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‘That There May Be Equality’: The Contexts and Consequences of a Pauline Ideal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2012

L. L. Welborn*
Affiliation:
Fordham University, Department of Theology, 441 East Fordham Road, Bronx, New York 10458, USA. email: welborn@fordham.edu.

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to illuminate the character of Paul's appropriation of the ideal of ‘equality’ (ἰσότηϛ) in 2 Cor 8.13–15 by exploring the meaning of the term in each of the contexts in the Greek world in which thinking about ‘equality’ developed: friendship, politics, and the cosmos. The essay traces a consistent tendency in Paul to reverse the ancient logic of inverse proportion as the means for achieving ‘equality’. The essay highlights the novelty of Paul's attempt to create an economic structure—partnership in the collection—the goal of which was to achieve ‘equality’ between persons of different social classes through redistributive exchange.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013

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References

1 The translation slightly modifies that of Betz, Hans Dieter, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters of the Apostle Paul (ed. MacRae, George W.; trans. Welborn, L. L.; Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) 37Google Scholar.

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4 In reference to Paul's appeal to ἰσότηϛ in 2 Cor 8.13–14, see, e.g., Stählin, ‘ἴσοϛ, ἰσότηϛ’, 348: ‘We may ask whether this is not a concession to secular, i.e., Greek do ut des thinking’; Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 88: ‘On the basis of the Greek understanding of “equity”/“equality”, the ideological foundation of the collection would be legal and juridical equity/equality. In other words, it must spring from ἰσότηϛ in the true Greek sense… But it seems hardly plausible that Paul meant to recommend some kind of legal equity as ground and premise for the collection; this kind of mere formalism would hardly correspond to Paul's usual argument.’

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9 Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory, 22–3, 39, 65–7. Agamben does not discuss 2 Cor 8.13–14, but identifies the deutero-Pauline texts Col 1.24–15 and Eph 3.9 as crucial moments in the development of the sense of oikonomia.

10 Aristotle Eth. Nic. 8.5.5; cf. Eth. Nic. 8.7.2–4, 9.8.2; Eth. Eud. 7.6.9, 7.9.1.

11 Aristotle Pol. 3.16; cf. Eth. Nic. 8.1.6, 8.8.5: ἡ δ’ ἰσότηϛ καὶ ὁµοιότηϛ ϕιλότηϛ.

12 Aristotle Eth. Nic. 8.3.8.

13 Aristotle Eth. Nic. 8.6.7; Eth. Eud. 7.9.1.

14 Aristotle Eth. Nic. 8.6.7; Eth. Eud. 7.9.5. Cf. Pangle, Lorraine Smith, Aristotle and the Philosophy of Friendship (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2003) 5764Google Scholar.

15 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.9.5; cf. Eth. Nic. 8.6.7.

16 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.9.5; cf. Eth. Nic. 8.6.7.

17 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.9.5.

18 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.3.2; Eth. Nic. 8.7.2. Cf. Pakaluk, Michael, Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics Books VIII and IX (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998) 92–4Google Scholar.

19 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.10.10; cf. Eth. Nic. 8.14.2.

20 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.10.13.

21 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.10.12.

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24 Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, ‘Patronage in Roman Society’, Patronage in Ancient Society, 73Google Scholar.

25 West, A. B., Corinth VIII: Latin Inscriptions 1896–1926 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1931) 50–3 no. 68Google Scholar. On this inscription and the career of Gaius Julius Spartiaticus in general, see Taylor, L. R. and West, Allen B., ‘The Euryclids in Latin Inscriptions from Corinth’, AJA 30 (1926) 389400, esp. 393–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chrimes, K. M. T., Ancient Sparta: A Reexamination of the Evidence (Manchester: Manchester University, 1952) 169–87Google Scholar; Bowersock, Glen W., ‘Eurycles of Sparta’, JRS 51 (1961) 112–18Google Scholar, esp. 116; Cartledge, Paul and Spawforth, Anthony, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta: A Tale of Two Cities (London: Routledge, 2002) 97104, esp. 100–103Google Scholar.

26 Joubert, Stephan, Paul as Benefactor: Reciprocity, Strategy, and Theological Reflection in Paul's Collection (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000)Google Scholar.

27 Joubert, Paul as Benefactor, 111–15.

28 Joubert, Paul as Benefactor, 150–2.

29 Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.10.13. For this criticism of Joubert's account of benefaction, see already Friesen, ‘Paul and Economics’, 48.

30 Cf. Johnson, Luke Timothy, ‘Making Connections: The Material Expression of Friendship in the New Testament’, Interpretation 58 (2004) 158–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 165–7.

31 On the social status of Crispus, the former ‘synagogue president’ (Acts 18.8) and Gaius, ‘the host of the whole ekklesia’ (Rom 16.23), see Theissen, Gerd, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982) 73–4Google Scholar; Meeks, Wayne, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University, 1983) 57–8Google Scholar, 221 n. 7; Lampe, Peter, ‘Paul, Patrons, and Clients’, Paul in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Sampley, J. Paul; Harrisburg: Trinity, 2003) 496Google Scholar; Friesen, ‘Poverty in Pauline Studies’, 365, observing that Gaius must have had ‘a larger house than others, which makes him perhaps the wealthiest person we know of from Paul's assemblies’.

32 Conzelmann, Hans, 1 Corinthians: A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 364–6Google Scholar.

33 Meggitt, Paul, Poverty and Survival, 75–6, 96; Friesen, Steven J., ‘Prospects for a Demography of the Pauline Mission: Corinth Among the Churches’, Urban Religion in Roman Corinth (ed. Schowalter, Daniel D. and Friesen, Steven J.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2005) 351–70, esp. 367Google Scholar.

34 For the sense of ἄξιοϛ as ‘worth’ or ‘value’, see the papyri adduced by Moulton, James H. and Milligan, George, The Vocabulary of the Greek New Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non-literary Sources (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1930) 50–1Google Scholar s.v. ἄξιοϛ. For this interpretation of the phrase ἐὰν δὲ ἄξιον ᾖ in 1 Cor 16.4, see Weiss, Johannes, Der erste Korintherbrief (KEK 5; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910) 382Google Scholar: ‘Wenn es der Mühe wert ist; also ἄξιον ἐστι wie 2 Thess. 1.3;…nur wenn eine glänzende Sammlung zusammengekommen ist, will er es tun’.

35 Credit for this insight belongs to Marshall, Peter, Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul's Relations with the Corinthians (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987) 232, 245, 345Google Scholar; see further Welborn, L. L., An End to Enmity: Paul and the ‘Wrongdoer’ of Second Corinthians (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011) 380–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar. More generally, Fitzgerald, John T., ‘Paul and Friendship’, Paul in the Greco-Roman World (ed. Sampley) 319–43Google Scholar.

36 For this vocabulary in the literature of friendship: κοινωνία (2 Cor 1.7; 8.4; 9.13; Rom 15.26), cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 8.9.1–2, 8.12.1, 9.12.1; βέβαιοϛ, βɛβαιόω (2 Cor 1.7; 1.21), cf. Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.2.39, 7.5.3; Eth. Nic. 8.8.5; ἁπλότηϛ (2 Cor 1.12; 8.2; 9.11, 13) cf. Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.5.2; πίστιϛ, πιστόϛ (2 Cor 1.18; 1.24; 8.7), cf. Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.2.40; πλɛονɛξία, πλɛονɛκτέω (2 Cor 2.11; 7.2; 9.5; 12.17–18), cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 5.2; Menander Mon. 259, 366; Dio Chrysostom Or. 17.7; ἀδικία, ἄδικον, ἀδικέω (2 Cor 7.2; 7.12), cf. Aristotle Eth. Eud. 7.1.3, 7.2.19; Eth. Nic. 8.9.3; λύπη, λυπέω (2 Cor 2.1–4, 5; 7.8, 9, 11; 9.7), cf. Aristotle Rhet. 2.2.8–9, 15; Eth. Eud. 7.6.8; Eth. Nic. 9.11.4; Menander Sent. 456; Plutarch Mor. 460D-464C. This list might easily be expanded, e.g., πɛποίθησιϛ (2 Cor 1.15), cf. Aristotle Eth. Nic. 8.3.8–9. See the discussion in Welborn, An End to Enmity, 381–5.

37 Stählin, ‘ἴσοϛ, ἰσότηϛ’, 347; Thom, Johan C., ‘“Harmonius Equality”: The Topos of Friendship in Neopythagorean Writings’, Greco-Roman Perspectives on Friendship (ed. Fitzgerald, John T.; Atlanta: Scholars, 1997) 77104Google Scholar.

38 Harrison, James R., Paul's Language of Grace in its Greco-Roman Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 289332Google Scholar.

39 Heinrici, C. F. G., Der zweite Brief an die Korinther (KEK 6; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1900) 283Google Scholar; Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 257; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 66.

40 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 68.

41 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 41–9; cf. Harrison, Paul's Language of Grace, 315; Downs, David J., The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul's Collection for Jerusalem in its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 131–4Google Scholar.

42 Furnish, II Corinthians, 417–18; Horrell, David G., Solidarity and Difference: A Contemporary Reading of Paul's Ethics (London: T&T Clark, 2005) 237–8Google Scholar.

43 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 62.

44 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 68.

45 See the discussion of the relationship between 2 Cor 8.14 and Rom 15.26–27 in Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 259–60; Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 62–7; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 68–9; Downs, Offering of the Gentiles, 137–8.

46 For the political context of the concept, see Hirzel, Themis, Dike, und Verwandtes, 228–320; Stählin, ‘ἴσοϛ, ἰσότηϛ’, 345–6;

47 Hirzel, Themis, Dike, und Verwandtes, 228.

48 Aristotle Pol. 2.1.4.

49 Hirzel, Themis, Dike, und Verwandtes, 251–3, and esp. 421–3 (Excursus VII) on the relation between ὅµοιοϛ and ἴσοϛ. See also Stählin, ‘ἴσοϛ, ἰσότηϛ’, 346.

50 The entire context of Aristotle Pol. 4.4.2 is relevant: ‘The first kind of democracy therefore is the one which receives the name chiefly in respect of equality (κατὰ τὸ ἴσον). For the law of this sort of democracy ascribes equality to the state of things in which the rich have no more prominence than the poor, and neither class is sovereign, but both are alike (ἀλλ’ ὁµοίουϛ ἀμϕοτέρουϛ): for assuming that freedom is chiefly found in a democracy, as some persons suppose, and also equality (ἰσότηϛ), this would be so most fully when to the fullest extent all alike share equally in the government.’ Cf. the formulaic descriptions of democracy in the inscriptions, e.g., Dittenberger, SIG 254,6: πολιτɛία ἴση καὶ ὁµοία; 312,25: πολιτɛία ἐπ’ ἴσῃ καὶ ὁµοίῃ.

51 Aristotle Pol. 5.1.7. See the discussion of ‘proportionale Gleichheit’ in Hirzel, Themis, Dike, und Verwandtes, 277–81.

52 Hirzel, Themis, Dike, und Verwandtes, 251–3, 421–3; Stählin, ‘ἴσοϛ, ἰσότηϛ’, 346; Vassiliadis, ‘Equality and Justice in Classical Antiquity and in Paul’, 53–4.

53 Demosthenes Or. 21.112; cf. Stählin, ‘ἴσοϛ, ἰσότηϛ’, 346 n. 19; cf. Vassiliadis, ‘Equality and Justice in Classical Antiquity and in Paul’, 54.

54 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 68.

55 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 68.

56 Cavan W. Concannon, ‘Ecclesia laus Corinthiensis: Negotiating Ethnicity under Empire’ (PhD diss., Harvard University, 2010).

57 For this interpretation, which takes the report of the conversion of Crispus as the unexpressed object of the participle ἀκούοντɛϛ, see Haenchen, Ernst, The Acts of the Apostles: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971) 535Google Scholar; Barrett, C. K., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (2 vols.; ICC; London: T&T Clark, 2004) 2.868–9Google Scholar; Lüdemann, Gerd, Early Christianity according to the Traditions in Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 203–4Google Scholar.

58 Philo Legat. 281. Cf. Richardson, Peter, ‘On the Absence of “Anti-Judaism” in 1 Corinthians’, Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity. Vol. 1, Paul and the Gospels (ed. Richardson, P. and Granskou, D.; Ontario: Wilfred Laurier University, 1986) 5974, esp. 60–3Google Scholar.

59 Meeks, First Urban Christians, 57; Collins, Raymond F., First Corinthians (Collegeville: Glazier, 1999) 83Google Scholar.

60 Georgi, Dieter, The Opponents of Paul in Second Corinthians (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) esp. 272–4Google Scholar.

61 Barclay, John M. G., ‘Thessalonica and Corinth: Social Contrasts in Pauline Christianity’, JSNT 47 (1992) 4974Google Scholar; Ascough, Richard S., Paul's Macedonian Associations (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003)Google Scholar.

62 Kasher, Aryeh, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985) 356–7Google Scholar and passim; Zeev, Miriam Pucci ben, Jewish Rights in the Roman World (Tübingen: Mohr siebeck, 1998) 1356, 451–82Google Scholar.

63 Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 280–2; cf. Pucci ben Zeev, Jewish Rights in the Roman World, 300; Gruen, Erich S., Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2002) 71, 74–5CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64 Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 282; Pucci ben Zeev, Jewish Rights in the Roman World, 460–7.

65 Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 282.

66 In the dating of Paul's Corinthian correspondence, I follow the early chronology established by Lüdemann, Gerd, Paul, Apostle to the Gentiles: Studies in Chronology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 618, 157–77Google Scholar; supported by Horrell, David G., The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence: Interests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996) 73–4Google Scholar. On the importance of the Caligula crisis, see Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 316–18; Barrett, Andrew, Caligula: The Corruption of Power (New Haven: Yale University, 1990) 140–91Google Scholar; Schäfer, Peter, Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1998) 136–44Google Scholar.

67 Philo Legat. 350; cf. Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 243–4; Schäfer, Judeophobia, 140, 144.

68 PLond. 1912 in Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum, vol. 2 (ed. Tcherikover, Victor A. and Fuks, Alexander; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1960) 41, 43, no. 153, Col. V, lines 94–5Google Scholar. Cf. Schäfer, Judeophobia, 148–9.

69 Josephus C. Ap. 1.229–51. Cf. Schäfer, Judeophobia, 19–23.

70 Josephus C. Ap. 2.73–102. Cf. Schäfer, Judeophobia, 65.

71 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 122–5.

72 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 122–3.

73 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 122, finding the correct interpretation in Erasmus, In Novum Testamentum Annotationes (Basel: Frobenius, 1542) 578Google Scholar.

74 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 87.

75 Hirzel, Themis, Dike, und Verwandtes, 308–11; Stählin, ‘ἴσοϛ, ἰσότηϛ’, 346.

76 Plato Gorgias 507d-508a.

77 Ps.-Aristotle De Mundo 5, 397a3–4.

78 Philo Quis rer. div. haer. 143.

79 Philo Quis rer. div. haer. 152. See the discussion of this text in Barclay, John M. G., ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Corinthians 8.1–15’, The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (ed. Wagner, J. Ross, Rowe, C. Kavin and Grieb, A. Katherine; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 409–26Google Scholar, here 418.

80 Philo Quis rer. div. haer. 191.

81 Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 259; similarly, Furnish, II Corinthians, 407.

82 Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 85–7, 138–40.

83 Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 87–9.

84 Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 88–9.

85 Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 89.

86 Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 89 (emphasis mine).

87 Plato Leg. 5, 741a; Philo Quis rer. div. haer. 143; cf. Spec. Leg. 231–37.

88 Similarly, Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace’, 420–1.

89 Cf. Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory, 21–5, 50–2, 65–7.

90 Dio Chrysostom Or. 17.9–11, referencing Euripides Phoen. 528–49. Cf. Mussies, G., Dio Chrysostom and the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1972) 178Google Scholar.

91 Dio Chrysostom Or. 17.11.

92 Philo Quis rer. div. haer. 191.

93 Similarly, Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 239–40; Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace’, 411–13, 419.

94 E.g., Furnish, II Corinthians, 420.

95 Brooke, Alan E. and McLean, Norman, The Old Testament in Greek, vol. 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1906) 208Google Scholar. Cf. Kautzsch, Aemilius Fridericus, De Veteris Testamenti locis a Paulo apostolo allegatis (Leipzig: Metzger & Wittig, 1869) 1920Google Scholar.

96 Similarly, Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 240; Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace’, 411–13, 419.

97 Cf. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 259.

98 Finley, The Ancient Economy, 21.

99 Finley, The Ancient Economy, 21; similarly, Cartledge, ‘The Economy (Economies) of Ancient Greece’, 12–14; Meikle, ‘Modernism, Economics and the Ancient Economy’, 244–5.

100 Xenophon Oeconomicus; Ps.-Aristotle Oeconomica; cf. Finley, The Ancient Economy, 21–2.

101 Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 259; Furnish, II Corinthians, 407–8, 419–20. The account of the sharing of possessions among the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem in Acts 2.44–45 and 4.36–37 does not qualify as a ‘precedent’ to Paul, contra Hengel, Martin, Property and Riches in the Early Church (London: SCM, 1974) 31–4Google Scholar; Capper, Brian J., ‘Community of Goods in the Early Jerusalem Church’, ANRW II.26.2 (ed. Temporini, H. and Haase, W.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1995) 1730–74Google Scholar, since Acts dates to the second century: see Pervo, Richard I., Dating Acts: Between the Evangelists and the Apologists (Santa Rosa: Polebridge, 2006)Google Scholar; Pervo, Acts: A Commentary on the Book of Acts (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009) esp. 88–91Google Scholar; cf. Haenchen, Acts of the Apostles, 195: ‘the summaries [in Acts 2.44–45 and 4.36–37] appear to flow entirely from the pen of Luke’. See the discussion in Bartchy, S. Scott, ‘Community of Goods in Acts: Idealization or Social Reality?’, The Future of Early Christianity (ed. Pearson, Birger A.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 309–18Google Scholar.

102 Xenophon Cyropaed. 8.6.23.

103 Plutarch Lycurg. 24.

104 Plutarch Lycurg. 24.

105 Friesen, ‘Paul and Economics’, 51.

106 Friesen, ‘Paul and Economics’, 50–1; similarly, Meggitt, Paul, Poverty and Survival, 155–78.

107 Similarly, Vassiliadis, Petros, ‘The Collection Revisited’, Deltion Biblikon Meleton 11 (1992) 42–8, esp. 44Google Scholar: ‘According to his argument in 2 Cor 8–9, the implication of that project was the social ideal of equal distribution and permanent sharing (κοινωνία) of material wealth’ (emphasis original). Cf. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 239–40.

108 Friesen, ‘Paul and Economics’, 40–4.

109 Friesen, ‘Paul and Economics’, 45, 50–1.

110 Cf. Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 43 n. 15, 68: ‘At the literal level, Paul certainly intended the material abundance of the Corinthians and the material poverty of the Jerusalem church’.

111 Cf. Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, 382.

112 Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 77, observing that ἁδρότηϛ is a terminus technicus.

113 Friesen, ‘Paul and Economics’, 50–1. The same might be said of Longenecker, Remember the Poor.

114 Similarly, Vassiliadis, ‘The Collection Revisited’, 44.

115 Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 90, referencing the Jewish Apocalyptic tradition in 2 Bar 29.8.