Theology Annual vol. 12 1990-1991 p.154-166
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The repeated New Testament use of the term oikos (112 times) and oikia (94 times) indicates the contextualization of the epistles and gospels within this "house" environment. Historically, "household" and related terms described the foundation and context of the Christian movement.
Religiously, this movement originated in and owed its growth to conversion of entire households or of certain individuals within households. Generally speaking, cultic activities like the Eucharist took place in the house.
Economically, the household constituted the context for the sharing of resources among believers as well as with the wandering charismatics.
Socially, the household provided a practical basis and theoretical model both for Christian organization and for its preaching.(1)
While we translate the expressions oikos, oikia by terms meaningful to us, "house", "home", "household", we must be careful not to read into these words the meanings which the English words have for us. Words change with each generation and sometimes with each writer. What Paul meant by the "house church" depended on the Hellenistic culture of his time, with both its Gentile and Jewish components.
The two words Paul uses, oikos and oikia, meant roughly the same, namely, the household with its persons and property. Classical Greek maintained some distinction between the two words: oikos brought to mind especially the idea of wealth, possessions, or a physical room, whereas oikia suggested more the relatives, servants, or even clients of a household. Both words were used for the dwelling, the family, or kin.
Paul's Greek, however, shows much more affinity with the Greek of the Septuagint [LXX]. The translators of the Septuagint needed to translate the Hebrew word bait. Bait in different contexts meant a room in a building (Esther 2:3; 7:8); the whole family, including father (Gen 50:8; 1 Sam 1:21), wife, second wife, sons, daughters (Gen 36:6), dependent relatives (Gen 13:1), servants (Gen 15:2-3), attendants (Gen 14:14), and slaves (Gen 17:13, 27); relatives who formed a group between the immediate family and the tribe (2 Sam 9:7); household possessions, including wealth, tools, slaves, and cattle (Ex 20:17; Est 8:1). Without any apparent distinction, the LXX translators chose both oikos and oikia to express the broad concept of bait. The only perceived difference between the two Greek words is the greater frequency of oikos over oikia.
Considered from either its Hellenistic or its Jewish roots, the concept of oikos is thus considerably wider than our concept of "family". Even the word "household" does not do justice to the extension of the Jewish/Hellenistic concept.
A comment by the Roman orator and poet Cicero about one's hierarchy of duties reflects his understanding of a "household". Our duties, he says, begin with one's country, then one's parents, "next come children and the whole household (domus), who look to us alone for support and can have no other protection; finally our kinsmen".(2) Besides one's immediate family, Cicero has in mind unattached relatives, slaves, freedmen, hired workers, sometimes tenants, business partners and clients.
Cicero defines the domus or household by a relationship of dependence, not kinship. In fact the family or household was constituted by the reciprocal relationships of protection and subordination. At the top of the pyramid was the paterfamilias, the family father or other "head of the house", whose power extended at times to that over the life and death of his children. At the bottom of the structure was the slave, who nevertheless could exercise considerable responsibility in his household duties. Supporting this authority was the subordination of the members of the household, who by this subordination enjoyed a sense of belonging and security not provided by any other social or political structure of the time.
Were all the members of the household expected to share the same religious practices? Although our information about this expectation is scarce, we can probably presume that all members, especially those of the smaller households, felt some pressure to share in the household cults. Yet the religious solidarity characteristic of the old agrarian society gave way under the pressures of urbanization. In imperial times, Romans became more laissez faire about the religion of their slaves. This latitude regarding religion appears in the strongly Romanized cities more than in the Greek East.(3)
Where we find household religiosity dominating and where we find the closest background to the Christian house church is in the Jewish household. In the Jewish world at the time of the New Testament, the family was the primary place for the transmission of the faith. The family prayed in common daily, mornings and evenings, and especially at the blessings of the mealtime.
The preeminent family feast was Passover. This feast was the high point of the year and during New Testament times was held in the homes. As Philo wrote concerning Passover, "each house at this time took on the character of the holiness of the Temple. " We still know very little about the life of the ancient Jewish household with its multiplicity of customs and its inner piety. This silence and privacy concerning the Jewish home, however, was its strongest asset. Whenever external difficulties threatened the public practice of Jewish worship, the Jewish home could assume full responsibility for the practice of religion. As long as the Jewish household maintained itself, Judaism as a religion was protected from any threat.
The writings of the Essenes discovered at Qumran have shed great light on the New Testament, providing as they do expressions and evidence for practices in striking parallel to those of the early Christians. These writings frequently use the term "house" to designate the community, much the way the Old Testament spoke of Israel as a house. The ancient Jewish writers, Josephus and Philo, however, tell of communities of Essenes throughout Palestine numbering as many as 4,000. These Essenes outside of Qumran apparently lived and assembled in private homes. Josephus refers to a "house" where they met for meals and instructions, while Philo speak of them sharing their houses. Such home-based communities would be close parallels to the Christian house churches.(4)
In New Testament times, the local church had an important parallel in the Hellenistic clubs and cults which existed in the ever widening social space between the order of the individual households and the public life of the state. These voluntary associations filled an important vacuum in Greco-Roman life. As political power was concentrated in the hands of fewer people for longer periods of time, many citizens experienced a general disenchantment with the polis ("city"). The alternative to closing oneself simply in one's oikos was to become involved in some voluntary and private organization.
Some of these associations were fundamentally cultic, others were predominantly social. Most groups formed around households and their meetings took place in private houses, but they included more than one family. They became, as it were, a community around a family.
The analogies between these Hellenistic clubs and the early church are striking. It does not appear, however, that Christian Groups consciously modeled themse1ves on these clubs. Nevertheless we should not underestimate the more or less spontaneous and diffused influence of these associations on the early Christians.(5)
The influence of Hellenistic associations on the early Christians may have occurred through the Jewish institution that by far shows the closest parallels to the Christian ekklesia, namely, the Jewish synagogue. Recent studies have detected very specific influence of the Hellenistic associations on Jewish counterparts.
The origins of the Jewish synagogue remain obscure and are generally thought to be rooted in the Babylonian exile experience. The earliest inscriptions evidence their existence from the third century B. C. In New Testament times we have the references in the gospels to the Galilean synagogues (Mt 4:23; 9:35; Lk 4:15, etc.). Philo refers to Diaspora synagogues as "prayer houses".
In the earliest synagogues uncovered by archaeology, we have the same pattern of a Jewish community beginning with a private house, probably using that home for religious purposes, then at a particular point renovating the home to develop a special assembly area, and finally redoing the whole building to build a dedicated synagogue.(6)
"Aquila and Prisca with their house church send abundant greetings in the Lord," Paul writes to the Corinthians from Ephesus (1 Cor 16:19). Some three years later writing to Rome, Paul again states, "Give my greetings to Prisca and Aquila ... and to their house church" (Rom 16:3,5). Writing from prison toward the end of his career, Paul sends a note to his friend Philemon. Opening the letter in his conventional way, Paul greets Philemon, his wife Apphia, Archippus, possibly their son, and "your house church" (Phim 2). Finally in the Letter to the Colossians, we find greetings to Nympha in neighbouring Laodicea and "to her house church" (Col 4:15). The four greetings are the four instances in which Paul speaks explicitly of house churches, assemblies of Christians that formed in and around a private household.
These greetings remind us that the earliest Christians met in private homes. For them the household with its family setting was the church. The private dwelling functioned for the church on two levels. It formed the environment for house churches strictly speaking, gatherings of Christians around one family in the home of that family. On the second broader level, the private dwelling formed the environment for gatherings of the local church, the assembly of all the Christian households and individuals of a city. For such a group, the home functioned as a house church, since the building remained the domicile of the host family.
For about a century the private dwelling shaped the Christians' community life, forming the environment in which Christians related to each other, providing an economic substructure for the community, a platform for missionary work, a framework for leadership. Above all the private home and specifically the dining room provided an environment that corresponded remarkably with the Christians' earliest self-identification, reflecting Jesus' own choice of an "upper room" for his last supper, his choice of "non-sacred space" as the environment of his work, and his insistence on familiar ties among believers.
Sometime in the second half of the second century, some Christians began to dedicate their homes to church assembly. The building ceased to be a residence. Modifications to the structure turned the dining room into a larger assembly hall. Other rooms assumed community functions. Although resembling a house, the building became a church. Eventually Christians were allowed to rebuild their churches from the ground. In A. D. 314, a year after the Edict of Milan, the first of the basilicas appeared.
The Christians meeting in the dedicated churches and basilicas showed an understanding of themselves different from that of the Christians meeting in the house churches. Leadership became concentrated in fewer hands, the hands of a special class of holy people. Church activities became stylized ritual. The building rather than the community became the temple of God. Whether environment determines ideology or ideology determines environment, the link between the two is clear when we examine the shift from the house church to the dedicated church.
In this paper we are interested mainly in the times when Christians met exclusively in private households. More specifically we will focus on the times and churches of Paul. We will look at the connections which appear between the household setting for the churches and the self-understanding and activities of these churches. Of particular interest will be the relationship between the private house church and the local church. Following the lead of Paul, this paper will refer to the smaller unit as "house church" and to the larger unit, which also met in private houses, as the local or city-wide church.(7)
The frequency of family and household terminology in Paul for the Christian community is striking. He addresses his fellow Christians as brothers or sisters, exhorts them "as a father to his children" (1 Thess 2:11), and even sees himself as a pregnant mother giving birth to the Galatians (Gal 4:19)! When he speaks of "building up" the community (1 Thess 5:11, etc.), he generally uses the Greek word oikodome, derived from the Greek word for "house." oikos.
This household and familial terminology has its roots in the Old Testament and the Judaism in which Paul grew up. Israel was a "house" or "household" (Amos 5:25; Jer 38:33). Household and family terminology used for a religious group thus precedes Paul and his application of this terminology to the house church experience. The frequency and pervasiveness of this language in Paul, however, indicates that for him the words were not empty religious formulas. Paul is an apostle and a father to his communities who are families. The practical necessity of meeting in private homes clearly blended with Paul's theological understanding of the Christian community.
Paul lived this family relationship with his co-workers and communities and he wanted them to live the same. Given the family character of the Christian community, the homes of its members provided the most conducive atmosphere in which they could give expression to the bond they had in common.(8)
Most probably the conversion of a household and the consequent formation of a house church formed the key element in Paul's strategic plan to spread the gospel. If we follow Acts in this matter, it would seem that Paul had little success preaching in the synagogues. His method then shifted to establishing himself with a prominent family, which then formed his base of operations in a given city (Acts 16:13-34; 17:2-9; 18:1-11).
It is not surprising then to see frequent mention of baptisms, not just of individuals, but of whole households. Paul mentions such a conversion once (1 Cor 1:16). Acts makes such a household conversion almost a theme in itself (Acts 10:2; 16:15; 16:33;18:8).
Hospitality was the key to the mission. Paul's work was characterized by mobility and travel. In order to accomplish his mission, he depended on an extensive network of social relationships, centered on households. Hospitality to Paul meant not only material support but also attachment to his gospel. It meant sharing his work. Such ideological support appears especially in Paul's reflection on the Philippians' financial subvention of his work (Phil 4:14-18; 2 Cor 8:1-5).
Paul frequently refers to "receiving" his co-workers and "sending" them on their way (Rom 16:1-2; Phil 2:27-29). These words are part of an almost technical language describing the local group's part in the mission. The local group was to accord hospitality to Paul's emissary and then provide that person with enough assistance to return to Paul or to reach the next station.(9)
The house church on the one hand, and the household gathered in prayer on the other, did not simply coincide. This is clear from Paul's own writings. Not every member of a family became Christian when the head of the house did. Until he fled his master and met Paul, Onesimus, the slave of Christian Philemon, was not a Christian (Phim 10). Paul lays down precise guidelines for families where the spouses are not both believers (1 Cor 7:12-16).
This lack of perfect coincidence between the "house church" and the household lay at the basis of the openness of the Churches to each other, the networking of "house churches" into some form of city-wide federation we can call "the local church." The relationship between "the single family church" and "the local church" was not clear-cut and finely drawn. Paul makes no attempt to relate "house church" to "local church." From the start a "house church" of a particular family could well have involved others from non-Christian households. Likewise for some time a single "house church" of a particular family may have been the only church of a locality. Only gradually, as "house churches" multiplied in a locality, would the reality of "local church" take on a distinct definition. Yet because the meeting of a "local church" would take place in a "house church", the larger unit would still reflect the smaller.
On the whole Paul seems to emphasize the formation of the "local church", allowing the "house church" of the individual family to recede into the background. Given the strategy of the early missionaries and the constraints against meeting in other places, the appearance of the "single family house church" was to a degree a natural development. The networking of these "house churches" into a "local church" appears to be the object of a special effort on the part of Paul.
Paul's most frequent use of the term "church" refers to a local, i.e., city-wide group of Christians. This meaning is clearest where he attaches the name of a city to the word. He twice greets "the church of God which is in Corinth" (1 Cor 1:2; 2 Cor 1:1). Similarly he greets "the church of the Thessalonians" (1 Thess 1:1).
Paul refers to the city-wide church with the expression, "the whole church," the counterpart of a "house church". The English cognate "catholic" employs the Greek expression kath' hole, but the church kath' hole for Paul was the city-wide or local assembly, not some world-wide organization. Thus Paul speaks of the situation in Corinth of an outside entering the assembly "when the whole church (he ekklesia hole) is gathered in the same place" (1 Cor 14:23). Again, writing from Corinth to the Romans, Paul sends greetings from Gaius and distinguishes him as "host to me and to the whole church" (Rom 16:23).
In Paul's two references to "the whole church," the stress on the plenary character of the gathering suggests something special about the event. "The whole church in the same place" sounds like an important event. Likewise, the redundancy of the expression, "to gather in the same place," seems to point to a special assembly. If the plenary assemblies of the Corinthian church were special, we can infer the existence of sub-groups that met at other times. The picture of more than one "house church" within a city appears also in the descriptions of Antioch and Jerusalem (as found in Acts).
Paul envisions apparently a kind of confederation of several "house churches" forming a "local church". The Pauline "local church" existed thus on two levels, both connected with the households; first, a household assembly of an individual family and those associated with that family, and second, a city-wide level meeting in a private home but consisting of several families.
In gathering the "house churches" together for a city-wide assembly and calling this city-wide assembly an ekklesia, Paul most probably had in mind the city-wide assemblies of the Greek cities, which were also called ekklesia. This ekklesia was the town meeting of the free citizens who gathered to decide matters affecting their welfare.(10)
The parallel between Paul's use of the term ekklesia and the Greek municipal ekklesia brings out another important aspect of the Pauline church. The Greek ekklesia was an assembly. It came into existence and went out of existence as the citizens were gathered and dismissed. The emphasis of the word is on the gathering itself as an activity rather than on some permanent institution.
This meaning as "gathering" is clearest in the descriptions of "church" found in 1 Cor 11-14. A clear linguistic parallel appears between Paul's expressions, "When you assemble as church" (I Cor 11:18) and "when you assemble in the same place" (1 Cor 11:20). Paul is speaking of the same event in both verses.
In 1' Cor 12-14 Paul repeatedly urges "building up the ekklesia." This admonition applies much more clearly to the actual gathering of the Christians than to any institutional existence of the same group. He never uses the term to refer, as we do today, to local assemblies seen as part of a larger unit. He never, of course, uses the term to refer to the building or the physical setting of the assembly, whether on the household level or the city level. The physical setting of the assembly was a home, a building which functioned outside of "church time" as a private residence.(11)
The cohesion of the individual "house churches" into the local church arose for Paul because of the larger unifying context. This larger context gives hints of a world-wide perspective, a gathering that never gathers as such but which also bears the name "church".
When Paul refers to the Christians of a geographical area larger than the city, he does so usually by using the plural form, "churches." When referring to a teaching or rule observed universally by Christians, he again normally uses the plural form of "churches" or a distributive from which implies the plural.
Nevertheless he at times uses the singular "the church" to designate what appears to be more than a local church. It is particularly in his expression "the church of God" that we hear resound a larger than local church (1 Cor 15:9; Gal 1:13).
What echoes in the background in Paul's use of "church" here is the Old Testament phrase qehal yhwh, "assembly of the Lord," translated by the Greek Bible as ekklesia tou Kyriou. This is the description of all the tribes of Israel gathered at Sinai by God to receive his law (Deut 23:2-4). The Sinai assembly, often designated as an ekklesia, was of importance in late Judaism, the Jewish filter that passed the Old Testament to Paul and the early Christian church. The great assembly shows up in the writings of Qumran as the final or eschatological assembly.
Paul pictures the Christians as the true Israel or at least as the new growth on the true Israel (Rom 9:6; 11:17), which has by the Spirit inherited the promises and the covenant (2 Cor 3:6). Unlike the old Israel, however, Christians are not to think of ethnic limits. Christians could apply to themselves the international consciousness of Israel yet push it to even greater universality. Paul would thus expect the local church to have a real sense of belonging to a world-wide people.(12)
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1.Michael Crosby, House of Disciples (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1988) 33.
12.Ibidem 29-31. Helen Doohan, Paul's Vision of Church (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989).
Prepared by: Holy Spirit Seminary College