Corpus-Paul

[Loren Rosson <rossoiii AT yahoo.com>]

Ian,

>My point was not that IV Maccabees was dated too late
>to be a part of the picture. Rather, I was pointing
>out that the "death for" formula did not
>originate with Paul. It was already a traditional
>formula when he wrote in the
>50s. If this language was being used (as is probable)
>in Antioch or Jerusalem
>prior to Paul's missionary work, is it likely that
>these communities would have been working in the
>same sphere of thought as is IV Maccabees?

I see; and I agree with what you're getting at. It may
be that Paul inherited a certain understanding of
Jesus' death and re-worked it (polemically) around the
Noble Death. 

>I think what evidence we have suggests rather that
>these communities tended toward very traditional 
>Jewish apocalyptic
>thought for their central conception of 
>Jesus' significance. So if this is the context in
>which the language developed, and in
>which Paul himself learned it,

Well, don't forget Paul was born in Tarsus and was no
doubt influenced by Hellenic ideas, whatever his level
of schooling there. Seneca says that the Noble Death
was so commonly discussed that schoolboys were sick of
hearing about it. 

>In 7:1-6, however, Paul emphasizes that in some sense

>the believer has *actually* died with Christ. The
>believer is free from the jurisdiction of the law
>because they have somehow actually died. This 
>is not merely a metaphor or a new way of thinking.
>The whole logic of Paul's argument
>require that the death is a real one, but one which
the believer 
>underwent vicariously. This is the same logic as that
>at work in the passage I quoted before from Gal 2.

I wouldn't disagree with the terms "actually" and
"real" as applied to the believer's death -- I don't
know that Seeley would either -- but certainly Jesus
is the only one who literally dies. Here's a citation
from Seeley:

"Jesus' death was a death to sin; therefore, so is the
'death' of anyone who re-enacts it in baptism. But
this last death is not the sort whereby the individual
ceases to function physically. Believers' bodies may
be in some sense 'dead', as Rom 8:10 says, but they
are still up and walking around [and yet unclothed
with the resurrection]... Paul has mythologized the
concept of death. It no longer means 'cease to
function physically' but 'leave the dominion of Sin'.
Paul has taken the process which in IV Maccabees is
preparatory to a literal death and ascribed the sort
of objective effects to it reserved in IV Maccabees
for the literal." (p 102)
 
>what makes me wonder about his model as you describe
>it is that there seems to be no
>precedent in Hellenistic ideas about martyrdom
>for this kind of real participation in another's
>death -- a participation which has the same 
>causal results (at least in some spheres) as if
>one had
>actually died oneself. This forces me, thus far,
>to conclude that Paul's understanding of Jesus' death
>is not shaped in its fundamental outlines by
>Hellenistic ideas about martyrdom.
>Whether he might use some martyr language in
>expressing his (essentially
>different) Christology is, however, another matter.

I'm leaning in a similar direction. Paul seems to have
used martyr concepts/language in polemical opposition
to the way they're normally understood. But then what
was his central -- or perhaps "original" is a better
word -- understanding of the vicarious nature of
Jesus' death? I doubt it was sacrificial, for the
mixed metaphors (passover in I Cor, atonement in Rom)
indicate supplementary usage. Perhaps Isaiah's
suffering servant, as you note, needs to be
re-introduced into the discussion (though see Seeley,
pp 39-57). Gal 1:4, 2:20; Rom 4:25, 8:32; I Cor 15:3;
Philip 2:6-11 would be the places to start, and you've
already discussed Gal 2:19-21. But again, Paul nowhere
develops a suffering servant theology (anymore than a
sacrificial theology) in the way he does
aeon/participation theology, or in the way he does
(say) the Abraham paradigm in Gal and Rom. Perhaps
Paul's thought had evolved enough by the time he wrote
his letters (especially by Romans) that any original
understanding of Christ's vicarious death had been
"taken over" in large measure by the Noble Death. 
 
Loren Rosson III
Nashua NH
rossoiii AT yahoo.com

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