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The Mia Σapξ Union of Christ and the Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Richard Batey
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Type
Short Studies
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New Testament Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 3 , April 1967 , pp. 270 - 281
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1967

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References

page 270 note 1 Das erfordert nicht die Deutung von ένός als ein Neutrum. Denn der εΙς Χρıστός, der die universale Heilsabsicht des εΙς θεός verwirklicht, ist zugleich eine Person und die in ihm zu einer Einheit zusammengeschlossenen Individuen derer, die an ihn glauben. Diese von Paulus als Person gedachte Einheit läβt sich aber in modernen Sprachen nur mit einem Allgemeinbegriff wie ‘Einheit’ oder ‘Universalität’ widergeben.

page 270 note 2 The nuptial imagery of Eph. v. 21–33 is an ecclesiological development within the influence of Jewish Gnosticism of an early Christian Haustafel. See Heinrich, Schlier, Der Brief an die Epheser (1958), pp. 262–4Google Scholar; and my article ‘Jewish Gnosticism and the “Hieros Gamos” of Eph. v. 21–33’, N.T.S. x (1963), 121–2.Google Scholar

page 270 note 3 Best, E., One Body in Christ (1955), p. 180Google Scholar, correctly censures Claude Chavasse ( The Bride of Christ, 1939, p. 71Google Scholar) for contending that the Body metaphor is derived from that of the Bride. Best states that ‘The actual argument, however, runs this way: from the nuptial metaphor the author sees Christ and the Church as husband and wife, but the Church is also his Body; therefore she must be his Body (sic); therefore the two are one; and he clinches the matter with the quotation of Gen. iii. 24’. But the Church is conceptualized as the Bride of Christ, not as his wife as is maintained by Best or Schlier, H. and Warnach, P. V., Die Kirche im Epheserbrief (1949), p. 26.Google Scholar

page 271 note 1 ‘Indeed, we have in the marriage-metaphor an excellent illustration of the meaning of the doctrine. of the “one body”, “one flesh”, “one spirit”, of the Pauline teaching. For the marriage-relationship is the deepest, richest, and most satisfying personal human relationship of which we have experience; it is an experience of surrender without absorption, of service without compulsion, of love without conditions’ ( Alan, Richardson, An Introduction to the Theology of the N.T., 1958, p. 258Google Scholar). See also Dodd, C. H., ‘The Message of the Epistles: Ephesians’, E.T. XLV (1933), 65Google Scholar; Bruce, Metzger, ‘Paul's Vision of the Church’, T. Tod. 6 (1949), 60Google Scholar and Muirhead, I. A., ‘The Bride of Christ’, S.J.T. v (1952), 180.Google Scholar

page 271 note 2 The dates will be given of those rabbis who are later than the Tannaitic period.

page 271 note 3 The specific reference is from Samuel b. Nahmani (third century), but the interpretation is apparently older.

page 272 note 1 An excellent play on words is attributed to Akiba concerning God's presence in marriage. ‘When husband and wife are worthy, the Shechinah abides with them; when they are not worthy fire consumes them.’ When the consonants for the abbreviation of Yahweh are taken from man and woman both of the remaining words spell fire (b. Sotah 17a).

page 272 note 2 Akiba comments that a man who weds a woman unfit for him breaks the command, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’ (Aboth Rabbi Nathan 26; see also Midrash Rabbah Song of Songs i. 4. 2).

page 272 note 3 The same Greek word (πλευρά) is used by Josephus and the LXX and may mean either rib or side.

page 273 note 1 The first earthly Man was moulded of clay and vitalized by a soul and mind. He should be distinguished from the Heavenly Man who was not created of matter but stamped with God's image ( Legum Allegoriae I, 31Google Scholar).

page 274 note 1 Those persons that were completely masculine or feminine before their division account for homosexuality.

page 274 note 2 Symposium 192. ‘I (the deity) am ready to fuse and weld you together in a single piece, that from being two you may be made one; that so long as you live, the pair of you, being as one, may share a single life; and that when you die you may also in Hades yonder be one instead of two, having shared a single death.’

page 274 note 3 Dodd, C. H., The Bible and the Greeks (1935), p. 100Google Scholar; and Mead, G. R. S., Thrice-Greatest Hermes (1949), II, 3–20.Google Scholar

page 274 note 4 Dodd, p. 146 and Ernst, Haenchen, ‘Aufbau and Theologie des Poimandres’, Z.T.K. LIII (1956), 177.Google Scholar

page 275 note 1 Batey, , op. cit.Google Scholar

page 275 note 2 Grant, R. M. and Freedman, D. N., The Secret Sayings of Jesus (1960), pp. 75–7Google Scholar; Ernst, Haenchen, Die Botschaft des Thomas-Evangeliums (1961), pp. 52–4Google Scholar; Bertil, Gärtner, The Theology of the Gospel of Thomas (1961), pp. 217–23.Google Scholar

page 276 note 1 See Hans, Leisegang, Die Gnosis (1955), pp. 285 f.Google Scholar

page 276 note 2 ‘The Mystery of Marriage in the Gospel of Philip’, V.C. xv (1961), 136.Google Scholar

page 276 note 3 For a reconstruction of the myth of the primal Man see Kraeling, Carl H., Anthropos and Son of Man (1927)Google Scholar; and Ernst, Ludwig Dietrich, ‘Der Urmensch als Androgyn’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte, LVIII (1939), 297f.Google Scholar; Hans, Leisegang, ‘Der Gottmensch als Archetypes’, Eranos-Jahrbuch, XVIII (1950), 9f.Google Scholar

page 277 note 1 Plato considered the division to be punishment for sin—rebellion against the gods. Jewish thought understood the division to be a remedy for man's solitude, which subsequently led to sin.

page 277 note 2 Matthew adds a clarifying phrase κατά π⋯σαν αἰτίαν (xix. 3).

page 277 note 3 The exception for unchastity given in Matt. v. 32; xix. 9 is apparently the application of Jesus' ideal to a concrete problem in the early church. The Markan account, which is supported by Luke xvi. 18 and I Cor. vii. 10,11, permits no exception and apparently is the more accurate statement.

page 278 note 1 Robertson, A. and Plummer, A., Corinthians, ICC (1916), p. 140.Google Scholar

page 278 note 2 Paul has been censured for his attitude, but it must be realized that he was not defining the ideal of marriage. Under the crisis of the ‘impending distress’ he gives pragmatic advice to specific questions. See Morton Enslin, S., The Ethics of Paul (1930), p. 190.Google Scholar

page 278 note 3 The meaning which σ⋯μα held for Paul is approximated by the English word ‘personality’, i.e. psychosomatic self. See Ernst, Käsemann, Leib und Leib Christi (1933), pp. 118 f.Google Scholar; Robinson, John A. T., The Body (1952), pp. 26–33.Google Scholar

page 278 note 4 Johannes, Weiss, Der este Korintherbrief, M.K.E.K. (1925), pp. 163 f.Google Scholar See also Hans, Lietzmann, An die Korinther III (1931), pp. 27 f.Google Scholar

page 279 note 1 See the discussion of this paradox by Adolf, Deissmann, Paul, trans. W. E. Wilson (1926), pp. 135–57.Google Scholar

page 279 note 2 It has been suggested by Cullman and Schweitzer that Paul considered union with a harlot to defile because he held to a primitive concept of holiness, where holiness was a quasi-material substance which could be transmitted. Especially would the primitive concept of holiness be present if Paul were writing concerning union with a temple prostitute. Intercourse with the priestesses of Aphrodite would have meant consecration, but for Paul it meant desecration. Some Christians no doubt held to this primitive view of holiness and believed that meat offered in idolatrous worship defiled anyone who should afterward eat it. But Paul knew an idol had no real existence, and therefore, meat could not be unclean in itself (I Cor. viii. 4; Rom. xiv. 14; cf. I Cor. x. 14–33). Indeed everything is clean, and it becomes wrong only if another is made to fall thereby (Rom. xiv. 20). The value for determining one's action is not primitive holiness but personal concern for the ‘weak brother’ motivated by the love revealed in Jesus Christ. It is the same personal love for others that makes prostituting them impossible for the Christian. See Oscar, Cullmann, The Early Church (1956), p. 172Google Scholar, and Albert, Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, trans. William Montgomery (1931), p. 128.Google Scholar See also James, Moffatt, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (1938), pp. 81f.Google Scholar; Easton, B. S., ‘The Church in the New Testament’, A.T.R. XXII (1940), 159.Google Scholar

page 279 note 3 ‘Man and wife become ONE FLESH—a rendering which stresses too exclusively one aspect of the married state: ONE PERSONALITY would translate it better, for “flesh” in the Jewish idiom means “real human life”’ ( Barry, F. R., A Philosophy from Prison, 1926, p. 151).Google Scholar

page 279 note 4 Bailey, D. S., The Mystery of Love and Marriage (1951), p. 110.Google Scholar ‘It is the best definite exemplification of union without confusion or loss of distinction.’

page 280 note 1 Dahl, N. A., ‘Christ, Creation and the Church’, The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology (1956), pp. 438 f.Google Scholar

page 280 note 2 ‘To say that the Church is “one flesh” with Christ is to describe a structure of personal relationships in which the Christian disciple remains completely and utterly himself, yet finds himself developed into a “new man” through participation in the common life of Christ's body, the Church’ (Richardson, p. 258).

page 281 note 1 ‘As the Creator may be said to be fulfilled by His Creation, so Christ is completed by His Church. It is the extension of His personality’ ( George, Johnston, The Doctrine of the Church in the N.T., 1943, p. 92).Google Scholar

page 281 note 2 This is in distinction to Christ's presence in the universe at a cosmic level (Eph. i. 19–23).