150
Oropeza, Paul and Apostasy, 58-59. Robinson Butarbutar likewise states, “we submit that chapter 9 is primarily an example”. Robinson Butarbutar, Paul and Conflict
Resolution: An Exegetical Study of Paul’s Apostolic Paradigm in 1 Corinthians 9 (Milton
Keynes: Paternoster, 2007), 88.
151
Yeo, Rhetorical Interaction, 76.
by removing it from its context. Schmithals concedes that, contextually situated, chapter 9 has clear “editorial” coherence; but why should such coherence not be allowed
originality?
Further, is it really true to say that within 9:1-18 there is no hint that it is to be taken as exemplary of an external point? If it is right to detect, with Ackerman and others, a crucial role for Paul’s statement “Become imitators of me” in 4:16, an exemplary function may well be implied. As pointed out above,153 there are numerous places in canonical 1 Corinthians where Paul seems to reiterate and express this call for imitation of apostolic cruciformity – including in chapters 7, 9, 11, and 14.
The opening two verses of chapter 9 echo certain themes of chapters 1–4, in which Paul presented himself as the apostle who “planted” the Corinthian church:
Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are you not my work in the Lord? If I am not an apostle to others, I surely am to you – for you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord.
In chapter 4, before making the summons to imitate himself, Paul provocatively presents his model of apostleship as subject to divine rather than human approval, marked ironically by servanthood (4:1), death (4:9), weakness (4:10), hunger and thirst (4:11). It is this model of cruciformity that he calls the Corinthians to imitate; and it is precisely this model that he exhibits significantly in 8:13, and at length in chapter 9:
If food causes my brother or sister to stumble, I will never eat meat again, in order that I might not cause my brother or sister to stumble.
To the weak I have become weak, in order that I might gain the weak. I have become all things to all, in order that in every way I might save some. And I do everything because of the gospel.
And these same themes – of self-restrained eating and drinking in imitation of apostolic Christlikeness – form the conclusion of the whole section in 10:31–11:1:
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Do not become a cause for the stumbling of Jews or Gentiles or the church of God, just as in everything I seek to please all, not seeking my own benefit, but that of the many, in order that they might be saved. Become imitators of me, as I am of Christ.
Merklein seems justified in concluding:
Er müßte schon so kongenial gewesen sein, daß er fast die Züge des Apostels selbst annimmt, ganz abgesehen davon, daß es ein Zufall genannt werden müßte, wenn in unterschiedlichen Briefen Textstücke von einer derartigen semantischen Affinität und Relationalität bereitgelegen haben sollen.154
By “defending” his apostleship, Paul forcefully clarifies the extent of his exemplary self- restraint, to those who are sceptical that such restraint is desirable or possible among those who have “knowledge”, “rights”, and “freedom”.
Contextually Questionable Praise in 11:2ff
Schmithals follows Weiss in finding the placement of 11:2 problematic: How can Paul say “I praise you for remembering me in all things” – when he has just been at pains to show
154 Merklein, “Die Einheitlichkeit,” 172. Likewise, Butarbutar, Paul and Conflict
Resolution, concludes that chapter 9 is integrally connected to chapters 8-10, as part of
that they do not? Perhaps this would fit better at the beginning of a letter. This certainly gives an initial impression of incongruence. However, it does seem that the range of “all things” is specified in the continuation of the sentence:
Now I praise you for remembering me in all things, and you keep the traditions [τὰς παραδόσεις], just as I gave them to you.
The question immediately becomes a more limited problem: What is meant by τὰς παραδόσεις? This problem is limited further when it is recalled that this section is itself
corrective, as verse 3 shows:
Θέλω δὲ ὑμᾶς εἰδέναι ὅτι...
This corrective function shows that Paul’s praise of the Corinthians for remembering him in “all things” cannot be meant in an unqualified sense, because he is about to critique their very practice of the traditions that they commendably remember. It would seem then, that Paul’s praise is for remembering to keep the (liturgical) traditions he passed onto them, even though their practice of those traditions may be questionable.
Thus the incongruity here is not really one of substance, but simply of abruptness in argumentational movement. Although this should not be ignored, Merklein’s concept of “pragmatic coherence” can usefully be recalled here, and his reminder that the breach of one dimension of coherence need not necessarily result in the conclusion of incoherence:
Doch muß dies bei Brieftexten nicht ungewöhnlich sein. Um so mehr ist nach einer möglichen pragmatischen Kohärenz (die erst durch Autor und/oder Leser konstituiert wird) zu fragen.155
The Relation of Chapter 13 to its Context in Chapters 12–14
Just as the place of 6:1-11 is questioned in relation to chapters 5–6, and the place of chapter 9 is questioned in relation to chapters 8–10, so the place of chapter 13 is questioned in relation to chapters 12–14. Weiss finds the connecting verses dubious, suggesting that chapter 13 is an editorial insertion:
Kurz, wenn schon der Übergang 12.31 nicht sehr organisch ist, so ist vollends der Zusammenhang zwischen Kap. 13 und 14 weniger einleuchtend als künstlich. Und wie flau ist der Übergang 14.1! Schon der Ausdruck [diokete t. agap.] wirkt nach Kap. 13 unerträglich matt.156
William O. Walker Jnr. considers the contrast of chapter 13 with its surrounding context to be even starker, even though he concedes that there is no direct textual evidence indicating that chapter 13 is a non-Pauline interpolation:
It is my own judgement that 1 Corinthians 13 is not to be characterized as a digression or excursus. It is rather an interruption that both breaks the logical flow of chaps 12 and 14 and, in a literary style quite foreign to these chapters, declares essentially irrelevant the issues there being discussed.157
Sellin disagrees, finding a smoothness from 12:1 through to 16:24.158 Similarly, Smit seeks to demonstrate that the chapter can be seen as entirely fitting, if it is viewed from the perspective of the handbooks of Hellenistic rhetoric:
The manner in which Paul, by means of comparison, tries to change the estimation the Corinthians have regarding the charismata and the fact that for
156
Johannes Weiss, Der erste Korintherbrief (KEKNT; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1910), 310. Schmithals follows Weiss closely here: See Schmithals, “Korintherbriefe,” 268.
157 William O. Walker Jnr., “Is First Corinthians 13 a Non-Pauline Interpolation?” CBQ
60/3 (1998): 484-499; 484.
doing so he chooses the form of an excursus is in complete correspondence with the rules of the demonstrative genre.159
It is a devaluing speech in which Paul belittles the charismata by setting them against love on three accounts.160
However, Smit’s analysis might be questioned here. Does Paul actually set the charismata
in opposition to love, or does he rather speak of what they are like without love?
Garland’s comment is apt:
Rather than being a hymn glorifying how wonderful love is, this text becomes a subtle commentary on what is rotten in Corinth.161
As Garland’s comment suggests, there are numerous verbal and conceptual parallels between chapter 13 and Paul’s characterisation of the Corinthians elsewhere in the letter. For example: οὐ ζηλοῖ (cf. 3:3); καυχήσωμαι, περπερεύεται, φυσιοῦται (cf. 4:6 etc.); ἀσχημονεῖ (cf. 7:36). The critique of these attitudes is surely particularly cutting in the
context of chapters 12–14, as they characterise the very attitude of proud, self-seeking
pneumatism that Paul there opposes. Fitzmyer rightly concludes:
I hesitate to label the passage a digression or an insertion, because, as I see it, it is the climax to what Paul has been teaching in chap. 12 about the pneumatika and the diverse kinds of them, whether charismata, diakoniai, or energēmata…. In their own way and somewhat abstractly, these verses sum up what Paul has been saying elsewhere in this letter about the characteristics of the Christian life when lived in Christ.162
159 Joop Smit, “The Genre of 1 Corinthians 13 in the Light of Classical Rhetoric,” NovT
33/3 (1991): 193-216; 214.
160 Smit, “The Genre,” 215.
161 David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (BECNT; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic,
2003), 617.
162
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians: A New Translation with Introduction and
Paul’s Lowly Self-Depiction in Chapter 15, in Contrast with Chapter 9
Schmithals declares:
It is not conceivable that at the same time in which he writes I,9 [i.e. a self- defence] Paul declares that he is not [worthy to be called an apostle – i.e. chapter 15], thus precisely what people in Corinth are charging.163
But such a sharp incongruence between the two sections is hard to maintain. There are elements in both sections of insistent justification of apostolic status as well as emphatic dissociation from exaltation. Arguably, in both sections, as well as in chapters 1–4 where similar themes emerge, the juxtaposition of apparently incongruous elements serves the same rhetorical purpose. Paul wants his own apostleship to teach the Corinthians dependence upon God, both by being revelatory (speaking God’s word of life), and by being exemplary (living God’s way of life). The two cohere in the theme of the cross of Christ.
Thus in chapter 9, Paul both insists on his own apostleship and presents himself as an example of cruciform self-restraint. In chapter 15, Paul likewise affirms his own foundational status, while presenting himself as the epitome of one whose life is marked by death.
Discrepancy Between Chapter 15 and 6:14
Sellin points out that Paul seems to carry different assumptions about the resurrection- beliefs of his hearers in 6:14 and in chapter 15.164 In the former passage, Paul appeals without argument to an apparently common belief in future resurrection; in the latter