Appendix B: Mysteries, Music, Women, and Wine—Ephesians 5:18-21 and the Threat of Subversive Religions
Appendix B: Mysteries, Music, Women, and Wine—Ephesians 5:18–21 and the Threat of Subversive Religions
If Paul wished to distinguish Christianity from the wild rites associated with the less acceptable mysteries, he would need to encourage the Christians to avoid wrong impressions concerning the orderliness of their worship, the roles of women in their congregations, and perhaps the use of wine in the Lord’s Supper.
Most of the exhortations he gives in Ephesians 5:18–21 could be directed just as easily against drunken banqueting, associated with exciting music and the availability of slaves as sexual partners of both genders, as they could against the excesses attributed to certain pagan cults. Lavish banquets were a prerogative only of those who could afford it, but those of lesser wealth could probably have found this same combination of wine, music, and sex in the taverns.
But while Paul’s exhortation makes sense against the general backdrop of ancient life, it could have functioned particularly well in showing that Christians did not act like the drunken revelers in some of the mysteries. If this is Paul’s point, his argument is the sort of reasoning followed by Christian apologists in the second century: if we will not even witness the carnage in the theaters, how shall we be accused of cannibalism? If we avoid all sexual activity outside marriage, how can we be accused of incest? In other words, Paul may highlight certain features of Christian ethics that would reduce external suspicions that Christianity was a subversive cult as the cults of Dionysus, Cybele, or Isis were thought to be.
In this appendix, we examine how some features of Ephesians 5:18–22 could have been read if Paul were seeking to distinguish Christianity from certain cults particularly troubling to the Romans. This is helpful in reinforcing the setting we proposed in chapter 4, since much of what Paul says here would make sense in that light. Of course, Paul’s words here may be of more general import; but the cumulative weight of different motifs in one section of his letter may suggest that Paul is actively seeking to distinguish Christian gatherings from the more distasteful of the pagan religious associations.
EPHESIANS 5:18 AND PERCEPTIONS OF “WILD” RELIGIONS
Ephesians 5:18–21 contrasts drunkenness with true spiritual worship and properly submissive relationships; this might suggest that the contrast is between true and false kinds of worship. Music, sexual liberation, and abuse of wine were not limited in any way to the mysteries, but if Paul is concerned to set Christianity apart from Roman perceptions of “foreign cults,” these would be some issues that he would need to address. Paul is at least concerned in this context to distinguish Christians from those who perform pagan deeds in darkness (5:8–14). The darkness to which he refers surely contrasts with the true light of Christ (5:14),[1] but it could also point to the secretive (5:12),[2] nighttime initiations of most of the mysteries.[3]
Certain mystery cults were thought to give too much prominence to women.[4] Juvenal mocks frenzied women in the cult of Isis[5] and associates their devotion to Isis with their immoral behavior.[6] A chaste woman, it was often felt, would not participate in such ignoble cults.[7] Recent studies have indicated that, though women’s participation was more offensive to Roman observers, they were in reality normally outnumbered by men in the cult.[8] The issue in this passage, however, is not how subversive many of the cults were (in contrast to our discussion in chapter 2, above), but how subversive the Romans thought they were. If Paul is distinguishing Christians from initiates to various mysteries, it is for the sake of popular opinion, not because Christians themselves did not know the difference.
One offensive cult in which women’s frenzied participation had long been notorious[9] was that of Dionysus. This was the case although, again, men by this period participated as well,[10] as evidenced in public Dionysiac celebrations in Greece made every other year.[11] But women’s roles were especially prominent in this cult, and, given Roman male views on property, this naturally led to social disturbances,[12] including a significant sexual scandal in Rome in 186 BCE.
Certain of the mysteries (though not the highly respected ones)[13] were associated with sexual immorality.[14] That this is especially true of the cult of Dionysus[15] is evidenced particularly by the example we have just mentioned, excesses associated with its presence in Rome in the second century BCE.[16] Perhaps the scandal was augmented by the association of Dionysus, the god of wine, with drunkenness. With or without the cult of Dionysus, wine was often associated with sexual immorality,[17] and the removal of inhibitions may have led to some of the early connections between Dionysiac revelry and women’s participation in the cult. But whether or not drunkenness was stressed in the scandal, the connections between sexual license and the cult ritual itself are clear; if these diminished after their brutal Roman suppression in 186 BCE,[18] their reputation, at least, did not.
Some of the mysteries were celebrated with drunkenness,[19] and, as we have noted, the cult of Dionysus was no exception.[20] Frenzy, probably usually initiated through intoxicants and dance, was normally said to characterize his worship.[21] Indeed, frenzy or ecstasy characterized the cults of Dionysus and Cybele but not those of Demeter, Isis,[22] or later Mithras,[23] and this helps explain why the Romans were especially put off by the former groups. Dionysus’ power was said to be irresistible,[24] and this also could trouble conservative Romans who wished to avoid all disorderly behavior.
Roman discomfort with Dionysian sexuality and frenzy was not eased by any reassurance that Dionysus wished to preserve the social order; to the contrary, worshipers of Dionysus symbolically overturned that order in their ritual. This applied not only to gender role reversal, but also to a breakdown of traditional social status categories. Wine, Dionysus’ gift,[25] was to be provided at festivals across lines of social status, even to slaves.[26] This may suggest that Dionysus’ ability to cut across social lines was significant; unlike formal initiations into more expensive mysteries, one could unofficially experience Dionysiac frenzy simply by getting drunk. Most worshipers of Dionysus were not official initiates into his cult, but the line between Dionysiac possession and Dionysiac initiation may not have been particularly important to those wishing to preserve order.
Dionysus’ cult spread widely in hellenistic times,[27] and he was still worshiped in the eastern Mediterranean in the Roman period,[28] sometimes in the context of his mystery cult.[29] In a popular tradition, he was said to derive from Asia Minor, where Ephesus is located, and his first followers were said to have come from there.[30]
Although the cult spread widely, it took some time to become fully accepted in Rome.[31] The worship of Dionysus had even penetrated some upper-class Roman circles by the second century CE,[32] and this no doubt irritated conservative Romans all the more.[33] The cult had been stigmatized in Rome in an earlier period, probably including the first century, and it never gained the following in Italy that it held in the eastern Mediterranean. Any Christian worship that could be remotely compared to the worship of Dionysus would be quite a poor strategy for preventing scandal in Rome; and if Jewish worship had been compared to that of Dionysus,[34] the Christians could expect the comparison to be drawn with them, too.
If Christianity wished to dissociate itself from the popular perception of some of the wilder of the non-Roman religious groups, one front it could emphasize was its own disdain for drunkenness.
EPHESIANS 5:18 AND DRUNKENNESS IN ANTIQUITY
In ancient literature,[35] including Jewish literature,[36] drinking wine in moderation was not considered evil. Of course, the alcoholic content of wine was lower then than it is today; while the lack of hermetic sealing or refrigeration meant that all grape juice after the grape vintage would have undergone some degree of fermentation, the lack of distillation meant that wine would not become more alcoholic than occurs by natural processes.
Furthermore, one could not have become drunk from a small amount of normal wine. It was customary in antiquity to water the wine down, often two parts water to one part wine;[37] to produce intoxication in Greco-Roman settings, one might add a variety of herbal toxins.[38] It was, of course, possible to become drunk from drinking large amounts of regular wine, but this would not occur in the ordinary quantities in which it was drunk at meals.
But drinking in excess came under attack from many circles.[39] Perhaps the most common problem associated with excessive drinking was the loss of one’s self-control.[40] Sometimes drunkenness was said to lead to personal dangers. Just as Odysseus overcame the Cyclops Polyphemus by getting him drunk,[41] so Judith could kill a drunk Holofernes.[42] How did Delilah manage to keep Samson asleep on her lap while having someone cut his hair (Judg. 16:19)? One early Jewish writer explains that Delilah got him drunk first—an explanation that may actually have some merit.[43]
Likewise, drunkenness could lead a person to tell secrets unwittingly.[44] Other kinds of irresponsible[45] or silly talk also characterize the drunken person:
For song, laughter, and dancing are characteristic of men who drink wine in moderation; but babbling and talking about what is better left in silence is at once the work of actual intoxication and drunkenness.
Hence Plato, too, holds that most men show their real natures most clearly when they drink.[46]
Drunkenness makes it more difficult to reason clearly;[47] thus a classical Greek orator warns that if one cannot avoid drinking parties, one ought at least to depart before becoming drunk, “for when the mind is impaired by wine it is like chariots which have lost their drivers.”[48] A drunken man thus does things he would not have done in his right mind.[49]
It was also recognized that drunkenness normally led to lack of motor control, though a Stoic philosopher is reported to have said that it would not affect his fluency of speech,[50] and an Epicurean text charged that the wise man will not “drivel, when drunken.”[51] A Jewish person who drank too much and vomited all over the place at a party would be considered disgusting and would be put out.[52] Like overeating, another form of immoderate behavior, drunkenness could “kill by giving pleasure.”[53] And it could lead to trouble in bad company,[54] especially sexually loose company.[55]
Finally, we should observe that inspiration was sometimes compared with drunkenness (Acts 2:13).[56] Although Greek writers at times distinguished prophetic ecstasy from Dionysiac frenzy,[57] it is noteworthy at least in passing that drunkenness and divine frenzy are often linked in the worship of Dionysus,[58] and Dionysus[59] and his followers[60] could be said to be mantic, i.e., prophets. Interestingly, it is in the Jewish philosopher Philo that we find the most explicit connection between drunkenness and pneumatic inspiration.[61] It is possible that Philo was alluding to common concepts of Dionysiac inspiration.[62]
Does Paul allude here to the drunkenness of banquets and taverns, or to the drunkenness associated with pagan religious celebrations and perhaps inspiration? It may not be necessary for us to decide. There was no reason in antiquity to distinguish “secular” from “religious” drunkenness; these categories would not have made sense to the many people who would have believed that all intoxication was possession by Dionysus, deity of wine.[63]
Warnings against intoxication were, it is true, part of traditional moral exhortation, and need not have been associated directly with Dionysus.[64] But Paul’s contrast between being “drunk with wine”[65] and being “filled with the Spirit”[66] (Eph. 5:18) may indicate that he is at least aware of the possession connotations many people in his day attached to drunken loss of control, and that he knows that some even saw it as an alternative source of inspiration.
EPHESIANS 5:19 AND PAGAN MUSIC
Ephesians 5:19 refers to singing various kinds of songs as an expression of the Spirit’s inspiration. It will therefore be helpful to comment briefly on the use of music in ancient cults. Music was not limited to cultic settings, of course; it was a regular part of Greek education;[67] it was standard fare with the wine at banquets;[68] it was sometimes used during labor or even rowing in the galleys,[69] and the heavens themselves were said to move in musical harmony.[70] Likewise, although dancing was appropriate in many religious settings,[71] it was also appropriate in other settings, including military training.[72]
But religious contexts were certainly one of the more important settings for music,[73] and the music of Ephesians 5:19 is explicitly religious music. Music and dancing were part of the Dionysiac and other cults.[74] Women’s participation in the music may generally be assumed,[75] especially since we know that young girls were trained in music and dancing.[76] But the singing of “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” for which Paul calls is far more like traditional Jewish worship[77] than the sort of frenzied worship that characterized the cults most troublesome to the Romans, especially those of Dionysus and Cybele.
Of course, all music characteristically involved emotion,[78] and some music could be thought to hold special powers. In the case of David, music had the power of exorcism (1 Sam. 16:23), perhaps implying prophetic anointing.[79] But emotionally or spiritually powerful music was not directly connected with the wild sort associated with the undignified cults; sometimes music could even be used to symbolize harmonious ideas.[80] Philosophical discourse could be substituted for music at the parties of the educated,[81] and a Jewish prophetic figure spoke of God’s inspired law as “the hymn of the law.”[82] Music could thus have a rational component as well as an affective one, and it could be used either positively or negatively from the Roman standpoint.
Paul does not take his case too far with regard to music; although drunkenness was always wrong, music simply needed to be done in an orderly manner to distinguish the Christians from other objects of Roman mistrust. Even though instruments such as cymbals were used in the cult of Cybele,[83] Paul does not exclude their use here, concentrating instead on the content of the music itself. Early Christian music may have been instrumental (especially with more readily available apparatus such as cymbals), as in temple worship and Jewish festal assemblies.[84]
The early Christians were less concerned to distinguish their worship from that of the synagogues than from that of certain pagan cults, although many of the gifts of the Spirit active in their congregations (1 Cor. 12–14) would have distinguished them from the synagogues well enough. But it is difficult to compare the house churches and the synagogues on the matter of worship, apart from the issue of charismatic gifts. We do not have clear evidence for corporate singing in the average first-century synagogue; the Essenes and the worship led by Levites in the Jerusalem temple included corporate singing, but we cannot say how prevalent this was in various synagogues throughout the Mediterranean world.[85]
It may be that the spontaneous worship of an Egyptian Jewish sect called the Therapeutae[86] is our closest parallel to ancient Christian worship.[87] But early Christian worship at least seems to have differed from most early Jewish communities for which we have evidence, with its emphasis on intensely corporate worship and especially on charismatic prayer. “Spiritual songs” may refer to such inspired prayers as sung prayers in tongues followed by interpretations (cf. 1 Cor. 14:13–15).
Music was often linked with inspiration,[88] as it is in Ephesians 5:18–19: “be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.” The link can be found frequently in the ancient Near East,[89] including ancient Israel.[90] The prophetic Spirit inspired people to sing in Jewish tradition,[91] which owned as part of its Bible an inspired hymnbook, the book of Psalms. The link between music and prophecy is clear in the Greek tradition in their consolidation in the person of Orpheus[92] or their joint patronage by Apollo;[93] similarly, the Muses are often entreated for poetic inspiration.[94] Indeed, the explicit transference between the musician Orpheus and the wine-god Dionysus,[95] and between Dionysus and the prophecy-god Apollo,[96] is remarkable.
Paul’s emphasis on the kind of religious music generated by the Spirit’s inspiration (psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs) may serve as an implicit contrast with the worship of certain pagan cults in his culture. This would be important in a climate where Christian house churches could still be mistaken for cult associations, which usually also met in homes.
FEMALE ROLE MODELS IN ASIAN RELIGION AND TRADITION
The history that had been ascribed to Asia by Paul’s day provided its inhabitants with various models for women taking on traditional masculine roles, models which would not appeal to conservative Romans if anyone ever acted on them. Such figures could be found in the Amazons, the mother-goddess, and the Ephesian Artemis. Greek writers had long been intrigued by traditions of the warlike Amazons in Asia,[97] and most ancient writers seem to have assumed that they actually existed.[98] These women warriors may have been modeled to some degree on the huntress Artemis, with whose Ephesian temple they are linked in Greek tradition.[99] They were seen as “manly” in their pursuits,[100] and were able to serve as a role model for philosophically minded women in Cynic exhortation.[101]
Mother-goddess worship was also easily associated with the Roman province of Asia and its environs. It was widely known that Cybele, the “Great Mother”[102] who induced frenzy and castration among her priests,[103] was of Phrygian origin.[104] Mother-goddess cults apparently had a long history in the area around Ephesus.[105] Because castration was a severe form of gender role reversal, Romans would be especially disturbed by this cult.
The cult of Artemis was of paramount importance in Ephesus,[106] although Acts 19:27 rightly reports the claim that both Asia[107] and the world[108] worshiped the Ephesian Artemis; her devotees had carried her cult with them elsewhere.[109] Her temple[110] was so impressive that it is listed first among the seven wonders of the ancient world.[111] Unlike the virgin huntress of Greek mythology, this Artemis is widely agreed to have been a fertility figure of some sort.[112] In the syncretism that had become typical of the hellenistic-Roman age, the Greek Artemis was identified with the original Great Mother and other female deities.[113]
Women were often praised in the inscriptions of the eastern provinces, although some of the titles may have been merely honorary.[114] Inscriptions especially from Ephesus indicate that many women were honored as priestesses.[115] Since there were also women of religious prestige in Rome, the Vestal Virgins, we need not suppose that this feature of Asian culture would have threatened Roman values.
But there was a sufficient distance between the Roman perception of women’s religious and historical models in Asia and their own models to make them more cautious at the outset toward religious expressions emerging from this region. Political precedents in Rome, the heart of the empire, could affect the church in other parts of the empire. Paul, imprisoned in Rome but with many visitors from the Roman churches and Jewish community (Acts 28:14–16, 30), would be well aware of public perceptions of Christianity and would be interested in implementing strategies that would reduce unnecessary opposition to the gospel.
CONCLUSION
Paul’s words in Ephesians 5:18—6:9 make sense in the context of ancient religion, and especially in the context of Roman discomfort with certain expressions of non-Roman religion. Although other social factors were also at work, Paul was very concerned to be a relevant witness within Roman society for the sake of the gospel.