Nature And Genre
NATURE AND GENRE
Romans has occasionally been viewed as a timeless treatise, a "compendium of Christian doctrine” (Melanchthon) that transcends time. However, while it certainly speaks to every generation of Christians, the message of Romans is embedded in a document written to a particular audience in a definite situation. To put it simply, Romans is a letter.
But what kind of letter? There were many types of letters in the ancient world, ranging from brief requests for money from children away from home to long essays intended to reach a wide audience. 29 Paul’s letters generally fall somewhere between these extremes, but Romans is further toward the latter end of the spectrum than any other letter of Paul’s (with the possible exception of Ephesians). To be sure, Romans is written within a set a definite circumstances that are enumerated in the epistolary opening and closing of the book (Rom. 1:1-17; 15:14-16:27). But within this framework, Paul pursues an argument that develops according to the inner logic of the gospel. This stands in marked contrast to, say, 1 Corinthians, where Paul’s agenda is set by the needs and questions of the Corinthians. The questions that occur in Romans (e.g., 3:1,
5, 27; 4:1; 6:1, 15) are literary devices by which Paul moves his own argument along. 30 Not once in chapters 1-13 does Paul allude to a specific circumstance or individual within the Roman Christian community. When he addresses his audience, he does so with terms that could be applied to any Christian group: "brothers” (7:4; 8:12; 10:1; 11:25); those "who know the law” (7:1); "you Gentiles” (11:13). Not even chapters 14-15 need have a specific situation at Rome in mind. 31 We may, then, describe Romans as a tractate letter, one that has as its main component a theological argument or series of arguments. 32 Attempting a more definite genre identification is perilous. Bultmann and others have compared Romans to the diatribe, an argumentative genre popular with Cynic-Stoic philosophers. 33 Features of the diatribe found in Romans are the direct address of an opponent or interlocutor (see Rom. 2:1, 17), rhetorical questions, and the use of μη γένοιτο (me genoito, "may it never be!”, from μη + γίνομαι, G3590 + G1181) to reject the inference found in such questions (see 3:3-4, 5-6; 6:1-2, 15; 7:7, 13; 9:14; 11:1, 11). Bultmann viewed the diatribe as polemical in orientation, but recent study has focused rather on its educative role and has raised the question whether the diatribe should be considered a genre at all. 34 In any case, while sharing some features of the diatribe, Romans as a whole cannot be classified as such.
Other attempts have been made to fit Romans into ancient literary categories: it has been labeled a memorandum, 35 an "epideictic” letter,36an ambassadorial letter, 76 a "protreptic” letter, 38 and a letter essay, 39 to name only a few. But Romans does not quite fit. To be sure, Romans has similarities to all of these genres. But this proves nothing more than that Paul has utilized various literary conventions of his day in getting his message across. 40