378 Aaron P. Johnson
and barbarians (or Greeks and Jews) were dissolved in the community of believers who
were “one in Christ” (Gal. 3:28; cf. Rom. 10:12; see Johnson Hodge 2007: 126–31).
Paul declared that he was “all things to all people,” being a Greek to the Greeks and
a Jew to the Jews, as well as invoking Roman citizenship as an attempt to negotiate
desired ends through the complex entanglements of race, culture, citizenship, and law.
Yet, a Christian’s “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20); they were citizens of a
heavenly city (Heb. 12:22–23; 13:14), and only “resident aliens” on sojourn among
the nations of the present world (I Peter 2:11). In tandem with transcendent claims of
Christianity’s incorporation of all peoples, Paul announced that Christ’s followers were
the “true Israel” (Romans 9:3–8; cf. 2:28–29), and the true descendents of Abraham
(Gal. 3:29). Furthermore, the argument of the epistle to the Romans comprised, in fact,
an extended (if somewhat tortuous) form of “ethnic argumentation” (Johnson 2006a;
Wan 2009).
Other Christian texts of the first centuries continued the vibrant explorations of
self-identification, representation of others, and ever-increasing elaboration of argu-
ments structured or driven by ethnic concerns and assumptions. The anonymous
second-centuryTo Diognetusresponded to the question “Why did this new race or
practice enter into life now and not earlier?” (ad Diogn. 1; see Lieu 2002: 171–89;
Kimber Buell 2005: 29–32). The question recalls Livy’s account of an earlier religious
group whose foreign origins and novel practices were deemed unsettling: the devotees
of Bacchus were deemed to be “nearly another race” (Ab urbe condita39.13; Lieu
2004: 262). Pliny’s description of the Christians also seems to echo Livy’s description of
the Bacchanalians (Wilken 1984: 1–47). In spite of the limitations in comparing a Latin
text of the first century with a Greek text of the second, the juxtaposition may prompt
hesitation in assigning a racial sense togenosin theTo Diognetus,infavorofageneric
“kind” of group comprising a voluntary religious association. The racial metaphor,
however, possessed staying power.
In the same generation as the letterTo Diognetus, an Athenian Christian philosopher
named Aristides composed anApologyaddressed to the emperor Hadrian (Eus.HE
4.3.3). This text bases the entirety of its argument in defense of Christianity upon a
representation of Christians as a nation that “traced its genealogy (genealogountai)from
Christ” (Apol. 15, p. 252.13 Boissonade). The race of Christians was markedly superior
to other ethnic groups: the Greeks, Chaldeans, and Egyptians were steeped in the irra-
tionality and impiety of polytheism, while the Jews were bound to the misunderstood
regulations of the Law. That the religious practices and theologies of these distinct peo-
ples were of the greatest interest to Aristides should not detract from the persistently
powerful role of ethnicity within his conceptual world. Religion had always been a key
feature of ancient racial identities. Aristides and other Christians were doing nothing
particularly new in their attempt to highlight religious differences between peoples and
emphasize the benefits and rationality of one over the others (e.g., Cic.Nat. D. 2.8;
Strabo 16.2.38; 17.2.3; Dion. Hal.Ant. Rom. 2.18; Olster 1995).
The strangeness of Christianity lay rather in the radical newness and recent origins of
itsethnos. Faced with the widespread assumption that the greater antiquity of a people
entailed cultural, religious, or philosophical privilege in a world of competing claims
to superiority, Christianity’s newness created a source of anxiety and embarrassment.
A solution presented itself in Paul’s claim to be the true Israel. In a manner parallel