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’Εϰϰλησία τοῦ θεοῦ: The ‘Church of God’ and the Civic Assemblies (ἐϰϰλησίαι) of the Greek Cities in the Roman Empire: A Response to Paul Trebilco and Richard A. Horsley*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2012

George H. van Kooten
George H. van Kooten*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Groningen, Oude Boteringestraat 38, 9712 GK Groningen, The Netherlands email: g.h.van.kooten@rug.nl
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Abstract

In this essay I take issue with Paul Trebilco's recent argument in this journal that the Christian self-designation of ἐϰϰλησία has a background in the Septuagint. I argue that its Graeco-Roman political meaning in the sense of ‘civic assembly’ was decisive in its adoption by Paul, and that Paul wished to portray his communities as alternative organizations existing alongside the civic assemblies. At the same time, however, I am critical of Richard Horsley's anti-imperialist understanding of the Pauline communities. Paul's contrast between two types of ἐϰϰλησία is an expression of his view on two types of πολίτευμα, a distinction which finds its background in the Stoic doctrine of dual citizenship. Through a sustained analysis of ἐϰϰλησία in the Hellenistic and Roman periods I show that, in many respects, the functioning of the Christian ἐϰϰλησία mirrors the operations of the civic assemblies.

Keywords

Churchcivic assemblyChristian self-designationsanti-imperial PaulPaul and politics
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , October 2012 , pp. 522 - 548
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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Footnotes

*

I gratefully acknowledge the feedback on various drafts of my paper by two audiences at the annual meetings of the Society of Biblical Literature (Corpus Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti Section, Atlanta, 2010; Paul and Politics Group, San Francisco, 2011), by members of the CRASIS Research Institute for Graeco-Roman Antiquity at the University of Groningen, esp. Onno van Nijf, Birgit van der Lans and Karin Neutel, and by Ralph Korner (McMaster University, Canada) and my previous MA student Erik Drenth, as well as the assistance of my student assistant, Albertina Oegema. I also greatly profited from the criticism and suggestions of the editor and the anonymous reader.

References

1 Trebilco, Paul, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐκκλησία?’, NTS 57 (2011) 440–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See now also Trebilco, Paul, Self-designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2012), Chapter 5: ‘The assembly—ἡ ἐκκλησία’, 164–207Google Scholar.

2 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 458.

3 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 456.

4 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 440.

5 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 442–3; Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 186: ‘it seems likely that Paul persecuted the Hellenists in Jerusalem in particular, rather than all of the earliest Christians’.

6 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 443. Cf. Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 185.

7 Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 182.

8 Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 196.

9 Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 168. Cf. Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 448.

10 For examples of spontaneous meetings (some lawful, others unlawful) of the civic assembly, see Athenaeus Deipn. 5.49, 212e; Pausanias Descr. 7.14.2; Plutarch Garr. 509B. For the notion of a lawful meeting of the assembly (Acts 19.39), see Lucian Deor. conc. 14; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. rom. 9.54.5.

11 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 442–3; cf. Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 186.

12 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 442: ‘it is hard to say that the exact phrase “ἡ ἐϰϰλησία τοῦ θεοῦ” was being used prior to Paul’, 444; Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 173–6.

13 Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 173.

14 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 444.

15 For the first three scholars, see Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 444. For Horsley, see Horsley, R. A., ‘Building an Alternative Society: Introduction’, Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society (ed. Horsley, R. A.; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997) 206–14Google Scholar at 209. Cf. also Horsley, R. A., ‘Paul's Assembly in Corinth: An Alternative Society’, Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches (ed. Schowalter, D. N. and Friesen, S. J.; Harvard Theological Studies 53; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2005) 371–95Google Scholar at 393.

16 Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 174.

17 In the NT, the phrase ‘assembly of God’ occurs eight times in Paul's authentic letters (1 Thess 2.14; 1 Cor 1.2; 10.32; 11.16, 22; 15.9; 2 Cor 1.1; Gal 1.13), twice in the Deutero-Paulines (2 Thess 1.4; 1 Tim 3.5) and also once in Acts (20.28).

18 See Ando, Clifford, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty in the Roman Empire (Classics and Contemporary Thought 6; Berkeley: University of California, 2000), 343–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 On Rom 13, see Krauter, Stefan, Studien zu Röm 13,1–7: Paulus und der politische Diskurs der neronischen Zeit (WUNT 243; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009)Google Scholar. For 2 Thessalonians, see van Kooten, G. H., ‘“Wrath Will Drip in the Plains of Macedonia”: Expectations of Nero's Return in the Egyptian Sibylline Oracles (Book 5), 2 Thessalonians, and Ancient Historical Writings’, The Wisdom of Egypt: Jewish, Early Christian, and Gnostic Essays in Honour of Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (ed. Hilhorst, A. and van Kooten, G. H.; AJEC 59; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2005) 177–215Google Scholar at 203–7.

20 Cf. Ando, Imperial Ideology and Provincial Loyalty, 343–4 (Tatian), 344–5 (Origen), 347–8 (Augustine).

21 For the Stoic concept of the cosmic city, see Schofield, M., The Stoic Idea of the City (with a new Foreword by M. C. Nussbaum and a new Epilogue by the author; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1999; 1st ed.Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1991), Chapter 3, 57–92Google Scholar. For Paul's appropriation of the Platonic-Stoic doctrine of dual citizenship in his thoughts on the earthly versus the heavenly Jerusalem in Gal 4.24–26 and on the heavenly πολίτευμα in Phil 3.20, see van Kooten, G. H., ‘Philosophical Criticism of Genealogical Claims and Stoic Depoliticization of Politics: Graeco-Roman Strategies in Paul's Allegorical Interpretation of Hagar and Sarah (Gal 4.21–31)’, Abraham, the Nations, and the Hagarites: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspectives on Kinship with Abraham (ed. Goodman, Martin, van Kooten, George and van Ruiten, Jacques; TBN 13; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2010) 361–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar at 372–85. For the Stoic background to Augustine's doctrine of the two cities, cf. O'Daly, G., Augustine's ‘City of God’ (Oxford: Oxford University, 1999), Chapter 4, 53–66Google Scholar, esp. 60.

22 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 445.

23 Meeks, W. A., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven/London: Yale University, 1983) 108Google Scholar.

24 Georgi, D., Theocracy in Paul's Praxis and Theology (trans. Green, David E.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 51Google Scholar; cf. 57.

25 Horsley, ‘Building an Alternative Society: Introduction’, 209.

26 Horsley, ‘Building an Alternative Society: Introduction’, 209 and 211 resp. Horsley's other publications on Paul's assembly as an alternative society do not deal with the Graeco-Roman views on the assembly either, but reconstruct Paul's own views on the issue. See Horsley, R. A., ‘1 Corinthians: A Case Study of Paul's Assembly as an Alternative Society’, Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society (ed. Horsley), Chapter 14, 242–52Google Scholar; ‘Rhetoric and Empire—and 1 Corinthians’, Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Krister Stendahl (ed. Horsley, R. A.; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000), Chapter 4, 72–102Google Scholar; and ‘Paul's Assembly in Corinth: An Alternative Society’, 371–95.

27 See Horsley, ‘Building an Alternative Society: Introduction’, 209; and ‘Paul's Assembly in Corinth: An Alternative Society’, 393.

28 On the political institutions of the Graeco-Roman period, see, for example, Larsen, J. A. O., Representative Government in Greek and Roman History (Berkeley: University of California, 1976)Google Scholar; Rhodes, P. J. and Lewis, D. M., The Decrees of the Greek States (Oxford: Clarendon, 1997)Google Scholar, which shows that democratic institutions remained a living reality, at least until the third century CE; Dmitriev, S., City Government in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor (Oxford: Oxford University, 2005)Google Scholar, esp. the general overview of Chapter 9, 289–328: ‘Greek Cities under Hellenistic and Roman Rulers’; and Grieb, V., Hellenistische Demokratie: Politische Organisation und Struktur in freien griechischen Poleis nach Alexander dem Großen (Stuttgart: Steiner, 2008)Google Scholar, who shows that in the Hellenistic period the assembly remained a vital democratic institution in the city states of Athens (42–5), Cos (153–7), Miletus (210–13) and Rhodes (276–89); see also Eck, W., ‘Ämter und Verwaltungsstrukturen in Selbstverwaltungseinheiten der frühen römischen Kaiserzeit’, Neutestamentliche Ämtermodelle im Kontext (ed. Schmeller, T., Ebner, M. and Hoppe, R.; Quaestiones disputatae 239; Freiburg: Herder, 2010) 9–33Google Scholar.

29 Dmitriev, City Government in Hellenistic and Roman Asia Minor, 304–5, 309.

30 Jerusalem: Josephus, A.J. 16.62: ‘he went to Jerusalem and called an assembly of all the people of the city, and there was a large crowd from the country as well’; Jericho: B.J. 1.654 = A.J. 17.160–161; B.J. 1.666.

31 On the continuation of the political institutions, including the assembly, in the post-Classical Greek city, see also van Nijf, O. M. and Alston, Richard, ‘Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age: Introduction and Preview’, Political Culture in the Greek City after the Classical Age (ed. van Nijf, O. M. and Alston, R.; Groningen-Royal Holloway Studies on the Greek City after the Classical Age 2; Leuven: Peeters, 2010) 1–26Google Scholar. In the imperial period, assembly meetings were still considered important; see Ma, J., ‘Public Speech and Community in the Euboicus’, Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy (ed. Swain, S.; Oxford: Oxford University, 2000) 108–24Google Scholar; Chaniotis, A., ‘Macht und Volk in den kaiserzeitlichen Inschriften von Aphrodisias’, Popolo e potere nel mondo antico (ed. Urso, G.; Pisa: ETS, 2005) 47–61Google Scholar; Zuiderhoek, A., ‘On the Political Sociology of the Imperial Greek City’, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 48 (2008) 417–45Google Scholar. Until late in the imperial period, the decisions of local cities were still passed in the assemblies as decrees of the βouλή and δῆμos see Rhodes and Lewis, The Decrees of the Greek States; and Chaniotis, ‘Macht und Volk in den kaiserzeitlichen Inschriften von Aphrodisias’.

32 Runesson, A., Binder, D. D. and Olsson, B., The Ancient Synagogue from its Origins to 200 C.E. (AJEC 72; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2008)Google Scholar.

33 This is the case in nos. 64 (L.A.B. 11.8), 202 (Philo Deus 111), 203 (Philo Virt. 108) and 216 (Justin Dial. 134).

34 Philo Spec. 1.324–325; Runesson, Binder and Olsson, The Ancient Synagogue, no. 201.

35 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 456.

36 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 456 n. 82, with reference to Binder, D. D., Into the Temple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second Temple Period (Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation series 169; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999) 91–154Google Scholar.

37 See Larsen, Representative Government in Greek and Roman History, 84, 87, 89–98, 165–6, on the supra-local assembly of the Achaean Confederacy in particular, and, more generally, 107, 122–4, on provincial assemblies and their chief activities. See also Gomme, A. W., Cadoux, T. J. and Rhodes, P. J., ‘Ekklēsia’, OCD3: 514–15Google Scholar.

38 See Horsley, ‘Building an Alternative Society: Introduction’, 209–10.

39 Horsley, ‘Building an Alternative Society: Introduction’, 211 n. 15.

40 Horsley, ‘Building an Alternative Society: Introduction’, 211. On the terminology of πολίτευμα and ‘the πολίτευμα of the Jews’, see Lüderitz, G., ‘What is the Politeuma?’, Studies in Early Jewish Epigraphy (ed. van Henten, J. W. and van der Horst, P. W.; AGJU 21; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 183–225Google Scholar.

41 Horsley, ‘Paul's Assembly in Corinth: An Alternative Society’, 376, 389–90.

42 Trebilco, ‘Why Did the Early Christians Call Themselves ἡ ἐϰϰλησία?’, 445.

43 See, e.g., Welborn, Laurence L., ‘On the Discord in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 1–4 and Ancient Politics’, JBL 106 (1987) 85–111Google Scholar.

44 For the importance of rhetoric in the assemblies, see, e.g., Bowie, E. L., ‘Greeks and their Past in the Second Sophistic’, Studies in Ancient Society (ed. Finley, M. I.; London: Routledge, 1974), Chapter 8, 166–209Google Scholar at 169. Cf. also Welborn, ‘On the Discord in Corinth’.

45 Chester, Stephen J., ‘Divine Madness? Speaking in Tongues in 1 Corinthians 14.23’, JSNT 27 (2005) 417–46Google Scholar.

46 Chester, ‘Divine madness?’, 430, 437, 446.

47 This differentiation between citizens within the constitution and outsiders who are ‘outside the constitution’ also occurs in Eph 2.19; within the Christian assembly, however, they now share the same πολιτεία (Eph 2.11–22).

48 Runesson, Binder and Olsson, The Ancient Synagogue, no. 201 (Philo Spec. 1.324–325).

49 Cf. also Philo Migr. 69.

50 For another example of an outsider who becomes part of an assembly meeting, see Lucian Men. 19.

51 Adams, Edward, The Earliest Christian Meeting Places: Almost Exclusively Houses? (Library of New Testament Studies 450; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2013, forthcoming)Google Scholar. Cf. already his ‘Placing the Corinthian Common Meal’, Text, Image, and Christians in the Graeco-Roman World: A Festschrift in Honor of David Lee Balch (ed. Niang, A. C. and Osiek, C.; Princeton Theological Monograph Series 176; Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), Chapter 2, 22–37Google Scholar.

52 For the customary meetings of the assembly in Rome in the agora, see Josephus A.J. 19.158. For meetings in Rome in the Capitol, see Appian Bell. civ. 1.3.24. For meetings in Greek cities in the theatre, see, e.g., Pausanias Descr. 6.5.2 (Elis, 371 BCE) and Tacitus Hist. 2.80 (Antioch in Syria, 69 CE).

53 For lawful and unlicensed assembly meetings, see Dmitriev, City Government, 308–9. On the assembly and the πρυτάνεις, see Dmitriev, City Government, 84–5, 104–5, 298. On the relationship between the Roman proconsul and the assemblies, see Dmitriev, City Government, 304–5, 308–9.

54 Hence the term ‘law’ in 1 Cor 14.34 does not refer so much to the Jewish law, but to Graeco-Roman law and customs. Cf. Hollander, H.W., ‘The Meaning of the Term “Law” (Νόμος) in 1 Corinthians’, NovT 40 (1998) 117–35, at 127–30Google Scholar.

55 For an overview, see van Kooten, G. H., ‘Christianity in the Graeco-Roman World: Socio-Political, Philosophical, and Religious Interactions up to the Edict of Milan (CE 313)’, The Routledge Companion to Early Christian Thought (ed. Bingham, D. Jeffrey; London/New York: Routledge, 2010), Chapter 1, 3–37 at 9–12Google Scholar.

56 Trebilco, Self-designations and Group Identity, 176.

57 Horsley, ‘Paul's Assembly in Corinth: An Alternative Society’, 389–90.