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Home , Grammarian (Greco-Roman), Metrodorus (grammarian), Paideia

The Pepaideumenoi and Jesus: Ancient and Marginal Intellectuals in Paul’s Corinth and the Gospel of Thomas

by

Ian Phillip Brown

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto

ã Copyright by Ian Phillip Brown 2020

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The Pepaideumenoi and Jesus: Ancient Education and Marginal Intellectuals in Paul’s Corinth and the Gospel of Thomas

Ian Phillip Brown

Doctor of Philosophy

Department for the Study of Religion

University of Toronto

2020

Abstract

My dissertation is concerned with the types of people that produced and consumed early writings about Jesus, specifically the Gospel of Thomas and 1 Corinthians. I argue that literary forms and features within both texts demonstrate contact with and influence from Graeco-Roman education, encyclia paideia. Other scholars of ancient Christianity have noted similarities between particular gospels or letters and Graeco-Roman paideia, but their conclusions have tended to either compare a certain text with a particular Graeco-Roman moral philosophy, or argue that early Christian texts are dramatically different from those produced by Graeco-Roman intellectuals. The former approach posits borrowing from Graeco-Roman philosophical writings and the latter presents Christianity as an entity distinct from the Graeco-Roman intellectual world: either the producers and consumers of early Christian texts were among the educated elite, or they rejected Graeco-Roman paideia altogether. This dissertation changes our understanding of how early Christian writings were influenced by Graeco-Roman paideia by focusing on the masses of marginally educated people produced by Graeco-Roman education.

Education was not standardized in the ancient world, and for every or who completed their , there were hundreds more who received some education, but not

iii enough to participate in the discourses of the educated elite. These people were what I call marginal intellectuals, in that they possessed some skill in reading, copying, and perhaps composition, but most importantly, recognizing the attached to the possession and performance of paideia.

The Gospel of Thomas and 1 Corinthians both contains sayings, lessons, and discussions that we would expect from marginal intellectuals. The texts contain literary forms taught in ancient schools, use metaphors distinct to ancient schools, and focus on the performance of their own and knowledge in a way that mimics the discourses of the intellectual elite. By identifying the Gospel of Thomas and 1 Corinthians as products of marginal intellectuals, I am not simply positing a social class of people, I am demonstrating the ways in which these early

Christian texts were deeply intertwined with the world of Graeco-Roman paideia.

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Acknowledgments Research for this dissertation was supported by a SSHRC Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship–Doctoral, the Ruth E. and Harry E. Carter Ontario Graduate Scholarship, and the Avie Bennett Award. My committee consisted of John Kloppenborg (advisor), and Joseph Bryant, John Marshall, and Kevin Wilkinson. I would like to thank four teachers of mine who shaped my academic life and without whom I would not have gone on to and completed graduate school: Ken MacKendrick, Laurence Broadhurst, Bill Arnal, and Ken Derry. I also want to thank my wonderful friends in Toronto, especially Gwen and Juniper, Kris and Jess, Nick and Helen who both passed away during my PhD (I miss you both very much), Maria Jack and Ari, my curling teams (Anna, Kaleigh, Ken, Dillon, Sean, Mike), my pals (Kaleigh, Kyle, and James), Andrew, Yaniv, Saliha, and everyone else who made my time in Toronto more enjoyable. I especially want to thank my partner, Michelle, who has done more to support me than I can possibly return (but that won’t mean I don’t try). Finally, I want to thank my family, my mom and dad (Leslie and Phil), my brother and sister (Derek and Kelsey), and my uncle Ted for covering the bill at Country Style. I dedicate this dissertation to the memory of my grandparents, Geraldine and Gilbert Brown.

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Table of Contents Abstract...... ii Acknowledgments ...... iv Introduction ...... 1 1. Introduction ...... 1 2. Chapter Outlines ...... 4 Chapter 1: Primary and Grammar Schools in Graeco-Roman Antiquity ...... 7 1. Introduction ...... 7 2. A Culture of Paideia ...... 7 3. Schools in Antiquity: Students and Curriculum ...... 9 4. Paideia and the Construction of Virtue in Ancient Schools ...... 13 4.1. Early Years ...... 14 4.2. Primary Schools ...... 15 5. Grammar Schools: Content and Virtue ...... 24 6. Teachers ...... 28 6.1. Pedagogues ...... 29 6.2. Didaskaloi ...... 30 6.3. Grammarians ...... 36 7. Conclusion: Students and Teachers, Paideia and Virtue ...... 40 Chapter 2: Rhetorical and Philosophical Schools and the Cultivation of Virtue in Paideia ...... 42 1. Introduction ...... 42 2. : Historical Background ...... 43 2.1 Teachers and Students ...... 45 3. Training in Virtue in the Progymnasmata and Rhetorical Schools ...... 47 3.1. Progymnasmata and Virtue ...... 48 3.2. Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Virtue ...... 50 4. Philosophical Schools in the First Centuries CE ...... 52 4.1. Philosophical schools in the Roman Period ...... 53 4.2. The School as a (social) Structure ...... 53 4.3. The Ideal of Philosophy as Βίος ...... 56 4.4. Teachers and Students ...... 58 4.5. Day-to-Day Running of the Schools ...... 61 4.6 The Epicurean Garden ...... 62 4.7. The Use of Texts in Philosophical Schools ...... 66 4.8 Philosophers and Exile ...... 69 5. Conclusion ...... 70 Chapter 3. Identifying the Marginal: Intellectual Culture between οἱ πολλοὶ καὶ οἱ φιλοσοφουντοί ...... 71 1. Introduction ...... 71

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2. Identifying the Marginal ...... 72 2.1 Theorizing the Marginal ...... 73 3. Evidence for the Marginal Intellectual ...... 79 3.1 Literary Texts in Archives ...... 80 3.2 Other Documentary Evidence ...... 85 3.3 Material Evidence: Conclusion ...... 87 4. Defending the Borders ...... 87 4.1 The Attractions of Paideia ...... 89 4.2 Paideia and Self-improvement ...... 92 5. The Porous Walls of the Pepaideumenoi ...... 95 5.1 One “could more easily fall in a boat without hitting a plank than for your eye to miss a philosopher wherever it looks.” ...... 95 5.2 Fake it till you make it ...... 98 5.3 Positive Spaces at the Symposium ...... 102 6. Conclusion to Part One ...... 103 Part 2: Paideia in Corinth and the Gospel of Thomas ...... 107 1. Introduction ...... 107 Chapter 4: The Gospel of Thomas ...... 121 1. Early Christians as Marginal Intellectuals ...... 121 2. The Gospel of Thomas ...... 122 3. Material Evidence from P.Oxy I 1; IV 654, 655 ...... 124 4. Genre ...... 126 4.1 Chreia in the Progymnasmata and Gospel of Thomas ...... 128 4.2 Expanded chreia in the Gospel of Thomas ...... 133 4.3 Implications for the study of the Gospel of Thomas ...... 146 5. Jesus as Teacher ...... 147 6. The Enigmatic Presentation of the Gospel of Thomas ...... 150 6.1 Seeking and Effort ...... 150 6.2 Rhetoric of Secrecy ...... 155 6.3 Agriculture as a Metaphor for Learning ...... 158 7. Philonic/Platonic Exegesis of Genesis in Thomas ...... 160 7.1 Exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2 ...... 163 8. Conclusion: The Gospel of Thomas’ World ...... 168 Chapter 5: Paul’s Paideia ...... 170 1. General Chapter Outline ...... 170 2. Criteria of an Intellectual Exchange ...... 172 3. Paul’s Education and the Literary Sophistication of 1 Corinthians ...... 173 3.1 Stephen M. Pogoloff (1992) Duane A. Litfin (1994) Michael A. Bullmore (1995) Dale Martin (1995) ...... 175 3.3 “Rhetorical Situation” vs. “Rhetorical Forms” ...... 178 3.4 Ryan Schellenberg (2013): A critique of the educated Paul ...... 183

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3.5 Paul’s Rhetorical Education revisited ...... 184 3.6 Paul’s Education (and why it doesn’t matter) ...... 187 4. Paul and Paideia, and Intellectual Culture in Corinth, a review of literature ...... 188 4.1 Paul and Popular Philosophy ...... 188 4.2 Recent Studies on Paul, Paideia, and Corinth ...... 191 4.3 Paul, Paideia, Corinth: trends in scholarship ...... 208 5. Paul, Paideia, and Corinth: Paul and the Corinthians as Marginal Intellectuals ...... 210 5.1 Paideia mentioned in 1 Corinthians ...... 210 5.2 Paul’s Paideia ...... 215 6. Paul as a Teacher in Corinth and Thessaloniki ...... 227 7. Paul, some conclusions ...... 232 Conclusion ...... 234 Bibliography ...... 236

1

Introduction

1. Introduction In an important pair of essays published in the Journal of Religious History, E. A. Judge argued that early Christian groups can and should be understood as scholastic communities. 1 Given that the Jesus groups with whom we are familiar were “founded and to some extent carried on under the auspices of visiting professional preachers,” Judge concluded that they are more closely comparable to contemporary philosophical movements focused on paideia rather than private religious societies.2 Judge’s focus on paideia and scholastic social groups leads him to identify Paul as a sophist.3 Judge does not suggest that Paul modeled himself after any particular sophist, but rather that Paul, like the sophists, “provided himself with a secure social position, consciously or unconsciously, by adopting the conventions of the sophistic profession.”4 Judge argued that Paul’s Roman citizenship made him a member of the social elite in the Hellenistic states,5 and as a result of this line of argumentation, Judge sees Paul’s relationship with many of the named persons in his letters as one between sponsor and patron.6 The importance of the sponsors is mainly that they supplied the sophist (here Paul) with monetary assistance and funding for his tours.7 The majority of Judge’s two-part article focuses on Paul’s teaching tours (largely based on the narrative of Acts), and Judge argues that this type of teaching tour was typical of sophists. In addition to Paul’s self-presentation as a sophist, Judge sees evidence for Paul’s sophistry in his moral exhortations (although Judge spends far less time on this than many of those writing after him). Judge concludes his analysis of Paul by stating that [t]he Christian faith, therefore, as Paul expounds it, belongs with the doctrines of philosophical schools rather than with esoteric rituals of the mystery religions. Another

1 E. A. Judge, “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community,” JRH 1 (1960): 4–15; E. A. Judge, “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community: Part II,” JRH 1 (1961): 125–37. 2 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 125. The division between philosophical movements on the one hand, and what Judge identifies as private religious societies (thiasoi) on the other has been challenged in recent years. See especially, Philip A. Harland, “‘The Most Sacred Society (Thiasos) of the Pythagoreans:’ Philosophers Forming Associations,” JAH 7 (2019): 207–232. 3 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 125. 4 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 126. 5 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 127. 6 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 128. 7 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 130.

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feature that marks Paul’s teaching as a philosophical rather than religious is its concentration upon ethics.8

Reflecting on the implications of his suggestion that early Christians were involved in scholastic activities, Judge argues that at all stages of the early Jesus movement “the initiative lay with persons whose work was important respects of a scholarly kind, and that they accepted the status in the community that this required, and employed the conventional methods of instructing and organizing their fellows.”9 In spite of some of the drawbacks of Judge’s thesis (especially his reliance on Acts) his general theory that early Jesus groups resembled scholastic communities, and that Paul resembled a sophist both in terms of his practices and the contents of his teachings are important contributions to the study of early Jesus people. Judge’s insights prompted many who came after to take seriously not just the Graeco- Roman setting in which early Christianities emerged, but also on Graeco-Roman paideia more specifically. In addition to Judge, Wayne Meeks, Abraham J. Malherbe, Stanley K. Stowers, James Harrison, Claire Smith, Andrew Pitts, Karl Olav Sandnes have all examined emerging Christianities and their relationship with Graeco-Roman paideia.10 The focus of these studies

8 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 135. 9 Judge, “Scholastic Community II,” 136. 10 Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1977); Abraham J. Malherbe, “Self-Definition among Epicureans and Cynics,” in Jewish and Christian Self- Definition Volume Three: Self-Definition in the Greco-Roman World, ed. Ben F Meyer and E. P. Sanders (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982), 46–59; Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Fortress Press, 2006); Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); Wayne A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians, vol. 6 (Westminster: John Knox Press, 1986); Stanley K. Stowers, “Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching : The Circumstances of Paul’s Preaching Activity,” NovT 26.1 (1984): 59–82; Stanley K. Stowers, “Does Pauline Christianity Resemble a Hellenistic Philosophy?,” in Paul Beyond the Hellenism/Judaism Divide, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 81–102; Stanley K. Stowers, “Apostrophe, Prosopopoiia and Paul’s Rhetorical Education,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. John T. Fitzgerald, Thomas H. Olbricht, and L. Michael White (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005), 352–69; Stanley K. Stowers, “Kinds of Myth, Meals, and Power: Paul and the Corinthians,” in Redescribing Paul and the Corinthians, ed. Ron Cameron and Merrill P. Miller, vol. 5 of Early Christianity and Its Literature (Atlanta, Ga: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 105–50; James R. Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia: Ephesian Benefactors, Civic Virtue and the New Testament,” Early Christ. 7.3 (2016): 346–67; Claire S. Smith, Pauline Communities as “Scholastic Communities”: A Study of the Vocabulary of “Teaching” in 1 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2012); Andrew W. Pitts, “Hellenistic Schools in Jerusalem and Paul’s Rhetorical Education,” in Paul’s World, ed. Stanley E. Porter, Pauline Studies (Boston: Brill, 2008), 19–50; Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts, eds., Ancient Education and Early Christianity, ed. Chris Keith (Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016); Karl Olav Sandnes, The Challenge of : School, Pagan Poets and Early Christianity, 1 edition. (London ; New York, NY: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2009); Ronald F. Hock, “Paul and Greco-Roman Education,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, ed. J. Paul Sampley (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press), 2003; Udo Schnelle, “Das Frühe Christentum Und Die Bildung,” NTS 61.2 (2015): 113–43.

3 tended to shift away from paideia as it was rooted in ancient education and toward Christianity’s affinity with moral philosophy. This line of inquiry produced excellent models with which to imagine early Christianities alongside philosophical groups, and Christian discourses alongside moral philosophy, but the focus on paideia, particularly as a social good obtained through encyclical studies, dropped away with few exceptions. The exceptions maintain a focus on paideia in the emergence of early Christianities, with a particular focus on Paul, but for the most part conclude that Christianity constituted a break, sometimes a radical break with the ethics and morality of Graeco-Roman paideia, and these studies argue that Christianity ultimately rejected paideia, presenting Jesus as an (egalitarian) alternative. But while these studies demonstrate a new interest in studying emerging Christianities alongside Graeco-Roman education (encyclia paideia), they tend to treat both categories as static, separate, and oppositional: Christianity rejected the elitism of Graeco-Roman paideia and in doing so insured that Christianity was more accessible and open to non-elite peoples. In contrast to these studies that posit a radical break between emerging Christianity on the one hand, and Graeco-Roman paideia on the other, my dissertation examines the ways in which at least some early Christian sites demonstrate a deep entanglement with paideia. In order to make this argument I highlight the hitherto ignored range of education skills possessed by those who received at least some Graeco-Roman education. Paideia was not an all-or-nothing cultural commodity, although the intellectual elite would have liked to think so. The reality of the ancient world was that, of the few people who had any education, the vast majority had very little. But as I will argue in chapters 1-3, even a minimal education trained students to recognize the cultural importance of education, and the cultural capital it potentially offered to those who could perform it. In chapters 4-5 I argue that encyclia paideia was a fundamental part of the world in which Christianity emerged, and I will argue that it played an instrumental role in shaping the form and content of Paul’s letters to Corinth, and the Gospel of Thomas. My goal here, however, is not to suggest that the Gospel of Thomas or 1 Corinthians reflected the high culture of Greek philosophy, or that they are the kind of texts that would have circulated with the intellectual elite. Rather, I argue that the texts demonstrate a familiarity with Graeco-Roman paideia: in the case of Thomas, the text offers secret learning from a wise teacher in the form of an easily recognizable form of writing, the chreia; in the case of 1 Corinthians, Paul offers to the Corinthians new teachings and wisdom, and that many of the conflicts reported

4 in the letters are best explained as conflicts deriving from disagreements over Paul as a teacher, and his qualifications as a purveyor of paideia.

2. Chapter Outlines My dissertation is divided into two sections. The first examines the construction of the intellectual world in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Here I trace the importance of paideia from early education through philosophical schooling. I identify both the culture in which paideia is important, and construct a category of “schoolish” to identify a wider circle of people interested in paideia, and texts that may fall under the umbrella of paideia. In my first chapter I examine the operation of the early stages of encyclia paideia: education at home, with a primary teacher, and with a grammarian. Here I look at the skills students acquired, the types of students who might receive such an education, and the literary content of their school exercises. The latter is particularly important to my argument as it demonstrates that even at the earliest levels of education students were trained to view education as virtuous, and the possession of education as a significant cultural achievement. I also examine the people who taught these early stages: pedagogues, kathegete (itinerant teachers), didaskaloi, and grammatikoi. In my second chapter I examine the advanced education students received in rhetorical and philosophical schooling. Once again I focus on the construction of paideia as a virtue, the social locations of the students who received advanced training, and the social locations of those who taught: rhetors, sophists, and philosophers. My third chapter examines the social world of intellectuals (to borrow from Kendra Eshleman).11 Here my focus is not simply on the intellectual elites who completed encyclia paideia and filled the prestigious roles of rhetors and philosophers, the pepaideumenoi, but also on those who achieved some education (as outlined in chapters 1 and 2), but were not fully trained. Several other scholars have noted or theorized the presence of people with a partial but not complete education. Teresa Morgan identifies a group of people who received a “core” education but did not progress on to grammar or rhetorical studies.12 Guglielmo Cavallo employs

11 Kendra Eshleman, The Social World of Intellectuals in the : Sophists, Philosophers, and Christians (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 12 Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, Cambridge Classical Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 71–72.

5 the title “free readers” to identify a group whose reading practices were not directly related to the jobs; they read for pleasure, not function (utilitas).13 In biblical studies Giovani Bazzana takes over Cavallo’s “free readers” to identify a class of people who read and exchanged apocalyptic books in the second through fifth centuries CE.14 William Arnal has at times referred to the readers of the Gospel of Thomas as “pseudo-intellectuals” with the “pseudo” designating their distance from the world of intellectuals who completed the traditional encyclical training.15 I identify this group as “marginal intellectuals”, a group on the margins of the pepaideumenoi due to incomplete educations, but still possessing enough education to recognize the significance of intellectual discourses, and perhaps even enough to participate. I recognize that my identification of such people as “marginal” or “on the margins” privileges the position of the traditional intellectuals who dictate the rules of the game. But I maintain that the idea of “margins” is useful here as I am describing a group that, while in total vastly outnumbered traditionally educated intellectuals, was marginalized by the educated elite even as their practices imitated those marginalizing them.16 Evidence for these marginal intellectuals is largely drawn from polemics penned by those intellectuals who dominate our literary sources, but there is also evidence of them in the writings of Plutarch, some documentary papyri, and, as I will argue in Part 2, early Christian texts. My fourth chapter examines The Gospel of Thomas as a text that belongs within the world of the pepaideumenoi described in chapter three. Thomas’ genre, content, presentation of Jesus as a teacher, and teachings on the good life all place Thomas alongside other writings from

13 Guglielmo Cavallo, “Between Volumen and Codex: Reading in the Roman World,” in A History of Reading in the West, ed. Roger Chartier and Guglielmo Cavallo (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 76. 14 Giovanni Battista Bazzana, “‘You Will Write Two Booklets and Send One to Clement and One to Grapte’: Formal Features, Circulation, and Social Function of Ancient Apocalyptic Literature,” in Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, ed. William E. Arnal et al. (Leuven ; Paris ; Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2016), 43–70. 15 William E. Arnal, “How the Gospel of Thomas Works,” in Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, ed. William E. Arnal et al. (Leuven ; Paris ; Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2016), 268. Arnal is not content with “pseudo” as a descriptive adjective, and unpacks his rationale for using it but keeping his distance in footnote 34. 16 The term “popular intellectuals” might be helpful in describing this group as the majority of those with any education, but this runs into the problem of making the group appear larger than they are. Stuart Hall used the term “popular” is his discussion of cultural products that were produced by and appealed to working classes and the poor Stuart Hall, “Notes on Deconstructing ‘The Popular,’” in People’s History and Socialist Theory, ed. Raphael Samuel, History Workshop Series (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), 227–40. My marginal intellectuals, while vastly outnumbering the Quintilians and Plutarchs of the world, were still sub-elite figures, themselves vastly outnumbered by the majority with no education whatsoever.

6 the world of the pepaideumenoi. My fifth chapter looks at Paul’s correspondence with Corinth in 1 Corinthians. Unlike others who have studied Paul’s letters to the Corinthians with paideia in mind, I am not concerned with whether or not Paul was educated, or with whether or not Paul was trying to combat a particular philosophy in Corinth. Rather, I look at the letters as Paul’s attempts to perform paideia to an audience that would have recognized its cultural significance. Here I place Paul and the Corinthians into my category of marginal intellectual. Paul’s responses to Corinthians’ questions and conflicts suggest both parties are attempting paideic discourses, but that neither are among the fully trained pepaideumenoi. My goal here is not to present an overview of encyclia paideia. Ronald F. Hock, the contributors to Ancient Education and Early Christianity, and others have already done so. Rather, I am making a very particular argument: that encyclia paideia trained students to recognize paideia as inherently virtuous, that the vast majority of students did not ascend to the heights of rhetoric and/or philosophy (hardly controversial), and that even people with a relatively simple education—from barely forming letters to having studied with a grammarian (but not moved on to rhetoric or philosophy)—would have recognized the cultural capital associated with reading and writing, and could have used their skills, however limited, to try and access some of this capital. Paul, Paul’s Corinthians, and those who composed and consumed the Gospel of Thomas were just such people.

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Chapter 1: Primary and Grammar Schools in Graeco-Roman Antiquity

1. Introduction Encyclia paideia, or cyclical studies, made of the basis of a Graeco-Roman education. According to elite writers such as Quintilian, Ps. Plutarch, and Philo, education started at home, and then the student advanced to study with a didaskalos (possibly still in the home if the family was wealthy), then a grammatikos in preparation for oratory and/or philosophy. As the students advanced in their education, they would acquire knowledge of reading and composition, oratory, math, and music. But while the instilling of these technical skills was an important part of education, it was not the only, or even most important aspect. By the Roman Imperial period the aim of education was not simply to train a scribal or administrative class, it was to cultivate and perpetuate a culture of intellectuals. Or, at least, this was the ideal supported by elite educators like Quintilian. Cultural training accompanied the more technical skills of reading and writing by using the of Greek culture as the “text books”. Homer was ubiquitous, and the vast majority of ancient school texts contain passages from Homer, usually the . Following Homer, , , and were all present in the classroom, as were sayings of and . Thus at the same time that students acquired and honed their literary skills, they were immersed in the cultural classics of Greek civilization, and trained in the fluency of that high culture. This chapter traces the training of cultural fluency, focusing on both the technical aspects of Graeco-Roman schooling, as well as the cultural.

2. A Culture of Paideia As stated in the introduction, the purpose of this dissertation is not to make broad claims about early Christianity, or the Graeco-Roman first and second centuries, or even reading and writing in the first century Mediterranean. This project, rather, is a careful and focused examination of a particular segment of intellectual culture in antiquity, witnessed in both literary and documentary sources. That segment of intellectual culture in which I am interested is the groups of people who valued paideia as acquired through a system called encyclia paideia. The importance of paideia was not universally self-evident in Graeco-Roman antiquity, but it was a significant subset of intellectual culture in antiquity. It is intimately tied up with the ways in which literate intellectuals presented virtue, the good life, masculinity, and citizenship. This is not surprising given that we should expect members of the educated to elevate their particular station in life as

8 the epitome of cultural attainment. Our evidence for the importance of a literate education is evident in , Plutarch, Philo, Quintilian, Cicero, and others. These writers and more make up the body of literary evidence for the culture of paideia in antiquity. Each of these authors has written, some at great length, about the systems of attaining paideia in antiquity. Their works have greatly influenced the history of the study of education in antiquity, especially in terms of how education progressed, and what the ultimate goals were. The reliance on these elite figures for our , however, has been rightly criticized as focusing too narrowly on elite cultural producers and ignoring the vast majority of the population, both the illiterate majority, and also the vast majority of the small segment of the population that were able to attain some level of literate education. As such, this chapter will stay in conversation with these authors, but focus more on documentary evidence for the culture of paideia in Graeco-Roman schools. The inclusion of documentary sources, especially school texts from ancient classrooms (including papyri, ostraca, graffiti, and wax tablets), inscriptions, and archaeological remains, has served to nuance or refute aspects of the picture painted by our literary sources, while also supporting other aspects of the literary picture.17 Ancient schools were far more diverse than Quintilian, Philo, or Plutarch suggest, and the ultimate attainment of one’s education was not always, in fact very rarely, becoming an orator as Quintilian imagines, or a rhetor as Libanius imagines, or a philosopher as Philo imagines. Documentary sources suggest that the aim of a particular school in a particular location depended far more on local needs and local resources (including the availability of teachers, students, and parents who could pay school fees) than it did on the ideals of education presented in literary sources. The majority of students who began literary education at the elementary level never moved beyond this most basic of literary training, and certainly never became the cultural elite as Quintilian imagined. That being the case, our documentary sources still provide us with evidence that a culture of paideia was surprisingly pervasive both within educated circles and without. Inscriptions praise family slaves

17 Here I am following the work of Raffaella Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996); Raffaella Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind: Greek Education in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). Older studies will be referenced where their conclusions have not been challenged or overturned: Erich Ziebarth, Aus Der Antiken Schule: Sammlung Griechischer Texte Auf Papyrus, Holztafeln, Ostraka. Ausgewählt und Erklärt von Erich Ziebarth. (Bonn: Marcus und Weber, 1910); Henri Irénée Marrou, Histoire de L’éducation dans L’antiquité (Éditions du Seuil, 1948); Stanley Frederick Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny (California: University of California Press, 1977).

9 who were also pedagogues (early years educators for wealthy families),18 and individuals with even a basic ability to recite a line from Homer or a popular maxim, or put stylus to papyrus to write a contract or a letter carried significant cultural capital. The nature of society in antiquity, literate evidence, and documentary evidence all point to both the need for a literate segment of the population, but also to the cultural capital that came along with that need. What I am interested in are the people involved in this process of education, both students and teachers, the education attained within, and the construction of a culture of paideia, where education was understood as both a virtue and a means to power. In order to examine this culture of paideia, it is imperative to examine the process by which literate education was attained. It was in the schools that paideia became doxa, and not just for those operating within the schools, but also as something the schools attempted to assert as a general and ultimate virtue. Given the significance of the schools in the production of paideia, it is necessary to survey schools in antiquity to see the ways in which paideia as virtue was imprinted on students. Examining schools will provide another important contribution: identifying the various levels of textual and cultural production in antiquity. Examining curricula, students, and teachers will help us to establish a class of people capable of and motivated to participate in a culture of paideia.

3. Schools in Antiquity: Students and Curriculum Two of the most significant and poignant studies of schooling in antiquity are Henri Marrou’s Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité (1948)19 and Stanley Bonner’s Education in Ancient Rome (1977).20 Their work, especially Marrou’s (which Bonner follows quite faithfully) is significant enough and continues to be pervasive enough to warrant some direct comment here before moving on to a description of education in antiquity. Marrou’s monograph Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité 21 introduced readers to the world of ancient Mediterranean education. Beginning with Homer, Marrou traces the history of classical education from the

18 Christian Laes, “Pedagogues in Greek Inscriptions in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity,” ZPE 171 (2009): 113– 22. 19 Henri Irénée Marrou, Histoire de L’éducation dans L’antiquité (Éditions du Seuil, 1948); with the English translation, Henri Irénée Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956). 20 Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome. 21 Marrou, Histoire de l’éducation dans l’antiquité.

10 ancient , through the Hellenistic age, into the Roman age, and ending with two brief chapters on Christian education in Rome and in the Middle Ages. Marrou’s emphasis is firmly placed on what he identifies as “classical education”. “Classical education”, as Marrou presents it, was the form which education took in antiquity. It began with Homer, Isocrates, and , and changed very little in its adoption by Hellenistic Greeks, the Roman Empire, and eventually, Christianity. The classical model saw students progress from learning letters and numbers with a pedagogue; to a primary education in basic reading, writing, and numeracy; on to grammar schools where students acquired more advanced grammatical and compositional skills, and also began a more intense study of the epics and classic poetry. Following grammar school, students advanced to rhetorical schools where their reading and compositional skills were honed in preparation for advanced studies in oratory, philosophy, or .22 Marrou notes some significant changes between the ancient period and the Hellenistic one, but education, according to him, follows the same basic model from the on. Marrou’s survey of pre-Hellenistic education is important, but its primary function is to establish the Hellenistic system of education that he describes in the second part of the book.23 This Hellenistic civilization, Marrou asserts, was a civilization of paideia.24 Hellenism celebrated the cultured individual, and more so than previous periods, private citizens, not just philosophers, recognized the of, and strove for, paideia. Monumental evidence points to the more popular appeal of paideia, and the cultural attainments of private citizens were celebrated along with the attainments of public philosophers.25 According to Marrou, paideia was “the religion of Hellenism.”26 The centre of any learned city was the Museum where highly qualified men gathered young disciples and taught higher learning.27 Because of the appeal, and indeed the value of education, the Hellenistic era saw an expansion of the educational system. The ephebia, which was once focused on training soldiers, shifted more and more toward intellectual

22 Marrou also mentions, at length, physical education, musical education, and scientific education. These aspects of Marrou’s “classical education” were a part of the main goal of education, especially Hellenistic education, the formation of cultured people. But while this is a major aspect of forming a cultured person, these aspects seem less important when compared to the literary skills acquired. 23 Henri Irénée Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1956), 95– 228. 24 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 100. 25 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 100. 26 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 101. 27 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 103.

11 training.28 The gymnasiums too shifted from a focus on physical education to a focus on intellectual training.29 In addition, a more structured system of education emerged with the focus on building cultured citizens. Children from wealthy families learned with a pedagogue in their early years before entering primary schooling at the age of seven.30 It was with a pedagogue that students learned the basics: letters, numbers, beginning grammar, some reading, and some composition. There is no indication in Marrou that there might be students who advanced no further than primary school, and the primary schools, according to Marrou, seemed to function solely to prepare students for secondary schooling that focused on literary studies. In secondary/literary studies, students learned Homer and other classics, philology, poetry, and advanced grammar. Again, secondary schools do not appear to Marrou to be terminal, but preparatory for one of several forms of advanced education; namely rhetoric and philosophy. Rhetoric and philosophy were the pinnacle of Hellenistic culture, and while there was competition between the two (and indeed within each respective field), the person possessing rhetorical and/or philosophical skills was recognized as a particularly cultured individual. There is good evidence for the proliferation of philosophical schools in this period, and Marrou’s claim that philosophy was highly regarded seems a good one. Marrou again argues that every major city with any self-respect had a museum,31 and even smaller towns featured a thiasos of students around a philosopher.32 Major centres such as and became intellectual hubs, and schools prospered even in the smaller cities around the Aegean Basin.33 When the Roman Empire took over much of the Mediterranean, Greek education continued to flourish.34 By the time we get to the first and second centuries of the common era, according to Marrou, we have a centuries-old system of Greek education divided into three stages: primary, secondary/grammar/literary studies, and advanced rhetorical and philosophical schools. Schools, while not formalized by the state, followed the three-step outline quite consistently.

28 Ibid., 102-115, 186–193. 29 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 116–32. 30 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 142. 31 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 190–91. 32 Ibid., 197, 207. 33 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 214. 34 Marrou, A History of Education in Antiquity, 246.

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In addition to being the first to study ancient education systematically, Marrou’s book is one of the most influential studies of education for any period in antiquity, and particularly for the Hellenistic and Roman periods. His outline of students moving smoothly from primary school, to grammar school, to rhetorical school has been the default structure for educated ancients since he proposed it. Stanley Bonner, for example, writing in 1977 on education in Rome,35 follows Marrou’s outline for education almost exactly: more affluent students were afforded pre-primary school tutors,36 pedagogues ran primary schools,37 grammarians ran the secondary/grammar schools,38 and students would move on from there to rhetorical school. The curriculum was rather than Greek, but the form and progression were the same. And while some elements of Marrou’s three-step education system have been criticized as overly simplistic or too broadly applied, his structure continues to be followed (with some modifications).39 Marrou’s book is invaluable in the study of ancient education, but in places the claims made therein are too broad, and function to obscure differences across time, place, and social class. Also lacking (although not entirely so) is a focus on the people in the schools. Marrou’s book is very much curriculum-focused, and we occasionally lose the sense that there were actual students doing the learning and actual people doing the teaching. Finally, in spite of occasional epigraphical and papyrological evidence, Marrou’s conclusions are drawn primarily from the testimonies of the literary elite, serving to skew his history of education to the ideals of the elite. The discovery and use of new (especially documentary sources that preserve early school exercises), and the employment of different methods of analysis have demonstrated that Marrou’s portrait of education in antiquity as both static across time and place, and possessing a consistent curriculum is not historically plausible. And so, with reference to both literary and documentary evidence, as well as the theories and analyses of a number of important

35 Stanley Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome: From the Elder Cato to the Younger Pliny (Routledge, 2012). 36 Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome, 33. 37 Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome, 45. 38 Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome, 63. 39 Raffaella Cribiore is the best example of a contemporary scholar who maintains Marrou’s three-step progression in education. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind. For criticisms of Marrou’s too-rigid structuring of encyclia paideia, see: Alan D. Booth, “The Appearance of the ‘Schola Grammatici,’” Hermes 106 (1978): 117–25; A. D. Booth, “Elementary and Secondary Education in the Roman Empire,” Florilegium 1 (1979): 1–14; Robert A. Kaster, “Notes on ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools in Late Antiquity,” TAPA 113 (1983): 323–46; Teresa Morgan, Literate Education in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds, Cambridge Classical Studies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

13 contemporary authors (particularly Raffaella Cribiore and Teresa Morgan), I will draw a slightly different portrait of ancient education with a particular focus on the construction of education as a virtue within the schools, the literate abilities of students at various levels of schooling, and the intellectual, social, and economic position of the teachers who ran the various schools.

4. Paideia and the Construction of Virtue in Ancient Schools Paideia often gets translated as something like “education” or “culture” and is understood to refer to a set of cultural competencies that were taught to students through a literary education. In some ways, however, “education” and “culture” are categories that are too broad to be of much descriptive use. So I propose slightly more nuanced translation: culturally significant knowledge. This translation acknowledges the requirements of education, but also draws attention to temporal and geographical differences in what constituted paideia. This is not to render paideia so relative that it becomes anything, it simply allows for a more nuanced discussion. This definition also places any given element of paideia on a spectrum, leaving open the possibility that a student educated in Rome may be able to recognize some of the culturally relevant knowledge of a new friend educated in Oxyrhynchus, but they may also possess culturally specific knowledge particular to their own region. There are, however, some general comments I can make about the nature of this culturally significant knowledge. This will be highlighted in sections below that look at “content and virtue”. Encyclia paideia did not just focus on literacy, students were educated in all aspects of culture including literature, history, music, mathematics, and poetry.40 The virtue of paideia was recognized throughout the Hellenistic world, both in the cities, and to a lesser extent in the countryside.41 This is evidenced in the philosophical writings of the cultural elite, as well as by the school exercises found in smaller Egyptian villages. We have evidence of the importance of paideia from across the Hellenistic world, but as with all else, a significant amount of it comes from Egypt. This is partly due to the fact that a great deal of our evidence comes to us in the form of papyrus scraps, and Egypt’s climate is more conducive to the preservation of these

40 D. J. Thompson, “Education and Culture in Hellenistic Egypt and Beyond,” in Escuela y literatura en grecia antigua: actas del simposio internacional, Universidad de Salamanca, 17-19 Noviembre de 2004, ed. J. A. Fernández Delgado et. al. Pordomingo Pardo, and Antonio. Stramaglia (Cassino, Frosinone, Italy: Edizioni dell’Università degli studi di Cassino, 2007), 124. 41 Thompson, “Education and Culture in Hellenistic Egypt and Beyond,” 126.

14 school texts. The significance of Egypt, however, is not purely climatic, as the evidence suggests a particular inclination for Egyptian culture to value paideia. Egypt’s focus on paideia, especially beginning with Ptolemaic Egypt, was two-fold. It served pragmatically to train a scribal and administrative class (Egypt is a particularly rich source of data on scribes), and it also served the ends of making Egypt a centre of Greek culture.42 And while it is probably the case that Egypt was in some ways distinct with respect to its emphasis on Hellenistic education, the documentary evidence for education (which comes primarily from Egypt) agrees with (or at least sheds light on) the literary sources for education such as Plutarch, Ps. Plutarch, and Quintilian.43 As such, I both recognize that the vast majority of our documentary evidence comes from a particular geographical area, but a case can be made that the data from Egypt is more generally applicable to the Mediterranean in general.44 4.1. Early Years As I have noted above, education was not systematized and the experiences of an elite Alexandrian child likely differed significantly from a child in Karanis. My description of schools that follows acknowledges these differences while also highlighting general tendencies in exercises, reading and writing abilities, and teacher competencies common across social divides. In many cases, particularly for children of means, a child’s first steps towards paideia came at home.45 Young boys imitated their fathers, and depending on the circumstances, learned basic letters and numbers at home as well. More affluent children would have received pre-school training from a pedagogue, often a family slave or a freedman.46 The pedagogue was an important figure throughout the student’s pursuit of education, and often accompanied the student on his/her studies at primary and grammar schools, especially if the student needed to

42 Thompson, “Education and Culture in Hellenistic Egypt and Beyond,” 137. 43 Philo, of course, has much to say on education. But as one writing from Egypt, we would expect his description of education to agree (to a more significant extent) with the documentary evidence also present in Egypt. 44 Morgan, Literate Education; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind. 45 Bonner, Education in Ancient Rome, 19. Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 106–8. 46 Christian Laes, “Pedagogues in Greek Inscriptions in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity,” ZPE 171 (2009): 116. Pedagogues were often a luxury of the better off, but at least in Rome there is some evidence that the use of pedagogues extended to other social circles. See Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 47. Cf. Keith R. Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 37– 75. I will discuss the pedagogues themselves in much more detail below where I examine the roles and educations of teachers at various stages of education.

15 move to a different town or city.47 Although not universal, pedagogues were a significant presence in the pre-schooling of young boys and girls. In addition to basic training in letters and numbers, the pre-schooling of young children was very much constructed around imitation.48 Young boys were encouraged to follow the examples of their father in order for them to construct the proper way for a man to live in the world. This imitation of the ideal (the cultured man), anticipated, at least in the Roman schools, schooling in persona wherein young boys role-played as slaves and women, taking on the subordinate roles appropriate to those lots in life.49 In this way, through imitation and play, children were enculturated in a particular system of culture and virtue. This system of enculturation is particularly conservative in that the system of education seeks to maintain power structures, the proper places of men, slaves, and women, and the virtues of the educated man. 4.2. Primary Schools As I noted above, local situations went a long way in determining the structure of a particular school. As such, material covered in a primary school in a small town might overlap with some of the content taught in a grammatical school in a larger centre like Alexandria or Oxyrhynchus. Cribiore presents education in terms of the three tiers (primary, grammatical, and rhetorical), but also takes care to note overlaps, and the local circumstances that dictated how education was set up. Schooling at the primary level was entirely private, parents paid the teachers directly, and teachers relied on this tuition for their livelihood.50 The training and social location of the teacher, the place in which school met, and the content taught were all largely dependent on local circumstances, and each of these topics will be reviewed in more depth below. 4.2.1. Locations Schools in antiquity rarely met in purpose-built structures, especially at the lower levels of primary and grammar school. It is true that the gymnasia and museums were intellectual centres of the city, but neither our documentary nor literary evidence suggests that primary teaching took place here.51 In the case of more popular teachers and/or more affluent students, teaching at the

47 See for example P.Oxy 6.930 where a school boy is tasked by his mother to find a new teacher with the aid of his pedagogue. For a more in depth description of this papyri, see Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 48. 48 W. Martin Bloomer, “Schooling in Persona: Imagination and Subordination in Roman Education,” ClAnt 16 (1997): 57–78. See also Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 106. 49 Bloomer, “Schooling in Persona,” 59–61. 50 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 3. 51 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 19–20; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 35; Morgan, Literate Education, 29.

16 early stages could have taken place in the home of the teacher, or in private homes rented out by the teacher.52 More often than not, however, this would not have been the case. For the vast majority of Graeco-Roman students, teaching simply took place around the teacher. Locations include a corner of the , in and around temples, in tombs, caves, or under a tree.53 But regardless of the physical location of teaching, the most important thing was the presence of a qualified teacher him or herself.54 4.2.2. Primary Schools and the Construction of Virtue When a primary school student encountered their first teacher, their prior learning ranged from some to none. But regardless of their prior training, it was here in primary schools that students acquired knowledge of letters and numbers, as well as introductions to reading and writing. Of the small number of people in the ancient world that received even minimal education, the vast majority did not move beyond this stage. Thus it will be important to establish the literary levels attained in primary schools, the kinds of texts one could read and write upon finishing primary school, the training in virtue communicated, and the (potential) cultural capital acquired. In terms of the kinds of texts and exercises students worked with in primary schooling, both Cribiore55 and Morgan56 provide impressive catalogs of school texts from which we can construct the content of primary school. The documentary evidence that remains presents us with a number of exercises undertaken in primary school, and thus provides us with a reasonable idea of the accomplishments of primary school students.57 Cribiore divides her school texts into eleven categories: letters of the alphabet, alphabets, syllabaries, lists of words, writing exercises, short passages, long passages, scholia minora, compositions paraphrases and summaries, grammar, and notebooks.58 While the first category comprises the writing of single letters of the alphabet practiced several times, and letters that are joined without following an alphabetical order, the

52 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 25. 53 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 27. 54 I will discuss the importance of the teacher in more depth in section 6. 55 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students. Cribiore compiles 412 education documents from Graeco-Roman Egypt ranging from letters of the alphabet to full grammars and notebooks containing various school exercises (175- 284). 56 Morgan, Literate Education. Morgan compiles 419 texts (Morgan’s list almost entirely parallels Cribiore’s) which, based on palaeography, were written in school hands. 57 Once again, local needs were a significant influence on the content of primary schools. In small towns basic literacy and grammar may have been the goal, whereas in Alexandria preparation for grammar school was likely the goal. 58 Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, 31.

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second level includes complete and incomplete alphabets. Syllabaries and lists of words are placed in the third and fourth categories, without being further distinguished according to number of letters or syllables, solely to avoid too many distinctions and to leave all the material in chronological order. The next level, Writing Exercises, comprises the types of exercises that focus on the acquisition of better writing skills, that is, exercises copied from teachers' models and words or short passages repeated several times. This level somewhat overlaps with level 6, which generally includes texts not loner than eight lines. Level 7 includes passages of variable length and degree of difficulty, generally longer than eight lines. Scholia Minora, those Homeric commentaries where the Homeric text is divided into lemmata and is accompanied by the corresponding glosses, occupy level 8. I have considered only exercises containing Scholia Minora that appear to be written by students or that display hands which can be designated as “teachers’ hands.” Level 9 comprises paraphrases, compositions on a given subject, summaries of Homeric episodes or of whole books, and dialogues, while Grammatical Exercises make up category 10. I considered it necessary to include grammatical material in a special category, although most texts were probably copied and could be regarded as Longer Passages; this is an area in which it is preferable to make a useful and operating distinction in the mass of the Longer Passages. Finally, I have decided to include in a category by themselves what I call Notebooks-that is, collections of exercises of multifarious content that sometimes were compiled by more than one student.59

Of these eleven categories of school exercises, letters of the alphabet, alphabets, syllabaries, and word lists belong firmly to the primary stages of education.60 This is based not only on their simple content, but also paleographically on the writing skill of the composer. Ancient authors confirm this as well. Quintilian, for example, stresses the importance of syllabaries in the education of children.61 And while this material consisted of little more than letters and single words, there was already an effort to construct a particular idea of Graeco-Roman culture. Word lists and syllabaries, for example, did not contain random words, or necessarily the most commonly used words. Rather, they contained lists of names, places, and words pulled from classical Greek authors.62 This served both to ready students for reading those authors as their education advanced, and to assert the importance of those classical authors at an early age. It is important to recognize that these word lists consisted not of common, everyday names and places, but of the heroes and places of Greek myth. Even at the earliest stages students were not trained in purely functional literacy, but in the cultural literacy of Homer, Hesiod, and Euripides.

59 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 31. 60 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 37-43, 132–133. 61 Quintilian, Inst. Or. I 1.30. 62 Morgan, Literate Education, 117–19.

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Nowhere is this clearer than in word lists and mythologia that contain the names of Agamemnon, , and Odysseus. Writing exercises, particularly the reading and writing of gnomic material was also a key component of primary schooling. This too is attested in both documentary and literary sources, with Quintilian,63 Galen,64 and Seneca65 all referencing the prevalence of gnomic material in primary schooling. Gnomic material was particularly important in ancient education as the content of various sayings and maxims asserted the virtues of the Graeco-Roman world, and the form of the gnome continued to be used by students in grammar and rhetorical schools.66 In both form and content, gnomic material embodied the virtues of Graeco-Roman intellectual culture. The content of the gnomai taught students the value of education, the good life, the place of women, and the role of the good man in society.67 The genre of the gnome also served to construct the ideal, educated man in the form of the sage, philosopher, or poet.68 Gnomic wisdom and fables were the first languages of authority for most students, and continued to be important long after their schooling days were over. More than most other aspects of paideia, gnomic wisdom and fables were deeply engrained in society and embodied popular wisdom and moral teachings.69 And in spite of the fact that fables were occasionally lamented as vulgar moralizing devices for children and the uneducated, the accessibility of fables made them important and widely recognized sources of morality.70 While students who worked through the early years of education would not have been able to deliver speeches or debate with philosophers, no longer were they among the completely uneducated. Cribiore refers to the ability to read, write, and recite simple maxims and fables as students’ minimal cultural package, a package that could set them up to succeed at more

63 Quintilian, Inst. Or. I 1.35. 64 Galen, De placitus et Platonis, CMG V 4.1.2 281 p. 196. 65 Seneca, Ep. 33.6. 66 Gnomai featured heavily in the early years of rhetorical education as the basis for the exercises in the progymnasmata. 67 I will examine school exercises that cover these topics in more depth below. 68 This was even more so the case with chreia in that they explicitly cited the speaker by opening with “Isocrates (or whoever) said…” 69 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 179. Morgan, Literate Education, 93. 70 See Quintilian Inst. Or. V 11.19-20. Cf. Teresa Morgan, “Fables and the Teaching of Ethics,” in Escuela y literatura en grecia antigua: Actas del simposio internacional, universidad de Salamanca, 17-19 Noviembre de 2004, ed. J. A. Fernández Delgado, et. al. (Cassino, Frosinone, Italy: Edizioni dell’Università degli studi di Cassino, 2007), 396.

19 advanced levels of education, or demonstrate their possession of some cultural capital if they were part of the many who never went on to higher learning.71 In this sense primary education could have rather moderate ends: allowing those who possessed it to distinguish themselves from the uneducated, but at the same time lacking the critical reading and creative abilities honed in grammar schools.72 It was through maxims that teachers imparted a particular construction of virtue on their students: modesty, filial piety, avoiding women, helping your friends, giving to the poor, and, of course, the virtue of paideia in and of itself. On the question of the value of paideia we find a number of gnomai and chreiai in many different school exercises. The first and greatest thought is learning (γράµµατα). (P. Bouriant 1 tablet VII) What more than enough? Practical wisdom (φρόνησις). (Brit. Mus. Add. MS 37533. 261) What is more necessary than wealth? Practical wisdom (φρονιµότης). (Brit. Mus. Add. MS 37533. 263) Diogenes the Cynic philosopher, upon being asked where the Muses live said, “In the souls of the educated.” (ἐν ταῖς τῶν πεπ[αι]δευµένων ψυχαῖς.) SB I. 573073

One of the most well-known chreia is attested at a slightly higher level of education (in the progymnasmata exercises of the grammar and rhetorical schools) but nicely captures paideia’s sense of self-worth: Isocrates said, “the root of education is bitter, but its fruits are sweet.” Ἰσοκράτης τῆς παιδείας τὴν µὲν ῥίζαν ἔφη πικράν, τοὺς δὲ καρποὺς γλυκεῖς.74

These school exercises have a number of features in common. First, they promote learning, wisdom, and philosophy as a virtue in its own right by stating that is virtue in the process of learning itself. The impact on this rhetorical push toward the virtue of education at the earliest levels of education cannot be overstated: at the earliest stages of reading and writing, students were presented with a very particular notion of the value of education. Second, the form of these sayings (particularly the sayings attributed to Diogenes and Isocrates) helps construct the ideal man: the wise, educated sage. Thus in both form and content these sayings, and others like them, construct and reinforce a rather narrow understanding of the proper life and an a priori

71 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 179. 72 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 183–84. 73 This sayings is also present in P. Mich. inv. 41. 74 This saying is central in Libanius’ Progymnasmata. For commentary see Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), 168.

20 significance for paideia. As will be argued below, these ideas of ideal subjects extend beyond the virtues of education to the realms of gender, wealth, and family. In addition to this self-promotion, avoiding women and having good relations with friends also feature in a number of school exercises. Think to have friends and to have treasure. (P. Bouriant 1) Give back graciously and opportunely to friends in portion. (P. Bouriant 1) The cruelty of the lioness is equal to the woman. (P. Bouriant 1) Upon seeing a woman learning from a grammarian he [Diogenes] said “Behold, a sword is being sharpened.” (P. Bouriant 1) Upon seeing a woman consorting with another woman he [Diogenes] said “A cobra is procuring poison from a snake.” (P. Bouriant 1)75 What is pleasant in life that ought to be avoided? Woman (Brit. Mus. Add. MS 37533)

These sayings also contribute to the construction of the ideal person. This person is male, good to his friends, and avoids women. Friendship was a common virtue amongst the ruling elite, and political connections and membership in philosophical schools were often framed by the idea of friendship. Whereas we might expect friendship to feature in the construction of the virtuous student four sayings against women may seem surprising. But here the sayings against womanhood serve to reinforce the male and masculine nature of being an intellectual. An educated woman was unusual and potentially dangerous, whereas the educated man was what was to be expected. Wealth is also frequently commented on in the exercises, sometimes as an ideal, but also as something that can be dangerous.76 Κάλλιστα φηµὶ χρηµάτων τὰ κτήµατα Concerning possessions, I say that wealth is best. (P. Bouriant 1) Ῥᾴθυµος ἐάν ἔσῃ πλούσιος πένης ἔσῃ If you are careless and wealthy, you will be poor. (P. Bouriant 1)

µὴ σπεῦδε πλουτεῖν µή φθόνος σε λυπήσαι Do not be eager to be wealthy, lest envy cause you grief. (Wooden tablet 6-21416) Ζήσεις ἐν ὄλβῳ χρηµάτων καταφρονῶν.

75 Both these sayings warning against women come from the fourth century school booklet P. Bour. 1. There are numerous other collections of gnomai and chreiai that discuss the value of education and philosophy, and warn against women, jealousy, and greed. See for example Brit. Mus. Add. MS 37533, a set of wooden tablets that feature a set of gnomic questions and answers that promote philosophy and popular wisdom, and warn against women and jealousy. 76 Space does not permit an in-depth examination of wealth and education. Morgan provides a detailed analysis of the theme of wealth in moral exercises in Morgan, Literate Education, 125–44.

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Live in happiness/bliss scorning wealth.77

The gnomai in P. Bouriant 1 are consistent in the presentation of wealth as a virtue, but the examples from the wooden tablet and ostrakon seem to directly contradict the idea of wealth as a virtue. These gnomai, however, are not as contradictory as they may appear. The assumption here is that students able to study paideia were from families of means. Sayings regarding wealth were interpreted by students whose families already possessed at least some degree of wealth. The second P. Bouriant saying makes good sense in this context. It is not accusing the poor student (or the student’s family) of being careless (and therefor poor), it is warning those who already possess wealth not to be careless. The two sayings critical of wealth are also much more easily understood as sayings aimed at those with at least some wealth. It is much easier for someone who is wealthy to be told to “scorn wealth” than someone who is destitute.78 Finally, whilst paideia was a necessary possession of the culturally elite, receiving an education was not seen as a way into those social circles. The elites lived in a closed circle, and so discouraged their lessers from trying to better their social standing through the acquisition of education or wealth. The gnome on the wooden tablet may be particularly revealing here given its use of “πλουτεῖν”, to be wealthy. The term πλουτέω was used in ancient comic and tragic poetry to refer to newly acquired, non-Greek, and dangerous forms of wealth.79 It is possible that here as well the term refers to new and dangerous forms of wealth for which the student is discouraged from striving. This makes good sense in a system of education that was inherently conservative and suspicious of, if not hostile to, new forms of wealth. These themes may seem somewhat idiosyncratic, but a second century gnomic ostrakon nicely illustrates the ways in which they were deployed as educational material. This ostrakon contains a number of gnomai that promote many of the major themes in education including wealth, friendship, filial piety:

77 J. G. Milne, “A Gnomic Ostrakon,” JΕΑ 8 (1922): 156–57. 78 William E. Arnal makes a similar observation with regard to the beatitude, “blessed are the poor.” William E. Arnal, Jesus and the Village Scribes: Galilean Conflicts and the Setting of Q (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001). 79 Sandrine Coin-Longeray, Poésie de la richesse et de la pauvreté: Étude du vocabulaire de la richesse et de la pauvreté dans la poésie grecque antique, d’Homère à Aristophane: ἄφενος, ὄλβος, πλοῦτος, πενία, πτωχός. Mémoires Du Centre Jean Palerne 38 (Université de Saint-Etienne: Saint-Etienne Publications, 2014), 93–143. I want to thank Michelle Christian for directing me to this book.

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Ἀγαθὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποισιν ἡγεῖται τρόπος. Good custom is the leader of the human. Βίον κατορθοῖ πάντ᾽ ἀλήθεια µόνη. Truth alone completes all/every life. Γείνωσχε βασιλῆ τοῦ θεοῦ τὴν εἰχόνα. Recognize the image of god through the king. Δύσφρων γενοῦ συ µηδένος κριτὴς ποτέ. Do not be an ill-disposed judge of anyone, ever. Ἔοικε τιµᾷν τοὺς γονεῖς ὡς τοὺς θεούς. It is fitting to hold in honour parents as the gods. Ζήσεις ἐν ὄλβῳ χρηµάτων καταφρονῶν. Live in happiness/bliss scorning wealth. Ἤθη φίλων γείωσκε πρὶν γενῇ φίλος. Love might come into being once one recognizes love already. θυµοῦ κράτησον, κἄν κακὴν ὀργὴν ἔχῃς. Seize control of anger, if you have a bad temper. Ἴσος ἴσθι πᾶσι, κἄν ὑπερέχῃς τῷ βίῳ. Be equal in everything, and you might prevail in life. Καλὸν τὸ γηρᾷν, γηρόβοσκον ἐάν ἔχῃς. To grow old is good, if you have one taking care of you in old age [from Menander]. Λἐγ᾽, εἰ τι σεµνόν. εἰ δέ µὴ, σιγὴν ἔχε. Speak, if one [is] revered, and if not, keep silent. Μὴ πιστὸν ἡγοῦ τὸν χατήγορον λόγον. Do not be led by the trusting word of the accuser.80

There are many other examples of these kinds of sayings and themes featured in the schoolwork of young students, but these examples will suffice for my purposes here. From a technical standpoint, this exercise is quite standard: the grammar is relatively simple, the words are easy enough, and there is the added bonus of each saying beginning with a letter than progresses through the alphabet. But again, education was about far more than technical skills, and the values present in this ostrakon are important clues to helping us understand the construction of Graeco-Roman intellectual culture. Present here are a number of themes we would expect: the importance of truth, and sayings about wealth and love, but remarkable are the virtues that are asserted in multiple sayings. Two of the sayings (Γ and Ε) reinforce the importance of respecting authority, one in the figure of the king, the other through the call for filial piety, but the theme most common in this ostrakon are sayings regarding good custom. Good custom is the leader of

80 My translations of the text reconstructed and published in J. G. Milne, “A Gnomic Ostrakon,” JEA 8 (1922): 156– 57. Note that the gnomai are arranged alphabetically by first letter, further identifying them as school exercises.

23 men, truth is vital, do not be a harsh judge, control your bad temper, be equal in all, speak only when appropriate, do not be led astray. These gnomai make up the core of the virtuous individual. In almost all of the primary school exercises students were copying, not composing their writing. The importance of copying prior to composition is illustrated clearly in a number of texts that demonstrate that, in Graeco-Roman education, writing preceded reading.81 Students of course moved on to compose passages from memory or models, but this level of literacy was achieved later in their education. The writing (as opposed to simple copying) of short passages overlaps with the writing exercises of the primary school, as well as the writing of passages proper to grammar school. In short, school texts that preserve simple maxims, gnomai, and fables were used in primary schools as copying devices, as well as in advanced primary schools and early years of grammar as compositional exercises.82 To conclude briefly on primary schools, students here acquired a basic familiarity with letters and numbers, copied out words, gnomai, and in some cases shorted passages. The emphasis here was on copying and thus writing, and not necessarily as focused on reading. The content of the syllabaries, word lists, and gnomai featured words and sayings of classical Greek authors, and there was a focus early on the presentation of virtue. This virtue was quite masculine, and quite conservative. Interestingly (and somewhat paradoxically), it promoted education, training students to respect their educated betters, whilst also discouraging students from striving to improve their lot in life (do not be eager to be wealthy!). Some students, of course, belonged to the elite by birth and their education would ensure they reached their proper place in life. Many others, however, acquired some degree of education (perhaps even an advanced education), but were taught that this would still not advance them in life. And while just what constituted primary schools varied region-to-region, for those who completed primary schooling (basic reading, writing, and compositional skills), we have a group who is at worst minimally literate. They can write their names and copy short texts provided by their teacher, but would not necessarily be able to compose freehand, and probably would not have been

81 This is clear from the copying exercises on Wooden tablet (6-21416) which feature two maxims written in a teaching hand, and each copied about 10 times by the student. As the student moves further from the teacher’s original, more and more mistakes creep in. Thus the student was capable of writing, but not capable of reading their writing. For more on these tablets see Raffaella Cribiore, “A School tablet from the Hearst Museum,” ZPE 107 (1995): 263–70. 82 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 133.

24 particularly good readers.83 For those students who went on to further levels of education, there was a significant amount of continuity in terms of both form and content, and the emphasis on particular aspects of virtue taught in primary schooling continued into the more advanced stages of education. Grammar exercises at the lowest levels resemble reading and copying exercises from earlier stages in schools, and the characters and themes with which students became familiar in their early years continued to hold a prominent place in their education as they progressed. Cribiore argues that the educational training process undertaken by primary students was a reward in and of itself, even if the students finished schooling with only minimal reading and writing skills.84 Students exiting primary schooling possessed at least minimal reading and writing skills and would have been able to copy a short text and read a previously rehearsed list of words or a short passage. The cultural export of this level of education pales in comparison to the rhetors, orators, and sophists of large population centres, but Cribiore argues that for the vast majority who were only partially educated, a few maxims, sayings, and verses from Homer and Euripides were powerful signs of literacy.85

5. Grammar Schools: Content and Virtue In larger centres such as Alexandria or Oxyrhynchus, grammar schools existed as their own entities, complete with salaried grammarians.86 The grammarian emerged as a distinct teacher of language and literature at some point in the first century BCE. Prior to this, the grammar teacher restricted his or her classroom to the teaching of letters alone.87 According to it was not until the early Roman period that the grammarian emerged as a distinct instructor in the

83 This description I have just provided is somewhat problematic since there is evidence of primary schools that also taught grammar, and even basic rhetorical exercises. These schools were located in small towns where there was only one teacher (and school), thus the possibility of moving on from primary school to grammar school was not an option. Students who attended these primary/grammar hybrid schools (schools that Morgan refers to as providing “core education”) would have emerged with a higher degree of reading and compositional literacy. I will note them below when I discuss grammar schools. 84 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 128. 85 Raffaella Cribiore, “Education in the Papyri,” in The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology, ed. Roger S. Bagnall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 327. 86 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 55. 87 The emergence of the grammarian as a more advanced instructor (grammaticus as opposed to grammatistes) is reviewed by Booth. Booth, “The Appearance of the ‘Schola Grammatici,’” 117.

25 education of youth.88 Even with the distinction of the grammarian as teacher independent of the primary school teacher, the grammarian continued to teach content that overlapped with both primary schooling and rhetorical schools. As with teachers at all levels, the quality and fame of grammarians varied drastically. Some were extremely important in the education of youth, most, however, were probably mediocre.89 In terms of the more qualified grammarians, Lucius Ateius Philologus is presented by Suetonius as a well-respected man of learning. Suetonius reports that “the well-known jurist Ateius Capito says that he was a rhetorician among the grammarians and a grammarian among rhetoricians.”90 Pompilius Andronicus, on the other hand, professed to be a grammarian, but Suetonius considered him “not qualified to conduct a school” given that his devotion to the Epicurean sect was “somewhat indolent.”91 These examples present two extremes, and the average grammarian’s qualifications and rank probably fell somewhere in the middle.92 Grammar, both as an independent school and as taught in rural schools built directly off of the literary skills acquired in primary schooling. Cribiore remarks that it was in the school of the grammarian where students began to envision themselves in a world of paideia. We should not get ahead of ourselves, though, as she also remarks that grammatical education was still closer to the experience of the common person than it was to rhetorical training.93 This being the case, grammarians and their classrooms oriented themselves more towards philosophy than rhetoric. This is evident from some of the content of the grammar schools, namely maxims and sayings attributed to philosophers. The focus on poetry and philosophical maxims leads Booth to argue that the grammarian (grammatici) regarded themselves more as twins of philosophers than as the successors of the teachers of letters (grammatistai).94 In spite of its name, grammar schools taught much more than grammar.95 Documentary papyri and wood tablets provide a number of examples of more traditional grammar exercises

88 Suetonius, Lives of Eminent Grammarians 4 (trans. John Carew Rolfe, LCL). All translations are Rolfe. 89 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 56. 90 Suetonius, Lives of Eminent Grammarians 10.1-3. 91 Suetonius, Lives of Eminent Grammarians 8. 1-4. 92 I will consider the grammarian as a teacher in more depth below. 93 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 187. 94 Booth, “The Appearance of the ‘Schola Grammatici,’” 118–19. 95 Although grammar was indeed part of the subject matter. The study of grammar proper is easier to identify as it was accompanied by grammar manuals and exercises. These manuals contained morphologic information such as declension and conjugation tables. Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 52.

26 including declension and conjugation tables, as well as multiple declension of a single chreia. A third century school book (Bodl. Gr. Inscr. 3019) contains several grammar exercises including a paraphrase and expansion of Homer, and an exercise wherein students decline the opening statement of several chreia. Therein the nouns were declined and, where necessary, verbs conjugated and participles declined.96 This mechanical study of grammar allowed students to engage more critically with the gnomai, chreia, and fables that were introduced to them in primary schooling. In terms of content, there was quite a bit of continuity between primary schooling and the early exercises of grammar. Many of the maxims and chreia above quoted continued to be used throughout a student’s education in grammar. In the case of specialized grammar schools, this served to transition students smoothly from basic reading and writing to more advanced studies. In schools in smaller towns where grammar was taught with primary exercises by a single teacher, the continuity would have been even more apparent. In addition to expanding upon familiar sayings and fables, the school of the grammarian focused increasingly on the poets. Initially, this was done through the copying of maxims attributed to ancient poets, especially Homer (and especially taken from the first book of the Iliad), but also Euripides and Menander. The school of the grammarian was built around understanding and interpreting poetic and other texts, and for this a more developed knowledge of reading was required.97 Grammar schools did read some prose, but they were built primarily around poetry. As with the primary stage of education, grammar instilled in students an appreciation for classical Greek culture and values. In addition to the poets, grammar students worked with a larger collection of gnomai, particularly sayings of Diogenes,98 maxims from Menander,99 fables, and sayings of Isocrates, particularly the Cyprian Oracles.100 In addition to poetry and the already familiar gnomic material, grammar school also introduced students to the study of historical, mythographical, geographical, and glossographical content.101 Glossography and scholia were particularly important to the student of grammar, and Cribiore remarks that the

96 Brit. Mus. Add. MS 37533 also contains a table of chreia declensions, and Brit. Mus. Add. MS 37516 contains a single saying of declined for cases, numbers, and genders. 97 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 189. 98 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 139. 99 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 200. 100 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 202. 101 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 186.

27 acquisition of glosses and scholia functioned as a minor status symbol of an educated person.102 In grammar school students experienced a significant advancement from the elementary reading skills acquired in primary school. Recall that primary schools focused more on writing and copying than they did reading. Students knew how to form letters and copy words, but the school exercises do not suggest that their writing ability necessarily extended to a comparable level of reading. Grammar school bridged this gap, which was important as a great deal of the skills learned in grammar school required the student provide a close study of their texts, particularly the poets.103 Thus students moved from copying to reading and understanding. Reading and interpreting poetry was the main preoccupation of grammar students. Grammar schools served the dual/related purposes of preparing students for training in rhetoric and philosophy, as well as building up their knowledge of classical Greek authors, culture, and virtue.104 Homer, especially the Iliad, featured most prominently here. And in spite of the fact that our school exercises preserve only small sections of the epic, Cribiore argues that students would have read the entire Iliad over the course of their education.105 Our documentary school evidence preserves only small sections, mostly from the earlier sections, but as students became more acquainted with reading, it becomes more difficult to differentiate school texts from books belonging to private collections. Compounding this issue of identification is the fact that scholia minora—the practice of inserting marginal glosses to Homeric texts—was practiced both within and outside of schools.106 And while scholia minora was a feature of more advanced schooling, as well as a feature of private reading, it was at the level of grammar school that these textual glosses first acquired the status of significant cultural attainment.107 Identifying these longer passages and scholia minora in terms of their presence in schools is slightly more difficulty than identifying elementary exercises or school books. “Longer passages” are often fragmentary (hiding how long they actually were) and lack a context for their use. Longer passages are also present at the highest level of the grammatodidaskalos’ school as well as the school of the grammarian, making identifying their provenance and function more

102 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 207. 103 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 189. 104 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 204. 105 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 204. 106 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 207. 107 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 207.

28 difficult.108 Scholia minora present us with a different difficulty as they exist in private collections and commentaries apart from school settings.109 Of the scholia minora that Cribiore collects, only nineteen are composed in a school hand.110 While there was notable continuity between the primary schooling examined and the school of the grammarian, the years with a grammarian produced a significantly more skilled reader and writer. Grammar schools may have used a number of texts familiar to the student of primary schooling, but in primary school students focused more on writing and copying than they did reading or composing. Students knew how to form letters, and copy words, but the school exercises do not suggest that their writing ability necessarily extended to a comparable level of reading. Grammar school bridged this gap, which was important as a great deal of the skills learned in grammar school required the student to provide a close study of their texts, particularly the poets.111 Thus students moved from copying to reading and understanding. Upon completing grammar school, students possessed a number of skills that identified them as literate, cultured individuals. The ability to read and comment on Homer was a significant achievement, and while the graduate of the grammarian was no philosopher, they at least shared the exercise of commenting on Homer. Identifying the compositional abilities of graduates of grammar school is slightly more complicated. Part of this stems from the fact that many of the grammar school exercises were still based off of teachers’ models, and part of this stems from the fact that by the end of grammar school, many students achieved a fluent writing hand, and thus it is very difficult to tell a text written by a upper level grammar student and a rhetoric student.

6. Teachers As I have suggested above, the level and quality of teachers varied significantly depending on level of schooling taught, and geographical and social location. In order to address this variety I will examine each level of schoolteacher in its own section, making particular reference to literary abilities, economic status, and social status.

108 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 47. 109 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 50. 110 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 135. 111 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 189.

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6.1. Pedagogues Pedagogues (παιδαγωγοί) were the first teachers outside of the immediate family for students of means. The majority of pedagogues were family slaves, but there were also a number of freed and freeborn pedagogues in the service of families.112 They are often identified along with nurses as the primary caregivers outside of the immediate family.113 Given that the majority of pedagogues were slaves, they were far more common in elite households, and would have been less common in the early years of children growing up under more moderate means or in smaller towns. Pedagogues oversaw a child’s early training in letters, accompanied the child to school, and even travelled with the child to schools in distant cities. P. Oxy. VI. 930, for example, relates a mother’s instructions to her son Ptolemaios. Ptolemaios was in Oxyrhynchus, learning under a καθηγήτη (an itinerant teacher) but his καθηγήτη left him, and now he is without a teacher. Ptolemaios’ mother charges Ptolemaios and his pedagogue Eros to find a new teacher, asks Ptolemaios to salute Eros, and remarks on the positive comments Eros had received in her last exchange with Ptolemaios’ now departed καθηγήτη.114 This example illustrates the importance of the pedagogue beyond the early schooling of his or her ward. This example also illustrates the fact that, although possessing little to no economic status, pedagogues were capable of achieving some measure of social capital through their role as teachers of paideia. Christian Laes reviews twenty-three inscriptions in which pedagogues are mentioned and honoured as pedagogues.115 He finds that a number of pedagogues are esteemed quite highly for their possession of paideia. In the stele to the pedagogue Athenodorus, Athenodorus is depicted as a philosopher “a man with a short beard, sitting on a diphros: his right hand probably supporting his head, his left hand seems to hold a volume lying on his leap [sic]. He is wearing a long cloak.”116 Ἀθηνόδωρε παιδαγωγέ,

112 Laes, “Pedagogues in Greek Inscriptions in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity,” 115–16. Of the seventy-three pedagogues mentioned in Latin inscriptions, approximately 70% were of servile origin. Based on the names of the twenty-three pedagogues mentioned in Greek inscriptions fifteen were slaves, two were free, and five others were either free or freeborn. 113 Morgan, Literate Education, 244; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 47. 114 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 48–49. 115 Laes, “Pedagogues in Greek Inscriptions in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity.” 116 Laes, “Pedagogues in Greek Inscriptions in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity,” 120.

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χαῖρε.117

In a funerary inscription from Asia Minor (Smyrna 452=CIG 3305=ISmyrna 507) the pedagogue Epictetus receives the adjective κοµψός meaning accomplished, refined, and clever in words or actions. Ἐπικτήτου παιδαγωγοῦ κοµφοῦ. χαίρετε πάντες χαίρω δὲ καὶ αύτός

Of Epictetus the skilled pedagogue, Rejoice, everyone. And I also rejoice.

The inscriptional evidence for pedagogues is quite limited, but by and large it confirms what we know from literary and other documentary sources: pedagogues were largely of servile status, but took pride in their roles and in spite of the fact that they ranked quite low on the economic scale, in the realm of ancient education, they were at least somewhat respected.118 The level of education any given pedagogue possessed is difficult to assess, but given that they taught students their first letters, accompanied students to school, and some even instructed students in their primary education, it seems safe to say that at least some pedagogues possessed literary abilities. In the case of Athenodorus and Epictetus, we have two pedagogues who were celebrated for their accomplishments, although they are probably the exception and not the rule. 6.2. Didaskaloi Γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι, sometimes shortened to διδάσκαλοι were responsible for the primary schooling of the students reviewed above, and primarily taught introductory reading and writing, as well as some arithmatic.119 The didaskaloi are tricky figures to define, however, given that they functioned both as primary level instructors in the three-tiered system of education outlined by Cribiore, as well as the more versatile “core” instructors identified by Morgan. In the three-

117 IK Byzantion 156, 2nd C. BCE. Also in Laes, “Pedagogues in Greek Inscriptions in Hellenistic and Roman Antiquity.” 118 Cribiore lists seven pedagogues mentioned in papyri. Almost all of whom are mentioned by their title but with no indication as to what they are doing. Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 161–62. 119 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 13.

31 tiered system of education the didaskalos was the first teacher a student encountered before moving on to the grammarian. This model of ancient education imagines a progression from γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι to γραµµατικοί to ρήτωρ. The problem here, one highlighted by A. D. Booth120 and Robert A. Kaster,121 is that this three-stage progression ignores the fact that social class and geographical location played significant roles in the ways in which a student progressed through school, particularly at the lowest levels. Booth suggests a somewhat more radical split into two streams: vulgar letters (primary schools) and liberal letters (secondary school). Vulgar letters were taught to slaves and townspeople who needed only a craftsperson’s literacy for their day-to-day lives, and liberal letters were taught to the social elite in large cities such as Rome. For the instruction of vulgar letters, a γραµµατοδιδάσκαλος taught material from both primary and grammatical curriculums (the forming of letters through longer writing exercises), thus taking on the role of both a γραµµατοδιδάσκαλος and a γραµµατικός. Instruction in liberal letters began with a proper γραµµατικός, with students having learned letters and words at home with a παιδαγωγός or from a parent, or learning their first letters with the grammarian. There is evidence that some γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι taught beyond the “primary” curriculum, and evidence that more elite students were introduced to letters by a γραµµατικός. But this alone does not suggest as hard a break between vulgar and liberal schooling as Booth suggests. Kaster largely agrees with Booth on the question of socially segmented schools, but argues that the division was not absolute, and rather depended on local circumstances. Kaster compiles evidence for both the differentiation of primary and secondary stage teachers, as well as evidence for the blurring of these categories. In support of the difference between primary and secondary teachers, Kaster provides ten pieces of evidence. The majority of the evidence is literary, with the exception of Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices which differentiates the magister institutor litterarum (teacher of elementary letters) from the grammaticus (grammarian). In support of the blurring between primary and secondary teachers, Kaster cites fourteen pieces of evidence, largely from the writings of teachers themselves, or biographies of teachers. Kaster supports a blurring of categories pointing to multiple pieces of evidence that demonstrate that a grammarian rather than a primary school teacher introduced elite children to

120 Booth, “Elementary and Secondary Education in the Roman Empire.” 121 Robert A. Kaster, “Notes on ‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools in Late Antiquity,” TAPA 113 (1983): 323–46.

32 their first letters (Ausonius’ poems about the schools in Bordeaux, for example).122 Thus Kaster concludes that while there is no indication in the evidence reviewed that the primary school teacher was a normal participant in a child’s education in liberal letters, this is largely predicated on local circumstances, and does not necessarily mean that the γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι and the γραµµατικοί were always the preliminary instructors of poorer and better off students respectively.123 Kaster, quoting P. J. Parsons, reminds us that “there is a world between Quintilian and the Egyptian market town,”124 and we should not assume that all those who received an education around the ancient Mediterranean fell neatly into the categories of elites learning with grammarians, or the vulgar learning with a primary instructor.125 Kaster concludes with two remarks: first, that schools did not regularly conform to the three-stage model popularized by Marrou; and second, assuming a normal differentiation between primary and secondary teachers is equally flawed.126 There were certainly socially segmented schools, but our best evidence of this comes from major cities, and it is difficult to extrapolate from this evidence to conclude that all education was strictly segmented between the elite schools and teachers of the city, to the vulgar schools and teachers of everywhere else. Kaster’s conclusions have more or less been accepted (often with some qualifications), and particularly championed by Morgan who moves away from the three-stage system of education to a modified segmented theory with core and periphery instruction. Cribiore also accepts Kaster’s conclusions, but argues on the basis of school exercises (data that Morgan also uses but Kaster himself did not) that we can still see at least a functional division between primary and grammar schools, and thus between γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι and γραµµατικοί. All this is to say that the role of the γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι can vary from introducer of letters and short passages, to one with a strong knowledge of Greek poetry, able to teach poetic exegesis and compose critical comments on Homer and other poets. Thus the range for γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι will be significantly wider than for παιδαγωγοί or γραµµατικοί.

122 Kaster, “‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools,” 331. 123 Kaster, “‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools,” 336–37. 124 P. J. Parsons, “Review of, 'Η 'Ελληνορωμαϊκή Παιδεία έν Αὶγψ́πτω̣ ὰπὸ τον̑ ά ε̈ως τον̑ δ́ μ. Χ. αὶω̑νος κατὰ τον̀ς παπν́ρονς by Μωχαμετ-Χαμψτι Ιμπραχημ. JEA 61 (1975): 301. Quoted in Kaster, “‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools,” 341–42. 125 Kaster, “‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools,” 342. 126 Kaster, “‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools,” 346.

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In the cases in which a γραµµατοδιδάσκαλος was a student’s first instructor in letters, the teacher was responsible for introducing students to letters, alphabets, syllabaries, word lists, and short writing exercises. Given that students in the primary schools had not yet acquired a compositional level of literacy, the didaskalos would have had to provide written exercises for the students to copy out. As I have noted above, these early years of schooling were built around models composed by the teacher, some copied from teaching manuals, and some likely composed from memory, or from the teacher’s own fancy.127 As Kaster suggests, the didaskaloi were found in smaller villages as opposed to larger centres where parents, pedagogues, or grammarians tended to be more responsible for teaching children their letters. A local didaskalos was often the only teacher in a town, and as such catered to a diverse quantity of needs, ranging from introducing letters, to teaching more advanced reading and writing that would otherwise be the station of the grammarian. Un livre d’écolier—a 3rd century CE book of school exercises— features syllabaries, lists of months, numbers, monosyllable names, and names of divinities along with excerpts from Euripides, a section of the , two epigrams, and three fragments of elegiac distich.128 Cribiore cites this handbook as a “graphic demonstration of the encroachment of one level [primary schooling] upon the other [grammar].”129 The first several exercises (along with an alphabet that is likely missing from the handbook) are clearly aimed at introducing students to reading and writing, but the epigrams and elegiac distich are all significantly more advanced than anything we would expect from an elementary reader and writer, and thus indicate the need for this particular didaskalos to be able to teach everything from forming letters to more advanced studies of poetry. In support of the idea that local teachers could and did teach more advanced criticism of poetry, Cribiore cites four exercises from the relatively small towns of Karanis and Theadelphia that contain Homer scholia minora as well as grammatical exercises.130 Neither of these towns was large enough to have had a proper grammarian (Cribiore expresses doubt that anywhere in Egypt beside Alexandria, Oxyrhynchus, and Hermopolis possessed proper grammarians), thus an itinerant teacher or a γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι must have been

127 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 21. 128 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 269. Cribiore lists Un livre d’écolier as Papyrus 379 in her index. 129 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 20. 130 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 20. P. Oslo II 12 recto (second century CE, Theadelphia) contains four columns of scholia minora to Iliad 1.5-24, P. Mich. Inv. 4832c (2nd-1st c. BCE, Karanis) contains sections of the Iliad as well as prose summaries, P. Mich. Inv. 1588v (1st-2nd CE, Karanis) contains the remains of a grammatical treatise, and P. Oslo. II 13 (2nd c. CE, Theadelphia) contains grammatical manual.

34 responsible for pushing his or her students into the realms of grammar.131 Didaskaloi possessed a range of literary skills, but all were important players in the world of paideia. And as I will examine in my next section, it was possible for didaskaloi to acquire some cultural prestige because of their title and literary skills. 6.2.1. The Economic and Social Identities of Didaskaloi As Cribiore notes, the majority of the γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι mentioned in papyri are not mentioned in view of their roles as teachers, but instead in their role as citizens, subject to law and contracts.132 As such, we can glean some information as to the relative social and economic situations of the γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι. Here I restrict my discussion to γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι since grammarians who also taught introductory letters would have enjoyed more substantial social and economic prestige from their titles alone. Γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι were paid, at least partly, with non-monetary goods such as birds, grapes, oils, or wines.133 P. Oxy. XXIV 2421.2.48 (an account of wheat), for example, records a γραµµατοδιδάσκαλος receiving wheat and barely of a particular amount.134 In addition to non- monetary payments, γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι also received monetary compensation for their work, but for the most part their pay was quite low. Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices (late third century CE) gives us a good idea of how little the γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι made compared to other educators in antiquity. Γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι Elementary teacher 50 (denarii, monthly, per student) Teacher of 75 Teacher of shorthand 75

Γραµµατικοί Teacher of Greek or Latin language and literature, and teacher of geometry 200

Ρήτωρ Teacher of rhetoric or public speaking 250

131 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 21. 132 Cribiore lists 8 γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι and 37 διδάσκαλοι in Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt, 162–66. 133 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 16. 134 Collected in Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 162.

35

The primary school teacher received a small fee per student compared to proper grammarians and rhetors, a fee they relied on entirely as they were not salaried in any other way. With low pay came a low social status, and in antiquity primary teachers were often looked down upon. Among the literate elite, being called a schoolteacher was a grave insult. In On the Crown, Demosthenes insults his opponent as follows: I am at no loss for information about you and your family; but I am at a loss where to begin. Shall I relate how your father Tromes was a slave in the house of Elpias, who kept an elementary school (διδάσκοντι γράµµατα, literally is instructing letters) near the Temple of Theseus, and how he wore shackles on his legs and a timber collar round his neck? or how your mother practised daylight nuptials in an outhouse next door to Heros the bone-setter, and so brought you up to act in tableaux vivants and to excel in minor parts on the stage? (On the Crown, 129)135

Later in the same work, Demosthenes brings up school teachers again:

But do you—you who are so proud and so contemptuous of others— compare your fortune with mine. In your childhood you were reared in abject poverty. You helped your father in the drudgery of a grammar-school (διδασκαλείω), grinding the ink, sponging the benches, and sweeping the school-room (παιδαγωγεῖον κορῶν), holding the position of a menial, not of a free-born boy.136 (On the Crown, 258)

The contempt is clear. But again, we should not judge our γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι from the word of their social superiors alone, and there is good reason to think that γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι received some measure of status from their roles as literate teachers. This was especially the case in small towns and villages where they would have been one of a few, or the only literate person around. This is apparent from the several examples we have of γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι working as village scribes and notaries. Cribiore produces seven accounts where a person with the title γραµµατοδιδάσκαλος or διδάσκαλος serves as a scribe or notary.137 This served not only to supplement their meager incomes, but also to elevate their status as important literate members of that town or village. Additionally, while they did not enjoy a salary or the right to collect fees nearly as high as grammarians, γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι were exempt from the salt tax, indicating at least some measure of imperial recognition. I should also note that not every primary teacher was

135 Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by C. A. Vince, M. A. and J. H. Vince, M.A. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1926. 136 For more on the low status of teachers see Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 59. 137 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 22. P. Ryl. IV 572.1.10, BGU VI 1214.4, Pap.Lugd.Bat. XX 20.9, P. Cair.Isid. 3.41 and 4.21, SB V 7672.20, P. Ryl. IV 656.23, and SB VI 9191.24.

36 desperately poor, as at least one was wealthy enough to build a wall for the goddess Leto.138 6.2.2. Γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι: Some Minor Conclusions From this brief review I can draw a few conclusions regarding the literary skills and economic and social status of primary school teachers. As I have noted above, at all levels there would have been good and bad teachers, teachers who were extremely proficient in their literacy, and teachers who may not have been much more educated than their senior students. Thus my conclusions here are general, and by no means describe every primary instructor. First, primary instructors operated primarily in small towns and villages, and less frequently in major centres like Alexandria or Oxyrhynchus. In these major cities private tutors, pedagogues, and grammarians served as the student’s first teacher. The literary skills of a γραµµατοδιδάσκαλος varied, but on average they could produce short compositions for their students to copy, and in the case of more advanced teachers like those witnessed in Un livre d’écolier, Karanis, and Theadelphia, engagement with Homer and other poets. In terms of economic status, primary teachers were not well off, were not salaried, and relied on the fees their students paid to learn with them. In terms of social status, they were looked down upon by the intellectual elite, but still enjoyed some imperial recognition and were likely respected as the local intellectual elite. In smaller towns the didaskalos may have claimed some of the social capital of the grammarian (reviewed below), given that didaskaloi were the sole carries of paideia (and thus respected for their education, limited as it may have been), and also given the fact that they often took on the teaching role of the grammarian in his or her absence.139 6.3. Grammarians From their emergence in the second and first centuries BCE, through the early medieval period, the history of the grammarian is well attested, nowhere more extensively than in Kaster’s Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (1988).140 As the difference in salary indicates, the grammar was significantly better off than the primary school teacher. The grammarian had two, not necessarily distinct roles: they were the primary instructors for wealthy children in cities and large towns, and they were the instructors who

138 SB I 680. 139 Christian Laes, “School-Teachers in the Roman Empire: A Survey of the Epigraphical Evidence,” Acta Classica 50 (2007): 121. 140 Robert A. Kaster, Guardians of Language: The Grammarian and Society in Late Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).

37 taught students the rules of grammar, as well as how to read poetry and philosophy critically. I have already reviewed the evidence for grammarians being the first instructor of children in major intellectual centres (and will review the significance of this in terms of economic and social status below), so this section will focus on their role and status as grammarians proper. Didaskaloi introduced students to reading and writing, but it was with the grammarian that students began to hone their meagre literacy into recognizable cultural fluency. What level of cultural fluency the students reached, however, is not clear. Philo, for example, states that For grammar teaches us to study literature in the poets and historians, and will thus produce intelligence and wealth of knowledge. It will teach us also to despise the vain delusions of our empty imagination by shewing us the calamities which heroes and demigods who are celebrated in such literature have undergone.141

Philo goes on to describe grammar as preparatory for philosophical learning, and this relationship emerged with the grammarians themselves as they differentiated themselves from philosophers.142 It is this self-understanding that grammar was close to philosophy that leads Booth to conclude that “the scholarly grammatici [γραµµατικοί] regarded themselves more as twins of philosophers than elder brothers of the grammatistai [γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι].”143 On the other hand, while Quintilian also advocates the study of poetry and other writing with the grammarian, he ultimately imagines grammar performing a far more technical role: observing and classifying facts of language, and teaching practical application, all in the service of preparing students for the study of rhetoric. The vast majority of Quintilian’s chapters on grammar (I.IV.7-29, and much of chapter V-VIII) cover these more technical aspects of the discipline.144 This emphasis on the science of grammar is not surprising given the way that Quintilian imagines grammar as setting up rhetorical and oratory training, but for this same reason we should be suspicious of how broadly Quintilian’s description of the grammarian can be applied. The differences between Quintilian’s grammar and Philo’s are remarkable. Quintilian’s approaches grammar in a much more systematic way with the focus on preparing students for rhetoric and oratory. Philo, on the other hand, imagines grammar as the sculpting of

141 On Mating with the Preliminary Studies, 4. 15 (trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, LCL 261). 142 Booth, “The Appearance of the ‘Schola Grammatici,’” 118. 143 Booth, “The Appearance of the ‘Schola Grammatici,’” 118–19. 144 For a comprehensive review of Quintilian’s chapters on grammar see F. H. Colson, “The Grammatical Chapters in Quintilian I. 4-8,” CQ 8 (1914): 33–47.

38 an intelligent individual, able to separate themselves from those who take pleasure in vulgar fables and other lower forms of culture. Regardless of the exact role of the grammarian (as precursor to philosophy or rhetoric), their literary skills were considerable, allowing of course for considerable variation in those skills. Surely there were bad grammarians who had only slightly more education than the students they taught, but there were also exceedingly accomplished grammarians who wrote books and kept a following of students. As with the grammarians and didaskaloi, there was a bleeding between material taught to the most advanced grammar students, and to novice rhetoric students, particularly in the introduction to the progymnasmata. Suetonius supports this intermingling of grammar of rhetoric in his Lives of Eminent Grammarians: The grammarians of early days taught rhetoric as well, and we have treatises from many men on both subjects. It was this custom, I think, which led those of later times also, although the two professions had now become distinct, nevertheless either to retain or to introduce certain kinds of exercises suited to the training of orators, such as problems, paraphrases, addresses, character sketches and similar things; doubtless that they might not turn over their pupils to the rhetoricians wholly ignorant and unprepared.145

Given the fluidity of teaching at the edges of the so-called curriculums, and the fact that the progymnasmata use many of the same gnomai and chreiai as grammar, and even primary schooling, this overlap should not come as a surprise. 6.3.1. The Economic and Social Identities of Grammatikoi Unlike pedagogues and didaskaloi, grammarians were salaried, and thus in a more stable situation than other teachers. This was no guarantee of prosperity, however, as two drafts of a petition from the Oxyrhynchian grammarian Lollianos indicate (P. Oxy. XLVII 3366). Lollianos complains that he receives his salary infrequently, and when paid he received sour wine and worm eaten grain.146 Palladas, an Alexandrian grammarian, complains of students paying him with false coins, skipping class when payments were due, or changing schools after eleven months to avoid paying him.147 Cribiore allows that these financial challenges, while not necessarily the norm, were ubiquitous enough, citing Libanius’ own rhetors were in financial need as a result of their salaries being paid infrequently and irregularly.148 That being the case,

145 Suetonius, Lives of Eminent Grammarians, 4. 22-29. 146 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 168; Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 64. 147 Alan Cameron, “Roman School Fees,” CR 15 (1965): 257–58. 148 Cribiore, Gymnastics of the Mind, 64.

39 there are still many instances of grammarians who are quite well off. Suetonius records the lives of a number of grammarians who were quite wealthy. On Remmius Palaemon, Suetonius remarks that, He was so given to luxurious living that he went to the bath several times in a day; and could not live within his income, although he received four hundred thousand sesterces a year from his school and almost as much from his private property. To the latter he gave great attention, keeping shops for the sale of ready made clothing and cultivating his fields with such care that it is common talk that a vine which he grafted himself yielded grapes every day of the year.149

More modestly, the grammarian Verrius Flaccus received an allowance of one thousand sesterces annually, presumably in addition to the fees he collected from his students.150 It was not uncommon for grammarians to own one or more slaves, and even Palladas possessed at least one.151 Grammarians also enjoyed significantly higher social standing due to their title, grammatikos, being officially recognized and salaried. This is of particular note as of the twenty grammarians Suetonius lists, three were slaves and ten were freedman to only seven freeborn. More remarkable is the fact that Suetonius frequently mentions that grammarians distinguished themselves through their learning and exceeded the ranks into which they were born. Suetonius is not the only person who held grammarians in regard. A series of ephebic inscriptions also bear witness to the renown of the grammarian, naming the school of the grammarian (γραµµατικῶν σχολαῖς) alongside the school of the rhetor (ῥητόρων σχολαῖς), and sometimes the philosopher (φιλοσόφων σχολαῖς) as worthy of patronage.152 Grammarians were officially recognized and salaried, but it is also important to note that they were the teachers of large centres such as Alexandria, Oxyrhynchus, Rome, and . Grammarians, then, not only taught more advanced curriculum, but were also a part of the culture of paideia in a way that didaskaloi were not. Kaster’s detailed study of grammarians illustrates this nicely, and he shows that in

149 Suetonius, Lives of Eminent Grammarians, 23. 17-24. 150 Suetonius, Lives of Eminent Grammarians, 17. 151 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 22; Cameron, “Roman School Fees.” 152 IG II2 1039, SEG 22:110 and SEG 22:111 mention the school of the grammarian and rhetor side by side. IG II2 1040 and 1043 mention the school of the grammarian and philosopher side by side. IG II2 1042 mentions all three schools. These ephebic inscriptions are extremely formulaic, particularly in the sections discussing the grammarians, rhetors, and philosophers. For a review of these inscriptions, see O. W. Reinmuth, “An Ephebic Text of Ca. 43/2 B. C.: I.G. II2, 1040 and 1025,” Hesperia 34 (1965): 255–72. Cf. O. W. Reinmuth, “The Ephebic Inscription, Athenian Agora I 286,” Hesperia 24 (1955): 220–39.

40 intellectual centres such as Bordeaux, grammarians would have enjoyed a “middling” respectability based on their roles in intellectual life.153 Kaster goes on to argue that grammarians probably enjoyed a moderate level of respectability outside of their classrooms as well.154 There were, of course, poor grammarians (in terms of both social and economic status), but in general, grammarians enjoyed a more stable livelihood than didaskaloi, and significantly more social recognition. 6.3.2. Γραµµατικοί: Some Minor Conclusions As with the didaskaloi, the range in terms of skill and social and economic standing among grammarians was significant. So again, these conclusions are generalizations, and by no means describe every grammarian. In terms of literary skill, grammarians were significantly more advanced than didaskaloi. Even in the cases where the grammar teacher was also a didaskalos (such as in the cases of smaller centres), they would have possessed rather sophisticated compositional skills that included making exercises, and critically commenting on poetry. Proper grammarians in larger cities, of course, were generally even more skilled and expected to provide students with solid preparation for rhetoric or philosophy. In terms of economic identity, again grammarians ranged from poor to very wealthy. As noted above, there were a number of grammarians who were part of the city’s elite, and did not require the tuition their students paid them to survive. On the other end, there are also examples of poorer grammarians, dependent on that tuition to survive. The official salary for grammarians helped, but as a number of sources show, it was not always sufficient (or paid consistently). In terms of social standing, my conclusions can be slightly more sweeping. Because of their imperial recognition and official role as the gateway to paideia, grammarians enjoyed significantly more widespread acclaim, and certainly did not suffer the indignancies suffered by didaskaloi. Laes argues that this official esteem could be and was acquired by village didaskaloi who filled the role of the grammarian in instances where there was no local grammarian.155

7. Conclusion: Students and Teachers, Paideia and Virtue This chapter has raised a number of issues pertinent in the establishment of a culture of paideia. First, I have illustrated the ways in which paideia was constructed as a virtue at the earliest levels

153 Kaster, Guardians of Language, 106. 154 Kaster, Guardians of Language, 201. 155 Laes, “School-Teachers in the Roman Empire,” 121.

41 of ancient education. Even students with the most basic reading and writing skills would have acquired them by copying and reciting maxims such as “the first and greatest thought is learning” and “Diogenes the Cynic philosopher, upon being asked where the Muses live said, ‘In the souls of the educated.’” This is significant as even students who did not ascend to the heights of philosophy were still of a culture that valued paideia. In addition to this class of students, we also have a class of teachers participating in the culture of paideia. Depending on local circumstances, even the simplest didaskaloi possessed social capital based on their roles as intellectuals. In the students of the didaskaloi and grammarians we have potential consumers of paideia, people who recognized the significance of reading, writing, and recognizing chreiai. In the didaskaloi and grammarians themselves we have potential producers of paideia. Suetonius identifies several grammarians who wrote books, and even with more limited compositional skills, letters and chreiai collections would have been well within the compositional abilities of grammarians, and likely some didaskaloi.

42

Chapter 2: Rhetorical and Philosophical Schools and the Cultivation of Virtue in Paideia

1. Introduction For students with the social and economic means to continue their schooling, rhetorical and philosophical schools were their two main options. These options, however, were not exclusive of one another. In many instances students completed training with a rhetor before study with a philosopher. Lucian’s autobiographical details suggest as much, and given the degree of literary sophistication many philosophy teachers expected of their students, it would have been important, if not necessary to have literary training beyond that of the grammarian. That students would have received rhetorical schooling before philosophical schooling may also have been the case due to the fact that rhetoric had emerged as the ultimate form of paideia in the first centuries BCE and CE and as such was presented as the logical culmination of primary and grammatical schooling. In a number of ways this chapter’s section on rhetorical schooling would be quite at home in my previous chapter, as the progression through school exercises and the road toward declamation make rhetoric seem the final step in the trinity of primary education, grammar, and rhetoric. That being the case, I have placed it alongside philosophical schooling for two main reasons. First, the difference between a trained rhetor and a grammarian is difficult to overstate, and the philosopher, not the grammarian represents the rhetor’s intellectual peer. Socially, the rhetor was far more revered, economically the rhetor was far better compensated, and in terms of literary skill, the student of the grammarian was closer to the illiterate than the rhetorically trained. Second, rhetoric had not only become more popular than philosophy by the first centuries, there were many rhetors who understood rhetoric as replacing philosophy in terms of the moral development of citizens.156 This chapter will continue to focus on the ways in which paideia was understood as virtue, but will also highlight the numerous ways in which rhetorical, and especially philosophical schools attempted to cultivate a virtuous life through learning and living out rhetorical and philosophical ideals. I will here attempt to identify as much as possible the social worlds of the rhetorical and philosophical schools, describing, among other things, teachers, students, and texts. This chapter begins with an historical survey of rhetoric as a discipline, then moves to describe the ways in which the preliminary exercises that prepared students for the study of rhetoric—the progymnasmata—and rhetoric itself were more than

156 See Quintilian’s remarks below.

43 schooling technical skills to be developed, but schooling in virtue aimed at producing cultured citizens. The second half of the chapter examines philosophical schools in terms of their own construction of educated subjects through their teaching methods and day-to-day operations generally, and their presentation of philosophy as a way of life, βίος.

2. Rhetoric: Historical Background According to Suetonius, just as grammar, rhetoric was introduced to the Roman world relatively recently (second century BCE), but unlike grammar, rhetoric initially had difficulty finding acceptance. According to Suetonius, In the consulship of Gaius Fannius Strabo and Marcus Valerius Messala [161 BCE] the praetor Marcus Pomponius laid a proposition before the senate. As the result of a discussion about philosophers and rhetoricians [philosophis et rhetoribus], the senate decreed that Marcus Pomponius, the praetor, should take heed and provide, in whatever way seemed in accord with the interests of the State and his oath of office, that they be not allowed to live in Rome. (Suetonius, De Rhetoribus, 1. 5-12. Trans. John Carew Rolfe, LCL)

This kind of expulsion or condemnation of teachers was relatively common,157 and the edicts of expulsion generally cited a need to prevent the moral corruption of the city’s youth as the justification for such expulsions (the next example quoted from Suetonius states this explicitly). Suetonius cites another edict, this time from the early first century BCE that once again concerns itself with rhetoricians in Rome. Sometime afterward the censors Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Lucius Lucinius Crassus [92 BCE] issued the following edict about the same class of men: “It has been reported to us that there be men who have introduced a new kind of training, and that our young men frequent their schools; that these men have assumed the title of Latin rhetoricians [Latinos rhetoras], and that young men spend whole days with them in idleness. Our forefathers determined what they wished their children to learn and what schools they desired them to attend. These innovations in the customs and principles of our forefathers do not please us nor seem proper. Therefore it appears necessary to make our opinion known, both to those who have such schools and to those who are in the habit of attending them, that they are displeasing to us.” (De Rhetoribus, 1. 12-25)

This is particularly interesting as Lucius Lucinius Crassus was the teacher of Cicero, and thus it seems unlikely that his edict condemns the teaching of rhetoric full stop. Instead, the edict seems

157 Heidi Wendt, “Ea Superstitione: Christian Martyrdom and the Religion of Freelance Experts,” JRS 105 (2015): 183–202.

44 to condemn individuals who claim the position of Latin Rhetor, but who teach novelties “contrary to the instruction of our ancestors.” It is difficult to determine whether or not the shift from a full banishment of rhetors in the second century BCE to a banishment of novelty rhetors in the first century BCE signaled a shift in the ways in which rhetoric was received in Rome, but given the careers of Cicero and Seneca, and the rhetorical training received by Mark Antony and Augustus, it seems almost certain that in first century BCE rhetoric established itself as a legitimate pursuit in Rome. At any rate, Suetonius notes that rhetoric came to be seen as useful by degrees, citing as an example Cicero declaiming in Greek, and later in life, in Latin (De Rhetoribus, 1. 26-31). Suetonius also cites the example of a number of Caesars including Augustus and Nero who declaimed in public during their reign (De Rhetoribus, 1. 31-43). Here Suetonius ties rhetoric closely with the act of public declamation. He notes that the first century saw an increase in orators publishing their declamations, and by doing so generated more general enthusiasm around oratory and rhetoric. This enthusiasm was accompanied by an increase in teachers in Rome. Suetonius remarks that the teachers initially had different approaches to the study of rhetoric, but eventually debate emerged as the key exercise in oratory. Rhetoric was originally a Greek practice, but as one can tell from the selections quoted above, Latin speaking teachers adopted it quickly, and one could learn rhetoric in both Greek and Latin. Still, and in spite of the fact that rhetoric was so popular in Rome, Greek remained the privileged language of rhetoric.158 By the first century CE, rhetoric reigned supreme as the pinnacle of learning, and served as a kind of gatekeeper for the elites. This did not, however, mean that all elites possessed a rhetorical education, or that all who possessed a rhetorical education belonged to the elite. It is not possible to pinpoint the exact literary skill set rhetorical students possessed as they moved through rhetorical training, but the way that the curriculum is laid out by Quintilian, and the emphasis on acquiring various technical writing skills in the progymnasmata (albeit largely from copying), it seems that even from younger students a teacher like Quintilian would have expected a relatively high degree of literacy, including compositional skills. And while composition was more important in rhetorical schooling than in grammar school, the majority of

158 See for example Cicero’s comments in his now lost letter to Marcus Titinnius quoted in Suetonius. Cicero recalls the Latin rhetor Lucius Plotius Gallus, a rhetor with whom Cicero initially wanted to study, but was dissuaded by men of wide experience who convinced him that “one’s mind could better be trained by exercises in Greek.” Further, a man who was defending himself against an accusation supplied by Plotius called Plotius a “barely-bread rhetorician” for he was “puffy, light, and coarse” due to his inabilities in Greek (De Rhetoribus, 2. 12-13).

45 students, parents, and teachers viewed rhetoric primarily as training in declamation.159 Practicing declamation was often understood as the main goal of rhetorical studies and it was certainly one of the most visible, as well as the practice that most prepared students for public life and public careers. As such, much of rhetorical training involves reading and memorizing declamations (Institutio 2.7). Quintilian stood out as an exception to the common practice, as he was not in favour of a curriculum that focused on the memorization of declamations, and instead opted for his students to read history and poetry as well as declamation (Institutio 2.5). His students also spent time writing out and memorizing short passages taken from speeches or from histories and other books (Institutio 2.6.2). Quintilian’s students, then, received a more rounded rhetorical education. It was still aimed at declamation, but also served to familiarize students with important speeches and historical treatises. Quintilian may have seen his approach as novel, but it is still related to a more general trend in rhetoric to produce cultured citizens more than professional orators. This trend is also present in philosophical schooling (reviewed below); elite citizens did not take on the philosophical life, but took away moral and virtuous teachings that could be applied immediately to their daily lives. 2.1 Teachers and Students Unlike the didaskaloi, grammatikoi, and kathegetai, rhetoricians were more distinctly marked as such, were better known, and were certainly better compensated. By the first century CE, rhetoric was so popular that many major cities had an endowed chair of rhetoric, sponsored by the state directly. Recall Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices from chapter one. That edict set the maximum price a rhetor could charge per student at 250 denarii, five times that of an elementary teacher and 50 denarii more than a chaired grammarian. There were, of course, rhetors without chairs, but even these men enjoyed prestige and wealth well beyond that of the didaskaloi or grammatikoi. Because of the nature of our sources—writing by or about rhetoricians—I have structured this section slightly differently from the “teachers” sections in chapter 1. Here, I will look directly at rhetoricians as they have been written about (in the case of Suetonius’) or as they write about themselves (in the case of Quintilian).

159 The content of ancient rhetorical schools has been commented on extensively both in secondary literature and in the form of contemporary sources such as Cicero, and especially Quintilian, so I will comment only briefly here, focusing particularly on the composition techniques and literary skills acquired by the students of rhetoric.

46

Cicero, Seneca, and Quintilian stand as examples of rhetors who attained the ultimate heights of the profession.160 Cicero and Seneca were renowned rhetors in Rome and were active in . This activity, of course, led to the death of them both, and Quintilian purposefully stayed away from politics to avoid their fates. But where Quintilian was less active politically, he was far more active as a teacher, and thus of more interest here. Unfortunately, while we possess a great deal of information on the lives of Cicero and Seneca, we have very little for Quintilian. We know that, like Cicero and Seneca, he came from a family with some means. Quintilian’s family was not from the senatorial class, but George Kennedy speculates that they may have been equestrian. This would account for Quintilian’s early education, as well as his being sent to Rome by his father to learn rhetoric.161 Quintilian studied with Domitius Afer until the latter’s death in 59 CE. After completing his studies Quintilian moved back to his home country of Hispania, but in 68 he moved back to Rome and shortly after the death of Galba established a rhetorical school in Rome. Vespasian made Quintilian a consul and granted him the chair of rhetoric in Rome, a move which provided Quintilian with the financial stability to focus on his school. Prior to Vespasian appointing Quintilian to a chair, wealthy Romans patronized teachers and kept them on as tutors, but these were private initiatives. With the creation of Quintilian’s chair, Vespasian broke with this tradition and established a rhetorical chair that was financially supported by the state.162 Quintilian held this post for twenty years before retiring under Domitian. Again, Cicero, Seneca, and Quintilian were the best-case scenario for rhetors, with Quintilian’s chair of rhetoric in Rome being the pinnacle. In addition to these three giants we have reports from Suetonius of five other rhetors operating in the first centuries CE. Suetonius provides us with slightly more variety in background and skill for these rhetors, lest we think all rhetoric students eventually became chairs in Rome. In terms of the humblest beginnings, Lucius Octaculius Pilitus was said to have once been a slave who was freed because of his talent and interest in letters. As Suetonius reports it, his manumission came as the result of his helping his patron prepare an accusation. He went on to become a teacher of rhetoric, taught Pompey the Great, and wrote a history on Pompey and his

160 I will discuss Seneca and Cicero’s identities as rhetors below. 161 George A. Kennedy, Quintilian (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1969), 16. Kennedy relies on Jerome and Ausonius’ Professors of Bordeaux, as well as what little biographical information Quintilian provides in the Institutio. 162 Kennedy, Quintilian, 19.

47 father (De Rhetoribus 3). Suetonius also tells of one Sextus Clodius of . He was a teacher of both Greek and Latin oratory and a friend of Mark Antony. This friendship earned his a position as consul, a 2,000-acre plot, and freedom from taxes. Cicero, however, thought Sextus an idiot, bemoaned the gifts he received, and insulted him by calling him a schoolmaster (De Rhetoribus 5).163 Not all of the rhetoricians Suetonius presents were successful in their professions. Marcus Epidius, for example, was the teacher of Anthony and Augustus, but was a notorious false accuser and fell into disgrace (De Rhetoribus 4). Lucius Plotius Gallus was a famous rhetor with whom Cicero initially wanted to study, but he only worked in Latin and was mocked for doing so. As a result of his limited abilities, Cicero did not study with him (De Rhetoribus 2). Finally, there is Gaius Albucius Silus of Novara. He opened a famous school and taught, declaimed and pleaded successfully. He fell into disgrace, however, due to two failed cases wherein his insulted the judges and audience, losing both cases as a result (De Rhetoribus 6). This last example brings to the fore a point perhaps understated until now; teachers of rhetoric were as or more known for their public careers as orators. This also speaks to the ends envisioned by the student of rhetoric. Completing rhetorical training was the capstone on encyclia paideia, particularly as imagined by Quintilian, and it readied the now young man (no longer a child) for public life. It is difficult to determine how many students actually completed rhetorical training and went on to become orators, but it seems safe to hypothesize that very few did, given the demand for orators even amongst the social elite.

3. Training in Virtue in the Progymnasmata and Rhetorical Schools To be sure, rhetorical schooling involved the acquisition of extremely technical knowledge, the memorization of famous speeches, the construction of speeches in the voice of a famous rhetor, and the careful construction of speeches based on the traditional forms of declamation. This being the case, rhetorical schooling did not produce orators exclusively (or exclusive orators). For public figures like Cicero and Seneca, their rhetorical training prepared them for delivering public declamation, speaking in the courts, and delivering political speeches. Their rhetorical training prepared them for public life more generally, not one limited to declaiming in the courts. Cicero and Seneca, of course, are not our typical rhetorical students. They came from elite families and rhetorical training aided them in their public lives. But what of all the other students

163 Recall the instances in which “school teacher” was used as an insult from chapter 1.

48 of rhetoric? They did not all become rhetors, or sophists, and it is likely that many who attended rhetorical schools rarely, if ever, used their technical skills in public. It is my contention in this chapter that in addition to the technical training described by Quintilian, Cicero, and others, rhetorical schools were producers of virtuous citizens, completing the journey toward paideia that started at home or with the elementary teacher. 3.1. Progymnasmata164 and Virtue The progymnasmata or “preliminary exercises” are collections of school exercises wherein the focus was to prepare the student for declamation in rhetorical school. Unlike any of the school exercises we have encountered so far, the progymnasmata was an actual guidebook for instructors with an actual curriculum. There were a number of progymnasmata available to instructors in antiquity, but only five have survived intact: those of Theon, Hermogenes, Priscian, Aphthonius of Antioch, and Nicholas of Myra. Each progymnasmata contained fourteen writing exercises, and while the name and order differed from book to book, there is still a marked consistency in the overall lessons covered: fable, narrative/narration, chreia, maxim, refutation, confirmation, topic, encomion, invective, comparison, characterization/personification, ecphrasis/description, thesis/proposition, and law.165 The topics are introduced in order of difficulty, from relatively simple exercises—and familiar from primary and grammar schools—such as fables, chreiai, and maxims, to relatively difficult exercises—and more directly preparatory for declamation—such as constructing theses and writing on law. The progymnasmata served as an important bridge between the interpretive skills taught by the grammarian and the compositional skills taught by the rhetor. Rhetoric and oratory were highly formalized and many students were not prepared for the formalized style of composition required

164 It is worth noting that interest in the progymnasmata is not limited to classicists, and that significant contributions have been made by scholars of early Christianity. The interest in the progymnasmata among scholars of early Christianity is largely based on the efforts of Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, (Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986]; Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric: Classroom Exercises [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002]) and Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins (Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels [Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1989]). Hock and O’Neil were interested primarily in the ways in which chreiai construction and expansion was taught in the progymnasmata, and the ways in which this shed light on the composition of sayings of Jesus. Mack and Robbins were also interested in chreiai and chreiai expansion, but their focus was more narrow with Mack arguing that the collection of parables in Mark 4 demonstrate progymnasmatic expansion of a single saying. I will return to the ways in which the progymnasmata shed light on the production of some early Jesus texts in part 2. 165 George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), xiii.

49 by rhetoric. Theon, for example, complains that young men rush into public speaking not only without rhetoric or philosophy, but also without a general knowledge of the encyclical studies (Theon, Progymnasmata, 59). His ire is aimed at the young men entering public debate without proper training, and he relates the amusing proverb that their attempts at declamation without proper preparation are akin to “learning pottery-making by starting with a big jar” (Theon, Progymnasmata, 59). Theon is not concerned with teaching rhetoric (he states he will leave that to others), what he is concerned with is preparing students for the study of rhetoric (Theon, Progymnasmata, 59). The progymnasmata also provide an excellent example of the schooling-for-culture model present in primary and grammar schools. It would be hard to imagine a more technical manual than the progymnasmata. As a workbook it took students through the exercises that would prepare them for rhetorical school. The order (and sometimes number) of exercises differed, but all served the purpose of readying the student for public declamation. But even here, in the most technical of handbooks there was a distinct cultural edge to the content. Nowhere is this clearer than the standard saying used in chreia expansion: Isocrates says, “the root of education is bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” More so than any of the school exercises reviewed in chapter two, this saying makes clear that the process of educating presented the ends, education, as culturally significant. This chreia is present in Theon’s progymnasmata, as well as those of Hermogenes, Priscian, Aphthonius of Antioch, and Nicholas of Myra. In addition to this single chreia, these preliminary exercises also feature a number of other chreiai that mark out education as the ideal. Diogenes the Cynic philosopher, on seeing a rich young man who was uneducated said, “this man is silver-plated filth.” Diogenes the Cynic philosopher, on seeing a gourmand boy, struck his pedagogue. Diogenes the Cynic philosopher, on seeing a youth misbehaving, beat the pedagogues. Isocrates the sophist used to say that gifted students are children of gods. Isocrates the rhetor used to advise his students to honour their teachers above their parents because the latter are the cause only of living, while teachers are the cause of living nobly.

In each instance the technical purpose of the saying was to provide a base on which students would build more complicated discourses. But the technical ability to expand on a saying is far less notable than the ideological content of the sayings. The first two sayings of Diogenes quoted above are remarkable for the fact that they directly address a fictitious young man of some

50 wealth. The first saying makes it rather clear that, according to Diogenes, the mere possession of wealth does not make someone a member of the social elite (or, at least, does not ensure they are not filth). This sentiment is echoed in Lucian’s The Ignorant Book Collector (commented on at length in chapter three) wherein Lucian mocks a rich man who possesses a great number of expensive books, but lacks the literary training to read them. The next two sayings do not pack the same rhetorical punch, and instead criticize the bad manners of the student and the failures of the pedagogue. But while Diogenes mocks the uneducated and beats pedagogues, Isocrates takes the positive approach, praising the educated. The second saying of Isocrates quoted above nicely complements Diogenes’ first saying: in short, anyone can be born (into wealth) and live, but this does not mean one is living nobly. It is only through schooling that one learns to live nobly. The idea that the study of the progymnasmata taught both technical skills and cultural norms is stated somewhat explicitly in Theon’s introduction: “the chreia not only creates a certain faculty of speech but also good character while being exercised in the moral sayings of the wise” (Theon, Progymnasmata, 60). Thus in the exercises that students went through in preparation for the study of rhetoric, many of the virtues of paideia were present and prevalent. 3.2. Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Virtue Since , rhetoric has been closely associated with virtue. Rhetoric was the art of speaking persuasively, and such persuasive speech was called upon in political debates, public debates, and pleading cases before a judge. Aristotle and others recognized that persuasive speech could theoretically be used in order to defend a bad or wrong cause,166 and because of this the importance of virtue in rhetoric rose to the forefront. This was so much the case by the first century that Quintilian cannot imagine a good rhetor who is not also virtuous (Institutio 2.15.1). In his introduction to Institutio Oratorio Quintilian states “I am proposing to educate the perfect orator, who cannot exist except in the person of a good man (Institutio 1.1.9). Quintilian is so confident that he cannot conceive of the possibility that rhetoric could be put to evil ends. Quintilian’s “good man” was formed throughout his education, and recall his insistence that the rhetor be properly raised, both at home and at school. The parents and pedagogues should be educated and virtuous (Institutio 1.1.4-9). Such a virtuous upbringing ensured for Quintilian the virtuous character of the rhetor. The rhetor as inherently virtuous person is related to Quintilian’s efforts to understand rhetoric as having replaced philosophy in the realm of morality.

166 Ameile Rorty, “Aristotle on the Virtues of Rhetoric,” RMeta 64 (2011): 715.

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By the first centuries BCE, and certainly by the Second Sophistic, rhetoric had overtaken philosophy as the ideal pursuit of the educated elite. This happened in large part due to the esteem with which rhetoric was held in Rome. It is probably no coincidence that this also happened at a time in which philosophy was stagnating (more on this in the philosophy section below), moving away from the quest for truth and instead focusing on rationalizing current social values with philosophy,167 and forming a commitment to the founder.168 But the traditional idea of philosophy was still captivating, and rhetors and sophists were quick to lay claim to aspects of philosophy that they found appealing. Quintilian is particularly keen to associate the virtues and morality of traditional philosophy with rhetoric. In his introduction to Institutio he does not allow “that the principles of upright and honourable living should, as some have held, be left to the philosophers” (Institutio 1.1.10). Citing Cicero, Quintilian presents rhetoric and philosophy as disciplines once so closely joined in nature that people often mistook them (Institutio 1.1.13), but recently the ability to make a living as a philosopher (see Lucian’s On Salaried Posts in Great Houses and Apologia) had led the philosophically trained to abandon moral concerns and prey on the minds of the weak for pay (Institutio 1.1.14). In addition to this decline in philosophy, Quintilian notes the many overlaps between traditional philosophy and rhetoric—questions about justice, equity, goodness, and nature—and claims that had the perfect rhetor existed in the past, there would have been no need to go to a philosophical school to study virtue (Institutio 1.1.17). Quintilian is correct that philosophy in the first century differed from classical philosophy, but to claim that it was morally bankrupt is not only a stretch, but in direct contradiction to the tenets of Roman era philosophy presented by contemporary philosophy teachers and students. As I will discuss below, while philosophy was less engaged in new ways of seeking Truth, it had replaced this quest for truth with a focus on applying philosophical lessons to daily life and the formation and cultivation of morality. In fact, many philosophers were just as critical as Quintilian and Lucian of so-called philosophers who recruited students in the cities and led them astray.169

167 Steve Mason, “Philosophiai: Graeco-Roman, Judean and Christian,” in Voluntary Associations in the Graeco- Roman World, ed. John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson (London: Routledge, 1996), 34. 168 David Sedley, “Philosophical Allegiance in the Greco-Roman World,” in Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society, ed. Miriam T. Griffin and Jonathan Barnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 97. 169 See for example Musonius Rufus’ distaste for “those spoiled effeminate fellows by whose presence the good name of philosophy is stained” Diss. XI.

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4. Philosophical Schools in the First Centuries CE By our period, and especially in Rome, rhetoric had far surpassed philosophy as choice schooling for the educated elite. The reasons for this are likely twofold. First oratory came to play an increasingly important role in public life in the Roman Empire. The ability to declaim was not only functional—pleading before the courts on one’s behalf or on behalf of one’s family or friends—but also carried significant culture capital. Gathering outside the courts to hear a trial or an oratory performance was a pastime of the cultural elite, and being seen declaiming (well, ideally) demonstrated to those elite one’s own cultural competencies. The other reason for the decline of philosophy may well have been the changes that philosophy underwent internally in the Hellenistic and early Roman periods. By the first century (and for a good chunk of time before), philosophy had moved away from a quest for truth and toward a focus on contemplating a moral life through the tenets of the particular school to which one belonged.170 The rise of the Roman Empire and state sponsored chairs of rhetoric also saw the decline of large centralized schools of philosophy and the rise of individual teachers with small groups of adherents. Because of the values of imperial Rome, philosophical groups operating in the Roman period were less interested in original research and more interested in promoting their traditions and teachings.171 An emphasis on the ways in which a particular philosophical school could comment on moral philosophy was one of the ways in which philosophy attempted to stay relevant in an increasingly rhetorical world. But even the realm of moral philosophy was not the philosopher’s alone; recall that Quintilian claimed it for rhetoric. But while philosophy retreated in favour of rhetoric, it did not disappear entirely, and one could still pursue a philosophical education if one so chose. The remainder of this chapter will examine what that choice looked like in terms of the schools, students, teachers, and content. And while the Academy of Plato, Lyceum of Aristotle, and Garden of were no longer the physical homes for Platonism, Peripatetics, or Epicureanism, it was still possible to study with masters of these and other schools. This section on philosophy has two major points of focus. First, I will demonstrate the ways in philosophical schools of the first centuries CE conceived of and conveyed their philosophy as a βίος, a way of life. Philosophy was not about the acquisition of technical skills, or even simply the acquisition of knowledge. Ideally, it was the adoption of a new life (although the extent to which that ideal

170 Sedley, “Philosophical Allegiance,” 97. 171 Mason, “Philosophiai,” 33.

53 was actually met is questioned below). Second, I will examine aspects of philosophical schooling that contribute to our understanding of ancient intellectual culture, the topic of chapter three. Some of these aspects include the use of texts, the philosopher’s relationship with exile, and the day-to-day running of the school. Combined, these two points of emphasis will complement my argument that education was focused on producing virtuous subjects and set up my third chapter wherein I will explore the world in which the philosophically and rhetorically educated dwelt. 4.1. Philosophical schools in the Roman Period While it is common to associate the School of Plato with the Academy, Aristotle with the Lyceum, Epicurus with the Garden, and Zeno with the Stoa, philosophical schools with a permanent structure and defined lineage of instructor had all but died out by the Roman period. In presenting a chronology of the major classical philosophical Schools, Tiziano Dorandi marks the end of the Academy with the death of Antiochus in c. 68 BCE. Similarly for Dorandi, the Lyceum ceased to exist in 118 BCE with the death of Critolaus; the Stoa ceased to exist in c. 51 BCE with ’ second mission to Rome; and the Garden ceased to exist in 70/69 BCE with the death of Phaedrus.172 The point here is that by the beginning of the Roman period, and in the first centuries of the Common Era, the physical existence of the school of Plato or the school of Epicurus was a distant memory. This, of course, does not mean that there were no longer any Platonists, or Epicureans, or Peripatetics, but it does mean that the various Schools’ relationships with teachers, students, and place changed somewhat significantly. Unfortunately, this means that a vast majority of the work on philosophical schools in antiquity will not be helpful in commenting on the situation in the first centuries BCE and CE. And while our primary sources are sparse, it is still possible to paint a picture (or pictures) of philosophical schooling in the first centuries. 4.2. The School as a (social) Structure As with primary and grammatical schools, philosophical schools did not have a set curriculum that one could expect to proceed through as one studied one philosophy or another. But unlike primary and grammatical schooling, this lack of a curriculum made for diverse and divergent practices among philosophical Schools, and in philosophical schools. Before I start into this section I would like to draw a distinction between philosophical Schools capital “S” and

172 Tiziano Dorandi, “Chronology,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra et al. (Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 48–52.

54 philosophical schools lower case “s”. I will use the capital “S” School to designate the more abstract schools of thought. Thus the Platonic, Epicurean, Stoic, and so on, “Schools” receive a capital “S”. Individual schools within Platonic or Epicurean tradition receive a lower case “s”. Thus “of the Platonic School, Plotinus’ school is one of several.” In spite of the differences between the various Schools and schools, it is still possible to make a few general observations about philosophical schooling in antiquity. The number of studies devoted to philosophical schools in are numerous.173 These were the schools of Plato and his successors, of Aristotle, of Epicurus, and of Zeno. The schools met in set and central locations in Athens and were led by an appointed scholarch who could trace his intellectual lineage to the school’s founder. But as I note above, the classical model was long gone by the first centuries CE. Gone were the scholarchs and static places of meeting. The Schools themselves became fragmented and spread across the empire so that one might have several choices of philosopher from whom to learn Platonism, Stoicism, or Epicureanism. And where schools in classical antiquity enjoy significant scholarly attention, philosophical schools in the first centuries CE do not. This is not to say that they have received no attention, however, as a number of important studies of post-classical philosophical schools demonstrate. One of the earliest and most influential works on post-classical philosophical schools is Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff’s Antigonos von Karystos (1881). Wilamowitz’s focus was on both classical and post classical philosophical schools, their organization, and their relationship with the political structures of their day. In his chapter “die Philosophenschulen und die Politik” he argues that philosophical schools presented themselves as thiasoi, cultic groups

173 For a general overview of the Schools in the Hellenistic period see Tiziano Dorandi, “Organization and Structure of the Philosophical Schools,” in The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy, ed. Keimpe Algra et al. (Cambridge, U.K. ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 55–62. Wilamowitz is foundational in the study of ancient philosophical schools, but his theory that they functioned as thiasoi has been heavily critiqued, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Antigonos von Karystos, Philologische Untersuchungen, (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1881). For a direct examination of the Garden see, Bernard Frischer, Norman DeWitt, and Clay Diskin: Bernard Frischer, The Sculpted Word: Epicureanism and Philosophical Recruitment in Ancient (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982); Norman W. DeWitt, “Epicurean Contubernium,” TAPhA 67 (1936): 55–63; Norman W. DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure in Epicurean Groups,” CPh 31 (1936): 205–11; Clay Diskin, Paradosis and Survival : Three Chapters in the History of Epicurean Philosophy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998). John Dillon remains the authority on the Middle Platonic schools, and while he does cover the Roman period, his interests are focused primarily on the evolution of Platonic thought, not on the social world of Platonic Schools, John M. Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (Cornell University Press, 1996).

55 devoted to the worship of the muses.174 In some ways this logic follows, philosophers were known for their devotion to the muses and were also known to meet in the halls of the muses. A second/third century inscription, TAM V 498, demonstrates as much: Φρόντων τῶν ἐν τῷ | Μουσείου σειτου|µένων φιλοσόφων | τῶν Ἀλεξανδρια||[νῶν - - - ] Fronto of the Alexandrian philosophers who dine in the Museum . . .175 The association of philosophers with the muses is also attested in the first century letter P.Ryl.2.143 which is addressed to “Didymus son of Hierax of the Althaean, one of the philosophers maintained in the Museum…”176 It is clear that some philosophers were devoted to the Muses and even met in the Muse hall, but this does not necessarily mean that they were thiasoi. As Tiziano Dorandi notes, worship of the Muses took place elsewhere such as elementary schools and in the gymnasia, neither of which are identified as thiasoi.177 Still, in spite of the fact that devotion to the Muses was not limited to cultic groups, there are still reasons to consider philosophical schools alongside thiasoi. Dorandi addresses the criticisms of Wilamowitz’s theory, but ultimately concludes that “[t]here would seem to be no serious reason to oppose the recognition of thiasoi characteristics in the Athenian philosophical schools.”178 In addition to the relationship with the muses/museum, philosophers performed other “cultic” acts such as annual festivals and feasts celebrating, among other things, the birthday and death of the founding philosopher. Epicureans, for example, had an annual funeral cult for Epicurus’ parents and brothers; an annual celebration on Epicurus’ birthday (the twentieth day of the month of Gamelion) a monthly celebration one on the twentieth of each month in honour of Metrodorus,

174 Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Antigonos von Karystos, 178–234. See also pages 264-264 for the legal ramifications of schools being thiasoi. 175 The Greek transcription and English translation are both from Philip Harland’s personal website (http://philipharland.com/greco-roman-associations/statue-of-phronton-of-the-alexandrian-philosophers/) recovered July 29, 2016. 176 For a more detailed discussion on the connection between philosophers and the Museum see Philip A. Harland, Greco-Roman Associations: Texts, Translations, and Commentary. II. North Coast of the Black Sea, Asia Minor (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014), 367–84. Here Harland largely agrees with Wilamowitz and Dorandi that there are a number of good reasons to consider philosophical schools alongside (or as) thiasoi, but the secondary literature upon which Harland draws largely focuses on the classical period. To be sure, a number of the inscriptional evidence Harland cites is from the Roman period and provides good evidence that at least some philosophers met in the muse halls, but I am less confident that these observations can be seen as a continuity of classical philosophical practices (or vice versa). 177 Dorandi, “Organization and Structure,” 55. 178 Dorandi, “Organization and Structure,” 56.

56 and celebrations on the birthdays of Epicurus’ brothers and Polyaenus.179 The celebration of the founder’s birthday was not limited to Epicureans. The third century Platonist Plotinus sacrificed and entertained his friends on the traditional birthdays of Plato and , though he himself “never told anyone the month in which he was born or the day of his birth, because he did not want any sacrifice or feast on his birthday” (Life of Plotinus, 2.35-42). The identification of philosophical schools with thiasoi bears fruit insofar as parallels in structure, practice, and meeting place are apparent, but as I will show below, the day to day running of schools included a number of aspects distinct from thiasoi. 4.3. The Ideal of Philosophy as Βίος Philosophical schools, even more so than rhetorical schools, were not so much focused on the teaching/learning on of particular skills. Rather, philosophical teachers and schools emphasized philosophy as a βίος, a way of life. This ideal was present in all aspects of philosophical schooling, from the engagement with texts and lectures, to the day-to-day running of the school. An examination of some of the few schools with which we are familiar will help demonstrate this point. Philosophers tended to leave us with written treatises, tomes, epitomes, and letters outlining their school of thought, but very few actually described the goings on in the school, thus our data is limited. One notable exception is ’s introduction to Plotinus’ Enneads, Porphyry on the Life of Plotinus and the Order of his Books. The Life of Plotinus provides information about Plotinus’ own schooling, as well as the ways in which he ran his school in which Porphyry was a student. Admittedly Plotinus’s school existed a little bit outside the time frame that I am examining herein, but the wealth of details about Plotinus’ school and the dearth of details from our own time period make Porphyry’s introduction a crucial piece of evidence. The actually running of the schools, of course, differed from School to School, and teacher to teacher. I will note these differences as I progress through Porphyry’s narration of Plotinus’ school, but because this narration is most complete and succinct, I will use it as my frame. For Plotinus, philosophy was not a trade or a skill acquired to fulfill a specific role. It was indeed a bios, a life. The idea that the study of philosophy was a life more than a discipline was ubiquitous in antiquity, demonstrated clearly in Lucian’s satirization of philosophical schooling ΒΙΩΝ ΠΡΑΣΙΣ ( for Sale). Not only is “ΒΙΩΝ” in the title, but throughout Hermes,

179 Dorandi, “Organization and Structure,” 57.

57 the auctioneer, refers to the βίοι of Pythagoras, Diogenes, Socrates, , and others. The commitment to the philosophical life was often reflected in the individual student’s commitment to their teacher: Plotinus’ commitment to his teacher, and Porphyry’s and Amelius’ commitment to Plotinus illustrate this commitment. The idea of philosophy as bios is quite evident from the evidence of various philosophical teachers as well. Musonius Rufus believed that human beings were born inherently inclined to virtue, and though he deemed it possible for non-philosophers to be virtuous, he also saw it as the goal of the philosophical teacher to cultivate virtue in his/her students (Musonius Rufus, Discourses 2). Musonius Rufus urged his associates and students to make practical application of his teachings (Discourses 6), going so far as to propose that the ideal livelihood appropriate for a philosopher was that of a farmer working with nature directly (Discourses 11). Musonius Rufus recognized that few would desire to become farmers, or learn philosophy from a farmer, but all the same he deemed it better than studying with false, vain philosophers (Discourses 11). Seneca too depicts his own relationship with philosophy as more focused on moral ends than intellectual development.180 , reporting on the lectures of Epictetus, states that Epictetus uttered his discourses primarily to excite his hearers in virtue (Arrian to Lucius Gellius I). Elsewhere Epictetus presents philosophy as a way of life that one must work long and hard to achieve. Comparing the desire for philosophical virtue to a desire for figs, Epictetus says if you say to me now ‘I want a fig,’ I shall answer, ‘that requires time.’ Let the tree blossom first, then put forth its fruit, and finally let the fruit ripen. Now although the fruit of even a fig-tree is not brought to perfection all at once and in a single hour, would you still seek to secure the fruit of a man’s mind in so short a while and so easily? Do not expect it, not even if I should tell you so myself” (Epictetus, Discourses 1.15).

Keeping with the food metaphor, Epictetus compares philosophy to grain; it is possible to store it, hoard it, and show it off only when desired, but it is of no use to this one outside the mere knowledge that they possess it. Instead it is better to consume the grain—practice the philosophy—so that the grain/philosophy becomes a part of you (Discourses 2.9). But while living out one’s philosophy was the ideal, Epictetus acknowledges that many philosophers do not practice what they teach. In Discourses 2.19 Epictetus remarks that it is possible, and indeed frequent that a proclaimed Stoic identifies as such because that person can repeat Stoic

180 H. Gregory Snyder, Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World: Philosophers, Jews and Christians, Religion in the First Christian Centuries (London: Routledge, 2000), 35.

58 reasoning. But that same person can also repeat Epicurean and Peripatetic reasoning, so are they not also Epicurean and Peripatetic? Again, the emphasis is on cultivating one’s life according to the philosophical principles of the school, not simply knowing the philosophy of the school. 4.4. Teachers and Students The nature of preservation our evidence for both teachers and students tends to represent only the more successful ones. They were the ones who wrote and were written about, thus their stories survived while countless other ancient teachers and students have been lost to the sands of time. So once again I will be specific when I can, and generalize when I must. Unlike the schools of encyclia paideia (capped with rhetorical school), it is quite difficult to identify students of philosophical schools. Recall Quintilian’s remarks on the natural progression from primary school to grammatical school and then finally rhetorical school. This progression was marked out by a steady acquisition of literary competencies beginning with tracing the shape of letters and ending with public declaiming. These students were marked at each level by their technical skills and their age, making their identification relatively simple, and our ability to generalize the educational path of the elite possible. Students at philosophical schools, however, began to study with their philosopher later in their lives, and by no means at a uniform age. Porphyry’s Life of Plotinus is helpful here. Plotinus was twenty-eight when he decided to study philosophy. He was recommended to the highly reputable teachers in Alexandria, but “came away from their lectures so depressed and full of sadness…” Upon relaying his dismay to his friends, they recommended he study with Ammonius. Once he heard Ammonius speak he knew this was the man he was looking for (Life of Plotinus 3.1-12). Plotinus stayed with Ammonius for eleven years, including a period in which he joined Emperor Gordian’s march into Persia so that he might learn the “philosophy of the Indians.” At the age of forty, Plotinus went to Rome and began teaching at his own school (Life of Plotinus 3.15-25). Unlike rhetorical schools that primarily took in students as teenagers, directly from the school of the grammarian, it appears as though students of philosophy tended to begin their studies at a later age. Origen, one of Plotinus’ fellow students in the school of Ammonius would have been in his late twenties or thirties when he began studying with Ammonius. Porphyry was thirty by the time he came to study with Plotinus (Life of Plotinus 4.5- 10) and had already received a grammatical and rhetorical education, as well as training in “all philosophies” according to Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers 456. But while entering

59 philosophy at an older age was a tendency, it was not a rule. Cornutus’ student Persius was sixteen when he entered his philosophical school having already completed his grammatical and rhetorical training.181 Persius, however, appears to be the exception, not the rule. The more advanced age of philosophy students is likely due in part to the fact that a significant amount of preliminary training was necessary for students to function in and understand the content of a philosophical school. Persius completed his grammatical and rhetorical training by sixteen, but as I have shown in my first chapter and above, many students did not begin rhetoric until the mid to late teens, and would stay in rhetorical school until their late teens or early twenties (or longer as the case may be). For the most part philosophical teachers expected a certain level of learning from their students prior to their study of philosophy. The exception to this rule was Epicurus’ famous distaste for encyclia paideia and his insistence it was not required for participation in the Garden. This policy appears to have outlived the demise of the original Garden, much to the chagrin of later Epicurean teachers such as Philodemus.182 It is difficult to determine the levels of commitment to the philosophical life that students actually displayed. The ideal of philosophy-as-a-bios and the notion that “conversion” (in Nock’s sense of the word)183 to a philosophy was a radical break from one’s former life does not appear to be prevalent among the students in Plotinus’ school. His students and listeners come from the upper stratum of the Roman world and while their interest in philosophy ranges from passing (in the case of Plotinus’ casual hearers) to strong (in the case of Porphyry and Amelius) they do not appear to have radically altered their lives. Musonius Rufus also hints at the fact that the ideal (philosophy taking over one’s life) was often not the reality, largely because he does not think perspective students would be attracted to such radical changes. It is difficult to speculate how ordinary the experiences as philosophy students of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Amelius were. They all come from the leisured class that had the time that was required to pursue the study of philosophy. Their devotion, particularly the duration of years spent with their teacher was surely the exception and not the rule. More likely the majority of those who attended philosophical

181 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 39. Josephus may too be an example of a younger man beginning philosophical training, depending on how one understands his studies with the “sects of the Judeans” (with whom he began studying at sixteen) and the Pharisees (with whom he began studying at nineteen). 182 See especially P. Herc. 1005 and the discussion of that scroll in Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 58–59. 183 Arthur Darby. Nock, Conversion; The Old and the New in Religion from to Augustine of Hippo (Oxford: University Press, 1933).

60 classes were made up of the so-called hearers, wealthy, important citizens who recognized the social benefits of being fluent in philosophy but were not interested in the philosophical life full stop. The one exception might be the Epicurean school, but as I noted above, it is difficult to construct the social life of the school from the Herculaneum papyri alone. The extent to which other groups of people may have been interested in philosophy will be covered in chapter three. In addition to students such as Porphyry and Amelius, Plotinus also had many ἀκροατές, “hearers”, seemingly distinct from his students. Among these hearers were Amelius of Tuscany, a philosopher in his own right, two medical men, and the critic and poet Zoticus (Life of Plotinus 7.1-15). Porphyry notes that Plotinus had chosen a public career and as such several members of the senate attend his lecture (Life of Plotinus 7.28-32). Plotinus’ school appears to have been relatively open, or at least open enough for a man called Thaumasius to sit in on a lecture hoping to hear Plotinus expound some theory, only to be annoyed by three days of Porphyry’s questions on the relationship between the soul and body (Life of Plotinus, 13). We might call his lessons semi-public insofar as people could drop in and out, but he had a devoted core of students who attended regularly. Porphyry tells us that there were many women devoted to Plotinus, including some with whom he lived (Life of Plotinus 9.1-5). Plotinus was so revered that many families entrusted their children and property to Plotinus on the occasion of their own deaths, operating on the assumption that such a holy man would make the right choices for their children (Life of Plotinus 9.5-10). Because of this Plotinus’ house was full of young men and women. Plotinus was not the only philosopher who attracted female students, Musonius Rufus insisted that women should study philosophy, although it is not clear that he actually had female students (Musonius Rufus Discourses 3 and 4). His argument was that all humans, both men and women, were born with the same potential for virtue, and as such required the same type of training and education. The Epicurean Garden (and Epicurean schools thereafter) also emphasized the importance of having female students, in this case the inclusion of women related to the alternative family that the Garden was supposed to serve as. 4.4.1. The Search for a Teacher The disintegration of the classical philosophical schools and the proliferation of philosophers meant that students had some choice in the philosopher with whom they studied. Plotinus, like so many other philosophers, shopped around before he found the right teacher and philosophy for

61 him. This matches the more literary depictions of the search recorded in multiple places in Lucian’s corpus. Lucian’s own (possibly fictional) teacher studied with all the great philosophers of his day: Epictetus, Demetrius, Agathobolus, and Timocrates of Heraclia (Lucian, Demonax, 3). In this instance the listing of Demonax’s multiple teachers also serves to demonstrate that he had the best of training, and also anticipates Lucian’s comment in Demonax 5 that Demonax did not mark himself as following a single form of philosophy. Lucian’s Menippus also reports learning from many different philosophers, but in this context it is to demonstrate the intellectual and moral poverty of the philosophers, all disagreeing with one another on the good life to the point of contradiction (Lucian, Menippus 4). 4.5. Day-to-Day Running of the Schools In terms of the teaching that went on within the school, once again Porphyry’s description of Plotinus’ school is the most detailed description of the day-to-day running of a philosophical school in antiquity that has survived. In his first decade of teaching, Plotinus did not write anything for publication, but based his lectures off of the lectures of his former teacher Ammonius. True to the Socratic tradition, Plotinus based his class around his students’ questions, and thus the class lacked a fixed structure (Life of Plotinus 3.35-40). And while Plotinus did not initially write and his classes lacked structure, Amelius, his best student, is said to have written out notes from all his lectures in around one hundred volumes. After ten years of writing nothing (according to Porphyry), Plotinus began to write treatises addressing subjects that had come up in school meetings. By the time Porphyry met Plotinus ten years later, Plotinus had composed twenty-one such treatises, although very few people had received copies (Life of Plotinus 4.1- 15). Porphyry describes the issuing of even these few copies “difficult and anxious business” suggesting that his teacher had reservations regarding the dissemination of his own teaching. Porphyry reports that over the six years in which he attended Plotinus’ school many discussions took place and both he and Amelius urged Plotinus to write (Life of Plotinus 5.1-7). They were successful and Plotinus composed an additional twenty-four treatises, again based on the problems that came up during the meetings of the school (Life of Plotinus 5.59-64). In school meetings Plotinus demonstrated adequate (but not perfect) command of language, occasionally mispronouncing and misspelling words (Life of Plotinus 13.1-5). In his class he was very patient with his students’ questions and in fact organized his lectures (later written into treatises) around the questions and discussions that arose in class. When a man in

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Plotinus’ class became annoyed at Porphyry’s constant questions Plotinus responded: “But if when Porphyry asks questions we do not solve his difficulties we shall not be able to say anything at all to put into the treatise” (Life of Plotinus 13.15). In terms of the content of these treatises Porphyry reports that they consisted more of Plotinus’ own feelings and thoughts on the subject in question and less on what had been handed down to him by tradition (contrary to Sedley’s generalization that philosophy in the Roman period focused almost exclusively on reworking traditional material). The ideas within Plotinus’ treatises were not strictly Platonic, and Porphyry reports that his writings were “full of concealed Stoic and Peripatetic doctrines” (Life of Plotinus 14.1-10). 4.6 The Epicurean Garden There is a rich history of scholarship that examines the Epicurean Garden from its inception and into the first centuries CE.184 Based on the evidence available, it seems as though even after the Garden ceased to function as it had under Epicurus and his successors, the social make-up of the school and the practices therein remained quite similar.185 Two articles published by Norman DeWitt in 1936 seek to establish some norms for Epicurean organizational structures. In his first essay, “Epicurean Contubernium,” DeWitt provides some background information on early Epicurean schools, beginning with Epicurus himself.186 Rather than lecturing and essaying at the academy, Epicurus bought a garden and set up a school that deliberately secluded itself and its leaders.187 Epicurus did not extract fees (as did other sophists), but did accept “contributions as tokens of gratitude for guidance in the path of wisdom.”188 Money was not the prime requisite for belonging, rather, a willingness to submit oneself to “voluntary discipline of the brotherhood” was.189 Following this general introduction, DeWitt begins a more specific investigation, focusing on the Herculean roll containing the περὶ παρρησίας of Philodemus. Before DeWitt begins his study, he opens with a qualifying statement that, “[i]t goes without saying that any member of an Epicurean group who possessed the requisite self-confidence was at liberty to

184 See footnote 18. 185 Malherbe, “Self-Definition among Epicureans and Cynics,” 48. 186 DeWitt, “Epicurean Contubernium.” 187 DeWitt, “Epicurean Contubernium,” 56. 188 DeWitt, “Epicurean Contubernium,” 57. 189 DeWitt, “Epicurean Contubernium,” 58.

63 migrate elsewhere and undertake to organize a group of his own.”190 The principal doctrine of the Epicureans was, according to Seneca, “[w]e will be obedient to Epicurus, according to whom we have made it our choice to live.”191 As with the other schools reviewed above, Epicurean philosophy was a βίος, the one and only true way of life. The aim of the school was to direct students towards this goal, guiding students in their advancement. This leads DeWitt to remark that all members of the school—the leaders and the students—were followers of Epicurus and they “differed from one another only in degrees of their advancement towards wisdom.”192 This difference of degrees, however, should not be seen as the construction of a fixed hierarchy of offices.193 There was no “master” of the Epicurean school, and instead the schools were led by “guides” or “leaders” (καθηγεµόνες).194 DeWitt goes on to argue that even after the demise of the Garden there still existed a principle of organization in Epicurean groups, love (φιλία). Friendship expressed itself in the Epicurean schools in the form of “mutual concern for the good of one another, good will, and gratitude.”195 In fact, a main goal of the Epicurean groups was to create an atmosphere of good will and to strengthen it. DeWitt quotes a passage from the περὶ παρρησίας of Philodemus, “How through correction we shall heighten the good will of the students [κατασκεθαζόµενοι] towards ourselves in spite of the very process of correction.”196 The school, of course, recognized the fact that people joining would have to change their lives in order to live according to the example of Epicurus. As a result, the first objective of the school was to “create a disposition (διάθεσις) amenable to correction.”197 The students, especially the young ones, learn to regard superior wisdom with respect, to control their tempers, to confess their faults and shortcomings to their guide, and to be open and frank in all of their conduct. Many of DeWitt’s theories have been criticized in more recent scholarship, but his contributions

190 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure,” 205. This was possible because Epicureanism was a cult of the founder and his way of life and only secondarily a system of thought (thus how the group was organized and the relationship between the new master and disciples was pre-determined by Epicurus’ own way of life). 191 Quoted in DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure.” 192 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure.” 193 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure,” 206. 194 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure,” 206. 195 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure,” 207. 196 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure.” 197 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure.”

64 to our understanding of the way in which Epicureans organized themselves remain important.198 Unlike DeWitt, Bernard Frischer focuses more on the social location of Epicurus and his school, arguing that [i]n place of the social rootlessness and marginality of the other philosophical schools, which were no more than subcultures, Epicureanism offered the deracinated and alienated intellectual a home in consciously constructed community that embodied a genuinely positive and legitimate alternative to the dominant .199

Frischer argues that alienation and deracination were the major sociological burdens of the philosopher and his students. Related to this point is the issue of recruitment; how does an alienated group recruit, and from where? Frischer argues that the Epicureans, themselves alienated (or at least presented themselves as alienated), recruited from other alienated segments of the population: slaves and courtesans, for example.200 From these alienated circles Epicurus attempted to create an alternative community for philosophers in which normal life could be pursued along with philosophy. Philosophy no longer criticizes or serves the dominant culture; it turns its back on it, secedes from it, and, most importantly, puts something positive in its place.201

Frischer goes on to argue that the Epicurean school was both an educational enterprise (based on the teaching and study of philosophy) and a “genuine community” based on the encouragement of marriage (of a members within the school, at any rate), the raising of children, and the “normal activities of life that took place alongside studying.”202 One of the more recent commentators on Epicurean schools is Clarence Glad whose 1995 monograph examines the school alongside the Pauline ekklesia based on importance of

198 DeWitt, “Organization and Procedure.” DeWitt made a significant contribution to the study of Epicureanism, and especially to the relationship between Epicureanism and early Jesus people (a contribution which I will examine more below). But there are places where DeWitt’s theses are now out of date, and some further clarification and elaboration are in order before being satisfied with a general introduction to Epicurean schools. Writing in 1975 (and relying quite heavily on DeWitt), R. Alan Culpepper reviews the Epicurean schools. In terms of the basic outline and organization of the Epicurean Garden, Culpepper follows DeWitt quite closely. Where he disagrees with DeWitt is on the issue of Epicureanism as the bridge between Greek philosophy and Christianity, although here Culpepper merely argues that DeWitt’s thesis is “exaggerated” without specific as to why this is the case. R. Alan. Culpepper, The Johannine School: An Evaluation of the Johannine-School Hypothesis Based on an Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools (Missoula, Mont.: Published by Scholars Press for the Society of Biblical Literature, 1975), 120– 21. 199 Frischer, The Sculpted Word, 52. 200 Frischer, The Sculpted Word, 54. 201 Frischer, The Sculpted Word, 61. 202 Frischer, The Sculpted Word, 62–63.

65 psychagogy in each of these social formations.203 Glad argues that “[t]he ‘religious’ aspects of the Epicurean communities, their commemorative festivals and common meals, their submission to the authority of Epicurus, the ‘sole savior,’ the diversity and debate among later Epicureans concerning canonization and the attempt to establish the authoritative words of Epicurus, and, finally, the practice of epistolary psychagogy among Epicureans, together provide a great impetus toward a comparison with the proto-Christian communities.”204 In spite of these similarities, however, Glad does not seek to establish a pattern of influence and cultural borrowing or direct influence and reaction, but instead to highlight a widespread and shared communal practice among both the Epicureans and Paul’s ekklēsiai. Following but modifying DeWitt’s thesis, Glad begins by arguing that there were three groups of students in the schools: those who, without any assistance, know the way to the truth, those who need outside help and will not proceed unless someone leads them, and the ones who do not need a guide so much as someone to encourage them.205 Epicurus understood the function of the teacher to be to make the student independent, implying that the students initially depend on the teacher, and that the teacher hopes that they can advance to the first category of student (the ones who without assistance know the way to the truth).206 Philodemus, a later Epicurean writer understood his school to have two types of students: “the ‘weak’ and obedient ones and the ‘strong’ or disobedient ones.”207 The “weak” are insecure in their new philosophical way of life or have apostatized from philosophy, and the “strong” are stubborn or recalcitrant pupils who find it difficult to stand frank criticism of others.208 The difference between Epicurean students, then, was in degrees based on disposition and aptitude rather than in terms of fixed or appointed positions.209 Given that the Epicurean schools did not have an absolute hierarchy, and that the students were encouraged to work independently of their teacher, it is not surprising that

203 I will review this comparison in more detail below. 204 C.E. Glad, Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy (New York: Brill, 1995), 8. Norman DeWitt is a prime example of this phenomenon. 205 Glad, Paul and Philodemus, 67. 206 Glad, Paul and Philodemus. 207 Glad, Paul and Philodemus, 137. 208 Glad, Paul and Philodemus. 209 Glad, Paul and Philodemus, 139. This reflects DeWitt’s own understanding of Epicurean students.

66 psychagogy was a communal matter with fellow students as well as the “wise” helping each other.210 4.7. The Use of Texts in Philosophical Schools211 The literary evidence for philosophical schools in the Roman period demonstrates overwhelmingly the presence of texts in the classroom. This may be so due in part to the accident of preservation; texts intended for, or emerging from, school settings have the potential to survive, while non-textual aspects of schools (primarily the oral component, be it lecture, dialogue, or informal discussion) must be preserved in literary accounts, inscriptions, or images (of which we have fewer examples surviving from antiquity). That being the case, the literary evidence itself also suggests that texts played an important role in school learning. H. Gregory Snyder’s 2000 monograph Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World provides and excellent overview of the use of texts in the various philosophical Schools in antiquity, and I use his study as my jumping off point here. Snyder’s main argument involves establishing teachers in the ancient world as “text brokers”, individuals who “through his mastery of texts has integrated the wisdom of previous thinkers and who produces on his own authority a synthesis of his knowledge.”212 The first half of Snyder’s book examines the teachers of various philosophical schools and their use of texts in the classroom. The second half of the book examines Jewish and Christian groups and their use of texts (an examination to which I return in the second half of the dissertation). Snyder progresses through what by the first centuries CE were the big four Schools: Stoics, Epicureans, Aristotelians, and Platonists. Within each school Snyder examines the evidence, such that it is, for the use of texts by various teachers within those schools. He makes a number of arguments that are school, or even teacher specific, but I will begin by going over some of his more general claims about schools and the texts used therein. While texts were used in instructions in the various Schools to varying degrees, we should not imagine a situation in which all (or any, for that matter) of the students had their own copy of the text in question.213 Books were expensive to commission and required both an owner

210 Glad, Paul and Philodemus, 154. 211 This section is deeply indebted to the seminal study of teachers and texts in ancient philosophical schools, Snyder, Teachers and Texts. My debt to Snyder is evidenced in my footnotes. 212 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 1. 213 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 25, 49.

67 of the book willing to lend it out for copying, and a sufficient amount of money to pay the copyist. Rather than everyone having a book, it is more likely that the teacher has a copy of the philosophical text, and the students took notes on it during the class, or copied down small sections provided by the teacher on wax tablets.214 In some cases students had secretaries to take the notes for them, as evidenced by Cicero whose son requested a secretary for the purpose of writing out lecture notes (ad Fam. 16.21.8).215 But students were not entirely without written aids. In many of the Schools students used epitomes or commentaries to assist them with particularly difficult authors. These kinds of summaries, in various forms, were present in all of the Schools and the opinion of summarizing texts varied from teacher to teacher, rather than from School to School. Seneca, for example, acknowledges the usefulness of summaries, but cautions his students not to rely on them, and instead try to read the original author.216 Porphyry reports that Plotinus would frequently have commentaries read rather than the original philosophical texts themselves. Plotinus would not rely on these commentaries as the final word, but instead used their readings as occasions for reflecting and commenting on the subject discussed (Life of Plotinus 14.10-20). Cicero claims that every Epicurean had memorized the Kyriai Doxai (Vita .), yet the author of PHerc. 1044 (probably Philodemus) claimed that lazy youth were the beneficiaries of Epicurean epitome.217 It is interesting to note that there are no copies of the Kyriai Doxai or any other collection of Epicurus’ teachings are extant from Herculaneum. Snyder is very tentative in drawing any conclusions from this absence, rightly noting that accidents of preservation may well account for this curious lack, but he does concede “it is tempting to speculate that the absence of epitomes and collections of sayings reflects an intellectual bias on the part of the Epicureans who used these texts.”218 Based on what we know about teachers and others who claim expertise on philosophies and texts, it is more than tempting and indeed probable that these figures did not rely on, and scorned the use of epitomes and sayings collections on the basis that the ideal was unmediated engagement with the original text/philosopher. But there is another reason that the philosophical elite may have looked down on epitomes and other aides; without literary aides like epitomes, teachers and philosophers

214 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 24–25. 215 Referenced in Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 25. 216 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 32. Seneca Ep. 2.2, 33.5, 33.7, 39.1. 217 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 54. 218 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 48.

68 served as the only mediators (text-brokers) between the text and student. The presence of textual aides in many ways mitigated the distinct significance of the teacher, robbing them of their social capital as text-broker. Thus while presented as an issue of intellectual purity, the condemnation of epitomes also served the social ends of those educated elites. The construction and patrolling of the borders of educated elite culture is the subject of my next chapter. As we might expect, the use of texts in the schools varied from teacher to teacher, but once again I will trace a general trend in the use of texts in philosophical schools. Musonius Rufus, for example, does not appear to have used texts as much as other Stoic teachers, and instead he himself served as the centre of a given lesson.219 Epictetus devoted more time to texts, beginning his class with the reading of a section of text.220 Plotinus, as I have noted above, relied heavily on texts in his classroom, employing both primary and commentary readings. From what little evidence remains (and again this comes primarily from Porphyry), engagement with the texts operated at the level of abstract ideas, possibly in the form of questions from the students directed to the teacher, or in the form of more general discussions in the classroom. But while it is difficult to say with certainty how texts were used, Epictetus gives us a hint as to how texts were not (or should not have been) used. The context here is not necessarily a school (the passage does not say where the discussion is taking place), but given the tone, it is likely that Epictetus’ opinions would extend to his school. When a person gives himself airs because he can understand and interpret the books of Chrysippus, say to yourself, “If Chrysippus had not written obscurely this man would have had nothing on which to give himself airs.” What is it I want? To learn nature and to follow her. I seek, therefore, someone to interpret her; and having heard that Chrysippus does so, I go to him. But I do not understand what he has written; I seek, therefore, the person who interprets Chrysippus. And down to this point there is nothing to justify pride. But when I find the interpreter, what remains is to put his precepts into practice; this is the only thing to be proud about. If, however, I admire the mere act of interpretation, what have I done but turned into a grammarian instead of a philosopher? The only difference, indeed, is that I interpreted Chrysippus instead of Homer. Far from being proud, therefore, when somebody says to me, “Read me Chrysippus,” I blush rather, when I am unable to show him such deeds as match and harmonize with his words (Enchiridion, 49, LCL).

219 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 19. 220 Snyder, Teachers and Texts, 23. Discourses 2.14.

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It is clear that Epictetus views the interpretation of a text as the profession of the grammarian, and inferior figure in the acquisition of paideia. But while interpretation was seen as the domain of lesser learning, exegetical work appears frequently in school texts (a point to which I will return next chapter). The types of texts, and extent to which those texts were used ranged from school to school, but what is clear from the above review is that texts played an important, if not central role in the schools about which we know. Texts served as the basis for lectures, assisted students in comprehending complicated arguments, and in many cases emerged as treatises through lecture notes or intentional compositions. Philosophical schools served as cites that both worked through classical texts and produced new ones. 4.8 Philosophers and Exile Anyone who claimed the title philosopher could also theoretically be a philosophy teacher. Again, it is difficult to generalize based on the lives of the philosophers such as Plotinus, but given it is all we have, we must make do. Plotinus represents the most a philosopher could have expected from his/her lot in life. He enjoyed the company of doctors and poets, other philosophers, and members of the senate. People saw him as trustworthy because of his excellent character, and left money and land to him in their wills. Thus while not financially supported by the state like a chaired rhetor, Plotinus still enjoyed a high degree of social and economic wealth based on his role as philosopher. But while their public role allowed some philosophers to attain high social and economic standing, it also marked them as potentially dangerous individuals who could teach counter to the rule of the emperor and may even have had the ears of some of the senate. This led to the actual exile of philosophers by various emperors, as well as the conception that a legitimate philosopher had to have been exiled at some point. The exiling of philosophers affected those of great renown as well as those of little. Musonius Rufus and Seneca both speak of exile in positive terms, arguing that the exile has not lost anything truly important.221 Musonius Rufus appears to have himself lived in exile with Plautus (Tacitus Annals 14.59), but was notable for being one of the only philosophers exempt from Vespasian’s expulsion of philosophers from Rome in 71 CE (Cassius Dio, Roman History 65.13). The Epistles of Pliny the Younger mention another expulsion of philosophers, this time under Domitian in 93 CE. This

221 See both Musonius Rufus, Discourses 9.1-15 “That Exile is not an Evil” and Seneca Of Consolation to Helvia, 10-12.

70 one is notable for being harsher on the philosophers, and Pliny reports that the expulsion has affected many of his friends, even leading to some of their deaths. Pliny also reports that he has tried to support them as he feels slightly safer for his friendship with Musonius (Pliny Epistles 3.11).

5. Conclusion There are several points that have been raised here that are pertinent to the construction of the world of paideia in antiquity. In my examination of rhetorical schools and training, I have shown that the ideals of paideia-as-virtue that were first planted in the minds of students in their earliest school exercises come to fruition with the rhetor. Those who completed rhetoric followed the path of encyclia paideia imagined by Quintilian, Ps. Plutarch, and other intellectual elite. Students were now equipped with the skills to compose and perform declamation, and have concluded the moral and ethical training present in the acquisition of paideia throughout. Their abilities were deemed worthy of admiration, and as we shall see in the next chapter, worthy of imitation from those not educated through the same processes. In my examination of philosophical schools, there are several points of note. First, regardless of the school, philosophy was understood as a way of life, a βίος. It was not merely about awareness of philosophical principles, it was about the transformation of one’s life. Second, philosophers had students and hearers in addition to those who saw philosophy as βίος. Plotinus counted among those who attended his lectures politicians, poets, and other philosophers. This suggests that the attraction of philosophy was not limited to those who wanted to change their lives, but also in the ways it was recognized as a part of paideia. Finally, philosophy was generally based around a text, oral or written, and the goal of philosophy was not to simply remember doctrine, but to be able to understand texts and implement their learning in daily life. These are all features that I argue are present in 1 Corinthians and the Gospel of Thomas. But before I turn to them, I will examine a hitherto underappreciated outcome of ancient education: the production of a class of marginally educated people below the rhetors and philosophers reviewed here but above the completely uneducated.

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Chapter 3. Identifying the Marginal: Intellectual Culture between οἱ πολλοὶ καὶ οἱ φιλοσοφουντοί

1. Introduction In response to ’ question as to who wronged Philosophy, Philosophy replies: there are some, Zeus, who occupy a middle ground between the multitude and the philosophers. In deportment, glance, and gait they are like us, and similarly dressed; as a matter of fact, they want to be enlisted under my command and they enroll themselves under my name, saying that they are my pupils, disciples, and devotees. Nevertheless, their abominable ways of living, full of ignorance, impudence, and wantonness, is no trifling outrage against me. It is they, father, who have inflicted wrongs and made me flee. (Lucian, The Runaways, 4.7-16, trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL).

This description warrants some remark. Rather than accuse the antagonists of being frauds, or simply part of the multitude (οἱ πολλοί), Philosophy identifies them as being between the uneducated multitude and the properly educated philosophers. The implication here is that the figures in question possess more education than the average person, but what education they have is not as much, or was not acquired through the same channels as the proper philosopher. The Runaways is an attack on the Cynic followers of Peregrinus222 as well as a Cynic named Cantharus (Scarabee). Here Cantharus (Scarabee) is the in-between figure in question: a Cynic follower of Peregrinus who is not considered (by Lucian) to be a proper philosopher. The portrayal of Cantharus in The Runaways provides us with our first example of a marginally- or incompletely-educated figure from antiquity. Cantharus belongs to a field of partially educated people who, while not capable of participating in the highest circles of intellectual culture, recognize the social (and perhaps, economic)223 advantages of associating with that culture, and this present chapter focuses on these marginal figures in the intellectual world of antiquity. The evidence of their existence is largely from hostile sources—especially Lucian—seeking to patrol the borders of the pepaideumenoi, but there is also evidence from more sympathetic sources such as Plutarch’s remarks on the participation of grammarians at symposia, and the pattern documented by Kaster and Morgan demonstrating the high rates of attrition following the initial stages of learning. Taken together it is possible to paint a picture of a marginally educated class within the field of the pepaideumenoi.

222 Cf. Lucian, The Passing of Peregrinus. 223 See for example Lucian’s critique household intellectuals, On Salaried Posts in Great Houses (LCL), reviewed below.

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2. Identifying the Marginal Chapters 1 and 2 describe the processes by which students acquired the status of pepaideumenoi, and while there was no formally set curriculum, there was a canon of cultural competencies that students were expected to master. Alongside Homer and Hesiod, the pepaideumenoi were expected to know the historians, orators, philosophers, and others deemed culturally significant. Familiarity with classic Greek writings and the dialect of was essential. The stages of encyclia paideia described in chapters 1 and 2 construct a field in which the educated of antiquity exist. The cultural significance of paideia was enormous, and not only served to establish a particular (Greek) identity in a time of social and economic upheaval, but also to construct the class of the pepaideumenoi itself: encyclia paideia classified by classifying the classifier.224 By this I mean that it is possible to identify those most invested in encyclia paideia and the world of the pepaideumenoi by looking for those most active in constructing and patrolling its boundaries. According to Pierre Bourdieu, “[c]ultural (or linguistic) competence, which is acquired in relation to a particular field functioning both as a source of inculcation and as a market, remains defined by its conditions of acquisition.”225 Bourdieu made this observation in his study of the ways in which educated classes in modern France distinguished themselves from those without their levels of education. And while there are certainly differences between modern France and the ancient Mediterranean, I argue that the practice of distinguishing educational achievements through a construction of worlds in which particular discourses are deemed important is something we can examine in antiquity as well. The writings on education I have reviewed so far all focus on the necessity of acquiring encyclia paideia the proper way. Quintilian, Ps. Plutarch, and others are very clear on the proper progression from letters, to grammar, through to rhetoric and philosophy. But the material evidence, particularly as framed by Morgan and Kaster, shows us that the vast majority of students who received any education at all: a) did not progress through the three phases assumed by Quintilian, and b) did not complete

224 I am paraphrasing Bourdieu, whose theories of field, cultural capital, and educational capital inform much of this chapter. Bourdieu’s examination of the ways in which French education shaped taste does not map perfectly onto antiquity (nor am I trying to force it to), but many of his observations are helpful in organizing and theorizing the educational practices in antiquity, particularly the ways in which they constructed and policed the boundaries of the pepaideumenoi. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, (London: Routledge, 2010). 225 Bourdieu, Distinction, 58.

73 their education. So, of the small number of people who had any education, the vast majority possessed a “marginal” education, as least insofar as the educated elite understood it. But in spite of the various holes in their training, students at almost all levels of encyclia paideia were taught the cultural significance of their education, and the cultural capital available to one who could perform their education. In this chapter I argue that there was a significant class of partially, differently, or marginally educated people who both recognized the cultural capital available to the pepaideumenoi, and also possessed some paideia-esque competencies to perform as pepaideumenoi. It is this class of people within the field of the pepaideumenoi that I seek to identify, theorize, and situate in the larger field of ancient intellectual culture. This chapter approaches the question of marginal intellectuals in three steps. First, I will identify evidence that a class of marginally educated people existed. This is drawn from an examination of the consequences of Booth, Kaster, and Morgan’s constructions of education in antiquity, and Guglielmo Cavallo’s category of free readers. Second, I will examine documentary evidence of people who read, wrote, and collected texts outside of the realms of profession or the leisured elite. After identifying examples of people engaging with paideia outside of the intellectual elite, the rest of the chapter will examine the reaction to this class of marginal intellectuals from the perspective of the intellectual elite. In doing so, I can add flesh to the skeleton of the marginal intellectual initially formed from the documentary sources. Taken together, the papyrological evidence for marginal intellectuals, and the reaction to (and often against) marginal intellectuals paints a picture of the world of paideia in antiquity. And instead of a world of symposia, debates, and high literature, we have a world that is far messier. 2.1 Theorizing the Marginal In my efforts to identify and theorize marginal intellectuals, I build upon earlier studies that, in their own ways, comment on a class of people who possess some of the skills of the pepaideumenoi, but were not fully trained or did not use those skills professionally as philosophers, rhetors, lawyers, or public officials. Each of these studies focuses on one aspect of what makes up my marginal intellectuals—education, recognition of paideia as a cultural good, and ability to participate in some paideic discourses—and my own category shows the ways in which the process of encyclia paideia itself is what creates this class of marginal intellectuals. 2.1.1 Alan Booth and Robert Kaster: Different Schools Prior to the late 1970s, ancient education was theorized as an all-or-nothing game. Henri Marrou’s outline of encyclia paideia from elementary letters to rhetoric and philosophy was

74 taken for granted. As a result, the unstated implication was that those who were educated where fully educated. This assumption has since eroded, largely due to the work of Alan Booth and Robert Kaster (see Chapter 1 section 3). At a general level, Booth complicated the clean progression through distinct schools with distinct teachers. Booth argued that the distinction between primary and secondary school teachers was not set in stone, and that there were many instances where a student’s first teacher was a grammarian, and not a didaskalos as we might expect.226 Booth further complicates the all-or-nothing nature of ancient education in his examination of the education of slaves.227 The clerical training of slaves in antiquity is uncontroversial, but Booth argued that there were also slaves trained with a “liberal education.”228 There is evidence in Horace, Martial, and Petronius that freeborn children and slaves learned with a teacher of letters (ludus litterarius), the same teacher that Marrou’s model has as the first teacher of elite students. Booth concludes that the three-stage progression from elementary to grammatical to rhetorical school was not the “normal sequence of liberal study” that many modern scholars assumed, and that the presence of a ludus litterarius in the schooling of “children destined for a liberal education was not readily imaginable.”229 Implicit in Booth’s conclusions is an argument for a socially stratified model of ancient education wherein elite students took one path, and slaves and some freedmen took another; elite students completed their encyclia paideia, whereas non-elites learned technical writing and general introductions to liberal studies.

Rhetoric Students receiving private elementary Teacher of letters instruction didaskalos Grammar ludus litterarius

Kaster builds on Booth’s arguments and goes further, agreeing that there is little evidence to indicate that the “primary school” with a didaskalos “formed a normal part of the experience

226 Booth, “Elementary and Secondary Education in the Roman Empire.” 227 Alan D. Booth, “The Schooling of Slaves in First-Century Rome,” TAPhA 109 (1979): 11–19. 228 Booth, “The Schooling of Slaves in First-Century Rome,” 14. Booth cites as evidence that some slaves received a liberal education: Martial, Epigrams 10.62.1-5; Petronius, Satyricon, 58.1. The education of slaves would have been seen as an intrusion upon grounds reserved for the Roman upper class, and even the presence of freedmen could have been regarded as improper (Horace, Satires, 1.6.72-78; Philo, Embassy to Gaius, 26.1-11). 229 Booth, “The Schooling of Slaves in First-Century Rome,” 19.

75 of children destined for a liberal education.”230 Kaster and Booth both argue that, in addition to the well-attested process by which pepaideumenoi were educated, there were other structures where some teachers, especially ludus litterarius, took on the responsibility of being a student’s first, and perhaps only teacher. For Kaster, this model helps to make sense of the relative social standing of didaskaloi/ludus litterarius as figures with less social prestige, and, according to Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum prices, receive far less pay. Booth and Kaster both identify the margins of encyclia paideia. For both, it is the school of the didaskalos/ludus litterarius, a school that introduces students to letters, and likely some liberal studies, but did not expect students to advance to the schools of the grammarian or rhetor. 2.1.2 Teresa Morgan: “Core” and “Peripheral” Education Morgan’s model for ancient education is indebted to the work of Booth and Kaster. Morgan also understands ancient education as socially stratified, though her model is based on surviving school texts rather than literary evidence. Morgan argues that curricular model made famous by Marrou cannot account for the surviving school texts. Where Marrou and others allowed for divergent paths near the end of education—one could become a rhetor or a philosopher— Morgan argues that the divergence occurs far earlier, at the point at which students acquired basic reading and writing abilities.231 Of the 419 exercises that Morgan catalogs, only 45 are advanced exercises of grammar or rhetoric. This leaves 374 exercises that belong roughly to the primary levels of schooling.232 Morgan does not see any reason that grammar or rhetorical exercises would have been destroyed or disproportionately not preserved, and so the discrepancy between the number of early years exercises preserved on the one hand, and grammar and rhetoric exercises preserved on the other leads her to argue that there could not have been a curriculum that saw students advance from letters to grammar to rhetoric.233 In place of the curriculum model, Morgan proposes a “core and periphery” model of ancient education.234 By “core” Morgan refers to three things: “what that most people learned, what they learned first and, in the case of reading, what they went on practicing longest.”235 This model is similar to Booth

230 Kaster, “‘Primary’ and ‘Secondary’ Schools,” 336. 231 Morgan, Literate Education, 69–70. 232 Morgan, Literate Education, 53, 312 Table 14. 233 Morgan, Literate Education, 70. 234 Morgan, Literate Education, 71. 235 Morgan, Literate Education, 71.

76 and Kaster’s socially segregated model, but where Booth and Kaster focused on the actual schools where children were educated, Morgan focuses on the types of knowledge that students learned. “Core” education, for example, consisted of basic reading and writing skills, the reading and copying of gnomic sayings, and Homer. These school texts are attested most frequently in earlier years and the majority of them appear in the “poorest and fairly poor schoolhands.”236 Importantly, “core” does not simply mean “earliest” or “easiest,” it also means most common, and “core” exercises such as gnomic sayings and copying Homer persist through grammatical and rhetorical schools. So “core” schooling does not just name the basic skills one acquired, but also the most popular paideic content, content that students continued to work on in peripheral education. The “periphery,” for Morgan, includes everything outside the core, including grammatical and rhetorical education. Morgan argues that “core and periphery” education efficiently performed two important social tasks: It constituted a mechanism for the admission of cultural non-Greeks or non-Romans into Greek or Roman cultural groups, while simultaneously controlling the numbers admitted. And it maximized both the acculturation of learners and their differentiation from one another, producing a pool of people who shared a common sense and common criteria of greekness or romanness but who were placed in a hierarchy according to their cultural achievements.237

Morgan’s idea that education resulted in acculturation and differentiation is an important point. At the same time that encyclia paideia taught learners that their schooling acculturated them into the world of paideia, it also differentiated the person capable of copying a gnomic saying from the person capable of composing an oration. This two-fold move was present from the earliest stages, and so on Morgan’s model, ancient education produced a large group of people with a “core education,” accultured into the world of paideia, and aware that their education differentiated them from both the uneducated, and those with more advanced educations. 2.1.3 Guglielmo Cavallo: Free Readers Where Booth, Kaster, and Morgan look at the ways in which the process of education created differently educated people, Cavallo looks at what some of those differently educated people might have been doing. Cavallo identifies a class of educated people that he calls “free readers”:

236 Morgan, Literate Education, 71. 237 Morgan, Literate Education, 74.

77 a group that read for pleasure or for the prestige attached to reading.238 Taking his cue from Cicero, Cavallo argues that there was a class of readers who “dabbled in undistinguished philosophical doctrines” and read or listened to historical works for pleasure rather than for utilitas.239 Cavallo argues that in the first centuries CE a new “reading public” began to emerge; a group of readers less skilled than the elite, and one that ushered in a new mode of reading. Reading was traditionally restricted to leisured aristocrats and teachers of grammar and rhetoric; and readers were generally obliged to function as authors, writers, technicians, civil or military officers, teachers, or students.240 “Free readers” imitated the “traditional cultivated classes” practices of reading, and incurred the wrath of figures such as Cicero and Lucian as a result.241 Cavallo argues that “free readers” were made up of a “middle social stratum of people with some schooling […] that included technicians, government functionaries, high-ranking military men, merchants, wealthy parvenus, well-off women and faciles puellae. Cavallo’s evidence for his “free readers” is not just drawn from elite polemic, but also from new genres of writing that became popular in the first centuries: romance novels, escapist poetry, paraphrastic epic, abridged histories, biography, compendia, sports and cooking manuals, erotica, and propaganda.242 Giovanni Bazzana has recently argued that apocalyptic literature also circulated among free readers. Bazzana examines thirty-two manuscripts that contained a variety of apocalyptic texts such as Revelation, the Shepherd of Hermas, 1 Enoch, and more. The majority of these manuscripts appear to have been intended for private use based on their rough handwriting, the reuse of old papyri, and a general absence of reading aids such as paragraphoi or punctuation.243 Bazzana concludes that the apocalyptic writings tended to be “private” or

238 Guglielmo Cavallo, “Between Volumen and Codex: Reading in the Roman World,” in A History of Reading in the West, ed. Roger Chartier and Guglielmo Cavallo (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999), 76. 239 Cavallo, “Between Volumen and Codex,” 67. Cavallo cites Cicero’s complaints about such people in Tuscan Disputations 1.6 and De Finibus et Malorum 5.52. 240 Cavallo, “Between Volumen and Codex,” 76. 241 I reference Lucian throughout this chapter, and Cavallo focuses especially on Lucian’s criticism of a book collector who cannot read properly on The Ignorant Book Collector, see also Cavallo, “Between Volumen and Codex,” 77. 242 Cavallo, “Between Volumen and Codex,” 78–79. 243 Giovanni Battista Bazzana, “‘You Will Write Two Booklets and Send One to Clement and One to Grapte’: Formal Features, Circulation, and Social Function of Ancient Apocalyptic Literature,” in Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, ed. William E. Arnal et al. (Leuven, Paris, Bristol: Peeters, 2016), 47–68.

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“unprofessionally” produced, suggesting that “apocalyptic books were more often than not read and copied by single or small circles of ‘free readers’.”244 2.1.4 “Core Education,” “Free Readers,” “Marginal Intellectuals” Morgan’s model of “core and peripheral” education and Cavallo’s class of “free readers” help me to define my own class of people in antiquity, “marginal intellectuals.” Both Morgan and Cavallo are helpful in theorizing marginal intellectuals, but their own models do not cover quite as much ground as I would like. Morgan’s core education describes the schooling of marginal intellectuals, but does not imagine how they might use that schooling or perform their education in the world (nor was it Morgan’s intention to undertake such an investigation). Cavallo’s “free readers” are doing the kinds of things that marginal intellectuals would do, but his category reduces the field to readers, excluding (or less interested in) producers, or those participating in ways other than reading: listening to lectures, attending banquets, debating, etc. By using the term “marginal intellectual” I signal both that these people have some training in paideia and some ability to recognize, practice, and perform paideia, but at the same time are excluded from the elite circles of the pepaideumenoi. This approach necessarily privileges the position of the pepaideumenoi who saw these people as marginal. But that is the point. And while marginal intellectuals may not have cared what Lucian thought, or paid heed to Cicero’s harsh words, they were, consciously or not, imitating the pepaideumenoi; they were the model of the virtuous, educated βίος in which marginal intellectuals were claiming a place. “Marginal” is also heuristically useful as it is on the margins of traditional/conservative social structures that imitation, adaption, and innovation occur. Encyclia paideia was an inherently conservative process of education that reinforced traditional social orders.245 The intellectual elite, especially in the first centuries of the common era were also conservative figures, more interested in investigating their own intellectual traditions and defending their high social status than innovating or coming up with new ideas.246 Reactions against marginal intellectuals from the likes of Lucian paint them as inept, incomplete, or false. But as I argue below, this comes more from a concern to defend the borders of the social world that being among the pepaideumenoi granted, rather than a comment on one’s skills in paideia. Not

244 Bazzana, “Apocalyptic Literature,” 69. 245 Morgan, Literate Education, 125–35. 246 Sedley, “Philosophical Allegiance.” Morgan, Literate Education, 83.

79 belonging to the pepaideumenoi allowed (and possibly necessitated that) marginals to innovate, perform paideia in ways not authorized by the intellectual elite. This might include collecting books for display, putting one’s own spin on a popular philosophy, or composing and popularizing different genres of writing. We see that more and more genres of writing emerged as more “free readers” came into being in the first centuries of the common era. This was the result of innovation at the margins, not elites catering to a new audience. There is a final way in which “marginal intellectual” is a helpful term, and that is the way in which it signals the marginality of this group in material and literary records. This is in part due to a lack of material and literary evidence, but it is equally a result of modern historians dividing ancient sources into literary on the one hand, and documentary on the other. Willy Clarysse argues that literary and documentary papyri are not part of two separate worlds as the figures in the documentary papyri are also the figures who owned the literary papyri. The difficulty is in connecting the literary papyri to an archive.247 This difficulty not only emerges due to previous generations of scholars physically separating literary papyri from archives (as we will see with P. Oxy II 209), but also because “we usually cannot base ourselves on internal evidence of the texts, and […] in many cases a person’s papers are preserved but not his library (or vice versa).”248 With notable exceptions (that I will review in section 5) scholars have too frequently reproduced the divisions between the pepaideumenoi and everyone else that our ancient sources produce. By focusing on the margins, I am not shuffling this group off to a corner, but rather bringing them out from the margins and into the light.

3. Evidence for the Marginal Intellectual249 The realities that: a) education from its earliest stages espoused the virtues of paideia, b) the vast majority of those who received any education did not advance to the level of the pepaideumenoi, and c) there are numerous literary sources that identify those between the masses and the philosopher, often putting them down for what is deemed to be an incomplete education and a false claim to paideia (both are on display in Lucian’s attack on the Book Collector), all make it

247 Willy Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” in Egypt and the Hellenistic World: Proceedings of the International Colloquium, Leuven 24-26 May, 1982, ed. E. van’t Dack, P. van Dessel, and W. van Gucht, Studia Hellenistica 27 (Lovanii: Orientaliste, 1983), 43–61. 248 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 61. 249 I want to thank Ryan Olfert for pushing me to think about papyri featuring marginally educated people, and for his suggesting several of the below reviewed papyri.

80 very likely that a class of marginally educated people existed in antiquity. But beyond appearing as literary tropes, what is our evidence for marginal intellectuals? As I noted in section 1.2.4, these figures were not only marginalized by their intellectual contemporaries (of which Lucian is exemplary), but also by the historical record. The tendency to divide ancient writing as either literary on the one hand, or documentary on the other, has served to render invisible the material remains of marginal intellectuals. 3.1 Literary Texts in Archives While we might associate the material remains of “literary” papyri with the intellectual elites who read them, in reality a large number of are discovered alongside “documentary” papyri. Willy Clarysse estimates that of the more than 30,000 published papyri (in 1983), 4,000 were parts of literary texts, “a not insignificant percentage considering the enormous output of documents of the Ptolemaic and Roman administrations.”250 Clarysse recognizes that the common practice was to treat literary and documentary papyri as if they were from different worlds, but the reality was that “those hundreds of literary texts were all copied for, and read by, the very Greeks who lived in Egypt from Alexander to Mohammed.”251 Given that this is the case, Clarysse asks whether or not we can identify the persons who owned these literary texts based on what is already known to us from documentary texts, and to do so he focuses on several known archives from Greek Egypt. This is significant for my positing and investigating of marginal intellectuals; if it can be shown that people other than members of the intellectual elites kept, copied, or composed literary papyri, then we have further evidence of marginal intellectuals. By looking at literary papyri related to archives, we have a chance to see parts of the everyday lives of people who collected and read literary texts. Unfortunately, the instances where literary papyri can be attached to archives are few, and even when we have the archive of someone we know to be educated, the archives often do not contain literary texts. Consider, for example, the archive of Zenon son of Agreophon. Zenon was a well- educated elite. He commissioned an epitaph for his hunting dog, Tauron, composed by an Alexandrian poet (P. Cair. Zen. II 60), lent books to the leader of the gymnasium in Philadelphia, and had a letter of introduction for “a certain Mnesitheos, who is to lecture on Homer, in which

250 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 43. 251 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 43.

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Zenon is requested to gather an audience for the occasion.”252 In spite of the fact that Zenon was a literate person, educated and tied to a gymnasiarch, only 0.8% of his archive is literary, and Clarysse suspects that these literary fragments “drifted only accidently into Zenon’s papers. His archive was a quite conscious selection from his personal documents and has nothing to do with his library, which may have been quite extensive, but is completely lost to us.”253 But while the literary elite may have separated their business documents from their libraries, what about those who did not have the means or education to keep a separate library? It is in the archives of more middling figures that we might hope to find evidence of literary texts saved with business and private documents. The identification of literary papyri in the archives of middling figures in antiquity can help to better describe marginal intellectuals. Clarysse is quite right that it is difficult to connect literary papyri to archives, but in the rare instances that it is possible, we can catch a glimpse of how literary works were collected by people outside of the intellectual elite. Clarysse surveys two archives that fit the description of middling people. The first archive is that of Menches, a village scribe from Kerkeosiris, living in the late second century BCE.254 The majority of the papyri consist of accounts, correspondences, petitions, and registries of land, crops, and farmers. Clarysse notes that one would not expect to find fragments of in an administrative archive, but on P Tebt. I 1 and 2 we have just that. On a papyrus that also has a partial copy of a royal decree, we find, “in the same hand, a small anthology in verse: Helen lamenting Menalaos’ infidelity, a poetic description of nature, three distichs on love, and a prose obscenity, most of it repeated in a second papyrus by the same scribe.”255 Why the anthology was copied is not clear, but Menches made a habit of reusing papyri for “documents for internal use” (drafts of letters and reports),256 so it is possible, perhaps likely that Menches copied down the anthology on a scrap piece of papyrus. In any event, we have with Menches a scribe, decidedly not among the literary elite, copying down literary anthologies on used papyri from his place of work.

252 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 52–53. 253 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 53. 254 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 51. Also TM Arch ID 140. 255 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 51. 256 Katelijn Vandorpe, “Village Scribes of Kerkeosiris,” Leuven Homepage of Papyrus Collections, 2012.

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The second archive consists of sixty-eight ostraca from the early third or later second century BCE, found in a cellar in Philadelphia.257 The archive consists primarily of ostraca that address various issues of estate management: accounts, lists, and notes on agricultural matters. Forty-eight of the ostraca, BGU VII 1500-1548 come from the same hand, while BGU VII 1552- 1554, 1561-1562, and the five literary ostraca come from three other hands.258 The five literary ostraca are written with the same hand, and Cribiore describes the writing as “[f]luent and regular with some cursive elements, like the literary hands of this period. A teacher or an older student.”259 The four school ostraca contain “longer passages” that include: an unknown passage honouring one’s parents (P.Berol.inv. 12318);260 an anthology of literary passages about wisdom including Ps. Epicharmus, three comic fragments, Euripides, Theognis, Homer, Hesiod, and two prose maxims (P.Berol.inv. 12319); passages from Theognis and an unknown comedy (P.Berol.inv. 12310); and an anthology that includes sections from Euripides, Socrates, and two comic fragments (P.Berol.inv. 12311).261 Cribiore does not classify the fifth literary text, P.Berol.inv. 12309, as a school exercise (though it comes from the same hand), and Clarysse identifies it as a “mock epitaph in distichs on a certain Kleitorios. No doubt this epigram, of no literary merit but becoming quite pornographic after the introductory formula ἐνθάδε Κλειτόριος κεῖται, was the pupil’s own work.”262 While lewd, it is remarkable that the author used a recognized genre to insult Kleitorios, suggesting competence, if not mastery, of multiple genres of writing (the exercises are largely gnomic). Kleitorios appears elsewhere in the accounts of the archive, and so even though the accounts were written in a different hand than the school exercises and the epigram, his presence connects the archive to the epigram (and exercises). This makes the presence of the school exercises and the epigram quite interesting, as it shows that,

257 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 48. Also TM Arch ID 160, https://www.trismegistos.org/arch/detail.php?arch_id=160, and catalogued in the Leuven Homepage of Papyrus Collections. 258 Herbert Verreth, “Ostraca from a cellar in Philadelphia,” Leuven Homepage of Papyrus Collections (2012). 259 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 227–28. 260 On this school exercise see also; Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Sitzungsberichte Der Königlich Preussischen Akademie Der Wissenschaften Yu Berlin 18 (1918): 728–51; José-Antonio Fernández-Delgado and Francisca. Pordomingo, “Topics and Models of School Exercises on Papyri and Ostraca from the Hellenistic Period: P.Berol. Inv. 12318,” in Proceedings of the 25th International Congress of Papyrology, Ann Arbor, July 29-August 4, 2007, ed. Traianos Gagos (Ann Arbor: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2010), 227– 38. The latter argue that P.Berol. inv. 12318 is a progymnastic school exercise that had some, but not all components of external elaboration (235). 261 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 227–28. 262 Clarysse, “Literary Papyri in Documentary ‘Archives,’” 48.

83 outside of practicing with school exercises, the advanced pupil composed a lewd epigram on their own, and at the expense of someone with whom the estate did business. This archive features the school exercises of a relatively advanced student, and an epigram written in “honour” of someone with whom the estate did business. The presence of these texts alongside the far more numerous accounts lists, and agricultural notes demonstrates that someone connected to the estate was both educated and used their education for their own amusement (and perhaps the amusement of others), rather than as part of their job. The fact that the accounts were written in a different hand might suggest that a scribe prepares the official documents, while an educated member of the estate wrote for their own education and pleasure. In response to Clarysse’s study, Roger Bagnall identified an additional owner of a literary papyrus who is known to us though other documents (though Bagnall does not call it an “archive”): P Oxy. XIV 1690, P Oxy. XI 1365, 1386, and 1392.263 P.Oxy. XIV 1690 is a land lease, the lessee is unknown, but the lessor is identified as Aurelia Ptolemais.264 P Oxy. XI 1386, and 1392 are fragments of the Iliad, and P Oxy. XI 1365 is a fragment of the history of Sikyon. Even though the two fragments of the Iliad are included in a small archive with a land lease, Bagnall does not find this remarkable as the Iliad was very popular. He is more intrigued by the presence of the history of Sikyon, what he refers to as “a far more recherché work.”265 Additionally, Bagnall identifies the owner, Aurelia Ptolemais, as the same Aurelia Ptolemais mentioned in the will (dated 276 CE) of Aurelius Hermogenes, exegetes and prytanis (P Oxy. VI 907).266 One of the interesting things about this will is the fact that it is written on the verso of P Oxy. III 412, a fragment of the Kestoi of Julius Africanus.267 Bagnall argues that this was the case because a copy of the will was made for an interested party (likely an heir), and that “[i]n the absence of any evidence for a market in partly used papyrus […] the most plausible explanation is simply that it was inherited from Hermogenes.268 Given that Aurelia Ptolemais is the one heir that we have some knowledge, Bagnall posits that the copy of the will may well

263 Roger S. Bagnall, “An Owner of Literary Papyri,” CP 87 (1992): 137–38. 264 Bagnall, “An Owner of Literary Papyri,” 138. 265 Bagnall, “An Owner of Literary Papyri,” 138. 266 Judith Evans Grubbs, Women and the Law in the Roman Empire: A Sourcebook on Marriage, Divorce and Widowhood (London: Routledge, 2002), 249–50. Exegetes was a municipal office and the “prytanis was the head of the ,” ibid., 322. 267 Bagnall, “An Owner of Literary Papyri,” 139. 268 Bagnall, “An Owner of Literary Papyri,” 139.

84 have been part of her papers. Based on the contents of the will and Hermogenes’ status as the head of the town council, it is clear that Hermogenes was wealthy. Thus we would expect Hermogenes to be educated, and perhaps have a library of literature. In turning to his daughter Aurelia, Bagnall concludes that it is “highly likely that one Aurelia Ptolemais was the owner of the Sikyonika, of Africanus’ Kestoi, and of the two Iliad fragments, along with her land, money, slave, and no doubt much else.”269 Based on Hermogenes’ wealth (Bagnall calls his family one “of substantial, though probably not vast, means”),270 Aurelia was probably more than a mere middling figure. Still, that does not necessarily place her among the leisured elite, and thus her possession of up to four literary papyri is further evidence of engagement with paideia by people on the margins of the intellectual world (if not the margins of the wealthy). Finally, I will examine the Archive of Leonides, an archive that, AnneMarie Luijendijk argues, contains a Christian literary papyrus.271 In addition to the twelve documentary papyri that traditionally make up Leonides’ archive, Luijendijk argues that the Archive of Leonides contains an old school exercise of Leonides.272 The archive contains a record of seven land leases from Leonides, one lease to Leonides, a copy of a letter from Leonides to four meniarchs, a copy of a receipt from Leonides, and a school exercise.273 The school exercise, P Oxy. II 209/Ã10, is a well-known papyrus that contains Romans 1:1-7. Luijendijk observes that the text was copied sloppily, and that the writer made several spelling mistakes. Cribiore identifies the text as a school exercise of the “long passage” subgroup, and in addition to the spelling mistakes, notes that the text was written in “an evolving hand” and shows difficulties in alignment.274 The evolving hand suggests a person who writes frequently and could progress at a good pace, but who also had difficulties in alignment and fluid letter formation.275 As a school text it stands as one of ninety-two “long passages” identified by Cribiore, but as a school text that makes up part of an archive, it is of particular interest. As Luijendijk observes, the identification of a school

269 Bagnall, “An Owner of Literary Papyri,” 140. 270 Bagnall, “An Owner of Literary Papyri,” 139. 271 AnneMarie Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context: An Early Christian Writing Exercise from the Archive of Leonides (‘P.Oxy.’ II 209/P10 ),” JBL 129.3 (2010): 575–96. 272 Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context.” 273 Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context.” All listed in an appendix to the article. 274 Raffaella. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 246–47. 275 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 112.

85 exercise as part of an archive has “important implications for its ‘social life.’ What we have here is a rare instance of a ‘literary papyrus in a documentary archive.’”276 Luijendijk describes Leonides as “a literate man who enjoyed an education” based on the presence of his school exercise, as well as a letter signed by Leonides “I, the same Leonides, have signed” (P Oxy. 3262.7), and sees Leonides as a man who valued his education based on the fact that he kept a school exercise.277 That Leonides had and valued an education seems accurate, but what level of education did Leonides possess? It is difficult to deduce as there are no literary documents authored by him from the period after he finished his schooling, but his biography might suggest a general description of his education. Based on the other documents in his archive, Leonides is identified as a merchant “‘engaged in the preparation and marketing of linen fibre, tow, and perhaps linseed’ and a member of the tow guild.”278 Leonides was a monthly president of the tow guild, and as such is identified by Luijendijk as belonging to the social and economic middling class in society.279 And while Leonides might have been “middling” in terms of overall socio- economic class, he would have been “marginal” with respect to the pepaideumenoi. He possessed copying skills, but it is not clear how often he exercised them. Luijendijk argues that he may have kept the exercise because of his pride in his education. Leonides clearly has training in paideia, recognizes the value of paideia, and performs it (even if to himself) by holding on to a school exercise. Leonides is a middling merchant, but a marginal intellectual. 3.2 Other Documentary Evidence In addition to the archives just reviewed, there are also several individual papyri that suggest composition of and/or use by marginal intellectuals. These texts contain traces of paideia sprinkled into everyday interactions. For example, P Flor. II 259. This text is a letter from one Timaeus to Heroninus, requesting that Heroninus “send up either the bags of grain or the price [of them]” and let someone in Heroninus’ employ, Kiot’, know that he also needs to pay Timaeus.280 As Derek Collins notes, this is a fairly mundane letter, but it gets interesting when

276 Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context,” 580. 277 Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context,” 583. 278 Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context,” 583. Luijendijk draws on and quotes from Susan Stephens’ publication of P.Oxy. XLV (1977) 279 Luijendijk, “A New Testament Papyrus and Its Documentary Context,” 584. 280 Derek Collins, “The Magic of Homeric Verses,” CP 103 (2008): 228.

86 we turn to the left hand margin of the letter. There the same hand (presumably Timaeus) has written out Iliad 2.1-2 Ἄλλοι µέν ῥα θεοί τε καὶ ἀνέρες ἱπποκορυσταὶ εὕδον παννύχιοι, Δία δ᾽οὐκ ἔχεν ἥδυµος ὕπνος εὕδον παννύχι

The other gods and chariot-fighting men slept all night long, but sweet sleep did not hold Zeus They slept all night long

Collins argues that this use of Homer is an example of protective magic, as it was common to use Homeric verses for such purposes.281 This reading is possible, but the repetition of part of Iliad 2.2, “they slept all night long,” would suggest instead that Timaeus is using Homer to air his discontent with Heroninus and Kiot’. Dominic Rathbone refers to the addition of Iliad 2.1-2, and especially the repetition of the line “they slept all night” as a “literary jibe” added to ensure that Heroninus got the point.282 Amin Benaissa agrees, and wonders whether the addition of this passage of the Iliad to a business letter might serve as “a pointed accusation of the addressee’s listlessness?”283 In any case, the letter stands as an example of paideia being slipped into everyday interactions. In P Hamb. I 37, a private letter, Doreios Kameinos establishes himself as pepaideumenos by keeping in touch with his former teacher Claudios Antoninos. Doreios recalls that Claudios taught him and his fellow students better than all the other philosophers, and addresses Claudios as a “true and noble philosopher” (άληθινὸς φιλόσοφος καὶ εὐσχήµων).284 In the postscript of a letter from Oxyrhynchus (P Oxy. XVIII 2192) the sender makes the following request: “make and send me copies of books six and seven of Hypsicrates’ Characters in Comedy; for Harpocration says they are among Pollio’s books, but it is likely that others too have got them. He also has prose (?) epitomes of Thersagoras’ Myth of Tragedy.”285 This request for books echoes a similar request in the Zenon archive (P.Cairo Zen. IV 59588 = TM 1221), but

281 Collins, “The Magic of Homeric Verses,” 228. 282 Dominic Rathbone, Economic Rationalism and Rural Society in Third-Century A.D. Egypt: The Heroninos Archive and the Appianus Estate, Cambridge Classical Studies (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 13. 283 Amin Benaissa, “, Education, and Literary Culture,” in The Oxford Handbook of Roman Egypt, ed. Christina Riggs (Oxford: University Press, 2012), 532. 284 Benaissa, “Greek Language, Education, and Literary Culture,” 533. 285 Translated in Benaissa, “Greek Language, Education, and Literary Culture,” 533.

87 here it is not a gymnasiarch requesting books, but instead an exchange of books between friends. It is, of course, difficult to identify the exact social standing of the composers of these letters, but in each case the writer does not appear to be a rhetor, philosopher, or sophist. 3.3 Material Evidence: Conclusion My analysis of the archives and letters above demonstrates the presence of paideia in the daily lives of people not necessarily associated with the intellectual elite. Yes, Zenon was lending books to the gymnasiarch, but P Oxy. XVIII 2192 shows that the practice of lending and borrowing books was not limited to the elite. And while those named in P Oxy. XVIII 2192 were likely people of some economic and intellectual means (the same goes for Aurelia Ptolemais), they do not appear to have been members of the intellectual elite, and the archives of cellar ostraca and of Leonides both belong to figures we might consider more “middling.” But regardless of whether our subjects are middling or knocking on the doors of the social elite, it is important to note that they are not using their reading and literary skills in the circles of the pepaideumenoi, at symposia, or in classrooms, or in declamations in front of the courts. The material evidence reviewed above gives us a glimpse into the world of marginal intellectuals, keeping school exercises, composing lewd epigrams, adding a Homeric line to a business letter, and collecting literary texts. If papyri and ostraca help to identify marginal intellectuals, literary evidence offers a glimpse of the challenges that such marginal intellectuals posed to the pepaideumenoi, the self-appointed gatekeepers of paideia.

4. Defending the Borders As chapters one and two demonstrate, the world of the pepaideumenoi is carefully constructed through schooling practices and exercises designed so that students recognize the virtue of paideia; and then through cultivating familiarity with classic Greek (and Latin) poetry, history, and oratory. Whether under the supervision of a philosopher or rhetor, the student was conditioned to recognize the inherent virtue of their intellectual pursuits. This is, of course, not to say that there was an absolute value of paideia apart from the social and historical circumstances that produced it, far from it. Rather, the social and culture significance of paideia was itself a product of encyclia paideia and the educated individuals it produced. Recognition as a pepaideumenoi was constrained by requirements of birth and education, and as such encyclia paideia played a socially divisive role insofar as it defined and policed the borders of high

88 culture while producing its members.286 In claiming that one was pepaideumenoi that person claimed an exclusive and desirable status as a fully educated elite. The presence of those identifying as pepaideumenoi increased in the first and second centuries CE, and this increase was the result of the relatively recent expansion of Rome into the Greek East and Egypt287 as well as the social, economic, and cultural reforms brought about by the formation of the Roman Empire.288 On this latter point, Heidi Wendt (examining the expansion of freelance experts under the Roman Empire), argues that undertook significant effort to change the culture of the Roman Empire and make it (and especially Rome), more cosmopolitan.289 Wendt cites Suetonius who states that Caesar “conferred citizenship on all who practised medicine at Rome, and on all teachers of the liberal arts [professos et liberalium], to make them more desirous of living in the city and to induce others to resort to it” (Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, 42. 8-10, LCL)290 In addition to these (perhaps new) opportunities for intellectuals, there remained the ever-present rewards of identifying with the pepaideumenoi, including monetary and social gain (about which I will say more below). But other than being comprised of intellectuals, what did the world of the pepaideumenoi look like? The answer, of course, varies depending on the social location that one investigates. For some, it may involve the production (self-authored or commissioned) and consumption of texts, for others it may involve the discussion of philosophy at a school or symposium, for yet others it may involve attending a public declamation outside the courts, or the reading of an historiographer in the gymnasium.291 The eligibility to participate in these events ranged from exclusive and restricted—dining at the symposium of Plutarch, for example—to public and relatively un-policed—listening to declamation, or historical or philosophical readings—to practices restricted by economic status and in some ways socially policed—such as commissioning and collecting books (much more on this below). So while there were some

286 Cf. Bourdieu, Distinction. 287 Tim Whitmarsh, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire: The Politics of Imitation, 1 edition. (Oxford U.K. ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 288 Heidi. Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 62–68. 289 Wendt, At the Temple Gates, 63. 290 Wendt, At the Temple Gates, 63. 291 On the last point see Richard Last, “The Social Relationships of Gospel Writers: New Insights from Inscriptions Commending Greek Historiographers,” JSNT 37 (2015): 223–52.

89 spaces in the world of ancient intellectuals wherefrom οἱ πολλοί could be fought off, there were many others where the ability to identify the true pepaideumenoi was far more difficult, and the boundaries of intellectual culture far murkier. Because of this, claims to belong to the pepaideumenoi were often contested. Kendra Eshleman addresses these murky boundaries by examining the question of self-identification among intellectuals in antiquity. She argues that, The prestigious title “philosopher” was “not an absolute but a differential category,” maintained at the cost of an unending labor of discursive and social distantiation from the others who marked its boundaries (the layperson, the charlatan, the sophist, and, eventually, the Christian). The same is true of “sophist,” another notoriously slippery category often maddeningly entwined with “philosopher.” The right to either label could not be established once for all but had to be continually defended through assiduous self- presentation that in turn advanced implicit definitions of one’s own field(s) and its rivals.292

Because of the fluidity of the categories of “philosopher” and “sophist/rhetor” Eshleman argues that it was important for individuals who identified as such to closely vet and police claims of membership.293 This process of vetting and policing is apparent in a number of literary texts in antiquity including the doxographic writings of Philostratus and Diogenes Laertius,294 and is extended into discussion of pepaideumenoi more generally in Lucian, and the philosophical writings of Plutarch. Questions of identity and belonging tend to get raised by those with the most invested in maintaining the purity of their field. In this case, it is raised by those of noble birth and/or those who acquired their education through the proper, elite means. They already enjoy the fruits of paideia, and are the most invested in securing the purity of their field. 4.1 The Attractions of Paideia There was nothing inherently noble, virtuous, or attractive about paideia. That is not generally how cultural capital operates. Rather, the value of cultural capital like paideia exists only as a relation in a field of cultural production.295 In this case the cultural significance granted to Greek tradition and the requirements of economic prosperity and leisure restricted membership in the pepaideumenoi almost exclusively to the wealthy elite. But as with many forms of cultural capital, the attraction of paideia was not limited to those who possessed the proper social and

292 Eshleman, The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire, 1. 293 Eshleman, The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire, 9. 294 See especially Eshleman, The Social World of Intellectuals in the Roman Empire, 149–76. wherein she argues that Christian heresiological discourses of the second and third century engage in the same kinds of group making and marking practices as contemporary philosophical schools. 295 Bourdieu, Distinction, 225.

90 economic statuses. In addition to the ways in which elementary and grammatical school presented paideia as virtuous, many writers (themselves part of the pepaideumenoi) also depicted the possession of paideia as not only virtuous, but culturally and economically advantageous. We have seen examples of sub-elites who possessed literature, I will now turn to literary treatments of sub-elites who saw themselves as possessing paideia to round out this portrait of marginal intellectuals claiming and performing paideia. One such example is Lucian’s possibly autobiographical The Dream, or Lucian’s Career. Here Lucian explains how he came to pursue a life of paideia, emphasizing the obvious advantages paideia granted him. Soon after the young Lucian had left school (διδασκαλεῖον), his father and his friends began to discuss what he would do next. Most agreed that “higher education (παιδεία) required great labour, much time, considerable expense, and conspicuous social position,” a position Lucian claims his family did not hold (The Dream, or Lucian’s Career 1.4-7, trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL). It was decided that Lucian would become a mason and sculptor, but the skills did not come easily and his master (also his uncle) beat him when be accidently broke a slab upon which he was working. That night Lucian had a dream wherein he was courted by two women who came before him as the embodied forms of Sculpture (Ἑρµογλυφεύς) and Education (Παιδεία). Each tried to convince Lucian of the virtue of their craft, but it is clear throughout (and not surprisingly) that Paideia is superior in every way. Paideia promises to show Lucian the classical writings (10.1-2), ornate his soul with temperance, justice, piety, kindness, reasonableness, understanding, steadfastness, and love of what is beautiful (10.5-8); and she will teach him everything of gods and humans speedily (10.13-14). Paideia promises Lucian additional perks such as a lifetime of associating with pepaideumenoi and people of eminence. In opposition to the great learning and great company that Lucian would enjoy if he took the path of Paideia, the life of the Sculptor is presented as servility, ignorance, and filth: You will never lift your head, or conceive a single manly or liberal thought, and although you will make your works well-balanced and well-shapen, you will not show any concern to make yourself well-balanced and sightly; on the contrary, you will make yourself a thing of less value than a block of stone (13.11-16).

It is not difficult to guess which path the fictional Lucian chose, and although the promises of Paideia are extravagant, there is reason to think that they reflected the lives of at least some men of learning.

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One of the rather obvious aims of Lucian’s story is to laud Paideia as the perfect and best option, and much of what she promises Lucian does not sound all that hyperbolic. Associating with other intellectuals and “people of eminence” was standard practice. For example, in addition to teaching philosophy to students, Plotinus’ lectures were attended by a variety of eminent people, including senators, poets, and other philosophers. Plutarch’s intellectual life also involved interaction and exchange with other intellectuals, including attending and hosting symposia,296 and exchanging books with colleagues.297 Lucian also refers to symposia and the exchange of books as a part of his life as an intellectual (although Lucian uses both examples to ridicule opponents, to the surprise of no one).298 Teachers and theorists of education such as Quintilian and Ps. Plutarch299 wrote for an elite audience (as opposed to pedagogues or primary instructors, for example), directing the teacher on the proper ways of education, whilst lauding the virtues acquired through education. Finally, wealthy households often patronized a philosopher, giving them space to teach, and also providing them with a salary300 (about which I will say much more below). All this is to say that there was good reason for students in antiquity to associate their own elite learning with the company of other elites. In addition to the somewhat abstract rewards of respect and a life among eminent people, paideia also offered potential economic prosperity. The financial benefits of advanced paideia are evident in Diocletian’s Edict on Maximum Prices, an edict that set the monthly wages per student for a rhetor or teacher of literature at three to four times that of an elementary teacher or teacher of writing.301 There was also the opportunity for a person of learning to attach themselves

296 Kendra Eshleman, “‘Then Our Symposium Becomes a Grammar School’: Grammarians in Plutarch’s Table Talk,” SyllClass 24 (2013): 145–71. 297 William A. Johnson, Readers and Reading Culture in the High Roman Empire: A Study of Elite Communities (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010). 298 On the former see Symposium, or The Lapiths, on the latter see The Ignorant Book Collector. 299 The author of On the Education of Children. 300 Stowers, “Social Status.” Lucian depicts the life of a household philosopher as one of slavery and misery in On Salaried Posts in Great Houses, but qualifies his criticism when he took on a salaried job in the Roman civil service in Egypt. 301 Γραµµατοδιδάσκαλοι Elementary teacher 50 (denarii, monthly, per student) Teacher of arithmetic 75 Teacher of shorthand 75 Γραµµατικοί Teacher of Greek or Latin language and literature, and teacher of geometry 200 Ρήτωρ

92 to a wealthy household and become the homeowner’s client. It was desirable for wealthy citizens to be seen with philosophers, and it granted the philosopher more financial security than public teaching, or recruiting students to a school might have. Attaching oneself to a rich household could potentially see the ancient philosopher “having the noblest of Romans for their friends, eating expensive dinners without paying any scot, living in a handsome establishment, and travelling in all comfort and luxury, behind a span of white horses […] they could also get no inconsiderable amount of pay for their friendship which they enjoyed and the kindly treatment which they received; really everything grew without sowing and ploughing for such as they” (On Salaried Posts in Great Houses, 3.1-11, trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL). This last comment should be taken with a grain of salt, as Lucian uses it as his set up to tear down those in service to a household (a relationship that Lucian viewed as akin to slavery, On Salaried Posts in Great Houses, 1.1-6). Satire aside, being identified as a pepaideumenos provided the individual with a number of economic opportunities within the broad field of paideia. 4.2 Paideia and Self-improvement The concept of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps is often associated with the American dream: people come with nothing and make their fortunes thanks to the glories of capitalism and the free market. The reality, of course, is that without some social standing and pre-existent capital, one faced a rough go, and even those who managed to improve generally ascend no higher than the middle class. All this is to say that the idea of self-improvement and the ascension from one class to a higher one is both distinctly modern, and largely a myth. So, it is with no little trepidation that I explore the idea that one could improve one’s standing in antiquity through the acquisition of paideia. That being said, there is at the very least a similar myth of self-improvement through education in antiquity, if not evidence of it in practice. According to Quintilian, one could in theory come from lower beginnings, as the heights of oratory required only a virtuous person, not necessarily one well born. But the demands of time and money (not to mention the fact that a virtuous person often needed to be brought up and educated by a family of means) served as the gatekeepers that ensured the pinnacles of education were reserved for the elite. Quintilian leaves the door open for people to improve their lot through education, but he does not support the idea that education was a way for people to rise above their class. Ps. Plutarch goes slightly further and acknowledges (albeit begrudgingly) that

Teacher of rhetoric or public speaking 250

93 encyclia paideia could raise a student up in both theory and practice. In On the Education of Children Ps. Plutarch uses a farming metaphor to present the advantages of good birth: Just as in farming, first of all the soil must be good, secondly, the husbandman skillful, and thirdly, the seed sound, so, after the same manner, nature is like to the soil, the teacher to the farmer, and the verbal counsels and precepts like to the seed. (Ps. Plutarch, On the Education of Children, 4. LCL).

But after asserting the advantages of good birth Ps. Plutarch qualifies his statement, warning his readers: if anybody imagines that those not endowed with natural gifts, who yet have the chance to learn and to apply themselves in the right way to the attaining of virtue, cannot repair the want of their nature and advance so far as in them lies, let him know that he is in great, or rather total, error. (4)

This is not to suggest a level playing field; this entire section of the work continually notes how difficult it is for those of low birth to attain education. But through intense effort, it is still possible. Timothy Whitmarsh argues that Ps. Plutarch’s reasoning is grounded in philosophy, and that for the writer, paideia is presented as, to a certain extent, a meritocratic principle: it cannot completely efface the institutionalized imbalances of social hierarchies, but it can provide a certain counterbalance.302

For Ps. Plutarch, paideia is non-natural (unlike high birth), and so it is theoretically possible for someone of low birth to achieve great intellectual heights. Whether or not this played out in practice is more difficult to say (and based on Morgan’s and Kaster’s arguments regarding the social circles of the educated elite, this seems unlikely). Perhaps less expectedly, Lucian himself provides evidence that paideia was a path to improve one’s life, and this possibility is present in his own autobiography. In addition to Paideia’s promise to keep Lucian with the best people (and all the perks that came with those associations), she also promises to improve Lucian’s lot in life. “You who are now the beggarly son of a nobody, who have entertained some thoughts of so illiberal a trade [sculpting], will after a little inspire envy and jealously in all men, for you will be honoured and lauded, you will be held in great esteem for the highest qualities and admired by men preeminent in lineage and in wealth, you will wear clothing such as this” – she pointed to her own, and she was very splendidly dressed – “and will be deemed worthy of office and precedence. If ever you go abroad, even on foreign soil

302 Whitmarsh, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire, 98.

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you will not be unknown or inconspicuous, for I will attach to you such marks of identification that everyone who sees you will nudge his neighbour and point you out with his finger, saying ‘There he is!’ If anything of grave import befalls your friends or even the entire city, all will turn their eyes upon you; and if at any time you chance to make a speech, the crowd will listen open-mouthed, marveling and felicitating you upon your eloquence and your father upon his good fortune.” (The Dream, or Lucian’s Career, 11.1-12.1-6, trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL)

The message here is clear: if the beggarly (fictional) Lucian follows the path of paideia he will improve his lot and join a social circle into which he was not born. There are several (related) ways to interpret this promise, but every one of them leaves open the possibility of social mobility through education. It is possible that Lucian is being modest about his origins, although knowing Lucian this seems unlikely. It is also possible that he is justifying how he, a man of lower birth, could attain paideia and why he should be considered among the pepaideumenoi. Finally, it is possible that Lucian is using the rags to riches narrative as a trope to make his own current social standing all the more impressive. Regardless of which of these options is correct, all three necessitate an audience who would recognize either: a) the virtue of humble origins (and the possibility of overcoming those origins), b) the legitimacy of a lower born student attaining paideia, or c) the impressive feat accomplished by Lucian’s assent to paideia. Each of these ideas shares a common core: people needed to recognize that it was possible for people to improve their social standing through encyclia paideia in order for this story to make sense. Elsewhere in his writing, Lucian criticizes individuals who try to buy their way into the pepaideumenoi (The Ignorant Book Collector), or take shortcuts through unauthorized means (The Teacher of Rhetoric), or are self-styled or partial philosophers (The Dead Come to Life, The Double Indictment, The Runaways, and others), but nowhere does he criticize people based solely on low birth. Where Ps. Plutarch’s (and Quintilian’s, for that matter) claim that birth did not necessarily determine one’s ability to attain paideia was philosophically based, Lucian’s claim is less based in philosophical ideals as it is in his own self presentation: either as one who has dragged himself up by his boot straps, or as one who is trying to justify an intellectual identity incongruous with his prior social identity. Regardless of the philosophical or literary rationales for allowing that those of lower birth had access to elite education, the reality appears to be that there were some who did, or at least had enough education to float around the margins, occasionally darting in when no one was looking.

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5. The Porous Walls of the Pepaideumenoi As I have argued throughout, the acquisition of paideia promised to offer the student access to an entire world closed off to the ignorant masses: the world of lectures, philosophy, oratory, symposia, and the company of eminent people. The cultivation and construction of one’s identity as a pepaideumenos was entirely dependent upon encyclia paideia: students learned what it was to be an intellectual by copying out the writings of the , and copying the behaviours of their teachers. But while encyclia paideia served both to present and preserve the ideals of paideia, at the same time it provided a blueprint with which to mimic paideia for those who did not go through the correct channels. The emphasis on acquiring paideia through the proper channels is ubiquitous in Quintilian, Ps. Plutarch, and Lucian, and the latter two demonstrate an anxiety over the possibilities of interlopers claiming paideia for themselves. Once again it is Lucian’s satires that provide the most evidence in the form of his general distaste for public philosophers, his direct distaste for philosophers attached to wealthy households, and his personal distaste for would-be-rhetors and an ignorant book collector. 5.1 One “could more easily fall in a boat without hitting a plank than for your eye to miss a philosopher wherever it looks.”303 The expansion of the Roman Empire into the Greek east brought with it significant social and economic changes. The increase of trade, founding of new cities, and movement of political seats from one city to another saw changes of power: formerly significant cities became backwaters as newly founded cities became capitals; some made their fortune in newly opened trade routes, while others saw their social and economic capital dwindle under new conditions. These social and economic changes coincided with the ongoing (re)discovery of Greek culture by the Romans, and the continued adoption and morphing of that culture that produced new writings, and new intellectuals.304 The increased activity and presences of pepaideumenoi is witnessed not only in increasing literary productions, but also by the increase in school texts present from the same period.305 The economic and social shifts combined with renewed interest in Greek paideia produced an extended class of pepaideumenoi: those who attained the title by traditional means,

303 Lucian, The Double Indictment, 6. 16-18 (trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL). 304 Whitmarsh, Greek Literature and the Roman Empire, 42–45. 305 Morgan’s second appendix (Morgan, Literate Education) shows the sharp increase in school documents in the first and second centuries.

96 those who recognized the social perks and tried to buy their way in, those who recognized the social perks and tried to con their way in, and those who tried to perform the identity of pepaideumenoi to the best of their abilities. The so-called Second Sophistic may not have produced a world filled with philosophers, but there were enough to draw the ire of a number of educated elite. Lucian’s satires frequently lament that ubiquity of philosophers, most of whom are “self-styled”306 and barely knowledgeable of their own philosophy.307 The false philosopher appears so often in Lucian that it borders on a trope, with Peregrinus the false philosopher par excellence. In The Passing of Peregrinus, Peregrinus is presented as a philosopher who cares more about fame than philosophy. He was an opportunist who led a group of Christians when it was advantageous, accumulated a great deal of money from them (16.1-3), and then left them. When he again desired attention he claimed he would self immolate at the Olympic games, an act Lucian claims he performed for love of glory (34.1-4). The Runaways picks up where The Passing of Peregrinus leaves off, this time with Lucian attacking one of Peregrinus’ students, Scarabee, who has taken up the helm of a philosopher and taken as students two fugitive slaves and the wife of an unnamed man. In the Philosophies for Sale, Lucian provides a scathing critique of all of the philosophical schools, and Lucian doubles down that critique in The Dead Come to Life, and The Double Indictment. Lucian comes down most heavily on philosophers, pseudo or otherwise, in On Salaried Posts in Great Houses. In the story, Lucian tries to discourage a friend from taking up a job in a wealthy house. Lucian acknowledges the perks people often associated with the position, but argues that service to a house is servitude, and a philosopher should be free. Lucian heads off the claim that financial need drove many of these men to take up residents in the houses, by claiming that the household philosopher ate a diet resembling that of the invalids (On Salaried Posts in Great Houses, 5.18-20, trans A. M. Harmon, LCL), and lived no better in the houses than on the streets. He acknowledges as genuine a different motive, the desire for pleasure, wealth, fine dinners, and other indulgences (7.1-8). Lucian identifies a second group of people who entered service into wealthy households. The people he brings up here assert they are educated

306 Lucian, The Dead Come to Life, 37.1 (trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL). 307 “And yet there are some who have only touched the kettle on the outside with a finger-tip and smeared on some soot, yet think that they too are well enough dyed over.” Lucian, The Double Indictment, 8. 32-34 (trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL).

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(pepaideusthai), and wear the mantle and beards of a philosopher, but provide “predictions, philtres, love charms, and incantations against enemies” (40.14-17).308 Unlike the proper pepaideumenoi Lucian is trying to dissuade from this ignoble pursuit, the various “philosophers” he addresses in this section are clearly charlatans, dressing as a philosopher, wearing a beard, and claiming the title of “educated”, but it is clear to Lucian that their practices betray the fact that they are not philosophers. Of course, Lucian is writing from the relatively privileged position of an educated person capable of supporting himself. His criticisms are aimed at those who cannot rise to his ideal, and do not necessarily reflect the state of those living as members of a household. That being said, it was a common trope for more pure members of the pepaideumenoi to speak aggressively against pandering for praise and patronage. Again, it was these figures who had attained the heights of paideia through “proper channels” that had the highest stakes in defending those channels. Dio Chrysostom, for example, is extremely critical of would-be-philosophers who try to attach themselves to houses and fawn after flatterers (Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 77-78 On Envy. 34- 36). Like Lucian, Dio recognizes and criticizes the desire of wealthy patrons to have philosophers about, and accuses the “so‑called philosophers fawning about the courtyards and vestibules” of looking for flatterers who would think them wise (presumably because, in Dio’s mind, they were not actually wise men). Epictetus is also extremely critical of so-called philosophers who read and perform only for want of fame (Epictetus, Discourses 3.23). Here Epictetus accuses both philosopher and patron of being false: the philosophers because they seek fame and not virtue, and the patrons because they are disingenuous men who care little for philosophy but recognize the value of being seen with philosophers. The trope-level appearance of false philosophers in Lucian and others should not necessarily be taken as a reflection of reality, but it should also not be dismissed as purely a literary device, and there are a number of other intellectuals who were critical of the philosophers of the first centuries CE. In addition to the critiques of false philosophers by Dio Chrysostom and Epictetus, there were also critiques of philosophers more generally. Cicero and Galen depicted philosophers of their day as dogmatists, “clinging fast to their schools,”309 or pondering the “baseless and irrational character” of their

308 For an examination of this class of household clients see Wendt, At the Temple Gates, 139–40. 309 Galen, de Pulsuum Differentiis 3.3.

98 doctrines.310 Those claiming the title philosopher could have been attack on two fronts: from fellow philosophers who accused them of being false, and from fellow pepaideumenos who viewed philosophy as antiquated and dogmatic. Epictetus, Dio Chrysostom, and to a lesser extent Lucian, come across as purists, they have very particular ideas about how philosophers (and other pepaideumenoi) should behave, with whom they should socialize, and how they should earn their livings. Their unqualified disdain for those taking up residence in private houses, or attempting to appeal to popular audience (something Lucian likely did) is an ideal that they could hold due to the relative comfort that they enjoyed in their own positions.311 This kind of criticism is exactly what we would expect from a social field with porous boundaries. The complaints of Lucian, Epictetus, and Dio Chrysostom are part of an effort to demarcate authentic philosophers—those who need no attachment to houses or patrons—from false, so-called philosophers who pander to the crowds and try to attach themselves to (wealthy) patrons. We cannot vet the motivations of these so-called philosophers since they leave no writing, but what we can say is they represent a class of intellectuals on the margins of official/ideal pepaideumenoi. 5.2 Fake it till you make it Thus far I have discussed those with pretensions of being philosophers, patronized by wealthy houses and/or collecting students and fees. There is another factor that may have led people to perform as pepaideumenoi, regardless of education or social qualification, and that is the cultural capital associated with the title. The examples below drive home the significance of the cultural capital related to identification with the pepaideumenoi insofar as they do not stand to gain economically as much as the household philosopher or teacher, and in fact seem to have quite a bit of disposable income with which to pursue their dreams of joining the intellectual elite. The first case examines those who claimed to possess rhetorical training, but in reality relied on tricks and shortcuts to appear as rhetors. The second case examines an individual who attempts to use their money to show that they belong to the educated elite, here purchasing expensive books. In both cases the people in question possess some, if not significant education, and some, if not

310 Cicero, de Natura Deorum 1.16.43. 311 This is hinted at when Lucian loses his independence (kind of) and must defend his moving into the civil service in Roman Egypt: yes he is working for someone, but it is different than being attached to a household (Apology for the “Salaried Post in Great Houses”).

99 significant social status and economic capital. And in both cases these people attempt to leverage their social and economic capital for cultural capital. 5.2.1 Shortcuts to Rhetoric At the beginning of A Professor of Public Speaking, the fictional rhetor promises to reveal the secret to becoming a public speaker (rhetor) and attaining “the sublime and glorious name of sophist” (A Professor of Public Speaking, 1.1-3, trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL). In this satire Lucian takes on the persona of a fictive teacher of rhetoric who presents students with a number of shortcuts so as to avoid the arduous path to rhetoric outlined by elites such as Quintilian. Lucian’s rhetor identifies the traditional road to rhetoric as rough, steep, and sweaty (3.4-9), a description with which the likes of Quintilian would probably have approved. In opposition to this approach, Lucian’s rhetor provides an easier, second road. Chapters 14-25 provide a map of this road, and it involves shortcuts that range from sprinkling in obscure Attic words (14, 16.10- 17.4), to being shameless in your presentation (15.9-11), to ensuring the presence of an attendant with book in hand (15.20-22), to letting your friends patronize you (21.1-5). There are a number of other practices that Lucian’s rhetor recommends, but the point has been made: there are many ways to appear as a legitimate a rhetor that do not require full rhetorical training. The title of rhetor and the recognition that comes with it is taken for granted as desirable herein, but Lucian sweetens the pot by mentioning the many “nobodies” who have “come to be accounted men of standing, millionaires (πλούσιοι), yes, even gentlemen, because of their eloquence” (2.4-3.1). This comment is remarkable insofar as Lucian is presenting the ascension to the heights of rhetoric can make a somebody out of a nobody, echoing the kind of improvement of social status that appears evident in Lucian’s dream. Lucian’s attack on the teacher of rhetoric and his would-be students is not necessarily aimed at actual teachers or students who practice in the ways he describes, but rather his target is the state of “new rhetoric” more generally.312 Cribiore argues that the satire is also a lament over the shift away from the rigorous training idealized by Quintilian to a shorter, functional model for rhetorical training that focused on the quick preparation of students for declamation and law.313 So while the satire is not necessarily evidence that students and teachers were trying to cheat their way into the pepaideumenoi, it is evidence that some of the old guard interpreted it as

312 Raffaella Cribiore, “Lucian, Libanius, and the Short Road to Rhetoric,” GRBS 47 (2007): 83–86. 313 Cribiore, “Short Road to Rhetoric,” 80–83.

100 such. This notion is echoed in another of Lucian’s writings, Lexiphanes, wherein Lexiphanes is presented as a feckless idiot whose pretentions to literary composition and education are revealed to be smoke and mirrors. Lexiphanes begins to read a composition of his own to his friend Lycinus but is stopped part way through by Lycinus who can take no more. Lexiphanes’ composition is full of the very tricks taught in A Professor of Public Speaking: he is forceful, overly confident, and takes glee in using as many obscure Attic words as possible. Lycinus remarks that Lexiphanes may be “praised by the fools to be sure, who do not know what ails you; but the intelligent (πεπαιδευµένων) fittingly pity you” (Lexiphanes, 17.14-17, trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL). A third man, Sopolis, advises Lycinus to educate Lexiphanes, and Lycinus agrees stating that he must begin with the best poets (as with the grammarian, Ch 1), move on to the orators (with a teacher of rhetoric, Ch 2), and then, having become “familiar with their diction”, move on to comedy and tragedy, then finally and Plato (22.3-11). The solution to the problems of Lexiphanes’ ineptitudes is for him to undergo proper, traditional training in education. In each case it is not the complete lack of education, or belonging to the wrong social class that is the problem, it is incomplete education, or non-traditional education masquerading as proper. The differences between the fully and traditionally trained pepaideumenoi (such as Lucian), might not be apparent to most observers, but these incursions into the pure realm of the pepaideumenoi are deemed dangerous and in need of correction by those within the realm given that they have the most vested interests in protecting and limiting access to their world. 5.2.2 The Ignorant Book Collector Of the majority of students who began but did not finish their encyclia paideia, not all of them were from the marginal elite. Not every wealthy person or social elite was also a fully trained rhetor, sophist, or philosopher (or else there would have been no need for rhetors), so it is not surprising to find more elite figures who lacked a complete education but recognize the cultural capital associated with the pepaideumenoi. Lucian’s Ignorant Book Collector (by all accounts a parody based on a real person) appears as an elite who is not properly (or fully) educated. And it is the book collector’s actions that most clearly illustrate an attempt to access the cultural capital attached to the pepaideumenoi without the educational qualification. In the text Lucian lambasts a wealthy man for buying books that he has no ability to appreciate or read critically. Lucian accuses the book collector of attempting to acquire a reputation for learning through his

101 collecting of the finest books, but due to his lack of training, the practice bears witness to his ignorance. What is interesting here is that Lucian does not accuse him of taking shortcuts—like he does with Lexiphanes—and he does not suggest he is completely without training. Lucian in fact grants that he has training, but not enough. To be sure you look at your books with your eyes open and quite as much as you like, and you read some of them aloud with great fluency, keeping your eyes in advance of your lips; but I do not consider that enough, unless you know the merits and defects of each passage in their contents, unless you understand what every sentence means, how to construe the words, what expressions have been accurately turned by the writer in accordance with the canon of good use, and what are false, illegitimate, and counterfeit. (The Ignorant Book Collector, 2.7-15, trans. A. M. Harmon, LCL)

Based on Lucian’s description here, the ignorant book-collector has all the technical skills required to read—skills we might expect from someone who has studied grammar (see again Ch 2)—but none of the cultural ones required to appreciate what he is reading. Identifying the merits and defects, commenting on virtues, and providing a critical commentary were skills introduced at the level of the grammarian, but perfected with the rhetor. Lucian suggests that the Ignorant Book Collector has only a partial education, and not one that would allow him to read his books properly. This idea is reinforced just below the above quoted section when Lucian remarks “do you maintain that without instruction you know as much as we?” and “your haunts in boyhood were not the same as ours” (The Ignorant Book Collector, 3.1-2, 5-6). The diatribe drips with juicy vitriol, and concludes with Lucian’s attack on the Ignorant Book Collector based on his perceived lack of the proper education: No matter how shameless you are and how courageous in such matters, you would never dare to say that you have an education, or that you ever troubled yourself to associate intimately with books, or that So-and-so was your teacher and you went to school with So-and-so. You expect to make up for all that now by one single expedient—getting many books (The Ignorant Book Collector, 3.18-4.3).

This passage is significant as it lists attributes that Lucian considers essential to belong in the field of the pepaideumenoi point-by-point. having an education (ἐπαιδεύθης) associating intimately with books (πρὸς τὰ βιβλία συνοθσίας) claiming lineage from a teacher (διδάσκαλός ὁ δεῖνα) claiming peerage with fellow students (τῷ δεῖνι συνεφοίτας)

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The latter two comments especially drive home the idea that the pepaideumenoi was an exclusive club where academic pedigree and peerage were important.314 By lacking proper training, the proper relationship with the books he buys, and a proper lineage from a notable teacher, the Ignorant Book Collector is excluded from the cultural field into which he tries to buy. We might recall Diogenes’ saying here, “on seeing a rich young man who was uneducated said, ‘this man is silver-plated filth.’” Lucian’s satires identify a segment of the population attempting to claim paideia—even though they lack proper training—through shortcuts in training, impersonation of philosophers, or personal wealth. The above noted satires of Lucian are remarkable within his corpus, as more often than not, Lucian’s engagement with intellectual culture served to defend him from criticism, or poke fun at the regimented systems of rhetoric and philosophy. In the instances of The Passing of Peregrinus, The Runaways, On Salaried Posts in Great Houses, The Ignorant Book Collector, A Professor of Public Speaking, and Lexiphanes, Lucian defends what he deems to be proper acquisition and performance of intellectual culture from pretenders. 5.3 Positive Spaces at the Symposium Lucian’s attacks on the marginally educated may suggest a general distain the pepaideumenoi had for those who were not accomplished rhetors/sophists or philosophers. There is reason, however, to think otherwise. For one, we have largely only seen evidence from the side of the elite, the kind of people we might expect to closely guard the porous walls of the pepaideumenoi: they went about acquiring it the right way, so they would not have looked kindly on those trying to cheat or buy their way in. There is also a baser rationale of competition for patronage and students. But while the pseudo-intellectuals were reprimanded, there was still room for some of the lower level pepaideumenoi to participate in some aspects of intellectual life. Plutarch’s Table Talk, a collection of fictional symposia wherein Plutarch uses his fictional dinner guests to work through political and philosophical issues of the day, features a number of grammarians as guests. Kendra Eshleman observes that “in Plutarch’s Table Talk, men identified as grammatikoi or grammatistai participate in no fewer than fourteen talks—more

314 This emphasis on one’s pedigree and peerage is also present in Porphyry’s description of his schooling with Plotinus. Porphyry places Plotinus (his teacher, and so by extension himself) in a lineage of important teacher, and situates both Plotinus and himself in a peerage of important people (Life of Plotinus 3.1-12, trans. A. H. Armstrong, LCL). When Porphyry himself enters the narrative, his association with Plotinus is of central importance, and his listing of his classmates is also notable.

103 than sophists (five) or rhetors (eleven), and almost as many as doctors (fifteen), a relative frequency that seems more historically plausible.”315 As Eshleman notes, the grammarians are often foils for proper behaviour at the symposium: sometimes they are negative examples, speaking out of turn or assuming their training is on par with, or relevant to philosophers;316 but other times being respectful, and contributing their specific brand of knowledge when invited and when appropriate.317 Grammarians play an interesting role in Plutarch’s Table Talk: they are figures within the pepaideumenoi, but marginal figures. As teachers they serve as the gatekeepers to elite education but not as the possessors, they are members of the pepaideumenoi but as Plutarch suggests, are marginalized within it. How much more the students of the grammarian, or kathegete, or the vast majority of those who began primary schooling only to leave before completion.

6. Conclusion to Part One In a 2000 article, William Johnson attempts an analysis of one aspect of what I have described as the culture of the pepaideumenoi by providing a sociology of reading in classical antiquity. Looking specifically at reading culture and practices in antiquity, Johnson argues that “reading is not simply the cognitive process by the individual of the technology of writing, but rather the negotiated construction of meaning within a particular sociocultural context.”318 Johnson examines literary depictions of high reading culture, particularly Plutarch’s descriptions in Moralia, in order to posit an ideal for a high reading culture. Plutarch frequently describes situations in which a lecturer (probably a servant) was tasked with reading a book or treatise for an audience. In these instances reading was a group activity, generally consisted in the sharing of a difficult text, involved active listening with the audience interrupting the reader, chiming in, and commenting, and ultimately served, in Johnson’s words, as the basis for an intellectual

315 Eshleman, “Our Symposium Becomes a Grammar School,” 146. 316 Eshleman, “Our Symposium Becomes a Grammar School,” 156. See for example Protogenes the γραµµατικός who uses Homer (as one would expect a grammarian to do) in a discussion of Plato’s statement that drink passes through the lungs (Moralia, 698 D-E, trans. Edwin L. Minar Jr., LCL). In this instance Plutarch reprimands him for so narrowly reading Homer and mistaking the passage in Homer for a refutation of Plato. 317 Eshleman, “Our Symposium Becomes a Grammar School,” 163–64. In a later discussion (Moralia, 739-740) Marcus the γραµµατικός gets the last word on the question of why Plato said that the soul of Ajax came twentieth in the drawing of lots. The fact that as a grammarian Marcus was expected to have expertise in this kind of pedantic Homeric exegesis, and the fact that he comes last in the discussion with no following correct presents his contribution as positive. 318 William A. Johnson, “Toward a Sociology of Reading in Classical Antiquity,” AJP 121, (2000): 603.

104 community of readers and listeners.319 Johnson concludes that at the heart of readings such as described in Plutarch was the association of the activity of reading with the elite community that shared in, and sought validation in the practice of reading, and discussing reading, together. While Johnson comments specifically on reading, I would expand his comments to include all of the paideic practices of the pepaideumenoi: reading, writing, exegeting, banqueting, attending lectures, delivering or listening to declamations and lectures, collecting books, and so on. These are not simply cognitive processes by which words are committed to papyrus, or written words rendered vocal, they are the practices by which a particular field of intellectual culture is established and re-established in each performance. Johnson also remarks on Lucian’s Ignorant Book Collector, viewing him as one attempting to imitate high intellectual culture through inferior means. I think here, however, Johnson is guilty of taking Lucian a little bit too seriously. The notion that the Ignorant Book Collector is intentionally trying to mimic a culture to which he has no right to claim places too much emphasis on the presumed deviance of the Ignorant Book Collector, and does not give enough credit to the notion of a wider sphere for intellectual culture in antiquity. As I noted in chapters 1 and 2, every stage of education featured significant levels of attrition, and for every Lucian, Quintilian, or Plutarch there were thousands of partially educated students who ranged from functionally illiterate, to fluent readers like our Ignorant Book Collector, to differently educated individuals who broke off to study law or philosophy instead of finishing oratory. But while students dropped away from education at various levels, the evidence from primary school exercises, grammatical school exercises, and progymnasmata examples show that the cultural aspect of education were quite consistent throughout: virtue is key, wisdom is the greatest good, the sage/wise person is due reverence, Homer is the ideal form of culture. In theory, then, even the most marginally educated person would have encountered some of the same aspects of intellectual culture as one who completed their encyclia paideia. For someone like Lucian, awareness of the virtues of education, the ability to recall and recite pithy sayings or fables, and the ability to read Homer did not make that person Lucian’s intellectual equal. But the reality was that of those who began the path to education, far more possessed a partial education where the ability to read short passages, copy out chreiai, or comment generally on Homer represented

319 Johnson, “Toward a Sociology of Reading,” 618.

105 a significant intellectual achievement. We need not ascribe deception to our Ignorant Book Collector in order to understand why one with the means would collect beautiful books and have them read to him and his friends. From the earliest stages of education students were taught to admire and aspire to the values taught. The aim of education, as explained by those at the top such as Quintilian, was to form perfect citizens, and that goal was in mind throughout, and would have been the takeaway for students even if they did not complete encyclia paideia. In short, what I am proposing here, is a widening of the sphere of the pepaideumenoi to include the very people Lucian attempts to exclude. The purpose of this is not to grant some sort of authenticity to those with less education than the elites, or critique the boundaries drawn by Lucian and Quintilian. Rather, my goal in expanding this sphere is to highlight the fact that many of the social practices present at the highest levels of paideia were also present in various forms among those with less education. As I stated at the beginning of the chapter, part one of this dissertation has argued that encyclia paideia, from letters to rhetors, constructs a particular cultural field: one wherein cultivated performances of reading, writing, interpreting, banqueting, exegeting, and more build the world of the pepaideumenoi. The elite members of this world claim that it is exclusive and guard its borders, but as this chapter demonstrates, these borders are porous, and there is leakage. The appeal of identifying with the pepaideumenoi was engrained in students from the earliest years of schooling, and the ways in which one might identify with the pepaideumenoi varied more greatly than traditionalists like Quintilian, Ps. Plutarch, and Lucian might allow. I should be clear that these marginal intellectuals, these non-traditional pepaideumenoi are not necessarily competing for the same patronage and respect as the traditional intellectual elite, but they are performing their education in such a way that requires the enlargement of the field of the pepaideumenoi. Owning books and literary papyri, reading aloud, quoting a chreia from memory, composing a lewd epigram, commenting on the Iliad, all of these practices require a field in which they are culturally significant, even if within that field they are not the practices of the upper crust. It is within this intellectual field, formed by encyclia paideia, that I situate the second part of my dissertation: the Gospel of Thomas and Paul’s Corinth. I argue that Paul’s performance in 1 Corinthians only makes sense within a field of intellectuals (informed by encyclia paideia) competing over the cultural capital associated with teaching, interpreting, and

106 expanding traditional material. In Thomas, I argue that we have a text that is firmly situated in the paideic discourses of exegesis, interpretation, and teaching through one of the most easily recognized forms, the chreia. Some attention has been given to the philosophical content of Thomas, or the sophistic influence on 1 Corinthians, but there has been no attempt to situate either discourse in the field of pepaideumenoi, a field in which I deem it necessary to understand either text.

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Part 2: Paideia in Corinth and the Gospel of Thomas

1. Introduction In the first part of my dissertation I outlined the ways in which encyclia paideia was taught, who taught it, who received it, and the social world of intellectuals that it created. This world was populated both by the intellectual elite and more fringe intellectuals, broadly speaking the pepaideumenoi. The borders of this intellectual world were porous, as we can see from the quantity of literary texts that demonstrate a concern over those not traditionally educated claiming paideia, and in documentary records that show non-elites participating in the world of paideia in their own ways. In the second part of my dissertation I argue that Paul’s Corinthian correspondence and the Gospel of Thomas are two examples of early Christian texts operating in the world of paideia. In recent years a number of studies have brought early Christianity and paideia together, but because of a concern for the uniqueness of early Christianity, where Christianity does come in contact with paideia, this contact tends be explained away as a radical rejection of paideia Karl Olav Sandnes’ The Challenge of Homer,320 Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts (eds.) Ancient Education and Early Christianity,321 and Udo Schnelle’s “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung”322 stand as exceptions to this trend, but I will begin with a brief review of those who claim early Christianity stood distinct from, or rejected Graeco-Roman paideia, beginning with E. A. Judge. E. A. Judge, reviewed in the introduction to this dissertation, was one of the first to compare emerging Christianity to Graeco-Roman paideia,323 and paideia and Graeco-Roman scholastic culture remained a focus of Judge’s well past his foundational articles. He argued, mostly on basis of Paul, that early Christian texts displayed many parallels with the writings of first- and second- century sophists and rhetors, but Judge was also aware of the limits of comparison. He grants that early Christian texts likely drew on genres and topics popular among sophists and rhetors, but ultimately argues that Christian texts broke radically from the texts of

320 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer. 321 Hauge and Pitts, Ancient Education and Early Christianity. 322 Udo Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” NTS 61 (2015): 113–43. 323 E. A. Judge, “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community,” JRH 1 (1960): 4–15; E. A. Judge, “The Early Christians as a Scholastic Community: Part II,” JRH 1 (1961): 125–37.

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Graeco-Roman intellectuals in a number of important ways. For Judge, Christian writings ultimately democratized learning and morality in the risen Christ, thus rejecting the pretensions and social requirements of elite paideia. Christianity was both simpler and more profound: it did not require the formal training of encyclia paideia, and provided the saving knowledge of Christ rather than the worldly knowledge of paideia. Judge’s 1966 article, “The Conflict of Educational Aims in the New Testament” states his position most clearly.324 Continuing his argument that Christianity was distinct from both the Graeco-Roman and Judean worlds from which it emerged, Judge argues that one of the most distinguishing features of Christianity was the rejection of both Judean and Hellenistic education.325 For Judge, Judaism and Hellenism shared an antagonistic relationship exemplified in their radically different and competitive forms of education; Christianity critiqued or rejected the aims of both Judean and Hellenistic education, as well as the rivalry between them, presenting Christianity as superior to both.326 Judge does not think that Christians in the first three centuries completely disregarded encyclia paideia; in fact, he assumes that Christians would have received their literary training from the Hellenistic system already in place.327 The difference, he argues, is in the goals of education, early Christianity held in tension with Graeco- Roman paideia: 1) the spiritual human, 2) the complete/adult human, 3) and the loving human.328 Judge sees the “spiritual human” presented in Christianity—primarily by Paul—as a figure placed in opposition to those ruled by the Hebrew law (educated Judeans) and Greek wisdom (educated Greeks and Romans). In a final effort to differentiate early Christians from Graeco-

324 E. A. Judge, “The Conflict of Educational Aims in the New Testament,” in The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays, ed. James R. Harrison, WUNT 229 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 693–708. Judge restated many of the arguments raised here in a later piece (1983), demonstrating that his argument regarding the Christian rejection of paideia remained quite consistent throughout his career. E. A. Judge, “The Reaction Against Classical Education in the New Testament,” in The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays, ed. James R. Harrison, WUNT 229 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 709–16. 325 Judge, “Conflict of Educational Aims,” 694. Judge wrote assuming that Jewish and Hellenistic education were powerful-and-established-traditions that were constantly at odds with one another. Both the stark distinction between “Jewish” and “Hellenistic education” on the one hand, and the idea that either constituted a static curriculum have been criticized in more recent scholarship. Catherine Hezser has attempted to argue for a distinct system of Jewish Education in Roman Palestine, but her sources are Rabbinic or later and do not support the position that a distinct Jewish literary education was the norm in the first centuries of the common era. Catherine Hezser, Jewish Literacy in Roman Palestine Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum 81 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). 326 Judge, “Conflict of Educational Aims,” 697. 327 Judge, “Conflict of Educational Aims,” 695–97. 328 Judge, “Conflict of Educational Aims,” 703.

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Romans and Judeans, Judge claims that a complete person who has “grown in Christ” is measured by neither their moral progress, nor their intellectual progress, but rather by the dedication of the members of the body of Christ to each other.329 Judge’s focus on the differences between paideia and early Christianity is important given that comparison too often focuses on similarity while ignoring difference. And it is almost certainly the case that early Christian texts and discourses differed from paideia in interesting ways. In the case of paideia and early Christianity, however, the differences have often been overstated, resulting in the conclusion that early Christianity was radically different from, or even opposed to ancient intellectual culture. The seeds of this argument are present in Judge’s work, but it is in the work of his students, especially Claire S. Smith330 and James R. Harrison,331 that this line of argument is fleshed out more fully. Both are deeply indebted to Judge, and both describe a “collision” between early Christianity and Graeco-Roman culture, rather than a unity.332 Smith posits that 1 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Timothy, and Titus all provide evidence for a Pauline scholastic community. This community, she argues, is distinct from Graeco-Roman schools. She makes her argument by analyzing fifty-five “teaching words” present in the four letters. She finds that in all instances the teaching language used by Paul points to a pastoral/communal environment, quite different from the schools of the Greeks and Romans.333 Smith repeats that comparing early Christian writings—such as 1 Corinthians and the Pastoral Epistles—with writing and writing practices from the Graeco-Roman world was fruitless as she finds comparative studies “insufficient for understanding the social formation and nature of early Christian communities.”334 In refusing to engage in a comparative project, Smith’s impressive word study misses a chance to meaningfully comment on the ways in which early Christian texts

329 Judge, “Conflict of Educational Aims,” 705. Much of Judge’s work focuses equally on situating early Christianity alongside Graeco-Roman intellectual culture, and showing why early Christianity was distinct from it. Judge focuses almost exclusively on Paul, and I will raise some issues with his arguments on the distinctness of Paul in chapter four. For Judge on the distinctness of Paul, see E. A. Judge, Social Distinctives of the Christians in the First Century: Pivotal Essays by E. A. Judge, ed. David M. Scholer (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008). 330 Smith, Pauline Communities as “Scholastic Communities.” 331 James R. Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia: Ephesian Benefactors, Civic Virtue and the New Testament,” EC 7 (2016): 346–67. 332 “Collision” is Harrison’s term, Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 347. 333 Smith, Pauline Communities as “Scholastic Communities,” 386. 334 Smith, Pauline Communities as “Scholastic Communities,” 393.

110 adopted and adapted existing paideic discourses. Even if a text like 1 Corinthians represents a complete rejection of paideia (and as I argue in chapter five, I do not think that it does) that rejection necessarily comes from someone versed in the rhetoric and content of paideia. A rejection or critique of paideia in the style of 1 Corinthians comes from inside the tradition, not from the outside. Smith’s insistence that Christianity was radically, even uniquely different from the Graeco-Roman world from which it emerged is reminiscent of other arguments for Christianity’s theological, social, and historical uniqueness, arguments that Jonathan Z. Smith has thoroughly dismantled.335 Claire Smith provides an interesting grouping of “scholastic” Pauline passages, but her conclusion that they are distinctly Christian and cannot be understood with reference to Graeco-Roman scholastic theories and practices is not convincing. Harrison makes a similar argument with respect to paideia in the pseudo-Pauline letters Ephesians and 2 Timothy.336 Harrison reviews several honourific inscriptions from , including four from the Library of Celsus in order to construct the ways in which Ephesian elite understood and participated in paideia, the ways in which they present paideia and pastoral practices (especially for the gymnasiarch), the ways in which this is similar to early Christian behaviours and understanding of virtue, and the ways in which early Christianity was quite different. Like Judge, Harrison focuses almost exclusively on Paul and his pastoral program as he compares the Ephesian gymnasiarch to early Christian sensibilities. Similarities between the inscriptions and the letters of Paul include a general pastoral concern, a catalog of virtues, the connection of work and deed, and hating the bad and loving the good.337 In spite of these similarities, Harrison is more concerned with the differences in ethos that he argues are even more pronounced: 1) the pastoral ethos of the gymnasiarch is distinctly masculine, whereas Paul’s is both paternal and maternal; 2) Paul prefers the psychagogic model of the gentle philosopher to the “antagonistic paradigm” of the ancient gymnasium; 3) the gymnasium encouraged competition for manliness and civic virtue, whereas Paul is concerned with “the formation of the crucified and risen Christ in the church”; and 4) Paul reverses the expectations that a benefactor be illustrious and holds up “a dishonored and impoverished benefactor as the

335 Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (University of Chicago Press, 1990). 336 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia.” 337 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 350–51.

111 model for all apostolic ministry.”338 In Paul’s pastoral program, Harrison argues that “[w]e are witnessing here a dismantling of the inscriptional icons of civic virtue and their replacement by a cruciform Servant-Benefactor […] notwithstanding the fact that Paul’s portrait of Christ in 2 Cor 8:9 rhetorically functions as a paradoxical counterpart to the inscriptional vignettes of civic beneficence.”339 Following Judge, Harrison presents (Pauline) Christianity as a rejection of the civic and personal virtue that practitioners of paideia valued so highly. Harrison then turns to the construction of virtue in Celsus’ Library, noting that among elites like Celsus, there was intense competition for moral and civic precedence.340 Again Harrison examines the competition for prestige present in Celsus’ inscriptions in order to compare and contrast it with Pauline Christianity. Harrison notes similarities—Paul’s qualities for believers in Phil 4:8 contains three qualities from Mediterranean honourific culture (εὔφηµα, ἀρετή, ἔπαινος) and Paul’s establishment of a canon of virtue has parallels in the Graeco-Roman world—but again, for Harrison, the differences outweigh the similarities. Harrison concludes this section by stating that a Christian community “living under the reign of grace and keeping in step with Spirit […] unleashes ethical qualities that are personally transformative, communal in focus, non-elitist and service-based in expression, and distinctive in their social relations.”341 It is not clear, however, how a “Christian community” would be different from any other social group in the Graeco-Roman world. Harrison’s last section turns to economic matters, and he argues that early Christians did not have the financial means to participate in competitions over prestige. He grants that Christians modified some aspect of civic honour, but that they still could not compete at the levels of benefaction that Greek and Roman elites could. Graeco-Roman elites received honour from their civic benefaction including the repairing of buildings, donating money to build new structures, and erecting statues and/or inscriptions in their own honour. Christians, according to Harrison, were a community of benefaction straddling “traditional and innovative models of beneficence.”342 Why Christians were different from other social groups is, once again, not established. Instead, Harrison argues that the uniqueness of being in the body of Christ made

338 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 351. 339 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 352. 340 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 357. 341 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 358. 342 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 362.

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Pauline communities radically different from the practices of beneficence in Graeco-Roman groups. There are a number of issues with Harrison’s conclusions, most of which centre on Harrison’s understanding of Christian/Pauline communities. First, Harrison overemphasizes differences while downplaying similarities. We should, of course, exercise care that we not only focus on similarities when making comparisons, but that does not mean differences should be given pride and place. On his comparison between Paul and the gymnasium, we can grant that the gender language and “antagonistic paradigm” of the gymnasium differ from Paul’s paternal/maternal and psychagogic approach, but we must also recognize that this differentiates Paul from a gymnasiarch, just one person in the world of paideia. Paul’s paternal/maternal and psychagogic approach are also both paralleled in other circles of paideia.343 Harrison’s third and fourth differences, that the gymnasium encouraged competition for manliness and civic virtue, whereas Paul is concerned with “the formation of the crucified and risen Christ in the church”; and that Paul reverses the expectations that a benefactor be illustrious and holds up “a dishonored and impoverished benefactor as the model for all apostolic ministry” assume differences and do not argue for them. It is not clear how or why “the formation of the crucified and risen Christ in the church” is opposed to competition for manliness or civic virtue, and while Paul may present himself as “dishonoured and impoverished,” he also presents himself as the prophet of the one true god. So while his appearance and self-presentation might raise eyebrows, his patron deity would be recognizable as a powerful and important god worthy of benefaction. Second, Harrison differentiates Christians from others by stating that Christian communities were “living under the reign of grace and keeping in step with Spirit” and that this unleashed “ethical qualities that are personally transformative, communal in focus, non-elitist and service-based in expression, and distinctive in their social relations.”344 It is not clear what “living under a reign of grace” means, or how this leads to Christians forming communal “non- elitist and service based” ethical qualities. Roman networks of benefaction were explicitly communal and service based. Benefactors provided goods and services for their communities,

343 Abraham J. Malherbe, “Gentle as a Nurse: The Cynic Background to 1 Thess 2,” NovT 12 (1970): 203–17; Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987); Clarence E. Glad, Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010). 344 Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia,” 358.

113 and those communities got together to give benefaction. Without benefactors, communities would not have public works, entertainment, protection, or food in times of need.345 And it was not simply a system that relied on a benevolent elite. As Philip Harland argues, “[c]ultural values of the day virtually made such benefactions a duty. Failure to meet expectations, especially at critical times, could result in shame and, more concretely, angry mobs seeking revenge against wealthier inhabitants.”346 Third, and perhaps most problematic, Harrison is never clear on what differentiates a “Christian community” from other social groups in terms of their structures. He attempts to differentiate them based on some practices, but a I have just argued, these differences are largely artificial. The problem here is the assumption of established Christian communities. Harrison argues that “Christian communities” were somehow distinct from the world around them, but this is a claim, not an argument. Comparative studies of Pauline ekklesia and Graeco-Roman associations have revealed a great deal in terms of the practices of non-elite social groups in antiquity, and the ways in which we can usefully examine early Christian social groups alongside these associations.347 Finally, Harrison does not address two issues pertaining to evidence of Christian civic benefaction. First, his description of benefaction is far too narrow. Benefaction was not exclusive to benefactors who erected buildings and monuments, and one did not have to be wealthy to contribute. Philip Harland argues convincingly that one of the benefits of belonging to an association in antiquity was pooling resources to contribute to a benefactor. Non- elites were unlikely to gain the attention of an imperial or civic benefactor on their own, but “[b]y cooperating together in the form of an association” non-elites “could ensure the possibility of such relations in the and empire.”348 Finally, the argument that Christians did not participate in civic benefaction is based on the assumption that we would recognize a Christian

345 Philip A. Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations: Claiming a Place in Ancient Mediterranean Society (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 97–101. 346 Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations, 100. 347 Richard S. Ascough, What Are They Saying about the Formation of Pauline Churches? (New York: Paulist Press, 1998); Richard S. Ascough, “The Thessalonian Christian Community as a Professional Voluntary Association,” JBL 119 (2000): 311–28; John S. Kloppenborg and Richard S. Ascough, Greco-Roman Associations: Texts, Translations, and Commentary : Attica, Central Greece, , Thrace (Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2011); Philip A. Harland, Greco-Roman Associations: Texts, Translations, and Commentary. II. North Coast of the Black Sea, Asia Minor (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014); Richard Last, “The Election of Officers in the Corinthian Christ-Group,” NTS 59 (2013): 365–81; Richard Last, The Pauline Church and the Corinthian Ekklēsia: Greco-Roman Associations in Comparative Context (Cambridge University Press, 2016). 348 Harland, Associations, Synagogues, and Congregations, 101.

114 inscription. Prior to the late second century, Christian inscriptions would be invisible if they did not have distinctly Christian names and/or paralinguistic marks. Both Smith and Harrison follow Judge in seeing in early Christianity a strong rejection of the pretensions of paideia. All three note important similarities, but ultimately conclude that the differences are overwhelming. Methodologically, this is a reasonable way to approach comparison. Too often similarity is favoured over difference, and analogical comparisons are confused with, or are morphed into genealogical comparisons. And we should be cautious against assuming that because some early Christian texts contain Graeco-Roman notions of virtue or paideia, early Christians must themselves have discoursed in paideia in similar manner to Celsus or Philo. Attention to difference is important, but the differences raised by Judge, Smith, and Harrison are rooted in a priori assumptions about 1) the communal nature of Christianity, 2) a unity of belief among these communities, and 3) the radical departure from the Graeco-Roman world that “being in Christ” entailed. There is good reason to think that the social make-up of early Christian groups was quite analogous to non-elite Graeco-Roman social organization. There is also reason to doubt that early Christianity, even Pauline Christianity, was in any way unified in belief or practice. And finally, invoking “being in Christ” as the distinct marker of early Christian identity arbitrarily insulates Christianity from the world around it by elevating the uniqueness of Christ to the level of absolute identifier. Karl Olav Sandnes takes a different approach, asking not how Christianity rejected paideia, but how early Christianity met the challenges posed by paideia. His book is divided into three sections: the first looks at encyclical education in antiquity with a focus on the presence of Homer and the Greek gods; the second looks at Christian responses to the challenge of encyclia paideia in the second through fourth centuries; and the third section asks if the challenges of paideia were present in formative, especially Pauline Christianity. In Part 1, Sandnes presents encyclia paideia as a “challenge” to Christian students as it taught using Homer and the Greek gods. He takes as his entry point P.Bouriant, a fourth century school notebook that features a small cross and the word θεός on the first page.349 Sandnes takes the cross and the name of god as an indication that the student was somehow conflicted between his Christian identity and his pagan schooling (fair enough) and uses this occasion to ask whether or not Christians in the first

349 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 3.

115 century would also have been challenged by an encyclia paideia that consisted of Homer and Greek religion. Sandnes’ description of encyclia paideia is sound, but, as we shall see, his question as to whether encyclia paideia would have posed a challenge to “Christians” in the first century assumes too early and distinct a category of “Christian.” Sandnes’ second part examines how encyclia paideia was received by Christians in the second, third, and fourth centuries. Sandnes argues that encyclia paideia received mixed reviews from later Christian intellectuals; some warned students to stay clear of what was deemed to be pagan idolatry, but the majority understood encyclia paideia as, at worst, a necessary evil (Tertullian), or as something beneficial to the Christian faith (Clement of Alexandria and Origin). Importantly, both those who saw encyclia paideia as a necessary evil and those who saw it as beneficial framed it in terms of its propaideutic value: encyclia paideia had value in that it helped prepare students for their Christian life, it did not have value in and of itself. Tertullian claimed that school masters and teachers of literature were “in affinity with manifold idolatry” since they preached the gods and observed their festivals (Tertullian, On Idolatry 10.1, ANF). That being the case, Tertullian also recognizes “the necessity of literary erudition” lamenting that “partly it cannot be admitted, partly it cannot be avoided” (On Idolatry 10.5) Tertullian allows that learning is acceptable for believers (since a literary education helps a Christian believer), but it is not acceptable for a Christian to teach (On Idolatry 10.5). Tertullian saw encyclia paideia as a necessary preparation for studia divina as there was no other way for Christians to acquire the necessary skills of reading and writing.350 Clement of Alexandria was even more positive, refuting opponents who attacked Greek philosophy and education by stating that “Our book will not shrink from making use of what is best in philosophy and other preparatory” (Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.1. Trans. Philip Schaff ANF). Clement provides an even more poignant defense of encyclia paideia in Stromata 1.9, “I call him truly learned who brings everything to bear on the truth; so that, from geometry, and music, and grammar, and philosophy itself, culling what is useful, he guards the faith against assault.” Clement, however, is still aware of concerns over the content of encyclia paideia as Stromata 6.10 indicates. Here Clement argues against the “Gnostics” who derive truth from encyclia paideia, rather than using it as preparation for “Christian truths.” Sandnes argues that

350 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 120.

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Clement see encyclical studies as both useful, and necessary preparation for the wisdom of Christ: just as the Law of Moses prepares the Jews, so encyclical studies prepares the Greek.351 Sandnes reviews several other Ante-Nicaean authors, but his conclusions for Tertullian and Clement will serve to illustrate his point: encyclia paideia was cautiously endorsed by many Christian intellectuals as a necessary preparation for Christian life, but its ties to pagan gods remained a concern. At this point Sandnes turns to the first-century to ask to what extent are the “challenges” of encyclia paideia presented in patristic sources already present in the first century?352 In step with my first three chapters, Sandnes argues that education and culture were intimately tied in the Graeco-Roman world, and he presents this tie as a potential challenge to early Christians: how could they reconcile the technical skills presented in encyclia paideia with the content of pagan gods, particularly in Homer and the poets?353 Sandnes argues (correctly, I think) that the general form and content of encyclia paideia did not change much between the mid third century BCE and the seventh century CE, but from the fact that encyclia paideia would have been more or less the same in Paul’s day as Tertullian’s, jumps to the conclusion that, [w]e can therefore safely assume that the challenges which first-century Christians faced in terms of education is rightly understood in the light of later sources. This implies that New Testament texts which later generations found relevant to the question of Greek learning were, in fact, written at a time when this already was a challenge, at least to some Christians. In brief, it is unlikely that believers in the first century CE were generally unfamiliar with the problems formulated by later generations.354

The presence of Greek gods in encyclia paideia is not controversial, and so if first century “Christians” received their education through encyclia paideia, then they would have encountered Greek gods. But this does not necessarily pose the “challenge” that Sandnes proposes. The Greek gods and idols were a “challenge” for Tertullian because he wrote at a time that Christianity had begun to distinguish itself from the Greek and Roman pantheons. It is by no means clear that a stable and distinct Christianity existed in the first century to be challenged by Homer in the first place.

351 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 140. 352 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 247. 353 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 231. 354 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 247–48.

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It is here that Sandnes’ analysis turns to Paul. Sandnes argues that Paul was familiar with Greek education—he uses and creates a number of maxims, quotes Menander or Euripides (1 Cor. 15:33), and employs paideic language—but also argues that Paul never discusses encyclia paideia directly in his letters.355 Since Paul does not talk about encyclia paideia directly, Sandnes turns to the idea of progression towards virtue—a central point in encyclia paideia and a point that later Christians used to justify the value of encyclia paideia—as possible evidence that Paul did or did not value encyclia paideia. Sandnes sees possible evidence of this in Galatians and Philippians. Galatians 3:24 was used by Clement of Alexandria and others to show how encyclia paideia served a propaideutic function, so Sandnes asks if it might also serve that function in the context of Galatians. “Therefore the law was our pedagogue until Christ came, in order that we might be justified from pistis” (Gal. 3:24).

Clement of Alexandria used this as evidence that Christ was teacher par excellence and that Christianity was the end of a progression through stages of learning.356 Sandnes, however, argues that in the context of Galatians, “the question of encyclical studies as a preparation for virtue is not raised […] Virtue has no human preparation!”357 Turning to Philippians, Sandnes looks at Paul’s language of progression in Phil. 3:12-16. But here Sandnes argues that progression is set in an apocalyptic framework, not in terms of progression through paideia to virtue. Sandnes concludes his study of encyclia paideia in Paul by arguing that “Paul’s value confrontation with the virtue-system of the intellectual elite made him express himself in ways that paved the way for abandoning Greek education altogether. Since encyclical studies initiated the climb towards the philosophical virtues, many Christians, probably also among Paul’s converts, found him issuing a warning which covered liberal studies as well.”358 I agree with Sandnes that Paul’s letters do not appear to be particularly concerned with encyclia paideia, and I think Sandnes’ conclusions that Paul paved the way for later generations to think about paideia are important and far more nuanced than the ideas put forth by Judge et. al. But as with Judge and company, Sandnes is too dismissive of the ways in which Paul can be seen as a figure within a world of

355 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 251–52. 356 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 262. 357 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 262. 358 Sandnes, The Challenge of Homer, 269.

118 paideia. Paul may not take over progression toward virtue in Galatians or Philippians, but this is not the only evidence that Paul was working with, claiming, and performing Graeco-Roman paideia.359 And while Sandnes is certainly more careful than Judge when it comes to not projecting the concerns of later Christians into the first century, I find his argument that encyclia paideia would have “challenged” first century “Christians” difficult to imagine without projecting an established Christian identity anachronistically back into the first century. The two most recent studies of early Christianity and encyclia paideia, come from Udo Schnelle’s 2015 article “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung” and Matthew Hauge’s and Andrew Pitts’ co-edited volume Ancient Education and Early Christianity. Schnelle is less concerned with encyclia paideia specifically, and instead looks at texts from within the New Testament for evidence that early Christians came from the educated classes, and not from the low cultural and educational classes as is often assumed.360 Schnelle makes his case based on the written character of the New Testament, and the complicated content therein. On the former, Schnelle argues that the idea of early Christians as text-producers has been underdeveloped, largely due to the fact that Christian texts are compared to elite textual productions such as Philo, Josephus, Seneca, Epictetus, and Plutarch.361 The texts of the New Testament were not of the same quality as those of Epictetus, and perhaps their Greek was simpler, but this does not mean the texts were simple. They still engaged in complicated ideas, and, as Schnelle argues, the gospels and letters of Paul assumed, and even demanded an intelligent audience of considerable education.362 In terms of intellectual content, Schnelle argues that the creation of “Die Sprache des Kreuzes” and “Die Sprache des Glaubens,”363 the presence of schools in the New Testament (particularly Pauline and Johanine),364 and the philosophical content of the letters of Paul and the Johanine literature365 force us to reevaluate the educational capabilities of early Christians.366 Schnelle provides a short section defining what he means by “education” wherein he makes references to Seneca’s expectations for literacy, and for the most part does not imagine education

359 This is the focus on my fourth chapter. 360 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” 115–16. 361 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” 121. 362 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” 125. 363 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” 125–30. 364 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” 131–35. 365 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” 135–40. 366 Schnelle, “Das frühe Christentum und die Bildung,” 140.

119 outside of literacy. Thus Schnelle’s conclusions speak to the literary capabilities of early Christians, and not to their relationship with encyclia paideia. Still, his contribution is important as it provides yet more evidence that early Christian texts were composed and consumed by (at least some) relatively educated people. Most recently (2016), Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts edited a volume addressing many of the questions raised in this dissertation. Hauge and Pitts bring together ten chapters in order to address the relationship between ancient education and early Christianity. The chapters are introductory and exploratory, but they provide one of the first and most sustained examinations of encyclia paideia and early Christianity. Of particular note are the chapters authored by Hauge, Pitts, and Sean A. Adams. Hauge examines the parables in the synoptic gospels and in light of ’s fables, concluding that the moral aspect of the parables has its closest analogy in Aesop.367 Pitts uses the popular teaching technique of mimesis to compare Mark’s composition with the composition strategies of Greek historians. This comparison allows Pitts to present the Gospel of Mark as a “Greco-Roman historical narrative with Jewish function and content.”368 Adams’ chapter looks at Luke’s potential use of the progymnasmata and concludes that while Luke may have made use of the handbook, the composer was almost certainly not rhetorically trained.369 Taken together, the contents of this book bring together ancient education and early Christianity in ways that are neither superficial nor dismissive. But while these studies demonstrate a new interest in studying emerging Christianities alongside Graeco-Roman education, they tend to treat both as somewhat static and separate. My contribution lies in the fact that the majority of those who compare emerging Jesus traditions alongside encyclia paideia draw a strong distinction between “Christianity” on the one hand, and “pagan education” on the other. Encyclia paideia was a fundamental part of the world in which Christianity emerged, and as I will demonstrate in part two, it played an instrumental role in

367 Matthew Ryan Hauge, “Fabulous Parables: The Storytelling Tradition in the Synoptic Gospels,” in Ancient Education and Early Christianity, ed. Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts, ed. Chris Keith (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 89–106. 368 Andrew W. Pitts, “The Origins of Greek Mimesis and the Gospel of Mark: Genre as a Potential Constraint in Assessing Markan Imitation,” in Ancient Education and Early Christianity, ed. Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts, ed. Chris Keith (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 130. 369 Sean A. Adams, “Luke and Progymnasmata: Rhetorical Handbooks, Rhetorical Sophistication and Genre Selection,” in Ancient Education and Early Christianity, ed. Matthew Ryan Hauge and Andrew W. Pitts, ed. Chris Keith (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 153.

120 shaping the form and content of 1 Corinthians, and the Gospel of Thomas.

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Chapter 4: The Gospel of Thomas

1. Early Christians as Marginal Intellectuals Part One examined ancient education and the ways in which it shaped the world of the intellectual elite, the pepaideumenoi, by exploring the following features of ancient education: 1) the emphasis on education as virtuous, 2) the exercises with which young students learned to read and write, 3) the social locations of students, 4) the social locations of paidagogoi, didaskaloi, grammatikoi, rhetor, and sophoi, 5) the structure of ancient schools, 6) the ways in which ancient education produced many partially educated people, 7) and the ways in which these partially educated people used the education they had to perform the virtues of paideia. Chapter Three provided several examples of partially educated individuals from the satires of Lucian, the Symposia of Plutarch, and documentary letters and archives. Part Two of this dissertation argues that at least some early Christians fit the mould of marginally educated people I described in Chapter Three. The implication of this argument is that these early Christians would have been aware of the social prestige potentially present in performing their education and did so in their production and consumption of texts about Jesus. To this point I have constructed a world of intellectuals in antiquity. This is a world in which people recognized the value of a chreia, admired declamation, collected books, and discussed weighty topics at symposia. Some members of this world were truly of the intellectual elite resembling Plutarch, Lucian, and Quintilian. Many others, however (and the vast majority of students who received schooling) were marginally educated: capable of recognizing the social value of elite paideia, but not capable of participating in it in traditional ways. But this opened space for innovation and invention. The emergence of popular genres of reading material in the first centuries is one such innovation coming from the margins of intellectual culture. In this chapter I argue that the Gospel of Thomas should be understood an another such innovation emerging from the margins of the intellectual world of antiquity. Scholars who examine early Christian texts with respect to Graeco-Roman paideia tend to present Christianity as in stark contrast to the world of paideia. As Harrison argues, the first believers issued a radical challenge to values and practices of Greco-Roman paideia rather than working gradually towards a unity with its curriculum. It is likely that the early Christian rejection of the elitism associated with paideia and the

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democratization of the teaching of the Septuagint and apostles in the local Body of Christ attracted the socially marginalized.370

I take the opposite theoretical position and argue that early writings about Jesus survived, and perhaps thrived not because they rejected the world of paideia, but because they were immediately recognized as products of paideia (especially in circles of more marginally educated people identified in chapter 3). My argument in this chapter is that the Gospel of Thomas would have been recognized as a text with pretentions to intellectual sophistication, and certainly as a text offering access to new forms of paideia to those for whom more traditional forms were not accessible.

2. The Gospel of Thomas At first glance Gos. Thom. may seem an odd choice. On the one hand, Gos. Thom. is not part of the New Testament and some might claim that Gos. Thom. tells us very little about early Christianity. On the other hand, Gos. Thom. has received more scholarly attention than any other non-canonical text, so what more could one possibly say about it? But while Gos. Thom. has been the subject of numerous studies, very few of these treatments are interested in the social world in which Gos. Thom. was situated. The majority of the books and articles published on Gos. Thom. focus on the text from within a Nag Hammadi/Gnostic bubble, or on the gospel’s relationship (or lack thereof with the texts of the New Testament).371 These questions are

370 James R. Harrison, “Sponsors of Paideia: Ephesian Benefactors, Civic Virtue and the New Testament,” EC 7 (2016): 367. 371 The major recent studies in support of Gos. Thom.’s dependence on the New Testament are: Simon Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas: Introduction and Commentary, Lam edition. (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2014); Simon Gathercole, “Thomas Revisited: A Rejoinder to Denzey Lewis, Kloppenborg and Patterson,” JSNT 36 (2014): 262–81; Simon Gathercole, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas: Original Language and Influences, (Cambridge University Press, 2012); Simon Gathercole, “Luke in the Gospel of Thomas,” NTS 57 (2011): 114–44; Simon J. Gathercole, “The Influence of Paul on the Gospel of Thomas (53.3 and 17),” in Thomasevangelium: Entstehung, Rezeption, Theologie, ed. Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Jens Schröter, BZNW (Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 72–94; Mark Goodacre, “Did Thomas Know the Synoptic Gospels? A Response to Denzey Lewis, Kloppenborg and Patterson,” JSNT 36 (2014): 282–93; Mark Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels: The Case for Thomas’s Familiarity with the Synoptics (Cambridge: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012). Those who argue for Gos. Thom.’s independence, in whole or in part, include: Stephen J. Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus, Foundations and Facets. Reference Series (Sonoma, Calif.: Polebridge Press, 1993); Stephen J. Patterson, “Twice More—Thomas and the Synoptics: A Reply to Simon Gathercole, The Composition of the Gospel of Thomas, and Mark Goodacre, Thomas and the Gospels,” JSNT 36 (2014): 251–61; April D. DeConick, Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas: A History of the Gospel and Its Growth, Library of New Testament Studies (London: T&T Clark, 2006); April D. DeConick, The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation: With a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel (London: T&T Clark, 2007); John S. Kloppenborg, Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, & Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine (Tübingen:

123 interesting in their own right, but they are not my present concern. In this chapter I ask: how did early Jesus texts draw on literary methods and genre tropes taught in Greek schools? Others have begun the project of describing social worlds in which Gos. Thom. may have circulated: notably Ron Cameron,372 Stephen Patterson,373 Risto Uro,374 and William Arnal.375 But even counting these studies, we still lack a thick description of a world in which a text like Gos. Thom. could have been produced, been shared, and thrived. This chapter seeks fill this lacuna by situating Gos. Thom. in the world of the pepaideumenoi (the ones having received education/paideia). In doing so I argue that in Gos. Thom. we have a text with pretentions toward intellectual sophistication, and a familiarity with some grammatical forms, rhetorical strategies, and philosophical principles that circulated among the intellectual elite. This description of Gos. Thom.’s composers is similar to Willi Braun’s description of Q’s composers: Q contains a “kitbag of literary competencies” that served to signal to other intellectuals that it belonged in a field of intellectual production, even if it was not an elite product itself. Braun understands the text of Q as a “scribal return to an apparently repudiated scribal modality of discourse in order to empower its own self evidencies.”376 By this, Braun refers to Q’s attempts

Mohr Siebeck, 2006); John S. Kloppenborg, “A New Synoptic Problem: Mark Goodacre and Simon Gathercole on Thomas,” JSNT 36 (2014): 199–239. 372 Especially and foundationally, Ron Cameron, “Ancient Myths and Modern Theories of the Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins,” MTSR 11 (1999): 236–57. 373 Much of which I have already mentioned and has been collected and published in, Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins. Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Jesus; Stephen J Patterson, The Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins: Essays on the Fifth Gospel, 2013; Stephen J. Patterson, “Paul and the Jesus Tradition: It Is Time for Another Look,” HTR 84 (1991): 23–41; Stephen J Patterson, “The View from Across the Euphrates,” HTR 104 (2011): 411–31; Stephen J. Patterson, “Apocalypticism or Prophecy and the Problem of Polyvalence: Lessons from the Gospel of Thomas,” JBL 130 (2011): 795–817; Stephen J. Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato: The Theology of the Gospel of Thomas and Middle Platonism,” in Thomasevangelium: Entstehung, Rezeption, Theologie, ed. Jörg Frey, Enno Edzard Popkes, and Jens Schröter, BZNW (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2008), 181–205. 374 Risto Uro, ed., Thomas at the Crossroads: Essays on the Gospel of Thomas, Studies of the New Testament and Its World (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1998); Risto Uro, Thomas: Seeking the Historical Context of the Gospel of Thomas (Continuum, 2003). 375 William E. Arnal, “The Rhetoric of Marginality: Apocalypticism, Gnosticism, and Sayings Gospels,” HTR 88 (1995): 471–94; William E. Arnal, “The Rhetoric of Social Construction: Language and Society in the Gospel of Thomas,” in Rhetoric and Reality in Early Christianities, ed. Willi Braun, Studies in Christianity and Judaism / Études Sur Le Christianisme et Le Judaïsme 16 (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2005), 27–48; William E. Arnal, “Blessed Are the Solitary: Textual Practices and the Mirage of a Thomas ‘Community,’” in “The One Who Sows Bountifully”: Essays in Honor of Stanley K. Stowers, ed. Caroline Johnson Hodge et al. (Providence, R.I.: Brown Judaic Studies, 2013), 271–81; William E. Arnal, “How the Gospel of Thomas Works,” in Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, ed. William E. Arnal et al. (Leuven, Paris, Bristol Conn: Peeters, 2016), 261–80. 376 Willi Braun, “Socio-Mythic Invention, Graeco-Roman Schools, and the Sayings Gospel Q,” MTSR 11 (1999): 210–35.

124 to present itself as a product of intellectuals, thereby tapping in to the social prestige that highly literate intellectuals were owed in antiquity. Q attempted to authorize the claims made in the document by attaching itself to the social prestige associated with intellectuals. The Gospel of Thomas, I argue, also attempts to associate itself with the world of ancient intellectuals. In this chapter I describe a number of features of Gos. Thom. (both generic and internal) that derive from, reflect, or make reference to Graeco-Roman encyclical education and rhetorical and philosophical schooling. My argument, like Braun’s with respect to Q, is not that Gos. Thom. is a sophisticated piece of elite literature, but that it certainly has pretensions to be read as such. The Gospel of Thomas displays generic and discursive features that suggest the producers and consumers of the text were not only familiar with encyclia paideia and the cultural capital attached to it, but also presented Gos. Thom. as a text whose composition, interpretation, and mastery demanded and demonstrated that the producer and reader have an advanced knowledge of paideia. To be clear, I am not arguing that Gos. Thom. is a philosophically sophisticated text, or that it circulated in the realm of the intellectual elite. Rather, I argue that Gos. Thom. is a product of marginal intellectuals—the semi/partially-educated people I identified in chapter three—and the gospel’s assumed or idealized readership was people with pretensions of intellectual sophistication. Gos. Thom.’s genre and composition suggest writers familiar with not simply prose composition, but also the specific skills of expanding chreiai according to the progymnasmata; Jesus is presented as a teacher of students throughout the gospel; and finally, Gos. Thom.’s various literary strategies of obfuscation suggest composers and consumers familiar with the cultural capital associated with seemingly complicated and sophisticated texts. I will go through each of these points and conclude that Gos. Thom. is best understood as a product of marginal intellectuals.

3. Material Evidence from P.Oxy I 1; IV 654, 655 Our earliest manuscript evidence for Gos. Thom., P. Oxy I 1; IV 654, 655, suggests a scholastic setting for the text in the third century. P. Oxy. IV 654 was composed in “an upright informal uncial of medium size” and contains punctuation that served as a reader’s aid.377 Both P. Oxy.

377 Bernard P. Grenfell and Arthur S. Hunt, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Part IV (London: Egypt Exploratory Fund, 1904), 1–2. For comment on the ways in which the description of the hand changes depending on the modern interpreter see, AnneMarie Luijendijk, “Reading the Gospel of Thomas in the Third Century: Three Oxyrhynchus

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IV 654 and 655 were part of a book roll, a common medium for Greek literature, and while P. Oxy. IV 654 was composed in scriptio continua, there are lexical aids such as diaeresis and paragraphus. Paragraphus—a horizontal strike, usually written in the left margin—occur five times, each time at the end of a saying, and they serve to separate the sayings making reading the text aloud much easier. Paragraphoi appear in school texts of all levels, but they appear most frequently in intermediate and advanced writing exercises.378 In school exercises, paragraphoi served to separate and organize different sections of exercises, and were particularly helpful in dividing short writing exercises such as maxims and sayings.379 Cribiore also notes that paragraphoi were used to aid inexperienced readers in reading out loud.380 The presence of paragraphus suggests that P. Oxy. IV 654 may have been composed in a school setting, and the presence of diaereseis suggests that, if it was a school product, that the text was composed by a teacher and not a student. Even if we do not imagine P. Oxy. IV 654 as a school exercise that students copied or declined, the fact that the sayings are separated by a paragraphus and are not written scripta continua still suggests a school setting in which each saying could be studied apart from the others. Cribiore lists seven school exercises that use paragraphoi to separate exercises and sayings, including P. Bour. 1 which employs a number of paragraphoi, especially to divide gnomai monostichoi and the verses of the first Prologue to Babrius’ Fables.381 In terms of punctuation, P. Oxy. IV 654 also features diaeresis, a lectional sign that aided reading. The diaeresis was used frequently in educational texts from the second century CE on, and it occurred as a result of teachers marking texts (especially Homer) to aid students. The presence of diaeresis suggests that a text was composed by a teacher for a student to read as there is very little evidence that students used diaereseis in their own writing.382 P. Oxy. IV 655, also part of a book roll, does not contain any lexical aids, but the fact that it was neatly written in short lines on a fresh roll suggests it could also have been used in a school setting, either read publicly or in one’s home with friends.383 P. Oxy. I 1 belonged to a

Papyri and Origen’s Homilies,” in Reading New Testament Papyri in Context, ed. Claire Clivaz and Jean Zumstein (Leuven, Paris, Walpole, MA: Peeters, 2011), 245. 378 Raffaella. Cribiore, Writing, Teachers, and Students in Graeco-Roman Egypt (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 81. 379 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 82. 380 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 82. 381 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 276. 382 Cribiore, Writers, Teachers, and Students, 83–84. 383 Luijendijk, “Reading the Gospel of Thomas,” 251.

126 codex, and both Roger Bagnall and Luijendijk argue that it was used in a liturgical setting.384 How a “liturgical setting” might have differed from a school setting is not clear, in fact, there may have been very little difference. Justin Martyr described weekly worship as involving reading the memoirs of the apostles or the writings of the prophets, followed by instruction and exhortation based on the readings (Justin, Apology 1.67). So even a “liturgical” setting could still be rather schoolish. Based on the material evidence, it is probable that Gos. Thom. was used in intellectual settings in the third century: studied privately, read out loud among friends or to a group, and perhaps even in an educational setting. In the remainder of this chapter I will argue that Gos. Thom.’s use among intellectuals goes back to its initial composition.

4. Genre It is my contention that the producers and consumers of Gos. Thom. came from this circle of marginal intellectuals that I describe in chapter 3. I argue that this is the case based on Gos. Thom.’s form and content, both of which would be immediately recognizable as paideia-laden to the students of the didaskalos and grammatikos. Gos. Thom. is a sayings collection, but more than that, Gos. Thom. is a chreiai collection. Chreiai appear in many different genre of ancient writing from early school exercises to philosophical tracts. John Kloppenborg classifies chreiai collections as a sub-genre of instruction literature, and lists 13 such collections dating from the first several centuries CE.385 Some of these collections are embedded in longer narratives or collections, such as the sayings of Demonax in Lucian’s Demonax, or sayings of various philosophers in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives of Eminent Philosophers. Several other collections of chreiai survive as school exercises. P. Bour. 1 is a notebook containing a number of school exercises, including five chreiai attributed to Diogenes the Cynic. P. Mich. inv. 25 contains fragments of three chreiai one attributed to Aristippus and two attributed to Aesop. P. Mich. inv. 41 is extremely fragmentary and only a single saying of Diogenes can be salvaged, but even in its fragmentary form, nine to ten chreiai appear to have been present.386 In their examination of chreiai in school exercises, Ronald F. Hock and Edward N. O’Neil identify an additional three

384 Luijendijk, “Reading the Gospel of Thomas,” 256. 385 John S. Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q: Trajectories in Ancient Wisdom Collections (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1987), 340–41. 386 Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia and Ancient Rhetoric, 20.

127 chreiai collections. In terms of social worlds, then, chreiai collections are found in school settings and as the sayings of philosophers. Collections of gnomai were standard features of ancient schooling, and more texts of gnomic sayings (250) survive from school exercises than any other type of literature or school exercise.387 Gnomologies were not limited to school settings, as gnomic maxims were used in early schooling, advanced schooling, and collected by those who had completed their schooling. Ps. Phocylides, the Menandri Sententiae, Sentences of Sextus, Distichs of Cato, Golden Verses, are all gnomologies composed by educated collectors of sayings, and sections of Lucian’s Demonax and Nigrinus and Diogenes Laertius Lives contain the many wise sayings of the philosophers therein. As a gnomology, Gos. Thom. is already well within the world of paideia. If form were not enough, the content of Gos. Thom. also parallels the standard content of gnomologies. As Morgan illustrates, the major topics covered in gnomologies are “wealth, virtue, logos (which has a range of meanings from ‘word’ though ‘sentence’ to ‘argument’) and speech, intellect, letters and education, women, family, friends and associates, old age, the gods, Tyche (‘fate’ or ‘fortune’) and self control.”388 The Gospel of Thomas contains sayings that address almost all of these themes: Wealth: 3, 29, 41, 54, 63, 64, 65, 76, 81, 85, 95, 98, 109, 110 Virtue: 6, 14, 27, 53 logos speech: 50 Intellect: 3, 5, 39 Letters and education: 9, 13 Women: 15, 46, 55, 79, 96, 97, 99, 101, 105, 114 Family, friends, and associates: 15, 16, 25, 26, 55, 72, 79, 99, 101, 105 Old age: 4 The gods: 30, 100 Tyche: 8, 76, 109 Self control: 28

Gos. Thom. spends a great deal of time discussing wealth, family, friends, and women, exactly the topics that we would expect from a chreiai collection from antiquity. As I showed in chapter 1, these were frequently the topics of chreiai in school exercises, and their presence in Gos. Thom. suggests a background in paideia.

387 Morgan, Literate Education, 122. 388 Morgan, Literate Education, 125.

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The Gospel of Thomas contains 114 chreiai, many of which take a simple form with the introduction “Jesus said” followed by a short saying. Gos. Thom. 1, for example: “And he said: the one who will find the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.”389 47 of Gos. Thom.’s sayings are this form of simple chreia, no longer or more difficult to comprehend than the elementary exercises reviewed in chapter one. Simple sayings such as Gos. Thom. 32 “Jesus said, ‘A city built on a high hill and fortified cannot fall, nor can it be hidden’” would have been at home in school exercises, and while I do not argue that the Gospel of Thomas served as a school text to be copied and recited, I do argue that the segment of the population who received at least primary training in encyclia paideia would have been able to recognize the form and wisdom of individual sayings in Gos. Thom. As a chreiai collection, Gos. Thom. presents the teachings of Jesus in a form that would have been familiar and accessible to people with various levels of encyclical training. We need not imagine that Gos. Thom. was the work of particularly educated composers, as it is entirely plausible that someone who was moderately educated, someone who learned with a grammarian, could have composed such a text. In terms of those who were reading, listening to, or otherwise consuming the text, the form of the chreia would have been immediately familiar as one of the vessels in which paideia was communicated. Instead of Diogenes or Aesop, we have Jesus. 4.1 Chreia in the Progymnasmata and Gospel of Thomas In addition to chreiai being the form of many school exercises and collections of the sayings of wise people, they also featured early and prominently in the progymnasmata. Progymnasmata from seven authors survive from antiquity: Aelius , Quintilian, Hermogenes of Tarus, Priscian, Aphthonius of Antioch, Nicolas of Myra, and the Vatican Grammarian.390 Theon’s is the oldest, but Hermogenes’ almost certainly represents an older tradition than Theon’s, and is the more similar to the other progymnasmata.391 Theon spends the most time classifying various chreiai with 153 lines, Hermogenes covers chreiai classification in 25 lines, and the other progymnasmata are closer to Hermogenes here. Theon also spends a great deal of time on the manipulation of chreiai, 215 lines, but his manipulations are for the most part distinct

389 Unless otherwise noted, translations of Gos. Thom. are from Marvin W. Meyer and Stephen J. Patterson in John S Kloppenborg et al., Q-Thomas Reader (Sonoma, Calif: Polebridge Press, 1990). 390 All the progymnasmata are collected and translated in George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). 391 Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 162.

129 to his progymnasmata, and Theon does not mention the very well attested practice of elaborating chreiai present in the other progymnasmata. Since Gos. Thom. does not follow the steps in elaborating chreiai outlined in Hermogenes and others, I will focus more on Theon’s classifications of chreiai. That being said, Gos. Thom. does include expansions of chreiai that are not mentioned in Theon but are parts of Hermogenes’ chreiai elaboration. In these places I will use Hermogenes’ terms rather than Theon’s. Theon of Alexandria’s progymnasmata spends a great deal of time discussing chreiai, especially the great variety in which chreiai might appear.392 A chreia is defined by Theon (and by most of the progymnasmata that followed) as “a brief saying or action making a point, attributed to some specified person or something corresponding to a person… A chreia is given that name par excellence, because more than the other (exercises) it is useful (χρειώδης) for many situations in life…”393 Chreiai are related to maxims and reminiscence, but their sub-generic range is far greater. Theon identifies three classes of chreiai: verbal (λογικαί), action (πρακτικαί), and mixed (µικταί) (Progymnasmata 97). Since all of the chreiai in Gos. Thom. are verbal, I will focus on the different types of verbal chreiai. Verbal chreiai deliver their authority through the words of the speaker (as opposed to actions) and can be further divided into declarative (ἀποφαντικός) and responsive (ἀποκριτικός) chreiai. Declarative chreiai are the most common in Gos. Thom., accounting for 91 of the gospel’s 114 sayings. But this is not to say that all of these sayings are chreia in their simplest form, and Theon provides us with a number of ways in which chreiai can be expressed and expanded. On the different ways in which chreiai can be expressed, of the most interest for my analysis of Gos. Thom. are chreiai expressed “as logical demonstrations” (αἱ δὲ ἀποδεικτικῶς) (Progymnasmata, 99). The mode of expression here is similar to Hermogenes’ prescription for providing a rationale for a chreia: it is a minor variation on the basic chreia, and is accomplished by adding a rationale/logical demonstration that supports the point of the chreia. As an example, Theon provides the following: “Isocrates the orator used to advise his acquaintances to honor teachers ahead of parents; for the latter have only been the cause of living but teachers are the cause of living well” (Theon, Progymnasmata, 99)

392 Theon, Progymnasmata, 96-106 (Spengel). 393 Theon, Progymnasmata 96-97, trans. George A. Kennedy, Progymnasmata: Greek Textbooks of Prose Composition and Rhetoric (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 15.

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This use of a rationale/logical demonstration is very common in Gos. Thom. and distinguishes many of the gospel’s chreiai from a simple gnomic saying.394 Responsive chreiai are less common in Gos. Thom., but the gospel still contains 23 such chreia. Theon divides responsive chreiai into four sub-categories: responses to a question, responses to an inquiry,395 providing cause to answer a question in the setup of the chreia (i.e. outside of the dialogue), or as responses to statements (ἀποκριτικός). Gos. Thom.’s responsive chreiai are either responses to inquiry or statements, but there are still a variety of ways in which these chreiai are presented. This leads to the final way in which we might think about Gos. Thom. according to Theon’s progymnasmata. Many of Gos. Thom.’s chreiai, declarative and responsive, have been expanded. For Theon, chreiai expansion covers any addition or elongation made to the question or answer. This is not the most complicated way to manipulate chreiai, but it does provide further evidence that the chreiai in Gos. Thom. were modified according to prescripts put forth in the progymnasmata. Finally, Gos. Thom. contains one mixed chreia (saying 100). Mixed chreiai contain both a saying and an action. In Gos. Thom. 100 Jesus is shown a gold coin, and upon seeing it delivers wisdom.396 Expanded chreiai can take on many forms, and the techniques of expansion can be relatively simple. This is different from chreia elaboration, which involves specific steps that build on a core chreia to form a rhetorical argument. Theon provides eight exercises that students could perform on chreia—recitation, comment, objection, expansion, condensation, refutation, and confirmation (Theon, Progymnasmata 103-106). Theon does not provide a detailed outline of chreia elaboration, but that is one of the major features of the chreiai section of Hermogenes’ progymnasmata and those that followed. Elaboration involved very specific additions to a chreia: praise, paraphrase of chreia, rationale, opposite, analogy, example, judgment, and exhortation (Hermogenes, Progymnasmata, 30-62). Gos. Thom. shows some familiarity with methods of expansion, but

394 For clarity, I will refer to the expression of the chreia as a whole as a “logical demonstration” and I will identify the part of the chreia that makes the logical demonstration different from a simple gnome the “rationale.” I realize I am combining terms from Theon and Hermogenes, but it is my hope it will make Gos. Thom.’s use and expansion of chreiai clearer. 395 An inquiry differs from a question as it requires a lengthier answer, questions can be answered with a “yes” or “no” Theon, Progymnasmata, 97. 396 John W. Marshall, “The Gospel of Thomas and the Cynic Jesus,” in Whose Historical Jesus?, ed. William E. Arnal and Michel Robert Desjardins (Waterloo, Ont: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1997), 58.

131 none of Gos. Thom.’s chreiai are fully elaborated. Still, even without rising to the level of Hermogenes, Gos. Thom. still displays signs of paideia in its use of chreiai. Beyond discussions of chreiai, the progymnasmata served to prepare students to form arguments in rhetorical school, as the progymnasmata used chreiai to teach students how to form and argue for a thesis. Here Hermogenes is more helpful than Theon. The presentation of a chreia as a thesis that needs argumentative support moves chreiai from being the sayings of a wise person to being part of a persuasive argument. For example: “Isocrates said education’s root is bitter, but its fruits sweet”; the thesis is that education is hard but worthwhile. A thesis, however, is not an argument, and the progymnasmata trained students to take chreiai-as-theses and expand upon them, turning theses into arguments. Several progymnasmata survive from antiquity, but it is the progymnasmata of Hermogenes that is most helpful in understanding how chreiai were transformed into rhetorical arguments.397 To be sure, Gos. Thom. does not contain any chreiai elaborated according to Hermogenes’ progymnasmata, but many of the expansions of chreiai in Gos. Thom. can be better understood with reference to both Theon’s expansions and Hermogenes’ elaborations. Hermogenes’ elaborations are the following: But now let me move on to the chief matter, and this is the elaboration. Accordingly, let the elaboration be as follows: (1) First, an encomium, in a few words, for the one who spoke or acted, Then (2) a paraphrase of the chreia itself; then (3) the rationale. For example Isocrates said that education’s root is bitter, its fruit is sweet. (1) Praise; “Isocrates was wise,” and you amplify the subject moderately. (2) Then the chreia: “He said thus and so,” and you are not to express it simply but rather by amplifying the presentation. (3) Then the rationale: “For the most important affairs generally succeed because of toil, and once they have succeeded, then bring pleasure.” (4) Then the statement from the opposite: “For ordinary affairs do not need toil, and they have an outcome that is entirely without pleasure; but serious affairs have the opposite outcome.” (5) Then the statement from analogy: “For just as it is the lot of farmers to reap their fruits after working with the land, so also is it for those working with words.” (6) Then the statement from example: “Demosthenes after locking himself in a room and toiling long, later reaped his fruits: wreaths and public acclamations.” (7) It is also possible to argue from the statement by an authority. For example, “Hesiod said, ‘In front of virtue gods have ordained sweat.’ And another poet says, ‘At the price of toil do the gods sell every good to us.’”

397 Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric, 162.

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(8) At the end you are to add an exhortation to the effect that it is necessary to heed the one who has spoken or acted.398

Priscian’s Latin translation of Hermogenes’ progymnasmata is consistent with the original in asserting that the most important function of the chreia is the elaboration and (internal) arrangement of the chreia.399 Indeed, Hermogenes’ method of chreiai manipulation was adopted without alteration by Aphthonious of Anioch,400 and Nicholas of Myra.401 For Hermogenes and those who followed, the elaboration of a chreia served as “the complete” argument according to contemporary rhetorical theory.402 Burton Mack was one of the first to use the prescribed elaboration of chreiai as a way to examine texts in the New Testament. Mack and co-author Vernon K. Robbins understood chreiai as “the most interesting speech-form, recognized by Greco-Roman educators as a unit of composition with both literary and rhetorical characteristics” and as a bridge between “rhetorical speech on the one hand and discursive, narrative literature on the other.”403 In additional to the elaborations prescribed by the progymnasmata (which Mack categorizes as “external” expansions), Mack argued that chreiai could also be expanded by internally by amplifying the narrative aspects of a chreia.404 This form of expansion was less formally regulated than a full elaboration and allowed a saying to be expanded into a larger narrative. Given that chreiai could be embedded in or expanded into narrative discourses in many ways, the possibilities of chreiai expansion are multiple and complex, and Robbins argued that not all features of elaboration needed to be present in order to formulate and support the thesis of a given chreia.405 So while as a school exercise the eight steps outlined by Hermogenes represented a full and proper elaboration, it seems that in practice an elaboration more generally contained an introduction, chreia, and rationale.406 Robbins argued that the key to turning the

398 Hermogenes, Progymnasmata, 30-62. In Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. 399 Priscian, Progymnasmata 30-64. In Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. 400 Aphthonious, Progymnasmata 18-78. In Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. 401 Nicholas, Progymnasmata 162-184. In Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric. 402 Burton L. Mack, “Elaboration of the Chreia in the Hellenistic Schools,” in Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels, ed. Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins (Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1989), 52. 403 Mack, “Elaboration of the Chreia,” 32. 404 Mack, “Elaboration of the Chreia,” 32. 405 Vernon K. Robbins, “Chreia and Pronouncement Story in Synoptic Studies,” in Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels, ed. Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins (Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1989), 27; Burton L. Mack and Vernon K. Robbins, “Conclusion,” in Patterns of Persuasion in the Gospels (Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1989), 199. 406 Robbins, “Chreia and Pronouncement Story,” 27.

133 thesis of a chreia into an argument was not necessarily including all eight elaborations. Rather, the key was to introduce the thesis and then provide rationale(s).407 The Gospel of Thomas does not contain any full chreia elaborations and, given that it is a sayings collection with almost no narrative, there are few examples of internal chreia expansion. That said, Gos. Thom. contains a number of responsive chreiai as well as chreiai that contain small expansions such as logical demonstrations/rationale. It is in these sayings that Gos. Thom. has taken a chreia and turned it into an argument. These chreiai in Gos. Thom. fall well short of the fully elaborated chreiai imagined by Hermogenes, but are also a good indication that composers or redactors with at least some educational training in, or awareness of the progymnasmata were responsible for these sayings. This is particularly the case where the introductions and/or rationale are distinct to Gos. Thom. and do not appear in the synoptic parallels. 4.2 Expanded chreia in the Gospel of Thomas While no saying in Gos. Thom. follows the order of Hermogenes’ elaborations, or include all eight steps, many of the gospel’s sayings are expanded: simple questions and/or answers are lengthened. The ways in which chreiai in Gos. Thom. are expanded vary (as I will show below), but it is often the case that an additional argument is added to a simple gnome.408 Gos. Thom. also includes a variety of different types of chreiai as defined by Theon. In addition to the simple form of declarative gnomic saying, Gos. Thom. includes responsive chreiai of two sub-classes, chreiai expressed as logical demonstrations, and expanded chreiai. The Gospel of Thomas contains at least409 sixty-six expanded chreiai, representing almost 60% of the gospel. Of note, while in several instances Gos. Thom.’s chreiai are expanded upon or expressed in similar ways in the synoptic gospels (in other words the expansion/expression likely comes from a pre- Thomas phase of composition/redaction), the majority of Gos. Thom.’s expanded chreia are either in chreiai distinct to Gos. Thom., or feature synoptic parallels that are expanded or expressed in ways distinct from the synoptic presentation of the sayings. It should be obvious

407 Robbins, “Chreia and Pronouncement Story,” 27. 408 Theon describes chreia expansion as “whenever we lengthen the question and answer in it, and the action or suffering if any.” Progymnasmata 104, trans. in Kennedy, Progymnasmata. 409 In some cases it is difficult to discern whether or not a certain line is part of the original chreia, or a result of expansion. For example, Gos. Thom. 112: “Jesus said, ‘Damn the flesh that depends on the soul. Damn the soul that depends on the flesh.’” The first half could very well stand as a chreia on its own (“Jesus said, ‘Damn the flesh that depends on the soul.’”), and the second half could well be seen as an analogy (“Damn the soul that depends on the flesh.”). My count of at least 66 chreia which have been expanded is a conservative count, but even 66 expanded chreiai is evidence that something interesting is going on here.

134 that, in Gos. Thom., we do not get the kind of full elaborations prescribed by Hermogenes. But neither is Gos. Thom. a collection of simple declarative gnomic sayings. In places the chreiai in Gos. Thom. are expanded upon, and in many instances these expansions are not attested in the Synoptic parallels, suggesting that the composers and compilers of Gos. Thom. were themselves responsible for the expansions. 4.2.1 Logical Demonstrations with Rationales The Gospel of Thomas contains a number of chreiai that have been expanded to form an argument. The majority of these chreiai are expressed as logical demonstrations and feature a rationale that serves to assert the point of the core chreia. Rationales are present throughout Gos. Thom. and are relatively easy to identify in both their form and content. Formally, rationales are almost always found immediately following the core chreia (as Hermogenes wrote in his progymnasmata),410 and are nearly always introduced by ἀλλά/ⲁⲗⲗⲁ or γάρ/ⲅⲁⲣ. See, for example, Gos. Thom. 85: Jesus said, “Adam came from great power and great wealth, but he was not worthy of you [chreia] For [ⲅⲁⲣ] had he been worthy, [he would] not [have tasted] death.” [rationale]

This is a declarative chreia expressed as a logical demonstration: a simple thesis, “Adam came from great power and wealth but was not worthy of you,” is turned into a simple argument by appending a rationale for the thesis, “if he was worthy of you, he would not have tasted death.” Thirty-eight of Gos. Thom.’s chreiai are expressed as logical demonstrations with rationales coming in support of a simple gnomic saying.411 Of these chreiai expressed as logical demonstrations, sixteen are responsive, distancing them further from the simplest form of the gnomic saying.412 Thus with Gos. Thom. we do not simply have the wise sayings of a wise person, rather we have a number of small arguments pushing the importance of taking these sayings seriously. Take for example, Gos. Thom. 2. The simple gnome sounds familiar enough, “the one who seeks, let that one not stop seeking until one might find” (Gos. Thom. 2.1). This saying is

410 The two exceptions in Gos. Thom. are sayings 43 and 47 where the rationale follows an example and an analogy respectively. 411 Sayings 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 28, 33, 36, 43, 45, 46, 47, 49, 53, 57, 59, 60, 61, 69, 76, 79, 83, 85, 92, 99, 101, 104, 111, 113, and 114. 412 Sayings 3, 6, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 43, 53, 60, 61, 79, 99, 104, 113, and 114.

135 paralleled in Q 11:9 (Luke 11:9, Matthew 7:7), and sits alongside the thematically related gnome “knock and it will be opened” (Q 11:9). In the Q context the saying is part of a discourse assuring the reader that “everyone who asks receives, and whoever seeks finds, and whoever knocks is admitted” (Q 11:10).413 In the Q setting the gnome is presented with a rationale (albeit a simple one): “seek, and you will find” [gnome] “whoever seeks finds” [rationale] In both Q and Gos. Thom. the verb “to seek” is in the imperative (in Gos. Thom. it is in the negative form of the imperative as the instruction is for seekers to not stop seeking until they find), and both gnomes are followed by a rationale. But while Q’s rationale is simple (and not all that convincing), Gos. Thom. expresses the chreia as a logical demonstration, making the argument more persuasive. Jesus said: the one who seeks, let that one not stop seeking until one might find [gnomic saying] when one finds one will become disturbed, when disturbed one will reign, and having reigned, one will rest [rationale]414

In Q, the rationale provided for why one should seek is that those who seek will find. In Gos. Thom. the rationale is much more elaborate: if one seeks one will find, become disturbed, reign, and rest. Gos. Thom. turns the simple chreia into a sound argument, you should seek because seeking will lead to reigning and rest. Given that seeking is a common theme in Gos. Thom., we should not fail to note the significance of the rationale provided for seeking that opens the text.415 The expression of the chreia as a logical demonstration serves not only to strengthen the call for the seeking to keep seeking until they find, but also establishes the significance of seeking throughout the gospel. The chreia without the rationale does not have this rhetorical force, it is only after the expansion that the importance of seeking is established. We can see another expanded chreia in Gos. Thom. in a saying that also has a synoptic parallel, Gos. Thom. 79//Luke 1:27. The chreia in Gos. Thom. and Luke is responsive, Jesus responds to a statement. In Luke the saying reads, “While he was saying this, a woman in the

413 Translation and construction of Q from Kloppenborg in, Kloppenborg et al., Q-Thomas Reader, 50. 414 My translation. 415 This calls to mind Gos. Thom.’s “hermeneutic of effort” hypothesized by Cameron, “Ancient Myths and Modern Theories.”

136 crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’” The responsive chreia in Luke is a simple and lacks an argument. In Gos. Thom., however, the chreia is expressed as a logical demonstration: A woman in the crowd said to him, “blessed are the womb that bore you and the breasts that fed you.” He said to [her], “blessed are those who have heard the word of the father and have truly kept it.” [responsive chreia] For [ⲅⲁⲣ] there will be days when you will say, “blessed are the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk.” [rationale]

Luke’s version does not include the rationale present in Gos. Thom. In both Luke and Gos. Thom., Jesus says that the truly blessed are those who keep the word of god, but Gos. Thom. turns this saying into an argument by providing a reason: for there will be days when you will say, “blessed are the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk.” And we should not think that it is only in synoptic material that we find chreiai expanded or expressed differently in Gos. Thom.. Consider saying 18: The students416 said to Jesus, “tell us how our end will come into being.” Jesus said, “have you discovered the beginning, then that you are seeking after the end? For where the beginning is, the end will be. [responsive chreia with expanded response to inquiry] Blessed is the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death. [gnome added as rationale to complete logical demonstration]

This saying is interesting for several reasons. As a whole, it is a responsive chreia expressed as a logical demonstration, but the ordering is odd. Jesus’ question to his students could just as easily serve as the question that occasions the response, and while Jesus provides an answer and an explanation, both could be imagined stand-alone gnomic sayings brought together by the theme of the beginning and the end. In spite of these curiosities, the saying does make an argument: why is the one standing at the beginning blessed, and why won’t they taste death? Because where the beginning is, the end will be. This saying is also interesting given that “finding the beginning” is a prominent theme in Gos. Thom. Further, Jesus’s question back to the disciples, his initial response, and his additional rationale only make sense within the context of the saying.

416 I translate ︥ⲙⲙⲁⲑ)ⲧ)ⲥ as “students” rather than the more traditional “disciples” for reasons that I discuss in section 5.

137

This is one of the few responsive sayings in Gos. Thom. that actually requires the question (more on that below in section 4.2.3). Given this, what we may have here is a saying composed by the author of Gos. Thom. If this is the case, then we have a composer who can construct a responsive chreia and express it as a logical demonstration. And this is not the only place in Gos. Thom. that this occurs. Saying 5 does the same: Jesus said, “know what is before your face, and what is hidden from you will be disclosed to you.” [apophantic chreia expressed as a logical demonstration] For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. [maxim providing additional rationale]

Here, a maxim attested to in both Q and Mark—“there is nothing hidden except to be disclosed” Mark 4:22, “nothing is covered up that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known” Q 12:2—concludes a saying in Gos. Thom. But the maxim in Gos. Thom. is related back to the first part of the saying, itself a logical demonstration with a rationale.417 What stood as a maxim in Q and Mark is appended to the end of a logical demonstration to provide an additional rationale, but a rationale dependent on the preceding for its meaning. How do we know that there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed? Because when we know what is in front of our faces what is hidden will be disclosed. The “there is nothing hidden…” saying appears again in Gos. Thom. 6 as the rationale for the preceding saying where Jesus says “do not lie and do not do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven” (Gos. Thom. 6.2-4), so there is a pattern in Gos. Thom. of using this maxim as a rationale. In Gos. Thom. 5 and 6 we see the composer(s) use a maxim present in Mark and Q as a rationale, unlike the maxim’s use in Mark or Q. I will examine one more example, Gos. Thom. 99, which is a responsive chreia with a synoptic parallel, and includes a rationale not present in the synoptic parallel. Gos. Thom. 99 is paralleled in Mark 3:31-35 and has Jesus identifying his true family. Mark (NRSV) Gos. Thom. 3:31-35 31 Then his mother and his brothers 99 The students said to him, “Your came; and standing outside, they sent to brothers and your mother are standing him and called him. 32 A crowd was sitting outside.” around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are He said to them, “Those here who do the outside, asking for you.” 33 And he replied, will of my Father are my brothers and my “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 34 And looking at those who sat around him,

417 John Marshall also notes that Gos. Thom. is distinct from the synoptic tradition in using “nothing hidden that will not be revealed” as a rationale; Marshall, “Thomas and the Cynic Jesus,” 46–47.

138 he said, “Here are my mother and my mother. They are the ones who will enter brothers! 35 Whoever does the will of God the kingdom of my Father.” is my brother and sister and mother.”

Mark’s and Gos. Thom.’s Jesus share the general sentiment that “those who do the will of God/the father are Jesus’ brothers and mother.” They also share an occasion, someone—either a crowd or Jesus’ students—informs Jesus that his mother and brothers are outside. In Mark the saying is thoroughly embedded in a narrative, but in Gos. Thom. it stands as a slightly expanded responsive chreia. The students said to him, “Your brothers and your mother are standing outside.” He said to them, “Those here who do the will of my Father are my brothers and my mother. [responsive chreia] They are the ones who will enter the kingdom of my Father.” [rationale]

In Mark the chreia serves to explain Jesus’ statement that those around him are his brothers and sisters and mother. But Gos. Thom. lacks the narrative trappings of Mark which help to make sense of the saying in Mark. In Gos. Thom., we simply have the responsive chreia “The students said to him. ‘Your brothers and your mother are standing outside.’ He said to them, ‘Those here who the will of my Father are my brothers and my mother.’” Why are these people Jesus’ brothers and mother? Because they are the ones who enter the kingdom of the father. This rationale is not particularly complicated, but it expresses a responsive chreia as a logical demonstration, and its addition to the saying is distinct to Gos. Thom.418 Given that Gos. Thom. has a number of saying that describe the kingdom of the father or stress the importance of finding it, it seems likely that the rationale is a Thomasine expansion of the chreia. The expansions present in Gos. Thom.’s chreiai, particularly the expression of chreiai as logical demonstrations, show that the sayings in Gos. Thom. are often more than sayings of a wise man. Those reviewed and listed above have been distinctly expanded to form arguments with the chreia as a thesis. And while it would be a stretch to imagine Gos. Thom. as the product of composers fully trained in the progymnasmata (or rhetoric), Gos. Thom. takes clear steps to expand and express chreiai in ways that suggest some familiarity with progymnasmata exercises.

418 Neither Matthew (12:46-50) nor Luke (8:19-21) include the rationale that Jesus’ true brothers and sisters and mother are the ones who will enter the kingdom.

139

4.2.2 Praise None of the 114 sayings in Gos. Thom. praise Jesus in the way that Hermogenes suggests one should open a chreia by praising the speaker: for example, “Diogenes was wise”. Gos. Thom., however, is not a single chreia, but a chreia collection. Chreia collections did not need to praise the speaker at the beginning of every chreia, but established the authority of the speaker in a prologue, before moving into the chreia collection itself.419 Gos. Thom.’s incipit does just this. It presents Jesus as “the living Jesus” in a document where the goal of the reader is to “not taste death.” So while the individual chreiai in Gos. Thom. do not praise Jesus, the assumption that Jesus is someone worth listening to carries through from the incipit. As sayings attributed to an important figure, chreiai constructed an ethos of the speaker as a worthy individual. Collections of chreia, such as those embedded in Lucian’s Demonax, praise the speaker indirectly by preserving and deeming worth repeating their wise words. Like Demonax, Jesus in Gos. Thom. is someone who’s wise words were preserved in a genre reserved for important people, so all of Gos. Thom. serves to praise Jesus as a wise figure. 4.2.3 Responsive Chreiai While it is not an example of chreiai manipulation properly, the twenty-three responsive chreiai in Gos. Thom. do suggest that some manipulation and expansion was taking place.420 Responsive chreiai are common in chreiai collections, and there are many examples of both collections and individual chreiai framed as responses. Compare, for example, Gos. Thom. 24 with Diogenes Laertius 6:63, His students said to him, “Teach us the place where you are because we must seek it.” He said to them, “whoever has ears, let that one listen, there is light inside of a light-man, and it gives light to the whole world. If it does not give light, it is dark.” [responsive chreia]

Diogenes, on being asked what he had gained from philosophy, said: “If nothing else, then at least I have prepared myself for every eventuality.”

Both of these chreiai are responding to inquiry, the inquiry leads to a response from the wise person. Responsive chreiai were popular, and especially common when the speaker was a philosopher or teacher, as they are an effective way for the philosopher to share knowledge and

419 Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q, 266-267. 420 See logia 6, 12, 13, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 37, 43, 51, 52, 53, 60, 61, 72, 79, 91, 99, 100, 104, 113, and 114.

140 correct students.421 The rhetorical force of the responsive chreiai is quite clear: both Jesus and Diogenes are re-represented as figures of authority and their statements should be interpreted in light of that authority. But there are also some clear differences between the inquiries that occasion the response in Diogenes’ chreia and in Gos. Thom. With Diogenes, the inquiry is integral to the meaning of the chreia, as we would expect with a responsive chreia. Without the presence of the question, the chreia would cease to be a chreia, “Diogenes […] said: ‘If nothing else, then at least I have prepared myself for every eventuality.’” While this is indeed a saying of a wise person, it does not make sense since we do not know what has prepared Diogenes for every eventuality. The inquiry, then, provides us with important information, without which we cannot interpret what Diogenes is saying. Again, this is exactly what we should expect from a responsive chreia. In Gos. Thom., however, the question is not required for the chreia to be a chreia. “He said to them, ‘whoever has ears, let that one listen, there is light inside of a light- man, and it gives light to the whole world. If it does not give light, it is dark.’” This is a perfect example of a chreia in and of itself. This may well be a case where a simple gnomic chreia (as I have just stated it) was turned into a responsive chreia. Given that the force of the responsive chreia is to place emphasis on the speaker, it is possible that this chreia was altered to place emphasis on Jesus as a teacher. This is not to say that every instance of a responsive chreia in Gos. Thom. originates from the composers of Gos. Thom. altering a declarative chreia. Of the responsive chreiai in Gos. Thom., six— Gos. Thom. 22, 72, 79, 99, 100, and 113—have synoptic parallels that also present the chreia as responsive. But there are also two places where Gos. Thom. and the synoptics share a saying but Gos. Thom. is distinct in presenting the saying as a responsive chreia. In Gos. Thom. 20 the gospel introduces the parable of the mustard seed with a question from Jesus’ students, in the synoptics it is simply part of a larger section of Jesus’ teachings.422 Gos. Thom. 6 also presents Jesus’ saying as a responsive chreia where the synoptic parallels do not. Mark (NRSV) Gos. Thom. Q (IQP) 4:21-23 He said to them, “Is 6 His students asked him Q 12:2-3 a lamp brought in to be put and said to him, “Do you 2 Nothing is covered up that under the bushel basket, or want us to fast? How shall will not be exposed, and under the bed, and not on we pray? Shall we give to hidden that will not be the lampstand? 22 For there known. 3 What I say to you

421 Hock and O’Neil, The Chreia in Ancient Rhetoric: Volume I., 4-5. 422 I discuss this saying in more detail below in section 5.

141 is nothing hidden, except to charity? What diet shall we in the dark, speak in the be disclosed; nor is observe?” light; and what you hear anything secret, except to Jesus said, “Do not lie, and «whispered» in the ear, come to light. 23 Let anyone do not do what you hate, proclaim on the housetops. with ears to hear listen!” because all things are disclosed before heaven. For there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered that will remain without being disclosed.”

In Mark, the parallel with Gos. Thom. is part of a longer teaching discourse that makes up most of Mark 4, and in Q, the parallel appears to stand as its own declarative chreia. In Gos. Thom. the claim that there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed is used to conclude the chreia “Do not lie, and do not do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven.” What makes up Gos. Thom. 6 as a whole is a responsive chreia expressed as a logical demonstration, but what is most interesting is the fact that the inquiry is clearly not required for the chreia in question. “Jesus said, ‘Do not lie, and do not do what you hate, because all things are disclosed before heaven’” makes perfect sense as a declarative chreia without the initial questions from Jesus’ students. So with Gos. Thom. 6 we quite clearly, I think, have an instance where a declarative chreia was turned into a responsive chreia.423 This is not to say that all of the responsive chreiai in Gos. Thom. are built out of declarative chreiai. Gos. Thom. 79 and 100, for example, appear as standard responsive chreiai where an inquiry or statement occasion the response from Jesus for the saying to make sense. In Gos. Thom. 79 Jesus echoes the language of the woman who pronounced his mother’s womb and breasts blessed, and the demand for taxes by the Roman emperor’s people in Gos. Thom. 100 occasions Jesus’ response. Gos. Thom. 12, 18, 21, 43, 51, 52, 53, 91, 104, and 114 are also standard responsive chreiai. In each of Gos. Thom.’s responsive chreiai, Jesus is established as a

423 It may be the case that this introduction was added to Gos. Thom. 6 by way of subtracting it from saying 14 where Jesus systematically answers the questions raised in what is now the introduction to saying 6. Gos. Thom. 37 is another responsive chreia that does not seem to require the opening inquiry to make sense. His students said, “When will you appear to us, and when shall we see you?” [inquiry] Jesus said, “When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample them, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid.” [responsive chreia that could also be declarative] Even without the opening question, “When will you appear to us, and when shall we see you?” the chreia still makes sense.

142 teacher with wisdom worth listening to. Responsive chreiai in Gos. Thom. established Jesus as a reputable source of important teachings, a topic to which I will return in section 5. 4.2.4 Statement from the Opposite In Gos. Thom., a number of logical demonstrations are aided with the use of what Hermogenes’ progymnasmata called statements-from-the-opposite. Statements-from-the-opposite are less common in Gos. Thom., but where they do occur, they function just as Hermogenes’ prescribed. See for example Gos. Thom. 70: Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you. [gnomic saying] If you do not have that within you, what you do not have within you (will) kill you.” [statement from the opposite]

This is by no means a complex statement-from-the-opposite, but it does serve the function: to reinforce the importance of the initial chreia. This is typical of statement-from-the-opposite in Gos. Thom., as they tend to use the vocabulary of the main chreia to produce a rather obvious, unoriginal, statement-from-the-opposite.424 Gos. Thom. uses a statement-from-the-opposite nine times: four parallel synoptic material (16, 33, 45, 70), and four are in sayings distinct to Gos. Thom. (7, 24, 28, 29). The final instance is saying 3, a saying shared with Q. Gos. Thom. 3 Q (IQP) 17:20-21 Jesus said, “If the ones leading you say to 20‚ ·«But on being asked when the you, ‘Behold, the kingdom is in the sky,’ kingdom of God is coming, he answered then the birds of the sky will precede you. them and said: The kingdom of God is not If they say to you, ‘It is in the sea,’ then the coming visibly.»‚ ·21‚ ·«Nor will one say:» fish will precede you. Rather, the kingdom Look, here! or: «There! For, look, the is within you and it is outside you. kingdom of God is within you!»‚

When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty.”

The openings of these two sayings are similar, but Gos. Thom. adds an extra layer. In Q the saying concludes with Jesus saying that “the kingdom is within you.” Gos. Thom.’s Jesus also says that the kingdom is inside you, but also adds that it is outside you. Gos. Thom. then expands on this point with a chreia and statement-from-the-opposite.

424 See sayings 3, 7, 16, 24, 28, 29, 33, 45, and 70.

143

When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are children of the living Father. [chreia] But if you do not know yourselves, then you live in poverty, and you are the poverty. [statement-from-the-opposite]

As with the first example, this is not a particularly complicated statement-from-the-opposite, but it does serve to strengthen the argument of the saying. It is not enough to simply know that the kingdom is inside you, you must also know yourself, otherwise you will live in poverty. 4.2.5 Analogy and Example The expansion of chreiai through the use of analogies and examples can also be found throughout Gos. Thom.. Formally, analogies and examples are more difficult to identify in Gos. Thom. than are rationale and are also difficult to differentiate from one another. In the progymnasmata, analogies are almost always introduced with ὥσπερ, but this Greek word is not carried over into Coptic. As such, we need to rely on context to identify analogies. The analogies in Gos. Thom. range from short statements that are clearly based on the core chreia, to analogies that seem rather unrelated to the core chreia. Of the nine chreiai that include an analogy, six are paralleled in the synoptic tradition (15, 31, 36, 45, 47, 76). The analogies Gos. Thom. shares with the synoptics tend to be very simple such as Gos. Thom. 25 (//Mark 12:28-31) and 31 (//Q 6:2- 5): Jesus said, “love your brother like your soul [core chreia] Protect that one like the pupil of your eye [analogy].”

Jesus said, “No prophet is acceptable in the prophet’s own town [core chreia] a doctor does not heal those who know the doctor [analogy].”

Interestingly, where analogies are used in sayings distinct to Gos. Thom., they tend to be slightly more elaborate. For example, Gos. Thom. 43: His students said to him, “Who are you to say these things to us?” “You do not understand who I am from what I say to you [responsive chreia]. Rather, you have become like the Judeans425 for they love the tree but hate its fruit, or they love the fruit but hate the tree [analogy].”

Here the analogy is not as dependent on the chreia as the first two examples, indicating, perhaps, some level of creativity in the use of analogues. There are also sayings in Gos. Thom. where

425 Meyer and Patterson, “Jews” from ⲛ︥ⲛⲓⲓⲟⲩⲇⲁⲓⲟⲥ

144 several different analogies or examples are used to support the core chreia. For example, Gos. Thom. 21: Mary said to Jesus, “what are your students like?” He said, “they are like little children living in a field that is not theirs. When the owners of the field come they will say ‘give our field back to us.’ They take off their clothes in their presence in order to give it back to them, and they return their field to them [responsive chreia with example] For this reason I say, if the owner of a house knows that the thief is coming, he [homeowner] will be on guard before the thief arrives, and he will not let the thief break into the house of his kingdom426 and steal his possessions. [second example] As for you then, be on guard against the world. Gird yourselves with great strength, lest the robbers find a way to get to you, for the trouble you expect will come [conclusion expanding second example]

The initial response directly addresses Mary’s inquiry with an example, “they are like children…” but the second example does not obviously relate to Mary’s inquiry. In fact, the second example could well function as a chreia independently (and the section about the thief did exist independently in the Q tradition, 12:39). It is clear that Gos. Thom. uses analogies and examples to support core chreiai, and it is also clear that the level of sophistication in these expansions varies considerably. 4.2.6 Argument from Authority, and Exhortation to Hear The final two steps of chreiai elaboration according to Hermogenes, the argument from authority and the exhortation to hear, are also present in Gos. Thom., often appended to a core chreia.427 As noted above, the praise given to Jesus as “the living one” at the beginning of the document serves to assert Jesus’ authority for the entire document. Still, there is one chreia that takes an additional step to appeal to the authority of Jesus: Gos. Thom. 111: Jesus said, “The heavens and earth will roll up in your presence, and whoever is living from the living one will not see death [core chreia]. Does not Jesus say, ‘Whoever has found oneself, of that person the world is not worthy?’” [appeal to authority].

The second half of this saying appears bizarre: Jesus is speaking, yet he refers to himself in the third person in the form of a rhetorical question. Nowhere else in Gos. Thom. does Jesus do this. April DeConick attempts to explain this oddity by arguing that the words Jesus speaks which follow the “Does Jesus not say” introduction are actually the words of Hermes which promote

426 Meyer and Patterson have “domain” 427 Theon does not mention either of these as ways to expand chreiai.

145 self-knowledge.428 These words, however, are not attested to in the Hermetic literature (or at least not to the knowledge of DeConick who does not identify any parallels from antiquity), but they can be found elsewhere in Gos. Thom. Both logia 3 and 67 refer specifically to the importance of knowing one’s self, and both logia 56 and 80 refer to knowledge making the world not worthy of the knowledgeable one. In fact, logia 56, 80, and 111 use the identical phrase ⲡⲕⲟⲥⲙⲟⲥ ⲙⲡϣⲁ ⲙⲙⲟϥ ⲁⲛ (“the world is not worthy”). Thus, there is no need to argue that the words of Hermes are put into Jesus’ mouth (hence the odd introduction in the third person) since it is very clear that Jesus is simply quoting himself. Or more accurately, the Gos. Thom. scribes are quoting Jesus, using what he has said elsewhere to reinforce the core chreia with a statement from authority. In Hermogenes’ instructions, as well as in the extant progymnasmata exercises, the exhortation to hear is the least well explained step, and the least frequently used.429 Hermogenes’ instructions specify that the exhortation should be to the effect that it is necessary to heed the preceding instructions.430 In Gos. Thom., the exhortations to hear are extremely clear. Gos. Thom. uses a single set saying in five different logia (21, 24, 63, 65, 96) in order to call on his readers to heed to the instructions. In each of these logia Jesus uses the injunctive (a Coptic tense very similar the Greek future imperative, “let someone do something”) to insist that the reader hearken to the instructions: ⲡⲉⲧⲉ ⲟⲩⲛ ⲙⲁⲁϫⲉ ⲙⲙⲟϥ ⲉⲥⲱⲧⲙ ⲙⲁⲣⲉϥcⲱⲧⲙ (“the one with ears to hear, let him hear”). Apart from the ⲡⲉⲧⲉ (the relative combined with the definite article, “the one who”) occasionally being prefixed to the ⲟⲩⲛ︥ (the predication of existence, “there is/are”), the exhortations are identical. So, while Gos. Thom.’s redactors are not particularly creative with their exhortations to hear, they are certainly using this single set phrase as an exhortation. If this were not the case it would be rather puzzling as to why the same imperative would be used in six different places in the gospel.

428 April D. DeConick, The Original Gospel of Thomas in Translation: With a Commentary and New English Translation of the Complete Gospel, (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 293. 429 This is not to say the eighth step of chreia expansion was ignored, but that the “exhortation to hear” was much more subtle in the progymnasmata. Hermogenes does not provide an example of an exhortation to hear, but they do survive in several exercises. Text 24. Ps. Nicolaus, Progymnasmata 3, for example, concludes with the following “exhortation to hear”: “After looking at all these points, we have to admire Diogenes as the best disciplinarian.” Yes, it gives reason for us to heed Diogenes’ words, but it is not as pronounced as are the exhortations to hear in Gos. Thom. 430 Hermogenes, Progymnasmata, 60-62.

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4.3 Implications for the study of the Gospel of Thomas The Gospel of Thomas is not a collection of simple declarative gnomic chreiai. Gos. Thom. uses both declarative and responsive chreiai, as well as many expanded chreiai, some of which may have been extended by the composers of Gos. Thom.. This points to several interesting features of Gos. Thom. that suggest it belongs in a paideic setting. First, Gos. Thom. is a collection of chreiai and chreiai exclusively, and as I argue at the beginning of this section, chreiai collections were extremely common among school exercises, and gnomologies were produced by educated people even after their schooling was completed. Second, almost sixty percent of Gos. Thom.’s chreiai have been expanded in some way. Third, the methods of expansion in Gos. Thom. are all outlined in Theon’s classification of chreiai and recommendations for expansion, as well as in Hermogenes’ progymnasmata section on chreiai elaboration. Granted, Gos. Thom. seems to apply the steps that Hermogenes outlines in piecemeal and does not fully elaborate any one chreia according to Hermogenes’ prescription for chreiai elaboration, but there is still evidence of chreiai expansion and manipulation in Gos. Thom. that suggest a schoolish setting for the gospel’s composition. The fact that Gos. Thom. is composed exclusively of chreiai has too often been overlooked, and the fact that many of the chreia in Gos. Thom. show signs of manipulation along the lines called for by the progymnasmata has not, to my knowledge, been acknowledged as, or even considered significant in the study of the gospel’s form. While it is true that the expansions found in Gos. Thom. do not follow the progymnasmata perfectly, the fact that the only expansions in Gos. Thom. are those called for by the progymnasmata suggests that the Gos. Thom. composers/redactors were at the very least familiar with the various steps involved in expressing, expanding, and elaborating a chreia. In terms of Gos. Thom.’s composers, it seems unlikely that they would have had a rhetorical education. The fact that many chreiai are expanded, often expressed as logical demonstrations or by using a single step of Hermogenes’ elaborations (and many of these expressions and expansions are distinct to the form of the saying found in Gos. Thom.) suggests that there was awareness that it was possible to turn the thesis of a chreia into an argument. And if Robbins is correct that arguments did not require full elaboration, rather just an introduction and rationale, then there are several chreiai in Gos. Thom. that have quite clearly been turned into arguments. Again, this probably rules out rhetorically trained individuals as Gos. Thom.’s composers since, if chreia expansion was taking place

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(which I argue it was), then we might expect one trained with the progymnasmata to fully elaborate a chreia according to Hermogenes. But as I argued in chapter 3, we do not need to assume that only the pepaideumenoi could compose texts. The marginally educated class I identified in chapter three are prime suspects for the types of people we might expect to compose a text like Gos. Thom. This class worked with chreiai throughout elementary training, recognized the significance of chreiai as the vehicles for wise teachings, and could have possessed introductory training in, or at least awareness of, the progymnasmata that would have allowed the simple but consistent expansion of chreiai found in Gos. Thom.

5. Jesus as Teacher The Gospel of Thomas’ lack of narrative makes it difficult to identify the character of Jesus in the text. Still, there are a number of features that suggest that in Gos. Thom., Jesus is a teacher. First, and related to my preceding point, is the genre of the text itself. As Kloppenborg has argued of ancient sayings collections in his study of Q, texts like Gos. Thom. (and Q) fall broadly under the category of instruction literature.431 In some cases like Q or Proverbs, the instructions are attached to a general notion of divine wisdom. In other cases, as with chreia collections, the instructions are tied directly to the authority of the speaker who is generally a wise person (Aesop), and often a teacher (Demonax in Lucian’s Demonax, or the many philosophers in Diogenes Laertius’ Lives). So almost by the requirements of the genre, Gos. Thom. presents Jesus as at least a wise person, if not a teacher or philosopher. The identification of Jesus in Gos. Thom. as a philosopher is not simple (in saying 13 Jesus contradicts this identification directly) but the more general designation of teacher seems within reach. Second, Gos. Thom. mentions Jesus’ students in twenty-one of its one hundred and fourteen sayings. Of course, I am referring to ⲡⲙⲁⲑ)ⲧ)ⲥ that gets so often translated as

“disciple”. What I propose here is more than the nit-picking of a translation that carries too much Christian theological baggage; what I propose looks at the specific context of the use of ⲡⲙⲁⲑ)ⲧ)ⲥ in the gospel and argues that “student” best captures the usage. In almost every use of the term the reference to the ⲡⲙⲁⲑ)ⲧ)ⲥ serves to introduce a teaching of Jesus: his students ask a question and Jesus as their teacher answers. This is the case for sayings 6, 12, 18, 20, 22, 24, 37,

431 Kloppenborg, The Formation of Q, 263–316.

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43, 51, 52, 53, and 113. What is more remarkable is that in every case where a saying is shared between Gos. Thom. and the synoptic gospels, Gos. Thom. is distinct in framing the saying as a question posed by the students to Jesus. Saying 20, the parable of the mustard seed, is illustrative: Gos. Thom. 20 Mark 4:30-32 Q 13:18-19 (IQP) The students (ⲙⲙⲁⲑ)ⲧ)ⲥ) 30 He also said, ‘With what 18 What is the kingdom of said to Jesus, “Tell us what can we compare the kingdom God like, and with what am I 19 the kingdom of heaven is of God, or what parable will to compare it? It is like a 31 like.” we use for it? It is like a seed of mustard, which a He said to them, “It is like a mustard seed, which, when person took and threw into mustard seed. It is the tiniest sown upon the ground, is the his garden. And it grew and of all seeds, but when it falls smallest of all the seeds on developed into a tree, and the 32 on prepared soil, it produces a earth; yet when it is sown it birds of the sky nested in its large plant and becomes a grows up and becomes the branches. shelter for birds of the sky.” greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.’

In both the Mark and Q versions Jesus introduces the question of the kingdom and to what he might compare it, but in Gos. Thom. alone it is the disciples who ask the question that occasions Jesus’ response with a parable.432 In the nine instances in which ⲙⲙⲁⲑ)ⲧ)ⲥ are mentioned but are not asking Jesus a question, we see the term variously refers to the subjects of questions from or discussions with Jesus (13, 60, 72, 99), the requirements of beings Jesus’ student (19, 55, 101), a question about what Jesus’ students are like (21), and a claim to be Jesus’ student (61). In each of these cases “student” works just as well as “disciple”, and given the clear teaching situation of the other twelve sayings, seeing the ⲙⲙⲁⲑ)ⲧ)ⲥ as Jesus’ students is preferable.

Third, Jesus is referred to as “teacher” ⲡⲥⲁϩ in saying 13. This is the saying in which

Jesus asks his students who he is, and he rejects the titles of “just angel” ⲛⲟⲩⲁⲅⲅⲉⲗⲟⲥ ⲛⲇⲓⲕⲁⲓⲟⲥ and “wise philosopher” ⲙⲫⲓⲗⲟⲥⲟⲫⲟⲥ ⲛⲣⲙⲛϩ)ⲧ. Thomas says to Jesus “teacher [ⲡⲥⲁϩ], my mouth is utterly unable to say what you are like,” to which Jesus replies “I am not your teacher [ⲁⲛⲟⲕ

432 Gos. Thom.’s distinct introduction is significant regardless of whether one thinks Gos. Thom. is borrowing from or independent of the mustard seed parable as presented in Mark, Matthew, and Luke.

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ⲡⲉⲕⲥⲁϩ ⲁⲛ]. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated from the babbling spring I have tended.” Here Gos. Thom. refers to Jesus as his teacher, but Jesus denies this relationship. This is not, however, because Jesus is not a teacher, it is because Thomas has fully (or almost fully) comprehended Jesus’ teachings (he has become drunk from the spring Jesus tended).433 This conversation is followed by Jesus taking Thomas aside, and in private Jesus spoke three words to Thomas [ⲁϥϫⲱ ⲛⲁϥ ⲛϣⲟⲙⲧ ⲛϣⲁϫⲉ]. The content of these words is not necessarily important, what is important is that Thomas’ understanding and Jesus seeing that Thomas was no longer his student occasioned additional, secret teachings. Fourth, even though Gos. Thom. is not a narrative gospel, it does feature several sayings that take place in what looks like a school environment.434 I have already covered the many sayings introduced by questions from Jesus’ students, as well as the discussion that takes place in saying 13. In both cases there are relatively clear teaching situations that do not bear repeating. In this last section I will briefly touch on Gos. Thom.’s opening and closing sayings. “These are the secret sayings that Jesus the living one spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them.” The image that forms in the heads of a reader or hearer is one that would have been familiar to any student of philosophy: a teacher sharing wisdom while the students wrote it down. Epictetus, Musonius Rufus, and Plotinus all conducted their lectures in such a fashion, and it is not a stretch to imagine that Gos. Thom. sets up the fictional world of its text in an analogous way. Gos. Thom. also ends with what seems clearly to be a teaching scene: Peter says to a group of Jesus’ students that Mary should leave them as women are not worthy of life; Jesus uses this as a teaching moment and states explicitly that he will guide [ϯⲛⲁⲥⲱⲕ] Mary to make her a living spirit like the men. Here we have not only a situation in which a number of Jesus’ students are having a discussion (as we would expect from a school), but Jesus interjects and states that through his guidance he will help his student.

433 This reading of Jesus’ tended stream and Thomas’ intoxication as Thomas receiving Jesus’ knowledge is supported by Charles W. Hedrick, Unlocking the Secrets of the Gospel According to Thomas: A Radical Faith for a New Age (Eugene, Or: Cascade Books, 2010), 39; Uwe-Karsten Plisch, The Gospel of Thomas: Original Text with Commentary (Freiburg, Germany: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2008), 65. 434 Of course, I do not mean that Jesus and his students are imagined in Gos. Thom. to meet in purpose-built classrooms, or the gymnasium, or muse hall. “Classes” in antiquity required nothing more than teachers and students, and there are a number of sayings that highlight that exact relationship between Jesus and his hearers in the text.

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Finally, Jesus’ rejection of biological family in favour of a circle of students around a teacher closely resembles the social structures of Cynic and Stoic philosophical schools in antiquity.435 The value of one’s teacher over one’s parents was also communicated in early writing exercises: Isocrates the rhetor used to advise his students to honour their teachers above their parents because the latter are the cause only of living, while teachers are the cause of living nobly.

Isocrates is not as brazen as Jesus in Gos. Thom., but the main point is the same: the best life is gained not by attachments to parents and family but be devotion to teachers.

6. The Enigmatic Presentation of the Gospel of Thomas Two of the more consistent themes in Gos. Thom. are the emphasis on seeking with effort, and the gospel’s claims to secrecy. Both of these themes are present throughout the gospel, and importantly, both are prominent in the introductory section, framing the gospel around them. Incipit: These are the secret (ⲉⲑ)ⲡ literally, “hidden”) sayings that Jesus the living one spoke and Didymos Judas Thomas wrote them. Saying 1: And he said, “The one who finds the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death.” Saying 2: Jesus said, “Let the one who seeks not stop seeking until one finds, and when one finds one will be disturbed, and when one is disturbed one will marvel, and will reign over all (P. Oxy. IV 654 also includes “and having reigned, one will attain rest.)436

The emphasis on seeking and on the effort required to find presents Gos. Thom. as a text that requires both knowledge and work to interpret properly. Knowledge and the ability to interpret texts are both possessions that encyclia paideia presents as inherently virtuous. The appeal of Gos. Thom. is in the possibility of claiming possession of secret knowledge and hidden interpretations, an appeal instilled in students at the earliest levels of schooling. 6.1 Seeking and Effort The Gospel of Thomas’ introductory sayings present the contents of the gospel as secret/hidden, claim that finding their interpretation will allow one to escape death, and promise that effort of seeking will ultimately be rewarded with reigning and rest.437 These themes feature throughout

435 Cameron, “Ancient Myths and Modern Theories,” 24; Sedley, “Philosophical Allegiance,” 540–49. 436 My translation. 437 Ron Cameron proposed that Gos. Thom.’s incipit and first two sayings provide the hermeneutical key for the gospel: the logoi are hidden/secret, whoever finds their interpretation will not taste death, finding the interpretation

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Gos. Thom., and this consistency is remarkable given that the gospel’s composition tends toward intentional obscurity rather than thematic clarity.438 Saying 2 sets the stage for a gospel full of seeking (ϣⲓⲛⲉ) and finding (ⳓⲓⲛⲉ). The theme is spread throughout the text and features in sayings 24, 38, 60, 92, and 94. In Gos. Thom., seeking requires perseverance; in saying 60 Jesus exhorts his students to seek a place for rest lest they become carcasses and get eaten; saying 94 echoes saying 2 “the one who seeks will find”; and sayings 24, 38, and 92 all comment on the need of the students to seek, and Jesus’ role in guiding them. Saying 24 has the students recognizing that they need to seek after the place where Jesus is, and occasions a saying wherein Jesus comments in the nature of humanity.439 Saying 38 reaffirms Jesus’ unique role as teacher, and warns his students that the day will come when they seek him but will not find him. Finally, saying 92 concludes this pedagogical cluster with Jesus lamenting that now, when he is willing to tell his students about the things about which they asked, no one is seeking them.440 Gos. Thom.’s emphasis on seeking and finding is relatively straightforward, but it is the insistence that seeking requires effort in saying 2, and the three part narration of how Jesus’ students should, but often fail to seek his teachings that frames the theme of seeking and finding in ways that would appeal to those seeking paideia. The students are (sometimes) eager to learn, but they require Jesus’ presence as a teacher and as the source that authorizes that paideia. Related to the theme of seeking and finding is the hidden nature of the things worth seeking. Again, the significance of finding hidden things is prominent throughout Gos. Thom., appearing in sayings 5, 6, 32, 33, 96, 97, 108, and 109. Sayings 5, 6, and 108 all contain some variation of the gnome “for there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed,” a gnome similar to Q 12:2, “nothing has been covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be

requires seeking, and finding will be troubling but rewarding. Ron Cameron, “Ancient Myths and Modern Theories of the Gospel of Thomas and Christian Origins,” MTSR 11 (1999): 250–51. 438 See especially arguments made by William E. Arnal in three recent book chapters: Arnal, “The Rhetoric of Social Construction: Language and Society in the Gospel of Thomas”; Arnal, “Blessed Are the Solitary: Textual Practices and the Mirage of a Thomas ‘Community’”; William E. Arnal, “How the Gospel of Thomas Works,” in Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, ed. William E. Arnal et al. (Leuven ; Paris ; Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2016), 261–80. 439 This saying is part of Gos. Thom.’s larger Platonic exegesis of the creation stories in Genesis about which I will say much more below. 440 While saying 28 does not mention seeking, finding, or hidden things, the theme of students who are not prepared for Jesus’ teaching—those drunk and not at all thirsty—is present nonetheless.

152 know.”441 In the Q context the gnome exhorts the hearer/reader not to fear Jesus’ teaching because the hidden things will be revealed. The context in Gos. Thom., however, is slightly but importantly different. Gos. Thom. 5 opens with an exhortation for the reader to “know what is in front of your face.” It is only upon knowing that that which is hidden will be revealed. Gos. Thom. 108 similarly places a qualification on the hidden things being revealed: students must first drink from Jesus’ mouth and become like him, then Jesus himself will become that person, and only then will the hidden things be revealed to them. So in Gos. Thom., the hidden being revealed is not a promise from Jesus that the student can passively enjoy, it requires that students first know what is in front of their face. Sayings 96, 97, and 109 all provide examples of the requirements of knowing, and the dangers of not knowing. Saying 96 relates the kingdom of the father to a woman making bread: the saying states that the woman hid (ⲁⲥϩⲟⲡϥ) the yeast in the dough and made it into large loaves of bread. The use of the verb “to hide” is notable as this is not the obvious way one would describe baking bread. As the saying is structured, it presents the woman’s knowledge that yeast is what makes bread rise, and the fact that she hid it within the dough, as the keys to making bread.442 The kingdom of the father, then, requires the knowledge of the hidden things. Saying 109 adds another wrinkle to the discovery of hidden things. The saying compares the kingdom to a treasure hidden in a field and the person who owned the field did not know of it. A person bought the field from the family that did not know, and when the new owner was ploughing he discovered the treasure. Like sayings 5 and 108, here the discovery of a hidden thing was not passively granted, but rather it resulted from effort on the part of the one finding. This theme of effort/toil (ϩⲓⲥⲉ) is present in several sayings, some that reward the person who has toiled, others that note the failures of those who have not toiled. Toil/effort (ϩⲓⲥⲉ) is mentioned explicitly three times in Gos. Thom. —sayings 8, 97, and 107—and alluded to in many more. In

441 Q reconstruction and translation in, John S. Kloppenborg et al., Q-Thomas Reader (Sonoma, California: Polebridge Press, 1990), 157. 442 Karen King (1987) and Doran (1987) both agree that the preparedness of the woman is what is being compared to the Kingdom of the Father, with King especially comparing Gos. Thom. 96 to 35 and 98, Karen King, “Kingdom in the Gospel of Thomas,” Forum, Foundations and Facets 3.1 (1987): 52; Robert Doran, “A Complex of Parables: GTh 96-98,” NovT 29 (1987): 348. Simon Gathercole argues that the significance is the same as Gos. Thom. 8, 20, and 107—a small thing becomes large—but his reasoning is not convincing. Gathercole’s rejection of the preparedness of the woman is based on his assertion that making bread is a mundane activity that would not require advanced skill to do properly. Even if we take this reading to be correct, this is very much in step with Gos. Thom.’s tendency to locate the Kingdom of the Father in the every day. Gathercole, The Gospel of Thomas.

153 each explicit mention the situation is slightly different, but the emphasis is the same. In saying 107 the shepherd finds his sheep only after he has toiled, in saying 8 the fisherman selects the largest fish without toil, and in saying 97 the woman does not notice the hole in her jar because she does not know how to toil.443 Saying 97 is particularly interesting as it supports the requirement of effort introduced in saying 5 by showing what happens when one does not have knowledge. Jesus said, “the kingdom of the father resembles a woman who was carrying a jar full of meal. While she was walking on a road, still far off, the handle of the jar broke and the meal spilled behind her on the road. She did not know it, she had not understood [how] to toil (ⲛⲉ ⲙⲡⲉⲥⲉⲓⲙⲉ ⲉϩⲓⲥⲉ). When she reached her house she put the jar down and found it empty.

The italicized section, “she had not understood how to toil” sounds awkward, and is often translated as something like “she had not noticed it,” but the literal translation states that “she had not understood how to toil.” In the context of this parable it comes across as awkward. But in the context of Gos. Thom., it makes sense; it is what happens when someone does not know what is in front of his or her face. The requirement of seeking and finding hidden things through effort is clear in the sayings that explicitly comment on these themes. But how to interpret Gos. Thom. on the whole is not. At first glance the text is as obscure and impenetrable, with Gos. Thom. 22 serving as a telling example: Jesus saw some babies nursing. He said to his students, “These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom.” They said to him, “Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?” Jesus said to them, “When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner, and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter [the kingdom].”

443 Ron Cameron notes Gos. Thom.’s emphasis on labour and argues that this emphasis created and nurtured a distinct group ethos centred around seeking and finding. To sayings 8, 97, and 107 Cameron adds “the resourceful merchant, who shrewdly bought the one pearl that he found” Gos. Thom. 76, “the skill of a woman, who took leaven and made it into large loaves of bread” Gos. Thom. 96, and “the determination of the assassin, who practiced the execution of the task he anted to accomplish” Gos. Thom. 98. Cameron, “Ancient Myths and Modern Theories,” 252–53.

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This saying contains many themes that are found elsewhere in Gos. Thom.: confused students, description of the kingdom, making two into one, and a mention of images. It is difficult to make heads or tails of this saying, but this is somewhat indicative of Gos. Thom.’s overall presentation of its 114 sayings.444 Gos. Thom.’s modus operandi is to obscure rather than clarify. William Arnal helpfully identifies seven ways in which Gos. Thom. makes the text difficult to interpret. At various point the gospel: uses the same word to mean different things (saying 19); presents the same concept using different words (saying 87 “body” saying 112 “flesh”); widely separates related sayings (sayings 3, 20, 51, and 113, or again the question the disciples ask in saying 6 is answered in saying 14); has multiple versions of similar sayings spread throughout the text; and finally, engages in an exegesis of Genesis, especially chapters 1 and 2, but never mentions as much.445 Each of these features of Gos. Thom., Arnal argues, requires the reader to slow down, go back, cross-reference the text, or otherwise dwell on the ideas longer than a cursory reading would provide. However, we should not allow the pretentions toward being a complicated intellectual text to trick us into thinking we are reading a text that is actually complicated. Gos. Thom. contains a lot of accessible wisdom (for example, saying 94, Jesus [said], “One who seeks will find, and for [one who knocks] it will be opened”), parables, a vague anti-cosmic dualism, and a relatively simple exegesis of Genesis. The payoff for interpreting the logoi is not overly profound, the secrets Gos. Thom. claims to contain are somewhat banal. So with Gos. Thom. we encounter a text with pretensions to intellectual elitism that is in fact a text with relatively simple, generic forms of wisdom and banal secrets. Something like Gos. Thom. would not have appealed to Plutarch, and would have likely earned the wrath of Lucian’s sharp tongue. But while Lucian and Plutarch represent the elite, as I have argued in chapter 3, they represent a tiny portion of those who may recognize the wisdom in a chreia, or the cultural capital available to those capable of interpreting (or teaching) the secret logoi of the living Jesus. There is an entire segment of the semi-educated population that did not move

444 Marshall argues that with Gos. Thom. 22 we have a saying that has been expanded from within; the initial saying consisted of the 22:1-2, and the rest was added as a secondary elaboration (whether it was elaborated by the composers of Gos. Thom. or prior is not clear). Marshall, “Thomas and the Cynic Jesus,” 48–49. 445 William E. Arnal, “Blessed Are the Solitary: Textual Practices and the Mirage of a Thomas ‘Community,’” in The One Who Sows Bountifully: Essays in Honor of Stanley K. Stowers, ed. Caroline Johnson Hodge et al., 2013, 274–75. See also a more full treatment in Arnal, “The Rhetoric of Social Construction.”

155 beyond the chreiai of the grammarian. The grammarians themselves, for that matter, were skilled in interpretation, but largely shunned by the intellectual elites (see Plutarch’s Table Talk). It is amongst these people that Gos. Thom. has the most to offer. 6.2 Rhetoric of Secrecy One of the most distinct features of the Gospel of Thomas is the claim to secrecy. Gos. Thom. refers to secrecy in multiple places: Gos. Thom.’s incipit states explicitly that the text contains the secret/hidden words of Jesus the living one; Jesus reveals three secret ⲛ̅ ϣⲁϫⲉ to Thomas after Thomas correctly states that he is unable to say what Jesus is like (saying 13); in saying 17, Jesus states that he will give “what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart”; and in saying 62 Jesus states that he discloses his mysteries to those worthy of receiving his mysteries. Jesus also repeatedly makes reference to hidden things (see Section 6.1). Gos. Thom. makes explicit claims to secrecy, and employs several literary devices to hinder interpretation, but to what extent can we understand Gos. Thom. as a text, or the gospel’s content as secret? One would think, for example, that a text that claims to be secret would be reasonably difficult to physically locate. It would make sense for texts that were meant to be concealed to have a low circulation. Yet this was surely not so in the case of the Gospel of Thomas. We have remarkably good material evidence for Gos. Thom. in the first three centuries (P. Oxy. I 1, P. Oxy. IV 654, and P. Oxy. IV 655), and for comparison’s sake, Gos. Thom.’s textual presence over this period compares favourably with the Gospel of Mark. In addition to these three Greek fragments, patristic writers Origen, Jerome, and Hippolytus all claim to know of a “gospel according to Thomas,” and Origen and Hippolytus go so far as to quote from the gospel.446 By the middle of the third century, then, our “secret book” existed in multiple copies and was known to several patristic writers. Finally, the fact that Gos. Thom. is best preserved in a Coptic translation that belonged to a collection that contained several other “secret books,” suggests that the importance of Gos. Thom.’s claim to secrecy was not in its limited circulation. So with Gos. Thom. we have a gospel that claims to contain secret teachings that were not kept secret at all, at least in the sense that a lot of people had access to the text. In fact, the composer(s) of Gos. Thom. could not have regarded the content of the text as secret given that

446 Patterson, “Introduction,” in Q Thomas Reader (ed. J. S. Kloppenborg, et. al; Sonoma, CA: Polebridge Press, 1990), 78.

156 the majority of Gos. Thom. has parallels in the Synoptic Gospels. Thus the gospel’s secrecy could not realistically have referred to the fact Gos. Thom. contained sayings no one else knew about. The secrecy of Gos. Thom. is not rooted in concealment, the text was not secret insofar as it had a low circulation or contained sayings and teachings that no one else knew. But the text never presents itself as such. Rather, Gos. Thom. is a collection of “secret sayings” (incipit) that require interpretation. The secrecy of the sayings is not in their concealment; rather it is hermeneutic in nature. We find very much the same idea of secrecy at play in some contemporary philosophical schools. Here, for the most part, secrets were concealed in the esoteric interpretation of generally accessible texts.447 In some Platonic schools, for example, access to secret truths became a hermeneutic matter: the meaning of the text was not accessible to those who were capable only of a surface reading, interpretation was required to get at what a given text or saying of Plato actually meant.448 The skilled reader who knew the hermeneutical key was the only person with access to these interpretations. We find a similar emphasis on the need for correct interpretation in Pythagorean and Neo-Pythagorean groups. Iamblichus, a third century commentator on Pythagoras, remarks that, Pythagoras considered it of great importance if someone carefully and clearly elucidated the meanings and secret conceptions of the Pythagorean symbols, (and discerned) how much righteousness and truth they contained when revealed and freed from their enigmatic form, and when adapted with simple and unadorned teaching for the lofty geniuses of these philosophers, deified beyond human thought.449

What is important to note here is that while certain interpretations of a given text or teaching are claimed to be secret, the text or teaching is itself is quite obviously not secret. This should raise the question, why would certain authors or groups want to limit access to their secrets, while making those very texts available to the public? Recall Lucian’s complaint that some teachers of rhetoric taught their students a number of shortcuts that would help convince people that they were fully trained. These shortcuts included the sprinkling in of obscure Attic words. In addition to making one’s speech more sophisticated sounding, the use of obscure Attic words also served to make the speech more

447 Lamberton, “Secrecy in the History of Platonism,” 140. 448 Lamberton, “Secrecy in the History of Platonism,” 145. 449 Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life (trans. John Dillon and Jackson Hershbell; Texts and Translations 29; Graeco-Roman Religion Series 11; Atlanta, GO: Scholars Press, 1991), 127.

157 difficult to interpret. And while not a speech, Gos. Thom.’s claims to secrecy and seemingly intentional esotericizing serve the same ends as the behaviour that Lucian criticizes. The idea of secrecy and the intentional obscuring of the text suggest that there would have been a social world wherein secret knowledge was significant, and the ability to read a text and interpret that knowledge was also significant. The outer fringes of the pepaideumenoi was just such a social world. 6.2.1 Secrecy as Discourse Georg Simmel, writing on the sociology of secrecy in 1906 argued the following: Secrecy gives the person enshrouded by it an exceptional position; it works as a stimulus of purely social derivation, which is in principle quite independent of its causal content, but is naturally heightened in the degree in which the exclusively possessed secret is significant and comprehensive.450

Though over 100 years old, Simmel points to a number of features of secrecy that remain sociologically useful. Secrets are necessarily a social phenomenon. A person can withhold information from another person, but unless that withholding is made known, the information withheld is simply something unknown. Secrets only work if people know they exist and do not know their content. The appeal or power of a secret is not directly related to the content of the secret itself. A socially significant secret may heighten its appeal, but this is a difference in degree, rather than in kind. The person or people who claim possession of the secret are placed in an exceptional position by those who acknowledge the significance of the secret. The creation, possession, and spread of secrets can be usefully theorized in terms of social capital. The appeal of any given secret, is of course, dependent on the social world in which it circulates, and I do not wish to suggest that the invocation of secrecy automatically instilled the secret holder with social capital. Rather, I argue that the Gospel of Thomas was composed and consumed in a social matrix wherein claims to secret knowledge served as social capital. Pierre Bourdieu’s helpfully defines social capital as follows: Social capital is the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition—or in other words, to membership in a group—which provides each of its members with the backing of the collectivity-owned capital, a ‘credential’ which entitles them to credit, in the various sense of the word.451

450 Georg Simmel, “The Sociology of Secrecy and of Secret Societies,” AJS 11 (1906): 464–65. 451 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” 51.

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The exchange of social capital is primarily symbolic and, as with other types of exchange, requires both parties to recognize the value of what is being exchanged.452 Social capital need not be universally recognized, and instead circulates in distinct social formations. As such, the text of Gos. Thom. would have been appealing to a particular class of literary people. The secrets therein and the claim to secrecy itself are part of a larger project of presenting a document of important knowledge to people with the capabilities and social motivation to try to claim and perform that knowledge. 6.3 Agriculture as a Metaphor for Learning The Gospel of Thomas’ genre places it in contact with school exercises, but also with doxographical literature that collected the sayings of wise philosophers. Jesus is presented as a teacher in the text, both in terms of his role as a teacher of students, and by the fact that interpreting his hidden words will ensure that the reader not taste death. Gos. Thom.’s teachings are obtuse in that they are not explained, but they utilize material and metaphors familiar to a partially educated audience. This is nowhere more clear than in Gos. Thom.’s use of agricultural imagery in the sayings of Jesus. The presence of agricultural imagery is sometimes used to argue a rural setting for the text or a peasant audience.453 It is more plausible, however, that the frequent use of farming metaphors also harkens back to a particular educational background. Of course, the ancient Roman empire ran on an agrarian economy, and so the agricultural metaphors in Gos. Thom. could well have been recognized by those outside of the field of the marginally (and fully) educated. Still, the consistent presentation of paideia through agricultural metaphors very similar to those used in Gos. Thom. suggests a closer connection to the world of paideia than to the average person in an agrarian economy. Farming was a very popular metaphor for the educational process in antiquity. Ps. Plutarch On the Education of Children 4, Hippocrates Laws 3, Seneca Epistles 38.2, Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 5.11.24, and Antiphon Fragment 60 all use the image of a sower sowing seeds to explain the nature of paideia. These five examples agree, more or less, on the ways in which the metaphor functions, illustrated explicitly in Hippocrates 3 law: Instruction in medicine is like the culture of the productions of the earth. For our natural disposition, is, as it were, the soil; the tenets of our teacher are, as it were, the seed;

452 Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” 51. 453 Kenneth E. Bailey articulates this position most consistently and influentially. Kenneth Ewing Bailey, Poet and Peasant: A Literary-Cultural Approach to the Parables in Luke (Grand Rapids, Mich: Eerdmans, 1976); Kenneth E. Bailey, Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (London: SPCK, 2008).

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instruction in youth is like the planting of the seed in the ground at the proper season; the place where the instruction is communicated is like the food imparted to vegetables by the atmosphere; diligent study is like the cultivation of the fields; and it is time which imparts strength to all things and brings them to maturity (Hippocrates, Laws 3).

Pseudo-Plutarch presents an almost identical use of the metaphor, also stating explicitly that the soil is the nature of the student, the sower the teacher, and the seed the teaching. Antiphon, Quintilian, and Seneca make reference to aspects of this metaphor—Quintilian to the nature of the student and the soil, and Antiphon and Seneca to teaching and the seed—but do not present it completely. Their partial uses of the metaphor are interesting, however, as they demonstrate how immediately apparent the metaphor would have been; even without the full explanation, the force of the metaphor is clear. In addition to these intellectual figures who directly employ the images of a sower and seeds as a metaphor for the acquisition of paideia, there are several other instances where agricultural metaphors are used to stand in for education. Perhaps the most obvious is Isocrates’ famous saying that served as the foundation of chreia expansion in the progymnasmata: “Isocrates said, paideia’s root is bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” Philo’s treatise on education is called Περί Γεωργίας (On Agriculture/Husbandry), and here Philo uses Noah’s role as a farmer to speak to the proper education and rearing of children into adults. Περί Γεωργίας is often noted by scholars of early Christianity for its presentation of milk as infant food but solid food as fit for adults, a presentation similar to Paul’s in 1 Cor. 3:1-3. But this section of Περί Γεωργίας is also notable in that it speaks directly to the acquisition of education as a process of sowing and planting: But seeing that for babes milk is food, but for grown men wheaten bread, there must also be soul-nourishment, such as is milk-like suited to the time of our childhood, in the shape of preliminary stages of school-learning (προπαιδεύµατα) and such as is adapted to grown men in the shape of instructions leading the way through wisdom and temperance and all virtue (ἀρετῆς). For these when sown (σπαρέντα) and planted in the mind will produce most beneficial fruits, namely fair and praiseworthy conduct (Philo, On Husbandry, 2.9- 10, LCL)

Here the now familiar goal of attaining virtue is presented metaphorically as something sown and planted that produces beneficial fruits. It is in light of this philosophical trend to have agricultural production stand in for the process by which students receive education that Gos. Thom.’s agricultural sayings should be read.

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Gos. Thom. contains eleven sayings that use agricultural imagery to make their points: Gos. Thom. 9 (parable of the sower), 20 (parable of the mustard seed), 21 (the kingdom is like children in a field), 40 (the grapevine planted apart from the father), 45 (grapes not harvested from thorns), 57 (parable of the good seed), 63 (parable of the rich farmer), 65 (parable of the vineyard), 73 (the crop is large but the workers are few), 107 (the parable of the shepherd), and 109 (the kingdom is like the treasure hidden in a field). Notably, knowledge of agricultural practices is not required for the interpretation of any of these sayings and the majority of them betray little to no knowledge of actual farming techniques. Reasonable farmers would not sow seeds on a road, nor expect returns of sixty and one hundred and twenty per measure; a farmer would know that one does not harvest grapes from thorns or figs from thistles; and a wise farmer would not abandon ninety-nine sheep in search of a single sheep, no matter how large. It is true that Gos. Thom.’s agricultural parables lack some of the secondary allegorization found in the synoptic versions, (Gos. Thom. 20 does not claim that the mustard seed becomes a tree, and Gos. Thom. 65 has no allusion of Isaiah 5:1-7), but their relative realism does not mean that they were aimed at an audience familiar with farming.454 Gos. Thom.’s frequent use of agricultural imagery, then, is not evidence of its rural setting, composers, or audience; but rather it is evidence of Gos. Thom.’s awareness of the ways in which agricultural motifs were used in educational circles.

7. Philonic/Platonic Exegesis of Genesis in Thomas The final aspect of Gos. Thom. that points to its pretentions toward intellectual sophistication is Gos. Thom.’s Platonic exegesis of the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. The idea that Gos. Thom. contains Platonic ideas was first made popular by Howard M. Jackson who demonstrated the ways in which saying 7 displayed affinities with Platonic philosophy.455 Jesus said, “Blessed is the lion that the human will eat, so that the lion becomes human. And defiled is the human that the lion will eat, and the lion will become human.”

Jackson argued that the lion in this saying represents passion and desire, a representation that draws from a Platonic anthropology where the lion represents the irrational part of the soul.456 In

454 On the relative realism of Gos. Thom. 65 see Kloppenborg, Tenants in the Vineyard, 109-122; 326-330. 455 Howard M. Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man: The Gnostic Leontomorphic Creator and the Platonic Tradition (Scholars Press, 1985). 456 Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man, 188.

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Gos. Thom. 7, then, the focus of the saying is on both the human conquering the lion (passion and desire), making the lion human, and the impossibility of the spiritual human being completely lost to the lion.457 Since Jackson, the fact that Gos. Thom. containing “Platonizing tendencies” has been largely accepted, and supported most emphatically by Stephen Patterson.458 In a 2008 article Patterson identifies several Platonic themes prevalent in Gos. Thom.: knowing thyself; Gos. Thom.’s anthropology of body, soul, and spirit; the image of God in Gos. Thom.459 Each of these four themes is related based on a Middle Platonic anthropology of both human and god. Patterson notes that while the admonition to “” predates Plato, Plato reinterpreted the maxim to mean that “the true self, the soul, was like unto God. True self-knowledge could thus come only by contemplating the soul within. But to arrive at such knowledge was at the same time to come to know the divine.”460 This interpretation informed the Middle Platonic thought contemporary with Gos. Thom. such as that of Cicero, Seneca, Philo. And it is in light of this Middle Platonic internalizing of God that we should interpret a number of Gos. Thom.’s sayings including 3.4, When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will understand that you are the children of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves then you will dwell in poverty, and you are the poverty.

Related to knowing one’s self is Gos. Thom.’s Platonic anthropology of body, spirit, and soul. Middle Platonic readings of the Timaeus understood Plato to have a tripartite anthropology with body, soul, and mind, or body, mortal soul, and immortal soul.461 Patterson notes that Gos. Thom. lacks the Platonic nous, but does seem to subordinate the body (ⲥⲟⲙⲁ) and soul (ⲯⲩⲭ)) to the spirit (ⲡⲛⲉⲩⲙⲁ).462 Sayings 87 and 112 both pronounce woes on the body and soul, while saying 29 differentiates the spirit from the soul and elevates the former. Patterson takes this as

457 Jackson, The Lion Becomes Man, 212. 458 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato.” 459 In addition to these themes Patterson also argues that the presentation of light in Gos. Thom. is Platonic in nature, as is Gos. Thom.’s conception of motion and rest. Stephen J. Patterson, “Motion and Rest: The Platonic Origins of a Mysterious Concept,” in Scribal Practices and Social Structures among Jesus Adherents: Essays in Honour of John S. Kloppenborg, ed. William E. Arnal et al. (Leuven ; Paris ; Bristol, CT: Peeters, 2016), 251–61. 460 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 184. 461 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 187. 462 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 187–88.

162 evidence that Gos. Thom.’s presentation of human nature is similar to that that Philo posits through his exegesis of Genesis 2:7, the spirit does not belong in the fleshy body.463 Keeping with the theme of Platonic anthropology, Patterson moves to examine the image of god in Middle Platonic traditions and in the Gospel of Thomas. There was a widespread and ancient notion that the nous and god were intimately bound, and Patterson sees this understanding of the relationship between humans and gods in the writing of many Middle Platonists.464 Cicero, Seneca, and Philo all share the notion that god resides within the person, or that humans were created in the image of god. Here Patterson is largely dependent on Philo’s interpretation of Genesis 1:26-27 in Opif 69.465 Philo’s Platonic interpretation of Genesis demonstrates that “the Jewish scriptures are not the work of a primitive mind, presenting the Divine in crudely anthropomorphizing terms, but the work of a true philosopher.”466 For Philo, it is only the Mind that was created in the image (εἰκών) of God. This is emphasized later in On The Creation when Philo discusses the second, fleshy creation of Genesis 2:7 Opif 134-135: the human mind (nous) was created in the image of God, but sense perceptible parts of the human— body and soul—were created separately from the nous. It is with this notion of the image of God that Patterson interprets Gos. Thom. 84. The image (ⲛϩⲓⲕⲱⲛ) that came into being before the person admiring their own likeness is from the first creation where humans were pure mind and thus the image of god. Gos. Thom. 22 also references the image, here making an image in the place of an image is required to enter the kingdom of the father. Here again the requirement is for the student to return to the first creation and become an image of God, as humans were originally created. The Platonic aspects of Gos. Thom. to which Patterson points all comment on the creation stories in Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:7. Gos. Thom.’s Platonism is largely found in sayings that comment on creation and anthropology. Patterson qualifies that he is not arguing that Gos. Thom. is a Middle Platonic gospel, and notes that the text “does not dwell on many of the of the common themes of the Platonic revival: the Ideas and their immanent Forms; the concept of the One and the Dyad, or the notion of Daimones as mediating figures. There are no extended,

463 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 189. 464 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 190. 465 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 190. I will discuss Gos. Thom.’s own interpretation of the creation stories in Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:7 below. 466 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 190.

163 sophisticated examinations of these or other metaphysical issues.”467 Patterson concludes that “at the very least, […] GThom is a wisdom gospel that has been brushed over with the animating notions of Middle Platonism.”468 On this point Patterson is quite right, although I think he understates the implications of Gos. Thom.’s Platonic brushing. Why might Gos. Thom. have incorporated popular aspects of Middle Platonism? And while speculating on the motivations of long dead composers is not the best course of action for the historian, asking what social milieu could have produced and supported a Platonic-ish collection of wise sayings is. This question leads to my final section wherein I analyze Gos. Thom.’s Platonic exegesis of Genesis in depth. 7.1 Exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2 Gos. Thom. is by no means a sustained exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2, and there are many saying in Gos. Thom. that have little or nothing to do with creation in Genesis. That being the case, there are still a significant number of sayings in Gos. Thom. that do comment on creation in Genesis, enough to believe that Gos. Thom. is at least partially focused on an exegesis of the creation stories. Gos. Thom.’s exegesis is neither all that sophisticated, nor all that original: Gos. Thom.’s approach to the creation stories in Genesis posits that the creation story in Genesis 1:26-27 is distinct from the creation story in 2:7. Gos. Thom. addresses these two stories in a way that is very similar to Philo of Alexandria: the first creation story in Genesis 1:26-27 presents humans as a perfect, formless image of God; the second creation story in Genesis 2:7 presents humans as lesser earthly beings. But where Philo uses allegory to explain the two creation stories, Gos. Thom. takes them more literally and implores the reader/hearer to return to the original state of creation. Steven Davies, Elaine Pagels, Arthur Droge, and William Arnal have also argued that a number of Gos. Thom.’s sayings perform exegesis on the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2.469 Davies was the first to suggest that Gos. Thom. was in part exegetical. Davies highlights Gos. Thom.’s sayings on light, the kingdom, and beginnings to argue that Gos. Thom. is a protological

467 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 204. 468 Patterson, “Jesus Meets Plato,” 205. 469 Stevan L. Davies, “The Christology and Protology of the Gospel of Thomas,” JBL 111 (1992): 663–682; A. J. Droge, “Sabbath Work/Sabbath Rest: Genesis, Thomas, John,” HR 47 (2007): 112–41. Elaine H. Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1 in the Gospels of Thomas and John,” JBL 118 (1999): 477–96; Arnal, “The Rhetoric of Social Construction.” Pagels is largely in agreement with Davies, and greatly develops Davies’ notion that the Gospel of Thomas is exegetical. Droge is not as convinced as Pagels that Gos. Thom. includes the primordial light of Genesis 1:3 in his exegesis of creation but is otherwise in agreement with Gos. Thom.’s use of Genesis.

164 discourse that calls on disciples of Jesus to recognize and return to their original states as primordial light.470 For Thomas, the kingdom of God is the indwelling of light in all things, within people (Gos. Thom. 3, 24) and outside of them (Gos. Thom. 113, 77). When people actualize their inherent ability to perceive through primordial light, they perceive the world to the be the kingdom of God (Gos. Thom. 3, 113).471

Davies argues that Gos. Thom.’s Genesis exegesis is present not only in its protological sayings, but also in its presentation of Jesus. Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, Gos. Thom. has little-to-no Christology, and instead uses the figure of Jesus as a guide by which the disciples can discovered the light within themselves, their primordial beginnings, and become like Jesus.472 Elaine Pagels’ is largely in agreement with Davies in that she also understands Gos. Thom.’s sayings about light and the kingdom to be a part of Gos. Thom.’s overall exegetical program. She identifies fifteen sayings that either refer directly to the creation account or to themes that refer to Genesis 1— Gos. Thom. 4, 11, 18, 19, 37, 49, 50, 77, 83, 84, and 85—or are implicitly related to the creation story, 22, 24, 61, 70.473 Pagels hypothesizes that the sayings in Gos. Thom., “are not randomly arranged, but carefully ordered to lead one through the process of seeking and ‘finding the interpretation of these sayings’ (log. 1).”474 She understands Gos. Thom.’s organizing structure to be a “complex, riddling composition that requires the reader to ‘continue seeking until he finds.’”475 By understanding Gos. Thom.’s exegesis of Genesis, the reader, unlike Adam, will not taste death. Pagels’ hypothesis is primarily supported by sayings in Gos. Thom. that refer to primordial light, which she argues represents the state of nature prior to creation.476 Examining these sayings alongside Genesis 1, she concludes that the source of Gos. Thom.’s religious conviction is an exegesis of Genesis 1, which she shows follows a pattern both widely known and varied in the ancient world.477

470 Davies, “Christology and Protology,” 664–65. 471 Davies, “Christology and Protology,” 665. 472 Davies, “Christology and Protology,” 679. 473 Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1,” 481. 474 Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1.” 475 Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1,” 481-482. 476 Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1,” 484. 477 Pagels, “Exegesis of Genesis 1,” 488.

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William Arnal accepts most of the arguments made by Davies and Pagels and asks how this exegesis operates at the level of Gos. Thom. as a text. His answer: Gos. Thom.’s use of Genesis is an example of intertextuality that serves to obscure rather than elucidate the message of the text. The Genesis reinterpretation in Gos. Thom. is not particularly difficult to communicate or conceptualize—a Jewish (re)interpretation of Genesis through Middle Platonism would not have been difficult to receive—nor require much intellectual sophistication to comprehend.478 That being said, unlike Philo or even Paul, Gos. Thom. is opaque with his use of Genesis. Philo’s Creation, for example, states explicitly that he is interpreting Genesis, and even cites the relevant passages. Gos. Thom., on the other hand, presents its interpretation of Genesis through obscured and scattered sayings that have no additional explanation (the reader of Gos. Thom. is not informed that these sayings are making reference to Genesis). But while Gos. Thom. is not explicit in its exegesis of Genesis, there are sections where Gos. Thom. provides hints to the reader as to what is going on. As I noted in Section 6, for the most part Gos. Thom.’s structure intentionally creates interpretive problems by separating related sayings and directly contradicting sayings that appeared earlier in the text. This spreading of related sayings is also the case for many of the sayings in Gos. Thom. that relate to creation: 11, 15, 18, 19, 22, 50, 83, 84, 85, 114. That being the case, there are sections where two or three of these sayings are clumped together and function as a small discussion of Genesis, namely Gos. Thom. 18-19; 83-85. This clumping is significant because in almost all other cases Gos. Thom. tends to separate related sayings rather than connect them.479 Gos. Thom. 18 and 19 both address the issue of beginnings: 18. The students said to Jesus, “Tell us, how our end will be” Jesus said, “Have you discovered the beginning, then, that you are seeking after the end? For where the beginning is, the end will be. Blessed is the one who stands at the beginning: that one will know the end and will not taste death.”

19. Jesus said, “Blessed is the one who came into being before coming into being. If you become my students and pay attention to my sayings, these stones will serve you. For there are five trees in Paradise for you; they do not change, summer or winter, and their leaves do not fall. Whoever knows them will not taste death.”

478 Arnal, “How the Gospel of Thomas Works,” 274. 479 The one exception is Gos. Thom. 63-65, all parables in which a rich person suffers due to their wealth.

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In saying 18 the disciples are wrongly concerned about their ends when they should be concerned about their beginnings. Gos. Thom.’s reversal of the beginning and end, and claim that the one who stands at the beginning will know the end and not taste death is, out of context, rather confusing. Saying 19 potentially adds to the confusion by congratulating the one who came into being before coming into being. Both sayings make sense if one has in mind the two creation stories in Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:7, but Gos. Thom. does not mention that anywhere in the text, and only alludes to it in a few sayings that are greatly removed from sayings 18 and 19. To understand Gos. Thom.’s exegetical project, one must regard the stories in Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:7 as two distinct creations: the first where human beings were pure images of God, and the second where humans were made flesh and blood.480 This interpretation of the Genesis creations is most clearly present in Gos. Thom. sayings 83-85: 83. Jesus said, “Images are revealed to people, but the light within them is hidden in the image of the light of the Father. He will be disclosed, but his image is hidden in his light.” 84. Jesus said, “In the days that you see your likeness, you rejoice. But when you see your images that came into being before you that neither die nor become revealed, how much will you endure!” 85. Jesus said, “Adam came into being from great power and great wealth, he did not become worthy of you. For had he been worthy, [he would] not [have tasted] death.”481

In saying 83, Gos. Thom. uses the same word, ϩⲓⲕⲱⲛ (borrowed directly from the Greek, εἰκών), to refer both to images as representations of sense perceptible things, and the original, unseen image (ϩⲓⲕⲱⲛ Gos. Thom. 83.2, εἰκών Genesis 1:26), the image of God in which humans were first created. The current form of humanity—the fleshy embodied human—is a result of the second creation (Genesis 2:7), and when these fleshy humans see ⲛϩⲓⲕⲱⲛ that came into being before, during the first creation, they are distressed. Saying 85 makes it clear that we are dealing with Genesis as it presents Adam, the fleshy result of the second creation, as unworthy of Gos. Thom.’s audience. Saying 46 supports the idea that Adam was the first product of the second, lesser creation, and sayings 11, 18, 19 all stress the significance and superiority of the first creation over the second. Combined with sayings 15, 22, 50, and 114 (all of which allude to the

480 This is not a necessary, or even obvious interpretation of Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:7. Philo, for example, acknowledges the two stories but solves the potential incongruity that two distinct creations might invoke by allegorizing them. 481 My translation.

167 two creations), Gos. Thom. contains ten sayings that address the creation accounts in Genesis 1:26-27 and 2:7. The Gospel of Thomas’ exegesis is slightly opaque in that it does not reference Genesis at all, but with the knowledge of Genesis the exegetical program is relatively clear: the first humans were created in the perfect image of God, and the second fleshy creation is vastly different from the first. Gos. Thom. interprets the two creation stories in Genesis through Platonic philosophy, namely Platonic dualism that differentiates between the nous and the soma. For Gos. Thom., the first creation parallels Plato’s nous, the aspect of mind, whereas the second creation parallels the baser soma. It is clear that for Gos. Thom. the flesh and blood state of humanity is a lesser state (see sayings 29 and 112), and the message Jesus pushes in Gos. Thom. is the need to return to that first, perfect creation. Sayings 11, 15, 18, 19, 22, 50, 83, 84, 85, and 114 all directly address the need to return to the previously perfect state, and many more sayings stress the importance of becoming a single one or being alone and chosen. The theme of returning to the primordial image of the first creation (beginning) and the parallel requirement of being alone chosen, a collection of sayings dependent on Gos. Thom.’s exegesis of Genesis, is the most consistent theme in the text.482 Engaging in exegesis of an ancestral text was common practice among the pepaideumenoi. The practice of writing commentaries and exegeses of ancestral and philosophical texts was prevalent among educated peoples of antiquity and featured in philosophical schools, with Philo and his fellow exegetes in Alexandria, and even among students of the grammarian whose Homeric scholia minora constituted some of their first forays into the world of the pepaideumenoi. If the argument that Gos. Thom. is in part a commentary on, and exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2 is acceptable, then it follows that Gos. Thom. imagined, or strove for, an audience that would be able to recognize and appreciate these exegetical efforts as paideia. That being the case, I do not propose that the gospel of Gos. Thom. was rolled up next to Philo in the “Genesis Exegesis” section of a philosopher’s bookshelf. Gos. Thom.’s exegesis is, generically speaking, far less sophisticated than those of Philo. Philo addresses the creation stories in Genesis in several places, but his comments in Allegorical Commentary, Questions and

482 This number is also more conservative than the numbers we would get if we counted the sayings that comment on Genesis according to Davies and Pagels. Pagels identifies 15 sayings, and Davies sees Gos. Thom. as a consistent commentary on Genesis with nearly all of Gos. Thom.’s content at least fitting that hermeneutic, if not commenting on Genesis directly.

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Answers on Genesis and Exodus, and Exposition stand out. In all three Philo comments on the creation stories in Genesis, but each seems to have a different audience in mind. Allegorical Commentary assumes a readership well versed in Judean ancestral tradition, Platonic philosophy, and Alexandrian exegesis.483 Questions and Answers covers many of the same passages of Genesis, but the question-and-answer style suggests that it was aimed at a more general audience consisting of interested but not philosophically educated Judeans.484 Finally, the Exposition addresses an audience that is familiar with neither Judean traditions, nor Alexandrian-style literary criticism.485 Maren Niehoff suggests that the Exposition was written in Rome for a Roman audience during Philo’s tenure with the embassy to Gaius.486 Thus in Philo’s exegeses we see three different audiences for which he writes on the same topic: the educated elite of Alexandria, Judean and non-Judean; a more general Judean audience in Alexandria; and one for a more general, non-Judean, non-Alexandrian audience. The Gospel of Thomas would not have impressed the educated elite of Alexandrian, but Gos. Thom.’s exegetical efforts might have found an audience among the non-philosophically educated Judeans imaged to be the audience for Questions and Answers. And given that Gos. Thom. is a sayings collection, many of which are occasioned by questions from Jesus’ students, the comparison to Questions and Answers is even more attractive.487

8. Conclusion: The Gospel of Thomas’ World Based on Gos. Thom.’s genre, self-presentation, and content, marginally educated composers and consumers make the most sense. The chreia as a literary form and the chreiai collection as a genre are both connected almost exclusively with ancient schooling and philosophy. The chreia itself served as a vehicle for conveying simple yet specialized culturally significant knowledge. The chreia as container of knowledge is supported by the presentation of Jesus as a teacher of

483 Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 136. 484 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria, 157. Notably, sayings 18 and 22—both of which make reference to the ideal beginning of the first creation—are introduced by questions from Jesus’ students. Also of note is the fact that saying 50 is framed as an exchange of question and answer in which Jesus instructs his students to engage should anyone ask where they are from. 485 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria, 170–77. 486 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria, 176–77. 487 I have explored this idea more extensively in, Ian Phillip Brown, “Where Indeed Was the Gospel of Thomas Written? Thomas in Alexandria,” JBL 138 (2019): 451–72.

169 students in the Gospel of Thomas. Questions from Jesus’ students occasion many of Gos. Thom.’s sayings. The text of Gos. Thom. also has pretentions to being more esoteric than it is, particularly in its unstated intertextuality with Genesis. Gos. Thom.’s form is intimately tied to ancient schooling (elementary and philosophical), and Gos. Thom.’s wisdom sayings, emphasis on interpretation, and philosophical exegesis would all have been immediately familiar to the student of the didaskalos and grammatikos. In every sense, Gos. Thom. is schoolish, and this schoolishness is the reason that Gos. Thom. worked. Taken individually Gos. Thom.’s genre, presentation of Jesus as a teacher, hermeneutic of effort, and Genesis exegesis suggest a schoolish setting and somewhat educated consumers of the text. Taken together, it is difficult to imagine another social location that would so well accommodate the texts and its users.

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Chapter 5: Paul’s Paideia

1. General Chapter Outline In this chapter I argue that in 1 Corinthians, we have a letter addressed from one marginal intellectual, Paul, to a group that he also treats as marginal intellectuals. In doing so, I treat 1 Corinthians as a discursive site, approaching it from a synchronic perspective. This is not to deny that the letter is part of a longer, complicated exchange of which most is lost. Rather, in approaching 1 Corinthians synchronically, I am taking my cue from William H. Sewell Jr.’s application of Clifford Geertz to the study of history: rather than focusing on a temporal sequence of events, I am focusing on acts of cultural signification (in this case I focus on paideia) “as components of a mutually defined and mutually sustaining universe of (at least momentarily, until the analytical spell breaks) unchanging meaning.”488 In 1 Corinthians, Paul performs as, and addresses what he perceives to be, marginal intellectuals. The contents of 1 Corinthians suggest that the audience would recognize the cultural significance of claiming and performing paideia but also that this audience was not educated through the ideal and elite paths required to be pepaideumenoi. Many sections in 1 Corinthians are best understood as Paul responding to requests for paideia, or challenges to his claims to be a teacher of paideia. As I will show throughout this chapter, signs of paideia are everywhere in 1 Corinthians. While my focus on Paul and the Corinthians is distinct, there have been numerous studies that have focused on the intellectual world of Paul and the Corinthians more generally. E. A. Judge, Stanley K. Stowers, Stephen Pogoloff, Duane Litfin, Michael Bullmore, Dale Martin, Bruce Winter, Robert Dutch, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Corin Mihaila, Timothy Brookins, Claire S. Smith, Anna C. Miller, Adam G. White, and Paul Robertson have all argued that, in some way, Graeco-Roman education (and particularly rhetorical education) is key to understanding Paul’s correspondence in Corinth.489 I will review the arguments of these studies,

488 William H. Sewell Jr., “Geertz, Cultural Systems, and History: From Synchrony to Transformation,” Representations.59 (1997): 40. 489 E. A. Judge, “The Conflict of Educational Aims in the New Testament,” in The First Christians in the Roman World: Augustan and New Testament Essays, ed. James R. Harrison, Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 229 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 693–708; Stanley K. Stowers, “Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: The Circumstances of Paul’s Preaching Activity,” NovT 26.1 (1984): 59–82; Stanley K. Stowers, “Does Pauline Christianity Resemble a Hellenistic Philosophy?,” in Paul Beyond the Hellenism/Judaism Divide, ed. Troels Engberg-Pedersen (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 81–102; Stanley K. Stowers, “Apostrophe, Prosopopoiia and Paul’s Rhetorical Education,” in Early Christianity and Classical Culture: Comparative Studies in Honor of Abraham J. Malherbe, ed. John T. Fitzgerald, Thomas H. Olbricht, and L. Michael White (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2005), 352–69; Stanley K. Stowers, “Kinds of Myth, Meals,

171 as in many ways my own arguments are inspired by their work. But as I shall argue below, I depart from the aforementioned studies in at least two significant ways. First, my comparison of 1 Corinthians to paideia is based on the arguments made in chapters 1-3: 1) of those who received any education, the vast majority received relatively little, not completing encyclia paideia as imagined by the intellectual elites, 2) even at the earliest stages of schooling paideia- as-virtue was taught, so even among the marginally educated paideia could very easily have been recognized as a virtue worth possessing and performing, and 3) there was a field of marginally educated people in antiquity, capable of composition and interpretation, but outside of the educated elite. Thus, arguing that paideia and education are important in 1 Corinthians does not require me to argue that Paul, all of the Corinthians, or even some Corinthians had a full education complete with rhetorical and/or philosophical training. As I will show in my review, the assumption that education was all-or-nothing has hamstrung investigations, requiring that scholars conclude that Paul was either rhetorically trained, or that Paul had no formal education, with very little space in between. Second, I am not interested in distancing Paul from the world of Graeco-Roman paideia. It is too often the case that studies that take Graeco-Roman paideia into consideration argue that Paul rejected paideia (at least in its Graeco-Roman guise) and promoted instead Christ crucified, or Paul’s own gospel or kerygma. But in making these claims, Paul is artificially separated from a world where he makes sense. I argue that Paul did not reject Graeco-Roman paideia, he was

and Power: Paul and the Corinthians,” in Redescribing Paul and the Corinthians, ed. Ron Cameron and Merrill P. Miller, (Atlanta, Ga: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 105–50; Stephen M. Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia : The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians (Atlanta, Ga.: Scholars Press, 1992); A. Duane Litfin, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric, Monograph Series / Society for New Testament Studies 79 (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Michael A. Bullmore, St. Paul’s Theology of Rhetorical Style: An Examination of I Corinthians 2.1-5 in Light of First Century Graeco-Roman Rhetorical Culture (San Francisco: International Scholars, 1995); Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995); Bruce W. Winter, Philo and Paul Among the Sophists: Alexandrian and Corinthian Responses to a Julio-Claudian Movement, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002); Robert S. Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians : Education and Community Conflict in Graeco-Roman Context (New York: T&T Clark International, 2005); Corin Mihaila, The Paul-Apollos Relationship and Paul’s Stance toward Greco-Roman Rhetoric: An Exegetical and Socio-Historical Study of 1 Corinthians 1-4 (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009); Timothy A. Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians: Their Stoic Education and Outlook,” JTS 62 (2011): 51–76; Timothy A. Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom, Stoic Philosophy, and the Ancient Economy (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Claire S. Smith, Pauline Communities as “Scholastic Communities”: A Study of the Vocabulary of “Teaching” in 1 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2012); Anna C. Miller, “Not with Eloquent Wisdom: Democratic Ekklēsia Discourse in 1 Corinthians 1–4,” JSNT 35.4 (2013): 323– 54; Adam G. White, Where Is the Wise Man?: Graeco-Roman Education as a Background to the Divisions in 1 Corinthians 1-4 (London, New York, Oxford, New Dehli, Sydney: T&T Clark, 2015); Paul Robertson, Paul’s Letters and Contemporary Greco-Roman Literature: Theorizing a New Taxonomy, (Leiden: Brill, 2016).

172 very much within it and, as a marginal intellectual, offered his own version of paideia as the best paideia, but not as a rejection of the world that made paideia culturally significant in the first place. This may again sound like nit-picking. But as I will demonstrate below, it is difficult to make sense of Paul’s Corinth without Graeco-Roman paideia, and a rejection of that world would constitute a rejection of the very thing that made Paul recognizable to his audience in 1 Corinthians in the first place.

2. Criteria of an Intellectual Exchange In my examination of the Gospel of Thomas I argued that the text was likely produced and used by what I have identified as marginal intellectuals. It has pretensions to literary and philosophical sophistication; it is a collection of chreiai and expanded chreiai attributed to a wise teacher; and it uses a rhetoric of secrecy and unstated intertextuality to make its contents appear esoteric and intellectual. Gos. Thom. as a text ticks the boxes that we would expect a text produced and used by marginal intellectuals would tick. The task of identifying 1 Corinthians as part of an exchange between marginal intellectuals is slightly more complicated in that it involves more than simply determining the literary quality of the letter. What I propose here is not an absolute set of criteria for who would and would not be pepaideumenoi, but it should give us a good sense of what we could expect from an intellectual exchange between educated peoples. My criteria differ from those offered by others who have questioned Paul’s intellectual chops and rhetorical skills, particularly the criteria used by Ryan Schellenberg to argue that Paul was not rhetorically trained. 1. Literary sophistication of 1 Corinthians. This is in many ways the simplest, and the one that has received the most attention in previous scholarship. If 1 Corinthians is a literarily sophisticated document, then we have a good argument that they may have been composed by/for pepaideumenoi. If 1 Corinthians contains flairs of literary sophistication but is otherwise simply composed, it may be closer to the composition of a marginal intellectual. Aspects of writing that we should focus on includes: a. Knowledge and use of rhetorical forms b. Advanced Greek grammar c. Citation of Homer or other classical texts of encyclia paideia

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Beyond literary sophistication, there are several other aspects of 1 Corinthians we can examine with respect to how much paideia it shows. 2. On Paul the author, does he show off his paideia in his letter? a. Does he use school metaphors? b. Does he present himself as a teacher? c. Does he treat his audience as fellow intellectuals? Students? d. What kind of paideia is Paul offering? e. How is he framing his paideia? f. Does Paul appeal to the authority of authoritative texts? i. If so, how does he do it? 3. Are the Corinthians as they are presented by Paul, interested in paideia? a. What does Paul think he needs to convey to the Corinthians to impress them? b. How does he do this? If 1 Corinthians was an exchange between intellectual elites, we might expect: 1. Sophisticated writing 2. A reference to teachers Paul and the Corinthians shared 3. Subtle references to Homer and other authors they would have encountered in their schooling 4. Sophisticated engagement with, and possibly interpretation of authoritative traditions 5. Discussions of popular morality In what follows I will argue that 1 Corinthians contain most of the features we would expect in an intellectual discourse, but they are rarely expressed in the ways we might expect from an elite intellectual such as Plutarch, Quintilian, Philo, or Lucian.

3. Paul’s Education and the Literary Sophistication of 1 Corinthians Given that the first two chapters of this dissertation outlined the construction of virtue in encyclia paideia from elementary letters to rhetoric and philosophy, it will be helpful to begin my examination of Paul with a brief review of what has been said about his education. The idea that Paul was educated is a relatively recent one. E. A. Judge was the first to suggest that Pauline Christian communities might be favourably compared to scholastic communities, but the focus on Paul as an educated man is generally understood to have its origins in Hans Dieter Betz’s

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1975 article “The Literary Composition and Function of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.”490 Betz argued that Galatians was constructed according to the prescripts of an apologetic letter, and as such followed the requirements of the genre that was taught in Graeco-Roman rhetorical schools. And while he does not state that Paul had a rhetorical education, he draws on the writings and teachings of Plato, Socrates, Isocrates, Demosthenes, Cicero, Libanius, Quintilian, and Aristotle as examples of the kind of rhetoric that Paul uses in Galatians. The implication, if unstated, was that Paul was aware of compositional techniques that were taught and used by ancient and contemporary rhetors and philosophers.491 Following Betz there have been many attempts to argue that Paul possessed a rhetorical education, but this is not the place to review those studies.492 My interest here is in whether or not Paul and/or the Corinthians were engaging with paideia in some guise. For this to be the case, we would have to assume some contact with encyclia paideia on the part of both Paul and the Corinthians, but that contact need not be so close as arguing that one or both parties possessed advanced educations. As I argue in Chapter Three, there are many reasons that people who have not completed rhetorical or philosophical schooling may have been attracted to and discoursed in paideia. So, my review of Paul’s presumed education will be limited to studies that argue that paideia was a factor in Corinth. Whether or not Paul and/or the Corinthians were educated is far less interesting than questioning whether and how their engagement with paideia conditioned the reception of Paul, and the challenges to him, especially in 1 Corinthians. Many of the studies of Paul’s education focus on that education peripherally: the main point of contention is over the conflicts that Paul addresses in 1 Cor., conflicts that arose out of differing opinions over intellectual matters. The following studies argue that Paul counters these intellectual challenges by presenting himself as the superior intellectual. To prove that Paul presented himself as a superior intellectual, these studies argue (variously) that Paul wrote with literary sophistication, and even a rhetorical flair. This section, then, will primarily address the first of my criteria and the sub-criteria therein: if Paul was an intellectual elite, then we would

490 Hans Dieter Betz, “The Literary Composition and Function of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians,” NTS 21 (1975): 353–79. 491 For a discussion of how Betz began the investigation of Paul’s education in earnest see, Ryan S. Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education: Comparative Rhetoric and 2 Corinthians 10-13 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 31–32. 492 For a detailed review of the literature on Paul’s education see, Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 17–56.

175 expect his letters to display literary sophistication, advanced grammar, and references to or citations of classical literature familiar to a pepaideumenoi from their schooling. Following this review, I will conclude with what we might be able to deduce about Paul’s education from the style of 1 Corinthians, and ask how Paul’s education affects our understanding of: Paul, the Corinthians, and the nature of the issues between these two parties. There have been far more examinations of Paul’s rhetoric than I review here. I have selected the following sources not only because they talk about Paul’s rhetorical skills, but because they locate discussions of Paul’s rhetorical prowess (or lack thereof) in the social world of the educated in antiquity by asking whether and how divisions in Paul’s Corinth were over issues of rhetoric and, by extension, the proper presentation and handling of paideia. 3.1 Stephen M. Pogoloff (1992) Duane A. Litfin (1994) Michael A. Bullmore (1995) Dale Martin (1995) Stephen M. Pogoloff was one of the first to make a direct and sustained connection between the divisions in Corinth alluded to in 1 Cor. 1-4 and Graeco-Roman rhetoric; Duane A. Litfin and Michael A. Bullmore followed close behind. Pogoloff, Litfin, and Bullmore all argue that rhetoric was a major factor in divisions in Corinth but they come to different conclusions regarding how Paul addressed it. For Pogoloff, Paul’s Corinthian audience was composed of people competing for status who wanted to be recognized as “wise (cultured).”493 Paul was understood as (or presented himself as) a travelling sophist whom the Corinthians patronized. Paul was an amateur rhetor, but in 1 Cor. he did not reject elite rhetoric in favour of simpler rhetoric, rather he rejected the cultural values attached to elite rhetoric (the pepaideumenoi), particularly the exclusion of non-elites.494 Pogoloff was less interested in finding specific rhetorical forms in 1 Cor. 1-4, and instead uses rhetoric as a means to identify social-status issues in Corinth.495 For Pogoloff, the divisions in Corinth were over status competitions and who could claim the most prestigious teacher: Paul was responding to desire among the Corinthians for a wise teacher to patronise, but rejecting their divisions between educated elite and non-elites.496

493 Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia, 273. 494 Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia, 121. 495 Pogoloff specifically criticizes Laurence Welborn and Margaret Mitchell for being too focused on rhetorical forms in their own studies. See L. L. Welborn, “On the Discord in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Ancient Politics,” JBL 106 (1987): 85–111; Margaret Mary Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians, Hermeneutische Untersuchungen zur Theologie 28 (Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1991). 496 Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia, 273.

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Pogoloff argues that the relationship between Paul and the Corinthians was patron-client, and that Paul defended his patronage by criticizing the values attached to elite rhetoric that was causing division in Corinth. In terms of the rhetorical composition of 1 Corinthians, Pogoloff was one of the first to frame Paul not merely as outside Graeco-Roman culture, but as a critic of it. In terms of my own concerns with Paul and the Corinthians, Pogoloff’s argument necessitated a rhetorically educated Corinthian audience for Paul competing with others in Paul’s ekklesia for prestige. Paul’s own deployment of rhetorical flair served to use their own tools to reject the values associated with the elite and educated Corinthians in order to unite the group. On encyclia paideia specifically, Pogoloff argues that Except for specialized ‘trade schools’ for slaves and lower class free in large urban centers, virtually all education, including the learning of ‘letters’ (roughly, age 7 to 12) and ‘grammar’ (13-17), as well as ‘rhetoric’ (up to age 20 or even higher) was viewed as a continuum which aimed to produce the complete eloquent individual. Even if one’s economic status limited a student to only part of this progression, that part would communicate a certain amount of rhetorical and literary theory and practice.497

Pogoloff follows Quintilian’s outline of encyclia paideia and presents it as singular and linear, but he does recognize that there were still students who began schooling but did not finish. Pogoloff takes this to mean that, outside of the educated elite, there were partly educated people who could “communicate a certain amount of rhetorical and literary theory and practice.” It was this group that Paul was defending from attacks from the educated elite in Corinth, and Paul’s efforts to include the partially educated are the reason for his criticism of the values of elite paideia. Pogoloff’s argument is helpful, but he still focuses too much on the educated elites as a root of the problem in Corinth. This necessitates that Paul either was well educated himself or was recognized by the elites as a worthy patron. This is possible, but as I will argue below, it is not likely that Paul, or the Corinthians, were pepaideumenoi. Duane A. Litfin also focuses on the intellectuals causes of the divisions in Corinth. He rejected the older hypotheses that the divisions emerged from Hellenistic synagogues, gnostic mysteries, or Corinthian charisma, and instead argued that they were rooted in Graeco-Roman rhetoric.498 Like Pogoloff, he sees Paul as a rejector of the cultural values attached to elite rhetoric, and argues that this rejection is why Paul presented himself as a proclaimer rather than a

497 Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia, 50. 498 Litfin, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation, 244.

177 rhetorical persuader.499 But unlike Pogoloff, Litfin situates Paul much more directly within the realm of the pepaideumenoi. Litfin argues that Paul would have been in good company using rhetorical skills to ridicule rhetoric, a practice bemoaned by Quintilian in The Orator’s Education 2.16.1.500 Paul, then, worked within the world of Graeco-Roman rhetoric, even if to disavow it. Unlike Pogoloff, Litfin does not establish rhetoric in relation to ancient education, and simply addresses it as an historically and contemporarily important practice that the Corinthians would have known. The Corinthians were well versed in rhetoric, and found Paul lacking. This occasions Paul’s defense of himself and criticism of the values attached to elite rhetoric. Michael Bullmore generally agrees with Litfin’s conclusions, but for Bullmore, Paul rejects a very specific sub-type of rhetorical aesthetic most common among Asiatic orators. Bullmore does look at how rhetoric was taught, but seems to assume that education was far more widespread, and that all Greek children would have access to public schools.501 As such Bullmore falls into the same trap as Litfin, assuming a universal awareness and significance of rhetoric without looking at the social worlds in which rhetoric was recognized as cultural capital. Pogoloff, Litfin, and Bullmore all see rhetoric as a key source of division in Paul’s Corinth.502 All three also present some Corinthians, implicitly or explicitly, as rhetorically educated. Their evidence is not drawn from what we know the Corinthians to have said, but from the ways in which Paul addresses the divisions alluded to in 1 Cor. 1-4. The logic of these arguments is that rhetoric was significant in the Graeco-Roman world, and people would naturally use it to try to claim status and put down others. Yes, rhetoric was a potential source of cultural capital, but not for everyone. Did Paul and/or the Corinthians possess the training to compete for the capital? This question is left largely unraised by Litfin and Bullmore who both argue that rhetoric was the issue in Corinth based on the fact that rhetoric was important in the Graeco-Roman world. They do little to differentiate that world or ask what signs exist in 1 Corinthians to suggest that either party was rhetorically educated. Pogoloff is more nuanced, arguing that rhetoric was a fundamental part of education, and even partially educated people

499 Litfin, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation, 248. 500 Litfin, St. Paul’s Theology of Proclamation, 260. 501 Bullmore, St. Paul’s Theology of Rhetorical Style, 155–57. 502 A. Duane Litfin, “Review of Michael A. Bullmore, St. Paul’s Theology of Rhetorical Style: An Examination of 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 in Light of First-Century Rhetorical Criticism,” JBL 116 (1997): 568–70.

178 would have some skills in rhetoric. But along with Liftin and Bullmore, Pogoloff also sees educated elites as the source of the problems in Corinth. As I will argue below, there is nothing in 1 Corinthians that necessitates that Paul, or the Corinthians were educated elites. There are many indications, however, that they were marginal intellectuals. Dale Martin followed Pogoloff (Litfin and Bullmore are absent from his bibliography) in viewing elite rhetoric as the issue behind the apparent divisions in 1 Cor. 1-4.503 Martin agrees that Paul is critical, even disparaging of Graeco-Roman rhetoric, but wonders if Paul protests too much. Martin argues that Paul’s critique of rhetoric was itself a rhetorical performance meant to demonstrate his own competencies while ridiculing his opponents. To make this apparent, Martin translates “οὐκ ἐν σοφίᾳ λόγου” 1 Cor. 1:17 as “not with rhetorical technique” as opposed to the more standard “not with wise words.”504 With this in mind, Martin argues that 1 Cor, 1:20, and Paul’s claims in 1 Cor. 2:1-4 that he does not preach in excellence of speech or skill, refer to the rhetorical terminology of rhetorical education.505 Like Litfin, Martin argues that the use of rhetoric to critique rhetoric was a common practice, as was the practice of orators feigning doubt about their own skills.506 Paul claims that he is not a professional rhetor, but he never denies that he was trained. Given his understanding of Graeco-Roman education as rhetorical education (an understanding I have called into question in Part 1), Martin argues that Paul must have had some contact with rhetorical education, and given the content of 1 Corinthians, Martin concludes that it “it is inconceivable that Paul’s letters could have been written by someone uneducated in the rhetorical systems of his day.”507 The issue of Paul’s rhetorical education and the rhetorical prowess shown throughout 1 Cor. is not Martin’s main point. Rather, he argues that Paul’s rhetorical training (which he must have possessed to pen such a letter) demonstrates that Paul was a man of high social standing. 3.3 “Rhetorical Situation” vs. “Rhetorical Forms” Pogoloff, Litfin, Bullmore, and Martin are primarily interested in identifying “rhetorical situations” in Corinth as opposed to the rhetorical form of 1 Corinthians. That is to say, all four argue that rhetoric was an important social marker in the Graeco-Roman world, and that

503 Martin, The Corinthian Body. 504 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 47. 505 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 48. 506 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 48. 507 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 52.

179 demonstrations of rhetorical ability and the values that came with elite rhetoric were the causes of division in Corinth. All four do note specific rhetorical elements in 1 Corinthians, but they are not particularly concerned with demonstrating that the letter follows the formalities of rhetorical writing as outlined in rhetorical handbooks. Pogoloff is explicitly concerned that looking at rhetorical forms ignores the social situation.508 Martin, however, defers to Margaret Mitchell’s study of rhetorical forms in 1 Corinthians, stating that “Mitchell’s work has so decisively demonstrated that 1 Corinthians fits the ancient rhetorical category of the homonoia speech that I will not belabor the point.”509 Martin’s confidence overstates the strength of Mitchell’s argument. Yes, she identifies a number of parallels between deliberative rhetoric and 1 Corinthians, but her parallels are not as strong as they Martin suggests, and her formal analysis of letter forms does not tell us as much about the rhetorical skills of the author as Mitchell would like it to. 3.3.1 The argument for Deliberative Rhetoric in 1 Corinthians In Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation Mitchell argues that 1 Corinthians contains a “deliberative argument” embedded in the framework of the letter.510 As a whole, 1 Corinthians is a unified letter that uses deliberative rhetoric to persuade the audience to work toward unity in the face of division. This is referred to elsewhere as a homonoia or “concord” speech (letter): a type of speech that served to urge a group towards some course of action, usually unity.511 Mitchell argues that the entirety of 1 Corinthians was distinguished by deliberative rhetoric, and makes her case based on the presence of four characteristics of deliberative rhetoric: 1) a concentration on the future as the place to undertake the advised actions, 2) a fixed set of appeals to the audience, most common being appealing to things that will advantage the audience, 3) the use of examples as proofs, and 4) factionalism an concord as the main topics of discussion.512 On the first point, Mitchell argues that overwhelmingly Paul is focused on the future in 1 Cor., “because it is, appropriately, a letter which gives advice about behavioral changes in community life.”513 On making arguments that appeal to things that will advantage the audience, Mitchell

508 Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia, 89. 509 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 39. 510 Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 2. 511 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 38. 512 Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 21–23, 296. 513 Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 25.

180 again argues that this is a key element in 1 Cor. Paul uses the word συµφέρον or a cognate five times in order to persuade the Corinthians that particular changes to their behaviour will be “advantageous”: 1 Cor. 6:12; 7:35; 10:23; and 12:7. Mitchell argues that this is further evidence that Paul was using deliberative rhetoric.514 On the use of examples, Mitchell acknowledges that many literary genres use examples, so the presence of examples in 1 Cor. is not immediately evidence that the letter is written according to deliberative rhetorical styles. Mitchell does, however, see the specific function of the examples in Paul’s argument in 1 Cor. as evidence of deliberative rhetoric: Paul frequently uses himself as an example of proper behaviour to correct what he sees as improper behaviour (Mitchell cites as examples 1 Cor. 5:3-4; 13).515 This presentation of himself as paradigm and the emphasis on correcting wrong behaviour, argues Mitchell, makes these examples a part of deliberative rhetoric. The final point, that the main theme discussed is factionalism and concord, is the driving argument of Mitchell’s thesis. For Mitchell, the entire letter is framed by Paul’s statement in 1:10: “I urge you, brothers and sisters, through the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to all say the same thing, and to let there not be factions among you, but to be reconciled in the same mind and in the same opinion.”516 3.3.2 The argument against Deliberative Rhetoric in 1 Corinthians At first glance this seems a convincing argument that 1 Cor. not only contains rhetorical flair but was constructed according to the rules of a deliberative speech. Mitchell’s argument is based on the presence of topoi of deliberative rhetoric in 1 Cor., and the argument that these topoi coherently connect to one another to form a consistent argument throughout the letter. Mitchell herself recognizes that it is not enough to see parallels between 1 Cor. and deliberative rhetoric, there needs to be a coherence of argument.517 Mitchell argues for this coherence throughout, but in spite of her caution, there are places where her parallels ask too much of her reader. Ryan Schellenberg, for example, is not convinced by Mitchell’s construction of 1 Cor. as a deliberative letter.518

514 Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 25–32. 515 Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 42–49. 516 Mitchell’s translation, Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 1. 517 Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 1. 518 Ryan S. Schellenberg, “‘Where Is the Voice Coming from?’: Querying the Evidence for Paul’s Rhetorical Education in 2 Corinthians 10-13” (Ph.D., University of St. Michael’s College, 2012), 79–88.

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Schellenberg reviews Mitchell’s arguments and is not convinced, and his critiques expose the dangers of trying to identify rhetorical training or composition based on an analysis of literary form. A key aspect of Mitchell’s argument is that deliberative rhetoric was a focus on future behaviour, and that this focus is present in 1 Cor. Paul certainly provides his audience with ways in which they should behave in the future, but Schellenberg does not see this as evidence that Paul was using deliberative rhetoric. As Schellenberg argues, [f]ocus on the future is simply the nature of giving advice, or instruction, or command; therefore, unless by deliberative rhetoric we simply mean that Paul is telling the Corinthians what to do—which is certainly not what Mitchell intends to argue—Paul’s future orientation does not provide much in the ways of evidence.519

On Mitchell’s argument that Paul’s use of examples is evidence of deliberative rhetoric, Schellenberg is even more skeptical. For example, in 1 Cor. 5:3-4, Schellenberg fails to see how Paul’s verdict on the fornicator functions as an example: “Paul is asserting authority here, not using his own behaviour as an example, and there really is no formal resemblance to the παραδείγµατα she adduces from deliberative speeches.”520 An even bigger issue for Schellenberg is that Mitchell does not provide any examples of the kind of “self-examplification” she argues is present in 1 Cor. from the corpus of deliberative texts she studies. Without a parallel, Mitchell undermines her own methodology.521 On Paul’s appeal to things that will advantage the audience, Schellenberg agrees with Mitchell that this language is present in 1 Cor., but argues that Mitchell does not show that Paul’s appeals are connected to the purported theme of the letter: unity in the face of factionalism.522 Paul argues that it is advantageous for the Corinthians: to avoid fornication (6:12), to stay unmarried before the eschaton (7:35), and to not give offense in eating idol food (10:23, 33). But, as Schellenberg argues, the advantage that the Corinthians gain by not doing these things is never related to avoiding factionalism.523 Finally, and related to his previous three criticisms, Schellenberg disagrees with Mitchell’s central thesis, that “Paul arranges his proofs logically and topically, as he takes up the assorted subjects of Corinthian contention one by one, in each case urging the course of unity

519 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 80–81. 520 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 82. 521 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 82. 522 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 83. 523 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 83.

182 and compromise as he proposed in 1:10.”524 For example, Schellenberg argues that Paul’s discussion of fornication in 1 Cor. 5 is not about establishing concord in the community, but rather addresses “a specific behaviour by which he [Paul] is particularly appalled.”525 Paul makes no attempt to connect fornication to the disunity addressed in 1 Cor. 1. Schellenberg argues that the same is true for the other places where Mitchell argues that Paul harkens back to the ideas of concord and unity discussed in 1 Cor. 1: in 10:14-22 Paul says there is one bread and that the Corinthians are one body, but does not use this image to encourage unity or concord; in 7 Paul’s advice on marriage “is not integrated into any discussion of factionalism or concord.”526 In 1 Cor. 15 Mitchell argues that Paul’s discussion of the resurrection is intended to counter factionalism, but Paul’s discussion of the resurrection makes no attempt to address factionalism or concord.527 Schellenberg’s critique of Mitchell points to larger problems with attempting to identify the presence of rhetoric in texts based largely on formal aspects. Mitchell’s thesis hinges on the idea that the entirety of 1 Cor. is focused on instilling unity in a group that has been subject to factionalism. The themes of unity and factionalism are absolutely present, and even constant in 1 Cor 1-4, but to argue that calls to unity frame the entire letter asks too much, finds discussions of unity where there are none, and ignores sections that are not addressing unity. On more specific criteria, two of Mitchell’s criteria, examples and future orientation, are common in a variety of genres and there is no reason that someone giving advice or providing examples would need rhetorical training. Appealing to actions that advantage the reader/audience is slightly more specific, but here we need to be aware of how these appeals are framed, and if/how they are related to the proposed theme of the letter. As Schellenberg argues, in the places where Paul states that certain actions will be to the advantage of the Corinthians, that advantage is quite specific, and not related back to an overriding focus on group unity. Schellenberg’s specific critiques of Mitchell are generally convincing, but his main argument that Paul had no contact with the world of paideia (reviewed below) does not take into account the multiple ways in which one might cultivate and perform paideia.

524 Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation, 204. 525 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 85–86. 526 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 85–86. 527 Schellenberg, “"Where Is the Voice Coming from?,” 87.

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3.4 Ryan Schellenberg (2013): A critique of the educated Paul Ryan Schellenberg’s critique of Mitchell was not just aimed at challenging those who see 1 Corinthians as a deliberative letter, but rather a part of his larger critique of recent scholarship that has understood Paul as a well-educated figure. Schellenberg argues that Paul’s letters are not part of an ancient intellectual discourse and he rejects the arguments of those who see Paul among philosophers and rhetors.528 Schellenberg points out that from the Patristic period to the recent present commentators placed Paul outside of the educated elite, and the recent focus on Paul as an educated person is a break from the dominant theories of the past 1900 years.529 Schellenberg is concerned that the focus on Paul as an educated figure places him in too elite a social class, and makes no room for Paul to have picked up his rhetorical techniques informally.530 In order to argue that the form and content of Paul’s letters do not require Paul to possess a rhetorical education, Schellenberg examines 2 Cor. 10-13, a section frequently cited as evidence of Paul’s rhetorical training. Schellenberg looks at and refutes six arguments mounted to demonstrate that 2 Cor. 10-13 is rhetorically sophisticated: 1) the section corresponds to formal prescriptions of epistolary theory, 2) Paul’s boasting shows familiarity with περιαντολογία, 3) Paul’s difficulties parallel a peristasis catalogue, 4) Paul has a “fool’s speech,” 5) Paul uses synkrisis and, 6) Paul is ironic and therefore sophisticated.531 Schellenberg refutes all six of these points and argues that 2 Cor. 10-13 also shows no evidence of advanced educational training: Paul does not have refined diction, learned literary references, elegant use of conventional tropes and topoi, or elite more or social values.532 Further Schellenberg argues that, while Paul demonstrates a functional literacy, this was a long way from elite paideia; the literati attempted to restrict meaningful public displays of paideia to members of the pepaideumenoi, Paul had neither the skills nor the opportunity to be considered among the literary elite.533 In terms of how rhetorical devices made it into Paul’s letters, Schellenberg asserts that rhetoric is always a social practice before it becomes theory, and Quintilian himself

528 Ryan S. Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education: Comparative Rhetoric and 2 Corinthians 10-13 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2013), 4. 529 Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 5. It is not clear, however, why this is significant. Theories of historical figures change all the time. 530 Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 28. 531 Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 76–77. 532 Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 181–82. 533 Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 90–95.

184 comments that uneducated people were known to accidentally use oratory skills (Institutio Oratoria, 2.17.6). Rather than argue that Paul possessed an elite education, Schellenberg argues that it is better to explain Paul’s letters through informal rhetorical socialization.534 It is not clear, however, what Schellenberg imagines “informal rhetorical socialization” looks like. The issue here is not that Schellenberg is not careful in his argument that Paul did not have a rhetorical education, it is that he does not recognize that marginally educated people could have attained various forms of grammatical and even rhetorical training through alternative paths. 3.5 Paul’s Rhetorical Education revisited The question can now be raised: is there any evidence in 1 Corinthians that Paul or the Corinthians a) possessed rhetorical educations, or b) were more broadly part of the educated elite? Based on the arguments of Pogoloff, Litfin, Bullmore, Martin, and Mitchell, and the critiques from Schellenberg, I would have to answer in the negative. The rhetorical elements in 1 Cor. are not enough to argue that Paul was rhetorically trained, nor does what little we can glean about the Corinthians allow us to argue that they were rhetorically educated or sought to patronize a rhetor. In addition to a relative lack of formal evidence for Paul’s rhetorical education, the grammar of 1 Cor. does not suggest a rhetorically trained pen was behind it. In his study on grammatical style in the New Testament, Nigel Turner remarks that “Paul is fairly innocent of artificial rhetoric: the conventional word-order is often neglected” and “Paul’s art is usually unstudied” making his writing “inelegant to a stylist.”535 Turner notes that there are some places where an amanuensis has polished the letter (evidence that seems to come from a lack of error rather than clear signs of correction), but there are also “too many inelegances” to assume that a trained scribe helped with the composition.536 Turner points to several instances to zeugma (errors that scribes loved to rectify) as evidence of Paul’s inelegance: “[i]n 1 Cor. 3:2 only one of the nouns suits the verb and this is an excellent example of zeugma (I gave to drink milk, not meat).”537 In terms of general style, Turner argues Paul’s letters are private letters rather than formal epistles, and that Paul did not observe points of style

534 Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 311. 535 Nigel Turner, Style (vol. 4 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek eds. James Hope Moulton and Wilbert Francis Howard; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1976), 81. 536 Turner, Grammar, 82. 537 Turner, Grammar, 82.

185 or obey the rhythms of the latter.538 Many of the phrases Paul uses are also better attested in private letters as opposed to rhetorical writings: “I beseech you,” “I would have you know,” “I would not have you ignorant,” “I rejoice,” “making mention of you” are all more common among private letters and not rhetorical writings.539 Paul’s letters do contain some elements of formal epistles—irony (1 Cor. 4:8; 2 Cor. 11:19), aposiopesis, prodiorthosis and epidiorthosis, paralipsis, and rhetorical questions—but nothing so systematic that would suggest his letters are primarily rhetorical writings.540 On Paul’s level of education, Turner argues that in spite of the occasional flair for eloquence, “it is unlikely that he attended a Hellenistic teacher of rhetoric, for his anacolutha and solecisms are too numerous.”541 The fact that Paul’s letters contain so many sections that do not follow the expected grammatical sequence, and additionally contain numerous grammatical and syntactical errors, are strong indications that Paul was not rhetorically trained.542 Finally, even if Paul was not able to reproduce the expected grammatical sequences of someone who was rhetorically educated, might he have pretensions to rhetorical education or a partial rhetorical education? Here too, the answer seems to be to the negative. One of the defining aspects of rhetoric was the use of Attic words and phrases. Of Attic style of oratory, Quintilian stated that “to speak in the ‘Attic’ way means to speak in the best way” (Quintilian, Institutio Oratorio 12.10.26 [LCL]). Elsewhere Quintilian recommends using words from the past as they had an inherent authority in them and would be more persuasive to a listener (Institutio Oratorio 1.6.39-43). Lucian mocks this practice in A Professor of Public Speaking. His charlatan teacher of rhetoric advises students to sprinkle Attic words into their speeches so that “the many headed crowd will look upon you and think you amazing, and far beyond themselves in in paideia” (A Professor of Public Speaking 17.1-6 [LCL]). If Attic words and phrasing are as much a part of rhetorical composition and oratory as Quintilian and Lucian suggest, then we would expect some Attic words or phrases in 1 Cor., especially if Paul was in conflict with rhetorically educated Corinthians. But as Adolf Deissmann has classically argued,

538 Turner, Grammar, 83. 539 Turner, Grammar, 83. 540 Turner, Grammar, 83. 541 Turner, Grammar, 86. 542 Schellenberg, for example, identifies 61 instances of grammatical and syntactical difficulties and irregularities in 2 Cor. 10-13 alone. Schellenberg, Rethinking Paul’s Rhetorical Education, 270–75.

186 the Greek of the New Testament, including Paul, is “a monument of late colloquial Greek, and in the great majority of its component parts a monument of the more or less popular colloquial language.”543 On Paul specifically, Deissmann argues that his Greek never becomes literary. It is never disciplined, say, by the canon of the Atticists, never tuned to the Asian rhythm: it remains non-literary. Thickly studded with rugged, forceful words taken from the popular idiom, it is perhaps the most brilliant example of the artless though not inartistic colloquial prose of a travelled city-resident of the Roman Empire, its wonderful flexibility making it just the very Greek for use in a mission to all the world.544

Deissmann is slightly too critical of Paul’s Greek, and since the publication of Light from the Ancient East, his conclusions have been slightly revised. Arthur Darby Nock, for example notes that, one who knows the stylistic gulf between the classical Greek authors and the New Testament is astonished by the similarities between the New Testament and the papyri.545 But, Nock importantly qualifies, anyone who “knows the papyri first and then turns to Paul is astonished at the differences.”546 On Deissman specifically, Nock says. Nothing could be less like the Pauline letters than the majority of the documents in Deissmann’s Light from the ancient East. Paul is not writing peasant Greek or soldier Greek; he is writing the Greek of a man who has the Septuagint in his blood and has a supreme self-confidence in using words which allows him to play tricks with a sentence, to make his queer explosive transitions in the middle of a phrase.547

But while Paul’s letters are not as closely related to the koine of papyri, the point remains that Paul’s Greek is a long way from the Greek of the educated elite. This is hardly a controversial argument, but it is important in the examination of Paul’s possible education. One final point on Paul’s lack of Atticisms. Benjamin A. Edsall has recently examined Paul’s use of the rhetorical question “do you not know?” in 1 Cor.548 Edsall looks at the ten instances in 1 Cor. where Paul asks the rhetorical question (1 Cor. 3:16; 5:6; 6:2-3, 9, 15-16, 19; 9:13, 24) observing that the usage ranges from instances where his audience almost certainly knows, to Paul using the

543 Adolf Deissmann, Light From the Ancient East: The New Testament Illustrated by Recently Discovered Texts of the Graeco Roman World, trans. Lionel Strachey (London, New York, Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911), 62. 544 Deissmann, Light from the Ancient East, 64. 545 Arthur Darby Nock, “The Vocabulary of the New Testament,” JBL 52 (1933): 138. 546 Nock, “The Vocabulary of the New Testament,” 138. 547 Nock, “The Vocabulary of the New Testament,” 138. 548 Benjamin A. Edsall, “Paul’s Rhetoric of Knowledge: The ΟΥΚ ΟΙΔΑΤΕ Question in 1 Corinthians,” NovT 55 (2013): 252–71.

187 formula to introduce new information.549 The rhetorical question “do you not know?” is present in Attic oratory, but interestingly, where Paul uses the phrase οὐκ οἴδατε (from οἶδας), the standard Attic construction was οὐκ οἶσθα. So even in a place where Paul’s “rhetoric” is similar to a known convention, he does not replicate the Attic form of the rhetorical question. But before we grant Deissmann that Paul was a member of the masses untouched by Hellenistic education, or the more cautious conclusions of Schellenberg that Paul could have picked up his rhetorical elements through informal socialization, there is another option between the rhetorically educated Paul and the self-taught pleb. 3.6 Paul’s Education (and why it doesn’t matter) While it is not impossible to imagine a Paul who received a formal education, the above review should make it clear that Paul was not rhetorically educated. That being the case, a rhetorical education is by no means necessary to explain the shape and contents of Paul’s letters generally, or 1 Cor. specifically. Whether or not Paul was formally educated has been a sticking point for scholarship on 1 Cor., largely because education has frequently been presented as an all-or- nothing affair. Thus, scholars such as Dale Martin argue for an educated and socially advanced Paul, and Schellenberg counters with a Paul who picked things up informally. I have shown that Martin’s rhetorically educated Paul is difficult to defend, but by the same token Schellenberg understates the significance of intellectual culture on Paul’s letters and the expectations of the Corinthians. Schellenberg argues that Paul received no rhetorical education at all and could have used tropes and rhetorical devices that were “in the air” or part of the ways in which humans communicate generally. But as I have shown in chapters 1-3, we must not imagine that paideia was an all-or-nothing game. The nature of schooling and the inability of most who started schooling to finish meant that we had a relatively large number of people who could read and write and who recognized the social significance of paideia without having completed a formal rhetorical education. It is entirely possible, and indeed likely, that Paul and the Corinthians were just such people. A marginally educated Paul helps to explain the presence of paideia tropes in 1 Corinthians, his presentation of himself as a teacher, and his attempts at philosophical exegesis. A marginally educated group of Corinthians receiving Paul’s teaching helps to explain the initial attraction to Paul (a point that Stanley K. Stowers makes),550 as well as the nature of the conflicts

549 Edsall, “Paul’s Rhetoric of Knowledge,” 270–71. 550 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth.”

188 alluded to in 1 Corinthians. As noted by many of the scholars reviewed above, the conflicts in Corinth, especially those alluded to in 1 Cor. 1-4, stemmed from disagreements over the nature of Paul’s wisdom and his qualifications as a teacher. Unless we take Acts as historical, it does not seem likely that Paul drew the attention of elite rhetors or philosophers, thus a conflict with rhetors or Stoics does not seem historically plausible. If, however, Paul and the Corinthians are among the marginally educated, then competition over Paul’s alternative paideia makes a great deal more sense. If we imagine Paul as a marginally educated figure, we do not need to try to pin down his exact education. There are numerous points of contact with paideia in 1 Corinthians, as well as paideia-like practices. We know that the virtue of paideia was taught from the earliest stages of education, and do not need to assume a complete or systematic education to explain the presence of paideia in Paul’s letters.

4. Paul and Paideia, and Intellectual Culture in Corinth, a review of literature 4.1 Paul and Popular Philosophy E. A. Judge argued that early Christianity, especially Pauline Christianity was best understood as a scholastic community. Judge focused on paideia explicitly in places, but many of those who followed his lead in examining early Christianity with respect to Graeco-Roman intellectual culture shifted the focus to the ways in which early Christianity, especially Paul, resemble Graeco-Roman moral philosophy. The comparison of Paul’s letters to the letters of philosophers, and Paul’s world to the world of moral philosophers has been productive. Studies by Wayne Meeks and Abraham Malherbe have shown the many ways in which aspects of early Christianity (especially the letters of Paul) can be understood alongside the practices of moral philosophers.551 Malherbe in particular produced numerous works examining Paul’s practices with respect to moral philosophy. Malherbe saw Paul as someone who could have (and probably did) use standard Greek moralist positions, hortatory styles, and arguments in his letters, but this did not mean that Paul necessarily had advanced training in any of these discourses. The idea

551 Abraham J. Malherbe, “Gentle as a Nurse: The Cynic Background to 1 Thess 2,” NovT 12 (1970): 203–17; Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977); Abraham J. Malherbe, “Paul: Hellenistic Philosopher or Christian Pastor?,” ATR 68 (1986): 3–13; Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Thessalonians: The Philosophic Tradition of Pastoral Care (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987); Abraham J. Malherbe, “Hellenistic Moralists and the New Testament,” in ANRW 2.26.1 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1992), 267–333; Abraham J. Malherbe, Paul and the Popular Philosophers (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2006); Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983); Wayne A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1986).

189 that he did, argues Malherbe, is as much a product of the scholarly stress that has been put on the Greek origin in moral philosophy of these devices used by Paul as much as it is anything else.552 Clarence E. Glad also views Paul alongside Graeco-Roman moral philosophy, focusing on the practice of soul care (psychagogy) in both Epicurean and Pauline social formations. Glad argues that the Epicurean communal patterns of mutual participation of members in in edification, exhortation and correction resemble Pauline emphasis on communal psychagogy.553 Although the fact that Paul was influenced by Graeco-Roman philosophy is not a point that is often disputed, the question of how Paul came to pick up and use moral philosophy remains. There are aspects of Paul’s letters that make Paul look like a moral philosopher, but what kind of philosopher was Paul? Stanley Stowers explores this question at length in a 2001 essay entitled “Does Pauline Christianity Resemble a Hellenistic Philosophy?” Stowers identifies seven areas where he sees Hellenistic philosophy being closely connected with Pauline Christianity. He is, however, careful to note that what he is identifying are “similar features” and not genetic relationships.554 First, “Hellenistic philosophies conceived themselves as distinct and mutually exclusive haereseis, choices, or sects.”555 This was also the case with the Pauline groups as Paul attempts to construct life in Christ as a distinct and mutually exclusive choice.556 Second, the choice of the Hellenistic philosophies were paradoxes in the sense going back to pre- Socratics of being para doxa—that is, contrary to conventional thinking. They asserted that the happy life could not be founded on ordinary civic virtue. The modified beliefs created by critical reflection changed one’s motivations, desires, and needs, resulting in a tension between conventional life and post-reflective life.557

Here Stowers sees a strong ascetic impulse in both the Hellenistic philosophies and Paul’s groups, and claims that “it was no accident that the founders of the Hellenistic schools were not

552 Malherbe, Social Aspects, 50. 553 C.E. Glad, Paul and Philodemus: Adaptability in Epicurean and Early Christian Psychagogy (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 178. 554 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 89. The following review is an expanded version of the same review found in my MA thesis, Ian Phillip Brown, “Erudition, Power, Secrecy, and Empire: The Rhetoric of Self-Authorization and Empowerment in The Gospel of Thomas” (M.A., The University of Regina (Canada), 2011), 72–74. 555 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 89. 556 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 90. Stowers directs our attention to 1 Cor. 7 where Paul relativizes ethnic status (7:19) and calls for “undistracted devotion to the Lord” over and against marriage (7:32-35). 557 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 90.

190 married and that Jesus and Paul were also not married.”558 Third, “the change to the new life might be described as a conversion in the sense of a dramatic reorientation of the self.”559 Here Stowers sees conversion to Paul’s Jesus groups as distinct from conversion to the philosophies as the conversion Paul calls for required submission to a divine being (he cites Phil. 2:10 and 1 Cor. 15:24-28 as evidence for this required submission).560 Fourth, “[t]he Hellenistic schools presented differing technologies for asserting this new self formed around focused goals.”561 Fifth, “the Hellenistic philosophies developed the notion of the wise man.”562 On this point Stowers argues that Paul presents Jesus as a wise man worthy of imitation, and Paul says as much in 1 Cor. 11:1 “be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”563 Sixth, “encompassing the previous five characteristics, the central practices of Hellenistic schools and of Pauline Jesus groups were intellectual practices that made reference to the mind.”564 On this point Stowers argues that Pauline social groups depended heavily on Paul’s textual and interpretive skills, and this dependence makes Paul resemble a teacher of a philosophical school.565 And seventh, “the goals and practices of the Hellenistic philosophies and Paul’s ‘Christianity’ might give rise to non-traditional and radical social formations.”566 In spite of all the apparent similarities, however, Stowers ultimately concludes that while Paul did resemble Hellenistic philosophers, this was not because he was trained in or directly borrowed from Hellenistic schools. Stowers argues that it was common intellectual goals, relating to the mind, self, or soul, that caused Paul and his ekklesia to resemble philosophical schools. He goes on to point out that ancient rhetorical and legal schools also focused on intellectual practices, but in no other way resembled Hellenistic philosophies because they did not order themselves by “a tightly focused and totalizing understanding of a unitary good.”567

558 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 91. 559 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 91. 560 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 92. 561 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 92. 562 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 92. 563 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 93. 564 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 93. 565 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 93. 566 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 94. 567 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 95–96.

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Paul and his ekklesia, for Stowers, resembled Hellenistic philosophy in some respects, but cannot ultimately have been derived from, or modeled on Hellenistic philosophy. Stowers concludes by attempting to explain why it is that, even without direct borrowing, Pauline Christianity resembled Hellenistic philosophy. He argues that in the second and first centuries BCE there was a massive growth in specialized knowledge, sometimes called the Greek enlightenment.568 The character of Hellenistic philosophy was derived from creating specialized knowledge and practices about the soul, or “how to live an entire life.”569 Where Hellenistic philosophy took hold, local morals and customs were replaced by universal expertise regarding character and mind. Stowers argues that this shift in knowledge practices “also meant a shift in authority toward the specialists and away from the local knowledges of the aristocrats who now had to employ specialists themselves.”570 Pauline Christianity, then, can be understood as a new form of knowledge which depended on a specialist, Paul. Thus, it is not surprising for Stowers that Pauline Christianity resembled Hellenistic philosophy. Stowers posits a world in which Paul is plausible, but we are still left wondering how it is that Paul acquired the specialized knowledge that he offered, how he knew to frame it the way that he did, and why people took an interest in it. It is not enough to say that specialized knowledge became a desirable commodity, we need to explain how it came to be. My focus on encyclia paideia and the ways in which paideia-as-virtue was instilled throughout the educational process provides an answer to this question: marginally educated people who could not access or perform elite paideia still recognized the significance of paideia, and when presented with Paul’s teaching in Corinth recognized it as paideia. 4.2 Recent Studies on Paul, Paideia, and Corinth 4.2.1 Robert A. Dutch (2005) Robert Dutch was one of the first to examine systems of education as a possible reason for the conflicts reported in 1 Corinthians. Dutch argues that the conflict in Corinth originated when gymnastically educated Corinthians challenged Paul’s status as a teacher and attempted to exclude Corinthians who did not possess a gymnastic education. For Dutch, the conflict in Corinth was rooted in social status.571 Dutch argues that other studies that took education into

568 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 101. 569 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 101. 570 Stowers, “Hellenistic Philosophy,” 101–2. 571 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 3.

192 consideration overlooked the significance of Greek gymnastic education, and that the construction of Paul’s Corinthian household, Paul’s use of athletic, nursing, and agricultural metaphors, Paul’s system of discipline, and Paul’s concern over circumcision all indicate that his opponents had a gymnastic education.572 In bringing the gymnasium into focus, Dutch hopes to highlight the social statues dimensions of the conflicts in Corinth. The Greek gymnasium was an important social institution for constituting the male citizen, and Dutch argues that Corinth had an active gymnasium that pre-dated Paul and was operating during Paul’s life.573 Gymnasia conferred paideia to students, and Dutch argues that Greek paideia was accessible to Jews through the gymnasium.574 Dutch sees literacy in Corinth as restricted to the educated elite, and thus requires Paul’s literate audience to have received their education from the gymnasium.575 Dutch also sees evidence that Paul’s audience had a gymnastic education throughout 1 Cor. In the letter Paul presents himself as the father of an elite household; uses athletic metaphors that echoed the physical training of the gymnasium (1 Cor. 9:24-27); used nursing and nurturing metaphors that are paralleled in discussions of education (1 Cor. 3:1-4); used agricultural metaphors in ways that paralleled their use by Philo and Plutarch in their own discussions of education (1 Cor. 3:5-9); refers to the γραµµατεύς in 1 Cor. 1:20 (who Dutch argues was a part of the Greek gymnasium); and discusses circumcision (1 Cor. 7:17-24). Dutch sees circumcision as an issue because in the gymnasium, athletes competed nude, so an adult circumcision or removing the marks of circumcision could “produce an unfavourable reaction and cause embarrassment.”576 Dutch’s identification of signs of paideia in 1 Corinthians is convincing, but his model of ancient education assumes people possessed either a full education acquired from the gymnasium, or no education at all. This position requires the positing of gymnastic (or rhetorical, or philosophical) education, but fails to make sense of Paul’s innovations, or why he was received as a teacher at all. As we will see below, the notion that education was an all or nothing game limits many of the studies on Paul and paideia.

572 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 6. 573 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 96–110. 574 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 149, 163. 575 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 184–94. 576 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 296.

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Dutch posits gymnastically educated Corinthians as Paul’s audience, but we have very little evidence from 1 Cor. that Paul is addressing such an educated audience, or that he was trying to talk at a level that that audience might expect. Dutch brings up agricultural and nursing metaphors as evidence that Paul was talking to an educated audience. But as I demonstrate in chapters 1, 3, and 4, agricultural metaphors were used throughout encyclia paideia, and were often present in the earliest writing exercises that students encountered. So, the presence of agricultural metaphors in 1 Cor. does suggest an educated audience, but it by no means suggests an elite audience, and actually points to more marginally educated people where agricultural chreiai represented the more advanced stages of their relatively moderate educations. The same is true of nursing metaphors. In any intellectual context the metaphor is used to refer to beginner students, so we do not need to imagine that only a well-educated audience would understand this reference. As for Dutch’s comments on athletics and nudity, it may be true that the gymnasium was the traditional location of athletic training, but the gymnasia are hardly the only place that people could see athletes. Dutch argues that the gymnasium was home to both athletic training and education and uses this connection to argue that the presence of athletes in 1 Corinthians demonstrates a tie to the gymnasium. The unstated assumption, however, is that athletic images and metaphors could only have come from the gymnasium. This ignores the fact that, in addition to public games, images and statues of athletes in the nude were ubiquitous in ancient cities, so we only need posit that Paul’s audience lived in Corinth in order to imagine them understanding his discussion of athletics. None of the evidence that Dutch mounts points to an elite educated audience for 1 Cor. The points of contact he does note between 1 Cor. and encyclia paideia demonstrate no more than marginal training in paideia—the recognition of common metaphors usually communicated in simply sayings—and so we do not need to imagine gymnastically educated Corinthians, only marginally educated. 4.2.2 Timothy Brookins (2011, 2014) Writing six years later, Timothy Brookins expands upon Dutch in some significant ways. He follows Dutch’s argument that the Corinthians had access to a gymnastic education. Brookins frames his study of 1 Corinthian with a focus on the nature of wisdom in 1 Cor. 1-4, arguing that the wisdom against which Paul wrote was distinctly Stoic.577 Brookins identifies the Corinthians’

577 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 55; Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom.

194 wisdom as Stoic based on what he understands to be distinctly Stoic slogans in the sections of 1 Cor. that reflect the language of the Corinthians. Chief among the slogans that Brookins identifies as “Stoic” is the Corinthian claims to be wise. Brookins argues that the Stoics “actually claimed exclusive right to the title”578 wise man, and that Paul’s discussion of wisdom, especially in 1 Cor. 2:1-5, is in response to that Stoic idea.579 Second, and related, Brookins ties the Corinthians’ claim to be perfect (1 Cor. 2:6) to the Stoic idea that wise person was perfect in judgement and knowledge.580 Brookins argues that the contrasting of the perfect with the immature, and the strong with the weak throughout 1 Cor. is taken over directly from Stoic philosophy.581 Third, Brookins argues that the Corinthian understanding of freedom is distinctly Stoic. Brookins sees the closest parallels to the Corinthian slogan “all things are lawful for me” (1 Cor. 6:12; 10:23) with the Stoic formula “all things belong to the wise men. For the law has given to them all-complete authority (Diog. Laert. 7.125).”582 Brookins sees that Corinthians misusing this principle to excuse what Paul deems to be immoral sexual behaviour (1 Cor. 5:1- 13; 6:12-20), and freedom with respect to food (1 Cor. 8-10).583 Finally, Brookins argues that the actions and beliefs of the Corinthians can be explained through a neo-Stoic Dualism whereby, food and bodily matters seem to have been treated as a matter of indifference by the wise Corinthians. If, for them, the physical was insignificant, this would (1) justify lax sexual conduct (5:1-13; 6:12-20); (2) support liberal dietary practices (chs. 8-10); and (3) invalidate any notion of a bodily resurrection (15:12-58).584

Brookins argues that the Corinthians with whom Paul clashed possessed a “moderately technical” philosophical education in Stoicism.585 The Stoically educated Corinthians thought themselves perfect (complete) and strong, and that their perfection made all things lawful, granting them freedom in sex and food. But according to Paul, they lacked true knowledge and their food and sexual practices were actually a sign of weakness.586 Brookins does not think that Paul’s Corinthian audience was composed of professional, or even uncompromising Stoics,

578 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 60. 579 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 61. 580 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 62. 581 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 63. 582 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 64. 583 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 65–66. 584 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 69. 585 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 51. 586 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 66.

195 rather, he proposes that they were liminal/sub-elites who received a gymnastic education and possessed a moderately technical knowledge of Stoic doctrine and allowed this to inform their understanding of Paul’s eschatological message.587 In his book (published in 2014) Brookins expands on his 2011 argument with a particular focus on the social and economic location of the Corinthians. Following the Poverty Scale (PS) proposed by Steven Friesen588 and the Economic Scale (ES) proposed by Bruce Longenecker,589 Brookins argues that some of Paul’s Corinthians belonged to the “middling” classes as identified by both. For Friesen, this meant people in the PS4 and PS5 range, people with a “moderate surplus of resources” and people just above the subsistence level, such as merchants, traders, freedpersons, artisans, regular wage earners, large shop owners, and some farm families.590 Combined, these classes of people made up approximately 29% of the population, but those with moderate surplus (PS4) made up just 7%.591 For Longenecker’s ES, this meant primarily people in ES4, with some from ES5. The descriptions of these classes are the same as Friesen’s, but Longenecker estimates a larger group with “moderate surpluses of resources,” increasing Friesen’s count from 7% to 17%. Brookins is primarily interested in those in PS/ES4, those with moderate surpluses of resources, and identifies eight such members of Paul’s audience that Friesen and/or Longenecker consider to be “economically middling”: Gaius, Phoebe, Chloe, Priscilla, Aquilla, Stephanus, Crispus, and Erastus.592 “Because wealth and education usually went hand in hand,” Brookins sees the possibility that four members of Paul’s ekklesia were economically middling as evidence that they may have been exposed to philosophy in their educations.593 Brookins is certainly correct that economic status was a strong determinant of whether or not one possessed an education, but it by no means the 1-1 relationship that Brookins seems to assume in stating that “literacy would have been achieved by most within

587 Brookins, “The Wise Corinthians,” 75. Brookins identifies the class of liminal/sub-elite based on Bruce W. Longenecker’s revised economy scale in Bruce W. Longenecker, Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty, and the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids, Mich. ; Cambridge, U.K: W.B. Eerdmans Pub, 2010), 36–59. 588 Steven J. Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the so-Called New Consensus,” JSNT 26 (2004): 323–61. 589 Bruce W. Longenecker, “Exposing the Economic Middle: A Revised Economy Scale for the Study of Early Urban Christianity,” JSNT 31 (2009): 243–78. 590 Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 341. 591 Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 347. 592 Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom, 108–9. 593 Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom, 132.

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Longenecker’s ES1 to ES4 categories.”594 Brookins reaches this conclusion by combining William Harris’ estimations that literacy in the Roman Empire was at approximately 15% with Longenecker’s and Friesen’s scales that saw between 7% and 20% of the population as middling or better. There are several problems with Brookins’ thesis. First, Brookins treats Friesen’s and Longenecker’s Poverty and Economy scale as if they have reliable data for members of every level. With the exception of PS/ES 1-3 (ancient elites), these scales merely propose the possible resources available to different non-elites. The idea that artisans or freedpeople make up a particular position on the scale is speculation based on population and theoretical distribution of goods, not on actual evidence that all merchants had small surpluses, or that many freedpeople were slightly above subsistence. The scales are useful in presenting the distribution of wealth generally speaking, but they do not allow us to place non-elite members of society on a particular economic level with any confidence, and the scales quickly break down when we consider other factors, such as education. Second, Brookins’ understands literacy to be directly tied to economic status. The two were certainly connected, but not as cleanly as Brookins would like to imagine. Third, Brookins’ focus is on literacy rates, not on education. Fourth, in the few places that he does discuss ancient education, he draws heavily from Marrou and William Harris (the latter of whom is far more interested in literacy in particular, as opposed to encyclia paideia). Brookins’ construction of ancient education pays very little attention to the contributions of Morgan and Cribiore and does not include the studies of Kaster and Booth, both of which demonstrate the messiness of education and argue for a larger body of marginally educated people than Marrou allows. Brookins’ picture of education is very much that painted by elite sources, usually Quintilian or Suetonius.595 As Brookins presents it, education is an all-or-nothing game. Brookins does not imagine a world of marginally educated people with an awareness of some Stoic concepts (or other philosophical concepts for that matter). As such he argues that a relatively educated elite represented Paul’s audience and the source of the conflicts. As with other proposals that see the conflict over a specific philosophy or social position, Brookins is able to explain some aspects of the Corinthian correspondence, but not all.

594 Brookins, Corinthian Wisdom, 134. 595 See for example his treatment of education on pages 133 and 134.

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4.2.3 Adam White (2015) Adam White also sees the divisions in Corinth as class-based and education-based. In his book he argues that the division in Corinth, at least as far as Paul understands it, was between two factions with two different teachers: the followers of Paul on the one hand, and the followers of Apollos on the other. The divisions were caused by four things: 1) misconceptions over wisdom and content of “Christian message,” 2) confusion over status of “chosen ones,” 3) false expectations over the proper rhetorical style of a Christian teacher, 4) and the false understanding of who the “mature ones” were.596 White argues that these divisions were rooted in differing understandings of elite education: the educated elite in Corinth followed Apollos and judged Paul according Graeco-Roman paideia, finding him inadequate.597 According to White, Paul’s paideia was not Graeco-Roman paideia, but a new and different Christian paideia and his message was at odds with the expectations of Graeco-Roman paideia.598 White reads 1 Cor. 1:18-23 as evidence that some Corinthians thought themselves far more advanced in wisdom; Paul reacts against this claim by differentiating the worldly wisdom of the Corinthians with the wisdom of God that Paul proclaimed.599 The worldly wisdom of some of the Corinthians was inferior to the wisdom of God possessed by the truly mature Corinthians, the pneumatikoi.600 White argues that education was a possession of the elite and he presents education as something that could provide social mobility.601 Here White is talking about elites moving up in elite circles, not sub-elites breaking into higher social circles. White, like others reviewed above, sees ancient education as an all-or-nothing game. Using almost exclusively literary evidence— Ps. Plutarch and Quintilian—White constructs ancient education as “a mark of culture that set its possessor apart from the common masses who could not afford to be educated.”602 This would certainly be the case for the educated elite who attained their educations according to the trajectories laid out by Ps. Plutarch and Quintilian, but as I have already demonstrated, there is very little evidence that suggests Paul or his Corinthian audience were among these educated

596 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 1. 597 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 2. 598 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 20–29. 599 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 71–76. 600 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 107; White generally follows the argument originally made by Richard Horsley that the truly mature and complete Corinthians were the pnematikoi. See Richard A. Horsley, “Pneumatikos vs. Psychikos Distinctions of Spiritual Status among the Corinthians,” HTR 69 (1976): 269–88. 601 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 115. 602 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 58.

198 elite. White is, I think, correct in his broader arguments that: 1) education is an issue among Paul and the Corinthians, 2) Paul uses metaphors that would be recognized from schooling, and 3) that Paul presents himself as a teacher for intellectual clients. But White’s more specific arguments that the Corinthians were philosophically (possibly Stoically) educated still fall short of convincing. White points to the language of the “wise man” and wisdom generally in 1 Cor. 1:20, 26, and 27-28, and argues that this is evidence that “behind the Corinthian idea of σοφία is a comparison to an elite educated ideal in the culture (exemplified but not limited to the Stoic σοφός) by elite, educated members of the Christian community.”603 The problem here is not that the “wise man” was not part of elite (Stoic) philosophy, he absolutely was. The problem is that there is little to no argument as to why the Corinthians and/or Paul needed to draw this notion of the “wise man” from elite education. White argues that “in 1 Corinthians 1.18-2.5 the Corinthians have been seeking after, or claiming to possess, a wisdom that was marked, in particular, by eloquence and possibly by certain virtues.”604 White argues that this kind of wisdom was embodied in philosophers, orators, and sophists (fair enough), but at no point does White argue that it was necessary to be highly educated to recognize the virtue of claiming to possess wisdom. Yes, the “wise man” was a trope in ancient moral philosophy, but are Paul and/or the Corinthians imagining such a figure, or are they arguing about a more popular, general wisdom? Given the lack of evidence that either were using elite rhetoric or philosophical doctrines and given my arguments in Chs. 1-3, the latter explanation is preferable. The significance of practical wisdom specifically (φρόνησις) and wisdom generally (σοφία) was ubiquitous in the early stages of education. Recall Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 37533, a school booklet that contains two gnomai that specifically praise practical wisdom: What more than enough? Practical wisdom (φρόνησις) What is more necessary than wealth? Practical wisdom (φρονιµότης). (Brit. Mus. Add. MS 37533. 261 and 263)

The gnomai that students encountered with a γραµµατοδιδάσκαλος or γραµµατικός frequently focused on the nature and importance of wisdom. As Teresa Morgan argues, “[e]ducational papyri are particularly keen to emphasize that phronêsis can be acquired in school.”605 In

603 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 76. 604 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 105. 605 Teresa Morgan, Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire (Cambridge: University Press, 2010), 103.

199 addition to the school exercises cited here (and in chapter 1) Morgan also notes several sayings of Isocrates that promote phronesis as a valuable commodity (Ad Demonicum 15, 40; Ad Nicolem 21).606 The importance of wisdom was by no means an opinion held by the educated elite alone. Those who had even a little bit of education would have almost certainly copied out or read aloud a chreia or gnome on the virtues of wisdom. The discussions of wisdom in 1 Cor. do suggest a Paul and an audience familiar with paideia, but they do not necessitate, or even suggest an elite education. The difficulty with White’s argument is that, like so many others, he imagines that one was either fully educated, or one had no education. White does cite Cribiore and Morgan in his review of ancient education, but does not reflect on the implications of their conclusions that the process by which one acquired educated was far messier than Quintilian or Ps. Plutarch imagines, or that of the few who begin schooling, the vast majority did not finish. By assuming a world in which one was either fully educated or not educated at all, White necessitates a fully educated Paul and fully educated Corinthians to explain the paideic discourses present in 1 Cor. But as I have argued (and will further argue below), 1 Cor. does not show signs of an elite discourse, rather it fits well within the intellectual spheres and capabilities of marginal intellectuals. 4.2.3.1 “Christian Paideia” and protesting too much While White imagines Paul’s opponents in Corinthian to be highly educated possessors of Greek paideia, he argues that Paul combatted this elite Greek paideia with his own “Christian paideia.”607 At first blush “Christian paideia” seems like it could be heuristically useful. White uses it to differentiate what Paul saw as important from what was important in Graeco-Roman paideia: where Graeco-Roman paideia aimed to shape leaders and form virtuous Greek citizens, Christian paideia (possessed by Paul and the truly mature in Corinth) promoted “contrasting behaviour.”608 White presents Christian paideia as a radical break from worldly paideia, but he is not particularly successful in illustrating those breaks. For example, he argues that educated elites were marked by “excellence, discretion, and nobleness,” whereas Paul’s πνευµατικόι are characterized by “love, joy, and peace.” We might argue that Paul’s criticism of worldly things

606 Morgan, Popular Morality in the Early Roman Empire, 103. 607 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 107. 608 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 119–20.

200 in favour of spiritual things can be seen as a criticism of some of the values of the pepaideumenoi, but it is not possible to argue that love, joy, and peace contrast “Christian paideia” from Graeco-Roman paideia. One need look no farther than gnomic exercises from the early years of encyclia paideia to find evidence that Graeco-Roman education did in fact value love, joy, and peace. Consider two gnomai from an ostracon reviewed in chapter 1: Ζήσεις ἐν ὄλβῳ χρηµάτων καταφρονῶν. Live in happiness/bliss scorning wealth. Ἤθη φίλων γείωσκε πρὶν γενῇ φίλος. Love might come into being once one recognizes love already.609

Consecutive sayings in a school text teach the student how to be happy and how love comes into being. Education also focused on training fair and just people for the betterment of society, so how a focus on love, joy, and peace contrasts “Christian paideia” from Graeco-Roman paideia is, at best, not clear. My disagreement with White here is more in his conclusion than in the argument that builds to it. For White, Christian paideia was a “radical break” from traditional Graeco-Roman paideia. But as I have just shown (and will show below in section 5), Paul’s paideia is by no means a radical break from contemporary Graeco-Roman paideia, and actually has many points of contact and continuity. So I very much agree with White’s presentation of Paul as a teacher with new paideia, where I disagree is with his conclusion that Paul’s paideia is somehow radically different from Graeco-Roman paideia. An additional problem with White’s thesis is, even if it is heuristic and not intended to name a historical movement, the category still imports too much later Christian theologizing which creates an unnatural amount of distance between Paul and Graeco-Roman paideia. This is most clear when he makes the argument that Paul’s “Christian paideia” was free and accessible, opposing it to the far more restricted Graeco-Roman paideia.610 Here White assumes that Paul’s paideia was free and accessible based on Paul’s description of many of the Corinthians as “not wise, not powerful, not of noble birth.”611 White takes this as evidence that Paul’s paideia did not require the commitments of Graeco-Roman paideia, but if 1 Corinthians is any indication, this was hardly the case! In 1 Cor. Paul is demanding, he is constantly correcting what he deems

609 My translations of the text reconstructed and published in J. G. Milne, “A Gnomic Ostrakon,” JEA 8 (1922): 156–57. 610 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 134. 611 White, Where Is the Wise Man?, 134.

201 to be wrong behaviour and telling people what and with whom to eat. To participate in Paul’s paideia one has to submit to Paul as a teacher and follow the βίος he lays out for them. Paul’s behaviour and expectations situate him comfortably with other peddlers of paideia, they do not radically differentiate Paul from them. White’s otherwise thoughtful examination of the presence of paideia in 1 Cor. is hamstrung by the assumption that the Corinthians and possibly Paul attained high levels of education. White cites as evidence the paideic metaphors, discussions, concerns over wisdom, and competition between teachers, but none of them necessitate that Paul or the Corinthians were among the educated elite. If we follow the likes of Booth, Kaster, and Morgan and see that encyclia paideia produced a large number of marginally educated people who did not go on to philosophy or rhetoric but still possessed some reading and composition skills, then we do not need to posit an elite Corinthian audience to explain the presence of paideia in 1 Cor. Similarly, if we see Paul and the Corinthians as marginal intellectuals working with the skills and tropes that they possessed, we can understand them as part of the wider world of intellectuals, on the margins of the pepaideumenoi, imitating elite discourses, not rejecting them. 4.2.4 Stanley K. Stowers (1984, 2001, 2005, 2011) In many ways Stowers (and his student Paul Robertson, section 4.2.5) stand out from others who have examined Paul and ancient paideia. First, both recognize the messiness of paideia and do not imagine education as an all-or-nothing affair. Second, neither attempts to separate Paul or his ekklesia from the world of Graeco-Roman paideia in which they study him. As such, their conclusions are much closer to my own, though their focus tends to be more on the person of Paul and less on his ekklesia or the social circumstances that brought Paul and his ekklesia together. Stowers follows Malherbe in examining Paul alongside ancient philosophers. But where Malherbe focused on connections between Paul’s teaching and the content and practices of moral philosophers, Stowers looks more generally at the practices of ancient philosophers and the worlds in which they lived, arguing that parallels can be found with Paul. In his 1984 article “Social Status, Public Speaking and Private Teaching: The Circumstances of Paul’s Preaching Activity,”612 Stowers focuses on the locations in which philosophers taught and uses these observations to posit a social location for Paul. It was commonplace in the first century, argues

612 Stowers, “Social Status.”

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Stowers, for the well to do to like having a philosopher seen “hanging around their house.”613 Lucian’s On Salaried Posts in Great Houses and Apology for the “Salaried Posts in Great Houses” certainly suggest as much. The patron/host provided the philosopher with both an audience and a kind of social legitimation. It is no accident, then, that patrons and households are prominent in the letters of Paul.614 As a place and social context for preaching the gospel, the private house offered certain advantages over preaching in synagogues and public places… Above all, speakers needed some type of social status or a recognized role. An invitation to teach at someone’s house would provide Paul with all of these things and give his preaching activity a kind of stability and security which the explosive situation of the synagogue or the competition of public speaking could not offer.615

Stowers argues that while Paul resembled some sophists in that he taught in the houses of patrons, we have no evidence that Paul spoke publicly.616 This, however, does not rule out the analogy of the philosopher as there were several, especially the Pythagoreans and Epicureans, who “believed that the philosophical life required a determined privacy and seclusion.”617 Stowers concludes this article by asserting that the private household provided the most important place for Paul’s work, and that here Paul followed the pattern of Hellenistic teachers of private speaking rather than public teaching.618 In a more recent article on the relationship between the Pauline ekklesia and ancient intellectual practices, Stowers focuses less on the person of Paul, and more on the recipients of Paul’s letter in Corinth. First, Stowers sets out to explain why anyone in Corinth would be interested in Paul’s teachings in the first place. He argues that the intellectual world in which Paul operated made it more likely that people would be interested in his teachings.619 This world is the one which he described in his conclusion to “Does Pauline Christianity Resemble a Hellenistic Philosophy?”, one in which specialized fields of knowledge and intellectual practices were taught by specialists who,

613 Stowers, “Social Status,” 66. 614 Stowers, “Social Status,” 68. 615 Stowers, “Social Status,” 68. 616 Stowers does not consider the possibility that Paul may have taught in his workshop, and argument made 5 years earlier by Ronald F. Hock, “The Workshop as a Social Setting for Paul’s Missionary Preaching,” CBQ 41 (1979): 438–50. 617 Stowers, “Social Status,” 76. 618 Stowers, “Social Status,” 81. 619 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 116.

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employed their skills to compete in ‘debate’ in the production and interpretation of oral and written texts and discourses that contest the truth and legitimacy of both traditions and novel doctrines. These practices aimed at a niche of consumers who found social distinction in acquiring such paideia.620

As I have discussed in chapters 1-3, proper paideia learned in schools and displayed at the highest levels of society was restricted to an educated elite who had the means to attain paideia through the process imagined by Quintilian and others. But there was still a relatively large number of marginally educated people who knew the value of paideia but were blocked off from participation in elite paideia. This lends support to Stowers’ thesis that an alternative paideia could have appealed to those of lower social and economic status who could not access these more traditional forms. This leads to Stowers’ next observation that there would have had to be, in Corinth, a number of people who desired an alternative paideia.621 Given the limited access to traditional forms of paideia, it seems this desire would have existed. Stowers goes on to argue that [t]his desire for an alternative esoteric and exotic paideia may have had a basis in their [the Corinthians interested in Paul’s teaching] minority or mixed ethnic statuses or other status inconsistencies that both alienated them from the dominant legitimate paideia and attracted them to an alternative.622

For this theory to work, then, Paul must be thought of as a producer and distributor of an alternative esoteric paideia different from the dominant sophistic or philosophical kinds, but at the same time being recognizable as a legitimate alternative (different, but not too different).623 Stowers sees good reason for all of these factors to exist in Corinth. Given that Paul’s correspondences with the Corinthians survive only in the form of letters, it seems safe to assume that at least some of the Corinthians were literate. Stowers acknowledges that literacy rates, while varying region to region, were generally quite low, but also argues that those who were literate were disproportionally slaves and freedmen given that an educated slave was worth more to his/her master than an uneducated one.624 If some of the more educated individuals in Corinth were slaves and freedmen (people of a relatively low social standing), then it makes good sense

620 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 116. 621 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 116. 622 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 116. 623 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 117. 624 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 120.

204 that these types of people would feel (and probably be) alienated from the dominant culture and open to alternative forms of paideia. Freedmen and slaves, then, would have seen Paul and Paul’s Christ as a way to access an alternative paideia, and it is in this way we should try to make sense of Paul’s refences to ancient and esoteric wisdom, pneuma, and Abraham’s lineage in Christ.625 For Stowers, the educated-but-non-elites (people included in what I identify in chapter three as marginal intellectuals) such as slaves and freedmen would have been the types of people interested in Paul’s alternative paideia. For Stowers, Paul is “an expert in a new knowledge and the practices that go with this knowledge. Paul’s power is that of an intellectual. He is a purveyor of knowledges and truths in a way that the typical Greek citizen, even the priest of a particular cult, was not.”626 Paul’s legitimacy among the Corinthians lay in his “skillful display of abilities native to the game or field such as his education in ancient books; his interpretive skills; his reading, writing, and speaking abilities; and his pneumatic demonstrations…”627 As such a figure Paul attracted individuals seeking the alternative paideia which he provided, organized those people into what he hoped was a community628 in which his “elite fellow specialists” were responsible for the unification of the rest of the Corinthians.629 The recipients of 1 Cor., then, understood themselves to be participating in a discourse which allowed them to access otherwise inaccessible paideia through the figure of Paul the intellectual, who interpreted for, and taught them. Stowers is firmly set in a Weberian model of religious entrepreneurs as individuals. Although not addressed directly, Stowers seems to imply that these entrepreneurs can create an interest or demand apart from the social worlds in which they exist, and Stowers does not adequately address the cultural realities (such as systems of education that produced a large

625 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 121. Stowers also argues that much of the theologizing that seems to be going on in 1 Corinthians could be more accurately described as intellectualizing certain issues for the sake of sounding more impressive, and as a result attracting more people. In many places Stowers argues we should see Paul “showing his stuff” by intellectualizing practical, and indeed mundane issues (women covering their heads while praying, and men keeping their hair short come to mind). 626 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 139. 627 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 141–42. 628 Stowers allows that Paul “very much wanted the people to whom he wrote to be a community,” but argues that the Corinthians “never did sociologically form a community and only partly and differentially shared Paul’s interests and formation.” Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 109. For a more sustained critique of the notion of Christian “communities” see Stanley Stowers, “The Concept of Community and the History of Early Christianity,” MTSR 23 (2011): 238–56. 629 Stowers, “Kinds of Myth,” 140–41.

205 number of marginally educated individuals) which allow the entrepreneur to work beyond very general claims about the Greek enlightenment. 4.2.5 Paul Robertson (2016) Building on Stowers, Paul Robertson argues that Paul’s letters circulated in specific intellectual- social fields. Specifically, he refers to the field in which Paul was received as a “socio-literary” sphere of ethical-philosophical texts, and situates Paul’s letters alongside Epictetus’ Discourses and Philodemus’ On Piety and On Death.630 Robertson moves Paul away from the field of aristocratic-rhetorical writers, and instead identifies him as an ethical-philosophical writer. Ethical-philosophical letters, like Paul’s, make universal claims or assertions about the gods; and contain conversations/dialogues, rhetorical questions, metaphors and/or analogies, anecdotes and/or examples, imperatives, and exhortations.631 Robertson differentiates ethical-philosophical writings from other types of writing, namely aristocratic writing that featured highly trained writers and demonstrated advanced grammar and rhetoric, and scientific/technical writings that came in the form of handbooks and conveyed concrete information.632 Ethical-philosophical writing was defined by: a focus on ethics, group formation, the cosmos, the authoritative role of the author, and contained unadorned prose and only the occasional use of literary tropes.633 In terms of Paul’s own education, Robertson allows that Paul may have possessed a relatively advanced education, but concludes it is better to think of Paul as a well-trained letter writer as opposed to a fully trained member of the pepaideumenoi.634 In Robertson’s opinion, theories of Paul’s education have not taken enough consideration of informal training in a bureaucratic or family setting.635 The form and content of Paul’s letters can be explained if we understand Paul as a trained letter writer with access to handbooks. This places Paul somewhere between the common scribe and the educated elite.636 The bulk of Robertson’s study examines Paul and his letters in comparison to Epictetus and Philodemus. Robertson does not think that Epictetus possessed an advanced rhetorical education, and that he and Paul were similar in their writings in terms of cultivating

630 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 1. 631 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 1. 632 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 16–23. 633 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 18. 634 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 48–49. 635 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 181. 636 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 183.

206 conversational dialogue and possessing a dialogical and semi-colloquial style that forwarded social aims.637 And while Philodemus did possess an advanced rhetorical education and a high social status, Robertson argues that Philodemus and Paul had the same social program: acquire special knowledge about the cosmos and ethics, dispute with other specialists, frame audience in terms of a groupness around his claims, foreground authority based on specialized knowledge.638 Robertson argues that Paul’s social program would have been easily understood by a wide audience via plain spoken delivery and use of simple rhetorical devices like examples and metaphors.639 Specifically, Paul’s social program consisted of: passing on “beliefs” in abstract cosmological-religious claims; making rival claims and retaining and attracting followers; influencing behaviour, constructing groupness, asserting authority based on specialized knowledge.640 But while Robertson hypothesizes what Paul’s social program may have been (i.e. the thing that he attempted to install through his letters), Robertson is specifically not interested in Paul’s audience. Rather, he is exclusively interested in the individual producing the letters.641 In terms of the actual letters, Robertson sees them as letter essays (an established genre) with Judean and philosophical content sprinkled in.642 Robertson helpfully suggests a distinct socio-literary sphere for Paul and his letters: one below elite literary producers with aristocratic training in rhetoric, but well above technical writers and scribes. Robertson makes his argument based on a comparison of Paul’s letters with Epictetus’ Discourses and Philodemus’ On Piety and On Death. His comparison is based largely on generic and structural aspects of the letter, and his conclusions are generally convincing. Lacking, however, is a sustained analysis of the content of Paul’s letters. Yes, his compositional skills suggest an educational level close to that of Epictetus, but would the content of his letters have resonated with Epictetus’ Stoics? Or Philodemus’ Epicureans? Perhaps not. In order to posit a plausible historical location for the reception of Paul’s letters we need to examine the content as well as the genre and literary structure. In doing so here I do not disagree with Robertson’s conclusions generally speaking, but I do depart from them in key areas; especially

637 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 73–74. 638 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 75. 639 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 76. 640 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 76. 641 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 79–80. 642 Robertson, Paul’s Letters, 186–95.

207 when it comes to my social description of Corinth. Robertson is explicitly and almost exclusively interested in positing the social world and educational level of the individual (Paul) producing a document (letters). Robertson does so to avoid the pitfalls of positing a “community” producing a text (fair enough), but one of the shortcomings of this approach is that his conclusion speaks to a historical Paul and Paul alone. The production and compositions of Paul’s letters was likely more complicated than Robertson allows (he all but dismisses the role of an amanuensis in the composition of the letters), and while positing an educational level for Paul is interesting, it doesn’t actually help us situate him in the ancient world as much as Robertson would like to think. Elite writers often wrote in different styles depending on their perceived audiences. Take, for example, three of Philo of Alexandria’s writings on the creation stories in Genesis; Allegorical Commentary, Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus, and Exposition all address the creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, but they vary drastically in philosophical sophistication, so much so that Maren Niehoff argues that they were aimed at three distinct audiences.643 Texts in Philo’s Allegorical Commentary have in mind Alexandrian intellectuals familiar with Homeric exegesis. Therein Philo is most attentive to other exegetical methods and is careful in documenting and supporting his own.644 Questions and Answers on Genesis and Exodus covers many of the same passages and questions, but the question and answer style suggests that it was aimed at a more general audience.645 Niehoff argues that this more general audience consisted of interested but not philosophically educated Judeans, as Philo often uses language suggesting his audience is already in agreement with his arguments, and frames issues as “our” interpretation verses the “other.”646 Finally, the Exposition addresses an audience that is familiar with neither Judean traditions, nor Alexandrian-style literary criticism.647 Niehoff suggests that the Exposition was written in Rome for a Roman audience during Philo’s tenure with the embassy to Gaius.648 Thus, an analysis of these three writings from Philo tells us more about the intellectual spheres in which they circulated than the letters do about

643 Maren R. Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship in Alexandria (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 134–77. 644 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship, 136. 645 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship, 152. 646 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship, 157. 647 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship, 170–77. 648 Niehoff, Jewish Exegesis and Homeric Scholarship, 176–77.

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Philo himself. And while I am sympathetic to Robertson’s aims not to use Paul’s letters to talk about things not explicitly written in them, I think we can still speak to a plausible audience most likely to receive the content of Paul’s letters with more historical certainty than we can posit the “social purposes” of Paul’s texts based on his purported education. 4.3 Paul, Paideia, Corinth: trends in scholarship From on this review of scholarship, several trends have come to light. 1. The divisions alluded to by Paul in 1 Corinthians are, at least in part, intellectual in nature 2. There are numerous references to paideia in 1 Cor. 3. The majority of scholars see education as all-or-nothing, and argue that Paul and/or the Corinthians are among the educated elite (or not, Schellenberg) 4. Many studies argue that Paul rejects Graeco-Roman paideia in favour of “Chistianized Stoicism” or “Christian paideia” The presence of paideia in 1 Cor. will be explored in more detail below, but briefly I will reflect on the implications of some of the other general conclusions, and the ways in which my own work gets around the problems that these conclusions create. 4.3.1 Education as all-or-nothing One of the most significant problems that I have noted in the above studies (Stowers and Robertson are the exceptions) is that arguments that Paul and/or the Corinthians were divided on intellectual matters are built on the assumption that in antiquity one was fully educated, or one was not educated at all. Martin is exemplary of this position when he claims that “it is inconceivable that Paul’s letters could have been written by someone uneducated in the rhetorical systems of his day.”649 Martin is, I think, correct in his hypothesis that the divisions in Corinth were intellectual in nature, but this does not require a rhetorically educated Paul or rhetorically educated Corinthians. As I demonstrated in sections 3.5 and 3.6, there is no evidence in the construction of 1 Cor. that Paul was highly educated, and as I argued throughout section 4, there is nothing in 1 Corinthians that necessitates either possessed elite educations. This lack of evidence for Paul and/or the Corinthians elite education leads Schellenberg to argue that Paul had no formal rhetorical training, and that any rhetorical flair that Paul displays could have been picked up informally. The issue here is that those who argue for a fully educated Paul, and to some extent Schellenberg who argues for an informally educated Paul, do not consider the large

649 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 52.

209 number of marginally educated people in antiquity. Situating Paul and his audience in 1 Corinthians among the marginally educated allows us to account for the paideic references in 1 Cor. without needing to argue that 1 Cor. is rhetorically sophisticated (it is not) and/or contains or refutes advanced philosophical teachings (it does not). 4.3.2 1 Corinthians within Graeco-Roman Paideia If we examine 1 Corinthians as discourse involving marginal intellectuals participating in the world of paideia with the tools available to them, then there is no need to posit a rejection of paideia on the part of Paul. All the evidence reviewed so far, and the evidence presented below, situates Paul and his audience in 1 Corinthians comfortably in the wider world of paideia. Understanding 1 Corinthians as a discourse between marginal intellectuals addresses the question begged but left unanswered by Stowers and Robertson: in what social situation would Paul’s deployment of rhetorical forms and philosophical tropes serve as an attractive discourse? In spite of what Luke would like us to believe based on the Paul of Acts, Paul’s interlocutors would not have been trained philosophers or rhetors, nor would they have been drawn from the educated elite. That being said, I have identified a social group of marginally educated people who were on the margins of the economic and social elite. Of the relatively (but not insignificantly) few students who attained some level of literary education through the schooling described in chapter 1, very few progressed to become rhetors or philosophers. The vast majority fell away at some point between the earliest stages of tracing letters and the completion of school with a grammarian (or kathegete or primary school teacher, depending on the local situation). These individuals, particularly those who enjoyed some training with a grammarian would have the theoretical training to recognize a popular chreia, reference to Homer, or the basics of philosophical virtue, as well as the recognition that possessing these abilities led to social capital in the right circles. Based on the existence of this group of people, and the presence of an interest in participating in some level of intellectual discourse (as discussed in chapter 3), I propose that in 1 Corinthians Paul addresses an audience wherein the ability to interpret the LXX alongside Paul’s own Christ myth was recognized as a philosophical practice wherein Paul and the participating Corinthians played at the kind of intellectual exercises recognized in higher culture in rhetorical and philosophical circles.

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5. Paul, Paideia, and Corinth: Paul and the Corinthians as Marginal Intellectuals With the remainder of this chapter I will make the argument that both Paul and his perceived Corinthian audience were marginally educated people, the kind I describe in chapter 3. They possessed some education but were not part of the pepaideumenoi. They were capable of producing and recognizing the signs of paideia in writing: rhetorical tropes, citations of ancestral sources, and philosophical exegesis. As Stowers and Schellenberg argue, Paul was not a trained philosopher or rhetor, but Paul’s letters, especially 1 Corinthians, contain rhetorical tropes and philosophical ideas and forms. In using known tropes and popular philosophy, Paul presented an alternative but still recognizable paideia to a group of people who recognized the social significance of paideia but could not access the elite realms of the pepaideumenoi. To make this argument I will look at five features present in 1 Corinthians. First, the sections of 1 Corinthians that use paideic language; second, Paul’s use of the LXX as an authoritative text; third, Paul’s exegesis of the LXX; fourth Paul’s teachings as a bios, similar to the teachings of a leader of a philosophical school; fifth, Paul’s presentation of himself as a teacher. 5.1 Paideia mentioned in 1 Corinthians Despite the word παιδεία not appearing in 1 Corinthians, there are multiple places where the letter clearly uses educational language and metaphors. Dutch, for example, identifies eight educational discourses in 1 Corinthians. 1. Paul’s Corinthian household is modeled on the patriarch as a child’s first and most important teacher. “By presenting himself as the father in an elite household Paul can effectively meet the challenges of the educated elite who come from such households.”650 2. Ancient Athletes (1 Cor. 9:24-27): “Paul’s athletic imagery in 1 Cor. 9.24-27 is important, not only because of its form and function in 1 Cor. 9, but through its essential link with the gymnasium, education, social status and prizes.”651 The images of running, boxing, and winning crowns would have resonated with gymnastically educated people due to their own athletic training in the gyms. 3. Nurses, Nutrition, and Nurture: these were common metaphors for education about which I will say more below.

650 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 219. 651 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 219.

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4. Agriculture and Education: agriculture was a common metaphor for education about which I will say more below. 5. Disciplining with the Rod (1 Cor. 4:21): disciplining with the rod (ῥάδος) was a common disciplinary practice and ancient schools and educated people would have been recognized as a practice associated with ancient education.652 6. The grammateus (1 Cor. 1:20): Dutch argues that the grammateus mentioned in 1 Cor. 1:20 is a figure from the gymnasium.653 7. Ancient Writing Techniques in (1 Cor. 4.6): Dutch argues that when Paul says “nothing beyond what is written” he is referring to the practice of tracing out letters that students did in schools.654 8. Circumcision (as related to being naked in the gymnasium).655 Paul’s household, ancient athletes, the grammateus, and circumcision are all based on Dutch’s understanding of Paul’s audience as gymnastically educated elites. Dutch argues that disciplining with the rod (ῥάδος) in 1 Cor. 4:21 would have been recognized as a practice associated with ancient education.656 He also argues that when Paul says “nothing beyond what is written” he is referring to the practice of tracing out letters that students did in schools.657 Dutch is generally convincing in arguing that these sections of 1 Cor. refer to images or practices that would have been familiar to and audience who went through ancient schooling. His final two pieces of evidence, nursing/nurturing and agricultural metaphors are where Paul’s references to paideia come through most clearly. 5.1.1 Nursing, Nurturing, and Farming as metaphors for paideia Dutch argues that 1 Cor. 3:1-9 draws on two common educational tropes: the teacher as nurturer and unprepared students being fed milk in preparation for solid food, and farming (specifically sowing seeds) as a metaphor for paideia. I agree with Dutch’s general conclusions here but disagree that this is necessarily evidence of gymnastic education. Nursing and nurturing were common metaphors for preliminary studies, thus not requiring we assume someone would need a

652 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 261. 653 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 281. 654 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 287–96. 655 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 215–99. 656 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 261. 657 Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 287–96.

212 gymnastic education to recognize them; and farming, specifically sowing seeds, was an extremely common metaphor for education and was present in some of the earliest school exercises that students encountered. Thus, nurturing and farming metaphors are both signs of paideia that would have been recognizable even to those with marginal educations. 1 Cor. 3:1-9 is best understood as a coherent unit in which Paul uses multiple metaphors for paideia to explain both the intellectual place of the Corinthians, and Paul’s relationship with Apollos. 3 And so, brothers and sisters, I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk (γάλα), not solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. Even now you are still not ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving according to human inclinations? 4 For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human?

By referring to the Corinthians as “infants in Christ” (νηπίοις ἐν Χριστῷ) who receive milk (γάλα) because they are not ready for solid food, Paul uses the language of paideia to put the Corinthians in their place. Milk is frequently used in writing on education to refer to preliminary studies, the simpler parts of paideia that students needed to master before taking on more advanced training: just as a child first drinks milk, so students first must master simple things. At the beginning of his discussion on progymnasmata training, Quintilian admonishes progymnasmata teachers who instill the required learning in their students: I should never feel troubled by a certain amount of excess in a pupil of this age. Indeed, I should like the teachers themselves to take trouble to nourish the tender minds gently, like nurses, and let them have their fill of the milk, as it were, of pleasanter learning (Institutio Oratoria 2.4.5 [LCL]).

Dutch sees this as evidence that Paul’s audience was gymnastically educated and would have recognized his criticism of them based on their awareness that milk referred to the early stages of education. But given that Quintilian uses this metaphor in his discussion of education leading up to the progymnasmata (itself being pre-rhetorical training), it is no means certain that the milk metaphor would resonate with gymnastically educated people exclusively. It is entirely possible that people with marginal primary or grammatical training would also recognize milk as a metaphor for their preliminary paideia.658

658 Epictetus also discusses the need for people to partake in more solid foods and be weaned from the mother. But here he does not mention milk specifically. Dutch takes Epictetus’ discussion as evidence that weaning and solid

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Philo also uses milk as a metaphor for preliminary studies in On Husbandry. Philo is even more explicit than Quintilian in his use of the metaphor, directly contrasting the soul- nourishing milk of preliminary stages of school learning to the wheaten bread of “grown men” (τελείοις) But seeing that for babes milk is food (ἐπεὶ δὲ νηπίοις µέν ἐστι γάλα τροφή), but for grown men (τελείοις) wheaten bread, there must also be soul-nourishment, such as is milk-like suited to the time of our childhood, in the shape of preliminary stages of school-learning (προπαιδεύµατα) and such as is adapted to grown men in the shape of instructions leading the way through wisdom and temperance and all virtue (ἀρετῆς). For these when sown (σπαρέντα) and planted (φυτευθέντα) in the mind will produce most beneficial fruits, namely fair and praiseworthy conduct (Philo, On Husbandry, 2.9, LCL)

For Philo, as with Paul, milk is suitable and necessary for those who are not ready for more advanced education, and notably both pair γάλα with νηπίοις: milk is for babies. Also of interest for our analysis of 1 Cor. 3, Philo follows his discussion of milk as preliminary studies with another metaphor for paideia, sowing and planting. Preliminary study is the seed planted that bears the fruits of “fair and praiseworthy conduct.” Paul also employs sowing as a metaphor for teaching immediately following his discussion of milk in 1 Cor. 3:5-9. 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted (ἐφύτευσα), Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each. 9 For we are God’s servants, working together; you are God’s field, God’s building.

Paul uses the same verb as Philo to describe the instilling of teachings, φυτεύω, to plant. Here Paul uses the very common metaphor of planting for teaching: he gave the Corinthians their initial teachings, Apollos expanded upon these teachings, but the teachings only grow through God. In presenting his teaching this way Paul makes both Apollos and himself subservient to God. This move also modifies the more standard deployment of the metaphor. Ps. Plutarch On the Education of Children 4, Hippocrates Laws 3, Seneca Epistles 38.2, Quintilian Institutio Oratoria 5.11.24, and Antiphon Fragment 60 all use the image of a sower sowing seeds to explain the nature of paideia.659 In all these instances the entire process of cultivating soil,

foods were metaphors used in gymnastic education, but Epictetus is far vaguer than Quintilian and Philo. Epictetus, Discourses 2.16.39-40, LCL. For Dutch’s arguments, see Dutch, The Educated Elite in 1 Corinthians, 250–51. 659 I discuss these texts in more detail in the previous chapter.

214 sowing seeds, and the cultivation of the fruits represents the acquisition of paideia: the soil is the student, the seed is the teaching, and the cultivation in the guidance of the teacher. Paul spins this metaphor slightly: he does not comment on the soil (the preparedness of the Corinthians), he does identify his teachings as the seed, but then he equates Apollos watering of the seeds to his initial planting, differing the growth and cultivation of the seed to God alone. In this was Paul uses a recognizable metaphor for paideia and positions himself as a teacher but denies that he or Apollos are the ones that aid growth (thus undermining any work Apollos might have done in addition to Paul’s initial teachings). Paul also discusses sowing in 1 Cor. 15 where he explains the bodily resurrection (more on this below). 35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39 Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. 42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

Here the connection between sowing and paideia is less clear (and Paul’s use of the metaphor here differs significantly from its use by Ps. Plutarch, Philo, Quintilian, and others), but it is not unreasonable to imagine a marginal intellectual such as Paul using a familiar metaphor to make a new point. Significantly, and in continuity with 1 Cor. 3:5-9, it is God’s cultivation of the seed that is most significant. One does not sow a body, it is God who gives the body. What is sown can die but was is raised—a plant cultivated, or a body resurrected—cannot die. Here Paul does not follow the metaphor as closely as he does in 1 Cor. 3:5-9. Rather, this is an instance of a known metaphor being creatively interpreted and applied to a new situation. If the Corinthians imagined Paul as a teacher of alternative paideia, then this kind of creative application of a known metaphor that would have demonstrated Paul’s qualifications.

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5.2 Paul’s Paideia In addition to references to and metaphors used in encyclia paideia, throughout 1 Corinthians Paul attempts to instill his own paideia upon the Corinthians. He does this in several ways. First, Paul makes relatively extensive use of the LXX in the form of citing it to support his own teachings. This is a practice well attested in philosophical schools, and a practice recommended by Quintilian as a means to persuade. Second (and related), Paul undertakes a relatively complicated exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2 in 1 Cor. 15 in order to argue for the bodily resurrection. This is particularly interesting given that Paul encountered similar questions about the resurrection in 1 Thessalonians; there Paul provided a relatively simple answer to the question about the resurrection, but in Corinth Paul engages in philosophical exegesis. This is a paideic practice and suggests that the Corinthian audience not only had some familiarity with the relatively simple anthropology that informs 1 Cor. 15 but was also more likely to be persuaded by a complicated philosophical argument. Third, Paul sets out rules for the bios that his paideia requires. Paideia was more than simply education; it was the instillation of virtue and the training in living a virtuous life. This is most clearly the case in philosophical education (“philosophy” and “bios” were often interchangeable in ancient discussions of philosophy), but the idea of a virtuous life was present even at the earliest stages of education. Finally, the divisions in Corinth and Paul’s discourse on wisdom in 1 Corinthians 1-4 and elsewhere are best understood as Paul presenting and defending his own version of paideia. Paul was not a rhetor or a philosopher, and the presence of some simple rhetorical and philosophical techniques and tropes should not lead us to conclude that Paul was. At the same time, Paul and the Corinthians were clearly aware of these techniques and tropes, and Paul discoursed in ways that could have appealed to marginally educated people familiar with basic philosophical ideas and rhetorical forms and recognized the social significance of Paul’s new paideia. 5.2.1 Paul’s Paideia I: Use of the LXX In 1 Corinthians, Paul cites the LXX 14 times. With the exception of Romans, 1 Corinthians features the most citations of the LXX in the Pauline corpus.660 In each instance of use, Paul uses a citation to support whatever point he is making. For example, in 1 Cor. 1:18-19, Paul is attempting to persuade his audience of the saving power of his message of the cross while

660 Here I follow the citations numbered in Christopher D. Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture: Citation Technique in the Pauline Epistles and Contemporary Literature, (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).

216 introducing his larger argument about the nature of proper wisdom. In support of his message of the cross, and anticipating his discussion of wisdom, Paul cites Isaiah 29.14, almost verbatim from the LXX version: 1 Cor. 1:19: ἀπολῶ τὴν σοφίαν τῶν σοφῶν καὶ τὴν σύνεσιν τῶν συνετῶν ἀθετήσω Isaiah 29.14 LXX: ἀπολῶ τὴν σοφίαν τῶν σοφῶν καὶ τὴν σύνεσιν τῶν συνετῶν κρύψω

Paul’s standard use and presentation of a LXX citation are both present here. In terms of its use, the citation supports Paul’s preceding argument that “the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but for us who are being saved it is the power of God.” In addition to supporting his previous point, Paul uses Isaiah to introduce his next point (and something about which he will discuss for the next 4 chapters of 1 Cor.), a discussion of the nature of true wisdom. In terms of presentation of this particular citation, Paul specifically marks his citation of the LXX for his hearers and readers by introducing it with γέγραπται γάρ, and slightly modifies the original wording, changing κρύψω to ἀθετήσω, possibly in an attempt to conclude the citation with a stronger word echoing the opening ἀπολῶ, to drive home his point to his readers.661 I will speak to Paul’s style of citation shortly, but it is important to note here that by specifically calling attention to a citation Paul is not only drawing on a written source for its authority, but also making it very clear to his audience that he is doing so. Paul is identifying himself as a literate person who can cite other texts in support of his own argument. Even amongst the marginally educated, this would be a clear sign of paideia. By using the LXX as an authoritative text, Paul is presenting himself as a person who can cite a predecessor text, a remarkable feat in a society where so few people possessed the literary abilities to read and cite such texts. By citing the LXX, and by drawing attention to his citations, Paul is establishing himself as an educated person. The fact that Paul cites an authoritative text is a good indication that Paul had some education; the ways in which he frames and uses those citations, and a comparison with the use of authoritative texts among rhetors and philosophers will help narrow down that education. In terms of his style, in almost every case, Paul introduces his citation with “γέγραπται γάρ” or “καθὼς γέγραπται”. This citation practice is also attested in ancient Jewish and early rabbinic literature, and as a result modern studies of Paul’s citation of the LXX often

661 So argues Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, 186.

217 compare Paul to other “Jewish” writers, contemporary and later, and generally focus on how carefully Paul reproduces the LXX text.662 These comparisons, however, often note the distinct ways in which Paul uses the LXX, and argue that Paul ushered in a new and unique way of citing the LXX. Where Dietrich-Alex Koch, for example, concludes that Paul’s citation techniques represent a completely new way of handling scripture, dramatically different from Jewish citations of scripture.663 Koch constructs various Jewish methods of scriptural citation as quick rigid, faithfully reproducing the citation. Paul, on the other hand, is quite free in both his wording and his use of LXX citations signaling, according to Koch, a dramatic break with accepted Jewish citation practices.664 It is true that unlike contemporary Jewish writers, Paul provides little to no context for his use of the LXX, and frequently modifies the material quoted by omitting words or whole lines, and by changing some words. And while this practice of modification and omission may not be directly paralleled in the Jewish material reviewed by Koch, it was quite common in Graeco-Roman citation practices. Christopher Stanley examines Paul’s citations of the LXX alongside Graeco-Roman writers’ citations of Homer and concludes that Paul’s tendency to modify his cited texts are indeed attested in Greek sources.665 Strabo, for example, cites Homer extensively in the first two chapters of Geography. Strabo is generally faithful to the original wording of Homer but is not opposed to making small modifications. Strabo occasionally omits material deemed superfluous to his point, usually “flowery poetic descriptions” or narratives details not related to Strabo’s interests. An example of the former cited by Stanley is Strabo’s omission of οὔτε ποτ᾽ ὄµβρος in his description of the Elysian plain: Homer, Odyssey 4.563-5 Strabo, Geography 1.1.4 οὐ νιφετός, οὔτ᾿ ἂρ χειµὼν πολὺς οὔτε ποτ᾿ οὐ νιφετός, οὔτ᾿ ἂρ χειµὼν πολύς, ὄµβρος, ἀλλ᾿ αἰεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντος ἀλλ᾿ αἰεὶ Ζεφύροιο λιγὺ πνείοντος ἀήτας Ὠκεανὸς ἀνίησιν ἀήτας Ὠκεανὸς ἀνίησι.

662 Dietrich-Alex Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums: Untersuchungen zur verwendung und zum verständnis der Schrift bei Paulus, Beiträge Zur Historischen Theologie 69 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1986); Stanley, Paul and the Language of Scripture, 292–337. 663 Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums, 190–200. For a critique of Koch see Christopher D. Stanley, “Paul and Homer: Greco-Roman Citation Practice in the First Century CE,” NovT 32.1 (1990): 48–49. 664 Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums, 190–96. 665 Stanley, “Paul and Homer.”

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Stanley suggests that, since Strabo’s purpose was to describe the geography of the Elysian plain, he dropped the redundant “nor ever rain” for the sake of simplicity.666 Elsewhere Strabo omits longer narrative sections of Homer that are “extraneous to the author’s specific interests, so as to focus on the geographical aspects of the passage.”667 Here Stanley uses Strabo’s use of Iliad 14.225-9 as an example: Homer, Iliad 14.225-9 Strabo, Geography 1.2.20 Ἥρη δ᾿ ἀΐξασα λίπεν ῥίον Οὐλύµποιο, Πιερίην Ἥρη δ᾿ ἀΐξασα λίπεν ῥίον Οὐλύµποιο, Πιερίην δ᾿ ἐπιβᾶσα καὶ Ἠµαθίην ἐρατεινὴνσεύατ᾿ ἐφ᾿ δ᾿ ἐπιβᾶσα καὶ Ἠµαθίην ἐρατεινὴνσεύατ᾿ ἐφ᾿ ἱπποπόλων Θρῃκῶν ὄρεα νιφόεντα, ἀκροτάτας ἱπποπόλων Θρῃκῶν ὄρεα νιφόεντα· κορυφάς, οὐδὲ χθόνα µάρπτε ποδοῖιν· ἐξ Ἀθόω δ᾿ ἐξ Ἀθόω δ᾿ ἐπὶ πόντον ἐπὶ πόντον

Again, Strabo drops out what appears to be superfluous poetic language or narrative in favour of the geographical information in which he is interested. We can see these kind of omissions in 1 Cor. as well, places were Paul drops out what could be understood as superfluous detail in order to communicate his point. 1 Corinthians 1.31 Jeremiah 9.23-24 ἵνα καθὼς γέγραπται, Τάδε λέγει Κύριος· µὴ καυχάσθω ὁ σοφὸς ἐν τῇ σοφίᾳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ µὴ καυχάσθω ὁ ἰσχυρὸς ἐν τῇ Ὁ καυχώµενος ἐν κυρίω καυχάσθν ἰσχύϊ αὐτοῦ, καὶ µὴ καυχάσθω ὁ πλούσιος ἐν τῷ πλούτῳ αὐτοῦ, 24 ἀλλ’ ἢ ἐν τούτῳ καυχάσθω ὁ καυχώµενος, συνίειν καὶ γινώσκεν ὅτι ἐγώ εἰµι Κύριος ὁ ποιῶν ἔλεος καὶ κρίµα καὶ δικαιοσύνην ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, ὅτι ἐν τούτοις τὸ θέληµά µου, λέγει Κύριος.

Here, Paul’s use of Jeremiah is conditioned by his preceding comments on incorrect boasting. He uses Jeremiah to correct what he deems to be a wrong practice and admonishes his audience to boast in the lord. In doing so, Paul omits material that is not related to his main point. But Paul does not merely omit words or phrases in his citations, he also removes them from their context, and sometimes combines them in order to make a point. This use of citations is also attested in antiquity.

666 Stanley, “Paul and Homer,” 59. 667 Stanley, “Paul and Homer,” 59.

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Heraclitus of ’ Homeric Allegories (also called Homeric Problems), for example, make rather creative use of Homer in order to defend and discuss the Homeric text. As Stanley notes, shows little concern with “adhering to the original narrative context of his numerous citations of the Homeric epics.”668 Homeric Allegories focuses on defending Homer against the charge that he was impious toward the gods, and to do so Heraclitus spends much of the text allegorically interpreting sections of the Iliad and Odyssey. As such most of the citations of Homer are then read allegorically to defend Homer.669 More interesting, however, is the way in which Heraclitus uses citations from Homer in his opening defense. In Homeric Allegories 2.1, Heraclitus combines passages from the Iliad and Odyssey as proofs that Homer was respectful of the gods: How magnificently is Zeus sanctified in heaven in the lines in which he makes it tremble with an imperceptible nod! (Iliad 1.528) How the “great mountains and the forest shake” (Iliad 13.18) on a sudden when Poseidon starts on his way. And the same could be said of Hera: “she trembled on her throne and made all great Olympus quake” (Iliad 8.199) or of Athena’s epiphany: “Achilles was amazed, and turned, and knew Pallas Athena: fearful flashed her eyes” (Iliad 1.199-200) or “Like Artemis the archer on the mountain, on great Taygetus or Erymanthus, delighted with the boars and the swift deer” (Odyssey 6.102-104).670

Here Heraclitus is not concerned with the context of the sayings, rather he combines them as a proof that his thesis—that Homer was respectful of the gods—is true. Paul also combines citations from different LXX texts in order to argue a particular point. For example, 1 Cor. 3:19- 20 combines Job 5:13 and Psalms 93:11 to form a new argument about the futility of human cleverness in the face of god: For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” (Job 5:13) and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” (Psalms 93:11).

668 Stanley, “Paul and Homer,” 67. 669 David Konstan and Donald A. Russell, Heraclitus: Homeric Problems (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005), ix. 670 Translated by Konstan and Russell, Heraclitus, 5.

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Paul does the same in 1 Cor. 15:54-55 where he combines Isaiah 25:8 and Hosea 13:14 to aid his own argument about the resurrection of the dead. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” (Isaiah 25:8) “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (Hosea 13:14)

As is the case with Heraclitus, Paul is combining disparate citations from his authoritative source to argue his own points, and in the latter case, a point that was not present in his source material. I now turn to the question of what Paul’s citation practices can tell us about Paul, and his expectations of his Corinthian audience. Stanley argues that Paul did not necessarily need a full Greek education to explain his style of citation, and suggests that daily contact with Hellenistic society could explain Paul’s practices.671 Paul’s citation style differs from the styles of the Greek authors that Stanley reviews in two ways. First, Paul is more likely to modify the original text that he cites: Paul modifies 56% of his citations,672 whereas in Stanley’s four case studies, modifications ranged from 6% of the time to 52% of the time. So even though Paul uses his sources “freely” Paul’s practices are hardly unprecedented. The other way in which Paul’s citations differ from those surveyed by Stanley is that Paul tends to stick to the set phrase “for/as it is written,” whereas Strabo, Plutarch, Heraclitus, and others tend not to notify the reader of their Homeric citations.673 Strabo, Plutarch, and other educated elite could safely assume that their educated readership would recognize citations from Homer—the text that everyone used in their schooling—so the fact that they do not notify their readers that they are citing Homer makes sense: it would be unnecessary. If a lack of notification when citing Homer indicates that the audience would probably recognize the citation anyways, what does Paul’s practice of announcing his citations tell us about him and his audience? The fact that Paul introduce all of his citations as citations probably indicates that his audience was not as familiar with the LXX as pepaideumenoi would have been with Homer. There are other reasons to suspect that this is the case. Stanley argues that, based on limited access to written texts, the fact that the LXX was not a “book” in any sense of the word, and limited literacy in

671 Stanley, “Paul and Homer,” 49. 672 Koch, Die Schrift als Zeuge des Evangeliums, 186; Stanley, “Paul and Homer,” 78. 673 Stanley, “Paul and Homer,” 55.

221 antiquity, the idea that most, or even many people in Corinth would have picked up on Paul’s use of the LXX seems unlikely.674 To explain Paul’s use of LXX citations, Stanley provides four possible scenarios: 1. Paul instituted a rigorous program of scriptural study 2. Paul grossly misjudged the capacities of his audience (who were gentile and illiterate) 3. Paul addressed his letters to literate Jews and “Judaizing Gentiles” 4. Paul was aware his audience was ignorant of the content of the LXX but would still respect it for its authority675

Stanley rules out the first option, but grants that thinking about the remaining three can help us understand why Paul appealed to the LXX to a largely illiterate and gentile audience.676 Stanley seems to imagine a relative large group in Corinth, and this influences his conclusions, especially regarding low literacy rates ruling out a literate audience in Corinth. Yes, literacy rates were low, but that does not mean we need to imagine Paul’s audience was mostly illiterate. The fact that he writes to them already indicates that at least some in Corinth were literate. Stanley situates Paul between the illiterate majority and the educated elite, and as I argue here, there is every reason to imagine his audience is in a similar intellectual class. In terms of Paul’s use of the LXX, his audience is rarely required to know the context of the book he is citing in order to understand the citation. Paul’s citations tend to quote sayings of God, or the law, or the prophets (1 Cor. 1:19, 31; 2:9; 9:9; 10:7; 14:21; 15:27, 54-55), or comment on the nature and abilities of God (1 Cor. 3:19-20). None of these citations require knowledge of Exodus, or Job, or Isaiah to make sense. So, asking whether or not the Corinthians would recognize the LXX citations might be beside the point. Stanley is closer, I think, when he argues that, by drawing on the LXX, Paul is making a rhetorical move: biblical quotations (or quotations from an ancient tradition) carry “weight regardless of whether the recipients fully understand the reference.”677 5.2.1.1 Citations from Authority Using an authoritative source to support an argument was a standard and simple form of argument taught as early as the progymnasmata. Quintilian remarks that “language is based on

674 Christopher D. Stanley, “‘Pearls before Swine’: Did Paul’s Audiences Understand His Biblical Quotations?,” NovT 41 (1999): 126–130. 675 Stanley, “Pearls before Swine,” 133–34. 676 Stanley, “Pearls before Swine,” 134. 677 Stanley, “Pearls before Swine,” 136.

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Reason, Antiquity, Authority, and Usage” (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 1.6.1 [LCL]). Paul’s use of the LXX to support his point uses a source that is both antique and authoritative. On antiquity, Quintilian remarks that: Words taken from past ages not only have great men to urge their claims but also give the style a certain grandeur, not unmixed with charm; they have both the authority of age and, because they have fallen into disuse, an attraction like that of novelty. But moderation is essential; they must not be frequent or obvious (nothing is more tiresome than affectation), and certainly not taken from remote and now forgotten ages, like topper, antegerio, exanclare, prosapia, and the hymns of the Salii that their own priests now hardly understand. These indeed religion forbids us to change; what is sacred must be kept in use. But how faulty oratory (whose basic virtue is clarity) would be if it needed an interpreter! So, as the best new words will be the oldest, so the best old words will be the newest. (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 1.6.39-41 [LCL]).

On authority Quintilian remarks:

A similar principle applies to Authority. For though anyone who uses the words recommended by the best authors is sure not to go astray, it matters a great deal not only what they said but what they made acceptable. No one nowadays would put up with tuburchinabundus and lurchinabundus, though Cato is the authority for these words, or with hos lodices (though Pollio approves) or gladiola (though Messala used it) or parricidatus,which is barely to be borne in Caelius. Nor will Calvus persuade me to say collos. They would not use these words nowadays themselves. (Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 1.6.42 [LCL]).

On both points Quintilian is more interested in ancient and authoritative words rather than ancient sources themselves being the support for the argument, but then Paul is not a trained rhetor. And Quintilian does recommend using examples from antiquity in the construction of a persuasive argument (see especially Quintilian, Institutio Oratoria, 5.11.36-44). Further, it was common practice in almost every philosophical school in the first century to support one’s position with reference to the philosophical writings of the school. Epictetus, for example, frequently cites Homer in the process of making an argument. In Discourses, Epictetus cites the Iliad and Odyssey at least twenty times.678 In Discourses 3.23 (On the Calling of a Cynic) Epictetus quotes from Homer in three different sections, and concludes the entire section with a quotation from the Iliad: Such is the nature of the matter about which you are deliberating. Wherefore, in the name of God I adjure you, put off your decision, and look first at your endowment. For see what

678 Discourses book 1. 1.16, 12.3, and 27.8; book 2. 9.22 and 26, 13.13, 19.12, and 24.23; book 3. 1.38, 9.4, 22.72, 92, and 108, and 24.13, 18, and 33; book 4. 8.32, and 10.31 and 35.

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Hector says to Andromache. “Go,” says he, “rather into the house and weave; but for men shall war be the business, Men one and all, and mostly for me.” [Homer, Iliad VI. 492-3] So did he recognize not only his own special endowment, but also her incapacity (Epictetus, Discourses 3.22.108 [LCL]).

Here Epictetus uses a quotation from Homer to cleverly and memorably conclude a discourse on Cynics. Epictetus also concludes Discourses 4.10 with a quotation from Homer: If the pot in which your meat used to be boiled gets broken, do you have to die of hunger because you do not have your accustomed pot? Won’t you send out and buy a new one to take its place? He says, “Ill no greater than this could befall me.” (Homer, Iliad, XIX. 321) Why, is this what you call an ill? And then, forbearing to get rid of it, do you blame your mother, because she did not foretell it to you, so that you might continue to lament from that time forth? What do you men think? Did not Homer compose this in order for us to see that there is nothing to prevent the persons of highest birth, of greatest strength, of most handsome appearance, from being most miserable and wretched, when they do not hold the right kind of judgements?

Here Epictetus not only quotes Homer, but explains what Homer meant in the quotation and why it helps Epictetus to make his point. Paul’s citations function in essentially the same way as Epictetus’; as a proof for an argument. In 1 Cor. 1:18-31, for example, Paul opens with a quotation from the LXX, explains what it means, and concludes with another quote from the LXX. 1 Cor. 1:19 // Isa. 29.14 For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”

Paul uses the citation of Isaiah to introduce the topic of wisdom. Wisdom is the focus of the unit made up of 1 Cor. 1:18-31, as well as the main topic of chapters 1-4 generally. After introducing this small section with Isaiah, Paul then explains what (he thinks) the citation means and uses it to support his point that God trumps all other wisdom. He then concludes this small section with another quote from the LXX, a citation that is related to the first only through Paul’s discussion of true wisdom and caution against incorrect boasting. 1 Cor. 1:31 // Jer. 9.23-24 in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

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Paul uses the LXX in a fashion very similar to the ways in which Epictetus uses Homer: Paul and Epictetus both use citations from their sources not simply to prove their point, but also as an occasion to explain why they are correct by explaining what Homer or Isaiah meant. As I have argued above, Paul and the Corinthians are not educated elite, but we do not require them to be educated elite in order to produce citations from authoritative texts. As a marginally educated person trying to persuade other marginally educated people of his argument, Paul’s use of the LXX makes good sense. 5.2.2 Paul’s Paideia III: Exegesis of Genesis 1 and 2 in 1 Corinthians 15 In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul responds to the claims of some Corinthians that there is no resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:12). Paul encounters similar questions about the dead in 1 Thess. 4:13-18, and there he assures his audience that “For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him” (1 Thess. 4:14). In 1 Corinthians, however, Paul’s response is far more complicated. A number of scholars have argued that here Paul is combatting gnostic or Alexandrian Christians who were influenced by Middle Platonism.679 Regardless of the source of the disagreement, Paul’s response to the claim that there was no resurrection of the dead was to provide a complicated exegesis of the Genesis creation accounts in Gen. 1 and 2 in order to explain philosophically how Jesus brings about the resurrection of the dead. This is far more complicated than his explanation in 1 Thess., and raises the question of why? What about Paul’s audience in Corinth and/or the nature of their challenge to his account of the resurrection of the dead occasioned this type of response? Gregory Sterling argues that Paul’s language in 1 Cor. 15 has strong parallels with Philo of Alexandria’s On the Creation and suggests that Paul’s opponents had an anthropological understanding that was very similar to Philo’s. Sterling argues that Paul’s opponents were influenced by Philonic/Middle Platonic anthropology, but that still leaves the question of Paul’s response: is it an example of Paul’s philosophical sophistication? Or is it an example of Paul using more accessible popular philosophy to address the issue? A comparison between Paul’s exegesis and Philo’s will help shed light on the matter. 15:45-49: 1 Cor. 15:45-49:45 Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the

679 Gregory E. Sterling, “‘Wisdom among the Perfect’: Creation Traditions in Alexandrian Judaism and Corinthian Christianity,” NovT 37 (1995): 355–84.

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second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Here Paul summarizes Genesis 2:7, the creation of Adam; mentioning both that Adam “became a living being,” and by calling Adam “a man of dust.” Chronologically speaking this is the second creation story in Genesis, the first coming at Gen. 1:26-27 where God makes humankind according to the divine image. Paul references this creation as well but places it chronologically second: God first created the imperfect Adam—a man made from dust—and then created the human from heaven. Paul’s treatment of the two creation accounts in Genesis as two different creations of qualitatively different humans is often read as Paul addressing anthropological ideas that envisioned a double creation of earthly and heavenly humans. Sterling argues that in 1 Corinthians, Paul was attempting to counter incorrect assumptions about the importance of wisdom, the nature of human beings, and misconceptions about the resurrection through his own interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2.680 Sterling argues that there were people in Corinth who, based on an Alexandrian/Philonic philosophical anthropology, thought there was no resurrection of the dead. Dale Martin makes a similar argument, seeing the denial of the resurrection in Corinth as a product of those in Corinth who were “influenced by popular philosophy to deprecate the body.”681 Martin does not take this to mean that Paul’s opponents were strict Platonists, but rather that these Corinthians had an understanding of the body that was typical in popular philosophy: a separation of the body and soul.682 This separation was typical (though not ubiquitous) among ancient philosophical schools. But for our purposes it is most helpfully illustrated in Philo’s Platonic reading of the same creation stories in On the Creation 134-35. After this he says that “God formed man by taking clay from the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life” (Gen. ii. 7). By this also he shows very clearly that there is a vast difference between the man thus formed and the man that came into existence earlier after the image of God: for the man so formed is an object of sense-perception, partaking already of such or such quality, consisting of body and soul, man or woman, by nature mortal; while he that was after the (Divine) image was an idea or type or seal, an object of thought (only), incorporeal, neither male nor female, by nature incorruptible. It says, however, that the formation of the individual man, the object of sense, is a composite one made up of earthly substance and of Divine breath: for it says that the body was made through the Artificer taking clay and molding out of it a human form, but that the soul

680 Sterling, “Wisdom among the Perfect.” 681 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 107. 682 Martin, The Corinthian Body, 106–20.

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was originated from nothing created whatever, but from the Father and Ruler of all: for that which He breathed in was nothing else than a Divine breath that migrated hither from that blissful and happy existence for the benefit of our race, to the end that, even if it is mortal in respect of its visible part, it may in respect of the part that is invisible be rendered immortal. Hence it may with propriety be said that man is the borderland between mortal and immortal nature, partaking of each so far as is needful, and that he was created at once mortal and immortal, mortal in respect of the body, but in respect of the mind immortal. (Creation 134–135 [Colson and Whitaker, LCL])

For Philo, Gen 1:26 and 2:7 represent two distinct stories of creation. In the first, the human was formed after the divine image of god and was an archetype, an object of thought only, incorporeal, neither male nor female, and by nature incorruptible. For Philo, this first creation represented the Platonic archetype, a humanity which had already accomplished the Platonic goal of achieving the likeness of god. The second creation tells of a being formed from clay from the earth, as an object of “sense perception, partaking already of such or such quality, consisting of body and soul, man or woman, by nature mortal” (Creation, 135). Both Paul and Philo see Gen. 1:26-27 and 2:7 as different creation stories that lead to qualitatively different human beings: humanity in the image of god (ideal and of heaven), and humanity of clay, dust, and dirt (of the world). Paul, however, reverses the order so that the person of dust preceded the person of heaven. Philo interprets the double creation in Genesis through the Platonic idea of the archetype, which is the image of god, and the fleshy being that was created after. Paul, on the other hand, was attempting to show that the inadequacies of Adam had been replaced by the perfection of Jesus. For Paul, Adam the dirt man came first, and Jesus the spirit man came second. The heavenly person needed came after the dirt man in order to make up for the dirt man’s failings. Philo’s exegesis of Genesis is widely regarded as an excellent example of Middle Platonic thought, and Philo’s writings also represent the standard application of Middle Platonism to Judaism. Thus, it is Paul that is not sticking to the script. This should raise the question: why would Paul employ a philosophical exegesis of the Genesis tradition to explain the risen Jesus? Elsewhere, Paul discusses the risen Jesus, or Jesus being raised, or the person who raised Jesus quite extensively, in Romans for example, without making reference to Genesis 1 and 2, let alone to Genesis interpreted through popular philosophical dualism. And Paul addresses questions of the resurrection in 1 Thess. 4 without delving into exegesis. We should not go so far as to conclude that Paul was a philosopher, but we might take a cue from his

227 defence of his role as a teacher in 1 Cor. 1-4. If, as seems likely, Paul was being criticized for his inability to provide paideia, this kind of exegesis is exactly what he could do to demonstrate his skills. This type of basic, even unnecessary exegesis is what we might expect from a marginally educated person trying to win over a marginally educated audience. 5.2.3 Paul’s Paideia III: Paideia as bios and Wisdom in Corinth A number of those who argue that Paul rejects Graeco-Roman paideia and instills his own radically different version insist that Paul’s teachings are inclusive and freely accessible in a way that Graeco-Roman paideia was not. This understanding, however, projects a mythicized inclusivity onto what for all intents and purposes looks like Paul attempting to instill a bios (way of life) into his Corinthian audience. Paul pronounces on true wisdom and demeans the immature in Corinth who do not understand this wisdom (1 Cor. 2:6-16); Paul presents himself as a caring father overlooking needy children (1 Cor. 4:14-21); Paul pronounces on sexual morality in the ekklesia and demands that the immoral person be driven out (1 Cor. 5); Paul pronounces on the correct ways in which Corinthians should marry and what to do with unmarried widows (1 Cor. 7); Paul restricts the Corinthian consumption of meat sacrificed to idols (1 Cor. 8); Paul claims that as an apostle he has a right to food and drink from the Corinthians (1 Cor. 9); Paul tells women to veil themselves while prophesizing (1 Cor. 10:1-16); Paul tells people how to eat communally (1 Cor. 10:17-34); Paul tells people how to worship (1 Cor. 14:26-40); Paul asks for money from the Corinthians for people who live in another city (1 Cor. 16:1-4). Paul seeks to place himself as the patriarch over needy children, and seeks to regulate meals, social interactions, sexual practices, marriage, and asks for money on top of it all. 1 Cor. outlines a way of life (bios) that finds parallels in the bios of contemporary philosophical schools. And as should be clear from this brief review, being a part of Paul’s bios was not open and free; it required abiding by Paul’s rules regarding food, dress, sexual intercourse, marriage, and socializing, and required a financial contribution to a collection. Listed above are several topics upon which Paul comments, but to get at the heart of his bios, it is necessary to look at his understanding of wisdom.

6. Paul as a Teacher in Corinth and Thessaloniki My final point in support of looking at Paul and the Corinthians as marginal intellectuals involves the ways in which Paul presents himself as a teacher to the Corinthians. That Paul thinks of himself as a teacher is not the most interesting aspect of my analysis, rather, the most

228 interesting aspect is Paul’s treatment of the Corinthians themselves. Paul has pretensions to intellectual sophistication in many of his letters, but not all. In particular, contrasting Paul’s teaching and presentation of himself in 1 Corinthians with 1 Thessalonians will help to show the ways in which 1 Corinthians (and by extension Paul’s Corinthian audience) is involved in the cultivation of paideia in ways that 1 Thessalonians is clearly not. This is most clear when we look at the ways in which Paul presents himself as the leader of a school in 1 Cor. One of the distinct features of first century philosophical schools was a focus on social values and living a proper life (see section 4.3) and a shift towards veneration of the founder. Steve Mason argues that there seems to have been a general consensus concerning the goals of Hellenistic philosophy: they “helped to inculcate the bedrock social values of piety towards the gods (eusebeia, pietas) and justice (ta dikaia, dikaiosyne, iustitia) or philanthropy toward humanity.”683 In accordance with these goals, what people wanted from philosophy was not so much a new hypothesis regarding the nature of things, but rather “a solid basis for social values that were already considered axiomatic.”684 By the first century, philosophy had moved away from coming up with new ideas, and instead focused on reading, preserving, and sometimes adapting (but not “changing”) the ideas of the school’s founder.685 In support of this point, David Sedley argues that, in the Hellenistic and Roman periods, philosophical movements were less interested in a “common quest for the truth” and more interested in “a virtual religious commitment to the authority of a founding figure.”686 Leading up to the Roman period the schools had become increasingly less innovative in both thinking and in “serious attempts at reinterpreting their own traditions; they now seem to have focused their efforts on applying their various traditions to moral philosophy,”687 but even in these groups the “loyalty to scriptures remained integral to the philosophical enterprise.”688 As, Sedley argues, the role of scriptural authority provided the philosophical movements with “a raison d’etre and a

683 Steve Mason, “Philosophiai: Graeco-Roman, Judean and Christian,” in Voluntary Associations in the Graeco- Roman World, ed. John S. Kloppenborg and Stephen G. Wilson (London: Routledge, 1996), 33. 684 Ibid., 34. 685 Ibid., 32. 686 David Sedley, “Philosophical Allegiance in the Greco-Roman World,” in Philosophia Togata: Essays on Philosophy and Roman Society, ed. Miriam T. Griffin and Jonathan Barnes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 97. 687 Mason, “Philosophiai,” 32. 688 Sedley, “Philosophical Allegiance in the Greco-Roman World,” 100.

229 framework within which it could preserve its cohesion while continuing to inquire and debate.”689 The importance of the founder is widely attested, both by members of a given school like Philodemus and Lucretius, and by outside observers such as Cicero, Plutarch, Lucian, and Galen. In many cases these outsiders viewed founder-veneration as irrational and dangerous. Cicero, for example is “apt to wonder at the boldness of some philosophers who are so struck with admiration at the knowledge of nature as to thank, in an exulting manner, the first inventor and teacher of natural philosophy, and to reverence him as a God.”690 Like Cicero, Galen also viewed various schools’ blind loyalty to their dogma and founder to be detrimental. But Galen is of even more interest to me here because on three occasions, Galen unfavourably compares these dogmatic philosophical schools to the followers, and even to the διατριβήν of Moses and Christ. In these three instances, Galen compares philosophers and physicians to followers of Moses and Christ in that they all “cling fast to their schools,” speak of “undemonstrated laws,” and accept everything on trust (the Arabic word refers to keeping something for someone in safety and then returning it to them. I suspect it is a translation of πίστις). For Galen, members of schools of Christ and Moses are representative of the contemporary schools that showed irrational devotion to their own particular dogmas and founders.691 Galen compares medical and philosophical schools to the school of Moses and Christ in order to show how all of these schools encourage a reliance on “trust” rather than reason, and their adherents are noted for their loyalty to the received wisdom of their founders and teachers.692 For Galen, this was a problem, as he saw that too many students were more than willing to give “quasi-religious allegiance to their chosen teacher” on grounds that Galen considered irrational.693 With respect to schools of Christ, Galen’s accusation of a “trust” based

689 Ibid., 101. 690 Tusculan Disputations. 1.21.48 The importance of the authority of the founder’s writings is nicely illustrated by the fall of Aristotle’s Peripatos. Theophrastus sought to continue the Peripatos as an extension of Aristotle’s projects, but Theophrastus’ successor, Strato, was an independent thinker.690 He was not committed to Aristotelian thought, and did not retain for the school Aristotle’s own works. Sedley sees it as no coincidence that beginning with Strato’s headship, the school rapidly declined in in relevance and prestige. This is certainly not the only example of the importance, and veneration of a school’s founder. 691 Loveday Alexander, “Paul and the Hellenistic Schools: the Evidence of Galen,” in Paul in His Hellenistic Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995), 66. 692 Alexander, “Paul and the Hellenistic Schools,” 67–68. 693 Alexander, “Paul and the Hellenistic Schools,” 70.

230 pedagogy rather than a reason-based pedagogy is confirmed by Origen and Justin who both argued (in defense of Christ schools) that “‘faith’ played just as important a role in the schools as it did in the church, and that teachers encouraged an attitude of uncritical loyalty to the school and its founder.”694 In an attempt to explain the attraction of Paul’s teachings to individuals in Corinth, Stanley Stowers suggests that we should focus on paideia. In order to explain the attraction of Paul to the Corinthians, Stowers posits that there needed to be, overlapping fields of knowledge and intellectual practices in which specialists employed their skills to compete in ‘debate’ in the production and interpretation of oral and written texts and discourses that contest the truth and legitimacy of both traditions and novel doctrines.695

If my description of marginal intellectuals is acceptable, then we can see how Paul as marginal intellectual may have been attractive to marginal intellectuals in Corinth: both parties recognized the deployment of paideia in the form of wisdom, citing authoritative texts, and proscribing a bios to live by; both clearly debated the specific qualities of this paideia, as 1 Cor. 1-4 demonstrates; and Paul at least is invested in asserting and defending his own legitimacy. This social world is in many ways distinct to Corinth among Paul’s letters (Romans also assumes an intellectual audience but is different in the sense that Paul has never met or interacted with the letter recipients in Rome). 1 Thess. stands in rather stark contrast to 1 Corinthians, and so a comparison is illuminating. Where Paul cites the LXX as a source 14 times in 1 Corinthians, in 1 Thess., Paul does not cite the LXX at all, and makes only one mention of “the word of the lord” in 1 Thess. 4:15, ὑµῖν λέγοµεν ἐν λόγοῳ κυρίου. In fact, almost every time Paul gives a command or makes reference to teaching, he does so based on his own authority, 1 Thess. 1:5, 4:1-2 being the best example of this. On the a whole, there is very little emphasis on intellectual orientation at all in 1 Thess., and much more focus on apocalyptic rescue 1 Thess. 4:13-5:11. In 1 Cor., Paul asserts and refers to the authority of both Moses and Christ in ways that we would expect teachers in schools to assert and refer to the authority of their founders. Paul spends a good deal of time in 1 Cor. referring to an authoritative tradition—the LXX—and in

694 Alexander, “Paul and the Hellenistic Schools,” 77. 695 Stanley K. Stowers, “Kinds of Myth, Meals, and Power: Paul and the Corinthians,” in Redescribing Paul and the Corinthians, ed. Ron Cameron and Merrill P. Miller, vol. 5, Early Christianity and Its Literature (Atlanta, Ga: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), 116.

231 places Paul interprets and reinterprets the tradition.696 Paul quotes from, or makes allusions to what is “written” (γέγραπται) in 1 Cor. 2:9; 9:10; 10:7, 11; 15:45, “written in the laws of Moses” (ἐν γὰρ τῷ Μωϋσέως νόµῳ) in Cor. 9:9, “in the law it is written” (ἐν τῷ νόµῳ γέγραπται) in Cor. 14:21, says that things happened “according to the scripture” (κατὰ τὰς γραφάς), 15:3,4.697 It is, of course, difficult to know from 1 Cor. what the recipients of Paul’s letters were doing, and what they thought they were getting out of being a member of Paul’s ekklesia, but it is my hope that comparison to 1 Thess. may help us to make some educated guesses. In 1 Thess. the ekklesia does not appear to be particularly interested in paideia, at least as Paul reveals to us in his letter. The only time were hear the Thessalonians’ voice is when Paul responds to concerns the Thessalonians have over “those who have died” before the second coming of the Christ. Paul puts their worries to rest by assuring them in 1 Thess. 4:14 “that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.” A simple solution to a simple problem. The Thessalonians, at least as represented by Paul in 1 Thess., are not interested in paideia, or engagement with Paul’s teachings. It does not appear as though the Thessalonians are receiving an alternate paideia as a result of being members of Paul’s ekklesia. Indeed their reasons for membership, as I have already mentioned, seem to lie more in Paul’s apocalyptic framework. 1 Cor. provides us with significantly more information about the Corinthians than 1 Thess. does for the Thessalonians. Of the various issues Paul attempts to address in 1 Cor., two are of particular interest to me: problems with those claiming to be wise (1:18-4:21; 8:1-13), and questions about the resurrection (15:1-58). In each case the problems seem to arise from people critically engaging with Paul’s teachings. In the case of those claiming to be wise, the issue seems somewhat apparent. Some Corinthians are making claims to wisdom/knowledge with which Paul does not agree. This suggests that some Corinthians were interested in attaining new knowledge which suggests similar interest in new paideia. In 1 Cor. 15 Paul appears to encounter a similar problem as he did in 1 Thess. 4, questions about the resurrection. Paul’s answer to this query in 1 Cor., however, is vastly different. In 1 Thess. Paul is content to simply

696 A point which Sedley sees as an important facet of Hellenistic philosophical schools, Sedley, “Philosophical Allegiance in the Greco-Roman World.” In addition, this practice of referring to, interpreting, and explains authoritative doctrines was a common practice among the philosophical schools of the Roman period, as many had ceased to focus on innovative thinking. See Mason, “Philosophiai,” 32. 697 See section 5.2.

232 assure the Thessalonians that as Jesus was raised, so will the dead, simple as that. In 1 Cor. Paul devotes several paragraphs to explaining the nature of the resurrection, citing scriptural precedent for the resurrection, and creatively interpreting Genesis in order to prove his point. As I have argued, this parallels the tendency of the philosophical schools to stand fast to the authority of their founder and scripture, even when it needs to be “creatively interpreted” to fit with their current thesis. Here I want to suggest that this practice of Paul’s indicates that his audience would be receptive to this form of argumentation, and capable of following his heady argument. This too may be an example that the members of Paul’s ekklesia in 1 Cor. were interested in the alternative paideia that Paul had to offer. Some might protest that this is an argument from silence, since it isn’t clear from 1 Cor. whether or not anyone understood what Paul was going on about in chapter 15, but I would suggest that Paul’s criticism of the wise among the Corinthians suggests that such a people did exist in the ekklesia.

7. Paul, some conclusions In spite of Schellenberg’s protests, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Paul encounters conflict in Corinth over intellectual matters, and Paul uses intellectual tropes and arguments to support his own status as a teacher of repute. 1 Corinthians contains hints of rhetorical argumentation, popular philosophy, and LXX exegesis; and Paul’s Corinthians seem to expect a teacher of wisdom. That being said, Schellenberg and Stowers are still quite convincing in their arguments that Paul is not a trained rhetor or philosopher. I have argued that the rhetorical and philosophical aspects of 1 Cor. are present because Paul is a marginal intellectual, and his audience is comprised of other marginal intellectuals attracted to his teaching of an alternative paideia. This alternative paideia, however, is not a rejection of Graeco-Roman paideia. Paul’s teaching requires the assumptions that paideia is virtuous, an assumption instilled throughout encyclia paideia. 1 Corinthians strongly suggests that Paul knew what paideia should look like, and he expected his audience to recognize his letter as contains paideia. Disagreements over the nature of Paul’s paideia and Paul’s qualifications as a teacher are exactly what we would expect from marginally educated people mimicking the discourses of the pepaideumenoi. In terms of the content of 1 Cor.: Paul uses images and metaphors for paideia that would have been recognizable for people with marginal educations; quotes from an authoritative source; performs philosophical exegesis; sets out rules for the ways in which his Corinthian

233 audience should live their lives; and presents himself as a teacher of paideia. While sub-elite, Paul’s letters are full of paideia, and his construction of wisdom and presentation of himself as a teacher would have resonated most successfully with a group that was also marginally educated.

234

Conclusion

God! To good fortune!

The Delphians grant to the Platonic philosopher Lucios Calvenos Tauros Beirutos and to his children, citizenship, public friendship, legal advocacy, lands, and the right to hold household property, and as many other honours as are given to noble and good men. When Tiberios Julios Aristainetos was archon.698

This second century inscription from records the granting of citizenship to the Middle Platonic philosopher Lucios Calvenos Tauros originally from Beirut. Tauros’ position as a respected philosopher brought with it more than just the respect of his students and fellow intellectuals, it also won him citizenship in Delphi and “the many other honours given to noble and good men,” including the right to hold land and property, a normally aristocratic privilege. Being among the pepaideumenoi had its advantages, it seems, especially to provincials acculturated to Greek education and philosophy. As I have argued throughout, neither Paul, nor his audience in 1 Corinthians, nor the composers and consumers of the Gospel of Thomas were counted among the pepaideumenoi like Tauros, who enjoyed recognition and honours at a broader civic level. But that does not mean that they had no contact with some of the training the pepaideumenoi received or were unaware of the virtue and prestige attached to claiming and performing paideia. The form and content of the Gospel of Thomas, and the topics discussed in 1 Cor. both strongly suggest composers and consumers with an awareness of and appreciation for Graeco-Roman paideia. Such an awareness and appreciation for paideia does not necessitate that a person went through encyclia paideia as

698 FD III 4:90=SIG[3] 868A 1 θεός. τύχα [ἀγαθά]. Δελφοὶ ἔδωκαν Λ. Καλβήνῳ Ταύρῳ Βηρυτίῳ, φιλοσόφῳ πλατωνικῷ αὐτῷ καὶ τέκνοις 5 αὐτοῦ πολειτείαν, προξενίαν, προδικίαν, γᾶς καὶ οἰκίας ἔνκτησιν καὶ τἆλλα τείµια ὅσα τοῖς κα- λοῖς καὶ ἀγαθοῖς ἀνδράσι 10 δίδοται. ἄρχοντος Τιβ. Ἰουλίου Ἀρισταινέτου.

235 imagined by Quintilian or Ps. Plutarch, advancing from elementary letters, to grammar, to rhetoric and/or philosophy. As we have seen from the evidence from school exercises, the vast majority of students with any schooling did not advance to rhetorical and/or philosophical training, and many received only minimal training in reading and copying. This results in a relatively large number of people (large relative to the number of people who completed encyclia paideia) with a marginal education. But these marginally educated people learned more than skills in reading and writing, they also learned, from the very earliest stages of their educations, that paideia was virtuous, and the claiming and performance of paideia was a potential source of social prestige. In some cases, this recognition of paideia as prestigious manifested in people holding on to school exercises, or composing crude stories about rivals, or quoting Homeric verses in business documents. In other cases this may have manifested in attempts to collect valuable books that one could not read, practice oratory without rhetorical training, or attending the symposium of the intellectual elite. To these practices of marginal intellectuals we can now add producing and consuming a text such as Gos. Thom., and writing to and being a part of a group in Corinth interested in wisdom. Scholarship that situates emerging Christianity in the Graeco-Roman world has advanced by leaps and bounds in the past few decades. This project contributes to that advancement by arguing that Graeco-Roman paideia is not merely a context with which we might study Gos. Thom. and 1 Cor., it is absolutely crucial for making sense of the texts.

236

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