Dinner with Jesus & Paul

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For Jesus and Paul, meals were not simply everyday events. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is portrayed as teaching while at the dinner table, performing miracles at feasts and sparking controversy by his choice of dinner companions. In the churches of Paul, meals were the setting for most if not all church gatherings, whether in Antioch (Galatians 2:11–14), Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:17–34) or Rome (Romans 14:1–4, Romans 13–23).

It’s no coincidence that pivotal events and conversations in the life of Jesus and his earliest followers take place over the dinner table. Throughout the Greco-Roman world, meals were a means of creating and solidifying social bonds. A better understanding of this common practice sheds fresh 032light on some of the most familiar, and most crucial, New Testament events.

Consider for example Mark’s depiction of a meal of Jesus with tax collectors and sinners:

And as he reclined in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also reclining with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” When Jesus heard this, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

(Mark 2:15–17)

Many modern translations of this passage, including the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), describe Jesus and his disciples as “sitting” at table (the New International Version [NIV] says simply “having dinner”). This is a misleading modernization, for the original Greek clearly says they were “reclining” (Greek, katakeimai), as in the translation above. Reclining was, after all, the common posture for all formal meals, or banquets, in the Greco-Roman world, and indeed all of the meals of Jesus in the Gospels are described as reclining banquets, at least in the original Greek.¹ Even during the outdoor “picnics” where Jesus feeds the crowd with loaves and fishes, he first instructs the people to “recline” on the grass, not “sit,” as both the NRSV and NIV have it (see, for example, Mark 6:39–40 where two different Greek words are used, anaklinō in verse Mark 6:39 and anapiptō in verse Mark 6:40, both of which mean “recline”). Furthermore, the Last Supper of Jesus is described as a reclining banquet, both in Mark’s version, which reads “while they were reclining (Greek: anakeimai) and eating” (Mark 14:18, followed by Matthew 26:20 and Luke 22:14), and in John’s version, “when he had washed their feet and put on his garment and reclined again (Greek: anapiptō), he said to them …” (John 13:12).

To picture the meals of the earliest Christian communities, we must forget the familiar da Vinci painting of the Last Supper and look instead at the archaeological remains of typical dining halls from the Greek and Roman world. The reconstruction drawings I commissioned from artist Romney Oualline Nesbitt (see “A Greek Dining Hall” and “A Roman Triclinium”) combine what we know from archaeological remains, literary sources, Greek vase paintings and funerary reliefs, and Roman frescoes and mosaics.²

One such dining hall was found at Corinth, in the ruins of the Greek temple of the healing god Asclepius (see plan and drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall”).³ The Sanctuary of Asclepius in Corinth was what I like to call a full-service sanctuary. It included not only the basics, namely a temple that housed the image of the god and an altar for animal sacrifices, but also several accessory structures, including three dining rooms where festive banquets were held and what was probably an abaton, a chamber where supplicants slept overnight with hopes of having healing dreams.

Today it is easy to reconstruct the design of the three Corinthian dining rooms because several of the long stone couches that defined the shape of the rooms have survived. Originally each dining room contained eleven couches, each about 6 feet (1.86 meters) long and 2.5 feet (0.80 meter) wide. They were designed to hold one diner comfortably or, perhaps, two diners snugly (in the Greek world it was not uncommon to share a couch). Three couches lined each wall except the entrance wall, where the doorway into the room left room for only two couches. This was a standard size for a Greek dining room, the other most common being seven- and nine-couch rooms. The idea was to keep the size of the dinner party from growing so large that diners could no longer bond into one group but instead divided themselves into separate parties. As the philosopher Plutarch noted in the second century C.E.: “The size of a party also is right so long as it easily remains one party. If it gets too large, so that the guests can no longer talk to each other or enjoy the hospitality together or even know one another, then it ceases to be a party at all.”⁴

In each of the Corinthian dining rooms, there is an area marked off in the center of the floor where meals were cooked or warmed in the presence of the diners. In front of each couch, notches indicate where removable tables once stood. All three dining rooms opened onto a public fountain (see plan in “A Greek Dining Hall”).

Meal customs among the Romans were quite similar to those of the Greeks. Like the Greeks, the Romans reclined on couches during meals, but they arranged the couches a bit differently. The most common form of Roman dining room was the triclinium, or “three-couch room.” The typical -shaped form of the triclinium is visible on the floor of a house in Herculaneum, a Roman city that, like Pompeii, was both destroyed and preserved by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. This floor and other triclinium floor mosaics allow us to reconstruct the relative size and location of the 033couches (see drawing in “A Roman Triclinium”). According to literary references to Roman banquets, each couch typically held three diners, with the result that the triclinium provided for at least nine diners.

We do not know for sure what kind of dining room Jesus might have used, but we do know that the gospel writers invariably describe the meals he attended as reclining banquets, and we also know that a variety of styles of dining rooms were in use in his region of the world. In Jericho, a first-century C.E. building identified by its excavator as a synagogue contains a triclinium.^a A third-century C.E. mosaic (see photo at beginning of article) from Sepphoris, a busy town not far from Nazareth, pictures still another style of dining room, the stibadium, with its semicircular arrangement of couches.⁵ The stibadium is mentioned in literature as early as the first century C.E. but only becomes prominent in architecture in the late second and early third centuries; it is also frequently pictured in frescoes that decorate third-century Christian catacombs in Rome.⁶

The arrangement of diners on a Roman triclinium or stibadium was such that the diner reclining to one’s 034right would be positioned with his body running parallel and his head next to one’s breast. The same was true for diners sharing a couch at a Greek banquet. Such is the position of diners in the Gospel of John’s version of the Last Supper, where “the beloved disciple” is said to be reclining “in the bosom of” Jesus” (John 13:23). This meant that this disciple had a position of honor, worthy of one who was called “beloved,” because he reclined immediately to the right of Jesus.

We also do not know for sure what kind of dining rooms were used in the churches of Paul, but we do know that the early Christian communities met in homes (see, for example, Romans 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15) and that Greek and Roman houses typically contained dining rooms designed for reclining banquets where the head of the household would entertain guests. We also know that Paul was familiar with public dining rooms like those at the Asclepius temple in Corinth. In his First Letter to the Corinthians, Paul refers to such temple dining rooms that functioned like restaurants.

It seems that some in the Christian community at Corinth would often eat at such temple restaurants and saw nothing wrong with it, since they believed, like Paul, that “no idol in the world really exists” (1 Corinthians 8:4). Others in the community, however, described by Paul as “those with weak consciences” (1 Corinthians 8:7), thought that dining in such a setting was scandalous.

Such a misunderstanding could easily have developed in a setting like the Asclepius sanctuary, where the dining rooms opened onto a public fountain area (see plan in “A Greek Dining Hall”). Thus church members with “weak consciences” who had come to draw water at the fountain could easily have observed their fellow church members eating in a temple dining room.⁷

Paul suggests there is nothing inherently wrong with eating sacrificial meat at a “temple restaurant” (1 Corinthians 8:4–7) or even from the city meat market (1 Corinthians 10:25–27), where much if not all of the meat came from the pagan temple sacrifices. The problem is that it might set a bad example: “For if others see you, who possess knowledge [that “no idol in the world really exists”] eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols?” (1 Corinthians 8:10; see also 1 Corinthians 10:28–29).

Paul also expresses his fear that by sharing a table with a community of another deity, one might become a “partner with demons” (1 Corinthians 10:20b). He warns: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Corinthians 10:21). Paul here tells us that Christian meals were much like pagan meals, the only difference being that they were 035directed to a different deity. And since all such meals were occasions of social bonding, Paul is warning Christian diners to be very careful not to bond with the wrong community.

A Greek banquet had two main courses, and Christian meals followed suit. For Greeks, the first course was the deipnon, translated “supper” or “dinner,” which was when the meal proper was eaten. The second course was the symposion, that is, the symposium or “drinking party,” which was an extended wine-drinking session accompanied by the entertainment of the evening. Between the two courses, the tables were removed and the wine mixed for the symposium. When the Christians in Corinth met for their “Lord’s Supper,” it was divided into courses in this way. At the beginning there was a benediction over the bread (1 Corinthians 11:24), indicating the beginning of the meal proper, the deipnon. Then “after supper” (deipnēsai or “after the deipnon,” 1 Corinthians 11:25), there was a benediction over the wine to mark the beginning of the symposium. Accompanying the symposium was the entertainment of the evening, which, for the Christians, was most likely their worship service.

The ancients always drank their wine mixed with water. For the Greeks, the standard measurements were five parts water to two parts wine or three parts water to one part wine. Classics scholar Oswyn Murray has calculated that the resulting drink was approximately equal in volume and alcohol content to today’s glass of beer.⁸ In the drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall” of a typical Greek dining room, the servant in the middle of the room is serving drinks from a dinos, a large bowl for mixing and serving wine. The depiction is based on a fifth-century B.C.E. 036Greek funerary relief (not shown) on which a servant is shown serving wine from a dinos to the deceased, who reclines while his wife sits nearby.

The dilution of wine with water allowed the party to continue for several hours without the guests becoming too drowsy. Wine was considered a divine gift that was intended to induce festiveness and sociability. The Greeks typically gave thanks to Dionysus, the god of wine, while Jews (and presumably Christians) prayed, “Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine.”⁹

In the classical Greek period, diners drank wine from a variety of styles of cups. The reconstruction drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall” shows the kylix (used by diners at all positions except those numbered 3 and 7) and the rhyton (positions 3 and 7), a horn-shaped drinking cup with a hole at the tip from which the diner drank. A fourth-century B.C.E. rhyton has also been found at Sepphoris. We do not know what kind of cup Jesus drank from, although a goblet-style cup (seen in the drawing in “A Roman Triclinium”) was common during the Roman period.

Diners at any Greco-Roman reclining banquet were placed by social rank, and good hosts were noted for their ability to arrange their guests according to their status in the community. In the drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall”, the couches have been marked according to the most probable ranking order since, in Greek tradition, the ranking proceeded in descending order to the right. For example, in Plato’s Symposium, for which the setting was a typical Greek drinking party, the speeches began with the philosopher Phaedrus, a member of Socrates circle who presumably occupied the highest position, then proceeded to his right.¹⁰

The Romans also ranked the places at table with the ranking order proceeding in descending order to the right. Thus, in the drawing in “A Roman Triclinium”, the couch on the right was called locus summus or “highest position,” the middle couch was called locus medius or “middle position,” and the couch on the left was called locus imus or “lowest position.” Traditionally, the highest ranking position was the leftmost position on locus summus. Over time, however, the position of first rank shifted to the rightmost position on locus medius, which came to be called locus consularis or “consul’s position.”

This custom of placing guests by rank is referred to in the Gospels. In Luke 14:7, Jesus sees how guests at a dinner party are choosing “the places of honor” (literally the “first couch”; Greek, prōtoklisia), and he advises:

When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not recline at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host; and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, “Give this person your place,” and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and recline at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, “Friend, move up higher”; then you will be honored in the presence of all who recline at the table with you.

(Luke 14:7–10)

The motif of the late-arriving guest that Jesus uses in this story was widely found in symposium literature dating all the way back to Plato’s Symposium. In the second century C.E., Plutarch told of a high-ranking guest who arrived late to a banquet and felt insulted that there was no longer an available position worthy of his status; Lucian (also second century) described a similar case, in which the latecomer, insulted that there is no open place on the couches, instead reclined on the floor in disgust.¹¹

Dogs were often present at meals, where they were fed crumbs that fell from the table (note the dog under the couch at position 9 in the drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall”). This common dining custom plays a key role in the dialogue between Jesus and the Syro-Phoenician woman (Mark 7:24–30; see also Matthew 15:21–28). When the unnamed Syro-Phoenician woman approaches Jesus and asks that her daughter be healed, he replies, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she responds, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Jesus rewards her cleverness by healing her daughter.

Dogs and table scraps also appear in the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31). The rich man is described in a way that typifies his status and values: He “dressed in purple and fine linen and feasted sumptuously every day” (Luke 16:19). Meanwhile, poor Lazarus is worse off than the dogs, for he longs for the dog’s portion, “the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table.” Instead the dogs come and lick his wounds (Luke 16:21).

The atmosphere at Greek symposia was often something like a modern stag party, and the women present tended to be there for the men’s pleasure. They included flute players like the woman shown in the center of the room in the drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall”, and prostitutes, who are shown reclining with the men on couches 6 and 8 in the same drawing, and who also appear in Roman frescos and on numerous Greek vases.

To be sure, “respectable” women could on occasion attend banquets,¹² but, according to Greek tradition, they normally did not recline. Reclining was reserved for free male citizens and was a mark of their status. Women, children and slaves, if present at the table, were to sit. By the first century C.E., however, when Roman customs began to prevail in the eastern Mediterranean 037world, respectable women began to attend banquets more frequently and to recline during them. The arrangement of the banqueters in the reconstruction drawing in “A Roman Triclinium” is based on Lucian’s descriptions of a wedding banquet where the women guests, all of whom were respectable, shared a couch together.

Yet even though respectable women were beginning to recline during meals, it could still be considered a compromising position reminiscent of the position of prostitutes. Consequently, when Luke tells the story of Mary, sister of Martha, participating in a banquet with Jesus, he describes her “sitting [Greek: parakathizō] at Jesus’ feet” (Luke 10:39), much like we see in funerary banquet scenes. He thus portrays her unquestionably as a “respectable” woman, though, at the same time, he confirms that she is of lower status than a male disciple, since the gospels always describe the male disciples reclining with Jesus.

Another famous meal story about Jesus describes a woman anointing Jesus with perfumed oil—either on his feet or his head, depending on the version (Mark 14:3; Matthew 26:7; Luke 7:38; John 12:3). She is clearly taking a servile role: When guests first arrived at Greco-Roman banquets, the host would provide a servant to remove their sandals and wash their feet to prepare them for reclining. Often perfumed oil for anointing the head would also be provided. In the drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall”, a late-arriving guest, who will have to share 038the last couch (position 11), is having his feet washed. A similar scene is shown in a first-century C.E. wall painting from Pompeii (not shown).

The custom of foot washing is mentioned more than once in the Jesus tradition. At a banquet described in Luke, Jesus berates his Pharisee host for not providing this basic service and praises the sinful woman who, though she is of a much lower status than Jesus’ host, exhibits a superior sense of hospitality by washing the feet of Jesus with her own tears and drying them with her hair (Luke 7:36–50). In John’s version of Jesus’ Last Supper, Jesus himself assumes the role of a servant and washes the feet of the disciples in order to exemplify the virtue of servanthood (John 13:1–16). In Luke’s version of the Last Supper, there is no footwashing scene, but Jesus characterizes himself as one who does not “rule” but who “serves” (Luke 22:27). The word for “serves” in this text is diakoneō, a common term for table service. It also became a technical term in the early church for service to the church and is the source for the title deacon.

The symposium was a long, drawn-out affair that always included some form of entertainment. Music, often provided by flute girls, was standard. In the early second century B.C.E., the Jewish sage Jesus Ben Sira praised music at a banquet: “A ruby seal in a setting of gold is a concert of music at a banquet of wine. A seal of emerald in a rich setting of god is the melody of music with good wine” (Sirach [Ecclesiasticus] Sirach 32:5–6).

Another popular form of entertainment was the party game kottabos, which was a contest to see who could hit a target by flinging the last drops of wine from one’s wine cup (see the diner at position 5 in the drawing in “A Greek Dining Hall”).

Kottabos is not mentioned in the New Testament, but the Christian version of a higher minded form of entertainment is: philosophical conversation. The classic model was provided by Plato’s Symposium, in which the diners decide “that the flute girl who came in just now be dismissed; let her pipe to herself or, if she likes, to the women-folk within, but let us seek our entertainment today in conversation.”¹³ Plutarch, in his Table Talk, defined the topics appropriate to a banquet as sympotika or “drinking party topics,” and described them as geared to “induce an emulous enthusiasm for courageous and great-hearted deeds and … charitable and humane deeds.”¹⁴ In a similar vein, Ben Sira stated that the preferred topic of discussion at Jewish meals was discourse on the law (Sirach 9:15–16), and Paul recommended topics of edification at Christian meal gatherings (1 Corinthians 14:1–5, 1 Corinthians 26–33).¹⁵

According to the Gospels, Jesus often engaged in “table talk” or teaching at the dinner table, and, more often than not, made reference to the meal itself and its inherent symbolism as the focus of his lesson. We have already seen how Jesus used footwashing as a symbol for servanthood (John 13:1–16). Another example is found in the text quoted at the beginning of this article, Mark 2:15–17, in which Jesus is criticized for his choice of table companions. The enemies of Jesus, defined in the story as “scribes of the Pharisees,” are scandalized by the fact that he dines with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus responds by interpreting the meal symbolically through the use of a pun. The word translated “call” in the phrase “I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” is the Greek word kalēo, which can also be translated “invite” and is commonly used to invite people to a meal—there are papyrus remains of second- and third-century C.E. meal invitations that use this term, for example.¹⁶ In Mark’s story, the term has taken on a dual meaning: both “invite” to the meal and “call,” in the sense of a religious calling, to the community of salvation the meal symbolizes.

As is widely discussed in the symposium literature, the general rule of behavior at meals was to conduct oneself in a way that the needs of the group were placed first. As Plutarch said, “Just as the wine must be shared by all, so too the conversation must be one in which all will share … [or else] gone then is the aim and end of the good fellowship of the party, and Dionysus is outraged.”¹⁷ Echoing this same idea, Paul praised “prophesy” that took place during the worship 039service because “those who prophesy speak to other people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” (1 Corinthians 14:3); that is to say, “prophesy” was a form of worship expression in which all could share.

Throughout the Gospels, the banquet is frequently used as a metaphor for the joys of the afterlife. “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son,” Jesus explains in Matthew 22:2 (see also Luke 14:15–16). When his illustrious guests refuse to come to the feast, the king sends his slaves into the streets to invite anyone they find, “good and bad” (Matthew 22:3, Matthew 22:9–10). The king later tosses out one guest who failed to dress appropriately: “Bind him hand and foot and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 22:13). The lesson of the parable: “For many are called (or “invited”; Greek, klētos) but few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). This is no ordinary meal that Jesus is talking about.

These New Testament passages draw heavily on the image of the messianic banquet known from the Hebrew Bible, where we are told that at the end of time the nations of the earth would gather on the mountain of the Lord where “the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food” (Isaiah 25:6–8). Extrabiblical literature tells us it will be an “unfailing table” (2 Esdras 9:19) where “the righteous and elect ones … shall eat and rest and rise with that Son of Man forever and ever” (1 Enoch 62:12–14). Though the Greeks idealized the dead with banquet scenes on their funerary art, and conducted funerary meals in honor of the dead, it was the Jews who had developed an elaborate view of the banquet of the afterlife.¹⁸

Jesus hints about such a meal during the Last Supper, when he tells his apostles that he will dine again with them in heaven: “I tell you that I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink of it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29). The same theme is found in the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) whose situations are reversed in the afterlife. The poor man, who once longed for a crumb from the rich man’s table, is now “in the bosom of Abraham” (Luke 16:23), that is to say, reclining just to the right of Abraham himself, in a position of honor, at the banquet of the afterlife. In contrast, the rich man, who in his former life “feasted sumptuously,” now looks on from afar, longing for a mere drop of water. When Christian art began to emerge in the second century C.E., banquet scenes became a popular motif, painted on the walls of the catacombs in Rome and carved into the sides of sarcophagi. As Robin M. Jensen has argued in BR, these banquet scenes may be interpreted as depicting a messianic banquet in the afterworld.¹⁹

Throughout the Greco-Roman world, the banquet was a basic resource for the social formation and maintenance of groups of all kinds. The earliest Christians simply adopted what was present already in the wider culture and adapted it to their own needs and self-identity. Understanding the Greco-Roman banquet tradition, therefore, allows us to gain a more accurate picture of how the first Christians developed—socially, ethically and theologically—around the dinner table.

For Jesus and Paul, meals were not simply everyday events. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus is portrayed as teaching while at the dinner table, performing miracles at feasts and sparking controversy by his choice of dinner companions. In the churches of Paul, meals were the setting for most if not all church gatherings, whether in Antioch (Galatians 2:11–14), Corinth (1 Corinthians 11:17–34) or Rome (Romans 14:1–4, Romans 13–23). It’s no coincidence that pivotal events and conversations in the life of Jesus and his earliest followers take place over the dinner table. Throughout the Greco-Roman world, meals were a means of […]