Contested Ritual Space in Corinth

Paul contests the Corinthian Christ-followers' conception of oikos/oikia ritual space and argues instead, for ecclesia ritual space (Gehring 2004: 8 n. 45; Theissen 1982: 87). Paul corrects the Corinthians’ fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of sacred space (Flanagan 1999: 26-30; Newsom 2004: 7). The dominate script in Corinth was oikos space as the location of social-sacred space. Paul, however, understood there to be inherent weaknesses with this understanding and argues for ecclesia space as the controlling spatial metaphor for the community. The social identity that emerges relies on two other metaphors, the group as the temple of God and the body of Christ. These two metaphors provide the spatial bridge necessary to resocialize the Corinthians into an alternative community with a distinct ethos.

The two passages that bring to fore the conflict in spatial understanding are 1 Cor 11:22, 34 and 1 Cor 14:35. In 1 Cor 11:22, Paul asks the Corinthian Christ-followers, “Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” The conflict, from Paul’s perspective was over the confusion of oikos and ecclesia space. The Corinthians were treating the ritual space as domestic space. The confusion was a natural outcome of the Corinthians' Roman social identity and its correlation of domestic space with political power. Paul further instructs the Corinthians in 1 Cor 11:34, “If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.” The dominate script in Corinth combined oikos and ecclesia space but Paul establishes a thirdspace relationship between the two ritual spaces. The next passage in which there was spatial confusion is 1 Cor 14:35, in which Paul argues “If they [women] want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church” (Wire 1990: 149-52, 229-32; Horrell 1996: 195). Paul here argues for a hierarchical understanding of ritual space and seeks to silence women in the ecclesia space.

Paul’s rhetorical constructs are designed to form this community in a way that conforms to his rhetorical vision. The conflict between Paul’s rhetorical vision and the Corinthians' becomes a “contact zone” resulting in a thirdspace negotiation of identity (Pratt 2008: 8; Marchal 2008: 92). Using critical spatial theory (Lefebvre 1991: 95) knowledge can be expanded through the introduction of other possibilities to existing cultural binaries (e.g., oikos/ecclesia). This act does not simply combine or go in-between established binaries, but transforms them (Soja 1996: 61). Thirdspace is an ever-open space that allows contradictory and seemingly incompatible ideas to coexist and be creatively restructured in new ways to produce new meaning. Thirdspace identities provide a spatial reading of the negotiation that occurred between Paul and his audience in Corinth.

References

Flanagan, James W. “Ancient Perceptions of Space/Perceptions of Ancient Space,” Semeia 87 (1999), 15-43.

Gehring , Roger W. House Church and Mission: The Importance of Household Structures in Early Christianity (Peabody, Ma.: Hendrickson, 2004).

Horrell, David G. The Social Ethos of the Corinthian Correspondence: Interests and Ideology from 1 Corinthians to 1 Clement (London: T&T Clark, 1996).

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space (trans. D. Nicholoson-Smith; Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

Marchal, Joseph A. The Politics of Heaven: Women, Gender, and Empire in the Study of Paul. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008.

Newsom, Carol A. The Self as Symbolic Space: Constructing Identity and Community at Qumran (Leiden: Brill, 2004).

Pratt, Mary L. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London: Routledge, 2008).

Soja, Edward W. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996).

Theissen, Gerd, and John Howard Schütz. The Social Setting of Pauline Christianity Essays on Corinth (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1982).

Wire, Antoinette Clark. The Corinthian Women Prophets: A Reconstruction through Paul’s Rhetoric (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1990).

Identity Formation and the Lord’s Supper as Ritualized Mission

The Lord’s Supper serves as the constant reminder of the Corinthian’s part in the continuing Pauline mission and has tremendous identity forming implications. Identity formation is often enacted, performed, and embodied in ritual. Paul’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper in 1 Cor 11:23-32 serves as an example of this type of performative utterance. After passing along the tradition in vv. 23-25, Paul offers an interpretation of the tradition in v. 26 that argues for the centrality of ritualized mission, in that participation in the Lord’s Supper ‘is proclaiming the Lord’s death until he comes’. Paul uses (kataggellete) ‘proclaiming’ which is normally associated with verbal proclamation, however, Paul associates it with ritual. In Paul’s thinking, the enacting of the Lord’s Supper forms the community into one ‘body’ which will further his mission to the nations. Paul normally, in the Corinthian correspondence limits the proclamation verbs to himself or his co-workers, however, in this passage the mission of the community is indexed within that same lexical and conceptual field of proclamation. (Plummer 2006: 122; Eriksson 1998: 196).

The performance of the Lord’s Supper, based on the final phrase ‘until he comes’ also reinforces the apocalyptic eschatological character of their identity in that it allows the community access to the events associated with the death, resurrection, and return of Jesus. This forms an ethos of reversal that is vital to the ethical instructions from Paul in the letter and assists the Corinthians in embodying their transformed identity ‘in Christ’. So, the apocalyptic identity formation that is occurring in this step in Paul’s rhetoric in one that reminds the Corinthians that while they have been transformed and are part of the kingdom of God, there is a future fulfillment of this promise that is yet to be realized. A promise that will be fulfilled to them – Judeans as Judeans, and Greeks as Greeks (1 Cor 12:13); however, these particularized identities are transformed by being ‘in Christ’ and as members of the ecclesia of God (1 Cor 10:32, cf. 1 Cor 10:22).

The emphasis on social practice and relationships that contribute to the existence of nested-identities comes into relief in v. 29 where Paul speaks of the need for the Corinthian Christ-followers to ‘discern the body’. Paul was forming an alternative community with a distinct ethos and the phrase ‘discern the body’ is primarily a reference to this community that Paul was forming, symbolically referred to as ‘the body of Christ’ (1 Cor 12:12-14). The failure to discern the corporate identity of the community of Christ-followers had dire consequences (v. 30). This corporate understanding of v. 29 is echoed by Koester, ‘in 1 Cor 11, the bread as the symbol of the “body of Christ” designates the community, not the corpse of Jesus: “For all those who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves,” The “body” that must be recognized is the community’ (1998: 346; Horsley 1998: 162).

References:

Eriksson, A. 1998. Traditions as Rhetorical Proof: Pauline Argumentation in 1 Corinthians (CB, 29; Stockhom: Almqvist & Wiksell International).

Horsley, R.A. 1998. 1 Corinthians (Nashville: Abingdon Press)

Koester, H. 1998. ‘The Memory of Jesus’ Death and the Worship of the Risen Lord’, HTR 9.1: 335-50.

Plummer, P.L. 2006. Paul’s Understanding of the Church’s Mission: Did the Apostle Paul Expect the Early Christian Communities to Evangelize? (Paternoster Biblical Monographs; Milton Keynes, UK: Paternoster).

Baptism, Rites, and 'in Christ' Identity

I am putting the finishing touches on my SBL paper, Baths, Baptism, and Patronage and I thought I would post some of my reflections on Richard DeMaris' The New Testament in its Ritual World, first chapter. So, here they are. DeMaris rightly notes that scholars should question the ‘taken-for-granted status of baptism’ within the early Christ-movement (15). He also recognizes that ‘baptism’, in 1 Cor 1.10-13, is ‘the cause of controversy’ and ‘not a basis for solving’ the problem (16). Furthermore, ‘Paul implies that the conflicting loyalties that threaten group unity stem in part from who baptized whom’ (16). So, ‘Paul’s forgetfulness…betrays’ his ‘uneasiness about his involvement in baptism and his unhappiness that the rite has contributed to divisiveness among the Corinthian house churches and within them’ (16).

DeMaris calls into question the idea that baptism was a rite of initiation or a rite of passage and rather suggests that it should be understood as a boundary-crossing event with a primary focus on ritual and crisis rather than the ‘derivative status’ which focuses on ‘faith, sacred symbol, and sacred story’ to ‘inform or dictate what ritual is about’ (this is also a critique of Horrell (1996: 80)) (20, 22).

DeMaris points out that rites are public experiences and ‘not simply two-party transactions, between buyer and seller, between baptizer and baptizand’; rather they affect ‘existing social relations’ (24). He suggests that baptism ‘which brought new members into the group, was in effect a mechanism for crossing the domestic threshold and establishing kinship bonds’ (25). DeMaris suggests that ‘in the first-century Mediterranean world…family identity outweighed individual identity’ (25). However, DeMaris emphasizes the need to cut existing social ties but I would suggest that these existing ties remain expect in those places where they conflict with identity in Christ (e.g. idolatry and immorality).

DeMaris is correct to note that rites can generate conflict as easily as they can reduce it (27). So, baptism may actually be contributing to difficulties in interpreting the social implications of the gospel. DeMaris describes four aspects of rites that suggest that they contribute to ‘social crises’ and conflict (33). First, rites can misfire and produce ‘unintended consequences’ (27). I would suggest an unintended consequence in Corinth related to the patronage associations with Roman bathing practices (the argument of my SBL paper). Second, rites reinforce ‘social hierarchies’ (29). A trip to the bath likewise reinforced social hierarchies (just like the locker room did in Jr. High School, but I digress). Likewise, the asymmetrical relationship between the baptizer and the baptizand could have contributed to power issues within the Christ-movement. Third, rites present an ‘idealized situation’ that is not commensurate with reality (30). I would suggest that if language such as 1 Cor 12.13 was employed during the baptism, confusion could have arisen with regard to the continuing significance of ethnic identity and status categories in Christ. Fourth, ‘context is crucial for determining a rite’s effects’ (32). The social setting influences the effectiveness of a rite, especially in the context of its impact on existing social identities (e.g. baptism and circumcision and/or Eucharistic and dietary practices). If, central to Paul’s mission is the continuation of previous social identities in Christ (1 Cor 7.19) then, one should expect to see confusion, debate, and disagreement over how these identities continue in various social settings.

DeMaris also appears to disagree with me with regard to the continuing significance of previous social identities in Christ. For example, he writes ‘In the case of baptism, it would have concretized, enacted, and finalized the departure of individuals from their former social identity and their entry into a new identity’(31). Furthermore, ‘If baptism made the transition from old to new possible, the reality of living simultaneously in both persisted. The tension between ideal and real undoubtedly posed problems for members of the early church’ (31).

DeMaris notes with regard to 1 Cor 10.1-5 that ‘Paul stresses the clean break and new allegiance that ritual signals in his retelling of the Israelites’ Exodus and Wilderness experience – a thinly veiled reference to baptism and eucharist (10.1-5)’ (31). Though, he is correct to note that Paul is concerned about their inconsistency between lived and ideal experience. I would suggest that DeMaris overstates the discontinuity between Israel’s experience and that of those in Christ, in that he overlooks the comparative nature of Paul’s rhetoric in favor of a contrastive reading of the text (cf. 2 Cor 3 where Paul presents a similar argument). The implication of DeMaris’ approach is that ethnic identities and other existing identity position are irrelevant ‘in Christ’ rather than seeing the issue the way these continue ‘in Christ’, which would be an equally ‘messy’ scenario (31).

Well, so what do you think about DeMaris' work on the ritual aspects of baptism?

Whilst working on this, I came by a guitar solo that I couldn't pass up...passing on (thanks Greg Amburgy for the 'heads up'). Enjoy...