[JSNTS4 (2001) 51-64]

ISSN0142-064X

REVIEW ESSAY:

JUSTIN J. MEGGITT, PAUL, POVERTY AND SURVIVAL*

Dale B. Martin
Department of Religious Studies, Yale University
PO Box 208287, New Haven CT 06520-8287

In this book, a revision of his doctoral thesis, Justin Meggitt addresses

the problem of the economic level of the earliest Pauline churches and
Paul himself. The majority of the book comprises an argument against
'the so-called "New Consensus'" (p. 99) among many scholars that holds
that the early Pauline churches incorporated people from different
social levels and economic backgrounds. This consensus has developed
in reaction to an older view, associated with early Marxist treatments
(Karl Kautzky) and later with Adolf Deissmann, that Christianity was a
movement made up almost exclusively of slaves, poor peasants, the
destitute, and poverty-stricken manual laborers. The story of the over-
turning of the older view has been told many times beforeindeed by
those scholars Meggitt credits with orchestrating the New Consensus,
especially Gerd Theissen, Abraham Malherbe and Wayne Meeks.1 In
his own study, Meggitt calls for more rigorous socio-economic analysis
and a thorough questioning of the many details and interpretations that
have supported the New Consensus. He proposes that the newer views
are 'dependent upon anachronistic and inappropriate interpretations of

* Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1998.

1. Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1982), p. 69, and see the 'Introduction' by John H. Schtz, pp. 3-11;
Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 2nd edn, 1983), esp. pp. 31-59; Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Chris-
tians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1983), pp. 51-53.
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52 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 84 (2001)

first-century society' and that the evidence used to support the New
Consensus 'cannot stand up to close scrutiny' (p. 100).
Meggitt argues, on the contrary, 'that Paul and his followers should
be located amongst the "poor" of the first century, that they faced the
same anxieties over subsistence that beset all but the privileged few in
that society' (p. 179). By 'the poor', Meggitt means the 'destitute',
people who live 'at or near subsistence level' (p. 5). In the words of
Peter Garnsey, on whom Meggitt here depends, the poor are those
'whose prime concern it is to obtain the minimum food, shelter, and
clothing necessary to sustain life, whose lives are dominated by the
struggle for physical survival' (p. 5).2 It is precisely among this social
class that Meggitt places all members of the Pauline circles. Not only
does he insist that they were not members of the 'lite', he insists that
they were 'indigent' and 'destitute' (p. 4), they all lived 'brutal and
frugal lives, characterised by struggle and impoverishment' (p. 73), and
they existed in 'abject poverty' (p. 50). The level of poverty to which
Meggitt assigns the early Christians and his insistence that they all
were members of the same economic group do indeed provide a sharp
contrast to what may fairly be called a current consensus on the socio-
economic realities of the Pauline churches.
Meggitt spends a great deal of his energies in this book attacking the
current consensus, which is understandable given its popularity among
so many scholars of early Christianity. One short chapter offers a more
'constructive' portrait of Pauline Christianity. He argues that, once we
understand the economic realities experienced by Pauline Christians,
we can better recognize the distinctive, indeed unique, strategy they
developed to deal with the economic and social hardships they all
shared. They practiced, Meggitt claims, 'mutualism as a survival strat-
egy' (p. 163). Meggitt borrows the concept and terminology of 'mutu-
alism' from studies of nineteenth-century social movements (see p. 157
nn. 16 and 17) but argues that they are applicable to ancient groups as
well. 'Mutualism' is defined simply as 'the implicit or explicit belief
that individual and collective well-being is attainable above all by
mutual interdependence' (p. 158, his emphasis). Meggitt claims that
'mutualism' is not the same as 'reciprocity', since reciprocity may not
be 'equitable', as seen for example in patron-client relations, which

2. Peter Garnsey and Greg Woolf, 'Patronage of the Rural Poor in the Roman
World', in Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (ed.), Patronage in Ancient Society (London:
Routledge, 1990), p. 153.

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 MARTIN Paul, Poverty and Survival 53

Meggitt claims had no significant influence on early Christian relation-

ships or structures. The early Christian groups met their economic
needs by mutual assistance among equals, a practice of which the best
example is the 'collection' of the Pauline churches for the assistance of
the poor in the church at Jerusalem. Egalitarian economic reciprocity,
or 'mutualism'not 'self-sufficiency', or 'hospitality', or patron-client
relationsprovided the primary form of economic relationship among
and within the Pauline churches:
Christian economic mutualism not only provided a valuable survival
strategy for early believers but it probably improved the situation of the
early Christians, not only through the positive construction of a new form
of economic relationship, but also by freeing the small number of
congregants that might have been involved in patronage ties from
exploitative relationships with members of the lite classes (pp. 174-
175).
Meggitt is to be commended for his boldness in taking on a popular
consensus in scholarship and challenging both its general conclusions
and its interpretation of historical detail. Challenges to scholarly con-
sensus are the stuff of intellectual vigor. Meggitt's study is also to be
praised for thoroughness in sifting through much material related to
ancient society and economy, both primary and secondary sources. And
Meggitt is surely correct in his criticisms of exaggerations by some
adherents to the consensus. The idea, for example, that Pauline Christi-
anity was actually an lite movement (either made up of upper-class
persons or almost entirely controlled by them) is, in my opinion and
that probably of most supporters of the consensus, not supportable by
the evidence. To mention another example, it is misleading to speak of
a 'middle class' or 'bourgeoisie' at all in the Roman world. Even if
some people occupied socio-economic positions somewhere between
the destitute poor and the wealthiest 1 per cent or less of the population
(I believe such people did exist, Meggitt apparently does not), labeling
such people as 'middle class' or 'bourgeoise' erroneously implies that
they constituted a 'class' in the sense of modern (especially Marxist)
analysis: that is, that as a group they played a significant role in the
primary modes of production of the economy as a whole; that they pro-
vided an important source for the 'capital' needed to drive the economic
system. Many historians (including some of those most responsible for
the New Consensus, such as Wayne Meeks, who in this regard was
influenced by Roman social historian Ramsay MacMullen) have

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insisted that there was no 'middle class' in the ancient world and that
all such talk should be avoided when speaking of the social location of
early Christians. Meggitt, therefore, is certainly right to criticize such
language when it is applied to ancient Christians.
Unfortunately, Meggitt's book is so marred by flawsbasic methodo-
logical problems along with misleading rhetoricthat in the end it is
unconvincing in its main theses. As a corrective to some exaggerations
of a popular consensus it may be welcome, but as a challenge to the
consensus itself and as an alternative proposal, it fails.
Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the method of
Meggitt and those he criticizes is his insistence that the ancient socio-
economic world can, indeed should, be divided up into only two
groups: the wealthy or lite (the categories are coterminous for Meg-
gitt), which comprised 1 per cent of the population or less, and the
poor, destitute, indigent, non-lite, or those who lived 'at or near sub-
sistence level' (again coterminous categories), who made up 99 per
cent or more of the population (see pp. 13, 99). In contrast to recent
treatments of ancient society that have urged notions of 'relative depri-
vation' or 'status inconsistency',3 Meggitt states that for the ancient
world 'poverty is best understood as an absolute rather than relative
phenomenon' (p. 5). Thus, 'plebeians', the 'military' and 'merchant
classes' are all grouped together with the destitute, and 'the aristoc-
racy' alone occupies the other side of the dichotomy (p. 115). People
who live right at 'subsistence level' are lumped with all those below or
just above subsistence level (pp. 66-67, 131), indeed with everyone in
the empire not a member of the highest 1 per cent. One may question,
though, whether such simplification constitutes a step backward rather
than forward. Most scholars have argued that more (not less) nuanced
analysis of ancient class and status is necessary if we are to make sense
of the variety of data related to social conflict reflected in the sources.
Meggitt's position that such nuance makes no difference or is mis-
leading and that we must work with only two, and rather simplistic,
categories hardly seems to represent a historiographical advance.
Meggitt foresees that this aspect of his method may be controversial:
am aware that much of my subsequent analysis appears at times
somewhat undifferentiated...' (p. 5). He admits that 'there were sig-

3. For example, see John G. Gager, Kingdom and Community: The Social
World of Early Christianity (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975), pp. 27-
28; Meeks, The First Urban Christians, p. 55, and compare p. 215 n. 20.

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 MARTIN Paul, Poverty and Survival 55

nificant differences between members of this group [i.e., the "poor"]

and these would have appeared important to the poor themselves'. He
insists, though, that for his purposes such differences are negligible:
'[I]n order to emphasise the reality of the economic predicament that
was shared by all members of this group, it is important that this term
[the "poor"] is used without lengthy qualifications, wherever applica-
ble' (p. 5).4 Meggitt's desire to show what all persons in his category
had in common is supposed to justify his use of only one category to
include all the persons he wants to analyze. Isn't this begging the
question? The very question at issue is whether using one simplistic
category for 99 per cent or more of the population of the Roman empire
clarifies more than it distorts. Can one simplistic category, into which
all early Christians admittedly may be placed, help us understand noted
diversities among early Christians and the potential conflicts caused or
exacerbated by them? Meggitt's claim that he must use only one cate-
gory so that he can show what they all had in common asks the reader
to concede the dispute on Meggitt's terms. It is classic question beg-
ging.
If the reader goes along with Meggitt's dichotomy, problems soon
arise. For example, against other scholars who point to early Christian
slave-owners as evidence that not all Christians were destitute, Meggitt
remarks (quite rightly) that owning slaves did not mean that the owner
was a member of 'the lite'. Slave ownership, that is, was possible for
more than 1 per cent of the population (p. 129). But Meggitt expands
this point to insist therefore that slave-ownership can tell us 'little
about the householder's socio-economic status'. The fact that a person
owned slaves 'cannot serve as a probable indicator of elevated social
status at all' (pp. 131-32, his emphasis). This argument is unconvinc-
ing. In the first place, can we really believe that a man who owned even
a few slaves was in an economic position different in no significant way
from someone who had no possessions except the clothes on his back,
who had no regular job or trade, who had not even enough available
cash to buy a day's food? Certainly if a man had even one or two slaves
he wasn't truly 'destitute': if he did run out of household funds (the
real meaning of 'destitute', after all) he could sell his slaves or even
rent them out for cash. Meggitt attempts to minimize the financial out-

4. See also p. 50 n. 45, where Meggitt admits that one can differentiate levels
among the non-lite, but such differences are not 'of any importance' (p. 49) for his
own purposes.

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56 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 84 (2001)

lay necessary for procuring slaves, though he does so simply by point-

ing out that such questions are notoriously difficult to answer (granted),
by casting aspersions on the studies of others (though providing no
counterevidence himself), and then by simply proclaiming (no proof
provided) that such evidence is irrelevant for ascertaining social status
(see pp. 129-32 and notes there provided). Meggitt ends by pointing
out that soldiers, artisans and even slaves owned slaves, which demon-
strates (he claims) that slave-ownership can tell us nothing of
significance about status. But shouldn't the conclusion rather be that
soldiers, artisans and even some slaves, even though not members of
the lite, should not in the end be simplistically classified with the
'destitute'? That there are significant economic positions held by per-
sons between 'the lite' and those in 'abject poverty' (see p. 50)?
Problems such as this are multiplied throughout the book. Meggitt
addresses different status indicators that have been taken by scholars to
suggest that some Christians were not members of the absolute poor,
such as having a home of one's own, hosting a church or churches in
one's home, owning a business, being able to travel, showing evidence
of Greek rhetorical education, supporting the missionary activities of
others, or practicing benefaction. In each case, Meggitt points out
(rightly) that even members of the non-lite could boast of such activi-
ties. But he then proceeds to insist (wrongly) that since persons outside
the top 1 per cent of the population did such things, then those things
are not evidence that such persons were anything but poor, destitute
and indigentand that such 'status indicators' tell us nothing signifi-
cant about the social status of those ancient persons. He can make such
a claim only because he has already defined the terms of the debate by
means of a simplistic dichotomy.5
If Meggitt's simplistic dichotomy were the sole weakness of the
study the project might be salvageable. But there are others that render

5. Another issue here, which I cannot pursue at length, is Meggitt's expanding

his category of 'the poor' by appeal to psychological state rather than simple eco-
nomic reality. Though Meggitt claims that his category of 'the poor' is absolute and
not relative, and he insists that he is using the rigorous methods of historical-eco-
nomic analysis, he slips and includes a psychological (rather than strictly economic)
criterion for poverty. 'The poor' include not only those people who can be shown,
by strict economic criteria, to be 'destitute', but also those who experience 'anxiety'
about economic survival (p. 5). Meggitt's introduction of historical psychology (and
at quite a distance) is at odds with his stated pursuit of socio-economic rigor.

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Paul, Poverty and Survival unpersuasive. Regrettably, one of them is

Meggitt's tendency to misrepresent the positions of those scholars he
criticizes, usually by exaggeration. He is simply wrong, for instance,
when he insists that advocates of the New Consensus (singling out here
Theissen and Meeks) would dispute his claim that all Pauline Chris-
tians occupied positions among the lower 99 per cent of the population
(p. 99). Neither Theissen nor Meeks, to my knowledge, has ever
claimed that Christians in Paul's churches held social positions in the
top 1 per cent or less of the population. They argue rather that the early
Christians for the most part were neither those at the very top nor those
at the very bottom of the social hierarchy.6 Elsewhere, Meggitt chides
Theissen for regarding 'lite self-consciousness' as 'an unequivocal
class-specific trait', as 'a simple reflection of socio-economic status' (p.
115, my emphasis). But this misrepresents what Theissen said (thus
making it easier for Meggitt to dismiss). In the passage cited by Meg-
gitt, Theissen's wording is considerably less 'simple': he writes rather
that such a 'soteriology of knowledge...can also be a class-specific
factor' (my emphasis).7 As a final example of Meggitt's tendency to
misrepresent the positions of his opponents, perhaps I may be excused
for defending my own work. Though my writings are for the most part
mercifully passed over by Meggitt, he does misrepresent my position in
one instance. He cites me as advocating the assumption that 'most
urban slaves' would have been in situations 'significantly easier than
their rural counterparts' (p. 54 n. 65). I have been unable to find any-
thing in my writings that makes such a simplistic claim. I do believe
that some urban slaves may have been better able than most rural slaves
to use slavery as a means of upward social mobility or access to some
power. But I do not believe I have ever expressed that in print, much
less Meggitt's simplification. In any case, no such sentiment exists in
the pages of my works he cites. Again, by exaggerating or over-simpli-
fying the positions of others, Meggitt makes it easier for himself to
'refute' them.
Another frustrating aspect of Paul, Poverty and Survival is Meggitt's
selective and tendentious use of ancient sources. Meggitt begins his
study by scolding other scholars for uncritical use of lite literary
sources to establish ancient social reality. He admits to using the same

6. Especially Meeks, First Urban Christians, p. 73, but see also pp. 52-53, 57-
59.
7. Social Setting, . 135.

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58 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 84 (2001)

sources, but with a critical reading. He offers, he says, 'history from

below'. Scholars must attend to 'popular culture' and not expect that
ancient lower-class persons would have merely reflected the views of
the upper class (esp. pp. 11-25).
For example, in a context in which Meggitt argues against sugges-
tions of upward social mobility in ancient society, he mentions Dio
Chrysostom's statement that some people could earn enough as artisans
to raise themselves financially {Oration 7.109); Meggitt labels the
opinion as 'optimistic' and unrealistic. Columella's statement that urban
slaves had a relatively easy life {De re rustica 1.8.1-2) is dismissed
(p. 54 n. 65). When the Acts of the Apostles portrays Paul as hobnob-
bing with the rich and famous, which could be taken as evidence of
Paul's own social status, Meggitt dismisses it as part of 'a particular
Tendenz of the author of Luke-Acts' (p. 91). Many scholars have
warned against taking the prejudices of upper-class literary sources
uncritically, and Meggitt is certainly right to urge caution.
Yet when it is to his liking, Meggitt himself takes the opinions of
upper-class writers as reflecting historical reality rather than lite bias,
sometimes in remarkable ways. Repeatedly, for instance, he takes
Lucian of Samosata's statements as socio-economic fact. Cobblers,
builders, fullers and carders all have jobs that are 'laborious and barely
able to supply them with just enough' (p. 55). But we must ask: By
whose standards? Lucian's?8 Meggitt takes all sorts of statements from
Lucian's De mercede conductis to prove that even attachment to a
wealthy household did not spare someone abject destitution (p. 59),
and this without acknowledging the quite clear ideological and satirical
slant of the text: it is Lucian's goal in this document to downplay any
possible financial or social benefit of clientage and to portray even
philosophers as mere poverty-stricken wage laborers. To take Lucian's
depiction of 'household philosophers' as no different from poor day
laborers in a sociological sense is to fall under Lucian's satirical spell.
I noted above Meggitt's dismissal (certainly justified) of Columella's
opinion that urban slaves enjoyed cushy lives. But then, Meggitt cites
Apuleius's depiction in Metamorphoses 9.12 of the slaves in a bakery
as if it were a journalistic report rather than a scene in an upper-class

8. Pp. 54-55 contain several examples of Meggitt taking Lucian's depiction of

the poverty of anyone but the highest lite as socio-economic fact, when of course it
could be the same sort of upper-class exaggeration that is part of the stock in trade
of Lucian's satire.

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 MARTIN Paul, Poverty and Survival 59

novel (p. 54 n. 65). Apuleius's portrait of the hospitality of 'a poor

market gardener' is also put forward as a piece of sociological data
(p. 132).
Meggitt's use of Juvenal's Satires introduces another problematic
case. In the discussion of slave-ownership mentioned above, Meggitt
refers to a character in Satire 3: the man has enough financial resources
to own 'a number of slaves'. But he is also said by Juvenal to be wear-
ing dirty, tattered clothing, which Meggitt proffers as evidence that
maintaining even a modest wardrobe was prohibitive for any but the
highest lite. Even a man with several slaves is nonetheless among the
'destitute' (p. 62). Besides the fact that Meggitt offers all this as socio-
logical 'evidence' with no admission of the possible satiric exaggera-
tion of Juvenal (not exactly famous as an objective reporter of social or
political reality), other statements in the very same Satire pose prob-
lems for Meggitt's use of it here. For example, Meggitt insists that the
possibility of social mobility has been exaggerated by scholars, that it
was almost impossible to move up in the socio-economic order. But the
very man in the Satire used by Meggitt to support his point about slav-
ery is actually in the process of complaining that too many people have
risen from poor 'nobodies' to very high positions in Roman society
(3.34-40). The same man complains that a well-placed slave gave away
the equivalent of a 'legionary tribune's' pay in order to win a high-
class lady's favors (3.132-33). Should we take this as a factual indica-
tor of slaves' wealth and ability to fraternize with lite ladies? The
same man who has been taken by Meggitt as a member of the 'poor and
destitute' calls himself a 'client' (3.188). Should this be taken to dis-
prove the claim Meggitt makes elsewhere that the patron-client system
had no significant effect on the lives of the lower class (see pp. 168-
69)? Finally, we should note that though Meggitt takes the man to be
one of the 'destitute', the same character claims that he was unjustly,
because of his appearance, kicked out of the equestrian seats (of the
theater?, 3.154). What we have here are the exaggerated complaints (a
typical product of Juvenal's satire) of a man who implies that he is (or
was) of equestrian rank, not a member of the lower class at all! My
point is not that we should uncritically accept Juvenal's portrait of the
man's decline, but that Meggitt uncritically accepts Juvenal's depiction
when it supports his views and ignores it when it does not.9

9. A similar example of Meggitt's selective reading of the texts of lite authors

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60 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 84 (2001)

Besides the tendentious use of ancient literary sources, Meggitt's use

of other historical data is too often one-sided and unpersuasive. The
fact that 'craftsmen and women' used magical defixiones is given as
evidence of their 'difficult and desperate situation'as if rich people
did not use magic (p. 56). The factiousness of the Corinthian church
and the fact (in Meggitt's opinion) that 'they articulated their rivalries
in language that evoked the partisan conflicts of the circus and popular
theatre' are taken as evidence that the Corinthians were all of the lower
classas if members of the upper class were not interested in the
circus or theater (p. 97). Ronald Hock's proposal that Paul may have
used his workshop situation as a location for ministry (on analogy with
'the Cynic-artisan Simon the Shoemaker') is dismissed with the mere
statement that 'Paul's modus operandi did not allow him to combine
labour fully with his ministry' and with Meggitt's (apparently omnis-
cient) observation that '[Paul] was far too interested in pastoral and
missionary concerns to spend all day in a taberna' (p. 76). We are
given no evidence for these claims other than Meggitt's pronounced
opinions. Against suggestions that Paul should be compared to the
sophists, Meggitt simply declares that Paul cannot be classed with the
sophists because of his 'Jewishness' (p. 79). No explanation is given
for why 'Jewishness' would preclude someone from acting like a
sophist.10

can be found in his citation of Petronius's Satyricon. The complaints of a character

in the story are offered as historical firsthand evidence for the attitudes of lower-
class persons to affront and labor (they are just as much offended by them as higher-
class persons; see pp. 89-90). What would Meggitt do with the famous statements
by the freedmen at Trimalchio's banquet, who praise slavery as a means of upward
social mobility in the Roman system? Since it is in Meggitt's interest to downplay
the significance of social mobility, he understandably ignores the scene. Again, I do
not believe the freedman's sentiments should be entered as sociological fact. But I
also do not believe the sentiments of a character m the story about affront or manual
labor can be uncritically offered as social data the way Meggitt does so.
10. There are other examples. Meggitt uses Paul's self-characterization as an
idiotes as evidence that Paul did not have a Greek education (p. 84). Several other
scholars have pointed out that this is a misreading of the term. Isocrates, to mention
only one example, calls even those men who were schooled by himself idiotai,
meaning that they were not professional rhetoricians, but not that they were unedu-
cated. See Isocrates, Antidosis 200-204; Against the Sophists 14; Stephen Pogoloff,
Logos and Sophia: The Rhetorical Situation of 1 Corinthians (Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1992); Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University

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 MARTIN Paul, Poverty and Survival 61

Another major stumbling block for Meggitt's thesis lies in certain

problematic, indeed misleading, aspects of Meggitt's general rhetoric. I
began this essay by noting that if one grants Meggitt his simplistic
dichotomy that splits the ancient population into categories of 1 per cent
lite versus 99 per cent poor, one could accept much of his thesis. (The
problem is that many of us do not believe such a dichotomy provides
the most fruitful way of analyzing early Christianity or ancient society.)
In the same vein, if one were to grant Meggitt the exact phrasing of
many of his objections to the popular consensus, it would be impossi-
ble to refute his points. In fact, by an indiscriminate use of qualifying
terms, Meggitt renders many of his claims nonfalsifiable by normal
historiography. A few examples should clarify the issue.
In order to counter a claim that some members of Paul's communi-
ties must have had a significant amount of disposable income, demon-
strated by their financial support of Paul, Meggitt declares that such
support was 'probably...modest', supporting this opinion by saying
that 'there are no firm grounds for assuming that these benefactors were
rich in anything but commitment' (p. 78). One wonders, though, what
sort of evidence Meggitt would accept as 'firm grounds' (throughout
this paragraph, I emphasize those terms that I am identifying as
problematic 'qualifying terms'; the emphasis is mine, not Meggitt's).
Meggitt suggests that other scholars naively assume that there was 'a
direct correlation between socio-economic status and literacy' or that
'education and wealth are immutably bound together' (p. 85 n. 46, p. 84).
In fact, I know of no scholar who makes such simplistic claims. Meg-
gitt warns, 'We should beware of assuming that spiritual identity is
always sociomorphic, that it is invariably and simply shaped by social
context' (p. 116). Who has made such a claim? Certainly not the schol-
ars Meggitt most cites. Later, Meggitt insists that 'supporting a mis-
Press, 1995), pp. 48-49; see also Meeks, First Urban Christians, p. 72. Elsewhere,
Meggitt disputes the common view that the term eugenes in 1 Cor. 1.26 may be
taken as a term of relatively high status by stating that 'very humble epitaphs' use
the term, yet he offers only one inscription in the notes (p. 104 n. 144). Meggitt's
use of Jewish sources and his presentation of ancient Judaism also problematically
ignore recent developments in scholarship. The older idea that an emphasis on Torah
reading must have meant much higher rates of literacy for Jews of Paul's day than
for non-Jews (p. 85 n. 46) and the idea that Paul must have had a Pharisaic educa-
tion in Jerusalem, the nature of which can be discerned from (much later) rabbinic
sources (p. 86 and n. 52), to mention only two examples, are highly questionable.

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62 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 84 (2001)

sionary is not a sure sign of affluence' (p. 177). Of course not, but
might it not be taken as one possible sign among others? Meggitt
insists that the practice of hospitality or benefaction cannot be taken to
indicate 'a comfortable surplus on the part of the giver' (p. 132). But
how much is 'comfortable'? May not benefaction be taken to indicate
some surplus? And is that not relevant? Elsewhere: '[T]ravel per se
cannot be regarded as a class indicator' (p. 134). But may it be included
along with other indicators to give us some relevant information about
economic ability?11 The designation of Erastus as oikonomos of the
city, writes Meggitt, 'does not necessarily' indicate that he was a 'pow-
erful civic functionary' (p. 139). Granted (and who wouldn't grant it?).
But may it be taken as some kind of evidence? Phoebe's depiction as
prostatis (Rom. 16.1) does not 'unequivocally' indicate that she was
wealthy (p. 147). But does that merit entirely throwing out the term as
social evidence? The examples could be multiplied many times over;
they pervade Meggitt's arguments throughout the book. And they
render his statements unassailable. How could anyone demonstrate that
evidence taken by almost all of us to be partial, suggestive and circum-
stantial necessarily constitute proofs! Meggitt's rhetoric raises the bar
for historical evidence to heights impossible for normal historiography.
But normal historiography need not demonstrate what must be the case.
It need only show what probably is the casewhich is always accom-
plished by cumulative and complicated evidence. Meggitt's language
misleads by surreptitiously raising the bar of proof for his opponents.
Finally, some critical evaluation should be offered for Meggitt's own
constructive account of the economy of Pauline Christianity: his notion
of 'mutualism'. The proposal would have been much strengthened had
Meggitt been able to offer ancient examples of this 'economic strategy'
other than his own interpretation of early Christian groups. When other
scholars present Christian groups as functioning along the lines we
would expect from patron-client structures or the patriarchal house-
hold, they can point to other ancient groups that functioned in the same
ways. When I proposed that the 'strong' at Corinth expected their inter-
actions with fellow Christians to fit the ideology of 'benevolent patriar-
chalism', I supported my suggestion by reference to the function of

11. Note that the people Meggitt criticizes often explicitly agree with himif,
that is, the extreme nature of his statements is taken seriously. Malherbe admitted
many years ago that travel in itself is not necessarily an indicator of high status:
Social Aspects, p. 75.

The Continuum Publishing Group Ltd 2001

 MARTIN Paul, Poverty and Survival 63

benevolent patriarchal ideology and social structures among other

groups of the Greco-Roman world.12 When I suggested that Paul pro-
posed a different model of leadership that would work by different
social dynamics, I was able to point to the 'demagogue topos' and its
occurrence in a long tradition of Greek rhetoric, political theory, and
social practice.13 Meggitt, on the contrary, offers no other ancient
occurrences of 'mutualism'. Where in ancient political theory or ideol-
ogy can one find Meggitt's proposed 'mutualism'?
Meggitt seems to recognize that he can offer no ancient parallels to
early Christian 'mutualism'. One would have thought that, if Christian
mutualism 'emerged to meet a very real need', then it would have
emerged among groups besides Paul's churches. Weren't the rest of the
99 per cent as much in need of a 'survival strategy' as Pauline Chris-
tians? Meggitt, though, is in the uncomfortable position of positing a
new, distinctive, indeed unique invention on the part of the Pauline
Christiansa social economic strategy found nowhere else in the
ancient world (see pp. 173, 175, 179). Historians are rightly skeptical
of absolute uniqueness in historical accounts.
Moreover, because of his tendency to see egalitarianism and justice
in the social dynamics of early Christian groups (remember that what
makes 'mutualism' different from mere 'reciprocity' or the patron-
client system is its egalitarian rather than hierarchical reciprocity),
Meggitt ignores any possible ideological reading of biblical statements.
For a book so concerned with issues of economics and class, this one is
remarkable for its lack of attention to ideology. The way Paul talks
about the collection for Jerusalem, for instance, is accepted simply as
the way things were (p. 159), with no regard for the possibility that it is
precisely in Paul's interest to mask hierarchical difference by means of
the language of reciprocity.
In the end, Meggitt's invocation of 'mutualism' leaves too many
aspects of ancient Christianity unexplained. Paul's verbal gymnastics
in Philippians, where he attempts to portray his receipt of their gift as
not implicating him as their client, can be better illuminated if one
approaches Paul's rhetoric with patron-client structures and ideology
in mind. The problems Paul ran into at Corinth with regard to financial
support, exemplified so well in 2 Cor. 10-13, make no sense if his

12. The Corinthian Body.

13. Dale B. Martin, Slavery as Salvation: The Metaphor of Slavery in Pauline
Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 91-114.

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64 Journal for the Study of the New Testament 84 (2001)

churches were the lovely, peaceful sites of Christian mutualism imag-

ined by Meggitt. And Paul's apparent anxiety, perhaps best sensed in
Romans, that his beloved collection for Jerusalem might not be
accepted by the churches there is easily explained if we recognize that
Christian groups were subject to the same social dynamics that ruled
ancient households and other institutions: dynamics of hierarchy and
the reciprocity of inequality. Meggitt's 'mutualism' is a romantic wish
that little accords with the social dynamics and struggles depicted in
the pages of the New Testament.
Challenges to a consensus should be taken seriously. And Meggitt's
challenge is a serious one. But its flawsmethodological over-simpli-
fication, misleading rhetoric, tendentious use of sources, and the
absence of comparative contextualization for the notion of 'mutual-
ism'render it an unsuccessful challenge and a problematic historical
proposal. Perhaps it will spark helpful debate, but it has done little to
offer a viable alternative.

The Continuum Publishing Group Ltd 2001

 ^,

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