The Greetings of Romans 16 and the Audience of Romans

Abstract

This short paper considers and critiques the view that the named people greeted in Romans 16.3–16 are not also among the recipients of the letter to ‘all God's beloved in Rome’ (Rom 1.7). Variants of this view spring from the work of Mullins (1968): that the second-person greeting involves the greeting of ‘a third party who is not intended to be among the immediate readership of the letter’ (Mullins, 1968: 420) and are found in Thorsteinsson (2003), Stowers (2015) and Campbell (2023). A series of arguments are made against this view. In particular, the plural form of the imperative (ἀσπάσασθɛ) and the open nature of the addressees mean that Mullins' simple principle does not apply. In addition, Paul's usage elsewhere (including in Romans 16.16) contradicts Mullins' principle.

In recent years, scholars have largely accepted the textual argument that Romans 16 should be regarded as part of the letter sent to Rome, and thus that the people greeted there (in Romans 16.3–16) are thought to be present in Rome and connected to the Christ-believing groups in the city.¹ More recently still, however, the further question has been raised as to whether these people are to be thought of as part of the intended or encoded audience of the letter. Among those scholars who have argued against this general view, in agreement that the people named in Romans 16 are not those addressed in the letter, there is nevertheless some diversity in addressing the question, ‘Who then is the audience of Romans?’ From different angles, however, they have insisted that the form of the greetings in Romans 16.3–15 preclude the identification of the people greeted with the audience of the letter.² Here in Romans 16.3–16, we have a sixteen-fold repetition of the second-person plural aorist imperative form ἀσπάσασθɛ – ‘you [plural] greet Mary’ (etc.). In ancient Greek letters, the second-person singular imperative type of greeting is often used as ‘an indirect salutation’, as Mullins outlines:

‘The second-person type of greeting is more complicated than it first seems. It is an indirect salutation. The writer of the letter indicates that the addressee is to greet someone for him. In this way, the writer of the letter becomes the principal and the addressee becomes his agent in establishing a communication with a third party who is not intended to be among the immediate readership of the letter.’³

A number of scholars, including Thorsteinsson, Stowers, and Campbell have taken Mullins’ comment as a decisive statement in relation to the audience of Romans, and one which, they claim, has been overlooked or ignored by interpreters:⁴

Thorsteinsson: ‘If Paul's choice of salutatory form is to be taken seriously it must be concluded that, instead of being descriptive of the letter's audience, these greetings suggest that the persons meant to be greeted should not be counted among those to whom Paul wrote the letter.’⁵

Stowers: ‘Paul's words in Romans 16:1–16 make it clear that those named to be greeted are not among the audience toward whom the letter was aimed.’⁶

Campbell: ‘Thorsteinson's insights on the passing on of greetings have been ignored, sometimes undervalued, but not invalidated. In fact, with this second-person type of greeting Paul is actually instructing the addressees of the letter to greet other parties who are not part of the congregations addressed.’⁷

In this paper, we are going to argue that Thorsteinsson, Stowers and Campbell are wrong to conclude from the specific form of imperative used so frequently in Romans 16.3–16 (ἀσπάσασθɛ) that those named are definitely not among those addressed in and by the letter. We have five points. The first two will concern the form of greetings in ancient Greek letters (and the important work of Mullins); the third and fourth points will concern Paul's actual usage of this form of greeting elsewhere; the fifth point probes some general problems in the viewpoint here critiqued. Although our intention is primarily destructive of a bad argument, we will offer enough to point to the conclusion that those named in the greetings of Romans 16 are within the encoded addressees of the letter.

First, it is fair to say that Mullins, to some degree, invited the conclusions which have been drawn by the aforementioned scholars on the basis of his work. Mullins did think that, in relation to Romans, ‘the use of the second-person type greeting means that the persons greeted might not be among those who read the letter’ and therefore that ‘something in our usual interpretation of Romans is wrong’.⁸ However, in absolutising a comment from Mullins, these scholars have overlooked the crucial difference between the greetings discussed by Mullins and those in Romans 16, as well as the more cautious nuance with which Mullins himself discussed the problem.⁹ Mullins’ discussion concerned ancient Greek letters addressed to a single individual (as in fact most ancient letters were), hence they have a single named addressee and other people named in the greetings. In the second-person imperative form found in such letters—generally in Mullins’ article, the present form ἀσπάζου—the single addressee is instructed to greet various other people.¹⁰ In the typical example offered by Mullins, Sattos wrote to his sister, Euphrosyne, a brief letter about cloaks, money and cakes, and towards the end he writes: ἀσπάζου Στρά̣τ̣[ο]ν καὶ Στρατονɛινκη καὶ τὰ πɛδ[ία] αὐτῶν – ‘greet Stratus and Stratonice and their children’ (P. Oxy 1489, from the late third century).¹¹ In this particular situation, it is no doubt the case that Mullins is right to think that ‘the writer of the letter [i.e. Sattos] becomes the principal and the addressee [i.e. Euphrosyne] becomes his agent in establishing a communication with a third party [i.e. the family of Stratus and Stratonice] who is not intended to be among the immediate readership of the letter’.¹² We would probably be right to think that there is no implication that Stratus and Stratonice and their children would need to be informed about the problem that Sattos had forgotten his cloak again, the fact that he had paid a debt on behalf of Euphrosyne or that he would love to receive a batch of Euphrosyne's delicious cakes. But the situation in Romans is different, not only because the plural form of the imperative (ἀσπάσασθɛ) is consistently used, but even more because this plural imperative is addressed to an open group and not a closed one – πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἀγαπητοῖς θɛοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις (‘to all God's beloved in Rome, called to be saints’, Rom 1.7). The specific form used and the wider epistolary contexts are both quite different. In this connection, it does not make sense to invoke a rule based on simple individual letters and apply it to complex community letters, especially when it involves excluding as potential addressees a large and particular group of people who in other respects are clearly identified as ‘called to belong to Jesus Christ’ (ὑμɛῖς κλητοὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, 1.6 cf. 16.3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13), ‘beloved’ (ἀγαπητοί, 1.7; cf. 16.5, 8, 9, 12) and ‘saints’ (κλητοῖς ἁγίοις, 1.7; cf. 16.15).

Secondly, even within the parameters of Mullins’ work, it is possible to over-interpret the word ‘immediate’ in his argument that imperatival greetings in letters among the documentary papyri are used to refer to ‘a third party who is not intended to be among the immediate readership of the letter’ (so Mullins as cited earlier). Mullins himself said, ‘the second-person type of greeting is often used for greeting members of the addressee's family’.¹³ In other words, the earlier cited example of an instruction to ‘greet Stratus and Stratonice and their children’ may be less than representative, in that we do not know what relationship they had with either Sattos or his sister Euphrosyne. A recent survey of greetings in Greek letters among the Oxyrhynchus papyri showed that when named people are further identified in greetings, they are overwhelmingly people in close familial relationships to the ‘immediate’ reader (i.e. the specifically addressed individual). They are identified as παιδία ‘children’ (15 times), ἀδɛλφός ‘brother’ (13 times), μήτηρ ‘mother’ (11 times), πατήρ ‘father’ (10 times), υἱός ‘son’ (7 times), θυγάτηρ ‘daughter’ (7 times), ἀδɛλφή ‘sister’ (6 times), τέκνα ‘children’ (5 times), γυνή ‘wife’ (3 times), κυρία ‘lady’ (3 times), σύμβιος ‘spouse’ (2 times), κοράσια ‘girls’ (1 time), and κύριος ‘master’ (1 time).¹⁴ This list of additional descriptors suggests that those to be greeted are regarded as closely adjacent to the signified ‘immediate reader’ in the sense of very often members of the family, whether an extended family, or a fictive one.¹⁵ There would seem to be a basis for thinking of greeted family members as within the extended readership of the letter (and not excluded).¹⁶ This has a resonance with Romans in the sense that throughout Romans the recipients are addressed using the repeated familial or fictive kinship term, ἀδɛλφοί - ‘brothers and sisters’ (so Rom 1.13; 7.1, 4; 8.12; 10.1; 11.25; 12.1; 15.14, [30] 16.14).¹⁷ The ultimate basis for this within Romans is the inclusion of believers into the family of God the Father by the Spirit of adoption (Rom 8.14-17), with ‘the Father as the initiator of adoption, the Spirit as witness, and the Son as their elder brother and co-heir’ – since Christ is ‘the first born among many brothers and sisters’ (πρωτότοκον ἐν πολλοῖς ἀδɛλφοῖς, 8.29).¹⁸ Since at least some of those greeted in chapter sixteen are explicitly labelled as ἀδɛλφοί (16.14: ἀσπάσασθɛ … καὶ τοὺς σὺν αὐτοῖς ἀδɛλφούς), it would seem preferable, if Paul's usage allows, to regard them as within the familial ἀδɛλφοί addressed in the letter, rather than definitively outside of that address.

Thirdly, Paul's usage of ἀσπάσασθɛ elsewhere does not support the view that this form was used for people not addressed in and by the letter. Indeed, considering the material outside of Romans, on four of the five other occasions, it clearly is used with direct reference to those addressed (Phil 4.21; 1 Thess 5.26; 1 Cor 16.20; 2 Cor 13.12). Taking this evidence in turn, the second-person plural imperative in Phil 4.21 – ἀσπάσασθɛ πάντα ἅγιον ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ – is clearly addressed to the same ‘you’ as are addressed in the letter as a whole (cf. the following ‘you’ in ἀσπάζονται ὑμᾶς οἱ σὺν ἐμοὶ ἀδɛλφοί). Considering the letter is addressed ‘to all the saints in Christ Jesus in Philippi’ (πᾶσιν τοῖς ἁγίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Φιλίπποις, Phil 1.1), which seems to be echoed in the closing at 4.21, it seems clear that the imperative is ‘directed to all and every Philippian Christian’.¹⁹ The same form is also used in 1 Thess 5.26: ἀσπάσασθɛ τοὺς ἀδɛλφοὺς πάντας ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ. This is an imperative for those addressed in the letter to greet ‘all the brothers’, which strikingly enough, is exactly the predominant term used for ‘those addressed in the letter’ (ἀδɛλφοί as vocative: 1 Thess 1.4; 2.1, 9, 14, 17; 3.7; 4.1, 10, 13; 5.1, 4, 12, 14, 25!), and is precisely those to whom Paul insists the letter is to be read (1 Thess 5.27).²⁰ Two other examples are exactly parallel in wording: ἀσπάσασθɛ ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ (1 Cor 16.20 & 2 Cor 13.12), in these passages the imperative is applied directly, using the reciprocal pronoun, to those addressed. This is also true on the two other occasions it is used in other NT epistolary contexts (Heb 13.24; 1 Pet 5.14).²¹ On only one occasion in Pauline usage is ἀσπάσασθɛ used in such a way to indicate another group beyond that directly and immediately addressed in the letter (Col 4.15), where the geographical differentiation is specifically introduced (ἀσπάσασθɛ τοὺς ἐν Λαοδικɛίᾳ ἀδɛλφοὺς), and in any case this imperative is immediately followed by an instruction that they should also read the letter – making the brethren in Laodicea part of the extended addressees.²²

Fourthly, Romans 16.16a (ἀσπάσασθɛ ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ) confirms that Paul uses the same second-person imperative form ἀσπάσασθɛ in such a way as to include those addressed by the letter (as in the similar wording used in 1 Cor 16.20 & 2 Cor 13.12). The long list of second-person plural imperatives in Romans 16 concludes with the general imperative ‘greet one another with a holy kiss’: ἀσπάσασθɛ ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ (Rom 16.16a). Given the importance of ‘one another’ throughout the paraenetical portion of Romans (Rom 12.5, 10, 16; 13.8; 14.13, 19; 15.5, 7, 14), this is clearly an instruction that the ‘you’ addressed in the letter should ‘greet one another’ – the people also addressed in the letter! Just as the ‘you’ greeted by ‘all the churches’ in the following phrase – ἀσπάζονται ὑμᾶς αἱ ἐκκλησίαι πᾶσαι τοῦ Χριστοῦ (16.16b) – is also the ‘you’ addressed by the letter.²³ It seems more likely that ‘greet one another with a holy kiss’ (Rom 16.16a) is a kind of summarising final instruction which encapsulates all the preceding individual and personal instructions.²⁴

Fifthly, although the Pauline usage would seem to be decisive on this question, one might also probe some of the difficulties inherent in the view that Romans is not at all addressed to those named in Romans 16.3–15, especially in thinking that Romans was meant for a solely gentile readership. Romans 16 suggests both a variety of different groupings among the Christ-believers in Rome (e.g. v. 5: the ekklēsia in Prisca and Aquila's house; v. 10: ‘those from those of Aristobulus’; v. 11: ‘those from those of Narcissus’; v. 14: the brethren with Asyncritus et al.’; v. 15: ‘the saints with Philologus et al.’) and an apparent diversity of ethnic and religious background (some are particularly mentioned as kinsfolk of Paul: Andronicus, Junia and Herodion [vv. 7, 11], others are likely to be Jewish: Aquila, Prisca, Mary, Rufus and his mother [vv. 3, 6, 13]; the rest of the names are more likely gentile, usually quite common among slaves, freedmen and women). How exactly the letter was going to be presented only to the gentile Christ-believers within the ethnically diverse sub-groups of Roman believers, and why, in a letter celebrating the participation of the risen Messiah in the joint worship of Jews and gentiles (Rom 15.7–13), Paul thought this was a good idea, is not often addressed in this literature.²⁵ Also not often addressed is the problem that not all of those named in Romans 16.3–15 would appear to be ethnically Jewish – how are the ethnically gentile believers among those named in 16.3–15 supposed to be regarded – as included among the addressees or as excluded?²⁶ It would seem preferable that in a letter addressed ‘to all God's beloved in Rome’ (πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἀγαπητοῖς θɛοῦ, Rom 1.7a), it is presumed that the whole believing community in Rome is addressed. That the whole community is commanded to personally embody the welcome, which the letter also commands (Rom 15.7), in extending greetings to those named here.²⁷ The verb ἀσπάσασθɛ thus retains an imperatival force – urging the Roman believers to greet one another, and is not to be regarded as simply ‘a surrogate for the first-person indicative form, and so represents a direct personal greeting of the writer himself to the addressees’.²⁸

Our argument thus suggests that there is no reason to exclude those named in Romans 16 from being among those addressed in the letter, and that the recipients of Romans are best regarded as ethnically mixed, including among its addressees and recipients, believers from both a Jewish and a gentile background.²⁹