3.3. The Recipients
Attempts
to define the recipients of Paul's Epistle to the Romans
abound. One example
is A. J. M. Wedderburn in his essay “The Purpose and Occasion of
Romans Again” wherein he evaluates the arguments of two scholars,
W. S. Campbell and W. Schmithals.1
As Wedderburn describes, Campbell's position is that the apostle Paul
writes to a mixed church predominantly of gentiles with the Judeans
as a minority.2
Schmithals, meanwhile, postulates that the recipients were former
God-fearers “who have received Christ but have not been weaned from
their close connection with, and dependence upon, the synagogue.”3
To this, Wedderburn asserts that the recipients are both God-fearers,
including a few Judean Christians who maintained their relationship
with the synagogue, and gentile Christians, including Judean
Christians who have severed their ties with the Judean Synagogue and
“embraced a ‘law-free gospel’ like St. Paul’s.”4
These positions offers insights into the recipients of the epistle.
F.
F. Bruce asserts that Christianity, or the Christ-movement, as Esler
suggests, probably found its way to Rome within a few years of its
inception, considering the social mobility at that time.5
The Lukan account of the “visitors from Rome, both Jews and
proselytes” in the momentous Pentecost described in Acts 2 is
significant in postulating the existence of Romans Christians, and
more importantly, their connection to the Jerusalem church.
The
“visitors from Rome” may be an indication that there are a number
of diaspora-Judeans and God-fearers who join the early church
movement and take it with them back to Rome after their pilgrimage.
They might be joined by some Judean-Christians who escape persecution
in Judea by Herod Agrippa I (41 AD).6
The initial make-up of the Christian community in Rome, therefore, is
mainly from a Judean religio-cultural (Yehudi) background. Possibly
in this metropolis, members of the Christ-movement are meeting from
house to house to break bread together, as was exercised by the
community of believers in Jerusalem (Acts 2:46), while keeping their
social identity and social support as a minority in a larger
Greco-Roman society which is attached to their synagogues
respectively. In other words, they become a group within a group.
However,
the nature of the Christ-movement and the Judean religion itself
determine this mode of relationship to be short-lived. Frictions as
appear between Stephen and some members of the Synagogue of the
Freedman (Acts 6:9) is evidence. The “parting of the way” is
inevitable and evidently accelerated by the apostle Paul’s
evangelistic effort. He engages different synagogues in the
Mediterranean, which reportedly receives a good response primarily
from those from gentile background, albeit with some backlash from
the Yehudi authority.7
In the case of Rome, the clash between the Judean Yehudi and the
Christ-movement happens around 49 AD, which results in the expulsion
of the Judeans (including the Judean Christian) from Rome by Emperor
Claudius on the allegation of the creation of disorder.8
The
edict of expulsion itself, according to Orosius,9
was issued in 49 AD.10
Though Orosius’ credibility raises some questions, his dating is
supported by the Lucan record in Acts 18:2.11
There we find information about St. Paul’s meeting with a Judean
named Aquila who came from Italy with his wife Priscilla, “because
Claudius had commanded all the Judeans to leave Rome.” According to
Bruce, the apostle arrives in Corinth in the late summer of A. D. 50;
hence it may be that Priscilla and Aquila, perhaps both
“foundation-members”12
of the Christ-movement in Rome, left Rome the previous year.13
In
this light, given that there were some later converts from gentile
background that joined the church in Rome, the Christ-movement there
is left predominantly gentile due to Claudius’ edict. As of 54 AD,
when Nero became the emperor, the Roman Christians must have grown
into full-scale gentile communities, with those who probably assumed
leadership, as Schmithals rightly points out, “leaning toward
Judean practices.”14
By
the time the apostle Paul writes his epistle to the Roman Christians
(c. A. D. 57), there must be interesting ramifications in the dynamic
of the Christian community in Rome. Priscilla and Aquila apparently
have gone back to Rome and, as in Ephesus, are hosting a house
church.15
It is not redundant to entertain the question of whether or not their
house church is primarily Judean or inter-national. Robert Jewett
provides a construct of five house church profiles in Rome that are
known to the apostle, and the one meeting at Priscilla and Aquila’s
is supposed to be of mixed-ethnicity.16
In
chapter 16, we find the apostle Paul’s commendation of Phoebe, a
deacon or a minister from Cenchreae,17
who apparently is the courier of the epistle, together with
twenty-six other individual names with some uniqueness as to Judean,
Greek, and Roman names. Bruce postulates that these people are
members to at least five groups of house churches in Rome.18
From here we may perceive that the epistle to the Romans is written
not to a single church, but as a circular epistle to different
churches, characterized by different ethnic dynamics. And looking
from the construction of the setting behind the epistle, the
intention is, among others, to address the intra-church dynamics
(within each of the congregations), inter-church dynamics (among the
churches in Rome) and also outer-church dynamics (the Christian and
the Yehudi). Hence, in this conclusion, Campbell’s, Schmithals’
and alsoWedderburn’s positions (without including
any ties with synagogues) are all incorporated.
------
1 In
Romans Debate, 195-202.
2 Wedderburn,
“The Purpose and Occasion of Romans Again” in Romans Debate,
195.
3 Wedderburn,
“The Purpose and Occasion of Romans Again” in Romans Debate,
196.
4 Wedderburn,
“The Purpose and Occasion of Romans Again” in Romans Debate,
202.
5 Those
who more likely identified with this movement were
Hellenistic-Jewish Christians, such as Stephen and Philip (Bruce,
“The Romans Debate – Continued” in Romans Debate, 178).
6 Cf.
Acts 12:1-9; John E. Stambaugh and David L. Balch, The New
Testament in Its Social Environment (Westminster: John Knox
Press, 1986), 61.
7 Cf.
Acts 13:13-41.
8 There
is a debate concerning the expulsion of the Judeans.
Suetonius reports on tumults stirred up by “Chresto.” Scholars
disagree on the certainty of this reference. Nonetheless, there is a
strong argument that Suetonius is referring to the Christ here.
Bruce explains:
While
Suetonius has the spelling Chresto here, he has Christiani in Nero
16.2. But in Tacitus, Ann, 15.44.3 the MS Mediceus 68.2 had
originally (it appears) Chrestianos, which was corrected to
Christianos by a later hand. Tacitus himself, however, may have
spelled the word Christianos, since he links it closely with
Christus (“auctor nominis eisu”). In the NT the first hand in
Vaticanus consistently shows the spelling Chrestianos. The
apologists exploit the confusion between the two forms: ‘We are
accused of being Christianoi but it is unjust that one should be
hated for being chrestos’ (Justin, Apol. 1.4.5) (“The Romans
Debate – Continued” in Romans
Debate, footnote 16,
178).
Further,
according to Bruce, if Suetonius would have been talking about an
unknown person named Chresto, he would have said impulsore
Chresto quodam
(“The Romans Debate – Continued” in
Romans Debate,
178).
9 Writing
in 417-418 AD.
10 Bruce,
“The Romans Debate – Continued”in Romans Debate, 179;
Orosius quotes Josephus for the information he provides, while
Josephus does not mention anything about this incident.
11 This
is based on the following report in Acts 18:12 where Galio is
mentioned as proconsul of Achaia during Paul’s stay in Corinth.
Bruce suggests that the apostle Paul’s arrival in this city was in
the late summer of 50 AD (Bruce, “The Romans Debate – Continued”
in Romans Debate, 178); Fitzmyer postulates summer or early
autumn of 52 AD (Romans, 86).
12 Bruce,
“The Romans Debate – Continued” in Romans Debate, 178.
13 Bruce,
“The Romans Debate – Continued” in Romans Debate, 179.
14 Wedderburn,
“The Purpose and Occasion of Romans Again” in Romans Debate,
196.
15 16:3-5;
cf. I Corinthians 16:19 (Bruce, “The Romans Debate – Continued”
in Romans Debate, 180).
16 According
to the profile Reta Halteman Finger provides based on Robert
Jewett’s description of the churches in Rome (Paul and the
Roman House Churches [Waterloo: Herald Press, 1993], 34.)
17 This
is a city in Corinth where the Epistle to the Romans is supposed to
be written from (following Fitzmyer, Romans, 85)
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