Our earlier discussion suggests that when Paul began to dictate the letter to respond to the problems in Galatia his resort to rhetorical techniques of persuasion would have been virtually unavoidable, just as it was for another first-century Jewish author, Josephus, who fell into the style of epideictic oratory when composing his autobiography.1 For this reason, although the lack of a formal relationship between rhetoric and epistolography renders it an exercise of dubious value to enquire whether Galatians is judicial per se (see Betz 1975, 1979) or deliberative per se (see Smit 1989), it is certainly worthwhile to investigate whether, as a functional matter, the letter is primarily apologetic, being concerned with Paul’s status, especially as an apostle, or primarily deliberative, as interested in persuading his audience to, or dissuading them from, some course of action or viewpoint.
In addressing this issue, which has actually been live in Pauline scholarship since the fourth century CE (Gaventa 1986:310), we might expect to be helped more by a work such as Aristotle’s Rhetorica, since it discusses the issues in a very open way and with ample reference to large social contexts, than many of the rhetorical works written after Aristotle, which, although illuminating, became increasingly technical and formulaic.
A number of prominent features of Galatians have stimulated discussion as to whether it should be seen as predominantly deliberative or judicial. The chief of these are (what might loosely be called) the autobiographical aspects of the letter.2 Galatians begins, after all, with an emphatic assertion by Paul of his apostolic status:
1.1 Paul an apostle, not from human beings nor through a human being, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead,
1.2 and all the brethren who are with me, to the congregations of Galatia:
1.3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ,
1.4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present
evil age, according to the will of our God and Father;
1.5 to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Then, after a brief section in which he castigates the Galatians for turning towards another gospel (1.6–10), he further asserts that the gospel he proclaims has a divine and not human origin (1.11–12) before continuing with a long narrative describing his own conversion and relating certain points in his subsequent career, especially his involvement with Cephas, James and the Jerusalem Church, culminating in a dramatic confrontation with Cephas in Antioch (1.13–2.14).
Hans Dieter Betz classified Galatians, in a strict rhetorical sense, as judicial, as constituting an ‘apologetic letter’ in which Paul sought to defend himself against charges brought by his Galatian opponents as prosecutors in an imaginary courtroom where the jury was the letter’s addressees (1979:24). Central to this case was the passage from 1.12–
2.14, which Betz construed as the narratio? the statement of facts at issue which formed, of necessity, a central part of virtually every judicial speech, since it was upon the relevant facts that the jury reached its verdict.
Although this view secured some support,4 most scholars, quite rightly, rejected it. George Kennedy, one of the great authorities on ancient rhetoric (1963 and 1980), offered a succinct yet compelling critique (1984:144–152). A narratio could appear in deliberative and epideictic speeches; hence the presence of 1.12–2.14 in Galatians did not sound in favour of its judicial nature. Furthermore, narrationes in judicial speeches concerned the facts directly at issue in the case and this was not the case with Paul’s autobiographical passage. Second, and even more significantly, Gal. 5.1–6.10 (to which we will return later) was exhortatory in nature and such material played no part whatever in judicial oratory, although exhortation was common in deliberative and epideictic speeches;
Betz’ attempts to circumvent this difficulty were highly artificial and unconvincing. Last, and perhaps most important, the subject of Galatians simply could not support Betz’ case, for Paul’s principal aim (as appears in his conclusion at 6.12–16) was not to persuade the Galatians that they should alter their judgement of him, but that they should not get circumcised. In keeping with the point of deliberative rhetoric, Paul is really interested in altering the Galatians’ views and behaviour with respect to the future, not in achieving the judicial aim of having them form a view of something which has occurred in the past. A similar line has been adopted by Lyons (1985:112–119); Gaventa (1986); Hall (1987); and Vouga (1988), who points out that the Demosthenes’ de Corona is a good classical example of a deliberative speech containing a
Context and rhetoric in Galatians 61 narration and Smit (1989).
Virtually all of the scholars who have participated in this debate have, however, assumed an ease of incorporation of rhetorical features into epistolary style which underestimates the differences between the two genres, as discussed in Chapter 1. They have sought to make quite specific points about the letter using stylistic features culled from rhetorical treatises and the progymnasmata. As already noted, the better approach is to accord due credit to the differences between speech-making and letter-writing, while always acknowledging that given the pervasive influence of rhetoric in the Graeco-Roman world someone writing a letter in a context similar to one of the three standard rhetorical occasions would tend to adopt, at least in a broad sense, features appropriate to the occasion. Accordingly, it is reasonable to ask whether the function of Galatians is deliberative or judicial or even epideictic,5 since this raises the important issue of Paul’s main purpose in writing the epistle. Broadly speaking, although the arguments advanced by Kennedy for its being deliberative in nature, here meant in a functional not a technical sense, are persuasive, it will be useful to tease out the implications of this result a little, especially with respect to Gal. 1.12–2.14, since this passage must have some relationship to the broad intentions in this communication.
Rhetoric and history
Such an investigation takes us back to the significance of the historical dimension of the text, that is, the relationship it bears to the context in which, and for which, the message it contains was communicated, which is a crucial aspect of this reading. The extent to which a work like Galatians that utilises rhetoric can yield historical information has recently come under attack, however, and the project needs to be defended against at least two types of criticism. Most radically, Robert Hall has argued that since certain ancient rhetoricians urged writers of narrationes to re-interpret history in the interest of persuasion not truth and since Paul is employing rhetorical techniques, Galatians must be discounted as an historical source (1991). In other words, since Paul uses rhetoric you have to be careful about believing anything he says.
Not quite so extreme is the case made by George Lyons (1985), that it is wrong to adopt the ‘mirror-reading’ espoused by Tyson (1968) and others, which consists of holding that where Paul utters strong antitheses (1.1, 10–12) or denials (2.5, 17, 21) he is responding to specific charges.
According to Lyons, the specific charges proposed are often quite arbitrary when set against the possibilities thrown up by the data and,
more significantly, much of the material thought relevant can be explained as rhetorical amplification not necessarily related to any precise charges. I will respond to Hall and Lyons in turn, although it is worth noting at once that the arguments of both exhibit a heavier investment in the specific features of rhetoric than may be justified in the case of an epistolary communication.
Robert Hall’s scepticism as to the factual accuracy of Galatians
Hall’s scepticism as to the truth of what Paul says is quite unjustified.
First of all, he assembles a number of statements about the narratio without distinguishing between narrationes in judicial as opposed to deliberative speeches and relies on Quintilian, the Rhetorica ad Herennium, Cicero and the pseudo-Aristotelian Rhetorica ad Alexandrum, without mentioning Aristotle’s superior work Rhetorica. Yet it is risky to assume that what is said regarding a judicial speech applies to a deliberative one, for as Aristotle explained:
Political [sc. deliberative] rhetoric is given to less unscrupulous practices than forensic, because it treats of wider issues. In a political debate the man who is forming a judgment is making a decision about his own vital interests. There is no need, therefore, to prove anything except that the facts are what the supporter of the measure maintains they are. In forensic [judicial] oratory this is not enough; to conciliate the listener is what pays here. It is other people’s affairs that are to be decided, so that the judges, intent on their own satisfaction and listening with partiality, surrender themselves to the disputants instead of judging between them.
(Rhetorica 1354; ET by Roberts 1924) This is just common sense; applied to a narratio it means that an audience is more likely to smile at specious falsehood when their own interests are not affected (judicial context) than when they are (deliberative context).
Given this view, we would not expect Paul’s Galatians to be too tolerant of his pulling the wool over their eyes, nor expect him to think he could.
Second, there are actually references in the rhetorical literature, precisely to the opposite effect claimed by Hall, which insist on the need for factual accuracy in narrationes like that found in Galatians 1 and 2. In a section devoted to political speeches, the Rhetorica ad Alexandrum states that we must ‘either narrate events which have happened in the past or recall them to the minds of our hearer’ and continues a little later as follows in relation to a scenario closely related to the journey to Jerusalem
Context and rhetoric in Galatians 63 Paul describes in Gal. 2.1–10:
When therefore we are reporting the details of an embassy, we must make a lucid statement of everything that was said, in order that our speech may carry weight…next, if we have been unsuccessful, our object will be to make our hearers think that the failure of the negotiations was due to some other cause and not to our negligence…
This [sc. our success] they are ready to believe, if, not having been present at the negotiations, they observe the zeal displayed in our speech in omitting nothing but accurately reporting every detail. So when we are describing the results of an embassy, we must for the reasons which I have stated report everything just as it happened.
(Rhetorica ad Alexandrum 1438a; ET by Forster 1924) The author further explains that the speaker needs to be clear, concise and convincing, yet the latter factor is not meant as a licence to falsify the facts, but rather to ensure that the audience ‘may not reject our statements before we have supported them with proofs and justifications’.
Where the facts are improbable, and the limitation is significant, the author states that we must bring forward reasons which will make them plausible and, moreover, we ‘must omit anything the occurrence of which seems too improbable’ (ibid.: 1438b). Thus, although embarrassingly unlikely facts may be left unsaid (something also permissible under evidentiary rules of English common law, which permit any factual statement against one’s interest to be left unsaid), there is no justification offered here for falsification of facts.
Third, even Hall concedes the view of Quintilian that facts too widely known must be admitted (1991:312). Yet much of what Paul says in Gal. 1.13–2.14 was well and truly in the public domain; this applies in particular to the crucial facts of his three dealings with members of the Jerusalem Church—on his two visits to Jerusalem and at Antioch. All of this could have been checked against his version of events. As for the matters personal to himself, he is in fact remarkably reticent, thereby failing to follow the advice later to be given by Quintilian—that one should invent what could not be disproved (Quint. 4.2.93).
Fourth, there is the distinctive nature of Paul’s audience. They were not some amorphous body of citizens unrelated to him whom he needed to persuade to a particular course. In group-oriented ancient Mediterranean culture there was no necessary shame in misleading such people for your own benefit. No, he was writing to the congregations he himself had founded, people whom he repeatedly addresses as adelphoi,
‘brethren’, fellow ‘house members of the faith’ (6.10), his own family in
Christ. By Mediterranean standards it would have been disgraceful to dissemble to persons such as these and nothing which Hall cites from the rhetoricians suggests otherwise. There is no justification whatever for thinking Paul acted so wickedly within the ethical conventions of his day as to have done so.
George Lyons’ attack on ‘mirror-readings’ of Galatians
As to Lyons’ argument, it is certainly reasonable to be cautious about drawing too specific an inference as to what historical phenomenon, if any, might underlie Paul’s emphatic antitheses, denials and questions.
Clearly, some mirror-reading interpretations have pushed the evidence beyond breaking-point, especially as to the identity of Paul’s opponents.
We must always be ready to consider whether there is a rhetorical reason for some particular statement. This is not to say, however, that we should abandon seeking to contextualise Pauline assertions in mid-first-century CE Galatia. The alleged weaknesses and inconsistencies which, Lyons argues, affect existing attempts to relate Paul’s message to his Galatian context do not mean that a reasonable case cannot be made, only that we need to approach the problem differently, through injecting some social-scientific realism into the discussion. In particular, we need to employ a new framework of socially realistic and reflective questions (such as those deriving from Mediterranean anthropology) with which to investigate the text, rather than the hunches of modern European individualists, as has hitherto been the case.
Lyons himself recognises that ‘trouble-makers’ were at work in Galatia, that Paul faced opposition there and that the Galatians were in peril of falling away from the true gospel (1985:170–176). Lyons’ view is characterised by an unwillingness to get much more specific than this.
Yet his own fairly sceptical position has its problems. His emphatic denial that we can know anything much about the opposition neglects important questions thrown up by data such as the reference to present-day Jerusalem being in slavery (4.25), the possible reference to a known person at 5.10, the circumcisers’ connection with the cross (6.12) and, finally, the question about Paul’s advocacy of circumcision at 5.11. The fact that no one has yet come up with entirely satisfactory answers to the dilemmas posed by data such as these does not justify our throwing up our hands with the despairing cry that it is all too hard. This is especially the case where methodological advances offer the promise of side-stepping old obstacles to understanding.
The real weakness with Lyons’ position, however, lies in his use of
Context and rhetoric in Galatians 65 ancient rhetorical theory. His argument, in nuce, is that Paul’s antithetical constructions represent, not his defence against charges raised against him, but rhetorical constructions used for purposes of emphasis and clarity; they serve the positive function of affirming his position, rather than the negative one of responding to charges against him (1985:105–
112). The foundation for his position is an article by Abraham Malherbe which seeks to relate Paul’s autobiographical remarks in 1 Thess. 2.1–
12 to similar statements by the Cynic philosopher Dio Chrysostom (c.
CE 40–120) in his Oration 32 in which, according to Malherbe, Dio is not defending himself against specific charges that he was a charlatan but just using antithetic formulations to characterise himself as the ideal Cynic (Malherbe 1970).
Lyons supports this view of the rhetoric of the situation with the argument that a further reason for rejecting the defensive nature of Paul’s statements of this kind is that the letter is deliberative not forensic in nature, as claimed by Betz (Lyons 1985:112–119). The latter point rests on an assumption that deliberative speeches did not contain passages in defence of the speaker and may be disposed of quickly, since it is abundantly clear that the makers of deliberative (political) speeches frequently had to present their own character favourably as a way of persuading their audience of the merits of their case:
the orator must not only try to make the argument of his speech demonstrative and worthy of belief; he must also make his own character look right and put his hearers, who are to decide, into the right frame of mind. Particularly in political oratory, but also in lawsuits, it adds much to an orator’s influence that his own character should look right and that he should be thought to entertain the right feelings towards his hearers.
(Rhetorica, 1377b; ET by Roberts 1924) As a general observation, it is clear that Lyons has left out of consideration the extent to which the primary level of socialisation in Mediterranean society involved the inculcation of a fierce sense of competitiveness with all who were not family or close friends. Although some critics have been remarkably slow to listen, Bruce Malina has been urging readers of the New Testament since 1981 to take seriously the extent to which first-century Mediterranean society was a fiercely competitive one, riven with envy directed at one’s successful competitors.6 Solid confirmation of this phenomenon can be found throughout Graeco-Roman literature, but there is actually an extensive theoretical treatment of the subject in Aristotle’s Rhetorica (1370b–1371a; 1384a; 1387a-b), who says blankly
at one point: ‘We compete with our equals’ (1384a), and at another:
Envy [phthonos] is pain at the sight of such good fortune as consists of the good things already mentioned; we feel it towards our equals; not with the idea of getting something for ourselves, but because the other people have it. We shall feel it if we have, or think we have, equals; and by ‘equals’ I mean equals in birth, relationship, age, disposition, distinction, or wealth…So too we compete with those who follow the same ends as ourselves: we compete [philotimountai]
with our rivals in sport or in love, and generally with those who are after the same things; and it is therefore these whom we are bound to envy above all others.
(Rhetorica 1387b–l388a; ET by Roberts 1924) This meant that Paul would necessarily face opposition to his success wherever he went and would need to be quick to defend himself against it. His own engagement with this type of outlook is evident when he states that he was advanced in Ioudaismos beyond many contemporaries of his age (1.14). In this context, Lyons’ proposal that Paul’s rhetoric could operate merely to emphasise his meaning, that he could send a message to his congregations without really needing to counter the envious attacks he could expect from others in Galatia, represents a socially unrealistic imposition of modern individualist notions on ancient texts where they are quite inapposite.
For this reason, Lyons is also unwise to rely on Malherbe’s essay on 1 Thess. 2.1–12 in making his case, since Malherbe himself may have misconstrued Dio in much the same way—by failing to appreciate the
For this reason, Lyons is also unwise to rely on Malherbe’s essay on 1 Thess. 2.1–12 in making his case, since Malherbe himself may have misconstrued Dio in much the same way—by failing to appreciate the