The Edict of Claudius: Part II

As argued in my last post, the historical questions surrounding the Edict of Claudius ought to give us serious pause when using it as an interpretive key to unlock Paul's letter to the Romans. From what I can make out, it seems that most of those who use the Edict of Claudius, as a key, do so only after reading the letter and coming to a position of Jew/Gentile conflict from their reading. The Edict, then corroborates that reading, so it is used to further substantiate their view. Of course many combine this with the reference in Acts, and are even further convinced that Claudius expelled the Jews and probably Jewish Christians from Rome. The point though, is that they don't need the Edict in order to hold this thesis, namely because this particular reading of Romans is sustainable without any Edict. The conflict, that may or may not be depicted in the letter, could just as easily represent the status that one group has achieved over another in the realm of followers, ideas, or theology; rather than due to a prolonged geographical absence and then return.

So what, if anything, lies behind this Edict? I will offer a preliminary sketch of what I believe the Edict tells us, and then in a future post will attempt to further develop what some of the implications are for Paul's letter to the Romans.

The Edict of Claudius: What does it tell us about Romans?

Erich Gruen in his masterful work on the Jews in the Diaspora (note: everyone serious about the study of Second Temple Judaism and its relationship to the NT ought to read this work) seems to offer a sober and reasoned response to the debate surrounding the Edict of Claudius. Gruen, a historian, notes that if you look at the actions taken against the Jews in antiquity the Jews were never the sole targets but always involved other groups. This is an important suggestion especially when we take into account the context of Claudius rule, namely that of Claudius' public concern over Roman religion and ritual. Claudius was mindful of the rumors surrounding his rise to power, and on many occasions during his rule took opportunities to distance himself publicly from the manner in which Caligula ruled, i.e. Caligula, if you remember, was known for openly mocking the average Roman’s relationship with the gods. Because many questioned Claudius right to the “throne”, he was careful to make sure that the ideology of the Roman Imperial Order prevailed, and as we all know, in antiquity; religion, ritual, and politics were all intermingled.

So due to the context of Claudius’ rule, coupled with the fact that actions against the Jews were usually grouped together with other outsiders; we may reasonably conclude that the Edict was more about imperial propaganda rather than the idea that a large number of Jews were actually forcibly removed from Rome. It is suggested then that Claudius took the disturbance fostered by Chrestus as an opportunity for political publicity against the “other”, rather than a showing of power to quell a real threat. Since it was key for Claudius to depict himself as a guardian of ancient Roman religion and ritual, and to show his continuity with the ancient traditions and power structures that were essential to the ideology of Roman rule, this Edict probably coincides nicely with his resurrection of ancient national rituals and actions against alien cults, then it does with forced exile.

On Claudius and the Expulsion of the Jews: Part 1 The Problem

Over on Chris (tea for the) Tilling(man)’s wonderful blog Chrisendom a discussion was started concerning the keys to interpreting Romans. Chris offered two, one of them being the Edict of Claudius. The reason this seems to be key is due to the supposed tensions between the Jews and the Christians throughout the letter, of which the Edict is the historical antecedent. Many think the Edict is crystal clear and quote Acts 18.2 as further evidence of the supposed tension between the two groups. But I wonder what the Edict really tells us? I hope to offer up my own interpretive possibility in an upcoming post, but first I think it is necessary to lay out some of the problems in interpreting the Edict.

'Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultantes Roma expulit'

Problems of Reference:

1. Suetonius offers no chronology for this event, it could have happened any time during Claudius’ reign. So it could refer to the 41 event and Dio Cassius is correcting Suetonius (Although these two texts probably should not be amalgamated, too much conjecture), it could refer to an event that Orosius states happened in 49, or it could be a totally different event.

2. Orosius gives us the date of 49 ce, for this edict. And Acts 18.2 and the chronology of Paul’s life would seem to fit this date.

3. Chrestus and Christus were pronounced the same, and Sinaiticus spells Christian as “Chrestianos”, so Chrestus could be confused with Christ; although this would imply that Suetonius did not understand the differences between Christ and his followers, or thought that Christ was still alive.

4. Furthermore Suetonius links the conflict with Chrestus, not with his teachings, but with his presence (as noted above Jesus Christ was dead by then).

5. The opponents of Christianity occasionally referred to Christians as Chrestianos in an effort to imply that the followers got their name from a common slave, but this is later.

6. And Suetonius elsewhere uses the correct designation for Christianity, Christiani, in Nero 16.2.

7. Suetonius could have just copied his source without evaluation, but to postulate that Suetonius, or an official edict, mistook Christ for the followers of Christ is still highly speculative.

8. Chrestus was a common name and widely attested and common in Rome, although never for a Jew.

So Chrestus could have just as easily been an individual who stirred up nationalistic, messianic, or simply civil discord and incurred upon himself the wrath of the emperor. So historically it is just as likely that this incident had nothing to do with Jewish Christian relations, but was simply in response to civil discord. But what would this Edict have looked like on the ground in Rome around 49 ce.

Problems of Scope:

1. Estimates put the Jewish population to be approximately 15,000 – 50,000 at the time, so it is highly unlikely that all 15,000 – 50,000 were forcibly moved. Even if the edict was passed, and was for all Jews, it is doubtful it was ever enforced.

2. Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultantes Roma expulit, can be translated as “since the Jews constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, he expelled them from Rome.” Or “He expelled from Rome those Jews who were constantly making disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus.” Thus the expulsion could refer to only those key members responsible for making the disturbances.

3. Acts 18.2 and Luke’s use of “all” is more likely an instance of his typical hyperbole.

4. A small scale expulsion would explain why other historians of the time neglected to mention it.

The Edict of Claudius and its aftermath are simply not necessary for reconstructing an interpretation for Romans; there are more unknowns in this historical reconstruction to be of any use in sufficiently explaining the tensions and conflicts that were dividing the community that Paul addressed in Romans. If one wants to hold that a key to interpreting Romans is the tension between the Jews and Gentiles, the arena of differing ideas, beliefs, and interpretations of traditions is probably a much better place to stake your claim, then a nebulous cryptic saying in Suetonius.

Further Reading:

Esler, Philip Francis, Conflict and identity in Romans: the social setting of Paul's letter. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

Nanos, Mark D., The mystery of Romans: the Jewish context of Paul's letter. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.

Fisk, Bruce N. "Synagogue Influence and Scriptural Knowledge among the Christians of Rome," Pages 157-185 in As it is written: studying Paul's use of Scripture. Edited by Stanley E. Porter and Christopher D. Stanley. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008.

Das, A. Andrew, Solving the Romans debate. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007.

Gruen, Erich S., Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Empires, Mercy, and Obedience

Back to Elliott's Arrogance of Nations, we are now up to the chapter on CLEMENTIA, or mercy.  Mercy if you understand politics is the prerogative of those who have power.  In this case the Emperor.  It is the Emperor who has the ability to show those who are truly powerless and submissive mercy and it is up to him to determine what is and what is not merciful.  It is nice to be the one in charge of making these decisions.  Now it is easy to see how Paul's proclamation of God’s mercy as the public manifestation of God’s Justice could be offensive.  Because ultimately the purpose of mercy is that for those who have received such mercy they are supposed to be so moved as to respond in obedience.  But according to Paul all the world – not just the Judeans- is accountable to God.  But the subtext to all this is that it is the losers who receive mercy.

So who were the losers in Rome during the time of Paul's letter.  Well Elliott would argue, based on a number of things, including the "in chrestus" expulsion, the recent return of the homeless and jobless Judeans, and from the perspective of mercy coming from the Emperor, that the Judeans were indeed the losers.  For Paul if the Romans buy into this form of thinking then it naturally would beg the question of whether Israel stumbled so as to fall.  Paul's task is to get the Romans to be able to see past the surface of history, to see that mercy comes from the justice of God and not from throwing your lot in with the Empire. 

Now this is a very cursory attempt to summarize Elliott, his chapter, and his book, is much richer than my feeble attempts at summary make it seem.

Justice, what is it good for... Post 5

Folks, I think I was close to getting back on the biblioblogs page, but alas I must have no pull with Brandon Wason, nor with Jim West.  I can't believe that my Sheffield connection didn't do anything for my chances.  Why did I pay so much for an education if it doesn't even get me on to the biblioblogs site? I thought Sheffield was the mecca for Jim, I have heard stories of his regular pilgrimages and ritual sacrifices that he has offered to the the great paternoster in the north. The same paternoster that I myself made regular sacrifices to weekly as a student.

 

I do promise to stop the groveling ... soon.

Ok, now for the next topoi that Elliott brings to light in his reading of Romans is JUSTITIA.  Now justice is by and far the biggest subject in Romans, however many people are not able to see this because they frame Paul's justice talk in individualistic pietistic ways like, "how can I be made right in the sight of god".  The problem with such individualistic notions is that they are foreign to the NT and Paul.  What Elliott wants us to understand is that the notion of morality is often given to, and an authority enjoyed by, those with the actual power to dominate others.  This is pretty basic stuff, and even if you detest Foucault and his cronies this statement seems pretty uncontroversial, right.  So in looking at Paul's justice talk in comparison to the Empire's we can see that what Paul is doing is contesting the morality of the Empire and confronting the imperial claims and propaganda.

A number of things that Elliott highlights in the text of Romans that Paul is confronting are (1) the notion that Caesar is the embodiment of divine Justice, (2) the proclamation of Caesar's triumph, and (3) the notion that Rome has brought peace to the world, to highlight just a few.  Paul's point is to give his readers/hearers the ability to see that appearances are deceiving, and that reality should not be read from current events, but rather through an apocalyptic imagination.

Elliott does something really interesting in this chapter.  Now I am not sure that I am entirely convinced, but I must say that Elliott is one of the most provacative and interesting interpretors of Paul that I have read, I put him with the likes of Nanos and Stowers as my favorite authors to read on Romans. Elliott takes the famous "chrestus" pronouncement as having a real effect on the Jewish community of Rome.  I tend to see the "chrestus" evidence as overblown, and of little relevance for interpretations of Romans, but that is because most people use it as evidence of a Jewish Gentile split in Rome. Elliott sees it as having an effect on how the recently returned Jews would have been perceived socially and politically.  In the case of the Roman imperial order they would have been deemed as the weak, poor because they would have had to start over whence returning to Rome, and the marginality of these returned Jews, would have called into the power of the Jewish god.  Elliott surmises that the presence of a marginalized poor Jewish community would have been bad PR for the Jewish god, especially when compared to the imperial rhetoric of triumph.  Paul is thus intent in his letter to the Romans to contrast his message with the political realism of the Empire.

It is definitely food for thought...

THE ARROGANCE OF NATIONS (III)

Elliott's main thrust in the book is to flesh what he perceives to be Paul’s critical engagement with the Roman imperial ideology. Here I think Elliott is on to something, and so do loads of other interpreters for that matter, but what separates this book from others is Elliott's careful focus on this engagement.  For Elliott the purpose of Romans is Paul’s attempt to counter the Roman Imperial Ideology and the corrosive effects it has on the Roman congregations of Christ-believers.  Elliott establishes his argument by examining what he terms as Imperial Topoi (which I shall discuss in later posts). 

 

Because in large part I agree with Elliott, I naturally am not looking for him to present a slam dunk case for his thesis, if anything my reading of Elliott helps me make a stronger case for my own reading of Romans.  But even if you do not see political polemics as being key to the interpretation of Romans, Elliott at least presents it as a reasonable reading of the text and I think anyone would benefit from Elliott's presentation.

 

Here is How Elliott fleshes out his political reading of Romans and some of these are redundant (this is due to my presentation rather than Elliott’s):

 

·        As stated before Elliott takes for granted that a political reading of the NT is the absolute horizon of all reading and all interpretations.

·        So with that we need to look for the Strategies of Containment, or those forces in Paul’s day (and in our own for that matter) that repress certain ways of thinking from our consciousness. ( A present day example of this would be the fact that much of the western church has no problem reading capitalism back into the NT text.)

·        We also need to listen to what is said in the text, and also to what goes unsaid, and we need to be willing to read against the grain.

·        We need to keep an eye out for what Elliott terms, fissures in the text, (I use ungrammaticalities) or places where a unified surface reading becomes impossible, we need to notice and attend to the subterranean forces at work beneath the text.

·        The rhetoric of Romans, as Elliott teases out, shows that Paul participated in a cultural transcript, drawing on the repertoires of Judean scripture and apocalyptic writing that was inescapably in conflict with the empire’s absolutizing claims of allegiance.

·        Paul was engaged in the unfinished drama in which competing visions of history’s fulfillment are pitted against one another, for this reason we recognize with Jameson that the ultimate horizon of political interpretation is the sweep of history itself, we need to read Paul in this light.

·        Ultimately any reading ought to unmask, unveil, and uncover the deep logic that legitimizes exploitation, especially when that injustice bears the sheen of divine patina.

The Arrogance of Nations (Part II): Voice of the Voiceless

Fundamentally the key for Elliott in unlocking Romans is a particular kind of political reading (I will offer a spoiler and say leftist).  If Romans is about justice (which it is), and justice is something that takes place between human beings (and that is certainly part of it), then the letter to the Romans ought to be an interesting read for just about anyone.   Elliott’s off to a good start here, if he can convince anyone of this.  And here is Elliott’s problem, everybody already knows what Paul’s letter to the Romans is about, and while many may concede that it is about righteousness, or justification, their definition of those terms tend to be abstract and individualized (how god makes me right with him, and then me right with others).  So it is Elliott’s task to offer a corrective.

 

Well we (the masses) need a couple of ground rules in order to understand what justice is all about.  The first rule is to reject every approach that favors the rich to the detriment of the poor. The second rule is to read the NT texts so that they address the reality of empire as an omnipresent, inescapable, and overwhelming sociopolitical reality (Fernando Segovia, not the guitar player).

 

So begins Elliott’s quest of explaining the thesis of Paul’s letter to the Romans as a comparison between two rules.  And a quest for Paul to explain which rule is truly righteous and which rule has the power to make the world truly peaceful.

A Brief Look at Neil Elliott’s The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Part 1):

First off if you liked Colossians Remixed, you will like this book, although it is geared more towards an academic crowd. It is a challenging read that promises to both confound as well as challenge.

Full disclosure, I am a big Elliott fan, and wish this book was published before I submitted my thesis, because I certainly would have changed some things.  I love reading books that offer new answers to some really old questions, namely because they are fresh, but also because they make you think through your positions.  Now my convictions on Paul are pretty loosely held, so if you are threatened by new interpretations, you may not care for this book.  But I have read too many books on Paul that are a mere regurgitation of what everybody already knows, and offer very little to keep but a rehashing of all the overplayed theological arguments in Romans, just picking sides along the way.   This book reminds me of one of my mates synopsis of the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" and why it was his favorite Jesus movie...

“Because it is the only movie about Jesus where I don't know what is going to happen next.”

Now to be fair Elliott doesn’t just make up stuff, he offers good arguments for what he says, and his conclusions are very plausible.  So pick up the book, it is worth it!

Top Ten Monographs on Romans (in no particular order)

I know your thinking that there are better books on Paul out there, but I have limited myself to monographs that deal specifically with the letter to the Romans. Please feel free to suggest what you think should be on the list, I just may put it on!



Stowers, Stanley K. A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

This book blew me away, it shattered a number of my long held convictions about the letter to the Romans, and made me reread the letter a number of times. I was not, and am not now, entirely convinced about all of Stowers' arguments. But it made me take seriously Paul's call as an apostle to the nations.

Keesmaat, Sylvia C. Paul and His Story: (Re)Interpreting the Exodus Tradition. JSNTSup 181; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999.

Sylvia wrote this as here Ph.D. thesis under Tom Wright, and it is the book that made me pursue my own thesis in Romans. Although it only deals with Romans 8, it does a wonderful job of teasing out the exodus narrative throughout that chapter. She continues to write amazing stuff on Paul having a skill at merging together serious biblical studies with thought provoking contemporary theology. Check out here more accessible Colossians remixed.

Wagner, J. Ross. Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul in Concert in the Letter to the Romans. Leiden: Brill, 2003.

Another product of a Ph.D. and student of Richard Hays. This work applies Hays' methodological master piece 'Echoes' to the texts of Romans 9-11. Wagner is brilliant and methodical in his use of the second Isaianic corpus as a pretext for unlocking the 'meaning' of this tricky section in Paul's letter.

Grieb, A. Katherine. The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God's Righteousness. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002.

Argues that Romans is a narrative defense of God's Righteousness, a lot of good stuff are packed into this little gem. This is a short work and probably the most accessible work on this list.

Yeo, Khiok-Khng. Navigating Romans through Cultures : Challenging Readings by Charting a New Course, Romans through History and Culture Series. New York: T & T Clark International, 2004.

This is a collection of essays that takes as its starting point the inability to interpret a text outside of ones own context. Some of the best thought provoking readings on the letter to be compiled into a monograph. My personal favorite is Monya Stubbs' piece on Romans 13.

Elliott, Neil. The Rhetoric of Romans: Argumentative Constraint and Strategy, and Paul's Dialogue with Judaism. JSNTSup 45; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990.

Not the first work to deal with rhetoric in Paul, but it was the first work I read on the subject. Rhetoric helps us make better sense of the letter, and anybody who ignores both ancient and modern rhetoric in the study of Romans will have a definite disadvantage of making sense out of Paul's argument.

Stendahl, Krister. Final Account: Paul's Letter to the Romans. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995.

This short little work changed the way I interpret Romans 2.1, Stendahl is such an important figure in Pauline studies, and this work gives you a glimpse of why that is.

Nanos, Mark D. The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul's Letter. Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996.

When I read this work I was totally unprepared for the richness and lucidity of the arguments found inside. It was such a fresh way of reading Romans that even while writing this I am reminded that I have to read this again. The big splash this book made was in the re-interpretation of the 'weak' and 'strong'.

Esler, Philip Francis. Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003.

Very strong work on the dynamics of group identity and how Paul went about forming a new group identity out of competing influences. The best social scientific reading of the Letter to date!

Tobin, Thomas H. Paul's Rhetoric in Its Contexts: The Argument of Romans. Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2004.

There is so much good in this work, although a reasoned approach, I feel it ties the letter to the Romans to tightly to the letter to the Galatians. But that being said it is very thought provoking and at times quite convincing.

Technorati tags: Romans, monographs, Best Books

ETS: I have your thursday plan for you!

Wouldn't it be nice if ETS just put us all together! But if you are interested in Romans, I hope you make the journey. At least come and here me!


Edison Room
9:20-10:00 am
Timothy Gombis (Cedarville University)
Transforming the Body: Salvation as
Restoration to the Proper Use of the Body
in Romans

Independence
10:10-10:50 am
Bryan Lee (The University of Sheffield)
The Radical Resistance of Love in
Romans 13

Jackson
11:00-11:40 am
Preston Sprinkle (University of Nottingham)
Paul and the Law: The Use of Leviticus 18:5
in Romans 9:30–10:8