¹ Schimmel, Anne-Marie, ‘Kuss’, RGG (3rd ed.; 1960) 4.190.Google Scholar

² In his thorough article, ‘Ursprünge und Formen des “heiligen Kusses” im frühen Christentum’, JAC 11/12 (1967–1968) 124–80Google Scholar, Klaus Thraede pays virtually no attention to Jewish sources (see footnotes 53 and 54). Joseph and Asenath is only once referred to as a ‘Christian reworking of a Jewish legend’ (171, n. 120).

³ Blank, Sheldon, ‘Kiss’, IDB 3 (1962) 39–40.Google Scholar

⁴ Hofmann, K. M., Philema Hagion (BFCT 2.38; Göttingen, 1938).Google Scholar

⁵ Perella, N. J., The Kiss Sacred and Profane. An Interpretative History of Kiss Symbolism and Related Religio-Erotic Themes (Berkeley: U. of Ca., 1969) 18–23Google Scholar; Stählin, G. in TDNT 9 (1973) 138–46Google Scholar, esp. 139.

⁶ ‘The order of events, however, is inverted in the narration of Moses; for Jacob did not kiss Rachel till he had informed her that he was her relative’ (Commentary on the Book of Genesis [Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1948]) 2.128.Google Scholar

⁷ Löw, I., ‘Der Kuss’, MGWJ 65 (1921) 253–76, 323–49.Google Scholar

⁸ Perella, Kiss, 15–16.

⁹ Burchard, C., Joseph und Aseneth (JSHRZ 2.4; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1983).Google Scholar

¹⁰ Billerbeck, Paul, Kommentar zum NT 1 (1926) 995–6.Google Scholar

¹¹ Kroll, W., ‘Kuss’, PW Suppl. 5 (1931) 511–20, 513Google Scholar. Although by the end of the Republic at least among the aristocracy it was quite common. Pliny even describes an infection brought from Asia Minor by a quaestor's secretary in the middle of the principate of Tiberius Claudius Caesar. ‘Women were not liable to the disease, or slaves and the lower and middle classes, but the nobles were very much infected through the momentary contact of a kiss’ (Nat. Hist. 26.3.3–4). One can only conclude that the nobility kissed more than the other groups mentioned.

¹² According to Thraede, a terminus technicus (‘Ursprünge’, footnote 129). I am grateful to Harold Remus for calling my attention to this reference and to the Waterloo Biblical Colloquium which discussed many features of this article with me. See Betz, H. D., Lukian von Samosata (Berlin: Akademie, 1971) 114–15Google Scholar, who wonders if Lucian did not malign Alexander the prophet here and misunderstood a liturgical kiss of the mystery cults. Pseudo-Lucian (Asin. 17) describes a public greeting with kiss and embrace in a rural setting (φιλήμασιν ὴσπάζοντο ἀλλήλους).

¹³ K. Thraede, ‘Ursprünge’, note 48. See also Kroll, ‘Kuss’, 514, who concludes that at the time of Claudius men kissed each other when they met on the streets.

¹⁴ Thraede, ‘Ursprunge’, 145.

¹⁵ Lowrie, W., ‘The Kiss of Peace’, TToday 12 (1955) 236–42, 242.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Cabrol, F., ‘Baiser’, DACL 2 (1925) 117–30.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Benko, S., Pagan Rome and the Early Christians (Bloomington, IN, 1986) 82.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Godet, F. L., Commentary on the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids, MI, 1887) 357.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Marshall, I. H., Commentary on Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1978) 309.Google Scholar

²⁰ Stählin, TDNT 9.139.

²¹ Schlatter, A., Das Evangelium des Lukas (Stuttgart, 1960) 264Google Scholar. Caird, G. B. describes it as ‘the homage of her penitent love’ and as a ‘display of affection and gratitude’ (St Luke, [Penguin, 1963] 114).Google Scholar

²² Perella, Kiss, 18–23.

²³ The term was made popular by Tertullian although according to Thraede (145, n. 53) it was already in Philo but not as a kiss of reconciliation.

²⁴ Lightfoot, J. B., Notes on the Epistles of St Paul (London, 1904) 90.Google Scholar

²⁵ Windisch, H., ‘ἀσπάζομαι’, TDNT 1 (1933) 494–500, 495Google Scholar. MacDonald's, J. I. H. article in NTS 16 (1970)Google Scholar, ‘Was Romans xvi a Separate Letter?’ touches on this subject (370–1). The evidence he cites is, however, third-century and therefore cannot be adduced to argue against the position of Windisch. See also Thraede, ‘Ursprünge’, n. 13.

²⁶ One looks in vain for any discussion of this in books on holiness like Nicholl, Donald, Holiness (London: Darton, 1981)Google Scholar or Kreider, A., Journey towards Holiness (Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering, 1986)Google Scholar even though both authors have a fine appreciation for the communal dimension of Christianity.

²⁷ See the evidence in ‘Musonius Rufus, Jesus and Paul: Three First Century Feminists’, From Jesus to Paul: Studies in Honour of Francis Wright Beare (ed. Peter Richardson and John Hurd; Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University, 1984) 185–202Google Scholar. The arguments of Balch, David and Ward, R. B. [NTS 36 (1990) 281–9]Google Scholar which challenge my thesis deal with a different definition of ‘feminism’ and do not compare Paul and Musonius with their contemporaries.

²⁸ It is noteworthy that one modern translation of the NT, in contemporary German (Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1982), consistently calls it a ‘brother kiss’ (‘Bruderkuss’), a travesty of Paul's (and Peter's) instructions.

²⁹ Hofmann, Philema, 23–4.

³⁰ ‘Gemeint ist natürlich: bei nächster Gelegenheit’, says Thraede, ‘Ursprünge’, 129.

³¹ Kreider, E., ‘Let the Faithful Greet Each Other: The Kiss of Peace’, Conrad Grebel Review (Waterloo, Ont) 5 (1987) 28–49, esp. 31.Google Scholar

³² Moffatt, J., Love in the New Testament (1928) 170.Google Scholar

³³ Elliott, J. H., A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of I Peter (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 139.Google Scholar

³⁴ Selwyn, E. G., The First Epistle of St Peter (London, 1952) 244.Google Scholar

³⁵ Bigg, C., I Peter (ICC; Edinburgh, 1901) 198.Google Scholar

³⁶ Thraede speaks (‘Ursprünge’, 144) of a ‘new social basis’ in a group founded on a confession, which brought a shift of accent: the heartiness (Herzlichkeit) of the profane greeting was institutionalized as a sign of belonging to the Christian Community and as holy kiss ‘wurde er glaubensbedingte Regelform’.

³⁷ So especially Perella in his otherwise excellent book (Kiss, 17; followed by Benko, Rome, 91), errs in describing ‘the basic issue of religion’ for Paul as ‘the mystical union of the individual soul with God’. Instead of saying the holy kiss symbolized that union I would, with Benko, see ‘the stark physical character of the mouth-to-mouth kiss as an actualization and realization of the Christians’ hope to overcome separation and to find union in and with [God] and each other’ (see 98).

³⁸ Meeks, W., ‘The Image of the Androgyne: Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity’, HR 13 (1974) 165–208, 182.Google Scholar

³⁹ MacDonald, Margaret in her study, ‘Women Holy in Body and Spirit: The Social Setting of I Corinthians 7’, NTS 36 (1990) 161–81CrossRefGoogle Scholar, does not touch at all on this important Pauline usage. Paul does not speak of the ‘celibate women who strove to be holy in body and spirit’ (181). He spoke rather of the sanctifying influence believing husbands/wives can have on their spouses in the marriage bond as they set no limits to their expressions of erotic affection for each other (1 Cor 7.3–5). Is it by chance that Paul never uses the word ‘holy’ for the celibate?

⁴⁰ The terms ‘sacred’ and ‘holy’ are here used without distinction. Paul Minear's attempt to distinguish them as the sacred where religion is found and the holy wherever God is present does not persuade me. It is strange, however, that even his thorough study of New Testament usage does not venture to treat the ‘holy kiss’ (TToday 47 [1990] 5–12).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Gamble, H., The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977) 75–6.Google Scholar

⁴² E. Kreider, ‘Faithful’, 38 – quoting from Paed. 3.11.

⁴³ Benko, Rome, 86.