spirituality

Jesus Master

Queen of Apostles

St. Paul

Anti-Feminist	Death of Jesus	Gospel I Preached	Mga Sulat	Passion of Christ	Paul - the Corinthians	Pauline Ethics	Three Accounts
Bridge Between	Emptied Himself	Letter to the Thessalonians	Networking in Love	Mosaic Law	Pauline Corpus	Road to Damascus

Paul's Conception of Christ as more-than-individual
Paul's conception of Christ as "corporate" invites us to recognize the undeniable fact of our
connectedness

Sr. Bernie Dianzon, FSP

When we read Luke's report in the Acts of the Apostles concerning Paul's encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, what could strike us as strange and puzzling is Christ's self-identification when Paul asks him, "Who are you, sir?" The reply goes: "I am Jesus whom you are persecuting." If we can stretch our imagination and engage our fantsy a bit, we might picture Paul protesting, "You are already dead, how can you say I'm persecuting you? It is the followers of 'the Way that I'm persecuting, not you!" But even this protest sounds absurd, for the person Paul encounters in the vision is very much alive. The insight Paul gets from this strange meeting and conversation shapes his conviction about what the risen and glorified Christ really means for him and for all of humanity.

The Christ Paul encounters on the road to Damascus transcends the individual category. He is no loner a single person, the man historically known as Jesus of Nazareth. He is now an inclusive personality-one in whom believers find themselves incorporated. Paul begins to speak of Christian life as lived in an 'area' which is 'Christ'. This idea is echoed by the Acts of the Apostles, where we read: In him we live and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28). This extraordinary conception of Jesus Christ is what New Testament scholars call the "Corporate Christ'. Paul employs various expressions to convey notion of Christ.

'In Christ is an important prepositional phrase that Paul uses one hundred and sixty-four(164) times to express various ideas of incorporation into Christ. Paul seems to think of himself and of other Christians as included or located in Christ. Moreover, a Christian is not 'in Christ' as an isolated believer. Being 'in Christ', for Paul, is a communal conception and not an individual possession. It is a life shared with those who have responded to Christ.

Adam in the letters of Paul is a corporate, more-than-individual figure. The first Adam signifies sinful humanity in need of redemption. The second Adam, who is Christ, signifies redeemed humanity. Thus, Paul, more than any other New Testament writer, develops the understanding of Christ as Adam. Paul goes beyond Israel to the scope of all humanity, finding in Christ not only true Israel but renewed humanity.

BODY OF CHRIST is the expression coined by Paul to convey the idea that our union with Christ is 'organic' in nature. Christ himself is the body of which Christians are limbs. It is by union with this body and by incorporation in it that Christians become Christians. Christ is the true self of the human race, standing in that perfect union with God to which others can attain only as they are incorporated in him.

At this time when individualism is all the rage, Paul's conception of Christ as corporate invites us to recognize the undeniable fact of our connectedness. Many of our problems today are communal and even global in nature. If we can acknowledge our responsibility to the larger communities in which we live, we can facilitate solving global issues and discover a greater sense of meaning, inasmuch as it will allow individuals to realize that we are our brothers' and the sisters' keepers.

ST. PAUL'S UNDERSTANDING OF THE JUSTICE OF GOD
Bernie Dianzon, FSP

Many of us probably grew up with the notion of divine justice as “rewarding the good and punishing the wicked.” Thus, heaven and hell, respectively, spell eternal reward and eternal punishment, while God is conceived of as a calculating judge. These images may have sufficed to make us behave properly as children, but they have not altogether been helpful in sustaining a mature adult faith. They have created a caricature of God, fashioned after “our own human image and likeness.” St. Paul can sympathize with those of us who struggle to break away from these notions, which are a far cry from his own first-century teaching about the “justice of God.”

We know from experience that translating an idea into another language is a tough job. And not infrequently, essential aspects of the idea are lost in the course of translation. “Justice” is an inadequate translation of the Greek term dikaiosyne, which Paul uses. For us today, “justice” only evokes images of a legal system – law, court hearing, verdict, etc. An alternative translation is “righteousness,” which points more to moral uprightness, but likewise cannot capture the mentality behind Paul’s original expression. Although Paul writes in Greek, his thinking is very much Jewish. And when he writes dikaiosyne, the notion he conveys is the Hebrew tscdaqah. The expression tsedaqah refers to Yahweh’s covenant faithfulness in relation his covenant-partner Israel. Far from referring to a cold legal system, it is a relational term, which is associated especially with God’s saving activity. Fidelity, mercy, steadfast love, defense of the weak and the helpless are various aspects of God’s tsedaqah. We find in this concept the reason why God continues to save Israel despite her repeated infidelities.

The Old Testament notion of God’s justice as “fidelity to the covenant” provides the base for understanding Paul’s vision of the “justice of God” as his “saving activity.” In the Letter to the Romans, Paul writes:
I am not ashamed of the gospel: is it the power of God for salvation
for everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
For in it the justice of God is revealed
from faithfulness unto faithfulness… (Rom 1:16-17).
Paul finds God’s justice made manifest in what Christ did for us, obediently accepting death on the cross, in faithfulness to the saving mission for which he was sent by the Father. Christ himself is the “gospel,” which is God’s power for salvation. For God, in Christ, has taken the initiative to right the wrongs of his suffering world by taking their weight upon himself. The faithfulness of Christ that leads him to the cross is the supreme manifestation of God’s tsedaqah (from faithfulness [of Yahweh] unto faithfulness [of Christ]). Christ becomes God’s “amen,” the fullest expression of Yahweh’s faithfulness to his covenant with Israel. The covenant is not revoked, but rather recreated in Christ, and made universal in scope – “to the Jew first, but also to the Greek.” All have sinned, Jew and Gentile alike, but all have been made just. This is what the “justice of God” is all about – it is LOVE IN ACTION.

Was St. Paul Anti-Feminist?
Bernie Dianzon, FSP

St. Paul is regarded by most advocates of feminism and women's liberation as a notorious figure, who is hostile to their cause. The English writer George Bernard Shaw, summing up this gloomy impression, describes St. Paul in his book Androcles and the Lion as the "eternal enemy of woman." Certain statements in the letters attributed to St. Paul apparently corroborate this impression. Taken as they are, without deeper study, these statements appear to denigrate women, or at least relegate them to a subordinate role. If you are a woman who believe in the equality of men and women, how will the following passages strike you?

1 Cor 14:34-35 The women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church.

1 Tim 2:11-14 Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

Col 3:18 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord.

Eph 5:22 Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord.

The above statements, however, show only one side of the coin, and we would be doing St. Paul a grave injustice if we draw a definitive conclusion about his attitude towards women without considering the other side of the coin.

Just as bad news easily sparks publicity, so the negative statements of St. Paul seem to attract more attention than his positive pronouncements. But the following are equally worthy of consideration:

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are alone in Christ Jesus.

1Cor 7:3-4 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not rule over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not rule over his own body, but the wife does.

The prevailing consensus among scripture scholars regarding the letters whose authorship is attributed to St. Paul, is that only seven truly came from his pen - Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1Thessalonians, and Philemon. This scholarly conclusion has an important implication for the present discussion. The two positive pronouncements cited above both come from authentic letters of St. Paul. They reflect the Apostle's original attitude towards women. On the other hand, three of the four letters were written not by the Apostle himself, but by his disciples, who had to accommodate following the Apostle's death. Christianity's concern then was survival in the predominantly patriarchal milieu. St. Paul's disciples, without losing the essence of their master's message, had to make some compromises and tone down certain revolutionary elements, such as the view regarding women.

The only statement that needs to be clarified in order to exonerate the Apostle, is 1Cor 14:34-35. Coming from an authentic letter of St. Paul, it openly contradicts his pronouncements on the equality and mutuality between men and women in Gal 3:28 and 1Cor 7:3-4. How can this contradiction be accounted for?

Paul's style and approach in 1Corinthians can resolve the apparent ambivalence. One of Paul's sources of information regarding the problems in Corinth were letters written by the Corinthians themselves. Careful analysis of 1 Corinthians reveals that the Apostle was deliberately and liberally using "Corinthian slogans", that is, he was lifting verbatim expressions used by the members of the community in the letters they wrote to him. These slogans are situated just before Paul's response to the various problems, thus serving like some kind of an introduction. To one who reads 1 Corinthians without any background, the slogans would read as though they were Paul's actual words. The statement in 1 Cor 14:34-35, ordering women to keep silence in the assembly, is considered by many scholars as a Corinthian slogan. Paul's response follows immediately in verse 36.

We can thus safely say that the original Paul was far from being a male chauvinist and anti-feminist. He was, in fact, a champion of eschatological egalitarianism.

Prayer to St. Paul the Apostle

For Our Nation

Saint Paul, teacher of the Gentiles, watch over with love, this nation and its people. Your heart expanded so as to welcome and enfold all peoples in the loving embrace of peace.

Now, from heaven, may the charity of Christ urge you to enlighten everyone with the light of the Gospel, and to establish the kingdom of love.

Inspire vocations, sustain those working for the Gospel, render all hearts docile to the Divine Master.

May this nation ever more find in Christ the Way and the Truth and the Life. May its light shine before the world, and may it always seek the kingdom of God and his justice.

Holy Apostle, enlighten, comfort and bless us all. Amen.