Now 1 Corinthians:
I. Paul called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and brother Sosthenes, 2 to the church of God which is in Corinth,
3 grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I continually thank my God for you for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, 5 because in him you have been completely enriched in all speech and knowledge, 6 because the testimony of Christ has been firmly established among you, 7 so that you lack no gift while you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will establish you until the end so that you will be without blemish in the day 1 of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 Faithful is God, who has called you into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord.
Verse 2 reads, “And to all ... in every place,” and so on. This material might be, as some think, a later insertion into an epistle that was originally directed to a single church, the goal being to make it speak to all. Or else, as I think, it is original to the text, indicating the fictive character of the addressees. It is, in fact, intended for the widest possible audience, with no particular focus on Corinth, and was published as an encyclical against heresy from the beginning.
10 I exhort you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak one mind, and do not let divisions arise among you, but be united in one mind and one mind. 11 For, my brethren, I have heard of you from the people of Chloe, that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is that each of you speaks thus: I belong to Paul - I belong to Apollos, I belong to Cephas - 13 Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Verse 10 shows a typically second-century Catholicizing concern for orthodox unanimity. It is the sort of thing we should expect to find in the Ignatian epistles. It is an attempt to press a lid down onto the fertile chaos of Pandora’s box. The goal is to undercut the variety of Christian faith in the writer’s day by having Paul bemoan it, so to speak, in advance, precisely as Acts 20:29-30: “I know good and well that after I leave, bloodthirsty wolves will attack your flock, sparing no one, and men will emerge from your own ranks, speaking perverse things to siphon off disciples for themselves.”
Verses 11-12, the Chloe fragment, reveal that the sectarian rivalry implicates the names of Paul, Cephas, Apollo(s), and Christ, as if they were all current objects of Corinthian devotion. But to imagine Paul himself addressing this problem this way is anachronistic. It is not that a Christian leader in any age might not regret factional bickering with his name on it. The trouble, rather, is that Paul is made to pull rank on everyone else when ostensibly the point is to urge co-existence and tolerance among those committed to various leaders. The rank hypocrisy entailed in the historical Paul presuming to order everyone around, when he is supposed to be rejecting the exaltation of any one apostle over the rest, cannot be ignored. It would amount to Paul saying: “Okay, everybody, get this straight: no more difference of opinion. From now on you accept my views, not those of my colleagues and rivals, got it? And to hell with your Apollos and your Cephases!” But there is no hypocrisy involved (unless perhaps one deems pseudepigraphy itself underhanded) in a later Catholic admirer using the revered name of Paul to call for feuding theological tribes to come together in genuine compromise. [1] That, after all, was the whole point of “nascent Catholicism,” which sought to rehabilitate or dilute the legacy of Paul, which was so important to the heretical rivals it hoped to absorb.
On the other hand, we can readily imagine Paulinists rejecting the proposal, since they wanted (as reflected in Romans and 2 Corinthians) to safeguard the boundaries of the Pauline sphere of influence, that is, the clout of the successor bishops in the Pauline churches. This clout would vanish if Catholics were able to foist rival foundation legends, in which John or someone else was retroactively declared the founder of the Pauline churches. (See chapter 6 in the present book.)
Verses 11-12, the Chloe fragment, reveal that the sectarian rivalry implicates the names of Paul, Cephas, Apollo(s), and Christ, as if they were all current objects of Corinthian devotion. But to imagine Paul himself addressing this problem this way is anachronistic. It is not that a Christian leader in any age might not regret factional bickering with his name on it. The trouble, rather, is that Paul is made to pull rank on everyone else when ostensibly the point is to urge co-existence and tolerance among those committed to various leaders. The rank hypocrisy entailed in the historical Paul presuming to order everyone around, when he is supposed to be rejecting the exaltation of any one apostle over the rest, cannot be ignored. It would amount to Paul saying: “Okay, everybody, get this straight: no more difference of opinion. From now on you accept my views, not those of my colleagues and rivals, got it? And to hell with your Apollos and your Cephases!” But there is no hypocrisy involved (unless perhaps one deems pseudepigraphy itself underhanded) in a later Catholic admirer using the revered name of Paul to call for feuding theological tribes to come together in genuine compromise. [1] That, after all, was the whole point of “nascent Catholicism,” which sought to rehabilitate or dilute the legacy of Paul, which was so important to the heretical rivals it hoped to absorb.
On the other hand, we can readily imagine Paulinists rejecting the proposal, since they wanted (as reflected in Romans and 2 Corinthians) to safeguard the boundaries of the Pauline sphere of influence, that is, the clout of the successor bishops in the Pauline churches. This clout would vanish if Catholics were able to foist rival foundation legends, in which John or someone else was retroactively declared the founder of the Pauline churches. (See chapter 6 in the present book.)
14 I am glad that I have not baptized any of you except Crispus and Gaius. 15 Therefore no one can say that you were baptized in my name. 16 I have also baptized the house of Stephanas; I don't know of having baptized anyone else
One might read this as simply apostolic small talk. In fact, it is fictive window-dressing to achieve the impression of a spontaneous letter from Paul. That sort of thing was common in pseudepigraphical letters. Oddly enough, that would actually lend at least some functionality to what would otherwise seem irrelevant trivia. Islamic savants showed genuine insight when they denied that epistles could qualify as scripture, since they are communications from one human being to another, not direct bulletins from God to human beings, like in the Koran. [2] It does seem odd to think of apparent trivia, especially involving a lapse of memory, as somehow the word of God, the product of inspiration. Surely scripture cannot feature such occasional and ephemeral elements? But that would be naive. These names appear here for a definite reason, as form criticism bids us recognize: nothing got passed on without some concrete utility. Verse 14 looks like an attempt to establish or to reinforce episcopal succession claims in the names of Crispus and Gaius, excluding all others. The afterthought in verse 16a, a still later insertion added by another hand, pushes the door open still wider: Stephanas and his sons or successors are added to the Pauline succession genealogy. Then 16b stops up the fountain lest such claims become inflated and devalued. Otherwise, the result would be like that in Romans 16, where the list of Pauline lieutenants and protégés goes on and on ’til there is little of the apostolic goose left to carve up.
8 You are already satisfied! You are already rich! Without us you rule! And may you reign, indeed, that we too may reign with you!
As per Ernst Käsemann, [5] this is an attempt to curb enthusiasm that insists the new world is here already. Some of the symptoms of such unbridled enthusiasm might include sexual libertinism, as with the later Frankist sect; [6] leaving off working for a living (the Cargo Cults jeered at any who didn’t knock off work and slaughter all livestock for a feast as having no faith); [7] heedless glossolalia (no matter the public reaction); poison drinking, snake-handling, and braving gunfire to demonstrate eschatological invulnerability. [8] The danger is in believing that one has already transcended all norms of the mundane world, which one may indeed have done inwardly, while still abiding in a world that has not outwardly changed. As long as one must live in it while waiting for the consummation of the new age, one must still follow the old rules in order to function. The illuminatus is, for now, just as vulnerable to physical harm and social repercussions as anyone else.
V. It is commonly said that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not found even among the pagans: someone has his father's wife. 2 And you are puffed up with pride! Nor were ye rather grieved, that he that did this thing should be cut off from among you!
One must suspect that the sexual scandal referred to here was an overflow of the sort of either eschatological (Käsemann) or Gnostic (Schmithals) libertinism resulting from the transcendence of the law, albeit prematurely, while the strictures of this world yet linger. Our Marcionite writer continues, invoking the hovering presence of Kurios Paulos in judgment now, to preserve the rigorous standards of the Marcionite community. Even here, however, the goal is that the excommunicated brother be saved in the end. As we will see again in 2 Corinthians, for Marcionites, suffering is educative, not punitive.
Verses 3 and 4 are exactly parallel to Matthew 18:18-20, only here it is Paul himself who hovers like the divine Shekinah (Pirke Aboth 3:7)[9] over the assembly of his followers, empowering them with the keys of the kingdom. As we will shortly see, the Paulinist and the Matthean measures of communal justice are practically identical, stemming, no doubt, from their common origin in the sectarian jurisprudence of Qumran and the Baptist community.
Verses 3 and 4 are exactly parallel to Matthew 18:18-20, only here it is Paul himself who hovers like the divine Shekinah (Pirke Aboth 3:7)[9] over the assembly of his followers, empowering them with the keys of the kingdom. As we will shortly see, the Paulinist and the Matthean measures of communal justice are practically identical, stemming, no doubt, from their common origin in the sectarian jurisprudence of Qumran and the Baptist community.
6 Your boasting is misplaced. Don't you know that a little leaven makes the whole dough rise? 7 Get rid of the old leaven to make new dough,
I take this section to be a Catholic gloss, with its Judaizing metaphors. In accord with the two-step maneuver of Catholic co-optation of the Old Testament, the text claims for its own a Jewish heritage, but only to denigrate it as an inferior preliminary stage. Consider the denigration of the literal Passover meal of historic Judaism. Judaism itself is the contaminating yeast, as seems implied in the strange reference to “the old yeast.” The image is equivalent to that of the Cana miracle in John 2:1-11, where Judaism per se is symbolized by the water jars consecrated for use in ritual ablutions. By changing their contents into wine, the Johannine Jesus has rejected traditional Jewish usage. The sacredness of the original use has been jettisoned in favor of something formerly mundane, festive wine drinking, now made sacred through its role in the Christian eucharist. The talk of the Lord’s Supper as a Christian Passover represents the Catholic attempt to paper over the manifest origins of the eucharist in the Mystery cults of Dionysus and Osiris, something syncretist Gnostics did not mind admitting.
XI, 2 I praise you that you remember me in everything, and that you keep the traditions as I handed them down to you.
As W. C. Van Manen [27] noted, these references (11:2, 16) by “Paul” to traditions and customs (not merely, say, instructions) must imply a post-Pauline authorship looking back over a great many years. The tone is the same as the exhortations of the author of Revelation 2-3 (especially 2:13), speaking fictively for the Risen Jesus to congregations decades after the death of Jesus of Nazareth.
17 But, I do not praise this, that you come together not forbetter but for worse. 18 For when you come together each one takes his own meal first when he eats, and one is hungry while the other is drunk And you shame those who have nothing. What will I tell you? Shall I praise you? In this I do not praise you.
Verses 11:17-19 read like a Catholic’s grudging recognition (it sounds like First Clement) of the inevitability of heresies; at least, the true faith may become evident by contrast, as in John: “By this they will know that you are my true disciples, that you love one another.” The passage is inconsistent with 1 Corinthians 1:10-12, where Paul says he knows too well that factions are wracking the Body of Christ in Corinth. Factionalism is introduced here as if a new topic. How can the writer of 1 Corinthians 1:11-13ff. have written this? [30] Has he only vaguely heard of Corinthian factional strife? He is not quite sure whether to believe it? “Heresies” (vv. 18-19, literally “factions”) denotes “false doctrines” in second-century usage. We are reading a Catholic scribal note. Verse 15 appeals to the universal, ecumenical custom of the Catholic Church, the flip side of which is to make deviation into heresy, and this seems anachronistic for Paul, the pioneer missionary.
33 Therefore, my brothers, when you come together to eat, welcome one another.
Verses 23-32 are a later insertion and deal with a different subject, the eucharistic meal, a secondary ritualization of the earlier, simple communal meal or agape feast. Verse 33 connects back up with verse 22 as the proper conclusion of the discussion of decorum at the agape. Introducing the new understanding of the meal, verse 23 employs the same device as in John 16:12-14: the text professes merely to remind the community of important information once given them, when actually it is a new teaching, unveiled here for the first time, offered fictively in the name of the founder. “Paul” is correcting a messy situation which probably would not have existed if anyone had actually explained the eucharistic meal in these terms to begin with. Loisy saw this: “It is strange that Paul, if he had really told all this to the Corinthians before, should here be obliged to recall it.”[31]
XVI. As for the collection for the saints, follow the instructions I gave to the churches of Galatia. 2 On the first day of each week, let each of you set aside what he has been fortunate enough to collect, so that they do not wait for my arrival to collect the gifts. 3 When I come, I will send those whom you have approved to carry your gifts with letters to Jerusalem. 4 If it is necessary for me also to go, they will go with me. 5 I will come to you when I have passed through Macedonia, for I will pass through Macedonia. 6 It is possible that I will stay with you or even spend the winter there, so that you can accompany me wherever I go. 7 For I do not want to see you only in passing, but I hope to stay with you for a while if the Lord permits. 8 However, I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost; 9 for a wide door of success is open to me, and there are many adversaries. 10 If Timothy comes, let him be without fear among you; for he does the work of the Lord like me. 11 Therefore let him not be despised. Accompany him in peace so that he can come to me. Because I am waiting for him with the brothers. 12. As for Brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to come to you with the brothers. But it was definitely not his desire to go now. He will go when he gets the chance.
15 I pray to you, brothers. You know that the house of Stephanas is the firstfruits of Achaia and that it served the saints. 16 Be submissive to such people and to all who work with them and work with them. 17 I rejoice in the presence of Stephanas. of Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they made up for your absence. 18 They have calmed my spirit and yours. So appreciate such men. 19 The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Prisca, with the church that is held in their house, greet you greatly in the Lord. 29 All the brothers salute you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. 21 Greetings from my own hand, Paul.
15 I pray to you, brothers. You know that the house of Stephanas is the firstfruits of Achaia and that it served the saints. 16 Be submissive to such people and to all who work with them and work with them. 17 I rejoice in the presence of Stephanas. of Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they made up for your absence. 18 They have calmed my spirit and yours. So appreciate such men. 19 The churches of Asia salute you. Aquila and Prisca, with the church that is held in their house, greet you greatly in the Lord. 29 All the brothers salute you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. 21 Greetings from my own hand, Paul.
Verse 1 might naturally be taken as a reference to the collection Paul organized for the needs of the Jerusalem pillars and their community, a tribute imposed on him in Galatians 2:10 in return for apostolic recognition. But that is certainly not a necessary inference, and the text may simply be referring to charitable relief generally.
Verses 17-18 offer us a pedigree, forged after the fact by the leadership of a particular Paulinist faction or school still powerful for many years and claiming descent from Paul. It must be remembered that there were rival claims to be the official first convert in any particular city. In Philippi, was it Lydia (Acts 16), or was it Frontina, as the Acts of Paul reports? These were claims to authority in the church of the writers’ day, especially as it was the “household,” a kind of dynasty, of Stephanas, not merely Stephanas himself, that was recommended. And if Paul’s missionary efforts are being officially suppressed in favor of Catholic replacement founders (fictive, of course, as in chapter 6 of the present book), that is all the more reason for the Paulinist succession line (“household”) of Stephanas (“I belong to Paul!”) to reassert their claim by writing a letter, or part of one, like this.
We encounter old friends in 16:19: Aquila and Prisca or Priscilla. We know them from Acts 18, likewise Apollo. Hermann Detering [61] suggests that Apollo(s) was none other than Marcion’s successor Apelles and that he is responsible for later epistles. We have already seen how the Clementine Recognitions presents this Aquila as an erstwhile disciple of Simon Magus, who later turned to follow Peter. Well, this opens the interesting possibility that the Acts 18:1-4 scene in which Priscilla and Aquila take Apollo aside and correct his doctrine by a few tweaks might reflect the fact that, from the Marcionite perspective, Apelles, Marcion’s disciple, had in later years strayed a bit from Marcionite orthodoxy. It makes it appear that he was finally brought back into the fold by the Simonian Aquila and the prophesying virgin Philumene, whose revelations and instruction Apelles is known to have sought. It is tempting also to identify this Priscilla with the Montanist prophetess Priscilla.
Verse 21 offers us, ostensibly, a real Pauline autograph to conclude the epistle. This should have been self-evident and would not have required description. It is described only because it is fictive. One is supposed to believe the autograph was there in the original, and that, since this is a later copy of it, the distinctive signature would not stand out from the handwriting of the copyist. It had to be described.
Toward the end, what is the implication of liturgical rubrics to conclude an ostensible epistle? That is what we have in verse 22: anathema is Greek for “damned,” a liturgical fossil borrowed from Judaism, where heretics were ritually cursed in synagogue prayers, a practice instituted some thirty or forty years after Paul’s death. Obviously, this fact removes the letter from the ostensible lifetime of Paul. Many think this is a piece of eucharistic liturgy, warning away the lukewarm from partaking unworthily, as in 11:27-29. Maranatha is Aramaic for “Our Lord comes!” or “Our Lord, come!” Again, this would make sense as part of the eucharistic liturgy: after warning away the lukewarm and hypocrites, the celebrant invokes the presence of the Lord in the eucharist, anticipating the eschatological Parousia of Christ. The inclusion of apparent liturgical rubrics in the text of the epistle implies that the writer regards Pauline writings as scripture and wants this one included in that canon and thus read liturgically
Verses 17-18 offer us a pedigree, forged after the fact by the leadership of a particular Paulinist faction or school still powerful for many years and claiming descent from Paul. It must be remembered that there were rival claims to be the official first convert in any particular city. In Philippi, was it Lydia (Acts 16), or was it Frontina, as the Acts of Paul reports? These were claims to authority in the church of the writers’ day, especially as it was the “household,” a kind of dynasty, of Stephanas, not merely Stephanas himself, that was recommended. And if Paul’s missionary efforts are being officially suppressed in favor of Catholic replacement founders (fictive, of course, as in chapter 6 of the present book), that is all the more reason for the Paulinist succession line (“household”) of Stephanas (“I belong to Paul!”) to reassert their claim by writing a letter, or part of one, like this.
We encounter old friends in 16:19: Aquila and Prisca or Priscilla. We know them from Acts 18, likewise Apollo. Hermann Detering [61] suggests that Apollo(s) was none other than Marcion’s successor Apelles and that he is responsible for later epistles. We have already seen how the Clementine Recognitions presents this Aquila as an erstwhile disciple of Simon Magus, who later turned to follow Peter. Well, this opens the interesting possibility that the Acts 18:1-4 scene in which Priscilla and Aquila take Apollo aside and correct his doctrine by a few tweaks might reflect the fact that, from the Marcionite perspective, Apelles, Marcion’s disciple, had in later years strayed a bit from Marcionite orthodoxy. It makes it appear that he was finally brought back into the fold by the Simonian Aquila and the prophesying virgin Philumene, whose revelations and instruction Apelles is known to have sought. It is tempting also to identify this Priscilla with the Montanist prophetess Priscilla.
Verse 21 offers us, ostensibly, a real Pauline autograph to conclude the epistle. This should have been self-evident and would not have required description. It is described only because it is fictive. One is supposed to believe the autograph was there in the original, and that, since this is a later copy of it, the distinctive signature would not stand out from the handwriting of the copyist. It had to be described.
Toward the end, what is the implication of liturgical rubrics to conclude an ostensible epistle? That is what we have in verse 22: anathema is Greek for “damned,” a liturgical fossil borrowed from Judaism, where heretics were ritually cursed in synagogue prayers, a practice instituted some thirty or forty years after Paul’s death. Obviously, this fact removes the letter from the ostensible lifetime of Paul. Many think this is a piece of eucharistic liturgy, warning away the lukewarm from partaking unworthily, as in 11:27-29. Maranatha is Aramaic for “Our Lord comes!” or “Our Lord, come!” Again, this would make sense as part of the eucharistic liturgy: after warning away the lukewarm and hypocrites, the celebrant invokes the presence of the Lord in the eucharist, anticipating the eschatological Parousia of Christ. The inclusion of apparent liturgical rubrics in the text of the epistle implies that the writer regards Pauline writings as scripture and wants this one included in that canon and thus read liturgically
Statistics: Posted by Giuseppe — Tue Dec 26, 2023 12:39 am