Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>]

> > [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