FEBRUARY 2005 - ISSUE 4 - ISSN 1448 - 632

DENNIS SLEIGH

Abstract:

In addressing his infant church at Corinth, Paul was anxious to teach them an appropriate morality and also to unite them in a single community. His use of the concept of “body” enabled him to address both goals. His language demonstrated  that he was well aware of the real life situation of his audience, and he drew on this experience to strengthen his message.  Not only did he have to combat some false ideas about materiality; he was also called to confront the potential split within the community, demonstrating through his corporeal analogy the futility of such disunity.

Introduction

“Few terms have undergone so many twists and turns in the history of Pauline scholarship than body and body of Christ.” [1]

This comment hints at the complexity of the topic, a topic where a single word can have such diverse meanings. When Paul writes of the body (a word he uses 43 times in his first letter to the Corinthians) [2] he uses it in two distinct senses. On the one hand he is referring to the physical body inhabited by his hearers; on the other hand, he is referring to the new community, the Body of Christ.

This is not just a discussion about sarx and soma, although Paul’s use of these words is an interesting aside. [3] Instead, it is a study of two very different, though related, issues: appropriate attitudes towards their own physical body and an analogy for their community based on the body.

The body of the believer

The first issue, the believer’s own body, relates to the question of  the physical body in a world where the question of the non-physical has taken on a new and urgent meaning. It is a problem that arises because of the Corinthian’s difficulty with the idea of the continuing existence of the body after the Second Coming. [4]

(For the Corinthians) the body has no permanent value because it is swept away by death. God concurs in this assessment because he permits the destruction of the body. Hence anything done in and through the body has no moral value. [5]

Since Christians were soon going to move into immortality, they argued the body itself was unimportant and what they did with it was immaterial. [6] Some subscribed to the idea that they could imitate the sexual excesses of their contemporaries (1 Cor 5:1, 6:13), while others opted for an asceticism that demonstrated a disregard for the body (1 Cor 7).

Given the overwhelming reality of experiences of Spirit-possession (cf. 4:8; 12:13) the meaning of the body and bodily existence changes, becomes incidental even: so the body can be used either promiscuously or ascetically. [7]

Paul counters with the claim that the body is indeed important and that it is destined for resurrection. His arguments were anthropological,  based on the life experiences of his audience, such as their sexual nature (7:8-9); theological, explaining the link between them and the Holy Spirit (6:19); and moral, asking them to think about their weaker brethren (8:9).

He then goes on to explain what this resurrection will involve (15:35-58) and he reminds his hearers that their body will put on immortality. Because each body is a temple of the Holy Spirit (6:19) there is no excuse for linking it with immorality.[8] On the other hand, while some might aspire to noble deeds such as celibacy, he does concede some people ought marry to avoid the temptation to immorality (7:2). [9] In other words, he recognizes both the human or anthropological dimension and the divine, or theological dimension in his followers.

The issue about the body of the believers, then, is how to convince them that their present corporeal status has value and meaning. He has to respond to what Gundry-Volf calls “this widespread tradition of inspiration asceticism”. [10] He does this by reminding them that failure to use their bodies as they were created could lead to sin (7:2-5). Putting a more positive perspective on it, they were to show the rest of the world that the way to salvation lay precisely in embracing their physical nature, not denying it “…their corporeity is the sphere in which the Corinthians must work out their salvation.” [11] Their theology had to be grounded in anthropology if it was to have any impact.

The Body of believers

Dealing with warped ideas about the human body, however, was only one part of Paul’s message. He also wanted the Corinthians to understand a far more powerful message: their intimate relationship to the divine.

In grappling with this second issue, the Body of believers, Paul not only alludes to a theme he has already alluded to (the body is more than just a physical reality) but he also draws on a social model that some of his readers might already have known, one “loaded with political history” [12]. He uses these two points to tell the Corinthians they are themselves intimately associated with Christ in a way that they would never have conceived.

Paul introduces this theological concept by first attending to a problem that had been identified in the Corinthian community (7:1). There were reports that the Christians had become divided among themselves (12:20). He responded by telling them they were all united as one body, with the different parts each being called to exercise their own ministry (12:26).

His presentation of this model of the body, however, had a novel twist. Usually invoked to admonish the lower orders for seeking the power of their betters, the analogy of the body in this instance was aimed at the upper echelons of his group who were trying to press their rights. “… It is not so much a possible revolt from the lower orders that he fears, but the pride of the superior classes, who had  been arguing among themselves about the excellence of their respective gifts.” [13]

In 12:12-27 Paul presents a paradigm that espouses both diversity in unity and complementarity. [14] However, his image is not just one of political convenience. Paul introduces us to a theologically novel idea: not only do the Corinthians constitute a physical or social body (an anthropological reality), they are  the Body of Christ (a new theological understanding).

The body analogy has two aspects, as noted by Fallon[15].

Paul … is using an image commonly used in the Greco-Roman world to say that the Christian community is like the human body in that it has diversity but a single principle of life. He is also saying the Christian community is a body, the body of the risen Christ, for it is his Spirit that is the body’s principle of life.

The second aspect is the one that Paul is at pains to stress. His views are clear: For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ (12:12)

This is as an even more compelling claim than when he speaks of the construction of a temple (3:10-15 and 6:19) – in the building analogy the Spirit is in the people, a pre-existing group; in the body analogy, the body is in Christ, becoming a new organism.

Paul explains how this body is to operate – and this means addressing some reported abuses, including their use of spiritual gifts. He is not attacking the gifts being used by the community (although his ordering of them does seem to imply a different priority to that given by the Corinthians themselves) but instead he is expressing concern that the use of these gifts might lead people to lose their appreciation that the gifts come from the Spirit.

He switches the emphasis from pneumatika to charismata to drive home the point that the spiritual gifts are gifts of divine grace, something to thank God for.[16] These gifts are to be used for the good of the whole community – the Body of the believers. Paul makes it clear that when he speaks of the body of the believers in this context, he is talking about Christ (12.12). He is making clear his belief that the church and Christ are one. “By baptism, the Spirit transforms the identity of disparate types of people into a new unity, the ‘one body’ of Christ.” [17]

Paul’s purpose

As Paul passes from his discussion of the gifts immediately to the discussion of the one body, his intent is clear. He is espousing both unity in diversity and diversity in unity. [18] To enable this to occur, he intersperses his instruction with the beautiful paean to love (chap. 13), where he reminds his readers, as Stendahl puts it, “Love, not in the sense of feeling ever more deeply into one’s innermost emotional life, but love in the sense of plain, reasonable concern for the church in its totality is the greatest of things.”  [19]

This love (agape, not eros)  is the basis on which the new Body of Christ must operate.  It must be practical, not simply emotional; it must underpin everything else – even martyrdom (13:3) – and it is not a solo performance.  Furthermore, it will not pass away like the other gifts. “Only together can Christians demonstrate the authentic humanity that Christ embodied because creative love binds those who give and those who receive into one.” [20]

In telling his readers of the importance of love, Paul is uncompromising – without love, everything else is pointless. (13:1-3) This is different to his attitude towards other issues, where he is able to see two sides of the case. In his discussions about food offered to idols (8:4-13), for example, he urges the strong to care for the weak in protecting them from scandal. He is arguing not only from a theological perspective  where he might be expected to issue a unilateral ruling – but also from a human one, conscious of the impact of our actions on others. [21]

He was a realist as well as a visionary; his message was worldly and other-worldly. This combination of emphases helped ensure that his message – both about the physical and the ethereal – would last.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bétoulieres J. et al., Le Corps et Le Corps du Christ dans la La Première Epître de Saint Paul aux Corinthiens, Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1983.

Bieringer R. (ed.), The Corinthian Correspondence, Leuven: University Press, 1996.

Byrne B., Paul and the Christian Woman, Homebush: St Paul Publications, 1988.

Collins R.F., First Corinthians (Sacra Pagina Series, vol., 7), Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 1999.

Dunn J.D.G. and John Rogerson (eds), Eerdman's Commentary on the Bible, Cambridge: Wm M Eerdmans, 2003.

Dunn J.D.G., The Theology of Paul the Apostle, (Cambridge:Wm B Eerdmans, n.d.), 713-737

Fallon M, St Paul: An Introductory Commentary, Kensington: Chevalier Press, 2004.

Furnish V.P.,  “The Letters, The Challenges of Ministry, The Gospel”, in Interpretation, 52/3, 1998, 229-245

Hering, J., La Première Epître de Saint Paul aux Corinthiens (2me edit.), Paris: Editions Delachaux & Niestlé, 1959.

Montague G.T., The Living Thought of St Paul, Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing, 1966.

Murphy-O'Connor J., 1 Corinthians, Dublin: Veritas, 1979.

Murphy-O'Connor J., “The Corinth that St Paul Saw” in Biblical Archaeology, 47, 1984, 147-159

Stendahl K., Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1976

Strong's Concise Concordance and Vine's Concise Dictionary of the Bible, Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997.

Thistelton A., The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a Commentary on the Greek Text, Cambridge: Wm M Eerdmans, 2000

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FOOTNOTES