A Light to the Centurions: Reading Luke–Acts in the Empire

Preface

• I will give you as a light to the nations, to be my salvation to the end of the earth (Isaiah 49:6).

• For my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all the peoples,a light for revelation to the gentiles, and glory to your people Israel (Simeon, in Luke 2:30–32).

• I stand here testifying to both small and great, saying nothing except what both the prophets and Moses have said were going to happen, that the Christ was to suffer and that as the first of the resurrection from the dead, he was going to proclaim light both to the people and to the gentiles" (Paul to King Agrippa and Festus the Roman governor, Acts 26:22–23).

In Mark’s Gospel, a centurion responds to the crucifixion of Jesus with Truly, this was Son of God (Mark 15:39). The line properly belongs to a disciple, but none of the disciples are present, having abandoned the scene hours before. So the centurion is left to stand in for them, pronouncing the words they are unable to say. By contrast, in Luke’s narrative in his Gospel and Acts, centurions abound. Cornelius and Julius are mentioned by name (Acts 10:1; 27:1). And the centurion of Capernaum is openly affirmative of Jesus and his works (Luke 7:4–5). Things have changed for Luke, and among these changes is a different attitude toward the Roman Empire and its military officers. That change of perspective and direction is the impulse behind the study of Luke’s narrative in this book.

Ever since Joseph Tyson proposed that the centurions in Luke–Acts are intra-textual representatives of the implied reader of these works, the idea has been on the table. This proposal will be accepted here and Luke’s double work read as a narrative intended for such a reader. Part of this enterprise will be to remain continually aware of what Luke changes in the narrative he received from Mark, as well as how his distinct readership might make those changes intelligible.

If the implied reader is a God-fearer, a friend of the synagogue, but unable to convert to Judaism, we then have one who is attempting to enter the narrative, not one who is out to replace it with another. Luke is finding a way into the narrative for that reader, not only by placing him in the text, but by finding a rationale within the Jewish tradition for doing so. He accomplishes that through a strategic use of the post-exilic Isaian texts, playing them against the more successfully surviving alternative tradition derived from Ezekiel, Ezra, and Nehemiah. Their policy of posting identity markers around Judaism, guarding the community that was tasked with guarding the revelation entrusted them, gives way in this Gospel and its successor, the Acts of the Apostles. But now the light is to be released to the gentiles.

Recent New Testament studies, inspired by postcolonial criticism, have disclosed a dimension to the New Testament writings that had otherwise remained unnoticed. Adopting the perspective of the colonized peoples, postcolonial criticism has shown the underside of imperial conquest as experienced in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Biblical scholars, alerted by these writings, remembered that subjection to foreign empires marked the origins of both Old and New Testaments. The trauma of the Roman Empire as the imperial overlord and eventual destroyer of both Jerusalem and its temple is recognized accordingly as an important background to the New Testament writings. As a result studies of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and John, as well as the letters of Paul, have undergone a profound revision of interpretation.

Nevertheless, the pertinence of empire studies to the writings of Luke has been less promising. There are five key traditional views of the purpose of Luke, with the first dominating scholarship: (1) Luke–Acts is a political apology on behalf of the church addressed to Roman officials; (2) Luke–Acts is an apology on behalf of the Roman state addressed to the church; (3) Luke–Acts is providing legitimation for the church’s identity; (4) Luke–Acts is equipping the church to live with the Roman empire; and (5) Luke–Acts is not interested in politics at all.¹ The consensus is that Luke’s attitude toward the empire is ambivalent, allowing those on different sides to muster arguments that favor their position while ignoring those that do not. In each of these views, the conflict that needs negotiation is that between the Christian Church and the Roman Empire. While relations between church and empire dominate the discussion, missing from the list of views is a properly postcolonial standpoint. In none of them is the view of the colonized concerning empire a part of the outlook.

This omission can be explained in light of the very nature of postcolonial writing. James Scott has addressed the dynamic of hiddenness of imperial influence.² Resistance mounted by oppressed groups usually is, by necessity, indirect and surreptitious. The Gospel of Mark, for instance, can be shown to mount an opposition to the imperial forces, albeit nonviolently. Key terms and in-group references can be shown to relate to a common Jewish resistance to imperial occupation and cultural pressures. Luke–Acts is an anomaly in this regard, with its often positive, or at least ambivalent, attitude toward Rome, in contrast to the previous Gospels.

A postcolonial reading of Luke’s work is in order, if for no other reason than to discern more clearly the author’s position within the framework provided by empire studies. Forays into the territory have been made, exploring different possibilities and relevant themes—the place of the Roman military, soldiers, and centurions in Luke’s work;³ the theme of social reversals;⁴ and the place of postcolonial readings in Luke’s body of work.⁵ What remains to be seen is how a postcolonial narrative reading of Luke–Acts succeeds as a whole. In trying to determine if a postcolonial reading of Luke can provide a coherent reading of Luke’s text, my task is not to prove something, but rather to test a hypothesis.

This is the hypothesis being tested: Luke is extending the gospel he received to the gentiles. And in shifting the point of view from the Jewish to the gentile position, Luke reverses that viewpoint, away from identifying the Roman as an opponent to allowing the Roman into the fold. The general sense is this: The question is how Luke can provide a light to the gentiles when the gentiles have been identified as the opponent of God and the Bible.

One opening in the received gospel tradition is the nonviolent conflict resolution of Mark (and Matthew), which refuses to treat the opponent as evil and the proper target of retaliatory violence. This implies that there is room to perceive the enemy as a potential ally, and even a friend. Such a proposal helps to explain the ambivalent attitude in Luke’s text toward Rome, which is both critical and approving. For this point of view, the citizen of Rome, even the Roman authorities, are potential material for conversion and discipleship. In fact, part of their story is how they use their position to further the Way.

The assumption underlying this book, then, is that Luke is showing the gentiles a way into the narrative. It is not that Luke is defending the church against Rome, or Rome against the church. The sympathetic gentiles are attracted to the community and the narrative of faith, and they would like to join it, even when conditions prohibit them from doing so. What those conditions may be is also a subject of importance investigated in the following chapters. There are six chapters, plus a summarizing postscript. The first three of them address the question of Luke’s Gospel project. Each pivots off the inscription at the beginning. The following two attempt a reading of the Gospel and Acts, respectively. The concluding chapter looks back at the larger narrative arc of Luke–Acts.

Chapter One raises the question of Luke’s reader, with the understanding that the implied reader of a work invites us to adopt that person’s point of view and, as such, controls our reading of the work. The chapter identifies Luke’s reader as a cultivated gentile, friend of the synagogue, called a God-fearer in Luke’s account. The typical God-fearer turns out to be a centurion, which inverts the perspective of Luke’s primary narrative source, the Gospel of Mark.

Chapter Two raises the question of the challenge that Luke’s work makes to its reader. Noting that the inscription offers a word of assurance, the chapter details how the text itself also presents a challenge to that reader, taking matters beyond mere confirmation of settled views. In particular, the call to repentance in Luke’s Gospel, placed in tension with attitudes of self-achieved righteousness, though cast in the setting of intra-Jewish disputes, raises questions for Luke’s gentile reader.

Chapter Three turns its attention to the Lukan text. Noting sequentiality in Luke’s narrative, as well as the apparent violations of that same concern for proper sequence, it looks at the purpose of Luke’s project. Particular consideration is given to the programmatic episode of Jesus’ reading from the scroll of Isaiah in the Nazareth synagogue (Luke 4:16–30). Placing that event in the historical context of the competing post-exilic traditions of Isaiah 40–66 and Ezra–Nehemiah, this chapter shows Luke’s Jesus invoking one Jewish tradition against another. One looks outward beyond Judaism, presenting a light to the gentiles; the other looks inward, establishing identity markers to preserve the threatened community. Luke provides his reader with an entry into the Israelite narrative, beyond identity markers.

Chapter Four is an exercise in reading Luke’s Gospel as a God-fearer might. Noticing how Luke has adapted his source in Mark, we discover how he has reconstructed the narrative to serve his needs. The result is an account that presents Jesus as a prominent teacher and healer who takes his liberating ministry in Galilee to another level by bringing his movement to the central forum of Jerusalem. The extended period of teaching during the long journey to the city (Luke 10–19) is carefully shaped to present three conversations with different parties—his disciples, the Jewish teachers who oppose him, and the crowds. The arrival in Jerusalem shifts the terms of the conflict. Jesus spends a period of time teaching in the city as the Sanhedrin, the Jewish authorities, plot to quiet him. Ironically their success in having him removed is undone when his movement, animated by the Spirit, revives after his resurrection. The disciples remain in Jerusalem, waiting for the next part of the story.

Chapter Five turns to the Acts of the Apostles and to a narrative that begins in Jerusalem and moves out from there. After reviewing the rhetorical plan of that narrative—tracing the Spirit-guided movement from Jerusalem, through Judea and Samaria, out to the ends of the earth—the chapter proposes a fresh approach based on shifting character sets and conflict alignments. Two major narrative thrusts are proposed. One is directed to the synagogues (Acts 8–20), the other to the Roman courts (Acts 21–28). For reasons already discussed, both have significance for the God-fearing reader. The move toward the synagogues, addressing the Jewish tradition, removes obstacles to the gentile believer. However, the move to the Roman court, while welcoming to the gentile believer, also intimates a subversion of Graeco-Roman cultural values, as the teaching of Jesus extends into the empire.

Chapter Six proposes an alternative narrative arc that plays against the more overt pattern of Luke–Acts, as moving out toward the wider world. A move from edge to center, seen in the Gospel narrative as it goes from Galilee to Jerusalem, is repeated in the move from Judea to Rome, as seen now in Acts. The general narrative pattern of moving from the margins and the marginalized toward the center is given a geographical image. This in turn informs the resolution of narrative conflict in Luke–Acts, as Mark’s pattern of nonviolent confrontation is transmuted in Luke to an invitation to the antagonists toward conversion. The centurion emerges as the Lukan image of the Roman opponent called to discipleship.

1. Walton, The State, Rome in Bible,

1

–

41

. Based on the website: http://stevewalton.info/my-article-the-state-they-were-in-lukes-view-of-the-roman-empire-available-to-download/.

2

.

Scott, Domination.

3. Brink, Soldiers in Luke–Acts; Yoder, Representatives; Kyrychenko, Roman Army.

4

.

Miller, Rumors of Resistance; Rowe, World Upside Down.

5

.

Petterson, Acts of Empire; Muñoz-Larrondo, A Postcolonial Reading.

Acknowledgements

This book was prompted by an offhand suggestion of Sharon Ringe following a panel discussion at an SBL (Society of Biblical Literature) Conference, to the effect that it would be useful to explore the notion of Luke’s reader as a God-fearer. Along with that, the need to preach on the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time in the C Cycle forced the generating idea of the book. The lectionary pairs two passages, from Nehemiah 9 and Luke 4. Superficially similar, these are seen on reflection to represent two opposed Jewish traditions. The reform of Ezra that set the norm for the post-exilic colony of Judea competed for dominance with the contrasting world-mission vision of the Isaiah tradition. It was this alternative tradition, in the form of Isaiah 61:1–2, that Jesus invokes in the synagogue of Nazareth, setting the program for Luke’s writing project.

As before, thanks must go to those who joined in animated discussions of these matters—Amy Lorenz, John Waldmeir, Jean Beringer OSF, Mona Wingert OSF in particular. Deep appreciation also for the editing skills of Marilyn Gorun, which did so much to improve the book. Mention must also be made of the generosity of Sue Davis, allowing use of the back table in her bookstore, River Lights Second Edition. And again, Dustin Bartels, was willing as usual to give us the corner table at One Mean Bean coffeehouse. It was during these lively exchanges that much of the present book took shape.

Chapter One

Luke’s Reader

Most Excellent Theophilus

I. The Question of the Reader

Imagine this scenario. An envelope with another address comes in your mail. Noticing it, you dutifully set it out for the mail deliverer to retrieve so it can be forwarded to the right person.

Or maybe you don’t. Maybe this envelope was buried in a stack of envelopes that you methodically slit open and then began to read, and only then discovered that one was not intended for you. Having begun to read it, you have a sense of unease, knowing you are looking in on a message meant for someone else. The name on the letter establishes a right. This writing is another person’s property, and that person has the right to withhold or share the contents. And you are violating that right. If not exactly an intruder, you are at least an eavesdropper, and you recognize it. Luke is aware of eavesdropping and makes it a feature of his writing. In the middle section of his Gospel, where Jesus is journeying toward Jerusalem, we find eavesdroppers. Jesus will be speaking to a certain group, for instances, disciples, and a third party, perhaps Pharisees, will interrupt, responding to something that was said, but not said to them.

Whose name is on the text makes a difference. Even when, as in pursuing historical research, public permission is given to read private conversations—say Abraham Lincoln’s correspondence with his wife, preserved in the national archives—even then we have a sense of trespassing on another’s personal territory. And while the sense of intruding on another’s privacy is not an issue, even in public statements we are conscious of the time and place, and the persons addressed. The Gettysburg Address takes much of its meaning from such circumstances. For us, Luke’s writing is part of the biblical canon. But it was not always so, and it did not begin that way.

At the very beginning of Luke’s Gospel, readers discover a reader already there in the text, one who is awarded particular attention. In the first four verses, for convenience called the Prologue, the author addresses this individual as most excellent Theophilus.

I too have decided, having carefully investigated everything from the beginning, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught (

1

:

3

–

4

).¹

And we encounter this same name again at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, Luke’s other volume. Furthermore, the work is written specifically for him, to meet his particular needs. The language is formal, but the focus is personal. The author states his intention, and it doesn’t include us.

For most of us, most of the time, this doesn’t seem to be a problem. But it is. We come to the work expecting to read Scripture, part of the biblical canon. To find another reader with his particular needs addressed here is a matter to be noticed. It speaks to the purpose of the author. When the author refers explicitly to the need of the reader in describing his writing project, the wise reader takes notice.

It invites us to specify more closely the identity of the reader. For Luke, or any biblical author, this is difficult to do, but attempts have been made. For example, following the reasonable assumption that Luke sees himself as writing history, genre studies compare this to other early historical writing and view this as a typical dedication of a work. In this vein the author acknowledges Theophilus as the sponsor of Luke’s project.² Theophilus, for Luke, may be dedicatee and sponsor, but he is also most explicitly a reader of the work, with an agenda spelled out by the author.

What does it mean to find a reader in the text? Grammarians of narrative distinguish the intended, the inscribed, and the implied readers in a text. We can get an idea of the intended reader only by way of the text. So when we question the text, we may find that the reader is actually named there, inscribed in the text. In Luke’s case this inscription is Theophilus. However, it remains unclear whether this Theophilus is an actual historical person or not. The name may be a cipher intended to suggest the kind of reader Luke had in mind. And this may even be true if the dedicatee is an actual person, perhaps given a symbolic name for the occasion.

In contrast, the implied reader is suggested by a reading of the text itself, as opposed to making deductions from the inscription at the beginning. This too has mixed results. Some scholars think that the range of experiences reflected in the Gospel and Acts is too wide to expect a single reader, despite the fact that Theophilus is invoked at the beginning of each book. For others, this very range leads to the conclusion that a specific kind of person is intended—a cultured gentile who is sympathetic and knowledgeable about Judaism as well as about his own cultural Graeco-Roman tradition.

The Implied Reader as God-fearer

Contemporary studies suggest there is one category of reader that fits this description—the God-fearer. The title refers to an attitude of reverence toward God, as in the old idiom of a good, God-fearing person. Throughout Scripture, fear of the Lord characterizes the faith posture of the true Israelite. In Acts 9:31, Luke sketches a picture of the early church at peace, as it was being built up and walked in the fear of the Lord. The title God-fearer then denotes due reverence toward a transcendent God. What is unusual in Acts of the Apostles is that the title is also given to gentiles. And that happens only here. Which is to say, the term is not unusual, but its application is.

The findings of critical discussions concerning the God-fearers can be summarized under three headings. First, the God-fearer is a socially prominent gentile, in a position of authority or influence. Second, the God-fearer is a believer in the one God—one who fears God. Third, and this is what most conspicuously defines the status, the God-fearer does not convert to Judaism. These three, then—gentile status, true belief, and non-conversion—provide us with three talking points for considering the reader inscribed and implied in the text of Luke–Acts.

1. The God-fearer is a Gentile.

The inscription at the head of the Gospel naming Theophilus calls him, Most Excellent (kratistos), an honorific shared by Luke only with Felix and Festus, the procurators of Judea (Acts 23:26; 24:3; 26:25). For the title to make sense, Luke implies that Theophilus is a gentile of considerable influence. In addition, he is associated with prominent Roman officials. This takes us some distance from the Markan point of view, with its resistance to the imperial occupation. These two procurators are not only gentiles in a prominent social position, but are exemplars of the ideological far extreme from the perspectives of the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, as their writings have been explored in empire studies. The Roman procurators are governors of the army that occupies the land, an army that had in fact destroyed Jerusalem and its temple. We get a preliminary glimpse of the dramatic reversal of viewpoints as we turn from the previous Gospels to this one.

Furthermore, both Luke and Acts name the same person. The implied reader of Luke–Acts, if a single person, as noted, fills the same profile. Joseph Tyson, after noting the rich information given in the text about Jewish tradition and the paucity of similar information provided the reader about gentile religious life, concludes,

Thus, our implied reader would appear to be someone who has a limited knowledge of both pagan and Jewish religious practices, as well as an aversion to polytheism and the worship of humans. By contrast the reader seems to have an attraction to Jewish religious life but not an easy familiarity with all aspects of it. In terms of the implied reader’s knowledge of religious practices, we can describe him as sympathetic with some significant Jewish beliefs and practices but not a full-fledged participant nor a fully integrated member of a Jewish community.³

Both inscribed and implied reader theories lead us to a hypothetical reader of Luke who is a prominent and cultured gentile, open to the revelation of Scripture and a friend of the synagogue. In Acts, the term God-fearer appears as a name for such a person. Similarly, the name Theophilus seems to move in that direction, insofar as loving God is not so far from fearing God.

2. The God-fearer is a believer in the one God.

Since Theophilus itself means God-lover, this inscription might well describe any reader who picks up the work to learn from it. Furthermore, Theophilus is presented as being reassured in his faith (so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received). However, such a line of approach inevitably leads to a comparison with the similar designation, God-fearer. If the name Theophilus is intended to be symbolic, as many think, then once again we have an indication that Luke has in mind as his reader a friendly gentile, one who is devout and can be addressed in language otherwise appropriate to faithful Jews.

Due to inscriptions found at ancient synagogues in the Mediterranean basin, along with extra-biblical literature, we know that the attribution of God-fearer to gentiles has an historical basis, apart from Luke’s use of the term. And so the discussion of the God-fearers has turned toward their presence in the background of New Testament writing, particularly in light of the work of Paul. Studies investigating the title God-fearer as designating a class of persons in the first century have produced mixed results.

Extra-biblical instances of the term suggest a variety of reasons for being a God-fearer. For us, two representatives will serve. First, in their book, In Search of Paul, John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed propose a theory of Paul’s mission as poaching the God-fearers from the diaspora synagogues, angering the local Jews who depend on these gentile supporters for both financial and political benefits.⁴

Crossan and Reed depict a group of gentiles who are sympathizers of the synagogues. They are believers but haven’t converted to Judaism, not full Jews but no longer pure pagans.⁵ Through Acts, Luke not only speaks of ‘Jews’ and ‘pagan gentiles,’ but also of a third group, an in-between group who are both/and rather than either/or.⁶ The reason given for non-Jews to associate themselves with the synagogue is ultimately a religious one: Why were some pagans attracted enough to Judaism to be ‘God-fearers’ or ‘God-worshipers’—semi-Jews by whatever name one chooses to call them? Apart from social, political, economic, or personal reasons, there was one very special religious factor. Greek and then Roman thinkers appreciated and admired Jewish aniconic monotheism, that is, the belief that there was but one transcendent and un-image-able divinity.⁷ The key idea here is the opposition to idols—the aniconic tradition of Judaism. It is central to this view. A primary value of this study is to foreground the role of idol-rejection in the configuration of the God-fearer.

In contrast, Paula Fredriksen describes God-fearers as pagans. In Paul: The Pagan’s Apostle, she bases this opinion on various extra-biblical literary examples, which present a different view of these gentile friends of the synagogue.⁸ Describing the major transformation that conversion to Judaism would require—adherence to the full law, she notes that religion in the ancient world was embedded in one’s social identity and ancestral custom. A pagan’s ‘becoming’ a Jew in effect altered his past, reconfigured his ancestry, and cut his ties with his own patrimony, both human and divine.⁹ Consequently, Fredriksen prefers the concept of inclusion rather than conversion for those sympathetic gentiles who frequented and supported synagogues. Citing the presence of the term in various inscriptions on votive tablets and memorial steles, she notes, These donor inscriptions provide us with glimpses of another population involved with Jewish communities: some of these synagogue benefactors were pagans.¹⁰ She also makes reference to examples of prominent Roman ladies, such as Julia Severa, Roman aristocrat, priestess of the imperial cult, and supporter of the synagogue in Acmonia, in Phrygia. These were synagogue friends, but not aniconic non-pagans. Epigraphical ‘god-fearers,’ in other words, may relate straightforwardly to pious pagans or Jews or (eventually) to Christians, rather than to the actively cross-ethnic pagans whom we meet here: gentiles who, as pagans, were involved (variously) with the Jewish community and thus with Jewish ancestral customs (religion). She also cites Josephus, who called Poppaea Sabina, Nero’s consort, a god-fearer because, though a pagan, she sympathized with Jewish causes.¹¹

3. The God-fearer has not converted to Judaism.

In Fredriksen’s view,