L'idéologie de l'Eglise chrétienne primitive dans l'Epître de saint Paul aux Romains et la lettre de recommandation de Phébée

Abstract

The concept of ideology, as traditionally defined in the sociological literature, is applied to the early Christian movement as reflected in prominent literary texts—Paul's Letter to the Romans and the letter of recommendation for Phoebe that is appended to it in modern Bibles. Sweeping but commonplace assertions about the nature of the first century CE world in which the early Christian movement emerged are called into question. Specifically, the simple “honor/shame” paradigm is found wanting. The textual evidence is shown to suggest a setting in which status group stratification, including inequality by ethnic group and by gender, was contested rather than taken for granted.