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February 26, 202513. Communion in 1 Corinthians
Download: Communion in 1 Corinthians
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.
The post 13. Communion in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
45 min
February 22, 202512. Women in 1 Corinthians
Download: Women in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 11:2-6, 10, 14-15; 14:34-36
Women in the City
Women attended the theater, went to the forum, and watched the games.
We have evidence from an inscription at Delphi mentioning three women who competed in 200 meter race in the Isthmian Games, including Tryphosa, Dionysia, and Hedea, who also won the war-chariot race in ad
Sometimes women became their own masters as when her father and husband had both died. This was probably the case for Junia Theodora and Phoebe.
Women had many limitations too. They could not vote or hold public office, and they had limited legal rights, depending on their fathers or husbands to enter contracts. Wealthier women of status led more restrictive lives, not going out in public unescorted. Elite women were to focus on running their estates, including managing their own families as well as freed persons and slaves. However, female slaves and freedwomen could work outside the home without any shame.
Standards for Christian Women in 1 Corinthians
Christian wives enjoyed a mutuality and fidelity from their husbands unparalleled in Roman society. They had authority over their husband’s bodies (7:4). As a result they did not compete with hetairai, the brothel, or female slaves in the household for the sexual attention of their husbands. Likewise Christian wives were obligated to be sexually faithful to their husbands.
Christian unmarried women (virgins) and widows were encouraged to remain single, though it was fine if they got married to a Christian (7:8-9, 25-26, 28). This opened up a new category for honorable women to choose singleness for Christ whether before every getting married or after their husbands died. Virgins and widows came to occupy esteemed roles in churches.
Headship and Head Coverings for Men
1 Corinthians 11:2-3 Husbands and wives are likely in view here. Some scholars like Wayne Gruden say “head” (kephale, κεφαλή) means authority over, others like Gordon Fee say it refers to source or origin, while others like Margaret MacDonald see it as a representative. The parallel in Ephesians 5:22-23 makes me think authority is the best option here.
1 Corinthians 11:4 Men who prayed or prophesied with their heads covered (capite velato) shamed their head (Christ).
Plutarch: “[I]t is more usual for women to go forth in public with their heads covered and men with their heads uncovered”1 (Plutarch, Moralia 267AB, Roman Questions 14)
Winter: “[M]en were depicted with the toga drawn over their head, the capite velato, while praying or offering up a libation to a god or gods. …Not all participants drew the toga over their heads, only those taking a leading part in a local pagan rite, i.e., sacrificing or praying. … [T]he social élite undertook this function.”2
David Gill: “The issue which Paul is dealing with here seems to be that members of the social élite within the church–the dunatoi and the eugeneis (1:26—were adopting a form of dress during worship which drew attention to their status in society. … Thus if men were to keep their heads uncovered whilst praying and prophesying it would help to emphasise the unity of the church. If they continued to wear the toga over their heads it would indicate that there was continuing inequality in the church; the uncovered head would restate that ‘the head of every man is Christ’ (v. 3).”3
Head Coverings for Women
1 Corinthians 11:5 Women (wives) praying or prophesying with their heads uncovered (capite aperto) shamed their heads (husbands).
Tacitus: “[O]n a specified day, with witnesses to seal the contract, a consul designate and the emperor’s wife should have met for the avowed purposes of legitimate marriage; that the woman should have listened to the words of the auspices, have assumed the veil, have sacrificed in the face of Heaven; that both should have dined with the guests, have kissed and embraced, and finally have spent the night in the licence of wedlock.”4
Cicero: “You put on the toga of manhood and promptly turned it into the badge of a harlot. You started out as a common whore. Your shame had a fixed price, and no mean one. But quite soon, along came Curio, who took you out of the prostitute’s trade, gave you a married lady’s robe [stolam] as it were, and settled you down in steady wedlock.”5 (Cicero, Philippic 44-45)
Horace: “What matter whether your partner is a married lady or a wench with a cloak [togata]? …I never insist, do I, on [someone]…descended from a mighty consul and veiled by a lady’s robe [stola]…So stop chasing married women or you may be sorry. You may well find the pain and hardship far outweigh any real pleasure. She may be decked in emeralds and snowy pearls, but that doesn’t give her a straighter leg or a softer thigh than Cerinthus boasts. And often the girl with the cloak [togata] is better still.”6 (Horace, Satire 2.62-3, 77-82)
Thomas McGinn: “As part of the established penalty, a woman convicted of adultery was to be publicly humiliated through open identification as a prostitute. This was mainly achieved by stipulating that the adultera damnata should wear the toga…In classical antiquity, you were what you wore.”7
Anthony Thiselton: The wearing of appropriate head covering (such as a hood) denoted respect and respectability. Within the semiotic clothing code of first-century Roman society (see above on Roland Barthes) “a veil or hood constituted a warning: it signified that the wearer was a respectable woman and that no man dare approach her,”e., as one potentially or actually sexually “available” (my italics).8
Judith Sebesta: “As the veil symbolised the husband’s authority over his wife, the omission of the veil by a married woman was a sign of her “withdrawing” herself from the marriage.9
Bruce Winter: “The very mention of the word ‘veil’ by Paul would automatically indicate to the Corinthians that the females under discussion in this passage were married. …The widow would no longer wear the marriage veil.”10
Women with Short Hair
1 Corinthians 11:6 Women (wives) who will not cover their heads should also cut their hair off.
Dio Chrysostom: “Cyprus too had its Demonassa, a woman gifted in both statesmanship and lawgiving. She gave the people of Cyprus the following three laws: a woman guilty of adultery shall have her hair cut off and be a harlot—her daughter became an adulteress, had her hair cut off according to the law, and practiced harlotry.…”11 (Dio Chrysostom, Discourse 3)
David Gill: “If women do not have their head covered, then they are seen to shame their head, that is to say their husband. …[I]f women in the church will not wear a veil, then they will be seen as dishonouring their husbands which might affect their place in society. If the wife insists on being unveiled then she might as well wear a sign of humiliation by having her hair cut. If she does not wish to bring such shame (αἰσχρον) to her husband, herself and her family then she should be veiled.”12
Because of the Angels
1 Corinthians 11:10 A woman (wife) should have authority over her head (a covering) because of the angels.
Option 1: Head coverings prevent sexually tempting angels.
Dale Martin: ”The bride [in a classical Greek wedding] unveils herself before the groom; she thus submits to his penetrating gaze; he and his family cross the household boundary by giving her gifts, thus making her a dependent of their household as she leaves that of her family. The usual term for “veil” is krēdemnon…In Homeric texts krēdemnon can refer to the stopper, seal, or cover of a wine jug. Since both medical writers, and it seems, popular opinion conceived of the uterus as an upside-down jug, krēdemnon could also connote the “closed” (in common opinion) uterus of a virgin; …For ancient Greeks, then, the veil (krēdemnon) not only symbolized but actually effected a protective barrier guarding the woman’s head and, by metanymic transfer, her genitals. …Paul fears that angels will be sexually tempted by the exposed women and may try to have relations with them.”13
Option 2: Messengers (angels) from curious wealthy people
Bruce Winter: “Augustus had legislated against the political activities of associations as soon as he had secured power, and all the emperors in the Julio-Claudian dynasty, apart from Gaius, remained highly suspicious of them.”14
Bruce Winter: “Those with civic status or wealth whose curiosity was aroused about the Christian faith would not go to any meeting without having a client or others first carry back reports of its activities. The treason trials under Tiberius had left an indelible fear on every Roman because guilty by association had had catastrophic consequences. …Paul states, the wife is under obligation to wear the sign of her marriage as she prays and prophesies because of what its absence signaled to the inquisitive outsiders—she portrayed herself as the promiscuous Roman wife, i.e., an unashamed adulteress.”15
Option 3: Retain proper etiquette because angels attend services
Fitzmyer: “Because of the (good) angels,” who are considered assisting at gatherings of public worship, as in Ps 138:1 (LXX: “…before angels shall I sing your praise”); cf. Tob 12:12; Rev 8:3, where an angel functions as a mediator of the prayers of holy people…These angels are explained further at times as cosmic guardians of the order of the world…or even as those addressed, when God said in Gen 1:26, “Let us make a human being” (as Philo held, De opificio mundi 24 §75, even though he never calls them angeloi, but rather God’s synergoi). …[T]he woman must have authority over her head and cover it, not only because she is in the presence of men, but because she is praying in the presence of God and His angels.”16
Evidence from Qumran indicates the Essenes though angels attend their worship services.17
Hair Length for Men and Women
1 Corinthians 11:14-15 Nature teaches that women have long hair and men have short hair.
Anthony Thiselton: “Pseudo-Phocylides, a hellenistic Jew who wrote between 30 BC and AD 40, advised parents, “Do not let locks grow on his head. Braid not his crown nor make cross-knots . . . long hair is not fit for men but for voluptuous women . . . because many rage for intercourse with a man” (Pseudo-Phocylides 210–14, my italics).18
Statues indicate men typically wore their hair short and women wore it long. Exceptions include statues of the gods with longer hair and portrayals of conquered barbarians portrayed with feminine long curly hair.
Women Remain Silent
1 Corinthians 14:34-36 Women should be silent and subordinate in the church service.
Some allege that these verses are not original to Paul (Gordon Fee) while most textual scholars recognize their inclusion due to the overwhelming manuscript evidence.19 Joseph Fitzmyer thinks Paul included them originally in the margin of his original letter to the Corinthians.
Paul can’t be saying women cannot speak during the worship service since he has already made provision for them to pray and prophesy in ch 11. There was some specific circumstance that prompted this instruction. Of course, the Corinthians knew what was going on, and Paul knew. However, for us, we are left to reconstruct the situation.
Option 1: Evaluating husbands’ prophecies (Winter), see v29
Option 2: Side talk due to a lack of understanding (Bailey)
Kenneth Bailey: “I have preached in village churches in Egypt…I preached in simple colloquial Arabic, but the women were often illiterate and the preacher was expected to preach for at least an hour—and we had problems. The women quickly passed the limit of their attention span. The children were seated with them and chatting inevitably broke out among the women. The chatting would at times become so loud that no one could hear the preacher. (These villages had no electricity and no sound amplification.) One of the senior elders would stand up and in a desperate voice shout, “Let the women be silent in the church!” and we would proceed. After about ten minutes the scene would repeat. … [W]hat can we imagine in Corinth in the days of Paul? Paul had just affirmed that the Corinthians were getting drunk at the Lord’s Supper and that the prophets and tongues speakers were all talking at once! It seems that some of the women gave up and started chatting. Who could blame them?”20
Option 3: Asking husbands clarifying questions (Keener, Schreiner)
Craig Keener: “What is almost certainly in view is that the women are interrupting the Scripture exposition with questions. This would have caused an affront to more conservative men or visitors to the church, and it would have also caused a disturbance to the service due to the nature of the questions.”21
Plutarch: “In all cases, then, silence is a safe adornment for the young man …but even if the remarks be none too agreeable, puts up with them, and waits for the speaker to pause, and, when the pause comes, does not at once interpose his objection, but, as Aeschines puts it, allows an interval to elapse, in case the speaker may desire to add something to what he has said, or to alter or unsay anything. But those who instantly interrupt with contradictions, neither hearing nor being heard, but talking while others talk, behave in an unseemly manner…It is quite necessary that in formulating questions the questioner should accommodate himself to… those matters “in which he is at his best”; not forcibly to divert one who is more concerned with the ethical side of philosophy, by plying him with questions in natural science or mathematics, or to drag the man who poses as an authority on natural science into passing judgement on the hypothetical propositions of logic… [T]hey are not willing to give themselves any trouble, but they give trouble to the speaker by repeatedly asking questions about the same things…For holding back the speaker on every possible occasion by their inane and superfluous questions, as in a company of persons travelling together, they impede the regular course of the lecture, which has to put up with halts and delays. ”22 (Plutarch, Moralia 39CD, 43BC, 48AB, On Listening to Lectures 4, 11, 18)
Paul offered two solutions to the disruptive behavior of women during the sermon. (1) Let the women remain silent (solved the short-term problem). (2) Let the women learn from their husbands (solved the long-term problem).
Craig Keener: “When Paul suggests that husbands should teach their wives at home, his point is not to belittle women’s ability to learn. To the contrary, Paul is advocating the most progressive view of his day: despite the possibility that she is less educated than himself, the husband should recognize his wife’s intellectual capability and therefore make himself responsible for her education, so they can discuss intellectual issue together.”23
Bibliography
Bailey, Kenneth E. Paul through Mediterranean Eyes. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011.
Chrysostom, Dio. Discourses 61-80, Fragments, Letters. Translated by H. Lamar Crosby. Vol. 5. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1951.
Cicero. Philippics 1-6. Translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Loeb Classical Library. Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Fitzmyer, Joseph A. First Corinthians. Vol. 32. The Anchor Yale Bible. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Gill, David W. J. “The Importance of Roman Portraiture for Head-Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16.” Tyndale Bulletin 41, no. 2 (1990): 245-60.
Horace. Satires and Epistles. Translated by Niall Rudd. London, England: Penguin, 2005.
Keener, Craig S. Paul, Women & Wives. Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992.
Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995.
McGinn, Thomas A. J. Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Plutarch. Moralia 1a-86a. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Henemann, 1928.
Plutarch. Moralia 263d-351b. Translated by Frank Cole Babbitt. Vol. 4. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1962.
Sebesta, Judith L. “Symbolism in the Costume of the Roman Woman.” In The World of Roman Costume. Edited by Sebesta and Bonfante. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
Tacitus, Cornelius. The Annals. Translated by John Jackson. Vol. 3. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1951.
Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Vol. 13. Nigtc. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
Winter, Bruce. Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.
Winter, Bruce W. After Paul Left Corinth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001.
Plutarch, Moralia 263d-351b, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, vol. 4, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1962), 27.
Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 122.
David W. J. Gill, “The Importance of Roman Portraiture for Head-Coverings in 1 Corinthians 11:2-16,” Tyndale Bulletin 41, no. 2 (1990): 250-1.
Cornelius Tacitus, The Annals, trans. John Jackson, vol. 3, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1951), 295-7.
Cicero, Philippics 1-6, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Loeb Classical Library (Cambrdige, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 97.
Horace, Satires and Epistles, trans. Niall Rudd (London, England: Penguin, 2005), 9.
Thomas A. J. McGinn, Prostitution, Sexuality, and the Law in Ancient Rome (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 156, 62.
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, vol. 13, Nigtc (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 828-9.
Judith L. Sebesta, “Symbolism in the Costume of the Roman Woman,” in The World of Roman Costume, ed. Sebesta and Bonfante (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994), 48.
Winter, 127.
Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 61-80, Fragments, Letters, trans. H. Lamar Crosby, vol. 5, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1951), 47.
Gill 254, 6.
Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995), 234, 43.
Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 90.
Winter, 137-8.
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians, vol. 32, The Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press), 418-9.
Fitzmyer lists 1QSa 2.3-9; 1QM 7.4-6; 4 QMa 1-3.10; CD 15.15-17; 4QDb 17 i 6-8.
Thiselton, 825.
Codex Claromontanus (D, 6th cent.) and two of its descendants from the 9th cent. move vv34-35 to after v40. The theory is that these verses were in the margin and scribes worked them into the text in different places However, older, more accurate mss like P46 (2nd cent.), Codex Sinaiticus (א, 4th cent.), Vaticanus (B, 4th cent.), Alexandrinus (A, 5th cent.) and Ephraemi Rescriptus (C, 5th cent.) and most Byzantine mss. (maybe 500 total) have it in its normal place. We have no mss that omit vv34-35.
Kenneth E. Bailey, Paul through Mediterranean Eyes (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 414-5.
Craig S. Keener, Paul, Women & Wives (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1992), 81.
Plutarch, Moralia 1a-86a, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Henemann, 1928), 213-5, 33, 57.
Keener, 84.
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53 min
February 20, 202511. Money and Benefaction in 1 Corinthians
Download: Money and Benefaction in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 8:9-13; 9:1-27
Paul’s Example
1 Corinthians 8:9-13 Rather than eating idol food and bragging about it, the strong in the church should consider how their freedom affects the weak.
1 Corinthians 9:1-17 Paul turns the attention to his own privileges as a bonafide apostle. He could bring a wife along with him; he could get paid for his work. But he has given up those privileges.
Arguments to Pay Ministers
(1) Soldiers get their expenses paid for. (9:7)
(2) Vineyard farmers enjoy the fruits of their labor. (9:7)
(3) Shepherds get the milk from their flock. (9:7)
(4) Plowing oxen are not muzzled so they can graze. (9:8-10)
(5) Those who work in the temple service get their food from the sacrifices. (9:13)
Conclusion 1: We who have sown spiritual things among you should harvest material things. (9:11)
Conclusion 2: The Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. (9:14)
And yet Paul said, “I would rather die than that”. (9:15)
Benefaction in Cities
Aristotle: “The magistracies of the highest rank, which ought to be in the hands of the governing body, should have expensive duties attached to them, and then the people will not desire them and will take no offense at the privileges of their rulers when they see that they pay a heavy fine for their dignity. It is fitting also that the magistrates on entering office should offer magnificent sacrifices or erect some public edifice, and then the people who participate in the entertainments, and see the city decorated with votive offerings and buildings, will not desire an alteration in the government, and the notables will have memorials of their munificence.”1 (Aristotle, Politics 6.7.31-40)
Arjan Zuiderhoek: “Hierarchies, however, are never self-evident, but have to be persuasively presented as such. Elites have to convince both themselves and those below them that their domination is not arbitrary, but that the existing order is somehow the natural state of things. The social hierarchy has to be shown to be morally justified in the sense that it accords with broadly shared beliefs about what is good and just. …The more privileged the position of the governing elite became, the more individual members had to give evidence of their moral superiority, and they had to do so in hard cash.”2
Apuleius: “His name was Thiasus and he came from Corinth, the capital of the province of Achaea. As one would expect of a man of his birth and rank, he had passed through the different graces of office to the quinquennial magistracy; and to honour the occasion in a suitably brilliant manner and by way of displaying his munificence to the full he had undertaken to provide a three-day gladiatorial show. So eager indeed was he for popularity that he had been as far afield as Thessaly to procure wild beasts and celebrated gladiators, and now that he had acquired and arranged all he needed he was preparing to return to Corinth.”3 (Apulius, The Golden Ass12)
Patron-Client Relationship
The patron was the superior who provided for his or her clients money, legal help, protection from someone, political support, business connections, or even just food. In return, clients were expected to provide loyalty, public recognition, voting support, and protection of the patron’s reputation in the city.
1 Corinthians 9:16-18 Here Paul sounds like his policy is never to take money from anyone so he can always offer the gospel without any payment.
Philippians 4:10-20 The church at Philippi repeatedly supported Paul financially, and he was quite happy to receive their help.
Junia Theodora of Corinth
Junia inscription (lines 22-31): “The people of Patara have decreed: Since Iunia Theodora, a Roman, living in Corinth, a woman of the greatest honour, living modestly, who is a friend of the Lycians, and has dedicated her life to earning the gratitude of all the Lycians, has bestowed numerous benefits also on many of our citizens; and, revealing the generosity of her nature, she does not cease, because of her goodwill, from offering hospitality to all the Lycians and receiving them in her own house and she continues particularly to act on behalf of our citizens in regard to any favour asked—so that the majority of our citizens have come before the Assembly to give testimony about her.”4
Junia inscription (lines 72-77): “Since Junia Theodora, a Roman, a benefactress of the greatest loyalty to the Lycian federation and our city has accomplished numerous . . . benefits for the federation and our city, and dwelling in the city of the Corinthians welcomes in her own house Lycian travellers and our citizens, . . . supplying them with everything . . . ; displaying her patronage [προστασια, prostasia] of those who are present….”5
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “Junia Theodora may have helped individuals financially, but her principal service to her fellow Lycians was twofold: she offered them hospitality and she facilitated relations with the administration “by assuring the friendship of the authorities” (line 52). Exports from Lycia had to go by sea, and it is no coincidence that the cities that honor Junia Theodora are the principal ports of western Lycia.”6
Phoebe of Cenchreae
Romans 16:1-2 Paul called Phoebe “our sister,” “deacon of the church at Cenchreae,” and “a benefactor [προστάτις, prostatis] of many and of myself.”
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “Phoebe was a benefactress on a less international scale than Junia Theodora, but her activities would have been very similar. The title given to her by Paul, prostatis (Rom 16:2), is a cognate of prostasia, which is used to describe the contribution of Junia Theodora (line 77). Phoebe hosted the assembly of the believers at Cenchreae. Her house would have been open to traveling Christians, whom she would help with advice, contacts, and, if necessary, intervention.”7
Paul received Phoebe’s benefaction, possibly even while he was living in Corinth. However, he couldn’t bring himself to receive money from the Corinthian élite.
Not Taking Money for Himself But…
2 Corinthians 11:7-9 Reflecting back on his time in Corinth, Paul noted that he did receive financial assistance from other churches.
He never tells the Corinthians specifically why he wouldn’t take their money. He certainly didn’t want to take on the traditional obligations of a client to any specific wealthy individual. He also may have perceived that receiving from one person would enable divisiveness as other elite Christians competed.
1 Corinthians 16:1-4 Still, Paul did want their money. He’s fully planning to go and pick it up and then bring it to Jerusalem for the poor there. Notice how far away chapters 9 and 16 are from each other. Paul didn’t want there to be a shred of doubt that this money was not for him.
Athletic Metaphors and the Isthmian Games
1 Corinthians 9:19-27 Paul revealed his modus operandi (mode of operating). He was always willing to give up privileges and inconvenience himself if it meant he could win people over in evangelism.
Paul employed the illustration of runners, athletes in training, and boxers. Such language must have resonated with the Corinthians who attended the Isthmian Games every two years.
Events included foot races, discus and javelin throwing, wrestling, boxing, pankration, chariot racing, horse racing, as well as competitions for musicians, poets, and orators.
Bibliography
Apuleius. The Golden Ass. Translated by E. J. Kenney. London, England: Penguin, 2004.
Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Edited by Jonathan Barnes. Translated by Benjamin Jowett. Vol. 2. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984.
Kearsley, R. A. “Women in Public Life in the Roman East: Iunia Theodora, Claudia Metrodora and Phoebe, Benefactress of Paul.” Tyndale Bulletin 50, no. 2 (Nov 1, 1999: 189-211.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology. 3rd ed. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002.
Zuiderhoek, Arjan. The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Aristotle, The Complete Works of Aristotle, ed. Jonathan Barnes, trans. Benjamin Jowett, vol. 2 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2097.
Arjan Zuiderhoek, The Politics of Munificence in the Roman Empire: Citizens, Elites and Benefactors in Asia Minor (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 116, 31.
Apuleius, The Golden Ass, trans. E. J. Kenney (London, England: Penguin, 2004), 289-90.
R. A Kearsley, “Women in Public Life in the Roman East: Iunia Theodora, Claudia Metrodora and Phoebe, Benefactress of Paul,” Tyndale Bulletin 50, no. 2 (Nov 1, 1999: 205.
Kearsley 207-8.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology, 3rd ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 83.
Murphy-O’Connor, 84.
The post 11. Money and Benefaction in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
44 min
February 14, 202510. Christology in 1 Corinthians
Download:Christology in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 3:22-23; 8:4-6; 11:3; 15:23-28
1 Corinthians has much to say about Christ
Christ is the domain in which we exist (1:2, 4, 9; 6:11, 15, 17; 7:14; 12:12, 27).
Christ’s death is the message of salvation (1:23-24; 2:2; 3:11; 5:7; 15:3-5).
Christ is whom we have communion with (10:16, 21).
Christ’s name has real spiritual authority and power (1:10; 5:3-4).
Christ is resurrected (15:12, 20, 23).
Christ is returning (1:7-8; 15:23, 57; 16:22).
God is greater than Christ
1 Corinthians 3:22-23; 11:3; 15:23-28
Christ is subordinate to God. This subordination is not temporary, but eternal. God has empowered Christ to rule, but once Christ returns and completes his mission, he will hand that power back to God.
Christ himself repeatedly taught the superiority of his Father and his obedient subordination to God (Mat 20:23; 26:39; Mark 10:18; 13:32; John 5:19, 30; 7:16; 8:28; 14:28; 17:3).
1 Corinthians 8:4-6
This text is all about the gods. How should Christians think of the gods? Are they real or fake? If fake, can’t we just go to their sacrifices and eat the meat?
Moyer Hubbard: “There were gods everywhere. Gods for travelers, gods for hunters, gods for sailors, gods for warriors, gods for lovers, gods for poets; gods to help with childbirth, gods to help with baking, gods to help with treachery, gods to protect the hinges of your doors…the list is endless. …The young woman in love could appeal to the goddess Peitho (Persuasion) to convince a hesitant suitor. The merchant selling his wares frequented the temple of Tyche (Success) to ensure that his business would thrive. The farmer fertilizing his field invoked Sterculius, the god presiding over the spreading of manure. Athletes flocked to Herakles (Hercules), the infirm to Asclepius, mariners to Poseidon (Neptune).”1
Splitting the Shema in 1 Corinthians 8:6
James Dunn: “[Paul] asserts that Christ the Lord also is one; thereby he splits the Shema (Deut. 6.4), the Jewish confession of monotheism, between God the Father and Christ the Lord in a way that has no earlier parallel.”2
Richard Hays: “V. 6 takes the extraordinarily bold step of identifying ‘the Lord Jesus Christ’ with ‘the Lord’ acclaimed in the Shema”3
T. Wright: “V. 6 functions as a Christian redefinition of the Jewish confession of faith, the Shema.”4
Richard Bauckham: “[V]erse 6 … incorporates Jesus Christ into the unique divine identity. … That Paul has here produced a Christian version of the Shema has now rightly been recognized quite widely…”5
1 Corinthians 8:6 is not the Shema.
Deuteronomy 6:4 (LXX)
Ἄκουε, Ισραηλ· κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν·
Hear, O Israel: Lord (is) our God, Lord is one
1 Corinthians 8:6
ἀλλ’ ἡμῖν εἷς θεὸς ὁ πατὴρ ἐξ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς εἰς αὐτόν, καὶ εἷς κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς δι’ οὗ τὰ πάντα καὶ ἡμεῖς δι’ αὐτοῦ.
yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
These two texts only have 3 words in common: Lord (κύριος), God (θεὸς) and one (εἷς). This “agreement” is limited to 12.5% (3 out of 24 words).
Paul was a Jew.
Wayne Meeks: “The affirmation that “God is one” is as basic to Pauline Christianity as it was to all Judaism (1 Thess. 1:9; Gal. 3:20; Rom. 3:30; Eph. 4:6; 1 Cor. 8:4, 6; cf. 1 Cor. 11:12; 15:28; 2 Cor. 5:18).”6
James McGrath: “That Paul could do this in passing, without explaining it or defending it, seems very unlikely indeed. The fact of the matter is that Paul does not say that there is one God who is both Father and Son; he says rather that there is one God and also one Lord. …The combination “one God and…” suggests that we are dealing with a paraphrase of the Shema with an additional affirmation added alongside it—otherwise we would surely have expected Paul to express himself differently. Theoretically, he could have written, “There is one God: the Father, from whom are all things, and the Son, through whom are all things.” This would have emphasized the oneness of God while including Jesus clearly within that one God. Instead, Paul uses a statement about one God, which itself is sufficient to reiterate the point of the Shema, and then goes further to talk about ‘one Lord.’”7
Andrew Perriman: “[T]he distinction appears to be introduced, in the first place, because Paul is about to speak quite emphatically both of one God and of one Lord in order to preclude conflicting loyalties. This is pointedly unlike the Shema with its single heis. The effect is not to fuse two identities in one but to dissociate, to create two distinct affirmations, anticipated in the preceding acknowledgement of many gods and many lords: not only is God the Father one but the Lord, Jesus Christ, also is one—two separate unities.”8
1 Corinthians 8:6 translation options
Using words of existence (ontology)
ESV: yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
NIV: yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
NLT: There is one God, the Father, by whom all things were created, and for whom we live. And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, and through whom we live.
Using words of movement (soteriology)
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor (1978): “For us one God, the Father, from whom (come) all things and towards whom we (go), and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom (come) all things and by whom we (go).9
David Garland (2003): But for us One God, the Father out of whom [come] all things and we [go] toward him and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom [come] all things and we [go to the Father] through him.10
Paul Gardner (2018): “Certainly for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and to whom we go, and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we [come to God].”11
What does “all things” refer to?
Jerry Wierwille: “Paul’s use of “all things” varies depending upon the context. Among his uses are cosmological (1 Cor 15:27; Eph 3:9), soteriological (Rom 8:32; Eph 1:10-11, 23; 4:10; 2 Cor 4:15; 5:18), the differences between man and woman (1 Cor 11:12), spiritual gifts or empowerments (1 Cor 12:6), the course of world/life events (Rom 8:28; Col 4:7), reputation, status, and privileges (Phil 3:8), thoughts and intents (1 Cor 2:10, 15), and living creatures (1 Tim 6:13).”12
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “Paul uses ta panta most frequently in strictly soteriological contexts.”13
Usage depends on the verse itself and the context. None of the Roman gods claimed to be creators. Jupiter (Zeus) comes closest, but even he merely helped establish order from chaos. Philosophers talked about creation using their theories of emanations, mostly to prevent anyone from thinking the highest God got his hands dirty.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “In this perspective the meaning of the verse can be summarized in the following paraphrase: From God come all things which enable us to return to him. All these things are given through Christ and in him we go to the Father.”14
New creation in 1 Corinthians 8:6
Much of the dispute is between creation or salvation. What if both are in view? Rather than saying Paul went from creation to salvation in the first half of 1 Cor 8:6 and then returned to creation before finally jumping back to salvation in the second half, what if he’s talking about salvation using the language of creation?
Andrew Perriman: “God clearly takes the initiative in the re-creative action, but it is “from him” (ex autou) that the Corinthians are “in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor 1:30). At the same time Christ is the agent of the transformation as “power of God and wisdom of God” (1:24; cf. 1:30). In a different context, but still with reference to the foolishness of the wisdom of this age, Paul asserts that “all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or things present or things to come–all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s” (3:18-23). In other words, the “all things” of this new reality, which are quasi-cosmic in scope, are theirs through Indeed, those “called to be saints” in Corinth owe their very existence as such to him. This means that at least the second part of 1 Cor 8:6, but probably the whole verse, is a statement not about creation but about “new creation.””15
All things through Christ sounds like a mediator. See 1 Tim 2:5-6.
Bibliography
Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the God of Israel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008.
Dunn, James D. G. Christology in the Making. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996.
Gardner, Paul. 1 Corinthians. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Clinton E. Arnold. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018.
Garland, David E. 1 Corinthians. Becnt, edited by Robert Yarbrough and Robert Stein. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.
Hays, Richard. First Corinthians. Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997.
Hubbard, Moyer V. Christianity in the Greco-Roman World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010.
McGrath, James F. The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Meeks, Wayne A. The First Urban Christians. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2003.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. “Corinthians 8:6: Cosmology or Soteriology?”, Revue Biblique 85 (1978): 253-67.
Perriman, Andrew. In the Form of a God. Studies in Early Christology, edited by David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022.
Wierwille, Jerry. “One God, One Lord (1 Cor 8:6)–‘Christianized’ Shema or Soteriological Acclamation?” Paper presented at the Unitarian Christian Alliance, Windsor, England, July 26, 2024.
Wright, N. T. The Climax of the Covenant. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993.
Moyer V. Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 21-2.
James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 180.
Richard Hays, First Corinthians (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1997), 140.
N. T. Wright, The Climax of the Covenant (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 121.
Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 211.
Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2003), 165.
James F. McGrath, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 39-40.
Andrew Perriman, In the Form of a God, Studies in Early Christology, ed. David Capes Michael Bird, and Scott Harrower (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2022), 71.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, “Corinthians 8:6: Cosmology or Soteriology?,” Revue Biblique 85 (1978): 253.
David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians, Becnt, ed. Robert Yarbrough and Robert Stein (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003), 375.
Paul Gardner, 1 Corinthians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Clinton E. Arnold (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018), 372.
Jerry Wierwille, “One God, One Lord (1 Cor 8:6)–‘Christianized’ Shema or Soteriological Acclamation?” (paper presented at the Unitarian Christian Alliance, Windsor, England, July 26, 2024), 6.
Murphy-O’Connor 68.
Murphy-O’Connor 265.
Perriman, 84-5.
The post 10. Christology in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
36 min
February 13, 20259. Food Sacrificed to Idols in 1 Corinthians
Download: Food Sacrificed to Idols
1 Corinthians 8:1-13; 10:14-11:1
Elite Christians with “Knowledge”
1 Corinthians 8:1-3 contains a Corinthian slogan, “all of us possess knowledge,” to which Paul responds
Paul Gardner: “We [the truly ‘spiritual people’ at Corinth] know that we all possess knowledge.” Being “puffed up” (φυσιόω) involves the flaunting of something for one’s own benefit or to stress one’s own status.”1
1 Corinthians 8:4 contains two more Corinthian slogans: “no idol in the world really exists” and “there is no God but one.” Like all of their slogans, these two have truth in them, but they were pressing them too far. It is true that idols aren’t gods, but mere statues. It is true that God is the only one over all. Still, Paul believed in other malevolent spiritual powers (Eph 6:12).
1 Corinthians 8:5-6 begins with Paul’s agreement that the gods who exist are “so-called gods,” but then he insists that they are quite real. Nevertheless, for Christians we have one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.
Gods in Corinth
Sisyphus
Isis
Serapis
Diana (Artemis)
Fortuna (Tyche)
Bacchus (Dionysus)
Mercury (Hermes)
Hercules (Heracles)
Minerva (Athena)
Venus (Aphrodite)
Ceres (Demeter) and Kore (Persephone)
Neptune (Poseidon)
Aesculapius (Asclepius)
Apollo
Jupiter (Zeus)
On the Temple of Ceres and Kore
Jorunn Økland: “Ritual dining by women worshippers was central to the cult. It was an activity that celebrated the fruits of the earth and female companionship, as well as one that promoted human fertility. Over 40 dining rooms from the Greek period have been excavated at the site in addition to a theater up the hillside. … Mummius’s sack of Corinth did not result in destruction of the sanctuary, but the period of the city’s abandonment did cause the buildings to deteriorate. … [W]e do not know how this Corinthian sanctuary was used during the two centuries after the official Greek cult finished and before the Roman refurbishment of the sanctuary some time after 77 ce. It is clear, nevertheless, that there was no clear break between the time of the city’s abandonment and the Early Roman period. Finds of pottery and kitchen vessels, for example, in addition to lamps, minor cultic vessels, and coins, indicate that the newcomers to Corinth joined existing activities and may have used the sanctuary’s pre-existing buildings when they resumed cult activity.”2
On the Temple of Aesculapius
Bronwen Wickkiser: “[I]ndividuals flocked to Asklepia in search of cures for maladies ranging from blindness, deafness, and paralysis to headaches, baldness, and insomnia. Here the sick would sleep, hoping to meet Asklepios in a dream whereby he would treat them with a medical procedure or prescribe a regimen for cure.”3
Murphy-O’Connor: “It is entirely probable that the wealthier members of Paul’s flock had been wont to repair to the Asclepion for recreation. It was probably the closest the city had to a country club with facilities for dining and swimming. It would have been natural to continue going there after conversion, because even though the converts no longer believed in the healing god, they still would have seen the value of the site.”4
Bronwen Wickkiser: “Asklepios typically treated chronic rather than fatal ailments and, according to mythic tradition, was prohibited by his grandfather Zeus from bringing individuals back to life. The Christian message about Jesus thus promised a type of cure that Asklepios could not; it promised a cure for death.”5
Other Gods in Corinth: lares, penates, Vesta (Hestia), geniuses
Imperial Persons Receiving Divine Honors
Julius Caesar (founder of Corinth)
Augustus (1st emperor)
Octavia (Augustus’s sister)
Gaius and Lucius (Augustus’s grandsons)
Tiberius (2nd emperor)
Livia (Augustus’s Wife, Tiberius’s mother)
Caligula (3rd emperor)
Claudius (4th emperor)
Julio-Claudian Family
Important Questions
Should Christians participate in ceremonies honoring gods?
Can Christians eat at a temple dining room if it’s not during a sacrifice?
Can Christians eat the meat from the animals sacrificed when it’s sold the next day in the meat market?
What if you’re at a dinner party and they serve you meat from an idol sacrifice? Should you always ask to find out?
1 Corinthians 8:7-13 Paul’s great concern is causing the weak to stumble by emboldening them to go against their consciences. In fact, that’s his only reason to forbid Christians from eating at temple dining rooms.
Anthony Thiselton: “Christians in Corinth who perhaps designated themselves as “the strong” (i.e., in knowledge and/or in social and economic influence) claimed that knowledge encouraged a more enlightened attitude toward taking part in festivals and meals in the precincts of pagan temples. …Knowledge informs us that “An idol has no real existence,’” for “There is no God but One’” (8.4). So Christians may on this basis maintain their business and social contacts.”6
Animal Sacrifices Described
Clint Burnett: “[O]fferings would have been offered for the benefit of the entire colony and performed in public view. Sacrifices of wine and incense would have been carried out without much work and need not have occurred on the imperial altars in the aforementioned places but before images, painted or statues, of Julio-Claudian divi, Octavia, Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, and the reigning emperor’s genius set up anywhere in the colony. On the other hand, blood sacrifices would have occurred at the end of sacred processions… This means that imperial flamines would have led in procession local elites, musicians, and victimarii, or special slaves who killed the sacrificial animals, winding their way through the city to the altar that was being used for the ritual in question.
Once the imperial procession arrived at the altar, the imperial flamen would have washed his hands with water, burned incense, and poured a libation of wine to the Julio-Claudian divi, Octavia, Gaius Caesar, Lucius Caesar, or the emperor’s genius. These sacred rites completed, the imperial flamen would have poured wine and some special flour atop the sacrificial animal’s head as well as run his knife down the beast’s back. These acts functioned to transfer ownership of the bull or cow from the imperial flamen and thus Corinth’s populus to the object of sacrifice… At this point, the animal was supposed to nod its head, thereby giving consent to be slaughtered. Whereupon, the victimarius would have struck the animal on its head to stun it, cut its throat, and drained its blood.
Once the beast was dead, a special cultic official known in Latin as a haruspex would have inspected its entrails (liver, lungs, gall bladder, the peritoneum, and heart) to ensure that the [divus]…had accepted the offering. If no abnormalities were found, the object was believed to have been acceptable to the divine being to whom it was offered. After such confirmation, the entrails of the animal would have been boiled in a pot. This finished, the flamen would have dumped them, along with more wine and special flour, onto the fires of the altar where they would have been consumed. Finally, the remainder of the animal would have been divided among the participants and eaten near the imperial altar by the flamen and participants in the procession. …Any meat that was not consumed at such a sacrifice was taken to the macellum or “meat market” and sold (1 Cor 10:25).”7
1 Corinthians 9 is a chapter we’ll come back to later. In it Paul uses himself as an illustration of restraint in exercising his rights for the sake of others.
Demons, Idol Altars, and Communion
1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Paul points to the negative example of Israel participating in idol worship and the devastating results.
1 Corinthians 10:14-19 Those who participate in a religious meal are partakers in in the altar. Do not be partners with demons.
Paul Gardner: “For the apostle, these types of religious meals, the Lord’s Supper and pagan cult meals, are not mere “meals”—they are religious activities and are eaten in a context in which the presence of the divinity is assumed. These meals therefore speak of allegiance to the god being worshipped by his followers or subjects.”8
1 Corinthians 10:21-22 The word “partake” is koinonia (κοινωνία), which means fellowship, sharing, associating with, etc.
Idol Food at the Meat Market (Macellum)
1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1 Now we return to the slogan mentioned in 6:12, “All things are permitted.” Paul adds two constraints: do what is beneficial and what builds up others. Paul recognizes that the meat itself is not tainted, so Christians can eat it. But he doesn’t want them to eat it if it causes their brother or sister to stumble (other-regard).
Inscription from Corinth’s meat market: “Quintus Cornelius Secundus, son of [- – -], of the tribe of Aemilia, and his wife Maecia, daughter of [Quintus], his son [- – – Cornelius Secundus] Maecianus, his son Quintus Cornelius Secundus, his [daughter] Cornelia [Secunda, who is the wife of Quintus] Maecius Cleogenes the freedman of Quintus (Maecius), [built (?)] the meatmarket [- – -] along with [- – -] and facilities for fish [- – – – -]”9
Plutarch talks about attending a fancy dinner (writing about an experience he had between 70 and 90 a.d.): “Aristion’s cook made a hit with the dinner guests not only because of his general skill, but because the cock that he set before the diners, though it had just been slaughtered as a sacrifice to Heracles, was as tender as if it had been a day old. Aristion said that meat cures rapidly if, immediately upon killing, it is hung on a fig tree.”10 (Table-Talk 10.1)
Murphy-O’Connor: “About the only time that meat came on the market cheaply in Corinth (and elsewhere) was during the great pagan festivals. There were so many sacrifices in a short period that neither the participants nor the priests were able to eat all the meat. Typically, only the thigh bones were the god’s portion. The surplus meat found its way to the marketplace, but in such quantities that the price was forced down to a level that made meat accessible to the poor.”11
Bibliography
Burnett, D. Clint. Paul & Imperial Divine Honors. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2024.
Gardner, Paul. 1 Corinthians. Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, edited by Clinton E. Arnold. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018.
Gill, David W. J. “The Meat-Market at Corinth (1 Corinthians 10:25).” Tyndale Bulletin 43, no. 2 (Nov 1, 1992): 389-93.
Kent, John Harvey. Corinth: The Inscriptions 1926-1950. Vol. 8. Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1966.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology. 3rd ed. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002.
Økland, Jorunn. “Ceres, Κορη, and Cultural Complexity.” In Corinth in Context. Edited by Schowalter Friesen, and Walters. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Plutarch. Moralia: Table-Talk 1-6. Translated by Herbert B. Hoffleit Paul A. Clement. Vol. 8. Loeb Classical Library. London, UK: William Heinemann, 1969.
Thiselton, Anthony C. 1 Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical & Pastoral Commentary. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011.
Wickkiser, Bronwen L. “Asklepios in Greek and Roman Corinth.” In Corinth in Context. Edited by Schowalter Friesen, and Walters. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Paul Gardner, 1 Corinthians, Zondervan Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, ed. Clinton E. Arnold (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2018), 369.
Jorunn Økland, “Ceres, Κορη, and Cultural Complexity,” in Corinth in Context, ed. Schowalter Friesen, and Walters (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 204, 07-8.
Bronwen L. Wickkiser, “Asklepios in Greek and Roman Corinth,” in Corinth in Context, ed. Schowalter Friesen, and Walters (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 37.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology, 3rd ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 190.
Wickkiser, in Corinth in Context, 56.
Anthony C. Thiselton, 1 Corinthians: A Shorter Exegetical & Pastoral Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 13.
D. Clint Burnett, Paul & Imperial Divine Honors (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2024), 330-1.
Gardner, 450.
David W. J. Gill, “The Meat-Market at Corinth (1 Corinthians 10:25),” Tyndale Bulletin 43, no. 2 (Nov 1, 1992): 390-1. See also the earlier translation: John Harvey Kent, Corinth: The Inscriptions 1926-1950, vol. 8 (Princeton, NJ: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1966), 127-8.
Plutarch, Moralia: Table-Talk 1-6, trans. Herbert B. Hoffleit Paul A. Clement, vol. 8, Loeb Classical Library (London, UK: William Heinemann, 1969), 511.
Murphy-O’Connor, 186.
The post 9. Food Sacrificed to Idols in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
1 hr 1 min
February 07, 20258. Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in 1 Corinthians
Download: Divorce and Remarriage in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 7:1-16
1 Corinthians 7:1-2
v1 Paul had received a letter from the Corinthians. From 1 Cor 16:17, we learn the letter carriers were Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achiacus.
Paul responded to their specific inquiries in 7:1, 25; 8:1; 12:1; and 16:1.
Their question (or statement) here was, “It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” Paul responds to this throughout the chapter.
Asceticism
Cynics discouraged any marriage or having children.
Stoics encouraged marriage but discouraged sex beyond procreation.
Musonius Rufus: “Men who are neither licentious nor wicked must consider only those sexual acts which occur in marriage and which are carried out for the creation of children to be right, since these acts are also lawful, but they must consider acts that chase after mere pleasure, even if they occur in marriage as wrong and unlawful.”1 (Musonius Rufus, Lecture 1)
Philosophers going back to Plato and Aristotle saw bodily desires as inconveniences that needed to be restrained and put under control. They did not practice strict abstinence, but they prioritized pursuing philosophy over such mundane matters.
Doctors like Hippocrates (460–370 bc) and Galen (129–200 ad) believed too much sex weakened men and depleted his vitality.
The Pater Familias in the Roman World
The oldest father of the household was the pater familias who held patria potestas: authority over the family, including his wife, the slaves, his children, their wives, etc. This power included whether or not to receive a newborn into the family.
Hilarion: “I beg and entreat you, take care of the little one, and as soon as we receive our pay I will send it up to you. If by chance you bear a child, if it is a boy, let it be, if it is a girl, cast it out.”2 (Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 744)
Apuleius: “Her husband’s father, having to be away on a journey, left instructions with his wife, her mother-in-law, who was pregnant, that if the child turned out to be a member of the weaker sex, it should be put to death at birth. While he was away, a girl was born; but mother-love was too strong for her, and disobeying her husband’s orders she entrusted the child to neighbours to bring up. On his return she told him that it was a daughter and had been duly put to death.”3 (Apuleius, The Golden Ass23)
Roman Marriage
Girls married in their mid to late teens. The youngest marriageable age for them was twelve. Boys married in their mid to late twenties. The fathers of bride and groom agreed upon a betrothal and a dowry. The father of the bride gave her a dowry that her husband could use so long as they were married. If divorce occurred, the husband had to return the complete dowry to his ex-wife.
Plutarch: “Marriages ought not to be made by trusting the eyes only, or the fingers either, as is the case with some who take a wife after counting up how much she brings with her, but without deciding what kind of helpmate she will be.”4 (Plutarch Moralia 141, Advice to Bride and Groom 24)
Marriage contract from 2nd c. bc: “Apollonia shall remain with Philiscus, obeying him as a wife should her husband, owning their property in common with him. Philiscus shall supply to Apollonia all necessaries and clothing and whatever is proper for a wedded wife, whether he is at home or abroad, so far as their property shall admit. It shall not be lawful for Philiscus to bring in any other wife but Apollonia, nor to keep a concubine or lover, nor to beget children by another woman in Apollonia’s lifetime, nor to live in another house over which Apollonia is not mistress, nor to eject or insult or ill-treat her, nor to alienate any of their property to Apollonia’s disadvantage. If he is shown to be doing any of these things or does not supply her with necessaries and clothing and the rest as has been said, Philiscus shall forfeit forthwith to Apollonia the dowry of 2 talents 4,000 drachmae of copper. In the same way it shall not be lawful for Apollonia to spend the night or day away from the house of Philiscus without Philiscus’ consent or to have intercourse with another man or to ruin the common household or to bring shame upon Philiscus in anything that causes a husband shame. If Apollonia wishes of her own will to separate from Philiscus, Philiscus shall repay her the bare dowry within ten days from the day it is demanded back.”5 (Tebtunis Papyrus 104)
Love in Roman Marriages
Epitaph for Claudia (100-76 bc): “Stranger, what I ask is but a little thing: stand close and read carefully. This is the not so beautiful sepulcher of a beautiful woman. The name her parents gave her was Claudia. Her husband she cherished from the depths of her heart. She gave birth to two sons: one of these she left on the earth, the other she placed beneath the earth. She was possessed of charming speech, and moreover a pleasing gait. She maintained the household. She made wool. I have spoken. Go forward.”6 (CIL I2 1211)
Double funerary stele of Aurelius Hermia and Aurelia Philematium (80 bc):
“Left side: Lucius Aurelius Hermia, freedman of Lucius, a butcher from the Viminal Hill. She who has gone before me by reason of fate, with chaste body, a unique spouse, loving, she was possessed of my heart, she lived faithful to a faithful husband with equal application, when in no bitterness, she departed from her duty.
Right side: Aurelia, freedwoman of Lucius. Aurelia Philematio, freedwoman of Lucius. While I lived, I was named Aurelia Philematium, chaste, modest, ignorant of the crowd, faithful to my husband. A husband, whom I am without, alas, who was a fellow-freedman. He was to me in fact and in truth more than and beyond a parent. He took me to his bosom at the age of seven years, at the age of forty years I am in the hands of death. He prospered in the eyes of all due to my constant dutifulness.7 (CIL 12.1221; British Museum 1867: 0508.55)
Musonius Rufus (54-68 ad): “In marriage there must be, above all, companionship and care of husband and wife for each other, both in sickness and in health and on every occasion. … Such a marriage is admirable and deserves emulation; such a partnership is beautiful.”8 (Musonius Rufus, Lecture1-2)
Plutarch’s advice (90-100 ad): “[I]t is a lovely thing for the wife to sympathize with her husband’s concerns and the husband with the wife’s, so that, as ropes, by being intertwined, get strength from each other, thus, by the due contribution of goodwill in corresponding measure by each member, the copartnership may be preserved through the joint action of both. … Such a copartnership in property as well is especially befitting married people, who should pour all their resources into a common fund, and combine them, and each should not regard one part as his own and another part as the other’s.”9 (Plutarch, Moralia 140, Advice to Bride and Groom 20)
Adultery in the Roman Empire
Plutarch: “The lawful wives of the Persian kings sit beside them at dinner, and eat with them. But when the kings wish to be merry and get drunk, they send their wives away, and send for their music-girls and concubines. In so far as they are right in what they do, because they do not concede any share in their licentiousness and debauchery to their wedded wives. If therefore a man in private life, who is incontinent and dissolute in regard to his pleasures, commit some peccadillo with a paramour or a maidservant, his wedded wife ought not to be indignant or angry, but she should reason that it is respect for her which leads him to share his debauchery, licentiousness, and wantonness with another woman.”10 (Plutarch, Moralia 140, Advice to Bride and Groom 16)
Plutarch (writing 90-100 ad): “They say that the cat is excited to frenzy by the odour of perfumes. … Now inasmuch as women are affected in this way, not by their husbands’ using perfume, but by their having connexion with other women, it is unfair to pain and disturb them so much for the sake of a trivial pleasure, and…to be pure and clean from all connexion with others when they approach their wives.”11 (Plutarch, Moralia 144, Advice to Bride and Groom 44)
Martial (writing in 90ad in Rome): talks about a guy whose wife had 7 children, all from other men: “You have been made, Cinna, by Marulla the father of seven—not children, for there is no son of yours, nor son of a friend or neighbour; but creatures conceived on truckle-beds and mats betray by their features their mother’s adulteries. This one who struts with curly hair, a Moor, confesses he is the offspring of Santra the cook; but that other with flat nostrils, blubber lips is the very image of Pannichus the wrestler. Who is not aware, if he has known and seen blear-eyed Dama, that the third is the baker’s son?”12 (Martial, Epigrams 39)
Juvenal (writing in 120 ad from Rome): “Marry a wife, and she’ll make some smart guitarist or flute-player a father, not you. Or, when you…hang your front-door with outsize laurel wreaths, it’ll all be to welcome an infant whose face, in the tortoiseshell cradle, under its canopy, recalls some armoured thug, some idol of the arena.”13 (Juvenal, Satire 76-81; cp. 6.597-601)
Augustus Legislated against Adultery and Unchastity (18 bc)
He instituted penalties for not marrying, incentives for those with large families, and punishments for adultery.
Suetonius: “When he discovered that bachelors were getting betrothed to little girls, which meant postponing the responsibilities of fatherhood, and that married men were frequently changing their wives, he dealt with these evasions of the law by shortening the permissible period between betrothal and marriage and by limiting the number of lawful divorces.”14 (Suetonius, Augustus 34)
Cassius Dio: “Since the free-born population contained far more males than females, he allowed all those who so desired—with the exception of senators—to marry freedwomen, and directed that their offspring should be regarded as legitimate. … At this time, too, some men were becoming betrothed to infant girls …Augustus made an order that no betrothal should be valid unless the man married within two years of giving his word. In other words, the girl must be at least ten years old at the time of the betrothal.”15 (Cassius Dio, The Roman History 16)
The New Roman Woman
Bruce Winter: “Ancient historians have observed that around 44 b.c. evidence of a ‘new’ type of woman emerged in certain circles in Rome…a woman in high position, who nevertheless claims for herself the indulgence in sexuality of a woman of pleasure.” … [F]irst-century women, unlike their Greek sisters in Hellenistic and Classical Greek times, appeared in the public domain. The imperial wives appear to have set a precedent for wives of senatorial rank and others in the social hierarchy. …’[N]ew’ women had emerged and they were supported by those who were themselves avant-garde, including some male literary figures of the early Roman Empire who were influential in promoting this lifestyle. These ‘new’ women had an unsettling influence on the status quo.”16
Martial: “The way you’re marrying your toy-boy, and making your former adulterer your husband, so the Julian Law can’t make an example of you—Proculina, you’re not getting married; you’re signing your confession.”17 (Martial, Epigrams 22)
Seneca the Younger: “Surely no woman is embarrassed by divorce anymore, now that certain famous and highborn ladies keep track of the years not by counting consuls but by counting husbands; they leave home to get married but get married to get divorced. Divorce was feared only as long as it was unusual. But it is in the news all the time now; so they have learned to emulate what they hear about so often. And surely there is no scandal in adultery anymore either, now that we are at the point where a woman only takes a husband to make her lover jealous. … Any woman who does not see that marriage is just a name for having only one lover must be simpleminded and behind the times. The shame for these misdeeds has long since evaporated as the practice has become more widespread.”18 (Seneca, Benefits 16.2-4)
1 Corinthians 7:3-6
Sex for Christians is about mutuality. The wife is faithful to her husband and the husband is faithful to his wife. The husband has authority over his wife’s body and the wife has authority over her husband’s body. Such vulnerability requires trust.
Nancy Pearcey: “In this historical context, the Christian view of marriage was nothing short of revolutionary. At its core was a new form of sexual equality. To the shock of the ancient world, both sexes were held to the same moral standard. Christianity condemned promiscuity among men as well as women. It stood out as radically different because it taught that a husband actually wrongs his wife by committing adultery. Jesus said, “Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her” (Mark 10:11). Such even-handed treatment was genuinely novel.”19
Unlike the new woman of Roman society or the sexual revolution of the 1960s, Christian marriage limits extramarital sex for both spouses. Domestic abuse is particularly sinful and heinous because it violates the mutuality and trust necessary for a healthy Christian marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:7-11
Paul tells the unmarried and widows to stay single, if possible, but if not to get married. To the separated, he tells them to remain single or be reconciled to their spouses. For this command, he actually cites Jesus!
1 Corinthians 7:12-16
Now we encounter the new scenario of a mixed marriage between a Christian and a pagan. In such cases, Paul tells the Christian to stay in it if possible.
Household gods were a regular aspect of home piety for which the wife was responsible. Vesta, lares, penates, the family genius, deceased ancestors, and other more popular gods were part of the house.
Bibliography
The Tebtunis Papyri. Edited by Arthur Hunt Bernard Grenfell, Gilbart Smyly. Vol. 1. London, England: Oxford University Press, 1902.
Apuleius. The Golden Ass. Translated by E. J. Kenney. London, England: Penguin, 2004.
Dio, Cassius. The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert. Penguin Classics. London, England: Penguin, 1987.
Hubbard, Moyer V. Christianity in the Greco-Roman World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010.
Johnson, Marguerite. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022.
Juvenal. The Sixteen Satires. Translated by Peter Green. 3rd ed. London, England: Penguin, 2004.
Martial. Epigrams. Translated by Walter C. A. Ker. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1961.
Martial. Epigrams. Translated by Gideon Nisbet. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford, England: Oxford University, 2015.
Pearcey, Nancy. The Toxic War on Masculinity. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2023.
Plutarch. Moralia. Vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library, vol. 222. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1928.
Rufus, Musonius. Lectures & Sayings: Revised Edition. Edited by William B. Irvine. Translated by Cynthia King. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2011.
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. On Benefits. Translated by Miriam Griffin and Brad Inwood. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2011.
Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars. Translated by Robert Graves. London, England: Penguin, 2007.
Winter, Bruce. Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003.
Musonius Rufus, Lectures & Sayings: Revised Edition, ed. William B. Irvine, trans. Cynthia King (Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace, 2011), 55.
P. Oxy 744 in Moyer V. Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 180. The original had “wife,” which I replaced with “sister,” owing to the original Greek, which reads “ἀδελφῇ.”
Apuleius, The Golden Ass, trans. E. J. Kenney (London, England: Penguin, 2004), 293.
Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 222 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1928), 317.
The Tebtunis Papyri, ed. Arthur Hunt Bernard Grenfell, Gilbart Smyly, vol. 1 (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1902), 452.
Marguerite Johnson, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2022), 126.
Johnson, 127.
Rufus, 57.
Plutarch, 313.
Plutarch, 309.
Plutarch, 333-5.
Martial, Epigrams, trans. Walter C. A. Ker, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, 1961), 381.
Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires, trans. Peter Green, 3rd ed. (London, England: Penguin, 2004), 37.
Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, trans. Robert Graves (London, England: Penguin, 2007), 63.
Cassius Dio, The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert, Penguin Classics (London, England: Penguin, 1987), 169-70.
Bruce Winter, Roman Wives, Roman Widows: The Appearance of New Women and the Pauline Communities (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003), 21, 37-8.
Martial, Epigrams, trans. Gideon Nisbet, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford, England: Oxford University, 2015), 113.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca, On Benefits, trans. Miriam Griffin and Brad Inwood (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2011), 68-9.
Nancy Pearcey, The Toxic War on Masculinity (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2023), 52.
The post 8. Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
58 min
February 06, 20257. Lawsuits in 1 Corinthians
Download: Lawsuits in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 6:1-11
1 Corinthians 6:1 The Corinthian Christians were taking each other to court in the city. Although chapter 5 had dealt with sexual immorality (incest) and the second half of chapter 6 also dealt with sexual immorality (prostitutes), this section (1 Cor 6:1-8) deals with lawsuits. What ties this together?
Dale Martin: “What underlies and connects all these issues is Paul’s anxiety about the boundaries of the body. … Paul’s primary concern is to maintain the boundaries separating the church from the cosmos; he considers it inappropriate for internal arguments to be settled by outsiders.”1
Roman Legal System
Cassius Dio: “It is imperative that anyone who from time to time commits a crime should pay the penalty. Most men are not kept within the bounds of moderation by mere admonition [warning], or even by example; it is absolutely necessary to punish them by disfranchisement, by exile, or by death. Moreover such penalties are not infrequent in an empire the size of ours which contains such a vast population, especially at the time of any change of government. …[I]f a man is accused of committing a private offence, he is brought before a private court and must answer to a jury of his equals. If he is charged with a public crime, then in this instance too a jury of his peers, who are chosen by lot, judges the case. This makes it easier to accept the verdicts which are reached by these juries, since men recognize that whatever penalty they suffer neither originates from a judge’s power nor has been wrung from him as a favour.”2 (Cassius Dio, The Roman History7)
Public crimes (criminal law): crimes against society where the government prosecutes the defendant for murder, bribery, forgery, adultery, robbery, etc.
Private crimes (civil law): lawsuits between private individuals regarding theft, property damage, breaching a contract, fraud, etc.
High Status and Wealthy Individuals Had Advantages at Court
Seneca the Elder: “Is it any wonder to you that a poor man hasn’t summoned up the courage to accuse a rich man? He keeps quiet, yet finds himself accused.… This rich man was powerful and influential, as he himself acknowledges: he thought he could never have anything to be afraid of, even if he were accused.”3 (Seneca the Elder, Controversiae1.6-7)
Juvenal: “Can I afford to accost her? It’s the same with court witnesses: morals don’t count. If Numa or Scipio took the stand – and he escorted the Mother goddess to Rome! – or Metellus who rescued Minerva’s image from the blazing shrine, the immediate question would still be: “How much is he worth?”, with only an afterthought on his character. “How many slaves does he keep? What’s his acreage? How big, how good, is his dinner-service?” Each man’s word is as good as his bond – or rather, the number of bonds in his strong-box. A pauper can swear on every altar between Samothrace and Rome – he’ll still pass for a perjurer.”4 (Juvenal, Satire 136-145)
Bruce Winter: “If the defendant was a parent, a patron, a magistrate, or a person of high rank, charges could not be brought by children, freedmen, private citizens, and men of low rank respectively. Generally, lawsuits were conducted between social equals who were from the powerful (οἱ δυνατοί) of the city, or by a plaintiff of superior social status and power against an inferior. The reason for these proscriptions was to avoid (i) insulting the good name of the person concerned or (ii) showing lack of respect for one’s patron or superiors.”5
Reputation of Lawyers
Dio Chrysostom: “…clever pettifogging lawyers, who pledge their services to all alike for a fee, even to the greatest scoundrels, and undertake to defend unblushingly other men’s crimes, and to rage and rant and beg mercy for men who are neither their friends nor kinsmen, though in some cases these advocates bear a high report among their fellow-citizens as most honourable and distinguished men.”6 (Dio Chrysostom, Orations 123)
Although criticized by some (like Dio Chrysostom), lawyers were respected for their knowledge of the law and their expert skills of persuasion (rhetoric). Cicero (106–43 bc) was a very famous Roman lawyer whose career enabled him to became a quaestor, a praetor, and a consul.
1 Corinthians 6:1-3
Here we’re not talking about criminal cases, but civil ones as the phrase “trivial cases” in v2 makes clear.
Bruce Winter: “Legitimate reasons for pursuing enmity relationships into the civil courts included: to settle scores with political opponents; retaliation for breaching relationships of trust and obligation; to take up the baton on behalf of offended relatives and friends; to compete for a rung on the ladder of the cursus honorum of political posts in the city; jealousy of a young rising star, to undercut the powerful because of their disproportionate influence in politeia; to retaliate against those who interfered with one’s political aspirations; and to undermine a power base secured by one’s clients by attacking them.”7
Paul reminds them they are going to rule the world, so they should be competent to sort out such issues internally.
1 Corinthians 6:4-6
Paul is exasperated with their behavior.
He calls their cases “trivial” (v2) and “ordinary” (v4).
David Gill: “Young men drawn from the social elite might bring “trivial cases” to demonstrate their forensic skills. Perhaps some of the social elite from the church at Corinth are bringing “trivial” civil cases against fellow Christians in order to establish their own position (and harm their opponents), and this has caused tensions within the church.”8
v5 “I say this to your shame” is a massive statement. Shaming someone in their society was taken very seriously. Anyone would agree that it is shameful to take one’s brother or sister to court.
Bruce Winter: “It is easy to overlook the significance of the highly unusual way in which Paul used a familial term here and elsewhere (1:10, 26; 2:1; 3:1; 4:6; 5:11; 6:6). No Roman would have used the term ‘brother’ of another person except one who shared the same bloodline or a male who had been formally adopted into the family. When Paul used this term, he indicated that the Christian community is ‘family’ and, as such, it would be unheard of for its members to engage in litigation. It was the role of the paterfamilias to rule in disagreements among blood or adopted brothers.… Romans considered it highly inappropriate to engage in intrafamily litigation.”9
They didn’t have a strong understanding of boundaries between the body of Christ and the world. Paul labors to increase their solidarity within the community of faith. Ironically, when the Jews brought Paul to Gallio, he told them to resolve the matter internally (Acts 18:14-15).
1 Corinthians 6:7-8
Going to court involved slander. That was standard operating procedure. From a community perspective then, it was a loss because both would be attacked.
Bruce Winter: “The proceedings were not conducted disppasionately but with great acrimony. ‘What the Romans called reprehension vitae or vituperation – a personal attack on the character of one’s opponents – was taken as normal; and manuals of rhetoric dealt in great detail with the most effective ways to construct a vituperation’.… The prosecutor, with his hostile speeches and damaging evidence of his witnesses, caused great personal resentment and loss of dignity for the defendant. No areas were immune from ferocious attacks.… ‘In Quintilian’s manual on rhetoric…we are expressly told that the beginning of a court speech should contain a consideration of the persons involved, and this must involve the blackening (imfamandam) of the person on the other side.’”10
It would be better to just take the hit and be defrauded than to exacerbate enmity within the community through vexatious litigation.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
They didn’t have to be that way anymore. Those old behaviors that had characterized them were behind them now. They’ve been washed, sanctified, and justified. They are now high-status people in Christ—those destined to rule the world in the kingdom of God.
Faulty Application
Sometimes Christians have chosen to cover up internal crimes on the basis of what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:1-8. This is a faulty application since Paul was not addressing criminal activity, but civil cases (lawsuits) between private individuals. Christians have the same duty to report serious crimes that other citizens have.
Community Application
It’s really easy to judge outsiders, but that’s not what we’re called to do.
Bruce Winter: “[T]he Corinthian church appeared to have judged the outsider when they had no right to do so (5:12) but failed dismally to judge the insider [who was sleeping with his father’s wife] when that was their task (5:13). Paradoxically, they had allowed the unrighteous outsiders to judge the insiders (6:1) when they should have resorted to using a fellow Christian who, by reason of his legal training, would have had the requisite qualifications to act as a private arbitrator.”11
Instead, we should judge ourselves. Where are we out of alignment with what the Bible says?
T. Wright: “[W]here in today’s church — in my church — are we behaving in such a way that we are shaming the gospel in the eyes of the world?12
Bibliography
Chrysostom, Dio. Discourses 1-11. Translated by J. W. Cohoon. Vol. 1. Loeb Classical Library. London, UK: William Henemann, 1932.
Dio, Cassius. The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus. Translated by Ian Scott-Kilvert. Penguin Classics. London, England: Penguin, 1987.
Elder, Seneca the. Controversiae, Suasoriae. Translated by M. Winterbottom. Vol. 2. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1974.
Gill, David W. J. “1 Corinthians.” In Romans to Philemon. Edited by Clinton E. Arnold. Vol. 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.
Juvenal. The Sixteen Satires. Translated by Peter Green. 3rd ed. London, England: Penguin, 2004.
Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995.
Winter, Bruce W. After Paul Left Corinth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001.
Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995), 174-5.
Cassius Dio, The Roman History: The Reign of Augustus, trans. Ian Scott-Kilvert, Penguin Classics (London, England: Penguin, 1987), 92-3.
Seneca the Elder, Controversiae, Suasoriae, trans. M. Winterbottom, vol. 2, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1974), 377.
Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires, trans. Peter Green, 3rd ed. (London, England: Penguin, 2004), 17-18.
Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 60.
Dio Chrysostom, Discourses 1-11, trans. J. W. Cohoon, vol. 1, Loeb Classical Library (London, UK: William Henemann, 1932), 357.
Winter, 65.
David W. J. Gill, “1 Corinthians,” in Romans to Philemon, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 131.
Winter, 70-1.
Winter, 66.
Winter, 73.
N. T. Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 66.
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38 min
February 01, 20256. Homosexuality and Singleness in 1 Corinthians
Download: Homosexulaity and Singleness in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Greek and Roman Pederasty
The Greeks had institutionalized consensual pedophilia between citizens of equal rank. An older man would enter a sexual relationship with a preadolescent boy that included mentoring and, ultimately, business opportunities. The Romans likewise practiced pederasty, but never within the same rank and not for the purposes of helping the child’s future.
Moyer Hubbard: “[P]ederasty was also widely practiced and was considered an acceptable form of sexual expression between an adult male and a prepubescent teen, usually of lower social rank. A common subject for Martial’s epigrammatic wit is lamenting the boy who matures and turns to heterosexual relations; other times he simply extols the delights of pederasty. Indeed, in Martial’s circles, pedophilia was so pervasive that he warns young men about to marry that they had better visit the prostitute’s district and find someone who will train them to enjoy women. … [M]arriage contracts often contained a stipulation against bringing a boy-lover into the home.”1
Marilyn Skinner: “[R]ank and class were more decisive in calibrating sexual power relations than physiological manhood. The body of the Roman vir, the adult citizen male, was regarded as inviolable, legally protected from sexual penetration, beating, and torture. … Although sexual attraction to youths was regarded as completely normal, just as it was in Greece, Roman men were rigorously prohibited by law as well as custom from sexual contact with freeborn citizen boys. Violation of the physical integrity of a citizen youth was treated as the equivalent of unlawful relations with married or unmarried women and punished as stuprum, a criminal sexual act. … Pederasty, as an institutionalized cross-generational relationship of two Roman citizens, thus becomes unthinkable. Furthermore, because slaves and prostitutes were the only legitimate objects of male homoerotic desire, relationships with boys were often treated as trivial even by those who viewed them in a favorable light.”2
Horace: “When your throat is parched with thirst, do you insist on having a golden tankard [cup]? When famished do you turn up your nose at all but peacock and turbot [expensive fish]? When your organ is stiff, and a servant girl or a young boy from the household is near at hand and you know you can make an immediate assault, would you sooner burst with tension? Not me. I like sex to be there and easy to get.”3 (Horace, Satire 113-119)
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Two words present significant translation difficulties
malakoi (μαλακοί): male prostitutes (NRSVUE), boy prostitutes (NABRE)
arsenokoitai (ἀρσενοκοῖται): men who engage in illicit sex (NRSVUE), sodomites (NABRE)
Neither of these are very good translations. Each one limits the meaning of both words more than necessary.
Arsenokoitai (Ἀρσενοκοῖται)
Let’s begin with the second of the two key words (arsenokoitai). The Greek translation of Leviticus 20:13 is the likely background from which Paul was pulling for this word.
Leviticus 20:13 (NETS)
And he who lies with a male [arsenos] in a bed [koiten] for a woman, both have committed an abomination; by death let them be put to death; they are liable.
Thus the Greek reads arsenos koiten (ἄρσενος κοίτην), which are the two words Paul combined into one in 1 Corinthian 6:9 (arsenokoitai). Thus, Paul has in mind a man who is having sex with a man.
Malakoi (Μαλακοί)
The other word in question (malakoi) derives from the word malakos, meaning “soft” and can refer to soft clothing. However, the standard Greek dictionary (BDAG) includes this second definition: “pert. to being passive in a same-sex relationship, effeminate of catamites of men and boys who are sodomized in such a relationship.”4
Effeminate Men in the Ancient World
Juvenal: “Supposing none of these exits catches your fancy, don’t you think it better to sleep with a pretty boy? Boys don’t quarrel all night or nag you for little presents while they’re on the job, or complain that you don’t come up to their expectations, or demand more grasping passion.”5 (Satires 33-7)
Phaedrus: “Then somebody asked old Aesop what paradoxical process had produced men-women [masculine women] and vice versa [feminine men]. “The same Prometheus … had spent the day producing in separated piles those two parts which decency demands to be concealed by clothes, intending to attach them to their respective bodies. But Bachhus unexpectedly invited him to dinner. He indulged deeply in heaven nectar and only got home late at night, with unsteady steps. Then with heavy head and drunken fumbling he fitted female fixtures onto males, and members meant for males onto females. And that’s why today we all too often see passion diverted into depraved paths.”6 (Phaedrus, Fables15)
Juvenal: “Perhaps you despise the unwarlike Rhodians, the scented sons of Corinth – and rightly so: what harm can ever befall you from youths who put on perfume and shave their legs to the crotch? But steer clear of rugged Spain, give a very wide birth to Gaul…”7 (Satires 112-115)
Epictetus: 1 He was once visited by a young student of rhetoric who was stylishly dressed and who had a very elaborate hairdo. … 27 “Are you a man or a woman?”
“A man.”
“So adorn yourself as a man, not as a woman. A woman’s skin is naturally smooth and soft; if she’s hairy, she’s a freak and she’s put on display in a freak show in Rome. 28 In the case of a man, this happens if he’s without hair: if he’s naturally hairless, he’s a freak, so if we find a man trimming and tweezing his hair, what are we to make of him? Where shall we exhibit him and how shall we advertise him? ‘Come and see a man who’d rather be a woman!’ 29 What a scandalous spectacle! No one would believe the advertisement! By Zeus, I imagine that even men who tweeze do so without appreciating what it is they’re doing.
30 “Man, what reason do you have for finding fault with nature in your case? That it brought you into the world as a man? Are you saying that it should bring everyone into the world as women? In that case, what good would all your primping do you? If everyone was a woman, for whom would you be beautifying yourself? 31 You don’t like the way things are? Then why not go the whole hog and remove—what shall I call it?—remove the cause of your hairiness. Turn yourself into a woman in all respects, so that we’re not left in doubt, rather than being half man, half woman. 32 Who are you trying to please? Women? Then please them as a man.”
“Yes, but they like smooth-skinned men.”
“Go hang yourself! If they liked sexual deviants [κίναιδος = cinaedus], would you become a sexual deviant? 33 Is that your job, is that what you were born for, to please dissolute women? 34 Is the kind of person we make a citizen of Corinth, and possibly city warden, or superintendent of the cadet force, or commander of the armed forces, or president of the games?8 (On Personal Adornment 3.1.1,27-34)
Marilyn Skinner: “To be a Roman vir, a “real man,” was to be hard in every sense—physically to be impervious to pain or fatigue, mentally to be stern and unyielding, and, of course, inevitably to take the insertive position in sexual congress. … The Romans borrowed from the Greeks the word kinaidos, denoting a man who allowed himself to be entered anally. … Latinized as cinaedus, it meant the opposite of vir; thus Romans could be assigned to one of two categories, “man” (vir) or “non-man” (cinaedus).”9
Putting It All Together
malakoi (μαλακοὶ): the passive participant in male on male sex of any age
arsenokoitai (ἀρσενοκοῖται): the active participant in male on male sex of any age
Paul spoke to the Corinthians in such a way that communicated both roles were sinful acts. He did not outlaw homosexuality in our modern sense of orientation. Like the Old Testament, Paul solely focused on the sex act itself. Corinthian Christians should not engage in sex with the same sex.
Furthermore, Paul fully believed that people who engaged in this activity could become washed, sanctified, and justified (1 Cor 6:11)
Singleness
Paul was single; Jesus was single; many effective Christians over the last two millennia were single. Marriage is not salvation.
1 Corinthians 7:7-9 Paul thought singleness was better than marriage.
1 Corinthians 7:28 Married people face distresses that singles don’t.
1 Corinthians 7:32-35 Single people can serve God more effectively.
1 Corinthians 7:36-40 What matters most is your relationship with God, not your marital status.
God loves masculine women and feminine men. God loves those who are attracted to the same sex. God loves those who don’t like their biological sex. God wants everyone to come to Christ and have eternal life. However, once someone becomes a Christian, he or she is bound to live within the boundaries God has set for behavior. Choosing singleness is available for anyone, but especially those who—for whatever reason—do not want to marry someone of the opposite sex.

Bibliography
Bauer, Walter, Frederick William Danker, William F. Arndt, F. Gingrich, Kurt Aland, Barbara Aland, and Viktor Reichmann. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Epictetus. The Complete Works: Handbook, Discourses & Fragments. Translated by Robin Waterfield. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2022.
Horace. Satires and Epistles. Translated by Niall Rudd. London, England: Penguin, 2005.
Hubbard, Moyer V. Christianity in the Greco-Roman World. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010.
Juvenal. The Sixteen Satires. Translated by Peter Green. 3rd ed. London, England: Penguin, 2004.
Phaedrus. The Fables of Phaedrus. Translated by P. F. Widdows. Austin, TX: Univeristy of Texas Press, 1992.
Skinner, Marilyn B. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture. Oxford, England: Blackwell, 2005.
Moyer V. Hubbard, Christianity in the Greco-Roman World (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010), 188.
Marilyn B. Skinner, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Culture (Oxford, England: Blackwell, 2005), 195-7.
Horace, Satires and Epistles, trans. Niall Rudd (London, England: Penguin, 2005), 58.
Walter Bauer et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Juvenal, The Sixteen Satires, trans. Peter Green, 3rd ed. (London, England: Penguin, 2004), 36.
Phaedrus, The Fables of Phaedrus, trans. P. F. Widdows (Austin, TX: Univeristy of Texas Press, 1992), 102.
Juvenal, 65.
Epictetus, The Complete Works: Handbook, Discourses & Fragments, trans. Robin Waterfield (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 2022), 212-6.
Skinner, 212.
The post 6. Homosexuality and Singleness in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
38 min
January 30, 20255. Sexual Immorality in 1 Corinthians
Download: Sexual Immorality in 1 Corinthians
1 Corinthians 5:1-3; 6:12-20
Venus (Aphrodite) and Prostitution
Venus, the Roman goddess driving physical attraction, romance, and fertility was a big deal in Corinth. She had a temple on the Acrocorinth.
Strabo: “The sanctuary of Aphrodite was so rich that it possessed more than a thousand temple slaves—hetairas—who had been dedicated to the goddess by both men and women. Because of them, the city was crowded and became rich. The shipowners spent freely and easily, and thus a proverb says, “the voyage to Corinth is not for all men.””1
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “Many New Testament introduction and commentaries have stressed this aspect because it appears to provide an explanation for the attention that Paul was obliged to give to sexual problems in 1 Corinthians 5-7. However, the context clearly indicates that Strabo is here referring to the pre-146 c. city and not the newly constituted Roman colony that he visited in 29 b.c. Then he saw only a “small temple of Aphrodite” (21b); the same adjective would apply to the two that Pausanias mentions. …Corinth did have “a great army of prostitutes” (Plutarch, Moralia 768a), but it is doubtful that the situation there was any worse than in other port-cities of the eastern Mediterranean.”2
Corinth Was Known for Lewdness
Martial: “You live on Senate Street, Laelia; your mother (who never used make-up) was descended from the sunburnt Etruscans, your tough old dad’s from somewhere round Aricia … But you’re forever stockpiling Grecisms … Have you no shame? … The bed’s where such expressions should be heard … You should hear yourself talk—and you a respectable married lady. … But even if you get all Corinth by heart and can recite it, Laelia, you still won’t quite be Lais.”3
Lais was a famous hetaira or courtesan in Corinth who lived four centuries before Christ. A hetaira was a cultured prostitute who only worked for the wealthy. Lais was known for her beauty and wit and her exorbitant fees.
Roman Sensibilities about Marrying a Stepmother
1 Corinthians 5:1-2 A man in the church was living with his father’s wife
Gaius: “Moreover, I cannot marry my former mother-in-law or daughter-in-law, or my step-daughter or step-mother. We make use of the word “former,” because if the marriage by which affinity of this kind was established is still in existence, there is another reason why I cannot marry her, for a woman cannot marry two men, nor can a man have two wives. Therefore, if anyone should contract a nefarious and incestuous marriage, he is considered to have neither a wife nor children, hence the issue of such a union are considered to have a mother but no father, and for this reason are not subject to paternal authority, but resemble children whom the mother has conceived through promiscuous intercourse”4 (Gaius, Institutes63-64)
Catullus, a crass poet writing a century earlier considered incest one of the most defiling things a person could possibly do (Catullus, Poem 88).
Jewish Sensibilities about Marrying a Stepmother
Leviticus 20:11 (see also Lev 18:8; Deut 27:20) The Torah regarded lying with one’s father’s wife as a capital crime.
Mishnah, Sanhedrin 7.4
“These are [the felons] who are put to death by stoning: He who has sexual relations with (1) his mother, (2) with the wife of his father, (3) with his daughter-in-law, (4) with a male, and (5) with a cow.…“5
Chow’s Dowry Theory
Why would someone marry his father’s wife? If his father was deceased, the concern could be over losing the stepmother’s dowry.
John Chow: “[I]n Paul’s day, material interests, which might include money and power, rather than sex and affection seem to have a bigger role to play in the establishment of a marital relationship. Indeed, for the sake of keeping wealth, men in those days could do some strange things. The satirists tell us that there were husbands who were willing to condone their wives’ acts of adultery in return for the control of their dowries. …For on the one hand, through marriage, he would not have to pay higher taxes. On the other hand, he would immediately be able to have total control over his share of the inheritance from the father who probably was dead at that time. Better still, through marrying his stepmother he might have been able to preserve in his house his stepmother’s dowry to his father and might even have access to the possessions of his wife’s family.”6
Hand Him over to Satan
1 Corinthians 5:3-5 Paul has told them to cast the man out of the church.
Anthony Thiselton: “[F]or the offender himself sudden removal from a platform of adulation to total isolation from the community would have a sobering if not devastating effect.”7
James South: “[It means] putting him outside the sphere of God’s protection within the church and leaving him exposed to the satanic forces of evil in hope that the experience would cause him to repent and return to the fellowship of the church. The ‘flesh’ to be destroyed is thus not his physical body.”8
1 Corinthians 5:6-8 Sin is contagious.
Dale Martin: “Paul is not afraid that social contact between a Christina and a non-Christian will pollute the church; but he does think that the disguised presence within the church of a representative from the outside, from the cosmos that should be “out there,” threatens the whole body. … In that case, the only remedy is violent expulsion of the polluting agent, which will result in the return of the body to a clean, healthy state.”9
1 Corinthians 5:9-12 Paul didn’t want them to isolate themselves from their unbelieving neighbors and coworkers. Rather, he wanted them to hold the line within their own community, among those who had already become believers.
Prostitution in the Roman Empire
Sex for pay was a legal though scurrilous profession in the Roman Empire.
Horace: “The sight of a certain aristocrat leaving a brothel drew a famous remark from Cato: ‘Keep up the good work!’ he said. ‘Whenever a young man’s veins are swollen by accursed lust, he’s right to go down to that sort of place instead of grinding other men’s wives.’” (Horace, Satire 2.31-34)10
Marguerite Johnson: “In the Roman world, the legal practice of sexual labour was placed under the jurisdiction of the Curule Aediles; workers were required to register and, during the reign of Caligula (37-41), to pay tax. … [T]he brothels ensured there would be less likelihood of adultery. In other words, commercial sex ensured that wives were safe from other men. The perceived role of the worker as some kind of societal safety valve, a requirement for the maintenance of a calm home environment, may also be witnessed in the more graphic sources … [W]orkers of both sexes were there to provide services one would not ask of a wife. These workers were, nevertheless, despised and ridiculed.”11
Corinthian Slogans
1 Corinthians 6:12-15 Depending on your translation, some of these words will be in quotation marks, indicating that they were what the Corinthians were saying, not the instruction of Paul.
David Gill: “The Roman love of food is reflected in the cookbooks that have survived from antiquity, such as that attributed to Apicius. His recipes include, “Numidian chicken,” “rabbit with fruit sauce,” “liver sausage,” “anchovy delight without the anchovies,” and “sweet and sour pork.””12
Jay E. Smith: “[T]he notion that the body was morally irrelevant—that sin was an internal matter of motives and intentions and not an external matter related to the body—was commonplace. …It was in this environment that the slogan ‘Every sin that a person commits is outside the body,’ with its belief that bodily actions were morally irrelevant, could come to expression.”13
1 Corinthians 6:15-20 Verse 18 is likely another slogan to which Paul replied.
v12a Corinthians: “All things are permitted for me”
Paul: “But not all things are beneficial”
v12b Corinthians: “All things are lawful for me”
Paul: “But I will not be dominated by anything”
v13 Corinthians: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy both one and the other.”
Paul: “The body is meant not for sexual immorality but for the Lord and the Lord for the body.”
v18 Corinthians: “Every sin that a person commits is outside the body”
Paul: “But the sexually immoral person sins against the body itself”
Temple Prostitutes, Brothels, or Banquets?
Older commentaries drew on the Strabo quote I started with about Aphrodite and her temple prostitutes to interpret 1 Corinthians 6. However, this was not the case when Paul was there. Brothels were common in cities. We have archeological evidence from Ephesus and Pompeii as well as plenty of literary evidence. Banquets were another venue where high-end prostitutes worked.
Cicero: “[I]f there is anyone who thinks that youth should be forbidden affairs even with courtesans, he is doubtless eminently austere (I cannot deny it), but his view is contrary not only to the licence of this age, but also to the custom and concessions of our ancestor. For when was this not a common practice? When was it blamed? When was it forbidden? When, in fact, was it that what is allowed was not allowed?”14 (Cicero, Pro Caelio 48)
Bruce Winter: “Gluttony and drunkenness were an accepted part of social life in Corinth, as were the promiscuous ‘after-dinners.’ For grand dinners such as the series of banquets given by the President of the Isthmian Games for the citizens of Corinth, travelling brothels could be brought in by the host to cater for guests after the dinner in the place where it was held. The élite who gave private banquets to which they invited clients as well as other guests provided not only for their physical hunger but also for their sexual appetites. It needs to be noted that 1 Corinthians 6:12-20 does not state that Christians actually went to brothels. They were having sexual intercourse with prostitutes in the context of dinner. … The strong adversative ‘but’ used on both occasions in 6:12 was Paul’s way of giving clear warning against choosing the path of gluttony and whoring that epitomized conduct at banquets attended by young men who had gained the freedom of adulthood. If Christian youths affirmed that they had come of age and all was now permitted, Paul countered with a statement that not everything was beneficial.… Fornication, like drunkenness, was one of the grounds for exclusion from the kingdom (6:9-10).”15
Bibliography
Chow, John K. Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth. Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1992.
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. Pro Caelio, De Provinciis Consularibus, Pro Balbo. Translated by R. Gardner. Loeb Classical Library. London, England: William Heinemann, 1970.
Gaius. The Institutes of Roman Law. Translated by Edward Post. 2017, Reprint, 1904. Originally published as 1904.
Gill, David W. J. “1 Corinthians.” In Romans to Philemon. Edited by Clinton E. Arnold. Vol. 3. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002.
Horace. Satires and Epistles. Translated by Niall Rudd. London, England: Penguin, 2005.
Johnson, Marguerite. Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022.
Martial. Epigrams. Translated by Gideon Nisbet. Oxford World’s Classics. Oxford, England: Oxford University, 2015.
Martin, Dale B. The Corinthian Body. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology. 3rd ed. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002.
Neusner, Jacob. The Mishnah: A New Translation. New Haven, CT: Yale, 1988.
Smith, Jay E. “The Roots of a ‘Libertine’ Slogan in 1 Corinthians 6:18.” The Journal of Theological Studies 59, no. 1 (2008): 63-95.
South, James T. Disciplinary Practices in Pauline Texts. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992.
Strabo. The Geography. Translated by Duane W. Roller. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020.
Thiselton, Anthony C. The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Vol. 13. Nigtc. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000.
Winter, Bruce W. After Paul Left Corinth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Strabo, The Geography, trans., Duane W. Roller (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge, 2020), 375.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology, 3rd ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 56-7.
Martial, Epigrams, trans. Gideon Nisbet, Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford, England: Oxford University, 2015), 181.
Gaius, The Institutes of Roman Law, trans. Edward Post (2017: repr., 1904), 74.
Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven, CT: Yale, 1988).
John K. Chow, Patronage and Power: A Study of Social Networks in Corinth (Sheffield, England: JSOT Press, 1992), 137-8.
Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, vol. 13, Nigtc (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), 396.
James T. South, Disciplinary Practices in Pauline Texts (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1992), 43.
Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Body (New Haven, CT: Yale University, 1995), 170.
Horace, Satires and Epistles, trans. Niall Rudd (London, England: Penguin, 2005), 55.
Marguerite Johnson, Sexuality in Greek and Roman Society and Literature: A Sourcebook, 2nd ed. (New York, NY: Routledge, 2022), 135-6.
David W. J. Gill, “1 Corinthians,” in Romans to Philemon, ed. Clinton E. Arnold, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 133.
Jay E. Smith, “The Roots of a ‘Libertine’ Slogan in 1 Corinthians 6:18,” The Journal of Theological Studies 59, no. 1 (2008): 95.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Pro Caelio, De Provinciis Consularibus, Pro Balbo, trans. R. Gardner, Loeb Classical Library (London, England: William Heinemann, 1970), 465-7.
Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 88, 91-2.
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42 min
January 25, 20254. Philosophy and Wisdom in 1 Corinthians
Download: Philosophy and Wisdom
Most people encountering the Corinthian Christians would not have thought of Christianity as a religion. In the Roman world, religions were about collective duty to the gods, usually expressed in ritualized sacrifices and festivals carried out by trained priests and their assistants on behalf of the city. Christianity had no flamines, sacrificuli, victimarii, haruspices, augurs, animal offerings, temples, or statues. Rather Christians met regularly to listen to the public reading of texts, eat together, and live out a moral code. To the outsider, Christianity resembled a philosophical sect more than a religion.
1 Cor 1:17-25 Paul talks about the wise, the scholar, and the debater of this age. He mentions that Greeks are always looking for wisdom. In fact, philosophy literally means the love of wisdom. Though the first recorded Greek philosophers emerged six centuries before Christ, three hundred years later, several important pioneers-initiated schools of philosophy were well-known by Paul’s time.
Platonism (Plato, 427-347 bc)
It’s hard to overstate the massive influence Plato has had throughout human history. He talked of another realm beyond the physical where idealist and unchanging realities existed. These Forms emanated from the Good or the One. Although we are living in a shadow world, our souls are capable of ascending and contemplating the true realities. As we pursue virtue, preferring reason to emotion and rationality to irrationality and mental perceptions over sense perception, we attain true happiness.
Cynicism (Diogenes of Sinope, 412-323 bc)
Upon watching a mouse patter around in a carefree manner, Diogenes adopted extreme minimalism and ultra simple living. He trained himself to face hardship with equanimity. He was bold, confident, and provocative, sometimes amusing and other times offending those who encountered him.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor: “The fundamental principle of Diogenes’s philosophy was that happiness could be achieved only by satisfying one’s natural needs in the easiest and cheapest way. Since this inevitably involved a certain shamelessness, he was known as the “Dog” (Cyne) and followers as Cynics.”1
Diogenes Laertius: “And he endured being sold into slavery with great dignity. On a voyage to Aegina, he was captured by pirates under Scirpalus’ command, transported to Crete, and put up for sale. And when the herald asked him what he was good at, he replied, “Ruling over men.” Pointing to an affluent Corinthian, the above-mentioned Xeniades, he said, “Sell me to him; he needs a master.” Thus, Xeniades purchased him, took him home to Corinth, put him in charge of his own sons, and entrusted him with his entire household. And Diogenes performed all his duties in such a manner that Xeniades went about saying, “A kindly deity has entered my house.” …Diogenes’ friends wanted to ransom him, for which he called them imbeciles. For he maintained that lions are not the slaves of those who feed them; it is the feeders, rather, who are the lions’ slaves. For fear is the mark of a slave, and wild beasts make men fearful. Diogenes possessed astonishing powers of persuasion, and hence could easily sway anyone he liked with his arguments.”2 (Lives74-75)
Diogenes of Sinope died in Corinth at the age of 90 and was buried by the gate that opened toward the isthmus. 450 years later when Pausanias visited Corinth in the second century, he saw memorials to Diogenes there.
Skepticism (Pyrrho of Elis, 360-270 bc)
Diogenes Laertius: “[Pyrrho] introduced the notion of inability to attain conviction and that of suspension of judgment … For he said that nothing is beautiful or ugly, or just or unjust, and that likewise in all instances nothing exists in truth, but men do everything by custom and by habit.”3 (Lives, 9.61)
Diogenes Laertius: “To them the Skeptics reply, “We acknowledge our human feelings; for we recognize that it is day, that we are alive, and many other things that appear in life; but with regard to the things the dogmatic philosophers affirm so positively in argument, claiming to have comprehended them, we suspend judgment on the grounds that they are not certain, and we know only what we feel. For we admit that we see, and we recognize that we think this or that; but how we see or how we think we do not know. And in ordinary conversation we say that a certain thing appears white, but without affirming strongly that it actually is ”4 (Lives 9.103)
Epicureanism (Epicurus, 341-270 bc)
Although maligned as a hedonist, Epicurus and his followers, the Epicureans, were sophisticated philosophers who pursued pleasure and avoided pain.
Diogenes Laertius: “Even when he is tortured the wise man is content. … The wise man will not consort with women in any manner proscribed by law … Nor will he punish his servants … The Epicureans do not think that the wise man will fall in love; nor will he be concerned about his burial; nor do they think that love is sent by the gods … Nor will the wise man make fine speeches. They maintain that sexual relations are never beneficial, and that one should be grateful not to be injured by them. The wise man will not marry and beget children … He will not talk nonsense when drunk … He will not participate in politics … or make himself a tryant, or live like a Cynic, … or be a beggar. … The wise man will also experience grief, … He will avail himself of the law courts … He will take thought for his property and for the future. He will love the countryside.”5 (Lives 118-120)
Epicurus: “[P]leasure is the beginning and the end of a happy life. … And it is because pleasure is our first and innate good that we choose every pleasure, though we often forgo many pleasures when a greater annoyance results from them. And we regard many pains as preferable to pleasures when a prolonged endurance of pains brings us greater pleasure. …For simple fare brings as much pleasure as an extravagant feast, once the pain of want has been removed; and barley cake and water give a hungry man the greatest pleasure. To accustom oneself, therefore, to simple, inexpensive fare supplies the essentials of health, and enables a man to face the demands of life without shrinking, and puts us in a better condition when we encounter expensive fare from time to time, and makes us fearless of fortune. But when we say that pleasure is our goal, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the self-indulgent, as the ignorant think, or those who disagree with or misinterpret our views. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of torment in the soul. For it is not drinking bouts and continuous carousals, nor the pleasures to be had with boys and women, nor the enjoyment of fish and all the other delicacies a luxurious table furnishes that produce a pleasant life, but the sober reasoning that examines the basis of every choice and aversion, and banishes the beliefs that afflict the soul with its worst torments.”6 (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus in Diogenes, Lives129-132)
Stoicism (Zeno of Citium, 334-262 bc)
Initially studying under the Cynic Crates, Zeno founded his own school, lecturing while walking up and down the painted stoa (columns). This is why they called his followers stoics.
His goal was to live in harmony with nature and pursue the virtues of wisdom, courage, justice, and temperance. Doing so leads to joy and cheerfulness. Pursuing pleasure, by contrast, results in an irrational yearning, despondency, and anxiety.
Diogenes Laertius: “The wise man is free of passion … The wise man is free of vanity, for he is equally indifferent to good and bad reputation. … The good aim genuinely and vigilantly for their own improvement … They are unpretentious … They are not overly busy … They will drink in moderation, but will never get drunk. Nor will they go crazy … The wise man will not be afflicted by grief, since grief is an irrational contraction of the soul … The good are also god-fearing, for they are conversant with the customs that concern the gods, and piety is knowledge of how to serve the gods. Moreover, they will sacrifice to the gods; and they keep themselves pure by avoiding offenses against the gods. … [T]he wise man will take part in politics if nothing prevents him … And he will marry … and beget children. And he will live like a Cynic, since the Cynic way of life is a shortcut to virtue … [T]he good man will not live in solitude, for he is suited by nature for society and for action. He will also submit to training for the sake of physical endurance. … The wise man does everything well. … [V]irtue is sufficient for happiness.”7 (Diogenes, Lives 117-127)
Stoicism was the most influential philosophy in the first century, especially among the elite in positions of power.
Paul Undercuts Philosophy
1 Cor 2:1-5 Paul did not come with “superior speech or wisdom,” instead he focused on tell them the good news about a crucified hero. He did, however, bring demonstrations of the spirit and power.
1 Cor 2:6-8 Most people don’t get the true, exclusive wisdom of God since he has hidden it.
1 Cor 2:9-16 Undermining Plato, Diogenes, Pyrrhos, Epicurus, and Zeno, Paul says there’s a deeper truth beyond worldly wisdom that only spiritual people can perceive.
1 Cor 3:1-4 If they will be mature and spiritual rather than childish and fleshly, they must stop the divisiveness.
Bibliography
Laertius, Diogenes. Lives of the Eminent Philosophers. Translated by Pamela Mensch. Edited by James Miller. New York, NY: Oxford, 2020.
Murphy-O’Connor, Jerome. St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology. 3rd ed. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002.
Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, St. Paul’s Corinth: Texts and Archeology, 3rd ed. (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002), 24.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, trans., Pamela Mensch (New York, NY: Oxford, 2020), 214.
Laertius, 339.
Laertius, 351.
Laertius, 385-6.
Laertius, 387-8.
Laertius, 257-60.
The post 4. Philosophy and Wisdom in 1 Corinthians first appeared on Living Hope.
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