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Article: Who should be called father? Paul of Tarsus between the Jesus tradition and patria potestas.
- Article from:
- Biblical Theology Bulletin
- Article date:
- December 22, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Biblical Theology Bulletin, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Who should be called "father"? What an odd question. Doesn't everyone in every culture grow up calling the male who begot them their linguistic equivalent of "father"? In the world of Jesus and Paul, everyone knew the answer to that question. For them, the term father included reference not only to their male blood progenitors, and perhaps to their fathers' fathers, but also to the emperor at Rome, the pater patriae, the "father of the fatherland." This title, as Nicholas Purcell observes, "was eloquently suggestive of the protecting but coercive authority of the paterfamilias" (1121).
In Roman culture this nearly absolute, coercive authority was called patria ...