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The Use of Slaves in Early Christianity: Slaves As Subjects of Life and Thought

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The Use of Slaves in Early Christianity: Slaves As Subjects of Life and Thought The Use of Slaves in Early Christianity: Slaves as Subjects of Life and Thought The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37925650 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA The Use of Slaves in Early Christianity: Slaves as Subjects of Life and Thought A dissertation presented by Tyler M. Schwaller to The Faculty of Harvard Divinity School in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Theology in the subject of New Testament and Early Christianity Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts July 2017 © 2017 Tyler M. Schwaller All rights reserved. Advisor: Professor Laura S. Nasrallah Tyler M. Schwaller The Use of Slaves in Early Christianity: Slaves as Subjects of Life and Thought Early Christianity emerged within an empire built on the backs of slaves. Christians likewise participated in the slaveholding practices of the Roman Empire. Christians owned slaves, were slaves, and made use of enslaved labor, even if some in antiquity, including Christians, resisted slavery. Yet, current interpretations of slavery language in New Testament texts—and in particular in its earliest writings, namely the letters of the apostle Paul—are often abstracted from the social and material conditions of enslavement within the Roman Empire. Paul’s self- identifications as a “slave of Christ” and “slave to all” are frequently treated as metaphorical, bifurcated from “real” slavery. This dissertation examines slavery language in the letters of Paul alongside material, literary, and legal evidence evincing the social-material functions of Roman enslavement. I argue that Paul’s writings are dependent upon, not set apart from, practices of slaveholding. When Paul calls himself a slave, it is not “merely metaphorical” but reflects the presence and influence of the enslaved. I propose strategies for reading in ways that foreground the enslaved, making explicit their exploitation but also their vitality. I do so by drawing upon black feminist historiography, feminist rhetorical analysis, and queer frameworks that elaborate both the material and discursive mechanisms by which social hierarchies are enforced, and the tactics used by subjugated people to navigate and resist their constraints. By analyzing Roman and early Christian sources through these lenses, I demonstrate how Paul’s self-representation as a slave and his discussions of the iii role of the enslaved largely reflect prevailing Roman attitudes and practices regarding the use of slaves. At the same time, I highlight evidence for slaves’ capacities to work toward their best advantage and cultivate relationships that resisted their alienation and dehumanization. Reading Paul’s letters in light of such a dynamic interplay between slaves and freepersons, this dissertation concludes that language of slavery in the letters of Paul is not divorced from the realities of enslavement but contains traces of enslaved life. iv Table of Contents Abstract iii List of Figures vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 Slavery in the First and Second Centuries CE 10 Historiography of Roman Slavery 16 Feminist and Queer Frameworks of Analysis 24 Learning from Black Feminists to Look Differently 24 Intersectional Analysis of Kyriarchy 28 Feminist New Materialism 30 Queer Frameworks 32 Looking Differently at Blandina 36 Organization of the Dissertation 41 Plowing Fields of Kyriarchy, Planting Seeds of Freedom 43 Chapter 1: “A Slave to All”: The Queerness of Paul’s Slave Form 47 “A Slave to All” 51 Using Slaves to Gain the Greater Number 57 Representing Slaves 63 Paul’s Slave Form 66 The Queerness of Slavery 70 Reading Paul Queerly 73 Chapter 2: Bonds beyond Bondage: Centering Onesimos and the Enslaved in Paul’s Letter to Philemon, Apphia, and Archippos 78 The Problem of Onesimos 81 A Partner in Slaveholding 84 Ties that Unbind 94 Bonds within and beyond Bondage 100 Toward Alternative Conclusions 104 Chapter 3: The Queerness of Christ’s Slave Form: Phil 2:6–11 and the Queer Threat 106 Domesticating Christ the Slave 107 Clement of Alexandria’s Non-Slave Slave Christ 108 v Tertullian’s Fleshy Christ 112 Imaging Christ as Slave 116 Alexamenos Graffito 118 Social-Material Context of the Graffito 121 Interpretations of the Graffito 124 Toward Ruptured Conclusions 136 Conclusions 140 Figures 146 Bibliography 153 vi List of Figures 1. Gravestone of Pompey Lovejoy 2. Dying Confession of Pomp 3. Re-enactment of the Jefferson-Hemings Affair 4. Candelabrum (lychnouchos) 5. Bronze lamp 6. Alexamenos graffito 7. Plan of the Palatine Paedagogium vii Acknowledgements One of the modes for thinking about the production of ancient texts that I have found most intellectually stimulating was introduced to me in a doctoral seminar on authorship led by Professor Karen King. Following insights from literary criticism on the so-called death of the author, it has been exciting to think beyond an author’s intentions to the social and material processes for producing and disseminating texts. By recognizing the intellectual and physical contributions toward writing from a whole range of human and nonhuman sources, from conversation partners and scribes, to outside ideas and inspiration from the material world, I have begun to see in more vivid ways how texts are never the product of singular genius but are both produced and received in dynamic, variegated social-material settings. The role of the enslaved scribe, for instance, matters right alongside that of the named author. This dissertation is hardly the product of my intellect alone. While written in my name, which signals primarily my responsibility for any shortcomings, this work has many coauthors who have variously inspired me, informed my thinking, and impacted my life in significant and tangible ways. I can hardly even begin to express how grateful I am for the positive influence of my advisor, Professor Laura Nasrallah. She has been the consummate mentor, offering feedback and encouragement that has sharpened and animated my thought and writing, while modeling in her own life and work the power of combining intellectual rigor and concern for human life, past and present. The entwined commitments to writing and pedagogy of Professors Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza and Mark Jordan, each in their own important ways, have been instrumental in motivating my desire to pursue this work, especially as a matter of justice. I am thankful to both particularly in this moment for their generous support as members of my dissertation committee. Other faculty members have also contributed substantially to my work through viii feedback and conversation, including Professors Karen King, Giovanni Bazzana, Emma Dench, Joe Marchal, and Amy Hollywood. I have had many excellent experiences of collegiality at Harvard. The careful reading, probing questions, and helpful ideas of colleagues in the New Testament and Early Christianity doctoral seminars have been invaluable. Likewise, I have been grateful for the opportunity to receive feedback, especially on my use of theory, and to learn from the example of those who have participated in the Gender and Sexuality Workshop at Harvard. Special thanks are due to Margaret Butterfield, Jung Choi, Eunyung Lim, and Jennifer Quigley for sustaining a regular reading and writing group, which helped keep me on task, led me in important directions for research and away from unhelpful tangents, and provided regular solidarity. Kelsi Morrison- Atkins frequently read the roughest form of my thoughts in scores of WhatsApp messages, i.e., my real first drafts, helped refine my ideas, said what I needed to hear at so many pivotal moments, and provided essential merriment throughout this process. My work amongst colleagues and friends in the United Methodist Church reminds me of the continued urgency of questions over who can be counted as full members of ecclesial communities. Much of this dissertation has been written while serving as an advocate for Rev. Anna Blaedel during multiple complaint processes brought against Anna for life and ministry as a queer person. Anna’s friendship, wisdom, and bold witness have vivified my understanding of queer kinship. Finally, I am ever thankful for my favorite coauthor, Will Green, whose support and reassurance have kept me grounded and whose commitments to justice and especially prison abolition have challenged, inspired, and informed my critical consciousness in ways I am only beginning to understand. ix Introduction Slaves and slavery have been central to the development of Christian thought and practice,1 from the slaves who were among the early ekklēsiai in Christ, to frequent figurative and literary uses of the enslaved in the writings of Paul and the parables of Jesus, to late antique debates over the place of slaves in Christian communities, as well as to the modern role of Christian churches in buttressing and resisting enslavement in the United States and around the world. In the United States, chattel slavery may have ended long ago, but the legacies of slavery, including competing Christian discourses over slavery and abolition, continue to exhibit pervasive effects in religious and social-political life. The slavery that finds repeated recitation through public readings and private meditations on New Testament texts can never be a mere metaphor of righteous obedience or a quaint historical fact beyond which we, having been enlightened, have emerged.2 Slavery haunts.3 This dissertation reckons with slavery’s hauntings by elaborating more precisely the relationship between the earliest writings of the New Testament, namely the letters of the apostle 1 See Jennifer Glancy, Slavery as Moral Problem: In the Early Church and Today (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011). 2 On the entanglement of ideology and hermeneutics, see Katie Geneva Cannon, “Slave Ideology and Biblical Interpretation,” Semeia 47 (1989): 9–23.
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