Paul and the Mission of the Church

Philippians in Ancient Jewish Context

Ware, James P.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781441236340
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Did Paul urge Christians to engage in mission? What would that have meant in his setting? What should the church be doing now? This essential study examines Paul's letter to the Philippians in its ancient Jewish context, making a convincing case that Paul expected churches to continue the work of spreading the gospel. Published in hardcover by Brill, it is now available as an affordable paperback.

PART ONE

CONVERSION OF GENTILES IN ANCIENT JUDAISM

CHAPTER ONE

THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH MISSION

1.1 Introduction

Christianity arose within Judaism, its earliest leaders and converts were Jewish, and Paul, the missionary apostle to the gentiles, was a Pharisee. The content of primitive Christian preaching and teaching reflects the movement’s strong Jewish roots and character. Did the missionary consciousness of the early Christians also have its origins in Judaism? The question has not received a definitive answer. As Carl R. Holladay has observed, “the question of the exact relationship between Hellenistic-Judaism, its sources, its theology, its sociological complexion, and early Christian missionary preaching is still unresolved.”[1] The chief cause of this lack of clarity regarding the relationship between Judaism and early Christian missionary activity is fundamental uncertainty regarding the nature and extent of Jewish proselytism in the second temple period. The missionary character of ancient Judaism is a problem whose solution has proven elusive, and in recent years has become the focus of renewed interest and debate.

During the greater part of the past century there existed a general scholarly consensus that Judaism was, especially in the diaspora, a missionary religion. Many scholars, past and present, have assumed the existence of itinerant Jewish missionaries who, like Paul, engaged in missionary preaching to gentiles.[2] The role of such figures in the spread of Judaism has been particularly stressed by those scholars who postulate the influence of a putative hellenistic “divine man” tradition upon diaspora Jews.[3] According to Dieter Georgi, the most influential exponent of this view, such Jewish missionary “divine men” were “numerous and assiduous” in the Graeco-Roman world, and a “permanent and regular facet of synagogue life.”[4]

A different view was represented by George Foot Moore. Moore described Judaism as “the first great missionary religion of the Mediterranean world,” in the sense that widespread efforts were made by Jews to convert gentiles, but he denied that Jews sent out missionaries to proselytize among the nations.[5] According to this view, which has been held by a number of scholars, Judaism in antiquity was an active religion of conversion, but it was spread not through public missionary preaching, but through the personal recruiting efforts of individual Jews. Although there were no missionaries, there was an active and fervent Jewish mission.[6]

Other students of ancient Judaism, while assuming the existence of a widespread and aggressive Jewish proselytizing movement in antiquity, have denied that one may speak of a Jewish mission. Karl Axenfeld introduced a now classic distinction between “mission” and “propaganda.” Mission, Axenfeld observed, involves a divine command and consciousness of being sent (Sendungsbewusstsein). According to Axenfeld, the motivation of Jews to engage in proselytism did not originate from the consciousness of a divine commission to convert the gentiles, but from zeal born of a consciousness of religious superiority.[7] Axenfeld did believe that a mission command was present in the Servant Songs of Deutero-Isaiah, but remarked that Jews of the second temple period never based their proselytizing efforts on these passages, or on the Scriptures generally.[8] He held that Jewish proselytizing activity is thus more accurately described as propaganda rather than mission.[9] Axenfeld’s distinction has been followed by a number of scholars.[10]

All of the views mentioned above assume that Jews in antiquity engaged in active propaganda, and that extensive efforts were made by Jews to gain gentile adherents. But recent studies have strongly contested this assumption. According to these studies, Jews of the second temple period had little interest in conversion of gentiles, and did not generally engage in proselytizing activity. On this view, gentile conversions were the result of Judaism’s inherent attractiveness, not of active proselytizing on the part of Jews.[11]

The lack of consensus in current scholarship regarding Jewish mission is vividly illustrated by the two most recent full-length studies of the subject, Louis Feldman’s Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World and Martin Goodman’s Mission and Conversion, which reach conclusions on the very opposite ends of the spectrum of views sketched above![12]

A relatively recent article by James Carleton Paget is often regarded as a mediating view, but has not gained wide assent.[13] Current writers now often hesitate on the question whether gentiles generally converted on their own initiative or were actively propagandized by Jews.[14] Even estimates regarding the number of converts to Judaism vary widely.

May one speak of a Jewish mission in antiquity? The question has been complicated by the fact that in their study of ancient Judaism scholars have worked with widely divergent definitions of “mission.” Attempts in recent years to achieve methodological clarity by defining “mission” more precisely have resulted, predictably enough, only in further controversy.[15] The debate is often framed in terms of “maximalist” versus “minimalist” definitions of mission, yet often with no clear reasons offered why one should be preferred rather than the other. Is there a way out of the impasse of method and definition?

I would propose that, in seeking to understand the relationship between ancient Judaism and mission in earliest Christianity, a truly historical approach requires that we seek, as rigorously as possible, to understand both second temple Judaism and ancient Christianity on their own terms. Although this might seem a commonplace, one could argue that this principle has been honored, by scholars on all sides, more in the breach than in the observance. From this starting point two important conclusions follow. First, if we are to address the question whether and in what sense the mission consciousness of Paul and the earliest Christians had its origins in ancient Judaism, our definition of mission must take adequate account of what this mission consciousness involved, as revealed in Paul’s letters and other early Christian documents. It makes little historical sense to enquire concerning the origins and analogues of the Pauline mission in antiquity, while operating with a definition of “mission” which fails to correspond to the conception of mission reflected in Paul’s own letters. The definitions of Carleton Paget and Dickson, for example, in their exclusive focus on activity intended to bring about conversion, ignore the striking consciousness of a divine commission, command or duty to bring about conversion of gentiles which is almost universally recognized as a crucial aspect of Paul’s missionary self-understanding.[16] Goodman’s definition, on the other hand, in its sharp distinction between mission and apologetic, also fails to adequately reflect Paul’s conception of his mission, in which not only Paul’s preaching, but also his defense of the faith, conduct and sufferings had a missionary purpose.[17] In the Introduction to this study I have suggested a definition of mission, drawing upon the consciousness of mission reflected in Paul’s letters, as involving a divine commission to bring about the conversion of gentiles through verbal proclamation and associated activities (Rom 1:1-5; 1:14; 15:15-16; 1 Cor 1:17; 9:16; Gal 1:15-16; 1 Thess 2:4).[18] This definition, I would suggest, reflects the key aspects of Paul’s missionary consciousness in evidence in his letters. It is the definition of “mission” which will be used in this study. The substantive “missionary” will be used to refer to persons participating in local or itinerant planned preaching activity of the sort in which Paul and his coworkers engaged (Rom 15:18-21).

But second, we must also avoid the danger, to which scholars have often succumbed, of forcing the evidence concerning ancient Jewish proselytism into primitive Christian categories and thus failing to understand ancient Judaism on its own terms. In the study of Jewish proselytism, we must not only reckon with the possiblity of the presence or absence of mission in the Pauline sense, but seek to understand the distinctive ways in which Jews of the second temple period related to gentiles and their conversion. As our brief survey of scholarship has already shown, this question involves a number of issues. Did gentiles convert to Judaism in significant numbers? By what means did these conversions take place? Did gentiles generally take the initiative, drawn by the attraction of Jewish faith and life? Or did Jews actively seek converts through propaganda and various forms of proselytizing activity? Is there evidence for Jewish missionaries who engaged in missionary preaching to gentiles? To what extent is there evidence of an interest in conversion of gentiles among Jews during this period? If so, may one speak of a Jewish mission, in the sense that Jews were motivated by the consciousness of a divine commission to convert the gentiles? Each of these questions requires an answer if we are to understand Jewish proselytism in antiquity, and thus the precise relationship between Judaism and the mission of earliest Christianity. In this chapter we will examine the evidence for Jewish proselytizing activity. We begin with the extent of conversion to Judaism in antiquity.

1.2 Evidence of Gentile Converts

How extensive a phenomenon was gentile conversion to Judaism in the era of the second temple? Did large numbers of gentiles convert to Judaism during this period? There is no longer a common opinion on this matter.[19] It is often argued that the large Jewish population of the empire is fully explicable only on the assumption of a massive influx of proselytes.[20] The extent of the Jewish population in antiquity and the reasons for its growth are complex issues which cannot be entered into here. But even if we accept an estimate of anywhere from four to eight million Jews worldwide in the first century C.E.,[21] it hardly seems necessary to posit large numbers of conversions in order to account for this figure. In the absence of a more precise demographic analysis than has been offered, the argument remains highly speculative at best.[22]

Jewish inscriptions from antiquity provide more concrete information. These provide evidence of converts, but do not give the impression of massive conversions. Of approximately 1800 extant Jewish inscriptions, only seventeen by my count mention proselytes.[23] However, the scarcity of such inscriptions may be due to a variety of causes, and cannot be considered conclusive evidence that the number of proselytes was small.[24]

A number of gentile and Jewish writers also mention proselytes. We read of individual converts to Judaism such as one Nicolaos of Antioch,[25] and the Roman matron Fulvia, whom Josephus describes as νομίμοις προσεληλυθυῖα τοῖς Ἰουδαϊκοῖς.[26] Josephus dwells at length upon the conversion of Izates, his mother Helena, his brother Monobazus, and other members of the royal court of Adiabene.[27] Josephus also tells of the conversion of Azizus king of Emessa for the sake of marriage to Drusilla,[28] and of how Polemo king of Cilicia likewise converted for the sake of marriage to Berenice, only to abandon Judaism when the marriage was dissolved.[29] Perhaps Flavius Clemens and his wife Flavia Domitilla were also converts, although the precise extent of their attachment to Judaism is unclear.[30] A number of other texts refer explicitly to the phenomenon of conversion to Judaism or to the existence of proselytes.[31]

Such passages are often regarded as evidence of large-scale conversions to Judaism.[32] J.N. Sevenster, for example, believes that the vexation at the conversion of gentiles shown by such authors as Tacitus (Hist. 5.5.1-2) and Juvenal (14.99-104) proves that they were “regularly being confronted” by the phenomenon of such conversions.[33] One wonders whether this conclusion is inescapable. In the eyes of Tacitus and Juvenal a single convert was no doubt one too many. Other texts, however, do speak more directly to the extent of gentile conversions, and permit us to conclude that there were perhaps a fair number of them. Dio Cassius speaks of “many” converts during the reign of Tiberius.[34] Josephus reports that almost the entire female populace of Damascus, and large numbers of gentiles at Antioch, had been brought over to the Jewish worship (War 2.560; Ant. 7.45). Whether Josephus refers to full conversion in either instance is not entirely clear, however, and in any case he implies that these were local and exceptional situations. But if Pisidian Antioch was typical, we may assume that the synagogues in the hellenistic cities each had their contingent of proselytes, of greater or lesser size.[35] Josephus is thus probably not exaggerating much when he claims that “many” (πολλοί) gentiles had converted to Judaism.[36] The total number of converts was most likely not inconsiderable.

1.3 Evidence of Gentile Sympathizers or “God-fearers”

Thus far we have considered the evidence only of gentile proselytes. However, in considering the extent of conversion to Judaism in antiquity, one must look beyond merely full converts to Judaism. In the words of Louis Feldman,

Judaism’s success in winning adherents during the Hellenistic and Roman periods is to be measured not merely in terms of the number of converts but also the number of so-called “God-fearers” or “sympathizers,” those non-Jews who adopted certain Jewish practices...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• PART ONE: CONVERSION OF GENTILES IN ANCIENT JUDAISM
• PART TWO: MISSION IN PHILIPPIANS
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index of Modern Authors
• Index of Biblical References
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Selected Topics
• Index of Selected Greek Words
• Notes
• Back Cover