Seek the Welfare of the City: Christians as benefactors and citizens
(First-century Christians in the Greco-Roman world)
By Bruce W. Winter. Paternoster. 245 pages. £14.99
ISBN 0 85364 633 3
In this detailed and amply-documented book, Winter, the Warden of Tyndale House in Cambridge, examines the way in which Christians in the New Testament era related to civic and societal conventions of the day.
The title comes from Jeremiah's instruction to the exiled people of God: 'Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare' (Jeremiah 29.7). Winter argues that this concept was formative for Paul and Peter (the two apostolic writers with whom he deals directly), who taught Christians to do what they could 'to help sustain and enhance the life of the cities in which they lived' (p.1). He aims to map out a New Testament basis for social engagement which steers between the two extremes of radical disengagement and unthinking involvement.
For example, Winter argues that both Romans 13.3 and 1 Peter 2.14 utilise the terminology of civic benefaction inscriptions in which a city council would praise and reward a citizen for some good deed (e.g. supplying grain at a reduced price during a shortage). This suggests that both Peter and Paul support the convention and encourage Christian benefactors to play their part in city life. Such activity, according to 1 Peter 2.14-16, would silence opposition and 'establish Christian credibility in social relationships' (p. 39). On a different tack, Winter argues that the idleness of the Thessalonians (1 Thessalonians 4.10-12; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13) was not due to eschatological problems because the idleness was apparent at the time of Paul's mission (2 Thessalonians 3.10: 'Even when we were with you, we gave you this command: If anyone will not work, let him not eat'). Rather, the problem was personal dependence upon a rich patron, a deeply ingrained social convention which Paul sets out to break in order to free Christians to be benefactors of all others and not clients to particular wealthy patrons.
Winter points to the ambiguity of Christian relations with the religious elements of civic life. For example, he argues from Galatians 6.12 that Jewish Christians circumcised Gentile Christians in order to enable them to escape the legal requirements of the imperial cult. Winter makes a case for this position but fails to interact with Paul's straightforward rejection of this method of evading the religious conflict. If in Tertullian's day Christians who did not offer sacrifices for the emperors were accused of sacrilege and treason, how could it be different in Paul's day and how would a Christian desiring to 'do good' in civic life cope with the pressure to compromise? Winter's discussion of 1 Corinthians 8-11, in which Paul straightforwardly disallows the Christians to participate in feasts in an idol temple, highlights some of the pressures which must have faced someone like Erastus who, according to Romans 16.23 was a Christian in civil-political life (an obvious hero for Winter). Winter argues that Erastus may have been exempt from the normal oath of office (swearing by Jupiter, Augustus and other emperors), but some discussion of the difficulties of Christian service in the public sphere would have been helpful.
Winter has put together a series of discussions which will need to inform contemporary debate about Christian approaches to involvement in civic and political life. That is not to say that all of his conclusions will be accepted. In a brief review it has not been possible even to summarise, let alone critically examine, the detailed discussion of numerous New Testament texts in relation to evidence drawn from a wide range of literary, documentary and epigraphical sources. Suffice to say that the persistent reader will be drawn into an appreciation of the world in which the early Christians lived, an appreciation which will enable a more informed reading of the New Testament texts themselves.
