From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Thu Apr 20 2000 - 16:05:00 EDT
At 2:11 PM -0500 4/20/00, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:
> Dear b-greek,
> Last week we talked about whether Paul thought of himself as a slave
>when using the term DOULOS. I ran across some material on hUIOQESIA by
>Joseph Fitzmyer (Anchor commentary on Romans) which might be relevant to
>how Paul thought of himself.
>
>For Paul huiothesia denotes a special status: because of faith baptized
>Christians have been taken into the family of God, have come under the
>patria potestas, "paternal authority," of God himself, and have a
>legitimate status in that family, not simply that of slaves (who belonged,
>indeed, to the ancient familia), but of sons.
Well now, that's interesting, but it's potentially disturbing too if one
take to heart the arbitrary nature of Roman PATRIA POTESTAS, which means,
in effect, that the state cannot interpose any limits on what a father does
with or to his own household. The language in Galatians doesn't really seem
so much to depend upon Roman law when it talks about the heir under the
authority of the PAIDAGWGOS and the heir who has reached maturity and is
henceforth ELEUQEROS. And I suspect that what Paul actually means by
ELEUQERIA in Galatians especially has to be taken into account when we
evaluate what Paul means when he speaks of himself as a DOULOS.
I've just noted Paul's rhetorical question in 1 Cor 9:1 OUK EIMI ELEUQEROS?
OUK EIMI APOSTOLOS? OUCI IHSOUN TON KURION hHMWN hEORAKA? all of which are
implicitly to be answered in the affirmative. 1 Cor is not one of the
letters wherein he refers to himself in the salutation as DOULOS. And he
plays with the terms in 1 Cor 7:21: DOULOS EKLHQHS? MH SOI MELETW, ALL'
EIKAI DUNASAI ELEUQEROS GENESQAI, MALLON CRHSAI. hO GAR EN KURIWi KLHQEIS
DOULOS APELEUQEROS KURIOU ESTIN, hOMOIWS hO ELEUQEROS KLHQEIS DOULOS ESTIN
CRISTOU. And again he plays with the antithesis rhetorically in 1 Cor 9:19:
ELEUQEROS GAR WN EK PANTWN PASIN EMAUTON EDOULWSA, hINA TOUS PLEIONAS
KERDHSW.
I haven't even begun to try a larger word search for these terms (I would
assume that somebody has already done that, in fact), but it is certainly
evident that Paul is deliberately playing rhetorical games with the words
DOULOS and ELEUQEROS and he is aware of the sense in which each is literal
and in which each is metaphorical.
--Carl W. Conrad Department of Classics/Washington University One Brookings Drive/St. Louis, MO, USA 63130/(314) 935-4018 Home: 7222 Colgate Ave./St. Louis, MO 63130/(314) 726-5649 cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
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