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The Rhetoric of Gender in the Household of God: Ephesians 5:21-33 and Its Place in Pauline Tradition

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The Rhetoric of Gender in the Household of God: Ephesians 5:21-33 and Its Place in Pauline Tradition Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2013 The Rhetoric of Gender in the Household of God: Ephesians 5:21-33 and Its Place in Pauline Tradition Lisa Marie Belz Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Biblical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Belz, Lisa Marie, "The Rhetoric of Gender in the Household of God: Ephesians 5:21-33 and Its Place in Pauline Tradition" (2013). Dissertations. 502. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/502 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2013 Lisa Marie Belz LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO THE RHETORIC OF GENDER IN THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD: EPHESIANS 5:21-33 AND ITS PLACE IN PAULINE TRADITION A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN THEOLOGY BY LISA MARIE BELZ, O.S.U. CHICAGO, IL MAY 2013 Copyright by Lisa Marie Belz, O.S.U., 2013 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A dissertation is never a project completed by oneself alone. With this in mind, I would like to acknowledge those whose special help along the way made this dissertation possible. First of all, I would like to thank warmly Dr. Wendy Cotter, C.S.J., Ph.D., teacher and friend, who first welcomed me to Loyola and who later encouraged my research on the household code of Ephesians. I would also like to thank my director, Fr. Thomas Tobin, S.J., Ph.D., whose patient guidance helped me to steer a straight course through some rough waters. I am likewise grateful to Drs. Jacquelyn Long, Ph.D., and Andrew Radde-Gallwitz, Ph.D., my readers, for their helpful suggestions and kind feedback. Sincere thanks are also due to Mrs. Catherine Wolf, Theology Department office coordinator, and Mrs. Marianne Wolfe, Theology Department administrative assistant, for their regularly cheerful, generous, and gracious assistance with all the many details involved in a dissertation project. Additionally, I would like to thank the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) whose warm hospitality, friendship, and camaraderie sustained me throughout my years at Loyola. Finally, I wish to thank my Ursuline Sisters of Northeast Ohio, both in Cleveland and Youngstown. Without the loving encouragement and affirmation of my sisters in Cleveland, I would never have begun this incredibly long (yet ultimately rewarding) journey, and without the good space and the affectionate companionship of my sisters in Youngstown, I would never have arrived at such a successful completion. iii To the Ursuline Sisters of Northeast Ohio, true sisters and dear companions on the journey The height to which Love raises us is indescribable. (1 Clement 49:4) TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii ABSTRACT viii CHAPTER ONE: THE STATUS QUAESTIONIS 1 Introduction 1 Summary of Scholarship and Description of Problem to be Addressed 2 Methodological Issues 11 Questions on Authorship, Date, Genre, Setting, Audience, and Purpose 15 Summary and Conclusions 43 CHAPTER TWO: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COLOSSIANS 3:18-19 AND EPHESIANS 5:21-33 44 Introduction 44 The Epistle to the Colossians: Some Preliminary Considerations 45 The Household Code of Colossians 3:18-4:1 in its Larger Context 47 The Household Code of Ephesians 5:21-33 in its Broader Context 49 Setting the Text: Where Does the Household Code of Ephesians Begin? 53 A Synoptic View of Colossians 3:18-4:1 and Ephesians 5:21-6:9 59 Summary and Conclusions 70 CHAPTER THREE: AN EXEGETICAL STUDY OF EPHESIANS 5:21-24 76 Introduction 76 A Structural and Syntactical Analysis of Ephesians 5:21-33 77 An Exegetical Analysis of Ephesians 5:21-24 87 Summary and Conclusions 112 CHAPTER FOUR: AN EXEGETICAL STUDY OF EPHESIANS 5:25-33 119 Introduction 119 A Review of the Structure of Ephesians 5:21-33 120 An Exegetical Analysis of Ephesians 5:25-33 122 Summary and Conclusions 168 CHAPTER FIVE: PAUL’S VIEWS ON SUBORDINATION, MARRIAGE, AND GENDER RELATIONS IN HIS UNDISPUTED LETTERS 175 Introduction 175 Paul’s Letter Collection Known to the Author of Ephesians 177 Paul and the Subordination of Women 181 Paul’s Teaching on Marriage 195 Paul’s Other Statements on Gender Relations 203 1 Corinthians 14:34-35: Genuine Pauline Teaching or An Interpolation? 212 Paul’s Undisputed Letters: Summary and Conclusions 217 vi CHAPTER SIX: EPHESIANS 5:21-33 AND ITS PLACE IN PAULINE TRADITION 220 Introduction 220 Paul’s “ Good Order” in Regard to Gender Relations 221 Paul Reinterpreted: Colossians and Ephesians 224 Ephesians 5:21-33 and Traditions Inherited From Paul 245 Ephesians and Later Pauline Tradition 254 Suggestions for Further Research 261 Ephesians 5:21-33: Closing Considerations 263 APPENDIX A: A SYNOPSIS OF COLOSSIANS 3:18-4:1 AND EPHESIANS 5:21-6:9 267 APPENDIX B: THE STRUCTURE OF EPHESIANS 5:21-33 (BASED ON THE EARLIEST GREEK MANUSCRIPTS) 270 REFERENCE LIST 272 VITA 289 vii ABSTRACT Around the turn of the first and second centuries CE, various letters were circulated in Paul’s name offering codes of Christian conduct based on traditional Hellenistic Roman mores. One of these letters, the Epistle to the Ephesians, stands out for the way it deliberately rewrites the marital code of Colossians 3:18-19, a letter purportedly from Paul, and adds to the more conventional injunction on wifely subordination in Col. 3:18 an insistence on the mutual subordination of married partners. This idea of mutual marital subordination makes the household code of Ephesians unusual for its time, in contrast to more conventional Hellenistic Roman household ethics found in both Christian and non-Christian literature of the period. In fact, that Ephesians’ corrections to Colossians 3:18-19 become problematic is evidenced by later scribes who modify the Epistle to conform to Colossians. Because Ephesians has been interpreted and translated in the light of Colossians and later scribal modifications, its challenge to conventional household ethics of its time has gone unnoticed, and scholars have overlooked the witness it gives to the variability in early Christian views on what was considered proper gender relations and roles. This dissertation uncovers the freshness and originality of the author of Ephesians and illuminates forms of resistance within Pauline Christianity to more traditional Hellenistic Roman mores, arguing that, at least in regard to Christian gender relations, Ephesians belongs to a separate trajectory of Pauline tradition intentionally distinct from Colossians and other pseudonymous letters of Paul. viii CHAPTER ONE THE STATUS QUAESTIONIS Introduction Around the turn of the first and second centuries CE, various letters circulated in Paul’s name offering, among other things, codes of Christian conduct based on traditional Hellenistic Roman mores. One of these letters, the Epistle to the Ephesians, stands out for the way it deliberately rewrites the household code of Colossians, a letter also purportedly from Paul, and adds to the more conventional injunction on wifely subordination in Col. 3:18 an insistence on the mutual subordination of married partners. This idea of mutual marital subordination makes the household code of Ephesians unusual for its time, in contrast to more conventional Hellenistic Roman household ethics found in both Christian and non-Christian literature of the period. In fact, that Ephesians’ changes to Col. 3:18 become problematic is evidenced by later manuscripts with scribal emendations modifying the epistle to conform more to Colossians. Because Ephesians has been interpreted and translated in the light of Colossians and these later scribal modifications, its challenge to conventional household ethics of its time has been little noticed, and scholars have overlooked the witness it gives to the variability in early Christian views on what was considered proper gender relations and roles. Using the methodologies of modern biblical scholarship (textual and redaction criticism, as well as historical, literary, and source criticism), this investigation explores 1 2 in what ways the author of Ephesians redacts the marital code of Colossians and the significance of these redactions. That is to ask, are the more mutual relationships envisioned by the author of this epistle to be seen as a resistance to the instructions given in Col. 3:18, and if so, how? We will likewise explore in what sense, at least in regard to Christian gender relations, the rewritten marital code of Eph. 5:21-33 can be viewed as being in continuity with or in contrast to the authentic letters of Paul, commonly agreed to be a major source for Ephesians. Summary of Scholarship and Description of the Problem to be Addressed To answer these questions, we will look at Pauline tradition as a major source for the marital code of Ephesians, both as it is filtered through Colossians and as it is passed on through Paul’s undisputed letters. To be sure, the search for the sources of New Testament household codes, such as those found in Colossians and Ephesians, has been a major undertaking of New Testament scholarship in the last century, although the focus of scholarly research has been on sources in Greco-Roman and Hellenistic Jewish literature. T.K. Abbott, for example, was among the first modern scholars to notice parallels between the household codes of Colossians and Ephesians and Hellenistic Roman literature, noting especially their similarities with Plutarch’s counsels to newly married couples.1 Following upon Abbott, Martin Dibelius and his student Karl Weidinger observed the similarity in form and content between the household codes of Colossians and Ephesians and popularized discussions of Stoic ethics, such as those 1 Thomas Kingsmill Abbott, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1909).
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