d The Function of Consolation 162

We turn, finally, to a consideration of the function of consolation in the letter. To be sure, Paul’s provision of feeling rules to the Thessalonians to manage their grief puts him in the company of many others in his day who sought to bring comfort to the bereaved. Whether one takes what Paul says to be an absolute prohibition against grief or otherwise, the fact remains that he prescribes strict qualitative limits on the extent of grief as it pertains to the death of other Christians. Why, however, is Paul so concerned about inordinate grief? Or, to ask a more pointed question: what would happen if the Thessalonians failed to console one another at this time of mourning?

As Barton notes, the instructions issued by Paul place him at or near one end of the spectrum of the philosophical (and general) debate as to whether grief and its social representation in mourning were reasonable responses to death for those who thought themselves to be truly wise and virtuous. He goes on to suggest that Paul’s consolatory approach very likely carried moral and rhetorical weight with its recipients at least in part because it accorded with the strong emphasis on the control of the emotions within Stoic therapeutic paraenesis.746 _{Certainly, there are some interesting parallels—at least}

at a superficial level—between Paul’s teachings and that of his Stoic contemporaries on the subjugation of grief. In different ways, both Paul and the Stoics locate the possibility of consolation within a thoroughgoing rational dismantling of the usefulness and

appositeness of grief in the face of death. A recapitulation of Stoic thinking about grief and its cure is helpful at this point.

In Stoicism, grief (λύπη) is the opinion that some present thing is an evil of such a sort that one should be downcast about it (see section 2.3.3.a). More specifically, grief is the result of the combination of two related value judgements: an evaluation of an external object as being injurious to oneself, and a belief in the appropriateness of a predicative reaction to it. However, since it is irrational to think that external objects are of any significance to one’s state of well-being, both sets of judgements are

systematically misguided. Therefore on the Stoic account, grief—being the consequence of fallacious reasoning—is a passion to be extirpated. As such, integral to Stoic

philosophical teaching and therapeutic intervention is the insistence that the judgements with which the passions are identified are erroneous, since all externals do not carry any intrinsic value whatsoever.

Thus, as we have seen earlier (see section 2.5.1.b), Seneca freely harnesses several stock philosophical arguments in his efforts to attenuate the grief that the addressees of his letters are experiencing: for instance, that death is inevitable for all, that it delivers those who have died from both present and future misfortunes, and that grief is of no use whatsoever—benefitting neither oneself nor the person for whom one mourns. Outwardly, his consolatory strategies share many similarities with Greco- Roman consolation in general,747 especially in regard to their ideological neutrality and highly practical bent. Embedded within Seneca’s thought, however, is also some quintessentially Stoic thinking, at the heart of which is the conclusion that grief is inherently irrational because it is fuelled by a false opinion about the state of matters in which the individual finds himself. Yet, as I have argued, Seneca’s view of grief and its expression is a multi-faceted one. On the one hand, though he acknowledges that grief is a naturally reflexive and therefore unavoidable response to the tragedies that

inevitably encroach on human life, he calls for a carefully deliberate application of

747 _{As Paul Holloway observes, popular arguments against grief took various conventional forms: “(1)}

time heals all things, (2) death is common to all, (3) grief does not avail the dead and is detrimental to the living, and (4) the proper response is gratitude for the life lived”; “Left Behind: Jesus’ Consolation of His Disciples in John 13,31–17,26,” ZNW 96 (2005): 4.

reason to curb any grief that becomes uncontrollably excessive.748 Seneca apparently champions, at least in relation to grief, a form of metriopatheia. On the other hand, he also seems to want to uncover within the boundaries of Stoicism the possibility of the presence of a specific type of grief that is not incompatible with virtuous thinking and living, or, in other words, the wise person’s grief—one that emerges not because of some involuntary emotional reflex but because of positive, voluntary feelings that are based on fully veridical assessments of one’s circumstances.749 As we have noted, such a “proper” grief might be considered a eupathic antithesis to pathological grief.

Seneca’s multivalent understanding of grief stands in contrast to that of Epictetus, whose perhaps more straightforwardly Stoic reading of the passions construes grief as the result of the wholly mistaken judgement that death is something dreadful for the human person (see section 2.5.1.c). Simply put, then, the Stoic wise person would not experience nor exhibit grief of the kind that would compromise his state of rational equanimity. Yet even though Epictetus, unlike Seneca, does not show much interest in how one might bring consolation in practical ways to someone who was grieving, it is noteworthy that he mentions that one should not hesitate to show sympathy to such a person. However, any demonstration of affective solidarity must not result in sorrow that causes a disruption in one’s control over one’s own mind and thinking.750 For Epictetus, the maintaining of the integrity of one’s self-autonomy and volition is of the utmost importance.751 Thus we see that both Seneca and Epictetus are seeking to work out and promote, within the Stoic philosophical framework, a rational basis for the management of grief. Since death is a natural phenomenon that lies beyond the ability of humans to control, it is to be accepted dispassionately. What is important is the manner in which one chooses to live.

That Paul has an equally reasoned interest in what makes consolation efficacious in the constraint of grief is hinted at in his choice of words relating to knowledge, belief, and the mind—οὐ θέλοµεν δὲ ὑµᾶς ἀγνοεῖν (4.13), εἰ γὰρ πιστεύοµεν (4.14)—and

immediately confirmed when he discloses the theological rationale for his approach. The Stoics located their solution wholly within the human person’s own internal resources, or more specifically, within his or her powers of right reason, but Paul has cast his gaze elsewhere—to God’s action in human history in the past, present, and

748 _{See esp. Seneca, Polyb. 18.4–7.} 749 _{See Seneca, Ep. 99.18–21.} 750 _{Epictetus, Ench. 16.}

future. As Paul sees it, for the Christian to grieve in the manner of unbelievers is wholly irrational: not because death is an external good that is devoid of any intrinsic value, but because death will give way to life with other believers and with Christ at the eschaton. At its core, then, Paul’s consolatory strategy is rooted in his theological worldview—in the hope of a cosmic union at the parousia, one so powerful that it overcomes both physical and mortal separation and thereby reinterprets, and indeed relativizes, death itself.752 Thus, for believers to grieve καθὼς καὶ οἱ λοιποὶ οἱ µὴ ἔχοντες ἐλπίδα (4.13b) would be to misrepresent the grand, overarching eschatological narrative which encompasses their individual life histories, and thus misunderstand the true nature of their Christian identity. For as Christians, their destinies are eternally secure: the dislocation that death produces is only temporary, because Christ will return to bring to himself those who are his.

This, I suggest, points us towards the answer as to why Paul is so concerned about inordinate grief in the Thessalonian church, and why he takes such care to deal with what is happening among his new converts. Simply put, for Paul, how one grieves is inextricably related to what one truly believes about death and therefore also to the entire system of Christian theological understanding that underpins and sustains these beliefs. The Stoics, too, thought that grief, like other passions, could be assuaged through a process of corrected cognitive evaluation. However, though both frameworks evince a rigorously reasoned approach to the therapy of grief, there are fundamentally different ideological bases for the consolation that they each offer. Furthermore, why such consolation is important is also not the same. Paul does not share the Stoics’ overriding concern for inner serenity and rational imperturbability; instead, he is interested in the creation and maintenance of a robust Christian self-identity which will thereby foster the stability of the community of believers as a whole. Hence, for Paul, excessive grief is highly problematic not only because it betrays in the individual an inadequate understanding of Christian death, but because it threatens the ethos of the young church at Thessalonica. In fact, as Paul might see it, any failure of the

Thessalonians to bring consolation to each other could be potentially disastrous; for if they were to waver in their Christian faith because of despairing grief, they would surely find it increasingly difficult to bear up under the social conflict in which they

were embroiled—social conflict which had arisen precisely because of their allegiance to this faith.753

Given Paul’s interest in safeguarding the health of the church at large, it is not surprising that while the feeling rules concerning grief that he gives to the

Thessalonians are certainly premised on the specifics of his eschatological vision, these rules have also a distinctively sociological cast in that they reveal a powerful potential to establish clear group boundaries, thereby helping to structure both individual and corporate self-definition along distinctively Christian lines.

As we have noted earlier, in Paul’s theological framework, all of humanity may be located in one of two categories: those who have eschatological hope, because they follow Christ; and everyone else—somewhat unceremoniously dismissed as “the rest” (οἱ λοιποί, 4.13)—i.e., those who are without this hope. There are no exceptions to the complete polarizing of humanity on this basis. Perhaps because he wishes to drive home the point, in several places but especially in ch. 5, Paul contrasts these two categories of humanity in starkly antithetical terms, often using metaphorical language. On the one side are the believers, ἀδελφοί754 loved and chosen by God (1.4), to whom knowledge of

“the times and seasons”—a stock phrase relating to the timing of apocalytic events755— has been disclosed (5.1–2).756 In Paul’s eschatological drama, they are cast in approving terms as “children of light” (5.5) and “children of the day” (5.5; cf. 5.8) who remain awake and sober (5.6); ultimately, they obtain salvation through Christ (5.9). On the other side lies the rest of humanity: they are “outsiders” (4.12) who do not know God (4.5) nor anything of his eschatological agendum (5.3). Depicted as a negative foil to believers, such people are “of the night and of darkness” (5.5; cf. 5.4), being drunk and asleep (5.7). In the end, lacking sober vigilance, they, unlike the believers, are unable to escape God’s wrath (5.3, 9).757

753 _{Barclay, “Conflict,” 516–518, argues convincingly that the Thessalonians’ apocalyptic worldview}

and their experience of social alienation reinforced each other in a complex dialectic: their apocalyptic perspective helped them to see their sufferings as something that was to be expected but also temporary; conversely, every experience of social conflict only reinforced the truth of the apocalyptic teachings that they had adopted.

754 _{See n.622 for the other occurrences in 1 Thess.}

755 _{On this see the discussions and similar conclusions in Weima, Thessalonians, 344; Malherbe,}

Thessalonians, 288–289; Wanamaker, Thessalonians, 177–178.

756 _{Whether οὐ χρείαν ἔχετε ὑµῖν γράφεσθαι (5.1) is indeed a case of paralipsis (Weima,}

Thessalonians, 345) or not (Malherbe, Thessalonians, 289) does not affect the interpretation of 5.1–2: Paul is saying that the Thessalonians already know that the coming of the parousia is certain but that it will be unexpected.

One cannot fail to notice the care with which Paul distinguishes the believing community from the rest of humanity on the basis of their wholly different

eschatological destinies. Barclay argues rightly that “[t]he crucial move that Paul makes here is to adjust this differentiation so as to take account of death, indeed to direct believers into making death itself—how they mark it and how they view it—a symbol of their distinction.”758 In other words, the manner in which a Christian grieves can reveal a great deal about what he or she truly believes concerning the eternal destiny of the believer. On this view, eschatological confidence (or its lack thereof) becomes an important Pauline boundary marker of identity and self-definition on both the personal and corporate planes of Christian self-understanding. Putting it another way: for Paul, attitudes towards grief function to differentiate believers from the people around them, and thereby become intrinsic to the proper formation of Christian identity.

We may therefore conclude that for Paul consolation plays a highly distinctive role in the upbuilding of the Thessalonian church. Since consolation has to do with having a right knowledge of eschatological reality, Paul carefully summarizes the teaching of the church concerning the events at the parousia. That which is certain to happen in the future has momentous ontological and ethical implications for the present state of bereavement in which the believers find themselves, in relation to their self- identity and to how they are to grieve. As Beverly Gaventa writes:

What Paul affirms regarding the relationship of believers with one another and with their Lord reaches well beyond a social relationship confined to this place and time. Those who are bound together remain so, even after death. The boundary Paul has drawn around the church is a boundary that extends into the future. Although a boundary separates believers from non-believers, it does not separate the living from the dead. The social world created in the church runs in two directions—believers’ association with the Lord and their association with one another.759

For Paul, consolation both expresses and is itself embedded within this extraordinary multi-dimensional sociality. It simultaneously brings comfort and assurance, because it occurs within and speaks of relationships that do not end with death, and because this felicitous state of affairs is grounded in a hope that is certain. It is interesting that this hope is directed towards an ultimate goal that is thoroughly social: eternal life lived with Christ, in the company of other believers.

758 _{Barclay, “Death,” 227. Though I am not persuaded by Barclay’s interpretation of 1 Thess 4.13 as}

an absolute prohibition against grief (see section 4.3.4), in the main his thesis about a Pauline “christianizing” of death is highly compelling; on this see esp. 227–228, 234.