Topic 3 Paul’s Hellenistic World

1. Topic 3 Paul’s Hellenistic World • Religious Ferment • Age of pessimism • Lack of confidence in older classical certainties (logic; science; beauty and order of cosmos; traditional civic religions). • Cosmos seemed dominated by blind, irrational Fate. • Magic, astrology, superstition were prevalent. • Proliferation of religions • Rise of new religions aimed at individual, personal salvation. • Many were “syncretistic” – “blending together” elements of Eastern religions with traditional Greek/Roman ideas. • Emperor cult – worship of Roman emperor as divine. • Began in East, where rulers were worshipped as divine from earliest times. • At first resisted in Rome; became increasingly popular as way of unifying empire and enforcing political loyalty.

2. Mystery Religions • Numerous cults: Demeter, Isis, Dionysus, Mithras, etc. • Secret rituals aimed at rebirth to immortality. • Cleansing rites; food and drink; sexual union; music; lights; etc. • Designed to work initiate into state of ecstasy & vision of deity. • Associated with myths of “dying and rising” gods. • Myths go back to old agricultural religions (cf. Baalism). • Now focused on individual immortality. • Salvation through mystical union with the deity. • Initiate dies and rises with the god; shares his fate. • Becomes reborn; immortal; deified; enlightened; etc. • Paul uses similar language about sacraments. • Rom. 6:3-5 – “…all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death…we have been buried with him by baptism intodeath…we have been united with him in a death like his…we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” • 1 Cor. 10:16 – “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (koinōnia = sharing, participation, communion).

3. C. Stoicism • Basic tenets of Stoicism: • Pantheism – God and nature are one; divine Reason pervades Cosmos; makes it orderly, rational. • Determinism – everything happens by divine Reason; seemingly irrational events have rational, hidden purpose. • Apatheia (resignation) – duty of man is to live in accord with Reason of nature; accept whatever happens as divine will; resignation to fate and inward detachment bring true freedom and happiness in spite of outward circumstances. • Moral duties – ethical obligations as citizens of universe. • Wandering teachers preached this philosophy of life. • Fulfill your ethical duty; don’t worry about what you cannot change. • “Diatribe” style – speaker anticipates questions/objections from the audience and answers them; cf. Epictetus (late 1st century). • Stoic influence on Paul: • Diatribe style – “…Should we continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means!...” (Rom. 5:20; 6:1-2). • Ethical terminology – vice and virtue lists (Gal. 5:22-23). • Exhortation to endurance and contentment (Phil. 4:11-12). • Allegorical interpretation; use of sports/military illustrations.

4. D. Neo-Pythagoreanism • Basic characteristics in first-century form: • Soul (inner essence) is divine; longs to strip off body, rejoin divine source. • Repudiation of flesh – vows of poverty; silence; abstinence from meat, clothing made of skins, and beans. • “Enthusiasm” (lit., “infused with God”) – ecstatic; possessed by divine Spirit. • “Divine man” concept – individuals specially endowed with divine Spirit; performed miracles. • Apollonius of Tyana – best known example of “divine man;” wandering sage and miracle-worker. • Interest in astrology and mystical properties of numbers. • Influence on Paul’s churches? • Cf. Spirit-possessed, ecstatic enthusiasm in Corinth. • Cf. ascetic regulations in Colossae.

5. E. Gnosticism • Syncretistic religion of salvation by knowledge (gnōsis). • Church Fathers denounced as deviant Christianity. • Nag Hammadi library (1945) gives inside look. • Radical dualism of matter (evil) and spirit (good). • God is utterly transcendent – beyond this world; unknowable. • World is evil – created by evil god, demiurge, or angels. • Essence of human being is spark of divine spirit. • Divine spark fell into realm of darkness; trapped in material world. • Body (evil) is prison house of spirit (good). • Alienation and ignorance – don’t belong here; but can’t remember. • Salvation comes by gnōsis (knowledge). • Revealed knowledge is brought from God by Redeemer. • Explains origin/nature of things and secret wisdom for escaping body/ world and returning to God. • Gnostic ethics could be asceticism or libertinism. • Asceticism – denial of flesh frees the spirit. • Libertinism – body is evil anyway; free from restraint. • Paul confronted both tendencies (Colossae; Corinth).

6. Epictetus, Moral Discourses, ch. XIIExample of “Diatribe” Style He, then, who comes to be instructed, ought to come with this aim: “How may I in everything follow the gods? How may I acquiesce in the divine administration? And how may I be free?” For he is free, to whom all happens agreeably to his desire, and whom no one can unduly restrain. “What then, is freedom mere license?” By no means; for madness and freedom are incompatible. “But I would have that happen which appears to me desirable; however it comes to appear so.” You are mad: you have lost your senses…