Reciprocity marks the third and final entanglement. Generally speaking, classicists and NT scholars adopt one of two methodological approaches in appraising the precise contours of reciprocity. Some search the literary works of Greek authors, ranging from the 8th to 3rd
century B.C., to arrive at a definition,34 while others rely on Roman authors, such as Cicero (106-43 B.C.), Seneca (4 B.C.-A.D. 65), and Dio Chrysostom (A.D. 40-120), as well as inscriptional evidence.35 But the problem with ancient sources is that they lack terminological precision and fail to explain the various factors, ideologies, and social forces involved in antiquity,36 and can thus only offer a broad definition such as Richard Seaford’s: ‘Reciprocity is the principle and practice of voluntary requital, of benefit for benefit (positive reciprocity) or harm for harm
34. The most substantial work on this topic is Christopher Gill, Norman Postlethwaite, and Richard Seaford, eds., Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), which adequately demonstrates the diversity of Greek thought on reciprocity.
35. According to Danker (Benefactor: Epigraphic Study of a Graeco-Roman and New Testament Semantic Field (St. Louis: Clayton, 1982), 28–29) and Harrison (Paul’s Language of Grace in Its Graeco-Roman Context [WUNT 2/172; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003], 24), this sort of evidence has the advantage of presenting a non-élite perspective, while literary works only possess a view from the top down.
(negative reciprocity).’37 Recognising this generality, classicists and NT scholars adopt a third method by applying cross-cultural, anthropological taxonomies in order to add form to the amorphous phenomenon of ancient reciprocity.38
Marshall Sahlins has produced the most notable taxonomy of reciprocity, manifested in three genres: (i) general reciprocity, occurring among kinship and friends, exhibits unilateral and altruistic giving of ‘pure gifts,’ with a discreet yet indefinite expectation of a return; (ii) balanced reciprocity is a less personal and calculable exchange of commensurate gifts without delay, attended by the economic interests of each party; and (iii) negative reciprocity features overt exploitation, with each party looking to maximise their own utility at the other’s expense.39
Yet Sahlin’s threefold taxonomy has been modified by Wolfgang and Ekkehard Stegemann,40 who emphasise the social status of the interlocutors involved. Four types of reciprocal exchange are postulated: (i) familial reciprocity (egalitarian status, non-
37. ‘Introduction,’ in Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (ed. C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite, and R. Seaford; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 1–11 at 1.
38. Many scholars nevertheless discourage the use of cross-cultural models, insisting that they better represent the ‘primitive’ culture of hunter and gatherer tribes than the ancient culture of the Greco-Roman world, with its centralised form of government (e.g., Zeba Crook, ‘Reflections on Culture and Social-Scientific Models,’ JBL 124 [2005]: 515–20 at 515-16; cf. also the forthright critique of E.A. Judge, ‘Rank and Status in the World of the Caesars and St Paul,’ in Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E.A. Judge [ed. David Scholer; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008], 140).
39. Stone Age Economics (NY: Aldine, 1972), 193–96.
40. The Jesus Movement: A Social History of Its First Century (trans. O.C. Dean Jr.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), 36; cf. also George Dalton, ed., Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies: Essays of Karl Polanyi [Boston: Beacon, 1968], esp. ch. 1 and 7). Sahlins, Polanyi, and the Stegemanns nevertheless build on the well-known work of Marcel Mauss, The Gift.
48 competitive);41 (ii) balanced reciprocity (equal status, symmetrical relationship); (iii) general reciprocity (unequal status, asymmetrical relationship); and (iv) negative reciprocity (hostile relationship).42 The most relevant outcome of this model — especially for the purposes of this study — is that it offers a categorical distinction between gift exchange and patron-client relations, subsuming the former under balanced reciprocity and the latter under general reciprocity.43
Zeba Crook helpfully parses this categorical distinction between gift exchange and patronage. He explains that a gift is not patronage, ‘since receiving a gift does not make one a client.’ Conversely, he continues, ‘reciprocating a benefaction on the part of a client does not result in an ontological shift in which patron or benefactor suddenly becomes client and vice versa.’44 ‘Gift,’ then, for Crook, belongs to the realm of ‘equals or close equals’ and requires a counter-gift of ‘equal or greater value’ (i.e., balanced reciprocity),45 whereas ‘benefaction’ and ‘patronage’46 belong to the realm of ‘unequals’ and necessitate a return of ‘honour, gratitude,
41. This needs to be qualified. Obviously, a father and a child were unequal in status, but, in comparison to those in the outside world, they shared a closer proximity of social position.
42. Jesus Movement, 36.
43. Sahlins collapses both under general reciprocity, insofar as the exchanges of patrons and clients are not commensurate in worth.
44. Conversion, 58. By ‘benefaction,’ Crook refers to patronage, since he recognises their difference but affirms that ‘they are often extraordinarily difficult to distinguish from one another’ (ibid, 66).
45. One wonders how participants would appraise the value of each other’s gifts, though. Would good advice count as much as or more than saving a friend’s life? If so, who decides?
46. These social institutions are not identical for Crook, but, because of their multiple commonalities, he places both under general reciprocity (Conversion, 59).
and loyalty’ (i.e., general reciprocity).47 Gift exchange, therefore, features two (more or less) equal parties, who share a mutual obligation to give to one another and who take turns being the one in debt to the other, while dependent clients were primarily obliged to élite patrons or benefactors, with both parties residing in asymmetrically-fixed social positions. No
‘ontological shift’ in status occurs when a client furnishes a return to a patron. The client remains a client and the patron a patron.
Yet the patronal interpretation, which seems to be ubiquitous among Pauline scholars, assumes, albeit unconsciously, that a client could become a patron after giving a counter-gift, since they contend that the Corinthians attempted to become Paul’s patron by offering him a gift with ‘strings attached.’ But if the patron-client model is applied to their relationship, then Paul would obviously represent the patron. After all, he is the higher-status apostle who gave the initial gift of the gospel to them. Providing a return, then, would not transform the ontology of the Corinthians into patrons. Far from it. It would instead solidify their role as dependent clients, whose duty it is to reciprocate gratitude, loyalty, and honour. In Chapter 4 and 5, we will consider whether the patron-client model is even applicable to the apostle’s financial dealings with his churches. For the time being, we only highlight the necessity for a
categorical distinction to be made between being in debt (or social obligation) to another in
47. Nevertheless, see Alan Kirk, ‘Karl Polanyi, Marshall Sahlins, and the Study of Ancient Social Relations,’ JBL 126 (2007): 182–91, who presents a perceptive challenge to Crook’s dependence on and the validity of the Stegemanns’ model.
50 gift exchange and becoming a dependent client in a patronage relationship. The two are not synonymous.
1.1.4. Summary
The main endeavour of this section was to relay the complexities of social exchange rather than resolve them by describing three complex issues: (i) the identical or disparate nature of patrocinium and euergetism, (ii) the definition of patronage, and (iii) the shape of reciprocity. In so doing, we sought to confirm the claim with which we began, that the patron- client model, as a conflation of all forms of social exchange, is an oversimplification that not only confuses social history but also wrongly imposes a specific relational pattern, with its particular rules of exchange, onto relationships that more accurately mirror other patterns of reciprocal exchange in antiquity.48 In the end, gifts need a historical context before being situated in a particular mould. Natalie Zemon Davis’s assessment of the patterns of gift-giving in sixteenth-century France is instructive here. ‘The spirit of gifts was carried out not by names alone, but by whole situations.’49 The historical situation of any given relationship must therefore be evaluated. Who is giving, and who is returning? Are they equal or unequal? And what is the relational sphere in which they are exchanging? These questions concerning the
48. As a result, many NT scholars have taken, what Harrison calls, ‘“a city by city” approach’ (Paul’s Language of Grace, 16 n63), specifically analysing patron-client and/or benefactor-beneficiary relations in specific geographic locations (e.g., Holland Hendrix, ‘Benefactor/Patronage Networks in the Urban Environment: Evidence from Thessalonica,’ Semeia 56 [1992]: 39–58; Lukas Bormann, Philippi: Stadt und Christengemeinde zur Zeit des Paulus [NovTSup 78; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995]).
route of the gift, the status of participants, and the relational sphere in which they participate can be better assessed by exploring the various gift-exchange relationships in the Greco- Roman world and their distinct social dynamics, to which we now turn.