492 - Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity

Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity

By Dale B. Martin

New Haven, Yale University Press, 1990. 245 Pp. $25.00.

When Dale Martin acknowledges in the preface to Slavery as Salvation that this book has roots in his Yale dissertation and modestly

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describes his focus as "one function of one metaphor as seen primarily in one text," some readers may fear that a tedious technical monograph lies before them. To their delight, what they will find instead is a book that combines thorough research, careful argumentation, and lively writing on a topic that continues to plague students of Paul. Martin, an assistant professor of religious studies at Duke University, begins his study with an analysis of slavery in the Greco-Roman world. Far more complex and ambiguous than most modern readers of Paul imagine, slavery could actually provide some people with access to upward mobility. Despite pronouncements from the upper classes about the despicable nature of the enslaved, the lower classes could see in some forms of slavery hope for advancement in wealth, education, and social standing. Slaves who occupied managerial positions on large estates, for example, could acquire significant power. Slaves in the households of highly placed individuals likewise commanded respect by virtue of their owners' social ranking.

This analysis allows Martin to perceive behind Paul's convoluted language in 1 Corinthians 9:16-18 a reference to slavery. One who is "entrusted with a commission" (oikonomos) is either a slave or a freed person (a former slave). Paul thus claims for himself the high standing of a managerial slave in the household of Christ, a household that Christians would understand to convey very high standing on its slaves. Paul then uses the metaphor of slavery to accomplish different goals with different social groups at Corinth. By enslaving himself to all and supporting himself through manual labor, Paul appeals to lower-class persons (the weak of 1 Cor 9:22) and offers them a glimpse of upward mobility. (They, too, may become the slaves of Christ.) The same language, however, would have offended the upper classes. They would have heard, especially in the language of enslavement to all (1 Cor 9:19), a rejection of the "benevolent patriarchalism" (Gerd Theissen's "love-patriarchalism") that the upper classes traditionally supported. Paul's rhetoric, therefore, appeals to the "strong" to imitate his example by giving up their rights for the good of the "weak." Although the goal of this appeal is church unity rather than social revolution, Martin contends that Paul implicitly undercuts the ideological structure that supports hierarchical social assumptions.

Martin's untangling of the knot of 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 is skillful and convincing. He maintains, however, a curious silence about verses 20-21, where Paul says that he has become as a Jew to Jews and as one outside the law to those outside the law. Do those forms of Paul's enslavement also represent the self-lowering Paul commends to high-status Corinthians? If not, what does their presence accomplish within the passage? More problematic is Martin's conclusion that the slavery metaphor would suggest to Paul's converts that, like Paul, they also "would eventually overcome the oppressions of hierarchy to reach high positions in the household of Christ." Even the strong case Martin makes for the possibility of upward mobility for slaves does not

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demonstrate that Paul thought there would be more and better upward mobility in the new "household" of Christ. This treatment of the slavery metaphor needs to be brought into discussion with the body metaphor of 1 Corinthians 12, where it appears that different members of the body are to seek enhanced fulfillment of their gifts, not different gifts.

These questions indicate only the vitality of this book. Slavery as Salvation makes a considerable contribution to our understanding of " one metaphor in one text," but it moves well beyond that. Martin's treatment of ancient slavery demonstrates that its pervasiveness and complexity successfully prevented Christians from assaulting the system either in theory or in action. The analysis of Paul's rhetorical strategy in 1 Corinthians 9 reveals that Paul is neither "visionary egalitarian" nor "patriarchal conservative." Here, at least, his patriarchal language functions to make a very anti-patriarchal point. Overall, Martin's work provides an important demonstration of the conflicting ways in which differing social groups may hear and appropriate the same language.

BEVERLY R. GAVENTA

Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, Georgia