4. The Source of Their False Spirituality
Our 1 Corinthians is an occasional, ad hoc response to the situation that had developed in the Corinthian church between the time Paul left the city, sometime in A.D. 51–52, and the writing of our letter approximately three years later. The difficulty in determining the nature of that situation is intrinsic to the text. Paul addresses, in response to reports (1:11; 5:1; 11:18) or to their letter (cf. 7:1), at least eleven different, somewhat disparate concerns, ten of which are behavioral; only the issue of the resurrection of the dead (chap. 15) is theological as such, and even there he concludes both major sections with ethical warnings and imperatives (vv. 33–34, 58). But in every case his greater concern is the theological stance behind the behavior. Our difficulty at this distance is threefold: (1) to discover the relationship, if indeed there is one, of these various items to one another; (2) to determine the relationship of the community to Paul; and (3) to determine what influences/positions in the Corinthian “theology” allowed them not only to adopt such behavior but also to argue for the right to do it.
For the most part, historically, these matters were resolved (if noted at all) in terms either of Paul’s informing or correcting the Corinthians in areas where they were deficient or had gone astray. As such our letter has usually been understood as a response to their division into parties, wherein Paul takes the side of one over against the other (or sometimes, it is argued, he speaks to both groups). There are, however, a number of difficulties with this point of view:
(a) That there is some form of internal division in the church is evident from three passages: 1:10–12; 3:4–5; and 11:18–19. That this division is at least along socioeconomic lines is indicated by Paul’s response to their abuse of the Lord’s Table (11:17–34; cf. 1:26; 7:20–24; 12:13); but whether it is also along spiritual/theological lines is moot. In any case, nothing in the latter two-thirds of the letter (chaps. 7–16), where Paul is responding to their letter, suggests as much. Indeed, it is probably quite wrong to envision the church as split into “parties” at all, since nothing in the letter itself gives much in the way of hints as to how these might be viewed.
(b) Apart from two passages (7:1–40 and 11:2–16)—and even here he stands over against their point of view—the language and style of 1 Corinthians are especially rhetorical and combative. Paul is taking them on at almost every turn. There is little to suggest that he is either informing or merely correcting; instead, he is attacking and challenging with all the weapons in his literary arsenal. If 1 Corinthians is a response to their letter, in which they are asking Paul to arbitrate their differences, then one must judge him to have misread their letter rather considerably.
(c) The letter in its entirety is addressed to the whole church, with no suggestion that he is speaking now to one group, and then to another. Nearly everything is in the second person plural, except for a few instances where he shifts to the second singular, perhaps with some specific person(s) in view. If Paul were settling differences among them, one would expect at least some word to that effect. But there is none.
These factors together suggest that the traditional viewpoint comes up lacking at crucial points. What is needed is a way of looking at the letter that will hold all these items together within a more consistent framework.
The basic stance of the present commentary is that the historical situation in Corinth was primarily one of conflict between the church and its founder. This is not to deny that the church was experiencing internal strife, but it is to argue that the greater problem of “division” was between Paul and some in the community who were leading the church as a whole into an anti-Pauline view of things. For Paul this conflict presents a twofold crisis—over his authority and his gospel. Furthermore, the key issue between Paul and them, which created both of these crises, most likely had to do with the Corinthian understanding of what it means to be “spiritual” (pneumatikos = people of the Spirit). Several factors go into this view of things:
Our letter records Paul’s third dealings with this church. The most plausible understanding of these relationships is that the present letter is the third in an exchange of letters between Paul and Corinth. Thus:
(i) Paul’s first association with them was the founding visit mentioned in Acts 18 (ca. A.D. 49–51), a visit that had a unique feature to it—the length of stay. Although both the passage in Acts and our present letter give us some information about the makeup of the community, we learn nothing as to its size, its place(s) and times of meeting, nor the nature of its leadership.
(ii) A couple of years later, while Paul was in Ephesus, he wrote what he calls the previous letter to the community mentioned in the present letter (5:9). Although one cannot be sure as to what prompted that letter, he at least dealt with some problems of sexual immorality: he told them not to associate with fornicators, by which he intended that they should not associate with brothers who were acting in such a way. Besides fornicators, he also goes on to mention the covetous, robbers, and idolaters (5:10). Were these also dealt with in the previous letter? The best guess would seem to be yes, at least on the matter of idolatry, because this problem also emerges in our letter in a way that makes most sense if Paul had already spoken to it in the former letter.
If in fact the previous letter dealt at least with two of the issues that resurface in this one, namely fornication and idolatry, then most likely that letter was also written as a response of some kind to the situation in Corinth. It is clear from 1 Corinthians 5 that the Corinthians themselves have at least misunderstood the letter; it seems more than likely that they have in fact disregarded it (see on 5:9–11).
(iii) That leads, then, to our 1 Corinthians, which was occasioned primarily by a letter brought to Paul by Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (16:15–17), a letter that makes most sense when viewed under very ordinary circumstances—as a response on their part to his letter. Given the combative nature of so much of his response, it seems highly likely that in their letter they have taken considerable exception to several of his positions and/or prohibitions. Paul’s attitude toward their letter, and thus toward the Corinthians, is further exacerbated by an oral communication from some believers from Chloe’s household (1:11), who filled his ears with information about what was going on in Corinth that Paul probably suspected from their letter but which he now knows for certain. The coming of Chloe’s people at least helps Paul better to understand their letter.
Paul’s difficulties in writing this letter are essentially twofold: On the one hand, he must reassert his authority in a situation where it has severely eroded. This is made the more difficult by his use of servant imagery as the model of leadership in the church (3:5–9; 4:1–5)—how shall he reassert his own authority over them and not destroy the perspective of that imagery? On the other hand, he must convince them to change both their theology and their behavior to conform to his, since they are moving toward positions that threaten the gospel itself—every bit as much as the Judaizers in Galatia were going in another direction.
The available data make it clear that between Paul’s leaving the church, recorded in Acts 18:18, and his writing of our 2 Corinthians, some “bad blood” had developed between Paul and this church. These tensions apparently come to a head in an unexpected visit that he makes to them (2 Cor. 2:1–4). The evidence of our letter indicates that the problem had already been brewing before that “painful” visit. The question is, Where does 1 Corinthians fit into this scheme?
(i) Quite in contrast to 2 Corinthians and Galatians, this letter yields little or no evidence that the church has yet been invaded by the outsiders mentioned in the last chapters of 2 Corinthians (10–13). In fact, the mention in this letter (9:12) of some “others” who share the Corinthians’ provisions is the one possible reference to outsiders, but such an understanding is not demanded by the context. Thus it is not quite proper to speak of Paul’s “opponents” in the ordinary sense of that word, as referring to outside agitators. Rather, the opposition is led by “some among you” (15:12; cf. 4:18).
(ii) The present letter reflects the problem at a middle stage. The situation is not good; the relationship between Paul and the church is visibly deteriorating, but apparently it has not yet resulted in open hostility. They are still communicating by letter. Nonetheless, a decidedly anti-Pauline sentiment has developed in the church. Initiated by a few, this sentiment is infecting nearly the whole. Therefore, although there are certainly divisions within the community itself (probably along sociological lines), the most serious form of “division” is that between the majority of the community and Paul himself. They stand over against him on almost every issue. The key issue here is their calling his authority into question. What right does he have to speak to them as he did in the previous letter, since there is considerable doubt, based on their own criteria, whether he is truly pneumatikos (a person of the Spirit) or a prophet (cf. 14:37)?
One cannot be certain how such a situation developed. The evidence from three different passages (chaps. 1–4, 9, and 14) suggests that it was a combination of several factors. (1) In the opening argument (chaps. 1–4), perhaps as a result of the ministry of Apollos, it seems certain that the Corinthians have begun to think of their new faith in terms of sophia (wisdom), as though, in comparison with others, it were the ultimate expression of divine sophia. Under these new criteria, neither Paul nor his gospel fared well. As to the content of wisdom, they considered his gospel and preaching to be something like “milk” for babes, whereas they had moved on to headier stuff designed for the “mature” (see 2:6; 3:1). Likewise as to the form of wisdom, they were particularly repelled by his lack of the rhetorical skills that ordinarily accompanied sophia (cf. 1:17; 2:1–5).
It should be noted at this point that the opening argument does not conclude at the end of our chapter 3 (vv. 18–23), as many commentators tend to see it, but with the rather considerable defense of his apostolic ministry that comes next (4:1–21). This suggests that the “divisions” that have preceded are not simply a matter of playing favorites with regard to their various teachers. They are at the same time decidedly over against Paul. Early on he notes that they have been sitting in judgment on him (v. 3). This comment is followed by his noting (v. 6) that they have been puffed up for the one (Apollos) and against the other (Paul). At the end of the argument he says that he has sent Timothy to them so that they might once again be reminded of his ways, and that they might return to them. He concludes on a final hot note about some who have been arrogant about him and his coming to them, and asks the whole church how he wants his next coming to be—with a rod, or in a spirit of gentleness? As is argued in the commentary, the three items that follow immediately (the whole of chaps. 5–6) are also best understood as reflecting this same crisis of authority over his rights to direct their affairs.
(2) The same kind of fierce defense emerges again a bit later (chap. 9), in the middle of an argument where he and they seem clearly to be at loggerheads. Again, he accuses them of “sitting in judgment” on him (v. 3). The issue at hand is their rejection of his prior prohibition of their attending idol feasts in the pagan shrines (see the introduction to 8:1–11:1, and esp. 8:10). Their rejection seems to have been expressed at least in part as the result of what they perceived to be his vacillation in behavior with regard to marketplace food: he ate such food in some settings, but abstained in others (see on 9:19–23; cf. 10:29–33). Indeed, he seems to take a considerable swipe at his opponents on this matter at the conclusion of the argument: “If I take part in the meal with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of something I thank God for?” (10:30).
In defending these actions of his, however, he also takes up another area of tension between them—his working with his own hands at the demeaning (for a “wise man”) task of tentmaking with his concomitant refusal to accept patronage from them (see on 9:3–14). That this issue emerges again in his next (preserved) letter to them (2 Cor. 11:8–9; 12:13) indicates that it was a festering sore between them. Apparently they were either offended by his not accepting their patronage or they questioned the apostleship of one who acted thus—or perhaps both!
(3) Finally, in another passage (14:37) where he and they are at odds, he asserts in an ad hominem way: “If anyone thinks they are a prophet or pneumatikos, let them acknowledge that what I am writing to you is the Lord’s command.” And he concludes by pronouncing judgment on those who fail to recognize his word as having authority among them.
A man who talks thus—and this is the tenor of the whole argument (except for chap. 7 and 11:2–16)—is not attempting to inform his readers because of their deficient understanding; nor is he trying to reconcile warring factions. Furthermore, the letter is not written to one group, nor directed against the ringleaders of the opposition. Rather, Paul is on the attack, contending with them, arguing with them, trying to convince them that he is right and they are wrong. Over and again he resorts to rhetoric (“Do you not know that . . . ?” [ten times]; or “If anyone thinks they are . . .” [three times]), to sarcasm, and to irony. Thus the letter is basically the apostle Paul vis-à-vis the Corinthian congregation as a whole, or at least the community at large.
Most likely the insurgents are not only calling his authority into question, but also are modifying the gospel toward Hellenism. For Paul these two crises always overlap. It is not his own person that is at stake in their denial of his authority, but the gospel he preaches. To deny the one is to deny the other. Most likely the key issue between them is a basic theological problem, what it means to be pneumatikos (“spiritual” = people of the Spirit). The problem here is not so much a matter of elitism among themselves—there is not a hint of such in the long passage where this matter is taken up (chaps. 12–14; i.e., that some feel superior to others because of their gifts, or that others feel inferior for the lack thereof). This habitually given answer is not based on anything explicit in the text but is read in from the outside.
More likely the problem is that they think of themselves as pneumatikoi— but are not so sure about the Apostle (cf. 14:37). Here indeed some odious comparisons may have been made between him and Apollos (although 16:12 makes it clear that neither of them was party to such a rift). In any case Paul seems to feel a need to explain, indeed glory in, his weaknesses as a demonstration of his gospel (cf. 2:1–5; 4:9–13; 15:8–11).
Although one cannot be sure, their understanding of being pneumatikos is most likely related to their experience of Spirit inspiration, especially their overemphasis on the gift of tongues (see esp. the introduction to chaps. 12–14). At one point (14:23), somewhat rhetorically but nonetheless realistically, Paul says that if they all come together at the same place and all speak in tongues, the outsider will declare them mad. This, plus the very need to limit that gift to “one at a time” and not more than two or three in sequence, suggests that they were both overly and singularly enthusiastic about this gift. If, as suggested, “speaking in the tongues of angels” (13:1) reflects their own understanding of this gift, then one can begin to appreciate how they made it the basic criterion for their understanding of spirituality. Glossolalia was for them the evidence that they had already assumed the spiritual existence of the angels.
This in turn is probably related to their interest in sophia and gnōsis (wisdom and knowledge), two words that occur primarily in the context of specific behavioral aberrations (chaps. 1–4 and 8–10 respectively). Both of these “gifts” have become their special possession by means of the Spirit. They are “spiritually” endowed, hence they have special wisdom and superior knowledge. It is probably no accident that the statement “if any of you think you are . . .” (3:18; 8:2; 14:37) is found in each of the three major sections of the letter (chaps. 1–4; 8–10; 12–14) and reflects these three crucial Corinthian terms (“wisdom,” “knowledge,” and “spiritual”).
Further related to this is their apparently “spiritual” understanding of the sacraments, whereby the one who has been baptized and partakes of the “spiritual food” of the Lord’s Table also finds security (10:1–5), so that behavior in this present life has little or no effect on one’s true spirituality.
All of this, of course, stands over against both Paul and his gospel in radical ways and results in kauchēsis (“boasting,” or false confidence). Hence they are “puffed up” (4:6, 18; 5:2) and full of arrogance (5:6), and they even have gross immorality in their midst—so little is their true spiritual condition affected by such things.
Closely related to this are two further crucial theological aberrations: (i) Their worldview has been “tainted” (ingrained by a lifetime) by Hellenistic dualism. Because they were “spiritual,” they took a dim view of continuing existence in the material world, including the body. This is the element seized on by Walther Schmithals and others (e.g., U. Wilckens and R. Jewett), who argue that the Corinthians were “Gnostics.” But such language is not only anachronistic, it fails adequately to describe this element in the Corinthian spirituality. None of the essential phenomena of Gnosticism is present in this letter except the dualism itself, which can be explained on other grounds.
Despite their continuing existence in their physical bodies, the Corinthians consider themselves to be the “spiritual ones,” already as the angels. Hence, since from their perspective the body is eschatologically insignificant (cf. 6:13; 15:12), neither does it have present significance. This attitude toward corporeal existence is at least in part responsible for such things as the denial of a future bodily resurrection (15:12) and the otherwise contradictory nature of both the affirmation of sexual immorality and the denial of sexual relations within marriage (6:12–20 and 7:1–6).
(ii) Finally, and probably very closely related to the former, is the likelihood that they had a considerably “overrealized” eschatological view of their present existence, for which I have coined the inelegant expression, “spiritualized eschatology.” This would follow directly from their view of being pneumatikoi (people of the Spirit, whose present existence is to be understood in strictly spiritual terms). The coming of the Spirit belongs to the Eschaton, and they are already experiencing the Spirit in full measure. If tongues is understood as the “language of angels,” then their experience of glossolalia is evidence for them that they have already arrived (already they speak the language of heaven).
It is doubtful, however, whether they also have a Jewish apocalyptic view of the End; rather, they have probably translated such a view into their framework of “spirituality,” in which they regarded their present spiritual existence as an assumption of that which is to be, minus the physical body. From their point of view it would not so much be the “time” of the future that has become a present reality for them, as the “existence” of the future. They are now experiencing a kind of ultimate spirituality in which they live above the merely material existence of the present age.
If the Lukan version of the saying of Jesus on resurrection and marriage (Luke 20:35) is the one known in the Pauline churches (“Those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels”), then Robin Scroggs may well be right that part of the problem in chapters 7 and 11 is with some “eschatological women,” who are already living as if they had totally entered the new age.
This would also explain in part their attitude toward Paul (whose weaknesses make it obvious that he had not arrived), and why Paul so often views their present existence in light of the future, since neither have they yet arrived (1:5–8; 3:13–15, 17; 4:5; 5:5; 6:13–14; 7:26–31; 11:26, 32; 15:24, 51–56; 16:22). Thus, with fine sarcasm Paul in 4:8 takes the measure of their present attitude (“already” they are rich, full, and reigning) and in light of present apostolic existence finds it wanting (4:9–13).
Although not all would put the various components together in this way, there is a growing consensus among scholars that these are the basic components of the Corinthian false theology. But that is scarcely so on the question of the source of the problem, both in its anti-Pauline and theological dimensions. Several suggestions have been made:
(i) J. C. Hurd suggested that most of the problems stem from Paul himself. In a scheme that totally disregards the historical value of Acts in terms of dating Paul’s activities, Hurd proposes that the previous letter (5:9) was written as a result of the Apostolic Decree (Acts 15:29). In this letter Paul made some decided changes from his earlier preaching in Corinth as a form of accommodation to Jerusalem. The net result is that the Corinthians in their letter to him are more faithful to the early Paul than he was in his own letter. Our 1 Corinthians turns out to be a middle ground, in which he avoids the excessive caution of the previous letter and the extremes of his earlier preaching, which are now found in the Corinthian positions. Despite a considerable number of helpful insights into the relationship between Paul and Corinth, this thesis, when tested against the hard evidence of 1 Corinthians and the letters on either side (1 and 2 Thessalonians; 2 Corinthians, Romans, and Galatians), is found wanting, especially in terms of Paul’s radical shift of positions from extreme freedom (earlier preaching [thesis]) to restrictions (previous letter [antithesis]) to moderation (1 Corinthians [synthesis]).
(ii) More recently Birger Pearson, Richard Horsley, and James Davis have argued that the Corinthian error derives from wisdom speculation in Hellenistic Judaism, either of the personified wisdom associated with Philo (Horsley) or with Torah-wisdom of the type found in Sirach and Qumran (Davis). These scholars have mustered considerable evidence to show possible parallels between the language assumed to be from the Corinthians and that of this literature. What is less certain is that the parallels reflect what is essential to Judaism in this tradition rather than its hellenization. At best the parallels only allow that the Corinthian errors may derive from this source. What remains unprovable—and improbable—is that they in fact do.
The basic problem with this approach lies with the explicitly Gentile features of this letter, noted above (p. 4), that emerge at several crucial points. In 8:1–10:22 the Corinthians are arguing for the right to attend pagan feasts in the idol temples, and some among them are unable to do so precisely because they were “formerly accustomed” to eating in the idol’s presence as though it were a god (8:7). One can scarcely imagine the context in which a Diaspora Jew would so argue—even Philo would be horrified here. Earlier on Paul explicitly says of “wisdom” that this is the Greek quest (1:22), while Jews demand “miraculous signs.” It does no good, as Davis argues, to assign this statement merely to Paul’s rhetoric. Even as rhetoric, the statement is quite explicit, while the idea that the section reflects a Jewish midrashic homily against wisdom is speculative at best. Furthermore, and again addressing the whole church in the context of their misguided emphasis on speaking in tongues, Paul says that they formerly were led astray to mute idols (12:2)—hardly the stuff of an essentially Hellenistic Jewish error.
(iii) Most likely, therefore, most of the error comes from their former paganism. Little or no Jew-Gentile tension is in fact perceptible in the letter. As noted above, at least three texts explicitly point out how things were in their former pagan days (6:9–11; 8:7; 12:1–3). Perhaps in part related to the coming and going of Paul and Apollos, and especially to Apollos’s eloquence, they probably began to think of their teachers in terms similar to itinerant philosophers. Thus they began to view their new faith as the new sophia— the divine sophia. In this light, and in light of their experience of the Spirit, they considered themselves to have arrived at sophia itself. Under such new criteria, neither the gospel nor the apostle Paul comes off very well. Hence their rejection of Paul, and with that their tacit rejection of his gospel. Under such conditions one can understand Paul’s great urgency to reassert the gospel as the message of a crucified Messiah and himself as the apostle of such a Messiah and message.
In any case, nothing in the letter cannot be explained in light of their Greco-Roman origins; whereas several items are extremely difficult to explain on the hypothesis of Hellenistic Jewish origins.
(iv) Finally, a “source” solution of a considerably different type should be noted. Gerd Theissen has argued that the basic tensions both within the community and between some of the community and Paul are best explained along sociological lines. Since the wealthy would be responsible for patronage both for the house churches and for the itinerant teachers, Theissen has suggested that the rival factions represent rival house churches and “patrons.” Again, there are some especially helpful insights here; in fact, this suggestion can be modified toward rivalry between the “patrons” and Paul, some of whom are the leaders of the anti-Pauline sentiments in the church, and many things fall into place, including their dabbling in sophia, their “examination” of Paul because he refused to accept patronage (9:1–19), and their abuse of the poor at the Lord’s Table.
The present commentary proceeds from this perspective. Its advantages are (1) that it takes seriously all the data of the letter, in terms of both content and style, and (2) that it can be consistently maintained throughout the letter, tying together the various parts in a coherent way.