The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Fall, 2005 by Dietmar Isaac Neufeld

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CLOTHING IMAGERY IN THE PAULINE CORPUS. By Jung Hoon Kim. London, UK: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2004. Pp. xv 271. Cloth, $130.00.

Written under the supervision of Dr. Joel Marcus, this book engages in an extensive investigation of clothing imagery deployed in an wide range of literature from antiquity in order to come to an understanding of Galatians 3:27; Romans 13:14; Colossians 3:9-10, 12; Ephesians 4:22-24; 1 Corinthians 15:49, 50-54; and 2 Corinthians 5:1-4. The book has two divisions. The first section investigates what Kim calls the clothing imagery in its history-of-religions background. Kim surveys a selection of texts in which the various cultures of antiquity each measured the moral importance of clothing uniquely and integrated values associated with clothing in diverse ways, reflecting differing goals and evaluations of the self, society, and the cosmos. Kim's inventory includes passages from the Old Testament, Jewish Literature (1 and 2 Enoch, the Apocalypse of Moses, and the Vitae Adae et Evae), Philo (Quae. Gen., Leg., Ebr., and Quod Det., Vita Moses), selected Rabbinic texts, Joseph and Aseneth, The Hymn of the Pearl, the mystery religions, particularly the Metamorphoses and the adventures of Apuleius's Lucius, passages that discuss Roman apparel, chiefly the Toga Virilis, and select texts from the early church in which clothing reflection and baptismal practices are intimately linked (Gospel of Thomas 37; Hippolytus' Apostolic Tradition, Gospel of Philip 101; Jerome's Epistle to Fabiola 19). From this inventory of texts, Kim distills a series of conclusions. Scripted performances of outfitting the body with the accouterments of clothing along with the activity of investiture and divestiture, were designed to lead hearers to reflect on the themes of restoration, transformation, communal allegiance, personal and communal obligation to a set of standards, union with god or lack thereof, status differentiation, tyranny, state of prelapsarian innocence, conversion, engagement or disengagement from the world, transition from one stage to another, and revelation of inner character.

In section two, Paul is shown to have drawn extensively from Jewish and pagan moral reflection on dress. As a social product of his day, Paul saw clothing as a window to the soul and heart of humans. He thus employed the language of clothing and unclothing the body to advertise his ideals and fears to members of his communities. Immersed in the striking honor/shame cultures of Antiquity, Paul regularly made use of clothing topoi to make pronouncements of a moral, social and religious kind. Paul was aware that clothing and bodily decorum visibly marked the paths of vice and virtue. Several kinds of clothing are referred to in which persons, both in his community and outside his community, are outfitted to play their part on the Pauline social stage. Galatians 3:26-29, Romans 13:14, Colossians 3:9-10, Ephesians 4:22-24, Colossians 3:12, I Corinthians 15:49-54, and 2 Corinthians 5:1-4 use the language of investiture to symbolize putting on the person of Christ, putting on the new man, putting on godly virtues, and putting on the resurrection body.

Dressing in a certain way implied the role one was to play, and that role in these passages in turn bespoke the transformation that was to take place in the "Christian's nature from the old personality to the new one through union with Christ--of wearing Christ as if he were a garment" (106; 225). Transformation of one's personality would also lead to a modification of one's moral outlook and behavior in keeping with the costume with which one was furnished. For example, he who entered the state of wearing Christ like a garment must also exhibit a change in ethical life practically. For Kim, the clothing imagery points fundamentally to the baptismal unity with Christ and its effects (224). Not only does being clothed with Christ underline the believer's change in status resulting in obtaining sonship of God but also a change in the believer's nature and ethical outlook.

While Kim pushes forward the social analysis of the Pauline writings, the work in many ways remains disappointing. In no instance does he refer to the extensive work on clothing themes by social psychologists, anthropologists, and social scientists that would have served to push his analysis forward. Social psychologists have asked what functions clothing imagery played in its various social engagements. Adornment and bodily decorum served as the stage upon which to manage and form impressions, legitimize innovation, delimit choices, corral ideologically, and establish authority.

Dietmar Isaac Neufeld

University of British Columbia

Vancouver, British Columbia