Introduction

In most languages the human body or parts of it can be referred to symbolically as well. The body becomes a vehicle for describing attitudes, characters and lifestyle. Furthermore, body language is to a great extent dependent upon the culture. Behind the use of the human body or parts of it as shorthand for various kinds of character lies the conviction that some sort of correspondence exists between body and character. We have already seen (chap. 1.4) that Paul considered bodily matters as a boundary marker, thus creating signs of identity for believers vis-à-vis paganism. This leads us to consider ancient theories about the sign-nature of the body. In the Graeco-Roman world it was the task of ancient physiognomics to point out and to describe the correlation between the bodily appearance and the inner character of a person.

Physiognomics was a quasi-science devoted to working out methods and signs indicative of the relationship between physique and character. According to Elizabeth C. Evans, this ancient science ‘enjoyed a far greater popularity among Greek and Roman writers, especially those of later Greek society and Roman Empire, than has generally been supposed. As a quasi-science, it always bore a close relationship to the science of medicine; as an art, to the practice of rhetoric. It has also an obvious kinship with the field of ancient portraiture.

Introduction

Interrupting a series of greetings Paul inserts a final admonition to Christians in Rome. Verse 17 is a sharp warning formulated in two sentences: (1) to be wary of those who are distorting the transmitted teaching and (2) to keep away from them. In v. 18 Paul supports this warning (γάρ). He first urges a sharp contrast: οὐ …ἀλλά; i.e. either Christ or the belly. Serving both of them is not possible. The keyword of the first sentence of v. 18 is δουλɛύɛιν, and ἐξαπατᾶν in the next. Verse 19 expresses Paul's confidence in the Roman Christians, and he adds a final promise (v. 20): God will crush Satan under their feet.

Paul works with contrasts here: Christ versus the belly, good versus bad, God versus Satan. These are contrasts that really matter to the Roman Christians, but some are blurring them in a deceitful way. They do so by softening the distinctions and smoothing them out, they speak a flattering message: they are belly-servants and deceivers. The aim of our exegesis is to trace what Paul means by ‘serving the belly’ in this particular text, and also how this element works within his final admonition in this letter. We will also ask if Rom. 16:18 can in any way be seen in the light of how Paul views the human body in this epistle.

Warning against deceivers

In Rom. 16:17, Paul exhorts his readers to be on their guard against people who cause dissension and speak against the received teaching of the Roman church.

To present-day readers, the stomach is a matter of much concern. It serves as a source of shame as well as pride; it is a part of the human body that is often made fun of. Modern cultures, particularly in the West, have developed means to cultivate this part of the body: corsets, exercises to develop a washboard stomach, fashions in which the navel is carefully, but deliberately revealed etc. It is hardly surprising that in a culture in which the body is given such an important role, the stomach receives attention as well. Does Paul in any way address a culture in which the stomach is similarly high on the agenda? To answer this question is the aim of this investigation.

The Pauline tradition quotes an old saying about Cretans which is worth mentioning here: ‘ … they are γαστέρɛς’ (Tit. 1:12). This plural of γαστήρ claims that the entire personality of Cretans is their stomachs. The Cretans are not considered to have bellies; they are bellies. The term has obviously picked up figurative elements. Hence most Bible translations render the text ‘gluttons’, which means that the stomach sets the agenda for the life of the Cretans. In this text, then, the belly has become a codeword that might have both physical and figurative implications. The undisputed Pauline letters mention twice in expressis verbis people ‘whose god is their belly’ (Phil. 3:19), and who ‘serve their stomach’ (Rom. 16:18); in short they address the question of belly-worship.

Although the ancient world cannot be divided into Judaism and Hellenism as two easily separated parts, it is still interesting to see how topoi appearing most frequently in Graeco-Roman sources are appropriated into biblical thought. The aim of this chapter is to see how the philosophical discussions on mastery of passions, and the belly in particular, have been enculturated into a Jewish-biblical setting. In other words, we approach Paul by seeking a bridge in this material. This is not to deny that there are texts of interest and relevance in Old Testament and Jewish sources as well. Before proceeding to address the appropriation in particular, we will consider the most relevant analogies in this material.

In the Old Testament, the enemies or the ungodly are described in the metaphor of an ‘open mouth’ or in terms of devouring. In some texts this refers to deceitful speech (e.g Ps. 10:3–5, 7/LXX 11:3–5 and 9:28), but usually it is a reference to their greedy nature or appetite (Ps. 22:14/LXX 21:14, cf. Ps. 73:4–6/LXX 72:4–6; Prov. 19:28; Job 20:12–15; Micah 3:2–3): their mouth is open to devour, like a wild animal. In a description of the ungodly, he is presented as a devouring enemy, swallowing the righteous as bread (Ps. 53:5 = 14:4/LXX 52:5 = 13:4, cf. 5:10). To the righteous who has put his trust in God, the enemy is a glutton ready to consume them (Ps. 27:2/LXX 26:2).

As we have pointed out, the Pauline texts on ‘serving the belly’ or those ‘whose god is their belly’ are very brief, polemical and in coded language. It is, therefore, difficult to ascertain their precise meaning and to glean information from them. Having now completed a presentation which provides access to an assumed cultural competence on the part of Paul's readers, it is time to approach the Pauline material directly. In reading these texts we cannot avoid the background material presented in the previous chapters. In order to read Paul's texts in a culturally adequate way, we need to be guided by this material. The brevity of his sayings demands this. It now remains to see in what way this ancient material is appropriated in Paul's writings, and to which elements he gives emphasis. This means that there must be an interchange between background material, without which the Pauline texts remain enigmatic and obscure, and the Pauline texts themselves.

We have found that belly-worship or enslavement to the stomach is firmly rooted in moral philosophical discussions on mastering the desires. According to Hellenistic-Jewish material, the Law was seen as a superior means of controlling the passions. The Law is given to fight the desires. Paul also has a concern for self-mastery. His letters demonstrate his familiarity with the language and motives associated with mastery of passions. Terms like ἐγκράτɛια, πάθος, ἐπιθυμία, ἀνδρίζɛσθαι, ἡδονή, αὐτάρκɛια and their cognates occur frequently and with great emphasis in the Pauline epistles.

It has already been claimed that to ‘have the belly as god’, or to be ‘enslaved to the stomach’ et cetera are commonplaces of ancient literature. This implies that Paul's readers are likely to have recognized his dicta in Phil. 3:19 and Rom. 16:18, as well as some other texts, as familiar. It remains to substantiate this claim, and to see how this topos was used. From the very outset we should expect various nuances to appear in the material. Parts 2 and 3 will thus lay bare the contemporary reader competence available, and hence also the competence of Paul's readers. The material presented in the following chapters enables us to read the Pauline texts with a new awareness, and thus in Part 4 to see more clearly how the Pauline belly-dicta are embedded in his rhetorical strategy in their immediate context as well as in his body-theology.

In many texts, of course, the stomach refers in a strict physical sense to the need for nutrition. It has a quite physical meaning, one fills the stomach in order to maintain life. The concern of Part 2 is texts where this vital necessity appears in a negative light, as a codeword for a lifestyle and an attitude to be criticised. The aim is to provide a sufficient basis for the study to continue into the Pauline texts, but in order to prove the existence of a topos about the belly, it is necessary to cover a wide range of material.

Expositors of the two Pauline belly-dicta in Phil. 3:19 and Rom. 16:18 quite often refer to how these texts were interpreted in the Patristic literature. The article of Johannes Behm in Kittel's Theological Dictionary has been very influential. He concludes his presentation on Paul's use of κοιλία by claiming that he is probably alluding to the observance of food laws: he presents this as ‘the older view’, with reference to Theodore of Mopsuestia, Ambrosiaster and Pelagius. The references given are, however, often general, imprecise or with little awareness of the literary context. Since Patristic texts are often mentioned as decisive evidence favouring reference to Jewish dietary laws, it is necessary to give a survey of this material. Owing to the brevity of Paul's dicta on belly-worship, we have insisted that a culturally adequate reading was urgent. This led us to present the ancient background quite extensively. This chapter is written from the conviction that Paul's first interpreters may provide an approach to his texts, that from a historical and cultural point of view is highly relevant.

The aim of the coming chapter is to bring our investigation towards an end by providing an overview of various readings of the Pauline passages in question. It will become evident that the Church Fathers should not be referred to in general in this question; their ways of reading the relevant passages are simply too different for that. We will draw upon texts up to the sixth century AD.

Introduction

Paul's correspondence with the Corinthians is well known for its unravelling of misconduct among his converts. The apostle considers his recent converts to be in need of instruction on matters such as sexual misbehaviour, lawsuits among the believers, marriage, food sacrificed to idols, seemly behaviour in the church, spiritual gifts and the future hope of resurrection. Four passages in 1 Corinthians show a special concern for food and matters related to it: 6:13–20; 8:1–11:1; 11:17–34; 15:29–34. It is essential to note this emphasis on food matters in order to understand the Corinthian situation. It is, therefore, quite natural that this letter should be read anew in the light of the material on the belly-topos as presented hitherto in this study. Furthermore, we have observed that both 1 Cor. 10:7 and 15:32, although they are Old Testament quotations, have predecessors in traditions about proverbial gourmandizers and pleasure-seekers such as Sardanapalus. This was rooted in the critique of Epicurean hedonism. This observation stimulates a re-reading of these passages in their Pauline context.

The chapter starts with a presentation of 1 Cor. 15:32 in its immediate context. It will be argued that the text provides an Epicurean framework which makes it meaningful to look for analogical ways of expressing belly-worship in the Corinthian texts. At end of the chapter our findings will be viewed in the light of Pauline texts on the body elsewhere in this epistle.

Introduction

As we have already stated, the difficulty in this project is that the Pauline texts under consideration are very brief. The stomach appears almost as a catchword with which Paul assumes his readers to be familiar. The exegesis of both Phil. 3:19 and Rom. 16:18, therefore, calls for a context beyond the epistles themselves as well as the Pauline universe of which they are a part. It is the aim of this chapter to provide that context in ancient moral philosophy. In other words, emphasis will be given to ethical and not medical texts. Besides, it is the specific aim of this chapter to search for analogies with Paul's dicta about ‘having the belly as god’, or ‘serving the stomach’. This project will not be undertaken in a narrow lexical sense; i.e. looking only for a particular terminology. In order to see how the topos of ‘belly’ works in ancient sources, we have to relate it to attitudes towards food and consumption in general.

The questions which this chapter aims to answer are the following:

• Do ancient writers refer to the belly with a frequency and in a way that justifies speaking of a commonplace?

• If so, to what does the topos of belly refer to?

• Does the stomach in some texts take on a figurative meaning, or become a codeword for something more than eating?

• Does the ancient material suggest a social context to which texts about the power of the belly refer?

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215)

In his Stromateis (Miscellanies), Clement sets out texts from the Holy Scriptures and excerpts from Greek philosophy. It has therefore been called a ‘patchwork-quilt’ in which Clement brings together Hellenistic philosophy and the Christian faith.

In Strom. 4:16 the author writes on the martyrs, urging them, as well as other Christians, to endure in love and patience. It is just a little while until they obtain the promised victory. They are being tested like gold in the furnace. Faith in the resurrection makes the difference to believers who face trials like this. But the resurrection also makes a difference to how Christians relate to eating. Clement provides two contrasting examples. The first is about οἱ ϕιλήδονοι, the lovers of pleasure: they crawl on the belly (ἕρποντος ἐπί κοιλίᾳ) (Strom. 4:16/100.3). The terminology brings to mind the movements of a snake. Clement confirms this by saying that God gave the name ‘brood of vipers’ (Matt. 3:7) to these people who are serving their belly and genitals (οἱ γαστρί καί αἰδοίοις δουλɛύοντɛς). Clement adds that they cut off one another's heads for the sake of worldly pleasures (ἐπιθυμίαι). The reference is vague; it might be a negative description of pagan feasts from the perspective of the snake-analogy. Clement is not quoting any Biblical passage here, but Matt. 3:7 and Rom. 16:18 seem to be in his mind. His use of the belly-topos in this text has much in common with Philo's exegesis of Gen.3.

Introduction

We have seen that mastery of the stomach and the critique launched against Epicureans and belly-devotion were not words plucked out of thin air. From the perspective of the critics, those who participated in lavish and indulgent banquets were hooked on eating, drinking, and sex. The banquets were often seen as nurseries of the pleasures. When we come to Philo in the next chapter, this nexus between banquets and the pleasures of the stomach becomes even more explicit. His warnings against being enslaved by the belly have a clear reference to extravagant pagan meals and the lifestyle which accompanied them (e.g. Contempl. 48–56). It is the aim of this chapter to demonstrate that the lifestyle associated with the belly-topos concurs with the agenda of symposia. In other words, we are searching for a historical point of departure for the belly-rhetoric.

This is not to say that all banquets followed the pattern outlined below, but this agenda is so widely attested that it is worth noting. Furthermore, I do not claim that Epicurean philosophy and banquets can be subsumed under the same heading, but the critics of antiquity made this nexus in their polemic. The authenticity of this polemic might, of course, be disputed. Moral philosophers may well exaggerate according to their aim of fighting what they considered to be flagrantly hedonistic parties.

Introduction

The commonest terms for stomach in ancient writings (κοιλία and γαστήρ) occur in the following texts in the undisputed Pauline epistles: 1 Thess. 5:13; Gal. 1:15; Phil. 3:19; 1 Cor. 6:13; Rom. 16:18. The first instance refers to pregnancy. Gal. 1:15 is a related text. Kοιλία means ‘womb’, and refers to the point where life begins according to Biblical thought (cf. Jer. 1:15; Jub. 21:8; Lib. Ant. 9:2.5; 22:3). Paul's reference to his mother's womb is embedded in a topos of vocation, aimed at justifying his divine call. A rather different meaning appears in Paul's dicta on the stomach-devotees in Phil. 3:19: ‘Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things’ and Rom. 16:18: ‘For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites …’ In the last instance, NRSV renders κοιλία as ‘appetite’. The two references are either polemical or a warning against people who are devoted to their belly. In other words, they belong to a different rhetoric. This study claims that they are similar to the Greek saying of Tit. 1:12, about the Cretans whose entire personality is their stomachs.

It is the aim of the present study to substantiate there being a rhetoric of the belly in Paul's letters, and also to see how it works. Since for obvious reasons 1 Cor. 6:13 has nothing to do with either pregnancy or vocation, it will be investigated as part of Paul's rhetoric of the belly.

Introduction

The Alexandrinian Jew, Philo, was a contemporary of Paul. His abundant writings give us access to a significant part of Hellenistic Judaism. Samuel Sandmel says that ‘often Philo has been of interest to scholars not for himself but for the light he sheds on presumably more significant matters’. This is also true for this presentation of Philo, but it is still a tribute to the significance Philo's writings have for a proper understanding of the world in which Paul wrote. Philo's writings represent a blending of Platonic philosophy, Stoic ethics and Scriptural interpretation. Although modern reviewers would speak of a synthesis of various traditions, some even competing, Philo himself considered his writings as bringing out in full the true meaning of Scripture. His work was primarily of an exegetical nature. The means by which he fuses various traditions and biblical texts as scriptural interpretation is his well-known allegorical method. The aim of this method is to trace the deeper meaning of the text, which very often turns out to be a philosophical truth. This is very much the case in the question of how Philo perceived the belly. Philo is confident he can trace the hidden meaning since he considers the Scriptures to be inspired prophecy, containing universal truths about life. The following presentation will contain many examples of Philo's allegorical method.

Views on Philo's significance for New Testament studies, and the Pauline Epistles in particular, are diverse.