The Pauline Effect

Jennifer R. Strawbridge

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9783110445466
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Teología cristiana

This study offers a fresh approach to reception historical studies of New Testament texts, guided by a methodology introduced by ancient historians who study Graeco-Roman educational texts. In the course of six chapters, the author identifies and examines the most representative Pauline texts within writings of the ante-Nicene period: 1Cor 2, Eph 6, 1Cor 15, and Col 1. The identification of these most widely cited Pauline texts, based on a comprehensive database which serves as an appendix to this work, allows the study to engage both in exegetical and historical approaches to each pericope while at the same time drawing conclusions about the theological tendencies and dominant themes reflected in each. Engaging a wide range of primary texts, it demonstrates that just as there is no singular way that each Pauline text was adapted and used by early Christian writers, so there is no homogeneous view of early Christian interpretation and the way Scripture informed their writings, theology, and ultimately identity as Christian.

Chapter One:
Introduction

All Scripture is divinely inspired and useful for teaching, for reproving,
and for instruction in righteousness.1

1.1 Reception History and Christian Formation

The concluding words of the second letter of Peter include a reflection on “our beloved brother Paul” who “wrote to you according to the wisdom given to him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters (2 Pet 3.15).” Considered one of the last canonical texts written, the Petrine epistle’s final words underscore an early understanding of Paul as one who is wise and the authoritative status of his letters. But what is the influence of the Pauline epistles more broadly in early Christianity? How are the wisdom of Paul and the authority of his letters claimed by the earliest Christian writers?

In this study, I explore the use of Paul and his letters by early Christian writers of the first three centuries and examine how their interpretation of Paul’s words contributes to our understanding of Christian formation.2 This project is a study of the effects of selected Pauline excerpts on early Christians as discerned through the lens of early Christian writing or, more precisely, the pens of early Christian writers. By adapting a methodology from ancient historical studies and creating a survey of all possible references to the Pauline writings in early Christian Latin and Greek texts, this study identifies and focuses upon four of the most frequently cited Pauline passages in ante-Nicene writings: 1 Cor 2.6–16, Eph 6.10–17, 1 Cor 15.50–58, and Col 1.15–20.3 Certainly lists have been produced before this project that tell us which books of the New Testament were most utilised within a specific time period. But unlike the chapters that follow, these lists do not include the detail of specific verses nor have they moved beyond the level of asking questions about why such frequently occurring texts might be important to study.

How does the widespread and frequent use of the four Pauline passages identified by this project shape early Christian writings, their doctrine and discourse? And how, secondarily, might these texts illuminate early Christian formation? Does a community of interpretation emerge from early Christian uses of the most frequently cited Pauline texts? What themes are apparent as each pericope is articulated, adopted, expanded, and combined with other scriptural texts and theological concepts by early Christians as they seek to understand and to live by words of Scripture?4 That the most frequently cited texts are found in the context of some of the central pre-Nicene theological debates—Irenaeus’ understanding of salvation and recapitulation, Origen’s understanding of scriptural interpretation, Clement’s understanding of teaching, Tertullian’s understanding of resurrection—cannot be an accident. The Pauline texts most frequently used by early Christian writers are not random. They are closely connected with the developing doctrines and debates of ante-Nicene Christianity.

Early Christian use of these four Pauline pericopes is also closely connected with aspects of Christian formation. “Formation” can be a rather contentious term, often conflated with Christian pedagogy or catechesis which are more difficult to determine in this early time period. Understood within an early Christian context, writings function formatively in a direct way as they purport to teach the basics of the faith and to define doctrine in the face of opposition.5 Formation, however, may also be indirect, with an intention to frighten off those who might attempt to influence early Christians in a different or even harmful way. Our use of formation as a category, therefore, depends on understanding the purpose of writing. It is also intimately connected to the art of persuasion, which “is the central element to all ancient conceptions of rhetoric” and discourse.6 Understood in a rhetorical context, the concept of formation includes defence and explanation (apologetic), teaching and paraenesis (didactic), and exhortation especially directed at those who are not insiders or new initiates (protreptic).7 Thus, formation is expanded analogously with rhetoric to include all texts. All writings have a formative aspect to them since all texts are written to persuade. They are, therefore, an essential part of the process of developing Christians in the faith. The communicative aim of a text is to form.8 This understanding of formation underscores the serious attention ancient writers paid to what was written and said and, in the context of this study, prima facie the seriousness with which early Christian writers cite and use the writings of Paul in their own works.

The way Pauline passages are used in sources such as the writings of early Christians, therefore, can offer insights into understanding the formation of Christian communities and identities. This is especially true in light of an understanding of formation within a Graeco-Roman context as that which takes place beyond an explicitly educational setting and conveys the sense of a broader cultural and rhetorical understanding of persuasion and its part in setting the boundaries of practice and belief.9 What follows is not a comprehensive study of the nature of Christian formation, but rather, an exploration of how early Christians’ use of a specific text in their writings contributes to the formation of their doctrines and discourse.

Based on a comprehensive survey of Pauline references in ante-Nicene literary sources, I offer a detailed account of 1 Cor 2.6–16, Eph 6.10–17, 1 Cor 15.50–58, and Col 1.15–20 as these texts are adapted to suit different communities at a time when the status of Christianity was undergoing great change in the Roman Empire. From this analysis and with a better grasp of early Christian use of these four texts, one of the most significant findings of this project emerges: a definition of Christian formation as progress from one level of wisdom to another. This insight, alongside the methodology on which the project is founded, contributes to valuable reflections on the ways that these four frequently-cited passages were used to form and persuade early Christians and, in the process, to shape Christianity as a system of belief and practice.

1.2 Surveys within New Testament Studies

In recent years, scholarship on early Christianity has seen a surge of interest in the reception history of the New Testament and the interpretation of Scripture by early Christian writers.10 As Candida Moss writes in her study of early Christian martyrdom, reception histories of the New Testament can be divided into two distinct approaches: biblical interpretation within the work of one particular author, and the reception of a particular New Testament text as traced through the writings of early Christians.11 The first approach is confined to the evidence of extant texts of an early Christian writer, thereby making this approach problematic for the study of most authors who wrote before the fourth century.12 The second approach, Moss surmises, is too often hampered by the narrow criteria by which scholars identify scriptural references. In other words, reception history is limited both “temporally, in that the majority of studies focus on later patristic authors, and generically, in that the material examined is confined to citation and commentary.”13 While I have narrowed the emphasis of this study to the letters attributed to Paul,14 at the same time I have maintained a broad focus across a wide range of authors and genres within pre-Nicene Christianity. By concentrating on the most frequently used Pauline passages in early Christian literary sources, I offer an approach for managing early Pauline reception in a coherent and justifiable way. In the process, I also provide a middle way between Moss’s two criticisms of early biblical reception, since this project is limited neither to one author nor to one scriptural text.

Despite the surge in scholarship on the reception of Pauline texts in early Christian writings, the approach of examining the use of Pauline texts across all extant writings in a given time period has not been investigated extensively. Judith Kovacs emphasises the need for a comprehensive study of early Christian reception of Pauline texts, writing that, “the fragmentary evidence of interpretation of the […] Pauline letters remains largely unexplored.”15 For example, within her focused study of Origen’s use of excerpts from 1 Corinthians, Kovacs is astounded that “there is not one study […] of the seventy-three pages of fragments from Origen’s homilies on 1 Corinthians.”16 Accordingly, in the following chapters I concentrate on how early Christians were using parts of the Pauline epistles across a wide range of texts—including some which remain untranslated and are rarely cited in secondary sources—and in the process seek to fill this gap in scholarship.

In addition to Kovacs, scholars such as Larry Hurtado, Stephen Llewelyn, and Peter Gorday provide further support for the importance of a comprehensive survey of biblical references as a foundation for engaging early Christian reception of Scripture and as a starting point for examining how early Christians were using these texts. Hurtado argues that early Christian papyri and literary texts “reflect attitudes, preferences, and usages of many Christians more broadly in the second and third centuries.”17 Recognising the potential importance of the texts occurring with the greatest frequency, Hurtado offers a list of the extant copies of each canonical book of the New Testament within early Christian papyri.18 Llewelyn, as a part of the series New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity, presents a more extensive survey which includes the number of references to each biblical book in extant papyrus, parchment, and patristic sources, but without explanation.19 With these brief surveys in mind, Hurtado concludes that, “assuming that the comparative numbers of extant copies of texts reflect the comparative numbers of copies circulating in the ancient setting of these copies, we can infer the relative popularity of texts in these Christian circles.”20 Referring to his own limited survey, he offers the challenge along with his hope that “this deliberately limited and somewhat preliminary analysis of the texts that are attested in Christian manuscripts of the second and third centuries will at least have demonstrated that it is worthwhile to give attention to these matters.”21 Hurtado comments in particular that this sort of survey is “insufficiently noted in current discussion and debates about Christianity” in antiquity.22 He is clear that if more attention were given to surveys of attested texts and comparative references, scholars would “likely have some direct indication of what texts were read and their comparative popularity.”23

1.3 Surveys in Ancient Historical Studies

While the importance of surveys of biblical texts is noted within reception historical and biblical studies, how such a survey may be compiled and its results analysed has not been addressed. Thus, I drew on a method worked out by scholars of ancient history, at least two of whom created comprehensive surveys in order to understand the nature and indebtedness to literary authorities in Graeco-Roman pedagogy. This method, as established by scholars of ancient history Raffaella Cribiore and especially Teresa Morgan, is a wide ranging survey of references to authors such as Homer, Menander, and Isocrates in Graeco-Roman school-text papyri. Such a study finds that a large number of extracts from the works of Homer present an “important test-case for our understanding of what literature was taught” and thus formed the emerging core of Graeco-Roman literate education.24 Certainly the assumption that all of Homer was used equally is not unfounded, especially if one bases such conclusions on the accounts of education offered by Quintilian.25 However, a survey of Homeric references in papyrological and literary texts reveals a different story and begins to paint a new picture of the importance and use of Homer’s writings within the ancient worlds.26 Such a survey therefore enables the discovery of the most frequently cited Homeric texts in school-text papyri and consequently, based on this quantitative data, opens the door for a qualitative analysis of the ways these texts were being used.27 Morgan’s method does not simply quantify citation but analyses the distribution of passages in school-text papyri, offering direct evidence of the use of these texts in teaching since each reference is from the hand of a student or teacher.

As a foundation for this study, I adapt this method of surveying extant texts in Graeco-Roman literate education and apply it to early Christian writings. Morgan’s method, however, must be adapted and not adopted in full because the focus of this study is not on papyrological texts—a study which would be hampered and limited by the paucity of extant sources—but on early Christian literary texts.28 By adapting the method in this way, this project draws on Morgan’s own observation that the results of the survey on the use of Homer in school exercises are mirrored by the results of a survey on the use of Homer in literary texts from the same time period. Thus, the first books of Homer’s Iliad, frequently cited and distributed throughout school-text papyri, are also frequently cited and distributed throughout literary texts from the same period. Certainly, this study of the use of Paul’s writings recognises that the connecti...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Preface
• Contents
• Chapter One: Introduction
• Chapter Two: 1 Corinthians 2.6–16: Wisdom leads a soul to God
• Chapter Three: Ephesians 6.10–17: spiritual armour…to wage a spiritual war
• Chapter Four: 1 Corinthians 15.50–58: Resolve me of all ambiguities
• Chapter Five: Colossians 1.15–20: There was a time when he was not
• Chapter Six: Conclusion
• Appendix: Introduction
• Appendix A: 1 Corinthians 2.6–16
• Appendix B: Ephesians 6.10–17
• Appendix C: 1 Corinthians 15.50–58
• Appendix D: Colossians 1.15–20
• Bibliography
• Index of Ancient Sources
• Index of Subjects
• Endnotes