Paul and the Apocalyptic Imagination

by Ben C Blackwell

  This sense of choice is immediately clarified in 7:32–35. “I want you to be free of anxieties (ἀμέριμνοι),” says Paul, but what looks like a blanket statement turns out to be carefully differentiated. The unmarried person is, quite rightly, “anxious” about the business of the Lord (μεριμνᾷ τὰ τοῦ κυρίου). He/she is concerned with how to please the Lord (7:32), a concern that is unambiguously proper (cf. 1 Thess. 4:1; Rom. 8:8). The married person, on the contrary, is anxious about the business of the world (μεριμνᾷ τὰ τοῦ κόσμου), that is, how to please his/her spouse (7:33, 34). As a result they are “divided” (μεμέρισται, 7:34), whereas Paul advises well-ordered and undistracted attendance on the Lord (7:35). At this point, there are well-known parallels in the radical Stoic or Cynic attitude to marriage, as liable to distract the philosopher from the more urgent business of leading people to a better manner of life (e.g., Epictetus, Diss. 3.22).[26] For Paul, what counts is allegiance to the newly installed κύριος: to declare, at baptism, κύριος Ἰησοῦς (12:3) is to commit oneself unreservedly to the service of the present and future cosmic ruler, and he is best served with both hands, not with one effectively tied behind one’s back.

  What is striking about this passage, and grossly offensive to Protestant Christians in the modern era, is the way it places concern for one’s spouse in the category of τὰ τοῦ κόσμου, a category which is juxtaposed with, and non-identical to, τὰ τοῦ κυρίου. The two spheres are clearly differentiated such that attention to both makes one “divided.” They are not opposed in the sense that one is wholly incompatible with the other. Belonging to a prostitute and belonging to the Lord are incompatible (1 Cor. 6:15–16), but belonging to, and attending to, one’s spouse does not exclude one from belonging to the Lord. But neither are these two relations simply harmonized, such that pleasing one’s spouse could be construed as a way of pleasing the Lord. To please one’s spouse would not be to destroy one’s devotion to the Lord, but it would weaken it. Single-hearted, undivided attention to the Lord would be preferable, and to combine these two allegiances threatens to limit one’s attention to the Lord. Hence, while Paul does not insist on singleness, which carries some risks (7:9), he clearly thinks it is the preferable state (7:35).

  The fact that to attend to one’s spouse is to be concerned with τὰ τοῦ κόσμου is of a piece with the detachment Paul advocated for the married in 7:29 (“those who have wives as not having them”); that, as we saw, was a disinvestment not in relationships per se, but in relationships that “use the world.” It is notable that Paul does not categorize pleasing one’s spouse as a form of love, and that would surely have changed the picture: loving others and serving the Lord certainly can be placed in synthesis (Gal. 6:2). Perhaps Paul is conscious that many marriages were mixed (1 Cor. 7:12–16), or that marriage was often undertaken for familial or civic purposes that bore no positive relation to love or to any aspect of “the business of the Lord.”[27] Later in this letter, Paul draws a distinction between what goes on ἐν οἴκῳ and what happens ἐν ἐκκλησίᾳ (11:18, 22, 33; cf. 14:34–35).[28] Even when the church met in a household (as it often, but not always, did),[29] Paul seems to have drawn a distinction between the ordinary affairs of the household and the business of the Lord (e.g., the “Lord’s meal”) that takes place when believers met as a church. The many demands of marriage (emotional, social, and financial) are summed up in Paul’s language about being “bound” to a spouse (7:27). Paul seems to have regarded such demands and activities as τὰ τοῦ κόσμου in distinction from τὰ τοῦ κυρίου, much as he elsewhere refers to money as σαρκικά in distinction from the πνευματικά given in the gospel (1 Cor. 9:11; Rom. 15:27), and in parallel to the way that he applies the adjective σαρκικός to ordinary everyday wisdom (2 Cor. 1:12) or ordinary human weapons (2 Cor. 10:4). This suggests that there is a wide sphere of social relations that have no direct relation to the inaugurated Lordship of Jesus. They are not necessarily opposed to that Lordship, but they do not bear allegiance to Christ, as does the social sphere of the church. A believer may certainly seek to honor Christ in such a sphere, but the sphere of relations itself (e.g., the household, work-relations, the sphere of economic activity, or the activities of the state) are not themselves “Christianized” by being brought into direct relation to Christ. In the undisputed letters, one can be a Christian slave (1 Cor. 7:21–24; Philemon), but slavery itself is not “Christianized,” such that owning and ruling a slave becomes a way of serving Christ. Onesimus is to be a beloved brother both in the sphere of ordinary household relations (καὶ ἐν σαρκί) and in the sphere of relations that are directly aligned to Christ (καὶ ἐν κυρίῳ, Philemon 16). The believer is responsible to the Lord in both spheres, but they are not one and the same, and “the business of the world” in slavery (buying and selling slaves; organizing them, allocating their duties, dealing with the recalcitrant), like “the business of the world” in marriage (acquiring and maintaining a home; running household affairs; earning enough to maintain a family; dealing with the resultant sickness and sorrow) can distract one’s attention and lessen one’s devotion to the Lord.[30]

  Inasmuch as the sphere of the world, as presently constituted, is not part of that “new creation” which has emerged with the resurrection of Christ, it is not itself amenable to redemption or Christian reform, even if the believer seeks to live in it with as much faithfulness as possible. One lives within it, but without full investment, because “the form of this world” [= this world as presently constituted] “is passing away” (7:31). On these terms, marriage is not itself a sin, but the married believer has no investment in the “goods” that marriage is thought to bring (financial security; social honor; the generation of children; the continuance of one’s name; the maintenance of one’s property-line), and thus lives in marriage “as not” having a spouse. Better, in fact, to be single, and without the worldly distractions that impede the believer from giving full attention to the business of the Lord. This is not because sex is polluting,[31] or because the body is to be despised. In fact, it is precisely because the body is “for the Lord” that it is awkward for ownership of the body to be shared between the spouse (7:4) and the Lord (6:19–20).[32]

  Conclusions: “Apocalyptic” Ethics

  First Corinthians 7 opens a fascinating window onto the original “apocalyptic” mindset that was “the mother of Christian theology” (Käsemann), and onto its practical, ethical implications. Bultmann was correct to insist (against Schweitzer) that the early Christian “apocalyptic” ethic was not fundamentally an emergency, interim ethic, a special set of conditions imaginable only when believers awaited the imminent new dawn. Paul (like other early Christians of his generation) did believe in the imminence of the end, but this was not the only reason why they disinvested in “the world.” In his view, believers lived in the midst of the “apocalypse” itself, and their newly aligned allegiance to the risen, reigning, but embattled, Lord reset their priorities and encouraged a critical distance from all that was not directly aligned to Christ—a form of disinvestment that limited the quality and/or the quantity of engagements with worldly activities. Bultmann’s existentialist reading of this phenomenon was one of the defining characteristics of his theology.[33] What is eschatological about the Christ-event is, for Bultmann, the way it tears us from our past, and sets before us the possibility of living from and for the future—in a radical dependence on God’s grace that is simultaneously our freedom from our sinful self-reliance, from captivity to the illusion that the world is at our disposal. In the address of God’s word to each person “as an isolated individual being,”[34] the eschaton is not an objectifiable event in history but the ever-renewed impact of the gospel, which repeatedly calls forth a decision of obedience and faith. As Käsemann insisted, this collapse of eschatology into a repeatable present, and its restriction to the inner lif
e of the individual, risks obscuring the purchase of the gospel on the real-life world of social allegiance and social conflict, in which the Lordship of Christ requires to be expressed in practical, physical, ways.[35] Paul did not call for an inner freedom from all circumstances: he called for discrimination between the business of the Lord and the business of the world, on the grounds that the one was the harbinger of the coming rule of God, and the other the residue of the past, in the limited time before its end. In this bracket of time, believers look in two directions—both back, to the “apocalyptic” intrusion of God into “the present evil age,” and forward to the moment when death, which rules by its current “constraint,” is swallowed up in the victory of Christ. If that chronological frame is lost or demythologized, Christian disengagement becomes a purely internal and psychological phenomenon.[36] Where it is retained, it calls forth hard and highly practical decisions about the places where believers, both individually and collectively, invest or disinvest their energy and attention. Even if we do not draw the line between “the business of the world” and “the business of the Lord” in exactly the same place as Paul, the question he poses remains highly pertinent. And the decision of many early Christians, shaped by “apocalyptic” convictions, to choose singleness over marriage, poverty over wealth, and martyrdom over life, remains a challenge which modern Western Christians are all too eager to forget.

  * * *

  At the SBL session which inaugurated this volume, I sensed the term “apocalyptic” being used in at least six ways: i) for the revelation of mysteries; ii) for a strong sense of newness (compatible with “new covenant”), perhaps accompanied by shock or surprise; iii) for eschatology of a particular kind; iv) for the expectation of an imminent end; v) for an epistemological stance, whereby truth is ascertained, first and foremost, through the Christ-event; vi) for a three-actor drama (involving God, humanity, and evil forces), in which God saves by invading the world. I am grateful to all those who gave me feedback at and after that session, and to Troels Engberg-Pedersen for a careful and penetrating written response soon after. ↵

  The same could be said, of course, for other scholarly labels, not least the terms “covenant” and “covenantal.” ↵

  See, e.g., M. C. de Boer, The Defeat of Death: Apocalyptic Eschatology in 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5, JSNTSup 22 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1988); A. R. Brown, The Cross and Human Transformation: Paul’s Apocalyptic Word in 1 Corinthians (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989). See further E. Adams, Constructing the World: A Study in Paul’s Cosmological Language, SNTW (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 105–49. ↵

  For a classic treatment, see W. Schrage, “Die Stellung zur Welt bei Paulus, Epiktet und in der Apokalyptik: Ein Beitrag zu 1Kor 7,29-31,” ZTK 61, no. 2 (1964): 125–54, drawing heavily on a parallel passage in 6 Ezra (2 Esdras) 16:35–50. The apocalyptic features of 1 Cor. 7:25–31 are widely recognized, but the paragraph is sometimes treated as a piece of pre-formed tradition that sits awkwardly in its present context; see, e.g., V. Wimbush, Paul, The Worldly Ascetic: Response to the World and Self-Understanding according to 1 Corinthians 7 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1987). ↵

  See W. Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy: The Hellenistic Background of 1 Corinthians 7, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 179–80. ↵

  It is remarkable how often commentators retain the meaning “imminent” without, it appears, any persuasive philological support. See, e.g., H. Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, Hermeneia (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1975), 132; A. C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 572. ↵

  Conzelmann, 1 Corinthians, 132; C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, BNTC, 2nd ed. (London: A&C Black, 1971), 175–76; W. Schrage, Der Erste Brief an die Korinther (1Kor 6,12—11,16), EKK VII/2 (Solothurn: Benzier; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1995), 156, with others in his n. 600. ↵

  Later in this chapter, 1 Cor. 7:37; later in this letter, 1 Cor. 9:16; elsewhere, 2 Cor. 9:7; Philem. 14; cf. Rom. 13:5. ↵

  See, e.g., Josephus, Ant. 2.67 (confinement in prison); Bell. 5.571 (famine in Jerusalem under siege led εἰς τοσοῦτον ἀνάγκης); Ant. 16.253 (torture). Cf. LSJ s.v. which lists the meanings as 1. force, constraint, necessity; 2. natural want or desire; fate, destiny; philosophical necessity; 3. actual force, violence, punishment; 4. bodily pain, anguish, suffering, distress. Note that this last is found only in poetic texts. ↵

  BAGD’s category “distress, calamity” seems to me unfounded, and its reference to “the distress in the last days” is based only on Luke 21:23 and 1 Cor. 7:26. All the texts referred to under this heading (2) refer not to distress in general, but to circumstances of dire necessity or constraint. And this Greek term can hardly be accorded a technical meaning by reference to apocalyptic texts written in a different language (pace Conzelmann’s appeal to 4 Ezra and Jubilees, 1 Corinthians, 132n13). ↵

  B. Winter, “Secular and Christian Responses to Corinthian Famines,” TynBul 40, no. 1 (1989): 86–106, followed by, among others, Thiselton, First Epistle, 573. ↵

  R. B. Hays, First Corinthians, Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1997), 129. ↵

  If there are “birth-pangs” they are future (1 Thess. 5:3), the immediate prelude to the parousia. Cf. A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle (New York: Seabury, 1968), 142–45; D. Allison, The End of the Ages has Come: An Early Interpretation of the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 62–69 (putting considerable weight on an uncertain reading of Col. 1:24). If 2 Thessalonians is by Paul (which I doubt), the eschatological scenario of lawlessness is emphatically future, not present. For a recent full treatment of eschatological “tribulation” in the early Jewish tradition, see B. Pitre, Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile, WUNT 2/204 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). He does not appeal to our verse as evidence. ↵

  At this point, Paul stands very close to the visions of present reality in apocalyptic texts such as 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch. According to 4 Ezra, this age is full of sadness and infirmities (4 Ezra 4:27); the entrances of this world are narrow, sorrowful, toilsome, few, evil, full of dangers, and liable to great hardship (7:12); an evil heart has brought about corruption and death (7:48); we live in sorrow, knowing we are doomed to perish (7:64, 117). According to 2 Baruch, this world is a struggle (2 Bar. 15:8) and the present years are few and evil (16:1); the world is full of corruption, and the present time is polluted by evils (44:9–10). For an eloquent account of the tendency of all things towards decay and degradation, see 2 Baruch 83. ↵

  See Schrage, Erste Brief, 165–66, for the early history of reception, which understood Paul along such lines. We do not need to imagine here specifically eschatological difficulties, nor the persecutions that attended faithfulness to Christ (1 Thess. 3:3–4; 2 Cor. 6:4–10). ↵

  Could this phrase be read along the lines of “but I spare you censure for getting married” (with reference to 7:28a)? That has been suggested to me by Troels Engberg-Pedersen (in a private communication), though I am not quite persuaded. Where Paul speaks of sparing the Corinthians from grief or reproach (2 Cor. 1:23; 13:2), the context makes clear that this is the case, whereas in 1 Corinthians 7, Paul never makes explicit that he would otherwise ban them altogether from getting married. However, he does take pains to insist that he is not placing them under restraint (7:35), so conceivably, the meaning could be, “But I spare you from imposing my preference on you” (cf. 7:6–7). However, the sequence of the clauses in 7:28 probably supports the normal interpretation, and the present tense may be conative: “and I am trying to spare you that (affliction)” (so Barrett, First Epistle, 176). ↵

  2 Baruch offers a partially parallel scenario, where an event (in that case the destruction of Jerusalem) renders marriage and child-bearing joyless and pointless. In such a context, the seer urges brides and bridegrooms not to marry, and wives not to bear children. “Those who have
no children will be glad, and those who have children will be sad. For why do they bear in pain only to bury in grief?” (2 Bar. 10:13–15). ↵

  Not that the condition Paul describes is somehow “perennial” (pace Wimbush, Worldly Ascetic, 34). ↵

  Thus much more is at stake here than the “difficult circumstances” that might make Stoics hesitate to commit to marriage, pace Deming, Paul on Marriage and Celibacy, 174–93. ↵

  The difficulties of interpretation in 7:36–38 have led to suggestions that the issue is particularly a) the duty of fathers to give their daughters in marriage; or b) the practice of “spiritual marriage” between men and women; or c) the pressure on young people who are already betrothed to go ahead and marry. See the discussion in the commentaries, e.g., G. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 325–27. Schrage insists that the whole of 7:25–38 is about girls who are already betrothed (Erste Brief, 152–53), but most other commentators disagree. Fortunately, it is not necessary to resolve this issue here. ↵