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Sacred Violence and "Works of Law/' "Is Christ Then an Agent of Sin?

" (Galatians 2:17)


R. G. HAMERTON-KELLY
Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305

E. P. Sanders2 and H. Risnen3 for not taking the social function of the law as a marker of group identity seriously enough and therefore concluding prematurely that Paul's teaching on the law is inconsistent. Referring to the work of the social anthropologists Hans Mol and Mary Douglas, Dunn argues that ritual serves to mark the identity and delimit the boundary of a group, and then identifies circumcision and the kosher laws as performing this function for the Jews in the Greco-Roman world. He quotes Philo on the phrase "a people dwelling apart" (Num 23:9): (Balaam says) "But I shall not be able to harm the people, which shall dwell alone, not reckoned among the nations: and that, not because their dwelling place is set apart and their land severed from others, but because in virtue
JAMES D. G. DUNN1 CRITICIZES
1 J. Dunn, "Works of the Law and the Curse of the Law (Galatians 3:10-14),** NTS 31 (1985) 523-42. 2 . P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). These criticisms of Sanders are not entirely just. Although Sanders does not use anthropological terminology he does appreciate the fact that the laws that Paul specifically condemns are those that "created a social distinction between Jews and other races in the Greco-Roman world . . . aspects of Judaism which drew criticism and ridicule from pagan authors.** Sanders could be faulted for not capitalizing on this insight, but not for lacking it. Secondly, although Sanders finds the surface of PauPs thought inconsistent, he regards it as coherent at a deeper level (Paul and Palestinian Judaism: A Comparison of Patterns of Religion [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977] 433). 3 H. Risnen, Paul and the Law (WUNT 29; Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1983).

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56 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 of the distinction of their peculiar customs they do not mix with others to 4 depart from the way of their fathers" (Vit. Mos. 1.278). Against this back ground Dunn takes the phrase "works of law" in Gal 3:10 in the sense of 5 "obligations set by law," that is "the religious system determined by law." In Gal 2:16, he argues, the phrase refers back to the matters discussed in the previous section, namely, circumcision and food laws. So the phrase does not describe the deeds of moral and religious practice that earn the approval of 6 God, but rather the ritual markers of "the Jewish way of life" (Gal 2:14). The Qumran community is a clear example of this phenomenon; the "deeds of the law" marked the life of the members as distinctive (1QS 5:21,23; 6:18) and identified the group as the community of the end of time (4QFlor 1:1-7). Dunn maintains that this reading of Paul is not a return to the view that he makes distinctions within the lawe.g., between moral and ceremonial, inward and outward aspectsbut is rather the identification of two attitudes to the law as a whole, one that misunderstands it to set off Jewish existence from all other, and another that understands it properly. This proper attitude is faith ("the law of faith"Rom 3:27; 9:31-32) and love of neighbor (Rom 13:10). On this view Dunn can make sense out of the enigmatic sayings in Romans 2 that the Gentiles can do the law ( w 14-15,26-27) while Jews may not do the law even though they maintain their covenant identity by means of it ( w 21-23). Jewish "boasting" in the law (Rom 2:23; cf. 17) does not refer to the piety that relies on achievement but to a view of the law as the mark of the divine favor towards the Jews, regardless of conduct. Dunn acknowledges, however, that this explanation does not account for the passages on the law in Rom 5:20 and 7:7-11,7 which rather puts in question his claim that Sanders and Risnen are premature in judging Paul
4 Philo VI (tr. F. H. Colson; LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University; London: William Heinemann, 1959) 421. 5 J. A. Sanders ("Torah and Paul," God's Christ and His People: Studies in Honour of Nils Alstrup Dahl [ed. J. Jervell and W. Meeks; Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, 1977] 132-40, esp. pp. 137 and 139 n. 22) cites L. Monsengwo Pasinya (La notion de nomos dans la Pentateuque Grec [AnBib 52; Rome: Biblical Institute, 1973]) to the effect that the term meant "symbol of the polis, the cosmos, incarnation, religion, even social relations and human-divine relations." It is, therefore, the word for the Jewish way of life, "the identity symbol, over against , for those Jews who maintained their identity 'in Torah' rather than changing it to 'in Christ' " (p. 137). 6 W. D. Davies ("Paul and the People of Israel," NTS 24 (1977) 4-39, esp. p. 19 n. 5) suggests that "way of life" is the best translation of in Gal 1:13-14. The word is rare in Greco-Jewish sources, being found only in 2 Mace 2:21 ; 8:1 ; 14:38; 4 Mace 4:26 "in the context of loyalty to the Jewish religion as it confronts Hellenistic pressures." Cf. . Gaventa, From Darkness to Light: Aspects of Conversion in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986) 17-51, esp. p. 25. The term is redolent of zealotism and bigotry. 7 Dunn, "Works of the Law," 531 and 540 n. 33.

SACRED VIOLENCE AND "WORKS OF LAW 57 to be inconsistent. There is something missing in the argument that the only thing Paul objects to is the social misuse of the law, which must be restored if we are to demonstrate Paul's consistency by accounting for statements like Rom 5:20 without the proliferation of hypotheses.8 The argument made by Dunn was anticipated by J. Tyson9 who, without recourse to extrabiblical disciplines like anthropology, concluded that "works of law" referred to "nomistic service" in the sense of the Jewish way of life, which Paul contrasts with Christian existence marked by possession of the Spirit and miracles (Gal 3:5). Tyson based this conclusion on Lohmeyer's examination of the use of the pertinent terminology in the LXX, and "nomistic service" is his translation of Lohmeyer's "Dienst des Gesetzes."10 He also recognizes that the death of Christ "plays a major role in Paul's attack on the works of the law" but is not able to specify what this role is, beyond the rather vague claims that "the death of Jesus opened up a new set of conditions," and that "through Jesus' death, we have come to know that God has spoken something further."11 This further word has the inclusion of the Gentiles as a major theme (Gal 3:13-14) and, therefore, the exclusionism of the Jewish way of life seems to be the specific element that the further word condemns. The vagueness of the formulation, however, blunts the edge of Paul's attack on the Jewish way of life; nevertheless, it does set the scene for a full appreciation of the role of the death of Christ in that attack. Paul does not, therefore, attack "works righteousness" but rather the exclusionism of the Jewish way of life, or "the religious system based on the Mosaic law." The missing element that both Dunn and Tyson only hint at is the full significance of the death of Christ for Paul's attitude to the law. To anticipate, the exclusionism of the Jewish way of life is not merely a misuse of the law that can be corrected by a change of attitudefor instance, as Dunn suggests, a change of emphasis from the excluding to the loving imperative in
8 H. Risnen ("Galatians 2:16 and Paul's Break with Judaism," NTS 31 [1985] 543-53) correctly points out that Paul's rejection of the law was more thorough than Dunn allows, and that we must speak of his break with Judaism. He sees the cause of the break as an exclusivist christology that insisted on recognition of Jesus as the eschatological bearer of salvation by both Jews and Gentiles. Paul did not introduce this, and it might even go back to Jesus. In any case it amounted to the assertion that the old covenant was no longer in force. This is a fair statement of the positive content of the Pauline claim, but it does not account for the vehemence with which Paul contrasts life under the law with Pauline freedom, and the fact that he regards the two as mutually exclusive (Gal 5:l-6,17b; Rom 5:20; 6:12-14; 7:1-6). One cannot gloss over the fact that he connects the Jewish way of life, synecdochically represented by the law, with sin and death (1 Cor 15:56). 9 J. Tyson, "Works of Law in Galatians," JBL 92 (1973) 423-31. 10 Ibid., 425 . 13. 11 Ibid., 430-31.

58 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 the lawbut is an expression of the violence endemic in "nomistic service" as a representative of all religious systems, that was revealed in this case by the fact that the Jewish system killed Christ. The driving out of the Gentiles is merely an instance of scapegoating and sacrifice, the sacred violence that is the essence of religion.12 In order to establish what Paul meant by the phrase "works of law," we need not only a theory of the social function of religious law, but also and more urgently a theory of its religious function, and a theory of religion in general. We begin our reconsideration of the issues introduced by Tyson and Dunn with Gal 2:14-21, a passage that must be read in its full context, which begins at 1:11 with the account of Paul's conversion, and ends at 2:21b with the statement, "For ifrighteousnessis through (works of) law, then Christ's death makes no sense."13 2:15-21 follows uninterruptedly from the scene in Antioch ( w 11-14)14 which, in turn, is portrayed as an expression of Paul's
12 We have in mind the theory of religion proposed by R. Girard. See R. Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel: Self and Other in Literary Structure (Baltimore/ London: Johns Hopkins University, 1965); idem, Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore/ London: Johns Hopkins University, 1977); idem, The Scapegoat (Baltimore/London: Johns Hopkins University, 1986); idem, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World (with Jean-Michel Ourgoulian and Guy Lefort; Stanford: Stanford University, 1987); R. Hamerton-Kelly (ed.), Violent Origins: Walter Burkert, Ren Girard, and Jonathan Z. Smith on Ritual Killing and Social Formation (Stanford: Stanford University, 1987 [with an introduction by B. Mack and a commentary by R. Rosaldo]); R Dumouchel (ed.), Violence and Truth: On the Work of Ren Girard (Stanford: Stanford University, 1988); W. Schweiker ("Sacrifice, Interpretation, and the Sacred: The Import of Gadamer and Girard for Religious Studies,'* JAAR 55 [1987] 791-810) presents a somewhat attenuated and misleading account of Girard. 13 We translate as "making no sense" or "random, just one of those things" on the basis of the context. It is also a perfectly good lexical meaning; see BAGD, 210. Such a reading prevents us from concluding that Paul invested the death with a strong logical purposiveness or causality and then on that basis invented the problem which it solves, sometimes spuriously, in the light of this predetermined solution. 14 H. D. Betz (Galatians [Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979]) separates the two passages unwarrantably by the imposition of ancient rhetorical categories, identifying 15 as the beginning of the propositio, which runs to 21. The real break secundum sensum is at 3:1. Our reading of 2:11-21 as a coherent whole within the autobiographical narrative that begins at 1:11 is supported by J. Smit ("Hoe kun je de Heidenen verplichten als Jode te leven?' Paulus en de Torah in Galaten 2, 11-21," Bijdr 46 [1985] 118-40; idem, "Paulus, de Galaten en het judasme. Een narratieve analyse van Galaten 1-2," 725 [1985] 337-62) and R. Hall ("The Rhetorical Outline for Galatians: A Reconsideration," JBL 106 [1987] 277-87). . Gaventa ("Galatians 1 and 2: Autobiography as Paradigm," NovT 28 [1986] 309-26) shows that the autobiographical material in chaps. 1-2 is the foundation of the argument of the whole Epistle, and that conventional exegesis has drawn too clear a line between chaps. 1-2 and the rest of the Epistle. Such exegesis has also underestimated the theological significance of the material and treated it as historical evidence only. See alsoB. Lategan, "Is Paul Defending his Apostleship in Galatians?," NTS 34 (1988) 411-30. On the historical background of the Antioch incident

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understanding of the implications of his apostleship interpreted on the basis of his conversion experience (1.11-16);15 and the agreement that had been reached between him and the Jerusalem leaders (1:18-2:10). 2:19-21 is a climax and summation that picks up the conversion account and brings it to theological closure. The conversion experience and the concluding exposi tion of the significance of the cross stand, therefore, as the emphatic paren theses within which the discussion of the place of the Gentiles in the Christian community takes place, and are, therefore, substantively linked. The autobiographical nature of the section 1:11-2:21 is generally recog nized,16 and one of the most compact references to his conversion is 2:19, where Paul says that he died to the law through the law and specifies this to mean that he has been "crucified with Christ" (
and the meaning of the key terms see J. Dunn, "The Incident at Antioch (Gal 2:11-18),** JSNT 18 (1983) 3-57, and the responses by J. Houlden, JSNT 18 (1983) 58-67, and D. Cohn-Sherbok, JSNT 18 (1983) 68-74; and T. Holtz, "Der antiochenische Zwischenfall (Galater 2.11-14)," NTS 32 (1986) 344-61; W. Marxsen, ("Sndige Tapfer. Wer hat sich beim Streit in Antiochien richtig verhalten?," EvK 20 [1987] 81-84) sees the people from James as warning Peter that his conduct exposed the Jerusalem church to danger from zealous Jews in Jerusalem. 15 "Conversion** is more accurate than "call** because Paul did understand himself to be leaving Judaism. Sanders and Risnen are right to emphasize this, although Sanders does not take sufficient account of the negative reasons Paul had for doing so. 16 G. Lyons (Pauline Autobiography: Towards a New Understanding [SBLDS 73; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985]), shows that, based on the evidence of Galatians and 1 Thessalonians, Paul's autobiographical statements are analogous to those in the ancient philosophical lives and therefore are closely linked to his vocation and "philosophy,** rather than being merely reluctant responses to the need to defend himself. That the experience on the Damascus road is central to Paul's theology and that his understanding of the cross as the end of the law stands at its inception and is not a later development has been argued convincingly by P. Stuhlmacher in several articles that are conveniently collected in Vershnung, Gesetz, und Gerechtigkeit: Aufstze zur biblischen Theologie (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981), especially "Die Gerechtigkeitsanschauung des Apostels Paulus** (pp. 87-116), "Das Ende des Gesetzes** (pp. 166-91), and "Achtzehn Thesen zur paulinischen Kreuzestheologie** (pp. 192-208). We do not find . Risnen's argument ("Paul's Conversion and the Development of His View of the Law,*' NTS 33 [1987] 404-19; idem, "Legalism and Salvation by the Law. Paul's portrayal of the Jewish religion as a historical and theological problem,** Die paulinische Literatur und Theologie [ed. S. Pedersen; Aarhus: Aros; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980] 63-84, esp. p. 77) convincing, that Paul's negative attitude to the law developed, in the sense of coming into being gradually, because of the judaizing opposition that he met. The negative attitude that was there from the beginning developed as it was applied, but it did not come into being gradually. The answer to the question posed so sharply by Risnen, why Paul represented his ancestral religion in a way different from and hostile to the way its adherents represented it to themselves is simply that the adherents were blind to its true nature as a violent system. Paul faults them for not accepting Christ, because by refusing the revelation of the cross they maintained, now willfully, this blindness, and thus perpetuated its violence, seen most vividly in their attitude to the Gentiles.

60 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 . . . ). Dying to the law through the law is also a good summary of the autobiographical passage in Phil 3:4-11, which describes how his identification with the sufferings of Christ ( 10) entailed expulsion from the prestige of the community of the law.17 In Gal 6:14 he summarizes his attitude to life in similar terms when he says that through the cross "the world has been crucified to me and I to the world." In Rom 6:6 the same term is used as a metaphor for baptism, and the whole argument in Gal 3:1-4:7 is based on a "participationist soteriology"in the sense of imaginative participation in the death of Christthat culminates in the characterization of baptism as a putting on of Christ that results in the erasure of religious and class differences (3:2629).18 Paul, therefore, metaphorically describes entering the Christian life as a cocrucifixion, and that alone suggests that the metaphor is rooted in his own conversion experience. Galatians 2:14-21 gives the content of Paul's rebuke to Peter, which might be paraphrased as follows: If you as a Jew have been living in the Gentile way () and not in the Jewish way (), up to the very moment that these people arrived from Jerusalem, how can you now, by the implication of your action in returning to the Jewish way of life signified by your adopting the kosher laws again, con sistently expect the Gentiles to do the same? We who are Jews by nature and not

17 Although it is fashionable, ever since W. Kmmel's Rmer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus (UNT 17; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1929), to read the claim to be blameless in 6 as a psychologically accurate statement, such a reading makes it impossible to make sense out of Rom 7:14-25. Risnen (Paul and the Law, 133) is nearer the truth when, with reference to Gal 3:19 as representing Paul's "deepest feelings** about the law, he writes: "The verses in question seem to express a latent resentment towards the law of which Paul was not normally conscious.** We must question Kmmel's positive psychological reading in the light of interpreters like Calvin and J. B. Lightfoot, who take in the formal rather than the psychological sense. G. R. Horsley (New Documents Illustrating Early Christianity 4 [NSW: Macquarie University, 1987] 141) provides evidence that and the corresponding adjective are relatively widely attested in honorific inscriptions and epitaphs, suggesting that it is a well-known clich for externally faultless behavior, with no serious claim to psychological accuracy. By combining this evidence with Risnen's, we can see a psychological unrest covered by a formal claim. Looking back on his Jewish life from the other side of his conversion, Paul saw the resentment and moral numbness caused by the system and confesses it ironically. 18 "Participationist soteriology** is the way R. Hays (as cited by T. Donaldson, "The Curse of the Law and the Inclusion of the Gentiles: Galatians 3.13-14,** NTS 32 [1986] 94-112, esp. p. 101) describes the assumption of the argument in Gal 3:1-4:7, which finds clearest expression in the designation of Christ as the seed of Abraham in whom all Christians cohere (3:16), and in the understanding of baptism as mutual acceptance (3:26-29).

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19

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"Gentile sinners" have, nevertheless, been living as "Gentile sinners" and by so doing we have admitted that that traditional Jewish defamation of the Gentiles is simply a slander born of an exclusiveness that is infamously expressed in these very kosher laws. Knowing that one is not justified by the observance of such practices (works of law), but rather through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we deliberately chose to believe in Christ Jesus in order that we might be justified by faith and not by observing kosher laws (works of law), because by such observances of law, Jews (flesh)20 are not justified. Now if we Jews, you and I, Peter, who are seeking to be justified in Christ discover that we are living like "Gentile sinners," does that not make Christ the servant of sin? Of course it does, and because that is an absurd notion, you must seefirstly,that the Gentiles are not sinners en masse and secondly, that your own action in withdrawing from them is wrong. By erecting again the wall of sep aration between Jew and Gentile () you have, on the Jewish premise that the Gentiles are sinners, made Christ the servant of sin who, in turn, made us transgressors, because it is at his behest that we live as Gentiles. I, for my part, flatly refuse to reerect that wall, because as I have already told you, and you seemed to understand me when we were in Jerusalem, I died to the law through my very obedience to it.21 When the law crucified Christ it crucified me also, because on that Damascus road I realized that my obedience to the law had turned me into a killer. In driving out and killing Christ the law was doing the same thing as I was doing to the church, the same thing you and the judaizers are now doing to the Gentile Christians, in driving them out to protect the sacred precinct of the privileged people. The real "works of law" are to drive out and to kill; and now you are doing those works in driving me out; but it is really Christ living in me that you are driving out; in making me the servant of sin you are making Christ the servant of sin, and you are crucifying both of us again.
19

The irony here is palpable; therefore we cannot take the statement to mean that Paul still considered Jewish life to be blameless or still approved of it. The point is that we have been living as "Gentile sinners" because Christ wants us to live that way. Thus Christ's way of life is contrasted with the Jewish way, with the result that this arrogant Jewish self-congratulation is condemned, not approved. Paul by no means views his former Jewish life as sinless by contrast with sinful Gentile life (cf. Rom 5:8, which shows that Paul considered himself a sinner in his Jewish state, and 5:10 in which he brands himself as having been an enemy of Christ). Paul parodies rather than approves this Jewish conceit. 20 Paul deliberately modifies the quotation from Ps 143:2 by changing "everything living** to "flesh" in order to apply the quotation to the Jewish way of life, which he designates by the term "flesh." R. Jewett ( Paul's Anthropological Terms: A Study of their Use in Conflict Settings [AGJU 10; Leiden: Brill, 1971] 95-101) says that Paul made the change "because he wished to counter the Judaizers* claim that circumcised flesh (his emphasis) was acceptable as righteous before God" (p. 98). 21 Smit ("Paulus en de Torah") argues that since after a personal pronoun can denote the circumstance in which the subject finds himself one might translate Gal 2:19, "I as a lawabiding Jew died to the law."

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THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 Christ is, of course, not the servant of sin at all, but rather the one who loves

and gives himself for me, and for you, and for all the Jews and Gentiles. I at least do not despise that gift, because I refuse to believe that justification comes by doing "works of law." If I were to believe that, I would make nonsense of the truth that the death of Christ proclaims, namely, that this kind of religion, the "works of law," only expels and kills.

Thus Paul intends by the phrase "works of law" the Jewish way of life, described in 2:14 by the word , characterized by exclusiveness and epitomized by the murder of Christ and the persecution of his followers,22 and argues that to return to that way of life would be to make Christ a servant of sin. This is, to be sure, a harsh judgment on the Jewish way of life, remi niscent of 1 Thess 2:14-15,23 but it should not be blunted or mitigated; rather it must be taken as the standard for assessing all subsequent interpretation of Paul's sayings on the Mosaic law, which is a synecdoche for the Jewish way of life. Sanders has taught us to see that Paul explicitly rejects three areas of law: the kosher, circumcision (Gal 5:6; 6:15; 1 Cor 7:19), and Sabbath laws (Gal 4:9-10),24 all prescriptions that mark the boundaries of the Jewish com munity over against the rest of the world, but he does not take seriously enough the fact that that rejection entails the rejection of the whole law, by Paul's own express statements (Gal 3:10; 5:3-6). This stands to reason be cause giving up the boundary markers is tantamount to giving up the Jewish way of life and that cannot be interpreted in any other way than as an abandonment of the whole law. The underestimation of the fact that Paul's explicit rejections entail a total rejection leads Sanders to think that having removed these "entrance requirements" Paul is content to see the Mosaic law as a major ethical stan dard within the Christian community, which in turn causes him to puzzle
22 The term "works of law" occurs only in this context in Galatians (2:16; 3:2,5,10; cf. "works of the flesh" in 5:19); and in Rom 3:20-21 (where "apart from law" must be read "apart from works of law" by the logic of the context) and 3:27-28. In both letters it has the same meaning, namely, the exclusionism that expels and kills. 23 1 Thess 2:14-15 is an accurate reflection of Paul's attitude towards the Jews. It contains all the elements we have discovered in Gal 1:112:21. He equates the Jewish persecutors of the Judean churches with the persecutors of the Thessalonian church, and the phrase "who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out," could be a summary of the premise of Paul's answer to Peter. Poignancy is added by the fact that he had himself been such a persecutor who had driven Christians out of the synagogue. This is not a later interpolation; see the arguments of K. Donfried ("Paul and Judaism: 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16 as a Test Case," Int 38 [1984] 242-53), T. Baarda ("1 Thess. 2:14-16. Rodrigues in 'Nestle-Aland'," NedTTs 39 [1985] 186-93) and Davies ("Paul and the People of Israel," 6-9). 24 Sanders, Paul and the Law, 100-101.

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over how Paul can "want to maintain that Christians are lawless,' yet at the same time not really lawless: they are outside the law yet fulfill it," and to say that Paul has no theoretical way of accounting for this.25 Paul, however, is quite consistent: he rejects the Mosaic law completely as a basis for ethical instruction and exhortation (Gal 5:3-6, i.e., to reject circumcision is to reject the whole Mosaic law), and replaces it with the "law of Christ"26 (1 Cor 9:19-21; Gal 6:2; Rom 8:2), or "the law of God" (Rom 8:7) or "the com mandments of God" (1 Cor 7:19; cf. "the command of the Lord," 1 Cor 14:37). Its proper function was to curse and crucify Christ (Gal 3:13; 1 Thess 2:14-16), and by so doing to reveal the secret working of sin (Rom 3:20; 7:7), and to rule over the old age along with sin and death (Rom 6:9,12,14; 7:1; 1 Cor 15:56). The "works of law" are sacred violence, the expulsion and mur der caused by the religious system, and therefore the Mosaic law is not fit to be a moral guide. We must have the courage to say this clearly, and to leave the problem of Jewish-Christian relations out of our exegetical purview.27 Sanders is not unaware of this rejectionist element in Paul's thought; at the conclusion of his discussion of the summaries of the law (Gal 5:14; Rom 13:8-10) he writes: "On the other hand, other Jewish teachers did not cite a commandment as summarizing the whole law after forbidding circumcision and connecting the law with sin. For this reason Paul's summaries constitute a substantial problem."28 We favor a solution that distinguishes the funda mental intention (Rom 8:4; 1:32) of the Mosaic law, which Chris tian faith fulfills, understood as the prohibition on covetousness (Rom 7:7) and reflecting the primal prohibition (Gen 2:15-17), from the full law in its written and oral form. The represents the prohibition that guards the boundary between creator and creature by preventing mimetic rivalry.29
25 Ibid., 100. He makes this comment on 1 Cor 9:19-21, specifically the phrase . 26 R. Hays, "Christology and Ethics in Galatians: The Law of Christ," CBQ 49 (1987) 268-90. 27 Anyone who has experienced the religious bigotry of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem or witnessed the violence of extreme religious nationalism in the occupied territories knows what Paul is talking about. In this aspect of his thought he might today receive the endorsement of many Jews who abhor such bigotry and make their moral decisions in the same enlightened way as Paul does. Religious bigotry is, of course, not a monopoly of Jews. 28 Paul, the Law, 93-105, esp. p. 99. 29 "Mimeticrivalry"is a Girardian technical term. On the term R. W. Thomp son ("How is the Law Fulfilled in Us?," LS 11 [1986] 31-41), referring to Rom 8:4,13:8-10, and Gal 5:13-16, argues that it refers primarily to the love of neighbor as the "just requirement" of the law. In Rom 1:32, therefore, we have the negative formulation of the same point: the interdiction of mimetic rivalry is the negative expression of the command to love the neighbor. Also, Stuhlmacher, Vershnung, 188 . 46. L. Keck ("The Law and the "The Law of Sin and Death' [Rom 8:1-4]: Reflections on the Spirit and Ethics in Paul," The Divine Helmsman:

64 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 We do not intend to argue this point here but rather to concentrate on the rejectionist element in Paul's thought and to demonstrate that in his moral teaching Paul consistently maintains a negative evaluation of the Mosaic law, which arises from his experience of the death of Christ and that references to the fulfillment of the law have the effect of displacing the Mosaic law in favor of the primal command as part of a program "to overcome the law by means of the law."30 A good practical way to show that Paul consistently rejects the Mosaic law not only as a basis for "getting in" but also for "staying in" is to examine briefly the norms to which he appeals in his moral reasoning.31 The evidence shows that the Mosaic law plays no constructive part and is only invoked for corroboration of judgments based on other grounds, and that infrequently. To recapitulate: the controlling assumption of his moral teaching begins with the world-changing experience of the death of Christ as a revelation of the violent nature of the Jewish way of life ("works of law"), and with the understanding of the crucifixion as an act of the same religious violence that Paul had internalized and expressed as a persecutor of the church32 (Gal 1:13; 1 Cor 15:9; cf. Rom 5:1,10, which we take to be autobiographical allusions).33 The close link between the law and death in Paul's thought is rooted in the literal fact that the law is hostile to outsiders in a way that is
Studies on God's Control of Human Events, Presented to Lou H Silberman [ed. J. L. Crenshaw and S. Sandmel; New York: Ktav, 1980] 41-57, esp. p. 52) reports the work of H. van der Sandt ("Research into Romans 8:4a: The Legal Claim of the Law," Bijdr 37 [1976] 253) and Schrenk and Kittel (TDNT2) as showing that the term, while having the basic meaning "legal claim," has various meanings in the literature that have to be determined from the context. 30 O. Wischmeyer ("Das Gebot der Nchstenliebe bei Paulus. Eine traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung," BZ 30 [1986] 161-81) shows by means of an analysis of the early Jewish and Christian tradition of the quotations from the Decalogue (Deut 5:17-21) and the command to love the neighbor (Lev 19:18) that Paul's summary of Christian ethics by means of the idea of in Rom 13:8-10 is part of his program to "abolish the law by means of the law,** and links it to Gal 5:13-15, 1 Thess 4:9, and Rom 12:10. 31 For a fuller treatment cf. W. Schrge, Ethik des Neuen Testaments (GNT 4; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982) 155-76, 189-208. V. Furnish, Theology and Ethics in Paul (Nashville: Abingdon, 1968) is the standard work in English. For further bibliography see Hays, "Christology and Ethics." 32 Whatever the status of the accounts in Acts might be as history they nevertheless give an accurate account of Paul's basic insight when they tell us that the voice from heaven asked, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" (Acts 9:4-5; 22:7-8; 26:14-15) and subsequently identified the "me" as "Jesus whom you are persecuting.'* 33 L. Keck ("The Post-Pauline Interpretation of Jesus' Death in Rom 5,6-7," Theologia CrucisSignum Crucis: Festschrift fur Erich Dinkier zum 70. Geburtstag [ed. C. Andersen and G. Klein; Tbingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1979] 237-48) shows that 5:6-7 is a postPauline insertion. When it is removed the state prior to faith is no longer characterized as weakness but only as sin and hostility, an active rather than a passive resistance to Christ.

SACRED VIOLENCE AND "WORKS OF LAW" 65 epitomized by the death of Christ, and exercises this hostility as an arm of the sacrificial system that slaughters innocent victims in that great abattoir, the temple. The law secures its own power by killing, which is simply the most vivid form of the expulsion of the innocent by which the system of sacred violence lives. The boundary-setting laws are the legal counterparts of sacrifice, and the Gentiles are the victims. On the basis of this theological insight Paul formulates his moral teaching in an antithetical relationship to the Jewish way of life. The fact that he and his churches were persecuted by the Jews and that most of the writings that we have from him come from polemical situations also determines the antithetical nature of his moral reflection. Autobiography, theology, and current experience, therefore, come together in Paul's formulation of moral norms, whose salient features are the following. /. Inclusiveness: The famous proclamation in Gal 3:26-28 expresses the heart of Paul's ethic, namely, inclusiveness. The passage probably comes from a baptismal situation, and in its present context it serves as a "reminder and as the cardinal proof."34 Because God is one the human race has to be seen as one and undivided (Rom 3:29-30). This puts the law in its proper place as the revealer of the sinfulness of the division of the world into Jew and Gentile (Rom 3:31). Whatever the problems of Romans 2 might be, and we do not think they are as complicated as recent exegesis thinks, the purport of the whole section Rom 1:18-3:20 is well summed up in Rom 3:22b-23: "There is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," and any remedy for this must come "apart from (works of) law" (3:21). Just as there is a solidarity in sin, symbolized by Adam (Rom 1:18-32; 5:1221; 7:7-13) so there is a solidarity in redemption (Rom 5:15-6:14; 8:18-25; 11:25-32; Gal 3:23-4:7;35 1 Cor 15:22,49). This inclusive vision is what makes the phenomenon of schism in the Corinthian church so problematic for Paul.36 It is the result of a failure to understand the true purport of the death of Christ, and it is attended by that chief manifestation of the "works of law," exclusiveness. The Corinthians have even turned the rite of baptism, which is a sign of solidarity (Gal 3:27-28), into a boundary marker, and this causes Paul to go so far as to say
Betz, Galatians, 185. P. Vielhauer, (**Gesetzesdienst und Stoicheiadienst im Galaterbrief," Rechtfertigung: Festschrift fur Ernst Ksemann zum 70. Geburtstag [ed. J. Friedrich, W. Phlmann and P. Stuhlmacher; Tbingen: J. C. . Mohr (Paul Siebeck); Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976] 543-56) argues that here Paul identifies life under the law with life under the powers of this world in order to equate Judaism with paganism. 36 R. Hamerton-Kelly, "A Girardian Interpretation of Paul: Rivalry, Mimesis and Victimage in the Corinthian Correspondence," Semeia 33 (1985) 65-81.
35 34

66 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 that Christ did not send him to baptize but to preach the gospel, apart from worldly wisdom, represented in this case by the formation of exclusive groups (1 Cor 1:17).37 This extraordinary saying must be taken seriously because the crisis has brought Paul to his bedrock values, and they do not include the establishment of the church within secure boundaries but rather have the preaching of the gospel as the announcement of the eschatological hour and the kingdom of God (1 Cor 4:20; 7:29-35) at their center. He sees the church as the sphere of Christ's eschatological lordship (Rom 14:9) and, as such, a manifestation of the new creation (2 Cor 5:17). Eschatology, therefore, makes the boundaries of the community relatively unimportant; one can as little circumscribe the new creation as one can the old; the important thing is to include and not to exclude as many as possible, and to leave the sorting out to Christ himself (1 Cor4:5; Rom 14:10-12; 15:7).38 The church is nothing more and nothing less than the eschatological creation of God who brings things into being out of nothing, and that fact prevents all human boasting in the form of the claim to privilege based on membership in a special group ( 1 Cor 1:26-31 ; Rom 4:17). Such boasting is a return to the Jewish way of life, a seeking to be justified by the murderous "works of law" (Rom 3:27-31; 4:2), in the sense of erecting boundaries to guard privilege. 2. The Law of Christ: The christological background of this phrase is Paul's experience of the cross as Christ "loving me and giving himself for me" (Gal 2:20).39 As that love and self-giving live in Paul, so they live in all Christians. They manifest themselves as the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) which come as the result of having been crucified with Christ (5:24). As such they are the opposite of the works of the flesh (5:19-21; cf. 2:16) which are the acts and attitudes that characterize the striving for security in the old age, epitomized by the "works of law." The briefest description of the law of Christ, however, is "to bear one another's burdens" (Gal 6:2; cf. Rom 15:1).
37

H. Weder, Das Kreuz Jesu bei Paulus (Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1981)

137-57.
38 See Sanders's judicious discussion of the question of exclusion from the Christian community in Paul, the Law, 109-11. One could of course return to the old creation by adopting the Jewish way of life, but as long as one remained within the new creation the determination of one's status must be left to the final judgment. Even in the extreme case of the fornicator discussed in 1 Cor 5:1-8, the transgressor is to be "handed over to Satan** (whatever that may mean), for the sake of the final salvation of his soul (v 5), and in the case of those who build unworthily, discussed in 1 Cor 3:10-17, those whose work does not stand the test nevertheless are to be saved (v 15). Sanders concludes, "while Christians can revert to the non-Christian state and share the fate of unbelievers, there is no deed which necessarily leads to the condemnation of a believer, although Paul appears to waver with regard to food offered to idols" (p. 111). 39 Hays ("Christology and Ethics," 275) writes, "the law of Christ is a formulation coined (or employed) by Paul to refer to this paradigmatic self-giving of Jesus Christ."

SACRED VIOLENCE AND "WORKS OF LAW 67 There is no need to become oversubtle about this notion; it is simply mutual caring of the kind exemplified by Christ in his death, and Paul calls it a law precisely to contrast it with the "other law" (Rom 13:8b) which it displaces and replaces entirely. The context of the phrase "law of Christ" in Galatians 5 and 6 brings it into relationship with the summary of the Mosaic law from Lev 19:18, and restates that summary as "serve one another in love" (5:13-14). For Sanders that summary from Lev 19:18 indicates that Paul identifies this loving mutuality as the fulfillment of the Mosaic law, and therefore is implicitly commanding obedience to that law.40 This is not, in fact, the case.41 The only things Paul actually commands are that one not make one's freedom the occasion for license and that one serve in mutual love. It is much more likely that he has the dominical tradition in mind at this point, which was widespread in early Christianity (Matt 5:43; 19:19; 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Jas 2:8; cf. Rom 13:9),42 rather than that he intended to show that the law of Christ is the fulfillment of the Mosaic law. Hbner is right, therefore, in distinguishing the here, which means the totality of obligation, from the of 5:3, which clearly refers to the Mosaic law. No obligation to obey the Mosaic law is expressed or entailed in the law of
Paul, the Law, 96. Sanders distinguishes between a theoretical and a de facto differ entiation between the Mosaic law and the law Christians are to obey and says that Paul is unable to make the theoretical differentiation. It is too much to ask Paul to make an explicit theoretical distinction on the surface of the text given the nature of his thought. One might use Sanders's own principle, that Paul's thought is governed by a few fundamental convictions which should be assumed in cases where the surface of the argument is not clear, to interpret the use of the term "law" in Galatians 5. On this principle, the negative attitude to the Mosaic law arising from the death of Christ overrides the argument that in quoting the summary in 5:14 Paul must have the same Mosaic law in mind as in 5:3. H. Hbner (Law in Pauls Thought [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1984] 36-42) is correct, therefore, in taking 5:14 as a law other than the Mosaic. Paul takes the summary precisely as a replacement for the Mosaic law, and the fact that he calls it "the law of Christ" shows this. This is the strategy of "using the law to abolish the law." Jewish summarize might have intended the summaries as inclusive of the rest of the Mosaic law; Paul intends the summary as exclusive. 41 S. Westerholm ("On Fulfilling the Whole Law (Gal 5:14)," SEA 51-52 [1986-8 229-37) shows that Gal 5:14 is merely a declaration that when one loves the neighbor the Mosaic law is fulfilled in the process. He goes on to make essentially the same point as we are making, that Paul never used the Mosaic law as a basis for moral injunctions and never claimed that Chris tians "do" the law; rather they, and they alone, fulfill it. Furthermore, Paul never used the fulfillment of the law as an exhortation but only as a description of the results of Christian conduct. 42 W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (4th ed.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980) 14445. Davies and Dodd have not been sustained by subsequent opinion in their view that the words of Jesus provided a new Torah for Paul; nevertheless their insistence that the Jesus tradition played a significant part in Paul's ethics remains unassailable.
40

68 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 Christ. Paul calls it the law of Christ precisely because he wishes to set it off from and over against the law of Moses, which leads to "biting and devouring one another" (v 15) as he had experienced in Antioch with Peter. The "works of law" are the works of the flesh, and therefore those in the Spirit are not under the Mosaic law ( w 17-18). It may be confusing to some that he uses the term "law" in 5:14 in the sense of an antithetical analogue, but his argument is quite clear and consistent. The other passage in which Paul brings the Christian ethic into a relationship with the traditional summary of love to the neighbor is Rom 13:8-10, and there he does specify that he has the Mosaic law in mind by quoting four of its prohibitions. The full context of this passage begins at 12:9 with the exhortation, "Let love be without hypocrisy," which is followed by a description of the Christian life that is well described as "serving one another in love," or "bearing one another's burdens." It includes a special proscription on vengeance, buttressed by corroborative appeals to the OT,43 and an exhortation to render due respect, and whatever else is their due, to the established authorities. The historical context of this passage is the Roman church as a mixed congregation of Jews and Gentiles in which the question of the status of the Mosaic law remained a live issue, and the presence among its Jewish members of people of nationalistic and zealotic convictions who advocated vengeance against the oppressors of the Jews and the withholding of taxes from the Roman government.44 In response to the interpretation of the Mosaic law as demanding vengeance on its enemies, Paul prohibits revenge and urges compliance with the civil law. Seen in the double historical framework of nationalistic self-definition and zealotic revanchism, Rom 13:8-10 is far from an injunction to obey the
Rom 12:17 = Prov 3:4 LXX; 12:19 = Lev 19:18 and Deut 32:35; 12:20 = Prov 25:21-22. M. Borg ("A New Context for Romans xiii," NTS 19 [1973] 205-18) places the section from 12:14 through 13:7 in the historical context of the "zealot" movement. He follows D. Daube ("Participle and Imperative in 1 Peter," in E. G. Selwyn, The First Epistle of St. Peter [2d ed.; London: Macmillan, 1958] 467-88, esp. pp. 471, 476, 480-81) in identifying a code of ethical instruction that took shape in Palestinian Christianity, present in the injunctions in Romans 12. The code includes material known from the gospel traditionLuke 6:27-29a = Matt 5:39b,44,46, on loving your enemies and turning the other cheekwhich, Borg argues, speaks directly to the "zealot challenge" to Jesus and the early community. The code rests ultimately on OT injunctions like those in Lev 19:18, Deut 32:35 and Prov 25:21-22. The full text of Lev 19:18 explicitly prohibits vengeance: "You shall not take vengeance or bear any grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord." In the Palestinian milieu "love your enemies" meant a disavowal of a militant anti-Roman stance. In Rome it meant mutatis mutandis the same thing. Borg sets out the evidence for the tension in Rome between the 50,000 Jews that lived there and the authorities, and the anti-Jewish policy of the emperors in question: (Josephus, J W 2.80-81; Ant. 17.300-301, 18.257-60; Philo, Leg. ad Gaium 134-37, 159-61, 198-202, 334-35, 349-67; Flacc. 1).
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Mosaic law. Once again as in Galatians, the primary command in the near context is the command to a reciprocity of love, the debitum indelibile, which is counterposed to the reciprocity of vengeance that the zealots em braced as a corollary of the Mosaic law. Whoever discharges this undischarged able obligation of mutual love has fulfilled the other law also ( ),45 that is, the law of Moses, in the sense set out in Rom 8:2-4. Paul refers to "the other law" not to urge that the Christians obey it, but to point out, en passant for the Jews in the congregation who might have been con cerned about the congruence between the law of Christ and the "other law," that the law of Christ takes care of whatever vestige of God's primal intention might still be discernible in the basic thrust of the Mosaic law. This is also the spirit in which he refers for corroboration to Prov 3:4, Deut 32:35, Lev 19:18 and Prov 25:21-22 in Rom 12:17-20; they are corrob orative, not constitutive or prescriptive; the real prescript occurs in 12:21, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." 1 Cor 14:34 is another example of this corroborative rather than prescriptive appeal to the Mosaic law; the prescript is "As in all the churches of the saints" (v 33b), and the corroboration is "As the law also says" (v 34b). The almost flippant reference, "and if there is any other command ment," shows that Paul is not showing reverence for the Mosaic law but rather the opposite. The phrase cannot mean that he does not remember the other six commandments of the Decalogue. There are two possible mean ings: it could be a dismissive reference equating the Mosaic injunctions, the 613 commands of the Torah, with the whole panoply of religious laws, both pagan and Jewish, that make up the dreary crowd of religious self-definitions that jostle for prestige. This is perhaps too speculative, but nevertheless attractive and congruent with the overall tenor of his thought, especially in the light of our reading of Gal 2:15-21. Alternatively, one may note that Paul does speak elsewhere about other commands () . In 1 Cor 7:19 he pens what Sanders calls "one of the most amazing sentences he ever wrote": "Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but keeping the commandments of God ( )." These commandments are not,
45 W. Marxsen (MDer Rom. 13,8," TZ 11 [1955] 230-37) argues that the phrase refers to the Mosaic law as compared with the civil law of Rome alluded to in , against C. E. . Cranfeld (Epistle to the Romans [2 vols.; ICC; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975-79] 2. 675-76) who takes as the object of "along with the great majority of interpreters from the earliest times to the present day." The consensus does not, however, explain why at 13:10 Paul uses the more usual word for neighbor, , which is the word used in LXX Lev 19:18. Marxsen argues plausibly that the phrase was a fixed phrase in the early tradition based on Lev 19:18, and that when this fact is put together with the significantly greater frequency of the adjectival compared to the substan tive use of by Paul, one cannot accept the reading of the consensus.

70 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 as Sanders thinks, the commandments of Moses but the inspired injunctions 46 that the apostle receives from the Lord and passes on to the community. The phrase "any other commandments" may refer to these; it would be consonant with his self-understanding as one through whom Christ lives and speaks. In any case, the "other law" is summed up, that is, completely contained, in the positive and negative forms of the command to love the neighbor ( w 9-10); therefore one has no need of it any longer. Rather than advocating the keeping of the Mosaic law for those in the new creation, Rom 13:8-10 shows why one can put it out of mind; whatever of good it or any other law may have to say is contained in the love commandment. The law of Christ is sufficient, and one needs no "other law." 3. Theological Sanctions: Paul appeals to the idea of God as a sanction. Because God is one there can be no divisions in the human race (Rom 3:29-30); because God has irrevocably elected the Jewish people, the Gentile Christians should not despise them (Rom 11:17-32); because God overthrew the grumblers in the wilderness, one must not be careless in one's behavior as if the same thing could not happen to a Christian (1 Cor 10:1-13);47 because Jesus taught us that God is our father we should not fear him but
Paul surely knew that circumcision was commanded by Moses in Lev 12:3; therefore one should assume that by "the commandments of God" he did not mean the commandments of Moses. In 1 Cor 14:37, another piece of advice and admonition about community conduct, Paul says, "if anyone considers himself to be a prophet or a , let him recognize the things I write to you, that it is a commandment of the Lord ( )."This follows an indication that there is reluctance to accept his teaching, which he says is tantamount to rejecting the word of God ( 36). In 1 Thess 4:8 he says that those who reject his instructions () reject God; his injunctions are by implication the commands of God. Although the precise phrase is not used, the sense of the latter two passages indicates that we should take 1 Cor 7:19 to refer to Paul's prophetically inspired moral injunc tions (cf. 1 Cor 7:6-7,12,35,40; 11:34b). One need only compare the three instances of the phrase **Neither circumcision is anything nor uncircumcision, b u t . . . " in 1 Cor 7:19, Gal 5:6 and 6:15 respectively to understand that the are instances of the law of Christ in the new creation. The endings of the latter two versions are respectively "faith working through love" and "new creation." J. A. Sanders ("Torah and Paul," 139 n. 26) draws attention to the fact that in Gal 6:15-16 Paul calls this phrase a rule () for conduct in the "Israel of God." He very timidly confesses that "one simply cannot avoid the fact, Rom 9-11 notwithstanding, that Paul saw the church as the New Israel of God in some sense superseding the Old." The sense is clear and not opaque, and Romans 9-11 does not oppose this conclusion but is the chief ground for it! The new Israel is also the true Israel, in the sense of the remnant, the part whose hearts were not hardened, which in conjunction with the Gentiles becomes not the new Israel but the new creation; that is the point of the in Gal 6:15-16. 47 The fact that he uses a narrative part of the Torah here does not mean that he invests the text with juridical authority. He is entirely concerned with the minatory images in the
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call on him readily and regard ourselves as members of one family and heirs of the same divine estate (Rom 8:12-17; Gal 4:1-7)/* 4. Christological Sanctions: Within the overarching structure that the cross gives to his thought, the apostle makes specific moral applications of the death of Christ and other transcendental christological themes. Under the rubric of the death of Christ (2 Cor 5:14; Rom 14:9), Christians must regard themselves as having died with him to the powers of the old age, also called the flesh, and therefore should not be part of the rivalry and ambition of this age (Gal 5:24; Rom 6:1-11; Phil 3:5-10). They should rather suffer loss than contest their rights with fellow Christians at law (1 Cor 6:7-8);49 they should not belong to prestigious cliques (1 Cor 1:10-25); they should not exercise their own freedom of conscience if it will injure the weaker con science of another (1 Cor 8:9); they should give money readily (2 Cor 8:9); they should be humble and considerate (Phil 2:1-11); they should not boast of their status or achievements (1 Cor 1:26-31; 2 Cor 11:16-12:11); they should imitate the apostle in his sufferings and self-denial because these are examples of life under the cross (1 Cor 4:6-17; 11:23-33) that teach us how to live together in community. Under the rubric of the resurrection Paul invokes hope (Rom 8:18-25) and endurance (1 Cor 15:30-34), and with reference to eschatology in gen eral, the well-known "as if not" (1 Cor 7:29-31), that sets a limit of provisionality to all status in and institutions of this world ( w 17-24). 5. Pneumatological Sanctions: The major eschatological factor is, how ever, the presence of the Spirit, which is operationally the network of rela tionships in the community of the new age, also called love () (Rom 5:5; 1 Corinthians 13). In addition to controlling the general tenor of rela tionships (1 Cor HA-IA.AO)50 the Spirit also provides specific command ments through the apostle (1 Cor 7:19; 14:37) and these in turn become part of an ethical tradition in the churches. Paul deduces from the presence of the Spirit the nature of the church as the body of Christ, appropriating the commonplace political image for ecclesiological purposes. From this he arnarrative. His usage here must be seen under the rubric of Rom 7:6 and 2 Cor 3:6: "The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life." This is an instance of "spiritual" interpretation. 48 The appeals to God as "Abba" in these passages are deposits of the Jesus tradition; see R. Hamerton-Kelly, God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus (Phil adelphia: Fortress, 1979) 83-88. 49 Although the basis for his objection here, that they are to judge angels, is a sanction based on the resurrection, the theme of willingly suffering loss is based on the cross. The former should not be taken as cancelling the latter. 50 Note that the primary function of the Spirit is to enable the confession that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor 12:3), which provides the ultimate sanction for the moral advice that follows.

72 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 gues in general for nonrivalrous cooperation and, in particular, for sexual purity. To have the Spirit is to be connected to Christ with the same intimacy as the sexual connection (1 Cor 6:16-17), so that intercourse 51 with a prostitute involves Christ himself in the act. 6. Traditional Sanctions and Apostolic Authority: Up to this point all Paul's moral teaching has been based directly on transcendental sanctions and has mainly taken the form of implicit deductions from theological con victions. He also, however, practices a more traditional ethical reasoning, appealing to the custom of the community and the example of its principal members, especially his own. He appeals to the customary behavior in the household,52 to the newly forming tradition of his own teaching, presumably including inspired commandments, and to customary usage "in all the churches'* (1 Cor 7:17; 14:33b). The principal example to which he appeals is his own lifestyle, after which his congregants are to model their own, and which is also part of the tradition ("my ways in Christ as I teach them everywhere in every church") which his representative Timothy can help them to remember (1 Cor 4:17). That this imitation is connected with his own imitation of the crucified Christ can be seen in Phil 3:17-18 (cf. 1 Cor 11:1) where he calls for such imitation as an antidote to the example of those who "walk as enemies of the cross.'* He is, however, willing to make concessions on aspects of his own ex ample that are not essential, like celibacy (1 Cor 7:6-7), on the basis of moral reasoning that places one sanction, in this case the gift of the Spirit to the individual, above another, in this case his own example. He is also able to distinguish between his own opinion and an inspired command, placing the former on a lower level of authority than the latter, but not by any means belittling its seriousness (1 Cor 7:12,40). On the authority of the inspired commands, however, he is adamant (1 Cor 14:38).53 He can also challenge
Note the bold extension of the metaphor in 20: "Just as one buys and pays for a prostitute so Christ has bought and paid for you; therefore, as long as he is paying you are not free to take on other customers!" There are at least three other sanctions invoked in 1 Cor 6:12-20. He argues from the natural order in w 12-13; from the bodily resurrection in 14; and from personal responsibility in 18that is, two theological and two pragmatic sanctions. This is a good example of the range of his moral reasoning. 52 S. Barton, ("Paul's Sense of Place: An Anthropological Approach to Community Formation in Corinth," NTS 32 [1986] 225-46) discusses the application of household stan dards to the behavior of women in 1 Cor 14:33b-36, and the intrusion of disruptive household patterns into the congregation in 1 Cor 11:17-34. 53 This should not be taken to mean that he expels the person who does not recognize that his command is inspired from the community, but only that someone who cannot recognize that inspiration cannot himself be recognized as a prophet, for if he were he would recognize the prophetic authority of Paul's command. The only basis on which a person can be cursed is if he ceases to "love the Lord," that is, apostatizes from the faith (1 Cor 16:22).
51

SACRED VIOLENCE AND "WORKS OF LAW" 73 the usage in one congregation on the basis of the usage in all the congregations (1 Cor 11:16; 14:36). He appeals to his own conduct as an example of freedom under the law of Christ (1 Cor 9:19-27), as a conduct that is flexible but under a strenuous discipline, which may be compared to that of an athlete. He also has confidence that when he is present he is able to settle matters on his own advice and authority (1 Cor 11:34b). 7. Rational Sanctions and Personal Responsibility: The most remarkable thing about Paul's ethical reasoning is the range of sanctions and modes of argument that he employs. Far from being a religious journeyman who doggedly applies one revealed truth to every situation, he argues like any intelligent person with deep convictions and a supple mind. The only thing he will not tolerate is religious bigotry of the kind Christ delivered him from. We have seen a good example of that reasoning used against bigotry in Gal 2:11-21. He acknowledges that the Gentiles have the primal prohibition lodged deep in their minds (Rom 2:15) and that their honest ethical debates will stand them in good stead when they appear before the judgment throne of Christ (Rom 2:16). He argues like a Stoic from the order of nature (Rom 1:21-27; 1 Cor 6:12-13). Like a Skeptic, or old Socrates himself, he can say, "If anyone thinks he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know" (1 Cor 8:2). He appeals to common sense and good judgment (1 Cor 10:15; 15:33-34), to maturity (1 Cor 14:20) and to conscience (Rom 2:15; 13:5; 1 Cor 8:10-12; 10:25-29)/n Rom 14:14 he pens what must surely be one of the most liberated passages in the history of ethics, when he says that he "knows and is persuaded in the Lord that nothing is common in itself, but to him that thinks it is common it is so." The fact that he probably has only food in view here constrains us from making a general ethical principle out of it, but even within those bounds it does allow us some extrapolation to other cases and thus represents an ethic that demands great maturity, an ethic for the strong (Rom 14:1). He insists that one be convinced in one's own mind of the rightness of an action (Rom 14:23; 1 Cor 7:37), and acknowledges that the context plays an important part in judgment (Rom 14:22). The fact that in one circumstance one refrains from doing something that one considers permissible does not infringe upon that judgment. He calls upon people to test themselves (1 Cor 11:28,30-31) with the understanding that we can judge as well as Christ in some matters; if we judge ourselves now, Christ will not judge us on these matters then. He uses the general Hellenistic category of paideia to interpret the consequences of sin and urges people to allow paideia to have its effect (1 Cor 11:32). He appeals to the general standards of decency in society at large (1 Cor 5:1; 7:35). This latter text is especially interesting in showing the reasonableness of the apostle and the general humanity of his ethical goals: "I say this to help you, not to lay a burden on you, but for the sake of common decency, so that

74 THE CATHOLIC BIBLICAL QUARTERLY I 52, 1990 you may have peace of mind and not be distracted in your devotion to the 54 Lord." It is also influenced by Stoic ideas of the good life. Finally Paul talks of the "renewing of the mind" that enables one to discern the will of God and see what is good, pleasing, and perfect (Rom 12:2; cf. 1:28; Phil 1:10); this "renewing of the mind" describes the moral renewal of the impotent mind of the sinner (Rom 1:28) so that he is able once again to exercise good moral judgment. Paul can also in good Hellenistic fashion urge that one think good thoughts (Phil 4:8). In all of this varied andflexiblemoral argumentation, there has not been one appeal to the Mosaic law as the ground of moral action. There remain three cases where he actually cites the Torah to support an argument: one is in 1 Cor 6:16 where he appeals to Gen 2:24 to establish the one-flesh doctrine of marriage, and another is in 1 Cor 9:9, where he actually mentions that the injunction against muzzling a threshing ox comes from the law of Moses. The latter is easily explained as the use of the opponents' weapons against them; even the authority to which they appeal sanctions his right to receive sup port. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that in 2 Cor 8:15 he again cites the Torah (Exod 16:8) not as a command (the passage begins at 8 with "I do not speak to command") but as a corroboration again in connection with money, this time the collection. Clearly when it came to money matters in Corinth his interlocutors found the Torah authoritative, and for this rea son Paul cites it. In any case he is far from presenting it as a set of moral norms that must be obeyed. The former (1 Cor 6:16) may just be an anomaly, the exception that proves the rule, or it may be significant that it comes from Genesis 2, a text that Paul regards as containing the pre-Mosaic stage of the law, the primal prohibition in 2:15-17, and that it is in fact part of the passage (Gen 1:15-3:21) which he has so much in mind in his explanation of the etiology of sin (Rom 1:18-32; 5:12-14; 7:7-13) and the cosmic range of re demption (1 Cor 15:21-22; cf. Rom 5:15-21; 1 Cor 15:45-47). The sin of Eve and the temptation of prostitution lay together in his mind and suggested the line of argument in 1 Cor 6:12-20. If that is the case, as we believe, it does not amount to an injunction to obey the Mosaic law. Against these passing positive references to the Torah we must,finally,set the highly intentional negative references in 2 Cor 3:3,18 and Rom 7:6. In the light of this summary of the moral norms that Paul invokes we conclude that the Mosaic law played no constructive role in his ethical teach ing. The OT provides corroborative sanction at best and that only on the margin. This attitude springs from his realization of the violence of the
54 D. Balch, "1 Cor 7:32-35 and Stoic Debates about Marriage, Anxiety, and Distraction,*' JBL 102 (1983) 429-39.

SACRED VIOLENCE AND "WORKS OF LAW* 75 Mosaic law as it functioned in the Jewish way of life. To observe it was to make Christ the servant of sin, a position which is clearly absurd, and such observance was in any case impossible because "through the law, I died to the law; I have been crucified with Christw (Gal 2:19). The moral analogue to this is the overcoming of the law by means of the law.

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