as God’s good creation. In Caesarea, the charge against Paul is that he is ‘an agitator among all the Jews throughout the οἰκουμένη’ (Acts 24.5), while in Ephesus Paul is accused of disrupting the temple economy of the Ephesian Artemis ‘whom Asia and the οἰκουμένη worship’ (Acts 19.27). The location of these charges in major cities of the Roman Empire is indicative of their political context. I have appreciated all three papers. I support this work on Acts and empire. What I am arguing is that the use of the term οἰκουμένη can be another important piece of evidence for anti-imperial rhetoric in Acts.

A f t erword Matthew L. Skinner

Of course no one reads Acts, or any other piece of literature, with only one field of cultural or interpretive discourse in mind. Our lives and identities do not operate according to such neat categorizations. To isolate issues related to gender and politics for focused consideration, as this collection of essays does, runs the risk of distorting the complex and fluid nature of social identities and the way they participate in constellations of power. To mitigate that risk, interpreters must remain cognizant of the connections between these two particular topics, as well as the connections both topics share with additional topics that have to receive attention in any thick description of cultural realities. These additional topics include social status, ethnicity, economic systems, and means of religious identification and self-differentiation. Nevertheless, isolating gender and politics for specific consideration is not a rash decision or an unwitting attempt to enable exegetical reductionism. Rather, one of the reasons why this volume does so is to illuminate the need for Acts scholars to bring a wide angle of methodological and cultural vision to their exegetical labours. The chapters in this book acknowledge the complexity of the task. As a collection, they underscore the need for scholars to construct critical discourse as conversation that welcomes a variety of methodological criteria. Such a conversation proves to be valuable when it expands to consider a rich variety of passages from Acts using interpretive lenses informed by new (and old) approaches, questions and discourses. Together, the contributions in these pages seek to identify ways forward in Acts scholarship and to point interpreters down fruitful avenues. Even as issues related to masculinity and politics are inextricably linked, they remain greatly complicated because of the challenges inherent in speaking about power. The term power ably provides a heuristic shorthand for critics and teachers, but the term begs for clear descriptions, especially when one aims to extol or criticize instances of power at work, affecting people’s lives and well-being. There are diverse ways in which power is



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construed, negotiated and experienced in both one-sided and reciprocal dynamics among persons and groups. Ongoing investigations into Acts will benefit from this volume’s insights into a few aspects of power on display in the narrative of Acts and in the worlds beyond the narrative. Those future investigations will benefit insofar as they permit scholars to attempt more integrated descriptions of the cultural realities at work in Acts – and among those who interpret Acts – especially when integrated descriptions offer a framework for evaluating the power dynamics at work in Acts. Future work in these ‘discourses’ will need to add nuance to definitions of exactly what it means to say that Acts buttresses, subverts or ignores cultural norms and political values. This book focuses on ‘discourses’, and it divides into two parts identified by scholars’ nomenclature – masculinity and politics – which is not terminology that Acts explicitly mentions. These aspects of the volume may suggest, at first glance, that the authors are more concerned with discussing abstract methodological questions than with testing out those methods on Acts itself. Those who have read through all the chapters know, however, that such an initial impression proves false. The analyses collected in these pages hardly represent a kind of second-tier study of Acts or a foray into insignificant characteristics of Luke’s second volume. Rather, the preceding chapters have repeatedly touched on questions of the theological outlook of the book of Acts – how the book understands the nature of God and God’s activity, as well as how the book depicts and instructs ancient communities of Christ-followers. That is, these fields of study do not lose sight of Acts as both a product of currents in the early church and a contributor to emerging Christianity. Investigations into the political vision of Acts and the means by which the book construes and perhaps reconfigures notions of masculinity repeatedly touch on the question of the power ascribed to God and how that power influences the world Acts depicts. Most questions about ‘what kind of empire appears in Acts?’, ‘what kind of imperial negotiation occurs in Acts?’ and ‘what kinds of imperial values does Acts reinforce or reconfigure?’ inevitably touch on questions about ‘what sort of God are people proclaiming in and to this empire in the pages of Acts?’. The theological impulses that propel this biblical book, detectable in the way Luke wrote, the material Luke wrote and the purposes behind why Luke wrote, receive new scrutiny when scholars consider them in light of the world Acts imagines and the kind of living Acts seeks to promote. Finally, the topics and critical questions that this volume pursues are vital, not only because they beckon exegetes into a deeper understanding of the cultures that produced these biblical stories and were originally

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addressed by them, but also because the topics of masculinity and politics remain crucial in the age in which we live. Gender, citizenship, patriotism, personal and social identity – these issues routinely manifest themselves in our common life. In the current moment and in many cultures around the world, these topics populate people’s newsfeeds and social-media conversations. The topics create alliances in cafes and expose rifts at family gatherings. In short, they matter for many people to whom this book is addressed, given their sense of self and their priorities as scholars, advocates, citizens and, for some, members of faith communities committed to conversing with biblical texts. If biblical scholars intend to ‘adopt an activist position’1 in having our work and expertise deeply engage the sociocultural realities of our communities, academic institutions, respective nations and global village, then deeper ongoing explorations of the topics treated in this book are anything but optional. Our scrutiny of these forms of discourse may derive from academic interests, but that does not make our work on these particular topics ‘academic’ in an impractical sense – in fact, exactly the reverse.

1.  Fernando F. Segovia, ‘Criticism in Critical Times: Reflections on Vision and Task’, JBL 134 (2015), pp. 6-29 (16).

B i b l i og r a p h y Abusch, Ra’anan, ‘Circumcision and Castration under Roman Law in the Early Empire’, in E. Wyner Mark (ed.), The Covenant of Circumcision: New Perspectives on an Ancient Jewish Rite (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 2003), pp. 75-86. Adams, Sean A., ‘Paul the Roman Citizen: Roman Citizenship in the Ancient World and Its Importance for Understanding Acts 22:22-29’, in Stanley E. Porter (ed.), Paul: Jew, Greek, and Roman (Pauline Studies, 5; Leiden: Brill, 2008), pp. 309-26. Alexander, Loveday C. A., Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at the Acts of the Apostles (LNTS, 298; London: T&T Clark International, 2005). —‘The Acts of the Apostles as an Apologetic Text’, in Mark Edwards, Martin Goodman and Simon Price (eds), Apologetics in the Roman Empire: Pagans, Jews, and Christians (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 15-44. —‘Luke’s Political Vision,’ Int 66 (2012), pp. 283-93. —The Preface to Luke’s Gospel: Literary Convention and Social Context in Luke 1.1-4 and Acts 1.1 (SNTSMS, 78; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). —‘Septuaginta, Fachprosa, Imitatio: Albert Wifstrand and the Language of Luke–Acts’, in her Acts in Its Ancient Literary Context: A Classicist Looks at the Acts of the Apostles (LNTS, 298; London: T&T Clark International, 2005), pp. 231-52. Allen, O. Wesley, Jr., The Death of Herod: The Narrative and Theological Function of Retribution in Luke–Acts (SBLDS, 158; Atlanta: Scholars, 1997). Allison, Dale C., Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998). Ando, Clifford, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990). Arlandson, James M., ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Christian: Women, Wealth, and Social Freedom’, in Amy-Jill Levine and Marianne Blickenstaff (eds), A Feminist Companion to the Acts of the Apostles (London: T&T Clark International, 2004), pp. 155-70. Asikainen, Susanna, ‘ “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven”: Matthew and Subordinated Masculinities’, in Ovidiu Creangă and Peter-Ben Smit (eds), Biblical Masculinities Foregrounded (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2014), pp. 156-88. Aune, David E., ‘The Problem of the Passions in Cynicism’, in John T. Fitzgerald (ed.), Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (New York: Routledge, 2007), pp. 48-66. Aymer, Margaret, ‘Acts of the Apostles’, in Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (eds), Women’s Bible Commentary (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 3rd edn, 2012), pp. 536-46. Barclay, John M. G., Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996). —‘Mirror-reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case’, JSNT 31 (1987), pp. 73-93.

160 Bibliography —Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews (WUNT, 275; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). —Review of Richard J. Cassidy, Society and Politics in the Acts of the Apostles (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1987), SJT 42 (1989), pp. 577-79. Barreto, Eric D., ‘Crafting Colonial Identities: Hybridity and the Roman Empire in Luke–Acts’, in Adam Winn (ed.), An Introduction to the New Testament and Empire (SBLRBS; Atlanta: SBL, 2016), pp. 107-21. —Ethnic Negotiations: The Function of Race and Ethnicity in Acts 16 (WUNT, 2/294; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). Barrett, C. K., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (ICC; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1994). —Luke the Historian in Recent Study (London: Epworth, 1961). Barton, Carlin A., Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Bassi, Karen, Acting Like Men: Gender, Drama, and Nostalgia in Ancient Greece (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998). Bauckham, Richard, ‘Response to Philip Esler’, SJT 51 (1998), pp. 249-53. Bauckham, Richard (ed.), The Gospels for All Christians (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1997). Bazzana, Giovanni B., ‘Neo-Marxism, Language Ideology and the New Testament’, The Bible and Critical Theory 8 (2012), pp.16-26. Beasley-Murray, George R., John (WBC, 36; Dallas: Word, 1987). Berrigan, Daniel, Whereon to Stand: The Acts of the Apostles and Ourselves (Baltimore: Fortcamp, 1991). Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994). Bloomquist, Gregory L., ‘Intertexture of Lukan Apocalyptic Discourse’, in Duane F. Watson (ed.), Intertexture of Apocalyptic Discourse in the New Testament (Atlanta: SBL, 2002), pp. 45-68. Boer, Roland, ‘Toward Unethical Insurgency’, Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Ecomonics, Culture and Society 25 (2012), pp. 38-51. Bond, Helen K., Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation (SNTSMS, 100; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Bonz, Marianne Palmer, The Past as Legacy: Luke–Acts and Ancient Epic (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000). Borchert, Gerald L., John 12–21 (NAC, 25B; Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2002). Borg, Marcus J., Conflict, Holiness and Politics in the Teachings of Jesus (New York: Edwin Mellen, 1984). Bourdieu, Pierre, The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990). Boyarin, Daniel, ‘Are There Any Jews in “The History of Sexuality”?’, JHSex 5 (1995), pp. 333-55. Brown, Raymond E., The Birth of the Messiah (ABRL; London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1993). Bruce, Frederick F., The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (London: Tyndale, 2nd edn, 1952). —The Book of Acts (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, rev. edn, 1988). —Paul: Apostle of the Free Spirit (Exeter: Paternoster, 1977). —‘Render to Caesar’, in Ernst Bammel and C. F. D. Moule (eds), Jesus and the Politics of His Day (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 249-63. Brunt, P. A., ‘Charges of Provincial Maladministration under the Early Principate’, Historia 10 (1961), pp. 189-227.

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I n d ex of R ef er e nce s Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament Genesis 17 66 17.14 62 Exodus 15.1-8 145 Deuteronomy 6.4-5 91 Joshua 6.17-25 67 Psalms 2.7 90 9.8 151, 155 24.1 150 49.12 lxx 151 50.12 151 95.13 155 96.7-10 91 96.13 151 97.9 155 98.9 151 Isaiah 51.9-10 145 53 143 61.1 90 New Testament Matthew 8.5-13 94 24 96 27.54 92

Mark 1.27 81 2.22 81 3.18 79 7.3-4 82 10.42-45 80, 93 12.13-17 80 13 96 13.9-13 83 15.33 92 Luke 1.3-4 103-105 1.8 104 1.19-79 42 1.32-33 98 1.33 99 1.38 46 1.47 99 1.52 99 1.69 99 1.71 99 1.77 99 2.1-5 79 2.1-2 89 2.1 150, 154 2.11 98, 99 2.30 99 3.1-10 93 3.1-2 89 3.10-14 80 3.10 90 3.12-14 82 3.19 90 4.5-6 100 150, 154 4.5 4.16 90 4.18-19 99

4.36 81 4.38-39 37 5.1-11 34 5.39 81 6.15 79 6.17-19 94 6.29 143 81, 94 7.1-10 7.2 80 7.4-5 94 8.18 90 8.19-21 94 9.7-9 92 9.7 90 9.44 92 9.49 143 9.50 143 9.58 38 10.18 146 11.52 143 12.4-12 104 12.11-12 85, 106 12.11 77 12.49 99 12.51 99 12.58 92 84, 96 13.1 13.31-32 92 13.31 90 14.4 81 14.26 37 18.16 143 18.31-34 92 18.32 92 19.1-10 94 19.38 90, 99 20.20-26 80, 90, 91 20.20 80, 90, 92

176 Luke (cont.) 20.25 91 21 96 21.10-19 38 21.12-19 83 21.12 83, 92 21.14-15 83, 85 21.14 77 21.16 83, 92 21.20-31 85 21.20 96 21.24 96 21.25 145, 150, 154 21.26 150 22.4 92 22.6 92 22.21 92 22.22 92 22.24-27 80, 93, 94 22.25 93 22.29-30 99 22.35-38 79 22.48 92 22.54-62 81 22.62 39 23.1-2 78 23.2 85, 90, 99, 143 23.3 96 23.4 78, 92 23.5 78 23.8-11 92 23.8 90 23.10 78 23.13-25 41, 84 23.13-14 78 23.14 92, 96 23.15 78, 92 23.18 78, 90 23.21 78 23.22 78, 92, 96 23.23 78 23.24 96 23.25 78, 92 23.28-31 84 23.35 78

Index of References 23.37-38 99 23.47 78, 80, 81, 92 24 39 24.7 92 24.12 39 24.19 44 24.20 92 24.34 39 John 1.30 44 12 99 18.31 88 20.3-10 39 Acts 1–12 30 1 145 1.1 139, 144 1.8 39, 118 1.13 79 1.15-25 34 2.2 71 2.5 69 2.14-36 34 2.14 44 2.17 46 2.22-23 44 2.22 44 2.23 78, 85, 144 2.36 92 2.37 70 2.41 144 2.47 104 3.1-10 9, 10, 21 3.1-2 69 3.3 9 3.4 9 3.6 9 3.12-26 34 3.12 44 3.13 81, 92, 130 3.14-15 85 3.14 78, 92 3.15 106 3.17 92

4–7 21 4–5 116, 123 4 9, 34 4.1-22 41 4.1-3 40 4.2-3 41 4.3-21 38 4.8-12 34 4.8 34, 46 4.10 85, 92, 106 4.11 78 4.13 33, 34 4.18-21 38 4.19-20 83, 103 100, 106 4.19 4.20 85 4.21 41, 130 4.23 130 4.27-30 92 4.27 85, 92 4.28-29 85 4.28 93 4.29 46 5.1-11 42 5.3 145 5.17-42 41 5.17-40 38 5.17-18 40 5.17 41, 77 5.26 41 5.27-32 38, 69 5.28 92 5.29-32 85 5.29 41, 83, 99, 100, 103, 106, 144 5.30 81, 92, 106 5.31 99 5.33 40, 41 5.34 34 5.36-37 94 5.37 89 5.38 144 5.39 43 5.40 40, 41, 130 5.41 41 5.42 99, 104

6–7 7 6.7 104, 144 6.9 43 6.12 40 7 106 7.1-60 69 7.52 78, 85, 92 7.54–8.3 40 7.54-60 46, 101 7.59-60 25 8.1 39 8.3 40, 92 8.4 39 8.36 143 8.39-40 24 8.58 44 9–15 9 9 39, 40 9.1-19 40 9.1-2 10, 40 9.1 20 9.3-4 40 9.6 46 9.8-9 40 9.13-14 40 9.13 44 9.15 85 9.16 38, 41 9.23-30 41 9.23-24 40 9.25 42 9.27 9, 21, 42 9.29 40 9.30 42 9.31 104 9.42 104 10 29 10.1–11.18 78, 94 10.1-48 38 10.1 80, 81 10.2 94 10.4 94 10.10-16 46 10.14 37 10.19-20 46 10.22 94 10.25 21

Index of References 10.39 78, 85 10.44-48 46, 69 10.47 46, 143 11 143 11.1-18 81 11.1 16 11.4-17 34 11.8 37 11.17-18 102 11.17 46, 144 11.18 81 11.19 39 11.22 69 11.25-26 9 11.26 9 11.28 89, 150 11.29 16 12 122, 125 12.1-19 41 12.1-4 40 12.1-3 41 12.1-2 24, 101 12.3-11 38 12.4 41, 92 12.6-17 10 12.7-9 46 12.9 10 12.11 10, 41 12.12-17 9 12.12 10 12.14-15 9 12.15 9 12.18-19 41 12.23 41, 42 12.24 104 1237-11 41 13–28 30 13–19 116 13.1–15.35 9 13.2 46 13.4-12 35, 42 13.7-12 19 13.7 85, 94 13.9 11, 46 13.10 145 13.11 42, 69 13.12 69, 78, 94

177 13.16 44 13.23 99 13.26-27 92 13.27-28 78, 85 85, 92 13.28 13.30 106 13.36 144 13.46-47 9 13.47 46 13.50-51 96 13.50 35, 40, 78, 96, 98 14 23 14.2-5 35 14.2 40, 98 14.4-6 40 14.4-5 98 14.5 78 14.9 10 14.11-19 19 14.14-17 9 14.15 44 14.19-20 40 14.19 23, 41, 42, 96, 98 14.27 102 15 41, 68, 69, 81 15.1-21 37 15.1 82 15.4 102 15.5 77 15.6-11 21 15.7-11 21, 34 15.7-8 102 15.10 81 15.12 102 15.14 102 15.36-41 10 15.36-39 9 15.39 39 16 xiv, xvi, 24, 125 16.1-5 xiv, 49 16.1-4 50, 69 16.1-3 37 16.1-2 12

178 Acts (cont.) 16.1 12 16.3 10, 12 16.5 104 16.6-12 81 16.6-10 46 16.6-7 11 16.6 144 16.10-17 9 16.10 102 16.17-18 39 16.17 24, 46, 128 16.18-24 24 16.18 39 16.19-24 36, 40 42, 128 16.19 16.20-24 96 16.20-21 95, 98, 121, 128 85, 98 16.20 16.22-23 41 16.22 41, 87, 128 16.23-40 38 16.23 128 16.24 42 16.25-34 70, 128 16.25 106 16.27-34 94 16.35-40 36 16.35-39 95, 96, 121 16.35-36 130 16.37-40 70, 82 16.37-39 88 16.37-38 35, 36 16.37 24, 36, 128 16.39 78, 84 17 xvi, 154 17.4 35 17.5-9 40 17.5-8 98 17.5-7 78 17.6-10 84 17.6-7 84, 149, 154 17.6 129, 150 17.7 83, 99, 102, 106, 129, 130

Index of References 17.9 78, 130, 131 17.12 19, 35 17.13 40, 78, 98 17.15 13 17.16 10, 39 17.18-21 35 17.19 42, 81 17.21 81 17.22 44 17.24-26 154 17.24 154 17.31 44, 150, 154, 155 17.34 35, 87 18 xvi 18.1-18 105 18.1-5 13 18.2-3 35, 36 69, 89, 134 18.2 18.3 36 18.6 40, 133 18.7 81 18.9-11 46 18.11 104 18.12-178 40 18.12-17 35, 84, 88, 89, 123 18.12-16 xvi, 127 18.12-13 78, 98 18.12 42 18.13-15 95 18.13 71, 132, 133 18.14-16 78 18.14-15 95, 96 96, 132, 134 18.14 18.15 132, 134 18.16 97 18.17 97, 133, 134 18.24 69 19 154 19.1-22 105 19.9 40 19.10 104 19.13-16 42, 145 19.20 104 19.21 11, 46

19.23-41 116 19.23-28 98 19.25-41 40 19.27 150, 155 19.31 78, 87 19.33 77 19.35-41 78, 127 19.35 87 19.38 87 19.40 88, 127 20 101 20.3 40 20.5-15 9 20.17 46 20.18-35 20 20.19 39, 104 20.22-26 38 20.22-25 38 20.22-23 46 20.22 11 20.23-25 104 20.23 11 20.25 101 20.27 144 20.28-31 104 20.29 101 20.31 39, 104 20.33-34 35 20.34 36 20.37-38 101 20.37 39 21–28 38, 115, 123 21–22 7, 89 21.1-8 9 21.4 11 21.10-147 46 21.10-14 38 21.11-14 101 21.11 44, 92 21.13 38 21.14 81 21.18-26 37 21.19 102 21.21 84, 95 21.23 34 21.27–22.29 8

21.27-36 36 21.27-30 98 21.27-29 78 21.27 42 21.28 84, 95 21.29-36 40 21.31-34 95 21.31-32 78 21.32 41 21.33–28.31 38 21.33-34 42 21.37-40 78, 95 21.37 34 21.38 85, 98, 99 21.39 37, 83 21.40 34 22–28 125 22.1 44, 77 22.3 34, 37, 44 22.4-5 40 22.4 92 22.6-16 40 22.14 81 22.22-35 35 22.22-29 8, 40 22.22-23 78 22.24-29 11, 95 22.24 11, 42 22.25-29 35, 36, 82, 95 22.25-26 80 22.25 36 22.27-28 36 22.28 35 22.29-30 42 23 xvi 23.1-8 136 23.1 44 23.6 37, 44 23.9-10 40 23.10 42, 95 23.11 38, 45, 100, 106 23.12-35 40 23.12-25 138 23.12-15 78

Index of References 23.16-30 95 23.17 80 23.23 80 23.24 42 23.25-29 135 23.25 135 23.26-30 11 23.26-29 135 23.27-29 95 23.27-28 42 23.27 44, 97 23.29 78, 84, 95 23.30-35 42 23.30 44 23.31–24.26 89 24.2-6 136 24.2-4 136 24.5-6 78, 95, 136 24.5 44, 77, 84, 150, 155 24.6 136 24.7 136, 145 24.8 136 24.9 136 24.10-23 70 24.10 77, 95, 136 24.11-12 136 24.13-18 136 24.14 85 24.16 78 24.19-21 139 24.20-21 136 24.21 136 24.22-27 19 24.22 78 24.23-27 78 24.23 95 24.24-26 137 24.25 40, 42, 83 24.26-27 11, 35, 84, 97 24.26 34, 83 24.27–26.32 89 24.27 83, 95, 137 25–26 122 25.1-6 138 25.1-3 78

179 25.3 40 25.5 44 25.6-12 138 25.6 42 25.7 40, 78 77, 84, 85, 25.8 95, 98, 106 11, 83, 97 25.9 25.10-11 83 25.10 83 25.11-12 89 25.11 95, 97 25.12 88 25.14 44 25.15 137 25.16 77, 128, 137 25.17 42, 44 25.18-21 137 25.18-19 138 25.19 84, 95 25.21 89 25.23–26.32 19 25.23 42, 45 25.25-26 89, 138 42, 78, 95, 25.25 97 25.26 42 26 145 26.1-32 85 26.1 77 26.2-3 95 26.2 77 26.5 37, 77 26.6 81 26.9-11 40 26.12-18 40 26.18 145 26.23 42 26.24 35, 77 26.25 40 26.28 35, 138 26.31 138 26.32 11, 78, 95, 130, 138 27 7, 143-45 27.1–28.16 9, 146

180 Acts (cont.) 27.1–28.10 144 27.1-44 38 27.1 42, 80, 89, 92 27.3 95 27.11 89 27.17-36 40 27.21-26 46, 95 27.21 44 27.22 45 27.23-25 145 27.23-24 100, 106 27.25 44 27.28 45 27.30-32 95 27.33-36 95 27.42-43 95 27.43 89 28.1-10 105, 146 28.5 19 28.7 35, 87, 95 28.10 19 28.14 38 28.15 45 28.16-28 139 28.16 35, 80 28.17-20 100, 101 28.17 42, 44, 84 28.18 130 28.19 83 28.20 42 28.22 77 28.23 100 28.25-28 100 28.25 81 28.28 99 28.30-31 38, 101, 104, 105 28.30 35, 101 28.31 xvi, 99-101, 127, 139, 143, 144

Index of References Romans 13 106 13.1-7 75 13.1 77 1 Corinthians 9.20 68 16.13 45 Galatians 2.11-14 81 Ephesians 4.13 44 Philippians 1.13 139 4.27 139 1 Timothy 6.12-14 105 1 Peter 2.13-17 75, 79 3.13-17 75 4.12-15 75 Revelation 3.10 150 12.9 150 75, 104, 106 13 16.14 150 Apocrypha Judith 8.17 64 14.10 64 1 Maccabees 1.11-15 63 1.14-15 63 2.68 91 2 Maccabees 7.19 144

Pseudepigrapha 4 Maccabees 15.23 46 15.30 46 16.14 46 Philo De Abrahamo 135-136 45 Quaestiones et solutiones in Genesin 3.61 67 De specialibus legibus 1.1-9 63 1.1-8 66 1.2 57 1.60.325 45 De vita contemplative 59–61 45 Josephus Jewish Antiquities 13.257-258 64 13.258 64 13.318 64, 65 13.319 58, 64, 65 14.10.1-1.4 77 14.10.2 96 14.310 144 14.403 65 16.6.2-8 77 18.1.1 94 20.139 66 20.173 65 20.38-48 64 20.38 64 20.39 64 20.40-422 64 20.43-44 64 20.5.1 94 20.5.2 94 20.7.8-9 137 21.145-46 66

Against Apion 1.171 58 2.137-43 59 2.142 57 2.210 64

Cassius Dio Roman History 37.21.2 151 43.14.16 152 43.21.2 152

Jewish War 1.59 45 1.63 64 2.13.5 94 2.362 153 2.364 153 2.388 153 2.8.1 88, 94 6.9.1 96

Cicero Epistulae ad Atticum 6.1.15 87 De officiis 1.42.150 36

Apostolic Fathers 1 Clement 5.1–6.1 100 Martyrdom of Polycarp 9.1 46 Classical and Ancient Christian Writings Aelius Aristides Orations 26.101-102 153 26.97 153 Aristophanes Wasps 1434 96 Aristotle Politics 1262b3 103 Artapanus frag. 9.27.10 Augustine De civitate Dei 6.11 61

181

Index of References

59

Digest 48.3.1 131 48.3.3 131 Dio Chrysostom De regno iii (Or. 3) 34 33 Orations 15.32 133 Diodorus Siculus Bibliotheca Historica 1.55.5 58

Horace Epistulae 2.1.156 55 Isocrates Cyr. 8.15-17 55 Justinian Digest 1.34 140 48.8.11 37 Novellae 17.6, Edict 2 pr. 132 Juvenal Satires 2.163-68 55 14.96-106 61 Livy 38.12 55 38.16 55 38.17 55

Epictetus Diatribai (Dissertationes) 2.9.19-21 62

Martial Epigrams 7.30 61 7.82 60, 133 11.94 60

Eusebius Historia ecclesiastica 2.25 100

Origen Contra Celsus 6.22 58

Praeparatio evangelica 9.27.1-37 59

Paulus Sent. 5.22.3 37

Herodotus Histories 2.1042-43 58 5.91.1 103 Historia Auguata, Hadrian 14.2 37

Persius Saturae 5.184 59

182 Petronius Satyricon 102.14 60 68.8 60 Plato Laws 6.768 96 Republic 549d-50e 54 Plutarch Conjugalia Praecepta 140d, 19 67 Pericles 1.4–2.2 36 Tiberius Gracchus 9.6 151

Index of References Polemo 2.1.192F 57 Polybius Histories 1.1.5 151 1.2.7 151 3.1.4 151 6.49.9 151 Seneca the Younger Dialogues 12.7 132 Sophocles Oedipus coloneus 337-342 58 Strabo Geography 16.2.34 64 16.4.19 58 16.37 59 17.2.5 58

Suetonius Claudius 28 137 Domitian 12 133 12.2 59 Tacitus Annals 12.54 137 Histories 5.5.2

59, 61

Papyri P.Lond. 1912 lines 96-99 129 P.Oxy 1127 139 1641 139

I n d ex of A ut hor s Abusch, R. 37 Adams, S. A. 37 Adorno, T. W. 14 Alexander, L. C. A. 3, 44, 103, 109, 114 Allen, O. W., Jr 42 Allison, D. C. 38 Anderson, J. C. 53, 56 Ando, C. 152 Arlandson, J. M. 121 Asikainen, S. 22 Aune, D. E. 39 Austin, J. L. 22 Aymer, M. 118 Barclay, J. M. G. 59, 60, 66, 67, 82, 104, 146 Barreto, E. D. 36, 49, 69, 118 Barrett, C. K. 10, 79, 94, 95, 97, 100 Barton, C. A. 26 Bassi, K. 11 Bauckham, R. 82 Baur, F. C. 68 Bazzana, G. B. 4, 5 Beasley-Murray, G. R. 88 Berrigan, D. 148 Bhabha, H. K. 52 Bloomquist, G. L. 47 Boer, R. 3, 15 Bond, H. K. 81, 88, 92, 96, 106 Bonz, M. P. 114 Borchert, G. L. 99 Bordo, S. 23 Borg, M. J. 90 Bourdieu, P. 50 Boyarin, D. 31 Brown, R. E. 89 Bruce, F. F. 13, 76, 91, 97, 100, 101 Brunt, P. A. 140 Bryan, C. 68 Bryen, A. Z. 127, 140 Burke, S. D. 30

Burrus, V. 118 Burton, G. P. 88 Butler, J. 22, 23, 51 Cadbury, H. J. 76, 77 Cameron, A. 51 Campbell, W. D. 147 Campbell, W. S. 9 Canciani, F. 152 Carson, D. A. 88 Carter, W. xvi, 120, 143, 144, 146, 149 Cassidy, R. J. 82-84, 97, 100, 111 Castelli, E. A. 69 Charlesworth, M. P. 130 Clark, E. A. 52 Cohen, S. J. D. 58, 62-66, 68 Collins, J. J. 66 Connell, R. W. 18, 28, 31 Conway, C. M. 19, 29 Conzelmann, H. 76, 77, 89, 99 Cotter, W. 133 Creangă, O. 26 Crook, J. A. 126 Crossley, J. G. 53 D’Angelo, M. R. 11, 29, 44 De Ste Croix, G. E. M. 14-16 Deissmann, A. 98, 99 Denyer, N. 139 Derrett, J. D. M. 91 Dixon, R. M. W. 7 Dover, K. J. 59 Dunn, J. D. G. 81, 98 Easton, B. S. 76, 77 Edwards, C. 31 Edwards, D. R. 85, 115 Elliott, N. 120 Esler, P. F. 76, 81, 82, 103, 111 Evans, C. F. 89, 93, 100

184

Index of Authors

Feldman, L. H. 59, 60 Ferris, I. 32 Fitzmyer, J. A. 13, 68, 89, 91, 93, 97, 101 Flessen, B. J. 21, 30, 38 Ford, J. M. 42 Foucault, M. 28, 33 Franklin, E. 84, 96, 100, 116 Fredriksen, P. 63 French, D. 89

Horn, F. W. 109 Horsley, G. H. R. 135 Horsley, R. A. 120 Hubbard, M. V. 134, 135

Gager, J. G. 60, 67 Gal, S. 4 Garnsey, P. 127 Garrett, S. R. 47, 145 Gasque, W. W. 76, 142 Gaventa, B. R. 20, 35, 40, 43, 144-46 Gempf, C. H. 86 Gen, R. M. 42 Gilbert, G. 109, 113, 116 Gill, D. W. J. 86, 87 Gilmore, D. D. 28 Glancy, J. A. 12, 13, 15, 18, 42 Gleason, M. W. 8, 57 Goldhill, S. 66 Goodman, M. 123 Green, J. B. 90, 93, 94, 100 Green, M. 89 Grosz. E. 23 Gruen, E. S. 66 Gunderson, E. 8

Jackson, F. J. F. 68 Jacobs, A. 67 Jeremias, J. 94 Jervell, J. 84, 92, 95, 96, 100, 112, 116 Johnson, L. T. 97, 150 Jones, A. H. M. 86 Jones, D. L. 98 Judge, E. A. 130, 135

Haenchen, E. 12, 97, 101, 104, 110, 143 Hall, J. M. 65, 66 Halliday, M. A. K. 6 Halliwell, S. 14, 15 Hanson, R. P. C. 101 Hardin, J. K. 130 Harrer, G. A. 37 Harris, W. V. 39, 40 Hart, H. StJ. 91 Hemer, C. J. 38, 87 Heschel, S. 71 Heumann, C. A. 76 Hill, J. H. 5 Hock, R. F. 35, 36 Hodge, C. E. J. 68, 70 Hoehner, H. W. 90 Hogan, D. 34 Horkheimer, M. 14

Irigaray, L. 12 Irvine, J. T. 4, 5 Isaac, B. H. 54-56, 59, 60 Ivarsson, F. 18

Kahl, B. 117 Karras, R. M. 53 Kartzow, M. B. 8, 21, 22 Keener, C. S. 110 Kim, S. 119 Kinman, B. 99 Klawans, J. 66 Kraus, T. J. 33 Krauter, S. 46 Kuefler, M. 21 Lacey, W. K. 86 Lake, K. 68 Larson, J. 36 Lentz, J. C., Jr 34, 35, 40 Lewis, N. 99, 137 Liew, T.-s. B. 54 Lintott, A. 86, 127 Loomba, A. 52 Lopez, D. C. 32, 37 Macro, A. D. 86, 88 Maddox, R. 79 Malina, B. J. 124 Malkin, I. 66 Mannheim, B. 5 Marshall, I. H. 13, 89, 91, 93, 99 Martin, D. B. 38, 56 Martin, M. W. 39 Martin-Ascensio, G. 6-8



Index of Authors

Maruerat, D. 125 Mason, S. 58, 68 Matthews, S. 25, 29, 110 Mayordomo, M. 18, 45 McDonnell, M. A. 45 McKechnie, P. 126 Messerschmidt, J. W. 18, 31 Metzger, B. M. 34 Millar, F. 86, 87 Moore, S. D. 17, 26, 28, 52, 53, 56 Morrow, S. 35 Moxnes, H. 21, 22, 37 Murphy-O’Connor, J. 100, 131 Myles, R. J. 26 Neagoe, A. 109 Nelson, P. K. 93 Neyrey, J. H. 34 Nicolet, C. 151, 152 Nolland, J. 89-91, 93, 94 Nongbri, B. 68 Nussbaum, M. C. 39 O’Toole, R. F. 77, 104 Økland, J. 12 Oakes, P. 75, 99, 108 Page, S. H. T. 93 Parker, H. N. 32 Parson, M. C. 144 Penner, T. 19, 24, 25, 29, 50-53, 109 Pervo, R. I. 10, 12, 13, 68, 145, 146 Peterson, D. 102 Petterson, C. 4, 12, 122 Phillips, T. E. 13 Pilch, J. J. 124 Pilgrin, W. E. 111 Price, S. R. F. 62 Rapske, B. M. 96, 97, 101 Reimer, I. R. 10, 39, 43 Reinhold, M. 99, 137 Reynolds, J. 86, 87 Ringe, S. H. 90 Robbins, V. K. 80, 89, 109 Robinson, O. F. 133 Rossing, B. 150 Rowe, C. K. 38, 114, 124

Said, E. W. 52 Saldarini, A. J. 34 Saller, R. P. 32, 33 Sanders, E. P. 100 Sanders, J. T. 78, 92 Satlow, M. L. 31, 41, 42 Schäfer, P. 37, 58, 60, 62 Schürer, E. 86 Schüssler Fiorenza, E. 56 Schwartz, D. R. 63 Schwartz, S. 63 Scott, J. C. 121 Sedgwick, E. K. 50 Segovia, F. F. 158 Seim, T. K. 38 Shelton, J.-A. 86 Sherwin-White, A. N. 124 Skinner, M. L. 38, 115, 123, 124, 148 Slingerland, H. D. 68 Smith, A. 21, 29 Smith, R. R. R. 62 Soards, M. L. 8, 93 Sollors, W. 65 Sordi, M. 133 Spencer, F. S. 10, 42, 43 Spender, D. 5 Spiegel, G. M. 51 Spivak, G. C. 52 Squires, J. T. 102 Stagg, F. 144 Stern, M. 64 Still, T. D. 35 Stowers, S. K. 36, 45, 67, 68 Strait, D. J. 119 Swancutt, D. 56 Syme, R. 137 Tajra, H. W. 77, 98, 100 Talbert, C. H. 142 Tannehill, R. C. 90 Taylor, V. 94 Thompson, M. B. 89 Tiede, D. L. 113 Traister, B. 28 Trebilco, P. R. 88 Unnik, W. C. van 142

185

186

Index of Authors

Vander Stichele, C. 19, 24, 25, 29, 50-53 Veltman, F. 34 Vermes, G. 86 Veyne, P. 32, 33 Walaskay, P. W. 79, 80, 89, 93, 96, 99, 112 Walters, J. 18, 33 Walton, S. 47, 93, 98, 101, 104, 110-12, 120, 123 Watson, A. 131 Weatherly, J. A. 78, 92 Wengst, K. 76, 97 Williams, C. A. 31, 53 Williams, D. K. 118 Williams, M. H. 132 Wills, L. 40

Wilson, B. 20, 21, 30, 32, 35, 40, 42-46, 70 Wilson, B. W. J. G. 86 Winter, B. W. 88, 131, 132, 136 Witherington III, B. 12, 13, 81, 95-97, 101 Wright, N. T. 90, 91, 96 Wyke, M. 30 Yamazaki-Ransom, K. 115 Yinger, K. L. 35 Yoder, J. 111 Zanker, P. 32 Zimmermann, R. 126 Zita, J. 23