text. A text will be successful as a piece of communication to the extent to which it brings actual or real readers to identify with the implied reader generated by the reading. A text will continue to be influential (and in this sense become a “classic”) to the extent to which real readers of subsequent generations continue to make the same identification. Thus, in the case of Romans, it seems clear that the “implied readers” of the letter overall are Gentile Christians in Rome. However, as noted