1. Suetonius, in Lives of the Twelve Caesars 25.4 reports Claudius's harsh treatment of the Jews in Rome when a disturbance arose among them when someone arrived in their midst and began making claims about Jesus (whom Suetonius mistakenly calls “Chrestos”). So severe was the resultant conflict within the Jewish community there that Claudius expelled all the Jews from the city. Tacitus, in his Annals (15.44), describes Nero's placing the blame on the Christians for the great fire in Rome, whose membership he writes included “vast numbers”. Dio Cassius, however, reports that during the reign of Domitian (81-96), Domitilla (wife of the emperor's nephew and resident of the imperial household) was banished for having adopted “Jewish customs” and “atheism”. This is very likely the historian's interpretation of her having been converted to Christianity, the significance of which was that she had departed from worship of the Roman gods and from offering divine honors to the emperor. The fact that an early Christian catacomb in Rome bears her name confirms that she was converted to Christianity.

2. See H.C. Kee, “The Transformation of the Synagogue after 70 ce”, New Testament Studies 36(1), 1990, pp. 1-24.

3. The arguments for the existence of Q as a source and a reconstruction of its probable content and intent is given in H.C. Kee, Jesus in History, 2nd edn (New York: Harcourt-Brace-Jovanovich, 1977).

4. Jesus's response to the questioners from John the Baptist is a mosaic of phrases from Isa. 35 and 61.

5. Curiously, those commissioned in this Q tradition as reported by Luke are not identified as “disciples”, but simply as “others”, although Matthew blends this material with that of Mark 6 at this point and calls them “disciples”.

6. In many important Greek manuscripts and ancient versions, the phrase appears here “whom he named apostles”. The critical editions of the Greek text of the New Testament edited by Kurt and Barbara Aland omit this phrase, regarding it as a harmonization borrowed from the parallel passage in Luke 6: 13. This interpretation of the textual evidence seems fully warranted.

7. Two additional occurrences of the term refer to the disciples of John the Baptist, but their relevance for our purposes is only to show that the term was used to designate an inner circle of followers of a religious leader.

8. Mark 2: 15, 16; 3: 7, 9; 6: 1; 8: 10, 27 (2x), 34; 9: 14, 18; 10: 46; 14: 32; 16: 7.

9. Mark 4: 34; 5: 31; 7: 17; 8: 1, 4; 9: 28, 31; 10: 10, 23, 24; 11: 14; 12: 43; 13: 1.

10. Mark 6: 35; 8: 33; 10: 13.

11. Mark 2: 23; 7: 2, 5.

12. Discussed by Bernhard W. Anderson in his article, “Water”, in Interpreters' Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, TX: Abingdon, 1962).

13. In Mark, the verb apostello is used when Jesus commissions the twelve (3: 14; 6: 7), but in Matt. 10: 2 they are explicitly identified as apostles (as in Luke 6: 13). In Luke, the disciples at the last supper (22: 14) and those to whom the women are to report that the tomb is empty (24: 10) are referred to as “apostles”.

14. This Q saying appears in what is likely its more original form in Luke 6: 36, where Jesus's appeal is for his followers to be merciful, as God is merciful to them.

15. The term used here, kathegetes, appears only here in the New Testament, and is rare elsewhere. Occurrences in the Greek papyri indicate it was an exalted designation of one providing intellectual guidance, and hence probably closest in meaning to “professor”.

16. This term, which is used of God and his Rule, appears predominantly in Matthew and only once elsewhere in the gospels (Luke 2: 13).

17. In John's account, it is only Judas who objects to this seeming waste of precious ointment. In the synoptic reports of this incident, a wider group of Jesus's disciples object to this woman's act, which they regard as costly and wasteful.

18. It is worth noting that, unlike the other gospel tradition where the disciples are told to love their enemies (Matt. 5: 44; Luke 6: 27), they are in John's gospel called to love the other members of the community.

19. John 13: 23; 18: 15-16; 19: 26-27; 20: 2-4, 8; 21: 7, 20, 23.

20. Effectively summarized in Raymond E. Brown's Community of the Beloved Disciple, pp. 94-96 (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1979).

21. A full and detailed analysis of roles of leadership and systems of power in the Pauline churches, with detailed bibliographical information and analysis, may be found in Bengt Holmberg, Paul and Power: The Structure of Authority in the Primitive Church as Reflected in the Pauline Epistles (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1980). The case is built on a combination of evidence from the letters of Paul and from Acts, with less attention to the changes in and variety of leadership roles than is intended in this essay.

22. Letters originating later than Paul's lifetime include Ephesians, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. Also probably post-Pauline is Colossians, and possibly 2 Thessalonians as well.

23. Already in the Q source, the linking of the twelve disciples with the twelve tribes of Israel is found (Luke 22: 28-30).

24. Mark 3: 14; 6: 30; Matt. 10: 2, and much more frequently in Luke, in keeping with the importance of the apostles as a formal, central institution in Acts: Luke 6: 13; 9: 10; 11: 49; 17: 5; 22: 14; 24: 10.

25. Walter Schmithals, in The Office of Apostle in the Early Church, tr. J.E. Steely (London: SPCK, 1971) anachronistically treats the gnostic concept of apostle as the model for the way Paul understands and uses the term.

26. 1 Cor. 15: 7; 11: 23; Gal. 1: 16; 1: 12; 2 Cor. 4: 6; 5: 20. The scope of the mission is highlighted in Rom. 10: 15; 11: 13.

27. Article on bishop by L. Coenen in Colin Brown (ed.) International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol. 1. (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1975).

28. Ignatius to the Ephesians 1: 3; 2: 2; 4: 1-2; to the Magnesians 3: 1-4: 1; 6: 1; to the Trallians: 2: 2; 7: 2; to the Philadelphians: 7: 1-2; to the Smyrnaeans: 8: 1; 9: 1.

29. Similarly, Paul uses another designation for servant, leitourgos, in describing the function of the secular authorities in maintaining order in the Roman world so that the apostles and the churches they found may benefit from the established law and order of the empire.

Changing Modes of Leadership in the New Testament Period

Abstract