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Beyond Identification of the Topos of Household Management: Reading the Household Codes in Light of Recent Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives in the Study of the New Testament*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2010

Margaret Y. MacDonald
Margaret Y. MacDonald
Affiliation:
Department of Religious Studies, St Francis Xavier University, P.0. Box 5000, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, CanadaB2G 2W5. email: mymacdon@stfx.ca
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Abstract

From the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s New Testament scholars produced groundbreaking work illustrating that the household code had its origins in discussions of ‘household management’ among philosophers and moralists from Aristotle onward. Despite this general consensus, many points of disagreement remained, especially with respect to the function of the codes in particular New Testament documents and what the codes reveal about the relationship of Christians with the wider world. This article revisits some of the initial debates and traces their influence on subsequent scholarship. The recognition of the household codes as a type of ‘political’ discourse is of particular interest, as well as its impact on subsequent feminist, political and postcolonial interpretation. The conclusion suggests five promising directions, closely tied to the study of early Christian families, for future analysis of the codes leading to a more complete understanding of household management in a house-church setting.

Keywords

familyethicsDeutero-Paulpostcolonialfeministslaveschildren
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , January 2011 , pp. 65 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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References

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6 Thraede, ‘Zum historischen Hintergrund der “Haustafeln” des NT’, 367. Balch (‘Household Codes’, 27) represents Thraede's thesis concerning the household codes as follows: ‘This position is expressly anti-egalitarian, but supports a mild, more humanitarian idea of authority, which means that it is a conservative position between two extremes, a realistic, humane middle position, a responsible, rational Aristotelian mean (mesotes) between unqualified patriarchy and equality’.

7 Balch, ‘Household Codes’, 29–32.

8 See Perictione On Feminine Harmony 3; Plutarch Advice to Bride and Groom 140B. Adding to the complexity of the Pythagorean evidence is that the collection contains fragments and whole letters supposedly written by five philosopher women of illustrious background, including Perictione, Plato's mother. So the advice purports to be from woman to woman. There is substantial debate with respect to dating and whether there is any real influence of women's authorship. See Osiek, Carolyn and MacDonald, Margaret Y. (with Janet Tulloch), A Woman's Place: House Churches in Earliest Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 2006) 22–3Google Scholar, 148–52.

9 Verner, David C., The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles (SBLDS 71; Chico: Scholars, 1989)Google Scholar. For a detailed structural and semantic analysis of the codes in Colossians, Ephesians, and 1 Peter, see Gielen, Marlis, Tradition und Theologie neutestamentlicher Haustafelethik: Ein Beitrag zur Frage einer christlichen Auseinandersetzung mit gesellschaftlichen Normen (BBB 75; Frankfurt am Main: Anton Hain, 1990)Google Scholar.

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14 See Walsh, Brian J. and Keesmaat, Sylvia, Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004)Google Scholar 209. They cite Scott, James C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990)Google Scholar. Walsh and Keesmaat emphasize the traditions of jubilee.

15 For full discussion of conventional and countercultural elements in Eph 5.22-33, see Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 123–6.

16 See Balch, David L., ‘Neopythagorean Moralists and the New Testament Household Codes’, Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt 2, no. 26.1 (1992) 389–404Google Scholar. Balch offers several examples from Hellenistic street philosophy, which offer particularly good parallels to the genre of the Colossian code.

17 Standhartinger, Angela, ‘The Origin and Intention of the Household Code in the Letter to the Colossians’, JSNT 79 (2000) 117–30Google Scholar. For the inscription see SIG 3.985.

18 Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 85–7.

19 Standhartinger, ‘The Origin and Intention of the Household Code’, 125.

20 Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 113.

21 Laub, Franz, Die Begegnung des frühen Christentums mit der Antiken Sklaverei (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1982) 90Google Scholar. See also Balch, ‘Household Codes’, 33; Meeks, Wayne A., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1983) 78–9Google Scholar and 86–94. On reciprocal ethical exhortations and the unusual nature of the direct address, see also Gielen, Tradition und Theologie neutestamentlicher Haustafelethik, 37–8, 69–71, 102, 118, 145.

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24 Dunn, The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon, 250.

25 See Tanzer, Sarah H., ‘Ephesians’, Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary (ed. Fiorenza, E. S.; New York: Crossroad, 1994) 325–48Google Scholar, esp. 330, 340–1. See also Munro, Winsome, ‘Col III.18-IV.1 and Eph V.21-VI.9: Evidence of a Late Literary Stratum?’, NTS 18 (1972) 434–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Arguing against the apologetic function of the Ephesian household code, see Darko, Daniel K., No Longer Living as the Gentiles: Differentiation and Shared Ethical Values in Ephesians 4.17-6.9 (Library of New Testament Studies 375; New York: T&T Clark, 2008)Google Scholar.

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27 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (London: SCM, 1983)Google Scholar.

28 Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 253.

29 Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 257.

30 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1992)Google Scholar 7.

31 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, Rhetoric and Ethic: The Politics of Biblical Studies (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999)Google Scholar ix.

32 Postcolonial scholarship and Empire Studies have offered increasingly important conversation partners for Fiorenza in recent years. See especially Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, The Power of the Word: Scripture and the Rhetoric of Empire (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007)Google Scholar.

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34 Fiorenza, Elisabeth Schüssler, Bread Not Stone: The Challenge of Feminist Biblical Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1985) 74–7Google Scholar. See also Tanzer, ‘Ephesians’, 331.

35 See MacDonald, Margaret Y., ‘Can Nympha Rule this House? The Rhetoric of Domesticity in Colossians’, Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities (ed. Braun, Willi; Studies in Christianity and Judaism 16; Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier, 2005)Google Scholar 102.

36 Mary Rose D'Angelo, ‘Colossians’, Searching the Scriptures (ed. Fiorenza) 318. She speculates that the Christ-hymn in Col 1.15-20 may have originated as a hymn to Sophia with the end result of the transformation being that ‘the Christ of Colossians is the incarnation of a divine female persona, but his person hides hers with a male mask’.

37 D'Angelo, ‘Colossians’, 320.

38 Osiek, Carolyn, ‘The Bride of Christ (Eph 5.22-33): A Problematic Wedding’, BTB 32 (2003) 29–39Google Scholar.

39 Seim, T. K., ‘A Superior Minority: The Problem of Men's headship in Ephesians 5’, Mighty Minorities? Minorities in Early Christianity—Positions and Strategies: Essays in Honor of Jacob Jervell on His 70th Birthday, 21 May 1995 (ed. Hellholm, D., Moxnes, H., and Seim, T. K.; Oslo/Copenhagen/Stockholm/Boston: Scandanavian University, 1995) 167–81Google Scholar.

40 MacDonald, Margaret Y., Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion: The Power of the Hysterical Woman (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1996) 195–206CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 See, for example, Fatum, Lone, ‘Images of God and Glory of Man: Women in the Pauline Congregations’, Image of God and Gender Models in Judaeo-Christian Tradition (ed. Borresen, K. E.; Oslo: Solum 1991) 56–137Google Scholar; ‘1 Thessalonians’, Searching the Scriptures: A Feminist Commentary (ed. Fiorenza, E. S.; New York: Crossroad, 1994) 250–62Google Scholar.

42 Fatum, Lone, ‘Christ Domesticated: The Household Theology of the Pastorals as Political Strategy’, The Formation of the Early Church (ed. Ådna, Jostein; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005)Google Scholar 193. Fatum's contribution to the study of the Pastorals has been extensively discussed by Kartzow, Marianne Bjelland in Gossip and Gender: Othering of Speech in the Pastoral Epistles (Berlin/New York: W. de Gruyter, 2009) 121–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 129–31.

43 Fatum, ‘Christ Domesticated’, 193.

44 See Schottroff, L., Schroer, S., and Wacker, M. T., Feminist Intepretation: The Bible in Woman's Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998)Google Scholar 203.

45 See MacDonald, Margaret Y., The Pauline Churches: Institutionalization in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Communities (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1986)Google Scholar.

46 Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 131.

47 Elliott, Neil, ‘Paul and the Politics of Empire’, Paul and Politics: Ekklesia, Israel, Imperium, Interpretation (ed. Horsley, Richard A.; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 2000)Google Scholar 26. See also Liberating Paul: The Justice of God and the Politics of the Apostle (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1994)Google Scholar.

48 Elliott here is referring specifically to Paul's theology of powers which the authors of Colossians and Ephesians link to the heavenly/spiritual realm but which Paul himself maintains as earthly, tied to Jesus’ death, using apocalyptic concepts. See ‘The Anti-Imperial Message of the Cross’, Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society (ed. Horsley, Richard A.; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 1997) 178; see pp. 179–81Google Scholar.

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50 Maier, Harry, ‘A Sly Civility: Colossians and Empire’, JSNT 27 (2005) 323–49Google Scholar.

51 Maier, ‘A Sly Civility’, 341. Reference to the Sebasteion at Aphrodisias is central to recent postcolonial reading of Galatians by Lopez, Davina C., Apostle to the Conquered: Reimagining Paul's Mission (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2008)Google Scholar.

52 On the use of this term, see Harrill, Slaves in the New Testament, 114.

53 Maier, ‘A Sly Civility’, 349.

54 See Bhabha, Homi K., The Location of Culture (London: Routledge, 1994) 93–102Google Scholar.

55 Sugirtharajah, R. S., Postcolonial Criticism and Biblical Interpretation (Oxford: Oxford University, 2002)Google Scholar 11. For the influence of postcolonial theory on biblical interpretation, including that of Bhabha, see also Moore, Stephen D., Empire and Apocalypse: Postcolonialism and the New Testament (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006)Google Scholar.

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57 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 206.

58 It is important to acknowledge that countercultural or resistant elements of the household codes have also been recognized by scholars before and independent of the appeal to political and postcolonial theories. See, for example, Standhinger, Angela, Studien zur Entstehungsgeschichte und Intention des Kolosserbriefs (NovTSup 94; Leiden: Brill, 1999)Google Scholar; ‘The Origin and Intention of the Household Code in the Letter to the Colossians’; ‘The Epistle to the Congregation in Colossae and the Invention of the Household Code’, A Feminist Companion to the Deutero-Pauline Epistles (ed. Levine, Amy-Jill with Blickerstaff, Miriamme; London: T&T Clark, 2003) 88–97Google Scholar; Mollenkott, ‘Emancipative Elements in Ephesians 5.21–33’, 88–97. For some of these scholars, it is not a matter of ‘either /or’, but of ambiguity and even contradiction in a given text. See especially Barclay, J., ‘Ordinary but Different: Colossians and Hidden Moral Identity’, ABR 49 (2001) 34–52Google Scholar.

59 See Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance. On the influence of Scott's work more generally on the study of Paul see Horsley, Richard A., ed., Hidden Transcripts and the Arts of Resistance: Applying the work of James C. Scott to Jesus and Paul (Semeia Studies 48; Atlanta, GA: SBL 2004)Google Scholar.

60 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 120.

61 Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 116.

62 Sumney, Jerry L., Colossians: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville, KY: John Knox, 2008)Google Scholar 237.

63 Sumney, Colossians, 250. Here Sumney cites Müller, ‘Die Haustafel des Kolosserbriefes’, 274–5. Although in general I am somewhat less confident of Colossians’ internal consistency than is Sumney, I have argued that the author of Colossians does present a fundamental bestowal of honor on slaves. See MacDonald, Margaret Y., ‘Slavery, Sexuality, and House Churches: A Reassessment of Colossians 3.18–4.1 in Light of New Research on the Roman Family’, NTS 53 (2007) 94–113CrossRefGoogle Scholar, see esp. 108.

64 Horrell, 1 Peter, 94. On the application of Scott's perspective to the study of 1 Peter, see also Carter, Warren, ‘Going All the Way? Honoring the Emperor and Sacrificing Wives and Slaves in 1 Pet 2.13–3.6’, A Feminist Companion to the Catholic Epistles (ed. Levine, Amy Jill and Robbins, Maria Mayo; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2004) 14–33Google Scholar. On the use of postcolonial theory for the study of 1 Peter more generally, see Horrell, David G., ‘Between Conformity and Resistance: Beyond the Balch–Elliott Debate Towards a Postcolonial Reading of 1 Peter’, Reading 1 Peter with New Eyes: Methodological Reassessments of the Letter of First Peter (ed. Webb, Robert L. and Bauman-Martin, Betsy; LNTS; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2007) 111–43Google Scholar. On feminist postcolonial analysis of 1 Peter, see Fiorenza, The Power of the Word, 162–94.

65 On imperial ideology and Ephesians, see especially Faust, Eberhard, Pax Christi et Pax Caesaris: Religionsgeschichtliche, traditionsgeschichtliche und sozialgeschichtliche Studien zum Epheserbrief (NTOA 24; Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ubieta, Carmen Bernabé, ‘“Neither Xenoi nor paroikoi, sympolitai and oikeioi tou theou” (Eph 2.19): Pauline Christian Communities: Defining a New Territoriality,’ Social-Scientific Models for Interpreting the Bible (ed. Pilch, John J.; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 260–80Google Scholar; MacDonald, Margaret Y., ‘The Politics of Identity in Ephesians’, JSNT 26 (2004) 419–44Google Scholar.

66 See MacDonald, ‘The Politics of Identity in Ephesians’. See also Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 127–9.

67 Kartzow, Gossip and Gender, 33.

68 See Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 91.

69 Streete, Gail Corrington, ‘Askesis in the Pastoral Epistles’, Asceticism and the New Testament (ed. Vaage, Leif E. and Wimbush, Vincent L.; New York: Routledge, 1999)Google Scholar 313.

70 Saller, Richard P., ‘Household and Gender’, The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World (ed. Scheidel, Walter, Morris, Ian, and Saller, Richard; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2007)Google Scholar 89.

71 Dixon, Suzanne, The Roman Mother (London: Croom Helm, 1988)Google Scholar 44, 62–3, 233. See also Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 24–25, 131–2; Nathan, Geoffrey S., The Family in Late Antiquity: The Rise of Christianity and the Endurance of a Tradition (London: Routledge, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar 17, 19.

72 See Glancy, Jennifer A., Slavery in Early Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar 149. On the household codes and strategies of slave management, it is also valuable to consider the scholarship of J. Albert Harrill cited above.

73 See my more detailed response to both Glancy and Harrill in ‘Slavery, Sexuality and House Churches’.

74 See, for example, Moore, Stephen D., New Testament Masculinities (Semeia Studies 45; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003)Google Scholar; Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 132–6, citing Williams, Craig A., Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Roman Antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University, 1999)Google Scholar.

75 Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 119–23. See Dixon, Suzanne, ‘The Sentimental Ideal of the Roman Family’, Marriage, Divorce, and Children in Ancient Rome (ed. Rawson, Beryl; Oxford: Clarendon, 1991) 99–113Google Scholar.

76 See Martin, Dale B., ‘Slave Families and Slaves in Families’, Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue (ed. Balch, David L. and Osiek, Carolyn; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) 207–30Google Scholar. See also MacDonald, ‘Slavery, Sexuality and House Churches’, 103–4.

77 For inscriptional evidence see Rawson, Beryl, Children and Childhood in Roman Italy (Oxford: Oxford University, 2003) 259–61Google Scholar.

78 Notable exceptions include: Müller, Peter, In der Mitte der Gemeinde: Kinder im Neuen Testament (Neukirchen–Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1992) 326–48Google Scholar; Balla, Peter, The Child–Parent Relationship in the New Testament and its Environment (WUNT 155; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 165–78Google Scholar; See also now MacDonald, Margaret Y., ‘A Place of Belonging: Perspectives on Children from Colossians and Ephesians’, The Child in the Bible (ed. Bunge, Marcia J.; Grand Rapids, MI: Eeerdmans, 2008) 278–304Google Scholar.

79 See Aasgaard, R., ‘Children in Antiquity and Early Christianity: Research History and Central Issues’, Familia (Salamanca, Spain) 33 (2006) 23–46Google Scholar. For very recent studies, see Bunge, ed., The Child in the Bible; Horn, Cornelia B. and Martens, John W., ‘Let the little children come to me’: Childhood and Children in Early Christianity (Washington: The Catholic University of America, 2009)Google Scholar.

80 See n. 78.

81 See Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 81–4.

82 The question of whether a child should be educated at home or sent out to school was debated in antiquity, especially in relation to the effect of the choice on the child's morality. See for example, Quintilian The Orator's Education 1.2. For further discussion see Osiek and MacDonald (with Tulloch), A Woman's Place, 85–90.

83 See, for example, Walsh and Keesmaat, Colossians Remixed.

84 See, for example, Horrell, 1 Peter, 94; Maier, ‘A Sly Civility’.

85 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 207.