Corpus-Paul

[yonder moynihan gillihan <ymgillih AT midway.uchicago.edu>]

While not exorcism per se, Paul's sentencing of the sexually immoral
church member in 1 Cor 5.3-5 seems to indicate that he was practiced in 
the performance of spiritual acts of power through the invocation of the
powerful name of Jesus.  The passage is difficult to translate; Conzelmann
admits of at least six possible ways to construe EN TWI ONOMATI and SYN
THI DYNAMEI in v. 4. I think he is right to take both with PARADOYNAI so
that a translation would go something like this:
        "For I, absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged,
as if present, the one who has so acted and have determined: By the name
of our Lord Jesus, when you are gathered and I with you in spirit, with
the power of our Lord Jesus, to hand this man to Satan for the destruction
of the flesh, that the spirit might be saved on the day of the Lord." 

As Conzelmann judges, "It is clear that the DYMANIS, 'power,' of the Lord
is made effectual by calling upon his name"; as in exorcism, the name of
Jesus would be invoked as an instrument of power, but here to magically
produce the power of Jesus for the puropse of handing of the man over to
satan.  A. Y. Collins agrees, although she takes EN TWI ONOMATI with
HOUTWS KATERGASAMENON, that the passage describes a sacral act of
spiritual consignment and punishment "through the spoken word of the
community" that obtains "the assistance of the risen Lord."  Deissmann
stresses that "the unobtrusive little word SYN, 'with,' 'in fellowship
with,' is technical in just such [magical] contexts," and that Paul is
describing "a solemn act of execration" as he consigns the offender SYN
THI DYNAMEI TOU KYRIOU HHMWN IHSOU over to Satan.  While it might be
argued that in 1 Cor 5.5 the man is consigned "to satan", so that Jesus is 
not the punishing deity, it is clear that the act of consigning to satan
occurs SYN THI DYNAMEI TOU KYRIOU . . . which comes with the magical
invocation of his powerful name.

As Collins points out, the "ceremony" reconstructed from 1 Cor 5.3-5 bears
strong resemblance to the Greek defixiones, in which the restraining or
punishing gods are often invoked by name with the prayer that they will
use their power against the accursed; Deissmann also compares this text to
the defixiones.

While it is true that explicit descriptions of Paul as exorcist do not
occur in his letters, this text (if Conzelmann is correct) points to an
analogous practice; from this we could easily infer that exorcism was
probably within the range of his activities as an apostle.  I do not see
anything constructive in the admittedly "radical" point that Paul's
letters, the Protestant OT, and the Fourth Gospel don't evidence much in
the way of demonology, exorcism, or demon-caused illness.  Who would
attempt to reconstruct Paul's background without the pseudepigrapha, let
alone the apocrypha and deuterocanonical books?  Who imagines that Paul's 
experience and practice and theology are insulated from or reject the
demonology of the synoptic gospels, or of Tobit, or of the DSS?

Yonder Gillihan
grad student, NT/ECL
The University of Chicago