Who should be called father? Paul of Tarsus between the Jesus tradition and patria potestas

Biblical Theology Bulletin, Winter, 2003 by S. Scott Bartchy

1 Corinthians 7

For example, Paul's line of argument in 1 Corinthians assumes that adult children without their parents, wives without their husbands, and slaves without their owners have become members of the house-churches in Corinth. Throughout the entire letter, in fact, Paul addresses all the "holy ones" in Corinth as if they no longer had any obligations of filial piety. Chapter seven begins with a striking subversion of traditional patriarchal authority in marriage.

Here Paul urges followers of Christ who are married to understand that the husband belongs to the wife in exactly the same way as the wife belongs to the husband, with the consequence that decisions regarding their sexual life together are to be made by mutual agreement rather than by patriarchal flat. In his words:

    The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and
    likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have
    authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise
    [homoios--"in the very same way"] the husband does not
    have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not
    deprive one another except perhaps by agreement [ek symphonou--"with
    one voice together"] for a set time, to
    devote yourselves to prayer, and then come together again,
    so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control
    (1 Cor 7:3-5 NRSV).

I have heard from modern readers who wish that Paul had gone even further and completely avoided the use of "authority over" language. In this case, such a wish is tantamount to asking a male raised in Mediterranean culture not only to jump out of his skin but to leap over his shadow while he's at it. Keeping in mind Paul's own context, what is truly striking is that he showed no respect for one of the primary codes of first-century life, taken for granted by both men and women: a woman's body belonged to her husband, period.

More directly to the point regarding respect for a father's authority, all the advice Paul gave regarding marriage assumes that his readers would respond with decisions made without respect to their blood family's interests or wishes. This is truly astonishing in light of the cultural values of the ancient Mediterranean world, where in the words of K. C. Hanson (69) marriage was "a social contract negotiated between families, with economic, religious, and (occasionally) political implications that went far beyond the interests of sexuality, relationship, and reproduction." Marriage was rarely arranged by individuals apart from their fathers' interests and authority.

In the world of both Jesus and Paul, when a woman married, her status changed from being embedded in her blood-family's honor and living under the authority, legal responsibility, and care of her father, to being similarly embedded in her husband's honor even if not also in his authority. Yet throughout 1 Corinthians 7, Paul writes to the unmarried, male and female, as if each of them would make decisions independently about refraining from marriage or entering into it. For example, not the authority of their respective fathers but being "aflame with passion" should be one of the deciding factors (7:9). Note carefully that Paul gives this advice to both women and men, assuming here and throughout this chapter their equality in moral responsibility and decision-making. Instead of directing his words primarily or exclusively to the men, twelve times Paul strikingly alternates between the men and the women, his "brothers and sisters" (7:15); and as Gordon Fee correctly concludes, "in every case there is complete mutuality between the two sexes" (270). Furthermore, in every case Paul addresses both the men and the women as moral agents who are free to act apart from the authority of their fathers or concerns of their blood families.