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The Portrait of Paul in Acts

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The Portrait of Paul in Acts Trinity University Digital Commons @ Trinity Religion Faculty Research Religion Department 11-2016 Socratizing Paul: The Portrait of Paul in Acts Rubén R. Dupertuis Trinity University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/relig_faculty Part of the Religion Commons Repository Citation Dupertuis, R. (2009). Socratizing Paul: The portrait of Paul in acts. The Fourth R, 22(6), 11-18, 28. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion Department at Digital Commons @ Trinity. It has been accepted for inclusion in Religion Faculty Research by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Trinity. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Socratizing Paul The Portrait of Paul in Acts Ruben Dupertuis he Acts of the Apostles is poorly named because it Panl much like he does.Jesus in the Gospel of l .uke, where T is prim arily the acts of only Lwo apostles: Pecer and much of Lite narrative chronicles.Jesus' slow and methodi­ Paul (and Paul is not actually considered to be an cal journey to .Jerusalem anrl his Lrials then�. While Luke "apostle" by Luke, the author of A.els). Funhcrmore, it is has c:cnain ly modeled his "Passion" of Paul after his Passion Paul who emerges as the hero of the narrative, as well over of Jesus, the extended portrait or l'aul 011 trial has striking . half of Acts is devoted t.o his journeys and exploits. The siu1ilarities to traditions about the trial and cxcn11ion of portrait of Paul in Acts is striking for several rea sons, not the most C1mous martyr of' tile ancient world, Socrates. In Lhe least of which is rhe fact that letter writing, the activity 111yjuclgrnent. sH<..:h si111ilaritics a1-c 110 accidt'nt-l.ukc has for which Paul ap pears Lo have heen known, is completely consciously modeled his portrait or Pan! 011 trial after last absent. ln AcL-; Paul travels, preaches, heals, and escapes rbys ofthe famous At h('ll ian philosopher. attempts on his life, but he clocsn 'r write letters. Acts' portrait of Paul is also inLcrcsti11g· for occasional Socrates as a Model differences from the picture of Paul that emcrg·es fro111 :\o other death in t.lw ;lllcicnt world was as we ll-known his own letters. Throughout the letter to the Galatians, for as Lltat of Socrat('S. By the early Ro111;111 i111pnial period, example, Paul is adamant that Gentik: converts do not have Socrates had btTomc th(' prc-C"n1i1H'llt 111artyr, tltt" prototype to follow traditional Jewish law. And Paul himself appears of the philosopher u1�justly accused, tried, an<l executed. u11c:oncerned with breaking purity regulations by associat­ As recounted by his students-especially the fourth-cen­ ing with Gentiles (Gal 2:6). In Acts, however, Paul's Jewish tury BCE accounts of Xenophon and Plato-Socrates was iden tity and piety is hard to ignore. In his journeys Paul brought up on charges of corrupting the ''OU th of Athens almost always goes w synagogues first, going Lo Gentiles and in troducing new or foreign gocls. The rn;�jority of his only after he is rejected by his own people. Such is Paul's judges-a total of 501-founcl him guilty and condemned traditional.Jewish piety that he agrees LOjoin and pay forthe him to death. In the Lhirty-<lay interval between Socrates' purification rites of several men in .Jerusalem in an attempt. trial and his execution. his friends came to him in pr ison to mollit}1.Je'<''S "zealous for the Law"(21 :20-�6) and claims and offered to aITange his escape by bribing the g·uanls. to have offered sacrifices in the Temple (24: 17-18). These Socrates refosed, however, using his time in prison as an act.ions don't necessarily conlradict what Paul says of him­ opportunity Lo teach his friends and students. Finally, whe11 self in his own letters, but they are very difficult to recon­ the time came, Socrates said good-bye to his friends and cile. More problematic is Act5' account of Paul requiring calmly drank the hemlock. It is worth noting that both Pla­ that Timothy, whose mother was Jewish but whose father to and Xenophon emphasize Son-aces' in nocence, vilifying was Greek, be circumcised before joining him in a mission his accusers instead. in order to accommodate the expectations of the Jewish The reasons for the prominence of Socrates are worth community (16:1-3). exploring. He was clearly of significance for philosophers Another slriking feature of Acts-and my focus in this who came after him and for later philosophical schools­ essay-is how much of lhe narrative depict.� Paul in some many of which claimed him as their foHncler. But even out­ form of imp1-isonment: from Acts 21 on, Paul is cit.her on side of specialized philosophical circles, Lraditions about trial or awaiting trial. In this, the author of Acts portrays Socrates were widespread and well-known. V\1hile there were clearly other influemial ph ilosophers, both before This essay clra\\'s on maccri;·ll developed f'or a fi>rtlKomi11g- volrn11c hy and after him, Socrates bcncfitted from being the suqject fkunis MacDonald and Ruh\:11 Dupcnuis mt the 11sc of so1m:cs in clic Acts of the Apo�lles. of several works that. became standards of the Greek educa- The Fourth R 22-6 m November-December 2009 tional curriculum. Socrates is the central figure in many of of virtue "every day, ... about which you yourselves heard Plato's dialogues, and his trial and death are the subject or me discuss (Apology 38a). the backdrop of four of Plato's well known dialogues-Cri­ Paul's initial activity in Athens, Socrates' hometown, is to, Euth)•phm, Phaedo, and Apology-and two of Xenophon's described in typically Socratic terms. It is not surprising, writings-Apology and Memorabilia. then, that he soon encounters some philosophc1-s. Th<:ir Students in the Greco-Roman world would have reaction to him further evokes rhe figure of Socrates, as encountered short aphorisms about Socrates in the early some asked, "What would this idle gossip say?" and others. stages of their education. As they progressed, the writ­ remarked, "He appears to be a promoter of foreign deiti,s" ings of Plato and Xenophon would have served as liler­ (Acts 17:18). Paul is then taken to the Areopagus (the hill ary models for more advanced students to imitate. By the of the god Ares), where the philosophers say to him, "May early Roman period, the writings of Plato and Xenophon we know what this new thing is, the teaching of which you were on the short list of authors that any relatively well­ speak? For you arc intmdur:in!( to our ears some strange educated person was expected to know. Put another way, ideas; we would like to know what. these things are" (Acts '· 17: 19-20). ,.,.. if you learned to read and write at reasonably advanced The charges leveled against Socrates were strik­ levels in the Greco-Roman world, you would have learned ingly similar. Plato has Socr.ites paraphrase the charges to do so by using Plato and Xenophon as literary models against him as follows: "Socrates is guilty of corrupting at some point. the youth and of not honoring the gods the city honors, It. is not surprising, then, that the death of Socrates but other new deities"(Apology 24b). Xenophon records the was among the most imitated models of how to die nobly.1 charge as followi>: "Socrates is guilty of not honoring the When Plutarch recounts the death of Cato gods honored by the state and of introduc­ the rbunger, he does so with the death Socrates became the ideal ing other new deities. He is also guilty of of Socrates as his literary template (Cato model of a maligned corrupting the youth" (Mern. 1.1. l ) . Minor 66.4-60.6) . Like Socrates, Cato V\'hile Paul is not. formally on trial in calms his friends and refilses their efforts philosopher willing to die Athens, the change in venue to the Ale­ to save him. Plutarch also mentions that fo r his beliefs. opagus does create a trial-like situation. Cato read through Plato's Phaedo twice For although the Areopagus is not the on the night of his death. Lucian also uses traditions of site of Socrates' trial in the literary tradition, by the early Socrates' death explicitly in his account. of the Stoic phi­ Roman Empire the association of that site with being Ljll<:s­ losopher Demonax. For these and other writers, including tioned or judged was relatively common in literature. In the authors of .Jewish martyrologies, Socrates became the addition, while Paul's subsequent speech is not a form;tl ideal model of a maligned philosopher willing to die for "apology" or defense, it. certainly has the feel of one, given his beliefs. that he is responding to questions and concerns that evoke·: the accusations for which Socrates was brought to trial in Paul in Athens Athens. Interpreters of Acts have long noticed striking Socratic The speech Paul delivers to the inquisitive philoso­ features in the description of Paul's visit to Athens in Acts phers on the Areopagus continues the echoes of Socratic 17: 16-34. Paul arrives at the famous home of Socrates and traditions. His first words, "Men of Athens," recall Socrates' engages a group of philosophers in the marketplace in ways manner of addressing the Athenian jury in the first lints that are evocative of the Athenian philosopher-he is, put and throughout Plato's Apolog)• ( l 7a) .
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