Household: Patronage and the Dance of Grace

What is your social status? Today we tend to rank people according to how much wealth they control. We stratify people into "wealthy," "middle class," "lower class," and "the poor," with various gradations in between. The way you move between classes is through merit and achievement. But you have undoubtedly heard the expression, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." People use this expression when they sense someone has achieved a position or gain because of personal connections with powerful people rather than through merit in open competition. In other words, they cheated. It violates our sense of fair play, of everyone having an equal chance to improve their "status." Here is a news flash. The Greco-Roman world was 180 degrees opposite our thinking!

Status was achieved through patronage in the Greco-Roman world. You have seen the bumper sticker, "He who dies with the most toys wins." Our Greco-Roman ancestors would have said, "He who dies with most clients wins." They measured your status by how many people were indebted to you and served you.

Everyday purchases of goods and services were conducted on a market basis, but just about everything else in life involved having connections with people who had the power to offer goods, services, jobs, and positions of status. Patrons were expected to give gifts and do favors without calculation of what they (the patron) might personally gain in return. Philosophers instructed patrons to seek out those who could not repay them because that would heighten the sense of indebtedness and gratitude. Sometimes a patron's client would need assistance only another patron could offer. Patrons would then become "brokers" with other patrons on behalf of the clients. The client was to receive the gifts and favors with exceeding gratitude. They were to sing the praises of the patron and do the patrons bidding with unreserved dedication.

The patron usually referred to clients as "friends," supposedly avoiding any tone of condescension toward clients or causing them to lose face. Reciprocally, the client showed subservience, making no attempt to hide their lesser status, and looked for occasions to honor the patron. The wealthiest patrons provided most of the public facilities out of their own means. The city would erect statues, post inscriptions, or have a feast in the patron's honor. Patronage was the glue that held society together.

The philosophers talked about this patronage as a three-part dance: A) the giving done by the patron, B) the thankfulness of the client for receiving the patron's gifts, and C) the unreserved devotion and responsiveness of the client to the patron. This three-part dance was called charis, which we interpret as "grace." David deSilva points out that today we think of this word as a purely religious term, but the New Testament writers were taking this concept of charis and using it as a metaphor for theological purposes. The idea of "faith" describes the state of mind of the client who is confident that their patron will provide for them, and the reciprocal need for the client to be "faithful" in their actions.

As we think about status, our modern post-Marx understanding of society tends to place people in economic layers stacked one upon the other, with people in those layers tending to unite on the commonality of their status position (i.e., they are integrated horizontally). This stratification is much less meaningful when looking at the Greco-Roman world. Rather than strata, the more helpful image is of multiple patronage pyramids vying against each other (i.e., vertically integrated.) Clearly, wealth was a factor in this patronage game, but shrewd use of the patronage system could be just as beneficial as wealth.

In addition to patronage and wealth, there were class distinctions, but they differ from our sense of class-based almost exclusively on economic criteria. More on that next time.

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Comments

[kerryn]

great stuff - keep em coming Michael!
very helpful information in terms of understanding bible culture.
God bless you as you serve him and those of us who read your teaching.
(-:
kerryn

[Dana Ames]

This makes me think that Jesus was pointing out the "unjust" steward's shrewd use of the system in the parable in Lk 16 ("take your accounting sheet and write less than you owe my master"). The point Jesus was making was something else, but his description was clearly of something his hearers would have made sense of- patronage.

Why don't pastors teach this stuff to their congregations? Sheesh... How did you first come by this information? There's more of an emphasis on it since we are realizing the importance of context, but it's hard for me to believe it's been entirely unknown until now.

Dana

[Beyond Words]

Thank you--this concepts explains grace so it makes sense--not the "free gift with no strings attached" commodity that evangelicals are so fond of proclaiming. It's a gift so precious that it inspires our true devotion. As usual in the kingdom, a worldy power structure is subverted for truth.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Dana, for me, this stuff blows the Bible wide open, particularly with regard to Jesus' parables.

I came by it because of I'm obsessive historical-sociologist. *grin* I can’t remember the exact route that took me ever deeper into this stuff. I think the hands down best introductory to this stuff is deSilva’s Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture. Another helpful book, although I take issue with some minor conclusions, is James Jeffers The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era: Exploring the Background of Early Christianity. For background on the family, I consider Joseph Hellerman's The Ancient Church As Family to be an excellent resource.

You are right that much of this info has been around many years. Most of it has seemed to stay locked away in the academy until about the last quarter century or so. I think new literature finds across the 20th Century have been adding to our knowledge and the ascendancy of anthropology/sociology have greatly sharpened our biblical lenses.

My suspicion is that anthropological and sociological methods emerged within the context of higher criticism where there was a heavy bent on deconstruction and “demythologizing” scripture. They were tools used to undermine the traditional view of the authority of the Word. For that reason, many who held to the high view of scripture (like me) were loathe to really engage this material. Starting in the 1970s I think you see what I call the rise of “lower criticism,” which seeks to engage scripture in its full orbed cultural context while still holding to it as the rule of faith and authoritative in all it teaches. (Higher criticism places the reader above the text and makes it conform to preconceived lens of the in order to be in authority over it. Lower criticism critiques from below scripture assuming its authority but wanting to appreciate fully its socio-historical contextual nature. I think the decay of modernism is giving a place for rediscovery of the Bible's original context.

[Michael W. Kruse]

BW, maybe you have heard of the reformers 3 "Gs": Guilt, Grace, Gratitude. We are convicted of rebellion and separation from God, which we can not repair. Unbelievable Grace is extended to us by God. This evokes deep gratitude in us that makes us want to serve the giver of grace. Guilt, grace, and gratitude is what melts and molds us into the person God calls us to be. I think the reformers had decent grip on grace.

As I will point out in my posts, this human practice of grace, with all of its pretense of benevolence, was rife with people hungry for status and influence. What I think we see in the gospel is “grace” transformed into something higher. How many patrons allowed themselves to be murdered, or their sons to me murdered, for the benefit of clients? The grace of God in Jesus is absolutely scandalous.