.
. . it is difficult to justify the presumption that in 1 Cor. 1:24, Christ
should be regarded as the independent entity Wisdom. Firstly, the text of the
verse is not about Christ Himself but about His crucifixion, since Χριστον in
v.24 is Χριστον εσταυρωμενον of v.23. Secondly, there is no reference to the
figure of Wisdom here. Paul presents σοφια θεου (alongside with δυναμις θεου)
not as a being, but rather as the characteristic of God in His
particular act, namely Christ’s cross. In fact, σοφια is also a
characteristic of those ‘who are the called’ because they understand God’s
wisdom. In other words, one should interpret the concept ‘wisdom’ here as a
reference to both God’s act and the corresponding human
perception. Moreover, God’s ‘wisdom’ is depicted in a dialectical tension with
God’s ‘foolishness’ (v.25) and as an antithetical notion to the
‘wisdom/foolishness’ of the world. Thus σοφια θεου is mentioned in connection
with ‘foolishness’, not with Christ. The attempt to insert into the text the
hypostatical figure of Wisdom would distort Paul’s argument: Does he consider η
μωρια του θεου as the other designation for God’s Wisdom?
One
can also ask, Why Paul does not mention Wisdom in the texts of the passage
when he refers to Christ crucified (but rather prefers to use δυναμις θεου in
v. 18)? One should not overlook that in the text of v.24 the reference to
δυναμις θεου precedes the reference to σοφια θεου. Unlike σοφια, δυναμις as a
religious phenomenon is found in different parts of 1 Corinthians. (1 Cor 4:20;
5:4; 6:14) Strikingly enough there is no reference in recent scholarship to
‘Power Christology’ although some attempts are made with regard to other divine
attributes. . . . Paul uses the concept to criticize the traditional Greek
(philosophical) understanding of wisdom and it would be ‘altogether unlikely
that he now intends for the Greek’ to replace their wisdom with a Jewish
intermediary figure. Nothing indicates the presence of ‘Wisdom Christology’ in
1 Cor. 1:24. (Andrey A. Romanov, One God as One God and One Lord: The
Lordship of Jesus Christ as a Hermeneutical Key to Paul’s Christology in 1
Corinthians (with a special focus on 1 Cor. 8:4-6) [Early Christian Studies
20; Macquarie Centre, Australia: 2021], 325-27)
