The Function of the Allusion to Aristophanes’ Birds in the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Lk 16:1–8)

Bartosz Adamczewski

doi:10.21697/ct.2021.91.2.02

Published: 2021-07-20

Vol. 91 No. 2 (2021)

The Function of the Allusion to Aristophanes’ Birds in the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Lk 16:1–8)

Bartosz Adamczewski

Collectanea Theologica

Section: Articles

https://doi.org/10.21697/ct.2021.91.2.02

Abstract

The allusion to Aristophanes’ Birds plays an important role in the intertextual-illustrative rhetoric of the Lucan parable of the unjust steward (Lk 16:1–8). People generally assume that good legal systems promote moral honesty and legal justice. Against this background, the Pauline idea of the presence of the law, but also its ineffectiveness in giving righteousness (Gal 3:19b; cf. 3:21), is quite difficult to explain. In order to illustrate this Pauline idea in his sequential hypertextual reworking of the Letter to the Galatians, Luke used the allusion to Aristophanes’ comedy, which presented the classical Athenian legal system as likewise ineffective against the activity of the morally corrupt legal agent, the sycophant. The Lucan unjust steward not only uses the language of the Athenian sycophant, but also engages in similar, apparently legal but morally unjust activity, thus questioning the effectiveness of the whole legal system in promoting righteousness. The reworking of the sequence of Pauline ideas explains the meaning of the enigmatic parable of the unjust steward (Lk 16:1–8).

Keywords:

Gospel of Luke, Aristophanes, Letter to the Galatians, law, grace, intertextuality

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Adamczewski, B. (2021). The Function of the Allusion to Aristophanes’ Birds in the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Lk 16:1–8). Collectanea Theologica, 91(2), 21–36. https://doi.org/10.21697/ct.2021.91.2.02

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