Review of The First Urban Christians

Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983). Pp. ix + 303. ISBN: 0300098617.

Meeks’ groundbreaking social historical study attempts to locate earliest Christianity in its urban environs. Instead of the bucolic images of fishermen and peasants that earliest Christianity might call to mind for modern readers, Meeks argues persuasively that Pauline Christianity “was an urban cult that spread through the empire,” of which the earliest evidence comes “from the documents associated with Paul” (x). The book stems from Meeks’ own curiosity, especially after receiving only blank looks from fellow biblical scholars after asking: “What was it like to become and be an ordinary Christian in the first century?” (2). His method is simple: first, he discerns the “texture of life in particular times and places,” then he describes the life of an ordinary Christian within that environment (2). Thus there is a double entendre in “the social world of early Christianity”: it adverts both to the early Christians’ environment and how they perceived and shaped that very environment.

In Ch. 1, “The Urban Environment of Pauline Christianity,” Meeks argues that Paul and his movement were thoroughly urban. Meeks first amasses evidence for what Paul’s cities were like. Paul’s work took place along the Via Egnatia and the “common route” (koinē hodos [17]), the excellent Roman road network which enabled unprecedented mobility.1 The cities would have been predominantly Hellenophone,2 with the exception of the two Roman colonies in which Paul founded communities, Philippi and Corinth.3 Paul’s cities, Philippi excepted, were also all centers of trade open to foreigners, a crucial detail for his entry into urban social life. Socially, the cities were “stratified and stable,” with a handful of men occupying equestrian (< 200) and senatorial (600) posts and most others in generational positions.4 Manumission was the most common status change, and freedmen could do well, especially in an up-and-coming city like Corinth. These cities were also full of diversity and complexity. Women were theoretically accorded equal status with men by some Stoics,5 though they most often were fitted into traditional roles. Still some were active in selling luxury goods, and others were involved in religious associations or as founders of men’s clubs (24). Jews would have constituted an estimated 10-15% of

1 Meeks estimates that Paul traveled over ten thousand miles (!) during his career (16) He adds other interesting tidbits to the discussion: sea travel was faster (100 mi/day) and cheaper; horses yielded 25-30 mi/day; walking only 15-20 (18).

2 As “Greek was the universal urban language of the eastern Roman provinces” (15).

3 Yet Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra might also be included if they are to be considered within the referent of “Galatia” (49).

4 Malherbe notes that these orders, combined, make up less than one-fifth of one percent of the Roman Empire

5 Quoting an epigram attributed to the Cynic founder Antisthenes: “Virtue is the same for man and for woman” (23).

cities in the Roman Empire. They were not full citizens of Roman cities de jure, and in 41 CE Claudius categorically denied them citizenship De facto, however, they often acted as functional citizens in cities like Sardis (38). Broadly, the attitude toward the Roman government was positive among Diaspora Jews outside of Jerusalem, an illuminating fact for comparing the politically sanguine Romans 13 with the whore of Revelation Pre-Claudius, some Jews gained citizenship, like Paul’s father in Tarsus (38). The cities also featured guilds and professional associations, which should be sharply delineated from modern unions. Often, their purpose was to ensure that members received a decent burial; in life, they would gather for a good meal, some above average wine, and perhaps celebrate the birthday of their patron or the feast day of one of the gods (32). In summary, Meeks points out that Pauline Christianity spread so rapidly because urbanization had, quite literally, paved the way for it.

Here, Meeks also introduces the important phenomenon of status inconsistency (22), that is, the “crisscrossing of categories” among citizens. For example, a freedman may gain enormous wealth in a city like Corinth but may not be accorded the level of honor befitting his economic status. Hence, social and economic status conflict and, to psychologize as Meeks will do, this may lead to feelings of loneliness, frustration, and despair all important ingredients for religious communities.

In Ch. 2, “The Social Level of Pauline Christians,” Meeks pushes against the romantic notion stemming from Deissmann that all early Christians were poor, bedraggled, the economic scum-of-theearth. Instead, he quotes Floyd Filson approvingly: “The apostolic church was more nearly a cross section of society” (52). Meeks introduces a more complex system of social rank in antiquity. Rather than simply labeling groups “high or low,” he suggests they be ranked by class, order, and status. Thus, Prisca and Aquila were probably relatively wealthy but, due to their occupation, had low status (59).6 Meeks importantly concludes that “the most active and prominent of Paul’s circle (including Paul himself) are people of high status inconsistency…their achieved status is higher than their attributed status (73).7

Ch. 3, “The Formation of the Ekklēsia” gives a thick description of the early urban church. Small pockets of Christians strewn across the Mediterranean basin were able to sustain close-knit community and view themselves within the larger, worldwide movement (75). What models could these communities have emulated? Meeks suggests several. The household was a basic unit within Roman society. Likewise, the early Christian movement met in private houses, and households were often converted “more or less en bloc” (77) 8 The aforementioned voluntary associations (clubs, guilds, etc.) do not appear to be likely models for the early Church because of the absence of association terminology applied to the leaders (79). Synagogues provide another possibility, yet again the terminology is lacking in Paul’s letters. Finally,

6 Prisca may have had the higher status because she is often mentioned before her husband (59)

7 Though the finding on the Erastus of Rom 16 as possibly “the donor of the paving of the courtyard east of the theater of Corinth” is certainly tantalizing (58)

8 As he notes in an earlier chapter, this would have included the domestic slaves.

philosophic and rhetorical schools are examined. Promising parallels exist among the communal practices of the Epicureans, but Meeks urges caution. He concludes that “none of these four models…captures the whole of the Pauline ekklēsia, although all offer significant analogies” (84).

Meeks then examines the boundaries of the Pauline community. Strong in-group tendencies surface, such as the use of self-referential elect language (hagioi, eklogē, etc.), philophrenetic phrases, and the initiatory rite of baptism. The community is also seen as a body, “a commonplace in ancient rhetoric, a favorite of the late Stoics,” but the trope is reinvigorated by its concrete identification as the body of Christ, a metaphor that produces complex theological and sociological layers of meaning in 1 Cor 11 (89). The group also defines itself in contradistinction to “the outsiders” (hoi exō, e.g., 1 Thess 4:12).

Meeks generally seems to take issue with Paul’s ostensible caricature of the outside world; e.g., “the assertion that the ‘gentiles’ indulge in ‘the passion of lust’ is not an objective description of pagan society, but another example of the labeling of outsiders as vicious” (101).9 Meeks continues to stack images that portray the outside world as “unclean,” often unnecessarily. For instance, he notes that the initiatory rite of baptism washes the baptizand, hence (note the non-sequitur) “the whole ceremony vividly portrays life prior to the event – and outside the sect – as unclean” (102). This seems to sit uncomfortably next to his cursory notice of the “missionary drive” of Paul’s theology and action (107). Pauline Christians did see their previous life and those outside the bounds of the Christian community as under wrath (1 Thess 1:10), but viewing them as merely outsiders would preclude gaining more insiders. Meeks’ description appears more beholden to Qumran than Pauline practice; it would be better to lead with Paul as a “sent one/apostle,” then proceed to his evaluations of this present evil age under wrath. Paul’s mission, most likely under the urgency of Naherwartung, is a more promising datum for uncovering early Christian attitudes toward outsiders.

Ch. 4, “Governance,” examines “what sort of persons were able to issue commands or make recommendations that would normally be accepted” within early Pauline communities (111). Letters and visits tightened these authoritative bonds. Some letters were more paraenetic in nature, commending the congregation to continue in what they already knew (e.g., 1 Thess); others responded to the Sturm und Drang of specific situations (e.g., Gal, 1 Cor 2-11). Paul uses diverse methods, but some occur repeatedly, e.g., appeals to scripture, revelation(s), and tradition, or noting his own experience and explicating the experience of the congregation (117-18). Those who exert authority include apostles, fellow workers, and local leaders. Unlike Greco-Roman guilds, the groups had no institutionalized

9 Given Paul’s Jewish pedigree, and after reading Martial’s bawdy epigrams, however, I cannot say I agree with Meeks here – Paul seems to be describing at least some of Greco-Roman culture accurately.

offices.10 However, functional leadership obviously played an important role: “informal modes of control predominate” (136). Overall, Paul’s communities appear to bear the stamp of Christ’s death and resurrection as the pattern of true power and authority (138).

Ch. 5, “Rituals,” briefly examines minor rituals and the two constitutive rites, baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Meeks lays out a broad social scientific definition of ritual as “a form of communication,” adding that it is “performative” and “does something” (141-42). Minor rituals include coming together (synerxēsthe, 1 Cor 11:17 and passim) to read letters; the gathering probably took place weekly, perhaps included a reading and singing,11 and “a psalm, a teaching, a revelation, a tongue, an interpretation…all toward upbuilding” (1 Cor. 14:26 [144]). Meeks’ imaginative portrayal of the “meeting in Gaius’s overcrowded dining room” is worth the price of the book (147) Baptism is then helpfully analyzed: it is not a preparatory rite for initiation as it is in the Eleusinian mystery or proselytes entering into Judaism; instead, baptism is the cleansing initiation (152). While baptism is a rite of initiation, the Lord’s Supper is a ritual of solidarity and communal cohesion: “the single loaf used in the ritual symbolizes the unity of Christians and of the believer with Christ and, consequently, the unity of the community and its participation in Christ” (159). Spiritual unity with Christ and one another also creates social unity, a fact that precipitated Paul’s opposition to Cephas et al. in Antioch.12

Ch. 6, “Patterns of Belief and Patterns of Life,” attempts to put the socio-historical pieces together by examining the “social force” of Paul’s theology rather than Paul’s theology in se. For example, Paul inculcates a complex version of Jewish monotheism; practically this leads to a “missionary theology…‘admonishing everyone and teaching everyone is all wisdom, in order to present everyone perfect in Christ’” (169, quoting Col 1:28, his emph.). If God is one and there is only one Lord, missions are a must. Meeks then goes on to characterize Paul’s movement as “millenarian” (172); that is, Paul is able to hold onto tradition while transmogrifying it. This is not without its difficulties. Millenarianism typically thrives among the socially, politically, and economically downtrodden, a portrayal that Meeks has been at pains to problematize. He thus (unconvincingly) appeals to “status inconsistency” to ground millenarian longings among Rome’s urban(e) Christians (173) Summing up, Meeks notes that Paul’s

10 1 Cor. 12:28-30 does seem to lean in this direction with “apostles, prophets, teachers,” and Meeks acknowledges this. Institutionalized roles, however, do not arise until the letter of Clement from Rome, the letters of Ignatius, and the second century pastorals (135).

11 Though Meeks does complicate the picture: while many scholars have tried to rely on a reconstruction of synagogue practices from Tannaitic times, he notes that we don’t know what practices were like in the first century: “That scripture texts were read and homilies were based on them seems very credible indeed, but details are quite uncertain” (146). He does note that the way in which Scripture is embedded (to echo Hays) in Paul’s letters to a mostly gentile audience does presuppose practices of familiarizing themselves with the Septuagint.

12 In a similar vein, the separation between spiritual and social unity can have disastrous modern consequences, as it did in the theological sanction of apartheid in the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. For a modern confessional response, see the Belhar Confession of 1986.

theology and practice leads to complex communities that are both intimate and exclusive while also being “vigorously expansive” (190). On a psycho-social level, status inconsistency may account for the attraction of urban dwellers to these communities that represented “a welcome refuge [with] emotionally charged language of family and affection and the image of a caring, personal God” (191).

Assessment: The virtues of Meeks’ work are obvious and commendable: close attention not just to Paul’s theology, but to the social practices that that theology would inculcate after close examination of his context. Lest I digress into paean, my critique will therefore focus on what I see as a few shortcomings of his otherwise impressive argument.

As I alluded to, using status inconsistency to explain millenarianism among Paul’s followers does not fit well. Whereas Dale Allison has made the case with the early Jesus movement,13 Paul’s urban constituency seems less than likely soil in which this type of movement might take root

Similarly, I wonder how Meeks might connect Paul’s urban Christian following with the bucolic Galilean origins that he rightly problematizes at the beginning of the book. Put differently, he helpfully focuses on Pauline Christianity as a cross-section of Roman society, but what does a social history of early Palestinian Christianity look like? How did the two interact? He leans in this direction when discussing Antioch and also the Jerusalem collection, but such a question would, of course, require another book.

Meeks’ reading of Paul’s view of the outside world in Ch. 3 is startling. He appears to relegate missionary details to the very end of his argument (i.e., Ch. 6). Indeed, in a social historical study, one would expect the vigorous expansion of urban Christianity would more thoroughly inform a thick description of the movement. If early urban Christians had such stark boundaries between themselves and the outside world, how did they expand? What is the interrelation between viewing outsiders as “under the coming wrath” (1 Thess 2:9) and their conversion? Were in-group/out-group biases as strong as Meeks purports if Christianity spread as quickly as it did? And if those strong in-group attitudes were taught from the beginning, how did the initial group even form?

Finally, his use of the term “Pauline Christianity” gives me pause for two reasons. This is precisely the type of nomenclature Paul did not want his imitators to use (1 Cor. 1:12). Also, Meeks (and Malherbe) have shown that the urban Christian movement relied upon a “complex and fluid network of leaders” (134). So doesn’t this render “Pauline Christianity” inaccurate and misleading? Clearly Meeks is using this merely heuristically; a better terminus technicus is near at hand in his title, the “first urban Christians.”

13 Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998).