Eclipsing Empire: Paul, Rome, and the Kingdom of God. John Dominic Crossan. Participant Reader by

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1 Eclipsing Empire: Paul, Rome, and the Kingdom of God Participant Reader by John Dominic Crossan

3 VI. CITIES PAUL OF TARSUS. We say already that Paul s own missionary strategy was to focus on Roman capital cities. He was born in Tarsus, capital of the Roman province of Cilicia, and that birth-place may have helped him settle on that focus. But Tarsus may also have given him two other long-lasting gifts one good and one not so good. It was good that the location of Tarsus looked both to the west and to the east. Born there, you could easily imagine going north through the Cilician Gates in the Taurus Mountains and then west towards Asia Minor and Greece. And you could just as easily imagine going east through the Syrian Gates in the Amanus Mountain and then south towards Israel and Egypt. Tarsus may have given Paul open horizons. It was not so good that the location of Tarsus created marshes, mosquitoes, and malaria. Paul reminded the Galatians that it was because of a physical infirmity that I first announced the gospel to you; though my condition put you to the test, you did not scorn or despise me, but welcomed me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus (4:13-14). It is possible that that sickness was what Paul called his thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12:7. Marshy Tarsus may also have given Paul chronic malarial infection. Be that as it may, we have already seen that Paul focused on Roman provincial capitals and, within them, on those in-between God-worshipers rather than on born Jews or total pagans. But, in terms of social class, what was the status of those responding to Paul s missionary strategy? In particular, and as an example, many of the problems Paul encountered at Corinth seem to bespeak a somewhat aristocratic clientele. How did that happen? How do we reconcile the following rather contradictory aspects of Paul s Aegean mission in Corinth?

4 2 Eclipsing Empire THE ARTISANS PRISCA AND AQUILA. On the one hand, think of Priscilla (Prisca, for short) and her husband Aquila. That couple is located sequentially in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and finally back in Rome. They are clearly very, very important something on which both Luke s Acts and Paul s letters agree. You will notice that Priscilla/Prisca is often mentioned in first place which probably denoted that she was of her higher social or economic status than Aquila. They are at Corinth in Acts 18:2, There he [Paul] found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together by trade they were tentmakers. That, by the way, was a difficult trade, if it was with leather, because much of it was monopolized by the military or for the military. Their trade may, therefore, have been with linen rather than leather. Then, in Acts 18:18-19, they move to Ephesus. After staying there [at Corinth] for a considerable time, Paul said farewell to the believers and sailed for Syria, accompanied by Priscilla and Aquila.When they reached In terms of social class, what was the status of those responding to Paul s missionary strategy? Ephesus, he left them there, but first he himself went into the synagogue and had a discussion with the Jews. They are still there in Acts 18:26: He [the missionary Apollos] began to speak boldly in the synagogue; but when Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they took him aside and explained the Way of God to him more accurately. Later when Paul writes to Corinth from Ephesus he adds that, The churches of Asia send greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, greet you warmly in the Lord in 1 Corinthians 16:19. Finally, they move back to Rome, presumably after the death of Claudius and the accession of Nero in 54 C.E. They are there when Paul says to Greet Prisca and Aquila, who work with me in Christ Jesus, and who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles. Greet also the church in their house, in Romans 16:3-5. But go back to that text in Acts 18:2 where Paul works with (under?) Prisca and Aquila in their trade as artisans, that would seem to indicate a somewhat low social status for Paul at Corinth.

THE ARISTOCRATS GAIUS AND ERASTUS. On the other hand, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, that, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth (1:26).

5 THE ARISTOCRATS GAIUS AND ERASTUS. On the other hand, Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians, that, not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth (1:26). But if there were not many, there were at least some. Furthermore, many of the problems at Corinth seem to bespeak aristocratic status or at least upper-class pretensions of some sort. Problems with the common eucharistic meal in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, for example, indicate some upper and lower class tensions in that community. Finally, Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians that among those whom he himself had baptized at Corinth was one named Gaius (1:14). But later when he writes to the Romans from Corinth, he adds that Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you (16:23a). That surely means that Gaius was somewhat upper class. In that same text, Paul continues by adding greetings from Corinth to Rome from Erastus, the city treasurer (16:23b). It is possible even likely that there is archaeological evidence about that Erastus. In 1926 American excavators discovered a first-century paving stone that once bore an inlaid bronze inscription. Even with the bronze long-gone, the hollowed-out spaces could still be read: Erastus, in return for his aedileship, laid this pavement at his own expense. Cities 3 First-century paving stone bearing Erastus name. Found in Corinth. Paul s Erastus is the city treasurer (oikonomos) in Romans 16:23b and that office is a step below that of the aedile. Still, they could easily be the same person as Erastus moved up the ladder of city officialdom from treasurer to aedile. Be that as it may, we now have these two questions. First, how could Paul be in touch with both artisans as a working artisan and aristocrats as a working apostle at Corinth? Second, when Paul refers to Prisca and Aquila and the church in their house in I Corinthians 16:19 and Romans 16:5, what type of house-church are we to imagine? As we see next, both those questions have the same single answer. Herculaneum and Pompeii. Turn now to two cities which Paul, as far as we know, never visited. In August of 79 C.E. Vesuvius erupted and sealed those two Campanian cities in tufa, that volcanic stone that is strong enough to allow five-story-deep catacombs around Rome. The dead lay where ash had

6 4 Eclipsing Empire suffocated them, the sea had trapped them, or the flow had engulfed them. Their food, down to an eggshell, was often undamaged, and their unfinished meals remained on the tables from which they fled. Their furniture and artifacts stayed where they left them, the wood often completely intact but also completely carbonized. But, for our present concern, we look at two houses located on main-street frontage. The House of the Bicentenary in Herculaneum. The block is actually a complex of one large and elegant dwelling with rental apartments upstairs and frontage shops downstairs. That complex is an example of the porous architectural and social relationships between house, apartment, and shop. For example, the long hall-way of the House was necessitated by the shops on either side. Behind them, the urban villa opened up to its full splendor. The street frontage shows six doors: one for a villa, two for apartments, The House of the Bicentenary at Herculaneum. and three for shops. Think about the architectural and social inter-connections of those three categories. Who owns what and how much? Do enslaved or freed persons run the shops? Are they sold, rented, or sub-let from the main villa? Within that triple complex what were the relationships between patrons and clients, friends and neighbors, the free, the freed, and the enslaved? The House of the Faun in Pompeii. This full-block villa, one of the most magnificent in the doomed city, had on its floor a magnificent mosaic of the charging Alexander and the terrified Darius at the Battle of Issus (now on a wall in the Naples Archaeological Museum). But as you stand on its main street frontage what you see from left to right are, again, six doors. There are two tall and narrow entrances into the villa a primary and a secondary one. But there are also four lower but wider shop entrances. And those two shops flanking that striking main entrance open not only, of course, to the street but also inward to the villa s atrium. Who ran those shops for the villa s owner? Were they still slaves or already freed? Were they rented out to artisans who made their wares in the back and sold them in the front of the same shop? And, if so, those renters would be clients of the villa-owner as patron. They would be perforce artisans in contact with aristocrats.

7 Cities 5 TWO QUESTIONS WITH ONE ANSWER. At Herculaneum and Pompeii, clearly, but in every city of the Roman Empire, even if less clearly, we can still see that porous relationship between villa and shop wherever there is main-street frontage. And that gives the single answer to our two opening questions. First, when we think of a housechurch in Paul s letters we should think primarily of a shop-church rather than one in a tenement, apartment, or villa. People come and go to a shop all the time and it could, without too much surprise, become the meeting-place for a lower-class congregation. Second, that spatially connected Northwest shops in Corinth. even if socially distinct relationship between artisans in the shop and aristocrats in the villa that is, between clients to patrons is one very obvious way that Paul at Corinth could have worked with Prisca and Aquila as artisans and still have come into contact with those of higher social classes such as Gaius or Erastus. If, then, you wander today through the ruins of Corinth or Ephesus, look with at least as much interest at shops and villas as at temples and theaters. Cities from Eclipsing Empire: Paul, Rome, and the Kingdom of God, published by livingthequestions.com, LLC. Copyright 2008 All Rights Reserved. Licensed for use for one year from date of purchase. License must be renewed annually. Other usage is strictly prohibited.

International Bible Lesson Commentary Acts 18:1-11, 18-21

International Bible Lesson Commentary Acts 18:1-11, 18-21 International Bible Lessons Commentary Acts 18:1-11, 18-21 New American Standard Bible International Bible Lessons Sunday, November 29, 2015 L.G. Parkhurst, Jr. The International Bible Lesson (Uniform