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Nihil inopinati accidisse – ‘Nothing unexpected has happened’: A Cyrenaic Consolatory Topos in 1 Pet 4.12ff.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 July 2002

PAUL A. HOLLOWAY
PAUL A. HOLLOWAY
Affiliation:
Dept of Religion, Samford University, Birmingham, AL 35229–2251, USA
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Abstract

1 Peter was written for the dual purpose of exhortation and consolation. Recent studies have focused on the former of these purposes (exhortation); this article attends to the latter (consolation). It argues that the last section of 1 Peter (4.12ff.), which since Perdelwitz has been identified as a concluding ‘Trostwort’, develops at length the popular consolatory topos ‘nihil inopinati accidisse’ (‘nothing unexpected has happened’). This topos was common in contemporary Greco-Roman philosophical consolation. It also appears in Philo and in the genuine letters of Paul and the Gospel of John.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , July 2002 , pp. 433 - 448
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was read to the General Epistles Section at the international meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in Rome, Italy, on 11 July 2001, and to the Workshop on Religion and the Ancient Mediterranean World at Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, USA, on 26 September 2001. I would like to thank Doug Clapp, Karen Jobes, Frank Thielman, and Randy Todd for their recommendations for improvement.