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Is the Instruction to Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss a Pauline Transformation?

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Is the Instruction to Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss a Pauline Transformation? chapter 3 Is the Instruction to Greet One Another with a Holy Kiss a Pauline Transformation? Rianne Voogd Centuries before Paul, Xenophon already wrote: ‘Heracles! What alarming power in a kiss!’1 A kiss always seems to be a special gesture that encom- passes a ‘continuum of meaning.’2 The apostle Paul instructs people to greet one another with a holy kiss. This instruction gives rise to several questions: what did Paul mean when he instructed his readers to greet one another with a holy kiss? Was it a familiar act in everyday life? Was greeting one another with a kiss in a letter a known convention in Paul’s days? And, did Paul transform an everyday gesture into a Christian act? 1 The Basics In four of his letters, Paul instructs his readers to greet all the brothers (and sisters) or to greet one another with a holy kiss: 1Thess 5:26 Ἀσπάσασθε τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς πάντας ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ 1Cor 16:20 Ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ 2Cor 13:12 Ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν ἁγίῳ φιλήματι Rom 16:16 Ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἁγίῳ There are only minor differences between these passages. While 1Thess 5:26 reads: Greet all the brothers (and sisters) with a holy kiss, the other three pas- sages have one another instead. Furthermore, in 2Cor the sequence of the words φίλημα and ἅγιος is reversed in comparison with the other texts. All in all, the similarities outweigh the differences between the passages. The four Pauline texts contain the verb ἀσπάζομαι in the imperative mode, the noun φίλημα and the adjective ἅγιος, and are part of Paul’s letter endings. The New 1 Memorabilia 1, 3, 12. E.C. Marchant (trans.), Xenophon, Memorabilia (LCL 168), (London/Cam- bridge, MA 1968), 51. Xenophon lived c. 430–c. 354BCE. 2 A. Blue, On Kissing. From the Metaphysical to the Erotic (London 1996), 15. © Nienke M. Vos and Albert C. Geljon, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004441729_005 the instruction to greet one another with a holy kiss 53 Testament contains only one other passage that resembles these Pauline pas- sages, namely 1Pet 5:14: ‘Greet one another with a kiss of love.’3 Paul enjoins his readers to kiss one another, as did the author of 1Peter: does that mean that the instruction to greet one another with a kiss was a common practice in letters in the first century CE? The Pauline passages are sometimes compared with passages from Cicero’s letters.4 For example, in the correspon- dence between Cicero and his friend Atticus, Cicero asks his friend to give his daughter a kiss on his behalf: Please give Attica a kiss from me for being such a merry little thing. It is what one likes to see in children [Atticae, quoniam, quod optimum in pueris est, hilarula est, meis verbis suavium des volo].5 Similar examples can be found in the letters that the later author Fronto (c. 90/95–167CE) exchanged with his addressees.6 These examples raise the 3 Ἀσπάσασθε ἀλλήλους ἐν φιλήματι ἀγάπης. In the New Testament, beside the Pauline passages and 1Pet 5:14, only a few other verses mention kisses. The most famous examples are of course the passages in which Judas greeted Jesus with a kiss: Matt 26:48–49, Mark 14:44–45 (cf. Luke 22:47–48). 4 The passage from Cicero and the other examples in this article have been chosen because they shed light on the main question of the paper. More examples, both Greek and Latin, in which authors refer to kissing or kisses can be found in my dissertation R. Voogd, De beteke- nis van Paulus’ oproep tot de groet met de heilige kus (Vught 2016). Examples in Greek are Josephus, The Jewish War 7.391 see H. St. J. Thackeray (trans.), Josephus, The Jewish War, (Lon- don/Cambridge, MA 1961), 615; Philo, Who is the Heir of Divine Things §40, see F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker (trans.), Philo (LCL 261), (London/Cambridge, MA 1996), 302–303, Epicte- tus, Discourses 3.24.44–50, see W.A. Oldfather (trans.), Epictetus. The Discourses as Reported by Arrian,The Manual and Fragments (LCL 218), (London/Cambridge, MA 1966), 198–201. And in Latin, in Suetonius, Tiberius 34.2, see J.C. Rolfe (trans.), Suetonius (LCL 31), (London/Cam- bridge, MA 1970), 342–343; and Pliny, Naturalis historia 26.2–3, see W.H.S. Jones (trans.), Pliny. Natural History (LCL 393), (London/Cambridge, MA 1966), 265–267. 5 Letter 420 (XVI.11). D.R. Shackleton Bailey (trans.), Cicero. Letters to Atticus (LCL 491), (Lon- don/Cambridge, MA 1999), 356–357. In another letter to Atticus Cicero also says that he would like to kiss Attica (XVI.3). See also K. Thraede, ‘Ursprünge und Formen des “Heiligen Kusses” im frühen Christentum’, in Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 11–12 (1968/1969, reprinted: Münster Westfalen 1970), 133, n. 19, L. Edward Phillips, The Ritual Kiss in Early Christian Wor- ship, (Cambridge 1996), 8 and M.P. Penn, Kissing Christians. Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church (Philadelphia 2005), 19, n. 71. 6 For instance Ad M. Caes. v. 33 (48), ‘I gave my daughter the kiss you sent her: never has she seemed to me so kissing-ripe, never so kissed. Greet my Lady, my most sweet Lord. Farewell, and give your little matron a kiss from me’, C.R. Haines (trans.), Marcus Cornelius Fronto I (LCL 112), (London/Cambridge, MA 1982), 233. See also K. Thraede, ‘Kuss’, RAC 22 (2008), 545– 576 (558) and Penn, Kissing Christians, 137, n. 71..
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