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Saturday 21 December 2019

Christadelphians, Litigation, and Social Justice (Part 2)

In the first part of this series, we described the historical Christadelphian position1 on litigation—namely, that it is morally wrong to 'recover debts by legal coercion'—and considered the argument for this position by its most ardent proponent, Christadelphian pioneer Robert Roberts. We then took a close look at one of the biblical texts used to justify the position—namely, the 'do not resist evil' saying and accompanying concrete examples from the Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:38-42).

In this article, we will look at the other major passage seen as prohibiting believers from engaging in litigation (1 Corinthians 6:1-9a), and will then consider overarching moral-theological issues, particularly the respective roles and jurisdictions of Church and State, and close by mentioning a historical account of litigation undertaken by a Christian in the mid-second century.

1 Corinthians 6:1-9a
1 How can any one of you with a case against another dare to bring it to the unjust for judgment instead of to the holy ones? 2 Do you not know that the holy ones will judge the world? If the world is to be judged by you, are you unqualified for the lowest law courts? 3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? Then why not everyday matters? 4 If, therefore, you have courts for everyday matters, do you seat as judges people of no standing in the church? 5 I say this to shame you. Can it be that there is not one among you wise enough to be able to settle a case between brothers? 6 But rather brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers? 7 Now indeed then it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? 8 Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. 9 Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? (NABRE)
In this passage, Paul issues a sharp rebuke to some of the believers in Corinth in response to a situation that had occurred (whether once or more than once, we do not know) in which one believer sued another believer in a secular court. Paul regards this behaviour as unacceptable, because he considers the secular courts to be fundamentally 'unjust,' and because it is 'in any case' a failure (with respect to the love ethic) for brothers to sue one another, and detrimental to Christian witness. Paul mentions two options for handling the matter that would have been better than going to court. The first option would have been to adjudicate the matter internally, within the church. (Here, Paul lays the foundation for the idea of an ecclesiastical court, which will be discussed further below.) The second option would have been for the plaintiff to 'put up with injustice' and let himself be cheated. It is important to notice that 'put up with injustice...let yourselves be cheated' is not presented as the ideal outcome. Ideally, the case should have been settled justly without going to court. 'Rather put up with injustice...rather let yourselves be cheated' is not ideal from the point of view of justice, but it is better to endure injustice than to inflict it; it is better to be cheated than to cheat. Yet some Christadelphian writers remove 'let yourself be cheated' (or, in King James English, 'suffer yourselves to be defrauded') from this relative setting and make it a timeless moral principle. It is noble to sacrifice one's own right to justice; our Lord did so on the cross. However, when we allow ourselves to be cheated by our brother or sister in Christ, we are allowing our brother's or sister's sin to go unchecked. It is better that the matter be adjudicated by a competent authority within the church, so that the parties can be instructed and corrected as needed, and no injustice is done.

This passage only directly concerns the issue of a believer suing a fellow believer; it does not touch on the question of a believer engaging in litigation against a non-believer. Christadelphian writers have generally inferred that what holds in the one case also holds in the other, for two reasons. (i) Paul says the secular courts are fundamentally 'unjust,' so believers should have no recourse to them. (ii) The moral obligations of the believer are toward all men, and not only to fellow believers. Thus, if it is wrong for 'brother to go to court against brother,' it is also wrong for a believer to go to court against anyone else. To address (i) , we must consider the relative competencies of secular courts ancient and modern to render just judgment. Commentators provide abundant empirical evidence of the fundamentally unjust character of courts in the Roman world generally and in Corinth specifically.2 Suits were largely decided on the relative social standing of the litigating parties, rather than the merits of the case. Bribery was endemic, and judicial functions fell to procurators and governors, who were often installed in their positions for reasons other than expertise in matters of law (to put it lightly). It is very different today, particularly in the developed world. Legal and judicial systems have been built on the foundations of Judaeo-Christian morality. Strong accountability and transparency mechanisms are in place. Lawyers and judges are very well-trained. Of course, human justice systems remain far from perfect and the legal profession retains a reputation for willingness to manipulate truth and justice. However, we cannot fairly assume today, as Paul could in his day, that taking a civil matter before the secular courts is intrinsically unjust and tantamount to 'cheating.'

This brings us to the second consideration: treating unbelievers as we treat believers. As Paul indicated, the ideal outcome of a dispute is a just resolution. Thus, the ideal way to handle a dispute is the way most likely to lead to a just resolution. All would agree that settling a matter out of court, and avoiding costly and potentially bitter legal costs, is better than litigation. However, it is hard to deny that involving lawyers and other professional experts is preferable to asking the local church to resolve the kinds of complex legal and financial disputes that can arise today. Do most church leaders (or local church governance bodies) have the necessary expertise to determine a fair child custody arrangement or a fair amount of child support, to divide up a contested estate, or to liquidate the assets of a failed business partnership? And, in any case, a party to the dispute who is not a Christian (or even who does not belong to the same Christian community) is not going to recognise the other party's local church as a competent and impartial authority to adjudicate the matter.

If a Christian finds him/herself in a serious dispute and engages professional legal counsel, the motive must be to find a just resolution, not to achieve the best possible outcome from the perspective of the client's own financial and other welfare. This should be taken into account when choosing a lawyer. Every possible effort should be made to arrive at a mutually satisfactory settlement rather than a court judgment (cf. Matt. 5:25-26). Allowing oneself to be wronged is certainly an option the believer should consider (especially given the 'resistance through non-resistance' principle discussed in the previous article). However, there are circumstances—above all, those involving the welfare of children—when litigation may be the most prudent outcome to satisfy the demands of love-of-neighbour toward all involved.

The Legal Jurisdiction of the Church and the State

Paul infers in 1 Corinthians 6:1-3 that the Church has the God-given authority to judge matters involving its members (see also 1 Cor. 5:12-13). He makes an a fortiori argument: if the saints are judge the world and even angels in the eschatological future, how much more are they qualified to exercise judgment today? Thus Paul lays the foundation for ecclesiastical courts and tribunals, which would develop in the Church and still exist in the Catholic Church to this day. The question is, what are the scope and jurisdiction of the Church's judicial prerogatives, relative to the scope and jurisdiction of the secular courts?

This is a question that receives a fairly clear answer already in the New Testament. In the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus' opponents tried to trap him with a tricky question about paying tribute to Caesar, Jesus issued his famous line, 'Render to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God' (Luke 20:25). Of course, in the final analysis everything belongs to God, but in the present age, Jesus and his disciples concede jurisdiction over this-worldly affairs (such as taxation) to the State. Elsewhere in the same Gospel, Jesus extends this principle to a typical litigation scenario of his day: a dispute over an inheritance. A man in the crowd appeals to Jesus, "Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me" (Luke 20:13). The man is effectively suing his brother with Jesus as the judge. Jesus responds, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?" signifying that such disputes fall under the jurisdiction of Caesar, not God; of the State, not the Church.

The State's jurisdiction to govern and enforce earthly laws is powerfully defended by Paul in Romans 13:1-7, and his principle in 1 Corinthians 5:12 is that the Church's jurisdiction is over those who are within the Church. The things that belong to God (as opposed to Caesar) are spiritual matters; matters of faith and morals, of sin and salvation. Now often the same situation may have a this-worldly dimension (e.g. finances and taxes) as well as a spiritual dimension. In such cases, both the Church and the State must be involved. For instance, dioceses of the Catholic Church have marriage tribunals to adjudicate marital matters from a spiritual point of view (e.g., whether a marriage was validly constituted before God, or should be annulled) but defers to the secular courts regarding distribution of marital assets, in case of an annulment or separation. In the clerical sex abuse scandal, priests have gravely transgressed the laws of the Church, and so must be judged by the Church, but have also broken the just laws of nations, and so must be judged in secular courts as well.

Once it is recognised that, in the present divine economy, both the Church and the State—God and Caesar—have their respective, legitimate jurisdictions, it becomes clear that bringing a this-worldly dispute to secular courts for resolution is not intrinsically wrong. To say otherwise is to impugn the legitimacy of the State's authority, contrary to the clear teachings of Jesus and Paul. (As quoted in the previous article, Robert Roberts avers that believers need not concern themselves with the consequences of not exercising their prerogative to defend their rights through legal means, since "We are in [God's] hands." However, what if the institutions of the State are one of the primary means by which God exercises this providence? In that case, to eschew legal recourse is to eschew God's providence.)3 Nevertheless, it may be extremely imprudent for a believer to litigate a dispute before the secular courts, particularly in a social context where the secular courts are thoroughly corrupt, where the dispute is with a fellow believer, and/or where the dispute is small and simple enough to be settled through dialogue or informal arbitration.

Epilogue: St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology

We have an account from very early in Church history of a believer engaging in litigation against an unbeliever. Chapter 2 of St. Justin Martyr's Second Apology (mid-second century C.E.) relates the story of a certain married woman who converted to Christianity. Both she and her husband had previously engaged in licentious behaviour, and after repenting she tried unsuccessfully to persuade her husband to change his ways. Though prevailed upon by her advisers to remain in the marriage in the hope that he might yet change, his behaviour instead became worse and so she obtained a legal divorce (Latin: repudium) and separated from him. The husband then made a legal accusation that she was a Christian. In response, she submitted a petition to the emperor to be allowed to first set her financial affairs in order before answering the charge. In their commentary on Justin's apologies, Minns and Parvis explain that "In Roman law, dowry passed to the control of the husband for the duration of a marriage but reverted to the woman or her father at its dissolution through death or divorce."4 Thus, the woman's petition was intended to secure the reversion of the dowry. The petition was granted, but the husband then made accusations against the woman's Christian teacher, which led to his martyrdom and that of others who defended him (2 Apology 2.1-20). Since Justin includes this account in an apology (defense of the faith) addressed to the same Roman Emperor who had granted the woman's petition, he clearly did not regard her litigation against her husband as contrary to the Christian faith.


Footnotes

  • 1 I must reiterate that, while this position has been 'on the books' in Christadelphian Statements of Faith since the 19th century, the extent to which these historic documents remain normative for doctrine and practice today varies from one ecclesia to the next.
  • 2 To give just two examples, the Roman historian Dio Chrysostom (a younger contemporary of Paul) states that in Corinth there were 'lawyers innumerable perverting justice' (Orations 8.9). Cicero (In verrem 1.1.1) refers to rumours that throughout the Roman world 'the courts will never convict any man, however guilty, if only he has money.' For these and other examples, see David E. Garland, 1 Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 196-97.
  • 3 This reminds one of the famous preacher's story about the man caught on a roof during a flood.
  • 4 Denis Minns and Paul Parvis, Justin, Philosopher and Martyr: Apologies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 275 n. 4.

Tuesday 17 December 2019

Christadelphians, Litigation, and Social Justice (Part 1)

One of the distinctives of Christadelphian moral teaching is that believers in Christ may not engage in litigation for purposes of redress. This is considered such an important matter that it is encoded in the Birmingham Amended Statement of Faith (BASF) used as a basis of fellowship by most Christadelphian ecclesias (local congregations) around the world:
We reject the doctrine - that we are at liberty to take part in politics, or recover debts by legal coercion. (Doctrines to be Rejected, Article 36)
Formally speaking, this means that any person who affirms that Christians are at liberty to recover debts by legal coercion (litigation) cannot be a member in good standing of any Christadelphian ecclesia that uses the BASF as its basis of fellowship. (In practice, some ecclesias today might not press the issue, if Christadelphian social media discussions are anything to go by.) The purpose of this series of articles is to critique this Christadelphian teaching in light of Scripture and reason.

The Christadelphian position

Christadelphian opposition to engaging in litigation dates back to the movement's founder, Dr. John Thomas.1 However, our main conversation partner here will be Thomas's protégé, Robert Roberts, who more than anyone else was responsible for the establishment of Christadelphianism as an institutional religion (including primary authorship of what became the BASF). In his best-known book, Christendom Astray, Roberts dealt with the issue of litigation under the broader rubric of resisting evil, and he was unequivocal: quoting Matthew 5:39-41, he concluded that "unresisting submission to legal and personal wrong" is "the plainest of Christ's commandments," but one ignored by most professing Christians.2 Roberts held that the examples of non-resistance depicted in these verses are to be adhered to absolutely: "If life and property must be exposed to the ravages of wicked men, unless we do that which Christ tells us we are not to do, let all houses and all lives be unprotected... It is a mistake to hamper the question of duty with any secondary consideration whatever."3 For Roberts, the reason most Christians ignore this commandment against resisting evil is that they mistakenly believe that Christ's teachings were aimed at the goal of social justice here and now. Instead, Christ's disciples should be unconcerned with social injustice here and now, because their focus is on the definitive justice that will arrive with the Second Coming of Christ. For now, believers have no duty to seek social justice for themselves or others but are called to leave things in God's hands.4 In recent times, Christadelphian writer Russell Ebbs has echoed this argument, exhorting believers to abandon "those thoughts of demanding our 'rights' or seeking redress," which are symptomatic of a carnal, disobedient way of thinking.5

Matthew 5:40 and 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 have historically been the two main biblical texts cited in support of the Christadelphian position that believers must not take legal action against another person.6 Because of this, we will explore them in some detail before commenting more generally on the morality of litigation.

Matthew 5:38-42
38 You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ 39 But I say to you, do not resist the one who is evil. When someone strikes you on your right cheek, turn the other one to him as well. 40 If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic, hand him your cloak as well. 41 Should anyone press you into service for one mile, go with him for two miles. 42 Give to the one who begs of you, and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow. (my translation, adapted from NABRE)
This is the second-to-last of the famous Antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17-48). In each Antithesis, Jesus authoritatively contrasts what the crowds have previously heard about obeying the Torah (the Law of Moses) with the true divine intent. Thus Jesus is not annulling the Law but conveying its full meaning (Matt. 5:17), and highlighting the difference between the surpassing righteousness of those who would enter the kingdom of God and the deficient righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees. As Charles H. Talbert explains, "Matthew 5:21-48 asks: 'What is the purpose of your Bible reading? It advocates a radical, as opposed to a formal, obedience to Scripture.'"7 The lex talionis (law of retaliation) principle, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth" (Ex. 21:24; Lev. 24:19-20) is the first leg of this antithesis. This law placed limits on retaliation and thus avoided family vendettas. However, as Jesus understands it, the limits placed on retaliation show that no retaliation is actually better than proportionate retaliation.

Jesus then provides four concrete examples of the do-not-resist principle in action. The first concerns a humiliating physical attack: a blow to the face. The second concerns a legal attack: a lawsuit. The third concerns political oppression: being commandeered as a porter by a Roman soldier. The fourth concerns economic impropriety: a request for a donation or a loan, presumably from one whose intentions are suspect (hence the relevance to resisting evil). We must emphasise that these examples are illustrations of a general principle and not regulations to be followed verbatim. Bear in mind that just prior to this, Jesus has ordered, "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away" (Matt. 5:29). To use Robert Roberts' language, this too is "the plainest of Christ's commandments," and yet the most ignored, if taken literally. Yet Christadelphians have no problem with ignoring the instruction of Matthew 5:29 (taken literally). Again, the fourth example in this very series orders us to give to every beggar and accede to every request for a loan (Matt. 5:42; cf. Luke 6:30). This case seems to be overlooked by the same Christadelphians who advocate scrupulous, literal observance of the examples in vv. 39-40.

Let us look closer in the example involving litigation, in v. 40. What is sometimes overlooked is that this scenario involves hyperbole to the point of absurdity. A person in first-century Palestine wore two garments, the imation ('cloak') on the outside and the chitōn ('tunic') underneath.8 The Torah permits the cloak to be taken as collateral for a loan, but only until sunset. Keeping one's cloak was an inalienable right (Ex. 22:25-27; Deut. 24:10-13); one could not be sued for it. Hence, the crafty litigant depicted in Matt. 5:40 sues for the tunic, the undergarment. This litigation is patently contrary to the spirit of the Torah, and therefore unjust. Yet Jesus calls on the one in such a predicament not merely to decline to contest the case, but to hand over his cloak too. If the one so sued handed over his tunic and cloak, he was not only surrendering a basic, legally protected right, but would be left standing naked in public!9 Thus, Talbert rightly scolds fundamentalists for reading the Bible "as a book of revealed morality in the form of particularized commands that are viewed as timeless truths."10 The examples given by Jesus here are to be taken seriously as illustrations of the principle of non-retaliation, but not to be taken literally as case law.11

Another subtlety in these examples is that Jesus is not advocating submission to evil but resistance through non-resistance. In line with the Pauline principle that kindness to one's enemy heaps burning coals on his head (Rom. 12:20), handing one's cloak to the one who is suing for the tunic is a way of awakening the aggressor's conscience to the injustice he is inflicting. The same is true of turning the other cheek to the physical attacker. In our own day, this idea of resisting evil by not resisting has been used to great effect by great civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. Thus, again resorting to Paul's language, the goal in following Jesus' teaching here is not to be conquered by evil, but to conquer it (Rom. 12:21). The fight for social justice is not abandoned, but taken up using weapons that are less lethal but ultimately more effective.

In the broader Matthaean context, love of God and neighbour are paramount (Matt. 22:34-40), and fundamental to love of neighbour are the exercise of mercy and justice (Matt. 23:23). The non-resistance ethic of Matthew 5:38-42 represents an ingenious way of achieving both of the seemingly conflicting ends of mercy and justice. By not resisting the evildoer one shows him mercy; by overcoming evil with good, one seeks justice. However, it is noteworthy that none of the scenarios in Matthew 5:39-42 are life-threatening or even life-altering. It is not difficult to imagine other scenarios in which, for instance, the welfare or very lives of one's children are at stake, and in such cases the higher principle "love your neighbour" trumps the non-resistance principle. Some proportionate resistance is not only permitted but morally imperative in such cases.

Matthew 5:40, consequently, does not command believers to avoid all participation in litigation, though it does give food for thought to anyone involved in a legal dispute, and does pronounce judgment on certain contemporary societies that are "litigation-happy." In order to properly assess the morality of litigation, we need to properly understand the place of the State in fulfilling the purposes of God in the present age, e.g. the preservation of law and order and the promotion of justice. Before we move in that direction, the next article will consider another passage usually cited by Christadelphians in support of their position on litigation: 1 Corinthians 6:1-8.

Footnotes

  • 1 "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world?" (I Cor. 6:2). The verb here rendered judge is the same as is translated "go to law" in the preceding verse. The apostle, therefore, asks, if they do not know that they will sit judicially, and dispense justice to the world, according to the divine law; and because this is their destiny, he positively forbids believers in the covenants of promise to submit themselves to the judgment of the unjust. It is better, says he, for one to be defrauded than to submit to such a humiliation. Let the heirs of the world arbitrate their own affairs in the present state; for it is a strange thing, if men, whose destiny it is to judge the world and angels, cannot settle things pertaining to this life. (John Thomas, Elpis Israel [4th edn.; Adelaide: Logos, 1866/2000], p. 250)
  • 2 "Of all the commandments of Christ, this of unresisting submission to legal and personal wrong is the one that most severely tests the allegiance of his disciples, and which accordingly is most decisively neglected in all Christendom. It would not be too much to say that it is deliberately refused and formally set aside by the mass of professing Christians, as an impracticable rule of life. That it stands there as the plainest of Christ's commandments, cannot be denied; and that it was re-echoed by the apostles and carried out in the practice of the early Christians, is equally beyond contradiction. Yet, by all classes, it is ignored as much as if it had never been written." (Robert Roberts, Christendom Astray [Nottingham: Dawn Book Supply, 1884/1960], 432-33).
  • 3 op. cit., 434. Note that the first part of this particular passage is omitted in an abridged version of Christendom Astray published by The Christadelphian in 1969.
  • 4 "It is commonly imagined that the commandments of Christ apply, and are intended to supply, the best modes of life among men--that is, those modes that are best adapted to secure a beneficial adaptation of man to man in the present state of life upon earth... Christendom resists evil; sues at law; resents injury... It speaks of 'duty to society,' the 'protection of life and property,' and the certain chaos that would set in if the law of Christ were in force. In this, Christendom speaks as the world, and not as 'the church,' because it is not the church, but the world... The time has not come for the saints to keep the world right. It has to be made right before even keeping it right can be in question. The position of the saints is that of sojourners on trial for eternal life. God will take care that their probation is not interfered with by murder and violence before the time. The matter is His. We are in His hands: so is all the world. We need not therefore be distressed by thoughts of what will be the effect of any course required by Christ. He will take care that His work comes out right at last" (op. cit., 433-34)
  • 5 As bond slaves to Christ we have no rights; and, being no longer servants of sin, those impulses which are our natural way of thinking must be put to death—those thoughts of demanding our ‘rights’ or seeking redress must be abandoned... We should not therefore resort to litigation,1 which is a symptom of the spirit that is at work in the children of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). (Russell Ebbs, "Litigation and the Christadelphian," The Testimony [May 2002]: 198-99). Another writer warns against "the pernicious influence of the democratic human rights philosophy" (W. J. McAllister, Democracy: Its Influence upon the World and the Ecclesia [West Beach: Logos, 1993], 3).
  • 6 "Going to Law: Following our baptism we follow the Law of Christ which forbid us to take legal action to redress wrongs committed against us. We have to suffer wrong for Jesus said 'do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.'" (Dawn Christadelphian Bible Study Course, Part 2, p. 16; cf. quotation from 1 Corinthians 6:1-8 on p. 13)
  • 7 Reading the Sermon on the Mount: Character Formation and Decision Making in Matthew 5-7 (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2004), 65.
  • 8 BDAG 475, 1085.
  • 9 "Obeyed literally, 5:40 results in public nudity and arrest" (Talbert, Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 91).
  • 10 Reading the Sermon on the Mount, 28. I have previously written about the need for a thoroughgoing moral theology rather than a simplistic recourse to "what the Bible says."
  • 11 These examples "should not be taken in a pedantic fashion that would limit their intended application" (David L. Turner, Matthew [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008], 175).

Sunday 22 September 2019

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager: Does Jesus Endorse Fraud?

The Parable of the Dishonest Manager (Luke 16:1-8), part of the Gospel reading for today in the Roman Catholic lectionary, is probably the most difficult of Jesus' parables in the Gospels to interpret, particularly from a moral-theological point of view. It is probably fair to say that the story has been causing interpreters to scratch their heads throughout the nearly 2000 years since it was told. Here is the parable:
1 Then he also said to his disciples, “A rich man had a steward who was reported to him for squandering his property. 2 He summoned him and said, ‘What is this I hear about you? Prepare a full account of your stewardship, because you can no longer be my steward.’ 3 The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do, now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me? I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg. 4 I know what I shall do so that, when I am removed from the stewardship, they may welcome me into their homes.’ 5 He called in his master’s debtors one by one. To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’ 6 He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note. Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’ 7 Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’ He replied, ‘One hundred kors of wheat.’ He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note; write one for eighty.’ 8 And the master [Lord?] commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light. 9 I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth, so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings. (Luke 16:1-9 NABRE)
In verses 1-7 we read of an incompetent manager who, informed of his impending dismissal, alters financial documents to reduce the debts of his master's debtors, thus winning their gratitude. This sounds like fraud, plain and simple. The puzzler, therefore, comes in verse 8, where we read that the master commended the dishonest (literally, 'unrighteous') manager for his prudence or shrewdness. Is the Gospel endorsing fraud, at least under desperate circumstances?

Marius Reiser, in his book Jesus and Judgment, offers a good discussion of different scholarly views on the meaning of the parable (including his own view), which has served as the basis for this brief summary.1 Broadly speaking there are two schools of thought on the parable. One school regards the unrighteous manager's actions as morally upright, because he sought to rectify an injustice in the original debt amounts. The other school regards the unrighteous manager's actions as morally wrong, and thus not a model for financial stewardship, but praiseworthy only for shrewdness and resourcefulness in a dire situation.

Within the first view there are at least two variations. One variation holds that debts in commodities (rather than money) were used to circumvent legal restrictions on the charging of interest (usury), and therefore the original debt amounts (100 measures of olive oil; 100 kors of wheat) were unjust. The manager acts to rectify some of his master's unjust usury, which mitigates his own guilt and wins the favour of the debtors. The master, who can hardly protest without losing face, commends the manager (perhaps ruefully, since the manager has cost him a bundle!) The second variation holds that managers behaved similar to tax collectors in that they unjustly inflated the amounts due to their masters and pocketed the excess. Knowing that he won't be around to collect his take on outstanding debts, the manager reduces them to the amount actually due to his master. He thus repents of his past corruption and also wins the favour of the debtors. In this scenario, the manager's action has not cost the master anything, so the manager can commend his shrewdness wholeheartedly. The biggest exegetical difficulty with the first view is that it hinges on unstated details about the nature of the debt reductions (i.e., the debts were reduced by an amount representing usury or corruption). It helps to resolve the parable's moral conundrum, but not entirely: is fraud an acceptable way to right financial injustices?

Under the first view, the manager is 'unrighteous' only in the previous wastefulness that (v. 1) that led to his dismissal, and not in the behaviour described in vv. 3-7. The second view, however, has the manager behaving unrighteously throughout. His action in reducing the debts due to his master is fraud, plain and simple, motivated by his own self-interest. Under this view, it is more difficult to understand why the manager wins his master's praise: not only are his actions unrighteous, but they have cost the master a bundle. A rueful commendation for shrewdness, along the lines of, 'Yeah, he got me there!' is possible, but there is another intriguing possibility. Reiser argues that the parable ends in v. 7 and that in v. 8a Luke is already describing Jesus' reaction. So it is not 'And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently', but 'And the Lord commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently' (the Greek word for 'master' and 'Lord' in Luke is the same, kyrios.) In support of this view, it is characteristic of Luke's style (unlike the other Evangelists) to refer to Jesus in the narrative simply as 'the Lord' (ho kyrios).2 Indeed, in Luke 18:1-6 we find another parable that ends abruptly and is followed immediately by a reaction from 'the Lord'.

I find the second view to be more exegetically plausible, since it does not require us to assume unstated but crucial details about the nature of the debts in the story. If so, then the manager's financial activities are not depicted as morally upright, and are not presented as a model of stewardship. Certainly there is no endorsement of fraudulent activity under special circumstances. What is commendable about the manager's 'prudence' or 'shrewdness' is precisely and only that he acted decisively to secure his future in the face of an impending day of reckoning. In Luke 16:2 the manager is called to 'give an account,' language that is used for the final judgment in other parables of Jesus (Matt. 18:23; 25:19; cf. 12:36). The manager's situation as a guilty individual whose day of reckoning is imminent thus symbolises the unrighteous in Israel,3 for whom the Day of Judgment is drawing nigh. They ought likewise to take decisive action to secure their future—particularly in the way they use their material wealth (v. 9). The 'friends' they are to make with this wealth are either the poor (who might intercede on their behalf), or possibly God and his angels (whose prerogative it would be to welcome people into the 'eternal dwellings'; cf. Luke 16:22). The message is not to defraud earthly masters (the master in the parable represents God) but to use earthly wealth in a way that will produce an eternal profit, after the earthly wealth has failed. The parable is thus of a piece with the other great parable of Luke 16, that of the rich man and Lazarus.

It is probably precisely because of the dodgy nature of the manager's actions in the parable that Luke has supplemented the parable with sayings about the importance of trustworthy stewardship and of not making financial gain one's master (verses 10-13). Luke wants to reinforce these principles to make sure his readers do not draw faulty moral inferences from this difficult parable.

Footnotes

  • 1 Marius Reiser, Jesus and Judgment: The Eschatological Proclamation in Its Jewish Context (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), 291-301.
  • 2 See, e.g., Luke 7:13, 19; 10:1, 39, 41; 11:39, 42; 13:15; 17:5, 6; 18:6; 19:8; 22:61; 24:34. For an excellent treatment of the Christological implications of Luke's use of ho kyrios, see C. Kavin Rowe, Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009).
  • 3 E.g., the Pharisees (Luke 16:14)

Thursday 19 September 2019

Are Christadelphians Non-Liturgical?

Growing up in the Christadelphian sect, one word that I almost never heard was 'liturgy.' In fact, the only time I recall encountering this word in Christadelphian usage was in the title of a lecture delivered at my ecclesia (local congregation), entitled something like, 'How a Priesthood and Liturgy Arose in the Christian Religion.' While I cannot recall the content of the lecture, since the lectures were invariably polemical in nature, the premise of the lecture was that priesthood and liturgy represented corruptions or aberrations of the original Christianity practiced by the apostles. The Wikipedia article on Christadelphians, as it currently stands, describes Christadelphians as a 'non-liturgical denomination.' (The Christadelphians are actually a sect, not a denomination, but that is a separate issue.)

The Oxford English Dictionary (via Google) defines 'liturgy' as 'a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted.' It would seem to follow that a 'non-liturgical denomination' is one that conducts public religious worship without a form or formulary. Now, clearly there are degrees of how formulaic Christian public worship is. Roman Catholic worship would be at the more formulaic end of the spectrum. However, allow me to make a simple observation: there is no such thing as Christian public worship that is 'non-liturgical,' that is, completely non-formulaic. Certainly Christadelphian public worship is not devoid of liturgy, and even were one to make a concerted effort to be non-liturgical, liturgical forms would inevitably develop. In what follows I will delve into different aspects of Christadelphian 'liturgy'.

Order of Service in Public Worship

First of all, there is the order of service. Every Christadelphian ecclesia that I have ever visited had an order of events that was followed more or less rigidly at the Sunday meeting. In the ecclesia I grew up in in Canada, if memory serves, the order was Hymn, Psalm, Hymn, Prayer, Old Testament Reading, New Testament Reading, Memorial Service Remarks and Readings, Prayer for Bread, Distribution of Bread, Prayer for Wine, Distribution of Wine, Hymn, Exhortation, Hymn, Prayer. Every Sunday. The pattern may vary from one ecclesia to the next, but every ecclesia has one. How very, well, liturgical!

Scripture Readings in Public Worship

'Ah,' you might say, 'but the readings do not follow a lectionary.' That was only partly correct, in this case. The exhorting brother typically chose one of the readings to match his topic; at least one of the readings was ordinarily taken from a Christadelphian Daily Readings plan—in other words, a lectionary.

Prayer in Public Worship

'Ah, but the prayers are not scripted.' Again, only partly true. For one thing, our ecclesia had a long-standing convention—dare I say tradition—that the Sunday evening service would be closed with the Lord's Prayer, following the KJV of Matthew 6:9-13. A scripted prayer! For another, the public prayers were offered by the presiding brother and by men in the congregation. The presiding brother would make prior arrangements with these men, precisely so they would be prepared for their prayer. In other words, spontaneity was not seen as the ideal. And you didn't have to attend the ecclesial meetings for long before you would learn that each man in the congregation had certain 'favourite lines'—that is, forms—that he liked to use in his public prayers. In certain instances one could literally finish the brother's sentence for him. The younger baptized men, when they first began offering public prayers, would often borrow from these tried-and-true forms used by their elders. I am sure that every family has observed in prayers before meals this same tendency for forms of prayer to develop. All of this is liturgical, and no one seems to find it objectionable.

Sensory and Physical Public Worship

'Ah, but we don't have sensory or physical forms of worship, like candles and incense and kneeling.' Partaking ritually of bread and wine—regardless of one's doctrinal understanding about it—is clearly a sensory form of worship. The breaking of bread service in the Canadian ecclesia I grew up in always involved a ritual uncovering and covering of the bread and wine with a piece of white linen. Visual forms of worship! Liturgy! Moreover, although there was no kneeling, the ecclesia had very specific customs about standing and sitting. Everyone stood for hymns and prayers after hymns. However, only baptized persons stood for the prayers for bread and wine. As for the hymns themselves, they were invariably selected from a Christadelphian hymnbook, a collection of hymns deemed musically and theologically appropriate. The hymns were categorized in the hymnbook according to liturgical occasion, e.g., morning, breaking of bread, dismissal.

The Liturgical Calendar

The aspect of Christadelphian worship that is probably the least liturgical is the calendar. Christadelphians do not formally observe any major festivals of the Christian liturgical calendar (or the Jewish), such as Easter, Christmas, Pentecost, etc. Christadelphians also attach no liturgical significance to Sunday: their Statement of Faith explicitly rejects the doctrine 'that the observance of Sunday is a matter of duty.' I have heard Christadelphians remark that their memorial service is held on Sunday only out of convenience and could arbitrarily be held on any other day.1 Yet Christadelphians do inevitably have liturgical seasonality. The convention of Sunday worship punctuates a weekly cycle that Christadelphians would surely acknowledge is historically rooted in a divinely instituted Sabbatarian framework.  Similarly, while Christadelphians do not have an annual liturgical cycle per se, and do not celebrate any religious festivals, they do have a de facto annual cycle of events, such as 'fraternal gatherings,' 'Bible schools' and 'youth conferences'. Many Christadelphians would describe these occasions as highlights of their religious life, something they look forward to every year. They undoubtedly fulfill the same spiritual needs that an annual liturgical cycle fulfills for traditional Christians (as well as Jews, Muslims, etc.)

Conclusion

It should be clear from the foregoing that, notwithstanding considerable diversity between ecclesias in forms, the Christadelphian religion is indeed 'liturgical' in its worship; very much so. Even though Christadelphian liturgy is in numerous respects less rigid and less regulated than the liturgy of other Christian traditions, Christadelphians are not accurately described as 'non-liturgical'. Indeed, I do not think it is possible to practice a religion for any length of time without liturgical forms developing, even where the adherents of this religion express an antipathy for anything formal or traditional.

My hope in writing this article is that Christadelphians who consider themselves 'non-liturgical' might realise that their worship is actually quite 'liturgical,' and that this realisation might give rise to further reflection on the value of liturgical traditions as practiced by most other professing Christians past and present. Also, maybe someone should update that Wikipedia page.


Footnotes

  • 1 On the other hand, I have also heard presiders at Christadelphian Sunday meetings refer solemnly to the meeting being held on 'this first day of the week,' implicitly linking their practice to certain New Testament texts (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2).

Wednesday 31 July 2019

Is it biblical to...? Google search autocomplete suggestions and the formation of conscience

In Christian circles, one often hears questions about morality and spiritual life phrased in the form, Is it biblical to...? Along the same lines, one hears of the importance of instilling a 'biblical worldview' in our children (which presumably does not mean teaching them that the earth is a flat disc resting on pillars). It is interesting that the relative frequency of the word 'biblical' grew rapidly between c. 1940 and 2000, according to Google Books Ngram viewer. It seems to be a very topical adjective.

What sorts of 'is-it-biblical-to' questions are contemporary Christians asking? You can answer this for your country of residence by going to Google.com, typing the words is it biblical to and observing the autocomplete suggestions that appear (which reflect the most common search queries entered in that country). In South Africa, the most popular 'is-it-biblical-to' searches end with:
  • vote? [bear in mind that South Africa recently had a national election]
  • cremate?
  • say rest in peace?
  • wear a wedding ring?
  • pray with candles?
  • be friends with your ex?
  • pray to saints?
  • pray to Mary?
  • pray with sand?
Here is a longer list of popular is-it-biblical-to searches in South Africa, obtained by filling in the first letter of the word after 'to': Anoint your house with oil? Ask God for a sign? Ask for money? Ask for a raise? Ask for the Holy Spirit to come? Be baptized more than once? Baptize babies? Be vegan? Become a member of a church? Borrow money? Be a stay at home mom? Circumcise? Charge interest? Call on angels? Celebrate birthday? Cast lots? Celebrate Easter? Call a pastor pastor? Cut ties with family? Donate blood? Donate organs? Drink water while fasting? Drink wine? Drink beer? Drink milk? Decree and declare? Defend yourself? Date? Dance in church? Eat meat? Eat pork? Eat eggs? Eat fish on Good Friday? Eat your placenta? Elope? Exercise? Enforce the law? Fast? Fast while menstruating? Fast for someone else? Forgive yourself? Forgive and not forget? Go to church? Go to church on Sunday? Get a loan? Gamble? Get a vasectomy? Get a tattoo? Have a girlfriend? Have church membership? Have godparents? Invest in the stock market? Interpret your own tongues? Interpret dreams? Judge others? Join a church? Journal? Pray to Jesus? Plead the blood of Jesus? Kiss before marriage? Kick someone out of church? Love yourself? Leave a church? Leave an inheritance? Live together before marriage? Marry your cousin? Marry without parental blessing? Pray to the Holy Spirit? Pay pastors? Pay church musicians? Pay bride price? Pay taxes? Pray before meals? Pray for healing? Renew wedding vows? Retire? Raise hands in worship? Say God bless you? Say no? Sue someone? Save money? Save for retirement? Speak in tongues? Separate from your spouse? Stand up for yourself? Speak things into existence? Set boundaries? Take your husband['s] name? Tithe in the new testament? Take care of your parents? Take communion at home? Take communion every Sunday? Take antidepressants? Use condoms? Use birth control? Use anointing oil? Use herbs? Visit graves? Wear jewelry? Work on Sunday? Wear a cross?

The moral dilemmas reflected in the above list range from the life-changing to the mundane. However, let us focus on the phrase, 'is it biblical'. This seems to be a problematic adjective to use to classify an action as morally right or acceptable, because it assumes that the Bible directly and unambiguously addresses the issue at hand. However, there are many issues in the list above (and many others not in the list) that the Bible does not directly address, or that it mentions, but without offering unmistakable, unequivocal teaching. Indeed, there are relatively few items in the above list on which the Bible speaks clearly and unequivocally, which is perhaps one reason why people are searching Google rather than simply reading/searching their Bibles.

This suggests that 'Is it biblical?' is the wrong question to ask, because it is rooted in a flawed assumption about how Christians ought to arrive at moral judgments. The question should rather be phrased as, 'Is it right?' or 'Is it wrong?' or 'Is it obligatory?' or 'Is it forbidden?' To answer these kinds of questions is to form one's conscience. How should a Christian form his or her conscience? Certainly divine revelation plays a vital role. However, because the Bible does not directly and unequivocally answer many of the moral dilemmas we face in contemporary society, formation of conscience requires interpretation of what has been revealed. And in order to avoid a situation where every Christian does what is right in his/her own eyes (to paraphrase the Book of Judges), according to his/her private interpretations, we Christians need an interpretative authority that can speak with clarity and conviction on the moral dilemmas of our time—in other words, that can bind and loose. Fortunately, Jesus provided for just such an authority within his Church (Matthew 16:17-19).

Thus Christians have access to a living voice that speaks on moral questions old and new, navigating the complexities of divine revelation with Holy Spirit guidance and facilitating the formation of conscience among the faithful. Perhaps the best news of all is that this voice's answers are accessible to Google's web crawlers.

Sunday 21 July 2019

Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI, and Paul the Apostle (Part 2)

Yesterday, Americans and others around the world waxed nostalgic about the Apollo 11 lunar landings that took place 50 years ago. One of the world leaders who sent greetings (and blessings) to the astronauts on the moon was Pope Paul VI. A year earlier, the Pope had issued an encyclical letter called Humanae Vitae that, while far less well-known than the moon mission, was also of great historical significance. It was in this document that the Pope set out the Church's teaching that artificial birth control, defined as 'any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means,' is morally unacceptable. The theological basis for this papal ruling was the principle, 'based on the natural law as illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation,' that sex has two essential qualities: one procreative (the generation of new life) and the other unitive (uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy), and that sexual acts must not be isolated from either of these.

In the first article in this two-part series, we looked at how the teaching of Humanae Vitae is anticipated in Paul's Letter to the Romans. In particular, just as Humanae Vitae declares based on natural law that the sex act must not be sundered from its procreative purpose, so Paul in Romans 1:26-27 condemned sex acts that abandon the 'natural function' of sex and are 'against nature.' Since Paul believes that unnatural sex acts follow from a failure to acknowledge God's creatorship, and since the terms he uses for 'male' and 'female' recall the creation account in Genesis 1:27-28, it follows (we argued) that for Paul the procreative aspect is essential to the 'natural function' of sex. This was borne out by setting Paul's argument in the context of other Hellenistic Jewish writers of his time (e.g., Philo, Josephus, and Pseudo-Phocylides), who also ground sexual morality in 'nature' (phusis), referring explicitly to the procreative aspect.

In this second article, we look at Paul's teachings about sexuality in 1 Corinthians. In this case, the relevant material spans much of three chapters (5 to 7) rather than just two verses, so we will not be able to reconstruct Paul's whole argument but only to make a few select observations. Paul comments extensively on the problem of 'sexual immorality' (Greek: porneia), first giving instructions regarding a case of incest in the Corinthian church (5:1-13) and then, having included certain sexual sins in a vice list (6:9-10), he makes a more general comment about porneia (6:12-19). These latter remarks presuppose that some Corinthian church members are using the services of prostitutes. Finally, in chapter 7, Paul offers detailed instructions concerning marriage and virginity.

The Basis for Paul's Sexual Morality

Paul's instructions concerning the case of incest at Corinth make it clear that he regards the Torah as an authoritative source on sexual morality. Paul instructs the Corinthian church to expel a man who 'has his father's wife' (1 Cor. 5:1). This language is borrowed directly from Lev. 18:8 and 20:11 LXX. It is quite possible that this man's sexual partner was his stepmother and not a blood relative, and furthermore that his father was deceased. Paul nevertheless regards it as 'sexual immorality' (porneia) of a kind 'not even found among the Gentiles.' This last remark implicitly reinforces the Jewish notion, already seen in Romans 1, that sexual immorality is stereotypical Gentile behaviour due to the Gentiles' idolatry and ignorance of God (including in this case the Torah). Paul again invokes the Torah in the expulsion formula he uses in 1 Corinthians 5:13: 'Purge the evil person from your midst' (see Deut. 13:6; 17:7; 19:19; 21:21; 22:21, 24; 24:7 LXX). An indirect appeal to the Torah is also likely in Paul's use of the term arsenokoitai in his vice list in 1 Corinthians 6:9. The meaning of this term—of which Paul's is the earliest extant usage—is disputed among scholars but most likely refers to males who penetrate other males,1 and the term was probably coined (whether by Paul or another Hellenistic Jew) from the words arsenos ('male') and koitēn ('bed') in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 LXX.

In Romans 1, we found that Paul's ideas on sexual (im)morality were grounded in his understanding of creation, for which his source was of course the creation narratives in Genesis 1-2 (also part of the Torah). This dependency is again evident in 1 Corinthians 6:16, where Paul quotes from Genesis 2:24 LXX: '"For the two," it says, "shall become one flesh".' This Genesis text stresses the unitive aspect of the sexual act, while Genesis 1:27 stresses the procreative aspect (by describing the gendered creation of humanity as 'male and female,' followed immediately by the imperative to procreate in v. 28). It is noteworthy that these two creation texts (Gen. 1:27 and 2:24) are precisely those quoted by Jesus in the Gospels (Mark 10:6; Matt. 19:4) to justify his teachings on marriage and divorce. That Paul's sexual morality in Romans and 1 Corinthians is grounded in the same two creation texts is probably not coincidental, but suggests his familiarity with the Jesus tradition later preserved by Mark.

Sex and Nature

We saw in the previous article that, in Romans 1, Paul's decisive criterion for determining sexual acts to be moral or otherwise was the 'natural function.' In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul anticipates and refutes an argument from 'natural function' that can be—and often has been—used to undermine the unitive aspect of the sexual act, that is, its exclusive use in the intimacy of a monogamous marital bond. The argument is conveyed in the aphorism, 'Food for the belly and the belly for food' (1 Cor. 6:13). It is not clear whether some Corinthians were actually using this line to justify going to prostitutes, or whether Paul is manufacturing a hypothetical justification in order to strike it down. However, the implicit argument is one of analogy: food and the belly are made for each other; thus, when we are hungry, we are justified in satisfying our appetite. In the same way, sex and the sexual organs are made for each other; thus we are equally justified in satisfying our sexual appetites (even if that means going to a prostitute).2

Notice that this argument takes a page out of Paul's book; it is an argument from nature and the created order, just like Paul's argument concerning sexual (im)morality in Romans 1. It is thus quite ingenious, and indeed does not violate the 'natural' procreative function of sex. However, as Paul goes on to explain, sex that is had only to satisfy an appetite, for instance with a prostitute, violates the unitive aspect of sex, which is not merely natural but spiritual. Paul therefore turns to the more transcendent purposes of creation: 'The body...is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body...your body is a temple of the holy Spirit within you...you are not your own' (1 Cor. 6:13, 19). Paul alludes to the way that the marital union decreed in Gen. 2:24 signifies the union between Christ and the Church (1 Cor. 6:16-17)—an idea that will be elaborated on in Ephesians 5:23-32. Paul warns the Corinthians that 'anyone who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her.' There is a unitive, spiritual dimension to the sexual act and there are thus untold spiritual implications for those who debase sex by, for instance, going to a prostitute.

The Importance of Sexual Morality for Paul

Christians today who take a traditional, conservative position on issues of sexual morality are often portrayed, including by other Christians, as prudish or petty. 'Millions of people are starving but all you're worried about is sex,' so the argument goes. Why be so preoccupied with sexual sin while turning a blind eye to far more grievous sins committed against social justice? This criticism is justified: if a preoccupation with sexual morality causes us to de-emphasise social justice more generally, then we are indeed in serious trouble. However, the solution is not to disregard or downplay the demands of sexual morality in favour of social justice. Our approach should be both/and, not either/or.

There are a number of ways in which Paul's teachings in 1 Corinthians 5-6 show that he understood sexual morality to be a very important aspect of the Christian life. Firstly, we have Paul's aforementioned instructions concerning the reported case of maternal or step-maternal incest in Corinth: expulsion from the congregation ('Purge the evil person from your midst'). Numerous scholars interpret 2 Corinthians 2:5-11 to be a 'happy ending' to this story: the man had repented and was to be restored to his place in the church. Secondly, we have Paul's remark that 'the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God' (1 Cor. 6:9-10), with 'unjust' by no means limited to sexual sins but inclusive of them. Forgiveness of sins and a new, chaste identity is available in Christ (1 Cor. 6:11), but to continue unrepentant in sexual immorality would be to forfeit one's eternal destiny. Thirdly, Paul explicitly says that sexual immorality is distinct from other sins in its gravity: 'Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person (ho porneuōn) sins against his own body' (1 Cor. 6:18). Fourthly, Paul's whole instructions concerning sexual morality could be summarised in the command, 'Avoid sexual immorality' (pheugete tēn porneian, 1 Cor. 6:18). Paul's choice of verb could hardly be more emphatic: the literal meaning of pheugō is 'flee,' as from moral danger (cf. Mark 14:50; John 10:12).

Anyone who says that the Church needs to relax its teachings on sexual morality cannot cite Paul in support. It is certainly true that some conservative Christians make sexual morality their hobby horse to the exclusion of other important moral issues, especially concerning social justice. However, the critique of such people should not be, 'Focus on social justice and stop going on about sexual sin' (which rests on a false dichotomy), but, 'These you should have done, without neglecting the others' (cf. Matt. 23:23).

Paul and Abstinence

In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul has a lot to say about abstinence. Paul says that temporary abstinence within marriage is morally acceptable (1 Cor. 7:5), which anticipates the teaching of Humanae Vitae, which also approves of temporary abstinence and states that it is the only acceptable method of birth control. However, more prominent in this chapter is Paul's emphasis that total abstinence, lifelong virginity, is a good and noble calling. This is arguably the most radical feature of Paul's sexual morality within his Second Temple Jewish context. The author of Pseudo-Phocylides gives the prevailing Jewish view at the time: 'Remain not unmarried, lest you perish nameless. And give something to nature yourself: beget in turn as you were begotten'3 These instructions are directed at men; women did not even have a choice in the matter, as a woman's marriage was a transaction between her father and her husband-to-be. This moral obligation to marry and procreate stands in stark contrast to Paul's statements in 1 Corinthians 7. Paul expresses a wish for 'everyone to be as I am' (i.e. celibate), while acknowledging that celibacy is a 'gift from God' that not all possess (1 Cor. 7:7). Thus it is 'a good thing for [the unmarried and widows] to remain as they are' (1 Cor. 7:8), provided that they have the required self-control. Paul's instructions about 'virgins' in 1 Corinthians 7:25-40 concern both females and males, though the term itself is syntactically feminine.4 Paul makes it clear that, at least in the case of a widow, she is free to decide whom to marry and whether to marry (1 Cor. 7:39-40).

Paul thus takes an important step toward liberating women to determine their own vocation, whether it be marriage or virginity, and anticipates the Christian rite of consecrated virginity (e.g., nuns) and the celibacy of priests.5

Conclusion

Careful study of material in Romans and 1 Corinthians shows that, for Paul, the sexual act has a 'natural function' tied to its procreative potential, and has a unitive, spiritual function that explains why it is permissible only in the monogamous intimacy of the marital union. Paul's teachings thus anticipate those of Pope Paul VI nineteen centuries later in Humanae Vitae. Paul's letters show that he understood sexual morality to be vitally important to the Christian life, undermining those in his day and ours who regard the Church as prudish and petty when it speaks out against sexual immorality. Finally, Paul's teachings on abstinence and virginity in 1 Corinthians 7 anticipate the teaching of Humanae Vitae that temporary abstinence is an acceptable method of birth control, and also underlie the historic Christian practices of consecrated virginity and priestly celibacy.


Footnotes

  • 1 See, most recently, the detailed philological arguments of John Granger Cook, 'μαλακοί and ἀρσενοκοῖται: In Defence of Tertullian’s Translation,' New Testament Studies 65 (2019): 332-352. Paul himself uses arsēn in his description of homoerotic sex acts in Rom. 1:27, and also uses koitē in the sense of 'sexual promiscuity' in Rom. 13:13. Cook establishes a semantic field consisting of other compound nouns formed from either arsēn or koitē (or similar elements) and finds a general pattern by which 'a male has sex with the person (or animal) referred to by the nominal form that appears first in the construction (e.g. μητροκοίτης means "one who penetrates a mother".' This, together with usage of arsenokoitēin other texts from the second century C.E. onward, supports the meaning of 'one who penetrates a male' as most likely. However, numerous scholars have defended other meanings of arsenokoitai (and malakoi), arguing that they have more specialised connotations relating to, e.g., sexual violence, pederasty, or cultic prostitution. For further exegetical observations on the acts referred to in Romans 1:26-27, see the footnotes in my previous article.
  • 2 David E. Garland points out that the verb koilia ('belly') is occasionally used in the LXX as a euphemism for sexual organs (2 Kgdms 7:12; 16:11; Ps. 131:11; Sir. 23:6), which may have facilitated the food-belly/sex-genitals analogy (1 Corinthians [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic], 230).
  • 3 Pseudo-Phocylides, Sentences 175-76 (trans. Walter T. Wilson, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005], 187).
  • 4 The definite article preceding the word parthenos ('virgin') in 1 Corinthians 7:28, 34 is  (feminine). Thus, although the word parthenos can be used of males (cf. Rev. 14:4), Paul probably uses it exclusively for female virgins here. Nevertheless, it is clear from Paul's remarks in 1 Corinthians 7:27-28, 32-33, 36-38 that he has in mind the possibility of a celibate life both for men (like himself) and women.
  • 5 Of course, the notion that virginity is a holy and venerable calling would have been rooted in the life of Jesus himself, and also finds support in the saying of Jesus in Matthew 19:12 (cf. Isa. 56:3-5).

Thursday 11 July 2019

Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI, and Paul the Apostle (Part 1)

51 years ago, in July 1968, Pope Paul VI published an encyclical letter called Humanae Vitae ('Human Life') that is one of the most counter-cultural documents ever produced by the Catholic Church. In 1968, the Sexual Revolution was in full swing in the West, and social norms (and legal codes) concerning sexual behaviour were rapidly changing or would change in the future as a result. Specifically, sexual and related behaviours that were becoming or would become increasingly normalised in society included artificial contraception (especially the Pill), abortion, pornography, masturbation, premarital sex, casual sex, and homosexual sex. The common denominator to all of these items is the driving of a wedge between sex and procreation. The only essential purpose of sex is enjoyment (including relational bonding, for the more conservatively and monogamously minded); pregnancy is an incidental side effect that can be welcomed, avoided, or terminated as desired.

Against this background—and against the advice of some of his theological advisers—Pope Paul VI authoritatively taught in Humanae Vitae that the sexual act has two essential purposes, namely unitive and procreative. The unitive purpose is to unite married couples in mutual love, thus strengthening the marital bond. The procreative purpose is to produce offspring and thus perpetuate the human race. These purposes are intimately related in that a strong marital union contributes to a healthy setting for raising children. By declaring both of these purposes to be essential to the sexual act, the Pontiff implicitly reinforced the Church's long-standing prohibition on non-procreative sexual acts (e.g., masturbation, oral sex, anal sex) and explicitly forbade the use of contraception: 'any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation' is excluded. The only family planning method that is permitted is periodic abstinence, i.e. to 'take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile.' In effect, the Pope ruled all the 'fruits' of the Sexual Revolution off-limits. This was a radical stand to make, as by this time most of the Protestant world had embraced contraception as an acceptable family planning method, and many observers—Catholic and non-Catholic—assumed that the Pope would follow suit.

Humanae Vitae does not quote any Scripture, since it is intended more as a pastoral instruction than a theological treatise. Nevertheless, my recent study of the letters of St. Paul have led me to marvel at how aptly Pope Paul VI was named; for his teachings in Humanae Vitae are anticipated in the writings of his namesake apostle. (This is true despite the fact that Paul (and Scripture generally) offers no direct teaching on contraception.) In what follows I will briefly comment on Paul's ideas on sexuality and marriage based on passages in Romans and 1 Corinthians, and compare them to Humanae Vitae.

Injunctions against sexual immorality (porneia) are a common feature of the Pauline and deutero-Pauline1 epistles (1 Cor. 6:9-10; 2 Cor. 12:21; Gal. 5:19-21; 1 Thess. 4:3-5; Eph. 5:3-5; Col. 3:5-9; 1 Tim. 1:9-10). However, these are generally brief warnings and 'vice lists' that offer little insight into the theological grounding of Paul's sexual ethic. We do observe that sexual immorality is of 'the flesh,' the morally compromised aspect of human nature (Gal. 5:19), and that it correlates with idolatry and 'the Gentiles who do not know God' (1 Thess. 4:5; Eph. 5:5). The material that gives us greater insight into Paul's sexual ethic is found in Romans 1:18-32 and in 1 Corinthians 5-7.

Romans 1:18-32 is a section of the letter that contributes to a wider argument. Paul here effectively assumes the guise or role of a scrupulously law-observant Jew or Jewish Christian in order to indignantly condemn Gentiles for their idolatry and resulting loose morals. By v. 32 his Judaeo-centric readers are cheering him on as he unloads on the 'Gentile sinners' (for this phrase see Gal. 2:15). However, it is all a setup: beginning in 2:1 he turns the tables on self-righteous fellow Jews in order to eventually conclude that 'all, both Jews and Gentiles, are under sin' and in need of the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 3:9, 24). The point is not that Gentiles are actually good and Jews are bad, but that everyone is bad. Therefore, Paul's attack on Gentile sin in Romans 1:18-32, although a clever rhetorical device, does represent his actual views.

The main thrust of Romans 1:18-32 is that the Gentiles are culpably ignorant of God and idolatrous, and that as a result God has 'given them up' to their human fallenness ('the lusts of the hearts,' 1:24; 'degrading passions,' 1:26; 'their undiscerning mind,' 1:28), resulting in all kinds of wicked behaviour enumerated in vv. 29-31. However, in vv. 25-27 Paul singles out certain immoral sexual behaviour for special censure:
25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural, 27 and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity. (NABRE)
Now, Romans 1:26-27 is one of what LGBT Christians refer to as 'the clobber passages' that are used as proof texts (often without any nuance) to oppose same-sex relationships/marriage, or simply to make gay people feel unwelcome. My intention is certainly not to 'clobber' anyone but only to carefully examine Paul's contextual meaning. Notice that the immoral sexual behaviour described in vv. 26-27 results from denying God's creatorship.2 This implies that, for Paul, sexual morality is grounded in God's creative design, i.e., in nature. This is confirmed when Paul describes the illicit behaviour as an exchange or abandonment of 'the natural function' or 'the natural relations' (Greek: tēn phusikēn chrēsin) and as 'contrary to nature' (para phusin). By referring here to humans in their sexuality as 'male' (arsēn) and 'female' (thēlus) (terms Paul rarely uses),3 Paul alludes to the Genesis creation story ('he made them male [arsēn] and female [thēlus],' Gen. 1:27 LXX) and so grounds his understanding of 'the natural function' in the sexual complementarity of creation and the accompanying responsibility to procreate (Gen. 1:28). This reading of Paul's intent is supported by evidence from his historical context in Hellenistic Judaism.4

In Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI follows in his namesake's footsteps, emphasising that the Church's teaching on marriage 'is based on the natural law as illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation'. The Church acknowledges and defers to God's 'wisely ordered laws of nature,' including the natural phenomenon of sexual procreation. While Paul in Romans 1:26 probably refers to female-female homoerotic acts,5 just as 1:27 clearly refers to male-male homoerotic acts,6 it would be consistent with Paul's reasoning to regard as 'contrary to nature' and thus immoral any sexual act that involves a departure from 'the natural function' of sex, which includes its procreative purpose. Thus, in prohibiting measures intended to 'obstruct the natural development of the generative process,' Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae drew a conclusion that had been anticipated by Paul the Apostle in Romans 1:26.

The second part of this article will look at Paul's teaching on sex and marriage in 1 Corinthians 5-7, and how this too anticipates the teaching of Pope Paul VI in Humanae Vitae.


Footnotes

  • 1 The deutero-Pauline epistles are those that claim to have been written by Paul but that many modern scholars believe were written by someone else in his name, even after his death. The deutero-Pauline letters mentioned here are Ephesians, Colossians, and 1 Timothy. Romans, 1-2 Corinthians, Galatians, and 1 Thessalonians were all indisputably written by Paul himself.
  • 2 The link that Paul identifies between idolatry and sexual immorality is causal: the one leads to the other. Of course, in making this connection Paul would have been well aware of the sexual debauchery and prostitution that often accompanied idolatrous worship. However, this does not mean that Paul condemns sexually immoral acts only when practiced as part of idolatrous worship. The text is clear that he condemns such acts because they are intrinsically contrary to the natural order.
  • 3 Neither of these words occurs elsewhere in Paul's letters apart from Gal. 3:28, where the gendering of humans is again the point at issue. In the entire rest of the New Testament, the words arsēn and thēlus occur together only in Matt. 19:4 and Mark 10:6, both quotations from the creation story of Gen. 1:27 made to ground Jesus' teaching on marriage.
  • 4 For example, Paul's contemporary Philo of Alexandria describes homoerotic acts as 'contrary to nature' (para phusin, the same phrase Paul uses in Rom. 1:26) and condemns pederasty not only because of the damage it does to the violated young men but because the pederast disregards his responsibility to procreate (Special Laws 3.37-39). Elsewhere, he condemns the men of Sodom for discarding 'the law of nature' regarding sexuality (On Abraham 133-136). Josephus, Paul's younger contemporary, explains that Jewish laws allow no sexual intercourse except that 'according to nature' (kata phusin), namely of a man with his wife, and that only for procreation (Against Apion 2.199). He later condemns the Elean and Theban Greeks for doing 'that contrary-to-nature (para phusin, again same phrase as Rom. 1:26) and licentious thing of intercourse with males,' adding that they attribute such practices to their gods in order to justify their 'improper and contrary-to-nature (para phusin) pleasures' (Against Apion 2.273-275). The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides (first century B.C.E./first century C.E.) makes it obligatory to marry and procreate to 'give something to nature' (phusei, 175-76) and to 'Go not beyond natural (phuseōs) sexual unions for illicit passion' (190) (text and translations from Walter T. Wilson, The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides [Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005]). The same general moral principle that God's laws follow from the created order of nature is apparent in 4 Maccabees (late first century C.E.): 'Therefore we do not eat defiling food, for, believing that the law is divine, we know that the Creator of the world shows us sympathy by imposing a law that is in accordance with nature (kata phusin)' (4 Macc. 5.25-26 NETS). Finally, Wisdom of Solomon 14 identifies idolatry as the origin of sexual immorality (porneia, v. 12) and more specifically of 'inversion of procreation' (geneseōs enallagē, v. 26). The similarities between this passage and Romans 1:18-32 are so striking that numerous scholars have argued for some sort of literary dependence.
  • 5 It is also possible, though less likely, that the sexual acts 'contrary to nature' involving females that Paul has in mind here are heterosexual oral and/or anal sex. The former is condemned in one other early Christian text, the Epistle of Barnabas (cf. 10.8). What makes female-female homoerotic acts the most likely meaning is that only females are mentioned as the actors and that the male-male acts in v. 27 are likened to those in v. 26 using the word 'likewise' (homoiōs).
  • 6 Most English translations, for understandable reasons, neglect to convey the sexual explicitness of the Greek text. The phrase translated 'Males did shameful things with males' in the NABRE renders arsenes en arsesin tēn aschēmosunēn katergazomenoi. Aschēmosunē does literally mean 'disgrace' but is used as a euphemism for genitals in the Septuagint (Ex. 20:26; Lev. 18:6; Deut. 23:14) as well as in Rev. 16:15 (cf. BDAG 147). Given the sexual context of Rom. 1:27 it is best understood in this sense here, and so a literal translation of this phrase would be, 'Males working the member in males,' an obvious reference to male-male sexual intercourse.

Monday 24 June 2019

Gender Attraction and the Meaning of 'This Is My Body'

Having celebrated the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) yesterday, it seems appropriate to reflect on the words of institution found in four New Testament passages (Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22; Luke 22:19; 1 Corinthians 11:24), the last of which was part of yesterday's Mass Readings. There is perhaps no biblical instance of the verb 'to be' that is more debated in meaning than the phrase, 'This is my body.' In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, since antiquity, 'is' has been understood literally. He who had previously miraculously transformed water into wine and multiplied loaves now miraculously transforms bread into his flesh and wine into his blood. Since the Reformation, however, most Protestants have understood 'is' metaphorically: the bread only symbolises or evokes the body of Christ. This article is not going to end this long-running debate; it seeks only to draw attention to a subtle feature in the Greek text of these passages that may have some bearing on the meaning.

In all four above-mentioned texts, the words of institution are (in some order) τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου, a 'copular clause' consisting of subject (τοῦτό, 'this'), copula (ἐστιν, 'is') and predicate nominative (τὸ σῶμά μου, 'my body'). Nothing remarkable here. What is remarkable is the gender of the word τοῦτό, a feature that is impossible to convey in an English translation. The word τοῦτό is neuter in gender, whereas its apparent referent, ἄρτος ('bread') is masculine. Ordinarily, the gender of a pronoun agrees with the noun for which it stands, and so we would expect the pronoun to be masculine, οὗτος.1

Before pondering what this little grammatical anomaly might mean, let us look more closely at the key Greek clause (following the NA28 critical text) in all four passages (with my translations of the immediate context):
While they were eating, Jesus, taking bread and giving thanks, broke it. And giving it to his disciples, he said, 'Take, eat; this is my body' (Λάβετε, φάγετε, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου). (Matthew 26:26)
And while they were eating, taking bread and giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them and said, 'Take; this is my body' (Λάβετε, τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου). (Mark 14:22)
And taking bread, giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, 'This is my body which for you is given (τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ σῶμά μου τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν διδόμενον). This do in my remembrance.' (Luke 22:19)
That the Lord Jesus, on the night on which he was betrayed, taking bread and giving thanks, broke it and said, 'This my body is for you (τοῦτό μού ἐστιν τὸ σῶμα τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν). This do in my remembrance.' (1 Corinthians 11:23-24)
Again, the gender of the word τοῦτό ('this') does not agree with the gender of ἄρτος ('bread'), as it ought to do if, as generally assumed, 'this' does refer to the bread that Jesus has just broken. How do we explain this? Some scholars have argued that 'this' does not refer to 'bread,' or to any other noun, but rather to an action, such as Jesus' action of breaking the bread. A recent blog post by Steve Black defends this interpretation, which can also be found in print, for instance in a book by Bruce W. Winter.2 'This,' Jesus says as he tears the bread, 'is my body.' It is a visual metaphor: as the bread has been torn; so will his body be torn.

There are, however, two contextual problems with this interpretation. The first is that, in all four passages above, the words of institution are accompanied by a command, and in at least three of the four, the command appears to entail eating 'this,' which must therefore be a physical substance and not an action.3 The second contextual problem is that, in all four passages, 'This is my body' is paralleled by words of institution for the cup, which also commence in all four cases with τοῦτό. And, in all four cases, this τοῦτό unmistakably denotes 'the cup' (or, more specifically, its contents)4 and not an action.5 Given the obvious parallel structure between the two sayings ('This is my body'; 'This [cup] is my blood/the new covenant in my blood'), which is surely deliberate (for liturgical symmetry), it is far more likely that 'this' refers to the physical substance at hand than that it refers to an action.

If 'this' denotes the physical substance at hand, and not an action, then why the neuter gender? What we have here is a syntactical feature of ancient Greek that Daniel B. Wallace refers to as 'gender attraction.'6 This occurs in a copular clause (subject + copula + predicate nominative) when the subject is a pronoun but, instead of taking the gender of the noun to which it refers, it takes the gender of the predicate nominative. Hence, although 'this' is a pronoun referring back to 'bread,' it does not take the gender of 'bread' but attracts the gender of the predicative, 'body.' According to Wallace, gender attraction 'occurs when the focus of the discourse is on the predicate nominative: the dominant gender reveals the dominant idea of the passage' (my emphasis).

NT examples of gender attraction cited by Wallace, along with others identified by myself, are summarised in the table below.7 It appears that, in like manner, the four NT passages containing the words of institution 'This is my body' use gender attraction, using the neuter τοῦτό instead of the masculine οὗτος to stress that 'my body,' not 'bread,' is the dominant idea.

Reference
Pronoun Subject
Noun Referred to
Predicate Nominative
Comment
Matt. 13:38
οὗτοι, ‘these’ (masc. plural dem. pronoun)
τό...καλόν σπέρμα, ‘the good seed’(neut. singular)
οἱ υἱοί τῆς βασιλείας, ‘the sons of the kingdom’ (masc. plural)
Stresses masculine allegorical referent of good seed in parable of the wheat and weeds8
Mark 15:16
, ‘which’ (neut. rel. pronoun)
τῆς αὐλῆς, ‘the palace’ (fem.)
πραιτώριον, ‘praetorium’ (neut.)
Fairly mundane example; emphasis falls on praetorium as more specific descriptor; cf. similar instance in Mark 15:42 (/παρασκευὴ/προσάββατον)  
Acts 16:12
ἥτις, ‘which’ (fem. rel. pronoun)
Φιλίππους, ‘Philippi’ (masc.)
πόλις, ‘city’ (fem.)
Another mundane example; emphasis falls on Philippi’s status as a city rather than the name itself
Gal. 3:16
ὅς, ‘who’ (masc. rel. pronoun)
τῷ σπέρματί σου, ‘your seed’ (neut.)
Χριστός, ‘Christ’ (masc.)
Places emphasis on Christ as ultimate identity of ‘seed’ promised to Abraham in Genesis.
Eph. 6:17
, ‘which’ (neut. rel. pronoun)
τὴν μάχαιραν τοῦ πνεύματος, ‘the sword of the Spirit’ (fem.)
ῥῆμα θεοῦ, ‘the word of God’ (neut.)
Stresses neuter allegorical referent of sword in ‘armour of God’ metaphor
1 Tim. 3:15
ἥτις, ‘which’ (fem. rel. pronoun)
οἴκῳ θεοῦ, ‘the household of God’ (masc.)
ἐκκλησία θεοῦ ζῶντος, ‘the church of the living God’ (fem.)
Stresses ‘church’ as more formal, precise descriptor than ‘household’
Phlm 12
τοῦτ’, ‘this’ (neut. dem. pronoun)
αὐτόν, ‘him’ (masc.), referring to Onesimus
τὰ ἐμὰ σπλάγχνα, ‘my beloved,’ ‘my very heart’
Stresses emphatic, emotive description of Onesimus’ closeness to Paul
Rev. 4:5
, ‘which’ (neut. plur. rel. pronoun)
ἑπτὰ λαμπάδες πυρὸς, ‘seven flaming torches’ (fem. plur.)
ἑπτὰ πνεύματα τοῦ θεοῦ, ‘seven spirits of God’ (neut. plur.)
Emphasises reality denoted by torches seen in vision
Rev. 20:14
οὗτος, ‘this’ (masc. dem. pronoun)
λίμνη τοῦ πυρός, ‘the lake of fire’ (fem.)
θάνατος δεύτερός, ‘the second death’ (masc.)
Emphasises reality denoted by lake seen in vision

Now, this insight does not unambiguously resolve the sacramental vs. metaphorical, Catholic vs. Protestant debate over the meaning of the words of institution. One could associate 'This is my body' with allegorical cases of gender attraction such as Matt. 13:38 and Eph. 6:17 (see table above), in order to classify it as a fundamentally metaphorical statement. Or, one could associate 'This is my body' with mystical cases of gender attraction such as Rev. 4:5 and 20:14 (see table above), in which a visible thing is some transcendent reality, and so assert that the bread really is Christ's body. Unquestionably, 'This is my body,' with 'this' denoting something visible and about to be eaten, is far more vivid than elements of a fictitious parable. However, all that we can say for certain is that the text is constructed so as to make 'my body' the dominant idea, the point of emphasis, in Jesus' words as he describes the food he is distributing to his disciples. The syntax alone cannot definitively resolve the issue.

There is, however, one last point to which I would like to draw attention. In Eph. 1:22-23 we have a statement that is remarkably similar to the words of institution: God gave Christ as 'head over all things in the church, which is his body.' In this instance, Catholics and Protestants should be able to agree that this is not a literal statement. It describes a mystical reality deeper than a metaphor (a reality very much linked to the Eucharist), but no one asserts that the Church literally is the flesh-and-blood body of Christ. In view of this, it is fascinating to note the syntactic difference between Eph. 1:22-23 and the words of institution. Here, we have τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ('the church,' fem.), ἥτις ('which', fem.) ἐστὶν τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ ('is his body,' neut.). Gender attraction is not used here; the pronoun remains feminine, so 'the church' remains the dominant idea in view.9 Given that this statement falls within the Pauline corpus,10 as do the words of institution in 1 Cor. 11:24, it marks a significant syntactic contrast. Why is it that when describing the Eucharistic food as 'my body,' gender attraction is used (so heightening the emphasis on 'my body' as opposed to the visible specimen of bread), but when describing the Church as 'his body,' gender attraction is not used? One possible explanation is that the Eucharistic food 'is' Christ's body in a more fundamental way than the Church is. The Church is Christ's body indirectly, as a result of her partaking of the Eucharistic food that is directly, actually Christ's body.

Footnotes

  • 1 The word 'this' is a proximal demonstrative pronoun: pronoun because it stands in for a noun, demonstrative because it points something out (in the speaker's/writer's physical or conceptual setting), proximal because it points out something nearby, drawing attention toward the speaker (as opposed to the distal demonstrative pronoun 'that,' which points out something distant, away from the speaker). Notice that in English, the form of a demonstrative pronoun changes if it stands in for a plural noun: 'these' rather than 'this'; 'those' rather than 'that.' The number of the pronoun must agree with the number of the noun for which it stands. The same is true in ancient Greek, but because—unlike English but like many modern languages such as French and German—all nouns are also gendered, the demonstrative pronoun ordinarily agrees with the noun for which it stands not only in number (singular or plural) but also in gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter, in Greek).
  • 2 Bruce W. Winter, After Paul Left Corinth: The Influence of Secular Ethics and Social Change (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 153-54.
  • 3 In Matthew and Mark, the accompanying command immediately precedes the word 'this' and clearly concerns a physical substance: 'Take, eat' (Matthew); 'Take' (Mark). Contextually, 'this' surely refers to that which they are to take and eat. In 1 Corinthians and Luke, the accompanying command is 'this do' (τοῦτο ποιεῖτε) and immediately follows the words of institution. Here, τοῦτο does refer to an action, but not exclusively the action of breaking the bread. The Pauline context shows that Paul interprets 'this do' primarily in terms of eating.In Paul's discussion of the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 10-11, while he does refer once to 'the bread we break' (10:16), his emphasis is on eating the bread (10:17; 11:20, 26, 27, 28, 29, 33). Indeed, the same command 'this do' accompanies the words of institution for the cup, where no obvious action is in view. In 11:26, Paul directly explains the two 'this do' commands thus: 'For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.' The command in Luke is admittedly ambiguous: the Lucan context offers few clues as to what 'this do' entails, and does not repeat the command for the cup (presumably Luke assumes his audience is familiar with the liturgical implications). Luke does elsewhere show special interest in the 'breaking of bread' (Luke 24:35; Acts 20:7), but nevertheless 'this do' for Luke probably refers to the entire procedure of taking bread, giving thanks over it, breaking, distributing, and eating.
  • 4 'The cup' in Luke and 1 Corinthians is an instance of synecdoche, referring to the liquid in the cup rather than the container. This is particularly clear in Paul, where the repeated phrase 'drink the cup' (1 Cor. 10:21; 11:26-28) makes no sense if 'cup' (the direct object) refers only to the container. Matthew 26:27 and Mark 14:23, by contrast, refer to drinking from the cup (ἐξ αὐτοῦ); but in these instances, τοῦτό in the words of institution probably refers specifically to the liquid and not to the cup: in the phrase 'this is my blood,' 'this' can hardly denote a container. Matthew and Mark do use the idiom 'drink the cup' elsewhere (Matt. 20:22-23; 26:42; Mark 9:41; 10:38-39).
  • 5 'This is my blood of the covenant that for many is poured out... (τοῦτο γάρ ἐστιν τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης πολλῶν ἐκχυννόμενον...', Matthew 26:28); 'This is my blood of the covenant that is poured out for many. (τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης τὸ ἐκχυμμόμενον ὑπὲρ πολλῶν', Mark 14:24); 'This cup [is] the new covenant in my blood, which for many is poured out.' (τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἷματί μου τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν ἐκχυμμόμενον, Luke 22:20); 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood' (τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐστιν ἐν τῷ ἐμῷ αἷματι, 1 Corinthians 11:25). In Matthew and Mark, 'this' is the object of the pouring-out action, and so can only be the cup. In Luke and 1 Corinthians the word 'cup' (ποτήριον) is explicitly supplied: 'this cup'.
  • 6 Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 338.
  • 7 There are several other instances that are text-critically uncertain: Eph. 1:13-14 (ὅς/τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ/ἀρραβὼν, where however NA28 reads ὅ rather than ὅς; Col. 1:27 (ὅς/τὸ πλοῦτος or τοῦ μυστηρίου/Χριστὸς, where however NA28 reads ὅ rather than ὅς); Rev. 5:6 (ἅ/ὀφθαλμοὺς/τὰ [ἑπτὰ] πνεύματα τοῦ θεοῦ, where however NA28 reads οἵ rather than ἅ, and κέρατα could also be the referent noun in addition to ὀφθαλμοὺς)
  • 8 Similar gender attraction occurs in the Parable of the Sower in Luke 8:14-15, where τὸ (neuter) implicitly denotes seed, for which the masculine plural pronoun οὗτοι is then used. Cf. Matt. 13:19-22; Mark 4:15-20.
  • 9 A reverse case can be seen in Col. 1:24, which speaks of 'his body, which is the church' (τοῦ σώματος αὐτοῦ, ὅ ἐστιν ἡ ἐκκλησία), where gender attraction likewise does not occur: the relative pronoun ὅ is neuter, agreeing with the referent noun τοῦ σώματος ('his body') rather than the feminine predicate nominative ἡ ἐκκλησία ('the church').
  • 10 Granting that the authorship of Ephesians is a subject of considerable scholarly debate, with Pauline authorship being a minority position.