Ideology of the pirmitive Christian Church in the Epistle of Saint Paul tothe Romans and the letter of recommendation for Phoebe

The concept of ideology, as traditionally defined in the sociological liter ature, is applied to the early Christian movement as reflected in prominent literary texts-Paul's Letter to the Romans and the letter of recommendatio n for Phoebe that is appended to it in modern Bibles. Sweeping but commonpl ace assertions about the nature of the first century CE world in which the early Christian movement emerged are called into question. Specifically, th e simple ''honor/shame" paradigm is found wanting. The textual evidence is shown to suggest a setting in which status group stratification, including inequality by ethnic group and by gender, was contested rather than taken f or granted.