Paul's Place in A First-Century Revival of The Discourse of "Equality"

Paul’s Place in a First-Century Revival
of the Discourse of “Equality”*

L. L. Welborn
Fordham University
I
In 2 Corinthians 8, Paul appeals to the principle of “equality” (ἰσότης) in order to
encourage the Corinthians to contribute to the collection for the poor in Jerusalem.1
What is this “equality” of which Paul speaks and to which he exhorts his readers? Is
it a principle of fairness,2 an equitable balance between the “haves” and the “have-
nots” that might find expression in spirited generosity and charitable initiatives?3 Or
is it “a regulative principle of mutual assistance,”4 which sets in motion a process of
equalization between those who have surplus and those who have need?5 Or does
Paul intend something more radical, more democratic? Is Paul asserting that all
*
Dieter Georgi zum Gedächtnis. Translations are my own, unless otherwise indicated.
1
On the appeal to “equality” in Paul’s collection for the poor, see esp. Dieter Georgi, Remembering
the Poor: The History of Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992) 80–91; Petros
Vassiliadis, “The Collection Revisited,” Deltion Biblikon Meleton 11 (1992) 42–48; David Horrell,
“Paul’s Collection: Resources for a Materialist Theology,” Epworth Review 22 (1995) 74–83; Steven
J. Friesen, “Paul and Economics: The Jerusalem Collection as an Alternative to Patronage” in Paul
Unbound: Other Perspectives on the Apostle (ed. Mark D. Given; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson,
2010) 27–54; Julien Ogereau, “The Jerusalem Collection as κοινωνία: Paul’s Global Politics of
Socio-Economic Equality and Solidarity,” NTS 58 (2012) 360–78.
2
So, a number of interpreters and commentators: e.g., Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 87;
NRSV: “a fair balance.”
3
Bruce W. Longenecker, Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010).
4
Gustav Stählin, “ἴσος, ἰσότης, κτλ.,” TDNT 3 (1963) 343–55, at 348.
5
G. W. Griffith, “Abounding in Generosity: A Study in Charis in 2 Corinthians 8–9” (PhD diss.,
University of Durham, 2005) 216; Andreas Lindemann, “Hilfe für die Armen: Die Jerusalem-Kollekte
als ‘diakonisches Unternehmen,’ ” in idem, Glauben, Handeln, Verstehen: Studien zur Auslegung
des Neuen Testaments II (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) 270; Ogereau, “The Jerusalem Collection
as κοινωνία,” 365–66.
HTR 110:4 (2017) 541–562
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542 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
believers in Christ Jesus are “equal” and on this basis (ἐξ ἰσότητος) should engage
in redistributive action, “so that there may be equality” (ὅπως γένηται ἰσότης)?
Progress toward an understanding of Paul’s notion of “equality” begins with the
discovery of the provenance of the concept. On this point there is little disagreement.
It has long been recognized by Pauline scholars that the source of Paul’s idea of
“equality” is not the Septuagint, where the term ἰσότης appears only twice (Job
36:29; Zech 4:7) and without a Hebrew equivalent,6 but the Greek world,7 where
thinking about “equality” developed in a variety of contexts (mathematics, music,
law, cosmology) but especially in politics.8
As a political ideal, “equality” (τὸ ἴσον, ἰσονομία, ἰσότης) had its origin in
fifth-century BCE Athens, where, alongside “freedom” (ἐλευθερία), it was the
fundamental principle of Greek democracy.9 Yet, it is surprisingly difficult to say
precisely in what “equality” consisted for the supporters of democracy because
of two reasons. First, there survive no “positive” explanations of what the Greek
democrats meant by the concept.10 All of the political philosophers whose works we
6
As noted by Hans Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1924; repr. 1970) 258; Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians (Garden City: Doubleday, 1984) 407. The
adjective ἴσος is more common in the LXX: e.g., Exod 30:34; Lev 7:10; 2 Macc 9:15. Elsewhere in
the NT, ἰσότης is found only in Col 4:1, together with τὸ δίκαιον, in reference to the way in which
masters should treat their slaves; cf. Eduard Lohse, Colossians and Philemon: A Commentary on
the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971) 162.
7
For recognition that the background of Paul’s use of ἰσότης is Hellenistic, see Windisch, Der
zweite Korintherbrief, 258; Stählin, “ἴσος, ἰσότης, κτλ.,” 345–48; Georgi, Remembering the Poor,
84–91; Hans Dieter Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9: A Commentary on Two Administrative Letters
of the Apostle Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985) 67–68; Petros Vassiliadis, “Equality and
Justice in Classical Antiquity and in Paul: The Social Implications of the Pauline Collection,” St.
Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 36 (1992) 51–59.
8
The foundational study is that of Rudolf Hirzel, Themis, Dike und Verwandtes: Ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der Rechtsidee bei den Griechen (Leipzig: Teubner, 1907) 228–320, 421–23. See
further Stählin, “ἴσος, ἰσότης, κτλ.,” 343–55; Klaus Thraede, “Gleichheit,” RAC 10 (1979) 122–64.
9
Hirzel, Themis, Dike und Verwandtes, 239–68; Gregory Vlastos, “Isonomia,” American
Journal of Philology 74 (1953) 337–56; idem, “Isonomia politikē,” in Isonomia: Studien zur
Gleichheitsvorstellung im griechischen Denken (ed. J. Mau and E. G. Schmidt; Berlin: Akademie
Verlag, 1964) 1–35; Paul A. Cartledge, “Comparatively Equal,” in Demokratia: A Conversation on
Democracies, Ancient and Modern (ed. J. Ober and C. Hedrick; Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1996) 175–85; Kurt A. Raaflaub, “Equalities and Inequalities in Athenian Democracy,” in
Demokratia, 139–74; idem, “Perfecting the ‘Political Creature’: Equality and ‘the Political’ in the
Evolution of Greek Democracy,” in The Greek Polis and the Invention of Democracy: A Politico-
cultural Transformation and Its Interpretations (ed. Johann P. Arnason; Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell,
2013) 323–50.
10
This crucial insight is the point of the seminal essay by A. H. M. Jones, “The Athenian
Democracy and Its Critics,” originally published in Cambridge Historical Journal 11 (1953) 1–26;
repr. in idem, Athenian Democracy (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1958) 39–72, esp. 41–42.
See further Kurt A. Raaflaub, “Perceptions of Democracy in Fifth-Century Athens,” in Aspects of
Athenian Democracy (ed. W. R. Connor; Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, 1990) 33–90;
Josiah Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1998).
L. L. WELBORN 543
possess were critics of popular rule in various degrees.11 The democratic notion of
“equality” can only be tentatively reconstructed from scattered allusions and most of
these in the criticisms of opponents.12 Second, the term “equality” was appropriated
by the oligarchs, once the democratic revolutions of the fifth century had made
“equality” “the loveliest name of all,” as Herodotus puts it,13 and invested with new
meaning.14 The intellectual supporters of oligarchy argued that “true” equality must
be proportional in recognition of the differences in the worth of individuals.15 Thus,
the history of “equality” is a long and contested one. Any attempt to understand
what Paul meant by “equality” must come to grips with this history.
The discourse of “equality” revived in the first century CE, for reasons that
we must seek to comprehend. A treatise “On Equality” (περὶ ἰσότητος) makes
up a substantial portion of Philo’s writing, “Who is the Heir of Divine Things.”16
Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom praise “equality” as the gift of the gods and the highest
civic virtue.17 A fragmentary essay on government, wrongly attributed to Plutarch,
criticizes “equality” as a democratic excess.18 It is hardly surprising that elite authors
such as these conceived of “equality” as proportional, assigning shares to each
individual “according to deserts.” But there are signs of ferment and re-thinking. A
handful of philosophers whose fragments are preserved by Stobaeus—Ps.-Archytas,
11
Jones, Athenian Democracy, 41; Ober, Political Dissent in Democratic Athens, 32–33.
12
See the attempt to extract democratic ideas from the writings of the elite by Eric A. Havelock,
The Liberal Temper in Greek Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1957); Cynthia Farrar,
The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988). Josiah Ober explores the arguments that Athenians would have
made for democratic equality on the basis of public rhetoric in The Athenian Revolution: Essays
on Ancient Greek Democracy and Political Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)
86–106, 161–87.
13
Herodotus 3.80.6, in the speech of Otanes the Persian. See the discussion of the importance of
this passage by Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009) 71–75.
14
Hirzel, Themis, Dike und Verwandtes, 241–42, 276–80; F. D. Harvey, “Two Kinds of Equality,”
Classica et Medievalia 26 (1965) 101–47, esp. 101, 104–10, 126–27; Cartledge, Ancient Greek
Political Thought in Practice, 8–10.
15
E.g., Plato, Leges, 756E-757E; Isocrates, Areopagiticus, 21–22; idem, Nicocles, 14–16;
Aristotle, Pol., 3.5.8, 1280a7–22; 5.1.6-8, 1301b27–1302a8; 6.1.10, 1318a3–8. See the discussion
in Hirzel, Themis, Dike und Verwandtes, 279–80; Harvey, “Two Kinds of Equality,” 107–20. See the
comment of Armand Delatte, Essai sur la Politique Pythagoricienne (Liège: H. Vaillant Carmanne,
1922) 106: “Les éloges du système politique basé sur la proportion ou égalité géométrique sont
inséparables des polémiques contre la démocratie.”
16
Philo, Her., 141–206. On the importance ascribed to ἰσότης by Philo, see Emile Bréhier, Les
idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d’Alexandrie (Paris: Picard, 1950) 86–90.
17
Plutarch, Quaest. conv., 8.2.1–2 (Mor. 719B-C); Dio Chrysostom, Or., 17.9–11.
18
Ps.-Plutarch, Un. rep. dom. (Mor. 826A-827C).
Ps.-Ecphantus, Diotogenes, and Sthenidas—discuss “equality” in contexts that

are critical of oligarchy.19 Where does Paul’s appeal to the principle of “equality”
belong in the first-century revival of this idea?
 II
Before we undertake a detailed analysis of Paul and his contemporaries on the
subject of “equality,” we may venture a suggestion about the underlying, material
cause of the revival of the discourse of “equality” in the first century CE—namely,
the growth of inequality between the classes. Among Roman economic historians,
there is an emerging consensus that the degree of inequality grew in the early
Empire,20 despite an increase in aggregate production,21 according to a principle
known to economists as “the declining marginal product of labor.”22 That is, an
increase in population, such as the Roman Empire experienced in this period,
resulted in a scarcity of land and resources relative to labor:23 the landowning elite
19
Ps.-Archytas in Stobaeus, 4.1.137; Ps. Ecphantus in Stobaeus, 4.7.66; Diotogenes in
Stobaeus, 4.7.62; Sthenidas in Stobaeus, 4.7.63. The dates assigned to these authors vary widely.
Louis Delatte (Les Traités de la Royauté d’Ecphante, Diotogène et Sthénidas [Liège: Faculté de
philosophie et lettres, 1942] 160) maintains that Ps.-Ecphantus, Diotogenes, and Sthenidas belong
to the 2nd cent. CE. E. R. Goodenough (“The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” Yale
Classical Studies 1 [1928] 55–102) regards these authors as Hellenistic (2nd–1st cent. BCE). Walter
Burkert (“Zur geistesgeschichtlichen Einordnung einiger Pseudopythagorica,” in Pseudepigrapha
I. Pseudopythagorica—Lettres de Platon [ed. K. von Fritz; Vandoeuvres: Foundation Hardt, 1972]
23–55) dates to c. 200 CE. Harvey (“Two Kinds of Equality,” 126 n. 89 and 132–33 n. 116) argues
plausibly for a date in the 1st cent. CE for these authors, on the basis of numerous parallels with
Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom.
20
Keith Hopkins, “The Political Economy of the Roman Empire,” in The Dynamics of Ancient
Empires (ed. Ian Morris; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009) 178–204; Willem M. Jongman,
“A Golden Age: Death, Money Supply and Social Succession in the Roman Empire,” in Credito
e moneta nel mundo romano (ed. E. LoCascio; Bari: Edipuglia, 2003) 181–96; idem, “The Early
Roman Empire: Consumption,” in The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
(ed. Walter Scheidel; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007) 592–618; Walter Scheidel
and Steven J. Friesen, “The Size of the Economy and the Distribution of Income in the Roman
Empire,” JRS 99 (2009) 61–91.
21
Keith Hopkins, “Taxes and Trade in the Roman Empire (200 B.C.–A.D. 400),” JRS 70 (1980)
105–6, 109, 117–20; Willem Jongman, “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Economy: Population,
Rents and Entitlement,” in Ancient Economies, Modern Methodologies (ed. P. F. Bang; Bari:
Edipuglia, 2006) 237–54, esp. 239–46; P. F. Bang, The Roman Bazaar: A Comparative Study of
Trades and Markets in a Tributary Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 86–91;
Walter Scheidel, “Approaching the Roman Economy,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman
Economy (ed. Walter Scheidel; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 1–24.
22
Heinz D. Kurz and and Neri Salvadori, The Theory of Production: A Long-period Analysis
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995) esp. 414–26; Peter Temin, “The Contribution of
Economics,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy, 45–70, esp. 55–58, 62–69.
23
B. W. Frier, “More is Worse: Some Observations on the Population of the Roman Empire,” in
Debating Roman Demography (ed. Walter Scheidel; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 139–59; Walter Scheidel,
“Demographic and Economic Development in the Ancient Mediterranean World,” Journal of
Institutional and Theoretical Economics 160 (2004) 743–57.
L. L. WELBORN 545
enjoyed an increase in wealth from higher rents, while rural tenants and urban wage-
laborers became progressively poorer.24 Moreover, landowners in the provinces
“were able to benefit from the privileges offered by empire and introduce a more
intensive exploitation of land and people to sustain lifestyles with conspicuous
consumption in the imperial mode.”25 The result was an enormous gap between the
rich and the poor.26 Walter Scheidel estimates that a large percentage of all assets
were concentrated in the top 3 to 5 percent of the population,27 while a segment
somewhere between 6 and 12 percent enjoyed “middling” incomes.28 Scheidel
concludes that “the concentration of resources at the top led to deprivation and
impoverishment of the general population.”29
Symptomatic of the increase in inequality were the numerous and widespread
outbreaks of political disturbances (στάσεις) attested for the cities of Greece and
Asia Minor in the first and second centuries—from Ephesus to Sardis to Smyrna,
Rhodes, Tarsus, Nicaea, Prusa, and Sparta,30 suggesting to scholars such as Arjan
Zuiderhoek “that we are dealing with a pattern rather than a string of isolated
events.”31 For instance, eight of the letters of Apollonius of Tyana to the residents
of Sardis deal with the problem of civil strife—“an endless war,” as Apollonius
laments, fought by opposed groups and classes.32 Several of the discourses urging
civic concord (ὁμόνοια) by Dio Chrysostom and Aelius Aristides have as their
occasion a conflict between the council (βουλή), which represented the interests
of the upper class, and the assembly (ἐκκλησία) of the lower class citizens, the
δῆμος.33 In some cases, class conflict is explicitly mentioned: for example, in Dio
24
Willem Jongman, “The Roman Economy: From Cities to Empire,” in The Transformation of
Economic Life under the Roman Empire (ed. Lukas De Blois; Amsterdam: Gieben, 2002) 28–47;
Walter Scheidel, “In Search of Roman Economic Growth,” JRA 22 (2009) 46–70, esp. 67–70.
25
Peter Bang, “Predation,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Roman Economy, 197–217, at 212.
26
See the calculations in Richard Duncan-Jones, The Economy of the Roman Empire: Quantitative
Studies (2nd ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982) 4; Jongman, “The Rise and Fall
of the Roman Economy,” 247–50.
27
Scheidel and Friesen, “Distribution of Income,” 83.
28
Ibid., 84–85.
29
Walter Scheidel, “Stratification, Deprivation and Quality of Life,” in Poverty in the Roman
World (ed. Margaret Atkins; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 40–59, at 40. See also
William V. Harris, “Poverty and Destitution in the Roman Empire,” in Rome’s Imperial Economy
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) 27–56, esp. 33.
30
Ephesus: Acts 19:23–41; Sardis: Apollonius, Ep. 56; Aspendus: Philostratus, Vit. Apol., 1.15;
Smyrna: Philostratus, Vit. Soph., 1.25; Rhodes: Aelius Aristides, Or., 24; Tarsus: Dio Chrysostom,
Or., 34; Nicaea: Dio Chrysostom, Or., 39; Prusa: Dio Chrysostom, Or., 46, 47, 48; Sparta: IG V.I.44
= SEG XI.486.9–10; SEG XI.501.7.
31
Arjan Zuiderhoeck, “On the Political Sociology of the Imperial Greek City,” Greek, Roman
and Byzantine Studies 48 (2008) 417–45, at 442. See also Giovanni Salmeri, “Dio, Rome, and the
Civic Life of Asia Minor,” in Dio Chrysostom: Politics, Letters, and Philosophy (ed. Simon Swain;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 53–92, esp. 73–86.
32
Robert J. Penella, The Letters of Apollonius of Tyana: A Critical Text with Prolegomena,
Translation and Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1979) 78–79.
33
E.g., Dio Chrysostom, Or., 34; 43; 50; Aelius Aristides, Or., 24.
Chrysostom’s address to the Tarsians, he appeals on behalf of the impoverished

“linen-workers,” who had been excluded from the city’s assemblies, that they
should be enrolled as citizens.34
 III
We do not know the occasion of Philo’s writing “Who is the Heir of Divine
Things,” but the general circumstances of life for Jews and Greeks in Alexandria
in the first century are reasonably well known.35 In short, the evidence does not
suggest that Jews enjoyed equality of rights as citizens of the Greek polis.36 In his
political tract “On the Embassy to Gaius,” Philo records the declaration of Flaccus,
the governor of Egypt: that the Jews of Alexandria were “foreigners and aliens”
in a city where they had resided for hundreds of years.37 Claudius’s letter to the
Alexandrians advises that the Jews should “enjoy what is their own in a city which
is not their own.”38 Within the Jewish community itself, there were conspicuous
social and economic disparities, such as that between the opulent Alexander the
Alabarch, brother of Philo, who gilded the gates of the Jerusalem temple, and the
indigent lunatic Carabas, who was hounded into the gymnasium by a Greek mob
and cruelly mocked.39
In the treatise περὶ ἰσότητος that makes up a substantial portion of “Who is the
Heir of Divine Things,”40 Philo asserts that God alone is able to produce equality.
Commenting on Gen 15:10 (“He divided them in the middle”), Philo embarks upon
a lengthy discussion of the subject of “equal portions.” Philo explains: “No man
can divide anything into equal sections with exactitude. . . . No created thing is
found to produce equality (ἰσότητος δὲ οὐδὲν γενητὸν αἴτιον), if tested by the
34
Dio Chrysostom, Or., 34.23. On whether “linen-workers” was a generic term for the lower
classes at Tarsus or an organized guild of laborers, see L. Cracco Ruggini, “La vita associativa
nelle città dell’Oriente Greco: tradizioni locali e influenze romane,” in Assimilation et résistance
à la culture gréco-romaine dans le monde ancien (ed. D. M. Pippidi; Paris and Bucharest: Editura
Academiei, 1976) 463–91; C.P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1978) 80–81, 183–84 n. 77.
35
Aryeh Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt: The Struggle for Equal Rights
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985).
36
Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 280–82, 356–57; Miriam Pucci ben Zeev,
Jewish Rights in the Roman World (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 300, 460–67; Erich S. Gruen,
Diaspora Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002) 71,
74–75.
37
Philo, Legat., 350; cf. Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 243–44; Peter
Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes Toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1998) 140, 144.
38
PLond. 1912 in Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum (ed. Victor A. Tcherikover and Alexander
Fuks; vol. 2; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960) 41, 43, n. 153, Col. V, lines 94–95.
Cf. Schäfer, Judeophobia, 148–49.
39
Philo, Flacc., 36–38. Cf. Dorothy I. Sly, Philo’s Alexandria (London: Routledge, 1996) 90.
40
Philo, Her., 141–206. See the discussion of this text by Georgi, Remembering the Poor,
85–87, 138–40.
L. L. WELBORN 547
unprejudiced standard of truth.”41 Rather, “God alone is exact in judgment and alone
is able to divide things in such a way that no section is greater or less than another
by even the smallest difference, and each portion can partake of the upmost and
extreme equality (τῆς δʼ ἀνωτάτω καὶ ἄκρας ἰσότητος μεταλαχεῖν ἰσχῦσαι).”42
Philo shows himself to be fully conversant with the philosophers’ theory of two
kinds of equality and comes down firmly on the side of geometric proportion: “The
idea of equality is a necessary one and that which is proportional, according to
which the few are regarded as equal to the many” (ἀναγκαία δέ ἐστιν ἰσότητος
ἰδέα καὶ ἡ διὰ ἀναλογίας, καθʼ ἣν τὰ ὀλίγα τοῖς πολλοῖς ἴσα νενόμισται).43
Moreover, Philo affirms that proportional equality is the law of nature: “In respect
to proportional equality, all things are equal, even the small things and the great
things in the whole world. For those who have most carefully examined the facts of
nature say that the four elements are proportionately equal and that the whole world
received and retains its frame through being compounded according to proportion,
which assigned an equal measure to each of its parts.”44
In illustration of God’s equitable administration of the cosmos, Philo references
the miraculous provision of “manna” in the wilderness and even cites the text of
Exod 16:18, the very passage adduced by Paul as a paradigm of “equality” in 2
Cor 8:15: “Further, the heavenly food of the soul, which is wisdom, which Moses
calls ‘manna,’ the divine word distributes in equal portions to all who will use it,
taking care above all things to maintain equality (πεφροντικὼς διαφερόντως
ἰσότητος). And Moses bears witness to this when he says, ‘The one who had much
did not have too much, and the one who had little did not have too little,’ since they
all used the marvelous and highly-prized standard of proportion (ἡνίκα τῷ τῆς
ἀναλογίας ἐχρήσαντο θαυμαστῷ καὶ περιμαχήτῳ μέτρῳ).”45
Philo’s treatment of “equality” obviously focuses upon the ordering work of
God the creator, with only a passing reference to the employment of proportionate
equality by cities in times of crisis.46 In the context of first-century Alexandria,
where tensions between Jews and Greeks reached a flash-point during the Caligula
crisis,47 Philo’s presentation of the God of Israel as the creator of equality serves
an apologetic purpose. In keeping with this purpose, Philo insists that Moses,
the lawgiver of the Jews, was the foremost exponent of equality: “And if there
41
Philo, Her., 142–43; text and translation in F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Philo IV
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968) 353.
42
Philo, Her., 143; the translation modifies Colson and Whitaker, Philo IV, 353, 355.
43
Philo, Her., 145.
44
Ibid., 152.
45
Ibid., 191. See the discussion of this passage in relation to 2 Cor 8:15 by John M. G. Barclay,
“Manna and the Circulation of Grace: A Study of 2 Corinthians 8.1–15,” in The Word Leaps the
Gap, (ed. J. Ross Wagner; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 409–26, esp. 418.
46
Philo, Her., 145.
47
Kasher, The Jews in Hellenistic and Roman Egypt, 316–18; Andrew Barrett, Caligula: The
Corruption of Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990) 140–91; Schäfer, Judeophobia, 136–44.
is anyone who has been a eulogist of equality, that man is Moses (ἰσότητος δὲ
εἰ καί τις ἄλλος ἐπαινέτης γέγονε Μωυσῆς), first by always and everywhere
singing the praises of justice, of which equality is the special property… and then
by censuring injustice, the maker of inequality in its most hateful form. Inequality
is the mother of twin wars, foreign and civil, just as its opposite, equality, is the
mother of peace.”48 But if Philo’s treatment of “equality” serves primarily as an
apology for Judaism, his thought nevertheless has much in common with upper
class Greek writers of the period, who likewise emphasize the will of God and the
lesson of nature in praising proportional equality, as we shall see.
In Plutarch’s Table-Talk, a group of symposiasts endorse the idea that God is
the architect of geometrical equality. The conversation begins with a reference
to Plato: “Diogenianus said: ‘Since our discourse is about the gods, shall we,
especially on his own birthday, admit Plato to the conference and enquire upon
what account he says (supposing it to be his sentence) that God always plays the
geometer (ἀεὶ γεωμετρεῖν τὸν θεόν).’ ”49 Following speculation about what Plato
may have meant by the saying, Florus argues that oligarchy and monarchy are most
in accordance with the will of God: “For Lycurgus, I suppose you know, banished
out of Sparta the arithmetical proportion, as being democratic and suited to the
mob (τὴν ἀριθμητικὴν ἀναλογίαν, ὡς δημοκρατικὴν καὶ ὀχλικὴν οὖσαν)
and introduced the geometrical proportion as suitable to moderate oligarchy and
lawful monarchy (ἐπεισήγαγε δὲ τὴν γεωμετρικὴν, ὀλιγαρχίᾳ σώφρονι καὶ
βασιλείᾳ νομίμῃ πρέπουσαν); for the former gives an equal share (τὸ ἴσον) by
number (ἀριθμῷ), but the latter by proportion according to worth (λόγῳ τὸ κατʼ
ἀξίαν). It does not mix everything together, but in it there is a clear separation of
the deserving and the undeserving, not by lot or weight, but according to virtue. The
same proportion, God introduces in affairs, which is called justice and retribution
(ταύτην ὁ θεὸς ἐπάγει τὴν ἀναλογίαν τοῖς πράγμασι δίκην καὶ νέμεσιν
προσαγορευομένην), and which teaches us to account that which is just equal,
but not that which is equal just (διδάσκουσαν ἡμᾶς τὸ δίκαιον ἴσον, ἀλλὰ μὴ τὸ
ἴσον δεῖν ποιεῖσθαι δίκαιον). For that equality which the many pursue, being the
greatest of all injustices, God takes away, as much as possible, and maintains that
proportion which respects every man’s worth, geometrically defining it according
to reason and law (ἣν γάρ οἱ πολλοὶ διώκουσιν ἰσότητα, πασῶν ἀδικιῶν οὖσαν
μεγίστην, ὁ θεὸς ἐξαιρῶν, ὡς ἀνυστὸν ἐστι, τὸ κατʼ ἀξίαν διαφυλάττει,
γεωμετρικῶς τῷ κατὰ λόγον καὶ κατὰ νόμον ὀριζόμενος).”50
48
Philo, Her., 161.
49
Plutarch, Quaest. conv., 8.2.1 (Mor. 719B).
50
Ibid., 8.2.2 (Mor. 719C).
L. L. WELBORN 549
Upon the conclusion of the speech of Florus, Plutarch reports: “This exposition
we applauded!”51 Evidently Plutarch himself joined in the applause. As one of the
richest and most influential men in Greece,52 Plutarch may well have endorsed
the oligarchic version of “equality.” In his political writings, Plutarch expresses
admiration for the old Spartan aristocracy and disapproval of the young men of
his own day who “court the mob, deliver harangues, and arouse factions.”53 But
there is an extremity to the formulation of the oligarchic principle in the Table-Talk,
despite the convivial occasion, that surpasses anything in earlier Greek literature.
Plato deplores the disorder of democratic society but nowhere describes the equality
that the majority pursue as “the greatest of all injustices,” as Plutarch does.54 Plato
praises proportional equality as “the judgment of Zeus” but does not contend, as
Plutarch does, that God destroys democratic equality as far as possible.55 The dictum
“the just is equal but not the equal just” is an ideological double bind that makes it
impossible for the common man, without some special ἀξία, to achieve equality.
To account for this extreme formulation, I think we must posit the presence in
Plutarch’s thought of the values and attitudes of his Roman masters.56 As Plutarch
reminded a young friend who planned to enter public life, “You are a subject in a
state controlled by proconsuls. . . . You see the boots of Roman soldiers just above
your head.”57
Whatever Plutarch’s own view of equality may have been, his Life of Solon
provides access to traditions in which the meaning of “equality” continued to be
debated. In his account of how Solon intervened in a perilous situation for Athens
caused by an enormous disparity between the rich and the poor,58 Plutarch reports
a statement that Solon made prior to his election as archon, to the effect that
“equality does not create war” (τὸ ἴσον πόλεμον οὐ ποιεῖ).59 Plutarch states that
this utterance “pleased both those with property and those without; for the former
expected to have equality based upon worth and excellence (ἀξία καὶ ἀρετή), the
latter equality based upon measure and count (μέτρον καὶ ἀριθμός).”60 Plutarch’s
51
Ibid., 8.2.3 (Mor. 719D).
52
Plutarch’s circle of friends included the consular L. Mestrius Florus, Q. Sosius Senecio, and
C. Minicius Fundanus. According to the Suda, Plutarch received the ornamenta consularia from
Trajan, and was made procurator of imperial estates in Achaia under Hadrian. Cf. C. P. Jones,
Plutarch and Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971) 29; Robert Lamberton, Plutarch (New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2001) 12.
53
Plutarch, An seni, 26 (Mor. 796E).
54
See Plato’s entertaining account of the inversion of all relationships by democratic “equality”
in Rep. 8, 562d–563d.
55
Plato, Leges, 6, 757b.
56
Plutarch’s anxiety about his powerful Roman friends is palpable in an essay such as Maxime
cum principibus philosopho esse disserendum (Mor. 776A–779C).
57
Plutarch, Praec. ger. rei publ., 17 (Mor. 813E).
58
Plutarch, Sol., 13.
59
Ibid., 14.
60
Ibid., 14.
description of the contrasting expectations awakened by Solon’s statement is clearly

a later interpretation, since the theory of proportional equality was an invention of
the philosophers of the fourth century BCE.61 Closer to the political views of Solon’s
own day is an observation by Phanias of Lesbos, a commentator on Aristotle, who
wrote that “Solon played a trick upon both parties in order to save the city, and
secretly promised to the poor the distribution of land, which they desired, and to
the rich, validation of their securities.”62
Elsewhere, Plutarch preserves a rather different interpretation of Solon’s remark:
“When Solon, speaking of the principles of government, said that ‘equality does
not create sedition’ (ἰσότης στάσιν οὐ ποιεῖ), this was thought (ἔδοξεν) to be
too much in favor of the rabble (λίαν ὀχλικός), in introducing arithmetical and
democratic proportion instead of the excellent geometric proportion (ἀριθμητικὴν
καὶ δημοκρατικὴν ἐπεισάγων ἀναλογίαν ἀντὶ τῆς καλῆς γεωμετρικῆς).”63
Unfortunately, Plutarch does not name the source of this tradition, but it is a
noteworthy departure from the portrait of Solon as a shrewd politician in the Life
and even further removed from Isocrates’s dream of the Solonian constitution as
an aristocracy.64 Whoever Plutarch is quoting here blames Solon for establishing
a radical democracy that appealed to the mob.
A similarly critical view of democratic equality is expressed in a fragmentary
address on government that somehow found its way into the Plutarchean corpus.65
The speaker invites his audience to consider what is the best form of government—
monarchy, oligarchy, or democracy. The sharpest criticism is reserved for
“democracy which breeds anarchy and equality which breeds excess” (δημοκρατία
δʼ ἀναρχίαν, ἰσότης δʼ ἀμετρίαν).66 The speaker concludes: “If a man were
given a choice among governments, he would follow Plato’s advice and choose
none other than monarchy, the only one which is able to sustain the highest note
of virtue.”67 The democratic politician, by contrast, is controlled by the mob which
he pretends to lead—a flame that threatens to burn him up.68
In his discourse “On Covetousness,” Dio Chrysostom praises “equality” (ἰσότης)
as the life-sustaining counterpoise to “greed” or destructive “over-reaching”
(πλεονεξία). Dio quotes rather fully the speech of Jocasta in Euripides’s Phoenician
Women, in which Ἰσότης is represented as a personified deity who “binds friends to
friends, cities to cities, allies to allies.”69 “Nature gave men the law of equal rights,”
61
Hirzel, Themis, Dike und Verwandtes, 277–80; Harvey, “Two Kinds of Equality,” 104–20.
62
Plutarch, Sol., 14.
63
Plutarch, Frat. Amor., 12 (Mor. 484B).
64
Isocrates, Areopagiticus, 20–22.
65
H. N. Fowler, Plutarch’s Moralia X (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969) 303:
“Few scholars now believe that the author is Plutarch, though who the writer was is not known.”
66
Ps.-Plutarch, Un. rep. dom., 3 (Mor. 827A).
67
Ibid., 4 (Mor. 827B); the translation is that of Fowler, Plutarch’s Moralia X, 309, 311.
68
Ps.-Plutarch, Un. rep. dom., 4 (Mor. 827C).
69
Dio Chrysostom, Or., 17.9, quoting Euripides, Phoen., 536–37.
L. L. WELBORN 551
Jocasta continues, as a protection against greed, “which sets the lesser against the
greater and arouses hate.”70 Dio comments upon this passage: “thus the law requires
men to honor equality (τὸ ἴσον), and this establishes a common bond of friendship
and peace for all toward one another.”71 Dio then offers a rather free paraphrase
of the rest of Jocasta’s speech: “The poet then says that there is no over-reaching
among the divine beings; and on account of this they remain indestructible and
ageless, each single one keeping its own proper position night and day through all the
seasons; for if they were not so ordered, none of them would be able to survive.”72
Dio, the author of several discourses on civic concord, conceives of “equality” as
a kind of homeostasis that embraces the entire cosmos, human and divine. If the
gods themselves do not change their positions, then artisans and shopkeepers should
be content with their situations with the anonymity of work and reproduction. Dio
implies that the claim of “equality” by the common people would be a destructive
over-reach, an instance of political covetousness.
A group of neo-Pythagorean philosophers (Ps.-Ecphantus, Diotogenes and
Sthenidas), who may be plausibly dated to the first century CE,73 attribute the
creation of equality to the ideal king who in his care for the social order is like
God.74 In a tractate “On Kingship” attributed to Ecphantus, the ideal king embodies
the virtues (justice, liberality, self-restraint, wisdom) that make possible the
distribution of equality to all: “In so far as he [the king] has a sacred and divine
mentality, he will cause all good things, but nothing that is evil. And he will clearly
be just (δίκαιος), one who is liberal (κοινωνικός) to all; for liberality (κοινωνία)
consists in equality (ἰσότης), and while in the distribution of equality (ἀποδιανομὴ
ἰσότητος) justice plays the most important part, yet liberality also has its share, for
it is not possible to be unjust, while giving a share of equality (οὐ γὰρ δυνατὸν
ἄδικον μὲν ἦμεν, μεταδιδόμεν δὲ ἰσότητος), or to give a share of equality, while
not being liberal (ἢ μεταδιδόμεν μὲν ἰσότητος, μὴ κοινωνικὸν δὲ ἦμεν).”75 It
need hardly be said that the ascription of such attributes and capacities to an ideal
king is characteristic of an era of autocracy. But the crystalized instruction that Ps.-
Ecphantus offers the king is not mere sycophancy.76 The author wishes to persuade
70
Dio Chrysostom, Or., 17.9, citing Euripides, Phoen., 538–40.
71
Dio Chrysostom, Or., 17.10.
72
Ibid., 17.11.
73
See the arguments for a 1st cent. CE date for these authors in Harvey, “Two Kinds of Equality,”
126 n. 89, 132–33 n. 116.
74
Goodenough, “The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 52–102; Delatte, Les Traités
de la Royauté d’Ecphante, Diotogéne et Sthenidas, 241–52.
75
Ps.-Ecphantus, frag., 4 in Stobaeus 4.7.66. Greek text in Delatte, Les Traités de la Royauté
d’Ecphante, Diotogéne et Sthenidas, 35–37. The translation modifies that of Holger Thesleff, The
Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period (Åbo: Åbo Akademie, 1965) 83, 18–84, 8. See also
Sthenidas in Stobaeus 4.7.63: the ideal king, like God, is a natural lawgiver, dispensing justice
equally to all (νομοθέτας πέφυκε πᾶσιν ἐπίσας).
76
Cf. Bruno Blumenfeld, The Political Paul: Justice, Democracy and Kingship in a Hellenistic
Framework (London: T & T Clark, 2003) 191–92, 228–30.
the sovereign that a truly virtuous ruler will be “liberal” (κοινωνικός), as well as
“just” (δίκαιος). It is “equality” (ἰσότης) that binds justice and liberality together,
a conflation elegantly conveyed by the syntax of the argument. Equality is to be
achieved through “distribution” (ἀποδιανομή), a “giving of shares” (μεταδίδωμι).
What this involves is not specified. Did the author intend something other than
the benevolence of the emperor as supreme patron? In any case, the latter term,
μεταδίδωμι, has a history of usage in political philosophy and rhetoric, where it
denoted the equal share of civic rights given to each citizen77 and even the share
in the constitution given to the multitude.78
The most intriguing discussion of equality among this group of philosophers is
that preserved in a fragmentary text that Stobaeus attributes to Archytas, but whose
real author is unknown.79 The writer offers a surprising revision of the old theory
of proportional equality. Despite certain mathematical obscurities, the author’s
political views are clear, and the passage is worth quoting in full:
Wherefore some make justice aristocratic, some democratic, and some
oligarchic. Aristocratic justice is according to the sub-contrary mean; for
this proportion distributes greater ratios to greater and less to less. Dem-
ocratic justice is according to geometric proportion; for in this the ratios
of greater and smaller amounts are equal (ἴσοι). Oligarchic and tyrannic
justice is according to the arithmetic proportion; for this is the opposite of
the sub-contrary, since it distributes greater ratios to less and less to greater.
These, then, are the forms (ἰδέαι) of the distributions, but the actualizations
are seen in constitutions and households: for rewards and punishments and
offices are either distributed equally (ἐξ ἴσω) to greater and less, or unequal-
ly (ἐξ ἀνίσω) through superiority in virtue or wealth or power. That which
distributes equally is democratic (τὸ μὲν ὦν ἐξ ἴσω δημοκρατικόν), but
that which distributes unequally is aristocratic or oligarchic (τὸ δὲ ἐξ ἀνίσω
ἀριστοκρατικὸν ἤ ὀλιγαρχικόν).80
In this new interpretation of the old theory, everything has been turned upside
down. The “excellent” geometric proportion, by which Plato and others had justified
a graded society of increasing privilege, is now assigned to the democrats, while the
77
E.g., Herodotus, 7.150; Lysias, 25.3.
78
Aristotle, Pol., 5.5.9, 1306a25.
79
Ps.-Archytas, frag., 4 in Stobaeus 4.1.137. The most thorough discussion is that of Armand
Delatte, Essai sur la Politique Pythagoricienne (Liège: H. Vaillant-Carmanne, 1922) 71–124; see
further, Blumenfeld, The Political Paul, 124–39. The date and authorship of the fragments are in
dispute. Goodenough (“The Political Philosophy of Hellenistic Kingship,” 55–102) considers the
treatise a work of the 2nd–1st cents. BCE by an anonymous author. T. A. Sinclair (A History of Greek
Political Thought [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1951] 293, 301) regards the Ps.-Archytas
fragments as imperial productions. Thesleff (The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Perod, 35)
attributes the work to an anonymous writer of the late Hellenistic period. Harvey (“Two Kinds of
Equality,” 126 n. 89, 133 n. 116) suggests a date in the 1st cent. CE, on the basis of parallels with
Plutarch and Dio Chrysostom; followed by David Balch, “Neopythagorean Moralists and New
Testament Household Codes,” ANRW II.26.1 (1992) 380–411, at 388.
80
Stobaeus, 4.1.137 = Thesleff, The Pythagorean Texts of the Hellenistic Period, 33.30–34.14.
L. L. WELBORN 553
simple arithmetic proportion, by which the equality of shopkeepers and artisans was
trivialized, is now the property of the oligarchs. But this heterodox theory is more
than a mere change of labels. By calling democracy the geometric proportion, Ps.-
Archytas implies that all persons of whatever status should have a share of power.
By designating oligarchy the arithmetic proportion, Ps.-Archytas asserts that the
wealthy few are actually the men of least value. Some interpreters of this fragment
have suggested that the author believed that aristocracy is the most desirable form
of government, because it is mentioned first and because it is characterized by a
“harmonic” (sub-contrary) proportion that distributes the most to the best.81 But in
the application of the theory to “constitutions and households,” only the democratic
idea is said to “distribute equally”; aristocracy and oligarchy distribute unequally.
In any case, oligarchy comes last: worst of all is the rule of the few.
In what context might such an ideological critique of oligarchy have emerged?
To find this, we must look for evidence of a response to the growth of inequality—
that is, resistance to the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few
during the first two centuries.82 We may posit that at the bottom of the conflicts
between the assembly (δῆμος) and the council (βουλή), so frequently attested for
the cities of the early Empire, lay an attempt by ordinary citizens to retain or regain
some measure of control over the affairs of their communities.83 When oligarchic
excesses and abuses of power could no longer be tolerated, social tensions erupted
in violence. For example, at Aspendus in Pamphylia, a riot was provoked by an
artificially induced food shortage, as related in the Life of Apollonius: “the rich men
had shut up all the grain and were holding it for export from the country.”84 The
anger of the crowd reached such a pitch that Apollonius was barely able to restrain
the mob from burning a local magistrate alive and looting the estates of the rich.85
Similarly, at Prusa, during a food shortage, people suspected speculative hoarding;
public fury mounted to such a height that a mob carrying stones and firebrands
advanced upon the house of Dio and another man and were only turned back by
fear of retaliation from the well-armed slaves of the rich.86
81
Harvey, “Two Kinds of Equality,” 125; Blumenfeld, The Political Paul, 129–30.
82
Arjan Zuiderhoek, “The Concentration of Wealth and Power,” in The Politics of Munificence
in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2009) 53–70.
83
Zuiderhoek, The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire, 68.
84
Philostratus, Vit. Apol., 1.15.
85
Ibid., 1.15.
86
Dio Chrysostom, Or., 46.2, 12–13, 16; see the discussion of this incident in Jones, The Roman
World of Dio Chrysostom, 19–25. See also Or., 47.19 and 48.9 for instances of anger at the bouleutic
elite for monopolizing public funds; see Salmeri, “Dio, Rome, and the Civic Life of Asia Minor,” 73.
 IV
Inequality is the context of Paul’s appeal to the Corinthians for partnership in the
collection. Paul speaks explicitly of disparity—of the “abundance” (περίσσευμα)
of the Corinthians and the “lack” (ὑστέρημα) of the saints in Jerusalem (2 Cor
8:14). That the surplus and the deficiency are material in nature is clear, not only
from the context of Paul’s remarks in 2 Corinthians 887 but also from a later
summary reflection upon the outcome of the collection in Romans 15:27, where
Paul refers to the “material things” (σαρκικοί) in which the Achaians have been
of service to the Jerusalem saints.88 I see no reason to believe that Paul’s account
of the Corinthians’ abundance is rhetorical exaggeration. Through all stages of the
Corinthian correspondence, Paul anticipates the crucial role that the Corinthians
will play in the success of the collection on account of their greater wealth. At
the earliest mention of the collection project in 1 Cor 16:1–4, Paul adds to the
instructions for accumulating monies a promissory incentive: “if [the collection]
is sufficiently large” (ἐὰν δὲ ἄξιον ᾖ), he himself will convey it to Jerusalem.89
In 2 Cor 8:20, Paul seeks to reassure the Corinthians about the security of “the
large sum of money” (ἁδρότης) that they are entrusting to his administration.90
To be sure, not all of the Corinthians enjoyed an abundance of material things.
The majority of Christ believers at Corinth were poor, perhaps very poor. According
to Paul, only a few were educated, wealthy, and well-born; the rest were “foolish,”
“weak,” and “lowborn,” “despised,” “non-entities” (1 Cor 1:26–28).91 But a few
believers, such as Crispus, the former synagogue president (Acts 18:8),92 and
Gaius, “the host of the whole ἐκκλησία” (Rom 16:23),93 were persons of more
87
Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 43 n. 15, 68.
88
On σαρκικοί as “material things” in Rom 15:27, without the negative connotation attached to
the term elsewhere in Paul, see Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
2007) 931. See the discussion of the relationship between 2 Cor 8:14 and Rom 15:26–27 in Windisch,
Der zweite Korintherbrief, 259–60; Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 62–67; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8
and 9, 68–69; David J. Downs, The Offering of the Gentiles: Paul’s Collection for Jerusalem in its
Chronological, Cultural, and Cultic Contexts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 131–34.
89
Johannes Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910) 382.
90
Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 77, observing that ἁδρότης is a terminus technicus.
91
Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief, 36–37; Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline
Christianity: Essays on Corinth (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983) 70–73. On the poverty of the
majority of the Corinthian Christians, see Steven J. Friesen, “Prospects for a Demography of the
Pauline Mission: Corinth among the Churches,” in Urban Religion in Roman Corinth (ed. Daniel
N. Schowalter and Steven J. Friesen; Harvard Theological Studies 53; Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2005) 351–70, esp. 367.
92
Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, 73–75; Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban
Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983) 57.
On the social status of ἀρχισυνάγωγοι, see Tessa Rajak and David Noy, “Archisynagogoi: Office,
Title and Social Status in the Greco-Jewish Synagogue,” JRS 83 (1993) 75–93.
93
Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity, 55, 89; Meeks, The First Urban Christians,
57, 221 n. 7; Peter Lampe, “Paul, Patrons and Clients,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World (ed. J.
Paul Sampley; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003) 496, observing that Gaius of Corinth
L. L. WELBORN 555
than modest surplus resources. In fact, the evidence suggests that inequality was
greater in the ἐκκλησία at Corinth than in other Pauline assemblies.94 When the
believers at Corinth gathered to eat their communal meal, the “Lord’s Supper,” Paul
says that some were “hungry,” while others were “satiated” (1 Cor 11:21). Paul
was outraged at the inequity in the distribution of food and drink, which resulted
in the “humiliation” of “the have nots” (οἱ μὴ ἔχοντες) (1 Cor 11:22).95 Paul’s
description of the hunger of “the have nots” suggests that some in the community
were living below the subsistence level;96 for these poor members of the Corinthian
body, the communal meal was evidently a vital source of nourishment. Indeed,
Paul states that “many have become weak and sick, and some have even died,” on
account of the failure of the Corinthians to discern the needs of the body of Christ
(1 Cor 11:29–30).
Some exegetical observations must precede a comparison of Paul’s concept
of “equality” in 2 Cor 8 with the ideas of the philosophers examined above. The
challenge of the text in which Paul speaks of “equality” is its telegraphic style, well
captured by the preliminary observation of Hans Windisch on 2 Cor 8:13–14: “Kurz,
prägnant und anakoluth ist der Gedanke gefasst.”97 Consequently, commentators
routinely suggest a number of terms that must be mentally supplied to fill out what
is missing in the expression of Paul’s thought: Windisch himself adds the finite verb
γένοιτο or γένηται to the end of verse 13;98 Victor Furnish supplies the participle
συνλέξας to complete the Pauline version of the Exodus citation in verse 15;99
while Hans Lietzmann prefers the participle ἔχων.100
More problematic than the anacolutha is the syntax of verse 13. Specifically, how
is the crucial, final phrase of verse 13, ἀλλʼ ἐξ ἰσότητος, to be construed? Most
translators and interpreters attempt to circumvent the obstacle by attaching ἀλλʼ
ἐξ ἰσότητος to verse 14.101 But, as Windisch observes, this expedient destroys the
is the only person in early Christianity of whom it is said that he hosted all the believers of a given
city in his house as a central meeting place; Steven J. Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond
the So-called New Consensus,” JSNT 26 (2004) 323–61, at 356, acknowledging that Gaius must
have had “a larger house than others, which makes him perhaps the wealthiest person we know of
from Paul’s assemblies.”
94
L. L. Welborn, “Inequality in Roman Corinth: Evidence from Diverse Sources Evaluated by
a Neo-Ricardian Model,” in The First Urban Churches 2: Roman Corinth (ed. James R. Harrison
and L. L. Welborn; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016) 189–243.
95
Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 68: “the phrase οἱ μὴ ἔχοντες is to be taken absolutely,
‘the have-nots,’ that is the poor.”
96
Cf. Friesen, “Poverty in Pauline Studies,” 349.
97
Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 257.
98
Ibid., 258.
99
Victor Paul Furnish, II Corinthians (Garden City: Doubleday, 1984) 408.
100
Hans Lietzmann, An die Korinther I/II (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1949) 137.
101
E.g., the NRSV; C. K. Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians (New York: Haper &
Row, 1973) 226.
rhythm of the sentence and leaves verse 13 truncated.102 Nor does verse 14 gain
clarity by the addition of the phrase; on the contrary, verse 14 becomes unwieldy
and muddled, with the key term ἰσότης now appearing twice, clumsily, in the same
sentence.103 Consequently, recent commentators construe ἀλλʼ ἐξ ἰσότητος with
the two preceding phrases of verse 13, supplying the verb γένηται to complete
the sentence.104
The struggle of interpreters with the syntax of the passage has the virtue of
making clear that the source of the conundrum lies deeper—namely, at the level of
Paul’s thought. What is the point of the twofold usage of the word ἰσότης—first in
the prepositional phrase ἐξ ἰσότητος and then in the purpose clause ὅπως γένηται
ἰσότης? Specifically, what is the force of the preposition ἐκ (ἐξ), “out of,” “on
the basis of”? No one has puzzled more deeply over the phrase ἐξ ἰσότητος here
than Dieter Georgi: “After the preceding verses, the reader expects a statement
concerning the purpose and goal of the giving, not the ground on which it is to
be performed.”105 Georgi observes that this surprising turn in Paul’s argument is
usually ignored by commentators, and the exegetical difficulty circumvented, by
avoiding the translation of ἐκ as “out of.”106 So, for instance, Lietzmann translates:
“nach Maßgabe von Gleichheit,”107 Windisch renders: “nach dem Maßstab von
Gleichheit,”108 and Furnish paraphrases: “it is a matter of equality.”109 But Georgi
insists that this moment in Paul’s thought cannot be evaded, and that the full force
of the preposition ἐκ must be confronted: “Instead of entering upon the expected
argument over the ‘measure’ and the ‘purpose’ of the collection, Paul refers back to
its ground.”110 “Ἰσότης,” Georgi observes, “denoted primarily the legal equality of
all citizens, realized in the democratic order of Greek cities.”111 Georgi then follows
the logic of Paul’s unexpected reference to the ground of equality to its conclusion:
“the ideological foundation of the collection would then be legal and political
equality. In other words, it must spring from ἰσότης in the true Greek sense.”112
Having reached this point, Georgi draws back. He fears that such a
straightforwardly political interpretation would compromise the dialectical character
of Paul’s theology. “It seems hardly plausible,” Georgi reflects, “that Paul meant to
recommend some kind of legal equity as the ground and premise for the collection;
102
103
Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 87–88.
104
E.g., Furnish, II Corinthians, 407–408; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 37, 68.
105
Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 87. Emphasis in original.
106
Ibid., 87.
107
Lietzmann, An die Korinther I/II, 137.
108
Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 258 n.1.
109
Furnish, II Corinthians, 399, 407; similarly, Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 37, 67.
110
Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 88. Emphasis in original.
111
Ibid., 85; similarly, Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 67–68.
112
Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 88.
L. L. WELBORN 557
this kind of mere formalism would hardly correspond to Paul’s usual argument.”113
In order to preserve the theological dimension of Paul’s thought, Georgi proposes
that Paul, like Philo, saw ἰσότης as a divine force and that “Paul’s expression ἐξ
ἰσότητος is practically interchangeable with ‘ἐκ θεοῦ’ or ‘ἐκ χάριτος.’ ”114 In
other words, by appealing to “equality,” Paul wished to refer to the divine source
of giving and receiving.115 Georgi summarizes: “The main point Paul clearly wishes
to make is that the constant and all-encompassing movement of grace, which is
and makes both righteous and equal, dwells permanently in its divine origin.”116
Georgi’s conclusion about the meaning of the phrase ἐξ ἰσότητος in 2 Cor 8:13
is implausible and unconvincing, as several subsequent interpreters have judged.117
C. K. Barrett reminds us of the obvious: the context of Paul’s reference to “equality”
is a concrete, financial collection, not mystical speculation on the divine order of
the cosmos, as in Philo.118 Moreover, the premise upon which Georgi’s argument
turns—that there is a contradiction between the political and the theological,
between the equality that is predicated of persons and the equality that resides
in God—is flawed and unnecessary. Worst of all, the flight of “equality” to the
heavenly realm in Georgi’s conclusion jettisons his original insight into the most
striking feature of Paul’s argument in 2 Cor 8:13–14: namely, the double occurrence
of the word ἰσότης, first in a prepositional phrase that refers to the ground of the
collection and then in a purpose clause that designates the goal.119 This twofold
usage of the term ἰσότης describes a mundane motion from source to outcome,
from presupposition to conclusion.
Let us dwell for a moment with Georgi’s original insight and draw out the
implications. Georgi is rightly critical of the tendency of interpreters to avoid a
literal translation of the preposition ἐκ as “out of” or “on the basis of.” The effect of
the interpreters’ circumlocutions is to elide Paul’s reference to equality as the basis
or ground of the collection and to substitute a reference to equality as a measure or
norm. But attention to the context of Paul’s initial reference to ἰσότης permits us
to make an additional inference. In the first two clauses of verse 13, Paul speaks
of “others” (ἄλλοι)—that is, the Jerusalem saints—for whom the collection will
be a “relief” and of “you” (ὑμεῖς)—that is, the Corinthian believers—for whom
the collection may represent a “hardship.” That the reference to “equality” as
the ground of the collection is introduced in this way implies that the “equality”
of which Paul speaks is an equality between persons. As we have seen, Georgi
glimpses this possibility and then recoils. On what basis Paul posits the equality
113
Ibid., 88.
114
Ibid., 88–89.
115
Ibid., 89.
116
Ibid., 89.
117
E.g., Furnish, II Corinthians, 407
118
Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 226–27.
119
Georgi, Remembering the Poor, 84–85.
of Christ believers remains to be determined, but we may regard the inference as

established. We shall return to this inference when we complete our comparison
of Paul with other first-century thinkers of “equality.”
A second, less complicated exegetical observation may be made about Paul’s
use of ἰσότης in verse 14 to designate the goal of the collection: “At the present
time, your abundance [should be] for their lack, in order that their abundance
may also be for your lack, so that there may be equality.” The sentence begins
without a connecting particle and continues in the same epigrammatic style as
verse 13, so that, again, interpreters are obliged to supply what is missing in the
expression of Paul’s thought.120 Commentators puzzle over the sense in which
Paul speaks of the “abundance” of the Jerusalem saints supplying the “lack” of the
Corinthian believers in the second clause of the verse. Did Paul really envision a
future situation in which the material want of the Corinthians would be alleviated
by a contribution from the church in Jerusalem?121 Or does Paul use these terms
metaphorically, anticipating the argument he will later make in Rom 15:27 about
the “spiritual blessings” that the Jerusalem saints have bestowed upon Gentile
believers who, in turn, assist them with “material things”?122 Or is verse 14 simply
a formal statement of the principle of reciprocity, without a detailed plan for what
its operation might entail in the future?123 However one decides in this matter, it is
clear that in both parts of the sentence Paul formulates an antithesis that can only
be resolved through an equitable distribution of resources.124 In the relationship
that Paul seeks to establish between Christ believers of different social classes,
“equality” is the goal of redistributive action.
A final exegetical observation relates to the Pauline form of the citation of Exod
16:18 in verse 15. Commentators generally assert that Paul quotes the Greek version
of Exod 16:18 “almost verbatim.”125 But closer attention to the subtle changes
that Paul makes in the Septuagint text reveals that Paul’s interest in this text is
not entirely consistent with the point of the biblical story.126 The Septuagint text
reads: “οὐκ ἐπλεόνασεν ὁ τὸ πολύ, καὶ ὁ τὸ ἔλαττον οὐκ ἠλαττόνησεν.”127
Paul reverses the order of the subject and verb in the first clause and changes τὸ
120
Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 258; Furnish, II Corinthians, 408; Betz, 2 Corinthians
8 and 9, 68 n. 237.
121
122
Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 68.
123
Furnish, II Corinthians, 419.
124
Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 258–59; David G. Horrell, Solidarity and Difference:
A Contemporary Reading of Paul’s Ethics (London: T & T Clark, 2005) 239–40.
125
E.g., Furnish, II Corinthians, 420; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 69.
126
Similarly, Barrett, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 227; Horrell, Solidarity and
Difference, 240; Barclay, “Manna and the Circulation of Grace,” 411–13, 419.
127
Alan E. Brooke and Norman McLean, The Old Testament in Greek, Vol. 1 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1906) 208; John W. Wevers, Septuaginta: Vetus Testamentum Graecum
Auctoritate Academiae Scientiarum Gottingensis editum II.1: Exodus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1991) 55.
L. L. WELBORN 559
ἔλαττον to τὸ ὀλίγον in the second clause: “ὁ τὸ πολὺ οὐκ ἐπλεόνασεν, καὶ ὁ τὸ

ὀλίγον οὐκ ἠλαττόνησεν.”128 The effect of these changes is to destroy the chiastic
structure of the Septuagint text, a structure that linguistically mirrors the miracle of
divine equalization, and to emphasize the inequality of the parties, by the absolute
contrast between “the one who has much” and “the one who has little.” Paul’s
linear sentence serves to advocate equality between persons of different resources
through redistributive action. The novelty of Paul’s conception of the way in which
the divine objective is realized in human action becomes clear through comparison
with Philo, who also cites Exod 16:18 in his treatise on equality. Philo cites the
Exodus passage as an example of the perfectly equitable distribution accomplished
by the divine λόγος.129 Paul, by contrast, does not quote the verse as an illustration
of providential distribution but rather as a paradigm of the equality that human
beings can achieve through redistributive action.130
We may now seek to ascertain Paul’s place among the first-century thinkers
of “equality.” First, we note the total absence in Paul of the idea of proportional
equality.131 This is a surprising development, since, as we have seen, the theory
of proportional equality, in some form or other, dominates the thought of all first-
century writers who venture to discuss equality, even those who, like Ps.-Archytas,
are critical of oligarchy. It is difficult to imagine that the absence of the idea of
proportional equality in Paul is accidental. Paul lived and worked in urban contexts,
in big cities like Ephesus, through which diverse intellectual currents coursed.132
Moreover, the educational level on display in Paul’s letters is relatively high.133
That the idea of proportional equality had found its way into Hellenistic Jewish
circles and was thought not to be incompatible with the wisdom of Scripture, is
demonstrated by Philo’s essay “Who is the Heir of Divine Things.” I conclude that
the absence of the idea of proportional equality in Paul is intentional: that is, Paul
did not seek to conceptualize the relationship between Christ believers in terms of
proportion—whether geometric, arithmetic, or harmonic.
128
Cf. Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 259.
129
Philo, Her., 191.
130
Similarly, Horrell, Solidarity and Difference, 239–40; Barclay, “Manna and the Circulation
of Grace,” 411–13, 419.
131
Some commentators infer an endorsement of the principle of proportionality from Paul’s
sententious observation in 2 Cor 8:12 that a gift is “acceptable according to what one has, not
what one does not have” (καθὸ ἐὰν ἔχῃ εὐπρόσδεκτος, οὐ καθὸ οὐκ ἔχει): so, Windisch, Der
zweite Korintherbrief, 257; Betz, 2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 66. But this realistic acknowledgement of
limitations is remote from the philosophers’ theory of proportional equality.
132
Paul Trebilco, The Early Christians in Ephesus from Paul to Ignatius (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
2007); James R. Harrison and L. L. Welborn, The First Urban Churches 3: Ephesus (Atlanta: SBL
Press, forthcoming 2017).
133
Abraham J. Malherbe, Social Aspects of Early Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press,
1983) 29–59; Ronald F. Hock, “Paul and Greco-Roman Education,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman
World (ed. J. Paul Sampley; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003) 198–227.
Second, Paul’s notion of “equality” is significantly more “democratic” than the

concepts of his contemporaries. This is an inference from our exegesis of the phrase
ἐξ ἰσότητος in 2 Cor 8:13: accordingly, the collection for the poor, which involves
a redistribution of resources, is justified by Paul on the ground of the equality of all
Christ believers. To be sure, Paul is fully aware of the existing inequalities between
Christ believers: the saints in Jerusalem suffer “lack,” while the believers in Corinth
enjoy “abundance.” Nevertheless, Paul posits the “equality” of Christ believers as
the ground of the collection. This assertion of “equality” as a presupposition within
a society of unequals is the essence of the democratic revolution in its original form.
As the philosopher Jacques Rancière has recently observed about the emergence
of democracy in fifth-century BCE Athens: “It is the intrication of equality within
inequality that the democratic scandal makes manifest.”134 Somehow this old
democratic idea has re-emerged in Paul.
But how has the democratic idea re-emerged and on what basis? The basis of
democratic equality in fifth-century Athens was autochthony: simply by being born
in Athens, once enslavement for debt had been abolished, any free man born of
Athenian parents, any artisan or shopkeeper whatsoever, was counted as “equal”
before the law and in politics.135 But for Paul, the basis of the equality of believers
in Christ was evidently theological or, more precisely, christological. Just before
Paul appeals to the principle of “equality,” he reminds the Corinthians: “You know
the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that on account of you, he became poor
(ἐπτώχευσεν), although he was rich, so that by his poverty (πτωχεία) you might
become rich” (2 Cor 8:9).136 From members of early Christ groups, Paul inherited a
belief in a deity who voluntarily impoverished himself, who abandoned plentitude
(cf. Phil 2:6–8),137 and by his self-emptying enriched all who believe, opening up
a space of human equality.
Finally, Paul extends the idea of equality into the socio-economic sphere, making
“equality” the goal of relations between those who enjoy “abundance” and those
who suffer “lack.” This extension of equality into the economic sphere is the most
134
Jacques Rancière, Hatred of Democracy (trans. Steve Corcoran; London: Verso, 2014)
48; idem, Dis-agreement: Politics and Philosophy (trans. Julie Rose; Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1999) 1–19.
135
Josiah Ober, Mass and Elite in Democratic Athens: Rhetoric, Ideology, and the Power of the
People (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) 261–66.
136
On Jesus’s “poverty” in 2 Cor 8:9, see Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 252–53; Betz,
2 Corinthians 8 and 9, 62; Barclay, “Manna and the Circulation of Grace,” 420–21.
137
It is widely recognized the Phil 2:6–11 is a pre-Pauline hymn: Ernst Lohmeyer, Kyrios
Jesus: Eine Untersuchung zu Phil. 2.5–11 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1961); Günther Bornkamm, “On
Understanding the Christ Hymn: Phil. 2:6–11,” in idem, Early Christian Experience (trans. Paul
Hammer; New York: Harper & Row, 1969) 112–22. Likewise, Gal 3:28, with its egalitarian vision
of the new identity “in Christ,” has been shown to be a pre-Pauline baptismal formula: see Hans
Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Philadelphia:
Fortress Press, 1979) 181–85. Thus, Paul develops his argument for equality between Christ believers
upon the basis of a deposit of pre-Pauline tradition that was markedly egalitarian.
L. L. WELBORN 561
surprising aspect of Paul’s application of the concept. Mogens Hansen summarizes

the consensus opinion of ancient historians: “The concept of equality was purely
political and did not spread to the social and economic sphere of society.”138 To be
sure, a few ancient orators lamented the threat that class differences posed to the
principle of equality before the law.139 Aristotle mentions one thinker, Phaleas of
Chalcedon, who proposed “the equalization of possessions,” observing that this
idea was “unique” to Phaleas.140 But, in general, there was little precedent in the
Greco-Roman world for Paul’s attempt to establish a relationship between persons
of different social classes, the goal of which was to achieve equality. The parallels
to Paul’s extension of the idea adduced by Windisch and other commentators are
not relevant.141 Thus, according to Xenophon, the great king Cyrus “accepted that
of which givers had abundance, and gave in return that of which he saw that they
were in need.”142 Plutarch rehearses the legend that the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus
established a society in which “there was neither greed nor want, but equality in
well-being.”143 But there is no genuine point of comparison between the efforts of
a king or a lawgiver to equalize the distribution of resources and Paul’s attempt to
create a structure for direct exchange between persons of different social classes.
If there is virtually no precedent in the Greco-Roman world for Paul’s extension
of the principle of “equality” into the economic sphere, then we must look to the
inner logic of Paul’s theology for the source of this development—to Paul’s belief
in a God who had voluntarily impoverished himself (2 Cor 8:9). In this respect,
the contrast between Paul and the other first-century thinkers of “equality” seems
absolute. Philo’s God is able to produce equality by exact divisions because of his
complete justice and changeless perfection.144 Plutarch’s divine geometer maintains
the proportion that respects every man’s worth because his divine reason permits no
change in the law.145 Dio Chrysostom’s divine beings preserve cosmic equilibrium
because they are indestructible and immutable.146
Paul’s extension of the principle of “equality” into the sphere of economic
relations between Christ believers builds upon and develops egalitarian
138
M. H. Hansen, “Democracy, Athenian,” in The Oxford Classical Dictionary (ed. Simon
Hornblower and Antony Spawforth; 4th ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012) 435.
139
Demosthenes, Or., 21.112, with the comments of Stählin, “ἴσος, ἰσότης, κτλ.,” 346 n. 19;
Vassiliadis, “Equality and Justice in Classical Antiquity and in Paul,” 54. See also Lysias, 12.35.
140
Aristotle, Pol., 2.4.7, 1266b–1267a; 2.9.8, 1274b9–10.
141
Windisch, Der zweite Korintherbrief, 259; Furnish, II Corinthians, 407–8, 419–20. The account
of the sharing of possessions among the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem in Acts 2:44–45 and 4:36–37
does not qualify as a “precedent” to Paul, contra Martin Hengel, Property and Riches in the Early
Church (London: SCM Press, 1974) 31–34, since Acts dates to the 2nd cent.: see Richard I. Pervo,
Acts: A Commentary on the Book of Acts (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009) 88–91.
142
Xenophon, Cyr., 8.6.23.
143
Plutarch, Lyc., 24.
144
Philo, Her., 143.
145
Plutarch, Quaest. conv., 8.2.1–2 (Mor. 719B).
146
Dio Chrysostom, Or., 17.11.
and democratic impulses that were already at work in the earliest Christian
communities,147 empowering the voices of the poor, slaves, and women in the
discourse of the assemblies.148 We shall only take the measure of the importance
of this development when we have located Paul’s argument for “equality” as the
ground and goal of human relations at that moment in ancient history when the
immutability of the divine was shattered, when the voluntary self-impoverishment
of the divine opened a space for human beings to achieve “equality.”
147
See esp. Cynthia Kittredge, “Rethinking Authorship in the Letters of Paul: Elisabeth Schüssler
Fiorenza’s Model of Pauline Theology,” in Walk in the Ways of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Elisabeth
Schüssler Fiorenza (ed. Shelly Matthews, Cynthia Briggs Kittredge, and Melanie Johnson-DeBaufre;
Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2003) 318–33.
148
See esp. Anna C. Miller, Corinthian Democracy: Democratic Discourse in 1 Corinthians
(Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2015), who emphasizes the importance of the democratic discourse of
the ekklēsia in the Greek cities of the Roman East as an inspiration for early Christian assemblies
and for Paul. Miller’s findings converge with the thesis argued here. Note esp. Miller’s discussion
of the place of Jocasta and Euripides’s Phoenician Women in the progymnasmata prescribed for
school children in the 1st cent. CE.

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Paul’s Place in a First-Century Revival

of the Discourse of “Equality”*

HTR 110:4 (2017) 541–562

Ps.-Ecphantus, Diotogenes, and Sthenidas—discuss “equality” in contexts that

Chrysostom’s address to the Tarsians, he appeals on behalf of the impoverished

description of the contrasting expectations awakened by Solon’s statement is clearly

of Christ believers remains to be determined, but we may regard the inference as

ἔλαττον to τὸ ὀλίγον in the second clause: “ὁ τὸ πολὺ οὐκ ἐπλεόνασεν, καὶ ὁ τὸ

Second, Paul’s notion of “equality” is significantly more “democratic” than the

surprising aspect of Paul’s application of the concept. Mogens Hansen summarizes

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