The lectionary readings for this week are Acts 10: 44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5: 1-6; and John 15: 9-17. First, I will write about the use of the word δούλος as it is used in the Gospel reading, and second, I will give the transcript of interviews I made with pastors from High Rock church in Arlington. I am starting a series in which I’ll combine notes on the lectionary with interviews from Massachusetts pastors on a practical aspect of delivering sermons.
Part 1)
John 15: 9-17, from the NIV:
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.
In Greek, the term I highlighted is δδύλοϐ, or doulos. In English it is either as “slave” or “servant,” depending on the translation. “Servant” is used in the NIV, the King James, and the the New Oxford Annotated Bible; “slave” is used in the New American Standard Bible, the New Living Translation, and the footnote for verse 15 of the New Oxford Annotated Bible. In the NASB, Jesus says, “15"No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”
The difference in language stems from ancient Greek having only one word with this implication. In English, the word “servant” implies a voluntary relationship from the side of the laborer. Although Americans use words like “Housekeeper” and “Nanny” for people who provide work in the home, it is assumed that the domestic workers our grandparents would have called servants were at-will employees. “Slave” on the other hand is indelibly associated with economic systems in which human beings are treated as the property of others: lacking the right to leave, refuse to work, or earn wages, whether in the South in the 19th century, or in sites of human trafficking in modern times. Dated to the 13th century, the English word “slave” originated from “Slav,” because during the Holy Roman Empire, many conquered Slavic people were sold into slavery. (1)
One question that readers of this passage might have is, which meaning of doulos would Jesus have intended? Would he and his disciples have understood doulos as containing the meaning of the modern word “slave,” or “servant”?
In A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, doulos is literally defined as “a male slave as an entity in a socio-economic context.” However in the New Testament, the word is used in many different metaphorical contexts.
In Galatian 3:28, Paul refers to slavery in what might have been an early baptismal formula: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Here slavery is refered to as a social distinction that is erased by union with Christ.
Elsewhere Paul refers to slavery in a pejorative sense, implying a state of being controlled by sin. In Romans 16:6-7, he says, “. . . our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; 7for he who has died is freed from sin.”
In contrast, Christ uses the motif of the slave in a positive sense, implying a radical humility and willingness to serve others. After James and John ask to sit at Christ’s right and left hand, sharing glory, Christ replies, “. . . and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; 28just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." This rhetorical move is in keeping with other passages in which Jesus exaggerates in extraordinary language to make a point. The metaphor, which might have sounded radical at the point of utterance, can also be read as a verbal signpost signifying Christ’s crucifixion. It is also in keeping with the image of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53, taken by Christians as a prophecy of Christ as the Messiah.
Finally, the word doulos is also used in metaphors describing the submission of the human soul to God. In Luke 1:38, Mary makes a statement to Gabriel in which this word is often translated as “servant” or “handmaiden,” but which might be translated as slave: “I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Using the equivalent in Hebrew, Prophets as called slaves of God in Jer 25:4, Amos 3:7, and Daniel 9:6. In 2 Corinthians 4:5, the chapter from which the band Jars of Clay take their name, Paul characterizes the apostles and himself as slaves of Christ, sent to serve the Corinthians: “For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake.”
One resource that addresses the question of what the lives of slaves were like during the Roman Empire in which Christ and Paul lived is Slavery and Society at Rome, by K. R. Bradley, a professor of Classics and History and Notre Dame (Cambridge University Press, 1994). Bradley writes that it is difficult to learn about the daily life of slaves in the Roman Empire, as accounts of them are written by historians from the slave-holding classes such as Plutarch.
Noting that a slave Plutarch writes about does not even have a name, he argues that slaves’s role was to provide labor; they did not have legal rights, could not own property, or have legally recognized marriages. Many slaves were taken from the ranks of armies that fought against Rome; POWs were sent to slave markets. For this reason, it can be assumed that slaves often lacked a sense of class solidarity, coming from extremely different populations. However, the gladiator Spartacus who led a rebellion of slaves in 73-71 BC that defeated several Roman legions, the followers of which were crucified. After this rebellion, the philosopher Seneca wrote of a proposal in the Roman Senate to make slaves wear distinctive clothing. However, this proposal was not enacted, because it was feared that slaves would then realize their numbers and strength. Bradley writes,
“In the mid-first century AD an anonymous slave murdered his master, a high official in the imperial administration, either because the master had reneged on a promise to set the slave free or because the two were rivals in a sexual intrigue.
The aftermath was disastrous. Roman law required a man's slaves to come to his aid if he were attacked, under penalty of death. The law was enforced against those slaves who had not come to the victim's aid in this case, and all the slaves in the household - allegedly 400 of them - were executed, even though most of them could not possibly have known anything about the murder.” (2)
Learning about the lives of slaves from Roman texts and archeological evidence allows us to recover the radical nature of biblical metaphors in which doulos is used as an analogue for a spiritual state.
--Elizabeth Fels
(1) Online Etymology Dictionary: http://www.etymonline.com
(2) Quotation and information from this section cited from BBC online article http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/romans/slavery_01.shtml.
Danker, Frederick William, ed. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
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