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Musonius and Paul on Marriage

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Roy Bowen Ward
Roy Bowen Ward
Affiliation:
Oxford, Ohio, USA
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Extract

In a recent article on ‘1 Cor 7:32–35 and Stoic Debates about Marriage, Anxiety, and Distraction’, David L. Balch offers a contribution to the debate whether Stoic ideas, are reflected in Paul's discussion. Balch concludes, in part, that the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus and the Apostle Paul agree that ‘marriage is helpful for some, not advantageous for others’.

Type
Short Studies
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , April 1990 , pp. 281 - 289
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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References

1 JBL 102 (1983) 429–39.Google Scholar

2 Balch, ‘1 Cor 7’, 439. Balch is followed here by Wimbush, V. L., Paul the Worldly Ascetic (Macon: Mercer University, 1987) 62–4.Google Scholar

3 Hense, O., ‘Ioannes Stobaeus’, Pauly-Wissowa, RE 9 (1916) 2549.Google Scholar

4 Balch, ‘1 Cor 7’ 433.Google Scholar

5 The citations are to the pages and lines of the text of Cora, Lutz, ‘Musonius Rufus: The Roman Socrates’, Yale Classical Studies (New Haven: Yale University Press, 10, 1947).Google Scholar If not otherwise noted, the translation is also that of Lutz. For parallels between Musonius and the New Testament see Van der Horst, P. W., ‘Musonius Rufus and the New Testament’, NovT 16 (1974) 306–15.Google Scholar

6 Musonius describes the ideal relationship of children to their parents as κηδεμονικκς (98. 14). With reference to civic responsibility τò κηδεμονικóν is the concern for the welfare of one's neighbour (92. 32). See also 40. 27.Google Scholar

7 Geytenbeek, A. C., Musonius Rufus and Greek Diatribe (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1963) 79, n. 1, associates Musonius' statement with the Augustan laws.Google ScholarSee Brunt, P. A., ‘The Augustan Marriage Laws’, Italian Manpower: 225 B.C. — A.D. 14 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) 558–66;Google ScholarCsillag, P., The Augustan Laws on Family Relations (Budapest: Akadé'miai Kiadó, 1976)Google Scholar; Gardner, J. F., Women in Roman Law & Society (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1986) 77, 78, 178, 179.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBalch refers to the Augustan laws on marriage in his ‘Backgrounds of I Cor. VII: Sayings of the Lord in Q; Moses as an Ascetic ΘΕΙΟΣ ANHP in II Cor. III’, NTS 18 (1971/1972) 351, but he incorrectly states that these laws were enacted to combat ‘celibacy’, equated with ‘sexual asceticism’. See n. 8 below.Google Scholar

8 Translation by Cary, E., Dio's Roman History (Loeb Classical Library, London: Wm. Heinemann, 1917). In this passage Dio Cassius refers to τοîς άγάμοις καί ταûς άνάνδροις. The word ἃγαμος is a generic term that could apply to those not yet or ever married, those divorced and those widowed.Google ScholarSee Baumert, N., Ehelosigkeit und Ehe im Herrn: Ein Neuinterpretation von 1 Kor 7 (Würzburg: Echter, 1984) 53, n. 112Google Scholar, contra Phipps, W. E., ‘Is Paul's Attitude towards Sexual Relations Contained in 1 Cor. 7.1?’ NTS 28 (1982) 128, who argues that ⋯γαμος means de-married. The Latin equivalent of ἃγαμος is caelebs. It is misleading to translate ἃγαμος or caelebs as ‘celibate’ since the meaning of the English word ‘celibacy’, derived from caelebs, has changed from ‘the state of being unmarried’ (attested from the 16th century) to the modern meaning of ‘abstention from erotic relations’. In the first century being ἃγαμος or caelebs did not necessarily mean abstaining from erotic relations. Thus Martial could write corrumpit sine talione caelebs (12, 63,10) — ‘A caelebs seduces with impunity.’ Dio Cassius has Augustus speak about the unmarried equestrians, as follows: ‘For surely it is not your delight in a solitary existence that leads you to live without wives, nor is there one of you who either eats alone or sleeps alone; no, what you want is to have full liberty for wantonness [ὑβρίζειν] and licentiousness [άσελγαίνειν]’ (56, 7, 1). Csillag, Augustan 82, also argues that legally the category caelebs included the one ‘whose matrimony was not a matrimonium secundum legum Iuliam Papiamve Poppaeam contractum, moreover one contracted against the prohibition of the Augustan laws (e.g. the marriage of a senator with a libertina)’.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Yarbrough, O. L. refers to these laws in Not Like the Gentiles: Marriage Rules in the Letters of Paul (SBL Dissertation Series 80, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) 45, 46; but Yarbrough incorrectly attributes the speech in Dio Cassius 56. 1–10 to Tiberius, instead of to Augustus.Google Scholar

10 Brunt, , Italian, 564; Csillag, Augustan, 81–4; Gardner, Women, 77.Google Scholar

11 Brunt, , Italian, 560; Csillag, Augustan, 109; Gardner, Women, 77.Google ScholarFiorenza, E. Schüssler, one of the few commentators on 1 Cor 7 to refer to the Augustan marriage laws, states — in contrast to the sources cited above — that widowers and divorcees had only one month to remarry and widows, three years; In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1986) 225. Suetonius, Aug 34, does give the figure of three years, but he gives this for both widows and widowers, and he fails to mention divorcees. But Suetonius is in contradiction to the legal texts on which Brunt, Csillag and Gardner primarily rely.Google Scholar

12 Brunt, , Italian, 560, 565; see also Csillag, Augustan, 43, 71. Schüssler Fiorenza, Memory, 224, is half correct when she writes, ‘in the first century, permanent abstinence from sexual relations and remaining unmarried were quite exceptional’. Despite the Augustan laws and Stoic teaching, remaining unmarried was not exceptional in the general cultural ethos, although permanent abstinence from erotic relations was exceptionalGoogle Scholar; see n. 8 above. Rousselle, A., Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988) 80, notes that concubinage was very widespread, but concubinage was not the same as marriage; see also Gardner, Women, 47, 56–60.Google Scholar

13 In 320 Constantine, under the influence of the Christian teaching which preferred the unmarried state, repealed the legislation pertaining to the unmarried and the childless; Csillag, Augustan, 23, 219, n. 19.Google Scholar

14 Csillag, Augustan, 23, 48, argues for Stoic influence on the Augustan laws.Google Scholar

15 Contra Balch, ‘1 Cor 7’ 433, n. 17.Google Scholar

16 Csillag, Augustan, 87, notes, ‘It followed from the obligation of the Augustan laws binding both men and women to live in a state of matrimony within the specified age limits that if the marriage of the parties came to an end for some reason or another, e.g. divorce, death, etc., the party so affected had to contract a new marriage’. See also Gardner, Women, 227.Google Scholar

17 Conzelmann, H., l Corinthians (Hermeneia, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 120, notes ‘since έγκράτεια is a charisma, it is not practised as a virtue’. He correctly notes, ‘Paul differs from the Stoa in suggesting no spiritual training for the control of passion. The fact of the case — whether a man has the χάρισμα, ‘gift’, of continence or not — is simply accepted’; 116, n. 18. See Musonius frag. 18A (112. 6–7) where έγκράτεια is the foundation of σωфροσύνη and is obviously to be practised as a virtue.Google Scholar

18 On πυροûσωαι see Friedrich Lang, ‘πûρ’, TDNT 6 (1968) 949, 950. Lang cites as a parallel an epigram from the Greek Anthology (12. 87), referring to ἃρωζ, where n-upouoGoi has the meaning, ‘to be seized with love for someone’.Google Scholar

19 Adams, J. N., The Latin Sexual Vocabulary (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1982) 188, 189;Google ScholarDover, K. J., Greek Homosexuality (Cambridge: Harvard University, 1978) 63.Google Scholar

20 For a similar view, see Philo, The Special Laws, III.9.Google Scholar

21 Phaedo 64D.E; cf. Laws 838E-839B. Wimbush, Paul, 59, argues that Plato's ‘spirituality greatly influenced the Stoic philosophers of the Roman empire…’. More specifically, Van Geytenbeek, Musonius, 161, argues for Platonic influence on Musonius. For Musonius' view of soul and body, see frag. 6, ‘On Training’ (54. 2–25).Google Scholar

22 Phaedo, 65C; cf. 65A. On Plato's novel interpretation of ψυχή, see Claus, D. B., Toward the Soul (Yale Classical Monographs 2, New Haven: Yale University, 1981). On Plato's attempt to reduce to an unavoidable minimum all activity of which the end was physical enjoyment, see Dover, Homosexuality, 153–68.Google Scholar

23 See Sandbach, P. H., The Stoics (New York: Norton and Co., 1975) 163.Google Scholar

24 Ovid, Ars Amatoriae III. 585, 586; cf. II. 685, 686.Google Scholar

25 Musonius does associate the god Eros with marriage, as if Eros watched over and guarded marriage and the procreation of children (94. 25–32), but this was not the popular view of Eros. For example, Eros is often associated with paiderastia; see GA 12. 86 — ἃρσεναδ’ αύτòζ “Eρωζ ἴμερον άνι7οχεî; ‘Eros himself has the desire for males in his reins.’Google Scholar

26 Ovid, Ars Amatoriae II. 681, 682; 719–728; III. 793, 794.Google Scholar

27 Note especially Musonius' discussion of erotic relations with a slave, something denied to both wife and husband alike (88, 36–90, 5). Csillag, Augustan, 62, notes that from the last century of the Republic onwards, ‘Extramarital relations with slave women or men grew in number and significance.’ Martial 12. 58 is typical: ‘Your wife calls you a lover of servant maids, and she herself is a mistress of litter-bearers. You are equal, Alauda!’Google Scholar

28 Dio Chrysostom, Or. 7. 133–4.Google Scholar

29 Ward, R. B., ‘PORNEIA and Paul’, Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society and Midwestern Society of Biblical Literature, 6 (1986) 219–28;Google ScholarHanges, J. C., ‘The Meaning of ΠOPNEIA (Porneia) for Paul’, M.A. Thesis, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 1987.Google Scholar

30 Plutarch, Moralia 753B rejects the idea of founding a marriage on the basis of άκρασία, in this case, with a woman who takes the initiative in erotic advances. Paul, on the other hand, recognizes άκρασία among the married partners. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 118, n. 28, states, ‘For incontinentia is of course the nature of married people; otherwise they would have remained unmarried.’ This may well fit Paul's view, but not Musonius' view in which the ideal married woman was ‘pure of άκρασία’ (40.18,19).Google Scholar

31 Cartlidge, D. R., ‘l Corinthians 7 as a Foundation for a Christian Sex Ethic’, JR 55 (1975) 224.Google Scholar

32 Yarbrough, Not Like, 97; see also G. Delling, ‘καιρόζ’, TDNT 3 (1965) 461.Google Scholar

33 The legitimate object of marriage was expressed in the formula liberorum quaerundum (or creandorum) causa, ‘to acquire (or produce) free-born children’. See Watson, A., Roman Private Law (Edinburgh: The University, 1971) 21–3;Google ScholarBrunt, Italian, 559; Csillag, Augustan, 57, 71. The physician Soranus, Gyn I. 34, wrote: ‘women usually are married for the sake of children and succession, and not for mere enjoyment [ψιλζ ήδυπαωείαζ]’. Compare Musonius, frag. 12 (86. 7), who opposes άфροδίσια for ‘mere pleasure [ψιλ⋯ν ήδονήν]’.Google Scholar

34 Scroggs, R., ‘Paul and the Eschatological Woman’, JAAR 40 (1972) 296, writes, ‘The context makes it clear that Paul understands the purpose of marriage to be sexual enjoyment, and nothing is said about procreation in the chapter, except in passing comments in verse 14.’Google ScholarPagels, E., ‘Paul and Women: A Response to Recent Discussion’, JAAR 42 (1974) 542, criticizes Scroggs' notion that for Paul the purpose of marriage is ’sexual enjoyment’; rather, she argues it is ‘sexual containment’. What neither Scroggs nor Pagels emphasizes is that, whether one interprets the purpose of marrige here as ‘sexual enjoyment’ or ‘sexual containment’, Paul stands at variance with the traditional purpose of marriage in his culture.Google ScholarSee my ‘Paul: How He Radically Redefined Marriage’, Bible Review 4/4 (1988) 26–31.Google Scholar

35 Balch, , ‘1 Cor 7’, 439.Google Scholar

36 Balch, , ‘1 Cor 7’, 438.Google Scholar

37 Balch, , Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter (SBL Monograph 26, Chico: Scholars, 1981) 143.Google Scholar

38 Klassen, W., ‘Musonius Rufus, Jesus, and Paul: Three First Century Feminists’, in From Jesus to Paul: Studies in Honour of Francis Wright Beare, ed. by Richardson, P. and Hurd, J. C. (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University, 1984) 185–206.Google ScholarCarcopino, J., Daily Life in Ancient Rome (New Haven: Yale University, 1940) 85, also calls Musonius an ‘ancient champion of feminism’.Google Scholar

39 Balch, , ‘1 Cor 7’, 439, n. 35.Google Scholar

40 Cantarella, E., Pandora's Daughters: The Role and Status of Women in Greek and Roman Antiquity (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, 1987) 140–8;Google ScholarPomeroy, S. B., Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975) 171–4; Csillag, Augustan, 51, 54.Google Scholar

41 Juvenal, Satires, 6. 434–447; trs. by Ramsay, G. G. (Loeb Classical Library, Cambridge: Harvard University, 1940).Google Scholar

42 In frag. 3 (42. 22, 23) Musonius explicitly states, ‘we ought to examine the doctrine which we think women who study philosophy ought to follow’. Contra Van Geytenbeek, Musonius, 60, who claims that Musonius ‘accepts philosophical training of women unconditionally’.Google Scholar

43 Manning, C. E., ‘Seneca and the Stoics on the Equality of the Sexes’, Mnemosyne 26 (1973) 172, argues that ‘the relegation of women to a secondary place in society was quite consistent with the doctrines of the middle and late Stoa… the development of the doctrine of καωήκοντα or officia undoubtedly led the Stoics of a late period to support more conventional morality and more traditional forms of personal relationship.’CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Yarbrough, Not Like, 56, describes this comment of Musonius as ‘only slightly less harsh’ than the Stoic Antipater's claim that ‘the aim and goal of a woman's life should be to please her husband’.Google Scholar

45 Manning, ‘Seneca’, 75, notes that Seneca could argue that a slave possesses reason, just as does a freeman, but that his social position differed. There is nothing unstoic in expecting a slave diligently to till the fields. ‘Musonius’ consistency is evident in his frag. 8, ‘That Kings also should Study Philosophy’, which should be read alongside of his advice for women. Obviously the king, like any other man or women, is capable of studying philosophy, but this does not lead to an egalitarian relationship between the king and his subjects.Google Scholar

46 Such an approach scarcely earns Musonius the title of ‘feminist’; see note 38 above.Google Scholar