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The Benefactor's Account-book: The Rhetoric of Gift Reciprocation according to Seneca and Paul*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2013

Thomas R. Blanton IV
Thomas R. Blanton IV*
Affiliation:
Luther College, 700 College Drive, Decorah, IA 52101, USA. email: trbiv@mac.com.
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Abstract

According to Seneca, a cardinal rule of benefaction is that the donor of a gift ought never to call attention to the fact that a gift has been given; it humiliates the donee and shames the donor. In reminding Philemon that he ‘owes’ Paul for the latter's mediation of the gift of salvation (Phlm 19), Paul breaks Seneca's rule. Both Seneca's ‘virtuous’ advice and Paul's ‘shameful’ breach of etiquette, however, are explicable as strategies calculated to maximize their access to valued goods and services—whether honor or the services of a wealthier man's slave—inflected by vastly different economic situations.

Keywords

PaulSenecabenefactionpatronagegifteconomics
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 59 , Issue 3 , July 2013 , pp. 396 - 414
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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Footnotes

*

I owe a debt of gratitude to Kathy Buzza, Interlibrary Loan Coordinator at Preus Library, for her role in providing access to the research material necessary to complete this study. Thanks also to John Barclay and the anonymous reader at NTS for valuable feedback and critique. An abbreviated version was presented at the SBL Annual Meeting in the Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy section, November 2011.

References

1 The first three topics are treated in Sevenster, J. N., Paul and Seneca (NovTSup 4; Leiden: Brill, 1961)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For more recent treatments, see Vining, P., ‘Comparing Seneca's Ethics in Epistulae Morales to Those of Paul in Romans’, ResQ 47/2 (2005) 83-104Google Scholar; Malherbe, A., ‘Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament’, ANRW 2.26.1, 267-333Google Scholar; Hartog, P., ‘“Not Even among the Pagans” (1 Cor 5:1): Paul and Seneca on Incest’, New Testament and Early Christian Literature in the Greco-Roman Context: Studies in Honor of David E. Aune (ed. Fotopoulos, J.; Leiden: Brill, 2006) 51-64Google Scholar; Ware, J. P., ‘Moral Progress and Divine Power in Seneca and Paul’, Passions and Moral Progress in Greco-Roman Thought (ed. Fitzgerald, J. T.; New York/London: Routledge, 2008) 267-83Google Scholar; Horn, C., ‘Der Zeitbegriff der antiken Moralphilosophie und das Zeitverständnis des Neuen Testaments’, Jenseits von Indikativ und Imperativ (ed. Horn, F. W. and Zimmermann, R.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009) 117-34 (132-4)Google Scholar. On reciprocity in Paul's letters, see, inter alia, Peterman, G. W., Paul's Gift from Philippi: Conventions of Gift-Exchange and Christian Giving (SNTSMS 92; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1997)Google Scholar; Joubert, S., ‘“Homo reciprocus”: Seneka, Paulus en weldoenerskap’, HvTSt 55/4 (1999) 1022-38Google Scholar (Afrikaans with English abstract); Joubert, Paul as Benefactor: Reciprocity, Strategy, and Theological Reflection in Paul's Collection (WUNT 2/124; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000)Google Scholar; Harrison, J., Paul's Language of Grace in its Greco-Roman Context (WUNT 2/172; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003)Google Scholar; Downs, D., The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul's Collection for Jerusalem in its Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts (WUNT 2/248; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008)Google Scholar; Barclay, J., ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Corinthians 8:1-15’, The Word Leaps the Gap: Essays on Scripture and Theology in Honor of Richard B. Hays (ed. Wagner, J. R. et al. ; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 409-26Google Scholar; Barclay, ‘Grace within and beyond Reason: Philo and Paul in Dialogue’, Paul, Grace and Freedom: Essays in Honour of John K. Riches (ed. Middleton, P., Paddison, A., and Wenell, K.; London: T&T Clark, 2009) 9-21Google Scholar; Engberg-Pedersen, T., ‘Gift-Giving and Friendship: Seneca and Paul in Romans 1–8 and the Logic of God's Χάρις and its Human Response’, HTR 101 (2008) 15-44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Engberg-Pedersen, ‘Gift-giving and God's Charis: Bourdieu, Seneca and Paul in Romans 1–8’, in Schnelle, U. (ed.) The Letter to the Romans (Leuven: Peeters, 2009) 95-111Google Scholar. On the fourth-century CE pseudepigraphic correspondence between Paul and Seneca, see Römer, C., ‘The Correspondence between Seneca and Paul’, New Testament Apocrypha (ed. Schneemelcher, W., Hennecke, E., and McL, R.. Wilson; 2 vols.; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1992) 2.46-53Google Scholar; Elliott, J. K., The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford and New York: Oxford University, 2005 [1993]) 547-53Google Scholar.

2 Bourdieu, P., The Logic of Practice (Stanford: Stanford University, 1980) 69Google Scholar.

3 Biographies of Seneca include Griffin, M., Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (Oxford: Clarendon, 1992 [1976])Google Scholar; Veyne, P., Seneca: The Life of a Stoic (New York and London: Routledge, 2003)Google Scholar. For a recent English translation of De Beneficiis with notes and introduction, see Griffin, M. and Inwood, B., Seneca: On Benefits (Chicago: University of Chicago, 2011)Google Scholar. Other discussions include Griffin, M., ‘Seneca as a Sociologist: De Beneficiis’, Senaca uomo politico e l'eta di Claudio e di Nerone (ed. De Vivo, Arturo and Lo Casico, Elio; Bari: Edipuglia, 2003) 89-122Google Scholar; Griffin, ‘De Beneficiis and Roman Society’, JRS 93 (2003) 92-113Google Scholar; Dixon, S., ‘The Meaning of Gift and Debt in the Roman Elite’, Echos du Monde Classique/Classical Views 12 (1993) 451-64Google Scholar.

4 A small sampling of the vast literature on reciprocity in Greek and Roman societies includes Wallace-Hadrill, Andrew, ed., Patronage in Ancient Society (London and New York: Routledge, 1989Google Scholar; Veyne, P., Bread and Circuses: Historical Sociology and Political Pluralism (London and New York: Penguin, 1990)Google Scholar; Saller, R., Personal Patronage Under the Early Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1982)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gouldner, A., ‘The Norm of Reciprocity: A Preliminary Statement’, Friends, Followers, and Factions: A Reader in Political Clientelism [ed. Schmidt, S. et al. ; Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California, 1977] 28-43Google Scholar; Gellner, E. and Waterbury, J., eds., Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies (London: Duckworth, 1977)Google Scholar; Gill, C., Postlethwaite, N., and Seaford, R., eds., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (Oxford: Oxford University, 1998)Google Scholar.

5 Compare Saller, Personal Patronage, 29.

6 Griffin and Inwood, Seneca, 2.

7 Griffin, ‘Seneca as Sociologist’, 115.

8 The analogy between gift-giving and the ball game, like the analogies of the Graces (Ben. 1.3.4-1.4.1) and the foot-race (2.25.3), Seneca owes to Chrysippus who, Griffin and Inwood note, was a long-distance runner before becoming a philosopher (Seneca: On Benefits, 195 n. 26).

9 All of the translations of Seneca's De Beneficiis herein are those of Griffin and Inwood, Seneca: On Benefits, in some cases slightly modified.

10 The seminal article on bookkeeping in Greece and Rome is that of de Ste Croix, G. E. M., ‘Greek and Roman Accounting’, Studies in the History of Accounting (ed. Littleton, A. C. and Yamey, B. S.; Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin; London: Sweet & Maxwell, 1956) 14-74Google Scholar.

11 Inwood, B. (‘Politics and Paradox in Seneca's De Beneficiis’, Justice and Generosity: Studies in Hellenistic Social and Political Philosophy [ed. Laks, A. and Schofield, M.; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1995] 241-65)CrossRefGoogle Scholar argues that Seneca employs the paradox between the view of gift-giving as disinterested (i.e. the giver has no desire to receive a counter-gift) and as interested (a gift is given based on calculations as to the possibility of the donee returning a counter-gift) as a means of mediating between the lofty moral ideals of Stoicism and the ‘realities of giving morally based advice to real and imperfect people’ (265). Inwood, however, overlooks the fact that even the lofty moral ideal of disinterested giving itself constitutes a gift-giving strategy designed (paradoxically) to maximize the probability of a reciprocal interaction. Thus the polarity between the disinterested ideals of the Stoic sage and the interested acts of ‘ordinary people’ (253) collapses; the disinterested ideal masks interest. On the ‘interest in disinterestedness’ that characterizes many gift-giving systems, see Bourdieu, Pierre, Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action (Stanford: Stanford University, 1998) 75-123Google Scholar.

12 As argued by Lampe, P., ‘Keine “Sklavenflucht” des Onesimus’, ZNW 76 (1985) 135-7Google Scholar; Lampe, ‘Paul, Patrons, and Clients’, Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook (ed. Sampley, J. Paul; Harrisburg/London/New York: Trinity Press International, 2003) 488-523 (501-2)Google Scholar. S. C. Winter argues that the letter implies a request by Paul for the manumission of Onesimus so that he might assist him in his missionary endeavors; see ‘Paul's Letter to Philemon’, NTS 33 (1987) 1-15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Winter, ‘Methodological Observations on a New Interpretation of Paul's Letter to Philemon’, USQR 39 (1984) 203-12Google Scholar.

13 A third possibility, that Onesimus had been arrested and imprisoned in the same jail in which Paul was spending time, is impossible: had Onesimus been arrested and jailed, Paul would have lacked the authority to ‘send him back’ to Philemon (v. 12: ὃν ἀνέπεμψά σοι). Nevertheless, the view still finds its supporters (Roetzel, C., The Letters of Paul: Conversations in Context [Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 4th ed. 1998] 116-17)Google Scholar. For overviews of the various possibilities, see Osiek, Carolyn, Philippians, Philemon (ANTC; Nashville: Abingdon, 2000) 126-31Google Scholar; Dunn, James, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (NIGTC; Carlisle: Paternoster; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996) 301-7Google Scholar; Thurston, B. and Ryan, J., Philippians and Philemon (SP 10; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2005) 181-2Google Scholar. Brian Rapske critiques the various views and finds additional support to bolster Lampe's thesis (‘The Prisoner Paul in the Eyes of Onesimus’, NTS 37 [1991] 187-203CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

14 Paul writes: παρακαλῶ σε περὶ τοῦ ἐμοῦ τέκνου… (v. 10).

15 Trans. of the author. Peter Müller argues that vv. 18-19 interrupt the argument in which v. 20 logically follows v. 17, and so constitute a ‘juristischer Einschub’ or excursus (Der Brief an Philemon [KEK 9/3; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012] 130-1Google Scholar). The digression is a well-crafted rhetorical gesture, however, as indicated by Paul's use of the figure of paraleipsis in v. 19 (on which, see n. 17 below). Moreover, vv. 18-19 remove a potential obstacle (i.e. Onesimus's indebtedness to Philemon) and provide positive grounds (i.e. Philemon indebtedness to Paul) for Philemon's acquiescence to Paul's requests in vv. 17 and 20 (ἐγώ σου ὀναίμην ἐν κυρίῳ) and for Paul's ‘confidence’ expressed in v. 21.

16 Paul's use of economic terms is discussed in Osiek, Philippians, Philemon, 121-2; Dunn writes of v. 17: ‘Somewhat surprisingly Paul now switches his appeal to a sustained commercial metaphor (vv. 17-19)’ (The Epistles, 336). Julian Ogereau outlined the commercial context of the term synergos (v. 1) in his paper, ‘Business Partnership among the First Christians? The Funding of the Pauline Mission’, delivered in the Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy section at the SBL Annual meeting, San Francisco, 2011.

17 On the rhetorical figure paraleipsis, see Smyth, H. W., Greek Grammar (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1984 [1920])Google Scholar §3036.

18 So Dunn, The Epistles, 340: ‘It is universally inferred that the obligation referred to is Philemon's conversion under Paul's ministry (cf. Rom 15:27)’. Similarly, Moo, D., in The Letters to Colossians and Philemon (PNTC; Grand Rapids/Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2008) 430Google Scholar: ‘What Paul means by saying that Philemon owes him his very “self” (seauton) is that Philemon is in debt to Paul for his eternal life. Paul was used by God in Philemon's conversion…’

19 On mediators, or ‘brokers’ of patronage in the Roman empire, see Saller, Personal Patronage, 35, 43, 48-51, 59, 75-6; Wallace-Hadrill, A., ‘Patronage in Roman Society: From Republic to Empire’, Patronage in Ancient Society (ed. Wallace-Hadrill) 63-87 (81-4)Google Scholar. On Jesus' role as mediator of divine benefaction in the NT, see Malina, B., ‘Patron and Client: The Analogy behind Synoptic Theology’, Forum 4 (1988) 2-32Google Scholar; Neyrey, J., ‘God, Benefactor and Patron: The Major Cultural Model for Interpreting the Deity in Greco-Roman Antiquity’, JSNT 27 (2005) 465-92Google Scholar; Lampe, ‘Paul, Patrons, and Clients’, 488-523. On Paul's self-presentation as a mediator of divine gifts, see Jennings, M., ‘Patronage and Rebuke in Paul's Persuasion in 2 Corinthians 8-9’, JGRChJ 6 (2009) 107-27 (120-4)Google Scholar; Briones, D., ‘Mutual Brokers of Grace: A Study in 2 Corinthians 1:3-11’, NTS 56 (2010) 536-56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Incidentally, Seneca warns against the use of mediators when giving gifts: ‘So if you want your gifts to be thought of with gratitude, take care that they get to the people to whom they are promised intact and undiminished, with no “deduction” having been made. Don't let anyone intervene; don't let anyone slow them down. When you are going to give something, no one can earn any gratitude without reducing yours’ (Ben. 2.4.3).

21 For the category of ‘sinners’, see Rom 5.8, 19; Gal 2.15, 17. On the eschatological ‘destruction’ of members of that group, see Rom 9.22; Phil 1.28; 3.19; 1 Thess 5.3. Paul apparently does not think that there is an afterlife for the wicked; they simply cease to exist—destroyed in the apocalyptic judgment (cf. Wis 5.9-14; contrast the fate of the righteous, who ‘live forever’, Wis 5.15).

22 As Blanton (T. Blanton, ‘Symbolic Goods as Media of Exchange in Paul's Gift Economy’, online: http://www.mq.edu.au/about_us.faculties_and_departments/faculty_of_arts/department_of_ancient_history/community_partnts/ssec/conference/proceedings_2011/ (accessed 18 January 2013)) notes, ‘Paul is willing to charge to his own account any debt incurred by Onesimus (v. 18). Paul indicates that he is creditworthy; he will repay the debt (v. 19). Philemon's account, however, stands in the red, as he owes Paul an unrepayable debt: his own life, or “self” (v. 19).’ Dunn's (The Epistles, 339) assumption that Paul, although a man of ‘little independent means’, ‘would be able to call on wealthy backers…should the IOU be called in’ is unnecessary, as is the related view of P. Müller that, since Paul had little money, his statement must have been made in jest (Der Brief an Philemon, 130). Paul's rhetoric effectively removes the possibility that Philemon should ‘call in the IOU’: any amount to be charged to Paul's account on Onesimus's behalf would fall far short of the unrepayable debt that Philemon owed Paul, which amounted to the value of his very life. Osiek, C. (‘The Politics of Patronage and the Politics of Kinship: The Meeting of the Ways’, BTB 39 [2009] 143-52)Google Scholar astutely refers to v. 19 as a ‘reminder that Philemon owes Paul considerably more than Onesimus owes Philemon, or that Paul is asking of Philemon. Thus Philemon, while expected to reciprocate, remains pitiably in even greater debt to Paul, the gracious giver… [H]e will never catch up and attain parity with Paul, and this is the whole point’ (148). So also John Barclay: ‘The transparent rhetorical device of praeteritio…is here used to transform Philemon's position from creditor to debtor and to put him under a limitless moral obligation to comply with Paul's requests’ (‘Paul, Philemon, and the Dilemma of Christian Slave-ownership’, NTS 37 [1991] 161-86 [171-2]CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

23 So Müller, Der Brief an Philemon, 115-16.

24 NRSV.

25 It is possible, although less likely, that Paul was implicitly requesting the manumission of Onesimus, as argued by Callahan, A. D., Embassy of Onesimus: The Letter of Paul to Philemon (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997Google Scholar). The verb phrase that Paul uses in v. 13, ἵνα…μοι διακονῇ (‘in order that he might be of service to me’) is, however, an appropriate description of a slave's labor. Moreover, in 1 Cor 7.21-24, Paul seems more interested in perpetuating the social status quo than in upsetting it. On the tensions involved between early Christian fictive kinship and the ‘practical reality’ of slavery, see Barclay, ‘Paul, Philemon, and the Dilemma’.

26 So Lohse, E., Colossians and Philemon (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971)Google Scholar 202 and n. 49; Winter, ‘Paul's Letter to Philemon’, 1-15; Winter, ‘Methodological Observations’, 203-12.

27 So Dunn, The Epistles, 331.

28 On Seneca's biography, see Griffin, Seneca, 29-128; Veyne, Seneca, 1-29. The following discussion draws heavily from Griffin.

29 Seneca or his father owned a suburban Roman villa; later in his career, Seneca the Younger acquired estates at Nomentum, Albanum, and Egypt. Griffin cautiously accepts Rostovtzeff's conjecture that the Egyptian estates were gifts of Nero. It is certain that Seneca acquired the villa at Nomentum during Nero's reign (Seneca, 286-9). Tacitus has Seneca refer to the pecunia and lands given to him by Nero in his resignation speech in 62 CE (Ann. 14.53.5-6). Seneca was further enriched by the interest he received from loans in Italy and the provinces (Ann. 13.42.4). On the contradictions involved in a Stoic philosopher amassing great wealth, see Griffin, Seneca, 286-314.

30 Tacitus Ann. 13.42, discussed in Griffin, Seneca, 291. A word of caution is in order: Walter Scheidel argues that figures that are powers of ten and multiples of thirty and forty are best understood as ‘purely conventional valuations’ (‘Finances, Figures, and Fiction’, CQ 46 [1996] 222-38 [222])CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Suillius's figure cited by Tacitus is stereotypical (see p. 231 Table 2: ‘Private Fortunes’).

31 Scheidel, W. and Friesen, S., ‘The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman Empire’, JRS 99 (2009) 61-91Google Scholar (esp. 75-81 and 85 Table 10).

32 On Paul's trade as a leatherworker and the low social esteem in which craftsmen were held in the Roman world, see Hock, R. F., The Social Context of Paul's Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007 [1980])Google Scholar.

33 For an attempt to reconstruct Paul's itinerary, including estimates of time spent in transit, see Murphy-O'Connor, J., Paul: His Story (Oxford: Oxford University, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murphy-O'Connor, Paul: A Critical Life (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1996) 1-31Google Scholar.

34 The verb translated ‘to be sent on one's way’ (προπεμϕθῆναι) implies a request for travel funding or supplies (BDAG, s.v. προπέμπω).

35 Friesen, S., ‘Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-called New Consensus’, JSNT 26 (2004) 323-61 (350)Google Scholar. In a subsequent article (‘Prospects for a Demography of the Pauline Mission: Corinth among the Churches’, Urban Religion in Roman Corinth: Interdisciplinary Approaches [ed. Schowalter, D. and Friesen, S.; HTS 53; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 2005] 351-70Google Scholar, esp. 368), Friesen categorizes Paul on the lowest economic rungs (PS6–PS7; the latter indicating an inability ‘regularly [to] procure the amount of food necessary to sustain the human body’). Despite some quibbles, B. W. Longenecker largely depends on Friesen's economic analysis in his book, Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids and Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2010) 298-332Google Scholar.

36 Friesen, ‘Poverty in Pauline Studies’, 350.

37 On the problems caused in Corinth by the admixture of fractions representing differing economic levels, see Marshall, P., Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul's Relations with the Corinthians (WUNT 2/23; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1987)Google Scholar; Chow, J. K., Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth (JSNTSup 75; Sheffield: JSOT, 1992)Google Scholar; Friesen, ‘Poverty in Pauline Studies’, 348-50; Friesen, ‘Prospects for a Demography’, 367.

38 Some of Seneca's statements indicate that gift-giving should be motivated by altruism: ‘The bookkeeping for benefits is quite simple. A certain amount is dispersed; if there is any repayment at all, then it is a profit. If there is no repayment, then it is not a loss. I gave it only in order to give’ (Ben. 1.2.3; cp. 2.6.2; 2.9.1-2.10.3; 4.13.3). His later qualifications, however, indicate that such statements are hyperbolic: ‘Do you want to repay the benefit? Accept it with a kindly attitude; you have returned the favor. Not that you should think that you have paid off the debt, but so that you may be indebted with a greater sense of confidence’ (2.35.5). Likewise: ‘And so, although we can say that he who has willingly received a benefit has returned it [i.e. through his gratitude], we nevertheless urge him to give back to the donor something similar to what he has received’ (2.35.1). Griffin (‘De Beneficiis and Roman Society’, 94) views statements in the former category as examples of the Stoic rhetorical method of making exaggerated ethical demands in the hope that, although falling short of perfection, people might at least arrive nearer the goal when prompted by lofty ideals (for a similar view, see Inwood, ‘Politics and Paradox’, 241-65). Seneca notes: ‘Hyperbole never expects to attain all that it aspires to; instead, it claims the unbelievable in order to secure the believable’ (Ben. 7.23.2).

39 Saller, Personal Patronage, 1, 10-17; cp. also Saller, ‘Patronage and Friendship in Early Imperial Rome: Drawing the Distinction’, Patronage (ed. Wallace-Hadrill) 49-62 (49)Google Scholar.

40 On the socially hierarchizing function of asymmetrical gift-giving, see Blau, P., Exchange and Power in Social Life (New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction, 2008 [1964]) 106-12Google Scholar, who notes: ‘A person who gives others valuable gifts or renders them important services makes a claim for superior status by obligating them to himself. If they fail to reciprocate with benefits that are at least as important to him as his are to them, they validate his claim to superior status’ (108).

41 A. Momigliano and T. Cornell note: ‘Ordinary clients supported their patron (patronus) in political and private life, and demonstrated their loyalty and respect by going to his house to greet him each morning…and attending him when he went out. The size of a man's clientele, and the wealth and status of his individual clients, were a visible testimony to his prestige and social standing…’ (OCD, s.v. cliens).

42 Citing Seneca's De Vita Beata 24.2, Saller notes: ‘Because friends were so strongly obliged to return favors, all beneficia distributed to them were felt to be insurance against misfortune since in time of need they could be called in. As Seneca says, a beneficium should be stored away like a buried treasure (thensaurus), “which you would not dig up, except from necessity”. The recipient, on the other hand, should be content to guard the beneficium until a time of need’ (Personal Patronage, 25).

43 Seneca's gift-giving strategy did prove effective; his beneficence was praised (albeit after his death in 65 CE) by both Martial and Juvenal. Martial (Ep. 12.36) addresses Labullus as a relatively liberal patron during times of illiberality: ‘To tell the truth, you're the best of a bad lot. Give me back the Pisos and the Senecas and the Memmiuses and the Crispuses, or their predecessors: you will immediately become the worst of a good lot.’ Trans. of Bailey, D. R. Shackleton, Martial: Epigrams (3 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University, 1993)Google Scholar. Juvenal (Satire 5.107-111) romanticizes days past, when patrons like Seneca lavishly dispensed gifts: ‘No one asks for the gifts sent to his humble friends by Seneca, the gifts good Piso and Cotta used to dispense. In those days, you know, the glory of giving (donandi gloria) was prized more highly than titles and symbols of office’. Trans. of Braund, S. Morton, Juvenal and Persius (LCL; Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University, 2004)Google Scholar.

44 See n. 38 above on Seneca's use of hyperbole.

45 It is to the extraordinarily wealthy that Seneca's gift-giving advice is directed. Aubutius Liberalis, to whom De Beneficiis is dedicated, was himself a wealthy benefactor, perhaps of equestrian rank (Griffin, Seneca, 455-6).

46 Friesen, ‘Poverty in Pauline Studies’, 353-4; Friesen, ‘Prospects for a Demography’, 368, places Philemon at level 4 (moderate surplus of resources) or 5 (stable near subsistence) on his poverty scale; Longenecker, Remember the Poor, 245, concurs.

47 Benefits mentioned in the letter include Philemon's hosting the assembly in his household (v. 2) and Paul in a guest room (v. 22). For Paul's view that ‘love’ is manifested through gift-giving, see 2 Cor 8.8, where Paul refers to the collection for the Jerusalem assembly.

48 On households (such as Philemon's) as the ‘Basiselemente’ and ‘Keimzellen’ of early Christian mission, see Müller, Der Brief an Philemon, 48.

49 J. Ogereau has recently focused attention on Paul's use of κοινωνία and its cognates; ‘The Jerusalem Collection as κοινωνία: Paul's Global Politics of Socio-Economic Equality and Solidarity’, NTS 58 (2012) 360-78CrossRefGoogle Scholar (cf. also his ‘Business Partnership among the First Christians?’).

50 Proponents of an ‘egalitarian’ view of early Christian communities include Ehrensperger, Kathy, Paul and the Dynamics of Power: Communication and Interaction in the Early Christ-Movement (London: T&T Clark, 2007)Google Scholar; Briones, ‘Mutual Brokers of Grace’; Barclay, ‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace’; Ogereau, ‘The Jerusalem Collection’.

51 That Paul construes himself as standing in a hierarchical relation with respect to the communities that he founds is conceded in Briones (‘Mutual Brokers of Grace’, 555): ‘This is not to deny Paul's apostolic authority, especially when he is, in many ways, superior to the Corinthians… But his mutual dependency on the Corinthians should challenge any view that considers his authority over and mutuality with his churches an either-or option. The two are undeniably inseparable…’ (italics original). Mutuality should not be confused with egalitarianism, however. Both authority and hierarchy presuppose the agreement and cooperation of subordinates. For analyses of the social dynamic involved, see Bell, C., Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1992) 197-223Google Scholar; Lincoln, B., Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification (New York and Oxford: Oxford University, 1989) 131-59Google Scholar; Bourdieu, P., Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1991) 163-70Google Scholar.

52 Note that Paul makes the issue semi-public by addressing, not just Philemon, but the ecclesial functionaries Apphia and Archippus, a well as the assembly that meets in Philemon's household (vv. 1-3).

53 P. Stuhlmacher observes: ‘Dementsprechend deutet Paulus hier mit dem sonst bei ihm ungebräuchlichen, massiven ἐπιτάσσειν die Möglichkeit einer definitiven Anordnung an und weist in V 19 darauf hin, daß Philemon seine christliche Existenz dem Apostel verdankt (also ihm gegenüber besondere Verpflichtungen hat)’ (Der Brief an Philemon [EKK 18; Düsseldorf: Benziger; Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener, 4th ed. 2004] 37). C. Frilingos offers a perceptive analysis of Paul's use of the language of authority in the letter; ‘“For my Child, Onesimus”: Paul and Domestic Power in Philemon’, JBL 119 (2000) 91-104Google Scholar.

54 Trans. of Walsh, P. G., Pliny the Younger: Complete Letters (Oxford World's Classics; Oxford and New York: Oxford University, 2006)Google Scholar; Latin text in Radice, B., Pliny: Letters and Panegyricus (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University; London: Heinemann, 1969)Google Scholar.

55 NRSV.

56 So DBAG, s.v. ξενία.

57 For an analysis of the early Christian assemblies (albeit in Corinth, not Colossae) in terms of patronage practices, see Chow, Patronage and Power.

58 Text and translation in Hanson, J. A., Apuleius: Metamorphoses (2 vols.; LCL; Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University, 1989)Google Scholar.

59 Compare Stuhlmacher: ‘Philemon ist verpflichtet, dem Apostel in der Mission zu dienen…’ (Der Brief an Philemon, 50).

60 Briones, ‘Mutual Brokers of Grace’, 553. Barclay's formulation: ‘Paul backs off from making himself patron of the churches, anticipating instead a mutual patronage, where each will have something to contribute to the other’ (‘Manna and the Circulation of Grace’, 424).

61 For the view that Paul's letters accord a ‘material exchange value’ to ‘non-material, discursive products, such as the promise of deliverance from an eschatological judgment imagined to be imminent’, see. Blanton, ‘Symbolic Goods'. See also Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an Philemon, 50–1 and n. 126.

62 ‘Patronage and Friendship’, Patronage in Ancient Society (ed. Wallace-Hadrill) 51-2, 60–1Google Scholar (quoted). Saller cites Proculus's comments in Justinian's Digest 49.15.7.1.

63 Saller has pointed out that the terms patronus and cliens were often avoided, as it was viewed as unseemly to call attention to the asymmetry involved in such relationships, which were often euphemized as ‘friendship’ (amicitia) rather than patronal relations (Personal Patronage, 8-11). Although the Greek equivalents of patronus (εὐεργέτης, σώτηρ, or the calque πάτρων) and of cliens (πελάτης; cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus Ant. Rom. 1.83.3; Plutarch Romulus 13) do not appear in Paul's letter to Philemon, Osiek (‘The Politics of Patronage’, 147) notes: ‘[A word of] caution should be raised against the assumption that if the usual language for patronage is not present, neither is the social construct to which it refers’. It is Paul's language of debt and obligation (Phlm 19), as well as Paul's paternal language (v. 10) that establishes the patronal context. On the ‘debt’ owed by a recipient to the giver of a gift, see Dixon, ‘The Meaning of Gift and Debt’, 451-64. On the patron as ‘father’, see Neyrey, ‘God, Benefactor and Patron’, 468, 471-2.

64 Since Paul's rhetoric and practice both mimics and inverts aspects of Roman patronage, S. Friesen's argument that Paul attempts to avoid patronage practices seems unwarranted (‘Paul and Economics: The Jerusalem Collection as an Alternative to Patronage’, Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives on the Apostle [ed. Given, M.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2010] 27-54Google Scholar). Paul neither wholly adopts nor unequivocally rejects Roman patronage practices; he modifies and adapts them to the local conditions of particular house-churches.

65 Schütz, J. H., Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (SNTSMS 26; Oxford: Cambridge University, 1976)Google Scholar, passim (on Philemon, see 221-4); Polaski, S. Hack, Paul and the Discourse of Power (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999) 23-51Google Scholar.