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Roman Faith and Christian Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 March 2018

Teresa Morgan
Teresa Morgan*
Affiliation:
Oriel College, Oxford
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

These three short papers were delivered at the 72nd General Meeting of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas, held in Pretoria, South Africa, on 8–11 August 2017. The ‘Quaestiones disputatae’ session was chaired by the President of the Society, Professor Michael Wolter. The first two papers engage with Teresa Morgan's book, Roman Faith and Christian Faith, and Professor Morgan responds to them in the third.

Type
Quaestiones Disputatae
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 64 , Issue 2 , April 2018 , pp. 255 - 261
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

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References

50 I use ‘belief’ here as in the book to refer to what philosophers call ‘propositional belief’ or ‘the attitude of belief’: the disposition, short of knowledge, to think that a certain thing is true.

51 Watson, pp. 243–4. ‘First’ seems to refer to significance rather than timing, but we cannot assume that belief comes first chronologically either (cf. Paul's emphasis on the importance, perhaps even temporal priority, of the non-verbal aspects of his impact on the Thessalonians and Corinthians (1 Thess 1.5; 2.7–8; 1 Cor 2.4; cf. Origen, Cels. 1.10). I am sympathetic to the argument that the counterintuitiveness of Christian preaching may be part of its strength, but Paul's appeal to the apostles’ experience (Roman Faith, 242–3, cf. 39–41, 145–6) suggests that he does not regard this preaching as counterintuitive.

52 Seifrid, pp. 253–4.

53 Seifrid, p. 248; for further discussion, see L. Driediger-Murphy, D. Howard-Snyder, D. McKaughan and T. Morgan, ‘Book Symposium’, Religious Studies, forthcoming.

54 Morgan, Roman Faith, 20–2.

55 1 Cor 15.34, though he also thinks that knowledge can be dangerous (8.1).

56 Whatever the nature of Paul's disagreement with the other apostles, it is significant that he leaves judgement to God rather than to the human community. Cf. Lightfoot, J. B., Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (London: Macmillan, 1890 10)Google Scholar ad loc.

57 Cf. 2 Cor 2.6–7. In 1 Corinthians 13, he goes further, downplaying the importance of knowledge compared with love (13.2, 8–9) and underlining the incompleteness of human knowledge before ‘perfection’ (15.12).

58 This puts Christians more in line with Greek and Roman worshippers than we usually expect: cf. Morgan, T., ‘Belief and practice in Graeco-Roman religiosity: Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride 379c’, Christianity in the Second Century: Themes and Developments (ed. Carleton-Paget, J. and Lieu, J.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017) 200–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 E.g. Parm. fr. 2 (Proclus, In Tim. 1, 345, 18), cf. Epict. 3.22.26 citing Socrates in the context of advice on the Cynic ‘true way’.

60 Certain terms in the Septuagint acquire a distinctive colour, but there are few, if any, clear examples of radical change. E.g. the meaning of παρακαλεῖν evolves (especially in Ben Sira), but not quickly or radically, from earlier Greek usage. διαθήκη seems to be used more heavily by Jewish communities than others, but not in a new sense. The ἐκκλησία of Israel is sometimes marked as including women and children (Ezek 10.1, cf. 10.12; Neh 5.7), but usually seems to consist of men, in line with usage in Greek cities.

61 On the ‘cascade’ elsewhere, see Morgan, Roman Faith, 217–18.

62 NB: Roman Faith nowhere describes trust as the ‘fundamental’ meaning of πίστις, as Seifrid suggests, but chs. 2–5 seek to show that certain kinds of thinking, relationship and social practice emerge from a study of the evidence as more widely regarded as common, normal and/or praiseworthy, as less controversial, and/or as more often practised, than others in this period.

63 Morgan, Roman Faith, 15–23, passim. Seifrid cites Barr in support; on the evolution of socio-linguistics since Barr wrote and the importance of the mentality of users to ‘context’, see Roman Faith, 31–3.

64 Morgan, Roman Faith, 152.