Читать книгу 1 Corinthians - Luise Schottroff - Страница 29

In 1:24 Paul calls believers in the Messiah from the [non-Jewish/Gentile] nations in the Corinthian congregation Hellēnes (»Greeks«) and distinguishes them from Jewish believers in the Messiah. The expression »Heidenchristen,« used in earlier literature is inappropriate because of the pejorative sense of the word Heiden [»heathen/pagan«], which corresponds neither to Jewish usage (goyim, ethnē [Hebrew and Greek for »nations,« respectively]) nor to Paul’s. The word christlich [»Christian«] is not yet applicable for that period, as what follows also shows.

The believers in the Messiah from the nations do not become Jews through their call by the God of Israel. Ethnically (for this is the way the concepts Ioudaioi [»Jews«] and Hellēnes [»Greeks«] in 1 Cor 1:22–24 are to be interpreted), nothing about their identity changes. Strictly speaking, however, modes of worship are also part of ethnic identity, and they have indeed changed their modes of worship. Apparently, it is no concern of Paul’s to ponder questions of identity with any precision. The difficulty and imprecision connected with the concept Hellēnes (see on 1:22–24) cannot be resolved. It is possible that these people stem neither from Greek nor Roman peoples. They live in Corinth and participate in the culture, language and imperial cults that predominate there.⁹⁷ Paul’s letter makes reference to the cults and cult meals in the temples (8:10)⁹⁸ and to food offered to idols and sold at the market (see 10:25 and Chapters 8–10 as a whole). In 8:4–6 Paul mentions a multiplicity of gods, something incompatible, of course, with the oneness of the God of Israel. This oneness of God must lead to conflict when believers in the Messiah from the nations are expected to demonstrate their loyalty to the Roman Empire. The worship sites in the forum in Corinth and the games and plays in Corinth were probably the places that for the believers in the Messiah from the nations brought the possibility of conflicts with Roman expectations for loyalty.⁹⁹ In this respect they were in the same situation as Jews who lived in Corinth.

What can be said about the identity of the believers in the Messiah from the nations in comparison with the Jews? Almost the only thing we have at our disposal to answer this question is the perspective of Paul. To begin with, only in 5:1–13 is there a differentiated view of the congregational assembly. The congregation interprets the Scripture differently from Paul with respect to the issue of a man who is living with his stepmother (see on 5:1–13). That the Scripture/the Torah (see nomos in 7:19) of the Jewish people is the basis for the way believers in the Messiah shape their lives is shown throughout 1 Corinthians (see on 7:19). Paul can presuppose that his addressees have detailed knowledge of the Scripture, as Chapter 10, for example, shows. Although many people in the congregation are not educated (1:26; see also what has already been said above on 1:4–9), they are accustomed to being active participants in the interpretation of Scripture going on at the time.¹⁰⁰ They follow Jewish practices and live according to the Torah, but neither they themselves nor the Jewish people understand them to be Jews. Only after 70 CE did the fiscus Judaicus make it necessary for them and those like them to clarify for Roman authorities their status with respect to Jewish identity.

The oneness of the God of Israel (8:4–6), in the sense of the »Hear, O Israel/Shema Israel,« is acknowledged by them as well as by the Jewish people. In Chapters 8–10 Paul discusses the Halakic consequences of the uniqueness of God for everyday life in Corinth. This everyday life is defined by cults that are foreign to Israel. For believers in the Messiah, even the religions with which they were formerly associated are now alien cults in which they are no longer able to participate. The Pauline halakah/interpretation on these issues moves within the framework of the halakah of the Judaism of that period. It follows from 7:19 that Paul takes it as self-evident that the believers in the Messiah from the nations observe the Torah unreservedly, even if he just as self-evidently assumes that the males, in contrast to Jewish males, are not circumcised. He does not have in view here a limited Torah for the nations (see on 7:19). Rather, it is clear that particular aspects of Jewish life distinguish the Jewish people as ethnos and therefore are not practiced by people who belong to another ethnos, especially the temple worship in Jerusalem (10:18) and circumcision. It can be assumed that all other aspects of Jewish life that are in accord with the Torah, in so far as they are not mentioned in the Pauline text, also apply to the lives of the non-Jewish people of the Messiah in Corinth: Sabbath observance, food laws and others. In Chapters 8–10 Paul discusses how to relate to other gods and not food laws, as is often assumed. The temple tax does not appear to be paid, but the collection for Jerusalem (16:1–4) is understood as an expression of the relationship to Jerusalem and therewith to Israel.¹⁰¹ The relationship to Israel is interpreted by Paul as an adoption by God¹⁰² or also as a joining with or turning to the God of Israel (Acts 15:19, 14:15).

So, believers in the Messiah from the nations commit themselves to the oneness of the God of Israel (8:4–6) and to observing the entire Torah (7:19). Israel’s ancestors become their ancestors as well (10:1)—and yet they continue to belong to a different ethnos.

From the perspective of those on the outside, they later received the name christianoi or christiani.¹⁰³ This designation signifies that they are understood by those on the outside to be a Jewish messianic group, just as there were others before them and are others alongside them in Judaism. As such they are also persecuted by Rome, for there is an ongoing policy of Roman mistrust against Jewish messianism.¹⁰⁴ In texts of the first century and the beginning of the second, the word christianoi or christiani ought to have been translated »followers of the Messiah.« The word Christian implies a separation from Judaism, which was the view neither of those within nor of those on the outside.

The question about the identity of believers in the Messiah in Corinth has no simple answer. Non-Jewish people lived in a Jewish way and bound themselves unreservedly to the God of Israel. The question of their identity, in terms of inner and outside authorities, was apparently raised by no one. Correspondingly, even the question of what a Ioudaios was exactly was not the object of definitions. But when the issue was raised at all, it was answered by listing various aspects of one’s way of life.¹⁰⁵

In view of the way later Christians wrote history, also with respect to the congregation in Corinth, this much is clear: the separation from Judaism that was later practiced by those on the Christian side is often projected backward into the first century, but this view of history is false. There was neither a separation from Judaism asserted by people of the Messiah from the nations nor was there a separation asserted over against them by Jewish members of the synagogue who denied that Jesus was the Messiah. Also, from the Roman side, both groups were subject to the same social pressure and political mistrust. The politics of separation, then, was the work of certain »Church Fathers« in the second century.¹⁰⁶

Only after the Jewish defeat against Rome in 70 CE, to make determinations for the fiscus Judaicus, did Roman authorities have an interest in knowing exactly who was Jewish and who wasn’t.¹⁰⁷ In this context, short descriptions emerge that could fit believers in the Messiah from the nations: »inprofessi Judaicam viverent vitam/people who, without professing to be Jewish, lived in accord with Jewish ritual.«¹⁰⁸ Cassius Dio reports about two relatives of the emperor who were condemned as atheists and then appends a generalizing notice about »alloi es ta tōn Ioudaiōn ēthē exokellontes/others who drifted into Jewish ways.«¹⁰⁹ Even if it is not possible to conclude with certainty whether this is about believers in the Messiah from the nations or about others from the nations who were sympathetic to Judaism, these references are of interest for 1 Corinthians. They show what the views on such groups from the outside look like.

Shaye Cohen (1999, 140–174) has listed six heuristic categories for the »Beginnings of Jewishness« (for example, to acknowledge the power of the Jewish God and/or to practice some or several Jewish rituals). They show how we can envision the way of life of people from the nations who in some way or other lived as Jews without being Jewish. They were amorphous, undefined and decentralized processes. The findings for the Corinthian congregation merely add a variant to this picture, one variant among many, which, however, does fit into the picture as a whole.