Grace and gratitude in Hebrews

In a couple of books, David deSilva interprets the letter to the Hebrews in terms of Greco-Roman clientage and patronage systems. I have my suspicions about social-science interpretations of the NT, but deSilva’s work is illuminating. In a brief study of honor and shame in Hebrews, he writes that “The bond between client and patron, or, one should add, between friends who share mutual beneficence, is thus truly the strongest bond in Greco-Roman society. Where the sanctity of gratitude is maintained, it becomes the one support which remains after all othe values and valuables have crumbled – truly the cement of society which Seneca and others claimed it to be. Such, the author of Hebrews claims, is the gratitude, the loyalty, which is due the Benefactor and Broker of God’s favor, Jesus. When the author concludes his exhortation in 12:28, he stresses the second sence of CHARIS: ECHOMEN CHARIN, ‘let us show gratitude.’ Saller notes that such amicitia, indeed whether between equals or unequals, ‘was supposed to be founded on virtue (especially fides ).’ It is this fides , or PISTIS, to which the author of Hebrews enjoins his readers through both negative and positive models, through warnings and exhortations.”

In his socio-rhetorical commentary on Hebrews, aptly titled Perseverance in Gratitude , deSilva expands on the connections of grace, faith and gratitude. In this context, the single word “grace” describes the whole exchange between patron and client. Grace means “the benefactor’s favorable disposition toward the petitioner”; also “the actual benefit conferred”; as well as “the client’s gratitude, the necessary and appropriate return for favor shown.” Thus, the patron-client relation is grace-for-grace. Gratitude in particular “involved a client’s acting in such a way as to enhance the patron’s honor and avoiding any course of action that would bring the patron into dishonor. The client also had to display intense personal loyalty to the patron, even if that loyalty should lead one to lose one’s home, physical well-being, wealth, or reputation.” To refuse gratitude was “an act of injustice akin to sacrilege.”

The response of the client is described as “faith”: “‘Faith and its related words also receive specific meanings within the context of the patron-client relationship. To place ‘faith’ in a patron is to trust him or her to be able and willing to provide what he or she has promised. It means, in effect, to entrust one’s cause or future to a patron . . . . to give oneself over into his or her care. ‘Faith’ also represents the response of loyalty on the part of the client. Having received benefits from a patron, the client must demonstrate loyalty toward the patron. In this context, then, ‘faith’ speaks to the firmness, reliability, and faithfulness of both parties in the patron-client relationship.”

This faith/loyalty is aroused by and manifested in gratitude for benefits: “The author dwells at length on the generosity of the Son, who spared not even his own life to bring believers to God’s favor and promises and granted to believers unparalleled benefactions, in order to motivate gratitude and to dissuade the hearers from any course of action that slighted or affronted such noble and powerful patrons. From the author’s perspective, the believer who savers in commitment, who considers that friendship with God might no longer be worth what it costs in terms of enmity with the world, has lost sight of the value of these benefits . . . . Even to think this way would be an insult to one’s benefactor and a violation of the cardinal virtue of gratitude.”