PAUL AND THE RHETORIC OF REVERSAL: KERYGMATIC ...

them, into captivity, and there you will be inflicted with all of the plagues of Egypt
and all of the wickedness of the Gentiles.
The Latter Placement of Discussion of Sins of Interpersonal Social Interaction
The fundamental vices identified above are not infrequently presented prior to vices of social
interaction.
As mentioned above, Book 3 of the Sibylline Oracles pictures the chief vices of the nations as
arrogant greed and sexual immorality. Sometimes these vices are portrayed as giving way to
interpersonal havoc. Book 3.175-193 provides a useful example. The arrogance of the nations
results immediately in a craving for impiety among them, involving homosexual sex. The
ensuing affliction may be said to arise from shameful greed and ill-gotten wealth, and has the
effect of stirring up interpersonal strife, in the form of hatred and deceit:
Sibylline Oracles 3.182-191 96
And they will oppress mortals. But for those people there will be a great fall, when
they begin their unrighteous arrogance. And among them will develop a compulsion
for impiety, and men will have intercourse with men, and they will put children in
shameful brothels. And a great distress will come to those people, and bring
everything into confusion, and cut everything up and fill everything with evils, in
shameful greed and ill-gotten wealth – in many areas, but mostly in Macedonia. And
hatred will arise, and every sort of deceit will be among them.
Verses 3-8 of the Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides may be viewed as an attempt to summarise
the Decalogue. 97 This summary prioritises sexual sin, placing such vice prior even to respect
96 This is presented as an oracle of judgement against the “kingdom” from the “western sea”,
arising after the rule of the Greeks and Macedonians – presumably, Rome.
97 See P.W. Van der Horst, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides with Introduction and
Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 1978), 112. More broadly, many of these examples of Jewish
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