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  • From: Tim Harris <tim.harris AT stmatts.asn.au>
  • To: Corpus-Paul <corpus-paul AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Corpus-Paul] A NEW THREAD!!! Paul and ancient literature on leadership
  • Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 14:34:26 +0930

Perry, thanks for taking the initiative in kicking off a worthwhile thread.
Those of us in the southern hemisphere can only anticipate summer
approaching...

For a well informed secondary source that explores relevant G-R literature for
parallels, I'd recommend Mark Harding's 'Tradition and Rhetoric in the Pastoral
Epistles' - Peter Lang, 1998.

You raise an interesting question, especially in terms of documentary material
in circulation at the time of the first readers encountering the PE. The whole
issue of leadership was very topical in the first couple of centuries of the
imperial period, but written versions of such discussions tend to come a bit
later. For example, in the first century you have the likes of Musonius Rufus,
who is reputed to have been very well respected and influential (the 'Roman
Socrates'), but we are dependant on student's classroom lecture notes (in
effect), and on fragments gathered in various citations elsewhere for his
teachings. Likewise with Epictetus, much influenced by Musonius Rufus, and also
apparently highly esteemed as a teacher and mentor to many pupils who went on to
exercise significant forms of public office and leadership. But we are
essentially limited to his student Arrian for knowledge of his views.

It would be worthwhile also considering Dio Chrysostom, although bearing in mind
the debate about his supposed 'conversion' as cynic and stoic (is he genuine, or
politically motivated?). Yet enmeshed in the various political swings and
roundabouts of the late 1st century and early second, you have an interesting
case study of someone reflecting extensively on the qualities of worthy
leadership (or otherwise). The so-called 'second sophistic' touched on such
matters extensively, very often with vested personal interests related to
patronage.

In other words, the influence of such teachers or public speakers may be broadly
contemporaneous with the PE, but the documentary forms associated with them are
generally dated later, at least in their collected forms. But they are helpful
windows into the influences of various earlier figures upheld by various
philosophical traditions as exemplars of good leadership etc.

Timothy J Harris, Ph.D
Senior Minister
Kensington-Norwood Anglican Team Ministry
PO Box 56 Kensington Park
South Australia

Quoting "Perry L. Stepp" <plstepp AT kcu.edu>:

A NEW THREAD!!!

In my work on the Pastorals, I have become very curious about the body of
ancient Graeco-Roman literature that was written to teach people how to be
good leaders--evidently a HUGE corpus.

A question for list members who have any kind of background in classics: if
one wants to reconstruct the ideational backdrop against which ancient
readers would have read the Pastorals, what documents would you compare the
PE to?

In other words--at least I think I'm asking the same question--what ancient
GR documents that teach about leadership would have been exceptionally
well-known, even if indirectly?

Perry L. Stepp, Ph.D.

Associate Professor, Biblical Studies and Theology
Kentucky Christian University



South Australia 5068
Ph. 08 8431 1022
Fax 08 8364 5871




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