139 - Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's Narrative World

Rediscovering Paul:
Philemon and the Sociology
of Paul's Narrative World
By Norman Petersen
Philadelphia, Fortress, 1985. 303 pp. $24.95.

This is not just a big book about a little one, but a wide ranging exploration of the Pauline letters seeking clues to the social and symbolic worlds of Philemon. Begun as a personal pilgrimage in search for the Paul concealed in a maze of theological criticism and comparative studies, the journey ends with the author's announcement that he found the boon he had sought. After a deft wielding of literary critical, sociological, and anthropological tools, Petersen emerges more confident that, in place of Paul as an itinerant or armchair intellectual, he has rediscovered Paul as a social being.

After transforming the letter into a story, Petersen shows how the story's action and plot serve the rhetorical design of the letter leading to closure, that is, Philemon's acceptance of the runaway slave and recent convert, Onesimus, as a brother. Through the comparison of referential and poetic sequences (the chronological order of events versus Paul's order), one sees through relocated actions what is of importance to the writer. Thus, Petersen shows how Philemon's debt to Paul, which heads the poetic sequence, drives the narrative, and how Paul's anticipated visit, ending the poetic sequence, requires an action by Philemon that will preserve his relationship with Paul as brother and partner.

In his sociology of the narrative world, Petersen offers an inventory of roles, roles played, hierarchical structures, domains and modes of reference, showing how Onesimus' escape threatened the social structures underlying social relations in the world. While Paul does not oppose hierarchical structures in the world (Romans 13:1-7), Paul's list

140 - Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's Narrative World

of jobs that build up the body, and use of role names like brother, fellow worker, and partner, reveals his opposition to hierarchical structures within the church. Yet, Paul reserves for himself a superordinate role even while masking that role by appealing to Philemon as partner and fellow worker. By the imposition of a hierarchical structure with himself as a superordinate, Paul reinforces his demand and makes the continuation of his relationship to Philemon as a partner contingent on his receiving Onesimus back as a brother and treating him as such both in the church and in the world. Such action, Petersen believes, would require that Philemon surrender his role as Onesimus' master.

Paul's authority to make such a demand derives from a shared symbolic world. The key to that symbolic universe, which Petersen reconstructs from the undisputed letters of Paul, is the kinship system, while the master-slave metaphors serve an integral but subordinate role. Jesus as the first-born son of God is the primary metaphor of the kinship construction. Through believing obedience in him, those who are descendants of Adam, the man of dust, become adoptive sons. Central to Petersen's thesis is Romans 5:12-21, where he finds Paul contrasting symbolic descent from Christ (firstborn son) with biological descent from Adam. Through Adam, sin and death are seminally transmitted to all humankind. Through Christ, liberation from that original bondage is offered to all.

A similar chronology of liberation appears in I Corinthians 11:3-16, where Petersen sketches three sequential stages of male-female relations ranging from (1) man's creation in God's image and woman's creation in man's glory, and (2) man's and woman's corruption by sin and its biological transmission, to, finally, (3) the incorporation of man and woman into the son of God as sons of God. In this final redemptive stage, the term "sons" loses its sexual connotation and stands for the incorporation of male and female into the kinship circle. Moreover, Petersen argues, the asexuality of the sons of God implies that the firstborn son is also asexual. Thus, curiously enough, Petersen notes, in this symbolic kinship system Paul rejects the very sexual distinctions that are integral to kinship in his world. Acknowledging that Paul did not make all of these kinship connections, Petersen asserts they are there, nevertheless, and seeing them helps to "make sense of his (Paul's] kinship conceptions." In any case, as kin in the firstborn son, believers have a new identity and new motives for behavior in this world. This symbolic kinship lays the groundwork for Onesimus' release by Philemon.

Drawing on the Philippian hymn (2:6, 7), Petersen holds the slave metaphor is a controlling one informing expressions like "being born of woman" (Gal. 4:5) and being born in the "likeness of sinful flesh" (Rom. 8:2). Just as the son of God makes sons, so the slave, Jesus, liberates slaves-that is, men and women in bondage to sin, death, and the Law ("the unholy trinity")-and transforms them into "sons-to-be" of God.

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The "sons-to-be" are to live in faith and love, thereby imitating the slave-like humility of both Jesus and Paul. Paul appeals to those traits incorporated into Philemon's conduct as a test of his behavior toward Onesimus. In doing so, Paul makes the release of Onesimus the only acceptable action of Philemon if he wishes to retain his place in the church's symbolic universe. Petersen believes Paul accepted Onesimus as a brother, manumitted him, and affirmed his place in the community of faith. Thus, we come full circle-the "story" finds its resolution in a happy ending.

Any fair evaluation must acknowledge that this is no ordinary book about Paul. I expect it will continue to generate heated discussion for some time to come. Petersen's emphasis on the social dimension of the letters is not novel, but it is refreshing. His treatment of Paul's symbolic universe is provocative. His reconstruction of the story of the letter and his attempt to relate kinship and master-slave metaphors is suggestive. But, the book is also something of a puzzle. For, while the author self--consciously separates himself from historical criticism, his debt to the historical critics is evident on almost every page. Yet, ironically, where he needed the correction provided by the historical critical approach, it deserted him. For example, his insistence on the seminal transmission of sin from Adam founders against an impressive body of contrary evidence.

The basic question of any methodology is: Does it give me a deeper appreciation and more comprehensive understanding of the text? My answer would be yes and no. In some cases, such as Petersen's discussion of Law in Paul, I found the repetition of stereotypes long since dismissed as defective (for example, that the Law is unfulfillable). In other cases, the method tended to block my view of the text (for example, the chronological sequence of male-female relations he saw in I Cor. 11:3-16 and related texts almost makes the method the end, not the means, as Petersen strains after kinship connections).

Petersen's insistence on narrative "closure," or the manumission of Onesimus, as the only action consistent with Philemon's continued participation in Christ may tell us more about the sociology of Petersen's narrative world than it does about Paul's. Our participation in a rich humanistic tradition may incline us all in that direction, but are we simply superimposing our own humanistic inclinations back onto Paul and his church?

Most of us know the deficiencies of historical criticism. And most of us like the fresh air blowing these days through the halls of biblical scholarship. In some ways, this is the most exciting period in American biblical scholarship in over a generation, and Petersen is at the center of the action. But what is increasingly clear to me is that a synoptic effort is needed, so that each critical mode will find a corrective in another and all will prosper. Then, perhaps, we will all gain a deeper appreciation of the text, and avoid the pitfall Petersen so disarmingly worries about:

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"that I have created the object I have found, not rediscovered the object I lost."

Calvin J. Roetzel
Macalester College
St. Paul, Minnesota