Ritual studies are slow to make a large impact on New Testament studies, despite a number of notable exceptions. This notwithstanding, rituals occur frequently in the New Testament, in particular when there is a problem with a ritual. In this article, recent anthropological work on ‘ritual failure’ is used to address Paul’s discussion of Roman practices concerning baptism in relation to a person’s walk of life and to argue that this can be understood well as a case of ’ritual failure,’ in which a ritual fails, from Paul’s perspective, to achieve what it should. This leads both to challenging the attitude of the Romans concerning baptism and to a reconsideration of its significance.
Ritual played a role of tremendous importance in the world of early Christianity (understood as part of the broader spectrum of post-70 Judaisms in their Greco-Roman context) (cf. DeMaris
Thus, not only the interrelationship between mythos, rite, and ethos of a community in relationship to its context will be considered (Theissen
A particular reason for addressing Romans 6 from the perspective of ritual, specifically ritual failure, is that much research into this texts tends to neglect the ritual basis of Paul’s argument, or pays only lip service to it, without addressing the particular dynamics of ritual (and ritual failure) that might help to further understand the text and especially Paul’s way of thinking. In spite of this, it can be argued that Paul bases much of his argument, which is aimed at the walk of life (ethos) of the Roman community and has its basis in the foundational story of the early Christian community (mythos), on a case of ritual disagreement. Therefore, it constitutes an interesting case for testing the theory of ritual failure as a heuristic tool for the history of early Christian thought and praxis. Before doing so, some outline of the understanding of ritual as it will be used in this study will be provided, whilst also the theory of ritual failure as such will be presented as such.
Before moving on to ritual failure and ritual negotiation in particular, it is necessary to outline some general characteristics of the value of ritual studies for the study of the New Testament. As can be easily observed, ritual studies and ritual criticism are slowly beginning to have a larger influence on New Testament studies (cf. Uro
Ritual is not merely another way to ’say things’ or ’do things’ that can be said as well or better in other ways. The form that is ritual is surely without communicational equivalents and thus, possibly, without functional or metafunctional equivalents. That ritual’s abilities are intrinsic to its form an in indissoluble association only with its form, goes far to account for its ubiquity (Rappaport
For this reason, and as will become clear throughout this contribution, the approach chosen here is critical of interpretations that understand Paul’s reference to baptism in Romans 6:1–14 as a demonstration of a theological thesis (Guerra
At this background, the ‘rediscovery’ of ritual in early Christian studies has rightly underlined the importance of rituals, such as baptism, meal fellowship and circumcision, and the reflection upon them for the development of early Christian identity. Through the enactment or performance of a ritual, a community’s identity is set in scene and reconstituted.
ritual behaviour is structured and … many of these structures can be represented in such a formalised way that general rules surface. The description and analysis of these structures and rules are nothing else than a grammar, the grammar of rituals … (Michaels
This grammar, especially as it is used, explicitly or implicitly, by a community performing a ritual, also contains ascriptions of meaning to (parts of) a ritual (Michaels
At this point, there is a potential criticism of the use of modern theories, such as theories concerning rituals and, below, ritual failure, to ancient texts, such as Romans 6:1–14, namely the question as to the appropriateness of such a potentially anachronistic approach. Whilst this question is certainly legitimate, it may also be considered answered by the productive contribution that has been made by the application of sociological models to the study of the New Testament in general (Strecker
Having outlined all of this, the notion of ‘ritual’, as it was introduced above, can be specified somewhat more, which is necessary, both in general and because the identification of crucifixion as a ritual requires some argument and this argument needs to have a basis in a somewhat more precise understanding of ritual. A starting point can be found in Becker’s statement that ‘[r]itual refers to an elaborate sequence of individual rites which, following an established ritual syntax, are logically connected within a certain functional context’ (Lamoreaux
1. Rituals are always related to causal change (
Early Christian baptism obviously fits these characteristics, being related to a change in a person (1) (Groenewald
The order of being into which the Christian is incorporated by baptism is ideologically conditioned as liminal. It is a mode of being characterised by its proleptic essence and the fact that it is oriented towards a final stage, which Christ alone is living. The future resurrection with Christ is anticipatorily and partly experienced. Christian life is eschatologically defined in the field of tension between an ’already’ and a ’not yet’. (Klostergaard Petersen
It seems, however, that in Romans, the character of the liminal existence of the baptised, in terms of their embodiment of their death to sin and walking in the newness of life due to that, is disputed; in fact, it constitutes the core of the ritual failure noted by Paul. This is a situation that is akin to the one at stake in Philippians, where Paul also discusses the characteristics of the ‘intermediate state’ of those living on earth, but already ‘in Christ’,
Ritual failure refers to cases in which a ritual is imperfectly performed, giving rise to its discussion and (re)negotiation in relation to the ritual community’s developing identity (= ‘ritual negotiation’) (Hüsken & Neubert
Rituals may fail due to a number of reasons, all related to the ‘grammar’ of the ritual,
According to Grimes (
Misfire (act purported but void)
Misinvocation (act disallowed)
Non-play (lack of accepted conventional procedure) Misapplication (inappropriate persons or circumstances) Misexecution (act vitiated)
Flaw (incorrect, vague, or inexplicit formula) Hitch (incomplete procedure)
Abuse (act professed but hollow)
Insincerity (lack of requisite feelings, thoughts, or intentions) Breach (failure to follow through) ‘Gloss’ (procedures used to cover up problems) ‘Flop’ (failure to produce appropriate mood or atmosphere)
‘Ineffectuality’ (act fails to precipitate anticipated empirical change)
‘Violation’ (act effective but demeaning)
‘Contagion’ (act leaps beyond proper boundaries)
‘Opacity’ (act unrecognisable or unintelligible)
‘Defeat’ (act discredits or invalidates others)
‘Omission’ (act not performed)
‘Misframe’ (genre or act misconstrued)
This typology, which is primarily of heuristic value, as it allows one to discover kinds of ritual failure, will be used in discussing Romans 6, but before doing so, however, some further observations with respect to the nature of ritual failure should be made.
To begin with, it is of importance to note that the evaluation of rituals is an inherent part of the communities performing them; according to Hüsken, ‘Evaluation is an intersubjective process, executed by groups or individuals. It is based on certain sets of values which might stem from canons which the participants themselves have not created, but it might equally be based on the expectations, intentions and agenda of individual participants …’ (Hüsken
Furthermore, as Hüsken, has pointed out, based on the analysis of a collection of studies on ritual failure, cases of rituals going awry contribute much to the discovery of the meaning of a ritual for a community and to the further development of the rituals as such. As she states:
[P]articipants and spectators alike learn more about the ‘correct’ performance of a ritual by deviating from, rather than by adhering to the rules. One might even say that solely the definitions and examples of ‘ritual failure’ and ‘error’ – and how they are coped with – prove the existence of decisive norms for ritual actions, even when the former are imagined deviations from imagined norms. (…) ‘Failed ritual’ directs our attention to ‘what really matters’ to the performers and participants and others in one way or another involved in a ritual. (Hüsken
Another aspect of the dynamics involved in the detection and discussion of ritual mistakes or ritual failures that is of significance, is that of the ritual competence that performers of rituals and/or its critics have (or claim) and/or deny others. Only ’ritual specialists’ may be seen to have the right to deviate from ritual norms, others may be regarded as lacking this specific authority (Hüsken
Next, the ‘creative power of deviations’ should be considered (Hüsken
Finally, a coping process concerning ritual failure, called ‘Ritual negotiation’ needs to be mentioned; it has been described by Hüsken and Neubert as the process of ‘interaction during which differing positions are debated and/or acted out’ in relation to a particular ritual and the community performing it, noting that ‘a central feature of ritual is its embeddedness in negotiation processes, and that life beyond the ritual frame often is negotiated in the field of rituals’ (Hüsken & Neubert
the importance of rituals as a focus for the (re)negotiation of the life of a community or group;
the significance of power relations with regard to the performance and criticism of ritual;
the importance of (perceived) failure and disagreement for triggering critical thinking and reflection (Hüsken & Neubert
It goes without saying that such (re)negotiation of rituals also points to the often masked but fundamental instability and fluidity of rituals and their performance. Initial explorations in the field of ’ritual negotiation’ have led to the identification of three main themes associated with it:
Questions of participation, both in the ritual as well as in processes of negotiation regarding it often are of central importance;
Questions relating to the ‘subversion of ritual prescriptions, ritual roles, and the power relations surrounding the ritual performances’ (Hüsken & Neubert
Questions concerning the context of a ritual, specifically the web of social (power) relations within which it has a place and the kind of differences it negotiates move to the foreground more when processes of ritual negotiation are taken into account.
When turning to Romans 6:1–14, a first question that needs to be addressed is whether there is reason to consider it from the perspective of ritual failure at all. Is Paul not just providing further teaching on the basis of something that the Romans already know? (Ferguson
To begin with, in Romans 6:1–14 Paul’s entire argument, which has itself to do with avoiding a misrepresentation of his gospel of grace as antinomianism (Ferguson
Having argued this, it is now possible to look for reasons to consider Romans 6:1–14 informed by the theory about ritual failure and its ensuing dynamics. Three main points can be made. Firstly, in verses 1–2 (as well as in the remainder of the pericope), Paul argues against a way of life, that is in sin, that would void the meaning or effect of baptism: new life in Christ and being death to sin. In Grimes’ terminology, this would be a ‘breach’ (subcategory of ‘abuse’, instances in which a ritual act is professed but appears to be hollow), a failure to follow through as far as the actual content of the ritual is concerned, or, alternatively, a case of ‘defeat’: the intended outcome of a ritual (new life in Christ, being dead to sin) is defeated by something else, that is a continued practice of sin. Secondly, if the position of Paul’s interlocutors in his diatribe, imaginary or not, holds true, that is when life after baptism is about the same as before, then baptism as a ritual is a ‘flop’, that is it does not change anything and certainly does not produce the outcome – new life in Christ – that it promises. Thirdly, taking into account the broader scope of Paul’s argument in Romans 5–7, especially the underlying issue of ‘antinomianism’ that Paul seeks to defend himself against or distance himself from, the kind of ritual failure that Paul seeks to address in Romans 6:1–14 can also be understood as a case of ‘misframing’, that is the ritual of baptism is misconstrued in the sense that it is either seen as a ‘stand alone’ ritual without any substantial consequences for the lives of those that participated in it, or, in fact, as a ritual that liberated its participants from any legal or moral obligation whatsoever, freeing them to sin as much as they felt like, so that grace would abound (see v. 1: Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν; ἐπιμένωμεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, ἵνα ἡ χάρις πλεονάσῃ;), a position that Paul rejects vehemently (v. 2: μὴ γένοιτο), immediately beginning to substantiate this with his take on baptism and its meaning (v. 2: οἵτινες ἀπεθάνομεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, πῶς ἔτι ζήσομεν ἐν αὐτῇ;). As such, the Roman baptism could be described as a failure, given that it is an ineffective ritual.
On this double basis of emphasis on the ritual basis of Paul’s argument in Romans 6:1–14 and two initial indications of ritual failure, either due to something voiding a ritual (due to instances of ‘breach’ or ‘defeat’) or due to a ritual being a ‘flop’ or an ineffective ritual, it is now possible to consider the pericope at stake somewhat further from the perspective of ritual failure and its accompanying dynamics of ritual negotiation, of which two aspects will be considered: the return to older tradition as a way of navigating and negotiating the situation of ritual failure and the question of power relations that is at stake in any situation of ritual negotiation. By thus considering Romans 6:1–14 as an instance of ritual failure from a number of perspectives, in line with the fact that rituals can fail (and succeed) in a number of ways simultaneously, and by drawing attention to significant aspects of the dynamic of ritual negotiation, additional light can be shed on the pericope at hand, as will be indicated in the conclusions.
A first way of looking at Romans 6:1–14 from the perspective of the study of ritual failure is by applying the category of ‘breach’, this concerns the performance of a ritual, e.g. taking a solemn vow, but not fulfilling it (Wright
It is relatively perspicuous to see how this category can be used to further understand the dynamics of Romans 6:1–14. Whilst Paul understands the Romans, or at least most of them, to have been baptised in Christ Jesus and consequently to have been baptised into his death, that is to have been buried with Christ through baptism in his death, in order to walk in newness of like just as Christ had been raised from the dead through the glory of the Father (6:3–4), he also understands them not to follow through on this (in v. 3, ὅσοι may leave room for catechumens as well). The latter follows from Paul’s exhortations in the verses 12–13: 12 Μὴ οὖν βασιλευέτω ἡ ἁμαρτία ἐν τῷ θνητῷ ὑμῶν σώματι εἰς τὸ ὑπακούειν ταῖς ἐπιθυμίαις αὐτοῦ
That is, Paul’s indicative expresses his apocalyptic vision of the new life in Christ. The imperative follows the indicative, exhorting believers to cultivate this apocalyptic vision of the new life and live it out. (Kuo-Yu Tsui
Thus, whilst Paul assumes that the Romans, or, if the diatribe is fictive: his fictive interlocutors, and he share, at least in principle (see below on the question of invention of tradition), the same understanding of baptism (not the references to shared knowledge in v. 3 and v. 9),
Whilst understanding the identification of the Roman baptism (or the baptism of Paul’s fictive interlocutors) as ritual failure by Paul in terms of a ‘breach’ places emphasis on the performers of the ritual and their behaviour and indicates that their behaviour post-ritual (i.e. post-baptism) turns the ritual into a failure, the application of other categories of ritual failure to Paul’s utterances can complement the picture. A next pair of categories ‘flop’ and ‘ineffectiveness’ will make one travel the reverse route by concluding from the unchanged behaviour of its performers on the quality of the ritual.
Two categories of Grimes’ list of kinds of ritual failure focus on a ritual’s failure due to a lack of anticipated outcome, either in terms of its ‘failure to produce appropriate mood or atmosphere’ (‘flop’) or due to its failure to ‘to precipitate anticipated empirical change’. The difference between the two is that the one is more concerned with social or psychological effects (e.g. a Christmas family dinner that ends in a fight rather than in singing under the Christmas tree would be a case of a ‘flop’) and the other more with physical changes, e.g. a healing ritual that fails to produce healing.
Both the category of ‘flop’ and of ‘ineffectuality’ might be of relevance for the analysis of Romans 6:1–14, given that Paul is much concerned with the precise outcome of a ritual, rather than with its correct performance in the narrower sense of the word (different from, e.g. the case of the Lord’s Supper in 1 Cor 11:23–26, or his criticism of circumcision for Gentiles throughout his letters). According to Paul, the desired outcome of baptism is being dead to sin and alive in Christ (see 6:2.4), rather than being dead to sin ‘formally’ (i.e. because one has been baptised) and still living in sin (v. 2); if his appeals to live according to the reality that one actually is in, that is dead to sin and alive in Christ, in Romans 6:1–14 are not just rhetorical in nature, but have something to do with his real estimation of the walk of life of Roman Christians, then he considers their baptism to have been either a flop or an ineffectual ritual or, in fact, both. The obvious contrast that emerges out of this, that is of a ritual that (according to Paul) should produce something that it does not produce in the Roman community, is for Paul reason to register ritual failure and to engage in a process of rethinking the ritual practice of the Romans in the form of a diatribe, as part of his longer discourse on grace, law, freedom and sin in Romans 5–7. The result of this, as will be suggested below (‘Return to the real meaning …’), a new reflection, or at least a reflection that may well be relatively novel to the Romans, on the meaning of baptism, the result of ritual negotiation because of a perceived case of ritual failure.
In the case of baptism, however, there is a further dimension to the ritual failure at stake. This has to do with the fact that the ritual of baptism also communicates the power of YHWH to overcome the powers of death and sin (Strecker
Thus, so far the failure of the ritual of baptism in the Roman community can, from Paul’s perspective, be understood as ‘breach’ (due to the failure of the participants’ behaviour to follow through on the ritual) and as a ‘flop’ or as an ‘ineffective’ ritual (as evidenced from the participants’ behaviour
Having considered different ways in which the Roman baptism can be understood as a case of ritual failure – from Paul’s perspective, to be sure – yet another option needs to be studied. This is the option of ritual failure due to misframing. In Grimes’ theory, this concerns rituals that are considered failed because they are placed in the wrong framework. An example of misframing, one may suspect intentionally, from the letters of Paul would be his jab at the ‘circumcision party’ in Philippi, referring to circumcision as mutilation (Phil 3:2); by placing circumcision, a ritual intended to perform the inclusion of a person into the people of God, in the same category as castration, something that would exclude someone from the people of God (see, e.g. the further argument of Phlp 3, as well as Gl 6), Paul misframes – and discredits – circumcision, by presenting it as a failed ritual, in fact, as an instance of ‘violation’. Unintentional examples of ritual failure due to misframing could be adduced easily as well.
The notion of ‘misframing’ is helpful for understanding what kind of ritual failure Paul thinks is at stake in the Roman community and at which level he seeks to address it. This is to say: for Paul’s identification of ritual failure in Rome, it is striking that there is nothing in Romans 6:1–14 that suggests that Paul thinks that there is anything wrong with the Roman ritual practice in the narrower sense of the word, there is nothing to suggest that, for example, a person of the wrong gender baptises, that an incorrect kind of baptism is used (e.g. only that of John, not that of the Spirit, see Acts 18:24–19:6), that too much hierarchy is involved (see, e.g. 1 Cor 11), or that an incorrect substance (e.g. rose petals instead of water) is being used. Still, something is the matter. This something concerns the outcome of the ritual and the significance that it has for the walk of life of those that participated in it. Paul seems to suggest that the Romans misframe and therefore misunderstand and, when including the appertaining change in the walk of life into the ritual as its desired outcome, misperform it, because they either do not see it as something that involves dying with Christ to sin sufficiently (see Rm 6:3) and therefore do not connect it with a changed walk of life or as a ritual that liberated its participants from any legal or moral obligation whatsoever (see, the contrast to such a position presented by Rm 6:12–13). Whether and if so, why, this was the case remains difficult to establish because of a dearth of sources beyond Paul’s letter to the Romans itself.
Having thus argued that Paul’s argument in Romans 6:1–14 can be understood as based on his observation of (what in the 21st century can be called) ritual failure, it is now possible to turn to two important aspects of the process of ritual negotiation, a process that always takes place whenever ritual failure is observed in a community; as had been described above. Two aspects will be highlighted in particular: the ‘return to the sources’ that is typical of this process, often resulting in an ‘invention of tradition’ and the question of power that also is of significance in this process.
As it was observed above, it is part of the dynamics of ritual negotiation that, as a reaction to an instance of ritual failure, an attempt is made to return to an older, more authentic ritual practice (Hüsken
When turning to the question of the relationship between memory and argument based on this memory, the following can be said. Clearly, Paul makes reference to a memory, or rather: an experience with a particular interpretation attached to it that is common to the Romans and himself: baptism. More specifically, this memory concerns a specific understanding of baptism, as Paul asks –: ἢ ἀγνοεῖτε ὅτι, ὅσοι ἐβαπτίσθημεν εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, εἰς τὸν θάνατον αὐτοῦ ἐβαπτίσθημεν; (Rm 6:3) (Wedderburn
In verse 6, however, Paul again refers to knowledge common to himself and the Romans, by stating τοῦτο γινώσκοντες ὅτι ὁ παλαιὸς ἡμῶν ἄνθρωπος συνεσταυρώθη, ἵνα καταργηθῇ τὸ σῶμα τῆς ἁμαρτίας, τοῦ μηκέτι δουλεύειν ἡμᾶς τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ. The evocation of this knowledge may well continue into v. 7: ὁ γὰρ ἀποθανὼν δεδικαίωται ἀπὸ τῆς ἁμαρτίας. Verse 8, however, has the characteristics of an argument again: εἰ δὲ ἀπεθάνομεν … πιστεύομεν ὅτι … In verse 9, however, Paul returns to a knowledge that the Romans share with him – or at least, so he assumes εἰδότες ὅτι Χριστὸς ἐγερθεὶς ἐκ νεκρῶν οὐκέτι ἀποθνῄσκει, θάνατος αὐτοῦ οὐκέτι κυριεύει. Verse 10 can be understood as a partial restatement of this knowledge, at least, it does not have the characteristics of an argument building up on this shared knowledge: ὃ γὰρ ἀπέθανεν, τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ ἀπέθανεν ἐφάπαξ· ὃ δὲ ζῇ, ζῇ τῷ θεῷ. This changes rather abruptly in verse 11, where the references to shared experiences
First, when considering the shift from verse 3 (shared memory/experience) to verses 4–5 (argument), it seems that Paul in so far further unpacks the implications of the ritual as the Romans and he know it, on the basis of a shared interpretation of it, to be sure, that he connects a particular walk of life, characterised as ἐν καινότητι ζωῆς, to the notion of having died with Christ in baptism (verse 4), which is backed up with the additional argument in verse 5.
Second, when considering the remainder of the pericope, Paul can be seen to largely repeat the same procedure: shared knowledge is evoked in verses 6–7, a conclusion is drawn in verse 8, further shared knowledge is appealed to in verse 9, upon which Paul launches into his final argument, which is, again, presented as drawing conclusions from the meaning of the ritual that he and the Romans share. Thus, quite an analogy to what happens in the verses 3–5, Paul presents himself as reminding the Romans of the meaning of the ritual that they know and remember, whilst simultaneously indicating how their practice of not walking in newness of life (v. 4) should be adjusted based on the real meaning of the ritual, that is dying to sin with Christ, rising to new life with Christ and living accordingly.
Thus, in Romans 6:1–14, like in 1 Corinthians 11:17–34 (Smit
The discussion of ritual failure in a process of ritual negotiation always involves power relations, given that establishing that a ritual has failed, for whatever reason, always means questioning the competence of the ritual expert(s) in charge of it and with that the legitimacy of their embodiment and performance of a group’s identity or tradition. This is the case in Romans 6:1–14 as well, and it is also indicated by Paul’s shift from a more descriptive discourse in chapter 5 to a more direct way of addressing the Romans in chapter 6, which will continue into chapter 7. Whilst this means on the one hand that Paul is able to address the Romans in a more immediate way, it also means that he can question their position, having laid out his own view in the preceding chapters. His opting for a diatribic style suits this purpose very well, of course, whilst this also leaves the possibility open that Paul addresses the Romans by way of addressing a fictive interlocutor in the diatribe. Even though no one is singled out as either lacking in knowledge concerning the dynamics of baptism (dying with Christ to sin) or lacking in vivacity when it comes to living in newness of life and offering oneself to God, nor is anyone singled out in the letter’s address (1:7), it will be those that are in charge of baptism and its appertaining catechesis as well as those that model newness of life, or even regulate this, that will have been the most immediately addressed by these remarks – remarks that were, to be sure, read out in public. With his letter and his criticism of the Roman ritual practice of baptism in relation to the walk of life of the members of the community, Paul engages in a competition with the leadership of the Roman community, disputing, or at least questioning their ritual (and moral) competence and expertise and strongly asserting his own, which is all part of the process of ritual negotiation (and eventually renewal) that Paul seeks to draw the Roman community into.
When concluding on the above observations, a number of elements can be highlighted, pertaining both to the study of early Christianity, especially Paul, in general, as well as to the development of early Christian, notably Pauline, understandings of baptism.
First, as has become clear above, ritual is the basis of Paul’s argument – and it is through ritual that he approaches the desirable contours of life in Christ. In Romans 6, his starting point is not in the least a theological thesis, a revelation, a creed, but instead: ritual, in particular the ritual entrance of a person into life in Christ. As was suggested, this mode of operating of Paul is different from simply supplying a picture instead of an (abstract) idea, or from presenting ritual as the symbolic representation of something that can be expressed in a more noetic, disembodied form as well. No, the Romans addressed by Paul are who they are and are living their lives as they are living them, (even if imperfectly) based on their participation in the ritual of baptism; that is what has made them into who they are, that ritual and its outcome (being dead to sin, living in newness of life) is what they should live out and continue to perform in their walk of life.
Second, Paul’s intensive engagement with the (flawed) ritual practice of the Roman community, his return to what the Romans and he can be thought of as sharing in experience, memory, and knowledge regarding baptism, also gives an impression of how early Christian views of baptism – and the appertaining, in this case: moral, practice – developed. A disagreement concerning the moral practice that is (or is not) part of life in Christ – at the same time the main theme of Romans 5–7 – leads to a reconsideration of the common basis and a further development of the thought pertaining to the ritual of baptism as such and the ensuing walk of life. Just as the Corinthians (or anyone else, for that matter) may not have been aware all that much of the required praxis of equality at the Lord’s Supper before Paul unpacked the shared tradition concerning it (the
Third, in the course of the discussion of various possible kinds of ritual failure, it became clear as well that much more than ‘merely’ a question of ritual is at stake in Romans 6:1–14. The failure of the ritual to produce its results, for whichever reason, in fact, would also indicate the failure of the narrative into which it initiates people; in other words: if the ritual fails to produce people that are indeed dead to sin and living in newness of life, then the lordship of Christ and ultimately YHWH is denied, or, worse (from Paul’s perspective), to be a claim only, without any basis in reality. Failure of the ritual, as indicated by lives of initiates that were still ruled by sin, would indicate the reign of sin and the impotence of Christ’s death and dying with Christ to change this in any meaningful way.
Fourth, it also became clear that behind the discussion of ritual is effectiveness and implications, there is also a considerable struggle for power and authority going on – quite in line with the purposes of Romans as a whole. The diatribe that Paul uses, with imaginary interlocutors or not, functions, because there is so much at stake, as a means of establishing Paul’s competence and authority in relation to the authentic continuation of life in Christ as a reflection of the lordship of Christ and YHWH. Both the contest about the authentic meaning of baptism and its implications are related to this.
The author declares that he has no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced him in writing this article.
Especially DeMaris provides an eloquent account of the importance of ritual in the first-century Greco-Roman world, indeed the ‘ritual world’ of the New Testament.
On the demarcation within Romans 6, subdividing it into a first section (vv. 1–14) and a second one (vv. 15–23), based on the two questions in Romans 6:1 and 6:15, see e.g. Talbert (
Agersnap notes that verses 1–2 contain the ‘leading questions’ of what follows.
Anthony J. Guerra notes that Romans 6 is not read in its rhetorical context often enough and too often mined for a doctrine of baptism. Too much attention for rhetoric, however, also leads to obscuring the fact that Paul is dealing with a ritual here, see e.g. the analysis of David Hellholm (
Hartman (
Agersnap (
Fowl (1988:296) reduces baptism to metaphor: ‘To explain how and why Christians have died to sin Paul employs another, but more familiar, metaphor: being baptised into Christ. In all of the cases where Paul uses this metaphor it basically expresses the view that those who have been baptised have entered into the community defined by whom or whatever they are baptised into (cf. l Cor.l:13; 10:2; 12:13; Gl.3:27). If the image of death provides Paul with a metaphor with which to talk about being freed from past political commitments, then the image of baptism provides him with a metaphor to speak about entering into a new polity. Hence, in Romans 6:3 when Paul talks about believers as having been baptised into Christ, he is talking about those who have entered into the community ruled and defined by Christ’. For a critique of this view of ritual see, e.g. Rappaport (
Neyrey provides an extensive overview of ceremonies, rites, and ritual in Paul, including a brief treatment of baptism.
See e.g. Kuo-Yu Tsui:2012 focusses on Paul’s thoughts, rather than on ritual experience, such as on 400: ‘Though Paul does not intend to present his baptismal theology in Romans 6, Paul’s reference to baptism there nonetheless reveals his thoughts on baptism in relation to Christ’s death’. Also, Boers (
See also the contributions in D. Hellholm, T. Vegge, Ø. Norderval & C. Hellholm (ed.),
Klostergaard Petersen (
With respect to this, the fact that one is dealing with texts, not the rituals themselves, does not need to be a problem, when for example, Strecker’s six ways in which text and ritual are, or can be, connected, are taken into account, most of which seem to apply to the text under consideration in this contribution. See Strecker (
See also the broader argument of F. Flannery (
A very broad view of ritual reaches a point where nearly all behavior can be understood as the performance of an identity. See J. Lieu (
See Michaels (2005) on the problems involved concerning ritual and meaning.
On the language of ‘script’, ‘grammar’, its potential and limitations see Michaels (
This approach, which does not follow earlier ‘grand unified theories’ concerning the study of ritual, but focuses on a number of characteristics of rituals, can be justified by referring to the lack of any one current ‘grand unified theory’ for the exploration of ritual in the New Testament world and recent calls, such as by Uro (
Baptism does not happen spontaneously, or accidentally.
See Yarbro Collins (
See also the comments of Agersnap (
See for a discussion of similarities, e.g. Kuo-Yu Tsui (2011:65–80).
Smit (
According to Klostergaard Petersen (
On this helpful notion, see the following observations by Michaels (
See also the theoretical considerations offered by Michael Ing (
The ritual theory followed here is indebted to Hüsken (
R.L. Grimes, ‘Response to the contributions presented on the occasion of the panel “Ritual mistakes and failures” during the AAR conference, held in 11/2004 in San Antonio (Texas),’ [unpublished], quoted by Hüsken (
For considerations on the widespread character of early Christian baptism, see Michael Labahn (
See, with emphasis on the mystical language that Paul uses when speaking of baptism Segal,
This is different from Moo’s reference to Paul’s drawing out the implications of the faithful’s experience of grace; the experience is ritual and the ritual involved is baptism. See Moo (
See also Sabou (
See e.g. the extensive discussion of the relationship between ch. 5 and 6 offered by Agersnap (
Fitzmyer
See also Kuo-Yu Tsui (
See Kuo-Yu Tsui (
As Agersnap (
See, for emphasis on this, Black (
Should there have been a disjunction between participation in a ritual and walk of life, it is tempting to hypothesise that this might have had to do with the disjunction between ritual participation and religiously motivated morality that is often assumed to have been in place in Roman religion in general. However, given that involvement in ‘Roman’ religion and certainly in mystery cults also meant aligning oneself with a particular order of things, the notion that Roman religion had little to do with morality may well be questioned – a case in point is the condemnation of Thecla because of impiety, whereas the ‘sin’ consisted of social disobedience and a refusal to fit into the fabric of society as planned by her mother (cf. Smit
Hüsken remarks that the creation of new ritual rules takes place ‘frequently under the pretext of “returning to older (severer) rules”’.
In this way, this contribution is critical of Hellholm’s view, according to which it is a misunderstanding that ‘Paul here is introducing the doctrine of baptism or a new understanding of baptism instead of realising that he is arguing his case’. In fact, Paul argues his case by arguing for a particular understanding of baptism (Hellholm
Paul’s own experience of baptism also plays a role here in all likelihood (Labahn
On the future tense ἐσόμεθα in v. 5, see esp. the detailed note by Kuo-Yu Tsui (
See Hellholm (