Chapter 5 Mutual Submission in Ephesians 5:18–33

Chapter 5 Mutual Submission in Ephesians 5:18–33

Chapter 5 Mutual Submission in Ephesians 5:18–33

[1]. Imperatival infinitives are rare in the NT, but they may be more customary for household codes; cf. Balch, “Codes,” p. 45, especially on Arius Didymus. Imperatival participles (as this would be) occur in the papyri, although they tend to be rarer in the NT; cf. H. E. Dana and J. R. Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (Toronto: Macmillan, 1955), p. 229. Kelly, Peter, pp. 67–68, bases the use of the imperatival participle on rabbinic Hebrew halakah (see W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism, 4th ed. [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980], p. 329, following Daube), but it is difficult to suppose that Paul’s readers would have been familiar with such a form except as it had come to relate to Greek usages.

[2]. Cf. J. P. Sampley, ‘And the Two Shall Become One Flesh,’ SNTSMS 16 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1971), pp. 114–16, although I do not share Robinson’s appeal to patristic literature here.

[3]. Cf. e.g., the imperative (a prayer) in Ps. Sol. 17:22a that controls the infinitives in 17:22b –25.

[4]. Reciprocal use of the reflexive. Prayers like those in the Psalms could include exhortation; Tobit’s written prayer in Tob. 13:6 includes even a call to repentance for Israel. Philo also reports male-female antiphonal singing among the Therapeutae. Talking with one another could educate one another, as some Greeks thought Jewish people did while engaging in philosophy (see Theophrastus, in Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, 3 vols. [Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1974–84], 1:10).

[5]. Cf. Mitton, Ephesians, pp. 190–91. The contrast with drunkenness in v. 18 suggests to J. A. Robinson, St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, 2d ed. (London: James Clarke, 1904), p. 122, that the social context is not public worship, but a common meal that took the place of public pagan feasts in the Greek cities. But the analogy should be with private religious meals rather than public here, and in early Christianity the communal meal seems to have been part of the gathering for worship rather than a distinct meeting (1 Cor. 11–14). Praise also seems to flow from being filled with the Spirit of understanding in Sir. 39:6.

[6]. Cf. Jub. 16:31; 1 En. 108:10. It is made explicit by Josephus, who repeatedly emphasizes terms used in the Greek world for “providence,” though expressing them as manifestations of God’s will, rather than as forces in themselves as in much Greco-Roman thought of this period.

[7]. Epict. Disc. 1.6.1, 14.16; Sen. Dial. 7. 15.4, 16.1–3; 9.10.4; 11.4.1; Marc. Aur. Med. 6.16.

[8]. Epict. Disc. 4.7.9; as long as the wise man sees “good” and “advantage” as residing in his moral purpose and not in circumstances.

[9]. For a much more thorough and nuanced treatment than we have space for here, see Swidler, Women, pp. 7–25.

[10]. J.-C. Billigmeier and J. A. Turner, “The Socio-economic roles of women in Mycenaean Greece: A brief survey from evidence of the Linear B tablets,” in Reflections of Women in Antiquity, pp. 1–18.

[11]. Gould, “Law,” p. 43, observes that her legal status was that of a perpetual minor (which fits some other ancient laws, too), and that she was defined by law “as almost . . . an un-person” (p. 44). In drama, women’s roles have both positive and negative features; cf. Foley, “Conception in Drama,” pp. 127–68. Cf. Semonides On Women (sixth century BCE), who contended that women were made from a variety of garbage and were Zeus’ worst curse on men (in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 14–16; for more examples, see pp. 12–20). Periander is said to have killed his pregnant wife in anger (Diog. Laert. Lives 1.94), but this is also said of Nero in the imperial period, and the whole narrative portrays Periander as willing to treat human life cheaply, whether male or female.

[12]. For Sparta, contrast Gorgo 5, in Plut. SSpartW., Mor. 240E, and anonymous 22, SSpartW., Mor. 242B; and, closer to the period in question, Arist. Pol. 2.6.7, 1269b (Aristotle thinks the Spartan women’s control while the men were away was bad).

[13]. See Banks, Community, p. 159.

[14]. Verner, Household, pp. 35–39. Early Roman law seems to have been much more positive than Greek law; see Frank, Aspects, pp. 22–23.

[15]. See Kraabel, “Judaism,” p. 44. The textual variant in Eph. 1:1 may well suggest that this was a circular letter, but that our texts include Ephesus and no other city as a particular destination suggests that Ephesus was at least the major center in the region of the letter’s circulation.

[16]. E.g., Juv. Sat. 6, passim (e.g., 6.242–43). This view seems to be assumed in direct narratives as well, e.g., the easily misled maid in Chariton Chaer. 1.4.1–2, though this may best apply to lower-class or slave women; or the wife in Ab. R. Nathan 3 A who is less generous than her husband.

[17]. See the references to Thales, Socrates, and/or Plato in Longenecker, Ethics, p. 70; Meeks, “Androgyne,” pp. 167–68.

[18]. Marc. Aur. Med. 5.11. The implication seems to be that it is inferior, like that of a child, youth, tyrant, or animal.

[19]. Arist. Pol. 1.5.3–11, 1259b-1260b. He argues against Plato’s portrayal of women’s equality in the ideal society (Pol. 2.2.15, 1264b); of course, Plato himself elsewhere regarded women as inferior by nature (Meeks, “Androgyne,” p. 170).

[20]. This is pointed out especially by the analysis of Boer, Morality, pp. 243–46 (evidence that women were badly treated), 246–51 (evidence that they were not so badly treated), 251–56 (Boer’s intermediate standpoint); cf. especially his point on p. 269, that there was great variation even from one place to another in the same period.

[21]. Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145C.

[22]. Plut. Bravery of Women, Mor. 242E–263C.

[23]. Plut. Bride 48, Mor. 145DE.

[24]. Sen. Dial. 6.16.1; this is true even though they are weaker, like the uneducated (6.7.3) (J. N. Sevenster, Paul and Seneca, NovTSup 4 [Leiden: Brill, 1961], pp. 192–96, points out that Seneca’s opinion of them is usually poor). Also Antisthenes in Diocles in Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1.12; Crates 28, to Hipparchia (CynEp, pp. 78–79). Mus. Ruf. fr. 12, On Sexual Indulgence (Malherbe, Exhortation, pp. 153–54), demands the same morality of men as of women, but on the principle that it is unthinkable that men should be less moral than women.

[25]. See Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 23; idem, “Androgyne,” p. 170. The Epicureans constituted an exception, treating women equally in the school (ibid., pp. 170, 172–73), although the Epicureans were nowhere as influential on popular thought as the Stoics in Paul’s day.

[26]. Marilyn B. Arthur, “Classics” (review essay), Signs 2 (2, 1976): 402, summarizing C. E. Manning, “Seneca and the Stoics on the Equality of the Sexes,” Mnemosyne 26 (2, 1973): 170–77.

[27]. Meeks, World, pp. 60–61. Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 104, §107, quote a treatise attributed to second/third century BCE Pythagoreans that differentiates external roles (in which women are to be domestic and husbands public), and internal qualities of virtue. Balch, “Codes,” p. 31, speaks of the Roman Stoics as “egalitarian in theory but Aristotelian in practice.” Because the same could naturally be said of Paul’s argument in Eph. 5:21–22, where he moves from the principle of mutual submission into the household codes, we have included a discussion of master-slave roles, which is also part of this section, in chapter 6 to force modern interpreters to be consistent in their position on wives and on slaves. We offer two possible answers to this objection: first, whereas much of the Stoics’ published teachings were meant to be widely disseminated, Paul’s epistolary teaching is more occasional in nature and hence less likely to address questions of universality; second, neither source seems to have considered itself the originator of household codes, instead adopting codes that already existed; we cannot therefore assume the users’ opinion of these codes’ universal character except when they tie them into men’s and women’s “nature”; most thinkers probably did not consider the difference between their culture and other cultures’ situations in this regard.

[28]. Arist. Pol. 3.2.10, 1277b.

[29]. Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus, trans. F. H. and C. H. Cave (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969), pp. 359–76, provides a detailed study of the social position of women in rabbinic literature, although he overplays the negative elements. It may be that the already substantial negative elements came to predominate more in the later literature, just as one finds more misogyny in the church fathers than in the earliest Christian literature (cf. Swidler, Women, passim); others hold the opposite position (Witherington, Women, p. 10, suggests that the positive elements developed later, since many of our positive statements are also late; cf. Jacob Neusner, Judaism in the Beginning of Christianity [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], pp. 59–60). Women were prophets, queens, etc. in the OT, and remained important in Hasmonean times and in synagogue art; but the Essenes, the first-century priesthood, and the rabbis reserve such roles and most rights for men (Jacob Neusner, The Tosefta: Translated from the Hebrew Third Division Nashim [New York: KTAV, 1979], p. x).

[30]. In parts of the LXX and Pseudepigrapha; see Swidler, Women, pp. 29–55; in rabbinic literature, pp. 126–30. For different groups within early Judaism, see pp. 56–82; Swidler finds the views essentially negative. I have attempted to be as fair to the sources as possible in what follows, but my own research also suggests the preponderance of negative roles for women in Jewish wisdom traditions, though these may have been somewhat mitigated in practice. Swidler, Women, p. 167, concludes that a trend of increasing chauvinism in early Judaism ran counter to the increasing liberation in Greco-Roman antiquity, and thus did not simply reflect the surrounding culture. Our point here, however, is not to pass judgment on early Jewish tradition, but simply to place Paul’s admonitions in their proper context.

[31]. Sir. 42:12–14.

[32]. Sir. 25:12, 16–26. The point is no doubt true whether one refers to an evil husband or to an evil wife, but Proverbs appears more open to the availability of good wives than Sirach (though cf. Sir. 7:19, and 26:1–4, 13–18, forming an inclusio around the bad wife of 26:5–12).

[33]. See m. Ab. 2:7. Cf. the wife of Lucius’ host in book 3 of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses.

[34]. See b. Ber. 53a; Pes. 111a; cf. Moore, Judaism, 2:137.

[35]. Gen. Rab. 17:6, attributed to a third- or possibly fourth-century teacher.

[36]. Test. Reub. 5:1–5; 6:1; cf. the Egyptian woman on Joseph in 4:9.

[37]. Test. Abr. 9 B. Rec. A did not report that this soul was female, but neither did it record, as 10 B does, the doom to a wicked soul being a woman who murdered her daughter.

[38]. E.g., Bonsirven, Judaism, pp. 100, 134; Eduard Lohse, The New Testament Environment, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), p. 150; Barth, Ephesians, 2:655–56.

[39]. Late second/early third century CE; an attribution to R. Meir would lower the date more generally to the second half of the second century.

[40]. See t. Ber. 6:18 (trans. Neusner, 1:40).

[41]. Most of the family and civil law in the Mishnah is not specifically Pharisaic and thus may derive from a wider body of Jewish custom, as Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, p. 14, points out (against Neusner).

[42]. See Longenecker, Ethics, p. 70; Meeks, “Androgyne,” pp. 167–68, cited above.

[43]. Cf. Fiorenza, Memory, p. 217.

[44]. Verner, Household, p. 45, although he notes that Greek and Roman laws also permitted certain rights not given under rabbinic law.

[45]. Fiorenza, Memory, p. 116, rightly appeals to the portrayal of Judith for a different model; but Judith belongs to an earlier period, and the rabbinic restrictions probably carry forward the basic male chauvinism that predominated in first-century Judaism, as exemplified in Philo and (more relevant for aristocrats in Palestine) Josephus. Both many of our later codices of Roman law and our collections of rabbinic law (and even the rabbinate itself) are significantly later than the time of Paul, introducing unavoidable complications into this discussion. We are here assuming that evidence of a sufficient commonality among diverse sources supports the general picture of women’s inferior social status, even though the degree and nature of that inferiority varies considerably among specific bodies of data.

[46]. E.g., m. Kid. 1:1.

[47]. Wegner, Chattel, shows that a woman was regarded as chattel with regard to her sexuality (pp. 20–34, 40–70), but as a person in all other ways (pp. 34–38, 70–95, 114–20, 171). In terms of Jewish law, this created a “legal hybrid,” rather than an intermediate category between person and property (ibid., pp. 7–8). Man was thus the legal norm, woman the anomalous derivation, in the Mishnah; cf. idem, “Tragelaphos Revisited: The Anomaly of Woman in the Mishnah,” Judaism 37 (2, Spring 1988): 160–72; Neusner, Beginning, p. 32. The husband’s role can be compared to the Roman pater familias (Wegner, Chattel, pp. 3–4).

[48]. In other words, the rabbis could perpetuate and develop older legal categories, but such categories, like a gender-based language, do not render their users inherently more sexist if the meaning placed on them is not sexist.

[49]. See m. Ket. 6:1; Z. W. Falk, “Jewish Private Law,” in JPFC, pp. 516–17.

[50]. See m. Hor. 3:7; cf. t. B. M. 2:32.

[51]. Women’s status was in some regards higher than that of Gentiles or slaves (m. Naz. 9:1), and women, with minors and slaves, could say the blessings on behalf of the male householder if he could not (p. R. H. 3:10, referring back to the Tosefta). A girl was recognized to reach maturity before a boy, on natural biological grounds (cf. Wegner, Chattel, pp. 36–37, who associates this with personhood).

[52]. E.g., t. Shab. 1:14; cf. p. Hag. 2:6, §2. See especially Wegner, Chattel, pp. 162–65; Swidler, Women, pp. 130–39.

[53]. Sir. 42:12.

[54]. Sir. 9:9.

[55]. See m. Ab. 1:5 (my translation).

[56]. Ab. R. Nathan 14, §35 B, gives both interpretations; the second interpretation cites Samson as an example, and this interpretation is on the whole more likely, since one’s own wife would not have been mentioned in the first case. This is true even though other texts cite the fear of seduction as a danger.

[57]. See b. Ber. 43b, bar.

[58]. See p. Sot. 7:1, §2; Gen. Rab. 48:20, 63:7, trying to minimize the biblical “exceptions.” Cf. Swidler, Women, pp. 123–25, who also discusses the issue of men’s conversation with women in Judaism.

[59]. Sifra VDDeho. pq. 7.45.1.1. They would use women when they had to, and regarded them as capable of giving truthful witness (Wegner, Chattel, pp. 120–23), but women normally would not testify; cf. Neusner, Tosefta: Nashim, p. xi. It is tempting to read Luke 24:11 (cf. Mark 16:11) in this light; even though it is not specifically stated that the male disciples disbelieved the women disciples on account of their gender, this could have augmented their perception that the women spoke “nonsense.” A child was also unable to bear legal witness (t. Sanh. 9:11).

[60]. Jos. Ant. 4.8.15, §219 (LCL).

[61]. See b. Shab. 33b (Tannaitic attribution but undoubtedly later); Gen. Rab. 45:5; 80:5.

[62]. Most Diaspora writers in Greek areas were probably influenced by Greek chauvinism. We know that at least Jewish marriage customs in the Diaspora were shaped by Greeks laws rather than later-attested Palestinian Jewish ones (cf. Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 50, following an article by Tcherikover).

[63]. Philo Every Good Man Is Free 117 (LCL). One suspects that he regards it as common knowledge since he uses this premise to make another point. For Philo, the man is more complete than and superior to the woman (see R. A. Baer, Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female, AZLGHJ 3 [Leiden: Brill, 1970], p. 41. Baer’s helpful work was brought to my attention by his daughter, my former colleague at Duke, ethicist Rebecca E. Baer).

[64]. See Baer, Categories, pp. 38–44, 65–66. Philo thus speaks of spiritual masculinity (which is essentially asexuality, femininity deviating from this norm; ibid., pp. 45–49). In comparison to the divine, however, even the male element in a person, the higher reason, is female, and the soul must become a passive and female receiver of divine impregnation in inspiration (ibid., pp. 55–64). Philo writes positively of women only such as those among the Therapeutae, whom he affirms to be living as virgins, thus seeing them (in his system) as ideals transcending sexual polarity (ibid., pp. 98–101).

[65]. Syr. Men. Sent. 118–21, 336–39.

[66]. Kraabel, “Judaism,” pp. 46–8.

[67]. In Gen. Rab. 26:4 (attributed to a late second- or early third-century source), the preference for sons is based on the fact that the daughter is lost to the family who raised her when she is married. In ancient circles, a woman’s changing families could mean that the economic investment in her was lost to her family of origin. But even a good brideprice could not recoup the cost of raising her, so marrying her off young was preferable to waiting.

[68]. Sifre Deut. 138.2.1; 141.2; cf. b. Ber. 5b; Pes. Rab Kah. 9:2; Safrai, “Home and Family,” p. 750; J. D. M. Derrett, Jesus’s Audience (New York: Seabury, 1973), pp. 31–32. Jews, unlike some Gentiles, forbade gender-based (or any other basis) infanticide, however (see Keener, Marries Another, p. 74 and notes); and Gentiles also loved daughters once they had them (Plut. Bride 36, Mor 143B).

[69]. Artem. Oneir. 1.15; 4.10.

[70]. For instance, Louis Finkelstein, Akiba: Scholar, Saint and Martyr (New York: Atheneum, 1970), pp. 187–91, portrays Akiba as a defender of women’s rights, as over against the earlier patrician rabbis. If Finkelstein were correct on the chauvinism of the patrician rabbis, it would support our general thesis, but I am not convinced that his evidence for the class categories is sufficient to sustain that point.

[71]. R. S. Kraemer, “Non-Literary Evidence for Jewish Women in Rome and Egypt,” Helios 13 (2, 1986): 85–101. P. W. van der Horst, “The Role of Women in the Testament of Job,” NedTT 40 (4, 1986): 273–89 (NTA 31:212) (cf. Spittler in OTP 1:833) thinks that Testament of Job indicates a mystical Jewish community where women were prominent; this is possible, although it assumes a setting (especially for the final chapters) that precludes Christian influence.

[72]. Safrai, “Home and Family,” p. 752, citing rabbinic evidence.

[73]. Ibid., p. 762, citing rabbinic texts.

[74]. Ibid., pp. 763–64.

[75]. See b. B. M. 59a (Soncino ed., p. 351).

[76]. Cf. similarly Swidler, Women, p. 168, who protests that cases of individual affection do not get us around the negative character of the “societal and religious structures.”

[77]. Hallett, “Elegy,” pp. 241–44 (noting that some writers did portray freer women as a new ideal); Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 111; cf. Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 82, for the Pythagorean letters; Epict. Encheir. 40 for a Stoic. Suzanne Dixon, The Roman Mother (Norman, Okla.: Oklahoma University, 1988), p. 3, points out that though the virtue of wives in a more ancient period had become a standard theme for later writers, “it was in the late Republic and early Empire that wives were prepared to die for or with their husbands.” For classical Athens, see Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 74; the inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 11, §22. Swidler, Women, p. 84, cites a midrash in which men are their wives’ masters (Yalq. Shim. Sm. 78).

[78]. D. E. E. Kleiner, “Women and Family Life on Roman Imperial Funerary Altars,” Latomus 46 (3, 1987): 545–54 (NTA 32:224); cf. Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 147–55; Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, p. 46. See, e.g., CIL 6.10230 in Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 242, §184, where a son praises his mother for her domestic virtues, including obedience. Of course, honorary inscriptions, as opposed to funerary inscriptions, would not be as strongly weighted in this direction. Jewish tradition also strongly tied women’s roles to the welfare of their husbands and home (Derrett, Audience, p. 33). The father as possessor of authority and benevolent patriarch also appears in Jewish piety (P. A. H. de Boer, Fatherhood and Motherhood in Israelite and Judean Piety [Leiden: Brill, 1974], p. 25), though the case in the OT may be overstated. When 1 Esd. 4:14 speaks of women “ruling” over men, it connects this to the fact that all men are born from women (4:15)

[79]. Jdt. 11:21.

[80]. Sir. 22:5; of course, “quietness” (1 Tim. 2:11–12) could also be applied to men (Test. Abr. 1 A). Cf. Val. Max. Mem. Deeds 8.3 (in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 206, §205); Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 74; the inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 11, §22. The Greek ideal of beauty was extended to male youths, who were also objects of adult male passion; Plato Charm. 158C notes that Charmides blushed and so “looked more beautiful than ever, for his modesty [bashfulness] became his years” (LCL).

[81]. Sir. 34:25.

[82]. 1 Macc. 2:64; Plato Crat. 413E–414A; Chariton Chaer. 7.1.8; Theon Progymn. 9.22. Arist. E. E. 3.1.2–4, 1228ab, defines andreia as the mean between rashness and cowardice.

[83]. Crates 19 to Patrocles (CynEp, pp. 68–69); see J. T. Fitzgerald, Cracks in an Earthen Vessel, SBLDS 99 (Atlanta: Scholars, 1988), pp. 87–90. In Wisd. 8:7 it appears as a superior attribute fostered by Wisdom, though perhaps this is meant only for men.

[84]. 2 Macc. 7:21; 4 Macc. 15:23, 30; 16:14; Apul. Metam. 5.22; cf. Arist. Pol. 3.2.10, 1277b. Philo, admiring the empress Livia, says that she became “male in her reasoning power” (Embassy to Gaius 319–20, in Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 24).

[85]. This surprise has exceptions, of course, even among the elite class; Pliny seems genuinely to appreciate the moral and intellectual sophistication of women peers; see E. S. Dobson, “Pliny the Younger’s Description of Women,” CB 58 (6, Apr. 1982): 81–85. For accomplishments of ancient women in various periods (more Roman than Greek), see Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 21–25, 244–47. Honorably pious women are repeatedly praised in early Judaism, e.g., Sarah, Edna, and Anna in Tobit; the wives of rabbis, e.g., b. Taan. 23b; Lev. Rab. 5:4.

[86]. Gardner, Women, p. 5, including her exceptions and qualifications, which are for our purposes minor. Cf. also Verner, Household, pp. 33–34, 39; Carcopino, Life, pp. 80ff.; Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 150–52; Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 191–93.

[87]. Livy 34.7.12, attributing a speech to Lucius Valerius in 195 BCE, although this is probably Livy’s idealization of the past (I owe this reference to Marjorie Lightman and William Ziesel, “Univira: An Example of Continuity and Change in Roman Society,” CH 46 [1, Mar. 1977]: 19–32).

[88]. Verner, Household, p. 38; also that she could not leave the home without permission, etc. A Samaritan marriage contract stipulates that the wife must obey her husband completely (in John Bowman, Samaritan Documents Relating to Their History, Religion and Life, POTTS 2 [Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1977], p. 311).

[89]. In Pol. 1.2.12, 1254b.

[90]. Plato Meno 71 (from Greek Philosophy: Thales to Aristotle, ed. R. E. Allen [New York: Free, 1966], p. 98).

[91]. Marc. Aur. Med. 1.17.7, as well as loving. His term for “obedient” is listed in a lexicon as sometimes used for a horse’s obedience to its reins.

[92]. Ps-Melissa, Letter to Kleareta (Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 83).

[93]. Artem. Oneir. 1.24.

[94]. Apul. Metam. 5.5. Her failure to do so brought her considerable grief, which suggests that the story’s “moral” reflects Apuleius’ views of a social norm, albeit one often violated.

[95]. Plut. Bride 19, Mor. 140D.

[96]. Plut. Uneduc. Ruler 2, Mor. 780C, critiquing the Persian king, who ruled everyone but his wife as a slave. Plutarch says he should have been his wife’s “master” (despotēs). Other writers have likewise cited other references for the obedience of wives; e.g. Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 111; Barth, Ephesians, 2:611, n. 12; Dibelius and Conzelmann, Pastoral Epistles, p. 47; Gerhard Krodel, “The First Letter of Peter,” in Hebrews–James–1 & 2 Peter–Jude–Revelation, Proclamation Commentaries (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977), p. 73.

[97]. Cf. Baer, Categories, p. 69. Philo argues that the rational part of the person, which is masculine, should rule the feminine.

[98]. Meeks, “Androgyne,” p. 177, citing Philo Hypothetica 7.3, 7.14.

[99]. Jos. Ag. Ap. 2.24, §§200–201 (LCL). That Josephus defends Judaism against Apion’s charges in this work makes his statement all the more instructive for early Christianity, which faced intense suspicions of subversiveness in the Roman world.

[100]. It is, of course, anachronistic and culture-bound for modern readers to suppose that women raised in that culture would have found all expressions of submission objectionable; some expressions of submission seem to have been normal cultural role functions. The submission of Raguel’s wife in Tob. 7:16 is as natural a fulfillment of cultural roles as the hospitality and marital preparations that accompany it. But it is difficult to believe that all or even most Jewish women would have been pleased by words like the above statement of Josephus.

[101]. Sir. 30:19 (also not one’s son, brother, or friend).

[102]. Sir. 26:14.

[103]. Sir. 26:15–16.

[104]. V. Adam 26:2.

[105]. E.g., Sifra Qed. par. 1.195.2.2.

[106]. E.g., Greek Anth. 7.340; Verner, Household, pp. 62–63; and in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 12, §26; CIJ 1:cxvi. It appears not only on tombstones but in family stories handed down from generation to generation and in poetry (Dixon, Mother, pp. 2–3). A surviving spouse could, of course, dedicate the inscription because that was the standard thing to do and nevertheless have been glad to get rid of the old boy. But we should guess that to be the exception rather than the rule, and the language of many of the inscriptions is touching even today. Standardized inscriptions and forms of grief expression no more make the monuments “artificial” than inscriptions on our tombstones or factory- made sympathy cards today (against Rawson, “Family,” p. 26).

[107]. Dio Chrys. fr. (LCL). The young widow pining away for grief over her husband’s death in Petr. Sat. Ill was widely respected, though in Petronius’ satire at women’s expense, she gives in (112). CIJ 1:118, §166; 1:137, §195, Jewish funerary inscriptions, praise wives for being “lovers of their husbands.” A man’s love could be understood in sexual terms (e.g., Gen. 26:8; Hieronymus’ citation of Sophocles’ reply in Athenaeus 13.557e), but we should not think that the term (the one in Athenaeus is used generally for love) is limited to this sense.

[108]. Cic. Offic. 1.17.54. Cf. Rhet. ad Herenn. 3.3.4.

[109]. Ps-Phocyl. 195 (this leads to lifelong mutual kindness, 196–97); OTP 2:581, note s, notes that this is a common paraphrase of Homer. The Babylonian Talmud calls on the husband to love his wife as he loves himself and to honor her more than himself (b. Yeb. 62b, bar., cited in Safrai, “Home and Family,” pp. 763–64; Bonsirven, Judaism, p. 147; cf. the collection of material in C. G. Montefiore and H. Loewe, A Rabbinic Anthology [New York: Schocken, 1974], pp. 507–15). Love for wife is assumed in 4 Macc. 2:11, where the law comes before love toward one’s wife, making one devout enough to challenge her wrongdoing.

[110]. E.g., Batey, Imagery, p. 11; cf. pp. 70–76. Richard Reitzenstein, Hellenistic Mystery-Religions, PTMS 15 (Pittsburgh: Pickwick 1978), pp. 19–20, 25, 35–36, 118, 310–19, addresses this hieros gamos motif in the mysteries; while Reitzenstein was not always critical in how he interpreted his sources, his arguments are at least worthy of study. Cf. most older sources and some more recent ones: Ramsay, Teaching, pp. 291–96; Gilbert Murray, Five Stages of Greek Religion (New York: Columbia University, 1925), p. 32; W. L. Knox, St Paul and the Church of the Gentiles (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1939), p. 183, n. 1, p. 201; Tarn, Civilisation, pp. 354–55; H. R. Willoughby, Pagan Initiation (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1929), p. 136; C. A. P. Ruck, “Solving the Eleusinian Mystery,” in The Road to Eleusis (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), pp. 36, 40. But while the hieros gamos was a way to look at nature, it is not clear whether it was expressed ritually in Greek cults outside that of Dionysus (Burkert, Religion, pp. 108–9; cf. Gasparro, Soteriology, p. 81; Koester, Introduction, 1:177, 193; Günther Wagner, Pauline Baptism and the Pagan Mysteries [Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd, 1967], p. 73); and there is no certain evidence for its practice in the Asian congregations (Meeks, “Androgyne,” p. 206).

[111]. E.g., Barth, Ephesians, 2:669–70 (the differences he lists on pp. 670–72 I do not regard as significant).

[112]. After summarizing data on the sacred marriage in the mysteries (pp. 114–16), S. Angus, The Mystery-Religions and Christianity (New York: Scribner’s, 1928), p. 116, notes that Eph. 5 gets the image from the OT picture of God and Israel, not from the mysteries. Cf. also Barth, Ephesians, 2:741–42.

[113]. Sampley, One Flesh, pp. 34–45, sees Ezek. 16:8ff. as a major source for Eph. 5. The image of Israel’s marriage to Torah is later and secondary, and so need not be appealed to here (Num. Rab. 2:25; 12:4; Pes. Rab. 5:10).

[114]. Sifre Deut. 43.16.1; Sifra Shemini Mek. de-Miluim 99.2.2 (contrast 99.2.5); Gen. Rab. 52:5; Exod. Rab. 15:31; 19:7; 44:4; Deut. Rab. 2:37; 3:10, 12; Lam. Rab. 3:1, §1, 20, §7; Pes. Rab Kah. 12:11; 19:2, 4, 5; 22:5; Pes. Rab Kah. Sup. 6:5; Pes. Rab. 21:15; 31:3, 10; 33:11; 37:3 (many of these references occur in parables). The Song of Solomon was often allegorized to apply to Israel (Sifre Deut. 1.11.1; Deut. Rab. 2:37; Song Rab. 5:16, §6; Pes. Rab Kah. 5:6; 22:5; Pes. Rab Kah. Sup. 5:1; Pes. Rab. 5:5; 7:7; 15:6–15; 33:10; 35:1; 36:2), although this is not fully clear before we come to the rabbinic texts (W. W. Fields, “Early and Medieval Jewish Interpretation of the Song of Songs,” GTJ 1 [2, Fall 1980]: 221–31). Goodenough, Symbols, 8:17–20, argues for erotic aspiration for God in pre-Christian Jewish mysticism, but while he has some evidence, he goes too far with too little of it; cf. also idem, An Introduction to Philo Judaeus, 2d ed. (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962), p. 143.

[115]. Paul had used the analogy of marriage in less detailed form to describe the relationship between Christ and his church before (Rom. 7:1–4; 2 Cor. 11:2), and other Christian writers continued to use it after him, e.g., Rev. 21:2; 2 Clem. 14.

[116]. Cf. similarly Scanzoni and Hardesty, Meant to Be, p. 30.

[117]. Eduard Schweizer, The Letter to the Colossians, trans. Andrew Chester (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1982), pp. 213–14; Balch, “Codes,” pp. 38–39. Women were, however, addressed in Pythagorean moral texts such as Ps-Melissa and Ps-Theano, so we should not think this an absolute rule. That children are addressed may be more remarkable than that wives are addressed (Schweizer, Colossians, p. 223; cf. Andreas Lindemann, “Die Kinder und die Gottesherrschaft. Markus 10, 13–16 und die Stellung der Kinder in der Späthellenistischen Gesellschaft und im Urchristentum,” WD 17 [1983]: 77–104), although adult children are no doubt included in the admonition (see Safrai, “Home and Family,” p. 771, for Jewish exhortation to adult children; in Roman life, cf. Dixon, Mother, pp. 211–12), and the responsibility of children is part of ancient household codes (Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 90).

[118]. Barth, Ephesians, 2:709–10, distinguishing between the active and middle/passive uses.

[119]. Sampley, One Flesh, p. 117; also most current Christian egalitarian authors; cf. Bilezikian, Roles, pp. 153–73; Hull, Equal to Serve, pp. 202–3; Gundry, Women, p. 71; Thompson, “Response,” p. 92; Boldrey, Chauvinist, p. 53; Longenecker, Ethics, p. 79.

[120]. Barth, Ephesians, 2:610.

[121]. The “fear of God,” central in biblical wisdom literature, remained important in later Jewish ethical admonition; e.g., Sir 1:11–30; 25:10–11; 31:13–15; Tob. 4:21; 4 Macc. 15:8; Ep. Arist. 95, 159, 189’ 200; Syr. Men. Sent. 9–10; Syr. Men. Epit. 2, 9, etc.; m. Ab. 1:3; p. B. M. 2:5, §2; cf. Test. Levi 13:1; Test. Jos. 10:6; 11:1; Test. Benj. 3:4. For the idea in hellenistic literature, cf. Pythag. Sent. 27 (Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 111).

[122]. Malherbe, Exhortation, pp. 97–98, citing Hierocles, On Duties, Household Management 4.28.21, which he quotes on pp. 98–99.

[123]. See especially Balch, Wives, pp. 143–19 (Appendix 5, “Roman Stoics and Plutarch on Equality between Husband and Wife”).

[124]. Plut. Bride 11, Mor. 139CD. Peace between a husband and wife is emphasized also in b. Hul. 141a; b. Shab. 116a (attributed to R. Ishmael); Test. Sol. 18:15 (where the source of domestic disharmony is a demon).

[125]. Plut. Bride 29, Mor. 142A (“joking relationships” are distinguished from more respectful “avoidance relationships” in many cultures). The ideal of “mutual respect and affection” was more widespread, of course, and appears in Greek literature as early as Homer (see Marilyn B. Arthur, “Early Greece: The Origins of the Western Attitude Toward Women,” in Women in the Ancient World, p. 15).

[126]. Plut. Bride, Mor. 144CD.

[127]. Plut. Bride 33, Mor. 142E (LCL). The language of the wife as the husband’s “body” (some of which I have omitted for the sake of space) is strikingly similar to Paul’s, although Paul’s explicit citation of Gen. 2:24 makes it clear that this is his source for the concept.

[128]. Arist. Pol. 1254b3–1277b25, 1313b33–39, 1335a8–17 (Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 64, §86). Cf. Meeks, World, p. 36, citing Arist. N. E. 5.3.6. When Artem. Oneir. 1.8 speaks of “yielding to” or “submitting to” women, he refers specifically to intercourse and nothing more.

[129]. Ep. Arist. 257 does, but not in the context of household codes, which would apply the admonition to household relationships.

[130]. So also Johnston, “Authority and Interpretation,” pp. 30–41; cf. Stanley Gundry’s response that Johnston’s solution may allow too much subjectivity here.

Chapter 6 A Model for Interpreting Wives’ Submission—Slaves in Ephesians 6:5–9

[1]. Bilezikian, Roles, p. 171. 1 Pet. 3:6 notes that Sarah obeyed Abraham, but this hardly means that the reverse was not true: Gen. 21:12 says that God told Abraham to go ahead and obey Sarah, which he apparently would have done initially had her wish been less difficult (cf. 16:2). Peter emphasizes the wife’s submission for the same reason Paul does, but nowhere excludes reciprocal obedience in the sense of listening to one another and supporting one another’s wishes where they do not conflict with obedience to God.

[2]. This has been pointed out by others, e.g., Jewett, Man, pp. 138–41, 144, 148; Giles, Woman, p. 43. See also Clarice J. Martin, “The Haustafeln (Household Codes) in African American Biblical Interpretation: ‘Free Slaves’ and ‘Subordinate Women,’ “ pp. 206–31, in Stony the Road We Trod: African American Biblical Interpretation, ed. Cain Hope Felder (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990). Unfortunately I discovered this book only after completing the writing stage of the present work.

[3]. Arist. Pol. 1.2.12, 1254b, on women; it is a comparison brought into the context of Aristotle’s discussion on slavery.

[4]. Giles’s comparison between the bases listed for wives’ submission and slaves’ submission in the NT shows that the same bases are offered for each (Woman, pp. 44–46).

[5]. Even today, economic racial injustice is compounded inter-generationally in a way that gender discrimination cannot be (since most economic or educational disadvantages of women progenitors affect both male and female descendants). If someone’s parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were denied educational opportunities and were unable to compete in a society that excluded them, this person may be starting with social and educational disadvantages that will require more work to overcome. But gender prejudice is still serious enough to affect very large numbers of women through various sorts of abuse, harassment, discrimination in certain areas of employment, and, unfortunately, discrimination in much of the church.

[6]. I do maintain that nonviolent protest is appropriate, but we must recognize that martyrdom often accompanies it and decide on which battlefront God calls each of us to lay down our lives, in view of the great need for martyrs in our world today. One brief biblical perspective on the issue is my article, “Nonviolence in the Face of Oppression: A Perspective on the Letter of James,” ESA Advocate 12 (3, April 1991): 14–15.

[7]. Cf. D. M. Park, “The Structure of Authority in Marriage: An Examination of Hupotasso and Kephale in Ephesians 5:21–33,” EQ 59 (2, April 1987): 123–24.

[8]. Deut. 21:18–21. On slaves in the OT, see below.

[9]. This is not to say that they were necessarily less educated: household slaves were often teachers or physicians. But aristocratic ideology portrayed low-born and slave-born people as unfit for proper authority roles. Greek women were usually much younger (often more than a decade) than their husbands.

[10]. Arist. Pol. 1.5.12, 1260b. Arist. N. E. 8.12.2–3, 1161b, says that parents love children from birth, but that children learn to love parents only as they grow to understand. Wives and slaves were to be ruled in different ways from one another, of course; Aristotle observed that barbarians failed to distinguish the two only because barbarians were fit to be enslaved themselves (Pol. 1.1.5–6, 1252b; Aristotle exemplified typical Greek intellectual imperialism and the best ancient equivalent of racist-based slavery ideology). Cf. Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 3.211: children are “slaves” (douloi) of their fathers until attaining maturity, when they become like freedpersons.

[11]. Arist. Pol. 1.5.12, 1260b. The difference between what was owed a father by minor children and what was owed by adult children is implied in the Mishnah and Tosefta (see Boaz Cohen, Jewish and Roman Law: A Comparative Study, 2 vols. [New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1966], 1:174, for references).

[12]. This is frequent in narrative passages, many of the proverbs, etc. (e.g., Judg. 6:11, 27; Prov. 17:2; 30:10).

[13]. A comparison of different lists (those in Exodus and Deuteronomy and, where relevant, in Leviticus) indicate that we probably do not have all the slave laws that were used in ancient Israel. We do not know how Israelite laws developed into a full-scale legal code, debating ramifications and extensions of these laws, until the rabbinic period, although they must have been used for guidance earlier. We may use the common phrase “law codes,” but “law collections” is no doubt more accurate technically, both for Israelite law and our other extant sources for ancient Near Eastern laws (see N. M. Sarna, Exploring Exodus [New York: Schocken, 1986], pp. 168–70; John Bright, A History of Israel, 3d ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1981], p. 59).

[14]. So also e.g., Laws of Eshnunna §§22–24. One may note that class distinctions (other than slave and free), which were natural in class-oriented societies’ laws (Code of Hammurabi §§202–23; Roman law codes), are obliterated in the law of Moses. A nation of freed slaves had little need of class distinctions since they had had little time to develop them.

[15]. Indeed, under some other ancient Near Eastern laws, a master “could kill his own slave with impunity since he was considered to be a piece of property” (Yamauchi, Stones and Scriptures, p. 52, following Moshe Greenberg, “Some Postulates of Biblical Criminal Law,” in The Yehezkel Kaufmann Jubilee Volume, ed. Menahem Haran [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1960], pp. 5–28, which I was not able to obtain).

[16]. Though cf. M. Stern, “Aspects of Jewish Society: The Priesthood and Other Classes,” in JPFC, p. 629, who thinks Exod. 21:20 requires the owner’s execution; this was also the opinion of some nineteenth-century U.S. abolitionist preachers, e.g., L. R. Sunderland (The Testimony of God Against Slavery [Boston: Webster & Southard, 1835], p. 22). Later Jewish law did mandate capital punishment for one who killed a Gentile slave (Bonsirven, Judaism, p. 148). Roman law charged a master in this position with murder only if he intended to kill the slave; see Cohen, Law, p. 4.

[17]. The lex talionis was standard legal practice in the ancient Near East and was executed by the court, not by individuals seeking personal vengeance; e.g., Code of Hammurabi §§196–205 (including in this context, as in Matt. 5:38–39, the insulting blow to the face); cf. Laws of Eshnunna §24; but these laws generally require monetary payment rather than lex talionis (§§42–43; likewise Hittite Laws §§1.7–8, trans. Goetze in ANET, p. 189).

[18]. In the law collection of Hammurabi, if one struck another, one needed to pay for the physician (cf. also Hittite Laws §1.10, in ANET, p. 189); if the other person died but this was not the striker’s intention, he was not punished except for the fine (Code of Hammurabi §§206–7; the fine is less if the one killed is of lower societal rank, §208). This is analogous to the Israelite code, which must address the same legal categories of the period. The Laws of Eshnunna also list fines for injuries inflicted in a scuffle (§§44–47).

[19]. W. F. Albright, “The Antiquity of Mosaic Law,” in The Bible in Its Literary Milieu, ed. Vincent L. Tollers and John R. Maier (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), pp. 148–55, thinks that the law was edited into its present form around the sixth or seventh century BCE, but that the laws themselves date to the patriarchal period. His dating of analogous ancient Near Eastern law codes to 2100–1100 BCE suggests a date for Exod. 21–23 in the Mosaic period (The Biblical Period from Abraham to Ezra [New York: Harper & Row, 1963], pp. 17–18; cf. idem, Yahweh, pp. 101–5; cf. Moshe Weinfeld, “Deuteronomy—The Present State of the Inquiry,” JBL 86 [3, Sept. 1967]: 249–62, who thinks traditions compiled in Josiah’s time were much older). Evangelical scholars have argued for a much earlier dating of Deuteronomy than most other scholars, based on the covenant form used in the final redaction of the book (K. A. Kitchen, Ancient Orient and Old Testament [Chicago: Inter-Varsity, 1966], pp. 90–102; idem, The Bible in Its World [Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity, 1977], pp. 78ff; M. G. Kline, Treaty of the Great King [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1963], especially p. 43; for sample treaty forms from various periods, cf. ANET, pp. 199–206, and cf. especially the data in G. E. Mendenhall, “Covenant Forms in Israelite Traditions,” BA 17 [3, Sept. 1954]: 58–60).

[20]. And, for that matter, animals and the land as well, as Christian environmentalists might happily point out.

[21]. Cf. Code of Hammurabi §170: if a free citizen ever calls children born to him by a slave “his children,” they are counted as such. Even if he does not, the slave mother and the children she bore him are automatically freed upon his death (ibid., §171).

[22]. Laws of Eshnunna §50 charges an official who fails to return a lost slave or other property in seven days with stealing. In the law collection of Hammurabi, a free citizen or aristocrat who helps a slave escape is charged with a capital offense (§15, contextually linked with kidnaping a free person, §14; cf. Exod. 21:16; Deut. 24:7); so also with one who harbors any fugitive slave (Code of Hammurabi §16) or keeps him or her in his home instead of trying to return the slave immediately to the owner (§§17–19). Kidnaping, of course, warrants death in any case (Exod. 21:16; Deut. 24:7; Code of Hammurabi §14).

[23]. “Wherever he or she wants to dwell in your cities” could mean that this is a foreign slave, but the fact remains that no laws mandate the return of an escaped slave, and the only text addressing escaped slaves at all requires that they be given refuge.

[24]. This was naturally also pointed out by abolitionist preachers like Sunderland, Slavery, p. 22.

[25]. Some other ancient Near Eastern laws provided for the freeing of slaves whose labor had paid for their price at least twice over (cf. Deut. 15:18): Code of Lipit-Ishtar §14. Sunderland, Slavery, p. 28, used Deut. 15:12 to advocate economic restitution for slaves in his own day as a matter of justice.

[26]. In this text the drilling of a hole in the ear may not have been much more painful than what those who wish to wear earrings undergo today, but one may compare (by way of contrast) a severe judgment in the law collection of Hammurabi for a slave who denies that his master owns him: his ear is cut off (§282).

[27]. See b. Yeb. 47.

[28]. See the discussion of this point in my And Marries Another, pp. 42–43. 1 Sam. 8, 12 report the institution of the monarchy as another concession to Israel’s wishes.

[29]. Another example like this may be the accidental killing of a fetus; the offender is fined as if he had caused the loss of property, rather than of a life. If a man strikes a woman and causes a miscarriage, he is liable for striking the woman, but not for intentionally killing the fetus, since the death of the child was not his intent (Exod. 21:22–23). Many of us who oppose abortion today would still argue for the full personhood of the fetus, pointing out that the specific context of our passage addresses accidents, not intention, the same as with the slave above. This was a standard issue of discussion in ancient Near Eastern legal collections; cf. similarly Code of Hammurabi §§209, 211, 213 (fines levied against those who killed fetuses carried by women of different societal ranks; cf. also Hittite Laws §§1.17–18 in ANET, p. 190). But in the Code of Hammurabi, if the woman dies, instead of her striker being executed, as in Israelite law (Exod. 21:23), her striker’s daughter is executed (§210; but it is only a fine if the deceased was of lower rank, §212, and a smaller fine still for a slave, §214; cf. Exod. 21:29–32). Moses seems to have a higher view of the dependent woman’s worth and of personal responsibility. Middle Assyrian Laws (c. twelfth century BCE) imposed a stricter penalty for causing another free person’s daughter to have a miscarriage, stricter yet if it is one’s wife (i.e., his own wife’s fetus is killed), and strictest of all if the other had no son to be a male heir (death) (§§A.21, 50–52, in ANET, pp. 181, 184–85); this law distinguishes these events from an abortion caused by the mother herself, the penalty for which was impalement on stakes (§A.53, ANET, p. 185).

[30]. Abolitionist preachers like Sunderland also argued that OT slavery was a concession, on the analogy of cities of refuge, levirate marriage, executing idolaters, and polygamy (Slavery, pp. 10–11), as I learned after completing my own study.

[31]. Albright, Yahweh, p. 181, asserts that the Mosaic law “is the most humanitarian of all known bodies of law before recent times,” comparing favorably with other ancient Near Eastern collections, especially in defense of the poor.

[32]. Sunderland, Slavery, p. 24.

[33]. E.g., comparing the oppression of Israel in Egypt (ibid., pp. 12–17), subsequent biblical examples (pp. 29–37), God’s favor for the oppressed in Psalms (pp. 37–43), the prophets’ denunciations of comparable oppression (pp. 50–70), Jesus’ teaching on showing mercy, loving enemies, etc. (pp. 70–79); Sunderland virtually promised God’s judgment on the United States (pp. 36–37), which I believe came in the Civil War.

[34]. Ibid., p. 24.

[35]. Ibid., pp. 23, 27–28, 90–91.

[36]. Hardesty, Women, p. 118.

[37]. Sterling, Sisters, p. 115.

[38]. This was also understood elsewhere in the ancient Near East. With Deut. 21:1–9, cf. Code of Hammurabi §§23–24; Daniel’s curse on Qiru-mayim in the Ugaritic Tale of Aqhat (ANET, p. 154); see Hittite regulations in J. C. Moyer, “The Concept of Ritual Purity Among the Hittites” (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1969), p. 120.

[39]. John Perkins, With Justice For All (Ventura, Calif.: Regal, 1982), p. 169. AME Bishop Henry McNeal Turner around the turn of the century proposed that the white churches could make restitution by supporting black missionary efforts (G. S. Wilmore, Black Religion and Black Radicalism, 2d ed. [Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1983], pp. 123–24).

[40]. Another way—which is more difficult—is by comparing other ancient Near Eastern law codes and trying to see where Israel’s laws differ. This will in some cases be successful, but while the similarities among categories reflect a related cultural matrix, there are differences among all the legal collections, and a great variety of situational factors must be taken into account.

[41]. Lev. 20 includes sins that would be almost universally agreed today to be sinful in evangelical circles. The most notable exception is the purity prohibition of intercourse during menstruation, though perhaps it should not be an exception; the “menstrual taboo” appears in many cultures.

[42]. Cf. Code of Hammurabi §195 (ANET, p. 175): “If a son has struck his father, they shall cut off his hand.”

[43]. MacMullen, Relations, p. 103, suggesting that one-third to one-half may have been slaves or ex-slaves. M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (New York: Viking, 1980), p. 80, suggests around one-third, similar to the percentage in the U.S. South in 1860 (cf. also idem, The Ancient Economy [Berkeley: University of California, 1973], p. 71). Estimates are imprecise; Ladd, Theology, p. 529, cites an estimate that slaves outnumbered free people in Italy; but according to Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 130, free people outnumbered slaves even in urbanized areas. Nor would these statistics have been constant, even could we guess the numbers more closely; Mattingly, Christianity, p. 13; Koester, Introduction, 1:331, think that slave numbers had probably declined somewhat from an earlier period (though they were a small percentage in early Rome; Verner, Household, pp. 41–2). J. B. Lightfoot, Saint Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon [reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1959], pp. 320–21, claims that in “democratic” Athens there were probably three times as many slaves as citizens, and three times as many slaves as the whole free population, mostly employed in the fields, mines, or factories.

[44]. Verner, Household, p. 63, from Galen’s report.

[45]. Verner, Household, p. 60, following M. I. Finley. He also gives other helpful statistics.

[46]. Tac. Agric. 31; Eustathius Paraphrase of Dionysus Periegetes, in Geographi Graeci Minores 2.253.8–10, in Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 37, §20; cf. F. C. Grant, “The Economic Background of the New Testament,” in The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology: In Honour of C. H. Dodd, ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1964), p. 104; W. W. Buckland, The Roman Law of Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1908), pp. 1–21, 397; Koester, Introduction, 1:59.

[47]. Buckland, Slavery, pp. 401ff.

[48]. Cf. ibid., pp. 420ff. For various sources of slaves, see ibid., pp. 1–21, 397–436; S. S. Bartchy, MALLON CHRĒSAI: First-Century Slavery and the Interpretation of 1 Corinthians 7:21, SBLDS 11 (Missoula, Mont.: SBL, 1973), pp. 45–50; Francis Lyall, Slaves, Citizens, Sons (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), pp. 29–35.

[49]. Buckland, Slavery, pp. 397ff.

[50]. Finley, Slavery, pp. 81–82.

[51]. R. H. Barrow, Slavery in the Roman Empire (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968), p. 97; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 72. Finley, Slavery, passim, sees the relation as essentially symbiotic; cf. idem, Economy, pp. 73–74, 79.

[52]. See Barrow, Slavery, pp. 65–97; Giuseppe Pucci, “Pottery and trade in the Roman Period,” in Trade in the Ancient Economy, ed. Peter Garnsey, Keith Hopkins, and C. R. Whittaker (Berkeley: University of California, 1983), p. 116. I am inclined to think that the number of slaves in rural areas may be overestimated, given our stronger data for free peasant or bondsmen labor there (cf. Finley, Slavery, p. 79).

[53]. For the great diversity of specialization in the wealthy estates, see Treggiari, “Livia,” pp. 48–77.

[54]. Petr. Sat. 37–38.

[55]. See the Greek stele from Lycia, 43–48 CE, in Empire, ed. Sherk, pp. 90–91, §48; at length, see Barrow, Slavery, pp. 130–50.

[56]. For the wide variety of occupations open to female servants in wealthy households, see Susan Treggiari, “Jobs for Women,” AJAH 1 (1976): 76–104.

[57]. Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 130.

[58]. Mart. Epig. 1.84.1–5; Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 191–95. Women slaves have been used as wives, concubines, and sexual objects in most cultures where slavery existed, e.g., in some cultures in precolonial Africa; cf. J. K. Henn, “Women in the Rural Economy,” in African Women South of the Sahara, ed. M. J. Hay and Sharon Stichter (New York: Longman, 1984), pp. 5–6. The racist ideology of slavery that generated opposition to interracial relationships in the United States made slaves’ sexual treatment less public in this country than in some other cultures.

[59]. Mart. Epig. 9.6.7; 9.8; Apul. Metam. 7.9; Ab. R. Nathan 8 A; Dover, “Attitudes,” pp. 147–48; Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 140–41, 192; Gardner, Women, p. 132.

[60]. Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 130; especially Martin, Slavery, pp. 11–15; on managerial slaves, pp. 15–22. For a survey of different uses of slaves in the empire, see Barrow, Slavery, pp. 22–150.

[61]. See Martin, Slavery, pp. 30–42, 49; Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 238, §178; cf. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 20; Boer, Morality, pp. 83, 223. This is of course especially true of slaves of the emperors (Martin, Slavery, p. 7; Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 196), although altogether they could have made up only a small percentage of the slave population. Slaves in the U.S. South had some possibilities of advancement within slavery (Fogel and Engerman, Cross, p. 149), but because slavery was racially based they could never move beyond a certain point, in contrast to ancient slaves who far more often achieved freedom.

[62]. Cf. Petr. Sat., e.g., 38.

[63]. MacMullen, Relations, p. 124. Of course, freedpersons were still ill-regarded socially by many, including the later Jewish elite (e.g., Num. Rab. 6:1; for a fuller discussion, see Jeremias, Jerusalem, pp. 334–37).

[64]. Finley, Economy, p. 107.

[65]. Ibid., p. 108.

[66]. Cf. Apul. Metam. 8.15; C. L. Lee, “Social Unrest and Primitive Christianity,” in The Catacombs and the Colosseum, ed. Stephen Benko and John J. O’Rourke (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson, 1971), pp. 127–31. Most slaves in Palestine were domestic; see Goodman, State and Society, p. 37. Tacitus’ report of slaves in Germany sounds more like serfs than Roman slaves (Germ. 25), although some slaves were used to cleanse sacred things and then were drowned (Germ. 40).

[67]. Gaius Inst. 1.9 (Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 236, §178A), lists this as the “principal distinction” among people. It was considered inappropriate for those of noble birth to be slaves (Chariton Chaer. 1.11.3).

[68]. Plato Alcib. book 1, 135C; Cic. Acad. 2.47.144; Jos. Ant. 4.8.15, §219; b. Men. 43b–44a; Moore, Judaism, 2:137. This pertains especially to such offenses as false speech (Chariton Chaer. 2.10.7; 6.5.5; Apul. Metam. 10.7 [even under torture, 10.10]; MacMullen, Relations, p. 116), insults to masters (Sen. Dial. 2.11.3), laziness (Sir. 33:24–30; b. Kid. 49b); gossip (Lucian Lucius/Ass §5), immorality (m. Sot. 1:6), cowardice (Ach. Tat. Clit. 7.10.5).

[69]. Syr. Men. Sent. 154–67.

[70]. Chariton Chaer. 1.10.7; 2.1.5, 2.3, 3.10; Test. Jos. 11:2–3.

[71]. Philo Rewards and Punishments 137; Every Good Man Is Free 36. For Philo’s views of slavery laws and parallels with later rabbinic ideas, see Belkin, Philo, pp. 89–103.

[72]. Arist. Pol. 1.1.4, 1252a; 1.2.10, 1254a.

[73]. Ibid., 1.2.12, 1254b. The equality of unequals, he claimed, was not just (3.5.8–9, 1280a).

[74]. See m. Git. 1:6; Buckland, Slavery, pp. 10–38; Gardner, Women, pp. 209–13; John G. Gager, “Religion and Social Class in the Early Roman Empire,” in Catacombs, p. 110; Lyall, Slaves, pp. 35–37. Cf. b. Ber. 16b, bar., R. Eliezer (early second century): One does not recite a funeral oration over a slave, but treats his death as if the owner had lost any other property. Under Roman law, all a householder’s slaves and freedpeople (men, women, and children) would be executed if one slave killed him (Tac. Ann. 14.42, although the following context makes it clear how many people opposed this injustice; cf. 13.32; Apul. Metam. 10.12). Aristotle considers them humans, though different by nature than their masters (Pol. 1.5.3, 1259b), but also argues that they are property, on the analogy of animals (1.2.8–14, 1254ab); they are live tools (1.2.3–6, 1253b–54a).

[75]. Buckland, Slavery, pp. 73–130; Barrow, Slavery, pp. 151–72. Slaves could themselves own property; see Apul. Metam. 10.13; p. Yeb. 7:1, §2 (including other slaves!); Stern, “Aspects,” p. 628; Martin, Slavery, pp. 7–11; Finley, Economy, p. 64; Buckland, Slavery, pp. 131–238; for a comparison of the peculium in Jewish and Roman law, see Cohen, Law, pp. 179–278. Slaves could be disfigured by beatings, but this was considered bad (Ach. Tat. Clit. 5.17.8–9; Mart. Epig. 2.64; 8.23; cf. 2.82).

[76]. See e.g., the examples in Carcopino, Life, p. 57; Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 132. Slaves usually did not worry about slavery per se but tried to perform well and work toward manumission (freedom) when it was possible; see Bartchy, Slavery, pp. 67–72. Manumission was much rarer in the U.S. South (Fogel and Engerman, Cross, p. 150). Essene halakah mandated mercy toward slaves: they were not to be sold to Gentiles (CD 12.10–11).

[77]. Mart. Epig. 3.21; Sen. Ep. Lucil. 47:4. The loyalty of slaves who had been well treated appears also in Test. Abr. 15 A.

[78]. In Jewish circles, p. Ter. 8:1; Safrai, “Home and Family,” p. 750; probably CPJ 1:249–50, §135 (second century BCE Egypt); in other Greco-Roman households, see Rawson, “Family,” pp. 7–8; Dixon, Mother, p. 16; Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 30; Aune, Environment, pp. 59–60; Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 31. Dependents seem to have been called “sons of your house” (m. Ab. 1:5).

[79]. Arist. N. E. 8.11.6–7, 1161b; E. E. 7.9.2, 1241b.

[80]. Arist. Pol. 3.5.10, 1280a.

[81]. Ibid., 1.2.7–8, 1254a; 1.2.14–15, 1254b (even in soul).

[82]. Ibid., 1.5.6, 1260a (LCL).

[83]. Ibid., 1.1.4, 1252b; 1.2.18, 1255a; 3.9.3, 1285a. This was not, of course, based on skin tone; it was probably more analogous to the sort of intellectual elitism that characterizes some modern universities, except that many modern professors recoil at the suggestion of their racism or ethnocentrism, though all too often still looking down on “primitive” viewpoints that conflict with their dying strains of anti-supernaturalism, be they traditional African tribal religions, Islam, or orthodox Christianity. Aristotle’s point was moot by Paul’s day, of course; the Romans had recruited plenty of Greek slaves in the first century BCE.

[84]. Quint. 1.3.13–14 (who protests that it is not suitable for children, against the common practice). For a long list of examples of cruelties, see Barrow, Slavery, pp. 30–31; once one person “owns” another, tyranny is a common result. Fogel and Engerman, Cross, pp. 145–46, argue that its occurrence on U.S. plantations has been exaggerated; but the slave narratives provide ample evidence for its practice and the suffering it caused on countless estates.

[85]. Quint. 1.3.13–14 (citing it as the regular practice, of which he disapproves); Sir. 30:1; Pes. Rab Kah. 15:4; Ahikar 81.3; 82.4. Such instructions are qualified in Ps-Phocyl. 150; Quint. 1.3.13–14; 2.4.10.

[86]. Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 194, notes the large number of wives even of imperial slaves who died between the ages of 20 and 25. There were, of course, exceptions, e.g., Hieron in IGRR 1.417 (Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 230, §173Y), and it is probable that the ages of those who died young figure more commonly on funerary inscriptions. Fogel and Engerman, Cross, p. 154, argue that 40% of U.S. slaves died before age 19, while pointing out that the mortality rate for young whites was also quite high.

[87]. Rhet. ad Herenn. 2.7.10; Tac. Ann. 3.67, 14.60; Chariton Chaer. 1.5.1; Apul. Metam. 3.8,10.28; cf. Justin. Digest 48.18.1 (Empire, ed. Sherk, pp. 236–37, §178); Pes. Rab Kah. 15:7; Alan Watson, “Roman Slave Law and Romanist Ideology,” Phoenix 37 (1, Spring 1983): 53–65. Quint. 5.4.1 (probably following Arist. Rhet. 1.15.26, 1376b) reports the existence of both views (torture yields truth or falsification), conveniently used in court according to which side is being argued.

[88]. In the strictest sense, only Roman citizens could contract “legal” Roman marriages (see data in my And Marries Another, p. 59, nn. 63–65 on p. 169), but the marital status of slaves was more problematic than that of other noncitizens, because masters had the legal right to split up families through the sale of one or both spouses and the children, and sometimes slaves were mated between households.

[89]. Justinian, Codex 9.23 (Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 183, §193); Gardner, Women, pp. 213–18; Rawson, “Family,” p. 24; Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 193; Martin, Slavery, pp. 2–3 (citing evidence that stable families could exist even when slaves belonged to different households). Slaves could be separated from their families and sold young; cf. e.g., the seven-year-old Sidonian girl in CPJ 1:119–20, §1, or the twelve-year-old Phrygian girl in CPJ 3:73, §490.

[90]. Dixon, Mother, pp. 17–18.

[91]. Finley, Slavery, p. 76. This is a high estimate; Fogel and Engerman, Cross, pp. 5, 49–50, place it considerably lower.

[92]. Finley, Slavery, p. 80.

[93]. Ibid., pp. 73–74.

[94]. Ibid., pp. 18–19.

[95]. Diog. Laert. Lives 10.118.

[96]. Ibid., 10.1.9.

[97]. Ps-Plut. Educ., Mor. 7DE (in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 31).

[98]. Pliny Ep. 2.6.3–4, to Junius Avitus.

[99]. Heraclitus 9, to Hermodorus (CynEp, pp. 212–13).

[100]. Ibid.

[101]. Epict. Disc. 1.13.2. That many people viewed slaves as in some sense equals before the gods (Finley, Economy, p. 62) did not, however, generally lead to their better treatment, and certainly not to the equal treatment Paul commands in Eph. 6:9.

[102]. Epict. Disc. 1.13.4.

[103]. See Sen. Ep. Lucil. 47.4–5, 13; Clem. 1.16.1.

[104]. Sen. Ep. Lucil. 47.18–19.

[105]. Ibid., 47.10. Clem. 1.18.1 makes the principles of equity and right, rather than fear of retaliation, the proper limits for the master’s treatment of slaves. Cf. Sevenster, Paul and Seneca, pp. 185–92, who wishes to contrast the motives of Seneca and Paul.

[106]. Sen. Ep. Lucil. 47.11. Likewise, another Stoic, Hierocles On Duties. On Fraternal Love 4.27.20 (Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 94), suggests that a master should think of how he would want to be treated if he and his servant reversed positions.

[107]. Sen. Ben. 7.4.4.

[108]. William Watts, “Seneca on Slavery,” DR 90 (300, July 1972): 183–95.

[109]. Diog. Laert. Lives 7. 1.23 (LCL).

[110]. Sir. 7:20–21; the question, of course, is whether this refers to freeing Israelite slaves in the seventh year or whether it is a general ethical admonition. As noted above, Israelite law provided for the ultimate freeing of all Jewish slaves. But it may simply refer to rewarding any industrious servant (cf. 7:18); cf. Syr. Men. Sent. 166–67 (“Love the industrious servant”; in the context of the bad slave, w. 154–65). Finkelstein, Akiba, pp. 191–94, cites Akiba’s view on human equality for slaves.

[111]. Sir. 10:25.

[112]. The term could be taken in a variety of ways: lead, train, etc.

[113]. Sir. 33:30–31 (my translation; the enumeration varies in different texts). The “as yourself” is the same as in Lev. 19:18.

[114]. E.g., Ps-Phocyl. 223–27, especially 227 (accept the counsel of a wise slave).

[115]. Jeremias, Jerusalem, p. 316, and Bonsirven, Judaism, pp. 147–48 , cite b. Kid. 20a, bar.: “Whoever purchases a Jewish slave actually purchases a master.” For the unenviable social position of Gentile slaves in the later Jewish sources, see Jeremias, Jerusalem, pp. 345–51; Goodman, State and Society, p. 38, thinks that most slaves in Jewish Palestine were Gentiles.

[116]. Lohse, Environment, p. 213. Cf. Bartchy, Slavery, pp. 63–67, who argues that slavery was regarded in the Roman Empire as “an indispensable social institution” (p. 67).

[117]. E.g., ILS 7503, from Rome, in Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 229, §173. Although the racial injustice for slavery used in the United States usually prevented this from happening, it occasionally occurred even here (cf. the example in A. J. Raboteau, Slave Religion [Oxford: Oxford University, 1978], p. 141).

[118]. Martin, Slavery, p. 42.

[119]. Cf. Lightfoot, Colossians, p. 323. Slave revolts did occur in antiquity, but they were localized and never sufficient to challenge the institution as a whole, or people’s ideas about the institution. Indeed, the threat of potential revolt could lead to greater repression: cf. the Spartans’ treatment of their Helots, who outnumbered them (Arist. Pol. 2.6.2, 1269a, reports their attempted insurrections, like the serf class of Thessaly).

[120]. Finley, Slavery, p. 114.

[121]. Ibid., pp. 114–15.

[122]. Sunderland, Slavery, p. 26; similarly, he advocated submission to masters but demanded that slavery be abolished as quickly as possible (p. 88). Of course Turner, Brown, Vesey, Prosser, and other leaders of slave insurrections equally believed that God was with them and had even directed them to lead their revolts.

[123]. Finley, Slavery, p. 9, recognizes five slave societies in history, two (classical Greece and Italy) being in antiquity; he suggests (p. 67) that slavery as a major system originated in the Greco-Roman world. R. A. Padgug, “Problems in the Theory of Slavery and Slave Society,” ScSoc 40 (1, Spring 1976): 3–27, especially pp. 21–22, sees only Greco-Roman antiquity as a slave society, but this may go too far.

[124]. See Lightfoot, Colossians, pp. 326–27.

[125]. K. S. Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity, 5 vols. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), 1:262–63, citing especially Apost. Const. 4.9; 1 Clem. 55.

[126]. Longenecker, Ethics, pp. 63–64.

[127]. A. W. Rupprecht, “Attitudes on Slavery Among the Church Fathers,” in New Dimensions in New Testament Study, ed. Richard N. Longenecker and Merrill C. Tenney (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974) pp. 261–77. The prejudice is particularly apparent in the Alexandrian Fathers.

[128]. Finley, Slavery, pp. 123–49, looks for economic rather than ideological factors in the decline of slavery in late antiquity.

[129]. Longenecker, Ethics, p. 65.

[130]. Raboteau, Religion, pp. 103–16, 122–24, passim: many recognized that converted slaves were their “Christian” masters’ spiritual siblings, and should thus be freed.

[131]. From the Catholic hierarchy through John Locke—defender of the doctrine of natural liberty—slavery was an accepted institution (Fogel and Engerman, Cross, pp. 30–31), and even well into the 1800s many professing Christians considered Christian abolitionism an extremist cause. That African slaves were first imported to Europe from Muslim countries or that slaves are still quiedy held in some Islamic and other nations (cf. “Slavery,” Newsweek [May 4, 1992]: 30–39) cannot keep modern Christians from wondering why so many who professed Christ in the past did not come to grips with the implications of the gospel. John Wesley lamented that Islamic slavery was more humanitarian than what was practiced in allegedly Christian lands (Sunderland, Slavery, p. 91). Yet many Christians today also interpret the Scriptures according to convenience and tradition rather than according to their spirit.

[132]. Balch, “Codes,” p. 33, following Franz Laub, Die Begegnung des frühen Christentums mit der antiken Sklaverei, SB 107 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1982); Balch, Wives, pp. 54, 97.

[133]. Acting from the right motives is stressed often in Jewish literature written in Greek: e.g., Ep. Arist. 270; Ps. Sol. 4:10. Paul’s expression “singleness of heart” also appears: Wisd. 1:1; cf. also Test. Reub. 4:1; Test. Benj. 6:5–7; Test. Sim. 4:5; Test. Levi 13:1; Test. Iss. 3:1, 7–8; 4:1, 6; 5:1, 8; 6:1; 7:7; Test. Asher 6:1 (if the extant Testaments do not depend on Paul here).

[134]. Sunderland, Slavery, p. 11.

[135]. For the reward for serving God as Master, cf. Tob. 4:14, and the pre-Christian Jewish teacher Antigonus of Socho in m. Ab. 1:3.

[136]. Cf. Gen. 16:9, where God’s angel tells Hagar to submit to her mistress’s authority, but also 16:10–13, where this angel watches over her and cares for her.

[137]. Sen. Ep. Lucil. 47:11.

[138]. Cf. Laub, Sklaverei, p. 99, on “no respect of persons.”

[139]. Arist. Pol. 1.2.3, 1253b.

[140]. Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 133.

[141]. Fogel and Engerman, Cross, repeatedly challenge this assumption for slavery in the United States, arguing that slaves were much harder workers and more efficient than free labor.

[142]. Contrast Gager, “Religion,” p. 110, who sees Col. 4:1 as the only clear Pauline command to masters to treat their slaves fairly.

[143]. A poor modern analogy might be a reasonable insistence that since we ought to devote all our time and money to God’s service, we should preach that members of a congregation put away their television sets to save time, stop buying large houses, etc., to pour all their money, besides what they need to live on, into missions or serving the poor. It is, I believe, a good idea, and I have preached it; but I doubt that anything but persecution or judgment will shake up most of the church enough to think in these terms. We have to deal with even the redeemed community where it is before we can take it further in its obedience to God. On some issues, however, like racism (the Jewish-Gentile issue), Paul refused to make any compromise in his demands on the church, because the character of the gospel, as well as its spread and credibility, were directly at stake.

[144]. Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, pp. 40, 113. Cf. the aristocratic perspective in Chariton, Chaer. 4.5.5, where a runaway slave is identifiable by the extravagant manner in which he throws around money.

[145]. Lohse, Philemon, pp. 187, 196. Ancient literature could depict a runaway slave as having a hard time concentrating because of his fear of being arrested or meeting his master (Epict. Disc. 1.29.59, 63).

[146]. The illegality of harboring an escaped slave is fully documented in Barrow, Slavery, p. 54; see also Finley, Slavery, p. 111.

[147]. Pliny Ep. 9.21; cf. Lohse, Philemon, p. 196; R. P. Martin, Colossians and Philemon, NCBC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), p. 146. Cf. also the material on slave refuge in O’Brien, Philemon, p. 292. Interestingly, one tradition reports that Diogenes the Cynic had a slave, but he refused to pursue him when he escaped (Diog. Laert. Lives 6.2.55).

[148]. Martin, Philemon, p. 147, points out that Paul does not mention Philemon’s right to be angry, in contrast to Pliny’s plea to Sabinianus. The contrast of Lightfoot, Philemon, p. 318, lays too much emphasis on Paul’s lack of rhetorical polish in the letter; this contrast with Pliny’s letter of recommendation may be due to Pliny’s higher education or to the different social level of the intended readers, more than with any contrast of ethics per se.

[149]. Martin, Philemon, p. 166. The possible play on Onesimus’ name in v. 20, citing his new usefulness (cf. v. 11), does not militate against this interpretation; slaves were sometimes freed for services rendered (Chariton Chaer. 3.8.1–2). Some later Jewish teachers ruled that an escaped slave who returned was to retain his or her freedom (p. Git. 4:4, §2), but this was not true in Roman law.

[150]. Cf. Bruce, Paul, p. 406.

[151]. The reciprocal obligations prevent Paul from appearing as merely a client dependent on Philemon’s mercy; Philemon must recognize that he himself owes Paul his own salvation, which is worth more than anything Paul could have asked in return. Paul uses the formal language of partnership in v. 17 (Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 66; cf. John Koenig, New Testament Hospitality, OBT 17 [Philadelphia: Fortress 1985], p. 79).

[152]. His literary form here may be that of an acknowledgment of debt (Deissmann, Light, pp. 331–32; cf. O’Brien, Philemon, p. 300), but such acknowledgments of debt could be used in the reciprocal obligations of ancient friendship; cf. P. Merton 62 in Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 157. One may compare many patronal letters of recommendation, e.g., P. Oxy. 32 in Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 157.

[153]. Lohse, Philemon, p. 204. Under ancient law, one who harbored a runaway slave could be liable for this loss of labor; see Martin, Philemon, p. 167.

[154]. Fiorenza, Memory, p. 215.

[155]. Knight, Teaching, pp. 21–24; idem, “Analogues,” pp. 176–77.

[156]. Knight, Teaching, pp. 24–25. Knight further contends (p. 26) that we cannot simply let anyone be in charge, because this “overturns the very form which the apostles seek to establish and continue as a permanent element in marriage.” Here again he assumes as a basis for his proof exactly what he hopes to prove.

[157]. Quoted in Haig Bosmajian, “The Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in Martin Luther King, Jr.: A Profile, ed. C. Eric Lincoln, rev. ed. (New York: Hill & Wang, 1984), p. 138.

Chapter 7 Closing Words

[1]. Hardesty, Women, p. 82; on evangelical interpreters in the fledgling women’s movement, cf. pp. 74–76, 81, 84–85. On the hermeneutics of nineteenth-century evangelical revivalism in general, especially of Charles Finney, see pp. 72–73.

[2]. People normally sat on chairs (Safrai, “Home and Family,” p. 737), so Mary’s posture at Jesus’ feet (Luke 10:39) is significant. To “sit before” a teacher, at his feet, was to take the posture of a disciple (Acts 22:3; m. Ab. 1:4; Ab. R. Nathan 6, 38 A; 11, §28 B; b. Pes. 3b; p. Sanh. 10:1, §8; in m. Ab. 2:7, attributed to Hillel, “sitting” is schooling), i.e., of one in training to become a teacher.

[3]. Biological, including neurological, differences are presented capably in Gregg Johnson, “The Biological Basis for Gender-Specific Behavior,” in Manhood and Womanhood, pp. 280–93 (Laura Shapiro, “Guns and Dolls,” Newsweek [May 28, 1990]: 56–65, addresses biology and environment as factors). But none of these differences is so obvious as to suggest that average male leaders are better than all female leaders (which would need to be the case if females were inherenty inferior leaders by virtue of creation); indeed, the indications that males are usually better at math after puberty and females are usually better in verbal skills (p. 290) could argue just the opposite conclusion; after all, which skills are more directly useful for Bible teaching?

[4]. Cf. especially Philo Special Laws 3.169–171. On the wife’s domestic role in second-century Palestinian Judaism, see also Goodman, State and Society, p. 37.

[5]. See Rodney Clapp, “Is the ‘Traditional’ Family Biblical?” CT (Sept. 16, 1988): 26; J. D. Hunter, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987), pp. 83–91 (with H. V. L. Stehlin as coauthor of the chapter). On the independence of Susannah Wesley, mother of John and Charles, see Scanzoni and Hardesty, Meant to Be, pp. 97–98. On the hardships for single, widowed, abandoned, and divorced women in the nineteenth-century U.S. setting, cf. B. L. Bellows, “ ‘My Children, Gentlemen, Are My Own’: Poor Women, the Urban Elite, and the Bonds of Obligation in Antebellum Charleston,” in The Web of Southern Social Relations, ed. Walter J. Fraser, Jr., R. Frank Saunders, Jr., and Jon L. Wakelyn (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia, 1985) pp. 52–71. In ancient Israel, besides Prov. 31, see Song of Solomon 1:6; Gen. 29:9.

[6]. G. W. Knight III, “The Family and the Church: How Should Biblical Manhood and Womanhood Work Out in Practice?” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 348, agrees that Titus 2:5 does not forbid work outside the home (just as 1 Tim. 3:4–5 does not forbid it for men), though he says that the emphasis is on the home.

[7]. Ayers, “Failure,” pp. 328–30, blames divorce on feminism. The prevalence of divorce in our society may be due to a move away from certain traditional values, but that does not make it dependent on feminism, and for a Christian the issue is not whether any given value is traditional, but whether it is biblical.

[8]. Piper and Grudem, “Overview,” p. 62; Wayne Grudem, “Wives like Sarah and the Husbands Who Honor Them: 1 Peter 3:1–7,” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 195; Knight, “Family and Church,” p. 349, qualify their position sufficiently that, while it remains different from the one advocated in this book, in practice two couples following the different approaches might not need to notice the difference between them.

[9]. Cf. my And Marries Another, passim, for a more detailed treatment of the NT texts on divorce.

[10]. See Hull, Equal to Serve, pp. 76–104; Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles, pp. 59–68.

[11]. A. F. Johnson, “Response,” in Women, Authority & the Bible, p. 157, rightly points out that just as God’s word would have been dishonored in NT times by wives not submitting to their husbands, it is dishonored today when outsiders come into male-dominated church services that seem to suppress women.

[12]. Padgett, “Rationale,” p. 52.

Appendix A: Women’s Ministry Elsewhere in Paul

[1]. This is especially the case in Rom. 16; see, e.g., D. M. Scholer, “Paul’s Women Co-Workers in the Ministry of the Church,” DSar 6 (4, 1980): 3–6. More broadly, E. Schüssler Fiorenza, “Women in the Pre-Pauline and Pauline Churches,” USQR 33 (3–4, Spring 1978): 153–66.

[2]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 81.

[3]. Someone who wished to silence women might have been more likely to have chosen another apostle in whose name to write than Paul. Of course, a post-Paulinist could have appealed to a certain reading of 1 Cor. 14:34–35; Paul was certainly borrowed by other varied causes, including Valentinus and Marcion, and it is feasible that if the Pastorals are not written by Paul that they could be interpreted as excluding women from teaching ministry across the board. This could oppose Gnostic documents featuring or purportedly written by women (e.g., The Questions of Mary [see E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha, ed. W. Schneemelcher, trans. A. J. B. Higgins et al., ed. R. McL. Wilson, 2 vols. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963–65], 1:338–40]), although other second-century works of more “orthodox” substance could advocate women’s teaching (e.g., Acts of Paul and Thecla 3:41, 43, accepted by Hippolytus but rejected by Tertullian), and severer chauvinism surfaces in some Gnostic documents (e.g., Gospel of Thomas 114). Opponents of Irenaeus may have co-opted his name to have advocated the superiority of women (cf. J. M. Higgins, “Anastasius Sinaita and the Superiority of the Woman,” JBL 97 [2, June 1978]: 256, if the document is early enough). The reader who opts for this approach, however, does need to be ready to address the resulting explicit conflict with the rest of genuinely Pauline teaching.

[4]. T. W. Manson, “St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans—and Others,” in The Romans Debate—Revised and Expanded Edition, ed. Karl P. Donfried (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991), pp. 3–15; J. R. Richards, “Romans and I Corinthians: Their Chronological Relationship and Comparative Dates,” NTS 13 (1, Oct. 1966): 30. J. I. H. McDonald, “Was Romans XVI a Separate Letter?” NTS 16 (4, July 1970): 369–72, argues on the basis of ancient epistolary forms that Rom. 16 could have been an independent letter.

[5]. K. P. Donfried, “A Short Note on Romans 16,” in Romans Debate—Revised, pp. 44–52; L.-G. Lönnermark, “Till frågan om romarbrevets integritet,” SvExÅrs 33 (1968): 141–48 (NTA 14:69); H. A. Gamble, Jr., The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans: A Study in Textual and Literary Criticism, Studies and Documents (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977); cf. also Malherbe, Social Aspects, p. 65; Meeks, Urban Christians, pp. 16–17, 201, n. 41; Stowers, Diatribe, p. 183; J. W. Drane, “Why Did Paul Write Romans?” in Pauline Studies: Essays presented to Professor F. F. Bruce on his 70th Birthday, ed. Donald A. Hagner and Murray J. Harris (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), p. 223; A. M. Hunter, The Epistle to the Romans, Torch (London: SCM, 1955), pp. 128–29.

[6]. People commonly migrated to Rome from the east (Carcopino, Life, p. 55; cf. Friedländer, Life, 4:11), and this included both Palestinian (CIJ 1:282, §362; 1:287–88, §370; cf. 1:411, §556 [a captive]) and Diaspora (CIJ 1:365, §500) Jews (cf. H. J. Leon, The Jews of Ancient Rome [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1960), pp. 238–40). Only six of the twenty-five names are Latin (Wolfgang Wiefel, “The Jewish Community in Ancient Rome and the Origins of Roman Christianity,” in Romans Debate—Revised, p. 95), and several of these clearly moved to Rome (Aquila and Junias); while it is true that only about half the Jews in Rome had Latin names (Leon, Jews of Rome, p. 107), it can be noted on the other side that peregrini and freedmen sometimes assumed Roman names (Friedländer, Life, 4:56–57).

[7]. Diogenes 6, to Crates (CynEp, pp. 96–97); cf. Ramsay, “Roads and Travel,” pp. 379, 383, 387, 402; Stowers, Letter Writing, pp. 62–63; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 40. Sending it by a fellow Christian was probably considered safer; t. Shab. 13:11 allows sending letters by means of Gentiles, but notes that the very pious did not do so.

[8]. Sen. Ep. Lucil. 50:1; cf. M. P. Charlesworth, Trade-Routes & Commerce of the Roman Empire, 2d rev. ed. (New York: Cooper Square, 1970), p. 86.

[9]. Aune, Environment, p. 171.

[10]. Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 153.

[11]. Cf. e.g., Socratics 28, Aristippus to Philip (CynEp, pp. 284–85); 1 Esd. 4:61; p. M. K. 3:1, §2; Acts 9:2; Phil. 2:29–30; Philemon; C. H. Kim, Form and Structure of the Familiar Greek Letter of Recommendation, SBLDS 4 (Missoula, Mont.: SBL, 1972), p. 119; Malherbe, Social Aspects, pp. 102–3; Lionel Casson, Travel in the Ancient World (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974), p. 188.

[12]. Cenchraea was Corinth’s port on the isthmus; e.g., Philo Flaccus 155; Apul. Metam. 10, §35; Philostr. V. A. 4, §25. A. D. Nock, Conversion (Oxford: Oxford University, 1961), p. 56, points out from Apuleius that the Isis temple at Cenchraea had permanent professional clergy, which seems to indicate an openness to foreign religions there.

[13]. Cf. analogously Test. Job 15:1. This ministry was normally conducted from a position of wealth, as the exception in Test. Job 12:1–5/12:1–2 suggests.

[14]. The great patristic scholar J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians (reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1953), pp. 188–89, also believes that the seven of Acts 6 were connected with the later diaconate.

[15]. Ab. R. Nathan 3 A. Josephus says that the Essenes “elect by show of hands good men to receive their revenues and the produce of the earth and priests to prepare bread and other food” (Ant. 18.1.5, §22 [LCL]; cf. Ep. Arist. 46.

[16]. This role is attributed to R. Gamaliel’s court in t. Ber. 2:6. See especially S. Applebaum, “The Organization of the Jewish Communities in the Diaspora,” in JPFC, pp. 491, 494–95, on the archons in various Jewish communities (distinct from the “servants”).

[17]. Cf. also Epict. Disc. 3.26.28; on Jos. War 3, see Hill, Prophecy, p. 30.

[18]. Streeter, Woman, p. 63.

[19]. F. F. Bruce, Commentary on the Book of the Acts, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 130.

[20]. CIJ 2:57, §805. The hazzan may appear in a third- or fourth-century Syro-Palestinian inscription in CIJ 2:94–95, §855 (the text is incomplete).

[21]. Moore, Judaism, 1:289. The term can also be rendered by other Greek words for “servant,” as in Luke 4:20 (cf. Safrai, “Synagogue,” p. 935).

[22]. Moore, Judaism, 1:289.

[23]. Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (Peabody: Hendrickson, n.d.), p. 200, cites b. Sanh. 92a; Hag. 5b; Git. 60a.

[24]. Applebaum, “Diaspora,” p. 496, with notes.

[25]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 60; idem, “Androgyne,” p. 197; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 140.

[26]. CIJ 1:71, §100; 1:284, §365 (see here Frey’s note, and also in 1:xciv–xcv). The matter is spelled out in further detail in A. Kascher, “M’srt hprwst’ts bqhylwt ysr’l btpwsh hhlnyst’t-hrwmyt” (The office of prostates in the Jewish communities of the Greco-Roman Diaspora) Zion 47 (4, 1982): 399–406 (NTA 28:66). The term was in wide use in Greco-Roman society, including for elected officials (Epict. Disc. 3.9.3, equivalent to patron in 3.9.18), and could even be applied to Zeus (Marc. Aur. Med. 5.27).

[27]. Brooten, Women Leaders, p. 151, citing a third- or fourth-century Diaspora inscription that also mentions the woman’s charitable activities. In Greek Anth. 7.728, a priestess claims to have been patroness for many young women. Women were sponsors of other associations as well; see Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 24.

[28]. Malherbe, Social Aspects, p. 98. Banks, Community, p. 56, connects “sister” (16:1) with the family picture of the house churches; this is entirely possible, though not certain; “sister” naturally meant “fellow-Christian,” as sibling language was used for fellow-Jews and members of religious associations.

[29]. On the shortened form “Prisca” in some texts, see Ramsay, Cities, p. 207. That she and her husband had Roman names may suggest that they were originally from Rome, where this was common, although it need not mean this (in Paul’s case it indicated citizenship).

[30]. Cf. Suet. Claud. 25 (cf. Tib. 36), although inscriptions indicate that not all the Jewish community left (CIJ 1:lxxiii). The date (Leon, Jews of Rome, p. 24; Murphy-O’Connor, Paul’s Corinth, pp. 130–31, 138–39; Robert Hoerber, “The Decree of Claudius in Act 18:2,” CTM 31 [11, Nov. 1960]: 690–94; etc.) and cause (“Chrestus”; cf. Leon, Jews of Rome, pp. 25–26; Harris, “References to Jesus,” pp. 353–54; George Howard, “The Beginnings of Christianity in Rome: A Note on Suetonius, Life of Claudius XXV.4,” RestQ 24 [3, 1981]: 175–77; Stephen Benko, “The Edict of Claudius of A.D. 49 and the Instigator Chrestus,” TZ 25 [6, Nov. 1969]: 406–18; Smallwood, Rule, p. 211; cf. Justin 1 Apol. 4; Tert. Apol. 3.5) of the expulsion are debated, but that some were expelled (probably late in Claudius’ reign) is in my opinion secure.

[31]. M. Stern, “The Jewish Diaspora,” in JPFC, p. 159.

[32]. Theissen, Setting, p. 99; Malherbe, Social Aspects, p. 76.

[33]. MacMullen, Relations, pp. 69, 71–73, 129–35; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 118.

[34]. Meeks, Urban Christians, pp. 31–32; MacMullen, Relations, pp. 77, 82; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 125.

[35]. M. B. Flory, “Where Women Precede Men: Factors Influencing the Order of Names in Roman Epitaphs,” CJ 79 (3, Feb. 1984): 216–24; MacMullen, “Women in Public,” p. 210; Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 59; cf. p. 20. Mek. Pisha 1.17–34 has to argue (i.e., it cannot simply assume) that sequence of names is not always significant in the Hebrew Bible. Bruce, Acts, p. 369, suggests that Priscilla, if of higher social class than Aquila, may have belonged to the Roman noble family known as the gens Prisca. Wives sometimes formed business partnerships with their husbands, although the extent of their contribution is not entirely clear (Gardner, Women, p. 239).

[36]. “Laying down one’s neck” (Acts 16:14) seems to have functioned idiomatically; cf. Deissmann, Light, pp. 117–18.

[37]. CIJ 1:436, §607; CIJ 1:149–50, §18.

[38]. The masculine form is attested in a Jewish inscription in Rome, CIJ 1:279, §357. E. A. Judge, Rank and Status in the World of the Caesars and St Paul, UCP 29 (Canterbury: University of Canterbury, 1982), p. 36, n. 18, observes that this is a Latin nomen and (unlike a mere Latin praenomen) should indicate Roman citizenship. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 57, notes Eck’s view that Junia must have been a freed-woman of the gens Iunia, since Andronicus was probably a freedman, but replies that “not every Jew with a Greek name [like Andronicus] in Rome was a former slave.”

[39]. The term means “kinsman” in Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1.12 (citing Antisthenes in Diocles).

[40]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 216, n. 29; William Sanday and Arthur Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC, 5th ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1971), p. 423; Hunter, Romans, p. 131. A bond by office instead of kinship may be implied in Ep. Arist. 241–42, following Ptolemaic custom (Hadas, pp. 194–95), but the remoteness of context necessary to make that a plausible interpretation may safely rule it out here.

[41]. Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 422–23, note that the name is feminine, but that it could be a contraction, like many other names in the list.

[42]. Judge, Rank, p. 36, n. 18; R. R. Schulz, “Romans 16:7: Junia or Junias?” ExpT 98 (4, Jan. 1987): 108–10; cf. V. Fàbrega, “War Junia(s), der hervorragende Apostel (Rom. 16,7), eine Frau?” JAC 27–28 (1984–85): 47–64 (NTA 30:175). This was also understood by the church fathers: see Spencer, Curse, p. 101; Bilezikian, Roles, p. 263, n. 54; cf. Fàbrega, “Junia(s).”

[43]. Against John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), 2:229–30. Despite his commentary’s positive attention to theological concerns, it has hardly any cultural-historical sensitivity.

[44]. Also Bilezikian, Roles, p. 263; Spencer, Curse, p. 102; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, p. 423. That they were apostles is usually agreed; e.g., Ladd, Theology, p. 380; Walter Schmithals, The Office of Apostle in the Early Church, trans. John E. Steely (Nashville: Abingdon, 1969), pp. 67, 81.

[45]. Martin Hengel, Acts and the History of Earliest Christianity, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), p. 108; Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 57. Cf. n. 42 on their view.

[46]. Gardner, Women, p. 240.

[47]. Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 57. Sometimes one or the other of them has been identified with Lydia, “Lydia” in Acts 16 being taken as “the Lydian woman” (since Thyatira was in Lydia) (George Johnston, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and Philemon, Century Bible [Greenwood, S.C.: Attic, 1967], p. 46; F. W. Beare, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Philippians, 2d ed. [London: Adam & Charles Black, 1969], p. 144). Although her name is often linked with the Roman province of Lydia (Bruce, Acts, p. 331; Yamauchi, Cities, p. 53; cf. Kirsopp Lake and H. J. Cadbury, in The Beginnings of Christianity, vol. 4: English Translation and Commentary [reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979], p. 191), its occurrence is not limited to there, appearing especially also in Rome (e.g., Mart. Epig. 11.21; 11.71; Hor. Ode 1.8.1; cf. 1.25.8; 3.9.6–7, 20).

[48]. G. F. Hawthorne, Philippians, WBC 43 (Waco, Tex.: Word, 1983), p. 180, sees this title as addressed to the whole church. If a single individual is in view, that individual must have been prominent enough to have known that Paul addressed him (cf. Johnston, Philippians, p. 46, who also suggests that this may be the person’s name [“Yokefellow”]).

[49]. For letters of recommendation used to reconcile relationships, see Stowers, Letter Writing, p. 155.

[50]. V. A. Abrahamson, “The Rock Reliefs and the Cult of Diana at Philippi” (Th.D. diss., Harvard Divinity School, 1986), argues that women were central in the cult of Diana, which was prominent in Philippi; see especially ch. 5, “Women’s Roles in the Cult of Diana,” pp. 108–30; for the application to Phil. 4:2–3, see idem, “Women at Philippi: The Pagan and Christian Evidence,” JFSR 3 (2, 1987): 17–30. This may be in contrast with the situation in Ephesus; titles of magistracies and priesthoods were given to women in the eastern provinces, but usually did not reflect administrative power in this period (Gardner, Women, pp. 67–68). That some scholars have unfairly made a blanket contrast between the freedom of women in Pauline churches and the lack of it in the empire, without regard to geographical variations, has been pointed out by Averil Cameron, “ ‘Neither Male nor Female,’ ” GR 27 (1, April 1980): 61.

[51]. Gardner, Women, pp. 233–37, noting also minimal restrictions. Even in Egypt, a woman could own land, though her son might act for her legally (CPJ 3:9–10, §453; because the date is 132 CE, after the slaughter or expulsion of most of Egyptian Jewry, I am less convinced that the woman is Jewish).

[52]. E. A. Judge, The Social Pattern of the Christian Groups in the First Century (London: Tyndale, 1960), p. 36. Families of freedwomen retailers in the purple industry are attested; see Gardner, Women, pp. 238–39. The textile industry was strong in Thyatira (Charlesworth, Trade-Routes, p. 94), and Jewish people in Asia Minor were probably commonly involved in it (see evidence in S. Applebaum, “The Social and Economic Status of the Jews in the Diaspora,” in JPFC, pp. 716–17; A. Thomas Kraabel, “The Synagogue and the Jewish Community: Impact,” in Sardis from Prehistoric to Roman Times, ed. G. M. A. Hanfmann [Cambridge: Harvard University, 1983], p. 181).

[53]. This would stand in contrast to most of the Macedonian population: see H. D. Betz, 2 Corinthians 8–9, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), p. 43.

[54]. On the murex shellfish from which the dye was extracted, see e.g., Athen. Deipn. 3.88; the legendary story of its discovery is recounted in Ach. Tat. Clit. 2.11. This had long been associated with the region of Tyre and is often called “Tyrian” (purple), e.g., Hor. Sat. 2.4.84; Mart. Epig. 2.29.3; 4.28.2; 8.48.1; Juv. Sat. 1.27; 10.334; Apul. Metam. 10.20; Petr. Sat. 30; Chariton Chaer. 6.4.2; 8.1.14, 6.7 (cf. “purple of the sea” in 1 Macc. 4:29; “Sidonian purple,” Hor. Ep. 1.10.26); cf. L. B. Jensen “Royal Purple of Tyre,” JNES 22 (2, April 1963): 104–18. But cheaper (less “authentic”) purple could be procured elsewhere (e.g., Hor. Ode 2.18.7–8), and much dyeing was done as nearby as Thessalonica (Meeks, Urban Christians, p. 46) and Corinth (Charlesworth, Trade-Routes, p. 125).

[55]. Besides the OT and older Greek classics like Homer, see Lucr 54. Nat. 5.1423; Hor. Ode 1.35.12; 2.18.7–8; Cic. Senect. 17.59; Athen. Deipn. 4.159d; Diog. Laert. Lives 8.2.73;, 1 Macc. 10:20, 62, 64; 14:43–44 (royal); Gen. Apoc. 20.31; Sib. Or. 3.389, 658–59. In the imperial period, Petr. Sat. 38, 54; Epict. fr. 11; Mart. Epig. 5.8.5; 8.10; Juv. Sat. 1.106 (senatorial), 4.31; Apul. Metam. 10.20; Chariton Chaer. 3.2.17; Pes. Rab Kah. 2:7; 15:3; Test. Abr. 4 A; Jos. & As. 2:2/3, 8/14–15; 5:5/6; Sib. Or. 8.74 (senatorial); see Friedländer, Life, 2:175–76. Some writers complained that it was needlessly extravagant: Sen. Dial. 12.11.2; Plut. T.-T. 3.1.2, Mor. 646B; Ps-Melissa To Kleareta (Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 83); 1 En. 98:2 MSS (Knibb, p. 231); cf. the stench in Mart Epig. 4.4.6; 9.62.

[56]. See the first century BCE inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, 56. Women’s Life, p. 24, §48, and second century CE inscription, pp. 243–44, §232; Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 200–201; Gardner, Women, pp. 239–40.

[57]. Rosalie Ryan, “Lydia, A Dealer in Purple Goods,” BiTod 22 (5, 1984): 285–89, suggests that she was probably a well-to-do widow. This may be correct (she seems to have been the head of the household; cf. F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1951], p. 314), although we should not think that inheritance from her deceased husband was the source of her wealth; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 112, point out that Roman women normally could not inherit more than 10% of their husband’s estates. She could, however, have accumulated substantial wealth from parental inheritance or other sources (Verner, Household, p. 39; for wealth independent of one’s husband, e.g., CIL 6.10230, in Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 242, §184).

[58]. R. F. Hock, The Social Context of Paul’s Ministry (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), p. 29, speculates on where Paul and his companions had stayed before; accommodations with her were substantially better.

[59]. Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 115.

[60]. Cf. especially Grudem, “Prophecy—Yes,” pp. 11–23.

[61]. “First. . . second ...” normally carries this kind of meaning, e.g., 1QS 6.8–9.

[62]. Cic. Offic. 1.21.72, and Plut. Statecraft 17, Mor. 813C, recognize this gift as an endowment of nature; Cicero also notes that those who took this position at the helm of state without the endowment of wisdom encountered shipwreck (Invent. 1.3.4).

[63]. T. R. Schreiner, “The Valuable Ministries of Women in the Context of Male Leadership,” in Manhood and Womanhood, p. 216.

[64]. Ibid.

[65]. Some Jewish circles believed that OT-style prophecy had ceased, others that it continued in some sense, but few used the language of “prophet”—which Paul uses freely (see my “Johannine Pneumatology,” ch. 2, on early Jewish pneumatologies, especially pp. 77–91). Further, testing prophecy in a congregational setting was not a novel idea; Samuel presided over, and presumably evaluated and corrected, prophetic inspiration, and other schools of the prophets probably continued this practice (1 Sam. 19:20).

[66]. E.g., Aune, Prophecy, p. 320.

[67]. Grudem, “Prophecy—Yes,” p. 11. I can agree with the distinction I believe that he wishes to make, between canonical revelation and other revelation that must be evaluated by it, but this is a theological distinction, not an exegetical insight into the change in the nature of prophecy.

[68]. Even Acts 21:4 is only said to be “through the Spirit,” reflecting insight by the Spirit, and may mean no more than 20:23; attempts to dissuade from martyrdom appear also in Platonic dialogues on Socrates’ last days and appeals to martyrs’ age in Mart. Poly. 9; 2 Macc. 6:21–22. Paul knows what awaits him, and feels that God has called him to face it (Acts 20:23; 21:13–14).

[69]. Cf. the much stronger fulfillment in 37:36! The “inaccurate” language attributed to Agabus, supposedly reported to show that his prophecy was less authoritative than OT prophecy is reported in these words for other reasons, since it includes a typical Lukan parallel with Jesus (against Hill, Prophecy, p. 108; Grudem, Prophecy, p. 79).

[70]. Papias claimed to have received a tradition from Philip’s prophetess daughters, in fr. 6 (Euseb. Eccl Hist 3.39). In Greek religion, see Aune, Prophecy, p. 28.

[71]. Gen. Rab. 72:6, R. Hanina bar Pazzi. Gen. Rab. 67:9 attributes the tradition to R. Haggai (fourth century) in R. Isaac’s name (much earlier).

[72]. Ps-Philo 33:1–2.

[73]. Ab. R. Nathan 35 A; only her grave and that of David, present since the time of the early prophets (she actually is from the period of Jeremiah!), were allowed to remain.

[74]. Test. Job 46–50, especially the first daughter’s angelic language in chs. 48–50.

[75]. Jos. Ant. 5.5.2, §201.

[76]. Pes. Rab. 26:1/2.

[77]. Knight, Teaching, p. 49, notes that men are mentioned in the ruling office of 1 Tim. 3:1–2, not women. He admits that some will object that these are also married men and fathers, but appeals to other texts (Matt. 19:11–12; 1 Cor. 7) to reply that single men are allowed and that Paul speaks of married men only because most of them were married (1 Cor. 9:5). But on his own logic, we can then appeal to Rom. 16:7 and other texts and say that Paul addresses only men in 1 Tim. 3:1–2 because most of the available leaders were men (or because of the situation addressed in chapter 3 of this book, on 1 Tim. 2:11–15).

[78]. R. A. Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), p. 16, observes that “women—single and married—constituted about two thirds of the North American missionary force “

[79]. 1 Sam. 10:5, 10; 19:20–24; 2 Kgs. 2:3–18; 4:38–44; 6:1–6. At least some of these prophets were, however, married, and owned their own homes (2 Kgs. 4:1–7); whether they stayed apart from their families for the training period or commuted is difficult to say. Our explicit examples cover only the periods of Samuel and Elijah/Elisha, but this is probably because these are the only eras where tales of prophets, possibly passed on orally in their schools, are told in sufficient detail to suggest anything about their organization. Most of the ministers Paul mentions by name as having traveled with him were men, but the ratios become less disparate when he names those ministering in local congregational settings.

[80]. Schreiner, “Valuable Ministries,” p. 221.

[81]. Sterling, Sisters, pp. 116–17.

Appendix B: Mysteries, Music, Women, and Wine—Ephesians 5:18–21 and the Threat of Subversive Religions

[1]. Cf. Eph. 1:18; 3:9; 4:18; 1 Cor. 4:5; 2 Cor. 4:2. Doing deeds in darkness to hide from the Holy One was not an unnatural Jewish charge; cf. e.g., Isa. 29:15 (cf. 45:3, 19); 1 Cor. 4:5; Num. Rab. 9:1.

[2]. E.g., Petr. Sat. 17; Wisd. 14:23; Burkert, Cults, p. 8. Sinning “in secret” is not an unnatural charge, and again need not relate to the mysteries directly (Mus. Ruf. fr. 12, On Sexual Indulgence, in Malherbe, Exhortation, p. 153).

[3]. Apul. Metam. 11.21; Hor. Epodes 5.51–54; Petr. Sat. 17; Cic. De Legibus 2.14.35; cf. Epict. Disc. 3.21.13; a Pythagorean treatise, third/second century BCE, in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 105, §107; Ramsay, Teaching, p. 294; Burkert, Cults, pp. 5, 8; G. E. Mylonas, Eleusis and the Eleusinian Mysteries (Princeton: Princeton University, 1961), pp. 243–85, et passim; Ruck, “Mystery,” pp. 36–37; Koester, Introduction, 1:364; Lohse, Environment, p. 235.

[4]. For texts on women’s participation in these cults and in witchcraft (alongside texts about goddesses), see Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 113–26, 255–58; cf. Pomeroy, Goddesses, pp. 75–78, 205–6, 217–26.

[5]. Juv. Sat. 6.314–41. He mocks women in the Isis cult further in 6.511–29, shifting to attack Jewesses in 6.542–47.

[6]. Ibid., 6.489.

[7]. A Pythagorean treatise, third/second century BCE, in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 104–5, §107.

[8]. Cole, Theoi Megaloi, p. 42; Heyob, Isis, pp. 81–110; Banks, Community, p. 129. They were excluded from Mithraism (Gager, Kingdom, p. 133, who thinks this fact contributed to its ultimate demise!). Plut. R. Q. 3, Mor. 264C, shows that men could enter any shrine of Diana in Rome, except one.

[9]. Eurip. Bacch. passim; Plut. Alex. 2.5; cf. Otto, Dionysus, pp. 142, 171–80. Maenads were not just mythological figures; cf. e.g., the inscriptions in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 113–14, §115; pp. 252–53, §245; also Diod. Sic. 4.3.2–5, below. Kraemer argues that such cults provided outlets for women, who were generally marginalized in ancient society; see “Ecstatics and Ascetics,” pp. 9–123, especially pp. 58–73; idem, “Ecstasy and Possession”; cf. idem, “Euoi Saboi.”

[10]. Kraemer, “Ecstatics and Ascetics,” pp. 48–57, argues that female participation is much more prominent than male at least until the late hellenistic period.

[11]. Diod. Sic. 4.3.2–5, in Kraemer, Maenads, p. 26.

[12]. Plut. R. Q. 112, Mor. 291AB (a spirit of madness in the ivy intoxicates them without wine); Artem. Oneir. 2.37. Symmachus speaks of Dionysus as “exciter of women” in his sacred rites (Plut. T.-T. 4.6.1, Mor. 671C). For the aggressive image of Maenads beating back attackers with their thyrsos wands, see e.g., Plut. T.-T. 1.1.3, Mor. 614A; cf. especially the analysis of paintings in McNally, “Maenad.” For sex role reversal in the cult, see Segal, “Menace”; Henrichs, “Identities,” pp. 138–39, 158. For Jewish hostility toward Maenadism, see Sib. Or. 5.55 (probably late first to early second century CE Egypt) (cf 5.169, 184, 485).

[13]. Like the cult of Demeter and Persephone at Eleusis. Greco-Roman writers in general seem not to have been hostile to this cult; but Philo Special Laws 3.40, associates even this with sexual perversity.

[14]. Apul. Metam. 8.29; cf. P. Foucart, Des Associations Religieuses chez les Grecs (Paris: Klincksieck, 1873), p. 5. For sex symbols in Priapus figures, see Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, pp. 34–36; Plutarch also notes that the phallus was honored in Egyptian festivals, since Osiris’ was eaten by a fish (Isis 18, Mor. 358B). Not all cults were guilty of such charges: the emphasis on sexuality in the propaganda of the Isis cult seems to have been on marital fidelity (Plut. Isis 2, Mor. 351F–352A; T. T. Tinh, “Sarapis and Isis,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, 3:107; Heyob, Isis, pp. 43, 111–27), even though outside writers repeatedly accuse it of immorality (ibid.).

[15]. Philost. V. A. 6, §20; Juv. Sat. 2.3; Philo On Noah’s Work as Planter 148; cf. also Burkert, Religion, p. 109; Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 132, 142. The phallus was part of the traditional procession in the Attic festival of the Dionysia (Plut. Love of Wealth 8, Mor. 527D); cf. Otto, Dionysus, p. 164; Burkert, Cults, pp. 104–5; idem, Religion, p. 166. Diod. Sic. 4.3 distinguishes between the Dionysus of semiannual women’s celebrations and the Dionysus worshiped by noctural drunkenness and sexual indecency (W. L. Willis, Idol Meat in Corinth, SBLDS 68 [Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1985], p. 30). The association between Dionysus and drama could not have diminished suspicions of lewdness, which often characterized public pantomimes (Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 134; cf. Friedländer, Life, 2:90–95; cf. Aristophanes Lysistrata). The orgies of the cult of Dionysus are often mentioned (Otto, Dionysus, p. 177; Guthrie, Orpheus, p. 117).

[16]. Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, pp. 14–15, points out that Livy has embellished the details; but the event itself is not questioned. See Martin, Religions, pp. 96–98; Rawson, “Family,” p. 16. For the Senate’s decree, see the inscription in Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 250–52, §243.

[17]. E.g., Hor. Ode 1.18; Ach. Tat. Clit. 2.3.3 (also connecting wine with Dionysus in this regard, and passion with Eros); Rom. 13:13; Gal. 5:21; 1 Pet. 4:3; Test. Reub. 3:13; Test. Jud. 11:2; 12:3; 13:5–6; 14:1–8; 16:1–4; Num. Rab. 10:10; perhaps Gen. 9:21.

[18]. Cf. e.g., Walter Burkert, “Orphism and Bacchic Mysteries: New Evidence and Old Problems of Interpretation,” in CHSHMC 28 (Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1977), p. 8. Willis, Meat, p. 30, points to the diversity in Dionysiac worship.

[19]. Epict. Disc. 2.20.17 alleges that madness and wine drive the Galli, priests of Cybele. For a Diaspora Jewish perspective on drunkenness and violence at pagan feasts in general, see Philo On the Contemplative Life 40–47, who contrasts this with the Therapeutae. Ruck, “Mystery,” pp 47–48; R. G. Wasson, Albert Hofmann, and C. A. P. Ruck, The Road to Eleusis (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), p. 80, seek to identify the hallucinogen used in the Eleusinian Mysteries; but, while intoxication was employed at Eleusis (Mylonas, Eleusis, p. 259), there are weaknesses in Wasson’s “LSD” hypothesis (Burkert, Cults, pp. 108–9).

[20]. Cf. Athen. Deipn. 4.148bc (including Bacchic revels, music, and drinking). Plato is reported to have said that drinking in excess was becoming only at the feasts of Dionysus (Diog. Laert. Lives 3.39). Dionysus was the intoxicator (Plut. T.-T. 3.2.1, Mor. 648E). Cf. perhaps Massa, Pompeii, p. 108, on Dionysus and wine at Pompeii (the usefulness of this purported connection may depend on the outcome of current analyses of Pompeii’s viticulture).

[21]. Bacchic drunkenness is noted in Greek Anth. 4.3.132–33 (cf. 6.257); Orphic Hymn 50.8 speaks of Bacchic ecstasy, and 52.7–8 of omophagy, revel, and dance at triennial feasts; cf. the frenzy offered to Bacchus in Tert. Apol. 6.10. Cf. Otto, Dionysus, pp. 49–51, 54, 65, 101, 105–6, 127; Guthrie, Orpheus, pp. 159–60; Burkert, Religion, p. 110.

[22]. This is true even though devotees of Isis, proclaiming her universalism, identified her with the Phrygian mother of gods (Apul. Metam. 11.4–5); although mother-goddesses need not be linked with Cybele—cf. the Germanic tribes in Tac. Germ. 40, 45—Cybele was widely recognized as Phrygian, Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1.1.

[23]. Burkert, Cults, p. 112–13; cf. Grant, Religions, p. xxxvii.

[24]. Plut. Par. Stories 19, Mor. 310C; cf. Otto, Dionysus, p. 50. The classic example, of course, is the destruction of King Pentheus in Euripides’ Bacchants.

[25]. Plut. fr. 54, below. Dionysus was commonly hailed as the source of wine, e.g., Orphic Hymn 47.1; 50.1; Ach. Tat. Clit. 4.18.5; and it always connoted his presence, according to Martin, Religions, p. 94.

[26]. Plut. fr. 54, from Scholia on Hesiod Works and Days 368–69, in Plutarch’s Moralia (LCL).

[27]. Cf. e.g., the inscription from third century BCE Egypt in Grant, 26. Religions, p. 14. This is widely observed, e.g., Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, p. 147; Dieter Georgi, “Socioeconomic Reasons for the ‘Divine Man’ as a Propagandistic Pattern,” in Aspects of Religious Propaganda in Judaism and Early Christianity, ed. E. Schüssler Fiorenza, UNDCSJCA 2 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1976), p. 30; Koester, Introduction, 1:181–83 (rightly distinguishing between temples to Dionysus and his mysteries); I. M. Linforth, The Arts of Orpheus (Berkeley: University of California, 1941), p. 264; Michael Avi-Yonah, Hellenism and the East (Jerusalem: Hebrew University, 1978), p. 36; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 133.

[28]. Probably more than in Italy, where the Bacchic mysteries are known mainly from art, except for inscriptions set up by people from the Greek east (Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, p. 66). On my reading, the evidence for the Bacchic mysteries in Italy (ibid., pp. 66–98) points less explicitly to the sort of religious activity encountered in the mystery cult proper (initiation, etc.) than does that in the Greek east; but this is not entirely relevant to our discussion, since we are here concerned with the region around Ephesus, and so only with the Greek east.

[29]. Athen. Deipn. 11.479c; Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, pp. 45–66; cf. Ach. Tat. Clit. 2.2 (festival of Dionysus in Phoenicia, which need not be a mystery). For a text from the second century CE east, see Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, pp. 252–53, §243.

[30]. Eurip. Bacch. 64, 462–64, 482–83, 604; cf. the connection with Cybele in 78–79. This alleged connection need not be true (cf. Otto, Dionysus, pp. 60, 64), but the cult certainly had gained a stronghold in the east; in the mid-first century, the emperor Claudius wrote followers of Dionysus in Miletus in Asia Minor (Edwin Yamauchi, The Archaeology of New Testament Cities in Western Asia Minor [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980], p. 119); cf. Plut. Antony 24.3, cited in Rogers, “Ephesians 5:18,” p. 251, on the popularity of Dionysus in Ephesus in the first century BCE.

[31]. Cf. Grant, Gods, p. 39.

[32]. Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 134, citing the second century CE inscription from a suburb of Rome, which includes the wife of a consul and some of her aristocratic relatives; a complaint of Seneca about highborns in Dionysiac shows; and second/third-century sarcophagi of the wealthy decorated with Dionysiac symbolism. Only the first reference necessitates mystery initiation, but it is quite clear. Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, p. 147, gives the fullest display of evidence for this.

[33]. Cf. the reference to Seneca in first-century Rome in note 32 above.

[34]. Plut. T.-T. 4.6.1–2, Mor. 671C–672C, cited above. Jewish writers more than repudiated the association, reminding readers that they had resisted the imposition of this hellenistic cult in an earlier period (2 Macc. 6:7; cf. 3 Macc. 2:28–30). Dionysiac symbolism seems to have been transferred to Jewish art (perhaps including the ivy cluster in Ep. Arist. 70), but this need not mean that the original Dionysiac meaning was preserved; a Jew could adopt the name Dionysus as he could adopt any other Greek name (CIJ 2:445, §1538, from Egypt), and artistic representations in the Diaspora may have been no different (cf. Leon, Jews of Rome, pp. 213–15, who suggests that the sarcophagus may have been bought ready-made). For knowledge of Dionysus in Palestine, see D. Flusser, “Paganism in Palestine,” in JPFC, pp. 1067–69, 1084–85.

[35]. Plut. Educ. 17, Mor. 13A; Poetry 11, Mor. 31C. Epictetus advises that one first learn abstinence, then test oneself with a little drink to see if one had yet gained self-control (Disc. 3.12.11).

[36]. Sir. 34:25–31; Syr. Men. Sent. 52–58; Ab. R. Nathan 37 A; Philo On Flight and Finding 32.

[37]. Mart. Epig. 1.56; Diog. Laert. Lives 7.7.184, 10.1.15; Apul. Metam. 7.12; Plut. Poetry 1, Mor. 15E; Bride 20, Mor. 140F; T.-T. 1.4.3, Mor. 621CD; Sifra Sh. par. 1.100.1.3; b. ’A. Z. 30a; Num. Rab. 10:8; Casson, Travel, p. 213; Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 95; Ruck, “Mystery,” p. 41; Safrai, “Home and Family,” p. 748. The level of dilution and kind of wine varied greatly; cf. e.g., b. ’A. Z. 30a; Num. Rab. 10:8; S. M. Paul, “Classifications of Wine in Mesopotamian and Rabbinic Sources,” IEJ 25 (1, 1975): 42–45.

[38]. Ruck, “Mystery,” p. 42; Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck, Eleusis, pp. 89–90.

[39]. E.g., Sen. Ep. Lucil. 58.33; Avi-Yonah, Hellenism, p. 137, notes that the Greeks thought barbarians “drank unmixed wine to excess”; cf. Cary and Haarhoff, Life, pp. 148–49. The criticism was especially raised in Judaism: Tob. 4:15; Sir. 34:25–31; Syr. Men. Sent. 52–58; 1QpHab 11:13–14; 4QpNah 4:4–5 (interpreting Nah. 3:11a metaphorically); Sifra Sh. par. 1.100.1.2–3; Ab. R. Nathan 37 A; b. Ker. 13b; p. Ter. 1:6; Gen. Rab. 43:6; Lev. Rab. 12:1–5; Pes. Rab Kah. 4:4; Philo Flaccus 4 (in a religious context). For the idea that alcoholism as a disease concept existed in late antiquity, see Mark Keller, “The Disease Concept of Alcoholism Revisited,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol 37 (11, Nov. 1976): 1694–1717.

[40]. Cf. Hor. Sat. 1.3.90–91; Test. Iss. 7:3. One of the three wise men in 1 Esd. 3 says that wine is stronger than anything else (1 Esd. 3:17–24), though the wisest of the three says women and especially truth are stronger. Pittacus’ law in Diog. Laert. Lives 1.76 probably suggests the recognition that certain offenses were more naturally committed under the influence of intoxication; cf. Sen. Dial. 4.20.2; 5.37.1.

[41]. Crates 10, to Lysis (CynEp, pp. 60–61), and Athen., Deipn. 1.10e, show that this tradition from Homer’s Odyssey could be applied in later writers’ day to those who drank immoderately. For wine’s inducing sleep, see e.g., Hor. Sat. 2.1.9; for subduing people, Herod. Hist. 1, §§211–12.

[42]. Jdt. 13, especially v. 5.

[43]. Ps-Philo 43:6.

[44]. Chariton Chaer. 4.3.8; Jos. Life 225, §44. In Hor. Ep. 1.5.16–2 0 this occurs in a list of at least partly positive effects of drinking.

[45]. Cleobulus (c. 600 BCE) is said to have warned that one’s words are taken less seriously when one has been drinking (Diog. Laert. Lives 1.92). Mart. Epig. 12.12 teases that Pollio makes drunken promises that he will not keep once sober.

[46]. Plut. T.-T. 3.intr., Mor. 645A. He argues that wine gets people to talk more, open up more, and thus get to know one another better (3.intr., Mor. 645AC). Wine changes one’s character as it gradually warms the whole body (Plut. Statecraft 3, Mor. 799B) (the language of wine’s “heating” was typical, e.g., Cic. Tusc. Disp. 5.41.118; Sen. Dial. 4.20.2, following Plato).

[47]. Anacharsis to Hipparchus 3.1–3 (CynEp, p. 41); Philost. V. A. 2, §36; Lucr. Nat. 3.476–83; Philo On Noah’s Work as Planter 148. Plut. Isis 6, Mor. 353C, charges that drunkenness crazes men, driving them “out of their senses” (LCL). P. Ter. 1:6 links a drunken man’s loss of sensibility to the inability of a blind person to distinguish kinds of produce.

[48]. Isoc. Demon. 32 (LCL), further complaining that the soul stumbles because the mind is impaired. Cf. Herod. Hist. 4, §84: the Spartans charge that Cleomenes became insane because “by consorting with the Scythians he became a drinker of strong wine” (LCL).

[49]. Jos. Ant. 1.6.3, §141; Jub. 7:7; and Gen. Rab. 36:4 (on Noah, with Gen. 9:21); Mart. Epig. 3.16.3; 68.5–10; cf. 82; Philo Moses 2.162; Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 1.109. In b. Pes. 110b a man who drank too much lost track of his drinks and took an even number of cups; this, according to the superstition, delivered him into the power of the demons his ex-wife was trying to unleash on him.

[50]. Diog. Laert. Lives 7.1.26, citing Zeno according to Hecato. Cf. Philo On Flight and Finding 32, who also argues that the wise man, if compelled to become drunk, will maintain sobriety in his inebriation.

[51]. Diog. Laert. Lives 10.119 (LCL), citing Epicurus’ Symposium.

[52]. Sifre Deut. 43.8.1 (a parable about a king’s son). In Plato Symp. 176D, the physician Eryximachus declares that drunkenness is harmful to the body; Jos. 52. Ant. 13.15.5, §398, charges that Alexander Jannaeus “fell ill from heavy drinking, and for three years he was afflicted with a quartan fever” (LCL).

[53]. Sen. Dial. 1.3.2 (LCL); this naturally makes sense as a good Stoic thing to have said. On drunkenness as part of the pleasurable life of a foolish, nonvirtuous man, see Sen. Dial. 7.12.3.

[54]. Ahikar 2.9–10 (Syr. A; Arabic 2:12–13).

[55]. Test. Jud. 14:1–4; cf. Sir. 19:2; see the note above on wine and sexual immorality.

[56]. P. W. van der Horst, “Hellenistic Parallels to the Acts of the Apostles,” JSNT 25 (Oct. 1985): 55, cites Plut. R. Q. 112, Mor. 291B; Def. Orac. 40, Mor. 432E; Sep. Con. 4, Mor. 150C; Lucian Nigrinus 5; Iamblichus De mysteriis 3.25; Philo On Drunkenness 146; wine could induce ecstasy in Eurip. fr. 265; Macrob. Satur. 1.18.1. That alcohol was used to induce the possession trance of some ancient Near Eastern ecstatics may even be suggested in Isa. 28:7 (cf. 29:9?); Mic. 2:11; cf. Amos 6:6 (for luxurious party habits of the wealthy priesthood in the north).

[57]. Plut. Dial, on Love 16, Mor. 758EF (expounding Plato); Burkert, Religion, p. 111. Despite this distinction, Aune, Prophecy, p. 21, observes, “the two were frequently confused in antiquity.” Since Livy elsewhere reads prophecy into ecstatic speech, his account of prophetic activity in the Bacchic excess in second century BCE Italy may also reflect confusion of categories (ibid., p. 42). The fact that “confusion” could arise, however, means that not all people distinguished the two.

[58]. Burkert, Religion, pp. 109–10; cf. ibid., p. 292; Martin, Religions, pp. 93–94. In (Ps)Plut. Par. Stories 19, Mor. 310B, the offended Dionysus casts a man into a state of drunken rage that leads the man into an impious act that costs him his life. H. W. Parke, A History of the Delphic Oracle (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1939), pp. 335–46, points to the strong links between Dionysus and the Delphic oracle (cf. e.g., Plut. E at Delphi 9, Mor. 388E). Cf. Kroeger, “Cults,” p. 34 (although I doubt that 1 Cor. 11:21 refers to ritual drunkenness; it is probably more related to the general custom of some people drinking too much at parties!).

[59]. Eurip. Bacch. 298 (mantis). Frenzy appears in the Orphic Hymns with other deities as well, such as Pan (11.21), Pluto (18.17), and the mother of the gods (27.13).

[60]. Eurip. Bacch. 299 (mantikēn). This particular language is used in earliest Christian tradition only of pagan inspiration (Acts 16:16).

[61]. E.g., Philo On the Creation 71; Allegorical Interpretation 3.82. See M. E. Isaacs, The Concept of Spirit: A Study of Pneuma in Hellenistic Judaism and its Bearing on the New Testament, HeyM 1 (London: Heythrop College, 1976), p. 50.

[62]. Philo On the Contemplative Life 84: the choirs of the Therapeutae sing antiphonally, and when they have finished their separate parts in this feast, having drunk “as in the Bacchic rites” of the strong wine of God’s love, they join together as a single choir.

[63]. The point is especially stressed by Rogers, “Eph. 5:18,” passim. A. D. Nock, “The Vocabulary of the New Testament,” JBL 52 (1933): 134, is, of course, correct to note that the standard language for divine possession in Greek paganism is never used in the NT; any comparison would be by way of contrast.

[64]. Barth, Ephesians, 2:580.

[65]. The language of this prohibition may derive from LXX Prov. 23:31 (the MT is quite different); see J. A. Robinson, St Paul’s Epistle to the Ephesians, 2d ed. (London: James Clarke, 1904), p. 121.

[66]. The language of one being “filled with” a spirit, particularly the divine Spirit, appears elsewhere in early Jewish literature, e.g., Sir. 39:6; 48:12; cf. Sir. 35:15 (the Law); Test. Asher 1:9 (an evil spirit’s venom).

[67]. Cary and Haarhoff, Life, p. 155; cf. Arist. Pol. 8.5.9–10, 1340b. It was less significant to the Romans, for whom it was primarily entertainment. For a survey of data on Greco-Roman music, see Friedländer, Life, 2:337–65.

[68]. Sir. 35:3, 5–6; cf. 40:20; Plut. Bride 38, Mor. 143D. Dio Chrys. 32d Disc. §55, even suggests that being “intoxicated by song” is more dangerous than being “crazed by wine” (LCL). This could suggest that Eph. 5:18–19 is antibanquet rather than anticultic; banquets were often held at night, and could involve sexual excesses. It is mainly the contrast between drunkenness and being filled with the Spirit that leads us to see a religious context here, but the matter is admittedly open to question.

[69]. Quint. 1.10.16.

[70]. Plut. On Music 44, Mor. 1147A. Philo On Creation 126, compares the seven-stringed lyre to the choir of seven planets (of course, both he and Josephus relate the zodiac to the temple, etc.; astrological numerology was part of his scheme).

[71]. E.g., to Aphrodite and Dionysus; cf. Athen. Deipn. 14.631d. Ecstatic dance is associated with the Eleusinian Demeter (Orphic Hymn 40.15) and of Dionysian revelry (Orphic Hymn 52.7; cf. Burkert, Religion, p. 166, on vase paintings) and virtually all public celebrations of the mysteries (Martin, Religions, p. 61). The practice is far more ancient than our period; cf. “The Instruction of Ani,” trans. John Wilson, ANET, p. 420.

[72]. Quint. 1.11.18–19. For a discussion of dancing forms, see Plut. T.-T. 9.15, Mor. 747A–748D.

[73]. See Cary and Haarhoff, Life, pp. 155, 177. J. T. Townsend, “Ancient Education in the Time of the Early Roman Empire,” in Catacombs and Colosseum, p. 142, says that Romans distrusted too much musical education (Sallust 25.2, 5), but some training continued so school children could “supply choral singing in the various religious festivals.” Rogers, “Eph. 5:18,” p. 257, contrasts Eph. 5:19 with “the raving of drunken worshipers singing the praises of Dionysus.” In a far earlier period, cf. A. F. Rainey, “The Kingdom of Ugarit,” BA 28 (Dec. 1965): 124; O. R. Gurney, The Hittites (Baltimore: Penguin, 1972), pp. 153–55, 202.

[74]. Plut. T.-T. 1.5.2, Mor. 623B; cf. Isis 69, Mor. 378F (bancheuontes). For music in processions of Isis, e.g., Apul. Metam. 11.9; for Eleusis, cf. Mylonas, Eleusis, pp. 241, 261; for Cybele’s drums, e.g., Lucr. Nat. 2.618–20; Orphic Hymn 27.11; Burkert, Religion, p. 178.

[75]. Lefkowitz and Fant, Women’s Life, p. 30, record an inscription, 86 BCE, in which a female harpist is honored for her services to Delphi.

[76]. Friedländer, Life, 1:231.

[77]. E.g., 1 Esd. 5:59–60; 2 Macc. 10:38; Sir. 47:8; Jos. Ant. 11.3.8, §62; 20.9.6, §§216–18; Test. Job 43; m. R. H. 4:4; cf. 1QS 10 (10.10 associates it with entering the covenant and speaking God’s decrees or precepts); 1QH passim. It is standard in pictures of angelic activity in heaven (e.g., Test. Abr. 20 A), and characterizes also the world to come (Sib. Or. 3:715, 726 [probably second century BCE]; t. Pisha 8:22; b. Taan. 31a; Sanh. 91b; Pes. Rab Kah. 27:5; Pes. Rab. 21:1; Num. Rab. 15:11; Koh. Rab. 1:11, §1). It is generally thought that some Christian hymns appear in the NT, though the extent and redaction of these are disputed (e.g., the Lukan infancy hymns in Hans Conzelmann, History of Primitive Christianity, p. 74; christological hymns in J. T. Sanders, The New Testament Christological Hymns [Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1971]); Barth, Ephesians, 2:582, sees hymns in Ephesians as modeling Paul’s exhortation to the readers here. But the clearest examples, in my opinion, are in Revelation. Postbiblical psalms (such as Pss. 151–55 in OTP 2:609–24) bear many resemblances to the earlier biblical ones. Hymns were, of course, used in much Greek religion; e.g., the view attributed to Pythagoras in Diog. Laert. Lives 3.1.24; Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus (Stobaeus Eclogae 1.1.12, in Grant, Religions, p. 154).

[78]. Jewish music seems to have often been joyful, inappropriate to a time of sorrow (Sir. 22:6).

[79]. Also Jos. Ant. 6.8.2, §§166–69; cf. Test. Job 14. In Ps-Philo 60.2–3, David’s song directly addresses the demon, suggesting that this writer took the singing as prophetic. On the link between music and inspiration, which could carry over into prophetic inspiration, see below.

[80]. Diogenes the Cynic criticizes a musician for tuning an instrument while failing to provide harmony in his soul (Diog. Laert. Lives 6.2.65).

[81]. Ep. Arist. 286 (see the comments of Hadas, Aristeas, pp. 212–13); cf. Sir. 40:21; Epict. Disc. 1.16.15.

[82]. Sib. Or. 3.246, probably second century BCE. A much later rabbi in Pes. Rab Kah. 7:4 suggests that David’s midnight harp playing (based on Ps. 119:62) was to stir everyone’s hearts for Torah.

[83]. These were standard in the cult of Cybele (Lucr. Nat. 2.618–20; Mart. Epig. 14.204; cf. Eurip. Bacch. 59; Hor. Ode 1.18.14; Lucian SyrG 50; Greek Anth. 6.219–20; the “Syrian goddess” in Apul. Metam. 8.24, 30; probably the Egyptian letter, 245 BCE, in Deissmann, Light, p. 164, unless Isis is in view; perhaps Juv. Sat. 3.63) and perhaps Dionysus in contrast with calmer cults (Guthrie, Orpheus, p. 40; Priapus in Petr. Sat. 22–23), but were used in Jewish worship as well (e.g., 1 Esd. 5:59–60; 1 Macc. 4:54; Jos. Ant. 7.12.3, §305–6; cf. 1 Macc. 13:51).

[84]. Jdt. 16:2; 1 Esd. 5:59–60; 1 Macc. 13:51 (including hymns and songs); Jos. War 2.15.4, §321; m. Kel. 15:6; b. Suk. 50b, 51a; cf. 1QS 10.9. In heavenly worship, cf. 2 En. 17:1 A and J. Instruments were used in ancient Near Eastern music before the middle of the third millennium BCE (Albright, Yahweh, p. 2). David played (psallein) on his harp in Jos. Ant. 6.8.2, §§166–69. Paul refers to musical instruments. 1 Cor. 13:1 could suggest the use of cymbals in Christian worship, but the allusion would also have made sense to the Corinthians without it (especially given Vitruvius’ report on Corinthian bronze, On Arch. 5.5.1, 7–8 in Murphy-O’Connor, Corinth, pp. 75–76; but cf. William Harris, “ ‘Sounding Brass’ and Hellenistic Technology,” BAR 8 [1, 1982]: 38–41; W. W. Klein, “Noisy Gong or Acoustic Vase? A Note on 1 Corinthians 13.1,” NTS 32 [2, April 1986]: 286–89).

[85]. We cannot be certain what instruments might have been in use in the average synagogue congregation, or whether corporate singing was ever practiced; our ancient reports of synagogues suggest that they were houses of study and lectures, personal prayer, and in some cases community centers, but corporate singing is not attested. E. P. Sanders even questions whether corporate prayers were recited in synagogues in this period (Jesus to Mishnah, pp. 72–76).

[86]. Philo On the Contemplative Life 84. Of course, Philo’s depiction is no doubt colored by his thoroughgoing hellenistic cast; his representations of the Essenes, like Josephus’ representations of Jewish sects, are filtered through a thoroughly hellenistic grid. Russell Spittler, in OTP 1:833, follows M. Philonenko in suggesting that the Testament of Job originated among the Therapeutae, though B. Schaller has criticized this position (see J. J. Collins, “The Testamentary Literature in Recent Scholarship,” in Early Judaism and Its Modern Interpreters, SBLBMI 2 [Atlanta: Scholars, 1986], p. 276, siding with Schaller).

[87]. Epiphanius, following Eusebius (Eccl Hist 2.17), actually thought Philo was writing about Christians at this point (R. A. Pritz, Nazarene Jewish Christianity, SPB [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988], p. 39).

[88]. Cf. Plato’s “oracle-singers” (Aune, Prophecy, p. 38); cf. also the link between music and prophecy claimed for Dionysiac frenzies by Otto, Dionysus, pp. 143–45. Poetry is associated with inspiration (with the analogy of wine’s frenzy) in Plut. Poetry 1, Mor. 15E; but oracles at Delphi were no longer given in verse (Plut. Or. at Delphi, Mor. 394D–409D). For a modern example concerning medium possession from the Shona people in what is now Zimbabwe, see Michael Gelfand, “Psychiatric Disorders as Recognized by the Shona,” in Magic, Faith, and Healing, pp. 156, 162.

[89]. J. Lindblom, Prophecy in Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1962), p. 99; H. B. Huffmon, “Prophecy in the Mari Letters,” BA 31 (Dec. 1968): 112; cf. Albright, Yahweh, p. 252.

[90]. E.g., Kitchen, Bible in Its World, p. 119; S. M. Paul, “Prophets and Prophecy,” EncJud 13:1156.

[91]. Ps-Philo 32:14; Mek. 14:31; 15:1 (as cited in Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels [Philadelphia: SBL, 1951], p. 64); p. Sot. 5:4, §1 (“the Holy Spirit” was a common rabbinic designation for the Spirit of prophecy). Pes. Rab. 9:2 asserts that God puts the praise in the mouths of his people. Music can be associated with joy (Sir. 22:6).

[92]. Linforth, Orpheus, pp. 165–66, 269–70; cf. Guthrie, Orpheus, p. 21; for his head making music posthumously, cf. e.g., Lucian IgnBC 11–12; Dance 51. On Orphism, see especially the hellenistic-Roman texts (mainly very late) in Grant, Religions, pp. 105–11; cf. reports on earlier figures in Leotychidas 3 in Plut. SSpart., Mor. 224E, Notes on Empedocles, fr. 24 (from Hippol. Ref. 5.20.5 [LCL]); Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1–4. Current scholarship speaks much more cautiously about Orphic mysteries, though it is clear that Orphic ideas spread in the hellenistic age (see Martin, Religions, p. 102; L. J. Alderink, Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism, APAACS 8 [Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1981], p. 19; Linforth, Orpheus, pp. 172–73, 262–63, 266, 291–93; cf. the data in Guthrie, Orpheus, pp. 9–16; contrast Ugo Bianchi, “L’Orphisme a Existé,” in Selected Essays on Gnosticism, Dualism and Mysteriography, SHRSN 38 [Leiden: Brill, 1978], pp. 187–95; cf. H. C. Sheldon, The Mystery Religions and the New Testament [New York: Abingdon, 1918], p. 18; E. R. Goodenough, The Church in the Roman Empire [New York: Cooper Square, 1970], p. 8). Orphic poetry may have been used in the Eleusinian mysteries (Orphic Hymn 18.19 [maybe used to summon Plouton back to Eleusis]; Victor Magnien, Les Mystères d’Eleusis, 3d ed. [Paris: Payot, 1950], p. 52; cf. the place of Persephone in the rites of Orpheus, in Linforth, Orpheus, p. 171) (though our present Orphic Hymns may date to the late third century CE; see A. N. Athanassakis in The Orphic Hymns, SBLTT 12, SBLGRRS 4 [Missoula, Mont.: Scholars, 1977], pp. vii–viii, xi).

[93]. Artem. Oneir. 2.35. For Apollo as god of music, cf. Lucian Swans; Dio Chrys. 32d Disc. §§56–57; Greek Anth. §2, lines 266–70 (sixth century CE); associated with prophecy, Orphic Hymn 34.4 (cf. Hermes, 28.4). He is often linked with the Muses (e.g., Dio Chrys. 32d Disc. §56; Marc. Aur. Med. 11.11).

[94]. E.g., Hor. Ode 1.26; cf. 2.12.13; 3.1.3–4 (cf. 3.3.69–72), 3.14.13–15; 4.8.29, 4.9.21. Though perhaps less prominent than in earlier texts, the Muses are still frequently praised in the imperial period; e.g., Juv. Sat. 7.1–10, 36–39; they also appear in literary allusions in some Jewish texts: Philo On Noah’s Work as Planter 129; cf. CIJ 1:cxxiii (decorations on a pagan sarcophagus reused by Jews in Rome).

[95]. Guthrie, Orpheus, p. 113. For Orphic influence on the Dionysian cult (though not all the evidence is early or unambiguous), see Nilsson, Dionysiac Mysteries, pp. 133–43; cf. Burkert, “Orphism,” p. 8; Guthrie, Orpheus, pp. 48, 258; for an older view, see Thomas Taylor, The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries: A Dissertation, 4th ed. [New York: J. W. Bouton, 1891], p. 187; see the qualifications in Linforth, Orpheus, pp. 171 (not before 300 BCE), 264 (diversity of relationship). The issue of Dionysiac influences in the Eleusianian mysteries is still open to question (against: see Mylonas, Eleusis, pp. 241, 278; for: Wasson, Hofmann, and Ruck, Eleusis, pp. 123–26); probably they existed but were minimal (cf. Orphic Hymn 42.5–10) Cf. perhaps also Orphic Hymn 30.6–7, where Persephone is Dionysus’ mother, but this may be due to the conflation of geographical variants of myths (Günther Zuntz, Persephone: Three Essays on Religion and Thought in Magna Graecia [Oxford: Clarendon, 1971], p. 80); in 29.6–7, she is mother of the Furies by Zeus. In Athen. Deipn. 1.30ab, Dionysus is said to be Priapus, whereas in 5.201d, Priapus stands at his side; linkage may have been more important than differentiation. So fluid was Orphic imagery that the Orpheus figure appears as a possibly soteriological symbol in third-century Jewish and Christian art, linked in the former with David and the latter with Christ (Bezalel Narkiss, “Pagan, Christian, and Jewish Elements in the Art of Ancient Synagogues,” in The Synagogue in Late Antiquity, ed. Lee I. Levine [Philadelphia: American Schools of Oriental Research, 1986], pp. 184–85).

[96]. Between Apollo and Orpheus; see Guthrie, Orpheus, pp. 42–48; Otto, Dionysus, pp. 202–8; Marcel Detienne, “Un Polytheisme récrit. Entre Dionysos et Apollon: mort et vie d’Orphée,” ASSR 30 (59–1, Jan. 1985): 65–75. Apollo is also called Dionysus, according to Plut. E at Delphi 9, Mor. 389A.

[97]. Plut. G. Q. 56, Mor. 303, has them sail from the land of the Ephesians; Isoc. Panath. 193, Or. 12, associates them with the Scythians, which is their usual approximate geographical setting (cf. Herod. Hist. 4, §§111–17). Strabo Geog. 11.5.1 gives different opinions on where they are said to live, and admits (11.5.4) that few reputable historians still knew where they were; but notes that Ephesus’ founding was ascribed to them (ibid.).

[98]. Lefkowitz, Women in Myth, pp. 22–23; in Greek historians, see D. J. Sobol, The Amazons of Greek Mythology (South Brunswick: A. S. Barnes, 1972), pp. 81–90; for the question of their actual existence, see ibid., pp. 113–47 (with Tatian 32, I am skeptical that they existed). Isoc. Panath. 193, Or. 12, reports Athens’ war with the Amazons as if it had happened. Plut. Pericles 31.4 claims that Pheidias portrayed Pericles fighting an Amazon; perhaps this is intended to parallel Pericles with Theseus in Athens (cf. Plut. Thes. 26–28). Cf. Pes. Rab Kah. 9:1, a late tradition that reports a place inhabited entirely by women (perhaps in Africa; not Lesbos), which dissuaded Alexander from waging war on them.

[99]. Sobol, Amazons, pp. 110–11; cf. Pomeroy, Goddesses, p. 5. For stories of women’s bravery, including defending a city, see Plut. Bravery of Women, Mor. 242E–263C; for comments on a mythical woman warrior of the east (Assyria), see Juv. Sat. 2.108; for evidence of some women gladiators in Rome, see Empire, ed. Sherk, p. 226, §172E.

[100]. Sext. Emp. Out. Pyrr. 3.217.

[101]. Crates 28, to Hipparchia (CynEp, pp. 78–79).

[102]. E.g., Greek Anth. 6.220; as mother of Zeus (Jove), she was assimilated to Rhea (Eurip. Bacch. 59; Greek Anth. 6. 219–20; Mart. Epig 9.39) of Greek myth.

[103]. Greek Anth. 6.220; Lucian SyrG 51; Lucr. Nat. 2.614–15; Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.49.62; Epict. Disc. 2.20.17, 19; Juv. Sat. 2.110–16; for further references, see above, ch. 2, on 1 Cor. 14:34–35.

[104]. E.g., Diog. Laert. Lives 6.1.1; Lucr. Nat. 2.611, 618–20. F. C. Grant, Roman Hellenism and the New Testament (New York: Scribner’s, 1962), p. 40, says that the mysteries built around her were hellenistic, but that in Anatolia her cult relapsed into wild barbarism in the hellenistic age.

[105]. W. M. Ramsay, Pauline and Other Studies in Early Church History (New York: A. C. Armstrong, 1906), pp. 125–60; cf. G. B. Caird, A Commentary on the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, HNTC (New York: Harper & Row, 1966), p. 29.

[106]. Ach. Tat. Clit. 6.21.2. She may have had mysteries as well as the regular public worship; see Arnold, Ephesians, p. 26. For the images of Artemis and similar craftsmanship signifying her importance in Ephesus (Acts 19:24), see Jack Finegan, Light from the Ancient Past (Princeton: Princeton University, 1946), p. 267; Yamauchi, Cities, p. 88; Lake and Cadbury, Commentary, p. 245; and the appropriate material in R. Fleischer, Artemis von Ephesos und verwandte Kultstatuen aus Anatolien und Syrien, EPROER 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1973); for the economic ramifications of this cult and their relation to Acts 19, see e.g., R. Oster, “The Ephesian Artemis as an opponent of Early Christianity,” J AC 19 (1976): 24–44; R. N. Longenecker, The Ministry and Message of Paul (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1971), p. 70; Reicke, Era, pp. 230–31; Lake and Cadbury, Commentary, p. 247; and the discussion of guild associations in this context in Judge, Social Pattern, p. 40; MacMullen, Relations, pp. 74–76. Those with vested economic interests were naturally the opponents in Acts 19, as in Pliny Ep. 10.96, or the Meccan opposition to Mohammed (Alfred Guillaume, Islam [New York: Penguin, 1956], p. 31). Barth, Ephesians, suggests that the Ephesian Artemis necessitated that the husband-wife section be as long as it is, but this is ultimately hard to say.

[107]. Cf. the inscription discussed in F. Sokolowski, “A New Testimony on the Cult of Artemis of Ephesus,” HTR 58 (4, Oct. 1965): 427–31.

[108]. L. R. Taylor, “Artemis of Ephesus,” in Beginnings, p. 251; Bruce, Acts, p. 399, n. 59 (following K. Wernicke).

[109]. See Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 150; Grant, Gods, p. 28. Among the places is Corinth (Paus. Desc. Greece 2.2.6, in Murphy-O’Connor, Corinth, p. 23).

[110]. This temple was quite famous: Jos. Ant. 15.4.1, §89; Sib. Or. 5.293–94, 296–97 (probably late first to early second century CE); Strabo Geog. 14.1.20–22; cf. Herod. Hist. 1, §26, for the dedication of the whole city to Artemis.

[111]. Grant, Gods, p. 28; Yamauchi, Cities, p. 87; cf. pp. 103–4.

[112]. A variety of explanations for the bulbous appendages on her torso have been proposed (see Arnold, Ephesians, p. 25; Stambaugh and Balch, Environment, p. 150; Grant, Gods, p. 28; Yamauchi, Cities, p. 106), from breasts (Macrobius on Isis) to male genitals (though without the limb itself) to eggs to fruits, but all these explanations basically represent fertility; others have proposed an astrological significance, which seems less likely from their form, though it would fit her role as a cosmic savior deity. She could nevertheless remain associated with virginity (Ach. Tat. Clit. 6.21.2; a Greek perspective?); but that virgins could be associated with fertility has been shown in other cultures as well; cf. Eric Wolf, “The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol,” JAF 71 (1958): 34–39 (in Reader in Religion, p. 114).

[113]. E.g., E. D. Reeder, “The Mother of the Gods and a Hellenistic Bronze Matrix,” AJA 91 (3, 1987): 423–40; cf. F. V. Filson, “Ephesus and the New Testament,” BA 8 (3, Sept. 1945): 75; Taylor, “Artemis,” p. 253; Murray, Stages, p. 80; Tarn, Civilisation, p. 140. In contrast to Ramsay’s view, some maintain that Artemis and Cybele were distinct (Yamauchi, Cities, pp. 68–69), but the great assimilation of deities that occurred in this era warns us not to press the distinction too strongly. She may also have become associated in this period with Agrippina; cf. L. J. Kreitzer, “A Numismatic Clue to Acts 19.23–41. The Ephesian Cistophori of Claudius and Agrippina,” JSNT 30 (1987): 59–70.

[114]. Gardner, Women, pp. 67–68.

[115]. R. A. Kearsley, “Asiarchs, Archiereis, and the Archiereiai of Asia,” GRBS 27 (2, Summer 1986): 183–92.

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