Structures of Authority in the Pauline Churches, with Special Reference to Corinth
The topic of ‘authority structures in the Pauline churches’ might be approached in two ways. One might ask what sort of authority structures Paul envisages (insofar as his vision is recorded in his extant letters). Or, one might examine the ways in which authority was actually exercised in the Pauline churches. The latter is an exploration of historical practice; the former of Pauline theory. It is possible that there was no difference between theory and practice, but the majority of research does not favour that conclusion. What I intend to do in what follows is first to perform the aforementioned exploration of historical practice, and then to examine the theory of authority that Paul seems to advocate in his letters. As I examine the ways in which authority was actually exercised in the Pauline churches, I will give special attention to Corinth. My reasons for this are twofold: First, 1 and 2 Corinthians are clearly letters that were provoked by questions of authority in the church. Second, there has, therefore, been an extraordinary amount of research done into the ways in which power was operative in the Corinthian church. Corinth, then, is the most obvious church to incorporate into this overview of the issue.
First, a few general comments: The ‘consensus’ view of authority and leadership in the Pauline churches has been that early on there was no organised structure. Authority was charismatic, based on the gifts of the Spirit to individual members; only later did an organisational hierarchy emerge.[1] Clarke says this consensus view has recently been criticised on the basis of its assumptions:
It has been questioned whether the Pauline corpus alone provides sufficient evidence to reconstruct the situation as it existed. Scholars opposed to the consensus view argue that theologians have been guilty of an ‘idealistic fallacy’: ignoring the value of both historical context and social forces and, instead, defining the situation as it existed solely on the basis of the theological and corrective statements given in Paul’s letters.[2]
We do well, then, to exercise caution in attempting to reconstruct the actual structures of authority in the Pauline churches. We must realise that Paul’s letters contain only a portion of the whole story. We should also realise that historical context and social forces may have led to the development of different leadership structures in different churches. It may even be the case that some of what we take to be Paul’s theory of authority may in fact be an application of his theory of authority to a specific context. We cannot, therefore, extend the results of our findings from Corinth to others of the Pauline churches.
Several studies have shown that the exercise of authority in the Corinthian church was essentially a by-product of the social realities of mid-first-century Corinth. Because this is the case, a brief sketch of first-century AD Corinthian society is in order.
Corinth was a Roman colony.[3] The original city had been destroyed in 146 BC, and the site was not resettled until one hundred years later in 44 BC. Julius Caesar populated the new colony mainly with freedmen from Italy. The result was that Corinth offered extraordinary opportunities for that group of people to advance in social status—there was essentially no one for them to compete with for advanced social standing.
Another important result of colonising Corinth with freedmen from Italy was that Corinth was much more akin to Roman culture than to Greek. It was not simply a re-founded Greek colony that happened to be settled mainly by Italians. It was a city that was thoroughly Roman throughout. The city plan was Roman; the architecture was Roman; the Imperial cult was Roman.
Corinth, therefore, was not a Greek city with a Roman facade. It was conceived of, and deliberately laid out, as a thoroughly Roman colony. Romanitas describes the architectural style of first-century Corinth, and it reflected an ideological outlook which provides important evidence of Corinth’s culture in Paul’s day.[4]
Epigraphic, numismatic and literary sources show that Latin was the official language in Corinth until the second century AD. The major influences on Corinth in the period during which 1 and 2 Corinthians were written were Roman, not Greek. The Corinthian outlook does not idealise Classical Greece until the second century AD. Rather, in the mid-first century AD there is a strong tendency for Corinth to associate itself with Rome.[5] Thus, when speaking of Corinthian social practices during the period of Paul’s ministry, we must be careful to take account of the essentially Roman character of the colony.[6]
Dr. Charles Williams II, the former Director of the Corinth excavations of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, expressed the view to [Bruce Winter] that to see Roman Corinth as anything other than Roman in its structures and outlook would be to misread all the archaeological evidence of the period.[7]
We also know several important things about social relations in the Greco-Roman world that give us valuable insights into the situation Paul seems to be addressing in the Corinthian church. Clarke writes that status, in ancient Greece, as well as in the Roman empire of the first century AD, was very closely connected to possession of wealth.[8] Under the Roman Empire, there were clear demarcations of rank. One’s rank in society was determined by three dichotomies:[9] honestiores/humiliores (having to do with amount of personal wealth), freeborn/slave (there is also the intermediate rank of freedman), citizen/alien. A person might rank high in one category but low in another, so status was not clearly indicative of rank. Those who sought high status tended also to seek public honour and recognition, frequently in ostentatious displays.[10]
Ostentatious displays might take the form of generous gifts. Gift giving incurred debt on the part of the recipient, whether that recipient was an individual or an entire city.[11] Patron/client relationships (usually expressed in terms of ‘friendship’)[12] operated on this principle. The patron would give a gift to his client, and the client would be expected to return the gift in a greater way. Benefactions given to a city would incur an implied debt by the city, which might be repaid in legal favours or some kind of public acknowledgement of the gift.[13] Benefactions brought increased honour and popularity to the benefactor. Money, of course, was essential to participation in giving benefactions. It was also essential for holding public office. Coveted offices in a city’s cursus honorum frequently required the office holder to pay out enormous sums of money for various purposes. A deposit was also often required of the official at the beginning of his term as a means of ensuring that he had the necessary finances for the job. Rhetorical ability was also an hallmark of Greco-Roman leadership; it could bring public honour and reputation and was a tool for persuading and leading people.
The patron/client relationship mentioned above was common practice in the Greco-Roman world. Having clients added to a person’s reputation and social status. And having a patron provided clients with a means for advancing their own status in society as well as an influential advocate if they should need one.
It has become apparent that leadership in the Graeco-Roman world was extremely expensive and therefore also élitist—the tall order expected of such leaders could only be fulfilled by a narrowly defined group.… Leadership, and even prospective leadership, was very much on show and had to prove itself (principally in financial terms).…
… It is this picture of leadership in the Roman empire which is prevalent in the extant literature. A leader is one who is respected, who has standing and honour, who is eloquent in the assembly, who has a number of influential friends. He recognises and affirms the social barriers of class and status, and has financial means.[14]
There were other benefits to being wealthy and influential as well. Among them were legal privileges. The Roman judicial system was hardly a model of justice. Legal proceedings could not be assumed to be just; they often favoured the person of higher social status—honour was always a factor for judges, juries, plaintiffs and defendants; each had to determine how the outcomes of a case might affect the honour of those involved. Those with greater status stood the better chance of winning a case, so it is those with greater status who would typically prosecute, since the one with lower status stood little chance of winning.[15]
The application of these social facts to 1 and 2 Corinthians is probably obvious. Clearly Paul was faced with a situation in Corinth where his own authority was being challenged and members of the congregation had begun to align themselves with various prominent ‘Christians’; viz., Peter, Apollos, Paul and even Christ. One possible scenario posits that these members of the congregation had carried secular notions of patron/client relationships into the church with the result that Peter, Apollos, Paul and Christ took on the role of patrons (see 1 Cor 1.12).
The issue of lawsuits among believers (1 Cor 6) also becomes clearer in this social context. Paul indicates that congregational members were taking one another to court. Because of the biased nature of the courts, we can assume that it was those of higher status taking those of lower status into court, and that they were doing it in order to heighten their own social standing.
What does this have to do with authority in the Corinthian church? That depends on one’s assumptions. It has frequently been assumed that leadership in the local church most naturally fell to those who were of greater social status. There are several indications that the Corinthian church contained at least some people of high social standing. If it is true that they were leaders in the church, then we may conclude, as does Clarke, that secular practices of leadership had infiltrated the Corinthian church:
Clarke believes that 1 Cor 6.1-8 refers to people in the church of high social status who are taking other believers to court and operating in court on secular principles. Clarke’s conclusions:
First, the system of civil claims was so clearly a system in favour of those with established status that it is reasonable to assume that the disputes discussed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 were initiated by those from the higher echelons in the society of the colony—leading figures within the Pauline community. …
Secondly, it may reasonably be assumed that in the secular law courts, with its unbelieving judges, the Christian litigants were at least exposed to the same injustices that were prevalent in the judicial system, and at most were party to them as well.…
A third conclusion is the strong likelihood that these legal proceedings were being used by members of the Christian community to establish their own standing and reputation at the cost of another’s.[16]
Clarke also thinks that the sexually immoral man in 1 Cor 5.1ff. was likely a church member who had high social status, and who may even have been a ‘patron’ of the church. Because of the man’s high status the church chose to ignore the situation rather than risk taking him to court, tarnishing his reputation or fostering his enmity against them.[17]
From these observations, Clarke concludes that leaders in the Corinthian church had adopted secular practices of leadership. He argues first that the differences between the factions at Corinth were not theological but personal; i.e., the Corinthian Christians, as a whole, were aligning themselves with their favourite ‘patron’, not disputing theological matters.[18]
It must be seen that the theological differences in the community, raised later in the epistle, do not describe particular personality-centred groups and the factions are not specifically referred to elsewhere in 1 Corinthians. Furthermore, in his writing, Paul takes no opportunity to accuse any of the specific parties of faulty theology.… His concern is not with the respective theologies of different groups, but solely that the Corinthians were aligning themselves with these specific personalities in a personality-cult.[19]
Clarke says that leading people in the church at Corinth were extending the socially accepted patronage model into their relationships within the church.[20] It seems likely that a cultural background steeped in Sophism also played a role in moving people to attach themselves to certain individuals—it is as thought they were connecting themselves with their favourite ‘sophists’.
Paul counters this incursion of secular leadership practices into the church by arguing for a different kind of leadership. I will now shift course and begin to discuss Paul’s conceptions of authentic leadership in the church. In contrast to the Corinthian practice of leadership, Paul frequently promotes an image of servant leadership. Paul inverts Greco-Roman ideals of leadership when he speaks of those whom the Corinthians had placed upon pedestals (viz., Paul and Apollos) as ‘servants’ who perform menial tasks (1 Cor 3.5; 4.1-2).[21]
Paul also offers examples of leadership for the Corinthians to follow—himself and Apollos (1 Cor. 2.1-5 and 6-16; 3.5-9; 3.21-23; see also 4.16), and Timothy and the household of Stephanus (1 Cor. 4.17; 16.10-11; 16.15-16). Stephanus is indicated because of his service to the church. “This labouring on behalf of the saints is regarded by Paul as a significant criterion which legitimates Christian leadership.”[22]
But what of established authoritative offices in the churches? Understanding that Paul’s view of leadership differs radically from secular conceptions of leadership, are we to assume that Paul did not conceive of anyone actually functioning as a leader? Not really. Even if we relegate the composition of the Pastoral Epistles to a period after Paul’s death (which I am not yet ready to do), it is still clear that Paul envisages people acting in roles of authority within the church.
In the first instance, there are apostles. Paul’s own position as an apostle was important to him, and he emphasised it. From an examination of Galatians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, and Philemon, Dunn draws the following conclusions about Paul’s apostolic authority:
In addition to apostolic ministry, it is also evident that Paul accords some level of authority to people who function in other ways within the church. According to Paul, prophets had authority in their prophetic messages, but only in those messages, and even then the other prophets in a church should evaluate those messages (cf. Rom 12.6; 1 Cor 14.29).[28] Furthermore, the prophectic role was not limited to prophets; prophecy could be given by anyone who was inspired to prophesy (cf. 1 Cor. 14.1, 5, 24, 31).[29] The situation is similar for teachers. 1 Cor 14.26 and Col 3.16 seem to indicate that teaching was not restricted to those recognised as ‘teachers’. Teachers “…were responsible for retaining, passing on, and interpreting the congregation’s foundation traditions, including interpretation of the prophetic scriptures and the Jesus tradition.”[30] The tradition itself provided a check on the authority of the teacher.[31]
When we consider whether established offices of leadership existed in the earliest Pauline churches, it is suggestive that Paul does not appeal to recognized leaders when he has the opportunity. Examples of this include especially 1 Corinthians, where Paul does not appeal to an established leader to resolve situations seen in 5.3-5, 11.17-34, 14.26-40, and 16.1-2 (see also 1 Thess. 5.14). It may, therefore, be incorrect to assume that such leaders existed.[32]
Notwithstanding these comments, leadership did arise in the churches in a sort of de facto manner: there were certain people whose service to the church commended them as leaders, and their examples were to be followed. This is evident in the case of Stephanus and his house (1 Cor 16.15-18), and the unnamed people of 1 Thess. 5.12-13. Dunn does not see established offices of authority in the Pauline churches; though he does see an “emerging leadership”, whose authority is by virtue of charism, not of office.[33]
Dunn makes the interesting observation that aside from the authority of individuals in the churches, Paul accords authority to congregations as a whole. By virtue of the fact that they were a spiritual people, congregations were endowed with authority “to regulate and exercise judgment concerning charisms (1 Cor. 2.15)”[34] (see also 1 Cor. 14.29; 1 Thess. 5.20-22). Further evidence of the authority invested in whole congregations is the fact that, as mentioned before, Paul regularly addresses himself to entire churches, not to established leaders, and he expects the congregations to carry out his instructions.
The picture of authority in the Pauline churches that has developed in this paper appears rather ad hoc. This being the case, it is necessary for the churches to have some means of identifying legitimate authority. In 1 Corinthians 12-14, Dunn sees three basic criteria for making that identification:[35] the test of whether the message conforms to the Gospel (1 Cor. 12.3); the test of whether the charism displays love (1 Cor. 13); and the test of whether it is a benefit to the community (1 Cor. 14).
This study has examined both Paul’s understanding of leadership in the church and the concrete situation of Roman Corinth upon which Pauline concepts were brought to bear. We have seen how a sociological approach to 1 Corinthians is able to illuminate the actual practice of leadership in one of Paul’s churches, and how Paul’s own understanding of leadership emerges in contrast to the Corinthian situation. This study has not taken the disputed Pauline epistles into consideration. However, as noted above, there is no reason to assume a priori that Paul sought to create identical structures of authority in all of his churches. If the disputed Paulines (particularly the Pastoral Epistles) show more developed structures of authority than to the homolegoumena, there is perhaps latitude to accept both models of leadership as originating with the Apostle.
[1] See Andrew D. Clarke, Secular and Christian Leadership in Corinth: A Socio-Historical and Exegetical Study of 1 Corinthians 1-6. Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums, 18 (Leiden: Brill, 1993), 2-3.
[2] Clarke, 3.
[3] The early portions of Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans, 2001) give a thorough introduction to the relevant points of Corinthian society. What follows relies on Winter’s work. See also Clarke’s first chapter.
[4] Winter, 11.
[5] See Winter, 18ff.
[6] Let it be said that of the sources I have read, none does more than make this point. That is, once the point has been made, scholars seem promptly to forget the fact and go on assessing Corinthian culture in terms of what we know of ‘Greco-Roman’ culture more generally. I have not had the opportunity to examine primary sources for this study, but it would be worth investigating various primary sources in order to determine the ways in which Roman culture was distinct from ‘Greco-Roman’ culture. That might, in turn, provide a clearer window through which to view the situation in Corinth.
[7] Winter, 11.
[8] See Clarke, 23-25.
[9] For the following discussion of rank, see Clarke, 26-29.
[10] See Clarke, 30.
[11] See Clarke, 31-36.
[12] See Clarke, 35.
[13] See Clarke, 34. Such is probably the case with the Erastus mentioned in Rom 16.23.
[14] Clarke, 39.
[15] See Clarke, 62-68.
[16] Clarke, 68.
[17] See Clarke, 73-88.
[18] See Clarke, 89-95; that the issue is essentially personal, not theological is shown by 1 Cor. 3.5, 3.21, 4.6.
[19] Clarke, 91-92.
[20] See Clarke, 93. If this is true, it has important implications for how we understand the nature of the conflict at Corinth and the history of the early Christian movement: “It may be seen, in conclusion, that Baur’s highly developed thesis of a Hegelian Pauline-Petrine division within the church cannot be defended in the light of this understanding of secular influences within the church at Corinth” (Clarke, 95).
[21] see Clarke, 118-122.
[22] Clarke, 126.
[23] See James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), 572-574.
[24] Dunn, 574.
[25] See Dunn, 576-578.
[26] Dunn, 579; Dunn appeals especially to 2 Cor. 10.13-16 to support this claim.
[27] see Dunn, 579-580.
[28] See Dunn, 581.
[29] See Dunn, 582.
[30] Dunn, 582
[31] See Dunn, 583.
[32] Similarly, see Dunn, 583-585; Dunn cites Phil. 1.1 as an exception to the rule.
[33] Dunn, 586; cf. the statements made by Clarke and cited above—regarding functional legitimation of leadership.
[34] Dunn, 593.
[35] See Dunn 594-598.