Introduction

The commonest terms for stomach in ancient writings (κοιλία and γαστήρ) occur in the following texts in the undisputed Pauline epistles: 1 Thess. 5:13; Gal. 1:15; Phil. 3:19; 1 Cor. 6:13; Rom. 16:18. The first instance refers to pregnancy. Gal. 1:15 is a related text. Kοιλία means ‘womb’, and refers to the point where life begins according to Biblical thought (cf. Jer. 1:15; Jub. 21:8; Lib. Ant. 9:2.5; 22:3). Paul's reference to his mother's womb is embedded in a topos of vocation, aimed at justifying his divine call. A rather different meaning appears in Paul's dicta on the stomach-devotees in Phil. 3:19: ‘Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things’ and Rom. 16:18: ‘For such people do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites …’ In the last instance, NRSV renders κοιλία as ‘appetite’. The two references are either polemical or a warning against people who are devoted to their belly. In other words, they belong to a different rhetoric. This study claims that they are similar to the Greek saying of Tit. 1:12, about the Cretans whose entire personality is their stomachs.

It is the aim of the present study to substantiate there being a rhetoric of the belly in Paul's letters, and also to see how it works. Since for obvious reasons 1 Cor. 6:13 has nothing to do with either pregnancy or vocation, it will be investigated as part of Paul's rhetoric of the belly.