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Paul's Uncommon Declaration in Romans 1:18–32 and Its Problematic Legacy for Pagan and Christian Relations*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Kathy L. Gaca
Kathy L. Gaca
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
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Extract

By the late fourth century, prominent Christian leaders no longer remained content to advocate religious separatism from their polytheistic social environment. Instead they started making more strenuous efforts in law and in the streets to prohibit Greek and other pagan religious practices in the Roman Empire. This change in policy and practice was the outcome of historical factors that need better explanation than that of the unavoidable destiny of Christianity. One important aspect of this change, I argue here, is a problematic innovation in the tradition of Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian polemic against polytheism. The innovation derives from Paul's letter to the Ro-mans and develops through patristic endorsements of Paul's argument. In Rom 1:18–32 Paul fully reworks the Hellenistic Jewish polemical tradition, even though his argument is not yet recognized today as the distinctive proclamation that it is. Nonetheless, the polemic he wages in Rom 1:18–32 is anomalous in the tradition before, during, and for a century after he lived.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 92 , Issue 2 , April 1999 , pp. 165 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1999

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References

1 This change in policy is reinforced by repressive social mechanisms, such as vandalism against temples and taking away their endowments. For some of the late-fourth-century legal measures and social struggles over outlawing pagan religious practices, see, for example, Jones, A. H. M., The Later Roman Empire 284-602 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1964) 167–69Google Scholar , 938-43; MacMullen, Ramsay, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997) 1–73Google Scholar ; and A. H. Armstrong, “The Way and the Ways: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in the Fourth Century A.D.,” VC 38 (1984) 1-17.

2 “Christian apology is the daughter of Jewish apology,” Johannes Geffcken, cited with approval in Droge, Arthur J., Homer or Moses? (Tubingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1989) 8Google Scholar ; and see Drogés n. 27 for more scholarly opinions to the same effect. So too Eduard Norden, “Es war althergebrachte Sitte schon vorchristlicher Zeit, den Kampf gegen den Polytheismus mit einer Polemik gegen die Idololatrie zu verbinden” (Agnostos Theos [Leipzig: Teubner, 1913] 12)Google Scholar . Similarly, for Jean Daniélou, there is but one “Christian missionary proclamation to the pagan world” worked out in the early apologists, namely, condemnation of myths, philosophical teachings, pagan morals, and religion (Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture: A History of Early Christian Doctrine before the Council of Nicaea [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973] 2. 37, 16–24Google Scholar . Likewise Quasten, Johannes, Patrology (Westminster: Newman, 1950-1986) 2. 8Google Scholar ; and Festugiere, A. J. as cited Forbes, Clarence A., Firmicus Maternus (ACW 37; New York: Newman, 1970) 29 n. 121Google Scholar . The misperception of common substance is most striking in direct comparisons made between Rom 1:18-32 and Hellenistic Jewish polemic, such as Wisdom 13-14. Byrne, Brendan(Romans [Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1996] 65Google Scholar ) writes, “These parallels [between Romans and Wisdom of Solomon] show that in 1:18-32 Paul argues out of a defined tradition in Hellenistic Judaism.… [H]e … [uses] a conventional polemic against the Gentile world and its idolatry”; James D. G. Dunn (Romans 1-8 [Word Biblical Commentaries; Dallas: Word, 1988] 61) states, “The argument [in Romans 1:23-27] now becomes almost wholly Jewish by drawing on the standard Jewish polemic against idolatry.” See also Sanders, E. P.(Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983] 123Google Scholar ): “I think that in Rom 1:18-2:29 Paul takes over to an unusual degree homiletic material from Diaspora Judaism, [and] that he alters it in only unsubstantial ways.”

3 Ziegler, Joseph, ed., Sapientia Salomonis (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1962Google Scholar ). This work is conventionally dated in the first century BCE, with Philo of Alexandria (ca. 30 BCE-50 CE) providing Wisdom's terminus ante quern. Winston, David(Wisdom of Solomon: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [Garden City: Doubleday, 1979] 20, 59–63Google Scholar ) prefers to have Ps.-Solomon depend on Philo rather than the reverse and thus is able to suggest that Wisdom dates as late as 37-41 CE. The consensus still stands, I think. Winston's argument would require one to believe that of all writers influenced by Philo (such as Clement and Origen), Ps.-Solomon alone was able to use Philo's distinctive mix of Platonic and biblical elements without reflecting any of its Platonic aspects. This mix of elements in Philo's thought, however, is merged together and unmistakable, rather like an impressionist painting. Ps.-Solomon simply does not show this Philonic technique, while other writers influenced by Philo do.

4 Wis 13:1-2. As here, ‘ignorance’ translates άγνωσία, άγνοια, or other cognate terms in all citations to follow from Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian arguments against polytheism.

5 Wis 13:3.

6 Ibid. 13:5.

7 Ibid. 14:12-14.

8 Platonist philosophers make this observation themselves to contest the cogency of the second step in the Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian teleological argument. As Porphyry or a like-minded Platonist philosopher states, “Let us expressly investigate the question concerning the monarchy of the sole God and the manifold rule of the revered gods, because you do not even know how to explain the word ‘monarchy’. A monarch is not one who exists alone, but is the only one ruling [others]. …[Similarly] God would not rightly be called a monarch unless he ruled gods. For this is fitting to the divine grandeur and great heavenly glory” (Apocriticus of Macarius Magnes, 4.20, fr. 75; Harnack, Adolf von, Porphyrius “Gegen die Christen” [Berlin: König, Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1916]Google Scholar ). Hence “as far as the Platonists are concerned, the monarchy [that is, the supreme sole status] of God is not at all demonstrated” (Theophilus, 2.4; and note Minucius Felix [Octavius 20.2] for popular pagan disbelief in the unicus deus). See further Pierre Courcelle, “Anti-Christian Arguments and Christian Platonism from Arnobius to St. Ambrose,” in Momigliano, Arnaldo, ed., The Conflict Between Paganism and Christianity in the Fourth Century (Oxford: Clarendon, 1963) 158Google Scholar ; and Fowden, Garth(Empire to Commonwealth: Consequences of Monotheism in Late Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993) 5Google Scholar . Consequently, the biblically grounded version of the teleological argument should not continue to be identified with its philosophical counterpart, as it is in the following instances. “The author of Wisdom has here reproduced the teleological and cosmological arguments for the existence of God which had already been elaborated by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoa” (Winston, Wisdom, 253). “On lisait le même idée [chez Paul et] … chez un Stoicien péripatéticien du Ier siècle de notre ère dont l'oeuvre a été longtemps attributée à Aristote [in De mundo 6]" ( Lagrange, Marie-Joseph, St. Paul Épitre aux romains [Paris: Gabalda, 1916] 24Google Scholar ). Ambrosiaster provides a valuable corrective to such loose identifications when he writes, “God founded such beautiful stars so that he could be recognized(ut possit agnosci) and be worshipped alone (et solus adorari) as the very great and magnifi-cent creator of them” (Ad rom. 1.18). The second step, ut possit solus adorari, is entirely absent from the pluralistic monotheism of the philosophers, such as Ps.-Aristotle, De mundo6, who states only that the invisible creator god is visible from the created works themselves (άθεώρητος άπ’ αύτών τών έργων θεωρɛίται). Winston (Wisdom, 253) provides a valuable list of other Greek and Roman expressions of the teleological argument.

The first step of the Jewish teleological argument does not necessarily draw on the Greek philosophical tradition, for the same inchoate idea is in the Septuagint, such as Ps 18:1 LXX: Oί ούρανοί διηγούνται δόψαν θɛού, ποίησιν δέ ξɛιρών αύτού άναγγέλλει τό στερέωμα.

9 Wis 13:6-9.

10 For Josephus (ca. 37-100 CE), nearly all philosophers had sound notions of God that they learned from Moses, but they wisely kept such biblical monotheism out of the populace's reach (Ap. 2.168-9, 224).

11 Josephus, Ap. 2.250–54Google Scholar.

12 Philo Spec. leg. 1.15; Op. mund. 45; Ebr. 45; Cohn, Leopold and Wendland, Paul, eds., Philonis Alexandrini Opera (Berlin: Reimer, 1896-1930)Google Scholar.

13 Philo, Decal. 59Google Scholar.

14 Ibid.; idem Vit. cont. 10-11.

15 Philo Op. mund. 45; idem Spec. leg. 1.20-21.

16 Philo, Ebr. 42–45Google Scholar.

17 Philo, Leg. 3.97–99Google Scholar ; idem Praem. poen. 41-46.

18 Sib. Or. 3.669-70, 207-8,300-62. Geffcken, Johannes, ed., Die Oracula Sibyllina (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1902CrossRefGoogle Scholar ). The passages date to the second century BCE (John J. Collins, “Sibylline Oracles,” in OTP 1. 354-55).

19 Rom 1:18-23.

20 Rom 1:19.

21 Rom 1:23, 25.

22 Ps 105:20-21 LXX.

23 Rom 1:23.

24 Rom 1:21.

25 Paul's phrase “They became senseless in their acts of reasoning” (έματαιώθησαν έν τοίς διαλογισμοίς ατών) echoes both Jer 2:4-5 and Ps 93:11 LXX. In Jer 2:4-5, Jeremiah says about apostate Israel, “Hear the word of the Lord, house of Jacob and the entire fatherland of the house of Israel. The Lord says, ‘What fault did your fathers find with me, that they apostasized far from me, went after foolish things, and became senseless?’” (άκούαατε λόγον ματαίων καί έματαιώθησαν;). Ps 93:11 LXX concerns Israel's adversaries. “The Lord knows that the people's acts of reasoning are senseless.” (κύριος γινώσκει τούς διαλογισμούς τών άνθρώπων ότι ɛίσίν μάταιοι). See Kasemann, Ernst, Commentary on Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 44Google Scholar ; Barrett, Charles K., A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (2d ed.; London: Black, 1991) 37Google Scholar ; and Koester, Helmut, History and Literature of Early Christianity (2 vols.; New York: de Gruyter, 1982) 2. 140Google Scholar . Barrett and Koester recognize that Paul's accusation concerns rejected knowledge of God, not ignorance.

26 Comm. in Rom., Preface 62.3-4. This and later references to Origen on Romans are to the section, page, and line numbers of Theresia Heither's edition, Origenes: Romerbriefkommentar, vol. 1 (Freiburg: Herder, 1990Google Scholar ). Paul was active as a Christian missionary roughly from 35-60 or perhaps a little later. On the chronology 35-60, see Koester, Early Christianity, 2. 103-4.

27 For example, Walters, James C., Ethnic Issues in Paul's Letter to the Romans (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993) 70Google Scholar . Similarly, Dunn, (Romans 1-8, 55–56Google Scholar ) explicates άνθρώπων τών τέν άλέθɛιαν έν άδικία κατɛξόντων as Paul's statement about the universally sinful human condition. Käsemann and Barrett likewise refer Paul's argument to all humanity.

28 The prevalence of anthropomorphism in Hellenic religion needs no proof, and zoomorphism also had its place, such as Athena as owl and Zeus as eagle. The Greeks were also well known for their subtle reasoning. “The dreadful thing about the Greeks was that they were so clever, thinking and talking twice as fast as any Roman who confronted them. Brainy Greeks, delighting in the exercise of proving a thesis and then, by clever argument, destroying it, were capable of proving that black was white” (Balsdon, J. P. V. D., Romans and Aliens [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979] 33Google Scholar , with primary evidence 30-54). Interestingly, Geffcken, (Zwei griechische Apologeten, 59–60Google Scholar ) briefly interprets Rom 1:22 just as the Greek patristic writers do, though he does not develop its implications for grasping the distinctive force of Paul's polemic. When discussing the trope of mocking clever Greeks who prove to be theological fools, he includes Rom 1:22 as an example of the trope “which begins with Josephus and continues in the other apologists, who are dealing almost exclusively with Greek culture” (das beginnt mit Josephus und setzt sich bei den anderen Apologeten weiter fort, die ja fast nur mit der hellenischen Kultur zu tun haben). Some of Paul's patristic exegetes also presumed that what is gay must be Greek (for example, Chrysostom), as I will show. On the norms behind this association, see Dover, Kenneth J., Greek Homosexuality (2d ed.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989Google Scholar ); and Percy, William A., Pederasty and Pedagogy in Archaic Greece (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

29 One wonders how Paul would have gotten around in his travels and readings if he followed modern exegesis and treated the two cultural designations “Greeks” and “Gentiles” as synonymous. Stanley Stowers explicates Paul's usage thus: “He [Paul] recognizes the dominance of Greek culture in the Roman East by interchanging ‘gentile’ and ‘Greek’ (A Rereading of Romans [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994] 277). In Paul's era, though, “Eλληνες and έθνη were not interchangeable. The basic distinction between “Eλληνɛς holds true in the Septuagint. In words Paul must have known, Joel 4:2-6 foretells a gathering of a remnant of Gentiles (έθνη) before God, who are accountable for their injustice toward God's people of Israel. These Gentiles include peoples of Tyre, Sidon, Galilee, and “Greeks” (“Eλληνες). Paul knew this text, because in Rom 10:13 he quotes Joel 3:5 LXX to support his soteriological stance that “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.” Joel 3:5 LXX is but one verse removed from Joel 4:2-6 LXX. Similarly, Isa 66:18-19 states that there will be a gathering of all “Gentiles and tongues” (έθνη καί γλώσσας) who will discover God's glory. Some from among this diverse gathering will be sent to “Greece” as well as to other nations. Isa 9:11 and Ezek 27:13 likewise distinguish Greeks from other Gentiles. Bowersock, Glen W.(Hellenism in Late Antiquity [Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1990] 9–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar ) further suggests that “the use of Hellenic or Hellenikos in the sense of ‘pagan’ seems to coincide with the beginning of late antiquity, if we understand that to be the Constantinian age.” If his suggestion is right, which remains an open and interesting question, then the modern day view that έθνη and “Eλληνες are interchangeable in Paul stems from late antique exegesis of Paul.

30 Despite the persecution, aspects of Greek religion nonetheless persisted here and there (such as in rural areas and towns) much farther beyond the fourth century than previously thought, for, as MacMullen puts it, “progress toward the extirpation of religious error could only be slow.” Other aspects of Greek religion were reshaped for Christian purposes, which helped make the church a more civically oriented religion than it was prior to becoming a social establishment (MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism, 1-73, esp. 24).

31 Other such recalls with violent overtones include Num 25:1-9, 13; 4 Kgs 9:20-26; Isa 3:16-25; and Ezek 23:46-49.

32 Scholars who have regarded Rom 1:18-32 asa thematic replica of Wis 13:1-14:31 have done so in one of two ways. Wisdom, despite what it says, really agrees with Romans and contends that Gentiles have renegade knowledge about God. Thus Larcher, C.(Le livre de la sagesse [3 vols.; Paris: Gabalda, 1985] 3. 752Google Scholar ) writes, “En revanche, agnôsia [dans Le livre de la sagesse] doit signifier une ‘méconnaissance’ délibérée et fautive.” Alternatively Romans, despite what it says, really concurs with Wisdom and maintains that the truth suppressors are ignorant about God. So Lagrange (Épitre aux Romains, 25), “Encore n'est-il pas nécessaire de regarder cette connaissance [in Rom 1:21] comme très explicite. Paul jusqu' ici a seulement prouve que les paiens auraient pu bien voir; ils ont vu assez pour que l'ignorance qu'il va leur reprocher ne puisse servir d'excuse.”

33 Acts 17:23, 30. For the pre-Christian Greek significance of a άγνωτος θεός in the singular and plural, see Norden, Agnostos Theos, 41-87.

34 Ignatius, Eph. 19.3Google Scholar.

35 Diogn. 7.2; 8.1-11.

36 References to Aristides are to the original Greek fragments from his Apology in Johannes Geffcken, Zwei griechische Apologeten. Aristides' apology, the earliest one extant, dates to the reign of Hadrian (117-138). For Theophilus (fl. ca. 169-185), see Grant, Robert M., Theophilus of Antioch: Ad Autolycum (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970Google Scholar ) ix-x. Athenagoras wrote Legatio adGraecosbetween 176 and 180, and probably in 177. For his text consult Geffcken above. On Justin (ca. 100-165), see Wartelle, André, Saint Justin Apologies (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1987)Google Scholar.

37 Aristides Apol. 2.1; 3.2; 8.1-2; 12.1.

38 Theophilus Autol. 3.3.

39 Ibid. 2.12; 3.16.

40 Ibid. 3.30. Josephus refers to the same idea: The Greeks “came to know the nature of writing late and with difficulty” (Ap. 1.10), unlike his Hebrew ancestors. Theophilus admires the profoundly ancient literacy of the Yahwist creation account, which he explicates in dayby-day detail and praises to the firmament (1.6-7; 2.11-19; 3.9).

41 Athenagoras, Legatio 13; 15Google Scholar.

42 Ibid. 6.

43 Justin I Apol. 28.2-3.

44 Ibid. 5.1-9.

45 Aristides and Justin even adapt phrasing from Rom 1; 21-23 in support of their argument about Greek and Gentile ignorance about God, “The Greeks, claiming to be wise, proved to be fools” (οί ούν “Eλληνες σοθοί λέγοντες είναι, έμωράνθησαν, Aristides 8.2). Gentiles have an ability to know God that they have not exercised, “so that there is no excuse” (ώστάναπολόγητον είναι, Justin 1 Apol 28.3).

46 The bilingual Lactantius identifies the truth-suppressing people as primarily Greek and secondarily as Gentiles. Augustine and Ambrosiaster identify them more generically as Gentiles. Lactantius (ca. 240-320) devotes the seven books of his lengthy Divine Institutes to the second argument that Greeks first committed apostasy from God, invented idolatry, and through this invention dragged Romans and other Gentiles down along with them: “This wickedness arose from the Greeks. Their folly, well versed in speaking proficiency and resourcefulness has–it is incredible [to say]—stirred up so many clouds of lies. And so the Romans, admiring them [the Greeks], first adopted their sacred rites and handed them on to all the Gentiles” (Quod malum a Graecis ortum est; quorum levitas instructa dicendi facultate et copia, incredibile est quantas mendaciorum nebulas excitaverit. Itaque [Romani] admirati eos, et susceperunt primi sacra illorum, et universis gentibus tradiderunt) (Inst. 1.15.14-15). Gentiles could be pardoned their polytheistic mores, he adds, if only their religions were based on ignorance rather than, as he believes they are, on the unforgivably suppressed knowledge about God that the Greeks first started. “Nonetheless, pardon could be granted to this impiety of the people, if this error came wholly from ignorance” (Et tamen huic impietati hominum posset venia concedi si omnino ab ignorantia veniret hie error) (2.1.6). Ambrosiaster (fl. ca. 363-384) interprets Rom 1:18-22 to mean that polytheistic peoples are guilty of treason for denying the truth they recognized and abandoning the law of nature and Moses. “To such an extent were they not ignorant (usque adeo non ignoraverunt) that they confessed there was one principle from which all things in the sky, land, and underground take their beginning … knowing even these things, they did not give thanks. … Rightly such people would be condemned for treason (rei maiestati)” (1.18-22). In the recently edited Mayence Sermon 62, Augustine (354-430) calls upon his brethren to accept Paul's argument that all pagans are criminals because of their apostasy. “Look, brothers, and understand how the apostle shows that all are criminals (reos).… Look, brothers, see how Paul does not say that the gentiles do not have truth but does say, ‘they suppress truth in iniquity’. … Perhaps one of you would still ask, ‘How can those who did not receive God's law have the truth?‘. … ‘Because that which is known of God is obviously in them. … For the apostle did not say, ‘They do not know God,’ but ‘Even though they know God, they have not honored him or given him thanks’ (Mayence Sermon 62.690-97, 730-32; for which see Francois Dolbeau, “Nouveaux sermons de saint Augustin pour la conversion des paiens et donatistes (IV),” Recherches augustiniennes 26 [1992] 69-141). Augustine's zeal for this interpretation of Paul's argument resonates through his writings; see Goulven Madec, “Connaissance de dieu et action de graces: Essai sur les citations de l'Ép. aux Romains 1,18-25 dans l'oeuvre de Saint Augustin," Recherches augustiniennes 2 [1962] 273-309. My thanks to Peter Brown for informing me about Sermon 62.

47 Tatian Or. Graec. 5.5-6; 30.11. I use the edition of Whittaker, Molly, Tatian: Oratio ad Graecos (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982Google Scholar ) and cite passages by the page and line numbers common to her edition and that of Schwartz, Eduard, Tatiani Oratio ad Graecos (TU; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1888) 4.1Google Scholar.

48 Ibid. 8.18-19; see also 7.17-29.

49 Ibid. 7.29-8.3; 8.18-9.23.

50 Ibid. 13.26.

51 Ibid. 28.5-6; see also 14.12-13, 20-21.

52 Ibid. 13.22.

53 Ibid. 11.13-14; 13.22.

54 Though Syrian by birth, Tatian identifies himself as culturally Hellenic by education prior to abandoning things Greek through his conversion (Or. Graec. 2.9-10; 26.16-17; 43.9-12). He wrote Oratio ad Graecos ca. 176 CE. His proud stance that he, unlike the Greeks, would rather die than be an ungrateful liar (ψεύστης άξάριστος; 4.28-29) alludes to Rom 1:21 and 25, where Paul states that the truth suppressors ungratefully failed to give God thanks and instead exchanged God's truth for the lie of polytheism. For Tatian's support of Pauline authority in his arguments, see Grant, Robert M., “Tatian and the Bible,” St Patr 1 (1955) 301–2Google Scholar.

55 On Tatian's allusion to Thales at 27.19-20, see Schwartz, ed., Tatiani Oratio ad loc, cited by Whittaker, 49 n. d.

56 Tatian, Or. Graec. 2.17–4.19Google Scholar.

57 Ibid. 16.4-6.

58 Given the distinctive provocation of Tatian's polemic, it thus becomes eminently clear why “[t]he tone of [Tatian's Oratio ad Graecos] is very different from that of Justin, being a violent diatribe. … [that] disparages the Greek philosophers [and mythology]” (Danielou, Gospel Message, 14). Similarly Quasten, Patrology, 1. 221. Tatian's anger intensifies in the face of Greeks responding with incredulity and mockery. When Greeks laugh at his thunderous declarations rather than running for cover, he warns that he is “the messenger of the truth” (ό κήρνψ τής άληθείας) that the Greeks are suppressing. They, not he, are the irrational ones. The Greeks will be thrown into the fire of eternal punishment if they do not return to God (Or. Graec. 18.18-23).

59 Clement lived ca. 150-215. Clement, Protrepticus und Paedagogus (ed. Stahlin, Otto and Treu, Ursula; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1972Google Scholar ); idem Stromata (ed. Otto Stahlin, Ludwig Friichtel, and Ursula Treu; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1985).

60 Clement, Prot. 81.2Google Scholar ; see also Rom 1:21, 23, 25.

61 Clement, Prot. 1.1-2.2; 11.1–22.7Google Scholar.

62 Ibid. 81.3.

63 Ibid. 64.1-3.

64 Ibid. 89.2.

65 Ibid. 114.1; 27.1, 4; Sib. Or. frag. 1.23-25.

66 The anonymous third-century Cohortatio ad Graecos and De monarchia (both spuriously attributed to Justin) vividly support the second polemic about apostate Greeks. In the Cohortatio, “Greeks” (ώ άνδρες “Eλληνες) are urged to defect (άποστήναι) from their wayward ancestral religions and return to primordial Christianity (35.1; 38.1). Similarly De monarchia contends that human nature once knew biblical monotheism—as proven by largely forged excerpts of Greek poetry and philosophy—only to abandon God for idolatry. Hence Greeks and others must “run back” (έπαναδρανείν) to their former union with God (1, 6). For references see Carl Otto, Iustini philosophi et martyris opera quae feruntur omnia, vol. 2 (Jena: Dufft, 1879); and on the dates of the treatises, see Markovich, Miroslav, Pseudo-Iustinus (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990) 4, 82Google Scholar.

67 Clement, Prot. 99.2; 108.1–5Google Scholar ; see also 23.1.

68 Ibid. 100.2.

69 Ibid. 74.7.

70 Clement, Strom. 1.57.1–6Google Scholar.

71 Clement, Prot. 81.2Google Scholar.

72 Origen lived ca. 185-253. References to Contra Celsum are to Paul Koetschau, ed., Gegen Celsus, in Origenes Werke (GCS 1-2; Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1899).

73 Origen Comm. in Rom. 16.134.17-20, 136.7-8.

74 Origen, Cels. 3.47Google Scholar.

75 Ibid. 4.30; see also 3.47.

76 Origen, Comm. in Rom. 16.138.17Google Scholar.

77 Ibid. 16.140.11-17.

78 Ibid. 17.142.19-22.

79 Origen Cels. 1.21; see also 3.47.

80 Ibid. 4.14; see also 6.71.

81 Origen simply identified the Platonic Socrates with Socrates the historical figure. Origen's other truth-suppressing philosophers would include Greek thinkers in Numenius's now lost On the Good, a section of which surveyed true Gentile ideas about the bodiless God. Origen approves of Numenius's survey (Cels. 1.15). Heretics are also truth suppressors (Comm. inRom. 161.23-162.1).

82 Origen, Cels. 6.5Google Scholar.

83 Ibid. 6.19; 6.4.

84 Ibid. 6.4.

85 Origen identifies Glaukon as Plato, and he similarly identifies the Thracian goddess Bendis as Artemis, whose inaugural ceremony is mentioned in the opening of the Republic.

86 Origen, Cels. 6.3–4Google Scholar.

87 Ibid. 6.10.

88 Ibid. 8.4; 6.17.

89 Ibid. 6.3.

90 Athanasius, Gent. 26.8–9Google Scholar ; 35.18-20. Athanasius lived 295-373. For references see Thomson, Robert W., Athanasius: Contra gentes and De incarnatione (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971)Google Scholar.

91 Athanasius, Gent. 35.18–21Google Scholar , citing Rom 1:20.

92 Ibid. 1.3-4; 27.16-19.

93 Though Athanasius on occasion refers to the theological rebels as av9pcotroi (for example, 19.6), just as Rom 1:18 does, he means Greeks first and then other Gentiles, not humanity at large. The people are “crazed persons among human beings in the days of old” (οί πάλαι τών άνθρώπων παράθρονες) whose madness led them to contrive polytheistic mores (8.26-28). The crazed people in question belong to the Gentile sector alone: “In the preceding part (that is, in Contra gentes) we have narrated sufficiently a few of the many things about the error and superstition of Gentiles (τών εθνών) about idols, such as their original invention of idols” (Incarn. 1.1-4). Finally, in this Gentile sector, the Greeks are the original inventors of polytheistic idolatry. “The Greeks cut themselves off from the truth” through devising the worship of numerous gods. Since then the Greeks have become corrupted sexually and otherwise, and other Gentiles have followed suit (ibid. 29.47-8; see also 26.8-19; 29.37-40). According to Athanasius, therefore, the Greeks originally provoked the apostasy among them-selves. Then the rebellion spread to other Gentiles. Greeks are thus primarily to blame for the polytheistic alienation from God, as reported in Rom 1:18-32.

94 Athanasius, Gent. 9.48; 11.1–3Google Scholar.

95 Ibid. 11.2-23; 7.33-36.

96 Ibid. 8.26-28.

97 Ibid. 8.14-18.

98 Athanasius uses Pauline imagery about darkened thoughts, minds, and perception in Gent. 7.18-23; 8.33-34; 9.5-6; 9.21-22. His phrase έσκοτίσθησαν τόν νούν at 9.22 alludes to έσκοτίσθη ή άσύνετος αύτών καρδία in Rom 1:21.

99 Athanasius, Gent. 8.21–34; 9.1Google Scholar.

100 Ibid. 29.47-8; 26.25; 30.12-93; 26.23-6.

101 Ibid. 27.19-21.

102 Ibid. 28.12-14.

103 For the Stoics, “God is physical spirit extending throughout matter.” Chrysippus adds that “the cosmos alone is said to be sufficient because it alone has everything it needs within it. It is both nurtured and will grow from itself, with parts transferring into one another” (Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, ed. Arnim, Hans von [4 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 1905] 2. 604Google Scholar ; see also Diogenes Laertius 7.137-38).

104 Athanasius, Gent. 28.21–22Google Scholar.

105 Ibid. 27.22-28.27.

106 Ibid. 9.5-10.16.

107 Ibid. 10.36-37. Athanasius refuses to envision God in the form of a woman partly because God the father and son faced such powerful competition from cults in honor of feminine deities, such as Demeter the mother and her daughter Persephone in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Among gods “on the female side,” he explicitly mentions the Greek gods Demeter, Persephone, Athena, Artemis, Hera, Aphrodite, and the Hellenized Egyptian deity Isis (10.5, 15-16).

108 Athanasius both paraphrases and quotes Paul on this point. “They have been abandoned by God's surrendering of them” (παραδοθέντες έν τώ άποστραθσέναι τόν θεόν αύτούς). So too Paul, as directly quoted by Athanasius: “God handed them over to dishonoring passions” (παρέδωκεν αύτούς ό θɛός ɛίς πάθη άτιμίας) (Gent. 19.16-20; Rom 1:26).

109 Athanasius, Gent. 19.34–35Google Scholar . Hence Thomas-Pierre, Camelot (Athanase d'Alexandrie, Contre les paiens [Paris: Cerf, 1947] 34, 136Google Scholar ) is mistaken to regard Athanasius's argument as a boring replica of the standard Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian polemic against polytheism. “II faut reconnaître qu'il [Athanase] n'a guère cherché à renouveler une matière cent fois traitée depuis des siècles … des longtemps traditionelle dans le judaïsme.”.

110 References to Chrysostom (b. ca. 349-354, d. 407) are to Homiliae in epistulam ad Romanos. My citation numbers indicate the homily and section number in the readily accessible PG 60, followed by the PG section number and more specific marginal letter in the far less accessible Homiliae in epistulam ad Romanos (Oxford: Parker, 1849)Google Scholar.

111 Chrysostom Horn, in Rom. preface 1.

112 Ibid. 3.1, 448e.

113 Ibid. 5.1, 460b.

114 Chrysostom further explicates his position that the accused in Rom 1:18-27 are Greeks rather than Gentiles at large. For example, God's revealed wrath in Rom 1:18 pertains to “the Greek” in Rom 1:18-27 and to “the unfaithful” at large in Rom 1:28-32 (Horn, in Rom. 3.1, 448b). This phrasing distinguishes Greeks as a subset among the unfaithful Gentiles as a whole. In a more elaborate but substantively similar vein, Chrysostom states that Rom 1:18-32 as a whole pertains to “Scythian, barbarian … and Greeks” (Horn, in Rom. 3.2, 449e). Here, too, the Greeks have to be Greeks and not Gentiles in general.

115 Chrysostom, Horn, in Rom. 4.1, 455cGoogle Scholar.

116 In Deuteronomy, for instance, Moses as the voice of God states that the denizens of Israel “have provoked me with their religiously alien ways; they have embittered me with their abominations. They have sacrificed not to God but to demonic gods whom they did not know. Recent innovations have come, which their fathers did not know. You abandoned (έγκατέλιπον) God who gave birth to you and you forgot God who nurtures you” (Deut 32:16-18). Jeremiah in the voice of God similarly states, “I will speak to them [the inhabitants of Judah] in condemnation of their wickedness, because they abandoned (έλκατέλιπον) me, made sacrifices to alien gods, and bowed low to the works of their own hands” (Jer 1:16). Chrysostom's own phrase ή τού θεού έγκατάλɛιψις in Horn, in Rom. 4.1, 455c picks up and refers back to his quotation of Jer 2:13 in Horn, in Rom. 3.2, 450b.

117 Chrysostom, Horn, in Rom. 3.2, 450bGoogle Scholar.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid. 4.3, 458d; 5.2, 461c.

120 Ibid. 3.2, 449d.

121 Ibid. 3.2, 449d-e.

122 Ibid. 3.3, 452b.

123 Chrysostom here uses the stereotype of Greek intellectuals in Acts 17 to explain why the Greeks exchanged God for false gods. “All the Athenians and foreigners dwelling in their city like nothing more than to say or to listen to something new” (τι καινότερον) (Acts 17:21). Homoeroticism as described in Rom 1:26-27 is central among the new ideas for which the Greeks yearned. “Legitimate pleasure is in accordance with nature. But when God abandoned (έγκαταλιπη) them [the rebellious Greeks], everything down became up, and up down” (through homoerotic practices) (Horn, in Rom. 4.1, 454d).

124 Chrysostom, Horn, in Rom. 3.3, 451cGoogle Scholar.

125 Ibid. 3.2, 450c. Here Chrysostom alludes to Paul's statement in Rom 1:21 that the truth suppressors “became senseless in their acts of reasoning” (τοίς διαλογισμοίς).

126 Chrysostom, Horn, in Rom. 3.3Google Scholar , 451d. Chrysostom's strong disdain for Greek philosophy follows from his Pauline polemic against philosophers. He “attacks the philosophers for trying to subvert Christian doctrine,” no philosopher more so than Plato (Paul R. Coleman-Norton, “St. Chrysostom and the Greek Philosophers,” CP 25 [1930] 305-6, 311).

127 Chrysostom, Horn, in Rom. 3.2, 450b–cGoogle Scholar.

128 Ibid. 3.2, 449b.

129 Ibid. 3.3, 452c.

130 Ibid. 3.4, 452d-e. See also Rom 1:25.

131 In Homily 39, which was delivered in about 380, Gregory Nazianzen (ca. 329-390) identifies the rebellious truth suppression mainly but not exclusively with Greek mysteries and other rituals, such as the Eleusinian mysteries and worship of Dionysus, Aphrodite, and Apollo at Delphi (39.4-5). “Just as Paul states,” Greek religious practices are “the recompense their practitioners had to take for their error (πλάνη) in their acts of reverence.” Hence the practices are “wickedly possessed in all respects,” for the participants “were taken down into the worship of idols” ever since “they fell away (άποπεσείν) from the glory of God.” The people too “are an abomination (βδελνκτοί) because of their error.” In fact, “they are even more of an abomination (βδελυκτότεροι) than the worthless nature of the objects they worship since they are even more insensible than the revered objects” (ibid. 39.6). βδέλυλμα is a technical term in the Septuagint referring to that which is repellent to God and prohibited to his people by his law. Gregory is not merely attacking the outre side of Greek rituals, such as running wild with Dionysus, for seeming indecency is not what provokes him. Gregory is outraged at Greek religion for reasons that would baffle both the Pentheus-minded and the wearers of dappled fawn skins alike: Greek rituals one and all reflect the primordial rebellion and punitive condition of Christian Israel. The Greeks would need catechism in Romans to understand this charge, as Gregory's own homily shows. “Since we did not deem it worthy to keep the law (καθός ούκ έδοκιμάσαμεν øμλάζαι τέν έντολέν), we were handed over (παρεδόθημεν) to our self-regulated error (πλάνης). Since we were led astray, we were dishonored through our objects of worship” (ήτιμάσθημεν έν οίς έσεβάσθημεν) (39.7). Gregory's confession of collective Hellenic guilt reflects point for point Paul's accusation in the third person plural. "Since they [the truth suppressors] did not deem it worthy to keep God in recognition (καί καθώς ούκ έδοκίμασαν τόν θεόν έξɛιν έν έπιγνώσει), God handed them over (παρέδωκεν αύγούς) to a corrupted state of mind” (Rom 1:28), to punitive religious practices in penalty for their error (πλάνη), and to the attendant dishonor (άτμάξεσθαι) that defiles the body through polytheistic reasoning and homoerotic sexual conduct (Rom 1:24, 26-27). For the date of the homily, see Moreschini, Claudio and Gallay, Paul, eds., Gregoire de Nazianze Discours 38-41 (Paris: Cerf, 1990) 16–22Google Scholar.

132 As Bowersock, Glen W. vividly states (Fiction as History: Nero to Julian [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994] 1–2Google Scholar ), “[T]he second century of our era … [was] a world in which the boundaries between creative imagination and willful mendacity, between fiction and lying, often proved impossible to determine. … The problem … acquired a special urgency [in the second century] because apparent fictions about both past and present were proliferating at a rate that the classical world had scarcely seen before. … History was being invented all over again; even the mythic past was being rewritten.” His comment concerns once local legends about heroes that undergo reshaping and broadening, yet it is eminently apropos for the method used by Paul and his patristic supporters to reinvent the culture of apostate Israel in Greek and Gentile lands.

133 Justin's concluding appeal to the Roman senate exemplifies this more tolerant stance. “But if you publicize this treatise, we will make it available to all, so that, if possible, they may change their minds. For this was our sole purpose in composing these words. … We will not pursue the matter further, having done what was in our power, with our prayers that all people everywhere may be found worthy of the truth” (2 Apol 15.2-9).