Christ Worship in the Neighbourhood: Corinth's ekklēsia and its Vicinity (1 Cor 14.22–5)

Abstract

This article defends the salience of situating Christ worship in the context of urban neighbourhoods and identifies some historical problems in conceptualising belonging at that level of society, akin to similar work on other levels of society such as the household and polis. An ekklēsia or collegium is, like all neighbourhood structures, capable of fostering or delimiting social interactions among neighbours who identify differently. A case study of 1 Cor 14.22–5 illustrates how Paul's model ekklēsia functioned in the context of the neighbourhood, and considers the impact of adding the ekklēsia to the street on which it was located.

1. The Ancient Urban Neighbourhood

In recent years, the study of Christ worship in the context of urban neighbourhoods has gained momentum.¹ Early advocates of the approach, Andrew Wallace-Hadrill and Stanley Stowers, suggested that the neighbourhood would be a more realistic level of society for placing Christ worship relative to the better explored settings of households and cohesively Christian ‘communities’ respectively.² Despite definitional difficulties, the ancient neighbourhood is indeed a practical category of historical analysis, for it encompasses a social space where much ordinary life occurred.³ Harriet Flower captures the range of activity in this space with her etymological description of Latin term vicus:

[It] evok[es] both ‘house’ or ‘estate’ and ‘street’ or ‘path between the houses,’ … basically … a group of residential buildings around a street, which can be termed a ‘neighbourhood’ or (more technically) a ‘ward’ or ‘borough’ inside a city … The whole concept of a vicus speaks to a pattern of ancient life in narrow streets, where people moved around on foot and met each other face to face in their daily activities or on a journey.⁴

Flower is describing the Roman vicus specifically; the present study of urban neighbourhoods is temporally and geographically broader but restricts itself to sources attesting to vici, πλατɛῖαι, γɛιτνίασɛις, and cognates. With this scope in mind, two relevant classifications from Gerald Suttles’ typology of modern neighbourhoods can be highlighted.⁵

One taxon of ancient neighbourhood is the administrative sub-unit of cities and districts, imposed from above in Rome and some other cities.⁶ Suttles describes this type of neighbourhood as ‘limited liability’.⁷ It is ‘designated as a community by outsiders who have some political or commercial interest in its existence’.⁸ The name ‘limited liability’ reflects the external origins of the districts and the potentially weak connection residents feel towards others in their ward, especially in more modern manifestations which tend to be larger than Rome's vici.

A second neighbourhood concept pertains to social relationships formed among people living in close proximity to one another (vicini, γɛίτονɛς) – the area of that ‘proximity’ is left open to judgement. This is a neighbourhood concept articulated by David Morris and Karl Hess as pertaining to ‘place and people, with the common sense limit as the area one can easily walk over’,⁹ and has been called the ‘face-block’ type of neighbourhood by Suttles. In Suttles’ description, the face-block includes the residents on a single city block who use the same shops, restaurants and service buildings.¹⁰ J. Bert Lott, following especially Suttles’ neighbourhood typology, situates Rome's vici into this category, though the administrative purpose of limited liability neighbourhoods also applies to the vici.¹¹ The face-block is the smallest scale possible in Suttles’ typology: approximately equivalent to a Roman insula and surrounding terrain. The study of Christ worship in the context of urban neighbourhoods might consider each of these neighbourhood classifications depending on the city and question at hand. Proximity is central to both, and in the case of small Roman administrative units (vici) there is significant overlap.

The first part of this article identifies historical problems in conceptualising belonging at the neighbourhoood level of society, as was done in the past for other levels of society relevant to understanding the expansion of Christ worship, such as households, collegia, cities and translocal networks.¹² This part of the article also explores how neighbourhoods might create conditions for generating a stronger sense of loyalty for residents than do their cities. At the same time, we will see that the topography of the ancient neighbourhood strengthened social asymmetry by means of hosting spaces (e.g. clubhouses, baths, temples, domestic architecture) and structures (e.g. festivals, cults, administrative magistracies, collegia) designed to include some residents and exclude others. To be sure, these neighbourhood spaces and structures could also create conditions for transculturation among residents of different legal statuses, places of origins and other facets of identity.

The second part of the article situates mid-first century Christ worship in Corinth on the street of the synagogue next to the house of Titius Justus (Acts 18.7), via 1 Cor 14.22–5 especially. Although only a case study, the analysis is meant as a contribution to the broader question of how adding a Pauline ekklēsia to a neighbourhood might disrupt residents, relationships and practices there. An ekklēsia or collegium is, like other neighbourhood structures, prone to foster and/or delimit social interactions among neighbours who identify differently. In recognition of this, Paul's hypothetical scenario in 1 Cor 14.22–5 can be read as evidence of his views on how a model ekklēsia should function in the context of its neighbourhood.

2. Loyalty to the Neighbourhood

When countryside Athenians evacuated their demes in 431 bce and hid inside the long walls during Sparta's first annual raid of Attic farmland, Thucydides observed that these Athenians ‘became weighed down and were carrying a difficult burden as they abandoned their houses and temples which were always patrial to them down from the constitution in the beginning. They were about to change their way of living, and each was about to become nothing other than a city-deserter’ (Thucydides 2.16.2).¹³ This sense of belonging to the deme or the neighbourhood – a loyalty that seems mutually exclusive from loyalty to the polis (‘city-deserter’) in Thucydides – can be found also to varying degrees in later Greek and Latin texts.

In epigraphic texts, individuals commonly self-identify as citizens, parents, children, spouses; civic benefactors; and workers of occupations.¹⁴ Less studied is the phenomenon of self-identification by neighbourhood of residence.¹⁵ The practice of presenting oneself according to neighbourhood of residence can be illustrated by the Roman tomb dedication of a certain Cameria Iarine for several freedmen:

[Camer]ia L(uci) l(iberta) Iarine fecit | [L(ucio) Cam]erio L(ucii) l(iberto) Thrasoni patrono | [et] L(ucio) Camerio L(ucii) l(iberto) Alexandro | patrono eius et | [L(ucio) C]amerio Onesimo lib(erto) et | [vi]ro suo posterisque omnibus [vest]iariis tenuariis de vico Tusc(o).¹⁶

Cameria Iarine, freedwoman of Lucius, made this for Lucius Camerius Thraso, freedman of Lucius, [her] patron; and for Lucius Camerius Alexander, freedman of Lucius, [Thraso's] patron; and for Lucius Camerius Onesimus freedman and her husband, and for their descendants. All are tailors of high-quality clothing from the Tuscan neighbourhood (vicus).

The individuals named in this epitaph probably worked in the same textile workshop and may have been organised as an occupational or neighbourhood collegium. Their neighbourhood, Vicus Tuscus, was well known for its tenuarii (tailors or dealers of fine textiles) and, as this inscription shows, there was social prestige in carrying out this profession here.¹⁷

Loyalty to one's vicus in Rome is well attested. Another example is a barber who self-identified on his epitaph as

P(ublius) Petronius | P(ubli) l(ibertus) Philomusus | to(n)sor de vico | Scauri in fr(onte) p(edes) xii | in agr(o) p(edes) xvi.¹⁸

Publius Petronius Philomusus, freedman of Publius, barber of the Scauri vicus. This burial plot is 12 feet wide and 14 feet long.

Among the many other expressions of neighbourhood loyalty in ancient cities are two brothers who were dyers in the Lorarus vicus,¹⁹ a hairdresser from Vicus Longus²⁰ and a silversmith from Vicus Cyclopis.²¹ While the examples so far come from Rome, loyalty to the neighbourhood is attested elsewhere, too (see below).

Some urban sociologists find that city-dwellers feel most at home in neighbourhoods, which is akin to Thucydides’ own observation. In John Hipp and Andrew Perrin's study of a newly built contemporary neighbourhood of 150 houses in an unidentified American city of 50,000 residents, they compared residents’ perceived ‘cohesion’ at neighbourhood and city levels and found that ‘neighbourhood cohesion [was] generally higher than the level of community cohesion’.²² Hipp and Perrin use a ‘perceived cohesion scale’ developed by Kenneth Bollen and Rick Hoyle.²³ Bollen and Hoyle in turn follow William McDougall's description of societal cohesion or ‘group spirit’: ‘The development of the group spirit consists in two essential processes, namely, the acquisition of knowledge of the group and the formation of some sentiment of attachment to the group.’²⁴

Hipp and Perrin were the first to publish statistics in support of this idea but were not the earliest to make the point. In fact, their study substantiates an earlier proposal by Ade Kearns and Ray Forrest, who suggested that a strong sense of belonging at the neighbourhood level, as well as a positive attitude about the neighbourhood's identity, could lead to a decreased sense of cohesion at other levels of society, such as the city. They elaborate as follows:

[N]eighbourhoods exist within and must be linked into wider urban areas. But tensions may exist between socially cohesive neighbourhoods and cohesive cities … The point is that social cohesion at the neighbourhood level is by no means unambiguously a good thing … A city of neighbourhoods with a high degree of social cohesion could be a city with a high level of conflict within and between neighbourhoods.²⁵

Hipp and Perrin's statistics only support the notion that city residents would feel a stronger sense of belonging in their neighbourhoods than in their cities.

Hipp and Perrin's findings raise questions about how state authorities in antiquity might react negatively to neighbourhood-based collective activity. There were clearly concerns in late Republican and Augustan Rome.²⁶ In attempts to avoid suspicions of disloyalty to the state, neighbourhood collectives in antiquity often insisted that their interests fully aligned with those of the civic rulers. For instance, a spokesperson for one neighbourhood (γɛιτνίασις) from Prusias by Hypios made the following dedication on a block of limestone:

Διὸ[ς] | Σωτ[ῆ]|ρος | ὑπὲρ τῆ̣[ς] || πόλɛω̣[ς] | ἡ γɛιτν̣[ί]|ασ̣ι[ς].²⁷

For Zeus Soter. The neighbourhood (dedicates this) on behalf of the city.

This dedication to Zeus Soter for the sake of the polis is fascinating, for it merges γɛιτνίασις and polis interests, or at least advertises the neighbourhood's contribution to the prosperity of the state, thereby highlighting its own place within the polis.²⁸

A third-century honorary inscription on a marble base from Ephesus demonstrates well how neighbourhood spokespersons wanted their vicinity-based collectives to be perceived by fellow polis inhabitants and authorities. Here, Marcus Fulvius Publicianus Neikephoros, a civic benefactor, is honoured by ‘the clothes-dealers who work in the agora, because of his goodwill towards the homeland’.²⁹ The inscription mentions only Neikephoros’ services to the polis (funding for the construction of civic buildings), entirely lacking any reference to benefactions shown specifically to the clothes-dealers in this neighbourhood of Ephesus.³⁰

Other neighbourhood honorifics for benefactors tended to emphasise an interest in the preservation of the polis, as well; overall, the activity of honouring civic benefactors is an especially well attested neighbourhood practice.³¹ Neighbours’ act of grouping together for dedicatory and honorific activities indicates that some city-dwellers felt a sense of belonging in the immediate vicinity around their urban houses, but were concerned to foreground alignment of neighbourhood and city interests. In fact, spokespersons for the neighbourhood collectives of Asia present these groups in such harmony with state interests that there is modern debate whether they functioned as administrative sub-units of their cities or were formed on private initiative.³²

If people's loyalties, memberships and social relationships were forged primarily at the neighbourhood level of society, as Thucydides remarked and contemporary sociological data support, then imagining the members of a Pauline ekklēsia as residing across an entire city is probably too imprecise, and the household would be practically inseparable from its street network. Loyalty to neighbourhood could occasionally be even stronger than attachments individuals felt to their patrons, and Paul needed to be cognizant of that in order to avoid antagonising the neighbours of those who read his letters.³³ Perhaps this calculation was behind Paul's practice of advising participants in Christ worship to build up the reputation of the ekklēsiai in their immediate vicinities (e.g. Rom 14.1–15.6; Phil 2.3–4; 4–5; 1 Cor 5.9–11, 10.27–30, 14.22–5; 1 Thess 4.11–12).

In Rome, the slaves and freedpersons greeted in Rom 16.1–16 (e.g. Ampliatus, Hermes, Nereus, Persis, Philologus, Tryphosa, Tryphaena and Junia, among others)³⁴ probably aspired to the level of prominence made possible through serving as vicus officers (ministri and magistri).³⁵ The shrines of Rome's vici indicate that neighbourhood offices were occupied by slaves and freedmen.³⁶ Literary references affirm this.³⁷ Suetonius (Aug. 30.2) describes the role of the magistri as supervision (tueri). This description seemingly encompassed the tending of compital shrines, sacrificial roles during celebrations such as the winter Compitalia festival for neighbourhood lares – cheerful protective gods of streets, neighbourhoods and travel – record-keeping and involvement in planning the ludi.³⁸

The task of tueri (‘watching over’ or ‘supervising’) a neighbourhood also involved benefactions. For example, the freedman Numerius Lucius Hermeros, along with his two fellow magistri vici, donated two sets of scale weights for commerce, and a sanctuary for Hercules in which the scales were stationed, to his neighbourhood in 4/5 ce.³⁹ The dedicatory inscription describes Hermeros’ gift as part of his role in ‘watching out’ (tueri, l. 10) for his neighbourhood (vicinia, l. 9). A later addition to this inscription, from 12/13 ce, recognises Hermeros and the other magistri from 4/5 ce for getting together with the current magistri in order to balance the scales again. This later service was also characterised as ‘watching out for the neighbourhood’ (invigulantes pro vicinia, ll.12–13). For freedmen such as Hermeros, the prestige of being a ward officer (adorned in the toga praetexta at the Compitalia) made the office an attractive investment of economic resources and time. Indeed, Hermeros’ was given the honorific nickname, Aequitas (‘Fairness’), by his neighbours, in recognition of his commitment to ensure that precious metals would be valued fairly in his neighbourhood, a prominent concern in this region of Rome that cut through a commercial district (the Forum Boarium).

These inscriptions highlight how some Romans – specifically here the residents of Hermeros’ vicus who came together to commend him for enhancing fairness in the commerce of the vicus, as well as celebrating Hermeros’ goodwill in ‘watching out’ for his neighbours – foregrounded their experiences in neighbourhood-based economic affairs, social relationships and built environments. The dedicants lived in the city and in houses, but their social worlds were primarily somewhere in between these two levels of society.

3. Idealised Unity and Structures that Divide

Thucydides cannot be treated as a spokesperson for all his contemporaries who lived in countryside demes. Rather, he articulated the experience of some adult male citizens of Athens. There were also women, metics, slaves and children fleeing the countryside in 431 bce. These neighbours of enfranchised demesmen did not participate in deme assemblies or theatres, and moreover did not enjoy most other advantages tied to citizenship. So the very structures of the deme – its assemblies, theatres, barber shops, festivals – displayed social differences between neighbours.⁴⁰ Likewise, the clubhouses, baths, temples, domestic architecture, festivals, cults, administrative magistracies and collegia of Roman neighbourhoods were designed to include some residents and exclude others.

Thucydides can generalise about the ‘way of life’ in the countryside demes because he omits the diverse experiences of non-citizen residents. Epigraphy produced by spokespersons of neighbourhood collectives can be just as misleading. Thucydides’ attribution of cohesion to the deme is matched, for instance, in epigraphic attributions of cohesion or agency to entire locales. A famous example of attributed religious coherence for an entire town is in the Orcistus dossier documenting the correspondence between the Orcistan council, Constantine and a regional vicarius (MAMA vii.305; Phrygia; 331 ce). Specifically, Constantine was apparently persuaded that omnes … sectatores sanctissimae religionis ‘all [Orcistans] are adherents of the most holy rite/religion’ (ll. 40–2), a statement often taken as a reference to Christian practitioners. It is difficult to believe that any spokespersons’ generalisation about the practices of an entire population could be accurate.

With respect to attributions of agency to neighbourhoods, some dedications are presented as though they were issued from the whole neighbourhoods (as if the neighbourhood were a metaphorical and cohesive person-agent). A more realistic scenario is that such dedications and honorifics were initiatives of powerful individuals from the neighbourhood who created some level of temporary consent. Neighbourhoods were not as cohesive as Thucydides or Hellenistic and Roman epigraphic texts would have us believe.

Some researchers in the area of cognitive science describe the intuition that groups such as neighbourhoods behave as metaphorical individuals, carrying intentions and the propensity to act autonomously, as a cross-cultural and universal principle of folk sociological explanations of the role of groups in complex societies.⁴¹ This principle is cross-cultural and resonates with anecdotal evidence from Greek and Roman literature. These texts attribute agency to groups in ways that will be immediately relatable to today's parlance (e.g. ‘Alabama passes a bill that …’; ‘Canada retaliates with tariffs on …’). One outcome of this language is that the group, whether a polis, neighbourhood, company or collegium, is made to appear as a unified community – so cohesive in fact that it can itself act in unison.

We should not take literary references or epigraphic statements of neighbourhood unity at face value. It is common to see in ancient literature whole groups described with agency: fearing, desiring, waging war, showing hostility, and so on. Ascribing agency to whole groups (such as neighbourhoods or structures within neighbourhoods including collegia) holds useful and efficient explanatory power for quickly understanding conflict and relationships between two or more collectives,⁴² more so than would accrediting the motivations and agendas behind these conflicts and relationships to a few individuals whose consensus-building strategies successfully pushed collectives to action. Nonetheless, historians of ancient literature can see that the reality was more nuanced than the texts suggest. Only some Spartans feared Athenian aggression (tidier for Thucydides to say they all did (1.23.4–6)), only some Greeks were horrified by the destruction of Thebes by Alexander's forces, and the trial-less execution of Callisthenes (more on-message for Arrian and Curtius Rufus to generalise (Arrian, Anab. 1.9; Quintus Curtius Rufus 8.22)); only some Romans enjoyed chariot racing (more effective rhetorically for Juvenal to generalise about the Roman people as a whole (Sat. 10.77–81)). When we find dedications, honorifics and decrees that claim to be completed by a group, it is best to treat them with the same level of scrutiny that the claims by the aforementioned literary writers are given.⁴³

4. Christ Worship and the Neighbourhood in 1 Cor 14.22–5

What impact would a Pauline ekklēsia have on its vicinity? Would its entrance requirements be so exclusive that the neighbourhood would become (yet more) divided? Or would it function so as to create greater cohesion among residents in the vicinity of its meeting place? For the remainder of the study, I approach these questions – applying the insights above along the way – through a case study of 1 Cor 14.22–5. In this text, Paul puts forward a hypothetical (though seemingly pressing) scenario of passers-by (ἰδιῶται ἢ ἄπιστοι) observing the rituals of Christ worship and entering the meeting place of the ekklēsia. The setting of Paul's scenario is not a household, ekklēsia, or polis but rather everyone living in proximity to (i.e. within short walking distance from) the meeting place of the ekklēsia, inclusive of members and non-members alike: the vicinity or neighbourhood.

The meeting place of the Corinthian ekklēsia was probably near most or all members’ houses for the same common-sense reason that the grocery stores and parks we visit on foot (if possible) are usually the ones closest to our own houses. Perhaps the group assembled in a member's house, a rented room or open-air space. In a recent article, I proposed that the ekklēsia in Corinth was rooted in the city block in which its first members, Stephanas’ household, lived (1 Cor 16.15), and that its members were mainly neighbours, though not necessarily all participants in Christ worship.⁴⁴ Luke imagines the first members of the Corinthian ekklēsia as neighbours: the group was formed on the street of the synagogue next to Titius Justus’ house (Acts 18.7), within close proximity to Prisca and Aquila (18.2), who introduced Paul to the neighbourhood, and near the house of Crispus’ household, too (18.8).

It is conceivable that when Paul entered a city, he would practise his teaching vicatim – that is, ‘neighbourhood by neighbourhood’. Grain was distributed vicatim by the curule aediles of 203 bce, Marcus Valerius Falto and Marcus Fabius Buteo (Livy 30.26.5–6). In the recensus populi of 46 bce and around 8 bce, people were counted vicatim (Suetonius, Caes. 41.3; Suetonius, Aug. 40.2). Around 90 bce, an unnamed man (perhaps Tiberius Gracchus if the event happened earlier)⁴⁵ on trial for a capital offence went around the city vicatim appealing for support.⁴⁶ Whether or not Paul reached people ‘neighbourhood by neighbourhood’, it would be a practical approach to covering a city.

4.1 Neighbours to the ekklēsia

The passers-by (ἰδιῶται ἢ ἄπιστοι) who enter the meeting place in Paul's scenario were necessarily on the same street as the ekklēsia. The setting, then, is premised on proximity no matter how we understand the specifics. We will see in fact that Paul's use of ἰδιώτης is highly suggestive and metaphoric of neighbours in the literary context of 1 Cor 14.22–5, and that Paul's language here can be added to the observations above on the neighbourhood social basis of the origins of the ekklēsia. The full section reads as follows:

If, therefore, the whole assembly should come together, and all should speak in tongues, and private citizens (ἰδιῶται) who are untrustworthy (ἢ ἄπιστοι) should enter, would they not say that you are mad (μαίνɛσθαι)? But, if all should prophecy, and a certain untrustworthy private citizen (ἄπιστος ἢ ἰδιώτης) should enter, they are cross-examined (ἐλέγχɛται) and interrogated (ἀνακρίνɛται) by all, the secrets (κρυπτά) of their heart become manifest and, in this way, after falling on their face, they will make obeisance towards God, proclaiming that God is truly among you. (1 Cor 14.22–5)⁴⁷

In Paul's scenario, the ekklēsia assembled and members began speaking in tongues when the ἰδιῶται entered.

In approaching the role of the ἰδιῶται in the Corinthian ekklēsia, the most precise linguistic and conceptual comparative evidence is Athenian political discourse, for it is here that the role of ἰδιῶται in a (civic) ekklēsia setting is explicitly illustrated.⁴⁸ The Athenian ἰδιῶται are voting-age male citizens – and so in these respects indistinguishable from Athenians who participate fully in public life, such as the πολιτɛυόμɛνοι, ῥήτορɛς and στρατηγοί, with whom they are contrasted on other grounds (e.g. Demosthenes 25.97 καὶ τῶν ῥητόρων καὶ τῶν ἰδιωτῶν, 52.28 πολιτɛυομένου καὶ οὐκ ἰδιώτου; Aeschines 3.252–3 ἰδιώτης … ῥήτωρ).⁴⁹ The contrast, specifically, is that πολιτɛυόμɛνοι, ῥήτορɛς and στρατηγοί participate actively and eagerly in the ekklēsia and in public life generally, while ἰδιῶται have limited role in governing institutions and activities. The great Athenian orator Demosthenes can use ἰδιώτης for citizens whose levels of civic engagement range from speaking infrequently at Council meetings (22.37) to holding minor public offices (e.g. market-clerk (ἀγορανόμος), street-inspector (ἀστυνόμος)) filled by lot rather than election (24.112). The ἰδιῶται can be understood as political novices and as lacking experience, basic knowledge or expertise (Demosthenes 19.182, 24.66, 24.112, 34.1, 44.4, cf. Plato, Apol. 17c–d).⁵⁰ They might also be understood as total non-participants in public life (e.g. assembly absentees, non-voters, non-office-holders) and, in the valuation of Thucydides’ Pericles in the funerary oration, ‘useless’ (2.40).⁵¹

Other writers spoke highly of political novices and proposed that the polis would benefit if governing institutions should be given over to unambitious ἰδιῶται, thus depriving self-interested orators from directing policies that suit their own interests (Demosthenes 22.37; cf. Plato, Resp. 7.521b; Dio Chrysostom, Or. 34.19). Such orators are most vocal in these institutions – the ‘talkers’, not unlike members of Paul's ekklēsia who perform glossolalia in the scenario of 1 Cor 14.22–5. Crucially, despite their quietism, the ἰδιῶται are full members of the Athenian demos and eligible to take part in the ekklēsia. This is an important point in interpreting 1 Cor 14.22–5.

The idea of ἰδιῶται being ‘cross-examined (ἐλέγχɛται) and interrogated (ἀνακρίνɛται)’ (1 Cor 14.24) is significant too. In Athenian political discourse, one of the main perceived advantages of democracy over oligarchy and tyranny was oversight in that civic officials in democracies open themselves to audit, examination and investigation (Aeschines 3.22). They are thus formally accountable in ways that a tyrant is not; citizens who participated in running the polis at the level of holding public offices subjected themselves to formal scrutiny processes and to the possibility of punishment.⁵² Participating in the polis at the level of an ἰδιώτης or at the somewhat synonymous level of ἀπράγμων, by contrast, relieved the citizen from suffering formal scrutiny procedures. And yet these ἰδιῶται still held influence despite their quietism: they were assembly participants who voted on important issues, and jurors, for instance. They were (to an extent) unaccountable in a way similar to a tyrant.⁵³

Paul's selected the metaphor of an ἰδιώτης for a passer-by suggests that the individual is fully enfranchised to take part in the ekklēsia, in a way similar to a civic ἰδιώτης who has the invitation to participate in political life by right of their Athenian citizenship but chooses to abstain for the most part. We would expect a collegium spokesperson such as Paul to conceptualise passers-by as outsiders or non-members; the ἰδιώτης metaphor blurs the distinction between members and non-members so commonly reified in the documentary evidence of associations.⁵⁴

We know very little about the status of neighbours who declined to join a newly formed neighbourhood-based collegium. Actually, when interpreting an inscription produced by a neighbourhood, it is difficult to tell whether we are dealing with a durable collegium founded for neighbours or a less formally organised neighbourhood of residents who occasionally undertake collective action. Such collectives are often represented by their spokespersons as ‘street’ (πλατɛῖα) or ‘neighbourhood’ (e.g. γɛιτνίασις), in reference to the vicinity of their ‘members’’ work or residence.⁵⁵ Are the activities of such groups open to all who lived or worked in the ward or just to members in a collegium? A sample of the evidence can be illustrative of the problems in defining these groups and their boundaries. Neighbourhood magistrates appear in many inscriptions, for instance, but we do not know whom they served. In an inscription on a marble base from Pergamon, ‘the inhabitants on Paspareitai street’ (οἱ κατοικοῦντɛς τὴν Πασπαρɛιτῶν πλατɛῖαν) honoured a civic benefactor, L(ucius) Cuspius Pactumeius Rufinus.⁵⁶ Supervisors (ἐπιμɛληταί) are named – Menandros and Eutaktos – but they may have been transient, merely watching over the construction of the monument named in the inscription. The ‘ones from the street’ (οἱ ἐκ τῆς πλατɛ̣ί̣ας) in Mylasa dedicated an altar (80 × 55 cm) to an emperor who cannot be identified due to breaks in the stone, and to Zeus Olympios on behalf of an Olympic victor. The altar may have been used to make offerings to the street's protective gods.⁵⁷ Does the phrase οἱ ἐκ τῆς πλατɛ̣ί̣ας imply all residents on the street, or just members of an association called a πλατɛῖα? A monument set up in honour of a priest of Zeus Polieus (‘protector of the city’) by a Lindos neighbourhood (διαγωνία) of the Heliotadians of Astykronteians, Stasioneians and Autostheneians was dedicated simply θɛοῖς (‘to the gods’) who may have guarded the neighbourhood.⁵⁸ Were all the residents in a neighbourhood involved, or only those who were members of a formal association?

Perhaps Paul's metaphor in 1 Cor 14.22–5 shows that non-participating neighbours living on the street of a neighbourhood collegium could occasionally be seen as full members analogously to the relationship of civic ἰδιῶται to their civic governing institutions. If the ἰδιῶται-passers-by were completely outside the social network from which the ekklēsia was formed, then Paul could have described them more accurately as μέτοικοι, δουλοῖ and/or ἀσταί. As ἰδιῶται to the ekklēsia, they were enfranchised (i.e. openly invited to join the ekklēsia or participate actively in it) because, I suggest, of the close proximity of their residences to the street of the synagogue located next door to Justus, where the ekklēsia assembled.

Was it somehow in Paul's interest to name any resident in the neighbourhood of the ekklēsia with a term such as ἰδιώτης, which implies membership in a community? These ἰδιῶται may well include neighbours with whom ekklēsia members associated at temples (1 Cor 8.10), on the street (5.9–10) and at private dinners (10.27–30). Since members of the ekklēsia could have felt a greater sense of loyalty to their neighbours than to Paul and this newly founded collegium, Paul's inclusive term for such individuals functioned to symbolise openness in a way that we generally do not find in association documents insisting on rigid classifications (e.g. benefactor, official, member, guest, outsider). It is fascinating, moreover, that Paul urged a mode of behaviour, prophecy, that he sees attractive and inviting for the ἰδιῶται. Paul's model or ideal ekklēsia then is not a structure designed to divide neighbours (further).

4.2 The Untrustworthy Private Citizen

This brings us to the term ἄπιστοι, very often conceptualised as entirely separate from the ἰδιῶται.⁵⁹ But in 1 Cor 14.22–5, Paul uses the particle ἤ in the context of a direct question. When in a question, the particle functions differently differently from the way it does in statements. In Smyth's explanation, in questions, ‘ἤ often does not introduce an alternative to a previous question, but substitutes instead another question which is more specific and intended to anticipate the answer to the first’.⁶⁰ And so the term after ἤ is adjectival in a sense but also describes the issue with more precision than previously done with the term appearing prior to the particle.⁶¹ With this in mind, the verses (1 Cor 14.22–5) can be translated again as follows:

If, therefore, the whole assembly should come together, and all should speak in tongues, and a private citizen should enter, would they not say that you are mad (μαίνɛσθαι)? Or rather, more precisely, if untrustworthy individuals should enter, would they not say that you are mad? But, if all should prophecy, and a certain untrustworthy private citizen should enter, they are cross-examined and interrogated by all, the secrets of their heart become manifest and, in this way, after falling on their face, they will make obeisance towards God, proclaiming that God is truly among you.

Syntactically, the first mention of the untrustworthy ones (ἄπιστοι) pinpoints a specific characteristic of the ἰδιῶται so as to make the question about behaviour upon entrance of the ἰδιῶται more precise.⁶² Later in the passage the adjective essentially modifies the noun (ἰδιῶται ἢ ἄπιστοι) in light of the context in which it appears previously, so that we can now render the individual in question an ‘untrustworthy private citizen’. C. K. Barrett and other commentators have proposed the same though without the grammatical explanation.⁶³ To be sure, these previous interpreters take the ἰδιῶται to be ‘outsiders’ or ‘proselytes’.

Paul's detail about the secrets of the ἄπιστοι is very interesting. Deploying lies and misdirection was crucial for survival in the context of a polis – and even more so in a closely confined neighbourhood where privacy was an unavailable luxury. Various genres of Greek literature depict the polis setting as one where the individual was surrounded by suspicious adversaries⁶⁴ who spread rumours of personal faults and even small trivial matters that could damage the reputation of a family.⁶⁵ Even prior to the polis, the cunning of Odysseus, Penelope and Athena in Homer's Odyssey served as paradigms. In late republican Rome, Tiberius Gracchus was confronted at the Council of the Plebs in 133 by his rival, Pompeius, who claimed to be Gracchus’ neighbour (γɛιτνιᾶν) and possess knowledge of an unsavoury gift given to him by Eudemus of Pergamum indicative of Gracchus’ contemplation of setting himself up as king over Rome (Plutarch, Tib. 14.2). So while Paul attributes some level of deception to the ἄπιστοι, this remark did not necessarily hold negative connotations. He is not denigrating non-members for holding secrets; all individuals in a polis keep secrets except maybe from their family.⁶⁶ When the ἰδιῶται reveal their secrets in front of the ekklēsia in Paul's scenario, the procedure is akin to adoption into a family and aligns with Paul's other kinship discourse. The very assumption on Paul's part (an assumption apparently shared by the recipients of the letter) that these passers-by had secrets is difficult to understand unless some prior relationship existed between them and members. So we may have further indication of an ongoing acquaintance, as T. J. Lang has also recently argued on other grounds⁶⁷ – I have suggested neighbours and/or co-workers. Certainly, proximity is key in Paul's references to ἄπιστοι as spouses of members (e.g. 1 Cor 7.12 γυναῖκα ἄπιστον, ἄνδρα ἄπιστον) and dinner companions (10.27). Proximity may also be a factor in those ‘partnerships’ (κοινωνίαι) between ἄπιστοι and members, mentioned in 2 Cor 6.14–15.

Another dimension to Paul's use of ἄπιστοι is elucidated in Teresa Morgan's study of the πίστις word group. In Paul's scenario, the ἰδιῶται ἢ ἄπιστοι do not already worship (προσκυνɛῖν) Christ upon entrance to the meeting place. In overviewing the role of πίστις in human–divine relationships, Morgan highlights that humans ‘trust/have confidence/place their hope in the gods to be just, to make them well, to support them in many areas of life as long as they themselves [i.e. humans] have pistis/fides, and to reward well-performed religious rituals’.⁶⁸ The Corinthians who are ἄπιστοι towards Christ, by contrast (and in Paul's argumentation), reject the social significance of Christ and so the value of a reciprocal relationship with Christ (at least to the extent Paul values it). It is uncommon for individuals to characterise themselves as ἄπιστοι towards a god, and certainly 1 Cor 14.22–5 only tells us about Paul's own taxonomy. But if the ἰδιῶται referred to themselves as ἄπιστοι in relation to Christ, it would not be an unattested self-presentation. For instance, a stele from Saittai shows that a certain Claudia Bassa confessed that she did not appeal to the god of a temple concerning her illness for four years because ‘I did not trust the god’ (μὴ πιστɛύουσα τῷ θɛῷ) (SEG xxxiii.1012, lines 2–3; Saittai, Lydia, Asia Minor; 252/3 ce).

The act of proskynēsis (blowing a kiss and/or bowing or even laying prostrate on the floor before a social superior including a god), with which the ἄπιστοι refused to greet Christ, is entirely about showing loyalty and obedience to the social superior. A famous illustration of this is the refusal of Callisthenes of Olynthus, Aristotle's relative and Alexander the Great's court historian, to give obeisance (proskynēsis) to Alexander when the latter introduced it into his Macedonian court in 327 bce (Arrian, Anab. 4.9–12). The sources disagree over precisely how Callisthenes died, but Alexander grouped him with others who had hatched a plan to assassinate the king (4.12–14.3). In other words, Callisthenes’ refusal was treated by Alexander as disloyalty, and as treasonous (Justin, Epitome 15.3.3–5).

The Callisthenes example can raise questions about why the ἰδιῶται of the Corinthian ekklēsia might refuse to give obeisance to Christ. Callisthenes refused to give obeisance to Alexander because he insisted that such honours were for gods alone and should not be given to humans (Arrian, Anab. 4.11.2–4). In various Greek texts from the classical period, the act of prostrating oneself in front of a non-god was an affront to one's dignity and seen as slavish (for Greek perspectives on proskynēsis, see Aeschylus, Pers. 588–9; Herodotus 7.136; Xenophon, Hell. 4.1.35). In literature from the Roman period, it became socially acceptable to provide proskynēsis to royalty as well as gods, but still not to (deceased) ordinary humans.⁶⁹ It would seem that the ἄπιστοι fully refused to accept the social significance of Christ or at least refused to see him as a divinity worthy of such a manner of reverence. Perhaps, though enfranchised because they lived on the street of the synagogue next to Justus’ house and because the ekklēsia was a neighbourhood-based collegium, they declined formal membership in the ekklēsia. Nonetheless, the line between member and non-member neighbour in a neighbourhood-based collegium such as the ekklēsia was very fine.

5. Conclusion: The Impact of the ekklēsia on Neighbourhood

The practice of Christ worship in mid-first century Corinth would have been integrated into the activities and relationships of the specific street or neighbourhood where the ekklēsia was located. In practice, the ekklēsia, as a structure of that neighbourhood, divided neighbours to a degree, even though Paul stopped short of exacerbating the impact. That the addition of the ekklēsia to the street on which it was located created new divisions is an unavoidable conclusion from 1 Cor 14.22–5: some fully eligible residents who were part of the (neighbourhood-based) social network from which the ekklēsia recruited decided not to join and so these neighbours were (further) alienated from others.

The success of Paul's assemblies probably would depend on members’ openness to people living nearby, for whom the gathering places were conveniently located, whether they practised Christ worship or not. Since the ἰδιῶται, that is neighbours, who passed by the assembly in 1 Cor 14.22–5 would be, like the civic ἰδιῶται of classical Athens who had the vote, highly influential on the ekklēsia and its members, Paul's general congeniality towards them suggests that Christ worship on this street could co-exist harmoniously, at least in Paul's thought, with the other practices and identities that characterised life in the neighbourhood.