Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
The problem raised by the use of food offered in sacrifice to idols, remote though it is from modern western Christianity, played a large part in Christian thought in and for some time after the New Testament period. The evidence for this statement, so far as the New Testament is concerned, is, briefly, as follows.
page 138 note 1 See I Cor. vii. I, and cf. viii. I.
page 138 note 2 The material under discussion raises the question of the unity of I Corinthians; see below.
page 138 note 3 I believe this to be substantially the original form of the text, but the question is too large for discussion here.
page 139 note 4 But note Kirsopp Lake's hesitation in Beginnings of Christianity, v (London, 1933), 212.Google Scholar
page 140 note 1 Cf. also Sanh.106a, quoted in S.-B. III, 793. On I Cor. x. 7, Billerbeck says with reference to ‘In der späteren Zeit war es ein feststehender exegetischer Kanon, dass unter קהע in der Schrift nichts andres als Götzendienst zu verstehen sei.’ But may suggest further overtones of meaning; cf. Arrian's account of Sardanapalus's inscription (Alexander 5, 4):.
page 140 note 2 See for μíασμα Jer. xxxix. 34; Ezk. xxxiii. 31; I Macc. xiii. 50; and for μıασμóς Wisd. xiv. 26; I Macc. iv. 43.
page 140 note 3 In II Pet. ii. 13 άπάταıς should be read, and taken as a pun on άγάπαıς in Jude. So Ewald, , quoted by J. B. Mayor ad loc.Google Scholar
page 140 note 4 The κωμοı objected to in several places in the New Testament (Rom. xiii. 13; Gal.v. 21;I Pet. iv 3) may have been disapproved on religious as well as other grounds.
page 141 note 1 'Social Problems in the Early Church:ı. The Sunday Joint of the Christian Housewife', in The Framework of the New Testament Stories (Manchester, 1964), pp. 276–90, previously published in the Festschrift for Erik Wolf.Google Scholar
page 141 note 2 Cf Schoeps, H. J., Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen, 1949), p. 260 n.I.Google Scholar
page 141 note 3 Cf.II Clem.i. 6; iii. ı; Preaching of Peter (James, M. R., The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924), pp. 16f.)Google Scholar; also the Jewish material referred to on p. 142 below.
page 141 note 4 Ehrhardt, (p. 279n. 2) refers to the Gospel of Thomas 14, but this seems to be of only marginal relevance.Google Scholar
page 141 note 5 See also below on the material contained in the Clementine literature.
page 142 note 1 ‘La circoncision, le baptème et l'autorité du décret apostolique (Actes xv, 28sq.) dans les milieux judéo-chrétiens des Pseudo-Clémentines’, in Studia Theologica, IX (1955), 1–39.Google Scholar
page 142 note 2 Op.cit. p. 34.Where Molland indicates omissions I have completed the quotation, using square brackets.
page 143 note 1 ‘The Corinthian Correspondence (1) and (2)’, in Studies in the Gospels and Epistles (Manchester, 1962), edited by Black, M., pp. 190–224.Google Scholar
page 144 note 1 The point here does not depend on the acceptance of II Cor. vi. 14–vii. I as part of this letter.
page 144 note 2 Cf. Greeven, H. in T.W.N.T. VII, 852f.Google Scholar
page 144 note 3 The macellum was in an even wider sense a centre of the catering trade; one could hire cooks there (Pliny, Nat. Hist. XVIII, 108).
page 144 note 4 Plutarch suggests origin in the Greek μάγεıρος, or from a Roman called Macellus, whose illgotten wealth was used to build a meat market. We may do better with μάχομαı, μάχαıρα, μάχη, mactare; or with maceria, an enclosure; or best perhaps with , a fold, pen, or enclosure.
page 145 note 1 Op. cit. p. 280.
page 145 note 2 Lietzmann, H., An die Korinther, I, II (Tübingen, 1949), edited by Kümmel, W. G., pp. 49–52.Google Scholar
page 145 note 3 Kitto, H. D. F., The Greeks (London, 1951), p. 33.Google Scholar
page 145 note 4 If, as I suspect, the reference is to The Greek Commonwealth (Oxford, 1931)Google Scholar, it is a playful exaggeration of Zimmern's words; but many passages in Greek literature could be quoted more or less to this effect, e.g. Xenophon, Mem.III, 14, 2:έσΘíουσı μεν γάρ δη πάντες επì τῷ σìτω öψον, öταν παρη. The οıρος is farinaceous food in general, the öψον any sort of relish, often fish—and it may or may not be available. The context in Xenophon is worth noting.
page 145 note 5 Cicero and the Roman Republic (Harmondsworth, 1956), p. 326.Google Scholar
page 146 note 1 Cf. Lohse, E., ‘Zu I Cor. 10, 26, 31’, in Z. N. T. W. XLVII(1956), 277–80, especially p. 279.Google Scholar
page 146 note 2 S.-B. III, 420.
page 146 note 3 Hence one reason for the existence of religious societies, within which members could be certain of ritual purity without constant inquiry.
page 146 note 4 Deissmann, A., Light from the Ancient East (London, 1927), p. 351n. 2.Google Scholar
page 147 note 1 Molland, op.cit.
page 147 note 2 Ehrhardt, op.cit.
page 147 note 3 J. Weiss, on x. 25: ‘Damit gibt Paulus eine grossartige Freiheit: gerade jenes vorsichtige Nachfragen ist vom Übel, weil es eine Ängstlichkeit und einen Mangel an Freiheit zeigt, der überwunden werden soll’. E.B. Allo, on x. 27f.: ‘Paul voulait éviter, autant que possible, de troubler les relations de société et d'amitié de ses néophytes, qui pouvaient d'ailleurs servir à la diffusion de l'Evangile. C'était lά, dit J. Weiss, un libéralisme extraordinaire pour un Israëlite et un ancien. Le “omnia mihi licent” n'était pas un vain mot, pourvu qu'on le comprît en honnête homme.’
page 147 note 4 Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic, Judaism (London, 1948), p. 321.Google Scholar
page 148 note 1 Chadwick, H., ‘“All Things to All Men” (I Cor. ix. 22)’, in N.T.S. I (1955), 261–75.Google Scholar
page 148 note 2 S.-B. III, 48–60. Of necessity I omit the texts, which should be carefully studied.
page 148 note 3 A shorter and simpler summary is given by Elmslie, W. A. L., The Mishna on Idolatry: 'Aboda Zara (Texts and Studies, VIII, 2; Cambridge, 1911), pp. 42f.Google ScholarElmslie says of the view of I Cor. x. 20, that idols are made use of by demons, ‘If this idea existed among the Jews, it was confined to the uneducated classes, and, even there, must be ascribed mainly to Greek influence.’ He quotes the saying of R. Aqiba, closely akin to I Cor. viii. 4; x. 19, (Abodah Zarah 55 a).
page 148 note 4 Cf. the previous note; there seems to be no attempt in Judaism to co-ordinate the various views held.
page 148 note 5 I have discussed this subject in From First Adam to Last (London, 1962), pp. 83–94(and see index s.v. Powers).Google Scholar
page 149 note 1 Héring, J., La Première Épître de Saint Paul aux Corinthiens (Neuchâtel and Paris, 1949), p. 11Google Scholar, gives as one reason for seeing two letters combined in the epistle, ‘contradiction entre 10. 1–22 qui prend une attitude rigoriste dans la question des sacrifices païens, et 10. 23 à 11. I qui en fait uniquement une question de charité vis-à-vis des faibles, comme le chapitre 8’. But our discussion suggests that we need not look for two letters to explain the two lines of thought.
page 149 note 2 See the heading of the Psalm in the LXX (της μıας σαββάτων), and Tamid vii. 4.
page 149 note 3 Notwithstanding Acts it is difficult to believe that Paul was present when the Decree vas drawn up.
page 150 note 1 I may refer here to my ‘Paul and the “Pillar” Apostles’ in Studia Paulina (Haarlem, 1953), pp. 1–19Google Scholar; and Christianity at Corinth, in Bulletin of the Rylands Library, XLVI (March 1964), 269–97, especially pp. 286–97.Google Scholar
page 150 note 2 Lietzmann, H., The Beginnings of the Christian Church (London, 1937), p. 199.Google Scholar
page 150 note 3 See ‘Cephas and Corinth’, in Abraham unser Vater (Leiden/Köln, 1963), pp. 1–12.Google Scholar
page 150 note 4 See above, pp. 138, 149 (n.1).
page 150 note 5 By ‘gnostics’ I mean people who made much of the term λνωσıς. I hope this is not an improper use of the word.
page 151 note 1 See ‘Christianity at Corinth’ (as in n.1, p. 150), pp. 275–86. Other literature on Corinthian gnosticism is referred to here.
page 151 note 2 Cf.xi. 13 with x. 15; and note how Paul refers to the significance of creation, as in the quotation in x. 26. φύσıς (xi. 14) is scarcely more than a Greek way of referring to ‘the order of creation as God made it’.
page 151 note 3 See Jeremias, J. in Studia Paulina (as in n. 1, p. 150), pp. 151f.Google Scholar
page 152 note 1 x. 29f. The exact connexion of the questions is disputed, but they must in some sense represent the complaint of a strong Christian. A further note might be added here on the sacramentarian interest of the Corinthian gnostics and Paul's response to it (I Cor. x. 1–11, 16f.; xi. 20–34); Mrs J. L. Lampitt, of Durham, is dealing with this question.
page 152 note 2 See above, p. 149.Google Scholar
page 153 note 1 See above, p. 141.Google Scholar
page 153 note 1 Nothing is more striking than that Luke can make Paul himself part-author of the Decree.Google Scholar On this, see Haenchen, E., Die Apostelgeschichte (Göttingen, 1961), pp. 410–14.Google Scholar Does the fact that the majority, even of Gentile Christians, continued to observe the food laws suggest that the Western text of the Decree sprang from a gnostic source?
page 153 note 3 Evidence in Ehrhardt, op.cit., especially p. 286. Cf. Lightfoot, J. B., Essays on the Work entitled Supernatural Religion (London, 1889), p. 14Google Scholar n. 2: ‘When the season of persecution arrived, and the constancy of Christians was tested in this very way, St Paul's own principles would require a correspondingly rigid abstinence from even apparent complicity in idolatrous rites.’