GREEN 'She and her household were baptized' 75
- Household Baptism: Introductory Questions
Wiedemann's impression, that 'the Acts of the Apostles frequently tells us
that St Paul baptised someone "with his whole household'",^10 however
widespread, is not reflective of a close reading of the book of Acts. The
Lukan narrative does relate a number of household conversions, and these
have been profitably examined by David Lertis Matson.^11 Household
baptisms form a subset of the household conversion accounts in the Lukan
narrative, and there are only three: the baptism of Cornelius and his
household (see esp. 10.2,24,27,33,44-48), the baptism of Lydia and her
household (see esp. 16.14-15), and the baptism of the Philippian jailor and
his household (see esp. 16.31-34).^12
Readers of Acts have long noted that the idea of household baptism is
not itself extraordinary. This is because, in Roman antiquity, the house-
hold was represented by its head and the household was to follow him (for
the head was typically, though not invariably, a male) in his religion.^13 In
his 'Advice to Bride and Groom', Plutarch wrote:
A woman ought not to make friends of her own, but to enjoy her husband's
friends in common with him. The gods are the first and most important
friends. Hence, it is becoming for a wife to worship and to know only the
gods that her husband believes in, and to shut the door tight upon all strange
rituals and outlandish superstitions. For with no god do stealthy and secret
rites performed by a woman find any favor.^14- Wiedemann, Adults and Children, p. 191; emphasis added.
- David Lertis Matson, Household Conversion Narratives in Acts: Pattern and
Interpretation (JSNTSup, 123; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996). - If the Corinthian episode were included (cf. 18.8b), this would only further
support my thesis. - Cf., e.g., Richard Belward Rackham, The Acts of the Apostles: An Exposition
(London: Methuen, 1906), p. 283; E.A. Judge, The Social Pattern of Christian Groups
in the First Century (London: Tyndale Press, 1960), p. 35; Michael Green, Evangelism
in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), p. 210; Nicholas H. Taylor,
'The Social Nature of Conversion in the Early Christian World', in Philip F. Esler
(ed.), Modelling Early Christianity: Social-Scientific Studies of the New Testament in
its Context (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 128-35 (p. 132). - Plutarch, 'Advice to Bride and Groom', § 19 (MOD); translation adapted from
Plutarch, Moralia, II (trans. Frank Cole Babbitt; LCL; Cambridge: MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press, 1928), p. 311. See further, Karl Olav Sandnes, 'Equality within Patri-
archal Structures: Some New Testament Perspectives on the Christian Fellowship as a
Brother- or Sisterhood and a Family', in Halvor Moxnes (ed.), Constructing Early