Reviews: Remember The Poor: Paul, Poverty and The Greco-Roman World. Grand

REVIEWS
Bruce W. Longenecker
Remember the Poor: Paul, Poverty and the Greco-Roman World. Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010. xi + 380 pp.
Reviewed by Stephen Fowl, Departm ent of Theology, Loyola University,
Baltimore, MD
This well-written volume begins w ith a commonly held presum ption that
on m atters of wealth and poverty the apostle Paul, unlike Jesus and the
early Church Fathers, had little to say. Longenecker notes that although
Paul does not take care for the poor to be the entirety of the gospel, "care
for the poor was thought by Paul to be a necessary hallm ark of the corpo-
rate life of Jesus-followers who lived in conformity w ith the good news
of the early Jesus-movement" (1). The rest of the volume is Longenecker's
largely successful attem pt to display the nature, depth, and character of
Paul's regard for the poor.
The first part of the book sets out a historical and social account of
wealth and poverty in the w orld of Paul's churches ("The Poor in Their
Ancient Places"). Longenecker notes that Paul's w orld was prim arily an
"advanced agrarian" society. That is, m ost people's livelihoods depended
on agriculture and plows and other implements helped increase crop
yields. Even w ith some advanced tools, such agricultural economies are
very fragile, subject to unfavorable weather, blights, and pests.
In addition, unlike our world where pow er tends to follow wealth, in
Paul's w orld wealth tended to follow power. The few who were powerful
were also acquisitive. They could often simply take w hat they wanted.
P ro E c c lesia V o l . XXII, N o . 1 103

104 Reviews
As a way of providing greater precision for our understanding of

poverty in Paul's world, Longenecker develops a scale of economic sta-
tus, especially in urban areas. He is not the first to try this. He openly
acknowledges his debt to Steven Friesen's w ork while also seeking to im-
prove upon it. This is the m ost technical part of the volume. Of the seven
distinct economic groupings, the top three only comprise 3 percent of
the population. Rather than treat the remaining 97 percent as equally im-
poverished, Longenecker is able to show that betw een 10 and 15 percent
of city dwellerssome merchants, traders, freedpersons, artisans, and
retired soldiersw ould have had some assets. Longenecker believes that
these people w ould have represented the wealthiest members of Paul's
congregations and may have played the role of benefactors in congrega-
tions largely comprised of those living at a subsistence level.
Finally, Longenecker notes that although the advent of Christianity
dramatically increased the scope and nature of charitable initiatives for
the poor, there were some Greco-Roman antecedents. Moreover, the ear-
liest followers of Jesus were heirs to a rich tradition of care for the poor
w ithin Judaism, a tradition they continued w ith great effect. For scholars,
this section of the book offers a nuanced and clearly presented picture
of economic life in Greco-Roman cities. To help nonspecialists move
through this material, Longenecker helpfully provides useful summaries
at the end of each chapter.
In the second half of the book, Longenecker turns more directly to
Paul and his congregations. Although Paul did not devote long sections
of his letters to economic matters, it is clear that he understood that within
his churches, skewed economic relations both reflected and generated
significant moral and theological problems. Moreover, the practical em-
bodied love to which Paul persistently calls his churches, using language
like "bearing burdens" and "doing good," entailed care for the poor.
Longenecker then devotes a significant am ount of space to Gal 2:10,
the adm onition given to Paul by the Jerusalem "pillars" to remember the
poor. He notes several interpretive traditions, including the blind alley
of identifying the "poor" w ith Ebionite Christians. Instead, Longenecker
argues that Gal 2:10 "dem arcates caring for the poor w ithout geographi-
cal restriction of specificity" (182).
Longenecker goes on to treat Gal 2:6-10 as an embryonic rule of faith
for reading the Scripturesa rule that incorporates the Old Testament's
persistent concern for the poor. Thus, "the biblical values regarding the
remembrance of the poor were recognized as being a necessary (albeit not
sufficient) component of any and all Jesus groups" (219).
The volume moves tow ard its conclusion by proposing a detailed
economic profile of Paul's churches, developing and advancing the work
of Wayne Meeks in The First Urban Christians, among others. As he does
w ith each chapter, Longenecker offers a conclusion that includes a concise
P r o E c c l e sia V ol. XXII, N o. 1 105
sum m ary of the various argum ents he has offered in the book as a whole.
In addition, there are several appendixes dealing w ith Steven Friesen's
work, "Non-Pauline Configurations of the Mosaic Law," and the dating
of Paul's collection for the church in Jerusalem.
The great virtue of this book is the methodological clarity Longe-
necker brings to a variety of issues concerning poverty in both the Greco-
Roman w orld and in Paul's congregations. There is enorm ous learning on
display here, and it is presented in very readable prose. Although both
student and scholar alike will benefit from engaging the various pieces of
this book, the pieces do not really fit into a single coherent volume. This
is more like three relatively short and discrete books combined into one.
All this means, though, is that one can engage these pieces individually if
one wishes and still get all of the great benefits of this volume.
Khaled Anatolios
Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine.
Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011. xviii + 322 pp.
Reviewed by Jackson Lashier, Southwestern College, Winfield, KS
The terrain betw een Nicaea and Constantinople is neither easily traversed
nor infrequently attem pted. In fact, historical scholarship on the fourth-
century Trinitarian debates is so copious as to lead to the conclusion that
nothing new can (or perhaps should) be said. It is, therefore, somewhat
surprising to note that Khaled Anatolios's book Retrieving Nicaea: The De-
velopment and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine manages a fresh perspective.
At the heart of the w ork is the claim that Trinitarian theology is relevant
for contemporary theology but past attempts to appropriate it have failed
precisely because they miss the systematic scope of the Trinity's historical
development. For the fourth-century Fathers, Anatolios says, the Trinity
was not simply one among m any theological topics, but rather involved
"the interpretation of Christian life as a whole" (11). The only way to
recapture this comprehensive vision, and thus to retrieve Nicaea (which
is shorthand throughout for a m ature Trinitarian faith), is to reenter the
historical experience of those who first came to articulate the doctrine in
its m ature form: "The suggestion is that we may perform the m eaning of
trinitarian doctrine by learning to refer to the trinitarian being of God
through the entirety of Christian experience" (8). Accordingly, Anato-
lios's w ork of systematic retrieval assumes a historical method. Chapter
1 gives a brief narrative overview of the crisis, while chapter 2 applies
a model of categorization for understanding the two broad trajectories
at odds throughout the fourth century. In the following three chapters,
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REVIEWS

P ro E c c lesia V o l . XXII, N o . 1 103

As a way of providing greater precision for our understanding of

The ATLA Serials (ATLAS) collection contains electronic versions of previously

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