Friday, April 29, 2022

Maurice F. Wiles on the Patristic Interpretation of "Flesh and Blood"

  

When Paul says in I Cor. i. 29 that the boasting of all flesh is excluded before God, ‘all flesh’ is interpreted by Theodore as ‘every fleshy man with his mind set on fleshly things’ (πας ανθρωπος σαρκικος επι σαρκικοις εχων το φρονημα) (Theod. on I Cor. i. 29; cf. Ambst. In loc. [191 C]). In similar vein the words of I Cor. xv. 50 that ‘flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God’ are regularly interpreted in a moral sense. This particular exegesis . . . was supported with careful and detailed reasoning and was of fundamental importance to the understanding of Paul’s resurrection doctrine (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5, 14, 4; Tertullian, De Ros. Mort. 51, 5; Adv. Marc. 5, 10, 11; ibid. 5, 14, 4; Novatian, De Trinitate, 10; Chr. Hom. in I Cor. 42, 1 [10, 364]; Ambst. In loc. [270 B]; Pelagius in loc; Isidore, Epp. 1, 477).This insistence on the moral significance of the term ‘flesh’ in Paul’s writings is undoubtedly a true and important insight. But it seems clear from some of the examples just given that if it is applied too automatically and too uniformly to every occurrence of the word in his letters it can give rise to serious misinterpretation of his meaning many cases. (M. F. Wiles, The Divine Apostle: The Interpretation of St. Paul’s Epistles in the Early Church [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967], 29)

 

In the first instance the words are defined to mean that flesh and blood by themselves, apart from the Spirit, cannot enter the kingdom of God (Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. 5, 9, 1-3). Secondly, flesh and blood are defined as not bearing their straightforward meaning but as implying the works of the flesh, and Gal. v. 19-21 is cited in evidence (Ibid. 5, 11, 1; 5, 14, 4). These two lines of argument may be said to be brought together in the declaration already quoted that Paul’s meaning is that if you live as if you were flesh and blood and nothing more you cannot inherit the kingdom of God (Ibid. 5, 9, 4. This shows the way in which Irenaeus relates the two primary Pauline senses of flesh without implying any derogation of the physical creation as such). Thirdly, though he clearly lays much less emphasis on this line of argument, it would be incorrect in any sense to speak of flesh and blood inheriting the kingdom; the relationship is the other way round; it is they that are inherited (Ibid. Cf. Methodius on I Cor. xv. 50; De Res. 2, 18, 9, where the interpretation is attributed to Justin). (Ibid., 44)