The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts

Ronald Charles

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429537042
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

The Silencing of Slaves in Early Jewish and Christian Texts analyzes a large corpus of early Christian texts and Pseudepigraphic materials to understand how the authors of these texts used, abused and silenced enslaved characters to articulate their own social, political, and theological visions.

The focus is on excavating the texts "from below" or "against the grain" in order to notice the slaves, and in so doing, to problematize and (re)imagine the narratives. Noticing the slaves as literary iterations means paying attention to broader theological, ideological, and rhetorical aims of the texts within which enslaved bodies are constructed. The analysis demonstrates that by silencing slaves and using a rhetoric of violence, the authors of these texts contributed to the construction of myths in which slaves functioned as a useful trope to support the combined power of religion and empire. Thus was created not only the perfect template for the rise and development of a Christian discourse of slavery, but also a rationale for subsequent violence exercised against slave bodies within the Christian Empire.

The study demonstrates the value of using the tools and applying the insights of subaltern studies to the study of the Pseudepigrapha and in early Christian texts. This volume will be of interest not only to scholars of early Christianity, but also to those working on the history of slavery and subaltern studies in antiquity.

1

INTRODUCTION

Although slaves constituted an important social group in the composition of earliest Christ-groups, their bodies have been taken for granted in the myth-making/social construction process of early Christian discourse. In this book, I analyze a large corpus of early Christian texts, alongside the pseudepigraphic materials, in order to understand how their authors—who had no intrinsic interest in slaves—used, abused, and silenced enslaved characters to articulate their own social, political, and theological visions. My aim is to explore the discursive use of slaves in these texts in order to consider an alternative historiography of earliest Christ-groups. The first task, then, is to examine “how slaves are good to think with.”

Thinking with slaves means probing their silences, their lived conditions as property (or “chattels”), their perspectives, and the precarious circumstances of their lives. This task is obviously extremely difficult and humbling since the ancient slaves left no texts or testimonies from which one could recover their perspectives and experiences. Yet, if one shifts their focus and excavates ancient history carefully and critically, they may be able to discern some aspects of the viewpoints of ancient slaves, understand some of their concerns, and use this knowledge about them to construct the past more accurately. By combing through layers of texts and reading against the grain, one can identify the slaves “beneath the surface” and observe “the underlying dynamics of power at work.” ¹ Reading “against the grain” means reading in a way that most modern scholars do not, that is by paying close attention to specific slaves in a narrative. It means not only paying close attention to the presence, absence, voice and voicelessness of individual enslaved bodies through specific texts, but also analyzing how they function to satisfy particular rhetorical discourses. This way of approaching the texts differently or “against the grain” allows us to recalibrate or to reconstruct these narratives. Thus, this book seeks a way to make slaves visible by un-silencing them in some specific texts and in the interpretation of these texts. ²

The unifying theme of this monograph is the silencing of slave voices. This project explores the silenced voices and experiences of slaves, focusing on specific slaves as textualized characters in the so-called pseudepigraphic materials and in some early “Christian” writings. The inclusion of the Pseudepigrapha is necessary to avoid imposing a demarcation between “Christian” and “Jewish” texts that is historically untenable. ³ The so-called Pseudepigrapha offer us valuable windows into the zeitgeist of early Judaism(s) in the Second Temple period. They also provide us with particular insights for understanding some of the ways in which the earliest Christ-groups proceeded in defining themselves. It can be extremely difficult—if not altogether impossible at times—to distinguish between compositions based on Jewish traditions and so-called “Christian” texts, which may have been redacted or edited, based on a Jewish text, to suit particular theological viewpoints and arguments. ⁴ The parameters of early Judaism(s) and “Christian origins” are flexible, complex, and contested. ⁵

1.1 Plan of the study

This book has eight chapters. Chapter 1 (this introduction) covers the theoretical ground by highlighting how subaltern studies and, inter alia, postcolonial studies (resistance to the practice of colonialism and to master narratives) can help us uncover buried archives with which one may question the silencing of subaltern voices. ⁶ The goal of Chapter 2 (Slaves in the Pseudepigrapha) is to highlight the different social, political, and literary dynamics around the slaves as characters in the pseudepigraphic literature. The chapter has a serial narrative orientation. I highlight slaves in the works surveyed, and comment on what each text says about a discourse of slavery, the particular assumptions about slaveholding, and the practices of slave owners. I also suggest a few ways that the representation of enslaved persons in this collection may have shaped the representation of slaves among some of the earliest Christ-groups. In the Pseudepigrapha, slaves, as literary figures or characters, are used to advance different discourses on wisdom, as well as the discussions and understandings of how one should live and interact with others in society. The diverse experiences of enslaved literary figures are not questioned in these texts that purport to share with others the benefit of wisdom. The bodies of the slaves are mostly relegated to their useful functions—their bodies are disposable, constantly threatened, socially constructed and functioning as properties due to the lack of interest in their humanity. One may then problematize the very goal of these texts when considering the figure of the enslaved persons in them. One may also wonder why it is there is virtually no scholarship on the slaves in this particular type of literature.

Chapter 3 examines slaves in the Pauline corpus. This chapter takes up the topic of slavery by focusing on three instances where slaves––or former slaves and characters that could be included in the nomenclature of ancient slaves––are mentioned in the Pauline literature: 1) Chloe’s people (τῶν Χλόης) in 1 Corinthians 1:11; 2) the (freed) slave Epaphroditus in Philippians 2:25–30; and 3) the slave Onesimus in Philemon. The analysis undertaken therein has three objectives. First, it seeks to uncover the narratives within and behind these Pauline texts from the perspectives of the slaves. Secondly, it highlights the voices, echoes, and silencing of the slaves in these texts. Thirdly, it argues that Paul’s rhetorical language in the passages serves to establish his own esteemed hierarchical position.

Chapter 4 (Slaves in the gospels), focuses on the female slave of the high priest, “a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off” (John 18:26; see also Mark 14:66, Matthew 26:69, and Luke 22:56). It also emphasizes the account regarding Malchus, the slave of the high priest who had been struck by one of Jesus’ disciples (Matthew 26:51; Mark 14:47; Luke 22: 50; and John 18:10). The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate how the process of highlighting marginalized and silenced slave characters in the texts may help in reconstructing and destabilizing certain conceptions and theological conclusions that were advanced by some of the earliest thinkers among Jesus’ adherents.

Chapter 5 (Slaves in the book of Acts) considers and contrasts two specific slaves, one named (Rhoda, the maid slave in Acts 12:15), who is associated with a Christ-believing group, and the other nameless (the merchants’ fortune-telling slave woman in Acts 16:16–18), who is not associated with Christ-believers. The purpose of highlighting these slaves is to show a pattern of violence (psychological and economic) exhibited in these texts, which takes the enslaved bodies to be vulnerable to such violence. The chapter explores the two narratives in which slave women speak only to be silenced by putting the narratives in conversation with each other. Considerations about the intersection of gender, hierarchy, social status, and economic functions, and how these various factors reinforce one another in the distribution of power within the depiction and silencing of slaves in the texts, are included in the chapter’s analysis. ⁷

The aim of Chapter 6, which focuses our attention on the slaves Felicitas and Blandina, is to argue that the slaves in the early Christian martyr narratives are used to advance particular theological conclusions; there is no interest in enslaved members of Christ-groups as violated bodies. In other words, the slaves serve as ideological and interpretative canvases that allow early Christian thinkers and theologians to paint and articulate their specific socio-rhetoric. The focus is on two particular female slave figures, namely Felicitas and Blandina. The emphasis is on them because the story of Felicitas, within the martyrdom account of Perpetua and Felicitas, and the story of Blandina in the account of the martyrs of Lyons and Vienne, are the only two early Christian narratives that feature female slaves as martyrs. The portrayal of Felicitas in the Passion of Perpetua and Felicitas is analyzed first in order to explore how she has been re-signified, reinterpreted, and reimagined in the Acta. The chapter is concluded with an analysis of how Blandina is used and abused in the myth-making process of early Christian discourse.

Chapter 7 (Slaves in the Acts of Andrew) examines how the act of thinking with slaves may help one understand socio-rhetoric and silencing in that particular early Christian narrative. The focus will be on the female slave Euclia, whose body has been used and abused as a surrogate body by her Christian mistress. I argue that Euclia’s mutilated slave body served as discursive material for the author to employ his various social and theological purposes. I will also explore how some curious narratival elements might help in considering the macro-political dimension of the text.

The last chapter of this study (Chapter 8) concludes with a few remarks about why we need to pay attention to figures of slaves in antiquity, what we may uncover from the study of slaves, and what we can learn in the present when we strive to animate silenced figures of the past.

Although the chapters in this book cover various terrain, my argument is clear and cohesive throughout. The theme of the silencing of slaves and slave voices in the Pseudepigrapha and various early Christian texts connects with the central argument to constitute a coherent research enterprise. Paying attention to silence, presence made absence, bodies taken for granted, bodies in motion, threatened bodies that exist to accomplish the desires of powerful figures, and to wounded and traumatized bodies in the texts, can be revealing to the ancient historian.

People in antiquity were on many occasions made slaves as the result of unfortunate circumstances. Slaves were at the margins of political power in the sense that they could not vote or hold office, their bodies were vulnerable to beatings and abuse, they were dishonoured as persons, and they lived under the absolute authority of their owners. However, one must be careful in castigating them as being simply dead at the margins of the social and political realms in antiquity. ⁸ The slaves were present in their utility for the social orders to go unabated, but they were rendered absent or invisible in their subjectivity. That absence, nevertheless, “must always have been under threat: the human persona of the slave threatened the ordered and hierarchical universe constructed in the discourses of power.” ⁹ This book seeks to make enslaved persons visible; it attempts to hear them, realize the brokenness of their bodies, be surprised by them in how they convey––almost in spite of the literary control of the authors and beneath the rhetorical force of their discourses––wisdom, theological insights, varied forms of resistance, profound questions and challenges.

No one doing research in ancient slavery can refuse to acknowledge Keith Bradley and his work has been an inspiration to many. Bradley is a very important contributor in the study of ancient slavery, especially in how he draws readers’ attention to notice references to slaves in texts of various genres. Casual allusions and incidental references to slaves are important markers to pay attention to if one wants to highlight slaves in the ancient texts. Bradley’s strategies for illuminating the lives of slaves serve as my guidelines in the present project. J. Albert Harrill and Jennifer A. Glancy are particularly formidable New Testament researchers who, in the last two decades, have advanced the topic of ancient slavery in relation to early Christian texts. ¹⁰ The works of Harrill and Glancy on slavery in early Christian writings push forward the works of other New Testament scholars and add much-needed nuances to these scholars’ interpretations and conclusions. ¹¹ I have learned a great deal from reading their works, and from the work of others in this area. ¹² My work differs from the previously mentioned studies in the following ways. First, it pays attention to slaves in a body of texts that have never been considered in the study of ancient slavery before, namely the pseudepigraphic materials. Second, in a sustained manner, it focuses on specific slaves. ¹³ Paying close attention to slaves in these variegated texts is also a way to question our own reading and interpretative choices vis-à-vis slaves and the rise of earliest Christ-groups. Admittedly, the scope of this research project is vast. It goes beyond anything done previously and it will fill a significant void in the literature. The aim is to place these texts in larger, more critical conversations by looking at history “from below.” ¹⁴

1.2 Silencing in texts

Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s seminal work, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History, demonstrates that historical narratives can be used both for silencing the past and for rewriting it. ¹⁵ He argues convincingly that scholars have participated in creating both presence and silence in the historical texts, figures, and events they choose to uncover, study, and emphasize. ¹⁶ Trouillot showed how the extraordinary event that was the Haitian Revolution “entered history with the peculiar characteristic of being unthinkable even as it happened.” ¹⁷ He later elaborates on the question of writing a history of the impossible. ¹⁸

In terms of research on slaves in antiquity, Trouillot’s query is pertinent: How does one write a history of those who left no writing? What concerns me in this project is the challenge of approaching the earliest history of the Jesus movements from below. In other words, how does one understand some of the texts at the cross section of early Judaism(s) and “Christian origins” from the viewpoint of the slaves? An analysis of slaves in texts of antiquity needs to understand not only the cultural and socio-political milieu of these texts, but also the ideological structures resulting from the contexts and interpretations of these texts. Trouillot shows how the historical records can in fact muzzle the past, and how silence can play an important role in managing the interpretation of the historical methods.

Trouillot uses “four crucial moments” to enter into the process of historical production. These are the moment of fact creation (the making of sources), the moment of fact assembly...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Slaves in the Pseudepigrapha
• 3. Slaves in Paul
• 4. Slaves in the gospels
• 5. Slaves in the book of Acts
• 6. Slaves in early Christian martyr narratives
• 7. Slaves in the Acts of Andrew
• 8. Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index