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The One Body of the Shema in 1 Corinthians: An Ecclesiology of Christological Monotheism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 September 2016

Andrew Byers
Andrew Byers*
Affiliation:
St John's College, 3 South Bailey, Durham DH1 3RJ, United Kingdom. Email: a.j.byers@durham.ac.uk
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Abstract

When Paul employs the motif of oneness in 1 Corinthians 12 and joins it to the metaphor of Christ's body, he is drawing not only on Greco-Roman political rhetoric, as argued by the majority of interpreters, but also, and at times more directly, from theological wells found within his Jewish theological heritage: the use of the phrase ‘one body’ in 1 Corinthians is an ecclesial application of the Shema. Paul's oneness language expresses not simply a call to internal unity or social harmony. Ultimately, the ecclesial designation ‘one’ is a succinct articulation of an ecclesiology of Christological monotheism.

Keywords

oneonenesssocial identityShemabody languagePauline ecclesiologyChristological monotheism
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 62 , Issue 4 , October 2016 , pp. 517 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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References

1 Mitchell, M. M., Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation: An Exegetical Investigation of the Language and Composition of 1 Corinthians (HUT 28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991)Google Scholar; Martin, D. B., The Corinthian Body (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

2 Mitchell, Rhetoric, 161 (emphases original).

3 Martin, Corinthian Body, 42.

4 Martin, Corinthian Body, 94–6. See also id., ‘Tongues of Angels and Other Status Indicators’, JAAR 59.3 (2006) 547–80Google Scholar.

5 Mitchell points out that the Hellenistic Jewish appropriations of the body metaphor are also used to combat factionalism (Rhetoric, 161), specifically referring to Philo, Spec. 3.131 and Josephus, J. W. 1.507; 2.264; 4.406–7; 5.277–9 (168, n. 560).

6 Note the comments by Barclay, John in Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, vol. x: Against Apion (trans. Barclay, J. M.; Leiden: Brill, 2007) 279 Google Scholar.

7 A number of influential studies on oneness in the early and mid-twentieth century tended to downplay early Jewish and OT influences, looking primarily for parallels in Hellenistic sources: Bousset, W., Kyrios Christos: A History of the Belief in Christ from the Beginnings of Christianity to Irenaeus (trans. Steely, J. E.; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2013 2, German orig. published in 1913)Google Scholar; Norden, E., AGNOSTOS THEOS: Untersuchungen zur Formengeschichte religiöser Rede (Leipzig/Berlin: Teubner, 1913)Google Scholar; Dibelius, M., ‘Die Christianisierung einer hellenistischen Formel’, NJahrb 35/6 (1915): 224–36Google Scholar; Peterson, E., ΕΙΣ ΘΕΟΣ: Epigraphische, formgeschichtliche und religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen (FRLANT 24; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926)Google Scholar. See the brief discussion of most of these works in Waaler, E., The Shema and the First Commandment in First Corinthians: An Intertextual Approach to Paul's Re-Reading of Deuteronomy (WUNT 253; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 9–15 Google Scholar; see also Bruno, C. R., ‘God Is One’: The Function of Eis ho Theos as a Ground for Gentile Inclusion in Paul's Letters (LNTS 497; London: Bloomsbury, 2013) 10–14 Google Scholar.

8 Paul's fluid, seemingly effortless, amalgamation of Hellenistic body language and the Shema's rhetorical capacity for urging social unity is a case in point.

9 Barton, S. C., ‘The Unity of Humankind as a Theme in Biblical Theology’, Out of Egypt: Biblical Theology and Biblical Interpretation (ed. Bartholomew, Craig et al. ; Scripture and Hermeneutics Series 5; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004) 238 Google Scholar; similarly, see Hanson, S., The Unity of the Church in the New Testament: Colossians and Ephesians (ASNU; Copenhagen: Einar Munskgaard, 1946) 5 Google Scholar. Textual evidence that the Shema was being used liturgically during the first century ce (as prescribed in the Mishnah, notably in the opening section of Ber. 1–3) is virtually non-existent, as pointed out by Foster, P., ‘Why Did Matthew Get the Shema Wrong? A Study of Matthew 22:37’, JBL 122, 2 (2003) 309–33Google Scholar. But the importance of the Shema in daily Jewish life during the earliest decades of the Christian movements is overwhelmingly acknowledged (the NT use of the Shema is strong enough evidence on its own to warrant such a claim). See the discussions provided by Falk, D. K., ‘Jewish Prayer Literature and the Jerusalem Church in Acts’, The Book of Acts in its Palestinian Setting (ed. Bauckham, R.; The Book of Acts in its First-Century Setting 4; Carlisle: Paternoster, 1995) 267–301Google Scholar; Verseput, D. J., ‘James 1:17 and the Jewish Morning Prayers’, NovT 39.2 (1997) 177–91Google Scholar; Bruno, ‘God Is One’; Instone-Brewer, D., Prayer and Agriculture (Traditions of the Rabbis from the Era of the New Testament 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) 41–52 Google Scholar.

10 E.g. Philo, Spec. 1.52; 1.67–8; Virt. 35; Josephus, Ant. 5:97, 112. See Feldman, L. H., Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary, vol. iii: Judean Antiquities 1–4 (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 400 Google Scholar n. 592.

11 This is precisely the logic found in the Letter of Aristeas. That God is ‘one’ (132) demands social practices (some of them specifically prescribed in the Shema – 158–60) that set the Jews apart in society. See Hurtado, L. W., ‘Monotheism’, The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (ed. Collins, J. J. and Harlow, D. C.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) 964 Google Scholar; Tan, K. H., ‘Jesus and the Shema’, Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, vol. iii (ed. Holmén, T. and Porter, S. E.; Leiden: Brill, 2011) 2677–2707 Google Scholar, at 2702; Meeks, W., The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003 2) 91–2Google Scholar.

12 See, for example, the use of oneness in reference to sexual relations and participatory union in 1 Cor 6.15–17.

13 There are other instances and hints of this associative use of the Shema's oneness, as in the Hebrew text of Malachi 2.14–15, where the oneness of man and wife (אחד) is correlated to ‘the One’ (האחד) God (cf. Mal 2.10). See also Zechariah 14.7–9, where ‘one day’ [אחד יום/μίαν ἡμέραν] is correlated to YHWH, who is ‘one’ [אחד/εἷς] and whose name is ‘one’ [אחד/ἕν]. In addition to the texts cited below, a social use of the oneness concept grounded in theological oneness is also found in certain Qumran texts. According to C. T. R. Hayward, the communal self-designation Yahad is consciously tied to the identity of the ‘one’ God: ‘“The LORD Is One”: Reflections on the Theme of Unity in John's Gospel from a Jewish Perspective’, Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism (ed. Stuckenbruck, L. T. and North, W. E. S.; ECC 263; London: T&T Clark, 2004) 142–9Google Scholar.

14 See Deut 6.5 LXX.

15 Jer 32.37–41, NRSV (Jer 39.37–41 LXX). The last line of this passage indicates that the Shema is indeed in view when the term ‘one’ is applied to Israel.

16 In the LXX (Jer 39.37–41), the word translating אהד is ἕτερος not εἷς.

17 Janzen, J. G., ‘An Echo of the Shema in Isaiah 51.13’, JSOT 43 (1989) 77 Google Scholar.

18 Slightly modified from Josephus, , Against Apion (LCL 186; London: Heineman, 1926) 371 Google Scholar.

19 Slightly modified from Josephus, , Jewish Antiquities, Books i–iv (LCL 490; London: Heinemann, 1930) 571–3Google Scholar.

20 John Barclay points out that the citation from C. Ap. envisages a more universal access to the temple as opposed to the citation from Ant., where the Temple seems reserved primarily for the Jews: Barclay, Against Apion, 279.

21 This correspondence is not to be understood as a collapsing of the categories of created and uncreated. God's uniqueness is sui generis and uncompromised by such correlations. See Wolfson, H. A., Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, vol. i, 2nd rev. edn (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948) 174 Google Scholar.

22 Philo, , On the Creation: Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis 2 and 3 (LCL 226; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929) 135–7Google Scholar.

23 Critiquing E. P. Sanders, Alan Mendelson voices scepticism that Philo would have used the Shema liturgically or as a daily prayer: ‘“Did Philo Say the Shema?” And Other Reflections on E. P. Sanders' Judaism: Practice and Belief’, The Studia Philonica Annual: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, vol. vi (ed. Runia, D. T.; BJS 299; Atlanta: Scholars, 1994) 160–70Google Scholar. The same scepticism is expressed in Runia, D. T., Philo of Alexandria, On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses (PACS 1; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 397 Google Scholar. A liturgical or devotional use of the Shema is not critical for my arguments, however, because Philo's understanding of divine ‘one’-ness is still steeped in Jewish theological tradition (of which the Shema is simply the most succinct expression).

24 Philo, , On the Decalogue. On the Special Laws, Books 1–3 (LCL 320; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1937) 139 Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., 129.

26 Philo, , On the Special Laws, Book 4. On the Virtues. On Rewards and Punishments (LCL 341; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939) 187 Google Scholar.

27 Ibid., 185 (slightly modified).

28 This same pattern of theological oneness corresponding with the oneness of social identity is found in 2 Baruch with the line, ‘For we are all one celebrated people, who have received one Law from the One’ (48.24). Gurtner, D. M., Second Baruch: A Critical Edition of the Syriac Text, with Greek and Latin Fragments, English Translation, Introduction, and Concordances (T&T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts Series 5; London: T&T Clark, 2009) 84–5Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr Matthew Crawford for his help with the Syriac of this text. Discussions on many of the texts from Philo and Josephus cited above, plus others that are in some way related, can be found in Waaler, Shema, 154–205; Bruno, ‘God is One’, 66–113; and in Bauckham, R., Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2015) 21–41 Google Scholar.

29 Bruno, ‘God Is One’.

30 Bauckham, Gospel of Glory.

31 W. Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 165–70. Erik Waaler does acknowledge, however, that the ‘one body’ language of the church seems to replace the ‘one Jewish nation’ language found in the early Jewish texts above (Shema, 446).

32 See especially Waaler, Shema. Other treatments include Dunn, J. D. G., Christology in the Making (London: SCM, 1980) 179–83Google Scholar; de Lacey, D. R., ‘“One Lord” in Pauline Christology’, in Rowdon, H. H., Christ the Lord: Studies in Christology Presented to Donald Guthrie (Leicester, InterVarsity: 1982) 191–203 Google Scholar; Gräßer, E., Der Alte Bund im Neuen, exegetische Studien zur Israelfrage im Neuen Testament (WUNT 35; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985) 238 Google Scholar, 255; P. A. Rainbow, ‘Monotheism and Christology in 1 Corinthians 8:4–6’ (DPhil Thesis, Oxford University, 1987); Wright, N. T., ‘Monotheism, Christology and Ethics: 1 Corinthians 8’, in his The Climax of the Covenant: Christ and the Law in Pauline Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991) 120–36Google Scholar; Richardson, N., Paul's Language about God (JSNTSup 99; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993) 296–304 Google Scholar; Denaux, A., ‘Theology and Christology in 1 Cor 8,4–6’, The Corinthian Correspondence (BETL 125; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1996) 593–606 Google Scholar; Hays, R. B., First Corinthians (Interpretation; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1997) 136–43Google Scholar; Hurtado, L. W., Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003) 114 Google Scholar; Watson, F., Paul and the Hermeneutics of Faith (London: T&T Clark, 2004 1) 417 Google Scholar; Bauckham, R., Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Studies on the New Testament's Christology of Divine Identity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) 27–8Google Scholar; Bruno, ‘God Is One’; Wright, N. T., Paul and the Faithfulness of God (London: SPCK, 2013) 661–70Google Scholar; Fletcher-Louis, C., Jesus Monotheism, vol. i: Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015) 39–56 Google Scholar.

33 Waaler, Shema, 445.

34 Cf. 1 Cor 5.1; 12.2; cf. 6.9–11. On 10.1, see the comments by Hays, R. B., Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 95–102 Google Scholar and id., The Conversion of the Imagination: Paul as Interpreter of Israel's Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 8–12 Google Scholar. Paul does not ignore or eradicate the reality of ethnicity, however. The ‘strong ties’ of Pauline congregations ‘cross over (without erasing) ethnic differentials’: Barclay, J. M. G., ‘Pauline Churches, Jewish Communities and the Roman Empire’, Pauline Churches and Diaspora Jews (WUNT 275; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011) 13 Google Scholar.

35 See Denaux, ‘1 Cor 8,4–6’, 601. Brian Rosner and Roy Ciampa point out that the Christological monotheism expressed in 1 Cor 8.6 would differentiate the Corinthians not only from Gentiles but also from non-Christian Jews: The First Letter to the Corinthians (PNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010) 382 Google Scholar.

36 Smit, Joop F. M. writes that v. 17 ‘is not, as is generally accepted, a brief social excursus, but a theological statement’: ‘About the Idol Offerings’: Rhetoric, Social Context and Theology of Paul's Discourse in First Corinthians 8:1–11:1 (CBET 27; Leuven: Peeters, 2000) 126 Google Scholar. Though I believe that Smit draws too sharp a distinction between a theological and social/ecclesial reading of 10.17, his recognition of the strong links between theological oneness in 8.4–6 and chapter 10 is rare. He cites only one another commentator who shares this view (to his knowledge at the time of his writing): Walter, N., ‘Christusglaube und heidnische Religiosität in paulinischen Gemeinden’, NTS 25 (1979) 432–3Google Scholar.

37 Mitchell, Rhetoric, 142.

38 Mitchell is keen to stress the importance for group distinctiveness (see esp. Rhetoric, 254–6), though without emphasising how the Jewish resonances of monotheistic oneness could strengthen her point.

39 Fleeing temptation and the oneness motif have already been paired in 6.16–20. To have intercourse with a prostitute is to become ‘one body’ with her. Yet, Paul writes, Christians are to be joined to the Lord to become ‘one spirit’ with him. Again, in this instance the oneness motif is about a union with Christ that conveys distinctiveness rather than social harmony.

40 Mitchell, Rhetoric, 268–70.

41 Waaler, after reviewing the early Jewish role of the Shema in teffillin, mezuzot, rituals and daily prayer, writes: ‘The Shema and the First Commandment were forced into everyone's memory by constant repetition, thus they must have been strong archetexts for a mixed group of Jews, proselytes and godfearers. Such strong archetexts are brought to mind by little allusive power or verbal agreement. Granted that the term “one” was emphasized in the reading of the Shema, it is possible and even probable that this term alone might have brought Deut 6:4 to mind. This is significant for the interpretation of 1 Cor 8:4 and 8:6’ (Shema, 132). And yet he does not apply this logic to the reappearance of oneness in 1 Cor 12. Similarly, Margaret Mitchell identifies 1 Cor 12.4–6 as resonant of 8.6, and she is clearly aware of early Jewish texts referring to the oneness of Israel's God (see Rhetoric, 90–1 n. 141 and 104 n. 231), but the connecting thread for her is the divine unity of the same God, Lord and Spirit rather than divine one-ness. A real connection to the Shema between 1 Cor 8 and 12 seems absent in her reading (see ibid., 268).

42 Charles Giblin also believes the monotheistic language of oneness is used to express a uniqueness of God that implies a uniqueness of his people. See his ‘Three Monotheistic Texts in Paul’, CBQ 37.4 (1975) 537 Google Scholar.

43 Hab 2.18–19; Isa 41.22–42.9; 46.7; Jer 10.5; Pss 115.5; 135.16; Gen. Rab. 84.10; m. Sanh. 7b.

44 Chester, S. J., Conversion at Corinth: Perspectives on Conversion in Paul's Theology and the Corinthian Church (SNTW; London: T&T Clark, 2003) 267–316 Google Scholar.

45 Plutarch, , Moralia, vol. v (LCL 306; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1936) 313 Google Scholar. Though Mitchell's study frequently references Plutarch's comments on political and social unity, she does not discuss these explicit references to the body in the context of pagan inspiration. Dale Martin makes brief reference to this discussion in Plutarch in his argument that prophetic inspiration is akin to sexual invasion or ‘divine rape’ (Corinthian Body, 240). Hunt, Allen R. has a summary of Plutarch's views on inspiration in The Inspired Body: Paul, the Corinthians, and Divine Inspiration (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1996) 23–30 Google Scholar.

46 This saying is attributed to Heraclitus. Plutarch, Pyth. Orac. 404.21.

47 In other words, human agency by the divine has been made wherein the moon receives the light of the sun but can only reflect that light to the extent that its limited properties allow.

48 Plutarch, Moralia, vol. v, 315–17.

49 Plutarch, Moralia, vol. v, 319.

50 Aune, D. E., Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983) 23 Google Scholar (emphasis added).

51 Ibid., 34–5.

52 Fox, R. Lane, Pagans and Christians (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1989) 207 Google Scholar. This sphere also included street prophets who were quick to offer their services to passers-by (ibid., 206).

53 Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 207. The Pythia at Delphi prophesied when sitting over vapors that arose from a crevice in the ground and, before taking her seat, she would have sipped from the spring ‘Kassotis’ (Aune, Prophecy, 30). Similarly, the prophet at Claros would drink from a subterranean stream (Lane Fox, Pagans and Christians, 175).

54 The Shema's intrinsic notion of social distinctiveness, however, does not entirely disappear from view. In what at first seems like a digression from his argument about the external uniqueness and the internal unity of the ‘one body’ of Christ as demonstrated by spiritual manifestations, Paul adjures his audience in chapter 13 to demonstrate the more excellent way of love, which, of course, is the corollary of God's oneness in the Shema. Birger Gerhardsson argues that Paul's exhortation to love in 1 Corinthians 13 is premised ultimately in the Shema, which would have been inculcated into the apostle throughout his childhood and early theological training as a Pharisee under Gamaliel. See his essay ‘1 Kor 13: zur Frage von Paulus’ rabbinischem Hintergrund’, The Shema in the New Testament: Deut 6:4–5 in Significant Passages (Lund: Novapress, 1996) 247–71 (originally published in 1978). Also, Waaler suggests that a failure to honour the love command of the Shema may lie behind the ἀνάθεμα phrase appearing at the epistle's end in 16.22 (Waaler, Shema, 439).

55 See the discussion on ‘pneumatological monotheism’ in Wright, Paul, 709–28.