Paul and the Ancient Celebrity Circuit

James Harrison, research director at the Sydney School of Divinity, who has published treatises on Paul’s language of grace and on Paul and the imperial authorities at Thessalonica and Rome in the WUNT series (2003, 2011), investigates in this new volume Paul’s critique of the Roman tradition of boasting and, more generally, “the moral transformation of the early believers in a world dominated by the civic ethics of the ancient elites” (p. 45). Five of the nine essays have appeared before; they were updated from previous publications (chs. 4–5, 7–9).The first chapter, written as an introduction (“‘The Bold and the Beautiful’: Fame and Celebrity in Antiquity and the Modern World”; pp. 1–48) surveys fame and celebrity in antiquity and in the modern world; eulogies of the Greco-Roman elites; the celebrity of athletes, artists, and entertainers; and travels of Roman rulers and their family members and correlates the evidence with the Christians’ commitment to humility, the giftedness of all, the obligation to others, the needs of the weak, the moral and social transformation of communities, and the cross.The second chapter compares Paul and Cicero under the heading “Romans and the Reconfiguration of Roman Society” (pp. 49–77). Harrison investigates in brief sections the social ideology of Cicero as evidence for Roman social attitudes in the imperial age, in particular Cicero’s comments on the gods, honor, the obligation of gratitude, glory, imitatio, misericortia, clementia, humanitas, ethnicity, enmity, and crucifixion, before he surveys Paul’s “reconfiguration of Roman society” in Rom 12–16 and the challenges Paul’s gospel posed for Roman society.Chapter 3 (“The Paradox of Paul’s Apostolic Ministry [2 Cor 4:7–18] in Its Augustan and Apocalyptic Context”; pp. 79–107) compares the self-presentation of Augustus in the Res Gestae, whose reluctance to accept inappropriate honors Harrison accepts as historically authentic, with Paul’s self-understanding described in the light of Jesus’s death and resurrection, suggesting that Paul’s leadership ideal “gradually took hold in western civilisation” (p. 107).In the fourth chapter (“Paul and the Athletic Ideal in Antiquity: A Case Study in Wrestling with Word and Image”; pp. 109–34), Harrison complains that NT scholars have not interpreted the athletic metaphors in Paul’s letters in the context of visual artifacts; he proceeds to an interpretation of Paul’s athletic images (running and boxing) in 1 Cor 9:24–27, concluding that Paul emptied “the athletic ideal of its elitism and myopic individualism” as he “democratised its discipline and postponed the allocation of its rewards” (p. 133).The next two chapters are devoted to Greco-Roman education. Chapter 5 (“Paul and the Gymnasiarchs: Two Approaches to Pastoral Formation in Antiquity”; pp. 135–71) surveys the question of Paul’s familiarity with the gymnasion of the Greco-Roman poleis, commenting on the motivations, the pastoral attitude, the ethics of the gymnasiarch and the exclusivist ethos of the gymnasium, and the parallels and differences between Paul and, for example, the Ephesian household codes, and the Delphic canon. Harrison concludes that parallel emphases in gymnasiarchal inscriptions are “sharply differentiated by the dynamic of the Spirit in the believer’s life” (p. 171). Chapter 6 (“Paul, the Delphic Canon and the Ephebic Ethical Curriculum”; pp. 173–216) examines the Delphic canon of the seven sages and its ethical curriculum, including the inscriptional evidence, and situates “Paul’s pedagogy of ethical transformation” and the values of the Corinthian elite in the church in Corinth in this context.Chapter 7 (“The Imitation of the Great Man in Antiquity: Paul’s Inversion of a Cultural Icon”; pp. 217–55) revisits the discussion of Paul’s references to imitation and places it in the context of the literary, documentary, and visual evidence of the “great man” tradition in antiquity. Harrison concludes that Paul inverts contemporary models of exemplary virtue. Chapter 8 “Paul and Ancient Civic Ethics: Redefining the Canon of Honour in the Graeco-Roman World”; pp. 257–69) investigates honor and shame in the Greco-Roman world, civic ethics, upward mobility, and local associations and then proceeds to discuss the terms Paul uses for honor, praise, glory, and shame. Harrison concludes that Paul overturns the “culture of relentless boasting” on account of “God’s gracious election of the foolish, weak, low and despised” (p. 296).Chapter 9 (“Paul’s House Churches and the Cultic Associations”; pp. 297–329) presents recent research on Greco-Roman associations and seeks to clarify the identity of Paul’s house churches and local cultic associations in the context of honorific rituals, friendship, and social concord. Chapter 10 summarizes the previous chapters.Since Harrison repeatedly complains that NT scholars have missed realia and important themes of the ancient world, it is surely appropriate to point to lacuna in his discussion, particularly in view of the fact that he assures his readers had he has updated his previously published essays (p. vi). As regards commentaries on the Corinthian correspondence, which figures prominently throughout the book, one looks in vain for interaction with several major recent commentaries on 1 Corinthians (Schrage, EKK, 1991–2001; Lindemann, HNT, 2000; Arzt-Grabner, Papyrologische Kommentare zum Neuen Testament, 2006; Schnabel, Historisch Theologische Auslegung, 2006; Zeller, KEK, 2010) and 2 Corinthians (Schmeller, EKK, 2010/2015). He uses material in OCD but not in PW or Brill’s New Pauly. For crucifixion, several monographic treatments and publication of primary sources are missing (Chapman 2008; Chapman/Schnabel 2015). Paul’s argumentation in 1 Cor 1–4 could benefit from the monograph of Kammler (Mohr Siebeck, 2003). The discussion of Cicero and the gods (pp. 52–53) should be based not only on Cicero’s orations but also on his treatise De natura deorum. The attempt at a “rehabilitation” of Augustus (pp. 72–73) would want to interact not only with R. Syme but with others who regard Augustus’s principate as the establishment of a military dictatorship; Harrison would at least want to mention that Augustus had Cicero murdered! One wonders where, exactly, “Paul’s communities of cruciform grace continue to challenge the self-serving and self-promoting paradigms of contemporary leadership” (p. 107), if this is meant to be a political-social statement rather than an expression of hope. As regards the visual evidence for athletics in the Greco-Roman world (pp. 113–16), the material Harrison presents is helpful and adds important context but does not change the interpretation of Paul’s athletic metaphors (Harrison has missed the studies of R. Metzner, New Testament Studies 2000; U. Poplutz, Athlet des Evangeliums. Eine motivgeschichtliche Studie zur Wettkampfmetaphorik bei Paulus, 2004). Harrison briefly examines the possibility that Paul was educated in a gymnasium in Tarsus (p. 118 n. 27: in the chapter of Paul’s athletic metaphors, not in the chapters on Greek education); however, it does not seem plausible to assume that Paul’s understanding of his pastoral responsibilities echoed the pastoral role attributed to the gymnasiarchs in honorific inscriptions (p. 138).Harrison’s learned volume is a provocation, in the best sense of the word, to take the historical, social, and cultural context of NT texts seriously. In the context of an avalanche of narrative readings, this is a necessary reminder. Harrison’s close attention to primary sources — whether Cicero texts, inscriptions documenting the sayings of the seven sages, or Pauline texts—and his exploratory, fair interaction with secondary sources stands as a model of contextual, historical-philological exegesis

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