Re-thinking "Babylon"

The narrative impact and identity-forming capital of an Old Testament City & Empire

“She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings” (1 Pet 5:13)

How might “Babylon” function in terms of its narrative impact and identity forming capital in the letter of 1 Peter? It’s a question worth asking because Babylon lived large in the Jewish psyche as a consequence of their exile in 586BC. How and why does Peter draw upon this motif for a predominantly non-Jewish audience? What follows is an adapted portion of my PhD thesis (pp. 342–48), available here.

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To answer the question, I begin by citing Feldmeier’s hypothesis that “Babylon” may function “as a cipher for the Diaspora existence of the Roman community”.¹ In other words, “Babylon” may not function merely geographically, but in cahoots with Peter’s consistent elect-sojourning motif, that creates a dynamic metaphor for the Christian life which might be described as “resident-alien-ness”. Feldmeier’s assessment certainly conforms with the content of 1 Peter. The exhortation to submit to the authorities (2:13–17), the call to bless those who cause the churches’ suffering (3:8–12), as well as responding to critics with gentleness and respect (3:13–17) shows that Peter is not necessarily anti-Rome; yet at the same time, there is a clear call out from the dominant culture to be a people belonging to God and devoted to his purposes (1:13–21; 2:4–12; 4:2–4). Supposing that this is the case, it is worth asking the kinds of connotations “Babylon” would engender and how it might function in relation to the rest of 1 Peter, particularly with regards to the language of calling (see 1 Pet 1:15; 2:9; 2:21; 3:9; 5:10).

At the outset, it is worth noting with Martin Williams that the motif of election stands out as an important theme for Peter as it bookends the entire epistle (ἐκλεκτοῖς [1:1], συνεκλεκτὴ [5:13]).² Interestingly, however, in both instances it also stands with language associated with marginalisation (παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς [1:1], ἐν Βαβυλῶνι [5:13]). Thus, the whole letter is framed, not only by the theme of election as Williams observes, but also by the theme of exile; that of being an outsider or sojourner.³ The mention of “Babylon” in close association with election serves to reinforce the position of the Anatolian believers in the world:⁴ chosen of God (ἐκλεκτοῖς), yet rejected by the world (παρεπιδήμοις).⁵ In this sense, Babylon functions as the “anti-prototype” that stands against God’s people. On the notion of prototypes Michael Hogg writes that:

Prototypes are often stored in memory to be “called forth” by social categorization in a particular context to guide perception, self- conception, and action . . . New prototypes form, or existing ones are modified, in such a way as to maximize the ratio of perceived intergroup differences to intragroup similarities; prototypes form to accentuate similarities within a category and differences between categories.⁶

In the context of 1 Peter, “Babylon” may be seen to be utilised here as an anti-prototype to (borrowing Hogg’s language) “guide perception, self-conception, and action”, as well as, “accentuate in-group similarities and out-group differences.”

This framework of election/rejection and sojourning is elaborated in various ways through the language of calling that appears in 1 Peter. Firstly, in 1:13–21, the election motif appears in the Anatolian Christians being called by God to be holy, bringing them into a familial relationship with him whereby he becomes their Father (1:17), and they become his children (1:14a). The motif of rejection, or (perhaps) separation, appears in that they no longer conform to ignorant passions (1:14b), having left behind the idolatrous ways of their forefathers (1:18). This transition to a new paternity is brought about through Christ’s blood sacrifice (1:19), through whom they have become believers in God (v. 21).⁷

Secondly, 2:4–10 more explicitly raises the election/rejection theme through the use of “stone” language. Jesus is the “Living Stone”, rejected by men but chosen by God (v. 4); similarly, he is “the stone the builders rejected [that] has [now] become the cornerstone” of a new temple and priesthood (v. 7). Honour is given from God to those who believe (v. 7), but they can expect to be labeled as evil doers in the world (2:12). And while the world may reject them, they are “an elect kinsfolk, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (2:9a). As God’s chosen and holy vessels, they are to proclaim his mighty acts as those “called out of darkness into his marvellous light” (9b). Here we get the first explicit suggestion that this call is not simply to be out of the world as an isolated group, but as those engaged in mission to those outside the faith community.⁸ Importantly, these verses also reveal that Peter is engaging in a form of social creativity that inverts definitions of honour and shame through the doctrine of election. The world’s rejection of Jesus, culminating in his crucifixion and death, is turned into honour and triumph through Jesus’ resurrection: death to life; dishonour to honour; rejected, yet elected. And part of Peter’s message is that what is true of Christ is likewise true of those who come to him in faith.

It is important to now step back and recall that for the recipients to whom Peter wrote, “Babylon” was home; in fact, “Babylon” still is home, but not like it used to be; it has become for them “a space of alienation, of strangeness, in which [they as] Christians are rightfully out of place as God’s elect.”⁹ They were called out of darkness, and left behind their old ways (1:18; 4:2–4). Among the new believers were slaves who now faced the prospect of wrath at the hands of their non-believing masters (2:18–20); similarly, wives who had become Christian faced uncertainty in their relationships with their non-believing husbands, as did Christian husbands of non-believing wives (3:1–7).

In the blink of an eye, these new Christians became “resident-aliens” in their homes and homelands by virtue of their new-found faith (2:11). This “resident- alien-ness” may be the reason for both their success at winning people to the faith as well as their suffering persecutions.¹⁰ This “resident-alien-ness” in a “Babylonian” context aligns with our thematic book ends of election/rejection. In a strange way, therefore, “Babylon” is the place that is simultaneously “home”, and yet, “not home”; it has become the place of sojourn and, hence, the place of mission, suffering, and blessing.

Such circumstances evoke Jer 29:4–7 at this point. In a letter to exiles in Babylon, the prophet Jeramiah’s word from the Lord urged the Israelites to put down roots in Babylon and seek to be a blessing, “for in its welfare, you will find your welfare”; a theme that is strikingly familiar to that found in 1 Pet 3:8–12. The means by which the Israelites were to seek the welfare of Babylon was to:

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease (Jer 29:5–6).

In short, the Israelites were to make Babylon their home, even though, deep down, it was clearly not home. They were to put down roots, invest in the city, and build a life by which the Babylonians would encounter God’s character through them as they lived out their calling during their sojourn in Babylonian exile. In much the same way, having been called to eternal glory in Christ, the Anatolian believers live in a world that is “home”, and yet “not home.” Like the Israelites in Babylon, they too must put down roots and seek the shalom of the places in which they live, so that the character of God might be displayed to all.

The call to be a holy people, called out of darkness and set apart for God’s purpose accounts for what now follows in the call to the gracious endurance of suffering (2:18–25) and the call to bless those who cause such suffering (3:8–17). In 1 Pet 2:21–25 we find the epitome of rejection laid bare in Peter’s description of Christ as the Suffering Servant; a suffering that was foreshadowed earlier in 2:4, 7 which declared that Christ would be rejected by men, even as he was laid as the cornerstone of a new people of God. This is a suffering that believers are called to share in, to “follow in [Christ’s] steps” (2:21). The household servants are presented as paradigmatic for the whole church because they most closely resemble Christ, the Suffering Servant who, again, is rejected by men but elect of God.¹¹

The call to bless that comes towards the conclusion of the household code stands in stark contrast to being persecuted and reviled (3:9), again emphasising the “rejected-ness” of God’s people. This is further confirmed on Peter’s assumption that believers would likely suffer for righteousness’ sake (3:14, 16–17), and must defend the hope of their faith in some capacity (3:15). Despite this, the church is called to its non-retaliatory stance with the promise that God’s eyes are on those who practice righteousness and that he will hear their prayers (3:12), which may be taken as an assurance of their “chosen-ness”.

Peter’s use of Psalm 33 LXX (see 1 Pet 3:10–12), though not directly related to “Babylon” is also instructive in that it recalls King David’s sojourning with the Philistines while on the run from Saul, as he lived between the promise of kingship and his inheritance of the crown. Thus, David’s sojourning experience, living between the promise and the inheritance, is in many respects a foreshadowing, or type, that reflects the Anatolian churches’ own experience under the new covenant.¹²

In summary, Peter’s use of “Babylon”, be it a cryptogram for Rome or otherwise, emphasises one final time, the status of God’s people as simultaneously rejected by the world and yet chosen of God. They are to embrace their elect- sojourning status as resident aliens that establishes them as a holy people, set apart to declare God’s praise as a priestly community, and being a blessing in their communities even if they should suffer for it.

“Babylon”, then, stands as their home away from home—the place that God has called them to dwell as a holy priestly community: a place of mission, suffering, and blessing as they await the eternal glory that is theirs in Christ.

1. Feldmeier, The First Letter of Peter, 41. At the risk of speculation, it could also be possible that “Babylon” may be utilised in the sense of empire. If so, “Babylon” may mean the whole Roman Empire. Peter, as an apostle who travelled widely, could be seen to be giving greetings from the empire wide church (that is, “in Babylon”). This possibility would account for the language of “elect exiles of the diaspora” (1 Pet 1:1), as well as the language of “the brotherhood around the world” who are suffering (1 Pet 5:9). This being the case, Peter could be writing from an undisclosed location within the Roman Empire, to which he refers simply as “Babylon”.

2. Williams, The Doctrine of Salvation in the First Letter of Peter, 46–47.

3. Lutz Doering, “First Peter as Early Christian Diaspora Letter,” 230, who also observes similar sentiments of election by God and rejection by the world in contemporaneous Jewish traditions.

4. The threat associated with Babylon would have the potential to bring a stronger sense of ingroup solidarity within the church; cf. Rothgerber, “External Intergroup Threat as an Antecedent to Perceptions of In-Group and Out-Group Homogeneity,” 1210.

5. Dan G. McCartney, “The Use of the Old Testament in the First Epistle of Peter” (PhD diss., Westminster Theological Seminary, 1989), 114

6. Hogg, “A Social Identity Theory of Leadership,” 187.

7. In terms of social identity, perhaps the most significant aspect in 1:13–21 is the contrast between the Holy God as Father and the futile ways of the forefathers. On the importance of fathers, particularly in Jewish society, see Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter, 142.

8. Green, “Living as Exiles: The Church in the Diaspora in 1 Peter,” 323, “they are to embody the call to Israel in Exodus and in Exile to be holy. As a priestly people, a holy nation, they would embrace a missional vocation to be ‘holy’”.

9. Wei Hsien Wan, “Reconfiguring the Universe: The Contest for Time and Space in the Roman Imperial Cults and 1 Peter” (PhD thesis, University of Exeter, 2016), 226.

10. Kuecker, The Spirit and the “Other,” 156

11. Smith and Zarate’s work establishes the importance of exemplars for the development of social identity in “Exemplar-Based Model of Social Judgment,” Psychol. Rev. 99 (1992): 3–21; also, J. Richard Eiser, “Accentuation Revisited,” 135

12. Chapple, “Appropriation of Scripture,” 170.