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Catalogues and Context: 1 Corinthians 5 and 62

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

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Short Studies
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

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References

page 622 note 1 See Conzelmann, , Theology, 170–4Google Scholar.

page 622 note 3 The address was published as New Testament Ethical Lists’, JBL 51 (1932) 112Google Scholar.

page 622 note 4 The standard study is still that of Vögtle, Anton, Die Tugend- und Lasterkataloge im Neuen Testament (Münster: Aschendorff, 1936)Google Scholar. Vögtle's work is supplemented by Wibbing, S., Die Tugend- und Lasterkataloge im Neuen Testament (Berlin: A. Töpelmann, 1959)Google Scholar and Kamlah, E., Die Form der katalogischen Parsnese (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1964)Google Scholar. Cf. Lietzmann, H., An die Römer 3 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1928)Google Scholar.

page 622 note 5 E.g., Carrington, Philip, The Primitive Christian Catechism (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1940);Google ScholarSelwyn, E. G., ‘On the Interrelation of 1 Peter and other N. T. Epistles’, essay appended to The First Epistle of St. Peter 2 (London: Macmillan & Co., 1947) 365466Google Scholar. Selwyn is dependent on Carrington's study, which is in some ways derivative from the scholarship of Seeberg, Alfred, especially Der Katechismus der Urchristenheit (Leipzig: Georg Bohme, 1903)Google Scholar. Cf. Klein, G., Der älteste christliche Katechismus und die jüdische Propaganda-Literatur (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1909)Google Scholar.

page 623 note 1 1 Corinthians, trans. Leitch, J. W. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975) 100–1Google Scholar.

page 623 note 2 Two of the closest parallels, and two of the oddest, are (1) the vices recorded on the counters of the Roman board game described by Deissman, , Light from the Ancient East (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1978)Google Scholar and (2) in ancient astrological texts. The list of vices associated with a particular astrological configuration in Paris Astrological Codex 8.4.196 (Cumont, F., ed., Catalogus Codicum Astrologorum Graecorum [Brussels: Lamertin, 1929])Google Scholar, for example, includes both άρσενοκοîται and μαλακοί, a rarity.

page 624 note 1 The New Testament and Homosexuality. Contextual Background for Contemporary Debate (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 101–9Google Scholar.

page 624 note 2 Scroggs, 103.

page 624 note 3 Scroggs, 102, nn. 6, 7.

page 624 note 4 Scroggs, 102.

page 624 note 5 Scroggs, 103.

page 624 note 6 Scroggs, 105.

page 625 note 1 Scroggs, 106. The phrase κληρονομεîν τîν βασιλείαν τοû θεου occurs seven times in Paul, in Rom, 1 Cor (3), Gal, 1 Thess, and 2 Thess, or more frequently than vice catalogues, yet Scroggs argues from the frequency of the vice catalogues that Paul is fond of that form and from the rarity of the phrase ‘kingdom of God’ that it is not ‘prominent’ in Paul (105).

page 625 note 2 Scroggs, 106–8. Despite the absence of pre-Pauline examples, it was Hellenistic Judaism and not Paul who coined this term, because Paul ‘seems quite uninterested in the issue’ (108).

page 625 note 3 Scroggs, 109.

page 625 note 4 For a discussion of the translation of the term, see Malina, B., ‘Does Πορνεία mean Fornication?Novum Testamentum 14 (1972) 1017Google Scholar. Despite the original Greek meaning of πόρνος as ‘male prostitute’, Paul never uses the term in this sense. Cf. Scroggs, 119–20.

page 625 note 5 See Collins, A. Y., ‘The Function of “Excommunication” in Paul’, HTR 73 (1980) 251–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 625 note 6 Leaven as a metaphor for evil occurs in both Jewish and non-Jewish sources. Schechter cites J. Ber. 7d, where leaven represents the evil inclination, Some Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (New York: Schocken, 1969) 262, 265Google Scholar. Cf. Plutarch, , Quaest. Rom. 109Google Scholar, ή δά ζύμη καἱ γέγοονεν ήκ φθορâς αύτἱ καἱ φθείροι τ φύραμα μειγνύμη. Paul re-uses the proverb at Gal 5. 9, but not for the same rhetorical purpose.

page 626 note 1 For analysis of these passages see Funk, R. W., ‘The Apostolic Parousia’, in Farmer, W. R., Moule, C. F. D., and Niebuhr, R. R., eds., Christian History and Tradition: Studies Presented to John Knox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) 249–68Google Scholar, and Zaas, P., ‘As I Teach Everywhere, in Every Church: A Study of the Communication of Morals in Paul’, diss. U. of Chicago, 1982Google Scholar.

page 626 note 2 The verb can be used of dough being mixed together, and it is possible that Paul uses it here to carry the metaphor about leaven in 5. 6 ff. even further.

page 626 note 3 The contrast is a striking one. The first ἔγραψα has sometimes been taken as an epistolary aorist, but the phrase makes this reading exceptionally difficult (cf. Lightfoot, J. B., Notes on Epistles of St. Paul, ed. Harmer, J. R.. London: MacMillan and Co., 1885, repr. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1980 ad loc.).Google Scholar The second ἔγραψα is indeed an epistolary aorist referring to the present letter. Most commentators take both aorists as past, with νūν as ethical rather than temporal, but see Lietzmann, H., An die Korinther, 4th. ed., rev. W. G. Kümmel (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1949) ad loc.Google ScholarBlass and Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, rev. by R. W. Funk (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1961) p. 172,Google Scholar state categorically that is always a true (past) aorist in the New Testament, but concede that Gal 6. 11, , is ‘disputed’. In this case, taking the aorist as anything but epistolary leads to the difficult argument that Paul wrote all of Galatians in his own hand, an argument which Ellicott, C. J., at least (St Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians: With a Critical and Grammatical Commentary. London: Longmans, Greens, and Co., 1887, repr. Minneapolis: The James Family Christian Publishers, n.d. ad loc.)Google Scholar attempted to make. If ἔγραψα in Gal 6. 11 is an epistolary aorist, there is no reason not to take it as one in the present passage.

page 627 note 1 Cf. Zaas, P., ‘“Cast Out the Evil Man from Your Midst” (1 Cor. 5. 13b)JBL 103 (1984) 259–61Google Scholar.

page 627 note 2 Bultmann, R., Der Stil des Paulinischen Predigt (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910) 65Google Scholar. The formula occurs eleven times in Paul, ten of them in this letter, and seven in these two chapters. For a recent treatment of this and other such formulae in 1 Cor, cf. Ellis, E. Earle, ‘Traditions in 1 Corinthians’, NTS 32 (1986) 481502, esp. p. 488CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

page 627 note 3 Scroggs, 105: ‘… Paul is beginning in his thinking with the third list and excerpts from that list to create the first two’.

page 628 note 1 Ellis, 463 notes as well that this vice catalogue, like the one in Gal 5, serves as an application of the commentary on Scripture that precedes it. Noting the significant degree of overlap between the Pauline and non-Pauline vice catalogues, Ellis concludes that the catalogues ‘raise the probability that the New Testament writers have … an agreed understanding about moral imperatives for believers that was in some degree formulated and shared and, at the same time, subject to different applications and developments within the various early Christian missions (483f.)’. I find it likely that post-Pauline sources had Pauline influence in this regard, less so that Paul draws on a traditional body of vice-material also utilized by the later New Testament writers.

page 628 note 2 The latter two terms pose seemingly insurmountable obstacles for translators, given the scarcity of context. For recent lexicographical analysis, see Scroggs, 106–9, Boswell, J., Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1981, 338 ff.)Google Scholar, and Zaas, P., ‘1 Corinthians 6:9ff: Was Homosexuality Condoned in the Corinthian Church?’, in Achtemeier, P., ed., SBL 1979 Seminar Papers (Missoula, Montana: Scholar's Press, 1979) 2.205–12Google Scholar.

page 628 note 3 Cognates appear at 5. 1 (2), 9, 10, 11; 6. 9, 13, 16, and 18 (2).

page 628 note 4 The connection is explicit in Rom 1. 23 ff. and at least implicit in 1 Cor 10. 7 f. Paul associates Gentiles with πορνεία or έπιθυμία in Gal 4. 8 and 1 Thess 4. 5, as well as in 5. 1 of the present letter.

page 628 note 5 E.g., Wis. 14.24, TLevi 18.11 among many others. Philo, in a comment on Deut 23. 3, reads έκ πόρνης ‘child of a prostitute’ as πόρνοι and defines πόρνοι as ‘those who have shunned the rule of the One’. Leg. All. 3.8. In Migr. Abr. 69, the έκ πόρνης of Deuteronomy is a polytheist, because he does not know his real father. Cf. De Mut. Nom. 205.

page 628 note 6 Scroggs, 104.

page 629 note 1 We might be tempted to compare the five vices of the catalogue at Col 3. 5. Dibelius in his commentary (An die Kolosser, Epheser, An Philemon 2 [Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1927] ad loc.)Google Scholar argued for a conventional five-vice catalogue enumerating the sins of the Gentiles lying behind this verse, but R. M. Grant demonstrated that the Colossians catalogue is based on the Decalogue, in ‘The Decalogue in the New Testament’, HTR (1947) 6Google Scholar.

page 629 note 2 Carrington, 16 ff.