Introduction

As we have already stated, the difficulty in this project is that the Pauline texts under consideration are very brief. The stomach appears almost as a catchword with which Paul assumes his readers to be familiar. The exegesis of both Phil. 3:19 and Rom. 16:18, therefore, calls for a context beyond the epistles themselves as well as the Pauline universe of which they are a part. It is the aim of this chapter to provide that context in ancient moral philosophy. In other words, emphasis will be given to ethical and not medical texts. Besides, it is the specific aim of this chapter to search for analogies with Paul's dicta about ‘having the belly as god’, or ‘serving the stomach’. This project will not be undertaken in a narrow lexical sense; i.e. looking only for a particular terminology. In order to see how the topos of ‘belly’ works in ancient sources, we have to relate it to attitudes towards food and consumption in general.

The questions which this chapter aims to answer are the following:

• Do ancient writers refer to the belly with a frequency and in a way that justifies speaking of a commonplace?

• If so, to what does the topos of belly refer to?

• Does the stomach in some texts take on a figurative meaning, or become a codeword for something more than eating?

• Does the ancient material suggest a social context to which texts about the power of the belly refer?