The Rhetorical Place of "the Fruit of the Spirit"in the Epistle to the Galatians

 

"Rhetoric" and "rhetorical" is one of those oft-misused words taken to mean, variously, "a manner of speaking," "hyperbole," or "in a manner of speaking."  Journalists multiply this confusion when they say, for instance, "That's just political rhetoric," when, in fact, they mean to say "That's just political polemic."  (Is it any wonder that newspapers are normatively written at an eighth-grade reading level?)

Described as the learned art of persuasion, an orator uses the canons of rhetoric to convince her or his listeners to a point of view that is presented.  Aristotle wrote about it in his famous On Rhetoric, and Quintilian wrote his masterful On the Institutes of Oratory.  Yet it is Cicero who, in the Middle Ages especially, was taken to be the very personification of the liberal art of rhetoric.

St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians is taken to be the example of rhetoric par excellence in the New Testament.  Our task will be to look at his "Fruit of the Spirit" pericope in Galatians 5:16-23.  But first it would be helpful to contextualise the discussion with three ideas about the relationship between "ethics" and "rhetoric" from Aristotle:

First, since the Apostle contrasts the Christian community's behaviour with that of worldlings'--a salient point since the heretics who came to upset the Galatian churches insisted on Torah-observance as a badge of membership in the People of God--Aristotle's point of what a deviant society looks like looms large in the verses about the "works of the flesh."  In his Politics, Aristotle speaks of a true society that can only be so on account of shared ethical values as a means of cohesion.  The heretics who brought in "another gospel" were in fact self-seeking oligarchs who sought to control the Christians on the basis of a profound misunderstanding of Christ's purpose in His death and resurrection.  This is why St Paul highlights his own selflessness in Galatians 4:12-20 and in 6:17--whereas he sought no gain, though he was within rights to, the oligarchic heretics aimed to satisfy their own fleshliness.

Second, Aristotle in his On Rhetoric believed that a long, deliberative discourse in attempt to persuade listeners to a more ethical life was not nearly as effective as pointing to the listeners' own experience and expanding upon that.  Walter Russel, a Pauline exegete, believes that the Apostle is really pointing to the Galatian Christians' experience of the indwelling Holy Spirit as an indicator of which way to continue in.

Third, Paul's direct quotation from Aristotle--"...against such there is no law" (Gal 5:23; Politics 3.13.12B4a)--is, in the words of Ben Witherington III, is "about what makes for an ethical society...and the phrase in particular is used of persons who surpass their fellow human beings in virtue."

Logos, Ethos, Pathos

In classical antiquity, rhetoric was triangulated within the correct use of reason (logis, logic), the credibility of the orator (ethos, ethic), and the emotional appeal to the listeners (pathos, passion).  These three can be clearly identified in Galatians.  In the first place, there is a clear logical flow (logos) of Paul's arguments.  The allegory of Hagar and Sarah forms one of the major arguments for "slavery" and "freedom" with regard to the Mosaic Law and grace (Gal  4:21-31).

The whole of the logos is found in the probatio (Hans-Deiter Betz, Bernard H. Brinsmead, James D. Hester) in Galatians 3:1-4:31, in which the Apostle marshals a series of arguments as to why the gift of the Spirit has superseded the Law of Sinai as a sign of membership in God's Messianic people.  (Walter Russell, buy the way, extends the probatio all the way to Galatians 6:10 as he sees the "Fruit of the Spirit" bit as part and parcel of Paul's overall argument.)

At the beginning of the epistle, St Paul establishes his credibility (ethos) by pointing out that whereas the heretics claimed to have the real deal, the Apostle received not only the apostleship but the very message from Jesus Himself (Gal 1:11-17) and even indicates that the Jerusalem Apostles gave a veritable imprimatur to his doctrine (Gal 1:18-24).

As for emotional appeal, pathos, "You stupid Galatians!" (Gal 3:1) certainly stands out.  Paul is "astonished" (Gal 1:6), asks "who has bewitched you...?", and perhaps signals his agitation in how he writes his epistolary salutation--without a thanksgiving for the addressees' faith as he does in his other epistles.

Now we can turn to the place of the "Fruit of the Spirit" in St Paul's use of classical rhetoric in his epistle to the Galatian churches.

Circumcision or the Indwelling?

For the Israelites, circumcision was the badge of membership in the family of Abraham.  For Christians, on the other hand, it was the indwelling Holy Spirit:

Let me ask you only this:  Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?  Are you so foolish?  Having begun with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh?  ...Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? (Gal 3:2-5).

Paul is employing an elementary rhetorical device we all know, the 'play on words,' when he speaks of "ending with the flesh"--an allusion to circumcision.  At a deeper level, for Jewish males, the deeper meaning of circumcision has to do with "separation" from Gentile sinfulness but, what does it avail if it does not effect a change in the person?  Thus did the prophet Jeremiah point out that without personal transformation, circumcision amounted to nothing (Jer 9:24; cf 4:4) and thus did the protomartyr St Stephen accuse the Sanhedrin being "uncircumcised in heart and ears" (Acts 7:51) despite having the physical badge.

Rather, the gift of the Holy Spirit is the fulfillment of God's promise of the "worldwide blessing" to Abraham (Gen 22) for which St Paul retrieves the images of the Hagar's child versus Sarah's child, the latter being "the son of the free woman through the promise" (Gal 4:23).  Christians are, like Isaac, "the children of promise" for which we receive not only membership in the family of Abraham, but indeed adoption as daughters and sons within the Son of God.  More to the point, it is the indwelling Holy Spirit that marks God's People:

...God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the Law, to redeem those who were under the Law, so that we might receive adoption as sons [and daughters].  And because you are sons [and daughters], God has sent the Spirit of his Son in to our hearts, crying, 'Abba!  Father!'  So through God you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir (Gal 4:4-7).

But the indwelling Holy Spirit isn't necessarily a done deal.

Works of the Law ≈ Works of the Flesh

Continuing his line of thought that circumcision is not efficacious for moral probity, St Paul then takes the idea that the "works of the Law" was, for the heretics, more of a bragging right than a badge of membership (Gal 6:13), and this "bragging" simply opens the floodgates of character traits inimical to the Gospel, namely, "works of the flesh."  Paul likely had Deuteronomy 10:12-22 in mind--the passage about the heart of the Law being that of an upright way of life--when he wrote:

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.  For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, "You shall love your neighbour as yourself."  But if you bite and devour one another take heed that you are not consumed by one another (Gal 5:13-15)..

The heretics believed that the mere, external rite of circumcision was a sufficient badge; the Apostle criticised their piecemeal adoption of the Law:  "I testify again to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to keep the whole Law" (Gal 5:3), effectively saying 'all or nothing!'  The overall implication, it seems, was that the heretics imagined that the external mark of circumcision in lieu of holiness was enough.  Hence, 

For through the Spirit, by faith, we wait for the hope of righteousness.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love (Gal 5:5-6).

All of the above, then, stands at the background of Paul's contrasting the "works of the flesh" and the "fruit of the Spirit."

Fractious Works, Unifying Fruit

Note well Paul's use of the singular and plural:  "works of the flesh" and "fruit  of the Spirit."  "Works" are in the plural, whereas "fruit" is in the singular, to highlight the divisive character of the heretics (along with the rest of the pagans) with the unitive character of Christian conduct.  Paul does this even in the way that he queues the "works" and the "fruit":

But the works of the flesh are plain:  immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, drunkenness, carousing, and the like" (Gal 5:19-21).

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Gal 22-23). 

Whereas the (singular) "fruit" of the Holy Spirit yields nine character-traits, beginning with love and ending with "self-control," the (plural) "works" of fleshliness yields a sprawling list of pagan characteristics, especially when he ends with "...and the like."

We are not to imagine, as some do, that these "fruit" are somehow automatic in Spirit-filled believers; N. T. Wright points out that with the last one, "self-control," Paul indicates something that we do, in which he "gives the game away" by showing that the "fruit of the Spirit" is something we consciously and intentionally aim for.  Otherwise St Paul would not have repeated the imperative "But I say, walk by the Spirit," "...let us also walk by the Spirit" (Gal 5:16, 25).

Within the Epistle's Total Rhetoric

Several commentators, using rhetorical analysis, situate the "Fruit of the Spirit" pericope (Gal 5:16-23) within the wider paranesis (Greek:  'exhortation') of Galatians 5:1-6:10, by which they mean Paul is giving advice or counsel (exhortatio in Latin).  Others take this passage to be a refutatio, whereby the demonstration of the Holy Spirit's influence on the Christian undercuts the heretics' claims.  Walter Russell interprets this section similarly, though he prefers to use the term "causal argument" which is to say that the Holy Spirit causes such a lifestyle that the Law-observing heretics cannot even muster up.

In either case, Paul both points to the normative influence of the Holy Spirit in the Christian's ethical cleanliness and prescribes walking in conformity with the New Law of Sion as the only means--rather than the Law of Sinai--of living cleanly.

As an educated man (cf Acts 2:33) who appeared to have written all of his epistles in Greek, it should not be surprising that St Paul the Apostle was learned in the "classical" arts of his day, including rhetoric.  Even though it was a quintessentially Greek art, he thought it useful to advance the Kingdom of God:

We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when our obedience is complete (2 Cor 10:5-6).