Civilized Christ-Followers among Barbaric Cretans and Superstitious Judeans: Negotiating Ethnic Hierarchies in Titus 1:10–14

Abstract:In Titus 1:10–14, "Paul" describes his opponents as belonging to the notorious circumcision faction, infatuated with "Judean myths," and as embodying the worst qualities of Cretans. Such invective, which would be considered racist according to modern sensibilities, is made more intelligible when contextualized among ancient ethnographic discourses. In this study, I interpret Titus 1:10–14 in conversation with sociologists and postcolonial theorists who have detailed how subjugated groups both are shaped by and (re)shape an implicit ethnic hierarchy established by the dominant society. For example, accounts like Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks introduce us to how ethnic minorities appropriate and denigrate the characteristics and practices of other ethnic groups in order to represent themselves as "civilized" before the colonial "gaze"—often at the expense of other ethnic groups with whom they are in competition for limited recognition and power. I also situate "Paul's" attempt to represent Christfollowers as civilized possessors of paideia (in contrast to barbaric Cretans and superstitious Judeans) within the competitive cultural domain of the so-called Second Sophistic and imperial Roman representations of Christ-followers as barbaric, superstitious, and potentially seditious.