February 26, 2025

13. Communion in 1 Corinthians

44 minutes

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1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Dining in the Ancient World

1 Corinthians 11:17-22 Paul criticized several behaviors, including divisiveness, unequal distribution of food and drink, and humiliating those who have nothing.

Seneca the Younger: “All is quiet within the schools of rhetoric and philosophy. But how crammed the kitchens are, and how many young people crowd around the stoves of the wastrels! …I exclude the throngs of bakers and waiters, who rush to bring in the dinner when the signal has been given. Ye gods, the number of people that just one belly keeps busy! In the case of those mushrooms, the gourmet poison, do you think that they are having no hidden effect on you, even if they have not yet done anything obvious? Do you really suppose that the ice you are eating during summer does not cause hardening of your liver? Do you really believe that those oysters, sluggish creatures fattened on mud, are not infecting you with any of their slimy heaviness? As regards imported garum, the costly rot of bad fish, do you really believe its salty decay will not give you heartburn? Do you think that those festering foods that are taken almost straight from the fire into the mouth are harmlessly extinguished in your intestines? How foul and unhealthy the ensuing belches are! How disgusted people are with themselves when they breathe out last night’s drunken binge! You can be sure that their intake is rotting rather than being digested.”1 (Seneca the Younger, Letters on Ethics 23-25)

Plutarch: “During the Isthmian games, the second time Sospis was exhibitor [president], I avoided the other banquets, at which he entertained a great many foreign visitors at once, and several times entertained all the citizens.”2 (Table-Talk 4.1)

Pseudo-Quintus Cicero: “Never to leave town is very rewarding; yet the gains from your personal attendance consist not merely in being at Rome and in the Forum, but in canvassing continuously, soliciting the same people many times, and, so far as possible, not letting anybody be in a position to say that he has not been canvassed by you—and thoroughly and diligently canvassed too. Next, generosity has a wide field. It is shown in the use of one’s private means, for although this cannot reach the masses, the masses like hearing it praised by your friends; it is shown in banquets, to which you and your friends should often convoke the people at large or tribe by tribe; also in rendering services, which you will widely advertise.…”3 (Pseudo-Quintus Cicero, Handbook of Electioneering 43-44)

Pliny the Younger: “I happened to be dining with a man—though no particular friend of his—whose elegant economy, as he called it, seemed to me a sort of stingy extravagance. The best dishes were set in front of himself and a select few, and cheap scraps of food before the rest of the company. He had even put the wine into tiny little flasks, divided into three categories, not with the idea of giving his guests and opportunity of choosing, but to make it impossible for them to refuse what they were given. One lot was intended for himself and for us, another for his lesser friends (all his friends are graded) and the third for us and our freedmen. My neighbour at table noticed this and asked me if I approved. I said I did not. ‘So what do you do?’ he asked. ‘I serve the same to everyone, for when I invite guests it is for a meal, not to make class distinctions; I have brought them as equals to the same table, so I give them the same treatment in everything.” “Even the freedmen?” “Of course, for then they are my fellow-diners, not freedmen.” “That must cost you a lot.” “On the contrary.” “How is that?” “Because my freedmen do not drink the sort of wine I do, but I drink theirs.” Believe me, if you restrain your greedy instincts it is no strain on your finances to share with several others the fare you have yourself.”4 (Pliny the Younger, Letters 6.1-5)

Martial: “[W]hy don’t I get the same dinner as you? You take oysters fattened in the Lucrine pool, I cut my mouth sucking a mussel. You have mushrooms, I take pig fungi. You set to with turbot, I with bream. A golden turtle dove fills you up with its outsize rump, I am served with a magpie that died in its cage. Why do I dine without you, Ponticus, when I’m dining with you? Let the disappearance of the dole count for something; let’s eat the same meal.”5 (Martial, Epigrams60)

Martial: “We drink from [clear] glass, you from murrine [colored glass], Ponticus. For why? A transparent cup would reveal two wines.”6 (Martial, Epigrams 85)

Juvenal: “Observe the size of that lobster: it marks out a platter reserved for my lord. Please note the asparagus garnish heaped high around it, the peacocking tail that looks down on the guests as it’s brought in, borne aloft by some tall waiter! But you get half an egg that’s stuffed with a single prawn, and served in a little saucer, like some funeral offering. Himself drizzles his fish with the finest oil, but your colourless boiled cabbage (poor you!) will have an aroma of the lamp; the stuff you’re offered as a dressing came to town in some sharp-prowed felucca. …Rub it on you, and poisonous snakes will give you a wide berth.”7 (Satires 80-91)

Housing Architecture

Villa east of the theater: part of the entertainment district with spacious courtyards

Villa near the Sicyonian gate: preserved Dionysus mosaic from the triclinium floor

Anaploga Villa: ½ mile SW of Corinth with triclinium (24 x 18 ft) and atrium (20 x 16 ft). The usable space of the atrium was diminished by 1/9th due to the impluvium, which collected rainwater and let in sun through the compluvium (opening in the roof).

9 – 15 could eat in the triclinium

30 – 40 could fit in the atrium

High-status guests would sit in the triclinium while everyone else would sit in the atrium. For Corinth, this would probably include Gaius, Crispus, Sosthenes, Titius Justus, Stephanas, Erastus, Priscilla, and Aquilla. Adding in wives would result in a total of 14 and likely overcrowded couches.

Calculating the Members of the Church

Acts

Priscilla the missionary (Acts 18.2)

Aquilla the tentmaker (Acts 18.2)

Titius Justus, house next to synagogue (Acts 18.7)

Crispus the synagogue benefactor (Acts 18.8)

Sosthenes the synagogue benefactor (Acts 18.17)

1 Corinthians (not including duplicates)

Gaius host of Paul and whole church (1 Cor 1.14; Rom 16.23))

Stephanas householder, delegate (1 Cor 1.16; 16.17)

Fortunatus, delegate (1 Cor 16.17)

Achaicus, delegate (1 Cor 16.17)

Romans (not including duplicates)8

Lucius (Rom 16.21)

Jason (Rom 16.21)

Sosipater (Rom 16.21)

Tertius the scribe (Rom 16.21)

Erastus the city treasurer (Rom 16.21)

Quartus (Rom 16.21)

The total = 5 + 4 + 6 = 15. If the 13 singles mentioned above had spouses, we get 28 individuals. Adding in another 3 more for Gaius, Crispus, and Stephanas to account for relatives, freedmen, and slaves we get 37 individuals. Adding in children and other unnamed individuals, we get a rough estimate between 50 and 100 people. Even 50 would be too many for most wealthy people’s houses. The result would be meeting in separate houses each week, which, in turn, enabled the possibilities of factions to develop over time (1 Cor 11:17-19).

Unequal Food Distribution, Drunkenness, and Status

1 Corinthians 11:20-22 Some are eating well while others are going hungry. Some are getting drunk while others have no wine. Paul sees this as humiliating those who have nothing.

The poor may even have to watch slaves carrying exotic and expensive cuisine through the atrium on the way to the triclinium. Alternatively, everyone could have brought their own food. Either way, the problem was the same.

Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “The better-off, with their well-furnished picnic baskets, would not have wished to sit beside envious inferiors, whose body-language at least would have been expressive. And those with more leisure could have arranged to arrive early enough to secure the positions they preferred. It would be natural for them to congregate in one room.”9

The Lord’s Supper as a Unifying Event

1 Corinthians 10:16-17 Here we learn that there is one bread and one body. The meal should bring about unity not divisions and factions.

1 Corinthians 11:20-21 The way they are doing it invalidates it. Because of their behavior, they are not really eating the Lord’s supper.

Gerd Theissen: “The idea of ἴδιον δεῖπνον [one’s own supper] can first of all be defined in contrast with its opposite, κυριακὸν δεῖπνον (“the Lord’s supper”). ἴδιος and κυριακός refer to questions of ownership…[T]he words of institution have the added function of converting a private contribution into community property. For the words “this is my body for you,” spoken over the contribution of bread, have the practical meaning: This bread is here for all of you.”10

James Walters: “How would Paul’s instructions have impacted the influence that hosts could exert through meals? First, by sharply distinguishing the community meal from other meals, Paul is able to challenge the appropriateness of meal conventions that reinforced the host’s status and power in other settings. Second, by underscoring that Jesus himself is the host of the community meal, Paul rhetorically supplants the Corinthian hosts who might use meals to supplant him.”11

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 The Lord’s supper echoes the last supper when Jesus initiated the ritual meal.

James Walters: “[B]y connecting the meal with Jesus’ last supper Paul uses temporality to construct ekklesia [church] space on top of oikia [house] space. …Paul makes Jesus the host of the community meal—the very reason he calls it the “Lord’s Supper.” Thus it is not only the ‘codes’ that change when ekklesia space is constructed on top of oikia space, the host changes as well. …Paul’s exclamation, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21), indicates whose table Christ-followers gather around when they eat a meal in ekklesia space regardless of which oikia might be hosting the gathering. Moreover, the phrases “drink the cup of the Lord” and “partake of the table of the Lord” suggest that for Paul whatever food and drink might have been provided by those with relatively greater resources for the poorer members of the community should not highlight their generosity, but Christ’s.”12

1 Corinthians 11:27-32 Taking the Lord’s supper seriously involves rightly discerning one’s own heart before so as to partake in a worthy manner. Otherwise, judgement looms.

Steven Nemes: “The bread and the cup are a sharing in the body and blood of Jesus because they are the symbols of these. By accepting these items in the course of the eucharistic meal, a Christian appropriates the person and work of Jesus to him- or herself. The Christians who participate in this act together accomplish their unity through their declaration of loyalty and commitment to Jesus as a group. This meal also accomplishes a union between Jesus and the believer. But there is no reason to think that this union is anything more robust than that of mutual love. It is also noteworthy that the inappropriate or unworthy participation in the Eucharist can lead to harmful or even disastrous consequences. But this is not because the bread and wine of the meal really are the body and blood of Jesus. They are not magical items that harm those who misuse them, but rather are the symbols by which the person and work of Jesus are represented. It is the prerogative of God to punish those who profane that work by their abuse of its symbols.”13

1 Corinthians 11:33-34 Take care of your physical needs apart from the Lord’s supper. The point of communion is to do it together. Treat the lowly as family. Inconvenience yourself for the sake of others.

Bibliography

Cicero. Letters to Quintus and Brutus, Letter Fragments, Letter to Octavian, Invectives, Handbook of Electioneering. Translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Vol. 28. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002.

Juvenal. The Sixteen Satires. Translated by Peter Green. 3rd ed. London, England: Penguin, 2004.

Martial. On the Spectacles, Epigrams 1-4. Translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library, edited by G. P. Goold. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues. Oxford, England: Oxford University, 2009.

Nemes, Steven. Eating Christ’s Flesh: A Case for Memorialism. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023.

Plutarch. Moralia: Table-Talk 7-9; the Dialogue on Love. Translated by Jr. Edwin L. Minar. Vol. 9. Loeb Classical Library. London, UK: William Henemann, 1961.

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Letters on Ethics. Translated by A. A. Long Margaret Graver. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2015.

Theissen, Gerd. The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth. Translated by John H. Schütz. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.

Walters, James C. “Paul and the Politics of Meals in Roman Corinth.” In Corinth in Context. Edited by Daniel N. Schowalter Steven J. Friesen, and James C. Walters. Leiden, NL: Brill, 2010.

Younger, Pliny the. Letters and Panegyrius. Translated by Betty Radice. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library, edited by Jeffrey Henderson. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters on Ethics, trans. A. A. Long Margaret Graver (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2015), 524-5.
Plutarch, Moralia: Table-Talk 7-9; the Dialogue on Love, trans. Jr. Edwin L. Minar, vol. 9, Loeb Classical Library (London, UK: William Henemann, 1961), 143.
Cicero, Letters to Quintus and Brutus, Letter Fragments, Letter to Octavian, Invectives, Handbook of Electioneering, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, vol. 28, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 433-5.
Pliny the Younger, Letters and Panegyrius, trans. Betty Radice, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, ed. Jeffrey Henderson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 95-7.
Martial, On the Spectacles, Epigrams 1-4, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library, ed. G. P. Goold (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), 245.
Martial, 347.
Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires, trans. Peter Green, 3rd ed. (London, England: Penguin, 2004), 31.
Asuming Romans was written from Corinth (Rom 16.1).
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, Keys to First Corinthians: Revisiting the Major Issues (Oxford, England: Oxford University, 2009), 192.
Gerd Theissen, The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity: Essays on Corinth, trans. John H. Schütz (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock), 148.
James C. Walters, “Paul and the Politics of Meals in Roman Corinth,” in Corinth in Context, ed. Daniel N. Schowalter Steven J. Friesen, and James C. Walters (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2010), 359.
Walters, in Corinth in Context, 362-3.
Steven Nemes, Eating Christ’s Flesh: A Case for Memorialism (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023), 88-9.

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