Jude and 2 Peter. Andrew M. Mbuvi
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a key role in the structuring of associations and so it mattered who controlled them.9 These meal gatherings served as social institutions that functioned as both social and religious assemblies with the religious entwined with the communal, making the occasions without question both civic and religious.10 It is in this context that one must read both Jude and 2 Peter allowing for the general analysis of Greco-Roman associations to inform our interpretive process of the letters.11 Indeed, it is not a novel claim on my part since indications are that contemporaries viewed and understood early Christian gatherings in terms of associations, while some of the early Christians communities also viewed themselves in such terms.12 We shall examine especially the tendency in associations to use stereotyping as a form of self defense against perceived enemies and also the importance for associations to maintain what was considered acceptable “banquet decorum.”
Stereotyping in Associations, and in Jude and 2 Peter
According to Harland, language common to many of the Greco-Roman associations and groups typically stereotypes and vilifies perceived opponents as sexual perverts, cannibals/barbaric, and murderers, all with the aim of shoring up internal self definition and social identity at the expense of an opponent’s.13 These stereotypes therefore, had no intention of reflecting any actual historical practices.14 In Jude and 2 Peter, the opponents are characterized using similar categories of sexual perversion (Jude 4, 18; 2 Pet 1:4, etc.), “wild brutes” (Jude 10, 19; 2 Pet 1:9; 2:10, etc.), and “blasphemy/ungodly” (Jude 8–10; 2 Pet 3–4) resulting in death (2 Pet 1:10, 2:2, 10, etc.). Also, the focus on value in 2 Peter retains parallels with the purity focus of the Greco-Roman stereotype.15 Drawing from Harland’s conclusion about certain characteristics of the stereotyping language evident in the Greco-Roman group dynamics, “novels, histories and ancient ethnographic material,” the characterization of the opponents in Jude and 2 Peter therefore closely parallels that which is found in the Greco-Roman discourses on identity formation and boundary structuring.16
Placed in the wider Greco-Roman association context, an analysis of the group dynamics in Jude and 2 Peter would hopefully put in new light, and further clarify, the harsh tone that the letters reflect, and which remains a disquieting aspect of the letters for most readers. Following Duane F. Watson, the authors of Jude and 2 Peter were using ancient rhetoric, that involved “artificial proof” (entechnoi), in which case, “the rhetor seeks to show his own and his client’s ethos in the best light and his opponent’s in the worst.”17 This parallel with association language however, does not preclude Jude’s and 2 Peter’s clear agenda of iterating their conviction about the centrality of the communities’ faith in God through Jesus. In fact, it is in this regard that we will be able to witness their rhetorical inventiveness.
Such rhetoric not only seeks to paint the perceived enemy in as much a negative light as possible, it does not necessarily claim to be historically accurate in its portrayal of the perceived enemy. If the situation is one where rival groups are competing to persuade the same population about who is right, then the more the rhetoric escalates, increasingly becoming less realistic, and more stereotypical, in how each group portrays the other. It is less likely then to find in such rhetoric accurate representation of the opponents’ views. Instead, one is likely to find language that is characteristic of stereotyping of the Other, by portraying them as less desirable, dependable, lovable, acceptable, and even, less than human. This is probably even more so if the competing groups share a lot in common, meaning they have to find whatever they think is distinct about themselves and contrast it, as starkly as possible, with the competing group.
Greco-Roman associations, which included officially recognized groups, guilds, and gatherings of people who shared common trades such as funeral support groups in Roman Empire, provide us with a glimpse of how conflict and competing identities frequently turned to stereotyping as means to fend off any competing claims to the group’s distinct identity, membership or boundary. As Harland explains,
Although rules may often be drawn up to deal with problems that were actually encountered, the regulations suggest that “good order”—as defined by such groups—remained a prevalent value in many banqueting settings. So we should not imagine that stories of wild transgression are descriptive of real activities in immigrant or cultural minority groups, or in other associations.18
And as C. McGarty, V. Y. Yzerbyt, R. Spears, elaborate, “These beliefs [stereotypes] represent a necessary precondition for collective action such as protest as well as for regulation and law enforcement. Their argument is that stereotypes form to enable action. They are political weapons that are used in the attempt to achieve and resist social change.”19 All these elements are present in the way, for example, 2 Peter portrays the false-teachers and Jude caricatures the infiltrators.
There is no doubt that in both Jude and 2 Peter we are dealing with the three issues that Harland points out concerning minority groups’ interactions—rivalry between author and infiltrators/“false-teachers,” identity construction (who is the true representation of the teachings of Jesus?), and group-boundaries (who rightfully belongs to the Jesus community?). These are the issues at the heart of the construction of the virtues in 2 Peter 1:5–7, and in the characterization of vices of the “false-teachers” and infiltrators in Jude. If the virtues represent the “good order,” for example, the list of vices in 2 Peter 2, represent the dangerous inversions of this order.20
When dealing with their opponents, both Jude and 2 Peter are therefore steeped in Greco-Roman rhetorical banter that regularly employed the use of stock stereotyping when verbally jousting with known opponents. Even the primary characterization of the opponents by 2 Peter as false-teachers (pseudodidaskaloi), for example, must be tempered by the realization that this is still part of the negative caricature of opponents that says little, if anything, about whether they are actual teachers, and what they actually teach, or even how they in fact behaved.21 It is largely an effort to discredit the opponents and not necessarily intended to be an accurate description of their teachings or behavior.22
Banqueting Protocols in Associations and in Jude and 2 Peter
A second concern in association life was the place of decorum without which the gathering would easily devolve into chaos, a not-so-unusual result for many associations. Therefore, regulations were frequently put in place to guide behavior in the gatherings and heavy penalties meted against any that would exhibit anti-decorum behavior, including excommunication from the group. As Harland explains:
Evidently, banqueting practices played an important role in discourses of identity, in which certain authors, representative in some ways of their cultural group, engaged in the process of defining his or her own group as civilized by alienating another as barbarous.23
At stake in Jude’s and 2 Peter’s accusations are also issues of decorum and order, rituals and banquets.24 The behavior displayed by the opponents in both letters flies in the face of the established social practices that govern all Greco-Roman banquets and social gatherings. Both epistles make reference to “love feasts” (2 Peter 2:13—syneuōzocheomai: