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REL 415 - Pauline Literature III

The Prison Epistles and Pastoral Epistles of Paul

Notes for Week 6

Languages

The Mediterranean world at the time of the Early Church was under the dominatuion of the Roman Empire, although the prevailing culture was Hellenistic. The Romans had built the system of wide, straight roads, primarily for the movements of the Roman army, but also for carrying of news and orders between Rome and the provinvial officials. Roman business was conducted in Latin - Julius Caesar wrote all his reports to the Roman Senate in Latin. However, although the Hellenised nations resulting from the break-up of Alexander the Great's Empire had been defeated in war by the Romans, their culture was admired by the Romans, and the Common Greek dialect ( the koiné; or koinh) spoken in Alexander's Empire became the language of trade and was used for general communication between the various people of the Mediterranean region. All the Books of the New Testament were written in koinh Greek.

Reading and Writing

Documents in New Testaemtn times were written on papyrus, made from the inner pith of stems of the Papyrus plant - a large reed which grew around the River Nile - or on dried and cleaned animal skins. The ink was a mixture of water, gum, and lamp-black (the fine soot from a small flame).
Page 10 of the textbook shows a sheet of papyrus dating to AD 200. This fragment is the oldest known copy of a portion of the Epistle to the Romans. Note that the writing is all capital letters (Majuscules) - the small letters (Minuscules) were not invented until later. Each character usually took several brush- or pen-strokes to write, so the process of writing was slow. There were no punctuation marks, accents, or spaces between words - this must have made reading rather difficult and slow. Our modern script hand as used in Europe and America was not developed until centuries later.
It was customary at that time to read aloud - our modern ability to read silently was not generally taught or acquired even by adults. It was regarded as something remarkable and extraordinary when Alexander the Great taught himself to read silently.

The Postal (Mail) system

There was no national or international mail system such as we have in the world today. There was a sytem for carrying official documents to and from Rome and the provincial Roman officials, using Roman couriers and teams of horses kept in readiness, somewhat on the lines of the early American Pony Express, but it was restricted to official communications. If private citizens wished to send a message or letter, they had to find someone who was travelling in the right direction, or send someone (often a servant or slave) to carry the letter to its destination. There was no telling how long it would take to reach its destination - there were storms and ship-wrecks at sea, bad weather and robbers on land. This may be one of the reasons Paul sometimes sent several of his co-workers with a letter, instead of just one person alone. So a letter was not something one just dashed off, like replying to an email - everything that the writer wished to communicate would be saved up and included in one long letter before it was sent on its way. In spite of these difficulties, letters were a common form of communication in the ancient world, and the epistolary form was well developed even before the time of Paul.

Epistolary form

The Greek word for a letter is e0pistolh (pronounced "ePIStolay" ). Many secular letters from the time of the New Testament have been discovered, and give us an insight as to the style of writing usually employed. Sometimes a professional scribe was employed to write the letter, but sometimes the letter was written directly by the person involved, It appears that standards of literacy were quite high. Letters did not have an envelope with an address - the address was given in the letter itself.
A letter began with a paragraph stating the name(s) of the sender(s), and a "salutation" to the recipients - a formal greeting which followed the usual spoken greetings between friends. In the secular world, amongst Hebrew or Aramaic speakers, this would be "Shalom" (Peace);. Amongst Greek speakers the greeting would be "xaire" - "Hail" meaning "Good health to you". The x is pronounced as a gutteral, like German "ach" or Scottish "loch", so "xaire" is pronounced "x-EYE-reh"
Paul, and some of the other writers of Epistles in the New Testament, tended to use both the Hebrew and the Greek greetings, and often altered the Greek word to one which sounded similar but had a more Christian usage : "xarij" - "grace". "xarij" is pronounced "x-AH-ris".
The body of the letter contained whatever information the writer wished to send
The concluding paragraph(s) contained further greetings to members of the recipient's family or mutual aquaintances, introduced by the word a0spazomai, pronounced "as-PAD-zoh-my" - "I greet . . "
Sometimes other family members and friends, or the scribe writing the letter, would include their own final greetings.

The New Testament Epistles

The Epistles in the New Testament follow the general form of Letters used at that time, modified to reflect their Christian setting. They were also often addressed, not just to one person or family, but to the group of Christians in a particular place, and were intended to be read aloud at a gathering of the Christians.
The gathering of Christians, rather than some place or building, is what is meant by the "Church". The Greek word for "Church" is e0kklhsia, pronounced "eck-clay-SEE-ah", meaning "those who are called out" from a secular life into Life with God.

Copyright © 1999 Shirley J. Rollinson, all Rights Reserved

Dr. Rollinson

Department of Religion
ENMU
Portales, NM 88130

Last Updated: December 30, 2006

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