The
respective social and cultural textures that underlie “mouth” and “heart” also
need to be highlighted if we are to understand how 10:6-9 explains Christ as
broker. In Mediterranean culture, the heart refers “to the human capabilities of
thinking, judging, evaluating and the like and doing all of these with feelings”
(Bruce J. Malina, “Eyes-Heart,” in Pilch and Malina, Handbook of Biblical
Social Values, 68). Thus, for Paul, heart is where the human capability for
trust (here in 10:9, the object of trust is God) is exercised. As for the social
and culture texture that underlies “mouth,” the speech that the mouth utters
has great importance. It is the means by which honor, the most sought after limited
good in the Mediterranean world, is gained (Jerome H. Neyrey, “Equivocation,”
in Pilch and Malina, Handbook of Biblical Social Values, 63). A social
and cultural texture underlies the word κυριος (“lord”). In the ancient Roman setting, clients
were to address their patrons as lord or dominus (see, e.g., Martial, Ep.
6.88) (in this satire, written between 95 and 98 CE by the Roman poet Marcus
Valerius Martialis [b. 38-41 CE), a client who did not address Caecilianus his
patron as dominus [lord] forfeited one hundred quadrantes [about
six sesterces]. This money was a sportula, a payment [which could take
the form of food or money] made by the patron to his client. See Edwin Post, Selected
Epigrams of Martial: Edited, with Introduction and Notes [Boston: Ginn,
1908], x). In 10:9, Christians, by addressing with their mouths (στομα) Jesus as Lord (κυριος), are rendering honor to Christ
as a patron-broker (Nelson P. Estrada notes that Jesus, in acting as a broker
between Israel and God, also functions as a patron to his [Jesus’s] clients. See
Estrada, From Followers to Leaders: The Apostles in the Ritual of Status
Transformation in Acts 1-2, LNTS 255 [London: Bloomsbury, 2004], 58). That
said, however, Christ’s foremost function is that of broker, as 10:1-13 is Paul’s
response to the Judeans’ rejection of Christ’s brokerage in 9:30-33. A social
and cultural texture underlies the juxtaposition of mouth and heart.
Mediterranean culture allows equivocation; that is, one does not have to
perform that the mouth utters (Neyrey, “Equivocation,” 63-68). For this reason,
Paul adds the role of the heart (Neyrey recognizes the prevailing Mediterranean
culture of “equivocation” but also adds that what the Mediterranean world is
more concerned about is “the intention of doing something or the plan of doing,
which can serve as a substitute for achievement” [ibid., 67]). My point is that
these statements about the roles of the mouth and heart in 10:9 after the
epexegetical οτι. Some scholars contend that the verb πιστευειν (“to trust”) refers to belief in a body of
knowledge (so most commentators, e.g., Jewett, Romans, 630; Dunn, Romans
9-16, 609; Käsemann, Commentary on Romans, 290-91). The emphasis,
however, should be on the object of trust, namely, God (Morgan contents that “propositional
belief [secular or religious] is usually marked, in Greek and Latin, by the
language of thinking [dokein, nomizein, putare, censere, etc.] rather
than that of pistis or fides. An exception in Greek is the phrase
pisteuein hoti, ‘to believe that,’ which occurs occasionally in Greek
literature, including the New Testament, in the context of both intra-human and
divine relations. Pisteuein hoti, however, in the New Testament and
beyond, is much less common than pisteuein with the dative or with
prepositions of relationship such as eis or en.” She also adds
that not only does propositional belief always entail trust and vice versa, but
“the focus of both intra-human and divine-human pistis/fides,
Graeco-Roman and Christian, is more often than not on relationality” [Roman Faith
and Christian Faith, 30]). Several observations bear this out. First, the
emphasis of the rhetoric of 9:30-10:13 is trust as opposed to the deeds of the
Mosaic law. In particular, the clause πιστευεται εις δικαιοσυνην (“one trusts so as to become
righteous”) in 10:10, which explains 10:9, refers to trust in God, as clarified
by the recitation of scripture in 10:11: λεγει γαρ η γραφη πας ο πιστευων επ’ αυτω (“for the Scripture
says, everyone who trusts in him [God]). Second, 10:9b resembles 4:24-25, as
evinced by the common vocabulary of πιστευειν (“to trust”), εγειρειν (“to raise”), and νεκρος (“dead”),
and the discussion of Christ’s resurrection. (Andrew Kimseng Tan, The
Rhetoric of Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 [Emory Studies in Early
Christianity 20; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018], 99-101)
