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All Things to All Men

H. Chadwick

New Testament Studies / Volume 1 / Issue 04 / May 1955, pp 261 - 275

DOI: 10.1017/S0028688500005488, Published online: 05 February 2009

Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0028688500005488

How to cite this article:H. Chadwick (1955). All Things to All Men. New Testament Studies, 1, pp 261-275doi:10.1017/S0028688500005488

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H. CHADWICK

' A L L T H I N G S T O A L L M E N '

(i COR. IX. 22 )

1

The present paper originates from a conviction that the famous confession of

the apostle Paul concerning his principles of evangelism in I Cor. ix has not

been fully e valuated. In 1910 Joh an nes Weiss com me nted: ' F u r die Beur-

teilung der Personlichkeit und religiosen Stellung des Paulus ist dies ein (viel

zu wenig gewiirdigtes) Dokument ersten Ranges',

2

an d his rema rk still holds

good. Th e passage, declaring th at he has become as a Je w to the Jews and as

a G entile to the Gentiles, is certainly no t self-explanatory. It could b e

interpreted as a declaration gravely to the apostle's disadvantage, as an

avowal th at he was totally unscrup ulous in his principles, or rathe r in his lack

of them, and suggesting that he was prepared to trim his sails in accordance

with the direction of the wind, and tha t he was not much concerned abo ut the

'truth' of what he said, but only with 'gaining' his hearers. Whatever their

beliefs might be, he was prepared to adjust himself to them.

Was the apostle, then, a mere weathercock? That is at least a possible

interpretation of his words, and it remains to examine selected specimens of

his technique in dealing with particular situations to see what the confession

meant for him.

In the first place, it is necessary to notice that the charge of being a

trimmer was made against him by his many critics. They recognized in him

a regre ttable readiness to adjust his message to suit his audien ce, and accused

him of preaching a gospel designed to 'please m en '. T he charge is prom inent

in Galatians. From the well-known problem text, Gal. v. n , it is evident

that Paul was being accused of 'still preaching circumcision'. W. Liitgert

and J. H . Ropes ma de this the ma in ground of their thesis tha t the opposition

to Paul in Galatia did not come from 'Judaisers', but from radical anti-

nomian Gentiles, who were in effect incipient Marcionites in their attitude

to Jud aism and to the Old Testame nt, and who complained th at the rags of

Judaism were still hanging upon Paul.

3

Against this thesis the re isno doubt

much that may be said;

4

it is not to the point to discuss it here,

only to note

1

Apaper reada t theninth General MeetingoftheStudiorum Novi TestamentiSocietasat

Marburg

on 10September 1954.

Der

erste

Korintherbrief, p . 242 .

8

W .Liitgert,Gesetz undGeist: tine Untersuchung

zur

Vorgeschichte des Galaterbrie/es

(Beitr. z. Forderung

christl. Theol.xxn , 6,Giitersloh,

1919);

J . H.Ropes, The

Singular Problem of

the

Epistleto

the G alatians

(Harvard Theological Studies, xiv, 1929).

4

Cf. J . M .Creed in

J-T.S.

xx xi (1930),p p .421-4. It is at leastmore probable thanthethesis

that Paulwasoncea missionary ofthe Jewish dispersion.

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262 H. CHADWICK

tha t this text does not make it necessary. The accusation of still preaching

circumcision is reasonable and intelligible if the sting of the charge was that

he was a trimmer, and such a charge could well come from either the Jewish

or th e Gentile side. That this was an accusation which the Apostle felt deeply

is shown by Gal. i. 10: apTi yap dcvSpcoirous ireiQco; f| TOV 0E6V; f| 3T]TCO

dcvQpCOTTOIS&poKEiv;

el

ETI

avQpcoTrois fipeoKov, XpicrroOSoOAoc.

OOK SCV

fmnv.

The partial parallelism in argument between the last clause here and Gal.

v. 11 (el TrepiTO|jT)vETIKnpuaaco,TI ETISICOKOUOCI;)*is striking, and underlines

the point that the accusation which hurt was that of adjusting his gospel to suit

the taste of his audience.

2

Gal. v. 11 replies that if he is at heart a trimmer he

has not been very successful since the audience continue to object to his

preaching to such an extent that they persecute him. The point is again met

in the barbed rejoinder of II Cor. v. 11:

EISOTES

oOv

TOV

96P0V

TOU

xupiou

dtvQpCOTTOUS TTElQoHEV, 0ECO S E TTEqXXVEpcbllESor eAi T^ CO 6 e KOCl EV TOCIS CTUVEl6f|CTaiV

Oiacov 7T6(potvepc3a6ai.

3

There is no lack of

seriousness;

it is with the fear of the

Lord before his mind that he 'persuades men', and his principles are manifest

to God even if the Corinthians profess to find him obscure.

The

locus classicus,

however, for the attack on Paul for his elasticity of

principle is II Cor. i. 13-24.

4

Here he is rebutting a charge of casualness,

sAocq>pia, with particular but not, I think, exclusive reference to the way in

which he made plans for his visits to the churches under his care. The

accusation had been made that he declared he was coming to Corinth

(I Cor. xvi. 3ff.) and then lightly changed his mind; this was deemed to

constitute evidence that he was not guided by the Spirit, but made his

decisions KCXTOC rjapKCt. But the particular charge is taken up into a general

accusation against his principles and against his seriousness. It was typical

of the man, said his Corinthian critics, to say Yes at one moment and No at

the next. Paul sarcastically takes up the charge and flings the words back at

his critics in an impassioned defence against their complaint that he was

casual and inconsistent, a man without seriousness and rectitude of purpose.

It is evident from the ironical and allusive character of Paul's reply that he

1

The double En also appears in Rom. v. 6, where some MSS. and versions omit the second; in

Gal. v. 11 the firstITIis omitted in D F G al.

2

H. Schlier (DerBriefan die

Galater,

1949,p. 15) thinks the charge met in Gal. i. 10 is merely that

of making concessions to Gentile Gesetzlosigkeit. It is much sharper if it is a general accusation of

making concessions all round.

8

H. Windisch (Der zweiteKorintherbrief, 1924, p. 176) reconstructs the charge to be that Paul

could convince the gullible, but the intelligent could see through him and recognized how un-

principled he was.

4

W. C. van Unnik, 'Reiseplane und Amen-Sagen: Zusammenhang und Gedankenfolge in

II Korinther 1: 15-24', inStudia Paulina

in

honorem

J.

de Zwaan(Haarlem, 1953), pp. 215-34, has

acutely shown that the key to the understanding of this obscure passage lies in the play upon the

rootIns. He thinks, however, that there is no allusion to the dominical saying of Matt.

v. 17,

on the

ground that the situation is quite different, and it is difficult to see in what way the Lord's words

could be relevant. In view of the remarks of W. L. Knox,

St

Paul and the Church

of

Jerusalem (1925),

p.

338, n. 8, this does not seem entirely clear. James

iv.

15andv. 12illustrate a type of'precisionist'

piety,which would take offence at Paul's failure to include 'Deo volente' in announcements of

future plans and at such language as II Cor. i. 23; xi. 10; xii. 19.

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AL L THINGS TO ALL MEN 26 3

did not regard the charge as a petty grumble about a mildly inconvenient

change of pla n. H e was sensitive to it precisely because it fitted in with the

total picture of himself as his opponents were painting him, and because in

that picture there was some element of truth.

In interpreting the confession of I Cor. ix. 22 we may therefore take good

note of the fact that Paul's practice of adjusting his teaching to his audience

did not escape the attentio n of his num erou s con tem pora ry critics. Inde ed,

the very wording of the confession that he was as a Jew to the Jews and as a

Gentile to the Gentiles could conceivably have been in the charge-sheet

against him, whether in Galatia or at Corinth.. It is possible, though not

dem onstrable, th at here he is actually quo ting from his adversaries. It would

be quite consistent with his usual practice if he were doing so, and in the

Corinthian letters Paul appears especially inclined to take the charges of his

opponents and to quote them back in an ironical tone.

1

11

There are certain passages in the Pauline epistles where students have

commonly detected the influence of the 'situation' upon the apostle's teach-

ing, notably in Colossians to which I shall refer later. But we may begin ou r

survey of specimen passages by investigating in some de tail one which has no t

usually been taken into the context of this discussion,

2

namely, the long

chapter on marriage and celibacy in I Cor. vii. The superficial reader is at

first tem pted to suppose that the apostle is concerned to disparage th e m arried

state and to emphasize the superiority of the celibate life; that Paul thinks

weddings have been celebrated rather too frequently in the church at

Corinth during recent months, and wishes to put a brake upon this tendency.

It is easy for even the eru dite to int erp ret Pau l as a misogynist with a psycho-

pathic fixation about women's hair (they must cover their heads in church)

and a deep-seated fear and hostility towards sex.

3

It must be recognized, on

1

Th e obvious example is the accusation, occasioned by Paul's frequent and passionate defences

of his standing as an apostle on an equality with the 'pillar' apostles, that he was continually

'commendinghimself. Paul returns the compliment w ith interest in II Cor. iii. 1; iv. 2, 5; v. 12;

vi.4; vii. 11; x. 1218;xii. II .

8

In this paper I leave on one side the conventional terms of reference for the discussion of

I Cor. ix. 22, such as Paul's circumcision of Timothy (Acts xvi. 1) and perhaps also Titus (Gal. ii.

3-5), not because these are irrelevant, but because they are well-worn themes.

3

G. Dell ing, Paulus Stellung zu Frau und Ehe (1931); H. Preisker, Christentum und Ehe in denersten

drei Jahrhunderten(1927), pp.I23ff. Delling's book not only contains excellent background ma teria l,

but also states admirably wh at Paul says. But he takes an essentially simple view of why Paul says

it. His answer

is

in terms of Pau l's personal psychology rathe r than of the external, pastoral situation

at Corinth. For good emphasis on the latter cf. O . M ichel, 'Wie spricht Paulus iiber Frau und

Ehe?', in Theol. Stud. u. Kritiken, cv (1933), pp. 215-25, especially at p. 219: 'Das Ehekapitel

I Kor. vii kann nur dann richtig verstanden werden, wenn es die seelsorgerliche Riickfuhrung

enthusiastischer Stromungen zu normalen Verhaltnissen in sich tragt.' Delling's view is apparen tly

accepted with regret by Joh n Knox,Chapters in aLife ofPaul(1950), p.105: 'Paul sh ow s... a rather

abysmal and embarrassing ignorance of the total meaning of marriag e.' For a sympathetic review

of Paul's marriage ethic see M. S. Enslin,

The Ethics

of

Paul

(1930), pp.

i6gff.

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264 H. CHADWIGK

the other hand, that the drift of the chapter as a whole is in the opposite

direction. Johannes Weiss, among other commentators, was surely right in

emphasizing the fact that, whereas in I Cor. vi. 12-20 Paul is combating a

licentious group, in chapter vii he is dealing with a strongly ascetic group who

were denying that the married state was compatible with the Christian

profession at all.

1

(It is a pity that in Lietzmann's otherwise admirable com-

mentary the point is not adequately noticed.) Written against a rigidly

ascetic movement, the chapter is wholly intelligible as a rearguard action, in

which the apostle manages to combine an ability to retreat so far as to seem

to surrender almost everything in principle to the opposition with an ability

to make practical recommendations not easily reconciled with the theory he

virtually accepts.

The way in which he deals with the licentious party in I Cor. vi is exactly

similar in its technique.

2

He begins by accepting unhesitatingly their funda-

mental position that the Christian is free from all restraint. The twice

repeated Tr vTct noi I^ecmv is the cry of the libertines, and similarly also the

radically dualistic attitude of the words: TOC PpcouorraT KoiAiqc KOCIf) KOIAIOC

TOTS

ppcbuaaiv 6 8 0s6s

KCCI

TaOrnv

KCCI TOOTCCKccTccpyr|CTei.

Paul says not a

word against theirprinciples. He frankly accepts them and at first gives their

cry only the modest qualification &AA'ov TTAVTCC cvpup^pEi. As his argument

advances,

his distance from the libertine position increases; but he begins

from where they are. He denies their dualism by implication in that he

emphasizes the need for sexual purity because of the resurrection of the body;

but he has no explicit objection in principle to their assertion of freedom from

all restraint.

The libertine party were easier for the apostle to deal with than the

ascetics. It was not so simple to find arguments to justify the married state

in their eyes, since the rigid ascetic view could seem so eminently religious,

whereas the libertines were hardly likely to seem that. The seventh chapter

makes admirable sense if it is boldly interpreted as apostolic opportunism.

3

The result is that the chapter oscillates between statements which surrender

virtually everything to the ascetics, and qualifications which Paul subtly

1

J. Weiss,DerersteKorintherbrief, p. 169: 'Wahrend in vi. 12-20 starkgeistiger Libertinismus

bekampft wird, steht Paulus hier einer hyperasketischen Stimmung gegeniiber, die den geschlecht-

lichen Verkehr auch in der Ehe als eine Beeintrachtigung des gott- und christus-geweihten Lebens

anzusehen geneigt ist.' Robertson and Plummer (International Critical Commentary, I Cor., 1911),

p.

132: 'Having in the two previous chapters warned the Corinthians against the danger of Gentile

licentiousness, he here makes a stand against a spirit of

Gentile

asceticism.

2

For theCorinthian liberalscf.J.Dupont ,Gnosis:

la connaissance religieuse dans les ipitres de S.Paul

(1949), pp. 265-377, and thereon the criticisms of R. Bultmann inJ.T.S. n.s. in (1952), pp. igf.;

R. M. Grant, 'The Wisdom of the Corinthians', in The

Joy of

Study:. Essays

in

honor

o/F. C.

Grant,

ed. S. E.Johnson (1951), pp. 51-5.

To avoid misunderstanding, it is worth remarking that the English word 'opportunism' does

not necessarily imply a complete lack of scruple which has an eye only to the main chance. For the

sense in which I am describing Paul as an opportunist perhaps the nearest German equivalent (as

Mr H. P. Kingdon suggests to me) might beAnknupfungspunktlerif such a word were possible.

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A LL TH IN G S TO A LL MEN 26 5

insinuates, which tell for the opposite standp oint. T he consequence is with out

doubt a masterpiece of ingenuity.

The oscillating character of the argument is clear from the very first

pa ragrap h. It is highly pro bab le that in the letter which Pau l received from

Corinth he was confronted by the absolute assertion that marriage was not

for the Christian. H e assures them th at on this point he is quite sound. H e

entirely agrees with them tha t the unm arried state is superior:KCCA6VdvQpcbirco

yuvcciK6s nf] CCTTTECTQCCI In principle they are right. But the apostle has a

number of qualifying footnotes to add. The first is that husbands and wives

must not separate, and certainly they must not withhold conjugal rights

witho ut the par tner's consent. Evidently at Corinth Christian husbands and

wives are understanding the pneumatic life to imply an elevation above

car nal things. In the long run this is bou nd to be disastrous and ca n only

lead to imm orality . Not only is m arriag e necessary as a remedy aga inst sin.

But husbands and wives are under a positive obligation towards one another.

It may be that they will agree to abstain from conjugal relations for a short

period for the purposes of prayer, but thereafter they are to come together

again. This is the nearest Paul gets to anything like a positive evaluation of

marriage in this chapter.

1

M arried couples, he insists, must not sepa rate or

suspend conjugal relations except by mutual consent, and this is a matter of

obligation. But what he has given with one hand he takes away with the

other . For he suddenly qualifies all this by changing to another tack : 'O f

course, I mean this merely as a concession to human frailty, not as a com-

mandment .

2

I must assure you that I would prefer everyone to be single as

I am myself. But spiritual gifts are various, and not everyone is granted the

particular x&picnoc of continence.

3

Therefore, although the ascetic principle

is perfectly right as art ideal, the re ar e nevertheless certain prac tical con-

siderations which make some concessions necessary.

It is a curious passage. O n th e one han d, Pau l is evidently anxious to safe-

guard the permanence and even to assert the positive value and obligations

of the married state; on the other hand, he is equally anxious to assure

the Corinthian ascetics that at heart he stands with them and deprecates

m arria ge. H e must convey the impression th at he is no enthusiast for

marriage, but feels bound to tolerate it because he dislikes fornication even

more.

The same phenomenon of oscillation is apparent in the advice given to the

dcy&HOi and w idows. It is certa inly b etter th at they shou ld rem ain single,

though if they must marry let them do so, on the grudgingly permissive

1

The max imum of

positive

valuat ion is extracted from I C or. vi i by P . H. M eno ud, ' M ariage et

Celibat selon S. P a u l ' , in Revue

de Thiol. et de

Philos.n.s . xxxrx (1951), p p . 21-34.

8

Ta tian not unfairly comme nts on this (ap. Clem. Alex.Strom,ni. 81. 2): irdvu youv SUCTCOTTTITIKSS

61 TTJSovy)(

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266 H. CHADWIGK

formula that it is better to marry than to burn. Yet this is at once counter-

balan ced by the citation of the dominical saying forbidding divorce. In the

Corinthian situation where under the influence of ascetic teachers Christian

partners were separating, or at least suspending conjugal relations, mixed

marriages were even more liable to dissolution; it is evident th at in some cases

the initiative was coming from the Christian side.

1

Such mixed marriages are

not regarded by Paul as being in all circumstances indissoluble, since the

Christian ethic cannot be imposed upon the pagan p artn er. If a mixed

marriage breaks down, the unbelieving partner must be freely allowed to

dep art. But the crux of the para gra ph is the reiterated assertion that the

Christian partner must do nothing to dissolve it. This proposition the

apostle thinks it necessary to bolster with no less than three supporting

arguments: (a) the sanctity of the one Christian parent extends to the

children, and the believing partner need have no anxiety that the children

may be tainted; (b ) the Christian partner may well convert the other, and

has a clear evangelistic task;

2

(c ) marriage, like circumcision and slavery, is

a natural state which is not abrogated by grace. It seems clear that the

Corinthians needed all Paul's powers of reasoned persuasion to accept this

principle.

The general upshot of Paul's comments on marriage is that while in

principle he would deprecate it, where a man and woman are already

m arrie d they m ust on no account, sepa rate, or suspend conjugal relations

permanently, if they are Christians; in the event of a mixed marriage, while

it is not indissoluble, any step towards its dissolution must be left to the

unbelieving p artne r. Pau l now turns to irapQ^voi, a subject up on which he

had b een asked for his opinion in the Co rinthia n le tter of inqu iry.

3

H e knows

of no saying of Jesus to settle the p oint, bu t he will give his opinion as being

at any rate a person commissioned by the risen Lord and therefore the

recipient of his confidence. His remarks may not have an auth ority com-

parab le to tha t of a saying of Jesu s; but the C orinthians m ay reckon tha t

since he is an apostle it is wo rth listening to him. Such a cautious bu t firm

assertion of authority indicates an awareness of being on the defensive.

1

For the difficulties of a mixed ma rriag e see the story told by Ju stin , Apol. 11. 2 .

2

Cf. J. Jeremias, 'Die missionarische Aufgabe in der Mischehe' , in Meutestamentliche

Studienjur

R.

Bultmann (Beiheft z. Z.N.W., xxi , 1954), pp. 255-60.

3

J. Weiss in his commentary (p. 194), followed by Enslin

(Ethics of Paul,

pp . I7 6f. ) , thinks the

'vi rgins ' a t Corinth were not merely women who did not happen to be married, but were both men

and women dedicated to the celibate l ife (cf. Rev. xiv. 4). The Corinthian si tuation being what i t

was,

the existence of such ascetics, both m ale an d female, is certain ly prob ab le. The od or e of

Mopsuest ia comments (Migne,P.G. LXVI, 8 8 5 ) : 6T fiv oOvEITTTJ,trapl TCOVirotp0vwv, SflXov 6TI irepl 1%

irapOEvlas Myei,

TOC

6poia xal Sirl

TOOTOUTreplTE TCOV

dv6ptov

KOCI TUV

yuvaiKtov

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'A LL THINGS TO ALL MEN ' 267

The apostle's advice on 'virgins' begins with a reason being given (at long

last) for Christian abstinence from marriage, namely, the present tribulation

which is a sign of the imm inence of the e nd. T he time is short. The argum ent

is a Christianized version of the Stoic-Cynic doctrine that because this world

is only a relative and transitory affair, one must be detached and ready to

leave it withou t regrets at an y time . Accordingly this section of the c hapter

seeks to give some justification for regarding the unmarried state as the

ideal. Nevertheless we may well wonder whether it was precisely the kind of

justification which the Co rinthia n ascetics were expecting. It looks very

much as if Paul were here attempting to provide the Corinthians with a

rather more respectable theory for their ascetic practices than they had

hitherto had.

Lastly, there is the famous crux of vii. 36-8. The view that it refers to

virgines subintroductae has been repeatedly attacked by commentators (e.g.

Schlatter, H. D. Wendland, Allo, and recently Oepke

1

) who find it impos-

sible to believe that so sensible a pastor as Paul could have tolerated so

dangerous a practice. They point to the fact that, excepting Ephraem who

wrote and spoke Syriac, the church fathers, who knew something of Greek

idiom, did not understand the passage in this waythough it may be

countered that it is inconceivable that they could have interpreted Paul to

approve in principle or at least to tolerate a practice which their own

experience and curr ent canon law sternly disapproved. But perha ps the real

strength of the case for doubting the interpretation of Achelis,

2

Weiss, and

Lietzmann, at any rate in its simple form, lies not in appeal to the apostle's

common sense so much as in the curious phrase Kcd OUTCOS6(pE(Xei yfvecrOoci.

The word 69EfAei has a more natural ring if the pressure is external and is

being imposed by the usages of society rather than if it is merely another

reference to the inward AvAyxri of an instinct which is OTTEPCCKUOS. Accord-

ingly, these four words suggest that the situation presupposed is rather that

of a betrothed couple who are on the point of getting married, but decide to

abstain because they have come under the influence of the ascetic teaching

current at Corinth.

3

Being officially an d pub licly engaged they can ha rd ly

withdraw altogether without offending against the established social con-

ventions. O n either view of the passage, Paul accepts the principle th at

continence is best; he goes on to make the crucial practical recom men dation

that, if in fact the man finds the impulse to marry overwhelming, then he

1

Theol.Literaturzeitung

(195 2), co ls. 449 f.

a

Virgines subintroductae (Leipzig, 1902); he gives an English summary of his monograph in

Hastings'sEncyclopaedia of Religion and

Ethics, 1

(1908), s.v. 'Agapetae'.

3

Compare the dramatic scene in the Acta Thomae (12) where Jesus, Thomas's identical twin,

persuades a bride and bridegroom on their wedding night to think better of their carnal intention

of consummating their marriage. Also the story of Amoun in Socr. H.E.rv. 23. 3ff.

Since this paper was written the view of vii. 36-8 accepted above has been argued in detail and

with full docum entation by W. G. Kiimmel, ' Verlobung u nd H eirat bei Pa ulus', inN.T.Studienf.

Bultmann, pp. 275-95.

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268 H. CHADW ICK

does no wro ng to m arr y his irap0vos. No sin is thereby co m mitted. But the

ascetics at Corinth are also assured that it is better if a man can steel himself

to remain unmarried by an act of strong resolution.

1

All things to all men: to the Jews as a Jew, to the Gentiles as a Gentile

and to the ascetics as an ascetic, though for slightly different reasons, since

the demand for continence is set within the eschatological framework of

Christian thought, fused with Stoic-Cynic ideas about the soul's detachment

and drrapcc^icc. A remarkable feature of the chapter as a whole is the

startling absence of any app eal to the doctrine of Crea tion. But to have m ade

any such appeal would have put an unmistakable and decisive distance

between Paul and the ascetic party at Corinth, and this he was manifestly

anxious to avoid.

In defence of this interpretation of the chapter it must be noted that the

same technique of apologetic is again used in I Cor. viii in the discussion of

EISOOTUSQUTCX.

2

The Corinthian liberals declared that they had yvcoais and

knew that an idol was nothing in this world; to them it was an adiaphoron to

eat meat sacrificed to paga n deities which ha d no substantial existence. Pa ul

begins by aligning himself with them. 'We all havegnosis. We all know that

for us there is bu t one God .' But since there a re some wh o have no t yet

advanced far enough to acquire thisgnosis and are therefore offended by the

eating of meat that has been sacrificed to a pagan deity, Paul makes the

practical recommendation that such meat should not be eaten. The liberals

are ironically assured that he entirely agrees with their principles: ppwuoc

8 f)nSs oO TrocpaoTi'iaEt TCIJ 0eco. ofrre Idcv prfj 96cyconev Oo-repoOneQa, oure

&v 9

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ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 269

Spirit .

1

That Paul was fully aware of this issue appears not only from

I Cor. ii. 14-15 but also from I Cor. xiv. 37-8, a masterly sentence which has

the effect of brilliantly forestalling possible counter-attack at the most

dangerous point, and indeed carries the war into the enemy camp.

2

To have

refused to recognize the practice as truly supernatural would have been

catastrophic. Paul must fully adm it that

glossolaliais

indeed a divine gift; bu t,

he urges, it is the m ost inferior of all gifts. But P aul does more th an ad m it it.

He asserts it: eOxocpicrrooTC 6scj>, TrdvTcovVUCOVuaAAov yAcbo-o-ousAotXw(xiv.

18).

No stronger assertion of his belief in the valid ity of this gift of the Sp irit

could be made; and in the context it is a master-touch which leaves the

enthusiasts completely outclassed and outmanoeuvred on their own ground.

These further examples of the same method of dealing with difficult and

potentially explosive situations lend some plausibility to the suggestion here

adv anc ed tha t in I Cor. vii Paul is following his self-acknowledged techn ique

of apologetic. It m ay be though t curious mental antics that he should h ave

accepted the principles of the Corinthians while quietly adding his qualifica-

tions in the form of prac tical recom me ndation s. It is therefore n otew orthy

that a psychologically comparable phenomenon is apparent in the way in

which Clem ent of Alexa ndria writes abo ut the Christian marriag e ethic. In

the th ird book of the

Stromateis

Clement's primary aim is to refute the Gnostic

denial of the goodness of the created order with particular reference to their

negative attitude towards m arriag e.

8

Gnostic dualism has produced th e two

opposite extremes: the frankly licentious sects like the Carpocratians and the

rigid ascetics like the M arcionites an d the followers of T at ian. Un like Pa ul,

Clement takes his stand firmly upo n the doctrine of Crea tion. Th e faith tha t

the good G od m ade the world logically entails a judg em ent of value con-

cerning the natural order. The eccentricities of the sects in their attitude to

marriage are to be explained from their dualistic theological premisses. To

uphold the doctrine of the goodness of marriage and of the worth of the

natural order, Clement insists that the married man is superior to the

unmarried, since the bachelor tends to be more selfish and has fewer oppor-

tunities for self-denial. The married man, on the other hand, has countless

1

Th e Montanists did not expect the Paraclete to inspire other prophets beside Montanu s, Prisca,

an d Ma xim illa; all they asked of the church was that the inspired utterances of the prophetic trio

should

be reco gnize d as the true operation of the Ho ly Ghost. Cf. the anonymou s writer in Eus.

H E v. 16. 9

ad fin.;

th e

agnitio spiritalium charismatum

is often mentioned in Tertullian;

adv. Prax. 1

an d 30;dtFuga 11. 2;deMonog. 1; de

Anima

9.

a

i\ Si

ns dyvoEl, dyvoslTcn. It is a sharp saying, and the variant reading

Ayvotl-rco

in -p * B K L

pesh

al. suggests that its sharpness was too much for some second-century reviser. Those who dissent

from

the Apostle receive generous tolerance in Phil. iii. 15: Kal EI TI S-rfpcos

cppovEiTE,

KOI TOUTO6 6E6$

tyilv &ITOKCA0\|I. God will disclose all to them intime;m eanwh ile, let them carry on with such ligh t

as has been vouchsafed tothem.Th e Ph ilippian situation was less delicate. The term6p9oTro5oO(Jivin

Gal. ii. 14, interpreted by G. D . Kilpatrick in N.T. Stud f.

Bultmann,

pp. 269-74, suggests that

Phil. iii. 15 represents Paul s more natural attitud e. But cf. I Thess. iv. 8 (Luke x. 16 ?).

8

Cf. my introduction to the third book of the

Stromateis

in the volume

Alexandrian Christianity

(Library

of Christian Classics, n, 1954).

18-2

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270 H. GHADWICK

opportunities for sanctification in the daily exasperations which come to him

'from his children and his wife, his servants andhispossessions'

(Strom,

VH.70).

The apostles were married, even including Paul himself who addresses his

consort in Phil. iv. 3 (yvi'iaie crOjuye) and did not take the lady about with

him only because it would have been an inconvenience on his travels

(Strom, in. 53). But the other apostles took their wives with th em so th at the

gospel might be preached in the women's quarters without scandal.

Clement's approach to the problem of marriage differs from Paul's in that

he is anxious to maximize the distance between himself and those he is

com bating , an d his world-affirming position rests on a strong assertion of the

worth of the created order as the work of the good God, who m ade m an male

and female and knew wh at he was abo ut when he did so. Nevertheless, in the

final analysis Clement comes down decisively on the ascetic side when it

comes to practice. The apostles who took their wives with them on their

travels lived with th em , he says, as bro the r w ith sister (the sam e view app ear s

in

Didascalia Apostolorum

16, p . 148 Con nolly). H e attacks the proposition of

the ascetic sects that they are to live in this life in anticipation of the sexless

state of the next world where they neither give nor are given in marriage

(Strom, in. 48). Yet the best Christians, he says elsewhere (vi. 100), have no

conjugal relations with their wives and thus realize on earth the resurrection

state. The fundamental principle that marriage is the creation of God

Clem ent accepts in orde r to pu t as wide a gulf as possible between himself an d

the ascetic sects, whereas his practical recommendations are not easily

reconciled with this position, with the consequence that Clement's work,

despite all his affirmations of the positive value of mar riag e, gives an imm ense

impetus to the furtherance of the ascetic ideal.

1

Paul's me thod is precisely

the opposite of Clem ent's, and the contrast is illuminating for unde rstand ing

the psychological problem . Paul's aim is to minimize the gulf between him -

self and the C orinthian s, and therefore says noth ing directly to challenge the ir

principles. H e lays himself open to some misund erstand ing by no t doing so,

and from the second century onwards Christian writers (and others) have

understood him to be deeply concerned with the superiority of the ascetic

ideal and to be directly propagating it in I Cor. vii. When his words are set

in their historical context and related to the specific situation, it is clear that

the thrust of the chapter is in the reverse direction.

ra

T he study of the Epistle to the Colossians is still com plicated by the fact th at

even now its authenticity is not a ma tter of universal agreeme nt. But such

questions are settled by evidence rathe r th an by majority votes, an d no useful

1

Cf. W. Volker, Der wahreGnostiker nachClemens Alexandrinus(Texte und U ntersuchungen 57 ,

1952),

especially pp . iggff. For similar inconsistency in Tertullia n, cf. A. O . Lovejoy,Essays in the

History of Ideas(1948), pp. 331-5.

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A L L TH IN G S TO ALL MEN 271

purpose

is

served

by

invoking

the

names

of

the eminent

on

either side

of

the

debate.

1

I venture to think the case against the authenticity of Colossians

depends too much upon a dubious assumption that the type ofgnosis there

combated cannot have arisen

so

early,

and

above

all on a

capacity gravely

to

underestimate Paul's versatility and intelligence. If there is but a grainof

truth

in the

interpretation

of I

Corinthians advanced

in

this paper Paul

was

an uncommonly ingenious controversialist.

2

The

presupposition

of

the argu-

ment against the traditional attribution ofColossians seems to be that Paul

was

not

much influenced

by the

'situation'

and

that

his

mind

was

inelastic

and incapable

of

being

as a

Gnostic

to the

Gnostics.

Th e writer of the Epistle is confronted by aheresy of a syncretistic cha rac ter

the general outlines

of

which

are

clear though

the

definition

of its

precise

nature

is

difficult

and

fortunately

not

relevant here.

3

It

appears

to

approxi-

mate to an incipient form of Valentinianism, with a strong substratum of

heterodox Jud aism of the type w hich was so frequent

an

ingredien t of second-

century gnosis.

4

TheColossian Christians were being encouraged toworship

angels and the crroixeia to which man by his birth and destiny remains

enslaved;

for the

power

of

these intermediate beings

in the

cosmic hierarchy

continues even if the gospelofChrist ensures remissionofsins.This worship

requires special feasts

and

ceremonies,

and

ritual purity, with strict ascetic

practices, must

be

observed

in

accordance with

the

dogmata

of

the cult.

In

the

epistle

the

influence

of

this 'situatio n' up on

the

mind

of

the writer

is beyon d anyquestion.Thetechniqueofthe replyis stamped with thehall-

mark oftheman whowrote I Cor. ix. 22. As an example of the Apostle's

opportunism nothing could

be

more characteristic.

The

letter begins with

1

For a thorough surveyof theliterature to 1945 see E. Percy,

DieProbleme der Kolosser- und

Ephtstrbritf(Lund, 1946),

who

thinks both Colossians

and

Ephesians authentic.

The

case

for

rejecting Colossiansisperhaps strengthenedby E.Kasemann, ' Eine urchristliche Tau fliturgie', in

Festschrift Rudolf Bultmann

(1949), pp. 133-48: rejecting theview that in Col. i. 15-20thereare

allusions

to the

Colossian heresy,

he

thinks this passage substantially

a

pre-Christian hym n

in

praise

of the G nostic redeemer.

To

his review,

Gnomon,

xxi

(1949), pp. 34 2-7, Percy replies in JV.W . XLin

( '95 ' ) , PP-I78-94-

2

There arewriterson Paulwhoappear to conclude fromthe fact that Paulwas aJewof the

degenerate hellenistic age who had the misfortune to become a Christian, that they can safely

assume him to have been a little stupid. It is perhaps easy to bemisled by a naive readingof

ICor. i. i8ff.,especiallyiflittle account is takenof I Cor. ii. sff. Taken together,the two passages

suggest that here also Paul

is

giving with

one

hand what

he

takes away with

the

other. That

the

Corinthians thought Paul

a

highly ingenious,

if

unscrupulous,

man and

thought

I Cor. a

subtle

piece

of

work

in

which

the

Apostle's words could

not be

taken

at

their face value,

is

implied

by

Paul's rebuttal in II Cor. i. 13:oO y&p

SKKa

ypiipouEvOuTviWi'

t\

dixxywcbtnce-re f\ Kol frmyiv

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2 7 2 H . C H A D W I C K

a passage highly complimentary to the Colossian community which is

thoroughly in the Pauline man ner except for the almost extravaga nt language

of i. gff. where the tone becomes mountingly intense and exalted as the

section proceeds. In the reference to 'bea rin g fruit an d increa sing ' W. L.

Knox recognized an allusion to the Gnostic use of the parable of the sower.

x

It is a provocative conjecture. Its attractiveness depen ds upon one 's view of

Paul's general technique. In favour of Kn ox's interp retation must be weighed

this general consideration: whenever we are tempted to suspect that Paul is

writing pious platitudes of a markedly sermonizing character we may be

certain that we have entirely missed the point. The section continues with the

exalted language of the familiar Christological passage (i. 148 .) where the

soteriological interest is fused with cosmological speculation in order to

emphasize that Christ is Lord of all the angelic and intermediate powers of

the cosmos.

M uch of the second ch apte r is devoted to a disparageme nt of the Colossian

cult of these angelic powers and of their ascetic regulations. Yet when the

apostle has said all he has to say in opposition to the heresy, it is surely

characteristic when he turns in chapter iii to meet his opponents at least

half-

way. For here he begins with an exho rtation t ha t the Colossians should fix

their interest upon heavenly matters:

TCC

fivco jn T em . This injunction is

admittedly provided with the crucial qualification o\5 6 Xpior6s cmv v

Se iqc TOO 0eoO KocQi'inevos, but is th en em ph at ical ly repeate d: T& fivco

9poviT6,

\i1\TCC ITTI TTIS

yfjs. In the light of the Colossian interest in th e

heavenly hierarchy so violently combated in the preceding chapter, it is

perhaps difficult to imagine any exhortation of which the Colossians would

appear to have been less in need. They were positively obsessed by

TOC

fivco.

Pa ul will not discourage their up w ard look, bu t wishes to direct it even high er

to the very summ it of the hierarch y, 'whe re Ch rist is seated at the right ha nd

of God'. What we have here is one more instance of the typically Pauline

me thod of outclassing his oppon ents on their own groun d. An d similarly,

although he has deprecated their ascetic regulations in ii.

2off.,

he has no

hesitat ion in enjoining them to mortify th e flesh at iii. 5 : veKpcbcrccre oOv

TOC

u& n T& iir\ TTJSyfis, the catalogue th at follows being prob ably the Pau line

substitute for the list provided by the heretical teachers.

Throughout the epistle there is a tendency to use the vocabulary of the

opposition in a different and disinfected sense. The allusive use of such

technical terms as irAi'ipcoucc is intended to convey the impression that the

apostle has nothing to learn from the Gnostic teachers. All they need to know

ab ou t th e rrAi'ipcoua of God is th at it is all in C hrist. A possible ins tan ce of

the same technique may be conjectured for Col. ii. 5, where he says that he

rejoices

|3ATTCOV OUCOV T^V TA^IV KOCI T 6

oTEpcouoc

TTIS

ets XpioT6v iTlarecos

1

StPauland the Churcho fthe Gentiles,p. 149, n. 5. The comment in Dibelius-Greeven (on Col. i. 10)

is fair: 'nicht mehr als Vermutung.'

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ALL THINGS TO ALL MEN 273

Oucov. H ere the use of the wo rd OTEPECOHOCm etaph orically of the 'solidity ' of

the Colossians' faith, though perfectly possible as a military metaphor, is

nowhere exactly paralleled, and the word does not seem quite natur al. O n

the o ther ha nd , its use is intelligible if it is inten ded to ca rry a

doubleentendre.

Cha racteristic of second-century Gnosticismisthe interest in the 'firm am ent',

the barrie r between the upp er and lower worlds, the 9pdyiaos separating the

realm , of light from the realm of darkness.

1

The idea is all-important in the

systems of Basilides and Valentinus, and also appears in the Ophite liturgy

cited by Or igen. It w ould be surprising if it failed to app ear in the heresy of

the Lycus valley. M oreover, ifOTEpkoiioc is being used here allusively, it is

not improbable that the same may hold good for TA^IS which the Colossian

teachers may have been using to refer to the order of the ranks in the

heaven ly hierarc hy. In Col. ii. 19 Pau l shows interest in

OOVSECTHOI

which

hold the bo dy tog ether, an d except for Co l. iii. 14(CTOVSECTHOSTfjsTEXEI6TTITOS)

the word does not occur elsewhere in the Pauline corpus (apart from Eph.

iv. 3). T he w ord has a cosmic ring abou t it,

2

and the relevance of this to the

Colossian situation is heightened if we may safely deduce from Col. i. 17

(T6C

TTAVTCCkvcxCrrcpovvEVrnKE) that the Colossians were specially interested in the

coherence and pre-established harmony of the hierarchy of being.

These, however, are conjectures the probability of which is variable and in

any event dependent upon the kind of mind which Paul is assumed to have

possessed. In his book St Paul and the

Church

of

the Gentiles

(1939) the late

Dr Wilfred Kn ox interp rete d Pa ul as the first great C hristian apologist whose

technique was to meet all his Gentile converts upon their own ground.

Realizing (from his experience at Athens)

s

that the eschatological and apo-

calyptic character of the primitive Palestinian gospel was a grave liability in

preaching the Gospel of Christ to an audience of hellenistic intellectuals, he

boldly reinterpreted the gospel so as to put into the background the concept

of the end of the world, an d to interp ret the suprem acy of Jesus Christ in

terms of the cosmic Wisdom, the agent of God in the creation. Thus Jesus is

moved from Omega to Alpha, and the Hebraic ideas of bodily resuscitation

are modified first in favour of the conception of a -rrvei/|iaTiK6v o-coua in

I Cor. xv, and th en , after even this diluted doc trine is felt to be objectionable

1

Cf. Origen,

contra C elsttm

vi , 31 (and notes thereon in my translation, pp. 34 6, n. 3, 348 , n. 3) ;

H .

Schlier,

Christus und die Kirche

im

Epheserbrief

(1930), pp. 18-26.

* Cf. W.Jaeger,

Nemesios

v

Emesa

(1914),p p. 96 ff.; Karl Reinha rdt,

Kosmos u nd Sjmpathie

(1926).

For the idea in Dio Chrysostom, cf. A. Fridrichsen in

Serta Rudbergiana

= Symb.Osl. Suppl. 4, 1931),

p.

26, and for a parallel in Plutarch,Mor. 95 7A , his note on Col. iii. 14 in Symb.Osl.xr x (1939),

pp.

41- 5. G. Rudberg in

Coniectanea Neotestamentica,

HI

(1938),

pp.

19-21,

compares

Plato,

Rep.

61 6 B

(of the Milky W ay) .

Theodore of Mopsuestia (on Rom . viii. 19, inStaab,

Pauluskommentare

aus d.griech.

Kirche

(1933),

p.

137) speaksof manas the lynchpin of the great C hain of Being, being the OOVSECTHOS between the

spiritual and m aterial world. For Philo cf. de Plant.9; Q.R.D.H. 188;de Migr. Abr. 180-1;

de

Conf

Ling.

136, 166.

Knox s acce ptance of the substantial historicity of

Acts

xvii has been much criticized. For the

evaluation ofh is thesis as a w hole the point is marginal, and in an y event irrelevanthere.

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27 4

H

- CHADWICK

by Christian Gentiles at Corinth, the apostle replaces this in II Cor. iv-v with

a still further revision of his eschatology in a hellenistic directio n. In Colos-

sians Paul's theology reaches completion, and the divine Wisdom, the pattern

and agent of Creation and the divine Mind permeating the cosmos, is

identified with Jesus. The change from apocalyptic to cosmogony meant

nothing whatever to Paul, for 'any system of thought and language that

expressed the position of Jesus as the Lo rd was equa lly ac ce pta ble ' (p. 178).

The book has received a lot of criticism the chief target of which has not

been the detail of Knox's work but rather his essential thesis that Paul was

opportunist in his theology, and that the development of his mind was

historically conditioned by his audience.

1

The presupposition of some of this

criticism seems to be that Knox undermines the notion that Paul's epistles

are inspired revelation conveying timeless truths designed to instruct the

Ch urch for all ages. It is felt th at K nox's view reduces Paul's d ogm atic

theology to an intolerable subjectivism and relativism, and eliminates

'seriousness' from his approach to the task of apologetic and evangelism.

2

The comment may be ventured that even if the general view of Paul which

Knox advances is correct, this need not mean any reduction in seriousness.

We have seen that his contemporary critics took Paul up precisely on this

point, and there is no lack of seriousness in the forceful rejoinders that he

makes. I Cor. ix. 22 is perh aps as serious as any passage in the Pa uline corpus.

All apologetic must adm it some relativism. Th is criticism of the 'op po rtu nis t'

interpretation of Paul seems to presuppose the idea that divine revelation is

1

Cf. especially J . Low e, 'An examination of attempts to detect developments in St Pau l's theo-

logy', in J.T.S. x m (1941), pp. I29 -42 ;P. Benoitin VioreetPenser,i (1941), pp. 140-7 ; C. H. Dodd

inCambridgeReview,ucn (1940-1), pp. 323-4. R. Bultmann, in

Theol. Lit.-Zeit.

(1947), cols. 77-80,

criticizes Knox for making too rigid a contrast between eschatology and cosmology, and thinks that

Paul's 'Grundkonzeption' in which eschatology and cosmology are a unity was firmly established

long before Paul preached at Athens, indeed in some sense before his conversion. For im por tant

criticisms of Knox's detail cf. A. D. Nock in J.T.S.

XLI

(1940), pp. 292-4, inAmer. Journ. Philol.

ucm (1942), pp. 476-80, and in

Gnomon,

xxi (1949), p. 227, n. 1.

For a careful statement of the view that Paul's theology did not develop at all see E. B. Allo,

'Involution de l 'fivangile de Paul', in Vivre el

Penser,

1 (1941), pp. 4 8-77, 165-93. A view of

Pauline development very different from that advanced by Knox is stated by C. H. Dodd, 'The

Mind of Paul', in New

Testament Studies

(Manchester, 1953), pp.108ff.

I do not wish the above remarks to be understood as a bald acceptance of everything in Knox's

book, but rather as an attempt to meet a criticism ofhisview of Paul to which my own is equally

open, and to affirm a belief that in interpreting Paul in this way Knox saw a vital clue to the

apostle's mind which cannot be ignored.

' Cf. P. Benoit,

loc.

cit.pp. 146-7: 'II est bien vrai que Paul se fait tous a tous et qu'il s'adapte

aux preoccupations de ses auditeurs ou de ses adversaires. On peut me'me croire qu'il adm et, sans

vouloir les discuter, les ^lucubrations cosmologiques qu 'il rencon tre a Colosses. Mais pre'cisement la

facon dont il en parle, pour les remettre a leur place de philosophic et de vaine tromperie selon

la tradition des hom me s en dit long sur la valeur qu'il leur accorde. Dire qu'il leur doit, fut-ce

par reaction, sa conception de la primautd du Christ, c'est meconnaitre entierement le serieux de

sa pensee et de sa foi... .En somme un seul point, mais essentiel, nous s6pare de Knox: notre foi a

PInspiration. Cette inspiration bien comprise ne nous empeche nullement de reconnaitre la par t

tres considdrable des matdriaux qu e l'Apotre a empruntfe kson temps; mais notre foi a l'assistance

divine qui l'a guid6 dans le choi.x de ses materiaux et dans sa construction nous interdit de ne voir

dans le r&ultat qu'u n syst&ne parmi beaucoup d 'autres. Nous crayons que Dieu s estservi de Paul

pour nous enseigner.... '

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A L L TH IN G S TO A LL MEN 275

entirely unconditioned by the capacities and situation of the recipient. But

to accept this interpretation of Paul is not necessarily tantamount to an

elimination of the concept of the supe rna tura l. It m ay even perhaps be seen

as more coherent with the principle of the incarnation, that in Christ the

divine revelation takes the form of a servant. The uopcpfi SoOXou is first that

of a Je w , an d th rou gh Pau l's apologetic it also becomes that of a Greek.

Pau l's genius as an apologist is his astonishing ability to reduce to an ap pa ren t

vanishing point the gulf between himself and his converts and yet to 'gain'

them for the C hristian gospel. Paul's dilemm a in Colossians is tha t he has to

be both apologist to the Gentile mind and defender of orthodoxy within the

church. The apologist must minimize the gap between himself and his

pote ntial converts. Very different is the psychological atti tud e of the defender

of orthodo xy; he m ust m ake as wide

as

possible the distance between a uthe ntic

Christianity and deviationist sects against whose teaching the door must be

closed with all firmness.

There are many other passages in the Pauline letters which are relevant to

the theme of this paper which makes no claim to be exhaustive but only aims

to discuss selected specimens. If the inte rpre tatio n'of the specimen passages

here analysed is right, the consequences seem to have far-reaching im porta nce .

For we may conclude that Paul had an astonishing elasticity of mind, and

a flexibility in dealing with situations requiring delicate and ingenious treat-

ment which appears much greater than is usually supposed.