Slaves to Slaveholders

1 Peter 2:18–25

Submission of Slaves (2:18–25)

2:18

Slaves, submit to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and tolerant, but even to the corrupt ones.

2:19

Do this because it brings God’s favor when, for the sake of one’s conscience before God, one puts up with grief while suffering unjustly.

2:20

For what kind of credit do you merit for enduring being beaten as a result of sinning? But if instead you endure suffering as a result of doing right, this brings God’s favor on you.

2:21

Indeed, it’s for this sort of thing you’ve been called, because Christ also suffered on your behalf, leaving a model for you to follow in his steps.

2:22

He’s the one who “didn’t sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth.”

2:23

When others abused him verbally, he didn’t abuse them back. When he was suffering, he didn’t threaten his abusers. Instead he handed himself over to the one who judges justly.

2:24

He’s the one who “carried our sins” in his body on the cross, so that, since we have died to sins, we may live for righteousness. It’s “by his wounds” you “were healed.”

2:25

That’s because you were like straying sheep. Now, however, you’ve returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls.

2:18

The reuse of the term rendered submit from verse 13 (hupotassō), perhaps as well as its participial form here (also in 3:1),1 suggests a continuation of the thought from the preceding context. These household codes belong to the wider ancient topic of civic relationships. Addressing different groups in succession was a familiar rhetorical form.2 Nevertheless, typical ancient household codes (at least those preserved from antiquity, naturally addressed to the elite) advised slaveholders, not slaves. That Peter addresses only slaves3 and not slaveholders (and later addresses believing husbands only briefly, in 1 Pet. 3:7) suggests the dominant composition of his expected audience: many slaves but few slaveholders, and a disproportionate number of wives with unconverted husbands.

Although the term for “slave” here potentially had a wider meaning than “household slave,” Peter addresses urban congregations and adapts household codes, which addressed household servants. He thus addresses especially household slaves, whose conditions were generally superior to those of slaves in the fields and especially the virtual death sentence of mines, gladiatorial combat, or galleys.4 A minority even achieved some status and power. Nevertheless, Peter recognizes that many slaveholders practiced abuses (thus the end of the verse). Moreover, for many young women and boys, sexual abuse (at least from the slaveholder himself) remained an even graver danger in household slavery than outside.5

We should, however, keep in mind that Peter’s instructions are to those in a situation that they normally cannot escape on their own6 (at least not without earning money on the side to buy their freedom),7 not a formula for all settings. One may note the tension between this address to slaves and 2:16, where God’s own people are urged to live as people who are free.8 Paul similarly urges submission but accepts as a better ideal slaves achieving freedom when possible (1 Cor. 7:21). Manumission was common. For further discussion of all these points, see the excursus “Slavery in the Early Empire.”

A CLOSER LOOK

Slavery in the Early Empire9

Estimates of the numbers of slaves vary widely.10 Some estimate that they far outnumbered free persons in Rome11 and classical Athens;12 more modest estimates are that they constituted roughly a third of the population in Italy, classical Athens,13 and cities such as Pergamum.14 The late republic and early empire probably used more slaves than any earlier society,15 although probably at most one-fourth of free persons held slaves in Roman Italy.16 Prices also varied widely. Slaves sold in Rome from as little as 750 sesterces (187.5 denarii) to as much as 700,000 sesterces (175,000 denarii), 2,000 sesterces being “a legally recognized norm.”17

Most long-term hired labor was apparently slave labor.18 Their range of occupations was roughly the same as among free persons,19 beside whom they often worked.20 Slaves were often physicians;21 managers of houses or estates;22 pedagogues;23 readers;24 and so forth. Temples held slaves to maintain their grounds;25 undertakers also could use slaves to get bodies ready for burial.26 Slaves often worked in masters’ shops or managed their businesses.27 Public slaves sometimes represented a particularly privileged class of slaves;28 municipal slaves ranged from menial laborers to wage-earning clerks and officials.29

Slaves were abundant in agriculture, especially in the west,30 though many argue that rural tenants outnumbered them by this period.31 Yet even in the early second century CE, Pliny the Younger, faced with nonpaying tenants, considers replacing them with some quality slaves to work his estate.32 Pliny the Elder warns against hiring “slave-gangs hired from houses of correction”;33 he also strongly urges maintaining the farmhands’ health.34 Life was physically harder for agrarian workers than for typical household slaves.35

Peter, however, specifically addresses household slaves.36 Household slavery was generally the least oppressive form of slavery,37 but this did not make it always safe. The matron of a Roman home could be expected to supervise the household staff during most of the day;38 a tyrannical matron could spell untold suffering for the household slaves,39 although this portrait emerges most forcefully in Juvenal’s misogynist complaint against unruly matrons. A large household also held slaves of varying ranks,40 such as the well-dressed food waiter.41 In working-class homes, slaves normally lived in their holders’ homes.42 Although servants worked throughout a house, particular areas with more menial responsibilities were particularly “servile” areas.43

Prudent slaveholders were expected to provide their slaves with adequate food.44 Nevertheless, it was normally inferior to that of the slaveholders.45 Most slaves wore clothing comparable to that of the free poor,46 and they probably could not change clothes often; in the second century BCE the austere Cato listed one tunic and one cloak per male farm slave every other year.47

Besides treating slaves as property, Roman law also recognized their humanity and thus distinguished them from normal “property.”48 The gods viewed slaves as human,49 and even Aristotle, who viewed slaves as “living tools,”50 recognized that slaves were humans with reasoning capacities.51 Laws and decrees in the imperial period increasingly limited the abuse of slaves.52 Concern to reduce resistance and increase productivity also generated rewards as incentives.53 Some strict Jewish pietists insisted that Jewish slaveholders not sell servants to gentiles.54

Whereas manumission was much less common in the form of slavery more familiar to many of us from recent centuries, inscriptions attest that ancient manumission was a frequent event, at least in the Latin West.55 The frequency of such manumission does not, of course, signify slaveholders’ altruism. The hope of manumission helped motivate slaves’ compliance, as well as depicting holders as benevolent among their peers.56 Slaves often bought their freedom, and masters could use the funds to buy younger and healthier replacements.57 Often it was also less expensive to release the slave than to continue to maintain them in the household.58

If past the age of thirty, slaves of Roman citizens were eligible for Roman citizenship when manumitted.59 Manumission became common during the empire,60 especially after the reign of Augustus.61 Probably a large proportion of household slaves were eventually manumitted.62 Freedpersons held lower status than freeborn persons,63 but they were legally free, not intermediate between slave and free.64 Nevertheless, they retained obligations to their former holders, now as clients belonging to their household.65 Freedpersons lacked obligations to their patrons’ heirs,66 but even after the slaveholder died, a freedperson might dedicate a monument to him or to her.67 The former masters also owed their new clients business assistance.68

Freedpersons of Caesar could wield considerable power,69 and slaves of Caesar might prefer to remain in that privileged position.70 More generally, freedpersons experienced significant social mobility.71 Many Jews brought to Rome as slaves, under Pompey, were soon freed.72

Roman law allowed slaves to hold some property in practice, although all of it officially belonged to the slaveholder.73 (Jewish law resembled Roman law in this matter.)74 Slaves could even purchase other slaves,75 and, as noted, they might purchase their own freedom.76

Slaves often proved loyal to the slaveholders,77 sometimes even dying for78 or with79 them. Naturally, most ancient literature, produced from the elite, slaveholding class, chose to emphasize “loyal” rather than “disloyal” slaves.80 Some other slaves betrayed81 or falsely accused82 masters. Some slaves attacked a cruel slaveholder with the alleged intent to kill him.83 Slaves who were too loyal to their masters might merit the ridicule of other slaves.84

Because of manumission and other factors noted above, urban household slaves had more opportunities for social mobility than did most freeborn peasants.85 Slaves who managed their holders’ businesses or estates usually had considerable freedom.86 Education was often one means of advancement in status.87 Some philosophers88 and renowned teachers89 were slaves or former slaves. Some slaves of rulers could hold considerable wealth and exercise considerable power.90

Some people even entered particular forms of slavery voluntarily to improve their status or secure other benefits;91 this was especially so if they could enter Caesar’s household.92 Free women sometimes improved their status by marrying into imperial slavery.93 In one papyrus, a person proposes to go to Rome and become an imperial freedman to secure a government office.94 Some Christian slaves in Rome probably belonged to powerful households.95

Abuses of Slaves

Whereas the preceding information should qualify some modern Western assumptions of what enslaved members of Peter’s audience experienced, Peter himself is well aware that slaves often faced harsh treatment. Peter speaks of not only . . . those who are good and tolerant, but . . . corrupt ones (1 Pet. 2:18). Abuse of slaves was common.96 One fictitious slave of an earlier period lamented that if a slave died, her life was too difficult anyway.97 Marcus Cato overworked slaves, then sold them when they were old and tired rather than taking care of them;98 he also kept slaves divided, fearing the danger that their unity could pose.99 Whenever Cato found a slave guilty of a capital offense, he executed him in front of the other servants;100 instilling fear in the servants was considered a useful means of maintaining control.101 Hadrian jabbed out the eye of a slave; others struck their slaves’ teeth so hard that the slaveholders bruised their hands.102 Slaves could be branded,103 a practice apparently common in Italy under the republic,104 though not standard in this period105 except among the “basest” of slaves,106 sometimes as a punishment.107 A Jewish sage advised against branding, as an insult to the slave’s dignity.108

Many women who were household slaves were subject to sexual abuse.109 This was less common with adult male slaves (and less often reported when it happened),110 given the society’s sexual double standard for the slaveholders.111 Slave boys were also abused sexually, though again usually by males.112 Jewish sages, who opposed sexual abuse of slave women,113 warned about the temptations their presence posed.114 Legally, a slaveholder could free a slave woman in order to marry her,115 and it seems to have been often done;116 she could not legally refuse it.117 Although a freedwoman married to her patron could divorce him, this did not grant her the freedom divorces normally conferred on wives.118

Nevertheless, slaves did not always reciprocate such advances.119 Men recognized that slaves, unlike wives, did not provide intercourse voluntarily.120 Ancient men were not oblivious to the reality that wives sometimes grew jealous of slave women;121 a man who refused to sleep with a slave woman lest he anger his wife was considered honorable.122 But men might also praise as honorable a wife who pretended not to notice, and who even rewarded the slave with freedom and a marriage after her husband’s death.123 Again, however, there was little that most slaves could do about such harassment until opportunities arose for manumission.

In New Comedy,124 often a free man becomes impassioned for a slave, but she turns out to be freeborn, and her father, who had exposed her when he was poor, now provides a dowry for the couple to marry.125

Ancient Abolitionism?

Peter addresses slaves in their circumstances; he does not endorse (or condemn) the institution of slavery itself. Addressing the institution would not have been of practical, pastoral relevance to members of his audience, any more than, for example, a drug counselor or marriage therapist today would routinely explore questions of interdiction or government family policies with their clients. Far from wielding social power, Peter’s movement was a despised minority already in a delicate social situation. For that matter, abolition was barely even an option in first-century discussions of hypothetical social ethics.

Roles between slaves and slaveholders were reversed at the Roman festival of Saturnalia,126 but Saturnalia was playful and boded no long-term freedoms.127 More striking are the views of some philosophers.128 Most recognized slavery as an “accident,” not a result of one’s character.129 Some who were philosophically minded thought that people were better off without, or at least with fewer, slaves.130 Early Cynics and Stoics even challenged social values to the extent that many believed they wanted to do away with slavery;131 they almost certainly believed that it was against nature,132 which Aristotle construed as an argument for slavery’s abolition.133

As Stoics became guardians of society’s values instead of its challengers, however, they moved away from such radicalism; the concern was no longer keeping slaves, but simply treating them justly.134 While Seneca the Younger valued slaves’ humanity more than did most non-Stoics,135 his agenda was slaves’ just treatment, not slavery’s abolition.136

Likewise, when a Stoic became emperor, he praised policy based on the “equality” of all;137 he did not, however, seek to liberate slaves.138 Stoicism had become too mainstream, co-opted by society’s values. Although many philosophers taught and practiced some egalitarianism (with Epicureans doing so most dramatically), few philosophers of this period were willing to consider abolishing hierarchical roles.139

Both slaves themselves140 and freedpersons141 might purchase slaves; slaves often sought their own freedom, but not the wholesale end of slavery. Massive slave revolts might free and enlist other slaves to overthrow their Roman oppressors,142 but this was to guarantee their movement’s victory in the war, not to abolish slavery universally or permanently.143 Those who spoke of a totally egalitarian world treated it as unattainable and utopian.144

We should not expect the issue of abolition to come up explicitly in the earliest Christian sources, since it was barely an issue of discussion in that era.145 The extant first-century Christian sources are not moral essays addressing all moral issues of their era (which would have to include the oppression of rural peasants, empires’ suppression of indigenous peoples, and other issues far removed from their urban audiences), but rather are pastoral letters addressing practical needs in specific congregations. Christians were a tiny minority, perhaps no more than a percent of one percent of the empire, with little influence on social structures. Even violence had not ended slavery, and the earliest centuries of Christians were apparently pacifist in any case.146

Yet one scholar of Stoicism suggests that the only known attempt to actually put Stoic communal values into practice in genuine communities was Paul’s own.147 Scripture provided ready principles for the abolitionist cause,148 as became increasingly clear from subsequent history.149 Some Christians in the patristic era simply advised benevolent treatment of slaves,150 but others did argue for their emancipation.151 Some even sold themselves into slavery to help others (1 Clem. 55:2). Christian faith also fueled later British, and often American, abolitionism.152

Most ancient household codes did not address slaves directly;153 they were usually written to elites who ruled slaves rather than served slaveholders. But in an unjust setting in which slaves could not easily escape their holders’ social control, Peter empowers slaves by affirming their own moral volition and identifying them with Christ (2:21–25). (This resembles some Stoic arguments as well.) Unlike some other NT letters, 1 Peter does not address slaveholders, probably because he expects few Christian slaveholders in the communities that it addresses.

The term for respect (phobos) in 2:18 can mean “fear,” but is a noun cognate of the term Peter uses for reverencing God in 2:17; Peter uses it also for wives’ respect for their husbands (3:2) and Christians’ humility (3:16), while rejecting the wrong sort of fear (3:6, 14).154 It would challenge the elite complaint that slaves typically insult their masters.155 The term for masters (despotai) applies, as commonly in antiquity, to slaveholders;156 by analogy, Jews and Christians also applied it to God and/or Christ as the rightful, ultimate ruler.157 Some slaveholders are good (2:18),158 perhaps like believers themselves who are called to do good (2:15, 20; 3:6, 17). The semantic range of the word translated as tolerant (epieikēs) includes yielding, gentle, and kind, in contrast to harsh.159 Others, however, are corrupt (skolios), a term that suggests being twisted or perverted from the right way (e.g., Prov. 2:15; 16:28; Phil. 2:15).

Most people dreaded suffering, regardless of the reason,160 but some thinkers emphasized the value of suffering justly as superior to suffering unjustly.

When Socrates’s wife complained, “You suffer unjustly,” he reportedly quipped, “Why, would you have me suffer justly?”161

The first-century Stoic Musonius Rufus opined that one trained in philosophy “would be disposed to look upon doing a wrong as worse than suffering one.”162

A Stoic of the next generation, Epictetus, himself a former slave, declared that others can harm one physically, but they cannot compel “you to try to avoid what you suffer.”163

2:19

The basis for enduring unjust treatment is not that it is just,164 but that one expects reward from God, or, as Peter puts it, one’s conscience before God (suneidēsis, which the NRSV renders as “being aware of God”).165 The term “conscience” is uncommon in the Septuagint, becoming common only in the first century BCE.166 Josephus uses the term generally for moral awareness;167 Philo, in nearby Alexandria, uses it in a manner resembling that of Greek philosophers.168 The conscience also appears in other Hellenistic Jewish texts;169 its guilt might seem unbearable.170 God’s perspective must take precedence over human ones.171

This respectful submission brings . . . favor (lit., charis, “grace”) (2:19–20).172 One could suppose that it functions like a benefaction (a gift, charis) freely given to the slaveholder (as in 1 Tim. 6:2), earning honor (1 Pet. 2:20). But the end of 2:20 makes clear that this charis refers to favor with God (cf. 5:10). Peter believes that God is near the lowly and favors the oppressed who have only him to depend on (5:5–6); God pays special attention to those who suffer wrongly (5:6–7; cf. 2 Sam. 16:10–12).

2:20

In 2:20, Paul addresses the harsh conditions of many slaves, which are not unlike the sufferings of Christ. Again, Peter’s point is not to seek out suffering, but to provide meaning and hope in the face of it.173 He draws on the model of Christ, hence offering a model relevant for the suffering of all believers, such as most of Peter’s ideal audience.174 Identification with Christ affirms the sufferer’s dignity, even if it cannot immediately resolve the sufferings.

Slaves could be beaten,175 even in Jewish circles.176 Nevertheless, excess savagery sometimes drew the scorn—albeit not generally the intervention—of others.177 Some recommended that punishment be kept moderate178 and noncorporal.179 Other physical abuses besides beatings and sexual abuse existed, although they were much rarer. Torturing slaves for information was a long-standing practice, including for court testimony.180 Legally, masters held universally recognized authority over their slaves’ life and death, as well as possessions.181 By the second century CE, however, laws restricted this right in practice.182 Still, if one slave murdered a master,183 all the slaves of the household would be executed.184 These were not the only circumstances under which slaves were killed lightly.185 Philosophers often included beatings among the sufferings that philosophy enabled one to endure when necessary.186

2:21

Christ’s example of enduring suffering stands at the center of this section, and slaves and wives of unbelievers (far more than elite males) are in particular invited to identify with him.187

A Instruction for everyone (2:13–17)

B Instruction for slaves (2:18–20)

C Christ’s example (2:21–25)

Bʹ Instruction for wives (and husbands) (3:1–7)

Aʹ Instruction for everyone188

Christ’s example of gracious response in the face of unjust suffering is central in a sense to Peter’s entire project,189 in that it grounds Peter’s counsel to believers who are suffering in the model of Christ. In most of the letter, believers face suffering for Christ; but in 2:18–3:6 and especially 2:18–20, believers may embrace Christ’s model and name in any suffering they may face, so long as it is not on account of their own wrongdoing or folly that risks dishonoring Christ’s name. Of all people, Peter, as one of Christ’s original disciples, has a special right to appeal to this example.190

Early Christians could apply this language of model (hupogrammos) to Paul (1 Clem. 5:7), to all the righteous (1 Clem. 33:8), but especially to Christ (1 Clem. 16:17; 33:8; Polycarp, Phil. 8:2).191 Paul spoke of following “in the steps” of Abraham (Rom. 4:12). The expression “called for this” (eis touto eklēthēte) also appears in 1 Pet. 3:9, which also speaks of nonretaliation.192

Exhorting others to follow key examples was widespread; for instance, in letters about honorable people, writers could praise past figures’ virtues as models inviting imitation.193 The emphasis on imitating ancestral wisdom and learning from both positive and negative historical examples is at least as old as classical Athenian rhetoric194 and remained important in Roman rhetoric.195

Providing examples that could be mined by others was a major purpose even for ancient historiography and biography.196 Given the prominence of Christ as a model, and the modeling function of ancient biographies, it is not surprising that extant first-century Christian literature includes four such Christobiographies.197 Early tradition, probably from within living memory198 of the composition of Mark’s Gospel, reports that Peter often recounted anecdotes about Jesus, which Mark provided in his Gospel.199 First John 2:6 probably alludes directly to Jesus’s model in the Fourth Gospel.

Christ’s passion was potentially an uncomfortably relevant example for slaves (1 Pet. 2:18). Slaves could be crucified;200 some slaveholders were thought to dispense the punishment cavalierly, at least in satirical literature.201 Christ’s suffering202 on your behalf reflects the early Christian theme of God’s and Christ’s self-sacrificial love revealed in the cross.203 That Christ suffered on your behalf probably takes for granted substitutionary atonement,204 though Peter’s emphasis here lies with the role model and (esp. in 2:24–25) with believers’ obligation to reciprocate such sacrificial love.205

2:22

Here Peter quotes Isa. 53:9. Because the servant in Isa. 53 suffers on behalf of his people rather than for his own sin (53:9),206 in contrast to Israel (cf. Isa. 40:2), early Christians naturally understood this servant as Jesus.207 (This contrasts with most prior readings.)208 The servant mission belonged to Israel (Isa. 41:8; 44:1–2, 21; 45:4; 48:20; 49:3), but Israel failed in its mission initially (42:18–19), and one representative leader suffered on Israel’s behalf (49:5–6; 53:4–6).

2:23

Peter (1 Pet. 2:23) and Paul (Rom. 15:3) both confirm the passion tradition, found in our Gospels, about Jesus enduring abuse. Although Jesus did answer opponents on various occasions, in the passion narrative he was ridiculed but refused to resist (Mark 14:65; 15:17–20, 29–32). Peter’s wording might echo early Christian preaching: using the same terminology, Paul says that apostles, when reviled, in turn blessed (1 Cor. 4:12); Polycarp speaks of not returning insult for insult (Phil. 2:2).209 The idea, albeit in different words, goes back to Jesus (Luke 6:28; echoed in Rom. 12:14), on whom the Christian motif depends. Given the context of Peter’s use of Isa. 53 in 1 Pet. 2:22, 24–25, here he may think of Isa. 53:7: twice it repeats that the suffering servant “did not open his mouth” when persecuted.

Jesus handed himself over. In the Gospels, Jesus both taught a life of dependence on God as Father (e.g., Matt. 6:25–33 // Luke 12:22–31) and modeled it, accepting the Father’s will and going to a horrible death from which only the Father could raise him. Peter here reiterates that believers can trust God’s justice (see 1 Pet. 1:17; 2:23; 4:5–6). Jesus’s trust in the Father who judges justly echoes Jer. 11:20, where Jeremiah, facing unjust persecution, commits his vindication to the Lord, who judges justly.210

In 1 Pet. 2:23, Jesus models the teaching that Peter presents in 3:9, the wording of which likely echoes Jesus’s teaching (see comment there). Nonretaliation was obviously not the dominant ideal of antiquity.

Diogenes the Cynic: “When some one said, ‘Most people laugh at you,’ his reply was, ‘And so very likely do the asses at them; but as they don’t care for the asses, so neither do I for them.’”211

Rhetorica ad Alexandrum: As it is just to repay benefactions, it is just to harm those who harm us.212

Publilius Syrus: “You aggravate a charge thrown at you, if you meet it with silence.”213

Nor was nonretaliation considered to be easy, especially given ancient Mediterranean concern for honor and shame.

Euripides: What is particularly hard to endure “was listening in silence to dreadful abuse from baser men.”214

Nevertheless, the more general ideal of nonretaliation (or at least restrained retaliation) was not exclusively Christian nor exclusively intelligible to Christians.

Pythagoras (sixth to fifth century BCE) allegedly advised boys “neither to begin a quarrel nor to defend themselves against those doing so.”215

Antisthenes (fifth to fourth century BCE): “Being told that Plato was abusing him, he remarked, ‘It is a royal privilege to do good and be ill spoken of.’”216 “And he advised that when men are slandered, they should endure it more courageously than if they were pelted with stones.”217

Aristippus (ca. 435–350 BCE): “One day that he was reviled, he tried to slip away; the other pursued him, asking, ‘Why do you run away?’ ‘Because,’ said he, ‘as it is your privilege to use foul language, so it is my privilege not to listen.’”218

Philodemus the Epicurean: The wise person is not so foolish as to respond to slight harm with anger, “nor [to be] irritable nor harsh nor bitter.”219

The first-century Stoic Musonius Rufus:

“If then, the philosopher cannot despise blows and insults, when he ought obviously to despise even death, what good would he be?”220
One who silently bears reproaches is “noble-minded.” When Aristophanes publicly reviled Socrates, the latter “was not angry, but when he happened to meet him, asked him if he would like to use him for some other role.”221
Phocion, when his wife was insulted, not only didn’t prosecute, but didn’t even acknowledge that the insult had taken place.222
Indeed, after a young man blinded the Spartan Lycurgus, instead of punishing him the latter “trained him . . . and made a good man of him.”223

Maximus of Tyre, a Middle Platonist orator: The good person does not retaliate or seek revenge, because he will not be provoked and no genuine harm may be done to him.224 Thus one should not return “wrong for wrong”; taking revenge is worse “than the original offender,” who acted merely through ignorance.225

Philostratus’s Neopythagorean Apollonius: When Apollonius’s former student Euphrates insulted him, Apollonius responded “in a philosophical spirit, only refuting him,” rather than insulting him back.226

Tradition attributed to Rabbis Akiba and Eleazar (late first and early second century) the trait that each liked being cursed, so they would receive greater blessing in heaven.227

Rabbinic tradition from before 220 CE: “Our Rabbis taught: Those who are insulted but do not insult, hear themselves reviled without answering, act through love and rejoice in suffering.”228

A tradition attributed to the late second-century Rabbi Meir even uses God as an example of enduring shame. When Meir’s disciples were amazed that he endured spit in his eye to reconcile a wife and her husband, he explained, “The dignity of Meir ought not to be greater than that of his Divine Master. If in the case of the Holy Name, inscribed in sanctity, Scripture orders that it is to be blotted out in water, in order to bring about peace between a man and his wife, shall not the dignity of Meir be of still less account?”229

Beyond this, however, was already the warning of Scripture against seeking one’s own revenge, offered in connection with a commandment often repeated in the NT: “Your hand shall not take revenge, nor shall you hold a grudge against the sons of your people; instead, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord” (Lev. 19:18).230

2:24

He carried our sins on himself. This term anapherō can refer to carrying a hardship or burden that one need not (Gen. 31:39; Exod. 18:22). It is probably no coincidence that it can also be used for offering up sacrifices (e.g., Gen. 22:2, 13; Exod. 24:5; 29:18; Lev. 2:16; 3:5), including Jesus offering himself (Heb. 7:27; 9:28 [see BDAG]). Its only other use in 1 Peter refers to offering sacrifice (2:5). Here Peter adapts wording from Isa. 53, which he has just quoted in 2:22, drawing now on Isa. 53:4 and 53:11–12, both of which speak of the servant bearing our sins (once with pherō, twice with anapherō).

Death bringing new life, and liberation from sin bringing righteousness, was the sort of crisp rhetorical formulation—here based on antithetical paradox—that was catchy to ancient hearers.231 In different words, the idea of dying to sin so we may live for righteousness also appears in Paul’s letters (cf. Rom. 6:4, 11; 2 Cor. 5:14–15; Col. 3:3–5). Like Paul, Peter believes that death to sin with Christ entails not only forensic justification but also the ability to live a new, just life. I translate we have died to sins because Christ already bore the sins and because this is consistent with other early Christian thought (Rom. 6:2, 8, 11; 2 Cor. 5:14–15; Gal. 2:19–20; Col. 2:20; 3:3).232 Live here reflects the new life entailed by Christ’s resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3). The just suffered for the unjust (3:18)—for those now made just, so they can follow his example.

At the end of 2:24 Peter again quotes from Isa. 53, here from 53:5. Although the Isaian corpus sometimes envisions physical healing (Isa. 29:18; 32:3–4; 35:5–6), an application that some early Christians drew from Isaiah (Matt. 8:16–17), it sometimes applies healing in a spiritual sense (Isa. 6:10; 57:18), as often in the prophets (Jer. 3:22; 6:14; 8:11, 15; 14:19; Hosea 14:4). The context in Isa. 53 suggests that the servant’s death would heal the nation from its sin (53:4–6, 8–9), and this is the sort of healing on which Peter focuses.233

Peter varies the wording slightly from the common LXX form, switching from an emphatic “we” (Israel) are healed to “you.”234 As noted, he applies the healing to healing from sin, an image also widely understood in early Jewish circles.235 At least in Judea, and probably already in the Diaspora, many synagogues used the prayer called the Amidah. Its eighth benediction runs as follows:

Heal us, O Lord our God, and we shall be healed;

[Save us, and we shall be saved];

Vouchsafe [perfect] healing to all our wounds,

For Thou, O God, art a merciful Healer.

Blessed art Thou, O Lord, that healest [the sicknesses of His people] Israel.236

2:25

Just as Peter adapts Isa. 53:4–5 in 2:24, in 2:25 he adapts Isaiah’s next verse (Isa. 53:6), “We all like sheep have wandered away,” as you were like straying sheep.237 He returns to the image of sheep and shepherd in 1 Pet. 5:2. I translate the verb epistrephō as returned because they were straying, but the verb also fits the thought more generally of “turning,” and is often applied in the NT to repentance, following the LXX of the prophets.238

The image of Jesus as shepherd and overseer warrants more detailed comment (see the excursus “Shepherds as Benevolent Rulers”).239 Peter’s designated audience would be familiar with shepherds; although they were not part of urban life, shepherds were very common in the interior of Asia, especially in the Galatian highlands.240 Shepherds ideally cared for their sheep; here the shepherd is also the sufferer of Isa. 53:9 (1 Pet. 2:22), himself a lamb (Isa. 53:7; cf. 1 Pet. 1:19), who lays down his life for the sheep (cf. 1 Pet. 3:18; John 10:11, 15).

A CLOSER LOOK

Shepherds as Benevolent Rulers

Before Peter wrote, the image of shepherd for church leaders (cf. 1 Pet. 5:2) was already circulating among early Christians (1 Cor. 9:7; Eph. 4:11; later, John 21:16), probably derived from Jesus’s role as shepherd (1 Pet. 5:4; cf. Mark 6:34; 14:27; John 10:11–16; perhaps Luke 15:4–7). Yet this image was in widespread use before early Christianity. As rulers of sheep,241 shepherds already provided a natural image for rulers in the ancient Near East.242 This remained true in both Hellenistic243 and Jewish244 contexts. As early as Homer, “shepherd of the people,” clearly an equivalent for “ruler of the people,”245 became a familiar label for both Greek246 and Trojan247 leaders and their allies, especially for Agamemnon the leader of the Achaian host.248 Later writers continued to exploit this image.249

The shepherd image ideally implied benevolence.250 Xenophon’s Cyrus compared a good ruler with a good shepherd.251 Interpreters suggested that Homer calls Agamemnon “shepherd” of the people because shepherds must care for the sheep’s safety and food.252 Dio Chrysostom pointed out that Homer calls a king a “shepherd,”253 because he should protect and nurture the sheep, not exploit them.254 Shepherds provided an image of intimate concern for their sheep, both in ancient Israel (Ps. 23:1; Ezek. 34:2–6, 11–16) and in early Judaism (e.g., CD 13.9; Mark 6:34).

Despite the important shepherds in biblical times (Exod. 3:1; 1 Sam. 16:11; cf. Amos 7:14),255 by this period they represented a frequently despised profession.256 Nevertheless, generally negative images would not negate significant exceptions from the past,257 such as Hesiod258 in the Greek tradition.259 More decisively for Peter’s biblically literate ideal audience, early Judaism also often continued the portrait of Moses as their shepherd.260 David,261 the prophets,262 Ezra,263 the leaders God appointed over Israel264 (sometimes including important teachers or officers),265 and the Messiah266 also appear as shepherds.267 But the chief shepherd of early Judaism and especially of the OT was God himself.268 God acted like a shepherd for his people, carrying the young269 and leading his flock as in the first exodus.270

In Jewish tradition, Israel was God’s flock271 and God was the shepherd.272 But the image also applied to human overseers; thus Israel’s leaders in the OT were sometimes called shepherds, the most obvious background for early Christians’ application to their leaders.273 The image remained valuable in Judaism in the centuries just before this period; at Qumran an overseer (mebaqqer) is compared with a father and shepherd (CD 13.9).

Sheep had various uses. Sheep were prized, then as now, especially for wool.274 Greeks and Egyptians preferred cheese from sheep’s and goat’s milk. The skins of dead sheep, pigs, and especially goats were used as leather, particularly for carrying liquids.275

More relevant to the purpose of portraying God’s people as sheep, however, was the reputed character of sheep. Although most animal fables by the first century included an interpretation, animal fables from the start were often too obvious to require explanation;276 this degree of perspicuity presupposes a cultural milieu where much was known about characteristics of animals. In his work On the Nature of Animals (7.27), Aelian regards sheep as the most obedient of animals, submissive to others’ rule, following the shepherd and his dogs and even goats; they also remain near the rest of the flock.277 Sheep were considered gentle.278 The typical obedience of sheep to their shepherd provided a natural and ideal image for Israel as God’s sheep in Scripture,279 an image that continued in early Judaism.280

Leaders are shepherds in early Christianity (e.g., poimēn in Eph. 4:11; cf. John 21:16), an image meant to inculcate a gentle and compassionate leadership (1 Pet. 5:2–4).281 In the early second century, Ignatius (Phld. 2:1) viewed overseers as shepherds,282 and he exhorted the flock to follow their shepherds.283

As shepherds provided a natural image of compassionate leaders, the language of overseer suggests the same point even less metaphorically.284 Our earliest sources that specify the nature of the use of overseer (episkopos) identify it with “elder” and the function of “shepherd.”285

Title or function

Acts 20:17, 28

Elders

Acts 20:17

Titus 1:5

1 Pet. 5:1; cf. 5:5

Overseers or “oversight”

Acts 20:28

Titus 1:7 (cf. 1 Tim. 3:2)

Acts 20:28

1 Pet. 5:2

b Outside Luke (Luke 12:32; Acts 20:28–29), only 1 Peter (5:2–3) employs the term poimnion in the NT; but it occurs nearly seventy times in the LXX.

c The verb episkopeō here is missing in some of the early manuscripts. Christ is both “shepherd” and “overseer” in 1 Pet. 2:25, but elder and overseer (“bishop”) were distinct roles by the time of Ignatius, so the verb may have seemed inappropriate here to some later scribes (cf. Donelson, Peter, 142).

d The Qumran mebaqqer (“overseer”) is also compared with a shepherd in CD 13.9 (Fitzmyer, Acts, 679).

e In earlier Pauline literature, cf. 1 Cor. 9:7; Eph. 4:11.

Probably various forms of leadership existed in early Christianity,286 developing pragmatically according to needs rather than a set ideology. It is possible that “elder” might include an overseer of local overseers in 1 Pet. 5:1 (which allows for later practice),287 but the emphasis there is egalitarian (5:1, 3–5), and church leadership in the NT remained primarily local or belonging to founding apostles. The imagery in 5:1–2 derives from a period well before the sort of bishoprics that had become conventional by Ignatius’s day.

A CLOSER LOOK

Overseers

The semantic range of the term episkopos is broad, the term appearing commonly in classical Greek to refer to an overseer or guardian;288 it applied to financial oversight, temple administration, or inspectors of colonies or associations.289 Athenians used it for those they dispatched to manage states they had conquered.290 Plato applies it to an educator.291 Jewish people writing in Greek were well aware of the Greek usage and had already adapted it to refer to leaders, both Jewish and gentile, in the Septuagint.292 Although early Christians apparently borrowed this title “for officers in voluntary associations,” they lack other titles like archōn (normally an association’s highest officer), “treasurer,” “secretary,” and so forth,293 suggesting significant influence from the Septuagint.

We lack concrete evidence for its use for oversight of synagogues, but certainly the Septuagint attests Jewish usage for “overseers,” with the same extensive range of meaning found in non-Jewish Greek.294 The Qumran scrolls employ an analogous Hebrew term for overseers, mebaqqer,295 as scholars frequently point out.296 This official records offenses of those reported for community discipline.297

Because the earliest Christian use of episkopos always appears outside Judea, however, it probably arose among Christians in the Diaspora,298 perhaps Antioch. Again, the Greek usage of episkopos already appears as a leadership title in the Septuagint.299 It may be significant that the LXX uses the cognate verb episkeptomai for “overseeing” God’s people (although not always honorably), alongside the title “shepherd” (Jer. 23:2; Ezek. 34:11; Zech. 10:3; 11:16).300

Although this information is also relevant for 5:2, if watch over them (episkopountes) is original there, most relevant for 2:25 is Jewish usage for a divine overseer.

Wisdom of Solomon: God is the true episkopos (one who sees) of the wicked person’s heart.301

Sibylline Oracles: God the deathless Savior is the one who oversees all things (panepiskopos).302

Philo of Alexandria: God is the one who watches (episkopos) all our actions and thoughts.303

Josephus: We will behave justly if we recognize that God watches (episkopōn) our actions.304

Testament of Benjamin: The righteous person is “watched over [skepomenos] by God,”305 and the good person knows that the Lord watches over (episkeptei) them.306

1. On imperatival use of participles, see also comment on 1:14. Peter might also envision the participles here and in 3:1 as subordinate to the preceding imperatives, although this is not typical Greek grammar (i.e., with vocatives and much space separating 3:1). In terms of thought, the controlling imperative here would likely be in 2:13 rather than those in 2:16. For an imperative followed by what are likely subordinate (but immediately following) participial clauses, see Eph. 5:18–21 (with 5:21 and 6:9 framing the household codes that follow); less unusually, an imperative controls a following string of infinitives in Pss. Sol. 17:22–25.

2. Although the common form, distributio, normally belonged to argumentation rather than moral instruction (Anderson, Glossary, 32–33, noting Rhet. Her. 4.47).

3. For the nominative functioning vocatively, see, e.g., Schlosser, Épître, 174.

4. See Seneca Y., Lucil. 70.20–21; Pliny E., Nat. 33.21.70–73; Gaius, Inst. 1.13; Pliny Y., Ep. 10.31.2–3; Boer, Morality, 225; Lewis, Life, 138; Weisgerber, “Mining,” 8–9; Forbes, Technology, 223. On household slaves here, arguing against the relevance of some instructions to agrarian slaves, see Witherington, Peter, 150.

5. See, e.g., Seneca E., Controv. 4.pref. 10; Columella, Rust. 1.8.5; Martial, Epigr. 1.84.1–5; 3.33; Artemidorus, Onir. 1.78; Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 3.11; Justinian, Cod. 9.25; Sir. 41:22; m. ʾAbot 2:7; Arlandson, Women, 99–102; Gardner, Women, 118, 221; Dupont, Life, 117–18; Dover, “Attitudes,” 147–48; Robinson, Criminal Law, 70; Osiek, “Female Slaves,” 262–64; Osiek, MacDonald, and Tulloch, Woman’s Place, 103–5 (cf. more broadly, 95–117); Bradley, Slaves, 116–18; Glancy, “Obstacles”; Hezser, “Impact,” 377, 411; Hezser, Slavery, 179–201 (esp. 191–94); boys in D’Arms, “Slaves,” 173, 175–76.

6. Sometimes slaves escaped (Cicero, Verr. 2.1.33.85; P.Turner 22 [Llewelyn, Documents 6, §7, p. 57]; Bradley, Slaves, 44), but their situation was potentially precarious (cf. P.Oxy. 5.3617; 51.3616 [Llewelyn, Documents 8, §3, pp. 9–46]; Cicero, Quint. fratr. 1.2.4.14; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 66.2; Plutarch, Alex. 42.1; Josephus, J.W. 3.373), not least because of professional slave-catchers (Finley, Slavery, 112).

7. Stambaugh, City, 96–97; Lewis, Life, 59. On the peculium, in which slaves could own property (yet remained the “property” of their holders), see Buckland, Slavery, 187–238; Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119; Finley, Economy, 64; Martin, Slavery, 7–11; for parallels in rabbinic law, see Cohen, Law, 179–278.

8. See, rightly, Strawbridge, Peter, 62–63.

9. The following material is excerpted and condensed from Keener, Acts, 2:1906–42.

10. See, e.g., Barrow, Slavery, 21.

11. Carcopino, Life, 61.

12. Lightfoot, Colossians, 320–21.

13. Finley, Slavery, 80; Finley, Economy, 71; cf. MacMullen, Social Relations, 103. Scheidel (“Mobility”) estimates perhaps over half a million slaves in Roman Italy.

14. Verner, Household, 63.

15. Verner, Household, 41–42 (following Hopkins, Conquerors, 99).

16. Cf. Finley, Economy, 71; Verner, Households, 60 (with comparable figures for classical Athens); Toner, Culture, 185 (a quarter).

17. Stambaugh, City, 154; cf. Verner, Household, 61.

18. Finley, Economy, 73–74.

19. Finley, Slavery, 81–82; Martin, Slavery, 11. For examples, see Barrow, Slavery, 22–64.

20. Finley, Economy, 79; note also Lintott, Romans, 95, on slaves as well as freedpersons in a variety of professions.

21. E.g., FIRA 1.73; ILS 5152; 7812 (Sherk, Empire, §150, pp. 223–24); Friedländer, Life, 1:167–68; Stambaugh, City, 136.

22. E.g., Lucian, Affairs 10; Chariton, Chaer. 1.12.8; 2.2.1; 3.7.1; Treggiari, “Jobs in Household,” 49; Stambaugh, City, 149; Judge, Pattern, 38; see more fully Martin, Slavery, 15–22; in novels, see Hock, “Ethnography,” 113–14.

23. E.g., Aelius Aristides, Def. Or. 380, §127; Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 1.14.

24. Pliny Y., Ep. 8.1.1.

25. DeSilva, Honor, 192.

26. Stambaugh, City, 150.

27. Stambaugh, City, 149.

28. E.g., Pliny Y., Ep. 10.31.2; a stela inscription in Sherk, Empire, §48, pp. 90–91; Barrow, Slavery, 130–50. Some public slave jobs were of higher status than others: a city manager could be one (Meeks, Urban Christians, 58); some performed public rituals (Livy, Hist. 9.29.9); one was a public executioner, required to live outside the town (Rapske, Custody, 247–48); another had been mistreated (Aeschines, Tim. 54).

29. Jones, Empire, 243. Jeffers (World, 222) suggests that a free person might temporarily sell himself into slavery when it involved a high civic office like civic manager.

30. Barrow, Slavery, 65–97; for a first-century example, note Petronius, Sat. 37–38; later, Alciphron, Farm. 23 (Lenaeus to Corydon), 3.26. Some rich landlords in republican Italy employed massive numbers of slaves (Appian, Bell. civ. 1.1.8). Slaves were more common—because more easily supervised—on medium-sized villas than large estates (Pucci, “Pottery,” 116).

31. Finley, Slavery, 79; Shelton, Romans, 155–56.

32. Pliny Y., Ep. 3.19.6. Likewise, free workers who protested conditions could be displaced by slaves (Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 120).

33. Pliny E., Nat. 18.7.36 (trans. Rackham, LCL, 5:213), advising also the hiring of a supervisor almost as smart as the owner, but who did not recognize it. His nephew wants more expensive, higher-quality agrarian slaves than the cheap kind that needed to be chained (Pliny Y., Ep. 3.19.7).

34. Pliny E., Nat. 18.8.44.

35. E.g., Crossan, Historical Jesus, 47; cf. Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119. Mommsen (History, 28–30) contends that it was hard enough to lead the slaves to insurrection during the republic. But for some provisions for agrarian slaves, cf. Roth, “Food.”

36. On which, see, e.g., Barrow, Slavery, 22–64. The ancient definition of “household” included slaves (e.g., Dio Chrysostom, Or. 38.15; CPJ 1:249–50, §135; Rawson, “Family,” 7–8; Safrai, “Home,” 750) and freedpersons (CPJ 2:20–22, §148; Cicero, Fam. 1.3.2; Pliny Y., Ep. 5.19.1–2, esp. 5.19.2; 9.24).

37. Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119. This excludes sexually exploited boys, girls, and young women, though exploitation by overseers probably occurred in fields as well (cf. Columella, Rust. 1.8.5).

38. Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 40.11–12; cf. Stambaugh, City, 158.

39. See Juvenal, Sat. 6.219–24, 474–86; comment in Friedländer, Life, 1:244.

40. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses, 39.

41. D’Arms, “Slaves,” 171, 173.

42. Stambaugh, City, 159; Jeffers, “Families,” 132; Jeffers, World, 56. Contrast, more wealthily, Pliny Y., Ep. 2.17.9.

43. Wallace-Hadrill, Houses, 39.

44. E.g., Xenophon, Cyr. 8.1.43; Ps.-Phoc. 223–24; cf. also Philodemus, Prop. 30.18–31.2, in Lincoln, Ephesians, 415. Failure to provide sufficient nourishment could provoke revolt (Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 34/35.2.32).

45. Pliny Y., Ep. 2.6.4. Only the more austere or miserly shared slaves’ diet (Musonius Rufus, 18A, p. 114.21–26; 18B, p. 118.35–36; Plutarch, M. Cato 3.2; 4.3; cf. Appian, Hist. rom. 3.2).

46. Croom, Clothing, 23, citing Diocletian’s price edict (301 CE).

47. Croom, Clothing, 23–24 (citing Columella, Rust. 1.8.9).

48. See Barrow, Slavery, 151–72; Buckland, Slavery, 73–186. Inevitably, some holders also grew fond of their slaves (Cicero, Att. 1.12; Statius, Silv. 2.6, 12–14; Pliny Y., Ep. 8.16.1–4; y. Ber. 2:7; Hock, “Ethnography,” 114).

49. Finley, Economy, 62.

50. Aristotle, Eth. nic. 8.11.6, 1161b.

51. Aristotle, Pol. 1.5.3, 1259b.

52. See, e.g., Suetonius, Claud. 25.2; Justinian, Dig. 48.8.11.2 (Sherk, Empire, §178B, p. 236); Carcopino, Life, 57–58; Jeffers, World, 227–28.

53. Bradley, Slaves, 44–45.

54. CD 12.10–11; 4Q159 frg. 2–4, lines 1–3 (following Lev. 25:47–55).

55. Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 124–25; Jeffers, World, 230, 239; Bartchy, Slavery, 87–125. For manumissions and limitations, see Gaius, Inst. 1.20, 41–44; Justinian, Inst. 1.6. In the American South, the rate of manumission was below 0.05 percent (Fogel and Engerman, Time, 150).

56. Bradley, Slaves, 83, 111–12; cf. Cicero, Mil. 22.58; Pliny Y., Ep. 7.32.1; on Jewish manumission, see Hezser, Slavery, 304–17.

57. Winter, Welfare, 153, following Bradley, Slaves, 109–12; cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 4.24.4. The price was sometimes steep (e.g., Quintilian, Decl. 388.24).

58. Stambaugh, City, 96–97.

59. Gaius, Inst. 1.17, 20; Buckland, Roman Law, 79–80; Schiemann, “Manumission,” 265.

60. Cf. Jeffers, World, 230; Harrill, “Paul and Slavery,” 589; Grant, Social History, 112–22; cf. Lintott, Romans, 92. The slaveholder had complete freedom to manumit (e.g., Quintilian, Decl. 340.intro.; 340.1; 342.intro.; 342.1).

61. Suetonius, Aug. 40.3; 42.2–3.

62. E.g., Winter, Welfare, 153 (following Hopkins, Conquerors, 116); Rawson, “Family,” 12–13; Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 124ff.; Jeffers, World, 231 (suggesting “the average slave”). Scheidel (“Quantifying”) thinks the numbers low; but see the critique by Harris, “Demography.”

63. For perceptions of their lower status, see, e.g., Gaius, Inst. 1.11; Pliny Y., Ep. 2.6.3–5; Josephus, Ant. 18.47; cf. Tacitus, Ann. 15.72; 16.10; MacMullen, Social Relations, 105.

64. Gaius, Inst. 1.9–11. Nevertheless, practical ambiguities remained; see Lintott, “Freedmen and Slaves.”

65. See, e.g., Cicero, Fam. 3.1.2; 14.4.4; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 5.1.11; Seneca E., Controv. 4.8, excerpts; Pliny Y., Pan. 42.2; Ep. 9.21.1–3; 9.24; Tacitus, Ann. 4.7; Suetonius, Cal. 16.4; Rhet. 3; discussion in Bradley, Slaves, 81; Winter, Welfare, 152–54 (citing Justinian, Dig. 38.1.16.1); Buckland, Roman Law, 88–89; Shelton, Romans, 198–200; Lampe, “Patrons,” 489; Chow, Patronage, 69–72; Dupont, Life, 65–66. For contracts specifying continuing duties as conditions of freedom, see Horsley, Documents 4, §24, pp. 102–3. A former holder, as a paterfamilias, also could execute freedmen (Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.1.4; Suetonius, Jul. 48); for revoking freedom under some conditions, see Valerius Maximus, Mem. 2.6.6; 2.6.7a; Suetonius, Claud. 25.1; for limits on such revocation, see Tacitus, Ann. 13.26–27.

66. Quintilian, Decl. 318.1–2.

67. E.g., ILS 7558, 7580 (Sherk, Empire, §173IJ, p. 229). A patron might also dedicate a monument to himself and his freedmen and freedwomen (ILS 7486 [Sherk, Empire, §173F, p. 228]).

68. E.g., Cicero, Fam. 13.23.1–2 (cf. 1.3.2); Suetonius, Jul. 2. They might even be designated as heirs (e.g., CIL 2.4332).

69. E.g., P.Oxy. 3312.10–13 (on which see Weaver, “P. Oxy. 3312”); CIL 6.8583; ILS 1578 (Sherk, Empire, §181, p. 240); Pliny Y., Ep. 10.27–28; 10.84–85; Josephus, Ant. 18.167; 19.64; 20.135; cf. also Balch, “Families,” 273. Naturally, not all held exalted positions (cf. the water bearer in Josephus, Ant. 18.192).

70. E.g., Suetonius, Gramm. 21, in Dixon, Roman Mother, 19.

71. MacMullen, Social Relations, 103; Finley, Economy, 72; López Barja de Quiroga, “Mobility”; Balch, “Families,” 273; mocked in Petronius, Sat., e.g., 38; for imperial freedmen, see Sherk, Empire, §47, pp. 89–90 (citing ILS 1533, 1546, 1643, 1682, 2816); Jeffers, World, 232–34.

72. Leon, Jews of Rome, 237.

73. E.g., Buckland, Slavery, 187–238; Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119; Finley, Economy, 64; Martin, Slavery, 7–11; for even agrarian slaves in Italy, cf. Roth, “Food.” In American slavery, cf. Fogel and Engerman, Time, 148–51.

74. See Cohen, Law, 179–278; cf. also Stern, “Aspects,” 628 (perhaps too reluctant to recognize Roman influence).

75. E.g., Plutarch, M. Cato 21.7; y. Yebam. 7:1, §2; Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119; in American slavery, cf. Koger, Slaveowners.

76. Stambaugh, City, 96–97; Lewis, Life, 59.

77. E.g., Valerius Maximus, Mem. 2.5.3; 6.8; Appian, Hist. rom. 8.3.17; Martial, Epigr. 3.21; Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 5.10; T. Ab. 15:5 A. So also freedwomen (Suetonius, Cal. 16.4) and freedmen (Tacitus, Hist. 1.49).

78. E.g., Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.8.6; Appian, Bell. civ. 4.4.26; Tacitus, Hist. 4.50; Ann. 13.44. They might also give their lives to avenge their slaveholders (Valerius Maximus, Mem. 3.3.ext. 7; Appian, Hist. rom. 7.1.2; Suetonius, Aug. 16.3).

79. Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.8.3–4; perhaps the freedman in Tacitus, Ann. 14.9.

80. Bradley, Slaves, 37; cf., e.g., Cicero, Mil. 22.58; Pliny Y., Pan. 42.2. But contrast, e.g., P.Giss. 17 (Richards, Letter Writing, 13–14).

81. See, e.g., Plutarch, Sulla 10.1; Herodian, Hist. 5.2.2; also freedpersons, e.g., Tacitus, Ann. 15.54–55.

82. See, e.g., Josephus, Ant. 19.12–14; Tacitus, Ann. 16.18; also freedpersons, e.g., Tacitus, Ann. 16.10.

83. Pliny Y., Ep. 3.14.1–2; other slaves rescued him (3.14.3).

84. Alciphron, Farm. 23 (Lenaeus to Corydon), 3.26. Earlier slaves in a household might abuse newcomers (Tacitus, Agr. 31).

85. Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 124; MacMullen, Social Relations, 124; Martin, Slavery, 49; cf. Meeks, Urban Christians, 20.

86. Garnsey and Saller, Empire, 119; in the republic, cf. Dupont, Life, 56–57.

87. For highly educated slaves, see, e.g., Pliny Y., Ep. 9.36.4; Barrow, Slavery, 60–63; Shiell, Reading Acts, 31–32.

88. E.g., Aulus Gellius, Att. 2.18; Fronto, Ver. imp. 1.1.5; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.2.74; Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 30.173.

89. Suetonius, Gramm. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 23; Rhet. 3; The Suda s.v. Epaphroditos (Sherk, Empire, §178I, p. 238).

90. E.g., Pliny E., Nat. 33.52.145; Epictetus, Diatr. 1.19.19; 4.7.23; Herodian, Hist. 1.12.3; inscriptions in Sherk, Empire, §47, pp. 89–90; Deissmann, Light, 325ff. passim; Martin, Slavery, 7 (citing CIL 6.5197); deSilva, Honor, 192.

91. Winter, Welfare, 154–59. For slavery as a means to social mobility, see also Martin, Slavery, 30–42.

92. See, e.g., P.Oxy. 3312.99–100, in Horsley, Documents 3, §1, pp. 7–9; cf. Judge, Rank, 20.

93. Pomeroy, Goddesses, 196.

94. Weaver, “P. Oxy. 3312,” suggesting that the writer may be overly optimistic.

95. Harrison, Authorities, 21–22; cf. Rom. 16:11; Phil. 4:22.

96. For examples, see further Bradley, “Traffic”; Bradley, Slaves, 113–37; Cary and Haarhoff, Life, 131; abundant examples in Barrow, Slavery, 30–31.

97. Euripides, Andromache 88–90; cf. Euripides, Hec. 332–33.

98. Plutarch, M. Cato 5.1. Although he never complained about preparation of food for himself, when he entertained others, he flogged slaves who did not prepare or serve well (M. Cato 21.3).

99. Plutarch, M. Cato 21.4.

100. Plutarch M. Cato 21.4.

101. Bradley, Slaves, 113–14; cf. Spartan murder of Helots earlier (Thucydides, Hist. 4.80.3–4; for Helots as a potential danger to Sparta, cf. Aristotle, Pol. 2.6.2, 1269a).

102. Toner, Culture, 70.

103. Cf. Herodas, Mimes 5.28; Deissmann, Studies, 349 (also noting soldiers); Lampe, Seal, 9; Aune, Revelation, 456–59; for the ancient Near East, see Mendelsohn, “Slavery,” 80–82. But it was apparently a special indignity rather than a norm (Plutarch, Nic. 29.1). The Getae did it to their slaves (Artemidorus, Onir. 1.8).

104. Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 34/35.2.32.

105. It did happen, much to slaves’ displeasure (Martial, Epigr. 3.21). But Caligula did it even to persons of rank (Suetonius, Cal. 27.3); for hypothetically branding adulterers, see Hermogenes, Issues 90.2–3; for prisoners, Lampe, Seal, 10. Cultic or other tattooing was often associated with Egyptians, Sarmatians, and distant peoples (3 Macc. 2:28–29; Sextus Empiricus, Pyr. 1.148; 3.202; Artemidorus, Onir. 1.8; Lucian, G. Syr. 59; Jones, “Stigma”). Against some claims (e.g., Angus, Mystery-Religions, 97), branding was apparently not practiced in Mithraism (Beskow, “Branding,” esp. 499–500).

106. See Gaius, Inst. 1.13 (classed with those chained, tortured, or sent to the arena).

107. For “delinquent slaves,” Aune (Revelation, 458) cites Aristophanes, Birds 760–61; Frogs 1508–14; Menander, Sam. 321–24; Petronius, Sat. 103.2; Diogenes Laertius, Lives 4.46; cf. Jones, “Stigma.”

108. Ps.-Phoc. 225. (In OTP 2:582n. h, van der Horst points out that later rabbis did allow it.)

109. See, e.g., Seneca E., Controv. 4.pref. 10; Arlandson, Women, 99–102; Glancy, “Obstacles”; Hezser, Slavery, 191–94; Hezser, “Impact,” 377.

110. Though it is reported; see, e.g., Lucian, Down J. 11; Sat. 29; Tacitus, Ann. 14.60 (a false accusation); Iamblichus the Syrian, Bab. St. extract 2; Osiek, MacDonald, and Tulloch, Woman’s Place, 44. Cf. also stories where the male slave rebuffs the mistress’s advances, e.g., Gen. 39:7–12; [Anonymous], Adulteress (MS from 2 CE in SPap 3: pp. 350–61); Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 2.5; 3.12.

111. On the double standard, see Osiek, MacDonald, and Tulloch, Woman’s Place, 22; for punishments, see, e.g., Suetonius, Vesp. 11; Philostratus, Vit. soph. 2.25.610; challenging the double standard, Musonius Rufus, 12, p. 86.14, 30–38; p. 88.4–5.

112. Cf., e.g., Aeschines, Tim. 16; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 8.1. acquittals 12; Robinson, Criminal Law, 70; Hartmann, “Homosexuality,” 470; D’Arms, “Slaves,” 173, 175–76; Bradley, Slaves, 115.

113. Gordon, Slavery, 83, contrasting Islamic slavery. Osiek, MacDonald, and Tulloch (Woman’s Place, 106–7) argue that the restriction was not complete. Ilan (Women, 206–7) argues, probably rightly, that the rabbis were protecting the man from temptation, not the slave woman.

114. Sir. 41:22; Syr. Men. Sent. 347–53; m. ʾAbot 2:7; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 20:6; cf. Safrai, “Home,” 748–49; Cohen, Law, 149 (citing m. Yebam. 2:8). A priest could not marry a freedwoman because her virginity was suspect (Cohen, Law, 147, citing m. Qidd. 4:1; m. Yebam. 6:5; t. Qidd. 5:3; see also t. Hor. 2:11; y. Hor. 3:5, §1).

115. Gaius, Inst. 1.19.

116. E.g., Jeffers, World, 239; Osiek, “Female Slaves,” 261; cf. Aelian, Let. Farm. 19; Josephus, Ant. 4.244–45. For making her a concubine, see Treggiari, “Marriage and Family,” 169; Gardner, Women, 221.

117. Buckland, Roman Law, 88.

118. Buckland, Roman Law, 117.

119. In fictitious examples, see Alciphron, Farm. 24 (Gemellus to Salaconis), 3.27; 25 (Salaconis to Gemellus), 3.28; Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 6.20; Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 2.4; 3.11 (cf. 4.5).

120. Xenophon, Oec. 10.12.

121. Cf., e.g., Gen. 16:5. In Apollonius Rhodius, Argon. 1.609–19, the terrible women of Lemnos had slain all the men for taking slave maids to bed instead of them. In Babrius, Fab. 10.1–5, a married man sleeps regularly with a slave girl, who quarrels with her mistress.

122. Homer, Od. 1.428–33. Cato slept with a slave after his wife’s death, until his children heard and were displeased; so he took another free wife (Plutarch, M. Cato 24.1–3).

123. Valerius Maximus, Mem. 6.7.1. Questions of matronly honor aside, we might guess that the widow’s purpose was wanting the slave out of her house. Plutarch also advised the wife to look the other way if necessary (Friedländer, Life, 1:243). A wife might jest that a husband should have sex with a slave woman (Lysias, Or. 1.12, though in this story the wife turns out to be adulterous).

124. Athenian comic drama from the late fourth through the mid-third century BCE (Brown, “Comedy,” 370).

125. Pomeroy, Goddesses, 139.

126. Lucian, Sat. 2, 13, 17; cf. Leach, “Essays,” 111.

127. See Harrill, “Paul and Slavery,” 594.

128. See esp. Garnsey, Ideas of Slavery; Garnsey, “Stoics and Slavery.” Aristotle, by contrast, supported the institution of slavery (Deming, “Indifferent Things,” 393; Kelly, Peter, 116).

129. E.g., Lucretius, Nat. 1.455–58; cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Rom. Ant. 4.23.1; Cicero, Inv. 1.25.35. That it could affect character may have constituted a different sort of question.

130. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 10.9–13; 13.35.

131. Grant, “Economic Background,” 105. Deming (“Indifferent Things,” 393) doubts that Stoics ever rejected slavery per se. Judean Essenes held no slaves (Philo, Good Person 78); they avoided private property altogether (cf. Philo, Good Person 77, 86; Hypothetica 11.4–5), but Josephus (Ant. 18.21) claims that they avoided slaveholding because it constituted a temptation to act unjustly.

132. Erskine, Stoa, 46 (contending that Philo, Spec. Laws 2.69 = SVF 3.352 reflects Chrysippus); cf. Erskine, Stoa, 61; certainly the view in Pseudo-Heraclitus, Ep. 9; cf. Epictetus, Diatr. 1.13.4. Ironically, Chrysippus apparently approved flogging as a discipline for boys (Quintilian, Inst. 1.3.13). Stowers (“Resemble Philosophy?,” 94) notes that Zeno abolished slavery, along with marriage (because of its hierarchical application; see also Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and Stoics, 76–77).

133. Aristotle, Pol. 1.2.3, 1253b (Aristotle being hostile to this position). This position was eventually watered down, so that Roman law acknowledged that slavery was against nature without thereby abolishing slavery (Justinian, Inst. 1.3.2; 1.5.intro.). Aristotle himself believed that nature supported slavery (Aristotle, Pol. 1.2.8, 1254a), because it subordinated the inferior to the superior (Aristotle, Pol. 1.2.12, 1254b), and that such subordination was just (Aristotle, Pol. 3.5.8–9, 1280a).

134. Erskine, Stoa, 48, 181; cf. Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and Stoics, 77; for Stoics on slavery, see Fitzgerald, “Slaves,” 154–62. On just treatment, see Lutz, “Musonius,” 29–30 (citing 12.86.29–32); Hierocles, Siblings 4.27.20 (in Malherbe, Moral Exhortation, 94); Epictetus, Diatr. 1.13.2; cf. Dio Chrysostom, Frag. 5 (Stobaeus, Flor. 4, 19.46 p. 430 Hense; 62.46 Meineke); Porphyry, Marc. 35.525–29; Epicurus in Diogenes Laertius, Lives 10.1.9; 10.118. Usually without drawing a connection with Stoicism, many scholars suggest a similar move away from egalitarian radicalism in early Christianity (cf., e.g., Beavis, “Origins”; Thurston, Widows, 18–19).

135. E.g., Seneca Y., Lucil. 32.11; 47.2–4, 10, 13, 18–19; Clem. 1.18.1–3; 1.26.1; cf. Sevenster, Seneca, 185–89.

136. See Watts, “Seneca on Slavery.”

137. Marcus Aurelius, Medit. 1.14; cf. 1.16.7.

138. Even the early Stoic Zeno himself reportedly held slaves and beat one (Diogenes Laertius, Lives 7.1.23).

139. Meeks, Moral World, 60. Balch (“Household Codes,” 31) observes that “Roman Stoics were egalitarian in theory but Aristotelian in practice.”

140. E.g., Plutarch, M. Cato 21.7; see Martin, Slavery, 42. Occasionally this happened even in the American South (Koger, Slaveowners).

141. E.g., ILS 7503 (Sherk, Empire, §173, p. 229). Occasionally this happened even in the American South (Raboteau, Slave Religion, 141).

142. For slave revolts, see, e.g., Diodorus Siculus, Libr. Hist. 34/35.2.5–48; 36.4.1–36.11.3; Livy, Hist. 3.15.9; 4.45.1; 32.26.4–8; 39.29.8; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 4.3.10; 6.9.8; Velleius Paterculus, Comp. 2.30.5; Tacitus, Ann. 3.43; 4.24; Appian, Bell. civ. 1.14.116–20; Hist. rom. 12.16.109; Urbainczyk, Revolts. Roman law mandated the death of any slaves found guilty of plotting revolt (Cicero, Verr. 2.5.5.10), and, ultimately, none of the Roman slave wars were successful in freeing the slaves (Finley, Slavery, 114–15; for greater success elsewhere, see Lewis, Race and Slavery, 56–57).

143. Bradley, Slaves, 145.

144. Harrill, “Paul and Slavery,” 594 (citing Lucian, Hermot. 24).

145. Cf. Martin, Slavery, 42; Bartchy, Slavery, 63–67; Lightfoot, Colossians, 323.

146. Sider, Killing.

147. Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and Stoics, 78.

148. Edwards, Peter, 120–22, noting also Hubbard, Christianity, 225; Bruce, Apostle, 401. For a slave’s discovery, see, e.g., Blassingame, Slave Testimony, 130–31.

149. E.g., Woolman, Considerations; Sunderland, Manual; Sunderland, Testimony; Bacon, Slavery; Hopkins, Articles; Griffiths, Autographs; Cheever, God against Slavery; cf. Raboteau, Slave Religion, 103–9, 122–24; Noll, History, 161.

150. Longenecker, Social Ethics, 63–64, noting, e.g., Augustine; Rupprecht, “Attitudes,” 261–77, esp. 277.

151. Longenecker, Social Ethics, 65, citing Chrysostom, Hom. Cor. 40.6, on 1 Cor. 15:34; Balch, “Families,” 272, citing Gregory of Nyssa, Hom. 4, on Eccl. 2:7; Latourette, First Five Centuries, 262–63, citing Apost. Con. 4.9.

152. For American antislavery, cf., e.g., Barnes, Impulse, 12–21, 71–78; Filler, Crusade, 68–69; Adams, Period, 97–101; Fordham, Themes, 111–37; Blockson, Underground Railroad, 12–14, 35–36, 41, 46, 60, 64, 87, 105; Washington, Fellowship, 27–38; Raboteau, Slave Religion, 143; see further Keener and Usry, Faith, 33–41, noting these and other sources.

153. Jobes, Peter, 185 (following Balch, “Household Codes,” 33).

154. Paul also applies it to respect in Rom. 13:7, but fear in 13:3–4; it applies to wives in Eph. 5:33 and slaves in Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22.

155. Seneca Y., Dial. 2.11.3; Pliny Y., Ep. 3.14.5; Josephus, Ant. 19.14. Meanwhile, slaveholders counted slavery itself an insult (e.g., Demosthenes, Lept. 132; Vit. Aes. 126, 130, 140, in Wills, “Aesop Tradition,” 233, 235–36; Martial, Epigr. 1.81; Lucian, Fisherman 4–5). For an example of a Christian slave’s faith being insulted by a fellow slave, see the graffiti in Evans, World, 71–73.

156. E.g., CIJ 1:279, §358. Urging submission or honor, 1 Tim. 6:1–2; Titus 2:9.

157. E.g., Wis. 8:3; Luke 2:29; Acts 4:24; 2 Tim. 2:21; 2 Pet. 2:1; Jude 4; Rev. 6:10; Philo, Alleg. Interp. 1.95–96; Heir 22–23; T. Ab. 1:12, 25 A; T. Job 38:1 (Spittler, OTP 1:858; 38:2 in Kraft, p. 66, following LXX Job 5:8); T. Jos. 1:5; and passim. For pagan application to Zeus, see, e.g., I.Eph. 1240.1; Longus, Daphn. 4.21.

158. We would understand this comparatively, within a sphere (slavery) that we do not regard as good. The term’s semantic range does not require absolute goodness in every respect, despite the narrower uses in Mark 10:18; Rom. 7:18.

159. BDAG; see esp. 2 Cor. 10:1, in a context where Paul responds to criticisms that he does not act authoritatively enough.

160. A reliable character in Plutarch, Pleas. Life 6, Mor. 1090D.

161. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 2.35 (trans. Hicks, LCL, 1:165).

162. Musonius Rufus, 3, p. 40.30 (trans. Lutz, “Musonius,” 41). For suffering to become good, cf. Musonius Rufus, 7, p. 58.23–26.

163. Epictetus, Diatr. 2.2.5 (trans. Oldfather, LCL, 1:227).

164. Contrast Aristotle, for whom by definition a slaveholder cannot be unjust to his slave, since the slave is property (Eth. nic. 5.6.8–9, in Kelly, Peter, 116).

165. The following comes from Keener, Acts, 3:3267–68.

166. Lane, Hebrews, 225. Greek thinkers had, however, often emphasized accurate self-knowledge (Keener, John, 236–37).

167. Cf. Josephus, Ant. 16.103, 212; J.W. 4.189, 193. He claims that the reward for keeping the laws is his conscience (technically, Josephus uses only the cognate suneidos here, but this performs the same function; cf. Selwyn, Peter, 177) testifying to one’s fidelity (Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.217–18).

168. Cf. Wallis, “Conscience” (though noting his lack of “a coherent metaphysical theory” [9]); Wallis, Conscience in Philo; Klauck, “Accuser.”

169. E.g., T. Jud. 20:2.

170. T. Reu. 4:3. For “bad” conscience in Hellenistic Jewish texts, see also Dunn, Romans, 101 (citing Wis. 17:11; Philo, Worse 146; Spec. Laws 2.49; Virtues 124; T. Reu. 4:3; Josephus, Ant. 16.103).

171. Cf. Mark 8:33; Rom. 12:2; 2 Cor. 5:16–17; Col. 3:2.

172. Elliott (Peter, 518) notes the parallel with “credit” in 2:20 (citing usage in Sophocles, Ajax 522; Luke 6:32–34). Williams (“Reciprocity”) understands this in terms of human reciprocity (by persevering in suffering) toward the divine gift. Ancient understandings of grace normally included reciprocity (e.g., Harrison, Grace, 40–43; Highet, “Reciprocity”). Cf. Kapambu, “Portée.”

173. Cf. Kapambu, “Portée”; differently, cf. Moxnes, “Body.”

174. Cf. Barkhuizen, “Betekenis.”

175. Often noted, e.g., Bradley, Slaves, 119–20; Stambaugh, City, 96 (citing Plautus, Men. 966–77); deSilva, Honor, 191; see, e.g., Cicero, Fin. 4.27.76; Quintilian, Inst. 1.3.13–14; Martial, Epigr. 2.66.1–8; 8.23; Juvenal, Sat. 6.474–85, 490–91; Tacitus, Ann. 16.19; fictitious examples in Apollodorus, Bibl. 2.8.2; Achilles Tatius, Leuc. Clit. 5.17.8–9; Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 2.6; Libanius, Anec. 2.9; cf. modern eyewitness reports (Sterling, Sisters, 10). If beatings averaged the same frequency as in one antebellum Louisiana plantation, they may have averaged 0.7 whippings per slave annually, with all those going to about half the slaves (Fogel and Engerman, Time, 145–46).

176. Sir. 42:5; cf. 33:25; Prov. 29:19; Deut. Rab. 3:2; Moore, Judaism, 2:137. Excess discipline, however, warranted punishment (Exod. 21:20–21; cf. 21:18–19 for free persons).

177. Seneca Y., Ira 3.32 (Toner, Culture, 70).

178. Philodemus, Prop. 30.18–31.2 (Lincoln, Ephesians, 415); Valerius Maximus, Mem. 4.1.ext. 1–2.

179. Seneca Y., Lucil. 47.18–19.

180. E.g., Demosthenes, Pant. 27; Olymp. 18–19; Tim. 55–58; Con. 27; Rhet. Her. 2.7.10; Valerius Maximus, Mem. 8.4.1–2; Pliny Y., Ep. 10.96.8; Tacitus, Ann. 3.22, 67; 4.11, 29; 6.47; 14.60; Suetonius, Galba 10.5; fictitiously, Seneca E., Controv. 8.3.intro.; Quintilian, Decl. 269.intro.; 338.intro.; cf. Robinson, Criminal Law, 64–66. Cf. freedpersons in Suetonius, Cal. 16.4; Tacitus, Ann. 15.57.

181. Gaius, Inst. 1.52. Technically, the paterfamilias’s power of life and death (patria potestas) originally extended to all members of the Roman household.

182. Gaius, Inst. 1.53.

183. As in, e.g., Pliny Y., Ep. 3.14.1; cf. 6.25.4; 8.14.12, 24–25.

184. E.g., Tacitus, Ann. 13.32; 14.42–45; cf. Lucian, Alex. 44; but contrast Pliny Y., Ep. 3.14.4 (a period later than Tacitus depicts). If the master died on a journey, only those with him were executed (Robinson, Criminal Law, 45).

185. Plutarch, Cor. 24.4; Sulla 10.1; M. Cato 21.4.

186. Diogenes, in Dio Chrysostom, Or. 8.16; cf. Lucian, Phil. Sale 9.

187. Thus Jobes (Peter, 187) speaks here of Christ dignifying the lowly.

188. I borrow this chiasm from Green, Peter, 72.

189. Many note its importance—e.g., Popa, “Umkehr”; Manzi, “Memoria”; for Christ’s centrality in 1 Peter, see Popp, “Fubspuren.”

190. Cf. Michaels, “Passion.” This remains the case whether we take the Petrine attribution as genuine (as I do) or as fictitious (as some others do).

191. It is not the most common term Peter could have used, but it fits the alliteration of the line and the two words preceding it: huper humōn humin hupolimpanōn hupogrammon.

192. Eis touto can mean, “for this purpose” (Acts 26:16; Rom. 14:9; 2 Cor. 2:9; 1 John 3:8), sometimes conjoined with “came” (Mark 1:38; John 18:37; Acts 9:21).

193. Pliny Y., Ep. 3.5.20, on his late uncle, Pliny the Elder.

194. Aeschines, Leg. 75–76; Lysias, Or. 2.61.196.

195. Cicero, Sest. 68.143.

196. E.g., Livy, Hist. 1.pref. 10; see Kurz, “Models,” 175–85 (esp. 177–83); Keener, Acts, 1:149–58.

197. They are also proclamations of good news (Gospels), but I employ this title for them (as in Keener, Christobiography) to the extent that they adapt the biographic genre to recount the story of Jesus.

198. I.e., within the lifetimes of those who knew eyewitnesses, in this case of the period in which Mark was composed. See Papias, Frag. 3:4; 7:3 (even if we accept what I regard as the tendentious interpretation in 3:5–7; 7:5); cf. 5:2.

199. Papias, Frag. 3:14–15; cf. 21:1–2.

200. E.g., Terence, Andr. 622–24; Seneca Y., Clem. 1.26.1; Apuleius, Metam. 10.12; Herodian, Hist. 5.2.2; Llewelyn, Documents 8, §1, pp. 1–3.

201. Livy, Hist. 22.33.1–2; Martial, Epigr. 2.82; Juvenal, Sat. 6.219–24; cf. Seneca E., Controv. 3.9 excerpts; Quintilian, Decl. 380.intro.; Xenophon of Ephesus, Eph. Tale 4.2.

202. The variant reading “died” is also possible, but in any case Christ’s suffering here includes and probably especially involves his death.

203. E.g., Rom. 5:5–10; 8:32, 37–39; 2 Cor. 5:14; Gal. 2:20; Eph. 5:2, 25; John 3:16; 1 John 3:16; 4:9–10; Rev. 1:5. See McCruden, “Soteriology.”

204. On its place in early Christian theology, see most concisely, but accurately, Gathercole, Substitution. In 1 Peter, note esp. 1:18–20; 3:18 (Howe, “Cross”; Felix, “Substitution”).

205. For reciprocity expectations, see, e.g., Pliny Y., Ep. 6.6.3; Statius, Silv. 4.9; Libanius, Anec. 1.20; Symmachus, Ep. 1.104; Herman, “Gift”; Highet, “Reciprocity”; Garnsey, Food, 30–31; Harrison, Grace, 1, 15, 50–53, 196, 348, esp. here 40–43; cf. Euripides, Hyps. frg. 759a.63/1584. For examples of gratitude for benefaction, Xenophon, Cyr. 6.4.7; Sir. 3:31; for promises that a recipient of benefaction will be grateful, see recommendations in Cicero, Fam. 13.22.2; 13.25.1; 13.26.4; Pliny Y., Ep. 3.2.6; 4.13.10. For its role in grace, see at length Barclay, Gift.

206. For a sinless Messiah, see also Pss. Sol. 17:36.

207. See Matt. 8:17; 1 Pet. 2:22–25; 1 Clem. 16:3–14; Barn. 5:2; Polycarp, Phil. 8:1; Justin, 1 Apol. 50; Dial. 13, 43; cf. Mark 10:45; 14:24; John 12:23, 32; Rom. 4:25; Phil. 2:7; Taylor, Atonement, 14; Cullmann, Christology, 64–65; Jeremias, Theology, 292–93; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3:95–97; Gathercole, Substitution, 61–67; Osborn, Justin, 103.

208. See Urciuoli, “Block”; Scheuer, “Jesaja 53.” Qumran may use it in conjunction with the messianic era; Isa. 53:5 might appear in 4Q521 frg. 2.7–8, 11–12, along with Isa. 35:5–6; 61:1; with frg. 2, col. 3.2 alluding to Mal. 4:5–6 (Evans, “Messianic Apocalypse,” 696). Some also argue that Qumran applies the servant to their founder (Betz, “Servant Tradition”), and justification by the servant to themselves (Tångberg, “Justification”). Yet even when the later Targum on Isa. 52:13 and 53:4 applies it to the Messiah (perhaps in response to Christian claims?), the suffering applies only to other kingdoms (Tg. Isa. on Isa. 53:3) or Israel (Tg. Isa. on Isa. 53:4). Cf. various Jewish (but not all pre-Christian) approaches in Jeremias, “Παῖς,” 684–89.

209. Cf. also Diogn. 5:15. Public mockery was a common form of discourse in antiquity (e.g., Cicero, Fin. 4.26.73; De or. 2.58.236; Macrobius, Sat. 2.4.1–18; Anderson, Glossary, 126; Rabbie, “Wit,” 211), valuable for upholding social convention (see Neufeld and Crook, “Mockery,” esp. citing Cicero, Rep. 5.6 on 309); the term here generally involves direct mockery (cf. Macrobius, Sat. 7.3.2). For revilers as fools, see Philodemus, On Anger cols. 17.9–13; 20.20–22; 24.24; 26.2–6.

210. Jeremiah anticipates vengeance, however. Jeremiah is like a lamb led to the slaughter (Jer. 11:19), which Peter might recall in intertextual relationship with Isa. 53:7. See comment in Schreiner, Peter, 144.

211. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.2.58 (trans. Hicks, LCL, 2:61).

212. Rhet. Alex. 1, 1422a.32–38.

213. Publilius Syrus, Sent. 291 (trans. Duff and Duff, LCL, 1:53).

214. Euripides, Dict. frg. 334.4–5 (Stobaeus, Anth. 4.42.2; trans. Collard and Cropp, LCL, 7:353).

215. Iamblichus, Vit. pyth. 10.51 (trans. Dillon and Hershbell, 75). Iamblichus writes many centuries after Pythagoras.

216. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.1.3 (trans. Hicks, LCL, p. 5).

217. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 6.1.7 (trans. Hicks, LCL, p. 9).

218. Diogenes Laertius, Lives 2.70 (trans. Hicks, LCL, 1:199). The term for “reviled” is the same as in 1 Pet. 2:23.

219. Philodemus, Crit. col. 2 a (trans. Konstan, 95). Ignoring mockery was sometimes an expression of disdaining the mocker (Roberts, “Shame,” 80; Philodemus, On Anger col. 18, lines 24–34).

220. Musonius Rufus, 10, p. 76.23–24 (trans. Lutz). The real shame is only in doing, not suffering, these (10, p. 78.4, 7).

221. Musonius Rufus, 10, p. 78.11–14 (trans. Lutz, “Musonius,” 79). The term for “reviled” is the same as in 1 Pet. 2:23.

222. Musonius Rufus, 10, p. 78.16–19. See further 10, p. 78.22–28.

223. Musonius Rufus, 39, p. 136.11–16 (trans. Lutz, “Musonius,” p. 137).

224. Maximus of Tyre, Or. 12 passim; cf. Plato, Crit. 49bd.

225. Maximus of Tyre, Or. 12.9 (trans. Trapp, Maximus, 113–14).

226. Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 5.39 (trans. Conybeare, LCL, 1:565).

227. y. Peʾah 8:7, §3.

228. b. Šabb. 88b, bar. (p. 419). Cf. also tradition in Jeremias, Theology, 215n4.

229. Num. Rab. 9:20 (trans. Slotki, 3:277). Numbers Rabbah is admittedly a late source. In rabbinic tradition, the divine name is included in the written words of Num. 5:23.

230. My rendering of the LXX. Cf. Deut. 32:35 in Rom. 12:19; LXX 1 Sam. 24:13 (ET 24:12).

231. Cf. antimetabole in Rowe, “Style,” 143; Anderson, Glossary, 22. For antithesis, see, e.g., Rhet. Alex. 26, 1435b.25–39; Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Lysias 14; Rowe, “Style,” 142; Anderson, Glossary, 21–22. Cf. also oxymorons (Rowe, “Style,” 143; Krentz, “Oxymora”; Aune, Rhetoric, 327).

232. That is, not based on the aorist form of the participle apogenomenoi. NT theology also allows, however, that one puts to death sins on the basis of one’s status as dead with Christ (Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5). The expression translated as “die to sin” might also mean “have no part in sin” (LSJ offers both senses of apoginomai), but the contrast with “live” in the next line clarifies the sense “die.”

233. Mayhue (“Atone”) is right to note Peter’s focus here, although his understanding of Matthew rests on an earlier dispensational approach to the kingdom.

234. That he intends the shift to address gentiles is possible but unlikely, since the rest of v. 24 uses the first-person plural for those affected by Christ’s sacrifice.

235. 1QHa 17.25; Gen. Rab. 97 (NV); Song Rab. 7:2, §3; Pesiq. Rab. 44:8; perhaps Sir. 28:3; among gentiles, Pseudo-Diogenes, Ep. 29.

236. Oesterley, Liturgy, 63. The prayer may be taken for granted already in m. Ber. 4:3; 5:2; m. Taʿan. 2:2; t. Ber. 2:9; 6:24; Justin, Dial. 96.

237. Cf. similar language in LXX Ps. 118:176 (ET 119:176); Isa. 13:14; cf. Jer. 27:6, 17 (ET 50:6, 17); Zech. 10:2; but contextually Peter is clearly following Isa. 53.

238. E.g., LXX Isa. 19:22; 31:6; 44:22; 45:22; 55:7; Jer. 3:10, 14, 22; 4:1; 24:7; Ezek. 14:6; 18:30; Hosea 2:9 (ET 2:7); 3:5; 6:1; 14:2–3 (14:1–2); Amos 4:6–11; Joel 2:12–13; Zech. 1:3; Mal. 3:7. Note also Isa. 6:10, cited in Mark 4:12; also in Matt. 13:15 and Acts 28:27, which include healing. In the NT, see, e.g., Acts 3:19; 9:35; 11:21; 14:15; 15:19; 26:18, 20; 2 Cor. 3:16; 1 Thess. 1:9; James 5:19–20.

239. I condense the comments on shepherds as rulers from Keener, Acts, 3:3033–37, which in turn adapted material from Keener, John, 799–802; cf. also Keener, John, 805–6 (on the relationship between shepherds and sheep), 809–12 (on pasturing); Keener, “Shepherd.” Although I develop here my earlier work, for a much fuller and more recent exploration of the image, especially its royal application, see Aubert, Motif, 90–92 (in Dio Chrysostom), 126–216.

240. Mitchell, Anatolia, 1:146, esp. n. 29; elsewhere in Roman Asia, cf. Philostratus, Her. 18.2–5; 22.3–4; 23.6.

241. See, e.g., Artemidorus, Onir. 2.12; cowherds as rulers of their cattle, Xenophon, Cyr. 1.1.2.

242. Before the Israelite period, see the Sumerians and subsequent Mesopotamian sources, such as Lipit-Ishtar prol.; Code of Hammurabi prol. 1.50; epilogue (ANET 159, 164, 178); for Israel and the ancient Near East, see, e.g., Bruce, Time, 49; for Egypt, see Kügler, “König”; Manetho, Aeg. bk. 2, dynasties 15–17, frg. 43, 45, 47–49; generally, Niehaus, Themes, 39, 41–42, 45, 48–50; Aubert, Motif, 127–32 (for ancient Near East), 132–44 (for ancient Israel).

243. Pseudo-Anacharsis, Ep. 7, to Tereus; Greek writers about Persian warrior-rulers, Aeschylus, Pers. 74–75; Xenophon, Cyr. 8.2.14; applied to generals (Silius Italicus, Pun. 7.123–27) and guiding philosophers (Eunapius, Lives 464); shepherds could also view erotic love as a shepherd (Longus, Daphn. 3.12; 4.39). See further Koester, “Spectrum,” 14; this emphasis and others in Aubert, Motif, 145–87 (Roman sources, 187–96). Aubert also notes that many motifs of leadership in Paul’s Miletus speech fit ancient kingship motifs (317–29), which naturally served as a repository for many ancient reflections on leadership.

244. Thus Moses is both Israel’s shepherd and judge (L.A.B. 19:3, 10). See further this emphasis and others in Aubert, Motif, 196–216.

245. Cf. Homer, Od. 4.291 (ruler) with 4.24 (shepherd). It could also apply to usurpers (4.532).

246. Homer, Il. 4.296; 8.81; 10.73; 11.370, 842; 13.411; 16.2; 19.386; 23.389; Od. 17.109; 18.70; 24.456. The expression is sometimes equivalent to “captains of the people” (Il. 11.465). Philo (Good Person 31) notes the Homeric royal usage.

247. Homer, Il. 1.263; 5.144, 513; 6.214; 10.406; 11.92; 13.600; 15.262; 20.110; 22.277.

248. Homer, Il. 2.85, 243, 254; 4.413; 7.230; 10.3; 11.202; 19.35, 251; 24.654; Od. 3.156; 14.497; Xenophon, Mem. 3.2.1. For Atreus, Homer, Il. 2.105; Menelaus, see Homer, Od. 4.24.

249. Hesiod, Theog. 1000 (Jason); Maximus of Tyre, Or. 19.2 (Socrates).

250. E.g., a general guarding his soldiers (Silius Italicus, Pun. 7.126–30); a philosopher “shepherding” youths in a morally positive direction (Eunapius, Lives 464).

251. Xenophon, Cyr. 8.2.14.

252. Xenophon, Mem. 3.2.1.

253. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 4.43.

254. Dio Chrysostom, Or. 4.44. Dio likes the image: a king who would not even care for his people as a shepherd cares for his flock is a tyrant (3.41). A good king must be like a shepherd to his people (1.13), for who cares for sheep better than a shepherd (1.17)? A foolish king is like a foolish shepherd (1.28).

255. Abel’s shepherding appears positively in Josephus, Ant. 1.53; Greeks portrayed Hesiod as a former shepherd, whether favorably or unfavorably (Callimachus, Aet. 1.2.1; Musonius Rufus, 11, p. 80.25–27; Maximus of Tyre, Or. 38.2).

256. Thus the irony implied in Herodian, Hist. 7.1.2; Paris of Troy was a poor shepherd (Ovid, Her. 5.79; Valerius Flaccus, Argon. 1.549), but only before his royal blood was discovered (Ovid, Her. 16.51–52); for many shepherds near Troy, see Philostratus, Her. 18.2–5; 22.3–4. Cf. Jeffers, World, 21.

257. See also the hero Protesilaos as a physician of sheep, bees, and trees (Philostratus, Her. 4.10).

258. E.g., Hesiod, Theog. 1.22–34; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 2.8; Lucian, Hesiod 7; Libanius, Comp. 5.21; Symmachus, Ep. 1.53.2; esp. Musonius Rufus, 11, p. 80.25–27 (who opines that the occupation helpfully allows time to think [11, p. 80.27–29]); Lucian, Book-Coll. 3 (who grants the hard work involved). But even in these traditions he was a former shepherd, before the Muses met him (Callimachus, Aet. 1.2.1; Maximus of Tyre, Or. 38.2). Aesop was also a shepherd (Philostratus, Vit. Apoll. 5.15).

259. Paris was a negative example in Greek tradition (e.g., Dio Chrysostom, Or. 11.12).

260. E.g., Ps. 77:20; Isa. 63:11; 1 En. 89:35; L.A.B. 19:3, 10; Sipre Deut. 305.3.1; y. Sanh. 10:1, §9; y. Soṭah 5:4, §1; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 2:8; Exod. Rab. 2:2; 5:20; Tg. Ps.-J. on Gen. 40:12; possibly 1Q34 and 1Q34bis frg. 3, col. 2, line 8 (Wise et al., Scrolls, 186; fragmentary); see further Meeks, Prophet-King, 311–12 (esp. on Mek. Pisha 1 on Exod. 12:1); Glasson, Moses, 95–96; Odeberg, Gospel, 315–17.

261. 2 Sam. 5:2; 1 Chron. 11:2; Ps. 78:70–72; Ezek. 34:23; 37:24; 4Q504, 4.6–8; Gen. Rab. 59:5. The title also relates to David’s prior occupation (1 Sam. 17:15, 34–37; Ps. 78:70–71).

262. Mek. Pisha 1:162–63 (Simeon ben Azzai).

263. 4 Ezra 5:18.

264. Num. 27:17; 1 Kings 22:17; Jer. 3:15; CD 19.8–9; Mek. Pisha 1:162–63. The prophets also applied the title ironically to unjust leaders (Isa. 56:11; Jer. 22:22; 23:1–4; 25:34–36; Zech. 10:3; 11:5, 15–17; 13:4–7); the shepherds were often responsible for the scattering of God’s people (Jer. 10:21; 50:6–7; Ezek. 34:1–10).

265. E.g., the mebaqqer (overseer) of Qumran, a leader watching over his group of Essenes (CD 13.9).

266. Mic. 5:4; Jer. 23:1–6; Ezek. 34:23; Pss. Sol. 17:40; cf. Zech. 13:7; Tg. Neof. 1 on Exod. 12:42 (as a new Moses); see Longenecker, Christology, 48–49. Cook (in Wise et al., Scrolls, 214) thinks that 4Q165 frg. 1–2 may apply to the Teacher of Righteousness.

267. In 1 En. 89:59–60, 62–63, it is the seventy nations appointed to judge Israel.

268. Pss. 23:1–4; 28:9; 74:1–2; 77:20; 78:52; 79:13; 80:1; 100:3; Isa. 40:11; Jer. 13:17; 31:10; Ezek. 34:11–17; Mic. 7:14; Zech. 9:16; 10:3; Sir. 18:13; 4Q509 4.24 (possibly, but fragmentary); 1 En. 89:18; L.A.B. 28:5; 30:5; Philo, Agriculture 50–53; b. Ḥag. 3b; b. Pesaḥ. 118a; Exod. Rab. 34:3; Lam. Rab. 1:17, §52; Pesiq. Rab. 3:2; see further Marmorstein, Names, 100–101. For Shamash as “my shepherd,” see the Akkadian source in van der Toorn, “Shepherd,” 771.

269. Ps. 28:9; Isa. 40:11; 46:3–4.

270. Pss. 77:20; 78:52; 80:1; Isa. 40:11; 63:14; cf. Exod. 13:21; 15:13; Deut. 8:2; Pss. 78:14; 106:9; 136:16; Neh. 9:12; Isa. 48:21; Jer. 2:6, 17; Hosea 11:3–4; Amos 2:10. A seventh-century BCE Assyrian hymn calls the sun deity a shepherd (ANET 387); so earlier Marduk, over other deities (Enuma Elish 7.131, in Heidel, Genesis, 59).

271. E.g., Pss. 74:1; 77:20; 78:52; 79:13; 80:1; 100:3; Isa. 49:9; 63:11; Jer. 13:17; 31:10; Mic. 2:12; 7:14; Zech. 9:16; 10:3; 4Q266 frg. 18, col. 5.13; 1 En. 89:16–24, 51–53; L.A.B. 23:12; 30:5; Sipre Deut. 15.1.1; Exod. Rab. 24:3; Pesiq. Rab. 9:2; 26:1/2; cf. Bar. 4:26. God was thus “Lord of the sheep” (1 En. 89:16, 20, 26, 33, 50, 52, 54, 70; 90:20).

272. Greek shepherds had patron deities (see Prescendi, “Pales”; Baudy, “Parilia,” 531); by contrast, one patron deity protected all of Israel (Ps. 23:1).

273. See Isa. 56:11; 63:11; Jer. 3:15; 10:21; 12:10; 22:22; 23:1–4; 25:34–36; 50:6; Ezek. 34:2, 7–10; Mic. 5:5; Nah. 3:18; Zech. 10:2–3; 11:5, 8, 15–17; cf. 1 En. 89:59–90:25; 4 Ezra 5:18; 2 Bar. 77:13. Cf. the ultimate Davidic ruler in Mic. 5:4; Pss. Sol. 17:45.

274. E.g., Phaedrus, Fab. 4.5.23–24.

275. Lewis, Life, 132; Ruffing, “Sheep,” 383.

276. Hesiod, Op. 202–11. For earlier animal fables, see, e.g., Ahiq. 120–22 (saying 36); 118–20 (saying 35).

277. The obedience of sheep also appears elsewhere, e.g., Epictetus, Diatr. 1.16.5. The “hearing” of sheep may include an allusion to Ps. 95:7 (cf. Heb. 3:7), but on a shepherd “leading” sheep see also 2 Sam. 5:2; 1 Chron. 11:2 (David); Ps. 78:52 (God); and Jer. 50:6 (the wicked leaders of Israel).

278. Terence, Broth. 534–35.

279. E.g., Pss. 74:1; 77:20; 78:52; 79:13; 80:1; 100:3; Isa. 49:9; 63:11; Jer. 13:17; 31:10; Zech. 9:16; 10:3. In pagan thought, Apollo could be chief shepherd as patron of all flocks (Macrobius, Sat. 1.17.44–45).

280. L.A.B. 23:12; 30:5; 1 En. 89:16–24; 4Q266 frg. 18, col. 5, line 13; Sipre Deut. 15.1.1; Exod. Rab. 24:3; Pesiq. Rab. 9:2; 26:1/2. (Sir. 18:13; Philo, Agriculture 50–53; and y. Ber. 2:7, §2 appear to be exceptions.) Early Christians applied the image to the church (Minear, Images, 84–87; Ladd, Theology, 108); on the shepherd image in early Christianity, see also Keener, “Shepherd,” 1091–93.

281. Christ, of course, was the Chief Shepherd (John 10:2, 11, 14, 16; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 2:25; 5:4; Rev. 7:17; Mart. Pol. 19:2; cf. Mark 6:34).

282. He also noted that God could rule as shepherd in their stead if need be (Ignatius, Rom. 9:1; cf. Ezek. 34:11).

283. He does, however, claim less than apostolic authority for the bishops (Ignatius, Rom. 4:3; cf. Mart. Pol. 16:2). For Hermas, the shepherd is different, a sort of guardian angel, an “angel of repentance” (Herm. 25:3, 7; 49:1; 51:1; 67:4; 68:5–8; 70:1; 72:1; 79:6; 82:7; 84:1; 87:1; 88:1; 100:5; 110:1; 111:1; 114:5). Hermas uses the title “shepherds” even for evil angels (61:5–62:2; 63:2).

284. The following material on overseers adapts Keener, Acts, 3:3031–33.

285. See also Schnabel, Acts, 845, citing esp. Merkle, Elder, 67–160. The title episkopos does suggest the governing function (with, e.g., Du Plessis, “Rule,” 28). Bede (Comm. Acts 20.28) allows the “bishops” here to be priests rather than bishops over cities. Caird (Language, 81–82) rejects the language of “bishops” as anachronistic for NT usage, since there were multiple overseers in one congregation in Phil. 1:1.

286. See Tyson, “Authority in Acts.”

287. The cognate episkopē in Acts 1:20 does apply to the apostolic office.

288. As most NT commentators note (e.g., Scott, Pastoral Epistles, 30–31; Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, 73; at greater length, see Beyer, “ἐπίσκοπος,” esp. 610–14).

289. Fitzmyer, Acts, 678 (citing Aeschylus, Eum. 740; Aristophanes, Birds 1022–23; Plato, Leg. 6.762D; 9.872E); Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, 54; Goppelt, Times, 188; Rhodes, “Episkopos.” See, e.g., the overseer of the Vestal Virgins (Plutarch, Num. 9.5); a satrap (Appian, Hist. rom. 11.9.53); a supervisory caste in India (Arrian, Ind. 12.5); the verb cognate episkopeō applies also to royal activity (Epictetus, Diatr. 3.22.72).

290. Selwyn, Peter, 182 (citing also Philo, Migration 115).

291. Johnson, Acts, 362 (citing Plato, Leg. 795D); for guardians (Plato, Resp. 506B), Selwyn, Peter, 230. For Plato’s guardians, see Lodge, Ethics, 389–90.

292. E.g., Num. 4:16; 31:14; Judg. 9:28; 2 Kings 11:15; 2 Chron. 34:17; Neh. 11:9, 14, 22; Isa. 60:17; 1 Macc. 1:51; so also Josephus, Ant. 10.53; 12.254. See also Beyer, “ἐπίσκοπος,” 614–15.

293. Jeffers, World, 80. Latin could employ speculatores, the equivalent of episkopos, as in Jub. 40:4.

294. See Beyer, “ἐπίσκοπος,” 614–15, and sources cited there.

295. E.g., (of over thirty references) 1QS 6.12, 20; CD 9.18, 19, 22; 13.6, 7, 13, 16; 14.8, 11, 13; 15.8, 11, 14; 4Q265 frg. 1, col. 2, line 5; 4Q275 frg. 1, line 3.

296. E.g., Brown, “Scrolls,” 7; Cross, Library, 232; Yamauchi, Stones, 138–39 (following Albright, Horizons, 49); Vermes, Scrolls, 19; McNamara, Judaism, 139–40; Goppelt, Times, 188–89; Daniélou, Theology, 349; Kelly, Pastoral Epistles, 73–74. On the office, cf. further Harrison, “Rites,” 27. Cf. the comparison of the mebaqqer with the Athenian practice (Steiner, “Mbqr”). For a particularly nuanced comparison of the mebaqqer and NT episkopos (arguing that this is not the source of the NT usage, which has plurality of elders), see Humble, “Mebaqqer.”

297. CD 9.18–22; 4Q266 frg. 18, col. 5, line 16. Cf. Eshel, “Rebukes” (though here the overseers probably recorded only the rebukes [Hempel, “Who Rebukes”]). The overseer may command banishment in 4Q266 frg. 6, col. 1, line 12 (and other matters in 4Q271 frg. 1, col. 1, lines 14–15).

298. Fitzmyer, Acts, 679; cf. Beyer, “ἐπίσκοπος,” 619. Though the Hebrew and Greek terms share a common etymology and some similar functions, Fitzmyer doubts a direct connection (Essays, 293–94, esp. 294; “Christianity,” 247–48). Might the Hebrew term have been adopted and employed with analogy to the Greek in the Hellenistic era?

299. See Num. 4:16; 31:14; Judg. 9:28; 2 Kings 11:15, 18; 12:12 (ET 12:11); 2 Chron. 34:12, 17; Neh. 11:9, 14, 22; Isa. 60:17; 1 Macc. 1:51; cf. Philo, Dreams 2.186; Josephus, Ant. 10.53; 12.254.

300. Tannehill, Acts, 258.

301. Wis. 1:6. Panepiskopon (“overseeing all things”) is also one of the adjectives describing Wisdom in Wis. 7:23.

302. Sib. Or. 1:152; see also 2:177.

303. Philo, Alleg. Interp. 3.43; Migration 81, 115; Names 216; Dreams 1.91. For God observing his creation, see Migration 135.

304. Josephus, Ag. Ap. 2.160.

305. T. Benj. 4:3 (trans. Kee, OTP 1:826; cf. Charles, 2:219).

306. T. Benj. 6:6. Cf. Jannes 25a; 4 Bar. 7:35; the idea in 2 Macc. 7:35. Gentiles could speak of deities as overseers or guardians of various entities, something like the way many later Christians spoke of patron saints (epoptēs; episkopos; e.g., Cornutus, Summary of Greek Theology 9, §9.17–20, esp. 20; 14, §16.18–19; 16, §25.3–4, 7; 20, §37.23–38.2; 22, §43.19–44.3; 27, §50.11–12; 30, §57.17–18; 32, §68.4–5).

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