The Slave Metaphor and Gendered Enslavement in Early Christian Discourse

Double Trouble Embodied

Marianne Bjelland Kartzow

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781351241595
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia antica

The Slave Metaphor and Gendered Enslavement in Early Christian Discourse adds new knowledge to the ongoing discussion of slavery in early Christian discourse. Kartzow argues that the complex tension between metaphor and social reality in early Christian discourse is undertheorized. A metaphor can be so much more than an innocent thought figure; it involves bodies, relationships, life stories, and memory in complex ways. The slavery metaphor is troubling since it makes theology of a social institution that is profoundly troubling. This study rethinks the potential meaning of the slavery metaphor in early Christian discourse by use of a variety of texts, read with a whole set of theoretical tools taken from metaphor theory and intersectional gender studies, in particular. It also takes seriously the contemporary context of modern slavery, where slavery has re-appeared as a term to name trafficking, gendered violence, and inhuman power systems.

1
Thinking with saleable bodies

An intersectional approach to the slavery metaphor

Introduction

In this chapter, I present the key analytical tools employed to read texts using the slavery metaphor. The problem with understanding how early Christian scholarship constructs the metaphorical use of slavery is, as I argue, that it lacks a critical model to rethink the complexity of metaphor. Metaphor belongs to language, thought, social-cultural practice, brain, and body.¹ As Marcus Hester sees it, “Metaphor is a process of tension and energy, manifested in the process of language, not in the single word.”²

Interpreters of early Christian texts often consider it their most important task to find the one meaning of the metaphor – its origin – under the assumption that a metaphor has one meaning only, as if it were a textual tool to communicate a clear message to all. Of course, this aspect of metaphor is important and interesting, and deals with one critical dimension within metaphor theory: the continuity and universality of figurative speech. There are, however, also other aspects of metaphor that need to be taken into account: If life stories and aspects of shared memory and metanarratives are key factors to conceptualizing metaphor, then it is obviously also important to look for individual variation, difference, and discontinuity.³

My interest in metaphor theory comes from the concern with both individual and collective aspects of metaphorical communication based on the presupposition that the early Christian movement represented complexity, diversity, and a multitude of voices and experiences. One-dimensional questions that often appear in the research literature are challenged (“Is the metaphorical usage related to the divine or humans?” “Does the slavery metaphor refer to the Greco-Roman slavery institution or to Jewish ideas about the people as slaves of the Lord?”). Rather, I prefer to find models to look at alternative sources of metaphors to see how different concepts blend in metaphorical communication. I ask whether a metaphor invites us to create free associations or has some kind of image control, but also what criteria or dimensions may vary within alternative mappings. Intersectional perspectives are studied as possible contexts for understanding metaphors and are employed to rethink both individual and shared dimensions of how the slavery metaphor could be conceptualized.

Communicating with metaphors has always been complex – and still is. It has both a personal and a cultural dimension. In contrast to plain language, it opens up a creative space of meaning-making, risking difference in interpretation and misunderstanding. On an American discussion forum, I recently read the following text, under the headline “Is it acceptable to use the term ‘slavery’ as a metaphor?”

I was at a dinner last night with about 10 people, one of whom was black. At some point on a discussion, I said “working is slavery” and the black person got offended. He didn’t admit it but he made a big fuzz saying that using the term “slavery” is diminishing the word’s meaning etc. He got further saying that I live in a bubble and that I should learn about what happens outside of my bubble. I remained calm but have since been thinking if the fault was mine or what the problem is. Do you think using the term slavery as a metaphor like that shouldn’t be used?⁴

Although taken from a different context indeed, I nevertheless find it fascinating to search for parallels. In fact, although I am fully aware it is out of reach, I would like to ask the early Christian male authors without any slave experiences some of the same questions: Do you think using the term slavery as a metaphor like you do is OK? Even though ancient texts often employ the metaphor in a more positive way than in the example presented earlier (“working is slavery”), it remains “out of place” and risks downplaying the seriousness of real slavery.

Did early Christian slaves share some of the same feelings with “the black person” in this example? Did they get offended or angry since their specific physical and cultural experiences as owned property were used to talk about something else? Or did they feel privileged, upgraded even, since slavery was used as a core metaphor for the believers? My task here is to try to look “outside the bubble” of ancient texts and recent scholarship, and look at the slavery metaphor in all its complexity with sensitivity to the fact that even if I do not, some people in our world today do have embodied slavery experiences or memory.

Metaphor

The way a culture uses a metaphor says a lot about its values. In what way does a metaphor imitate reality? Certainly, Mary’s expression “slave of the Lord” in Luke 1 or Paul’s conclusion that one is “free from sin and enslaved to God” (Rom 6:22) has a spiritual side, but how the recipients of these texts would judge the theological reasoning depended on a whole set of factors, both individual and shared. Before I suggest some models to rethink these factors, let us take a brief look at the interdisciplinary discussion of metaphor.⁵ How can the slavery metaphor be conceptualized if we highlight that metaphor emerges from the interaction between body and culture?

What is a metaphor?

The metaphor is commonly known as a figure of speech through which we describe one thing in terms of another. According to the ancient rhetorical writer Quintilian, a figure in speaking or writing is “when we give our language a conformation other than the obvious or ordinary” (Inst. Or. IX1–5). One way that terms can be removed from their natural being is when they are used metaphorically.⁶ Metaphors, however, are always chosen for a reason, even if they are conventional. They contribute to the communication process one or more objects that are not obvious or ordinary.⁷

Texts consist of words, but not just a verbal meaning. Rather, a text is rooted in images and impressions, emotional aspects of imitation and pretense. Texts are open to interpretation and judgment, comprehension, and misunderstanding.⁸ Metaphor is a tool of communication to connect things from two worlds or more – one that plays in complex ways with associations and connections in language and reality. Metaphors are employed in communication because they are better suited than plain language to describe reality.⁹

According to Umberto Eco, when faced with a metaphor, “we sense that it is turning into a vehicle of knowledge and intuitively … we grasp its legitimacy … Metaphors are transformed into knowledge.”¹⁰ Metaphor may be seen as a cognitive tool that helps us to understand abstract concepts in terms of superficially dissimilar concepts that are more concrete and (perhaps) relatively easier to comprehend. Context shapes the use and understanding of a metaphor.¹¹ Paul Ricœur argues that metaphors operate in networks: Through the use of intertextual tools, a metaphor can always be read from different sides. A metaphor in one text influences another text, and literal and metaphorical meanings influence each other.¹² By paying attention to the metaphorical dimension of biblical texts, he argues that the concept of universal or original meaning will be blocked.¹³

So although the Oxford Dictionary tells us that a metaphor is “a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literary applicable,” there is obviously so much more to be said about it, particularly when working with the slavery metaphor in early Christian discourse.¹⁴

Conceptual mapping of metaphors

Much has happened within metaphor theory since the groundbreaking book Metaphors We Live By.¹⁵ Some of these developments are discussed here. Central to recent studies is not only metaphor as a literary figure but also how metaphors are embodied and essential for communication and community, for individuals and relationships. Metaphor as a thought- and language figure has traveled from texts and books to bodies and brains. We live by them. And perhaps we also die by them.

According to Maass, Suitner, and Arcuri (2014), a metaphor affects people’s thinking and helps our filtering, hiding, or promoting information and interpretation.¹⁶ Further, metaphor may be useful for translating suffering, death, and pain of loved ones into some sort of comparative game, or taking away the pain by emphasizing more positive and acceptable views, as well as shaping and framing solutions to social problems. With its unique combination of the abstract and the concrete, it is very useful for knowledge building and concept understanding. A metaphor is compact (a whole list of properties in one metaphor), inexpressible (it steps in when literal language fails), and vivid (it enables the communication of ideas with the richness of details).¹⁷

My question is whether the slavery metaphor plays such roles in biblical texts too. Slavery works as a conventional, socially shared metaphor in biblical discourse – a particularly relevant tool for constructing and maintaining social relations and status quo. Was the slavery metaphor so effective that it worked to hide problematic hierarchies or power struggles since all believers were now slaves of God anyway and thereby helped slave owners to legitimize dominant social positions? Or did it offer an alternative way for slaves to reimagine a different future?

Instead of dividing slavery texts into metaphorical/nonmetaphorical categories, the formal theoretical framework labeled conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) may be useful. CMT is “still in its earliest stages” within social psychology or linguistics, but is it nevertheless being employed interdisciplinarily (e.g., in anthropology, communication, philosophy).¹⁸ A conceptual metaphor consists of two dissimilar concepts, one of which is understood in terms of the other. The concept that we are trying to understand is called the target, while the concept used for this purpose is the source.¹⁹ Targets are often abstract, complex, and difficult to comprehend, whereas sources represent more concrete, perceptua...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on abbreviations, texts, and translations
• Introduction
• 1 Thinking with saleable bodies: an intersectional approach to the slavery metaphor
• 2 Embodying the slavery metaphor: female characters and slavery language
• 3 Metaphor and masculinity: the “no longer slave” formulations (John 15:15 and Gal 4:7)
• 4 The paradox of slavery: all believers are slaves of the Lord, but some are more slaves than others
• 5 From slave of a female owner to slave of God: negotiating gender, sexuality, and status in The Shepherd of Hermas
• 6 Jesus, the slave trader: metaphor made real in The Acts of Thomas
• Conclusion
• Index