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Getting Romans to the Right Romans: Phoebe and the Delivery of Paul’S Letter

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Getting Romans to the Right Romans: Phoebe and the Delivery of Paul’S Letter GETTING ROMANS TO THE RIGHT ROMANS: PHOEBE AND THE DELIVERY OF PAUL’S LETTER Allan Chapple Summary How did Romans reach the people for whom it was intended? There is widespread agreement that Phoebe was the bearer of the letter (Rom. 16:1-2), but little investigation of or agreement about the exact nature of her responsibilities. By exploring the data available to us, especially tha found in Romans 16, this essay provides a reconstruction of the events surrounding the transport and delivery of the letter to the Roman Christians. In particular, it proposes the following: Phoebe conveyed the letter to Rome, probably by sea; the church in Rome at this time consisted of house-churches; Phoebe was to deliver the letter first to Prisca and Aquila and their house-church; Prisca and Aquila were to convene an assembly of the whole Christian community, the first for some time, at which Romans was to be received and read; Prisca and Aquila were to be asked to arrange for copies of Romans to be made; Phoebe was to deliver these copies to other house-churches; and Phoebe was to read Romans in the way that Paul had coached her at each of the gatherings to which she took it. 1. Introduction It is the spring of AD 56 or 57, and Paul has just spent the winter in Corinth.1 Now he is on his way to Jerusalem with the collection (15:25- 1 For his spending the winter of 55–56 in Corinth, see C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (2 vols; ICC; Edinburgh: 196 TYNDALE BULLETIN 62.2 (2011) 322). Under the circumstances, he is bound to be focused on what lies ahead, preoccupied with what kind of reception awaits him in Jerusalem. Yet part of him is looking westwards, wondering about the letter he has sent to Rome. The production of this letter was one of his principal projects during the winter months, and so he is also preoccupied with what kind of reception awaits the letter in Rome. It is no less important for the progress of his mission that Romans be well received than that his collection is welcomed by the Jerusalem church. As a result, he will have taken as much care arranging for the delivery of the letter as he took in its composition—why invest so much time, energy and money in the production of a letter that is unlikely to reach its destination? But what exactly was that destination? And what steps has Paul taken to ensure that Romans reaches it? And how was the letter to be delivered and received once it reached its goal? What follows attempts to answer such questions, often by proposing fresh ways of reading the evidence of Romans 16.3 Certainties are obviously out of the question; of necessity, we will be dealing largely with possibilities. The plausibility or otherwise of the suggestions to be offered depends on the extent to which they form a coherent picture of the situation which Romans is addressing, and especially on the extent to which they make good sense of the data of Romans 16. 2. Getting Romans to Rome The obvious starting-point for our inquiry is 16:1-2. There is widespread agreement that this functions as a ‘letter of T&T Clark, 1975, 1979): 1.13-14; for the winter of AD 56–57, see Robert Jewett, Romans (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007): 19-20. 2 Unless otherwise indicated, all Bible references in this essay are to passages in Romans. 3 Ch. 16 should be understood as belonging to Romans rather than as correspondence originally addressed to Ephesus: see C. H. Dodd, The Epistle of Paul to the Romans (MNTC; London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1932): xvii-xxiv; Karl Paul Donfried, ‘A Short Note on Romans 16’ in The Romans Debate, ed. Karl P. Donfried (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1991): 44-52 (esp. 48-52); Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB; New York: Doubleday, 1993): 57-64; Harry Gamble, Jr, The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans: A Study in Textual and Literary Criticism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977); Peter Lampe, ‘The Roman Christians of Romans 16’ in The Romans Debate, 216-230 (esp. 217-21); Peter Lampe, From Paul to Valentinus: Christians at Rome in the First Two Centuries (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003): 153-64. CHAPPLE: Delivering Romans 197 recommendation’4 for Phoebe in her role as the bearer of Paul’s letter.5 The background for this is that there were three ways in this period in which mail was taken from its place of origin to its destination.6 The only postal service, the cursus publicus, was meant solely for the transmission of official material. The well-to-do often used a tabellarius, a slave who acted as a courier. For the great majority, however, personal correspondence had to be entrusted to anyone— often a complete stranger—who was heading for the right destination or even just in the right direction.7 It was not uncommon in such circumstances for letters not to arrive at their destination.8 Several factors were at work here: even a responsible carrier might not be able to track down the addressee; an unreliable carrier might not make the effort to find the right destination or might simply lose the letter; and a letter might be damaged or destroyed in transit. For obvious reasons, therefore, it was far preferable to put the letter into the hands of someone the sender knew and trusted. So it is not surprising to find clear indications in his letters that Paul used a number of his associates, including Phoebe, in this way.9 4 On which see, for example, Gamble, Textual History, 84-87; Jewett, Romans, 941- 942; Jeffrey A. D. Weima, Neglected Endings: The Significance of the Pauline Letter Closings (JSNTSS 101; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994): 150-51. 5 I am aware of only one commentator who expresses any reservations about this view: Simon Légasse, L’Épître de Paul aux Romains (Lectio Divina Commentaires; Paris: Cerf, 2002): 940. 6 Hans-Josef Klauck, Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis (with the collaboration of Daniel P. Bailey) (Waco: Baylor University, 2006): 61-65; Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Paul the Letter-Writer: His World, His Options, His Skills (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1995): 38-39; E. Randolph Richards, Paul and First-Century Letter Writing: Secretaries, Composition and Collection (Downers Grove: IVP, 2004): 177-82. 7 Eldon Jay Epp, ‘New Testament Papyrus Manuscripts and Letter Carrying in Greco-Roman Times’ in The Future of Early Christianity: Essays in Honor of Helmut Koester, ed. Birger A. Pearson (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991): 35-56 (esp. 43-51); Peter M. Head, ‘Named Letter-Carriers among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri’, JSNT 31 (2009): 279-99 (esp. 283-284); David Noy, Foreigners at Rome: Citizens and Strangers (London: Duckworth, 2000): 164-165. 8 Klauck, Letters, 64; Murphy-O’Connor, Letter-Writer, 39; Richards, Letter Writing, 181-82. This is one of several reasons which make it likely that Paul kept a copy of each letter that he sent: see Harry Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church: A History of Early Christian Texts (New Haven: Yale University, 1995): 100- 101; Murphy-O’Connor, Letter-Writer, 12, 36-37; Richards, Letter Writing, 158-61. 9 So, for example, Eph. 6:21-22, Col. 4:7-9, and Phlm. 10, 12 suggest that Tychicus carried all three of these letters (as well as that for Laodicea (Col. 4:16): see Richards, Letter Writing, 199-200; Harold W. Hoehner, Ephesians: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2002): 868-70; Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the 198 TYNDALE BULLETIN 62.2 (2011) In view of all that Romans was designed to achieve—both for Paul and his mission-plans, and for the church itself—Paul was undoubtedly investing a great deal in Phoebe when he entrusted the letter to her.10 So what were her responsibilities as the bearer of Romans? When he placed Romans in Phoebe’s hands, what exactly was Paul asking her to do? First and foremost, she had the significant responsibility of ensuring that Paul’s letter reached Rome safely. What would this have meant? It was a matter, first, of making the trip to Rome as speedily and safely as possible.11 She needed to get Romans there in plenty of time before Paul reached Jerusalem, so that the believers in Rome could meet his request to pray about the reception that awaited him when he got there (15:30-31). So how would she have made the journey?12 While certainty is obviously impossible, there is reason to think that she would have chosen to do as much of the journey as possible by sea rather than by road. It is true that sea travel involved obvious risks because of its vulnerability to the weather, so that it would tend to be Colossians and to Philemon (PC; Grand Rapids: Cambridge/Eerdmans: Nottingham: Apollos, 2008): 334. On Paul’s letter-carriers in general, see Richards, Letter Writing, 188-209. 10 It is often assumed that Paul simply took advantage of the fact that Phoebe was about to travel to Rome anyway: see C. K. Barrett, The Epistle to the Romans (2nd edn; BNTC; London: A&C Black, 1991): 258; Brendan Byrne, S.J., Romans (Sacra Pagina; Collegeville: Liturgical, 1996): 447; Dodd, Romans, 234; James D. G. Dunn, Romans (2 vols; WBC; Dallas: Word, 1988): 2.889; Eduard Lohse, Der Brief an die Römer (KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003): 404; Wayne A.
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