T.L. Carter (2004) begins by establishing the discontinuity between Paul’s laudatory description of the Roman power structure and the reality of the systemic injustice that characterized Roman order (210-11). Moreover, Carter contends that because the Christians in Rome would have been “largely made up of poor non-Latin citizens, who occupied no legal position and were of uncertain official status,” they would have been among “the most vulnerable members of Roman society,” their poverty rendering them “easy targets for oppression” and repression within the Roman system of jurisprudence itself.[1] Furthermore, the basic nature of Roman “justice” was such that “peace was imposed upon the local population by means of intimidation and violence,” a fact which was not the exception but the norm (221).[2] As such, any surface reading of the text “leaves the apostle making crass remarks that could not have failed to alienate his audience, who had suffered at the hands of the very authorities he was purporting to commend” (215).

Yet, Carter argues, because “the original audience of the letter shared with Paul a common experience of oppression at the hands of the authorities and were aware of the abuses that took place in the opening years of Nero’s reign, the consequent implausibility of Paul’s language would have alerted his readers to the presence of irony” (209). The key factor in their ability to pick up on Paul’s use of irony is that the Roman Christians’ suffering under Roman domination was an experience they shared in common with him (215). In Scott’s categories, this means that because of their common social location with Paul, the Roman Christians would have been aware that Paul was performing in the mode of the public transcript, and that elements of this performance would contain the hidden transcript Paul actually intended to communicate.

In order to establish the plausibility of an ironic reading, Carter shows (1) that in the Greco-Roman world ironic inversion was a well-established, widely used rhetorical device for “censuring with counterfeit praise” (209, 212-14); (2) that Paul himself made frequent use of irony to shame his opponents (214);[3] and (3) that the picture Paul paints of Roman power would have been incongruous with his most basic convictions as a Pharisaic Jew (212)[4] as well as with his own experiences of Roman “justice” (211-12).

Before proceeding to break down an ironic reading of 13:1-7, Carter stops to situate the pericope within its surrounding context. Although many have seen 13:1-7 as an abrupt change of subject, interrupting the flow from 12:14-21 to 13:8-10, Carter suggests that an ironic reading ties the paraenesis together seamlessly. First, Carter notes that the paraenesis “is bracketed by the exhortations to adopt a distinctive lifestyle in relation to the present age.” Carter points out that 12:1-2 and 13:11-14 function rhetorically as an inclusio, “suggesting that the intervening passage should be read as an exhortation on how Christians should conduct themselves in an evil age which is passing away.” Those who have seen 13:1-7 as a “foreign body” within the paraenesis have often commented on the conspicuous absence of any eschatological rationality therein. But Carter shows that an ironic reading situates 13:1-7 firmly within the eschatological inclusio of 12:1-2 and 13:11-14, thus subverting the superficial endorsement of the imperial bureaucracy. “Paul only seems to grant the authorities an unconditional status: in reality they belong to the present age of darkness which is passing away” (218).

With reference to the immediate context (12:17-21), the step from consideration of the enemy to the Roman authorities is perfectly natural, since many members of the Roman congregation, not least the Jews who had just returned from the expulsion under Claudius, had suffered violence, deprivation, and extortion at the hands of the authorities. Thus, “an ironic reading of Rom. 13:1-7, which portrays the authorities as enemies rather than as friends, provides a secure link with the preceding paragraph” (218).

From here, Carter breaks down an ironic reading of the text itself. He begins by identifying the subversion implicit in the claim that the Roman authorities have been appointed by God, since the authorities in turn “cannot but be subject to the God who has appointed them” (219). Blumenfeld ably underscores the irony: “Paul’s deftness of manipulating the system by working it against its self-negating proclivities is so successful as to camouflage his own wit when castigating its representatives. Throughout Romans 13:1-7 the irony is veiled (to incomprehension) as a political stereotype. ‘Fear the governing officials’ may sound as an irreproachable advice to the authorities’ ear but, these are, unbeknown to themselves, slaves to God as well (13:1)” (2001: 391-92 n.273).[5]

Carter points out that one of the texts often cited as partially underwriting Paul’s belief in the divine institution of the authorities actually subverts the conventional understanding of that claim: “For your dominion was given you from the Lord, and your sovereignty from the Most High; he will search out your works and enquire into your plans. Because as servants of his kingdom you did not rule rightly, or keep the law, or walk according to the purpose of God, he will come upon you terribly and swiftly, because severe judgment falls on those in high places” (Wis. 6:3-5). Carter also reminds us of Jesus’ critical attitude toward Roman rule, reflected in Mark 10:42: “You know that those who regard themselves as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials are tyrants over them, but not so you.” Carter suggests that “if Jesus’ words and Wis. 6:3-4 are any reflection of popular Jewish opinion of Gentile rulers, they render more unlikely the possibility that Paul’s words would be accepted without question, at least by any Jewish Christian readers in Rome” (2004: 220).

Carter argues that the reference to the sword in 13:4 is also a likely candidate for an ironic reading. “If there were a general perception that those in authority wielded the sword indiscriminately against both innocent and guilty people, it is correspondingly likely that Paul’s audience would have detected irony in his portrait of those in power as the guardians of law and order” (222). Carter cites one famous historical anecdote in which one particular Roman’s use of the sword had little to do with maintaining Rome’s famed peace:

The consulship of Quintus Volusius and Publius Scipio was marked by peace abroad and by disgraceful excesses at home, where Nero—his identity dissembled under the dress of a slave ranged the streets, the brothels, and the wine shops of the capital, with an escort whose duties were to snatch wares exhibited for sale and to assault all persons they met, the victims having so little inkling of the truth that he himself took his buffets with the rest and bore their imprints on his face. Then, it became notorious that the depredator was Caesar; outrages on men and women of rank increased; others, availing themselves of the license once accorded, began with impunity, under the name of Nero, to perpetrate the same excesses with their own gangs; and night passed as it might in a captured town. Julius Montanus, a member of the senatorial order, though he had not yet held office, met the emperor causally in the dark, and, because he repelled his offered violence with spirit, then recognized his antagonist and asked for pardon, was forced to suicide, the apology being construed as a reproach. Nero, however, less venturesome for the future, surrounded himself with soldiers and crowds of gladiators, who were to stand aloof from incipient affrays of modest dimensions and semi-private character: should the injured party behave with too much energy, they threw their swords into the scale.[6]

Carter suggests that if Paul’s audience detects an oblique reference to these events in 13:4, “they would scarcely miss the echo of Nero’s profligate behaviour in the works of darkness mentioned in 13:13. An ironic reading . . . peels back the surface meaning of the text to reveal a sharp criticism of Nero’s excesses” (222).Of course, this passage from Tacitus is merely anecdotal. The Roman police were also infamous for their pervasive abuses of power. But by depicting the authorities “as those who worked for the benefit of upright citizens and who wielded the sword in order to punish evildoers,” Carter contends, “Paul highlights the ways in which the authorities in Rome were actually falling short of the ideal of good government that he portrayed” (222). Paul was indeed speaking the truth when he reminded the Roman Christians that the authorities did not bear the sword in vain—as if they needed reminding—but contrary to Paul’s statement in 13:4, “the innocent had as much to fear from the sword as the wrongdoer” (221).

Carter also sees strong indications of irony in Paul’s discussion of the tax collectors in 13:6. Carter acknowledges that the term leitourgoi (ministers) had a common secular function, signifying a public servant in general. But the term Paul uses is leitourgoi theou (priests of God), which has inescapable cultic overtones. In 15:16, Paul would apply this term to himself (leitourgoi christou), but here he applies it to the Roman tax collectors, “notorious for lining their pockets at others’ expense” (225). According to Quintilian, an effective use of irony is when the ironist attributes to his or her opponents virtues not possessed by them but by the ironist.[7]

Carter further notes that it is precisely because leitourgoi theou is such an unfitting term for these tax collectors that modern translations tend to opt for “God’s servants” rather than “God’s priests,” but Paul’s audience, accustomed to the Septuagint’s cultic use of the term, would have been startled by the formulation in this context. “The lack of correspondence between the language Paul employs and the reality to which it refers is intended to signal the presence of irony. . . . The use of religious language to denote the activity of the tax collectors stretches the meaning of the language to breaking point and highlights the way in which the tax collectors fail to live up to the designation applied to them” (225).

Carter concludes that, although the Roman authorities may have been instituted by God, Paul’s ironic use of language serves to illustrate the ways that these authorities were failing to live up to their divinely allotted responsibilities. Thus, the rationale Paul puts forward for the submission to these failed authorities is intentionally spurious. As Scott has observed, “subordinate groups have typically learned . . . to clothe their resistance and defiance in ritualisms of subordination that serve both to disguise their purposes and to provide them with a ready route of retreat that may soften the consequences of a possible failure” (1990: 96). Carter thus sees Romans 13:1-7 as a rather sharp instance of what Scott terms “the infrapolitics of subordinate groups” (183-201).

Labels: New Perspective on Paul, Paul, Pauline Theology, Romans 13