Was Paul a Roman Citizen? A Response to the Amateur Exegete and Calvin Roetzel

Ben the Amateur Exegete (henceforth AE) is an atheist who produces content on historical biblical scholarship. He recently put out a video challenging the report in Acts 16:37 and Acts 22:22-29 of Paul's Roman citizenship. To his credit, AE doesn't think the objections are conclusive and concedes that Paul certainly could have possessed Roman citizenship. However, he argues that the balance of evidence suggests that Luke "padded Paul's resume". AE draws his arguments from Calvin Roetzel's 1999 book Paul: The Man and the Myth, so I will be responding to that text. Drawing on the work of Craig Keener, Martin Hengel, and others, this post will critique the arguments of Roetzel, and, by extension, those of AE. It is not a definitive treatment of the subject, and I will not be providing a separate positive case for Paul's Roman citizenship as other scholars like Keener have done.

Though these are not the only objections that have been raised to Paul's Roman citizenship, they are certainly some of the more common ones. I will address only the four listed by Roetzel.

Roman citizenship and the elite

Roetzel's first objection concerns whether it is plausible to think that Paul would have had Roman citizenship given the socioeconomic situation of the time. Here is the full quotation from his book:

"The granting of citizenship to Jews in the East was rare, and on those infrequent occasions when it was granted it usually went to wealthy and influential people who had performed distinguished service to Rome. To be sure, we do know of Jews who aspired to and were granted citizenship. Philo tells us of his nephew Tiberias Julius Alexander, who became a citizen of Alexandria and a Roman equestrian and rose to a position of power and influence. But he was singled out by Josephus for deserting the traditions of the fathers. The physical evidence supports the view that only a few Jews who were wealthy, powerful, and profoundly attracted to Hellenistic and Roman culture became citizens. In a survey of the epigraphical evidence Stegeman finds only 552 residents of Asia Minor who were citizens. We know of no citizens in Pergamum in the time of Augustus, and interestingly only 3 of 103 names from Ephesus contain the name of Julius, a probable indicator of citizenship. All of the evidence suggests that citizenship status was rarely granted in the eastern provinces." [1]

Before challenging Roetzel's arguments, I would like to draw attention to an epistemological point: even if Roman citizenship was rare, the fact that it did happen on occasion sets a prior not so unreasonably low that it cannot be overcome by testimony to the contrary. If it is true that Luke was a traveling companion of Paul (a hypothesis for which there is very strong evidence) then Luke was in a position to know whether Paul was a Roman citizen. Further, if it can be demonstrated that Luke was a meticulous historian, we are on solid footing in accepting his report of Paul's Roman citizenship. Even though it might be prima facie implausible that Paul was a Roman citizen, Luke's testimony that he was provides strong evidence for that proposition. Testimonial evidence can easily overcome a somewhat low prior.

To appreciate this point, consider a situation in which a neighbor you have recently met (and thus, whose backstory you know little of) tells you that they were in attendance for the famous "Minneapolis Miracle"—the 2018 NFL divisional playoff game between the Vikings and the Saints which ended with a walk-off 61-yard touchdown reception. There were 66,612 people in attendance at this game [2] and there are currently some 333 million people living in the United States. [3] Thus, bypassing minor considerations such as change in population, the probability that an individual randomly selected from the US population went to that game is roughly 0.02%. If we instead restrict the reference class to citizens of Minnesota, where the game was played, we come up with a prior of about 1.2%. [4] The exact number is unimportant, but it can clearly be shown to be quite low. 

Now, when your neighbor tells you that they attended this game, how confident are you that they are telling the truth? For me, even living in Florida, I think I would assign at least a 20% confidence level to the claim. It would likely be higher, but I will use conservative estimates. Using the rules of probability theory, this means that, in my subjective judgment, the testimony from my neighbor yields a Bayes factor of over 1000 in confirming the hypothesis that they were at the game. If I had as part of my background knowledge the fact that they were habitually trustworthy and had an interest in telling the truth, my confidence level would easily go over 50%. Further, if they told me a plausible story about their time at the game, I would be even more confident that they are telling the truth. Perhaps the reader would assign a higher or lower probability to the hypothesis after this evidence is taken into account than I did. But so long as the posterior probability isn't too low, the principle is clear: simple testimony can overcome low priors with relative ease.

The critic may quibble with some of the parallels I have drawn, and I have not intended to make this situation a perfect epistemological match. But the similarities are far more instructive. In both cases we have a proposition with a fairly low prior probability (though the probability of a given Jew possessing Roman citizenship was likely well above 0.02%) combined with testimony in favor of that proposition. Just like in the neighbor example, Luke, I would argue, was both in a position to know whether what he was saying was true and had an ostensible interest in telling the truth. As long as the prior is not too unreasonably low, Luke's testimony provides strong evidence for the proposition that Paul was a Roman citizen.

This observation aids in defusing some objections to Luke's testimony. One might argue that, given the significance of Roman citizenship, Luke would have had motivation to lie. This might be correct, but it applies similarly to a claim to have attended the Minneapolis Miracle. While one might be motivated to lie about having attended such a significant game, their testimony is still much more likely to be expected if they did attend the game then if they didn't.

Putting it in another light, I think in most cases it is far more epistemologically defensible to prioritize specific evidence for a historical proposition (e.g. Luke's testimony of Paul's citizenship) rather than general patterns of evidence which have exceptions (e.g. the rarity of Jewish Roman citizens). If we fail to do this, we might slip into a priori history in which we determine ahead of time what would or would not be the case and reject reliable, informed sources that go against it instead of questioning the initial presuppositions.

Regarding the claim itself that Roman citizens were rare, Craig Keener comments:

"Though citizens were a small minority, they were much more common than Stegemann allows; they could achieve their citizenship by manumission, assisting a general, and various other means (see comment on Acts 22:28). Thus inscriptions report even “fishermen” in Ephesus who were citizens. Moreover, nonelite persons could readily become citizens by various means—most relevant here, descent from properly manumitted slaves of citizens, a category that included a number of Roman Jews." [5]

Stegemann's reading of the epigraphical evidence has likewise been challenged. Here's Keener again:

"Stegemann doubts that Paul and his father, as Jews, could belong to the municipal elite, for whom (he thinks) citizenship was reserved. He claims, for example, only three Julii from Ephesian inscriptions of the Augustan period and only twenty from all first-century inscriptions. In his thorough dissertation focusing on Ephesian inscriptions and Paul, however, Steven Baugh demonstrates that Stegemann misreads the evidence. The Julii on later inscriptions were most likely descended from Ephesians who were granted the franchise under Julius or Augustus. He points out that of the 1,173 Roman citizens who appear in Ephesian inscriptions, 429 of them bear nomens of patrons other than emperors." [6]

In other words, the fact that an inscription doesn't bear the name of an emperor is little reason to doubt that the individual was a Roman citizen, so the rarity of Roman citizens cannot be established by that fact.

To summarize, it appears that Roman citizenship was certainly uncommon, and this explains why the military tribune of Acts 22 simply assumed that Paul did not possess it. But Roman citizenship was not so uncommon that Paul couldn't have had it, and it is simply false to say that only the wealthy and influential Jewish individuals were Roman citizens. When we consider the evidential weight of testimony, Roetzel's first objection is thus insufficient to overturn Luke's account that Paul was a Roman citizen.

Roman citizenship and pagan cultic devotion

Roetzel's second objection is as follows: 

"If Paul's piety reflects that of his parents, the piety of his home would argue against Roman citizenship. A condition of citizenship was participation in the civic cult, offering of obeisance to the gods of the city, sharing in the festivals of the polis, which were by definition religious, and offering homage to the Roman gods and allegiance to the imperial cult. Paul's own deep religious commitments as a pious Jew would certainly have conflicted with those obligations. Paul himself tells us with some pride of his blamelessness before the law (Phil. 3:6), that he advanced in Judaism "beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors" (Gal. 1:14), and that the same zeal led him to persecute the church (Phil 3:6). A Jew of such intense devotion to the ancestral traditions would have found it impossible to share in the religion of the Graeco-Roman world or to participate in its educational institution, the gymnasium. There is no sign in the letters that Paul was a student of the Greek classics or that he had been exposed to the exercise regimen, including exercise in the nude, associated with a gymnasium education." [7]

For an assessment of this claim, let us turn first to Martin Hengel:

"According to Philo's well-known report, which has to be taken very seriously by historians, the majority of Jews living in Rome were Roman citizens. Having been carried off to Italy as prisoners of war, in due course they were freed by their owners who 'did not compel them to corrupt their ancestral laws'. Augustus, on being given precise information about their religious practices, 'did not expel them from Rome nor deprive them of Roman citizen rights because they were concerned to keep their Jewish faith'...

As a rule they were exempt from military service, though it must be stressed here that in the late Republic and the period of the early Empire the Roman army was made up of volunteers. Notice was taken of religious peculiarities in a variety of other ways. Unless he held office, a Jew, whether a Roman citizen or not, did not have to perform any religious actions in connection with the emperor cult, either in Rome or in the Greek-speaking East, where the emperor cult flourished more strongly after the period of the Hellenistic monarchies than in the capital itself." [8]

Further contrary opinion comes from Keener:

"Third, Stegemann doubts that Jews such as Paul could be Roman citizens, because most locales would require Roman citizens' participation in pagan practices. But Baugh points to Ephesian inscriptions that reveal “Jews with Roman names and local citizenship fully participating in the lives of their cities.” Josephus attests numerous Jewish Roman citizens. Inscriptions show Jewish Roman citizens with significant roles in the Diaspora (especially in synagogues); many religious Jews found their Roman honor compatible with their Jewish practice. Many freed Jewish slaves were Roman citizens in Rome itself; we know of an entire community of Jewish Roman citizens across the Tiber (Philo Embassy 155–57). Although faithful Jews were never enrolled in Greek tribes, which entailed religious obligations, the Roman tribes were simply political and legal fictions by this period. In short, Jewish Roman citizens retained the privileges held by all Jews under Roman policy." [9] 

Finally, one wonders what to make of Roetzel's final comment, that there is no evidence in Paul's letters that he had been exposed to exercising in the nude. Even granting that it must have happened, what possible evidence of this would we expect? Throwing out things that were typical of Roman citizens and then noting that we don't have this evidence for Paul, even when there's no reason to expect find such evidence, is bad method.

Due to the evidence we have for Jewish Roman citizens, and specifically the exemptions they were able to acquire in relation to their religiosity, we have good reason to doubt Roetzel's second objection.

Roman citizenship and a Pauline argumentio ex silentio

Proceeding to Roetzel's third objection, we read the following:

"Certain omissions in the letters argue against citizenship. If Paul were a Roman citizen his endurance of oppression so severe that he despaired of life itself (2 Cor 1:8, 9f) is difficult to understand when an appeal to his Roman citizenship offered a ready escape. The omission of any mention of his Roman citizenship in his reference to his new heavenly citizenship is also puzzling (Phil. 3:20). It would also have been useful for him to have noted the ironic contrast between his citizen status and his condition as the "off scouring of the world" (my trans.) in 1 Cor. 4:13, but again he was silent. But, more importantly, Paul's failure to refer to his citizenship in his letter to the church at Rome is perplexing. While an argumentio ex silentio when taken alone is hardly convincing, when added to the other evidence noted previously it weighs against Roman citizenship." [10]

Much has been said about the weakness of the argument from silence. I wrote a post earlier this year discussing it. While Roetzel's admission of the potential weaknesses of this argument is to be commended, I still think he gives it too much weight. Regarding the first point about Paul willingly suffering despite his Roman citizenship, Craig Keener comments:

"This objection is stronger than some of the others. Yet this experience of beating need count against Paul’s citizenship no more than Luke’s claim that he was beaten with rods in Acts; if Luke, who understood the value of Roman citizenship against such abuse (Acts 16:37–38), saw no contradiction, it is possible that Paul would not have seen any either." [11]

Unless one wants to argue that Luke was incompetent and didn't see the contradiction, this point holds. If one does opt for this attempt at keeping the objection alive, it can be said that lack of attention to detail on Luke's part does not sit well either with his care and meticulousness elsewhere in his work or with the picture of Luke Roetzel suggests in his fourth objection, yet to be addressed, in which Luke embeds Paul's Roman citizenship into his narrative in order to make a subtle theological point. A simple explanation is that Paul sometimes endured suffering without invoking his citizenship, perhaps to identify with his Lord.

The next point at which Roetzel expects a mention of Paul's Roman citizenship is Philippians 3:20. Here is Philippians 3:18-21 (NRSV):

"For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself."

Since Paul is talking about the collective heavenly citizenship of the Philippian church, it would make little sense for him to appeal to his personal Roman citizenship which not everybody in Philippi would share. After all, Paul is not saying that his citizenship is in heaven, but rather "our" (Greek ἡμῶν) citizenship is in heaven. Thus, contra Roetzel, I see no reason to think Paul would have mentioned his citizenship here.

The next verse Roetzel cites is 1 Corinthians 4:13: "when slandered, we speak kindly. We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day." Specifically, he says that it would have been "useful" for Paul to note the "the ironic contrast" between his Roman citizenship and his condition as described in the verse. This is a transparently feeble argument. Roetzel has come up with a rhetorical device that he personally finds useful, and coupled with the unsupported assumption that Paul also would have found this device useful for his purposes, leaps to the conclusion that Paul must not have agreed with the content of the rhetorical device he didn't use. There are many rhetorical contrasts I could draw when writing a post like this, but my failure to include all of them doesn't mean I disagree with the item I could have contrasted. 

Roetzel's final suggestion for where Paul should have mentioned his Roman citizenship is in his letter to the church in Rome. This is more probable than any of the three previous suggestions, but it is still tenuous. If I lived overseas for several years and wrote a letter to a church back home, it is not clear that I would mention my US citizenship. In the same way, the purpose of Paul's epistle was not to inform the Roman church of his own legal standing but to address specific theological issues. 

Thus, we may conclude that Roetzel's third objection also fails. 

Roman citizenship and Luke's narrative theology

That Luke has a complex narrative theology in various parts of his work is plausible. [12] This does not mean, however, that every subtle meaning we think can be discerned from his writing was intentional. With his fourth objection, Roetzel would do well to take note of this:

"Paul's citizenship clearly served Luke's theological interests. By insisting on Paul's faithfulness to Judaism as a loyal Pharisee until the day of his death and his Roman citizenship Luke was able to argue for Paul's respectability and innocence at a time when the Christian movement had come under suspicion for its unwillingness to participate in the imperial cult, its refusal to serve in the military, its pacificistic lifestyle, and its secret meetings. By lifting up Paul as a respected and loyal citizen Luke could show that the movement he represented was innocent of treason or subversive activity." [13]

Prima facie, the fact that a particular aspect of the narrative of Acts may have served Luke's theological interests means nothing. A pastor will often share an anecdote from his life in order to illustrate a point in his sermon. Sometimes, this anecdote fits the context very neatly, but we don't then assume that he's making it up. Rather, he's selecting something from his many experiences to make a broader point. So even if Luke is trying to make the argument that Roetzel attributes to him, it counts little against historicity.  

Whether Luke is actually trying to exonerate the Christian movement is a different question, and one to which historical inquiry can offer little light. There are too many assumptions at play. But even granting this to be what Luke was trying to do, it is quite plausible that he would emphasize Paul's citizenship rather than inventing it. He could easily accomplish his objective by framing existing facts rather than inventing new ones. Thus, Roetzel's fourth and final objection fails, and his case against Paul's Roman citizenship falls with it.

Conclusion

Calvin Roetzel presented four arguments against Paul's Roman citizenship, each of which were picked up on by AE. These four arguments were each revealed to have significant flaws. 

While Roman citizenship was rare, it was not so rare that Paul could not have possessed it, and Luke's testimony that he did is sufficiently powerful to overturn a low prior probability. It is unlikely that Jewish Roman citizens would have been required to participate in the pagan cultic rites in which other Roman citizens participated, given the evidence for the prevalence of Jewish Roman citizens and the exemptions that were granted in other contexts. Finally, Roetzel fails to make a successful argument from silence, and his argument from Luke's narrative interests lacks rigor. 

A positive case for Paul's Roman citizenship may be the subject of a future post. The weakness of the arguments against it, however, leaves us with little reason to doubt the fundamental accuracy of Luke's account.

Notes and References

[1] Calvin Roetzel, Paul: The Man and the Myth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998), 20

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minneapolis_Miracle 

[3] https://www.census.gov/popclock/

[4] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/MN/PST045221 

[5] Craig Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015). Due to restricted availability, I am unable to provide page numbers for my citations of Keener's work. All of them come from his discussion of Acts 16:37.

[6] ibid.

[7] Roetzel, Paul, 20-21

[8] Martin Hengel, The Pre-Christian Paul (London: SCM Press, 1991), 11-12

[9] Keener, Acts

[10] Roetzel, Paul, 12

[11] Keener, Acts

[12] See, for example, C. Kavin Rowe, “Acts 2.36 and the Continuity of Lukan Christology,” NTS (2007): 37–56

[13] Roetzel, Paul, 12

A Brief Review of Wesley Hill's Paul and the Trinity

It is often taken as axiomatic in New Testament studies that Paul was not a Trinitarian. There is plenty of variation among the views scholars hold regarding the intersection of Paul's theology, christology, and pneumatology—from those which posit a lengthy legendary development from an angelomorphic or similar christology to the trinitarian dogmas of the later church, to those which argue for an early high (but not trinitarian) christology—but the Trinity is widely seen as a later development: perhaps an adequate synthesis of Pauline material, but nonetheless not derivable from the apostle himself.

Wesley Hill's book Paul and the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2015) challenges this view from a unique perspective. Rather than simply arguing that Paul's writings are trinitarian, Hill argues that trinitarian conceptual resources, culled from the writings of later church fathers, provide a fresh hermeneutical angle from which to consider Paul's christological texts. In doing so, new light is shed on complicated passages. The ease with which later trinitarian categories can unlock Paul's christology thus brings it closer to full-fledged trinitarianism. The entire project calls for the rewedding of biblical exegesis and systematic theology and an exploration of the ways in which they can illuminate each other.

Hill argues that the notion of high christology vs low christology is misguided. In employing that conceptual framework, scholars assume Paul's monotheism as a given—the fixed point against which his christology is measured. God is at the top, so to speak, and christology is the project of determining where Paul put Jesus on the scale from creature to God. Was it halfway up, where Jesus mediated between humanity and God, had some authority from God, but didn't encroach on the divine identity? Or was it basically at the top, where Jesus shared in the divine name and ruled from heaven as divine? Or, perhaps, Jesus started out lower and was then exalted higher? Hill argues that this approach fails to take into account Paul's "meshing" of the identities and relations of God, Jesus, and the Spirit. After surveying the history of Trinitarian dogma with an emphasis on the differing traditions of East and West, specifically as it concerns the priority of the three divine persons or the one God, he argues that the best way to interpret Paul involves recognizing how the identity of each divine person requires the existence of the others. In other words, it is impossible to refer to merely one of the divine persons, because to refer to one is to refer to all of them—their identities are mutually constitutive. Thus, since picking out Paul's monotheism as the given, which can be described with or without Christ, requires isolating God and Christ, a better approach should be proffered.

Hill supports his thesis through exegesis of, among other verses, Romans 4:24, Romans 8:11, Philippians 2:6-11, 1 Corinthians 8:6, 1 Corinthians 15:20-28, and Romans 1:3-4. Along the way, he shows how well trinitarian conceptual categories offer fresh perspectives on contested Pauline texts. For example, he discusses the conflict between Philippians 2:11a and 11b—here Paul is ascribing the divine name to Jesus and yet the worship Jesus receives is for the glory of God. Jesus cannot be lower than God, because he has received the divine name, but then why is the glory given to God? The solution, Hill argues, involves the trinitarian concept of "redoublement". Gregory of Nazianzus put it thusly in his Orations 31.9: "The Three are One from the perspective of their divinity, and the One is Three from the perspective of the properties." In other words, the divine persons have both identical and distinct identities in terms of essence and personhood. In this way, Paul can speak unabashedly of the sharing of the divine name and yet retain distinctions between Jesus and God (one of the Son's distinctives is glorifying the Father). 

My criticisms of the book are fairly minor. For one thing, I would have appreciated engagement with more texts. The volume is a slim two hundred pages and could certainly have examined more than a representative sample of Pauline texts. Second, and this is a point picked up on by Chris Tilling in his essay "Paul the Trinitarian" in Essays on the Trinity, Hill shows very little engagement with Second Temple Jewish literature and the mediatorial figures presented therein. In arguing that a Trinitarian conceptuality is the correct way to interpret Paul, Hill must show how it is preferable to the schemes found in such literature.

My elucidation of Hill's argumentation is bound to fall short, and I encourage anyone interested to purchase a copy of his book and read it for yourself. It represents an important new perspective in the debate over Paul's christology.

Did the Early Church Expect Jesus to Return Within One Generation? Some Neglected Evidence

In a previous blog post of mine I discussed the problem of Mark 13:30, where Jesus apparently gave a false prediction concerning the timing of his parousia, and I offered a potential solution to the problem. (As my thoughts on this issue have developed, I have since adopted another view which I think is stronger). 

I did not address, however, the argument that the earliest Christians also predicted the imminent end of the world. Many scholars see this early Christian view as a natural carry-over from the teachings of Jesus. 

Initially this argument seems to have merit. The Synoptic Gospels report Jesus saying that his parousia was “near, at the very gates” (Mark 13:29 and parallels). Paul tells the Romans that God “will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20). For James, the “coming of the Lord is at hand” (5:8). 1 John says that it is “the last hour” (2:18). The author of Hebrews thought he was living at “the end of the ages” (9:26). In the book of Revelation, Jesus says that he is coming “soon” (22:20). More examples could be cited. 

But it is also interesting, and curiously neglected, that the New Testament authors also spoke of the possibility that the world could go on for a long time. In Acts 2:39, a passage I have yet to see cited anywhere in the scholarly literature on this topic, Luke reports Peter saying: “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off (εἰς μακρὰν), everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” These words at least presuppose that the world could be around for generations to come! This fact is all the more striking when we take into account that Luke understood himself to be living “in the last days” (Acts 2:17). He also reports Jesus telling the disciples, “when you see all these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near” (Luke 21:31) — “all these things” referring to the events of 70 AD and “the kingdom of God” referring to Jesus’s return.

   

Similarly, Paul [1] tells children, “‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land’” (Eph. 6:2-3). The word Paul uses for “live long” is μακροχρόνιος and refers to earthly longevity, not eternal life. [2] This proverbial advice would make no sense if the world was to come to an end within Paul’s own lifetime. It rather presupposes the possibility that the world could continue on long enough for the children who Paul is addressing to grow old. [3]

Evidence from 1 Clement, a first-century document, [4] points to the same conclusion. [5] 1 Clement 44:1-2 reads:

Our apostles likewise knew, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be strife over the bishop’s office. For this reason, therefore, having received complete foreknowledge, they appointed the leaders mentioned earlier and afterwards they gave the offices a permanent character; that is, if they should die, other approved men should succeed in their ministry. [6] 

The author [7] of 1 Clement here says that the apostles allowed for the possibility (note the “if”) that the world would go on past their lifetimes, and prepared accordingly by giving “the offices a permanent character”. 

Lastly, the words of Jesus himself presuppose the possibility of a far-off parousia. In the parable reported in Matthew 24:45-50 and Luke 12:42-48, for example, Jesus exhorts his disciples to not remain idle like the servant who says, “My master is delayed in coming”. Apparently Jesus anticipated, or at least allowed for the possibility, that the interim period before his return would be long enough for some to become apathetic. The parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30 likewise hints at a far-off parousia. The man going on a journey gives out his talents, and does not return until “after a long time” (v. 19). Both Luke and Matthew could simultaneously describe the parousia as imminent and far-off.

What this evidence shows is that for the early Christians the imminence of Jesus’s return was not a matter of dogma but of hope. [8] They simultaneously prepared for an imminent return of the Lord while allowing for the possibility that the world could go on after their deaths. 

This evidence should also make us re-examine the function of language of imminence in the early Christian writings. This language was more about rhetorical exhortation than prognostication. In a future blog post I will flesh this idea out further and propose a number of ways in which this language of imminence can be plausibly understood. 

Notes 

[1]  Some scholars doubt that Paul himself wrote Ephesians. The point stands, however, even if Paul did not, because Ephesians would still qualify as evidence for first-century Christian beliefs about the timing of the eschaton. For a defense of Pauline authorship, see D. A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament. 2nd edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2005) 480-486.

[2] Benjamin L. Merkle, Ephesians. (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016) 130; Grant R. Osborne, Ephesians Verse by Verse. (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2017) 75. 

[3] One might argue that Eph. 6:3 does not square with 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Cor. 7, where Paul seems to assume that he would live to see the parousia. But Paul’s marriage advice in 1 Cor. 7:25-31 is practical and has to do with some circumstance of necessity/tribulation (ἀνάγκην) that the Corinthian church is currently experiencing. The eschatological focus in vv. 29-31 is a digression, relatively unconnected with Paul’s marriage advice. And the word συνεσταλμένος, though often translated “has grown short”, is better translated as “has been shortened”. It is a participle, not an adjective, and refers to what God has done in the past by raising Jesus. See Ben Witherington, Jesus, Paul and the End of the World: A Comparative Study in New Testament Eschatology. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992) 28; David W. Kuck, “The Freedom of Being in the World ‘As If Not’ (1 Cor 7:29-31).” Currents in Theology and Mission 28.6 (2001): 585-593. Attempts to argue from 1 Thess. 4:15-17 that Paul thought he would be alive for the parousia also fail. That Paul includes himself grammatically within the phrase “those who are alive” does not show that he is predicting the parousia will occur within his lifetime, any more than 1 Cor. 6:14 (“he will raise us up by is power”) and 2 Cor. 4:14 (“he… will also raise us”) show that he believed he would be dead before the parousia. The use of “we” in 1 Thess. 4:15 is only natural. As Witherington points out, “If there were only two categories of Christians in this argument (‘those who have fallen asleep’ and ‘we who are living’), then clearly Paul could only place himself in the latter group” (Witherington, End of the World, 24). Other passages show that he allowed for both the possibility that he could be alive and that he could be dead at the parousia (2 Cor. 5:1-9, 1 Thess. 5:10, Phil. 1:20-23). 

[4] See the reasons for this dating in Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations. Third edition. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007) 35.   

[5] This passage was brought to my attention by Jason Engwer, “Did Jesus and the Early Christians Teach That The Second Coming Would Occur Within Jesus’ Generation?” (Triablogue), August 19, 2006, http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2006/08/did-jesus-and-earliest-christians.html.

[6] Trans. Holmes, Apostolic Fathers, 103. 

[7] See the brief introduction to authorship in ibid., 34-35; Andrew Gregory, “1 Clement: An Introduction.” The Expository Times 117.6 (2006): 224-225. 

[8] I borrow this distinction from George R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and the Last Days: The Interpretation of the Olivet Discourse. (Vancouver, British Columbia: Regent College Publishing, 1993) 460-461. He adds, “To look for the fulfillment of the promise of the kingdom in ardent hope is not the same as laying down authoritatively at what time it shall come.”