¹ E.g. Jeremias, J., Infant Baptism in the First Four Centuries (London: SCM, 1960) 20Google Scholar, and idem, The Origins of Infant Baptism (London: SCM, 1963) 15–16; Aland, K., Did the Early Church Baptize Infants? (London: SCM, 1963) 91–3Google Scholar; Beasley-Murray, G. R., Baptism in the New Testament (London: Macmillan, 1963) 319–20Google Scholar; Howard, J. K., New Testament Baptism (London: Pickering & Inglis, 1970) 81–2Google Scholar; Scott, J. W., ‘Dynamic Equivalence and Some Theological Problems in the NIV [Infant Baptism in Acts]’, WTJ 48 (1986) 351–61Google Scholar; Brooks, O. S., The Drama of Decision: Baptism in the New Testament (Peabody, Mass.; Hendrickson, 1987) 62Google Scholar. This passage will be considered on the basis of its historical feasibility. That is, the assumption will be that it was written so as to be credible for Luke's readers, without necessarily making any assumption about historicity.

² Aland, Baptize, 30 and 93; Howard, Baptism, 81–2; Neil, W., The Acts of the Apostles (NCB; London: Oliphants, 1973) 185Google Scholar; Brooks, Drama, 62.

³ Beasley-Murray, Baptism, 315–19; Marshall, I. H., The Acts of the Apostles (Leicester: IVP/Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) 273Google Scholar; Brooks, Drama, 62.

⁴ Scott, ‘Dynamic Equivalence’, 353.

⁵ See Vogt, J., Ancient Slavery and the Ideal of Man (London: Blackwell, 1974) 107–9Google Scholar; Sailer, R. P., ‘Slavery and the Roman Family’, in Finley, M. I., ed., Classical Slavery (London: Prank Cass, 1987) 78–81.Google Scholar

⁶ Such a discussion can be found in my unpublished thesis, ‘“ΚΑΙ Ο ΟΙΚΟΣ…” The Nature and Religious Practices of Graeco-Roman Households as the Context for the Conversion and Baptism of Households in the Acts of the Apostles’, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia, 1993.

⁷ E.g. Lucian Tox. 30; Josephus Ant. 2.61 (cf. 7.287); cf. Neil, Acts, 184.

⁸ E.g. Howard, Baptism, 82; Neil, Acts, 184; Bruce, F. F., The Book of the Acts (NICNT; rev. ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988) 315.Google Scholar

⁹ E.g. Aristotle Politics 9.12; Cons.Ath. 50.2; 54.1; Scholia to Aristophanes Acharnians 54 (Wiedemann, T. E. J., Greek and Roman Slavery: A Sourcebook [London: Croom Helm, 1988] 155–6)Google Scholar; Chariton Chaereas and Callirhoe 3.4.7; 4.5.6; IG II.1.403, 476; Pliny Letters 10.31–2; MAMA 7.135; cf. Westermann, W. L., The Slave Systems of Greek and Roman Antiquity (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1955) 70–1Google Scholar; Wiedemann, T. E. J., Slavery (Oxford: Clarendon, 1987) 41–2Google Scholar; Martin, D. B., Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline Christianity (New Haven: Yale, 1990) 11, 186CrossRefGoogle Scholar n. 45.

¹⁰ Haenchen, E., The Acts of the Apostles (London: Blackwell, 1971) 494Google Scholar; Neil, Acts, 181; Marshall, Acts, 266; Bruce, F. F., The Acts of the Apostles (3rd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans/ Leicester: Apollos, 1990) 357Google Scholar; Hemer, C. J., The Book of Acts in the Setting of Hellenistic History (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1989) 113–14Google Scholar; Martin, Slavery, xviii.

¹¹ Ulpian Digest 50.16.195 (Gardner, J. F. and Wiedemann, T. E. J., ed., The Roman Household: A Sourcebook [London: Routledge, 1991] 3–4)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although Ulpian wrote in the third century CE, what he describes pre-dates him.

¹² Saller, R. P., ‘Familia, Domus, and the Roman Conception of the Family’, Phoenix 38 (1984) 336–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. p. 338.

¹³ Sailer, ‘Familia’, 338; Garnsey, P. and Sailer, R. P., The Roman Empire (London: Duckworth, 1987) 127Google Scholar; Dixon, S., The Roman Mother (London: Croom Helm, 1988) 15.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Gardner and Wiedemann, Sourcebook, 5; Rawson, B., ‘Adult-Child Relationships in Roman Society’ in Rawson, B., ed., Marriage, Divorce and Children in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991) 26–7.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Sailer, ‘Familia’, 339; Garnsey and Sailer, Roman Empire, 127; Dixon, Roman Mother, 13.

¹⁶ Pliny Letters 8.16; cf. M. B. Plory, ‘Family in Familia: Kinship and Community in Slavery’, American Journal of Ancient History 3 (1978) 78–95, esp. p. 78; Garnsey and Sailer, Roman Empire, 127; Dixon, Roman Mother, 13.

¹⁷ E.g. CIL 6.22355a; cf. Flory, ‘Family’, 79, 81–2, 87; Dixon, Roman Mother, 19.

¹⁸ Gardner and Wiedemann, Sourcebook, 17; Sailer, ‘Familia’, 342–4, 346–8; Withering-ton, B., Women in the Earliest Churches (Cambridge: CUP, 1988) 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁹ Pomeroy, S. B., Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975) 193Google Scholar; Flory, ‘Family’, 82, 87; Treggiari, S., ‘Women as Property in the Early Roman Empire’ in Weisberg, D. K., ed., Women and the Law: A Social Historical Perspective 2 (Cambridge, Mass.; Schenkman, 1982) 14Google Scholar; Martin, Slavery, 2.

²⁰ Pomeroy, Goddesses, 193; Flory, ‘Family’, 88; Rawson, B., ‘The Roman Family’, in B., Raw-son, ed., The Family in Ancient Rome (London: Routledge, 1986) 37Google Scholar; Dixon, Roman Mother, 17.

²¹ Treggiari, ‘Women’, 15; Martin, Slavery, 9. ‘Class’ is used here mainly in terms of ordo but also in economic terms.

²² Pomeroy, Goddesses, 193–4; Flory, ‘Family’, 88; Treggiari, ‘Women’, 17.

²³ Thus, Sailer points out that while Cicero consistently uses familia to refer to his household, Pliny uses domus. (‘Familia’, 343, 348; cf. Dixon, Roman Mother, 14; Sailer, ‘Slavery’, 67).

²⁴ E.g. Xenophon Oec. 1.1–5; cf. Michel, O., ‘οἶκος-οἰκία’, TDNT 5 (1967) 119–20Google Scholar; Lacey, W. K., The Family in Classical Greece (London: Thames & Hudson, 1968) 30, 218.Google Scholar

²⁵ Lampe, P., ‘“Family” in Church and Society of New Testament Times’, Affirmation 5 (1992) 1–20Google Scholar, esp. p. 2.

²⁶ E.g. Xenophon Oec. 1.1–5; Herodotus 1.17,114.

²⁷ For the sense of ‘lineage’: e.g. Herodotus 1.107; for the sense of ‘household’: e.g. Plato Gorg. 520E; cf. O. Michel, TDNT 5.131. The head of the Greek household had less power than the Roman pater, for the concept of patria potestas was uniquely Roman (Gaius Inst. 1.55, 108 [Gardner & Wiedemann, Sourcebook, 5]).

²⁸ E.g. Philo In Flacc. 5; also Phil 4.22; cf. O. Michel, TDNT 5.133.

²⁹ Sailer, ‘Familia’, 355; Dixon, Roman Mother, 34; Sailer, R. P., Shaw, B. D., ‘Tombstones and Roman Family Relations in the Principate: Civilians, Soldiers and Slaves’, JRS 74 (1984) 124–56Google Scholar, esp. p. 124.

³⁰ Cadbury, H. J., ‘Four Features of Lucan Style’ in Keck, L. E. and Martyn, J. L., ed., Studies in Luke-Acts (London: SPCK, 1966) 91–2.Google Scholar

³¹ As building: Acts 2.2; 10.30; 11.12; 11.13; 16.34; 19.16. As household unit: Acts 10.2; 11.14; 16.15a; 16.31; 18.8. As building and/or household unit: Acts 2.46; 5.42; 7.20; 8.3; 10.22; 16.15b; 20.20; 21.8.

³² Acts 2.36; 7.42; 7.46.

³³ Acts 7.47; 7.49.

³⁴ Acts 7.10, although this would also have included the household unit.

³⁵ As building: Acts 4.34; 9.17; 10.6; 10.17; 11.11; 18.7a; 18.7b. As building and/or household: Acts 9.11; 10.32; 12.12. As household: Acts 17.5.

³⁶ Haenchen, Acts, 498; Neil, Acts, 185; Marshall, Acts, 274; Bruce, Book, 318.

³⁷ ‘All the household’ is a motif found in Acts which involves either πᾶς or ὂλος (e.g. Acts 2.2; 7.10; 10.2; 11.14; and 18.8), and (always) οἶκος rather than οἰκία. That the construction in 16.32 involves πᾶς with οἰκία may support the contention that οἰκία is being used in a particular or unusual sense. Although Luke uses πᾶσιν (v. 32), πάντες (v. 33) and πανοικεί (v. 34) to refer to both οἶκος, this does not necessarily negate the distinction between them. The emphasis is theological and reflects the nature of the response and the power of the gospel. In both cases, all respond or benefit.

³⁸ I wish to thank Rev A. H. Cadwallader and Rev Dr V. C. Pfitzner for their comments on an earlier draft of this essay.