Introduction to Book
Introduction
Sobriety
I once ran a correctional facility in
the U.S. Air Force. Nothing big or glamorous, just a low-grade facility that
housed residents for 30 days. It was their last chance in the Air Force. If
they messed up after residing with me, they would be discharged. Most of my
occupants had received non-judicial punishment, called an Article 15, for
alcohol related incidents. This means that I had to march them to the Social
Actions detachment to be interviewed by the Drug and Alcohol counselors. After
a few months of doing this I became close to several of these counselors. Some
of them had serious alcohol problems in their past but were now working on
staying “clean” and helping others. They would often advocate that my Airmen
should attend Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) weekly, and I would have to arrange for
them to be escorted to meetings. It was during this time I concluded that I
ought to see what AA was all about, and I’m glad I did.
While attending various AA meetings,
I gained a ton of insight from “the Old-Timers,” those men and women who had
been sober quite a long time. For example, the old-timers wouldn’t allow
participants to play emotionally manipulative games. They had no problem seeing
through the facades and calling people to task if they were blame-shifting or
being downright rapscallions. Further, if a man or woman had abstained from
alcohol but was still trying to control or manipulate others, was ruled by
their anger, or blamed someone else for all their problems, and similar
behaviors, the old-timers called them “dry drunks”. They enlightened me to the
difference between a drunk – with all his stinking thinking – who was only
abstaining from the drug-of-choice, and someone who was genuinely working on
his sobriety. It was this experience with “Bill’s friends”[1]
that began to pique my perspective that there was a distinct difference between
those who stopped using and abusing their drug-of-choice, and those who were
really working on themselves, their attitudes, and their relationships. A woman
might not be drinking but she could still be acting out her abusive behavior
and abrasive actions; or she could be abstaining and working on living soberly.
These old-timers gave me a new category to think through: sobriety is more –
much more – than being simply “dry” or abstaining from an addictive drug.
Those experiences were back in
1986-1989. After that I moved on, finished my associate and bachelor degrees,
and half of my seminary degree. Then I retired from the Air Force, completed
seminary and became ordained in a conservative Presbyterian denomination to
serve in local churches. But I have never forgotten the categories those
old-timers gave me, and for decades I have often reflected on them. It was
during the following years and decades of ruminating and Bible reading that it
dawned on me sacred Scripture presents something of a similar framework. I
started observing that Holy Writ, specifically the Greek New Testament, used a
word-family, sophroneo, in a smattering of locales which conveys more
than the notion of being “dry”. It appears to pick up what those AA old-timers
meant by a life of sobriety. This word is translated in multiple ways, such as
“temperate” “sensible” “wise” “prudent” “self-controlled” “sound minded” and so
forth.
As I dug deeper, it became clear that
this family of Greek words with their synonyms, and in their contexts, were
important. As a result of where the sophroneo words come up and how they
are placed, I began to realize that Paul, Peter and the Gospel-recorders – the
only ones who used the words – picture the Christian life as a life of
sobriety. From an example outside of the Scripture, the biblical concept is
fittingly expressed in the concluding request from the classic Anglican
confession of sin: “And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake, that we
may now live a godly, righteous, and sober life, to the glory of your holy
name. Amen” (The Anglican Church in North America 2019, 12) . The use of these
words means more than remaining “dry,” and moves further out into the ways of
our thinking and acting that are wholesome and healthy: personally,
relationally, and socially. And so, I decided to write this book to help me
help others reclaim the qualities of sober living.
At this point I need to fill up some
sandbags and place them along the bank to assist in holding back a potential
flood of concepts. To do this I will take a brief trip over into a select number
of historical and linguistic subjects. If language and history are not your
idea of fun, you can skip this next section and move on to the closing two
paragraphs of the introduction.
Sandbags
To help us set up some boundaries, I
will sketch out how the sophroneo word-family was used and understood in
classic Greek, with the aid of Adriaan Rademaker and his doctoral thesis, “Sôphrosyne
and the Rhetoric of Self-Restraint: Polysemy and Persuasive Use of an Ancient
Greek Value Term”. Next, we will see how this word group carried over into the
Septuagint, specifically in an addition to Esther, as well as Wisdom and 2 and
4 Maccabees. Finally, we will take a quick glance at where it shows up in the
early pastors and theologians of the late First and early Second Centuries.
Although one could potentially bring out a few semantic changes in the use of
this vocabulary as time rolled by, nevertheless the main aspects of the sophroneo
family of words seems to hold steady.
Classical Greek
Rademaker dug deep into several major
classic Greek works such as Homer, Aeschylus, and Plato, to see how sophron
and sophrosyne, and their cognates, were understood and used. This long
and labor-intensive study found that the words were polysemous – they had a
variety of meanings and implications. The areas of definition were slightly
different based on the object’s class, age and sex. For girls and women, it
normally indicated quietness and seemliness, even marital fidelity. For young
men and boys, again the notion was quietness, along with order and decentness.
For slaves, order and obedience. For the polis (city), there should be
good order and sound judgment. Finally, adult men carry the weight by
exhibiting respect for the gods, lack of violence, not being unjust, and
exhibiting quietness, moderation, measuredness, sanity and prudence. In the
end, Rademaker compiled the multifaceted definitions and inferences into a
broad swath of general categories that fall under good sense. The good
sense to avoid harming oneself or others; and the good sense to avoid indecency
and disorder. At the end of the day, the sophroneo words, in classical
Greek thought, carried the idea of prudence, decency, quietness and soberness
in a way that related to the control of desires (Rademaker 2005) . How did these terms
fare in later years, especially as used in the Septuagint?
Septuagint
The Septuagint (often abbreviated by
the Roman numerals LXX, for 70 translators) took the Hebrew Scriptures and
translated them into Greek. None of the sophroneo words are used to
translate any Hebrew vocabulary. But there were a few extra documents and segments
that came straight into the LXX as Greek, often known as the deuterocanonical
books or apocrypha, which do use the words. The value of looking into these
texts is to see how the meaning was changing or refined within a
Hellenized-Jewish context. There are only a few places where this sophron
language surfaces.
To begin, there were Greek additions
to the story of Esther. In those supplements the term is employed once. In
3.13c it is in the description King Artaxerxes writes about Haman. There he
declares that Haman is a man “who excels in soundness of judgment (sophrosyne)
among us, and has been manifestly well inclined without wavering and with
unshaken fidelity” (Septuagint 2004) . Here the expression continues to
convey the thought of good sense and discretion.
There is also the Wisdom of Solomon,
in which “Solomon” is praying for wisdom in the ninth chapter, extolling
wisdom’s value. Upon arriving at verse 11 we read, “For she knows and
understands all things, and she shall lead me soberly (sophronos) in my
doings, and preserve me in her power” (Ibid.). Wisdom is pictured as the guide
and guard. As a guide she leads seekers with good sense. The word is used as a
positive quality that fits in with the classical Greek notions from earlier
years.
Further, in 2 Maccabees, there is an
account of Onias’s death. Antiochus hears of it and is grieved because “of the
sober (sophrosynen) and modest (eutaxian) behavior of him that
was dead” (Ibid.). Sobriety and modesty, or orderliness, sit together. In 4
Maccabees chapters 1 and 2, sophrosyne and sophron begin to
appear in lists of the excellent qualities of right reason, and the
characteristics of wisdom. For example,
in 1:18 “the forms of wisdom are prudence (phronesis), and justice (dikaiosyne),
and manliness (andreia), and temperance (sophrosyne)” (Ibid.). Here, the term is swimming in the same pond of
traits that are lived within social contexts. It’s not just a state of mind,
but a way of embodying that state of mind. Finally, in chapter 4, the word is
coupled with a more cognitive phrase, sophron nous (temperate
understanding or thought).
From the uses of the terminology in
the LXX, the ideas of good sense, controlling and restraining desire, prudent
conduct, and orderliness from the classical period, remain. Likewise, this is
seen in the company that the sophron words keep, such as prudence,
modest behavior, and others. This brings us, next, to briefly and loosely note
how these terms are classed in the earlier church, after the New Testament
texts were written.
Apostolic Fathers
The expression “apostolic fathers” is
shorthand for Christian pastors and theologians who wrote in the immediate
years after the New Testament authors faded from the scene. It’s a short span
of time from the end of the First to the earlier years of the Second Century
A.D. The vocabulary we are focusing on is used in both Clement of Rome and
Ignatius of Antioch.
Very early in Clement’s singular
letter to the Corinthians, he takes note of their faith and piety, “For who has
ever visited you and not approved your highly virtuous and stable faith? And
not been astonished by your temperate (sophrona) and gentle piety in Christ”
(Loeb Classical Library 2003, 1:2) ? Though they are not
completely synonymous, nevertheless temperance and gentle piety walk along with
a highly virtuous and stable faith.
Then, toward the end of the letter
Clement summarizes what he has written, and places our term in the middle of a
list of character traits that go hand-in-glove with other wholesome qualities,
“For we have touched on every aspect of faith,
repentance, genuine love, self-restraint (egkrateias), moderation (sophrosyne),
and endurance, reminding you that you must be pleasing, in a holy way, both to
the all-powerful God—by acting in righteousness, truth, and patience, living in
harmony, holding no grudges, living in love and peace with fervent gentleness, just
as our ancestors, whom we mentioned before, were pleasing to God by being
humble minded toward the Father, who is both God and Creator—and to all people”
(Ibid., 62:2).
Further, Clement characterizes the
couriers who carried his letter to Corinth. He describes them as “faithful and
temperate (sophronas) men who have lived blamelessly among us from youth
to old age” (63:3). Finally this pastor ends with a prayerful blessing that God
might “grant to every soul that is called by his magnificent and holy name
faith, reverential awe, peace, endurance and patience, self-restraint (egkrateian),
purity, and moderation (sophrosynen), that they may be found pleasing to
his name through our high priest and benefactor, Jesus Christ” (Chapter 64).
In Clement of Rome, the sophron
words continue to express the perspective of good sense and a quality of life
and faith that attends it. The same can be said of the way Ignatius of Antioch
employed these terms in his letter to the Ephesians and Philippians. As he
writes to the Ephesians, he points out how sophrosyne is part of
imitating Jesus Christ and resisting the devil, “…with all holiness and
self-control” (10:3). Lastly, the Bishop reminds the Philippians that widows
are also to exercise “self-control” (sophronousas) “with respect to
faith in the Lord” (4:3).
From this short historical and
linguistic survey of pre-New Testament sources (the classical Greek and
Septuagint), as well as the post-New Testament apostolic fathers, we gain a
stronger sense of how the sophron words were employed, and the various
aspects they implied, over multiple generations. Though it may be possible to
tease out a few semantic changes in the use of this vocabulary through the
centuries, nevertheless the main aspects appear to have remained. The ideas of
good sense, controlling and restraining desire, prudent conduct, moderateness
and orderliness persist. By examining the longer history of the terminology, we
have a better and firmer handle on what we are looking at when we enter the New
Testament. Which brings us to the shape of the present book.
Shape
My plan in this book is to show the
significance of sophroneo, its cognates, and its main synonym (napho)
in the New Testament. From there I will display why this is a consequential
virtue, and the various ways it is meant to show itself in our lives as
followers of Jesus. Therefore, the first chapter will plant us securely in the
gospel, by taking us to an important episode in the life of our Lord. By the
end of the first chapter I honestly hope Christians will have a renewed
confidence in Jesus and how he is the source of sober mindedness. For those
readers who have never embraced Jesus as he is freely offered in the gospel, it
is my prayer that they will come to do so. The second chapter will examine
Titus 2:1-14 and make the case that sober-mindedness is an important value that
all followers of Jesus should desire to grow in. Once that is accomplished,
chapter three will pick up Romans 12 and move toward encouraging us to practice
sober-mindedness in “normal” times and situations as a way of habituating good
sense, and the fourth chapter will set out how and why sober-mindedness is
richly beneficial in the “abnormal” seasons and situations by hearing God speak
to a prophet in Isaiah 8:11-13. These studies will be background for the last
five chapters, which are intended to guide readers away from joy-destroying
doom and gloom toward a stronger confidence in the storm-calming Savior.
The volume’s title is significant in
keeping us on track, “Our Heads on Straight: Sober-mindedness, a Forgotten
Christian Virtue”. To begin we turn to an episode in the life of Jesus that
has impacted my whole evaluation of sophron, and what a life of
sobriety, being sober-minded, denotes.
Works Cited
Loeb Classical Library. 2003. The Apostolic
Fathers Vol. 1. Edited by Bart D. Ehrman. Translated by Bart D. Ehrman.
Vol. 1. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Rademaker, Adriaan. 2005. Sophrosyne and the Rhetoric
of Self-Restraint. Leiden-Boston: Brill Academic Publishers.
Septuagint. 2004. Elpenor. Accessed October
17, 2019. https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/septuagint/.
The Anglican Church in North America. 2019. The
Book of Common Prayer. Huntington Beach: Anglican Liturgy Press.
[1]
Regular attenders of AA call themselves “Bill’s friends,” referring to the
founder of AA, Bill Wilson.
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