The Pastoral Epistles and Hellenistic

Philosophy: 1 Timothy 5:1-2, Hierocles,

and the Contraction of Circles
ILARIA L. E. RAMELLI
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
20123 Milan, Italy

IN 1 TIM 5:1-2, the author advises the church leader not to rebuke elderly people harshly but to exhort them gently and respectfully, to treat them as fathers and
mothers, and to treat young persons as brothers and sisters:
, , ,
, 1 (Do not rebuke an older man
harshly but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers,
older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity).
The Vg rendering of this passage is very close to the Greek: Seniorem ne increpaveris, sed obsecra ut patrem, iuvenes ut fratres, anus ut matres, iuvenculas ut
sorores in omni castitate (Do not rebuke an older man harshly but exhort him as
a father. Treat young men as brothers, old women as mothers, and girls as sisters,
in all chastity).
Parallel passages on respect for the elderly from classical antiquity and the
Bible, such as Cicero Off. 1.34; Polybius Histories 6.4.5;2 Lev 19:32; Sir 8:6; and
so forth, which are frequently cited by commentators in this connection, are surely
relevant to some extent, but they are also rather generic. Only two are more specifI am very grateful to CBQs anonymous referees and editor for their perceptive reading and
helpful observations.
1 In the first hand of Codex Sinaiticus the words are lacking.
2 , , (it
is an ancient tradition to venerate the deities, to honor ones parents, and to respect old people).
See Polybii historiae (ed. Theodor Bttner-Wobst; 4 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 18891905; repr.,
Stuttgart: Teubner, 196267) 1:1-361.

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ically related to 1 Tim 5:1-2: Plato Leg. 9.879C:

(the man or
woman who is more than twenty years older than one is should be revered by the
latter as a father or a mother), and Gellius Noctes Atticae 2.15: maiores natu a
minoribus colebantur ad deum prope et parentum vicem (older people were
revered by younger people as though they were almost gods and as though they
were their parents). As I intend to point out, in our passage from the Pastoral
Epistle it is not simply a matter of respect for old people, but (1) specifically of
exhortation, consolation, and comfort of the elderly; and above all, (2) attention
not only to old people in general but to the appropriate approach to several different
groups of people, with whom the author avers that distances should be somehow
reduced.
I contend that for both points interesting parallels can be traced with Hierocles
the Stoic, which seem to have been scarcely or never detected by scholars
scarcely in the case of point (1), and never in the case of point (2). The latter in
particular entails a much broader and deeper convergence between 1 Tim 5:1-2
and Hierocles theorization of Stoic (appropriate acts or duties)
and his interpretation of the Stoic doctrine of .3 The latter term indicates
3

On this doctrine, see, e.g., Troels Engberg-Pedersen, The Stoic Theory of Oikeisis: Moral
Development and Social Interaction in Early Stoic Philosophy (Studies in Hellenistic Civilization 2;
Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 1990); Roberto Radice, Oikeisis: Ricerche sul fondamento del
pensiero stoico e sulla sua genesi (Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico 77; Milan: Vita e
Pensiero, 2000); Robert Bees, Die Oikeiosislehre der Stoa, vol. 1, Rekonstruktion ihres Inhaltes
(Epistemata, Reihe Philosophie 258; Wrzburg: Knigshausen & Neumann, 2004). See also, e.g.,
Brad Inwood, Comments on Prof. Grgemanns Paper: The Two Forms of Oikeisis in Arius and
the Stoa, in On Stoic and Peripatetic Ethics: The Work of Arius Didymus (ed. William W. Fortenbaugh;
Rutgers University Studies in Classical Humanities 1; New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1983) 190201; Gisela Striker, The Role of Oikeisis in Stoic Ethics, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 1
(1983) 145-67; Gerhard Schnrich, Oikeisis: Zur Aktualitt eines stoischen Grundbegriffs,
Philosophisches Jahrbuch 96 (1989) 34-51; Margherita Isnardi Parente, Ierocle stoico: Oikeisis
e doveri sociali, in ANRW 2.36.3 (1989) 2201-26; Mary Whitlock Blundell, Parental Nature and
Stoic Oikeisis, Ancient Philosophy 10 (1990) 221-42; Brad Inwood, LOikeisis sociale chez
pictte, in Polyhistor: Studies in the History and Historiography of Ancient Philosophy Presented
to Jaap Mansfeld on His Sixtieth Birthday (ed. Keimpe A. Algra, Pieter W. van der Horst, and
David T. Runia; Philosophia antiqua 72; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 243-64; Chang-Uh Lee, Oikeisis:
Stoische Ethik in naturphilosophischer Perspektive (Alber-Reihe Thesen 21; Freiburg: Alber, 2002);
Gretchen Reydams-Schils, Human Bonding and Oikeisis in Roman Stoicism, Oxford Studies in
Ancient Philosophy 24 (2002) 221-51; Keimpe Algra, The Mechanism of Social Appropriation
and Its Role in Hellenistic Ethics, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 25 (2003) 265-96; Barbara
Guckes, Zur Ethik der lteren Stoa (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004); Jrg Peters,
Ciceros Oikeisis-Lehre, Ethik und Unterricht 3 (2005) 46-53; Marie-Anne Zagdoun, Problmes
concernant loikeisis stocienne, in Les Stociens (ed. Gilbert Romeyer-Dherbey and Jean-Baptiste
Gourinat; Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2005) 319-34; Tad Brennan, The Stoic Life: Emo-

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the mechanism of appropriation, or making someone or something ones own

and familiar to oneself. The doctrine of was crucial in Stoic ethics; it
was present already in the Old Stoa, but its most mature formulation is found in
Neo-Stoicism. In particular, the so-called social or deontological (which
consists in making other persons familiar to oneself on the basis of precise toward them and is not common to all creatures but is typical of human
beings in that it is grounded in reason) provided an important basis for valuing
interpersonal relationships and social ties, not only with ones friends, who in the
Old Stoa were mainly other wise men for the wise, but also with ones family,
including ones spouse and children.4 This is especially clear in Hierocles, whose
peculiarity in the conception of is to be individuated, as I will show, in
his attempt at reducing the distance between the moral subject and the various categories of people to whom one relates. For the strategy he suggests I have proposed
elsewhere, drawing inspiration from Hierocles wording itself, the denomination
contraction of circles.5 I will demonstrate that this pivotal notion of Hierocles is
at work in 1 Tim 5:1-2.
Only a couple of commentators indicate a parallel between 1 Tim 5:1 and
Hierocles, and a very restricted parallel indeed, confined to point (1) and v. 1; most
commentators, in fact, do not even cite Hierocles in this connection. For example,
for vv. 1-2 Luke Timothy Johnson does not mention Hierocles, nor does Philip H.
Towner, who simply indicates the attention paid to age and gender groups in
Greek moral teaching, referring to Hans Conzelmann and I. Howard Marshall for
some examples. Peter Gorday and Angelo Di Berardino do not mention any Hellenistic parallels for vv. 1-2.6
The only modern commentators who briefly cite Hierocles for vv. 1-2 are
Abraham J. Malherbe and Marshall. The latter does so by relying on the tions, Duties, and Fate (Oxford: Clarendon, 2005) 154-68; The Proceedings of the Conference Lectures de Hierocls, cole Normale Suprieure de Lyon, 69 April 2011 (Philosophie Antique;
Villeneuve dAscq: Presses Universitaires Septentrion, forthcoming).
4 See Ilaria Ramelli, Transformations of the Household and Marriage Theory between NeoStoicism, Middle-Platonism, and Early Christianity, Rivista di Filosofia Neoscolastica 100 (2008)
369-96; and below.
5 Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Ierocle Neostoico in Stobeo: i e levoluzione delletica stoica, in Thinking through Excerpts: Studies on Stobaeus (ed. Gretchen Reydams-Schils; Monothismes et philosophie; Turnhout: Brepols, 2011) 537-75.
6 Luke Timothy Johnson, The First and Second Letters to Timothy: A New Translation with
Introduction and Commentary (AB 35A; New York: Doubleday, 2001) 259-60; Philip H. Towner,
The Letters to Timothy and Titus (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006) 329-31, 342 (quotation
from 329); Peter Gorday and Angelo Di Berardino, Colossesi, 12 Tessalonicesi, 12 Timoteo, Tito,
Filemone (La Bibbia commentata dai Padri, NT 9; Rome: Citt Nuova, 2004) 266-76. Gorday and
Di Berardino refer to patristic interpretations only, as is required by the series standard: the psychological interpretation by John Chrysostom (In I Tim. 13.2) and that provided by Leo the Great
(Ep. 14.1), who insisted on the necessity of correcting without renouncing love.

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parallel indicated by Pieter W. van der Horst, to which I will return, but he
mentions Hierocles only for the exhortation to gentle rebukes to the elderly and
not for the much broader convergence between his theory of and 1 Timothy 5 that I will point out.7 Likewise, Malherbe in his recent, fine analysis of
1 Timothy 5 in the light of Hellenistic moral traditions about old age does indicate
a convergence with Hierocles, but only for the necessity of rebuking old people
gently, not for the much vaster and deeper discourse on and the contraction of circles to which I will draw attention.8
The most interesting recent commentary from the point of view of Hellenistic
parallels to the Pastoral Epistles is perhaps that provided by Benjamin Fiore, a disciple of Malherbe, who for all the Pastoral Epistles offers a great number of illuminating parallels from Hellenistic moral philosophy and literature.9 Yet even in
a commentary such as this, which is particularly attentive to the Hellenistic philosophical heritage in these Epistles, there is no reference to Hierocles theory of the
contraction of circles for 1 Tim 5:1-2.10 As for the assimilation of the elderly to
fathers and mothers and the younger to brothers and sisters, Fiore refers only to
the fictive kinship of the Pauline (and early Christian) communities, and as for
pagan parallels, to the later Iamblichus Vita Pyth. 40; Plutarch Mor. 120A; Gellius
Noctes Atticae 2.15.1; and Libanius Loc. 3.7.

I. The Pastoral Epistles and Hierocles: Chronologically and

Culturally Close
I find that Hierocles the Stoic is worth exploring in depth for his chronological
and cultural proximity to 1 Timothy. In the order in which we have them now,
1 Timothy is the first of the so-called Pastoral Epistles, probably dating from the
beginning of the second century.11 Usually these letters are considered to stem
7 I. Howard Marshall, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles, in
collaboration with Philip H. Towner (ICC; London/New York: Clark, 1999) 573; Pieter W. van der
Horst, Hierocles the Stoic and the New Testament: A Contribution to the Corpus Hellenisticum,
NovT 17 (1975) 156-60, here 159.
8 Abraham J. Malherbe, How to Treat Old Women and Old Men: The Use of Philosophical
Traditions and Scripture in 1 Timothy 5, in Scripture and Traditions: Essays on Early Judaism and
Christianity in Honor of Carl R. Holladay (ed. Patrick Gray and Gail R. ODay; NovTSup 129;
Leiden: Brill, 2008) 263-90, dealing with 1 Tim 5:17-19 but also with 5:1-3 (esp. 270-75); the parallel with Hierocles is indicated on p. 274; see also his Paulus Senex, ResQ 36 (1994) 197-207.
9 Benjamin Fiore, The Pastoral Epistles: First Timothy, Second Timothy, Titus (SacPag 12;
Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2007).
10 See ibid., 101-2, where only general parallels for gentle persuasion rather than harsh rebuke
are mentioned, such as Philodemus On Frank Criticism XVIa.12 and Lucian Demon. 19.48.
11 P. N. Harrison, The Problem of the Pastoral Epistles (London: Oxford University Press,
1921); J. N. D. Kelly, A Commentary on the Pastoral Epistles: I Timothy, II Timothy, Titus (BNTC;
New York: Harper & Row, 1963); George W. Knight III, The Faithful Sayings in the Pastoral Letters

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from the 120s to the 140s C.E.; they seem to have been absent from the earliest
copy of Pauls collected letters, p46, and from Marcions canon in the 130s and the
140s. They are first quoted by Irenaeus about 180 C.E. (but see below for their possible intertextual presence in Polycarp and Ignatius). Most scholars indicate a much
later date than Pauls own time: Fiore suggests a date around 8090 C.E. and a setting involving Ephesus and Crete; Jouette Bassler and Jerome D. Quinn propose
a date around 100 C.E. and Ephesus as the most probable place of composition;
Dennis R. MacDonald also advocates Asia Minor and a still later date, 100140
C.E.; and Helmut Koester indicates 120160 C.E. as the most probable chronological range.12
The vast majority of scholars, indeed, deem the Pastoral Epistles pseudepigraphical.13 The vocabulary and style of the letters is very different from those
of Pauls authentic letters; most of the exhortations in the Pastorals reflect Hellenistic mentality and philosophical commonplaces, as scholars have noticed long
ago. The background of these letters in respect to heresy, church order, organiza(Baker Biblical Monographs; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968); Pierre Dornier, Les ptres pastorales
(Paris: Gabalda, 1969); David Verner, The Household of God: The Social World of the Pastoral
Epistles (SBLDS 71; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983); Rinaldo Fabris, Le lettere pastorali (Leggere
oggi la Bibbia 2.11; Brescia: Queriniana, 1986); Hanna Stettler, Die Christologie der Pastoralbriefe
(WUNT 2/105; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998); Lorenz Oberlinner, Le lettere pastorali (Brescia:
Paideia, 1999) 1-3; Gianfranco Ravasi, Lettere a Timoteo e a Tito (Bologna: EDB, 2002); Terence J.
Keegan, First and Second Timothy, Titus, Philemon (New Collegeville Bible Commentary, New
Testament 9; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), with very short commentary, mainly theological.
12 Fiore, Pastoral Epistles, 13 (remarking that the author used the full range of hortatory
devices as taught in the rhetorical schools and put to use in the literary exhortation letters by other
real or pseudonymous authors of their day); Jouette Bassler, 1 Timothy 2 Timothy, and Titus (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries; Nashville: Abingdon, 1996) 20, 24-25; Jerome D. Quinn, The
Letter to Titus: A New Translation with Notes and Commentary and an Introduction (AB 35; New
York: Doubleday, 1990) 20 (who also proposes Rome as a less probable alternative); Dennis R.
MacDonald, The Legend and the Apostle: The Battle for Paul in Story and Canon (Philadephia:
Westminster, 1983) 54; Helmut Koester, Introduction to the New Testament (Berlin/New York: de
Gruyter, 1982) 305.
13 See, e.g., MacDonald, Legend, 54 and passim; Raymond F. Collins, Letters That Paul Did
Not Write: The Epistle to the Hebrews and the Pauline Pseudepigrapha (GNS 28; Wilmington, DE:
Glazier, 1988) 88-130; Jerome D. Quinn, Timothy and Titus, Epistles to, ABD 6:560-71; Ray
Van Neste, Cohesion and Structure in the Pastoral Epistles (JSNTSup 280; London/New York:
Clark, 2004) esp. introduction; Wayne A. Meeks and John T. Fitzgerald, The Writings of St. Paul:
Annotated Texts, Reception and Criticism (Norton Critical Edition; New York: Norton, 2007) 303-18.
Manabu Tsuji (Persnliche Korrespondenz des Paulus: Zur Strategie der Pastoralbriefe als Pseudepigrapha, NTS 56 [2010] 253-72) thinks that the forger used the genre of private letters to make
their late discovery understandable, but forged three letters, not just one, in order for them to be
considered valid for all places and times. A survey of this topic can be found in Michel Gourgues,
tude critique: La recherche sur les pastorales un tournant? ScEs 61 (2009) 73-86.

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tion, and authority seems to reflect an early-second-century situation rather than

the time of Paul. Moreover, they stand in contrast to Pauls asceticism and appreciation of women as church leaders. According to Fiore, an adaptation to the Hellenistic cultural context is to be found precisely in the prohibition against women
teaching in 1 Tim 2:12 and in the restrictions imposed on widows, which he considers to have been aimed at excluding women from public ministries under the
influence of widespread cultural prejudices14the opposite of Pauls praxis. Such
prohibitions further confirm that in the Pauline communities women were leaders
involved in teaching and had positions of responsibility. The Pastoral Epistles
household codes, on the contrary, domesticate Pauls views along the lines of a
traditional Hellenistic household.15 Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza finds that the
injunction in 1 Tim 2:12 further develops the argument in 1 Cor 14:34-36; the Pastoral Epistles identify patriarchalism with the structures of the Christian community
and were concerned to show that Christians did not disrupt the Greco-Roman order
of the patriarchal house and state.16
William A. Richards shares the communis opinio that the Pastoral Epistles
are pseudepigraphical, but he does not think that they are due to a single author;
he describes 1 Timothy as a deliberative (paraenetic) letter-essay, which he
locates between 100 and 130 C.E.17 Raymond F. Collins also endorses the thesis
of pseudepigraphy: he presents it as the scholarly consensus and claims that the
Pastor, the author of the Epistles, manifests a concern to proclaim the gospel
message in the language of late-first-century Hellenism.18 According to Perry L.
Stepp, in the Pastorals the core issue is the succession in the leadership of Pauline

14 Fiore, Pastoral Epistles, esp. 71-79. See most recently Thomas A. J. McGinn, Widows and
Patriarchy: Ancient and Modern (London: Duckworth, 2008), who also addresses the NT and classical antiquity (pp. 18-48, esp. 38 on 1 Timothy). Carolyn Osiek and David L. Balch (Families in
the New Testament World: Households and House Churches [Family, Religion, and Culture;
Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997] 119-23 and passim) argue that NT authors were not interested in describing the family but that they used it as a model for the church and discipleship, which
is particularly clear in the Pastoral Epistles. This of course entailed a borrowing of discrimination
and inequality from the cultural milieu in which they lived.
15 Deborah Krause, 1 Timothy (Readings; London: Clark, 2004).
16 Elisabeth Schssler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction
of Christian Origins (1983; 10th anniversary ed.; New York: Crossroad, 1994) 233, 266, and passim.
17 William A. Richards, Difference and Distance in Post-Pauline Christianity: An Epistolary
Analysis of the Pastorals (Studies in Biblical Literature 44; New York: Lang, 2002) e.g., 20, 228,
and passim.
18 Raymond F. Collins, I & II Timothy and Titus: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002) e.g., 7 (it is beyond reasonable doubt that the Pastorals are pseudepigraphic), 73 (for the subversion of the radical equality of men and women in Christ supported by
the real Paul).

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churches; he draws parallels with ancient texts on leadership succession in the Hellenistic world and in Judaism.19 James W. Aageson considers the Pastorals to be
pseudo-Pauline and compares them with Pauls Philippians, Galatians, and
1 Corinthians; his conclusion is that the Pastoral Epistles stand closer to the church
of the so-called Apostolic Fathers than to the church of Paul.20
Indeed, Hans von Campenhausen proposes Polycarp of Smyrna as the author
of the Pastoral Epistles. More cautiously, Annette Merz, after analyzing echoes of
the Pastorals in Polycarp, concludes that the latter was using these Epistles with
the assumption that they were by Paul.21 She also contends that Ignatius employed
them as a model, which would place their composition around 100 C.E. or shortly
after; she agrees with most scholars on their double pseudonymity, of both the
author (Paul) and the recipients (Timothy, Titus), and sees them as an interpretation of Paul. Clearly, this interpretation reflects an adaptation to Hellenistic
conventions and moral and social standards. John W. Marshall refers to the author
of the Pastoral Epistles, whom he assumes to be one and the same for all of the
three letters, as Pseudo-Paul.22 This author wrote well after Pauls death, and his
letters were to be read in front of a community as though they had been written by
Paul. They were written as a unity, and none of them ever had an independent existence; they share the same original audience, probably a congregation in Asia
Minor.23 Like Merz, Bassler, and Fiore, Marshall thinks that both the author and
the recipients are pseudonymous and, like Hans-Josef Klauck, that they are doubly pseudonymous.24 Some scholars, however, admit that even though Paul was
not the author, Timothy and Titus were the recipients of these letters.25 According
19 Perry L. Stepp, Leadership Succession in the World of the Pauline Circle (New Testament
Monographs 5; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2005) 1-5, 201, and passim.
20 James W. Aageson, Paul, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Early Church (Library of Pauline
Studies; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2008) 87, 154.
21 Hans von Campenhausen, Polykarp von Smyrna und die Pastoralbriefe, in idem, Aus der
Frhzeit des Christentum: Studien zur Kirchengeschichte des ersten und zweiten Jahrhunderts
(Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964) 10-52; Annette Merz, Die fiktive Selbstauslegung des Paulus:
Intertextuelle Studien zur Intention und Rezeption der Patoralbriefe (NTOA/SUNT 52; Gttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; Fribourg: Academic Press, 2004) esp. section 2. See also her The Fictitious Self-Exposition of Paul: How Might Intertextual Theory Suggest a Reformulation of the
Hermeneutics of Pseudepigraphy? in The Intertextuality of the Epistles: Explorations of Theory
and Practice (ed. Thomas L. Brodie, Dennis R. MacDonald, and Stanley E. Porter; New Testament
Monographs 16; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix, 2006) 113-32.
22 John W. Marshall, I Left You in Crete: Narrative Deception and Social Hierarchy in the
Letter to Titus, JBL 127 (2008) 781803.
23 Ibid., 783-84. Marshall observes that the Pastoral Epistles practiced their deception with
great success and influence for nearly two thousand years (p. 799).
24 Bassler, 1 Timothy, 20, 24; Fiore, Pastoral Epistles, 21 and passim; Hans-Josef Klauck,
Ancient Letters and the New Testament: A Guide to Context and Exegesis (Waco: Baylor University
Press, 2006) 324.
25 So Michael D. Goulder, The Pastors Wolves, NovT 38 (1996) 242-56, here 256.

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to Richard Bauckham, Timothy is the author of the Pastoral Epistles, and Stephen G.
Wilson suggests that their author is the author of Luke-Acts.26 A different voice is
that of Ben Witherington III, who is against these letters pseudepigraphy. He considers them to be Pauls but with an active involvement of Luke in their composition, and he insists on the highly rhetorical nature of this correspondence.27
Hierocles the Stoic was a contemporary of the author of 1 Timothy or wrote
slightly earlier, as he was active toward the middle of the second century C.E. or
somewhat earlier. According to the editors of his Elements of Ethics, Guido
Bastianini and Anthony Long, this is the most probable date.28 Hierocles concerned
himself above all with Stoic ethics and wrote both the aforementioned , or Elements of Ethics, preserved in a papyrus (P. Berolinensis 9780), and
the work (On Appropriate Acts), which may have included
sections on marriage and household management. These sections are preserved by
Stobaeus, just as the rest of the treatise on . A title
(Philosophical Discourses) is also attested by the Suda for Hierocles, although it
is unclear whether it refers to yet another work of his or whether it may be identifiable with one of the above-mentioned writings.
The Elements of Ethics and the Stobaean excerpts on appropriate acts
toward several categories of persons are probably two distinct works. The Elements
appear to be intended for the Stoic school: they have a systematic character and
employ a specialized language. On Appropriate Acts is more literary and was
addressed to a larger public, as it includes precepts on marriage and household
management. But in fact these two treatises are deeply interrelated and the latter
begins where the former ends.29 The Elements of Ethics treat the above-mentioned
Stoic theory of , from its very beginning in the individual (human or animal) at birth, when it appropriates its own body and faculties, to the more complex developments of social or deontological , which, as I have
mentioned, are proper to only human beings. The social dimension of
entails ethical values, among which , or appropriate acts, belonging
to , or preferable indifferent things, are prominent. It is precisely these appropriate acts or duties that are treated in Hierocles Stobaean
26 Richard Bauckham, Pseudo-Apostolic Letters, JBL 107 (1988) 469-94, here 494;
Stephen G. Wilson, Luke and the Pastoral Epistles (London: SPCK, 1979) 3-4, 33, and passim.
27 Ben Witherington III, Letters and Homilies for Hellenized Christians, vol. 1, A SocioRhetorical Commentary on Titus, 12 Timothy and 13 John (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity,
2006) 168-389, also with an overview of recent scholarship on the Pastoral Epistles.
28 See the treatment in I. Ramelli, Hierocles the Stoic: Elements of Ethics, Fragments, and
Excerpts (trans. David Konstan; SBL Writings from the Greco-Roman World 28; Atlanta: Society
of Biblical Literature; Leiden: Brill, 2009) xix-xxvi. See also Guido Bastianini and Anthony A.
Long, Ierocle: Elementi di etica, in Corpus dei papiri filosofici greci e latini: Testi e lessico nei
papiri di cultura greca e latina, vol. 1.1.2 (Florence: Olschki, 1992) 296-362.
29 As I argue in Ierocle Neostoico in Stobeo, 541, 545-46.

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excerpts. Several classes of interpersonal relations are dealt with, each of which
involves precise appropriate acts. One of these sections is devoted to appropriate
behavior toward parents; others are devoted to appropriate behavior toward the
gods, ones country, ones siblings, and ones spouse. The peculiar hue of Hierocles
conception of is found in the need for a contraction of circles, that is,
a reduction of interpersonal distances, which seems to be exactly the same need
felt by the author of 1 Timothy as well.

II. The Relevance of Hierocles to 1 Timothy 5:1-2: The

Contraction of Circles and the Stoic Theory of and

Hierocles offers two close parallels to 1 Tim 5:1-2. I will first analyze the one
that has been briefly indicated by very few commentators, and then the other,
which is much more substantial and broader, but seems to have been so far overlooked by scholars.
1. The first passage is to be compared only with one verse, 1 Tim 5:1. It is in
the section devoted by Hierocles to the appropriate acts toward ones parents (ap.
Stobaeus Anth. 79.53). Hierocles says:
, , , ,
, , ,
, , .
, .
And indeed, even if they should err in somethingthe kind of thing that tends often
to occur with most people who have been brought up rather vulgarlythey should be
corrected, to be sure, but not with a rebuke, by Zeus, as it is customary to do with
those who are our inferiors or equals, but rather with exhortation, and not as though
they had erred through ignorance, but as though they overlooked it because they did
not pay attention, but would certainly have seen it if they had been paying attention.
For admonitions are painful to people of that age, and especially when given sharply:
the necessary cure for their oversights is with exhortation and a kind of art.30

Hierocles prescription is identical to that found in 1 Tim 5:1, and it is notable

that both verbs in the biblical text, and , correspond exactly
to the terms used here by Hierocles: and . The verb
30 I cite from my edition Hierocles the Stoic, 85, to which I also refer readers for a complete
critical study of Hierocles thought.

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means to rebuke severely and in the first century is well attested in

this meaning in Philo (Leg. 2.46) and Josephus (A.J. 1.16.2 246; 19.8.2 346). It
was used already by Plato Leg. 805B and Prot. 327A, and it is attested in Imperial
Stoicism in Epictetus Ench. 33.16, but also in Clement of Alexandria Paed.
1.10.94.1 and Lucian Heracl. 7. , on the contrary, means to console,
to exhort; it has the same root as , consoler, intercessor, defender,
and in the NT it occurs with a similar meaning in Luke 15:28; Acts 16:39; 1 Cor
4:13; 1 Tim 2:12. In 1 Tim 5:2, (brothers) and (sisters),
too, depend on ; Paul often associates (brothers/siblings) and
in his authentic letters, e.g., Rom 12:1; 15:30; 16:17; 1 Cor 1:10;
16:15.31
Hierocles advice concerns ones parents, whereas that in 1 Tim 5:1-2 concerns elderly people; however, as I will point out, a very important feature in this
passage is precisely the assimilation of all aged people to ones parents. The term
used by the author of 1 Tim 5:1-2 for old men is . Differently from
, which means old man, also means elder, and as such
it seems to be employed in this same letter in 5:17 and 19.32 In 1 Tim 5:2, represents the only occurrence of in the whole NT (old woman
is expressed by in Titus 2:333). In 1 Tim 4:14, the author has just mentioned the board of elders, and, as Johnson notes, it was precisely older men who
were heads of households who also served as the elders of the community.34
Towner, moreover, points out that, since the activity Paul prohibits as the younger
coworker relates to older men could describe a harsh disciplinary rebuke, it seems
possible that Paul at this point is thinking ahead to 5:19 and how Timothy should
exercise his authority to correct elders.35 Joachim Jeremias, whose position
appears rather isolated in this respect, does not differentiate between
31

For the use of this verb (in the meaning I appeal to you) in Pauls undisputed letters, see
Carl J. Bjerkelund, Parakal: Form, Funktion, und Sinn der parakal-Stze in den paulinischen
Briefen (Bibliotheca theologica Norvegica 1; Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1967), who does not treat
the Pastoral Epistles.
32 See John P. Meier, Presbyteros in the Pastoral Epistles, CBQ 35 (1973) 323-45.
33 It is generally understood that the mentioned here were old women. Origen,
however, in Cat. in Cor. A 74 (also in light of the existence of women presbyters in his day, called
in the Didascalia Apostolorum) considered these , who are in a consecrated
state ( ) and should teach other women, to be women presbyters. Indeed,
Clement and Basil, too, read in Titus 2:3, and the parallel Titus 2:2, as a reference to
presbyters rather than old men, since several manuscripts read instead of there. That Origen himself read in that passage is proved by his Comm. in Io.
32.12.132-33, in which he refers precisely to Titus 2:2-4 and draws a parallel between the prescriptions to and those to therein (
).
34 Johnson, First and Second Letters, 260.
35 Towner, Letters, 331.

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as elders and as old men and takes all occurrences of in

the Pastoral Epistles as referring to old men.36 Malherbe, with most scholars, thinks
that, even if elsewhere means elders, in 1 Tim 5:1 it is likely to
mean older men.37
The advice of the author of 1 Timothy is to treat these old men and women
(or perhaps these elders) as ones father and mother and to treat young men and
women as ones brothers and sisters. This is exactly what Hierocles also recommends, not in the above-quoted section on (appropriate acts) toward
ones parents but in another fragment from the same work.
2. In fact, the convergence between 1 Tim 5:1-2 and Hierocles is much
deeper and ampler than that concerning and of aged people,
and it involves a fundamental Stoic theory like that of . Indeed, the parallel with Hierocles is not restricted to the respectful treatment of old people; it is
much more important that the convergence encompasses the whole problem,
addressed by Hierocles, of the contraction of circles and the reduction of distances, related to the doctrines of and . This convergence is
significant because it sheds much light on the Hellenistic moral philosophical background of this Pastoral Epistle.
The picture that will emerge from my analysis will indeed contribute to confirming, on a much more solid and far more extensive basis, that the author of the
Pastoral Epistles knowledge of moral philosophy is not as superficial or spotty
as it has frequently been characterized as being, nor is his appropriation of it as
mindless and devoid of argumentation as is frequently alleged.38 This NT author
will actually prove to be well steeped in Stoic ethics and to draw inspiration from
it for his moral prescriptions.
Of course, the paraenetic passage in 1 Tim 5:1-2, which contains the assimilation of elderly people to ones parents and of younger people to ones siblings,
must also be seen in the general framework of the Christian use of to indicate fellow Christians, on the basis of Jesus affirmation in Luke 8:21 and John
19:26-27. Paul, unlike the author(s) of the Pastoral Epistles, did not conceive of
the church as a patriarchal family, yet he did extend family appellatives to fellow
Christians, for example, in Rom 16:13: his mother and mine. Moreover, one of
the major Pauline metaphors is that of the adoption into Gods family.39

36 Joachim Jeremias, Die Briefe an Timotheus und Titus; der Brief an die Hebrer, bersetzt
und erklrt (NTD 9; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963) 36.
37 Malherbe, How to Treat, 282.
38 Ibid., 263.
39 This metaphor has been recently investigated by Trevor J. Burke, Adopted into Gods Family: Exploring a Pauline Metaphor (New Studies in Biblical Theology 22; Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity, 2006).

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But the moral exhortation in 1 Tim 5:1-2 finds a much closer and more precise
parallel in Hierocles discourse on the appropriate behavior toward kin, which is
based on the following illustration. Around ones mind, regarded as the center,
there runs a series of ever wider concentric circles, beginning with that representing
ones own body; then moving outward to circles representing ones parents, siblings, spouse, and children; on to more remote relatives; and then to members of
the same deme and tribe, to fellow citizens, to those who belong to the same people
or ethnos, until one arrives at the widest circle, which is that of the entire human
race. The width of the circles and their distance from the center constitute the standard by which to measure the intensity of ones ties, and therefore of ones duties
or appropriate acts toward people.
In this connection, I pointed out elsewhere the fundamental question of the
need, indicated by Hierocles, to perform a kind of contraction of the circles, that
is, to reduce as much as possible the distance from each circle to the next one out,
and thus to create the closest possible with the members of each circle,
even going so far as to employ the onomastic stratagem of designating others by
names appropriate to a degree of relationship one step closer than that which characterizes them in reality.40 A similar purpose seems to motivate the assimilation
of our feelings toward various categories of others to those due to ones father and
mother. Hierocles is aware that it is impossible to maintain toward the whole
human race, or even just large groups of people, the same goodwill that one feels
toward the dearest persons. This is why he has to excogitate strategies for the contraction of circles.
It is important to cite Hierocles passage in its entirety (ap. Stobaeus Anth.
84.23) to best show its close similarity to 1 Tim 5:1-2:
Of Hierocles, from the treatise, How Should One Behave toward Ones Relatives?
Each of us, most generally, is circumscribed as though by many circles, some
smaller, some larger, some surrounding others, some surrounded, according to their
different and unequal relations to one another. The first and closest circle is that which
each person draws around his or her own mind, as the center: in this circle is enclosed
the body and whatever is employed for the sake of the body. For this circle is the shortest and all but touches its own center. The second after this one, standing further away
from the center and enclosing the first, is that within which our parents, siblings, wife,
and children are ranged. Third, after these, is that in which there are uncles and aunts,
grandfathers and grandmothers, the children of ones siblings, and also cousins. After
this comes the one that embraces all other relatives. Next upon this is the circle of the
members of ones deme, then that of the members of ones tribe, next that of ones
fellow citizens, and so, finally, that of those who border ones city and that of people
of like ethnicity. The furthest out and largest one, which surrounds all the circles, is
that of the entire race of human beings.

40

See my commentary, Hierocles the Stoic, 126-28.

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Once these have been thought through, accordingly, it is possible, starting with the
most stretched out one, to draw the circlesconcerning the behavior that is due to
each grouptogether in a way, as though toward the center, and with an effort keep
transferring items out of the containing circles into the contained. For example, in
respect to love of ones family it is possible to <. . .> parents and siblings <. . .> and
therefore, in the same proportion, among ones relatives, <to treat> the more elderly
men and women as grandparents or uncles and aunts, those of the same age as
cousins, and the younger ones as children of ones cousins.
Thus, a clear recommendation has been set forth, in concise terms, for how one
should treat relatives, since we had already taught how people should behave toward
themselves, and how toward parents and siblings, and further toward wife and children: the charge is that one must honor, in a way similar to these last [sc. parents and
siblings] those from the third circle, and must in turn honor relatives in a way similar
to these latter. Indeed, a greater distance in respect to blood will subtract something
of goodwill; but nevertheless, we must make an effort about assimilating them. For it
would arrive at fairness if, through our own initiative, we cut down the distance in
our relationship toward each person.
. . . It is necessary to add in also usage in regard to modes of address, calling cousins,
uncles and aunts brothers, fathers, and mothers, and among further relatives
calling some uncles, others nephews, and still others cousins, in whatever way
their ages may run, for the sake of the affection in the names. For this kind of address
is a by no means faint sign of the concern that we feel for each, and at the same time
can excite and intensify the above-indicated contraction, as it were, of the circles.
. . . We said that one should grant more love to ones mother, but more honor to
ones father. Consequent upon this, here too we may set down that it is appropriate
to cherish relatives on the mothers side more, but treat with greater honor those relations associated with the father.41

A particular topic of reflection in Hierocles fragments on appropriate acts

is indeed the dialectic between the necessity of a progressive enlargement of the
ambits of realization of , from ones self to the whole of humanity, and
the apparent impossibility of maintaining toward all persons the same intensity of
goodwill that characterizes the most restricted circles of .42 Hierocles is
well aware of this and develops two strategies:
1. He endeavors to offer a realistic response, which at the same time does
not betray the spirit of his theory: while one progressively extends the ambits of
ones both primary (toward oneself) and social (toward others),
which in Hierocles image of concentric circles are in full continuityones goodwill will be surely diminishing. This is inevitable,43 but the important thing is that

41

The translation is from my Hierocles the Stoic.

See Ramelli, Ierocle Neostoico, 573-75.
43 This problem, of which Hierocles proves aware, is the same as that highlighted by Martha C.
Nussbaum, The Worth of Human Dignity: Two Tensions in Stoic Cosmopolitanism, in Philosophy
42

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one can maintain a feeling of affinity with all persons, all human beings. This affinity is founded by Hierocles in our common origin, that is, the supreme deity, who
is the father of all humans and is also the Logos, in which all human beings share.44
2. Most interestingly, Hierocles suggests methods for the contraction of the
circles in order to reduce the distances of the objects of our social as
much as possible. So, for instance, one should treat persons belonging to the third
circle (that of less close relatives and acquaintances) as though they belonged to
the second and were ones father, mother, brothers, or sisters. Remarkably, this is
the very same thing that the author of 1 Timothy advises his addressee to do. Both
authors, in this way, provide the realization of a relationship of as tight
as possible. Hierocles even recommends an onomastic stratagem, that is, not only
treating people as fathers, mothers, and siblings, according to their age and gender,
but even calling them father, mother, brother, sister. This use of names is
all the more significant in that in Stoicism names and etymologies were considered
very important.45 This device is here applied to the contraction of circles and
the realization of a closer . In the ancient world, indeed, the use of
brother and sister in an extended meaning, including cousins and other relatives, was rather common, especially in the religious sphere, where it is found even
in reference to people who had no reciprocal kinship at all.46
Plutarch is another philosopher who was contemporary with the author of the
Pastoral Epistles; he was a Middle Platonist but was influenced by Middle and
especially Roman Stoicism (his well-known critique of Stoicism is mostly limited
to the Old Stoa). In his De fraterno amore, he presents friendship as a reflection
of the closer relationships of kinship, precisely those toward ones father, ones
mother, and ones siblings (479CD), the same relationships highlighted by the
author of 1 Timothy and by Hierocles in their contraction of circles.47 This,
and Power in the Graeco-Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam Griffin (ed. Gillian Clark and
Tessa Rajak; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) 31-50, and partially by Brennan, Stoic Life,
154-69.
44 See Ilaria Ramelli, Linterpretazione allegorica filosofica di Zeus come Padre nello Stoicismo, in Visiones mtico-religiosas del padre en la antigedad clsica (ed. Marcos Ruiz Snchez;
Monografas y Estudios de Antigedad Griega y Romana 12; Madrid: Signifer Libros, 2004) 155-80.
45 See Whats in a Name? The Significance of Proper Names in Classical Latin Literature
(ed. Joan Booth and Robert Maltby; Swansea: Classical Press of Wales, 2006). On the importance
of names and etymologies in Stoicism and their philosophical function in relation to allegory, see
Ilaria Ramelli, Allegoria, vol. 1, Let classica (Temi metafisici e problemi del pensiero antico;
Milan: Vita & Pensiero, 2004) chaps. 2 and 9.
46 See, e.g., Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Una delle pi antiche lettere cristiane extra-canoniche?
Aeg 80 (2000) 169-88; Philip A. Harland, Familial Dimensions of Group Identity: Brothers
() in Associations of the Greek East, JBL 124 (2005) 491-513.
47 See Reidar Aasgaard, My Beloved Brothers and Sisters: Christian Siblingship in Paul (Studies of the New Testament and Its World; London/New York: Clark, 2004) chap. 6.

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indeed, seems to come from the same Stoic lore, even though the emphasis on the
necessity of a contraction of circles is rather absent from Plutarch and present, on
the contrary, in Hierocles and the author of 1 Timothy.
This contraction is the aim also of Hierocles assimilation of the attitude
toward various categories of people to the attitude toward ones father and ones
mother, respectively. The purpose is again the contraction of the largest circles of
social into the narrowest ones, designating the closest degrees of affection. This very need for the contraction of the circles was felt already, in my
view, by Zeno and Chrysippus in the Old Stoa. They addressed this problem by
means of a strategy that was drawn from Plato (and, partially, from early Cynicism):
the communality of wives and children in their ideal state. Each of them, indeed,
in his own Republic put forward this point by saying that, in this way, one would
be able to love all children with one and the same intensity, as though all of them
were ones own offspring48 (although this can obviously apply to only fathers, not
to mothers). The position of Hierocles and of other Roman Stoics such as Musonius
Rufus is very different:49 they cannot adopt Platos, Zenos, and Chrysippuss solution because they cannot conceive of , (communion), and
(concord, harmony, agreement) within a city without these same relational qualities between spouses, to the point that they transpose these very ideals
from friendship among wise men to each single couple of spouses.50 Therefore, it
was impossible for them to think of realizing the in the drastic and very
literal way suggested by Zeno and Chrysippus, so that as one could feel all children
because one ignores which of them are ones own. Thus, Hierocles, who
developed the theory of in particular depth among Stoics, had to tackle
this problem again and to suggest different methods for the contraction of circles.
This, as I have argued, is the same question that the author of 1 Timothy faced,
and he solved it in the same way as his contemporary Hierocles did. This indicates
that he was aware both of this particular issue and of its ethical context, namely,
that of the Stoic theory of social and , appropriate acts,
toward various categories of human beings as is formulated in Roman Stoicism,
and most particularly by Hierocles. Indeed, appropriate behavior toward various
categories of beings, from the gods to several groups of humans, is a topic that
belongs to Hellenistic moral philosophy, and more specifically to the Stoic theory
of . It is also related to the Stoic doctrine of and in particular
to social or deontological . Hierocles, the Stoic contemporary of the
48 Stoicorum veterum fragmenta (ed. H. von Arnim; 4 vols.; Leipzig: Teubner, 190324) 3:728
= Diogenes Laertius 7.131.
49 On Musonius, see Ilaria Ramelli, Stoici Romani Minori (Il pensiero occidentale; Milan:
Bompiani, 2008) 689-943, with a review by Gretchen Reydams-Schils in Bryn Mawr Classical
Review (October 2009), http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-10-10.html.
50 See Gretchen Reydams-Schils, The Roman Stoics: Self, Responsibility, and Affection
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005) 143-76; Ramelli, Transformations, 369-96.

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author of the Pastoral Epistles, insisted very much on both and

.
Notably, 1 Tim 5:8 even employs the terminology of itself: if one
does not take care of ones own kin, and especially of those who are most intimate
to him or her [ ], then this person
is worse than a pagan. This further clue is revealing in this connection. I do not
think that here indicates a larger circle than does, so as to include also
slaves and so forth, as often commentators put it. It is the vocabulary of
that the author of the Epistle is employing here, and (and especially,
and above all) clearly suggests that the are those who are the closest and
most intimate to a person, such as parents, children, siblings, and the like, those
persons whom one feels a part of oneself, as it were, and not really distinct or
other from oneself. This is indeed the heart of the Stoic doctrine of social
. Thus, the problem addressed by Hierocles through the theory of
was precisely that of rendering the distant close as well. As I have
demonstrated, it is the very same problem that is addressed here in 1 Tim 5:1-2,
and the solution that is suggested is the same, too.
Adolph Deissmann called attention to a second/third-century C.E. pagan
inscription from Olbia, on the Black Sea, in which a certain Theocles, son of
Satyrus, is praised as behaving with his coetaneous as a brother, with older people
as a son, with children as a father, adorned with every virtue (
, ,
, ).51 This inscription might depend on 1 Tim
5:1-2, on Hierocles, or on the same Stoic lore that inspired Hierocles. It, before
Hierocles himself, seems to have inspired a first-century B.C.E. inscription from
Priene: honoring older people as his parents, his coetaneous as brothers, younger
people as children ( ,
, ).52 What is also impressive about the Olbia
epigraphical parallel is the final phrase adorned with all virtue, after the last
colon, which perfectly corresponds to , in all purity or in absolute
purity, after the last colon in 1 Tim 5:2. Epigraphic evidence is important because
inscriptions often reflect popular (and even less popular) moral philosophy.
A remarkable and revealing parallel is found, much earlier, in Plato Apol. 31B
( , behaving with each
one as though I were their father or an older brother, the implied subject being
Socrates) and especially Resp. 5.463C: the guardians will consider their fellow
51 Adolf Deissmann, Licht vom Osten: Das Neue Testament und die neuentdeckten Texte der
hellenistisch-rmischen Welt (4th ed.; Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1923) 263; for the inscription, see
Inscriptiones antiquae orae septentrionalis Ponti Euxini Graecae et Latinae (ed. Basilius Latyschev;
4 vols.; Hildesheim: Olms, 1965) vol. 1, no. 22.28-30; cf. 4:266-67.
52 Inschriften von Priene (ed. C. Fredrich et al.; Berlin: G. Reimer, 1906; repr., Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1968) no. 117.55.

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guardians as fathers or mothers, brothers or sisters, sons or daughters, according

to their age and gender.53 Moreover, Plato prescribes that one should both call
these persons father, mother, brother, sister, and so on, just as Hierocles
later suggests, and maintain toward them a behavior that is appropriate toward
ones father, mother, brother, sister, and so on (463DE).
It is not an accident that the first developed occurrences of this idea are in
Plato; I have argued that it was precisely Plato who inspired the Stoics, first in the
motive of for the communalism of their Republics, and then in other
ways of contracting the circles.54 The difference among Plato, Zeno, and
Chrysippus, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, between Hierocles and the
author of 1 Timothy, is that for the former the contraction of circles was grounded
in a possible real blood tie with the persons whom one should address as father,
mother, brother, sister, and the like, whereas in the case of the latter a blood
tie with such persons does not exist, but they are to be made all the same,
and as close as possible, by means of a contraction of circles. For Hierocles, this
contraction of circles was based on the common kinship of all human beings,
who are all children of the supreme deity; for the author of 1 Timothy, it was based
on the common kinship of believers in the community, in that they are children of
God through Christ (but perhaps he also conceived of a more universal kinship;
see below).
Interestingly, the same need for a contraction of the circles that is manifested by Hierocles, by 1 Tim 5:1-2, and originally by Plato and the Stoics in their
Republics, is attested also in the Middle Platonist Jewish exegete Philo of Alexandria in Contempl. 71-73, where he states that the Therapeutae, who adhered to an
ideal of poverty, contemplation, and asceticism, did not own slavesthey were
the only ones in antiquity to reject slavery together with the Essenes55but young
people among them happily served the elders and considered them to be their own
fathers and mothers:
As I have mentioned, no one is a slave among them, but it is free people who perform
services . . . anticipating orders spontaneously, with zeal and willingness . . . the young,
53
(Whomever you encounter, consider this person
as a brother or a sister, a father or a mother, a son or a daughter, or one of the descendants or parents
of these categories).
54 Other important elements of ethical and political theory that the Stoics drew from Plato are
individuated in Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Il come tra diritto naturale e diritto
divino: spunti platonici del concetto e sviluppi di et imperiale e tardoantica (Memorie dellIstituto
Italiano per gli studi filosofici 34; Naples: Bibliopolis, 2006).
55 See Ilaria L. E. Ramelli, Slavery as a Necessary Evil or as an Evil That Must Be Abolished? (paper presented in the Early Christianity and the Ancient Economy Consultation at the
annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature held in Boston, Massachusetts, November 2008)
forthcoming in JR.

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579

who happily and carefully serve fathers and mothers as though they were their own
sons, considering them to be their common parents, more intimate [] to
them than their own biological parents, if it is true, as it is, that nothing is more intimate
[] to the wise than noble virtue is.56 (my translation)

It is notable that Philo, too, employs the terminology of in this connection: the spiritual parents of the young Therapeutae are more to them than
their biological parents, as virtue is the real (a technical expression
that indicates what is most familiar to oneself) for the human being.
Another passage of Philo that bears a close resemblance to 1 Tim 5:1-2 is
imbued with the doctrine of , or the appropriate behaviors toward different classes of persons, also distinguished on the basis of their ages:
Who would speak in the same tone to ones parents and to ones children, since we
are slaves of the former by nature and masters of the latter for the same reason? Who
would address brothers, cousins, and near relatives in general, in the same way as
those only distantly related to him or her? Who would address people associated with
him or her in the same way as people with whom s/he has nothing to do, fellow citizens
in the same way as foreigners, people who are extremely different from one another
in nature or in age? For we should speak in one way to an old man, in another to a
young one, and likewise in one way to an important person and in another to an unimportant one, and likewise with rich and poor, persons who are endowed with authority
and others who are not, servant and master, woman and man, capable and incapable.
(Post. 109; my translation)

he difference between this passage of Philo, on the one side, and, on the other
side, both 1 Tim 5:1-2 and Hierocles, is that here Philo underscores the discrepancies among those classes of peopleand notably the differences between those
who are closer and those who are more unrelated to the moral subjectand does
not invite his readers to a contraction of circles in order to overcome distances
and make all groups closer to the moral subject insofar as possible. This makes
still more prominent the precise parallel between 1 Tim 5:1-2 and Hierocles.
The last issue to be considered is how the doctrine of , especially in
the form it assumes in Hierocles, works in the context of 1 Timothy as a whole. I
have already highlighted that the very terminology of , and this concept
itself, emerge not only in 1 Tim 5:1-2 but also in 1 Tim 5:8, in which the author
clearly indicates the , duties or appropriate acts, toward those persons who are the most intimate () to the moral subject. Such duties are
defined within the Christian community. Indeed, it seems that the primary application of the mechanism is envisaged by the author of this Pastoral
, . . .
. . . . . .
, ,
.
56

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Epistle within the sphere of the Christian community. The contraction of circles
itself that the author recommends is undoubtedly meant to be applied by a member
of the Christian community first of all toward other members of the same group.
At the very beginning of the letter, its purported author Paul follows the recommendation given in 5:1-2 and treats as a son the alleged recipient Timothy, who
is depicted as much younger. This strategy may be regarded as a means of reinforcing the internal cohesion of the Christian group, all the more so in that the
author of this Epistle presents it as threatened by external pressure. The author
repeatedly separates this community from those outside (3:7, where he recommends, though, that bishops have a good reputation among ) and even
from those Christians who taught a different doctrine (,
[1:3; 6:3; cf. 4:1-5]).57
Nevertheless, in this very letter a clear universalistic trend emerges as well,
with which a broader, universal application of the is quite consistent.
This universal , tendentially similar to that of Hierocles, remains in the
background and may well point to a far future, to be sure, and yet it seems to be at
work in this letter. Christ, it is stated, came into this world to save sinners (1:15);
the Christians should pray for all human beings ( [2:1]),
because God wants all human beings [ ] to be saved and to
reach the knowledge of truth (2:4), and because Jesus offered himself in atonement for all ( [2:6]). This idea is again insisted upon in 4:10: God
is the savior of all human beings [ ], especially of those who
believe, where especially () does not mean exclusively. Even if perhaps only in an eschatological perspective, the favored by the author
does tend to universalism, like that of Hierocles.58 In Hierocles, this universalism
is grounded, as I have mentioned, in the common origin of all human beings from
God and in their common sharing in the Logos, which is divine; in 1 Timothy universalism passes through the project of God for the salvation of all human beings
and through Christs sacrifice.

III. Conclusions
The present investigation has brought forward an important point that contributes to confirming the close relationship of the Pastoral Epistles, and in partic57

According to Nils Neumann (Die kynisch geprgte Struktur der Argumentation in 1 Tim
6:3-12, NovT 51 [2009] 127-47), precisely the polemic against the differently minded teachers
in 1 Tim 6:3-12 reveals an echo of the Cynics criticism of their adversaries in the first and second
centuries C.E. Such criticism revolved around the denunciation of the hypocritical motivations of
those differently minded teachers, who aimed only at making money from their teachings.
58 It is not accidental that patristic supporters of the doctrine of apokatastasis (that is, of the
eventual universal restoration), such as Origen, interpreted this passage as a remarkable biblical testimony in favor of universal salvation.

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581

ular of 1 Timothy, to Hellenistic philosophy. This point concerns not a detail but a
whole conception and theoryand one that was crucial to Roman Stoicism.
I have argued that 1 Tim 5:1-2 shows a very close convergence with Hierocles, a Stoic author who was probably contemporary with, or somewhat earlier
than, the author of 1 Timothy. This convergence entails not only respectful behavior
toward old people, with preference given to exhortation over harsh rebuke, but
also a much more comprehensive and profound conception, that of the contraction
of circles, whose theorization is found in Hierocles and which I have traced back
to the Old Stoics and Plato. It relies on the fundamental Stoic doctrine of
and , which is the philosophical framework in which to inscribe 1 Tim
5:1-2, and which is present also in Philo of Alexandria, the main representative of
Hellenistic Judaism, who is close to Middle Platonism. The most precise convergence, however, is with Hierocles and with the form that the theory of
assumes in this Neo-Stoic philosopher.
I hope to have thus contributed to demonstrating that the author of 1 Timothy
was well steeped in Stoic ethics and drew inspiration from it for the Epistles moral
exhortations. The authors knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy, especially Stoicism
and Platonism, proves deep and extensive. It involves not only single points or
details but crucial philosophical conceptions and whole theories, which are consciously employed in the Epistles paraenetic discourse.

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