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corpus-paul - Re: Gal 4:8-10 (To Mark Nanos)

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  • From: "Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>
  • To: "Corpus-paul" <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: Gal 4:8-10 (To Mark Nanos)
  • Date: Mon, 2 Oct 2000 09:45:12 -0500


> [Mark wrote

> Greeks believed
> that the entire community implicated each other if anyone or family
> failed to publicly express, e.g., worship of the imperial cult,
> fearing reprisals both in commercial and spiritual terms. The
> pressure to comply would be immense, unless they could appeal to a
> legitimate transformation of identity so that their failure to
> participate any longer was not a threat

Stephen Finland wrote:

Quite likely, but can you provide evidence, examples, info
about the situation on the ground in Galatia? Do we have first
century examples of reprisals taken against non-conformist 'pagans'
in Asia Minor?
All of this sounds very abstract, currently.

Dear Stephen,

On the ground in Galatia in terms of the specific addressees, it is difficult to say, since even where in the whole of Galatia, in the region or province, remain uncertain (we do not even know if they are Romans, Greeks, Phrygians, Celts, etc.). If in Ps. Antioch then it would be easy, since the imperial cult was clearly practiced there, and the implications would be clear. On the ground in the Graeco-Roman world including Asia Minor, hence Galatia, there are many examples of the concerns with compliance with prevailing norms, of the culpability for infractions of the family and neighborhood and city honor, and fear of retribution from the gods, or Caesar, or some other powerful local ruling figure, or loss of honor or commercial privilege for a city (not that the two were so easily divisible), etc. The incorporation of imperial cult with indigenous cults of this period gave politico-religious expression a very public and important face in the Greek East (see Price, Rituals and Power). Is that what you are questioning? The secondary literature on Graeco-Roman religious thought and practice comment along this line frequently, and with reference to primary sources, where such concerns are a common feature of the stories. In this period religious claims involve political claims; indeed, religious life is embedded in political life, if we are to accept the views of scholars of the classical world and of the social science approaches to Biblical studies. If I may quote but one, Sandra Walker-Ramisch in her essay in Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World, writes:
"pietas and philotimia were considered the sacred duty of every citizen and their observance an act of loyalty to the empire and an affirmation of the social order. To fail in this duty was asebieia (impietas) and this could mean exile, or even death." (pp. 133-34).

1. About Graeco-Roman norms and the concept of solidarity:
An example of this dynamic in the Roman world is provided in Cicero's On the Response of the Haruspices. Here the explanation for the noises being raised outside of Rome are blamed on divine anger with the city, including such things as pollution of games, profanation of sacred places, killing of orators, neglected oaths, ancient rituals performed improperly. The rhetoriticians variously interpreted events in support of their own interests against each other, but they agreed that divine disfavor for impiety was a political factor of great importance. For example, the accusations brought against people often appealed to their infractions of the communal norms according to failure to uphold prevailing religious beliefs, their impiety. Beard, North and Price, Religions of Rome (cf. vol. 1, pp. 134-49, 313-63) offers excellent discussion of these things (and vol. 2 has the primary sources); also the Kloppernborg and Wilson, eds., Voluntary Associations in the Graeco-Roman World, see esp. the essays of Walker-Ramisch and W. Cotter. These are but two of many books that make such statements, and offer primary sources in support of them. I love the discussions in A. Gouldner's Enter Plato: Classical Greece and the Origins of Social Theory, for the social dynamics to which I appeal.

2. About Pagan constraints on an individual's religious choice where proselyte conversion is concerned:
Josephus's discussion of Izates provides an excellent example of the kinds of social constraints one considering proselyte conversion might experience. Granted this is a king, but his mother's counsel appeals to the concern with what others will think and expect of a "pagan" king, and the problem his conversion involves if complete, that is, if he is circumcised rather than just continuing to be a kind of righteous gentile friend of Jewish life, but also a pagan king. Similar observations are made in terms of his kin when they are similarly interested. See Josephus, Antiquities, 20.2-4. In this case the welcome is extended variously by Jewish figures, one if he should become a proselyte, the other if he should remain a kind of guest. But the reaction of other pagans with a vested interest toward his kin when they consider this course, one of anger and seeking punishment. Tacitus, Hist. 5.4.1 says of Jews: "Among them all things are profane which are sacred with us, and again things are allowed among them which are impure for us." The extension of such sentiments toward pagans moving into Jewish identity by choice is easy to imagine, and a reference below from Tacitus is about just this matter.

Of course you are familiar with the several sources that indicate pagans engaging in proselyte conversion could bring down wrath upon themselves, provoking accusations against the Jewish community for promoting such behavior, whether they were doing so actively or not (cf. Tacitus, Histories 5.5.1-2; and later examples of punishment in Julius Paulus, Opinions 5.22.3-4; also consider the expulsions from Rome because of proselytes, wherein also expulsion and other threatened consequences toward pagans worshipping foreign cults [nonconformity with prevailing religio-political Romans norms] are part of the dynamics); similarly, reactions against pagans who were in some way identified as Jewish friends/guests by pagans can be found (Dio Cassius, Roman Hist. 67.14.1--2, condemned on the charge of "drifting into Jewish ways"). (Many cases of positive attitudes can be cited as well, but that is not the topic under discussion.)

3. On the issue of Jewish communal constraints and concerns where compliance with Pagan norms to ensure continuation of the exceptions made for themselves:
For discussion of some Jewish communities of the Diaspora having problems with local Graeco-Roman communities because of their special claims based upon the precedents set by J. Caesar's decrees, see the post today to Moon (and esp. Josephus, Antiquities, 14.185-267; 19.299-305; Jew. War 2.285-92, 457-68; Against Apion 2.65-77; Philo, Emb. 132-34, 353-57). A second century c.e. comment by Aelius Aristides, Orations 46: On the Quattuorviri 309 is worth quoting for a pagan view that makes salient Jewish concerns: "The sign of their impiety consists in that they do not recognize their betters [gods of the state], and these also have in some way seceded from the Greeks or rather from all the better people." If permitted by a special decree and precedent, then it is one thing for Jewish people not to participate, but it is quite another for pagan people to appeal to this privilege and threaten the extension of the special privilege, and that is what I am suggesting is at work in the situation addressed by Galatians.

Remember I am arguing that the reprisals mentioned by Paul in 6:12 that the influencers' are accused by him of fearing regard Jewish agents responsible for upholding the traditional norms in agreement with prevailing exceptions to the dominant communities pagan norms. If the influencers should seek to legitimate the exception that these "pagan" addressees seek to claim to the agents of the dominant pagan communities, they fear the threatening implications for their own continued privilege. So why do the addressees resist their "helpful" solution that removes the threat for all concerned? Is this not a "message of good news"?

Is this the kind of material and discussion you were looking for?

Regards,
Mark Nanos





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