Wednesday, November 29, 2023

Brian Alan Stewart on 1 Corinthians 9:13-14

  

Paul begins this chapter with a defense of his rights as an apostle, particularly his right to “material benefits” from his congregations. Even though Paul forgoes his right to such benefits, he reasserts the principle, asking, “Do you not know that those who work with the holy things (ta hiera) eat the things from the temple, and those who serve at the altar (thusistēriō) share in the altar? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who preach the gospel should live by the gospel” (1 Cor 9:13-14). (The “command of the Lord” may refer to Matt 10:10 and Lk 10:7-8. See Archibald Robertson and Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians (ICC) (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1967), 187; William Orr and James Arthur Walther, 1 Corinthians (Anchor Bible Series 32) (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 239) Here, Paul draws directly upon the analogy between Christian preachers and cultic priests, those who “work with holy things” and “serve at the altar.” Paul suggests that just as a priest receives his livelihood from his priestly work, so also the Christian minister ought to be supported by his gospel work. The analogy only works if there is some assumed continuity between the work of one and the work of the other.

 

On the surface, it is not clear whether Paul refers to Israelite priests or pagan priests, and as it stands, either reference could be taken legitimately. However, I suggest that while Paul leaves open the possibility of a pagan priestly analogy, he is most likely thinking of biblical priests. Just a few verses prior, Paul cites Deut 25:4 (“You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain”) and concludes: “Does God care about oxen or does he speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake” (1 Cor 9:9-10). He is drawing upon Old Testament models to make his case.

 

Then in chapter 10, he continues his appropriation of Old Testament events for Christian interpretation, stating:

 

I want you to know, brethren, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink. . . Nevertheless God was not pleased with most of them. . . Now these things happened as types (tupoi) for us (1 Cor 10:1-6).

 

In other words, Paul sees the events of the Old Testament as working “types” and models upon which the Christian draws in order to gain a fuller realization of their own situation. The Old Testament law about oxen becomes a model for the rights of the Christian preacher. The Old Testament exodus event and wilderness wandering become “types” (tupoi) of the Christian life. Between these two bookend examples, Paul inserts the analogy between priestly service and Christian preaching, between priestly rights and apostolic rights. The surrounding context from 9:9-10:6 thus suggests that Paul is working primarily from Old Testament, biblical models, rather than pagan ones. (Of course, they need not be mutually exclusive for Paul’s argument to work, and many in his congregation may have thought of pagan priests first. C.K. Barrett, for example, takes this reference to be primarily pagan priesthood, although even he admits “it does apply to the Jewish also” (The First Epistle to the Corinthians [London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968], 207). Harry Nasuti makes the same point that “whether the temple referred to here is the Jewish Temple or the pagan temples (or both), the point [of Paul’s argument] is the same” (in “The woes of the prophets and the rights of the apostle : the internal dynamics of 1 Corinthians 9” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 50 [1988]: 246-264, at 251). The larger context of Paul’s argument, however, suggests he was thinking in biblical terms) Paul, therefore, likely derives his reference to the entitlements of priests for their work in the temple from Numbers 18:8-24 which speaks explicitly of the priests share of the “holy things”. As such, the work of the Christian leader “is analogous to that of the Levitical temple servants so far as support is concerned.” (Orr and Walther, 242)

 

Again we see that while Paul does not designate himself a hiereus in explicit terminology, he freely draws upon biblical priestly service as an analogy for Christian leadership. Among his many arsenal of models and paradigms to explain the work of Christian ministry, the priestly image is one which Paul demonstrates no hesitation in using. Thus Paul provides a set of vocabulary and interpretive method which will continue to shape the thought and practice of the later church. Paul’s suggestion of a correspondence between Christian leadership and Old Testament priesthood is then picked up and developed by subsequent Christian thinkers. As we have seen in previous chapters, later writers turn to these same ideas in 1 Cor 9 for their understanding of the bishop as a priest. (See for example Didascalia, chapter 8; Apostolic Constitutions 2.25, in Metzger 1:228-230; and Origen, Hom. Numb. 11.2.2, SC, vol. 2, 22-24.) (Brian Alan Stewart, "'Priests of My People': Levitical Paradigms for Christian Ministers in the Third and Fourth Century Church" [PhD Dissertation; University of Virginia, May 2006], 238-40)