THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION OF EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY: A CRITICAL SURVEY OF THE

FIELD
Author(s): Stephen C. Barton
Source: The Journal of Theological Studies , OCTOBER 1992, NEW SERIES, Vol. 43, No. 2
(OCTOBER 1992), pp. 399-427
Published by: Oxford University Press

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION OF
EARLIEST CHRISTIANITY: A CRITICAL
SURVEY OF THE FIELD

In recent study of the New Testament, there has

sion of interest in the communal dimension of earlie
The very rapid growth of this field of study justi
which both attempts to put these scholarly deve
spective and gives a survey of some of the more im
butions. In what follows, therefore, I seek, first, to t
of this field of study, and then to select and summar
in this field over the past two decades, drawing a num
conclusions at the end.1

i. Tracing the Roots of this Field of Study

The roots of the more recent interest in the ideas a

of community in the period of Christian origins are
various. I would want to identify at least nine.
i. Within biblical scholarship itself, the developmen
criticism and subsequently redaction criticism has h
impact. In the study of the gospels, for example, form cr
Martin Dibelius and Rudolph Bultmann on have been
cessful in showing that the gospel traditions have a h
that the various forms of the tradition relate to vari
(Sitze im Leben) in the life of Jesus or in the life of the
communities of believers.2 Similarly, redactional investigations of
the theologies of the evangelists have shown repeatedly the extent
to which the gospels in their final form represent responses of a
pastoral kind to crises and controversies in communities of second
generation believers.3
1 The genesis of this essay is my much shorter piece on 'Community' in
R. J. Coggins and J. L. Houlden (eds), A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation
(London, 1990), 135-8. The present, expanded version was presented at the
graduate seminar of the Department of Religious Studies in the University of
Newcastle upon Tyne, in May, 1990, and at the New Testament study group at
Tyndale House, Cambridge, in July, 1990. My warm thanks to my Durham
colleagues, Sandy Wedderburn and Colin Crowder, for their comments on the
paper.
2 See M. Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel (ET, London, 1934; German
original, 1919); R. Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (ET, Oxford,
1968, 2nd ed; German original, 1931); and the survey of Ε. V. McKnight, What
is Form Criticism? (Philadelphia, 1969).
3 See, e.g. the essays on the gospels in J. L. Mays (ed.), Interpreting the Gospels
(Philadelphia, 1981); and the survey of N. Perrin, What is Redaction Criticism?
(London, 1970).

© Oxford University Press 1992

[Journal of Theological Studies, NS, Vol. 43, Pt. 2, October 1992 ]

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 400 STEPHEN C. BARTON

2. In Roman Catholic scholarship, Va

impact on the study of ecclesiology and
and the Fathers. The crucial document
tium (or, the 'Dogmatic Constitution
noteworthy how pervasive here is the
and images, as Avery Dulles acknowled
Brown's recent books6 reflect this imp
complete convergence of methodologi
study which has occurred between Catholic and Protestant
exegetes.
3. In Liberal Protestantism, Rudolph Bultmann's Lutheran
theological hermeneutic, which tended to reduce New Testament
theology to categories of individual human experience compatible
with existentialist philosophy, has been subjected to extensive
criticism at both the exegetical and theological levels. As Robert
Morgan has pointed out in a recent essay,7
Bultmann accepted Herrmann's contrast between the past history rese
arched by historians, and a personal, inner, existential 'history' (Gesch
ichte), which is said to be the locus of faith, genuine religion, and human
meaning. This implied lack of religious interest in the social, historical
world, and its concentration in ethics on the individual subject rather
than on institutions and cultural values, is why many theologians today
prefer Troeltsch to Herrmann, and are uneasy about Bultmann.

This kind of unease has generated a renewed focus on the social,

communal and political dimensions of early Christian beliefs
and practices. In Germany, the writings of G. Theissen,8
W. Schottroff, and W. Stegemann9 are instances of this develop

4 In A. Flannery (éd.), Vatican Council II (Leominster, 1981), 350 ff. Note, too,
the statement in par. 19 of the 'Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation' ( =
Dei Verbum) which recognizes explicitly the communal interest of the authors of
the New Testament: 'The sacred authors, in writing the four Gospels, selected
certain of the many elements which had been handed on, . . . others they synthe
sized or explained with an eye to the situation of the churches, the while sustaining
the form of preaching, but always in such a fashion that they have told us the
honest truth about Jesus' (Flannery, Vatican Council II, 761; my emphasis).
5 See A. Dulles, Models of the Church (Dublin, 1976), 17 ff.
6 R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York and London,
1979); id. The Critical Meaning of the Bible (London, 1981); R. E. Brown and
J. P. Meier, Antioch and Rome (New York, 1983); and Brown, The Churches the
Apostles Left Behind (New York, 1984).
7 R. Morgan, 'Rudolph Bultmann' in D. Ford (ed.), The Modern Theologians,
vol. ι (Oxford, 1989), 109-33, at 117-18.
8 G. Theissen, The First Followers of Jesus (ET, London, 1978); id. The Social
Setting of Pauline Christianity (ET, Edinburgh, 1982).
9 W. Schottroff and W. Stegemann, God of the Lowly: Socio-Historical Inter
pretations of the Bible (ET, New York, 1984).

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 401

ment. Ironically, in view of Bultmann's predom

contribute to the task of theology, it is his work
traditions and the history of religions which ha
test of time.
4. The ethos of the 1960s, a period of rapid economic develop
ment, political protest, and social experimentation in the West,
played a part also. At the academic level, the social sciences came
into prominence in a new way and enormous attention was given
to the seminal work of the 'founding fathers' of the discipline:
Weber, Durkheim, Marx, Tônnies, and so on.10 At the social level,
there was a widespread quest of a counter-cultural kind for altern
ative lifestyles and patterns of community expressing the values
of Romanticism.11 And at the ecclesiastical level, there was a
serious questioning of hierarchical and authoritarian Church
structures, along with various attempts to develop alternative
Churches on the 'small is beautiful' principle.12 Much writing
since then about community in early Christianity is indebted, to
some extent, to these kinds of developments.13
5. Another factor is the impact of the charismatic movement,
spread throughout a very wide range of Christian Churches and
denominations.14 The custom of this movement to appeal to the
charismatic element in Christian origins as a warrant for change
in Christian understanding and practice today has influenced a
number of accounts of community and the Spirit in the New
Testament. A major case in point is the work of J. D. G. Dunn.15
He has argued persuasively that charismatic experience was the
10 See, e.g., T. Raison (éd.), The Founding Fathers of Social Science (London,
1969). The importance of the social sciences for helping to clarify how best
'community' might be studied is demonstrated in a recent book by A. P. Cohen,
The Symbolic Construction of Community (London and New York, 1985).
11 See the account of Berenice Martin, A Sociology of Contemporary Cultural
Change (Oxford, 1981).
12 See, for example, R. Banks, "'Small is Beautiful": The Relevance of Paul's
Idea of Community for the Local Church Today', Theological Renewal, 22 (1982),
4—18, and the literature cited there.
13 See Banks, Paul's Idea of Community (Exeter, 1979). For a general account
of the social context of modern theology, see the works of Robin Gill, e.g. Theology
and Social Structure (Oxford, 1977), and Theology and Sociology: A Reader
(London, 1987).
14 For an authoritative account, see W. Hollenweger, The Pentecostals (1976,
2nd ed.).
15 J. D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit. A Re-examination of the New
Testament Teaching on the Gift of the Spirit in relation to Pentecostalism today
(London, 1970); id. Jesus and the Spirit: A Study of the Religious and Charismatic
Experience of Jesus and the First Christians as Reflected in the New Testament
(London, 1975); id. 'Models of Christian Community in the New Testament', in
D. Martin and P. Mullen (eds.), Strange Gifts? (Oxford, 1984), 1—18.

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 402 STEPHEN C. BARTON

bedrock of early Christian community,

Churches was primarily charismatic, a
(and especially Pauline) ideal of the wo
one which placed a premium on the ex
'gifts' of the Spirit by individual church
summary statement in Jesus and the S
the early church's sense of community ste
first resurrection appearances but from Pen
hierarchy, not from an established traditi
liturgical or sacramental practice . . . but f
the eschatological Spirit and the communal ent
The influence of a particular theologi
enz is quite evident here. This same ki
even very specific topics the object of
being a good illustration.17
6. Fashions in contemporary Christo
been influential also. A good example
past is the curiously literal interpretat
the Church as 'the body of Christ' in t
as John Robinson and John Knox.18 I
little-known critique of their work,19
Judge points out that historical sceptic
about the viability of 'God' in the theology of the time were
compensated for by an inflated theology of the Church as, literally,
the body of Christ.20 Judge shows how this development was
reflected, inter alia, in the frequent paraphrasing, in an 'incorpora
tionist' direction, of the Pauline phrase, 'in Christ', in the New
English Bible (1961, 1970).21 In general, he argues strongly that
16 Dunn, J (sus and the Spirit, 188 (author's emphasis).
17 The 'guide to research' by W. E. Mills, Speaking in Tongues (Grand Rapids,
1986), runs to 535 pages! See also, K. Stendahl's essay, 'Glossolalia and the
Charismatic Movement' in J. Jervell and W. A. Meeks (eds.), God's Christ and
His People (Oslo, 1977), 122-131.
18 J. A. T. Robinson, The Body: A Study in Pauline Theology (London, 1952);
John Knox, The Church and the Reality of Christ (London, 1963).
19 E. A. Judge, 'Demythologizing the Church: What is the Meaning of "The
Body of Christ?"', Interchange, 11 (1972), 155—67.
20 Judge, 'Demythologizing', 158: 'In spite of all the scepticism, our authors do
in fact find themselves still believing in Christ. Because they cannot feel confident,
however, of the traditional locus of the knowledge of Christ in the records of the
past, they must find him in the only place they can take seriously, the community
of those who follow him. It is intriguing that in Bishop Robinson's little book,
But That I Can't Believe!, the Church itself is a conspicuous absentee from the
list of incredible things.'
21 e.g. 'incorporate in Christ' in Col. 1: 2; 'a member of Christ's body' in
Col. 1: 28; 'incorporate in him' in Phil. 3: 9; and, in Eph. 1:13, 'became incorporate
in Christ'. The 'incorporationist' theology is still evident in the Revised English

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 403

'the body of Christ' is a metaphor whose plain

ational, and that it will not bear the literalist weig
upon it. His discussion alerts us in a very clear way
impact of doctrinal discussion on historical and
of the early Church.
7. Contemporary movements of liberation have been yet
another force behind the study of community in the New Testa
ment. Feminist scholars22 have traced the roots of women's
oppression in Church and society today to the patriarchalization
of authority in the early Church. At the same time, they have
discovered also prophetic, egalitarian strands and symbols of
women's liberation in the New Testament texts. As Elisabeth
Fiorenza puts it:
Feminist biblical interpretation must therefore challenge the scriptura
authority of patriarchal texts and explore how the Bible is used as a
weapon against women in our struggles for liberation. It must also explore
whether and how the Bible can become a resource in this struggle.23
A similar critical ambivalence marks the response of those who
come to the Bible from the viewpoint of political or liberation
theology, and again, the focus on ideas of community and on the
practice in early Christianity of solidarity with the oppressed and
the marginalized is central.24 For both feminist and liberationist
interpreters it is a basic axiom that interpretation is a political ac
and that the hermeneutical key lies in the concrete, contemporary
experience of the members of oppressed communities. So the
interest in the study of community in the New Testament (and in
the Bible as a whole) springs out of the strong communal concerns
of the movements of liberation themselves.25 In feminism, the
hermeneutical centre is the 'women-church' or the 'ekklesia of
women'. In liberation theology, it is the Basic Christian Commu
nities.

Bible (1989), though to a lesser extent. Compare 'as a mature member of Christ's
body', in Col. 1: 28; and, 'in union with him', in Phil. 3: 9.
22 See, e.g., R. R. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk (London, 1983); E. S. Fior
enza, In Memory of Her (London, 1983); and L. M. Russell (ed.), Feminist Inter
pretation of the Bible (Oxford, 1985).
23 Fiorenza, 'The Will to Choose or to Reject: Continuing Our Critical Work',
in L. M. Russell (ed.), Interpretation, 125-36, at 129.
21 See, e.g., Ν. K. Gottwald (ed.), The Bible and Liberation: Political and Social
Hermeneutics (New York, 1983); C. Rowland, Radical Christianity (Oxford, 1988);
C. Rowland and M. Corner, Liberating Exegesis: The Challenge of Liberation
Theology to Biblical Studies (London, 1990).
25 Cf. Rowland and Corner, Liberating Exegesis, 39: 'It is a reading which is
emphatically communitarian, in which reflection on the story of a people can
indeed lead to the appreciation of the sensus ecclesiae and a movement towards
liberative action.'

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 404 STEPHEN C. BARTON

8. Developments in relations between Jews and Christians

today, especially in the aftermath of the Holocaust, have provided
particular stimulus for investigating relations between communit
ies of Jews and Christians in the first century. A number of issues
have been important in this regard. One issue has been how these
groups defined their respective identities.26 Historical study, such
as that carried out by E. P. Sanders and Jacob Neusner,27 has
made more clear than ever before that there was a wide diversity
of ways of being a Jew in the first century and that the movement
inaugurated by Jesus began as a Messianic reform movement
within Judaism.28 A second and related issue has been the attempt
to explain the 'parting of the ways' between Jews and Christians.29
Here, attention has focused both on the controversies surrounding
the important traditional boundary-markers of Judaism (i.e.
temple, law, and circumcision), and on the cataclysmic effects of
the fall of Jerusalem in 70 ce. A third issue has been the question
of anti-semitism in the New Testament, a question which has
been raised by theologians as well as historians.30 This has led, in
the study of early Christianity, to attempts to distinguish different
kinds of 'anti-Judaism' (rather than the more narrowly racial
category, 'anti-semitism') and to define more carefully the sociolo
gical factors and community dynamics which contributed to the
phenomenon in its various forms. Even the rhetorical conventions

26 Note the recent collection of essays entitled, 'To See Ourselves As Others See
Us: Christians, Jews, 'Others' in Late Antiquity, ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs
(Chico, Calif., 1985); and see the earlier essay by J. Z. Smith, 'Fences and
Neighbours: Some Contours of Early Judaism', in W. S. Green (ed.), Approaches
to Ancient Judaism, //(Chico, Calif., 1980), 1—25.
27 See E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (London, 1977); id., Jesus
and Judaism (London, 1985); J. Neusner, Judaism in the Beginning of Christianity
(London, 1984).
28 Rowland, Christian Origins: An Account of the Setting and Character of the
Most Important Messianic Sect of Judaism (London, 1985), 76, puts it quite bluntly:
'We cannot assume that the early Christians ever lost sight of their Jewish heritage,
nor were they conscious of being anything other than Jews.'
29 This has been a particular interest of G. N. Stanton, who has worked extens
ively on the evidence thrown up by Matthew: e.g., 'The Gospel of Matthew and
Judaism', BJRL, 66 (1984), 264—84. Important also is A. F. Segal, Rebecca's
Children. Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridge, Mass., 1986).
30 The literature is extensive. See, inter alia, Ruether, Faith and Fratricide. The
Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York, 1974); C. Thoma, A Christian
Theology of Judaism (New York, 1980); F. Mussner, Tractate on the Jews. The
Significance of Judaism for Christian Faith (London, 1984); J. G. Gager, The
Origins of Anti-Semitism. Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian
Antiquity (New York, 1985); P. Richardson (ed), Anti-Judaism in Early Christian
ity, Vol. i., Paul and the Gospels (Waterloo, Ontario, 1986); etc.

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 405

of antiquity had their part to play, as Luke Joh

recently.31
g. Three trends in recent New Testament historiography are
worth mentioning as a final point. One is the development of a
more genuine social history approach, which tries to relate early
Christian beliefs and practices to the material and social concerns
of particular groups and strata in first-century society. I am think
ing here, for example, of the work of Edwin Judge and others32
on schools, S. Scott Bartchy33 on slaves, R. F. Hock34 on artisans
and tradespeople, F. W. Danker35 on benefactors, D. L. Balch38
on women and households, Bonnie B. Thurston37 on widows,
J. H. Elliott38 on 'resident aliens', P. Marshall39 on relations of
friendship and enmity, R. L. Wilken40 on clubs and societies,
F. Gerald Downing41 on the Cynics, A. J. Malherbe42 on the
moral philosophers, and so on.
A second development is a specifically interdisciplinary one,
involving the use of methods and models from the social sciences
to describe more precisely the dynamics of community formation

31 L. T. Johnson, 'The New Testament's Anti-Jewish Slander and the Conven

tions of Ancient Polemic', JBL, 108 (1989), 419-41.
32 Judge, 'The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community', JRH, 1 (1960-1),
4-15, 125-37. On Matthew, see K. Stendahl, The School of St Matthew and its
Use of the Old Testament (Philadelphia, 1968, 2nd ed.); on the Fourth Gospel, see
R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School (Missoula, 1975). Attention should also
be drawn to the excellent essay by S. K. Stowers on the social location of Paul's
preaching: 'Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: The Circum
stances of Paul's Preaching Activity', Nov. T, xxvi (1984), 59—82.
33 S. S. Bartchy, ΜΑΛΛΟΝ ΧΡΗΣΑΙ: First-Century Slavery and the Interpreta
tion of ι Corinthians 7: 21 (Missoula, 1973).
34 R. Hock, The Social Context of Paul's Ministry: Tentmaking and Apostleship
(Philadelphia, 1980).
35 F. W. Danker, Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New
Testament Semantic Field (St Louis, 1982).
36 D. L. Balch, Let Wives Be Submissive. The Domestic Code in I Peter (Chico;
Calif., 1981); id., 'Household Codes', in D. E. Aune, (éd.), Greco-Roman Literature
and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres (Atlanta, 1988), 25-50.
37 Β. B. Thurston, The Widows. A Women's Ministry in the Early Church
(Minneapolis, 1989).
38 J. H. Elliott, A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of I Peter, Its
Situation and Strategy (Philadelphia, 1981).
39 P. Marshall, Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul's Relations with
the Corinthians (Tubingen, 1987).
40 R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven and
London, 1984).
41 F. G. Downing, Jesus and the Threat of Freedom (London, 1987).
42 A. J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of
Pastoral Care (Philadelphia, 1987); id., Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Minnea
polis, 1989).

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 406 STEPHEN C. BARTON

and boundary management in early Ch

cedent existed already in the work of
of charismatic authority, Ernst Troel
logy, Karl Marx and Karl Kautsky on the economic and class
basis of religious practice, Ludwig Feuerbach and Sigmund Freud
on the psychological dimension of religion, Emile Durkheim on
the social function of religion, and Peter Berger and Thomas
Luckmann on the sociology of knowledge, to name but a few of
the major contributors.43 It is probably true to say that some of
the most innovative (if also most speculative) recent work on the
communal dimension of early Christianity is indebted to inter
disciplinary approaches which draw upon the social sciences.
Some writers draw most heavily on sociology, others on the
insights of social (or cultural) anthropology, others yet again on
psychology.44
A third development, which is still in its infancy especially in
so far as study of the New Testament is concerned, is that of
canonical criticism.45 It is important to mention this form of
criticism here because, at its very heart, there lies a deep appreci
ation that the New Testament, and the Bible of which it is a part,
is a product of community. As a natural development of form and
redaction criticism, canonical criticism draws attention both to
the canonical process and to canonical hermeneutics as witnesses
to 'the function of the Bible as canon in the believing communities
which formed and shaped it and passed it on to their heirs of
today.'46 As such, canonical criticism is an important counter
weight against the rationalizing, individualizing, and secularizing
tendencies of post-Enlightenment exegesis, and serves to foster
awareness of the integral relation of Bible, Church, and synagogue.

43 For important critical surveys, see, inter alios, M. Hill, A Sociology of Religion
(London, 1973); and J. Bowker, The Sense of God (Oxford, 1973).
44 See the excellent bibliography of D. J. Harrington, 'Second Testament
Exegesis and the Social Sciences: A Bibliography', BTB, 18 (1988), 77-85, which
very usefully distinguishes works according to the broad category of social science
method used. Even more comprehensive is G. Theissen, 'Auswahlbibliographie
zur Sozialgeschichte des Urchristentums', in Studien zur Soziologie des Urchristen
tums (Tubingen, 1989), 331-70.
45 The two main contributors in this area are James A. Sanders and Brevard S.
Childs, both primarily Old Testament scholars. For Sanders, see, Torah and Canon
(Philadelphia, 1972), and Canon and Community (Philadelphia, 1984). For Childs,
see, Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (Philadelphia, 1979), and The
New Testament as Canon: An Introduction (London, 1984).
46 James A. Sanders, Canon and Community, xv.

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 407
II. An Overview of Specific New Testament
Texts

Having surveyed the roots of contemporary study of communi

in the New Testament, it is necessary to give a selective over
of discussions relating to particular texts. This will show at
two things. First, at the historical level, that community format
and maintenance were all-pervasive concerns in early Christia
Secondly, at the theological and phenomenological levels, that
Martin Buber's characterization47 of Christianity as a religion of
the individual (over against Judaism as a religion of community)
cannot be sustained.
ι. The Gospel of Matthew shows much evidence of the editing
of the traditions about Jesus to meet the needs of a community in
transition in the period after the destruction of the Temple in 70
ce. This has at least two aspects: community self-definition, and
the maintenance of group boundaries and internal cohesion.
To distinguish his community from developments in Pharisaic
Judaism, the evangelist identifies an alternative source of author
ity, Jesus the Son of God and Wisdom of God, and those
appointed by him, notably Peter. Matthew's Christology, in other
words, has important social and communal ramifications—some
thing which could be said for all of the christologies of the New
Testament.48 Further, to provide a normative basis for a common
life under God (and apart from the synagogue communities), the
evangelist presents an alternative and more rigorous interpretation
of the law, and sets the tradition of the sayings and deeds of Jesus
over against the traditions of the fathers as interpreted by the
Pharisees (Matt. 5-7). To provide the basis for reconstituting
the people of God on terms which transcended the boundaries of
the Jewish ethnos, he legitimates a strategy and practice of mission
to Gentiles as well as Jews (Matt. 10; 28: 16-20).
To deal, on the other hand, with problems of community main
tenance, the evangelist creates a kind of 'community rule' to deal
with matters of internal discipline (Matt. 18). He also gives prom
inence to what might best be called a 'scholarly' model of dis

47 See M. Buber, Two Types of Faith (London, 1951), cited in H. C. Kee,

'Messiah and the People of God', in J. T. Butler (ed.), Understanding the Word
(Sheffield, 1985), 341-58, at 341.
48 See D. C. Duling, 'Insights from Sociology for New Testament Christology:
A Test Case', in SBL ig85 Seminar Papers, Κ. H. Richards (ed.) (Atlanta, 1985),
351-68; W. A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians (London, 1987),
esp. 136 ffi, on 'Messianic Biography as Community-forming Literature'; and
H. C. Kee, Knowing the Truth. A Sociological Approach to New Testament Inter
pretation (Minneapolis, 1989), esp. ch. 4.

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 408 STEPHEN C. BARTON

cipleship, where the stress is placed up

handing on the tradition and, in so do
elements of continuity with the past
sources of tension and conflict within
the attempt to encourage an ideal of the community as a non
hierarchical brotherhood (Matt. 23: 8-10), whose dominant ethos
is one of forgiveness and pastoral care for the one who 'goes
astray'. This ethos is reinforced both positively and negatively. In
positive terms, there is the uniquely strong emphasis in Matthew
upon the love commandment (Matt. 5: 43-8; 19: 19b), upon the
importance of 'bearing fruit' and doing works of 'righteousness',
and upon attaining child-like humility (Matt. 18: 1-4)—all of
which is modelled in the authoritative example of Jesus himself.
Negative reinforcement comes in the form of apocalyptic threats
of judgement: upon 'hypocrites', those whose love has grown cold,
and those who show no regard for 'the little ones' (Matt. 23-5).
The major contributions to the study of Matthew and his com
munity are manifold. I would draw particular attention to the
works of W. D. Davies,49 W. G. Thompson,50 E. Schweizer,51 D.
Garland,52 B. Przybylski,53 G. N. Stanton,54 and most recently,
J. A. Overman.55
2. Although redaction criticism of The Gospel of Mark went
some way towards the identification of the Marcan community,56
much greater precision was attained when this approach was com
bined with sociological analysis in studies such as the book by
H. C. Kee, Community of the New Age.57 Kee argues that Mark's
audience is a missionary sect whose ethos is markedly at odds with
dominant social mores and whose world-view is apocalyptic.
Membership is voluntaristic and inclusive, and the nurture of
insiders has a strongly esoteric quality: "'To you has been given
the secret (τό μυστήριον) of the kingdom of God, but for those
outside (εκείνοις δέ τοις εξω) everything is in parables . . ."'
(Mark 4: 11).
49 W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge, 1964).
50 W. G. Thompson, Matthew's Advice to a Divided Community (Rome, 1970).
51 E. Schweizer, Observance of the Law and Charismatic Activity in Matthew',
NTS, 16 (1970), 213-30; id., Matthàus und seine Gemeinde (Stuttgart, 1974).
52 D. E. Garland, The Intention of Matthew 23 (Leiden, 1979).
53 B. Przybylski, Righteousness in Matthew and His World of Thought (Cam
bridge, 1980).
54 G. N. Stanton, inter alia, 'The Origin and Purpose of Matthew's Gospel:
Matthean Scholarship from 1945-1980', ANRW, ii, 25, 3 (1983), 1889-1951.
55 J. A. Overman, Matthew's Gospel and Formative Judaism: The Social World
of the Matthean Community (Minneapolis, 1990).
56 e.g. W. Marxsen, Mark the Evangelist (ET, London, 1970).
57 Kee, Community of the New Age (London, 1977).

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 409

Kee's approach is strongly indebted to the socio

ledge. It has proved very fruitful and been taken fur
A study by Joel Marcus,58 for example, focuses u
of Mark's epistemology and shows how strongly
apocalyptic viewpoint, similar in many respects to
of the Qumran sect, and arising out of the context o
suffering persecution.59 Another study by Francis W
appeared almost at the same time, comes to very
sions. According to Watson, the theme of secrec
understood adequately only if its social function
account. He suggests that the secrecy motif expr
of predestination which functioned, in a social con
tion, both to reinforce the community's self-unde
elect, and to explain the incomprehension and ho
siders.
Persecution and experiences of conflict do seem to have been of
critical importance in shaping the outlook of Mark and his com
munity.61 But such persecution may have been itself a response
to the novel, counter-cultural aspect of Mark's understanding of
social relations. Feminist scholarship has emphasized, for
example, the prominence given in Mark to women as followers of
Jesus and models of bold faith and sacrificial service.62 To this
may be added the clear evidence of, inter alia, the rejection of the
laws of purity (Mark 7: 19b), hostility to material possessions
(Mark 10: 17-31), the radical subordination of family and occupa

58 Joel Marcus, 'Mark 4: 10-12 and Marcan Epistemology', JBL, 103 (1984),
557-74·
59 See esp. Marcus, 'Epistemology', 572—3: 'This context of persecution helps
us to see the cutting edge of Mark's epistemology for the community he is
addressing. Confronted by a hostile world which for the most part seemed bent
on denying the claims that they were making for Jesus, those within the Marcan
community must have been asking themselves, "Why aren't people recognizing
who Jesus is? If he has brought the kingdom of God, why isn't that kingdom
being recognized by the world at large? Why is the world, in fact, opposing our
message and persecuting us?" In a very direct way 4: 10-12 is an answer to these
questions. In it Jesus reassures the hard-pressed Marcan community that its
sufferings . . . are only part of "the mystery of the kingdom of God", according
to which those outside are blinded by the forces of darkness so that they oppose
God's kingdom.'
60 F. Watson, 'The Social Function of Mark's Secrecy Theme', JSNT, 24
(1985), 49-69·
61 The evidence is set out well by B. M. F. van Iersel, 'The gospel according
to St. Mark—written for a persecuted community?', Nederlands Theologisch
Tijdschrift, 34 (1980), 15-36.
62 See esp. E. S. Malbon, 'Fallible Followers: Women and Men in the Gospel
of Mark', SEMEIA, 28 (1983), 29-48; and A. Gill, 'Women Ministers in the
Gospel of Mark', ABR, xxxv (1987), 14—21.

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 410 STEPHEN C. BARTON

tional ties for the sake of mission (Mark

the potentially subversive understanding
10: 13-16, 35-45; 12: 13-17)·
Yet another approach, which focuses on the mythological and
parabolic dimensions of Mark, shows how the narrative functions
both to establish a new world and to subvert the old. Using a
form of structuralist exegesis, Elizabeth Malbon has shown, in a
number of quite innovative studies of the spatial dimensions (geo
political, topographical, and architectural) of the Marcan narrat
ive,63 how the locus of the holy is related in a rather subversive
way to being on the road or in the house or on the sea with Jesus
rather than to Jerusalem and the temple.
3. Until recently, Luke-Acts has been read primarily, and quite
properly, as a source for reconstructing the history of the early
Church and, in particular, of the primitive Christian community
in Jerusalem. The focus of attention here has been the 'enthusi
astic' ethos of the community and its various expressions of
koinonia, such as the practice of goods in common and the regular
gatherings for meals in members' houses.64
Philip Esler's book, Community and Gospel in Luke-Acts: The
Social and Political Motivations of Lucan Theology (Cambridge,
1987) breaks new ground by trying to give a sociological profile
of the community of Luke's own day. He argues that Luke—Acts
is best interpreted as written to provide legitimation for a Christian
group whose relations with both the Jewish synagogue community
and the wider Gentile society were fraught with the inevitable
tensions and pressures arising from the Christian group's sectarian
character. So, for example, the reason for Luke's interest in table
fellowship is to legitimate Jew-Gentile commensality in his com
munity and to maintain Jew-Gentile cohesion in the face of strong
opposition from Jews and Jewish Christians who see the practice
as a threat to the identity of the Jewish ethnos.
Another study which focuses on table fellowship is Halvor
Moxnes' essay, 'Meals and the new community in Luke'.65
Moxnes sets his analysis firmly within a social anthropological
framework, and quotes Marshall Sahlins' statement, "'Food
63 See Malbon, 'ΤΗ ΟΙΚΙΑ ΑΥΤΟΥ: Mark 2: 15 in Context', NTS, 31 (1985),
282-92; id., 'Mark: Myth and Parable', BTB, xvi (1986), 8-17; id., Narrative
Space and Mythic Meaning in Mark (San Francisco, 1986). Cf. also S. Freyne,
Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels (Dublin, 1988), esp. ch. 2.
64 See, e.g., M. Hengel, Property and Riches in the Early Church (ET, London,
1974); J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit (London, 1975), ch. VII.
65 H. Moxnes, 'Meals and the new community in Luke', Svensk Exegetisk
Arsbok, 51-2 (1986-87), 158-67; and see now his The Economy of the Kingdom
(Philadelphia, 1988), esp. ch. 8.

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 411

dealings are a delicate barometer, a ritual statem

social relations, and food is thus employed instr
starting, a sustaining, or a destroying mechanism
Moxnes argues quite persuasively that meals in
ally the meal practice and table-talk of Jesus)
lenge to the boundaries of the Jewish ethnos,
mechanism of a new group, and as the basis for the internal
ordering of the group, based now upon new criteria of acceptability
and the reordering of the social hierarchy.
The recognition that the author of Luke-Acts was committed
fervently to fostering a new pattern of community is now wide
spread. The delay of the Parousia and concern about heretical
developments of a gnostic kind67 may well have been contributory
factors. Luke's response is to present salvation, not as a flight
from history, but as the story of God's involvement in history as
universal benefactor bringing a new people into being with Jesus
as its head and exemplar.68 The short-hand for describing this
new people is 'the poor', those who acknowledge their utter
dependence for salvation and sustenance upon God alone. For
Luke, salvation works from the bottom up and from the margins
in, and acceptance of this radical and novel reversal of conventional
social-economic-political-religious norms is possible only on the
basis of a thorough-going metanoia.
This helps to explain the symbolic significance and representat
ive status of the many marginalized groups and individuals whom
we encounter in the Lucan narrative: the 'tax collectors and sin
ners', the 'poor', women, a Samaritan leper, Gentiles, and so on.
Among recent studies, Esler discusses Luke's theology of the poor
against the backdrop of a highly stratified urban society and, on
the basis of passages such as Luke 14: 12-14, argues strongly that
'Luke intends Jesus' views on this subject to apply to the relation
ships between the rich and the poor within the Christian com
munity'.69
66 M. Sahlins, Stone Age Economies (New York, 1972), 215, quoted in H.
Moxnes, 'Meals', 158.
67 Cf. C. H. Talbert, Luke and the Gnostics (Nashville, 1966).
68 Danker, Luke (Philadelphia, 1976) elaborates the divine benefactor model to
very good effect with respect to both the theology and Christology of Luke-Acts.
89 P. F. Esler, Community and Gospel, 194. Similarly, R. J. Karris, 'Poor and
Rich: The Lukan Sitz im Leben', in C. H. Talbert (ed.), Perspectives on Luke-Acts
(Edinburgh, 1978), 112-25, esP· 1 lT- 'Luke's Sitz im Leben consists of propertied
Christians who have been converted and cannot easily extricate themselves from
their cultural mindsets. It also consists of Christians in need of alms. Luke takes
great pains to show that Christians treat each other as friends and that almsgiving
and care for one another is of the essence of the Way. If the converts do not learn
this lesson . . ., there is danger that the Christian movement may splinter.'

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 412 STEPHEN C. BARTON

The relative prominence given to wom

history has been noticed also. They too
whom the coming of Jesus is good news and, in numerous
instances, they are presented as model disciples. Mary is a particu
lar case in point, as excellent studies by Raymond Brown70 and
Joseph Fitzmyer71 have shown. But lest we jump too readily to
the conclusion that women exercised an unusual degree of author
ity in the church(es) of Luke, we do well to note Grassi's point72
that the evangelist gives clear priority to the witness of Peter and
the Twelve (since apostolicity is a more certain guard against
heresy),73 and Fiorenza's observation that Luke's history is biased
androcentrically in such a way that the contribution of women as
'missionaries and leaders of churches in their own right' is neg
lected.74
4. It is recognized widely that The Fourth Gospel and thejohan
nine Epistles represent a distinctive trajectory in earliest Christian
ity. One explanation for this distinctiveness has to do with the
character and history of the Johannine community. This has been
the focus of many recent studies, including those of J. L. Martyn,75
W. Meeks,76 R. E. Brown,77 F. F. Segovia,78 and D. Rensberger.79
By reading the Fourth Gospel as a kind of mirror of the commun
ity, the picture that has emerged is of a community radically
estranged, not only from the wider society, but also from the
society of the synagogue, and even from the society of other
Christian groups. An introverted, 'us and them' ethos seems dom
inant. As D. Moody Smith puts it:

70 R. Ε. Brown et al.y Mary in the New Testament (Philadelphia, 1978), 105—77.

71 J. A. Fitzmyer, Luke the Theologian: Aspects of his Teaching (London, 1989),
57-85·
72 J. A. Grassi, The Hidden Heroes of the Gospels: Female Counterparts of Jesus
(Collegeville, 1979), esp. 83-91.
73 For a bold attempt to demonstrate the presence of women at the Last Supper,
in spite of Luke's silence (!), see Q. Quesnell, 'The Women at Luke's Supper', in
R. J. Cassidy and P. J. Scharper (eds.), Political Issues in Luke-Acts (New York,
1983), 59-79·
74 Fiorenza, In Memory of Her, 167; id., '"You are not to be called Father":
Early Christian History in a Feminist Perspective', Cross Currents, 39 (1979),
301-23, at 308.
75 J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Abingdon, 1968,
19792).
76 Meeks, 'The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism', JBL, 91(1972),
44-72.
77 Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York, 1979).
78 F. F. Segovia, Love Relationships in the Johannine Tradition (Chico, 1982).
79 D. Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community (Philadelphia,
1988).

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 413

it can probably be agreed that on any reading of t

there appears a sectarian consciousness, a sense of
delineation of the community from the world. .
community consciousness in Qumran, which is likewise related to a
fundamental dualism, are entirely apposite and to the point.80
This sectarian ethos is reflected especially in the Christology of
the community. Just as the Jesus of the Gospel is a stranger to
the world and even to his own people, so too is the Johannine
community. This has been demonstrated brilliantly by Wayne
Meeks and Marinus de Jonge81 in studies which both take the
encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in John 3 as the epitome
of the distance separating insiders from even sympathetic out
siders. Just as Jesus does not belong and is not understood, neither
do those who believe in him find acceptance and understanding.
The powerful use of path and residence metaphors (to use Marga
ret Pamment's phrase)82 shows how strong is the sense of displace
ment. Now, Jesus exclusively is 'the way' to the Father, not Torah.
Now, true worship takes place neither on Mount Gerizim nor on
Mount Zion, but 'in spirit and in truth' (4: 19 ff.). Now, the only
temple where God is to be encountered is the temple of Jesus'
own body. In fact, almost every major symbol of belonging as a
Jew to the people of God—Torah, temple, festival calendar, sab
bath observance, the land, the scriptures and the patriarchs—is
displaced in a quite counter-cultural way by the Jesus of John.83
The highly polemical portrayal of 'the Jews' is best seen as a
negative interpretation of the time of Jesus in the light of sub
sequent experiences of expulsion from the synagogue and conflict
between Jews and Christians, especially in the period of Jamnia,
'when the Pharisees were making strenuous efforts to preserve the
purity of the people and the integrity of the Law'.84 The escalating
severity of this conflict is reflected in the warning attributed to
Jesus, in 16: 1-2: "Ί have said all this to you to keep you from
falling away (ϊνα μή σκανδαλισθήτε). They will put you out of
80 D. M. Smith, 'Johannine Christianity: Some Reflections on its Character and
Delineation', NTS, 21 (1975), 224-48, at 223-4.
81 See Meeks, 'The Man from Heaven'; and M. de Jonge, Jesus Stranger from
Heaven and Son of God (Missoula, 1977), esp. ch. 2.
82 M. Pamment, 'Path and Residence Metaphors in the Fourth Gospel', Theo
logy, lxxxviii (1985), 118-25.
83 David Rensberger, in Johannine Faith, has shown that this counter-cultural
aspect of the Fourth Gospel also has a political dimension that bears directly upon
attitudes toward Roman authority. This comes out in his analysis of the narrative
of the trial of Jesus, in ch. 5.
84 Β. Lindars, 'The persecution of Christians in John 15: 18—16: 4a', in
W. Horbury and B. McNeil (eds.), Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament
(Cambridge, 1981), 49.

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 414 STEPHEN C. BARTON

the synagogues (άποσυναγώγους); ind

when whoever kills you will think he is of
to God.'" On this kind of reading, the F
ent an authoritative attempt to prepare th
to warn against the twin dangers of disu
overcome anxiety through the promise o
Paraclete'. They deal both with problem
the community—problems about autho
after the departure of the original chari
deal also with problems arising in relati
The reinterpretation of the sacraments
more fundamental concern with the sym
lief,87 the shift of attention away from
towards the life of the individual believ
gical emphasis on the availability of th
and every believer, the striking promi
outspoken witnesses to the truth88—su
preted now as further hints that the Joha
isolated and idiosyncratic community at
reflected in the post-Pauline tradition of
Luke—Acts. Striking, instead, is the concern of an egalitarian
kind89 with the intensification of individual members' faith and
knowledge and the emphasis on the need for love within (rather
than without) the brotherhood. The Johannine Epistles give evid
ence of the fissile, unstable character of the Johannine community.
5. The study of community in the New Testament has reached
its greatest precision in relation to the letters of Paul. This is
because, to a degree more obvious than in the case of the gospels,
Paul's writings are occasional pieces directed to particular groups
in particular places. Close study of the letters has made it possible
to reconstruct the character of the groups founded by the apostle,
the social level of their members, relations within the groups and

85 See D. Β. Woll, Johannine Christianity in Conflict (Chico, 1981). Another

study which emphasizes the intra-mural dimension of the problems in the Johan
nine community is F. F. Segovia, 'The Theology and Provenance of John 15:
1-17', JBL, 101 (1982), 115-28.
86 So, Lindars, 'The persecution of Christians', who follows J. L. Martyn's
position.
87 See the excellent essay by John Painter, 'Johannine Symbols: A Case Study
in Epistemology\ Journal of Theology for Southern Africa, 27 (1979), 26-41.
88 On each of these points, see, inter alios, Brown, The Churches the Apostles
Left Behind, chs. 6-7, and the literature cited there.
89 See esp. ibid. 109: 'there are no second-class Christians in terms of status . . .
there are no second-class Christians geographically . . . there are no second-class
Christians chronologically.' (Brown's emphasis.)

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 415

between them, their beliefs and practices, th

cedures and attitudes to outsiders, and their s
boundaries and a sense of identity over agains
groups and patterns of association. In my vie
important recent contributions in this area ar
Theissen on Corinth, collected in translation a
of Pauline Christianity (Philadelphia and Edin
Wayne A. Meeks's magisterial study, The Firs
The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New H
1983). But there has been a plethora of other
(a) Some scholars have proceeded by focusin
tions with his churches.90 Important here is t
and its interpretation by Paul in his dealings w
lem Church and his own communities. Bengt
of the 'organic' authority structure of the ear
and, within that, of Paul's authority in the C
himself, is particularly insightful. Of the la
example:
Paul's actual power is not strictly formalized, and we cannot make out a
catalogue of well-specified apostolic rights with a corresponding list of
obligations on the part of the Church even if rights and obligations
obviously existed. Instead we find in all letters, except Rom, the concep
tion of apostolic fatherhood and imitation (mimesis), which, as a descrip
tion of the relation between apostle and local church is milder and at the
same time more demanding than a list of rights and obligations. It is
milder because it signifies an affectionate relation, but it is also more
demanding—when are you free from the obligation of respecting and
obeying 'father', and when have you repaid the debt of gratitude to the
person who has given you life (eternal)?91
(b) Others have attempted to delineate the most important
aspects of Paul's understanding of community.92 Here, the
emphasis has fallen upon Paul's doctrine of freedom and new
creation 'in Christ' and upon the local, believing community as
the locus for shared experience of the eschatological Spirit. Hence,
Paul's conception of authority and ministry in the community is
seen as essentially charismatic, with a strong recognition of the
mutual interdependence of members and an ideal of unity as the
outworking of the diversity of members' contributions.
90 e.g. J. H. Schiitz, Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority (Cambridge,
1975); and B. Holmberg, Paul and Power. The Structure of Authority in the
Primitive Church as Reflected in the Pauline Epistles (Lund, 1978).
91 B. Holmberg, Paul and Power, 81.
92 e.g. E. Schweizer, The Church as the Body of Christ (Atlanta, 1964); J. D. G.
Dunn, Jesus and the Spirit, chs. VIII—X; R. J. Banks, Paul's Idea of Community;
Meeks, Urban Christians, ch. 6.

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 416 STEPHEN C. BARTON

(c) Yet another focus for scholars has

Paul's groups. E. A. Judge93 broke new
early Christian ideas of social obligatio
relation to the particular social institutio
the city-state, the household, and the
recent work has taken the study of these
considerably further.84 (i.) The urban
been explored by Gerd Theissen and W
mentioned already, (ii.) The significan
viding the Churches' setting and const
and dominant authority patterns, as w
conflict, was mooted early on by Floy
studied further by, inter alios, Robert Banks,96 Abraham
Malherbe,97 Norman Petersen,98 John Koenig," and Larry Yar
brough.100 A study of my own, drawing especially upon the anthro
pology of social boundaries, attempts to assess the extent to which
conflict in the Corinthian churches was indebted to the ambiguity
of the boundary between Church (εκκλησία) and household
(οίκος).101 (iii.) Comparison with Graeco-Roman voluntary associ
ations is still at a fairly preliminary stage in so far as detailed
analysis is concerned, but advances have been made. A useful
essay on 'Patrons and Offices in Club and Church' was presented
by William Countryman at the SBL meeting in 1977;102 Greg
Horsley and myself published a detailed analysis of one piece of
epigraphic evidence from Philadelphia, in Asia Minor, in 1981;103

93 Judge, The Social Pattern of Christian Groups in the First Century (London,
i960).
94 See, in general, J. Stambaugh and D. Balch, The Social World of the First
Christians (London, 1986).
95 F. Filson, 'The Significance of the Early House Churches', JBL, lviii (1939),
105-12.
96 Banks, Paul's Idea of Community.
97 A. J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Philadelphia, 19832),
esp. chs. 3, 4.
98 N. R. Petersen, Rediscovering Paul. Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's
Narrative World (Philadelphia, 1985). Cf. also on Philemon, J. H. Elliott, 'Phile
mon and House Churches', The Bible Today, 22/3 (1984), 145-50.
99 J. Koenig, New Testament Flospitality (Philadelphia, 1985), esp. ch. 3.
100 Ο. L. Yarbrough, Not Like the Gentiles. Marriage Rules in the Letters of Paul
(Atlanta, 1985).
101 S. C. Barton, 'Paul's Sense of Place: An Anthropological Approach to Com
munity Formation in Corinth', NTS, 32 (1986), 225—46.
102 L. W. Countryman, 'Patrons and Offices in Club and Church', SBL 1977
Seminar Papers, ed. P. J. Achtemeier (Missoula, 1977), 135-41.
103 S. C. Barton and G. H. R. Horsley, Ά Hellenistic Cult Group and the New
Testament', Jahrbuch fiir Antike und Christentum, 24 (1981), 7-41.

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 417

and R. L. Wilken discusses 'Christianity as a Bu

his book of 1984.104
(d) Influenced in part by the feminist movement, many
attempts have been made to interpret and explain the rather con
fusing evidence about the role of women in the churches of Paul.
It is accepted widely that, whereas Paul was a social radical in his
insistence on the removal of boundaries separating Jew and Gen
tile in the people of God, his position on the roles and status of
women (and slaves) in the Christian gatherings was more conser
vative and pragmatic, in spite of his wholehearted endorsement of
the eschatologically oriented baptismal formula which he cites in
Gal. 3: 27-28.105
(e) The novel, experimental, and charismatic ethos of Paul's
groups made them prone to conflict. Such conflict has been a
further area of investigation. Some, like Walter Schmithals,106
have emphasized the doctrinal elements in the conflicts. Others,
have drawn attention to sociological factors and have tried to
correlate the sociological and the doctrinal.107 Here, one thinks of
Gerd Theissen on the 'strong' and the 'weak' in Corinth,108 and
Robert Jewett's recent work on millenarian radicalism in Thessa
lonica.109 One thinks also of the 'new look' on the law and justifica
tion in the teaching of Paul, associated especially with the names
of Krister Stendahl and E. P. Sanders, where much greater weight
is given to placing Paul's polemical doctrines within the social

104 R. L. Wilken, The Christians as the Romans Saw Them (New Haven and
London, 1984); cf. id., 'Collegia, Philosophical Schools, and Theology', in
S. Benko and J. J. O'Rourke (eds), Early Church History. The Roman Empire as
the Setting of Primitive Christianity (London, 1972), 268-291.
105 Important contributions to this question have come, inter alios, from
K. Stendahl, The Bible and the Role of Women (Philadelphia, 1966); Meeks, 'The
Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity', HR,
13 (1974), 165—208; E. S. Fiorenza, In Memory of Her·, W. O. Walker, Jr., 'The
"Theology of Woman's Place" and the "Paulinist" Tradition', SEMEIA, 28
(1983), 101-12; M. Hayter, The New Eve in Christ (London, 1987); and
B. Witherington III, Women in the Earliest Churches (Cambridge, 1988).
106 W. Schmithals, Paul and the Gnostics (ET, Nashville, 1972).
107 See, e.g., S. C. Barton, 'Paul and the Cross: A Sociological Approach',
Theology lxxxv (1982), 13-19; id., 'Paul and the Resurrection: A Sociological
Approach' Religion, 14 (1984), 67-75. An important methodological essay is Bengt
Holmberg, 'Sociological versus Theological Analysis of the Question Concerning
a Pauline Church Order', in S. Pedersen (ed.), Die Paulinische Literatur und
Theologie (Arhus, 1980), 187-200.
108 G. Theissen, Pauline Christianity, ch. 3.
109 R. Jewett, The Thessalonian Correspondence. Pauline Rhetoric and Millenarian
Piety (Philadelphia, 1986).

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 418 STEPHEN C. BARTON

context of his mission to the Gentiles.1

being given as well to the pastoral aspects of Paul's self
understanding and practice as an apostle and to his theology as
pastoral theology.111
6. Until recently, the study of ι Peter has focused on the extent
of the epistle's indebtedness to an (hypothetical) early Christian
baptismal liturgy.112 Two new studies, however, have brought
communal concerns to the fore. Coincidentally, these two studies
were published in the same year, 1981. D. L. Balch's book, Let
Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in I Peter (Chico, Calif.
1981)113 argues that the rules in 1 Peter about social obligations
generally, and the ordering of household relations in particular,
have an apologetic function and are intended to counter slanderous
accusations of outsiders that the Christian groups, like other cults
from the Greek East, were a threat to the Roman 'constitution'.
On this view, the domestic code represents an assimilation of
group norms to the norms of the wider society.
In some tension with this interpretation, although once again
concentrating upon the household as the locus of early Christian
community, is J. H. Elliott's A Home for the Homeless: A Sociolo
gical Exegesis of 1 Peter (Philadelphia, 1981). Elliott argues that
the addressees of the epistle are marginalized 'resident aliens'
(πάροικοι) of Asia Minor whose conversion has increased the
antagonism of the native residents towards them. They constitute,
therefore, a 'conversionist sect' in tension with the society-at
large. The strategy of the letter is to confirm the believers in their
social and religious separation from outsiders and to emphasize

110 See Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (London, 1977); Sanders, Paul
and Palestinian Judaism; also, F. Watson, Paul, Judaism and the Gentiles (Cam
bridge, 1986). The debate has been taken an important stage further by J. D. G.
Dunn, in his essay, 'The New Perspective on Paul', in his Jesus, Paul and the Law
(London, 1990), 183-214. He concludes: 'All this confirms the earlier important
thesis of Stendahl, that Paul's doctrine of justification by faith should not be
understood primarily as an exposition of the individual's relation to God, but
primarily in the context of Paul the Jew wrestling with the question of how Jews
and Gentiles stand in relation to each other within the covenant purpose of God
now that it has reached its climax in Jesus Christ. . . . Paul's solution does not
require him to deny the covenant, or indeed the law as God's law, but only the
covenant and the law as 'taken over' by Israel' (p. 202).
111 e.g. A. J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians; and E. Best, Paul and his
Converts (Edinburgh, 1988).
112 e.g. F. L. Cross, I Peter. A Paschal Liturgy (London, 1954); T. C. G.
Thornton, Ί Peter. A Paschal Liturgy?', JTS, ns. 12 (1961), 14-26.
113 See also the recent summary of scholarly interpretation in D. L. Balch,
'Household Codes', in D. E. Aune (éd.), Greco-Roman Literature and the New
Testament (Atlanta, 1988), 25-50.

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 419

their incorporation into an alternative family

God' (cf. ι Pet. 2: s; 4: 17).
So, whereas Balch interprets the household cod
promote greater integration into Graeco-Roma
sees the code functioning to encourage sectarian
recent essay on the teaching about citizenship
and ι Pet 2: 14-15, by B. W. Winter,114 tips th
argument against Elliott.115 By adducing numer
benefaction inscriptions of the time, Winter sh
ing of Paul and 1 Peter is intended to encourag
to contribute to the well-being of the communi
clear expectation of recognition and gratitude by the public
authorities. Not withdrawal, therefore, but 'high-profile good
works'.116
7. The interpretation of the ideas about community in the
Pastoral Epistles has been dominated by the debate over 'Early
Catholicism' (Friihkatholizismus) in the New Testament, a debate
which goes back at least to F. C. Baur and the Tubingen school
in the mid-nineteenth century and whose most vigorous prosecu
tor this century has been Ernst Kàsemann.117 The Pastorals, along
with Luke-Acts and other late New Testament texts, have been
seen as literary expressions of certain developments in second
generation Christianity: the fading of the parousia hope, the deaths
of the apostles, the tendency toward increasing institutionalization
as a response to growth, the normalizing of relations with the
society-at-large, and the crystallization of Christian beliefs into
set forms in order to guard against 'enthusiasm' and heresy.118
Certainly, it is commonly accepted that the ideas about authority
and community in the Pastorals constitute a substantial modifica
tion of the more Pauline ideal of participatory, charismatic com
munity in the direction of hierarchy and patriarchy in matters of

114 Β. W. Winter, 'The Public Honouring of Christian Benefactors: Romans 13:

3-4 and ι Peter 2: 14-15', jfSNT, 34 (1988), 87-103.
115 Antoinette Wire's important review article (in RSR, 10/3 (1984), 209-16)
shows that the respective hypotheses of Balch and Elliott about the strategy of I
Peter are not incompatible, however.
116 Winter, 'Christian Benefactors', 95.
117 See E. Kàsemann, 'Paul and Early Catholicism' ( = ET of 'Paulus und der
Fruhkatholizismus'), in his New Testament Questions of Today (London, 1969),
236-51. Cf. also, H. von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual
Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries (ET, London, 1969).
118 See, e.g. J. D. G. Dunn, Unity and Diversity in the New Testament (London,
1977), ch. XIV; and D. Harrington, Light of All Nations: Essays on the Church in
New Testament Research (Wilmington and Dublin, 1982), esp. ch. 3.

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 420 STEPHEN C. BARTON

governance, and orthodoxy and traditio

Advances in the study of these developm
able and have involved, in part, a react
(and often polemical) dichotomy betwee
Three studies may be mentioned here.
Kingdom and Community (Englewood Cli
use of insights from Weberian sociology to
ity and necessity of the processes of rou
tianity if the movement was to survive
Gager, 'if we accept as a fundamental law t
no rules to new rules, we may not at th
routinization of the primitive enthusia
charismatic or millenarian movements i
and sometimes even earlier'.120 And, in
adds: 'By failing to pursue the full consequences of his own
observation about the inevitability of regulations, he and numer
ous others have given up consistent historical analysis. Con
sequently, a good deal of nonsense has been written about the
decline of primitive Christianity into "early Catholicism.'"121
In agreement with Gager on this and drawing likewise on
Weberian and other sociological models, is Margaret MacDonald's
recent book, The Pauline Churches.121 This comprehensive study
seeks to trace the process of institution building in the churches
of the Pauline tradition after the apostle's death. Rather than
contrast ideas of community in Paul and the Pastorals in a simp
listic way, MacDonald attempts to discover 'relations between the
stages in terms of the institution building process'.123 Focusing on
developments in the Pauline and post-Pauline literature in four
aspects of community life—ethics, ministry, ritual, and belief—
she suggests that three stages of institutionalization become evid
ent: Paul's letters are to do with community building, Colossians

119 See, e.g., R. E. Brown, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind, ch. 2. His
comment on Paul is apt: 'Indeed, Paul might not have been able to meet several
requirements the Pastorals would impose on the presbyter-bishops. "Not quick
tempered" (Titus 1: 7) would scarcely describe the Paul who called the Galatians
'fools' (Gal. 3: 1). "Dignified" (1. Tim. 3: 2) would not fit the Paul who wished
that his circumcising adversaries would slip with the knife and castrate themselves
(Gal. 5: 12). . . . Rough vitality and a willingness to fight bare-knuckled for the
Gospel were part of what made Paul a great missionary, but such characteristics
might have made him a poor residential community supervisor' (p. 35).
120 J. G. Gager, Kingdom and Community (Englewood Cliffs, 1975), 67.
121 Gager, Kingdom, 67.
122 M. Y. MacDonald, The Pauline Churches. A Socio-historical Study of Institu
tionalization in the Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Writings (Cambridge, 1988).
123 MacDonald, Pauline Churches, 8.

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 421

and Ephesians are to do with community stabi

Pastorals are to do with community protecting.
For feminist biblical scholarship, with its com
ing early Christian women visible by a reconstru
origins on the basis of a feminist hermeneutic
Pastorals are evidence, not just of the institutio
early Church, but of its patriarchalization as w
argued most forcefully by Elisabeth Fiorenza i
Her.12i She traces the gradual adaptation of earl
ity structures to that of the patriarchal house
'genderization of ecclesial office' represented, fo
prohibition against the teaching of men by wom
and the instructions concerning the order of w
3-16.126 According to Fiorenza, the teaching a
widows is to be seen as a mechanism of control.
is an obligation in a patriarchal society: it is also a means of
prescribing limits to their roles and status. In sum, the counter
cultural 'discipleship of equals' which she discerns in the practice
of Jesus and in the Christianity of the first generation is mar
ginalized thoroughly in the post-Pauline and post-Petrine tra
jectories.
8. A convergence of a number of trends in biblical interpreta
tion and theology has brought a renewed interest in The Book of
Revelation and the situation of its addressees.
(a) Following in the tradition of historical geography and social
history, as exemplified at the turn of the century by the work of
Sir William Ramsay, is C. J. Hemer's book, The Letters to the
Seven Churches of Asia in their Local Setting (Sheffield, 1986).
This study draws upon a mass of literary, archaeological, and
epigraphic data in order to throw light upon local conditions likely
to have affected the Christian groups in Asia Minor. In the same
tradition are the volumes entitled New Documents Illustrating
Early Christianity, edited by G. H. R. Horsley.127

124 See my review in Theology, lxxxviii (1985), 134-7. Cf. also Fiorenza's essay,
'Feminist Theology and New Testament Interpretation', JSOT, 22 (1982), 32—46.
125 For further discussion, from a social history perspective, on the approxi
mation of the Church to the household in the Pastorals, see D. C. Verner, The
Household of God. The Social World of the Pastoral Epistles (Chico, Calif., 1983),
esp. ch. IV.
126 See also, most recently, Bonnie B. Thurston, The Widows, for fuller dis
cussion.
127 There are five volumes so far (1981-9), and these review Greek inscriptions
and papyri published between 1976 and 1979. New Documents is published by the
Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, Macquarie University, NSW,
Australia.

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 422 STEPHEN C. BARTON

(b) The sociological trend has been im

to the interpretation of biblical, Jewis
generally, the social sciences have bee
what kinds of groups develop an apocalyptic world-view and
millenialist hopes and under what kinds of conditions.128 Typic
ally, apocalyptic literature represents the response of an alienated,
marginalized, and persecuted group in a society undergoing rapid
cultural change. The apocalyptic vision offes a new conception of
reality and an alternative (i.e. counter-cultural) symbolic universe
in terms of which the alienated group can sustain its life. Among
studies of the Johannine Apocalypse from this point of view, the
following may be noted.129
J. G. Gager discusses the 'therapeutic' function of the myth of
the millennium for the persecuted community. He suggests that
the mythological dimension of the Apocalypse is indispensable to
the seer's message of consolation. Within the community of the
oppressed believers gathered for worship, the myth functions to
suppress or transcend the time between present woe and future
bliss, the effect of which is 'to make possible an experience of
millennial bliss as living reality'.130
In an essay of relevance to the study of early Christian anti
Judaism, Adela Yarbro Collins shows how the language of vilifica
tion of enemies in the Apocalypse plays an important role in the
self-definition of the community.131 The vilification of 'those who
call themselves Jews and are not, but are rather a synagogue of
Satan' (Rev. 2: 9; 3: 9) has a social function. It defines the Christi
ans as 'the genuine Jews, the heirs of the promises to Israel' over
against their rivals. Similarly, the vilification of Rome and her
allies, in Rev. 13, expresses these Christians' rejection of imperial
authority and values in favour of an alternative symbolic universe
focused on the risen and glorified Jesus. Yet again, the vilification
of Christian rivals in the seven letters (cf. 2: 14-15, 20-3) reflects
an attempt by the prophet John to consolidate his own authority

128 See, e.g., Ν. Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millenium (London, 1957):
K. Burridge, Netν Heaven New Earth (Oxford, 1969); Gager, Kingdom and Com
munity, ch. 2.
129 This is a burgeoning area of study. See, inter alios, C. Rowland, The Open
Heaven. A Study of Apocalyptic in Early Judaism and Christianity (London, 1982);
P. D. Hanson (ed.), Visionaries and their Apocalypses (Philadelphia and London,
1983); and D. Hellholm (ed.), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the
Near East (Tubingen, 1983).
130 Gager, Kingdom and Community, 49 ff.; quotation from p. 55.
131 A. Y. Collins, 'Vilification and Self-Definition in the Book of Revelation',
HTR, 79 (1986), 308-20; quotation from p. 314.

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 423

by encouraging the churches in the direction

strict social non-conformity.132
(c) Emphasis on apocalyptic as the protest li
socially and politically marginalized has corre
concerns and interests of liberation theology.
tionist perspective, the ideas about reality, comm
in Revelation are still relevant today: the unm
ance to, the ideology of the oppressor; the ho
atry in all its manifestations; the vision of heave
serves as a powerful critique of earthly pow
and the call to prophetic protest and to a com
not accommodate to the perverse values of th
contemporary British scholarship, the writin
Rowland have done much, both to bring the s
to the centre of academic debate and to relat
concerns of the liberation theology movement

III. Conclusions

It remains to suggest, however partially, where fu

gation could profitably be made and where curren
to be extended. First, and perhaps surprisingly, rene
needs to be given to the communal dimension of t
Jesus. As I engaged in the present study, the relati
recent scholarly endeavour in this area struck me as no
It is due, no doubt, to the now widespread recognit
question, Did Jesus found the Church?, is anachro
historical point of view. It is due also to the passing
questions from a previous agenda to do with the nature of
apostleship, its relation to 'the twelve' and to the doctrine of
132 On this last point, cf. also the excellent essay by D. E. Aune, 'The Social
Matrix of the Apocalypse of John', Biblical Research, xxvi (1981), 16-32. Aune
focuses attention on antagonism between rival, translocal, prophetic circles in the
seven churches, and suggests that the antagonism arose in relation to the problem
of social conformity. John himself advocates strict nonconformity to the values
and practices of the dominant culture, 'Jezebel' and the Nicolaitans have adopted
a liberal policy of cultural accommodation, and a majority of Church members
are 'lukewarm' and stand somewhere in between. According to Aune, 'John's
intense opposition to "Jezebel" and the Nicolaitans appears to have been grounded,
not only in the pagan practices they encouraged, but also in the prophetic role
they played in legitimating their behavior. John's battle with the Nicolaitans and
"Jezebel" was, in a word, a conflict between prophets' (p. 28).
133 e.g. Allan Boesak, Comfort and Protest (Edinburgh, 1987).
134 See C. Rowland, The Open Heaven; id., Christian Origins; id., Radical
Christianity, esp. ch. 3; and C. Rowland and M. Corner, Liberating Exegesis, esp.
ch. 4.
135 But see Lohfink's work, cited at n.149.

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 424 STEPHEN C. BARTON

apostolic succession.136 And, of course,

redaction criticism have focused our at
Easter community to the shaping of t
Leben der Kirche. Now, however, the
historically and sociologically sensitiv
Jesus quest, with a specific view to th
dimensions of his activity. This is pos
recent advances in our knowledge of P
time of Jesus,137 partly because the s
calls) the social construction of reality
in the study of the New Testament, a
been a revival of interest in Christian
particular, in the ethics of Jesus.138 A
begun to give this matter serious atten
Horsley is especially important. Repre
the following:
In the 'kingdom of God' sayings and the related preaching and actions
of Jesus, the focus is almost always on the people, and the concern is not
abstract or even primarily religious, but is with the people's concrete
circumstances, both somatic and psychic, both material and spiritual.
The rule of God entails a society of God, a society in which social relations
are transformed . . ,'139

A second area for further development concerns the 'turn to

the reader' in much recent biblical interpretation: the shift from
the historical paradigm to the literary critical paradigm for the
interpretation of texts.140 Meaning, here, is understood more in
terms of the aesthetic and intuitive appreciation of the world of
the story than in terms of the ability to demonstrate a correspond
ence between the text and something extrinsic to it. Thus, the
community spoken of is not the (hypothetical) community behind
136 Cf. Ε. Schweizer, Church Order, 20 if., 211 ff.; and C. K. Barrett, Signs of
an Apostle (London, 1970).
137 e.g. S. Freyne, Galilee From Alexander the Great to Hadrian 323 B.C.E. to
133 C.E. (Notre Dame, 1980); M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols
(ET, London, 1974); A. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian
Society: A Sociological Approach (Edinburgh, 1989); Sanders, Jesus and Judaism.
138 e.g. L. W. Countryman, Dirt, Greed and Sex (London, 1989); F. G. Down
ing, Jesus; A. E. Harvey, Strenuous Commands: The Ethic of Jesus (London, 1990);
K. Wengst, Pax Romana and the Peace of Jesus Christ (ET, London, 1987).
139 R. A. Horsley, Jesus and the Spiral of Violence: Popular Resistance in Roman
Palestine (San Francisco, 1987). The quotation comes from Horsley's own sum
mary article, 'Jesus and the Spiral of Violence', Forum, 5/4 (1989), 3—17, at 10.
Mention should also be made of Gerd Theissen's two books on Jesus: First
Followers, and The Shadow of the Galilean (ET, London, 1987).
140 An excellent guide to the burgeoning literature in this field is Stephen D.
Moore, Literary Criticism and the Gospels (Yale, 1989).

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 425

the text: the Marcan community 'lying behind

Mark, for example. Instead, it is the community
discovers when he or she enters the 'story-wo
itself.141 This kind of 'text immanent' approach
antagonistic to historical concerns, since historical
enable the reader to enter the story world of t
sensitive and better informed way. However, i
which eschews history-of-traditions concerns in fa
form of the text, and it is therefore an approac
attempts of an 'archeological' kind to reconstr
the post-Easter communities from the tracing o
the tradition.142 It is still relatively early days
of literary critical insights to the study of commu
Testament.143 It is important to recognize, how
questions have been raised about the more trad
historical methods, and that, at the very least,
those methods has been broken.
A third area for continuing debate, once more methodological,
must be the application of insights from the sociology of literature
to the study of the gospels in particular. For the way in which the
gospels are read often as virtual allegories of communities or
groups, whose needs, interests and history they are supposed to
reflect in a quite transparent way, is open to serious doubt. So,
for example, it is not necessarily the case that documents reflecting
an hostility to wealth come from a community of the poor;144 nor
that documents which contain sayings apparently inimical to fam
ily ties come from groups of 'wandering charismatics'.145 Such
assumptions are liable to the accusation that a crude functionalism
underpins the interpretation. To avoid such accusations, a much
greater methodological accountability is called for, of the kind

141 See, e.g., D. Rhoads and D. Michie, Mark as Story (Philadelphia, 1982),
1-4.
142 See on this, N. R. Petersen, Literary Criticism for New Testament Critics
(Philadelphia, 1978), esp. pp. 11 ff.
143 On the gospels, there is Sean Freyne's innovative work, Galilee, Jesus and
the Gospels, which combines literary and historical approaches; and, on the epistles,
there is N. R. Petersen's, Rediscovering Paul: Philemon and the Sociology of Paul's
Narrative World (Philadelphia, 1985), which combines literary and sociological
approaches.
144 Cf. T. Ε. Schmidt, Hostility to Wealth in the Synoptic Gospels (Sheffield,
1987), who argues that hostility to wealth is a religious-ethical tenet and is not
related to the socio-economic circumstances of the time; and contrast D. L.
Mealand, Poverty and Expectation in the Gospels (London, 1980).
145 The position of G. Theissen in First Followers.

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 426 STEPHEN C. BARTON

outlined recently by one of the leading p

interpretation, Bengt Holmberg.146 A
The postulate of complete and positive cor
the social group that carries and receives i
just as well be standing in a negative corre
receivers, i.e. challenge or try to change it. A
what type of correlation we encounter app
use symbolic language, which often is a ki
metaphorical or distant references, or may

One final area for further investigatio

particular relevance to hermeneutics,
contemporary ecclesiology. I refer to
and specifically New Testament ideas
used at various times and in various p
Christian origins.148 This involves a s
ideological concept, as part of a wider
values, as something people believe in
diminishes) their sense of identity and
ant in study of this kind is how bibli
become normative and take on a presc
into conflict with alternative definitions
for social and institutional change. The
of the 1960s of much contemporary interest in the communal
dimension of earliest Christianity, mentioned earlier, is hardly
coincidental, and is a prime example of what I have in mind.
There is no sign that study of the communal dimension of
earliest Christianity is abating. The preceding survey shows that
all the signs are to the contrary. In my view, this is all to the good,
for at least the following reasons.
i. Such investigation is an important corrective to interpreta
tions of either a phenomenological or theological kind which put
too much emphasis on Christianity as a religion of the individual.
It shows how, from the very beginning, following Jesus was a
thoroughly social commitment,149 which involved the shaping of
a corporate life engaged in an all-pervasive (if sometimes implicit)
way with questions of morality, politics, economics, law, and
culture. From the perspective of Christian origins, therefore, it is

146 Β. Holmberg, Sociology and the New Testament: An Appraisal (Minneapolis,

1990).
147 Ibid. 124—5; an(I see further pp. 134 ff.
148 For one attempt, see H. von Campenhausen, Ecclesiastical Authority and
Spiritual Power in the Church of the First Three Centuries (ET, London, 1969).
149 Important here is Gerhard Lohfink's Jesus and Community. The Social
Dimension of Christian Faith (ET, London, 1985).

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 THE COMMUNAL DIMENSION 427

impossible to justify a separation of personal

ality, on the one hand, and corporate identity
on the other.
2. Such investigation also encourages the recognition that early
Christian beliefs and practices (including beliefs about community)
were conditioned, not only historically,150 but sociologically as
well. This means that due attention has to be given, in the inter
pretation of the early Christian writings, to the effects of social
stratification, role expectations, conflict and competition, power
relations, types of authority, the construction of gender, dominant
social symbols, ideologies of legitimation, and the like. Discussion
of 'church order' in New Testament times is likely to be abstract,
doctrinaire and 'docetic' if it fails to take sociological factors such
as these fully into account.151 On the other hand, awareness of the
sociological dimension in interpretation offers the possibility of a
much more richly textured, and also critical, appreciation of the
nature of early Christian attempts to build and sustain a common
life.
3. Finally, such investigation is important for the attention it
draws to the hermeneutics of the study of community in earliest
Christianity. Again and again one observes the extent to which
various scholarly reconstructions are indebted strongly to the her
meneutical presuppositions of the interpreter, be they liberal
objectivist, materialist, charismatic, feminist, liberationist, High
or Low Church, or whatever. There is no harm in this: it is what
the sociology of knowledge would lead us to expect.152 The reality
of communal life in earliest Christianity will have been complex
and many-sided. To approach it from a wide variety of perspect
ives helps both to bring that reality more clearly into view, and
to evaluate and (where possible) appropriate it more responsibly.
Stephen C. Barton

150 As Wayne Meeks puts it, in The Moral World of the First Christians, 97: 'If
therefore we are looking for some "pure" Christian values and beliefs unmixed
with the surrounding culture, we are on a fool's errand. What was Christian about
the ethos and ethics of those early Christian communities we will discover not by
abstraction but by confronting their involvement in the culture of their time and
place and seeking to trace the new patterns they made of old forms, to hear the
new songs they composed from old melodies'.
151 So, too, B. Holmberg, 'Sociological versus Theological Analysis'.
152 See H. C. Kee, Knowing the Truth, esp. chs. 1, 2.

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