C O M I N G O F AGE AND P U T T I N G O N C H R I S T : T H E TOGA VIRIUS CEREMONY, ITS PARAENESIS, AND PAUL'S I N T E R P R E T A T I O N O F BAPTISM IN GALATIANS by J.

ALBERT HARRILL
Boston Abstract This essay examines the toga virlis coming-of-age ceremony in the Roman household and argues that the gentile rite of passage is an important social context in which to understand Paul's interpretation of baptism, particularly of the prePauline baptismal formula of "putting on Christ" (Gal. 3:27). The moral exhortation occasioned by the toga virilis warned the newly togaed youth against succumbing to the flesh, the same fear that Paul expresses concerning the baptized Galatians. This contextualization makes Paul's paraenesis on responsible use of freedom more intelligible than the standard history-of-religions reading. The goal is to move the scholarship on baptism in Pauline theology beyond the limited hermeneutical framework of the "origins" of ritual language.1

The statement in Gal. 3:27 that at baptism one "puts on" () Christ like a garment has long been a crux interpretum.2 Scholars have construed the early Christian dramatization of donning new clothes variously, depending on which origin they ascribe to the language: (1) certain aspects of the Adam legends that describe the first human clothed in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27) as a "garment of light";3

1 Previous versions of this essay were presented to the Pauline Epistles Section, Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, Nashville, Tennessee (November 2000), and to the Association of Chicago Theological Schools (ACTS) New Testament Discipline Group, Chicago, Illinois (December 2000), with Carolyn Osiek giving the formal response. Thanks go to her and the participants, as well as to Charles Bobertz, David Brakke, Fanny Dolansky, Margaret M. Mitchell, and Craig Williams for their generous advice, criticism, and suggestions on earlier drafts. They are, of course, in no way responsible for whatever errors and shortcomings may remain. Unless other wise noted, translations are from the LCL (altered when not sufficiently literal for my purposes). 2 For the pre-Pauline tradition, see D.R. MacDonald, There is Mo Male and Female: The Fate of a Dominical Saying in Paul and Gnosticism (HDR 20; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987) 5-16. 3 J. Jervell, Imago Dei: Gen. 1, 26 f. im Sptjudentum, in der Gnosis und in den paulinischen Bnefen (FRLANT 76; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960) 231-56; see W.A.

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(2) lustration rites in Hellenistic mysteries during which initiates "put on" a divine redeemer figure;4 (3) the removal of vice and the "putting on" of virtue in its place, familiar from the rhetoric of Greco-Roman moral philosophy.5 This exclusive focus on "origins" is understandable, given the pre-Pauline nature of the language and the influence of the history-of-religions approach on Pauline studies, but does not tell us why Paul finds the language rhetorically effective in his assault against opponents favoring circumcision. To answer this more meaningful exegetical question, the present investigation moves decidedly m the opposite interpretive direction. Rather than searching for origins, this essay examines Paul's interpretation of the prior baptismal formula that he received from oral tradition, independent of (and beyond) its possible causal antecedents. 6 I argue that Paul turns the ritual formula into paraenetic speech modeled after the paraenesis of the Roman toga vinlis ceremony that marks a boy's coming of age. This thesis makes intelligible both Paul's exhortation of responsible use of new, adult freedom and his theology that this freedom renders circumcision unnec essary for standing right before God. To focus on Paul's paraenetic interpretation of the baptismal for mula raises important exegetical questions. Why does Paul understand baptism to bring a new familial identity and greater moral responsi bilities? Why does he craft his language with Greco-Roman household imagery: being "no longer subject to a disciplinarian []" (Gal. 3:25); leaving the time "when we were minors []" (4:3);7

Meeks, "The Image of the Androgyne Some Uses of a Symbol in Earliest Christianity" HR 13 (1974) 185-9 4 R Reitzenstein, Du hellenistischen Mystenenreligionen nach ihren Grundgedanken und Wirkungen (3d e d , Leipzig Teubner, 1927) 42-46, 229-34, 350-1, H D Betz, Galatians A Commentary on Paul's ^ter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia, Philadelphia Fortress Press, 1979) 188 n 60, A J M Wedderburn, Baptism and Resurrection Studies in Pauline Theology against Its Graeco Roman Background (WUNT 44, Tubingen Mohr Siebeck, 1987) 332-42, S Agersnap, Baptism and the New Life A Study of Romans 61 14 (Aarhus University Press, 1999) 102-11, note also U Wilkens, Der Brief an die Romer (EKKNT 6 2, Zurich Benziger, Neukirchener, 1980) 53, 54-62 5 See Meeks, "Image of the Androgyne," 184 6 For a powerful cntique of the (mostly, Protestant) pursuit of origins, see J Smith, Drudgery Divine On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism, Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion 14, Chicago University Press, 1990) 7 The term refers to children under the age of puberty, defined either med ically (e g , Hippocrates, Epidemiae 6 1 4) or socially as a term connected to (e g , Polybius 4 20 8) The Latin equivalent is impubes Roman Law technically defined minor as a person under the age of twenty-five, Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law (3d e d , Oxford Clarendon Press, 1962) 93-95

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and becoming legally an "heir []" (4:7) who has come of age (4:1-2)? In this household context, what does "freedom" (Gal. 5:1) mean? How does Paul's theology of baptism relate to his overarching rhetorical purpose in the letter of dissuading the male Christian gen tiles from accepting circumcision (Gal. 5:2)? The possible allusion to the Roman coming-of-age rite of toga virlis deserves a detailed study. Other scholars, to be sure, have proposed the toga virilis before, but very few and only tentatively, and never in light of Greco-Roman moral philosophy and social history.8 Noted in some early philological commentaries,9 and abandoned all too quickly,10 the interpretation fell casualty to modern theological polemics, principally the Protestant-Catholic debate over the importance of ritual sacramentalism in Christian conversion and salvation.11 My aim here is to revive this hypothesis, and to move the scholarship on baptism in Paul beyond

Most recently, in a paragraph by D J . Williams, Paul's Metaphors: Their Context and Character (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1999) 94. 9 W.W.F. Blunt, The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians (The Clarendon Bible; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1925) 108; C F . Hogg and W.E. Vine, The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Galatians (London and Glasgow: Pickering & Inglis, 1923) 175; F. Rendali, The Expositor's Greek Testament, vol. 3, The Epistle to the Galatians (ed. W.R. Nicoli; New York and London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912) 174; R. Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and D. Brown, A Commentary, Critical and Explanatory, on the Whole Bible (1878; repr. Louisville, Ky.: Pentecostal Publishing Company, 1925) 332; J. A. Bengel, Gnomon of the New Testament (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1860) 4:30; P.-A. Sardinoux, Commentaire sur l'ptre de l'aptre Paul aux Galates (Valence: Marc Aurei Frres, 1837) 161; J.C. Wolf, Curae philologicae et criticae, vol. 2, Curae philologicae et criticae in IV. priores S. Pauli Epstolas (Hamburg: Christian Herold, 1737) 738-41. 10 T. George, Galatians (New American Commentary 30; Nashville, Tenn: Broadman & Holman, 1994) 280; J. Bligh, Galatians: A Discussion of St Paul's Epistle (Householder Commentaries 1; London: St Paul Publications, 1969) 325; H.A.W. Meyer, Kritisch exegetisches Handbuch ber den Brief an die Galater (MeyerK 7; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1870; trans. G.H. Venables as Critical and Exegetical Hand-Book to the Epistle to the Galatians [New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884] 156-7 n. 7); C.J. Ellicott, Commentary, Critical and Grammatical, on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (Andover, Mass.: Warren F. Draper, 1864) 89. 11 W.F. Flemington, The New Testament Doctrine of Baptism (London: SPCK, 1964) 79; see also F.J. Matera, Galatians (SacPag 9; Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1992) 145; W.A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982) 140-63. The TDNT entry for illustrates this Protestant apologetic denial of any ritual in Paul: "The usage of Paul has nothing whatever to do with the donning of the garment or mask of the god by the initiate. The figurative expressions in Dion[ysius] Halpcarnassensis] and Libfanius] are the near est to the imperative usage, though they hardly have the same content. There are no parallels for Paul's indicative usage. Behind this stands the eschatological conception of Christ as the second Adam, as anima generalis" (A. Oepke, " .," TDNT 2 [1964] 320).

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the limited hermeneutical framework of "origins." Recent findings by Catherine Bell and others in the emerging field of ritual studies problematize such search for singular meaning.12 Whatever its origin(s), the call to "put on Christ" in the baptismal ritual was open to a variety of interpretations by different early Christians, and I make no claim that the interpretation below is the only valid one. Reading Galatians in the context of the toga mnlis coming-of-age ceremony helps solve a number of exegetical issues that should be seen as complementing other interpretationsnot least those stressing the "putting on" of the clothes of a deityrather than as a substitute for them.
1. The T o g a Virilis: Rite of Passage, Household, and Spectacle

The toga virilis consisted of a series of progressive rituals marking a boy's coming of age (or "social puberty") in the Roman household and society, decided by the father but often celebrated between the ages of fifteen and sixteen.13 The rite had a familial dedication and a public procession to the Forum. In the familial dedication, the boy lay aside his apotropaic amulet {bulla) and his childhood toga praetexta prior to donning the "toga of manhood" [toga virilis), also called the "gown of freedom" (toga libera) or the "white dress" (toga pura).lA To do this,

12 C. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992) esp. p. 183: "most symbolic action, even the basic symbols of a community's ritual life, can be very unclear to participants or interpreted by them in very dissimilar ways." The importance not to harmonize into a single meaning the varieties of Paul's baptismal language is recognized by Betz, Galatians, 186-7. 13 The best study is F. Dolansky, "Coming of Age in Rome: The History and Social Significance of Assuming the Toga Virilis" (M.A. thesis, University of Victoria, Canada, 1999), who lists primary sources in an Appendix (pp. 187-91); see also J.-P. Neraudau, La jeunesse dans la littrature et les institutions de la Rome rpublicaine (Collection d'tudes anciennes; Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1979) 147-63; H. Blumner, Die romischen Prwataltertumer (3d ed.; Handbuch der klassischen Altertums-Wissenschaft 4.2.2; Mnchen: Beck, 1911) 335-9. My use of social puberty is pointed, for there is no evidence that the Romans understood the rite to celebrate the onset of physical puberty: the age at which boys donned the toga was variable and seems primarily dependent upon the father's whims or wishes and not inspection of sexual maturity; see Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 3334 {pace A. Rousselle, Porneia: De la matrise du corps la privation sensorielle, IIe-IVe sucks de l're chrtienne [Chemins de l'histoire; Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1983]; trans. F. Pheasant as Porneia: On Desire and the Body in Antiquity [Family, Sexuality and Social Relations in Past Times; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988] 59). 14 Roman private law restricted the toga virilis to Roman citizens, but this limitation does not mean that the ceremony was irrelevant or unknown as a conceptual category for non-Romans: Pliny remarks that two of his attendant slaves were teenagers who "would only have just assumed the toga [togas sumpsennt] if they were citizens" (Epistulae

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the boy stood with the family before the hearththe center of domes tic worshipwhere often "with trembling hands" he hung his bulla onto the lares. He had worn the necklace, made of gold (if families could afford it) or leather (Juvenal, Sottrae 5.165), since his dies lustricus (infant name-giving ceremony on the ninth day after birth). The bulla functioned to indicate freebirth status and to avert the Evil Eye, an apotropaic property that his toga praetexta's purple edging shared. 15 The familial, domestic context is important to stress. The ritual ded ication and exchange of togas took place in the home, convened and conducted by the father,16 with "rich pomp" before both the whole family and the paternal gods (Statius, Silvae 5.3.118-20).17 A procession to the Forum (deducere in forum) followed (Seneca, Epistulae morales 4.2). Although still technically under the potestas of the paterfamilias^ the togaed youth nonetheless now enjoyed new status as an adult, normally entered a period of military training (tirocinium), and had relative freedom away from the constraints of a pedagogue. 18 Often briefly or in passing, primary sources refer to the toga virilis without elaboration as one of the milestones of a man's life (Suetonius,

2.14.6); Greeks used a variety of terms for toga virilis, including (or sim ply ), , , and any combination of or or and or or . The ceremony was alternatively known in Latin as deducere in forum, which was translated into Greek as (or ) , or by Hellenization equated with the entry into the ephebate: or . 15 R.E.A. Palmer, "Bullae Insignia Ingenuitatis," American Journal of Ancient History 14 (1989) 1-69; H.R. Goethe, "Die Bulla," Bonner Jahrbcher des Rheinischen Landesmuseums in Bonn 186 (1986) 133-64. 16 E.g., Cicero to young Marcus (Epistulae ad Atticum 9.6.1); Brutus to his son (Plutarch, Brutus 14.4); Claudius to Britannicus (although (iimpubes tenerque"; Suetonius, Divus Claudius 43) and to Nero (as "maturata"; Tactius, Annales 12.41), both unusually early at age 13; and Phaedrus's fictional father to his son (Phaedrus 3.10.10). The death of a father before he could "take off the purple of boyhood" from "slender arms" and cover his son's shoulders "with the white robe" became a literary topos for the cruelty of fate (Statius, Silvae 5.2.64-67). 17 Propertius describes the rite taking place "before your mother's gods" (4.1.131), his emphasis on the maternal (and not paternal) gods being an exception. 18 S. Dixon, The Roman Family (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992) 101-2; J.A. Crook, Law and Life of Rome, 90 B.C.-A.D. 212 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967) 114. For pedagogue, see K.R. Bradley, Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991) 49-55; N.H. Young, "Paidagogos: The Social Setting of a Pauline Metaphor," NovT 29 (1987) 150-76. Emancipation (emancipatio) of an adult child constituted a separate event and legal institution, creating sui iuris status (e.g., Philostratus, Vita Apollonii 1.13); for Roman law, see Nicholas, Introduction, 90-96; cf. Th. Zahn, Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater (Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 9; Leipzig and Erlangen: Werner Scholl, 1922) 188-97.

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Tiberius 7.1; Tacitus, Annales 4.4), so obvious was the allusion to GrecoRoman audiences.19 Virtually every genre of Latin literature mentions the rite, from poetry and history to speeches and letters (along with many Greek sources). Seneca includes the ceremony among the most anticipated in the family life cycle. He laments that even the reality of misfortune does not dissuade the commonplace currency of the language: "So many funerals pass our doors, yet we never think of death! So many deaths are untimely, yet we make plans for our own infants how they will don the toga [nos togam nostrorum infantium], serve in the army, and succeed to their father's property" (Seneca, De consolatione ad Marciam 9.2). Cicero expressed excitement over coming home to Arpinum to celebrate the toga virilis of his son Marcus as a "delightful relief" from the disconcerting action of the civil wars (Epistulae ad Atticum 9.6.1; 9.17.1; 9.19.1). It was a source of pride for a parent to boast, "Four of our sons wear the toga of manhood [togas viriles habeni] " (Livy 42.34.4-5). The mere expression "toga" or "putting on the toga" marked the end of childhood and the beginning of public life for the subjects of biography and history.20 The specific forms of the ceremony appear fixed according to the literary sources but in actuality may have varied according to local

19 Some later, Latin Ghnstian fathers mention the toga virilis, but I have found no patnstic author connecting the nte to baptism or Gal 3 27 Tertullian states that "in our Christian community" boys may wear the toga praetexta "if it is necessary" because it is among the signs of descent (natwitatis insignia) and not of power (potestas), lineage, office, rank (ordo), or superstitio (De idololatna 18 3) Although his point is rhetoricalhe compares the purple robes of Joseph and Daniel with the Roman toga puenlis praetexta presumably those Chnstian boys in Tertulhan's North African community changed their togas when they came of age The reference, then, may suggest something beyond Chnstian familiarity with the toga virilis, perhaps even practice or some degree of emulation of the nte out of necessity Tertullian does allow Chnstians to attend sollemnitas togae purae and other pagan family celebrations (betrothals, weddings, infant name-givngs), though not their sacrifices (De idololatna 16 1-4), see J H Waszmk and J C M van Winden, Tertulhanus De Idolohtna Critical Text, Translation and Commentary (VC Sup 1, Leiden Brill, 1987) 54-57, 58-59, 248-52, 259-61, D P Harmon, "The Family Festivals of Rome," ANRW2 16 2 (1978) 1597-8 As late as the fifth century, Augustine makes reference to the nte (De cwitate Dei 4 11), though not Chnstians participating m it And the Chnstian poet Prudentius (ca 348-after 405) laments the sophistic rhetorical training and adolescent "wanton indulgence" that followed his own assumption of the toga (Cathemenna, praefatio 812) 20 Suetonius, Dwus Augustus 26 3, Tiberius 15 1, Gams Caligula 15 2, Livy 26 19 5, Tacitus, Annales 4 4 1, Germania 13 1, G Annotti, "Religione e politica nell'iniziazione romana L'assunzione della toga virile," in Religione e politica nel mondo antica (ed M Sordi, Contributi dell'Istituto di stona antica 7, Milano Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 1981) 131-40, Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 22-29

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and family means. 21 The three distinct stages of rites de passage that Arnold van Gennep discovered cross-culturally are evident in the rite.22 First was separation from childhood, marked by a private dedication of the bulla to the familial gods (lares) and a daybreak procession to the Forum. The procession, ultimately to the Capitol (ad Capitolium ire) and sometimes with other initiates, was a regular part of the pageantry. Appian writes, for example, that "Atilius, who was just assuming the man's toga [ ], went, as was customary, with a procession of friends to sacrifice in the temples" (Bella civilia 4.5.30). The procession sometimes occurred in conjunction with the feast of Liberalia, on 17 March in honor of the fertility god Liber Pater (commonly identified with Dionysus), during which a phallus was paraded through field and town in a carnival of crude, rustic songs.23 The second stage was liminality. On the threshold of manhood, the candidates stood within the sacred precinct offering sacrifice (normally, honey cakes) at the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus that also housed the small shrine to Juventas, goddess of youth. In the temple, the youths with the toga of manhood were introduced publicly as cit izens (cives), and had their full names (tria nomina) entered into the reg istry of gentile family groups (gentes). (The rite itself did not confer Roman citizenship but only proclaimed and registered the Roman cit izenship into which the boy had already been born.) The final stage involved reaggregation. The father-and-son pair returned to the house hold to join the rest of the family for additional sacrifices and the

21 For example, in the distribution of the sportula (food or money for the mass of clients and other attendees), few parents could have afforded to dole out the fifty thou sand sesterces that Pudentilla did for the toga virilis of her son Pudens (Apuleius, Apolo gia 88). 22 A. van Gennep, Ls rites de passage (Paris: E. Nourry, 1909; trans. M.B. Vizedom and G.L. Gaffe as The Rites of Passage [Chicago: University Press, I960]), although not mentioning the toga virilis', V.W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures; Chicago: Aldine, 1969) 94-130; B.G. Myerhoff, L.A. Cambio, and E. Turner, "Rites of Passage," Encyclopedia of Religion (ed. M. Eliade; New York: Macmillan, 1987) 12:380-7; Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 133-4. 23 Ovid, Fasti 3.771-790; Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum 6.1.12 (cf. Varr, De lingua Latina 6.14); H.H. Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981) 92. Pliny suggests, as does Plutarch above, that the ceremony could occur on any given day (Pliny, Epistulae 1.9.2); A.N. Sherwin-White, The ^ters of Pliny: A Historical and Social Commentary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966) 106. The Romans customarily held birthday parties on public festival days, such as the Kalends of the month, rather than on the individual's actual birthday, which explains how a group of boys could celebrate the toga virilis on the same day; cf. H. Lucas, "Martial's Kalendae Nataliciae," Classical Quarterly 32 (1938) 5-6.

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usual family party. The ceremonial passage functioned in antiquity's system for constructing gender by configuring its participants as having achieved not merely adulthood, but manhood. Although evident, Van Gennep's fixed ritual stages prove in the end too static a model to capture the dynamics of the Roman experience. "Liminality," for example, needs nuance. Although there were spatial aspects to the new togatus's liminality, the focus was more on the fact that he had assumed the outward appearance of an adult male but had yet to assume the character and qualities of one. Liminality thus could have continued for some time (even many years) until the youth was no longer thought of as a novus togatus and was just viewed as a togatus, a Roman man like any other.24 The outward appearance of Roman manhood was dramatized by the toga donning itself. The toga (by the late Republic) had become a complicated woolen garment, so large and unwieldy that it was mostly ceremonial. Putting it on properly required assistance and led to household theater. First, the mantel was folded nearly in half, and the double cloth then rolled onto the body with loose folds around the chest, to form the overfold (sinus). Next, from the folds that ran up the left side of toga, a decorative drapery knot (umbo) was pulled up, to hold the ensemble together.25 The folding, rolling, and draping had to conform to exacting specificationsdown to the positioning of the edgesto make the body of its wearer "distinguished and manly" and to give "the impressive effect of breadth at the chest" (Quintilian 11.3.137-142). "Putting on" the toga virilis was a spectacle of Roman manhood exhibiting dignitas and personal power.26 While forum spectacle, the toga virilis was also a deeply familial eventmoving, life-changing, and full of joy. Paying homage to his Stoic tutor L. Annaeus Cornutus, Persius recalls:

On the reconstruction of the toga virilis as a rite of passage, see Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 40-47. For the Roman gender construction of manhood as an achieved state, see C.A. Williams, Roman Homosexuality: Ideologies of Masculinity in Classical Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) 141-2; J.F. Gardner, "Sexing a Roman: Imperfect Men in Roman Law," in When Men were Men: Masculinity, Power and Identity in Classical Antiquity (ed. L. Foxhall and J. Salmon; Leicester-Nottingham Studies in Ancient Society 8; London: Routledge, 1998) 142; M.W. Gleason, Making Men: Sophists and Self-Presentation in Ancient Rome (Princeton: University Press, 1995) 59-60, 70-73. 25 S. Stone, "The Toga: From National to Ceremonial Costume," in The World of Roman Costume (ed. J.L. Sebesta and L. Bonfante; Wisconsin Studies in Classics; Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994) 17. 26 A.T. Christ, "The Masculine Ideal of the 'The Race that Wears the Toga,'" Art Journal 56.2 (1997) 29-30; F. Dupont, La vie quotidienne du citoyen romain sous la Rpublique

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When first the guardianship of the purple [custos purpura, sc. the childhood "toga praetexta" with apotropaic purple edging] was removed from me, trembling [pavido], and the bulla was hung up as a gift to the girted Lares, when my com panions were coaxing, my toga, now white, allowed me to cast my glances over the whole Subura with impunity; at a time when the path is uncertain, waver ing and ignorant of life, and leads tremulous minds down the branching cross roadsI placed myself in your care. And you, Cornutus, took up my tender years in your Socratic bosom. (Satirae 5.30-37)27

Similarly, Statius in his lament for his father mentions the "rich reli gious ceremony" (divesritus)that accompanied the removal of "the pur ple garb given in honor of your birth and the proud gold from off your breast" (Silvae 5.3.119). And the verb auspicor (lit. "to take the auspices") best captured the religious awe for Apuleius (Apologia 73.9). The new freedom that the toga virilis bestowed brought much youth ful joy (Catullus 68.15); while a shared, joint ceremony of the assump tion of the toga virilis bonded some males as friends into later adulthood (Horace, Carmina 1.36.9). "You remember what joy you felt," Seneca writes Lucilius, "when you laid aside the garment of boyhood and donned the man's toga [sumpsisti virilem togam], and were escorted to the Forum" (Epistulae morales 4.2). Parents took the responsibility seriously. Brutus even had the mur der of Caesar wait until after the performance of this fatherly duty:
When the day came, Brutus girt on a dagger, to the knowledge of his wife alone, and went forth, while the rest assembled at the house of Cassius and conducted his son, who was about to assume the so-called toga virilis [ ] down to the Forum. Thence they all hastened to the portico of Pompey and waited there, expecting that Caesar would straightway come to the meeting of the senate. (Plutarch, Brutus 14.4-5)

Although reserved for citizens, there is evidence that the rite was not exclusive to the aristocratic elite but went far down the economic scale. Cicero reports it "quite usual" for him and fellow senators to be asked to escort to the Forum at first light the sons of the humblest citizensand often from the remotes parts of the city (Pro Murena 69). And Phaedrus tells a fable concerning the toga virilis in a nonaristocratic family (3.10.10). Interestingly, a Greek writer from the East (with close ties to Judaism) provides the most detailed extant description of the actual rite.28 Tutor

(Paris: Hachette, 1989); trans. C. Woodall as Daily Life in Ancient Rome (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) 229-32. 27 Trans. Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 101-2. 28 Nicolaus's description of the rite may be so detailed "possibly because the intended

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to the children of Marcus Antonius ("Mark Antony") and Cleopatra and advisor of Herod the Great (who employed him on diplomatic missions), Nicolaus of Damascus includes the toga virilis in his biogra phy of Augustus.
[The young Octavian] came down into the Forum, when he was about fourteen years old, so that he might lay aside at that time the purple-edged toga and assume the pure white toga [], which is the symbol of enrollment in manhood. He was gazed upon by all the people because of his fine appearance and the brilliance of his high birth, and his name was enlisted in the priesthood in the place of Lucius Domitius who had died. The people applauded him very enthusiastically, and at the same time as he changed his toga, this honour was bestowed upon the young man; and he sacrificed to the gods. (Vita Caesaris 4.8-10)29

Nicolaus omits any domestic elements of the rite (this is the only extant source in which a boy actually exchanged togas in the Forum). The author's highlight of both the public celebration and its political implication is due to his genre (ancient biography), subject matter (the life of a future emperor), and overarching goal (to promote Augustan propaganda and imperial cult). The narrative also shares the problem of literary sources generally in that it represents the behavior of the aristocratic elite. Nonetheless, many features of the spectacle are imme diately apparent: (1) public procession; (2) gaze of an audience; (3) dra matic gesture of election to the office of pontifex; (4) verbal conveyance of high priestly honors inherited from the deceased (L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, killed at Pharsalus); (5) sacrificial offering; and (6) cere monial costume exchange, "taking off" the childhood toga praetexta and "putting on" the toga virilis. The toga virilis of Octavian broadcasts pietas and communitas through spectacle and public exhibition. The ritual story legitimates Augustan rule, connecting the Republican past to the impe rial present and future, and forges the necessary dynastic links under the auspices of the Roman gods.30 By its spectacle, the scene becomes

audience was Greek-speaking and less well-acquainted with certain features of Roman life" (Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 23-24). But Dolansky herself admits that other Greek authors such as Appian, Plutarch, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Cassius Dio are allusive and brief, like the Latin writers who mention toga vinlis. 29 Trans. J . Bellemore, Nicolaus of Damascus: Life of Augustus (Bristol: Bristol Classical Press, 1984) 4; cf. Suetonius, Divus Augustus 94.10; Cassius Dio 45.2.5, who both report an omen of tunic-rending during the donning ceremony. 30 Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 158-62; see also E.S. Evans, "Ritual," Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology (ed. D. Levinson and M. Ember; New York: Henry Holt, 1996) 3:1122. The new family ties were, of course, to Julius Caesar, who requested Octavian's election to the office of pontifex.

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a literary monument of Imperium, a visual display of the "realities" of power.31 While a Roman rite, the toga virilis custom was practiced in the Greek East. Cicero, for example, was asked to celebrate the toga assump tion of Atticus's nephew in Laodicea (Epistulae ad Atticum 5.20.9). Pliny expressed concern to Trajan that festivals in Bithynia, such as the toga virilis and others, have gotten out of hand and too political, particu larly in their distribution of sportulae (gifts) by overzealous parents:
It is general practice for boys at their coming-of-age [virilem togam sumunt\ or mar riage, and on entering upon office or dedicating a public building, to issue invi tations to all the local senators and even to quite a number of the common townsfolk [plebs] in order to distribute presents of one or two denarii. Please let me know whether you think this practice should be allowed, if at all. My own thinking is that invitations of this kinds may sometimes be permissible, especially on ceremonial occasions, but the practice of issuing a thousand or even more seems to go beyond all reasonable limits, and could be regarded as a form of corrupt practice. (Pliny, Epistulae 10.116)32

The problem is not sportula per se, but the excesses and political overtones of the invitations. Trajan replies, "You have every reason to fear that the issuing of invitations might lead to corrupt practices, if the numbers are excessive and people are invited in groups to a sort of official present-giving rather than individuals as personal friends," and shows impatience at Pliny asking the emperor rather than rely ing on common sense "in exercising a moderating influence on the behavior of the people in your province" (Pliny, Epistulae 10.117). Plutarch reports a toga virilis ceremony in Alexandria. After the defeat at Actium, to rally fading popular support, Mark Antony decided to grant the toga to his son, Antyllus.
[Antony] turned the city to the enjoyment of suppers and drinking-bouts and dis tributions of gifts, inscribing in the list of ephebi the son of Cleopatra and Caesar, and bestowing upon the son of Fulvia the manly toga [ ] without purple hem, in celebration of which, for many days, banquets and revels and feasting occupied Alexandria. (Plutarch, Antonius 71.3)

The former triumvir and Cleopatra celebrated the Roman toga virilis rite in conjunction with enrollment among the , making the

31 Important in my analysis is the examination of literary "spectacle" in Roman writing, see A. Feldherr, Spectacle and Society in Livy's History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998) 12-14 and passim (although with a different topic under study). 32 For other examples sportulae at toga virilis ceremonies, see Tacitus, Annales 3.29.3; Apuleius, Apologia 87.10; Suetonius, Nero 7.2; Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 159.

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occasion a city-wide holiday. Strikingly, Plutarch, like Pliny above, makes specific reference to the toga virilis and does not conflate it with Hellenistic custom, such as donning the ephebic cloak.33 The specificity of reference demonstrates that this Roman cultural practice retained its distinctiveness when practiced in eastern provinces.34 An important question for our study of Paul is whether the toga vir ilis would have been known in Galatia. The urban populations of the annexed territories collectively called "Galatia" experienced a high degree of Romanization. Augustus established in Galatia an impres sively large number of Roman cities for a province of the second rank, including nine full Roman colonies in the south, which must have accommodated a substantial settlement of Roman veterans. The coastal coloniae were linked to one another and to the Pamphylian plain in the Anatolian interior by the via Sebaste. In north Galatia, three new Augustan city foundations arosePessinus, Tavium, and Ancyrawith constitutions laid down by Roman laws, the terms of the lex Pompeia (for Bithynia and Pontus) serving as a model. In these Roman cities of north Galatia and at Pisidian Antioch, monumental public archi tecture, the imperial cult, development of a monetarized economy, imposition of Equestrian procurators for taxation collection, and local army recruitment all promulgated the fundamental institutions of Roman imperial society and culture. Indeed, regarding the imperial cult, Galatia provides the most detailed evidence for the spread of emperor wor ship in the central Anatolian provinces, including the fullest surviving copy of the Res Gestae (affixed to the temple of Rome and Augustus at Ancyra, with small fragments of other copies found at Apollonia and Pisidian Antioch, also in the province of Galatia).35 Along with the imperial cult, the toga virilis was introduced. The Res Gestae itself provides the evidence. Among the achievements listed on the inscription are the extraordinary honors bestowed on
The ephebic cloak (, ) was a small, broach-fastened garment worn by soldiers; see Plutarch, Alexander 26.5; Cato Minor 13.1; Heliodorus, Aethiopica 1.10; Apuleius, Metamorphoses 10.30 ("ephebica chkmida")', F.B. Tarbell, "The Form of the Chlamys," CP 1 (1906) 283-9; Ph. Gauthier, "Les chlamydes et l'entretien des phbes athniens: Remarques sur le dcret de 204/3," Chiron 15 (1985) 156-8; with idem, "A propos des chlamydes des phbes: Note rectificative," Chiron 16 (1986) 15-16. 34 Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 115 n. 58. 35 S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. 1, The Celts in Anatolia and the Impact of Roman Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) 70-117; idem, "Galatia under Tiberius," Chiron 16 (1986) 17-33; idem, "Population and Land in Roman Galatia," ANRW 2.7.2 (1980) 1053-79; idem, "Legio VII and the Garrison of Augustan Galatia," Classical Quarterly 70 (1976) 298-308. I leave aside the thorny question whether
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Augustus's late grandsons and adoptive heirs, Gaius and Lucius Caesar. Each youth, the document reads, was hailed as princeps iuventutis and "took part in the councils of state" immediately "from the day when they were led into the Forum" (deducti sunt in forum)a technical phrase for the toga virilis.36 It is likely that copies of this document were erected widely in all the provinces, thus announcing the toga virilis as an essen tial part of the Augustan and imperial cult. Additional evidence for the toga virilis custom in Roman imperial cult propaganda comes from neighboring Asia, in Sardis. An inscrip tion found there, dating from 5 BGE decrees that the toga virilis (at age fifteen) of Augustus's grandson and adoptive heir, Gaius, was to be a sacred day celebrated annually, on which the people are to wear wreaths and festal clothing, perform sacrifices to the gods, and make supplications for Gaius's health at his image consecrated in his father's temple. The inscription reads:
Since Gaius Julius Caesar, the oldest of the sons of Augustus, has taken off the purple-bordered toga and assumed the most prayed for brilliant white toga [ () ] in all its splendour and all mankind is rejoicing at the sight of their prayers on behalf of his children coming to fruition for Augustus; and since our city, at a time of such great good fortune, has adjudged the day sacred when he came to man hood from childhood [ ], a day on which, every year, all should wear white and crowns on their heads and the annual strategi should sacrifice to the gods and should pray through the sacred heralds for his safety and should dedicate a statue of him, placing it in the temple of his father; and as for the day on which the city received the glad tidings [] and on which the decree was made, crowns should be worn on this day too and the most outstanding sacrifices made to the gods; and since our city has decided to send an embassy to Rome on these matters to congratulate both him and Augustus, the council and the people have decided to send envoys chosen from the best men to give him the city's greetings and to deliver to him a copy of this decree, sealed with the public seal, and to discuss with Augustus the state of Asia and the city both. 37

"the churches of Galatia" (Gal. 1:2; 1 Cor. 16:1) can be identified with congregations in the Roman colonies mentioned in Acts; see Meeks, First Urban Christians 42-43; S. Mitchell, Anatolia: Land, Men, and Gods in Asia Minor, vol. 2, The Rise of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993) 3-10. 36 Res Gestae 14.1-2; P.A. Brunt andJ.M. Moore, Res Gestae Divi Augusti: The Achievements of the Divine Augustus (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978) 24 (text), 25 (transla tion), 55-56 (commentary). 37 V. Ehrenberg and A.H.M. Jones, Documents Illustrating the Reigns of Augustus and Tiberius (2d ed.; Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1955) 84-85 (text); D.C. Braund, Augustus to Nero: A Sourcebook on Roman History, 31 BC-AD 68 (Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble Books, 1985) 59-60 (translation); R.K. Sherk, Roman Documents from the Greek East: Senatus Consulta and Epistulae to the Age of Augustus (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969) 346-7 (commentary).

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Under this document lies a copy of the letter that Augustus sent to Sardis in reply. In it, Augustus thanks the envoys for the decree "in which you display your measures for your city and rejoice that my elder son has come to manhood [ ]," and congratulates the city's zeal and gratitude to the imperial family.38 The annual sacrifice commemorating Gaius's coming of age and the dedication of the statue would have served as public reminders of the importance of the ceremony in Greco-Roman cul ture. Even if one presumes that Christians would have not been enter ing the temple of Augustus where the statue was placed, it would have been difficult not to notice the annual celebrations of everyone wear ing white and making elaborate sacrifices and thus not to know of the toga virilis rite. The stele erected with the decree would have served a similar communicative purpose. The Sardian decree and embassy were not isolated but part of a world-wide expression of loyalty to the emperor and his public introduction of Gaius as his future successor princeps by the toga virilis. Importantly, the special day to honor the toga virilis of the emperor's adoptive heir realigns not only civic festi vals in the city of Sardis but also the religious calendar of the entire koinon of Asia.39 This evidence, along with that of Nicolaus's above on Octavian's own assumption of the toga, shows the important role that toga virilis proclamations played in the establishment and diffusion of emperor worship in the eastern provinces. Combined with the attes tation of toga virilis in other parts of the Greek East (the Younger Pliny regarding Bithynia, Cicero concerning Cilicia, Plutarch regarding Alexandria), and in light of the archaeological evidence for consider able Romanization in urban areas of central Anatolia, this inscription from the neighboring province of Asia and the Res Gestae itself make awareness of toga virilis highly likely for Paul and his first-century Galatian audience. The toga virilis, then, was a proclaimed, celebrated, and recogniz able Roman institution in the Greek East. Household-based, the rit ual constructed manhood within individual families (including the imperial family), with an important public stage of spectacle in the Forum. The public procession with the donned white toga displayed familial piety and the Roman image of manhood. That manhood also

Ehrenberg and Jones, Documents, 85; Braund, Augustus to Nero, 60. Sherk, Roman Documents, 347; see also P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus (Jerome Lectures 16; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988) 215-23.
39

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meant freedom from the relative constraints of a pedagogue. The free dom, however, posed a dangerthe temptation toward disobedience and licentiousnesswhich could in behavior undo a manhood only recently achieved in ritual. Inseparable from the toga virilis discourse was paraenesis exhorting errant youths to remember the day they "put on" the toga and to behave accordingly. The toga virilis directed vulnerable and morally ambiguous youth toward responsible use of freedom.

2. Freedom from Pedagogue and Succession to Heir: Vulnerability and Moral Ambiguity Although donning the toga virilis turned the "boy" (puer) into a "man" (vir), the new stage of life into which he entered was a precarious one, called adulescentia (adulescentes, adulescentuli, or iuventus).* T h e "toga of a freer life" (Ovid, Tristia 4.10.28)its hereditary succession and release from a pedagoguebrought ambiguity and moral vulnerability. The new togatus required moral exhortation not to abuse this new freedom for foolish allure, receiving, then, the togas virilis for nothing. Such is the concern of Plutarch's " O n Listening to Lectures." Plutarch delivered and later wrote out this lecture for his pupil at Chaeronea (in Boeotia) upon young Meander's recent assumption of the toga vir ilis. (The location of Boeotia provides further evidence of the ritual's practice and recognition in the Greek East.) Appealing to the youth's sense of reason, Plutarch exhorts: The discourse which I gave on the subject of listening to lectures I have written out and sent to you, my dear Nicander, so that you may know how rightly to listen to the voice of persuasion, now that you are no longer subject to author ity, having assumed the garb of a man [ ]. Now the absence of control, which some of the young men, for want of an education, think to be freedom, establishes the sway of a set of masters, harsher than the teachers and attendants [] of childhood, in the form of desires [], which are now, as it were, unchained. And just as Herodotus says that women put off their modesty along with their undergarments, so some of our young men, as soon as they lay aside the garb of childhood [ ],
0

. Fraschetti, "Roman Youth," in Storia dei giovani, vol. 1, Dall'antichit all'et moderna (ed. G. Levi and J.-G. Schmitt; Roma: Laterza, 1994; trans. C. Naish as A History of Young People in the West, vol. 1, Ancient and Medieval Rites of Passage [Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1997] 51-82); E. Eyben, De jonge Roman (Brussels: Paleis der Academien, 1977; trans. P. Daly as Restless Youth in Ancient Rome [London: Routledge, 1993] 5-41); pace M. Kleijwegt, Ancient Youth: The Ambiguity of Youth and the Absence of Adolescence in Greco-Roman Society (Dutch Monographs on Ancient History and Archaeology 8; Amsterdam: J.C. Gieben, 1991) 51-73.

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lay aside also their sense of modesty and fear, and, undoing the habit that invests them, straightway become full of unruliness. But you have often heard that to follow God and to obey reason are the same thing, and so I ask you to believe that in persons of good sense the passing from childhood to manhood is not a casting off of control, but a recasting of the controlling agent, since instead of some hired person or slave purchased with money they now take reason as the divine guide of their life, whose followers alone may deservedly be considered free []. For they alone, having learned to wish for what they ought, live as they wish; but in untrained and irrational impulses and action there is some thing ignoble, and changing one's mind many times involves but little freedom
of will. (Moralia 37G-E, De recta ratione audiendi 1)

Plutarch urges his young pupil Nicander toward the higher study of philosophy and away from the low juvenile interests of horses and hunting, prostitutes and taverns, and other temptations of the flesh.41 He continues with an analogy from Roman citizenship and the identification of the real toga virilis:
We may find a comparison in the case of newly naturalized citizens; those among them who were alien born and perfect strangers find fault with many of the things that are done, and are discontented; whereas those who come from the class of resident aliens, having been brought up under our laws and grown to be well acquainted with them, have no difficulty in accepting what devolves upon them and are content. And so you, who have been brought up for a long time in contact with philosophy, and have from the beginning been accustomed to philosophic reasoning as an ingredient in every portion of early instruction and information, ought to feel like an old friend and familiar when you come to phi losophy [ ], which alone can array young men in the manly and truly perfect adornment that comes from reason [ ]. (Moralia
3 7 F, De recta ratione audiendi 2)

According to Plutarch, real toga virilis was not the actual but the abstract ("the manly and truly perfect adornment") that philosophy was wrapping around the youth through many years of study. In the ideal, the study of philosophy went hand in hand with the toga virilis. Precocious youths like Nicander were held up as role mod els for lesser youths to emulate. The orator Fronto praises Marcus Aurelius, "For before you were old enough to be trained, you were already perfect and complete in all noble accomplishments, before ado lescence a good man, before the toga of manhood [toga virilis] a. prac ticed speaker. But of all your virtues this even more than the others is worthy of admiration, that you unite all your friends in harmony" (Epistulae ad M. Aurelium 4.1.2). Fronto and Plutarch urge new togati toward the self-control needed for further training, and away from

41

Cf. Terence, Andria 50-60.

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licentious desires that bring a slavery worse than the constraints of a pedagogue.42 The prodigal togatus was a rhetorical topos about moral corruption, especially sexual vice that unmade masculinity. Because the toga virilis entitled a youth to the right to recline at conviva, the abuse of this freedomfalling into sexually scandalous behavior at banquetsbecame proverbial.43 Statius asks, "Who has not been corrupted by unrestrained youth and the too hasty freedom of the toga?" (Silvae 5.2.68-69; see also Juvenal, Satirae 14.4-10). In the language of vituperation, reference to toga virilis was a piece of invective to accuse young togati of sexual immorality and, by implication, loss of manhood. Cicero, for example, condemns Mark Antony for his youthful association with Curio:
You assumed the man's toga [sumpsisti virilem] and then immediately turned it into a loose woman's toga [muliebrem togam]. First you were a common whore, the price for your shame being fixed and not small. But Curio soon intervened, rescuing you from your profession as prostitute and, as if he had given you a matron's robe [stolam dedisset], settling you down in a lasting and stable marriage. No boy purchased for sex was ever under his master's control as much as you were under Curio's. (Orationes philippicae 2.18.44-45)44

Cicero claims that in his youth Antony served as Curio's receptive sexual partner, thus acting like a female prostitute, the reference to the muliebris toga being the specific charge of gender ruin. Cicero suggests, even worse, that Antony lived like Curio's slave boy, both a gender and a social order (ordo) violation. By reference to the stola,45 Cicero decries the relationship between Curio and Antony as wedlock in draga kind of domination no slave boy bought for sexual purposes ever had to undergo, yet Antony gave himself freely and nightly.46 The

Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 105-7. A. Booth, "The Age for Reclining and its Attendant Perils," in Dining in a Classical Context (ed. W J . Slater; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991) 105-20. 44 Trans. Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 42. 45 Stola in Latin referred to the long robe that the Roman matron wore in public; Varr, De lingua Latina 9.48; E. Fanthan et al., Women in the Classical World: Image and Text (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) 232-3. 46 Williams, Roman Homosexuality, 42. Note a double standard in Cicero's oratory, when he pleads the innocence, of his client Caelius, of association with the conspirator Catiline. In Pro Caelio 4.9-10, an effort to defend young Caelius's pudicitia after assuming to the toga virilis, Cicero exploits the themes of lubrica adulescentia and sexual vulnerability to the "selfish passions of others," an allowance not granted Antony; C. Gill, "The Question of Character-Development: Plutarch and Tacitus," Classical Quarterly 77 (1983) 476.
43

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connection between toga donning and prostitution appears also in Apuleius's Apologia. Apuleius rebukes his wayward novus togatus stepson, Sicinius Pudens, and berates the relative, Rufinus, who emasculated the boy by giving the toga virilis too soon. Lacking the direction of proper paraenesis, young Pudens fell to sexual and other immorality:
You took him from us a mere boy and straightway gave him the garb of manhood [toga virilis]. While he was under our guardianship, he used to go to school: now he has bidden a long farewell to study and betaken himself to the delights of the tavern. He despises serious friends, and, boy as he is, spends his tender years in reveling with the most abandoned youths among harlots and wine-cups. He rules your house, orders your slaves, directs your banquets. He is a frequent visitor to the gladiatorial school and thereas a boy of position should!he learns from the keeper of the school the names of the gladiators, the fights they have fought, the wounds they have received. He never speaks any language save Punic, and though he may occasionally use a Greek word picked up from his mother, he neither will nor can speak Latin.47

Apuleius condemns Aemilianus for kidnapping young Pudens and conferring the toga virilis prematurely, at a time not set by the stepfather (Apuleius himself). Illegitimate, the ceremony has dangerous consequence: Pudens remains a mere boy who abuses his household and togatus freedom, having abandoned proper study and the Latin language itself for stupid teenage carousal with harlots and gladiators. Another piece of invective, attacking a youth for abusing his freedom and ruining his masculinity, comes from the words of a character in Petronius's Satyrica. Encolpius condemns the "boy who put on women's clothes the day he assumed the toga virilis [qui tanquam die togae virilis stolam sumpsit]," a bitter reflection on his young boyfriend Giton, who has abandoned him (Satyrica 81.5). Similar to Cicero's condemnation of Antony, the point of Encolpius's invective is to make a specific accusation against a young man, namely that when young he played "the woman's role" in sexual relations with older men. Sexual immorality unmade that very manhood which the toga virilis had only recently achieved. The invective reveals Roman ideologies of manhood: while still considered normative and "natural," masculinity had to be achieved and maintained. Manhood was understood to be fragile, fluid, and incomplete until anchored by firm discipline and constant moral behavior.48 And, according to Cicero, new manhood was so fragile that it had to be physically constrainedhence the practice

47 Apuleius, Apologia 98; trans. H.E. Butler, The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madama (1909; repr. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970) 151. 48 Gleason, Making Men, 80-81.

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of wearing the toga "ad cohibendum brachium" by new togati (discussed below)in addition to requiring discipline and moral behavior.49 Proverbial was youthful squander not only of sexuality but also of newly acquired inheritance. Gambling and the games made new togati easy targets for predators and loan sharks. Horace satirizes one notorious shark in particular: "he aims to get notes-of-hand from youths who have just donned the toga of manhood, and have stern fathers" (Satirae 1.2.16).50 And some parents were stern, especially after the toga virilis ceremony. Atia, the mother of Augustus, was one such parent. Nicolaus of Damascus writes:
However, although in the eyes of the law he had been enrolled in the citizenlists, his mother prevented him from putting foot outside the door, except to go where he had previously gone when still a boy, and she compelled him to maintain the same way of life and to go to bed in the same room, in which he had before. In legal terms alone he was a man, but in other respects he was treated as a boy. He changed no aspect of his toga, but always wore the style of his ancestors. He went out also on the prescribed days to the temples, but by night, because of the attention drawn to his person, since he inflamed many women with his handsome appearance and the brilliance of his lineage. Although he was the object of their conniving, it is clear that he was never compromised. In some respects, his mother kept women at bay, protecting him and taking no chances, while, on the other hand, he already had common-sense because he was advanced for his age. (Vita Caesaris 4.10-5.12)51

Likewise, Cicero assures Atticus that when he gives "your nephew Quintus his white toga [toga pura] . . . I shall keep him on a tighter rein" (Epistulae ad Atticum 5.20.9). Unusual was the case of the future emperor Claudius. His inconsequential toga virilis festival revealed his lack of Roman manhood, a major theme of his biography. Claudius took the toga probably at the age of 14, in 5-6 CE, but was not allowed to wear it publicly. He still remained under the care of a slave pedagogue whose previous position was overseeing the mule stables. Suetonius describes the peculiarity of the situation:
Even after he reached the age of independence he was for a long time in a state of pupillage and under a guardian [post tutelam receptam alieni arbitrii et sub paedagogo fuit], of whom he himself makes complaint in a book of his, saying that the pedagogue was a barbarian and a former chief of muleteers, put in charge of him for the express purpose of punishing him with all possible severity for any

49 See L. Richardson Jr. and E.H. Richardson, (Ad Cohibendum Brachium Toga: An Archaeological Examination of Cicero, Pro Caelio 5.11," YCS 19 (1966) 151-68. 50 Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 107-19; Eyben, Restless Youth, 19-21. 51 Bellemore, Nicolaus, 6-8.

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cause whatever. It was also because of his weak health that contrary to all precedent he wore a cloak [palliolatus] when he presided at the gladiatorial games which he and his brother gave in honor of their father. On the day when he assumed the toga of manhood he was taken in a litter to the Capitol about midnight without the usual escort. (Suetonius, Divus Claudius 2.2)

The passage shows Claudius to be an exception that confirms the rule that in Roman society "putting on the toga" meant "release from one's pedagogue." In the first lines above, Suetonius uses a variation of the technical clause in suam tutelam venire, "to come into his own tutelage"that is, to come of age by the toga virilis (the formula appears in Cicero, De inventione rhetorica 2.62; Brutus 194-98; and De oratore 1.180, the causa Curiana discussed below).52 Old enough to come "into his own tutelage" (for he had assumed the toga virilis), the novus togatus Claudius was instead held back under a pedagogue. Because of its Roman custom and particular importance within the imperial family (for obvious political reasons, such as dynastic concerns), the toga ceremony for Claudius had to be completed but was discharged at nighttime without public spectacle to avoid embarrassment. Although Claudius had assumed the toga virilis, he nonetheless appeared publicly swathed in a pallium, the concealing dress of an invalid, and accompanied by a tutor cum attendant when he "presided" at the gladiatorial games in honor of his dead father (in 6 CE). The surprising garb of Claudius at these games was the first public acknowledgment that he was different from normal boys.53 Normal novi togati were released from a pedagogue and underwent a period of military training (tirocinium militiae), paralleled by preparation for the lawcourts (tirocinium fori). In this task, Aulus Gellius boasts of his own initiative: "I was already a young man at Rome, having laid aside the purple-bordered toga of boyhood, and was on my account seeking masters of deeper knowledge" (Nodes atticae 18.4.1). Likewise, Cicero recalls of his apprenticeship: "Now, I, upon assuming the toga virilis, had been introduced by my father to Scaevola with the understanding that, so far as I could and he would permit, I should never leave the old man's side" (De amicitia 1). He was serious about the need for training:

52 J.C. Rolfe, Suetonius: Volume II (LCL; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997) 6 (translator's note); W. Kierdorf, Sueton: ^en des Claudius und Nero (UTB fr Wissenschaft, Uni-Taschenbcher 1715; Paderborn: F. Schningh, 1992) 78-79. 53 B. Levick, Claudius (London: Batsford, 1990) 13, 15.

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J. ALBERT HARRILL When I was young, we usually spent a year "keeping our arms confined in our toga" [ad cohibendum brachium toga] and, in tunics, undergoing our physical training on the Campus, and, if we began our military service at once, the same practice was followed for our training in camp and in operations. At that age, unless anyone could defend himself by his own strength of character and clean living, by good home training [disciplina domestica] and also by some inborn virtue, however carefully he might be guarded by his own friends, he could not escape a scandal backed by truth. {Pro Caelio 5.11-12)

This military training was of particular importance among the upper aristocratic orders (Velleius Paterculus 2.29.5; Suetonius, Divus Augustus 38.2). The toga virilis brought entry into public life and responsibility to act Roman. 54 It also brought new domestic responsibilities. The toga virilis was the time when a son became an heir, a potential paterfamilias himself. The famous causa Curiana (ca. 92 BGE) provides the best example of the important implications in law. Cicero writes about a father who had drawn up a will. In a common practice, the father named an as-yetunborn son as his heir and appointed a certain Manius Curius as substitute heir in the event that the son should die before achieving testamentary capacity, by the toga virilis. The father, however, died, and no son was ever born. Curius entered the inheritance on the ground that the substitution remained valid since no son had "come of age" (in suam tutelam venire). A family relative named Marcus Coponius (the proximus agnatus), however, sued for revocation of the will on the ground that a prior condition (namely, the birth of a son) had not been fulfilled. The case is important because it shows the connection between succession as heir and the assumption of the toga virilis.55 Another example of this connection includes Phaedrus, who tells the legal ramifications in a fable: once a father was "on the point of providing a white toga for his son" but was "taken aside privately by his freedman, who hoped to have himself substituted as the nearest heir" (3.10.10; cf. Cassius Dio 61.34.1-2; Suetonius, Divus Augustus 66.4). The freedman hoped to be named heir before it was too late, when the son became togatus. There is a further, possible legal connection. Adoption (and its creation of an heir) may have been linked to the toga virilis ceremony,

54 Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 67-85; Th. Wiedemann, Adults and Children in the Roman Empire (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 114-18. 55 Cicero, De oratore 1.180; J.W. Vaughn, "Law and Rhetoric in the Causa Curiana," Classical Antiquity 4 (1985) 208-22; cf. R.P. Sailer, "Roman Heirship Strategies in Principle and in Practice," in The Family in Italy: From Antiquity to the Present (ed. D.I. Kertzer and R.P. Sailer; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991) 26-47.

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although this claim is disputed among scholars. Evidence for the linkage is the case of Caligula, who adopted Tiberius Gemellus, the eponymous grandson of the emperor, on the day he "assumed the toga virilis" (Cassius Dio 59.8.1; Suetonius, Gaius Caligula 15.2). However, some scholars object that such connection between adoption and toga virilis was more coincidental than actual because the age of the adopted child just happened to match the time for coming of age, and that the case cannot be generalized to all Roman practice because it was peculiar to imperial family dynastic needs.56 In any event, the assumption of the toga virilis brought relative freedom from a pedagogue, but not invariably as with an incompetent youth like Claudius. Nonetheless, the unusual case of Claudius confirms the rule that freedom normally was understood to follow the toga ceremony, and that such freedom was a topos of epideictic rebuke and paraenesis about the vulnerability and moral ambiguity of adulescentia. The vulnerability was legal, social, and moral. Legally, the togatus became an heir and so a target for predators and enemies of the family. Socially, the boy's attainment of social puberty opened opportunity to participate in conviva, banquets notorious for corruption of youth. Morally, the youth faced temptation and needed firm anchorage in discipline (), military training, and the constant moral guidance of an advanced teacher. Paul's moral paraenesis in Galatians should be contextualized in the epideictic rhetoric of the toga virilis. Important to my contextualization is the recognition that Pauline Christianity was a household-based movement. Toga virilis, as recent studies prove, was a family rite at a 57 date set by the father and performed within the household. The evi dence for toga virilis in the Greek East (especially Asia Minor) shows that the toga virilis was not an obscure Roman rite about which Paul and his gentile converts in Galatia would never have heard.

56 Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 89-92, criticizing Neraudau, Jeunesse, 147. Adoption (adoptio) in law was the transfer of a person from one potestas to another, see Crook, Law and Life of Rome, 111-3; Nicholas, Introduction, 77-80. 57 For household context and familial significance of toga virilis, see Dolansky, "Coming of Age," 22, 25, 40. For the household role in establishing Pauline congregations, see C. Osiek and D.L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World: Households and House Churches (The Family, Religion, and Culture; Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 32-35 and passim; Meeks, First Urban Christians, 29-30, 75-77; H.-J. Klauck, Hausgemeinde und Hauskirche im frhen Christentum (SBS 103; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1981) 21-68.

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3. Galatians: Maturity in Christ The case that Paul's interpretation of baptism in Galatians echoes the paraenesis surrounding the toga virilis begins on the level of genre. The letter of Galatians corresponds to epideictic rhetoric known as rebuke (), often paternal. The expressions "I am amazed" (Gal. 1:6) and Paul's denunciation of the Galatians as "fools" (3:1, 3) are characteristic of this censorious mode of discourse, like that of a father upbraiding his teenage son for stupid, dangerous behavior. Harsher than admonition (), rebuke aimed to cause shame by pointing out fundamental flaws of character, and a basic pattern of immoral behavior, to a youth who should know better because he has come of age.58 Paul exhorts the Galatians that they came of age through baptism which replaces circumcision, an immature sign of being underage. Paul shames his Christians for their stupidityfor getting the day they "put on" Christin order to dissuade them from the bewitching allure of gospel "perversion." Because through baptism they already have adulthood and full membership as God's people (Gal. 1:6-7; 3:1), they should know better. As a letter of rebuke, there fore, Galatians corresponds to the epideictic speech characteristic of toga virilis rhetoric. Paul's diction provides further evidence of this connection. He tells the Galatians to "work" like an adult "household member" in the "family of faith" (6:10). Wanting circumcision is an immature "desire" to remain "subject to the law" (4:21)no different from being "confined" and "shut in" under a pedagogue. It destroys the growth of family members to come of age. Circumcision acceptance means retrogres sion back to childhood and that Paul has to start all over again, moth ering his congregation in birth and to maturity (4:19). For emulation, Paul includes the autobiographical example of his own life. Although Paul "advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age" (Gal. 1:14), he himself would have remained immature had God not "called me through his grace" and "was pleased to reveal his Son to [in] me" (1:15-16). Paul then provides other examples "of daily life" (3:15), one the father's will, the other a son's coming of age
58

See S.K. Stowers, ^ter Writing in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Library of Early Christianity; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986) 133-39; idem, "Social Typication and the Classification of Ancient Letters," in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Kee (ed. J. Neusner et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) 78-90. Stowers, however, does not make the connection to toga virilis and coming of age.

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(4:1-2). In the middle of this extended series of examples appears the language of baptism. At baptism each believer "puts on" Christ, a rit ual that makes people mature and gives responsibilities in the house hold of God. Paul urges believers not let the new status achieved in ritual and activated by the power of the Holy Spirit be unmade in the fleshly act of circumcision. Circumcision is a masculine condition, but it conveys neither masculinity nor manhood for Paul. In this way, Paul's language for maturity "in Christ" resembles ide ologies of masculinity in wider classical culture: while considered nor mative and a natural result of baptism, maturity "in Christ" (like Roman masculinity) is fragile, fluid, and incomplete until anchored by firm discipline and constant moral behaviorworking hard, constantly testing, taking pride in the effort, and each sharing the load (6:4-5) without weariness (6:9). Such language would have been heard in Roman imperial society as a command to act like a man. This gen der contextualization makes more pointed Paul's angry wish that his opponents not stop at circumcision but cut "the whole thing off' (5:12). It also fits Paul's apocalyptic language of baptism as less a cleansing and more an assumption of a new garment for eschatological warfare (1 Thess. 5:8-10; 1 Cor. 15:53-54; Rom. 13:12), a decidely manly affair in Roman military culture. 59 Paul's reference to control by a pedagogue, and subsequent release, connects also to a toga virilis social and legal context. 60 He writes that the law was "our pedagogue until Christ came" (3:24) and that before now "we were minors" (4:3) and "no better than slaves" though own ers "of all the property" (4:1), remaining "under guardians and man agerial slaves until the date set by the father" (4:2-3). Here Paul uses Roman law as a tool to develop his theology of baptism. The specific legal device is tutela impuberis, the proprietary incapacity of prepubescent, underage children in Roman law to inherit family assets until the time of coming of ageby toga virilisat a time set by the father.61

59 See J.L. Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997) 376. 60 On pedagogue, see Young, "Paidagogos," 150-76; T.D. Gordon, "A Note on " in Galatians 3.24-25," NTS 35 (1989) 150-4; D J . Lull, "'The Law was our Pedagogue': A Study in Galatians 3:19-25," JBL 105 (1986) 481-98. None men tions toga virilis. 61 See P. Garnsey, "Sons, Slavesand Christians," in The Roman Family in Italy: Status, Sentiment, Space (ed. . Rawson and P. Weaver; Canberra: Humanities Research Center; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) 105-6, although without reference to toga virilis.

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Yet the best correspondence to the paraenesis of toga virilis is Paul's stress on responsible use of the new freedom attained in Christ. The apostle's command "not to use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh" (Gal. 5:13) alludes to the concept of going astray, a theme familiar from Greco-Roman moral exhortation to libertine youth not to abuse the new freedom of toga virilis. "For freedom Christ has set us free," Paul exhorts, "Stand firm, therefore, and do not again sub mit to a yoke of slavery" (5.1). "Live by the spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh" (5:16), the immorality of which Paul describes in a traditional Greco-Roman vice list that includes "forni cation," "licentiousness," "drunkenness," and "carousing" (5:19-21). "If you sow to your own flesh," Paul shames, "you will reap corruption from the flesh" (6:8). Such language is similar to proverbial shaming of wayward teenage togati. Here is the value of my toga virilis thesis. The contextualization makes the paraenesis on responsible use of freedomafter the release of a pedagoguemore intelligible than the standard religion-of-religions interpretation of the language alluding only to "putting on" the cloth ing of a deity in ancient Judaism or paganism. However, I make no claim for interpretive hegemony. I do not deny that the baptismal lan guage could also allude to, or have been heard as, the "putting on" the clothing of a deity, as in the dromena of Greco-Roman mystery reli gions (e.g., Plutarch. Moralia 352B, De Iside et Osiride 3; Apuleius, Metamorphoses 24; cf. Philo, De fuga et inventione 110). Those GrecoRoman parallels are impressive but lack the specific paraenesis to responsible use of adult freedom. The epideictic rhetoric of toga virilis is closer to Paul's paraenesis. 4. Conclusion Paul quotes prior baptismal language that he received from tradi tionat baptism one "puts on" () Christ like a garment but interprets it through the gentile experience of the Roman toga vir ilis rite. The evidence for the toga virilis as a better social context in which to read Paul's theology of baptism, especially the crux of Gal. 3:27, includes Paul's choice of genre (epideictic rebuke), diction (achieved masculinity in the Roman household), legal terminology (release from pedagogue, tutela impuberis), and paraenesis about responsible freedom. The moral exhortation occasioned by the toga virilis warned the newly togaed youth against succumbing to the flesh, the same fear that Paul

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expresses concerning the baptized Galatians. Baptism alone, not circumcision, grants participation in the Christ event. The rhetorical move illustrates Paul's production of a theology which attempts to create meaning for gentiles of the Christ event in a manner that makes immediate sense ritually and in direct contact with the Roman household experience.

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