From the mere mention of a name and/or a title in Romans ...



Teresa Hornsby

e-mail: thornsby@stetson.edu

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The Gendered Sinner in Romans 1-7

Teresa J. Hornsby, Drury University

Introduction

When Paul talks about sin and the sinner (amarti/a and amartwlo/j), which occur 51 times in the Roman epistle (45 of those occur in chapters 1-7), the modern reader may take for granted that he or she knows what Paul “means” simply because she or he is privileged to about two-thousand years of exegeses and conversations which concern the meaning of those words. After a brief survey and analysis of occurrences of amartwlo/j that are contemporary with or prior to Paul’s writings, I will look specifically at Paul’s understandings of amarti/a and amartwlo/j in his letter to the Romans. My primary question is, is there an assumed, unspoken connotation of gender attached to the word? In an earlier work, I have concluded that a typically Aristotelian-based depiction of “sinner,” which would influence first-century understandings of amartwlo/j, posits an ideal, immovable mark against which all else is measured -- and the sinner misses that mark. Aristotle’s “sinner” comes to represent all who fall short of the ideal -- an ideal that is imagined as masculine in Christianity. If the norm is indeed constructed with or perceived as a masculine ideal, deviation from that norm would acquire a greater degree of feminization, or, in other words, be understood as a “flawed masculinity.” Thus, the binaries that Paul uses frequently in Romans, “sinner/righteous” and “sinner/God,” become not only strict oppositions but gendered, hierarchical ones as well. The added dimension of gender to an understanding of “sinner” in Paul provides insight to Pauline theology, particularly as he presents it in the letter to the Romans.

What follows first is a survey of how “the sinner” has been understood in Greek literature from the early Classical period through the first century. I apologize for the technical details, but from the necessary philology that follows, I intend to show that amartwlo/j is defined as one who is always in opposition to the ideal; the sinner is perceived as being “off the mark.” The “ideal” is expressed early on as societal assumptions about gender performance. As the idea “sinner” emerges in early Christian writings, it stands opposite to an “ideal” that is expressed in terms of heterosexual masculinity. Thus, the sinner, by its definitive relation to a masculine ideal, becomes “flawed masculinity,” an ambiguous category that requires reconciliation. Paul’s identification and “reconciliation” of the sinner in Romans 1-7, I will argue, is expressed primarily through assumptions of gender and gendered relationships.

A. Amartwlo/j and Gender

1. Occurrences of Amartwlo/j in Classical Greek Literature

Occurrences of amartwlo/j and its variations outside Jewish and Christian texts are sparse.[1] There are only four known applications in Classical and Hellenistic Greek literature: Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae (1111); Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 2:9:1-3; Philodemus Philosophus, De Ira ,[2] and Eupolis, fr. 24.[3] I have found that a closer look at the four Classical and Hellenistic occurrences of a9martwlo/j does indeed inform the reader about possible ways that Paul might have understood the word. For brevity’s sake, I will address only two here.

Thesmophoriazusae (c. 415 BCE), one of Aristophanes’ comedies, has the word amartwlo/j in a farcical scene near the end. To set the stage, so to speak: earlier in the play Aristophanes writes, “a dramatic poet must submit to all the demands of his characters -- so, if he writes about women he must dress like a woman, and be a woman” (line 152). Later (1100 - 1134) he creates a comic encounter among Mnesilochos, who is dressed like a woman; Euripides, who is pretending to be an Echo; and a Scythian law officer. Euripides, noticing that Mnesilochos is in chains, remarks that he is grieved by seeing such a “sweet maid” (pa/rqen) manacled. The officer replies, “He is no sweet maid, he is a amartlwlo/j.” Since Aristophanes’ use of this word is the earliest that we know, to translate would be somewhat arbitrary. But at the very least, Aristophanes places amartlwlo/j as the antithesis of one who appears to be a pa/rqen, a young woman or virgin.[4] However, one cannot simply say amartlwlo/j is opposite of virgin, maiden, or young girl, since the label is actually given to a man. If the label had been given to a female character rather than to Mnesilochos, then the two terms, amartlwlo/j and pa/rqen, could be understood as direct opposites. Rather, according to Aristophanes’ use, it would suffice to say that amartlwlo/j is descriptive of someone who pretends to be a maiden or a virgin.

Aristotle’s mention of amartlwlo/j is as brief as the former. Aristotle writes, “moral virtue is a mean - a median (me/son) between two vices: one of excess (uperbolhv) and one of deficit, or lack (elleiyiv).”[5] One should therefore aim for the mean and avoid the extremes. Quoting a line he attributes to Calypso, he warns sailors to “steer the ship of yonder spray and surge.”[6] Odysseus is faced with the choice of going into the whirlpool and being consumed or steering closer to the monster Scylla, which would result in a lesser loss to him and his crew. Thus, with the warning, Odysseus is telling the navigator to avoid the excessive loss and choose instead the lesser.

Returning now to amartlwlo/j in Thesmophoriazusae, we find that the category of “excess” introduced by Aristotle provides a new interpretive frame. The crossdressing amartlwlo/j is certainly one who counters social norms. Mnesilochos personifies a commingling of “virtue,” i.e., those things congruent with societal standards, in the socially acceptable gender markings (the woman’s costume), and “vice” i.e., those things in opposition to societal standards, in the subversion of those gender markings through a drag performance. Further, Aristophanes makes explicit an idea only shadowed in Aristotle: the amartlwlo/j is off center; if one assumes that the “center,” or the standard by which all else is judged is perceived as a masculine ideal, an image on which Paul relies, then the amartlwlo/j by definition could in this case be gendered feminine. Mnesilochos is literally a amartlwlo/j, a feminized male.

This quick survey indicates that in the Greek Classical periods, amartlwlo/j carries an idea of being off the mark and in opposition to what is considered “normal” or acceptable.[7]

Whether or not Paul was familiar with any of these works is impossible to know. According to some scholars, Paul was well educated in Greek rhetoric; his rhetorical skills are, they claim, quite advanced.[8] Thus Paul may have been familiar with the use of amartlwlo/j in ancient Greek literature. On the other hand, Paul undoubtedly knew the Septuagint.[9] Because there are far too many occurrences of amartlwlo/j and amarti/a to analyze each one in the present project, I confine my study to amartlwlo/j in selections from the Psalms and from Ben Sira.

2. Amartlwlo/j in the LXX

a. Psalms

Near scholarly consensus on the meaning of amartlwlo/j in the Septuagint is that the word means “the wicked.” While some have tried to identify who “the wicked” are historically, as I show below, others have recognized that it is a variable that changes according to the subject. The relativist aspect of amartlwlo/j -- as with all words -- is a distinction that needs more attention not simply because “the sinner” is defined only in relationship to those things that occupy a central position of power, but because the word also takes on gendered and hierarchical value from that relationship. The production of “the sinner” as a label for one who is socially deviant is clearly observed in the Septuagint.

Amartlwlo/j occurs at least 143 times in the Septuagint.[10] Of these 143, seventy are found in the Psalms and thirty-nine in The Wisdom of Ben Sira (Sirach). In the LXX amartlwlo/j stands in the place of five different Hebrew roots: (#r, )+xa, Pfnx, #rx, and (r.[11] The predominant number of translations are from only two roots, )+x and (#r, and without the witness of Psalms, amartlwlo/j represents the two almost evenly (thirteen are (#r and twelve are )+x). For example, all of the uses of amartlwlo/j in Amos are for )+x while four of the five occurrences of amartlwlo/j in Isaiah have translated (#r. Further, the Book of Job has twenty-five occurrences of (#r yet none is translated as amartlwlo/j. Since amartlwlo/j does not clearly represent a particular word or meaning outside Psalms or Sirach, this section will look specifically at the two books where amartlwlo/j most frequently occurs.

E. P. Sanders argues that given the total number of verses in which amartlwlo/j replaces (#r in the LXX, amartlwlo/j should be understood as “the wicked” and should be considered a technical term. David Neale concurs with Sanders on the first point but disputes Sanders’s assertion that the understanding of wicked remains the same throughout Jewish and Christian literature. Neale, like Sanders, bases his argument (that amartlwlo/j equals “wicked”) entirely on the frequency of times that amartlwlo/j replaces (#r in Psalms.[12] However, none mentions either that there are at least sixteen examples in Psalms where (#r is translated into other words besides amartlwlo/j or that (#r is not consistently translated as amartlwlo/j outside Psalms.[13] At best, one could make the argument that only for the Greek translator of Psalms, amartlwlo/j equals (#r. However, the examples of Pss 1:5 and 103 (104):35, where both )+x and (#r appear in the same verse and the translator chooses to replace )+x with amartlwlo/j rather than (#r, disputes even that. These two examples -- verses that include the two Hebrew words that are most often translated into amartlwlo/j, (#r and )+x -- provide test cases.

Neither Sanders nor Neale notes that when both words occur in a single Hebrew verse (e.g., Pss. 1:5; 104:35 [LXX 103:35]), the translator replaces )+x rather than (#r with amartlwlo/j. Neale and Sanders allow the sheer frequency of usage in Psalms stand as proof. It is true that by the numbers alone, the conclusion that the Psalmist equates amartlwlo/j and (#r seems secure, since out of the eighty-one times (#r occurs, sixty-nine are translated amartlwlo/j. But textual arguments and arguments about meaning should not be founded entirely on statistics, especially if even one example disputes the majority. The examples of Pss. 1:5 and 104:35 show that for the Psalmist, amartlwlo/j may have a general meaning of “the wicked” but the construction of these verses allows the translator to show a more nuanced meaning of amartlwlo/j.

Psalm 104 is in praise of YHWH’s creation and care of the earth and of all life. Similar to Genesis 1, it describes in poetic language the separation of the waters from the earth (vv. 5-9), and the ordering and caring of the birds and beasts (11-13), as well as those things that bring pleasure to the human being: livestock and plants, wine and bread (14-16). [14] And like Genesis, the psalmist notes that the creation is allgood. Everything is in order, and every creation exists for the benefit of every other living thing: the trees exist for the birds; the hills are for the goats; the rocks are refuge for the badgers (16-23). Verses 24-34 proclaim that YHWH has created everything and YHWH controls everything - and all is for the good. Throughout the Psalm, there is only praise and adoration for all life and a sense of rejoicing in it and worshipping YHWH for all creation.

Suddenly, in the final verse (104:35) the psalmist writes,

sny) dn( sy(#rw (r)h-Nm sy)mx wmty

LXX: Eklei/poisan amartwloi/ apo/ th]j gh=j kai/ a]nomoi w]ste mh/ upa/rxein autou/j.

“Let sinners be consumed from the earth and let the wicked ones no longer exist.”

In English wmty in v. 35 may be translated as “let them be consumed” or “let them perish,” or “let them be removed” but always with a sense of erasing “sinners” from the face of the earth. My first concern with these particular translations is that they are inconsistent with the theological and literary flow of the passage. Theologically, the author is praising God for the usefulness, connectedness, and wholeness of all creation. The interjection of a curse on sinners at this point is out of place. When the author curses sinners in other passages, the curse comes expectedly and follows a general theological theme, cf. 9:16-17; 10:12-18; 37:10-40. Stylistically, if one translates v. 35 as a curse, it radically departs from the motif of the rest of the passage. [15]

Considering the conclusions drawn above about amartlwlo/j as being off-center, missing the mean by excess or by defect, or being imperfect, perhaps there is a nuance in Psalm 104 that compelled the Greek editor to translate tx rather than (#r as amartlwlo/j. And if we recognized such a nuance, the English translation could be adjusted so that it communicates a meaning without corrupting the theological and literary integrity of the psalm.

The first problem is the word wmxy. To interpret its root (smt) to mean “perish” or to be consumed or wiped out, as it is in the NRSV, KJV, and NIV, disrupts the theme and flow of the verse. Further, such a translation is not consistent with how the Psalms uses smt elsewhere. Psalms never uses words formed from smt to mean “to perish.” Rather, db) or hmd are used.[16] In Psalms words from the root smt are used exclusively (and 104:35 would be the sole exception) to convey a sense of wholeness, of integrity, or of righteousness.[17] Though smt is often translated as “wholly consumed” (usually by fire or famine) or “completely wiped out” (cf. Jer. 44 (51):12, 18, 27), even in this sense there remains a connotation of wholeness, of being completely subsumed. The essence of such a meaning is found most clearly in Jer. 6:29 and in Eze. 24:11. Here, the word smt means “consume,” but it is as a metalworker’s fire consumes all the imperfections of a precious metal; “to consume” is to strip away the imperfections in order to purify. If we understand “sinner” to be representative of someone who falls short of perfection or wholeness or who is in opposition to righteousness, then the phrase in v. 35 could be read as “let the sinners be made whole” or “let the sinners be made righteous” or “let the sinners be made perfect.” Thus, read with the final phrase “from the land,” the theme of the entire psalm is preserved: all things that God has made are sustained by the land; therefore, let sinners (also) be made whole from the land, and let wickedness no longer exist.”

The translator of the Psalms understands that there is a distinction between “sinners” and the “wicked,” and when the translator must choose between the two, )+x is the better fit because its root also suggests meanings such as “to purify, or “to bring into balance.”[18] The choice of translation in v. 35 is due in part to the word smt. If the author calls for wholeness or integrity, the translator recognizes that amartlwlo/j is the word that best communicates a sense of being imperfect, or being in opposition to perfection. smt, then, should be read in Psalm 104:35 as a corrective to the imperfect - the off-center: the imperfect shall be made perfect; the defective shall be made whole; what is excessive shall be consumed (as per Jer. 6:29 and in Ezekiel 24:11).

In Psalm 1:1, 5, both )+x and (#r are present. Again, the translator uses amartlwlo/j to replace )+x rather than (#r. And immediately preceding v. 5, Ps. 1:4 describes the wicked and the sinners with an image of the chaff being driven away by the wind. Verse 1:5 concludes that the sinners (amartwloi/) will not stand in the gathering of the righteous.[19]

The prevalent understanding of amartlwlo/j in Psalms is clearly “one who stands over and against the righteous.” Whenever this particular connotation is the only one present in a verse, the LXX replaces either )+x and (#r with amartlwlo/j. However, when both words are present, the translator chooses to use amartlwlo/j for )+x because amartlwlo/j preserves the nuance of imperfection. The Psalmist, in the examples above, does not call for the destruction of the sinners, but for their justification. The term amartlwlo/j and the images of chafing wheat and purification by fire form the idea that the sinner should be made whole or should be made perfect by doing away with the imperfections, with the primary objective being to bring the sinner into “normal” or “proper” society. We will see the same image made even more explicit in Ben Sira.

b. The Wisdom of Ben Sira (Sirach)

I have argued that amartlwlo/j carries a connotation of “missing the mark,” of being imperfect or off center due to defect or to excess, and above all, it is descriptive of social deviance. Amartlwlo/j is a highly derogatory term used to label those in opposition to “the righteous,” though of course the terms exist in a dialectical relationship and are relative rather than absolute. Neale notes: “In Psalms ‘sinner’ has been applied to the enemies of Israel, the Psalmist’s personal enemies, Israelites who have gone astray, and all who have turned away from God.”[20] There is no doubt that “sinner” represents “the unrighteous:” “Just as the righteous represent those who do God’s will, the sinners are those who represent a whole complex of behavior that is opposed to God and his ways.”[21] But, as I have shown, there is more to the meaning of amartlwlo/j. The distinction between the amartwloi/ and the anomoi/ (the wicked or the lawless) should not be glossed over. The distinction between the two, i.e., that one, amartwloi/, has a connotation of imperfection, is important enough that the translator of Psalms deviated from a standard translation decision, one that he or she had made at least fifty times prior to 103:35 (LXX), to preserve the connotation necessary for the passage’s theme. For Ben Sira, the theme of excess is sometimes present, but Ben Sira accents the identification of the sinner as someone who is in sharp contrast to the righteous.

Amartlwlo/j occurs in Sirach at least thirty-nine times, and the Hebrew words it translates are numerous. The translator(s) are not particular, it seems, about which Hebrew word is replaced by amartlwlo/j. It appears that for the translator(s), the strongest criterion for rendering amartlwlo/j is that it should represent those in opposition to “the righteous” or “the good” (e.g., 12:4; 13:17; 15:7,9; 16:13; 19:22; 21:6; 33:14; 41:6 et al.); if a thought, word, or deed is described as good, righteous, or wise, the sinner is one who does the opposite. Whether the Hebrew word for “wicked” or “lawless” or “transgressor” is used seems to make no difference. If the one being described stands in opposition to desired or normative behavior, then Ben Sira’s translator uses the word amartlwlo/j.

The modern word that best describes the representation of the “sinner” in the Greek Ben Sira is “deviant.” The “deviant” is that person who is in opposition to socially accepted standards; he or she deviates from the norm.[22] Though it may seem that the translator chooses amartlwlo/j without discretion, he or she preserves the underlying meaning of all the Hebrew words amartlwlo/j replaces. While Ben Sira may have chosen to use )+x or (#r, the essence of their meanings is that each is in opposition to “right” behavior; the translator preserves this essence through the use of amartlwlo/j.

If Ben Sira has central concerns, it is to do everything in moderation and conform to societal standards. As in the poem of chapter 39, all things are good things, but all have the potential to be harmful (to one’s health, soul, reputation, for example). For Ben Sira all behavior that is the antithesis of what is proper belongs to the “sinner.” For Ben Sira, the righteous and wise are always in opposition to the sinner, and if the two mingle, the righteous becomes sinful. It is clear that Ben Sira understands “the sinner” and “the righteous” to be categories of human beings – an understanding that Paul, as we shall see, does not share.

3. Amartlwlo/j in First-Century, Non-Canonical Writings

There are few non-canonical or non-Christian occurrences of amartlwlo/j that are more or less contemporary with Paul’s letter to the Romans. Amartlwlo/j does not occur in any form, for example, in Josephus, Philo, Pliny the Younger or in any of the Stoic philosophers, nor does it occur in the later letters of Polycarp or Ignatius. Amartlwlo/j does occur fairly often in the some of the other writings of the mid-second century. For example, some form of amartlwlo/j occurs six times in the Shepherd of Hermas (~140ce) and five times in Epistle of Barnabas (~130ce).

The only example in which amartlwlo/j occurs in writings certainly within the first century (apart from the canonical gospels) are Plutarch (~75ce), Clement’s First Letter to the Corinthians (~96ce), and the “Apocalypse of Moses,” which is also called the “Lives of Adam and Eve.” For the sake of brevity (too late!) I will focus on only two: “The Lives of Adam and Eve” and “The Shepherd of Hermas.”

a. The Lives of Adam and Eve

Amartlwlo/j appears twice in “The Lives of Adam and Eve” (hereafter, Vitae).[23] Though there is no agreement about its date, M. D. Johnson places its composition at the end of the first century CE, which would make the apocalyptic-style narrative roughly contemporary with the Letter to the Romans.[24]

The story begins when Adam is ill and dying. He makes it clear that sickness and death are the results of Eve’s disobedience of God (6:7). Adam sends Seth and Eve back to paradise to find a special oil of anointing that will relieve his pain (9:4). Adam instructs Eve to put dirt (gh=n) on her head and weep so that God will hear her (9:3). But when Seth and Eve get to paradise, the angel Michael is there to tell them that they cannot have the oil to anoint Adam; the oil can only be used on the day of the resurrection. On that day, he explains, there will be no more sinners (ecamarta/nontej). The sinners are not destroyed but are converted into righteousness; their “evil hearts” are replaced with “good hearts” (13:5). When Eve returns to Adam, he insists that she tell their children and their grandchildren how she was tempted by the serpent in paradise. She tells the story of the snake, of her transgression of God’s commandment, and her expulsion from the garden. Eve tells everyone that when she ate from the tree, she realized that she was “naked of the righteousness with which she had been clothed” (20:5). As she transgresses God’s commandment not to eat from that tree, she loses her status as “righteous” and is separated from the ones who remain righteous: God and Adam.

When Eve finishes telling her story, she first asks Adam to kill her so that God will return to Adam (29). When Adam refuses, saying that to kill Eve would be like killing a part of himself, she goes off and weeps (klai/w) and declares all her transgressions (32). This section, 32, is commonly referred to as “Eve’s Repentance.” Eve prays to God: “Father of everything, I have sinned, I have sinned against you, I have sinned against the holy elect, I have sinned against the cherubim, I have sinned against the throne, I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned against all.” Just as Eve finishes her confession to God, an angel comes to tell her that Adam has died, so we do not know at this point in the narrative if God reacts to Eve.

Eve dies six days after Adam. As she is dying, she prays to God to be buried with Adam: “Do not separate me from the body of Adam; for you made me from his members; but rather consider me worthy, even me, unworthy and sinful (amartlwlo/j), to be buried near his body” (42:15). Eve is buried with Adam at the end of the narrative.

For the author of the Vitae, amartlwlo/j is one who disobeys God and breaks one of the commandments (11:2). The amartlwlo/j is in opposition to the righteous. And, obviously, the sinner is a woman. Eve knows that after she sinned, the “clothing of righteousness” was removed. And, as John Levison points out, Eve identifies “glory” with righteousness (20:1-2); everything she does in the narrative, including her transgression, is to participate in the glory (the righteousness) of God.[25] Eve sees herself as a sinner both worthy and unworthy (42:6) to be joined with God’s righteousness. There is a subtle implication throughout the narrative that Adam is still righteous -- or at least, is more righteous than Eve -- and Eve despairs that because she is a sinner, she will be forever apart from Adam (29:15; 42:6). Michael assures her that in the day of the resurrection, the sinner becomes righteous. Thus, amartlwlo/j here, as in the previous examples, is not a fixed category but one that exists in opposition to the righteous and can be eventually transformed into a righteous person. Though “sinner” here is described in positions very similar to those of the Psalms and of Ben Sira, the idea emerges that God is righteous (perfect) and that humans, men and women -- men to a lessor degree -- fall short of that mark.

Eve’s acknowledgment of her sins and her subsequent burial with Adam suggest that she (as a character) is redeemed. Though she is blamed for all the world’s sorrows, Eve also represents all the sinners who are made righteous -- united again with the one from which they had deviated.[26] The representatives of righteousness in this narrative are both male: God is the mac-daddy of righteousness, and the righteousness of Adam, as is the righteousness of the human male, is liminal: it is not as “sinful” as a woman but certainly not the perfect righteousness of God.

b. The Shepherd of Hermas

Though there is near consensus for a mid-second-century date for “The Shepherd,”[27] there is one discussion of “sinner” that makes a connection between masculinity and righteousness explicit.

Though Hermas says categorically that one cannot distinguish between “the righteous” and the “sinners,” he does make a distinction through their reproductive potential:

He showed me many trees, without leaves, which appeared to me to be as if barren, for they were all alike. And he said to me, do you see these trees? I said yes, lord, and I see that they are all alike and barren (chra). And he answered me and said, these trees which you see are they who dwell in this world. I said, Why, lord, are they barren and all alike? He said because in this world, neither righteous nor sinners are distinct (fai/nontai) but all are alike. For this world is winter for the righteous and they are nondistinct (ou] fai/nontai), though they are living with sinners. For just as in the winter the trees which have shed their leaves are alike, and it is not apparent which are barren and which are alive, so in this world neither the righteous nor the sinners are apparent, but all are alike (Sim. 3:1-3)

Though this passage maintains the opposition of “the righteous” and “the sinner,” Hermas’ guide tells him that one cannot distinguish between the two in this world. The guide maintains that there is a distinction among human beings but one cannot manifest his or her righteousness until they leave "this world." In the section that follows, Sim. 4:1-8, Hermas is told that there will come a time when one will be able to know which is which; the sinners will be “fruitless” (akarpoi) and therefore Hermas should be “fruitful” (karpofo/rhson) so that he will not look like a sinner (Sim. 4:5).[28] Thus, a mark of the sinner is the inability to “produce fruit.” If the accepted gender role (for either male or female) is to reproduce, this is an explicit charge of impotency and a connotation of demasculinization for the male; for the female sinner, it is also a charge that she is not fulfilling the expected and “normal” role of her gender. The sinner in “The Shepherd” is understood not specifically as flawed masculinity, but as an ambiguous gendered category: as one who does not conform to expected, socially constructed gender roles.

4. The Sinner as Femme

Through two examples from Classical literature, two examples from the LXX, and two examples from the literature of the first and early second centuries, I have argued that there are two primary connotations of amartlwlo/j. The most obvious one is also the most accepted meaning: the sinner always stands in opposition to the righteous (or to social norms), even though the categories “sinner” and “the righteous” shift according to context. This particular connotation has its strongest evidence in the Psalms and in Ben Sira, and it remains strong in the literature contemporary with Romans.

Further, I have argued that “sinner” also has a sense of “missing the mark,” and, as Aristotle first articulated, the “mean” is perfection and the sinner is either excessive or defective. For the psalmist, the act of justification or purification occurs by taking away all that is excessive (everything beyond what is necessary, anything that corrupts what is considered pure, whole or perfect). And within both of these groups – Classical Greek and LXX – “the sinner” and “the righteous” are categories of human beings. As we approach the literature of the first century, the categories begin to become more ambiguous.

A typically Aristotelian depiction of “sinner” posits an ideal, immovable mark against which all else is measured. However, Aristotle’s concept of the logical and biological ideal is invested with what he identifies as masculine traits.[29] Aristotle’s “sinner” comes to represent all who fall short of the ideal, yet he makes that ideal masculine. This image of the “ideal” as perfect male is made explicit in “The Lives of Adam and Eve.” God becomes the personification of perfect righteousness and the humans represent sinners (though Adam retains, as a man, an essence of righteousness). The connotations of sinner in the Psalms and in Ben Sira assume that there is an ideal standard as well, but the standard is defined by those who are in the center -- all else by comparison is imperfect.

“The sinner,” traditionally, is everything the good person, or the normal person, or the pure person is not. The sinner is perceived particularly as someone who does not conform to his or her prescribed social roles. But above all, the norm (or the pure, or the good) is constructed as a masculine ideal --principally in the development of Hellenism. Full-blown in Christian scripture, the masculine ideal is realized as God the husband, God the father, God the son, God the judge, God the king. Thus, deviation from that ideal would acquire a greater degree of feminization. For a man to be called a sinner in Hellenistic Christianity might have suggested not only alienation from God as a theological concept but also could imply distance from the masculine ideal. If, for example, women are understood as imperfect males, as Aristotle implies,[30] then women by definition are always “sinners,” and the sinner is more of a woman than the non-sinner.

In the Psalms and Ben Sira, which suggest that “sinfulness” is always in opposition to righteousness, there is a clear chasm between those who are sinners and the righteous ones. I detect anxiety, however, in “The Shepherd of Hermas” as it introduces the idea of less-than-ideal masculinity and femininity: the impotent male, the barren female. As the shepherd tells us explicitly that the sinner is unable to produce fruit, the ambiguous categories connect the sinner to an image of sexual dysfunction. Likewise, the Vitae implies that Adam is in a liminal space: he is human and unable to be wholly righteous (as God is righteous) but he is male and certainly more righteous than Eve. And Eve’s liminality is that she is a wife who cannot be with her husband. The option then presents itself that human beings can become righteous and reconciled with God. Human reconciliation with God is a theme that comes up early in Paul’s letter to the Romans.

B. Paul and the Sinner in the Letter to the Romans

Only in Paul’s writings do the separate images of “the sinner as not-righteous” and “God as masculine ideal” begin to erupt into a theology that implies that “sinner” = not-masculine. As Paul conjures up, again and again, “male” metaphors for God (the images of God as father, God as son[31]; God as one who adopts us[32]; God as judge;[33] or God as king[34]), metaphors, symbols, and other signifiers of individuals in general become feminized and rendered as ambiguous in relation to the idea of masculine perfection.[35] The binary “sinner/righteous,” so strong in Psalms and in Ben Sira as it divides human beings into categories, emerges in Paul’s letters, particularly in Romans, as a category that separates God from human beings. While one might understand such a move as theologically divisive, or, at least, potentially destructive in its vertical, hierarchical construct, the act of grouping all humans together -- that is, both the Gentile and Jewish Christians of the Roman community – may also function as a way to blur internal differences. The result is that all humans are united under the guise of imperfection. Thus, when Paul says, “all have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God,” (3:23) he is being quite literal: God is perfection -- that is, perfect masculinity (whatever that is) -- and the rest of us are sinners -- that is, we are not perfectly masculine. The category of “flawed masculinity” becomes doubly problematic for men, as Eilberg-Schwartz has already suggested.[36] Human masculinity exists as an ambiguous category that is not within masculinity (as God is masculine) and not femininity (as woman is feminine).[37] In Romans, Paul seeks, I think, to remove the gendered ambiguities.

In Romans 3, where Paul first uses the words amartlwlo/j and a9marti/a in that letter (3:7, 9, respectively), he speaks in binaries: human injustice versus God’s justice (3:5); human falsehood versus God’s truthfulness (3:7); human evil as opposed to God’s goodness (3:8). Whereas the writers of Psalms and Ben Sira talked about sin/righteousness as categories of humans, Paul uses the dichotomies as separators of humans and God. Paul declares “all, both Jews and Greeks, are under the power of sin: there is no one who is righteous, not even one (3:9-10).” For Paul, the relationship that defines “sinner” is not just one of a “good” or “normal” person against one who deviates from that norm -- or, in other words, Paul’s “sinner” does not simply mean “not righteous.” Rather, Paul’s definition of sinner emerges as “not-God.”[38] Though sinner does suggest “not righteous” for Paul in general, he has already declared that only God is righteous (3:9-10; 3:23). If one is not God, then one is not righteous, i.e., a sinner.

Chapter 3 of Romans not only introduces the words “sin” (3:9,20) and “sinner” (3:7) but is a conclusion to an argument Paul weaves throughout chapters 1 and 2. Paul first claims that all gentiles are separate from God – one piece of evidence of their idolatry is found in their homoeroticism (1:18-32);[39] then Paul claims that all Jews are separate from God -- one evidence of their idolatry[40] is circumcision without keeping all the Law (2:17-29); and finally, chapter 3 concludes that the whole world is separate from God and in need of justification, or reconciliation.

While the message that “the whole world is in need of justification” can be considered as one of community unification,[41] Paul’s use of the example of homoeroticism and circumcision so early in Romans (chapters 1-3) betrays, I think, a subliminal tendency to think of sin in terms of “imperfect masculinity” (as Paul understands it).[42]

As others have already observed, Paul certainly personifies sin (just as he personifies God).[43] For example, according to Paul in Romans, sin is embodied (6:6), sin holds us captive (3:9; 5:21; 6:7; 6:16-23, 7:26), sin was born (5:12), sin deceives and kills (7:11). And, beginning in chapter six, Paul sets up parallels between God and sin: in 6:13, Paul tells the Romans to “no longer present your members as instruments of wickedness,” but “present your members to God as instruments of righteousness.” In 6:16-23, Paul portrays sin and God as slave-masters, so to speak: “But now that you have been freed from sin and enslaved to God, the advantage you get is sanctification” (6:22). Paul continues a parallel of sin and God in chapter seven. Paul writes, for example, “With my mind, I am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin (7:26). Not only does Paul parallel God and sin, he also aligns God with mind and sin with body – an idea that Paul develops throughout chapter 7. Though I hesitate to restate that in the Western discourse of philosophy and gender, mind/soul = male, and body = female,[44] I will. Boyarin makes the association clear when he writes,

[Genevieve] Lloyd has shown how this dualism [of universal mind and socially marked body] became rewritten historically such that the universal mind came to be identified as male, while the engendered body became female.[45]

Since Paul personifies God with gender, it should come as no surprise that the personification of God’s antithesis would be gendered as well. More, if God’s gender is perfect masculinity, the gender of sin would have to be imperfect masculinity.

That Paul unconsciously connects the sinner with “imperfect masculinity” becomes explicit in 7:2-6 when he uses a woman as a metaphor for “one who knows the Law.” (7:1). Paul describes a woman who is “bound by law” to her husband until he dies. Once he is dead, she is free to marry another man. He writes, “in the same way, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God” (7:4). Yet, one of the problems with defining sinner as “imperfect masculinity” is that one should have some idea what “masculinity” is. The idea “masculinity” mutates from culture to culture, even from person to person. As a general rule, it is safe to say that conformity to socially produced gender roles was a chief concern in the minds of early Christian writers. For example, David J. A. Clines has suggested that the “literary portraiture” of Jesus conforms to popular Greco-Roman notions of ideal masculinity.[46] Clines offers a partial list of what he identifies as “traditional male traits,” which raises a whole other set of issues, but Clines does note that the one standard by which masculinity is invariably measured is against femininity: “The primary rule,” he says, “is don’t be female.”[47] OK. But what does that mean? According to Bernadette Brooten, one dominant characteristic of what was considered to be the natural, gendered order, is that being female is being the passive, physical partner: “the male is naturally active and females naturally passive.”[48] Others have argued that central to masculinity is the ability to reproduce; impotency suggests flawed masculinity.[49] Brooten goes on to argue that the protests in early Christian writings against homoeroticism were actually provoked by perceived transgressions of “natural” gender roles. Not only would Paul perceive homoeroticism as unnatural, he would also find it, particularly male homoeroticism, as a trope for imperfect masculinity. Paul provides the remedy for flawed masculinity in chapter 5.

Paul tells the Roman church that because Christ has died for the sinners (5:8), sinners are justified only through Jesus’ blood and are then reconciled (5:10-11) with God.[50] In the justification through the blood of Jesus, Paul provides a resolution to a very real conflict. Paul, in Romans 5, produces the only way that “sinners,” those with flawed masculinity, can be perfect – though it may not be the perfection they expect.[51] Given possible anxieties over the inadequacy of human male masculinities in the face of God’s perfect masculinity, it is not surprising that reconciliation occurs only through one who embodies the two sources of the anxieties: perfect masculinity (as the adopted son of God after resurrection) and flawed masculinity (as a human male). According to Paul in Romans, Jesus lived his life as a human “descended from David, according to the flesh” and then became the son of God “according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection” (1:4). Yet, Paul’s remedy for human males has a twist. Perfection (in the guise of divine masculinity) is not possible, according to Romans, until after one has shed their fleshly bodies,[52] – even Jesus did not become perfect until after his resurrection. On the other hand, Paul’s remedy in Romans allows another type of perfection: perfect femininity.

Predictably, Paul imagines the reconciliation of sinners with God in the metaphor of marriage (7:4-6). As I have quoted above, Paul writes, “you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit (karpoforh/swmen) for God” (7:4). Bearing fruit. That’s the name of the game. Rather than bolstering the masculinity of the sinner, Paul’s portrayal of the sinner as “the bride of Christ” reifies his or her femininity. Paul presents the sinner, who was unable to bear fruit, according to the Shepherd, as a mature, child-bearing woman -- not an effeminate male, not a circumcised male, not a physically active woman who has sex with other women -- but a real, honest-to-god, physically passive, baby-birthing, woman. Paul’s notions of reconciliation do not bring the sinner (particularly the male sinner) out of the ambiguous area of “flawed masculinity” into “perfect masculinity.” Rather, justification in Christ removes gendered ambiguities by making the sinner conform entirely to popular notions of femininity – at least, while he is living in the flesh.

Conclusion

Paul’s imaging of God as masculine not only creates gendered ambiguity, particularly for men, as others have already noted,[53] but engenders the concept of “sinner” as already more feminine. Earlier understandings of amartlwlo/j implied that the sinner is someone who “fails to do their gender right.”[54] But with Paul, the “right” way to do gender is the heterosexual masculine way for which God sets the impossible standard. The “sinner” is imagined, then, in symbols that reflect less-than-ideal heterosexual masculinity. To complicate matters, according to the “theology” that Paul teaches to the Roman church, all are sinners, and sin gets personified as feminine. Since sin, flesh, and the feminine are so intertwined in Paul’s philosophical foundations, perfect masculinity cannot exist until after death when men (like Jesus) are rid of their bodies. Thus, to appropriate the ambiguity of “not masculine but not female,” reconciliation in this life emerges as a reification of heterosexual femininity.[55]

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[1] For example, amartwlo/j does not appear at all in Philo, Josephus, Epictetus or other works of Stoicism.

[2] Karl Wilke, Polistrati Epicurei [Peri alogou kataphroneseos] (Lipsiae: B. G. Teubneri, 1905), 73

[3] Jan Demianczuk, Supplementum comicum, Comoediae Graecae fragmenta post editiones Kockianam et Kaibelianam reperta, vel indicata (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1967). The complete fragment 24 is found in Photius Berolinenis v. Reitzenstein, Anfang d. Lex. d. Photios: 88,4.

[4] See H. G. Liddell and Robert Scott, Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1940), 1339; Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), 627. I have found no commentary of Thesmophoriazusae that addresses the occurrence of a9martwlo/j. However, A. M. Bowie discusses the transgressiveness of this play, particularly in its playfulness with gender. Aristophanes: Myth, Ritual, and Comedy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 205-227; on the sexual overtones of the crossdressing in Thesmophoriazusae, see J. Henderson, The Maculate Muse (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 134f.

[5] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. H. Rackham, Editor (London: William Heinemann LTD, 1934)2:9:2.

[6] Homer, The Odyssey, 12.219. This remark is actually spoken by Odysseus as his ship approaches the whirlpool of Charybdis.

[7] The occurrences of a9martwlo/j in Eupolis and in Philodemus are extremely brief; for the sake of brevity, I refer the reader to “The Gendered Sinner,” Unpublished Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 2000, for my complete comments on those works.

[8] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Paul and His Theology (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 29; Jürgen Becker, Paul: Apostle to the Gentiles (Louisville: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 1993), 34.

[9] E. P. Sanders best addresses Paul and his familiarity with the LXX in E. P Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985); see also Richard B. Hays, “The Role of Scripture in Paul’s Ethics,” Eugene H. Lovering, Jr. and Jerry L. Sumney, eds., Theology and Ethics in Paul and His Interpreters (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 30-47.

[10] Amartwlo/j occurs in Tobit two times, Wisdom of Solomon two times, Sirach thirty-nine times, and 1 Maccabees five times, Amos two times, Isaiah six times, Ezekiel three times, Daniel three times, Psalms seventy times, and Proverbs six times.

[11] Proverbs alone uses amartwlo/j to translate four of these words.

[12] Neale, None But Sinners (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991), 76; Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 177; See also James D. G. Dunn, “Pharisees, Sinners, and Jesus,” in Jacob Neusner, Ernest Frerichs, Peder Borgen, Richard Horsley, Editors, The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 274

[13] yÏr is not translated to amartwloi/ in the following Psalms: 9:5; 10:13; 11:2, 5, 6; 12:8; 17:9, 13; 26:5; 31:17; 36:1; 37:28, 35, 38; 75:4; 104:35.

[14] In addition to shared themes, the two passages, Psalm 104 and Genesis 1, overlap on several key vocabulary words: Mimsh fvy (Ps. 104:12, Gn. 1:26); Midyvml (Ps. 104:19, Gn. 1:14); vtic (Ps. 104:11, 20, Gn. 1:24); bsy (Ps. 104:14, Gn. 1:11-2, 29-30); and Mvqm (Ps. 104:8, Gn. 1:9); On the similarities between the two passages, see P. Humbert, “La Relation de Genese 1 et du Psaume 104 avec la Liturgie du Nouvel-An Israëlite,” in Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 15 (1935): 1-27; and A. Van der Voort, “Genese 1:1 a 2:4a et le Psaume 104,” in Revue Biblique 58 (1951): 321-47. Van der Voort asserts that the Genesis passage is later and “reflects the use of the psalm.” Leslie C. Allen, Psalms 101-150, in David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, eds. (Waco: Word Books: 1983), 31.

[15] Though no one argues that Ps. 104:35 is not an original part of the rest of the hymn, several have noted that the verse is not exactly in sync with the rest of the passage. Leslie Allen, Psalms 101-150, 28, that verse 35 “falls outside the poetic structure of the psalm.” Martin Dahood, (Psalms, Anchor Bible 16, 17, 17a [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966-70], 17:33) comments on the “oddness” of the language of v. 35 (cf. Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 60-150: A Commentary [Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989], 304).

[16] Psalms uses dBa twenty-six times (1:6; 2:12; 5:6; 9:3, 5, 6, 18; 10:16; 21:10; 31:12; 37:20; 41:5; 49:10; 68:2; 73:27; 30:16; 83:17; 92:9; 102:26; 112:10; 119:92, 95, 176; 142:4; 143:12; 146:4) and hmd twice (49:12; 49:20) to mean perish.

[17] Cf. perfection: 18:30, 32; 19:7; 37:7; 64:4; 101:2, 2, 6; 139:22; integrity: 7:8; 25:21; 26:1, 11; 41:12; 78:72; uprightness: 7:11; 11:2, 7; 18:23, 25, 25; 19:13; 37:18.

[18] For example, according to The New Brown, Driver, and Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, edited by Francis Brown with the cooperation of S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs (Lafayette, Ind.: Associated Publishers and Authors,

1981), 308, aTc can mean “to purify (eleven times), cleanse (eight times), purge (once), reconciliation (once). Gesenius’ Lexicon also lists one of its meanings as “to expiate, to cleanse:” Samuel Prideaux Tregelles, Gesenius’ Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971), 271.

[19] Peter C. Craigie (Psalms 1-50, David A. Hubbard, Glenn W. Barker, John D. W. Watts, eds. [Waco: Word Books: 1983]), sets up these Psalms in the following relationship: “1) the solid foundation of the righteous (1:1-3); 2) the impermanence of the wicked (1:4-5); 3) a contrast of the righteous and the wicked (1:6)” (59).

[20] Neale, None But Sinners, 78.

[21] Neale, None But Sinners, 95.

[22] I am using “deviant” to mean that which exists apart from what is socially acceptable behavior. See David P. Aday, Social Control at the Margins: Toward a General Understanding of Deviance (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1990); Erdwin H. Pfuhl, The Deviance Process (New York: van Nostrand, 1980).

[23] There are both Greek and Latin versions of “The Lives of Adam and Eve.”

[24] M. D. Johnson, translator and introduction, “The Life of Adam and Eve,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 Volumes, James H. Charlesworth, ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1985), volume II, 249-295. These two works, Romans and Vitae, were probably written about forty years apart.

[25] John R. Levison, “The Exoneration of Eve in the Apocalypse of Moses,” in Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and Roman Periods, 29 (1989), 135-150.

[26] Levison comments on Eve’s redemption in “The Exoneration of Eve,” 141.

[27] The latest possible date for “The Shepherd” is set by its mention in the Muratorian canon where the canon’s editors reject it because it was “written quite recently, in our own time in the city of Rome, by Hermas, while his brother Pius [c. 148 CE] was sitting on the throne of the church of the city of Rome.” Kirsopp Lake, “The Shepherd of Hermas,” E. Capps, T. E. Page, and W. H. D. Rouse, eds., The Loeb Classical Library: The Apostolic Fathers, Two Vol. (London: William Heinemann, 1924), 2:2-3; Graydon F. Snyder, “Hermas’ The Shepherd,” David N. Freedman, ed. Anchor Bible Dictionary, Six Volumes (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 3:148. John Christian Wilson, on the other hand, argues that “The Shepherd” may have been written as early as 80CE. Toward a Reassessment of the Shepherd of Hermas: Its Date and Its Pneumatology (Lewiston: Mellen Biblical Press, 1993), 9-61.

[28] All six occurrences of a9martwlo/j are in the passages mentioned above (Man 2; Sim. 3, Sim. 4).

[29] On Aristotle’s perception of a gendered rational and biological ideal, see Marguerite Deslauriers, "Sex and Essence in Aristotle's Metaphysics and Biology,” in Cynthia A. Freeland, Editor, Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998), 138-67; Kathleen C. Cook, “Sexual Inequality in Aristotle's Theories of Reproduction and Inheritance,” in Julie K. Ward, editor, Feminism and Ancient Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1996), 51-67; Marcia Homiak, “Feminism and Aristotle’s Rational Ideal,” Feminism and Ancient Philosophy, 118-37; Charlotte Witt, “Form, Normativity, and Gender in Aristotle: A Feminist Perspective,” Feminist Interpretations of Aristotle, 118-37.

[30] Thomas Laqueur best argues that Aristotle’s notion of biological equality rests on a masculine ideal. See Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 25-35; See also Bernadette Brooten, Love Between Women, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 157n.

[31] For example, see Gal. 1:1, 3; Phl. 2:11; 1 Th. 1:1; Rom. 1:7, 6:4, 8:15, 15:6; 2 Cor. 1:19; Gal. 2:20.

[32] Rom. 8:12-17, 23. Only males could adopt by Roman law. See J. M. Scott, Adoption as the Sons of God (Tübingen: Mohr, 1992), 9; David John Williams, Paul’s Metaphors (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1999), 83 n135. Closely related to Paul’s metaphors of “adoption” is his rhetoric of inheritance. God is envisioned, it seems, as an elite landowning male who bestows his possessions on sinners. See Gal. 4:1, 7.

[33] Rms. 3:21-26; 4:5, 8:30,33. This metaphor is implied through the idea that God “justifies” or “reconciles” the sinner. See Williams, Paul’s Metaphors, 144-7, on Paul’s use of the image of “God as judge.”

[34] Rms. 14:7; 1Cor. 4:20; 6:9,10; 15:24, 50; Gal. 5:21; 1 Th. 2:12.

[35] Howard Eilberg-Schwartz discusses various problems that result from imagining God as divine masculinity, among which are the feminization of the male worshipper and the devaluation of the feminine overall. God’s Phallus and Other Problems for Men and Monotheism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1994), 141-2.

[36] Ibid.

[37] I am not saying that there are only two genders; I am saying that Paul’s historical and social context would have recognized only two “natural” genders: male and female.

[38] E. P. Sanders points toward this distinction between what he calls the righteousness terminology of Palestinian Judaism and Paul’s use of the term “righteousness”: “Most succinctly, righteousness in Judaism is a term which implies the maintenance of status among the group of the elect.” E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 544. Sanders’s comments reflect “the new perspective” of Paul’s understandings of justification: Paul is concerned with the unification of a community that contains both Jewish and gentile Christians – as opposed to drawing sharp distinctions between those who keep the Law and those who do not. See also J. D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1998), 334-340; Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994); Mark D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996); William S. Campbell, Paul's Gospel in an Intercultural Context: Jew and Gentile in the Letter to the Romans (New York : P. Lang, 1991).

[39] It is questionable if Paul is indeed talking about homoeroticism in this passage. For the sake of argument, I will begin with the premise that he is. See William Countryman, Dirt, Greed, and Sex (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 97-123. One of Paul’s primary concerns in both Romans 1:18-24 and Romans 7 is idolatry. On Romans 1, Daniel Patte and Franz Leenhardt have convincingly argued that Paul understands that God may be known to an extent in God’s creations. Leenhardt notes that humanity has the capacity to have knowledge of God but has refused the “real and valid knowledge which God offered them.” Franz Leenhardt, The Epistle to the Romans (London: Lutterworth Press, 1961), 64-5; For Leenhardt, the result of human blindness to God is the inability to discern what is natural from what is perverse. Patte understands God’s knowableness similarly. He writes, “What is knowable about God is manifest (or “plain”)…He makes himself known… In sum, God manifests himself in the world in such a way that any human being can clearly perceive and know him.” Daniel Patte, Paul’s Faith and the Power of the Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), 258-9. Patte and Leenhardt define idolatry as not knowing the real, the natural in God’s creatures. Therefore, how can humanity know what is “natural” concerning anything else? “They corrupt the human body and human relations which were supposed to be manifestations of God’s power and deity” (Patte, 261-2). In other words, God may be known through the natural, which is a part of God’s ordering of the universe, but God cannot be known in disorder and in those things that the human has rendered “unnatural.”

[40] In addition to those unnatural and idolatrous images named in Romans 1:23, Patte also suggests that Paul views the Jewish understanding of Torah as idolatrous; it is the same type of misrecognition of God’s presence as found in the images of chapter 1. Patte writes, “This enslavement to the Law has the same effect upon the Jews’ life that the enslavement to idolatry has on the pagans. The pagans follow the demands of their bodies - this part of the creation out of which they made an absolute - because they believe that in so doing they do good…Similarly, the Jews follow the demands of the Law - this revelation that they received from God and out of which they made an absolute - because they believe that in so doing they do good.” Patte, 263.

[41] Brooten comments on the “boundary-blurring potential” of homoeroticism within Paul’s Roman community. See Brooten, Love Between Women, 361.

[42] On the relationship between circumcision and reduced masculinity, see Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus, 157; 229-30; The Savage in Judaism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 141-77.

[43] Dunn, for example, comments on Paul’s personification of sin in The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 111-14.

[44] I hesitate because, to paraphrase Judith Butler, when I restate women’s perceived connection with the body, I perpetuate that connection.

[45] Daniel Boyarin, Galatians and Gender Trouble: Primal Androgyny and the First-Century Origins of a Feminist Dilemma (Berkeley: Center for Hermeneutical Studies, 1995), 2; He cites Genevieve Lloyd, The Man of Reason: “male” and “female” in Western Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984), 7.

[46] Clines, David J. A., “Ecce Vir, or, Gendering the Son of Man,” Cheryl Exum and Stephen D. Moore, Editors, Biblical Studies/Cultural Studies (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 352-375.

[47] Ibid., 371. Clines is following the typology of J. A. Doyle, The Male Experience (Dubuque, IA: William C. Brown, 2nd edn, 1989).

[48] Brooten, Love Between Women, 352.

[49] See Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus, 200-02; Phyllis Bird, ‘”Male and Female He Created Them,’” Harvard Theological Review 74 (2):129-59; Shaye Cohen, “Crossing the Boundary and Becoming a Jew,” Harvard Theological Review 2 (I): 13-34;

[50] The idea that the sinner can be made righteous again through a reunion with God appears, if you recall, in “The Lives of Adam and Eve.” Eve knows that Adam has been separated from the righteousness of God through her sin and seeks to remove herself so that God will return to Adam and he can be made righteous once again (section 29). The reconciliation, in my view, does not occur in this body. In light of Paul’s comments in chapter 3 and his perpetual oppositioning of human sinfulness and God’s righteousness, I would agree with Ernst Käsemann who says that the reconciliation of the sinner occurs eschatologically. See Ernst Käsemann, “‘The Righteousness of God’ in Paul,” in New Testament Questions of Today (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), 168-82. For an opposing view, see Rudolf Karl Bultmann, “Dikaiosyne Theou,” Journal of Biblical Literature 83 (1964) 12-16.

[51] Though Paul does recognize an opportunity for human righteousness through a reconciliation with God, it is not clear if the human being is reconciled to God in this lifetime or after death I doubt very much that Paul would be able to imagine (masculine) perfection in all human bodies. I follow Käsemann in that complete reconciliation occurs only after the flesh is destroyed (see previous note). See discussion of human righteousness in J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 262-63; also in Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism, 451-53; Fitzmyer, Paul and His Theology, 36, 60, 78-9.

[52] Dunn writes, “In short, Paul walks quite a fine line between regarding flesh as irredeemably flawed and treating it as actively antithetic and hostile to God.” Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 67. Baptism (Rom. 6:34), I would argue, is a symbol for the future resurrection of the faithful. It is the best they can do while still carrying around the burden of the flesh. See Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 450-55.

[53] See Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of CA Press, 1994); Eilberg-Schwartz, God’s Phallus, 141-2.

[54] Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 1990), 140.

[55] One implication of understanding the entire world as “not perfect masculinity” is that femininity would be the “natural” state of the world. A toxic byproduct of Paul’s Roman theology is that men who are perceived as “effeminate” (malakoi/, for example) and women in general are considered doubly sinful. On the various understandings of malakoi/, see Brooten’s discussion and notes in Love Between Women, 260 and 260n.

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