Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

corpus-paul - RE: [Corpus-Paul] Gaius Titius Justus a.k.a. Stephanas

corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Corpus-Paul

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Doug Chaplin" <lists AT actually.me.uk>
  • To: "'Corpus-Paul'" <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: RE: [Corpus-Paul] Gaius Titius Justus a.k.a. Stephanas
  • Date: Mon, 2 Aug 2004 17:10:59 +0100

rfellows AT shaw.ca writes:
>>But if our hypothesis is correct, all
>>these people were absent from Corinth at the time, and there may have been
>>NO wealthy believers present.

lists AT actually.me.uk writes in response:

>So why, exactly does Paul write to deal with the problems caused by the
>wealthy, and why is it the "strong" (which certainly correlates with
>wealthy) who seem to be the primary implied readers? They seem to be in his
>sights as those who took people to court to display the forensic rhetoric,
>and who could afford large dinner parties with the conspicuous consumption
>of meat.


Fred Rich writes


>Although I would agree with the objection voiced above that it is probably best not to read the Corinthians correspondence (1 Cor. at least) as saying there are no wealthy believers (see 1 Cor. 1:26f.) Hereby I would make what I would consider a logical step in identifying the 'not many (who) were powerful' and the 'not many (who) were of noble birth' (NRSV) as being in all likelihood wealthy. The numbers were likely very small of this kind of socio economic grouping, perhaps best described by Wayne Meeks' beautiful phrase 'status inconsistant' people. However, to go from there to then identify these as the 'strong' seems to be going too far. On what basis would you propose this identification? I am not convinced by the implied readership issue raised above. Considering the importance of fellowship/ ritual meals in the ancient world, as has been put forward so convincingly by people such as Philip Esler in his Galatians book, then it would seem reasonable that this could apply to virtually any Corinthian believer, provided that they weren't a slave.

 

I would note in response

The strong seem to have no problems with regularly eating meat, and this in itself is a probable indication of wealth.
The fellowship meal, which presumably is the focus for the disputes over meat eating, seems clearly in Corinth to be socially divided, with the meal supplied by a wealthy patron, and the rest of church behaving as clients, with those whose prestige does little for the patron being consigned to the courtyard, while the more leisured and prestigious clients eat in the triclinium. This is the norm for meals, and unless there is evidence to the contrary, ideas of all bringing food to share are problematic.

The host for the fellowship meal, and therefore the provider of the meat, is a householder. Few people and those only among the wealthy or the aristocracy, owned houses. For Rome the estimate is 3%.

I don’t dissent from Meeks’ description of status inconsistency at all, but I think some of the argument has moved on: Winter has done more work on patron-client relationships which often get overlooked, and on Corinth in particular, (sorry I don’t have exact references here) Savage’s Power through Weakness has a provocative if scathing description of Corinth as dominated by the conspicuous displays of the nouveaux riches, in which conspicuous consumption (if not at Trimalchio’s level) is a vital part of attempting to resolve their status inconsistency.

All this continues to make me feel that the wealthy would not only have no problems with eating meat, but would resent any attempt to curtail their consumption, and hence remain good candidates for being “the strong”

 

Doug Chaplin




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page