“I commend to you our sister Phoebe, διάκονον and προστάτις”

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cenchreae, that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints, and help her in whatever she may need from you, for she has been a patron of many and of myself as well (Romans 16:1-2, ESV).

I commend to you our sister Phoebe, a deacon of the church in Cenchreae. I ask you to receive her in the Lord in a way worthy of his people and to give her any help she may need from you, for she has been the benefactor of many people, including me (Romans 16:1-2, NIV)

Συνίστημι δὲ ὑμῖν Φοίβην τὴν ἀδελφὴν ἡμῶν, οὖσαν [καὶ] διάκονον τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς ἐν Κεγχρεαῖς, 2 ἵνα αὐτὴν προσδέξησθε ἐν κυρίῳ ἀξίως τῶν ἁγίων καὶ παραστῆτε αὐτῇ ἐν ᾧ ἂν ὑμῶν χρῄζῃ πράγματι• καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴ προστάτις πολλῶν ἐγενήθη καὶ ἐμοῦ αὐτοῦ (Romans 16:1-2, NA27).

In my last post, I quoted William Lane who cited epigraphic and archaeological evidence that “patronage and leadership went hand in hand” in the ancient world. In the passage above, Paul commends Phoebe as both διάκονον (diakonon or “servant/deacon”) and προστάτις (prostatis or “patron/benefactor”).

I’ll come back to Phoebe in just a minute. Meanwhile, Lane continues:

This was undoubtedly true for the church in Rome as well. In Romans, Paul acknowledges his own dependence upon patronage in Corinth (16:23) and Cenchreae (16:2). G. Theissen has identified four criteria for assessing the degree of wealth of individuals mentioned by Paul: (1) engagement in civil or religious office; (2) possession of a house; (3) service to Paul or the church or both; (4) ability to undertake a journey on behalf of the church. To judge from Paul’s commendation of Aquila and Priscilla in Romans 16:3-5 and incidental references in Acts (18:1-3, 18, 24-27), they, at least, satisfy all four criteria. Wealth and patronage were almost certainly determining factors in the leadership they provided in Rome to those who looked to them as hosts and house church patrons. This would presumably also be true of the leadership of the other house churches acknowledged in Paul’s greetings in Romans 16.

We may conclude that in Rome those who possessed the resources and initiative to invite the church into his or her home assumed major leadership responsibilities deriving from the patronage offered. These included important administrative tasks, such as the provision of the common meals of the community, the extension of hospitality to traveling missionaries and other Christians, the representation of the community outside the domestic setting, in addition to pastoral oversight and governance. In this connection it is important to note Paul’s usage of the term to refer to the person who gives aid to the congregation (ὁ προϊστάμενος) in Romans 12:8, where the context refers to the extension of material help. The term carries connotations both of patronage and leadership. A plausible inference is that those who acted as patrons were in some sense also involved in governance of the community. A position of authority emerged out of the benefits that individuals of relatively higher wealth and social status could confer upon the community.

How did such leaders arise? Certainly in Rome they did not owe their position to apostolic appointment, a point of some significance in the light of the later argument of 1 Clement 42.4 and 44.2, where the first leadership of the church in Corinth is traced to appointment by Paul. In Rome, leadership was almost certainly derivative from patronage and service, as well as from the interaction between willing individuals and recognition by the wider community. That said, it is important to observe the significance of the commendatory greetings in Romans 16. Paul’s formulation amounts to a recommendation of certain individuals as leaders within the several Christian communities of Rome who gain their “legitimacy” from recognition by the apostle. Household leadership had emerged “from below” in the several communities in Rome, but the effect of Romans is to legitimate it “from above” by the apostle. (211-212).

Please do not miss the significance of what Lane is saying. Roman Catholics want to say that the three offices of “bishop, presbyter, and deacon” were given by some kind of “divine institution”. Given that it is “leadership in the church of Rome” that is being talked about, this is a far more accurate picture of how leadership in the church of Rome came about. And it has nothing to do with a magical or “sacramental succession”.

Jewett translates the phrase ὁ προϊστάμενος (ho proistamenos) in Romans 12:8 as a generic “the leader/presider”. He says,

the passive participle describes someone being ‘set over or at the head of’ a group, a usage reflected in the collective leadership that had been put in charge of the Thessalonian congregation [1 Thess 5:12: “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you” ESV; Ἐρωτῶμεν δὲ ὑμᾶς, ἀδελφοί, εἰδέναι τοὺς κοπιῶντας ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ προϊσταμένους ὑμῶν ἐν κυρίῳ καὶ νουθετοῦντας ὑμᾶς NA27]. This appointed role is different from the cognate term προστάτις (prostatis or “patron/benefactor”), which is an upper-class designation of someone who can provide support and protection. The passive form of the expression “the leader” renders it unlikely that it merely refers to someone financially or societally capable of giving aid to clients….The expression probably implies appointment to a leadership role in an early house or tenement church, whether as presider, administrator of charitable work, or pastoral supervisor (752-753).

Thomas Schreiner, a Souther Baptist commentator, and Douglas Moo, a conservative Lutheran, in their commentaries on Romans both translate this instance of ὁ προϊστάμενος (ho proistamenos) in Romans 12:8 as “one who presides”.

This leads us to the role of Phoebe. The word προστάτις in 16:2, then, which the ESV renders as “patron” and the new NIV renders “benefactor”, very likely includes the idea of leadership.

Schreiner says “Scholars debate” whether Phoebe held an office. “On the one hand, the term διάκονος may be generic denoting various kinds of service and assistance. On the other hand, the term also designates an office (cf. Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim 3:8, 12; see also Ign Eph. 2.1; Magn. 6.1). Is Paul commending Phoebe because she held the office of deacon, or because she served in [a] variety of unofficial ways in the church en Cenchreae? It is impossible to be sure, but for several reasons it is likely that she held the office of deacon. First, 1 Tim 3:11 probably identifies women as deacons (Schreiner refers to his own earlier analysis). Second, the designation “deacon of the church in Cenchreae” suggests that Phoebe served in this special capacity, for this is the only occasion in which the term διάκονος is linked with a particular local church. Third, the use of the masculine noun διάκονος also suggests that office is intended. Of course, we need to beware of reading into early church offices the full-fledged development that was realized later. But woman deacons were probably appointed early, especially because other women needed assistance from their own sex in visitation, baptism, and other matters” (Thomas Schreiner, Commentary on Romans, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ©1998, pgs 786-787).

Jewett discusses the significance of the word προστάτις as applied to Phoebe:

[with respect to the phrase “to provide her with whatever she might need from you in the matter…”], It must have significance, or else it would hardly have been mentioned as the opening request in the final series of personal greetings.

I believe a case can be made that Paul provides a direct hint in the wording of Rom 16:2c, “for she became a patron to many, and also to me”. The explanatory words καὶ γὰρ (“also for”) follow immediately after the vague term πράγμα, thus specifying what is meant by the “matter.” It is the matter of Phoebe’s patronage. The aorist passive verb used here, ἐγενήθη (“she became”), suggests that Phoebe functioned as a patron on a specific occasion for each of the persons named. She provided resources in concrete acts of patronage, implying the employment of substantial resources. The term προστάτις means “protectress, patroness, helper,” and its masculine counterpart took on the technical sense of a legal patron. Although the upper-class connotation of “patroness” runs counter to the subordinate implication traditionally seen in the term “deaconess,” several commentators have pointed to its relevance in this context. Kasemann argued, on the basis of an alleged lack of precise parallels to the legal use of the feminine term, προστάτης, that “women could not take on legal functions,” but this does not stand up under the weight of evidence discovered since 1981. [Kasemann wrote a 1980 commentary on Romans]. E.A. Judge was one of the first to point out the relevance of the papyrus from 142 B.C.E. that was published in 1981, referring to a woman being appointed the legal προστάτις of her fatherless son. Subsequently, the third-century C.E. inscription discovered at Aphrodisias has been published with a reference to a Jewish woman by the name of Jael as the προστάτις of a synagogue, clearly indicating a patronage role.

It is now clear that the patronage role played by Phoebe was not unique. Ramsay MacMullen’s survey showed that women made up “a fifth of all rescript-addresses” in the Roman period and that “perhaps a tenth of the protectors and donors that collegia sought out were women. Honors paid to a patroness ob merita, or some similar hint, indicate how the game was played.” He concludes that “as a general rule, then, women as benefactors should be imagined playing their part personally and visibly, out in the open. Other investigations of the archaeological and cultural evidence confirm this picture. Recent studies by Theissen, Holmberg, Funk, Murphy-O’Connor, Meeks, Kearsley, Tebilco, and Garrison of the leading role played by upper-class benefactors, both male and female, in early Christian communities provide the social background of the description of Phoebe’s status. The host or hostess of house churches was usually a person of high social standing and means, with a residencelarge enough for the church to gather, who presided over the Eucharistic celebarations and was responsible for the ordering of the congregation. The fact that Paul mentions Phoebe as a patroness “to many, and also to me” indicates the level of material resources that would support this kind of leadership role. In light of her high social standing, and Paul’s relatively subordinate social position as her client, it is mistaken to render προστάτις as “helper” or to infer some kind of subordinate role (945-947).

Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome 5: Patronage and Leadership

Since I haven’t been able to publish every day, just by way of review, my goal in this series is to present a useful (and easily accessible) overview of some of the writings that discuss the recent historical understanding that the earliest Roman church was composed of a network of households, and thus, that they had no single leader. This, in turn, flatly contradicts both the pronouncements of “perpetual” successors given at Vatican I, and the history that Roman Catholic Church has been telling for centuries about the foundation of its own authority.

As the Roman Catholic biblical scholar John P. Meier recently noted in recent “high level” ecumenical discussions, the papacy does not yet provide “a credible historical account of its own origins…” (“Petrine Ministry in the New Testament and in the Early Patristic Traditions,” in James F. Puglisi, ed., How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Uity of the Universal Church?” Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William Be. Eerdmans Publishing Co., © 2010). Meier is one of those who believes in “God’s providential guidance of the church, leading by a series of steps to the emergence of the bishop of Rome,” but this is a far, far cry from the “divine institution” of the papacy – directly conferring it on Peter who directly conferred it, in “full power” directly to an unbroken chain of “successors.”

And as the Lutheran scholar John Reumann noted in an essay in that same work,

Biblical and patristic studies make clear that historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors in” what is called “this hierarchically constituted society,” specifically “those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,” an episcopate with an “unbroken succession going back to the beginning.” For that, evidence is lacking, quite apart from the problem that the monepiscopacy replaced presbyterial governance in Rome only in the mid-or late second century. It has been noted above how recent treatments conclude that in the New Testament no successor for Peter is indicated. (in Puglisi, pgs 65-66, emphasis in original).

The historical studies as presented in this series serve as the underpinning for the statements given here by Meier and Reumann.

This is the kind of understanding that I believe Reformed and Evangelical believers must bring to any ecumenical discussions (along with Scriptural contradictions of any notion of “the papacy”) as solid reasons for rejecting Roman claims and for requiring repentance from the entire institution of Roman Catholicism for its false claims through history and damage has caused to the church and the hindrance it has added to the Gospel throughout history.

Part 1: Households in Ancient Rome: An Introduction
Part 2: Christians and Jews in First Century Rome
Part 3: Commerce and Household Communities
Aquila, Priscilla, and the accurate history of Acts 18.2
Part 4: Household Leadership as Church Leadership
House Churches and Households in the New Testament

Continuing with Lane’s account from my most recent post:

A typical insula [apartment building where a house church might congregate] contained a row of shops on the ground floor, facing the street, and provided living quarters for the owners and their families over the shops or in the rear. There would be space on the premises for the manufacture of goods sold in the shops, and accommodations for visiting clients, workers, servants, or slaves. The arrangement brought together a considerable cross section of a major group in society, consisting manual workers and tradespeople. Such households were part of an intricate social network made up of other households to which they were tied by kinship, friendship, professional advantage, and other considerations. The strategy of situating the church in the home was sound, for it provided Christians with relative privacy, a setting where identity and intimacy could be experienced, a ready-made audience as well as a social network along which the influence of the Christian movement could spread. The conversion of households with their dependents helps to account for the growth of Roman Christianity.

Wealth, Patronage, and the House Church
There is an abundance of evidence from antiquity that patronage and leadership went hand in hand especially when a member’s generosity extended to the gift of his home for communal use. To cite only two instances, inscriptional evidence recovered from the house synagogues at Dura-Europos and at Stobi demonstrates that this was true in the Diaspora Jewish community. Epigraphic evidence from the third-century-C.E. Dura synagogue shows that the owner of the house, Samuel Ben Yed’ya funded and supervised the conversion of his private home into a synagogue complex. The designation of Samuel as elder (πρεσβυτέρως) and ruler (ἄρχων) probably indicates that he was the highest authority in the community. C. H. Kraeling, who published the evidence, argues that Samuel continued to live in the domestic quarters of the enlarged complex. At Stobi in Macedonia, in the second century C.E., Tiberius Polycharmus, who is designated “father of the synagogue,” converted his villa into a household synagogue containing a prayer hall, a dining room, and a portico, reserving for himself and his successors the right to reside in the upper story of the complex. In both instances, wealth and patronage were determining factors in leadership.(209-211).

House Churches and Households in the New Testament

It was Paul’s habit to preach first in synagogues. When that didn’t work out, Paul frequently went to people’s homes.

Acts: Acts 16:13-15: And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us.

Acts 17:5-9: But the Jews were jealous, and taking some wicked men of the rabble, they formed a mob, set the city in an uproar, and attacked the house of Jason, seeking to bring them out to the crowd. And when they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some of the brothers before the city authorities, shouting, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them, and they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.” And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. And when they had taken money as security from Jason and the rest, they let them go.

Acts 18:1-3: After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade.

Acts 18:5-8: When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with the word, testifying to the Jews that the Christ was Jesus. And when they opposed and reviled him, he shook out his garments and said to them, “Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.”And he left there and went to the house of a man named Titius Justus, a worshiper of God. His house was next door to the synagogue. Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized.

1 Corinthians 16:15: Now I urge you, brothers—you know that the household of Stephanas were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints— be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer.

1 Corinthians 16:19: The churches of Asia send you greetings. Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the Lord.

Colossians 4:15: Give my greetings to the brothers at Laodicea, and to Nympha and the church in her house.

Philemon: To Philemon our beloved fellow worker and Apphia our sister and Archippus our fellow soldier, and the church in your house … I write to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. At the same time, prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping that through your prayers I will be graciously given to you.

I’ve mentioned all of these, without yet getting into the network of house churches listed in Romans 16, to give a picture of the overall world in which the Apostle Paul traveled. Now note the greetings in Romans 16. Lane further explicates that Christians in Rome “appear to have met as ‘household’ groups in privately owned locations scattered around the capital city. They constituted a loose network of house churches, without any central facility for worship. The absence of central coordination matches the profile of the separated synagogues in Rome during this period.” (208)

Romans 16:3-4: Greet Prisca and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks but all the churches of the Gentiles give thanks as well. Greet also the church in their house (καὶ τὴν κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν).

Romans 16:10: Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus (τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ἀριστοβούλου).

Romans 16:11: Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus (τοὺς ἐκ τῶν Ναρκίσσου τοὺς ὄντας ἐν κυρίῳ).

Romans 16:14: Greet Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermes, Patrobas, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them (καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς ἀδελφούς).

Romans 16:15: Greet Philologus, Julia, Nereus and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints who are with them (καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς πάντας ἁγίους).

It is this feature of “separate islands of Christianity” in particular that does not allow for, and most blatantly contradicts the notion of “a Petrine ministry” of a “successor of Peter” in the city of Rome, as Roman Catholicism has emphasized for so many centuries.

The strategy of situating the church in a home was sound, for it provided Christians with relative privacy, a setting where identity and intimacy could be experienced, a ready-made audience as well as a social network along which the influence of the Christian movement could spread. The conversion of households with their dependents helps to account for the growth of Roman Christianity.

The number of house churches in a given locale such as Rome is a topic for debate. Klauck, for example, contending for a plurality of meeting places, argues that the preposition κατά in the Greek phrase κατ᾽ οἶκον αὐτῶν ἐκκλησίαν in Romans 16:5 (1 Cor 16:19; Philemon 2) should be understood distributively, i.e., “the church which constitutes itself as a household.” M. Gielen, appealing to contemporary papyrological evidence as well as the fact that the formula occurs in the context of a greeting, argues that the preposition should be interpreted simply as ἐν, i.e., the church in the house of X.” Gielen is correct to point to some form of common meeting in Corinth on the basis of Romans 16:23, where Paul refers to Gaius as “the host to the whole church.” But she fails to account successfully for the greetings in Romans 16:14-15, where separate groups seem to be indicated. There may well have been meetings of the whole community in some places, such as Corinth, but in other places this may not have been the case. There is no evidence for a common meeting in Rome (Citing John Maier, “Social Settings” 34, in Lane pg. 210).

But it is not just a lack of evidence of a common meeting area (located either through linguistic evidence, or archaeological or inscription evidence) that demonstrates the structure of these various house churches. The very notion of how the role of leadership exercised itself in first century Rome provides further evidence of the internal structure of these bodies. More on that next time, Lord willing.

Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome, Part 4

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Aquila, Priscilla, and the accurate history of Acts 18.2

From William Lane:

The primary social universe in which members of Greco-Roman society lived was the household. It provided the basic economic, political, and religious social unit of Greco-Roman civilization. In Rome the household community constituted the basic unit of society. The Roman familia, consisting of all the persons, free or slave, under the authority of the head of the household (paterfamilias), provided an emotionally and existentially satisfying social setting for its individual members. The early church in Rome could not exist in such a milieu without something of that environment leaving its mark upon it.

In Romans 16:3-15 Paul shows an awareness of the existence of several house churches in Rome, one of which was associated with the Jewish Christian leaders Aquila and Priscilla, who are now back in the imperial capital after the lapsing of the decree of expulsion (Rom. 16:3-5)

Here Lane cites Peter Lampe, from a chapter of his work published in “The Romans Debate”, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2nd ed., 1991. I intend to spend some time with that work, but for now, I’ll just continue with Lane:

Christians in Rome during this formative period appear to have met as “household” groups in privately owned locations scattered around the capital city. They constituted a loose network of house churches, without any central facility for worship. The absence of central coordination matches the profile of the separated synagogues in Rome during this period.

On this point, see, for example, Scot McKnight, “A Light among the Gentiles: Jewish Missionary Activity in the Second Temple Period (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press © 1991).

An impression of what such early house churches in Rome may have been like is conveyed by the remains of buildings of several stories that date to the second and third centuries, but which have been modified over the course of time. Incorporated into the walls or preserved below the floors of at least three of the existing titular churches in Rome are the remains of large tenement houses. The ground floors appear to have been occupied by shops, and the upper levels by prosperous families. The connection of these buildings with the social world of craftsmen and artisans is suggestive in the light of reference to the church in the house of Aquila and Priscilla (Rom. 16:5), whose property must have served as workshop, residence, and meeting place. As yet there has been no excavation of common housing from the days of the early empire in Rome, but the work of J.E. Packer and A.G. McKay on the insulae, or apartment buildings, points to the existence of amorphous blocks of tenements, one building abutting another, that served the vast majority of people in the capital and other large cities of the Roman empire (Lane, pgs 208-209).

Here is where we begin to cover material that genuinely contradicts what the Roman Catholic Church has taught about the papacy for centuries. Here we arrive at the place that I’ve written about in my blog post, “John Reumann best states the problem”. Reumann says:

Biblical and patristic studies make clear that historically a gap occurs at the point where it has been claimed “the apostles were careful to appoint successors in” what is called “this hierarchically constituted society,” specifically “those who were made bishops by the apostles . . .,” an episcopate with an “unbroken succession going back to the beginning.” For that, evidence is lacking, quite apart from the problem that the monepiscopacy replaced presbyterial governance in Rome only in the mid-or late second century. It has been noted above how recent treatments conclude that in the New Testament no successor for Peter is indicated.

These, too, are some of the “historical facts” that are not disputed.

Lane was writing in 1998. More recently, Robert Jewett, in his “Romans” commentary (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, ©2007), summarizes some of the latest work on this topic:

One of the standard studies of house congregations and house churches by Hans-Josef Klauck opens with a citation from Heinz Schurmann, “The living space of the congregation is the house. Another study rests on the same premise: “the earliest Christians met in private homes.” These studies investigate the references to houses as the meeting places of early Christian congregations and usually assume a freestanding building owned by the patron or patroness of a house church. Although the term οἶκος [oikos or “house”] can refer to a Roman atrium, a Greek peristyle house, a Hellenistic style of courtyard with adjoining rooms, or even an apartment building with shops on the ground floor, the standard conclusion is: “Private houses were the first centers of church life.” Klauck remains more open than most scholars on this question, concluding that congregations of 10-40 members could function in any of the four options, but he does not entertain the possibility that s different structure of leadership and a different style of community life might result from meeting in a space not provided by a patron. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s early calculation of the maximum size of 30-40 for a house church congregation rested on the premise of a freestanding villa. His later work considers the possibility that the shop space on the ground floor of a tenement building might be used for a “house church” such as Prisca and Aquila sponsored in Corinth, Ephesus, and Rome; it might accommodate a group of 10-20 believers. A number of earlier experts suggested the likelihood that even if Prisca and Aquila’s church met in their private apartment, it was probably in a tenement building.

Some details in the NT point indisputably in the direction of house churches presided over by patrons and patronesses, including references to “the church in the house” of particular patrons. The model of a house church presupposes a patron or patroness who owns or rents the space used by the Christian community. A number of such persons are mentioned in the Pauline letters, including Phoebe, Erastos, Crispus, Stephanos, Gaius, Appia, and Philemon and his wife, Nympha. A house church is thus assimilated into the hierarchical social structure of the Greco-Roman world, in which heads of houses exercised legal and familial dominion over their relatives and slaves. In the words of Wayne Meeks, “The head of the household, by normal expectations of the society, would exercise some authority over the group and would have some legal responsibility for it. The structure of the oikos was hierarchical, and contemporary political and moral thought regarded the structure of superior and inferior roles as basic to the well-being of the whole society. This model of a house church has led to the widely accepted theory of Gerd Theissen that such churches were marked by “love-patriarchalism” in which the hierarchical social order is retained while mutual respect and love are being fostered by patrons serving as leaders of the congregations in their houses (Jewett 64-65).

Steve Hays has already commented on this phenomenon:

The Co-Pope Team of Priscilla and Aquila

The Aquilan-cum-Priscillan lineage represents the true succession

The First Church of Rome

And he responded to quite a few objections in these blog posts:

The Counterfeit Shepherd

Superpope

Here might be an excellent time to re-state what the Roman Catholic theologian John Meier stated in his essay in “How Can the Petrine Ministry Be a Service to the Unity of the Universal Church?” (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©2010):

A papacy that cannot give a credible account of its own origins can hardly hope to be a catalyst for unity among divided Christians (14).

There is, in fact, nothing that is credible about the papacy.

Aquila, Priscilla, Acts 18:2 and the Edict of Claudius

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. And he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome. And he went to see them, and because he was of the same trade he stayed with them and worked, for they were tentmakers by trade. And he reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.

In his commentary on Acts (Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, ©2007), Darrel Bock notes that “Luke is a careful, ancient historian.” He says, “It is interesting to note that (1) classical historians respect Luke as a historian as they use him (Nobbs 2006) and that (2) a careful look at the details of Acts shows that, where we can check him, Luke is a credible historian. (pg. 6).

The “Edict of Claudius” and the expulsion of Aquila and Priscilla from Rome (Acts 18:2) is one of these instance, where the history in the New Testament intersects with the history of ancient Rome:

Evidence for a committed Jewish Christian presence in Rome as early as 49 C.E. may be found in an edict of Claudius (41-54 A.D.). Luke alludes to the hardships borne by Aquila and Priscilla, who had arrived in Corinth ca. 49 or 50 “because Claudius had commanded all the Jews to leave Rome” (Acts 18:2). This edict of expulsion is known from Suetonius, who published his Lives of the Caesars in 120 C.E. Commenting on Claudius’s acts with regard to certain foreign groups in Rome, he states without elaboration, “Judaeos impulsore Chresto adsidue tumultuante Roma expulit” (Claudius 25.4).

The statement is ambiguous, and may be translated in either of two ways: (1) “He expelled from Rome the Jews constantly making disturbances oat the instigation of Chrestus”; (2) “Since the Jews constantly make disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, eh expelled them from Rome.” The first translation allows the interpretation that Claudius expelled only those responsible for the disturbances among the Jews. The second translation suggests that the entire Jewish community was affected by the edict because they had been engaged in frequent rioting. The reason for favoring the first translation is that in Rome the Jewish community was divided into a number of district synagogues. In all probability the decree of expulsion was directed against the members of one or two specific synagogues, who would have been forced to leave the city until there was a guarantee of no further disturbances.

The notorious confusion displayed in the words impulsore Chresto suggests a contemporary police record. It is well known that Suetonius merely reproduced his sources without attempting to evaluate them carefully. While Chrestus (signifying “good,” or “useful”) was a very common name among Roman slaves, it was not a common Jewish name. H. J. Leon lists over 550 names used by Jews in Rome in the first century of the common era, but Chrestus is not among them. The garbled reference to Chrestus is almost certainly evidence for the presence of Christians within the Jewish community of Rome. The source of the disruptions in the Jewish quarters was, plausibly, the propagation of the Christian message held by Hellenistic Jewish Christians, and especially their insistence that the crucified Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah. The leadership of the Jewish communities, or some portion of it, was drawn into violent debate that soon attracted the unfavorable attention of the imperial authorities. Claudius, it would seem, issued a decree of expulsion affecting those most directly involved.

The confusion between Chrestus and Christus was natural enough. At that point in time the distinction in spelling and pronunciation was negligible. In the manuscript of the New Testament the confusion is reflected in the spelling of the name “Christian” in Acts 11:26; 26:28; and 1 Peter 4:16, where the uncial codex Sinaiticus reads χρηϲτιανοϲ (i.e., Chrestianos). Even after the distinction was known, it was quite popular among those who were not Christians to interchange the two forms. (Lane, 204-205).

Bock notes, “The pattern that Luke has noted elsewhere appears here; it is the Jewish community’s reaction that drives the persecution” (pg 575), and “The decree of expulsion and that fact that they had to leave Rome may well suggest that [Aquila and Priscilla] were Christians while in Rome” (578).

Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome, Part 3

Part 1
Part 2

I want to take a look at one of the “travel” paragraphs in Acts:

After three months we set sail in a ship that had wintered in the island, a ship of Alexandria, with the twin gods [the Greek gods Castor and Pollux] as a figurehead. Putting in at Syracuse, we stayed there for three days. And from there we made a circuit and arrived at Rhegium. And after one day a south wind sprang up, and on the second day we came to Puteoli. There we found brothers and were invited to stay with them for seven days. And so we came to Rome. And the brothers there, when they heard about us, came as far as the Forum of Appius and Three Taverns to meet us. On seeing them, Paul thanked God and took courage. And when we came into Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself, with the soldier that guarded him (Acts 28:11-16).

Having owned a study Bible most of my adult life, I can testify that this is one of those passages that I read over quickly, maybe referencing a nearby map, and then skipping on to “meatier” topics.

But this is a first-person factual account upon which an historian, who naturally looks to such attested accounts, can hang his hat. By the time Paul first got to Rome, there were Christians there.

Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome, part 2

I’m following up on my previous post about William L. Lane’s discussion of the origins of Christianity in Rome and the development of a network of house churches (pointing an absence of a “bishop of Rome” generally, and in particular, an absence of a Vatican I notion that Peter was a pope and that there were “successors” in any sense.) Returning to Paul, Lane says that he:

makes it clear that he does not want to intrude upon the Roman Christians. The Roman communities had not acknowledged his authority, and Paul exercises deliberate reserve in addressing them. His approach remains tactful and diplomatic. He assures his readers that he is confident of their faith and ability to instruct each other and that he writes only as a reminder (Romans 15:14-15). He concedes that he has written boldly on some points, but he goes on to explain his apostolic mission and plans and to inform the church that his stay in Rome will be temporary, not permanent (Romans 15:24) (201).

Moo, in his NICNT Commentary on the “Epistle to the Romans” (Grand Rapids, MI and Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, ©1996) agrees with this, noting that

Understanding the Early Development of the House Churches in Rome, part 1

One of the most significant works on this topic is Judaism and Christianity in First-Century Rome , Edited by Karl P. Donfried and Peter Richardson (Grand Rapids, MI, Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company ©1998). I’m going to cite from this work for the next several posts.

William L. Lane [Wesleyan University (B.A.), Gordon Divinity School (B.D.), Westminster Theological Seminary (M.Th.), and Harvard Divinity School (Th.D.), who has written a commentary on Mark for the New International Commentary on the New Testament series and a two-volume commentary on Hebrews in the Word Biblical Commentary series]; contributed a paper to this work, entitled “Social Perspectives on Roman Christianity during the Formative Years from Nero to Nerva: Romans, Hebrews, 1 Clement.”

In this paper, he provides “a fresh evaluation of the evidence bearing on a Christian presence in Rome over the span of approximately 40 years, from the time of Paul’s letter to the Romans in 57 AD to the writing of 1 Clement.” In his introduction, Donfried summarizes this work: