Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

Ian,

Thanks for the reply. See comments below.

You wrote:

>I think we have to take seriously here that Paul's
>language about Christ dying "for" others is already
>highly traditional by the time he's using it 
>(e.g., 1 Cor 15). The further back we push this
>language, the less likely I think it is that the
>formula originated within the same sphere of thought
as IV 
>Maccabees (which is, after all, a much more heavily
>hellenized document than is most of early Christian
>literature -- certainly more so than Paul's letters).

IV Maccabbes has been dated as early as 20 CE, so I
don't see how this becomes a deciding factor. My take
on Paul is that while most of his ideas are grounded
in Jewish thought, he assimilated Greco-Roman ideas in
evagelizing the pagan world. 

A glaring example (to me) has always been Rom 7:7-25,
the first half of which (7:7-13) reflects Jewish
thought, the second half (7:14-25) a Greek outlook.
(So I agree with David Seeley when he claims that
"Paul employs Hellenistic language in Rom 7:14-25" in
Noble Death, p 109.) In 7:7-13, Paul invokes the
rhetorical personage of Adam, appealing to Jewish
tradition. "I was once alive apart from the law, but
when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.
The commandment which promised my life proved my
death, because sin, seizing opportunity in the
commandment, deceived me, and through it, killed me."
None of this is autobiographical, rather exegetical,
referring to the Genesis story, where Adam, "alive"
and newly created, was placed in Eden (Gen. 2:7-9) and
"commanded" by God not to eat of the tree of life
(Gen. 2:16-17), and whereafter the serpent "seized
opportunity" to further its own ends (Gen. 3:1-5), Eve
complained that she was "deceived" (Gen. 3:13), and
God "killed" humanity with mortality (Gen.
3:19,22-23). 

But in 7:14-25, Paul plays off the rhetoric of pagan
traditions (of course contradicting his Pharisaic
experience in the process). Those without the Spirit
"don't understand their own actions", "doing not the
good they want, but the evil they don't want", etc.
The human plight under the law is miserable and
wretched in a way that calls to mind the anguish of
someone like Medea ("I know what I'm about to do is
evil, but passion is stronger than reasoned
reflection"; so Lloyd Gaston and John Gager), or
perhaps Seneca ("Our petty bodies are mortal and
frail...Behold this clogging burden of a body to which
Nature has fettered me"; so David Seeley). 

So if Rom 7:7-25 can be taken as illustrative of the
way Paul worked Hellenic ideas into more fundamental
Judaic beliefs, what would we say about the Noble
Death? Seeley opines that the Noble Death was "so
tightly woven into the fabric of Hellenistic culture
that Paul assimilated it without even trying" (p 16). 

>We also need to remember that Paul sees the vicarious
>death and resurrection of
>the believer in highly realistic terms. Christ's
>death does not simply set and example, provide a
>new paradigm for action, or serve as the catalyst for
>political events.

Realistic to whom? I'm not sure I see the language
used in Rom 6-8 as realistic in any sense; that's what
apocalyptic mysticism is about. But it could very well
be argued that the mimetic understanding advanced by
Seeley is more "realistic" than the alternative you
describe. Certainly the Maccabean martyrs and
Greco-Roman philosophers considered such a paradigm
realistic. Why not Paul?

>This does not necessarily mean that the core of
>Paul's thinking was sacrificial, but it does mean
>that we 
>should probably look more to Jewish thought about
>Adam and other such representative
>figures (such as the Danielic "Son of Man") for the
>roots of Paul's thought.

Ian, would you care to elaborate more on your own
ideas? Would you say that Paul had something like a
Danielic "Son of Man" in mind before assimilating the
Noble Death into such a scheme? Or have you no use for
Seeley's theory at all?

Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com


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