Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World

John S. Kloppenborg, Stephen G. Wilson, John S. Kloppenborg, Stephen G. Wilson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• ISBN:
  9781134778577
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Based upon a series of detailed case studies of associations such as early synagogues and churches, philosophical schools and pagan mystery cults, this collection addresses the question of what can legitimately be termed a 'voluntary association'.
Employing modern sociological concepts, the essays show how the various associations were constituted, the extent of their membership, why people joined them and what they contributed to the social fabric of urban life. For many, those groups were the most significant feature of social life beyond family and work. All of them provided an outlet of religious as well as social commitments.
Also included are studies of the way in which early Jewish and Christian groups adopted and adapted the models of private association available to them and how this affected their social status and role. Finally, the situation of women is discussed, as some of the voluntary associations offered them a more significant recognition than they received in society at large.

1

VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS

An overview

S. G. Wilson

A brief overview of the papers in this volume provides an opportunity to do a number of things. First, to consider the nature and significance of the multitude of overlapping terms used of and by associations in the Hellenistic era. Second, to offer some reflections on the pertinence and utility of those modern concepts – some with ancient equivalents, some without – which have become familiar in recent sociological discussion of religious groups and which are drawn on casually or deliberately by various authors in this volume. Finally, to draw together some of the common themes and issues that arise when these essays are looked at broadly and as a whole.

The term “voluntary association” has become common parlance among those involved in a Canadian Society of Biblical Studies seminar in recent years.¹ The initial impulse of the seminar was to understand how discrete Jewish and Christian communities fitted into patterns of communal life already established in Graeco-Roman society. The aim was to cast the net as widely as possible and “voluntary association” was chosen as the term that most naturally and comprehensively captured the range of phenomena that we wished to study. The most common ancient terms – such as collegium, secta, factio, thiasos, eranos, koinon – like their modern counterparts “club” or “guild,” are broad in scope but not quite broad enough. The term “association” was already well established in discussions of the ancient phenomena, and the addition of the adjective “voluntary” (which others have used too) was designed to distinguish them from institutions such as the state, city, or family, where membership was automatic – a question of birth rather than choice. It also distinguishes them from the official collegia and sacred sodalities run by the state, even though the participants in at least one of these, the Augustales, may have included privileged freedmen who belonged to private associations too (Kloppenborg, chapter 2). The distinction between voluntary and involuntary associations cannot be too rigid, since membership in a synagogue, family cult, or trade guild may have been for different reasons more or less obligatory. The term “private association,” which some prefer, is a possible alternative, though it too would have required careful definition.

The term “voluntary association” has nevertheless served us well. It has encouraged us to look both at terms (for example, philosophia ekklēsia, hairesis) and at phenomena (for example, mystery cults, Asclepieia, Therapeutae, Qumran, synagogues) that have not often been brought into the discussion of ancient associations, thus broadening the comparative base and enriching our sense of the range and variety of such groups. This in turn raises questions about the utility and accuracy of subsuming all of these phenomena under one label – questions to which we shall later return.

It is possible that the term could cause some confusion for those familiar with its use in modern socio-political discourse. There is, of course, some overlap. “Voluntary association” in this context also refers to groups that people opt to join. Moreover, the circumstances that are thought to encourage their proliferation (social dislocation), some of their organizational features (elaborate hierarchies), as well as the needs they purportedly meet (as “fictive” families, or as mediators between the individual and the state), are all things that have been observed about their counterparts in the ancient world.

Yet the term “voluntary association” is also connected in modern discussion with another set of issues. It is used mostly, though not exclusively, with reference to the United States, designated by both Weber and de Tocqueville as the supreme example of a society organized around voluntary associations. In this context the term refers to almost any group organized to further the interests of its members, to lobby, transform, even resist the state or any other major vested interest. Voluntary associations are thus seen as the ideal vehicle for defending the democratic principle of liberty and the cause of pluralism. Historically, and even more broadly, anything from universities to unions, churches to charities, can be seen as organizations that have at one time furthered these aims, even though they have often ended up becoming part of the very establishment they set out to challenge.²

The impulse to reform, to speak for the unheard, to advance the cause of liberty and democracy, are not aims that we immediately associate with ancient associations – understandably so when we cast things in this modern way. Yet we should not assume that ancient associations were entirely introverted, passive and indifferent to political affairs. It is true that many associations were organized in a manner that both reflected and reinforced the existing social order, for example family or household cults such as we find in the Agrippinilla inscription, or collegia that structured themselves as miniature city-states.³ And, according to R. Beck (chapter 10), the Mithras cult was a home for social conformists. We are also warned not to liken ancient guilds to modern unions though, as J. Kloppenborg notes (chapter 2), we find a few instances of guild members going on strike or threatening a work-stoppage. This last example may point to an occasional, if modest amount of political activity. The link between patrons and associations could also have a political dimension, as when members were called out to support their patron for political office (the Isis cult at Pompeii; Isodorus in Alexandria, Philo Flacc. 137–38).⁴ Such actions may have tended to reinforce rather than to reform existing political structures, but they were nevertheless a collective attempt to assert influence on the course of political affairs. Then again, W Cotter (chapter 5) has shown how collegia were often suspected of harboring socially disruptive elements and were for this reason banned. Was this due just to Roman conservatism and paranoia, or did they have good reason for their suspicions? Philo certainly thinks so, and he describes intrigue and conspiracy as normal features of association life (Legat. 312–13, Flacc. 4, Spec. Leg. 4.46–47; Seland, chapter 7). Philo, of course, speaks scathingly about the activities of pagan associations (particularly their drunken carousing) and contrasts them with the sober pursuit of virtue in Jewish gatherings. Perhaps he exaggerates, or perhaps the conspiracies he alludes to were personal rather than political and nothing more than alcoholically induced fantasies. But it just may be that he gives us a glimpse of a feature of association life that the Romans had good reason to suspect.

One thing that limited the political influence of collegia/thiasoi was that they were normally local organizations. They were linked only loosely to a larger network, and contacts were casual and informal. Travelers, for example, might for a while join in the activities of a sister association when on the road or join per-manendy if they setded down. We also know of troupes of performers (musicians, actors) who moved from one Dionysiac centre to another offering their services. The Dionysos mystery cult, like others, spread widely, sometimes through a deliberate decision; but once established, local cults remained largely autonomous and could take quite divergent forms from one locality to another.⁵ Two groups that did belong to more active networks, churches and synagogues, were concerned mostly to protect their privileges or to encourage circumstances that allowed them to run their internal affairs without interference. Their aim was not to overthrow the existing political system, but to find their niche within it – even if on their own terms. So while some aspects of early Christian communal life, for example, could be seen as politically or socially destabilizing, in fact most early Christian writers call on their members to support the state (Rom. 13; 1 Pet. 2). It is true that some Jews and Christians envisaged the overthrow of the state in the end times, and that the Judaean and North African Jews anticipated this outcome in a series of revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries CE. These uprisings were, however, driven more by a revolutionary than a reformist impulse, were limited geographically and temporally, and were atypical of the experience of the majority of Jews under Roman rule.

Yet neither Jews nor Christians were entirely quietist. As can be seen in their apologetic literature, they were not unwilling to pillory the religious practices and social mores of pagan society and at the same time boast of the superiority of their own. In this, as in their trans-local organization, they were more like the philosophers, whose promotion of good living as well as right thinking, philanthropy as well as piety, could involve sharp criticism of the ruling classes. Thus, despite their prestige and respect for their learning, philosophers were also mistrusted and occasionally expelled or put to death (Mason, chapter 3). So it could be argued that philosophers, and Jews and Christians to the degree that they were like them, come closer to the reformist impulse of modern associations than do some other ancient groups. This forges a link between the use of “voluntary association” as a term to describe ancient and modern phenomena, even when it is clear that important differences of emphasis remain.

While it might be objected that lumping schools, guilds, cults, synagogues and churches together adds more confusion than clarity, the truth is that in the ancient world the boundaries and the terminology were fluid. We know, for example, of Jews and Christians who tried to persuade their readers that their tradition as a whole or sub-groups within them should be viewed as schools of thought (haireseis or proaireseis) or as philosophia in general (for example, Philo; Josephus; Luke–Acts; second-century apologists; see Mason, chapter 2, and Heuchan). Hairesis in this context refers of course to an identifiable group or viewpoint within a larger philosophical or medical matrix (the pejorative sense of a deviant or erroneous tendency is a later, mainly Christian and Jewish, usage).⁶ At the same time we know that philosophical schools were on occasions likened to thiasoi and that some of them, particularly the Epicureans, enjoyed an organized communal life, which included regular banquets and religious rites in addition to the pursuit of learning. Others, such as the Stoics and the school of Epictetus, gathered daily for study and reflection, but apparently for litde else.⁷

Other terminological links abound. Jewish communities, largely organized around the synagogue and led by figures such as the archisynagōgos, recall the use of synagōgē as a self-designation by some pagan associations as well as the penchant for describing leaders and officials in compounds using archi- or -archēs. More distinctive Jewish groups, such as the celibate monastic group near Alexandria described by Philo, are called by him Therapeutae, the same term used to describe the members of some Graeco-Roman associations (as on Delos; McLean, chapter 11). Similarly, a connection between Christian groups and collegia, at least on a terminological level, is indicated by the use of ekklēsia and episkopos as group or leadership designations in some associations.⁸

Pointing to such coincidences in terminology in the ancient sources does not in itself prove anything. The coincidences may, after all, be coincidental. As S. Walker-Ramisch (chapter 8) points out with reference to the community envisaged by the Damascus Document, similar terminology and even similar organizational structures can be adopted by groups with radically different ideologies and purposes. Yet they do suggest that, despite the manifest differences between them, these groups can usefully be considered together as part of a broad social phenomenon. It is important to note the limits of this claim: we are suggesting analogies between the various associations and not, as has so often been done in the past, genealogical relationships or influences.⁹

That Jewish communities can be compared with Graeco-Roman associations has been suggested in passing by others, but P. Richardson (chapter 6) has now fully and persuasively made the case that pre-70 synagogues were in all respects analogous to collegia, while enjoying greater imperial protection.¹⁰ It is significant that both Philo and Josephus, our best-preserved ancient Jewish witnesses, draw our attention to this, even if they also insist on significant differences (Josephus Ant. 14.215–16, 235–36, 259–60; Philo Legat 312, 316; Seland, Richardson, chapters 7 and 6). That early Christian groups can be viewed likewise has been a more controversial proposition, though the discussion has been driven more by theological or confessional presuppositions than exact observation. Kloppenborg’s recent essay has shown clearly that the similarities are many and the differences less sharply defined than has commonly been claimed,¹¹ and despite his emphasis on a number of differences W. McCready (chapter 4) allows for significant points of connection too. B. H. McLean (chapter 11) has also made a strong case for thinking that the churches on Delos patterned themselves (at least architecturally and perhaps ritually) on the many other local associations on that island.

Some other terms with a modern flavor have also been introduced. The least controversial of these is the concept of “networks,” a form of micro-sociological analysis that emphasizes dynamic rather than static aspects of society and that focuses on precisely that space between the individual and society which voluntary associations are commonly thought to inhabit. Compared with some other concepts there are fewer problems moving from modern to ancient applications, though ancient sources do not often provide a wealth of detail, and when they do, it is usually confined to the activities of the upper classes. H. Remus (chapter 9) has struck a rich vein of information about Aelius Aristides^, association with the sanctuary of Asclepius at Pergamum, and uses the insights of network analysis to uncover the social dynamics at work. He suggests that we should distinguish between informal social networks and formally organized associations. He recognizes that the two may overlap, but righdy insists that in principle they may diverge – networks may be different from and work in-dependendy of connections forged in an association. At the same time it is clear from his own description that Aristides shares with most of the significant figures in his circle a devotion to Asclepius and the sanctuary at Pergamum. As he says, “Asclepius is, one might say, the key networker among his friends.”¹² Thus Aristides and his friends and acquaintances form a network within an association whose focus is Asclepius. That they are part of a largely aristocratic network as well opens up a dimension of their participation in this cult that has not often been so clearly and richly documented. In this case network and association complement each other and point to the way in which the life of associations functioned within a larger nexus of social relationships. That they could be complementary, particularly in the way that well-connected members could act not only as patrons but as conduits of influence on behalf of the association and its other members, has been noted by others too.¹³

The term “cult,” occasionally introduced in these essays in connection with ancient voluntary associations, is also routinely used by sociologists of religion. In this case the use of a common term could lead to confusion. For one thing the sociological use is ill-defined. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for “new religious movement,” at other times for “sect,” both terms which have themselves resisted consensual definition. It is well known, for example, that defining the concept sect (usually in terms of a church–sect dichotomy) and establishing a typology that is both comprehensive and accurate, has taxed sociologists at least since the time of Weber. And, despite active debate, there is no apparent consensus on the matter. The more recent label, new religious movement, has proven almost as elusive. In the more useful schemes, sects are distinguished from cults/new religious movements. The latter, it is suggested, emphasize the personal and the affective, simple but rigid dogma, and are usually loosely organized around a charismatic leader. But even here the distinctions are sometimes unclear. This is pardy because the different terms are used to label identical or at least overlapping phenomena, a problem exacerbated by the tendency of cults to transmute into sects and sects into denominations or even churches.¹⁴

It is interesting to note that at one p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Contributors
• Preface
• List of Abbreviations
• Dedications
• 1 Voluntary Associations: An Overview
• 2 Collegia and Thiasoi: Issues in function, taxonomy and membership
• 3 Philosophiai: Graeco-Roman, Judean and Christian
• 4 Ekklēsia and Voluntary Associations
• 5 The Collegia and Roman Law: State restrictions on Voluntary associations, 64 BCE–200 CE
• 6 Early Synagogues as Collegia in the Diaspora and Palestine
• 7 Philo and the Clubs and Associations of Alexandria
• 8 Graeco-Roman Voluntary Associations and the Damascus Document: A Sociological Analysis
• 9 Voluntary Association and Networks: Aelius Aristides at the Asclepieion in Pergamum
• 10 The Mysteries of Mithras
• 11 The Place of Cult in Voluntary Associations and Christian Churches on Delos
• 12 Jewish Voluntary Associations in Egypt and the Roles of Women
• 13 Evidence for Women in the Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls
• 14 Where Women Sat in Ancient Synagogues: The archaeological evidence in context
• Works Cited
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Texts