Tag Archives: Anabaptist history

Kissing in the First Century: Excerpt from Craig Keener

Conservative Anabaptists are one of the few North American Christian groups to have retained kissing as a religious practice. But in the past 120 years we have turned this practice into an “ordinance” (an historical anomoly, though rooted in ancient ritual practices) and we often have little understanding of kissing practices or beliefs in the first century. This leaves us poorly prepared to understand what Paul and Peter meant when they commanded their readers to kiss one another.

[amazon template=thumbnail11&asin=0801048389]The following post (reblogged from Baker Book House Church Connnection and quoting Craig Keener’s Acts commentary) contains the most detail that I’ve read yet on kissing in the first century. Some of the details challenge our own practices. For example : (1) Christian kissing was initially probably “less a rite than an expression of familiar affection”; (2) “the earliest form of this practice probably was not limited to one’s own gender”; and (3) “some kissing may have been on the cheek” but “most kissing… was on the mouth,” regardless of which gender was kissing which. One or more of these is probably guaranteed to make every one of us squirm just a little!

I don’t have time to discuss these findings in more detail now, but am posting them for my reference and our shared learning.  I’ll invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below, and sign off with another first century greeting: May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all!


 The following is an excerpt from Craig Keener’s commentary on Acts. The comment comes from 20:37: “They all wept as they embraced him and kissed him.”

“Kissing normally expressed love; the term φιλέω, can mean either ‘love’ or ‘kiss,’ and occasionally writers played on words to signify both. In dramatic situations kissing and weeping were conjoined as here—for example, as signs of mourning the deceased or of the joy in being reunited. The imperfect tense may suggest repeated kissing, more emphatic than everyday greetings (although it should also be noted that Paul would have received repeated kisses even if each person kissed him only once).

Relatives greeted one another with kisses, notably when reunited or about to be separated. Kissing was a conventional greeting for family members. Thus, for example, Roman women kissed kinsmen; likewise, a child should kiss his mother and father. A mother’s kissing a son or a father’s kissing a daughter was normal, considered suspicious only if excessive and immodest. Male friends could embrace and kiss without sexual connotations; the kiss functioned as an intimate greeting. Kissing between friends was apparently less common in urban settings, however. Kisses could be conveyed by proxy, often in secondary greetings in letters.

Kisses further served as respectful greetings to one of higher status; they showed respect among social peers as well as connections between patrons and clients; one could also offer congratulatory kisses. Disciples and pupils kissed teachers; often on the head; in such cases, the kiss could be an affectionate contact on the mouth. One person who wished to honor his teacher in a particular extreme way kissed his feet. An arrogant person of wealth might offer his hand to be kissed. A general needing to secure soldiers’ favor might go about, greeting them with kisses. Kissing was such a standard salutation that neglecting it could function as an obvious insult.

A person might kiss another who pleased him; a kiss was generally seen as pleasant (Prov 24:26) and hence might function as a suitable reward. A king might rise to kiss a teacher whose wise discourse had pleased him (1 Esd 4:47). A rabbi might rise and kiss the head of a student who expounded well; a Roman patron could also greet a client with a kiss.

Kissing could also have sexual overtones, however, under some circumstances; demanding labial as well as genital virginity, a strict father executed his freedman for kissing the father’s daughter. Traditionally, Roman values condemned public erotic kissing, restricting it to the private sphere, but erotic banquets had given way to excesses.

Some kissing may have been on the cheek. Most kissing, however, was on the mouth (closer to, e.g., one older Russian form of greeting than to, e.g., the contemporary way of kissing cheeks in France or much of Latin America). This included kissing teachers, as noted above. One typically kissed relatives on the lips. Thus, for example, Roman women kissed kinsmen on the lips; mothers kissed daughters on the lips; a Roman father might kiss his son on the lips, albeit lightly, or his daughter on the lips in pure innocence. A mourning sister might wish to kiss her dead brother on the mouth; children might do likewise with a deceased mother. Facial kissing may have sometimes compromised hygiene; it was said that social kissing in Rome let to ‘at least one outbreak of an infectious disorder among the leading citizens.’

A kiss of greeting could become the occasion for lustful abuse, but such abuse could be betrayed by the kiss’s character. Kissing on the lips was common, but a kiss on the lips of a sister or mother was naturally said to be less passionate than that of a lover; likewise, maidens kissed one another on the lips, but only modestly. Thus a lustful deity in disguise might give himself away.

That Pauline (and other) Christians greeted with a kiss is clear in our early sources, where it appears less a rite than an expression of familiar affection. Later the ‘kiss of peace’ even achieved a liturgical role (Justin 1 Apol. 65). The earliest form of this practice probably was not limited to one’s own gender, producing condemnations for those who kissed a second time; concerned with abuses, Christians eventually restricted its practice to members of one’s own gender. It came to express Christian ideals of spiritual equality. Conjoined with embraces and weeping, the kisses here in Acts mean more than the casual kisses typically used to greet family, friends, or teacher; they resemble the stronger expressions of emotion encountered at sad partings (as here) or reunions.” (Acts Vol. 3, pp. 3071-73)

Keeners has over 40 footnotes in this section from both primary and secondary sources. Such a discussion is important for more than one reason not the least of which is cited in his footnote number 1265 “Given the pervasiveness of ancient kissing documented above (and the utter lack of initiatory significance in our NT texts), a writer’s association of early Christian kissing with Mysteries’ ‘rites of recognition’ (Mack, Lost Gospel, 220) unfortunately reflects the writer’s inadequate acquaintance with the range of sources.” (p. 3073)

On motivating Christians to holy living

(Old Facebook Post)

I once heard three seasoned conservative Anabaptist church leaders (many of you would recognize their names instantly) discuss the challenge of motivating church members to live holy lives. Specifically, they discussed how to help members walk in holiness without the presence of multiple church standards.

The first described the difficulty of awakening in members a sense of modesty. He said he found this most difficult to achieve among those who had grown up in settings with many prescribed standards. The second then turned to third with an observation phrased as a question: Is it not true that in your church fellowship (different than the speaker’s own) the members who are giving you the greatest challenges are those from backgrounds with many church standards? The third affirmed that this, indeed, is true.

[amazon template=thumbnail11&asin=0802810012]I have often pondered that conversation. I remembered it again last night when I read this from Roland Allen’s classic book, [amazon text=Missionary Methods: St. Paul’s or Ours?&asin=0802810012] (written in 1912, by an Anglican missionary):

“In our dealings with our native converts we habitually appeal to law. We attempt to administer a code which is alien to the thought of the people with whom we have to deal, we appeal to precedents which are no precedents to them, and we quote decisions of which our hearers do not understand either the history or the reason. Without satisfying their minds or winning the consent of their consciences, we settle all questions with a word.”

That paragraph sounds like the experience of some youth in some of our Anabaptist churches. But it is the next paragraph that reminded me of the above conversation:

“This is unfortunate because it leaves the people unconvinced and uneducated, and teaches them the habit of unreasoning obedience. They learn to expect law and to delight in the exact fulfilment of precise and minute directions. By this method we make it difficult to stir the consciences of our converts, when it is most important that their consciences should be stirred. Bereft of exact directions, they are helpless. They cease to expect to understand the reason of things, or to exercise their intelligence. Instead of seeking the illumination of the Holy Ghost they prefer to trust to formal instructions from their foreign guides. The consequence is that when their foreign guide cannot, or will not, supply precise commands, they pay little heed to his godly exhortations. Counsels which have no precedent behind them seem weak. Anything which is not in open disobedience to a law can be tolerated. Appeals to principles appear vague and difficult. They are not accustomed to the labour of thinking them out and applying them. If a missionary explains to his converts that some act is not in harmony with the mind of Christ his words fall on deaf ears: if he tells them that it was forbidden in a council of such and such a date, they obey him; but that is the way of death not of life; it is Judaism not Christianity; it is papal not Pauline.”

Allen ends this chapter with these probing words:

“Christians are not only what they are by nature, they are a Spirit-bearing body. It is not a question merely of our faith in them: it is still more a question of faith in the Holy Ghost. We look too much at our converts as they are by nature: St Paul looked at his converts as they were by grace.”

Thoughts?


I dream of writing a book inspired in part by Roland Allen’s book, called perhaps “A Pure Church: St. Paul’s Methods or Ours?” It would give a brief historical overview of Anabaptist methods of producing pure churches, then systematically survey Paul’s approaches to the same goal in each of the churches he founded (and what he envisioned that goal to look like), then compare the two, ending with a challenge to change our methods where they don’t line up with Paul’s.

Subtopics could include issues like leadership and authority (source, limits, use of), congregational decision-making methods (biblical and current), membership paradigms (who is my brother?), keeping unity of the Spirit while building toward unity of the faith (Eph 4), true nature of NT separation (physical vs. spiritual), covenantal contrasts between OT pure community (Israel) and NT pure community (Church), inclusion/discipleship of new believers and exclusion of sinful believers (conversion, baptism, catechism, training, disciplining, excommunicating), methods/grounds of motivation toward holiness, training by grace (Titus 2), the regenerate/Spirit-filled nature of the true believer, etc., etc.

We Anabaptists can sometimes become so enamored with parsing our own history (congratulating ourselves, selectively and favorably comparing ourselves with other groups, justifying current practices based on trends of 50 years ago, aiming for pragmatic solutions that will preserve our churches unchanged for centuries) that we fail to listen closely to Scripture as we ought. Perhaps it is true that, when looking for guidance on practical church governance, we look more to history than to God’s Word. We base decisions on our own Anabaptist history; the early Anabaptists examined their history in light of God’s Word and made changes. I’ve heard it said that we now have our theology already worked out, with the implication our doctrine is basically all correct and we just need to get busy putting it into practice. I think a close look at Paul’s vision for the church is a necessary corrective for every generation, including ours. (And not just Paul’s; such a book could draw from Jesus and the rest of the NT, too.)

Enough ranting. May we proceed in love and be open to correction ourselves.

“Men learned in the Greek and Hebrew languages”

(Old Facebook Post)

Did you know that Conrad Grebel and Felix Mantz were “men learned in the German, Latin, Greek, and also Hebrew, languages”? (From the Hutterite Chronicle.) Felix Mantz had even been marked out by Zwingli for teacher of Hebrew in Zwingli’s projected evangelical academy. The Hutterite Chronicle also states that “soon thereafter [after the first re-baptism service] several others made their way to them [to Grebel, Mantz, and Blaurock], for example, Balthasar Hubmaier of Friedberg, Louis Haetzer, and still others, men well instructed in the German, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages, very well versed in Scripture.”

Do we have such men in our churches today? Or we content to pretend such education is really unnecessary–claiming, on the one hand, that Scripture is plain enough that education beyond high school is only likely to confuse our interpretation and relying, on the other hand, rather casually on the expert scholarship of others–those who translate our Bibles for us, produce our Bible dictionaries and commentaries, and do the heavy work for us of refuting false doctrine by their careful exegesis of Scripture? Should our own heritage teach us something about the crucial role of exegesis in biblical languages? (I’m posting these questions as someone who cannot read Hebrew or Greek.)


Follow-up reflections:

Conservative Anabaptists have no truly first-rate Bible scholars, to my knowledge (despite lots of wonderful second and third-rate Bible teachers), and I think our doctrine suffers for it in ways that tend to hamper the health of our churches and the success of our witness.

I remember John Piper once stopping in the middle of one of his teaching sessions (something pretty technical, I forget) and telling his audience that most of them should not live the life he does. He told of how he walked passed a homeless man on the way to the meeting, too busy to help because of the fast pace of his life as a scholar-pastor-teacher. Most people should be free enough to stop and help. His point was that the church needs a few people like himself and lots of people not like himself. I think he was right. I’m arguing we might not have the few scholars that we need.