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PHILO AND PAUL AMONG THE SOPHISTS

Alexandrian and Corinthian Responses
to a Julio-Claudian Movement







Introduction




The purpose of this book


'Is Saul among the prophets?' was the question asked by the Israelites of their king when they saw him engaging in the same public activities as the prophets (1 Sam. 10.11). 'Is Paul among the sophists?' would have been asked of his Latin namesake in his role as a public speaker in the first century. This enquiry would have been thought appropriate of any itinerant speaker in the early Roman Empire, such was the interest in, and status of, the virtuoso orators who dominated much of the public and intellectual life of cities in the East. The question would also have been asked of Philo of Alexandria, Paul's contemporary. He was known to have led an important embassy to the emperor Gaius on behalf of his fellow Alexandrian Jews, for sophists traditionally headed delegations to emperors and governors. The purpose of this book will be to explore in what sense Paul and Philo were 'among the sophists'.

This examination is relevant not only to Jewish and NT scholarship but also to ancient history. There has been a substantial gap in information concerning the sophistic movement in the first seventy years of the first century a.d. The received view has been that it is not until the orations of Dio Chrysostom of Prusa in Bithynia that we possess any real witness to its activities in the East.1 There is, however, evidence to be found in the writing of two Hellenised Jews who preceded the activity of the golden-tongued Dio by at least thirty years. It will be shown in this book just how important those early years were for the understanding of a movement which is generally perceived





1These date from ca. a.d. 68. See C. P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 133-40.



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not to have bloomed until the end of the first century as the Second Sophistic and almost without warning.

That the evidence of Philo has been omitted by those interested in the sophistic movement in the first century was endorsed by the general observation of H. Chadwick in the 1965 T. W. Manson Memorial Lecture on Philo of Alexandria and Paul that 'Philo has not been used half enough'.2 The neglect of Philo's works on this subject has been long-standing. It goes back at least acentury to the time when the first extended semantic investigation of σοφιστής was carried out, based on literary sources.3 Philo's evidence, which is the only extant witness of the movement in Alexandria, indeed in the East, in the first half of the first century a.d., is still either overlooked or scarcely noted by ancient historians in their discussion of the sophistic movement.4

The same may also be said of Paul. Much recent discussion of his corpus has been dominated by the study of his indebtedness to ancient rhetoric for an understanding of how he wrote. Yet no real attention has been paid to its witness to those who were the much-admired public performers of rhetoric. Neither has Paul been used to enhance our understanding of the first-century sophistic movement in Corinth prior to references to it in the orations of Dio. According to Philostratus, the 'modern' period of the movement only really began in the reign of Nero.5 With Antike und Christentum the traffic should flow in both directions, for the NT documents can be an important source of information about the social world of the first century for ancient historians. This is especially so for a century which had comparatively few literary sources.6

Philo's evidence is also crucial because it has been generally held that there was an absence of rhetorical activity in Alexandria from the late Ptolemaic period through to, and during, the movement called the Second Sophistic in the late first and second centuries a.d.7 This view has arisen largely be-



2H. Chadwick, 'St Paul and Philo of Alexandria', BJRL 48.2 (1966), 307, quoting from a letter of S. T. Coleridge to Francis Wragham, in E. L. Grigg, Collected Letters of S. T. Coleridge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), vol. IV, p. 803.

3C. Brandstatter, 'De notium πολιτικός et σοφιστής usu rhetorico', Leipzig Stud. z. Class. Phil. 15 (1894), 215-28.

4See pp. 5-7.

5Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, 511, begins the 'modern' period from Nero's reign with Nicetes of Smyrna.

6For a discussion of this issue see my' Christentum und Antike: Acts and Paul's Corpus as Ancient History', in T. W. Hillard, R. A. Kearsley, C. E. V. Nixon and A. Nobbs (eds.), Ancient History in a Modern University (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), vol. II, pp. 549-59.

7So argues P. M. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972), vol. I, p. 810. See also E. G. Turner, Oxyrhynchus and Rome', HSCP 7 (1975), 5, who follows



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cause an important literary and a non-literary Alexandrian source have not been incorporated into recent studies on the sophists.8 These Alexandrian texts are invaluable, sketching as they do aspects of the movement in this important university centre from different perspectives. Five sources on the movement in Corinth are also extremely informative. Together with the Alexandrian witnesses they provide a composite picture of the nature of the sophistic movement as it emerged in the East from the early part of the first century onwards into the early second century a.d. in two important centres: one the great university city known as the 'second' Athens and the other the foremost Roman colony in the East.9

This material also enables us to understand how Paul, the Hellenised Jew and Christian apostle, related to the sophistic tradition both in secular Corinth and in the Christian community which he established in that Roman colony. The same will be argued of Philo with respect to Alexandria and the Greek and Jewish communities there. The first-century protagonists and antagonists of the sophistic movement noted in the secondary literature have been either Roman or Greek writers. Little or no attention has been given to the Alexandrian Jewish and the Christian sources. The intention of this book is to gather together evidence on the sophistic movement in Alexandria and Corinth and to make an assessment of the way in which two contemporaries, the Hellenised Jews Philo and Paul, interacted with it and in part adopted their stance to it on the basis of an ancient source, namely the Old Testament.



The sophists

Who were the sophists? Originally the term σοφιστής described ancient wise men.10 By the first century a.d. it was used to designate those rhetoricians



Fraser with the support of G. W. Bowersock, Greek Sophists in the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969), pp. 20-21. Bowersock expresses surprise that very few native Alexandrians seem to appear in the records of the Second Sophistic.

8See pp. 5-7.

9The study made of rhetoric in Alexandria can now also be undertaken for Corinth. See R. W. Smith, The Art of Rhetoric in Alexandria: Its Theory and Practice in the Ancient World (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974).

10For a discussion of the origins of the movement see J. S. Morrison, 'An Introductory Chapter in the History of Greek Education', Durham University Journal 12 (1949), 55-63, and for the original use of the term applied to 'a wise man' see G. B. Kerferd, 'The First Greek Sophist?', CR 64 (1950), 8-10; W. K. C. Guthrie, 'What Is a Sophist?', in The Sophists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), ch. 3; and D. H. Rankin, Sophists, Socrates and Cynics (London: Croom Helm, 1983), pp. 13-15.



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whose ability in oratory was such that they could both secure a public following and attract students to their schools. G. W. Bowersock succinctly defines a sophist as a 'virtuoso rhetor with a big public reputation', a definition endorsed in principle by C. P. Jones, E. L. Bowie and G. Anderson.11 The phenomenon known as the sophistic movement had its roots in the second half of the fifth century b.c.12 While the history of the growth of the movement from Aristotle's time to the first century a.d. is somewhat sketchy, in his own day Philo could observe that the sophists were 'winning the admiration of city after city, and…drawing well-nigh the whole world to honour them'.13 It would seem that in the first half of the first century what came to be known in the next as the Second Sophistic was already flowering if not flourishing.14

What did the sophists do? This is best seen in the work of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus from the first century B.C. In his De Rhetorica he observes that they dealt with the three branches of rhetoric, namely judicial, deliberative and epideictic oratory. They claimed that their 'art' (τέχνη) was the mother of all other arts and sciences. Consequently, young men were sent to the sophists to be educated by means of model speeches delivered in the classroom and also by observing the public declamations of their teacher. The



11Bowersock, Greek Sophists, p. 13; C. P. Jones, 'The Reliability of Philostratus', in G. W. Bowersock (ed.), Approaches to the Second Sophistic (University Park, Penn.: American Philological Association, 1974), p. 12; E. L. Bowie, 'Greeks and Their Past in the Second Sophistic', Past and Present 46 (1970), 5; and G. Anderson, Philostratus: Biography and Belles Lettres in the Third Century a.d. (London: Groom Helm, 1986), pp. 10, 20, n. 59. Anderson, in his article 'The Pepaideumenos in Action: Sophists and Their Outlook in the Early Empire', ANRW II.33.1 (1989), 81-82, n. 2, proposes an amendment to Bowersock's definition, adding 'a performing pepaideumenos with a big reputation' in order to include some literary figures as well. More recently, in his The Second Sophistic: A Cultural Phenomenon in the Roman Empire (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), p. 1, he sees them as 'established public speakers who offered a predominantly rhetorical form of higher education, with distinct emphasis on its more ostentatious forms'. These refinements do not alter in any appreciable way Bowersock's description of the sophists or their role in society. M. W. Gleason, 'Introduction', in Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) also follows this basic perception.

12For its significance in Plato's time see the careful treatment by R. J. Mortley, 'Plato and the Sophistic Heritage of Protagoras', Eranos 67 (1969), 24-32, which was not incorporated into the discussion of this period by G. B. Kerferd,'The Meaning of the Term Sophist', in The Sophistic Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), ch. 4.

13Agr. 143. On Aristotle see C. ]. Classen, Aristotle's Picture of the Sophists', in The Sophists and Their Legacy: Proceedings of the Fourth International Colloquium on Ancient Philosophy, Hermes 44 (1978), 7-24; and for a history of the movement H. von Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa (Berlin, 1898), ch. 1; and U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, 'Asianismus und Atticismus', Hermes 35 (1900), 1-52.

14See Bowersock, Greek Sophists, pp. 8-14, on the use of the term 'Second Sophistic'.



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sophists taught rules on style, and the management of the voice and the body. By the time of Philodemus they no longer claimed to teach all branches of learning but were instructors in oratory.15 The first and second centuries a.d. saw the sophists continuing to combine the activities of declaiming in public and teaching students their skills.16

How was their training regarded? In the first century a.d. it was seen as essential preparation for a young man wishing to enter into professional and political life. From the schools of the sophists came senators, forensic rhetoricians and councillors, as well as civic and provincial ambassadors and officials of the imperial government. Parents expected the sophist to make public speakers of their sons, for they judged that this form of education was most useful in producing leaders accomplished in the great art of persuasion whether it be in the legal courts or the council or political assembly of their city.17



Philo among the Alexandrian sophists

Three primary sources throw particular light on the sophistic movement in Alexandria in the first century a.d. Chronologically, there is first the corpus of Philo reflecting the nature of the movement during the first half of the first century. One of his concerns, among others, was the hindrance that it created for those who sought 'civic virtue' (ἀρετή). Secondly, Dio of Prusa discussed the Alexandrian movement primarily in terms of its relationship to 'public life' (πολιτεία) during his visit to that city in the early seventies. Thirdly, Neilus, a student of rhetoric, wrote home from Alexandria to his father in the reign of Vespasian throwing light on the sophistic movement in the context of 'education' (παιδεία), P.Oxy. 2190.

R. W. Smith, writing on rhetoric in Alexandria, does not make full use of these important primary sources. He discusses the failure of the sophists to communicate with their audience. In the case of Philo, he gives space to the Jewish embassy headed by him, but not to the sophistic movement, where he cites only a secondary source. While Smith makes use of Dio's Alexandrian



15Philodemus, Rhetorica, 1.195, xiv; C. Brandstatter, 'De notium πολιτικός et σοφιστής usu rhetorico', 226; J. W. H. Walden, Universities of Ancient Greece (London: Routledge, 1912), pp. 72-73, n. 1; and M. Winterbottom, 'Declamation, Greek and Latin', in A. Ceresa-Gastaldo (ed.), Ars Rhetorica: Antica eNuova (Genova: Istituto de Filogia Classica e Medievale, 1983), pp. 67-76.

16E. L. Bowie, 'The Importance of the Sophists', Yale Classical Studies 27 (1982), 48.

17Walden, Universities of Ancient Greece, pp. 78-79.



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Oration, Or. 32 (cited on pp. 62, 115-22, 130-32), to describe the volatile nature of the audience, he makes no mention in his discussion of Dio's important evidence on the sophists. He notes Dio's comment in Or. 32.68a on the behaviour of forensic orators, but the latter's observation about the conduct of the sophists in the lecture room which follows immediately in 32.68b is ignored. Likewise in his discussion of non-literary evidence relating to education, he overlooks the crucial evidence of P.Oxy. 2190, while citing a number of papyri, 115-21. Smith's aim is 'to focus on the rhetorical training and practice for some seven hundred years in the Delta city which was renowned for its literary accomplishments, and to subordinate other matters to this one end' (p. vii). The terminus ad quem is ca. a.d. 400. His own researches do not appear to have benefited from published works of the late 1960s and early 70s which looked at the broader aspects of the rhetorical movement in the Roman Empire.18 G. A. Kennedy, while devoting space to Dio in his extended work on rhetoric in the Roman Empire, ignores the evidence of P.Oxy. 2190 and makes only very limited use of the wealth of evidence in the Philo corpus. Although he intended his survey to parallel M. L. Clarke's work Rhetoric in Rome by, among other things, 'adding a picture of Greek developments', he devotes only one paragraph to Philo, and that in his chapter 'The Decline of Eloquence', citing Plant. 156-58, and commenting, 'The passage tells little about the literary attitudes in Rome for the reference is to Jewish writers and Greek philosophers, but it does show that the association of moral decline and literature among the Greeks in the first century and discussions of the decline did not always invoke political causes.19 G. W. Bowersock in his ground-breaking work on sophists in the Roman Empire expresses surprise about the movement in Alexandria. 'One wonders why hardly anything is heard of sophists from Alexandria. The Museum is there; the men from elsewhere, such as Dionysius and Polemo, belonged to it. But very few native Alexandrians seem to appear in the records of the Second So-



18Smith, The Art of Rhetoric in Alexandria, p. 130. J. Drummond, Philo Judaeus, or The Jewish Alexandrian Philosophy in Its Development and Completion (London and Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1888), vol. I, p. 5.

19G. A. Kennedy, The Art of Rhetoric in the Roman World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972) on his intention, p. xv, on Dio, pp. 566-82 and on Philo, pp. 452-53. In a footnote (p. 452, n. 28) he comments on Philo's observations on moral decline, i.e., Prob. 62-74. His only other reference to Philo is on the similarity of thought and language to that of Longinus, p. 371. His most recent work, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 186-87 repeats his brief comment. From the comprehensive survey in 1872 by R. Volkmann, Die Rhetorik der Griechen und Römer in systematischer übersicht (reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 1963), to the most recent works on first-century rhetoric Philo has been omitted, or only referred to in passing.



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phistic.'20 Although he makes reference to Dio Chrysostom, he does not deal with the evidence from his Alexandrian oration. The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, which was first published in 1941, and Philo's corpus are ignored. C. P. Jones in his discussion of the Roman world of Dio Chrysostom devotes a whole chapter to Alexandria. He, like Bowersock, makes no reference to the two other Alexandrian sources.21 G. Anderson in his recent book on the Second Sophistic simply provides a lengthy quote from the Embassy to Gaius which demonstrates Philo's 'sophistic panache'. He notes only Philo's 'equivocal acceptance of the traditional Hellenistic demi-gods as benefactors of mankind' and his use of the sophistic technique of amplification in Ios. 23ff.22

There are, however, forty-two references to 'sophist' (σοφιστής) in Philo, apart from fifty-two references to cognates, and numerous comments on the sophistic movement. His evidence constitutes the single most important witness for the first half of the first century on the Greek side, and nothing comparable exists elsewhere for this period in the empire.



Paul among the Corinthian sophists

Six primary sources throw light on the sophistic movement in Corinth. Firstly, there are the two Diogenes speeches of Dio Chrysostom, Or. 6 and 8, which describe sophistic activity in Corinth during the period of his exile from Rome ca. a.d. 89-96.

Secondly, there is the Corinthian oration of Favorinus, a noted sophist and pupil of Dio Chrysostom who did not share his teacher's anti-sophistic convictions. Although a Roman, he was the complete Hellenophile. His speech before the citizens of Corinth, which occurs ten years after he first arrived in the Roman colony, was delivered in the reign of Hadrian on Favorinus' third visit. The value of this oration is that it looks at the Corinthian response to the sophistic movement from the perspective of a very successful sophist, who took not only Corinth but also Rome by storm. He still managed to incur the displeasure of the fickle Corinthians after they had erected statues to him in this Roman colony.

The third source is epigraphic and describes Herodes Atticus, a famous sophist and great benefactor of the city of Corinth, whose magistrates in-



20Bowersock, Greek Sophists, pp. 20-21.

21Jones, Roman World of Dio Chrysostom, ch. 5.

22Anderson, The Second Sophistic, pp. 203-5. P.Oxy. 2190 does not feature in his discussion.



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eluded a dedication to him when he erected a statue to his wife. This demonstrates their adulation of this very significant figure, who was himself a pupil of Favorinus. Herodes Atticus was such a famous sophist that when Philostratus wrote about the Second Sophistic in his Lives of the Sophists it centred around him, for he epitomised all that the sophist was meant to be.23

Plutarch, who visited Corinth on a number of occasions from the late seventies onwards, is the fourth witness. Although his evidence is slight, it is important for the insight it provides into the status circles in which sophists moved.

Fifthly, the evidence of Epictetus appears to have been bypassed in works on rhetoric. He lived after his exile from Rome (ca. a.d. 92-93) in Nicopolis, in the neighbouring province to Achaia, and provides much information on the movement at the turn of the century. He possessed an intimate and detailed knowledge of Corinth, and his discussion with a student of rhetoric from Corinth is extremely informative, as are his general comments on the movement.

Finally, it will be argued that Paul in his Corinthian letters provides an important source of information on the sophistic movement. When all this evidence which has not been assembled to date is collated, it provides a substantial picture of the movement in Corinth.

Recent discussion has overlooked much of the Corinthian evidence. While G. A. Kennedy uses the Pauline letters in his studies on rhetorical criticism, he makes no mention of their witness to the sophistic movement in Corinth during an important period of its development.24 A. D. Litfin does not make use of all the evidence on Corinth.25 C. P. Jones, while devoting chapters to various cities in his work on Dio's world, does not deal with Cor-



23There is another sophist, Sceptus of Corinth, but little is known of him except that he was a senior student of and part of the inner circle of Herodes Atticus, according to Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, 573, 585.

24G. A. Kennedy, Classical Rhetoric and Its Christian and Secular Tradition from Ancient to Modern Times (London: Croom Helm, 1980), pp. 130-32, and New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1984), esp. ch. 7.

25A. D. Litfin, St Paul's Theology of Proclamation: An Investigation of 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric, SNTS Monograph Series 79 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 146, n. 39. The 'Diogenes speeches' of Dio are thought by Litfin to refer to fourth-century-b.c. Corinth, and he therefore does not use this evidence. However, Dio uses Diogenes as a mouthpiece for critical comments on first-century-a.d. Roman Corinth; cf. Jones, Roman World of Dio Chrysostom, p. 47, in which the latter discusses Dio's use of famous persons from the past, including Diogenes, partly as a literary device to present his views in exile. The evidence of Epictetus was not incorporated in the study.



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inth because the oration on Corinth in his corpus is rightly attributed to Favorinus, one of Dio's pupils.26 J. Murphy-O'Connor has collected extant literary and epigraphic evidence on Corinth. He reproduces the texts on Dio, part of the oration of Favorinus, the comments of Plutarch and an inscription on Herodes Atticus, but makes no mention of Epictetus and provides no comment about the sophistic movement from the sources he cites.27 The ancient historian, G. Anderson, offers the comment that 'the social context in which such teachings were offered did not presuppose a highly educated audience…Christianity harboured a suspicion that anything that could be regarded as worldly wisdom was foolishness in the sight of God'. He cites one of its first 'surviving documents' (1 Cor. 1.21) in support of his contention but makes no reference to the discussion of rhetoric or the sophistic movement in 1 or 2 Corinthians.28



Recent sophistic and rhetorical studies

While there has been some discussion of rhetoric in Philo's corpus in recent years, only passing reference has been made to the existence of sophists in Alexandria.29 Their identity has been the subject of speculation rather than any serious investigation.30 Philo is a vital witness to the vigour and importance of the movement in that city.

Discussion of a possible rhetorical and/or sophistic background as the cause of tensions between Paul and the Corinthian church is not new. There have been five recent discussions of note.31 Two years before W. Schmithals submitted his influential Marburg dissertation on Gnosticism in Corinth, J. Munck argued that problems Paul discusses in 1 Corinthians 1-4, created by bickering and divisive elements, simply reflected the Hellenistic milieu of the sophistic movement. He believed that the Corinthian Christians identi-



26Jones, Roman World of Dio Chrysostom, 179.

27J. Murphy-O'Connor, St Paul's Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: Glazier, 1983).

28Anderson, The Second Sophistic, p. 205.

29See p. 59.

30On the sophists see A. Mendelson, Secular Education in Philo of Alexandria (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1982), pp. 8-10, and for the conflicting opinions expressed on Philo's sophists see pp. 60-61.

31A. Lynch, 'Pauline Rhetoric: 1 Corinthians 1.10-4.21', M.A. dissertation, University of North Carolina (1981) is not relevant to the discussion as it is a slender treatment, interested primarily in the rhetorical structure of the passage and not concerned with the sophists.



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fied their new faith as 'a kind of wisdom, its leaders teachers of wisdom…and themselves — this was the most important thing for them — wise men who had drawn on that wisdom through the Christian leaders'.32

There are two difficulties with Munck's thesis. Most of his evidence looked at the first-century movement through the eyes of Philostratus, the early third-century-a.d. sophist, in his Lives of the Sophists. However, Philostratus stood on the other side of the peak of the Second Sophistic even though he made reference to sophists in the second half of the first century. What Munck needed to do to secure his case was to detail first-century evidence on the sophistic background, and not to rely so heavily on a late second-and early third-century perception of the movement. While he did cite the first-century witness of Philo, he did so in an all too brief comment, relegating merely ten references from that corpus to a single footnote.33 His retrojection of later evidence into the first century is not far removed methodologically from the work of Schmithals and others in their use of late Gnostic material to sustain their view that it existed in Corinth in Paul's day.

Munck's work was also written prior to the important work on the Second Sophistic published by G. W. Bowersock in 1969. The latter's book constituted something of a turning point in sophistic studies, for there were some who doubted that the Second Sophistic had ever existed as an important late first and second-century movement.34 The nature of the 'strife' (ἔρις) and 'jealousy' (ζῆλος) mentioned in 1 Corinthians 1.11 and 3.3 had to be demonstrated by Munck as being sophistic, and not the theological phenomenon upon which F. C. Baur's extremely influential thesis had been built.35 Munck's work still remains a substantial piece of scholarship in that it broke new ground. However, it lacked a convincing survey of the sophistic background of the first century and the isolation of established conventions and rhetorical language which clearly related to the language used in the Corinthian letters.36



32J. Munck, 'Menigheden uden Partier', Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift 15 (1952), 215-33; English translation: 'The Church without Factions', in Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (London: SCM Press, 1959), pp. 135-67, citation on p. 154.

33Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, p. 154, n. 1.

34Bowersock, Greek Sophists.

35F. C. Baur, Paul, the Apostle of Jesus Christ, His Life and Work, His Epistles and His Doctrine, English translation (London and Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1876), vol. I, pp. 269-95, argued for the contrasting and conflicting Petrine and Pauline theologies surfacing in the Corinthian conflicts, and reflecting the permanent tension between Jewish and Hellenistic Christianity.

36His provocative challenge to Baur did not gain widespread acceptance. See, however, the commentary on 1 Corinthians by G. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), p. 65, n. 79, who accepts Munck's thesis.



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Since Munck's essay, important works have been produced which have specific bearing on the rhetorical but not the sophistic background of the problems of the Corinthian church. In 1980 P. Marshall wrote a thesis on 1 and 2 Corinthians which is an important study of the social institutions of friendship and enmity, the custom of commendation and the use of the figure of the flatterer to engage in invective, all of which Paul drew from literary traditions.37 He concludes that Paul's opponents in Corinth were not 'gnostic' nor 'pneumatic' but 'hubristic'.38 Marshall suggested that this accounts for Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 4.6-13, and also explicates his use of 'the boastful fool' of 2 Corinthians 10-13. While this may well explain the sociocultural conflict dynamics between some Corinthians and Paul, other background material is needed to understand the primary reason for the way in which the church questioned Paul's leadership after his departure, and the resistance of many to his return. The 'sophistic' language which the Corinthian detractors and Paul used in the controversy must also be accounted for.39

A more recent work on rhetoric in 1 Corinthians 1-4 has been undertaken by A. D. Litfin. In Si Paul's Theology of Proclamation: 1 Corinthians 1-4 and Greco-Roman Rhetoric40 he first traces the development of rhetoric from the era of Socrates and the rhetoricians through Isocrates and Aristotle to its acculturation by Cicero, Quintilian and lesser lights of the first and second centuries A.D. with an extensive survey of primary sources. His second section aims to establish the nexus between the rhetorical tradition and 1 Corinthians 1.17-25 and to do so within the context of the Corinthian letters as a whole. His view is that 1 Corinthians 1.17-25 is Paul's apologia against the Corinthians' criticism that his preaching failed to measure up to Graeco-Roman eloquence.41 While Litfin's work is a very important contribution to the discussion of 1 Corinthians 1.17-31, it does not probe the influence of the sophistic movement on the thinking of the Christian community which is the wider issue at stake in the Corinthian letters.



37Ph.D. dissertation, Macquarie University (1980), published as Enmity in Corinth: Social Conventions in Paul's Relations with the Corinthians (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1987).

38Hubris was a complex ethical notion of 'pride' or 'arrogance' associated with the wealthy and powerful, and carrying with it the notions of superiority and over-confidence.

39Marshall, Enmity in Corinth, pp. 180-81, questioned the adequacy of Munck's explanation of a sophistic background without exploring that issue further.

40D.Phil, dissertation, Oxford University, 1983, published in 1994. See n. 25.

41Litfin, St Paul's Theology of Proclamation, pp. 187-201. If this work does not influence the course of Corinthian studies as it should, it may well be that it does not relate the background material assembled in Part I sufficiently to 1 Corinthians 1.17-31 in order to secure the argument more firmly from the background sources.



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In 1984 Η. D. Betz, in a short essay entitled 'The Problem of Rhetoric and Theology according to the Apostle Paul', extended the parameters of his important work based on the term apologia in 2 Corinthians 12.42 In the earlier work he sought to defend the thesis that Paul is consciously following in Socratic footsteps in his refusal to defend himself, having already been tried by the Corinthians in absentia. In spite of criticism that has been directed at that monograph,43 he holds to his original thesis on 2 Corinthians 10-12. In the later essay he seeks to ascertain the nature of the rhetoric which Paul feels is in conflict with the preaching of the cross. The sophists' use of rhetoric is absent from his discussion.

Two more recent works on Corinth have been published, by M.Mitchell44 and S. M. Pogoloff,45 which likewise do not deal with the sophistic movement of the first century. They are concerned primarily with rhetoric in Corinth and ignore the first-century sophistic movement. Pogoloff does this because he believes that the sophistic movement postdates Paul's Corinth by a century — 'we have no evidence that sophists who styled themselves as philosophers were present in Corinth'. He investigates rather what he calls 'the rhetorical situation' of 1 Corinthians.46

While much has been also published in scholarly articles on rhetoric,47 none of these works actually exploits the evidence for the sophistic movement in Corinth. This robs the discussion of that wider perspective which may both control and enhance our interpretation of the Corinthian letters. It could also act as a brake on some of the more extravagant uses of the term 'rhetoric' in recent Pauline and NT studies.



42In A. Vanhoye (ed.), L'Apôtre Paul: Personnalité, Style et Conception du Ministerè (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1986), pp. 16-48, and Der Apostcl Paulus und die sokratische Tradition: Eine exegetische Untersuchung zu seiner 'Apologie' 2 Korinther 10-13 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1972).

43E. A. Judge, 'St Paul and Socrates', Interchange 13 (1973), 106-16, esp. 111-15, where he concludes 'Paul's pseudo-apology is remote from the spirit of Socrates' and observes that H. D. Betz in his Der Apostel Paulus has not succeeded in establishing the nexus. See also the criticisms by A. T. Lincoln, 'Paul the Visionary: The Setting and Significance of the Rapture to Paradise in II Corinthians 12.1-10', NTS 25 (1979), 204-20, esp. 206.

44M. Mitchell, Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (originally Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago Divinity School, 1989); published (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1991).

45M. Pogoloff, Logos and Sophia: The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians (originally Ph.D. dissertation, Yale University, 1990); now published in SBL Dissertation Series 134 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992). For Pogoloff's critique of Mitchell see pp. 89-90. 46. Ibid., pp. 65, 95.

47E.g., D. F. Watson, 'The New Testament and Greco-Roman Rhetoric: A Bibliography', JETS 31.4 (1988), 465-72.



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However, even when the extrabiblical evidence of the sophistic movement has been assembled, it cannot be assumed ipso facto that this provides the actual background to the problems in the church discussed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 1-4,9 and 2 Corinthians 10-13. What, then, needs to be established in order to sustain the argument that Paul is 'among the sophists' in Corinth? It has to be demonstrated (1) that the 'strife' (ἔρις) and 'jealousy' (ζῆλος) which are the gravamen of Paul's complaints in 1 Corinthians 1.11, 3.3 are clearly related to the sophistic movement; (2) that Paul's modus operandi in Corinth, described in 1 Corinthians 2.1-5, has been formulated in the light of the conventions of sophists 'coming' to a city and operating in it; (3) that he offers a substantial critique of the sophistic movement in 1 Corinthians 1-4; (4) that his own ministry has been critiqued by those trained within the sophistic tradition using its canons in 2 Corinthians 10-13; and (5) that in answering his opponents in 2 Corinthians 10-13 he does so in categories which show that he is arguing with Christian orators or sophists who are now within the Christian community in Corinth. These questions will occupy the discussion in the latter part of the book.



The structure of this book

This investigation into the sophistic movement will be restricted to two major cities in the East. The first is Alexandria. 'A student among the Alexandrian sophists' is based on P.Oxy. 2190, a private letter from a student to his father in the latter part of the first century a.d. (chapter 1). It will be discussed in the light of the educational trends of the sophists of that period.

'Dio and the Alexandrian sophistic leaders' is an evaluation of Dio's discussion of the sophists in the context of his role as the emperor's emissary to Alexandria, their place in politeia and his use of the term 'sophist' (chapter 2).

'Who are Philo's sophists?' (chapter 3) is an important foundation chapter because the term 'sophist' has wrongly been read by most recent writers on Philo as a loose, pejorative one, thus clouding the evidence and the issues. 'Philo's critique of the Alexandrian sophistic tradition' and 'Philo among the sophists' (chapters 4 and 5) will survey the nature of the movement in the first half of the first century in this 'second Athens'. Philo critiques the movement from the perspective of one who has had the benefits of a Greek rhetorical education of which he was not unappreciative. His role as a rhetor and debater and his suggestions for defeating the sophists will be explored. His corpus therefore constitutes an invaluable resource.

The second city is Corinth. Evidence from nonbiblical sources will be



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gathered, along parallel lines to that for Alexandria, on 'Epictetus and the Corinthian student of the sophists' and 'Dio and Plutarch among the Corinthian sophists' (chapters 6 and 7).

The last three chapters deal with Paul and Corinth. 'Paul and sophistic conventions' discusses Paul's anti-sophistic modus operandi in Corinth and the sophistic perception of Corinthian Christians' relationship with their teachers (chapter 8). Paul's evaluation of the sophistic tradition in 1 Corinthians 1-4 will be examined in 'Paul's critique of the Corinthian sophistic tradition' (chapter 9), while 'Paul among the Christian sophists' deals with two further issues, namely the sophists' assessment of Paul as rhetorician and debater, and Paul's evaluation of those Christians who promoted the importance of the sophistic tradition in the teaching office of the church (chapter 10). These last two chapters parallel chapters 4 and 5 of the discussion of Philo, and the issues in the latter chapters are closely related.

This book will conclude with a discussion on the importance of the Jewish and Christian evidence for our understanding of the first-century sophistic movement, together with a comparison of the OT texts and methods used by Philo and Paul in their evaluation of it. The implications of these findings for further understanding Paul's educational background, their further challenge to the almost defunct Gnostic thesis for Corinthian studies and, more importantly, for understanding the use, misuse and the nature of first-century rhetoric in literary discussions of the NT corpus will also be noted.

This is then a sophistic tale of two important cities in the East that were leading centres of commerce and education. It is also about the responses of two Hellenised Jews both of whom resorted to the OT in order to critique a major movement of their day. In the first century it had enchanted, if not seduced, not only the citizens of Alexandria and Corinth but also some of the members of their respective believing communities.









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