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Hellenistic Preconceptions of Shipwreck and Pollution as a Context for Acts 27–28

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

David Ladouceur
David Ladouceur
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556
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Extract

In a recent analysis of Acts 27–28, Miles and Trompf have emphasized the strategic position of these sections in the text and their value as a kind of witness for Lukan theology. Luke's statement that “everyone escaped to land” after the shipwreck (27:44), they argue, is in fact a “long-forgotten theological punch line.” To an ancient reader, the assertion that all escaped with their lives would, they contend, be prima facie evidence of Paul's innocence. Drawing on pagan concepts of divine retribution, pollution, and shipwreck, they attempt to reconstruct the attitude of this reader on his first encounter with these passages. If Paul had been guilty, such a reader, according to their reconstruction, would have believed that his pollution should have resulted in death for himself and/or fellow passengers. The fact that no one died, however, would amount to “decisive confirmation of Paul's innocence.” There was no need, therefore, to relate the outcome of Paul's appeal to Caesar since he had already been put to the test “by forces and exigencies far more dreaded than the requirements of a human law court.”

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Articles
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 73 , Issue 3-4 , October 1980 , pp. 435 - 449
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1980

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References

1 Miles, G. B. and Trompf, G., “Luke and Antiphon: The Theology of Acts 27–28 in the Light of Pagan Beliefs about Divine Retribution, Pollution, and Shipwreck,” HTR 69 (1976) 259–67; hereafter cited as Miles-Trompf.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Ibid., 264.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 265.

5 Miles-Trompf, apparently following the speech's argumentum, refer to the defendant as Helos. This is an old mistake, the result of a false reading in section 19 of the oration which was incorporated into its later argumentum. For the correct name, Euxitheus, cf. Sopater,apud Rhet. Graeci (ed. Walz) 4. 316.

6 For an introduction to the case and the legalities involved, see MacDowell, D., Andocides: On the Mysteries (Oxford, 1962) 1–18. The decree of Isotimides prohibited all who were guilty of impiety and had confessed it from entering Athenian temples and the agora.Google Scholar

7 For introduction, text, and translation, see W. R. M. Lamb, Lysias (LCl) 112–43. The extant version may also represent a pamphlet composed by the prosecution after Andocides had published his defense. In that case the arguments were meant to persuade not merely the court but Athenians in general.

8 Translation according to K. J. Maidment, Minor Attic Orators I (LCL). So also sections 137–39 below. All other translations, unless otherwise indicated, are mine.

9 Cf. Miles-Trompf, “Luke and Antiphon,” 267.

10 On this oft-recurring theme in Plutarch, see Brenk, F. E., In Mist Apparelled, Religious Themes in Plutarch's Moralia and Lives (Leiden: Brill, 1977) 256–75.Google Scholar

11 During the sinking of the Titanic, when Olive Schreiner was being lowered into a lifeboat, one of the passengers cried out, “Don't put her in here. She is an Atheist and will sink us.” TLS, 13 December 1957, quoted by Ussher, R. G., The Characters of Theophrastus (London: Macmillan, 1960) 211Google Scholar. One need not rule out biblical influence here. Though recognizing the folkloric nature of belief and its possible relation to Jonah, Miles-Trompf apparently did not consult Gaster's revision of Frazer: Gaster, T. H., Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1918)Google Scholar. Their “long-neglected” Antiphon passage is citation 2 on p. 724. For the idea of a polluted object or person being engulfed at sea and the pollution thus “washed away” for which they can find no “explicit articulation … in Classical Antiquity,” the closest parallel that comes to mind is Euripides IT 1193: θάλασσα κλύζει πάντα τνθρώπων κακά.

12 For discussion of this type of argument, as well as the views of Plato and Aristotle, see Bonner, R. J., Lawyers and Litigants in Ancient Athens (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1927) 226–28.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Gaster's discussion and parallels to Jonah, Myth, Legend, and Custom, 652–56, 724–25.

14 For commentary on this passage, see R. G. Ussher, Characters of Theophrastus, 210.

15 Horace Odes 3.2.26–30.

16 Virgil Aeneid 1.39–45.

17 Ovid Heroides 7.57–58.

18 For the Stoic context of Horace's Ode 1.22, seeNisbet, R. G. M. and Hubbard, M., A Commentary on Horace: Odes, Book I (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970) 262–63.Google Scholar

19 For ancient references to this usage, see Dolger, F. J., “Dioskuroi,” Antike und Christentum 6 (1949) 276–85. Dolger's primary concern is to reconstruct the nature of Paul's ship's sign or insignia.Google Scholar

20 Petronius Saturae 105.4.

21 Statius Thebais 8.269–70.

22 On the Dioskouroi in their maritime role, see esp., Jaisle, K., Die Dioskuren als Retter zur See bei Griechen und Römern (Diss., Tübingen, 1907).Google Scholar

23 For detailed citation of the Greek evidence, see Jaisle, Dioskuren als Retter, 6–25; for the Roman evidence, 26–36.

24 On this cult, see Wissowa, G., Religion und Kultus der Römer (2d ed.; Munich, 1912) 218–19.Google Scholar

25 Thiel, Epist. pontif. Rom., 1. 603.

26 For the Dioskouroi, or more properly the Castores, in other functions among the Romans, a few principal works are: Albert, M., Le Culte de Castor et Pollux en Italie (Paris, 1883)Google Scholar; E. Bethe, “Dioskuren” PW 51. 1087–1123; Harris, J. R., The Cult of the Heavenly Twins (Cambridge, 1906)Google Scholar; Helbrig, W., “Die Castores,” Hermes 40(1905) 101–15Google Scholar; Kraus, W., “Dioskuren,” RAC 3 (1975) 1122–38Google Scholar, esp. 1132–33; Schilling, R, “Les Castores romains à la lumière des traditions indo-européennes,” Hommages à Georges Dumezil, (Latomus 65; Brussels, 1960)Google Scholar. For more detailed bibliography see Ibid., 177–78, n. 1; RAC, 1138.

27 Mitford, J. B., “A Cypriot Oath of Allegiance to Tiberius,” JRS 50 (1960) 75–79.Google Scholar

28 Euripides Electro 1342–55.

29 Scott, K., “Drusus, Nicknamed Castor,” Classical Philology 25 (1930) 155–61Google Scholar; Scott, K., “The Dioscuri and the Imperial Cult,” Classical Philology 25 (1930) 379–80.Google Scholar

30 Scott, K., The Imperial Cult under the Flavians, (Stuttgart-Berlin, 1936) 114, 141, 143.Google Scholar

31 Scott, K., “Statius' Adulation of Domitian,” American Journal of Philology 54 (1933) 247–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

32 Statius Silvae 1.1.55.

33 Harris, Cult of the Twins, 50.

34 Cf. Ibid., 52 on the restoration of sight to the butcher Severus, a portent associated with Ambrose's canonization of the twins in Milan. That portent, in turn, was associated with the driving back of the Arians. On Harris' comparison of the Dioskouroi to the Vedic Acvins in this role of blinding and restoring sight, see also Dumezil, G., Les dieux des indo-europeénnes (Paris, 1952) 13–14; Schilling, “Les Castores romaines,” 187.Google Scholar

35 On the Dioskouroi as healers, see Harris, Cult of the Twins, 50–54; Bethe, “Dioskuren,” 1097.

36 For one view on the historicity of the Lystran episode, see O'Neill, J. C., The Theology of Acts in Its Historical Setting (2d ed.; London: SPCK, 1970) 144.Google Scholar

37 Thiel, Epist. pontif. Rom., 1.603.

38 On the Dioskouroi's survival in only slightly modified forms in later Christianity, see Jaisle, Dioskuren als Retter, 36–57; on Peter and Paul, esp. 38–40. Also, Harris, J. Rendel, The Dioskouroi in the Christian Legends (London, 1903). Not all of Harris' arguments and parallels are convincing. For some modern criticism, as well as citation of literary and archaeological evidence, see Kraus, “Dioskuren,” 1133–38; on the church's at times ambivalent attitude, see esp. 1134. In a later study I will deal with the development of these cults in later Christianity. From the evidence adduced herein, more was probably involved than the simple fact that Peter was a fisherman and Paul sailed the seas.Google Scholar

39 Thus cutting the well-known Dibelian knot at 28:6: Dibelius, M., Studies in the Acts of the Apostles (New York: Scribners, 1951) 214Google Scholar. For a like interpretation cf. Miles-Trompf, “Luke and Antiphon,” 266, n. 24. While the Maltese themselves may have been civilized, to simply translate barbaroi as “natives” is not justified by the context. Like the shipwreck from which all escape as well as the ineffectual snakebite, the barbaroi who show “unusual” hospitality instead of serving as instruments of divine retribution serve rather as one more proof of Paul's innocence. Andocides 137–39, cited above, is an illuminating parallel in context here.

40 For a recent discussion of the snake incident in relation to the topos of miraculous display of power over the animal world, see the dissertation under the direction of Betz, Hans Dieter, Kanda, S. H., “The Form and Function of the Petrine and Pauline Miracle Stories in the Acts of the Apostles” (Diss., Claremont, 1974) 288–303.Google Scholar

41 For discussion of the word κωλύτως in relation to Lukan apologetics, cf. Haencher, E., The Acts of the Apostles-A Commentary (Oxford, 1971) 731–32.Google Scholar