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Birthing the Children of God: Echoes of Theogony in Romans 8.19–23

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2017

Courtney J. P. Friesen
Courtney J. P. Friesen*
Affiliation:
University of Arizona, Learning Services Building 203, 1512 E. First Street, PO Box 210105, Tucson, AZ 85721-0105, USA. Email: friesen@email.arizona.edu
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Abstract

In depicting an apocalyptic expectation of the revelation of God's children (Rom 8.19–23), Paul personifies ‘creation’: awaiting the revelation of these children, she ‘groans and suffers pains of childbirth’. While Paul's vision is framed with scriptural allusions, Greek and Roman images of Earth Mother also provide a relevant juxtaposition. This study recovers such a context by surveying sources ranging from Hesiod's Gaia to the Roman Terra Mater. Philo provides an especially relevant comparative model, as he relates biblical cosmology to Greek mythological sources and asserts that earth's role as mother is also attested in Genesis. In light of these comparisons, fresh insights emerge: maternal creation gives birth to a new divine era, yet for Paul this remains a future hope rather than a past (mythological) or present (political) occurrence.

Keywords

PaulRomanscreationHesiodGaiaTellus/Terra Matermythology
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 63 , Issue 2 , April 2017 , pp. 246 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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References

1 All translations are mine throughout unless otherwise specified.

2 The biblical and Jewish background for Rom 8.19–22 is well documented in scholarship; see e.g. Lagrange, M.-J., Saint Paul: Épitre aux Romains (Paris: Gabalda, 1950 6) 204–10Google Scholar; Dubarle, A.-M., ‘Le gémissement des créatures dans l'ordre divin du cosmos (Rom 8,19–22)’, RSPT 38 (1954) 445–65Google Scholar; Kuss, O., Der Römerbrief (3 vols.; Regensburg: Pustet, 1963–78)Google Scholar ii.622–iii.636; U. Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (3 vols.; EKKNT 6.2; Zürich: Benziger, 1978–81) ii.146–58; Fitzmyer, J. A., Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33; New York: Doubleday, 1993) 504–14Google Scholar; Tsumura, D. T., ‘An OT Background to Rom. 8.22’, NTS 40 (1994) 620–1Google Scholar; Adams, E., Constructing the World: A Study in Paul's Cosmological Language (Studies in the New Testament and its World; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 2000) 174–84Google Scholar; Hahne, H. A., The Corruption and Redemption of Creation: Nature in Romans 8.19–22 and Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (LNTS 336; London: T&T Clark, 2006)Google Scholar; Braaten, L. J., ‘All Creation Groans: Romans 8:22 in Light of the Biblical Sources’, HBT 28 (2006) 131–59Google Scholar; Jewett, R., Romans: A Commentary (Hermeneia 59; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 511–20Google Scholar; Moo, D. J., ‘Romans 8.19–22 and Isaiah's Cosmic Covenant’, NTS 54 (2008) 74–89 Google Scholar; Byrne, B., ‘An Ecological Reading of Rom. 8.19–23: Possibilities and Hesitations’, in Ecological Hermeneutics: Biblical, Historical and Theological Perspectives (ed. Horrell, D. G., Hunt, C., Southgate, C. and Stravrakopoulou, F.; London: T&T Clark, 2010) 83–93 Google Scholar, esp. 88–93.

3 For the purposes of this study, biblical quotations are taken from the Septuagint/Old Greek because these translations would have been more familiar to Paul and his readers.

4 The correspondence between Paul's κτίσις in Romans 8 and γῆ is strongly evident in view of the allusion to Gen 3.16–17 in v. 20: ‘for the creation was subjected to futility’ (τῇ γὰρ ματαιότητι ἡ κτίσις ὑπετάγη); see Lagrange, Romains, 208; Kuss, Der Römerbrief, iii.626–8, 630; Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer, ii.154; Fitzmyer, Romans, 505; Tsumura, ‘An OT Background’; Adams, Constructing the World, 174–5, 178–9; Jewett, Romans, 516; Byrne, ‘An Ecological Reading’, 88–93. Why Paul adopts κτίσις in this context rather than γῆ remains a matter of speculation; however, from the perspective of the Greek and Roman contexts discussed below, the conceptual framework of Paul's metaphor is more determinative than the specific term employed (κτίσις or γῆ) because numerous Greek and Latin words are involved with varying degrees of interchangeability. Much of the scholarly debate regarding the meaning of κτίσις in Romans 8 has centred on whether it entails human or non-human entities, or both; see Adams, Constructing the World, 175–8.

5 See also below on Philo's interpretation of Gen 2.6.

6 Braaten, ‘All Creation Groans’, 145–9; Moo, ‘Romans 8.19–22’.

7 At the end of 26.19, the MT is potentially suggestive of the earth giving birth, but the Hebrew is highly uncertain: וארץ רפאים תפיל. The NRSV renders this as ‘and the earth will give birth to those long dead’. This verb (נפל), however, does not commonly denote childbirth, and the phrase may be better translated as ‘the land of the shades will fall’, which is how it is construed in the LXX: ἡ δὲ γῆ τῶν ἀσεβῶν πεσεῖται.

8 In Isa 26.8, the earth's (ארץ/γῆ) labour is mentioned in parallel with Zion's: ‘Does the earth labour in one day? Also, has a people been born all at once’ (ἦ ὤδινεν γῆ ἐν μιᾷ ἡμέρᾳ, ἢ καὶ ἐτέχθη ἔθνος εἰς ἅπαξ). Cf. the MT, which has ‘shall the earth be born in one day?’ (היוחל ארץ ביום אחד).

9 For comparison with Romans 8, see Kuss, Der Römerbrief, iii.631–2. On this theme in 4 Ezra, see Stone, M. E., Fourth Ezra: A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 98–9Google Scholar; Hogan, K. M., ‘Mother Earth as Conceptual Metaphor in 4 Ezra’, CBQ 73 (2011) 72–91 Google Scholar.

10 4 Ezra significantly develops earth's likeness to a pregnant woman and expands it in new directions beyond earlier scriptural texts: she gave birth to Adam and all humans (7.116; 10.9–10), the mind (7.62), and would finally give birth to the souls of the dead (4.40–2). Stone asserts that ‘[t]hese ideas have clear and obvious biblical antecedents, from Genesis 1 on’ (Fourth Ezra, 99 n. 47). While this is partially true, the discussion here indicates that the biblical sources are not as ‘clear and obvious’ as Stone supposes.

11 There are a very few exceptions: most significantly, Robert Jewett relates Paul's creation to Roman imperial propaganda and civic cult (‘The Corruption and Redemption of Creation’, Paul and the Roman Imperial Order (ed. Horsley, R. A.; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2004) 25–46 Google Scholar; idem, Romans, 511–12, 515–16). Fitzmyer cites Heraclitus Stoicus, All. 39.14 (Romans, 509); Wilckens cites Virgil, Eclogues 4 (Der Brief an die Römer, 150 n. 629); Adams cites Plato, Men. 238 and Philo, Opif. 129ff. (Constructing the World, 177 n. 104); and Troels Engberg-Pederson argues that Paul's cosmology in Romans 8 is influenced by Stoicism ( Cosmology and Self in the Apostle Paul: The Material Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 39–74 Google Scholar). On Paul's eschatology and Stoicism more broadly, see also Kee, H. C., ‘Pauline Eschatology: Relationships with Apocalyptic and Stoic Thought’, in Glaube und Eschatologie: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel zum 80. Geburtstag (ed. Gräβer, E. and Merk, O.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985) 135–58Google Scholar. For a list of studies focused on biblical and Jewish backgrounds, see n. 2 above.

12 On the Christian community at Rome, see Esler, P. E., Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) 77–108 Google Scholar; Jewett, Romans, 46–74. To be sure, many Christians were from the lower classes and therefore uneducated. Nevertheless, there would have been interactions with educated individuals. For example, the Jewish community in Rome, with which Christians were closely connected from early on, was visited by the Alexandrian embassy led by Philo, whose literary and philosophical education was on par with Roman elites. His comments on earth as mother are discussed below.

13 E.g. Homer, Il. 3.104–5, 276–80; Od. 5.184–7; Hesiod, Op. 563; Homeric Hymn 30; Aeschylus, Cho. 124–9; Sept. 16, 69; Suppl. 890–2, 899–901; Euripides, Med. 746. Among the literature on Mother Earth, from the perspective of anthropology and comparative religion, see Dieterich, A., ‘Mutter Erde’, AR 8 (1905) 1–50 Google Scholar; Eliade, M., ‘Mother Earth and the Cosmic Hierogamies’, Myths, Dreams and Mysteries: The Encounter between Contemporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (trans. Mairet, P.; New York: Harper, 1960) 155–89Google Scholar; Pettersson, O., Mother Earth: An Analysis of the Mother Earth Concepts according to Albrecht Dieterich (Scripta minora Regiae Societatis Humaniorum Litterarum Lundensis 1965–6, 3; Lund: Gleerup, 1967)Google Scholar. With attention to the Roman context, see Gesztelyi, T., ‘Tellus – Terra Mater in der Zeit des Prinzipats’, ANRW ii.17.1 (1981) 429–56Google Scholar.

14 On the Theogony in general, see West, M. L., Hesiod, Theogony: Edited with Prolegomena and Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1966)Google Scholar; Clay, J. S., Hesiod's Cosmos (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 12–30 Google Scholar; Scully, S., Hesiod's Theogony: From Near Eastern Creation Myths to Paradise Lost (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016)Google Scholar. With respect to Gaia, see Clay, Hesiod's Cosmos, 15–30; Park, A., ‘Parthenogenesis in Hesiod's Theogony ’, Preternature 3 (2014) 261–83Google Scholar, esp. 268–72.

15 Hesiod's verb στοναχίζω is an epic form of στεναχίζω, which derives from the same root as (συ)στενάζω (Rom 8.22) and στενάχω (Homer, Od. 9.415). See LSJ s.v.

16 An indispensable starting point for Hesiod's reception remains Rzach, A., Hesiodi carmina: accedit Homeri et Hesiodi certamen (Leipzig: Teubner, 1902)Google Scholar; more recently, see the testimonia collected and translated by Most, G. W., Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days. Testimonia (LCL 57; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006) 154–281 Google Scholar; and for discussion, see Rosati, G., ‘The Latin Reception of Hesiod’, Brill's Companion to Hesiod (ed. Montanari, F., Rengakos, A. and Tsagalis, C.; Leiden: Brill, 2009) 343–74Google Scholar; Scully, Hesiod's Theogony, 69–159.

17 On Plato's complex engagement with Hesiod, see F. Solmsen, ‘Hesiodic Motifs in Plato’, Hésiode et son influence (Entretiens sur l'antiquité classique 7; Geneva: Vandoeuvres, 1962) 171–96; Most, G. W., ‘Plato's Hesiod: An Acquired Taste?’, Plato and Hesiod (ed. Boys-Stones, G. R. and Haubold, J. H.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010) 52–67 Google Scholar; Scully, Hesiod's Theogony, 111–18.

18 See Belfiore, E., ‘“Lies Unlike the Truth”: Plato on Hesiod, Theogony 27’, TAPA 115 (1985) 47–57 Google Scholar. Elsewhere, however, Plato treats Hesiod's succession myth with greater sympathy. In Timaeus 40d–41a, it is said to be ‘impossible to disbelieve’ (ἀδύνατον … ἀπιστεῖν) because those who first pasted down this myth lived closer to the gods. One detects some irony here, however; so also Scully, Hesiod's Theogony, 115.

19 E.g. Plato, Symp. 178b; Aristotle, Metaph. 1.984b, 989a; 3.1000a; SVF 1.43.20–4. For a more complete list of citations, see Rzach, Hesiodi carmina, 21–5.

20 E.g. Demeter, Rhea and Hera, among others, as in the Derveni Papyrus (col. xxii.7–15); on this, see Obbink, D., ‘Cosmology as Initiation vs. the Critique of Orphic Mysteries’, Studies on the Derveni Papyrus (ed. Laks, A. and Most, G. W.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) 39–54 Google Scholar, esp. 48–9. For a related discussion of the conflation of female chthonic deities, see Renehan, R., ‘Hera as Earth-Goddess: A New Piece of Evidence’, Rheinisches Museum 117 (1974) 193–201 Google Scholar.

21 This is especially clear in Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus, where Zeus continues to wield his conventional thunderbolt (v. 10), even while being reimagined as a rationalised Stoic deity. For discussion of these literary and religious dynamics, see Pohlenz, M., ‘Kleanthes' Zeushymnus’, Hermes 75 (1940) 117–23Google Scholar; Asmis, E., ‘Myth and Philosophy in Cleanthes’ Hymn to Zeus', GRBS 47 (2007) 413–29Google Scholar.

22 On this, see Ziogas, I., Ovid and Hesiod: The Metamorphosis of the Catalogue of Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) 57–62 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosati, ‘The Latin Reception’, 363–5, 369–74; Scully, Hesiod's Theogony, 144–7. Perhaps the most well-known borrowing from Hesiod is the myth of Five Ages (Op. 106–201), which is reduced to four in Ovid (Met. 1.89–150). See also Aratus, Phaen. 96–136.

23 For this point, see esp. Ziogas, Ovid and Hesiod, 59; Rosati, ‘The Latin Reception’, 356–7. See similarly Apollodorus, Bib. 1.1.2; Lucretius 5.416–31.

24 The entire fragment continues through fourteen lines.

25 Cf. Pacuvius, Chrysae fr. 6 Ribbeck.

26 This fragment of Euripides is also quoted by numerous others: e.g. Philo, Leg. 1.7; Aet. 5, 30, 144; Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.50; Clement, Strom. 6.2.23.

27 See Gesztelyi, ‘Tellus – Terra’, 436–8.

28 This statement occurs within Heraclitus’ allegorisation of Hera's seduction of Zeus in Iliad 14 – Zeus’ embrace of Hera represents spring.

29 On this treatise, see Runia, D. T., ‘Philo's De aeternitate mundi: The Problem of its Interpretation’, VC 35 (1981) 105–51Google Scholar; Niehoff, M. R., ‘Philo's Contribution to Contemporary Alexandrian Metaphysics’, Beyond Reception: Mutual Influences between Antique Religion, Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. Brakke, D., Jacobsen, A.-C. and Ulrich, J.; Early Christianity in the Context of Antiquity; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2006) 33–55 Google Scholar. Although the authenticity of this treatise has been questioned, both Runia and Niehoff argue that it is genuine. For a broader discussion of Philo's engagement with religion in relation to contemporary philosophers, see Van Nuffelen, P., Rethinking the Gods: Philosophical Readings in Religion in the Post-Hellenistic Period (Greek Culture in the Roman World; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011) 200–16Google Scholar.

30 For Philo's affirmative use of Hesiod elsewhere, see Friesen, C. J. P., ‘Hannah's “Hard Day” and Hesiod's “Two Roads”: Poetic Wisdom in Philo's De ebrietate ’, JSJ 46 (2015) 44–64 Google Scholar.

31 On this treatise, see Runia, D. T., Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses: Introduction, Translation and Commentary (Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 1; Leiden: Brill, 2001)Google Scholar.

32 For a similar point, see Plant. 14–15. In Aet. 56–64, Philo disputes that earth is the mother of humans in the literal sense suggested by myths of autochthony. See also Runia, On the Creation, 318.

33 For this etymology, see also Derveni Papyrus (col. xxii.9–10); Diodorus Siculus 1.12.4; Cicero, Nat. D. 2.67.

34 At Aet. 63, Philo also notes that Pandora is an appellation for Earth used by Poets. Runia points to a related use in Aristophanes, Birds 971 (On the Creation, 319).

35 See e.g. Séchan, L., ‘Pandora, l’Éve grecque’, BAGB 23 (1929) 3–36 Google Scholar, esp. 8; Teggart, F. J., ‘The Argument of Hesiod's Works and Days ’, Journal of the History of Ideas 8 (1947) 45–77 Google Scholar, at 50.

36 Aristides refers here to Homer's prediction of the rise of the descendants of Aeneas (Il. 20.306–7).

37 On this, see Van Nuffelen, Rethinking the Gods, 138–46.

38 See Gesztelyi, ‘Tellus – Terra’, 440–5; Zanker, P., The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (trans. Shapiro, A.; Jerome Lectures 16; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988) 172–9Google Scholar.

39 See Gesztelyi, ‘Tellus – Terra’, 440–2; Zanker, The Power of Images, 172–5; Castriota, D., The Ara Pacis Augustae and the Imagery of Abundance in Later Greek and Early Roman Imperial Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) 66–73 Google Scholar.

40 Similarly, the cuirass relief on the statue of Augustus from the Villa of Livia at Prima Porta depicts Earth Mother reclining under the central image of Roman victory over the Parthians; see Gesztelyi, ‘Tellus – Terra’, 442–45; Zanker, The Power of Images, 188–92 with Fig. 48.

41 On the cultic aspects involved, see Beard, M., North, J. A., and Price, S. R. F, Religions of Rome (2 vols.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998) 1.201–06; 2.139–44Google Scholar.

42 Jewett has developed a compelling reading of Paul's vision of the redemption of creation in Romans 8 against this Roman imperial background (‘The Corruption and Redemption’). To be sure, the apostle's attitude towards the Roman Empire is complex; in recent decades, it been subjected to much scholarly inquiry. Some maintain that his message of the cross with its promise of liberation from the rulers of this age is inherently anti-Roman; see e.g. Elliott, N., ‘The Anti-imperial Message of the Cross’, Paul and Empire: Religion and Power in Roman Imperial Society (ed. Horsley, R. A.; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1997) 167–83Google Scholar. Others remain cautious; see Harrill, J. A., ‘Paul and Empire: Studying Roman Identity after the Cultural Turn’, Early Christianity 2 (2011) 281–311 Google Scholar; idem, Paul the Apostle: His Life and Legacy in their Roman Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 76–94. Harrill problematises dichotomous analyses of Paul – whether he was pro- or anti-imperial – focusing rather on the ways in which he constructs his own conceptions of power and authority from a Roman perspective. The interpretation proposed in this study of Paul's image of creation as mother over against Roman Tellus/Terra Mater coheres well with such an approach.

43 As Jewett similarly observes, for Paul ‘[n]othing whatsoever remains of the illusion that the golden age has already arrived and that the whole world rejoices in Caesar's victories’ (Romans, 516).