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  • From: "Jeffrey B. Gibson" <jgibson000 AT mailhost.chi.ameritech.net>
  • To: Corpus-paul <corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: C-P: Paul and Plato
  • Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 12:08:29 -0500


Liz Fried wrote:

> Dear Jeffrey et. al.,
> This morning I reread Galatians with some friends, and Plato's influence on
> Paul seems obvious to me, so I would like to discuss it.
>
> In 5:16ff Paul contrasts living after the spirit and living after the flesh.
> The desires of the flesh are opposed to that of the spirit. Philo discusses
> this as well. It seems to me this contrast between spirit and flesh is a
> Platonic one. The flesh is transitory, subject to evil; the spirit is
> permanent, eternal, not subject to evil. If you sow to the flesh you reap
> corruption, if you sow to the spirit you reap eternal life (6:7).
> Flesh=mortality; spirit=eternal life. That dichotomy seems to me to be
> Platonic.
>
> A friend this morning pointed out that Paul says in 5:19 "the works of the
> flesh are *obvious.*" This must refer to natural law. I'm not sure what the
> Platonic concept of natural law is, perhaps you will enlighten me. But it
> seems by the phrase "it is obvious" that this is what Paul refers to.
>
> When Paul contrasts "the Jerusalem above" (4:26) with the "present
> Jerusalem" he contrasts the real=spiritual=heavenly Jerusalem with the
> unreal=temperal=earthly Jerusalem. This seems to me also to be a Platonic
> dichotomy. What is real is what is spiritual and eternal, what is unreal is
> temporal and impermanent. The *real* sons of Abraham are according to the
> spirit, the unreal according to the flesh. I don't think this can be
> understood without understanding Plato.
>
> The major part of the letter is Paul's contrast between spirit and flesh.
> This contrast is based on Platonic thought it seems to me. This same
> dichotomy is present in Philo, but it is based on Plato.
>
> If Paul is not based on Plato, then I am not understanding Plato or I am
> not understanding Paul, so perhaps we can discuss this.
>

Time presses, so I can on give you a few remarks on the fly, while hoping
that others
more qualified than I on these matters will comment at length and in more
depth.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether in Greek the
terminology for the
dualism you note in Plato and in Paul is sufficiently similar to provide a
parallel
from which one may then may go on, if other evidence warrants, to make claims
about
influence (see the cautions of Sandmel on what he called "parallelmania",
what is
being ignored here, it seems to me, is the function such "flesh/spirit"
contrasts have
in Paul on the one hand an in Plato on the other. Plato uses the contrast in
explication of a a particular metaphysic/ontology. Paul uses it to denote
ethics and
norms of behaviour, which, by the way, seem more Jewish in flavour than
Platonic or
even neo-platonic. After all he speaks of and contrasts **walking in** the
flesh/spirit.

For further explication of these terms, and there very *un*platonic
connotations, I
suggest you look at Robert Jewett's _Paul's Anthropological Terms_ or the
relevant
articles in _Dictionary of Paul and His Letters_.

Yours,

Jeffrey
--
Jeffrey B. Gibson
7423 N. Sheridan Road #2A
Chicago, Illinois 60626
e-mail jgibson000 AT ameritech.net






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